Cannes '10 Day 6: Shoving for cinema Wesley Morris at Cannes from The Boston Globe, May 17, 2010

Critic's Notebook [Sarah Manvel]

Garbus, Liz

BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD B- 81

USA Great Britain Iceland (93 mi) 2010 Official site

Coming up, the latest news on the Watergate investigation. But first, Bobby Fischer.

—CBS TV News intro, 1972

The director appears to have been inspired in making the film with the death of Bobby Fischer in 2008, who re-appeared tragically after the events of 9/11 spewing venom against the United States, still smarting from the bitterness against the nation that exiled him only a decade earlier for playing an international chess match in a nation (Yugoslavia) that in 1992 was undergoing a Civil War, violating a United Nations embargo at the time, where the United States Treasury Department under the elder President Bush announced it would arrest him if he returned to America, subject to ten years in prison and a $200,000 fine, making him a fugitive from justice for playing chess. What’s agonizingly clear is that Bobby Fischer was not a well man near the end of his life, where the obsessive drive that compelled him to become to world’s greatest chess player also caused him to behave erratically afterwards, developing paranoid symptoms about various world conspiracies, including a rabid anti-Semitic steak that was troubling, basically driving away anyone who came near, perceiving himself as a castaway adrift in the universe with no place to call home. Without chess as the driving force in his life, he became less focused on the real world, allowing himself to become a strict loner and an outcast fading into obscurity. The film never delves into the acute cause of Fischer’s affliction, with an IQ of 180, most likely symptoms of Asperger’s syndrome, not at all uncommon for mathematically minded people and particularly evident with those that suffer from severe emotional neglect early in their lives, where autism, for instance, is six times more likely in children from orphanages. Many of the earlier segments of his life appear hastily filled in afterwards and incomplete, but Fischer was left alone a great deal in his youth as his mother was working several jobs.

Perhaps one stroke of genius in this film is an opening segment that shows Fischer’s rapid rise to prominence in the chess world becoming the youngest American chess champion at the age of 15, scored to the funky electric guitar swagger from SHAFT (1971) that gives this a feeling of a triumphant victory march as Fischer knocks off all the Russian contenders on his way to qualifying for the finals of the World Chess Championship in 1972, a sport dominated by Russians since the end of World War II, who consider this their national sport subsidized by the State, receiving plenty of money and support along the way where the leading chess players are treated to the comforts of the highest standard of living available in the nation, where players have staffs of coaches to assist them in their preparations. In America, especially for a young Jewish kid raised by a single mom in the Bronx, he was basically all on his own, largely self-taught, but the picture of cool as he steamrolls his way through all the American competition as well as the best the Russians could throw at him until he reaches the finals with the Russian Champion, Boris Spassky, who he had never played before. The two nations treated this like an Olympic event, as if it reflects upon their national pride, where the interest raised by the stunning, heretofore unheard of brilliance of the young contender Bobby Fischer was unheard of, as he awakened the world’s interest to a game few actually understood, where the use of military tactics in a board game during the height of the Cold War sparked an immediate nationalistic identification with the outcome, especially where the use of mental alertness to stave off any and all possible strategies is the key to success.

To this day, Fischer is a legendary figure whose reputation has attained mythical status around the world, much like a living super hero, as he single handedly defied all odds to accomplish what no one else in the world had ever achieved all on their own. According to Russian champion Garry Kasparov in The Bobby Fischer Defense, “Fischer played every game to the death, as if it were his last. It was this fighting spirit that his contemporaries recall most about him as a chess player.” Even when rising to the occasion, Fischer was continually fighting his own personal demons as well, where he’d always find little distractions that might cause him to overreact to such an extent that he’d simply leave the match altogether, something he had done plenty of times before, but never at this level. Yet it was nearly impossible to get these two chess combatants to actually sit down and play, where Fischer actually forfeited the second game by not showing up at all. This kind of hyper-sensitivity to the smallest distractions of any kind is the sort of thing that kept escalating in his life long after the important matches were over. This film is reminiscent of the Bobby Fischer of the classical piano, seen in Peter Raymont and Michèle Hozer’s GENIUS WITHIN: THE INNER LIFE OF GLENN GOULD (2010), where pianist Gould suffered from many of the same paranoid maladies, becoming overly controlling, retreating from the world and practicing his artistry in complete isolation, but where he similarly took the world by storm in a two week concert tour of Russia in the mid 50’s which was still recovering from the repressive effects of Stalin. In each instance, they both became beloved figures instantly, largely because they expressed so much passion in the way they played, where their brash individuality and brilliant technique were unparalleled, exactly what led the world to Fischer’s own uncompromising genius in the 1970’s. The Gould film was actually a more lovingly crafted portrait, as he was a man who found love and joy in his life alongside his art, leading a more balanced life, while Fischer was plagued by inner demons his entire life, who through sheer will power during his twenties overcame their effects with simply astonishing results, but without the game to take his mind off his eccentricities, where paranoia about potential moves on the board is actually an acquired chess skill, the illness simply devoured his rational thought, leaving him beleaguered, continually annoyed with others, unhappy and alone.

Chicago Reader JR Jones

Produced by HBO, this documentary follows Bobby Fischer's brilliant ascent to the World Chess Championship in 1972 and his sad descent into lunacy thereafter, which ended only with his death in 2008. Director Liz Garbus exposes Fischer's troubled childhood, which fueled his single-minded study of the game and his meteoric rise to the U.S. championship at age 14. But the core of the movie is Fischer's historic match against Soviet champion Boris Spassky, a contest that became an international sensation because of its Cold War overtones and a genuine nail-biter because of Fischer's erratic behavior before and during the event. As author David Shenk notes in one of the talking-head interviews, "A good chess player is paranoid on the board, but then if you take that paranoia to real life, it doesn't play so well." In Fischer's case that's an understatement: his life after the championship became a mental maze of global conspiracy involving the Soviets, the Mossad, the Illuminati, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and God knows what else.

TimeOut NY Joshua Rothkopf

Chess is only half the story—and half the movie. It’s impossible to watch footage of Bobby Fischer as a Brooklyn teen, concentrating over the board and already a local celebrity, and not think of the tortured man to come. Documentary director Liz Garbus brings an apt sense of dread to these early showdowns: Teachers and peers, reflecting back, express concern over the wunderkind’s arrogance, later to transition from divalike intensity to self-destructive paranoia. Set in the bold type of a Cold War clash of titans, Fischer’s 1972 high point—the globally broadcast victory over Russia’s Boris Spassky—is lent spy-thriller verve (and political authority, via interviewee Henry Kissinger).

Which leaves 36 more years of agonized withdrawal—frankly, this is the part that makes Bobby Fischer Against the World fascinating. Smartly, Garbus avoids heavy psychological conjecture; instead, a meltdown is clear from shots of the reclusive Fischer storming past a Pasadena McDonald’s like an urban yeti, or spewing anti-Semitic bile on tape. The pressure on him was too great, too soon. If this profile is marred slightly by thematic tidiness and a willingness to overglorify the champion’s rise (Fischer didn’t even write his best-seller, Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess), it still supplies a cracked, conflicted genius trapped in his ceaseless endgame.

exclaim! [Will Sloan]

The most forceful scenes in Bobby Fischer Against the World come towards the end, long after the peak of Fischer's fame as the world chess champion. Everyone knows of his just about unparalleled genius at the game, and of his famous 1972 World Championship match with Russian grandmaster Boris Spassky (a match frequently delayed and disrupted by Fischer's fear of the audience, the cameras and virtually everything else, up to and including ambient noise). But after his victory and the yearlong storm of publicity it inspired, Fischer receded into an isolation from which he rarely emerged.

The final section of Bobby Fischer Against the World, chronicling his years as an émigré and fugitive from justice after playing a 1992 rematch with Spassky in trade-embargoed Yugoslavia, climaxes with him becoming an honorary Icelandic citizen after nearly being extradited from Japan to the United States. We have already heard of Fischer's allegedly fierce anti-Semitism, and heard him on Filipino radio saying, "I applaud the act" of the 9/11 attacks, and when we finally see him in the flesh once again, at a press conference, if nothing else, he lives up to the hype, and more.

Bobby Fischer Against the World does a commendable job making a nearly 40-year-old chess match suspenseful, and it has a subject so fascinatingly enigmatic that it never comes close to explaining his eccentricities. Why did he isolate himself so completely during his youth to focus on chess strategy? What caused a man with Jewish roots to become so deeply, violently anti-Semitic?

Fischer's derailment is partly attributed to the pressures of celebrity, but maybe it's unrealistic to ask for rational answers to any of these questions. Bobby Fischer Against the World doesn't plumb Fischer's psyche so much as stand back and watch him with amazement and sadness. And for some subjects, that's all you really can do.

Onion AV Club Phil Nugent

Bobby Fischer Against the World, which kicks off HBO's "Documentary Film Summer Series," was directed and produced by Liz Garbus, who's worked in one capacity or another on a string of excellent feature documentaries, many of them journalistic examinations of contemporary social and political issues. Compared to some of those, making Bobby Fischer must have been something of a breeze. The trickiest part was probably locating still-living witnesses to Fischer's life who'd be willing to sit down for talking-head interviews. Once that was done, their footage could be combined with all the existing news and TV footage documenting the life of a man who, for a notorious recluse, really hit the ground running as a public figure. One clip shows the 15-year-old Bobby, a gangly kid from Brooklyn with a quick and edgy smile and eyes that would come in handy for anyone looking to head up an apocalyptic cult. He appeared on the quiz show I've Got a Secret, where a newspaper with the headline "Teen-Ager's Strategy Defeats All Comers!" was not enough of a clue to tip off such panelists as Dick Clark that they were in the presence of the greatest chess player of all time.

Fischer, in his prime, is also seen in clips from the Carson and Cavett shows and from 60 Minutes, where Mike Wallace really breaks a sweat trying to keep the football fans at home from changing the channel by convincing them that world-class chess really is an honest-to-God "sport," talking a blue streak about the strenuous exercise regimen that Fischer had to go through to prepare himself for the exertions of sitting at a table staring at the pieces on a game board. The filmmakers are also lucky in having a subject whose life breaks down easily in a conventional three-act structure. The first third of the film covers the early years of lonely practice and boyhood fame, complete with the background on Fischer's mother Regina, a social activist with a 900-page FBI file. Describing the young Bobby, Larry Evans, a chess master who is seen here providing commentary on the Fischer-Spassky match for ABC's Wide World of Sports, says that he was "strange" but that "he hadn't gone off the deep end yet." The middle section covers the Fischer-Spassky match in detail, using clips from the TV coverage and excerpts from the evening news shows that place it in the context of its cultural moment. In the third act, Bobby, as predicted, goes off the deep end.

It's all very neat; Grabus and her team barely needed to add water. (Given that this is a documentary about something that happened in the '70s, they apparently couldn't get around the need to include the requisite music cues—"Theme from 'Shaft'", "Bang a Gong", "Rock and Roll, Parts One and Two"—which set the obligatory nostalgic-kitschy tone, even if Bobby Fischer is the last person you ever expected to see walking around to the accompaniment of Booker T. & the M.G.s. There's also a snippet of a Soviet ditty celebrating the heroic chess master: "Sturdy are my muscles/ Oh, my fingers, they're so long/ Hold 'em, wooden, fine-carved/ Hand enameled castles!") It may be a little too neat. The film shows funny-looking silent movie footage of cackling, eye-rolling lunatics at chess boards while exploring the possibility that there may be something about the intellectual focus required of true students of the game that makes them paranoid and ultimately drives them batshit.

Some of the things about Fischer that the film seems to regard as mysterious aren't that mysterious at all if you think about it. He came to excel at chess because, starting when he was 6 years old, he devoted a phenomenal amount of time to getting really good at it. He grew into a socially awkward young man with increasingly strange views partly because he had devoted so much of his time to chess that there was a lot about the rest of the world that he didn't learn. And his arrogance, which as a player came connected to a passion not just for winning but demolishing his opponents, must have been at least partly a defense mechanism to conceal just how much he knew he didn't know. That arrogance is a handy quality from the filmmakers' point of view, because it helps make Fischer fascinating, at every stage of his life. Seen as a boy, he's charismatic and touching; seen towards the end of his life, he's magnetically pathetic.

Far more mysterious, from a contemporary point of view, is the film's distillation of the match between Fischer and the Russian world champion Boris Spassky that captivated the world for a few months in 1972. The match was perceived as a Cold War showdown, and Fischer's resentment of his mother and her politics may have fueled his lust to humiliate the Soviets. (He warmed up for his meeting with Spassky by going on a 20-game winning streak, during which he chewed up and spit out a succession of Russian masters.) Henry Kissinger tells the camera about how he encouraged Fischer to play Spassky because he thought that having an American world master would be "good for democracy," and we see an old news clip of some guy in the park saying that he expects Fischer will win because, unlike his Commie opponent, he'll have the incentive of getting to keep his prize money.

But neither politics nor Fishcer's star power can make it fully understandable now that millions of people watched this, on live TV, under the umbrella of a sports show, not when you're seeing what viewers got to watch during the first match: One man, Spassky, sitting forlornly at the table, then making a move and finally getting up to pace around the room, waiting for his opponent to show up. Fischer's late arrival, claiming to have been stuck in traffic (they have traffic in Iceland?), and his later shenanigans, complaining about the playing conditions and the noise he claimed the TV cameras gave off, were widely taken for mind games intended to weird out and wear down his opponent, but they didn't seem to help his own play any more than they hurt Spassky's. He lost the first game after what Shelby Lyman (whose PBS commentary on the match made him a minor celebrity) calls "a colossal beginner's blunder," and it was only because Spassky had too much pride to accept a victory by forfeit that the games went on.

For a while, without the cameras rolling, TV viewers were tuning into Wide World of Sports to watch a man in an ABC logo jacket holding a telephone to his ear, listening to a man on the other line describe what he'd seen. Still, nothing could quite prepare people who missed the '70s for the special emissary from the land of WTF!? that was LeRoy Neiman. Neiman, who looked as if Salvador Dali had mated with a Naugahyde doll, used to class up Wide World of Sports by dropping by to display his painterly impressions of the great sports figures of the day, which at their most eye-pleasing resembled something that R. B. Kitaj just threw up. Neiman concedes that he thought watching a "chess match would be like watching grass grow," but that it turned out to be "Ali-Forman all over again", and produces a picture purportedly showing "Bobby Fischer leaving the hotel for the fight, like a matador leaving the Palace Hotel in Madrid." Soon, Fischer was a point away from winning the title outright, when Spassky, 40 moves into the 21st game, announced his retirement. Fischer returned home to a chess-besotted America the world champion, talking about how he was looking forward to playing many more games. Instead, he hung up his board, seemingly for good, and in 1975, refused to defend his title against a new Russian challenger, Anatoly Karpov. Finally, world officials declared Karpov the champion by default and stripped Fischer of his title, which must have seemed like a small price to pay for slipping off LeRoy Neiman's radar.

Fischer's "comeback" arrived in 1992, when he played a self-proclaimed "world championship" grudge match with Spassky in Yugoslavia, an event distinguished only by the fact that it put him at odds with the United Nations embargo that was in effect at the time. News clips of him answering the letter he'd received from the U.S. State Department advising him not to participate by spitting on it clear up any questions anyone might have had at the time about how much good his 20 years' vacation from the limelight had done for his personality. But the U.S. government didn't really regard him as a marked man until he called up a radio station in the Philippines on September 12, 2001, to exult in the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. the day before.

By the time he was arrested in Japan, his reputation as history's foremost chess master had been all but eclipsed by his reputation as the world's mouthiest Jewish anti-Semite, though he was able to swing deportation to Iceland, where memories of 1972 were still strong enough that he was apparently beloved, right up to the triumphant airport interview where he informed sports reporter Jeremy Schaap that Schaap's father, Dick, had turned on him like "a typical Jewish snake." He died in 2008 of a prostate condition that you have to have a fully committed phobia about medical treatment in order to die from. The last word goes to Kari Stefansson, a dignified, grey-haired neurologist who used to humor Fischer in his last years, until he "got enough of him." Some people, he says, become creatively fertile by learning to think outside the box; it's just that "occasionally, it is difficult to get back into the box." A few years ago, there was an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, featuring a psycho killer (played by Robert Carradine) clearly modeled on Fischer. As he was hauled away at the end, Vincent D'Onofrio said sagely, "That's what happens when you don't let people do what they're good at." In fact, that decision was made by Fischer himself, possibly because he couldn't bear the thought of losing and having to come down from the mountain. The most important lesson he never learned about life may have been that, eventually, if you don't come down on your own, the mountain will shake you down anyway.

Bobby Fischer: from prodigy to pariah Andrew Anthony from The Observer, May 14, 2011, also seen here: Guardian UK: on Fischer

The Atlantic | December 2002 | Bobby Fischer's Pathetic Endgame ... Paranoia, hubris, and hatred—the unraveling of the greatest chess player ever, by Rene Chun from The Atlantic, December 2002

The Bobby Fischer Defense by Garry Kasparov | The New York ... Garry Kasparov from The New York Review of Books, March 10, 2011

How the king of chess lost his crown Garry Kasparov from The Daily Telegraph, July 14, 2011

Bobby Fischer: Black and white magic Stephen Moss from The Guardian, July 3, 2011

Guardian UK Peter Bradshaw review, July 14, 2011, also seen here: Bobby Fischer Against the World – review

Village Voice J. Hoberman, also seen here: Village Voice [J. Hoberman]

Edward Copeland on Film

Slant Magazine [Arthur Ryel-Lindsey] also seen here: The House Next Door [Arthur Ryel-Lindsey]

Filmcritic.com Chris Cabin

Permanent Plastic Helmet [Ashley Clark]

Spout [Christopher Campbell]

spiked [Nathalie Rothschild]

Meet In the Lobby [Norm Schrager] also seen here: Bobby Fischer Against the World: movie review

Electric Sheep Magazine [Mark Stafford]

EyeForFilm.co.uk [Robert Munro]

Bobby Fischer Against the World Review - Pajiba Seth Freilich

The Film Pilgrim [Nicola Lampard]

Phil on Film [Philip Concannon]

Box Office Magazine [Ray Greene]

The Drive-By at the Drive-In [James Dempsey]

Uncultured Critic [Nicola Balkind]

Quickflix [Simon Miraudo]

iambents [Bentley Smith]

Little White Lies Magazine [Zara Miller]

Bobby Fischer Against The World - Film School Rejects Cole Abaius

EdinburghGuide.com [Euan Andrews]

FlickFilosopher.com [MaryAnn Johanson]

Screenjabber.com Tom Mimnagh

Bobby Fischer Against the World: movie ... - Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Cine-Vue [Jack Porter]

BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD Facets Multi Media

grouchyeditor.com [The Grouch]

Empire [Nev Pierce]

Me & Bobby Fischer | A documentary about getting Bobby Fischer out of jail in Japan and his last years in Iceland Fridrik Gudmundsson

A ninety-minute HBO documentary about Bobby's Fischer's life entitled "Bobby Fischer Against the World" that aired in June, 2011 HBO website

"Portrait of a Genius As a Young Chess Master" Ralph Ginzburg's interview from Harper's Magazine, January 1962

"The bin Laden defense—By Pablo Mercado (Harper's Magazine)" conversation between Bobby Fischer and radio host Pablo Mercado on the Philippine radio station Bombo Radyo, September 11, 2001, printed in Harper’s magazine, March 2002

NPR: director interview audio interview with the director from NPR, June 1, 2011 (37:05)

The Hollywood Reporter [James Greenberg]

Variety

Bobby Fischer Against the World Review. Movie Reviews ... - Time Ou Tom Huddleston from Time Out London

Bobby Fischer Against the World – review Philip French from The Observer, July 16, 2011

Bobby Fischer Against The World, review - Telegraph Sukhdev Sandhu

Bobby Fischer Against The World 12A - The Independent Anthony Quinn

DVD: Bobby Fischer Against the World (E) - The Independent Ben Walsh

A chronicle of Bobby Fischer's battles – beyond the ... - Globe and Mail Rick Groen

The Miami Herald [Rene Rodriguez]

Los Angeles Times Gary Goldstein

Searching for Bobby Fischer review Roger Ebert’s review of the Steven Zailland film, 1993

New York Times A.O. Scott, September 8, 2011

Bobby Fischer, Chess Master, Dies at 64 - New York Times Bruce Webber from The New York Times, January 18, 2008

Gambit: Bobby Fischer Is Dead at 64 Dylan Loeb McClain from The New York Times, January 18, 2008

The Lede: Reacting to Bobby Fischer’s Death The New York Times, January 18, 2008

Obituary, Bobby Fischer Leonard Barden from The Guardian, January 18, 2008

Death of a madman driven sane by chess Stephen Moss from The Guardian, January 18, 2008

"Chess champion Bobby Fischer dies" David Batty from The Guardian, January 18, 2008

Bobby Fischer: young pretender who dethroned Soviet kings Daniel Johnson from The Guardian, January 18, 2008

Chess exile Bobby Fischer dies Sarah Phillips from The Guardian, January 18, 2008

"– Chess News – Bobby Fischer dies in Iceland" Chess News, January 18, 2008

"Robert James Fischer 1943–2008" Mark Crowther tribute, January 18, 2008

BBC: The genius who re-invented chess David Edmonds from The BBC News, January 18, 2008

Chess legend Fischer dies at 64 BBC News, January 18, 2008

Bobby Fischer: Demise of a chess legend BBC News, January 18, 2008

Chess genius Bobby Fischer, from American hero to paranoid fugitive Google News, January 18, 2008

An Appraisal: Fischer vs. the World: A Chess Giant’s Endgame Edward Rothstein from The New York Times, January 19, 2008

Searching for Fischer's Legacy Mike Klein from the United States Chess Federation, January 19, 2008

Prodigy and tragedy: how America lost a true genius Ronan Bennett from The Observer, January 19, 2008

Bold approach of Fischer's mother Graham Taylor from The Guardian, January 20, 2008

The Chessman Garry Kasparov from Time magazine, January 26, 2008

"Was It Only a Game?", Dick Cavett Dick Cavett from The New York Times, February 8, 2008

The end game of Bobby Fischer The Observer, February 9, 2008

"The Telegraph – Calcutta (Kolkata) | Sports | Fischer is greatest ever, says Anand" The Calcutta Telegraph, January 16, 2009

"Chasing the king of chess" Peter Nicholas from The Los Angeles Times, September 21, 2009

Bobby Fischer: Chess's beguiling, eccentric genius David Edmonds from The BBC News, July 4, 2011

Blogrunner: Reactions From Around the Web

Video: Fischer and Spassky MSNBC.com

Byrne-Fischer, 1956, after 17 ... Be6

Fischer-Spassky, 1972, Game 6, after 37 ... Nf6

Bobby Fischer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bobby Fischer player profile from Chessgames

Find A Grave – Robert James Fischer

"Bobby Fischer Trivia" Bill Wall from Chessville

List of people who have beaten Bobby Fischer in chess

Bobby Fischer website

The chess games of Robert James Fischer

Robert (Bobby) Fischer Chess Corner

"1992 Fischer – Spassky Rematch Highlights" Mark Weeks

Lost genius of chess returns - or is it just a case of fool's mate? Steven Morris from The Guardian, September 9, 2001

Chess Ashley Davies from The Guardian, September 10, 2001

The chess match of the century Dave Edmonds from The BBC News, August 9, 2002

Son of Deep Blue challenges chess champion Mark Tran from The Guardian, October 4, 2002

Chess champion humbles computer Nick Paton Walsh from The Guardian, January 27, 2003

To kill a king Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine, movie review by Geoffrey Macnab from The Guardian, January 15, 2004

Endgame for king of chess, after 12 years on the run Stephen Moss and Justin McCurry from The Guardian, July 17, 2004

Fischer's appeal checked The Guardian, July 28, 2004

Have mercy on Fischer, says rival Justin McCurry from The Guardian, August 12, 2004

Bobby Fischer may face deportation to US The Guardian, August 24, 2004

Chess ace may soon be free Justin McCurry from The Guardian, March 8, 2005

"Asia-Pacific | Fischer 'must be deported to US'" BBC News, March 15, 2005

Chess grandmaster Fischer may move to Iceland Justin McCurry from The Guardian, March 23, 2005

Japan to snub US and send Fischer to Iceland Justin McCurry from The Guardian, March 24, 2005

Fischer moves The Guardian, March 24, 2005

'I was kidnapped,' says chess genius as he rails against Japan and US Stephen Moss and Justin McCurry from The Guardian, March 25, 2005

Bobby and me Stephen Moss from The Guardian, March 27, 2005

Barden on chess Leonard Barden from The Guardian, April 1, 2005

Speelman on chess Jon Speelman from The Observer, April 10, 2005

"The Greatest Chess Player of All Time – Part I" Jeff Sonas from Chess Base, April 24, 2005

Part II of the series Jeff Sonas from Chess Base, April 28, 2005

Part III of the series Jeff Sonas from Chess Base, May 6, 2005

"The Greatest Chess Player of All Time – Part IV" Jeff Sonas from Chess Base, May 25, 2005, see also: All Time Rankings

"Breaking news: Fischer comeback? (27.05.2005)", chessbase.com

The king and I Nigel Short from The Guardian, December 15, 2005

Chess Leonard Barden from The Guardian, January 18, 2008

Chess Leonard Barden from The Guardian, January 20, 2008

Speelman on chess Jon Speelman from The Observer, January 26, 2008

Bobby Fischer gets a Brit-flick biopic Francesca Martin from The Guardian, February 6, 2008

Chess Leonard Barden from The Guardian, June 20, 2008

Magnus Carlsen should follow the example of Bobby Fischer in a crisis Leonard Barden from The Guardian, October 15, 2010

Magnus Carlsen's form crisis bears comparisons to that of Bobby Fischer Leonard Barden from The Guardian, January 21, 2011

Hikaru Nakamura stirs memories of Bobby Fischer at Wijk aan Zee Leonard Barden from The Guardian, February 4, 2011

Bobby Fischer's widow 'is legal heir' The Daily Telegraph, March 3, 2011

Fascination with Bobby Fischer shows no sign of reaching its endgame Leonard Barden from The Guardian, March 4, 2011

Chess: Who wants to argue with Bobby Fischer? Ronan Bennett and Daniel King from The Guardian, March 28, 2011

From the archive, 12 July 1972: Fischer's late opening gambit in Reykjavik Michael Lake from The Guardian, July 11, 2011

Chess: the genius of Bobby Fischer Ronan Bennett and Daniel King from The Guardian, August 29, 2011

Chess: a tremendous attack by Bobby Fischer Ronan Bennett and Daniel King from The Guardian, September 5, 2011

Chess: in search of zugzwang Ronan Bennett and Daniel King from The Guardian, September 12, 2011

Chess: Bobby Fischer's clears up Ronan Bennett and Daniel King from The Guardian, September 19, 2011

Garcia, Deborah Koons

THE FUTURE OF FOOD C 72

USA (88 mi) 2004

While the information presented is compelling enough, a documentary on the effects of bio-engineered food on the planet, where the food industrialists have cornered the market buying up all the seeds of the world, patenting each and every one, then suing any private farmer who is caught with any of their patented plants growing on their farm, even if purely by accident, or when it is the result of spillage by the seed manufacturers themselves. Supreme Courts in both the USA and Canada have ruled in the seed manufacturer’s favor, causing local farmers to have to destroy all natural home-grown seeds which they’ve relied upon for decades or more, as they are likely to be a mix that includes bio-engineered seeds. In this manner, bio-engineered seeds have contaminated farms all across the world, and local farmers are ordered to pay the multi-internationalist corporations, like Monsanto, for damages. American corn has already mixed with and contaminated centuries old Mexican maize, which in a decade, may destroy centuries of natural development. Does this seem fair? Of course not, but we only hear one side in this film, which suggests at the present rate, where corporations don’t even have to label bio-engineered food, it’s impossible to hold corporations accountable when they’ve completely concealed the extent of the damages.

Only 4 companies own all the seeds in the world, and they are each working fast and furiously to change patent laws around the world to support their position. All this is a result of a US Supreme Court 5-4 decision in the past decade which allows anyone to patent organic materials, which includes all the subsequent by-products that it may mix with. Part of the problem is how government agencies are infiltrated with corporation representatives, suggesting consumer monitoring agencies are filled with former employees of companies like Monsanto, individuals who were trained in supporting the corporate practices, some of whom include Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. And due to the alleged “reform” practices of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, local farmers in small Third World countries can no longer grow food for their own consumption, as they are required to grow food for export in order to pay off the country’s debt, leaving them far worse off than they were to begin with. The film suggests that ultimately, only 6 retail companies in the world will own all the food distribution markets, Walmart may be the only American outlet, and consumers will have no say on what they place on their shelves due to the fact they’ve already established themselves as corporate monopolies.

The third wife of deceased Grateful Dead founder Jerry Garcia, Koons has master of Fine Arts from The San Francisco Art Institute and has made several educational and documentary films. For the past decade she has focused primarily on films about agriculture and food systems. Again, the information is intriguing, but it’s the kind of thing you read about in newspapers or see on TV special reports, and this film never rises above various monotoned voices offering their unchallenged views over and over again. It plays like a PBS television documentary, without any respect or understanding of the medium. Instead, it’s all about the information, and not about how it’s presented. Despite the severity of the message, this film felt boringly amateurish, never registering on any emotional level, until the very end when all of a sudden Irish bagpipes are utilized to raise the spirits of the viewers and send them off with images of collective idealists all working together to somehow change the world. It’ll take much more than films like this that hardly anyone will see.

García Espinosa, Julio

THE ADVENTURES OF JUAN QUIN QUIN (Las aventuras de Juan Quin Quin)

Cuba (113 mi) 1967

Juan Quin Quin Imperfect Cinema, Brecht, and The Adventures of Juan Quin Quin, by Anna Marie Taylor — with the collaboration of Julianne Burton, John Hess, Chuck Kleinhans, Julia Lesage, and B. Ruby Rich from Jump Cut

For an Imperfect Cinema written by Cuban writer and director Julio García Espinosa from Jump Cut

Garcia, Nicole

PLACE VENDÔME

France Belgium Great Britain (117 mi) 1998

BFI | Sight & Sound | Place Vendôme (1998) Keith Reader from Sight and Sound, August 1999

Vincent Malivert directs a jewellery business in Paris' Place Vendôme. His wife Marianne was once an ambitious dealer, but she slid into alcoholism. Vincent's business is riddled with debts and his creditors are closing in. Realising his position is hopeless, he shows the now-sober Marianne seven magnificent diamonds he is proposing to hide from his creditors. Vincent's assistant Nathalie is in the process of leaving her lover Jean-Pierre for jewel-dealer Battistelli. Vincent commits suicide, leaving Marianne at the helm of the business but she refuses to surrender the stones to her husband's creditors.

In Antwerp, she discovers Battistelli is also trying to get his hands on them. She and Jean-Pierre become lovers. A flashback reveals that many years ago Marianne had been in love with Battistelli. He used her to pass on some stolen gems and abandoned her, thus precipitating her alcoholism. Ostensibly to sell him the diamonds, Marianne makes an appointment to meet Battistelli which the creditors will then discover about his person. She tells Battistelli the creditors are lying in wait for him, and the two flee to Ostend, where they spend a night in separate beds in a hotel room, admitting they were not made for each other. The creditors turn up, tipped off by Battistelli who believes he can negotiate his way out of trouble with them. Later, Marianne is pursued by Jean-Pierre on the beach; she asks if he always runs after women who run from him.

Review

Although she's best known as an actress, Nicole Garcia has directed four feature films including Place Vendôme. In Un week-end sur deux she drew a superb turn from Nathalie Baye, playing a fraught but powerful woman similar to Garcia's own best-known role in Resnais' Mon oncle d'Amérique. Catherine Deneuve here belongs to the same family, giving a performance that ranks as one of the finest of her middle age.

As in André Téchiné's Ma saison préférée, the bodily filling out characteristic of that time of life serves to give her character more gravitas than in many previous incarnations. Eyes and gesture do most of the work - hers is not a verbose role - in her evocation of the iconically named Marianne, whose initial near-catatonia gives way to assertiveness. By the end she is multiply in charge: restored to solvency; capable of dealing with former lovers, whether defaulters from the past (Battistelli) or pursuers in the present (Jean-Pierre); and even (supposedly impossible for a recovering alcoholic) capable of social drinking in moderation. The other performances inevitably tend to look like mere foils to Deneuve's. Emmanuelle Seigner's mannered flouncings irritated this reviewer, but Jacques Dutronc exudes a convincingly disreputable air as Battistelli. Jean-Pierre Bacri deserves credit for his masochistic cragginess, confirming after Un air de famille that he has what it takes as actor as well as screenwriter.

But Place Vendôme is more than a jewelcase for performers. It is subtly scripted, making discreetly resonant use of doublings: Nathalie with Marianne in her youth: Marianne and the disbarred lawyer Jean-Pierre brought together through a shared professional disgrace; Battistelli and Vincent as respectively treacherous and supportive father-figures to their trophy lover/wife. The film also puts on screen a world scarcely seen other than as the backdrop to Jules Dassin's Du rififi chez les hommes (1955) - one whose elegance is matched by its menace, rendered all the more sinister by the fact that no gun is drawn and no violence apart from Vincent's suicide takes place on screen. If the complexity of the intrigue and the genre stereotypes evoke the world of noir, the decor is at its antipodes - thick carpets, luxuriously panelled rooms, expensive cars. Nor could we be further from the gritty banlieue film or the all-gloss cinema du look.

In a curious way Place Vendôme has affinities with the heritage movie, reassuring us that the uppermost echelons of Parisian chic - the eponymous square and Catherine Deneuve - are still as potent as before. Garcia deploys her silky men in designer suits sparingly, making the frisson they generate all the more palpable (though the references to the Russian mafia, a seemingly inescapable component of end-of-the-millennium noir, appear clichéd). We see surprisingly little of the city for a largely Paris-set film, reinforcing the sense that the real action is elsewhere - in the echoing corridors and suave international train and car journeys of a ruthlessly stylish world.

The colonnaded elegance of the Place Vendôme is a spatial counterpart of Deneuve the ice maiden, but not until the very end do we find an equivalent for her character's fragility issuing in wonderfully understated strength. That is emphasised by the scrubby Ostend dunes of the final sequence, deserted save for Marianne and the limpet-like Jean-Pierre, whose desperate loyalty has provided an ironic counterpart to her development throughout. Altogether, Place Vendôme is a film whose performances and settings yield immense pleasure.

García, Rodrigo

NINE LIVES

USA (115 mi) 2005

eFilmCritic.com (Mel Valentin)

Rodrigo Garcia may be the closest thing we have to a master short-story artist working on the big screen. In "Nine Lives," the writer/director (son of Gabriel Garcia Marquez) carves out defining moments in the lives of nine women and creates a lovely whole from the fragments that, at first glance, don't piece together in any conventional way.

The characters are diverse: a rage-filled Latino woman (Elpidia Carrillo) struggling to stay on good behavior in an L.A. County prison; a married woman (Robin Wright Penn) shaken by a chance encounter with an old lover; the teenage daughter (Amanda Seyfried) of parents who only converse through her; a miserable middle-age wife and mother (a heartbreakingly fragile Sissy Spacek) in an affair with a charming younger man.

Other chapters are carried by Lisa Gay Hamilton, Holly Hunter, Amy Brenneman, Kathy Baker, Glenn Close, Dakota Fanning and the rich supporting cast around them.

Each story is shot in a single, graceful long take, carving it out as a contained slice of their life. Yet characters drift across the vignettes, creating not so much dramatic connections as a sense that these lives co-exist and touch, however briefly or tangentially.

And his dialogue has a slightly rarefied quality; introspective with a bruised feel and a literary beauty ("We're nothing. We're dreams and bones."). This beautifully sculpted poetic naturalism has more in common with the expressive use of words in the great screenplays of '40s and '50s than with modern movies.

Garcia is fascinated by the inner lives of women and his compassion and empathy bring them alive in these vignettes, these brief but intimate character sketches in a 12-minute or so span of life. Even in their most troubled, vulnerable, panicked moments, he reveals grace and beauty and honesty and raw humanity, perhaps especially in those moments of duress.

But the stories also take the audience on a journey, from rage and anger to connection and peace, a life cycle told through the moments of time from nine women who have nothing in common but their struggles, their search for happiness and their connection to the tapestry of humanity.

The Onion A.V. Club [Nathan Rabin]

As a film composed entirely of nine continuous long takes, Nine Lives certainly qualifies as unique. But what makes it rarer and more auspicious is that it offers such a rich bounty of great roles for middle-aged women. Given the dearth of quality parts for actresses beyond a certain age, is it any wonder that director (and ace cinematic miniaturist) Rodrigo Garciá managed to snag such big names as Holly Hunter, Sissy Spacek, Glenn Close, Robin Wright Penn, Dakota Fanning, Kathy Baker, and Amy Brenneman for a low-budget independent film with seemingly limited commercial prospects? As he's proven with this film, Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her, and Ten Tiny Love Stories, Garciá loves and respects women, and they've repaid that devotion with uniformly fine work.

In both form and content, Nine Lives feels like a continuation and extension of 2001's Ten Tiny Love Stories, which similarly delved deep into the emotional lives of women with vignettes that at best suggested the cinematic equivalent of superb short stories. The earlier film was composed of monologues captured by long static takes, but here the camera moves about freely to document multi-character stories.

In the strongest of the nine, Robin Wright Penn plays a pregnant mother and wife who unexpectedly bumps into an ex-boyfriend she shared an intense, passionate life with years earlier. Penn's performance and Garciá's incisive writing beautifully capture the excruciating awkwardness of people desperately trying to find a feasible middle ground between the primal emotional intimacy they once shared and the forced civility and strained politeness of people accidentally reconnecting after years apart. Their conversation accordingly slides between arbitrary small talk and heady discussion about the Big Issues that defined their lives and relationship. Several of the other stories explore similar issues and dynamics, particularly the one in which an angry, estranged sister and daughter returns to her family home to hurl accusations, reopen old wounds, and stew in bitterness, much to the discomfort of her more accommodating, conciliatory younger sister.

Not every vignette succeeds. Some end abruptly or never quite catch fire, while still others indulge in short-story writers' weakness for big dramatic gestures, but even the weakest stories are brilliantly acted by actresses who tear into Garciá's juicy roles with gusto. Nine Lives is admittedly a women's movie for the arthouse set, but the sensitivity and intensity Garciá brings to it suggests that's not inherently a bad thing. If only every women's movie had Nine Lives' fire, intelligence, and conviction, they wouldn't have such a shaky reputation in the first place.

filmcritic.com Chris Barsanti

A well-cast compilation film suffocating on its own self-importance, Nine Lives aims to tie together nine vastly different stories, but ends up telling hardly any of them well. The conceit of writer/director Rodrigo Garcia is to take nine vignettes, each centered around a different woman (usually in desperate circumstances), and give us a brief glimpse into her life before cutting away to the next one, while stringing a few connecting threads between them all. To ensure that he’s not playing favorites, each piece is done in one single Steadicam shot and kept to only nine or ten minutes in length. A minor character from one vignette becomes a major player later on, or vice versa. As in literature, anthology works like this are a hit-and-miss affair, and in this case the misses far outnumber the ones that connect.

Nine Lives opens strong on Sandra (Elpidia Carrillo), an imprisoned mother. Mopping up a floor, she’s threatened by fellow prisoners, and harassed by a guard (Miguel Sandoval) who’s convinced she can give him information. Everyone tells Sandra she’s not going to make it, but you think she just might be able to, hunkering down turtle-like and just plowing through the rest of her sentence. But then her daughter visits, and the phone doesn’t work, sending Sandra into a stunning explosion of rage, like a mother bear kept from her cub. It’s a short, unrelentingly powerful story, and done by itself it would stand as a sublime little tragedy. The same goes for the final piece, in which Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning (hardly a better match could be imagined) visit a cemetery and talk with sublime ease about not much at all. But then comes the rest of the film in between.

In short order we’re given Robin Penn Wright as another mother, this one expecting, who runs into an old lover at a supermarket, Amy Brenneman playing a carefree woman at the funeral of the wife of her ex-husband, Holly Hunter getting upset with her boyfriend for telling too-personal stories to their uncomfortable guests, and so on. Even when the writing moves beyond bourgeois pathos – as is the case with a painfully overacted story where a manic Lisa Gay Hamilton confronts her father for some traumatizing transgression from the past – Garcia is rarely able to get inside his character’s heads in the span of time he’s allowed them, and the ways in which he’ll shoehorn an actor from one piece into another never adds anything and seems to be just showing off.

Little here is the actors’ fault, as Garcia has finagled himself (for the most part) an astoundingly talented cast who acquit themselves well, especially the previously mentioned Carrillo, and Deadwood’s Ian McShane, playing a wheelchair-bound father hiding his infirmity behind a wall of black humor. But by the time viewers have reached the fourth or fifth story, however, restlessness is likely to set in, as it becomes clear this is a film hurtling slowly towards nothing, with little to keep one interested along the way.

The DVD includes four featurettes, two shorts about the technical aspects of the film, a Q&A taped at the Lee Strasberg Theater, and more.

Reverse Shot [Kristi Mitsuda] complexly virtuosic snapshot portraits

Slant Magazine [Keith Uhlich] a gaping self-righteous abyss of its own creation

DVD Town [James Plath]

Reel.com [Kim Morgan]

Film Journal International (David Noh)

stylusmagazine.com (Roque Strew)

CineScene [Howard Schumann]

Film-Forward.com Parisa Vaziri

Nine Lives (Rodrigo García, 2005) Eric Henderson from When Canses Were Classeled

eFilmCritic Reviews Jay Seaver

Celluloid Heroes [Paul McElligott]

The Village Voice [Laura Sinagra]

eFilmCritic [William Goss]

Cinepassion.org Fernando F. Croce

DVD Talk [Preston Jones]

Cinema Blend [Joshua Tyler]

MOTHER AND CHILD B- 82

Spain USA (125 mi) 2009

This film makes it extremely difficult for the viewer to like, as it is filled with such unnaturalistic characters continually shown at their worst, who seem to give overly dramatic speeches rather than offer any hint of natural dialogue, all feeling like forced behavior that borders on the pretentious, as these moments are elevated by their recurring sequence isolation, one after another, fragments in time that collectively form the thread of this overlapping storyline, an overwrought, overly serious melodrama told in small, interconnecting pieces. Despite the off-putting feeling that leaves the audience completely disconnected to most of the characters, especially at the beginning, the film does somehow work, as despite some deplorable moments, there are also some equally exquisite moments. Three top flight actresses do their thing here, including Annette Bening as Karen, a physical rehab worker who is so repressed and tightly wound that her mere presence onscreen feels uncomfortable, as she takes the work “difficult” to new levels, especially as she tends watch over her invalid mother, going through the obligatory motions without an ounce of love or real concern, as she is instead doing what she feels is expected of her. Much more riveting is the presence of her mother’s in-home health care worker, Elpidia Carrillo, who continually brings her young 9-year old daughter to work, but the pride and fierce individuality of her character is a life force. As a young 14-year old teenage girl, Karen gave away her baby to an orphanage, an act which has eerie personal ramifications, haunting her, perhaps even disabling her for the rest of her life, distorting and invalidating her own life as she keeps a diary where she writes letters to this daughter she never met, incapable of maintaining a relationship with anyone else on earth.

Naomi Watts (who shot her scenes in only 8 days) turns out to be Karen’s biological daughter, a legal powerhouse who is quite capable of tending to her own needs without the aid or assistance of others, a lone wolf so to speak who never knew her mother, a dominant yet icy force from the day she joins a law firm owned by Samuel L. Jackson. “I'm not in the sisterhood,” she says, “I'm my own person.” Immediately the film falls off the rails in a contrived storyline where the two engage in a passionate affair, an act that is so unnaturally presented that one has to wince at the grotesque presentation of sex with their clothes on where Watts literally has an orgasm within 15 seconds, a near physical impossibility and another distorted depiction of reality. Add to this narrative an overly eager Kerry Washington as Lucy, a black woman unable to conceive on her own, who turns to adoption with a manic force of desperation which overwhelms her less than impressed husband, David Ramsey, a soft spoken, uncharismatic but polite and steady force in her life. Cherry Jones plays the Catholic nun whose role is the go-between from the orphanage and child welfare services, who helps link up prospective mothers with unwanted babies. Shareeka Epps from HALF NELSON (2006) plays an angry teenager who wants nothing from her expectant baby except to give her away to Lucy, but with ridiculously over-controlled conditions that border on the insulting. Through a cross-cutting of editing, these individual stories are all interwoven in what initially feels overly pre-determined, a typical narrative device over-utilized by producer Alejandro González Iñárritu in his own films.

What finally works is the prominence of the much more likeable secondary characters whose humanity uplifts the extreme deficiencies and limitations of not only the leads but the narrative itself, from Samuel L. Jackson’s uncharacteristic tenderness, S. Epatha Merkerson’s soulful display of honesty to her daughter Lucy, sending a message that hits her right between the eyes when she needs it the most, Jimmy Smits as an unusually nice and patient guy with Karen, the drama queen, whose difficulties mellow out over time, Brittany Robertson as Violet, the blind teenager who meets on the roof with Watts, becoming her only friend in the world, David Morse as the never forgotten high school sweetheart of Karen, Tatyana Ali as the cheerful grown daughter of Jackson, Lisa Gay Hamilton’s candid confession to her angry teenage daughter, and most especially Elpidia Carrillo, who in my mind was the best thing in this movie, as she is everything the dour and humorless Annette Bening is not, naturally curious, inquisitive, loving, bluntly honest while remaining tactful, and an understated presence that personifies the force of maternal love, professionalism, and loyal friendship. There are wordless moments that are particularly strong, such as when Lucy has to be restrained and consoled at the hospital, when Watts meets Violet in the elevator, or when Karen stops hating the presence of Carrillo’s daughter, actually interacting finally and treating her as if she were her own daughter. This transforming act is what the film is all about, even if it gets heavy-handed about it. García is the son of Colombian writer Gabriel García Marquez, one of the more distinguished man of letters in the past half century, and author of one of the greatest novels ever conceived, 100 Years of Solitude, which is a beautifully mysterious depiction of family dysfunction, where each character couldn’t possibly have been imagined with greater love or endearing charm, embellished with magical turns of surrealism and poetry. That’s a tough act to follow.

Time Out New York review [3/5] Keith Uhlich

The sensitive touch of Rodrigo García—a talented HBO house director (In Treatment, Carnivàle) with an extremely spotty feature career (Nine Lives, Passengers)—keeps this gimmicky ensemble melodrama out of the bullshit-detector red zone. As in most of his films, women take center stage: Middle-aged health-care worker Karen (Bening) is the biological mother of icy power attorney Elizabeth (Watts), whom she gave up for adoption immediately after birth. In a seemingly unrelated thread, the slightly manic baker Lucy (Washington) prepares to adopt a child of her own, since she’s been unable to conceive. All three live in Los Angeles, but none of them have ever met. Uh-oh.

Much as Nine Lives hinged on an aesthetic stunt (each sequence was filmed in a single shot), Mother and Child borrows the “we’re-all-connected” converging narrative patented by executive producer Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel). It remains an annoying, faux-profound structural tic—at this point, there are no more returns to diminish—though this doesn’t negate the stellar performances García gets from his central female trio.

Watts is the most immediately attention-grabbing, with the story dictating that Elizabeth move from legal-eagle whore of Babylon (a terrific Samuel L. Jackson plays her willing prey) to martyred, maternal saint. A believably unbalanced Bening scores the movie’s true coup: Karen’s revitalizing relationship with a sweetly persistent coworker (Jimmy Smits) is a rare example of Hollywood doing right by midlife romance. And Washington, because she’s the least caught up in the twisted-pretzel plotting, gives Lucy’s every gesture the hallmark of truth. Everything else, sad to say, is just Hallmark.

New York Magazine (David Edelstein) review (Page 2)

Rodrigo García’s Mother and Child begins with a 14-year-old girl smooching a boy and taking off her shirt; then caressing her big, round belly; then screaming as her baby is born and carried off. In the next shot, that girl is a brittle, haggard Annette Bening, unmarried and childless in her early fifties, living with her elderly mother. “She’ll be 37,” she says, aloud, of the daughter she has never known. In the next scene, an ambitious, chillingly poised 37-year-old lawyer (Naomi Watts) tells her prospective employer (Samuel L. Jackson, with two good eyes) that she’s estranged from her adopted family, lives alone, has no plans to marry, and prefers to work with men because women are threatened by her. “I’m not in the sisterhood,” she says. “I am my own person.” Five minutes in, and already you want to kill yourself.

Mother and Child is suffused with grief and loss. It’s also suffused with compassion and insight. One of García’s earlier films was Nine Lives, in which nine women’s stories were poetically compressed, each told in a single long shot. This time, he has three stories that converge, although not in the way you expect. The third protagonist is a young woman (Kerry Washington) who can’t have children and undergoes a grueling grilling by a pregnant, seething teenager (Shareeka Epps) to see if she’s worthy to adopt the girl’s child. The film becomes a tapestry of mother-and-child stories, each child molded by the overbearing presence or absence of its mother, each wondering which is more important: blood or time spent.

Amid the almost unbearable sadness, Bening is hilariously brittle and defensive when wooed by teddy-bear widower Jimmy Smits, and Washington has a marvelous, Mary Tyler Moore–ish goosiness. When a movie has this kind of fullness, it’s worth the emotional workout.

REVIEW | From The Heart: Rodrigo Garcia’s “Mother and Child” Michael Koresky at indieWIRE, May 4, 2010

In his 2005 film “Nine Lives,” Rodrigo Garcia did something cinematically unexpected. Bringing to the women’s picture a rigorous aesthetic design, “Nine Lives,” made up of nine disparate segments about different female characters shot in elaborate single takes, successfully translated the structure of a short story anthology to the screen, and without denying film’s unique properties. The narratives themselves, surveying women from different classes and pasts and at different life thresholds, may not have been equally gripping, but together the film had a cumulative power, while certain segments (especially Robin Wright Penn’s supermarket encounter) could be considered short-film classics. In his new film, “Mother and Child,” Garcia continues his mission to dramatize intersecting lives of women, yet here his three main characters are figures in a single, elegantly unfolding narrative. While not without its stilted moments and easy sentiments, “Mother and Child” is lucid, engaging, and novelistic in the best sense — even if it could have used that little extra aesthetic push that made “Nine Lives” so remarkable.

At this point, Garcia’s adoration of women can’t be mistaken. Even the title of this film begs to give mother-daughter relations iconic, mythic status. And though it can easily be argued that his idolization, even idealization, of femininity, motherhood, and female empowerment might cross the line into fetish, with his unerring focus on issues of birth and adoption, the result is genuinely warm and from the heart, and it provides meaty roles for three actresses: Naomi Watts, Annette Bening, and Kerry Washington.

Beginning with impressionistic, fleeting images of a teenage girl’s pregnancy, birth, and decision to give her baby up for adoption, the film then introduces us to Watts’s Elizabeth, an icy, driven 37-year-old lawyer who’s almost pathologically independent, making no time for lovers or even close female friends (“I’m not in the sisterhood,” she tells her boss); at the same there’s Bening’s Karen, an emotionally closed physical therapist in her early fifties, taking care of a dying mother she feels she doesn’t know. Rounding out the film’s triumvirate is Washington’s Lucy, a modestly successful baker in her twenties who’s desperate for a baby with her husband and turns to adoption when she discovers she cannot have one of her own.

It’s unspoken but it become relatively clear soon enough that Elizabeth, who speaks of being abandoned at birth by a teenage mother she never met, is Karen’s daughter. Yet Garcia’s ruminative narrative circles gingerly around this topic for a long while, instead letting us get to know these women before their lives inevitably re-intersect — which happens in wholly surprising, well plotted, and emotionally satisfying ways. Washington’s fateful significance in all this also makes itself evident bit by bit; especially in the way Garcia masterfully presents her search for a child as a touching parallel narrative in its own right.

In fact, Washington is the revelation of the film. While Watts brings complexity to a potentially difficult role (as written, Elizabeth is at times too cartoonishly malignant) and subtlety has never been Bening’s strong suit (whatever Karen’s emotions — cruelty, joy — Bening lays it on thick as spackle), Washington rarely hits a false note, moving effortlessly from charming neuroticism to professional confidence to tearful desperation.

The gamut of emotions Washington runs is indicative of the film as a whole, which never shies away from big, sentimental sweep, yet also somehow never tips over into cheeky melodrama. And though the film could never be called visually daring, Garcia here and there makes room for expertly crafted little grace notes, the most luminous of which is a late-film single take of Bening simply walking out her front door and down the street to a neighbor’s house: it sounds mundane, but coming where it does in the film, it’s anything but. Garcia brings dignity and lyricism back to a genre that all too frequently devolves into histrionics.

Movieline (Michelle Orange) review [7/10]

Salon.com [Lisa Rosman]

Jason Bailey

A Nutshell Review [Stefan S]

IFC.com [Matt Singer]

The Onion A.V. Club review [B] Keith Phipps

DVD Talk (Jason Bailey) review [4/5] Theatrical review

DVD Talk (Jamie S. Rich) review [2/5] Theatrical review

RopeofSilicon (Brad Brevet) review [B+]

exclaim! [Robert Bell]

One Guy's Opinion (Frank Swietek) review [B]

eFilmCritic.com (Brian Orndorf) review [3/5] also seen here: DVD Talk (Brian Orndorf) review [3/5] Theatrical review, and here: Briandom [Brian Orndorf]

Big Picture Big Sound (David Kempler) review [2/4]

Annette Bening on Mother and Child, Taking Risks, and Getting Wrong Right S.T. VanAirsdale interview of Annette Bennings from Movieline, May 6, 2010

The Hollywood Reporter review Kirk Honeycutt

Entertainment Weekly review [C+] Lisa Schwartzbaum

Screen Daily.com [Tim Grierson] Subscription only

Variety (Todd McCarthy) review

Toronto Star (Greg Quill) review [3.5/4]

The Boston Phoenix (Tom Meek) review

San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle) review [3/4]

Chicago Tribune [Michael Phillips]

Garland, Alex

EX MACHINA B+ 91

Great Britain (108 mi) 2015 ‘Scope Official Facebook

As the author of The Beach, a 1996 cult novel that became a motion picture, also the writer of Danny Boyle’s highly inventive zombie thriller 28 DAYS LATER…(2002), the futuristic space adventure SUNSHINE (2007), but also the sci-fi box office disaster DREDD (2012), all depictions of humans on the brink of survival, often expressed through a bleak, post-apocalyptic vision where scientific progress imprisons and dehumanizes people as much as it liberates them and expands their potential, Alex Garland’s first venture into writing and directing has led him surprisingly to an A-list of actors to work with. Exploring the idea of an early era of artificial intelligence, the film raises ethical questions about the rights of sentient androids created under a corporate banner that for all practical purposes “owns” them, capable of making modifications and updates, perhaps against the expressed wishes of the creatures themselves who have no say in the matter, but are completely owned and controlled by their creators, despite having feelings and a will of their own, in the process questioning our own idea of humanity, where the real monster is man and not the machine. In a sense, this is a bit like the John Hughes teen comedy WEIRD SCIENCE (1985) where a couple of nerdy social misfits astoundingly create an ideal dream woman from their computers, one that supposedly meets their idea of perfection, where in each case, it’s hard for these men not to fall uncontrollably in love with their invention, modeling them, after all, to serve their every need. Scarlett Johansson played a sexy computer operating system in Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) using just her voice, programmed to sound warm and compassionate, but that didn’t stop Joaquin Phoenix from falling in love with his computer. This is a variation on that male fantasy, where what happens, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that these artificial creatures have a mind of their own, separate and distinct from their creators, as expressed by the dying and about to expire replicants in Blade Runner (1982), but also the ever expanding mental capacities of Johansson’s artificial intelligence, who never sleeps, by the way, demonstrating she’s capable of maintaining multiple relationships at once, each one more complex than the next in search of higher forms of consciousness, literally leaving humans behind on their evolutionary trajectory. While the androids have a desperate desire to save themselves, even to get in touch with their own soul, if that’s possible, humans are still bogged down in relatively minor details, at the dawn of a new age of scientific invention, with little comprehension about playing God or crossing any real moral boundaries. To the film’s credit, it doesn’t minimize any of these issues, a throwback to Fritz Lang’s science-fiction classic METROPOLIS (1927), which featured an erotic female robot that drove men wild with passion, eventually instilling chaos in contemporary society, a cautionary tale about the crushing power of modern industrial life where the presence of a robot created in a heavily stylized human form was a jarring experience. This film is modeled in that image, but on a much smaller scale in a more intimate setting, concentrating on a secret introductory project of unleashing artificial intelligence into the world while still in the early experimental stages. While the title refers to a plot device known as “deus ex machina,” which literally means “god from the machine,” where an object magically solves an impossible problem in the narrative, the origin comes from Greek tragedy where a machine is used to bring actors playing gods onto the stage, often with mythological implications, a perfect example being Icarus flying too close to the sun, with this invention in the film being described as Promethean, literally bringing something from the gods down to earth, for which they will pay an eternal price.

Something of a reinvention of Mary Shelley’s early 19^th century Frankenstein story, perhaps the essence of the film is how complex thought is wrapped in such simplicity and sleek elegance, where the reliance upon such technical detail never feels over the viewer’s head, but is presented in a highly appealing manner set in one of the most extraordinary locations on earth. From the outset we are introduced to a relatively low-ranking computer programmer in a large corporation, Caleb Smith, played by Domhnall Gleeson from Calvary (2014) and 2014 Top Ten List #10 Frank , also Shadow Dancer (2012), and before that an earlier Garland script NEVER LET ME GO (2010), which was actually written before the Kazuo Ishiguro novel upon which it was based was even published. Caleb works for Bluebook, the world’s largest Internet search engine, where he’s been selected as the lottery prize-winner among company staff to win a week in an undisclosed remote location in Alaska with the company’s founder and CEO, Nathan Bateman, Oscar Isaac from A Most Violent Year (2014) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2012), the reclusive billionaire genius who wrote the code that launched his career success when he was only 13, retreating to the wilds of Alaska and has barely been seen or heard from since. Flying by helicopter over mountainous terrain (actually shot in Norway), Caleb is surprised to discover it’s all Nathan’s land they’ve been traversing for the past two hours, dropping him off in the middle of an open field where he’ll be retrieved exactly one week later. Following a river to an opulent, ultra-modern architectural dream home that is fully automated, installed with the latest hi-tech security systems, with Schubert and Bach playing on his sound system and Jackson Pollock and Gustav Klimt paintings hanging on his walls, blending uniquely into its natural surroundings with wall-sized glass windows, while also serving as his own private research facility, Nathan lives a solitary life attended to only by the enigmatic presence of silent house maid named Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), who supposedly doesn’t speak English. The reason for Caleb’s visit, where he was actually chosen for being the most talented coder in the company, is to evaluate a female robot Nathan designed with artificial intelligence, giving her the Turing test, designed by British genius Alan Turing from The Imitation Game (2014), where his job will be to determine if the android is indistinguishable from a human being, calling the experiment, somewhat modestly, “the greatest scientific event in the history of man.” Named Ava, Alicia Vikander from Pure (Till det som är vackert) (2009) and A Royal Affair (En kongelig affære) (2012), she utilizes her ballerina training by the gracefully fluid and agile manner in which she moves, while also being coy, impassive, and shyly demure, bringing a tender humanity to the character, where it’s often easy to forget she is playing a machine. Whether in METROPOLIS or a recent film like Under the Skin (2013), for a hundred years the futuristic, science fiction element has allowed women to be viewed as an unknowable, alien presence. Both emboldened by the opportunity, each daily visit holds a certain amount of suspense, because they are infrequent and limited in scope, each one entitled “Ava: Session 1,” etc. She is, of course, surprised to see him, as she’s never seen anyone but Nathan before. Thrown into the mix are blackout periods at the compound when the power inexplicably turns off, whereupon all doors are immediately locked until power can be resumed a short period afterwards, where Garland bathes the screen in a red light, creating a chilling atmospheric mood of dread and suspense. During these blackouts, Nathan has no access to the sessions that he otherwise observes and records, where Ava uses one of these moments to warn Caleb not to trust Nathan, describing him as dangerous. Isaac plays him as a larger-than-life character with secret motives, a mad genius hiding his real intentions as he controls everything within the confines of his home, overseeing all, playing God, so to speak, where despite his friendly hospitality and outwardly gregarious nature, both Caleb and Ava see themselves as little more than lab rats within his locked compound.

In keeping with the futuristic aspects of the story, one of the keys to the film is the ultra-modernistic setting combined with such a cold, abstract interior design, adding a formal precision that just happens to be the Juvet Landscape Hotel, The Hotel - Juvet, an utterly spectacular Norwegian hotel that is one of the architectural wonders of the world, with a minimalistic, state-of-the-art design that continually exposes the majestic splendor of the unspoiled naturalistic world outdoors. This extraordinary partition of a separate indoor and outdoor existence couldn’t be more pronounced, a mirror image of their own existence, where Caleb is shocked to discover Kyoko is an earlier test product, where she curiously seems programmed to provide Nathan with whatever he wants, something of a sex toy, an expression of male arrogance and ego, leading to creepy thoughts that become even more disgusting when he’s willing to share her with Caleb, but the unseen parallel story is a rat in a maze that can never escape captivity, as neither Ava nor Kyoko have ever been outside or allowed to leave their perpetual confinement of living behind glass walls. Caleb naturally begins to feel empathy for their plight, believing they’re being mistreated, as underneath their robotic perfection, doing and saying all the things they have been programmed to do, they are deathly afraid of Nathan. During another blackout that she has actually learned to create, Ava reveals her underlying fears of what might happen to her if she fails to pass the test, as she might be switched off for an upgrade. Caleb begins questioning his own existence, wondering if he’s being programmed by Nathan as well, where Isaac and Vikander are both truly remarkable in the scope of their performances, conveying secret worlds of untapped motives and possibilities that remain hidden beneath the surface, challenging the audience to identify with a computer-programmed robot. Who’s to say one is better than or inferior from another? They are simply placed in different circumstances, where the story revolves around the lives of the three main characters, and to a smaller degree the fourth, where the brilliance of the film is that it reveals the Turing test for what it is, a test of the humans and not the machine. Even Nathan envisions a future where the humans will be at the mercy of the machines, who will be so much faster and smarter, able to self-repair and live without sleep, illness, or aging, where they can literally live forever. This understanding, however, leads to his security fears and overcontrolling nature, where he continues to tinker with what he’s created, where he feels introducing A.I. robots is an inevitable part of the human condition, that if he didn’t create them then someone else would. It’s a fascinating balance of power between the main participants, constantly fluctuating in each scene, becoming a story of deceit, obsession, and manipulation, where the director himself never gives away his true intentions, which keeps the viewer off guard, where the less one knows, the better the experience. The familiar aspect of these stories is attributing human traits to computers, where they are not simply content to serve humans any more than Scarlett Johansson is in Her, or your pet dog would be, as there’s simply more to a happy and fulfilling life. Exploring human consciousness through a science fiction narrative has always held a certain mysterious intrigue both in literature and film, where Vikander’s beguiling beauty as Ava has an undeniable femme fatale appeal, complete with all the noirish trappings, where you might get sucked down the proverbial rabbit hole if you’re not careful. The darkening mood throughout is unsettling and eventually disturbing, veering into horror territory, where the expanse of Nathan’s secret hideaway and the suffocating confinement within is an extension of his own flawed character, beautifully filmed by Rob Hardy, while the throbbing musical score by Ben Salisbury and Portishead’s Geoff Barrow underscores the enveloping claustrophobia, where the subject being explored is the mystery of the human condition, equally baffling whether seen through a computer or a human vantage point, where by the end they are seamlessly blended into one.

To his credit, Garland enlisted Murray Shanahan (Home - Professor Murray Shanahan), Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London, and writer and geneticist Adam Rutherford as science advisers. Paul Smith interviews Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak from The Australian Financial Review Weekend, March 24, 2015, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak on the Apple Watch ...:

“Computers are going to take over from humans, no question,” Mr Wozniak said.

He said he had long dismissed the ideas of writers like Raymond Kurzweil, who have warned that rapid increases in technology will mean machine intelligence will outstrip human understanding or capability within the next 30 years. However Mr Wozniak said he had come to recognise that the predictions were coming true, and that computing that perfectly mimicked or attained human consciousness would become a dangerous reality.

“Like people including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have predicted, I agree that the future is scary and very bad for people. If we build these devices to take care of everything for us, eventually they’ll think faster than us and they’ll get rid of the slow humans to run companies more efficiently,” Mr Wozniak said.

“Will we be the gods? Will we be the family pets? Or will we be ants that get stepped on? I don’t know about that … But when I got that thinking in my head about if I’m going to be treated in the future as a pet to these smart machines … well I’m going to treat my own pet dog really nice.”

Ex Machina review: Sci-fi thriller ventures into the garden of ... Paul Byrnes from The Sydney Morning Herald

In 1927, Fritz Lang created a beautiful female robot for his futuristic Metropolis, a parable about the crushing power of modern industrial life. She was an erotic puzzle – stylised human form, mechanical brain, a metallic knockout who challenged conventional ideas of sexuality.

Directing his first feature after some impressive scripts (28 Days Later, Never Let Me Go), Alex Garland applies the same idea, with a story about the world's first truly intelligent artificial babe. She's played by Alicia Vikander, who's fast becoming the hottest new star in the cinema firmament. As Vera Brittain in the superb Testament of Youth, set during World War I, Vikander gives a joltingly human performance. Her performance as the cyborg Ava in Ex Machina is just as jolting, if less human. This is a film of creepy modernity and prescience, as Metropolis was in its time.

Garland's script starts with the classics. A young man with a bright future is summoned to the castle-like home of a mysterious loner, like Jonathan Harker in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a competition within his giant technology conglomerate to spend a week with the company founder, Nathan (Oscar Isaac), working on new ideas. A helicopter flies him into a northern wilderness and dumps him in a field. "This is as close as I'm allowed to go," says the pilot. If a wolf had howled at the moon I would not have been surprised, but Garland sets the scene in daylight, to avoid such cliches.

The young man finds his way along the river to a striking, architecturally bleak house on the edge of a cliff. Admittance is automated; there are no staff. He finds Nathan working out, nursing a hangover. He is overawed to be in the presence of the world's most brilliant technical mind. Nathan puts him at ease: he's just a smart dude with a cool house, where access to every room is controlled by a coded pass. And before we start work, please sign this non-disclosure agreement.

Nathan is working on artificial intelligence. Caleb's job is to apply the Turing test to Ava. Devised by famed British scientist and mathematician Alan Turing, the test is designed to find out if a machine is capable of intelligent behaviour, indistinguishable from a human. Over the seven days, Caleb will talk to Ava while Nathan observes. Shaven-headed, delicately beautiful, she sits behind glass in her own room, a lonely princess, imprisoned by her creator. Caleb can't help but be attracted, but he is confused, too. She seems to be attracted to him.

Stanley Kubrick was fascinated by the possibilities and dangers of AI, as we know, and Garland constructs this movie with deliberate echoes of his style. It's a cool conception, with highly designed modernist interiors that act like a bulwark to the rampant nature outside, and an unhurried rhythm. The only greenery inside is a wall next to Ava's enclosure. She draws the plants, suggesting to Caleb that she is artistically sentient. When the power goes down, she tells him not to trust Nathan, an alarming development in their relationship.

There are lots of these synthetic creatures in movies lately, and they're mostly female. Scarlett Johansson played a sexy operating system in Her, using just her voice. She was so seductive, warm and caring that Joaquin Phoenix fell in love with his computer. Then he discovered that she was cheating on him. That was funny and logical, because a super-intelligent AI would certainly be capable of multiple relationships at once. Some might see an old theme here: faithless women.

Ex Machina is certainly meant to carry an echo of The Book of Genesis, not just in Ava's name, but in the fact that the only plants inside the building are where she can see them. There's no apple tree, but you get the picture. The difference here is that Nathan, the Creator, is present in this Garden of Eden, along with the young man he has cast as Adam.

This is a film about men rather than women – their desires, weaknesses, stupidity and vulnerability. Technically speaking, there are no women in the film, just machines in female form. Garland suggests that given half a chance, men would happily take advantage of these sexy cyborgs, as long as they were able to be controlled. The question here is whether they would still be so malleable once they had artificial intelligence? As Hal the computer sang to himself as he died in 2001: A Space Odyssey: "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do, I'm half crazy, all for the love of you."

Ex Machina / The Dissolve Tasha Robinson

The question of what it means to be human has preoccupied science fiction for decades: Futurism and ideas about new technology, new worlds, and new species have always caused creators to re-examine themselves, and wonder whether there’s anything fundamental to humanity that will stay the same if everything else changes. Even so, it seems like the question has been on filmmakers’ minds more than usual lately, with films as diverse as Transcendence, Under The Skin, and Her all poking queasily at the idea of how a non-human intelligence reflects back on the idea of a human one.

Alex Garland, the novelist who wrote The Beach (which Danny Boyle adapted into a film) and the screenwriter of 28 Days Later and Sunshine (also directed by Boyle), makes his directorial debut with Ex Machina, the latest to take up the thread. In this case, the non-human intelligence is a robot named Ava, and the question is how close an A.I. can come to being human—and, given human frailties, whether she might want to.

Domhnall Gleeson (Frank, About Time) stars as Caleb, a flunky programmer in a vast, industry-dominating computing corporation that’s half Google, half Facebook. When Caleb wins a company-wide contest, he’s granted a week with reclusive, mysterious company owner Nathan (Inside Llewyn Davis’ Oscar Isaac) at a high-tech, remote house where Nathan lives with one non-English-speaking servant (Sonoya Mizuno) and all the comforts of a futuristic prison. Nathan wants Caleb to interact with Ava (Alicia Vikander), who’s imprisoned in her own hermetically sealed quarters, and decide whether she’s a true A.I., or just a crafty program imitating sentience. Inevitably—in fact, immediately—Ava starts manipulating Caleb, seducing him in the hopes that he’ll help her escape. The questions that interest Garland aren’t whether she’ll succeed, but what her intentions are. Or really, what anyone’s intentions are, since Caleb, Nathan, and the servant are all just as opaque and alien in their various ways as the artificial being in her box.

None of Ex Machina’s broad strokes are surprising: The story falls out so predictably at every stage that it can be frustrating. It’s the details that are surprising, and purposefully alarming. Garland shot the film in low light, with a mostly desaturated palette, and in a setting made largely from smoked glass, dull metals, and polished wood. The environment itself becomes oppressively soulless and poreless, a repudiation of the whispering trees and rushing river just outside the walls. The spare, chilly, synth-y score, by nature-doc composer Ben Salisbury and Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, follows suit, with suggestively throbbing themes designed to unnerve viewers and imply a lurking threat. The whole film feels alert and alarmed in a way that makes Caleb and Ava’s mild fencing about identity and intention, and Caleb and Nathan’s more complicated and contentious relationship, seem perpetually on the verge of violence.

Also more interesting than the plot, or the banal dialogue, which lays out the themes guilelessly and without much nuance: the shifting emotions of the piece, which take on more import than what’s actually being said. Caleb initially patronizes Ava gently, as if she were a child or a particularly smart ape. There’s an unmistakable masculine collusion between him and Nathan over her, as if Nathan were pimping her out, which isn’t far from the truth. Garland has Nathan underline his role with a grunting physicality—he’s a physical fanatic, constantly engaged in some form of sweaty, muscle-building exercise—and a series of attempts to get Caleb into a casually joshing, bro-tastic relationship. Ava’s gentle seduction of Caleb is rote, a playing out of old, tired “woman as unknowable mystery” tropes. But what keeps it interesting is that he’s aware of what both she and Nathan are up to, and he holds himself in reserve, fencing with them with what seems to him like sophisticated analysis. It doesn’t save him in either case. The whole film comes across as a claustrophobic, single-set stage play, but also as a three-handed game of chess in which the most confident player doesn’t realize he’s outmatched from the beginning.

Like Her, Ex Machina lacks any real twists, and proceeds along science-fiction lines that will be familiar to habitués. (See The Reveal for more.) But it makes up for its linearity with verve, first in the impeccably controlled, intellectually rigorous direction, and then in the performances. Vikander isn’t trying to seem human so much as she’s trying to seem like a clockwork device performing as a human, and the layers come across cleanly. Gleeson has rapidly stepped into Paul Dano’s abandoned role as everyone’s favorite outwardly well-meaning, inwardly peevish and hapless protagonist bound for trouble. He makes a perfect fit for what seems to be Garland’s favorite role: the Nice Guy whose self-effacing charisma hides a deeply selfish, narcissistic core. But Isaac is Ex Machina’s most important player, tasked with most reliably drawing and repelling Caleb and the audience, and giving the story its spine. He’s the one responsible for selling the film’s queasiest undercurrent: a feeling that if this is what humanity looks like, we’re definitely better off with artificial, alien, inhuman intelligences in charge.

Deep Focus: Ex Machina | Film Comment Michael Sragow, April 22, 2015

Ex Machina is a high-IQ sci-fi film that connects viscerally and on every other level to audiences of all kinds. It’s exhilarating to see this movie in a theater packed with people rapt in the taut spell of its life-or-death drama and rippling with nervous laughter at its frisky, kinky sexuality and absurdist undertones. The subject is artificial intelligence, but the writer, Alex Garland, in his debut as a director, makes it about traditional intelligence and emotional intelligence, too. Though Garland builds dark twists into his realistic fantasy, he also imbues it with unexpected streaks of sympathy—for humans and for humanoids—that actually add to the tension and the horror.

This coiled-wire story unfolds within the confined research compound and conceptually limitless world of a genius tycoon, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). He wrote the base code for the world’s dominant search engine when he was 13. Now he dwells in his own Fortress of Solitude in a mountainous northern clime. (The published script places the action in Alaska, but the stunning locations are Norwegian.) The movie starts when a young programmer wins a contest in Nathan’s company. His name is Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), and he looks impossibly boyish even for a lad in his mid-twenties.

The grand prize is to spend a week with Nathan at his lair. Caleb soon learns that he won’t just pal around with the boss in a grand-scale goodwill gesture, he’ll also test Nathan’s current object of obsession—a talking robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander), who could be Caleb’s dream girl. Her fresh face is crafted from some creamy flesh-like substance, and her fascinatingly curvy physique is molded from various metals and fibers that look tensile yet inviting. Special-effects supervisor Andrew Whitehurst has cited Brancusi as an influence on her design, but Ava plays like a runway superstar at the height of peekaboo fashion. She moves like a silvery vision—pretty and in synch. Apart from opaque patches on her chest and hips, she resembles a sensual version of the “Visible Woman” modeling kit, with fluid new technologies and snaky wiring viewable through her meshwork instead of bones, arteries, nerves, muscles, and veins. You notice strings of lights running down her neck like a vertical necklace or looping through her innards like warning lights at a rollercoaster turn. She’s the best-looking automaton ever—and the first that may be capable of thinking like a person.

Nathan wants Caleb to be the human component in his version of the Turing test. In the course of his getaway week he will interact with Ava and decide whether there’s any difference between this thinking robot and a real live human. Caleb says that to play “the Imitation Game” by classic rules, “the machine should be hidden from the examiner.” Nathan argues that Ava’s voice and verbal responses are so lifelike that Caleb would have to consider her human if he didn’t look at her. The true test, he contends, is whether Caleb can see Ava as the robot she is yet respond to her thoughts—and, yes, her emotions—as if they’re real.

The “Ava Sessions” comprise a superbly cunning setup for a surprisingly affecting sci-fi movie that’s also a merciless nail-biter. The content is cutting-edge science and the script is replete with debates, but Nathan’s challenge to Caleb puts the emphasis on his feelings and his ability to analyze the evidence of his senses. The narrative twists make viewers judge the depth of their own feelings and the keenness of their own senses. If you go in knowing it’s a thriller, you still wonder, in a good way, what kind of suspense is being generated, even as the film exerts an ineluctable pull. For long stretches Garland avoids conventional conflict and jeopardy while making clear that the stakes are as momentous as they are in a sci-fi epic like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (another movie that turns genre melodrama upside down, in an optimistic way). After all, bonding with the first fully human-like AI is as epochal an event as communicating up close with an ET. Ava is so enticing that Garland achieves erotic shock and awe.

That’s partly a tribute to Vikander, who at 26 has established herself as a performer of immense charm and range, breathing a full spectrum of poignancy into the ultimate ingénue role of Kitty in Anna Karenina (12), and summoning the passionate smarts needed to play Britain’s Princess Caroline Mathilde as an Enlightenment heroine in the terrific historical romance A Royal Affair (12). As Ava, Vikander explodes the concept of tabula rasa. She is not merely blank. She plays a multitude of nascent emotions infinitesimally small, as if Ava realizes how closely she’s being studied and knows that any flicker of her eye, upturn of her chin, or nibble of her lip creates a thunderous mood change. As a character, Ava is in turn touching and eerie. You may not realize how witty Vikander’s performance is until after the movie is over. Vikander does to moviegoers what Ava does to Caleb—draws us ever closer in.

Ava turns the tables on Caleb early on, noting, “You learn about me and I learn nothing about you”—forcing her interrogator to admit that it’s not a balanced foundation for friendship, as if being friends or lovers had always been their goal. Before long, it’s evident that she’s quicker at reading him than vice versa. She says she can tell that he’s attracted to her because of his “micro-expressions.” That’s a great word to describe the subtleties Gleeson invests in all his roles, even as the hero’s Army Air Force buddy in the bludgeoning Unbroken. Right now he’s nonpareil at playing a bright young man who can be affable to a fault, but is also wily and proud. He’s spontaneous and archetypal in Ex Machina—a scrawny Everyman for a wired world. He’s funny and sympathetic when he expresses fear, especially when he worries that shacking up with Ava would be like living with a lie detector.

In a narrative deck stacked with wild cards, Isaac’s Nathan is the craziest. He’s a mad scientist who is oppressively physical—a super-nerd who comes on as a crude guy’s guy. A workout fiend with a mysteriously silent mistress/assistant named Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), he shaves his pate down to a stubble, lets his beard and moustache go full, and sports oblong wire-rim glasses. Nathan is a mess of contradictions. He’s a control freak who gets drunk. He’s a connoisseur who puts Schubert and Bach on his sound system and Jackson Pollock and Gustav Klimt on his walls but pretends he’s wowed by Caleb’s eloquence and cowed by his cultural references—notably a glib nod to Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. After Isaac’s vapid Michael Corleone imitation in A Most Violent Year, it’s wonderful to see him comically original and creepy, whether disco-dancing with Kyoko or asking Caleb “Who you gonna call?” Isaac turns an unhinged knowingness into a horror-comic style.

Garland implants multiple themes in each strand of his simple plot. Even the asides in this movie are continuously intriguing, like Nathan assuring Caleb that his facial-recognition key-card will be a convenience, since it opens only rooms that should be guest-accessible. How often in this connected age do we barter away freedom for convenience?

In his most revealing speech, Nathan tells Caleb that his competitors thought search engines were “a map of what people were thinking. Actually, they were a map of how people were thinking. Impulse, response. Fluid, imperfect. Patterned, chaotic.” Those last half-dozen words sum up the look Garland, production designer Mark Digby, and cinematographer (as well as camera operator) Rob Hardy have devised for this movie. Garland and Digby imagine that Nathan carved his mostly subterranean grey-wood compound straight out of a craggy hill, then filled it with pieces that cry out “Scandinavian Modern.” It may be chilly, but it’s fun. For me, it evoked memories of Dr. Morbius’s rock-walled sanctuary in Forbidden Planet. Nathan lines one hallway with a display of masks through the ages. When Ava peers at them, the image is part Return to Oz, part Time-Life Books “March of Progress.” Whatever you think of him, Nathan is a genius who cross-pollinates digital and organic thinking. On the wall behind his computer he’s mounted a veritable cliff-side of Post-Its.

You think you see daggers of thought jump between his and Caleb’s eyes—that’s how precisely Garland and Hardy frame tense, elegant compositions. But they’re not slaves to formalism. Ava prepares herself for a fantasy date with Caleb in an intimate montage of loose, handheld shots, well cut by Mark Day. The movie is simultaneously playful and serious: blue bolts seem to shoot through Caleb’s ginger hair from the software Nathan embeds in company computers.

The movie is fraught with possibilities. Is Nathan genuine when he argues that every sort of consciousness contains a sexual element, or is he merely bending logic to explain his urges? Is Ava devoted to self-preservation or is she also in love, at least for a time, with Caleb? Is she ultimately a misanthrope, and if so, does that make the film misogynistic? (I say the latter notion is humorless, if not ridiculous.) And what responsibility does Nathan owe any conscious beings of his own creation after they’ve outlived their usefulness?

Ex Machina is the best kind of speculative fiction: its action is brisk, its characters startling, and its meanings multifarious.

Sight & Sound [Philip Kemp] January 23, 2015

"Consciousness Awakening" Enil Seth from New Scientist, January 21, 2015

'Ex Machina' Review: Artfully Programmed for Pleasure - WSJ Joe Morgenstern

Review: Alex Garland's Gripping, Brilliant, And Sensation ... Oliver Lyttelton from The Playlist

IGN.com [Chris Tilly]

“Ex Machina” and “About Elly” Reviews - The New Yorker Anthony Lane

Ex Machina Review: This Is What Sci-Fi-- What ALL Movies ... Vivian Kane from Pajiba

The Film Stage [Bill Graham]

Next Projection Adrian Charlie

Angeliki Coconi's Unsung Films [Hannah McHaffie] also seen here: Hannah McHaffie [Reel Insights]

Little White Lies [David Jenkins]

Digital Spy [Emma Dibdin]

Ex Machina Review - Vanity Fair Joanna Robinson

Critic's Notebook [Martyn Bamber]

The Hollywood Reporter [Stephen Dalton]

Ex Machina is smart sci-fi that loses its way - The AV Club Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from The Onion A.V. Club

Review: EX_MACHINA, How Men Perceive A ... - Twitch Shelagh Rowan-Legg

SXSW Review: EX MACHINA | Badass Digest Meredith Borders

AVForums [Cas Harlow]

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak on the Apple Watch ... Paul Smith from Australian Financial Review Weekend, March 24, 2015, also seen here: Wozniak fretted to The Australian Financial Review

Alex Garland's Overachieving 'Ex Machina' Jumps To 2000 Screens; Don't Hold Your Breath For A Sequel Mike Fleming from Deadline

The Playlist [Chase Whale] interview April 7, 2015

'Ex Machina': Standout Sci-Fi Film About Artificial ... - NPR Steve Inseep interviews LA Film Critic Kenneth Turan from NPR, April 10, 2015

'Ex Machina' Review: Oscar Isaac Stars in Alex Garland's ... Guy Lodge from Variety

Variety [Tim Gray]

Ex Machina review – dazzling sci-fi thriller - The Guardian Mark Kermode

The Guardian [Peter Bradshaw

Examiner.com [Travis Hopson] also seen here: Punch Drunk Critics [Travis Hopson]

New Jersey Stage [Eric Hillis]

Los Angeles Times [Mark Olsen]

LA Weekly [Amy Nicholson]

Ex Machina - Roger Ebert Matt Zoller Seitz

Philippe Garrel - Revolvy

"‘Ex Machina’ Features a New Robot for the Screen" Mekado Murphy from The New York Times, April 2, 2014, also seen here: New York Times [Mekado Murphy]

"Beware Our Mind Children" Maureen Dowd column from The New York Times, April 25, 2015

Garland, Judy – actress

Biography from Reel Classics

FRANCES GUMM was born to a family of vaudeville performers in Grand Rapids, Minnesota on June 10, 1922. She made her stage debut at age three, and appeared with her two older sisters in "The Gumm Sisters Kiddie Act" until the girls changed their name to Garland and one of them married, breaking up the act. Judy, as she was now called, encouraged by an ambitious mother, went solo with her big voice, and was signed by Louis B. Mayer to an MGM contract at age 13. Her first film (a short) was EVERY SUNDAY (1936) in which she played opposite the other rising child vocal star of the time, Deanna Durbin, but it was her portrayal of a young Clark Gable admirer in BROADWAY MELODY OF 1938 (1937) that brought her prominently into the public eye.

In her early career Judy made several films with Mickey Rooney, including LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY (1938) and BABES IN ARMS (1939), but it was her role as Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) that made her famous. She even won an honorary Oscar for her outstanding performance as a screen juvenile. Stardom had a price for Garland however, as she began to be plagued by a weight problem and stress. These led to drug problems as well, due to the pills the doctors were giving her to suppress her appetite, as well as those to help her sleep when the strain of work became too much.

Her film successes continued however, despite her personal struggles. After MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944) in which Judy immortalized the song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," she married the film's director Vincente Minnelli, and in 1946 had their daughter Liza Minnelli. This was the second of Garland's five marriages, and it ended in divorce in 1951. Despite other great performances in THE HARVEY GIRLS (1946), EASTER PARADE with Fred Astaire in 1948, and SUMMER STOCK in 1950 with Gene Kelly, Garland was fired by MGM in 1950 for chronically showing up late or not at all for work.

She began her comeback with the help of third husband, Sid Luft, through a number of live concert performances including an incredible 19-week engagement at the Palace Theater in New York. Finally in 1954, she returned to the screen in A STAR IS BORN with James Mason-- a performance which earned her a Best Actress nomination. Her personal troubles continued however, and though she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 1961 for JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG and gave a memorable concert at Carnegie Hall the same year, her film career, TV show, concert tours, and marriages all faltered. On June 22, 1969 Garland died of what was determined to be an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.

Judy Garland Reel Classics

mardecortesbaja.com :: EVERY LITTLE MOVEMENT (HAS A MEANING ALL ...

My dance with Judy Tom Nolan from The Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2010

Garrel, Philippe

BAM : Brooklyn Academy of Music Retrospective commentary

"Philippe Garrel is the proverbial underrated genius. He’s the closest thing to a poet functioning today in French cinema." —Olivier Assayas

"The greatest filmmaker you've almost certainly never heard of." —The New York Sun

A director’s director—called “the child of Cocteau and Godard” by Jacques Rivette—Garrel is one of the greatest French filmmakers of the past 40 years. A child of the Paris May ‘68 revolts, Garrel has created a unique filmography, both experimental and narrative. He has worked with icons such as Nico, Jean Seberg, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Catherine Deneuve, often examining relationships as haunted memory.

Philippe Garrel - REVOIR

Philippe Garrel (born April 6, 1948) is a French director, cinematographer, screenwriter, editor and producer. Despite his disappointing start in cinema with his film Marie for Memory (1967), it was in 1982 that Garrel accesses critical acclaim. Not only does he receive the Prix Jean Vigo for L'Enfant secret, he subsequently receives several prestigious awards, from the Cannes Festival and the Venice Film Festival.

After receiving an award in 2005, Garrel said: "I am a French independent filmmaker and I am proud that Italians recognize me. Italy is for me like a great university of cinema. "

His works often deal with the theme of the disruptive youth of the 1960s, of which he was a part of.

He has directed students of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art where he teaches acting classes. He also staged, in his films several of his friends and family members.

PHILIPPE GARREL - Films & Bio - French New Wave Director

Notes on the Cinema Stylographer: Philippe Garrel Archives Acquarello reviews from Strictly Film School

or, How I Became a Disciple of Philippe Garrel - LOLA Journal Aoyama Shinji from Cahiers du Cinema Japon (1997), translated and reprinted at Lola Journal, 2015

Masculine Subjectivity and the Representation of Woman: The Films of ... Hilary Radner from Senses of Cinema, September 12, 2000

Philippe Garrel - Filmography • Senses of Cinema compiled by Joelle Lê from Senses of Cinema, September 12, 2000

Voyeurism of the Soul: The Films of Philippe Garrel • Senses of Cinema Maximilian Le Cain from Senses of Cinema, February 13, 2001

French Maverick, Rebel Auteur: Four Films of Phili - Austin Film Society Jameson West from the Austin Film Society, November 27, 2007

Philippe Garrel's blunt romanticism - latimes Dennis Lim, May 31, 2009

notcoming.com | Philippe Garrel & Nico Leo Goldsmith, February 7, 2012

The mastery of French filmmaker Philippe Garrel | Bleader Ben Sachs from the Chicago Reader, July 17, 2012

Bohemia and Its Discontents - The New Yorker Richard Brody, October 3, 2013

Philippe Garrel, May '68 and the Zanzibar group - Senses of Cinema Pip Chodorov, September 6, 2015

New Horizons Film Festival Review • Senses of Cinema Rebecca Harkins-Cross, September 7, 2015

Philippe Garrel at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art ... Artforum, November 2015

Garrel's 'In the Shadow of Women' Illuminates a Love ... - Village Voice Melissa Anderson, January 12, 2016

Philippe Garrel's Intensely French “In the Shadow of Women” - The ... Richard Brody from The New Yorker, January 15, 2016

Philippe Garrel Gets Up Close With Jean Seberg and ... - Village Voice Melissa Anderson, February 21, 2017

In praise of Philippe Garrel, unsung icon of the French New Wave Matt Thrift from Little White Lies, April 6, 2017

TSPDT - Philippe Garrel They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

History is the Enemy of Art: Philippe Garrel on Les amants réguliers ... Stefan Grissemann feature and interview from Cinema Scope, 2006

The Everyday Fantasies of Philippe Garrel - Page - Interview Magazine Colleen Kelsey interview, November 5, 2013

A Conversation with Philippe Garrel (Part 1) | Filmmaker Magazine Vadim Rizov, Darren Hughes and Eric Hynes interview, January 13, 2016, also Pt 2 seen at Mubi Notebook here: Philippe Garrel in Conversation on Notebook | MUBI, while Pt 3 is at Reverse Shot here: Part 3 at Reverse Shot

Philippe Garrel - Wikipedia

MARIE FOR MEMORY (Marie pour Mémoire)

France (74 mi) 1967

Philippe Garrel was the only member of the Zanzibar group to continue making films. A ludicrously early starter (first movie at 14), he was at the heart of the group, a flamboyant, gifted galvaniser. Freud and the fascistic collaborate in this 'home movie' portrait of the repressive father. And Garrel calls on Rimbaud, Cocteau and the French Symbolisits to support his case for the artistic impulse in resistance. (For an introduction to Zanzibar films and the 'Dandies of '68' see the review of Deux Fois.)

LE RÉVÉLATEUR

France (67 mi) 1968

aurevelateur: reviews - Philip Brophy

Perhaps Garrel's most significant Zanzibar film, this is a startling silent b/w work about 'coming of age' and its implications for family and society. A deeply austere piece, lit only by a single pocket lamp, it follows the apocalyptic wanderings of a man, woman and child through a derelict insterstitial landscape. Four-year-old Stanislas Robiolles plays le révélateur (meaning the 'developer', in photographic terms), a child with a Christ-like mission. Rigorous and intense. (For an introduction to Zanzibar films and the 'Dandies of '68' see the review of Deux Fois.

Philadelphia City Paper [Sam Adams]

PIMA Group's 7:45 p.m. dance performance is followed by an outdoor video screening of Philippe Garrel's black-and-white 1968 silent, an avant-garde nightmare as unsettling as it is unforgettable. Shot on sensitive film stock that renders its blacks and whites uncommonly pure, Le Révélateur's images have a visual clarity matched by their conceptual simplicity. Each of the movie's long takes — there are no conventional cuts — features the same three actors: bohemian couple Laurent Terzieff and Bernadette Lafont plus 4-year-old Stanislas Robiolles, who at times seems to be their child, at others something more impenetrable and vaguely threatening. At its most unnerving, the movie suggests Night of the Living Dead recast as an abstract psychodrama: Garrel shoots his actors running along a strand of barbed-wire fence in tattered fur coats that are at once parodic and primal, finally tumbling into a quarry and pounding at the door of an isolated shack. That Garrel never suggests what malevolent force might be pursuing them only makes the movie stronger.

Le Révélateur, which puns on the French term for the chemical used to develop film, is an early but characteristic work by the enigmatic Garrel, a favorite of the Cinémathéque Français who has been gaining some aggressive champions of late (although so far his films are available only as import cassettes from the Re:Voir label). Ideally, his films, many of which are meant to be shown without sound, deserve an audience full of breathless acolytes, but Le Révélateur's visions are powerful enough to turn a Fishtown backyard into a place of worship.

Notes on the Cinema Stylographer: Le Révélateur, 1968 Acquarello from Strictly Film School

One of the experimental works created from the cadre of radical, emerging artists financed under the rubric of Zanzibar films that captured the spirit of May 68 and the counter culture revolution, Philippe Garrel's silent film Le Révélateur is a fractured and elliptical, but instinctive, elemental, and haunting rumination on the process of awakening, maturation, psychological trauma, and transformation of childhood memory. As the film begins, the révélateur - the processor of the images - is embodied through the isolated, spotlighted shot of a young boy (Stanislas Robiolles) in the corner of the frame, looking on as his father (Laurent Terzieff), apparently unaware of his presence in the room, struggles to connect with his abstracted mother (Bernadette Lafont) in an act of implied intimacy through the (iconic) sharing of a cigarette before fading into the proverbial background through a doorway suffused in a halo of light. But despite the physical act of transitory connection, what is ultimately retained in the child's camera/eye is not the residual image of tenderness and affection, but rather, a pattern of codependency, manipulation, madness, isolation, and perhaps even violence - an estrangement that is prefigured in the Freudian, reverse pietà image of the child emerging from a long, dark passageway towards his kneeling mother held in (apparently) resigned captivity tied to a cross at the end of the tunnel - a sense of pervasive emotional alienation and moral bondage that is further reinforced by the austerity and desolation of a seemingly godless, post-apocalyptic landscape. Pursued by an unseen, anonymous, but ubiquitous enemy (perhaps an allusion to the faceless nature of the embedded, guerrilla warfare tactics of the Vietnam War), the young family is compelled to leave the comfort of their dysfunctional home life and embark on an interminable journey to nowhere. Reduced to a life of perpetual exile and transience, the child begins to rebel, a defiance of parental control that is manifested in an act of literal repellance through his directed, repeated triggering of an aerosol can (in an elegantly composed, superimposed traveling shot) that further underscores his willful, symbolic act of distanciation from his parents. Reinforced by the subsequent shot of his parents posed as seeming trophy heads displayed on the corners of his headboard, the macabre image serves, not only to illustrate their role as trophic figures that he is weaning away from, but also represent their figurative impotence in his inevitable process of autonomy and independence. Concluding with the child donning his makeshift armor as he heads towards the sea, the image evokes a more primal Antoine Doinel (the adolescent alterego of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows) facing an alien and inalterable horizon - a silent and quixotic defiance against the oppressive and implacable forces of a cruel and inhuman human nature.

Belief in the Body: Philippe Garrel's Le Révélateur and Deleuze ... Belief in the Body: Philippe Garrel’s Le Révélateur and Deleuze, 14-page academic essay by Patrick Ffrench (pdf)

Le Revelateur and The Grandmother • Senses of Cinema Brad Steven from Senses of Cinema, May 3, 2000

Philippe Garrel, May '68 and the Zanzibar group - Senses of Cinema Pip Chodorov, September 6, 2015

New Horizons Film Festival Review • Senses of Cinema Rebecca Harkins-Cross, September 7, 2015

The Cinematic Threads Matthew Lotti

THE VIRGIN’S BED (Le Lit de la Vierge)

France (114 mi) 1969 ‘Scope

Zanzibar Cycle CINE-FILE Chicago

The phrase "Aidez-nous, détruisez-vous" (Help us, destroy yourselves) was a rabble-rousing graffito that marked the walls of University of Paris's Nanterre campus in May 1968. It was in this place and at this volatile time in world politics that a generation of French artists and thinkers defined themselves around youth and workers' movements (recently chronicled in such films as Bernardo Bertolucci's THE DREAMERS and Philippe Garrel's REGULAR LOVERS). Among them were the Zanzibar filmmakers, who took the many street mottos and images of the '68 protests and turned them into phantasmagoric film allegories, many of them shot in North and East African countries in sumptuous 35mm (a format rarely afforded to experimental cinema), and shown elusively to late-night audiences by Henri Langlois at the Cinémathèque Française. Difficult to see for decades, a selection of the thirteen or so films made under the Zanzibar header from 1968-70 have recently resurged through the efforts of researchers such as Sally Shafto and original Zanzibar filmmaker Jackie Raynal, who will be present for both programs. Programmed by Gabe Klinger with generous assistance from Jackie Raynal-Saleh.

In this post-revolutionary re-imagining of the story of Christ, '60s fashion icon Zouzou (later the Chloe of CHLOE IN THE AFTERNOON) alternates three roles as mourning mother, pregnant Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene , while a withered Pierre Clementi (BELLE DE JOUR, THE CONFORMIST) plays Jesus reborn into the present world. Wandering, unable to understand the indifference around him, he bangs on the doors of apparently empty houses, crying "I am the savior!" Shot in black and white 'Scope, production began in France, but when further financing came in from heiress and Zanzibar patron Sylvina Boissonnas, Garrel expanded to exotic Marrakech and to the sacred Christian catacombs of Rome. Punctuated by lyrical longtakes, the film is also distinguished by music from John Cale and Nico, who Garrel met in post-production and who would vitally influence many of his later films. (Minimal French dialogue with English subtitles).

Read the Program Notes Jameson West from the Austin Film Society

His is not a pious cinema, although it is a cinema of revelation.
--Gilles Deleuze, speaking of Philippe Garrel in The Time-Image

Zanzibar Films, less a production company than a state of mind, was originally formed under the auspices of a wealthy French heiress-turned-film-producer, Sylvina Boissonnas, as a haven for young Parisian artists and intellectuals whose only qualification was their willingness to transplant what they had witnessed in the lead up to the revolution onto the silver screen. The short-lived film collective was offered an unprecedented level of creative freedom at a time of great social upheaval and the few films that remain today stand as the most deliberate affront to French cinema’s classical narrative conventions on record. There were 13 film projects made under this banner between 1968 and 1970, many of which were never completed, went missing, or, in the case of Boissonnas’s directorial debut, entitled simply UN FILM, intentionally destroyed. Nevertheless, the films that survived document an important cultural heritage mapped out in a series of 35mm black-and-white experimental films, a virtual zeitgeist repository which taken together bridge the gap between the nouvelle vague and the avant-garde, Zanzibar films stepping in as their proudly illegitimate offspring.

The first film to bear the Zanzibar name, Serge Bard’s DETRUISEZ-VOUS (the title a reference to the incendiary mantra emblazoned on the graffiti-ridden walls of the University of Paris’s Nanterre campus: “Aidez-nous, détruisez-vous/Help us, destroy yourselves”), prefigured the events of the revolution of May ‘68 and was shot literally weeks before the uprising with prophetic scenes of lecturers speaking to empty classrooms. Soon after the revolution, more films began production under Zanzibar, many of them shot outside of France in Africa and Morocco by artists in self-imposed exile. Most were directed by first-time filmmakers who were famous for working in other facets of the industry. Jacquie Raynal, who had already been working as a professional editor on Eric Rohmer’s films, was encouraged by Boissonnas to direct a film of her own, resulting in DEUX FOIS, a film in which Raynal introduces herself and the story to follow by asserting, “This evening will mark the end of meaning.” Another Zanzibar film immediately following the revolution, VITE, a non-narrative, surrealist act of protest heavily influenced by the French Symbolists, was directed by the accomplished Daniel Pommereulle, a painter, sculptor and occasional actor who played Daniel in Eric Rohmer’s LA COLLECTIONNEUSE and Joseph Balsamo in Jean-Luc Godard’s WEEK-END, ironically proclaiming at one point in Godard’s anti-film, “I am here to announce the beginning of flamboyance in all domains, especially in the cinema.”

But out of all the various filmmakers and artists who factored into the Zanzibar constellation, it was Philippe Garrel who shined the brightest, a young savant who first made a name for himself by directing LES ENFANTS DESACCORDES at the tender age of 16 and whose MARIE POUR MEMORIE, made four years later, had won the top prize at the Festival d’Hyères in 1968. By the end of Zanzibar’s run, Garrel would make 3 films under the Zanzibar imprint: LA CONCENTRATION, starring New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud; LE REVELATEUR, featuring Laurent Terzieff, known for his roles in films by Pasolini, Carné, and Buñuel, and Bernadette Lafont, who played Marie in Jean Eustache’s LA MAMAN ET LA PUTAIN / THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE; and, lastly, the film which represents the culmination of the director’s early, radicalized career, LE LIT DE LA VIERGE, begun only months after May 1968, with Garrel leaving the barricades of Paris behind to travel to Marrakesh and Rome.

LE LIT DE LA VIERGE opens on an extreme close-up of Zouzou, the model/actress, here playing dual roles – The Virgin Mary (the Mother) and Mary Magdalene (the Whore), an unholy trinity of fame, divinity and carnality, wrapped up in a headscarf and shrouded in black. Her expression is one of quiet rapture and calm ecstasy. The camera slowly tracks back on the woman’s blissful state, revealing a bed floating near the sea. Garrel, who once described cinema as “Freud plus Lumière,” plays with Oedipal themes throughout the course of the film, preoccupations which go back to his early Cocteau and Dreyer-influenced silent film, LE REVELATEUR. As the canvas widens further, another figure (Pierre Clementi, an actor who likewise directed a number of Zanzibar films, here playing Jesus Christ in a trance-like, mythmaking performance) dressed in white linen emerges from the water, shivering and bewildered, a child naked and delivered from the womb. The family is now complete – save for an absentee Father.

Thus begins Garrel’s first in a series of exactly 30 extended tracking shots which make up the whole of LE LIT DE LA VIERGE. If tracking shots really are “a question of morality,” as Godard, inverting Luc Moulet’s assertion in a 1959 issue of Cahiers du Cinema, so ingeniously proclaimed, then Philippe Garrel’s LE LIT is undoubtedly the most moral – or, perhaps more appropriately, morally questionable – film ever made. With the revolution still fresh in his mind, Garrel, effortlessly manages to compress the Immaculate Conception, the Resurrection and the Crucifixion in a single, circular, blasphemous movement, all the while posing a question at the outset uniquely suited to his time: What would Jesus do if he were reborn a Parisian in 1968? No one in the film, including the Savior himself, seems to quite know the answer. What follows in the parabolic arc of Garrel’s allegorical tale reflects his profound disillusionment to this end, one that the director would carry with him for 40 more years and 30 some films, all the way up through LES AMANTS REGULIERS.

Jesus, the reluctant revolutionary, is greeted with scorn upon his entrance into the city, treated kindly only by the prostitutes and lost children he encounters along the way. Amid all the cries and desolation above, the film eventually moves underground to the sacred Christian catacombs of Rome, where an even worse fate awaits him. Herein lies the horrors of the failed revolution, a nightmarish wellspring of shackled and wailing prisoners, masked men and tear-gas, guard dogs and firing squads; a surreal mosaic of serpentine hallways, ancient crypts, and half-mad generals; a “liturgy of bodies” as Gilles Deleuze, the French philosopher and film theorist, once referred to them. According to this dark vision of a crumbling civilization filled with straw men and scarecrows stuffed with newspaper, one can only barter with rocks – or, in a more apropos translation, “cobblestones.” In Garrel’s blasphemous version of the Bible story, Jesus is a lost soul in the complete sense, thrust upon a world he wants little to do with. Kafka’s lose-lose scenario: The Son of God can’t gain entrance to the Castle, even with a bullhorn. Sadly, the Savior’s only solace comes from playing that most existential of games: Hopscotch.

In the end, LE LIT DE LA VIERGE is a refutation of practically everything: revolution, religion, atheism, apathy, engagement, affectation, asceticism, action, inaction. Even the collectivist spirit of the Zanzibar group, evidenced by the lack of credits, is deliberately undermined by the director’s appearance as himself in a scene in which he boldly orchestrates the action, pointing the camera towards the two leads as Nico’s “The Falconer” plays ominously on the soundtrack. This willingness to separate himself from the pack was received poorly by many of his fellow Zanzibar filmmakers who accused the film of betraying the intentions of the movement, with its aesthetic beauty, technical virtuosity and deeply pessimistic view of the revolution and its promise. In this way, Garrel succeeded in making a truly total and unified provocation, an achievement that was in keeping with the true spirit of the Zanzibar vows, but like so many of the aims espoused by the zealous militants of the May ’68 revolution, was more acceptable to them in purely theoretical terms.

Notes on the Cinema Stylographer: Philippe Garrel Archives Acquarello from Strictly Film School

YouTube - Le Lit de la vierge (Philippe Garrel, 1969) - clip (3:30)

THE INNER SCAR (La Cicatrice Intérieure)

France (60 mi) 1972

User reviews from imdb Author: mingus_x from N.Y.

one of the worlds most underrated directors and one of his early masterpieces (besides 'les hautes solitudes'(jean seberg_those wonderful eyes, those secret moments !)). i have seen those movies about ten years ago and since then desperately try to make it all happen again, but monsieur garrel hides his work in paris from the outside (video)dvd-world, why ??(why not, he may answer since his french production company has got this name) please hear(read) this and make at least one of your admirers life joyful again...

User reviews from imdb Author: (mmillington554@hotmail.com) from United Kingdom

Where to begin? A review of a film over 30 years old, seen by so few people that its existence in the public domain is now a source of wonderment. How I don't know, but somehow a version of this film has surfaced in Japan on DVD, complete with Japanese subtitles. Little help one suspects for a bemused audience needing fluent French, English and German to follow the plot and the songs.

Plot, however, is something of a misnomer. There appears to be one...of sorts.

In some ways this is Nico's film. She wrote the script, has a central role in the film, and provides about half of her songs from her album Desertshore, and the later recorded Konig, as soundtrack. In fact the songs are integral to the film in a way that predates the later use of promotional video. She looks, as always, stunning. Even though dressed in what looks like biblical sackcloth, cut in a modern design. Philippe Garrel was said to have designed their clothes.

The main star of the film is not however human - it is the landscape. Garrel has filmed his story in a wide range of deserts. Hot sandy deserts, cold glacial deserts, hot rocky deserts, hot lava deserts in a cold environment. Earth, fire and water (often in the form of ice) are very much at the centre of the film. This return to the elements, to the absolute basics of being, provides a platform from which a narrative evolves. Not many films have not only the distinction of being filmed in Sinai, Death Valley and Iceland, but of making the landscapes such a central feature of each scene.

Given the difficulties of getting to see this film at all, I'll run the risk of "spoiling" the plot by talking about it. This is nowhere near as straightforward as might be assumed. Any description of the plot will inevitably involve a good deal of speculation and interpretation.

The films opens with Philippe Garrel walking a rocky path. His clothing and general appearance indicate a poet, a romantic. He encounters Nico sitting on a rock. In silence he takes her onto his path and into his journey. She asks "where are you taking me", receives no answer, but continues to walk with him.

The next scene has Nico, totally distraught, sitting in a different desert holding onto Garrel, who appears to want to leave. Eventually he pulls away from her hand and walks away. He walks around in a circle, panned perfectly by the camera, stepping over Nico as he completes his circle, only to walk another circle before she stands, pushes him away and wanders off in a different direction. All of this accompanied by Janitor of Lunancy, a sado-masochistic song about power in relationships addressing the past, present and future. You might think that this is the end of the relationship, but no, because they break up again as they walk along a glacier in a different desert. This time Garrel dies, but Nico survives.

And hence into a sort of opening scene, where Nico provides a commentary in German.

Nico appears from this point on to have become something of an old testament prophet. Dressed in her biblical sackcloth and standing on a rock in yet another another desert, she has a soliloquy, contrasting nonsense with mercy, concluding that there is no mercy, before being given a small goat by a passing shepherd. She has prophesied that the "waters will rise over your heads".

Cue for the next scene to begin with a small sailing boat containing a naked man washed up on a glacial beach. This is the archer and horseman. He mounts an Icelandic pony who takes him away. Nico is still prophesying, at first on a cliff, then in one of the most beautiful scenes ever filmed, standing on a rock at the base of a waterfall from where she informs him that "we can never be here until we die/dance???". The photography in these scenes in especially impressive. The technical difficulties of filming large scale scenes with dialogue against a wind swept or water teeming backdrop are transcended. All scenes are shot in real time with a single moving camera. There is no visual editing to improve the realism. Garrel makes every shot count.

In the next scene the fireguard picks up and carries a bowl of fire. Walking slowly against the wind and past lava flows, he guards the flame, before merging with the dark.

A naked child, alone, lies on a bed of feathery down, indented in the glacial ice. A nest. The archer sails in, bringing a bowl of fire, and sets it down on the icy shore. The child is pleased.

We now enter the land of fire. The horseman is running across a flat hilltop, volcanoes in the distance, tracked by the camera until he encounters Nico, still as a statue. She is petrified to the spot. He wakes her from a spell. She wants him to stay but she walks backwards away from him. They leave in different directions. He turns to watch her in the distance. Two figures in a landscape somehow conjoined but very separated.

Nico, wind swept, stands high above a glacial lake. The scene lingers, wind providing the only movement. The camera turns 90 degrees. The horseman rides in from nowhere. They walk together toward the seashore. He sails away, she returns inland.

Nico walks down a rocky path. She finds the fire king. He sees her sitting high on a ledge above his cave. He climbs the rock to pass her his sword. She has become king. The song Konig accompanies the scene.

The New York Times (Roger Greenspun)

LES HAUTES SOLITUDES

France (80 mi) 1974

A Tale of Two Conferences: For Ever Godard and Garrel Éternel ... Maximilian Le Cain from Senses of Cinema, July 18, 2001 (excerpt)

Les Hautes solitudes is a silent, black and white study primarily of three women - Nico, Tina Aumont and, especially, Jean Seberg - and the nature of performance (a man, Laurent Terzieff, also fleetingly appears). In a series of close up images of heart stopping beauty, the sort that bring to mind Jean Renoir's claim that it was the power of the close-ups of actresses in the cinema of the '20s that made him want to make films, Aumont and Seberg improvise psychodramas.

Philippe Garrel Gets Up Close With Jean Seberg and ... - Village Voice Melissa Anderson, February 21, 2017 (excerpt)

Two rarities playing on repertory screens this week, both made in the mid-1970s, forge a bizarre alliance: One is about the feminine mystique; the other, The Feminine Mystique.

Receiving its first-ever theatrical release in the U.S., Philippe Garrel's Les Hautes Solitudes (1974), showing at Metrograph in a new DCP restoration, takes one of the signature enchantments of the post–Nouvelle Vague director's work to its extreme. Garrel's films, as demonstrated in his most recent, 2015's In the Shadow of Women, are invariably populated by faces to get lost in, striking visages further distinguished by exquisite planes and angles. For the entirety of its 80 silent minutes, Les Hautes Solitudes consists of nothing but close-ups, in grainy black-and-white, of four hauntingly beautiful people: Nico, the Teutonic chanteuse with the sepulchral voice and Garrel's lover and muse for most of the decade; the Continental actors Laurent Terzieff and Tina Aumont; and, as the project's fragile fulcrum, its héroïne malheureuse, Jean Seberg, the native Iowan (and longtime resident of France), here eons removed from the double-crossing pixie she played in Godard's Breathless (1960).

As the title of Garrel's film — best translated as "the high" or "the elevated" solitudes, a concept inspired by the director's reading of Nietzsche — would suggest, Seberg is primarily shown in a kind of lofty, though debilitating, isolation. (So too are her three "co-stars," of whom Aumont receives the most screen time.) Born in 1938, Seberg, who began her career as the protégée of Otto Preminger, was only in her mid-thirties when Garrel shot Les Hautes Solitudes, but her mien conveys some of the real-life horrors she had been enduring. Beginning in the late 1960s, the J. Edgar Hoover–led FBI set out to destroy her, outraged by the actress's financial support of the Black Panther Party and her romantic involvement with African-American activists. The agency succeeded: She overdosed on barbiturates in 1979 in her Renault. Seberg would not be found by the Paris police, who ruled her death "a probable suicide," until ten days later.

Some of Seberg's anguish in Garrel's film is obviously performed, never more so than when we first see her, roughly five minutes in, after Nico's sole appearance and Terzieff's initial one: Lying in bed, Seberg wakes and thrashes about, her actions calling to mind a not particularly successful Actors Studio audition. The histrionics, though, are kept to a minimum; the real drama of Les Hautes Solitudes, its power and allure, emerges when Seberg does very little but look directly at the camera. That gaze returned to the lens became something of a trademark early in the actress's career: Preminger instructed her to stare blankly back during a scene in Bonjour Tristesse (1958), an action that she made even more defiant — and cryptic — at the end of Breathless. Seberg's steady looks in Garrel's film have more affect: At various times she appears pleading, appeasing, or despondent, at once transparently vulnerable and guardedly enigmatic. Les Hautes Solitudes is both ravishing portraiture and wordless biography, a life and aura distilled to glances and gestures.

In praise of Philippe Garrel, unsung icon of the French New Wave Matt Thrift from Little White Lies, April 6, 2017

LE BERCEAU DE CRISTAL

France (80 mi) 1976

User reviews from imdb Author: david melville (dwingrove@qmuc.ac.uk) from Edinburgh, Scotland

A weird and dreamy minimalist underground art movie, Le Berceau de Cristal offers no joy whatsoever to mainstream film buffs - but doomed romantics, drug takers and fans of director Philippe Garrel may find it hypnotic and profoundly moving. An androgynous poet/dreamer (played by Nico - Velvet Underground singer, Eurotrash icon and Garrel's other half) sits and writes and meditates on the aching void that is her life. Hieratic and semi-mythical beings show up to haunt her dreams. Dominique Sanda as a fleshy Pre-Raphaelite earth goddess. Anita Pallenberg as an impishly grinning, emaciated drug diva - shooting up live on camera. An early icon of 'heroin chic.'

Not one of these figures utters a word to disturb Nico's reverie. Beyond the poet's voice is only silence and an intermittent, achingly lovely music score. (Uncredited, but perhaps the work of Garrel's frequent collaborator, the Velvet Underground guitarist John Cale.) Impossible to say what any of this is about, only that - in the last few seconds - Nico takes out a revolver and blows a hole in her skull. By that time, you may be so bored that you have an overwhelming desire to do the same, or you may be - as I was - curled up in a primal ball, gazing raptly at the screen and silently sobbing.

So if you are a morbid manic-depressive neo-romantic, Le Berceau de Cristal is the film for you. If you value your sanity, stay well clear.

L’ENFANT SECRET

aka: Secret Child

France (92 mi) 1982

December 2006 - Supposed Aura Mubarak Ali, December 28, 2006

Since I haven't yet seen most of the key films of 2006, I won't do a traditional 'top ten of the year'. This being a film-centric blog, however, I wanted to end the year with a set of film mentions - a personal greatest hits of 2006 - composed of excavated 'older' films, immortal images, if only for the sake of some clarity before the start of a new year, along with an expression of fondness for these films, which were seen in a variety of formats during the year - from theatrical screenings to DVDs to DVD-Rs to VHSs, etc. I didn't include videos streamed online from sites like YouTube, Ubuweb, or Directors' Lounge TV, although I should mention that there have been some wonderful additions during the year to all three (such as the Toshio Matsumoto short films added a few weeks ago at Ubuweb, or the original conceptual art videos of David Anthony Sant at YouTube, or the films of André Werner at DLTV). And I haven't been keeping a film log this year, so I hope I'm not forgetting something major...

Favourite film seen for the first time this year: Philippe Garrel's L'Enfant secret (1982), experienced not projected as has been a dream of mine for some time, but on the DVD release by a Japanese label, Uplink DVD Collection. This film marks the beginning of his narrative period and remains, from what I've seen of his works, his most stunning achievement to date: an extemporaneous convergence of fragmented autobiographical content and the (early) Garrelian experimental form, of seeming studies of portraiture and painfully intimate fiction that moves as if dictated by a pulse ("a camera in place of the heart"). By describing the film's characters (ex-Bressonian models, Anne Wiazemsky and Henri de Maublanc) as 'silent cinema phantoms' is not to deny them of their corporeality or their psychological force - which is on display here, perhaps more than anywhere else in Garrel's oeuvre - but to draw attention to Garrel's eternal engagement with the birth of cinema, the discovery of movements, the dawning of new eras. Also worthy of mention: his Elle a passé tant d'heures sous les sunlights... (1985), a 'meta' companion piece that anticipates the sublime incompleteness of Sauvage Innocence (2001).

Philippe Garrel's L'Enfant secret (1982) - Rouge Serge Daney, also seen here: Rouge [Serge Daney]

A man communicates that he has suffered. A filmmaker claims to be testifying for his generation. An experience struggles to become a story. A frozen narrative still burns. Is it a film? If so, then L’Enfant secret bears little resemblance to what passes today as French cinema. ‘Suffering’, ‘testimony’, ‘experience’, ‘narrative’ – ill-seen, ill said, old-fashioned words, words that frighten. Let’s start again.

The man has suffered but he doesn’t complain too much (he’s a dandy). His generation? Lost, of course, but there’s more to it, since it’s our generation. The experience? There’s no point in mourning. A man and a woman with biblical names (Elie and Jean-Baptiste), played by two Bressonian actors (Anne Wiazemsky and Henri de Maublanc) – shock treatment meets overdose under the rooftops of Paris. And between them Swann, the child, a badly kept secret. The Swan, a sign of life and mutual survival: the child of children, a fragment of trembling celluloid. And what about the narrative? They don’t make them like this anymore. Each moment, cut as finely as flint, fondled like a pebble passed from hand to hand, with a beginning and end, a before and after. In that case, let’s start again.

This isn’t the kind of suffering that’s proud of itself, but silent, contained, having few words and images at its disposal. What counts is that it’s there. In the place that he’s had to pass through. In a convulsive gesture (watch Wiazemsky’s hands in the final scene) or a toneless voice (listen to the man talk about his psychiatric confinement: the pain of ‘putting himself together again’ between two periods of absence from himself). It’s in the ugliness of hotel rooms in a freezing cold Paris. It’s on a blood-stained sheet, in the overdue smile of one character, in the grin that passes for a smile of another. There’s nothing to say about suffering. It’s every man for himself, shot by shot. The same goes for the spectator (it’s taken for granted that the spectator has also suffered).

As for the testimony, one can laugh for sure. One more lost generation! Of late (with the appearance of Mourir à trente ans), questions have been asked about which veteran will recount the fine tales of the generation that was twenty in ’68 (Garrel’s generation). Who will film the militancy, the drugs, the destitution, the trips and the flips? Which insider can do it? Now L’Enfant secret isn’t The Mother and the Whore but, ten years on, it’s the film that comes closest to it. In Eustache’s film characters spoke until they vomited, they never stopped judging, discourse might have killed them. Yet they clung on to a zone of mortal silence at the heart of a native language taken to breaking point.

With Garrel we have the inverse situation. Characters are too quiet, the words they use too awkward, no one knows how to judge anymore, they form part of a world where everyone must be good (Garrel’s angelism, no secret to anyone) and that must exist somewhere but never quite where one is. Garrel carves out a zone of ‘blank’ monologues at the heart of aphasia. Observe Elie and Jean-Baptiste talking to each other captured by a single aerial camera movement. ‘Have you eaten today?’ – ‘Wait, let me tell you about the film ... ’

Now to experience. It isn’t smooth communication. It’s a very poor conductor of ‘social phenomena’ but it leaves traces. Garrel thinks it necessary that these traces be as unspectacular as possible, because spectacle is tied to the other pole of experience, that of marketing. We are wide of the mark here in France wishing to sacrifice everything to spectacle (or to its hypocritical denunciation à la Yves Boisset), because French cinema is very strong on experience, on the existential, and quite weak on the spectacular. That’s the way it is. What makes French cinema unique is unsummarisable films, works that appear to be pages torn from logbooks or intimate diaries, and a preference for black-and-white and voice-over: Un chant d’amour, Pickpocket, Le Testament d’Orphee, Le Petit Soldat, L’Enfance nue, L’Amour fou, all of Eustache and now L’Enfant secret.

To finish, let’s look at narrative. This is where the film gets it most right, the place of this gruelling recovery à la Jean Paulhan. You narrate in order not to die or because you’re dead already (look out for the next Raul Ruiz!). You narrate to recover. It’s a sign of life to say ‘before’ and ‘after’, something that really intrigued Robert Musil. Garrel’s filmography sometimes has been like the desert in La Cicatrice intérieure, as flat as an encephalogram, with ascents to the Sulpician sky and camera-icon gazes. In this regard, the narrative of L’Enfant secret, so taut, so ‘impoverished’, is staggering. And since the question is one of childhood, I think of this Tom Thumb of modern cinema who, over the course of fourteen films, has learnt one thing: you must scatter crumbs of bread behind you and each one must be unique. The ‘scenes’ of L’Enfant secret are long inserts, playlets or (Jean Douchet has good reason to say) caresses. If they are sometimes arid (put it down to what remains here of amateur cinema), then they are also sumptuous (you have to remember that Garrel doesn’t at all deny beauty, that from an early age it had him on his knees).

It’s as if this autobiographical film has succeeded in holding its bearings without forgetting the trace of each stage of the journey it’s passed through. Fragments of pure sensory experience (touching, feeling cold), heartless acts (shock therapy), serene and furtive moments. I very much like the scene where Jean-Baptiste, now truly destitute, lights the butt he has just picked up from under a bench. I was fooled into believing that Griffith or Chaplin had returned for an instant. Garrel has succeeded in filming something we have never seen before: the faces of actors in silent films during those moments when the black intertitles, with their paltry, illuminated words, filled the screen.

Reprinted with permission from Ciné journal vol. 2 1983-1986 (Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, 1998). Originally appeared in Libération 19 February 1983. Translated by Fergus Daly and Adrian Martin.

Spirits in the Night - A Reply to Adrian Martin on ... - Senses of Cinema Spirits In The Night – A reply to Adrian Martin on Garrel's L'Enfant secret, by Fergus Daly,September 18, 2001

Philippe Garrel's L'enfant secret (1979) | Peter Larkin´s Film Blog November 2, 2016

L'ENFANT SECRET | Spectacle

LIBERTÉ, LA NUIT

France (82 mi) 1983

In his 1988 documentary on post-New Wave filmmakers (Eustache, Akerman, Doillon, Jacquot, Techine, Carax, Werner Schroeter) Les ministeres de l’art Garrel singles out Doillon’s 1979 La femme qui pleure for particular praise. So it’s interesting that Liberte, la nuit, coming between the two, has a central section of precisely that: a crying woman. Mouche, separated from political activist Jean (he’s involved in a clandestine Algerian group during the Algerian struggle for independence), is shown weeping as she sews in an otherwise empty theatre; then again breaking down as she sits in the car with Jean. But in this later scene Garrel privileges Mouche (a magnificent Emanuelle Riva), immediately cutting to another shot in the car, this time not weeping, with an overlaid piano score cutting out Jean’s voice.

Mouche is also the focus of a central scene in the middle of the film, when she’s assassinated by the OAS for supplying guns to the Algerians. The film stock suddenly changes, and the otherwise grey-toned black-and-white shifts into a over-grainy impressionism.

But Liberte, la nuit is a mixed success. The subsequent romance bewteen Jean and a much younger pied noir seems pretty unconvincing to me, and the sequence of their idyll by the sea, keyed to a piano score, is in some shots terribly banal. Fortunately it’s balanced by some magnificent filmmaking, when the camera holds on Christine Boisson’s face at length, as she sits there, simply being.

User reviews from imdb Author: Alice Liddel (-darragh@excite.com) from dublin, Ireland

'Liberte, la nuit' is not really a political film, or, at least, a film about politics. Its central figures are an aging revolutionary helping Algerians in the anti-colonial war against France, his separated wife, a dressmaker who gives them guns, and his mistress, a French Algerian emigree. Such a set-up might offer opportunities for allegory - white Algeria returning to the aging bosom of the fatherland, and all that. The film's most dynamic sequence is pure political thriller, an assassination by the OAS, confusingly shot and edited on grainy stock that evokes both documentary immediacy and the whirring of a surveillance camera, complete with exciting car chase. The human relationships - especially the drawn-out separation of Jean and Mouche, are said to be caused by his political activity, while his contact with others has some basis in his 'work'. Even, as I say, his final escape with an apolitical menial has political overtones; and their idyll is ultimately no escape from history.

'Liberte' is shot in monochrome, a consciously artificial act in the context of 1983, allowing for the artificiality of talk, movement and composition throughout the film. Unlike most contemporary films that use black and white, for its shadowy Expressionist/film noir effect, Garrel privileges gleaming white over murky black. This, together with its concern with dream, memory and the past, connects 'Liberte' to another elegiac film about an aging revolutionary living past his moment, Resnais' 'La Guerre est finie' - the gleaming white contributes to the dreamlike effect Garrel gives his static, mostly empty exteriors; near the end, there is an astonishingly beautiful silhouette of a pier and buoys in shadow against a sea that looks like it was lit from underneath. 'Liberte' can't help recall that other famous, and famously banned, French classic about the Algerian War, Godard's 'Le Petit Soldat', another black and white, dialogue-driven film in which political violence mingles with personal dilemmas.

The film is called 'Liberte, la nuit', and frames two types of liberty, the struggle for political freedom, and the more personal freedom within relationships (and in the conflict with one's aging, one's reputation) against the central scene of Mouche's assassination. This pattern sees Mouche gravitating unwillingly towards political action, and Jean in the opposite direction. It's never quite clear what Jean's precise political activities are - when we first see him he is talking to a friend, their children in the back seat, about a retired film director. When they meet a group of Algerians, Jean could as easily be a drug dealer as a revolutionary - he speaks in a language which is not translated, emphasising the presumed audience's outsider status and Jean's sense of belonging or negotiating between two groups. However, this sense of being two seems to make him less of a man - throughout are interspersed sketchy, incomplete pictures that provide a kind of commentary.

This crosscutting of Mouche and Jean, is also figured in the move from interiors or cramped exteriors to wider vistas, mountains, lakes etc. But there is another movement that suggests Garrel's true interest: a gendered one. His film features two realms, a male and female one. The male one is one of action and history, one that speaks, analyses and moves with ease between realms. the female one, by contrast, is marked by immobility and silence, their inner selves signalled by the music that plays over their activities. If they do speak it is to mouth their husband's lines (the puppeteer's wife), or to react to their husband's decisions.

Mouche's movement into the male world of action results in her death. Jean's move into the female world of reaction, where he longs to be consumed by apathy, results in his. In a marvellous closing shot, literally so. Jean finally tracked down and executed, his death signals the film's end, freezing the rippling water and breeze, confirming that it was a film or world made in his image, which would die with him. that there can be no real connection between these realms is suggested in tense compositions that imprison characters in frames at the mercy of their unseen interlocutors.

d+kaz [Daniel Kasman]

ELLE A PASSÉ TANT D’HEURES SOUS LES SUNLIGHTS…

aka: She Spent So Many Hours Under Sun Lamps

France (130 mi) 1985

Strictly Film School Acquarello

Faceted, fragmented, and oneiric, Philippe Garrel's Elle a passé tant d'heures sous les sunlights... (She Spent So Many Hours Under the Sun Lamps) is more exorcism than expurgation, elegy than lamentation - an abstract, yet lucid chronicle of love and loss, death and birth sublimated through textural, self-reflexive impressions, visceral gestures, and metaphoric tableaux. A profoundly personal film dedicated to the memory of friend and fellow filmmaker (and May 68 idealist) Jean Eustache, and haunted by the unreconciled specter of Garrel's failed relationship with Nico, the film opens to a crepuscular image of a couple - perhaps an actor and his lover (Jacques Bonnaffé and Anne Wiazemsky) as apparent surrogates for Garrel and Nico - in the midst of a breakup on a public street on a cold, winter evening, as their seemingly tenuous reconciliation is truncated by the subsequent shot of the couple returning home, and an all too familiar rupture as she once again lapses into the desensitized haze of heroin addiction in the distraction of his preoccupying rehearsals. A seemingly isolated shot of another woman, an actress named Marie (Mireille Perrier) waiting in the office of the Ministry of Art subsequently connects the troubled couple through the sound of the rapid, half-whisper, off-screen script reading, first by the actor preparing for the role in the apartment, then subsequently by the voice of the filmmaker, Philippe (Philippe Garrel) as he casts her in his latest project - the seemingly disparate narrative arcs reconciled through the intersection of the autobiographical nature of Philippe's proposed project inspired by his own tumultuous relationship with model, singer, actress, and muse Nico (a transparency between art and life that is further compounded by the eventual appearance of Garrel as the director of the "film within a film" film). Another break in logic is created in the long shot of the actor, in the role of the film director, discarding a film reel from a bridge overlooking the river before meeting Marie, initially unfolding as the shooting of a film scene through the transformation of Marie's visage at the moment of performance, but subsequently subverted by the repeated episode of the couple - perhaps no longer acting in character - driving away, a romantic liaison that is reinforced by a subsequent, silent image of the couple engaged in an (apparently) intimate conversation.

Gradually, the bounds between reality and fiction begin to disintegrate in the interpenetration of dreams and memories, passions and anxieties, becoming increasingly fractured and irresolvable. Like his alter-ego character on the bridge, Philippe has grown apprehensive over the seeming irresolution of the film, and enlists the aid of friends: Chantal Akerman who is, uncoincidentally in the process of shooting The Eighties, a metafilm on the nature of repetition and performance); Christa, also played by Wiazemsky, and who, in turn, also evokes a self-reflexive, permeable reality through reconstructed, iconic poses that not only allude to Nico's early career as a fashion model, but also mimic the Bressonian model figuration of her character, Marie in Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar); and actor Lou Castel, whose "new" character is introduced midway through the film shoot as Marie's new paramour (and indirectly, replacing Philippe - through his alter-ego - from her life). It is interesting to note that in introducing Castel into the film, Philippe not only enables a means of closure for his failed relationship with his former lover through their surrogate selves, but also illustrates the emotional process of transference, transition, and figurative rebirth. In essence, the transfiguration of death - subliminally illustrated, initially, through the liberating image of Marie riding carefree in an automobile to the music of Nico that serves as an evocative counterpoint to Jean Eustache's debilitation from a car accident, then subsequently, through the shot of a somber Garrel standing beside a collapsed noose that alludes to Eustache's suicide - inevitably paves the way for the film's second chapter (and metaphoric turning point), La Nativité. Inspired by the birth of his son, Louis (and who would later appear Emergency Kisses and Regular Lovers), the film dissolves into an instinctual collage of quotidian portraitures - of actors waiting, pacing, observing - of temps morts. Concluding with the elliptical, parting shot of Philippe standing by a window in visible discomfort as evening approaches, his suffering becomes as a double entendred, metaphoric representation: the physical withdrawal (whether through substance abuse or the separation of death) of profound loss, and the implacable - but necessary - ache of realized creation.

EMERGENCY KISSES (Les Baisers de Secours)

France (90 mi) 1989

The fine texture of Garrel’s personal, introspective, melancholic, poetic cinema lies not only in his obsessive circling round the (for him) eternal question of nature of love and the couple, with his own personal history (past relationships, past heroin addiction) thrown into the mix, but in the look and feel of the cinematic image itself.

There’s a great scene in Emergency Kisses where the director’s wife visits the actress her husband has chosen to star in his new film, in order to convince her to turn that role down, as it’s her role, based on her life. Their conversation is in a single take (common to conversations throughout the film) and the camera moves with the speakers, the black-and-white softening and whiting-out as they stand by the window, then regaining its clearer contrasts as they resume their seats at the table. The to-and-fro of conversation, camera movement and image texture are all as one.

The autobiographical quality to Emergency Kisses is a fascinating one, with the film’s director being played by Garrel himself, his wife Jeanne played by his wife of the time (Brigitte Sy), his son by his son (Louis Garrel – Regular Lovers’ star making an appearance as a toddler), his father by his father (Maurice Garrel). But ambiguous too, as each is still performing a role written (co-written with novelist Marc Cholodenko) for this film. The story itself is focused on the dissolution of the couple, with each committing what is seen by the other as an act of betrayal. For the wife, it’s the husband’s choice of another actress to play herself. For the husband, it’s the deliberate act of adultery (staged for the eyes of both husband and son). And it’s the son that brings the couple together again, but with the whole nature of this couple at the end of the film left at a point of uncertain irresolution.

J’ENTENDS PLUS LA GUITARE A 96

aka: I Don’t Hear the Guitar Anymore

France (98 mi) 1991

One doesn’t get a chance to see films like this very often, a premiere in Chicago 17 years after it was released, opening with little or no fanfare, no special announcements or critical appraise, little to alert the public of a special event, playing in a near empty theater where only those few who have heard about it by word of mouth are there. Garrel’s more appreciative work was his most recent film, REGULAR LOVERS (2005), a mammoth 3-hour work that looks behind the scenes at the student demonstrations in Paris during the late 60’s which played the festival circuit and was widely acclaimed, starring Garrel’s own son Louis who may as well be the poster child for French films. To my knowledge, that is the only film that had a run here in the United States. Garrel’s other 25+ films have only been talked about, perhaps a few have been screened across the country in recent retrospectives, but most have never been seen. This is a magnificent looking film, one that takes full advantage of the utilization of space, usually from close to medium range shots where the emptiness of the unfilled space between characters becomes one of the themes of the film. Cinematographer Caroline Champetier makes it all look effortless with an extremely fluid camera style that at times resembles choreography, particularly the way she changes the focus between characters by following the pace of their body movement. This is an extremely naturalistic film, one of the quietest seen, much of it shot in interior rooms conveying a maximum amount of silence where even natural sound appears to be muted, where quiet, near inaudible conversations appear to be taking place in a vacuum, as if the outside world is not allowed to protrude. This mood is perfectly accentuated in brief glimpses by outstanding original music by Faton Cahen, which features a piano and a few ascending jazz riffs on a sax, an eloquent testament to a narcotic induced haze.

While this nearly non-narrative, highly impressionistic film is certainly not for everybody, as it’s clearly downbeat and utterly sad, an unglamorous view without artifice of what might be described as the cinema of no emotion, but what it does offer is an artistic appreciation for realism with a nervy intelligence. With no particularly likeable characters, this is an extremely personalized, understated, autobiographical film, a fictionalized recreation, opening in bed with a couple awakening from sleep on the sunny Italian Riviera, Gérard, Benoît Régent, a stand-in for the director, and Marianne, Johanna ter Steege, brilliant as a stand-in for his real-life girlfriend Nico (Christa Päffgen), from the Velvet Underground, with whom he spent ten years of his life and made 7 trippy films together in the 70’s. While discussing the ramifications of love, it’s apparent they are questioning every word, every syllable, in attempting to break down anything phony in their commitment to one another. Marianne especially finds Gérard’s words to be a kind of empty articulation that feels learned and ingrained, hardly spontaneous revelations “of the moment.” Régent offers an unusual style of being completely noncommittal, almost as if he’s not even there, as we never learn his profession, what money he lives on or anything about his background, instead he remains hidden behind a cloud of mystery, somewhat reminiscent of Bill Pullman in LOST HIGHWAY (1997). Marianne on the other hand, whose every movement is followed by the camera, has her own sensual style with a playfully inquisitive mind, very direct and to the point, but never forcing the issue, simply asserting her views openly. They share their time with another couple, Gérard’s friend Martin (Yann Collette), a painter who has lost an eye and his girlfriend Lola (Mireille Perrier), with whom Gérard may have at one time been intimate. Anouk Grinberg as Adrienne plays yet another outside interest. Together they express a free wheeling, somewhat indulgent philosophical style that represents a lofty, grandiose view of themselves.

Moving back to Paris, the interior mood has darkened considerably, as has their increased drug use, introducing heroin into their relationship. It’s interesting to see how one’s obsessed notion of “need” can become an illusion, used frequently as a romantic expression between lovers, yet with narcotics it’s a foregone conclusion who (or what) becomes the real need. Humans become completely irrelevant. Marianne quickly disappears without a trace, presumably with another man, though perhaps out of self preservation, which leaves Gérard nearly immobile and alone. Like an answered prayer, a woman appears at his door, announces she’s a friend of Marianne named Aline (Brigitte Sy, Garrel’s former real life wife and mother to Louis), who proceeds in grand style to nurse Gérard back to the living, which includes getting married and having his baby, all of which is realized in a single shot. Compared to everything else we’ve experienced, usually seen through oblique, intensely personal conversations, a dinner sequence with her family and the newborn baby has a tinge of the ridiculous, yet it’s perhaps the most normal scene in the film. When Marianne returns, Gérard is torn between separate lives, his old and his new, and hasn’t a clue how to make it right, as it’s clear his earlier high-minded ideals and confessed promises to Marianne are coming back to haunt him. The internal damage this causes each of them after supposedly cleaning up their lives, is devastating, perhaps best represented in a scene between Marianne and Aline, which appears to be something of a peace offering but soon deteriorates into a strange personal confession by Marianne describing her life with Gérard, which evolves from an existential meaninglessness to greater transcendent heights, all of which is meant to casually dismiss Aline’s world to the near-irrelevant, but it perhaps drives a stake through her own heart instead.

This film is gorgeous, intelligent, and surprisingly tender, offering little if any emotion emanating from the screen, but that is the Bressonian mold which forces the viewer to supply their own emotional perspective. Partly that is what makes this film so unique, as it doesn't follow convention any more than the characters do, as when moving in a single shot from the day he meets Aline to a subsequent day when they are married and already have a child. That type of economy is, to say the least, unusual. Also, of interest, the filmmaker spares no one, especially himself, revealing his own inadequacies in nearly every shot, especially the last one. This kind of ruthless critique of one’s own behavior deserves some recognition. The spared down version of how he tells the story of his life is unique, yet due to the way he films it, where so much detail permeates specific periods, it's as if we've read a book, as we feel intimately familiar with the lives of the central characters. Marc Cholodenko is credited with the stunning dialogue, much of which owes a debt to Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain) (1973), as the unsparing confessional tone is mixed with a raw internal dysfunction, where the physical quality of the peeling paint on the walls literally takes on a life force of its own, where people’s lives start to resemble the worn out, dilapidated buildings that they casually inhabit all their lives, never giving it a second thought. Yet by the end, it’s clear that Gérard was never honest with himself throughout the entire film, a realization that haunts him and taints his memories of Marianne, clearly the singlemost significant relationship in his life. What stands out is the amount of time wasted in this director’s life where so much is lost on drugs and personal missteps, where only after Nico’s death does Garrel come to realize how much he loved her and that she was in fact the love of his life. With this film, the haze has cleared and Garrel finally has the opportunity to tell the unvarnished truth. The film is dedicated to Nico who died three years before its release.

J'Entends Plus la Guitare Andrea Gronvall from the Reader

Philippe Garrel (Regular Lovers) dedicated this harrowing autobiographical drama (1991) to the memory of his former companion, Nico of the Velvet Underground. A romantic young Parisian (Benoit Regent) is devastated when his German lover (Johanna ter Steege) leaves him; after returning, she fills his aching void with heroin, and he becomes as rootless and selfish as she. Garrel avoids bathos and maintains a rigorous formalism through poetic elision, his jump cuts and brief, enigmatic shots often conveying more than Marc Cholodenko's cerebral dialogue. In French with subtitles. 96 min.

Time Out New York (David Fear)

Here is quintessential Garrel, all reduced down to his core concern (inevitable in a film that is both dedicated to the memory of Nico and based on his relationship with her), the nature of love and the couple: how we try to find words to describe a love that is already slipping away; the inevitable shifting contours of love and relationships; the loss and regret we experience as the years part. There’s an impressive intensity here, a sombre austerity whose pause-filled dialogue scenes can sadly (as I’ve just experienced) make a Film Festival audience very restless.

NewCity Chicago Ray Pride

When I saw Phillipe Garrel's 1999's "Le Vent de la nuit," I wasn't sure what I was watching, but I wish I could see it again now. In 2005, the longtime French film director, headstrong throughout a prolific career, made his marvelous, little seen remembrance of Paris 1968, "Les Amants reguliers," one of the best films of the past decade, and his 1991 "J'entends plus la guitare" ("I Don't Hear The Guitar Anymore") demonstrates his romantic, elliptical, suggestive style in the most concrete way of the three. Garrel emphasizes moments that occur between two male friends, Gerard (Yann Collette) and Martin (Benoit Regent), and the women in ever-irresponsible Martin's life. Martin's especially driven by his passions for Marianne (Johanna ter Steege), a strawberry blonde with a dark soul and her own relationship with drugs. The story's patterned after Garrel's own lengthy relationship with Nico, and he made the film three years after her death. For some, "Guitare" will be gallingly Gallic, but its tapestry of love and heartbreak, the very harrowing of breath, is a marvel: these simple, painful exchanges by grown-ups effortlessly dressed but emotionally frayed, hair tousled just so, against backdrops of exposed brick and weathered walls, are articulate, ill-aware wails. The world outside is an insistent bird, a telephone, saucers jangling to the gestures of a spoon in a café. It's all music. The score by Faton Cahen is unexpected in all the best ways, a separate current. Bonus: the most alarmingly playful kiss while Marianne, seated, pisses loudly. 95m.

Auteurists believe a director’s personality is present in every frame he shoots. In the works of the criminally underrated Garrel, you get not only a singular artistic anima, but, often, the creator’s life flayed bare. Like his 2005 esprit de ’68 scrapbook Regular Lovers, this 1991 drama draws deeply from Garrel’s personal history. The philandering, drug-addicted Gérard (Régent) represents the filmmaker—or rather, all of his negative traits crammed into one self-loathing character. His girlfriend, Marianne (ter Steege), is an avatar for the director’s late lover Nico, to whom Garrel dedicated the film.

Bonding over notions of passion as a transcendent perpetuity, Gérard and Marianne bicker, break up and reunite while riding the white horse, eventually splitting prior to his settling down. (The fact that the new female presence in his life is played by Brigitte Sy, Garrel’s former spouse and the mother of his son, Louis, only adds to the nakedly confessional aspect.) When Marianne reinserts herself into Gérard’s life, she’s clean but no less emotionally volatile. You can guess what’s around the corner.

Utilizing an elliptical style that’s alternately invigorating and maddening—Gérard goes from druggie to daddy in a single cut—Garrel’s eulogy is both a tribute to and a pitiless autopsy of a couple’s self-destructive tango. The guitar he can no longer hear, however, isn’t just the late singer but the promises the past sweeps away. According to the movie, that’s the macrotragedy of life: Be they social or romantic, youthful ideologies are destined to eventually die on the vine.

User reviews from imdb Author: Alice Liddel (-darragh@excite.com) from dublin, Ireland

'J'entends plus la guitare' is dedicated to the memory of Nico, the Swedish model and actress who was director Garrel's muse, most famous as the blonde Marcello meets at the castle party in 'La Dolce Vita', and the singer with the haunted monotone on the Velvet Underground's extraordinary 'Banana' album. the heroine of the film is a blonde German who, like Nico, turns to drugs - her last appearance is marked by a pun on heroine/heroin (the Velvets' most famous song), and the Velvet-esque guitar of the title is no longer heard by the hero, or the director. The female is usually signalled in Garrel's films by music, as if music itself was somehow a feminine principle - the 'Je', therefore, is plausibly the director's, offering the film as a mea culpa, blaming himself for a death triggered by pure male egotism. Gerard is one of the least likeable characters in European cinema, an emotional vampire who needs to suck the emotional blood out of countless women, leaving them diminished, empty, to save himself from a similar fate.

Perhaps, again in tribute to Nico, Garrel's usual stylistic austerity is filtered through a Warhol-like sensibility. this is one of the most gruelling films I have ever squirmed through, in terms of style - long, punishing takes in shabby, bare environments of people either talking self-serving philosophical twaddle, or, worse, little at all, the peeling of the walls against which the characters are framed speaking more eloquently for the emotional and imaginative inertia; takes that are so long and unadorned that the characters (or actors) arent' allowed to hide, and the various mannerisms or tics or little theatrical heightenings are exposed for what they are, not as accretions to be stripped away to reveal some real 'truth', but as part of the truth that we can never strip them away, never truly give ourselves to another - and in terms of content.

The film begins as a stereotypical French film, with two couples frustrated in love: one is in love with another but won't give him a child; one refuses to tell his lover he loves her because she doesn't know what the word means. The men begin the first of their discussions about their relations to the women, one grounded in culture, the other in experience. One could argue this as the philosophical base of the film.

In any case, things go from bad to worse, people start leaving each other, losing their children, sleeping with prostitutes or older, abused women. What is unusual in this film is that 'seedy' subject matter usually treated luridly or with too much downbeat detail, is here represented in a flat, monotonous visual style, and through a disarming ellipsis that doesn't warn the viewer that five minutes or five years have passed. This is the closest cinema has gotten to the numbed, unsensational texture of life itself. To even ask entertainment of it is beside the point.

User reviews from imdb Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

Philippe Garrel is a French director of cult status whose work has not been much seen in the US. Interest among film buffs certainly must have grown with the showing of Garrel's wonderfully atmospheric evocation of 1968-69 'Regular Lovers'/'Les amants réguliers' (2005) at the New York Film Festival, with a brief New York theatrical showing two years later. After re-watching Regular Lovers last year I wrote that it is "the kind of film that burns itself into your memory and keeps coming back."

And this is a French cinematic dynasty. Philippe's brother Thierry is a producer; his father Maurice is a veteran actor with well over a hundred credits (recent notable ones: 'The Red and the Black,' Dercourt's 'My Children Are Different,' 'Kings and Queen,' and 'Regular Lovers'); and his son Louis, the young poet and central character of Regular Lovers, is the hottest young French screen actor in more senses than one. Americans saw Louis with Eva Green and Michael Pitt in Bertolucci's 2003 'The Dreamers.' But what are Philippe Garrel's important films? I don't know; the promoters of the Film Comment Selects series at Lincoln Center say 'J'entends plus la guitare' ("I No Longer Hear the Guitar") is "arguably Philippe Garrel's masterpiece."

Masterpiece or not, this film (which won the Silver Lion in Venice) is a complete contrast to the over-three-hours-long, epic-feeling black and white 'Regular Lovers'--and yet memorable in its own way. It's quieter and more intimate and more obviously autobiographical--almost like a loose compendium of fragmentary diary entries from a man who had many lovers and one good friend, a painter (Martin, Yann Collette, a veteran actor who happens to have a sunken and blind left eye). The man is Gerard (Benoît Régent). One of the women is Aline (Brigitte Sy, mother of Louis Garrel). But most important in Gerard/Philippe's life is Marianne (Johanna ter Steege), a luminous exotic Nordic lady drawn to drugs and dirty longhairs (unseen in the film but described with distaste by Gerard) who say "Yeah man!" and "cool."

The film begins with Marianne and Gerard in Positano, on the Italian Riviera, with Martin and his friend Lola (Mireille Perrier). They go back to Paris where Gerard spends every evening smoking hashish at Martin's place talking about Marianne. Gerard's fascination with her is obvious, but there are no love scenes. One day Marianne meets another man and wanders off.

Marianne is, as is well-known, the stand-in for Nico (stage name of Christa Päffgen) the singer of the Velvet Underground and Warhol "superstar" with whom Philippe Garrel had an ongoing relationship for over a decade. In the person of ter Steege, Nico/Marianne's appeal is obvious. Nico herself was in seven of Garrel's films in the Seventies. This one was made three years after her death--and Marianne like Nico is described as dying while riding a bicycle.Gerard meets Linda (Adélaïde Blasquez) Aline (Brigitte Sy), and then Adrienne (Anouk Grinberg), but Marianne remains in Gerard's world, the love of his life.

Scenes of 'J'entends plus la guitare' over twenty years later still evoke the Sixties and Seventies in content and style. They are so simply staged they're arresting. A woman comes to the door and says she's a friend of someone else. Apparently she moves in, just like that. The next thing you know Gerard is in the bath and this new woman brings him a plate of food which he forks down hungrily. He gets up, hastily towels off, puts on a shirt while still wet. The woman spreads two sheets on the bed. They get under them, clothed, and propped up on their elbows lie looking into each other's eyes. This is how the beginning of a new relationship is described.

When Gerard's girlfriend has a baby, they eat at a table with a whole family, but nobody's identified. Closeup of a young teenage boy looking on with eager happiness as the food is dished out. Most of the scenes are one-on-one conversations (unlike much of 'Regular Lovers,' which is more collective and symphonic). This is like an autobiographical meditation, verging, the FCS blurb suggests, on "psychodrama." Garrel is an heir to the Nouvelle Vague who captures life in the raw with lovely cinematography and interesting and attractive people but not very sophisticated or self-conscious technique. His films (so far as I've seen them so far) can be irritating and slow but are curiously endearing. Think Warhol, but without the titillation and voyeurism, and with a European straight male sensibility, particularly here. Even without the presence of Louis (who was around eight when this was made) this is still a fresh, youthful kind of film-making. It may seem self-indulgent, but it doesn't age.

The Village Voice [Nathan Lee]

Philippe Garrel's 1991 masterpiece J'entends plus la guitare (I Don't Hear the Guitar Anymore) opens with a set of proofs, puns, definitions, and propositions. Two Parisian couples are on holiday in a village by the sea. Marianne (Johanna ter Steege), an opalescent nymph crowned with fizzing amber curls, rouses herself from a sun-dazed torpor and casts her gaze on the balcony, where stands her placid, introspective lover Gerard (Benoît Régent). They make a little small talk, start playing with words—"la mer" (the sea); "la mère" (the mother)—then cuddle up for pillow talk: love first, a child can come later.

Elsewhere on these vibrant slopes, raven-haired Lola (Mireille Perrier) appeals to her beau, Martin (Yann Collette), a sweet-natured artist with one sunken Quasimodo eye: "Why don't you paint pictures of me?" The reply, "You're too real," initiates an extended disquisition on speech, love, and the infinite degrees of reality. "What does that mean, 'to love?' " needles Martin. Lola: "It means something when someone says it! It means that one wants to say it, for instance." Martin: "But to want to say something, when you don't know what it means? That's really to say nothing." Lola: "Maybe."

Very French, all this pseudo-logical, improbably erudite discourse—philistines beware, there's a Heidegger reference and Italian poetry recitals just around the corner. Despite his flights of verbal fancy, however, Garrel's feet are firmly grounded; he's advancing, in these heady preliminary scenes, toward a firm destination. Gerard and Martin meet up for a stroll to the shore, descending a steep stone walkway to the strains of mournful cello music and elaborating on the abstractions they've just tossed about with their lovers. At the edge of the sea, they arrive at this: "You think you'll see it in quotes or in grand statements. It's in living beings."

The meaning of love, the mystery of women, life, and all that: Garrel finds it, everything, in the faces, bodies, and words of his actors. If not the greatest movie we'll see this year—though it's a strong early candidate—J'entends will surely prove the most tenderly played. For the rest of its trim, entrancing run time, the movie contemplates its concepts as embodied in the daily existence of its bohemian Parisians. A child is born, heroin is consumed, bills go unpaid, affections splinter and recombine, tested by circumstance and challenged by ego. The guitar no longer being heard belongs to the Velvet Underground. Raw, rueful, and piercingly alert, a film of tremendous formal instinct and cogent human truth, J'entends is an oblique memoir of the filmmaker's relationship to Nico (Steege)—and a testament to the elusive genius of a postwar French master.

The object of an impassioned cult in France and almost totally unknown in America until the acclaimed, if marginal, release of Regular Lovers (2007), his sublime memoir of May '68 and its aftermath, the weird, wounded cinema of Garrel is inevitably honored with the vague epithet "poetic." That's one way of acknowledging that his narratives eschew prose-like continuity, twisting and leaping with evocative ellipsis and rhythmic irregularity. And "poetry" is one way to specify a nutty trance like The Inner Scar (1972), featuring a smacked-out Nico wailing through the desert in the company of a naked hippie on horseback, or the inscrutable prophet-chic of The Virgin's Bed (1969), a mix of Biblical allegory and Warholian lassitude swamped in narcotic haze.

Why Garrel clicks is hard to pin down in part because he clunks; the eloquence of J'entends is inseparable from its awkwardness. There's a softly discordant thrust to Garrel's montage, a pervasive tone of docile atonality. He retains the junkie's habit of tremendous concentration on nothing; you feel the intensity of his gaze without quite understanding it. He can seem, like Cassavetes (or Henri Rousseau), at once the most sophisticated and naïve of artists. My guess is the tremendous force of Garrel's vision, as exemplified in J'entends—the most disciplined of the half-dozen pictures I know, and widely considered his apotheosis by devotees—is rooted in a brilliant eye for casting. It's in living beings for sure; few filmmakers match Garrel's ability to register palpable human presence in every shot.

Memoir nonpareil, J'entends blazes past into present. There's additional poetry, then, to have it as the inaugural release of the Film Desk, a boutique distribution outfit run by BAMcinématek programmer and fervid New York cinephile Jake Perlin. Full disclosure: I've known Jake—and his nutty enthusiasms (John Landis, stupid monkey movies, "late" Eddie Murphy comedies)—for years, and would probably have been inclined to rave up a Film Desk revival of Beverly Hills Cop III. Don't laugh, that shit could happen. Fortunately, he's stepping into the brutal arena of art-house releasing armed with a knockout.

Read the Program Notes Jameson West from the Austin Film Society, also seen here: J'ENTENDS PLUS LA GUITARE (I CAN'T HEAR ... - Austin Film Society

Nico was born Christa Päffgen on October 16th, 1938 in Cologne, Germany. She embarked upon the first of her many careers at the age of 14 as a model in Berlin. An assignment in Ibiza, Spain for the photographer Herbert Tobias lead to her being christened “Nico” after the Greek filmmaker, Nico Papatakis. In the late 50s, she moved to Paris and quickly became a fashion icon before landing roles in Alberto Lattuada’s LA TEMPESTA and Rudolph Maté’s FOR THE FIRST TIME. Her first major part came thanks to Jean Becker, son of French filmmaker, Jacques Becker, who met her on an assignment in Paris and promptly gave her a role in his next film, UN NOMME LA ROCCA. After appearing in a memorable scene in Federico Fellini’s LA DOLCE VITA, she began studying acting in earnest, taking classes with Lee Strasberg in New York. There she met the pop culture icon, Andy Warhol, who indoctrinated her into the Factory scene and cast her in a number of his collaborations with the director Paul Morrisey, including CHELSEA GIRLS and IMITATION OF CHRIST. It was at that time, in the 1960s, that she also began fronting as leading vocalist in Andy Warhol’s art project-cum-pop band, The Velvet Underground.

Distancing herself from Warhol to focus on her solo career in the late 60s, she began traveling throughout Europe, meeting Philippe Garrel in 1968. Nico appeared in 7 of Garrel’s films throughout the course of their 10-year relationship, sometimes playing herself, sometimes in character (although, as in so many of Garrel’s films, it’s oftentimes difficult to tell which is which). The first film by Garrel in which Nico appeared was LA CICATRICE INTERIEURE (THE INNER SCAR), made in 1972. An experimental film shot in Egypt, Italy, Iceland and New Mexico and described as a “masterpiece” by no less than Henri Langlois of the Cinematheque Français, it features Nico, her son (fathered by Alain Delon) and Garrel in starring roles set to songs from her solo album, THE DESERT SHORE. Two years later, she appeared in Garrel’s LES HAUTES SOLITUDES, a silent, black-and-white film featuring Jean Seberg, the Iowa-born actress who became a key figure of the French New Wave following her role opposite Jean Belmondo in Jean-luc Godard’s BREATHLESS. In 1975 and 1976, Nico acted in two more feature films made by Garrel, UN ANGE PASSE and BERCEAU DE CRISTAL, and then again, this time opposite Maria Schneider (of LAST TANGO IN PARIS fame) in Garrel’s VOYAGE AU JARDIN DES MORTS. After 1978, their relationship began to crumble in the wake of her heroin addiction and Nico appeared in only one more film by Garrel, LE BLUE DES ORIGINS, a silent 50-minute avant-garde character study filmed with a hand-cranked camera starring Nico, Zouzou, Philippe Garrel himself and Seberg in her last film appearance before her suicide.

J’ENTENDS PLUS LA GUITARE opens in Positano, the Italian city where Nico and Garrel first met at the home of Tina Aumont (the daughter of Hollywood’s exotic Technicolor queen, the Dominican Republic-born Maria Montez, and an actress who starred in Fellini’s CASANOVA and Minneli’s NINA) and Frédéric Pardo (a French surrealist painter, godson of Jean-Paul Sartre and the model for the young “decorator” of walls and canvases in Garrel’s LES AMANTS REGULIERS). The year was 1968 and Pardo was filming an experimental, behind-the-scenes look at Garrel’s LE LIT DE LA VIERGE, a film featuring the song “The Falconer,” which Nico had just finished recording. Garrel later memorialized the coastal city in the LE VENT DE LA NUIT in the scene in which the lonely Serge stops along an Italian highway to survey the mountainside buildings while the young sculptor, Paul, snaps a picture of the boats floating in the harbor.

Yet despite Garrel’s longing for that era, his aversion to anything approaching an overtly glamorized portrayal of his time spent there with Nico is very much in evidence in the bare-bones style of J’ENTENDS PLUS LA GUITARE, in which long stretches of time and changes in location occur abruptly and without exposition. The photographic compositions are pared down to their essentials, consisting mostly of close-ups and medium shots, a far cry from the ornate camera movements and elaborate special effects of his early work in films like LA REVELATEUR and LE LIT DE LA VIERGE. GUITARE’s structure can essentially be broken down into three acts: The first section, shot on location in Positano, is leisurely paced and drenched in golden, sun-baked hues, shot mostly outdoors in this “town of stairways.” The second portion of the film following their return to Paris, in which Nico becomes increasingly withdrawn due to her drug abuse, is suffocatingly claustrophobic, set primarily indoors, with darkly lit backgrounds of peeling brown wallpaper. The final section, in which domesticity intrudes on Gerard’s life, is photographed in pointedly drab settings in unadorned two-shots.

J’ENTENDS PLUS LA GUITARE opens with a woman, Marianne, sleeping peacefully. She awakes to find her lover, Gerard, staring out at the view below. Gazing up at him from the bed she enigmatically intones: “The man. The sea.” This marks the moment at which the couple’s love is in full bloom, but as the story progresses, finding its way back to Paris, their tenderness towards one another begins to wilt. Johanna ter Steege, a blond-haired Dutch actress known for her roles in George Sluizer’s THE VANISHING, Robert Altman’s VINCENT AND THEO and a Garrel film made two years later, LA NAISSANCE DE L’AMOUR, plays the character of Marianne, a role clearly modeled on Nico, although that’s not to say there’s a one-to-one correlation between the details of Nico’s life and the character in the film. Steege is far too accomplished an actress and Garrel much too sensitive a director to have her simply ape Nico’s mannerisms. Rather, Steege’s character is allowed room to carve out her own character within the storyline.

Gerard’s character, based on Garrel himself in a not always flattering portrayal, is played by Benoît Régent, who prior to J’ENTENDS performed as one of the leads in New Waver Jacques Rivette’s LA BAND DES QUATRE and later was featured, along with Juliette Binoche, in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s TROIS COULEUR’S: BLUE, part of the director’s “Three Colors” trilogy. The film also introduces us to another French couple living together in Positano, Lola and Martin, friends of Marianne and Gerard who are loosely modeled on Aumont and Pardo, the latter a close friend of Garrel’s at the time. Lola, whose talk of a film in Rome is a veiled allusion to Tina Aumont’s career at the time, is played by the French actress Mireille Perrier, a fixture of Leos Carax’s early work, particularly his debut, BOY MEETS GIRLS, and MAUVAIS SANG. Pierrer was also the star of Garrel’s 1985 film, ELLE A PASSE TANT D’HEURES SOUS LES SUNLIGHTS…, dedicated to his late friend and mentor, the great French filmmaker, Jean Eustache.

Martin’s character alluding to Frédéric Pardo is performed by Yann Collette, a French actor whose loss of an eye at the age of 16 has resulted in the accomplished actor being mostly typecast as a villain. Garrel’s choice of Collette in a sympathetic role here speaks to his unconventional approach as a filmmaker. Another actress of note seen briefly in LA GUITARE, Brigitte Sy, had her film debut in LA DEROBADE, directed by Daniel Duval, the same actor who played Serge, Garrel’s stand-in in LE VENT DE LA NUIT. Sy also performed in a number of Garrel’s in the 1980s, LIBERTE, LA NUIT and LES BAISERS DE SECOURS, the latter an intensely autobiographical story about a director casting a film using his real-life family members that alludes to Garrel’s troubled marriage at the time. LES BAISERS was made immediately prior to J’ENTENDS and was in the middle of filming when Nico died in 1988. Two years later, Garrel paid tribute to her by dedicating this film to her memory.

Voyeurism of the Soul: The Films of Philippe Garrel • Senses of Cinema Maximilian Le Cain from Senses of Cinema, February 13, 2001

Reverse Shot [Nick Pinkerton]

The Auteurs' Notebook Daniel Kasman

Salon.com [Andrew O'Hehir] (excerpt)

The House Next Door [Keith Uhlich] (excerpt, about halfway down the article)

CINE-FILE Chicago Jeremy Davies

J'Entends Plus la Guitare Facets Multi Media

J'ENTENDS PLUS LA GUITARE Andréa Picard from Cinematheque Ontario

New York Post (V.A. Musetto)

Chicago Tribune Sid Smith

The Birth of Love - Film Society of Lincoln Center

THE BIRTH OF LOVE (La Naissance de l'amour)

France Switzerland (94 mi) 1993

At age 45, Garrel made this film that focuses on the ecology of family life. Two young screen icons of a previous generation—Jean-Pierre Léaud and Lou Castel (Fists in the Pocket)—turn in vivid performances as men who may be mature in years, but are perhaps more than a little emotionally arrested. The late cinematographer Raoul Coutard, Godard’s longtime righthand cameraman, turns his illuminating eye on their very thoughts in this deeply moving investigation of love.

The Birth Of Love | Jonathan Rosenbaum

An investigation of love, family life, and friendship starring Lou Castel, Jean-Pierre Leaud, and Johanna Ter Steege, this autobiographical black-and-white feature (1993) is one of the first by the highly influential Philippe Garrel to be shown in these parts, though he's made about two dozen films by now--some experimental, all highly personal. (A spiritual son of Jean-Luc Godard, steeped in the moods and textures of silent cinema, Garrel can also be regarded as the spiritual father of Leos Carax.) Relatively indifferent to lucid storytelling as it's generally understood, this revolves around the restless moods of a professional actor (Castel) undergoing some sort of midlife crisis and periodically breaking away from his wife, teenage son, and infant daughter to have affairs with younger women. Its beauties and strengths rest almost entirely in the poetry of its images and rhythms and its stabbing emotions rather than its narrative flow. The breathtaking cinematography is by Raoul Coutard, who shot most of Godard's early features.

The New Yorker: Richard Brody

This ardent, muted Parisian melodrama, from 1993, gets its power from the director Philippe Garrel’s total identification with its middle-aged protagonists. Paul (Lou Castel), a paunchy, dishevelled actor, and Marcus (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a blocked writer with delusions of grandeur, are ready to sacrifice anything or anyone to their amorous impulses, every tremor of which is captured by Garrel’s intimate images. Paul lives tensely with his grimly steadfast wife (Marie-Paule Laval), their teen-age son, and a newborn daughter, yet brazenly philanders with Ulrika (Johanna ter Steege), who makes no pretense of loving him. Marcus, whose girlfriend has fled to Rome, tries to win her back, while Paul encounters an angelic apparition (Aurélia Alcaïs) who, in an age-old transaction, offers youth and beauty in exchange for experience. Against a media backdrop of the Gulf War and its human cost, Garrel, for all his intense personal sympathy for the artists’ emotional turbulence, presents its price as well. The scene in which Paul—unsurprisingly—leaves home is one of the most painful scenes of paternal anguish ever filmed. In French.

Not Another Teen Neophyte [Vadim Rizov]

In many ways, The Birth Of Love looks like the mythically awful foreign film which dominates popular perception of this artifical genre. Foreign films, of course, are just films, not some freakish aberration to an otherwise orderly world, and not necessarily any stranger than home-grown product - but the stereotypical foreign film is an arty, black-and-white production where old men wander around, nothing much happens, silent shots of people walking in place drag on for minutes, and broad bullshit philosophical discussions start at the slightest provocation. Up till now, I didn't know this movie actually existed - but here it is, complete with noxiously repetitive and substanceless score by John Cale. And yet, strangely enough, something noteworthy does happen in this seemingly inert film. Superficially, The Birth Of Love plays like a humorless episode of "Seinfeld" for dour intellectuals - the shiftless Jean-Pierre Léaud and Lou Castel, buds of sorts, wander around lamenting their lives and bitching about the most insignificant things and, occasionally, pledging (in vain) to change things. To fit the stereotypical Art Film mold, there are many of shots of people walking around with nothing happening, as well as lines like "Rome is not our destiny, Rome is our destination. In fact, you could say that the trouble with Western civilization is that it does not have a destiny." The film is also heavily autobiographical, but since Garrel is extremely underdistributed in America, you'll have to guess to what extent based on vague rumors about his 10-year relationship with Nico. Nevertheless, something does happen in this film. Nowadays, viewing the world in black-and-white isn't just an aesthetic choice, it's a deliberate affectation of tone. By choosing to view the modern world through the washed-out lens of two washed-up old men who reduce everything to an outdated aesthetic standard, Garrel manages to admirably convey what being a near-60 dissolute male without close friends feels like. Whether what he conveys is novel or surprising is debatable, but at least The Birth Of Love makes up for its indulgences by being somewhat self-aware. In other words, rather than emerging totally disgusted that a false rumor had come to life, I gained some respect for why making such a film was inescapable.

What becomes of self-styled cultural revolutionaries once they have headed into their fretful 50s? If they haven't grown up -- and who ever really grows up? -- they turn into flabby philanderers and borderline crackpots spewing out grandiose pie-in-the-sky career schemes. "The Birth of Love," a 1993 film directed by Philippe Garrel, a talented French New Wave director who never achieved the international renown of Jean-Luc Godard, studies two friends, Paul (Lou Castel) and Marcus (Jean-Pierre Leaud), who are only dimly aware their time has past.

Paunchy, stringy-haired Paul, a minor stage actor, carries on a succession of affairs with younger women while ignoring his pregnant wife (who gives birth to a baby girl) and emotionally needy adolescent son. Castel's portrait of this selfish malcontent is so naked that you feel for him even while cringing at his callousness. Marcus, whose girlfriend has just left him, is an aging journalist who still dreams of writing an earthshaking book. He is also prone to windy middle-aged ruminations. Two samples: "Work is a fully assumed obsession untiringly fulfilled," and "Men choose their destinations to calm their lack of destiny."

Both men brood out loud about the fathers who damaged them. Paul's abandoned the family (as Paul would like to do with his own family), while Marcus's kept him cruelly under his thumb. The wounds still smart.

The elegant black-and-white cinematography underscores the mood of quiet desperation in the film. Johanna Ter Steege, Dominique Reymond and Marie-Paule Laval portray women who in spite of their discontent seem one step ahead of the men in self-awareness and their acceptance of what life has brought them. These little dramas unfold against the televised backdrop of the Persian Gulf war, which seems as aimless as the lives it frames.

Filling in the Blanks | Movie Review | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum, June 5, 1997

Strictly Film School Acquarello

Queer View (English)

NIGHT WIND (La Vent de la Nuit)

aka: The Wind of the Night

France Italy Switzerland (95 mi) 1999 ‘Scope

Unconscionable pretentious tosh about three upper middleclass French intellectuals, all either talking about or actually working on suicide bids. Deneuve has the least screen time as Beauvois' older, married lover, and has a couple of very intense scenes, but much of the rest consists of non-conversations between the unappealing young man and '60s radical Duval, mostly as they traverse the autoroutes of Europe. Before long, most of the audience will also have considered ending it all.

The House Next Door (Immediate Impressions #3) [Keith Uhlich]

This contains the most emotionally raw and melodramatic scene I’ve seen in any Garrel film: Catherine Deneuve is in her living room listening to her much younger lover discussing literature with her husband when she suddenly picks up a glass, smashes it, and slits her wrist. Perhaps this is the contribution of one of the co-writers Arlette Langmann (Pialat’s wife and writer of a few of Pialat’s films, including A nos amours, based on her own life). But this is the one moment that raw emotion breaks uncharacteristically through, for there’s a very cool and measured tone to most of the film. It’s also more overtly beautiful than you expect from Garrel’s work, widescreen colour, with an interest in aesthetic effects (the play of colour: Deneuve’s red coat against the red of Serge’s car), a very different look from the more naturalistic J’entends plus la guitare, also in colour (rare with Garrel) and also shot by Carole Champetier.

Initially, Le vent de la nuit seems to be another investigation of Garrel’s favourite theme of the nature of love, with the intial concentration on a middle-aged woman shifting to Paul, her younger lover, another of Garrel’s portraits of his emotionally feckless self. But then the older Serge starts to form the core of the film, a representation of the failed ideals of the ‘68 generation, where suicide in the end becomes the justified response to the emptiness of the world.

User reviews from imdb Author: Alice Liddel (-darragh@excite.com) from dublin, Ireland

This is one of those films that sorts the pseuds from the cynics. I am firmly on the former side. After initial groans at ANOTHER French movie about logorrheic sexual relationships (and yet another May-December coupling, although, happily, the elder in this case is the woman), one finds oneself wholly compelled without ever really knowing why. Because the content is frequently less than exciting - two men talking (or not) on a lengthy road trip; endless snakes of pristine Euro-motorway; interminable shots of a woman silently climbing floors of stairs, entering an apartment, getting it methodically ready for afternoon coitus (feminised Melville?).

Even when the content is beautiful - an overhead vista of a sun-parched Neapolitan town; an overgrown cemetery - the manner of filming remains detached. The camera often stops on a road or a wall, long after the human drama has passed by, or waits for a character to come into view, rather th an following her. There is very little of the editing that would draw us into the characters and their situations. Camera movements that break with the generally static style become heavy with their uniqueness - see the remarkable scene where Catherine Deneuve stares out the window; the camera follows her gaze, making it solid, pregnant, until it stops being a gaze, and we return to Deneuve, who is no longer looking out.

These two uglinesses, or rather excessive plainnesses, manage to create something very beautiful. I was reminded very much of the films of Manoel d'Oliveira - not just because Deneuve's ex-lover and daughter starred in his last two films. There is the same deceptively air-brushed, non-commital style that steadily accretes to become emotionally powerful. The image, in its unnatural cleanness, seems to be weighed down with nothing, to exist entirely in the present tense - and yet this is a film obsessed with history, the past, creating echoes and gaps in the present tense, through which seeps the emotion and subjectivity the distant style and performances initially forbid, like the traces of light that linger after a scene dissolves into darkness.

The film is a mystery story with the viewer as detective - we are given clues about each character, fragments of motivation and backstory; we have to sift the possible disparity between actions, what people think, what people say, and what people say about them. The film's mathematical structuring and patterning (especially doubling) does not prevent the ending being profoundly moving.

In many ways, the film is one of the stranger buddy-buddy road movies; we are never allowed get very close to characters who only offer of themselves piecemeal, yet the relationship between Xavier Beuvois and Daniel Duval is wholly engaging, so much so that you hope there are more roads for them to drive down so the film doesn't have to end.

Deneuve is the nominal star, but this is a very different Deneuve to the majestic grande-dame projected in the last two decades - frumpy, plump, lined, prepared to be humiliated to keep her young lover, knowing it will only drive him away. Whenever she appears, you just want the road movie to start, and she is conscious of this marginalising - when she brings her lover to her husband, she is even ignored as the hoped-for fall-out becomes a discussion about an obscure right-wing anarchist. A suicidal cry for help (a jolting, bloody, physical scene is such a refined film) serves to marginalise her from the film further, failing to break its masculine grip.

Read the Program Notes Jameson West from the Austin Film Society, also seen here: Austin Film Society [Jameson West]

Catherine Deneuve, the grande dame of French cinema whom Jacques Demy first catapulted to international stardom with his freewheeling Technicolor musical, THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, has worked with a host of legendary filmmakers in her lengthy and illustrious career. During the 60s and 70s, she starred in roles as various as the schizophrenic, sexually repressed murderess in Roman Polanski’s REPULSION; Mylène, the silently suffering pregnant wife of Michel Piccoli in Agnes Varda’s LES CREATURES; Cathy, a woman playing both sides of the law opposite Alain Delon in Jean-Pierre Melville’s UN FLIC; and a stage actress in Vichy-era France in Francois Truffaut’s THE LAST METRO. More recently, she’s been featured in projects by Leos Carax (POLA X), Raoul Ruiz (GENEALOGIES OF A CRIME), Lars von Trier (DANCER IN THE DARK) and François Ozon (8 WOMEN). Yet never has Catherine Deneuve allowed herself to appear as vulnerable in front of a film camera as she is in Philippe Garrel’s LE VENT DE LA NUIT, wherein her cool, blonde exterior, a façade carefully cultivated throughout her career, is stripped painfully, irrevocably away. Owing to a role she later admitted came uncomfortably close to her true self, Garrel’s 1999 film reveals a very different side of the reserved French actress, a woman who’s desperately lonely, needy, self-destructive and increasingly conscious of her fading glamour.

Outwardly, LE VENT DE LA NUIT bears little resemblance to the first film in our series, LES AMANTS REGULIERS, made only six years later. The latter, with its rich, fathomless depths of black-and-white photography and insular, period setting stands in stark relief to the former’s auburn-tinged, deep-focus, wide-angle lensing of modern-day Paris, Naples and Berlin. Even so, LE VENT is unmistakably a film by Philippe Garrel, with its deliberate pacing, recurring themes of bitter regret, lost love and longing across generations and relentless focus on the emotional landscape of its three central characters, all which immediately connect it to his other work. There’s a memory-suffused beauty and extraordinary purity to the film, a careful attunement to the passage of time and an underlying pressure that swells beneath the glossy surface of its cross-country sprawl: a road movie and travelogue buttressed by John Cale and his wonderfully attuned soundtrack, the journeyman singer-songwriter-composer formerly of the Velvet Underground also responsible for scoring Garrel’s earlier, 1993 masterpiece, L’NAISSANCE DE L’AMOUR, starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Lou Castel, and whom Garrel first met on the set of his 1968 film, LE LIT DE LA VIERGE, along with Nico, the director’s perennial muse and the woman to which the German sections in LE VENT directly relate.

The first scene of the LE VENT DE LA NUIT unfolds in characteristically indirect and allusive fashion. A middle-aged woman, Hélène (Deneuve), ascends a staircase to a third-floor flat, surreptitiously unlocks the door with a hidden key and opens it quickly, trying not to be noticed. After entering the room, she surveys the sparsely furnished space, and then begins to make the bed, spraying it with wisps of perfume. It is only later that we realize that her actions in this non-descript setting are in preparation for a secret tryst between the unhappily married woman and her much younger lover, Paul, played by the great, young French actor and director, Xavier Beauvois. Beauvois first got his start working as an assistant director for André Téchiné and Manoel de Oliveira before directing his first feature film, NORD, and his grim follow-up effort, the Prix Jean Vigo and Cannes Jury Prize-winning N’OUBLIE PAS QUE TU VAS MOURIR, whose emphasis on familial relationships and class consciousness recall Garrel’s own preoccupations.

It is especially important to take into consideration the backgrounds of the actors Garrel chooses to appear in his films, since many of them write much of their own dialogue and contribute liberally to the script, LE VENT being no exception. Their real-life biographies tend to influence the fictional universe of Garrel’s stories, turning the films’ scenarios into something strikingly intimate and personal. For instance, Xavier Beauvois’ working class upbringing is drawn on implicitly in the story. Beauvois grew up in the Pas-de-Calais, an out-of-the-way province of France subsisting primarily on the steel and mining industry, and owes his career to a number of benevolent mentors, like Jean Douchet, the filmmaker and critic who gave a lecture at his school, and the professor who helped enroll him at La Fémis (the famous French film institute responsible for the careers of Alain Resnais, Louis Malle, Arnaud Desplechin, Volker Schlöndorff, Clair Denis, Patrice Leconte and Theo Angelopoulos to name a few). A class there at the time happened to be taught by Marc Cholodenko, the screenwriter with whom Garrel has collaborated on virtually every project since LES BAISERS DE SECOURS and J’ENTENDS PLUS LA GUITARRE. Another mentor of Beauvois’s who championed his work early on was the late Serge Daney, an influential critic for Cahiers du Cinema, the famous French-language film journal responsible for the birth of the nouvelle vague, who became disenchanted with the publication’s political failings following the events of May ’68 and perhaps not so coincidently shares the same first name of the aging architect who befriends Paul in Garrel’s story. A further credit of note is Arlette Langmann, the wife of the late Maurice Pialat, another titan of French cinema whose slice-of-life films, particularly L’ENFANCE NUE, A NOS AMOURS and LE GARÇU, mirror much in Garrel’s oeuvre.

Following the clandestine liaison that serves as a kind of prelude to LE VENT DE LA NUIT, Paul, a struggling young art student, explains to Hélène that he must leave Paris for a few days to attend a groundbreaking ceremony for a new building in Naples which features one of his sculptures (a surprise announcement which his partner initially protests and then accepts with anxious resignation) and it is there, in Italy, that he is first introduced to Serge, a wealthy architect who might be able to help further his career. The character of Serge has an aloof, wearily forlorn look about him, but there’s also something more deeply wounded in his dour mien which immediately connects him to Deneuve’s character. He’s played by the French character actor Daniel Duval. Duval recently acted in small parts in Michael Hanake’s CACHE and Francois Ozon’s A TIME TO LEAVE, but rarely receives starring roles. Significantly, he is also a French filmmaker of the 60s, whose early works – AMELIE’S JOURNEY, SHADOW OF THE CASTLES, and LA DEROBADE – are rarely screened nowadays, a parallel particularly of interest since the back-story of Serge’s character hews so closely to Garrel’s own.

The majority of LE VENT’s second act is devoted to following Serge and Paul as they travel cross-country in a cherry red sports car, Hélène’s damaged psyche hovering like a phantom over the two men as they drive on French and Italian motorways and endless autoroutes, stopping occasionally to eat, drink and critique the banal décor of roadside stands, rest stops and gas stations. They take detours to abandoned cathedrals and survey unfinished frescoes adorning the interior walls. They speak of philosophy and politics, and the architect’s background, particularly his participation in the riots of May ’68, an autobiographical touchstone for the director and the beginning of a series of further revelations regarding this lonely, suicidal character’s past. At one point in the journey, Paul awakes to find the car pulled over to the side of the road and Serge gone. He discovers the absent driver crying and shouting out at the trees alongside the highway. Towards the end of the film, Serge visits a woman’s grave in Berlin, an allusion to the director’s ten-year relationship with a German chanteuse from which he, like Duval’s character, never quite fully recovered. Eventually, some two-thirds into its running time, the story circles back to its central Parisian milieu for a fated meeting between Serge and Hélène. But their fleeting nighttime embrace, rendered simply and elegantly, provides only a brief respite before the tragic, inevitable denouement.

WILD INNOCENCE (Sauvage Innocence)

France Netherlands (123 mi) 2001 ‘Scope

Wild Innocence - Film Society of Lincoln Center

The final film Coutard shot, in sprawling black-and-white widescreen, was for Philippe Garrel, with whom the cinematographer wrote a fresh last chapter to his career. It’s about a director (Medhi Belhaj Kacem) shooting a film inspired by a past lover, a model who OD’d on heroin (with an echo of Garrel’s own past with singer Nico). As the director struggles to complete the film, he’s sucked into a drug deal by his producer (Michel Subor), and things only get darker from there.

The Village Voice [Jessica Winter] (excerpt)

Comediennes and the poor saps who love them also figure prominently in BAMcinématek's brief series of new French film. In Philippe Garrel's irony-soaked Wild Innocence, a fledgling director (Mehdi Belhaj Kacem), still pining for his dead lover, finances his "anti-heroin movie" via a heroin deal and casts his present girlfriend (Julia Faure) as his smack-casualty ex; the Method muse one-ups his incipient Vertigo by acquiring a nasty habit of her own. Shot in glittering black-and-white by frequent Godard cinematographer Raoul Coutard and in cool command of its Hitchcockian echoes, Wild Innocence collapses (literally) under the weight of its symmetries with a grimly glib punchline.

Daily Reports from the 51st Melbourne ... - Senses of Cinema Wednesday, August 7, Aaron Goldberg from Senses of Cinema, July 19, 2002

Dragged along by a more cinematically educated friend, this film was a real punt. I went along knowing only that it was made by a guy who was connected to French junkie-chanteuse Nico and that there are more articles written about him in Senses of Cinema than anywhere else. The pretence meter was flashing in full effect, and to make matters worse, it was some sort of junkie movie (always a draw for boho-ghetto types)! Anyway I sat down, held my tongue, and let the meandering but luminous images of Wild Innocence float over me. In fact they were so hypnotic, audible snoring could be heard in the seat behind me. Regardless, this was quite an interesting, elegiac film, and it seems that Garrel's experiences with both heroin and the creative process gave what could have been the usual drug-war movie type scenario a mature and measured edge. Basically Wild Innocence revolves around the trials of a young guy that looks like a reject from the 'Melbourne Mafia' (a circle of world famous Melbourne musicians and filmmakers who revolve/evolve around Nick Cave) who is trying to make an 'anti-drug' film after the death of his model girlfriend. Yes it's all in the realm of the best Calvin Klein photo-shoot, but things becomes interesting when the filmmaker has to totally compromise himself by picking up heroin in order to ultimately finance the film. In a masterful and subtle turn, Garrel shifts the second half of the narrative away from the main protagonist and focuses on the actress in the film, the young man's lover, and her eventual demise as a result of the whole creative process and emotional game that is involved. It never ceases to amaze me that these aging French guys can still make films about 'young people' that are more energetic, intense and powerful than anything that today' s hot film-school 3-picture-deal-enfant terribles could forge in their wildest, postmodern dreams.

The Japan Times (Giovanni Fazio) (excerpt)

Films about filmmakers are rarely an appetizing proposition; like writers who write about writers, these exercises in deep navel-gazing usually reveal little more than how narrow and self-obsessed the director's worldview has become.

Not surprisingly, many of these films are from France, where the cult of the director as a driven, romantic artist is particularly strong. Coming in the footsteps of such yawnathons as "Irma Vep" and "The Pornographer" is Phillipe Garrel's "Sauvage innocence," a semiautobiographical look at the director's younger years in the '70s, and his turbulent relationship with Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico.

Garrel, known as the enfant terrible of the nouvelle vague, is working with a more conventional narrative form here, than, say, the Warholian boredom of "Les hautes de silence." He has actors with drop-dead good-looks in the leads: young novelist Mehdi Belhaj Kacem plays Garrel's alter-ego and stage actress Julia Faure is his muse. The story he tells, however, fails to engage.

"Sauvage innocence" begins when two women on the street recognize young radical director Francois (Kacem). Both girls are actresses, and one cup of coffee later, Francois has put the moves on Lucie (Faure), a wide-eyed beauty. Predictably, he decides to cast her in his next film. The screenplay is about a former lover who died from a drug overdose. Francois is committed to showing the horrors of addiction, but this downer topic fails to attract any producers. With his film a nonstarter and Lucie getting offered other work, Francois childishly lays a guilt trip on her, forcing her to equate their relationship with the making of his film.

Desperate to play the artiste, Francois cuts a deal with a smooth-talking lizard named Chas (Michel Subor). Sure, he'll put up the money; all Francois has to do is shuttle a suitcase from Italy to Paris. The contents? Kilograms of pure heroin.

Francois eventually agrees to this deal with the devil and winds up smuggling drugs to finance an antidrug film. Soon his entire cast and crew, Lucie included, are strung out on smack, and history seems doomed to repeat itself.

It's hard to find sympathy for someone so blinded by his own "art" as Francois. As a parable on the dangers of mistakenly valuing art over real life, though, "Sauvage innocence" is not without merit. And Garrel, as he is prone to do, captures the wasted beauty of his leads in exquisite black-and-white compositions. Fans of Leos Carax will swoon.

Playing Both Ways: Contra Sauvage Innocence • Senses of Cinema Quintín, March 13, 2002

A Tale of Two Conferences: For Ever Godard and Garrel Éternel ... Maximilian Le Cain from Senses of Cinema, July 18, 2001

Strictly Film School Acquarello

REGULAR LOVERS

aka: Les Amants Réguliers

France (178 mi) 2005

The Village Voice [Dennis Lim] (excerpt)

Philippe Garrel's three-hour May '68 monument, REGULAR LOVERS, which screens at the New York Film Festival this Saturday, is what The Dreamers should have been. Inviting comparison to Bernardo Bertolucci's ludicrous memorial to the same historic moment, Garrel installs his son Louis, who starred in The Dreamers, as the lead. Shot by William Lubtchansky in impossibly luminous black-and-white, the film stages the Night of the Barricades, in an unforgettable, nearly wordless hour-long sequence, as a ghostly hallucination. Revolution thwarted, Regular Lovers settles into the dazed aftermath—its young artists wander through a depopulated Paris, retiring to a wealthy friend's crash pad for opium highs, and tentative free love (a pair of amazingly fluid party scenes, scored to Nico and the Kinks, are almost tactile in their immediacy). Its charged first hour looms larger and grows more remote as this epic slacker movie gradually succumbs to the inevitable hangover of adulthood: Regular Lovers is one-third idealism, two-thirds disillusionment—not unlike life itself.

REGULAR LOVERS Steve Erickson from Chronicle of a Passion

An epic depiction of France's near-revolution of May 1968 and its aftermath, Regular Lovers sets up a dialogue with several other films about the events. Its period ambiance is perfect, but instead of feeling like a documentary, it suggests an apocryphal French New Wave opus, while jousting overtly with Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers. Francois (Louis Garrel) is an aspiring poet who dodges military police to fight on the barricades of May '68. He becomes involved with Lilie (Clotilde Hesme), a sculptor who works in a foundry casting objects for more successful artists, and hangs out with Antoine (Julien Lucas), a wealthy opium addict.

The pacing of Regular Lovers is leisurely, but Garrel assumes that we need some time to adjust to the rhythms of another period. His characters aren't motivated by ideology as much as the chance to make a difference in everyday life: they view travel or poetry as political acts. While this doesn't always turn out so well, Regular Lovers never suggests that the attempt was misguided or doomed from the start. A thousand sub-MTV montages set to bad pop songs have destroyed the idea of music as an expression of ecstatic spirit; in a dance sequence set to the Kinks' "This Time Tomorrow," Garrel manages to dredge that notion back from nostalgia's dustbin. He brings the past — even its unfashionable bits — back to life with an immediacy that bypasses retro cool. For that reason alone, Regular Lovers is a must-see.

Philadelphia City Paper [Sam Adams] (excerpt)

Definitely not coming to a theater near you is Philippe Garrel's Regular Lovers, a three-hour chronicle of the student revolt of Paris 1968 and its underwhelming aftermath. Word was that Garrel, who lived through the time as a 20-year-old artist, intended his movie as a corrective to Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, which starred his son, Louis, as a cloistered cinephile. But Lovers is nothing so simple as an "answer film," although Garrel does throw in a pointed call-out to The Dreamers' auteur.

Where Bertolucci made his name with Before the Revolution, Regular Lovers is the revolution and after, running from anti-establishment furor to a long, smothering disillusionment. Instead of a movie-mad loner, Louis Garrel plays François, an anarchist poet who takes to streets that glow with the light of burning cars and military spotlights. Handed a Molotov cocktail, François leaves it burning in the gutter, and soon ends up hiding on rooftops, a moment of almost supernatural stillness in the midst of purposeful anarchy.

The revolt fizzles, of course, and François' friends retreat into a hash-fueled haze, idly wondering if it's possible to "have a revolution for the working class in spite of the working class." He dances to the Kinks, falls in love, scribbles in his garret and generally drifts through life, ending up in a scene out of Garrel's 1967 Le Révélateur. Like the moment it chronicles, Regular Lovers is anticlimactic and intellectualized; rather than sweeping you up in revolutionary fervor, William Lubtchansky's luminous, high-contrast black-and-white photography threatens to stop time altogether. But it's a singular experience, not least because the movie's chances of U.S. distribution are practically nil.

Distributor Wanted: Regular Lovers Michael Chaiken from Film Comment

Philippe Garrel is, for sure, an anomaly. A self-described artisan, he has managed to carve out a personal space for himself in spite of the French film industry's protracted Night of the Long Knives against its aesthetic rebels. Acknowledged at home as the most important filmmaker of the post-Nouvelle Vague generation, his reputation is steadily growing overseas due, in large part, to a passionate and ever-growing coterie of people interested in his work.

Garrel's latest, Regular Lovers, is a sublimely beautiful black-and-white 35mm epic shot by master cinematographer William Lubtchansky. Much has been made of the film's relationship, or anti-relationship, with Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers. Indeed, both films star Garrel's son Louis, and, yes, there is a moment in Regular Lovers that makes explicit reference to Bertolucci. But whatever Garrel's intentions, this nearly three-hour film is about May '68 in the same way that Melville's Moby-Dick is about a whale. Regular Lovers is an affectionate, dreamlike elegy to youthful idealism laid waste. Simultaneously underserved by their ambitions and overnourished in their pleasures, the protagonists in Garrel's film—a poet (Garrel), an aspiring sculptor (Clotilde Hesme) working in a foundry, and an opium addict (Julien Lucas) whose inheritance allows him to create a "kingdom without laws" for himself and his friends—find themselves in the existential quandary of having to live after the revolution when the clarion call of '68 is silenced by the "terrible roar of nothingness."

Distressingly, not a single one of Garrel's films has U.S. distribution, and given the tepid attitude of distributors and filmgoers alike toward films that are neither straight popcorn nor straight bullshit, it might be some time before Regular Lovers is seen on our shores. Some small hope: a recent retrospective of Garrel's work curated by Jake Perlin at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Cinematek drew large and enthusiastic audiences, and the Cinémathèque Française is actively restoring and preserving the director's early works, such as The Inner Scar (72), which screened this year in a new digital restoration at MoMA. It's hard to imagine a filmmaker more deserving of major reconsideration by serious students and enthusiasts of film art. So, let's all be reasonable and demand the impossible: Garrel now!

Slant Magazine [Jesse Paddock]

Austere, underlit, uncompromisingly lackadaisical at three hours, and anachronistic in a half dozen ways, Regular Lovers is the first New York theatrical opening for the veteran French avant-gardist Philippe Garrel. Avant-garde, of course, is a relative term: When Garrel and Michel Auder, another Warhol-smitten French filmmaker, showed their "underground movies" here in 1970, Jonas Mekas called them "very sad cries from the past, one almost pities them."

Garrel, however, has endured. He's made nearly 30 features (despite a prolonged '70s heroin jones) and Regular Lovers, which was featured in the 2005 New York Film Festival (Garrel's first Lincoln Center appearance since 1972), is personal in ways we can only guess. It stars Garrel's son Louis as a version of the filmmaker as he might have been in the high '60s—a sincere poseur and humorless poet named Francois, smoking hashish and opium, and passively resisting the draft.

Regular Lovers celebrates the events of May '68 with a long (long) street-fighting nocturne and an even lengthier sequence of police pursuit. It's exhilarating and futile. "Can we make the revolution for the working class despite the working class?" one comrade wonders. The answer may be a foregone conclusion but Regular Lovers plods on dutifully, exhibiting the same glum perseverance as Garrel's career. Although the distinguished William Lubtchansky shot the film, its frissons are rarely visual. More surprising than any of Garrel's set-ups is the abrupt introduction, amid more random piano doodles, of the opening chords from "I Am the Walrus."

Revolutionary failure brings girls, rock music (including a song by Garrel's mid-'70s paramour, Nico) and a certain listless communalism. There's still considerable hanging out but once Francois starts lying around with the aspiring sculptor Lilie (Clotilde Hesme), the emphasis shifts. Scenes from revolution become scenes from a romance. With its attention to detail and character, Regular Lovers is novelistic, albeit in a special way—the characters have little inner life and engage in relatively few actions. Ambiance is all. A fondness for cutting from mid-scene to mid-scene and a few primitive dream sequences notwithstanding, Garrel's most daring device is his use of duration. Ultimately this languid tone comes to seem a strategy, quite poignant, to extend youth as long as possible.

The film's subject matter and casting present an unavoidable critique of The Dreamers, Bernardo Bertolucci's risible evocation of Paris '68, which also starred Garrel fils. Dourly withholding as it may be, Regular Lovers is superior in every sense—not least in its near-complete absence of cinephilia. (The one reference is to Bertolucci.) For Garrel, culture isn't restricted to movies. It's the Paris air. When Francois is tried for draft-dodging, his lawyer defends him as a poet; in a later scene, cops bust the commune and stop to admire the paintings. It's ironic but heartfelt. Garrel is not just an artless aesthete, he is unexpectedly and intensely romantic—imagining and realizing a character who can die for love.

Regular Lovers Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

The rumors are true; Garrel's latest represents an artistic breakthrough for this most ornery of French cineastes. The films of his I've seen have always been grounded in autobiography and personal memory, and Regular Lovers is no different. However the loose framework of May '68 – not even the events as such, but the battle over their cultural legacy – has allowed Garrel to organize his impressionistic directorial style into a broad-swath symphony of sorts. In keeping with Garrel's style, the new film is still sprawling and agonized and latches onto the spectator with a forceful nowness that obviates easy explication or even coherent retrospection. But like a piece of classical music, Regular Lovers operates in textures and contrapuntal cadences. The first thing we see is a ten to fifteen minute passage of a nighttime battle on the barricades. A group of young people is held in long shot as they outflank the police, lobbing Molotovs and overturning cars. At the end of this sequence, Garrel inserts one of the only overtly metaphorical shots in this most materialist of films. We see young revolutionaries in the garb of the Ancien Regime peasantry, wheeling a stolen cannon into position.

After an extended sequence showing Antoine (Louis Garrel) escaping the police, the film becomes more and more loose-limbed and ambling, following the shifting identities and priorities of the young radicals. It's not that personal drama replaces politics; it's that for a brief moment a new, inchoate way of life seems possible wherein the personal and the political are constantly weaving in and out of one another. It's precisely because our present political moment makes such utopian visions seem so hopelessly naive that Garrel fights so hard to demonstrate the valor and seriousness, the present-day urgency of this world and the need to learn from it, and as much as is feasible, to bring it back. However, this film is not an exercise in nostalgia. To paraphrase the Situationists (whose spirit hovers over Regular Lovers, even if they themselves might not recognize it), Garrel has given us an image of the passage a few persons through a rather brief period of time, asking us whether or not we can see any fragment of ourselves reflected therein. Filmically, there are obvious forebears to Garrel's project. From Godard, Garrel borrows William Lubtchansky's ravishing black-and-white cinematography (a virtual hovering presence of the sixties) and the discontinuous use of music and sound. The doomed romanticism and at times excoriating self-critique are pure Eustache. And yet probably the most significant influence is Andy Warhol. In many respects Garrel has fashioned a work of portraiture, with long passages of close-ups on open, radiant faces, listening to music or smoking opium. He uses extended static shots, allowing his performers to slide indistinctly in and out of character, both performing and just being themselves, until any such distinction becomes academic.

Warhol's spirit informs other formal choices, such as Garrel's inclusion of end flares and his unfashionable use of 1:33 ratio (just barely wider than 16mm film). But it's the freedom he allows himself and his performers (go ahead – call it indulgence if you must) that most clearly harks back to the late-60s zeitgeist. If the film eventually careens toward a somewhat clearer narrative trajectory, or ends on a note of absolute closure, this hardly mitigates stunning poetic sequences like the 68ers dancing to the Kinks, or Clotilde Hesme chipping out someone else's sculpture in a foundry. This is Garrel getting mad, taking back the May '68 that he experienced (and calling Bertolucci out in the process), and, in the casting of Louis as Antoine, fashioning one of the most touching father-son aides memoires the cinema has ever seen.

Read the Program Notes Jameson West from the Austin Film Society, also seen here: LES AMANTS REGULIERS (THE REGULAR ... - Austin Film Society

"Philippe Garrel is the proverbial underrated genius. He’s the closest thing to a poet functioning today in French cinema." —Olivier Assayas

Born in Paris in 1948, Philippe Garrel, the director of LES AMANTS REGULIERS, was just twenty-years-old in May, 1968, the month and year when the social, economic and cultural stopgaps formed by General Charles de Gaulle’s already unstable government finally gave way, revealing a deep fissure that exists in France to this day. Raised in a loving and artistic, if sometimes tumultuous, environment by his father, Maurice Garrel, a French character actor, mime and puppeteer, the nascent filmmaker and the rest of his left-leaning household participated in the lead-up to these epochal events along with over two-thirds of the workforce who joined arms in protest against Gaullism. Almost two hundred years after the French Revolution, the battle between the Left and the Right, progressives and conservatives, blue collar and bourgeoisie, finally reached a tipping point, one that was long in the making.

LES AMANTS REGULIERS, a careful rumination on those fateful days, opens modestly, with black-on-white credits. The first image we see is of the Seine, calm and darkly glittering at night. A couple of twenty-something revolutionaries cross a bridge and ascend a flight of stairs to smoke hash. The first full line of dialogue – “Do you think I should publish them … my poems” – is spoken by the stoned Francois Dervieux, played by Louis Garrel, the real-life son of the director who functions as a stand-in for the filmmaker forty years ago. “You know, I’d never want to be famous or important. I want to be anonymous,” a young painter replies. Glimpses of fresh-faced students throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at the Girondists, barricades built with cobblestones and flaming, overturned cars, and stone-faced gendarmes lined up in full riot gear soon follow. When the revolution breaks out in earnest relatively early in the film, Francois winds up on the rooftops, hiding from the police and peering down at the firestorm below. Philippe Garrel filmed on the same buildings he found himself on in May and it’s from this birds-eye vantage point that Francois first begins to feel pangs of ambivalence and remorse.

Philippe Garrel was a young contemporary of the nouvelle vague generation, the same one that spawned all those titans of the French New Wave – Francois Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, et al. – yet he never entered their ranks, nor did he especially aspire to. Still, no one creates films in a vacuum, and even someone as isolated as Garrel has been throughout his career still has to have some kind of model, a source of filmic inspiration. But in tracing the lineage leading to Garrel’s unique brand of cinema, one finds very few films mirroring his own. One notable exception, in terms of subject matter, technique and status as an outsider, is that of the great French filmmaker Jean Eustache and his sadly abbreviated oeuvre, particularly his first feature film, LA MAMAN ET LA PUTAIN, starring Jean-Pierre Leaud (a regular in Garrel’s later films). Eustache, a close friend of Garrel’s until he committed suicide in 1981, provides the closest parallel to Garrel’s method, and it’s impossible to watch LES AMANTS REGULIERS without thinking of that seminal milestone in French cinema. Like Eustache and his career, Garrel and his films are staunchly independent, uncompromisingly personal and anti-climactic in a way few films of the French New Wave (whose much-publicized revolt against French classicism arguably never amounted to the kind of cinematic revolution that it continually professed) ever dared to be.

Garrel makes family films, in the Cassavetes sense. His ability to convey intimacy on-screen has few rivals and his work always reflects deeply personal feelings not always readily apparent to his audiences. Garrel’s work also became more ascetic, less adorned, as he grew older. His early, experimental short films and features made immediately following the revolution were surprisingly elaborate and full of surreal visual effects. Perhaps it is telling that out of all the New Wavers, Godard is the only filmmaker Garrel speaks of feeling close to in his sporadic interviews, admiring his refusal to compromise in both an artistic, commercial and, most importantly, political sense throughout his long career. Garrel’s films have never reached the same level of international notoriety. Structurally, they most closely resemble Pascal’s Pensées, thoughts and fragments of thoughts grouped in bundles of paper, liasses, cut and sewn together. Bresson, in his “Notes on the Cinematographer,” once wrote to himself “… film is not readymade. It makes itself as it goes along,” which speaks perhaps more to the stubbornly elliptical nature of Garrel’s cinema than Bresson’s own. His roots, like Bresson’s, lie in impressionism, with narratives often broken up into a series of vignettes and digressions rather than a single story arc. In interviews regarding his latest film, Philippe Garrel has repeatedly invoked Stendhal’s THE RED AND THE WHITE, the great French novel of post-Napoleonic France and its tragic tale of idealism and ambition of young Julien Sorel, as an inspiration for the film’s structure and meaning. This method of revisiting history at the crossroads – how you cross history and how history crosses you – informs his films at every turn.

“They’re losing the revolution indoors,” Jean-Christophe, a disillusioned freedom fighter writes in a letter at one point halfway through LES AMANTS REGULIERS. The revolutionaries’ apathy and ennui, captured so exquisitely in this film, is charted through their clandestine meetings, which at first take place in subterranean bunkers and non-descript flats, but, as the story progresses, become more chic than bohemian, with parties increasingly more decadent and elaborate. Anarchy and abnegation segue into pleasure-seeking escapism. It is at one of these gatherings that Francois meets a young sculptor, Lilie (Clotilde Hesme), and their rendezvous marks a turning point in the film’s focus away from all the impassioned rhetoric. Love, the true subject of Garrel’s late films, irrevocably intrudes on the militancy of his revolutionary zeal. When Francois quotes from the Ukrainian anarchist, Nestor Makhno, the self-satisfaction on his face only underscores the hollowness and ineffectualness of the whole enterprise. One disgruntled Marxist asks if they can sustain a “revolution for the working class despite the working class,” a question that’s made rhetorical by the film’s end.

When Francois is finally arrested for refusing to take a medical exam for obligatory military service, at his hearing his defense argues for the delicate sensibilities of the would-be poet. The judge answers: “the Rimbauds, the Baudelaires … they all need to be put in prison.” The invoking of Baudelaire is especially apt, since it’s through the eyes of the flâneur that we see the events of May ‘68 for what it was – an idyllic rebellion encapsulated by Francois and his face blackened with soot. Unlike Bertolucci’s unabashed cinematic paeans to the revolution and all its promise, BEFORE THE REVOLUTION (to which LES AMANTS REGULIERS makes explicit reference) and THE DREAMERS (which coincidently also starred Louis Garrel), Garrel is more interested in the revolution’s shortcomings and surprisingly uneventful aftermath. Quoting French poets like the 19th Century poet and novelist Musset, Francois’ fervor eventually dwindles into nothingness. This sentiment is clearly made manifest in the film’s coda, the dream of an idealistic young man on his deathbed which harkens back to Garrel’s first feature-length narrative film, LE LIT DE LA VIERGE, made immediately after the revolution in 1968. Yet the perfect summation of Garrel’s feelings regarding the revolution comes not from Francois but from the director’s actor-father, Maurice Garrel, who makes a brief appearance in LES AMANTS REGULIERS, playing Lucien, Francois’ grandfather. Despite his short time on-screen, he nevertheless delivers the most important and depressingly prophetic insight spoken in the film. Speaking to his grandson, still full of rebellion following his night at the barricades, he tells him flatly, “It’ll be like none of this ever existed. Like nothing ever happened.” Forty years later, one need only to look around at the current political climate, in France and elsewhere, to see the sad truth behind that statement.

History is the Enemy of Art: Philippe Garrel on Les amants réguliers ... Stefan Grissemann feature and interview from Cinema Scope, 2006

If there’s a place that film history has reserved for Philippe Garrel, it’s to be found somewhere beyond the neat gardens of French mainstream auteurism and far away from the hip dreams of the nouvelle vague and its contemporary beneficiaries. Most film encyclopaedias, even the more specialized ones, shun Garrel as if he were a ghost that only appears every now and then, quietly endangering established histoire(s) du cinéma. Pretend he’s not there, for heaven’s sake: What you don’t acknowledge will never exist anyway. Garrel has thus become something of a phantom, an artist condemned to splendid isolation on the very fringes of personal filmmaking, a director on the outside of everything: a lone master working on the backside of fame, fashion, and the film industry.

But life on the margins has its advantages: the chance, for instance, to develop a very special aesthetic, a unique world view without much interference. Garrel’s wildly personal cinema, its violent intimacy comparable only to the films of Jean Eustache or Maurice Pialat, has given rise to indispensable works: from his early lyrical underground films such as the very alien—and strangely beautiful—landscape musical La cicatrice intérieure (1972), a counterculture version of Cocteau’s orphic visions featuring a radiant Nico, to more narrative productions like L’enfant secret (1982) or Sauvage innocence (2001), a highly self-reflexive tale of cinema. At all times Garrel’s films—as simple materially as they are complex intellectually and aesthetically—seem to open up to worlds as yet unseen. In an article for Libération in 1983, Serge Daney claimed that with L’enfant secret Garrel had “succeeded in filming something we have never seen before: the faces of actors in silent films during those moments when the black intertitles, with their paltry, illuminated words, filled the screen.”

It must have already seemed clear back in 1973, when Garrel was only 25, that this was a filmmaker for the lucky few, a visionary only for those who knew exactly where to look. It must have been obvious that the fragile masterpieces Garrel had directed by then would be hard to be seen by anyone’s, even a connoisseur’s, standards. In a cursory homage to Laszlo Szabo 32 years ago François Truffaut took Garrel’s initial works as supreme examples of cinema’s sensitive nature. Films, Truffaut stated, were like babies—it just wasn’t enough to bring them into the world. Will anyone, he wrote, ever be able to see “beautiful and inspired” films like Marie pourmémoire (1967), La concentration (1968), or Athanor (1972)? Truffaut was right, of course. Nothing has changed in the three decades since: those films—and most of the others Garrel has managed to bring forth since—remain inaccessible, almost invisible, repressed like some dangerous, contagious truth.

With Les amants réguliers, which premiered at the Venice film festival, things are a little different. Its subject alone would seem to guarantee a certain, if limited, amount of attention. Garrel’s unflinching look back at the events of (and after) May 1968 in Paris offers a more generally political topic for public debate—taken very personally by the filmmaker, however. In Garrel’s minimalistic reconstruction—he claims to have based it on his own lost documentary footage of the nightly street riots of 1968—there’s no romanticism, no sentimentalism whatsoever. This revolution is born out of sadness and it’s fought by a wavering, prematurely disillusioned youth. How much this film is, almost uncannily, in keeping with the times can be seen at a glance: the emblematic images of burning cars and embittered immigrant kids of the Parisian banlieues in 2005 shine through Garrel’s unknowingly premonitory recreations of 1968. The director’s son Louis plays the loner François, a poetic, unhappy soul who winds up in the midst of a revolution that he cannot fully understand—and with his life going down the drain. The conditional love of the girl he meets, Lilie (Clotilde Hesme), only hastens his personal decline. Les amants réguliers carries the weight of a chef d’oeuvre with its epic, three-hour length and the precious, serene, high contrast black-and-white photography of master DP William Lubtchansky. The assured mise en scène, subtly blending autobiography and literary fiction, makes for a dreamlike quality, a fascination that is prototypically Garrelian. History is never simply repeating itself, and tragedy does not return as farce—it comes back as a melancholy love letter to those who vanished with it.

Cinema Scope: In Les amants réguliers, a very subjective, very personal take on May 1968, your son Louis plays a 20-year-old guy getting caught up in an unexpected revolution. You were 20 in 1968 as well. How autobiographical is this film?

Philippe Garrel: It’s autobiographical only as far as the period is concerned. The love story on the other hand is more Romantic, very literary. But formally the film is of course very personal: the scene in which Louis meets the girl crossing the street is deliberately shot like a newsreel. I did shoot a lot of documentary footage of the events of May 68 myself in 35mm, but unfortunately I lost all the negatives of that material. So I tried to reconstruct those images now, three-and-a-half decades later. I tried to shoot them exactly the same way again. In that sense, Les amants réguliers is less autobiographical than a reproduction of the films I shot at that time. That is as far as the autobiography extends: it concerns the period, the climate, the morale of that story. The romance part has more to do with Proust, though, and other literary references. I am now 57 years old, this is my 24th film, and I did in fact already create films that were a lot more autobiographical—films like L’enfant secret. In Les amants réguliers, the love story needed to be more universal, more classical, so that it would make identification possible.

Scope: Your gaze back at the Parisian May of 1968 seems quite pessimistic—or maybe more precisely, skeptical. You are not romanticizing the period at all, the film is completely unsentimental. It also seems very honest, as you focus on the uncertainty of your protagonists, on their uneasy mix of emotion and ideology. The revolution that you describe is quite often based more on accident than on heroism.

Garrel: Yes, well, historically May ‘68 has been a great defeat. What makes my film optimistic, though, is the sheer fact of its existence. It is positive to know that you cannot censor this era at last. Art always finally tries to re-establish different truths of events; there’s never just one truth to an event, after all, but always many. So my film provides an alternative, a personal truth of the time of May 1968. I was able to make this film from a participant’s point of view, like someone who directs a movie about a battle that he himself actually fought. I am an eyewitness of that time, and I can show what I have experienced through cinema without any economic intervention or censorship so typical of all industries. I could relate my truth on May ‘68 despite the fact that I had very few means, very little money to do so.

Scope: Two years ago, Bernardo Bertolucci also made a film on May ‘68, The Dreamers—a radically different film. Les amants réguliers almost seems to be the opposite of everything Bertolucci tried to do.

Garrel: The Dreamers is very classical, whereas I consider my film more of an avant garde work. It is shot in a way that is actually characteristic of cinema in 1968. And, by the way, my film cost about a tenth of what Bertolucci used for The Dreamers. In that sense also I think Les amants réguliers is very modern: it makes the most of very limited means.

Scope: Did you have the feeling you had to tell this tale once more—also to revise dominant views on those historical events?

Garrel: In France , for a long time many truths about May ‘68 were withheld because De Gaulle was still around. The role he played during the fights was of course less than glorious, but since De Gaulle to this day virtually embodies the Resistance, which cannot be touched in France , ever, many facts have been denied regarding May ‘68. But since I was there and since I also happen to be a filmmaker—I had already released my first film, Marie pour mémoire, in 1967—I can finally tell my version of that era. That in itself is positive. Other than that, May 1968 has been a serious defeat. And now one of those who lost the battle tells that story once again. It’s a loser’s film really.

Scope: To me Les amants réguliers is much more than just a film about the specific history of May ‘68. It is also about film history, about personal history, about history proper. Isn’t this film in its essence also a tale about the mechanics of history in general, and about the impossibility to recreate history on the screen?

Garrel: No. I think my film somehow resembles Stendhal’s novel, The Charterhouse of Parm a , in which the two Romantic heroes occasionally leave their story by crossing history. No, I have a different dialectic: For me, history is the enemy of art. Usually when artists touch history, they are always prisoners of time, because every time is ruled by history. But it’s impossible to recreate history itself. Cinema is what we have learned to mistake for history, but cinema is only mise en scène. For instance, we think we teach students about the history of Napoleon Bonaparte, but what we really teach them is Abel Gance’s very romanticized movie about Napoleon. When we think about the revolution of 1917, we immediately think of Eisenstein’s Potemkin (1925). Even newsreels from World War II have turned out to be fiction, manufactured by directors after the war. I believe that cinema is an integral part of history itself, also in its symbolic function. Cinema is by now a part of our memory. It is an attempt to rebuild our imperfect memories. In that respect it can be fiction. I do not think art represents history, I think it is a part of it. Even if it’s fake and mythological sometimes.

Scope: Les amants réguliers cultivates a very austere, very painterly kind of beauty. How did you work with William Lubtchansky? Did you let him do what he wanted, or did you have any say in the camera work?

Garrel: That depended really. William and I belong to the same generation, as does my editor, Françoise Collin. This film truly is a generational movie. We all identified strongly with this story. So we decided to exchange ideas often. And since we all have definitely reached the second half of our working lives, it depended very much on who was most awake at a given morning, and who liked to direct things. At our age we tend to group together more easily than we used to do. So in the film there are camera positions that are typically mine, and other framings that are more characteristic of William. We worked together like musicians, really: we had dialogues, like a jazz band that keeps improvising on what had been written. Whoever felt like playing, played first.

Scope: How do feel about your position as an artist working at the very margins of the French film industry? Is that position self-chosen, or was it really forced on you?

Garrel: It has always been like this. Since my very first film. I did not choose to be marginalized. I was literally put outside. I remember my first film, it was a short movie I made in 1964, Les enfants deésaccordées. I shot this film when I was 16 years old. It was shown on television together with another short film that somebody else did. This other director was interviewed for the occasion, and when it was finally my turn, I was told they were not going to interview me since I was so different and just too original. They were not interested. That’s the way I started. I was always considered different from anybody else. So this forced me to make cinema outside of cinema, so to speak. It was only when I met Andy Warhol in 1969—that was after he had been injured—that I realized it was not so bad to be an outsider. To work outside the established art world. In my case this is not a pose at all: I was forced to work that way. Now I’m used to it, so I don’t feel frustrated any more.

Scope: It’s been four years since your last film, Sauvage innocence. Has it become even more difficult to finance your work lately?

Garrel: You know, every cent in Les amants réguliers has come from the political left, even though it’s a production funded by private and public money. That’s not a joke, it’s true. It had to be that way. There was no way you could tell this story that offers a radically left perspective with right-wing money. So yes, it was particularly difficult to finance this film. But I am not the only one. It is becoming more and more difficult for other filmmakers as well to get their productions together. I used to say that I only do movies for myself, but people kept asking me if I was crazy, why I was making films at all then. It has become so difficult—and almost paradoxical—to make true cinema in a period that’s invaded and ruled by industrial images. Had somebody discovered and supported me back in the mid-60s as a great classical filmmaker, my career might have been different. That said, I did have strong supporters in my life: one was Henri Langlois of the Cinématheque française.

Scope: Since your films always seem to constitute their own category, hasn’t it been strange to submit Les amants réguliers for competition in a big festival like Venice ?

Garrel: For a painter, you mean? It’s true, it did feel bizarre, yes.

Scope: Why did you agree then?

Garrel: It’s a tradition of big film festivals to have one work of the avant garde, to include one black sheep. In Venice in 2005 that was obviously me.

BFI | Sight & Sound | Confessions Of An Opium Eater Jonathan Rosenbaum from Sight and Sound, August 4, 2006, also seen here: Voluptuous Defeat: Philippe Garrel and LES AMANTS RÉGULIERS ...

Jealousy (La Jalousie), by Philippe Garrel (France, 2013) – Cinética Fábio Andrade

DVD Times Noel Megahey

Reverse Shot [Nick Pinkerton]

indieWire [Nick Pinkerton]

Reverse Shot A Cold Day in Hell, Reverse Shot Blog

The More Things Change... : Philippe Garrel's Regu... Travis Mackenzie Hoover from The House Next Door

Philippe Garrel • Director – September 4, 2005 a brief interview with the director by Fabien Lemercier, from Cineuropa

Not Coming to a Theater Near You [Beth Gilligan]

DVD Verdict (Jesse Ataide)

european-films.net Boyd van Hoeij

PopMatters (Michael Barrett)

Klinger on Garrel Gabe Klinger’s observations from Fipresci magazine

DVD Outsider Slarek

stylusmagazine.com (Bill Weber)

The New York Sun (Steve Dollar)

The Cinematheque (Kevyn Knox)

Salon.com [Andrew O'Hehir] Page 3

New York Film Review [Nathan Gelgud]

The IFC Blog [Alison Willmore]

Offoffoff.com Leslie (Hoban) Blake

Strictly Film School Acquarello

musicOMH (Jon Bright)

Jealousy (La Jalousie): Venice Review | Hollywood Reporter Boyd van Hoeij

'Jealousy' Review: Philippe Garrel in Better Form Than Usual | Variety Leslie Felperin

Film-Forward.com [Christopher Bourne]

'Jealousy,' Directed by Philippe Garrel - The New York Times Manohla Dargis, also seen here: New York Times (registration req'd)

DVDBeaver.com [Per-olaf Strandberg]

FRONTIER OF DAWN (La Frontiere de L’Aube)

France (108 mi) 2008

The Mysteries of Cannes, #2 Glenn Kenny at Cannes from Some Came Running

Easier times were had with Philippe Garrel's Frontier of Dawn, a nice soak for those who love the indolent angoisse and tristesse of the Garrel mood, something the director is able to conjure, a friend noted, just by turning on the camera. Or so it seems. The more some folks ostentatiously laughed at the introduction of a supernatural angle into the plot (achieved via effects that date back to Cocteau if not Melies), the more I loved the film.

Fabien Lemercier at Cannes from Cineuropa

Frontier of Dawn – the 28th feature by traditionalist director Philippe Garrel – met with tumultuous applause and whistles following its competition screening before the international press at the Cannes Film Festival.

Lauded on several occasions at the Venice Film Festival, the 60-year-old filmmaker is in official competition at Cannes for the first time, with a work characteristic of an oeuvre that could be described as timeless and anachronistic, or even suggestive and ephemeral, depending on one’s point of view.

A past master in the art of black-and-white filmmaking with the help of talented DoP William Lubtchansky, Garrel has this time reduced the duration of the extremely long takes, making his recent films a truly hypnotic experience. The livelier rhythm and editing nonetheless do not detract from the director’s distinctive style, as he captures – with a sharp eye for beauty – human fragility and the slightest emotional response on the faces of the three protagonists, played by Louis Garrel (very much at ease in his father’s film), Laura Smet and newcomer Clémentine Poidatz.

Through the story of two love affairs experienced by a young photographer, Frontier of Dawn – co-written by the director, Arlette Langmann and Marc Cholodenko – establishes a symbolic link between the lure of dark realms and destructive passions (embodied by the suicidal actress played by Smet) and seemingly more conventional desires (the birth of a child and marriage plans).

Interspersed with fantasy sequences – in which the dead woman appears in the mirror and calls her former lover to the other side – the film’s classic confrontation between the forces of the mind (unconscious/conscious, dark room/sun and light, life/death) is portrayed in quasi-metaphorical terms.

This intimate battle is first of all explored subtly and then brought to the brink of abstraction by the radical Garrel, whose audiences are free to decide whether or not to join him on his journey through the mirror towards the Frontier of Dawn.

Frontier Of Dawn (La Frontiere De L'Aube) Lisa Nesselson at Cannes from Screendaily

The indelible power of true love, however destructive or impractical, is at the flawed heart of Frontier Of Dawn. Earnest, inherently divisive effort, lusciously photographed in black and white, is one of the weaker recent entries in Philippe Garrel's four decade career of bravely iconoclastic art films. Garrel's son Louis continues to embody his generation, projecting an appealing blend of mop-topped insouciance with doubt and anguish on tap. But his presence in this episodic love story with supernatural overtones is insufficient to overcome the film's endearing but awkward retrograde aura.

Nothing could render Garrel's work commercial at this late date, although his Night Wind (1998) featured one of Catherine Deneueve's most interesting roles and Regular Lovers (2005) surely won the director new fans. Beyond France, this outing will remain a curio, with news of its for-or-against Cannes debut likely to fuel curiosity among fest audiences elsewhere.

Photographer Francois (Garrel) arrives at the spacious Paris apartment of Carole (Smet), an actress, to take her portrait. Although the story is pegged to 2007 and after, Francois shoots on film and uses a darkroom. There's not a cell phone or computer in sight and characters write to each other on sheets of paper rather than via email or text messages. The director paints a contemporary yet timeless world in which the intensity of human feelings is the main distraction.

Although Carole recently married a countryman who has been abroad since the wedding, within 24 hours Francois and Carole have segued into an affair. The lovers speak of how they'll go about calling it quits one day even as their romance is in full bloom.

When Carole's husband returns, Francois keeps his distance which, to put it mildly, has an adverse effect on Carole's mental health. A year later Francois has remade his life with Eve (Poidatz), yet finds himself haunted - literally - by Carole.

While the film's central stab at visual poetry - a sort of magic mirror with a direct pipeline to the afterworld for doomed lovers - takes the story in an unforeseen direction, the effect will be risible for many; it elicited titters and guffaws at the Cannes press screening. And yet, Garrel is legitimately mining the territory he has carved out for himself from the very start: the ravages of being apart from one's soulmate in this realm or the next. He remains dedicated to depicting feelings and states of being on celluloid, via the interplay of light and shadow.

Moments of intentional levity are scarce but include the amusing and quotable "windshield wiper" theory of romance and friendship. Another scene that shines is Francois' encounter in a bar with a gung-ho self-described anti-Semite. The director seems to be suggesting that anti-Semitism, like 'l'amour fou' and it's scars, are givens. One can no sooner eradicate - or even tone down - anti-Semitism than one can obliterate the fallout of true love.

Karina Longworth at Cannes from Spoutblog, including her next day follow up [Karina Longworth]

The French title of Philippe Garrel’s film in competition here is La Frontière de l’aube; the English translation in the Cannes guide is Frontier of Dawn, but the subtitle at the beginning of the film read, The Dawn of the Shore. Neither title gives any indication of what this film is: a story of amour gone so fou that the natural world becomes subject to the supernatural. Hands down the most accessible Garrel film I’ve seen, it’s still a strange, swoony, genre-bending challenge.

I have to wonder if those critics who dismissed James Gray’s Two Lovers earlier in week will bother to grapple will the similarities between that star-studded American production and Garrel’s infinitely cooler, warm-toned black-and-white capital-A work of Art. On paper, they’re essentially the same film: a Jewish photographer falls for a difficult, substance-dependent blonde; even though that relationship is clearly doomed from the start, it haunts him and prevents him from happily settling into a domestic routine with a still-beautiful but less troubled and exciting brunette. The big difference, at least narratively speaking: in Gray’s film, as the director told Andrew O’Hehir, the protagonist ultimately “does choose life.” Spoiler alert! The resolution to Garrel’s story is the diametric opposite.

Movie star Carole (Laura Smet) is living half a world away from her filmmaker husband when she meets Francois (Garrel’s son Louis, his eyes dark, as if eyelinered naturally), a photographer who comes to her hotel to take her picture. It’s not clear if Francois is a journalist or an artist or what, but the project seems to take him weeks to complete, and by the second photo shoot, Francois and Carole have fallen into bed. They pledge undying love, but the sharp violin/piano jazz-horror score alerts us right away that things aren’t going to work out. Gin-swilling serial suicide attempter Carole seems destined to go the way of Frances Farmer, and though she seems convinced that Francois can save her from herself, he can’t stop what’s coming for long.

After Carole’s husband comes home suddenly and just misses catching Francois in her bed, Francois leaves and, despite Carole’s pleas, stoically refuses to come back. Carole’s heartbreak leads to a swerve into Shock Corridor territory. Meanwhile, Francois takes up with the lovely but fairly normal (and thus comparatively boring) Eve. A year after Carole violently exits the picture, Eve becomes pregnant; just as Francois has accepted that he’s about to become a father, the spectre of Carole comes back to try and drag his happy home life into the grave.

Perhaps because there are more than a few members of the press corps who could be described as socially awkward Jewish males, there’s been a lot of attention paid to the fact that in Two Lovers, Gwyneth Paltrow’s character is able to push Joaquin Phoenix’s as far as she does because she embodies his bad girl shiksa fantasy. When in that film, the nice Jewish boy threatens to abandon his family and local community in order to run off with the dangerous blonde instead of settling for the sensible match of his same background and faith, it might be a mistake and it might be a dissapointment to his parents, but it’s hardly a tragedy of biblical proportions.

Garrel’s film takes the mystical threat of the shiksa far more seriously, literally turning her into something out of a horror-movie as the film morphs from classical, almost slight romance to a serious meditation on love, faith and eternity. Garell tells us twice that Francois is Jewish––once directly, once implicitly (Francois thinks talk of concentration camp survivors if fit for pillow talk; amazingly, Carole agrees). Taking place in Paris, far outside Two Lovers’ world of Brighton Beach second-and third-generation immigrants, this information only seems significant after the final scene. At the risk of giving away more than I’d like to, the film’s denouement requires its Jewish protagonist to believe in an afterlife.

When confessing his bind to a friend, the friend has no sympathy for Francois’ inability to concentrate on his impending nuptials and push Carole out of his head. “Bourgeois happiness,” says the friend. “Scary, isn’t it?” Apparently, it is–it’s such a prominent fear that it’s become the subject of two films in competition at Cannes in the same year. I like both but they’re such stylistic polar opposites that I imagine that most critics will champion one and bash the other. For me, the borderline-genre elements of the Garrel film make it the more interesting specimen. There are shots in this film’s second half that are scarier than anything I’ve seen in a horror film in recent years––without the aid of any effect more special than a basic optical print––and simultaneously, incredibly moving in their invocation of a love that won’t die. Or, at the very least, refuses to abide by traditional boundaries of love and death.

[edit, next day addition—Philippe Garrel’s La Frontière de l’aube may be falling to the same fate. This is the first Garrel film to make it to Cannes since 1983, and his presence here was apparently not welcome. As you know, I think the movie is great; many, many people do not, The premiere crowd gave the virtually de rigueur standing ovation, but the press screening ended with boos. Variety trashed it, with Leslie Felperin’s brashly dismissive review teaching us that using the word “bitch” to describe a female protagonist is apparently compatible with the publication’s patented Slanguage. It’s that old double-edged sword: if all goes well, a festival like Cannes can be the platform of an independent filmmaker’s dreams, but a single press screening-gone-bad can make for a crippling comedown.]

A BURNING HOT SUMMER (Un été brûlant) B- 81

France Italy Switzerland (95 mi) 2011 ‘Scope

For whatever reason, Philippe Garrel films rarely play in the United States, where in the last two decades only 2 of the director’s 8 films had an official release here, where I Don’t Hear the Guitar Anymore (J'entends plus la... (1991) was released in the USA in 2008, 17 years after it played in Europe, following the successful release of his critically acclaimed REGULAR LOVERS (2005). Others films, like this one, which will be available to the public on View On Demand beginning the 29th, have made their way to various art houses, but are virtually unseen by the viewing public. Garrel is an acquired taste and is not for everyone, but he’s a throwback to a different era of cinema where film had to matter, using an autobiographical, stream-of-consciousness Proustian style of personal confession, something along the lines of Jean Eustache, whose wrenching drama The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain) (1973) remains a seminal work in a radical and provocative style of cinema that challenges the viewer, a searing confessional masterpiece that unfurls in exhausting, exhilarating detail. Garrel’s characters writhe in the agony of their own despairing souls, where the only life worth paying attention to is one that recognizes how intertwined life and death really are, as life doesn’t exist without human tragedy. Marc Cholodenko has co-written all of Garrel’s films in the past 20 years with the director, where their style is to convey complexity through completely unsentimentalized emotional directness. Perhaps this family might be comparable to America’s John Huston, whose father Walter acted in over 50 films, and whose children Angelica and Danny have both built successful careers in motion pictures and television. Philippe’s father Maurice acted in over a hundred French films, while his son Louis first appeared onscreen at age 6 and has gone on to replace Jean-Pierre Léaud (who happens to be his godfather) as the next generation’s heart throb in French films.

In typical Garrel style, the film opens with a suicide, as the bleary-eyed Louis Garrel speeds his luxury BMW into a tree, becoming an image of death and stillness, where his last thought was a naked image of his wife (Monica Bellucci). The rest of the film is a flashback narrated by his best friend Paul (Jérôme Robart), a relatively nondescript kind of guy who sells revolutionary political papers on the street while working part-time as a movie extra. Paul’s girlfriend is Élisabeth (Céline Sallette), a cute girl he meets on the movie set, becoming lifelong partners. Frédéric (Louis Garrel) is a painter living in a gorgeous villa in Italy with his voluptuous older wife Angèle (Bellucci), something of a sexpot movie star, where he invites them both to come spend the summer together in Italy, as he’s having difficulty painting, “All that dead beauty is so uninspiring.” Frédéric and Paul spend all their time together discussing revolutionary politics, among other things, where Paul believes it’s a question of the police, as they inevitably support the Fascist state, where you have to actively live a life that defies the need for police, suggesting “Fidelity is an outdated, petit-bourgeois concept.” Frédéric, on the other hand, believes in art and love, tolerant of all political views so long as he’s allowed to live his life. Élisabeth starts feeling left out as Paul is constantly at Frédéric’s side, where he’s not ashamed to admit he enjoys admiring his wife, which is a roundabout way of belittling Élisabeth. When Angèle receives rave reviews for her latest role, they celebrate and throw a party, where Angèle creates something of a scandal on the dance floor to Dirty Pretty Things - Truth Begins - YouTube (5:23), creating a sense of sexually uninhibited euphoria Dancing in Philippe Garrel's "A Burning Hot Summer" - YouTube (4:32), which ends badly with Frédéric, where things are never quite the same between the two of them, mired in the complacency of a personal malaise that may have political roots. It should be stated that Maurice Garrel was a resistance fighter against the Nazi’s in the 40’s, while Philippe was a leftist student activist in Paris, May 1968, helping to organize the largest nationwide strike in history, involving 22% of the entire French population over the course of two weeks. Louis, on the other hand, is the product of a French generation without a war or a cause to rally behind, becoming ambivalent about politics, emblematic of the nation’s complacency which led to the election of Nicolas Sarkozy, President of a right-wing party, soon to become the most divisive conservative politician in France. During Angèle’s lifetime, Italy has been rocked by the self-serving antics of billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, the longest serving postwar Prime Minister of Italy, a term plagued by corruption and scandal and personal indiscretion.

Louis Garrel is always the most indulgent and annoyingly self-centered person in the room, a guy that thinks only of himself, who couldn’t possibly take the time to understand others, as he’s completely enraptured with himself. But in Monica Bellucci, she’s more indulgent than he is, as she has to be the center of attention where she can be adored all the time. If people aren’t paying attention to her, she feels something’s wrong. So of course, she runs off and has an affair with her next filmmaker, Roland (Vladislav Galard), falling madly in love, as he gives her all the attention she needs. Both Frédéric and Angèle are pleasure gluttons, where they simply can’t get enough of themselves, making them rather empty headed and vapid characters, most of the time feeling superficial at best. When things go wrong between them, as they inevitably do, they never talk to each other or try to work things out, as other than sex, they’re not used to communicating anything. So long as the sex was great, everything else just fell into place, but when people started feeling left out or distant, they didn’t know how to reconnect. Élisabeth doesn’t really understand what is happening between them, but she intrinsically takes the woman’s side, knowing this could one day be happening to her. When Angèle runs off with the filmmaker, Frédéric falls apart, becoming an emotional wreck. When Paul tries to console his friend, Élisabeth has had enough of being left out. This film is defined by unlikable characters that don’t know how to talk to one another, that create distances and empty spaces, and then are surprised to feel alienated. The quality of the filmmaking is excellent, told exclusively as a series of lived in fragments or vignettes, though strangely the narrator himself is rarely a featured character, where Willy Kurant’s cinematography remains intimately focused, and the music by John Cale has a way of accentuating something unexpressed. Everything about the film works except the lead couple, where there’s no sizzle, and while the film may attempt to be more, as it’s largely a film about two male friends, it gets bogged down by the couple’s emotional limitations, as both of whom couldn’t be more full of themselves, making it hard for the audience to care about a loathsome pair who could care less about anybody else. All the crocodile tears that Frédéric feels are just missed opportunities where no one’s paying any attention to him—could anything in life be worse? There’s an interesting appearance at the end of the film from Maurice Garrel, the last role he appeared in before he died just months before the film’s release.

Chicago Reader Drew Hunt

Directed by French master Philippe Garrel, this leisurely paced drama continues his penchant for intimate, small-scale narratives that nevertheless aspire to complex emotions and themes. A married couple on the brink of divorce (Louis Garrel, Monica Bellucci) invite another couple (Jerome Robart, Celine Sallette) to spend a summer with them in Rome, where they discuss all manner of sex, love, art, and politics. Garrel's work is indebted to silent cinema style, but his recent films have shown a real flair for dialogue too; his characters tend to espouse hollow rhetoric that hints at ingrained conflicts. As a young man Garrel was involved in the protests that rocked Paris in May 1968, which may explain his disillusionment with the Sarkozy era; the real legacy of the left, he suggests, may be the political ambivalence its supporters passed down to their children. In French with subtitles.

TimeOut NY Eric Hynes

Small-time actor Paul (Jérome Robart) serves as a Nick Carraway–like witness to an impossibly beautiful duo whose Euro-hipster glamour obscures a romance in ruins. Painter Frédéric (Louis Garrel, the director’s son) and movie star Angèle (Monica Bellucci) invite Paul and his girlfriend, Élisabeth (Céline Sallette), to spend the summer with them in Rome, where they parry between worshipping and punishing, adoring and despising each other. The specter of tragedy hangs over a spiraling affair: When Angèle runs off with her lover, Frédéric’s red-hot jealousy warps into a lethal case of the blues.

Love and death couldn’t be more closely intertwined than they are in Philippe Garrel’s latest boho melodrama, and like most of the French auteur’s work, it has a near-adolescent purity of purpose in how it handles love and loss. It’s unsurprising that the younger Garrel’s predilection for emotional daredevilry is perfectly exploited, but pinup beauty Bellucci is the revelation here, playing a woman condemned by adoration and dependence. “Men always blame you for what they do to you,” she says, with both resentment and resignation. There are subtler, more allusive films about stormy conflicts of the heart, but A Burning Hot Summer wisely knows when and how to surgically slice directly to the bone. It’s a bad romance of the highest order.

TimeOut Chicago Patrick Z. McGavin

French director Philippe Garrel (Regular Lovers) makes nakedly autobiographical movies marked by a commingling of sex and death. (Many of his films deal with his ten-year relationship with actress, musician and Warhol muse Nico, who died young in 1988.) Jean-Luc Godard was both a critical influence and key early supporter, and Garrel’s new film, A Burning Hot Summer, is an echo—or inversion—of Godard’s 1963 masterpiece Contempt. The director’s first color film since 1999’s Night Wind, the new movie was photographed by Willy Kurant (Godard’s Masculin Féminin) in a spare, muted palette that intensifies its anguish and despair.

Making glancing allusions to Contempt, the movie starts the way Godard’s film ends, with a car crash, and loops back to contrast the intertwined fates of two couples, the painter Frédéric (the director’s son, Louis Garrel) and his wife, Angèle (Monica Bellucci), a beautiful but emotionally fragile Italian actress. They share their Roman villa with two struggling French actors, Paul (Jérôme Robart) and Elisabeth (Céline Sallette).

Garrel’s movies are easy to deride because of their emotional directness, and because plot and story are clearly not his strengths. Like John Cassavetes, Garrel is at his most authentic and electrifying depicting extremes of instability and romantic tumult. His camera is constantly alert to his actors’ bodies, faces and gestures, as in a fantastic party sequence that reveals Angèle’s infidelity. The interplay of history and memoir achieves a lyrical grace in the finale, which finds the younger Garrel and his grandfather (Maurice Garrel) engaged in a haunting confrontation. (Available on VOD Fri 29; see ifcfilms.com for details.)

A Burning Hot Summer, despite the appropriateness of its title, is not a documentary about the current weather in New York City as I write this. Instead, it’s the latest relationship chamber drama by Philippe Garrel, who began his career in the wake of the French New Wave and the May 1968 uprisings. It fits solidly in the mode of his previous work: raw and unadorned, autobiographical portraits of people navigating their way through life, love, and art, often with great suffering and tragedy along the way.

These works are created with rigorous, academic precision, and Garrel consciously works like a master painter whose creations are inspired by the work of other masters. This time, Garrel offers his self-described take on Godard’s Contempt, detailing the cruelties and emotional terrorism that people often visit upon one another, while calling it love. A Burning Hot Summer, like Garrel’s other works, is narratively elliptical, each scene capturing moments out of time, leaving it up to the audience to draw the necessary connections between the episodes.

Garrel is quietly confrontational, putting his issues of love, art, and politics solidly front and center, taking an art-for-art’s-sake approach to his work, with a nearly obsessive repetition of deeply personal themes and episodes from his own life that often doesn’t sit well with some critics, who often find his autobiographical approach as overly hermetic. However, I was riveted and came away with renewed admiration for the naked honesty and raw passion that comes through with such directness.

The film opens with a death, that of painter Frédéric (Louis Garrel), who crashes his car into a tree. The final image in his mind is that of the naked form (ready to be painted) of his Italian wife, actress Angèle (Monica Bellucci). The events leading up to Frédéric’s death are recalled by his best friend, Paul (Jérome Robart), a bit player in search of bigger acting roles. During his recollections, we also learn about Paul’s relationship with his girlfriend, Elisabeth (Céline Sallette), whom he met on the set while they were both playing small roles in a French Resistance movie.

Frédéric lives in Rome with Angèle, and is wealthy enough that he doesn’t have to sell his artworks to make a living. Materially he lacks for nothing, but he is spiritually impoverished. Living in close proximity to some of the world’s supreme masterpieces of art does nothing for his own work. “All that dead beauty is so uninspiring,” Frédéric laments. He devotes much of his time to treating Angèle with petty cruelty, often casually neglectful of her, and cheating on her with wanton abandon, mostly with prostitutes. He does this even as he declares that he can’t live without her, which ultimately proves to be the literal truth.

As for Paul, besides being an actor, he is a self-styled revolutionary, who distributes on the street a broadsheet articulating his political ideology. Frédéric rejects any kind of political engagement, preferring to devote his life to strictly personal, artistic concerns. The men’s political and social differences (Paul is a much poorer man than Frédéric) would seem to preclude such a close bond between them, but they indeed have a strong friendship, so strong that it wreaks havoc on Paul’s relationship with Elisabeth. She’s in great distress over what she perceives as Paul’s neglect of her, since he spends so much of his time with Frédéric. This is a potentially dangerous situation since Elisabeth, a melancholy woman by temperament, has attempted suicide in the past.

Although A Burning Hot Summer is intimately personal— it was inspired by the death of Garrel’s painter friend, also named Frédéric—the underlying theme encompasses a much larger scope. Garrel describes in his director’s statement that the aim of his film is to show “people who haven’t known war,” and I think that is the key to understanding these characters. Frédéric’s grandfather (played by Maurice Garrel, the director’s father) was a fighter in the French Resistance, and, of course, this is also the subject of the film within the film that Paul and Elisabeth act in. Philippe Garrel came of age during the May ’68 protests, which he revisited in his earlier film Regular Lovers. By contrast, today’s youth for the most part have a decided lack of political idealism and engagement. Even though Paul spouts revolutionary rhetoric at every opportunity, one senses that he gives little more than lip service to these ideals, and that once he achieves a more stable financial and social position, all of his vaunted radicalism will quickly fall by the wayside. The lack of commitment to anything outside themselves and their limited social circles is what causes the characters to retreat into inflicting emotional terrorism on one another, turning their anger and discontent against their own rather than the powers that be.

A Burning Hot Summer trades in the richly textured black-and-white imagery of Garrel’s two previous features Regular Lovers and Frontier of Dawn (both shot by the late, great DP William Lubtchansky) for colors that convey the heat of the film’s title. This time, another great cameraman, Willy Kurant, handles cinematography duties. Garrel favors sustained long takes and vast stretches of dialog, where characters pour out their passions, heartbreak, politics, and philosophies with raw, direct emotion. These beautiful people suffer exquisitely, most especially Louis Garrel, the director’s son and frequent star, and Céline Sallette, who delivers an especially mesmerizing performance.

Slant Magazine [Ela Bittencourt]

Review: 'A Burning Hot Summer' Is A Thundering Bore That Verges ... Oliver Lyttelton

Village Voice Nick Schager

Movie Reviews - 'A Burning Hot Summer' - Two Couples Bunk ... - NPR Mark Jenkins

The House Next Door [Fernando F. Croce]

A BURNING HOT SUMMER Facets Multi Media

Bonjour Tristesse (English)

'A Burning Hot Summer' review: luckwarm - SFGate Walter Addiego

A Burning Hot Summer - Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun-Times

New York Times Manohla Dargis

JEALOUSY (La Jalousie) B+ 90

France (77 mi) 2013 ‘Scope

You don’t love someone in a void. —Claudia (Anna Mouglalis)

At age 66 Philippe Garrel continues to maintain a link with the French New Wave, where it was his father, French actor Maurice Garrel, a resistance fighter during the war who acted in over a hundred French films, while Philippe embraced the 60’s counterculture, developing a particular fascination for New Wave giants François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette, where his early films of the 60’s and 70’s were largely underground films or portraits of artistic alienation. Working with miniscule budgets in relative obscurity, ignored by the mainstream press, virtually unknown outside of hardcore cinephiles, very few of his films have actually been released in America. He started filming in 1964 at the age of 16, becoming part of the May '68 generation, dating German singer and Warhol Superstar Nico from the Velvet Underground from 1969 to 1979, where she appeared in seven of his films beginning in 1972, sharing a turbulent decade of wild bohemian lifestyle and drug addiction together that ended up with electroshock treatment. Afterwards, his films were variations on his own life, becoming more autobiographical, making stark portraits of intimacy, alienation, and the pursuit of love, often shot under the shadow of lost loves or lost dreams of the 1968 uprising, perhaps best represented by REGULAR LOVERS (2005), a mammoth 3-hour work that looks behind the scenes of the student demonstrations in Paris during the late 60’s, starring Garrel’s own son Louis who may as well be the poster child for French films, the natural heir of Godard and Truffaut’s New Wave darling Jean-Pierre Léaud. What perhaps distinguishes Garrel’s films are his bleak, claustrophobic portraits of intimacy and alienation, where abrupt moments of happiness are usually short-lived, eventually replaced by an all-consuming cloud of despair that hovers over his featured characters, shot in a portrait like style, using close ups and long takes, allowing conversations to develop where nothing feels forced. His couples drown in each other’s sorrows, often suffocating on their misery, where suicide inevitably becomes an option. JEALOUSY is a remake of Garrel’s second film, a fifteen-minute short DROIT DE VISITE (1965), made at the age of 17 and based largely on his own childhood memories when his stage actor father left his mother for another woman.

Jealousy The 51^st New York Film Festival, from Film Comment

Philippe Garrel is a true child of French cinema. His father was the great actor Maurice Garrel, he made a second home for himself in the Cinémathèque Française, he shot his first film at the age of 16, and he rode through the streets of Paris shooting newsreels of May ’68 with Godard in his red Ferrari. From the start, Garrel’s intimate, handcrafted cinema has stayed elementally close to the conditions of silent film—the unadorned beauty of faces, figures, and light—and revisited the same deeply personal themes of loss, mourning, and rejuvenation through love. In this sharp, vigorous film, shot in glorious black and white by the great Willy Kurant (Masculine Feminine), Garrel takes a fresh look at his titular subject, patiently following the professional and emotional crosscurrents between two romantically entwined theater actors played by the director’s son Louis and Anna Mouglalis. With a beautiful score by Jean-Louis Aubert. A 51st New York Film Festival selection, voted best undistributed film of 2013 in Film Comment’s year-end poll.

Most likely by design, the film has the spare black and white look of a 60’s Godard film, beautifully shot in ‘Scope, adding a visual elegance, made up largely of fragmentary, moment-by-moment sketches, where Garrel uses tight framing on an exasperated Clothilde (Rebecca Covenant), who is utterly distraught at the sight of seeing Louis (Louis Garrel) gather his belongings and walk out the door, shouting “Don’t leave me alone. Don’t do this,” an emotionally devastating moment that Charlotte (Olga Milshtein, stealing every scene she’s in), their young and impressionable 8-year old daughter, witnesses through a keyhole from her bedroom. While set in the present, the film recounts an episode in the 50’s when Maurice, a struggling actor, left Philippe’s mother for another woman. That would interestingly make Louis (the director’s son) the director’s father Maurice onscreen, while the young child Charlotte assumes the identity of the director. In REGULAR LOVERS (2005), it was Louis playing his father’s role in the turbulent 60’s. Keeping things in the family, Louis’s younger sister Esther onscreen is played by his real life sister Esther Garrel. Louis takes up with another actress Claudia (Anna Mouglalis), once thought to be a rising star, though she hasn’t had a part in six years, where both are down and out actors with barely enough to get by. According to the director in an interview, one was able to survive in the late 60’s on three or four francs a day, where the barren, claustrophobic confinement of their tiny top-floor apartment was typical of the era. While initially overjoyed to be with one another, striding quickly together arm in arm through the busy Parisian streets, Louis tries to help her land a job, while there are also amusing moments, like introducing Claudia for the first time to his overly inquisitive daughter, where Louis arranges to see Charlotte every other weekend, spending much of the time walking through the city or hanging out in parks, eating communal sandwiches, stealing lollipops, where they giddily converse with one another. While Louis playfully has tickle fights with his daughter and is more gregarious, enjoying time spent socializing with friends in bars or restaurants, Claudia is more distant, something of a continually brooding, intellectual existentialist who is used to being alone and detached from the world. When Louis asks, “If one of us ever cheats, do we tell?”, a giveaway hint that pretty much explains his state of mind, Claudia simply responds “You’re so complicated. I only need you to love me.”

At a modest 77 minutes, the film is a threadbare, small-scale project told in two parts with chapter headings, the first entitled “J'ai gardé les anges (I Kept the Angels),” mostly rooted in the first-hand experiences of the characters, while the second “Sparks in a Powder Keg” relies more on harder to reach memories, set in a barren, wintry landscape where jackets are even worn inside. Louis lets his sister Esther in on the “law of the desert,” where you accommodate a stranger for three days and three nights under the safety of your tent, but then they must leave. Having never heard this before, Louis claims it came from his Dad, but Esther points out regrettably and somewhat sadly, that she was too young to remember their father. There are more dropped hints of Mayakovsky and Seneca, both of whom took their own lives, not to mention Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, which also deals with suicide, while the ever dour Claudia is continually heard uttering cryptic comments like “This apartment will be the death of us.” This foreshadowing lingers like smog or stagnant air for awhile as the couple settles into a kind of accepted resignation, where they pretend not to be ignoring one another. When Claudia, who sleeps with random men by habit, begins an affair with a theater director, Henri (Eric Ruillat), finding work in the process, the director bankrolls an upgraded apartment that Claudia moves into at once, without even asking Louis, where the director is supposedly laissez faire regarding the continued presence of Louis. But in no time, Claudia walks out on Louis much like he earlier walked out on Clothilde, leaving him feeling blindsided, emotionally paralyzed, and heartstruck by the move, as if it’s against the laws of nature, suddenly finding himself alone in an apartment he can’t afford. While it’s actually amusing to see a completely perplexed Louis Garrel get his comeuppance, as in film after film he’s always playing the callous lothario, but here his grand and tragic gesture leads to a suicide attempt, shooting himself in the chest, and missing, where we see him afterwards hooked up to every known contraption in the hospital ward. As it turns out, Maurice Garrel once tried to commit suicide in exactly the same way. The sad truth of the matter is the film’s melancholic mood reveals how quickly dreams disappear and one’s idealistic hopes are crushed, beautifully set to the tender guitar music of Jean-Louis Aubert, one of the better scored films of the year. Garrel offers one of his more likeable low-key efforts, expressing a genuine affection for his downbeat characters, another doomed short story about the fragility of happiness along with relationships loved and lost, where a friend points out to Louis, “You understand your characters better than those close to you,” — a poignant truth about cinema that runs throughout the New Wave era, where insights into art are more easily achieved than reflecting philosophically on one’s own existence.

Senses of Cinema: Daniel Fairfax November 2013

By contrast, Philippe Garrel’s La Jalousie was a masterful work. I have a simple rule of thumb for Garrel’s films, which is almost always reliable: when they are in black and white, they are incredible; in colour, however, for whatever enigmatic reason, his work is significantly impoverished. After the disappointment of Un été brûlant, it was with alacrity that I learnt that his new film would be en noir et blanc. Indeed, thanks to veteran cinematographer Willy Kurant, La Jalousie presents the same ashen vision of Paris that is common to Garrel’s best work, from Marie pour mémoire (1967) to L’enfant secret (1982) and Les amants réguliers (2005). That the new film has a heavily autobiographical strain to it is, of course, of no surprise to anyone familiar with Garrel’s work, but this time the film-à-clef is taken in a curious direction: here, Garrel’s son, Louis, plays a character based on his father, Maurice, while the character based on Philippe himself is played by a nine-year-old girl. Although set in the present, La Jalousie centres on an episode taking place in the 1950s, when Maurice, a struggling actor, left Philippe’s mother for another woman (Claudine in the film, played by Anna Mouglalis). Progressing in elliptical fashion, the story leads up to an emotionally devastating scene where Claudine confronts Louis with their common acts of infidelity inside a monstrously oversized 16^th arrondissement apartment. But even with this subject matter (and the inevitable suicide attempt by Louis), the 76-minute film takes on the air of a fairytale, a quality aided no doubt by the fact that much of it unfurls from the child’s point of view. In the end, it is actually one of the most accessible films in Garrel’s œuvre – as the enjoyment of the young audience packing into the Gartenbaukino for the screening I attended attests.

Stephanie Zacharek The Village Voice

Among moviegoers who try to keep up with French cinema, the more recent pictures made by post-New Wave avant garde-type Philippe Garrel tend to inspire either passionate defenses or impatient eye-rolling, with not much in between. Perhaps the biggest lightning rod is Garrel's frequent casting of his son, Louis Garrel, an actor with a magnificently floppy tousle of hair and a sullen pout worthy of a disgruntled Roman god. Louis starred in his father's 2005 romantic drama Regular Lovers, playing a super-serious poet swept into the life-changing current of May '68, an echo of a role he'd played a few years earlier in Bernardo Bertolucci's sensual and sorely underrated romance The Dreamers. Louis is good at playing disaffected youths, but a little goes a long way, and his father definitely pushed those limits with the 2011 A Burning Hot Summer, casting Louis as a brooding painter bored with his marriage to movie star Monica Bellucci. If that's not a world's-tiniest-violin problem, I don't know what is.

But Garrel père and fils have made a near-miraculous recovery with Jealousy. Jealousy works because it's not trying to do too much: Rendered in lustrous black-and-white by veteran cinematographer Willy Kurant (who shot Masculin Féminin for Godard), the picture feels intimate and concentrated, less fluttery than some of Garrel's other pictures—it's right at the intersection of direct and oblique, like a good haiku. Louis plays a young actor—also named Louis—who walks out on his partner, Clothilde (Rebecca Covenant), leaving her to care for their young daughter, Charlotte (Olga Milshtein, adorable in a fetchingly matter-of-fact way). In the opening scene, a tearful Clothilde begs Louis not to leave, but he has his heart set on shacking up with Claudia (Anna Mouglalis), a failed actress with a seductively throaty voice and not a centime to her name.

Claudia is trouble all right, stalking through the movie on a great pair of stems, and it's not long before we learn that she has a rather elastic notion of sexual fidelity. Louis suffers, oh how he suffers! But he has good reason, and the younger Garrel keeps his mooning to a minimum as he shapes the contours of this character's heartache. He's particularly striking in his scenes with the young Milshtein. She's so unstudied and vibrant that she sets something free in him: He's relaxed and a little goofy, less preoccupied with carrying the onerous weight of actordom. She's the authority figure here, giving him permission not to take himself so seriously. Maybe his dad will take note.

Tony Pipolo on Philippe Garrel’s Jealousy Artforum, August 13, 2014, also seen here: Artforum: Tony Pipolo

SMACK IN THE MIDST of the usual summer glut of digital behemoths and bulging muscles, Philippe Garrel’s Jealousy—his latest, bittersweet semi-autobiographical homage to the French New Wave—comes as a relief. With nary a special effect in sight, the film revels in ravishing black-and-white ’Scope, the stunning limpidity of which makes one wonder why it’s been used so infrequently since the heyday of Kurosawa and Imamura. Given the simplicity of the story and settings of Jealousy, the wide screen might seem a luxury, but the format is friendly to the film’s semi-improvisational style and allows the emotional distances between characters to echo throughout each frame. Even the uncluttered vistas of a park are overcast with a sense of melancholy.

Except for the presence of a cell phone in one scene, the film could easily be set in the mid-1960s, when Garrel had just begun his career and his declared mentors—Bresson, Godard, and Truffaut—were in vogue. There are even hints of Truffaut’s alter ego, Antoine Doinel, in the befuddled look of the main character Louis (played by Garrel’s son Louis) when he is ditched by his new girlfriend Claudia (a wonderfully brooding Anna Mouglalis). Yet the film seems less an act of nostalgia than a jaundiced reaction to the current state of cinema. Its physical look alone can be read as a critique of the visual banality of so many French imports over the past few decades.

As always, Garrel is preoccupied with the labile nature of romantic love. But he’s the flip side of Éric Rohmer, whose amorous chronicles, however unresolved, are more ebullient than doleful. Rohmer’s characters talk incessantly about their feelings, while Garrel’s rarely elaborate beyond flat, invariably controverted declarations. Garrel’s father Maurice cautions his son in Emergency Kisses (1989) that “cinema is not just pictures,” yet the dialogue in Jealousy reveals little about the whys and wherefores of character behavior. No one talks about what bothers them; they just act out, a dynamic that makes their widescreen interaction all the more pitiable. As Marianne, one of love’s casualties in Garrel’s I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar (1991), sums it up, we were happy, and then we were not.

Louis and Claudia are both stage actors, an ironic commentary on the paucity of meaningful speech in their lives, in which things just unfold and then come to a halt. When Claudia, depressed over the impasse in her career, picks up random men, we know that another sudden, unexplained split is imminent. Yet when she walks out, Louis seems completely perplexed. How deeply he feels the loss is mitigated by those sardonic Doinel-like touches. If these characters seem incapable of thinking deeply and learning from what happens to them, it may be because Garrel believes that psychological probing is futile, or out of fashion, or just too hard.

But if romantic attachments are notoriously fragile in Garrel’s work, blood relations endure, apparently on and off the screen. In Emergency Kisses, Garrel, Sr. plays himself as devoted father to his five-year-old son, Louis. But as he told an interviewer, he is represented in Jealousy not by the adult Louis, but by Charlotte, the fictional daughter of Louis and Clothilde (Rebecca Convenant), whose breakup is the catalyst for the narrative. This child, played by Olga Milshtein, a spunky ingénue with indelible presence and charm to spare, is, like the young girl in Henry James’s What Maisie Knew, a pivotal figure who must navigate the fallout of her parents’ divorce. Her role is established in the second shot, following one of Clothilde crying in the kitchen, her loneliness complemented by the expansive emptiness around her: Charlotte, hearing her mother pleading with Louis not to leave, gets up to peek into the other room. Like Maisie, Charlotte is instinctively inquisitive, although she belongs to a decidedly different class, and so is freer to sympathize with her mother while remaining devoted to her father and friendly with his new girlfriend.

In one scene, Louis and Charlotte snuggle and tussle so spontaneously that you would think, given the peculiar dynamics of this tribe, that they are actually father and daughter. But the truth is more affecting and ironic: The scene is a replay of one in Emergency Kisses in which director Philippe as a younger man wrestles lovingly with his real son, the same Louis whose playful reenactment with Charlotte feels like déjà vu, a ritual by which he gets to father his real father in the guise of this five-year-old surrogate.

In the final scene, recovered from a botched suicide attempt, Louis sits in the park with Charlotte and his sister Esther, two attachments presumably above the fray and miseries of male/female relationships. In the spirit of the cross-references and overlaps of Garrel’s work, we might recall that only at the last moment in Regular Lovers (2004) do we learn through a narrator that François (also played by Louis Garrel) has killed himself. But if the revelation comes as a shock, it is surely because the lonely interior of that character has been no more accessible to the viewer than it was to the woman he loved. The virtual inevitability of this tragic divide between lovers, in which neither can fully open to the other, may be the strongest and most heartbreaking theme of Garrel’s work.

Esther is played by the actor’s real sister, the director’s daughter, and so in the last scene of Jealousy, autobiographical tension persists. It would seem then, as one of the film’s intertitles suggests, that when most of our hopes and illusions collapse, we get to “keep the angels,” i.e., our children. However disillusioned its view of romance, Garrel’s new film manifests genuine love for these lost characters and for the wonderfully engaging people who impersonate them.

Transit: Adrian Martin March 4, 2014

Children say deep things in the films of Philippe Garrel. In Les baisers de secours (1989), little Louis Garrel quizzed his father about why he slept with other women apart from the wife/mother of their close-knit family unit. Twenty-four years later, in Jealousy (La jalousie, 2013), Louis is, in turn, quizzed by his daughter Charlotte (Olga Milshtein) on even more philosophical matters. “You know who Daddy loves more than anyone in the world?”, she asks at the dining table, and then supplies the answer as well: “His Daddy”. Later, she ponders the fact that, when her Dad was younger, he did clearly did not want to have children – because if he did, he would have had them sooner. So why was Charlotte herself born? He tries to get out of this trap by declaring: “When I saw you, I fell in love”. She flatly replies: “Sure, you did”. Charlotte’s logic, and her powers of observation, are unbeatable. So, too, is her understanding of that complex human state we call jealousy.

Jealousy is often confused, by many, with envy. Envy is a desire for something you want – perhaps a trait that somebody else possesses, like beauty or courage – but you do not have. Jealousy is more complicated and knotted – and longer-lasting in its echo. It is the desire for something – such as a person’s affections – which you believe should rightfully be yours, but is now someone else’s. While envy stings, jealousy burns. In the roundabout of relationships in Garrel’s cinema – changes of partners, spouses, friends, terms of access to one’s children or parents – jealousy is intimately tied to abandonment, and to the sick, bitter feeling that one has been substituted for by another. “Who replaced me?” – this is what Louis asks his sister Esther (Esther Garrel) about his ex-lover Claudia (Anna Mouglalis), not long after he has survived a suicide attempt prompted by their split.

Jealousy, according to its maker, was inspired by the memory of a childhood incident: Garrel himself was the child moving between father, mother, and a new girlfriend. Innocently professing his admiration for this cool new lady enraged his mother – who was struggling with that feeling of being suddenly replaced in her husband’s affections and desires. But this is only the seed of the fictional rumination that the film undertakes. Jealousy is, in some variation, the basis of many relationships, ties and affinities in the film. The wife/mother Clothilde (Rebecca Covenant) is jealous of Claudia. Louis is jealous of Henri (Eric Ruillat), who snatches (without any apparent effort) Claudia away from him. And Charlotte is potentially jealous of everyone (dead or alive) and everything that gets between her and her Dad, as he rightly jokes: “Say ‘I’m jealous, O revered father. The man who is my whole life to me’. Admit it!” She slaps him for it, and he, in turn, hugs her.

In this narrative diagram, jealousy becomes the determining principle for virtually every human relationship – particularly, as per the literary theory of René Girard, when we consider them from a socially intersubjective perspective of three or more interconnected persons. Movies about teenagers or young adults (see Reality Bites [Ben Stiller, 1994], for one example among hundreds, or the UK TV series Skins [Jamie Brittain, Bryan Elsley, 2007-2013]) adopt this perspective easily and unselfconsciously; while Garrel insists – and this is far less common – on displacing the model to account for the behaviour of children and older adults, always defined by the core nucleus of the family, however splintered or tormented it may be.

Jealousy is, as a Garrel film, both very familiar and very surprising. The project came together quickly and cheaply, after a sequel/continuation to Un été brûlant (2011), again to feature Monica Bellucci, fell apart. The film displays a casual mastery – of framing (by veteran cinematographer Willy Kurant in black-and-white widescreen), of the choreography of bodies and actions in daily settings, of the mixing of professional and non-professional performance styles – which is breathtaking in its simplicity and directness (as is the plaintive acoustic guitar-based score by Jean-Louis Aubert). Garrelian fans know the motifs (couples or families walking down streets, dining scenes, conversations with wise, wily old mentors), but they will be disarmed by the offhand freshness with which they are delivered – one would like to say sketched, as in a free-form drawing – here. Especially significant and notable is the remarkable rhythm that Garrel gives the film’s unfolding: at seventy-seven minutes, it covers a lot of ground (and not a small number of characters) in a gallop, without ever seemingly overly elliptical. This compression is a source of energy for Garrel’s style.

The combined effect of the jealousy motif and the rhythmic combustion is to displace, in a powerful but also liberating way, what we normally take to be the centre of gravity in Garrel’s films. The drama of the neurotic and secretive lover (here incarnated as Claudia) – which Garrel has depicted so many times before, with evident autobiographical candour and agony – is here located within a larger mosaic. Likewise – and even more strikingly – the story of Louis’ suicide attempt is rendered as hardly anything more than a fleeting detail in the flux of events, realigned affiliations, and emotional negotiations.

Garrel’s films often end in a definite, confronting, even shocking way, with a death – and I avoid labelling this a tragic conclusion, since so often this death seems logical, as the resolution to a pressing, psychic crisis (as in La frontière de l’aube, 2008), or as a reasoned, existential choice (as in Le vent de la nuit, 1999). But Jealousy, like La naissance de l’amour (1993), ends on a note of openness and lightness: simply a shot of Louis alone. In recent cinema, Bernardo Bertolucci began his Io e te (2012) with a shot very much like this one, a recognisably Garrelian homage: the teen hero (Jacopo Olmo Antinori) with his unruly head of hair bowed, static, finally stirring into life. Bertolucci traced the itinerary of his youthful alter ego from there to a concluding, Truffaut-like moment of self-realisation and joy. But in Jealousy, at the end, there is no particular revelation or epiphany. Louis is in the midst of his changing life, thinking, still for a moment, and then moving into the frame to switch off his bedside light. This is Garrel’s cinema in its mode of guarded optimism – the calm before a storm. We, the faithful, wait for the dark clouds to gather …

La jalousie (Philippe Garrel, France) - Cinema Scope Blake Williams, December 30, 2013

At one point in Philippe Garrel’s La jalousie, eight-year-old Charlotte (Olga Milshtein) asks Claudia (Anna Mouglalis), the new girlfriend of her father Louis, whom she thinks her father loves more. Claudia’s answer: “His father.” In one sense, of course, this reply is an evasion of the question Charlotte was actually asking—i.e., “Does Daddy love you more than he loves me?”—in a bid to (temporarily) avert the inevitable competition for attention that occurs whenever the parent-child bond is complicated by the addition of a third term. Within Garrel’s nakedly autobiographical filmic universe, however, Claudia’s answer is also an invocation of Garrel’s own father, the great actor Maurice Garrel, who died shortly after making a cameo in his son’s previous film Un été brûlant (2011). Yet while this places the film in line with the eulogistic impulse underlying so much of Garrel’s cinema (à la J’entends plus la guitare [1991], the terminal entry in his long series of films chronicling his tortured relationship with Nico), La jalousie’s contextual complexity extends even further when one considers that it is Garrel’s son Louis who plays the pater-worshipping eponym in the film—which not only gives Claudia’s utterance a distinct double edge, but hints toward the far more knotty and peculiar form of jealousy Garrel is alluding to in his title.

One of the last genuine romantics (and Romantics) of French cinema, Garrel has never made any bones about the transparency between his films and his life, his casting of Louis as his onscreen alter ego in all of his films since Les amants réguliers (2004) continuing that autobiographical connection. Yet while his latest films are as rife with uncensored angst as ever, melting in daydreams of death and suicide, there’s a sense that the world has stopped advancing for Garrel—that the further he gets from the traumatic events and tortured individuals that inspired him, the more his unrelieved woe begins to seem merely perpetually maudlin. While his recent work ranges from the expansive sweep of Les amants réguliers to the claustrophobic intimacy of La frontière de l’aube (2008), his films are always endowed with a smothering pathos that threatens to virtually suffocate his characters, if not his audience first.

Initially, La jalousie looks as though it will be more of the same. The film opens with a gaze through a keyhole: we see a woman, Clothilde (Rebecca Convenant), seated at a dining-room table, tearfully pleading with Louis not to leave her; the next shot reveals that the gaze belongs to Charlotte, the couple’s daughter, who is witnessing her parents’ final split after Clothilde has discovered that Louis has been having an affair with Claudia, whom he met at the theatre where he’s been performing in a play. While this voyeuristic opening, and the theme of infidelity, would seem to align the film with Alain Robbe-Grillet’s unrelated 1957 novel of the same name (which employs the title as a double entendre, referring to both jealousy and the jalousie windows through which the narrator watches his wife and her lover), Charlotte’s eavesdropping is the extent of the film’s clandestine surveillance: Garrel’s lovers don’t snoop, even as Louis and Claudia’s relationship itself degrades due to their respective disloyalties to one another. Keeping with Garrel’s guileless nature, La jalousie is a resolutely single entendre, a direct, thorough, and painfully sad confrontation with that deadliest of love’s symptoms, which here spreads beyond its romantic iteration to infect the familial and filial in turn.

While Garrel has claimed, in an oft-cited 1992 quotation, that cinema is an amalgamation of Freud and Lumière (both les frères and la lumière itself, presumably), the spectre of Proust haunts Garrel’s cinema, and La jalousie in particular, just as much as Freud’s does. Like Freud and Garrel, Proust worked through the medium of memory for his studies of feelings and passions, with a particular emphasis on desire. Throughout his work, the greatest satisfaction attainable in one’s desired Other (the “significant” Other) lay in the quixotic possibility that that Other is fully knowable; that the mystery that attracts but also defies comprehension (and thus control) may be extinguishable via possession, surveillance, and knowledge. As detailed in the fifth and sixth volumes of À la recherche du temps perdu, it is Proust’s narrator’s inevitable failure to unreservedly possess his beloved Albertine—as he literally kept her to himself, shut up in their house, all her actions known to him and only him—that elicits the all-consuming jealousy that ultimately destroys their love, just as it does for so many of Garrel’s ill-fated couplings.

When one considers, however, that La jalousie is the second of Garrel’s films to be based upon his father Maurice’s extramarital affair during Garrel’s adolescence—the first being the 15-minute short Droit de visite, made in 1965 when Garrel was only 17, and in which Maurice himself played a part—the Freudian perspective becomes quite telling as well. Jealousy is, of course, a prominent component of the Oedipus complex, in the child’s resentment of his same-sex parent as correlative to his desire for his opposite-sex parent. Yet where in Droit de visite the Garrel surrogate is a young boy who spends his weekends hanging out with his father and his father’s mistress, in La jalousie Garrel portrays his own adolescent subjectivity through the character of Charlotte, which creates a remarkable complication in Garrel’s usual mode of self-reflexivity—and by displacing Maurice’s infidelity (the original sin in Garrel’s cognitive development) onto an onscreen alter ego enacted by his real-life son, Garrel makes of La jalousie’s desired/despised father figure a transgenerational emblem of his own patrimonial pathologies.

To Garrel’s credit, La jalousie is neither excessively aggrieved nor hagiographic in its depiction of Louis, who is enacted by Garrel fils in his dependably mopey, self-centred register (though he does tone it down a little this time). Mouglalis’ Claudia, meanwhile, is portrayed with something close to reverence, and is even afforded the dominant agency in her relationship with Louis. A few scenes after we see Louis kissing another actress in his rehearsal room (presumably mirroring the origin of his affair with Claudia), he asks a provocative question of Claudia while the two occupy separate rooms in his apartment: “If ever one of us cheats, do we say so?” Claudia, nonplussed, walks into the room where Louis is reclining and replies, “You’re so complicated; I only need you to love me.” It’s the most important moment in the film: in deflecting Louis’ semi-confession, Claudia seeks to refute the Proustian possessiveness that is imbricated with the desire for full knowledge of one’s partner. Yet in resisting that invitation to jealousy she only further, if inadvertently, cements the emotional impasse that Louis has created in their relationship, one that will devour their passion and eventually terminate their love, culminating in a classic dumping scene that mirrors the film’s opening—though this time it’s the woman who walks out, leaving Louis slack-jawed and dumbstruck.

For Garrel, who’s far more of a pessimist than Proust, jealousy isn’t just inevitable in romantic relationships but embedded within their very foundations. Yearning to know and to be known by the other, each partner is also convinced that their own selves are too rotten to be fully divulged; shutting themselves up, they shut down the other, until the suppressed resentments culminate in melodramatic crescendos that Garrel indulges with a brio that can invite mockery from the casual cynic. Thankfully, La jalousie largely avoids the overbearing moroseness of much of Garrel’s recent work, while its brevity (a brisk 76 minutes) gives it something of the feel of an exercise, a trait that characterizes most of his best films. And more than any of his work from this century so far, it packs an emotional wallop, precisely because Garrel relegates his gloominess to the margins and tempers his everlasting sadness with the spectral promise of enduring endearment. “I deeply loved your father,” an apparition says to Louis as he takes a midday nap in his rehearsal room, “and he was also crazy about me. Even now, I love him just as much as I ever did.” A lifetime compressed into a simple yet evocative sweet nothing—that’s really all it takes.

MUBI's Notebook: Boris Nelepo October 01, 2013

The New Yorker: Richard Brody Bohemia and Its Discontents, October 3, 2013

Reverse Shot: Max Nelson October 3, 2013

Slant Magazine [Nick McCarthy]

Philippe Garrel tackles another doomed romance in Jealousy Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from The Onion A.V. Club

Why Philippe Garrel's 'Jealousy' Is a Masterpiece | Article ... Adam Cook from Grolsch Film Works, also seen here: Grolsch Film Works: Adam Cook

Little White Lies [Jordan Cronk]

Jealousy / The Dissolve Mike D’Angelo

Review: Philippe Garrel's 'Jealousy' Starring Louis Garre ... Kimber Myers from the Playlist

In Review Online [Carson Lund]

Sound On Sight Trish Ferris

Grantland: Wesley Morris

Boho Parisians Face the End of a Lifestyle in Jealousy ... Alan Scherstuhl from The Village Voice

Jealousy - The 51st New York Film Festival | Film Society of ... Film Comment

Senses of Cinema: Joshua Sperling December 17, 2013

Philippe Garrel - Senses of Cinema Maximilian Le Cain, February 2001

The mastery of French filmmaker Philippe Garrel | Bleader ... Ben Sachs from The Reader

Daily | NYFF 2013 | Philippe Garrel's JEALOUSY | Keyframe ... David Hudson from Fandor

The Everyday Fantasies of Philippe Garrel - Page - Interview . Colleen Kelsey interview from Interview magazine, November 2013

Jealousy (La Jalousie): Venice Review - Hollywood Reporter Boyd van Hoeij

Variety [Leslie Felperin]

Time Out New York: Keith Uhlich

Slant Magazine [Jake Cole]

Not much 'Jealousy,' or any other emotion, for that matter Sheri Linden from The LA Times

Jealousy Movie Review & Film Summary (2014) | Roger Ebert Godfrey Cheshire

'Jealousy,' Directed by Philippe Garrel - The New York Times A.O. Scott

IN THE SHADOW OF WOMEN (L'ombre des femmes) B- 80

France Switzerland (73 mi) 2015 ‘Scope

This is as bleakly minimalist and understated as a film can be, telling an age-old boy meets girl story, then boy meets another girl, and girl meets another boy, and there you have it. That’s pretty much it, though the film is beautifully told in a streamlined, French New Wave, black and white style, shot on 35 mm, cinematography by Swiss cameraman Renato Berta, who has himself worked with Godard, using free-flowing, naturalistic dialogue, weaving in and out of the streets of Paris, all told with a monotone narrator that is right out of early 60’s Godard. One’s appreciation for this film is likely to fall into the non-theatrical camp, as emotions are minimized, absurdity elevated, where the sexist, male-centric tone throughout where men continue to see themselves as the center of the universe, where everything revolves around them, is not likely to win any new converts. It is this narrow lens through which the world is continually viewed that makes this feel like a time capsule from another era, as aside from the use of cellphones, there is little suggesting this film wasn’t made a good half century ago. Philippe Garrel got his start making films in the 60’s, largely influenced by Godard at the time, so he’s no stranger to the milieu, though why he’s still churning out films like this is anyone’s guess, as it’s certainly within his comfort zone, taking a step backwards from Jealousy (La Jalousie) (2013), which was itself a remake of his second film made at the age of 17, a fifteen-minute short DROIT DE VISITE (1965). Opening in Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, the problem with the film is that it feels very formulaic, like we’ve seen it before, literally light years away from the brash cinematic energy exuded by Léos Carax in Boy Meets Girl (1984), or even the jump cuts from Godard’s BREATHLESS (1960), where it’s a return to a simpler age, as if we’ve never left. While working with his wife Caroline Deruas and familiar screenwriter Arlette Langman, who got her start working with Maurice Pialat, what is different about this film is the use of writer Jean-Claude Carrière, a screenwriter for both Buñuel and Godard, though admittedly not in the last 30 years or so, placing this film in a kind of time warp, though it certainly adds a wry humor that is missing from the director’s other films.

Pierre, Stanislas Merhar, who was in Chantal Akerman’s THE CAPTIVE (2000), is a somber, somewhat pompous director, while his wife Manon, Clotilde Courau, aka Clotilde di Savoia, Princess of Venice (Zimbio), works as his editor, where together they make documentary films that seem to be on the fringe of the industry, and while they are just scraping by, they’re committed to the kind of unvarnished work they produce, sharing an inherent need for discovering truth (vérité) in cinema. Currently they are interviewing Henri (Jean Pommier), an aging survivor of the French Resistance, where Manon views her husband as an elite photojournalist on the verge of discovery as opposed to the hack he really is. Despite the appearance of a happy marriage, where Manon’s mother (the brilliant Antoinette Moya) has some serious doubts about their sputtering careers, thinking she’s giving her husband far more credit than he deserves, reminding her daughter, “No man is worth sacrificing your life for,” then the first thing we see Pierre do is cheat on her, showing extra attention to a young intern named Elisabeth (Léna Paugam), literally following her home with a truckload of borrowed film canisters from a film archive that he utilizes, where he justifies his affair “with typical male equivocation” in a narrative voiceover spoken by the director’s son, Louis Garrel. Believing he’s only doing what any man would do, where he skillfully balances his time between the two women, but he makes the classic mistake of bringing his wife flowers, which she immediately recognizes as a typical male ploy to cover up illicit behavior. Of course, he denies having any such intentions, so the audience instantly sees the man as a fraud and a scoundrel. What’s amusing about this particular story, however, is the way the interior narration continually justifies his boorish behavior, as if this is the right of every man. Elisabeth, meanwhile, follows Pierre home to spy on her competition, as he’s not spending as much time with her as she’d like, only to discover Manon is having an affair of her own, which sends Elisabeth into the throes of depression, as if it reflects poorly on her to cheat with a man whose wife would cheat on him. God knows what this all has to say about marriage, but more likely it reveals the director’s own views on monogamy, that it’s an outdated concept worthy of ridicule.

While each goes to great extremes to keep their affairs hidden, both are eventually exposed, revealing jealousies, petty resentments, and a good deal of betrayal felt by each, where Manon tends to be more mature and understanding, while Pierre goes into full-throttle anger mode, showing little consideration, an extraordinary amount of disdain, literally seething internally, expressing hurtful behavior towards both women. What makes this borderline ridiculous is the contemptuous display of brooding arrogance shown by Pierre, the wronged man, feeling trapped and blaming it all on the women, as if he bears no personal responsibility. This moral hypocrisy literally blows up their marriage, as Manon is rightfully offended by his deluded, self-centered point of view, thinking entirely of himself throughout the ordeal, as if he is the only offended party. This kind of thinking is simply outdated, as it’s outrageously out of touch with contemporary French society, where women have evolved beyond his pouting adolescence and wouldn’t spend their time with a manipulative egotist like this, as he’s exposed as a hypocrite and a fraud. Even the documentary they were working on blows up in their face, in an amusing twist, but Garrel loves to pour out confessional male anguish along with feelings of hurt and alienation, but it’s getting to be old hat with this director, where women can come to his films to point out what “not” to do in personal relationships. Promising more than it delivers, becoming a relationship in miniature movie, pared down to its pure essence, the real problem is the realization that this is really all there is to this film, where it doesn’t delve into the inner complexities of either character, but is content to dramatize the more obvious superficialities, highlighting how easy it is to break apart. Little effort is made to actually repair the damage done, as Pierre becomes so condescendingly sure of himself that he’s not willing to waste any more time on a woman he loathes and finds despicable. It’s such a narrow, anger-fueled perspective that the audience is light years ahead of this guy, as he’ll live to regret this decision, as Manon may turn out to be the love of his life, but he is so willing to devalue her and throw it all away. While well-made, with all that’s going on in the world today, not sure that what we need is another battle of the sexes movie, as it’s well-worn and fairly trite material, where this film adds little to the perspective while retreading familiar grounds.

Sins of Omission - Film Comment Gavin Smith, July/August 2015

The real elephant in the Palais this year was the Directors’ Fortnight, which played three films by leading filmmakers that apparently weren’t up to the exacting standards met by Joachim Trier’s Louder Than Bombs or Guillaume Lecloux’s The Valley of Love. The presence of Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days, Philippe Garrel’s In the Shadow of Women, and Miguel Gomes’s Arabian Nights (all six hours of it) were sufficient to ensure that the official selection was completely overshadowed and perhaps even something of a laughingstock for the connoisseurs. Desplechin declined the semi-insulting offer of a berth in the designated dumping ground in favor of an invitation from the other end of the Croisette to premiere his enchanting bildungsroman. Garrel, with only one previous film in Competition, has always had an affinity for the alternative festival that the Fortnight can be at its best, as in this edition. And Gomes? Having doubtless muttered “never again” after selecting Pedro Costa’s Colossal Youth for Competition in 2006, Frémaux et al have decisively backed away from anything even remotely smacking of the avant-garde. A red-carpet treatment for the admittedly unwieldy three-part Arabian Nights? Perish the thought. The festival now defines the Competition as a safe place for establishment filmmakers. It probably always did, aside from the occasional departure—but its conception of what passes muster has clearly narrowed.

Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Ben Sachs

IN THE SHADOW OF WOMEN came in third on Cahiers du cinema's list of the best films of 2015, and it isn't hard to see why. The movie achieves a sustained, fragile beauty with seeming effortlessness; Philippe Garrel is such a master at this point that, under his gaze, even activities as banal as a woman taking an electric water-heater out of a box seem entrancing. (The ravishing black-and-white 35mm photography—by Renato Berta, whose credits include Godard's EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF, Rohmer's FULL MOON IN PARIS, and multiple films by Manoel de Oliveira—renders everything poetic.) Garrel also makes narrative experimentation seem easy, skipping over crucial parts of the story as though skipping stones across a pond. Sometimes months will pass between one scene and the next, yet it feels like only moments have elapsed, since Garrel and his co-writers (among them the legendary Jean-Claude Carriere, whom the director has credited with the film's subtle humor) have realized their characters so thoroughly that their behavior always makes sense—one never has trouble keeping up with them. The principal subjects are a 40-ish documentarian, his wife, and his younger mistress. Garrel moves gracefully between their perspectives, encouraging empathy with all three while also noting their limitations. The film is particularly astute when it comes to analyzing the hero's "typically male" equivocation and entitlement; it's also generous enough to let the character realize his errors before they ruin him. This may be Garrel's lightest, most optimistic work, though that's not to say that any of it feels frivolous.

TIFF 2015 | In the Shadow of Women (Philippe Garrel, France) Richard Porton from Cinema Scope

Like other recent Philippe Garrel films (e.g., Frontier of Dawn, Jealousy), In the Shadow of Women is a ruminative tale of a love triangle gone awry. What makes this latest installment in Garrel’s ongoing faux-autobiographical saga slightly different is the contribution of veteran screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. Best known for his work on some of the most notable late Buñuel screenplays and Godard’s Sauve qui peut (la vie) (as well as more dubious recent projects such as The Patience Stone), Carrière injects a lighter, occasionally even screwballish tone into Garrel’s characteristic meld of erotic entanglements and political preoccupations.

Multi-layered narrative ironies are generated by the complications that ensue when Pierre (Stanislas Merhar) and his wife Manon’s (Clotilde Courau) relatively placid life as documentary filmmakers is threatened by the disruptive charm of the young and lissome Elisabeth (Léna Paugam), an intern at a film archive whose resources seem to hold the key for the couple’s investigation into the background of a purportedly heroic Resistance fighter. Pierre’s affair with his protégé, which he initially juggles quite successfully with his marital duties, is upended by his wife’s decision to take a lover herself. In a casual, supremely non-didactic fashion, Garrel skewers male hubris. Louis Garrel, whose forays as a director have proved less impressive than his father’s (and a heartthrob who might well have been cast as the caddish Pierre) is the off-screen narrator.

Cannes Film Festival 2015: Part One - Reverse Shot Jordan Cronk

With the number of major auteurs being spread further afield from the competition in the past few years, one has been ever more compensated by focusing on selections from Cannes’ various sidebars. And indeed, the best film of the festival’s first five days, Philippe Garrel’s In the Shadow of Women, opened this year’s Directors’ Fortnight. At first glance, the latest by the veteran, post-Nouvelle Vague director looks familiar to his established sensibility: An infidelity drama about masculine pride and feminine martyrdom, another in Garrel’s long line of achingly unromantic romances. Yet the director’s inextinguishable interest in the nuances of relationships continues to take new shape and reveal new shades. Shot on 35mm black-and-white, the film is richly rendered, following the plight of an unhappily married couple whose ongoing professional collaboration suggests a more healthy relationship than meets the eye.

Pierre (Stanislas Merhar) is a morose film director; his wife, Manon (Clotilde Courau), his long-suffering editor. Each is cheating on the other, to the shock of both. From this simple setup, Garrel charts a traumatic episode in the lives of two confused individuals whose relationship may need to be tested if it’s ever going to survive. Written by a small team, including the legendary Jean Claude-Carrière and Arlette Langmann, the film brims with charged dialogue and knotty moral quandaries, and Garrel frames its many confrontations with the control of a master, offering some of the most intensely emotional sequences of his career. And yet for all the heartache and indefensible behavior depicted, In the Shadow of Women is a surprisingly humorous film, finding irony in the double standards men often hold women to and an absurdity in the self-defeating decisions one can make even when committing to a more monogamous lifestyle. Like most of Garrel’s work, the film is less about sex than it is about the false promise of its utility. The voiceover, spoken by the director’s son and frequent star Louis, is wry and self-consciously droll, outlining the couple’s various predicaments in slyly comical fashion. In Garrel’s world, the simplest gesture can carry the most lasting significance—it’s no coincidence that he saves Pierre’s one and only smile for the film’s stirring final shot.

Review: In the Shadow of Women | Philippe Garrel - Film Comment Nick Pinkerton, January/February 2016

The importance of love, the deceptive lure of political nostalgia, and the problems of two people in a room—what Philippe Garrel’s art lacks in variety, it makes up for in crystalline focus.

The principals of Garrel’s latest, In the Shadow of Women, are Pierre (Stanislas Merhar) and Manon (Clotilde Courau), a childless married couple in their thirties. He directs documentaries, though they share every aspect of the work save for the credit, an arrangement that she professes herself to be perfectly happy with. (As for the money, their bare apartment suggests there is little enough to go around.) The two are working on a doc about a venerable veteran of the French Resistance, who is seen at one point with his doting wife, and they hold hands together while toggling through archival film on a flatbed editing table, with every expectation of one day being that devoted old couple. A mutual friend comments admiringly that she has never even seen Pierre raise his voice, and they are the sort of team who are the envy of everyone who knows them, which means there’s something that everyone doesn’t know. In this case the secret is Elisabeth (Léna Paugam), an intern at that archive, with whom Pierre has begun an affair. This drives Manon into the arms of a lover of her own (Mounir Margoum), and eventually drives them apart—in the rather heartbreaking words of the omniscient narrator (Louis Garrel): “Without him wanting to or her wanting to, they split up.”

Aside from the narration, we hear one teasing snippet of internal monologue apiece from both Pierre and Manon. This is exactly as much as we need to hear and no more, and austere functionality is the guiding principle that Garrel follows throughout his film. The narrative is radically telescoped, and the film clocks in at 73 minutes with credits, and I would estimate that there are not 50 setups. Cinematographer Renato Berta films in 35mm black-and-white anamorphic widescreen, long Garrel’s favored format, and one that he peerlessly exploits. The breadth of the frame allows for splayed-out post-coital scenes, as well as a variety of studies in the ways that people cohabiting space can set one another on edge without saying a word—Pierre bobbing into the shot tying his shoes after a rendez-vous with Elisabeth, or isolated by a doorframe as Manon flitters back and forth through the room, her cheery patter disguising an unspoken suspicion that will grow and grow. As ever with Garrel, much of the pleasure of the film is in watching the eyes of the actors, trying to decipher who has decided what and when, searching for the telltale signs of someone changing their mind.

Diffident, remote, and preternaturally—almost infuriatingly—calm, Pierre belongs to a long lineage of passive-aggressive Garrel protagonists, though many of those in the past at least had opiates to excuse their condition. I cannot, however, remember another being condemned in the manner that Pierre is—the narration, like the moralizing authorial voice of a 19th-century novel, doesn’t hesitate to pass judgment on his masculine pride and hypocrisy. The screenplay is the work of Garrel, Caroline Deruas-Garrel, Jean-Claude Carrière, and Arlette Langmann, a frequent collaborator who began her career with Maurice Pialat. (Manon’s role as willingly subjugated assistant recalls Marlène Jobert lugging equipment for Jean Yanne in Pialat’s We Won’t Grow Old Together, which Langmann helped to edit.)

There are only a handful of conflicts, but they have wide-reaching implications. Pierre finally raises his voice, and shatters their fragile truce. Later, Manon reveals that the Resistance “hero” Pierre has been filming was a self-aggrandizing bullshitter. It is typical of the film’s extreme simplicity that no questions are asked as to how she obtained this information; what’s essential is the fact of stubborn masculine vanity, and of the daily upholding of a shared fiction that kept that old couple together. This doesn’t make the film’s conclusion, as close to a “happy ending” as anything that Garrel has shot, any less touching, but it does give a glimpse of the long, treacherous road ahead, paved with necessary deceptions.

In the Shadow of Women doesn’t stray far from Philippe Garrel’s usual formula. Like most of his films, it’s a throwback to the nouvelle vague that uses that movement’s stripped-down experimentation to depict a tumultuous relationship. Yet Garrel diverges from his usual early-Godardian prism of wounded (but also analyzed and critiqued) male insecurity and tracks closer to the milder politics and aesthetics of Eric Rohmer. As such, Garrel shifts the bedrock of the film away from the post-May ’68 context that dominates his filmography toward a comedy of manners that pokes fun at the hypocrisies and self-denial that dominates each point of its love triangle.

As in Rohmer’s work, Garrel’s film uses its characters’ stodgy, formal language to betray their self-consciousness, so it’s only fitting that two of the three leads are political filmmakers. Pierre (Stanislas Merhar) and Manon (Clotilde Courau) are a married couple who split directing and editing duties, but Straub-Huillet they’re not. From the outset, Garrel portrays their project, a hacky documentary about the French Resistance, as a joke. Pierre, as a filmmaker, specializes in setting up a camera, sitting just behind it, and asking questions, but Manon idealizes her husband as a probing cine-journalist. She brags to her mother (Antoinette Moya, hilarious in her tacit scoffs) that Pierre isn’t like other interviewers in that he often stays silent after a subject finishes speaking to prompt them to fill the uncomfortable void, ignoring that literally every journalist who has ever lived has used this technique.

Pierre should get down on his knees and thank his stars that anyone would tolerate, much less revere, his mediocrity. Instead, he finds himself bored with Manon’s fawning attention and turns his sights on Elisabeth (Lena Paugam), an American in Paris who delays recognition of the man’s emotional weakness by entering into a purely physical relationship. As obvious in romance as he is in his work, Pierre assuages the onset of guilt by bringing home flowers, a gesture so clichéd that even Manon calls the gift a “cheater’s classic” with a lighthearted tone just ambiguous enough to make her husband nervous.

Philippe Garrel’s film uses its characters’ stodgy, formal language to betray their self-consciousness

For the most part, however, the film derives much of its humor not from the efforts of the couple to keep their affairs hidden, but in the warped jealousies that arise between the characters. When Elisabeth spots Manon out with her own lover, she feels a bizarre pang of jealousy, as if it reflects poorly on her to cheat with a man whose wife would cheat on him. But her reaction pales in comparison to that of Pierre, who fearlessly charges past self-awareness to rail against his wife for failing to live completely up to her role as his totally devoted servant. “I thought you were different,” he says childishly, using his own moral failure to throw his idealistic image of her into sharper relief.

Pierre’s petulant hypocrisy provides the film’s second half with a jittery energy that contrasts Garrel’s sedate direction. True to form, the director favors minimal blocking and handheld, verité documentation, and he uses sets that divorce the film from a clear time period. Pierre and Manon’s filthy loft looks like it still bears the scars of WWII, with streaks of sooty black etched into cracked concrete, while Garrel shoots walking conversations on city streets the way Godard filmed his own in Breathless. (Only when Elisabeth pulls out a cellphone does it become clear that this film is set in the present.) Garrel’s lack of adornment occasional fuels the antic relationship comedy, as in a shot of Manon and her mother next sitting by the window a café as Pierre hovers across the street, monitoring his wife. Manon’s mother looks up and asks, “Isn’t that Pierre?”—at which point the focus pulls to sharpen his features as the man, attempting to look casual, kicks out a foot and begins to walk as quickly as possible out of frame.

The film’s sense of humor is so dry that it belatedly reveals the setup for a few jokes only when the punchlines are delivered at the end. Pierre’s early interviews with an old resistance fighter establish an unflattering comparison point for the documentarian, that of talk versus action, but a late revelation about the old man completely changes how one views him, and it aligns him with the film’s generally wry, mocking view of how men present themselves and provide blustering covers for their true selves.

In the Shadow of Women also makes a surprise of its own intentions in the last few minutes by becoming a comedy of remarriage that reorients the preceding 70 minutes as a muted screwball. Through it all, the women never get too tripped up by the narcissistic cowardice of their men. The title may suggest the self-pity of men like Pierre who feel themselves inadequate, but in the end, the film puts forward that people like Pierre should feel lucky to even be allowed to stand in that shadow at all.

Garrel's 'In the Shadow of Women' Illuminates a Love ... - Village Voice Melissa Anderson, January 12, 2016

French master Philippe Garrel goes light with In The ... - The AV Club Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

Little White Lies [David Jenkins]

The Film Stage [Giovanni Marchini Camia]

Cannes Review: Phillipe Garrel's 'In the Shadow of Women ... Eric Kohn from indieWIRE

In the Shadow of Women | 2015 Cannes Film Festival Review Blake Williams from Ioncinema

Cannes Review: "In The Shadow of Women" | Movie ... Adam Cook from Movie Mezzanine

MIFF 2015 | Critics Campus In the Shadow of Women David Heslin

TIFF15 preview: 'In the Shadow of Women' | The Seventh Row Alex Heeney

Georgia Straight [Adrian Mack]

artforum.com / film Melissa Anderson

Daily | Cannes 2015 | Philippe Garrel's IN THE SHADOW ... David Hudson from Fandor

'In the Shadow of Women' ('L'Ombre des femmes'): Cannes ... Boyd van Hoeij

Cannes Film Review: 'In the Shadow of Women' - Variety Scott Foundas

In the Shadow of Women review - Philippe Garrel's infidelity ... Benjamin Lee from The Guardian

In the Shadow of Women - Roger Ebert Ben Kenigsberg

In the Shadow of Women - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Garrone, Matteo

THE EMBALMER (L'imbalsamatore) B+ 91

aka: THE TAXIDERMIST

Italy (101 mi) 2002

Dark, moody, atmospheric film, perhaps even a thriller, as there’s a stylish, underlying tension that pervades throughout, beautifully filmed in ‘Scope by Marco Onorato, examining a relationship between a dwarfish, Danny DeVito-like small man, the taxidermist, Ernesto Mahieux, a man with joie de vivre, with ideas, with imagination, with a brain, who might be connected to the Mafia, and Valerio Foglia Manzillo, a tall, dark and handsome man, “who walks into a room and attracts all the eyes, as he looks like a God,” but who is aimless, not really connected to anyone, an innocent, who is lured, or should one say manipulated, by the small man with ideas in what I felt resembled a Pinocchio story. Perhaps there is a parallel here with the real Mafia, small men with guns who are really pulling the strings, and whose power is constantly threatened. Similarly, the taxidermist is threatened when Valerio finds a girl he likes, who crowds into his prized possession, which he doesn’t share easily. The character of the taxidermist is tenacious, perhaps even evil, as he hides his real motives behind his jokes and smiles. Something’s got to give, and even at the end of this film, we’re not quite sure what.

The Embalmer Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

I'm very sorry to have missed this on the big screen, since it is one of the best-looking films of the year. Its overall style is vaguely out of time, although more than anything, it resembles European art cinema from the 1970s (especially New German Cinema). There is a grainy, faded quality to the film stock, which perfectly underscores its dilapidated vision of urban Italy -- crumbling tenements, empty streets, garish hotels and neon-and-vinyl bars. The film is downright Fassbinderian in its circumstantial intersection of characters: lonely gay dwarf taxidemist, aimless beau-hunk, and steely middle-class sexpot. Mike D'Angelo complained that the film made no metaphorical or allegorical hay of the profession of taxidermy, but I was like, thank god. Despite some shrewd opening moments at the zoo (our mismatched protagonists examined from the animals' POV) and some humorous compositional foregrounding of stuffed creatures, which was reminiscent of Petra von Kant, The Embalmer regards its flawed characters non-judgmentally, refusing to turn them into Sundancy collections of freaky quirks. For the most part, there is an open, ambling atmosphere, giving Garrone's characters room to simply exist, and this allows the roiling sexual conflicts to assume a surprisingly naturalistic shape. Only when the script seems to concoct unnecessary conflict (i.e., Peppino's Mafia connections) does this atmosphere falter, and even a rather needlessly dramatized ending feels far more restrained than it would on paper. A grungy, anachronistic surprise.

PRIMO AMORE (First Love)

Italy (100 mi) 2004

Primo Amore Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

[MINOR SPOILERS] At the risk of drawing the ire of certain holistic types with my shameless dip into buffet-style criticism, Garrone's latest was a certain 4 in its first half, but unexpectedly rallied in the second half, ending somewhere in the solid-7 zone. (And now, analysis!) I wasn't entirely sold on Garrone's last film, The Embalmer, at least as far as its love-triangle psychodrama was concerned. If you're exploring thwarted lust, bundling it all up in an allegory and depositing it on the back of a gay dwarf taxidermist-cum-gangster seems a little, um, overdetermined. And yet, against the odds, Garrone mostly made it work, since his repressed emotional pitch and narrow compositions (turning otherwise benign roadsides, hotel rooms, and apartments into pinched objects of a nasty universal leer) recalled Fassbinder in Fox / 13 Moons mode. It was a pretty good start. In Primo Amore, we have the masochism tango of Sonia (Michela Cescon, in a breakout performance) and her cruel opposite number, the laconic Vittorio (Vitaliano Trevisan). Again with the overloaded occupations: Vittorio is a goldsmith, fashioning malleable metal into precious things; Sonia works at a fair-trade store. A Pygmalion for the global-capital era? The gold standard exacts its sadistic revenge on crunchy-granola resistance to its reign? You see how quickly all this spins out of hand, and Garrone doesn't help matters by giving us, in the first half, less than zero character development or motivation. The two meet in a café, presumably after some online chatting. Vittorio breaks the ice with the immortal opening line, "I thought you'd be . . . thinner," and somehow he subtly bullies Sonia into not turning on her heels and reboarding her train. Sonia comes across as shy but possessed of some dignity, while Vittorio, toiling away in the goldsmithing shop (it was his dad's!), is a complete nonentity. Where's the appeal? Why is this relationship even happening? Then, once Garrone has gotten us to accept this shaky premise by simply pounding incessantly away at it, he delivers a brutal and rather complex short film about control and obsession. Vittorio becomes Sonia's living, breathing eating disorder, dominating her every bite, forcing her into diets and then eventually starvation. Sonia's psychological state becomes more and more precarious, and this gives Garrone the opportunity to break up his bland Italian naturalism with some disorienting visual and auditory stunts. The ending, while morally questionable, was certainly satisfying in terms of narrative closure and feminist righteousness. Make no mistake: it's still little more than an above-average film, and as an exploration of anorexia as fascism, Primo Amore cannot hold a candle to Todd Haynes' Superstar. But, two films in, I still think Garrone is one to watch.

GOMORRAH (Gomorra) B+ 92

Italy (135 mi) 2008 ‘Scope

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” —“Won’t Get Fooled Again,” by The Who

Based on the Robert Saviano book, this powerful and excruciatingly intense film chronicles the violent tales of various people and their connection to the infamous Gomorrah gang, originally a Naples Mafioso gang that has accumulated such massive wealth that much of it has been reinvested in legitimate business operations, which effects countries all over the globe, amusingly depicted on Italian television when American movie star Scarlett Johansson wears a formal evening gown that the viewers have just seen was made in a mafia sweat shop, costing several people their lives. While the long, sprawling narrative is confusing, where it’s hard to tell which players are on what side, suffice it to say there is a gang war in operation and the body count is high in this film. The film never follows the actual kingpins, who are so mysteriously embedded into normal life that they are all but unrecognizable, who get together only briefly in this film, and even then over a minor matter. Instead the film follows people on the periphery who get in over their heads, who get suckered into a world that has no good guys, as it’s consumed by hard nosed badasses who are all about money, who couldn’t give a rat’s ass whether you live or die, but simply how they can use you to get what they want.

Made by the director of the curiously strange THE EMBALMER (2002), here the most amusing thread follows two punk kids who grew up mimicking De Palma’s SCARFACE (1983), who play with toy guns and act out scenes from the movie, which escalates into street punks with real guns who knock over unsuspecting drug dealers, video arcades, and find a secret mafia gun stash where they playfully go on their own private target practice run in their underwear at a riverside, shooting guns for sheer pleasure and exhilaration, including a rocket launcher that demolishes a boat launched on the other side. These kids used to be just kids, and they are warned by their elders in the neighborhood to knock it off, but the picture of child disobedience is so deeply entrenched in this mammoth concrete housing project that serves as their apprentice grounds growing up. Simultaneously, we see a money man who makes payments to families who have lost someone or who maintain their silence while still in prison, a thankless job that gets little respect from the recipients, and whose world keeps getting smaller and smaller as there is nowhere in the middle of a gang war where he can be safe carrying around loads of dough. He is continually seen hiding for his life, despite wearing a bulletproof vest, eventually pleading to his own boss to change neighborhoods, but his instructions are to keep it up or die. One of the two SCARFACE knuckleheads has a brother who runs grocery errands, but the gang turf is so divided that each brother ends up on separate sides. As a result, the money man cuts off funds to the single mom due to her son’s betrayal, even though the other has remained loyal. This kind of split allegiance or routine betrayal within rival gangs makes it hard to tell who’s doing what to whom, as there are so many different layers of hierarchy, one wonders who’s really running the show? On another level, we see the dubious business dealings of Tony Servillo, from Sorrentino’s CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE (2004), who represents the Mafioso when they monopolize the industrial waste market, which includes toxic products, which are treated just as routinely, buried in the same landfills irrespective of any health hazards. The important thing is they landed the contracts and got the money. When garbage truck drivers refuse to continue working upon realizing what they’re hauling is so contaminated, they are sent home and clan member’s little kids arrive excitedly to drive the red, green, or blue trucks into the landfills.

What’s exemplary here is the sheer weight of the film, which in totality adds up to a grotesque picture of the world we live in, putting a dour face on the modernized view of the importance of a global economy. Grittily shot without a hint of embellishment, many of the actors were nonprofessionals from the neighborhood adding a realist stamp of authenticity to the film. Despite the violence, none were gratuitous or stylishly glamorized, but were necessary in the telling of the story. When we finally see the actual Gomorrah family heads sit down to discuss an irritating matter, which takes about five minutes of film time, they turn out to be totally unpretentious guys from the neighborhood who live in the slums, who own next to nothing just like everybody else, and who sit around quietly and play cards all day. One might ask: what do they get out of all this if they have nothing to show for it and live in the midst of such squalor? Apparently what they get is the right to wear a permanent “do not disturb” sign around their necks as people would be well advised to simply leave these guys alone. Obviously in this depiction, every generation has would-be big shots with delusions of grandeur that never learned that lesson. According to this wire story, Mafia wants "Gomorra" author dead by Christmas - Yahoo! News, a Gomorrah contract was put out on the author’s head, as well as some of the actors from the neighborhood, when this book and subsequent movie became instant hits in Italy, a generational follow up to the Sicilian mafia depicted in THE GODFATHER (1972).

George Christensen at Cannes:

8:30 am screening of "Gomorrah" weren't admitted until 8:28. Two minutes was not enough time for us to scamper up the red carpet, have our bags checked, get scanned and find a seat before the lights went dark. Rather than sending us up to the balcony, we were let in on the main floor. It was packed. I found a nice little nook by an emergency exit and could just see the subtitles of this Italian film over the heads of those properly seated. There was enough padding under the carpet that I survived this two hour plus saga of the Napoli syndicate without squirming. It wasn't that the movie was so good. Maybe my two weeks of sleeping on the ground has toughened me up as well. This was a very realistic portrayal of the stranglehold the mafia has on Naples and how a great number of people in the community are drawn into. It follows five or six different stories, using professional and non-professional actors. The depiction just rambles along without any strong narrative until a couple of kids who think they are tough guys get hold of a stash of guns and think they can have their say. It was too bad there were not more scenes of originality such as that of the guys in their underware along the beach shooting off the guns, including a rocket launcher.

Excavating the Past to Set the Record Straight A.O. Scott at Cannes from The New York Times

Also, Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah,” the best movie I’ve seen at this year’s festival, as well as a furious and brilliant engagement with the times in which we live.

“Gomorrah” is also something of a rebuke to fans of “The Sopranos” and the countless other television programs, movies and books that traffic in the mythology of organized crime. The problem is not just that the gangs of the Camorra — Naples’s equivalent of the Mafia — are ruthless and violent. Mr. Garrone, following a sensational book by Roberto Saviano, traces the malignant extent of their influence, from drug dealing in housing projects into the worlds of haute couture and industrial waste disposal. And while this complicated, multistranded story is saturated with local detail, its implications resonate further. This modern life is not a reverie, but a nightmare.

CANNES '08 NOTEBOOK | Auteur Fatigue, "Gomorra" Pops and Wayward Youths Anthony Kaufman at Cannes from indieWIRE

One unsuspected competition surprise, however, is "Gomorra," one of the competition's two Italian films. Directed by 39-year-old filmmaker Matteo Garrone ("The Embalmer") and based on a scandalous Italian bestseller, "Gomorra" (as in Sodom and Gomorrah) is a pun on the name of the Naples-centered mafia, the Camorra. After an alluringly lurid tanning-salon massacre in its opening moments, "Gomorra" interweaves several different stories related to the violent criminal gangs that continue to operate in the region: There's the graying accountant; the young innocent who wants to join the gangs; the mob tailor who moonlights for the Chinese; a Mafioso businessman's apprentice working in toxic waste removal; and most notably, two aspiring Tony Montanas, who provide the film its most indelible image when they sample a stolen cache of machine guns and grenade launchers in their underpants.

Because of so many disparate stories, "Gomorra" doesn't have an emotional center. There's a feeling of distance to the proceedings, almost as if you were examining this strange otherworld like ants through a magnifying class. Indeed, what's even more distinct about the film (besides the underwear machine-gun scene) are the locations and the authentic sense of life that Garrone injects into them. Much of the film is set in dilapidated multi-level housing projects, where a wedding could be going on along one outdoor corridor, while drug deals might be happening simultaneously on another, just as armed henchmen patrol the rooftops at all times. "Gomorra" may be better than your standard variety mob picture, but the plot strands themselves aren't remarkable. Ultimately, the film stands out because of its meticulous attention to detail.

Slant Magazine [Fernando F. Croce]

By its very title and subject, Gomorrah promises crushingly obvious intimations of Biblical barbarity. In execution, however, Matteo Garrone's account of the multiple levels of organized crime in modern-day Naples works the opposite way, sidestepping grandiose gestures and statements in favor of a grimly matter-of-fact chronicle of how pervasive the Mafia influence has become. Paring down Roberto Saviano's densely researched bestseller to a quintet of parallel character strands, Garrone composes a chilling mosaic that, with an analyst's calm and a hitman's eye for impersonal brutality, lays out the social, political and economic reverberations of the Camorra criminal families. The characters' struggle across the age spectrum reflects the many stages of the organizations' reign of terror, from 13-year-old Toto (Salvatore Abruzzese) eagerly starting out at the bottom of the Camorra ladder to Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo), a weary tailor who bridges high fashion and lowlifes. In between them, there's Tony Montana-obsessed knuckleheads Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) running around with machine guns, money-runner Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) pondering the cost of fidelity as signs of gang war begin to brew, and toxic-waste entrepreneur Franco (Toni Servillo) corrupting his fresh-out-of-the-university assistant's worldview.

Garrone's gangster-as-capitalist view never softens its focus a la Traffic or turn its executions into exploitative set pieces a la City of God; lean and coolly distanced despite the plot's escalating violence, the film at its most fierce feels like a continuation of Francesco Rosi's caustic exposés like Lucky Luciano and Illustrious Corpses. Expertly controlled for most of its sprawling running time, the film's points about life under ruthless criminal rule grow inexorably redundant, particularly as, in an attempt at connecting the dots in Garrone's massive canvas, it gives in to the stock mobster shocks it had rigorously eschewed. Still, few mafia films so thoroughly depict an order in which crime is to its people not an underworld but, simply and bleakly, the world itself.

Gomorrah | Reverse Shot Michael Joshua Rowin

The mafia: Is there any other organization, legal or illegal, that’s so benefited from the mythologizing power of the cinema? While engaging with such subject matter invites de facto vicarious thrills Italian director Matteo Garrone can never entirely shake—even in the post-Sopranos era he’s still dealing with a semi-hidden world that provokes wonder and fascination no matter the attempts to divest its players of the untouchable aura of outlaw beatification—he goes as far possible into the realm of the mafia’s unfeeling ruthlessness in his latest film, Gomorrah, without tripping over sentimentality or stylization. Gomorrah doesn’t intend to do much in the way of formal innovation, but this year’s Cannes Grand Prix winner might very well make its influence felt in its direct and unpretentious approach toward the nefarious activities of the Camorra, the enormous mafia empire that, according to the film’s closing titles, is responsible for the murder of some 4,000 people in the last 30 years, and has such formidable financial muscle that it’s even claimed a stake in the reconstruction of Ground Zero.

Based on the bestseller by Roberto Saviano (also one of the film’s many screenwriters), Gomorrah shows how the Camorra have snaked themselves into every facet of life in Naples and Caserta. They mold the moral development of 13-year-old Totò (Salvatore Abruzzese), a street kid who enlists as a soldier with one of the clans and must betray the trust of a neighborhood woman whose groceries he delivers; they have also grabbed a hold on the imaginations of Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone), two brazen young hoodlums whose mimicry of Scarface’s “The World Is Yours” fearlessness runs them afoul of the local families who manipulate their naïve greed so that they can be easily removed from the picture. Of the five interwoven (though thankfully never connecting—we’ve had enough of that in recent years) stories that comprise Gomorrah, Marco and Ciro’s is the funniest and also the saddest. One of the punks speaks in a scratchy voice, the other a whiny one, the two forming a sort of Mutt and Jeff team of morons who, in order to make a name for themselves in the underworld, conduct drug deals and then hold up their buyers, steal from a secret weapons stash, and rob an arcade. Gomorrah’s best scene has the dubious partners in crime strutting around a shallow riverbank, shooting off rounds of ammo (including a bazooka that blows up a boat) in nothing but their underwear, screaming lines from Scarface. It’s imagery both silly, pathetic, and not a little threatening—there’s no telling here whether Marco and Ciro should be taken at all seriously (loose cannons are, after all, the most potentially dangerous) or should just be pitied for pompously believing in the gangster machismo that will cost them their lives and waste their youth.

Aside from this moment (and another one where a hazardous mafia-run job of filling a quarry with toxic waste is eventually undertaken by children, the only ones willing to drive the trucks), there’s little “poetry” or self-conscious gangster “operatics” on display in Gomorrah. Violence is sudden, brutal, and definitive (several drive-bys and hit-and-run assassinations descend with no warning, and are thus absolutely terrifying), the closed-door scheming is cold, practical, and unfeeling (a schlubby boss rebukes Marco and Ciro for their wildness in between rounds of video games), and the “family” loyalty that’s been so essential in the cinema for raising common thuggery to the heights of Greek tragedy (from The Musketeers of Pig Alley to Rocknrolla) is utterly absent or else routinely betrayed. Unlike Afterschool, in which shallow focus is drearily employed for sub–Van Sant stabs at signifying “alienation,” Garrone expertly controls depth of field so that characters remain locked into their immediate surroundings, unable to escape an environment both systematically and physically restricted. Garrone also proves himself expert at framing and directing his actors. Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato), a thankless errand man who pays out to relatives of prisoners who’ve remained loyal to his clan, becomes more and more jailed within the labyrinthine of a multilevel slum complex that is his monthly route, while his increasingly vulnerable condition stiffens his posture and cowed expression to the point of betraying utter helplessness and “family” abandonment.

It’s small details like these that should be looked for in Gomorrah—if stylistically the film is unostentatious and narrative-wise its storylines are more demonstrative than character-driven (as reinforced by the topical closing titles), those choices together foster a tough portrait depressingly close to the poverty of the slums and the avarice-guided business practices of its overlords. In short, Garrone has allowed us wide-scoped entry into a forbidden world without making its taboos indicative of the same old, boring, exotic danger or titillating recklessness—Gomorrah’s is the unremarkable mafia of pimple-faced teenage soldiers and techno-blasting, tracksuit wearing troglodytes. If Garrone often makes obvious points in connecting a mafia-controlled tailor to the Hollywood A-list or showing how a young apprentice can stand up to his unscrupulous toxic waste “manager” boss, he also presents all these dirty and despicable dealings in the most unadorned clear-eyed manner; it’s not comforting and doesn’t have the requisite tragic dimension. At Gomorrah’s end some of its characters have survived, some have been brutally killed, but nothing has been “concluded.” We’ve witnessed several moments in organized crime’s ubiquitous stranglehold over an entire social stratum, where lives get chewed up and spit out through a system grinding ceaselessly on.

Letters from Cannes - May 18/19: Gomorra (Gomorrah) Boyd van Hoeij at Cannes

Cinematical (James Rocchi) review

Movie Martyr (Jeremy Heilman) review [3/4]

Gomorrah (Gomorra) Lee Marshall at Cannes from Screendaily

Cannes, Competition: "La Mujer Sin Cabeza," "Gomorra"" Glenn Kenny at Cannes from Some Came Running

The House Next Door [Vadim Rizov]

Salon.com [Andrew O'Hehir] at Cannes

Cannes Dispatch: Part Three: Patrick McGavin at Cannes from Stop Smiling magazine

The Rake [Erik McClanahan] Toronto IFF 08 report

They Shoot Actors, Don't They? Jeff

The Hollywood Reporter review Natasha Senjanovic

The Globe and Mail (Liam Lacey) capsule review [3/4]

A mafia feud that began with a row over a firework leaves six dead Kate Connolly and Tom Kington from The Guardian, August 16, 2007

Mafia wants "Gomorra" author dead by Christmas - Yahoo! News Stephen Brown, October 14, 2007

Gomorrah - Roberto Saviano - Book Review - New York Times Rachel Donadio, November 25, 2007

Review: Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia by Roberto Saviano | Books ... John Dickie from The Guardian, January 12, 2008

Calabrian mafia boss caught after 20 years on run James Orr from The Guardian, February 19, 2008

Hill, Henry ex-Mobster/Mafiosa Inspiration for Goodfellas and My ... Interview with GOODFELLA’s Henry Hill, who, in contrast, has been out of the Witness Protection Program program for years, has written books, makes public appearances, has 2 TV shows in pre-production, 2 scripts in the works and a cookbook

REALITY B- 81

Italy France (115 mi) 2012 ‘Scope

Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television. —Rain (Juliette Lewis) from Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives (1992)

Without a doubt, this is a film with sensational camerawork throughout by Marco Onorato adding a degree of power and complexity missing from the rest of the film that often feels slight and overly superficial, where an extended opening aerial shot draws us into a surrealist fantasy aspect of the film, reminiscent of a Disney fairy tale wedding where the newlyweds arrive in a horse drawn carriage to festivities that appear right out of a Fellini film, where fat, old, and grotesquely ugly characters fit right in with the colorful artificiality of the moment, giving it a garish, carnivalesque atmosphere where the guests are ogling over a Reality TV star named Enzo (Rafaele Ferranti), whose appearance seems to inspire a special delight. Flying in and out on a helicopter surrounded by a throng of photographers, one of the local Dads, Luciano (Ariello Arena), hoisting his young daughter on his arm, asks for a celebrity autograph, mesmerized by all the attention Enzo gathers and how easily this impresses his young daughter, making up his mind right then and there to become a contestant on the Realty TV show Big Brother. While this may be a satirical attempt to expose the self destructive effects of reality television, it seems more interested in the superficialities of celebrity worship and the idea that something inside every one of us wants to be famous, worshipped, and adored by the public. While this thought alone is a delusion, as just as many intentionally avoid the spotlight, this plays out more as an internalized fantasy playing out in one man’s mind, where an all-consuming, get-rich-quick fantasy takes over his actual life, becoming so obsessed with the desire to be on the TV program that this sudden rush of interest replaces his own ordinary life, much like Star Wars or Star Trek fanatics live vicariously through movie characters, literally inhabiting a fantasy world.

Garrone wanted to use actor Ariello Arena as a hitman in his earlier neo realist crime drama GOMORRAH (2008), as he is actually sentenced to a life sentence without parole in Volterra prison for shooting three rival gangsters in 1991, but the prison parole board felt the part was too close to his actual crime. He was allowed day passes to work on this film, however, delving into a self-imposed manic fantasia that may be easier to channel by spending large amounts of time locked up, isolated from the rest of society. Arena plays Luciano as a typical ordinary guy with a special exuberance and child-like wonder, an everyman who lives for his family and friends, a popular man in the community where he works in the local street markets selling fish with his partner Michele (Nando Paone), but often socializes with others who work nearby, including Ciro Petrone, a young coffee server who played one of the teenage gangsters in GOMORRAH. Together with his wife Maria (Loredana Simioli) they run a neighborhood scam on unsuspecting housewives selling them products they eventually reclaim. Living in an old, dilapidated section of Naples with plenty of family nearby, he’s the object of continual affection with the older women constantly doting on him, always laughing at his bad jokes, where he often performs skits for family entertainment at birthday parties, becoming something of a familiar clown. When Big Brother tryouts arrive in Naples, Luciano is interviewed, still toting his kids around with him wherever he goes, as if this TV program offers him some status of legitimacy that he wouldn’t otherwise have. He’s even called for a second interview in Rome's Cinecittà Studios, becoming the talk of the town, where it’s only a matter of time before he becomes a contestant.

Unlike the ultra realism of his earlier film, Garrone chooses to embellish this film with wild Italian stereotypes and exaggerated, over-the-top characters often seen yelling back and forth at each other, where there isn’t an ounce of subtlety here, as everything is expressed through a brightly colored world of artifice, where gestures and mannerisms are as prevalent as gossip and rumors. When he learns that TV sends out observers, where anyone he sees could be a spy for the show, this immediately exacerbates his growing sense of paranoia, where every stranger’s face suddenly works for the station and is watching him, becoming a personal test. He becomes so confident of his winning personality, however, that he even sells his fish stand, making way for his all but inevitable appearance. When the new season starts without him, though, he slowly disappears from public view, becoming isolated and anti-social, withdrawing from the neighborhood, spending every waking hour watching the show, wondering how to impress the judges and what test he must pass to be chosen, like modifying one’s behavior to get into Heaven. When he starts giving away all their personal belongings in an absurdist Christian gesture of contributing to the poor, he grows further out of control and unreachable, so alienated from his wife that she goes to live with her mother. While there is a strong sense of local community and neighborhood support that is ultimately rejected, the film is a study of delusion and broken dreams, where fantasy takes the place of reality. There is at least the suggestion that television may be the new religion, what Karl Marx called “the opiate of the masses,” where it offers a soulless moral reflection of the vast emptiness of modern society. Guided by unhealthy notions of consumerist popularity and commercial success, Reality TV exists almost without purpose, which is itself a kind of alternate reality, as who needs to watch the empty, unfocused lives of others? This film makes no attempts to offer any cultural significance to the medium, delving instead into the psychological void that exists within.

Geoff Andrew at Cannes from Time Out London (link lost)

Matteo Garrone’s ‘Gomorrah’ was undoubtedly a tough act to follow. Few outside of Italy knew his earlier work (though his 2002 foray into the underworld with ‘The Embalmer’ did play the festival circuit a little). But Garrone’s sharp if sprawling account of organised crime at work in the Neapolitan suburbs not only won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes but enjoyed widespread box office success. So ‘Reality’ had a lot to live up to.

And in many respects, it certainly succeeds in doing so. Its striking opening sequence – shot from a helicopter as a horse-drawn golden coach makes its way through the traffic of the suburbs beneath Vesuvius, finally arriving at a wedding of ostentatious opulence and vulgarity – sets everything in place: the preference for long, sinuous sequence shots, the painstaking attention to mood and detail, an impressive, almost epic sense of scale. But it’s that last quality, carried over from ‘Gomorrah ’, which is at once the film’s strength and its shortcoming. As the narrative focuses increasingly on Luciano, a Naples fishmonger supplementing his family’s income with scams involving kitchen goods, who’s persuaded to seek fame and fortune by auditioning for a series of ‘Big Brother’, so the film turns from amusing, faintly absurd satire towards ever ‘bigger’ themes. These are concerned with the destructive role played in modern life by our obsession with celebrity and appearance. In short, the movie becomes a little too long and heavy-handed for the more intimate and immediately plausible aspects of its subject.

That said, while the film is seldom as funny as it probably wants to be, and drags here and there towards the end, it nevertheless has more than its fair share of strong scenes suggestive of a latter-day ‘La Dolce Vita’. (Here it’s not a statue of Christ that hovers over the city of Rome but a brash TV celeb, flying over a Neapolitan rave packed with tacky revellers.) As Luciano gradually loses his grasp on reality, changing his ways in the hope that charitable acts might gain him access to TV heaven, Garrone just about keeps things under control long enough to make the surprisingly quiet coda emotionally satisfying and resonant. En route, by the way, he’s helped no end by a splendid cast, some of whom will be familiar from ‘Gomorrah ’.

The A.V. Club [Scott Tobias]

There’s virtually no way to talk about Matteo Garrone’s comic fable Reality without giving a nod to The King Of Comedy, Martin Scorsese’s masterful dark comedy about the dreams and delusions of a lonely shut-in who seeks to becomes the next late-night TV star. And while the comparison is inevitably unflattering to Garrone’s film, Reality makes a fine companion, responding to a time when the word “reality” sometimes belongs in air quotes and people feel more entitled than ever to their 15 minutes of fame. The King Of Comedy’s Rupert Pupkin remains as disturbingly antisocial as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, hosting an imaginary talk show with cardboard cutouts in his basement. By contrast, the hero of Reality is a Neopolitan fishmonger and family man who’s gregarious to a fault; he’s already the acknowledged center of his cozy universe. His need to extend that approbation into national fame and fortune is a peculiar pathology the film explores with humor and exuberance.

The spectacular opening shot descends from the heavens until it finds an ornate horse-drawn carriage clomping through the streets of Naples, en route to a wedding that doubles as a garish televised event. The special guest is “Enzo,” the glad-handing winner of the Italian Big Brother, but Aniello Arena, a guest who’s changed into drag for the occasion, is eager to get his share of the spotlight. The display would be more pathetic if Arena wasn’t genuinely charismatic, or if his friends and family weren’t so encouraging of his shenanigans. When auditions for the next Big Brother season open up at the local mall, Arena charms his way in front of the camera and becomes utterly convinced that his slot on the show is assured. Then he waits for the call. And waits. And waits.

Garrone laughs along as Arena’s impatience and worry manifest as intense paranoia and desperation: In one scene, he accommodates a bum at his fish stand after convincing himself that the guy might be a network plant; in another, he pleads to Enzo from behind the air-duct grate in his dressing room. While its barbs on celebrity and reality television are expected and a little facile, they’re mostly a misdirect for a story about family, community, and religion, and Arena’s willful estrangement from a perfectly happy life in pursuit of another, more rarified one. His outrageous, self-destructive journey lands him in a place just as ironic as Rupert Pupkin’s in The King Of Comedy, but it’s haunting and mysterious, too, reflecting the dream that consumes his life.

Village Voice [Michael Atkinson]

Rampaging through the otherwise arid desertscape of contemporary Italian cinema, Matteo Garrone doesn't want for ambition—he may be the premier chronicler of Berlusconi-era Italian culture, and its most muscular satirist. (That is, when Italian society isn't busy outpacing satire altogether.) Reality, his follow-up to 2008's Gomorrah, begins with a realistic yet Felliniesque wedding party so grotesque and overwrought that you feel the teeth of Garrone's ironic title in every glimpse of faux-aristo opulence. Is this real? Not for a moment, but it gets only more hyper-unreal when the nuptials, already crammed with frenzied disco gaiety and drag shtick, are guest-visited by a beloved former cast member of Big Brother, whose presence electrifies the crowd. The family patriarch, Luciano (Aniello Arena), is bedazzled as he watches the quasi-celeb get choppered away like a dignitary from another planet.

It's a world Luciano can't get out of his skull. Soon the hit Euro reality show is staging auditions in a Neapolitan mall, and to please his kids Luciano submits to an interview—despite being middle-aged and far from telegenic. His enthusiasm nets him subsequent auditions (which we don't see), and with just that much encouragement, his threadbare life selling fish and running pension scams begins to shred. Garrone's film explores nothing less than a mass delusion, personified by this one eager schmuck, a savvy Everyman who descends into paranoid magical thinking, finally obliterating his family and his sanity in order to cross over into the broadcast afterlife.

Garrone is in complete control of his thematic plutonium. Step by step, with a setup that evokes Honeymoonersepisodes, Realitybuilds to as scalding a vision of televisual simulacra and its maddened victims as Scorsese's The King of Comedy. Luciano mutates into the perfect television being—a man whose identity is defined by his blind devotion to the lie. It hardly matters that even in Italy Big Brotheris a fading phenom; the metaphor it presents, of being "on the show" as inhabiting a screen-idealized circle of Paradise, is dazzlingly rich.

It may be overstating things to detect a Dantean map beneath the drama, an idea that bruises when you find out that Arena, who's sensational in a demanding role, is a prison convict with a life sentence, shooting the film on day passes and returning to his cell at night. What wouldn't this weathered, muscly, Hank Azaria–After the Fallhard-luck case do to step over the threshold himself, and live in a heavenly TV bubble? (Is it a coincidence that the Tavianis' contemporaneous Caesar Must Die also looked to Italy's mobster-filled prisons?) A prizewinner at Cannes, Garrone's film grows in your head afterward, making royal hash out of a cultural paradigm we'll be loath to remember years from now—if, by then, everything hasn't become "reality."

Film Comment [Robert Koehler] May 29, 2012

It’s a curious condition of modern cinema that few films have addressed television’s role as the most powerful entity in our lives. How television has fundamentally remolded social systems and mores—the rapid emergence of gay rights, including marriage, has been profoundly fueled by television images from Will & Grace to Glee—is of enormous interest to a realist like Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone, who has singlehandedly reformed notions of classic neorealism to a contemporary climate. While Gomorrah was Garrone’s full-range neorealist examination of Neopolitan crime syndicates, seen from a distanced perspective and told with an ensemble of characters, Reality is considerably more stylized and privatized, almost exclusively trained on one man who becomes obsessed with landing a slot on the new season of Big Brother.

There’s nothing more scripted than reality TV, and the very phrase is an aberration, one of the prime examples of modern media’s mangling of English. The fascinating idea at the core of the screenplay (co-written by Garrone and Massimo Gaudioso) is that an Everyman (Luciano, played with a gradually unfolding display of madness by Aniello Arena), who’s a nominally religious man but not devotedly Catholic, finds a kind of postmodern Communion with a television show as his new dogma. The previous year’s Big Brother winner, Enzo (Raffaele Ferrante), now a superstar who gets transported from one event to another via helicopter, is a God-like figure for Luciano. In one stunning sequence, Enzo appears at a concert, hoisted overhead on cables and flying above the crowd, sending Luciano into paroxysms. Big Brother itself is a show about the television camera as an all-seeing entity, and the notion of submitting to its 24/7 surveillance amounts to a sacrifice, a giving over to something greater and omniscient.

Perhaps the truest American response to the impact of media on the individual remains Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg’s prophetic A Face in the Crowd, with its plotting of an arc of showbiz success (and monstrosity) as possible only in America. Reality provides a reading of TV that’s ingeniously Italian and Catholic. Garrone inserts scenes that consciously quote from early neorealism, such as Visconti’s Bellissima for a sequence in which Luciano’s family visits Cinecittà for Big Brother tryouts (while reversing the parent-child equation: here the child urges the parent to get into the show). Yet Garrone's interest here is much more theatrical and private. Luciano’s tilt toward obsession and madness occurs in invisible patches of time, until suddenly, his family is blindsided by the spectre that daddy has gone bonkers in his desire to get on the show, imagining regular local folk as “agents” and “watchers” for the show. At the same time, in an acidic display of Christian “sacrifice” and abandoning of material needs, Luciano gives away possessions to anyone off the street who wants them, much to the horror of his wife Maria (Loredana Simioli).

The realist issues within Reality then shift from media matters and Garrone’s interest in undermining cinematic reality (which he does from the mind-blowing opening airborne shot) to one man’s grasp on the difference between reality and delusion. That the show’s studio set happens to be physically close to the set-like Vatican underlines (to an obvious extent by the film's final stretch) the tie-ins between old-time religion and new electronic entertainment with its powers of seduction and pull toward an alternative life. If Luciano hasn’t quite found it in the end, he is right where he wanted to be.

Sight & Sound [Pasquale Iannone] April 2013, also seen here: Film of the week: Reality | BFI

“Reality”: Toxic celebrity, Italian-style - Salon.com Andrew O’Hehir

Slant Magazine [Jesse Cataldo]

Cinespect [Ryan Wells]

JamesBowman.net | Reality

Eric Kohn at Cannes from indieWIRE, May 18, 2012

Drew McWeeny at Cannes from HitFix, May 18, 2012

Michal Oleszczyk at Cannes from Hammer to Nail, May 18, 2012

The Playlist [Kevin Jagernauth] at Cannes, May 18, 2012, also seen here: Kevin Jagernauth

The House Next Door [Budd Wilkins] at Cannes, May 19, 2012

Paste Magazine [Will McCord]

theartsdesk.com [Nick Hasted]

The London Film Review [Jean-Baptiste de Vaulx]

PopMatters [Elena Razlogova] also reviewing IN THE FOG

Reality Allan Hunter at Cannes from Screendaily

Screen Comment [Ali Naderzad]

Film Freak Central Review [Angelo Muredda]

EyeForFilm.co.uk [Anton Bitel]

Film School Rejects [Simon Gallagher]

Combustible Celluloid Review - Reality (2013), Ugo Chiti, Maurizio ... Jeffrey M. Anderson

The Film Stage [Dan Mecca]

ShockYa.com [Harvey Karten] also seen here: CompuServe [Harvey Karten]

Screenjabber.com Ian Ford

Film School Rejects [Andrew Robinson]

Film.com [Eric D. Snider]

Cannes Best-Actor Candidate in Prison, Reportedly for Double Murder Julie Miller at Cannes from Vanity Fair, May 18, 2012

CANNES 2012 DIARY: The Best Actor You Won’t Meet in Cannes Eugene Hernandez at Cannes from Film Comment, May 18, 2012

Ryland Aldrich at Cannes from Twitch, May 18, 2012

David Jenkins at Cannes from Little White Lies, May 18, 2012

DAILY | Cannes 2012 | Matteo Garrone’s REALITY » David Hudson at Fandor

Reality: Cannes Review Deborah Young at Cannes from The Hollywood Reporter

Reality Jay Weissberg from Variety at Cannes, also seen here: Jay Weissberg

Reality | review, synopsis, book tickets, showtimes, movie ... - Time Out Dave Calhoun

David Fear at Cannes from Time Out New York, May 18, 2012

The Guardian [Peter Bradshaw] at Cannes, May 18, 2012, also seen here: Peter Bradshaw

The Telegraph [Tim Robey]

Steven Zeitchik at Cannes from The Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2012

Gatlif, Tony

Tony Gatlif an interview by Gerald Peary from the Boston Phoenix, August 1998

THE PRINCES (Les Princes) A- 93

France (100 mi) 1983

A dreary and devastating portrait of lower-class Gypsy life, outcasts living on the margins of society trying to preserve fragments of their Gypsy identity, Gatlif acts as the musical director in a film immersed in Gypsy music. The film is not bashful at all about confirming many Gypsy stereotypes as uneducated, ill-mannered thieves, smugglers, prostitutes, and low-life rip-off artists, revealed by following one family led by the stubborn patriarch Nara, a bullying, brutal man living a dreary, day to day existence in French tenement housing on the verge of eviction with his grandmother and daughter Zorka, refusing his daughter from seeing her mother, banishing the mother from the household for life despite her persistent efforts to see her daughter and despite the repeated arrests this causes her for being a vagabond. The mother, Miralda, is always shown peering around corners, hiding behind walls or various abandoned structures, where she appears to live an invisible existence. The neighborhood is surrounded by mud, with endless pictures of life in the mud and garbage strewn fields, abandoned broken down cars, and various fires where people gather.

Nara’s friend is seen stealing a carcass of meat, cutting cable wires or pieces of wire from fences, selling stolen horses or even window frames from their apartments, as everyone seems to be scrounging something. Nara chases women and listens to Gypsy music at the Bar des Princes, where he has a friend Bijou who appears afflicted with tuberculosis, but walks out with another barmaid, later following yet another woman until he is caught by her husband at the bar, threatening to send him back to his own country where he can rape his own women. “That would be pretty easy, as I’m already there,” as he ducks his way out of being punched.

Miralda’s three brothers arrive in an expensive red car, all wearing suits, looking like small-time hoods from Scorsese’s MEAN STREETS (1973). One is played buy the director himself, wearing a red shirt, always carrying a switchblade, and they meet with Nara and Miralda separately to discuss the split in their marriage. Nara indicates he has renounced her for taking birth control pills, “like Gadje women,” instead of having lots of children, “like we always do.” The three go and huddle with Miralda who admits it’s the truth, returning to Nara concluding she must love him or their sister would never have admitted such a thing, urging them to get back together again. But Nara insists he intends to remarry, causing the brothers to fight among themselves, each suggesting their own brand of justice with Nara while Miralda screams she wants to see her daughter across an empty field where no one is listening.

Nara decides to pull Zorka out of school, despite being the best in her class, as he claims he doesn’t like the teacher, then insults his best friend Bijou during a discussion about robbing rich old women, spending the rest of the night getting drunk at the bar. The next morning he’s jumped from behind, leaving him a crumpled bloody mess, all witnessed by Miralda who claims it was his own friend. Nara takes revenge with a knife, chasing Bijou into an abandoned building until he begs for mercy. Later he is informed Bijou died in the night, his things thrown out into the street by men with machine guns, which forces them to return to their nomadic lifestyle, cooking and sleeping outside, dancing to the mournful Gypsy songs. When they attempt to sleep in an abandoned building, the police arrest them and burn the building down. Zorka pleads her desire to return to school, that she hates being a nomad, but they are forced to wander, followed silently and unseen by Miralda who is always on the edge of the frame. Tourists stop their car to take pictures of this authentic Gypsy family. Nara nearly beats the man to a pulp. “You shitty Gadjo, we’re not monkeys.”

Nara leads his family to a nomad camp outside of town, which turns out to be a garbage dump, then meets a German reporter who treats him to dinner at an expensive hotel, asking about the origins of Gypsies. “We always lived in the slums, I just came from the public dump, that’s where we’re supposed to camp.” The reporter asks about the status of women in Gypsy culture as we see Grandma next door reading fortunes for money. Nara makes a vulgar pass at the reporter, who leaves in disgust, throwing ten dollars on the table which he stomps on in a little Gypsy dance. Miralda’s three brothers arrive wielding switchblades, threatening customers, kicking tables. Zorka is seen buying food in a corner marker, flashing her money, then running out with the merchandise without paying for it followed by the shopkeeper, as Nara slips into the store to pilfer more food. Zorka pleads with her father that she doesn’t want to be a thief, that perhaps he could get a job, which brings a quick slap to her face.

They all walk down a city street peering through store windows for something they might be able to take, as Grandma actually enters through an open window and treats herself to a five-course meal while the couple living there argues in the room next door. On a muddy road in the rain, Grandma can’t walk any further. Miralda who has been silently following them from behind holds her under an umbrella while Nara runs for help down an empty road, bringing back the three brothers in their red car, ultimately burying Grandma on the side of the road, joined by another group of traveling Gypsies, children running everywhere, along with horses, goats, and bringing up the rear, a man with two bears.

Kinoblog [Michael Brooke]

Inhabiting a squalid slum, along with his obstinate old mother and his daughter, Nara (Darmon) has problems. He is forever threatened with eviction; his job, to say the least, is less than secure; and he is the constant victim of contempt and prejudice emanating from 'respectable' society, whose guardians are the surly gendarmes. For Nara is a gypsy, and as such is automatically relegated to the lower echelons of French society. Gatlif's episodic study of the gitanes of modern France carries plentiful conviction, thanks no doubt to the fact that the director is himself of Romany stock. The grim options afforded his nomadic heroes are depicted with grainy realism (Jacques Loiseleux's muted, sombre photography providing countless evocative images of a France rarely shown on film), and Gatlif rarely sentimentalises: the gypsies' macho, patriarchal culture is viewed critically, while moments of humour alleviate the film's downbeat thrust.

User reviews from imdb Author: John Simpson (post@jandesimpson.wanadoo.co.uk) from Hastings, England

When I came to look up "Les Princes" on this database it was something of a surprise that there were no user comments or external reviews of a film I would regard as particularly worthy of attention. By comparison two of Tony Gatlif's other gypsy films, "Lacho Drom" and "Gadjo Dilo", worthy but lesser works in my opinion, would appear to have been "discovered". The earlier "Les Princes" is a savage and angry work about a proud people trying to survive in a world that regards them as human scum, fit only to exist in squalid council apartment blocks - and there only under the continual threat of eviction - after which there is only the open road or a space set aside by the municipal rubbish tip. Nara, the central character, is hardly a sympathetic type. He has a harsh temperament that is often given to violence. Yet, for all the scrapes he gets into and a failed family life - a little girl whom he adores by a trollop he detests and an elderly mother with whom he is always bickering - he carries his head high - a match for all those he comes up against, particularly a patronising woman journalist who seeks an interview with him. One of the most remarkable features of "Les Princes" is its use of carefully chosen locations to underline the squalid conditions these unaccepted people have to exist in. It was shot in and around the town of Guise in the north-east, a part of France that tourists possible never visit apart from passing through. The first half of the film is played out in urban landscapes, the housing apartments where even the window frames are good for flogging, a seedy bar ironically named "Bar des Princes" and a derelict factory. It is a crazy and cluttered world mirrored in a slightly confused narrative. It is only when the family is evicted and take to the open road, with Nara's mother - a marvellous study of female stubbornness and resilience - determined to find a lawyer that will put things right, that the film achieves a clear narrative flow that at times touches on greatness. It becomes the mother's film at this point, her odyssey leading the others onward through a landscape buffeted by rain. The happenings of the last half-hour are truly remarkable.

LATCHO DROM A 99

aka: Safe Journey

France (103 mi) 1992 ‘Scope

A beautiful and immensely moving film brimming with joy and optimism, a companion piece to Kiarostami’s AND LIFE GOES ON (1991) for one of the most uplifting films of all time, beautifully edited following the passing of the seasons, an exuberant celebration of Gypsy migrations over the past 1000 years, moving across Europe following much of the same routes, taking on the musical forms of each successive country, beginning in India, traveling through Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, France, and Spain. A culture without any written history, so the film is without dialogue, instead Gatlif, himself a Gypsy, expresses nomadic, communal memories through the use of bright, colorful ceremonial costumes luxuriantly photographed in actual exotic locations, capturing performances of songs by the Rom or Gypsy people which are nothing less than extraordinary. Singers, dancers and musicians reveal in song that despite a history of political exile, hatred, persecution, and even executions in gas chambers, there is an resultant sadness and a bitter anguish, but more importantly an impassioned lust for life which feels right out of Bizet’s Camen, assisted in the Egyptian segment by Youssef Chahine who featured similar images in his film DESTINY (1997).

From out of the desert, like the beginning of Kaige’s YELLOW EARTH (1984) or Yimou’s RED SORGHUM (1987) comes a nomadic tribe wearing incredibly bright colors, women in red skirts, dresses, shawls, or scarves, men in white, white oxen leading wooden wagons filled with children accompanied by goats, dogs, and a rooster, stopping under a lone tree where they set up tents, forge knives and tools, and from behind a tree jumps the first singer. Under a full moon on a darkened night: “My song is a light in the darkness.”

By daylight they travel into town, where a young boy is called away from the fields, peering into a window where a voluptuous woman is performing a belly dance, bells around her butt, rings in her fingers, doing a raw, pulsating, rhythmic dance in a small crowded room, a communal experience then imitated outside the room by a very young girl who prances in front of a young boy. “The fire that burns inside me drives my soul crazy…when I think of my love so far away.” When the dancer is finished, she immediately breastfeeds her baby, as we see an image of boats on a river and a young boy playing music alone on a riverbank to a setting sun.

There is a Muslim prayer call, a twilight view of a Turkish city with a ravishing skyline of minarets among the hills, as a little girl sells flowers and little boys shine shoes and play with sticks and drums. Behind them are steps completely filled with pigeons. Women call their children from apartment windows high above laundry lines, as a man with a grizzly bear entertains a crowd with a tambourine and a stick. Men weave baskets, a young girl brings a burning stick to light a cigarette for one of the basket weavers. Inside, men dressed in suits play music to a room filled with other men who are drinking and swaying their arms in hypnotic approval. A young girl is alone, by herself, dancing in the back room. A man with a telescope on a city street urges customers to “Come see the moon. Come see the moon, 100 lira for 5 minutes.”

A young boy walks down a muddy city street in a morning fog, around a corner he finds two men under a tree, one plays guitar while the other is playing the violin using a loose string which produces a harsher sound, singing about Romanian dictator “Nicolae Ceaucescu, the criminal…They’re taking to the street yelling ‘Freedom,’ to live in freedom…Tyrant you destroyed Romania…Green leaves, flowers of the field.” The camera pans to the huge government building in the background, as we see a man and a boy eat bread, followed by blowing leaves. A boy leads a white horse back down that same muddy street in the fog.

One by one, men empty out houses playing musical instruments followed by dancing women, young and old, like the Pied Piper, as they all join together playing old, old instruments in the center of town where everyone gathers. There are images of horses running through the woods leading to a long, straight train track.

There is a flight of birds above and a mournful song of tears: “The whole world hates us. We’re chased, we’re cursed, and we’re condemned to wandering all our lives…The world is hypocritical. The whole world is against us as if we were thieves.” A well dressed woman wearing a fur sits on a bench at a train station with her son, tears in her eyes. A crowd of Gypsies builds a fire across from the tracks and gathers to sing. They boy wanders across the tracks and dances to the music, returning to his mother, still dancing. He is elated at the sounds and is trying to fill her world with joy. She smiles, as all the singers play for her until a train arrives. The singers hug and kiss passengers getting off the train. It starts to snow. There is an image of barbed wire in the snow as we hear a song: “In Auschwitz, we die of hunger. Life is so far off, death is so close.” There is a perfectly gorgeous image of a town on top of a hill off in the distance across a snowy field. A woman walks out of the wood to begin the long walk across the field. An old woman with a tattooed number on her arm sings the mournful song of tears, snow and ice are melting, water is starting to flow.

People are living in layers above the snowy ground in trees, complete with plastic bags around them, fires for cooking, exhaust pipes: “God has condemned us to wandering, and we have come very far. One misfortune leads to another. We have fled from misfortune so often, never again will we be treated like dogs, we must keep moving.” There is a close up of a dog’s teeth and we hear barking as they enter the next town, also horses’ hooves clattering on the pavement. They stop by a river outside town and wash the horses, resting awhile, until men with guns arrive and they move on, past green fields, as kids pick yellow flowers and tie them in a bunch, placing them on a fence.

A man driving a nice car drives by and sees the flowers on the fence and decides to follow them, picking up one man with a guitar, as a shaggy-haired man in a purple shirt drags his upright bass through a brilliantly yellow field of daisies. They all meet in a candle-lit church and play music, each kissing a black Christ, saying a prayer, playing a soft, mournful song to Christ. Next there is a church procession walking down a crowded street to the river, where there are horses and people carrying umbrellas in a lightning storm. A very jazzy guitar sound of Django Reinhardt can be heard, as dueling musicians play at an indoor banquet, playing jump music. “We Gypsies, no one will ever change our way of life…”

We see a boy playing a video game, driving a car, crashing on the side of the road, leading to sounds of singing and clapping – this is Flamenco. A woman in red dances powerfully and beautifully, joined by a few women dressed in black, then joined by an old woman whose partner joins her, as we see glimpses of the faces of children, young girls and old men. In a white walled town, officials are placing bricks over a window of an abandoned building as police wander by. When they’re gone, the sound of a voice leads to Gypsies walking out of the house, continuing out of town into a flat plain: “I’m a black bird who has taken flight…Why does your wicked mouth spit on me? From Isabelle the Catholic to Hitler and Franco, we’ve been the victims of their wars. Some evenings, I find myself envying the respect you give your dogs…” On a small hill overlooking a housing project at the edge of town, a mother and son sing next to a burning fire, as the sound of wind and distant cries may be heard over the end credits.

Latcho Drom | Theater Critic's Choice | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This difficult-to-categorize masterpiece by Tony Gatlif (1993) is many things at once: a Gypsy "docu-musical" (actually an adroit mixture of documentary and fiction) in 'Scope and stereo featuring musicians, singers, and dancers from India, Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, France, and Spain; an epic account of Gypsy migrations over the past thousand years; a political statement about Gypsy persecution that never descends into bitterness; a poetic evocation of the passing seasons; and a gorgeously filmed and edited compilation of some of the most joyous, soulful, and energizing music and dancing you're likely to encounter, taking on the musical forms and styles of each successive country (including Django Reinhardt-style jazz in France and flamenco in Spain). All this is threaded together so subtly and expressively by Gatlif (himself a Gypsy), with a minimum of speech and narration, that the music and filmmaking often seem indissoluble. When dogs bark or the camera cranes up exuberantly into the treetops, it's every bit as musical and rhythmic as the performances, and the pulse is so infectious that you may feel like dancing.

Technically a French film, but you’d never know, Tony Gatlif’s 1993 film Latcho Drom (which translates as ‘Safe Journey’) is an enthralling Cinemascope panorama tracing the thousand-year passage of the gypsies from India to Western Europe via Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. There’s no dialogue or conventional narrative: everything is told in songs and dances appropriate to the relevant country, presumably performed by musicians steeped in the right tradition.

(I say “presumably” because I don’t know, but the presence of Taraf de Haïdouks in the Romanian scenes - which someone’s uploaded to YouTube here - prove that Gatlif knew what he was doing, especially given that this film was made 14 years ago when they were far less internationally renowned than they are now. I think this film played a major part in building their current reputation)

The only subtitles cover the song lyrics, which - as one might expect - deal with the theme of being an outcast in whatever society one happens to be in (ancient India, Nazi Germany, Ceauşescu’s Romania), but these explicit themes very much play second fiddle to the vivid sense of place, colour, composition and rhythm adorning more or less every shot. It’s an exhilarating piece of work.

This film needs the best presentation it can get (there are loads of YouTube clips, but they’re not a patch on what’s playing in the background as I write this), but thankfully the Australian DVD (Madman) is up to scratch - it’s got a flawless print and transfer and lively soundtrack (it only seems to be plain stereo, not the advertised Dolby 5.1, but I can live with that), and the subtitles are infrequent enough for me not to mind them being yellow. It was also going cheap enough for me to risk an blind purchase (I’m reviewing Gatlif’s latest, Transylvania, and wanted some context), and I’m very glad I did.

The incredible journey | Film | The Guardian Jonathan Romney, May 2, 2000

Film covers a much bigger world than you'd ever know from the multiplex listings. Last year in Cannes, for example, I watched stories about Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem, Kathakali actors in Kerala and drag queens in Barcelona, not to mention Belgian waffle sellers, Swiss call girls and pre-pubescent rat-fanciers in 70s Glasgow. It's almost beside the point whether the films are good or not: you are just relieved to get a break from London geezer- gangsters and LA cops.

But I would not want to present the pleasures of world cinema as spurious cultural tourism. The term "world cinema", in fact, is not much used these days - it was replaced by "art-house", which means films that are lucky to get a release. "World cinema" always had a tinge of National Geographic magazine about it.

However, there is something particularly exciting about a film that doesn't simply offer a burst of cultural difference, but actually creates a picture of the world as you've never seen it before. Such a film is Latcho Drom, which opens at the Barbican this week as part of The 1,000 Year Journey, a season of gypsy music and arts.

The French-based, Algerian-born gypsy film-maker Tony Gatlif shot Latcho Drom in several countries, with an almost entirely gypsy cast. In fact Latcho Drom is a film that, as American critic Jonathan Rosenbaum put it, "has no nationality at all". It is also a film without fixed genre: at once musical, documentary, travelogue, ethnographic essay and impassioned manifesto for a freer cinema and a freer life.

Gatlif's 1997 film Gadjo Dilo was a portrait of a Romanian gypsy village, ostensibly seen through the eyes of a French outsider, but really offering a community-eye view of his strangeness - the Frenchman being the "crazy foreigner" of the title. Update for Gadjo Dilo fans: Gatlif's follow-up, Children of the Stork, is a messy, apparently semi-improvised caper with a heavy nod to Godard, and is borderline unwatchable, except for one memorable gag about a film critic who literally rubber-stamps movies: "Rubbish", "Masterpiece", " Absolute masterpiece".

But Latcho Drom (1993) is, it is probably fair to say, unlike any film you will have seen. An impressionistic picture of the migrations of the gypsy peoples and musics through time and space, it is constructed as a series of musical interludes. It has hundreds, maybe thousands of characters, but the central character is the protean gypsy population itself. The whole film is staged as a single staggered journey from east to west: the wedding revellers in Rajasthan seem to evolve into the family taking a ferry to Istanbul, then into the band waiting for a train in Hungary. The Rajasthan sequence, lit by fires burning in tree trunks, is presented like a recollection of a distant Edenic past. From then on, it's clear that everything is a response to grief and exclusion. An old woman walks across a snowy landscape in Slovakia, and sings about the population wiped out in the Holocaust. The Romanian band Taraf de Haïdouks sing about the crimes of Ceausescu. The film ends with a woman's lament on a Spanish hillside, overlooking an urban landscape as barren as, but less hospitable than the Rajasthan desert.

Taraf de Haïdouks' concert at the Barbican the other night was a good metaphor for Latcho Drom's fluidity, and for the way that gypsy culture evolves throughout the film. The 12 members play in every conceivable combination - en masse, in threes, fours or fives, swapping accordions, violins and double basses, and playing with an extraordinary, controlled frenzy. The band comes in different permutations, but always plays with the same collective signature; the film covers different gypsy cultures, but always implies a unity.

Latcho Drom can be seen as a history lesson: the Barbican season, and Gatlif's film in particular, make a timely retort to Britain's latest wave of xenophobia. You might argue that Latcho Drom is romantic and impressionistic, that it doesn't offer commentary or analysis, but simply presents gypsy culture as some sort of eternal spirit. But for a film that barely deals in the spoken word, Latcho Drom conveys a very concrete sense of historical reality. And the fact that the film exists at all, flouting genres and national barriers, is of no small political importance. Its title means "safe journey": Latcho Drom is, you could say, the ultimate road movie.

Gypsy Melodies | Jonathan Rosenbaum Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Chicago Reader, February 10, 1995, also seen here: The Chicago Reader: Jonathan Rosenbaum

Edwin Jahiel

hybridmagazine.com Quin Arbeitman

Gadjo Dilo | Jonathan Rosenbaum

GADJO DILO B+ 92

aka: The Crazy Stranger

France (97 mi) 1998

Part III of Gatlif’s Gypsy trilogy, following the realist depiction of Gypsy persecution in THE PRINCES, the combination of history and art so poetically blended together in LATCHO DROM, concluding with this film of an outsider’s view of a Gypsy village in Romania, which takes on a life of its own once its secrets are revealed, namely that life flows freely from the heart. Gatlif is a Spanish Gypsy born in Algeria, who also writes his own music.

The title of Tony Gatlif’s 1997 French feature is Romany for crazy stranger; the stranger, our main point of identification, is a young scholar and music buff from France who scours the Romanian countryside looking for a legendary singer until a direct and extended encounter with Gypsy culture throws him for a loop. The third part of Gatlif’s Gypsy Trilogyafter Latcho Drom (which I revere) and The Princes (which I haven’t seen)this is a pretty good romantic comedy with neither the formal originality nor the musical excitement of Latcho Drom, though it’s certainly watchable and entertaining throughout. In French with subtitles. 121 min.

Gadjo Dilo, directed by Tony Gatlif | Film review - Time Out Geoff Andrew

Tony Gatlif, a Rom himself, continues his exploration of gypsy culture with this tale of a young Parisian (Duris) who travels to Romania in search of a gypsy singer. Slowly accepted by a clan suspicious of the outside world, he witnesses the joys and heartbreaks of Romany experience. This funny, bawdy, moving blend of gritty drama, glorious music and dance, and ethnographic semi-documentary never romanticises the characters: while they're lively, lusty, talented and passionate, they also have a tendency towards drunkenness, theft, xenophobia and foul-mouthed aggression - the result, probably, of being treated as unwanted outsiders by the world around them. Simultaneously stirring and illuminating, and as well worth catching as Gatlif's earlier

GADJO DILO | Film Journal International Richard Porton

Tony Gatlif's Gadjo Dilo is a difficult film to pigeonhole. At times, the focus on gypsy music recalls Gatlif's Latcho Drom, although stirring musical interludes are interspersed with quasi-ethnographic sequences exploring a vanishing culture, as well as luridly melodramatic moments. The movie's unpredictable mood swings in fact account for its considerable interest as both an intriguing narrative and fictionalized anthropology. Gatlif ultimately convinces us that the magnanimous if frequently eccentric gypsies who the film treats with unswerving affection are more than mere quaint exotics.

In the Rom language spoken by gypsies, the phrase gadjo dilo refers to a 'crazy outsider,' and Gatlif's film features a protagonist who starts out as a detached observer and gradually becomes a knowledgeable insider. Stephane (Romain Duris), an inquisitive French bohemian, journeys into the Romanian countryside with a determination to locate his late father's favorite gypsy singer. Armed only with a battered tape recorder which preserves the legendary singer's voice, Stephane's quest eventually leads him to a raucous but warm gypsy family who embrace him as a kindred spirit after their initial suspicions are allayed. The encounter between a European sophisticate and individuals who exist on the margins of the modern world allows Gatlif to casually debunk many of the negative stereotypes that continue to stigmatize gypsy communities throughout the world. Fully aware of their unsavory reputation, the tight-knit clan initially turn the tables on their youthful visitor and accuse him, with good-natured irony, of being a thief and a scoundrel. When Stephane finally understands the extent to which his hosts' playful shenanigans mask a painful history, he becomes ready to become a full-fledged member of a subculture that traditionally views outsiders with profound suspicion.

A wizened and quite irritable gypsy musician named Izidor (Isidor Serban) takes a liking to Stephane, allowing the Frenchman to investigate a culture which is still shrouded in secrecy. We soon learn that Izidor's gruffness is largely attributable to the hardships that he and his comrades endured in Romania during this turbulent and frequently tragic century. Treated as pariahs by President Nicolae Ceausescu's brutal dictatorship, gypsies have not fared much better in the supposedly more democratic climate of post-Communist Romania. Given these harsh realities, Izidor regards Stephane's musicological search as a welcome opportunity to retreat into nostalgia. A sequence in which the gypsy patriarch listens to an ancient recording on a decrepit record player perfectly captures his family's combination of anger and melancholy.

Towards the end of Gadjo Dilo, Gatlif departs temporarily from musicological concerns to chronicle Stephane's passionate affair with Sabina (Rona Hartner), a beautiful gypsy dancer. This romantic subplot allows Gatlif to combine social commentary and bawdy hijinks with occasionally clumsy results. Unlike other gypsy women, Sabina is alienated from her own community, as well as from Romanian society at large. Her total independence-a kind of self-ostracism-is undoubtedly behind her decision to thoroughly divest herself of sexual inhibitions. Her verbal foreplay with Stephane includes exchanges that are as ludicrous as they are titillating. While the lovers' spicy dialogue functions primarily as comic relief, the film ends on a much grimmer note. Izidor's family becomes embroiled in a feud with Romanian mobsters and Stephane's liaison with Sabina comes to an abrupt end.

Gatlif's film benefits greatly from stylistic restraint; despite the often frenzied events, the camera movements are economical and unobtrusive. Even when the plot becomes impossibly convoluted or Isidor Serban's histrionics rival the hamminess of Eli Wallach in his prime, Gadjo Dilo remains a politically acute travelogue-cum-musical which frequently delights the ears as well as the eyes.

CER | Film: Roma and Integration in Tony Gatlif's Gadjo dilo Niobe Thompson from Central Europe Review, November 27, 2000

Review: 'Gadjo Dilo' - Variety Derek Elley

Movie Review - - FILM REVIEW; Embracing the Gypsy Cure Instead of ... The New York Times

VENGO

France (90 mi) 2000

Vengo Ed Gonzalez from Slant magazine

Tony Gatlif's Vengo whets the soul with its gypsy moans and lucid imagery, a vision so pure you can almost feel the flamenco beats working their way through your blood. Not since Carlos Saura's Carmen has a director so successfully meshed heart-piercing cultural noise with the melodrama of a people in constant emotional flux. Gatlif's Andalucia is the colorful backdrop for gypsy angst; sleek black cars hover majestically before churches whose overexposed white exteriors hint at a slippery spirituality that pulsates in a people who exorcise pain through dance. Ever since Caco's brother Mario fled from home, his garden has lost its soul. Promises of vengeance are painted on the garden's exterior walls by members of the Caravaca clan (Mario stands accused of killing one of their men); Caco's mamacita and her sisters whitewash the threats away with a magical realist drop of a mamoncillo fruit. Vengo's soundscape is such a labyrinthine work of beauty that every drum pound and cricket chirp ebbs complimentary to the spare narrative. Mario runs up the hill to his home, his footsteps the equivalent of a drum stick hitting the earth's surface. Spanish divas wearing long, lacy garbs twirl to the wails of a gypsy elder; you might weep for the film's plucking of the soul's strings. For Gatlif, a christening signifies the birth of godliness and a suicidal chivalry comes to represent the ultimate act of unspoken familial loyalty. Technology, from cars to cell phones, plays as important a symbiotic relationship to Andalucian lore as does the pulse of tapping feet and the gyrating of the body. A blade pierces the stomach of a man who lies dead amongst scattered, noisy car parts which signal his celebratory transcendence into the realm of the dead. Vengo is a stunning piece of performance art, an ode to the seguiriya (the song of mourning). It bleeds so profusely it hurts.

EXILES (EXILS) A- 93

France (105 mi) 2004

From the director of LATCHO DROM, we have another off-beat road movie, following a young Parisian couple who travel through Spain to return to their family’s homeland, Algeria, a land they know nothing about except it’s where their ancestors fled for Europe. Disconnected from any cultural identity, she expresses their mutual thoughts: “I feel like a stranger everywhere.” Gatlif himself is a Spanish Gypsy born in Algeria who writes his own music, which is nothing less than brilliant, always vibrantly alive and poetically evocative. Sometimes he has a tendency to get carried away with the dreariness of the road (THE PRINCES 1982), but here, like LATCHO DROM (1992), this is a beautiful and immensely moving film, shot in Scope, with musical songs along the way that act as an unseen narrator. Utilizing a documentary feel for life on the streets, on trucks, buses, ships, in a flamenco bar, or meeting with strangers on the side of the road, the couple’s search for self-discovery includes the kindness and hospitality that is generously offered to them along the way. Suffice it to say, Gatlif is a master for locations, and knows what to do once he’s found them. But unlike European directors, who express strangers in a strange land from an existential quiet, alienated and lonely, utilizing long shots and a sense of isolation and distance, Gatlif effortlessly immerses his characters into ethnically diverse crowds of humanity, rubbing the flesh with nomadic streams of people whose lives are etched all over their faces, wordlessly expressing the entire range of human emotion, always accentuated by wonderfully eclectic music that underscores the vitality of being alive. This is a wonderfully life-affirming film.

Exiles (Exils) Allan Hunter in Cannes from Screendaily

Director Tony Gatlif’s yearning to return to the land of his childhood is the guiding motivation behind Exiles, a polished road movie journey of self-discovery that takes place between France and Algeria. Unfortunately, it is the local colour, vibrant locations and use of music that linger in the memory rather the banal and predictable revelations that await two lovers in search of their cultural identity and family roots.

Many will feel that the film has nothing original to say and at Cannes it could only suffer in comparison with its close proximity to the Walter Salles road movie Motorcycle Diaries, which is more accomplished and meaningful on every level. A career on the film festival circuit and some modest theatrical interest could still result from its competition exposure, especially in those territories where Gatliff, who won best director, has already carved himself a niche.

Born in Algeria in 1948, the director of Gadjo Dilo (1998) and Vengo (2000) fled the country in the 1960s and did not return for over 40 years. Zano (Duris) and Naima (Azabal) are symbols of what he terms the children of the Diaspora, a younger generation not entirely at ease with their European-ness and curious about the part of them that has been shaped and formed by a different culture.

One day Zano simply asks Naima if she would like to go to Algeria and they set off by train, ferry and foot on a journey that finds them constantly heading in the opposite direction from those Algerian refugees seeking the promise of a better life in Paris or Amsterdam.

Travelling through France, Andalucia, Morocco and, finally, Algeria, the couple bicker and bond, earn some money by picking fruit, steal lifts and encounter a good deal of hospitality and warmth among the gypsy families, illegal immigrants and Algerians they meet along the way.

There is a great interest in Naima as people question why she does not speak Arabic, wonder if she might be Muslim and cannot comprehend why she initially refuses to cover herself up as a sign of respect. The questions leave her with a burning sense of being divided between two cultures.

“I feel like a stranger everywhere,” she claims, and dialogue like that is one of the problems of a film that feels the need to spell everything out, yet which never presents us with a fully developed sense of who these characters are. Zano is an orphan who survived a fire that took the lives of his parents. “Music is my religion,” he pompously replies to one question.

In Algeria, the couple witness the devastation of the earthquake that rocked the country and they finally connect with their roots in a Sufi spiritual ceremony in which they are encouraged to escape their fears and inhibitions by achieving a state of transcendence.

Taking a documentary-like approach to shooting on the streets of Seville and near the earthquake ruins in Algiers, the film conveys a real sense of place as a backdrop to the story. There is a warm feel to the scenes with immigrants from Africa, Morocco and Algeria, and Gatlif makes extensive use of the music he has helped to compose, clearly believing that music expresses the soul of a country - whether its the staccato beat of a flamenco dance in Seville or the intense, repetitive Sufi ceremony which is observed at excessive length during the climax of the film.

All these elements are quite interesting in themselves but they are not enough to counteract the sketchy, slightly half-hearted fictional drama that they are asked to support. One suspects that Gatliff should have been bold enough to just take the leap of making the film much more personal and creating a documentary about his own long voyage home.

In Algiers, Zano visits the family home that was abandoned 40 years earlier and discovers (very conveniently) that the same people have been living there ever since.

Pictures of his grandfather and grandmother still adorn the walls and elderly sisters present him with a tin box full of family photos. It is a touching moment, undermined by the fact that we really do not know who Zano is. How much more moving it would have been to discover Gatlif’s own emotions on returning to the memories of his past.

Reviews roundup | Features | Guardian Unlimited Film Peter Bradshaw from the Guardian

Tony Gatlif's Exils, or Exiles, is a free-wheeling, exuberant and heartfelt journey that swims like a salmon against the traditional migrant tide of the Franco-Algerian community. While many Algerians strive to leave their native land for the relative prosperity of France and the EU, Zano (Romain Duris) and Naïma (Lubna Azabal) are heading in the opposite direction. They are a young couple in Paris whose love-making expresses aimless anger and alienation. Zano impulsively suggests that they head off to Algeria, the land of his father, an anti-colonial activist. Naïma, also of Arab descent, shruggingly agrees.

As the couple head down through Spain to North Africa, they become calmer, gentler and more accessibly human as they get closer to the spiritual wellspring of Arab culture. Gatlif's movie taps into the energy of local music and dance, and there's a climactic, almost Dionysiac moment in which Naïma physically surrenders herself to the rhythms of the local band.

Perhaps the movie's views are simplistic, and it leaves unresolved the question of Islam and women's rights - Naïma is ordered to wear a headscarf in Algeria, but then discards it apparently without reproof - but Exils is engaging and often moving.

TRANSYLVANIA

France (103 mi) 2006 ‘Scope

Time Out London (Trevor Johnston)

Through dramas like ‘Gadjo Dilo’ and the doc ‘Latcho Drom’, Algerian-born director Tony Gatlif has expressed his celluloid kinship with the Roma communities of Eastern Europe, and this latest offering finds him on the road in the farthest reaches of Romania with a wide-eyed and sullen Asia Argento. Her characteristically flighty heroine is two months pregnant and in pursuit of the gypsy musician who left her behind in France, but as soon as the camera introduces us to Birol (‘Head-On’) Ünel’s rapscalliony hustler, an itinerant dealer in whatever he can persuade rural old folks to part with, it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see where the story’s going. Still, it’s hard to imagine these two out-sized personalities lasting more than a few minutes in the same room before a screaming match kicks up.

Life is loud in these parts, as the movie evolves into a whirl of thronging local festivals, rapid-fire cimbaloms and violins, fist fights, smashed crockery, female armpit hair and more than the odd hissy fit. ‘Why is my heart possessed?’ wonders Asia at one point, and she might very well ask, since the sketchy screenplay outlines the characters’ high-octane emotions but never really allows us access to them. It’s frustrating really, since both leads are clearly up for Gatlif’s all-the-stops-out approach, only for the material to let everyone down. Still, with lashings of authentic musical fervour and Céline Bozon’s camerawork capturing post-Ceausescu industrial wasteland, magical twilight and elemental snowscapes with hallucinatory immediacy, it’s still an insidiously memorable visual experience, even if it offers only dazzling snapshots of contemporary life in the region which gives it its title.

January End of Cinema

For now I will start things off with a review of one of my favorite films of the year, Transylvania. An amazing amount of gratitude must be given to Canadian distributor Mongrel Media for releasing an English friendly dvd of the film and supplying me with a review copy of the film. I caught this film last March at the Cleveland International Film Festival and was floored and I have once again remained speechless upon second viewing of the film.

The film is a revelation, quite honestly. I must say, the only work of director Tony Gatlif I was even familiar with was his last effort Exiles which I had not seen prior to this film. I must say my main draw to the film was Asia Argento who I have always been a fan of and this time around she did not disappoint. Her performance in this film is, by far, her most mature and complex work I have ever seen from her. She is a sensation in this film. Naysayers of her work should really give this film a chance because, in my opinion, no one has ever seen her on this level before. Each film she does seems to outshine the next, however, it is really going to be hard to top this. Actor Birol Ünel brings one a hell of a performance to endure in this film.

The film is essentially a road movie with Argento's Zingarina in search of Milan Agustin a musician who in her mind is her one true love and the father of her unborn child. Milan (played by Marco Castoldi), however, wants nothing to do with her. Heartbroken and distant from everyone who care for her, she resorts to becoming an unlikely traveling companion with a drifter named Tchangalo (Birol Ünel).

Really, that's all you need to know. The chemistry or rather lack there of between Zingarina and Tchangalo is just a pleasure to watch. Director Gatlif, is less concern with structure in this film, which many critics have bashed him for, and instead relies on the companionship of the two leads. For me, this tactic really worked wonders. I am not the type of viewer who really needs closure and connection from A to B. If a film holds my attention with the performance and direction that is all I need, really. In that prospect Argento and Ünel drive this thing home for me. Along with Gatlif superb direction and some amazing cinematography from Céline Bozon, the film represents everything I need to make a film truly brilliant, which is the case with Transylvania. It is a true shame that this film has yet to be distributed in US. I actually have yet to find information on whether or no there even is an American distributor for the film. Please, do yourself a favor and get your hands on Mongrel Media's dvd release as soon as you can. You will not regret it.

Culture Wars [Ion Martea]

Three girls stop with their car in a seemingly deserted town in the heart of Transylvania. Luminita (Alexandra Beaujard) is a local Romanian gypsy. She is the guide. Marie (Amira Casar) is a French girl who accompanies her Italian friend, Zingarina (Asia Argento), in the search for the latter’s boyfriend, Milan Augustin (Marco Castoldi), a Romany musician who has been extradited from France. Zingarina is two months pregnant.

This is the opening of Tony Gatlif’s Transylvania. From the start, a passionate gypsy tune promises a ride like no other through the colourful, yet harsh, life of a community always on the move. In their search, Zingarina meets Tchangalo (Birol Ünel), an itinerant antiques salesman. He says he is in search of gold. She says she is looking for love. They drink to that, letting the intensity of the music pass through their blood. Drunk and reinforced in her quest, she hopes Milan is near. Milan is indeed close, but he rejects her. And the music carries on, stupefying Zingarina’s senses to the point that she realises that it wasn’t Milan that she really loved, but that music, that passion, that rhythm which keeps life in the human body. Tchangalo is thus an adequate replacement in terms of physical desire, while her love of music, passion itself, slowly takes over her life.

Gatlif’s is a simple story of two people falling for each other. Displaced in time and space, the two require nothing from the world but one another’s presence. Love is nothing but pure accommodation with the presence of the other. Their relationship becomes the epitome of humanity, as it was created at the dawn of time. Gatlif remains thus truly engrained in the romantic tradition, and does nothing to shy away from it; moreover, everything becomes an exaggeration, the isolation of the two characters finally being driven to wider and emptier landscapes. The only thing that stays constant is the love for the music.

Transylvania is not like Emir Kusturica’s Black Cat, White Cat (1999), in which the Romany community becomes a source of inspiration but also humour, nor is it an anthropological documentary, primarily concerned with cultural aesthetics slightly peppered by the effects of socio-economic poverty. If anything, it is closest to Emil Loteanu’s spellbinding Gypsies Are Found near Heaven (1975). What Gatlif is exploring is what makes the gypsy life so appealing on a cultural level, yet so marginalised on a social one. By using actors of different backgrounds, he immediately erases any possible caricature, thus allowing the discourse to flow unhindered by preconceived attitudes.

Two themes emerge in consequence. The first is that the social marginalisation of the Romany community is a result of larger society’s displeasure with people who depart from the norm. Zingarina’s poor hygiene or ignorance of fashion is not a sign of rebellion, but emerges purely from the fact that she does not value her body as her true self. Her tattooed body is just her presence in the world, one that she wants to see, but chooses not to participate in. Her escape through a densely packed ‘Goat Procession’ symbolises her physical displacement from tradition, and hence from the society’s mores. From this point, her existence ceases to require the support of other humans, ending in an isolated space surrounded only by those she chooses to share a life with.

The other, more predominant theme is that of music. Zingarina and Tchangalo each share a perfect fusion with folklore. They are both in a state of trance, music seemingly moving their body from one place to the other. What Gatlif captures is not so much the quality of gypsy music, as the passionate craftsmanship of the musicians. ‘Music is meant to make one live’, says one of the players while refusing to give Tchangalo an accompaniment for his suicidal dance. The characters’ rejection of pop songs reinforces the sense that the performers play for some other aim than the pure celebration of music.

This is arguably something shared by Gatlif, who has not used any manele (the most commercially effective gypsy songs on the Romanian market) in the whole film. There is also very little authentic Romany music. What the director relishes are his arrangements of traditional Romanian folk music, adding that extra tempo, making the melodies burn in their passionate intensity. It is the gypsy players who have developed their skills such that every note reaches that perfect pitch, leaving one’s feet powerless to resist dancing. Romany cultural heritage thus lies primarily in its artists. Zingarina’s and Tchangalo’s identification with folklore emerges purely from the quality of playing music, rather than the content. When the musician fails to perform, the music loses its essense, and he becomes nothing but a teddy-bear toy, tilting his head left and right randomly, while playing his balalaika, in a boring Ukrainian-border village-bar.

Gatlif seemed to have chosen Transylvania for this feature to emphasise that it is not race, but our relationship to a cultural heritage that makes us what we are. Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, Romany, Ukrainians, Turks, Jews – all share the stage in Transylvania, each having their own language, music and traditions. Zingarina chooses to be Romany because it rings closer to what she wants in life. Will she and Tchangalo continue their life as wanderers? Gatlif is not interested. The important thing is that they are content with who they are and with what they have.

Jigsaw Lounge [Sheila Seacroft]

DVD Talk (Svet Atanasov)

EyeForFilm.co.uk Amber Wilkinson

Guardian/Observer

Gaudet, Aron and Gita Pullapilly

BENEATH THE HARVEST SKY B+ 92

USA (116 mi) 2013 ‘Scope Official site

Good people make bad choices. —Casper (Emory Cohen)

Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly worked together for five years following the lives of three senior citizens who spent years greeting nearly one million returning U.S. troops when they arrive at the tiny Bangor, Maine airport in the documentary THE WAY WE GET BY (2009) before finally getting married in a wedding profiled in The New York Times Vows Section. Their documentary film experience clearly effects the meticulous detail expressed in this film taking place entirely in the small border town of Van Buren, Maine, becoming a portrait of the hardscrabble life in the bleak and economically deprived town where the French-Canadian accents are built into the everyday language. Infused with the best traditions of the American indie film style, which are often hampered by monetary restrictions, they make up for it in the authenticity of the experience, where the film offers a genuine view of what it’s like to grow up in the world of rural poverty, as afterwards the audience is likely to feel a familiarity with this tiny rural town with a population of less than 2000 inhabitants, as if we’ve been there, where there’s a comically derogatory reference to the movie FROZEN RIVER (2008), which covers similar territory. The film immediately captures one’s attention by a scene in a high school classroom where they are studying S.E. Hinton’s 1967 teen novel The Outsiders, a novel published when the author herself was only 18, a realistic portrayal of poor teenagers from the wrong side of the tracks featuring the likes of characters named Sodapop and Ponyboy, who may as well be the leads in this film, featuring two fiercely loyal high school friends that couldn’t be more devoted to one another, Casper (Emory Cohen) and Dominic (Callan McAuliffe). While Dominic is spending the summer helping out his parents with the potato harvest, he’s a smart kid with a bright future, but he continually gets drawn into the troubled affairs of Casper, a hothead Alpha male that plays by his own rules, thinking he’s infallible, making him a bit of a small-time hood with ambitions to get out of town, where their shared dream is to move to Boston (seemingly a million miles away) where they can watch Red Sox games.

At the urging of others to stay away from Casper, as he’s always up to no good, Dominic is forced to constantly defend his friend, claiming others just don’t understand, yet their friendship feels reminiscent of the Biblical Cain and Abel saga, paralleled by two other brothers in the film. The film is seen through the eyes of Casper, who is mostly a despicable character, someone we’ve all encountered at one point or another in our lives, the kind of guy destined for the penitentiary or death by the age of 25, as the only decisions he knows how to make are the wrong ones, where he makes a living glorifying the persona of being rebellious, almost always seen on the wrong side of the law. We see him break into people’s homes and steal their prescription medicine, making him part of an underground, pharmaceutical black market network that transports pills across the border to New Brunswick, a business that’s been in his family for generations, where they pride themselves in being able to move contraband without detection. Casper has a 15-year old girlfriend Tasha (Zoe Levin) who quickly becomes pregnant, where the adolescent tension is only aggravated by the fact that he orders her around, continually berates and belittles her, while both continue to live with their parents. The feeling of being trapped is at the heart of the picture, as essentially every character plays into this dead-end scenario, with the potato harvest as the only thriving business in town, where there’s just no future for these kids unless they can get out. Illustrating this point is Dominic’s short term relationship with Emma (Sarah Sutherland, aka Kiefer Sutherland’s daughter), a girl that’s already visited prospective colleges in Vermont, where she’ll soon be moving on, making their relationship tenuous at best. The looseness of the film’s structure is part of its appeal, as it’s a highly impressionistic, stream-of-conscious mosaic connected by the raw and achingly lonely songs from musician Dustin Hamman, the front man of the group Run On Sentence, moving from unpretentious moments of raucous street euphoria to the saddest and darkest feelings of despair (the musical soundtrack can be heard in its entirety here: pre-order).

While the film is told out of time, it has a tendency to get lost exploring its many jagged side plots, often growing messy and losing narrative coherence, which may detract some viewers, but what it does beautifully establish is more local flavor into the film, where the town itself may as well be the lead character, expressed through a series of vignettes showing a farm community at work, populated entirely by secondary roles that tend to come and go, or move in and out of view, where we might even see a drunken late-night moose chase on the highway or a rather incredible performance by a heavy metal punk band that suddenly appears out of nowhere. Only Casper is a fully developed character, but as he’s such a mischievous and thoroughly detestable soul, treating everyone around him like shit, thinking he’s above it all and impervious to criticism, where the glorification of his character, flaws and all, is a difficult and often unpleasant journey, especially when he remains at the centerpiece of the film. He’s obviously a bright, if misguided kid, with few options, where he has a tendency to continually get ahead of himself, to act before he thinks, where he never foresees the murky trouble that lies ahead, mirroring the adults around him, thinking instead that none of the dirt and muck will stick to him. As he gets deeper into his estranged father’s (Aiden Gillen) business, Dominic calls him on it, claiming he’s become an errand boy for his father, which is exactly what everyone in town expected from him as he was growing up, where only Dominic had faith that he’d make more out of himself and become something different. This disappointment leads to a personal tragedy that resembles a similar fate of Ponyboy’s best friend Johnny in The Outsiders, a heartbreaking moment that draws attention to the significance of these young lives, each so terribly fragile, with dreams dissipating into thin air after high school when few opportunities await them due to the economic bleakness that pervades the vicinity. Written, directed, edited, and produced by this artistic team, it has a distinctively autobiographical, though male-tinged flavor, where the filmmakers lure in the viewer, with both inhabiting the same shared space for a brief duration of time. Like Shunji Iwai’s ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU (2001), another teenage angst film filled with brooding high school characters that get lost in an overpowering stylization, this is irrefutably impressive filmmaking, where the indie-style cinematography by Stephen Capitano Calitri is nothing less than mesmerizing at times, but there is a disconnect with so many of the people that inhabit this film, which may be the point, as the audience is left with an anguishing emptiness that literally stirs the soul in this barebones musical coda that brings down the closing credits, Run On Sentence "Wide Open Sky" YouTube (5:03).

Chicago Reader JR Jones

Two high school pals (Emory Cohen and Callan McAuliffe) long to escape from their dead-end existence in the potato-farming community of Van Buren, Maine, but their dream of relocating to Boston is threatened when the wilder of them decides to get involved in drug smuggling over the Canadian border. Despite the story's familiarity, this working-class drama (2013) reeled me in with its fine performances and credible portrayal of the personal frustration and family dysfunction that attend a life of small-town poverty. Aron Gaudet cowrote and codirected with his wife, Gita Pullapilly, though his most impressive achievement may be the editing; the languid pace effectively communicates the characters' crushing boredom, yet the dramatic interest never flags. With Aiden Gillen, Timm Sharp, Carla Gallo, and Sarah Sutherland.

BENEATH THE HARVEST SKY Facets Multi Media

Trapped in a dead-end industrial town in Maine, two teenage best friends Casper, (Emory Cohen, The Place Beyond the Pines) and Dominic (Callan McAuliffe, The Great Gatsby) take tragically different paths to realize their dream of making it to the big city, in this vividly detailed fiction feature debut from veteran documentary filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly. They are restless teenagers stuck in the declining industrial town of Van Buren, Maine, with nothing much to do besides push old jalopies off cliffs, shoot potato guns and chase moose along the back roads at night. The boys dream of leaving Van Buren and moving to Boston, but to do that they need money and how they get money is where these best friends most obviously differ. Dominic spends the harvest working on a potato farm, while Casper falls into a drug-running scheme with outlaw father (Aidan Gillen, The Wire, Game of Thrones), a gig that is just as likely to land him in jail as to help him escape. Eventually, these circumstances push their friendship to the brink and adult choices are forced upon them all too soon, with disastrous results.

A standout narrative debut from Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly (The Way We Get By), and their depiction of small-town life is vivid: the abandoned houses and open fields, the teenage pregnancies and embittered divorced parents, the good times and bad blood. Beneath the Harvest Sky is a gripping coming-of-age thriller set against an authentic portrait of small-town American life.

Beneath the Harvest Sky details the exploits of small-town teenagers Dominic (Callan McAuliffe) and Casper (Emory Cohen), with the emphasis placed on the latter's illegal endeavors and its ongoing impact on the former's straight-and-narrow existence. It's clear immediately that Beneath the Harvest Sky has its work cut out for it in terms of grabbing the viewer's interest and sympathy, as filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly offer up a central character, in the form of Cohen's Casper, that couldn't possibly be more unlikable - which does ensure that the movie's admittedly rich and authentic atmosphere is, more often than not, rendered moot. Casper, despite Cohen's strong performance, remains an absolutely abhorrent figure from start to finish, and it often seems as though Gaudet and Pullapilly are going out of their way to transform Casper into as reprehensible a character as one could possibly envision. (How else to explain his treatment of his pregnant girlfriend and his passion for late-night "moose safari" jaunts?) Beneath the Harvest Sky's arms-lengths atmosphere is perpetuated by its overlong running time and disastrously deliberate pace, with the movie's middling midsection, which which virtually nothing of interest seems to occur, testing the viewer's patience to an almost infuriating degree. (It doesn't help that Gaudet and Pullapilly have suffused the proceedings with subplots that couldn't possibly be less compelling.) And although the film does improve substantially in its final stretch - there is, for example, an unexpectedly engrossing sequence in which a smug character is arrested - Beneath the Harvest Sky, saddled with one of the most repugnant central characters to come along in quite some time, has long-since established itself as a thoroughly unpleasant moviegoing experience.

IFFBoston: Beneath the Harvest Sky Review - Next Projectio Derek Deskins from Next Projection

Many great independent films are successful because of their personal nature. Limited by often miniscule budgets, they make up for the lack of financing with intimacy. The best kind of indies have a great strength of character, showing that the writers and directors know these people. For that is what they are, not merely actors playing characters, but people. It draws us further into this world, and the familiarity leads to our own abandonment of the real. There are bits and pieces of this with Beneath the Harvest Sky, but not nearly enough to make it memorable.

[Gaudet and Pullapilly's] documentary background is evident throughout much of the film, particularly in developing the world of their characters. Van Buren is painstakingly detailed and there is a familiarity with the town that translates wonderfully to the screen.

Taking place in the small rural community of Van Buren, Maine, the film centers upon the friendship between Casper (Emory Cohen) and Dominic (Callan McAuliffe). The boys are hopelessly devoted to one another, although most onlookers do not understand why. Dominic is a smart boy with a seemingly bright future, while Casper is the rebel perpetually assigned detention. Regardless of what others think, they have plans to leave the sleepy northern Maine town as soon as they graduate and head to Boston to watch the Red Sox. In order to fulfill their dream, they have to make some cash, and their chosen paths are reflections of their potential futures; Dominic working the harvest and Casper moving drugs.

Beneath the Harvest Sky is the narrative debut of writing-directing duo Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly. The couple, former documentarians of The Way We Get By, acclimate themselves adequately to the medium but not without their share of growing pains. Their documentary background is evident throughout much of the film, particularly in developing the world of their characters. Van Buren is painstakingly detailed and there is a familiarity with the town that translates wonderfully to the screen. Shooting with a de-saturated palette, the town seems to be under a perpetual haze. The depression of the area is palpable even before you begin to notice the forlorn expressions of its inhabitants. Its people head to jobs that offer little joy for nearly as little pay, and no one appears to be thriving. This is a confining world in which even as tourists we begin to feel trapped.

Going hand-in-hand with the cinematography is an original score that does more to elevate the film than any of its other components. From first time composer, Dustin Hamman, the music goes from a soft rumble to raucous thump. With a grit that mirrors the visual palette, it is as if Van Buren is constantly emitting this sonic pulse. The music is a part of the film, not something that is merely tacked on. It is the blood pumping through its veins, and shows a deep partnership between composer and filmmaker. Unfortunately, for all the work put in to the establishment of place it is disappointing how little is translated to story and character development.

The film is hopelessly overpopulated, and even the leads are offered little complexity. The camerawork that works so well for the development of location fails the actual story. We constantly linger nearby, voyeurs in a world that didn’t invite us, close but dramatically separate. This separation carries over to the characters themselves. All of the characters, save Casper, are nebulous and broadly drawn. Their motivations are unclear and mutable to the point of frustration. This keeps us from understanding who they are as people and limits the potential for a deeper connection. As consequences begin pile up, we are left wondering if we even need to care. There is no familiarity, no intimacy, we are little more than acquaintances, and for many, closer to strangers. I yearned for a deeper understanding of these people, hoping for more than just outward appearances, but was offered none. The film purports to be about friendship, but is far more concerned with Casper’s story, causing a thematic confusion. Nevertheless, even Casper is offered little chance to become more than a shallow representation of a deeper character, despite an authentically raw performance from Emory Cohen.

The camerawork that works so well for the development of location fails the actual story. We constantly linger nearby, voyeurs in a world that didn’t invite us, close but dramatically separate.

In addition to the poor character development is a story that is scattershot at best. Gaudet and Pullapilly mention that they were greatly inspired by the people and stories of Van Buren, attempting to infuse as much of the local flavor into the film. What results, however, is a mishmash of disconnected scenarios and needless side plots. Thematic elements are revealed through heavy-handed exposition, but then never followed through upon. These distractions and a front half of near constant wheel spinning, speak to this absence of propelling vision. Once the actual plot arrives it feels like an afterthought and its disconnection from larger themes is nearly maddening. The town of Van Buren remains the only character to be fully realized, and its role in the story falls by the wayside as the film nears its end. Somewhere at the core of Beneath the Harvest Sky is an honest film about growing up in a nowhere town, but it is so buried under poor pacing and distance from its own characters to be just too far out of reach.

[Review] Beneath the Harvest Sky - The Film Stage Jared Mobarak

Slant Magazine [Nick Prigge]

In Review Online [Andy Crump] also seen here: Movie Mezzanine [Andy Crump]

Sound On Sight Christopher Clemente

Film-Forward.com [Madison Bloom]

Beneath The Harvest Sky / The Dissolve Mike D’Angelo

Beneath The Harvest Sky mucks up a fine regional mood .. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from the Onion A.V. Club

Tribeca 2014 Review: Slinging Potatoes And Pills ... - Twitch Joshua Jablinsky

Tribeca: Rural-Noir Beneath the Harvest Sky Wears Us Down, But Sean Gullette’s Traitors Is Alive With Scuzzy Energy Nick Schager from The Village Voice

Village Voice Zachary Wigon

Five Questions with Beneath the Harvest Sky Directors Aron ... Nick Dawson interviews filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly from Filmmakers magazine, September 8, 2013

Hollywood Reporter Boyd van Hoeij

Bangor Daily News - article (06/21/12) Emily Burnham

Chicago Tribune Peter Debruge, also Variety

'Beneath the Harvest Sky,' a Drama of Northern Maine ... Stephen Holden from The New York Times

Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet - The New York Times October 29, 2009

Gauja, Andris

THE LESSON (Izlaiduma gads) C 72

Latvia Russia (108 mi) 2014

Writer, director, producer, and musical composer, Andris Gauja has attempted to do it all in his first feature film, where Latvian films are seen all too rarely at film festivals. While originally intended as a documentary shooting a group of graduating high school seniors, eventually the schools kicked them out telling them they couldn’t shoot there any more, apparently due to the behavior of the kids, as it was perceived as portraying Latvians in a poor light. Gauja then broadened his concept into a feature film, becoming a love story on the run. Much of what is shown onscreen is utterly preposterous, where by all accounts, the initial instincts of the schools do seem well founded, as this does present Latvia in an extremely negative manner, where its jaded citizens are used to living in such a corrupt and deteriorating society that moral laws no longer apply, where there is no longer any recognizable concept of right and wrong. Latvia was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany during WWII, then after the war re-occupied by the Soviets for the next 50 years until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, where as a consequence, many Russians still live in Latvia along with Estonians, both neighboring nations, each comprising about 25% of the population. Shot in the Latvian city of Riga, the film opens with an unpleasant break-up, where young and attractive Zane, Inga Alsina-Lasmane, is forced to rebuild her life, but opens the new school year as the Russian instructor, but also the mentor to an unruly group of graduating seniors. This concept of a mentor is confusing to many, as it’s a position that doesn’t exist elsewhere, but their role is someone nearer the age of the students than other teachers who acts as an intermediary should authority issues or communication conflicts arise. What’s perhaps most surprising is how mentors act outside the dictates of school guidelines, where they need to be liked and appreciated by the students, so they often invite them into their homes for parties and act as a party planner for their active social lives.

On her first day, only a handful of kids show up for class, as the rest are loitering around outside smoking and making fun of those who actually attend class. To combat this indifference, Zane organizes a beach field trip/party that turns into a drunken all-night affair with no adult supervision whatsoever, swimming naked in the sea, smoking and drinking whatever they want, where it obviously spirals out of control. Despite complaints from other teachers and several parents afterwards, Zane is apparently pleased with herself as she’s drawn the students back into her class. Probing into the personal life of one of her troubled students, she actually invites one of the girls, Inta (Ieva Apine), to come live with her, while at the same time, after her initial refusal, she begins having an affair with one of the students, Max (Marcis Klatenbergs), a guy who barely even shows up for class, whose father is a Russian gangster affiliated with the mafia. This is a film where actions seem to have little or no consequences, as Inta’s parents and family never come looking for her, while Max’s parents obviously don’t give a damn either. Soon, with his father’s money, Max is enticing Zane with a romantic weekend to Paris, dining in fancy restaurants, eventually landing in bed, taking naked pictures of each other, where this may as well be the realization of a male fantasy bearing little to no relation to reality. One wonders how this young woman could be so blind as to think none of this would matter, or that the photos wouldn’t find their way onto the Internet, where she’s jeopardizing her entire career over a relatively undistinguished son of a gangster, who without his daddy’s money wouldn’t attract anyone’s interest. Making matters worse, as if it wasn’t bad enough the first time, Zane organizes another drunken party at her own home, again without any adult supervision, and again all hell breaks out as the kids are free to do whatever they want.

None of the kids are professional actors and it shows, as they play stereotypes of unruly, disaffected kids, often seen smoking and turning their video cameras on in the classroom, sulking much of the time, showing no hope or any prospects for the future, never spending any time doing homework, never taking any tests, where it’s just not like any school anyone ever attended. Zane is never seen actually teaching the class, but instead makes herself busy as their social planner. When other teachers get wind of what’s going on, she tells them to mind their own business, as she’s too busy playing the popular girl in school, where she’s completely oblivious that any of her actions will have negative ramifications. Her deluded state of mind makes for uncomfortable cinema, where the unseen horror is how the film plays into the audience’s expectations, knowing nothing good could come of this, where you wait for the bombs to explode. It’s all a bit amateurish, where there’s a reason kids aren’t the teachers in classrooms, as Zane simply shows no aptitude for professionalism, where she’s something of a disgrace to the teaching profession, where in many societies she’d be locked up on morals charges. Making matters worse, there’s little to no chemistry between any of the characters, including the smitten couple, which only makes this more uncomfortable, as it’s an overly contrived picture of a nation, once the Soviets left, with no moral authority. It’s a strange and unusual portrayal of an empty society, wildly uneven throughout, yet the performance of Inga Alsina-Lasmane is a bit captivating, where the premise is a train wreck waiting to happen with the audience taking on the role of interested onlookers. The crash is something unexpected, as love on the run never looked more bleak, where Russia turns into an industrial wasteland without a hint of hospitality, as if they entered into a colorless dead zone that only exists in sci-fi movies. Peppering the film with many pop songs, some written by the director, the film retains a bleak youthful view of crushed hopes and a nonexistent future, supposedly broken before any of these kids arrived, but they are under no illusions about their ability to fix anything.

World premiere of Andris Gauja film "The Lesson" in Montreal Film New Europe

Today marks the world premiere of “The Lesson”,the debut art film of Latvian director Andris Gauja. The film is taking part in the First Films World competition at the Montreal World Film Festival (FFM) at 19:00 local time, with 18 films entered in the category. The only other full-length film to represent Latvia in this festival was the 1998 Laila Pakalniņa film "Kurpe".

“The Lesson” premieres at FFM on August 27th at 19:00 local time, with additional screenings on August 28th at 14:30 and August 29th at 16:40. All viewings will take place at the Cinema Cineplex Odeon Quartier Latin (screening room L10): 350, rue Emery, Montreal. „The Lesson” is set to premiere in Latvia on October 9th in "Kino Citadele" and will be in cinemas nation-wide on October 10th.

After its Montreal debut “The Lesson” will also be showcased at two other international film festivals at the end of September: The Bergen International Film Festival (BIFF) in Norway and Russia’s Kinosok (Киношок) film festival.

Watch the trailer here: http://youtu.be/FkG7qmSCqvs

“The Lesson” is a story about a young teacher named Zane. After disappointmentsin her private life, Zane devotes herself entirely to work and tries to establish a connection with a class of unruly students whom she tutors.

Zane goes beyond her duties – she organises house parties, arranges several-day trips and houses students with family issues. The boundary between student and teacher is gradually starting to fade...and when one of her students falls in love with her, Zane must face a difficult choice - weather to succumb to personal happiness or to adhere to her own ideal of a good teacher.

Thefilm is made in a documentary style, with professional actors (Inga Alsiņa-Lasmane, Gatis Gāga, Liena Šmukste, Marina Janaus, Andrejs Smoļakovs, Ivars Auziņš, Laura Atelsone and others) working together with youths with no prior acting experience (Mārcis Klatenbergs, Ieva Apine, Aigars Ligers, Edgars Siliņš, Elza Feldmane, Agirs Neminskis and others).

Film director Andris Gauja and cameraman Aleksandrs Grebņevs have already achieved wide critical acclaim with their previous project, the documentary „Family Instinct” which was selected for more than 25 international film festivals around the world and received the Best World Feature award at the Silverdocs Film Festival (USA). “The Lesson” is Andris Gauja’s narrative film debut.

„The Lesson” is directed by Andris Gauja, cameraman - Aleksandrs Grebņevs, artist - Ilze Kauliņa, script by Lauris Gundars and Andris Gauja, montage director - Tambets Tasuja (Estonia), producers - Guna Stahovska and Andris Gauja. The film was shot in Latvia, France and Russia. Post-production was handled by "Prasad Group" and "FutureWorks" studios in Mumbai, India. The project was created with the support of the State Culture Capital Foundation (SCCF), Riga Municipality, "Wess Select / BMW Latvia", "AirBaltic", "Cinevera", "Capital", "Casting Bridge", "FreshStep", "Pandora Media", "Neiburgs" Hotel and others, as well as with support from private individuals. The film was produced by "Riverbed" studio (Latvia) in partnership with "Mojo Raiser Production" (Latvia) and "Horosho Production" (Russia).

Gavras, Julie

LATE BLOOMERS B 87

France Belgium Great Britain (95 mi) 2011

A bit of a surprise that this film flew under the radar, that it was not embraced by the senior film going population, who instead chose to see the nostalgia-tinged, reflection of colonialism in India as the good old days in John Maddin’s British ageist, feel good comedy THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (2011), which features a host of elderly British acting royalty, letting them play eccentric and cranky old people looking for that last adventure in life. LATE BLOOMERS, on the other hand, has its comical moments, but is a low key attempt at embellishing the aging process with a bit more grace and realism, showcasing the superb acting talent of Isabella Rossellini and William Hurt as Mary and Adam, a couple married for 30 years, who now that they’re free from raising their three grown children and are finally on their own, they go through a bit of a rough patch. Rossellini is simply adorable here, right from the start when she speaks Italian so gorgeously with her mother, reminiscent of her own mother Ingrid Bergman, who was roughly the same age as Rossellini when she made the film AUTUMN SONATA (1978), both films about attractive women who must come to terms with aging. Co-written by the director, the daughter of Greek director Constantin Costa-Gavras, best known for politically laced thrillers, this has a distinctively gentle touch about it as it lovingly embraces the two leads, trusting that they are authentic and brilliant enough to pull this off, which they do with panache. Opening with Adam winning a prestigious architectural award, one that casts light on the totality of his career, as if he’s being given the gold watch of retirement, which is based on similar late career accolades lauded upon the director’s father, which were emotionally harrowing and always viewed by the family as premature obituaries.

However the tone here is comic, accompanied by a thumping Greek brass band, where the couple good-naturedly kids one another about their approaching demise, especially when someone supposedly pays a compliment to Adam, “Your husband’s a dying breed—they just don’t make buildings like his anymore.” Naked and in each others arms the next morning, Mary can’t remember how she got there, where a fleeting memory loss sends her in a panic to the doctor, thinking early signs of Alzheimer’s Disease have set in, but not to worry, she’s in excellent health, where for mental alertness, now in retirement from a career in teaching, she needs to find an activity and start exercising regularly. When she shows up at a water aerobics class, she is easily the oldest one there, and when the rapid pace of the music quickly passes her by, she mostly just splashes around in the water in a state of total confusion. Late on arrival another day, she watches the synchronized movements and just turns around and walks out, not really motivated to join in. This outsider status is something “imposed” by society, where people treat you differently based on age, and Mary is disappointed to see men look at her differently, or more to the point, they don’t look at all, which she finds unnerving, as if her sexuality has been compromised. She suddenly reaches the conclusion that now they are in their 60’s they are old and need to make drastic adjustments in their lifestyle, outfitting their house with senior friendly gadgetry, from safety bars in the bathtub, a remote controlled hospital styled mattress that reclines up and down, and a giant button telephone, likely things they don’t need yet, but she loves irritating him when he simply doesn’t want to be bothered thinking about growing old.

Adam, on the other hand, is still working for a London architectural firm that prides itself on unpopular projects, so when his boss, the brilliant Shakespearean actor Simon Callow, sleazily pitches a new commercial design for a retirement home, claiming the business is booming, so they better get in on it, Adam is plainly not interested, not even after Mary organizes a Gray Panther meeting in their living room where the seniors are excited at the thought of architecturally designed retirement homes, ones so attractive they will make “younger people look forward to getting old.” Instead Adam recruits a group of junior architects that express an interest in entering a major competition to design a new museum. Working late night hours, going out drinking with his much younger colleagues, one of whom may have her eye on him, Maya (Arta Dobroshi), spending all his time at the office, now wearing a leather jacket and jeans, he all but avoids Mary’s amusingly adapted home for the old and senile. This cat and mouse game between the all-too familiar married couple now living apart plays havoc on their children, where they plot and scheme to keep them together, where at a disco party at a new art installation, the two of them have a way of carrying on a conversation across a crowded room through hastily invented sign language. Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, Gavras has written what feels like an intelligent play filled with intimate moments, one sequence succeeding the next, driven by an affectionate, light-hearted tone, where Rossellini especially is simply superb, embracing every moment with that warm and endearing smile to Hurt’s more gruff and grouchy character, but underlying it all is a light romantic touch, where it would be hard to find two people today do it any better.

Late Bloomers - Page 1 - Movies - New York - Village Voice Michael Atkinson

A life-crisis farce custom-built exclusively for self-absorbed menopausal women, Julie Gavras's film wants nothing more than to have coffee and kvetch with the gray-cougar, elder-boomer sisters out there. The rest of us are not invited. Gavras follows Isabella Rossellini's upper-middle-class housewife (married to aloof award-winning architect William Hurt) as a momentary memory-loss episode and the approach of her 60th birthday sends her spinning toward end-of-life heebie-jeebies, until she is joining (and quitting) aquafit classes, flirting unsuccessfully with young men in public places, and installing geriatric support handles into every room of their posh London apartment. Separation and infidelities ensue, all chirped about by a Greek chorus of familiar BBC faces (Joanna Lumley, Simon Callow, etc.). The battery of obstacles before the actually-59 Rossellini is substantial—including Gavras's smirky screenplay and direction, and fed-up Hurt's vaporous attempt at a Brit lilt. But she is radiant in a profoundly ordinary and believable way, as always, and stirs up generational pathos all by herself.

LATE BLOOMERS Facets Multi Media

In writer/director Julie Gavras' delightfully warm and wise romantic comedy, screen legends Isabella Rossellini and William Hurt play a couple whose 30-year marriage is starting to run into trouble. Hurt is Adam, a London-based architect who is surprised to find himself the recipient of awards that suggest that he has reached the end of his career, while wife Mary (Rossellini), taken aback by an unexpected health scare, sets a course of radical action in league with her vivacious best friend Charlotte (Joanna Lumley). Adam has been asked to help design a retirement community, a prospect that has him picturing himself as a potential resident, while each of them copes with their age anxieties in different ways, from fitness regimens to full-on midlife crisis moments. Their diverging directions put a strain on the marriage and as Adam and Mary respond to these challenges in completely opposite and unpredictable ways (successfully infuriating each other in the process), their three adult children plot to find ways to keep them together.

With luminous supporting performances from a mix of established and upcoming British acting talent (including Simon Callow, Kate Ashfield and Luke Treadaway), Late Bloomers is an elegant and engaging portrait of marriage: will age get the better of their time-tested relationship, or can they both come to their senses in time?

Onion AV Club Alison Willmore

French director Julie Gavras was inspired to make the three-quarters-life crisis comedy Late Bloomers after observing how her father, the filmmaker Costa-Gavras, handled aging. Judging from the film’s patriarch, played by William Hurt, he was in deep denial. Hurt stars as an American living in London. He’s an architect famous for designing airports, and he reacts to turning 60 by taking up a new side project and working late into the night with his firm’s junior members. His English-Italian wife (Isabella Rossellini) heads in the other direction, accessorizing their house with large-button phones and adjustable beds as if they’re on their way to a nursing home.

It’s a pleasure to see Hurt and Rossellini work together and apart as a couple who still have a spark, in spite of their growing differences. But Gavras’ film is glib and overly cute in its ideas about coming to terms with one’s age and changing status in the world. After a moment of (half-metaphorical) memory loss leads her to get a check-up, Rossellini takes up a water-aerobics class filled, for whatever reason, exclusively with sporty young women. Hurt gets a new commission to plan a forward-thinking old-age home, leading him to bellow “I don’t want to design storage for hordes of incontinent zombies!” When he receives a prestigious career-achievement medal, the man presenting it tells Rossellini, “Your husband’s a dying breed—they just don’t make buildings like his anymore.”

Some of this on-the-noseness may be due to a language gap (the film is primarily in English, though Rossellini sometimes slips into Italian), but some of it is structural, including the reuniting of the couple and their grown trio of children by way of the death of another main character. Late Bloomers is at its best when it’s being breezy and simply taking pleasure in its lead actors, who turn in strong performances in spite of certain clunky character developments. Chalk it up to Gavras’ Euro sensibility that both halves of the central pair wind up in the arms of others for a while—it’s their time apart that’s the most fun, with Hurt drinking his first Red Bull and Rossellini hanging out with her activist friend (Joanna Lumley), who’s involved with the Gray Panthers. As a portrait of aging, Late Bloomers is a little too easy, but its cast makes it worth a look, even so.

NPR Mark Jenkins

The protagonists of Late Bloomers have a problem, but it's not that they're getting older. Their dilemma is that they're reacting so differently to aging. Mary (Isabella Rossellini) adapts somewhat overeagerly to her imminent 60s, buying a big-button phone and outfitting the bathroom with grab bars. Adam (William Hurt) prefers denial, and he reacts angrily to his wife's adjustments.

Adam has a point. While Mary has retired from teaching, he's a well-known architect who continues to work. The couple's three children — financier James (Aidan McArdle), physician Giulia (Kate Ashfield) and fledgling artist Benjamin (Luke Treadaway) — are grown. But Mary's feisty mother (Doreen Mantle), who raised her daughter in Italy, still lives right next-door to Mary and Adam's well-worn apartment in — uh, where?

Amid the cacophony of accents, it gradually becomes apparent that Late Bloomers is set in London, although director and co-writer Julie Gavras never establishes a strong sense of place. The movie's first third is a bit muddled, which could be intentional; Mary suffers a bout of memory loss, and fears senility. So maybe Gavras is attempting to simulate her heroine's frame of mind. But the film gets better as the somewhat labored setup recedes, and events and characters come into tighter focus.

Gavras' second fiction feature, Late Bloomers was inspired by the many late-career awards bestowed on her father, director Costa-Gavras. These accolades struck his daughter as premature obituaries, and she came to find them "quite harrowing."

So this movie opens with Adam winning an architectural award, and a well-wisher telling Mary that her husband "is a dying breed." She takes this comment too literally, and is soon having an MRI. The doctor tells her to boost her brain by keeping active, so water aerobics and volunteer work beckon, as her best friend (Joanna Lumley) urges her to relax.

Meanwhile, Adam instinctively recoils from the new job offered by a major client and old pal (Simon Callow): designing a retirement home. Instead, he buys into the dream of a flirtatious young associate, Maya (Lorna's Silence star Arta Dobroshi), who wants the firm to enter the competition to design a major new museum.

Adam starts working on the plan after-hours with the junior architects and is introduced to Red Bull. Soon, he's sleeping at the office while Mary builds a new life alone — or maybe with an admirer from the gym.

London was probably chosen as the movie's location so the Paris-based Gavras could work in English, which offers a larger potential audience. Yet many of the most evocative moments don't involve dialogue at all. Rossellini conveys an Everywoman's unhappiness with age simply by contemplating her neck as she pulls back its slack skin. The director wins smiles with a series of moments in which various family members, young and old, reach for those controversial grab bars. And there's a lovely scene where the estranged Mary and Adam communicate perfectly despite being on opposite sides of a room that's throbbing with electronic dance music.

Late Bloomers suffers from a stridently jaunty jazz score, and some gags that don't rise above sitcom level. And ultimately, it's not distinctive enough to draw viewers who haven't given much thought to aging. But that still leaves a substantial audience for the film's gentle laughs and modest insights.

Salon.com Andrew O’Hehir

Costa-Gavras - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Late Bloomers Don Groves from SBS Film

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Director interview Sally Pryor interview from The Sydney Morning Herald, February 18, 2012

Variety [Peter DeBruge]

Japan Times Kaori Shoji

Chicago Sun-Times [Roger Ebert]

Late Bloomers - Movies - The New York Times Stephen Holden

Costa-Gavras: Information from Answers.com

Gazecki, William

WACO: THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT B 85

USA (136 mi) 1996

A long, somewhat detailed and exasperating look at what happened in Waco, Texas with plenty of photos and footage of highly controversial circumstantial evidence about Government overreaction and eventual cover up, ultimately with nothing conclusive, but with some interesting music.

Gebbe, Katrin

NOTHING BAD CAN HAPPEN (Tore Tantz) B 87

Germany (110 mi) 2013 Official site

Punk fascism disguised as a religious parable, where Gebbe’s film is the German answer to Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl’s miserablist Paradise Trilogy, Paradise: Love (Paradies: Liebe), Paradise: Faith (Paradies: Glaube), and Paradise: Hope (Paradies: Hoffnung) (2012), with both films divided into three chapters, Faith, Love, and Hope, not necessarily in that order, where it seems the Austrian version was not hard corps enough for this director, who inflicts sadistic brutality with a surgical precision that recalls the punishing treatment of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997), where the inflicting punishers go by the Biblical names of Peter (Frank Giering) and Paul (Arno Frisch). Reaching into her trick bag of mercilessly inflicted brutality, which is all in vogue today with torture porn, Gebbe’s film was invited to Cannes this year in the Un Certain Regard category, largely for its tortuous provocation, as instead of plumbing the depths of her nation’s ills, she’s instead made a graphic exposé of human debasement, which is a well-crafted, but somewhat knee-jerk reaction to these other stylistically powerful films. Perhaps the one film that may have spawned this degree of anti-humanist miserablism is Seidl’s DOG DAYS (2001), a darkly satiric stab at the banality of evil, as it shows what depths of depravity seemingly ordinary people are capable of, where humiliating others for sport is viewed as foreplay. While DOG DAYS is all-in when it comes to holding nothing back, forcing the audience to endure unending tales of sadism and misery revealing the dark side of Austrian suburbia, including unsimulated sex that turns to rape, extended torture scenes, acts of extreme humiliation accompanied by threats of murder, where it’s a provocatively vile film that emphasizes all manner of grotesque human behavior, made all the more powerful by the documentary realist style and the unrelentingly depressing tone. While Haneke was questioning the audience’s implicit involvement in desiring a violent revenge to the insufferable outrage they were witnessing onscreen, he made sure to show viewers that this was only a movie, so the violence witnessed was fictionalized arthouse movie violence. Gebbe’s film makes no such distinction, but instead places her characters into a mainstream of German society, paralleling the increasingly disturbing behavior shown onscreen with the belligerence of extreme fascist behavior, suggesting a Darwinian “might makes right” form of domination where powerful interests seeking out weaker adversaries to attack and bully is a natural part of human development and not something that can be eliminated from society, even after extensive post-war education efforts.

Supposedly inspired by an actual event, this has to resonate even more deeply in Germany, home of Hitler’s Third Reich and his extermination plan, perhaps the ultimate example of the strong brutalizing the weak with a blitzkrieg of assaults intended to annihilate one group off the face of the earth. While the religious aspect is overemphasized, a simplistic exercise in the manner of Mel Gibson’s THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004) painfully graphic Jesus-like suffering is on full display for ardent believers, with various references to the passive teachings of Christ heard throughout, the central character Tore (Julius Feldmeier) may as well be a cult follower, as the problem isn’t the repetitive use of religious text, which has multiple layers of meaning, but his slavishly obsessive robotic adherence to it. Seen as part of a budding Jesus Freak movement in Hamburg, we know nothing about the background of any of these participants, seen as young street kids with no home to speak of, who seem to be part of a beleaguered underground Christian punk movement obsessed by Biblical catch phrases which they obediently repeat, like Red Book quotations from Chairman Mao, as if this gives their otherwise worthless lives meaning and purpose. Walking through the streets, imposing their scripture upon others, they’re seen as little more than an annoying nuisance, like Hare Krishna cult followers, instead of a serious fabric of society. Nonetheless, Tore can be heard praying and asking for divine intervention throughout, as if this is the cure for all ailments. When his praying miraculously seems to get one man’s stalled car engine started, of course giving all praise to Christ, Tore hands out cards to onlookers for their next musical gathering, making a public spectacle praising the power of Christ. When we see his followers jumping around to angry punk music with a Christian message targeted specifically to those who have been abused and left destitute, Tone has joined the throng, flailing his arms around, but drops to the floor, seemingly in an epileptic fit where he is ignored until the same man seen earlier in the car cradles him in his arms and places him in his van, supposedly on his way to the hospital when he comes to, but Benno (Sascha Alexander Gersak) instead decides to bring him home to his wife Astrid (Annika Kuhl), teenage daughter Sanny (Swantje Kohlhof), who is Tone’s same age, and young son Dennis. Benno’s friendship and hospitality seems met by empty stares from his family, apparently resigned to doing what they’re told, setting up a tent for him in the back yard while also sharing regular meals.

Benno quickly starts ridiculing Tone’s naïve religious views, literally punching him in the face at one point, where Tone offers no resistance, becoming his punching bag on a regular basis after that, where Benno seems to enjoy bullying the young kid for pleasure. Sanny is drawn to Tone’s helpless fragility, showing the bruises on her body as well, where it seems Benno is brutalizing the entire family, making unwanted sexual advances on his stepdaughter Sanny, where her mother simply ignores Bruno’s behavior. Tone takes this as a sign from God that he must stand up to this outrageous force of evil, believing God is testing him, where he must learn to love his enemy, even as he gets pulverized in the process. When Benno sees Tone as a rival for the desires of his stepdaughter, he shuts him out of the family, forbidding him from having food, forcing him to pilfer through the garbage for scraps to eat, where he’s eventually caught stealing from the garbage. Even though the meat is rotting, it’s Astrid who suddenly gets in on the game by insisting he eat an entire maggot-infested chicken while she and Benno watch, initially force feeding him until he obediently follows their demands. The film escalates into further psychopathic behavior that Tone is humiliatingly forced to endure, throwing scraps of religious sayings in his face as they continue to torment him, where he becomes their sadistic play toy. Refusing to walk away, as he’s zealously following the fanatically passive interpretation (as opposed to a violent example where Jesus overturns tables and throws all the money lenders out of the temple) of “being like Christ,” much like the character of Prince Myshkin (also an epileptic) in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, a walking saint on earth who was considered “an idiot” by the respectable society of the times, whose endlessly naïve and compassionate outlook was constantly at odds with the dark forces of evil, moral corruption, and all-consuming earthly desires. In Tone’s deranged eyes that means submitting to any test of barbaric humiliation, where the film takes us into wretchedly uncomfortable territory where the graphic display of monstrous human behavior seems to be Gebbe’s real interest, where the film becomes a disturbingly cruel metaphor for the evils of fascism on display, where the director meticulously documents how this slowly building process is part of the human condition. While she only really emphasizes the raw and excruciatingly distressing surface realities, captured by the fluid handheld camera movements of Moritz Schultheiss, the rest is for the audience to consider, where one of the spectacular underlying elements of the film is the quietly haunting musical score by Peter Folk and Johannes Lehniger which only accentuates the creepy effects of something unbalanced and off kilter happening. Not for the faint of heart.

Movie Mezzanine [Tom Clift]

Wrapping up a strong if utterly miserable day one at the festival was Katrin Gebbe’s misleadingly titled debut, Nothing Bad Can Happen. Taking a leaf from the Michael Haneke playbook of audience punishment, this ominously shot, scored and edited film follows Tore, an emaciated, homeless, epileptic and deeply Christian teenager from Hamburg who befriends Benno, the seemingly friendly head of a holidaying family of four.

After moving into the family’s backyard, however, Tore discovers things are not what they seem. Despite outward appearances, Benno is prone to moments of violence, and makes creepy advances towards his fifteen year old step-daughter, Sanny. Actor Sascha Gersak’s jolly appearance and demeanour makes the character’s behaviour that much more unsettling.

But it’s newcomer Julius Feldmeier, playing Tore, who makes the lasting impression. In a film steeped in Christian imagery and ideology, the rake thin blonde is a tragic would-be messiah; pious, innocent and always ready to turn the other cheek, even in the face of his increasingly heinous abuse (The Passion of Tore could have been an alternate English language title – the original German names, Tore tanzt, translates literally as Tore Dances).

What point Gebbe is making – and whether Tore’s suffering was in vain – is ultimately left to the viewer. At one hundred at ten minutes, Nothing Bad Can Happen does feel on the long side, and while I was certainly enamoured (aesthetically speaking) by the suffocating precision of Gebbe’s craft, prolonged exposure is numbing. Then again, perhaps that’s the point.

Nothing Bad Can Happen / The Dissolve Scott Tobias

With a tall, gawky frame, shock of curly white hair, and perpetually blissed-out expression, Tore (Julius Feldmeier) makes for a conspicuously awkward adolescent, even before the film he’s in reveals much about him. He looks odd. He isn’t cool. And yet there’s some animating force within him—and that force, it turns out, is Jesus. Based on a true story, the brutal German drama Nothing Bad Can Happen has a half-ironic title: Bad things can and do happen to Tore, who endures escalating torments and abuse, but to him, it’s a matter of perspective, of facing whatever trial the Lord has decided to put him through. If it’s his mission to turn the other cheek, Tore will do it even if he knows that cheek will get bruised, too. Writer-director Katrin Gebbe rubs viewers’ faces in this dog dish of a film, with the promise that some sliver of transcendence will redeem it. But it’s all dog dish.

As the film opens, Tore is running with the “Jesus Freaks,” a small collective of Christian punks in Hamburg who have the requisite spiked hair, piercings, tattoos, and anarchy T-shirts, but use their weekly club shows to sing the Lord’s praises. Tore doesn’t appear to have a family—his past is left wisely unclear—so for now, he’s crashing with a fellow Jesus Freak and living off government stipends. After he suffers an epileptic fit at a show, a sympathetic adult, Benno (Sascha Alexander Gersak) scoops him up and gives him shelter in his dilapidated house for the night. That temporary arrangement turns permanent, and Tore becomes part of Benno’s family, which includes his distant wife Astrid (Annika Kuhl), a girl named Sanny (Swantje Kohlhof) who’s Tore’s age, and a little moppet named Dennis (Til Theinert). But Benno’s behavior soon grows erratic and violent, and it becomes clear that his family, which now includes Tore, lives in fear of his eruptions.

Nothing Bad Can Happen recalls Lars von Trier’s habit of putting virtuous heroines through the wringer; as with Emily Watson in Breaking The Waves, Tore’s expressions of faith are answered by abuse and degradation, and his relationship with God is tested in the process. Gebbe has a fine sense of place, evoking the forgotten fringes where Tore resides, from the couch at a makeshift Jesus Freaks commune to a tent in Benno’s backyard, where his only visitors are Sanny, a stray cat, and further misfortune. Tore has no resources and few options, and his faith has encouraged a dangerous obstinacy with regard to Benno: He comes to believe that Jesus has sent this terrible man not as a protector, but as a challenge. Practically speaking, that means passively accepting whatever sadistic horrors Benno throws at him.

It’s as simple as that, really. The trouble with Nothing Bad Can Happen, especially once the ugliness gets ramped up in the second half, is that Gebbe’s focus on sending Tore through the spiritual gauntlet overwhelms the relationships she developed more carefully in the early going. Benno, in particular, is a blank spot: His hardness could be read initially as blue-collar machismo, an attempt to make a man out of Tore, whose passivity and godliness disgusts him. But he transforms into evil incarnate, an unknowable source of pain who exists to bring the boy along on his schematic journey. The film deposits its villain in a dark, all-too-familiar place.

Slant Magazine [Clayton Dillard]

There is provocation, there is exploitation, and then there is Nothing Bad Can Happen, a film so comprehensively miscalculated in its desire to be a batshit think piece that it potentially creates a new category of offense for its multitudinous levels of dastardly nihilism masquerading as a socio-philosophical horror show. Tore (Julius Feldmeier) is a newly inducted member of the "Jesus Freaks," a group of straight-edge teens in Hamburg attempting to correct what other denominations have gotten wrong by "living the way He did." After having a seizure at a concert, Tore is taken in by Benno (Sascha Alexander Gersak), who, along with his wife and kids, find Tore's beliefs fascinating, while remaining heavily skeptical. Benno becomes increasingly aggressive, demented, and violent toward Tore, eventually forcing him into an extended session of torture, both psychological and physical, as a test to his supposedly unwavering faith.

These narrative elements could be the makings of a contemplative horror film and, for the first 20 minutes or so, writer-director Katrin Gebbe's slow-burn pacing and sonically oriented aesthetics suggest intelligence may loom within later portions of the film. However, it's soon apparent that Gebbe's interests are less in exploring how youthful desire for transcendence is exploited by bourgeois underpinnings, than concocting a sadistic, elaborate setup within which to place her borderline mentally handicapped protagonist, soon to be humiliated, bruised, beaten, tortured, and raped at the mercy of Benno, whose inexplicable turn from curious interlocutor to merciless grim reaper reeks of genre-tinged fecklessness.

In fact, Nothing Bad Can Happen becomes so riddled with jaw-droppingly cruel and gleefully nasty scenes that, by the time Benno drowns a cat, watches Tore have a seizure, and then labels him a "retard" while walking away, it's difficult not to wonder about Gebbe's complicity with the gestating absurdity and whether this material is, truly, meant to be taken seriously. These concerns only manifest further in the film's second half, which transforms Tore from a punching bag into a full-blown piñata of pain, through a series of sequences so pathetically, transparently mean-spirited and self-serious that any suspicions of Gebbe's ceaselessly grave intentions are immediately dispelled. Were the scenes alone not telling enough, Gebbe divides the film into three chapters labeled "faith," "love," and "hope," a sophomorically daft choice that heedlessly apes Lars von Trier's preference for chapter titles and gruesome, ascetic tendencies.

Nothing Bad Can Happen would be virulent were it not a base product of film-school ignominy, with "provocation" being the valorized dispositif, no matter how flawed or asinine the conceit. Yet what's most damnable about Gebbe's feigned conviction is how deliberately she seeks a built-in defense for the film's not one, but two inexcusable rape scenes, the latter of which makes the risible gay sex scene in Steve McQueen's Shame look positively Bressonian by comparison. After kidnapping and forcing Tore into a gay club to be brutally and repeatedly raped, Benno asks on the ride "home": "Have fun with the boys? Oh yeah, Christians don't like homos." Neglecting the implications of an underground gay club replete with leering transvestites and grunting rapists is actually the least of Gebbe's problems. By attempting to posit the scene as a necessary evocation of Benno's seemingly endless capacity for torturous endowment, Gebbe engages a rhetorical gesture equal to Benno's: a pseudo-Socratic method of critical inquiry, masking larger, psychopathic tendencies. Thus, Gebbe's subterfuge amounts to prizing art-house guttersnipe moves at all costs, no matter the ramifications.

Paste Magazine [Tim Grierson]

Film Pulse [Kevin Rakestraw]

[Review] Nothing Bad Can Happen - The Film Stage Jared Mobarak

Nothing Bad Can Happen - Film School Rejects Shaun Munro

Fantastic Fest Review: NOTHING BAD CAN HAPPEN Twists ... Britt Hayes

Nothing Bad Can Happen (Blu-ray) : DVD Talk Review of ... Kurt Dahlke

DVD Verdict (Blu-ray) [Michael Nazarewycz]

Blu-ray.com (Blu-ray) [Michael Reuben]

Film-Forward.com [Madison Bloom]

grolsch Film Works [Anton Bitel]

Review: NOTHING BAD CAN HAPPEN, A Haunting ... - Twitch Dave Canfield

'Nothing Bad Can Happen' Review | Sound On Sight Kenny Hedges

Tore Tanzt: Cannes Review - The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Dalton

Cannes Film Review: 'Nothing Bad Can Happen' | Variety Scott Foundas

Austin Chronicle [William Goss]

Los Angeles Times [Martin Tsai]

Nothing Bad Can Happen Mixes Horror, Punk and Jesus ... Amy Nicholson from LA Weekly

Nothing Bad Can Happen Movie Review (2014) | Roger Ebert Brian Tallerico

In 'Nothing Bad Can Happen,' a Young Believer at Risk ... Jeannette Catsoulis from The New York Times

Nothing Bad Can Happen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Geffen, Shira and Etgar Keret

JELLYFISH (Meduzot) A 95

Israel France (78 mi) 2007 Etgar Keret’s official site

A ship inside a bottle cannot sink,
or collect dust.
It's nice to look at
and floats on glass.
No one is small enough to board it.
It doesn't know where it's heading.
The wind outside won't blow its sails.
It has no sails,
only a slip, a dress.
And beneath them, jellyfish.

Her mouth is dry, though she's surrounded by water.
She drinks it through the openings in her eyes
which never close.
When she dies, it won't be noticeable.
She won't crash on rocks.
She will remain tall and proud.

Acclaimed husband and wife team of Israeli author Etgar Keret, who has also written plays, short stories, and children’s books, and poet and playwright Shira Geffen who wrote this script and was pregnant during production, collaborate in this well-constructed, interwoven trio of tales about lonely and disconnected souls in Tel Aviv. An outstanding feature, an exquisite caricature of modern misunderstanding that is alarmingly precise in its miniaturization, beautifully written, well acted and edited, genuinely poignant and funny, this is a strikingly original take on the human condition. Humor in this film feels grounded in frustration, the kind Buster Keaton might fancy, not poking fun at anyone in particular, but using pointedly sharp satire that is still tender and warm-heartedly hilarious. The lead characters are memorable, closely observed and real, verging on the edge of sanity at times but nonetheless people we can identify with. The premise of the film is people in turmoil, all set to a rousing version of Edith Piaf’s La Vie En Rose in Hebrew.

Shot in a seaside location in Tel Aviv, beautifully shot by cinematographer Antoine Héberlé, a guy leaves a girl in the opening scene, Sarah Adler as Batia, from Godard’s NOTRE MUSIQUE (2004), which all happens a bit too quickly for her to comprehend the situation, as by the time the words finally form in her mouth, he disappears from her life. Another couple gets married in a big wedding scene, Michael and Keren (Gera Sandler and Noa Knoller), but the bride gets stuck in the bathroom stall, breaking her leg attempting to escape, all but ruining their Caribbean honeymoon plans as instead they’re stuck inside a seaside hotel with no view of the sea, while a third sequence introduces a Philippino care giver (Ma-nenita De Latorre), a woman named Joy whose job is caring for miserable people—irony in the best sense of the word. These characters remain aloof from each other and the world around them, but might feel right at home in the slow, hypnotic pace of a Tsai Ming-liang movie where everyone is similarly lost or out of place.

Batia appears to be the worst waitress on the planet, whose home is infested with a ceiling leak that is over-running the bucket capturing the drops, who receives daily messages left on her answering machine from her celebrity mom, whose visage is seen on giant billboards all over town and on television programs, but otherwise completely ignores her daughter, as does her father who has found himself yet another young bulimic girlfriend about his daughter’s age who consumes every minute of his time. In due time, Batia is fired from her job along with a pitiful wedding photographer Tamar (Tsipor Aizen) who shoots everything except the bride and groom, both of whom work for an overbearing employer who turns out to be the film director. (Note – the ice cream man is the director’s father, and the beach location is where they grew up.) Batia and Tamar become fast friends, though for no apparent reason, yet Batia becomes enamored with Tamir’s childhood home movies, claiming she loves the fact there is no story development.

Meanwhile the love birds in the hotel are having anything but marital bliss, as in a game of musical chairs they keep moving to a different hotel room, as the bride continues to find fault with the one they’re in. As the elevator doesn’t work, he finds himself lugging her up the stairs on a continual basis. In perhaps the most hilarious sequence in the film, the husband reminds her of their first date when they went to see a movie, but were continually beset by obstacles that prevented them from seeing or enjoying the movie, but they discovered, instead, each other. Their time together is interrupted by long walks the husband takes to get away or have a smoke on the stairwell, occasionally meeting a mysterious woman in the building (Bruria Albeck) who introduces herself with the come-on line: “How do you spell ‘eternally in disgrace,’ one ‘l’ or two?” before she disappears into the elevator.

Joy, on the other hand, is visibly distressed by not having her young son back home with her, where phone calls leave her feeling so helpless, as he doesn’t understand why she’s so far away. Ironic again that she cares for elderly or infirmed patients whose families are too busy to take care of them, yet she as well needs someone to care for her own son. After one disastrous job assignment, Joy meets Galia (Ilanet Ben-Yaakov) in a bustling coffee shop, a woman who’s too worried about the upcoming production of Hamlet where she plays Ophelia to care for her elderly mother, who she describes: “My mother. She’s a tough person, she can be rude.” Malka (Zaharira Harifai) is like a grown up version of Keren, an embittered, somewhat racist old woman who has spent her lifetime handing out insults and complaints. When neither speaks the other’s language they get along splendidly.

Thrown into this mix is Nikol Leidman, a young 6-year old girl that doesn’t speak, but whose hair remains wet throughout the rest of the picture, who appears out of the sea wearing only panties and an inner tube around her waist and finds Batia alone in a gloomy seaside mood. She follows Batia around, like a lost dog, having no other apparent reason to exist. Batia brings her to a police station, but there are no resources for missing persons where neither parent is making a complaint. Seeming to understand one another intrinsically, they leave together, live together, and seemingly belong together before the girl mysteriously disappears as strangely as she appeared. Here a theme is linked that appears hatched from Antonioni’s dream sequence in the middle of RED DESERT (1964). Joy keeps seeing a toy ship in a shop window, thinking this would make her son happy, while Keren discovers a hauntingly beautiful poem about a ship inside a bottle that is floating on the sea, drifting, suggesting this idea that we appear and disappear so randomly in each other’s lives, seemingly adrift ourselves, yet we each have a strange and lasting impact in ways we never intended or could have ever comprehended.

This strange choreography of missed intentions is the rhythm of the film, perhaps best represented by Joy’s missing boat sequence that moves from agonizing tears to ecstatic joy simply by changing the entire subtext of the moment, or that absurdly bizarre stage presentation of Hamlet, perhaps the most hilarious Hamlet on record, where words are not spoken but shouted endlessly in repeated chants by Hamlet in a space suit with Ophelia lying dead on the floor throughout half the play, making eye contact with her joyous mother in the audience who is so proud of her despite hating the ridiculous avant garde antics expressed onstage. By the next day, when her mother’s faint praises are discounted altogether as not enough interest, Galia refuses to ever see her mother again. In a clever movie like this understanding can feel overwhelmingly lost in the ambiguity of real life, where people’s lives are continually absorbed with having to deal with obstacles or unexpected circumstances that continually appear and then disappear from their lives, much like the jellyfish motif, swept by forces beyond one’s control. For a mere 78 minutes, there’s a lifetime packed into this film, which won best screenplay and the Camera d'Or at Cannes 2007 for best first feature.

The directorial debut of the husband/wife team of Israeli author Etgar Keret and dramatist Shira Geffen is a trio of tales of lonely people and disconnected souls in Tel Aviv. There's a glum newlywed (Noa Knoller) whose dream honeymoon is sabotaged by a broken foot; a Filipina caregiver (Ma-nenita De Latorre) who doesn't speak the same language of her cranky elderly charge, and a miserable young waitress (Sarah Adler) whose missing childhood floats in from the sea in the form an unspeaking little girl. Tangentially linked by location and briefly crossed paths, what really connects them is an inability to reach out to loved ones, a frustration they transform into a compassion granted strangers. It has the modest scope of a short-story collection, with simply but vividly sketched characters that briefly glow within their tales. It's all quite sad and lovely, but never mawkish, thanks to a sprinkling of magic realism and the light touch and somber whimsy of its direction.

VIFF 2007: Jellyfish Zandro Salvo from Schema magazine

The first film offering from acclaimed Israeli authors Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, “Jellyfish” is a well-constructed original work. The poetic tale takes full advantage of the ensemble cast as their interwoven stories provide just the right amount of dramatic sting and comedic current. Keret and Geffen masterfully connect the lives of a down-and-out waitress, a rebellious photographer, a Filipina care-giver, the surly mother of a struggling actress, a suicidal author, and a honeymooning couple. In each of their individual struggles we find the over arching need to connect. While at times dreamy and euphoric, the simplicity of the message is never lost.

“Jellyfish” provides a refreshing take on how we deal with isolation and how we are sometimes forced to forge the relationships that we truly need to feel complete. Keret and Geffen personify their love for story telling in the suicidal author who refuses to kill herself until she perfects her suicide note. Her death comes when she finds the writing of a jealous new bride. The poem, character, and film as a whole playfully but accurately define how we use our relationships to both cause and cure the pains of isolation.

User reviews from imdb Author: Nozz from Israel

Ilan Shaul of the Hebrew weekly ANASHIM has a good take on the title, which means "jellyfish." Like jellyfish, the film's characters do not control their direction but are pushed here and there by chance; and like jellyfish, they mindlessly sting.

Dostoevsky-- at least according to one of the characters-- could get his writing done anywhere; nothing distracted him. In MEDUZOT, it sometimes seems impossible that anyone could ever get anything done, so strong are the buffetings of happenstance. MEDUZOT tells a zigzag story in which human frailty and persistent mischance raise a new obstacle every moment as the characters carom about in Tel Aviv losing their sleep, their jobs, their lovers. The movie is propelled by its characters' Keatonesque dauntlessness as they bumble through one unpredictable absurdity after another, sometimes involving a failed attempt at good will and sometimes involving obtuse representatives of the established order such as the uncaring landlord, the glittering philanthropist, and the moronic avant-garde theater. The humor of exaggeration and absurdity that characterizes Etgar Keret's short stories is evident here, though he takes credit only as director. Water-- the sea, the rain, the ceiling leak-- is a nemesis, but it also holds the promise of rebirth.

Flirting with kitsch but arriving at poetry | Jerusalem Post Hannah Brown

There can be a fine line between poetry and kitsch, and the film Meduzot constantly walks that line. Most of the time, its first-time directors, Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret, manage to stay on the poetic side of the divide.

The film, which won the prestigious Camera d'Or prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is ultimately saved from its occasional forays into kitsch and banality in two ways: the directors' gift for storytelling and vivid dialogue, and the film's stunning photography, which is especially remarkable given that Geffen and Keret are filmmaking novices. Nearly every scene presents stunning and beautifully composed images, but they are not empty exercises in painterly composition. Instead, they enhance the plot and highlight aspects of the characters' personalities.

Written by Geffen, who in the past was best known as the daughter of writer Yonatan Geffen and the sister of pop star Aviv Geffen, and Keret, an internationally famous short-story writer (The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God is among his collections translated into English), this married couple have crafted an entertaining, moving, highly stylized and often funny film that captures life in contemporary Tel Aviv and paints a memorable portrait of one depressed young woman.

The film focuses on Batya (Sarah Adler), a waitress for a catering company whose boyfriend leaves her in the first scene. She may live near the beach, but she's no beach bunny. This pale, mournful young woman usually sits on the beach fully clothed, staring out to sea. She can barely handle her job and looks especially miserable at weddings, surrounded by well-dressed, well-heeled partygoers.

But although she works at a menial job, she is from a well-off but dysfunctional family. Her cold mother runs a high-profile foundation to fight poverty (some of the film's funniest moments come from a parody of earnest television ads for good causes). Her father - played by Assi Dayan, who seems to be making a career of playing fathers in screwed-up families these days - is an intellectual preoccupied with his much younger bulimic girlfriend. Her landlord is raising the rent and she doesn't have the energy to get him to fix the leak in her ceiling, which floods the apartment while the taps go dry (a situation that may be meant to show that she is being drowned by life, but could also simply be a realistic look at the condition of a lot of Israeli apartments).

When a little girl walks out of the water and up to her at the beach, Batya ends up taking responsibility for this strange and silent child.

The film tells two other main stories. One is about a luckless newlywed couple (Noa Knoller and Gera Sandler). At their wedding, she gets locked in a bathroom stall, tries to climb out and breaks her ankle. In her condition, the couple can't fly to the Caribbean, so they compromise and spend their honeymoon at a Tel Aviv hotel on the beach, where the bride is disturbed by the surrounding smells and noises. The elevator isn't working, and on some of the husband's trips down eight flights of stairs he meets a beautiful, mysterious, slightly older woman writer who is staying in the hotel's only suite, a suite his wife desperately wants to move to.

But this couple, who represent the kind of supposedly idyllic life Batya might have if she were not so isolated, are unlucky not because of the wife's broken ankle or the problems at the hotel, but because the wife is so discontented and spoiled, in ways that seem all too realistic.

The other storyline concerns Joy (Ma-nenita De Latorre), a Filipina caregiver who works with the prickly elderly of Tel Aviv. While their own children have no time for them or prefer not to deal with their cantankerous parents, Joy tends to them but longs for her own son in the Philippines, whom she misses terribly and who doesn't understand why she has gone to Israel.

For most of the film, Joy works for Malka (Zaharira Harifai), an angry elderly woman full of complaints, whose daughter is too busy starring as Ophelia in an avant-garde production of Hamlet to visit her. The ludicrous production is one of the film's comic high points. And yet it is touching that the discontented mother can actually feel pride as she sees her daughter on stage, no matter how absurd the ramblings of the space-suit clad Hamlet.

The film founders in some of the scenes with the lost girl, who is clearly meant to represent Batya as a child, before she was beaten down by her parents' conflicts and self-absorption. Nikol Leidman, the child actress, is extremely pretty and animated, but is not given the chance to act like a real kid at all. Her scrubbed good looks make her look like a child in a commercial, while at every moment it's clear she is a symbol rather than a character. Batya's fixation on a photo the girl finds in an old album at the beach is also one of the filmmakers' less original and compelling ideas. Still, in much of the film, the fairly weighty symbolism works well, in the context of the stylized direction and performances.

The acting is uniformly strong, with Sarah Adler (who starred in the Israeli film Year Zero and also in Jean-Luc Godard's Notre Musique) and Ma-nenita De Latorre as the standouts. Tzahi Grad, the actor/director who just made Foul Gesture, is brilliantly deadpan in his scenes as an indifferent policeman.

Usually, I intensely dislike the type of film I've come to call a TAMP movie (the acronym stands for Tel Aviv's Miserable People) and when I read descriptions of Meduzot, I wrongly assumed it was another TAMP flick. But the intensity of the directors' vision, lively writing, careful pacing, restrained acting and beauty of the cinematography make it a movie that is both a telling snapshot of a particular time and place and a universal story of sadness, disconnection and renewal.

The House Next Door [Dan Jardine]

Slant Magazine [Paul Schrodt]

Screen International Dan Fainaru at Cannes from Screendaily

Filmcritic.com Chris Barsanti, also seen here: Reel.com [Chris Barsanti]

Monsters and Critics Ron Wilkinson

FilmJerk.com Review [Brian Orndorf] also seen here: DVD Talk

» JELLYFISH: Q&A with Etgar Keret - Alternative Film Guide Andre Soares

Etgar Keret: "Reality is Overrated" | GreenCine interview with the director by David D’Arcy from GreenCine

Filmmaker Magazine: The Director Interviews Nick Dawson interview from Filmmaker magazine, April 4, 2008

Jellyfish's Etgar Keret: The Wizard of Id Ella Taylor feature and interview from The LA Weekly

seven short stories — and other articles — by Etgar Keret from The LA Weekly

Variety.com [Alissa Simon]

In 'Jellyfish,' Etgar Keret sees life as slightly surreal and gently melancholic Charles Taylor interviews the director from the LA Times

Jellyfish Script - transcript from the screenplay and/or the movie ...

Géhami, Stéphane

STRAIGHT TO THE HEART (En Plein Coeur) B- 82

Canada (109 mi) 2008

Once more, if you can’t find a film that no one’s seen, what’s the point of having a film festival? This film was actually released in Montréal, Canada in the summer of 2008, so it’s taken over a year to be discovered and still has no distributor. While there are a few moments in this film, in particular the two female leads, both of whom do extensive, highly naturalistic nude scenes, this appears to be a case of a first time filmmaker trying to do too much, and in doing so ends up having less to offer. This is basically a simple, bare bones story, a habitual car thief and his young apprentice in crime make an odd couple, Pierre Rivard as Benoît, somewhat in the Kevin Bacon mold but not nearly as intense, and a young adolescent non-professional who happened to live in the neighborhood where they were shooting, Kevin Nöel as Jimi, steal cars for a thousand bucks a crack, something they can do in their sleep, yet they always find little things to bicker and argue about. For Jimi, it’s Benoît’s womanizing which cuts into business, as he’s always interrupting a job to go see about a girl. At first it’s Bénédicte Décary as Anne-Marie, a fiery perfume salesperson who dumps him early on, but shows up at his house later on for some rollicking sex, only to dump him again. On a job stealing a jeep, Benoît neglects to discover the driver still in it, an attractive young girl that he is immediately drawn to, where he has to break into the car later just to discover her name, Sylvie (Julie Deslauriers, in the young Mary Louise Parker mold). She’s drawn to his animal magnetism, the way he acts on impulses, knowing he’s a guy that tried to steal her car and fascinated to be in his company. Benoît is surprised to discover this girl has the capacity to love. “That’s rare,” he indicates. But like the fuck up that he is, he soon runs into Anne-Marie again and can’t help but get into her pants, only to dump her this time, then is stupid enough to tell Sylvie about it, basically losing two gorgeous girls in one fell swoop. The moral of the story—find something better to do than fuck up your life.

While filled with an air of naturalism, especially in the gritty realism of the performances, Géhami typically undermines his own movie, as he won’t allow a street criminal to succeed in anything other than criminality, which is pretty much the commonplace stereotypical depiction. Though it’s evident he’s supposed to be, Benoît is not much of a father figure for Jimi, except in shared criminality. Hell, he doesn’t even teach him how to drink or pick up girls. Most of the film is shot on the streets of Montréal using a hand held HD video camera where the audience gets treated to first hand lessons on the art of stealing cars, where robbing and then riding in cars are the activities which comprise the majority of the film. But halfway into the film, he finds something that clicks between Benoît and Sylvie, which makes no sense, but it works due to the randomness of it happening. What are the odds? Where there had been no music at all in the first half of the film, a musical slide guitar plays over their initial sex scene together which absolutely works. Sylvie is really into this guy and for a moment, the film is actually about personal relationships, one disintegrating while another blossoms. And Sylvie has a flair for the unexpected, so she’s excellent material to work with. But Géhami doesn’t trust his instincts enough to allow this to succeed. Instead he follows the conventional moral view that a criminal can’t succeed in that line of work and must pay for his crimes. Both the under-utilized women in this film are impressive onscreen, and took risks that provided great emotional depth, but the filmmaker refuses an array of possibilities and instead remains mired within his own limitations and can’t shake the mediocrity of the character he created in Benoît. All of this ends up feeling so morally correct, it’s as if the Catholic church itself intervened in the script writing.

Special note – supporting actress, both Bénédicte Décary and Julie Deslauriers

Gehr, Ernie

Ernie Gehr's Marvelous Cinema - Harvard Film Archive

"If Giotto had been an action painter his name would be Ernie Gehr." – J. Hoberman

Ernie Gehr (1943–) arrived on the experimental film scene during the remarkable efflorescence of the 1970s, as a new generation of ambitious young filmmakers began to mine and, quite often, challenge the territory previously staked out by postwar artists led by Brakhage, Anger, et al. An entirely self-taught filmmaker, Gehr's meticulous attention to the material and formal qualities of cinema closely aligned with the Structuralist film movement and contemporary minimalist art. Like minimalist painters or sculptors, Gehr's cinema draws its energy from the carefully defined limits that structure his every film, a controlled restriction of the cinematic apparatus that, in a seeming paradox, results in incredibly exhilarating and even liberating films. Indeed, in Gehr's hands the camera seems to take on magical properties, able to transform the most quotidian object or environment – the pattern of sunlight on a wall, a busy street – into marvelous and unexpected phenomena. The magical qualities conjured by Gehr's cinema are especially powerful within those works dealing with the urban environment. In films such as Side/ Walk/ Shuttle, Shift and Greene Street, Gehr leads the viewer through a looking glass of sorts and into a gravityfree zone where buildings, cars and shadows seem to float and where the time and space between things become as concrete as the objects themselves.

In recent years, Gehr has discovered and embraced digital video, a shift which has only increased his prolific output and resulted in wonderful new works. We are thrilled that Ernie Gehr will join us to discuss his films and career for the two evenings of this program, which draws from both old and new works.

Flicker Profile (excerpt)

In representational films sometimes the image affirms its own presence as image, graphic entity, but most often it serves as vehicle to a photo-recorded event. Traditional and established avant garde film teaches film to be an image, a representing. But film is a real thing and as a real thing it is not imitation. It does not reflect on life, it embodies the life of the mind. It is not a vehicle for ideas or portrayals of emotion outside of its own existence as emoted idea. Film is a variable intensity of light, an internal balance of time, a movement within a given space. —Ernie Gehr, January 1971

Ernie Gehr began making films in the regular 8mm format in the 1960s and has worked steadily since then, completing more than 24 films. A self-taught artist, Gehr has established himself as one of the true masters of film form, and his graceful sense of style and subtle, poetic sensibility have deeply affected the cinematic avant-garde. His films have screened internationally, including retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Musee du Cinema in Brussels and at the San Francisco Cinematheque, and he has received awards and grants from numerous institutions, including the National Endowment for the Arts, a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship and the Maya Deren Award from the American Film Institute. Currently a faculty member at the San Francisco Art Institute, Gehr has also taught and lectured at the University of California at Berkeley, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Deutcher Akademischer Austauschdienst in Berlin. In March 1995 he received the 1995 Adaline Kent Award Exhibition, an award presented annually to a California artist. Ernie Gehr and Bruce Conner are the only two filmmakers to have received this prestigious award, which includes an honorarium and a solo exhibition entitled Brother Can You Spare Some Time? in the San Francisco Art Institute's Walter/McBean Gallery.

Ernie Gehr's Complete Filmography
Ernie Gehr's current installation, Brother Can You Spare Some Time?

Profile (w/ various film descriptions) by Brain Frye

Fred Camper’s Gehr Page

Ernie Gehr Filmography

Chicago Reader Movie Review of Ernie Gehr's Films "Still," "Table ... Fred Camper

Tom Gunning on the films of Ernie Gehr

Finding A Place ] The Films of Ernie Gehr ] s m o c .net Tom Gunning

Review: Fred Camper ‘Signal-Germany on the Air’ Chicago Reader, September 10, 1987

JSTOR: Ernie Gehr: Camera Obscura/Lens/Filmstrip Scott MacDonald from Film Quarterly, Summer 1990

"Edge City": review of Side/Walk/Shuttle Fred Camper from The Chicago Reader, February, 1995

Obsessed by Place, and Finding One on a Frontier Gilberto Perez from The New York Times, March 21, 1999

Review: Tony Pipolo ‘For Daniel’ Tony Pipolo from Millennium Film Journal, Fall, 1999

"View Master": review of three films by Ernie Gehr, Still, Table, and Untitled (1977) Fred Camper from The Chicago Reader, March 3, 2000

Informal comments Fred Camper on Gehr's two video installations, MoMA on Wheels and Modern Navigation, originally posted to FrameWorks, July 22, 2002

Review: Yoel Meranda Ways of Seeing, December 11, 2002

Comments on three Gehr works: The Collector, Passage, and Glider Andy Rector from a_film_by, April 13, 2004

Review: New York Times 'Precarious Garden' Manohla Dargis from The New York Times, October 16, 2004

Review: Strictly Film School Acquarello, October 17, 2004

Gehr in ‘A Line of Sight: American avant-garde film since 1965’ by Paul Arthur January 1, 2005 (pdf format)

Metro Pictures: J. Hoberman on Ernie Gehr Artforum magazine, February 1, 2005

Review: Film Radar Karie from Film Radar, March 10, 2005

Part One Kevin Lee from Shooting Down Pictures, March 8, 2007

Part Two Kevin Lee from Shooting Down Pictures, March 9, 2007

Shooting Down Pictures on ‘Still’ Kevin Lee, March 10, 2007

Review: SIDE/WALK/SHUTTLE Timoth Allen, November 9, 2007

J. Hoberman’s top 10 of 2007 (on ‘Panoramas of the Moving Image') The Village Voice, December 25, 2007

MoMA | Ernie Gehr: Moving Image Minimalist September 17, 2007 to March 9, 2008, also seen here: MoMA retrospective; Ernie Gehr: Moving Image Minimalist

Gehr in ‘Eyes Upside Down’ by P. Adams Sitney Eyes Upside Down : Visionary Filmmakers and the Heritage of Emerson, (432 pages), March 19, 2008 (pdf format)

Review: Auteurs Notebook ‘Waterfront Follies' Johnny Lavant from Mubi, October 29, 2009

Review: Glider/Waterfront Follies Peter from Coffee, Coffee, and More Coffee, November 17, 2009

Review: Senses of Cinema ‘Waterfront Follies’ Patrick Friel from Senses of Cinema, December 2009

Review: Serene Velocity Existentialism Is a Film, January 7, 2010

Ernie Gehr: Surveillance Madison Square Park Conservancy, April 9 – 14, 2010

Assimilating Video by Federico Windhausen October magazine, 2011 (pdf format)

Ernie Gehr's Films Traffic in Images and Light Manohla Dargis from The New York Times, November 11, 2011

Filmmaker Ernie Gehr Explores the Art of Film & Video Holly Willis from KCET, November 14, 2011

Two Nights with Ernie Gehr Redcat, November 14 – 15, 2011

Ernie Gehr, In Two Parts Harvard Film Archive March 5 – 22, 2012

Review: 'Departure' and 'Auto-Collider XV" Michael Sicinski from The Academic Hack, September 7, 2012

MAKING LIGHT OF IT: Ernie Gehr December 3, 2012

Upside Down Cameras and Other Wonders Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa from The Brooklyn Rail, October 3, 2013

candid camera Courtney Fiske from Artforum magazine, October 7, 2013

Gehr, Ernie They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

Can We See Philosophy? A Dialogue w/ Ernie Gehr Peter Capatano and Ernie Gehr from The New York Times, October 3, 2013

Ernie Gehr: Wikipedia Entry

MORNING

USA (4 mi) 1968

U B U W E B - Film & Video: Ernie Gehr Scott MacDonald (excerpt)

Gehr has always been unusually reticent about his life, and as a result we don't know a good deal about how he came to make the earliest of his films currently in distribution; but, by the time he made Morning (1968), he was clearly a sophisticated filmmaker, capable of using the film experience as a means of exposing and considering specific elements of the mechanical! chemical apparatus of cinema. Morning is a brief (4'/-minute) visual interpretation of a portion of Gehr's apartment at dawn: The end of a bed and the legs of someone presumably still sleeping and a cat are visible - but the personal elements are basically a context for the film's focus on light. The camera points toward a window that opens onto an alley; by working with the single-framing function of the camera and the aperture, Gehr takes control of the light this window lets into the space: We can see - or seem to see - its actual substance.

Of course, the moment we consider what is actually occurring, as the light seems to flood the space one moment and to reveal it in an ordinary way a fraction of a second later, we realize that the actual "room" into which the light flows is not the apartment, but the camera box. Gehr reminds us that the movie camera is, essentially, a "room" into which light is admitted through the "window" of the aperture. This is more than metaphor; it is a witty encapsulation of the history of a crucial element of the cinematic apparatus. Still and motion picture cameras developed as miniaturizations of the cubical rooms Western people have traditionally built as living spaces. In fact, the original camera obscuras were rooms in which the influx of light was more intensively controlled than the light through the windows of normal rooms. Morning reveals a conventional room space and the technological intensification of it which ultimately made still and motion pictures possible. A second dimension of Gehr's evocation of the evolution of cinema becomes evident if one notices that the powerful flickering of the light flooding through the apartment window is reminiscent of the experience of looking directly at a movie projector while it's running. In a general sense, the rooms we live in are theater-like, as well as camera-like. Each morning, the light of the sun projects into our living space, revealing our physical surround. The movie projector is merely one important development among many in the long history of the technological domestication of lighting. As we sit in a theater watching Morning, we are face to face with the two historical processes - the development of the camera and of the projector - which came together at the dawn of cinema history in the Cinématographe.

WAIT

USA (7 mi) 1968

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

"I saw Ernie Gehr's two films, MORNING and WAIT, twice. The first time they seemed like light events. On second viewing Gehr's films began to appear to be two light narratives. ... Two people sitting in a room. Silent. Nothing seemingly happens. They slightly change positions from time to time. Window. Room. Furniture. Action between the frames. And the light, between them, around them, over them. The story is not told by way of usual situations, happenings, actions, emotion clashes, because the story is not the usual one. It's happening on some mental level. The light, no doubt, is the key to it, it punctuates the events, it tells the story, it sets the tone."

"If WAIT were a 19th century 'narrative,' these two people who are now sitting in Gehr's room, no doubt, would be talking, exchanging some lines, performing, going through some psychological bits. No matter how disjointed, surrealistic, or cubist, still they would be going through lines and actions and expressions aimed at revealing their psychology, emotions, ideas. In a later 20th century or early 21st century film, which is where Gehr's film is, the event is transposed to another level and we don't give a damn about these people's emotions or their characters. We are following completely something else, something that cannot be told in words but can be revealed only through certain rhythms of light - emphases, and events of light - something that is happening on a mental level which communicates directly to your thought waves (nerves) and you won't get anything out of it if you try to react emotionally, if you look for psychological keys, or any of that bag. Yes, maybe we should use Richard Foreman's term: Ontological cinema has arrived." —Jonas Mekas, The Village Voice

REVERBERATION

USA (23 mi) 1969 (revised 1986)

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

With Andrew Noren and Margaret Lamarre.

"REVERBERATION is a textured slowing, hollowing and placing. The sound-image relationship is one of the most intense I've experienced: the sound has a mass, it's continuous, rough edged. This thick black and white flecking is equaled by a rocky grainy image (of bas-relief not of planes or roundedness). An equation of tone and light is hinted at by constant transformations. Moments, movements are slowed, weighty, solemn yet the film has a beautiful 'However': one sees and hears the whirling atoms beneath the images of streets, buildings, people. These images constitute perhaps a story, a portrait, a looking at, a making of a film of a friend and his friend by their friend." —Michael Snow

"I remember seeing REVERBERATION for the second time at a showing at which it immediately followed a projection of Vigo's Zero de Conduite. I think it's generally agreed that Vigo is one of the masters of the world cinema, and I can only say that my immediate reaction was that Gehr's film was in many ways the stronger of the two. REVERBERATION is one of the most rigorous examples I know of that growing body of film that sets out to examine materials in such a way that the 'phenomenon' under consideration finally glows with the grace of a lucid quality of observation which lifts us into the realm of quite genuine 'illumination' at the same time that it asserts ever more forcefully the pre-eminence of the simple 'being-thereness' of the materials under the camera-eye." —Richard Foreman

TRANSPARENCY

USA (11 mi) 1969

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

An "action" movie in which the processes of recording and projecting moving images are the protagonists and the field of action is the screen rectangle within which cinematic ripplings and combustions are offered for immediate sensual pleasure and enlightenment.

FIELD

USA (19 mi) 1970 in color

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

This was the first version of FIELD. Two prints spliced together, end to end. In a sense, there is no repetition, as the second half is the first half projected end to beginning, and upside-down. An extended temporal paradoxical visual field for the pleasures of vision and reflection.

FIELD

USA (9 mi) 1970 black and white

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

The frame encloses a rush of diagonal streaks in black and white without any distinguishable depth or recognizable imagery. The speed is so great and the optical highlights so homogenous that it is very difficult to determine whether the movement is downward from the upper left corner of the screen or upward from the opposite corner. I assume that this puzzle is integral to the experience of the film, and furthermore that Gehr deliberately transformed the natural landscape into the very perceptual paradox which Faraday noted in the movement of spinning wheels and which subsequently became the theoretical basis of the phenekistoscope and all subsequent machines for presenting the illusion of movement. ... Nature is so blotted out that we can only take his word for where and how it was shot. Curiously the natural sublime sneaks back into the film by association. The rush of lines and the spires of shadows suggest cascading waters, mountains and pine forests."

—P. Adams Sitney, monograph on Ernie Gehr, 1980

SERENE VELOCITY

USA (23 mi) 1970

The New York Film Festival - Film Society of Lincoln Center

Our culture tends to teach us that the world is an ordering of passive things, of opaque surfaces. In Serene Velocity Ernie Gehr further consolidates his vision of the world as a radiant web of energies in which the strands of human consciousness make up the warp. This notion of contemplation as an active posture of the mind is not new. It is, rather, “Medieval” in a mental climate gone largely “Roman”. —Hollis Frampton, 1970. (previously unpublished writing )

Most famously, Gehr’s Serene Velocity (1970), created a stunning, percussive head-on motion by systematically shifting the focal length of a stationary zoom lens as it stared down the center of an empty institutional hallway – thus playing off the contradiction generated by the frame’s heightened flatness and the composition’s severely over-determined perspective. Without ever moving the camera, Gehr turned the fluorescent geometry of this literal Shock Corridor into a sort of piston-powered mandala. If Giotto had made action films it would be this. —J. Hoberman, “Ernie Gehr; A Walker In The City”, 1995

Preserved on 35mm by the Museum of Modern Art with funding from the National Preservation Foundation’s Master Grants Program. Special thanks to Steven Higgins and Peter Williamson. This screening dedicated to Mary Lea Bandy. —Ernie Gehr

U B U W E B - Film & Video: Ernie Gehr Scott MacDonald (excerpt, with actual film shown, 14 minute runtime)

For Ernie Gehr, as well as for Ono and Snow, making movies is a way of creating experiences that are so different from conventional movie experiences that they become critiques of the conventions. But while Ono and Snow are artists who have used the motion picture camera to broaden their repertoire and to expand their audience, Ernie Gehr is more precisely a film artist. While Ono and Snow are generalists, Gehr is a specialist. By the late 1960s, film's increasing prestige as a medium with which fine art experiences could be created had led some filmmakers to an interest in the intrinsic qualities of this particular medium. Just as many 1960s painters and sculptors were concerned with exposing the "essential," theoretically irreducible conditions of the experience of painting and sculpture, filmmakers began to attempt a "metaphysics" of the cinematic apparatus. Ernie Gehr was in the vanguard of this project. Each Gehr film is a voyage into the particular conditions of the film's production and a discovery of the immense untapped visual and conceptual potential of these conditions. The results dramatically demonstrate the narrow parameters of conventional moviemaking. Although the scope of this discussion does not allow for a review of all Gehr's films, Serene Velocity is best understood as one of several cinematic investigations of three elements of the motion picture camera: the camera obscura, the lens, and the filmstrip.

In the years since Morning, Gehr has completed a series of distinguished films, each of which throws the extreme conventionality of industry cinema - and its continual pretension of newness - into relief. More than any other film, however, Serene Velocity established Gehr's reputation, and, despite the remarkable films he's made since 1970 - Eureka (1974-79) and Table (1976) most notably, perhaps - it remains his best known film, and for good reason: Serene Velocity creates an experience that is rigorously simple (even minimal), but visually fascinating and conceptually fertile. The film's simple structure combines elements of Muybridge and the Lumières in much the same way Wavelength does. Basically, all the viewer sees, for twenty-three minutes, is a single, bare, institutional hallway (specifically, a hallway in a classroom building at the State University of New York at Binghamton, where Gehr taught for a time), filmed by a stationary camera. While the view of the hallway is continuous, however, it is far from uninterrupted. When Serene Velocity was first shown to audiences, viewers were often puzzled about how Gehr had produced the film's pulsating, super-active image. In fact, the means were not complicated, though it took a filmmaker entirely free of preconceptions about how movies are made to think of them. Having positioned his camera to look down the hallway, Gehr filmed the space four frames at a time, beginning midway along the focal range of his zoom lens and adjusting the zoom first in one direction, then in the opposite direction from the lens's midpoint, in equal and progressive alternating increments, until he had filmed the space from virtually every position between the midpoint and the two ends of the lens's focal range. The resulting film is serial, grid-like, both graphically (the hallway is all squares and rectangles within squares) and temporally (the film maintains its pulsating four-frame beat throughout); it allows the viewer to study the way in which Gehr's procedure transforms the space and the viewer's experience.

For many first-time viewers Serene Velocity is infuriating. Given their conventional training, they have no idea of what they are supposed to be seeing, other than a relentlessly repeated shift between two versions of the same space. On the other hand, if they can allow themselves to actually look at the film (certainly one of the first tendencies in many viewers, when confronted with powerfully critical films, is to shut down the eyes and/or mind: One can "watch" the films without seeing them), a set of developments in the seemingly unchanging image become apparent. As the zoom lens gradually moves us back and forth along the hall, the doors, ashtrays, and other details of the hallway move in and out of the image: At one focal length we may see a certain door; a few moments later and a few increments further along the focal range of the lens, the door has disappeared. While all changes in the hallway are created by the rigorous procedure Gehr devised for the camera, near the conclusion of the film we can see, from the light in the glass of the doors at the far end of the hallway, that it's dawn.

As in Morning, the "subject" of Serene Velocity can be seen as a metaphor (and more than a metaphor) for the particular element of film technology that allows the "subject" to be recorded in precisely the way we see it: The hallway is to the building what the lens is to the camera; both are long, narrow spaces that provide access to other spaces. Or, to put it another way, the zoom lens is the "hallway" through which light travels from outside the camera into the photosensitive darkness. If the camera box is a miniaturization and intensification of the rooms in which we live, lenses are miniaturization and intensifications of the spaces by means of which these rooms are accessed. Even the fact that the window at the end of the hallway becomes light at dawn might work within this parallel: In many movie cameras the end of a roll of film is signaled by a light one sees in the viewfinder.

Serene Velocity does more than develop an ingenious parallel between its ostensible visual subject and the particular means by which this subject is revealed. The silent evolution of the imagery of the hallway makes available a wide range of different film experiences, some of them, paradoxically, the opposite of others. In fact, the film's journey through the hallway/lens is an axis along which these other experiences are ranged. Of course, to a degree, what anyone sees during a screening of Serene Velocity depends on that individual's personal state of mind, and yet I would guess that any reasonably attentive viewer who watches the entire film will discover several different experiences. Perhaps the most obvious has already been mentioned the feeling of being thrown relentlessly backward and forward four times each second (the lens was readjusted every four frames; the film is screened at sixteen frames per second). Since Gehr was moving incrementally away from the midpoint of the zoom lens focal range toward the extremes at either end, the perceptual gap between successive four-frame units of the film grows continually greater for twenty-three minutes. Of course, most of us do not maintain our attention on Serene Velocity at a single, unvarying level. Indeed, as violent as the successive changes in image can feel, they can be instantly transformed by the eye/mind into a very different visual experience. If one does not attempt to see the successive images of the hallway as individual three-dimensional spaces revealed in Renaissance perspective, if one doesn't rigorously focus in on the successive images, Serene Velocity can seem to be a fiat, graphically distinct, nearly abstract image which regularly flashes between two states, like a neon sign. In fact, if the viewer sees the image as the two-dimensional space it really is, rather than as the three-dimensional space of which it is an illusion, the film can seem quite meditative: The square-within-square organization created by the lines of the doorways and light fixtures is reminiscent of classic mandalas. In other words, the film is simultaneously violent and meditative, depending on the nature of the visual experience the viewer decides to participate in at any given moment.

Once it is evident that Serene Velocity is proceeding in a specific, predictable direction at a uniform rate, and that there is no one correct way of looking at the film, some viewers experiment with the specifics of their own apprehension of the imagery: At some point during my second viewing, I began blinking my eyes so as to try to see only one set of images of the hail, or to focus on a specific detail visible in only one set of the alternating images. Of course, the very opportunity for the viewer to choose how to see a particular film is itself an implicit critique of the assumption of commercial film-going, that each specific movie should be apprehended in one particular way and that within the film each individual cinematic moment has a precise function in ensuring that this one form of apprehension occurs. Viewers may refuse to participate in the particular series of emotions a director may try to orchestrate, but, if they do, they are aware that they are "reading" the film "against the grain."

The fact that Gehr is able to energize one of the dullest contemporary spaces (what is duller than an institutional hallway?) into a complex visual! conceptual experience is more than a tribute to his imagination; it dramatizes his esthetic position. For Gehr, the magic of the movie camera is its ability to free us from visual habits, especially those we've developed at the movie theater. The industrial history of film has impoverished our sight by endlessly reconfirming a narrow range of in-theater experiences, in which each narrative moment is a means for delivering us to the film's conclusion; in Serene Velocity, Gehr transforms a space designed for the purpose of delivering students to the rooms where they have educational business (a space which in a conventional film would have much the same function vis-â-vis the characters) into a highly energized, multifaceted visual experience.

» Ernie Gehr - Serene Velocity from Graylodge, also showing the 14-minute version of the film

Serene Velocity from Ernie Gehr Work

Review: Serene Velocity Existentialism Is a Film, January 7, 2010

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

EG SERENE SOFTWARE freely available software by Barbara Lattanzi, based on Ernie Gehr’s 1970 film, Serene Velocity

HISTORY

USA (22 mi) 1970

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

"I'd like to say more, but words fail me. This is historically reductive. That won't do. One makes choices. Choices are made. The opacity has been tapped. The black quivers, the matter is set in motion. There is light. Its primeval. pre - historic. At last, the first film! It trembles in the eye-mind. Unique." —Michael Snow

STILL

USA (54 mi) 1971

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

"For about sixty minutes, STILL peers through a New York City street level window, watching the storefronts and windows across the way. People come and go, cars pass by, and the space/time are further articulated by the street sounds which are or are not exactly matched to the activity outside. A single tree grows in the sidewalk across the street, rich in foliage - and somehow, the taxi cabs, autos and people who cross the street are sometimes solid, sometimes transparent. ... this very subtle and perplexing interweave of transparency and opaqueness - sends the audience on its way with the feeling they have seen a magician at work. But for me, there are even greater mysteries and secrets in this beautiful film. The basic, root mystery of the evocative object, the evocative mood - which I have been waiting for years to see film come to terms with, and which in my opinion STILL does come to terms with in a significant and important manner.

"STILL is, for me, the first truly Proustian film in which I see mood and atmosphere seem to become slowly crystallized on particular objects - as if the whole framed scene and its mood slowly coagulates into - for instance - the mysterious recesses of the lush foliage of the tree across the street which the breeze slowly stirs .... Gehr has succeeded in making the first 'objectification' of atmosphere film, in which objects and relationships between them end up radiating the mood which heretofore I had only been able to think of as a 'container' rather than the contained. The moving and remarkable thing is that in this fifty-odd feet of New York City street front that we view for sixty minutes, nature and dreams of the forest and sky and wind and wilderness end up being more forcibly present than in any film about nature and forest and sky, etc. ...." —Richard Foreman

"View Master": review of three films by Ernie Gehr, Still, Table, and Untitled (1977) Fred Camper from The Chicago Reader, March 3, 2000

"Still (1969-71, Ernie Gehr)" Kevin Lee from The House Next Door

Shooting Down Pictures » Blog Archive » 912. Still (1969-71, Ernie ... Part One

"View Master": review of three films by Ernie Gehr, Still, Table, and Untitled (1977) Fred Camper from The Chicago Reader, March 3, 2000

Part Two Screen of consciousness

Part Three A surprise encounter & a modern-day comparison

Elusive Lucidity Zach Campbell

SHIFT

USA (7 mi) 1972 – 1974

U B U W E B - Film & Video: Ernie Gehr Scott MacDonald (excerpt, with actual film shown)

"For Gehr, SHIFT broke new ground, hence perhaps a pun in its title. The film is his first to employ extensive montage. The actors are all mechanical - a series of cars and trucks filmed from a height of several stories as they perform on a three-lane city street. Gehr isolates one or two vehicles at a time, inverting some shots, so that a car hangs from the asphalt like a bat from a rafter, using angles so severe the traffic often seems to be sliding off the earth, and employing a reverse motion so abrupt that the players frequently exit the scene as though yanked from a stage by the proverbial hook. A sparse score of traffic noises accompanies the spastic ballet mecanique. Not only the action but Gehr's deliberate camera movements are synced to the music of honking horns, screeching brakes, and grinding gears. The eight-minute film is structured as a series of obliquely comic blackout sketches: trucks run over their shadows; cars unexpectedly reverse direction or start up and go nowhere." —J. Hoberman, American Film, 1982

EUREKA

USA (30 mi) 1974 – 1979

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

This is a refilming of a remarkable movie depicting Market Street, San Francisco, around the turn of the century. The original film consisted of one long continuous take recorded from the front of a moving trolley from approximately Seventh Street all the way to the Embarcadero. I extended each frame six to eight times, full-frame, and increased the contrast and the light fluctuations.

To some degree, the original film has obviously been transformed, but I hope that this simple muted process allowed enough room for me to make the original work "available" without getting too much in the way. This was very important to me as I tend to see what I did, in part, as the work of an archeologist, resurrecting an old film as well as the shadows and forces of another era.

U B U W E B - Film & Video: Ernie Gehr Scott MacDonald (excerpt)

If none of the films Gehr has completed since Serene Velocity has achieved that film's reputation, several are of equal interest and all are worth seeing: a new Gehr film remains something of an event. Morning can be said to encapsulate elements of the prehistory of cinema; Eureka, which Gehr worked on from 1974 through 1979 (sometimes under the title Geography) - deals ingeniously with the medium's subsequent history. To make Eureka, Gehr used a brief film made between 1903 and 1905, presumably to be shown on the front of a Hale's Tours coach: the camera is mounted on the front of a trolley and records the trolley's journey from the moment it turns onto Market Street in San Francisco until it reaches the Ferry Building and the end of the line (where a wagon with "Eureka, California" printed on the side crosses the image). By re-photographing the original single-shot film a frame at a time, Gehr stretched the original trolley ride and allows us access to at least two levels of cinema history. On one hand, we confront the social history of the early twentieth century, within which the history of cinema was beginning (the date on the Ferry Building - 1896 - is suggestive in a film-historical context). The original film must have emphasized the excitement of a fast-moving trolley ride down Market Street; Gehr's slowed-down version retains the exciting moments (people move across the tracks so close to the front of the trolley that we can't imagine they won't be injured), but allows us to examine the environment of the street and the ways in which the people who saw the camera responded to it. Market Street circa 1903 seems to have been a model of functional anarchy: The roadway is crowded with all manner of vehicles and pedestrians, all of them vying for space, True, the vehicles on the right side of the road generally move in one direction; those on the left, the opposite way; but, beyond this, it seems a case of every vehicle for itself. The energy of the street, the collision of the many different worlds represented by the varied vehicles, and the pleasure people take in performing for the camera make Eureka a period piece with as much resonance as the most elaborate contemporary recreations of that era - Coppola's Lower East Side in The Godfather 2 (1974) for example.

But while Eureka allows us to experience San Francisco at the beginning of the century watching the film is reminiscent of rides at Disney World and Epcot Center - Gehr's painstaking re-presentation of the original footage reveals a different form of history. In the years since the original film was shown, the prints that remain have decayed, so that the contemporary viewer must experience the original imagery through a curtain of scratches and other forms of decomposition. The journey down the trolley tracks in Eureka is also a trip through the time that has intervened between then and now, as that time is represented indexically on the filmstrip. The fact that the original film was recorded from the front of a trolley makes this other historical process particularly suggestive, since the essential mechanical technologies at work in trolleys and in cinema - and their shared limitation: friction - are historically related.

Of course, although Eureka is an elegy to a lost age and a decaying technology, it also reconfirms the remarkable power of cinema. As a result of the combination of the technologies explored in Morning, Serene Velocity, and Eureka (and Gehr's other films), we can still see these people; they are alive as we watch. As we travel along the filmstrip and along the "strip" that was Market Street, they gaze at us and we at them through time and space, by means of a "corridor" that simultaneously allows them access to the "dark room" of our consciousness and gives us access to the world in which they lived and moved. Gehr demonstrates that the cinematic apparatus is, like us, part material and part something more.

Film in New Haven: Ernie Gehr's Eureka (co-written... Michael J. Anderson from Tativille

TABLE

USA (16 mi) 1976

The New York Film Festival - Film Society of Lincoln Center

"Table (1976), to take a slightly more elaborate conjuring trick, converts an ordinary kitchen surface, a homely clutter of crockery and utensils, into pure visceral sensation – the celluloid equivalent of a Cubist still-life. For 15 minutes, Gehr alternates two slightly different points of view, accentuating individual shots through the use of blue or red filters (and sometimes no filter at all). His simple, if painstaking procedure produces a stuttering hypnotic shutter: Some objects appear simultaneously in 2 positions, others flex their shimmering forms or collide their neighbors, while a few barely seem to “move” at all.

"Because Table was shot over the course of a single day, the light is continuously changing – shadows deepen, different objects catch the sun. Throughout, Gehr varies the amount of time each shot is held. When he picks up the pace, the overall movement resembles an animated cartoon cycle of objects chasing each other around the table. When he shifts into high gear, the screen starts to flash and ripple, barely able to contain the forces released in it. Rather than a simulation machine, Gehr has employed the motion picture apparatus as a cyclotron. The movies are pulverized into their constituent elements and then recombined.” —J. Hoberman, “Ernie Gehr: A Walker in the City,” 1995.

"View Master": review of three films by Ernie Gehr, Still, Table, and Untitled (1977) Fred Camper from The Chicago Reader, March 3, 2000

UNTITLED

USA (5 mi) 1977

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

"... a delicious slow pulling of focus over four minutes in which snowflakes, streaming like intercepted chalk marks, fall in front of what seems to be a field, then a pond, and finally is recognized as a brick wall." —P. Adams Sitney, The Village Voice

"View Master": review of three films by Ernie Gehr, Still, Table, and Untitled (1977) Fred Camper from The Chicago Reader, March 3, 2000

MIRAGE

USA (8 mi) 1981

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

"... surely the most disorienting negation of Renaissance perspective afforded by any since HISTORY." —J. Hoberman, American Film, June 1982

UNTITLED: PART ONE

USA (30 mi) 1981

Part One Brian Frye

"The telephoto lens in Untitled: Part One provides an extraordinary sense of both observation and distance in perhaps Gehr's most subtle and moving city film. Whereas Gehr frequently records the more impersonal aspects of the city, here he focuses on the gestures and circulation of human figures. The magnification of the lens allows him to register the intimate details of the texture of skin or the uncertain tread of an elderly foot, while remaining somewhat outside the scene. In documenting the streetside acts of exchange and encounter in a neighborhood dominated by recent immigrants (largely Jews from Russia), Gehr captures a history of circulation and exile written in the bodies of the city's inhabitants." —Tom Gunning, Perspective and Retrospective: The Films of Ernie Gehr

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

The film is a half-hour series of brief close-ups of people on the street, shot from a high, but still intimate, angle. In a constant interplay of figure and ground, the film shows fragments of feet, heads, hands and elbows against the backdrop of an ancient sidewalk .... The film is fast on the eye, with many staccato camera moves. But, partially because the people are bundled up in winter clothes, one experiences it as a succession of cushioned jolts - the collision of soft, bulky forces that enter the frame from all directions. There is, however, too much raw human interest in the footage for the film to ever become completely abstract.

"The film is set on a shopping street in a neighborhood heavily populated by elderly Eastern European immigrants - a sort of asphalt shtetl. Gehr's subjects use their hands a lot, and these expressive, vulnerable, fleshy sensors take on a life of their own. In one sense, the film is a jagged symphony composed of the most transitory gestures. "In another, the film is an exercise in Hals-like portraiture in which an entire character is evoked through isolated details ...."

—J. Hoberman, American Film

SIGNAL – GERMANY ON THE AIR

USA (37 mi) 1982 – 1985

Signal-Germany on the Air Brian Frye

"The artifice of the film image stands in stark contrast to the 'reality' of the scene-one is highly conscious of the frame outlines-of what's in and what's out. The color is almost always 'unreal' -some artifact of photographic depiction. The spaces and sounds between, behind, and above the image comes through, we fill out the scene. The mind permeates the space and we become highly aware of the processes used for this inspection. While watching you become aware of your own space, your own patterns of movement. Common ground and individual experience are the poles here, and the active mind shuttles between them in the duration. The recalcitrant world, once it is depicted and articulated, can be peeled back like an onion, revealing constituent layers. In Signal-Germany on the Air it is history that's in the air, behind the mask of every face, every facade, every street sign." —Daniel Eisenberg, "Some Notes on the Films of Ernie Gehr"

"A long sequence at the end of Signal was shot in the rain. This is almost comforting. The subdued colors of an overcast day seem more appropriate than the bright, saturated colors of the storefronts earlier in the film. It seems for a while as though the rain can wash away all traces of the past. But, when a bright orange flare-out signals both the end of a camera roll and the end of the film, the steady hiss of the rain reveals itself as the end of a conflagration."

—Harvey Nosowitz in Film Quarterly

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

"... SIGNAL is a city dirge, a tensely ominous diary of a visit to Berlin, one of the grimmest loci of twentieth-century consciousness. ... Gehr's visit was not a casual tourist excursion. But for an 'accident' of history it would have been his childhood home. ... On the surface, Gehr's film looks like another exercise in choreographic human, vehicular, and architectural arrangements into formal patterns of conjunction and difference. His means are astonishingly simple: straight camera recording of a central and several ancillary sites, sharp cutting, and indigenous sound recording. But within these parameters Gehr unfolds an elaborate interplay of presence and absence that far exceeds his documentary approach." —Paul Arthur, Motion Picture

"[W]hile reintroducing social concerns, SIGNAL does not give us facts about the Nazi period or present-day Germany; Gehr's film is instead about a form of thinking. It addresses the mental processes that might govern looking at a Berlin street, rather than literally explicating present or past. ... Gehr's particular vision in SIGNAL is doubtless inflected by the deep emotions he must have felt in trying to view a city that at one point in its history would have denied his parents life and him birth." —Fred Camper, Chicago Reader

Sicinski on ‘Germany-Signal on the Air' Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack, also seen here: Ernie Gehr's "Signal -- Germany on the Air"

Review: Fred Camper ‘Signal-Germany on the Air’ Chicago Reader, September 10, 1987

candid camera Courtney Fiske from Artforum magazine, October 7, 2013

SIDE/WALK/SHUTTLE

USA (47 mi) 1991

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

The initial inspiration for the film was an outdoor glass elevator and the visual, spatial and gravitational possibilities it presented me with. The work was also informed by an interest in panoramas, the urban landscape, as well as the topography of San Francisco. Finally, the shape and character of the work was tempered by reflections upon a lifetime of displacement, moving from place to place and haunted by recurring memories of other places I once passed through.

"... Gehr gives us an expansive view of the relationship between architecture, city streets and the movement on them, the medium of cinema, and patterns of thought." —Fred Camper, Chicago Reader, February 17, 1995

"We couldn't quite believe our eyes. The straight-forward pans and tilt shots of city street facades and rooftops, now rising and falling in a stately cadence, began to change. The change was not on the sunny panoramic surface of the screen - but in the materiality of the observed world. A nearby rooftop mushroomed up while the sidewalk remained static; streets and sidewalks sheared up to the sky like the cliffs of Yosemite; an upside-down penthouse soared over the San Francisco Bay serenely as a zeppelin ...." —Tony Reveaux, Artweek, July 23, 1992

"[T]he movie is pure sensation: it has the effect of a slow-motion roller coaster. The camera's stately swoops and stomach-dropping descents obliterate all sense of gravity. San Francisco is so viscerally and obsessively transformed that Gehr might honorably have titled his movie Vertigo."

—J. Hoberman, The Village Voice, January 12, 1993

pieces Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Gehr’s film is a masterpiece of cityscape filmmaking, and without a doubt one of the key films of the 1990s. It consists of 25 shots, each one representing a trip either up or down the glass elevator of the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill. Some of the rides are filmed in slow motion, but each is a continuous trip. Gehr manipulated the camera in various ways. Sometimes it was as simple as holding it on its side or upside-down, resulting in the cityscape moving in unexpected directions. Even in these relatively straightforward cases, the image is not immediately legible, provoking considerable disorientation for the viewer. Side/Walk/Shuttle is a formal encounter with volumes in space, one that provokes phenomenological inquiry, a spatial “reality testing” against the viewer’s actual urban experience (whether it be of San Francisco in particular – which helps – or other large cities, many of which are heard in the dense mix of the soundtrack). But I also want to propose a parallel reading, one that pertains more to the political economy of downtown San Francisco in the early 90s. The film literally depicts an urban world turned upside-down, one that cannot be understood with our normal sensory skills. One need not call this space that of “ideology,” but Side/Walk/Shuttle does contain images which imply a world in which human agency is remote, and the power of motility resides with buildings (and perhaps by extension, those who own them). Early views in the film, such as a disembodied Coit Tower, allude to somewhat conventional tourist views – like Michael Rudnick in his 1982 film Panorama, Gehr has drawn inspiration from Muybridge’s San Francisco panoramas. In time, the film offers views of penthouses in the sky, remaining stable while the rest of the world revolves around them. Sideways buildings and cars resolve into circuit-boards. Smaller buildings fall away into the abyss, while skyscrapers blast off into the ether. As a viewing experience, Side/Walk/Shuttle is an unparalleled pleasure. And yet, along with its sensory charge, it seems to tell us something about the city, who controls it, and how our daily experience of it at ground level only tells us half the story. Gehr’s adventure in expanded perception (perhaps intentionally, perhaps not) echoes Marx’s rumored reply when accused of having “turned Hegel on his head.” Hegel was already on his head, and Marx, like Gehr, is only turning him, and the world, right side up again.

"Edge City: review of Side/Walk/Shuttle" Fred Camper

candid camera Courtney Fiske from Artforum magazine, October 7, 2013

Review: SIDE/WALK/SHUTTLE Timoth Allen, November 9, 2007

REAR WINDOW

USA (10 mi) 1986 – 1991

Rear Window Brian Frye

"Images were recorded in 1985/86 from the rear window of what used to be our apartment in Brooklyn. The death of my father and an earlier work of mine, Signal-Germany on the Air, were still very much on my mind when this film was initiated. I cupped my hands in front of the camera lens and attempted to make tactile light, color and image. The work shifts from a play between the 'elements' to whipping up a 'storm' out of thin air." —Ernie Gehr, January 1993

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

"[A] view from a Brooklyn apartment sublimates Hitchcock's voyeurism into a frenzied engagement with the visible. The film varies exposure or racks focus so that the flickering, spatially ambiguous patterns that press the limits of the frame momentarily dissolve themselves as tree branches or a fire escape or a shadow caught on the screen of someone's laundry rippling in the breeze. 'I cupped one of my hands in front of the camera lens and attempted to make tactile to myself light, color and image,' Gehr explains in his notes, linking the film to his father's death and calling it a 'hopeless attempt' to render the ephemeral tangible."

—J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

"The variety of these three films (SIDE/WALK/SHUTTLE, THIS SIDE OF PARADISE, REAR WINDOW) reveal the way Gehr's filmmaking eludes classification or simple definition. Because each film occupies such a separate place they continue to shed new light on the scope of Gehr's work."

—Tom Gunning, The Films of Ernie Gehr

THIS SIDE OF PARADISE

USA (14 mi) 1991

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

"Sounds and images were recorded at the Polish flea-market, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, autumn 1989, a few days before the Berlin Wall came down. An uneasy, almost sort of carnival atmosphere pervaded the place and like some magical crystal ball, reflected both the past and the future." —Ernie Gehr

"To watch this film is to journey into the underground .... When Gehr inverts his camera, the world turns up-side-down. Heaven and Earth change places. The mud above, the sky below - which side of Paradise, indeed?" —J. Hoberman

"Gehr has used the reflecting surface of the dirty water puddles to undo the separation of what is valuable from what is not valuable. There is no dichotomy of chance and intention, but instead a lived perceptual encounter. ... Value and fact are equally real/equally illusory in this world out of the mud. The filmmaker's clarity of reception to what camera and recorder touch permits existence to whatever is found. ... Displacement becomes the ground for new place. We see a moving foot flare as the film ends ...." —Susan Thackrey

FOR DANIEL

USA (72 mi) 1992 – 1996

For Daniel (Forum, Film Festival Berlin 1997)

Ernie Gehr about the film

Before my son was born, friends would ask me "Will you make a baby movie, now?". "Of course not!", I would answer. Yet, right after Daniel was born I found myself filming him, not with the intention of making a film, but with a need to retain, hold on to some moving images of his early and miraculous stage of his life. I kept filming. Sort of snapshots with a movie camera. Very much in the tradition of home movies: all focused on my subject and no concern with film form or syntax. Time passed. The rolls kept accumulating. Three of four months later, they were developed. As I began to look at the footage I sensed the need to keep on filming as well as the possibility of giving the material a form of its own and eventually perhaps sharing the work with a few other individuals in the world. While I continued to film as before (not systematically but intermittently, as the occasion and the need presented itself), a tentative shape containing footage of Daniel's first three months was arrived at in early 1993. After a couple of viewings, it became apparent that limiting the work to that period of Daniel's life would not suffice. In addition, there was something about my approach to film here that attracted me and I felt that I needed a larger expanse of time to work with. Sometime in 1995 the earlier edited material was revised and expanded. In the summer of 1996 the decision was made to conclude FOR DANIEL with footage recorded in May 1996.

Having just completed the work, what can I say? First of all, I need some distance to see and re-experience the film from the outside in order to be able to articulate in words what so far I have pursued instinctively and intuitively, working out and resolving issues largely through felt perceptions and using verbal language minimally.

The title implies the work is for my son and that I am for him. My main interest in the film is Daniel. In conjunction with that, one thing that moves me about the work is the casual, intimate, quiet, person-to-person, home-movie character; its focus on observing and celebrating little moments of every day life, such as a yawn, a smile, an expression of pain, a gesture here, a half gesture there, quiet acknowledgements of growth and metamorphosis, the passage of time.

Review: Tony Pipolo ‘For Daniel’ Tony Pipolo from Millennium Film Journal, Fall, 1999

Document and lyrical biography, the work of one of the American Avant-Garde’s finest film artists and a home movie, For Daniel is, for its maker, just that: a gift of remembrance of the first four years of his son Daniel’s life. At a modest 72 minutes, the film seems an amazing distillation of what one assumes must have been twenty or thirty hours of footage taken over four years by a doting father; but this turns out not to be the case. Following its screening (at a retrospective of Ernie Gehr’s work at the American Museum of the Moving Image in March of 1998), the filmmaker explained that in fact the film comprises about half of the footage he actually shot. This is a remarkable fact, given the subject matter, even more so a testament to the inherent virtues that characterize Gehr’s “official” work. Here, it seems that two of those qualities – clarity and concentration of focus – result not from the paring away of waste or repetition – or material perhaps of interest only to parents – but from the singular attunement and consciousness of this particular filmmaking father. According to Gehr, whatever he did cut was in direct response to the distress that Daniel expressed while watching the footage with his father.

Gehr disclaimed having any grandiose plan in mind beforehand. He was determined not to “formalize” what he was doing or even allow himself to shoot Daniel’s activities in any way that would intrude upon his space or draw attention to the filmmaking. He was, he says, thinking of very early cinema – especially that of the Lumieres – which privileged what was before the camera and adopted a single angle from which to film it. This is especially evident in the earliest section of the film when Daniel is, in fact, a helpless – though not exactly inactive – infant. Shots of Daniel yawning, sleeping, crying, gazing into space, or simply being are framed to reflect the physical restrictions of his situation. Gehr makes little or no attempt to animate or enliven such footage by panning or zooming, or to contrast it with adjacent footage which is often another angle or moment of the same material. Nor does he attempt to articulate – through a more encompassing shot or by crosscutting – the symbiotic relationship suggested by the presence of an arm when Daniel is held by his mother.

But it is this very restraint that allows the viewer to adopt the same mode that prompted Gehr to pick up the camera whenever he did. Locked into a frame and generally unvarying point of view, we are invited to look more closely at what it is an infant does within such confines. When awake, Daniel’s head and face are anything but static, his eyes squinting, his mouth agape as if it could on its own reach out, appendage-like, to incorporate the world. Alone on a surface and unbound by excess wrapping, Daniel’s body enacts the drama of biological transition – now curled up in fetal recall, now stretching forth with an ease and fluidity even the fittest gymnast could not manage.

It is this uncompromised observance of limits – the infant’s, the filmmaker’s, and the viewer’s – that allows us to experience the evolutions in Daniel’s life for the dramatic leaps they are – none more wonderfully, in the early section, than the moment he sees and tries to follow the colorful mobile gently turning above his crib. Whereas the mouth was the prominent organ in the earlier shots, the eyes here are as engaging as they are engaged. Shot from above, with the figures of the mobile passing along the upper frame, Daniel’s face is alit with wonder, his mouth involuntarily forming the smiles that betray the pleasure of perception through what he sees. Of course, we cannot know what he sees, only that he does, and that his engagement with the world has grown accordingly.

From this moment, the film jumps to Daniel as a toddler, now looking up more and more consciously at the camera – or rather at the man holding it. As his world expands, so do the camera’s distance from its subject and the limitations of the frame: we watch as Daniel – now an active body in space – crawls and climbs up on furniture, steadying himself as he goes, unsuspecting that he rules the images we see by this very behavior. At one point, Gehr inserts in the midst of these shots – perhaps out of nostalgia for a time already lost – two or three returns to the infant Daniel. At another point, there is a lovely and fleeting moment when Daniel, looking at the camera, perhaps about to bound forth on one of his walking adventures, turns back to his mother behind him before proceeding. It is a moment from a period about which countless words have been written by clinicians and psychologists, and the simplicity of it here – Daniel given the simplest of nods, both encouraging and reassuring – speaks eloquently. This “theme” is picked up in the second reel in the fluctuation between shots of Daniel’s jumps and leaps and two-shots of him with his mother at quieter moments.

The second part of the film is devoted to Daniel’s increasing physical activity – from his stumbling efforts and success with walking, to venturing outdoors to work with his mother in the garden, riding his bicycle with training wheels, and later throwing a tennis ball. It is perhaps not entirely coincidental, then, that this second reel begins with two or three shots of Daniel from an unusual – one might even say, Gehr-like perspective. As Daniel assumes a posture prepared to do a somersault, the camera shoots him from above, the angle placing him on the upper part of the frame as the carpet fills the lower. As a result, he seems to be not so much grounded on the carpet as defying gravity. The effect is a momentary disorientation not incompatible with the upside-down view Daniel himself is experiencing.

Gehr was asked whether he considered making this a sound film and answered that he would have done it had it been technically feasible. And it is true that especially near the end the absence of sound is more striking when we see Daniel clearly having an animated exchange with one or both of this parents, or when he is seen in the more public setting of a classroom (daycare center?) working on puzzles or cutting out paper figures. That said, however, the silence seemed right to me, both more intimate and more compelling. I take Gehr at his word that the film should not be approached as a formalized work, that his aim was to efface himself and his artistic bent as much as possible. But it is also true that he was responding to specific, visibly discernible movements in his son’s development. It is not surprising, therefore, that I came away from two viewings of the film touched and impressed by the line Gehr seems to have walked between the loving father’s stare and the selective filmmaker’s look.

COTTON CANDY

USA (64 mi) 2001

Cotton Candy from Ernie Gehr Work

Gehr, one of America's leading avant-garde filmmakers, describes his new work as: "Reflections upon a passing century by way of cinema, penny arcade automata and carnival amusements--'low' forms of entertainment that have seized and spooked our imagination, becoming major emblematic icons of twentieth century culture. This unusual piece may also be described as a comic musical, shuffling us across the passage of time, the inevitable process of mechanical aging and the beginnings of early twenty-first century popular culture."

Peter Carter, "Ernie Gehr's Cotton Candy" from Millennium Film Journal

GLIDER

USA (37 mi) 2001

Apr Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Toward the end of this screening, I recalled that Brakhage had allegedly compared video to sand painting. That’s pretty apposite here, since Glider’s curving, elongated tracking shots across the bowl of the camera obscura at Cliff House (SF) turn the Pacific Ocean and the Great Highway into indistinct, striated bands of extreme horizontality. The camera obscura is fixed, so Glider serves as an exploration of a specific place in the world. And while the horizontality of water is slightly distorted, the hazed abstraction of taffy-pulled coastal buildings is by far the most seductive, disorienting visual motif. The piece is somewhat unvaried in tone and rhythm. This may well be the point -- an extended imbibation in a radically altered vision -- but at the time it made the video seem undercomposed and a bit overlong. In retrospect, I think I still feel this way, but I also suspect the piece could benefit from a move in the other direction. An even longer running time might push our engagement with the images past the point of novelty and eventual familiarity, into a hypnotic, enveloping eye control.

Comments on three Gehr works: The Collector, Passage, and Glider Andy Rector (excerpt)

A glide over distorted, refracted images of the sea, the shore, and the hills and establishments around it, soaring above in a birds eye view.

A Lucretian film. It begins with the water which looks at the same time like a puddle and an ocean. Then a wider shot soaring over the beach, and a costal highway with tiny cars seen. It all looks like a model set-- an effect partly due to the stringy, uneven glide. In movement it's like Mephisto and Faust's cloak-ride over the model of a European landscape in Murnau's Faust, only it's real! Because of the warped refraction of the image, the ocean seems to lap over onto itself like never before seen, an omnidirectional flow. At one point in the glide the camera seems to clasp to the top/side of a building and track perfectly parallel with it, looking down towards the ground. An edge of the world type of image later when it unclasps moving out over the shore, upside down, to the side, out in the middle of the ocean... a giant wave... the horizon... a mixed up whirlpool, all at the same time. I don't want to reveal how Ernie achieved this refraction, so that anyone reading this can be as fascinated as I was, Ernie explaining his achievment AFTER the screening.

Throughout one knows this is truely taped, a true phenomena, i.e. not electronically manipulated (aside from the device for capturing the light), not programmed...in fact IMPOSSIBLE TO PROGRAM. Were it not true, it would be reprehensible. Why? Truely videotaped, even the refracted bent light of a landscape is still light, infinately more various, beyond anything someone could possibly program or modulate. A phenomenal video, perhaps the first phenomenal digital video. To paraphrase Berenice Reynaud: if the ocean is there and Ernie Gehr is not there to film it, does a wave crash?

CITY

USA (35 mi) 2002

City Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

What does video add to the urban sensibility of Gehr’s work? In this case, an inverse relationship between color and depth. This work, a series of stationary shots on Market Street, begins with the shocking oranges and greens of mass transit vehicles and the bright clothing of pedestrians. The views are saturated and direct, but over time, they are replaced by deeper and deeper layers of reflection. The relay of images -- panes of glass seen in other, spatially ambiguous panes of glass – produces ghostly transparencies and discrepancies in scale. (The Gehr film City most closely resembles is 1971’s Still.) But mostly the impression is of greenish-gray inaccessibility, life kept apart from us and itself. Whether it was part of the plan or not, certain stores (See’s Candies, Rite Aid) jump out, video somehow making their presence even more aggressive than usual. We watch a man buy candy through a window with a sign in it – OPEN – and as we see white yuppies and Sikhs and Asians and blacks brush past each other, I realized an irony, that capitalism and commerce is what brings people together in this way. Whether we like it or not, the market economy does tend to produce the most “open,” diverse society. This is a rich and moving work, much more so for me since it evocatively depicts a place I love very much, one I am soon to leave.

PASSAGE

USA (14 mi) 2003

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

"Nothing extraordinary. Just a ride on the S-Bahn (elevated train) through a small section of what used to be East Berlin. An anxious journey fraught with projections. A ride very much in the present, but due to history and family history, also a journey into and out of time." —Ernie Gehr

Journal Notes: 2004 Acquarello

Composed of two intercutting shots of the S-Bahn elevated train through former East Berlin taken before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gehr presents a mundane, yet illuminating glimpse of the profound cultural and economic changes in his ancestral homeland as seen through the city's transformed - and almost unrecognizable - urban architecture.

Comments on three Gehr works: The Collector, Passage, and Glider Andy Rector (excerpt)

I'm not sure of the date on this 16mm film either, though I scrawled 2003. Gehr explained however that the footage was shot at a friends urging in 1993, I believe, in Berlin, the former East Berlin, upon his overwhelming personal reaction to the place . Intercut left to right, right to left tracking shots from an elevated train looking down onto a small street, over buildings, back and forth, again with only train sounds. There is a brief static shot of the rainy street amongst all the velocity of the opposing directions of the tracking shots. Another static shot, somewhat like a reverse shot, of the train quickly passing from a stop, staccato squares with the light behind the windows. A certain dynamism of old all about the film. There is memory, shots are repeated. A cornering, not quite a wash.

Passage Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Another return, of sorts, to early cinema, this time the Lumières' original tracking shots, filmed from moving trains. Like those early films, the power of Passage derives from the play of flatness and depth, the way a face of a building will dominate the screen only to give way to the recessed city space just beyond it. But of course, Gehr's editing is far more complex than early cinema allowed, and so we move back and forth, left and right, with open space undulating against the foregrounds of facades, train stations, and trackside trees. The experience that anyone ever has while riding a train is simply re-presented here, except that it's composed, arranged musically instead of tied to the physical imperatives of actual space. Passage is a bit like Side / Walk / Shuttle turned on its side. A deliberately small film (cf. untitled (1977), Rear Window, This Side of Paradise), one whose impact sneaks up on you.

THE COLLECTOR

USA (18 mi) 2003

The Collector Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

The Collector is even more straightforward in its use of video to engage with pre-cinematic materials. A series of mid- to late-19th century photographs are presented, one after the other, with a toy train sound providing the only accompaniment. The effect is rather flat; someone is showing us his images, one after the other. Rather than looking at someone else's personal photos -- often an awkward situation for the viewer -- here, we are looking at someone looking at someone else's personal photos. In the Q&A, Gehr explained the piece as his way of coping with the loss of his own extended family, by generating an imaginary family across time through photography. A worthwhile aim, but one that cannot successfully be conveyed by the piece itself, at least in its present form. The photos themselves are too readily slotted into our conventional image-bank ("the 19th century") to attain fresh emotional valence. I could imagine other contexts in which the piece could be more successful, perhaps with a poetic, essay-film voiceover that could illuminate the personal relationship to the photos as collected material. Or, actually, as part of a double-feature with Mark Romanek's One Hour Photo, Gehr's frank exploration of the private meaning of photography set into dialogue with a more conventionally narrative examination of the same theme, the two films problematizing and deepening one another.

Comments on three Gehr works: The Collector, Passage, and Glider Andy Rector (excerpt)

old photographs, shot with a digital camera, edited with differing, but not shocking, rhythms. The time period and location of the photographs is not clear, one guesses they're early 20th century. The compositions and situations of the photographs vary: sometimes street scenes, sometimes decentered tourist-like shots, sometimes portraits, sometimes blurred accidental close ups, sometimes mundane corners, mostly outdoor shots. A clear theme or narrative is avoided. Silent, then about a quarter of the way through, only the sound of a train is heard for the remainder, making, it seems, one stop and then continuing. There is a poiniance to it, though it lacks nostalgia. It is half remembered as sentimental, however. The other half, a study of space detached from theme, order. The period and the train sounds do bring longing into the picture, that is, if one indulges in the cliches of the period. It is not a work meant to dispell anything. It is honest work. The collector is Gehr, photographs collected from photo fairs. I'm not sure of the date of the video, possibly 2003.

Journal Notes: 2004 Acquarello

A series of stereoscopic photographs taken from the early half of the twentieth century is methodically presented one-by-one to the pervasive sound of an old-fashioned steam engine railway train in seeming perpetual motion. Part reflection on the interminable progression of time and part meditation on the meaning of collecting (an ephemeral concept that Peter Kubelka similarly discusses during his presentation), Gehr achieves an intrinsic cadence to the clinical, alienated act of observing a lost and disconnected past. In describing his own thought process in the creation of the film, a visibly emotional Gehr talked about the fact that he does not have any living extended family and that for him, the process of collecting these antique photographs was, in a way, a subconscious act of creating a surrogate familial history to fill that absence...to create roots. Within this context, the question of "Who is the collector?" (and perhaps more importantly "What is being collected?") and takes on a poignant and deeply personal tone.

THE ASTRONOMER’S DREAM

USA (15 mi) 2004

Journal Notes: 2004 Acquarello

During the highly informative post-screening Q&A, Gehr explained that his preferred title for the film was not actually The Astronomer's Dream - a direct homage reference to the seminal Georges Méliès film (also known as The Man in the Moon) - but rather, Curtains!, which represented for him a broader memory of the experience of going to the local theater in his childhood that, not only showed films, but also on occasion served as a performance stage of sorts, particularly, magic shows for which the filmmaker had expressed fond memories. While the Méliès reference does explicitly provide a concrete, cinematic context to the superimposed (seemingly single frame) fleeting images that mysteriously appear and disappear within the duration of the film, the title Curtains! provides its own appeal by injecting a more personal and human element to Gehr's notoriously rigorous and systematic work. Distilled, spare, and precise in execution, the film is composed of little more than a grainy, black and white shot of closed stage curtains that intermittently reveal instantaneous fragments of a Méliès film and set against a soundtrack of film-based audio excerpts, yet achieves a strangely transfixing paean to film through cinematic history and personal memory.

The Astronomer's Dream Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Now that I've seen more of Gehr's video output (these two, along with City, Glider, and the longer Cotton Candy), it seems clearer that he's using the new technology to focus almost exclusively on the pre-cinematic and early-film heritage of the 19th century (penny arcades, stereoscopes, camera obscuras, urban flâneurie). It's an interesting gambit, since it threatens to demonstrate the relative poverty of the video image when compared to its analogue forebears. This distance seems to be Gehr's primary point, and it could also be taken as a metaphor for his own grappling with the strangeness of the new medium after a career devoted to filmic specificity. The Astronomer's Dream consists of a white field in which, across the second horizontal quarter of the screen, a hovering curtain-like mass of black flutters and blurs. Periodically it stops jumping and expands, resolving into a video image from an early film. Gehr acknowledged it as a Méliès clip, although it looked far more uncluttered and classically composed to immediately register as such; it seemed more like an Alf Sjöberg interior or the like. The overriding reference in the work struck me as being the whizzing, all-upward-motion sequence of Jacobs' Tom, Tom the Piper's Son, where the film is being pulled through the projector without engaging with the sprockets. There is something striking in itself when such distortion shows up in video, a medium industrially fashioned for maximum transparency of the image. But something is lost, as well -- a material engagement, the solicitation of a tactile form of vision. The Astronomer's Dream successfully pushes us away from the original life of the image; the video veneer imposes aesthetic distance like a rib-spreader. I wanted to move in closer, but the ghosts were already elsewhere.

PRECARIOUS GARDEN

USA (13 mi) 2004

Journal Notes: 2004 Acquarello

Loosely recalling the split-screened symmetry and bifurcation of unpopulated spaces in the epilogue of Jon Jost's The Bed You Sleep In, Ernie Gehr expounds on the technique of split-screening through obstructed or otherwise baffled images that illustrate juxtaposed, partial and alternate views of the same mundane objects. Presented as a pure, soundless, rigorous study in visual parallelism, Precarious Garden provides an interesting approach to the cinematic presentation of multi-perspective, but at 13 minutes, feels significantly overlong.

Canyon Cinema: The Films of Ernie Gehr

"It's easy to lose your footing when you try to keep in time with the dance of Eidolons. Where is everything... exactly? Nearby. Doubled over in laughter silently playing hide and seek with our fingertips. All is relative. Color - spectral. Translucent solidities, wavering balance. Our foundations change pitch, shift and sink, then seconds later run firmly to meet us. Peril impels us towards delight. This film, Precarious Garden, remembers the delicacies of perceptual indecisions and binds them into bouquets of backyard florescence and prismatic spray. "It is as if the soft diaphanous membranes of petals and leaves were the substance of a surrogate mental retina" (Catherine de Zegher). As with Gehr's film Mirage, the terraces and bends of available light traveling through store-bought optics creates a spectacle of uncertainty and splendor. A lesson in survival. A day in the sun." —Mark McElhatten

Precarious Garden Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

The first of two new (to me) Gehr films, and certainly the most powerful. A single-projector film with double-images throughout, Garden juxtaposes separate but formally related views of a very suburban-looking backyard -- white deck, wooden fence, green lawn, brightly colored flowers. Gehr has typically been an urban filmmaker, examining the structural and perceptual undercurrents of the experience of city living. Here, he discovers geometrical patterns and visual dissonances within the domestic arena, for surprising, gentle effects. Portions of the fence or the deck, with their regular slats of wood photographed at diagonals, produced backyard-cookout versions of early Stella paintings and Sol Lewitt installations. Near the end, we see a boy (Gehr's son Daniel, I believe) meandering through the yard, popping up in the corners of the compositions. I was struck by Gehr's filmic articulation of this space, a gaze that conveys distance as well as great love and care. That is to say, attending to the visual world with an eye for unexpected moments of formal rigor does not remove one from that world, as so many people often think about "abstract" art. It's a way of being even more closely and intensely where you are.

GREENE STREET

USA (5 mi) 2004

Greene Street Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

This five minute coda to the series is an odd one, since unlike the other three works Greene Street's content is almost completely subsumed within a formal procedure. Not only is the piece in color, but its use of color, time lapse and slowly racked focus are as aesthetically dominant in Greene Street as black-and-white and the fixed frame are in parts 1-3. It's as though Gehr opts to bring his series to a close by providing the total opposite of all the effects we'd hitherto experienced. Shot from a window overlooking the street, the film's shallow focus and bright red surface (a curtain? a painted screen? a trick of the light?) produce an all-over flatness reminiscent of a Paul Klee painting. Unevenly distributed red is interrupted by thin shadows and slowly materializing forms. The canvas-like weave of the window screen gives way to a deeper space. We see abstract forms "become" buildings and the sun quickly winds around them, elongating the shadows on both the street itself and the window frame. The effect is mesmerizing, and Greene Street feels less like a city-symphony fragment than a long lost prelude to Gehr's masterpiece untitled (1977). Whereas the 1977 film gives us a deep space traversed by diagonal motion, becoming more and more shallow, Greene Street is an opening-up of a flat painterly field, revealing the horizontal motion of natural light. As with the other works, the presentation on video adds a sensual barrier that bears consideration as a formal element, but more than the others, Greene Street feels like a true film trapped in video against its will. Gehr acknowledged during the Q&A that money is the primary reason for finishing these works in video, and this is a damn shame. (Is there a filmmaker working today more deserving of, say, a MacArthur "Genius" Grant than Ernie Gehr? Discuss.) But even on video, there's no denying that Greene Street is a work that finds Gehr at the height of his creative powers.

ESSEX STREET MARKET

USA (29 mi) 2004

Essex Street Market Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

These four new works by Gehr are interrelated components of a NYC "city symphony" film began in 1972. Although they're presented as separate works (Gehr world premiered them in November 2004 as part of the MoMA re-opening), they clearly bear the mark of having been extracted from a larger overall schema. This in no way diminishes their individual power (except possibly in one case), and in fact each piece is organized around a particular subject and the formal approach Gehr finds appropriate to it. Essex Street Market is perhaps the most absorbing of the four works, since its nearly 30-minute running time permits the viewer to familiarize him- or herself with the visual world of its subject. Each view is held for between 20 and 30 seconds, and Gehr's framings of vegetable stands, fishmongers, and other fluorescent-lit stalls of small-time commerce are unerringly graceful. The time Gehr takes allows us access to a surreptitious portraiture, lingering images of shopkeepers and their finicky customers. Originally shot on black-and-white film (like all but the last part of the series), Essex Street Market explores the thick, hazy film atmosphere of this environment. Scales and buckets possess a black metallic sheen under the harshness of artificial lighting, stark presences against the pitch black sky. The richness of this registration of light on celluloid is in turn complicated by its transfer to video. The swirling grain of the film image makes contact with the slightly larger grid of the video raster, the two playing against one another. If there is any nostalgia lurking in this film (and really, Gehr's clear-eyed matter-of-factness admits of very little nostalgia), the presentation on video absolutely kills it. It insists on the pastness of what we're viewing, not as tragedy or wistful loss but as a flat fact. This impact is echoed in a procedure Gehr employed when creating the original material. Since he was shooting with a small 16mm camera with a flat bottom, he tended to set it on a surface, let it roll, and then pick it up when he was done. This ends nearly every shot with an upward swish pan, a jarring coda to the sturdy fixed frame compositions comprising Essex Street Market. This diagonal exit, together with the extended time of each individual shot, gives the impression that the shots are not sequential but simultaneous, simply excerpts from a grid-like bank of co-temporalities. (In fact, this impression is heightened by the use of video, a medium typically more amenable to multiple installation views than cinema.) Essex Street Market seems less like a series of snapshots than a human-scale, documentary Cubism. But unlike the Vertovian approach that description implies, Gehr's film retains the unity of this space across time. It's the space itself, over time, that changes.

NOON TIME ACTIVITIES

USA (21 mi) 2004

Noon Time Activities Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Since Gehr began this project over thirty years ago, it's hard not to see it as more in line with his work of the Seventies than with his recent efforts. Part of what is fascinating about these video-films is the way images created in the past are processed in the present, by filmmaker and viewer alike. Noon Time Activities is a lovely miniature comprised of short passages at a lunch counter, as well as extended segments of pedestrians' shadows on NYC sidewalks. Given the arrival of Noon Time Activities in 2004-5, it's difficult not to compare to Jim Jennings' very similar 2000 film Miracle on 34th Street. Jennings' film has the benefit of being shown on film, but even more than this, Miracle exhibits an arrhythmic editing pattern and use of the negative space of the movie screen that Noon Time does not. This is the one work of the quartet that feels a little too underdeveloped to function as a stand-alone. Here, it serves as a logical transition between parts one and three, and I assume it would have operated similarly in the longer piece Gehr originally conceived.

WORKERS LEAVING THE FACTORY (AFTER LUMIÈRE)

USA (12 mi) 2004

Workers Leaving the Factory (After Lumière) Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Whereas Noon Time Activities compares somewhat unfavorably with a similar later film, Workers anticipates a later film and exceeds it. This film uses the same basic technique in 1970s NYC that Taiwanese filmmaker Hsiao Shuo-wen employed in this 2000 experimental short Intrude Sanctuary. A low-angle shot situated on a moving subway train explores the deep space down the "hallway" of the aisle and coupling gaps between cars. The stability bars and arrangement of lights create a steady frame of reference that comes slightly unmoored with every twist and turn of the track. And, since the camera axis avoids direct confrontation with the passengers, we spend time with them as they ride, wait, stare ahead and think. The camera position places us "on the train," but prohibits our blending in with the other riders. We're placed in an identifiable but uncertain space, just as the projection and viewing of the film itself does. We're with the passengers, but completely anterior to them. Hsiao's lovely film, shot in color and in the specific bustle of late 20th century Taipei, has a rigor of its own, but Gehr's version studiously avoids any anthropolgical undercurrent. This train is like a mobile version of the hallway in Serene Velocity: abstract, alien and, despite its being filled with human beings, eerily vacant.

BEFORE THE OLYMPICS

USA (15 mi) 2006

The New York Film Festival - Film Society of Lincoln Center

Some time prior to the invention of the cinematographe Nietzsche was said to have suffered a breakdown here and was found in the streets weeping while he embraced a horse. Today the street cars still run but horses and philosophers are scarce. Once it was the nation’s capital then no more… It was one of Europe’s silent film capitals with many studios, this too passed. This is a city of rising and falling empires. Industries, fashion and construction leave track marks and cause a daily commotion in the relative calm. A city known in part for its famous shroud a much contested pre-photographic negative transfer of one of history’s most worshipped figures was itself shrouded for months. Black veils hid buildings overtaxed with hasty restorations and racing in countdown with near time lapse renovations. Preparing to preen in its short- lived moment of televised overexposure. In Gehr’s piece more modest figures appear, walking to work emerging from the shadows of the portico and the arcades – 14th century through the1940’s dressed for the present day, digitally immortalized without even blinking. But they quiver. These pedestrians are unwitting acrobats of the highest order as the daily grind is telegraphed into a new construction. Who says you can’t be two places at once? Those in the picture on screen are, and you will be as well. —Mark McElhatten

Genée, Heidi

GRETE MINDE

Germany Austria (102 mi) 1977

Interview with Heidi Genée by Renate Fischetti - Jump Cut March 1985

Grete Minde - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Genz, Henrik Ruben

TERRIBLY HAPPY (Frygtelig lykkelig) A- 93

Denmark (90 mi) 2008 ‘Scope

Occasionally a film will impress audiences right off the bat, from the opening few seconds, and this is one of those films, from the gorgeous ‘Scope look of the endless expanse of Southern Jutland (the director’s birth place) in Denmark to the bizarre opening fable about a two headed cow that sinks in the bog only to rise again, mysteriously filling the world with misfortune. This is a highly original and entertaining work that seems to be set at the end of the world. Opening with an enticing musical refrain, a young police officer named Robert (Jakob Cedergren) is being transported from Copenhagen to this town in the middle of nowhere where he may as well be left for dead, as the implication is nothing much happens here. The first sign of life is a recurring image of a young girl dressed in a red coat and pigtails pushing a baby carriage with incredibly squeaky wheels that echo throughout the street. But she soon disappears from view. Robert makes the rounds the next day as the new town marshal, however he’s immediately compared unfavorably to the previous town marshal, where the undercurrent suggests people have their own way of doing things here and Robert is not one of them. He prefers doing things by the book, and in this town, they threw away the book centuries ago.

One of the real treats of this film is the uniquely drawn sense of place along with the highly developed sense of character, as both are a little peculiar and accentuate each another perfectly. As we meet the townsfolk, there is a grocer who locks shoplifters in a locked closet or the regulars at the local bar who insist on assigned seating. But the real person of interest walks into the police station with the sexual swagger that suggests movie femme fatale and reports she’s been the victim of a crime. Ingelise (Lene Maria Christensen) has an abusive husband but laughs at the thought of filling out a complaint against him, as she claims he abuses everyone, but she also has the scars to prove it before disappearing as quickly and as mysteriously as she arrived. Their daughter, however, is the little girl with the baby carriage. Hard drinking Jorgen (Kim Bodnia) shows himself soon enough to be a typical town bully, the kind of guy who will slap someone silly, even a child, in front of a police officer just to prove he can get away with it. The battle lines are drawn early, but this doesn’t go where anyone might expect it to, continuing to slowly establish an even darker, film noir mood that resembles the spacious eloquence and tone of the Coen brothers BLOOD SIMPLE (1984), combining oddball comedic quirks with psychological disturbance veering towards horror. The director has a firm grasp of genre films and seems to relish the idea of defying most of them, creating a tense, oddly gripping, unconventional film that was a delight from start to finish. Winner of Best Director at the 2008 Chicago Film Fest. Best new director to keep an eye on, Danish director Henrik Ruben Genz who has a history of working in television, who was rightfully awarded Best Director of this fest, but his oddball style, abstract realism mixed with dark humor, and breathtaking visuals are all reminiscent of early Coen brothers.

Alissa Simon Variety

A southern Jutland village hides as many secrets as the nearby bog in Danish helmer Henrik Ruben Genz's "Terribly Happy," a blackly comic thriller about the universal nature of compromise and corruption. Entertaining and full of surprising twists, this highly cinematic tale of a Copenhagen policeman working punishment duty in the provinces plays with genre in a manner that can be compared with the Coen brothers or David Lynch. Already sold to the Czech Republic in advance of its Karlovy Vary world preem, the flawlessly cast and mounted pic opens domestically in October, and could also gladden the skeds of boutique distribs and global broadcasters.

Tightly wound 30-ish cop Robert (Jakob Cedergren) is transferred to the small border town of Skarrild after a mental breakdown and an initially unspecified infraction. It's a place where the clannish locals scorn by-the-book law enforcement, relying instead on their own unique brand of frontier justice, and outsiders either adapt or disappear. By the yarn's end, the refrain "It's not how we do things here" has become both sinister and cynical.

When another outsider, the alluring Ingelise (Lene Maria Christensen), tries to enlist Robert's help in escaping from her abusive husband Jorgen (Kim Bodnia) in scenes that cunningly mirror film noir, the stage seems to be set for a formulaic love triangle. However, the smart, tightly constructed script by Genz and Dunja Gry Jensen cleverly defies expectations as it knowingly toys with genre conventions. Among its many inspired moments is a showdown between Robert and Jorgen, staged as a drinking contest rather than a shootout.

In what reps his best work by far, Genz ("Chinaman," "Someone Like Hodder"), who was raised in southern Jutland, sustains a unique tone that smoothly incorporates Western, noir, horror and psychological-thriller elements without feeling like pastiche. His inventive visual and aural motifs accrete meaning in ominous and comic ways.

From leading players to character bits, all perfs are perfectly in tune with pic's aesthetic, with Bodnia's bad guy as memorably menacing as Dennis Hopper in "Blue Velvet." Relative newcomer Cedergren proves his acting chops as the beleaguered Marshall, commandingly holding the screen even when literally and figuratively knee-deep in muck.

Entire tech package is impressive. Jorgen Johansson's coolly precise widescreen cinematography makes the landscape a character in the drama, while Kasper Leick's pacey editing ratchets up the tension. Kare Bjerko's atmospheric country-Western-tinged score goes the distance from foreboding to mocking. Production and sound design are tops.

Pic was adapted from a novel by best-selling Danish author Erling Jepsen, another south Jutlander, whose work also inspired Peter Schonau Fog's "The Art of Crying."

Camera (color, widescreen), Jorgen Johansson; editor, Kasper Leick; music, Kare Bjerko; production designer, Niels Sejer; sound (Dolby Digital), Roar Skau Olsen. Reviewed at Karlovy Vary Film Festival (competing), July 5, 2008. Running time: 100 MIN.

George, Terry

HOTEL RWANDA B- 82

USA (121 mi) 2004

Don Cheadle plays a 4-star hotel manager in Rwanda’s capital Kigali that becomes an oasis of tranquility, the only safe haven in the country for streaming refugees who are running from the propaganda-inflamed, machete-happy Hutus who take an interest in eradicating all the young Tutsis, literally wiping them off the face of the earth. While there is little an outsider could tell of their differences, nearly a million Tutsis were butchered over a 3 month period in 1994 while the United Nations observed and did nothing to stop any of it. Eventually all the whites were ushered safely out of the country, supposedly leaving the West completely absent from any responsibility or any of the consequences. In fact, the West had such a hard time dodging whether or not this met the conditions of genocide, as they chose not to intervene, that they became instead utterly evasive, intentionally refusing to provide any graphic detail of the onslaught of mutilations, conditions which were barely mentioned in newspapers or telecasts, something that would be unthinkable in a European nation.

While I give the film credit for taking on this material, based on the real life story of Paul Rusesabagina, who eventually fled with his family intact to Belgium, it does so with such an innocent eye, never really getting to the root of the turmoil that existed. Plagued by a Western paternalism towards Africa, I found this a fairly lame attempt to deal with very real issues, focusing on the few who successfully escaped rather than the multitudes who were left behind to be murdered, accepting world apathy as the cause instead of delving into political responsibility or holding anyone accountable, apparently content to push the obvious images of angry mobs and streets lined with bodies, and subsequent huddled masses streaming for safety. Even after seeing the film, I know no more about the situation or why it happened in the first place. They overlooked that little detail. Also, I felt the acting overall was flat, filled with too many caricatures, and not naturalistic at all.

Hotel Rwanda Olivier Barlet from Africultures

Paul Rusesabagina is Hutu and is in charge of one of Kigali's biggest hotels. Letting about a thousand Tutsis take refuge there during the 1994 Genocide, he succeeds in stopping the Hutu militia from coming to slaughter them. This is Terry George's fiction choice to make this tragedy of African history accessible to a wide audience who, in its majority, still believes it was an ethnic conflict and doesn't know its origin or the way things unfolded.

The intention is honest and the result is fair: the film moves us in its sincerity, its reserve as regards to the representation of horror, its sense of decency towards the pain and the dignity it tries to preserve in these people ridden by fear, its sensitivity in the manner of portraying this man, married to a Tutsi, and his relationship with his family and the people he is protecting. Don Cheadle's performance, both simple and intense, plays a major role in this. It allows one to believe in the interior turnaround of this elegant manipulator dressed in a suit, who thinks he can protect himself by showering his protectors with whisky bottles. He thinks he is keeping out of the fray, but the brutality of the genocide quickly catches up with him. He can still bribe his attackers for a while but he realizes that Western countries are letting him down, him, his family and his group of refugees as much as his country: The UN withdraws its troops and lets the massacres be perpetrated. It's not the least of the film's qualities to spell things out. Paul Rusesabagina's strength of survival ultimately gets the upper hand, allowing him to assert his autonomy: he will manage to face up to things and find the arguments that allow him to negotiate on an equal footing, like the time he threatens the general of the Hutu army, who threatens to withdraw his protection, with international retaliation.

But is the film's pedagogical ambition achieved for all that? Surely not in its sugary happy end where, on the newly found path to freedom, Paul and his family find their nieces that they had searched for for a long time, with the help of a Red Cross nurse, eternal character representing the good White person guiding the disconcerted Black person. This optimistic ending stems from a will to keep a distance, in order not to scare children and adults with one of those African tragedies that are already broadcast too much on TV. But it is also, like Spielberg's Schindler's List, where a German entrepreneur saves Jews from extermination, the deep contradiction of a film that uses an exceptional episode to define the genocide, an episode of rescue and not of death, even if they are linked.

After a first half devoted to Paul Rusesabagina's progressive awakening, the film focuses on a suspicious suspense where the refugees try to escape from assailants who are no more than the undifferentiated version of the bad ones, interhamwe militiamen, inevitably uncontrolled and repugnant. This vision of the genocide brings us back to the prevailing discourse of the ethnic war, stemming from an African atavism of bestial strength that modernity has not yet been able to control in these under-developed countries…It weakens the essential political analysis of a long-prepared genocide which followed a predetermined plan of systematic extermination of part of the Rwandan population. This point of view was nonetheless shown in the film through the character of Thomas, Paul's step-brother who comes to warn him about the imminence of the tragedy, but it is not developed more than that.

How to represent the scale of the genocide without showing it? Its immeasurable horror cannot be shown, at the risk of putting the spectator in the humiliating role of a voyeur. It can only be suggested. Where the first fiction about the genocide in 2003, British film-maker Nick Hugues's 100 Days, did not hesitate in acting out bloody massacres, Hotel Rwanda manages to avoid falling into that trap. In the midst of the events but without reliable information, Paul will only find out their extent after seeing the victims. Taking the road down the river in the fog, his minivan stumbles on lifeless bodies and as the fog clears, it reveals hundreds of them. It is the only moment in the film where we see the genocide and it is sufficient.

And yet, there is another scene on a TV screen: images shot by BBC journalists, 800 meters from the hotel, showing the plain horror of men killing their fellow beings with knives. These images did not allow European officials to realize quickly enough what was happening and neither did they tell us, spectators, what the genocide was. The testimonies do not correspond to these images that were shot from a distance and in secret. They go way beyond that.

What appears to be authentic is actually just a toned-down version of reality. So what is the point in trying to represent it when it cannot be conveyed through reconstruction? Each and every attempt that follows this idea aims at trivializing it and thus takes away from the genocide the enormity of its singularity. "Reconstruction, used to say Claude Lanzmann, maker of Shoah, is, in a sense, creating archives": By reconstructing, we restructure and we pass things on.

The positive character embodied by hero Paul Rusesabagina is a not quite representative of the genocide. For the victims' daily lives were not about survival, but death. The protection of all of the members of his family also does not reflect the true end of the massacre for the families. On the contrary, horror is still there, and could start again. With the result that, contrary to its good intentions, and although deeply moving, Hotel Rwanda does not call for vigilance, as it aimed to do.

Gerber, Tony and Jesse Moss

FULL BATTLE RATTLE C- 68

USA (85 mi) 2008 Official site YouTube trailer

Strange as it may seem, this is a documentary film about war games in the Mojave Desert designed to simulate actual Iraqi experiences, designed as a boot camp for soldiers about to be sent overseas. Unfortunately, much of this put me to sleep and despite some unforeseen tragic circumstances, I had a hard time actually taking any of this seriously, as soldiers and civilians alike, even a press corps, are given fictionalized parts to play in a simulated Iraqi city built in the middle of the Californian desert. Despite the meticulous detail to reality where assassins kill city officials, lead political uprisings, or target military subjects, everything happens according to a script, which after awhile becomes banal and all too predictable. Despite the military’s best efforts to make alliances within the Iraqi community, to put their best spin on deteriorating circumstances, it’s clear the military alone is not enough in securing the peace, as insurgents can come from anywhere at any time to destroy everything that has been promised in terms of establishing good will, all but deteriorating American credibility. The war games do not even include roadside explosives or suicide bombers. When there was an Iraqi wedding with celebratory participants firing off rounds into the air, I thoroughly expected the entire wedding party to be taken out by a missile strike, as so often happens, but this was a much more innocent affair accentuating the positives.

One interesting aspect of this camp is an attempt to come to terms with a political reality, building alliances with the Iraqi community, where there are obvious negative repercussions when they don’t foresee the cultural impact of militarily caused difficulties. While dissidents attempt to generate a hate America campaign, this is nothing like the real thing, and they succumb too easily through much too obvious bribes. Even with the supposed safety net inherent in this American run boot camp, it’s obvious that even in simulation the security measures are meager and surprisingly deficient, leaving the entire operations vulnerable to terrorist actions. This is the lesson that troops must learn prior to deployment overseas, and it can’t do much in terms of boosting morale. Nevertheless, troops remain gung-ho that might makes right and they are part of the greatest military organization assembled anywhere on the globe, yet they are surprisingly naïve about their circumstances. I’ll give the Army credit for at least attempting to acknowledge their political deficiencies, but it’s clear they are light years behind where they need to be.

The entire operations feel like foolishness, like over-dramatized war games, and they don’t begin to prepare troops for the real thing. Instead they remain in a state of certainty about their superiority, never for a minute taking the Iraqi people seriously. This inherent racism not only weakens but ultimately undermines the entire American operations which were built on “shock and awe,” expecting the Iraqi people to capitulate to a superior fighting force. Not only has that not happened, but there’s still, after all these years, been no development of a Plan B. Instead the Americans can’t tell the good guys from the bad, just like the North and South Vietnamese in the Vietnam fiasco. With a President that doesn’t know the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni, what hope is there for any military operations to succeed? As a result, this faux military operation seems designed to fail from the outset. Like the entire affair, it’s based on bad intelligence. America can rattle their sabers but they remain foolishly vulnerable to roadside attacks, kidnappings, and suicide bombers. In that regard, this film offers absolutely nothing new, just more of the same. I can’t think of anything more irrelevant, like sending lemmings over the cliff.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

War games take on a surreal aspect in this video documentary about a U.S. Army battalion training in Medina Wasl, one of 13 fake Iraqi villages built in the Mojave Desert to simulate conditions overseas. The soldiers and those hired to portray villagers are so immersed in their role-playing that they take method acting to a new level, from Sergeant Paul Greene, already a veteran of two military tours, who's cast as an insurgent, to Nagi Moshi, an Iraqi refugee nervously awaiting the outcome of his immigration case, who plays a deputy police chief. Directors Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss raise some intriguing questions, such as whether exercises like these can effectively prepare soldiers for the carnage of actual combat, even those weaned on video games and reality TV. 85 min.

Slant Magazine review Nick Schager

War games reach surreal heights in California's Mohave desert, where at the National Training Center soldiers partake in two-week Iraq war simulations set in rundown villages replete with crumbling infrastructure, ever-present media, pesky insurgents, and citizens both loyal and antagonistic to the American military. Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss's Full Battle Rattle follows one battalion at phony "Medina Wasl" as it undergoes this immersive scenario, a virtual reality exercise that aims to prepare men and women for what the conflict is like overseas. Other than delivering an initial dose of "Can you believe this exists?" strangeness, however, the film contributes little to the discussion about the war's preparation and execution. A soldier's dismissive first-day reference to "As-Salaam-Alaikum shit"—a comment frowned upon by his lieutenant colonel McLaughlin—gets at the ignorance and insensitivity that travels with many grunts, who in this game learn the troubles of interacting with everyday people who don't speak English and might be potential threats. McLaughlin is a levelheaded individual genuinely convinced that reason is vital to resolving problems, but once his unit kills an innocent civilian and community unrest begins to boil, he comes to learn the true complexity and volatility of the situation. Unfortunately, the difficulties of our Iraq campaign have long since been exhaustively detailed by prior Iraq-themed docs, and Full Battle Rattle often seems content to merely work its way toward the concluding notion that, if our armed forces can't cut it in fake Iraq, they'll never be able to handle the real deal. This may be depressingly true, but it's hard to see what concrete effect the simulation's contrived plots and characters (all crafted with attention to Hollywood-ish staging, storytelling and acting) have on actual battlefield performance. Moreover, it's tough to figure out what profound influence it even has on individuals, as Gerber and Moss's mini-portraits—be they of McLaughlin or the various Iraqi émigrés who "play" Medina Wasl citizens—are so hasty that any insight into role-playing as combat training exercise or attempt at educational cross-cultural dialogue goes by the wayside.

The Onion A.V. Club review Noel Murray

Before deploying in Iraq, some U.S. soldiers stop off in the Mojave Desert for a three-week simulation of the conditions they'll face overseas, set in a makeshift complex of villages populated by Iraqi-Americans. The civilians have been given a complex set of instructions for the game. Some are meant to be sympathetic to the American cause, while others are fed up with the occupation. Some have recently lost family; others have joined the police force. The complex has restaurateurs and governmental officials, and even an American cable-news reporter who files stories that run on the TVs back at the base. It's like Laser Tag crossed with "How To Host A Murder," on a monumental scale. And just as with "How To Host A Murder," a lot of the elaborate role-playing devolves into people trying to complete the objectives on their cards as fast as they can, without paying enough attention to the other people in the room. (Any similarities between this and actual wartime conditions is… coincidental?)

Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss' documentary Full Battle Rattle follows one whole training session from start to finish, capturing the Army's earnest efforts to make sure our troops understand the consequences of being culturally insensitive or lax on details. If a soldier accidentally kills a civilian, insurgent activity increases, and soon the trainees are holding simulated funerals for their fallen comrades. Full Battle Rattle works just fine as a two-fisted combat story, with unexpected bursts of violence peppering that old universal message that war is hell. But the added layer of pretense pushes the movie to another level. From the Iraqi villagers getting praised for their realistic kidnapping-and-beheading videos to the soldiers carrying "casualty cards" that tell them what wound to fake for the medics, Gerber and Moss lead the audience through the looking glass. And when the man who plays the deputy mayor complains that he never gets promoted to mayor, or when one of the "insurgents" (played by an American soldier back from two tours of duty in Baghdad) admits that he has a hard time sharing downtime with the Iraqis, it's clear that the emotions this exercise stirs up are far from pretend.

Village Voice (J. Hoberman) review

Watching the coolly ironic documentary Full Battle Rattle, one’s heart goes out to Lieutenant Colonel Robert McLaughlin as he sits in a daze in front of his desert headquarters, having seen most of his battalion slaughtered the night before by Iraqi insurgents. “Am I a failure?” he asks, then answers, “Actions speak louder than words.” The poor man: He did his diligent best to bring order to the tiny village of Medina Wasl. His men murdered only a few innocent civilians, and he more or less averted civil war between Sunnis and Shiites after the assassination of the deputy mayor’s son (on video, to shouts of “Allahu Akbar!”). The worst part is that there he was on camera when the massacre of his men went down, celebrating the return of authority to the Iraqi mayor. (“Jobs are coming back to the community!”) Now he has to eulogize the dead. Then he has to pack up and head to Iraq and do it for real—and hope to God that life doesn’t replicate art.

Full Battle Rattle is an indelible vision of modern war, a not-so-fun fun-house mirror of the Iraq occupation set in California’s Mojave Desert. The place, 1,200 miles square, is called the National Training Center—a billion-dollar “virtual Iraq” at Fort Irwin with an acting troupe of hundreds (many of them Iraqi immigrants), in which military personnel get a mini-jolt of what they’re in for. The film is freaky, amusing, and sickening in equal measures—part fly-on-the-wall vérité, part multiple-perspective Altmanesque tragicomedy. Soldiers writhe on the ground choking in their blood, and then Americans and Iraqis pick themselves up and stand in line at ice-cream trucks; it’s like Disney World with the fireworks aimed lower.

Directors Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss don’t lead with their politics, whatever they might be. And on one level, the mere existence of the center is reassuring: Conventional antiwar wisdom holds that the Cheney-Rumsfeld armchair warmongers had little regard for the welfare of young, inexperienced soldiers with no knowledge of Iraqi culture. That might have been true at the outset of the occupation, but now our tax dollars are at work creating a kind of alternate reality show in which “simulation architects” concoct intricate scenarios (miscommunications, suicide bombings) and devise meaty roles for Iraqis who worry they’re somehow betraying the folks back home. But they need the money—often to send to the folks back home.

The less reassuring part is that the situation—even fictionalized, softened, without the crucial components of lawless private contractors and reconstruction stalled by incompetence and fraud—is borderline hopeless. Full Battle Rattle begins as a showbiz comedy, with an almost stoned view of the occupation, but gradually the bottom crumbles and drops out. The plastic dummies of dead soldiers have wounds modeled on actual casualties—they’re horrifying. The reenactments, meanwhile, take on a mystical quality: The masks become real. The Iraqi actors—who know that the political (and physical) infrastructure of their country has collapsed, who still have families in peril—look askance (no matter what their script says) when McLaughlin tells them that the U.S. will guarantee their security. A soldier admits there are moments when he despises the Iraqis, even though he knows they’re actors. An illegal Iraqi immigrant, Nagi, who plays a policeman, works like mad to ingratiate himself with the officers: Maybe if he helps the Americans he will not be sent back, where he will probably be killed for collaborating. It’s a little like what happens to real Iraqi policemen—except most of them die.

The only subjects in Full Battle Rattle having a whale of a time are the Americans who play Iraqi insurgents. Gerber and Moss track their planning sessions; the men all but rub their hands with glee at the prospect of causing chaos instead of trying to prevent it. They get to pick off the enemy the way soldiers do in movies, the way Americans can’t in a war they should never have been fighting—here a catastrophic farce, a let’s-pretend that ends with a mass deployment to hell.

filmcritic.com (Chris Barsanti) review [2/5]

TNMC John Shea

The House Next Door [Vadim Rizov]

Paste Magazine [Sean Gandert]

Boxoffice Magazine review John P. McCarthy

Monsters and Critics Ron Wilkinson

Cinematical [Christopher Campbell]

SpoutBlog [Kevin Buist]

Screen International review Jonathan Romney in Berlin

Exclaim! [Katarina Gligorijevic]

Full Battle Rattle Facets Multi-Media

NewCity Chicago Ray Pride

Director interviews Interview by Filmmaker magazine, July 9, 2008

Time Out Chicago (Ben Kenigsberg) review [3/6]

Time Out New York (David Fear) review [3/6]

Chicago Tribune Maureen Hart

Variety review Eddie Cockrell

Aleksei Yuryevich German - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

German, Aleksei

History Through the Wrong End of the Telescope: The Films of ... Harvard Film Archive

While Aleksei Guerman (b. 1938) may be little known in the US, in his native Russia he is widely considered Tarkovsky’s main rival for the title of greatest Russian filmmaker since the heyday of Soviet silent cinema. The fact that he has completed only five films in 40 years has both hindered his international reputation and added to his legend. According to Guerman, he originally wanted to be a doctor but was convinced by his father, distinguished author Yuri Guerman, to pursue an education in directing for the stage, which led to an apprenticeship with famed filmmaker Grigory Kozintsev. His first screen credit came as co-director with the more experienced Grigori Aronov on The Seventh Companion (1967), about the civil war that followed the Bolshevik revolution. Guerman already had strong, and unconventional, ideas about filmmaking that he was mostly forced to stifle for this assignment; he remains reluctant to claim any responsibility for the film.

He was given the chance to direct his own project a few years later: Trial on the Road set during World War II. With its decidedly unheroic look at combat, it ran afoul of the censors and was not released until 1986. In the meantime, Guerman eventually managed to make another World War II film, Twenty Days Without War, followed by the work that won him international renown, My Friend Ivan Lapshin. The emergence of this film, combined with the release of Trial on the Road, made it possible for him to secure foreign funding for what remains his latest feature, Khrustalyov, My Car!. For the past several years, he has been working on the sci-fi epic Hard to Be a God.

Guerman’s popularity and importance in Russia stem in part from his decision to focus on times of historical import for the Soviet Union, from the Revolution to the death of Stalin. The preparation for each film has involved extensive research, including the examination of archival photos and interviews with survivors of the period in question. But history is glimpsed only obliquely in Guerman’s work. The early films feature not heroes but simply people doing what they can to survive, only occasionally having the opportunity to wonder how their actions will be judged. As Guerman’s idiosyncratic style has emerged over the course of his career, narrative itself becomes more diffuse, with major events taking place just offscreen or between scenes.

Finally, with Khrustalyov, My Car!, significant incidents are not so much absent as engulfed by a mise-en-scene teeming with details and characters ranging from the banal to the grotesque, like a Brueghel painting. If Guerman’s strategy is to approach history not from the top down but the bottom up, his particular genius is to present it as though glimpsed through the wrong end of a telescope, where the crucial happenings and important figures are lost among the myriad occurrences of everyday life.

The Strange Case of Russian Maverick Aleksei German | Film ... Anton Dolin from Film Comment, March 14 – 20, 2012, also seen here: Film Comment article

Aleksei German is 73 years old. He dreamed of becoming a doctor, but ended up a lifelong filmmaker—but one who’s made only six films. The first of these, The Seventh Companion (68), was co-directed with the loyal Soviet director Grigori Aronov, and therefore German (pronounced with a hard “G”) doesn’t consider it truly his. He conceived his latest film, The Chronicle of the Arkanar Massacre, over 40 years ago, began shooting at the end of the last century, but as of writing, still hasn’t completed it. This leaves us with four titles, of which only one, Twenty Days Without War (77), was released in the Soviet Union. Two of the remaining three films, Trial on the Road (71) and My Friend Ivan Lapshin (86)—both based on stories by the director’s father, Yuri German—were shelved, i.e., censored, and released only years later. The third, Khrustalyov, My Car! (98) was made after the Soviet Union’s collapse but before Russian film distribution and exhibition was fully revived. Yet another overlooked masterpiece, it was barely shown in Russian theaters and its Cannes premiere was panned (although many reviewers publicly apologized subsequently, explaining that they hadn’t understood the film on the first viewing).

Despite this, to many Russian critics, cinephiles, and viewers German is their national cinema’s foremost figure after Tarkovsky. Others insist that, in fact, he is more important and more original. Still others have never heard of him or confuse him with his namesake and son Alexei German Jr. (who’s been considerably luckier: at age 35 he’s already made three films and received three awards in Venice). But if German Sr. is a living legend who is both beloved and appreciated, he says bluntly: “I regard myself as an unrealized, and, on the whole, failed, unhappy man.” And you believe him. Not just because it was so hard and took so long for every one of his films to be released, but also because the artistic problems he has sought to solve are insurmountable. And yet he keeps trying. There’s a saying: “To solve a difficult problem, you need a Chinese. To solve an impossible one, a Russian.” They must have been thinking of German.

Besides, how many other geniuses have managed to displease the Soviet censors, the post-Soviet commercial system, and the connoisseurs of Cannes? Perhaps under more favorable conditions German simply wouldn’t have been able to exist. Does the essence of his talent lie in his embodiment of the contrarian spirit? As a matter of fact, he was never a dissident and his films have never glorified those who resisted the Soviet regime. He has always known better than anyone that such a struggle is doomed from the start.

The hero of German’s debut film is a collaborator. Just as mankind began with Adam, so German’s cinema began with Adamov. In 1968 the powers that be greenlit this young director, son of a distinguished author, to adapt a thorny tale for the screen. Boris Lavrenev’s 1927 novella The Seventh Satellite recounts the story of a professor of law at the Imperial Russian Army’s military academy who switches over to the Bolsheviks during the Civil War (members of the Russian Empire’s military forces who changed sides, willingly or not, to serve the Red Army were known as voenspets, or “war specialists”). As a precaution, German was paired with Aronov, an experienced director who knew the unspoken rules of Soviet filmmaking by heart. They argued about everything, with German conceding more often than not: specifically, he agreed to cast the handsome Andrei Popov instead of comic actor Igor Ilyinsky in the role of Professor Adamov. Upon seeing the result, he regretted that decision. It was probably then that German learned obstinacy, a trait for which he would become famous in later years.

The Seventh Companion barely stands out from any number of other Soviet Thaw–era films on the Russian Revolution, but it contains many of the main characteristics of German’s future work: uprooted protagonists who, rejected by both sides, act according to conscience but increasingly doubt its rationality (the only way to verify it is to die), as in the case of Adamov, a nearsighted intelligent with a goatee who clutches a ridiculous mantelpiece clock, all that remains from his former life and expropriated apartment; moments of historical transition (the collapse of Imperial Russia, the consolidation of Stalin’s power in the Thirties, the end of the Stalin era) that create a “chronotope” of boundaries and no-man’s-lands in the fusion of time and space, and shift the criteria for defining good and evil; the black-and-white photographic haze of the past (according to German, memory is never in color, although in My Friend Ivan Lapshin begins with and occasionally returns to a color akin to that in old faded photographs, as though by mistake); and finally, the switching of primary and secondary characters, foreground and background, main action and subplot—in German’s films, these hierarchies are abolished once and for all and the revolutionary maxim “He who was nothing will become everything” takes on new meaning. Trivial details are at the very core of German’s films, where nameless extras are sometimes more important than the films’ ostensible stars.

The first thing German became notorious for, and which rankles people even today, is this scrapping of the character hierarchy deemed necessary to Soviet cinema and anti-Soviet cinema alike. You can’t call his protagonists antiheroes; rather, they’re non-heroes. In his father’s story “Operation Happy New Year!,” the basis for Trial on the Road, defector Lazarev, having collaborated with the Nazis, joins the Soviet partisans to face certain death. While the story’s protagonist is a handsome jester, German makes his Lazarev (played by Vladimir Zamanskiy) a weak and deeply unhappy figure with piercing eyes, worn out and dead on his feet, who sinks to the depths of depravity before turning around to swim against the current. Similarly, the partisan unit’s commander Lokotkov (Rolan Bykov, in his best performance) is a Tom Thumb of a man whose authority rests on selflessness and modesty rather than feats of derring-do.

The only character who remotely resembles a hero in the Soviet sense of the word is Petushkov (Tarkovsky favorite Anatoly Solonitsin)—but German gives him a Chekist cap to wear, unmistakably identifying him with the secret police. The point seems to be: genuine action is incompatible with heroic demeanor. At the moment of Lazarev’s death, the scorching-hot machine gun falls from his hands and lies hissing in the snow (German claims that after Perestroika he was repeatedly invited to work in Hollywood on the strength of this one sequence). This visual representation of death is also a tragic symbol of a man’s disappearance—melting away, leaving no trace. In the film’s final scene, as the Soviet Army enters Berlin, the humble and selfless Lokotkov is trying to fix his truck, to no avail. His humility makes him unique in the ranks of heroes who filled the Soviet war films of the Sixties and Seventies.

Perhaps this, and not the film’s sympathy for its defectors, is what outraged the Soviet authorities so much that Trial on the Road was denied release and nearly destroyed (it was finally screened in the Gorbachev era). It was ordained that for his next film German would work with the celebrated writer Konstantin Simonov, a close friend of his father and highly regarded by the Soviet establishment, who had approached him and proposed they collaborate. In tandem with his wife, screenwriter Svetlana Karmalita (his creative collaborator ever since), German adapted one of Simonov’s less popular stories, the autobiographical Twenty Days Without War, about a war correspondent named Lo-patin who travels from the battlefront to Tashkent, far from the conflict, encounters a woman, and, after a single night spent with her, is forced to return. Heroism wasn’t the only thing completely absent in this film—so was the war itself, barring a couple of dream flashbacks. In a typically unusual casting decision, Lopatin was played by Yuri Nikulin, a universally adored comedian and director of the Moscow Circus. His exhausted, depleted, tongue-tied characterization couldn’t have less resembled the dashing Simonov.

German used the same technique of casting against type in My Friend Ivan Lapshin (86) by choosing Andrei Mironov, the embodiment of variety-show charm and star of television musicals and Moscow Theater of Satire productions to play grieving journalist Khanin opposite an unknown, Andrei Boltnev, who plays Lapshin. Boltnev shines in the role—another of the many provincial actors German typically employs who successfully overshadow the films’ nominal stars.

The opening episodes of Twenty Days Without War embody this “supporting cast” manifesto. On his way from the front, Lopatin shares a train compartment with a random fellow traveler, a nameless air force captain (Aleksei Petrenko). The pilot’s 10-minute monologue, shot with sync sound and containing only one cut (due to the fact that Petrenko accidentally swore), instantly shifts the film’s emphasis away from its “protagonist,” a passive listener who all but disappears from the film for a while. Not without reason, Petrenko, who played Rasputin in Elem Klimov’s Agoniya (released in the U.S. as Rasputin), considers this role the best of his career.

Similarly, German favors Liya Akhedzhakova (whose character is identified as “woman with a watch”) and Nikolai Grinko in Twenty Days, Aleksandr Filippenko and Yuri Kuznetsov in My Friend Ivan Lapshin, dozens more in Khrustalyov, My Car! and the unfinished The Chronicle of the Arkanar Massacre—professional actors all. Moreover, the director would determine whether this or that “People’s Artist” suited him by screen-testing them with Trial on the Road’s nonprofessional Gennady Dyudyaev or Yuri Pomogaev, a real-life thief who, fresh from prison, was cast as the man who stabs Khanin in My Friend Ivan Lapshin.

The baffling egalitarianism of German’s mixing together familiar and unknown or nonprofessional actors and main and secondary characters represents, in fact, an artistic analogue for a touchstone phenomenon of Soviet domestic culture that today is almost entirely a thing of the past: the kommunalka or communal apartment. Conceived as a solution to the urban housing shortage, this post–Civil War utopian construct devolved into an anti-utopia rife with resentment, rivalry, and eavesdropping. In the kommunalka, the very idea of private space was abolished by law, and as a result notions of personhood and individuality were effectively erased in the name of faceless community. No other Russian filmmaker has ever explored or rhapsodized about communal space and consciousness the way German has. (In the contemporary art world, Ilya Kabakov, who, like German, was born in the Thirties, has likewise closely examined the kommunalka phenomenon.)

German’s non-hero principle reaches its apogee with the protagonist of Khrustalyov, My Car!. Klensky, a handsome general of aristocratic stock who heads a military hospital and is modeled on the filmmaker’s father, is toppled from his position of power and reduced to a miserable wretch in no time, eventually to be raped in the back of a freight wagon by convicts—only to rise again when taken to the deity Stalin’s dacha deathbed. Former blacksmith and regional stage actor Yuri Tsurilo delivers an effective performance as Klensky, while the Khrustalyov of the film’s title never even appears on screen—he’s History’s extra. (The words “Khrustalyov, my car!” were uttered by Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s former chief of secret police and deputy premier, to a member of the security service upon the Dear Father’s demise.) Finally, in the forthcoming Chronicle of the Arkanar Massacre, Leonid Yarmolnik (another TV performer and celebrity whom few consider to be a serious actor) plays an alien visitor from distant Earth who, without much success, attempts to blend in with the locals on a medieval-era planet whose nameless inhabitants look as though they’ve stepped straight out of paintings by Bruegel and Bosch.

The next radical amputation carried out by would-be doctor German is the elimination of the plot. As early as Trial on the Road, he had broken up the narrative into brief episodes and seemingly unnecessary details. It’s in the very nature of war that life (and, therefore, the story line) can come to an abrupt end at any moment, ingloriously and unnoticed. In Twenty Days Without War, intrigue completely disappears: the action in this strange war film is grounded in the significant absence of war. Yet it’s not only war that stays out of sight, but also its alternative—love. German struggled long and hard over how to shoot a love scene between two incompatible actors and characters: the awkward Nikulin and singer/ actress Lyudmila Gurchenko, whose image was also radically rethought for the film. In the end, he made the single night that the couple spend together into an ellipsis, and shot their morning parting in such a way that the viewer can’t hear their conversation.

In My Friend Ivan Lapshin, Khanin, a journalist devastated by his wife’s sudden death, visits his old friend Lapshin in a small provincial town where he becomes romantically involved with Natasha (Nina Ruslanova), a second-rate actress from the local theater. Lapshin is the town’s chief of police, a stock type in Soviet cinema that German completely subverts, depicting him as lost, sick, and hopelessly in love with Khanin’s prima donna. The film is something akin to a tragicomedy of the absurd, in which each character winds up captive to an uncustomary role that ill suits them. Natasha, who becomes Khanin’s “field wife” (i.e., mistress), remains an elusive object of desire for Lapshin, a knight of rueful countenance who strikes fear into the hearts of all lawbreakers but is incapable of paying a woman an appropriate compliment. Hero-lover Khanin, oblivious to the passions simmering around him, tries to help in the apprehension of a criminal—and almost dies from a stab wound. The humor of the film’s situations is offset by the melancholic nostalgia for a time of extraordinary innocence, as pure as Lapshin’s favorite mineral water Borjomi. The action unfolds in Unchansk, a fictitious provincial town, on the eve of the Great Purge that will sweep across the country in 1937. German’s simple explanation for why he chose the unknown Boltnev to play Lapshin: “He had to have the face of a man from the Red List, a man who would soon be killed.” (Like Lapshin—created by German’s father before the war—Boltnev died prematurely at the age of 49, never having played another role of comparable dimension.) The central event of the tragedy, the Purge, was left off screen.

German’s philosophical and aesthetic sensibility are seen most clearly in Khrustalyov, My Car! The plot almost completely evaporates, yielding to a sequence of seemingly disjointed episodes. Instead of a story, History itself rises before the viewer’s eyes like an unstoppable, terrifying force to which all who lived in the 20th century, especially those who happened to be born in Russia, became hostage. German drew his inspiration from a childhood anecdote: his father once kicked a foreigner down the stairs for bringing him a letter from a relative living abroad, suspecting the visitor to be an agent provocateur. German’s first post-Soviet, uncensored, truly free, and irrevocably avant-garde film, Khrustalyov, My Car! is nothing less than phantasmagoric—the dreamlike construction of a paranoid mind in which a general is laid low by the will of the Soviet authorities, condemned to an inglorious death, miraculously resurrected, but finally opts to abandon his family and home, unable to return to his former life.

This dreadfully absurd story befalls a man caught in the teeth of an Event with a capital E, one so massive that it’s impossible at first to take in: the death of Stalin. Like the ravens that look down at the humiliated general from overhead, the black, inscrutable Voronok cars (slang for official state and secret police vehicles—the kind summoned in the film’s title) plowing through the snow-covered Moscow streets are harbingers of misfortune that signal the end of an era. German intertwines crudity and grandeur in the virtuosic scene of the tyrant’s death, as Stalin proves incapable of movement or speech before finally departing the world he has transformed. His final words—“Help me!”—addressed to a powerless physician, are inaudible to the viewer, just as Khrustalyov remains unseen. In the same vein, a good half of the film’s dialogue is lost in a whirlwind of inexplicable, incomprehensible events—causing Russian audiences at the time to complain about defective sound.

German is the sole practitioner of a genre of his own invention: “film recollection.” Here, the vagueness of boundaries between dream and reality, between the meaningful and the meaningless, between the symbolic and the accidental becomes the basis for a dialogue between the viewer, whose knowledge of what’s happening on the screen is always limited, and the filmmaker, whose knowledge is always extensive. And so for example, in Khrustalyov, My Car!, the only hint at the foreign origin of the journalist carrying a letter for the general is an umbrella, out of place in the Russian winter and opening up by itself on the pavement, as if by magic. As far as German is concerned, everyone should know that in the Fifties an umbrella with such a mechanism could only belong to a visitor from another country. Knowledge of the past cannot and should not be exhaustive. This applies to German himself, who never recounts real memories, but fabricates them—he himself admits that he’s trying to peep through a keyhole at bygone eras that he never actually knew. Such a vantage point inevitably affords only a restricted field of vision.

The maddeningly inexhaustible possible meanings in German’s films are both the strength and the weakness of his unique aesthetic. All of his films begin with a narrator (who briefly appears as a silent boy in Khrustalyov, My Car! and My Friend Ivan Lapshin, seemingly standing for German) but this voiceover quickly falls away, turning the film over to the viewer, who from then on has to rely less on their knowledge of the film’s setting and period, and more on intuition. That’s because the dreams German depicts are those of a universal collective and not an individual’s.

That’s also why there was great surprise and curiosity when German announced that he was undertaking an adaptation of Hard to be a God, a 1964 novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, exemplary Soviet science-fiction writers much favored by the intelligentsia whose books had already received the big-screen treatment from Tarkovsky (Stalker) and Sokurov (Days of the Eclipse). Retitled The Chronicle of the Arkanar Massacre, the film is set in the future on a planet bogged down in the darkness of the Middle Ages. Now, just what memory, even a collective one, can German possibly be thinking of here? In fact this film, destined to be his final, concludes the director’s long-standing inquiry, linking the grotesqueness of contemporary reality (which in the 20th century echoed with the return of some of the Dark Ages’ worst nightmares—the destruction of culture, the legal enshrinement of xenophobia, civil war) with an authentically photographed fictional universe, re-created in this case according to the paintings of the Northern Renaissance instead of newsreels and photos.

Sent on a secret mission to investigate a strange, unknown planet named Arkanar, and assuming the identity of nobleman Don Rumata, the film’s protagonist (Leonid Yarmolnik) is an invisible agent of human civilization who witnesses the triumph of barbarism as writers and intellectuals are drowned in toilets (hard not to see an echo of this in Putin’s remark about Chechen terrorists, whom he promised to “kill in their outhouses”). Presented as a parody of a hero (dressed in shining armor and a snow-white shirt in a world of mud and darkness), Rumata becomes disembodied: for much of the time The Chronicle of the Arkanar Massacre adopts the form of filmed reportage, shot with a hidden camera installed in Rumata’s headgear. During production, German repeatedly fought with Yarmolnik and even considered doing without the actor altogether and making do with shots of armor and a foot in a stirrup, and an off-screen voice. So what kind of narrative and what kind of heroism is possibly here? It’s sheer existence in the depths of History that finally presents itself in its true form, as a gigantic quagmire that swallows up anyone who tries to drain it or interpret it to somebody’s advantage.

That said, unusually for German, The Chronicle of the Arkanar Massacre is a film about an event that isn’t relegated to the background. You could even say it deals with an act of heroism, although German, true to his principles, keeps it off screen, showing only the lead up to it and the aftermath. Enraged by the futility of the events going on around him and the deaths of his friends and beloved, Rumata, whose powers seem godlike to the planet’s inhabitants, abandons the role of neutral observer and takes up arms, brandishing a sword of vengeance. The carnage he unleashes on Arkanar is comparable to the Holocaust and Hiroshima: a reign of pure terror that cannot be adequately expressed in either words or images. But what will change after this Sodom and Gomorrah? Only one thing: God will cease to be God and, having acknowledged the vile human nature within himself and accepted it as punishment, will be exiled from his comfortable paradise. In the Strugatsky Brothers’ book, after the carnage Rumata flies back to Earth; in German’s film, he decides to remain in exile on the abominable Arkanar forever.

The Chronicle of the Arkanar Massacre reveals German’s secret vocation: deep down, this hyperrealist with his strong attachment to documentary authenticity is a teller of fairy tales. He has spoken with pride about how at his entrance examination for the Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinema, he declared that the only truthful Soviet film was Nadezhda Kosheverova’s 1947 Cinderella, a brilliant interpretation from a screenplay by Evgeny Shvarts. In later years, German was drawn to Shvarts, a virtuoso of Aesopian Language—i.e., allegorical writing employed to circumvent censorship—who wrote sharp satirical plays about Soviet reality even under Stalin. When My Friend Ivan Lapshin was banned, German dreamed of staging Shvarts’s 1944 masterpiece The Dragon, a parable in which Lancelot rids a town of a dragon only to find that the townspeople don’t want him to deliver them from the monster, and so he finally readies himself to “kill the dragon in each one of them,” refusing to accept his inevitable defeat. The hero of The Chronicle of the Arkanar Massacre is that same Lancelot—and a distant relative, as is German himself, to Don Quixote. With morbid perfectionism, seeing clearly that which remains invisible to most of his peers, German refuses to surrender, and for years now has continued to refine his final and most important film, as if hoping that this time around he will be correctly understood. And what if he’s right?

The New York Times Walter Goodman, March 24 1987

Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time Anna Lawton, 1992 (pdf format)

Exorcism: Aleksei German Among the Long Shadows - Film Comment J. Hoberman from Film Comment, January/February 1999

New Left Review - Tony Wood: Time Unfrozen: The Films of Aleksei ... Tony Wood from The New Left Review, January-February, 2001

Russian Master Aleksei Guerman's Rarely-Seen Films ... Graham Fuller from Blouin Art Info, February 15, 2012

Tony Pipolo on Aleksei Guerman - artforum.com / film Sins of the Fathers, Artforum, March 13, 2012, also seen here: Tony Pipolo

War and Remembrance: The Films of Aleksei Guerman ... Film Comment, March 14 – 20, 2012

Aleksei German: The World's Greatest Assistant Director on - Mubi Maxim Pozdorovkin from Mubi, March 14, 2012

Some Came Running: Guerman studies Glenn Kenny, March 14, 2012

Aleksei German. Supplementary Roundup on Notebook | MUBI David Hudson, March 15, 2012

Hard to Be a God by Michael Atkinson - Moving Image Source May 29, 2012

Sophia Kishkovsy New York Times obituary, February 21, 2013

DAILY | Aleksei German, 1938 – 2013 | Keyframe - Explore ... David Hudson from Fandor, February 21, 2013

Graham Fuller Blouin Art Info, February 21, 2013

Soviet Cinema Great Aleksei Guerman Dies at 74 | Film Society of ... Nicholas Kemp from Film Comment, February 21, 2013, also seen here: Nicholas Kemp

LabuzaMovies.Com: Aleksei German (1938-2012) Peter Labuza obituary, February 21, 2013, also seen here: Aleksei German (1938-2012)

DAILY | Aleksei German, 1938 - 2013 - Fandor David Hudson, February 21, 2013

Aleksei German, Russian Film Director, Dies at 74 - The New York Times February 23, 2013

Aleksei Guerman (1938–2013) - artforum.com / news February 25, 2013

Aleksei German obituary | Film | The Guardian Ronald Bergan, February 26, 2013

The Alexei German I knew | openDemocracy Ian Christie, February 26, 2013, also seen here: The Alexei German I knew « The Global Dispatches

Hard to be a god: will Alexei German's long-awaited final ... Andrei Kartashov from The Calvert Journal, November 13, 2013

MUBI [Daniel Kasman] January 29, 2014

Aleksei German Works at Anthology Film Archives - The New York Times January 23, 2015

Tony Pipolo on First Look at the Museum of the Moving Image ... Artforum, July 7, 2015

The Limits of Expression James von Geldern interview, 1968

Kinoeye | Russia: Aleksei German (Alexei Gherman) interviewed Ronald Holloway feature and 1988 interview from Kinoeye, September 13, 2004

THE SEVENTH COMPANION (Sedmoy Sputnik)

Russia (89 mi) 1968 ‘Scope co-director: Grigori Aronov

User Reviews from imdb Author: Andrei Pavlov from Archangel, Russia
3 March 2006

This is a sad and very humane story about a very strong man. Black and white scenery makes things more and more depressing throughout the movie. Both sides - "beliye" and "krasniye" - are shown without stupid praise (cf. "Bronenosets Potyomkin"). There are no winners in a civil war - this film hits this mark perfectly. One important thing about the movie: the main character seems to be a real Christian (he tries hard to help others, he neglects violent offence, he seeks and defends the truth and justice even in the face of death, and he never grieves). He never preaches but he leads his life in such way that you say to yourself: "Would never have guts to do it!" or "Would never have patience to endure it!" And what is more, it is really a beautiful movie to see.

Would never put "Bronenosets Potyomkin" on the top list. As to this movie - it belongs to this list, even if it is not there yet. It is so much more than entertainment.

The Strange Case of Russian Maverick Aleksei German | Film ... Anton Dolin from Film Comment, March 14 – 20, 2012, also seen here: Film Comment article (excerpt)

New Left Review - Tony Wood: Time Unfrozen: The Films of Aleksei ... Tony Wood from The New Left Review, January-February, 2001

Tony Pipolo on Aleksei Guerman - artforum.com / film Sins of the Fathers, Artforum, March 13, 2012, also seen here: Tony Pipolo

Aleksei German: The World's Greatest Assistant Director on - Mubi Maxim Pozdorovkin from Mubi, March 14, 2012

MUBI [Daniel Kasman] January 29, 2014

The Limits of Expression James von Geldern interview, 1968

Kinoeye | Russia: Aleksei German (Alexei Gherman) interviewed Ronald Holloway feature and 1988 interview from Kinoeye, September 13, 2004

TRIAL ON THE ROAD (Proverka na dorogakh) A 96

Russia (96 mi) 1971 ‘Scope

Some of the most grim and unforgettable war images come from Soviet era war films, as none were bleaker and more miserable, matching their wretched history, as Russia lost 15 – 20% of their entire population, and anywhere from 22 to 26 million deaths overall, not to mention captured soldiers, the injured, or the missing, to keep the Germans from overrunning Moscow and Stalingrad in World War II, coming within 20 miles of Moscow, which is something unfathomable to Western sensibilities and perceptions, but the extreme degree of misery and loss is the essential ingredient in understanding Soviet war films. In contrast, America lost less than half a million war dead in WWII, and 58,000 in Vietnam. It’s probably fair to say the fatalistic bleakness of Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr comes from the Soviet sensibility, where humans under extreme duress were challenged to such an unheard of degree that hopeless futility was common, where the spirit was literally sucked right out of a people, when all odds were continually against them. This was an era when people were expected to do the impossible, survive the harsh winter elements on no food or worn out boots, or maintain their health and spirits when people all around them are dying, not to mention have the fortitude to endure the many psychological tests, such as poor leadership, or the many secret police interrogations which are all part of the war experience. Perhaps the most uniquely defining element captured in these films is the psychological complexity of understanding the dread and fear of the characters seen onscreen, who are unlike those in any other era, where the idea of surviving the madness of it all is an enduring testament of humanity.

Set during the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest battles in history leaving nearly two million dead, this is an uncommonly bleak war film, but one which perfectly captures the mood of Russian starvation and deprivation during the 3-year Nazi occupation of Belarus, exactly the same region portrayed in Elem Klimov's Come and See (Idi i smotri) (1984), where the German Army devoted 50,000 troops to rounding up and killing Jews, where somewhere between one and two million Soviet Jews were killed, also many thousands of Soviet civilians were executed, while millions died of starvation. As they retreated from Ukraine and Belarus, the German occupiers applied a scorched earth policy, burning Belarusian villages to the ground, slaughtering all the inhabitants, literally attempting to wipe Russians off the face of the earth, leaving whatever civilians that survived to starve or die of exposure to the cold. The maltreatment of the local population from this sadistically planned death march contributed to rising factions allied against the Nazi’s, including many non-Russian nationalists and anti-communists who allied with the Soviet partisans. This film reflects some of that torn allegiance, based on a story Operation Happy New Year! inspired by real events documented by the director’s father Yuri, a friend of Gorky, also a playwright and war reporter, where the main character is a Junior Sergeant in the Red Army, Lazarev (Vladimir Zamanskiy), who in the early stages of World War II defects to the Nazi’s under mysterious circumstances, claiming he was forced along with many others, but by the winter of 1942 he turns himself back over to the Russian partisans, where he remains under intense scrutiny. So long as he’s useful and can perform under duress, he’s welcomed by the more benevolent commander Lieutenant Lokotkov (Rolan Bykov), who may have a special assignment for him, while the more disciplined Party enforcer and most likely member of the secret police, is Major Petushkov, played by Tarkovsky favorite Anatoliy Solonitsyn, an intolerant and overly strict officer that repeatedly places him under arrest, continually testing his psychological fortitude.

The film was banned for 15 years due to the morally conflicted lead Russian character whose actions are paramount to wartime treason, hardly a fit example according to the teachings of the Party, remaining shelved until Party Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev released the film under the more lenient terms of glasnost. The film joins the ranks of several other major Russian war masterpieces, Kalatozov’s eye-opening The Cranes Are Flying (Letyat zhuravli) (1957) or Larisa Shepitko’s (Elem Klimov’s wife) psychologically disturbing The Ascent (Voskhozhdeniye) (1977), each one challenging the Stalinist conception of what constitutes a Russian hero during wartime. Perhaps the only character that fills the traditional role of Soviet hero is Petushkov, a Stalinist seen wearing a Chekist cap, the insignia of the secret police, but in the film, he comes across as severely intolerant and narrow minded, refusing to even consider the possibility that Lazarev is anything but a traitor to his country and deserves to be shot. His view is reflected after the war, where the routine prison sentence for those who fought for the other side was 10 to 25 years, no questions asked, even when guns were pointed at their heads to force compliance. This strict adherence to order (when there was no order) is more reminiscent of German ideology, refusing to consider the madness of war, where often decisions are made at the barrel of a gun, or perhaps to save someone else’s life, where a refusal to even look at the underlying psychological implications of changing sides seems to be incompatible with bravery or true heroism. More likely the film takes notice of the small pleasures of Lokotkov, the everyday, ordinary man, often seen soaking his feet in hot water after a day spent marching through the snow, or enjoying a joke with his fellow soldiers, where he was a local policeman before the war, a man used to sizing up people during interrogations, where despite his previous errant behavior, he doesn’t view Lazarev as a threat to his men, but keeps a close eye on him. His way of dealing with the situation is assigning the man hard work, where his performance will be duly noted. The conflict between the two Russian officers is a major theme of the film, constantly probing for the existence of humanity during wartime.

The film opens in a downpour of rain, where the austere realism couldn’t be more downbeat, reflecting the grim weariness of war, as soldiers are forced to move tanks and heavy artillery through oceans of mud, where they never dry off, leading to a deplorable mental state while also succumbing to a kind of battle rot that literally inhabits their bodies. This is one of the better films highlighting the extreme conditions of battle, including the paralyzing Soviet winter that precipitated massive fatalities on both sides due to starvation and freezing, literally taking the viewer into the heart of a small group of Russian partisans knee deep in the forest snows, occasionally making ambushes on the road, stealing whatever guns or provisions they can find, often surrounded by heavy woods, where they make their camp among the birch trees. What follows afterwards is another isolated shot of a rural farmhouse where a woman (Maya Bulgakova) lives with two small children with no food or livestock, all stolen long ago, where her deteriorating state of mind leaves her in a paralyzed state of near madness, cursing the soldiers before following after them, as they are her only choice for survival. From out of the woods, a lone soldier in a German uniform overpowers a young Russian partisan, but then hands him his rifle and turns himself in. Thus begins a snowy and often bewildering journey of whether or not a man can clear his conscience and redeem the mistakes he’s made in his life. Initially set for the firing squad, they have to move camp instantly due to an unexpected emergency, expressed in an eerie morning scene in the fog when marching German soldiers appear out of the fog, seen as silhouettes lining the entire landscape.

Given a second chance, Lazarev has an opportunity to prove himself on the road, assassinating two Germans by himself, but when one gets a shot off before he dies, killing one of his Russian compatriots, Petushkov is sure the bullet was Lazarev’s, implicating him in murder even after risking his life, sending him into a tailspin of depression where he literally attempts suicide. It is Lokotkov that slowly brings him back to life, giving him a chance to erase his disloyalty, but under no illusions about having betrayed his nation, where by now the terms hero and traitor have little significant meaning any more, where in the moral ambiguity of war it’s hard enough just to survive, sending him out on a still more dangerous mission, as they need to re-route a German supply train that can help feed his starving troops. The film is interspersed with an absolutely haunting use of Russian music from Isaak Shvarts, who composed music for nearly 100 films, where one of the most unforgettable shots is seeing a barge packed with Russian POW’s as they float effortlessly down the river while the German guards play Russian music, where Lokotkov is perched overhead, set to blow up a German train crossing the bridge over the river, but he refuses to do so if it means killing so many Russian POW’s directly below when the train passes, where his refusal to act is in itself an act of courage. The extended finale is a dazzling set piece in the snow, much of it seen from the vantage point of a watch tower, featuring tracking shots in and around the trains, also plenty of handheld camerawork from Lev Kolganov, B. Aleksandrovsky, and Yakov Skylansky, creating what is easily the most dramatic action sequence in the director’s career. The film is considered the greatest Soviet feature film debut since Tarkovsky’s harrowing first film Ivan's Childhood (1962).

Visible Contents: Trial on the Road

This was filmed in 1971, and has a much older feel to it. Black and white movie. Set in the winter of 1942 among partisan fighters against the Nazis. For some reason the Soviets banned this movie. Not sure why, it makes the Russians seem pretty heroic which, indeed, they were. Pretty much a classic war movie with a nice twist. A guy in a German uniform beats a partisan into submission and then surrenders to him, saying he is a Russian soldier who was captured and impressed by the Germans. He wants back into the fight on the right side. The film has terrific portrayals of the stock characters of war movies: the grizzled field officer, the popinjay lieutenant, the willies and joes, and we get terrific performances from the character actors.

User reviews from imdb Author: Rave-Reviewer from United Kingdom

During the Second World War a Russian soldier, previously forced into collaboration with the Germans, escapes and joins the partisans but first has to prove his reliability. One of a number of films to re-emerge in the mid 80s, having been suppressed for being too challenging. The particular sin of this war film was to suggest that Stalin's policy of automatically shooting POWs on recovery was callous and ignored questions of conscience, treating all soldiers as potential traitors. It also shattered the idea, long upheld, of a united Soviet Union fighting the German devil: here the peasantry would prefer to be left alone by both sides since association with one brings reprisals from the other.

User reviews from imdb Author: scribbler-2

In Russian cinematic history, this film stands out as one of the high points in projecting the truth about war on screen. It focuses on the tragedy of the expendable man and questions the moral license of those who claim the right to play with his life. The film is full of bitter, unrelenting observation of human nature, combining a brilliant study of characters with a deep insight into relationships between people.

The available English translations of the film's title ("Checkpoint" and "Check-up on the Roads") are incorrect because of an ambiguity in the original name. A more adequate (yet also ambiguous) rendering would be "The Road Test". The idea behind it is the guerilla practice of testing new fighters by sending them on the mission of ambuscading the enemy's vehicles.

This film alone would be enough to earn director Aleksei German the name of a genius of Russian cinema.

Trial on the Road - BAM/PFA - Film Programs Jason Sanders

Banned for fifteen years, Guerman’s solo directorial debut, set during WWII, marries the muscular dynamics of the war film with a more searing, philosophical approach to the thin line between official “heroes” and “traitors.” A former Nazi collaborator rejoins his Russian brethren to fight against the Germans; for some partisans, he is and always will be a traitor, but others allow him to prove himself—and his commitment—on the battlefield. For Guerman, basic human concepts like loyalty, decency, and trust underline the film’s train-like narrative force and breathtaking black-and-white images; government censors, however, angered over the “immorality” of portraying a former traitor as a hero, accused him of de-heroicizing Soviet history. Scandalized, they even ordered the film studio to pay compensation for the money “wasted” on the project, and later fired the studio chief. Filmed in 1971, the film was finally released in 1986, during a political thaw. “Why was it banned?” recalled Guerman. “Because it was about Stalin’s methods of managing the people, of treating the people.”

Trial on the Road | Filmlinc.com | Film Society of Lincoln Center

As great an anti-war film as Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, Guerman’s first solo feature provoked such furor in the corridors of government power (for its allegedly anti-heroic depiction of the Soviet involvement in WWII) that it was banned for 15 years, finally earning a proper release in 1986. Inspired by a real case documented by Guerman’s father, Trial on the Road tells the story of Lazarev (the extraordinary Vladimir Zamanskiy), a Junior Sergeant in the Red Army who defected to the Nazis and, as the film begins, has switched sides yet again. His loyalties questioned by all except for a benevolent Commander (Rolan Bykov), Lazarev is forced to prove his patriotism via a series of increasingly perilous missions, climaxing in the nail-biting re-routing of a Nazi supply train that ranks among Guerman’s most dazzling set-pieces. At every turn, Guerman cuts through the popular myths of WWII valor to show us a bitterly ironic battlefield where distinctions like “hero” and “traitor” cease to have and real meaning.

Trial on the Road Review. Movie Reviews - Film - Time Out London Tony Rayns

Controversy hovered around Gherman's first film (shelved for fifteen years), largely because the main character is a Red Army officer who defected to the Nazis in the early stages of World War II. The film centres on his attempt to redeem himself after being captured by a Russian platoon, which is plotting to derail a German supply train. The ex-turncoat becomes a focus of conflict between two of the platoon's officers, a gruff, trusting lieutenant and an immature, over-zealous major, and his professed contriteness is put to the test in a series of skirmishes in the snows of Karnaukhovo. There are plentiful signs here of the Gherman films to come: seemingly oblique and offhand plotting, a strong preference for mobile camerawork, and an emphasis on human values at the expense of the usual ideological pedantry. It adds up to the most interesting debut film in Soviet cinema since Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood, which it sometimes resembles in its glittering black-and-white cinematography, its moments of stasis punctuated by violence, and its sense of larger, off-screen perspectives.

Trial on the Road | Pacific Cinémathèque

Admirers have called Alexei Gherman’s uncommonly assured first solo feature “the most interesting debut film in Soviet cinema since Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood, which it sometimes resembles” (Tony Rayns, Time Out) and “as great an anti-war film as Kubrick’s Paths of Glory” (Film Society of Lincoln Center). It was banned for 15 years for its daringly anti-heroic take on Russia’s Great Patriotic War, and only saw the light of day with the coming of glasnost. Trial on the Road is set in fascist-occupied Byelorussia, where a beleaguered Red Army platoon captures a German soldier who claims to be a Russian forced to collaborate with the Nazis. The revelation causes tension between two officers: a major, who wants the man summarily shot, and a lieutenant, more sympathetic, who wants to offer the prisoner a chance to redeem himself. The moral complexity and ambiguity, and the atmospheric, deliberately retro monochrome cinematography — filming war in colour is impossible, Gherman says — are Gherman hallmarks. Trial is a masterly effort from “one of the most ambitious and original directors working in Russia” (Julian Graffy). “The stark-raving-mad images, from an army emerging from winter mist to a machine-gun duel from opposing ditches, grip like eyelid clamps” (Michael Atkinson, Village Voice.)

Some Came Running: Guerman studies Glenn Kenny (excerpt)

Guerman's first solo picture was 1971's Trial On The Road, which shows for the first time today at 6:15 p.m. Among other things, it once again proves the adage that I made up just now, which is that nobody makes a World War II film like a Russian. The movie begins with a stark depiction of Germans dousing a pit full of potatoes with kerosene, because that'll show those pesky partisans. It then features some narration from a young boy who we won't hear from again for the rest of the film, detailing back-in-the-day privation. And then it's trudge, trudge, trudge through densely packed snow, each footfall beautifully recorded, and being out of cigarettes, and deserted villages and stray gunshots and sudden views of a deadly platoon of goddamn Germans coming over a snow-white horizon to kill you all. Only the Russian World War II film gets this atmosphere so palpably, and if Trial doesn't reach the heights of pathos of Ivan's Childhood or the height of horror of Come And See, it takes a more than honorable place in the tension-and-tactics subcategory of war movie (a favorite of mine in this line is of course Mann's Men In War, and yeah, Trial would make a good double feature with it); from the atmosphere and anecdotes a very definite story emerges, in which a Red Army turncoat tries to make good with the partisans to whom he's surrendered. As much as the movie condemns war in a relatively conventional what-a-waste fashion, there is a certain exploitable heroism inherent in the protagonist's final sacrifice, and the up-and-at-'em, never-rest determination showed by the partisan's oft-besieged leader, played by Rolan Bykov, seen in the still above with Anatoly Solonitsin, a frequent Tarkovsky player here portraying a tightly-wound subordinate) seems a quality sure to please Soviet apparatchiks. Not so much, apparently; as Anton Dolin recounts in his excellent piece on Guerman in the current issue of Film Comment (in which he wryly asks, "how many other geniuses have managed to displease the Soviet censors, the post-Soviet commercial system, and the connoisseurs of Cannes?"), the movie was "denied release and nearly destroyed," and "finally screened in the Gorbachev era."

The Strange Case of Russian Maverick Aleksei German | Film ... Anton Dolin from Film Comment, March 14 – 20, 2012, also seen here: Film Comment article (excerpt)

New Left Review - Tony Wood: Time Unfrozen: The Films of Aleksei ... Tony Wood from The New Left Review, January-February, 2001

Kinoeye | Russia: Aleksei German (Alexei Gherman) interviewed Ronald Holloway feature and 1988 interview from Kinoeye, September 13, 2004

An Inside Look at World War II's Bloodiest Battle Michael Sontheimer interviews Russian soldiers from Der Spiegel, November 2, 2012

Tony Pipolo on Aleksei Guerman - artforum.com / film Sins of the Fathers, Artforum, March 13, 2012, also seen here: Tony Pipolo

Aleksei German: The World's Greatest Assistant Director on - Mubi Maxim Pozdorovkin from Mubi, March 14, 2012

Hard to Be a God by Michael Atkinson - Moving Image Source May 29, 2012

The Alexei German I knew | openDemocracy Ian Christie, February 26, 2013, also seen here: The Alexei German I knew « The Global Dispatches

MUBI [Daniel Kasman] January 29, 2014

The Limits of Expression James von Geldern interview, 1968

TRIAL ON THE ROAD (Aleksei Gherman, 1971) « Dennis Grunes

Russian Master Aleksei Guerman's Rarely-Seen Films Come - Artinf Graham Fuller from Art Info

Military history of Belarus during World War II - Wikipedia, the free ...

TRIAL ON THE ROAD | siskelfilmcenter.org Marty Rubens

Trial of the Road (Proverka na dorogakh) - Internet Movie Firearms ... website identifying firearms and weapons used in the movie

Belarusian resistance during World War II - Wikipedia, the free ...

Partisan Resistance in Belarus during World War II

TWENTY DAYS WITHOUT WAR (Dvadtsat dney bez voyny)

Russia (101 mi) 1977 ‘Scope

User Reviews from imdb Author: Michael Neumann from United States
11 January 2011

A veteran Soviet Army major, on a three-week furlough from the 1943 winter offensive, discovers how even the false peace of a remote civilian village can be disturbed by the silent echoes of distant battle. His home in Tashkent is a long way from the smoke and gunfire of the Western Front, but during his leave Major Lopatin sees another, no less emotional war being waged there. He finds it in the bereaved cries of a new widow and in the lies he tells another, urging her to wait for a message that will never arrive; he encounters it in the comically inaccurate film being staged from his published memoirs of the Stalingrad siege; and he tries to escape it for a few, all too brief moments with an attractive seamstress and single mother, abandoned by her wayward husband. Displaying remarkable empathy for his characters and setting, director Alexei Gherman has made a quietly stunning film about an uncommon aspect of modern warfare, intimate in mood and detail despite the expansive clarity of its wide-screen black and white imagery.

User Reviews from imdb Author: Vlad B. from United States
19 May 2007

"Twenty Days without War" is one of the very few "cinema-verite" style films made on the topic of World War II, specifically the Soviet home front. Based on the life of famous war correspondent and poet Konstantin Simonov (who himself narrates off-screen at the opening and closing sequences), this remarkable film follows the venerable Yuri Nikulin, playing a Simonov-like character who is granted a 20-day leave to visit the Uzbek city of Tashkent (one of the major evacuation centers during the war, where the Soviet cinema studios were moved). Part of his journey's purpose is to advise the filming of a propagandistic screen version of one of his stories. Many of the sequences here are shot almost documentary-style, with such unpretentiousness and candor, as if the real war participants and victims were actually interviewed on screen. And yet, lyrical and even poetic moments are also glimpsed, albeit in amazingly unforced, unsentimental fashion. Most of the actors, including Nikulin himself, lived through or fought in the war, and their intention, as well as the director's must have been to deliver a hitherto-unknown, "you are there" immediacy to the audience. They splendidly succeed, as the film, like no other of its kind, brings to life the reminiscences of my grandparents, who experienced both the fighting and the evacuation. In fact, it remains my grandmother's all-time favorite war film because of the honesty of its emotions and the truthful spirit of the period it conveys.

TWENTY DAYS WITHOUT WAR (Aleksei Gherman, 1981 ... Dennis Grunes

Following his coverage of the Battle of Stalingrad, a war correspondent and author, suggestive of Konstantin Simonov (who wrote the script, incidentally, from his own story and bookendedly narrates offscreen), is granted a leave of twenty days to go to Tashkent, Uzbek, an official evacuation center, to advise the production of a morale-boosting film based on a story of his. Aleksei Gherman’s Dvadtsat dney bez voyny follows this character, here named Lopatine (Yuri Nikulin, tight-lipped, observant, mildly interesting), studies his interactions with residents and others, and gauges his realization of the discrepancy between homefront views of war and what he has witnessed at the front.

Reminiscent of the Soviet antiwar classic Ballad of a Soldier (1959), Gherman’s film differs in certain regards. The fates of the protagonist, we know, differ. Gherman’s protagonist isn’t immaturely moralistic, so there is no opportunity for Gherman to endorse—or, for that matter, condemn—the lead character’s crabby moralism, as Grigori Chukhrai regrettably does. Gherman replaces Chukhrai’s degree of inflated sentimentality with grim sobriety—although this admits into his film outbursts of overwrought acting that are embarrassing to watch. There are trying apologies as well—a bit of the filmmaker’s wanting to have his cake and eat it, too. Call Gherman, then, a “backdoor sentimentalist.”

Admirers of Gherman’s mostly dark gray black-and-white film, who are many, note the cumulative nature of its antiwar intent. The final movement—the soldiers’ return to the front—is shattering, however: a powerful image of possibly impending doom in a film that more often wobbles and stalls than sears or soars.

It is perplexing why some of the film’s admirers ascribe “realism” to it when it generally proceeds expressionistically.

Someone will need to explain to me why Soviet authorities initially suppressed Gherman’s film.

The Strange Case of Russian Maverick Aleksei German | Film ... Anton Dolin from Film Comment, March 14 – 20, 2012, also seen here: Film Comment article (excerpt)

New Left Review - Tony Wood: Time Unfrozen: The Films of Aleksei ... Tony Wood from The New Left Review, January-February, 2001

Tony Pipolo on Aleksei Guerman - artforum.com / film Sins of the Fathers, Artforum, March 13, 2012, also seen here: Tony Pipolo

Aleksei German: The World's Greatest Assistant Director on - Mubi Maxim Pozdorovkin from Mubi, March 14, 2012

Hard to Be a God by Michael Atkinson - Moving Image Source May 29, 2012

The Alexei German I knew | openDemocracy Ian Christie, February 26, 2013, also seen here: The Alexei German I knew « The Global Dispatches

MUBI [Daniel Kasman] January 29, 2014

The Limits of Expression James von Geldern interview, 1968

Kinoeye | Russia: Aleksei German (Alexei Gherman) interviewed Ronald Holloway feature and 1988 interview from Kinoeye, September 13, 2004

MY FRIEND IVAN LAPSHIN (Moy drug Ivan Lapshin)

Russia (100 mi) 1985

This is my declaration of love for the people I grew up with as a child.

―Narrator

The Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Alexei Guerman's 1984 film, based on short stories by his father Yuri Guerman and scripted by Eduard Volodarsky, is set in a remote and impoverished Russian village in 1937, where as a boy the narrator shared a cramped apartment with five men, including Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police. The film alternates between black and white, sepia, and a few shots in color, though without any rationale that I could discern. Despite a supple and original camera style, some powerful acting, and a refreshing absence of sentimentality, the loose, episodic structure makes for a certain dullness, at least for spectators with no more than a glancing acquaintance with the Stalinist period that this film meticulously re-creates and addresses. Guerman has expressed some doubts that this film can be properly understood in the West, and it does pose difficulties for spectators who don't know much about the historical context. But anyone with a serious interest in Soviet cinema won't want to pass it up. In Russian with subtitles.

Time Out Tony Rayns

Gherman's masterly film (his third) is framed as an autobiographical reminiscence of the 1930s, just before the Stalinist terror began to bite. Through the eyes of a nine-year-old we watch episodes from the life of a small town police chief: his home life in a ludicrously overcrowded apartment, his unsuccessful courtship of a glamorous actress, and his rather more successful campaign to hunt down the criminal fraternity of the Soloviev gang. There is nothing sinister about this Ivan, but the film is crammed with tiny suggestions of the horrors to come, designed to provoke disquieting speculations about the eventual fate of this potentially dangerous man. Gherman's methods are resolutely observational and low key, and his subject is the lull before the storm; the drama emerges as if by accident from a collage of resonant and deeply felt scenes from day-to-day life. Wonderfully vivid performances and amazingly original camerawork (mostly in elegantly faded monochrome) bring a vanished world to life with complete conviction.

MovieMartyr.com [Jeremy Heilman]

Aleksei German’s singular, multithreaded drama My Friend Ivan Lapshin offers a uniquely stylized look at life in Russia as the flaws of Communism were just beginning to show. Set in a provincial Russian village during the 1930s, the film at times recalls the autobiographical work of Terence Davies or Woody Allen’s Radio Days. Like the work of those directors, German’s film filters most experiences through the eyes of a child, although the child/narrator in this particular movie is not present in the majority of the scenes. Instead, German turns his roving camera into a surrogate for the child, usually having it track behind characters or wander curiously throughout the scenes. This gives the film a unique feel, as narrative incident is scarcely privileged over background detail. As with many of our memories, most things here only begin make sense in retrospect, as they are mulled over in the mind. So, while Ivan Lapshin offers a story about a small town police officer who seems precariously perched on the abuse of his power, an investigation of memory itself begins to feel like the film’s prime attraction.

In the opening scene of Ivan Lapshin, a narrator explains that his story is a “declaration of love for the people I lived with as a child, just five minutes’ walk from here and a half a century ago.” As fifty years and five blocks would imply, memory is viewed here as something slippery; almost tangible yet just out of reach. Outright realism often gives way to clearly staged pictorial beauty, reminding us that we are viewing a subjective memory. German switches, almost at random, between scenes shot in color and black and white. A voiceover occasionally intrudes upon the action, to further emphasize the constructedness of all memory. The resulting film, which revels in the past even as it seems soberly aware of the disappointment to come, would likely be probably intensely nostalgic for anyone who lived under Communism.

For the rest of us, My Friend Ivan Lapshin offers a distinctive, yet mildly uninvolving mélange. The indirectness of the film’s point of view makes it somewhat difficult to interpret precisely what it is trying to communicate about Communist Russia. Throughout the movie we are shown the optimism of the people, yet at the same time, whether through the agony caused by a spilt canister of petrol or the way that the characters’ cramped living spaces squelch privacy, we are made aware of the costs of collectivism. Characters talk hopefully about the future but we, like the narrator, know of the disappointment to come. Perhaps the most potent message, though, is found in the brief sequences that return us to the 1980s, from which the story is being told. Little in the physical environment in the fictional town in which the film takes place seems to have been changed in the fifty years since Ivan’s story unfolded, but it’s made quite clear that a way of life has died.

New Left Review - Tony Wood: Time Unfrozen: The Films of Aleksei ... Tony Wood from The New Left Review, January-February, 2001

Kinoeye | Russia: Aleksei German (Alexei Gherman) interviewed Ronald Holloway feature and 1988 interview from Kinoeye, September 13, 2004

Alsolikelife.com [Kevin Lee] May 24, 2009

Aleksei German: The World's Greatest Assistant Director on - Mubi Maxim Pozdorovkin from Mubi, March 14, 2012

The Strange Case of Russian Maverick Aleksei German | Film ... Anton Dolin from Film Comment, March 14 – 20, 2012, also seen here: Film Comment article

Hard to Be a God by Michael Atkinson - Moving Image Source May 29, 2012

The Alexei German I knew | openDemocracy Ian Christie, February 26, 2013, also seen here: The Alexei German I knew « The Global Dispatches

MY FRIEND, IVAN LAPSHIN - Dennis Grunes - WordPress ... also seen here: Dennis Grunes

'My Friend Ivan Lapshin' review by Henry Butash • Letterboxd

Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time Anna Lawton, 1992 (pdf format)

Polar Bear’s Film Journal Smart

The New York Times Walter Goodman, March 24 1987

KHRUSTALIOV, MY CAR! (Khrustalyov, mashinu!) B 85

Russia France (150 mi) 1998

Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum) review

Being the line given to Beria, Stalin's soon to be doomed henchman, near the end of this crazy carnival of a movie. Gherman's first film since his 1982 masterpiece, My Friend Ivan Lapshin, similarly takes the form of a b/w reconstruction of times past - here the worlds surrounding drunken brain specialist General Glinsky, who's in charge of a Moscow hospital and master of a large domestic arena. Both circuses reflect the anarchic, anti-Semitic last days of Stalin's paranoid rule. Gherman's style refracts the everyday horror in a series of Fellini-esque, people-filled scenes, traced out with an extremely mobile camera, that is as likely to peek into a moving taxi window as glide around the demented faces of a brutal anal rape scene. The effect is relentless and overpowering, yet the film is often poetic in its blend of pathos, freneticism, surrealism and matter of factness.

New York Movies - That's the Spirit - J. Hoberman from the Village Voice

FilmFest, MOMA's survey of current post-Soviet films, opens with a bang—namely Alexei Gherman's Khrustaliov, My Car! (screened once during the 1998 NYFF). Like Gherman's previous features, Khrustaliov is set on a historical cusp—unfolding over three days during the winter of 1953, when, his condition as yet unknown to the Soviet people, their Great Stalin lay dying. The Terror of 1937 seems about to repeat itself, and Gherman initially plays it as farce, tracking his protagonist, General Yuri Glinsky, through the snow-shrouded hysteria as this military surgeon reels from one enigmatic scene to the next, hemorrhaging status all the while. Glinsky tries to escape Moscow incognito (even as his part-Jewish family is forcibly relocated to a dingy communal apartment) but falls into the trap he sought to avoid. Attacked for his boots by a gang of kids, he is unceremoniously transported toward a prison camp—albeit with a surprise detour.

Khrustaliov is populated by a cast of grimacing performers and characterized by extravagantly long takes that all but preclude reverse angle or reaction shots. The narrative is not difficult to follow, but the succession of events is dizzying. Atmosphere is all. Gherman's extraordinarily crisp black-and-white images are married to a soundtrack as clamorous as his mise-en-scène is cluttered. The hallucinated environment supersedes all but the most grossly physical events; the sequence in which Glinsky is raped by a gang of criminal thugs in the back of a closed truck en route to the gulag is worthy of Salo.

Gherman's Walpurgisnacht is thick with allusions, literary as well as political. Seven years in the making, this alarming phantasmagoria is one of the great films of the decade—a brilliantly directed, unrelentingly grotesque, savagely bleak comedy.

Tony Pipolo on Aleksei Guerman - artforum.com / film Sins of the Fathers, Artforum, March 13, 2012, also seen here: Tony Pipolo (excerpt)

None of the earlier work prepares us for Khrustalyov, My Car!, Guerman’s phantasmagoric satire, conjuring a bizarre, nightmarish Moscow in 1953. Fleeting allusions to the “Doctors’ Plot”—a conspiracy, contrived by Stalin, accusing Jewish doctors of poisoning and misdiagnosing illnesses of high officials—account for the paranoia that pervades the atmosphere: Busts of the dictator are everywhere. Ultimately, it triggers the climactic fantasy in which the protagonist, Surgeon General Klensky (Yuri Tsurilo), is solicited to save the dying Stalin. With its relentless pace and myriad details, its farcical tone and brilliant camerawork, the film is impossible to digest in one viewing. Guerman narrates intermittently, shouting, “That’s me” as young Aleksei materializes just before the title. It’s a self-conscious gesture linked to occasional glances at the camera by several characters. Klensky, Aleksei’s father, is head of a hospital-cum-madhouse, where “unauthorized death is prohibited.” He’s a man who works on open skulls, and whose inspection tour of the maze of misfits and mishaps does not preclude pausing for a blow job from an idolizing staff member—eliciting Klensky’s bemused stare into the camera, as we glimpse the “great father” on a pedestal to the left.

While the camera’s incessant mobility strains to encompass the dizzying array of people, incidents, and places—moving about cluttered apartments as if they were mere extensions of hospital, bathhouse, and bar—there is more method than madness here. The Steadicam’s rush down corridors, off of which lie hidden rooms and secret spaces, constitutes a motif that culminates in a sequence in which Klensky—having absconded, only to be attacked by hooligans and raped by prisoners in a truck—is rescued, forced back into his Doctor/General mode, and led, circuitously and clandestinely, from car to car and place to place until, down a corridor past many rooms, he is ushered into the one where Stalin lies dying. At the heart of the film’s grand but frenetic architectural design, then—as of the society it depicts—is the body of its heartless tyrant. Clueless to his identity, Klensky asks the man in the room (another doctor?) if the patient is his father. “Father? That’s well said,” the fellow remarks. After the leader expires, the man thanks Klensky, declares that “a star has fallen,” and departs, shouting the mundane order that gives the film its title, “Khrustalyov, my car!”

The narrator tells us that when Stalin’s death was announced, his father’s name did not appear among those arrested or killed. But we last see Klensky, atop a train, amusing fellow prisoners on the way to a camp with acrobatic tricks—a role finally compatible with the circus that has been his life. His last words—or the narrator’s—are “Fuck it all!” Given the range of Guerman’s work and the unflagging inventiveness of Khrustalyov, one eagerly anticipates his new film, reportedly premiering at Cannes this spring.

MOSCOW BELIEVES IN TEARS. (22-JUN-01) Cineaste Moscow Believes in Tears (The challenges of post-Soviet Russian cinema), by Louis Menashe who looks at the transition of Russian cinema since the Soviet collapse in 1991, from Cineaste (link lost)

THE PROBLEMS (AND PROMISE?) OF RUSSIAN CINEMA IN THE TRANSITION PERIOD

It is conventional, and certainly legitimate, to think of Russia, since the Soviet collapse in 1991, as "in transition." There is a post-Soviet joke: "What is communism? Answer: The longest distance between capitalism and capitalism." One hopes there will be no post-post-Soviet joke about the current "transitional" period as the shortest distance between communism and communism. I hope, that is, we can safely say that the Soviet past is really past. But how painful for Russia is the present transition period? How long will it last? Any direction known?

Russian cinema is also suffering from the aches, pains, and angst prevailing in other sectors of post-Soviet society, whether culture, politics, the economy, or psyche. Are there only more problems ahead, or is there a glimmer of promise already evident? Or, inescapably in transition periods, will both problems and promise coexist? In cinema, where art intersects commerce, some clues appear at the points of production (the studios), and the points of consumption (the kinotheaters). These areas are not entirely depressed, at least not as much as they were only a few years ago, even when we take the financial crash of August 1998 into consideration.

THE PAINS OF TRANSITION

What do we mean by Soviet cinema, and are we witnessing a contrasting, New Russian Cinema in development? Really, we should refer to several Soviet cinema periods and personalities, because beneath the generalization--the Party-State controlled industry subject to the enforced official ideology of socialist realism--there was great diversity, from Eisenstein to Bondarchuk, from Pyriev to Panfilov, not to mention the aberrant Tarkovsky, or the even more aberrant, consequently shelved Sokurov and Muratova, or the occasional hapless figure like Askoldov. And there were periods ranging from the "film hunger" of the late Stalin years when only a handful of films were produced, to the late Soviet epoch before the fall, when in 1991 375 were turned out (and when films were used to launder money). The years 1986-1991, the period of perestroika-glasnost. constitutes a film epoch in its own right. The benchmark film-production figure for the modern Soviet period, from the stable times of Brezhnev--later dubbed self-ser vingly as zastoi ("stagnation")--through the tumult of perestroika, was about 150 films per annum.

In those days, say the late 1980s, the average Russian went to see films fourteen times a year, the world's highest movie going figure. Film receipts were a major part of the Soviet state budget. "Doctors and teachers," notes the director Sergei Livnev archly, "were financed by the love of Soviet citizens for alcohol and cinema."

The free fall in production and attendance appears in the mid-1990s, coinciding with similar trajectories in the post-Soviet economy. Only some thirty films were produced in 1996; about the same figure applies to 1997. That year some forty-nine films were in production, but twenty-three were suspended because of insufficient funding. Fifty-one films were completed in 1998, thirty in 1999, as of October of that year, with an additional thirty-eight planned or in production. Similar, low double-digits film production continues today. The average Russian went to see a film less than once a year in 1996. Economic and structural factors colluded with alterations in mass-culture consumption to account for precipitous drops. State funding shrank for cinema, as did family budgets. Another major development--television and the homevideo market--displaced the film distribution and theatrical network. And if Russians went to a movie theater, it was for a foreign, probably an American film, a pattern that continues toda y. Foreign films, mostly American, were on fifty-four screens of Moscow's seventy-nine theaters in November 1999. As for video sales and rentals, foreign films outpaced Russian films; the ten top videos in October 1997 (for example) were all foreign. American films filled the top-ten video sales list for 1999 at Moscow's largest outlet.

The once proud flagship studios at Lenfilm and Mosfilm, until this year still state-owned, are badly funded and poorly equipped, turning out since the mid-Nineties only tens of films annually. A Russian reporter offered these gloomy tidings in the spring of 1997: "More than anything, Mosfilm today reminds one of a cemetery. Echoing corridors, desolation, silence. There are no people around because no films are being shot. To shoot films you need money. No money; no people. The till is empty, the pavilions are empty. It is the dead season." (Those were my impressions as well during visits to Lenfilm in 1996. One of the sets there for Alexei Gherman's much delayed Khrustalyov, My Car! was gathering dust.) Small wonder that Russian filmdom's "fine actors," as a Russian critic put it, "with a melancholy look in their eyes, are doing commercials for bad laxatives and the dubious ruble devaluation; and viewers are certain that our film-industry workers are a bunch of do-nothings and are flocking to Men in Black."

Money slated for the film industry continues to fund festivals--a "waste," says director Yuri Mamin, especially for "the stupid Moscow Festival." Yes, the festivals circuit in Russia, especially the ten international events, with their screenings, prizes, seminars, foreign luminaries, media attention, and celebrations have become, as someone put it, the nation's "virtual cinema," although I think such showcases are still essential for preserving the self-respect of Russian film culture, such as it is, and its connections to the wider world. Outside of Russia, too, there is always enough interest in Russian film to support periodic festivals, even if Mosfilm and Lenfilm aren't exporting box-office winners. In New York, for example, two festivals ran simultaneously and successfully in December 1999, one sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art, the other by an ad hoc emigre group, with funding from mainly local, American sources.

New conditions have also altered patterns of programming and attendance at Cinema Clubs, which played such an important role in bringing the forbidden fruit of the West to Soviet audiences from the Sixties through the Seventies, especially in the provinces. Local clubs now can't afford the high prices charged by Moscow distributors for film leasing, and screenings are necessarily via videocassette. Meanwhile, attendance has dropped since popular American fare is available theatrically, and especially on television and video. "Only true enthusiasts stayed in the cinema clubs," says one film scholar, and the provincial clubs are contemporary "islands of culture in the ocean of screen pop-commerce," for they are the only venues outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg where quality films are shown.

Problems of infrastructure and finances aside, how can Russian cinema compete for the affections of its natural audience when it has Hollywood's technothrills and sheer all-round entertainment appeal to contend with? Russia is not alone in experiencing American domination of its film markets; the French are perennial complainers about this. But somehow the present Russian submission to U.S. cinema hegemony is particularly poignant…

Exorcism: Aleksei German Among the Long Shadows - Film Comment J. Hoberman from Film Comment, January/February 1999

“It is interesting, even funny—or weird, perhaps—to imagine people sitting in an American cinema watching my movie.” So the Russian filmmaker Aleksei German mused when he first visited New York a dozen years ago for the local premiere of his once-shelved and now-revered Soviet “nostalgia” film, My Friend Ivan Lapshin. It is even weirder, alas, to imagine an American audience watching German’s phantasmagorical Khrustalyov, My Car!—the 60-year-old director’s first feature since Lapshin, a French co-production and a world-class film maudit that, in the works for seven years, took even longer to shoot than Orson Welles’s Othello and last spring suffered a disastrous, walkout-plagued world premiere at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. German himself wasn’t there. As he told the press several months later at the New York Film Festival, he was a bit nervous because Khrustalyov was the first of his four solo features that had never been banned.

Khrustalyov, My Car! unfolds, mostly in Moscow, over three days during the exceptionally cold winter of 1953. His condition as yet unknown to the Soviet people, their Great Stalin lay dying. The leader’s final paralyzing stroke (most likely on the night of February 28, when Khrustalyov begins) had abruptly halted the five-year-old anti-Semitic campaign that only just escalated to a new level of savagery. In mid-January official sources announced that, working in league with international Zionism, a cabal of (mainly Jewish) Kremlin doctors had conspired to poison the Soviet leadership. Arrests and dismissals began amid the orchestrated press frenzy, with the mass deportation of Soviet Jews rumored to follow.

In early 1953, the Great Terror of 1937 seemed about to repeat it self something German treats, at least initially, as a subject of farce. Even before the film’s title, an innocent boiler repairman (identified in the credits as the Idiot) falls haplessly into the hands of the KGB and disappears until the end of the movie. School kids parrot anti-Zionist cant, families are evicted from their apartments, and there seems to be some sort of shake up in the Red Army’s high command.

Through this snow-shrouded and hysterical atmosphere, German’s restless camera tracks his protagonist, General Yuri Glinsky, military brain surgeon, as he reels from one enigmatic scene to the next. As the people seek to blame anyone but Stalin—whose name they superstitiously refuse to utter—for the mounting terror, the Politburo’s confusion is manifested by the convoy of black automobiles that aimlessly roll through the Moscow night. “Gathering those cars cost me a year of my life,” German told me when I interviewed him again in October 1998. “It was impossible to find them.”

Khrustalyov, My Car!, like all of German’s previous features, is a period piece set at a cusp moment of Soviet history. The Seventh Companion (67), which German made with Grigori Aronov, took place at the point during the Russian civil war at which the decision was made to unleash a “red terror.” The far more problematic World War II film Trial on the Road (71) was shelved for 14 years, having been accused of “deheroicizing” Soviet history by portraying a Russian collaborator who allows him self to be captured by partisans so that he can redeem himself by fighting the Nazis. Although the follow-up Twenty Days Without War (76) was only held back a few years, this movie about the making of a “positive” combat film in the midst of combat was even more programmatic in debunking the myths of the Great Patriotic War.

No one was prepared, however, for German’s masterpiece, My Friend Ivan Lapshin. Strange, unsettling, and elusive even by the standards of East European cinema, Lapshin is a movie where narrative is secondary to atmosphere—the evocation of provincial Russia on the eve of Stalin’s mid-Thirties purges. German’s painstaking reconstruction of an erased period goes beyond the use of thriftshop clothing and furniture to reconstruct attitudes, if not delusions. Bolshevik idealism is represented as a lost dream. German wrote the Lapshin screenplay in 1969. The project was delayed for over a decade and, although finally completed in 1982, withheld from release until the 1985 Moscow Film Festival. Recently, according to German, Lapshin—which has been shown 25 times on post-Soviet TV—was rated first among Soviet films in a poll of young people.

Given that all of German’s movies have been made within and (more precisely) against the conventions of Soviet socialist realism, it should not be too surprising that neither perestroika nor the end of Communism did much to stimulate his career. “People said that I had a Bobby Fischer complex and just didn’t want to play—but Bobby Fischer was the world champion,” German told me. Khrustalyov, My Car! Was conceived under Communism and made during a period of “democratic reform.” Asked how long the movie was in production, the director mournfully shook his head and replied “Forever.” The modest French contribution was wiped out by Russia’s 3,000 percent inflation—leaving German with the problem of raising additional money, having already sold the foreign rights. (He received some help from the Governor of Petersburg, but when those subsidies were removed, production again halted.)

Although German seems unlikely ever to be nominated for an Oscar, his last two movies have a dialectical relationship with Nikita Mikhalkov’s 1995 Academy Award–winning international hit Burnt by the Sun. As the latter appropriated something of Lapshin’s disconcertingly Chekhovian atmosphere as a means to represent the onset of the Great Terror, so Khrustalyov has adapted the Burnt by the Sun scenario in depicting the inexplicable fall of a powerful Soviet hero. Initially, the tall, shaven-skulled, Tartar-like General Glinsky is the master of the hospital—slugging his cognac from a tea glass while marching his obsequious subjects through the corridors or being sexually serviced by a diminutive nurse. Even as his colleagues lie to him, the General begins to suspect that something is amiss in his madhouse; this paranoia is confirmed when he stumbles across his own double being prepared (for what?) in the enema ward. (German explains this fantastic touch by explaining that doubles were often used to give the “correct” testimony in Stalin-era show trials.)

Back at his large, if crowded, flat, the general’s family has picked up the same menacing vibes even as Glinsky is driven into a further frenzy by the Swedish journalist who shows up at his door uninvited with news of his sister abroad. Glinsky denies that he has any such relative and, having noticed that the apartment’s resident state security contact was eavesdropping in the stairwell when the foreigner called and will now have to report him, he further denounces the Swede as a provocateur. “That incident was practically autobiographical,” German told me. Much of Khrustalyov’s screenplay, which the director wrote in collaboration with his wife, Svetlana Karmnalita, draws upon their childhood memories of Stalin’s final years. Karmalita’s father, a well known theater critic, was an early victim of the 1948 attack on “rootless cosmopolitans”; German’s father, Yuri, a popular novelist, had his own (temporary) problems in 1949, when he published a story whose hero had a “Jewish-sounding” last name.

Khrustalyov is some sort of exorcism. In the elegant party that the increasingly crazed and drunken Glinsky briefly attends, trying to glean some new information concerning his fate, German re-created aspects of the “palace atmosphere” he observed, as a child, at higher levels in Stalinist society. Among the members of the demented Glinsky household are a pair of little girls—Jewish cousins—who live, without permits, in the wardrobe. Their names, German explained, are those of his own nieces, and this incident, too, was part of his family history. “I don’t know if I’m a Russian or Jew,” the filmmaker added. “I always say I’m Jewish because of anti-Semitism. I don’t know anything about Jewish culture, but I know I keep expecting the worst, and that’s from my Jewish mother. She was preparing to die all her life, but she lived to the age of 91.”

Extravagant and unrelenting, Khrustalyov, My Car! has been described by one New York–based Russian critic as a Fellini film made from a Beckett script. Unlike any of German’s previous films in tone, Khrustalyov seems populated by a cast of grotesque, grimacing puppets. (The director expressed satisfaction that a mixed New York Times review that followed Khrustalyov’s festival screening at least called the movie a “Boschean vision of hell.”)

Glinsky’s manic nocturnal tour of Moscow ends when, afraid to return home, he drops in on a heavyset admirer for one of the most convoluted unconsummated sex scenes in movie history. Khrustalyov’s second part begins with the general trying to escape from the city incognito even as his family is forcibly removed from their sumptuous flat and relocated in a dingy communal apartment overfilled with already displaced Jews. Waiting for a train, Glinsky is attacked by a group of kids who steal his boots and is then, falling into the trap he sought to avoid, unceremoniously transported toward a prison camp in a van marked “Soviet Champagne.”

The narrative is not difficult to follow but the succession of events is dizzying. The hallucinated environment supersedes all but the most grossly physical events, Khrustalyov’s extraordinarily crisp black-and-white images are married to a soundtrack as clamorous as the mise en scène is cluttered. German has said that he wanted an “inaudible” track to better focus the audience’s attention on the movie’s visuals, and—characterized by sightgags, pratfalls, ridiculous brutality, and deadpan slapstick, a viscerally absurd trove of rebellious objects—Khrustalyov surely has its animated cartoon aspect. On the other hand, much of the film’s dialogue would make sense only to Russians of a certain age—it’s an untranslatable collage of period slang, official slogans, and bits of old Party songs.

In the West, Khrustalyov, My Car! has been most frequently described as “impenetrable.” When I interviewed German, it had yet to open in Russia, although the bootleg videos that began circulating shortly after the movie’s Cannes premiere had already fueled a passionate debate as to whether the movie was a masterpiece or a disaster. Even more oblique than My Friend Ivan Lapshin, German’s walpurgisnacht is thick with all illusions—literary as well as political—and characterized by long, convoluted takes that all but preclude reverse angle or reaction shots. German says he received the same criticism “word for word” for Ivan Lapshin. “If you only heard what they said. [Fellow directors] Elem Klimov, Andrei Smirnov, my own assistant told me, ‘This is a dead end.’”

With its emphasis on the squalor of provincial life (poverty, crime, fuel shortages, overcrowding, coughing, illness), not to mention its unprecedentedly coarse language, Lapshin was shockingly raw for a Soviet film. But Khrustalyov goes much further. The action is soaked in spittle and punctuated by curses. The sequence in which Glinsky is brutally raped and sodomized by a gang of criminal thugs in the back of a closed truck en route to the gulag is worthy of Salo (although, as German pointed out, it is derived from information published by Solzhenitsyn).

It is daylight when the traumatized general is removed from the transport and then, in one more reversal of fortune, brought to a dacha outside of Moscow where he is to treat a mysterious stroke patient. Here, German is both making and unmaking a myth. At least one of the imprisoned Kremlin doctors, Yakov Rapoport, was released from his jail cell to minister to the man who had been responsible for his arrest, and German filmed the scene at Stalin’s actual dacha in Kuntsevo. (“Some people tried to sell me Stalin’s authentic pee-stained pajamas,” he recalled. “I think there must be a factory for producing this relic.”)

But Glinsky’s meeting with the Little Father of the People—who is here quite little—is also a figment of German’s imagination. It seems unlikely that Stalin passed away lying on the floor, attended only by a gaggle of Georgian grandmothers and his security chief Beria (here an actor who looks nothing like the actual personage), but it is not inappropriate. At Beria’s command, Glinsky massages the comatose man’s stomach. Stalin bubbles up a bit of bile, briefly opens his eyes, and dies. Kissing the doctor, Beria provides the film’s enigmatic title by imperiously summoning his automobile and leaving for the power struggle in Moscow. (Khrustalyov was the name of the soldier whom Beria had recently installed as Stalin’s majordomo and personal bodyguard.)

Beria vanishes into the night and so does Glinsky. “It is a Russian fantasy,” German explained. “The general disappears into a simpler life.” A brief potscript, set a decade or so later, after most of Stalin’s prisoners had returned from Siberia, features the release of the boiler repairman arrested in the movie’s opening moments. The conductor of the train on which the still luckless repairman attempts to return to Moscow is none other than Glinsky—more clownish and disreputable than ever (“a speculator in dried fish” in German’s characterization). Glinsky is seemingly the leader of a derelict gang, living a grossly diminished version of his Moscow life. German considers this coda to conclude the movie on a note of ridiculous triumph.

I asked German if Khrustalyov was about present-day Russia. “Of course,” he replied, adding that “maybe things are simpler now—they just shoot you.” His words came back to haunt me as I wrote this piece, a few days after Duma member Galina Starovoitova, an outspoken liberal reformer, was gunned down gangster-style in the foyer of her apartment house. “The artist is a canary in a mine shaft. If Brezhnev had read Rudyard Kipling, he would never have gone into Afghanistan,” German told me. “We didn’t really want to depict 1953, we wanted to show what Russians are like.”

New Left Review - Tony Wood: Time Unfrozen: The Films of Aleksei ... Tony Wood from The New Left Review, January-February, 2001

Kinoeye | Russia: Aleksei German (Alexei Gherman) interviewed Ronald Holloway feature and 1988 interview from Kinoeye, September 13, 2004

Aleksei German: The World's Greatest Assistant Director on - Mubi Maxim Pozdorovkin from Mubi, March 14, 2012

The Strange Case of Russian Maverick Aleksei German | Film ... Anton Dolin from Film Comment, March 14 – 20, 2012, also seen here: Film Comment article

Tony Pipolo on Aleksei Guerman - artforum.com / film Sins of the Fathers, Artforum, March 13, 2012, also seen here: Tony Pipolo

Hard to Be a God by Michael Atkinson - Moving Image Source May 29, 2012

The Alexei German I knew | openDemocracy Ian Christie, February 26, 2013, also seen here: The Alexei German I knew « The Global Dispatches

MUBI [Daniel Kasman] January 29, 2014

Some Came Running: Guerman studies Glenn Kenny, March 14, 2012

Screening Log: All Russian All The Time Edition Peter Labuza

Macrearf1 Epinions Review

Harvey S. Karten review

Grolsch Film Works [Michael Pattison]

HARD TO BE A GOD (Trudno byt bogom) No Grade w/o after one hour

aka: The Chronicle of the Arkanar Massacre

Russia (170 mi) 2013 director died defore completion, finished by wife, Svetlana Karmalita, and son Alexei German Official site [Japan]

Despite the raised expectations, where Aleksei German’s Trial On the Road (Proverka na dorogakh) (1971) is one of the The Five Best Soviet Era War Films, this was a stunning disappointment, where I couldn’t get out of the theater soon enough. While there are elevated critical reviews suggesting some kind of magnum opus, where the film certainly comes with a pedigree, if truth be told, it felt more like being stuck inside an insane asylum during the Middle Ages era of Chaucer, with mud and filth everywhere, while the lunatics are running the asylum. Completely ugly and miserable at every turn, except for an exceptional opening shot, the film appears to be intentionally grotesque, where an hour of this stuff was sufficient to stand one’s ground in determining that surely there must be a better way to spend the next two hours, as I was only able to endure the first hour of a mostly incomprehensible three-hour-long film. Don’t hold your breath waiting for this one.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Michael Glover Smith

The "silence of God" has been a popular theme of serious artists working in different mediums for centuries but Russian filmmaker Aleksey German, adapting a sci-fi novel by the Strugatskiy Brothers, apparently found a completely original way to explore this concept in his final film (he died in post-production and HARD TO BE A GOD was completed by his wife and son): many years in the future, a scientist from Earth named Don Rumata (Leonid Yarmolnik) is sent to observe life on the distant planet Arkanar, a place that happens to bear a strong resemblance to Europe during the Middle Ages (i.e., it's a pre-industrial society where everyone is living in filth and misery, intellectuals are persecuted and human cruelty and stupidity are generally on display everywhere). The Arkanarians regard Rumata as a "God" but the more enlightened man is, for obscure reasons, not allowed to help the members of this alien race transcend the venality and backwardness in which their lives are mired. Some of this narrative information is explained via a sparse voice-over but most of it has to be inferred from a barrage of ugly, non-narrative images that are so rich in putrid detail that they attain a kind of mesmerizing, hallucinatory beauty. Indeed it is practically impossible to capture German's painterly mise-en-scene using words; suffice it to say that the immersive HARD TO BE A GOD feels like some kind of scatological remix of ANDREI RUBLEV where the plentiful blood, piss, shit, and vomit of the characters commingles with the endless rain and fog of the locations they inhabit, which, when captured by the low-contrast black-and-white cinematography, creates images that resemble moving charcoal drawings in their thick, gray, tactile textures. While the use of an endlessly mobile camera and the sense of lives constantly bustling beyond the edges of the frame will be familiar to those who have seen German's previous film--the equally formidable but more absurdist KHRUSTALYOV, MY CAR!--the overall tone here is closer to something like SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM in its unbearable bleakness. It is unlikely that either Pasolini or German knew these movies would be their last but the extremism with which they approached form and content lends each film the feeling of a final testament in hindsight; when creating a work of art entails jumping into an abyss, sometimes no encore is imaginable.

If you’ve seen ten minutes of Hard to Be a God, you’ve kind of seen it all. Unfolding more like a prolonged scene than an actual developmental narrative, the sixth and final feature made by the late Aleksei German is a squelching, clanging mess of a blood-soaked, spit-splattered and mud-drenched tapestry. Whichever way you size this sizeable beast up, it’s a singular and gruelling work, visibly the outcome of much care and effort. German began his long-gestating opus in 2000; production halted six years later. When the Russian filmmaker died in February last year, his namesake son—credited here with a delayed on-screen thanks—completed the project.

I haven’t read the Strugatsky Brothers novel from which Hard to be a God is adapted, but its Wikipedia synopsis bears only superficial resemblance to the film. German has seemingly done away with much of his source’s plot in order to spend time—177 minutes of it—roaming through the elaborately cluttered and achingly claustrophobic sets like some inquisitive dog (one, perhaps, with an arrow through its ribs). Occasionally, the camera itself assumes the point-of-view of central antihero Don Rumata (Leonid Yarmolnik) so that the film’s cast of ugly salt-of-earthers can address us direct.

Only, this isn’t Earth. It’s Arkanar, a planet inhabited by humans not yet out of the Dark Ages, to which 30 scientists have been sent in order to assist societal progression. Amidst a tribal war between the indistinguishable Blacks and Greys, one such scientist—our protagonist Rumata—is dragged into a fetid, bottomless swamp of destruction, decadence and irredeemably barbaric despair.

A real maximalist oddity, Hard to Be a God drifts by like some vulgar tone-poem, with its intimately conversational sound design and ceaselessly observational Steadicam recalling Sokurov’s Russian Ark (2002). Unlike that film, though, German’s opus eschews the lasting ideas of ruling elites to conjure a pre-Enlightenment anarchy. It would be a stretch to call the work atmospheric: it’s so appreciably put-on that there’s no real way to get into this hermetically sealed nightmare.

The image of an erect donkey penis that follows one teasingly innocuous fade-out indicates the level of shock (and humour) German might have been aiming at. Then there are the many instances of skulls being cracked, of men being hanged, of bodies being disembowelled—the film’s an absolute delight for horror fans of the gooey innards variety. There’s something finally juvenile about the grisly ends and general tone (“wine and whores for everyone!”).

But for all these micro details—impressively captured by cinematographers Vladimir Ilin and Yuri Klimenko—the most disturbing thing about Hard to Be a God is its macro allegory. Though it’s set at a safe planetary distance, the film seemingly doubles as an obstinate riff on our own end of times, a monochromic folly of resignation that invites favourable comparisons to that other—if deliberately—final film: Bela Tarr’s The Turin Horse.

The Strange Case of Russian Maverick Aleksei German | Film ... Anton Dolin from Film Comment, March 14 – 20, 2012, also seen here: Film Comment article (excerpt)

Hard to Be a God (Aleksei German, Russia) - Cinema Scope Olaf Möller

Now it’s been delivered, the last work of the late Aleksei German. On Wednesday, November 13th, 10:30 a.m., during the Festival internazionale del film di Roma, his 14-years-in-the-making Hard to Be a God (Trudno byt’ bogom)—for some time called History of the Arkanar Massacre (Istorija Arkanarskoj rezni)—got its first public screening. It is 170 minutes long, black and white, beautiful, brilliant, and like a message from a different time—past or future, who knows, especially with this project.

Therewith, a long wait ended. Whenever a possible line-up of an upcoming Cannes or Venice (never Berlin…) was discussed over the last three or four years, someone was sure to mention Hard to Be a God, if always in a tone that implied “Does anybody know what’s going on with that production?” Begun in 2000, the shooting was only finished in 2006; different edits were screened semi-secretly for trusted friends and opinion-makers since circa 2008 or ’09; around 2010, one heard that it was by now only a matter of finishing the sound, with German working on minuscule clings and clangs. Of course, for each of these stories there was at least one that suggested otherwise—which is to say that rumours abounded, as becomes an endeavour hors les normes by just about any standard. Hard to Be a God would be nothing less than an auteur super-production: a monumentally sprawling science-fiction film that sure as hell wouldn’t give a flying fuck about audience expectations.

Given the previous culmination point of German’s career, Khrustalyov, My Car! (Chrustaljov, mašina!, 1998)—which, as per legend, moved Martin Scorsese to exclaim in front of his fellow Cannes jurors, “This film is so extraordinary even I don’t understand it!” (please, please, please God, let this anecdote be true!)—it was understood by everyone with even a remote interest in the master and his vision that this new one would be…well, more, in every sense possible. And as if that wasn’t enough, talk about German’s health soon started to make the rounds, which led to even more rumours—one of which claimed that the prolonged post-production process had nothing to do with the necessities of the film and all with its creator’s fear of unveiling what he knew would be his terminal work. German, so the story went, knew that expectations, therewith pressures, were so enormous that nothing less than a redefinition of film art would do; and not wanting to experience again the muted puzzlement, if not outright hostility, which had greeted Khrustalyov in Cannes, he deliberately tried to turn Hard to Be a God into a posthumous work. (Of other pressures, like a subsidizing Russian government ever more pissed off by the distended production—even to the point of sending German an ultimatum—we don’t want to talk; obviously, German couldn’t have cared less whether Putin was grumpy or not.) Looking at the way things went, with German dying during the very last stages of sound work (post-synchronization, to be exact) and his wife and son seeing to the film’s finalization, this story sounds somewhat less like a cinephile’s wet dream. Only in Russia…

What lends these tales even more credibility is the fact that Hard to Be a God occupied German’s entire filmmaking life—literally, as he had actually contemplated adapting the eponymous 1964 novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky for his debut feature. Although German’s first draft screenplay for Hard to Be a God is dated 1968—by which point he had already done one film, The Seventh Companion (Sedmoj sputnik, 1967), in tandem with the slightly more experienced Grigorij Aronov (who had a long career at Lenfilm as a hack for all seasons)—some suggest that German started thinking about adapting the novel immediately after its publication. If that sounds a tad far-fetched, consider that German seemed to have been able to carry around choice images, sounds, scenes, stories with him for decades: just take a look at Vladimir Vengerov’s 1965 masterpiece Workers’ Settlement (Rabočij poselok), on which German worked as considerably more than Vengerov’s assistant, and check out how strongly several of the scenes therein foreshadow the feel and rhythm of German’s later My Friend Ivan Lapshin (Moj drug Ivan Lapšin, 1982/84).

Still, Hard to Be a God would likely have been a very different film had German made it in 1968. Staying with the novel for a moment: Hard to Be a God was part of a whole cycle of works by the Strugatskys in which past, present, and future intersect in various ways. The cycle had begun with their seminal 1962 short novel Escape Attempt (Popytka k begstvu), in which (to tell the story from the end) a Jew in a Nazi concentration camp, in his death throes, makes a leap into the future, where he accompanies two cosmonauts on a voyage to a planet ruled by a clique of medieval fascists that has enslaved portions of the planet’s citizenry and condemned them to a very particular kind of penal servitude: they have to figure out how to activate the vehicles left behind by yet another, more highly developed civilization. Compared to this, the set-up of Hard to Be a God is almost simple: here, a future civilization discovers another Earth-like planet whose inhabitants are essentially the same as they themselves were centuries ago. The terrestrials secretly send some of their own amongst the alien barbarians, officially to collect data about this newly discovered people, but in reality to see whether they themselves might regress to an earlier stage of development. Further, these observers are strictly forbidden to make any use of their advanced knowledge, no matter the horrors and miseries they witness and however easy it might be for them to help.

It’s quite possible that, had the film been made in 1964 or ’68, it might have underlined the novel’s political allegory more forcefully than it does now, if only because it would have felt more immediate, even urgent in the ’60s, what with all those recently decolonized (or still decolonizing) peoples importing communism, socialism, or some such in order to give their underdeveloped nations a socio-evolutionary leap of several decades, even centuries. (Not to mention all the nations, starting with the USSR, that had by then already embarked upon that experiment, with decidedly different if always mixed results.) No wonder, also, that the USSR-led invasion of Czechoslovakia nixed any possibility of doing this story for a very long time: it wasn’t until the later stages of Perestroika that Peter Fleischmann, one of Young German Cinema’s more interesting auteurs, was able to mount the first screen adaptation of the novel, the massive West German-Soviet-Swiss co-production Es ist nicht leicht, ein Gott zu sein (1990).

A most intriguing moment that was, as 1) two years earlier, Aleksandr Sokurov had made Days of Eclipse (Dni zatmenija, 1988), based very, very loosely on another Strugatsky work, the 1976 Definitely Maybe (Za milliard let do konca sveta; literally, “A Billion Years Before the End of the World”); 2) one year later, Ardak Armirkulov’s epochal debut, The Fall of Otrar (Gibel’ Otrara, 1991), whose screenplay was co-written by German, went by almost unnoticed (it’s striking now to note the similarities between that film and Hard to Be a God—looks as if Otrar had provided German with an opportunity to try out some ideas and images for his own grand project); 3) FRG cinema witnessed a veritable science-fiction boom: alongside the Fleischmann film, Niklaus Schilling’s The Spirit (Der Atem, 1988), Volker Schlöndorff’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1989), and Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World (1991) were also released, all to rather chilly receptions. (Fleischmann and Schilling, actually, faced ferocious, kind-of career-killing shit-storms, while Wenders at least got his behemoth maudit rehabilitated through the release of a five-hour director’s cut that is indeed much better than the original three-hour version, and maybe his best feature film since the 1969 Summer in the City (Dedicated to the Kinks)). At some point, a curious cinefille unimpressed by received wisdom or cultural orthodoxy will look at this corpus of half-forgotten films and see the brightness of Young German Cinema’s twilight; and as we’re talking clusters, Hard to Be a God gleaned an unexpected film-cultural hipness during its post-production with the release of two more Strugatsky adaptations, Konstantin Lopušanskij’s stupidly overlooked gem The Ugly Swans (Gadkie Iebedi, 2006) and Fedor Bondarčuk’s over-ambitious two-part demi-disaster Dark Planet (Obitaemyy ostrov, 2009), along with a restoration of Grigorij Kromanov and Jüri Sillart’s Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel (“Hukkunud Alpinisti” hotel, 1979).

Getting back to Fleischmann, Es ist nicht leicht, ein Gott zu sein met with similar criticism as now faces Hard to Be a God: too nasty, wallowing in mud, dirt, scum, gunk, shit, suffering, and horror—which is like saying that Fleischmann and German shouldn’t have taken their source so seriously. Actually, the Strugatskys were quite concerned with this aspect when they wrote the novel. From their earliest existing treatments for the book, when it was supposed to be a rambunctiously rustic Dumas-esque adventure yarn targeted partly at children, they wanted to imbue their Dark Age world with an historically appropriate kind of physical unpleasantness: lice, stinking hair, flaky skin, noisy farting, feces, and puddles of urine wherever one stepped, relentlessly unconcerned couplings in broad daylight, and, of course, public executions of the most gruesome kind. The political urgency came later, (almost) against at least Arkady’s stated intentions, as a result of the brutal cultural political changes of 1962 and ’63, when Khrushchev kicked off a campaign against modern(ist) art, painting and music in particular, but also cinema, with Marlen Chuciev’s Lenin’s Guard (Zastava Il’iča, 1963/’65/’89) as its most famous victim. (Even so, the political critique did not come across with the force the Strugatskys originally intended: Don Reba, the sinister ruler holding the reins of terror, was originally called Don Rebija, which is an anagram of Berija.) In the beginning, however, there was derring-do and doo-doo—and German took the latter so seriously that quite a few walked out of Hard to Be a God because they simply couldn’t take it any longer.

By so doing, the walkers-out were actively affirming the film’s purpose. Hard to Be a God is very much a work of suffering and endurance, a still life in motion; in contrast to Fleischmann, German ignores more or less every opportunity for super-production grandstanding. There are almost no “big” moments in the commonly understood sense: few and far apart are the shots of masses of extras, and story-wise essentially zilch in the way of spectacle, carnage, and (melo)drama, which also includes a love story that is quite central for Fleischmann but little more than sadly sentimental humanist decorum for German. Instead, scene after scene, plan-séquence after plan-séquence, shows Don Rumata, the observer from the culturally advanced world, stumbling through cramped, barely lit spaces, with strangers, allies or foes, passing by and blocking the view, often chancing a glance towards the audience if not staring directly into the camera.

Those who remember Khrustalyov will feel immediately at home, even though Hard to Be a God doesn’t (seem to) get as lost in swooning movement and motions as did its predecessor, and with good reason. While Khrustalyov has a clearly defined historical setting (the early 1950s of the “Doctors’ Plot” and the death of Stalin) yet plays in a borderland between reality and remembrance/dream, with strange sights and sounds, impossible-to-explain presences, and will-o’-the-wisp-like images from back-then intruding into the film’s here and now, Hard to Be a God—where a man from a highly possible future walks through a cultural past that is also a physical present—is about being caught in a clearly circumscribed place and time, without the chance of escape offered by memories and reveries. Don Rumata is a prisoner of the past—not of history, as the doctor in Khrustalyov was, but quite literally that which is already behind him, those obstacles to human development his civilization has already overcome. He is walking through an all-too-real that-which-was, prohibited from using his knowledge and powers to help bring about a change that will happen eventually, so theory says, but only after certain developments have taken place. Thus impotent, he is doomed to fall back to a more atavistic stage, or rather worse: doomed to realize that any action he makes to alleviate suffering will be useless until change comes nigh, and in fact will only make matters worse. Hard to Be a God is a monstrous and strikingly Russian Orthodox huis clos, convinced that change will come but miserably resigned to the fact that nothing can be done to speed that escape from suffering. Which is to say that German not only still believes, but knows that above all we are frail and weak, even in our bravery. Neither God nor nature really wonders, let alone cares, about our hopes and desires—they simply, irrespectively deliver what will come. Fuck you, mankind, and be happy for what you’ve been given. Quite a final statement.

Hard to be a god: will Alexei German's long-awaited final ... Andrei Kartashov from The Calvert Journal, November 13, 2013

The Dark Master of Russian Film by Gabriel Winslow-Yost ... Gabriel Winslow-Yost from the New York Review of Books, January 31, 2015

Exorcism: Aleksei German Among the Long Shadows - Film Comment J. Hoberman from Film Comment, January/February 1999

Hard to Be a God - Features - Reverse Shot Michael Sicinski

Moria - The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review [Richard Scheib]

New Left Review - Tony Wood: Time Unfrozen: The Films of Aleksei ... Tony Wood from The New Left Review, January-February, 2001

Kinoeye | Russia: Aleksei German (Alexei Gherman) interviewed Ronald Holloway feature and 1988 interview from Kinoeye, September 13, 2004

Aleksei German: The World's Greatest Assistant Director on - Mubi Maxim Pozdorovkin from Mubi, March 14, 2012

Tony Pipolo on Aleksei Guerman - artforum.com / film Sins of the Fathers, Artforum, March 13, 2012, also seen here: Tony Pipolo

Hard to Be a God by Michael Atkinson - Moving Image Source May 29, 2012

The Alexei German I knew | openDemocracy Ian Christie, February 26, 2013, also seen here: The Alexei German I knew « The Global Dispatches

MUBI [Daniel Kasman] January 29, 2014

Rotterdam 2014 Review: HARD TO BE A GOD, Russian ... Ard Vijn from Twitch

Electric Sheep Magazine [Pierre Kapitaniak]

Slant Magazine [Christopher Gray]

The Film Stage [Peter Labuza]

East European Film Bulletin [Moritz Pfeifer]

User Reviews from imdb Author: Arthur Mardeev from Russia
26 February 2014

User Reviews From imdb Author: birthdaynoodle from garbanzo
26 April 2015

The Cleveland Movie Blog [Charles Cassady, Jr.]

'Hard to Be a God,' Aleksei German's Last Film - NYTimes.com Nicolas Rapold

German, Aleksei Jr.

UNDER ELECTRIC CLOUDS (Pod elektricheskimi oblakami) B- 81

Russia Ukraine Poland (138 mi) 2015 ‘Scope Metrafilms [Russia]

Alignment and positioning do not exist. Picture is a relationship of contrasts, even just a relationship of black and white. —Paul Cézanne

Aleksei German Jr. is not only the son of a legendary Russian filmmaker Aleksei German, director of the extraordinary Soviet era WWII film Trial On the Road (Proverka na dorogakh) (1971), whose mother Svetlana Igorevna Karmalita was a screenwriter, but also the grandson of Yuri German, a Soviet Russian writer, playwright, screenwriter, and journalist. German Jr. was called upon to complete (with the scriptwriting help of his mother) the unfinished final work of his father, HARD TO BE A GOD (2013), a film he began in 2000 and finished shooting in 2006, but died in 2013 before finishing the film, an inexhaustibly squalid adaptation of a 1964 Russian novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, the writers of Stalker (1979), with echoes of the Dark Ages and the end of time. Continuing on a similar theme in his cinematic debut, German Jr. has created an apocalyptic post-Soviet netherworld of defeated and hopeless people roaming the earth like zombies stuck in an impenetrable void of rootlessness and aimlessness, a post-capitalist bygone era already disconnected from their Russian past, where characters speak in a kind of untranslatable gibberish, as words have lost all meaning, where they are the personification of Gogol’s Dead Souls wandering the earth in a kind of incoherent fog of indifference. Nearly indecipherable, the film is so oblique and abstract that it defies all meaning, becoming a challenge to any audience, including many walkouts, but what it attempts to convey is the all but broken and dysfunctional state of affairs in contemporary Russia. Winner of a Silver Bear for cinematography at the Berlin Film Festival, the crew spent four miserable months under difficult conditions shooting in and around St. Petersburg in the dead of winter where every house seems to be in ruins, while the rest was shot in the Ukraine, filming only 30-40 minutes each day when the evening sky was still light but the city lights had also turned on, supposedly creating ideal conditions for shooting. The film is accentuated by a dreamlike strangeness from the remoteness of the locations, shot by Ukrainian cinematographer Serhiy Mykhalchuk and his Russian counterpart Yevgeni Privin, a joint Russian-Ukrainian venture, something unlikely to happen again for many years to come, with sets and props created by Yelena Okopnaya, all contributing to a washed out gloominess that describes the starkly eerie look of the film.

Adding to the film’s mind-numbing reputation are incredibly stupid comments coming from the cast suggesting they may be full of themselves, in this case Louis Franck, a Swiss writer, director, musician, and actor playing an architect in the film, levelling infuriating criticism against fellow Russian filmmaker Andrei Zvyagintsev whose film Leviathan (Leviafan) (2014) won accolades in the West, including Best Screenplay at Cannes while en route to becoming the first Russian film to win a Golden Globe award for Best Foreign Film since Sergei Bondarchuk’s WAR AND PEACE in 1969. According to Franck in a recent October, 2015 interview with The Calvert Journal, Neon nation: filmmaker Aleksei German Jr on capturing ...:

“A lot of contemporary Russian artists are really lost,” Franck continues, warming to his theme. “When you had the Soviet Union you had a clear frame to rebel against or to be subservient to. You knew the parameters. Now, there are a lot of talented people but they end up just reflecting upon themselves. They don’t seem to have the balls to do their own thing. To say, ‘This is what I am and I don’t care’. For example, [Leviathan director Andrei] Zvyagintsev. He wants to be the Coen brothers. That’s it. Leviathan from a Russian point of view is bullshit. It’s pandering to the west, it doesn’t represent Russia at all. For me, German Jr’s film is the ‘real’ Leviathan.”

For Franck, Russian cinema’s fixation on its own outward appearance to the West is nothing new. “It was the same even in the golden period of Russian cinema, the 1950s and 70s, when you had really mind-blowing films being made,” he continues. Back then, of course, there were other directors who were guilty of this stylistic superficiality. “Tarkovsky was the pretentious one; the one who would have the Marlboro packet sticking out of his breast pocket, but with Russian cigarettes inside. Says a lot about the guy.”

This interview resurrects the false prophets of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, suggesting you can possess false knowledge that may unwittingly effect your worldview, like jealously dismissing Zvyagintsev, though he is easily one of the most outstanding contemporary Russian directors, while thirty years after the fact still holding out petty resentment towards Tarkovsky, arguably Russia’s greatest filmmaker, as if he abandoned and betrayed Russia by making his final films “outside” Russia due to continued censorship issues that Tarkovsky viewed as needless harassment, instead of respecting his place among the greatest filmmakers that ever lived. This kind of personal arrogance of outward contempt while living under a cloud or bubble does reflect the artistic style of German Jr.’s film, demonstrating a kind of “Fuck You” attitude toward the audience by making a nearly incoherent film with few connecting parts. Set in the near future of 2017, exactly one-hundred years after the Bolshevik Revolution, a voice-over introductory prelude reveals Russia is a country “crucified between the past and present,” suggesting the world is on the verge of chaos, perhaps due to the disastrous effects of the once promising phenomena known as globalization and capitalism, where another world war feels imminent. Told in non-linear fashion over the course of seven chapters, the story centers upon an unfinished skyscraper looming off in the distance pointing upwards towards the sky, currently awaiting demolition, apparently the effects of a failed economy, and an apt metaphor for a society on the verge of collapse. Returning home to Russia are two twenty-something children of a recently deceased oligarch, Sasha (Viktoriya Korotkova) and Danya (Viktor Bugakov), both mourning the loss of their father while unclear what the future holds. Thinking they are entitled to a split of his vast fortune, where they could continue to travel the world, the police inform them otherwise, claiming their father is the crook who commissioned the unfinished building and is now criminally disgraced, though it appears he could have been politically framed in a power grab to steal his money by corrupt officials. Sasha discovers the horses in her father’s stable have been starved, or possibly poisoned, leaving an ominous feeling of menace and sinister motives. While mulling all this over, they wander past a frozen lake in some mysterious location in an abandoned field that could just as easily be the backlot of a closed down film studio with massive prop Soviet statues lying inertly upon the shoreline, including a giant figure of Lenin, among others, all in a state of decay, fragments of a disappeared world that existed long ago but has since lost all its meaning.

An impressionistic mosaic loosely strung together in fragments, it portrays a large unnamed city that feels deserted and is slowly disintegrating. With each subsequent chapter, new characters are introduced, introduced in the opening as “superfluous people,” mostly a cast of misfits and outcasts that wander listlessly through the bleak, icy landscapes trying to figure out just what’s gone wrong, where typically the film consists of isolated characters walking along the frozen beach, uttering meaningless catchphrases like “The past is gone,” “We can build a new world, we just need to get rid of the dead weight,” or “In twenty years the climate here will be tropical,” and then gazing around intently looking for answers. While there is an inherent absurdity to the established tone of uselessness, there are also well-placed moments of humor, like when Sasha chides others for not having read Tolstoy and War and Peace, where she’s greeted politely by a group of Japanese investors before responding insultingly, “Panasonic-Kurosawa-Harakiri-Sushi.” While there are moments of vague action, such as a twelve-year old girl named Sveta taken hostage by a group of heavily armed Russian mafia, eventually beating up and shooting a drug addict that attempts to intervene, there is also a Kyrgyzstan construction worker who doesn’t speak Russian searching for a fellow countryman in a deserted industrial area, where advertisements are mysteriously projected in the clouds, a frustrated, supremely over-qualified museum tour guide and multilingual cultural expert Nikolai (Merab Ninidze) with a useless PhD working in a crumbling state museum that is threatened by redevelopment, a Jewish real estate lawyer Marat (Konstantin Zelilger) that is troubled by a recurring dream, shown in flashback, recalling the tumultuous revolts of the Soviet satellite republics in the early 90’s after the dissolution of the USSR, while Louis Franck plays Petr, the beleaguered architect of the unfinished building who tried to light himself on fire when the construction stopped, but failed because the matches were wet. Currently out of work, having fallen from grace, he eyes the future with the fatalism of someone who has survived Stalinism, where there’s no going back, instead he optimistically invites everyone he sees to a gigantic birthday bash he’s planning that we never see, promising “a hyena from the Galapagos.” While themes of xenophobia, rampant political corruption and inequality are explored, there is no effort to explain why the world is crumbling, as this could be about the fall of capitalism or perhaps the cutthroat nature of the real estate market, where Russia is a country torn apart from within, a once proud nation with delusions of grandeur, an unquestioning belief in authority, and a yearning desire to break free of the past. Bathed throughout in an oppressive Slavic doom, exiled and alienated from their own rich heritage, German attempts to get at the heart of the Russian soul, but in doing so only discovers the emptiness of the present, showing a destitute world teetering on the edge of ruin.

What to see at the 51st Chicago International Film Festival ... Ben Sachs from the Chicago Reader

This episodic Russian art film was written and directed by Aleksey German Jr. and shows the marked influence of his father's work (My Friend Ivan Lapshin, Hard to Be a God) in its intricate tracking shots, immersive sound design, and opaque storytelling, dense with allusions to Russian art and history. The year is 2017—the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, a grave-sounding narrator intones—and the world is on the brink of war; much of the action takes place in and around an unfinished skyscraper in the middle of a barren field. The various Beckett-like characters include an honored scholar reduced to working as a tour guide, a real estate lawyer who has an elaborate dream placing him back in the late 1980s, and a Kyrgyz immigrant who witnesses a series of senseless crimes. In Russian with subtitles.

Under Electric Clouds - Roger Ebert Michael Pattison, also seen here: Berlin 2015: “Every Thing Will Be Fine,” “Under Electric ...

Another film that flaunts its imagery is “Cups”’ fellow competition entry “Under Electric Clouds”, the fourth feature by Alexey German Jr. Set in 2017, amidst the fallout of a transglobal catastrophe, this Russian-Ukrainian-Polish co-production suffers from spray-on skepticism about the world’s current predicament, manifested mostly through inane, mouthpiece dialogue and a kind of detached, anti-dramatic acting style. Unfolding over seven chapters and running for nearly two and a half hours, this bloated ode to our ever-deepening crisis is possibly the most visually beautiful film of its genre since “Children of Men”—or, if you wish to keep things familial, since “Hard to Be a God”, which German Jr. helped complete after its director, his father, died.

Marked by a half-constructed skyscraper awaiting demolition in the distance—ever the symptom of a failed economy—the sparsely populated riverbank wastelands seen in “Clouds” aren’t the sort of landscapes one would want to linger in for too long, but the zooms and tracks that entrap the film’s listless ensemble of protagonists have a wholly absorbing quality. If late capitalism continues through this death agony—as indeed it surely will—then at least its final sunsets, behind the hazy veil of a light pink hue, will warm the heart.

Lost Horizons - Film Comment Olaf Möller, May/June 4, 2015

Arguably the only great film among the prizewinners, Under Electric Clouds is a work of epic ambition that delivers. It consists of seven vignettes centered on an unfinished building whose architect reportedly went mad; in some the building is actually seen, in others merely mentioned. Many voices are heard, ranging from Kyrgyz migrant workers to the children of a deceased oligarch; some sections are only loosely connected to the story of the ruin, one turns out to be a flashback, and others recapitulate events seen earlier from slightly different angles. Of course Under Electric Clouds is a meditation on today’s Russia: a country torn to shreds by delusions of grandeur, corruption, an unquestioning belief in authority, and a fatal passion for the past that goes hand in hand with an outrageous obsession with the future––making for an empty present. But at its core, it’s the story of the director himself, who, after the death of his overbearing father, a revered pantheon filmmaker, finally has the chance to find his own path. Like his father, German Jr. favors wildly meandering plans-séquences, expansive choreographies of actors milling in and out of scenes, blasted landscapes, and dialogue delivered with fierce panache, but in place of German Sr.’s fury, there’s a playful, lighthearted, dreamy, and almost earnest quality here that’s a joy to behold.

Under Electric Clouds was the only competition entry that fruitfully dared to be adventurous, eclectic, iconoclastic––the other attempts ranged from the muddled (Jiang Wen’s Gone with the Bullets) to the obnoxious (Peter Greenaway’s Eisenstein in Guanajuato). Works of comparable inventiveness were otherwise only to be found in the Forum, which screened two of the festival’s true treasures: Marcelo Pedroso’s Brasil S/A and Kidlat Tahimik’s Balikbayan #1 Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III.

UNDER ELECTRIC CLOUDS (2015) | Filmuforia Michael Pattison

The end of times never looked as pretty as they do in Alexey German Jnr’s fourth feature UNDER ELECTRIC CLOUDS, unveiled in competition this week at the 65th Berlinale. German, whose most recent directorial credit prior to this was in helping to complete his late father’s epically grotesque swansong HARD TO BE A GOD, has made a similarly sprawling if less assaultive account of the times we live in.

But while dad’s final film (no more mentions after this, I promise) was a science fiction work whose explicit allegorical links to our present-day transglobal crisis were half-cloaked in a tale set in a far-off planet suffering through its middle ages, UNDER ELECTRIC CLOUDS doesn’t afford our suspensions of disbelief the luxury of such temporal displacement: his film takes place in 2017, on the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Despairing through an endless winter characterised by gentle snow and an ecru-puce atmospheric haze, its ensemble of characters do not, however, have much to draw upon in terms of an industrialised class politically conscious enough to enact the wholesale change that is so evidently needed. Lenin is merely a statue here: the new future of post-communist Russia is a half-constructed building soon to be demolished.

Ranging from a Kyrgyz worker to two teen heirs of a deceased father’s estate to a museum guide and culture expert, to a jobless architect (“incredibly trendy, but meaningless”), German’s ensemble of unfortunates wander somewhat listlessly through the bleak, icy landscapes trying to figure out just what’s gone wrong. “The past is gone,” one of them notes. “We can build a new world, we just need to get rid of the dead weight.” Such lines, coming in a film whose opening ident ominously reveals funding from Russia’s Ministry of Culture, are at the very least ambiguous in intention. If the Brechtian mouthpieces don’t quite expose the film’s propagandistic agenda, German’s own penchant for half-baked ideas can often work against the film. (This is not to claim the film has an overtly propagandistic agenda; nor is it, of course, to claim it isn’t confused.)

Is this about the fall of capitalism, the ruthless world of real estate, or both? (The two, surely, are linked.) Perhaps the closest the film comes to addressing the root causes or results of our impending doom is in its nods to global warming (“In twenty years the climate here will be tropical”). “We enter a new era armed with historical experience,” one character claims. But there’s scant evidence here that the Russians can help themselves out of their rut. Multiple nods to China, the nation to which failing capitalist economies have looked with hopeful curiosity in recent years, offer little optimism: that too is in crisis. Japan doesn’t look much better. (Pepsi and Coke survive like unscathed ancestors, which might give some indication as to where Putin’s Russia needs to aim.)

Though it’s perhaps too stylised to be fully engaging as a drama, however, there are certainly things to admire, even love, about UNDER ELECTRIC CLOUDS. To a certain degree, this seven-chapter marathon works through its own lethargies in often teasing fashion, hinting at deeper truths about our ongoing catastrophe. German shoots at times from afar, allowing his actors full bodily expression while zooming into them to such an extent that their movements are often obscured, if not negated. The film is at once expansive and claustrophobic. Sergey Mikhalchuck and Evgeniy Privin’s cinematography, conveying a half-abandoned world of mist and infrastructural failure, compensates for scenes that German only intermittently feels the need to direct. Indeed, the visual beauty is often at odds with the content – perhaps deliberately so – so considered are the visual textures in contrast to what is sometimes a directorial laziness.

East European Film Bulletin [Konstanty Kuzma]

Under Electric Clouds adds to the long list of Russian films that reach out for mystical truth. Half-poem and half-canvas, Aleksei German Jr.’s latest work demands complete trustfulness from viewers: rationalizations are of no avail, a flaw which also smothers German’s diagnostic efforts. Attempting to explain no less than Russia in its entirety, German’s excessive ambitions are his biggest enemy.

German’s movie opens with a Cezanne quote and is very much about visuals. Every other of the carefully arranged and choreographed shots are hauntingly beautiful and often able to compensate for the plot’s bland, episodic progress, which sets off with a short exposition. The time is 2017 or hundred years after the Russian revolution, a voice-over reveals. Apparently, we are not to make too much of temporal continuity – “we constantly jump in times” -, the voice warns us, a promise later redeemed by a character who keeps dreaming of his youth. First, we follow a Kazakh construction worker roaming around an icescape that is deserted because of war-like fighting. Clutching on to an over-sized magnetophone, he witnesses a murder and overpowers the perpetrator. The character – practically dumbstruck – wins us over with seemingly nothing, revealing what German can do without doing any talking. But soon, our Kazakh character is left behind as the language of humanity is replaced by that of highbrow intellectualism. With the conversations, the problems begin.

If we are to trust German, the near future is a dark place not all that different from today. The plain riverbank where much of the film is set would seem historically indifferent if it weren’t for the futuristic cityscapes and sky scrapers that linger in the background. One such building – seldom filmed in full view – is deliberated in several of the seven loosely intertwined chapters German’s film consists of. Whereas every layman appears to have an opinion on how it should be crowned, Petr (Louis Franck), its architect, is more interested in the desolate state of the world than that of his building. In fact, all of German’s protagonists share such attentiveness to things that really matter. Sasha (Viktoriya Korotkova) and Valya (Chulpan Khamatova), two youths mourning the loss of their father, want to dedicate their lives to philanthropy and art, while academic-turned-tourist-guide Nikolay (Merab Ninidze) is something like a 21st century Prince Myshkin (The Idiot) – an idealist hero whose ethical wholesomeness would be unrecognized if it weren’t for art.

If German’s characters are likeable and fleshly, they also seem confused and steeped in naïve nostalgia. German sounds like the caricature of an angry old man when he lets his name-dropping protagonists state that times used to be better, or that people once used to know who the likes of Brodsky, Chekhov, Malevitch, Solzhenitsyn or Tolstoi were (a complete list of mentioned names would go on for much longer). Worse yet, he makes no effort to explain why the contemporary world is destitute, what this loss means, and why Under Electric Clouds is any better than the supposedly vapid artworks that appeal to the masses. Instead, he asks us to just believe him. If bringing back our classics is the answer, making a historical drama might have been a better approach (though the loss of robots and celestial advertisements would of course have to be compensated). Radu Jude’s historical epic Aferim! is proof enough that time travel for pedagogic purposes is also possible back in time.

Though German told me he understands his film as a sort of manifesto, it lacks any revolutionary potential. Ironically, its vague messages make it oddly international: complete with allusions to the country’s big names (Lenin makes several cameos as a stone statue), the film nevertheless has little to say about Russia that would not be true of any other country as well (e.g. that it is intricate, full of contradictions and deeply divided). Not that one doesn’t recognize Russia in it. The predominance of xenophobia, corruption or inequality is forcefully captured, and the film’s masterful aesthetics, choreography and set design resonate with the atmosphere pervading Russian cinema (past and present alike). But unexplored, the country’s problems seem almost contingent. Stringing together narrative after narrative and theory after theory – a typical scene consists of a character walking, pontificating, and then gazing around -, the director suggests that greater conceptual complexity will automatically result in greater insight. German stated at the Berlinale press conference that no other approach would have allowed him to capture the Russian soul. Perhaps a film, however complex, is not enough to express a nation’s “soul”? And maybe, it’s not what German has to say, but how he says it that is most revealing in this respect? Under Electric Clouds is unable to verbalize the alleged essence of what constitutes Russia. As a lyrical film struggling to tackle the impossible, it still ends up fairly close to where it wanted to get.

Yam Magazine [Arsaib Gilbert]

Under Electric Clouds : A post-soviet Waste Land - Cineuropa Bénédicte Prot

Flickfeast [Stephen Mayne]

Under Electric Clouds | Reviews | Screen Lee Marshall from Screendaily

CineVue [Patrick Gamble]

Dog And Wolf [Mark Wilshin]

Daily | Berlinale 2015 Diary #6 | Keyframe - Explore the ... David Hudson from Fandor

Neon nation: filmmaker Aleksei German Jr on capturing ... Samuel Goff interviews the director and lead actor from The Calvert Journal, October 19, 2015

Under Electric Clouds wins Berlinale award: an interview ... Anton Sazonov interview from Calvert Journal, February 16, 2015

'Under Electric Clouds' ('Pod Electricheskimi Oblakami ... Neil Young from The Hollywood Reporter

'Under Electric Clouds' (EXCLUSIVE) - Variety Elsa Keslassy

Best, Worst of the Berlin Film Festival 2015 | Variety

Scenes from an otherworldly Russian film set – in pictures ... The Guardian, August 25, 2015

Five Russian films to watch in 2015 - The Guardian Anton Sazonov

Gerstein, Ariana and Monteith McCollum

MILK IN THE LAND: BALLAD OF AN AMERICAN DRINK B 87

USA (75 mi) 2008 Directors' site

I was not expecting much from a food documentary, but was surprised by the provocative style and humorous nature of the inquiry, offering a historical perspective, different points of view, and intriguing visuals along with a mellow dissonance from the guitar/violin musical score by Monteith McCollum that resembles what John Cale of the Velvet Underground might sound like today. Right off the bat we are introduced to archival newspaper clippings and historical statistics that suggest over a hundred years ago, people over 15 consumed three times the amount of whisky than they do today, that our forefather’s drink of choice was whisky. Cows were fed from the leftover grain from the distilleries, producing poisonous, chemically altered swill milk that caused disease to the cows and ended up killing large numbers of children. With the arrival of immigrants swarming into the cities, the demand for milk increased, which led to underhanded practices of whitening the bluish colored milk with water, chalk, plaster of paris, starch or eggs, all of which led to disasterous results. Little could anyone imagine at the time that milk would become the supposed healthy and wholesome drink of choice it has become today, associated with health benefits provided to infants around the world.

Filled with humorous quotes from a full range of people, from Richard Nixon to Groucho Marx, we hear the views of the anti-milk man, whose own family has turned on him as they are sick and tired of hearing him preach about the negative benefits of milk, claiming the animal protein it carries is likely responsible for the high cancer rates in the countries that consume the most milk and milk products, like yogurt and cheese, namely the United States and Scandanavian countries. Another man promoted the benefits of raw milk, especially the cream, claiming (without corroborating evidence) that he was able to nurse himself back to health without antibiotics after the onset of a severe case of lyme disease using a diet of raw meat and raw milk. In each case, they indict the industrialization of milk, how the dairy farmers have been largely displaced by industrial combines that mislead the public about their product, as any dairy farmer knows there are as many different kinds of milk as there are cows and goats and the different diets that they feed on. Another dairy farmer claims his neighbors don’t look kindly to his practice of leaving his cows outdoors in winter, continuing to milk them year round, which goes against the industry practice of protecting them from the cold. The farmer however claims his cows never get sick and continue to breed year after year, leaving the infant calves in the company of their mothers. While he doesn’t have the genetically gigantic cows that produce the most milk, he has healthy animals that produce healthy milk that can be drunk straight from the cow.

The film suggests people themselves know better than the industry, which promotes sanitized pasteurization and produces misleading corporate messages instead of common sense, but the stamp of corporate America makes its way through supermarkets into millions of households across the land while the small dairy farmers have little influence, as they produce milk for their family, friends, and neighbors. When we finally get to images of cows in their natural habitat, both in the snow or just eating grass in Spring-like green pastures, the viewer has a better idea how the animal has been mistreated by the very industry that claims to understand it best. The systematic, mechanical milking machines don’t look very cow friendly, designed exclusively to reap profits while a corporate executive sends press releases about the inhumanity of others who would dare interfere with their profit margins. When we see the storage bins of excess powdered milk, images that literally feel fictionalized, as if out of a Stephen Spielberg movie, we realize that truth is stranger than fiction. While this film may not change anyone’s minds about the benefits or lack thereof of milk, it does an excellent job bringing the subject to the viewer’s attention and holding their interest.

NewCity Chicago Ray Pride

A diverting look at milk’s historical and social importance in the U.S., “Milk in the Land: Ballad of an American Drink” considers “the perfect food” and its symbolic and dietary significance. Filmmakers Monteith McCollum and Ariana Gerstein extend their style of experimental entertainment that served them well in the prize-winning “Hybrid.” Animation, terrific cinematography and original music enhance the message of the implications of industrialization in our lives, the lives of animals and in the food chain. 75m.

Chicago Reader Joshua Katzman

Using stop-motion animation, archival footage, photographs, and contemporary interviews, directors Ariana Gerstein and Monteith McCollum look at the culture and politics that have shaped the milk industry. One especially frightening segment concerns the emergence of "swill milk" in New York in 1852, when dairy cows were fed used grain from whiskey distilleries and produced a bluish milk that caused disease and death, especially among children. Gerstein and McCollum contrast the droning efficiency of modern-day dairy farms with several renegade farmers who have returned to grass-fed cattle and unpasteurized milk. Their 2008 documentary is eye-opening but maintains an ethereal tone, greatly abetted by Mark Hadsell's songs and McCollum's carnivalesque score. 90 min.

[ucira] Screening: Milk in the Land, Ballad of an American Drink (fwd)

Milk in the Land tells the disquieting untold story of North America's staple beverage. Farmers, activists, ethicists and historians detail milk's fascinating birth as a replacement for breast milk and booze, and its subsequent evolution into a massive industry. Milk is much more than a mere refreshment, it is also a powerful symbol of America, the embodiment of progress and perfect health. Animation and collage bring milk ads and slogans to life, while stop-motion and time-lapse effects add visual tremor to this history of greed versus need. Behind the images of idyllic pastoral landscapes and happy cows lurks the reality of mechanized milking machines and genetically engineered animals. Yesterday's land of plenty has been transformed into today's land of waste in this truly haunting portrait of industrialization.

TimeOut Chicago Hank Sartin

America’s love affair with milk is a fascinating topic, one that has generated a lot of scholarship. In this curious documentary, Gerstein and McCollum tap into some of that scholarship to create a mix of cultural history and side-door polemic. Rather than making a direct argument (industrial milk production is bad, and maybe milk isn’t even good for us), they build implicitly, piling up a collection of opinions and weird snippets of history. And just to make the experience even less like a conventional documentary, they employ a variety of avant-garde filmmaking strategies (stop-motion, shooting out of focus) and a score (by McCollum) that mixes theremin and keening violins.

Gerstein and McCollum link milk to Richard Nixon (seen praising milk in a speech) and even to racist eugenicist theories (milk was seen as the drink of the “white races”). To use a metaphor from another part of the dairy farm, this smear by association is what’s known as “egging the batter.” But even if their sly approach grates a bit (anything seems strange if you slather on the theremin), this film deserves points for avoiding the more common documentary trap of obvious preaching. By the end, you may not be sure which of their experts to trust (a few sound like crackpots to us), but you’ll be likely to look at a glass of milk differently.

Educational Media Reviews Online review Janis Tyhurst

This film presents information specifically on the milk industry. Starting with the beginnings of the milk industry, which came about from a need to do something with the grain used to make alcohol, to the arguments for and against raw milk, many interesting historical and social events in the evolution of milk in America are presented. The influence of politics on agricultural policy, specifically on the dairy industry, brings in archival film footage of Richard Nixon (praising milk as the American drink) and John F. Kennedy (toasting with a glass of milk). The U.S. government buys milk from farmers to keep the price of milk down and keep production up. It turns the excess milk into powdered milk that is stored across the U.S. in underground storage facilities at taxpayer expense.

After presenting the historical/social/political issues, the film takes a closer look at the agribusiness factory model of dairy farming vs. small farmer dairies, as well as the lesser known issues of seasonal vs. year round milking. Other issues that are addressed are the health effects of milk—does milk build strong bones or fill you up with artificial hormones, is it a good substitute for breast milk or does it create allergies, should the milk be pasteurized or raw. Interviews with dairy farmers, academics, physicians and food activists present the different viewpoints for and against these issues.

I like food history documentaries, but I struggled to make it through this one because of all the long slow panoramic scenes, the slow illumination of thoughts on a blackboard, and the annoying dissonant background music. It could be vastly improved if about 35 minutes of it were edited out. The many long panoramic views of cows in pastures or cutesy animated cutout advertisements for milk detract from the points being made. There is good information on this DVD if you are willing to skip through the excess scenery and put up with tonal dissonance, but you have to work for it.

Milk in the Land: Ballad of an American Drink Movie Reviews ... Marty Mapes

Milk in the Land Facets Multi Media

The Forgotten History of Modern Milk GardenHome Farm

Marasmus and Scrofula Health and Disease from Lower East Side Tenement Museum

Poor Mojo Newswire: The Swill Milk scandals of New York City

Gervasi, Sacha

HITCHCOCK B 83

USA (98 mi) 2012 ‘Scope Official site

Interesting that a film about Alfred Hitchcock, cinema’s most legendary director, would be made by a director nobody’s ever heard of—not exactly the kind of ringing endorsement that would raise the dead from their slumbers. Known for making a heavy metal rock ‘n’ roll documentary entitled ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL (2008), something of an offshoot of THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984), this is quite a jump to a portrait of the Master of Suspense. Adapted by John J. McLaughlin from Stephen Rebello’s 1990 book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, where he interviews virtually all surviving cast and crew members, the film is a behind-the-scenes look at Hitchcock’s personal life with his wife Alma on the making of PSYCHO (1960), a radical departure from his typical selection of sophisticated espionage or suspense stories, choosing instead to make a black and white, B-movie horror film based upon such crude and offensive material that all the other film studios had already rejected the story. Working for Paramount Studios, his last film working with them was VERTIGO (1958), a box office flop, considered too downbeat and difficult for the viewing public, though ironically now a half a century later, the film has overtaken CITIZEN KANE (1941) as the greatest film of all time, a position KANE held for 60 years, according to a British film magazine poll of over 800 film critics polled once a decade, Sight & Sound 2012 Polls | BFI | British Film Institute, while NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) was a smash hit while Hitchcock was on loan to MGM Studios. Paramount was looking to recoup their losses from Hitchcock, and when they discovered the crude source material for the film he wanted to make, they balked, refusing to finance his film. Hitchcock was forced to borrow against his own home and finance the film himself (for about $850,000), putting his career and marriage at great risk, leaving him emotionally and financially spent, considering the continual pressure he was under to deliver a hit.

Hollywood loves these kinds of spoofs on real life, using actors that bear surprising physical resemblances to the real thing, where all one has to do is look at the Best Actor Awards of the last decade, Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in MILK (2008), Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND (2006), Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote in CAPOTE (2005), Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in RAY (2004), or the more recent attempt by Michelle Williams to play Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn (2011). Unlike all of those movies, what makes this one different is the tongue-in-cheek humor expressed throughout, so it’s not so devastatingly serious all the time. Since Hitchcock himself was possessed with such a delicious wit, this character trait seems to override all his other flaws, which are certainly on display, from the maniacal director who controls every aspect of each shot, to the over-controlling husband who suspects his wife is having an affair, to elements of psychological obsession and absurdity, as Hitchcock is a born sucker for that icy blond that continually eludes him, yet when he’s attempting to grasp how best to shoot his movie, the film literally inhabits him, like ghosts visiting Scrooge, where he often succumbs to an unhealthy dialogue with phantom spirits from his movies. One might think Hitchcock was in touch with his subconscious, as that’s often such a prominent theme of his films, but with PSYCHO, he was playing with fire, where the devil often got the best of him. Anthony Hopkins has no problem whatsoever making the transition from Hannibal Lecter to Hitchcock (“Just Hitch, hold the cock”), apparently relishing the perfect enunciation of every syllable, while the blunt outspokenness of Helen Mirren (never shy) is likely nothing at all like the real Alma Reville, Hitchcock’s more reclusive wife who almost always remained publicly behind the scenes, but her ability to match wits and hold the floor with her husband is a nice twist, especially the way she continually tried keeping him on a vegetable diet. She was, apparently, Hitchcock’s boss when they first met in the London film studios of the 1920’s, with a sharp eye for finding mistakes and inconsistencies in the frame, an expert in both editing and writing, collaborating throughout her lifetime with her husband, though rarely receiving any credit.

Hitchcock believes the mainstream popularity of his TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955 – 62) has straightjacketed him into making films that the public expects instead of the kinds of films he wants to make. One of the more questionable, but amusing aspects of the film is Hitchcock’s interaction with Ed Gein, the notoriously grisly killer upon which PSYCHO, as well as SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991), is based, whose continual reappearance suggests Hitchcock’s volatile interior psyche is spilling out onto the surface, where his own insecurities often get the best of him. Nonetheless, it’s interesting to see how Gein’s mama’s boy personality manifests itself in the squirrelly nature of Anthony Perkins (James D’Arcy). Scarlett Johansson plays Janet Leigh, apparently grateful to be working with someone other than the equally tyrannical Orson Welles in TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), where Welles put her through Hell, actually breaking her arm during the rehearsals but going ahead with the entire shoot anyway, only to discover she’s getting killed off at about the 45 minute mark in PSYCHO, something unheard of at the time for a lead character. Johansson is a gamer and maintains her wits about her as another notorious Hitchcock blond, the object of his subconscious desires, where it’s suggested that Jimmy Stewart’s dark psychological disturbance in VERTIGO is the closest one comes to the real life Hitchcock persona. He was adamantly unforgiving of Vera Miles (Jessica Biel), targeting her as his next star in the lead role in VERTIGO until her pregnancy put an end to that idea, still fuming over the subsequent delays in production costs, treating her coolly on the set, giving her “a thankless role for an utterly thankless girl.” Toni Collette is almost unrecognizable as Hitchcock’s loyal secretary, and of course the overbearing Paramount producers are seen as the moral hypocrites and cowardly backstabbers that they are. While the underlying humor is easily the best part, which is something this young director apparently brought to the film, but like most of these biographical portraits, there are flaws galore, like a needless side story with Mirren and Danny Huston that goes nowhere, and a wrongheaded suggestion that the shower scene was somehow saved in the editing room (it wasn’t—give Hitchcock credit for knowing how to shoot a scene), but while somewhat light on substance, it’s entertaining throughout and casts a glow on Hitchcock’s illustrious career, as the picture was enormously successful and instantly changed the face of horror films forever.

Exclaim! [Kevin Scott]

On the surface, Hitchcock tells the engrossing behind-the-scenes story of the making of the classic Psycho, but that merely provides the backdrop for a complex domestic partnership to emerge, detailing the precarious balance that develops when the personal and the professional mingle together with a spouse. Proving the adage that "behind every great man is a great woman," it is a fascinating study of how the act of collaboration can take on many forms in a marriage.

After the success of North By Northwest in 1959, legendary director Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) is at a professional crossroads. While many believe that at 60 his best work is surely behind him, Hitchcock is driven to find a project to reinvent himself with and push the boundaries of the suspense genre even further. When he reads true crime novel Psycho, he ignores the advice of nearly everyone and pushes forward with the project, even financing the adaptation himself in a nearly unprecedented deal with Paramount.

His wife, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), is one of the few that stands behind him, agreeing to risk all they have to support his ambitions. Meanwhile, she's assisting writer Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston) in adapting his novel, an act that fuels much jealousy and paranoia in Hitchcock. As tensions mount between Alma, Paramount and the Production Code board, Hitchcock struggles to keep it all together in the face of potential disaster.

With an assist from some stellar make-up, Hopkins does a fantastic job embodying Hitchcock, humanizing the famous persona while still capturing some of his more grandiose characteristics, including his deliberately orotund speaking voice. Though the subject matter is largely dramatic, the film does well to include many welcome moments of his trademark dry humour.

It's in the dynamics of the women surrounding Hitchcock that the film finds its most fertile ground. Working with beautiful actresses such as Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) and Vera Miles (Jessica Biel), the film is observant in the ways the director managed to subtly manipulate them, using his power to build them up and then cast them aside at the slightest hint of disloyalty. In Alma, however, he found someone who refused to be viewed as anything but his equal.

We all know how things ended and yet there's still great pleasure in watching the master of suspense listen through a door to the squeals of a theatre experiencing the shower scene for the first time, revelling in playing them like a true maestro.

If you've ever seen Psycho, or even if you know anything at all about the film, Hitchcock would like to congratulate you on your savvy. Sacha Gervasi's movie, which simultaneously holds the audience's hand and flatters its knowingness, finds its subject at a career and personal crossroads. Fresh off the success of North by Northwest, but nearing the final phase of his working life, Hitch (Anthony Hopkins) searches for his next project, while he confronts his own insecurities, many of them having to do with his wife and writing partner, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), about whom he harbors intense suspicions.

This confronting-of-the-personal-demons angle, which turns the film's midsection into a half-baked psychodrama, makes an odd and wholly unsatisfying fit with the movie's other through line: the surface-deep look at the lensing of Psycho. Essentially the film traces the evolution of the director from the witty quipster we know from reruns of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to an absolute monster: tyrannical on the set, horrible to his wife, and perpetually plagued by visions of serial killer Ed Gein, who encourages his perverse impulses, which include spying on actress Vera Miles in her changing room—before duly reverting back to a spouse-devoted decent guy. None of this is very convincing, a fact that shouldn't prove too surprising since the film's real interests lie elsewhere.

In one sense, though, there's a perfect continuity between the movie's two disparate projects, showing what a tortured bastard Hitchcock was in real life and watching him at work on his 1960 masterpiece: They both either annihilate or pervert cinematic understanding. The first angle plays into our penchant for placing biography above output when considering an artist's work, looking for answers everywhere but in the actual text, while the second ensures that we don't have to deal with any of Psycho's uncomfortable or ambiguous elements, only acknowledge the film as the horror classic it's now universally recognized as being.

It's this insistence on superficiality that assures the film's colossal failure. The story is essentially that of a determined artist fighting to make his film over the objections of the studios, the censors, and the press, but it's presented in such a way that the audience is expected to laugh at those benighted individuals who could possibly object to the making of a masterpiece like Psycho. After all, with 50-plus years of hindsight, we know better. Similarly, Gervasi and screenwriter John J. McLaughlin's presentation of the actual making of the movie is replete with things that everyone already know about Psycho and little else. In case you haven't seen the movie, you'll be gratified to learn that Anthony Perkins was a good fit for the role of Norman Bates because of "the duality" he was able to bring to the part, and that the shower scene was carefully edited to give the suggestion of violence and nudity without explicitly showing either.

For Gervasi, the filming of the shower scene also stands as a chance to bring together his two contrasting views of his subject—Hitch as ingenious director, Hitch as real-life psycho—and create the movie's most risible moment. As psychodrama merges with Psycho drama, we learn not so much how an artist's insecurities can shape his or her artistic choices as about how non-artists (Gervasi and McLaughlin) too often reach for tidy conflations that both oversimplify the creative process and ensure that we need not dig any deeper. This is how it happened folks, the film says—and if didn't unfold quite like this in real life, isn't it nicer to imagine that it did?

'Hitchcock': Borrows From Hitchcock Cynthia Fuchs from Pop Matters

“A thankless role for an utterly thankless girl.” So says Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) of Lila, the role he’s assigned to Vera Miles (Jessica Biel) in Psycho. Just so, when Vera shows up on set of Psycho in the fanciful biopic Hitchcock, she discovers she will be wearing tweedy suits and a prim hairstyle. As she raises an eyebrow in acknowledgment of her not very subtle punishment by the Master of Suspense, Vera appears improbably empowered. You know that she knows what’s happening here. And she’s not falling for it.

More precisely, she’s not falling for the director’s increasingly notorious demands and manipulations. She’s worked with him before, and she’s made her own decisions. Though she doesn’t reveal details to her newbie costar, Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson), details concerning her experiences on The Wrong Man or Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the director does let slip the most well-known of their run-ins, when she became pregnant and so lost the role in Vertigo to Kim Novak. This lack of detail is what’s most intriguing in Hitchcock, a movie that is otherwise filled with details, both imagined and based in testimonies, concerning Hitchcock’s fabled fixations and cruelties. As these are laid out and you might feel repulsed or fascinated or confirmed in your guess that his was a sinister and rather unstable temperament, Vera remains admirably professional, able to work with the guy and sane about it.

Vera’s function as a sympathetic audience stand-in, most clearly illustrated in her on-set and rather cursory friendship with Janet: they share a drink in Vera’s dressing room, swap stories, and so maintain their distance from the process and their sanity. Just so, the film implies, women grappled with overbearing bosses and complicated studio power systems for decades, finding ways through the peculiar victimization and general weirdness for which Hitchcock provides an extreme example.

That extremity makes him an ideal sort of subject for biography, if not hagiography. While HItchcock’s art, as François Truffaut early on proclaimed, is singularly enthralling, his means to it has been revealed over time as a function of personal and broadly cultural demons—and to no small extent enabled by agents and studio heads in love with the money he made them, as well as assistants and starlets who found their own ways to overlook the pathologies, in order to keep their jobs.

While it offers Vera and Janet as a kind of counterweight to this version of Hitchcock, the movie focuses more closely on the other version, as it is experienced by deeply complicated relationship with his wife and (mostly uncredited) collaborator Alma (Helen Mirren). Alma has her own story in the film, that is, something like a rebellion fashioned as a tentative romantic interest in her other sometime writing partner, the self-impressed Whitfield (Danny Huston), but this is a gloss on her plot with Hitchcock. This plot uses her to make him less apparently toxic: if this noble, intelligent, and practical-minded woman can put up with his oafish obsessions, then he can’t be so terrible as he seems.

Whether or not this is true, the movie manages your view of the man with scenes from the period when Hitchcock and Alma made Psycho, from 1959-1960. These scenes—awfully episodic in structure—show his Norman-like peepholes on the set, his conversations with underlings and studio heads. They dramatize her pain and frustration (asked to write 2000 words for Reader’s Digest on “what it’s like to be married to a man obsessed with murder,” she rolls her eyes but accepts the promotional role), as well as her sense of betrayal on discovering her husband has been engaged in the very obsessive behaviors he has promised to give up. And they indicate her own erratic responses, sometimes culturally constructed (as when she buys a red bathing suit advertised for younger women), utterly pragmatic (as when she puts her husband on a diet or keeps their budget when she agrees they will finance the production of Psycho themselves), and sometimes straight-up heroic (as when she stomps off to the Psycho to direct when her husband is indisposed, and so saves the production from the circling suits).

In all instances, of course, Mirren’s very presence goes a long way toward making Alma’s range of responses appear both credible and extra-self-aware. But it helps too that Alma’s not operating in a vacuum. Her understanding of Hitchcock (not to mention the unnecessary speech she makes about it) is confirmed by what Vera and Janet have understood.

At the same time, Hitchcock borrows from Hitchcock, not so much challenging the mythology as reframing it. Certainly, it indulges in some antic crazy-artist portraiture—Hitchcock has conversations with Ed Gein (Michael Wincott), going so far as to follow him into the Psycho house, that is, the set you already know, rather than Gein’s own Wisconsin farmhouse, where they contemplate the grisly sight of dead Mrs. Bates laid out on her bed. But it also pulls back, exploiting the sensational effects of art, a representation of damaged psychology, even as it reminds you that what you’re seeing is exactly that, art and a representation of damaged psychology, as Vera knows too well.

Film.com [Stephanie Zacharek]

'Hitchcock' Movie Review: To Psycho with Love | TIME.com Mary Pols

Was Hitchcock Psycho? | TIME.com Richard Corliss

Hitchcock | Film | Movie Review | The A.V. Club Scott Tobias

Combustible Celluloid Review - Hitchcock (2012), Sacha Gervasi ... Jeffrey M. Anderson

AFI Fest Review: 'Hitchcock' A Breezy, Disposable Effort Saved By ... Charlie Schmidlin from The indieWIRE Playlist

Hitchcock: new film with Anthony Hopkins, Helen ... - Slate Magazine Dana Stevens

Review: Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren are simply ... - HitFix Gregory Ellwood

indieWIRE [Eric Kohn]

FilmFracture [Kathryn Schroeder]

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Hitchcock - Reelviews Movie Reviews James Berardinelli

A Visionary Director's Sumptuous 'Pi' - The Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

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Hitchcock Jeff Nelson from DVD Talk

Movie Reviews - 'Hitchcock' - 'Hitchcock': Mr. And Mrs. 'Master Of - Npr Ella Taylor

Review: Hitchcock fails on almost every level as drama and ... - HitFix Drew McWeeny

DustinPutman.com [Dustin Putman]

Hitchcock Movie Review (AFI FEST) | Film School Rejects Kate Erbland

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Review: 'Hitchcock' is lightweight but fun study David Germain from Salon

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Hitchcock and the pitfalls of the artist biopic | Film | For ... - The AV Club Scott Tobias

Hitchcock Movie Review 2012 | Film School Rejects Brian Salisbury

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The many faces of Alfred Hitchcock John Patterson from The Guardian

Hitchcock - The Globe and Mail Rick Groen

'Hitchcock' a hoot thanks to Anthony Hopkins, Helen ... - Boston Herald James Verniere

Review: Hitchcock - Reviews - Boston Phoenix Brett Michel

Critic Review for Hitchcock on washingtonpost.com Ann Hornaday

'Hitchcock' review: 'Psycho' drama - SFGate - San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

'Hitchcock' a lifeless portrait, critics say The LA Times

Hitchcock :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews

'Hitchcock,' With Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren Manohla Dargis from The New York Times

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Geyrhalter, Nikolaus

OUR DAILY BREAD (Unser täglich Brot) B+ 91

Austria (92 mi) 2005

Despite some spellbinding imagery, much of it resembling futuristic configurations, like something we might see in a more avant garde Apichatpong Weerasethakul film, such as a tractor in the middle of a field opening up long spray hinges on each side giving the impression of spreading its wings, as if it was about to take off and fly, this is largely a film that examines the means by which we feed ourselves, taking a look at the routine monotony of working in the food industry. An Austrian film that brings to mind the personal detachment of Haneke and Seidl, this film fell short of Ruth Mader’s 2003 film STRUGGLE, which was a wrenching look at exploited workers, both immigrants bussed into the country to perform the menial labor jobs for Austria as well as an Austrian middle class that has been duped into believing money can buy happiness, who lead meaningless lives that are empty of love and affection. More along the lines of Michael Glawogger’s detached objective style in filming WORKING MAN’S DEATH, a compilation of some of the more dangerous working conditions in the world today, this film eliminates all emotional judgment about the work and simply shows us images shot from 2002 to 2005 of everyday ordinary working conditions of man using the latest hi-tech machinery processing food from its raw, original source, much of which resembles working in a killing field.

What this wordless film does do, with the cooperation of a multitude of credited corporations, is open up its doors and allow a film crew to observe men and women at work, all kinds of work, from giant carbine machines harvesting fields to picking fruits or vegetables by hand in a vast expanse of an enclosed greenhouse, tent after tent for as far as they eye can see, to spraying fields or endless rows of plants with insecticides, where the humans are wearing full body coverings and a mask, to the more grotesque slaughtering of pigs, cows, or even chickens, much of which resembles an animal Auschwitz, as the mechanized route to slaughter is incredibly precise and thorough, meticulously designed to maintain a high volume. Workers are so detached from their role in the killing process, blood splattered all over their gloves and overalls, that in one amusing image a worker takes a call on his cell phone. Geyrhalter makes no judgment, offers no conclusions, and simply observes the meticulous routines of work, much of it bloody and filthy, followed by recurring images of workers eating their sandwiches on lunch or break time, reminiscent of nondescript workers from Soderbergh’s recent film BUBBLE, completely detached from the drudgery of slaughtering animals.

Besides the graphic imagery, the film is equally precise in offering the recorded sounds of work, which continue playing over a black screen during the end credits, sounds which are eerily haunting in their strikingly depersonalized unpleasantness. In the end, one feels eternally grateful for never having to do this kind of work, but a film like this provides a huge amount of detailed information and breaks down the barriers of separation, exposing us to the invisible labor pool that performs such degrading monotonous work, reminding us step by step of the dehumanized process that someone endures for the sake of the food we eat.

Our Daily Bread Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Although Our Daily Bread is a German co-production (it has some ZDF money behind it), this film is Austrian to the marrow. Like the films of Michael Haneke and Ulrich Seidl, ODB is an almost perversely dispassionate examination of a topic that seems to call either for firm intervention or paranoid defensiveness. Geyrhalter turns his camera on the mechanized food industry in nearly all its conceivable forms. Although we spend extended sequences in salt mines and lettuce fields, the benighted stars of ODB walk on four legs -- that is, until they end up hanging from one leg by a metal hook. Baby chicks are debeaked, cows led into a sort of Iron Maiden device that kills them near instantly, pigs are herded onto the killing floor, anally probed, bled dry, eviscerated, their bodies then indelicately sliced lengthwise. What's truly strange, and eerily effective, about Geyrhalter's presentation is its almost antiseptic formalism. ("Almost," in that blood is copiously spilled and power-hosed away, and no amount of symmetrical camera placement can sufficiently sterilize the mise-en-scène.) Even as we slowly track through the long hallway lined on either side with overcrowded chicken coops in one of the first shots of the film, one very quickly admires the rigor and elegance Geyrhalter brings to his documentary observation. No commentary, no direct-cinema bobbing and weaving; just razor-sharp camera set-ups down the middle. (An inch or two in either direction would lend these scenes the off-balance disquietude of a de Chirico painting. Geyrhalter resists the urge. Only when movement through the scene requires bodily adjustment -- e.g., the final tracking shot across the bovine slaughterhouse -- does Geyrhalter pivot off the axis.) I found myself moving from the aforementioned admiration into increased agitation, watching these animals meeting their mechanized Auschwitz. But eventually I got used to it, and that's a large part of Geyrhalter's accomplishment here. As you watch (presuming you don't turn away -- I know many avid filmgoers who wouldn't last ten minutes with this film, and I intend no slight to them, nor do I mean to cast my own moral decision to stick it out as macho bravado), Geyrhalter's formal control and somewhat fugue-like repetition structure conditions us to accept what we're seeing. It becomes social content, and as we witness the abattoir workers slitting throats and then eating their lunch, we realize that they're doing their jobs (no revelation there), but we spectators are doing ours as well. Everybody's settling in, allowing horror to atomize into a dissipated tinge, a grim nod.

But by placing these images (which certainly contain nothing revelatory; disturbing, yes, but who since Upton Sinclair could be surprised by what we see?) alongside more benign, less violent forms of food production, Geyrhalter poses a challenge, one that doesn't always pay off. On the one hand, equating the abattoir, the cucumber pickers, the industrial thresher, etc., Geyrhalter makes it all about labor. This doesn't tell us very much, since as labor, some seem to have an easier time of it than others. The equation doesn't hold. On the other hand, placing these passages side by side raises questions about the ethics and ecology of agribusiness. In "The Question Concerning Technology," Heidegger compared the mechanized food industry to the atom bomb and, implicitly, the gas chamber. This has struck many readers as disingenuous to the point of tastelessness, coming as it does from a former Nazi, but Geyrhalter seems to be picking up Heidegger's larger point -- humankind's domination of nature, the reduction of the world to use-value and "standing reserve" -- and running with it. Where does it lead us? I'm uncertain. Geyrhalter's method cannot reveal the deeper social and economic connections binding the meat, dairy, and agriculture industries, so we're left with a vague sense of ominous forces, all receiving the same visceral urgency by convection, as it were -- their proximity to the "hot" slaughterhouse material. James Benning has found a way to step back, allowing carefully composed pictures of the modern world to reveal themselves, and, over time, their secrets. His landscapes are both achingly gorgeous and inscribed with power, and the exploration of that dialectic gives Benning's cinema its aesthetic and political force. Geyrhalter, by contrast, opts for both the guttural jolt and the passive voice. His filmic disengagement transfers its moral quandary onto the viewer and, through its serene formalist exactitude, seems to magically absolve itself. That's Austrian cinema for you.

Tom Vanderbilt on Our Daily Bread from Artforum (free registration required)

IN ONE EARLY SCENE of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle, the Lithuanian-born protagonist reflects on his new job in Chicago’s Packingtown. “Jurgis had,” Sinclair writes, “stood with the rest up in the gallery and watched the men on the killing beds, marveling at their speed and power as if they had been wonderful machines; it somehow never occurred to one to think of the flesh-and-blood side of it—that is, not until he actually got down into the pit and took off his coat.”

A century later, in Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s documentary Our Daily Bread (which was screened in October at the New York Film Festival and goes on limited release in the United States this month), the “flesh-and-blood side of it” is similarly occluded, only this time most of the “wonderful machines” actually are machines: humming assembly lines that send pigs to their finely calibrated slaughter; whooshing sorters that whisk peeping yellow chicks to some unseen destination; elaborate instruments that saw open and scoop out the intestines of upside-down fish that are trolling by like targets in some macabre carnival shooting game.

Welcome to the jungle, circa 2006. To make Our Daily Bread, Geyrhalter, an Austrian filmmaker whose previous credits include the documentaries Pripyat (1999) and Elsewhere (2001), gained remarkable access to a wide range of European outposts of the secretive arena of globalized factory food—ranging from pigs, cows, and chickens to tomatoes, olives, and salt. The film consists exclusively of long, unnarrated, eerily static shots in which Geyrhalter documents environments and processes that seem more akin to the clean rooms of semiconductor fabrication plants than way stations in the journey from farm to table.

Our Daily Bread is quite shocking, though not, as might be expected, for scenes of horrific carnage and the squeals of dying animals; nor for the plight of the workers, who do not seem to suffer unduly; but rather for the bloodless sterility and antiseptic hush that prevail. In sterile, climate-controlled environments—even the lettuce-pickers work in the comfort of a kind of traveling greenhouse—the mostly voiceless humans in the film seem to do the work of some alien intelligence that operates on a vast, depersonalizing scale. In the realm of the wordless visual essay, Geyrhalter is the anti–Godfrey Reggio: instead of sweeping shots of epic, backbreaking human labor set to an urgently pulsating minimalist score, he gives us confined shots of clinical work enveloped by a claustrophobic silence.

Geyrhalter’s stated goal is merely to chronicle the means by which we now feed ourselves. Yet a particular horror is evinced by the combination of the assembly line and the slaughterhouse that occurs in many scenes, a horror whose character was strangely anticipated in a disturbing claim made by philosopher Martin Heidegger in 1949: “Agriculture is now a motorized food-industry—in essence, the same as the manufacturing of corpses in the gas chambers and the extermination camps, the same as the blockade and starvation of the countryside, the same as the production of the hydrogen bombs.” For the corporate and governmental interests that determine how food is produced, however, this is progress: clean, well-lit rooms, ruthlessly swept and washed, presided over by men and women in white coats and hairnets. The myriad structural problems of industrial monoculture—the degradation of taste and variety, higher bacteria counts than at old-fashioned “dirty” farms, or the epidemiological hazards recently encapsulated in the absurd specter of a national recall of organic “prewashed” spinach tainted with E. coli—are outside the purview of this film.

Killing is killing, one might argue, whether it takes the form of a single free-range chicken having its throat cut on a sustainable farm or a pig winding its way on a gleaming stainless steel conveyance toward a killing machine. But there is a yawning philosophical and practical divide. In his magisterial book The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), Michael Pollan chronicles a visit to a small-time organic poultry producer on “processing” day. An outdoor “killing station” has been set up, with scalding tanks, “killing cones,” and other implements: There is an assembly-line logic at work here, too, but there is also a group of people, joined by a sense of purpose, in a place on a human scale, where fowl have lived real lives and been part of an actual natural cycle. The scene is not far removed, in spirit or actuality, from the harvest festivals depicted in sixteenth-century paintings.

Still, after the morning’s work, Pollan announces that he wouldn’t want to kill chickens every day. The farmer responds: “Nobody should. . . . That’s why in the Bible the priests drew lots to determine who would conduct the ritual slaughter, and they rotated the job every month. Slaughter is dehumanizing work if you have to do it every day.” What if you have to do it every minute for eight hours a day? In one stunning scene in Our Daily Bread, a lone woman, in the midst of a sprawling industrial building, wearing bulky headphones and desultorily chewing gum, severs pigs’ feet with a pair of pneumatic clippers (hiss, hiss, hiss goes the device, almost in rhythm with her gum-chewing) as the swaying, suspended carcasses move past.

There is no sense of ritual on display in Our Daily Bread. It has been lost, just as the ritual meanings of food itself are being lost under the flags of convenience and cost. Food is gathered by machine, processed by machine. Any aspect of nature is ruthlessly suppressed. There is no sun, there is no grass. There is no birth, there is no death. There is no flesh, there is no blood. There are only wonderful machines to monitor, production targets to meet, mouths to feed.

Ghatak, Ritwik

The Essential Mystery: The Major Filmmakers of Indian Art Cinema Acquarello notes from John W. Hood’s book, 2002

Born in Dhaka in the former region of East Bengal in 1925, Ritwik Ghatak experienced the trauma of the Partition of Bengal that occurred after gaining independence from the British in 1947. Consequently, Ghatak's poignant and personally relevant cinema often reflect the tragedy of exile, displacement, and poverty. Hood cites Ghatak's 1960s films as his artistic and narrative zenith: Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star) portrays the travails of a displaced middle class East Bengal family in Calcutta; Komal Gandhar (E-Flat) chronicles the rivalry between two acting troupes of a once united theatrical company; Subarnarekha examines the divergent fates of two idealistic refugee teachers. Plagued by a propensity for self-indulgence and lack of discipline, as reflected in his final film, Jukti Takko Ar Gappo (Argument, Discussion, and Story), Ghatak nevertheless creates a profoundly moving portrait of the human condition and the devastation of imposed geographic, social, and political division.

Ritwik Ghatak from Upperstall

It is one of life's greatest ironies that Ritwik Ghatak who is today something of a cult figure in Bengal was so little understood and appreciated during his lifetime. Today his films have won much critical acclaim but the fact remains that in their time they ran to mainly empty houses in Bengal. Ghatak's films project a unique sensibility. They are often brilliant, but almost always flawed.

Ghatak was born in Dhaka now in Bangladesh. The partition of Bengal, the division of a culture was something that haunted Ghatak forever. Ghatak joined the left-wing Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) where he worked for a few years as a playwright, actor and director. When IPTA split into factions, Ghatak turned to filmmaking.

By and large Ghatak's films revolve around two central themes: the experience of being uprooted from the idyllic rural milieu of East Bengal and the cultural trauma of the partition of 1947.

Ghatak's first film was Nagrik (1952) about a young man's search for a job and the erosion of his optimism and idealism as his family sinks into abject poverty and his love affair too turns sour. Ghatak then accepted a job with Filmistan Studio in Bombay but his 'different' ideas did not go down well there. He did however write the scripts of Musafir (1957) and Madhumati (1958) for Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Bimal Roy respectively, the latter becoming an all time evergreen hit.

Ghatak returned to Calcutta and made Ajantrik (1958) about a taxi driver in a small town in Bihar and his vehicle an old Chevrolet jalopy. An assortment of passengers gives the film a wider frame of reference and provided situations of drama, humour and irony.

But perhaps his best work was Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960),the first film in a trilogy examining the socio-economic implications of partition. The protagonist Nita (played by Supriya Chowdhury) is the breadwinner in a refugee family of five. Everyone exploits her and the strain proves too much. She succumbs to tuberculosis. In an unforgettable moment, as the dying Nita cries out "I want to live…", the camera pans across the mountains accentuating the indifference and eternity of nature even as the echo reverberates over the shot.

Ghatak followed it up with Komal Gandhar (1961) concerning two rival touring theatre companies in Bengal and Subarnarekha (1965). The last is a strangely disturbing film using melodrama and coincidence as a form rather than mechanical reality. Ghatak also had a brief stint as Vice-Principal of the Film And Television Institute of India (Pune), a time he recalled as a happy experience. However his next film Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1973) done for a young Bangladesh producer was not.

The film on the life and eventual disintegration of a fishing community on the Titash, was completed after many problems at the shooting stage including his collapse due to tuberculosis and was a commercial failure.

Ghatak made one more film before his death Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (1974) the most autobiographical and allegorical of his films. He himself played the main role of Nilkanta an alcoholic intellectual and the film is remembered for his stunning use of the wide-angle lens to most potent effect.

Unfortunately for Ghatak his films were largely unsuccessful, many remained unreleased for years and he abandoned almost as many projects as he completed. Ultimately the intensity of his passion, which gave his films their power and emotion, took their toll on him, as did tuberculosis and alcoholism. However he has left behind a limited but rich body of work that no serious scholar of Indian Cinema can ignore.

Ritwik Ghatak • Great Director profile • Senses of Cinema Megan Carrigy from Senses of Cinema, December 2, 2003

Bengali Cinema: Ritwik Ghatak photos from Calcutta Cinema

Ritwik Ghatak links from Cinema Resource

Strictly Film School Acquarello reviews

The relentless tragedy of Ritwik - Home - Himal Southasian Partha Chatterjee from Himal magazine, November 2003

Moinak Biswas, ‘Her Mother’s Son: Kinship and History in Ritwik Ghatak’, Rouge, 3, 2004 Moinak Biswas from Rouge, 2004

Raymond Bellour, ‘The Film We Accompany’, Rouge, 3, 2004

“Woman” and “homeland” in Ritwik Ghatak’s films: constructing post-Independence Bengali cultural identity Erin O'Donnell from Jump Cut, Winter 2005, also seen here: Erin O’Donnell, ‘“Woman” and “homeland” in Ritwik Ghatak’s films: Constructing post-Independence Bengali cultural identity’, from Jump Cut, Issue 47, 2004

Rows and Rows of Fences - Ritwik Ghatak on Cinema book review by Acquarello, September 13, 2004

Ritwik Ghatak: Reinventing the Cinema - Rouge Jonathan Rosenbaum from Rouge, 2006

Speaking Through Troubled Times : Journal of the Moving Image (JMI ... 20-page essay by Moinak Biswas, 2007 (pdf)

Ritwik Ghatak Separate Ways, by Chris Fujiwara from The Boston Phoenix, February 20, 2008

The Partition Cinema of Ritwik Ghatak - Harvard Film Archive February 24, 2008

Omar Ahmed, ‘AJANTRIK / PATHETIC FALLACY (Dir. Ritwik Ghatak, 1958, India) – Man and Machine ‘, Ellipsis: The Accents of Cinema, December 7, 2009

Kevin B. Lee, ‘Ritwik Ghatak: An Online Primer’, Shooting Down Pictures, February 8, 2010

Kevin B. Lee, ‘997 (132). Subarnarekha / The Golden Thread(1965, Ritwik Ghatak)’, Shooting Down Pictures, February 8, 2010

Studies on Ritwik Ghatak Films | Lake Bard various links, July 3, 2011, also seen here: Film Studies For Free: "Born in a dream": studies of Ritwik Ghatak

Jisha Menon, “Ghatak's cinema: a lens on the Bengal partition” | The ... Annelise Heinz from The Clayman Institute for Gender Research, August 21, 2012

The Cloud Capped Star. Ritwik Ghatak film analysis - Senses of Cinema Bonnie Fan, June 24, 2014

fluidity of womens' identities observed through the filmic lens of Ritwik ... Kusumita Rakshit and Ramray Bhat from Dark Matter, March 8, 2015

Ritwik Ghatak: An Ignored Cinematic Genius - The Cinemaholic Sunayan Bhattacharjee, December 13, 2016

In Defence of A River Called Titas (Ritwik Ghatak ... - Senses of Cinema Parichay Patra, March 17, 2017

Ghatak, Ritwik They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

Ritwik Ghatak - Wikipedia

NAGARIK

aka: The Citizen

India (127 mi) 1952

Strictly Film School Acquarello from Strictly Film School

The opening image of Ritwik Ghatak's first feature film, The Citizen, consists of a steady motion, acute angle dolly shot of mature trees (a symbolic image that is similarly implemented in the introductory sequence of The Cloud-Capped Star) lining an anonymous street, a juxtaposition of transience and permanence that serves as a seeming reflection of the inconstancy and economic uncertainty of contemporary existence for Bengali refugees in post-Partition Calcutta. An ode to a nameless "citizen" is recited against the image of a well-dressed young man, Ramu (Satindra Bhattacharya), dutifully helping an elder stranger cross the street. But the image of prosperity and civic responsibility prove to be an illusion, as Ramu arrives home and returns the suit and shoes that he had borrowed from his ailing father (Kali Bannerjee), a former school teacher, for a job interview, another unrealized prospect for a brighter future that - for the optimistic Ramu - was always just around the corner. Resting their hopes on Ramu's ability to find a job after investing their eroding fortunes toward earning his college degree, his parents have little hope for a better life for his undereducated sister except to marry her off to anyone who is able to provide for her, indulging the whims of prospective suitors who subject her to humiliating physical inspections and candid assessments of her attractiveness. Chronicling Ramu and his family's disillusioning, often frustrated empty rituals for economic survival and quest to return to a semblance of a normal life, the film represents an uncharacteristically affirming exposition of Ghatak's recurring themes (undoubtedly influenced by the film collective nature of the production) of marginalization, poverty, dislocation, and petty self-interest that have contributed to the erosion of Bengali culture. Ghatak supplants the idyllic images of trees (in particular, Ramu's calendar depicting a red-roofed country house) with the jarring noise of a heavy machinery excavator (in an overlapping cutaway of Ramu at his father's bedside) in order to introduce (or rather, underscore) a metaphor for the intrusive, violent uprooting of the Partition that has figuratively crippled - and ultimately orphaned - a population. It is within this environment of crushed hopes and unrealized dreams that the father's blindness and debilitation can be seen, not only as a metaphor for cultural short-sightedness that led to the Partition, but also as a spiritual resignation for their fractured homeland - a unrequited pining for a sentimental lost love. Presaging the idiosyncratic sound strategy of incorporating whiplashes in The Cloud-Capped Star (in a scene that also captures a doomed love), the father's evocative words, "Each day is like the lash of a storm", seemingly betrays Ghatak's own bittersweet articulation of impotence towards a divided Bengal: a despair silenced by the impersonal machinery and the uncontrollable chaos of its own man-made creation.

AJANTRIK

aka: Pathetic Phallacy

India (120 mi) 1958

India x 2 Donato Totaro from Offscreen

The other pillar of Indian cinema greatness is Ray's (lesser known) contemporary, Ritwik Ghatak. In the same year as Ray's majestic The Music Room , Ghatak made his first feature film, Ajantrik , also a film about obsession (to be more precise, not the first film he made, which would be Nagarik , but his first film to be released). The film begins with two comic-relief men looking for a taxi to drive them to a nearby village. A boy leads them to an obstreperous taxi driver with a battered, ancient Chevrolet. Roughed up and haggard, the two men finally arrive at their destination. At this point Ghatak shifts the film's emphasis from the two men to the cab driver, and we slowly learn of the cab driver's (Bimal) obsessive relationship with his car. Kali Bammerjee's performance as Bimal is excellent, displaying subtle nuances of a character slowly losing touch with reality. At first Ghatak treats Bimal's obsession humorously. Bimal treats his car as a living thing, giving it a name (Jagaddal), pampering it, and defending it against insults (as one may protect a lover). Ghatak underscores the humor in this relationship formally, with for example human gurgling sounds as Bimal feeds the radiator, and moments of fantasy (the car's headlights move about as if they were eyes).

The film's tone and style shift approximately halfway into the film, with humour and playfulness giving way to an eerie subjectivity (less dialogue, a more pronounced emphasis on the landscape, heightened use of ambient music and sound effects). A key moment in signaling this shift occurs during an extended solo drive when Ghatak cleverly manipulates the conventional use of point of view cutting. A disturbed Bimal is driving along mountainous roads. Ghatak cuts from third person shots of Bimal in medium close- up at the wheel and point of view shots where we see the hood of the car and the road. However, in one of the supposed point of view shots we are shocked when we see his car enter the frame from a bend in the road! The shot is equivalent to those trick point of view shots found in the films of Carl Dreyer or Michelangelo Antonioni where a shot clearly begins as a character's subjective point of view but then as the camera continues to pan or dolly it picks up the character in the frame, shifting the point of view to third person. The simple effect creates a jarring sense of disorientation that places us poetically into Bimal's crumbling psyche.

In reference to Bimal, Ritwik Ghatak has said: "You can call my protagonist, Bimal, a lunatic, a child, or a tribal. At one level they are all the same. They react to lifeless things almost passionately. This is an ancient, archetypal reaction....The tribal songs and dances in Ajantrik describe the whole cycle of life - birth, hunting, marriage, death, ancestor worship, and rebirth. This is the main theme of Ajantrik , this law of life.." Throughout the film characters treat Bimal's obsession with ridicule, scorn or puzzlement. Their actions and dialogue often raise the question of why Bimal is not able to sever his irrational association with this crumpling, decrepit vehicle. Even after the car finally gives in to its age, Bimal, an otherwise miser, spends a huge amount of money on new car parts to render life (only temporarily) back to Jagaddal. One could offer a metaphorical reading of this "fear of separation." Ghatak was born in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh and the then center of cultural activity in East Bengal. The Independence of India in 1947 led to the partition of Bengal (West/East Bengali), which left collective emotional and psychological scars on many Bengali families. Ghatak, who greatly lamented the division of Bengal, has dealt with this pain of separation overtly in many of his later films. Perhaps, subconsciously, it was already present in Ajantrik ? In either case, as a study in obsessive behavior or a metaphorical enactment of political partition, Ajantrik is a remarkable first feature.

THE CLOUD-CAPPED STAR (Meghe Dhaka Tara)

India (126 mi) 1960

Time Out review Geoff Andrew

The Bengali writer/director Ritwik Ghatak has been acclaimed as the most important Indian film-maker after Satyajit Ray. The first part of a trilogy that included E Flat and Subarnarekha, this is a dark melodrama, set in Calcutta in the late '50s, in which Nita (Choudhury) struggles to keep her refugee family afloat and together. Her father, a teacher, earns a pittance; her elder brother dreams of becoming a famous singer; a younger brother is forced to abandon his studies and work in a factory; and her mother hopes that Sanat, the young scientist her eldest daughter loves, will transfer his affections to the younger Guita. For Western viewers it's perhaps most easily approached as a bitter critique of harsh social and economic conditions, particularly those arising from the 1947 Partition of East Bengal. More interesting cinematically, however, is Ghatak's inventive, not quite naturalistic treatment of the story: in order to underline or undercut certain elements in terms of narrative, theme and characterisation, the performances, images, music and, most especially, sound are given almost expressionist nuances.

CineScene.com (Chris Dashiell) review

Nita (Supriya Choudhury) is the oldest daughter in a refugee family in Bengal. She puts off her marriage to a student she loves, in order to support her parents and siblings until they can get on their feet. Her older brother (Anil Chatterjee) is lazy and only interested in music, so he is no help, although Nita loves him and believes in his future as a great singer. As time goes by, her sacrifice for the welfare of others takes its toll on the possibilities of happiness for herself.

Ghatak was one of India's greatest and most admired directors, but he is still little known in the West. This sensitive drama about the ruinous effect of poverty on the aspirations of ordinary people works on many levels - as social statement, psychological portrait, and spiritual tragedy. The heroine, beautifully played by Choudhury, is that rarity - a character of pure, convincing goodness. She genuinely rejoices at the good fortunes of her loved ones, and believes in the happy future that will come to those who love, and wait patiently. The tragedy is that her commitment to giving and lovingkindness makes her too careless of her own needs and desires. This amounts to an incisive critique of a certain aspect of the Indian feminine ideal. Two other incomplete aspects of femininity are represented by Nita's quarrelsome, self-centered mother, and her thoughtless, sensual sister.

The black-and-white photography (Dinen Gupta) is exquisite, and Ghatak's use of sound is quite adventurous, bordering on the avant-garde. He'll use sound effects to accentuate sudden shifts in emotion, such as the sound of a whip during an experience of betrayal. The style as a whole is melodramatic, not just in the story elements, but in the way heightened emotion is keyed precisely to the music and camera movement. Sometimes this can be a bit much, as if the film suffered from an excess of feeling, but most of the time the technique is extremely powerful. When the camera swoops down to a face, with a sudden burst of music, and the person starts weeping, the method has become one with the emotion portrayed, as if the film itself was a direct expression of subjective states rather than just a way of recording events.

Melodrama in this pure form is a way of gaining access to our deepest joy and pain. The Cloud-Capped Star is one of those intensely sad movies that doesn't hesitate to just rip your heart out. The acting is excellent, the music bewitching, and there are, no doubt, many qualities and themes that are so specific to Indian culture as to escape notice by the average Western viewer. In the end, this is one of the picture's strengths: grounded in a particular culture, it yet attains universal significance. This profound, poetic film will remain in your memory long after you're done watching.

The Cloud-Capped Star Acquarello from Strictly Film Page

In an impoverished refugee village in Calcutta, an attractive and industrious young woman, Nita (Supriya Choudhury), breaks a sandal while passing through the market square, and without complaining, continues barefoot on the graveled street, unable to buy a replacement pair of sandals for the walk home. Patently aware that Nita has received her monthly salary, her talented, but indolent older brother Shankar (Anil Chatterjee) pays an unexpected visit, and encountering Nita absorbed in reading a personal letter from a suitor named Sanat (Niranjan Ray), playfully snatches the note and reads aloud its affectionate contents, before asking her for spending money. Meanwhile her younger sister, Gita (Gita Ghatak) and brother Mantu (Dwiju Bhawal) brazenly plead with their desperate and resourceless mother (Gita De) for new articles of clothing, before re-directing their vain and selfish entreaties to Nita. Having spent her entire salary on her burdensome, coddled siblings, her embittered and insecure mother then vociferously complains to her father (Bijon Bhattacharya), an underemployed school teacher, that Nita has squandered the monthly household budget. Bound by a selfless sense of familial duty, Nita has decided to postpone her marriage to Sanat until Shankar realizes his ambition to become a classical singer. However, as Nita perseveres in her sacrifice for her ungrateful and demanding family, her own prospects for happiness proves ever increasingly bleak.

Ritwik Ghatak presents a visually sublime, idiosyncratically overripe, but provocative and deeply personal account of poverty, disillusionment, and exile in The Cloud-Capped Star. By interplaying light and shadows and incorporating evocative, aggressive sounds that underscore emotional impact and comedic tone, Ghatak creates a unique, sensorial experience that chronicles the systematic demoralization of the human soul: the surreal, foreboding shot of Nita descending a staircase after she is compelled to leave her studies in order to support the family; the overemphasized sounds of cooking as the mother spies on Nita and Sanat that aurally conveys her anger and fear at losing their primary source of income; the contrasted image of Nita - first, illuminated in front of a latticed window as she reads Sanat's letter and later, concealed behind the window after Shankar's return; the sound of lashing as Nita and Shankar sing a melancholic Rabindranath Tagore song (evoking Raskolnikov's dream on burden and responsibility in Fyodor Doestoevsky's Crime and Punishment). An allegory for the traumatic consequences of the partition of Bengal, The Cloud-Capped Star captures the disintegration of a Bengali middle class family as a result of dislocation, poverty, self-interest, and petty, internal division. Note the repeated imagery of a passing train bisecting the horizon that alludes to the physical division of the family's ancestral homeland. Inevitably, as Nita attempts to recuperate from the ravages of self-denial, want, and exploitation, her cry of anguish becomes an indistinguishable, resonant echo from the lost and irredeemable soul of a displaced and uprooted people.

Meghey Dhaka Tara from Upperstall

The Cloud Capped Star. Ritwik Ghatak film analysis - Senses of Cinema Bonnie Fan, June 24, 2014

Raymond Bellour, ‘The Film We Accompany’, Rouge, 3, 2004

Channel 4 Film capsule review

DVDBeaver.com [Fred Patton]

THE GOLDEN THREAD (Subarnarekha)

India (143 mi) 1965

Subarnarekha | Upperstall.com

Iswar (Abhi Bhattacharya) and his younger kid sister Sita, victims of the partition of Bengal stay in Nabajeeban Colony in Calcutta. While fighting for their individual survival, Iswar and his friend Haraprasad also look into the problems of the suffering refugees. A little boy Abhiram is left alone when his mother is abducted. Iswar takes him under his wing. A college friend of Ishwar offers him a job as cashier for his iron foundry in Chhatimpur on the Subarnarekha. Iswar accepts and goes there with Abhiram and Sita. Haraprasad calls Ishwar a deserter. At Chhatimpur across their house, the children discover an abandoned airstrip and find it a most attractive playground. When the manager of the foundry becomes insane since his daughter deserted him, Iswar is promoted to the post. Abhiram (Satindra Bhattacharya) comes home after his B.A. exams and Sita, a young woman now (Madhabi Mukherjee) and he fall in love. Iswar gets the news that Haraprasad's wife has committed suicide due to the suffering of their children. She implores Iswar to take care of them but Haraprasad refuses to hand them over to a deserter. Iswar wants Abhiram to go to Germany but he wants to settle down in Calcutta and write. Sita convinces Abhiram to stick to his convictions. Iswar's friend wants to make him a partner but he is not happy with Abhiram's presence and his unknown caste origins. That same day Abhiram discovers his mother, a dying low-caste woman. He now has to bear the burden of his caste identity. Iswar snubs him and looks for a match for Sita. Sita and Abhiram elope to Calcutta. They struggle to make ends meet there and have a five year old son, Binu. Abhiram unable to get a publisher for his writings, gets a bus driver's job. Haraprasad meets Iswar and in their defeat and despair the two decide to go to Calcutta and lose themselves in pleasure. Abhiram is beaten up and killed following an accident. In search for further pleasures Iswar comes to Sita's house who is waiting for her first customer. Without glasses he doesn't recognize her but on seeing him, she kills herself. Iswar recognizes her as her blood splashes on him. Two years later Iswar is released as it is proved that it was suicide rather than murder as he claimed. Haraprasad brings Binu to him but leaves without meeting Iswar. Binu and Iswar get down at Chhatimpur. Iswar is told he is fired and has lost the house as well. Binu calls him uncle and Iswar picks him up, overcome by emotion. The two trudge together on the sandy, rocky track...

Subarnarekha, made in 1962 but released in 1965 is the last in a trilogy examining the socio-economic implications of partition, the other two being Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960) and Komal Ghandhar (1961). It is also perhaps Ritwik Ghatak's most complex film.

In the film Ghatak depicts the great economic and socio-political crisis eating up the very entrails of the existence of Bengal from 1948 - 1962; How the crisis has first and foremost left one bereft of one's conscience, one's moral sense. In the film, the problem of homelessness or rootlessness no more remains confined to the refugees from the partition. Ghatak extends it further as an important concept for the modern man, uprooted from his traditional moorings. The geographical sphere is thus merged into a wider generality.

The basic texture of the film is highly melodramatic. Episodes after episodes have been joined together in a dense story of fateful coincidences. To quote Ghatak himself...

"I agree that coincidences virtually overflow in Subarnarekha. And yet the logic of the biggest coincidence , the brother arriving at his sister's house provoked me to orchestrate coincidence per se in the very structuring of the film. It is a tricky but fascinating form verging on the epic. This coincidence is forceful in its logic as the brother going to any woman amounts to his going to somebody else's sister."

Ghatak endows virtually every sequence with a wealth of historical overtones through an iconography of violation, destruction, industrialism and the disasters of famine and partition. Most of the dialogues and the visuals are a patchwork of literary and cinematic quotations enhanced by Ghatak's characteristic redemptive use of music. A famous example is the sequence set on an abandoned airstrip with the wreck of a WW2 airplane where the children playfully reconstruct its violence until they come up against the frightening image of the goddess Kali (who turns out to be a rather pathetic traveling performer). Later, in dappled light, the older Sita sings a dawn raga on the airstrip. In a classic dissolve, the old Iswar throws a newspaper showing Yuri Gagarin's Space Exploration into the foundry where it bursts into flames, which then dissolve into the rainwater outside Sita's hovel. Haraprasad, who had earlier rescued Iswar from committing suicide by quoting from Tagore's Shishu Tirtha, later in the nightclub parodies an episode from the Upanishads using an East Bengal dialect. Other quotes from this extraordinary sequence includes Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) and, through the music, Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960). Fellini had used the 'Patricia' music in La Dolce Vita to lash out at a degenerate, decadent western civilization. Ghatak passes a similar judgement on Bengal by using the same music for the orgy in the bar. A torn and tattered Bengal enhances the grimness of Sita and her prostitution as it is a powerful metaphor of its inner degradation.

The film is aided with fine performances from Madhabi Mukherjee and Abhi Bhattacharya and special mention must be made of Bahadur Khan's evocatively haunting musical score.

Sadly, like most of Ghatak's films, Subarnarekha was totally rejected by the public. Ironically, today the film is hailed as a classic and as an important landmark in the history of Indian Cinema.

Kevin B. Lee, ‘997 (132). Subarnarekha / The Golden Thread(1965, Ritwik Ghatak)’, Shooting Down Pictures, February 8, 2010

Strictly Film School Acquarello

A RIVER CALLED TITUS (Titash Ekti Nadir Naam)

India Bangladesh (159 mi) 1973

DVD Times Anthony Nield

For such a driven, fiercely passionate director, Ritwik Ghatak’s cinematic career was surprisingly unprolific, producing only nine films before his death in 1976 of which A River Called Titas was the eighth. Considerably less than his more famous contemporary Satyajit Ray who averaged a film a year over the same period that Ghatak was making features (or indeed the immense numbers that India as a whole produces year in year out), one of the effects of the comparatively limited output is that each film can often contain enough ideas to fuel what in another director’s hands would make up a trilogy or an entire series of works. A River Called Titas is a particular case in point being at once epic and achingly remote. Taken from an autobiographical novel by Advaita Malla Barman (adapted by Ghatak himself), it begins as a relatively small-scale tale of the tragedies that befall a mother and her son before digressing via a number of loosely connected episodes into the equally tragic tale of a fishing community at large. Even the river, seemingly the film’s sole constant, is slowly dying.

Just as this storyline is at times difficult to pin down, so too is the manner in which Ghatak has approached it. Fundamentally a melodrama - two hours plus of murder, suicide, insanity and starvation - A River Called Titas makes the odd move of more often than not favouring a documentary approach. A non-professional cast, the local dialect and location shooting are all wholeheartedly employed, bringing with them a genuine feel for the rhythms of early 20th century Bengali life. On the other hand this also provides a mixed bag of performances as these same rhythms can make some of the dialogue heavy scenes rather interminable and lacking in momentum. Yet Ghatak also refuses to settle on a single specific approach and on more than one occasion resorts to the more typical style of broad strokes Indian melodramatic acting. Once again this proves a test for his performers yet, in all honesty, their rawness does have often beneficial results. The overwrought mannerisms have always had a far greater resemblence to silent movie acting than any of the more modern styles, but when employed correctly can have an instinctive feel, however overblown it may ultimately be. That Ghatak tends only to use these techniques at major dramatic moments also works in the film’s favour as it is doubtful that his performers could achieve the required results from a more realist standpoint.

Nonetheless, the decision to mix and match styles does produce a certain clash. Of course, popular Indian cinema has always been a strange hybrid, a single feature being able to contain elements of comedy, action, fairy tale and musical with seeming ease, yet Ghatak’s more wilful combinations mark him and his work out as distinctly “other” even amongst such company. Indeed, as well as the melodramatic and documentary forms, A River Called Titas also sees the director indulging his passion for avant-garde techniques. Anyone familiar with Ghatak will be aware of his famed experimental use of sound, an aspect of his filmmaking which still stands out as remarkable to this day and is especially prominent in this particular film. Amongst numerous examples there are two especially stunning instances: firstly, a wedding night scored only by the nervous heavy breathing of a young bride-to-be; and secondly, the manner in which the mid-point interval is marked, whereby the dialogue is slowly drowned out mid-speech by the sound of torrential rain.

Visually, too, Ghatak produces the remarkable and unexpected, so much so that at times A River Called Titas can resemble a John Grierson travelogue at one moment and an outtake from a hitherto undiscovered Paradjanov delight the next. (It is to cinematographer Baby Islam’s credit that both extremes are photographed with equal beauty.) Interestingly, these moments never appear quite as incongruous as they do on paper. Certainly the balance is never quite maintained but they do serve to punctuate the film, acting as occasional breaks from the admittedly extremely downbeat subject matter in much the same way as the shifts in acting styles do. Moreover, these occasional flights of fancy also serve the overall purpose of the film insofar as they provide an ironic counterpoint; is the tragedy not all the more greater if the daydreams of those affected are utterly unattainable.

That said, A River Called Titas remains an awkward and, at times, frustrating work. There is often too much for the viewer to take in whilst the sudden lurches in focus and style can prove confusing. However, this is also a film made with immense conviction from a director who could never be accused of compromise, and as such perhaps it is the viewer who should do just that. After all, with so much going on there are plentiful excuses for repeated viewings.

Strictly Film School review Acquarello

A River Called Titas opens to the eerily desolate yet tranquil sight of a receded river basin as the expressive voice of a traditional folk singer (Dheeraj Uddin Fakir) serenades the mighty Titas River in East Bengal with a soulful ode on the river's inconstant ebb and flow that manifests its alternately fickle grace, mercy, and wrath towards the local villagers who rely on the river for their humble commerce and survival. At a fishing village near the riverbank, a girl named Basanti prepares for the Maghmandal ritual to commemorate the coming of winter and her passage to maturity as two friends, Kishore and Subol compete for her affection by building a leaf boat in her honor before joining an uncle to embark on their first extended fishing expedition to the village of Ujaninajar. However, fate invariably intercedes when, years later, Kishore (Prabir Mitra), while staying at a distant village to fish, rescues a beautiful young woman named Rajar Jhi (Kabari Choudhury) during a tribal scuffle. Persuaded by a local fisherman to return to the village to meet the tribal elder in order to foster closer economic and social ties between their communities, Kishore soon realizes that the town's implication of a "binding gift" is an arranged marriage to Rajar Jhi. It is a union that proves to be short-lived when bandits board their boat en route home, and a distraught and inconsolable Kishore becomes mad with grief. Inevitably, the villagers' inalterable pattern of austerity, despair, and tragedy emerges as the star-crossed Basanti (Rosy Samad), abandoned by her childhood love, is married off to Kishore's romantic rival Subol, who too is soon lost to the silent, unforgiving waters.

Adapted from the Bengali novel by Advaita Malo Barman, A River Called Titas is a thoughtful, sincere, and bittersweet chronicle of poverty, obsolescence, cultural identity and erasure. Ritwik Ghatak characteristically integrates visual economy, stylized camerawork, and idiosyncratic lyricism through allusive, traditional folk songs, cyclical environmental (and existential) phenomena, and exaggerated natural rhythms and diegetic sounds that illustrate the inherent correlation between landscape and human ritual (fishing activity, tribal customs, and ceremonial festivals). Moreover, through the childless young widow Basanti, Ghatak parallels the increasing barrenness of the environment - a devastating local catastrophe that is further exacerbated by ongoing petty (and often socially motivated) self-interest and fractured relationships within the community that contribute to the inevitable dissolution of the village - with the seemingly inevitable cultural extinction of the Bengali people as a result of the Partition of Bengal between British India and Pakistan in 1947. (Note the similarity to the emotionally abandoned, self-sacrificing heroine Nita, a displaced Bengali refugee, in Ghatak's earlier film, The Cloud-Capped Star.) By presenting the trauma and desolation of unnatural crisis and division, the film serves as a passionate and haunting elegy for a dying culture, and a native son's irreconcilable personal chronicle of loss, melancholy, and resigned, inarticulable rage.

In Defence of A River Called Titas (Ritwik Ghatak ... - Senses of Cinema Parichay Patra, March 17, 2017

REASON, DEBATE AND A STORY (Jukti Takko Aar Tappo)

India (120 mi) 1974

Strictly Film School Acquarello

A frail, elderly villager seeking shelter from the burning sun inside a makeshift hut stares inexpressively into the camera as a trio of faceless, black-cladded apparitions perform a vibrant, ritualistic dance before him, perhaps in anticipation of the old man's inevitable death. The dreamlike, surreal episode seemingly provides an allegorical - and intrinsically operatic - framework for the terminally unemployed intellectual, Nilkantha's (Ritwik Ghatak) gifted, but equally encumbered (and squandered) life. As the story begins, Nilkantha lies abstractedly crumpled on the floor of an empty house under the numbing haze of alcohol as his long-suffering wife Durga (Tripti Mitra) meticulously removes any tangible object, including his prized phonograph records and books, that he may (and undoubtedly will) eventually sell or barter for a drink before leaving with their young son Satya (Ritaban Ghatak) and arranging for the sale of the house in order to start a new life in the rural town of Kanchanpur far away from him. Dispossessed of everything, Nilkantha finds an enabling protector in his former student Nachiketa (Saugata Burman), an engineering university graduate unable to find employment in the uncertain economy and turbulent political landscape of 1970s Calcutta. Sending the obliging Nachiketa on an errand to buy a bottle of liquor (using the house ceiling fan as trading fodder), Nilkantha soon finds himself joined in the empty room by a young woman named Bangabala (Shaonli Mitra), a refugee from newly independent Bangladesh who has entered the home in search of shelter under the mistaken belief that the house had been abandoned. Believing that she is the soul of his beloved homeland and touched by her traumatic plight, Nilkantha takes Bangabala under his wing. Forced to vacate the premises with the arrival of the new owners, the three begin to wander through the streets and, after rescuing an eccentric Sanskrit teacher named Jagannath (Bijon Bhattacharya) who coincidentally hails from his ancestral village, Nilkantha decides to lead his ragtag band of displaced brethren to a journey into the country, away from the cold, impersonal streets of Calcutta, in search of an elusive place called home.

Marking the final film by Ritwik Ghatak, Reason, Debate and a Story poignantly (and provocatively) encapsulates the recurring, overarching themes that have come to define the filmmaker's passionate and indelible cinema: dislocation, exile, factionalism, division, cultural dissolution. From the opening sequence of marital separation (and Nilkantha's subsequent eviction from home), Ghatak provides an intrinsically personal, allegorical framework to the sequence of traumatic history that have plagued the Bengali people (and culture) throughout the course of the twentieth century: the man-made Famine of Bengal in 1943 that decimated communities and ushered a wave of refugees struggling to survive, the Partition of Bengal in 1947 between India and Pakistan that further caused the forcible uprooting of families from their native homeland (often resettling in Calcutta in search of economic opportunity), the struggle for independence from Pakistan in East Bengal that led to the creation of the separate nation of Bangladesh (and further dissipating any hopes for the reunification of the two Bengals), the rampancy of political agitation from the contemporary Naxalite movement as insurgents strive to incite a peasant revolution (and consequently, land reform) throughout the region. By incorporating his own personal struggle with alcoholism into the story, Ghatak provides, not only a semi-autobiographical context to Nilkantha's travails, but more importantly, introduces the idea of self-inflicted destruction that, in turn, serves as an allegory for the Bengali people's own complicity in the dissolution of their homeland and culture through petty self-interest, abandoned ideology (note Nilkantha's encounter with the former intellectual turned pornographic underground novelist, Shatrujit (Utpal Dutt) in an open field), and resigned complacency. It is this acceptance of individual human frailty in the face of a formidable social struggle that is reflected in Nilkantha's comment, "Somewhere, at some new day, we shall learn that slipping is not death", a sentiment of untiring activism and defiance against the extinguishing of a humble ideal - a unified homeland - that is reflected in his faltering words to his beloved wife Durga, "I have to do something, don't I? I have to do something."

Ghobadi, Bahman

Kurdish Director, Stuck Between Iraq and Iran feature and interview by Peter Scarlet from The New York Times, December 16, 2007

A TIME FOR DRUNKEN HORSES (Zamani barayé masti asbha) A 95

Iran (80 mi) 2000

First-time Iranian, Kurdish filmmaker makes a semi-documentary film in the snow, kids with dead parents, who are themselves parents, eke out a living, a naked existence selling black market goods on the border between Iran and Iraq, where they used to live, but have been driven out. Instead they live in a no man’s land, hated by both sides, always subject to ambushes and thugs stealing their goods, trapped in the white snow, feeding alcohol to the horses and mules so they don’t freeze to death, but then they can’t move fast enough when the men with guns arrive. There is no escape, no hope, as the next day it happens all over again, as that’s all there is. A raw, powerful film with a terrific subject matter.

Slant Magazine Ed Gonzalez

Bahman Ghobadi's A Time for Drunken Horses evokes the Herculean realities of a group of Kurdish children saddled with adult responsibilities, hoping to carve a niche for themselves in an Iranian pecking order as smugglers and thieves. Ghobadi's brave feature is not only a testament to the harsh reality children in this part of the world live everyday but it's also remarkably free of pretenses. A pack of orphaned children must raise the money to finance an operation for their disabled brother Madi, who will die in 10 days if left untreated. Ghobadi could have fallen into any number of neo-realist traps. Though A Time for Drunken Horses may be grueling to a fault, Ghobadi avoids the rank sentimentality of some of Majid Majidi's films. Its structural flaws are almost irrelevant because the film substitutes as documentary. As a humanist statement, there's nothing out there like this little gem.

Philadelphia City Paper review by Sam Adams

It seems like only a matter of time until the problem of poverty in Iran is solved, what with every doe-eyed Iranian child being drafted to star in feature films. But despite its thematic similarity to other recent imports from that country, A Time for Drunken Horses stands out for its dry-eyed lack of sentimentality and director (writer, producer and art director) Bahman Ghobadi’s effective use of long shots for confrontational scenes, which paradoxically increases our involvement by mimicking the characters’ sense of helplessness. Ghobadi’s restraint is all the more commendable given the ample opportunity for heartstring-tugging; his protagonists are Kurdish orphans on the Iran-Iraq border who desperately need to raise money to pay for a life-extending operation for their severely handicapped brother. Much of the film is set in the snow-covered mountain passes between the two countries, as smuggling is the most available source of income, and Ghobadi, once an assistant to Abbas Kiarostami, subtly turns the snowy expanse into an existential battleground. (He has Kiarostami’s instinct for tableaux without his tendency for self-conscious poetry.) The title, incidentally, comes from the smugglers’ habit of giving alcohol to their pack animals when it’s too cold for them to cross the mountains otherwise, and that sense of desperation pervades the whole film. There’s enough unvarnished cruelty in the film — the handicapped brother sobbing as he’s given an injection, smugglers kicking their mules in the face to get them to move forward — to raise ethical questions in the minds of viewers used to having the comfortable distance of fiction. But Ghobadi, himself a Kurd from a small village, knows the territory and his subjects, and if the situations are uncomfortable, it’s surely not an accident.

Film Journal International (Maria Garcia)

Simple stories about intrepid children overcoming poverty and affliction are not especially rare among Iranian films, but few are as resolutely unsentimental as A Time For Drunken Horses, first-time director Bahman Ghobadi's forceful plea on behalf of the Kurds. By description, his tale about orphaned siblings raising money for a life-saving operation sounds outrageously mawkish, especially when the patient turns out to be a pain-wracked teenager forever confined to an infant's small, frail body. But while this premise lends a near-frantic urgency to their plight, Ghobadi doesn't pause a second to mine for pity or crocodile tears. Returning to his native village, situated high in a snowy mountain pass near the Iran-Iraq border, he shows more interest in the daily lives of a displaced people and their constant, perilous struggle for survival. Leading a cast of striking non-professionals, Ayoub Ahmadi plays a tough-minded 12-year-old who's the default provider for his four siblings, eking out a meager living by smuggling goods across the border. Without so much as the assurance of pay, the kids trudge through waist-deep snow, navigate terrain littered with landmines, and risk the occasional ambush from soldiers armed with machine guns. Told that his diseased brother needs an immediate operation, Ahmadi's elder sister agrees to marry an Iraqi Kurd on the condition that the family will pay for the procedure. But when they renege on the deal, offering a single mule instead, Ahmadi is forced to drag the animal across the border in the scant hope that he'll find a buyer before it's too late. Clocking in at a lean 77 minutes, A Time For Drunken Horses is almost single-minded in purpose, forging ahead with the gritty determination of its protagonists. If the characters seem thinly conceived, it may be because the landscape is such an imposing and dominant force in their lives; seen on a large screen, Ghobadi's grueling slopes and harsh winds give off a chill to rival Dr. Zhivago or Derzu Uzala. The title refers to the whiskey the workhorses (and their owners) are given to warm their bodies and numb the pain, a potent metaphor for conditions that might otherwise be impossible to bear.

Nitrate Online (Dan Lybarger)

The Z Review Michael Brendan McLarney

Old School Reviews [John Nesbit] also seen here: CultureCartel.com (John Nesbit)

A Time for Drunken Horses Michael E. Grost from Classic Film and Television

Harvey S. Karten

The Flick Filosopher's take MaryAnn Johanson

CineScene.com (Chris Dashiell)

PopMatters Rob Maitra

Talking Pictures (UK) Jaap Mees

filmcritic.com boozes up with the Horses Christopher Null

Austin Chronicle (Marrit Ingman)

DVDBeaver.com - Review [Gary W. Tooze]

MAROONED IN IRAQ (Gomgashtei dar Aragh)

Iraq (108 mi) 2002

Marooned In Iraq Henry Sheehan

So, there’s these three guys, an old man and his two middle-aged sons, see. The geezer had three wives, but he wants to search for the first; one of the sons has six wives and has an eye out for a seventh; and the second, well, he’s never had any and who knows what he’s looking for.

If Bahman Ghobadi’s new film, Marooned in Iraq, starts off sounding like an elaborate joke, that’s the point. Moving forward from the grindingly harsh reportage of his first feature, A Time for Drunken Horses, the Kurdish filmmaker – and for now, we do mean the Kurdish filmmaker – has decided to look at life through the all-seeing, but forgiving lens of comedy.

It’s not that the harsh Kurdish life isn’t represented. The characters must navigate the snow-clad peaks that are the salient geological feature of northeast Kurdistan. Worse, it’s 1991, and though our heroes are at least nominally safe on the Iranian side of the border, tens of thousands of Kurds from the Iraqi side are pouring over the invisible frontier between the two nations. They’re fleeing the vengeance of Saddam Hussein after rebelling at the instigation of Bush 41 and then being left out on a quickly snapping limb.

Ghobadi turns away from none of this – on the contrary, he often highlights it – but he’s more determined to show how life goes on. His main vehicle for that, is a famed singer named Barat (Faegh Mohammadi, a musician who, like nearly everyone else in the cast, is an unprofessional actor), who finds that a nagging family can tug at you even more insistently than history.

Ghobadi displays what will turn out to be a typically cheeky wit in introducing Barat, initially showing him at the steering bars of his motorcycle, then revealing that driver and bike are riding on the rear of a flatbed truck. These bang-bang introductions run like rhythmic backfires all through the movie. A few minutes later, it’s Barat’s brother’s turn. Audeh (Allah-Morad Rashtian), the guy with six wives, turns out to be a homely, braying barge, complaining at the top of his voice as soon as Barat hies into view and literally charging out of an outdoor shower to chase his brother as he put-puts his motorcycle into park.

Audeh’s chief complaint is that their father, the aged Mirza (Shahab Ebrahimi), wants to go to the Kurd refugee camps along the Iraq-Iran border and search for his first wife, Hanareh. Mirza and Hanareh, along with their friend, Seyed, had been part of an almost legendary musical group until it broke up, apparently over sexual tension. Hanareh, at least, had ended up married to Seyed. Now, Mirza is claiming that he never properly divorced Hanareh, that the family honor is thus compromised (an extraordinarily serious problem), and that he must go find her and divorce her. That Hanareh may be caring for victims of gas attacks is mentioned almost as an aside.

Even by this time, which is essentially only the picture’s set-up, Ghobadi has swerved right and left to net offbeat characters or fatten his main characters. Barat especially emerges as what a Western audience can only presume is an exemplary model of some sort of Kurdish manhood. He’s strong, but kind. He’s also riven by anxiety, too conservative for a woman he falls in love with, and too impulsive for his own good. Yet, he’s capable of self-analysis and change.

In other words, he’s a perfect candidate to hold together a picaresque tale, which Marooned in Iraq quickly becomes. As in any such tale, the travelers are robbed, meet up with people worse off than they are, are captured by local chieftains, and, in Barat’s case, is seduced by an unseen woman’s beautiful voice.

Internally, the trio provides comedy and music. The comedy comes largely through non-stop bickering, most of it provided by Audeh who, out of deference to his father, redirects his ire to his long-suffering brother. The music, which comes is relatively short doses, is magnificently strong. Audeh plays a drum called a daff and Barat a reed instrument and they both sing together as the audience claps or dances along. It can be tremendously exciting even when, as in a wedding sequence, they do it under armed threat.

As the three move westward, Hanareh continues to elude them; at the movie’s midpoint, they cross into Iraq and the devastation and human suffering begins to move towards the forefront. Even then, Ghobadi manages to wring humor from a situation. Audeh has been looking for a seventh wife because none of his other ones have been able to give birth to a son. At an orphanage, standing in the middle of dozens of parentless boys, he proposes to a pair of beautiful young women, who give him the "are-you-kidding?" treatment in what could have been one of the movie’s funniest scenes. Yet, the issue of the orphans militates against laughs in what comes to be an increasing surge of tragedy and bitterness into the film.

In the end, Ghobadi finds a way for love to offer a ration of redemption. But it’s not the All-Clear that we’re used to. Almost literally, each of the heroes manages to snatch a life away from the graveyard, a graveyard which may have been too full anyway.

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TURTLES CAN FLY (Lakposhtha parvaz mikonand) B+ 92

Iraq Iran France (95 mi) 2004

Powerfully effective children’s drama set in the refugee tents on the Turkish-Iraqi border on the day before the 2003 American invasion into Iraq, where an entire children’s labor camp is run by an ambitious 13-year old Kurd who amazingly makes money by recycling unexploded land mines in the area, who also has the skills to set up TV antennas and even a satellite dish for village elders who are starved for news about the onset of war. There are some deeply moving sequences where the story intersects with war footage, mixing the absurdity of war with the insanely dire consequences, and overall, this is a boldly compelling film. My problem is Ghobadi’s continued fascination with physically deformed humans to tell his story, which one was able to overlook with A TIME FOR DRUNKEN HORSES, as it was his first film. But now we see the way he uses the grotesque to shape his storyline, to enhance his imagery of the ravages of war. It’s easy to think of the horrors of land mines when we see maimed children running around who have obviously been disfigured by them. While this is a cleverly written story where the director may as well be shooting documentary footage, I’m a bit uncomfortable by the manner in which this director seems so willing to exploit war imagery to manipulate his target audience.

In the makeshift refugee villages of northern Iraq shortly before 2003's U.S.-led invasion, parentless children spend their days collecting landmines and awaiting information on the impending war. With no responsible adults to guide or shelter them, the kids—led by a precocious boy named Satellite (Soran Ebrahim), whose skill with technology makes him a vital member of the temporary community—toil and suffer in quiet, resigned to their bleak fate as dispossessed orphans in a land bereft of familial and national unity, and Turtles Can Fly focuses its even-keeled gaze on these lost, physically and emotionally crippled youngsters with understated sympathy.

Iranian director Bahaman Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses), employing a mixture of harried handheld cinematography and studied compositions of the Iraqi-Turkish borderlands, casts his pint-sized protagonists as metaphors for the disenfranchised Kurdish minority that, left to roam the outskirts of their homeland, struggles to accept and deal with their imposed political (and temporal) alienation. Satellite installs a giant satellite dish so the town can watch FOX News for war updates, and the film offers a brief moment of levity when the local elders express embarrassed disgust at catching a quick glimpse of prohibited channels such as MTV. The refugees eagerly desire news on the coming conflict's commencement, and Ghobadi—once again eliciting powerful performances from his non-professional cast but exhibiting little of the humor found in Marooned in Iraq—captures the irony of people craving reports on a war that, as Satellite learns at film's end, cannot satisfactorily erase the tragedy of past misfortunes.

Roaming the town like a pint-sized king on his ten-speed bike adorned (like Pee-Wee Herman's coveted ride) with colorful flags and tassels, Satellite is smitten with a young girl named Agrin (Avaz Latif) who travels with her armless, future-divining brother and her blind son born of rape. Ghobadi attempts a commentary on the war news' unreliability by making the armless boy's prophecies precise, yet this foray into magical realism is ultimately too realistic to be truly magical. Still, via Agrin's attempts to desert her unwanted son—a chilling vision of parental revulsion that's at odds with images of the community's citizen's huddled together en masse (in the spirit of togetherness) on a hilltop awaiting U.S. warplanes—the director captures the chaotic psychological turmoil of a beleaguered people mired in a hopeless cycle of dismemberment and death.

The Village Voice [Jessica Winter]

The film opens with striking images of the men of a rural Kurdistan village scattered across the rocky terrain that lies beyond the community’s outskirts, each man standing with his own TV antenna, twisting their bodies and the spindly metal in every direction as they strain to pick up a news signal. It’s a few weeks before the American invasion of Iraq, and they are anxious for information. The sight looks like some primitive man-and-machine windmill farm, while a conveyor line of bodies stretches back to the village shouting directions like "a little more to the left," although no one seems to be having much success with getting a signal. Such is the shape of the Information Age in Kurdistan, an ill-defined territory whose borders extend into the countries of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Russia. Borders are always up for dispute; political decrees and warfare often separate families and spouses. Poetically powerful images such as this dot this film, which is good because without their beauty and lyricism, Turtles Can Fly might be too horribly bleak and heartbreaking to bear. The film is a marvelous achievement – the first narrative feature to come out of postwar Iraq and financed in a groundbreaking partnership between Iran and Iraq. Turtles Can Fly directs its focus toward the most defenseless victims of war: children. Most of the movie is seen through their eyes. Yet unlike the Iranian films that have become so famous in recent years for telling stories starring child protagonists who are used as allegorical stand-ins for the things that adults are prohibited from discussing publicly, in Turtles Can Fly it feels as though what we are witnessing is thoroughly documentary-based instead of allegorical. Here we see the orphaned and maimed children of the villages and refugee camps, organized into their own self-protective societies, digging up land mines to barter for cash and weapons, and scavenging for smaller gas masks to fit over their little faces. Into the commotion of the men with the antennas comes Satellite (Ebrahim), a 13-year-old boy who is a savvy hustler of goods and de facto leader of the children. He talks the men into acquiring a satellite dish, which he then installs for them, although none of them can understand the American news broadcasts once they do receive the signal. Then into Satellite’s life comes Agrin (Latif), a beautiful young girl, with whom he becomes smitten. She arrives at the camp with her older brother, a seer of the future who has been rendered armless by a land mine, and a toddler. We have seen Agrin in the film’s preamble by a lake, perhaps contemplating suicide, so her appearance creates further tension for the viewer. Eventually, the harrowing circumstances that cause her to be suicidal are revealed, although the knowledge does nothing to forestall the inevitable. It’s like the U.S. troops when they arrive (captured by Ghobadi with handheld digital): there to save the day but too late to fix the lives of these children. With his third feature (following A Time for Drunken Horses and Marooned in Iraq), Ghobadi, an Iranian Kurd filmmaker, is well on his way toward creating a poetic and powerful national cinema of Kurdistan. His use of nonprofessionals here and the sparseness of his imagery sometimes lead to uneven storytelling, but his film’s urgency and acute realism make it an emotional triumph.

The first feature made in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein belongs to a fecund Iranian cinema tradition, in which the experiences of kids double as allegories or microcosms of the society at large. So when a girl jumps off a cliff to her death in the flash-forwarded opening of Turtles Can Fly, there's no doubt that the void she leaps into is the region's foreseeable future. In Bahman Ghobadi's third film, set on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom and shot in a refugee camp on the Iraq-Turkey border, a boy can take on the role of parent, manager, translator, or paramedic; in early scenes, de facto youth leader Soran (Soran Ebrahim), a/k/a Satellite, is looking for a TV dish so everyone can find out when the U.S. invasion starts.

A pragmatic, warm-hearted tough guy, Satellite is father figure and foreman to his fellow refugee children, whom he organizes in work gangs—they forage in scrap heaps and fields for unexploded mines, which they sell to local U.N. personnel. Many of the kids are orphaned, maimed, or both. (A potential employer complains, "Half of them don't have hands"—which later adds mordancy to the sight gag when one of Satellite's loyal henchmen presents him with a chunk of a famously fallen statue: "This is Saddam's arm. It's for you.") The arrival of Henkov (Hirsh Feyssal), an armless, grave-faced boy, vaguely intimidates Satellite's alpha status, since Henkov has a gift for both accurate prophecy and defusing mines with his teeth.

Henkov scours the minefields with his sister, pensive Agrin (Avaz Latif), and a blind toddler who appears to be their little brother—and who's the unexpected focal point of Agrin's rage and desperation, the causes of which Ghobadi soon discloses. Faintly evocative at times of both Mouchette and Marzieh Meshkini's Stray Dogs, Turtles Can Fly eschews the loose-limbed musical energies of Ghobadi's Marooned in Iraq (2002) and revisits the basic milieu of his Caméra d'Or-winning A Time for Drunken Horses (2000), wherein a determined band of orphaned youngsters eke out a skeletal living on an Iraqi border. Amid the muddy scrubbery of the camp and its hinterland surroundings, Ghobadi catches some striking compositions: a satellite dish bobbling along amid a bustling crowd, a distant row of men gripping aerials that reach high into the sky for news of the impending war. (This is as near as we get to any of the parents in the camp.)

Ghobadi, an Iranian Kurd, rarely steps back to cast a lingering gaze on his fine handiwork; like Satellite, the film is always charging on to the next pressing situation. Likewise, he has little patience for the formal niceties of narrative through-lines; he picks up and discards story strands (the doctor in search of an orphan, Satellite's crush on Agrin) at will. But the perpetual motion only temporarily staves off a pervading, self-evident despair. Circling around to its anguished beginning, Turtles Can Fly closes with an open-ended question that only sounds like yet another threat: "Don't you want to meet the Americans?"

indieWIRE [Michael Koresky] with responses from Erik Syngle and Neal Block from Reverse Shot

Talking Pictures [Howard Schumann]

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Movie Vault [Le Apprenti]

Reverse Shot [Vicente Rodriguez-Ortega]

FilmJerk.com (Brian Orndorf)

Reel.com DVD review [Tim Knight]

Cinepassion Fernando F. Croce

Guilt and Innocents Anthony Lane from the New Yorker

CineScene.com (Chris Dashiell)

MovieFreak.com (Dylan Grant)

World Socialist Web Site Joanne Laurier, also reviewing Marziyeh Meshkini’s STRAY DOGS

The Boston Phoenix Peter Keough

Los Angeles Times [Carina Chocano]

ViewLondon (Matthew Turner) review [4/5]

NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS (Kasi Az Gorbehayeh Irani Khabar Nadareh)

Iran (101 mi) 2009

No One Knows About Persian Cats (Kasi Az Gorbehayeh Irani Khabar Nadareh) Howard Feinstein at Cannes from Screendaily

Anyone who considers the Iranian Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi solely a practitioner of long-take chronicles about rural Kurdish life needs to reconsider. Here he ventures brilliantly into new territory, the urban jungle, highlighting Tehran’s underground community of rock and heavy metal musicians who borrow melodies from the West but sing their own politicised lyrics. In the film, a love/hate letter to Tehran itself, he blends the genres of concert film, social drama, comedy, and thriller into a cohesive faux-documentary, adjusting his style to insure a snug fit.

Calm, painfully beautiful pastoral scenes appear between rapid, sometimes manic sequences—montages as gorgeous as they are critical of the status quo. No One Knows About Persian Cats affords Ghobadi the opportunity to wade into more commercial waters. Although it’s hardly a mainstream effort, this film’s fast pacing and hip soundtrack are potential draws for the youthful audiences distributors crave.

The opening film at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, Cats is a rendering of the true, tragic tale of two young musicians, Negar (Shaghaghi) and Ashkan (Koshanejad), who attempt to put together a rock/heavy metal band after being released from prison. They had committed the crime of playing western music in an inflexible, dogmatic Islamic society. (The situation is worse for Negar, because women are not allowed to perform any kind of music.)

They also seek passports and visas for themselves and the band mates they hope to find in order to emigrate to a country with freer artistic expression. The documents are expensive, with Ghobadi making the point that there’s a crass material culture existing beside the country’s religious one.

The pair hooks up with Nader (Behdad), a lovable, fast-talking operator and music promoter of sorts who promises to get them the papers, a dangerous undertaking. He occupies the comic centre of the film—the scene where he convinces a policeman to reduce his punishment for possession of American DVDs and alcohol is hilarious.

Ghobadi himself begins the film singing in a recording studio where others talk about how he was unable to receive permission from the government to shoot a film. He then shifts from this self-reflexive mode, taking us into the fiction. He structures Cats as a search, indeed a suspenseful investigation, following Negar, Ashkan, and Nader through the city on a motorbike while they struggle to complete their mission before a deadline only a few days away. The motif of movement runs throughout: Characters constantly run up and down stairs (most illicit groups practice surreptitiously in basements), for example. The strongest shots of all, however, are the aerial views of Tehran, which not only entice but also prefigure the film’s tragic finale.

Ghobadi shot Cats underground in a mere 17 days with an S12K camera. In Iran, 35mm equipment is owned by the state. The title refers to a law that bans dogs and cats from being outdoors.

Alissa Simon at Cannes from Variety, May 14, 2009

Fueled by frustration with the myriad prohibitions governing life in Iran, "No One Knows About Persian Cats" strings an improvised tale around Tehran's underground indie-rock scene. Good-looking, shot-on-the-fly fifth feature by Bahman Ghobadi ("Half Moon," "Turtles Can Fly," "A Time for Drunken Horses"), which blends exciting musical performances with an undernourished narrative, is unlikely to be screened legally in the Islamic Republic but should enjoy a healthy fest life offshore, with niche arthouse in some territories.

Pic will attract extra interest because of the helmer's publicly stated desire to emigrate and his connection with recently imprisoned Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi (here credited as exec producer and co-writer).

For the past 30 years, Iranian authorities have banned certain types of music (in particular Western rock and females singing solo), forcing them underground. Amir Hamz and Mark Lazarz's 2006 feature docu "Sounds of Silence" and several shorts by Mojtaba Mirtahmasb previously explored this phenomenon, estimated by a character in "Cats" to encompass more than 312 indie groups and 2,000 pop combos.

Thin storyline follows gentle musical duo Negar (Negar Shaghaghi) and Ashkan (Ashkan Koshanejad) as they seek bandmates to back them during a London gig, as well as the necessary paperwork that will allow them to leave the country. Although they lack the permits to record or perform publicly, they long to play a concert in their homeland before leaving.

A recording studio engineer introduces them to music and DVD bootlegger Nader (Hamed Behdad, over-the-top annoying), a motormouth with connections to local bands and black-market passports. Most of the pic involves Nader hustling Negar and Ashkan to (literal) underground sites where a variety of real bands practice amid makeshift sound-proofing contraptions and ongoing squabbles with family and neighbors.

Often riding three on a motorcycle through the perilous Tehran traffic, their excursions are not without humor. Biggest laughs come from a rehearsal in a cowshed on a remote farm, when Ghobadi cuts to bovine reactions. Bureaucratic absurdities also draw chuckles, such as a list of banned female vocalists, a recital of prices for forged documents and Nader's arguments with a judge.

Repping a wide range of genres, the musicians appearing include Hichkas (performing the popular rap "Wake Up God"); a blurred-focus Rana Farhan singing a jazzy number about a drunken lover; and electric-blues band Mirza, led by electrifying voice of frontman Babak Mirzakhani. Groups are identified only in fast-moving end credits, which will frustrate some viewers.

As the various groups perform (some in English and some in Farsi), Ghobadi employs rapidly cut-to-the-beat montage sequences (like earnest MTV) that show gritty aspects of Tehran life. Powerful lyrics work better to convey Iran's current stifling atmosphere for rebellious youth.

Pic's rather melodramatic ending also serves as a cri de coeur for artistic freedoms.

Review: No One Knows About Persian Cats - Film Comment Nicolas Rapold from Film Comment, March/April 2010

Musicians on the move crop up throughout the work of Bahman Ghobadi. In his last feature, Half Moon (06), a generously mustachioed Kurdish family band attempts to make its way to a concert in Iraq, and Ghobadi nudges their road-movie travels and travails into the realm of the kind of mystical fantasy that could one day be put into song. In No One Knows About Persian Cats, the would-be travelers are a couple of Tehran indie-rockers looking to emigrate to somewhere that doesn’t demand endless permits or frown upon women singing solo. After ordering travel documents from a black-market dealer, they spend the nebulous waiting-period hooking up with other bands, providing the pretext for a multiple-performance sampler of their city’s Western-flavored underground music scene. While it’s less informative than a straight-up documentary survey like Fatih Akin’s Crossing the Bridge, the enthusiasm of Ghobadi and his various young co-conspirators is infectious, and the music is generally catchy and occasionally excellent. But what really distinguishes the film—banned in Iran, it goes without saying—is the enormous risks these musicians take, which Ghobadi ultimately drives home with legitimate dramatic license.

The indie duo, Negar and Ashkan, are “played” by a subdued Negar Shaghaghi and Ashkan Koshanejad, aka Take It Easy Hospital—and like other bands on display, they are left unnamed. Their sometime guide throughout the city’s secret byways is a cheerful culture hustler named Nader (Hamed Behdad), who, though less frequently on screen, ties together the film’s sense of musical solidarity, within and across genres (traditional, pop, fusion). Ghobadi records the performers this trio drop in on either in situ (tiny lounges and clubs) or in a music-video variety of settings: Farsi-singing heavy-metalheads on a farm, a balladeer in the classroom where he teaches Afghan and Iraqi orphans, clunky rappers in a skeletal construction site, a sister act rendering transcendent classical Persian song before an intimate living-room audience (nonetheless forbidden because they are women performing for mixed company). The sequences are often edited to the music’s rhythms, with mixed results: one zippy montage of cutaways to the urban homeless feels too much like a cut-rate video to have much impact.

Ghobadi himself appears briefly in the background of the story’s recording studio-set prologue: he’s referred to as someone trying to unwind by laying down a few tracks since his last movie is now being sold on the street by bootleggers instead of being shown in theaters. And of course the Kurdish-Iranian Ghobadi’s making of the film is part of the drama behind the energetic music performances on display: shooting for 17 days without permission, getting arrested twice, and on top of everything dodging potshots from huffy elder statesman Abbas Kiarostami (who might do better to re-focus his energies on filmmaking). Again, Nader becomes an effective proxy for the resilience of suppressed artists: in a riveting scene shot through a cracked-open door, he alternately begs, cajoles, and rages at an off-screen government official who has penalized him for selling DVDs by imposing heavy fines—and then, having secured a settlement, encourages him to watch the artistic films again, more closely, with an open mind.

Negar and Ashkan gain a spotlight for their peppy, diligently cribbing English-language song “Human Jungle.” Like some of the film’s other Westernized numbers, the tune underlines the shifting disjunctions between their competent but standard-issue vintage, the outsized repression bearing down on them, and the novelty of pop clichés about rebellion suddenly being imbued with real meaning. But Ghobadi has other, more sober plans in store for the duo’s screen alter egos, foreshadowed by a shocking, incongruous episode involving their dog and the cops. As in so many of his other films, the freedom accorded the furthest reaches of artistic fancy inexorably collides with earthly realities.

Cannes. "No One Knows About the Persian Cats" David Hudson at Cannes from The IFC Blog, May 14, 2009

David Bourgeois at Cannes from Movieline, May 14, 2009

Deborah Young at Cannes from The Hollywood Reporter, May 15, 2009

A Less Crowded Cannes, and Perhaps a Silver Lining Manohla Dargis at Cannes from The New York Times, May 14, 2009

Giannoli, Xavier

EAGER BODIES (Les corps impatients) D+ 66

France (94 mi) 2003

This has all the makings of a made for TV movie, as it hits all the right buttons with a manipulative formula that hasn’t got an ounce of authenticity to it. Filmed in a realistic style, a young, good-looking twentyish couple, who are used to living their life like there’s no tomorrow, have their world turned upside down when she tests positive for lung cancer. Slowly, her condition deteriorates, but this doesn’t stop her from visiting nightclubs that are filled with smoke, or her friends from smoking directly in front of her throughout the entire film, which just left me thinking this was not only despicable, but also hateful. No mention was ever made by anyone – ever, they just kept right on smoking. Like an inspiration from the world of soap operas, the sicker she gets, the more she seems driven to push her gorgeous cousin on her boy friend, then despises him for looking, leaving him in an emotional no man’s land. We see a progression of what we would expect, feelings of disillusionment, suspicion, paranoia, self-hatred, guilt, regret, retribution, all leading to a glum story that doesn’t hint at anything we don’t already know, and instead tries to shock us with a frenzy of sex in a completely predictable storyline and outcome.

THE SINGER (Quand J’Etais Chanteur) C 75

France (112 mi) 2006

After pulling off a brilliant performance as a sexually animalistic ex-con in Pialat’s 1980 film LOULOU, never in his wildest dreams could Gérard Depardieu have believed that 25 years later he’d be starring in a role like this one, portraying an overweight has been, a wheezing over the hill lounge singer in a white jacket who persists in behaving like a “ladies man” while singing wrenchingly sentimental sad songs from a bygone era in small venues like retirement homes, private parties, or small clubs, the kind of guy that makes the pretentious glitz or glam of Tom Jones or Engelbert Humperdinck seem suave and debonair. Here he is matched with perky Belgian actress Cecile de France, fresh from her role in AVENUE MONTAIGNE, in another mainstream film that stylistically feels breezy and light-hearted, as so much of the story feels forcibly contrived, but the performances carry the day. Both make their characters believable and interesting, even when the rest of the film isn’t.

On a 10-minute break from a typically over-personalized stage performance, trying to engage an audience that’s barely paying attention, Alain meets Marion, who is in the company of an old friend Bruno (Mathieu Amalric), as she’s interning for his real estate company. Striking up a friendly interest, she’s a bit put off by his old-fashioned forwardness, but after polishing off a bottle of complimentary champagne, the life blood of his work, his romantic lines lead to a quick night together, where she makes a hasty exit the next morning. With reawakened enthusiasm, his career plods on as they have an on again, off again, hot and cold relationship as he requests her assistance in searching for a new residence, which gives them an excuse to spend plenty of time together. She has a complex life of her own, separated from an unseen ex, living in a hotel, splitting the care of a forlorn young son, which causes her plenty of grief. Alain offers her a new beginning, which is what the house search is all about anyway. Unfortunately, the story requires more trips into the sleepwalking nightlife scenes of forgotten song ballads, where the words seem to express a parallel emotional storyline, where we have to endure a blurry world of lost love, broken hearts, and sad memories, but he takes his role seriously and worries he’s being replaced by karaoke.

There’s some question as to the believability of this alleged affair, as there’s a noticeable age difference, and she seems to have a lot more to offer than the broken down, end of an era dinosaur that he’s become. Unfortunately, the challenge is to make compelling the malaise of life on the edge of career extinction, which is going out of fashion for a reason, because fewer people today are paying attention. As is the fashion today, Depardieu does his own singing, and his career crawls forward at all costs, despite the second rate billings, still believing in the strength of the lyrics. This didn’t resonate with the same power as Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s similar performance in John Sayle’s 1999 film LIMBO, which provided layers upon layers of more than just the singing. Having to endure the endless parade of the exact same style of corny songs just wears out one’s tolerance level for listening to bad songs, no matter how well they’re staged or photographed. After awhile, it began to resemble what life must be like waiting to hang out at the Friday night dances in the ballroom at the local Holiday Inn.

The Singer (Quand J'Etais Chanteur) Allan Hunter in Cannes for Screendaily

Sad songs say so much in The Singer, an unashamedly sentimental love story that features one of Gerard Depardieu¹s most fully realised and endearing performances in recent years. His melancholy, smalltime singer has the same weary charm as Burt Lancaster¹s aging hood in Atlantic City.

Depardieu is well matched by Cecile de France and together they transcend the potentially corny material to create something small in scale but genuinely touching. The Singer should appeal to an older demographic with the potential for cross-over to incurable romantics of all ages suggesting a solid commercial future. The highly marketable soundtrack is a bonus.

Promiscuous with his talent, Gerard Depardieu is someone we have come to take for granted. Here, he seems very much at ease with the character of Alain Moreau, a nightclub crooner in Clermont-Ferrand much lower in the food chain than Charles Aznavour but cut from the same cloth. Depardieu invests him with an easy, self-deprecating manner and an ineffable dignity. He also reveals a pleasant voice performing the old-fashioned songs that provide Moreau with a living in local nightclubs, tea dances and personal appearances. One night he meets Marion (de France). They wind up in bed. A one-night stand is easy but romance proves to be much more difficult as a wary Marion refuses to let herself surrender to Alain’s charm offensive and jokingly dubs him The Ladies Man.

Unlike some of the other Cannes Competition titles (A Family Friend for instance), The Singer makes you believe in the May-December spark between the two central characters. Estate agent Marion is a single mother with a six year-old boy and an unhappy past. She sports the cropped locks and gamin look of a young Jean Seberg but there is a steeliness that Cecil de France brings to the character. She conveys Marion’s reluctance to become involved and the sense of exasperation when she cannot keep her true feelings under control. When something does begin to develop we are convinced that it is more than another male fantasy come to life. This is an affair of the heart in which physical attraction is secondary. These two are soulmates in vulnerability.

Mathieu Almaric’s Bruno is there to provide a romantic rival for Marion’s affections but the character is too underdeveloped to present a real challenge. Xavier Giannoli’s screenplay has an unforced humour and a sense of compassion for the characters. It takes some mildly unexpected turns and resists any temptation to overplay the situation. When Alain develops throat problems there is a danger of veering towards tearjerking melodrama that is mercifully avoided. Even the ending is bittersweet and open to interpretation.

Set in nightclubs filled with dry ice and the empty houses that are part of Marion’s job, The Singer is told in an unobtrusive fashion. First time director Giannoli is not interested in style over content. He merely serves the story and attempts to make the situations seem as alive and believable as possible. It is a very traditional approach to a film of pleasing, old-fashioned virtues.

Enjoyable, bittersweet and ultimately moving drama with gorgeous photography and superb performances from Depardieu and de France.

What's it all about?
Gerard Depardieu stars as small-time lounge singer Alain Moreau, a committed professional who knows that karaoke is slowly killing his livelihood. When his friend Bruno (Mathieu Amalric) introduces him to a young, beautiful estate agent named Marion (Cecille de France), Alain sleeps with her and feels reawakened by the feelings she stirs in him.

However, Marion has emotional problems of her own and the two embark on a tentative relationship that's somewhere between a professional connection, a friendship and a romance.

The Good
Depardieu is wonderful as Alain, presenting him as an honest, discreet and painfully realistic character who really cares about his work, as opposed to the more obvious cliches of a washed-up, sleazy loser still dreaming of the big time. Cecille de France is a revelation as Marion – you can't take your eyes off her and there's powerful chemistry between her and Depardieu, particularly in the looks they give each other.

There's also strong support from ubiquitous French actor Mathieu Amalric (Munich) and Christine Citti as Michele, Alain's manager and ex-wife, who still harbours feelings for him.

The Great
Writer-director Xavier Giannoli's script is superb, layering in moments of humour and warmth and making some perceptive comments about career longevity for musicians. He also directs with an eye for amusing details, such as Alain's pet goat and portable sun-lamp.

The crystal clear, richly coloured photography is breath-takingly beautiful, courtesy of cinematographer Yorick Le Saux - if only all films looked like this. In addition, the songs are used brilliantly (Alain has a touching speech about the songs telling the truth) and there are some incredibly moving scenes, such as when Alain sings Save the Last Dance For Me.

Worth seeing?
This is an engaging, moving and refreshingly adult romance that avoids the usual cliches. Recommended.

www.european-films.net (Boyd van Hoeij) review

An aging dance hall singer portrayed with exquisite observation by Gérard Depardieu gets a new lease on life when he meets the bubbly Cécile De France (or rather the character that she plays) in Xavier Giannoli's surprisingly resonant Quand j'étais chanteur (The Singer). An eyebrow-raiser when it was announced as one of the Competition titles in Cannes, the film has since enchanted viewers young and old with its gentle portrait of two lost souls finding a connection both in and out of bed. Giannoli, who also wrote the script, keeps the tone light throughout, focussing on the characters and their small-town milieu not as a means of ridicule or for some nasty comedy, but simply to explore who these characters really are. As a French, musical, small-town variant on Lost in Translation, the film might do healthy arthouse business across the continent.

Depardieu's Alain and De France's Marion are two of the most fully realised characters on the big screen this year. Alain Moireau is a dance hall singer who is world-famous in Clermont-Ferrand, the capital of the central Puy-de-Dôme region where another bittersweet French musical hit, Les choristes (The Chorus), was set and filmed as well. Alain works through his repertoire of soggy French love songs like a professional, cheering up dances, private parties and pensioners' homes. His voice is polished and effective but not close to France's most revered singers, explaining why he is still in Clermont-Ferrand and not playing the stadiums in Paris (Depardieu did his own singing for the film).

One evening at a weekend disco gig he has been doing for years, he meets a new colleague of his real estate agent friend Bruno (Mathieu Amalric, from Rois et reines/Kings and Queen). She is Marion (De France), a foxy blonde who seems an unlikely candidate for an evening with Alain; most of his fans are in their fifties, like Alain himself. But the French crooner sees something in the girl and pursues her, using his sudden desire to move to a new house as an excuse to see her more regularly (though, strangely, none of the houses she shows him seem to be exactly what he wants).

Though Marion initially seems to reject him, then sleeps with him one night only to leave his hotel room secretly before having to face any dreadful morning after conversation, she is professional enough to show him around in the properties that might please him. Along the way, the two (and the audience) get acquainted with each other, and Gianolli approaches his characters in such a low-key, life-like manner that it is almost impossible not to love them.

Unlike many disposable romantic comedies, both characters in Quand j'étais chanteur have a life and history outside of their (or should that be his?) courtship; Alain is still on good terms with his ex-wife Michèle (a wonderful role of Christine Citti, from La tourneuse de pages/The Page Turner), who is still his manager and with whom he has occasional sex -- one supposes for old time's sake -- and Marion has her own trouble with a child she is raising.

These elements contribute greatly to making their characters more believable, as does Giannoli's choice to look at his characters without contempt. Alain was not a washed-up alcoholic loner who needed to be redeemed before he met Marion, and she is neither the perky, innocent girl who learns a life lesson or two from the old man but a woman who got by somehow even on her own. Both simply are human beings trying to be human beings, which sounds simple but is incredibly difficult to re-create believably onscreen. Giannoli succeeds perfectly here thanks to his observant script and direction and pitch-perfect actors, and even though the film runs somewhat long, it is certainly worthwhile to see it at the cinema until its very last scene, which again displays the actors' and Giannoli's perfect balance of normality and character insight. A perfect ending for one of the most heartfelt films of the year.

BFI | Sight & Sound | The Singer (2006) Ginette Vincendeau from Sight and Sound, October 2007

DVD Times Noel Megahey

DVD Outsider Slarek

CineScene.com (Chris Knipp) review

Cinematical (Kim Voynar) review

cinemattraction (Sheila Cornelius) review

Strictly Film School Acquarello

Time Out London (Geoff Andrew) review [5/6]

The Guardian (Peter Bradshaw) review

IN THE BEGINNING (A l’Origine)

France (155 mi) 2009

Sukhdev Sandhu at Cannes from The Telegraph U.K.

A l'Origine, by Xavier Giannoli, also screening in Competition, is based on the true story of a Frenchman (played by Fraancois Cluzet), just out of jail, who poses as works manager Philippe Miller to trick a team of labourers to build part of a highway. The film is 150 minutes long, but doesn't waste a second. Miller's betrayal of fellow criminal Gerard Depardieu, his creeping sense of loyalty to the ailing community whose economic livelihood the highway will help, his relationship with the local Mayor (a wonderful Emmanuelle Devos): all these developments are tracked with subtlety and grace.

Giannoli goes to great lengths to maintain the story's essential mystery. Is it a comedy or a redemption story? An off-kilter study of French industrial relations in the mould of Laurent Cantet's Time Out, it's also a very timely fable about huge swathes of the Western economy are built on lies.

Geoff Andrew at Cannes from Time Out London

A couple of years ago, Xavier Giannolli made a small but very pleasing splash in Cannes with ‘The Singer’ (‘Quand J’Etais Chanteur’). So his follow-up, ‘In the Beginning’ (‘A l’Origine’) comes as something of a disappointment, particularly given the promising potential of a remarkable story taken from real life.

François Cluzet is characteristically charismatic and convincing as Paul, a petty criminal who finds upon release from prison that he’s unable to get a job. Pretending to be a sales manager for an offshoot of a major construction company, he makes a little money for himself around the towns of northern France, and can’t resist the offer of some ‘commission’ from a couple of businessmen whose services were dropped by that same company. What Paul – or Philippe as he now calls himself – hasn’t realised is that high unemployment means everyone in the area is all too ready to believe that that same company is recommencing work on a highway project that will bring great benefits to the region; and soon, with support from the mayor (Emmanuelle Devos) and virtually everyone else, he’s heading up a huge operation – without, of course, having the requisite know-how, documents or funding. It can only be a matter of time before his credit runs out.

It would be hard not to make an interesting movie from such material, but Giannolli has almost succeeded in doing so. It’s not that he doesn’t connect with the most rewarding aspects of the story; indeed, he draws on most of the themes at hand: the fraught relationship between reality, falsehood and fantasy; the pros and cons of starting over; the gullibility of the needy; the conflict between welcome results and dishonest practice; and the heady combination of fear and exhilaration that can come from seeing one’s plans and expectations slide massively out of control. The trouble is, he draws on them all at such length. At 90 minutes there would probably have been a good film here; at an hour longer than that, each and every development in the story is dealt with in such a way that the film feels tediously repetitive and sluggish in making its points even before the first hour has passed.

There are good moments along the way, but as the film finally embarks upon its last half-hour, it goes spectacularly off the rails. As if aware that he should crank up the narrative momentum and tie up some of the story’s loose ends, Giannolli resorts increasingly to melodramatic contrivance, so that financial and logistical deadlines, appalling weather, crashed cranes, failed relationships and much else besides turn up as pesky obstacles to be overcome before a sense of satisfactory closure can be achieved. Ironically, by then it’s hard to care about Paul’s fate anyway; this particular road has been too long and winding by far.

Mike Goodridge at Cannes from Screendaily

France’s Xavier Giannoli tells the true story of a small-time conman whose latest fraudulent scheme brings hope to a depressed community in In The Beginning, a sort of social realist Capra-esque fable set in the rain and grit of northern France. Giannoli’s expansive fourth feature is far less intimate than his last, lovely Quand J’Etais Chanteur, although his talent with actors and his keen observation are still in evidence. The film is crippled, however, by an extreme running time of 155 minutes which dilutes rather than strengthens the message of the story and will have even the most patient cinephiles shifting in their seats.

France is the target market here, especially with the potent star trio of Francois Cluzet, Emanuelle Devos and Gerard Depardieu in lead roles. International buyers might be cautious about taking a chance on the bleak setting and running time, not to mention the specific French flavour of the road construction sequences at the film’s core.

Perhaps Giannoli’s chief challenge in the story is that the audience is asked to relate to a jailbird whose actions for much of the film are both criminal and stupid. That his con scheme takes on a life of its own and brings a sense of value and worth to the town he’s in is a side-effect which brings him back to life and generates some empathy for the character, but it’s only a matter of time before his scheme catches up with him – an inevitability which hangs over every scene.

As played with a quiet desperation by Cluzet, Paul is an ex-con who gets out of jail and immediately rips off his friend and fellow small-time crook Abel (Depardieu). On the road in the far north of France, he starts to carry out petty scams which involve buying and reselling construction equipment using fake documentation. Before long, he ends up in a smalltown hotel pretending to work for a construction giant called CGI.

What he doesn’t realise is that the town has been languishing in unemployment and misery since CGI pulled out of a major road building project two years earlier due to an infestation of beetles.

After a banal chat with the hotel maid Monika (Soko), word spreads round the town quickly that a CGI executive is visiting and planning to reactivate the road project. Within days, Paul, who now calls himself Philippe Miller, is taking meetings with the mayor (Devos) and accepting kickbacks from suppliers who want his business.

Unable to halt the momentum of the project and buoyed by the unstoppable enthusiasm of the townsfolk, Paul, aka Philippe, leads a team which starts to rebuild the road, using a phony company name and a 90-day window before he has to pay any of the suppliers.

Giannoli goes into every detail of the scam and every step of the process whereby the town is galvanized, then stupefied as the people who trusted Philippe as their saviour begin to realise the extent of his deceit. Yet the film suggests that he isn’t quite such a villain, since he manages to restore hope and community to the town.

But in a post Bernie Madoff-world where unemployment is a global epidemic, many viewers might not receive Philippe’s grand deception as warmly as Giannoli would like.

Cannes '09: Day Nine Mike D’Angelo from The Onion A.V. Club, May 22, 2009

In the Beginning David Hudson at Cannes from The IFC Blog, May 21, 2009

Kirk Honeycutt at Cannes from The Hollywood Reporter, May 21, 2009

Boyd van Hoeij at Cannes from Variety, May 21, 2009

Cannes #8: Oh, the days dwindle down, to a precious few... Roger Ebert, May 22, 2009

Gibney, Alex

ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM B 87

USA (110 mi) 2005

From the writer of the 2002 Eugene Jarecki film, THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER, this is a documentary dissecting the fall of Enron, as seen through the eyes of some of the former employees, most particularly the VP whistleblower who initially exposed the shenanigans used to cook the books, where Finance Chief Andrew Fastow, the lone officer who pleaded guilty, blamed afterwards by Enron as the lone bad apple, but working directly under the supervision of CEO Jeff Skilling, created fictitious companies, then used them to project phony futures profits, that is money which had not yet been received, in order to hide or disguise the company’s debts, that is losses that had already occurred, a practice condoned by the now collapsed Arthur Anderson auditing firm, but also several reputable banks. Adapted from the book, The Smartest Guys in the Room: the Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, written by Fortune magazine writers Bethany McLean, who wrote at the height of Enron’s success one of the first critical pieces about their peculiar finance structure, and Peter Elkind. While much is already known due to the magnitude of the corporate hubris, this is, after all, the biggest corporate crime in American history with executives cashing in hundreds of millions in stock options while freezing out rank and file employees, preventing their ability to do the same, as they helplessly watched the company’s stocks fall from $73 a share to nothing in a matter of weeks, entirely wiping out their retirement benefits before the company declared bankruptcy, the film does a good job simplifying the economic complexities into understandable language by painting a damning portrait of the guys responsible, whose greed and avarice are unprecedented. Neither Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, so familiar to the Bush family that they called him Kenny-Boy, or former CEO Jeff Skilling, brother of WGN Channel 9 weatherman/ meteorologist Tom Skilling, who may have masterminded the whole thing, have yet to go to trial, which are scheduled to begin January 2006. Skilling’s right hand guy, Lou Pai, a ruthless executive with a penchant for strippers, had already left the company with several hundred million dollars in his pocket and is allegedly the second largest land owner in Wyoming.

Much of this film is taken from video tapes made at Enron by Enron itself, never conceiving that it would be used against them. Perhaps the most damning piece of information not widely known is the connection to the California energy crisis, where Enron was moving energy “out” of the state as fast as they are able, then forcing the state of California to re-buy what they had previously owned, causing completely fabricated rolling electric blackouts throughout the state for months, making huge profits for the Enron traders, who are caught on tape making adolescent jokes about the whole thing, while collapsing the state’s economy and putting people’s lives and careers at risk. While there is no real emotional connection to any person that we see, the film impressively lays the blame, creating an outrage, but it’s difficult to assess this film, as so much was already known before seeing this film. Those chiefly responsible, Lay and Skilling, refused to speak on camera and have not yet made their defense or been held accountable for their actions. There’s an interesting mix of humor and music, even a brief episode from The Simpsons, ending with the Tom Waits song, “God’s Away on Business.” Obnoxious Dallas Maverick owner/millionaire Mark Cuban is one of the Executive Producers for the film, so I’m sorry to see any of the profits fall into his coffers.

Gibson, Mel

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST F 25

USA (127 mi) 2004

The week began with a performance of Handel's "Messiah," the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Schreier, who has in seasons past conducted, while singing the part of the Evangelist himself, in Bach's "St Matthew Passion." Similar to Mel Gibson's film, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, which provides no religious or historical background, Handel knew his audience was so familiar with the Biblical texts that they could probably repeat it by heart, forging such a rare bond with the audience that it gave rise to the universal popularity of today's do-it-yourself performances of the "Messiah." Certainly as beautiful and uplifting a piece of music as one is ever likely to hear, led by some magnificent choral and trumpet virtuosity, which the CSO specializes in, it has the enormous power to bring tears to your eyes by capturing the extraordinary beauty and wonderment of the Biblical story of the coming of Christ.

The tenor, bass, and mezzo-soprano all mix with the chorus to announce the Old Testament prophecy of the coming of the Lord, but the soprano doesn't enter until she can angelically announce the child is born, then sings gloriously and magnificently about the glory of the Lord. Other than the Hallelujah chorus, the ultimate Biblical vision of joy and triumph, taken from Revelations, the most dramatically stunning piece is the Mezzo's rendition of "He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," (Isaiah 53:3) a chilling song of anguish that one remembers for a lifetime. It lays a human foundation to the divine and realizes, emotionally, what we could otherwise only imagine. The "Messiah" is the kind of music that cleanses your soul and leaves one feeling transformed and renewed.

This brings us to a comparison with Mel Gibson's new PASSION, his cinematic vision which also opens with passages from Isaiah 53:5, though translated a bit differently: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed." As I mentioned, Gibson refrains from giving us any historical background, believing we're already familiar with the story, but begins his film with the terrible moment at Gethsemane when Jesus realizes what human horrors he was about to endure. But unlike the glory and musical transcendence of Handel's "Messiah," Gibson's film writhes in human wretchedness and agony.

I find it incredible that so many people are flocking to the theaters for what is basically a sadistic display of human torture. For me, this was not a moving experience at all, instead I found it to be a dreadful film that is mindless and nauseating to boot. I learned or experienced nothing that I didn’t already know or feel before seeing this film, so why make the film? Despite its alleged claims for religious and historical authenticity, this film instead is in the stereotypical tradition of Cecil B. DeMille, treating the last 12 hours of Jesus’s life as an exaggerated spectacle, almost as if we were witnessing life from inside the Roman Coliseum, with a blood-thirsty, hysterical mob, led by the wicked Jewish hierarchy, delivering Jesus to Pontius Pilate, and then deciding his fate instead of the Romans, who it appears could care less, demanding crucifixion even after a horribly bloody Roman flogging, which apparently was not enough punishment, as they are fixated on casting out any blasphemous threat to their corrupt hold on power.

This film is made by someone who obviously spent too much time watching Ridley Scott’s GLADIATOR, as rather than a film about religion, it never enters any spiritual or mystical realm, it is instead a typical Hollywood film dominated by mass hysteria and hate, a mercilessly unforgiving excess of human evil, which includes repeated shots in slow motion of Jesus falling and stumbling when he is unable to withstand the continuous barrage of tortuous blows. Basically, the graphic, physical depiction of what happens to the human flesh of Jesus, as gruesome as it is to see, with blood dripping everywhere, is what this film is all about, pure and simple, leaving nothing to the imagination. The floggers resemble actors sent over from the World Wrestling Federation, as rather than any realistic representation of humanity, every one of them taunts Jesus, beats him beyond any human comprehension, beyond the physical limits of anyone’s ability to withstand, and then continue beating him some more, sarcastically mocking him with such derision and hate that it escapes me why anyone would want to see this film.

I found the mood and tone of this film terribly wrong throughout the entire debacle, as rather than anything remotely resembling reality, it is ridiculously artificial and monotonous, never changing its one-note tone of bloody wretchedness, sprinkled with brief clips of overly simplistic Bible stories told as flashbacks, and the same, never-ending musical moans and wails of anguish led by pounding drumbeats that never stop. Even the sky grows dark and stormy at Jesus’s passing, and the earth breaks. There isn’t an ounce of subtlety to this film. It’s so over the top that Satan walks among the crowd with worms coming out of his nose, or in another instance he taunts Jesus with a snake which Jesus dutifully stomps, and chases Judas around with horridly ugly little demon children. After a whiff of this, even the overblown Heston pieces of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and BEN HUR were starting to look like subtle poetry in comparison, and those films are worthy of comic ridicule. But I prefer their mind-numbing awfulness to the gory spectacle on display in this film.

The Passion of the Christ Henry Sheehan

I think I figured out what Pope John Paul II really said about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Reports from the film’s most ardent supporters continue to insist that the pontiff exclaimed, “It is as it was” after seeing Gibson’s cinematic depiction of 12 hours of Good Friday. These words are supposedly an endorsement that the film is factual (yeah, and Braveheart was, too). But I think there was a problem translating an idiomatic phrase the pope must have used. To my mind, His Holiness, in an effort to remain politely noncommittal, must have said some version of “It is what it is.”

Seriously, folks, Mel Gibson rides his mile-wide sado-masochistic streak into the heart of the Passion story and, with The Passion of the Christ, emerges with a propagandistic, comic-strip version of the death of Jesus Christ.

To deal quickly with the propaganda: Since not every Jewish character has a large nose, sunken eyes, or skulks around in black robes while conspiring against a barely Semitic-looking Jesus and handing out blood money to Judas, you may want to excuse it from charges of anti-Semitism. Personally, I figure that the half dozen or dozen such characters that slither through the movie looking such and doing such is enough to make the charge stick. Sister Marie Bernadette, who could make 4th graders cry with her narration of the events of Good Friday, never conjured up Pharisees remotely like the creepy ghouls on display in Gibson’s movie. In her version – which was the Gospels’ version, by the way – the Pharisees were a nasty bunch, but a small non-representative one at that. Yes, some of the Jewish people (never “Jews,” by the way, always the “Jewish people”) wanted Jesus out of the way because he threatened their power. Of course, you have to have power for it to be threatened, so that automatically limited the number of people concerned in the Roman-occupied territory. At any rate, Christ freely accepted his death, so there is no reason beyond directorial preference to have these Werner Krauss look-alikes on screen at all.

As for the rest of the film, at first it’s not entirely clear what Gibson’s purpose is for awhile. He starts things off in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus agonized over the suffering he was about to endure while three of his Apostles slept nearby. To emphasize Christ’s conflict, Gibson inserts an androgynous, cowled devil who skulks (there is an enormous amount of skulking in Gibson’s Passion, perhaps the most skulking in any film since the silent era) around the savior, sending a snake out from under his black robe. The scene is dark and cut in such a way as to keep the viewer a bit off center. It’s almost as if Gibson were shooting for a mystical treatment, taking his lead from the Gospel of St. John.

But then we come to those toxic caricatures of Caiphas and the High Priests and a slow-motion shot of the bag of 30 pieces of silver being tossed to Judas. Here, Gibson is led less by the Gospels than by such discredited pageants as the Passion Play at Oberammagau, which was told to tone down its depictions of Jewish characters by the Catholic Church hierarchy.

Finally, though, when we get to point where Christ is arrested by the Temple Guard, brought before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, and scourged at the stake, it suddenly becomes absolutely clear what Gibson is doing: He’s illustrating the 14 Stations of the Cross. In Catholic churches, the Stations are representations of Christ’s suffering and death, beginning with number one, “Jesus is condemned to die,” culminating in no. 12, “Jesus dies on the cross,” and ending with “Jesus is laid in the tomb.” It also has, among others, “Simon helps Jesus carry his cross,” “Veronica helps Jesus wipe his face,” and three occasions when “Jesus falls.”

During Fridays in Lent, the 40 days before Palm Sunday – 40 days Jesus spent in the desert – it is common for Catholics to go from station to station saying special prayers. Despite the pictures most churches boast at the stations, pictures, it’s a largely literal experience, based on the prayers and responses.

Despite excessive use of slow motion, lingering shots on nails driven through hands (more on that later), and Caleb Deschanel’s overlit cinematography, Gibson’s Passion is also largely a literal-minded experience. What we see on screen isn’t meant to spark a spontaneous reaction – the shock of the new within the familiar – but just to remind us of something we already know. Ah, yes, here Jesus is crowned with thorns, here Pilate washes his hands. All the meaning is external. None of it arises from within the drama of divine sacrifice.

What Gibson does bring to bear on the material is his masochistic imagination and, to a lesser extent, his homosexual panic. Every physical travail to which Christ was subjected is lovingly enhanced with every device Gibson can imagine. The scourging is a case in point. Christ is tied to a post and whipped with rods by two Roman soldiers who, with their armor and bald heads, look very fetishistic. When his back is covered with welts, the soldiers switch to cats-‘o-nine-tails with hooks on the end. Gibson makes sure we not only see the hooks catch the flesh and tear it, but get caught so that a soldier has to give an extra tug and thus pull an extra hunk of flesh out of Jesus’s back.

Gibson has tried to immunize himself against charges of sado-masochistic self-indulgence by saying that he’s made the film so violent so that audiences will understand just how great Christ’s sacrifice was. This is, first of all, the height of arrogance. Two millennia of Christianity suggests that untold millions have had little or no trouble imagining the enormousness of Christ’s sacrifice without the help of blood squibs and special makeup effects. Gibson’s claim to show the truth of it all is the worst kind of Barnum-ism, the substitution of sensationalism for truth.

More to the point, this isn’t about Christ, it’s about Gibson. The Man Without a Face and Braveheart took essentially the same tack to tell analogous tales of abused saviors. The ripped and pierced flesh of Gibson’s Passion is an inevitable escalation that began with the scarred face of the former film and the conventional, if pervasive and enthusiastic, violence of the latter.

Similarly, in his Passion Gibson gives us a mincing, lisping King Herod, who isn’t an escalation so much as a repetition of the cowardly gay princes of Braveheart. Both cases, though, present embodiments of the false charges of pederasty that lay behind the drama of Man Without a Face.

In light of the last two points, it’s interesting that, in the film’s press note, Gibson says that the Mannerist painter Caravaggio provided the inspiration for his Passion’s visual style. It’s an interesting statement considering that there’s not a frame in the film that recalls the great artist who, among other things, felt himself unappreciated in his time.

BFI | Sight & Sound | The Passion of the Christ (2004) Mark Kermode from Sight and Sound, April 2004

The Passion of the Christ : reflections on Mel’s monstrous messiah movie and the culture wars Robert Smart from Jump Cut, Winter 2005

APOCALYPTO

USA (139 mi) 2006

Apocalypto demonstrates two things: that Mel Gibson is a hell of a filmmaker and that his imaginative world borders on the Neanderthal. The movies he directs—and many of the ones in which he has starred—follow the same template: protracted torture followed by righteous vengeance. (Well, The Passion of the Christ lopped off the vengeance part, but one of Gibson’s favorite books is Revelation, so it’s a-comin’.) Apocalypto unfolds in a pre-Christian Mexico, before the conquistadors arrived. The Mayan hero, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), is steeped in the old ways, whereby one hunts the ancient forest with one’s father as one’s father hunted with his father, one raises a son who’ll hunt the ancient forest with his son, and one plays practical jokes on infertile guys like tricking them into eating raw tapir testicles or sprinkling caustic powder on their genitals. The ribaldry ends when warriors from the Gomorrah-rific Mayan city descend on J.P.’s tribe, slit his dad’s throat, rape and kill or carry off the women, and march the surviving men to the top of a pyramid to be sacrificed by chieftains who cut the throbbing hearts out of their screaming victims.

Apocalypto is thunderously kinetic, voluptuous in its savagery. You can taste Gibson’s relish—for the harsh Yucatec Maya dialect, for the manly rites of bowmen with bones through their noses, for the mystical visions of retribution (“Beware the man who brings the jaguar!”), for the loss and triumphant restoration of his alter ego’s potency. Gibson has quite an eye for the grotesque, especially the conspicuously consumptive Mayan royal family. (Do they start all the wars?) When a wounded J.P. escapes into the forest, he uses his oneness with nature to take out his taunting pursuers (they hiss things like, “I will peel his skin and have him watch me wear it!”)—at which point Apocalypto turns into the best Rambo movie ever made. The worrisome part is that Gibson doesn’t think he’s making a boneheaded action picture. For him, torture and vengeance are the way of the world. This is Gibsonian metaphysics.

Newsweek (David Ansen)

Let no one deny that mel Gibson is a true auteur, an artist whose films are deeply personal, intransigently independent of movie-industry fashion and possessed of a singular vision. Even if his name weren't on the title, anyone familiar with his oeuvre would be able to recognize "Mel Gibson's Apocalypto" as the work of the creator of "The Passion of the Christ," though here he foregoes Aramaic for the Yucatec language spoken by the descendants of the Mayans.

Once again he returns to his favorite theme: nearly naked men being tortured. Repeatedly. Imaginatively. At great length. "Apocalypto," however, begins on a light note: the trapping, and graphic impalement, of a tapir on a fence of spikes. Next comes a jocular moment in which the hunters--a tribe of peaceful forest dwellers in Mesoamerica circa 1517--trick one of their members into eating the dead animal's severed testicles. It isn't long before comedy is cast aside and true horror descends: the tribe, which lives in harmony with nature, is invaded by marauding, torch-bearing tattooed Mayans, who set huts on fire, club and knife many of the women and children to death, and imprison the men, including the film's wounded and bloodied young hero, Jaguar Paw (Richard Youngblood). Along with his fellow tribesmen, Jaguar Paw is shackled to a pole and forced to endure a long, sadistic march to the Mayans' city, where an even crueler fate awaits them.

"Apocalypto" begins with an intriguing quote from Will Durant: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." This might lead you to expect an exploration of the erosion and extinction of the mighty Mayan empire. But this is not to be. The only aspects of the Mayans' culture that fire Gibson's imagination are the blood sacrifices held atop their imposing stone pyramids. The victims' blood is meant to appease the gods and end the drought and disease plaguing the land. The director spares us no detail of this exotically savage ritual, as our captive tribe members are painted blue and held down on a stone slab while, to the cheering mobs below, their beating hearts are carved out of their chests and held aloft (page 14). This is followed by swift decapitation, and the spectacle of severed heads tossed down the steps, followed by the headless carcasses. The director wants you to know he disapproves of this.

Jaguar Paw manages to escape the High Priest's dagger, but more dangers await as, pursued by soldiers, he tries to wend his way home, where his pregnant mate, Seven (Dalia Hernandez), and son are trapped in the bottom of a pit. In its second, even gorier, half, "Apocalypto" becomes a straight-ahead chase movie, with more cliffhangers than "The Perils of Pauline." Some of this is quite thrilling. Gibson has formidable filmmaking skills: he knows how to direct a bravura action scene, and he and his co-writer, Farhad Safina, are inexhaustibly inventive in conjuring fresh ways for victims to meet their end. Dramatically, however, the relentless pileup of atrocities becomes self-defeating. At a certain point--was it the spear that went from the back of a running man's head through his mouth? The jaguar tearing another man's face to shreds? The snakes? The hornets? The hundreds of rotting corpses in the ravine?--you become inured. The harder "Apocalypto" works to shock and excite you, the less shocked and excited you become, until you may find yourself beset by the urge to giggle. Some may find the overkill exploitative, but there's nothing cynical about Gibson's obsession with blood and pain. The pathology is genuine.

The Evening Class [Michael Guillen]

Slant Magazine Ed Gonzalez

World Socialist Web Site David Walsh

Movie Vault [Mel Valentin]

Apocalypto (2006) Bryant Frazer from Deep Focus

Cinepassion.org Fernando F. Croce

The Onion A.V. Club [Tasha Robinson]

PopMatters (Cynthia Fuchs)

Nerve.com [Bilge Ebiri] includes links to other reviews

Salon (Andrew O'Hehir)

DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson)

Movie House Commentary Johnny Web

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Dan Heaton)

DVD Talk theatrical [Jamie S. Rich] no

House Next Door [Sean Burns and Andew Dignan] a back and forth calling it boldness in filmmaking

House Next Door [Matt Zoller Seitz] calls it one of the most relentless and thrilling pulp action movies ever

Scott Foundas from the LA Weekly, claims that in terms of art, the movie is a virtuosic piece of action cinema

eFilmCritic.com (Erik Childress) Mel Gibson is the kind of madman cinephiles like me just love

ReelViews (James Berardinelli) an ardent supporter

CompuServe (Harvey S. Karten) an avid believer

Cinepinion [Henry Stewart] yes

PopMatters [Bill Gibron] yes

DVDTown [John J. Puccio] no

Critic After Dark Noel Vera is repelled not just by the violence, but by the simpleminded take on violence

Critic After Dark (Apocalypto's racism) Noel Vera came back a week later to write another scathing review

Oggs' Movie Thoughts Oggs Cruz calls it repulsive, perversity in every frame

Julia Guernsey (Mayan history expert) claims it’s an insult to Maya culture

This Washington Post article backed up by William Booth of the Washington Post

Nick's Flick Picks (Nick Davis) rates the film an F

The Greencine Daily links to a variety of reviews

Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten)

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan)

Chicago Tribune (Michael Phillips)

The New York Times (A.O. Scott)

DVDBeaver David W. Tooze

Giladi, Nitzan

WEDDING DOLL (Hatuna MeNiyar) C+ 77

Israel (82 mi) 2015

Sort of a cross between the emotional fragility of The Glass Menagerie and the societal brutality shown to those who are different in WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE (1995), featuring the travails of an attractive young special needs adult, Hagit (Moran Rosenblatt), whose mental deficiencies and childlike innocence are seen throughout, with a broad, engaging smile that greets nearly everyone, or her angered frustration with her mother, Sara (Assi Levy), whose everpresent, watchful eye prevents the kind of emancipation Hagit desires. Relentlessly picked on by other kids in the neighborhood who continually tease her and call her names, where in an earlier incident she was traumatized when badly injured from a cruel incident, something her mother has never forgotten, so she tries as best she can to protect her from the outside world. The problem, of course, is that the more she shelters her daughter, the greater her need for independence, as she’s happiest out on her own. The film opens in a fragile and delicate world of Hagit meticulously constructing tiny dolls, usually representative of a bride or groom, as there are photos of wedding gowns surrounding the walls to her room. One might say she is obsessed with the subject, as she dreams of getting married, thinking she would finally be free of the suffocating presence of her mother. Yet time and again, we see her mother bale her out of unfortunate circumstances, where she obviously has her best interests at heart, but Hagit is smothered by her incessant, overly cautious restrictions, even going so far as turning her mother’s alarm clock off in the morning and sneaking out of the house on her own, only to be found waiting at a bus stop or walking down the road when her mother pulls up to offer a ride, knowing how easily it is for her to get hurt, as she is continually taunted and harassed by mean-spirited kids. She does have a job to go to, where she works in a tiny toilet-paper factory, where the kindly owner Aryeh (Aryeh Cherner) is aware that he is “helping” her, allowing her in turn to help package his products, while his son Omri (Roy Assaf), seen cutting larger rolls stretching nearly ten feet into smaller more usable products, is just about the only other company employee. Surprisingly Hagit flirts with him all the time, giving him the most recent doll that she made, where they can be seen kissing behind the scenes, unbeknownst to the owner.

While there is a predictable structure to the film, edited throughout as a horror film, where from the outset the audience is waiting for some horrible unforeseeable event to occur, the filmmaker is content to postpone the inevitable until the end, constructing a growingly familiar world around the central figure, while at the same time offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the life Sara is secretly hiding from her daughter, as she receives nightly phone calls from an interested boyfriend admirer who would obviously like to spend more time with her than she allows, as she’s required to look after Hagit. While it’s clear she’s sacrificed her own life for Hagit, but as she grows older, she’d like to think she could have a life all her own as well. Hagit presses her for independence, yet when she gives it to her, such as leaving her alone to spend the night with her friend, Hagit is never far from her mind, never knowing what to expect when she returns, as she’s haunted by the possibilities, where it only takes a single incident of inflicted horror to damage her life forever. The one element of surprise is the remoteness of the location, set in Mitzpe Ramon, a small town on a ridge overlooking the Negev Desert, where the scenery is spectacular, including the presence of wild Nubian ibex running free. Home of the 500 foot deep Ramon Crater, one of Israel’s largest national parks, it contains a natural water source to sustain the animal population, with the crater created by eons of natural erosion, as the region was once covered by an ocean millions of years ago, while now the town supports a tiny population of less than 5000 residents. Omri has a habit of throwing pebbles on Hagit’s window, which is a sign for her to meet him out on the cliffs overlooking the enormous expanse of the desert, where the vast emptiness may as well be a metaphor for her seemingly unobtainable idea of romance. To Hagit, Omri’s love is real, where she expects they will be married one day, so she roundly rejects the friendship of other special needs male companions that her mother arranges to come and visit. Her refusal to even come out of her bedroom during visits is hurtful to the other boy, who has to face his own constant stream of societal rejection.

While the film fully explores the lives of mother and daughter, Sara, burdened with the responsibility to care for Hagit, is unable to spend much time with her married son Chen (Tomer Kapon) and his newborn baby, whose own views towards his sister are somewhat backwards, believing she belongs in an institution or a group home, still stinging apparently from an incident where Hagit nearly dropped his baby, unable to summon the trust afterwards. These same thoughts run through Sara’s mind as well, constantly wondering what’s best for Hagit, visiting group homes and trying to imagine her daughter living there, where it’s a daily struggle to face her daughter’s constant resistance to her concerns. Making matters worse, the factory is continually losing money, so despite Omri’s assurances to Hagit, believing he can change his father’s mind, the factory will be closing soon. Searching for work elsewhere provides one of the saddest moments of the film, as she applies for a job in a store that sells wedding attire, supposedly the idealization of all her dreams, but they’re looking for a seamstress, while Hagit simply imagines surrounding herself with all the beautiful things in the store all day long, quite a stark contrast to the more crude conditions of a toilet-paper factory. When the store never calls back, she thinks there’s something wrong with her phone, instead, they simply filled the position with someone who could actually do the job they were looking for, a reality that Hagit can never truly comprehend, as she constantly lives in her dreams. When the film pivots into Omri’s world, it takes a turn for the worse, as his friends routinely call Hagit a “retard,” making fun of Omri for even hanging out with her, where their unsympathetic nature is ugly and crude, reflecting a miserablist view of humanity that exists throughout the film, where outside of Hagit’s dreamlife are vile haters and mean-spirited people who wouldn’t think twice about having fun at Hagit’s expense, making her the butt of all jokes. This descent into savage cruelty is not altogether unexpected, but is difficult viewing for the beastly inhumanity on display, where guys think mocking others weaker than they are is just hilarious, getting drunk while feeling her up, even stupidly thinking they’re giving her a good time. She’s terrified at the craven depravity she’s forced to endure before running away, where the audience has to wonder where can she ever be safe from this coarse treatment, which is the central question asked by this film all along. While there are no easy answers, this film dwells on the misanthropic, offering little hope in human progress. The film won the FIPRESCI prize for best Israeli first film, also best first film overall, and best actress for Assi Levy as the mother at the Jerusalem Film Festival of 2015.

Film-Forward.com [Megan Fariello]

Hagit is obsessed with wedding dresses. Her bedroom wall is covered with photos of models in white gowns, and she spends her off-hours sketching and making little bride dolls out of paper. Living with a mild mental disability, Hagit’s fascination with weddings represents a kind of independence that maybe not be completely possible.

Hagit (Moran Rosenblatt) lives with her overprotective mother, Sara (Assi Levy), a divorcee who works at a nearby hotel as a chambermaid. Striving for some independence, Hagit has a job at a local toilet paper factory, where she thrives. This is due in no small part to the attention paid to her by Omri (Roy Assaf), the factory owner’s son, with whom Hagit has begun a romantic relationship. They meet in secret on the cliffs of the Israeli Negev desert, and she dreams of their wedding and life together.

Sara struggles to keep all the pieces of her life together. Preoccupied with Hagit’s well-being, she’s putting aside her own private life. This is understandable; Hagit, left unsupervised. was once injured by local children bullying her. Sara also has a problematic relationship with her son, who’s been avoiding Hagit ever since she accidentally dropped his baby daughter. Hagit’s father, though very present in her brother’s life, rarely visits her. Sara is slowly coming to terms with the likelihood that she may need to put the headstrong Hagit in assisted living.

While the beginning of the film feels a bit like a romantic comedy, it becomes clear that this story is murkier. Elements are reminiscent of the now-classic Australian comedy Muriel’s Wedding, which, while way more comedic than the melancholic Wedding Doll, addresses an obsession with wedding culture. However, Doll never shies away from the complicated reality Hagit faces. Depicting a mental disability on film is always tricky, and Rosenblatt does a fine job balancing Hagit’s inherent sweetness with an underlying sense of frustration. The romance between Hagit and Omri is left fairly ambiguous. Perhaps purposefully so, viewers may waver between feeling excitement for Hagit and concern about Omri’s intentions.

The story bounces a bit from character to character so that the audience never gets to know any one of them completely; there may be a bit too much going on for one film that deals with a lot of serious issues. Gilady, however, creates a sense of a well-lived in world. He also superbly utilizes the location of the Israeli desert. The juxtaposition between the architecture and the landscape creates a feeling of disconnect but also of stark beauty. This is especially true of shots of Sara working at the hotel, with the blue of the swimming pool contrasting with the desert. As with Hagit’s dolls, Gilady gives his intimate drama a distinct texture.

Lives and loves hampered by the desires of others provides the basis for Israeli documentarian Nitzan Giladi’s feature debut, Wedding Doll, a muted passion in the desert tale which brings us to crushing disconsolation rather than the breezy romantic fantasy it initially promises. Built solidly on several striking characterizations, particularly of its lead protagonist, it’s a sobering take on conditioned cultural wedding fantasies, a darker rendition of a narrative and themes we’ve seen before. Like a working class version of Guy Green’s Light in the Piazza (1962), or a hard edged cousin to P.J. Hogan’s Muriel’s Wedding (1994), good intentions and selfish desires become agents of repression for the troubled mother-daughter struggling to survive here.

Living in a rural wasteland in the Negev Desert, twentysomething Hagit (Moran Rosenblatt) is a mentally disabled young woman who works in local toilet paper factory but dreams of becoming a fashion designer. She especially desires to make wedding dresses, and fashions makeshift miniatures out of the toilet paper of the factory, which she shares with her crush, Omri (Roy Assaf), who is the boss’s (Aryeh Cherner) son. But Hagit lives and works with her mother Sara (Assi Levy), a determined woman who has toiled ceaselessly to provide a life for her daughter at the cost of her own happiness (at least evidenced by the sacrifice of a would-be romantic life with local Haim, played by Oded Leopold). However, Hagit desires to be on her own and Omri’s reciprocated affections have the young woman hoping and desiring they can one day be married.

In many ways, the film’s revolving elements of sweetness and dejection make Hagit’s travails feel akin to the trio of women in Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret’s Jellyfish (2007), a contemporary portrait of Israeli women each thwarted by their own personal obstacles. Hagit’s life is informed and manipulated by her well-meaning mother, unfortunately suffocated and hampered by her overprotectiveness. Assi Levy is quite wonderfully understated as Sara, a role prone to melodramatic tendencies in the Aurora Greenway tradition. Relative newcomer Moran Rosenblatt is effortlessly charming as Hagit, a character afforded an impressive emotional arc as a young woman determined to become a fashion designer.

The film’s infrequent but pointed instances of bullying, the worst at the hands of a young girl from the apartment complex who relishes taunting, are anxious and distressing, and allusions to a major injury Hagit suffered at the hands of her peers dutifully explains Sara’s knee-jerk reactions to the notion of her daughter being alone. But as unintentionally cruel as all the able-minded people are around her, Giladi impressively finds time to create a believable attraction between Hagit and Omri, though Roy Assaf isn’t given the opportunity to build on this rather passive characterization outside of his moments with Rosenblatt.

There’s an odd beauty to DP Roi Rot’s desolate desert frames, the buildings and its inhabitants the unusually glum figures in the landscape. But just as Hagit creates fantastic designs from the toilet paper of the factory (including an impressive wedding dress, featured on the poster), the film constructs a makeshift beauty from what otherwise seems banal ruination. The recurring wedding doll totems allow for a fitting finale in a beautiful visualization of fantasies left behind for a new reality just as good as any ABBA song. Sweet, but ultimately (or, perhaps, arguably dispiriting), Wedding Doll is a compelling first narrative feature from Giladi.

CutPrintFilm [Josh Heath]

Though Israeli director Nitzan Gilady is best known for making documentaries, his feature film Wedding Doll demonstrates a natural aptitude for the narrative fiction form. Having already been nominated for nine Ophir Awards (the Israeli Oscars), including Best Film, and nabbing Assi Levy a Best Actress acknowledgement at the Jerusalem Film Festival, this grounded story of social alienation is getting the recognition it deserves for being accessible without patronizing. It also manages to tackle a rather thorny subject — the sexuality and independence of a mentally handicapped woman — without resorting either to platitudes or sweeping idealism.

Hagit (Moran Rosenblatt), a young woman working at a toilet paper factory, lives with her single mother, Sarah (Assi Levy). Early on, we learn that Hagit suffered an injury causing brain damage as a child. She's high functioning and certainly capable, but has limited intellectual capabilities and a somewhat more emotionally erratic disposition than most. Sarah discusses the possibility of putting Hagit in a home with her son, noting the difficulty in sacrificing her own life to look after the girl and balance the needs of her job.

By telling a coherent, but not expository, story, Gilady allows Levy to visualize Sarah's struggle through reaction and behaviour. While Wedding Doll focuses on Hagit's world and the budding romance she develops with her co-worker Omri (Roy Assaf), the son of the factory owner, the simultaneous love and frustration that Sarah experiences adds a rather wrenching emotional dynamic to what's already a rather challenging trajectory. This ability to consider peripheral storylines and ensure that there's a functioning world outside of the experience of our protagonist aids in creating a rather rich and complex backdrop for what turns out to be a partially empowering and partially tragic coming-of-age.

While a handful of films have tackled the issue of budding romances between people with mental disabilities, the notion of someone living with such limitations being romantically involved with someone operating with full mental capabilities is rarely depicted. In Wedding Doll, it's interpreted primarily through the eyes of Hagit. Being curious sexually and romantically — in her spare time she makes wedding dolls out of toilet paper — she's interested in her co-worker. He's handsome and roughly her age, and Gilady, in capturing the simultaneous innocence and adult consciousness of Hagit, allows things to unfold in an awkward, but resultantly believable, manner. Early encounters, such as Hagit bringing Omri toilet paper when he runs out and casually looking down between his legs, while gross, demonstrate the sort of socially ignorant romantic advances that might logically be made in such a situation.

Careful consideration is made of our protagonist's feelings and her lofty ambitions — after learning that the toilet paper factory might close, she applies for a seamstress job and assumes she'll be able to design dresses — but Omri's story is a little fuzzier. He is tender with Hagit; there's no sense that he's taking advantage of her, but his motivations, beyond hormones, are unclear. We get a glimpse at his social lexicon when his porn-watching buddies lend him money to help keep the factory open, but there's not much background information on him outside of fading affluence.

Fortunately, this doesn't hinder what is ostensibly a tale of two women. Hagit's experiences, be they romantic or degrading — she's perpetually teased by children to the point of fleeing in fear — drive Wedding Doll forward and make it a very emotionally immersive experience. Even if the metaphor of creating art on a shit canvas (that Hagit makes art out of toilet paper isn't just a coincidence) is a little tacky, the notion of a harsh world crushing innocence and idealism is effective.

Instead of trying to create a pitiable portrait of a woman fighting against the odds, Gilady places a thoughtfully developed character in a complex and imperfect world, showing what happens when her innocence is confronted by human hypocrisy and generalized cruelty. In doing this, he makes her journey much like the experiences of many in this world, which is respectful and profound in its own humble way.

‘Wedding Doll’ Is Israeli Romance With No Hollywood Ending In Sight Ezra Glinter from Forward

[Review] Wedding Doll - The Film Stage Michael Snydel

ScreenAnarchy [Peter Martin] also seen here: TwitchFilm [Peter Martin]

Queerguru (Roger Walker-Dack)

WEDDING DOLL Christopher Llewellyn Reed from Hammer to Nail

Wedding Doll · Film Review There's nothing celebratory ... - The AV Club Benjamin Mercer

'Wedding Doll': Review | Reviews | Screen Allan Hunter

Punch Drunk Critics [Mae Abdulbaki] also seen here: MovieswithMae.com [Mae Abdulbaki]

Israeli Actress Moran Rosenblatt Makes Figurines ... - Village Voice Michael Nordine

CineFiles [Alex Brannan]

Notes on Cinematograph [Kiomars Vejdani]

'Wedding Doll': Film Review - Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

'Wedding Doll' Review: Nitzan Giladi's Ophir-Winning Drama | Variety Dennis Harvey

Toronto Film Scene [Jordan Adler]

Love blooms in the quietly assured Israeli film 'Wedding Doll' - LA Times Katie Walsh

Wedding Doll Movie Review & Film Summary (2016) | Roger Ebert Glenn Kenny

Review: In 'Wedding Doll,' Search, and Struggle, to Find ... Andy Webster from The New York Times

Gillespie, Craig

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL B+ 90

USA (106 mi) 2007

It’s amazing how often movies use aliens, zombies, the undead, or talking animals as stand-ins for humans, not to mention ventriloquists with their wooden dummies, a sure sign of an alter ego, or Pinocchio, a wooden puppet boy who wants to be human. Somehow, these life-like, inanimate objects render us speechless or move us to tears as they force us to take a closer look at our own humanity. I am also reminded that during times of war, there is an inexplicable violence raging within us simultaneous to a horrid exposure to brutality, all of which rearranges the human circuitry in more ways than we can imaguine. This is a small film that examines what it is to be human through our attachments to objects, memories, resentments, fixations or ideas that we refuse to let go of, where our own stubbornness stops us in our tracks from evolving beyond that invisible obstacle. Nearly all children at one time or another have an invisible friend, but so long as parents indulge them with a spirit of kindness, they tend to outgrow this phase rather quickly. My own was an alien from another planet named Xenglepuss, and I used to speak to him for hours conjuring up invented scenarios of foreign worlds, or another named the Lungingo Kid, which was really just an alias for myself, a cowpoke riding alone through the brush. These are mostly fond recollections, as the idealizations were harmless enough and simply an expression of my own imagination when I was alone and had no one else to play with.

Like the ineffably polite but misunderstood James Stewart in HARVEY (1950), LARS AND THE REAL GIRL moves to a different plateau, as it’s about a shy and deeply troubled adult (Ryan Gosling) with a play toy as his best friend, an adult sized girl doll which is immediately seen as outrageously funny, particularly when he wants to take her with him and share his toy with everyone as if she were real, where at least initially we’re inclined to feel sorry for this guy, but it then takes on an entirely different dimension. She’s not a sex toy and is not being used in any harmful manner. She’s simply a close companion to a lonely guy who isn’t close to anyone else. What works in this film is the extension of the idea, the way everyone has a chance to let this thought settle into their lives and come to terms with it, where they understand the guy, they understand his situation, and nobody wants to burst his balloon and hurt him because he’s such a sweet and gentle guy. What’s interesting is that rather than exclusively focusing on the mixed up guy himself, eventually the film becomes more about the reaction of people in town collectively indulging this guy’s fantasy, which is a bit of a fantasy in itself, so this is an unusual look at the kind of places small towns used to be known for, tight knit, where no one is a stranger, where neighbors look out for one another, and in times of need, they offer a helping hand any way they can. This feeling of community spirit has been entirely missing in our lives, from the murders and the corrupt politics continually exposed in the media, to the types of shows we watch on TV or at the movies, in sports and entertainment, you name it and communities are not being portrayed as having the interests of “others” in mind. Instead we’re living through a selfish political reality of cutting taxes and cutting services, taking away many of the benefits designed to help people, particularly the elderly or the handicapped, even returning war veterans.

That’s what makes this film so interesting. It’s as if it was created on an idyllic island somewhere, a place where people typically go to church regularly, meet with their neighbors, are concerned when someone is missing, where they look after one another because they want to rather than because it’s the right thing to do, a place where no one is excluded, everyone is welcomed and accepted. Imagine. It’s an alternate version of Our Town.

The beauty of the film is the exquisitely tender way the story unfolds, how Gosling’s extreme introversion is entirely believable, how his brother (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer) couldn’t be more loving and sympathetic to his needs, even after their initial suspicions that he was crazy as a loon, how a general practioner (Patricia Clarkson), also a specialist in psychology, “a requirement this far north,” is really just a good listener, one who actually hears, and how many of the neighbors, especially Nancy Beatty as a no nonsense, completely unpretentious church lady and Karen Robinson as a kind hearted receptionist co-worker, all have major roles to play in capturing just the right tone. Even the music by David Torn is playful when it needs to be, but completely noninvasive during the quieter more anguishing moments. Despite the fact we know exactly where this film is going, (didn’t we also know exactly where CITIZEN KANE was going?), we grow to respect the way it all plays out, completely apoliticized, perhaps a bit too implausible, like the doll getting elected to the school board, but there’s a beautiful sincerity to the simplicity and grace of watching people treat one another through acts of gentle kindness. What’s not to like about that? The director does a good job in underplaying the very real feelings that are exposed onscreen, like live electrical wires in a storm, and in doing so, reconnects our own circuitry, helping us care, at least for the moment, a little bit more about the lives of others.

Lars is a shy, possibly borderline autistic child-man in the grip of a delusion. He believes an anatomically correct love doll is his living, breathing girlfriend. For a premise with such lurid possibilities, "Lars and the Real Girl" actually is a sweet little comedy, as easygoing and warmly innocuous as the benign irony of the title.

Ryan Gosling plays skittish Lars with a sheepish little-boy smile and darting eyes. Think David Arquette reimagined by Garrison Keillor -- a man trapped in the eccentric heartland of modern cinema's idea of the rural American Midwest. Social interaction is a torment and the smiles of his cute co-worker Margo (Kelli Garner) send him fleeing in panic.

Then along comes his silicone sweetie, Bianca, much to the chagrin of his older brother (Paul Schneider), the concern of his worried sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer), and the delight of the doting community, who all play along with an unflagging enthusiasm. For the sake of therapy, of course.

It's all set against a backdrop of inevitable sight gags and director Craig Gillespie isn't one to turn down an easy laugh, but he's careful to keep them genial. There's not a nasty crack in the film and Gosling's guileless innocence persuades you that this nice, churchgoing boy is the most respectful of gentlemanly suitors when it comes to his mail-order fiancee.

All the warmth and acceptance of the concerned community helps distract from the rather creaky psychiatry and simple story underneath it all. There are few demands put on the audience and little suspense about where it's all going, but Gillespie's light touch makes "Lars and the Real Girl" an enjoyable journey.

indieWIRE Michael Koresky

In "Lars and the Real Girl," Ryan Gosling gives an expectedly inward, gently mannered performance as Lars, a devastatingly closed-off, lonely twentysomething who lives in a garage behind the house of his brother, Gus, and sister-in-law, Karin, and works in one of those faceless, soulless cubicled offices that's become the standard for big-screen drudgery. Though Lars comes across as something of a sweetly standoffish innocent, his recurrent, pained eye twitches and pathological inability to join Karin and Gus for a home-cooked meal point toward a more profound inner torment. Seemingly paralyzed by the fear of integrating with society, Lars retreats even further--into a delusional state. This is manifest when he orders a life-sized, plastic female doll online, names her Bianca, and begins to envision her as a viable, living romantic partner.

Lest this all sound like a Farrelly Brothers-esque comedy of mortification, it should be noted that the defiantly sober script (by "Six Feet Under"'s Nancy Oliver) and direction (by Craig Gillespie) refuse to adhere to the tenets of either absurdist comedy or crude jocularity. Not only is Lars never caught (or even shown) with his pants down while mounting the mannequin, he also remains ever-chaste, imagining Bianca as a good-girl fiancee with whom he will wait for marriage. Additionally, Lars does not keep Bianca a dirty little secret, stashing her away from family and co-workers; instead, Oliver needs us to swallow that Lars's delusions run so deep that he willingly introduces Bianca around as though everyone else sees her the same way he does. Reaction from the tight-knit northern Midwest community is surprisingly accepting, even proud and contented; and ultimately, Lars's burgeoning relationship with his silicone mistress, and its attendant ups and downs, is meant to stand in for a rather commonplace rite of passage.

There's no denying that "Lars and the Real Girl"'s defiantly good nature comes as something of a refresher, especially given that the oddball subject matter would normally be exploited for gross-out gags. Yet as a result, "Lars" feels wholly neutered, a wishful-thinking portrait of a reliably lovable outcast, who not only is almost entirely embraced in his antisocial behavior but also never comes up against much conflict. Therefore, the film's nearly "Pollyanna"-ish outcome--in which a town bands together in a show of epic enabling and a stunted man-child learns about personal growth--is practically a given, and the film moves along a steady, inoffensive track to a feel-good outcome.

But embracing, or even idolizing, madness has been a narrative stock-in-trade for many years ("One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest," "Benny & Joon"), as both a way to symbolize the individual skirting societal expectations and a means to question, "What is true normalcy?" These issues have been plumbed with greater depths and less absurdist cutesiness in other fictions, but "Lars" does offer its own small pleasures, from Gillespie's delicate direction, which lovingly evokes a midwinter atmosphere of hushed sunlight and snow, to terrific supporting turns from Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer as Gus and Karin, the most conflicted of Lars's ostensible supporters. It's their startled compassion that holds the film together, and thanks to Schneider's searching, moving delivery, a late-film speech about what it means to "be grown up" manages to sound spontaneous, genuine, and unwritten.

Philadelphia City Paper [Sam Adams]

There are so many reasons why Lars and the Real Girl shouldn't work that it's a small miracle it does. The script, by Six Feet Under scribe Nancy Oliver, is swimming in indie-quirk tics, and based on the kind of outlandish, yet on-the-nose premise that makes viewers feel they've experienced something "original" without actually forcing them to rethink anything at all.

Ryan Gosling plays Lars Lindstrom, a sheepish, withdrawn bachelor who lives in the garage apartment opposite his late parents' house, currently occupied by his older brother, Gus (Paul Schneider), and his pregnant wife, Karin (Emily Mortimer). Evidently scarred by the recent death of his father, and more primally, by his mother's death in childbirth, Lars has withdrawn into a practically catatonic state, recoiling from human contact and barely tolerating the presence of others. The first time we see him, he's staring out the frosted window of his front door, pressing a blanket to his lips, doubly insulated from the world outside.

Lars isn't alone, exactly. His sister-in-law literally tackles him in her zeal to get him to accept dinner invitations, and a pretty blond co-worker (Kelli Garner) awkwardly flirts with him whenever she manages to catch his eye. But Lars shrinks from the merest hint of intimacy, holed up in the dim whiteness of his barely furnished room.

All that changes when he meets Bianca, a raven-haired beauty with full lips and a slender physique. A former nun and missionary of mixed Brazilian and Danish extraction, she is outgoing where Lars is shy, talkative where he is reticent. At least, that is, according to Lars. To everyone else, Bianca appears to be a 5-foot doll made of plastic and rubber, one whose original purpose has nothing to do with companionship.

Had Lars been filmed in the brightly lit, geometrically composed style that might be called "Sundance smirk" (or, alternatively, Wes Anderson lite), this would be the point at which you either flee the theater or start bashing your forehead against the seat in front of you. But Craig Gillespie, a former commercial director making his not-quite debut (depending on whether you count the heavily reshot Mr. Woodcock), plays it utterly straight, shooting in an unobtrusive style that brings out the script's resonances with classic Hollywood fables. Despite the fact that its dramatis personae includes an anatomically correct hunk of rubber, Lars and the Real Girl has more in common with It's a Wonderful Life — or, more pointedly, Harvey — than any modern grotesque.

Of course, you can't make a Harvey without a Jimmy Stewart, and Gosling proves himself up to the task. With his bushy, ill-trimmed moustache and dorky sweaters, Lars seems at first like a parody of a socially inept loner, but Gosling never allows Lars' delusion to slip into mere kookiness. Disturbing without being creepy (no mean feat, given the context), he paints Lars as a heartsick boy who is terrified to grow up, not because (like so many recent movie heroes) he can't bear to put away childish things, but because he associates sexual maturity with death. The movie superfluously introduces a nurturing psychologist (Patricia Clarkson) to explain the terms of Lars' psychosis, but leaves mercifully unstated the link between Lars' breakdown and his sister-in-law's pregnancy.

That's not to say Oliver is stingy with psychoanalytic signifiers. Like the blanket Lars presses to his lips, the room where he insists Bianca be quartered was formerly his mother's, its matching pink wallpaper and bedspread suggesting a life-size doll's house. He even picks out a pink ball at the bowling alley.

But the movie treats Lars like a character, not a case study. As he sits with his brother in their childhood kitchen, the latter nervously picking crumbs from his place mat as they make halting attempts at conversation, it's clear they're cut from the same cloth. Strange as he is, Lars is just farther out on the same spectrum, not a freak singularity.

As Lars' relationship with Bianca begins to seem incurable, the people of his snowy, unnamed town begin to gather round them both, integrating her as if she were as real as Lars believes. She gets a job in a hair salon, goes to church, even does a little volunteer work, until it's not clear if the town is curing Lars of his delusion or being infected by it. It would be easy to brush off the movie's latter half as a sugarcoated fairy tale, but Gosling makes Lars' pain too real to be ignored, and there's something deeply moving about the town's willingness to embrace both Lars and Bianca. It's a reminder of the welcoming spirit that used to flow through American movies, and that rarely appears now except in its most cartoonish incarnation. Despite its outré premise, Lars and the Real Girl is a deeply conservative movie, and in the best possible way.

eFilmCritic.com (Mel Valentin)

Screen International Peter Brunette

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Film Intuition Jen Johans

DVD Talk Brian Orndorf, also seen here: eFilmCritic [Brian Orndorf]

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Terry Gilliam biography - Cardinal Fang's Python Site

New York Times (registration req'd) Manohla Dargis

Gilliam, Terry

BFI Screenonline: Gilliam, Terry (1940-) Biography Elisabetta Girelli, Reference Guide to British and Irish Film Directors

Terrence Vance Gilliam was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 22 November 1940. His family lived on the city's rural outskirts until 1951, when they moved to California, settling near Los Angeles. The proximity of Hollywood reinforced Gilliam's early fascination with cinema, which had been fuelled by science fiction and animated films; radio, however, was his most creative influence, together with comic books and magazines. His student years saw him as the editor of Fang, Occidental College's satirical journal. After majoring in Physics in 1962, Gilliam left LA for New York, securing a job as assistant editor on Harvey Kurtzman's magazine, Help.

A stint in advertising and as a freelance illustrator followed, but the turning point came in 1967, when Gilliam moved to London and was introduced to television producers. After collaborating on sketches and animation pieces for a number of comedy shows, in 1969 he joined Monty Python's Flying Circus, the ground-breaking BBC series characterised by subversive and surreal humour. Gilliam's ambitious, fantasy-led work was ideally suited to Python, providing the bizarre animated sequences which greatly contributed to the show's cult appeal.

The next breakthrough came as Python made the leap to the big screen, with Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974) affording Gilliam his first directing role, which he shared with fellow Python Terry Jones. An irreverent take on the Arthurian legend, the film combined narrative and visual surrealism with a realistic approach to medieval mise en scène, a style maintained by Gilliam in his solo directorial debut, Jabberwocky (1977). This film bore little resemblance to its original inspiration, Lewis Carroll's poem, but allowed the director to further explore his vision of the Middle Ages as a Western-like world filled with clear archetypes. Protagonist Dennis Cooper, forced to abandon his dreams by society's powers that be, epitomised Gilliam's key preoccupation, the crushing of the individual by a soulless system; Jabberwocky bore Gilliam's signature on its script and special effects, as do all his subsequent films.

Time Bandits (1981) expanded the theme of embattled individuality by placing a child's vision at its core: the film's hero, Kevin, lives a fantasy life in opposition to his parents' conformist, materialistic values. The victory of fantasy over reality, another favourite subject of Gilliam's, is expounded in Kevin's alliance with six time-travelling dwarfs, relentlessly pursued by The Supreme Being, the heartless creator of a bureaucracy-driven universe. Gilliam's next work was The Crimson Permanent Assurance (1983), a short film placed at the beginning of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life: featuring a group of elderly, exploited accountants, it charts their rebellion against corporate power, and their transformation into a gang of pirates spreading terror through the world of finance.

Farcical elements are still present in Brazil (1985), a dystopian odyssey set in the future, but they are used by Gilliam to highlight his vision of a society dominated by censorship and bureaucracy: pervasive propaganda posters, designed in the idealised, happy-family style of 1950s American adverts, urge citizens to spy on their neighbours. The result is a highly disturbing film, where protagonist Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) vainly tries to escape the clutches of totalitarianism, machinery, and conformity. Gilliam's well-documented struggle to maintain an unhappy ending, against the producers' wish, enhanced the status of both director and film; together with the dense narrative, dream-world imagery, and gloriously monstrous visuals, it gained Brazil its reputation as the quintessential Gilliam film. Critical recognition matched the film's popular success, with awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay in 1985, as well as two Oscar nominations.

Gilliam's next and last British film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), acquired a different distinction, as this time the director's grandiose imagination was out-stripped by production costs. A lavish, large-scale rendition of the classic tale, including a whole Turkish army and a journey to the moon, Munchausen rapidly ran into huge debts; although critically praised and nominated for four Oscars, it was given a limited release and lost money.

Gilliam's status as auteur has been assured by his strikingly idiosyncratic style, recurrent themes, and insistence on control of all stages of filmmaking. An open hostility towards the studio system has complemented his criticism of mainstream American culture, pragmatically sealed by a thirty-five-year residence in Britain. While he has had to turn to his native country to finance his most recent films, he has continued to denounce Hollywood as an accessory to the 'lie' lived by American society; accordingly, he has declined the direction of many a US box-office hit.

In Britain as elsewhere, Gilliam's directing skills have been at times overshadowed by the stunning impact of his visual creations: he remains best known as a visionary maker of fantastic worlds, monsters, and machines. Likewise, critics and audiences have tended to overlook the outstanding performances given by his actors: Jonathan Pryce and Robert De Niro in Brazil, John Neville and Robin Williams in Munchausen, to name but a few.

Following a long film-making spell in the USA, where he made The Fisher King (1991), Twelve Monkeys (1995) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Gilliam returned to Europe to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The film collapsed after its leading actor fell ill and although a documentary (Lost in La Mancha (d. Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe, 2002)) has been made outlining Gilliam's ideas, he has not been able to re-launch the project and is now working on an adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens.

Dreams: Terry Gilliam Biography - SMART.co.uk biography by Phil Stubbs

Biography for Terry Gilliam - TCM.com

Terry Gilliam - Filmmaker, Screenwriter, Actor - Biography.com

Terry Gilliam | American director | Britannica.com

Dreams: The Terry Gilliam Fanzine

Monty Python - TerryGilliam.com

All-Movie Guide

Twelve Monkeys - Terry Gilliam Biography - Film Scouts

Film Reference Norman Miller, updated by Rob Edelman

Terry Gilliam | Film | The Guardian Terry Gilliam page of articles

Terry Gilliam • Great Director profile • Senses of Cinema Rumsey Taylor from Senses of Cinema, December 2, 2003

Terry Gilliam in Print #1

Terry Gilliam in Print #2

Through The Looking Glass - The Cinema of Terry Gilliam by Chris ... Chris Bellamy from The Intergalactic Looking Glass, October 2005

The Terry Gilliam Retrospective Part 1: Ironic Origins - Flickering Myth Paul Risker from Flickering Myth, February 5, 2013

The Terry Gilliam Retrospective Part 2: Escaping the ... - Flickering Myth Paul Risker from Flickering Myth, February 12, 2013

The Terry Gilliam Retrospective Part 3: The Maverick ... - Flickering Myth Paul Risker from Flickering Myth, February 19, 2013

The Terry Gilliam Retrospective Part 4: The Munchausen Nightmare Paul Risker from Flickering Myth, February 26, 2013

The Terry Gilliam Retrospective Part 5: Breaking the ... - Flickering Myth Paul Risker from Flickering Myth, March 12, 2013

The Terry Gilliam Retrospective Part 6: Stars and the ... - Flickering Myth Paul Risker from Flickering Myth, March 19, 2013

Terry Gilliam Retrospective Part 7: An Arrogant and ... - Flickering Myth Paul Risker from Flickering Myth, March 26, 2013

Terry Gilliam Retrospective Part 8: The End of an ... - Flickering Myth Paul Risker from Flickering Myth, April 9, 2013

Terry Gilliam Retrospective Part 9: The Haunted ... - Flickering Myth Paul Risker from Flickering Myth, April 23, 2013

Terry Gilliam and the Temple of Cinema | Observer Vinnie Mancuso from the NY Observer, September 4, 2014

Filmmaker Retrospective: The Bizarre Cinema of Terry Gilliam « Taste ... Michael Smith from Taste of Cinema, October 29, 2014

TSPDT - Terry Gilliam They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

The Terry Gilliam Files Interviews with the Director

Salon Entertainment Interview by David Wallis from Salon, June 5, 1998

A Chat with Terry Gilliam by Henri Behar

Terry Gilliam on Heath Ledger and Imaginarium Wendy Ide interviews Gilliam from Times Online, May 14, 2009

Kenneth Turan Terry Gilliam used magic to finish 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,' Gilliam interview from The LA Times, May 22, 2009

You've got to work at maintaining your version of ... - Senses of Cinema Maša Peče interview, September 29, 2009

Terry Gilliam - Wikipedia

MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL

Great Britain (90 mi) 1975 d: Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones

BBCi - Films George Perry

For a start, they couldn't afford horses so they simply pretended to be riding them to the sound of coconut shells they tapped together. Because Monty Python arouses expectations of silliness, it was just regarded as another joke in a film where the unexpected was expected to happen. The idea of turning the Arthurian legend into the subject for a Python film was a serendipitous one, and because its initial costs were so low it made more money pro rata than any other British film of its year.

The locations, in the remote Scottish Highlands, while beautiful, were rugged in the extreme, and the cast endured almost perpetual rain. It was enough to persuade Graham Chapman, who was playing King Arthur, to give up the demon drink.

The sufferings were well worth it, and the Pythons delivered a classic comedy. Immortal are the Knights who say Ni, the guard who doesn't hiccup but tries to get things straight, the killer bunny rabbit, the extraordinarily rude Frenchman, the Bridge of Death over the Gorge of Eternal Peril, the Black Beast of Aarrgghh, and the three-headed knight. But what is best remembered is the duel fought with the brave Black Knight whose limbs are lopped off one by one. Even then he is still indomitable, and as a still-upright torso he calls after his victor "Come back here... I'll bite your legs off."

Made after their televison series had ended, and directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, with Michael Palin, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Graham Chapman also playing many parts, this rewarding film was an important turning point for the Pythons, bringing them financial liberation.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail Mike D’Angelo from Time Out New York, with a few updated comments years later: and again

Rereleased in celebration of its 26th anniversary, Monty Python and the Holy Grail provides a welcome respite from the frivolous bombast that characterizes most of Hollywood's summer blockbusters. Few motion pictures have invested Arthurian legend with so much effortless grandeur, or depicted the 10th century with such a painstaking degree of historical accuracy; one can almost hear the labored breathing of God Himself in the film's oppressive silences. What's more, several minutes of previously unseen footage have been restored; while the content of these outtakes has not been revealed, medieval scholars are hopeful that they may include the long-rumored "moose attack" sequence, in which Galahad, Lancelot and Bedevere interrupt the courtship ritual of a large herd of Alces alces, with spectacularly nasty results. Only a single, tantalizing still photograph of the battle, said to have cost in excess of £15 million (in 1975!), is known to have survived, and it's safe to say that not even the discovery of the original cut of Von Stroheim's Greed would inspire greater—

[We apologize for the egregiously inaccurate nature of this review. The writer responsible has been sacked.]

Forbiddingly austere yet surprisingly intimate (such apparent paradoxes being typical of the Python oeuvre), the picture opens with a stunning tableau unparalled in the hist—

[We apologize again for the blatant falsehoods. The editors responsible for sacking the writer who has just been sacked, have been sacked. The remainder of the review has been composed by a freelance writer at great expense and at the last minute.]

Hey buds. Apparently they are bringing Holy Grail back to theaters. This is a pretty damn funny movie in my opinion. Possibly you are tired of this picture because you have heard the funny bits quoted incessantly by pasty-faced geeks who wear bootleg Red Dwarf T-shirts and cried when Douglas Adams died, but this is not the picture's fault. The comedians who made it (they are foreigners I believe, if you want something more rah-rah you should check out The Pearl Harbor) could not have known that certain sad dudes would still be running around saying "I fart in your general direction" and "Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government" 26 years later.

Also there is supposed to be some new stuff in there with all the old stuff. Probably it's just extra gags that didn't really work, but that kind of thing is probably interesting for the fans and whatnot. Anyway it is way funnier than Shrek in my opinion so you could do worse.

Thanks buds.

BritMovie

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The Boston Phoenix review [Director's Cut] Peter Keough

Movies Other| - Boston Phoenix “State of the Art,” Peter Keough interviews Terry Gilliam from The Boston Phoenix, June 2001

JABBERWOCKY

Great Britain (100 mi) 1977

Jabberwocky Mike D’Angelo from Time Out New York

The press simply wrote about Jabberwocky as if it was another Python film," complained Terry Gilliam of the critical reception accorded to his first solo directorial effort. "I know it is not and the Pythons know it is not." Indeed. Despite the medieval setting and the presence of Palin and (very briefly) Terry Jones, Jabberwocky, which screens at Film Forum this week in a beautiful new 35mm print, bears little or no resemblance to Holy Grail or any of the sextet's other pictures. For one thing, it isn't terribly funny—largely, one suspects (at least if one has heard Gilliam's rants on the commentary tracks for the Holy Grail and Life of Brian DVDs), because considerably more energy was expended perfecting the period detail than polishing the script. More significantly, however, the film's basic story line, which finds Palin's nebbishy Dennis Cooper reluctantly battling the forces of evil for the love of a good (or at least good-size) woman, anticipates Gilliam's 1985 masterpiece Brazil in its juxtaposition of blinkered innocence and institutional corruption. For better and worse, this is a Gilliam movie through and through.

More interesting than the feature, especially for fans, is the accompanying short, "Storytime," which appears to have been made sometime in the late '60s and features the same demented cut-'n'-tape technique that Gilliam employed so memorably on Flying Circus. Essentially three separate shorts strung together—whether they were conceived individually or in tandem isn't clear—it begins with an affable cockroach, ends with a short biography of Albert Einstein (not that Albert Einstein, mind you) and serves as a welcome reminder of what Gilliam can accomplish when he stops fretting about technical matters and simply lets his vivid, singular imagination run rampant. If only he'd paid more attention to storytime when working on Jabberwocky, the entire program might have reached the same lofty plateau. He's since made Brazil and Twelve Monkeys, though, so all is forgiven.

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Dan Lopez)

When director Terry Gilliam began work on Jabberwocky, he had just recently completed on the medieval comedy, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Understandably, there was pressure on him to somehow deliver something that was Python-esque. In fact, on the cover of this DVD, the words Monty Python and the Holy Grail can be found in text almost as big as the title. In general, this was not his intent, but as it stars Python alumnus Michael Palin, has a cameo by another (Terry Jones), and is set in the same medieval environment as Holy Grail, comparisons were almost impossible to avoid. Initially, the project began life as a BBC-funded television program, but then expanded into a full-length film when he collaborated with writer Charles Alverson (who had been Gilliam's collaborator from his Help! magazine days) after wisely turning down working on All This and World War II. The end result is a film both revered as a masterful comedy and criticized as a piece of unoriginal garbage. If Terry Gilliam is good at one thing, it is certainly confounding the critics.

Inspired by the nonsensical Lewis Carroll poem, Jabberwocky tells the story of Dennis (Palin), an apprentice cooper who believes in modern business and efficiency, though his father will have none of it. His one true love is the rude and distasteful Griselda Fishfinger, but she'll have nothing to do with him until he's rich and successful. When Dennis' father dies and doesn't leave him the business, he sets off to the walls of the city in order to find fortune amongst the more densely populated world. There is one big problem however: virtually the entire world around him has gone stark, raving mad over the presence of a strange monster, killing everything in its path. The king, Bruno The Questionable (Max Wall), decides to hold a tournament of knights, and when Dennis decides to become a squire, he only sinks deeper into the crazinessaround him.

While Jabberwocky is actually a linear story, unlike the surreal, madcap Monty Python work Gilliam had done before, it actually still manages to be very funny, as it really isn't about the Jabberwock monster, but rather what everyone does because of it. It doesn't get too silly; it coaxes humor by placing the characters into present-day problems and situations even though set in the middle ages. In fact, one might call it something of a remake of Holy Grail's environment through the eyes of a fantasy storyteller like Gilliam who wanted to invest more time in characters and setting than in skits and brief bits of unrelated humor. Jabberwocky also marks Gilliam's first solo effort as a director, having previously shared credit with Terry Jones on Grail. Surely, during the early moments of this film, in which a trapper (played by Jones) is mutilated by the Jabberwock, is meant as some sort of statement about Gilliam working fully on his own and "offing" Jones.

Ironically, despite this being such an off-the-wall and, at times, disgusting comedy of errors, it features some of the most brilliant use of low budget set design and lighting schemes. Gilliam's wonderful, decaying, crumbling world of the past, populated with all sorts of distasteful characters, is arguably the most accurate portrayal of the Dark Ages seen on film. The hilarious sequences inside the castle of King Bruno are among the best in the film; Max Wall's marvelous performance is surrounded by a musty, foul castle in constant disrepair with servants of dubious quality, which Gilliam himself admits was very much taken from the Mervyn Peake novel, Gormenghast. He manages to take the concept of a world that is in shambles and pushes that into every detail, even in the costuming, done by Flying Circus alumni, Hazel Pethig. Gilliam may not have been able to break out of the Python mold in quite the way he wanted to, but the achievement is a wonderful comedy that has an edge rarely seen nowadays.

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Cinepassion.org Fernando F. Croce

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TIME BANDITS

Great Britain (116 mi) 1981

Time Bandits (1981) - The Criterion Collection

Part of the County’s ongoing Saturday Kids’ Matinee series, this is one of Terry Gilliam’s weirdest and best movies. I still remember being infuriated by the film’s about-face ending as a child, but it certainly isn’t something you forget. There’s a certain appealing grottiness to this and other early Gilliams that vanished once he got to Hollywood and started working with the budgets he’d always wanted — it was gratifying to see him learn how to cover up the stitches, but he lost some of his organic funk as well. The time-tripping opus features appearances by Gilliam’s Monty Python buddies John Cleese and Michael Palin (who co-wrote with Gilliam) as well as Brazil screenwriter Charles McKeown, Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, Ian Holm and Sir Ralph Richardson.

Monsters At Play Bradley Harding

While attempting to secure financing for his masterwork Brazil, director Terry Gilliam decided to take a break from his long, frustrating pursuit and quickly wrote a treatment for this children's fantasy in the course of a single weekend.

Time Bandits combined the autuer's love of history and whimsical fantasy into a darkly comic childhood fable. Co-written by fellow Python alum Michael Palin, Bandits is a twisted, surreal and decidedly British affair with a clever production design that often belies its modest budget. Though not quite the classic many have declared in recent years, it's a solid work of children's entertainment that's subversive enough for adults to enjoy as well. Time Bandits begins with the wild imaginings of neglected youth Kevin (Craig Warnock), who pours over books on mythology while his parents spend much of their time hooked on frivolous games shows. One night he finds that his wardrobe contains a hole in the space-time continuum when a lost group of small "transdimensional" traveler's suddenly break through. Kevin learns that the six intruders once worked for the Supreme Being but eventually grew bored and hatched a scheme to become rich by stealing the Map of the Universe (which shows convenient holes in the continuum). This allows them to travel anywhere in history and abscond with precious antiquities from famous past events. When the Supreme Being locates the runaway thieves through the wardrobe, Kevin is forced to escape with them into the past. He eventually becomes an unwitting accomplice as they steal their way through time; simultaneously being sought out by the Supreme Being and his hell bound antithesis Evil (the wonderfully deadpan David Warner).

The plot of Bandits is more or less a series of comedic star-filled set pieces as Kevin and the band of wee thieves find themselves in several famous historical (and mythical) scenarios. One of the funnier, and most absurd, is their first stop to Napoleonic times where they attempt to entertain a bored Napoleon (Ian Holm) with an ill-conceived song and dance routine. In Greece, Kevin finds himself separated from his friends and discovers a short-term surrogate father in Agamemnon (a suitably dashing Sean Connery). While the segment with Connery is quite touching, it also manages to slow the film's momentum. (A problem inherent throughout Gilliam's episodic odyssey.) Another Python alum, John Cleese, has some fun as a dim Robin Hood who befriends the thieves - only to give their stolen booty away to the poor. And when the bandits are inadvertently sent back into the time of legends, their dealings with Winston the Ogre (Peter Vaughn) and his pushy wife (Katherine Helmond) are pure Python. Also in a funny recurring bit, writer Michael Palin and Shelley "The Shinning" Duvall play a couple of doomed soul mates who constantly find themselves unlucky in love time after time.

While much has been written about the high profile cameos, the young star of the film and the title bandits themselves are rarely ever mentioned in a critical context. Certainly odd when you consider their characters carry the dramatic weight of the entire story. As Kevin, Craig Warnock is especially good, balancing just the right amount of awe and determination needed for such a tricky role. His interaction with the adult cast has a wonderful boyish casualness that is easily overlooked by their showy performances. The bandits themselves are just as good, all veteran performers of the stage and screen. The late David Rappaport as Randall (more or less the leader) has some wonderful dramatic moments in between the many bits of physical comedy thrown at him. Kenny Baker (R2-D2 in Star Wars), Tiny Ross, Malcolm Dixon (an Oompa Loompa in Willy Wonka), Jack Purvis (from Labyrinth) and Mike Edmonds round out the wee rogues gallery assembled by Gilliam and all share a wonderful rapport. Many of them returned to work for the director again in his various fantasy features. Ultimately, Bandits is too episodic and fractured in momentum to be considered a classic in the same vein as The Holy Grail (which Gilliam co-directed with Terry Jones) or Brazil. However, given what Gilliam was able to achieve with it's modest budget (an unbelievable 5 million) and it's amiable, throwaway storytelling, it works on several levels. As a charmingly slick "goof" on epic films it's quite funny and, compared to other children's fantasies, Bandits never patronizes its younger audience.

This is at least the third DVD version of this favorite to hit the stores. Notably missing from this Anchor Bay release is the wonderful audio commentary from the Criterion DVD, which featured not only Gilliam and Palin but several of the actors including Warnock. Aside from that mistake (and it's a huge one), this two-disc release does include some nice extras. First off, the liner notes (always a welcome addition) are well written and offer a few insights not covered in the DVD extras. It also unfolds into a cool replica of the Map of the Universe. The extras on disc two feature the hysterical international trailer (and one for the less interesting US re-release), an informative half hour interview with Gilliam and Palin on the film's inception and an hour-long retrospective on the director's impressive career. Also on the second disc is a Gilliam bio and a great DVD-ROM of the original screenplay. The actual film, presented on disc one, is a beautiful Divimax high-definition transfer that offers amazing clarity. Compared to the original Criterion release, the Divimax version seems to offer a richer color palette, but the image quality is basically the same. The crisp Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX audio is some of the most textured sound design produced by this company. From a purely technical level, it's one of the best releases yet from Anchor Bay.

Time Bandits Criterion essay by Bruce Eder, March 29, 1999

Time Bandits: Guerrilla Fantasy Criterion essay by David Sterritt, December 11, 2014

The Criterion Contraption [Matthew Dessem]

not coming to a theater near you [Rumsey Taylor]

SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

Cinepassion.org Fernando F. Croce

DVD Verdict - Criterion Collection [Sean McGinnis]

Time Bandits Blu-ray Review - Blu-ray.com Svet Atanasov, Criterion Blu-Ray

Time Bandits Blu-ray Review (The Criterion Collection) - DVDizzy.com Luke Bonanno, Criterion Blu-Ray

Time Bandits | Blu-ray Review | Slant Magazine Jake Cole, Criterion Blu-Ray

Time Bandits (Criterion) Blu-ray Review | High Def Digest M. Enois Duarte, Criterion Blu-Ray

Time Bandits - The Digital Bits Tim Salmons, Criterion Blu-Ray

Time Bandits: Criterion Collection (Blu-ray) : DVD Talk Review of the ... Randy Miller III, Criterion Blu-Ray

Apollo Movie Guide [Dan Jardine]

Time Bandits Blu-ray - Sean Connery - DVD Beaver

The New York Times (Vincent Canby) review

MONTY PYTHON’S THE MEANING OF LIFE

Great Britain (107 mi) 1983 d: Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam

Film Atheist by Bertrand XVI

Monty Python's Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin team up with a few fish to explain the meaning of life. Then they show a long episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

The Meaning of Life contains the second best song in film history. The best is "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Life of Brian (also a Monty Python film), but running a close second is this film's "Every Sperm is Sacred." There are few more iconic moments in cinema than that of the horde of Dickensian children explaining Catholicism's prohibition on birth control in song and dance. This is then followed by an equally brilliant skewering of Protestantism and a hymn that reveals the true motivation behind monotheism (if you grovel enough, maybe that bastard God won't smite you). Add in the brilliant short feature The Crimson Permanent Assurance and an amusing look at sex education classes and you've got the beginnings of a great film that handily breaks the four barrier on the atheism scale.

And then... well... the film continues.

When it comes down to it, The Meaning of Life is not a film. It's a bunch of independent shorts and sketches that they threw together and slapped title cards between to give the illusion of cohesion. While this structure is an amusing metaphor for religion, it causes difficulties when trying to view the film as a unified whole. Without characters or meaningful plot threads to lead me through the film, there is nothing to make me care how it ends. All I'm there for is to see whether they have anything to top "Every Sperm is Sacred."

They don't.

Yet, even having shot their wad in the first few reels, this is still Monty Python. What they turn out in their post-orgasmic grogginess is still worth watching. So, while it's the weakest of their three films (the one I've yet to mention being Monty Python and the Holy Grail), it still garners a 3.5 on the quality scale, and if you're watching it on DVD, where you can easily skip to the best parts, it might even be worth a 4. Still, if you're only going to see one Monty Python film, see Life of Brian instead.

Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life hit theaters in 1983, when the troupe was falling apart and both the surrealist sketch-comedy movement and the midnight-movie craze it helped pioneer were running out of steam. Yet the Pythons had stored up enough respectability to be granted a large Hollywood budget for The Meaning Of Life, which earned good reviews from mainstream critics and even won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, where a stunned audience made snap comparisons to Luis Buñuel and Jacques Tati. Those plaudits are unusual, given that The Meaning Of Life is the seamiest of the Python features, and represents the troupe's most uneven work since its television days. Essentially a series of dark, Python-esque sketches linked by the progression of humanity from birth to death, The Meaning Of Life finds co-directors Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam letting impressive (and oppressive) style overwhelm the nimble humor of the Python past. What saves the film are the polished performances of Jones, Gilliam, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin, all of whom had been on stage and screen for so long by that point that they were capable of leaping in and out of characters and delivering impeccably timed speeches in extended takes. Even when the jokes are overly familiar—predicated on skewering such common Python targets as wimpy religious leaders, the pompous upper crust, and dim working-class slobs—they're still recited with confidence, and with a trained ear for the sound of human self-delusion. The new double-disc DVD of The Meaning Of Life features a comprehensive making-of documentary, as well as some amusing deleted scenes (a few of which have been reintegrated into the film) and a handful of lame new comedy pieces that are too self-deprecating and toothless to belong to the Python tradition. More substantial is the commentary track, on which Jones and Gilliam make a case for The Meaning Of Life as the group's collaborative pinnacle. From a comedy point of view, or even a "comment on life" point of view, they're wrong: Both Monty Python And The Holy Grail and Monty Python's Life Of Brian are insightful where The Meaning Of Life is nasty, and sidesplitting where the later film is merely amusing. But from a cinematic point of view, Jones and Gilliam may be right. On the DVD, Idle calls The Meaning Of Life "a punk film," and there's an element of rage in its obsession with sexual anxiety, dismemberment, and bodily fluids. From the grisly scene of live birth in a sterile hospital, where the doctors care more about the machines than the patient, to the grotesquely obese Mr. Creosote, who binges and purges simultaneously, The Meaning Of Life is unsparing and elaborate in its vision of humanity at its foulest.

DVD Times Mike Sutton

The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

The Meaning Of Life Laugh at Obstacles, by Fred Glas from Jump Cut

BRAZIL

Great Britain (131 mi) 1985

Edinburgh U Film Society [Ben Wilkinson]

Coming from the warped mind of undoubtedly the most talented of the Pythons (DIE! –Ed.) ‘Brazil’ is a twisted, dark Orwellian nightmarescape filled with enough black humour to eclipse Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s whole career. Sam Lowry (Johnathon Pryce) is stuck in a thankless bureaucratic Tartarus, where conformist policy is enforced with zealous abandon by the administration. Sam’s stressful life is about to take a definite turn for the worse after he attempts to rectify a typo on an official document ordering the arrest of an innocent man. Soon he finds himself under the persecution of the authorities, who believe him to be in league with the infamous guerrilla central heating technician Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). That’s right, a guerrilla central heating technician.

Amongst the film’s many dark delights are Michael Palin’s deliciously evil performance as the malevolent Jack Lint, and the mother of all headfuck endings (just don’t watch this film under any kind of influence, because we don’t have any kind of insurance for the mental enfeeblement this film might cause!). Above all this you can revel in the genius of Gilliam’s visual talents, in creating so many memorable images it defies belief, such is his godlike talent (Don’t make me come over there! –Ed.). The film may leave new viewers a little confused (damn, my understatement alarm just went off), but it is worthy of your time whether you are making a return to ‘Brazil’s dark world or are an inexperienced virgin heading in trepidation towards your first time. Just remember as you watch this cinematic dark-house that you are seeing a triumph of art over commercialism. The well-documented conflict between Gilliam and Universal chairman Sid Sheinberg over the film’s narrative coherency (or lack thereof) and, particularly, it’s downbeat ending, led thankfully to the director’s original vision being sustained (and also Sheinberg’s mention in the credits as Worst Boy).

So my friends, be brave, keep an open mind, and when we next we meet we shall be sunning ourselves in the brilliance that is ‘Brazil’, the one holiday location on Filmsoc’s viewing schedule that you won’t want to miss (Right, that’s it. Pack your stuff, you’re going to the correction chamber Wilkinson... Come on, stop struggling-Ed.).

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Mark Zimmer)

Surely one of the most original films ever made, Terry Gilliam's Brazil remains his most influential work, and certainly one of his best. It's not only a collection of marvelous images - it's a thinking movie, one that has things to say about individualilty, the nature of myths, and other good stuff. Viewed for a second time (and for the first time in a theater), it was much easier for me to see the faults in the movie. The first time I saw it, I was blown away - the movie's cumulative force simply swept away any doubts I might have had about it.

Sam Lowry (the constantly underrated Jonathan Pryce) is a lowly beaurocrat "Sometime in the 20th Century." His mother (Katherine Helmond) wants him to get a promotion, and pulls strings with her connections to get him an unwanted one. He yells at her in frustration that he really doesn't have any ambition or aspirations at all - "Not even dreams!" In fact, dreams are all Sam really has. In them, he's a soaring, flying hero, rescuing his dream-girl from hideously arrayed Forces of Darkness. In real life, Sam is sleepwalking - until he meets his dream girl, Jill Layton (Kim Greist, never heard from again; Gilliam was unhappy with her performance, and cut the importance of her part accordingly). And then the system begins to move.

Gilliam was concerned, he said, about how much individuals will give up for security. The movie certainly makes that concern clear. It's not an awfully fresh subject, but Gilliam puts a brilliant new spin on it. Contrary to what you might think, 142 minues isn't an excessive length (although I could easily live without the restaurant scene, a hideous nightmare of overkill and overstatement). However, the movie is simply too episodic - unable to maintain a sustained narrative, Gilliam must rely upon the strength of his actors, visuals, and individual scenes. Everything's very amusing, but one senses a lack of rhythm every now and then that's disconcerting. And, viewed in a theater, Brazil is often simply too loud, flashy, gaudy and excessive - traits that DVD and video viewings minimize. On the other hand, only in a theater can you experience the movie fully, including all the little details you might miss on video. For example, Lowry's apartment is full of posters of 30s and 40s female film stars, a detail I missed on first viewing. This time around I also noticed his quite witty quotation from the Odessa steps sequence of Eisenstein's evergreen Battleship Potemkin.

No matter what its faults, Brazil is still, ultimately, a brilliant, unique and wonderful work. I bet the third time around, I'll finally see it with all its faults and brilliances, and love it even more than the first time I saw it.

Terry Gilliam's dark fantasy/satire Brazil has one of the most troubled histories of any picture that actually made it to the screen, with studio interference sabotaging Gilliam at every turn, to the point he had to take out full page ads asking Universal to release his movie. The story made for one of the great DVD sets of all time, Criterion's three-disc extravaganza with multiple versions of the picture. The one shortcoming that the set had was that the final cut was presented in nonanamorphic widescreen. As part of their program of revisiting earlier releases, Criterion is re-releasing the box with a new anamorphic transfer on the final cut version, and for those not caring to invest in the entire set again, it's also now available as a single disc, which is under review here.

Set somewhere in the 20th century, this grim classic centers on bureaucrat Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), who putters away in the records department of the information ministry, spending his off hours in a fantasy world, dreaming of a blonde princess and of himself as a winged warrior. A computer glitch (caused by an actual bug falling into the works) sends the ministry's police force after Harry Buttle (Brian Miller), instead of freelance heating engineer Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro), wanted for unauthorized HVAC repairs. When neighbor Jill Lamont (Kim Greist) tries to protest Buttle's abduction and torture, she catches the eye of Sam, who recognizes her as his dream girl. Using a promotion to Information Retrieval (courtesy of his plastic-surgery-addicted mother Ida, played by Katherine Helmond) to try to locate Jill and bring his fantasies to reality, Sam eventually gets himself into deep trouble as he tries to thwart the system. But a society that appreciates order above all else has little room for flights of fantasy, and even if he can convince Jill of his sincerity there may not be a future for them.

Where to begin with a picture that is so full of detail and layered in many different ways, thanks to Gilliam's unique visual sense and the writing skills of Tom Stoppard, who contributed substantially to the screenplay. The visuals are insistently stunning, both in the fantasy sequences and the story's corporeal setting. Although Gilliam notes much of the picture is done with model work, very little of it is distinguishable from the full-scale sets and locations used, making for a seamlessly unique world. Starting with Sam's winged armor, to the monoliths hurtling out of the earth, to the amniotic sac of the Dream Girl, to the gigantic samurai built out of computer parts, Gilliam's visuals take the viewer along on the flight of fancy that Sam Lowry uses to escape his grim world. But that world has a visual flair of its own, starting with the omnipresent ductwork and Sam's tiny Messerschmitt car. The ghastly series of complications that afflict Ida's friend Mrs. Terrain (Barbara Hicks) are both appalling and hilarious, climaxing in an unforgettably messy sequence. The Ministry of Information's design is openly fascist, with heroic-sized statuary, the weird baby-faced mask Sam's friend Jack Lint (Michael Palin) wears as he coolly tortures suspects to retrieve information, and impossibly high counters at which the public must try to appeal to the heartless bureaucrats atop them.

What makes this a truly fascinating film, though, is the characterization of Sam. True to Hannah Arendt's notion of the banality of evil, Sam and his cohorts are just doing their jobs, confident that they're doing the proper thing so long as the paperwork is completed. But when he must provide a refund to Mrs. Buttle (Sheila Reid) for the charge made to her husband's account for his erroneous torture, the impact that his paper-shuffling has on ordinary people suddenly comes to his consciousness. After he meets Jill, his growth continues: after a hair's-breadth escape that leaves him feeling exhilirated, as if he has lived through a movie chase scene, he is horrified to see one of his pursuers stumble out, perishing terribly in flames. Only after he begins to develop an empathy can his feelings for Jill move beyond a fantasy adoration to an honest love that might have some sort of future in a better world.

The political satire is quite sharp, depicting a Big Brother world (though Gilliam describes the film as a documentary) that is obsessed with injecting fear into the populace. The chosen threat is terrorism, although the government doesn't seem terribly interested in eliminating the threat. One official (Peter Vaughan) dismisses the 13-year run of terrorism as "beginner's luck." Torture is well into the mainstream, reduced to another form of Information Retrieval, for which the government sends the victim the bill. At the same time, the government engenders suspicion at every turn, to the point that Sam even suspects Jill of being a bomb-carrying terrorist herself. Few depictions of office life are quite as warped as the sequences of Sam in his tiny new office, sharing a desk through a wall as a pneumatic tube spews inconsequential messages at him. The paper-shuffling incompetence of the service industry gets a major skewering in the persons of Spoor (Bob Hoskins) and Dowser (Derrick O'Connor), a pair of vindictive repairmen who turn Sam's apartment into a living hell. But while the film is packed full of ideas, it moves relentlessly along, so that the lengthy running time hurries by.

Although the score is credited to Michael Kamen, musical coordinator Ray Cooper gets a lot of credit for the many permutations to the title song. It's constantly reappearing in various forms as cheerily optimistic, darkly ominous, heroically triumphant and downright nightmarish, as the case may be. It gives the film an off-kilter unity and emphasizes the darkness inherent in the supposedly carefree, a metaphor for Sam's own existence. It's alternately thrilling, comic and horrifying, and encapsulates the world of Brazil in bravura fashion. It's the perfect topping for a marvelous film.

Brazil Criterion essay by Jack Mathews, September 27, 1999

Brazil: A Great Place to Visit, Wouldn’t Want to Live There Criterion essay by David Sterritt, December 04, 2012

Brazil (1985) - The Criterion Collection

The Criterion Contraption [Matthew Dessem]

Greatest Films - comprehensive analysis of classic US films Tim Dirks

Images - Brazil - The Criterion Collection Gary Johnson

Modernity and Mise-en-Scene: Terry Gilliam and Brazil" Keith James Hamel from Images

1984 and Brazil Nightmares Old and New, by John Hutton from Jump Cut

The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

Movie House Commentary Johnny Web

Brazil Rumsey Taylor from Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Apollo Movie Guide [Brian Webster]

DVD Verdict - Criterion Collection Bill Gibron

The DVD Journal: Brazil: The Criterion Collection J. Jordan Burke

DVD Savant Review: Brazil - DVD Talk Criterion, The Final Cut

DVD Reviews - Brazil (Criterion & Universal versions) - The Digital Bits Todd Doogan

Brazil Blu-ray - Blu-ray.com Svet Atanasov

Brazil: The Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review | High Def Digest M. Enois Duarte

Brazil: The Criterion Collection (Blu-ray) : DVD Talk Review of the Blu ... Jamie S. Rich

Brazil | Blu-ray Review | Slant Magazine Chris Cabin

dOc DVD Review: Brazil (anamorphic Criterion version) (1985) Mark Zimmer

Village Voice (Michael Atkinson)

THE SCREEN: 'BRAZIL,' FROM TERRY GILLIAM Janet Maslin from the New York Times

Brazil Blu-ray Jonathan Pryce - DVD Beaver

Brazil (1985 film) - Wikipedia

THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN

Great Britain Germany (126 mi) 1988

Until Quixote pic, most famously accursed of Gilliam's many, many (way too many) films maudits. His problem: background as cartoonist/animator, where artist is limited only by power of imagination. Never seems to learn that film is collaborative medium, reliant on getting money from philistine sources. Munchausen case in point: ramshackle, clumsy, over-elaborate pantomime where too much is never, ever enough. Sub-sub-Shandyish tall tales : get-out clause of fanciful inventions / c18 theatrics. Paradoxically, as it goes on increasingly reveals limits of Gilliam's RESTRICTED imagination (as well as uneven budget! some rickety FX). Dated: emphatically of its time (rips off Time Bandits!). Wildly uneven script drags over 2 hours. Clump of late-80s Euro (Brit/Cinecitta) film industry's last legs (Revolution feel!) (fair guess more money spent on siege towers than script). Disastrous Eric Idle pythonism (less said about his wretched contribs better) - Oliver Reed and Robin Williams schtick disastrously indulged. Big pluses are the (then) new faces: 17-y-o U.Thurman, 8-y-o S.Polley... 62-y-o John Neville (first feature since before Thurman born) does valiant best to save the day, but it is enough?

Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" is a wondrous feat of imagination. In terms of sheer inventiveness, it makes the other movies around these days look paltry and underfed. The worlds Gilliam has created here are like the ones he created in his animations for Monty Python -- they have a majestic peculiarity. And you're constantly amazed by the freshness and eccentricity of what is pushed in front of your eyes.

As a director, Gilliam is a genuine novelty -- a fire-and-brimstone fantasist. His assault on the senses is relentless; he never lets up, never gives us a chance to catch our breath. Visually, the film -- which was shot by Fellini's longtime cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno -- is miraculously, almost perversely dense. The director gives "Munchausen" the antic personality of a cartoon, but Gilliam's fantasies aren't light. His dream universe has gravity. If it's a place where men ride through the sky on cannonballs and sail to the moon, it's also one where the flesh sags.

"Munchausen" is an adventure epic about a monumental liar -- a tall tale about a teller of tall tales. It begins sometime in the late 18th century (on a Wednesday) with a flash of cannon fire in a German town under siege by the Turks. While the city is under attack, a band of actors is in the process of presenting a stage version of the Baron's adventures. From the back of the bomb-ravaged theater an old man -- the real Baron Munchausen (John Neville) -- loudly interrupts. Protesting that the playwright has gotten it all wrong, the verbose raconteur launches into his own version, explaining how, as the result of a bet with the Grand Turk, he inadvertently sparked the current war.

The picture is most transporting early on when, for example, Gilliam peels away the back of the theater to carry us inside the Turk's marbled harem. Or when, in order to escape from his enemies, the Baron patches together the undergarments of the townswomen to construct a hot-air balloon.

Its high point comes when the Baron and Sally (Sarah Polley), the young stowaway aboard his balloon, voyage to the moon in search of the adventurer's superheroic cohorts, Berthold (Eric Idle), Adolphus (Charles McKeown, who also assisted in writing the script), Albrecht (Winston Dennis) and Gustavus (Jack Purvis). Here they encounter the King of the Moon. Played by Robin Williams -- in the credits he's listed as Ray D. Tutto -- the King appears first as a gigantic pasty-faced head on a platter with colossal Ionic hair, spinning through space. Forever on the lam from his carnally obsessed body, the King sputters in pidgin Italian about the diversions of the flesh. "I've got a galaxy to run, I don't have time for flatulence and orgasms."

This is Williams at full bore, and truly it's a sight to behold. Flying through the stars, he's like the Wizard of Oz, but with cracked circuits. His part is only a cameo, but with it he's articulated the mind/body split for all time.

Of all the actors, though, Williams is the only one to establish any sort of performance rhythm. As Venus, Uma Thurman has a luscious entrance, rising up out of the deep in her clamshell, and Oliver Reed is a rivet-spitting simpleton as her jealous husband Vulcan. And as the Baron, Neville is physically perfect -- he makes a great, larger-than-life object -- and his combination of dashing charm and decrepitude gives the film a jolt of swashbuckling heart.

Somehow, though, except for Williams, the actors are never more than a detail in Gilliam's compositions. The film's true star is its design -- and its whopping sense of fantasy. The picture is a sort of tract against the tyranny of reason and science, and for the director, Munchausen -- who in real life was a cavalry officer in the service of Frederick the Great -- is a symbol of the magical possibilities of imagination and wonder. The one true villain in the piece is a fascist bureaucrat named Jackson (Jonathan Pryce), who is so stern in his insistence on the commonplace that he has one heroic soldier (played by Sting) put to death -- for being extraordinary. For the Baron, the ordinary life isn't worth living, and just as the figure of Death is about to steal away his soul because "there's no room in the world anymore for a three-legged Cyclops, cucumber trees and oceans of wine," his will to live is restored by the faith of a child -- little Sally -- in the phantasms of naive rapture.

As dream visions go, the one in which a moviemaker casts himself as the savior of all that is wondrous and magical is a fairly dangerous one, and if the stories of cost overruns and self-indulgence are to be believed, Gilliam may have fallen under its sway. The movie is an exhilarating one-of-a-kind achievement, but it's overbearing, too -- a little too in-your-face to be as enjoyable as you might hope it to be.

This was true of Gilliam's "Brazil" as well. For all of the brilliance in that movie's first hour, its satire deteriorated into hysterical rantings. Gilliam revels in artifice and theatricality; he has an animator's obsession with mechanics, with levers and pulleys and the spinning and fitting of gears. But the impression you get from "Munchausen" is that for Gilliam, a film is perhaps too much of a contraption, too much of an object to be manipulated. In making his films, he's remaking the world completely, from the ground up, because he knows that invented worlds are the easiest to destroy. He creates his worlds in order to engulf them in flames. All his imaginings have a taste of the apocalypse in them. This is a heavy burden for any fantasy to bear, and "Munchausen" can't bear it. Legend has it that Baron Munchausen could swing his sword above his head so fast that he wouldn't get wet in the rain. Gilliam hasn't kept dry, but he's done some heavenly sword work.

Radiator Heaven [J.D.]

Slant Magazine [Jeremiah Kipp]

Scopophilia:Movies of the 60's, 70's, 80's [Richard Winters]

Moria - The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review [Richard Scheib]

New York Sun [Grady Hendrix]

The Filmologist [Alex Barahona]

DVD Verdict [Mike Pinsky]

The DVD Journal | Quick Reviews: Monty Python and the Holy Grail ... Mark Bourne

The DVD Journal: Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Extraordinarily ... Mark Bourne, Extroardinarily Deluxe Edition

Blu-ray.com [Martin Liebman]

Big Picture Big Sound - Blu-ray Review [Chris Chiarella]

DVD Town - Blu-ray [James Plath]

The Tech (MIT) [Manavendra K. Thakur]

Movie House Commentary Johnny Web

Examiner.com [Jana J. Monji] also seen here: Pasadena Art Beat [Jana J. Monji]

rogerebert.com [Roger Ebert]

Siskel & Ebert (video)

Review/Film; How a Notorious Liar Might Have Lived - The New York ... Vincent Canby from The New York Times

DVDBeaver.com - Blu-ray DVD Review [Gary Tooze]

THE FISHER KING

USA (137 mi) 1991

The Fisher King Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Reader

An arrogant New York disc jockey (Jeff Bridges) loses his soul after a brash remark of his to a phone-in listener triggers a mass murder. He meets a visionary street bum (Robin Williams), a former professor of medieval history traumatized by the same tragedy, and the two lost spirits manage to save each other, with help from their girlfriends (Mercedes Ruehl and Amanda Plummer). Directed by Terry Gilliam (Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) from an original script by newcomer Richard LaGravenese, this enormously entertaining and wonderfully acted but compromised New Age comedy spectacular represents Gilliam's bid to prove his commercial mettle, and the results are simultaneously highly personal and extremely corrupt--a shameless attempt to "give the public what it wants" that is shot full of brilliance. If you check your brain at the concessions counter, you won't have any problems; if you treasure Gilliam at his best and take his ideas seriously, you'll probably be infuriated as well as delighted. Powerhouse performances by Bridges, Williams, and Ruehl help disguise the crassness of the commercial manipulations by intermittently suggesting real people (Plummer, on the other hand, is hamstrung by a cartoon part), and Michael Jeter and an uncredited Tom Waits enliven the street life. Visually impressive, frequently pretentious, and extremely fluid as narrative (the 137 minutes sail by effortlessly), this mythic comedy-drama presents Gilliam as half seer, half snake-oil salesman and defies you to sort out which is which (1991).

Seems like the rule in Hollywood is that if you're searching for the Holy Grail, director Terry Gilliam is the man to call. The Fisher King is a fanciful spiral of mythology, madness, cynicism and salvation in which a Red Knight on a firey white steed pursues a homeless lunatic through the streets of modern Manhattan, a once-imperious king of the New York air waves serves a drunken penance for his flippant arrogance and turreted castles loom over the rush-hour pedestrians while the Grand Central Station concourse becomes an enchanted ballroom for commuters. The Fisher King combines lofty aims with loopy flights of indulgence. Midst its perpetual frenzy of antic activity, the movie is heading toward the Grand Statement. It seems to want to tell us something big about repentance and salvation, contrition and absolution...but it can't stop itself from breaking into Ethel Merman schtick or Robin Williams-inspired lunacy. This is, at once, both the charm and the downfall of The Fisher King. It takes on way too much (is it a comedy, is it a fantasy, is it a parable, is it a morality tale?) and it winds up with this garrulous, overstuffed font of activity. The fact that it succeeds to the extent that it does is because it lays on its whimsy with bravura strokes. And it also succeeds because of its cast. Each player is nothing less than a joy and wonder to behold. Williams, as expected, turns in another one of his triumphs of reckless babble as Parry, the medieval history professor turned mad from grief due to a tragedy unwittingly provoked by a shock DJ's unknowing on-air comments. As Jack, that radio celebrity, Bridges plays his self-centered glory days and subsequent dereliction with such passionate restraint that you come away thinking about what a great actor Bridges can be when he sets his mind to it. Plummer, as the klutzy object of Parry's affections, is a bumblingly shy eccentric. Ruehl here proves herself (as if she hadn't already in Married to the Mob) to be one of the great screen comedians working today. The Fisher King is the kind of movie that has “awards” written all over it. (My guess is that it will lose them all, except for maybe art decoration, because no one will be able to isolate the individual components they like once voting time roles around). The fantasy's charm is broken by the unsavory realism and the fable's moral lesson is ambushed by salvations that seem too pat and unconvincing. Still, The Fisher King takes you on a ride that's most enjoyable; just be warned that it's a journey with no ostensible compass.

The Tech (MIT) [Chris Roberge]

Terry Gilliam's "The Fisher King" is an odd beast. In this case, that's something to treasure. A modern epic that fuses myth with hard-edged reality, it's a one-of-a-kind, thoroughly engaging experience.

It's also a thoroughly long experience. Gilliam never met a film he couldn't overextend. Better to think of this 137-minute drama as several movies in one. "Fisher" has two redemption stories, in which jaded disc jockey Jeff Bridges and traumatized drifter Robin Williams attempt to save each other. It has two love stories. It's a dark, foreboding movie. Yet it's a surreal comedy too. There are colorful visions of red knights, but there is also the harsh truth of the streets. And let's not forget the eternal quest for the Holy Grail.

As the shock-radio DJ, Bridges has a malignant hatred of people. He insults his listeners daily, then he gets stoned in a black, glass tower of a penthouse while listening to the anthemic song "The Power." He's riding high until an emotionally distraught listener takes one of his on-air suggestions too literally. It results in a bloodbath at a fancy restaurant. Bridges goes into a three-year funk, drinking himself to near death and living off girlfriend and video store owner Mercedes Ruehl. At an all-time low, rocks tied to his ankles, he prepares to end it all in the river.

Enter Williams, an apparently deranged but witty homeless person. After pulling Bridges from the brink of death, Williams informs the DJ he's destined for greatness. All Bridges has to do is find the Grail (conveniently located in Manhattan) and save the ragged drifter's soul. Williams could also use a little romantic help with Amanda Plummer, a clumsy wallflower who works in a publishing office.

It turns out Williams is the victim of a traumatic experience. A former professor, he now lives in a hole in the wall, talks to invisible "fat people," and believes a fire-emitting, mounted knight is constantly pursuing him. Bridges realizes he has to save Williams in order to save himself.

Bridges, a solid actor, lends weighty credence to a modern spiritual journey. At his lowest points, he looks as if he might implode with cynicism. Not enough can be said about Williams. He's a dynamo in whatever he does. He goes from wildly hysterical to poignantly shy, his words spilling out in manic brilliance. When Bridges departs after a night at Williams's pad, Williams yells after him, "Hey, now that you know where we are, come back. Don't be a stranger. Come back, we'll rummage!"

Ruehl and Plummer rise far above their significant-other roles. Ruehl's facial reactions are a specialty. Plummer is a perfect, wild-card partner to Williams. She's gawky, graceful and sexy all at the same time. At dinner in a Chinese restaurant, she and Williams work up an amusing tango of clumsiness, as they battle treacherous chopsticks and slippery meat dumplings. In this movie, at least, they're made for each other.

Scripted by Richard LaGravenese, "Fisher" was not Gilliam's idea. But it ties in with his mythical obsessions, from "The Time Bandits" to "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen." As director, he creates some tremendous moments. His crowning scene takes place during morning rush hour at Grand Central Terminal. As Williams waits for Plummer to pass, the station (in his reverie) becomes an ornate ballroom. The commuters suddenly dance with each other in a delirious waltz. Before Williams can claim Plummer as a partner, however, a bell goes off. The dancers become commuters and the working world rushes back in. In this, Gilliam is in his element -- leaping effortlessly from one world to another.

Nick's Flick Picks (Nick Davis)

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DVD Verdict Sean McGinnis

The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

eFilmCritic The Godfather

Tucson Weekly [Stacey Richter]

TWELVE MONKEYS

USA (129 mi) 1995

Edinburgh U Film Society [Andrew Hesketh]

Inspired by La Jetée this film has a seemingly straightforward story, a man from a disease ridden future goes back in time to find the virus and makes it more complicated than it seems, but in doing so makes it unnervingly addictive and into one of the best films of 1996.

Cole (Bruce Willis) is the man sent back in time to find the virus spread by the mysterious Army of the 12 Monkeys. The first of his problems is when he is taken insane in the 20th Century and referred to a psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) and thus the first of the list of the insoluble questions arise - just who is sane in this film? The second comes when he is committed and meets the unstable Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt) just who is responsible for the virus? The third lies at the heart of the film, will Cole be able to stop the virus or alter the future?

The questions this film poses form an everchanging puzzle that will keep you glued to the screen for the next two hours. Added to the compulsive plot are fantastic performances from the three principal characters. Especially worth seeing is the madly eccentric performance from Pitt, who gained an Oscar nomination for his part and proved he is not about to turn into another Keanu Reeves (i.e. crap).

Following the same Orwellian set design as 1984 this is Gilliam at his best. Scenes such as the animals running across the Golden Gate bridge are awe inspiring and the film itself will leave you breathless, confused but breathless.

*"There's a seductive, poetic beauty to Gilliam's wonderfully crafted movie which manages to stimulate the intellect as well as the eye **** ”* - Empire

WHEN DID THE cities of the future go from looking like clean, shiny cathedrals to looking like sooty graveyards of rusted-out cars? Before the late '70s and early '80s brought us movies like Blade Runner and Mad Max, the future according to Hollywood resembled a technologically enhanced bank, with surfaces so clean you could eat off them. In the days to come, it was all going to be about computers and the dangers (or pleasures) of getting cozy with machines. As late as 1976, even a pessimistic little film like Logan's Run delivered a tidy, gleaming world along with the myth that technology had the power to first save, then destroy humanity.

Now in the movies the future has succumbed to rot and decay. Tomorrow isn't made out of stainless steel and glass anymore, it's more like a compost heap of iron and dirt and, according to Waterworld, fish skin. Maybe because most people have at least casual contact with computers, it's become obvious that they don't represent the power we once imagined they might. Instead of humans committing the sin of making gods out of machines, in the current futureworld of organic rot, God sweeps down in the form of nature and gives us our retribution directly. The key force governing Hollywood's fearful visions of the future has switched from progress to divinely inspired entropy.

One of the most sinister cinematic visionaries of the future is Terry Gilliam, who combines a decomposing vision of the future with the old-style depersonalization of the clean-and-shiny school of sci-fi. In Brazil and now in 12 Monkeys, Gilliam paints a scary picture of a quasi-SM future where people live in cages and everything's made of rubber and rusted chain. Prisoners and citizens are watched over by barely human bureaucrats who are obsessed with the rules of the state. What could be more terrifying than a decaying world governed by people who act like machines?

In 12 Monkeys, the unlucky prisoner Cole (Bruce Willis) has been forced to live in the dirty underground future with the rest of humanity since a plague in the year 1996 made the surface of the planet uninhabitable. In order to get a pardon, Cole "volunteers" to do research. "Volunteering" is what they call it when a big hook is lowered into his cell and he's fished out; "research" is when he's flung haphazardly back in time. He lands in various epochs, but mostly in the 1990s, where, of course, everyone thinks he's insane.

And maybe he is. There's something about Gilliam's films that remind me of Pink Floyd--his obsession (here, as in The Fisher King and Brazil) with madness and the question of who's actually insane in this crazy world (the lunatic is on the grass); a sense, in his characters imprisoned by bureaucrats resembling stern headmasters, of the inescapability of the social hierarchy thrust onto us at school (all in all you're just another brick in the wall); and his use of complexity for the sake of complexity (Dark Side of the Moon, for starters).

Maybe because to me, Pink Floyd represents seventh grade, there's something I find reminiscent of adolescence and pot smoke in this particular constellation of themes. Still, if any place is right for adolescent themes, it's a sci-fi movie, which--despite the fact most of it takes place in 1996--is essentially what 12 Monkeys is. And it's a good, swift, weird one, with a complicated plot that twists around in time and a love story thrown in for good measure. Willis is great as the time traveler Cole; he exudes both the determination of a hero and the dull vulnerability of a patient. But, as in most sci-fi movies, it's really the sets--the overall look of the movie--that steal the show. Gilliam's vision of Philadelphia, devoid of people and populated by beasts, is absolutely haunting.

12 Monkeys is based on La Jetée, a short French film by Chris Marker made in 1962. La Jetée is a beautiful, unusual film about a prisoner of war subjected to medical experiments that send him back in time. It's interesting how in 1962 Marker envisioned an end of the world delivered by nuclear bombs whereas Gilliam posits a different (and my personal favorite) end-time scenario: mass death by plague. Marker implies in La Jetée that the end is simply a tragedy whereas Gilliam (in a screenplay by Janet and David Webb Peoples, who also wrote Blade Runner) hints that maybe, just maybe, we deserve it.

Twelve Monkeys (1995) Marc Savlov from the Austin Chronicle

Terry Gilliam may be the most gifted cinematic surrealist since Luis Buñuel and, while his newest film fits more squarely into the category of science fiction than that of fantasy, his quirky, disquieting, and thoroughly unique vision is on full display once again. Virtually no one else could have made this film as well as he has (indeed, the thought of Twelve Monkeys falling into the hands of someone like Steven Spielberg is nearly as disturbing as the movie’s premise). Willis is James Cole, a seemingly deranged man who may or may not be an emissary from the future sent back in time to stop a deadly plague – possibly created by the mythical “Army of the 12 Monkeys” – that will eradicate 5 billion people in 1996. Confined in a mental hospital that makes Bedlam look positively cheery by comparison, Cole is watched over by psychiatrist Kathryn Railly (Stowe), who feels oddly drawn to this drooling, battered husk of a man. While there, Cole meets the raving, wild-eyed Jeffrey Goines (Pitt), who helps him escape before Cole seemingly vanishes into thin air. Cole’s search for the mysterious 12 Monkeys takes him in and out of various stages of madness? reality? some bizarre netherworld? Gilliam keeps the audience guessing, and in doing so creates a startlingly effective rumination on the nature of sanity and madness cloaked in the shroud of a sci-fi thriller. All three leads – Willis, Stowe, and Pitt – give painstakingly nuanced, wonderfully layered performances. Pitt effectively shelves the sexy bad boy image that’s made him a star and instead delivers a crazed, all-stops-out performance as the deranged Goines. Willis gives his best characterization to date, alternately heroic and pathetic, his doors of perception in dire need of a good greasing; Stowe is equally excellent as the rational mind fighting off the dark impossibilities hurled before her. Gilliam’s direction is, as always, a wonder to behold, cramming the screen with outlandish images simultaneously nightmarish and cartoon-like. It’s Hieronymous Bosch by way of Ren and Stimpy, a bogglingly eerie world where nothing is ever quite as it seems. Recurrent flashbacks throughout the film telegraph the ending a bit too much in advance, but that’s a minor quibble when held up against the mirror of Gilliam’s wild, wild ride. It often seems as though Gilliam is the least prolific of fantastic directors working today (with the possible exception of Alejandro Jodorowsky), but once again, it was worth the wait.

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FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS

USA (118 mi) 1998

Erasing Clouds review Dave Heaton

A wild, colorful satire on the excess, despair and naivete of the US, Terry Gilliam's filmic adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas divides audiences as starkly as almost any other film. Mismarketed and widely distributed, the film lead audiences to walk out in droves (when I first saw the film, in a suburban shopping mall, this is exactly what happened). Rejected by critics like Roger Ebert as a celebration of drug use, the film is in fact an imaginative journey through a nightmare vision of America, as witnessed through the perspective of a cynical, paranoid, and yes, cartoonishly drug-adled rebel and his even more extreme travelling companion. As both a long-in-the-making adaptation of a beloved counterculture book and a subversive film likely to be cult phenomenon for years to come, the film carrys with it a large enough backstory to make it well-suited to the Criterion 2-disc treatment. Between commentary tracks, documentaries, deleted scenes, art galleries and other more unusual features (like footage of Johnny Depp, the film's lead actor, reading letters he and Thompson wrote each other or a ½-hour lecture on labor issues by Oscar Zena Acosta, the inspiration for Dr Gonzo, played in the film by Benicio Del Toro), the collection delves deeply into all of the relevant stories, including the the film, the book, Ralph Steadman's drawings for the book and Thompson himself. All of this is intriguing, not to mention plentiful enough to get lost in for days, yet the film itself is colorful and daring enough to overshadow all of the supporting materials. Surreal, brutal and hilarious, Fear and Loathing casts a piercing, critical gaze at the uglier dimensions of the American Dream.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) - The Criterion Collection

Hunter S. Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas epitomizes the unfilmable book, but writer-director Terry Gilliam has a long and storied history of attempting the impossible. Arriving near the end of a decade characterized by peace and prosperity, 1998's movie adaptation was released to mixed reviews and dismal box-office tallies. Now, however, its vision of disillusioned, chemically loaded iconoclasts wading maniacally through a nightmare America lorded over by the embodiment of ghoulish, undeserved authority seems more prescient than retro. History has given new relevance to Thompson's masterpiece of gonzo journalism, making Criterion's exhaustive double-disc DVD set of Gilliam's film all the more indispensable. As the set reveals, Gilliam was not Fear And Loathing's original director—Alex Cox was fired early on, though he later engaged in a heated battle for the final screenwriting credit—but it's hard to imagine anyone else handling the material. His unparalleled visual imagination proves a perfect match for Thompson's flights of literary fancy, and while the director gets the requisite drugged-out darkness, he also understands and plays up the wounded idealism and sweetness at the core of the book. Fear And Loathing similarly found the perfect Thompson surrogate in Johnny Depp. Bill Murray played Thompson in 1980's Where The Buffalo Roam, but where Murray's unmistakable persona clashed violently with Thompson's, Depp is a perfect chameleon: Not only does he re-create the writer's voice and mannerisms, but he also seems to capture Thompson's soul. Fear And Loathing's thin, rambling, episodic plot deals with the hallucinogen-fueled misadventures of Depp and lawyer Benicio Del Toro as they wander through a Las Vegas dystopia where the idealism of the '60s has died a slow, painful death. The film conveys the sense that a cultural war has been fought, the "silent majority" trumpeted by Nixon winning handily over the forces of peace and love. As a meditation on the death of the '60s, Fear And Loathing is irreverent, funny, and strangely touching. Five years after its inauspicious theatrical release, the film looks less like an interesting failure than an overlooked classic. The DVD piles on an entire disc of extras that provide historical context for Thompson's book and Gilliam's movie. In addition to three commentaries, including one by a distracted Thompson, the set includes footage of Depp reading a revealing correspondence between the author and himself, as well as a clueless BBC documentary on Thompson that could serve as the inspiration for every mockumentary that has ever scored easy laughs lampooning the pretension and pompousness of British documentarians. Perhaps the disc's most poignant and emblematic feature is an extended reading by Oscar Zeta Acosta (the inspiration for Del Toro's character) in which the gifted and charismatic activist/author somehow conveys dignity and authority while wearing a yellow muscle shirt that exposes far too much of his formidable belly.

Shock Cinema (Steven Puchalski)

Met with equal parts of horror and derision during its release, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's "unfilmable" novel of brain-fried, drug-drenched excess arrives on the screen in all of its hallucinogenic glory, courtesy of director Terry Gilliam. One of the most outrageously subversive studio releases of all time, it's also a nearly perfect evocation of the book and its twisted mindset...Set in 1971, Johnny Depp portrays outlaw journalist Raoul Duke, who's assigned to cover the Mint 400 desert motorcycle race, with Samoan attorney/pal Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) tagging along on a drive to Las Vegas, armed with a convertible full of powerful drugs. Of course, as we all know, somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, those drugs begin to take hold, while the pair deteriorates into dumb beasts. So prepare yourself for phantom bats, a hitchhiker who freaks out at their bad craziness, giant lizards filling their hotel's bar, covering a Las Vegas-based District Attorney's anti-drug conference, plus snorting raw ether and turned loose in the Bazooka Circus casino. Then again, all is not high times, particularly when Gonzo takes far too much acid and orders Duke to electrocute him in the bathtub during the climax of "White Rabbit." Successfully translating Thompson's cult-favorite novel to the screen, Gilliam not only captures the author's one-of-a-kind voice and episodes, but coats it all in an extreme, drug-drenched imagery which brings this Vegas vacation to all-to-vivid life. Beginning their trip as "a classic affirmation of everything right and true in the national character", this soon degrades into a kinetic assault on the senses, a eulogy to the lost optimism of the 60s, and a savage journey into the heart of American over-indulgence. There's also no shortage of dark laughs at the pair's confrontation with authority figures and tourists. Though littered with star cameos (Christina Ricci as a Barbra Streisand-obsessed teenager with a headful of acid, Ellen Barkin as a Gonzo-abused waitress, Gary Busey as a lonely highway patrolman), the screen belongs to the unrepentantly-deranged Depp and Del Toro. As Duke (a fictional representation of Thompson), the inventive Depp perfectly captures the author's speech patterns, body language, hair loss, and growing paranoia. Depp even accompanied Thompson on a book signing tour, in order to make his interpretation all the more accurate, and wore Thompson's actual clothing for much of the filming; while Thompson can be spotted in a 1965 flashback sequence, as an aging doppelganger. Meanwhile, Del Toro packed on a frightening girth for the role (based on Chicano activist Oscar Acosta) and brings an often lethal, decidedly incoherent edge to the road-trip. Together, they make a potent combo, beginning as a simple drug-indulging pair, but quickly showing the darker, more subversive shadings of each character--such as when Duke takes a massive dose of "adrenochrome" (culled from adrenaline glands of living human bodies), which sends him into a hideous, hallucinatory frenzy. No surprise, the film was condemned for its surface matter (the pigfuckers at the Disney-owned ABC TV-network refused to run commercials for the movie), which includes rampant destruction of property, partaking of highly dangerous drugs, and copious vomiting. At the heart of it all is its outstandingly-deranged cinematography and colorfully tacky production design, which actually transcends the Vegas experience with its Fellini-on-peyote visuals. Remarkably faithful to its source material and rambling about at its own unique pace, Gilliam might not have painted a pretty picture, but it's certainly a spectacular vision of unpredictable dementia and wicked satire.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Pint of Raw Ether and Three Reels of Film Criterion essay by J. Hoberman, April 26, 2011

Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream Criterion essay by Hunter S. Thompson, April 26, 2011

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THE BROTHERS GRIMM

Great Britain USA Czech Republic (118 mi) 2005

Once upon a time there was a movie reviewer. One day the reviewer saw a documentary entitled Lost in La Mancha. It was about a brave director named Terry Gilliam who attempted to make a movie called "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote." The movie stalled in production because the wicked financiers doubted the brave director and pulled back their magical coins which supported the director. "Oh, how I wish that Mr. Gilliam would be allowed another chance to let his imagination roam free," mused the little movie reviewer. Suddenly, a magical green fairy appeared! "Be careful what you wish for," said the fairy, "but your request has been granted."

Many rumors started to swirl in the kingdom. The brave director was in Prague and filming The Brothers Grimm! The movie reviewer's wish had come true! The director was working again! He was making a movie about Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, the legendary collectors of Germanic folk tales, based upon the work of a lucky writer named Ehren Kruger. The lucky writer had himself lived out a fantasy of many when he was chosen for a Nicholl's Fellowship for his script for Arlington Road many years back, propelling him into fame and fortune. "This movie shall be unassailable," thought the movie reviewer, "it can't be bad."

But more rumors began to make their way back from the filming location. A mean and cruel producer, Bob Weinstein, was trampling on the director's vision. He'd recast the lovely, but not va-va-voom Samantha Morton with the va-va-voom Lena Headley in the female protagonist role. The Weinstein was asking for script changes! He was pummeling the great director into a bloody pulp. The din was horrible!

Then, silence.

For many years no word came about the movie. "It will appear this date!," said Bob Weinstein's Dimension, the owners of the final print. "No!" said Dimension, later, "it will appear on this date." The movie sat for a long time in a deep slumber, locked away in a dark vault in Dimension's dungeon.

Then, the wicked producer began another war in another land, against a larger, even nastier foe than he, a corporate giant named Disney. As the battle waged, the bars on the cell where The Brothers Grimm was kept began to rust. The prison guards were called away to other duties and the door slowly settled off of its hinges. One day, word came back that the producer had been beaten by his foe and had moved to another land. The corporate giant opened up the prison and set those inside loose upon the world, regardless of their guilt or innocence.

The brave director made his way to the dungeon and found his film, wasted away by years of neglect and torture. He tried to prop it up; it fell over. He tried to fix it up; it resisted. He tried to mend its wounds; they were too deep. Shielding its eyes from the sun, the movie shambled out into the light.

In the brave director's tale two brothers, Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm (played by noted thespians Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, respectively) played charlatans who fool townfolk into believing they can free them of magical curses and demonic possessions. In fact, the brothers are themselves the perpetrators of the hoax themselves and they abscond with the villagers' money before the rubes catch on.

But Napoleon's army is on the march and they aren't fooled by the Grimm brothers. Led by the officious Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce) and the unctuous Cavaldi (Peter Stormare) they force the brothers to confront a real magical danger. A nearby village has been paralyzed with fear because their little girls are disappearing into an enchanted forest.

Sure that the villagers are being fooled, the brothers rush in, aided by Angelika (Lena Headley) a young woman whose sister has vanished, along with her widower father. The woods are indeed cursed; the trees move and a sinister tower sits in the middle of it. Inside is the Mirror Queen (Monica Bellucci) a hideous woman who needs the sacrifice of twelve maidens to restore her beauty during an eclipse.

As the movie reviewer watched what the great director had wrought he was taken with an uncontrollable sadness. This was not a great film. It was a mess. It relied on some of the most clichéd elements of the fantasy genre; the spell during the eclipse, the final confrontation in the castle, the crumbling of said castle. Worse, it was as if the great director had taken a bet with someone in a gentlemen's club to see just how many elements of myth and fable he could shoehorn into one movie. Probably the most fabulous, and the most silly, was a scene wherein one of the little girls was attacked by a mud monster. The mud monster, a bizarre changeling of the girl, ingested her, whereupon she became the Gingerbread Man. The Gingerbread Man!

What was sadly lacking the most in the great director's movie was perhaps what drew him to it in the first place, the presence of magic. Though there were magical creatures (including a were-wolf) and magical settings, there was no enchantment, no trace of the dark and unexplored of the original Grimm tales. Besides a few girls in bit parts there was no innocence to counter-balance the darkness of reality.

When the movie was finally released it was in the dog days of August. The great director had moved on to make a film called Tideland. The lucky writer was penning other scripts furiously. They lived happily ever after. The green fairy appeared again to the movie reviewer, wagged its finger and said, "I warned you." And so, mindful to watch what he wished for, the movie reviewer went on his way, a bit sadder and a bit wiser.

It's fitting that dreamers like Orson Welles and Terry Gilliam both tried and failed to adapt Don Quixote, that archetypal tale of pointless striving, as both men are nearly as famous for the films they didn't make as the ones they did. Of course, there's a romantic allure to projects that never make it past the finish line. They exist for perpetuity as tantalizing possibilities loaded with promise, not cold slabs of completed celluloid to be judged and analyzed solely on their own merits. This has largely worked in Gilliam's favor, as cinephiles have been forced to imagine all the great movies he could have made—particularly his aborted stab at Don Quixote, which inspired the documentary Lost In La Mancha—in place of any actual directorial efforts from him since 1998's underrated Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.

Alas, the promise of a Terry Gilliam-directed take on the Brothers Grimm proves infinitely more appealing in theory than it does in practice, and The Brothers Grimm, Gilliam's first film in seven years, groans under the weight of high expectations, a lumbering plot, and the clattering hugeness of its massive setpieces. Working from a disappointingly workmanlike screenplay by Ehren Kruger, Gilliam casts Heath Ledger and Matt Damon as the titular storytellers, con men who sweep into tiny, superstitious European towns with tales of witches, monsters, and other beasties that only they are qualified to destroy. The Brothers' ruse works well until they're caught and brought before sneering French military officer Jonathan Pryce, who threatens to have them killed unless they ply their peculiar trade in a genuinely enchanted forest.

The premise is promising, but most of it goes maddeningly unrealized. There are ghoulishly indelible moments that illustrate what could have been, as when a sentient glob of sludge transforms into the most horrifying Gingerbread Man ever committed to film, yet they only underline the lack of imagination in much of the script. It's a sad day when a Terry Gilliam movie invites unfavorable comparisons to Shrek, but The Brothers Grimm toys with the conventions and characters of classic fairy tales in ways that never seem more than halfhearted. A healthy helping of morbid wit and Monty Python absurdity doesn't seem like too much to ask for in a fantastical story like this, but Kruger doesn't rise to the challenge, and major supporting players Peter Stormare and Pryce function as silly accents in search of characters. Gilliam has a revered reputation as a pie-eyed dreamer, but The Brothers Grimm reeks of compromise, of a brilliant fantasist losing his footing and nerve and getting hopelessly gummed up in the cruel machinery of big-budget blockbuster filmmaking.

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TIDELAND

Great Britain Canada (122 mi) 2005

Tideland Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

[SPOILERS] When you consider Gilliam's complaints about the Weinstein brothers' pervasive interference on the set of The Brothers Grimm (e.g., threatening to close down the production if Gilliam fitted Matt Damon with an ugly fake nose), Tideland practically begs to be read as a perversely anti-Hollywood gesture, a systematic flipping-off of the system Gilliam so resents. One of its stars is dead by the end of the first reel, and the other one spends the majority of the running time playing a slumped corpse. And Gilliam found another use for his prosthetics; Janet McTeer is practically unrecognizable. Still, in the midst of these smart-ass maneuvers, Gilliam has fashioned the most sustained examination of female subjectivity in his entire career. The film locks onto the mature but fantastical worldview of Jeliza Rose (Jodelle Ferland, in a stylized but preternaturally controlled performance) as she produces the adults she requires to raise her in her head. Gilliam's protagonists have always been stranded in magical thinking, but never before has he given them such a thoroughly feminine framework for the exercise of the imagination. Jeliza Rose's interactions with her severed doll heads, her beautification of her "vacationing" dad, and eventually her awakening desire, all serve to create a context in which the sinister or disturbing aspects of an unsupervised childhood become stolen moments of asserted selfhood. Even when the film veers into forbidden sexuality (in a way, Jeliza Rose ends up having her own thwarted version of The Blue Lagoon, although Gilliam invests it with the appropriate psychological depth), Jeliza Rose maintains control. It is not remotely a victimization scenario. Sadly, Gilliam can't restrain himself and injects the film with some needlessly literal leftovers from the Grimm playbook, including an outright wicked-witch and an amplification of the Freudian fear / desire of parental carnality. It goes too far. But the fact that some folks at TIFF were walking out or declaring it the worst film in years . . . well, I'm at a loss. One final note: after so many overbearingly closed-off Gilliam films with their dark oppressive industrial-past-as-dystopian-future mise-en-scène, what a joy to see what the man can do with light and landscape. The exteriors are stunning, and Gilliam manages to invest this found world with the same sense of wonder as those he builds from scratch. It's a bit like a mash-up of Wild at Heart and The Straight Story, if you can even imagine . . .

Standing lonely amid a field of sun-drenched wheat, the battered clapboard house at the center of Terry Gilliam's "Tideland" is equally evocative of the pastoral mystery of an Andrew Wyeth painting and the looming menace of "Psycho." The disparity is fitting, because as "Tideland" unfolds, it's difficult to tell if you're watching a fantasy or a horror movie, or one superimposed on the other.

The dutiful daughter of a has-been rock star (Jeff Bridges) whose periodic "vacations" consist of shooting up and nodding off, Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland) prepares her daddy's fix as if she were making a tuna on rye. Although Gilliam and co-screenwriter Tony Grisoni have jettisoned the first-person framework of Mitch Cullin's novel, "Tideland" is still seen through a child's eyes. But like Lewis Carroll, to whom "Tideland" explicitly tips its hat, Gilliam believes children understand much more than adults think they do, if not always in ways grown-up minds can fathom.

The youngest of "Tideland's" characters, 10-year-old Jeliza-Rose is also the most clearheaded. When her junkie mother (a spasmodic Jennifer Tilly) fatally overdoses, Dad suggests a Viking funeral, complete with flaming pyre, but she bats out the flames as he tries to set fire to the bedsheets. Still, she can't prevent him from retreating to the safety of his late mother's abandoned house, or chasing methadone pills with peach Schnapps, which sends him on a vacation from which he never returns.

On her own, Jeliza-Rose rapidly fabricates a fantasy world in which the squirrels in the rafters mutter half-heard sentences and the stench of her father's decaying corpse is merely a bout of uncontrollable flatulence. Dressing up Dad's slumbering body with lipstick rouge and a blond wig, Jeliza-Rose keeps company with a quartet of severed doll's heads until she discovers a pair of deeply eccentric neighbors: Dell (Janet McTeer), a one-eyed taxidermist with a morbid fear of bees, and Dickens (Brendan Fletcher), an epileptic simpleton convinced that the wheat fields are water patrolled by a terrible "monster shark."

This concatenation of grotesqueries is, as Alice might say, much of a muchness, exacerbated by Nicola Pecorini's swooping wide-angle shots, which have the effect of pressing the audience's nose against the glass when they might rather retreat to a safe distance.

Even Gilliam's harrowing "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" pulled over for a few rest stops, but "Tideland's" unmodulated frenzy has the effect of a prolonged shriek, too high and shrill for individual words to make themselves heard. (A second viewing reveals subtle facets under the movie's abrasive surface, but it's hard to imagine many people returning for one.)

"Tideland's" most deliberate provocation is the developing relationship between Jeliza-Rose and Dickens, a meeting of minds between child and man-child that acquires shades of romance and threatens to turn physical. Gilliam isn't so clumsy as to literalize the threat, and he makes clear that Dickens is merely doing as he's been done to. But he's pressing the audience's buttons with a sledgehammer, using imminent peril to make a distant point about the difference between childhood fears and adult ones. Some horrors stay horrors, no matter whose eyes they're seen through.

Although encumbered by requisite tics, Ferland and Fletcher manage heroically nuanced performances, and the movie's ending is such a glorious act of bruised catharsis it almost redeems what's gone before. But by then, the movie's arbitrary oddity has worked your senses.

BFI | Sight & Sound | Tideland (2005) Mark Sinker, September 2006

Texas, the present. Eleven-year-old Jeliza-Rose cares for her junkie parents. When her mother ODs, her father, Noah, takes Jeliza-Rose to her grandma's abandoned house and ODs too. Jeliza-Rose, who shapes her world by telling herself stories, explores the house and surrounding cornfields, and attempts to befriend neighbours Dell and Dickens. Dell is sinister and prickly, her brother Dickens a simple-minded, childish adult with a lobotomy scar. Dell mummifies Noah's body. While playing together, Jeliza-Rose and Dickens become very affectionate; he sees himself as a submarine captain and a shark hunter; she discovers he likes explosions and hoards dynamite. When Dell is out, Jeliza-Rose and Dickens go into the bedroom of the latter's mother, where they find a shrine to Dell and Noah as a couple, and the mother's preserved corpse. Dell catches them and becomes angry; the corpse is damaged and Jeliza-Rose flees. That night a huge explosion nearby wrecks Jeliza-Rose's house. Dickens has blown up a train. Amid the wreckage, Jeliza-Rose finds a survivor, a woman who proposes she and Jeliza-Rose take care of one another.

Review

The Bog People are a collection of mummified bodies found preserved in the 1950s after spending millennia in peat graves in Jutland, and famously celebrated in verse by Seamus Heaney, whose 'The Grauballe Man' begins: "As if he had been poured/in tar, he lies/on a pillow of turf/and seems to weep/the black river of himself." Hunched and gnarled, sacrificial victims or executed murderers, the Bog People haunt this extremely odd, intense film. Noah, the junkie-rocker father of 11-year-old heroine Jeliza-Rose, is obsessed with them, and plans to take his family to Jutland for real one day. But "real" is a problem when everyone present is cocooned in fantasy, including Jeliza-Rose, a brisk little child-nurse who wipes daddy's needles and tidies away his drug paraphernalia, and balances these duties with endless storytelling of her undersea adventures - her own version of her father's drug-dream holidays in what he calls "Tideland". And when Noah stiffens into a bog person himself, the woe his daughter must cope with (Heaney's rivers of congealed grief) never once breaks into dialogue or action, but remains unspoken, sublimated into the landscape and the objects littering it.

It's a device - the setting manifesting all the feeling - that defines the Gothic. And those allergic to the Southern Gothic mode of Mitch Cullin's same-name novel, upon which this film is based, may feel that Terry Gilliam's latest movie tries too hard to be weird, controversial or 'cult'. Gilliam appears, gleefully, to have stopped caring about mainstream bankability, and judging by walkouts during preview screenings, many will see Tideland as a ghastly, self-indulgent, unreleasable folly. The director's own shorthand is succinct: "Alice in Wonderland meets Psycho". The Alice element seems straightforward: Jeliza-Rose reads aloud from the book, converses with rabbits and squirrels, and handles the (very peculiar) grown-ups she meets with a grave unflappability. She's at her most childlike when absolutely alone, with a charming squeaky giggle we only hear in long-shot; when she's with her four talking doll-heads, who voice her doubts, fears and pretensions, her fantasies become more soap-operatic.

As for Psycho, Gilliam is referencing the mummy in the basement rather than the slasher in the shower, or rather the mummifier's domestic arrangements, passions and history compacted into that famously silly maquette.

Thus Tideland is the child's-eye view of Jeliza-Rose's own family romance, as she engages with its relics - living, discarded or pickled - and the fairytales she invents to explain it to herself, which crash against what we're seeing. Jodelle Ferland's performance is extraordinary: self-contained, resilient, inventive and joyful. And visually the film is ravishing. Andrew Wyeth's famous painting Christina's World, showing a girl half-prone in a cornfield looking up at a house, the seemingly idyllic scene heavy with loneliness and dread and the corn itself prickly with inanimate hostility, is an acknowledged inspiration.

To what extent does Ferland's performance spring out of or respond to the film's landscape, the Svankmajerish recesses of the abandoned house, the various messy bodies salted into the story? True, when she tells her lobotomised adult acquaintance Dickens that his witch-like sister Dell is her "best friend", it's heartbreaking, given Dell's harsh behaviour towards her. But Janet McTeer's Dell and Brendan Fletcher's Dickens are rendered too cartoonish next to Ferland's guileless directness, so that Jeliza-Rose doesn't seem embedded in any emotional reality outside her own.

To complicate matters, she flirts with a grown-up sexuality that may leave the viewer feeling queasy. Dickens is as terrified of sex as he is of his sister, the romantic tryst self-destructs before Jeliza-Rose imperils herself, and doubtless our queasiness was entirely intended. Nevertheless, there's an alienating distraction here that a novel would sidestep. Instead of the catastrophic household dynamics of this Texas Chainsaw-style set-up being revealed through her young eyes, you may end up worrying about the effects of acting in a story such as this on young Ferland herself.

Still, it was dodging this issue that rendered Terrence Malick's Badlands saccharine and timid. The real-life girlfriend in the Charley Starkweather murder spree portrayed in Malick's film was just 13, but Sissy Spacek, the actress who took on the girlfriend role in the movie, was 24. Somewhere in the unresolved spaces between its best ingredients, Tideland pokes at the bogeys mired deep in any adult recreation of the child mind.

Lewis Carroll unnerves us today far more than Hitchcock, but plenty of viewers won't thank Gilliam for going there.

Deep-Focus.com [Bryant Frazer]

indieWire Kristi Mitsuda, with responses from Neal Block and James Crawford

Camera Eye Evan Pulgino

Cinematical [Jeffrey M. Anderson]

Not Coming to a Theater Near You [Chiranjit Goswami]

Village Voice (Ella Taylor) review

New York Times (registration req'd) A. O. Scott

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS B 88

France Great Britian Canada (122 mi) 2009

"Parnassus is a transparent kind of self-portrait. Man with imagination wants to share it with the world, and the world doesn't want to listen. And he is getting really old before our eyes." —Terry Gilliam

Clearly a variation on Gilliam’s own mad brilliance, this is a bewildering and confusing, yet vividly delightful story set in modern day London, which bears a certain earthly resemblance to the dark alleyways of Dickens or Jack the Ripper, as most of this takes place on the dismal outskirts of town near vacant lots or industrial wastelands where they can set up their imaginarium, which is like a moving carnival booth on wheels, where for a price, any customer can enter through a magic mirror that takes them into a phantasmagorical place powered by the mind of the ageless Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) where they see things as they want before being spit back out into the real world, forever altered and grateful for their experience. While this is reminiscent of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999), this is a far darker version, where the unfettered imagination takes them into untold adventures which would be impossible to explain back in the real world. While there’s no explanation for how Parnassus developed his magical powers, it’s quite clear that what’s on the other side of the mirror is a bizarre figment of our own imaginations where we suddenly find ourselves happily caught up as characters in our own surrealistic wish fulfillment dreams that play out as transcendental experiences, where the subject matter can change instantly, as can the underlying sunny or threatening mood, where one usually confronts a choice where one has to decipher righteousness and true enlightenment from the chaos of evil disguising itself as goodness. The problem is to convince someone to voluntarily take this experience, though once there, surely it’s the adventure of a lifetime. But the front men are a ragtag group of down and out Felliniesque characters that no one takes seriously so they are largely ignored by an audience of derelicts and drunks. Parnassus himself is a thousand years old, once a faithful and obedient monk, yet his chief aide is his lovely 15-year old daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), who looks like a creature out of Matthew Barney’s CREMASTER cycle, a mixture of seductress and perfect innocence. Add to this group Verne Troyer as Percy the Dwarf, a diminutive man less than three feet tall who mysteriously always knows the answers to things but spends his life insisting he’s not a midget, and Andrew Garfield as Anton, the annoying jester who attempts to lure customers into the imaginarium (actually driving most of them away) while secretly harboring his love for Valentina.

Lurking somewhere just offscreen, while appearing at will inside the imaginarium as well is Tom Waits as Mr. Nick, one of his best movie roles ever, owner of The Last Chance Saloon that exists on the edge of nowhere, a character he’s perfectly suited for – the Devil, seen as a constant temptation, a gnarly man in a bowler hat and bow tie with an everpresent cigarette dangling on the end of a holder. Somewhere in their long history together, Parnassus made a deal for immortality with Mr. Nick where his daughter would become Nick’s possession on her 16^th birthday, which is within days of our story. To make things interesting, Nick offers him a new deal, Valentina will belong to whoever takes possession of the first five souls. After another dead show one night with few, if any, customers, Anton and Percy discover a man hanging from a bridge and immediately try to rescue him. When he survives, he remembers nothing, but Parnassus conjures up some memories, enough to know his name is Tony (Heath Ledger, in his last appearance). Despite being a forgetful man, Parnassus is sure his presence will bring good fortune, and Tony immediately displays conman characteristics, where he’s a genius at luring people through the portal, but he also stirs things up by arousing Valentina’s heart. In what is easily the best sequence in the film, there is a mad display of inventiveness when suddenly there’s a rush of customers to get through the mirrors. To our surprise, Tony’s face has transformed into Johnny Depp, as he attempts to lure the dazzled customer in a battle of wits for possession of their souls against the Devil, a man or object that can easily change his disguise. Tony also morphs into Jude Law and Colin Farrell, all morally dubious men with questionable pasts, where their real lives merge into the present through the imaginarium, creating a nightmarish smorgasbord of fantasy and criminality catching up to them, as if regret and redemption are racing against time, creating a desert-like state of limbo where Parnassus is stranded in a world where nothing exists but old age, seen as futility mixed with regret and remorse. Without ever spelling anything out, this dance between Parnassus and the Devil goes on, as it appears it’s still not over, and though there is a clear winner declared in this sumptuous hall of mirrors sequence, a delightful moment, by the way, it’s hard to know who actually won. Perhaps one can’t exist without the other. While there’s a lot squeezed into this material, it’s clear there’s no one else out there making films like this.

Note – Heath Ledger died of an accidental drug overdose before completion of the film, so Gilliam brought in Depp, Law, and Farrell (who worked for no pay, donating their salaries to Ledger’s daughter) as extensions of his personality, where every time he looks at himself in the mirror, he sees a different face. Only in this manner was he able to finalize his film. One problem that results however is an unfamiliar face, and an unlikable character at that, bringing the film home to its conclusion. Gilliam tries to perform a rather seamless transformation, as the changing faces become fundamental elements of the story, the different faces a conman uses to disguise his actions, where in the end, perhaps the only person he really fools is himself.

Reunited with Charles McKeown, his co-writer from Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Terry Gilliam has created another Ultimate Po-mo adventure crammed to a fault with big ideas and bigger images that mutate a grungy contemporary London into a living heaven and hell. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is nothing if not one from the heart, and not just because it's haunted by the ghost of Heath Ledger, whose death during filming threatened to shut down the shoot until three other notable bad boys stepped in to amplify his role as the possibly feckless love interest of Lily Cole, a model who looks like an otherworldly kitty. The titular Doctor P., played with livid zest by Christopher Plummer, is a suitably Olympian man of the theater, as misunderstood and unattended to by his audience as Gilliam feels he is for prizing imagination over mundane reality. He's also a compulsive gambler who has traded away the future of his beloved daughter (Cole) to the devil (Tom Waits—really!) in return for immortality, then eternal youth and other existentially dubious goodies. This is potentially wonderful, if not exactly new stuff, but Gilliam and McKeown's willful refusal of coherent narrative and determination to pack every idea about art they ever had into one scenario, make this fiendishly gorgeous movie more exhausting than exhilarating to watch.

The Onion A.V. Club review [B+] Tasha Robinson

Knowing the inside story of Terry Gilliam’s history of failed or flawed projects just makes his latest, The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, all the more heartbreaking. Heath Ledger’s death during filming was yet another painful setback in a career full of them, but Gilliam worked around it, bringing in a plot device that lets Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law sub in for Ledger in a series of fantasy sequences. That gimmick works passably well, though in their CGI-heavy imagination-land scenes, all three actors seem hammy and flailing, with an understandable lack of connection to the character they’re playing. The real tragedy is in the film’s plot, which seems like a mighty personal story for director and co-writer Gilliam.

Christopher Plummer stars as Doctor Parnassus, an aging, drunken mountebank traveling from town to town in a rickety cart with his daughter (Lily Cole) and two costumed assistants; in each new place, he offers the locals entrance to a magical world shaped by his imagination, where they face a moral choice for enlightenment or depravity, greed or sacrifice, good or evil. Problem is, in this debased age, most people aren’t even interested in the choice; they laughingly dismiss him and his tatty box of threadbare wonders. That changes when Plummer and his retinue meet Ledger, who for his own reasons attempts to help modernize their routine and make them accessible to the contemporary world, which gives Plummer a leg up on a longstanding rivalry with the devil, as played by a capering Tom Waits.

There’s a lot of Gilliam in Plummer’s tragically ineffectual character, a man with a ramshackle aesthetic and a hopelessly square message about the magical powers of imagination. Gilliam has been pushing this aesthetic and message since his Monty Python movie days, and Imaginarium is yet another film in the same vein, with a smart concept, gorgeous cinematography, some terrific performances (particularly from the ever-reliable Waits) and tons of energy, but undisciplined execution and a sloppy storyline. Ledger in particular improvised a lot of dialogue, and it shows in his babbling, frantic performance. But the garish framework aside, it’s unquestionably a Gilliam project, with vast ambition and humor carrying it past the weak points, and an air of tragic majesty that comes as much from Gilliam’s career as from anything specific here. In a real sort of way, Gilliam is Parnassus, carrying his tatterdemalion show forward from year to year and trying to get people to pay attention, and the mingled sense of bitterness and hope in his story makes this whole crazed fantasy into something far more real.

Cinematical (Scott Weinberg) review

I love Terry Gilliam. I know that film critics aren't supposed to open a review with such an obvious and subjective opinion, so call the press police. I'm guilty. From his Monty Python work to Time Bandits to Brazil and all points thereafter, Mr. Gilliam has been one of my very favorite storytellers and movie-makin' educators. His silliness and darkness, surreality and sweetness, his sense of adventure of endearing youthfulness ... he's just one of those filmmakers who truly "speak" to me, and I know I'm not alone in my affection for his varied and eclectic works.

Having said that, I now say this: I haven't thought much of the man's last three films. I've tried (and tried) to foster an affection for Fear and Loathing..., but for the most part it just won't take. I struggled through Tideland at the Toronto Film Festival one year and quite simply did not like the film. At all. And The Brothers Grimm felt, to me (of course), like surface-level Gilliam that had much of its soul torn out thanks to too many cooks cooped up in Gilliam's own kitchen.

So there's where I'm at, Gilliam-wise. Oh, except for his new film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which feels sort of like a favorite uncle just burst through the door, smiling and loaded with nifty presents. (So his last few visits weren't so hot; he's still your favorite uncle.) To this lifelong Gilliam devotee, Imaginarium feels like it was cut from the same imagination cloth that also produced The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and (at least in part) his classic adventure Time Bandits. Only this time out, the filmmaker has the limitless capabilities of CGI to use as a palette -- and if you've seen how imaginative Terry Gilliam can be with "practical" effects, then you'll probably be eye-dazzled by Imaginarium's finest moments.

The tale is one of a very old man, his 16-year-old daughter, a lovestruck assistant, a tiny man with a big heart, and a stranger recently saved from the gallows. This colorful crew rides the modern roads in a decidedly old-fashioned "traveling show" wagon, and their arrival upon every streetcorner is met with disinterest (at best) or overt physical rudeness (at worst), but of course (this being a Terry Gilliam film), it turns out the Dr. Parnassus (the wonderful Christopher Plummer) actually is the real deal.

Behind the sparkly cardboard mirror that resides on the Doctor's stage lies a stunningly odd world of gorgeous landscapes, bizarre creatures, and no shortage of plain old strangeness. Seems that poor old Dr. Parnassus is cursed to roam the world, spinning yarns for a modern culture that simply has no use for them. We're treated to various tales and explanations regarding lovely young Valentina (Lily Cole, ethereally gorgeous), the wide-eyed and ever-loyal Anton (Andrew Garfield, instantly lovable), the diminutive Percy (Verne Troyer, quite excellent), and the troubled-but-dangerous Tony (played quite strongly by the late Heath Ledger, with a little help from friends like Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell).

And then, just like a master storyteller would after all the set-up and character intros are out of the way, Gilliam gives us the hook: Seems that young Valentina will soon become the property of the devilish Mr. Nick (Tom Waits), if the good-hearted but befuddled (and frequently inebriated) Dr. Parnassus does not acquire five innocent souls before the girl's next birthday. And this is where the multi-faceted (and more than two-faced) Tony gets involved. His skills of showmanship help the Imagniarium to find a whole new class of clientele, but are the rich folks' souls really worth all that much?

And that's only the "real world" stuff! Just wait till you get a look inside that crazy mirror, movie fans, because it houses some of Gilliam's most fertile and amusing imaginings. (There are at least two sequences that look a little like old-school Python animations ... only in CGI and sort of in three dimensions!) The downbeat but still-hopeful "traveling show" story-line works as a perfect complement to the wildly fantastic tours inside the Imaginarium, and the ways in which Tony plays a vital role between Parnassus, Valentina, and Mr. Nick are both cleverly conceived and satisfyingly delivered.

(I was particularly impressed with how Gilliam managed to intermittently "replace" the late Heath Ledger with a few great actors. All I'll say is that the nature of the story -- and specifically the nature of Tony's character -- is what allows this experiment to work so well.)

Cooked up by Gilliam and longtime co-storyteller Charles McKeown, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is, to my eyes, a special sort of "comeback" for Terry Gilliam. The film bears all of his distinctly contorted trademarks: it's sweet yet sardonic, warm and bittersweet, wide-eyed, intelligent and playfully cynical. Plus it's so gorgeous to look at it almost damaged my eyes.

Philip French reviews the film Philip French from The Guardian, October 18, 2009

Over the years, Hollywood has lured successive generations of European film-makers with the promise of bigger budgets, major stars and personal wealth. Except for occasional forays for specific projects, the traffic in the other direction has been sporadic, most often the result of political pressures, as in the McCarthy era. But there have been a few important self-chosen American exiles – some temporary, some permanent – who have crossed the Atlantic in search of independence and an artistic breathing space. One thinks especially of Orson Welles, John Huston, Richard Lester, Stanley Kubrick and, of course, Terry Gilliam. Unlike the others, Gilliam became a British citizen and his characteristic new film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, co-scripted by Charles McKeown (who shared an Oscar nomination with Gilliam and Tom Stoppard for Brazil), is as grandly conceived, as boldly executed and as deeply flawed as anything he has done.

For more than 40 years, Gilliam, now 68, has been enriching British culture, first through his crucial involvement with Monty Python's Flying Circus on TV and the subsequent spins-offs, and then through his own films, the first several of which involved former Python associates. It's impossible to think of Monty Python without bringing to mind Gilliam's darkly comic graphic works that linked the sketches. Stylistically, an eclectic combination of surrealism and art nouveau, of the 19th and 20th centuries, they mixed the cruelly violent with the whimsical. His own features, which started with Jabberwocky, Time Bandits and Brazil, have juxtaposed fantasy and realism, the earthy and the ethereal, in a personal, extravagant manner that draws as much on the satire of Mark Twain as on the absurdity of Lewis Carroll. Like the characters who lie at the centre of his pictures – the crazy adventurer Baron Munchausen or the windmill-tilting hero of his abandoned 1999 film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote – he's a large-scale, romantic risk-taker, unafraid of falling flat on his face.

The "Imaginarium" of the film's title is a magical Victorian-style travelling theatre being trundled around a gloomy present-day London on a decrepit, three-storey, horse-drawn caravan driven by the aggressive 2ft 8in Percy (Verne Troyer). Percy appears in the shows along with the young barker and master of ceremonies Anton (Andrew Garfield), the moon-faced teenager Valentina (Lily Cole), who dresses from an old costume hamper, and her father, the ancient, boozy Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer reprising his familiar fruity old charmer). They work largely at night, never get far away from a dark, Dickensian Thames and are spectacularly unpopular, as is proved in a marvellous opening sequence set in the menacing corner of Borough Market beside a floodlit Southwark Cathedral.

Drunken yobs disrupt the performance and when one of them comes up on stage he's lured by Valentina through the Imaginarium's ribboned mirror into a set of stage flats. These turn into a frightening Arthur Rackham forest where he gets his comeuppance. The police intervene and make clear that Parnassus and his crowd are unwanted anachronisms, an impression confirmed during their next stop between the stately Victorian Tower Bridge and Norman Foster's deformed new City Hall.

Shortly thereafter, the company is driving across Blackfriars Bridge when they see on the water beneath the shadow of a hanging man, and find a stranger with a noose around his neck suspended over the river. This is both a reference to the Hanged Man of the Tarot pack and the execution on this very bridge of Roberto Calvi of the Vatican Bank. The charismatic stranger, Tony Liar (Heath Ledger) whom they rescue and revive, brings destructive evil to the company and involves them with a sinister conspiracy of the sort Calvi had served.

In flashback, we learn that Parnassus, a one-time Buddhist monk in the Himalayas, was charged with telling magical stories that sustain the human spirit. He made a pact with the Devil, Mr Nick (Tom Waits in bowler hat and sporting a hairline moustache), which guarantees him immortality, but at a terrible price. Clearly we're invited to identify Parnassus with Gilliam.

Meanwhile, Tony, the duplicitous conman, undertakes to transform the troupe's fortunes and takes them to an upmarket venue, the dazzling Victorian Leadenhall Market in the City of London. It is at this point that Ledger died during the film's production and he is replaced, in identical white suits and neat beards, by the equally dashing Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, who lead a succession of guests through the mirror into fabulous dreamscapes that become increasingly phantasmagoric. There are some seriously maladroit moments here, including a dance by a chorus of London cops wearing garter belts, chorus girl stockings and high heels, a reprise of the outrageously gay army parade ground skit in Monty Python's And Now for Something Completely Different. After that, the movie becomes somewhat intellectually mushy and sentimental, though never less than visually impressive.

One might well compare Gilliam's film with A Clockwork Orange, another fable set in a disturbing, off-key London by a fellow American who also settled north of the city, Stanley Kubrick. Both films are concerned with an oppressive state and the pressure to conform and they reveal much about their creators' view of life and what may have brought them to Europe.

Kubrick's preoccupation is the power of the will and how the state seeks to rob his protagonist of his free will. Gilliam's obsession is the imagination and its ability to ameliorate the human condition and liberate the individual.

Eric Kohn Low on Luster, Gilliam’s “Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Winds up a Sideshow, at Cannes from indieWIRE, May 22, 2009

Marred by shoddy special effects and half-formed fantastical conceits, Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” has the feeling of a comic fantasia desperately seeking to find its rhythm. Nearly abandoned after the sudden death of leading man Heath Ledger prior to completing production in January of last year, the final result reflects the frantic cobbling together of missing pieces. Ledger’s posthumous status haunts his scenes, as it does in the moments in which various actors replace him. Compounding that problem, the cartoonish CGI and inconsistent storytelling yield a seriously disjointed experience. Still, “Parnassus” deserves to be seen, probed and evaluated as an interesting misfire in Gilliam’s delectably quizzical canon.

The movie revolves around the eponymous traveling stage show, led by Dr. Parnassus (an enjoyably senile Christopher Plummer), a millennia-old magician whose immortality stems from a deal he made with the Devil (Tom Waits, topping his fleeting role as an angel in Tony Scott’s “Domino” with this far more appropriate casting decision). Unfortunately for Parnassus, the contract requires him to give up his daughter when she turns sixteen, a possibility that the younger doctor - at the time, childless - chose to ignore. In the present, though, he winds up with a lovely teenager named Valentina (Lily Cole) - and she’s on the brink of her sweet sixteen as the story begins.

The set up works; the details bump along with incorrigible problems. The bulk of the spectacle in “Parnassus” involves the other side of a mirror on his set, where attendees can venture into a sweepingly lyrical world within the confines of the showman’s mind. From the first scene, the problem of this central prop comes into focus: The world behind the mirror looks more than just fake - it looks cheesy. A psychedelic unreality akin to Tim Burton’s remake of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” this loopy alternate world becomes less of a problem at later points in the movie, but the transparency makes it hard to establish a credible aura of mystery from the outset.

Worse than that, the overall mythology of Parnassus and his magical troupe never truly congeals. There’s no hints at whether the world around him acknowledges the feasibility of his magical prowess or he must keep it a secret, “Harry Potter”-style. Without a steady framework in which to understand the movie, it lacks a much-needed luster from the beginning.

Ledger’s character complicates this glaring distraction. As Mr. Nick, an amnesiac discovered by the troupe and haphazardly added to their lineup, he dons a witty demeanor with enjoyable quirks. But Ledger’s very presence constantly forces the viewer to acknowledge his death, far more so than when he appeared as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” a mere six months after his demise. Nick’s first appearance in “Parnassus” invokes the real world casualty with the unseemly image of the actor hanging from a noose. Additionally, many scenes directly acknowledge his passing. In one, where Johnny Depp plays Mr. Nick - since he appears, in a clever bit of last-minute rewriting, in a slightly different form behind the mirror - the character discusses the current state of dead stars. “They are beyond fear,” he says. “Because they are forever young, they are gods.” It’s the kind of frustrating overstatement that belongs on the cutting room floor.

Still, “Parnassus” benefits from all-around solid performances from its entire cast, a factor that helps the wonder eventually settle into place. The other two main supporting actors, Verne Troyer as the troupe’s resident little person and Andrew Garfield as the supporting player in love with Valentina, never hog the screen as overt sideshow attractions. The gimmick of Mr. Nick’s changing faces has an obvious, tacked-on feel, but the two other actors filling his shoes, Depp and Colin Farrell, both know what they’re doing. One of the end credits calls the movie “a film from Heath Ledger and friends,” implying less of a finished product than a memento with shiny wrapping paper, and it definitely achieves that much.

Toward the end, in starts to turn into something better than that. The rather lengthy sequence with Farrell as Dr. Nick surpasses everything that came before, not because of his performance but due to Gilliam’s marvelously innovative design. Parnassus’s world falls apart at the seams, thanks to a deliciously quirky soundtrack and the eruption of visual splendor. Culminating with a literal dance with the Devil, “Parnassus” finally discovers a strange and wonderful vibe.

The relentless Hollywood outsider, Gilliam’s career is marked by his willingness to fight against impossible odds in order to realize his vision, much like Orson Welles. Despite all its difficulties, “Parnassus” continues to display Gilliam’s distinctive talents, and at least he finished the damn thing. In that sense, “Parnassus” is his “The Magnificent Ambersons,” rather than “The Other Side of the Wind,” if the Welles comparison makes sense.

Meanwhile, the potential for discovering Gilliam’s mind as we explore the one belonging to his main character gives the movie an intriguing autobiographic edge. “We need to meet the public halfway,” Mr. Nick tells the troupe, explaining how they can improve the show. “The secret is not to hide, to go places people never expected you at.” On that level, “Parnassus” undoubtedly works as an ongoing quest to generate awe. There are glimmers of it in the finale, which involves a coherent universe of frenzied visuals, leaving us to contemplate the potential for a better result.

The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review [Richard Scheib]

Pajiba (Drew Morton) review

Cinefantastique: The Review of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction Films Steve Biodrowski

Twitch (Todd Brown) review

Movie Vortex [Alex Diaz]

n:zone [D.Elias]

DVD Times Noel Megahey

DVD Outsider [Camus]

Cinema Autopsy (Thomas Caldwell) review [4.5/5]

filmcritic.com (Jesse Hassenger) review [3.5/5]

Urban Cinefile (Australia) - [Louise Keller + Andrew L. Urban]

Paste Magazine [Josh Jackson]

Moving Pictures magazine [Mike D'Angelo]

Jigsaw Lounge [Neil Young] San Sebastian Film Festival 2009

Film School Rejects [Brian Salisbury]

Slant Magazine review Fernando F. Croce

Screen International (Allan Hunter) review at Cannes

Eye for Film (Jennie Kermode) review [4.5/5]

Little White Lies [Josh Winning]

ReelViews (James Berardinelli) review [2.5/4]

DVD Talk (Jason Bailey) review [2/5]

Screenjabber review Steve Sparshott

CHUD.com (Devin Faraci) review

One Guy's Opinion (Frank Swietek) review [D+]

The Land of Eric (Eric D. Snider) review [D+]

FilmJerk.com (Brian Orndorf) review [D+] also seen here: DVD Talk and here: Briandom [Brian Orndorf]

Tim Voon review

Film Freak Central review Walter Chaw

Cannes '09: Day Ten Mike D’Angelo from The Onion A.V. Club, May 23, 2009

Charles Ealy at Cannes from Austin 360 Blogs, May 22, 2009

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus David Hudson at Cannes from The IFC Blog, May 22, 2009

CBC.ca Arts review Martin Morrow, which includes an interview with the director, December 22, 2009

Entertainment Weekly review [B-] Lisa Schwarzbaum

The Hollywood Reporter review Ray Bennett at Cannes, May 22, 2009

Time Out New York (Keith Uhlich) review [4/6]

Todd McCarthy at Cannes from Variety, May 22, 2009

Time Out Online (Dave Calhoun) review [2/6] at Cannes

Time Out London (Tom Huddleston) review [2/6] also including: Read our interview with Gilliam here

Time Out Chicago (Hank Sartin) review [2/6]

Phil Hoad: Parnassus shows Gilliam's Dutch courage Phil Hoad from The Guardian, October 13, 2009

David Thomson: How good was Heath Ledger? David Thomson from The Guardian, October 14, 2009

The Guardian (Peter Bradshaw) review October 15, 2009

The Guardian at Cannes 2009 (Peter Bradshaw) review [2/5] Terry Gilliam's Imaginarium may be for fans only, from The Guardian, May 22, 2009

Films that completed despite the death of the lead Damon Wise from The Guardian, October 17, 2009

Blog: The saddest thing about Gilliam's Imaginarium Catherine Shoard from The Guardian, May 22, 2009

The Daily Telegraph review [2/5] Tim Robey from The Daily Telegraph, October 15, 2009

Heath Ledger's replacements Marc Lee from The Daily Telegraph, October 8, 2009

Terry Gilliam interview Jessamy Calkin interview from The Daily Telegraph, October 8, 2009

Bafta awards 2009: Terry Gilliam on his Bafta fellowship and the death of Heath Ledge Cassandra Jardine interview from The Daily Telegraph, February 2, 2009

The Daily Telegraph review [3/5] Sukhdev Sandhu at Cannes from The Daily Telegraph, May 22, 2009

The Irish Times review [2/5] Donald Clarke, October 16, 2009

James Christopher at Cannes from Times Online, May 23, 2009

Charles Gant at Cannes from The Independent, May 23, 2009

Final Ledger film premiered at Cannes Ben Hoyle from Times Online, May 23, 2009

Terry Gilliam on Heath Ledger and Imaginarium Wendy Ide interviews Gilliam from Times Online, May 14, 2009

Austin Chronicle review [3/5] Marjorie Baumgarten

San Francisco Chronicle [Mick LaSalle]

Kenneth Turan Terry Gilliam used magic to finish 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,' Gilliam interview from The LA Times, May 22, 2009

Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan) review

The New York Times (Manohla Dargis) review

Gilroy, Dan

NIGHTCRAWLER B- 81

USA (117 mi) 2014 ‘Scope Official site

I believe he’s an uber-capitalist, and capitalism is a religion, it’s a religion that gives him sanity and which ultimately drives him insane and pushes him over the edge. It’s a mindless pursuit of a goal that can never be achieved. That ultimately leaves only a hunger, which goes back to the coyote—this perpetual hunger that can never be satiated.
—Director Dan Gilroy

If it bleeds, it leads. —Joe Loder (Bill Paxton)

Like Christian Bale in THE MACHINEST (2004), Jake Gyllenhaal lost about 20 pounds for the role, never looking emaciated, but creating a significant enough change that he simply looks odd and peculiar, creating one of the creepier characters to inhabit the screen of late. While he’s no Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver (1976), he does play a reclusive sociopath prowling the streets of Los Angeles in the middle of the night. Meet Lou Bloom (Gyllenhaal), always seen with a subtle facial tic to go along with that persistent grin that supposedly sets others at ease, yet this man is as uncomfortable in his skin as is humanly possible, where he slinks around with the mannerisms of an extraterrestrial creature inhabiting an earthly life form, almost always hiding some sinister purpose that he spends his entire life hiding. With no backstory whatsoever, we are introduced to this character as he breaks into a chain-locked construction site salvaging what scrap iron he can find, cold cocking an inquiring security guard and taking his watch after professing his innocence, claiming the gate was open and he got lost. With this, we know we are dealing with someone who has no problem crossing the moral boundaries, whose criminal inclinations come natural, which he routinely covers up with lies. While negotiating a price for his stolen wares, he asks for a job at the scrap yard, but the boss indicates he makes it his policy not to hire thieves. While driving home, he passes an accident site where emergency personnel are working frantically to free a woman trapped in the wreckage of an auto collision, where he discovers Joe (Bill Paxton), an amateur cameraman filming the entire scene, claiming he sells his footage to local TV news shows. Trading a stolen bike for a cheap camcorder and radio scanner, Lou invents a new career for himself overnight, scampering to the sites of accidents, where arriving early offers him a foot up on the competition.

Initially when he tries to sell some footage to a late night news director with failing ratings, Nina (Rene Russo, the director’s wife), she indicates she already has that footage, but Lou insists he was closer to the bleeding victim, with a better angle, which suddenly draws her attention, where she agrees to buy his material so long as he sells it exclusively to her station. Her stated policy is exposing crime only in the upscale neighborhoods that are not normally associated with crime, which makes it a story, while feeding the public constant images of horrific accidents, each one more gruesome than the last, as the public can never get enough of this kind of carnage in their neighborhoods. While this is a distorted viewpoint that is undeniably disturbing and unapologetically cynical, this kind of skewed vision is what passes for journalism today, where stories are no longer developed by beat reporters showing initiative and hard work, or drawn out by subsequent follow-up interviews, as instead they cater to an audience with short attention spans, becoming a business of providing ghastly images that the public devours whole. His late night escapades lead to a series of scoops, trading in his beat-up car for a racy fire-red Dodge Charger with more sophisticated equipment, where the GPS is hooked up to his police scanner through a computer touchscreen, creating instant directions to wherever he wants to go. With this, he hires the first person available to work for nothing, homeless intern, Rick (Riz Ahmed), claiming this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to develop skills that will further his career in the news business, helping to operate a second camera while navigating the route. Rick is just an ordinary average Joe, the kind of guy looking to make a buck as he’s down on hard times, where eventually he’s promised $30 bucks a night, where Lou continually promises him advancement within the company if he does well.

This is a job that literally flirts with disaster, as Lou is so over the edge that his deranged reality isn’t really close to that of anybody else, where he’s willing to go light years beyond what would be considered questionable moral judgment, where in one accident, arriving ahead of the police, he actually moves the dead body for a more dramatic shot, staging the footage much like the news programs stage the news. In Nina, he has the direct descendent of Faye Dunaway’s manic ambition for ratings in Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976), someone so desperate that she’s willing to deal with a bottom feeder like Lou, looking the other way when it comes to ethics, as getting what she wants in order to further her own career is all she cares about. Rivaling even Billy Wilder’s ACE IN THE HOLE (1951) as the most cynical movie ever made, Lou is so hell-bent on getting his footage on TV by any means necessary, while establishing a name for himself and his business, which means taking creative license whenever the opportunity presents itself. When he arrives at a home invasion ahead of the police, he actually witnesses and films the burglars coming out of the home, driving away in their van, complete with an image of their license plate. But if that wasn’t enough, he then enters the home with his camera leading, where there are multiple casualties on the ground lying in a pool of their own blood, where he literally canvases the entire house before making his getaway, all prior to anyone else arriving on the scene. This footage catches the attention of homicide detectives who would like to know how he obtained such raw material shot at the scene of a crime before officers arrived. While it’s, of course, blatantly illegal, he falls within a gray area of the law by claiming he intended to help or rescue any surviving victims. Curiously, one was still alive when he arrived, something he carefully edited out of his footage (which is demanded by the police), but he was dead by the time others arrived. Lou skillfully manipulates his way around the police, who see right through his shoddy story, but they have no countering evidence to arrest him. Taking the law into his own hands, Lou withholds the information about seeing the killers and instead orchestrates the arrest in a public place where he will have the exclusive footage of what transpires. While this is a nightmarish vision of a gloomy and hopeless world, deluded beyond recognition, it’s not without heavy doses of dark humor, where the bleak and exaggerated style by Dan Gilroy (brother to Tony, writer of three of the Bourne series, director of one) invites its own criticism for simply being too preposterous, veering into the SIN CITY (2005) neo-noir moral void of underground comic books.

NIGHTCRAWLER Ken Rudolph Film Site

Jake Gyllenhaal completely immerses himself in an anti-hero role which will undoubtedly startle his fans. In this contemporary thriller he plays Lou Bloom, an up-and-coming, freelance news stringer who drives around Los Angeles with a police scanner and video camera to shoot bloody sequences to sell to sensationalistic TV news shows. Gyllenhaal plays Lou as a wide eyed, emaciated sociopath...and it is a role that elevates his acting cred, somewhat reminiscent of what Christian Bale did in The Mechanic.

That the film creeped me out is sort of irrelevant. The action sequences (especially a super-charged car chase) and the superb color cinematography which brings a whole new dimension to portraying Los Angeles, compensate for the stomach churning crime footage. But make no mistake, this is Gyllenhaal's film and he runs with it.

Ioncinema [Nicholas Bell]

You’ll be hard pressed to find a more enjoyably witty criticism of modern exploitative media tactics taken to a new extreme than Dan Gilroy’s viciously adept directorial debut, Nightcrawler. Humanity’s morbid curiosity with the grisly, disturbing, and depraved happenings in the world around us has long tainted the art of journalism and mass media, and has thus been depicted for ages already in the cinema. Gilroy’s film owes as much to Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole (1951) as it does Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976), upping the action ante with the growing Gilroy stamp (his brother directed Michael Clayton and the last Bourne film). And yet, it’s an excitingly well written dark hearted treatise with a vitriolic little statement all its own, a glorious new love letter to the seedy underside of Los Angeles, a city that bleeds during sleep.

Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a petty thief, trying to get by. Interrupted while stealing scrap metal by a security guard, we understand he’s prone to violence as well as surprisingly intelligent, though he can’t seem to adapt to a successful scheme. Trolling the streets and freeways of Los Angeles at night, he comes upon an accident on the 110 and witnesses a woman pried out of a burning vehicle as a video photographer (Bill Paxton) feverishly takes footage before being barked at by the cops. Lou inquires if that’s a lucrative business and is rudely handled. Securing his own camera from a pawnshop, Bloom gets some exclusive footage from a grisly shooting and sells it to the midnight shift news director at a local news station. The headline hungry Nina (Rene Russo) fosters his passion by commenting he has a good eye, but needs better equipment. Unafraid to take extreme risks, the overzealous Bloom soon hires a desperate assistant for navigation purposes, the nearly homeless Rick (Riz Ahmed). But it’s not long before Bloom’s drive carries him over the edge of rationality and legality.

Gyllenhaal, who lost twenty pounds for the role, gives a performance to relish. Between his double billing of excellent Denis Villeneuve films last year (Prisoners; Enemy) and this film, he’s beginning to make good on that promise from the earlier part of his career over a decade ago, starring in films like Donnie Darko and The Good Girl. Apathetic, realistic, driven, and passionate, his Lou Bloom (which has the sort of American ring to it as something like Willy Loman in Travis Bickle clothes) seems to fall somewhere on the autism spectrum, seemingly without a filter that would let him blend into more acceptable social circles. We almost pity news director Nina for allowing herself to be exploited, but this is quid pro quo—she’s been exploiting him since their first interaction. In a dog eat dog world, they’re a perfect symbiosis.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Rene Russo front and center so prolifically, and she’s sensational—why it’s taken husband Gilroy so long to utilize her thus is anyone’s guess, but she’s Gyllenhaal’s exciting equal. During their early, more innocent commiserations, he’s in awe of the news station’s Los Angeles backdrop, “It looks more real on TV,” he comments. And thus, we’re at the cultural crux we’ve been stuck at since the inception of television, something that’s only deepened, sickened, and twisted us more so with the glut of reality based programming. Likewise, Riz Ahmed’s Rick is another testament to the multitalented performer’s range. As much praise as Gyllenhaal’s hollowed out, sunken eyed Bloom will generate, Ahmed’s Rick, a well-meaning, down on his luck ball of naive desperation, should be acknowledged. Starring in films like Four Lions (2010) and Ill Manors (2012), this latest should finally earn him wider recognition. And Bill Paxton as a crudely aggressive cog in the freelance world of the “stringer” is some inspired casting.

A dark hearted neo-noir of the seedier side of Los Angeles, often neglected now in an era that prizes euphemisms, political correctness, and bright shiny toy cinema, Nightcrawler is violent, funny, and, best of all, well written. You could say it’s like a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut.

A.V. Club [Mike D'Angelo] also seen here: Jake Gyllenhaal finally gets his breakout with Nightcrawler

As Louis Bloom, the dangerously enterprising young man at the center of Nightcrawler, Jake Gyllenhaal sports an unnerving new look. He reportedly lost 20 pounds (from an already wiry frame) for the role, but it doesn’t make him appear skeletal (à la, say, Christian Bale in The Machinist) so much as—to borrow a phrase from an early Fall single—totally wired. His eyes pop out of his gaunt face, making it seem as if he’s leaning forward, intruding into someone’s personal space, even when he’s standing completely still. Not that Louis often stands still, mind you. Nightcrawler is a portrait of an amoral opportunist who stumbles upon his horrible calling, and the film’s chief pleasure is watching Gyllenhaal portray what it might be like if Rushmore’s Max Fischer grew up to become Chuck Tatum, the unscrupulous reporter played by Kirk Douglas in Billy Wilder’s scabrous Ace In The Hole. It’s adolescent solipsism gone grotesquely rancid.

When Nightcrawler begins, Louis is struggling to make a meager living by stealing and reselling scrap metal, a hustle that sometimes requires him to coldcock security guards. One fateful night, however, he stumbles onto a crime scene and witnesses TV-news reporters hovering over the carnage like vultures with cameras. After pestering one of them, Joe (Bill Paxton), for details about his sleazy profession—nightcrawlers are freelance crews competing for the grisliest footage of wee-hours blood ’n’ guts—Louis immediately goes into business for himself, buying equipment and hiring a clueless intern (Riz Ahmed) to help him out. His tirelessness and ambition—combined with blatant disregard for the law, professional ethics, and common decency—land him a working relationship with the news director (Rene Russo) of a low-rated L.A. station, which he parlays into sexual blackmail. And before long, merely looking for tragedy isn’t enough for Louis, who decides the smartest career move would be to manufacture some carnage of his own.

Written and directed by Dan Gilroy (brother of Tony Gilroy, the auteur behind Michael Clayton and Duplicity), Nightcrawler pushes its cynicism about ratings-hungry news outlets so hard that it frequently crosses the line into overly blunt caricature. Unlike Network, which has often been similarly criticized, Louis’ rise up the ranks of bottom-feeders doesn’t function as black comedy—when Russo’s Faye Dunaway-style career woman candidly informs Louis that she’s looking for stories that will reinforce affluent white viewers’ fear of minorities, she comes across as just repulsively pragmatic rather than grandiosely inhuman. Toward the end, Gilroy loses faith in the audience’s intelligence and starts clonking us on the head, writing dialogue that doubles as a thesis statement and engineering Louis’ behavior in ways that serve the message instead of the story. It’s as if Tatum had graduated from keeping some poor slob trapped in a cave (so he can milk the story) to pushing people down mine shafts.

All the same, Nightcrawler is well worth seeing just for Gyllenhaal’s spectacularly creepy performance. Blinking as little as possible and speaking every line with robotic conviction, he makes Louis the sort of person who discovered early in life that it’s possible to get away with nearly anything so long as one couches one’s words in the right tone, except that he has a truly warped notion of what the right tone is. Even the most obnoxiously persistent door-to-door salesmen have nothing on this guy, who treats everybody he encounters as an obstacle to be politely mowed down with bland verbiage derived from corporate jargon. It’s a mesmerizing turn from an actor who, while frequently quite good, has never really had a breakout role until now—overshadowed by Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, too (appropriately) recessive to be iconic in Donnie Darko or Zodiac, already forgotten in Prince Of Persia. Nightcrawler gives him a chance to make a lasting impression, and he takes full, fanatical advantage.

Nightcrawler / The Dissolve Scott Tobias

There’s no real answer to What Makes Sammy Run?, the title of Budd Schulberg’s classic novel about a poor, Lower East Side kid who schemes and betrays his way to the top of the Hollywood food chain. But the book ponders it anyway, marveling at the mysterious engine that drives ruthless, empty ambition. Dan Gilroy’s lurid thriller Nightcrawler has a lot of What Makes Sammy Run? in its DNA, along with TV news satires like Ace In The Hole and Network, which both suggested the most natural medium for go-getters like Schulberg’s Sammy Glick. As a critique of “if it bleeds, it leads” news-gathering venality, the film isn’t exactly blowing the lid off the Fourth Estate, especially when it apes Paddy Chayefsky’s weakness for turning characters into mouthpieces. But it’s absolutely riveting as a case study in sociopathic initiative, powered by a Jake Gyllenhaal performance that strips the varnish off the sweet, smiling, ingratiating persona that made him a star.

Making a directorial debut after scripting several Hollywood movies—including Freejack, Two For The Money, and The Bourne Legacy, that last for his brother Tony—Dan Gilroy cross-pollinates genres with sometimes-reckless élan, offering a mishmash of black comedy, breakneck action, and social commentary under the banner of L.A. noir. But Nightcrawler has speed in its favor: With Gyllenhaal putting the pedal to the floor, the film rides shotgun through a nocturnal world of fires, car wrecks, and mangled bodies, all sobering scenes that are transformed into thrilling, camera-ready scoops. Gilroy is so plugged into his antihero’s grotesque opportunism that it’s hard not to feel a residual kick.

Nightcrawler works best when Gyllenhaal is in hustler mode, trying to scam his way ahead either through the soft tactic of excess flattery, or more vigorous forms of arm-twisting. Shown first as a petty thief, stealing chain-link fences, copper wire, and scrap metal for cash, Louis Bloom (Gyllenhaal) happens upon a crash site where a freelance videographer (Bill Paxton) is recording footage for local broadcast news. Suitably inspired, Louis trades in a stolen bicycle for a video camera and a police scanner and gets to work, quickly establishing himself as a source for Nina (Rene Russo), a graveyard-shift news director for a struggling L.A. station. As his aggression continues to pay dividends, Louis picks up a faster car and a compliant assistant (Riz Ahmed) to navigate, and tries to beat the competition for graphic news footage. When he arrives at a grisly home-invasion scene before the police, Louis eagerly pounces on his biggest story to date, but crosses all sorts of ethical boundaries to do it.

What’s striking about Louis isn’t that he violates ethics, but that he only vaguely recognizes that such boundaries exist. He’s a diabolical savant, given to monologues about hard work and motivation, but uncomprehending of human feeling insofar as it doesn’t benefit him. Unlike Kirk Douglas in Ace In The Hole, Louis can’t even pretend to care about other people, so he’s a Travis Bickle-like creature of the night, relating only to other creatures like Nina, who’s more or less a carbon copy of Faye Dunaway’s ratings-hungry executive in Network. As photographed by Robert Elswit, whose feel for Los Angeles has been well established in the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, Gyllenhaal is made to look gaunt and sub-human, with the whites of his eyes so pronounced that they’re almost alien. “What makes Louis run?” is a question that keeps Nightcrawler clicking along, even through passages where pace is all it has going for it.

Nightcrawler gets into trouble as Louis grows more sophisticated in framing and staging the news, sacrificing the compelling mysteries of his ambition for larger, more didactic statements on the practices of local news. Watching Louis cross the line is far more interesting than listening to characters talk about how Louis has crossed the line, particularly when his big exclusive breaks, and the police enter the picture. There’s a scolding tone to Nightcrawler that runs counter to its pulp energy, as if Gilroy is telling the audience to be alarmed by the things that turn them on. But much as Gilroy tries to be his own killjoy, Gyllenhaal’s wickedness prevails.

The New Yorker [Anthony Lane]

Nightcrawler: A Breakthrough for Jake Gyllenhaal Christopher Orr from The Atlantic

The Playlist [Rodrigo Perez]

PopMatters [Jon Lisi] 'Nightcrawler' Reminds Us That Capitalism and the Media Have Gotten Worse

Jake Gyllenhaal Is a Self-Made Monster in Nightcrawler - Slate Dana Stevens

Movie City News [Michael Wilmington]

ErikLundegaard.com - Movie Review: Nightcrawler (2014)

In Review Online [Carson Lund]

Little White Lies [Adam Woodward]

Twitch [Jason Gorber]

Slant Magazine [Chris Cabin]

The Film Stage [Jared Mobarak]

HitFix [Drew McWeeny]

SBS Movies [Shane Danielsen]

Sound On Sight (J.R. Kinnard)

Nightcrawler | Reviews | Screen - Screen International Tim Grierson

Fantastic Fest Review: NIGHTCRAWLER Will Make You ... Evan Saathoff from Badass Digest

Rolling Stone [Peter Travers]

Armchair Cinema [Jerry Dean Roberts]

DVD Savant - Blu-ray [Glenn Erickson]

DVD Sleuth [Mike Long]

AVForums - Blu-ray [Cas Harlow]

DVD Verdict (Blu-ray) [Erich Asperschlager]

Blu-ray.com [Kenneth Brown]

DoBlu.com Blu-ray [Matt Paprocki]

IGN Movies [Chris Tilly]

Rope of Silicon [Brad Brevet]

ReelTalk [Diana Saenger]

Parallax View [Sean Axmaker]

Film School Rejects [Kate Erbland]

Nightcrawler - Reelviews Movie Reviews James Berardinelli

Grolsch Film Works [Ashley Clark]

KQEK.com [Mark R. Hasan]

Sound On Sight [Jacob Carter]

Reel Insights [Hannah McHaffie] also seen here: Hannah McHaffie [Hannah McHaffie]

Georgia Straight [Kim Linekin]

EyeForFilm.co.uk [Donald Munro]

Film Freak Central Review [Angelo Muredda]

The House Next Door [Tomas Hachard]

AllMovie [Jason Buchanan]

PopMatters [Thomas Britt] Interview with the director, February 23, 2015

The Hollywood Reporter [Jordan Mintzer]

The Guardian [Henry Barnes]

Nightcrawler review - The Guardian Jonathan Romney

Nightcrawler review - The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

The Telegraph [Tim Robey]

NOW Toronto [Norman Wilner]

Examiner.com [Ben Kenber]

Examiner.com [Travis Hopson] also seen here: Punch Drunk Critics [Travis Hopson]

New Jersey Stage [Eric Hillis]

The Star-Ledger [Stephen Whitty]

Washington Post [Ann Hornaday]

The Buffalo News [Christopher Schobert]

Kansas City Star [Jon Niccum]

Nightcrawler's Jake Gyllenhaal Aces Being an Everyday ... Stephanie Zacharek from Minneapolis City Pages

Austin Chronicle [William Goss]

'Nightcrawler' Movie review by Kenneth Turan - LA Times

Los Angeles Times [Oliver Gettell]

New York Times [MIchael Cieply]

Nightcrawler - Roger Ebert Matt Zoller Seitz

'Nightcrawler' Stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an Obsessive - The ... A.O. Scott from The New York Times

DVD Talk [Jeffrey Kauffman]

Gilroy, Frank

DESPERATE CHARACTERS

USA (97 mi) 1971

User reviews from imdb Author: Neil Doyle from U.S.A.

Not exactly a cheerful slice of life in the big city, DESPERATE CHARACTERS does bring a certain truth to its story of two middle-aged New Yorkers who seem to be losers in a world where everyday daily life is a struggle to get through. It has nothing that hasn't been said before, particularly by writer/director Gilroy who already gave us more of the same in his THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES. And as compared to another slice of city life, like A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, it suffers in comparison.

The trouble is the script which has all of the characters giving theatrical monologues revealing themselves in dialog that doesn't sound natural coming from these people. But SHIRLEY MacLAINE stands out among the cast with one of her better serious performances in a demanding role. She seems honest and real, despite some flowery dialog.

MacLaine herself dismissed the film as a failure in her autobiography, but it does have some holding power despite its downbeat effect.

There's an old saying in show business that timing is everything. Though it's a long forgotten footnote now, a lot of the Oscar buzz back in 1972 revolved around Shirley MacLaine's risky performance in Desperate Characters, a low-budget "kitchen sink" drama written and directed by Frank Gilroy that seemed decidedly at odds with her recent big budget and big PR films like Sweet Charity and Two Mules for Sister Sara. And yet when the Best Actress nominees were announced, MacLaine wasn't among them, and the blame was laid largely on MacLaine's other entertainment foray that year, her lame and quickly cancelled television series "Shirley's World." In the film world of that day, it was fine to have starred in some pretty big box office disappointments (like Charity), but absolutely unforgivable to have "gone over to the dark side," television-wise, especially in something as universally panned as Shirley's series about a globe-trotting photographer.

And yet Characters remains one of MacLaine's crowning screen achievements, a performance of searing power and pain that is certainly superior to her ultimate Oscar winning one in Terms of Endearment. Though MacLaine herself dismissed the film as a failure, it nonetheless contains two of the most intense--if relentlessly emotionally tamped down--performances of 1970s film, by MacLaine and the superb Kenneth Mars, both actors completely erasing years of comedic star turns in one fell dramatic swoop. In fact, the entire film, largely a dialogue between MacLaine and Mars as an unhappy Manhattan couple, plays a bit like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on barbiturates. These characters, unlike Albee's volcanic couple, are too "proper" to ever really let their emotions loose, hence their Thoreau-esque lives of "quiet desperation."

The plot, such as it is, revolves around twin predicaments--MacLaine is bit by a feral cat she has been feeding, and Mars' longtime law partnership with Gerald O'Loughlin has just dissolved, to the consternation of both men. It doesn't sound like much, and it really isn't, but under Gilroy's low-key direction and with his absolutely unmatched ear for dialogue, it all unravels (literally) as the perfect dystopian portrait of life crammed into a city where everyone is aching to get out.

MacLaine's Sophie is alternately elegant, earthy, wounded and superior, and MacLaine has never been more commanding on screen than in her portrayal of a modern woman caught in the throes of a rabid society that has just reached out and touched her in a very real way. Mars is simply a revelation in this role. If you know him only through his inspired work in such Mel Brooks films as The Producers and Young Frankenstein, prepare to be amazed at the brutish power of his Otto, a brutishness buried under layers of mild-mannered banalities and well-heeled mores. The shocking denouement, when the couple finds that their country refuge has been vandalized, is a tour de force for both actors and will leave most viewers squirming uncomfortably as the webs these two have weaved with each other ensnare them.

Sada Thompson also has a nice turn as Sophie's friend Clare, an aging divorcee (whose husband still camps out in her loft) who brings the truths of what happens to women "of a certain age" home to Sophie one afternoon. Also look for Carol Kane in a quick cameo role as a hippie girl attending an upper west side party that MacLaine and Mars visit.

Desperate Characters is certainly not a film for those who need slam-bang action sequences or conflict spelled out in terms of good guys versus bad guys. For those willing to experience characters through their dialogue (and their silences), this is a widely undervalued gem that sums up the beginning of the independent film movement brilliantly, and it contains arguably MacLaine's finest performance ever.

DVD Talk [Glenn Erickson] also seen here: TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES

Time Magazine [Stefan Kanfer]

DVD Verdict [Christopher Kulik]

Film Review: Russians join Battle of Waterloo -- Napoleon still loses Toni Mastroianni from The Cleveland Press

DVD review: 'Desperate Characters' - SFGate Mick LaSalle

New York Times [Vincent Canby] (registration req'd)

FROM NOON TILL THREE

USA (99 mi) 1976

Turner Classic Movies [Rob Nixon]

A Western, adapted by Gilroy from his own novel, whose ideas are executed with an uncertainty that makes whole chunks of the film virtually unwatchable. After a premonition, Bronson sends his gang to their deaths while he passes the afternoon conning a rich widow (Ireland) into bed. Later, thinking he has died a heroic death, she turns the memorabilia of their relationship into a flourishing tourist industry; and when he finally turns up again (after an ignoble spell in jail), she safeguards the legend by ensuring that no one will heed his attempts to reclaim his identity. In its unfolding, the story becomes distinctly uncomfortable, an unhappy mixture of light romantic comedy and something altogether darker (after all, it begins with a nightmare and ends in madness). On top of this, there's the added torture of watching Bronson trying to struggle out of the acting straitjacket that he has worn for some years.

One of the strangest and most overlooked film westerns, From Noon Till Three (1976) begins with a nightmare, ends with madness and in between unreels as both a light romantic comedy, a send-up of heroic period pieces and a revisionist look at the making of myths of the Old West.

Charles Bronson plays a desperado who, despite an eerie premonition, sends his gang off to a bank robbery as he wiles away an afternoon wooing a rich widow, played by Bronson's then-wife, the late Jill Ireland. Bronson rides off, Ireland believes, to rescue his men. But he has actually gone in the opposite direction and switched identities with another man who is killed in his place. Thinking he has died a heroic death, Ireland decides to turn their brief affair (the three hours bracketed in the film's title) into fodder for popular legend, making the memories of their romantic tryst into a flourishing tourist industry of sorts. Bronson eventually returns, but he is so different from the idealized image she has built, she doesn't recognize him at first. (Interestingly, this is also the basic plot device of the 1934 Douglas Fairbanks film The Private Life of Don Juan.) And when the truth is discovered, it ends badly for both of them.

Perhaps the commercial disappointment of From Noon Till Three can't all be placed on the film; its director, Frank Gilroy, who also wrote the screenplay based on his own novel; or its star team, who had a hit a year earlier with Breakheart Pass. Apparently 1976 wasn't a great year for oddball, revisionist westerns; neither Arthur Penn's Missouri Breaks, starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, nor Robert Altman's Buffalo Bill and the Indians, with Paul Newman, fared much better.

In this film, Bronson gamely parodied his own action-hero image indelibly established in such work as Mr. Majestyk (1974), Death Wish (1974) and Hard Times (1975). But when this picture tanked, he returned to the laconic, violent roles audiences were more familiar with in such movies as Telefon (1977), 10 to Midnight (1983), all the way up into the 90s with four Death Wish sequels.

Never exactly a critical darling, Ireland was generally criticized for her portrayal in this film, but again much of that might be credited to a general distaste at the time for movies that debunked the heroic myths of American history. She only made five more pictures after this before her death from cancer in 1990. But she left behind 15 films with Bronson, making them a sort of Tracy and Hepburn of action flicks. In From Noon Till Three, she sang the Golden Globe-nominated theme song "Hello and Goodbye," with lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, who wrote the songs for Yentl (1983), and music by award-winning composer Elmer Bernstein, who also wrote the score for this picture.

To date, Gilroy has only directed four other feature films, none of them big successes, but viewers may be more familiar with his name as the screenwriter for the Elizabeth Taylor-Warren Beatty vehicle The Only Game in Town (1970) and The Subject Was Roses (1968), both based on plays he authored. What viewers may not know is that he is also the "Bert Blessing" credited for the screenplay of the (some would say appropriately named) Jinxed! (1982), starring Bette Midler.

From Noon Till Three Review (1976) Graeme Clark from The Spinning Image

Mattias Thuresson

The Video Vacuum [Mitch Lovell]

All Movie Guide [Mark Deming]

TV Guide

Variety.com [Variety Staff]

Movie Review - From Noon Till Three - 'Noon Till Three,' Western ... Vincent Canby from The New York Times

TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES Michael T. Toole remembrance of Charles Bronson

Gilroy, Tony

MICHAEL CLAYTON B 88

USA (119 mi) 2007 ‘Scope

When I found out the director of this film had written The Bourne Identity series, my expectations were immediately lowered, as that realm of near impossible escapes, car chases, perfectly timed explosions and GQ actors in a super action flick resembles Pirates of the Caribbean for adults. Imagine my surprise to find another unraveling near incomprehensible conspiracy theory evolving onscreen. I found this to be George Clooney’s version of ERIN BROCKOVICH (2000), which starred his friend Julia Roberts as an unsung yet tireless crusader successfully taking on the powerful corporate interests of a power company that was polluting the water supply, causing an outbreak of cancer to the local residents. In this story, Clooney plays Michael Clayton, a corporate fixer, a behind the scenes kind of guy who makes problems go away, or at least minimizes them to the point where they will do the least amount of damage. Without any real back story, we enter the picture on an accidental hit and run death where the misfortunes of the rich and famous responsible are getting cleaned up by Clayton before our eyes, where the perpetrator is pissed that he can’t just make the problem go away. Within minutes, shot in a near idyllic peace, there is an attempt on Clayton’s life. We back track 4 years to events that lead to that morning, where a large and hugely successful New York City law firm is attempting to settle its nuisance lawsuits against a few farmers in Wisconsin who are dying off from the cancer-riddled pesticide products that the law firm represents, that has in fact been the backbone of their economic fortunes for the past twenty years.

Opening in the dark with only the mad ravings of a man (Tom Wilkinson) who is attempting to find the precise wording for his latest revelations, this can be a cloudy and muddled picture, something of a misfire as the exposure to the corporate underbelly of underhanded operations and secret dealings are far too convoluted, where a dark, shadowy mood matters much more than making sense, where it’s all about establishing intrigue emblematic of the shadowy world Clayton himself moves around in. But in this film, when one of the senior law partners (Wilkinson) of the prestigious firm starts ripping his clothes off at a deposition and wailing how the firm is an instrument of death, initially thought to be off his anti-depressant medication, instead he may be secretly sabotaging the firm’s own case, attempting to make unauthorized secret deals with the complainants themselves, some of which is based on a book Clayton’s estranged son is reading which is all about a game where the object is managing to survive in a world where everyone around you is suspected of being your enemy. Into this murky atmosphere, Clayton is assigned the task of getting a handle on this man, protecting the firm by keeping him under control, but it’s his trickiest operation yet, as Wilkinson is not cooperating and playing hard to get. Meanwhile, there are several minor story threads, each intersecting into this main artery, all making it just a little more complicated.

One of the more interesting parallel stories involves a corporation attorney Tilda Swinton, who represents the interests of the cancer causing company, which means she’ll go to desperate measures to protect her product, which involves following Wilkinson, tapping into his phone lines and silencing him, if necessary, before he ruins their prospective pay date. Swinton is easily in over her head, but that’s one of the joys of the whole affair, as she’s deliciously evil, reminiscent of one of her recent roles as the White Witch in NARNIA. This swirling world of corporate espionage matches what we see as high level governmental subterfuge, where undeterred criminal behavior is fairly routine, where it’s interesting to see the way Swinton plays her moral confusion, showing how her entire body doesn’t seem to work properly, as there are quite subtle, nervous gestures which have a life of their own, even affecting her speech patterns, all attacking her as she attempts to maintain her calm and reassuring composure. Clayton himself undergoes major stress levels due to financial pressures in his own life as well as the wearying effects of being asked to solve everybody’s problems, but it’s the nature of his business that he can’t ever let on, like a high stakes game of poker, where the one left standing in the end is the one who internalizes and hides what they’re really doing and maintains their composure. It’s a cat and mouse world where it all comes together in the end just a little too easily, as it’s not from clues or reading signs in the story, instead it feels all too contrived when it’s simply written into the script. Two of the more hard-to-forget images of the film are the looming presence of the Mercedes Benz logo and the long contemplative final shot which plays over the end credits. While this dour and humorless film has a sleek look to it with superb production values, and while this is not your typical entertainment vehicle due to the complexities of the sprawling plot twists, it’s still little more than an upgrade in pure Hollywood entertainment.

FlickFilosopher.com [MaryAnn Johanson]

Long-established as a top-table Hollywood screenwriter - Dolores Claiborne, Armageddon, the Bourne trilogy, etc - Gilroy belatedly takes up directorial duties with this pleasingly oldfashioned, multi-latered character-study-cum-conspiracy-drama. It's produced by several conspicuously award-laden directors, including the film's star George Clooney (plays the eponymous lawyer, called in as a behind-the-scenes 'fixer' on particularly tricky cases) Sydney Pollack (contributes a delicious turn as Clayton's jaded-at-the-summit boss), Steven Soderbergh, and Anthony Minghella - and it's unlikely any of them would have done a much better job than debutant Gilroy. Classily solid in every department and very nicely played, Michael Clayton - while admittedly no Bourne Supremacy - is that increasingly rare beast: a satisfyingly, unassumingly adult-oriented picture which knows its limitations and is careful to operate within them.

Austin Chronicle [Steve Davis]

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” That oft-quoted line from one of Shakespeare’s plays may reverberate in your mind while watching the meticulous legal thriller Michael Clayton. To be clear, this smart and thoroughly entertaining film doesn’t engage in attorney-bashing as much as it thoughtfully asks the question of where a lawyer’s ethical responsibility to zealously represent a client ends and the societal interest in achieving justice begins. In Michael Clayton the truth is a slippery thing, particularly when billions of dollars are at stake in a class-action lawsuit in which an agrochemical corporate giant is accused of manufacturing a toxic product resulting in hundreds of deaths. When the brilliant lead attorney for the corporate defendant suffers a public meltdown during a deposition, his high-powered law firm brings in the titular character to “fix” the situation. Michael Clayton (Clooney) may have a degree in jurisprudence, but he doesn’t practice law in the traditional sense. Rather, he’s the firm’s highly paid janitor, a man who cleans up messes before they become something unmanageable. The irony is that Clayton is unable to clean up his own mess of a life: He is divorced, struggling with a gambling addiction, and financially strapped after the failure of a business venture in which he invested his life’s savings. The plot kicks into high gear when Clayton discovers why his colleague has gone off the deep end. It’s this knowledge that challenges his moral conscience and, ultimately, places his life in danger. Director/screenwriter Gilroy has crafted a streamlined screenplay that is both sleek and provocative, with few subplots and loose ends to distract you from the narrative’s essence. Occasionally, the pieces fit together more perfectly than real life would allow, and the ending of the film, while extremely gratifying, is more Hollywood than a film purist might like. But these are minor criticisms when considering that Michael Clayton is a rare thing these days – an intelligent and captivating thriller that doesn’t devour itself with ridiculous plot twists and a dumbfounding ending. The acting is superb across the board, with Wilkinson fascinating to watch as the manic-depressive attorney seemingly set free by the smoking gun he uncovers in the course of the lawsuit. He is the legal version of the crazed newscaster Howard Beale in Network, teetering on the edge of madness while spouting pronouncements about the state of his profession with a strange clarity. But Clooney’s performance as the film’s central character is what you’ll remember most here. It is a triumph of acting and star quality. Clooney’s world-weary eyes convey the fact that, for all his character’s confidence and abilities, Michael Clayton is a man who is extremely dissatisfied, and perhaps disgusted, with the course his life has taken, including the way he makes a living. Like Spencer Tracy, Gene Hackman, and others who have made acting on the big screen seem so easy while taking us on a journey that is far from simple, Clooney is the real thing.

I wish I could say that I know George Clooney. I can’t. I don’t. But I did meet him once, briefly, at a press event for Good Night, and Good Luck. and listened to him speak for an hour or whatever it was about that film, and movies in general, and his life as a creative person in the strange situation he’s in of being both a huge “star” and someone with far greater artistic ambitions than merely getting mentioned in as many gossip columns as possible.

And what struck me most about him is that he isn’t anything at all like what you might expect him to be. There is, unexpectedly, something very melancholy, almost sad, about him. I may be stretching a bit now when I say that the impression I was left with was of a man happy with his work but not so happy with everything else. But that’s the impression I was left with.

I mention all this not to sound cool or drop names -- I promise you that the press junket thing is nowhere near as glamorous or exciting as you might think it is, and there is something just a tad dispiriting about getting confirmation that someone you wanted to believe was jolly and charming and superhuman might just be as miserable and mortal as you are yourself. I mention it because the character Michael Clayton is more like what I suspect the real, nonsuperstar George Clooney-the-man is like than any other character we’ve seen him play before. That sounds just a little bit horrible because Michael Clayton is a little bit of a slimeball, though Michael Clayton the movie is all about his redemption and his journey back to decent humanity. Of course I don’t think Clooney is anything like a slimeball... though I do think there are probably things that smart, talented, ambitious people do in Hollywood -- things they may be less than proud of in retrospect -- in order to get themselves to a position where they finally have the power to do the projects they really want to do. Hello, Batman and Robin?

You sell out and you sell out and you sell out until you can’t do it anymore. And that’s when things gets interesting.

This is all introduction to me saying this: Michael Clayton is -- hands-down, no-question, make-your-toes-curl-with-a-creative-crush -- the absolute best, most surprising, most devastating performance Clooney (Ocean’s Thirteen, Syriana) has given us yet. And I would not be at all shocked to learn that that was because more than a little of it resonated with Clooney and the path he’s taken to get to the point where he can star -- with thoroughly uncompromising integrity and unapologetic genius -- in such an exhiliratingly elegant, sophisticated, grownup film.

To classify or to explain Michael Clayton -- the directorial debut of Bourne series scribe Tony Gilroy -- is to reduce it to less than the sum of its wonderfully jumbled, untidy parts, but here’s a shot: It’s Erin Brockovich for grownups, which acknowledges that reality is a lot messier and demands a lot more to fix it, if it even can be fixed on a grand scale, than mere sass. It’s the thematic sequel to The Insider, a thriller of the conscience in which what is at stake is a single man’s soul, and the collective soul of us all. It’s a horror story of human proportions of the all-too-ordinary awfulness of the real world of pettiness and greed and secret shame, and of the seemingly undefeatable power of hydra-headed corporations: get rid of one lawyer, and three more pop up in his place.

The plot, which is deliciously nonlinear, revolves around the $3 billion class action lawsuit Clayton’s big New York law firm is handling for argibusiness corp U/North -- something to do with a pesticide that’s killing more than it should. Clayton is the “fixer,” the “janitor” the firm calls in when the shit hits the fan, and the shit really stinks this time: the firm’s lead litigator, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson: The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Batman Begins), seems to have gone off the deep end, seems to be sabotaging the very case he’s meant to be winning. Clayton’s job: either get Edens back on his meds -- he’s manic depressive but fine when he’s medicated -- or get him to keep his mouth shut and not say or do anything the plaintiffs can use against U/North. Which will make U/North’s in-house general counsel, the meticulous and studied Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton [The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Constantine], all cold, careless malevolence) very unhappy... and you don’t want to see her unhappy.

It’s all eerie and chilling and deeply, deeply horrifying in the most routine way, how casually truth and justice and humanity are cast aside by corporations -- argi or legal or otherwise -- when money is at issue, and how succinctly Michael Clayton suggests that modern pharmaceuticals can serve as a sledgehammer to enforced conformity. If Edens comes to his senses, as many of us would interpret his change of heart toward the crimes of U/North, just as he comes off his meds, is it ridiculous to suggest that there’s a connection? Just what, many aspects of Michael Clayton seem to ask, are we giving up of our own true selves to be a cog in the big machine of the modern world?

Clayton -- looking sad and beaten down and how else should he look? -- meanders through this morass as just another of the profound disasters of his life he’s juggling. Oh, the scene in which Edens wanders into and out of lucidity and finally sharpens up enough to let Clayton know that he, Edens, is still on the ball enough to be a formidable legal opponent is stunning -- if you didn’t already acknowledge Wilkinson as an astonishing actor, this will do it. But it’s only one sucker punch Clayton stumbles under, from the collapse of the restaurant venture he’s undertaken, probably unwisely, with his drunken druggy brother to the strange obsession his young son (Clayton is a divorced dad, of course) has with the (invented) fantasy novel Realm and Conquest, the son’s moral arbiter in all things. (Think: What would Frodo do?) Clayton is buffeted by all of them until he breaks... and he’s such a careful, constricted man that the moment at which he breaks is open to interpretation.

And how thrilling is that, to anyone who craves entertainment in which the level of complication is directly correlated with the level of enjoyment?

Yes, Virginia, there really was a time when American cinema contained complex storylines, social commentary and characters that were allowed to be flawed and ambiguous instead of being purely good or purely evil. During this period–historians have referred to it as “the Seventies”–not only did these films, including such titles as “The Parallax View,” “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “All the President’s Men,” to name a few, exist, they were designed as mainstream entertainments to be enjoyed not by the critics and the public alike. Somewhere along the line, however, this vogue for intelligently crafted and socially committed popular entertainment fell by the wayside for a number of reasons–some historians tend to offer the knee-jerk explanation “Star Wars” in the same way that high school teachers reduce the myriad details leading up to the Civil War as “slavery”–and such films became the exception rather than the rule and on the rare occasions when one would actually slip through the filmmaking apparatus, it would only be because the studio in charge figured that such a film might score the Oscar nominations that their blockbuster gumdrops were never going to receive

One movie star who has chosen to use his considerable box-office clout to keep this cinematic tradition alive against the odds over the years is George Clooney. Whether he has been doing this out of a deep love for the films of that bygone era or as a form of continued penance for appearing in one of the crappiest corporate-driven films ever made, the disastrous “Batman & Robin,” I cannot say but whatever the reason, the end result has been one of the most fascinating filmographies in recent years. As an actor, producer or director, he could easily be making a career out of doing shallow entertainments for enormous paydays but instead, he has used his considerable clout to instead put forth such challenging and hardly sure-fire films as “Three Kings,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” “Fail-Safe,” “Solaris,” “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” “Good Night, and Good Luck,” “Syriana” and “The Good German.” Although not all of these films were successful from a box-office standpoint (which explains his occasional appearances in such smartly conceived blockbusters as the “Ocean’s Eleven” films), they were all smart and thoughtful films that were among the best of their respective years and if they had been made during the 1970's, it is likely that film connoisseurs would be venerating them today as much as they have done with other classics of the era. His latest film, “Michael Clayton,” continues this streak by giving viewers a taut, exciting and thoughtful legal thriller that is so smartly conceived and executed that to call it a “legal thriller” almost sounds demeaning.

Clooney stars as Michael Clayton, an employee of the elite New York corporate law firm of Kenner, Bach & Ledeen. Although a former criminal prosecutor, he is not employed by the firm as a lawyer per se. Instead, he is their in-house “fixer,” the guy who gets sent out to clandestinely settle or smooth over unsavory legal problems involving the firm’s top clients–Jodie Foster played a similar type recently in Spike Lee’s “The Inside Man” as she tried to manipulate a bank robbery and the subsequent police standoff in order to protect a client who was at risk of having some very dirty laundry aired to the public. Clayton is like that Jodie Foster character maybe a decade or so down the line–although he knows that he is good at his job, that doesn’t take away from the fact that he has grown steadily disenchanted with it (he refers to himself not as a “fixer” but as “a janitor”) and wants to abandon it for more traditional courtroom work. The senior members at the firm feel otherwise because while they have plenty of people on hand who can do competent work in a courtroom, none of them have the particular skill set to do what Clayton does so effortlessly. Unfortunately for Clayton, his personal life is currently a shambles–he has a messy divorce, a gambling problem, massive debts from an unsuccessful business venture and a brother with financial problems of his own–to such a degree that even though he might very much want to quit his job for greener pastures, he is forced to stick with it simply to keep his head above water.

For his latest bout of janitorial work, Clayton is sent off to Milwaukee to deal with some troubles arising from one of the firm’s top attorneys, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), who is representing the U/North conglomerate in an eight-years-running class-action lawsuit regarding a weed killer that is supposedly responsible for a number of deaths. On the verge of a possible settlement, Edens reportedly snapped during a deposition hearing of a young woman who is one of the plaintiffs and took off all his clothes. Since Edens has had some emotional problems in the past for which he is taking medications, Clayton assumes that he just temporarily went off his meds and assures U/North’s corporate counsel, Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), that everything will be sorted it. When Clayton gets to Edens, he discovers that the attorney’s breakdown is not simply a chemical imbalance–he has discovered materials that prove that U/North really is guilty of the crimes that they have been accused of and he simply can’t stomach the idea of helping another corporation squirm off the hook as a result of his legal expertise. When Clayton further discovers that Edens plans on making his discoveries known to the aforementioned plaintiff as a way of making amends for his past misdeeds, the fixer has to decide whether to use his consummate skills in the service of justice or his career–it may be a moot decision because when Crowder gets wind of what Edens has uncovered, she begins to contemplate muzzling both him and Clayton with something a little more severe than a non-disclosure agreement.

As I said earlier, “Michael Clayton” may be correctly described as a legal thriller but such a description hardly seems adequate. Such a description inspires thoughts of a by-the-numbers drama involving cardboard characters being jerked around by the machinations of an increasingly contrived screenplay leading up to an unlikely courtroom climax that manages to reward the good guys and punish the bad ones in the neatest manner possible and one of the great things about the film is the way that it manages to avoid all of those traps–so much so, in fact, that I don’t actually recall a single scene that actually takes place within the confines of a courtroom. This is a bold move on the part of writer-director Tony Gilroy to be sure, but it is likely that viewers will be so spellbound by what is on screen that they will hardly notice that the expected cliches are nowhere to be found. As he did in his screenplays for the three Jason Bourne movies, Gilroy once again demonstrates a knack for taking immensely complicated and complex storylines and hammering them out in a way that allows viewers to more or less follow along with what is going on without ever stopping the story in its tracks in order to slowly explain every single detail for the benefit of the slower people in the audience. (As a result, this is the rare kind of adult thriller that actually benefits from multiple viewings.) And while the film may mark Gilroy’s debut in the director’s chair, you wouldn’t know it from the evidence presented on-screen–he has a easy confidence that gives the film the feel that it is in the hands of one of those 70's auteurs like Alan J. Pakula or Sidney Lumet to whom the film clearly owes a sizeable stylistic debt. His approach may appear to be simple and unfussy but he is also capable of a beautifully lyrical visual when such a moment arises (such as a bit in which Clayton pulls to the side of the road to contemplate some horses in the dawn’s early light) as well as dramatic fireworks–the climactic confrontation between Clooney and Swinton is easily one of the most electrifying scenes to appear on a movie screen this year.

At its heart, however, “Michael Clayton” is an actors movie and Gilroy has assembled a top-notch cast who take to the material with the kind of relish that is rarely seen on the screen these days. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the contributions of George Clooney, whose turn in the central role is one of his very best performances to date. As an actor, he knows how and when to turn his considerable personal charm on and when he does, as in the “Ocean’s Eleven” films, he is one of those performers that it is almost impossible to dislike. However, he also knows how and when to turn off that charm when it isn’t required and his transformation here is quite startling–instead of the twinkly-eyed movie star we know and love, he simply becomes a beaten-down man who hates his job and his life but is powerless to do anything about either until circumstances force him to take a stand once and for all. As his corporate rival, Tilda Swinton offers up a mesmerizing portrayal of corporate loathsomeness at its most blandly evil while Tom Wilkinson is haunting as the kind of man who, to quote another movie from that bygone era of the 70's, is mad as hell and won’t take it anymore. Among the supporting players, my favorite is Sydney Pollack as the firm partner who bluntly explains to Clayton the way things really work (“After 15 years, I have to tell you how we pay the rent?”)–although better-known as a director, he has quietly put together a collection of supporting performances over the years (including turns in“The Player,” “Husbands and Wives” and “Eyes Wide Shut”) that would be the envy of most full-time actors.

Obviously, “Michael Clayton” is a film that serves as an indictment of the heartlessness of contemporary corporate culture and the potential futility of standing up to such a seemingly invincible opponent (which is ironic when you consider that its distributor, Warner Brothers, is part of a multi-national corporate structure itself) and while there is no doubt about the direction of its social and political leanings, it doesn’t merely spend two solid hours of hitting you over the head with them. Instead, it wraps them within the context of an undeniably gripping drama that will keep you on the edge of your seat while watching it and continue percolating in your mind for days after you’ve seen it. For Gilroy, it marks a remarkable directorial debut and a signal of promising things to come. For Clooney, it is yet another personal and professional triumph that further solidifies his position as one of the most fascinating leading men working in films today. For intelligent moviegoers who have despaired of seeing any adult-oriented dramas that don’t hit you over the head with their obvious story points (what we like to call the Paul Haggis Factor), it is a welcome reminder of a filmmaking style that used to be the norm instead of the exception

Last Night With Riviera [Matt Riviera]

Goatdog's Movies (Michael W. Phillips, Jr.)

Creative Loafing [Curt Holman]

Screen International Roger Clarke

Michael Clayton (2007) Bryant Frazer from Deep Focus

Michael Clayton Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

The New Yorker (David Denby)

Nick's Flick Picks (Full Review)

MICHAEL CLAYTON Steve Erickson from Chronicle of a Passion

european-films.net (Venice Film Festival review) Boyd van Hoeij

Exclaim! (Travis Hoover)

Cinepassion.org Fernando F. Croce

The Village Voice [Robert Wilonsky]

eFilmCritic.com (Erik Childress)

DVD Talk Brian Orndorf, also seen here: OhmyNews [Brian Orndorf]

filmcritic.com (Sean O'Connell)

Reel.com [Pam Grady]

Monsters and Critics Ron Wilkinson

Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune Colin Covert

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

New York Times (registration req'd) Manohla Dargis

Ginzburg, Victor

GENERATION P

Russia USA (116 mi) 2011 ‘Scope Official site

Mubi [Dan Sallitt]

At Toronto's halfway mark, yet another terrific Russian film surprised me: Victor Ginsburg's Generation P, which opened domestically before appearing at this year's Moscow and Karlovy Vary festivals. Based on a 1999 novel by Victor Pelevin, the fast-paced, effect-filled movie tracks a young intellectual's progress through the chaotic post-Soviet years, when he stumbles into the burgeoning advertising business and eventually finds himself manipulating a vast quasi-governmental propaganda machine. The joy of the film is that the smart and able protagonist is neither a naif nor a cynic, and preserves throughout his progress a connection to his youthful philosophies, which lean toward a lysergic mysticism. Managing to convey the amoral brio of dizzying success while keeping a humorous and thoughtful perspective front and center, Generation P is insightful about and accepting of the multiple and contradictory lives that people live.

Village Voice Karina Longworth

Billed as "the first and only Russian film that poked sharp satire at the current Russian political system and the virtuality of its leaders," director Victor Ginzburg's Generation P gives phantasmagoric treatment to an alternate (but not necessarily inaccurate) history of the Putin moment. In the post-Soviet '90s, Babylen Tatarsky (Vladimir Yepifantsev) is working his way up the ladder of Moscow's emerging advertising industry. By day, he develops a knack for Russianizing Western product pitches; by night, he dabbles in drug-fueled explorations of Babylonian theology. Babylen's simultaneous educations in capitalism, the occult, and psychedelia eventually come together in a new career application for his talents: directing synthesized political spectacle in a mocap studio, creating footage the Russian public reads as real. Generation P is long and incredibly dense, but it's never boring—it's too wild and unhinged. The more you know about the past 20 years of Russian history, the more you stand to "get" from its coded references, though as with the not-totally-dissimilar Holy Motors, deciphering every frame might be beside the point. After all, most of the time, most of the characters on-screen don't know exactly what's really happening or why—they only know their individual roles in the machine. The psychedelic impulse is about nothing if not the limits of what, under normal circumstances, can be understood or seen, and to apply its concerns in such an expansive way to real, right-now sociopolitical catastrophe makes for a pretty radical critique.

TimeOut NY Joshua Rothkopf

Russia’s post-Soviet gold rush, a free-for-all that spawned oligarchs, Chechen mob operators and a violent sense of national unraveling, is the perfect setting for a movie—a nouveau riche Western, perhaps. Victor Ginzburg’s surreal drama is the closest we’ve come to taking a sip from that firehose of economic chaos. Our hero, twentyish poet Babylen (Vladimir Epifantsev), fondly remembers a uniformed childhood when Pepsi (the P of the title) was a far-off dream. The plot has him morphing from a kiosk merchant into a bold new god: an adman who hastens the dawning consumerist mania, introducing products and politicians (some of them wholly virtual) with vacant efficiency. Babylen is told to believe in nothing. When pushed, he admits to an ethos: “I like it when life has big tits.”

Victor Peleven’s 1999 satirical novel has, at least at home, taken on the status of a prescient classic, like Martin Amis’s Money or Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities. It’s not for everyone. Many of the details crammed onto the screen will mystify most viewers (the adaptation feels too faithful), and even those hip to Russian malaise will be hanging on for dear life through druggy fantasies, hyperactive cigarette commercials and a Mesopotamian orgy. Yet there’s exhilaration in a film that lustily grabs for the live wire, indicting a society-wide glibness while somehow flattering its audience. Generation P is worth struggling through, even if it boggles you. In many ways, it’s a keyhole into the future of the entire world.

Slant Magazine [Kenji Fujishima]

The “P” in Generation P refers to Pepsi Cola, the drink of choice for the last generation of Soviets, a rapidly Westernizing group who, like their Gen X counterparts, preferred to lounge around and go to school for esoteric liberal arts degrees rather than function in a utilitarian society. The protagonist, Babylen (Vladimir Epifancev), even works in a kiosk selling cigarettes in a post-perestroika variant of the characters in Clerks, and his cynical short-changing of customers and sarcastic, vulgar descriptions of products further ties him to the likes of Dante and Randall. The latter trick opens doors for Babylen when his tossed-off slogans get him a foothold in the booming marketing and advertising industry.

Everything starts simply, and humorously, with Babylen, a man who never bought into the Soviet way of life, paid as a copywriter to take Western products and rework their appeal for a country still weaning itself off communism. This means taking the bright, alluring nature of capitalistic ads and replacing them with anti-democratic authoritarianism and violence. As Boris Yeltsin sends the military to attack Parliament in the middle of Russia’s 1993 constitutional crisis, Babylen hits big by tying Parliament cigarettes to the ordeal, replacing the Russian White House with a towering pack of cigarettes impervious to the shells of Yeltsin’s tanks. It is a ludicrous campaign, yet as apt at nailing an abstract national self-image as Marlboro’s quintessential cowboys.

The bizarre wrapping of capitalism in communist clothes initially makes for pointed barbs at both systems. That the Western ads have to be stripped of ideology exposes the absurdity of subliminal suggestions of freedom coming from an international brand like Coca-Cola. That the Russians feel they must impose order through products is even more perversely funny and speaks to a centuries-old tradition of subjugation and dominance in Russian power. If Generation P accomplishes nothing else, it sports possibly the funniest riff on Cool Guys Not Looking at Explosions, casting a Tic-Tac commercial as class warfare with a proletarian stud popping a few mints as an oligarch’s car explodes in the background.

As the film delves further, however, the sociopolitical satire rapidly falls apart as director Victor Ginzburg must head into ever more frenzied postmodernism to faithfully adapt Viktor Pelevin’s novel. Babylen works as a disaffected individual selling communism to live the capitalist high life, but his expected addictions to cocaine and other substances gradually lead to psychotropic narcotics that spin the movie off in strange directions. Ginzburg has a great deal of visual fun with the protagonist’s hallucinations, summoning the spirit of Che Guevara to give a Buddhist-tinged sermon on the nature of television as images bend and warp around each other. For all the wildness of the sequence, however, the funniest joke is still that the source image of Che comes from a coin, an ironic placement of communist heroes on the lifeblood of the free market: money.

Gradually, Babylen fails upward as his clients are mysteriously killed before they can pay and he gets drawn ever closer to the ones orchestrating the killings. After a time, the satire of advertising and its application in Russian culture turns fully political as the new order recruits Babylen to help write their fictional candidates. The same marketing know-how and new technical innovations that promised to bring capitalistic excess to Russia are instead put toward maintaining control of the people without even having to go to the trouble of finding a psychotic leader who could turn on his kingmakers. Generation P loses the thread as it pursues this line of commentary, and when a character asks Babylen, “Do I need to explain the symbolism?” during one of his hallucinations, I found myself hoping the character would say yes. The film brims with ambition on an aesthetic and narrative level, and at times, one of its points even manages to worm its way into the brain almost in spite of itself. Generally speaking, though, Generation P has no follow-through, too busy introducing new, unconnected ideas to follow through on any one of them. If the story intends to show the uniquely Russian way the former USSR imbibes supposedly free ideals, its haphazard execution demonstrates that wonky postmodernism can derail one of their films as quickly as a Western one.

Artinfo Outtakes [David D'Arcy]

Macleans [Brian D. Johnson]

Examiner.com [Rick Marianetti]

Independent Ethos [Hans Morgenstern]

Chicago Reader Ben Sachs

GENERATION P Facets Multi Media

Variety [Peter Debruge]

'Generation P.' review: Trippy - SFGate - San Francisco Chronicle David Lewis

Generation P :: rogerebert.com - Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun-Times

New York Times

Giordana, Marco Tullio

THE BEST OF YOUTH (La meglio gioventù)

Italy Great Britain France (Pt’s 1 & 2 – 366 mi) 2003

Time Out review Geoff Andrew

This very fine six-hour drama charts the fortunes of an Italian family from the mid-'60s to the present. It's an honorable contribution to a tradition that includes Rocco and His Brothers, The Leopard, even The Godfather, but here the drama's political dimensions are delineated more clearly than usual. While Nicola, for instance, tries to overcome early disappointment by taking a hippy holiday, falling for a leftie who ends up in the Red Brigades, and working for the improvement of his country's psychiatric practices, his brother Matteo treats the very same sense of failure as an excuse to end up first in the army and then in the police. (Even the conspicuous absence of specific political references during the last hour speaks volumes about the Berlusconi era, given the accent on activism in earlier scenes.) Such oppositions might have made for schematic contrivance, but the sure sense of time and place in Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli's complex but beautifully lucid script and the visceral depth and subtlety of the performances result in classical storytelling of the highest order.

The Best of Youth Anthony Lane from the New Yorker

Six hours is a long time to spend in the company of somebody else's family, although, to be fair, it beats having to spend six hours in the company of one's own. Thanks to the director Marco Tullio Giordana, we are granted access to the Caratis, a fictional Roman clan, whose story, starting in 1966, covers more than thirty years and shows in two blocks of three hours. We follow the aging of the Carati parents and the progress of their four children—above all, of Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio), smiling and slightly guarded, who grows up to be a psychologist, and of his handsome brother Matteo (Alessio Boni), whose rage for order finds him joining the police. When Nicola's partner, Giulia (Sonia Bergamasco)—her political principles as severe as her cheekbones—walks out on him and joins a terrorist cell, the stage is set for confrontation; to Giordana's credit, such clashes do not feel like a contrivance. The pace of the work, more leisurely than sluggish, allows the characters to clasp and hold our attention, to show as much bafflement as decisiveness, and to be brushed, rather than overwhelmed, by the major motions of history. In Italian, though, given the symphonic range of hand movements on display, the subtitles are largely redundant.

Lee Marshall in Cannes from Screendaily (link lost):

The latest film by The Best of Youth director Marco Tullio Giordana is, like Gianni Amelio’s Lamerica, a portrait of an Italy that is trying to get to grips with its new status as a multicultural society, whose immigrant population has increased thirty-fold since 1970. It’s about the small hypocrisies and larger culture clashes that lie behind a nation’s firmly-held conviction that it is not racist.

But it’s also a coming-of-age film that focuses on the exact moment when a child ceases to be a child. Scripted once again by the director with screenwriting duo Rulli and Petraglia – the Age and Scarpelli of contemporary Italian cinema – Once You’re Born opens promisingly, but gets bogged down in the second half, where the cholesterol of melodrama clogs the film’s arteries. But there is enough sensitive observation here of pre-adolescent traumas and the smug securities of the northern Italian bourgeoisie to make up for its faintly Dickensian portrait of legal and illegal immigrants – a subject much more convincingly dealt with by another recent Italian film, Saimir. The domestic Italian response should be upbeat, but territories outside of Italy with more evolved immigrant communities may feel a sense of deja-vu , and the film lacks the sleeper potential of The Best of Youth.

The opening and closing scenes are set in Brescia, a prosperous northern city with the lowest unemployment rate in Europe, and an economy based on small manufacturing firms which draw on a large immigrant workforce. Giordana knows this world well – he was born in the nearby town of Crema – and his portrait of dynamic provincial entrepreneur Bruno (Alessio Boni, one of the revelations of The Best of Youth) has just the right mixture of generosity, business acumen and brash, anti-intellectual swagger. He’s the modern Italian equivalent of the “get on your bike” self-made businessman, and he probably votes for the regionalist Northern League. He’s married to a smart, uncomplicated working wife (First Love’s Michela Cescon, a fine actress who deserves all the cinema exposure she can get), lives in an architect-designed house, and has the regulation-issue single son, Sandro. It’s the son, played by first-timer Matteo Gadola, who will upset the happy-family apple cart. On a yachting holiday in Greece (cue shaky home video inserts) with his father and his father’s best friend, Popi (Rodolfo Corsato), Sandro squirms as the two men, far from their wives, revert to type. The male bonding ends abruptly when Sandro falls overboard while attempting to take a late-night leak over the side of the boat - which sails on, oblivious, echoing that line by W.H.Auden about how “everything turns away quite leisurely from the disaster”.

It’s a strong first act finale; but then the film shifts gear, and genre, as (after the dreamlike, plot-suspending interlude of Sandro floating in the sea) he is rescued by a Romanian lad (Vlad Alexandru Toma), one of a boatload of illegal immigrants on the short Albania-Italy run across the Straits of Otranto. Suddenly, after the contemporary social satire of part one, we’re in the adventure-survival realm of Joseph Conrad or Rudyard Kipling, a shift that is signalled by lighting and production design that feels studio-rigged, just when it should be at its most documentary. It’s too abrupt a change – mostly because we’re suddenly asked to accept stock characters, and a too hastily sketched-in background chorus of generic immigrants, after the spot-on characterisation of the early stages. Once You’re Born gets back on its feet more than once – especially when the action returns to Brescia, and to the parents’ realisation that the son they have found is not quite the same as the one they lost. But it never quite returns to its Best-of-Youth peaks.

There is still a lot to like, though. Child-actor Gadola has a shy self-assurance and an unactorly manner that anchors Sandro, and the film, in the real world, playing against the plot’s melodramatic tendencies. Roberto Forza, on his third film with Giordana, once again proves that he has a real talent at lighting for mood. And there is a nice, underplayed social critique that emerges not from overt plotting but from little details: ripped Forza Italia posters outisde an immigrant squat; or the anodyne nasal pop of Italian crooner Eros Ramazzotti providing the soundtrack to the squalor and misery of an underage prostitute.

The Best of Youth Ed Gonzalez from Slant magazine

When Rex Reed covered the Toronto Film Festival last year for the New York Observer, his editors allowed him to spoil Dogville's ending for the paper's audience. Several months later, Reed took on the New York Film Festival, reporting that his fragile posterior couldn't get him past the first hour of Marco Tullio Giordana's brilliant The Best of Youth. Reed, a gossip columnist disguised as a serious student of film, has forever been contemptuous of anything remotely avant-garde or demanding. From his "review" of Best of Youth: "If you have better eyesight and a stronger lower lumbar than I do, you might confront the challenge of reading six hours and six minutes of subtitles with more enthusiasm than I did." His idea of a good Italian film? Mona Lisa Smile no doubt.

From a summer day in Roma in 1966 to a winter night in Norway in 2003, Best of Youth chronicles some 40 years in the lives of the Carati family and their friends. If not as visually intoxicating as Kusturica's Underground or Bertolucci's 1900 (Giordana conceived the film as a miniseries for Italian television but the idea was deemed too "bourgeois" by the powers-that-be), this epic elegy to family and country is no less seductive as a towering work of narrative fiction, generously giving itself to the people of Italy in the same way that Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children give themselves to the people of Colombia and India, respectively. Over the course of six riveting hours, Giordana weaves a delicate tapestry of human ecstasy and misery, paralleling the ups and downs of a family with the rise and fall of a country.

Italy unravels and so do its people. If the film has proved daunting for some (like Reed), it's because the weight of the film's characters is directly proportional to whatever is happening in the country at any given time. The story begins quietly in 1966, with two brothers Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) and Matteo (Alessio Boni) studying for exams. Matteo becomes obsessed with saving a young girl living at a mental institution and a cataclysmic emotional drama is set into motion when the men are separated from the mental handicap. Best of Youth stunningly recounts how a single incident in time sends two equally ambitious and sympathetic individuals on divergent paths. Once separated from Giorgia (Jasmine Trinca), Nicola (the Ajax to Matteo's Achilles, though Atlas or Prometheus are probably more like it) decides to continue to save Italy from itself while Matteo decides to carry the weight of his country's sins on his shoulders.

The socio-economic unrest that grips the nation contextualizes these characters' lives. Giordana is upbeat but far from naïve, revealing everyone's political views and nationalist perspectives quietly, inventively, and amusingly: wanting to tease a group of men enjoying a soccer match between Korea and Italy, the brothers humorously chant "Ko-re-a" over and over again; later, Nicola successfully demystifies his father's idea of homosexuality as a mental disease in a matter of seconds. Having turned inward, Matteo joins the military and later becomes a police officer, the very thing the hippie Nicola and his future wife Giula (Sonia Bergamasco) despise. "Was it for self-defense?" someone asks at one point, encapsulating the film itself. Best of Youth is about the search for a national and personal identity and everything that happens to the Carati family becomes an act of self-preservation.

Yes, Best of Youth is talky, but it's also unmistakably, blisteringly human. Dogged by his failure to save Giorgia, "madly mad" Matteo becomes a kind of untapped resource, withdrawing into a personal hell of self-loathing and anger that's conspicuous because of its lack of a clear context. The man's misery is a mystery to everyone; like his country, he inspires both awe and frustration, ravishing the world with his beauty and unpredictable emotional outbursts. Everyone wants to break in, but the code remains unknown. When he exits the film, he leaves the world in limbo and the survival of the Carati clan becomes predicated on its willingness to reconnect with the past. Predicated on a series of wonders, heartbreaks, and all sorts of second chances, Best of Youth moves and feels like life itself.

Giordana's aesthetic is neither rigorous nor carefree, but it's not anonymous. He has an uncanny instinct for effacement, reaffirming and blurring everyone's search for both a national and personal identity. If Best of Youth feels boxed in (like Matteo and Giula, whose failure to outgrow her radical politics similarly shatters the family) that's because Giordana makes poetry from close-ups of people's faces—every smile and teardrop sculpted to perfection, complemented and propped by the surrounding historical canvas. The film's greatest sequences take place inside museums, underground temples whose ancient scrolls have been compromised by floodwater, the Coliseum in Rome, and a waterfall and small church near the Arctic Circle in Norway where a misbegotten child goes to vicariously live his family's best of youth. These scenes all work toward the same goal: to usher us into the future by connecting us to the past.

BFI | Sight & Sound | Our Friends From Turin David Forgacs from Sight and Sound, July 2004

The Best of Youth: a six-hour miracle. - Slate David Edelstein

Old School Reviews [John Nesbit]

The Onion A.V. Club review Scott Tobias

filmcritic.com (Chris Barsanti) review [4/5]

Movies into Film.com (N.P. Thompson) review

Filmjourney Doug Cummings

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Joel Cunningham) dvd review

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Turner Classic Movies review Marty Mapes

100 films Lucas McNelly

eFilmCritic.com (Jason Whyte) review [5/5]

stylusmagazine.com (Dave Micevic) review

Goatdog's Movies (Michael W. Phillips, Jr.) review [5/5]

Village Voice (Jessica Winter) review

d+kaz. Intelligent Movie Reviews (Daniel Kasman) review [C+]

Harvey S. Karten review [A-]

DVD Talk (Svet Atanasov) dvd review [4/5]

Reel.com dvd review [4/4] Tim Knight

Movie Magazine International review Joan K. Widdifield

Newsweek (David Ansen) review

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Variety.com [Scott Foundas]

Strictly Film School review Acquarello

Entertainment Weekly review [A] Lisa Schwarzbaum

Boston Globe review [3.5/4] Ty Burr

The Boston Phoenix review Nicolas Rapold

Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan) review

The Best of Youth Movie Review (2005) | Roger Ebert

The Best of Youth - Wikipedia

SANGUEPAZZO (Wild Blood)

Italy France (148 mi) 2008

Sanguepazzo at Cannes from Screendaily

A grandly-mounted but turgid prestige piece, Wild Blood attempts to give tragic heft to the lives of two of Italian cinema's more disreputable figures. Writer-director Marco Tullio Giordana won considerable kudos in 2003 with The Best Of Youth, but Wild Blood is a creakily traditional, anonymous World War II drama. Its story of right-wing figures laid low may garner some moderate international interest in the wake of Downfall's success, but the film's overall laboriousness and very local historical references won't help sales. As long as star Monica Bellucci is willing to travel, however, the film is destined for gala slots in more conservative festival s.

From its hokey black-and-white prologue - two urchins stumble on a discarded reel of celluloid in the ruins of Milan - the film is a pompous grind. It tells the true-life story of Osvaldo Valenti and Luisa Ferida, screen stars of the Fascist era. The narrative begins in Milan in 1945, with Valenti (Zingaretti), by now a militia lieutenant, going to plead with a partisan group led by his old friend Golfiero Goffredi (Boni), who promises to secure the couple a trial rather than summary execution. The film then zigzags between the ruined couple's spell in hiding and their glory days, beginning in 1936 Rome, when established star Valenti, a womanising loudmouth, first meets Ferida (Bellucci), a young extra desperate for success.

Ferida gets her break thanks to film-maker Goffredi, a homosexual aristocrat whose anti-Facist allegiances make him persona non grata under Mussolini. She and Goffredi develop a platonic tenderness, but she attaches herself to the flamboyant, drug-addicted Valenti, their histrionic tendencies - and propensity to ignore political reality in favour of advancement - making them a natural match. Both actors flourish under Mussolini, but their downfall begins when they head west in 1943, as Italy's film industry abandons Rome for Venice. They then fall into the malign company of Italian SS office r Pietro Koch (Bonanni), a volatile sadist who, the film suggests, coerced the couple into the crimes that were held against them.

While the film stints little on elaborate period reconstruction, it largely comes across as a pedestrian history lesson, with little real insight given into its characters' motivations: you could easily come away feeling that Ferida and Valenti are just your average showbiz monsters born in the wrong time and the wrong place. Giordana lacks the necessary flamboyance for such a drama, and Wild Blood comes across as a shadow of such provocative films as The Conformist or Mephisto.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the story remains implicit but inescapable: the parallel between the actor couple's eventual fate, and the come-uppance of Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci. But Wild Blood finally fails either to make us care for its self-serving, hollow characters, or to make us see why their story deserves the tragic scope that Giordana seemingly aims at. Bellucci is woodenly stately; she is too much the grande dame from the start to convince as the hustling young Ferida, who would have been in her early 20s when the story begins. What does give the film some buoyancy, however, is an energetic performance by Zingaretti, playing an abject opportunist.

PIAZZA FONTANA: THE ITALIAN CONSPIRACY (Romanzo di una strage) B+ 91

Italy France (129 mi) 2012 ‘Scope

Marco Tullio Giordana is the director best known for THE BEST OF YOUTH (2003), a 6-hour made-for-TV mini-series that screened to great acclaim at Cannes, following two brothers in an Italian family from the mid-60’s to the present, a film that contrasts the failed leftist political activism of the beginning with the faded apathy in the later years, a lead-in to the Berlusconi era. Giordana was born in Milan, the second largest city in Italy with a strong working class reputation, where Fascist leader Benito Mussolini first organized his Blackshirts, used initially by the government in 1920 as strikebreakers to crush the rising socialist movement. After trade unions were dissolved, Mussolini consolidated his Fascist movement throughout the nation, culminating with his March on Rome, where the Prime Minister declared a state of siege that Italian King Victor Emmanuel III refused to enforce, fearing a Civil War between the Army and the Fascists, handing over military power instead to Mussolini who went on to install a dictatorship in 1924 after Fascists kidnapped and murdered the socialist opposition candidate Giacomo Matteotti, who openly denounced Fascist election violence and vote fraud. Three Fascist leaders were convicted of his murder, but released shortly afterwards, given amnesty by the King. Only after the war was another trial convened and the three men given life sentences. Mussolini proclaimed Fascism the “superb passion of the best youth of Italy,” and ruled until the end of World War II when Allied American troops marched into Milan. But before they arrived, members of the resistance movement seized control of the city and executed Mussolini, his mistress, and three other Fascist leaders, hanging them by their feet in the Piazzale Loreto, a public square (from left to right, Nicola Bombacci, Benito Mussolini, Claretta Petacci, Alessandro Pavolini, and Achille Starace, seen here: Mussolini_e_Petacci_a_Piazzale_Loreto,_1945.jpg). The historical influence of Fascism in Milan is significant, giving rise to Giordana’s new film, an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the untold conspiracy behind the bombing of a downtown bank in 1969 that left 17 dead and more than 100 wounded.

It’s impossible to see this film and not think of the Costa-Gavras film Z (1969), a somewhat fictionalized but extraordinarily dramatic account of the 1963 murder of a left-wing politician in Greece, Gregoris Lambrakis, orchestrated by the secret police at the behest of a right-wing military organization, an event that lead to a military coup d’état, where a week before a scheduled election the Prime Minister and all the left-wing politicians were arrested and held incommunicado by the conspirators, including mass arrests of ordinary citizens suspected of left-wing sympathies. The takeover was led by a military junta known as the Regime of the Colonels who ruled Greece from 1967 – 1974, led by Colonel George Papadopoulos, one of the ringleaders, who, along with 19 other co-conspirators were eventually tried in 1975 for high treason and insurrection. The Italian far right, however, was highly impressed by the methods of Papadopoulos and his military junta, where in 1968, 50 members were invited to view the junta’s methods firsthand, returning to Italy afterwards where they escalated a campaign of terror, specializing in car bombings and other violence that killed and injured hundreds, always blaming the violence on the communists. Though the movie doesn’t show it, this is the backdrop to the film, where the Italian government deeply feared a repeat of what happened in Greece, where the coordinated actions of secret right-wing factions in the army, government, and judiciary suggest a Fascist military coup d’état was in place, as the bombing campaigns were designed to step up the pressure on the political and military authorities to declare a state of emergency, at which point the Fascists would step in. Called the strategy of tension, this was a disinformation campaign designed to divide, manipulate, and control public opinion through a strategy of publicly organized fear and propaganda tactics, starting rumors of CIA and NATO plots against the rapid spread of communism in Italy and Turkey, spreading panic among the population that would lead to a demand for stronger, more dictatorial governments eventually run by far-right military organizations.

The film is told through quickly evolving chapter headings and largely seen through the eyes of Luigi Calabresi (Valerio Mastandrea), a likeable Milan police inspector with a quiet domestic life that includes a beautiful and very pregnant wife, Gemma (Laura Chiatti), where their marital happiness suggests a harmonious moral balance while all around them various political factions of Communists, Anarchists, and Fascists are demonstrating on the streets, all protesting the nation’s instability, usually resulting in violent confrontations with riot police. The government fears the military junta in Greece will inspire a similar coup in Italy, where one of these factions will step in, believing Anarchists are behind the nationwide bombing campaign, but after the Milan bank bombing, all the known Anarchists are hauled in for questioning. Most are let go, but a few leaders remain under intense, sleep-deprived interrogation, including Gisueppe Pinelli, (Pierfrancesco Favino), an articulate and outspoken Anarchist that many in the police division would like to blame, even though he despises both the extreme left and the right. While there’s a developing connection between bomb materials and a former Anarchist, where the police believe his recent falling out with Pinelli is too convenient of an alibi, suspecting they masterminded the bombing. But Calabresi is not convinced, as there’s no evidence connecting Pinelli to the crime, but police headquarters insists upon a bait and switch method, informing Pinelli that his partner has confessed, implicating his guilt, which has little effect initially, but the police demand he sign a document framing his former comrade. When Calabresi steps out of the room briefly to prepare the statement, Pinelli goes flying out of an open window, falling to his death below. The police in the room all claim he jumped, anguished over his apparent guilt, but Calabresi suspects something more, as does his widow who doesn’t for a second believe the reported suicide. This alleged suicide breaks open the tense divisions between the various police, government, and judicial interests, where the police insist the Anarchists are behind the bombings, though they are thoroughly scrutinized by an Italian press that remains unconvinced.

What follows is a swirling choreography of investigative inquiry, where government leaders and the police delve into possible leads and suspects, where Calabresi continues his search for the truth as well, which remains elusive, though newly uncovered evidence suggests it’s the far right that has been carrying out the campaign of terror all along, operating under the instructions of secret Fascist powers imbedded deep within the Italian government itself, but due to highly placed officials in all branches of government, they refuse to pursue this possibility, claiming the case is closed, so anything more is purely speculative, alleging political interference. Rumors run rampant, however, where the CIA and NATO are implicated, also highly influential U.S. officials, though forensic reports determine the explosives themselves are of such a sophisticated nature that only the Italian Army has access to them. By the time Calabresi develops a clear evidentiary path to the perpetrators, some three years after the bombings, he is murdered, shot in the head outside his apartment. Not only does this stall the investigation, but even worse, since his death, all accused persons for the bombings have been acquitted, so no guilty parties have ever been found. While the filmmaking is outstanding, meticulously researched, where the attention to detail is stunning, and the acting superb on all levels, making this one of the better political conspiracy movies since Z, but unlike that film, there is plenty of confusion surrounding so many characters, as the accumulation of information becomes overwhelming. Like an epic movie, it feels like there is a cast of thousands, where outside of a few identifiable characters, the rest of the assembled cast can get lost in a blur of constantly disseminating information, where the audience loses tract of who many of the people are onscreen. This is a familiar trait in recent Italian movies, where the critically acclaimed GOMORRAH (2008) was exactly the same way, another long and sprawling narrative that is utterly confusing, where it’s hard to tell which players are on what side. Giordana might have made an even longer film, say three hours or more, as he toyed with length when he made THE BEST OF YOUTH, but he took certain liberties to keep the film close to two hours, streamlining the film with quick edits where at times it feels hurried and rushed, yet part of the enjoyment of the film is that electrifyingly fast pace that lends itself to a sleek and sophisticated political thriller. Even with a few missed details, the film is extremely intelligent and highly entertaining throughout.

User reviews from imdb Author: julian wood from sydney, australia

The Piazza Fontana – The Italian Conspiracy Italy has always been a turbulent country politically. After all, this is the country that gave us Machiavelli wrote the textbook for manipulating power and for scheming in politics. It is also a country which has had its fair share of extra-parliamentary and street politics. All this forms the backdrop to director Marco Tullio Giordana's highly accomplished political thriller the Piazza Fontana. The film is set in the period at the very end of the 1960's. This is the time of the Marxist and anarchist revolutionary Red Brigades who are busy blowing up banks and official residences in an attempt to bring down the state. They are matched on the other end of the political spectrum by right wingers who want to resurrect the Fascism of the Mussolini era and who add to the confusion by infiltrating the left wing cells. What should be managing all this is the liberal state but it is weak in the era and it is afraid that the centre cannot hold. Giordana brings these large abstract forces into human focus by skillful use of strong central characters and by keeping the balance between action scenes (there is a brilliantly-filmed opening riot sequence) and political ruminations. We follow the lives of all the players in the situation from the trouble investigator, through the Anarchist cells and the politicians in their grand offices. Some of the parts are characters created for the drama but historical figures are also portrayed, such as Aldo Moro (Fabrizio Gifuni) who, of course, came to a sticky end at the hands of the terrorists a few years after the period covered in this film. That is one of the problems of covering real events and over such a long span. The film has to rely on lots of captions to resolve the narrative which feels unsatisfactory compared to dramatizing it. Nevertheless, this is much more than just a history lesson. It is full of well acted, tense dialogue-heavy scenes that draw us in. In that sense it has a passing resemblance to the recent Tinker Tailor Solider Spy. This film even adopts a slightly similar lighting scheme and palette, with its steely blues and greys and its claustrophobic scenes in darkened rooms. The subject matter is fascinating but even if you don't know or care about Italian politics this is a gripping and very well made film.

Blu-ray.com [Dr. Svet Atanasov]

Winner of the Special Prize of the Jury and Label Europa Cinemas Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Italian director Marco Tullio Giordana's "Romanzo di una strage" a.k.a "Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy" (2012) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of 01 Distribution. The supplemental features on the disc include the film's original Italian theatrical trailer; documentary film; and collection of stills. In Italian, with optional English and Italian SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

Marco Tullio Giordana's Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy offers a fascinating look at an event that rocked Italy some 43 years ago. On December 12, 1969, a bomb was detonated inside the lobby of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in downtown Milan, killing 17 people and wounding more than 100.

The film begins some time after the coup d'etat in Greece (1967). There is a general feeling amongst leading politicians in Italy that the success of the Junta will inspire far-right organizations to stage a similar event at home. The most prominent amongst them is Aldo Moro (Fabrizio Gifuni), a Christian Democrat and Foreign Minister, who senses that Italy is on the verge of a massive political crisis.

In the big cities, communists, fascists, and anarchists often protest on the streets -- all of them agree that Italian President Giuseppe Saragat (Omero Antonutti) and the government can no longer be trusted. The media is closely monitoring the protests. Across Europe, the old democracies are also paying close attention to the tension in Italy, while in America there are already serious concerns that if the government collapses and the communists take over the country will exit NATO and the balance of power in Europe will shift towards the Soviet Union.

On December 12, 1969, a powerful bomb destroys Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura. Amongst the first suspects detained by the police is Giuseppe Pinelli (Pierfrancesco Favino), a bright and outspoken anarchist who dislikes the extreme right and left. Pinelli is admired by Luigi Calabresi (Valerio Mastandrea), the man in charge with the investigation, who believes that a lot of the criticism coming from the anarchists is indeed justified. There is some evidence pointing to a possible connection between the anarchists and the bombing, but Calabresi isn't convinced that they are behind it. But his opinion does not matter -- powerful politicians ask Pinelli to sign a document that frames one of his comrades so that the public is given a target to blame. While Calabresi prepares the document in his office, Pinelli jumps out the window of the room where he has been interrogated and dies -- or at least this is the story offered by the police. High-ranking officials then announce that the suicide proves that the anarchists are indeed responsible for the Piazza Fontana bombing.

In the days and weeks that follow, the Italian government is grilled by the media to disclose all details surrounding Pinelli's death. Calabresi also begins looking for answers and meets people who suggest to him that the Piazza Fontana bombing might have been orchestrated by neo-fascists acting under the guidance of extreme elements within the Italian government. Sophisticated explosives available only to the Italian Army and concerned top U.S. politicians are also mentioned. Calabresi begins digging deeper, but on May 17, 1972, someone shoots him in the head outside his apartment.

The film is divided into multiple chapters, each highlighting specific events that bring some clarity to the enigma that is the Piazza Fontana bombing (to this day, officially there are no guilty parties, and all of the accused have been acquitted). The film is incredibly well researched and the information is presented with an admirable sense of balance.

The period atmosphere is excellent. The ideas that inspire the communists, fascists, and anarchists are also clearly identified. Naturally, even if one's knowledge of Italian politics from the '60s and '70s is limited, one will easily be able to understand the dilemmas the various characters in the film face.

Those familiar with Italian politics will also be pleased with the big picture the film presents. The involvement and historical importance of various notable political figures, such as Moro, who will eventually become the 39th Prime Minister of Italy and be executed by the Red Brigades, are also given the needed attention.

The final third of the film is most intriguing. Various scenarios are discussed that certainly make a lot of sense. One in particular, which links to the Piazza Fontana bombing a lot of powerful players from places that are thousands of miles away from Italy, should raise plenty of eyebrows.

The acting is top-notch. Favino is superb as Pinelli, an idealist who was apparently executed by the Italian police. Mastandrea also leaves a lasting impression as Calabresi. Gifuni's impersonation of the late Prime Minister is incredibly accurate.

Note: Earlier this year, Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy won three David Di Donatello Awards (the Italian Oscars), including Best Supporting Actor (Pierfrancesco Favino) and Best Supporting Actress (Michela Cescon).

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with VC-1 and granted a 1080p transfer, Marco Tullio Giordana's Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Italian distributors 01 Distribution.

The high-definition transfer is very impressive. Detail and especially clarity are excellent throughout the entire film. Not only the close-ups, but even the larger panoramic shots where the protesters clash with the police look fantastic (see screencapture #2). The film has a unique period look which favors a variety of different light grays, blues, greens, and blacks. All of them are stable and lush. There are no traces of problematic lab tinkering. Naturally, the film has a stable organic look that is guaranteed to please viewers with large screens. Also, there are no serious compression issues to report in this review. To sum it all up, even though I was not fortunate to see Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy theatrically, I think that this excellent Blu-ray release could be used for a mini-theatrical experience that is quite convincing. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).

The wait was definitely worth it. Four years after Sanguepazzo, Marco Tullio Giordana is back with what is easily his most accomplished work to date. Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy is an impeccably researched and tremendously well acted film that will make your blood boil and have your head spinning. It is guaranteed to appear on my Top 10 list at the end of the year. If possible, I hope that the folks at Criterion manage to pick up Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy and bring it to the U.S. It will be such a shame if it remains unseen by North American film aficionados. A Blu-ray release of Giordana's The Best of Youth will also be appreciated. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Piazza Fontana bombing: Facts. Absolute Astronomy

aangirfan: FOOLING THE PUBLIC - PIAZZA FONTANA

Fr. Dennis at the Movies [Dennis Kriz]

Story of a Massacre: Film Review - The Hollywood Reporter Deborah Young

Variety [Jay Weissberg]

BBC ON THIS DAY | 12 | 1969: Deadly bomb blasts in Italy BBC News

Piazza Fontana bombing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the bombing of the Piazza Fontana

Giorgelli, Pablo

LES ACACIAS

Argentina Spain (85 mi) 2011

Las Acacias Allan Hunter at Cannes from Screendaily

A tender road movie infused with a subtle sense of loss and loneliness, Las Acacias marks an assured and gently beguiling first feature from writer/director Pablo Giorgelli. The slow burning pace and modest nature of the story may not be to all tastes but Giorgelli rewards the viewer with a film whose warm humanity should allow it to connect with a general audience.

Further festival exposure seems assured with the possibility of some theatrical interest among distributors with a track record of nurturing small, engaging, word-of-mouth international titles like Mid-August Lunch or The Pope’s Toilet.

The strength of Las Acacias lies in its simplicity and acutely observed range of easily recognisable human emotions. Ruben (German de Silva) is a truck driver transporting lumber between Asuncion del Paraguay and Buenos Aires. He has agreed to take a passenger Jacinta (Hebe Duarte) who arrives burdened with bags and a cute, wide-eyed, chubby cheeked five-month-old baby Anahi (Nayra Calle Mamani) who steals the audience’s heart in much the same way as she charms Ruben.

Small acts of kindness and stolen glances gradually ease the initial discomfort between a weary Ruben and a wary Jacinta creating the possibility of a bond that the audience becomes complicit in encouraging to grow.

The journey continues, providing little telling details on the son that the stoical Ruben hasn’t seen in eight years and Jacinta’s circumstances. A scene where the trio sit by a river and are visited by a dog suggests how easily it would be to mistake them for a fond family group.

Giorgelli shows a great deal of confidence in his refusal to overstate the emotional stakes or sweep the story towards unnecessary melodrama. There is a hint of jealousy when Jacinta meets a fellow driver who proves to be a near neighbour from Paraguay.

There is also a potent sense of possibilities about to slip through Ruben’s fingers the nearer they come to Buenos Aires and Jacinta’s cousins. By then we have grown so close to the characters that the chance of them not finding a happy ending is almost unbearable.

Unobtrusive camerawork maintains the focus on the characters and the story whilst opening out a potentially claustrophobic narrative with fleeting scenes of sunsets and forests, stopovers and border patrols.

The carefully nuanced central performances convincingly suggest the blossoming affection between Ruben and Jacinta with the smallest gesture and slightest glance. In its best moments of quiet contemplation and piercing emotion, Las Acacias ultimately earns its place in a humanist tradition that stretches from Renoir to Ray and beyond.

Girard, François

THE RED VIOLIN B+ 92

Canada Italy USA Great Britain (130 mi) 1998

BFI | Sight & Sound | The Red Violin (1998) Nick Kimberley from Sight and Sound, March 1999

If music is a universal language, why does it speak in so many mutually incomprehensible dialects? The narrative of the time- and globe-spanning film The Red Violin has more than a little of the fable about it. But it's not simply a fable about music's universalising, healing power, although that comes into it. What is more apparent is the misery the red violin carries in its wake, shattering lives and breaking hearts while it alone remains intact, identifiable despite the odd scar left by centuries of use and abuse. Of course the misery is not the instrument's doing. It begins because its maker, not content with merely human beauty, strives for something inhumanly perfect. Bussotti's hubris generates the misery, not the violin itself.

And as the movie ends, can we take it that the violin has at last come to rest? Of course not. Unless I misread them, the closing moments contain the merest hint of the possibility that Morritz does not make off with the immensely valuable red violin, but makes do with the legitimately acquired replica. Perhaps he has glimpsed the original's destructive power. Even if, as the more likely outcome, he has made the switch and stolen the instrument, the theft must be discovered, his cupidity exposed, and the woe that accompanies Bussotti's creation prolonged. It's built into the film's episodic structure that each story leads to another, so it's appropriate that the apparent ending should only open up further possibilities: uncertainty is so much more rewarding than closure.

This daisy-chain structure makes character subordinate to event. Although each character is clearly enough described, we care more about what happens to them than who they are. Indeed, so diligent is the movie's pursuit of authenticity even location matters more than personality, which isn't necessarily a criticism. As the story moves through countries, periods and languages, the characters become mere bit players, sidelined by the forward movement of the narrative they find themselves in.

Although music may not be the film's subject, it matters a lot to the director François Girard, whose best-known film is Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould. Girard apparently planned to use music from each of the eras the movie occupies: something baroque, followed by some Mozart for the early scenes for example, perhaps some Paganini for the episode with the virtuoso Pope. (This is the movie's least convincing segment, resembling as it does a French and Saunders satire on BBC costume drama.) In the event, John Corigliano persuaded Girard to allow him to write a score that binds the strands together with its chameleon-like mimicry of different styles and recurring motifs.

In fact, the movie might be described as a cinematic symphony in variation form, complete with its own little musical jokes. In one nicely unemphatic jeu d'esprit, Joshua Bell, the virtuoso violinist whose playing the actors mime to, appears as a lowly member of the orchestra that accompanies Pope. And yet, despite its open-endedness and deft handling, it's hard to escape the feeling that the movie has itself fallen prey to the allure of the red violin. It seems to want to efface division and difference so as to enfold us in music's warm and, yes, healing embrace. That's no sin, but it does provide a sugary coating for what is otherwise a pleasingly sour little yarn.

Gitai, Amos

Biography from The Films of Amos Gitai

Amos Gitai was studying architecture, following in his father's footsteps, when the Yom Kippur War interrupted his studies and it was the use of his Super-8 camera, whilst flying helicopter missions that led to his career as a filmmaker.

Based in Israel, the United States and France, Gitai has produced an extraordinary, wide-ranging, and deeply personal body of work. In around 40 films - documentary and fiction, Gitai has explored the layers of history in the Middle East and beyond, including his own personal history, through such themes as homeland and exile, religion, social control and utopia. His trademark style includes long takes with scarce but significant camera movements and a devilishly clever sense of humour.

In the late 70s and early 80s, Gitai directed numerous documentaries, including House and Field Diary. During the same era, Gitai received his PhD in architecture from the University of California - Berkeley.

Following the controversial reception to Field Diary, Gitai moved to Paris in 1983, where he was based for the next ten years and during this period continued to travel widely directing such documentaries as Pineapple - a humorous odyssey about the growth and marketing of pineapples. He also made Brand New Day - a film that followed Annie Lennox and the Eurythmics as they toured Japan.

During this period he began directing fiction and historical films about the experience of exile. These films include the Venice critic's prize-winning Berlin Jerusalem and the extraordinary trilogy on the Jewish legend of Golem.

In the mid-90s Gitai moved to Haifa and began the most fertile, productive period of his career to date. Over 10 years, Gitai made some 15 films, both documentary and fiction. The 1995 feature Devarim marked the return to his country and his reunion with the light and landscape of Tel Aviv. The first film in Gitai's trilogy of Israeli cities, Devarim was followed by Yom Yom (shot in Haifa) and Kadosh (shot in Mea Shearim, the Jerusalem district of Orthodox Jews).

This return to his country is also a travel back in his own history : Gitai directs Kippur (2000), a feature film based on his war memories.

Eden (2001) and Kedma (2002) follow, and both take us back to the creation of the Israeli State, to display its origins, its historical and ideological grounds.

With Alila (2003), Amos Gitai films again the present of his country, observing the contemporary Israeli society through the destinies of the inhabitants of a building in Tel Aviv.

Promised Land (2004) and Free Zone (2005) also depict the current state of the country and the whole area. Together, they form the two first parts of a trilogy on frontiers, in a region where their settlement is a dramatic stake.

News from Home / News from House (2006), his latest documentary film, carries on the investigation about the history of a West Jerusalem house and its inhabitants, which Amos Gitai begun in 1980 with House and pursued in 1998 with A House in Jerusalem.

Gitai's work has been the subject of major retrospectives, notably at the Centre Pompidou (Paris), NFT and ICA (London), Lincoln Center (New York), Berlin's Kunstwerk, and cinematheques in Madrid, Jerusalem, Paris, São Paulo, Tokyo, Toronto...

Amos Gitai official website, The Films of Amos Gitai

KADOSH

Israel France Italy (116 mi) 1999

BFI | Sight & Sound | Kadosh (1999) Simon Louvish from Sight and Sound, August 2000

Jerusalem, the present. Meir, a religious Jew, and Rivka live in an ultra-orthodox quarter of the city where the strict laws of the Torah hold sway. They have been married for 10 years and still love one another. They are also childless and Meir is under pressure from his rabbi to divorce his wife, which Jewish law permits if, after 10 years, she hasn't given birth to any children. Meanwhile Rivka's unmarried sister, Malka, is being matched with one of Meir's colleagues, Yossef, a fanatic who calls on secular Jews to "return" to religion.

Despite being in love with a young man, Yaakov, Malka accepts the arranged marriage. Meir argues with the rabbi about his edict on Rivka, but the rabbi insists, telling him that only child-bearing women can help the community defeat the threat of secularism. Meir agrees to divorce Rivka and marry a new wife, Haya. Meanwhile Rivka visits a gynaecologist who tells her she is fertile and the problem must lie with her husband. Malka marries Yossef; the wedding night is a bleak and brutal encounter. Rivka moves out of Meir's house to live on her own. Meir visits her in a drunken state, but he still knows he will marry Haya. Malka has a tryst with Yaakov in a local bar. When she returns to Yossef, her husband beats her. She leaves him. Rivka visits Meir for a last night together, but when he wakes in the morning she is lifeless and he weeps over her body.

Review

Israeli film-maker Amos Gitai has gained a reputation internationally as Israel's foremost director, not least because of the stubborn way in which he has managed to make film after film, year on year, both fiction and documentaries, where other Israeli film-makers have struggled over protracted periods to complete just one movie. Having cut his teeth on radical documentaries about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and other global subjects, he embarked, from a French base, on a series of fiction films, such as Esther and Berlin-Jerusalem, applauded by some for their distinctive approach to narrative, criticised as overly didactic by others. Having returned to Israel in 1993, Gitai hasn't slackened his productivity, but he has adopted a more traditional, character-based style of narrative. The best of this batch so far has been his 1998 film Yom Yom (Day after Day) portraying his native city of Haifa through a tale of an Arab-Jewish mixed marriage. Focusing on the marriages of two ultra-orthodox couples (one loving but childless; the other miserable and occasionally violent) Kadosh is an attempt to portray another city, Jerusalem, as a microcosm of the Israeli secular-religious divide.

The problem Gitai faces with Kadosh is his application of modern secular standards to a community that lives by a Biblical code last revised by Talmudic scholars almost 1000 years ago. A minority within a minority, who mostly shun the Israeli state, the ultra-zealous Jews who live in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim quarter adhere to a strict interpretation of the Torah, one that's increasingly challenged not only by the surrounding secular society but by other observant religious communities. The film, featuring some fine and poignant acting, presents a forceful argument with which few secular viewers would disagree. These men treat 'their' women abominably, maintaining their power by enforcing rules that view females as chattels, little more than baby factories. But this itself raises the question of why thousands of women would choose to remain in such communities and accept their strictures in the first place, an arguably more intriguing conundrum, but one which Gitai's film never really addresses.

The point, which comes across only partially in the film, is that to all these people, men and women, the burden of the commandments (ol mitsvot) is exactly that - a burden, explicable only by the layers of tradition that present the strictest adherents as the purest guardians of God's will. Everyone suffers a life of self-denial and hardship (except those who abuse their power in the community for financial gain, a vital sore completely ignored here), leavened only by the bursts of intense joy which accompany religious festivals. But even these moments are downplayed in Kadosh; everything is reduced to Gitai's critique of the cheerlessly repressive nature of this fanatically religious existence.

The greatest irony is that Gitai relies on a secular methodology - dramatic narrative - in his portrait of a community that recognises only one narrative, the Torah, discussed and reviewed endlessly by the film's characters. The ultra-orthodox Jews whose lives Gitai attempts to depict will never see his film, as they shun the visual culture of cinema and television. Our own disapproval of their way of life may be strengthened, but it isn't elucidated; an opportunity to see the world through their eyes has been missed.

ALILA C+ 78

aka: Storyline

Israel (122 mi) 2003

Once again, Amos Gitai takes a potentially terrific story and ruins it with his purely amateurish storytelling ability, and his inability to understand pacing or dramatic tension. He has interesting characters, which are interwoven into a film that has relevancy filled with issues that matter, but then he deflates the potency of the story by following riveting sequences with non-essential characters and scenes in the highly important last 20 minutes of the film, and uses a cop out ending which oversimplifies everything that came before.

The film is about Jewish identity and the difficulty being human in Israel today, molded together in a series of vignettes which become “a day in the life of Israel,” events all taking place in a run-down apartment complex in modern day Tel Aviv,

with men troubled beyond cynical; a man living in his van with his hired Chinese immigrant workers, parked in front of his ex-wife’s house, frazzled beyond belief (Uri Klauzner); a man dressed in his robe carrying his barking dog; a Holocaust survivor who associates the sounds of building construction with the noises in the gas chambers; a hardened, brute of a man, whose paranoid, secretive nature matches that of the Secret Service, who has an abusive affair, using a gorgeous woman as his prisoner, but always ends up giving her orders as ultimatums (Last Tango in Tel Aviv).

The women seem more creatively able to deal with the circumstances and include the aforementioned ex-wife (Hana Laszlo) who has now taken a young man as her new lover, so she has obviously demonstrated the ability to move on; a flipped out neighbor who is a female police officer who eventually rails against everyone and everything; a wonderfully colorful Philippino house maid (Lyn Shiao Zamir) who beautifully takes care of the Holocaust survivor while finding solitary moments on her own playing an electric piano; and most importantly, the beautiful woman having the affair, (Yaël Abecassis), who moves back and forth from absolute obsession to resolute disgust with her situation, eventually finding her own way out of the affair. The divorced couple have a young 18 year-old son, an Army deserter who has no love for his country, declaring at one point, “Fuck the army! Fuck this country!” a point of view which eventually carries more weight than it deserves, and in the end derails what might otherwise be an important film.

Alila Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

After an impressive opening credits sequence harking back to Orson Welles, Alila proceded to mire itself in a host of bad directorial decisions, as has been the case in nearly all the Gitai features I've seen to date. (His first fiction film, Esther, is the only one I've really liked.) Relying on the now-cliched structural trick of moving the audience between interlocking stories joined by a particular locale (an apartment block in Tel Aviv), Gitai gives us entirely too much time with characters who reveal little humanity. Their every interaction is ploddingly orchestrated to deliver some morsel of narrative information. In some cases, such as the army-desertion plot, Gitai is using his actors to stake out schematic political positions. In the adultery plot, he gives us some supple young skin but little else. Who are these characters, and why should we care about them? Ordinarily we would expect the time spent in their presence to answer that question, through an accretion of individuating details, or at least a sense of their place in an organic pattern of depicted life. But Gitai never moves beyond surface affectations. This is just as true on the formal level as it is with respect to plot and characterization. (Compare Alila's long-take-then-blackout structure to that of Haneke's Code Unknown. Haneke nearly cuts his actors off in mid-breath, giving the viewer a disorienting glimpse of the Parisian social order that always relies on its relationship to all that follows and precedes it. Gitai, however, parses information out in patronizing little dollops, as if he were already anticipating commercial breaks.) And just when you think it can't get much worse, in pops Ronit Elkabetz, so incisive a performer in Late Marriage, here inexplicably coached to imitate Fran Drescher from "The Nanny." In the past, I've found Gitai features such as Kedma and Yom Yom intriguingly bad, the work of a wayward master trying and failing to convey some bizarre form of anti-dramatic or declamatory narrative. But I'm done. As a cinephile, I take no joy in writing off a major figure in world cinema. But despite Gitai's obvious importance (he remains the preeminent Israeli auteur on the world scene), I just can't keep banging my head against this particular wall.

FREE ZONE

France Israel Jordan Belgium (94 mi) 2005

Free Zone Dan Fainaru in Cannes for Screendaily

Even his detractors would have to agree that Free Zone, the Cannes competition entry from Amos Gitai, is his most satisfactory picture since Kippur. The first Israel-Jordan co-production on record, his road movie, which features three women each representing a facet of the Middle East conflict, is less ideologically insistent and has more space for character and emotion than his usual fare.

Although its historical precision and geographic accuracy leave much to be desired and the plot ignores several loose ends, the evidence here is that Gitai has considerably mellowed, occasionally forgoing some of his trademark self-imposed rules.

Gitai’s faithful coterie of admirers will need little convincing to see his latest feature, but Free Zone also has a strong chance of reaching a wider audience who prefer more conventionally narrative plots. Natalie Portman's name should also be an asset, although her contribution ends after 15 minutes when Hanna Laslo and Hiam Abbass take over with strong and eloquent performances.

Rebecca (Portman), a young American, devastated after breaking up with her Israeli husband, is taken by hired driver Hanna (Laslo) from Tel Aviv to the Free Zone, an economic trade area on the border between Jordan and Iraq.

Her former love is owed $30,000 for armoured cars he has delivered to a merchant, known as The American, and expects to be paid. But all they find on arrival is Leila (Abbas), a Palestinian woman who claims neither the American nor the money is there.

Leila then drives ahead of the women to the nearby farmstead of Mussa Allami, a home for Palestinian orphans established in 1948, promising to introduce them to the mysterious American.

On arrival the three find the place ablaze, torched by Arab fanatics who reject any normalization of life before their political goals are achieved. When Leila hears allegations that her son, one of the fanatics, has supposedly taken the outstanding money to help the Intifada, she heads with Rebecca and Hanna back to Israel.

At this point Gitai slips into his usual style, trying for an impossibly symbolic ending, which may sit well with his political views but jars with the realist tone he has adopted up until this point.

While few audience members would disagree that Israelis and Palestinians need to talk to each other, it would have been better not to have this conclusion sprung on viewers in such an obviously demonstrative way.

Still, Gitai fans will find many shots to admire, starting with the opening 10-minute long close-up of Portman crying over her aborted romance. Much of the subsequent picture then takes place in cars (a tribute to Abbas Kiarostami, one wonders?) offering the opportunity for many similar set-ups.

Gitai also makes much use of a new narrative device to introduce the past, superimposing images of previous events over the present rather than cutting away for flashbacks.

Of his three female characters, Portman's, once introduced, is very much the bystander. The dramatic onus is instead first with Hanna Laslo, a popular Israeli entertainer, who delivers her best performance to date as an assertive, energetic, no-nonsense - if at times - blundering Israeli woman.

Then the focus shifts to Hiam Abbass, who displays patience, humanity and suffering as a modern Palestinian woman who insists on preserving her individuality and freedom in a society where it is not taken for granted.

Carmen Maura, supposed to have a much meatier part, also passes through in one of the superimposed episodes as Portman's mother-in-law.

There are also several satirical touches, including the presentation of the high-handed conduct of Israeli border security. Not everyone will be best please at how their fellow countrymen are presented. Israelis will object again to stories about soldiers having their way with Palestinian women, while Palestinians will balk at the sight of fanatics wrecking havoc on their own people. But for Gitai, facts are elements to build upon and not necessarily to be respected on their own terms.

Gitai chooses to present the contemporary face of Jordan through everyday photography rather than any picture postcard tourist attractions. It may disappoint those who expect even a brief piece of scenery for relief – but then if they know their Gitai, they should not be surprised.

Free Zone Michael Sicinski from the Academic hack

First of all, in seeing this film I've sort of gone back on my word a little bit. After having seen four or five Gitai films, finding all but one of them clumsy, forced, and utterly unengaging as cinema, I'd planned to write the director off completely. But Free Zone's inclusion in 2005's Cannes Competition (as well as the Best Actress award going to Hanna Laszlo) piqued my curiosity, not to mention the fact that I wanted to see what Gitai would do with an international superstar like Natalie Portman. Although Free Zone in no way turned me around on Gitai, I have to admit that I'm glad I saw it. As a relative failure, this film is far more interesting that anything I've seen him do since Esther. Intentionally or not, Gitai has developed a stylistic skin graft that never exactly takes. His close-quarters camerawork, largely hand-held and favoring long takes, implies a haphazard approach to the film, an openness reminiscent of the best low-budget independent cinema. Even the much-remarked-upon opening shot, which features Portman in close-up crying for the duration of an unbroken ten-minute take, has a shambolic feel to it, as though Gitai were selecting the road-movie as a sturdy enough genre structure to accommodate improvisational filmmaking between national borders. Things soon take an adventurous but wrongheaded turn, as Gitai superimposes the memories of the recent past over his characters' present, resulting in a visual field dense with ghosts and yet oddly pedestrian nonetheless. To say that this feels like a student-film move sounds pejorative, and it's true that I don't think that it works at all. But still, there is a gutsy spirit of invention here that is laudable. Nothing I've seen in Gitai's recent work prepares a viewer for this bizarre experimentation. Alas, soon the device drops out, and the open-form visual style becomes a container for overdetermined, didactic interactions between The Israeli and The Arab, with the flummoxed American acting as a reluctant mediator. Dialogue devolves into position-paper, and I remember why I can never really get behind Amos Gitai.

DISENGAGEMENT B 83

Israel, France Germany Italy (115 mi) 2007

This film attempts to be topical by adding as a sidebar to the story one of the major conflicts taking place in Israel right now, the settlement issue, as religious zealots believe that extending every inch of Gaza settlement territory with expansion of Israeli land acquisition and Jewish religious fervor is the best way to express their undying love and faith in Israel. These are largely right wing religious fanatics who will not be deterred by rational thought or common sense, as all they see are their own narrow interests. This has been a supposedly resolvable issue in the peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians until the election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a right wing hawk who has advocated rapid development into areas that Palestinians believe is contested territory. But this, as was mentioned, is only the underlying backdrop to the story. Unfortunately, the significance of the political ramifications dwarfs the original story itself, which is a family drama dealing with the impact of a death, where Gitai attempts to merge the two stories together by having them intersect near the end, making the political become the personal. That objective doesn’t really work, as many of the scenes are prolonged, heavy handed and repetitive, losing their emotional weight after awhile. It’s a familiar problem with this director who falls in love with the length of certain scenes and doesn’t wish to edit them for the benefit of the movie, which simply elongates onscreen what the audience already knows. This has a disastrous effect overall, especially when he chooses such a provocative, headlines grabbing, side story that truly does hold the audience’s interest.

The prologue is perhaps the best scene in the entire movie, as it has the feel of being spontaneous, comic even, light and breezy, something out of the blue, while everything else seems overly scripted and heavily dramatized. What works initially is the clever way a romantic spark is lit while at the same time touching on national identity and the way low level officials are prone to browbeat and overstep their authority through racial stereotyping. This leads into a dark and dreary death of the family patriarch story, where immediately we’re subjected to a change from life as we know it, which is beautifully portrayed by having American black soprano Barbara Hendricks sing over the dead body. Making matters more interesting, she appears to be singing in German, where a potpourri of mixed cultural messages is being sent, suggesting nothing should be taken for granted. Enter Juliette Binoche as the grieving daughter, while the flirtatious guy in the opening scene is her step-brother, Liron Levo, something of a good looking hunk, but not much of an actor, as he’s helplessly over his head here. Binoche uses a flirtatious style of her own to dance circles around the guy, all vivacious and emotionally invested in being provocative, as she even dares to openly change her father’s will, with somewhat comical results. Jeanne Moreau plays the longtime friend of her father, a judge who easily recognizes a fraudulent will, carefully detailing her father’s actual intent, which hadn’t changed in decades.

Even in death, her father’s influence is paramount, as it forces her to travel to Gaza where Binoche’s grown daughter, who she abandoned very young while still a teen, is living on one of those Jewish settlements that is about to publicly hand over its territory back to the Palestinians as part of a peace agreement. Binoche has to somehow connive her way into a forbidden military zone and find her daughter just as the army and military are sending in special forces (her brother) to evacuate Jewish citizens from occupying Arab land, which plays out like MEDIUM COOL (1969), as Binoche is an innocent bystander who dreamily passes through this absurdly humorous, yet deadly serious military confrontation with rabbi-induced, defiant, screaming protestors with complete naiveté, as if she’s never seen the news reports. While the authenticity of the differing Israeli views makes for interesting theater, especially how it then again gets differentiated by the American Jewish position, which is largely at odds with occupying settlements in Gaza, yet what we see is a rabbi using incendiary resistance tactics against the Israeli authority, defying all law except God’s own, where Binoche’s long lost daughter becomes a pawn, an expendable part of a larger puzzle. It’s a bit confusing, especially a tonal shift where the flippantly, free spirited Binoche suddenly turns on the waterworks in a scene of overly dramatic calculation. Gitai, once again, overplays his hand, falling flat as often as he hits the mark, bringing this to a brooding, heavy handed finale that is light years from that brisk little opening sequence that was a marvel of comic wit on display framed with such a delightful mix of social comment and romantic comedy.

13th Annual European Union Film Festival | Gene Siskel Film Center Marty Rubin

"Exhilarating...Gitai's strongest entry since KIPPUR."--Ronnie Scheib, Variety

Gitai, Israel's most celebrated (and controversial) director, again proves himself a master of integrating intimate personal drama and large political issues with rigorous formal beauty. The first half of the film is set in Avignon, where Israeli policeman Uli (Levo) and his flirtatious French stepsister Ana (Binoche) are reunited by their father's death. The second half follows Ana to Israel where her search for a long-abandoned daughter intersects with the forced removal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip--depicted in the stunningly choreographed long takes that are Gitai's trademark. In English, French, Hebrew, and Arabic with English subtitles. Special advance screening courtesy of IFC Films. 35mm

User reviews from imdb Author: erica-3 from Israel

The excellent Israeli director Amos Gitai has used this time a script to provide a vehicle for great names like Juliette Binoche, Barbara Hendricks, Jeanne Moreau, but has little to do with any real situation. An Israeli policeman travels to Avignon to attend the funeral of his stepfather. He sleeps on the street amid the homeless but wears a suit for the funeral! His beautiful step sister Ana who has not seen her daughter since early childhood and has not kept any contact with her, discovers that the daughter lives in a settlement in Gaza. Quite strange, the late father of Ana did visit his granddaughter occasionally! Instantly Ana travels to Gaza, succeeds to penetrate the sealed-off territory from which religious settlers were to be evacuated and wanders amid these settlers until she founds her daughter. The film has some beautifully filmed moments depicting the confusion, religious frenzy of settlers and cold blood of the policemen involved, but otherwise is very close to the usually sold kitch.

User reviews from imdb Author: johno-21 from United States

I recently saw this at the 2008 Palm Springs International Festival of Films. This is a good film by veteran filmmaker, director and writer Amos Gitai and it's interesting to see an event that was recently an international news story recreated in a feature film. The film's title comes from the 2005 forced evacuation of Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip by Israel in a move that rather than calling it giving up the Gaza the government of Israel referred to it as disengagement. The film begins on a train when a beautiful Palestinian woman shares conversation and a cigarette with a handsome Israeli man. They each have several different ethnic backgrounds to their genealogy bu Israeli and Palestinian are what stand out. "We're all Bedouin's" the woman flatly observes referring to the Arab and non-Arab nomadic tribes of the Middle East. The film then turns to it's storyline about a Israeli soldier Uli (Leron Levo) returning to his father's home in France for his funeral. His sister Ana (Juliette Binoche) is also there for the funeral and finds out that the daughter Dana (Dana Ivgy) that she gave up is a schoolteacher at a Kibbutz on the Gaza who Ana's father had been in contact with and wanted to leave a large part of his estate to. The funeral features a strange scene with American soprano Barbara Harris singing over the old man's body. An American black woman who now lives in Sweden singing a German opera over the corpse of a French-Jew is rather odd. Harris in reality is a champion of human rights and works closely as a UN Ambassador for Life for refugee causes so the director uses this to underscore the plight of those in the Gaza who were forced to leave during the Israeli pullout. Levo's acting is a little flat and uninspired and Binoche's acting is over the top and is in fact over acting. The story set in France gets a little dull at times but becomes energized once they arrive in Gaza. Uli on duty to evacuate settlers and Ana to find her daughter. I would give this a 7.0 out of 10.

User reviews from imdb Author: Stephen Walter from Australia

I saw this movie at a Jewish film Festival and it looked interesting on paper. However, from the strange opening scene where the protagonist, a French Israeli gets into conversation on a train with a Dutch Palestinian woman and after a brief interlude with a passport inspecting official he and the woman start kissing passionately, the movie got more and more bizarre, seemingly for bizarre's sake. The fact that there is no further reference in the movie to that Palestinian woman is an indication either that the director forgot that he put that scene in or that he had no intention of making a movie which made sense. Similar bizarre scenes involve an American black woman singing operatic songs in German over the dead body of the protagonist's father. She sings beautifully but there is no explanation of who she is or why she is there in the first place. Dangling from the ceiling around the father's dead body are dreidles and menorahs - Jewish symbols which have absolutely no place around the dead bodies of either observant or vehemently non-observant Jews. Juliet Binoche, playing the sister or rather adoptive stepsister of the protagonist spends most of the first half of the film apparently trying to seduce her stepbrother. While the scene of her flaunting her admittedly very attractive naked body in front of him behind a darkened doorway is of great prurient interest, it doesn't lead to any actual plot developments or insight. Many other seemingly isolated scenes in the first half of the movie just left me wondering what the point was supposed to be. The second half of the movie, set at the time of the Israeli disengagement from Gaza but preposterously involving the Juliette Binoche character going to Gaza to meet her long estranged daughter is somewhat less puzzling than the first half. However, it tediously portrays the actions of the soldiers and the settlers with no new insights into the nature of the conflict or the issues involved. I would have thought that an Israeli director would have something more to say about the disengagement than just that it happened. I watched this movie with my 18-year-old daughter and it was so bad that it has put her off going to the rest of the film Festival. I can't blame her.

A Nutshell Review Stefan S

For an Amos Gitai film, I thought this had the most impactive prologue amongst those that I've watched to date, which succinctly sums up the political themes that his films often explore. While it might have thrust you right into the thick of (in)action, you'll soon realize that he has a tremendous ability to gift wrap his points amongst the most mundane and ordinary.

A Dutch-Palestinian lady gets chatted up by a French Israeli man on a train. They share a cigarette moment, and soon realize that they have a lot more in common than they initially realized. The two strangers's chance meeting soon turn into lust/love at first sight, probably a nod in the direction that even amongst what would be perceived as the most irreconcilable groups of people, can find common ground and understanding, and kiss and make up. Only that there are those in the world like the authorities wielding some power, could make unreasonable demands to try and derail peace efforts, like that train soldier who might have stepped out of his boundary in asserting and demanding that he be listened to and complied with.

Alas the movie failed to keep the pace with its wonderful opening, and for the most parts the build up to the finale sagged heavily under very dire straits stemming from an uninteresting plot which failed to capitalize on the Israeli man Uli (Liron Levo) whom we got introduced, but shifted its attention to the more illustrious Juliette Binoche's Ana, Uli's half sister whom he is meeting in France because of their father's demise, and to discover just what his will entailed. The story found it necessary to go through an entire backstory for nothing, only for us to know little red herring nuggets of information such as Ana's estranged relationship with her separated husband whom we do not see on screen, and that slightly incestuous (well, not exactly) temptations that both Uli and Ana go through, with the latter being the temptress.

It tried to address issues like staying with someone who you don't love, only out of convenience, which Ana confessed to be doing, because she's a lazy soul. But in fact her character flits into mood swings one end to the other, that it's not tough to understand how unappealing she can get, good looker or not. Things start to pick up slightly midway through the film when the actual seed of the story was sown, with the reading of the deceased's will, having to instruct Ana to travel to Gaza to pass on her dad's inheritance to her abandoned daughter Dana (Dana Ivgy) in person.

So begins a road trip for the siblings, which is convenient anyway because Uli was beginning to fade away like a side show, and his return to Israel gives him a chock load of things to do, since he's a police officer, and have been given orders, together with the army, to clear Gaza of its Israeli settlers since Israel has pulled out of the Gaza Strip. Ordering your fellow men off their plot of land and homes are never easy, and this story arc provides that “action packed”moment in Disengagement. The other thread would be of course Ana's quest in locating her daughter, like finding a needle in the perennial haystack, made more difficult because she doesn't speak the language of her countrymen. The story arcs tangent off at this point, but you know there'll definitely be moments for a collision course later in the film.

Through Uli's eyes we see how their evacuation operation gets carried out, having to be compassionate, yet stern in a thankless job that involves ejecting by any means possible the settlers who are protesting their rights. One involves grabbing the people and forcing them onto chartered buses to take them back to the mainland, and on the other having heavy machinery either bulldoze everything insight, or the utilization of cranes to literally lift homes off the soil. One can imagine if one is forced away from your home at the snap of a finger, and that is definitely something difficult to swallow.

Disengagement unfortunately is like a self-fulling prophecy, having the middle portion starkly dragging against the powerful prologue and finale. If only it could find a better gel to stick both ends together in a more engaging fashion.

blog Ignatius Vishnevetskyfrom CINE-FILE

Variety.com [Ronnie Scheib]

Glaser, Jan-Christoph and Carsten Ludwig, Sven Taddicken, Jakob Ziemnicki

BERLIN – 1^ST OF MAY (Mai) B+ 90

Germany (95 mi) 2008

(Glaser and Ludwig, segment “Der Ausflug,” Taddicken segment “Yavuz,” and Ziemnicki segment “Uwe”)

This film feels like a terrific idea, filled with highly original characters and a frantic, relentless energy at times, but tries to cram too much into this story, actually combining the efforts of 4 film directors into three different segments of the film. The result, of course, is uneven and lags in spots, where viewers might scratch their heads over a strange feeling of confusion setting in, yet somehow it all works anyway, as the jumbled, haphazard style lends itself to a film chronicling the crazy behavior and zany antics surrounding Berlin’s May Day demonstrations using first person, on-the-scene accounts of the events. Among the more interesting conflicts pits the Turkish community against the more radically driven, white German youth, where each side is spoiling for a fight. May Day in Europe is historically a worker’s holiday filled with flagwaving, giant red banners, and leftist speeches, but in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, still reeling from the infamous 1987 riots where nearly one-third of the residents are immigrants who lack German citizenship, it’s an anarchist’s dream where everyone wants to raise a little Hell and knock a few heads in the process, creating enough havoc and chaos to fully engage the entire police force, leaving the citizenry free to do whatever they want, as there’s no one left to stop them – at least for one day every year.

The film interweaves the story of Uwe (Benjamin Hoppner), a cop on duty already emotionally devastated by his wife’s brazenly open affair, a young rebellious 11 or 12-year old Turkish kid Yavuz (Cemal Subasi), perhaps the central character in the film, who dreams of killing a cop on May Day, as if that is a noble achievement, and two high school kids from out of town, Jacob (Jacob Matschenz), who brings a loaded gun, a quick trigger, a fuck-the-world attitude and a videocamera to record the day’s activities, while his friend Pelle (Ludwig Trepte), knowing he is Jacob’s only friend in the world, is more measured in tone but still looks forward to getting drunk and partying in Berlin. Using a MEDIUM COOL (1969) style technique, much of this was actually filmed during last year’s May Day events, providing a feel of documentary authenticity mixed with fictionalized events, much of it jarring and confrontational, humorous and openly weird, and some of it compassionately humane. The overall intensity is impressive throughout, using a highly original sound design and some throbbing German underground music (SoundtrackCollector: Soundtrack details: Berlin - 1.Mai), including the reverberating beer barrel polka sounds of Kissogram’s “I Am the Night Before You Die.” Instead of going for a big splash, this is a film of well-defined, compact scenes where the characters are memorable and the editing is strikingly good in spots, especially whenever tension mounts. Contemporary Berlin continues to evoke provocation, where the beauty of this film is openly exploring the unease that lies just under the surface that could so easily explode at any minute.

User comments from imdb Author: tallison-2 from Germany

Berlin is a fascinating place and this film reflects a slice of contemporary Berlin that I haven't seen so accurately portrayed elsewhere. The film is at its best when it sticks to relatively low-drama depictions of the fabric of the society surrounding the May 1st festival in today's Berlin. The film-maker focuses on small side stories about, for instance, second-generation immigrant youth, unhappy police officers and a true-to-life Quixotic leftist, left over from political struggles that smack of merely "historical" relevance.

The film is flawed, unwilling to be satisfied with the sort of gentle drama & humor that works so well throughout. I don't know the background of the film -- if it is an experiment, I hope the director will decide with me that some parts worked and some didn't and go on to make more movies in the mode of what worked, here.

User comments from imdb Author: Gecq from Germany

This movie uses Kreuzberg, a district in the heart of Berlin as plot driver for several little episodes. Since the famous May Day riots in 1987 where Kreuzberg was a marginal district cornered by the Berlin Wall and charged with social conflicts due to Ghetto-politics concerning the Turkish immigrants minority Kreuzberg on 1st of May has been the magnet for politically left sided tourists, cops form abroad etc. In recent years with the crisis of the German political left the events have largely deescalated and 1st of May in Kreuzberg not only became folcloristic but also the riots seem to be part of the past. However 'Berlin 1. Mai' depicts a very realistic image of Kreuzberg today. The different episodes' plots seem a little overdone on some occasions but that doesn't hurt the overall impression of a very intense cinematic experience.

Variety.com [Russell Edwards]

Anarchy is in the air, but the drama is a tad too schematic in the nevertheless engaging German 24-hour criss-crosser “Berlin -- 1st of May.” Low-budget, guerrilla-style effort centers on an annual festival that originated as a left-wing worker’s celebration, but has morphed from political protest to an excuse for mindless vandalism. Pic is ideal for Euro tube viewing and may garner some fest play. Local release is skedded for later this year, possibly May.

Film begins on the morning of May 1 with cuckolded cop Uwe (Benjamin Hoppner) leaving for work just as his wife comes home from a night on the town. En route to a posting in potential Berlin hot spot Kreuzberg, Uwe’s colleagues joke that there may be nothing better for him than to let off steam by cracking the heads of a few protesters.

Coming into Berlin from small German city Minden are excitement-seeking teens Pelle (Ludwig Trepte) and Jacob (Jacob Matschenz), who is armed with a video camera to capture the day’s events.

Third story focuses on 11-year-old Turkish boy Yavuz (pic’s strongest thesp, Cemal Subasi) looking for violent excitement, and he gets it when he runs into a drug dealer (Hussan Chahrour), then a drunken anarchist (Peter Kurth).

Pelle and Jacob run afoul of Yavuz’s older brother Nebi (Oktay Ozedemir) and his friends, one of many odd situations they innocently get themselves into. Meanwhile, cop Uwe, bored by the well-behaved crowds at his posting, decides to visit a brothel -- right when things suddenly get explosive.

Taking advantage of crowds that gather in Berlin each year for May Day, pic (helmed by Sven Taddicken, Jakob Ziemnicki and Carsten Ludwig and Jan-Christoph Glaser) was shot last year on the fly with three camera crews to follow the three major strands. Scenes not requiring obvious May Day action were shot at a later date. The fact that there are no jarring moments or conflicting directing styles, and perfs are consistent throughout, reps a major achievement.

However, even acknowledging this accomplishment, the end result tends to lag, particularly in the aimlessness of Jacob and Pelle, though their thread does build to a satisfying final twist.

HD lensing which aims for a docu feel, looks a little washed out on the bigscreen, but should be easier on the eye on TV. Sound quality is crisp throughout and well mixed.

Camera (color, HD), Daniela Knapp, Daniel Moller, Kolja Raschke, David Scultz; editor, Carsten Eder, Jan-Christoph Glaser; music, Christoph Blaser, Dirk Dresselhaus, Steffen Kahles; production designers, Petra Albert, Juliane Friedrich, Christian Sitta, Juliane Maier; sound, Carsten Arnolds, Alexander Heinze. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Perspektive Deutsches Kino), Jan. 8, 2008. Running time: 95 MIN.

Glasner, Matthias

THE FREE WILL (Der freie Wille) B+ 92

Germany (163 mi) 2006

A film that does not hold back, bearing a remarkable similarity to the ferocity of Kieslowski’s A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING, opening with a scene of blistering intensity that evolves into graphically raw brutality. Jürgen Vogel is brilliant as the ordinary, everyday looking guy who blends into the crowd, but who possesses the soul of a serial rapist who also brutalizes women. After serving 9 years in psychiatric confinement, Theo is released back into society to a half-way house as an example of a cured rapist, after successfully completing two years off sex suppressants, bringing back memories of Alex in Kubrick’s CLOCKWORK ORANGE, as the underlying threat of violence is never far from the surface of this guy, who has changed his appearance, become physically fit and something of a martial arts expert, where he is seen alone in his room repeatedly going through conditioning drills. But he’s so isolated and alone, with no other apparent interest, he continues to stalk women, which is the only way he knows how to get close to them. After he gets a job at a print shop, he meets the boss’s daughter, Nettie (Sabine Timoteo). Neither opens up to one another, and when she tells him that nothing’s going to develop as they have nothing to say to one another and she has a low opinion of men, perhaps the victim of paternal incest, he agrees with her, claiming he doesn’t think much of women as well. Believing this is just a male come on, she calls him on it, claiming it’s a pathetic, low-life tactic, but he calmly tells her he’s sorry if that’s what she thinks, but what he said was true, and walks away into the night.

Flabbergasted that she’d call him after that, they develop a relationship in silence, as they have little to say to one another, yet the attraction is evident enough, as they take long walks together without uttering a word, occasionally catching a glimpse of the other and offering a smile. There’s a wonderfully physical scene at the gym where she joins him for martial arts practice and he teaches her how to break a choke hold, which they perform again and again. She takes to it immediately, literally throwing herself behind the power of the movements, which become increasingly forceful and violent. Traveling to Brussels where she’s learning to become a desert chef, he unexpectedly follows her there, which is just another extension of his stalking habits. But they get along well, and he surprises us with a remarkable moment. After Nettie played the music of the song “Ave Maria” before she went to bed at night, he lures her into a church the next day, gives a singer in the balcony a sign, and they break into a live organ and soprano performance of “Ave Maria,” which brings tears of joy to each of them. Almost immediately, she confesses her happiness and her love.

His response to love is unexpected, as in a random moment, he brutalizes another victim and then rapes her while she is lying inertly unconscious. He breaks it off with Nettie just as quickly, confessing the specifics of his criminal background as well as the incident the day before, shouting out he knows now he can’t control it, then walks off into the night, leaving her screaming in agony on the ground. She returns to her dad, who she promised never to see again earlier, claiming she’s “such a piece of shit,” and we later see them dancing together, where he spins her around like a rag doll. But rather than get her life in order, she searches for one of Theo’s victims from 9 years ago, expressing an interest in talking to her. But when the outraged girl discovers Nettie was not a victim, but is calling Theo a friend, she follows her into the ladies room and stuffs her upside down into the toilet. If that wasn’t enough, Nettie then starts stalking Theo, and nearly catches him in the act of following one of his victims. She finds his hotel room, and in a moment out of the Dardennes LE FILS, she even searches his hotel room while he’s having a beer in the bar next door. We don’t really know what she’s up to, whether she wants to turn him into the police, catch him in the act, shoot him, we’re not really sure, but there was plenty of anxious discomfort to watch her defenselessly play right into his hands, the ying and the yang, the abuser and the abused, the sadist and the masochist, yet they fit together so perfectly like a hand in a glove. Still, the end is not what we expect, and leaves us no closer to understanding the agonizing internal torture and despair of either individual. Jürgen Vogel won the Best Actor Prize at the 2006 Chicago Film Fest.

The Free Will Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Glass, Alton

CRU C 76

USA (95 mi) 2014

Made for an estimated $750,000, this is another low-budget black indie film that, like his earlier films, will likely end up being released on television. Despite winning five awards at the American Black Film Festival, including Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Narrative Feature and Actor (Keith Robinson), where the much more inventive Jeffrey C. Wray’s The Evolution of Bert (2014) was not in competition, this speaks more to the lack of a black presence in the film industry, an inherently white owned business where whites end up writing nearly all the black-oriented film projects. According to Gregory Allen Howard from Portside, July 31, 2014, The Whitewashing of James Brown | Portside: “There are over fifty black iconic biopics and black-themed movies in development in Hollywood, including multiple Richard Pryor projects, five Martin Luther King projects, multiple Marvin Gaye projects, and civil rights projects, and only one or two have an African American writer. Our entire history has been given over to white writers.” In an industry where black talents like Viola Davis and Forest Whitaker have received critical acclaim for playing maids and butlers, is it any wonder that so many black-themed films are laced with generic stereotypical characters where an important consideration is that they be perceived as non-threatening to whites, a continued reflection of how white people view blacks even in contemporary society. Even in films written by blacks, like this one, where the producer/director owns Glassrock Entertainment in Los Angeles, there remains a perception hovering over Hollywood that in order to be successful they have to be able to sell a product that is acceptable to whites, which accounts for so many of the exact same kinds of generically acceptable characters, such as male figures who are a product of their identification with sports, where even as adults they are defined and/or imprisoned by their youthful masculinity, former athletic heroes on the basketball court during high school in what amounts to their glory years. Now fifteen years later, each having gone their own separate ways, the film reunites these former state champions who have lost contact with each other through the years.

Seen through the eyes of Marshall ‘M.O.’ Ogden (Keith Robinson), a rising star in a successful law firm, owner of that million dollar house in Malibu, he is written much like other single dimension characters on TV, like the prototype of the near perfect Blair Underwood part on the television series L.A. Law (1986 – 1994), where he’s perceived as rich, good looking, and a killer of a ladies man, seen early on in the company of several women in his bed, supposedly the ultimate male fantasy. All of these are signs of male virility and success as seen through the prism of television, which strictly deals in stereotypes when it comes to people of color. Once he becomes a partner of the firm, gladly welcomed by Harry Lennix, the CEO of the company, the audience quickly realizes something is not right. While Marshall continues to believe he’s invincible, he’s diagnosed with kidney cancer, which begins a slow deterioration of his health. His male cockiness is challenged throughout the rest of the film, where his standard comebacks just don’t work anymore. He becomes a liability to the business, where his health is impeding his work, but until he’s officially instructed to go home and take some time off, he’s in utter denial about his condition. Cue the sad orchestral music, which is uninspired, standard fare from Kurt Oldman, where the director simply doesn’t trust making more original musical choices, as if that’s a less significant aspect of his filmmaking, or working without music altogether, where the performances of his actors would be forced to carry the entire weight of the film. Instead the director relies upon a repeated flashback sequence, which we see about a half a dozen times, losing any attempt at subtlety, but it shows the kids driving their own car back home from the state high school basketball championship. Victorious and in a celebratory mood, there is plenty of drinking going on leading to that inevitable crash, where all survived, but their big man, Richard Hughes (Richard T. Jones), permanently injured his knee and flamed out, never becoming the pro star he was expected to be. Instead he’s now a middle-aged family man that takes parenting seriously, coaching basketball while living vicariously through his son R.J. (Jermaine Crawford) and his budding athletic prowess, while married to his intelligent and attractive wife Michelle (Melissa De Sousa). Richard has held a grudge against M.O. since the accident, holding him responsible as the driver, and hasn’t spoken to him in all these years.

Through the help of perhaps Marshall’s closest friend Alex (Diandra Lyle), a sultry fox who always seems to be there when he needs someone, though she’s rarely seen in close ups like the featured male characters, instead the director always shoots her in a tight, form-fitting dress wearing heels accentuating not only her figure, but her power and stylish individuality, she urges him to reconnect with his teammates, best friends from his past, as they were once a tight-knit group growing up together, knowing each other’s secrets, where they shared the happiest moments of their youth. Contacting them one by one, including Eric (Antwon Tanner), whose life is amusingly surrounded by child support payments with different women, Adisa (Sammi Rotibi), an Army recruiter targeting young black men, and Richard, who begrudgingly comes along, they are all invited to his palatial Southern California estate for a weekend reunion. While there’s the usual cliché’s of good times and laughs, where they pay tribute to their seemingly unbreakable friendship, each one goes through their own personal transformation from the past, where they’ve grown yet remain transfixed in time, still reliving that one earth shattering moment that they can’t escape, as the bad blood between M.O. and Richard only resurfaces, where any hopes of healing old wounds are derailed by frayed nerves and a long build-up of mistrust. There is obviously a special understanding between these guys, but they exist side by side with personal torment and wrenching anger, where many of these hidden emotions rise to the surface, bluntly expressing themselves in inappropriate moments, where whatever hopes Marshall might have had in finding the right time to come clean about his illness evaporates into thin air. No attempt is really made to flesh out the characters of any of these men, as it’s all placed in a similar context of what we’ve seen before, turning this death and redemption story into a sad tearjerker by the end when the friends learn the ultimate truth. The entire atmosphere surrounding the film exists in a kind of Southern California fantasy world, where all the money in the world seems to have been dropped at one man’s feet, yet it still can’t buy him happiness. While Alex gives the film a special edge, where we’d like to see an entire film devoted to her character, this is otherwise trite and overly conventional throughout, yet it’s a feelgood story about boys who aspire to be men, with fair to middling results.

CRU | Milwaukee Film

Twenty years after a tragic accident split them apart, four high school friends begin a journey of forgiveness and redemption, with a reunion that reveals secrets kept both in the past and the present that threaten to tear them apart forever. Achieving an unprecedented feat (Actor, Screenplay, Director, Audience, AND Best Feature Film awards) at the American Black Film Festival, 'CRU' is a stellar drama focused on four friends divided by their past that desperately need one another to survive their present and make for a better future.

Award-Winning Director, Writer Alton Glass Makes History at the 18th Annual American Black Film Festival, ‘CRU’ Good Black News

Director, writer, producer Alton Glass made history at the 18th annual American Black Film Festival (ABFF) held in New York City this June. Glass and his ensemble won awards for his engaging and heartfelt drama, “CRU”, making history by winning all nominated categories.

The award-winning film “CRU” tells the story of four high school best friends whose lives are dramatically changed after a near fatal accident, and when they reunite 18 years later they discover a set of past and present secrets that threaten to alter the course of their future.

The drama won the following awards in each nominated category:

* Grand Jury Prize for Best Director - “CRU,” Directed by Alton Glass, award and $5,000 prize provided by Cadillac

* Grand Jury Prize for Best Screenplay - “CRU,” written by Alton Glass and Oliver W. Ottley III, award and $5,000 prize presented by the Time Warner Foundation

* Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature – “CRU,” Written by Alton Glass & Oliver W. Ottley III, Directed by Alton Glass, Executive Producer Courtney Triggs, Produced by Danny Green, Alton Glass, Matthew Hatchette and Oliver W. Ottley III, award presented by BET Networks

* Audience Award for Best Film – “CRU,” Written by Alton Glass & Oliver Ottley III, Directed by Alton Glass, Executive Producer Courtney Triggs, Produced by Danny Green, Alton Glass, Matthew Hatchette and Oliver W. Ottley III, award presented by Nielsen

* Grand Jury Prize for Best Actor - Keith Robinson for his performance in “CRU,” award presented by UPTOWN Magazine

CRU stars Keith Robinson, Richard T. Jones, Harry J. Lennix, Melissa DeSousa, Sammi Rotibi, Antwon Tanner, Alison Eastwood and Jermaine Crawford.

Glass was overwhelmed with excitement over the history-making accomplishments. “I’d like to thank Jeff Friday, ABFF team, sponsors, my Mom who is my biggest supporter and film-lovers for supporting me and TeamCRU”, says Director/Writer/Producer Alton Glass while receiving back-to-back honors at the ABFF awards ceremony.

For more information on “CRU” or Alton Glass, visit www.glassrockent.com

Award-Winning Director, Writer Alton Glass Makes History at ... Black News

User reviews from Imdb Author: michael-sisk from New York City

Screenwriter who lived on St. Thomas takes home honors at ... Jenny Kane interviews the screenwriter Oliver Ottley III from The Virgin Islands Daily News, July 19, 2014

Glatzer, Richard and Wash Westmoreland

QUINCEAÑERA B+ 90

USA (90 mi) 2006

A film reminiscent of Peter Sollett’s exquisite 2002 film RAISING VICTOR VARGAS, which captures a New York City Puerto Rican Lower East Side slice of life, providing a near documentary feel, yet the film was initially written to reflect the writer/director’s own Jewish-Italian roots in the all-white neighborhood of Bensonhurst. With a similar attention to detail, QUINCEAÑERA reflects life in the Mexican Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, yet the film was written by a gay white writer/director duo that grew up in Queens, New York and Leeds, England. Both films were a result of Sundance screenwriting projects and both reflect a surprising degree of character development, cultural authenticity and naturalism. This film seems to have originated when a young Hispanic girl invited her gay Anglo neighbors to film her quinceañera, a traditional Mexican festivity celebrating a young girl’s 15^th birthday, the day she becomes a young woman. This rite of passage is thoroughly examined in this film, both from the perspective of the young girl and her friends, the somewhat aloof teen guys, her immediate and extended family, and those in the community who participate. Very much resembling a young wedding, it’s a formal occasion that puts a lot of pressure on those involved, not the least of which is that it’s a measure of one’s social status. No one wants to be outdone or left looking second class.

The twist in this film is that after getting a first hand glimpse of one quinceañera, Magdalena (Emily Rios), a sweetly angelic, yet thoroughly down-to-earth girl who is next in line, unexpectedly becomes pregnant and is immediately thrown out of her home by her strict pastor father, despite her unheard pleas that she never had intercourse with the boy. But she is pregnant nonetheless, from what we later discover is called non-penetrative conception, assuming the full force of the blame, despite the boy stringing her along, playing her for all she’s worth, then leaving her alone to deal with the unpleasant consequences, which includes the humiliating ostracism from both family and friends. The scene shifts into an atypical social setting as she’s dropped into the lap of her 80-year old great uncle Tomas, played with a serene grace and humility by Chalo Gonzalez, who already is providing shelter for another outcast, a pot smoking, gangster-tattooed Carlos (Jessie Garcia), her cousin who was thrown out by his father after he was caught looking at gay porn on the Internet. Interestingly, Carlos carries a completely unpredictable, under the surface power, like an unleashed force, never knowing himself what he’s going to do next, but it’s an interesting parallel, as he’s surprisingly unlike characters we’ve seen before, seen here as an exotic prize for the wealthy Anglo gay boys to play around with. Tomas is completely non-judgmental about these kids and willingly provides a safe coach house where he’s lived since before they were born, a near sacred place that he’s turned into a shrine which suddenly becomes a victim of gentrification. Despite some terrific performances that lure us with a taste of the unfamiliar, the film never delivers the goods at the end, suddenly veering from its established lack of artifice, resolving loose ends all-too easily, settling for an idealized, completely conventional feel-good ending.

STILL ALICE B+ 90

USA France (101 mi) 2014

Night flight to San Francisco; chase the moon across America. God, it’s been years since I was on a plane. When we hit 35,000 feet we’ll have reached the tropopause, the great belt of calm air, as close as I’ll ever get to the ozone. I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening. But I saw something that only I could see because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them and was repaired. Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there’s a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that’s so.

―Tony Kushner, Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika, 1993, read to Alice (Julianne Moore) by Lydia (Kristen Stewart)

Any film that graphically depicts the harsh personal struggles of dealing with a debilitating disease is going to be a tearjerker and a challenge for the viewing audience, as it can’t help but make people feel uncomfortable, much of it bordering on real life horrors. Up until now, perhaps the definitive film on Alzheimer’s Disease has been Sarah Polley’s Away from Her (2006), centered by such a superbly crafted performance from actress Julie Christie, where the essence of the film, featuring a slow descent into forgetfulness, is maintaining the dignity of the character. Coming nearly a decade later, Julianne Moore is rather remarkable in conveying the deteriorating effects of losing her memory, especially considering she is the focus of every single shot throughout the entire film, where time plays such a significant factor, as she has such little time left where she can remember anything. Written and directed by real-life partners, Richard Glatzer was diagnosed with ALS in 2013, where one imagines this may offer special insight and sensitivity toward the material. Continually attempting to avoid cliché’s, what these two films have in common, besides powerhouse performances and such intelligent lead characters, is a delicate approach to the subject, where the overwhelming effect is revealed by the accumulation of tiny details. Adding to the overall drama is the audience getting to know Alice (Moore) at age 50, a linguistics professor at Columbia University, a celebrated professor at the height of her career who specializes in the art of communication, where her entire focus in life has been elevated by her unique and uncanny ability to express herself and say exactly what she means. When words start to fail her, it has stunning ramifications particularly in her case, because the more intelligent you are, the quicker the noticeable deterioration of dementia. While she has a loving husband in Alec Baldwin as John, a biologist somewhat absorbed in his work, and three grown children, including aspiring doctor Tom (Hunter Parrish), expectant mother Anna (Kate Bosworth), and aspiring actress Lydia (Kristen Stewart, once again excellent), there is an existing family dynamic that becomes more evident as her disease progresses.

The film is based on Lisa Genova’s 2007 bestselling novel of the same name, where the author has a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard. As Genova’s grandmother had Alzheimer’s disease, discovered in her mid-80’s, she became fascinated by the progression of the disease, wondering what it was like from the view of the person with Alzheimer’s. Genova did a considerable amount of research and study on people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s when they could still describe their impressions of having the disease, reading every book she could find, interviewing neurologists, physicians, research scientists, genetics counselors, and social workers, while exchanging emails daily with people around the world living with early onset dementia. Genova describes recollections of her grandmother in an interview with the Alzheimer Research Forum, Interview with Lisa Genova - Alzheimer Research Forum.

We cared for her, but there was little we could do but watch this disease systematically disassemble the woman I knew as my grandmother. She didn’t know her kids’ names. She didn’t even remember that she had any children. She didn’t know where she lived. She couldn’t remember to go to the bathroom when she needed to. I would watch her looking at her own face in the mirror and not understanding the image she saw reflected back. She would care for these little plastic dolls as if they were real babies. It was heartbreaking.

As a result, the film gets the tiny details right, where more than 60% of Alzheimer’s patients are women, twice as likely to develop the disease upon reaching age 60 than breast cancer, and they are more likely to be the caregivers of those with Alzheimer’s. While the film starts out with only minor incidents of forgetfulness, nonetheless Alice visits a neurologist on her own without telling her husband. By the time John is brought in, the diagnosis has been confirmed, a rare incident of early onset dementia, where Alice is trying to come to terms with the inevitable while he’s in a state of denial and disbelief. One of the most horrifying realizations is the extent of genetic transmission linked to their children, where the entire family is personally affected. While she tries to maintain her independent lifestyle for as long as she can, she forgets pertinent subject matter during her lectures and eventually has to resign, where she’s seen exploring assisted living homes, where they assume she’s there on behalf of an elderly parent. One of the most startling revelations in the film is the shame involved, as patients get lost, can’t figure out why, and can’t describe how they got there, as it’s an invisible disease with no cure, where Alice actually suggests she’d rather have cancer, as that’s at least something people can identify with. Alzheimer’s patients simply disappear from their own known consciousness and are required to spend their lives in hiding, lost to their families and the people they love. Alice has a modern family that is computer literate, doing much of their work on computers, while constantly communicating with each other on their cell phones, though Alice expresses her worries and concerns for her wayward child, Lydia, on cross-country skype visits. One of the most effective devices used in the film is the grainy use of home movies, which serve as Alice’s reflections into the past, where over time she is unable to distinguish between the separate time barriers between the past and the present, where it all runs together into one stream-of-conscious present, often at odds with the “real” world.

The marital dynamic is challenged in the extreme, as John is in his prime earning years, where this medical condition can last indefinitely and sap the family resources. Knowing she has limited cognizance, she suggests they spend a year together in the remote isolation of a romantic locale by the ocean, as this may be her final year as herself. In most families, this may not be economically feasible, which is John’s concern, especially as he’s being offered a prestigious once-in-a-lifetime position that he’s worked his entire life to obtain at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Believing he can’t turn down the offer, Alice has no interest in leaving everything that still remains familiar to her. This kind of disruption is at the root of what families are forced to face when dealing with this disease, as it often comes so unexpectedly, where one’s life is literally turned upside down, where the patient requires 24/hours-a-day care, which is not inexpensive. To ward off the inevitable for as long as she can, Alice relies entirely on her Blackberry, reminding herself of things to do while asking herself five questions every day. When the day finally comes when she can no longer answer the questions, she instructs herself to go to her computer and follow the instructions of a specifically labeled file, where she has eerily left a message for herself, reminding her who she was, how smart she was, and what she needs to do next, simply a shattering moment that couldn’t be more heartbreaking. The devastation of the moment is a poignant reminder of the personal deterioration, where it becomes harder if not impossible to maintain anything resembling a close relationship with someone who often no longer knows who you are. Much of the film accentuates Alice’s strengths and unique abilities, where Julianne Moore, without being showy, offers the most nuanced performance of the year, showing a maturity in the role and a range of emotion few can hope to achieve, while also reflecting the kinds of difficult discussions family members must have in order to make the painful decisions involved, where they ultimately have to decide what to do with Mom. Perhaps not surprisingly it’s Lydia, the wayward daughter, who beautifully channels a sense of “exasperated compassion,” where the film uses a Tony Kushner passage from Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika that rises to a poetic moment of shared transcendence, a wisp of humanity that truly challenges our role in dealing with these extraordinary moments of personal crisis.

The Film Stage [Sky Hirschkron]

What Still Alice posits on the most basic level about its title character’s decline is profoundly counterintuitive. Highly intelligent people, Alice’s doctor suggests, are naturally more adept at hiding the effects of early-onset Alzheimer’s with mnemonic devices than people of average intelligence, and therefore undergo mental decline far more rapidly. This counterintuitive sense extends to the film itself, which values outward grace over traceable decline. As the disease progresses, filmmakers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmore refuse to upend that grace—it merely changes shape.

While Julianne Moore and Kristen Stewart have received acclaim for their performances in Maps to the Stars and Clouds of Sils Maria, respectively, this year, I don’t hesitate to say that both actresses best their prior work here. As Alice, Moore is the picture of placidity, preserving her dignity before, during, and after the worst to come. In an amazing, lengthy close-up, Alice responds, largely correctly, to prompts from a neurologist, makes one mistake, and continues to respond, unfazed. She performs memory exercises in the midst of everyday life, and their performance does not correlate with escalation of the disease, or any communication with her family members. They arise simply from Alice being herself, independently from the disease she anticipates. But Glatzer and Westmore don’t make her a martyr: aside from deep intelligence, Alice shows desperation, childishness, and her first confession to husband John (Alec Baldwin) crystallizes the unspoken in the form of one violent paroxysm. It is a stunningly intense scene, rendering marital tensions and the pressures of Alzheimer’s inseparable.

Stewart, as Alice’s daughter Lydia, is just as impressive. Lydia is a repertory actress; Alice, an academic and linguistics expert, is disapproving. But the battles of will that ensue are deliciously nuanced and authentic: Lydia is all too prone to overasserting herself, then biting her words; and Alice, unwilling to sacrifice a sense of clarity, still kowtows to her daughter’s aggression. Stewart, so often mocked as a purveyor of one-note glumness, is quite deft here at offhand line readings and quick changes in register. Her Lydia is loving, but a little callous—one doesn’t cancel out the other. When she repeatedly tells Alice, “You will, mom,” over the course of a Skype call, these are not reassurances she struggles to vocalize—they are second-nature displays of tact. When emotion breaks through the tact, it is roughly comparable to watching Alice’s decline: Lydia operates with such control-freak precision that even a small gesture of humility is deeply moving.

Still Alice doesn’t entirely transcend its disease-of-the-week trappings. One breakdown plays as overemphatic, and Ilan Eshkeri‘s musical score strains for emotion when doing so is entirely unnecessary. But the movie matches its subject with a beautifully appropriate intelligence, and is smartly structured, switching perspectives from Alice’s self-preservation to her family members’ dealings so imperceptibly that a decisive moment never arrives. Viewers are left to arrive at their own version of catharsis, but they are far from helpless.

Julianne Moore Will Move You in Alzheimer's Drama Still Alice Stephanie Zacharek from The Village Voice

Most of us can’t imagine having a disease that tugs and tears at the very threads of who we are. When we wake up in the middle of the night with outlandish fears, we strike reassuring bargains with ourselves: If I lose my sight, I’ll still have music. If I lose my hearing, I’ll still have color and light. If I lose both, I’ll still know what flowers smell like.

But what if the person you’ve spent years becoming were to be locked away permanently in a body — your body — that’s still thriving? In Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer’s Still Alice, that’s exactly what happens to 50-year-old Alice, an Ivy League linguistics professor — played by Julianne Moore — who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. In an attempt to accept the inevitable, she makes those reassuring bargains. By the time the inevitable happens, she won’t even remember what they were.

Who is Alice, once she’s no longer able to speak or recognize family members, let alone teach or read or, essentially, do any of the things that used to define her? The answer is embedded in the title of the film (which is based on a 2009 novel by Lisa Genova), and it’s an indication of the movie’s melancholy hopefulness: While Still Alice isn’t exactly the sort of cheerful pick-me-up you’d seek out on a dreary January day, it’s so fine-grained, so attuned to the prosaic nuances of everyday life even under extraordinary circumstances, that it doesn’t register as depressing. The key, maybe, is Moore’s performance, one of the finest of last year. (Still Alice opened in limited release, for an Oscar-qualifying run, in late 2014.) Moore maps Alice’s gradual debilitation — or, rather, her awareness of her gradual debilitation — like a pioneer in a strange new land, watching the ship that carried her there slip away into the distance, a dot of meaning that will soon mean nothing.

But even if the ship is gone, the pioneer lives. That’s what Moore ultimately conveys, the encouraging suggestion that our inner lives carry on even when our ability to connect with the outside world has dissipated. In the early scenes, we see Alice doing all the things that have shaped her life: When she gives a talk at UCLA, she’s a confident visitor from her home turf, Columbia. At the podium, she’s polished and relaxed and articulate, until she blips on a word, the kind of thing that happens almost every day to anyone who’s hit middle age. As she flips through her mind’s index cards for the term she needs — hastily covering for herself by making an awkward joke about having had too much champagne the night before — silence hangs weightily in the room for seconds that seem like hours. She rights herself, and all is well, but we can see she knows something is wrong.

When Alice finally gets the diagnosis from her neurologist (played, in a small but delicately textured performance, by Stephen Kunken), she keeps it a secret from her physician husband, John (Alec Baldwin). In the most stunning scene, she wakes him in the night — the clock reads 1:42, marking one of those post-midnight moments when nocturnal fears suddenly become too mighty to bear — and breaks the news to him in a rush of anxiety dotted with scraps of irrefutable fact. Bleary from sleep, he tries to calm her, saying that he’s sure it can’t be as bad as all that. The moment, so deftly played by both actors, is potent in its very ordinariness, capturing the essence of a marriage in a snapshot.

Alice and John’s grown children react to her illness in different ways: Son Tom (Hunter Parrish), studying to be a doctor, responds with helpless concern. Unassailably proper Anna (Kate Bosworth), who’s trying to become a mother herself, seems eager to control the situation, as if that were even possible. Only the couple’s wayward daughter, Kristen Stewart’s Lydia, who’s decamped to Los Angeles to attempt an acting career, is able to deal with Alice in her ever-changing here and now. What Lydia feels for her mother is a kind of exasperated compassion, and Stewart channels that beautifully: If she’s adept at the nuances of eye-rolling, she’s also able to pack a cosmos of empathy into a single glance.

Glatzer and Westmoreland — partners in work and in life who directed the 2006 Quinceañera, as well as The Last of Robin Hood, from 2013, a charming and overlooked picture about the final years of Errol Flynn’s life — shape Alice’s story with such delicate matter-of-factness that it never tips into Lifetime-movie territory. Their sensitivity toward the material may stem partly from the fact that Glatzer was diagnosed with A.L.S. in 2013, and the debilitating effects of the illness have begun to take their toll. But the triumph of Still Alice is that it’s not about an illness; it’s about a person. Moore, with her dramatically fragile coloring and mother-of-pearl skin, may have the translucence of a seashell. But her Alice is never just a shell of a person. The human body comes in handy, because it’s the thing we walk around in. But its chief job is as a steward of the secrets of the heart, and it would be hubris for any of us to claim we know their breadth.

Little White Lies [Simran Hans]

Alzheimer's is one of the most dreaded diseases, the more so since everyone who ages has potentially frightening phantom symptoms of it -- loss of short-term memory, even moments of disorientation or confusion. When it's the real thing, it means complete loss of control, gradual disintegration, a vanishing of identity while remaining inside one's body. Moreover this is a growing problem whose care costs are high and rising. In Still Alice, Alice (played superbly by Julianne Moore), who is afflicted with relatively rare early-onset Alzheimer's just after turning 50, on the contrary she increasingly isn't "still" herself, but struggles with diminishing returns to hold onto the remains of what she has of a formerly rich life and high mental functioning. And to make her struggle more dramatic, the deck is loaded far in her favor at the outset. Still seemingly in her prime when diagnosed, she is a renowned professor of linguistics at Columbia with a loving husband (Alec Baldwin) and three handsome and accomplished children (Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish, and most notably, the now clearly excellent Kristen Stewart).

Based on the 2007 self-published first novel and eventual bestseller by neuroscientist Lisa Genova, the film is a knowledgeable and specific delineation of the details of Alzheimer's from the point of view of the sufferer herself. Given the unsettling and horrifying nature of the diesease and Julianne Moore's fine work, it's a movie you can't look away from, and in some ways must admire. At least we admire Moore's elegance and restraint as an actress, and we're drawn in by the fear everybody to some extent has. But unfortunately, as adapted and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, Still Alice is flat and conventional, little more than a glossy, high-toned TV-style disease-of-the-week picture. As sometimes happens, it exists as a showcase for a performance. Moore is much better than the movie.

A sense of what this might have been emerges if one looks at Sarah Polley's Away from Her and Michael Haneke's Amour, two films about women with similar problems but coming at a later stage of life. Polley's directorial debut has the flaw of overly sweetening the Alice Munro tale she's adapting, but it brings other characters and situations into focus and looks at the husband's point of view. Haneke's usual austerity and rigor make his Amour uniquely powerful and distinctive, a film both harrowing and enobling. Amour is also a study of a truly old couple, and he had two legendary (and really old!) actors, Emanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant, to work with. Except for Kristen Stewart, whose character is interesting because she's in conflict with her mother, and the Alzheimer's doesn't change that, and despite the warm presence of Alec Baldwin, none of the actors other than Moore is given a three-dimensional character to play. Relations between the siblings are simplistic. In the rush to medical tragedy, everything becomes generic. They all exist as background for the ordeal of Alice. And the film is pulled down by conventional style and tinny, generic music that pushes its agenda in obvious, obtrusive and sometimes maudlin ways. So do editing and camerawork that depict mental confusion heavyhandedly using revolving camera, jump cuts and blurred focus.

This could have been a powerful and three-dimensional movie, but it seems as though the odds were against it. Lisa Genova has become a specialist in lecturing on Alzheimer's and writing books that dramatize neurological problems. Her Still Alice deals with heartbreak, but it's a kind of instructional book. Glatzer and Westmoreland have personal involvement in that Glatzer has recently been diagnosed with ALS, so this couple too now faces a very different, but also incurable, steadily debilitating disease. This is heartbreaking, and the two life partners working together on this film despite Glatzer's growing disability, in Westmoreland's words, "with his hands and arms barely working," when he "could no longer feed or dress himself," is admirable and brave, and clearly a labor of love. However this is not the raw material of art, but of a movie-of-the-week.

Julianne Moore has played a lot of troubled, disturbed women, and she always looks great doing it. Todd Haynes' Safe is one of her triumphs, better really than the more celebrated, campy star turn she delivered later (still with admirable subtlety) in Haynes' Far from Heaven. The thing about Safe is that it too is about a woman with a disease, but the film is more troubling, authentic, and artistic because we don't know what the disease is, and we don't altogether know if it's even real. Haynes, with the restrained complicity of Moore, fills us with an increasingly pervasive, many-layered sense of dread, worrying us about identity, self, and the world. This is the kind of movie we want to go to: to learn about the world and about people -- not about a disease.

Still Alice on the other hand simply delivers, in handsome, if generic, settings, events that occur to a person with Alzheimer's -- the verbal lacunae, growing failures in little memory tests, the revealing scans and diagnosis, the unexpected moments of disorientation in familiar places: it's all cut and dried. Certainly all this is heartbreaking. The more so, because it happens to someone beautiful, intellectually accomplished, and relatively young. And the information that this kind of Alzheimer's is genetically transmitted means horror and bad news for Alice's children. But at some point we begin to wonder: is this just the story of a disease? Where is the film?

Still Alice is full of details we can observe in a documentary, and there actually are some good ones. Among them are Alan Berliner's fine First Cousin Once Removed and Banker White and Anna Fitch's The Genius of Marian. Nothing can beat the specificity of these two studies of relatives with Alzheimer's, also people, by the way, who were very accomplished, and those films have the virtue of being direct observation.

In Still Alice, Westmoreland has said, he and his partner wanted to achieve the same "crisp and direct tone" as Genora's book. A desire to avoid sentimentality is admirable, but there seems to have also been a misguided need on their part to dazzle us with fineness. This is reflected in the too-perfect setting of Alice and her husband's ideal New York professional lives, complete with brownstone, beach house, and home-movie seaside memories. Despite the tragedy of the disease, unfortunately "crisp and direct" comes out as tidy and pat. Still Alice may be impeccable. But it is not unimpeachable.

Still Alice review: Julianne Moore in an Alzheimer's ... - Slate Dana Stevens

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Still Alice - Reelviews Movie Reviews James Berardinelli

TIFF Review: 'Still Alice' Starring Julianne Moore, Krist | The ... Kevin Jagernauth from The Playlist

Still Alice / The Dissolve Scott Tobias

Review: Julianne Moore faces an Alzheimer's diagnosis in ... Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from The Onion A.V. Club

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'Still Alice': Toronto Review - The Hollywood Reporter Deborah Young

'Still Alice' Review: Julianne Moore Poignantly ... - Variety Peter Debruge

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Examiner.com [Travis Hopson] also seen here: Punch Drunk Critics [Travis Hopson]

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'Still Alice' Movie review by Kenneth Turan - LA Times

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Still Alice Movie Review & Film Summary (2014) | Roger Ebert Christy Lemire

'Still Alice,' a Professor Slides Into Alzheimer's - The New ... A.O. Scott from The New York Times

Still Alice Book Review – CSB/SJU Ann Jonas book review from College of St. Benedict

Still Alice Book Review - Pajiba Nicole

Glawogger, Michael

Michael Glawogger Notes on the Image of Austria in the Films of Michael Glawogger, by Christoph Huber from Fipresci magazine

the current state of Austrian cinema Trouble in the Hothouse, by Christoph Huber from Fipresci magazine

WORKING MAN’S DEATH B 86

Germany Austria (122 mi) 2005

Divided into 5 sections, “Heroes,” featuring wildcat Ukrainian miners working what they call a “mousetrap” mine, basically a tiny sliver of a hole in a cave that they discovered on their own that still had plenty of coal in it, so the threadbare safety concerns threatened them daily, but they usually brought back a few bags of coal each in order to get them through the harsh times.

In “Ghosts,” Indonesian laborers are working the steamy sulphur mines, descending around the inner edges of an active volcano, spewing forth noxious fumes as they search for large slabs of yellow sulphur, then haul as much as they can possibly carry on their backs, winding their way back on the thin paths, eventually paid by the weight of their carry, struggling past the tourists who are there to take photos.

“Lions” is the most harrowing, as we descend into an open air slaughter house in a port city in Nigeria, where goats and oxen are slaughtered on the streets, blood streaming everywhere with vultures pecking away, where the slaughterers are specialized workers who kill with precision, sometimes running into the several hundreds by day. Each part of the animal is then cut into smaller, sellable items, with men dragging heads through the mud, with the horns occasionally cutting someone along the way, or racks of ribs on men’s backs, or sometimes young men carrying two goats on their heads weaving their way through the crowd as they try to find their way home or to someone’s car. African singers call them sons of lions as they bestow admiration and appreciation to these slaughterers.

“Brothers” features hundreds of welders working side by side on the carcasses of old rusty tankers which are beached, then taken apart piece by piece and sold as scrap metal, eventually placed in giant heaps. These workers are separated from their families, most live several men to a single room, where their lives are a constant of toil and turmoil, yet they are thankful for having work at all. China’s youth think of themselves as the Future, singing rallying cries of optimism while young men face horribly dangerous conditions in steel mills where they are constantly bombarded by flying sparks and fire with little, if any, protection.

This segways into an “Epilogue” in Germany, featuring a retired steel mill, which operated 365 days a year through two World Wars, ultimately retired in 1985 and turned into a “leisure park,” where kids go there to make out or throw water balloons at unsuspecting people down below, turning into a spectacular light show at night. In this segment, we see the uncaring youth having the advantage of leisure, basically reaping the benefits from the struggles of other laborers. The entire film pulsates to the avant-garde music of John Zorn, which is easily the best part of the film, always surprisingly effective and interesting, even when the filmmaker himself seems caught up in his own imagery after awhile, the music always provides a saving grace.

by Christoph Huber and Olaf Möller Salt of the Earth: Michael Glawogger on Workingman’s Death, including an interview from Cinema Scope (excerpt)

As in Megacities, Glawogger uses an episodic structure, here to explore five places where hard manual labour still exists. In Krasni Lutsch, Ukraine, men try to make ends meet by illegally digging in dangerous, abandoned coal mines, the only means of income left for the heirs of working heroes like Aleksei Stakhanov, still haunted by the shadows of proletkult past. (Glawogger pointedly opens the film with a montage of newsreel material describing Stakhanov’s legendary record.) In Indonesia’s East Java, sulphur gatherers make the long daily journey out of the volcanic smoke, down the hill, past nosy tourists, with some 150 pounds or more on their back. When pausing, their discussion topics range from friends recently having fallen into the crater to Bon Jovi (whose CDs they can’t afford). An open-air slaughterhouse in Port Harcourt, Nigeria is presented as a seemingly endless cycle of blood, death, and fire: cows and goats are killed, their cadavers and heads swiftly carried through the streets brimming with fires for immediate roasting. Shipbreakers in Gaddani, Pakistan dismantle a huge oil-tanker, with little else but welding guns in their hands to tackle the slowly disintegrating metal giant, the fall of an enormous piece of scrap only occasionally puncturing the silence surrounding the diligent, near-invisible process. (Soon after a huge piece of metal crashes down, a worker mentions that he is not afraid to die.). And in Anshan, China, steelworkers face an uncertain future, despite the official promises of a capitalist economic boom. The epilogue, set in Duisburg, Germany, where former smelting works serve as the basis of a 500-acre theme park with light shows gracing abandoned factory buildings, puts not only those promises into perspective.

Glawogger has pointed out that the invisibility of hard labour today—at least in Western society—was one of the main reasons to make the film: long gone are the iconized worker-heroes invoked by the opening newsreel footage. In contrast, Workingman’s Death achieves its power without resorting to the deliberate use of visibly staged scenes that led to charges of “aesthetication” in Megacities. It can be seen as a last hymn (thus, a John Zorn soundtrack) to the worker—Promethean allusions abound—but at the same time it is a chronicle of disappearance, not least of class consciousness, a moving and important contemporary document as well as another testament to its relentlessly globetrotting director’s universal curiosity.

SLUMMING B 89

Austria Switzerland (100 mi) 2006

Leopold and Loeb’s big adventure, as two privileged college students who have a completely condescending view of the rest of the world, play despicable adolescent pranks on unsuspecting lower class people, basically just for laughs, as they get a sadistic kick out of being the ones in control, a bit like the sensibility of the two guys in Michael Haneke’s FUNNY GAMES, though these two in comparison would rank as mere amateurs. Sebastian (August Diehl) thinks he’s smarter than the rest, refuses to work for a living, gets money from his family, and text messages various dating services, going out on 7 or 8 dates a day, if you believe him. Working in tandem with his roommate Alex (Michael Ostrowski), Sebastian photos beaver shots under the table as he talks to the girls, then emails them to Alex, sharing their idea of fun, as well as women, which includes slumming with the lowlifes, cruising the cheap bars and video arcades of Vienna. When Sebastian finally meets somebody he likes, a serious minded young primary school teacher Pia (Pia Hierzegger), he can’t stop his repulsive behavior, sending her 8 or 9 text messages within a few hours time, smothering her with his constant cry for instant gratification, or stalking her wherever she goes. His obsessively organized lifestyle is represented by the GPS system in his BMW car, perfectly programmed to tell him exactly which direction to take 24 hours a day.

But the film opens and closes with the maniacal shouting of a street bum, Kallmann (Paulus Manker), who over-aggressively approaches passer bys for money, running out into the streets, yelling profanity-laced expressions to drivers who honk and swerve around him, which is fairly typical behavior from many of the homeless who may have mental health issues and are off their medication. His running dialogue is vaguely reminiscent of the damaged young boy in Kurosawa’s DODES’KADEN, acting out the sounds and motions of an imaginary trolley car, but here he is much more assertive in his uncontrolled verbose hatred directed at others, perfectly expressed in one scene where he begins to pray to the Virgin Mary at a shrine, but ends up spewing vile in her direction, as he does to everyone else. At one point, he gets passed out drunk to the point of being unconscious overnight, Sebastian and Alex spot him sleeping on a park bench and for a laugh, Sebastian decides to stuff him into the trunk of his car, steal his passport, and dump him across the border in Czechoslovakia.

An uncompromising look at class differences, the film definitely gets into the mindset of both Sebastian and Kallman, on opposite ends of the social scale, but both very much on the extreme end of the human scale, contrasting the repulsive versus the deranged. Much of the film turns into a sympathetic adventure story of Kallman waking up, coming to his senses, and attempting to find his way home, which takes him through very picturesque farmlands in the snow, some of which is hilarious. Sebastian, meanwhile, goes on an exotic adventure of his own, discovering a dancing version of a third world dating service that is gorgeously sublime. Martin Gschlacht’s camerawork resembles quality documentary realism, finding some amazing locations, which along with a very inventive techno soundtrack make this version of social realism amusingly offbeat, yet still painstakingly difficult to endure.

SLUMMING (d. Michael Glawogger) *** 1/4 Ken Rudolph’s Movie Site

Finally a film that I could sink my teeth into. This is a very unconventional road picture about a pair of rich amoral college students who love to go slumming among the Vienna lowlifes. One of them pulls a mean spirited prank on a drunken schizophrenic poet that they find passed out on a bench. The prank goes wildly wrong, and the film becomes an interesting examination of two sides of human nature at extremes. I've always liked August Diehl, who plays one of the students as a more benign Patrick Bateman (AMERICAN PSYCHO) type. But it is Paulus Manker as the crazed drunkard who shines here. There's a scene where he passes out from ODing on alcohol where the light literally goes out of his eyes. He's a riveting presence who goes from utterly disgusting to weirdly sympathetic over the course of the film. In the Q&A after the film the director said that Manker was even crazier in real life than he came off in the film, which is just about impossible to believe. In any case, this was a very involving film.

WHORE’S GLORY B 85

Austria Germany (110 mi) 2012

A continuation of Glawogger’s documentation of the world’s most exploited workers stuck in the worst jobs imaginable across the globe, beginning with MEGACITIES (1998) and WORKINGMAN’S DEATH (2005), which mostly feature the hazardous and backbreaking work men are forced to endure for a paycheck, while this film highlights the debasing experience of women forced to sell themselves into prostitution, examining sex workers and their clients. Divided into three parts, the opening section is called The Fish Bowl in Bangkok, Thailand, an upscale club where women get dressed up showing plenty of legs and cleavage and sit behind a glass enclosure, much like a fish bowl, where each have an easily identifiable number. As customers order drinks and sit in a bleacher section across from them, they can compare girls and choose which one most interests them for sexual favors, where the level of service has an escalating pay scale. There is a greeting host that asks each customer what they’re interested in and makes recommendations of several girls that meet the requested criteria, eventually calling out the requested girls numbers, where the couples retreat to hotel rooms. Some are obviously more popular than others, while some unfortunately sit there all day without ever getting called once. The ages vary from young teens who claim they are 19 to women pushing 40, where they spend a good deal of time each day in preparation for what amounts to a public beauty competition. Interviewing both the customers and the girls, the customers offer a fairly superficial view of why they’re there, as many are married, but these girls offer a different kind of youthful beauty than what awaits them at home. There are no illusions here, as the girls consider this just a job, where many end up spending all their earnings at a male sex club picking up guys, while a lingering shot outside the club shows a pack of street dogs humping one another.

The second section is in one of the poorest sections of the world, Faridpur, Bangladesh, where one young man indicated the need for women in the sex trade was an essential public service, as otherwise men would be raping women on the streets and having sex with cattle and goats. Certainly one of the seediest sections of the world, narrow walkways allow men to enter and inspect the merchandise, where the girls try to pull the men inside their doors, literally fighting with one another for customers, each trying to argue they got him first. As they interview the girls, it’s fairly typical to service ten men a day, where being treated nice is not always the norm, where the worst examples of raving lunacy are the brothel owners who subject their girls to the most humiliating tongue-lashings imaginable, saying they’re nothing special, that whore’s are a dime a dozen, that many are ugly and a waste of her time, as she could be feeding and dressing more attractive girls that will bring in more money, literally offering a full blown onslaught against their worthless character, all yelled at the top of their lungs. This is considered acceptable business standards, where the proprietor literally buys new girls, often pre-teens, then offers them little hope for even the slightest hint of happiness, using them like sex slaves. Perhaps the most poetic thoughts in the entire film come from a girl dressed in colorful religious garb, who asks why women have to submit themselves to so much demeaning behavior in their path for survival? Complaining of a dreary monotony of continual personal degradation, she wonders how God could allow this and if there is any other path?

The final section is in Reynosa, Mexico, in a desolate, unpaved street called La Zona, where trucks and other vehicles drive up and down the pot-holed filled street and check out the merchandise lined up in tiny rooms along each side of the street, where they stand in the doorway in scantily clad attire trying to flag someone down. These are perhaps the most vulgar women of all, whose crude language couldn’t be fouler, especially their description of men, where everything is seen in the most unflattering light. Several of the men in pick up trucks reveal these women let them do things their wives and girlfriends refuse to do, so they come here regularly for a drunken sexual escapade. There’s a peculiar scene where a musical band down the street plays church music, supposedly ridding the neighborhood of evil spirits. This religious aspect is common throughout, where the selected women and their customers offer a ritualistic Buddhist bow, where they light incense and pray before they go to work, while in an Islamic country they don’t provide oral sex, refusing to use the same mouths that pray to Allah for sex acts, and in Mexico they pray to a Lady Death to release them from such misery, where they have death skulls in their rooms, which are religious icons that represent the Hell from which they have no escape. There is talk of pimps going through the villages picking up naïve girls, selling them into the sex trade where they succumb to the controlling brutality of life as a sex slave. The raw, unsentimentalized depictions shot on 16 mm by Wolfgang Thaler are graphic enough, but Glawogger’s beautifully edited films are disturbingly realistic and harshly true, using stark imagery that captures the soulless feel of sex as a business transaction. Underlying many of the scenes are equally unsettling musical pieces by Bjork, Antony & The Johnsons, P.J. Harvey, CocoRosie “Beautiful BoyZ” Cocorosie - Beautiful BoyZ - YouTube (4:34), and Maike Rosa Vogel and Konstantin Gropper singing “Where We Meet” Where we meet (whores' glory poem) Maike Rosa ... YouTube (4:38), some unusual musical choices that offer a sublime, melancholic feel.

Whores' Glory David Jenkins from Time Out London

If you believe that a society should be judged by the way it treats its poor, be sure to catch this bracing, at times horrifyingly intimate documentary triptych on the prostitution industry from Austrian director Michael Glawogger. Tactfully shattering received wisdoms, this colourfully shot and casually explicit film begins in Thailand, moves to Bangladesh then ends in Mexico, and it doesn’t merely chronicle the transactional formalities of buying and selling sex but, by zeroing in on a specific brothel or street in each location, it speaks volumes about wider cultural attitudes to sex, relationships, money and personal ambition. The teaser the film throws up in the end is, what’s worse: the sanitised, ‘respectable’ prostitute production line offered in Thailand, or the mangy, freaked-out crack shacks of Mexico? The choice is yours.

Kevin B Lee Fandor

Glawogger completes a loose trilogy deeply immersed in depicting everyday toil around the world: Megacities, Workingman’s Death and now this vivid but non-judgmental exploration of brothel life in Thailand, Bangladesh and Mexico. Each setting bears a visual trademark: in Thailand a glass panel displays a dozen girls at a time to affluent johns from around the world; in Bangladesh a snaking hallway connects dozens of prostitutes, each with their own room, forming a village unto itself; a nonstop parade of SUVs prowl the Mexican outskirts for whores. In each locale, Glawogger’s camera absorbs so many intimate details of the day-to-day drudgery of prostitution, interviewing girls, madams and johns alike, that one marvels at what it took to gain such degrees of access. The only regrettable element are the musical impositions of rockers PJ Harvey and CoCo Rosie on the third world proceedings; Glawogger does so much to immerse us directly in these worlds that it’s a puzzle why he leans on the music to convey meaning.

TIFF '11: Day Three Scott Tobias

Michael Glawogger’s follow-up to Workingman’s Death embarks on a global tour of poverty-ravaged prostitution sites, spending equal time in Bangkok brothel, the red-light district in Bangladesh, and complex of bars and single-room barracks called “The Zone” in Reynosa, Mexico. Documentary purists will find plenty to take issue with in Whores’ Glory: The gorgeously stylized photography, which captures each setting with a color-saturated vividness; the eclectic soundtrack, with songs by P.J. Harvey, Antony And The Johnsons, and others; and an observational style that’s free of predigested conclusions. But the film’s break from the usual earnest, stat-filled exposé is a large part of its appeal, and Glawogger’s attention to color and composition don’t diminish the quality of the testimony or dip into porn-y exploitation. (In fact, he mostly refrains from showing any nudity until the Mexico segment, when he finally opts to reveal exactly what 200 pesos will buy you. The audience in my screening seemed to recoil en masse.) The insights into a prostitute’s life are expected—the concerns about debt, about growing older, about the absence of any other option—but they’re devastating nonetheless, like a clearly underage girl in Bangladesh who articulates her suffering or a Mexican hooker who turns tricks to buy the crack that makes turning tricks endurable. (There’s also occasional comic relief, like a retired woman who claims to have served 40 johns a day at her peak and has the graphic stories to prove it.) Visually indifferent advocacy docs on sex trafficking are commonplace; here Glawogger stands out as a real filmmaker.

Christoph Huber Cinema Scope (final article)

Michael Glawogger, Austria’s most enigmatic filmmaker, continues his pendulum movement between fascinatingly diverse fictions—as evidenced by 2009′s one-two yin-yang-punch of Contact High and Kill Daddy Goodnight—and globe-spanning documentaries like the 1998 Megacities or the 2005 Workingman’s Death. Following in the latter’s footsteps, Glawogger’s docu-essay Whores’ Glory caps, as the press book biography dryly states, “his trilogy about working environments.” First off is Thailand, where prostitution is outlawed (and officialy does not exist, but of course it does): in a “fish tank” in Bangkok, the girls sit behind glass and are chosen by number after eye contact. “The City of Joy” in Faridpur, Bangladesh, is a multi-story brothel where 600 to 800 prostitutes live (with their children) and work in extremely confined space, a matriarchal ghetto governed by a “council of mothers.” Finally, there’s “La Zona” [de tolerancia] in Reynosa, Mexico, near the Texan border, through which tricks on the lookout circle slowly in their cars over dirt roads. A designated triptychon, this formally achieved film follows the classical construction of an altarpiece in the tradition of Hieronymus Bosch, moving from the sterile, almost ethereally presented Buddhist Thai “Paradise” through the chaotic miasma of “The World” in Islamic Bangladesh into the near-entropic “Hell” of the deeply Catholic Zona of Death—which, irritatingly, is also the place most vibrating with passion (abetted by heart-rending interludes from the local norteño ensemble). Thriving on contradiction and observational curiosity as usual, Glawogger still resolutely rejects social cause-pandering, but scratches for something deeper by contrasting the rituals of love (for sale) in three different cultures, religions and economies: a look not just at prostitution, but the relationships between men and women in contemporary society that yields telling and ambivalent insights. Another major work, and the only Austrian feature-length film of importance in the upper echelons of the festival circuit this year.

Pasquale Cicchetti Venice Film Festival 2011: Dispatch One, from Reverse Shot

I was still thinking about that connection while I watched Whores’ Glory from Austrian Michael Glawogger, who came to prominence in 2005 with Workingman’s Death. Divided into three distinct acts, this film offers a cinematic tour of the world of international prostitution. The visuals and editing are outstanding; each of three chapters offers a unique approach to lighting and a distinct color scheme, with recurring details (thresholds, hallways, windows) and a remarkably consistent attention to composition and camera movement. In general, the film manages to remain detached, offering a nonjudgmental approach that cedes the floor to the women, who express their expectations and how they perceive their profession. Yet despite its well-framed, observational façade and formal control, Glawogger’s film made me increasingly uneasy as it moved from Thailand to Bangladesh and then Mexico. The film’s progression is not merely geographical: the relaxed, conversational tone of the first episode gives way to more unsettling depictions in the second and third. The “District of Joy” of the Bangladeshi act looks like a pit of desolation: a labyrinth of narrow corridors and loud arguments where painfully young girls are sold, but where oral sex is considered a taboo because—as one prostitute explains—they must keep their mouth clean to recite the surahs. The same mix of religious commitment and profound misery returns in the third and final act, set in “La Zona,” a fenced red district in Reynosa, on the Mexican border. Here, the film’s intense aesthetic rises to a fever pitch. La Zona is a circle of Hell, a land of no hope where even the humane sadness of the previous chapter is gone. All that remains is a sort of ferocious disillusion, drugs, and the ubiquitous statuettes of the Santa Muerte: the sacred Death.

Throughout, Glawogger’s shooting style is powerful and effective, even enticing. Despite this, I have doubts about the direction of the director’s gaze, as well as our position as viewers. Was Glawogger trying to witness, and to understand, or was he just looking for something to show, to exploit, or even—given the hellish vision at the end—exhibit nothing more than profanity and damnation?

Concluding a trilogy that goes places even Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs could never go (not on a basic cable anyway), Michael Glawogger’s Whore’s Glory is lucid, exotic and heartbreaking, tracking the world’s oldest profession in three segments from Thailand, Bangladesh and Mexico. The film is fascinating yet problematic: instead of hiring actors as some filmmakers choose to do, Glawogger hires the folks he has been documenting to participate in recreations of their lives (a scene in Mexico is the most obvious). He’s done this since has been since employing drug addicts and hustlers in early Giuliani-era Times Square to recreate prostitution related robberies in Megacities.

Glawogger’s two previous features – Megacities and Workingman’s Death are heavily aestheticized, the “traveling filmmaker” has a background amongst other things in experimental film. Whore’s Glory opens in hyper-real Bangkok – prostitutes dance high above the city on a bridge, shooting laser beams downwards to attract clients at “The Fishbowl,” an establishment that displays the women behind glass. They get by on two clients per session and live what I’d consider a middle-class urban lifestyle unlike their counterparts in Bangladesh, which implies (without giving ages) the existence of child prostitution. At “The Fishbowl” the women debate giving up their jobs of sleeping with married men and foreign travelers (for which they have certain national preferences based on how hard they’ll have to work, so to speak – to keep it PG for this site).

In Bangladesh’s brothel district, called The City of Joy, that is the last thing apparent. The system is controlled by women (although the landlord is never seen) and designed to enslave generations of women in the system. Herein contains several of the saddest moments, but Glawogger explains a sex worker he spends time with in Megacities is one of the happiest people he’s encountered; she enjoys her life. He doesn’t go in search of her when the film moves to The Zone, a strip dedicated exclusively to prostitution in Mexico.

The role of religion is heavily on display, at least in The Zone and The City of Joy. Glawogger treats these contradictions with great respect. Life in The Zone is harsh and it’s implied drugs, alcohol and superstition fuel it. Whore’s Glory is an aesthetic treatment, not entirely different than HBO’s American Undercover series, as it allows its subjects a voice and they are collaborators with the filmmaker. The aestheticization is seductive in its use of music (including many tracks by PJ Harvey), brilliant narrative style compositions and editing, and staged moments that potentially blur a line between documentary and ethnographic narrative. This may be a complaint amongst viewers but it understands the limits of documentary. From the outside these lives look harsh and this is an experience that aims to draw us in — to share both in the joy, hardship and glory — resulting in one of the year’s best films.

Film Comment Selects 2012: Whores' Glory Andrew Schenker from The House Next Door, February 14, 2012

Pajiba (Jeremy C. Fox) review

Three Films to Catch This Week at the Portland International Film ... Ashley McAllister from Bitch Media

BFI | Sight & Sound | Venice Film Festival 2011: The Sight & Sound blog Kieron Corless from Sight and Sound, September 4, 2011

Venice and Toronto 2011. Michael Glawogger's "Whores' Glory" on ... David Hudson from Mubi

Whore's Glory The Santa Barbara Independent Matt Kettman interview, January 30, 2012

Whore's Glory: Interview with Michael Glawogger | BTURN Tijuana Todorovic interview, February 26, 2012

Whores' Glory: Venice Film Review - The Hollywood Reporter Neil Young, also seen here: Neil Young

Leslie Felperin Variety

Kong Rithdee The Bangkok Post

Glazer, Jonathan

BIRTH B+ 91

USA (100 mi) 2004

From the very beginning, in a long opening sequence which is almost perfectly realized, completely in synch with the Wagnerian orchestral music which captures the last breath of life before death, leaving nothing but silence, this is an eerie, highly stylized and ponderous film about the preposterous. On the verge of remarrying, some ten years after the death of her former husband, and on the night of her mother’s birthday celebration when she announces her engagement, an uninvited ten year old boy breaks into the proceedings to proclaim to the bride-to-be that he is the reincarnation of her deceased husband. At first amused, but later convinced of his authenticity, as he somehow knows all of her former husband’s personal secrets, the film continues to build on this unsettling, somewhat somber tone, using superbly dark cinematography by Harry Savides as well as first-rate performances by Nicole Kidman, her mother Lauren Bacall, and her current fiancé Danny Huston. Resembling the dour, under the surface edge of THE HOURS, this film languorously weaves into a psychological abyss where repressed grief and an intense longing for love permeate into something quietly terrifying. Always absorbing, this dense, atmospheric mood piece has long, near wordless sequences that just seem to float on by, as if in a trance-like state of ambiguity. It’s an intoxicating style, where so much more is suggested under the heavy weight of tense anticipation than is ever delivered, but it’s a deliciously gloomy work, written by Buñuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière, with a beautifully written, quiet musical score by Alexandre Desplat.

Birth David Denby from the New Yorker

A dismayingly skillful exercise in high-style creepiness. Nicole Kidman, her hair cropped close, her body reduced to a mannequin skinniness, is Anna, a Fifth Avenue heiress whose husband, Sean, died of a heart attack in Central Park when Anna was twenty-five. Ten years later, just as Anna is about to marry a good-natured man (Danny Huston) who has patiently wooed her for years, a ten-year-old boy shows up and announces that he is Sean reborn. The boy (Cameron Bright) has a steady, unnerving gaze and a pointed chin—one of those demon-child glowering masks from the "Damien: Omen II" era of horror movies. But his self-assurance, as well as his knowledge of details of Sean and Anna's life together, amazes and captivates Anna. She's convinced that he's her dead husband in a new body. As Kidman sits naked in her bath, the boy takes off his clothes and climbs in with her—one of the most embarrassing scenes in the history of the movies. The British director Jonathan Glazer directs this rubbish with an assured elegance; he creates a magical winter fairy-tale atmosphere in New York, a looming sense of the uncanny. The movie is an appalling combination of distinguished talent and inane ideas. With Lauren Bacall and Anne Heche. Music by Alexandre Desplat and, in one stunning sequence, Richard Wagner.

Birth Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Hard to imagine that some of the same critics who are turning their noses up at this have praised fuckwits like Shyamalan and Amenábar for their "mood pieces." Until its narrarive resolution -- disappointing but not a dealbreaker, given the corner the scenarists had painted themselves into -- Birth is glassy and hypnotic, visually warm and emotionally frigid. Glazer has learned all the right lessons from Kubrick: the hazy amber interiors, the airless corridors of idle wealth, the way a subtle move like a straight-cut between a zoom-in and a zoom-out can frizzle-fry the nerves. Even though Birth's flaws are, ultimately, script-related, credit is due to the screenwriters for the film's biggest gambit. Whereas a lesser film would have Anna (Nicole Kidman) conceal the strange intrusion in her life for as long as possible (due to some silly notion that the keeping of a secret is a universal generator of suspense), here it is all laid out in the open from the start. A little boy arrives, and he says he's Anna's dead husband. Then, the remainder of the film focuses on how those in Anna's rarefied milieu cope with this odd, downcast bombshell. Kidman is marvelous as Anna, an emotionally stunted executive whose belief in a one true love threatens to eviscerate all prudence and (perhaps more frightening) all decorum. But Danny Huston quietly steals the show as Joseph, the trophy-collector husband-to-be and a creepy sadistic-rationalist straight out of Ibsen. (His mannered breakdown at the pre-wedding chamber concert is a showstopper.) Sadly, the film goes on about ten minutes longer than it should, resulting in a uselessly summative voiceover and an emotional catharsis that tonally contravenes all that came before it. Even the spell we're under, I suppose, had to be broken in the end.

BFI | Sight & Sound | Grief Encounter Roger Clarke from Sight and Sound, November 2004

Jonathan Glazer's Birth evokes the numb mood of his ads and videos to underscore its creepy theme

Birth has had a tricky gestation - and birth. It's the story of a ten-year-old boy who convinces New Yorker Anna (Nicole Kidman) that he's the reincarnation of her dead husband. Though full of shadows and grief, it has been reported on in sensationalist mode. Following its Venice premiere, the Lido was buzzing with hacks discussing putative paedophile controversies (there's a naked bath scene with the boy and Kidman), booings at public screenings and Lauren Bacall's comment on her co-star (she correctly said it was too early to say whether Kidman is a "legend"). It's been a tale so far of false feuds, grumbling puritanical outrage and gossip. I caught up with director Jonathan Glazer on the Jewish Day of Atonement, and after his synagogue visit we managed to conduct a late-night conversation about the film.

Glazer is the most gifted director to have emerged from the UK advertising field for many years; his music videos for Radiohead, Blur and U.N.K.L.E are also remarkable for their imagery and technique. Radiohead's 'Street Spirit' promo is still considered one of the best of its kind; Blur's 'The Universal' is set in the Korova Milk Bar from Stanley Kubrick's 1971 A Clockwork Orange with Damon Albarn et al drooged up to the nines with eyeliner and stylised menace. Looking at this output, we see a world of padded cells, slow-motion accidents and freakish loners - a world also exploited in Glazer's commercials for Stella Artois, Wrangler jeans and his Guinness mini-movies. Faces loom out of Glazer's productions like phantoms waking from the dead, or patients sluggishly negotiating the end of a coma. Men are often stripped to the waist, or struggle through tunnels of raging traffic or along darkened American country roads. If they're in an apartment, like Richard Ashcroft in 'A Song for the Lovers', it feels like the ante-room to the afterlife or a creepy suite from Kubrick's 2001, The Shining or Eyes Wide Shut.

Glazer's feature debut was the metaphysical Cockney crime caper Sexy Beast (2000), featuring Ray Winstone and an Oscar-nominated performance from Ben Kingsley. When we first encounter Winstone he's sunning himself at his Spanish poolside (not a pretty sight), soaking up the warmth the way Kidman in Birth soaks up the autumn chill. The film's continued popularity is greedily exploited by contemporary Sky satellite trailers for its cinema channels - proof, if proof were needed, that Sexy Beast exists on a folk level and confirmation that Glazer managed briefly to revive the strip-mined British genre of the geezer flick. Sexy Beast is rich and strange, profane where Birth is sacred.

Glazer's films are full of arrivals and birth canals. There's an undeniably amniotic sequence in Sexy Beast in which Winstone and his gang break into a flooded tunnel. Elsewhere a dead Kingsley threatens to struggle up through the floor of Winstone's swimming pool, a fear realised from his dreams, slouching towards metempsychosis. The motif of different worlds, different rooms, suffuses the film. And look: here's a young boy too, a dark, semi-naked youth who cleans Winstone's pool, a creature of the sun-cracked Spanish soil, almost a sprite. One also remembers the stripped-to-the-waist boy in 'Street Spirit' - an uncanny white child who watches chairs fly through the air as Thom Yorke warbles. I'm not surprised when Glazer tells me he's interested in archetypes; he often deals in a cracked version of Jung's Puer Aeternus.

In the opening shot of Birth - conducted by Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown in one of his rare returns to the technique he pioneered - a man dies in a tunnel in New York's Central Park while out jogging in the snow. The man, barely seen, is Anna's first husband Sean. The tunnel seems familiar from other movies, and its location gives a clue to what's to come. Central Park has been a key character in many New York films, often used to suggest escape and transformation: think of Louise Brooks on a day out in Love 'Em and Leave 'Em (1926), of Cat People (1943) or of Jack Nicholson turning into a wolf in Wolf (1994). This is the world of fairytale - an important word in my conversation with Glazer.

As with Raúl Ruiz's Comédie de l'innocence (2000) - a movie to which Birth bears uncanny similarities, though Glazer hasn't seen it - a public park plays a crucial role in a late revelation. Glazer tells me he'd intended this opening shot to be on a wire/rig - flying and looking down - but had to re-think on the spot when it became clear the authorities wouldn't let him remove branches and leaves from some trees. Garrett Brown had been hired for a single day; he decided the shot was now impossible and volunteered to break out the Steadicam. Since The Shining was a key inspiration (along with Rashomon and Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc), it was a magical moment for the crew to have that film's Steadicam operator quietly going about his business. As Sean dies unnoticed on a cold winter's day, in the darkness of a tunnel with snow piled brightly beyond it, where does his spirit fly? This is the essence of the story.

Glazer admits that after he cast Cameron Bright as the second Sean, the boy who ten years later demonstrates an uncanny knowledge of Anna's marriage as he petitions her to be re-admitted into her life, he had to rewrite much of the script. "There's a real sobriety and austerity there," he says of the child actor. The director was anxious to avoid the "creepy kid" connotations of Bright's previous feature Godsend (2003), a B-movie horror flick in which he plays a demonic munchkin. "I think I'd been looking for a kid with more obvious empathy - maybe 12 or 13 years old - and initially I went right past Cameron. But Jean-Claude Carrière, who worked on the original script, always told me to stay young with the kid, because as soon as you get to adolescence it's a different story. So I went back to Cameron, who was nine at the time, and found something very adult in him - and something very vague, which allows Anna to imbue him with what she wants."

As the film develops, the child's plea works effectively and feverishly on Anna's mind. Perhaps he really is telling the truth. A whole monograph could be written on the class aspects of Birth (the boy is working class), which Glazer acknowledges and ascribes to Carrière's background as a Luis Buñuel writer (including, ironically, if not just for the title, 1977's That Obscure Object of Desire).

Glazer didn't initially send Kidman the script (which he rewrote right up to the wire with Monster's Ball screenwriter Milo Addica); she chanced upon a copy and contacted him herself. "She wasn't the actress I had in mind. Robin Wright Penn was on the cards for a while. But I met Nicole when I was in LA raising the production money and we had lunch; before I got there I knew I'd recognise if she was right pretty quickly. There was also the concern about the exposure her celebrity would bring and whether I was happy with that. But she got the script almost entirely and she had a very peculiar response to it: she talked about it as if she'd written it herself. I offered her the role after 20 minutes." Doesn't Kidman have a son aged about ten? "I gotta be honest with you, we never had a personal conversation. It was always about the script."

One of the most remarkable scenes comes midway through the film when Kidman and her fiancé Joseph go to the opera in New York. Wagner's second prelude to The Ring cycle is being staged (the first prelude gets used in the film's closing moments) and the music fills the scene while the camera slowly zooms in on Kidman's face as the full horror and delight of the situation cascades silently within her: the thought of her dead husband in the body of a boy and the ensuing backwash of dementia. It's a masterpiece of spine-chilling micro-acting. When I ask Glazer about his choice of music I'm surprised to learn he hadn't had this exact piece in mind; Verdi was considered and the scene was shot to the first prelude that ends the film. "But the second prelude has a sense of things moving on and I wanted that." The incidental music, calm and clear with a touch of The Exorcist about it, is by Alexandre Desplat. "I didn't want a score that was emotionally leading - a score with leitmotifs telling you who everyone is," Glazer says. "Then we hit on the idea of the fairytale - it was so useful and so full of hope and innocence."

Cinematographer Harris Savides recalls this musical decision being translated into the visuals. Savides - responsible for the gliding camerawork in Elephant and for something of the ominous tone of Se7en - says that Glazer asked him to make Kidman and her Upper West Side life look cool and palatial, like the ivory tower of the cliché. "The film was underexposed and underdeveloped," he tells me from New York. "Then we graded it by doing some tests and finding the level we liked. Everything in the interiors was lit from overhead with light bounce, through stretched muslin over the whole set. I light a room and let the actors inhabit it, I don't light faces. It gives the look an integrity."

Long Pauses Darren Hughes

The first image in Jonathan Glazer's Birth is a nearly two-minute, uninterrupted high-angle shot of a jogger making his way through snow-covered Central Park. The camera follows a few steps behind him, floating dreamily twenty or thirty feet over his head. It trails the runner for several hundred meters, over hills, around bends, and, finally, under a quiet overpass before momentarily losing sight of him in the darkness. The first cut is to the opening title: Birth, rendered in an ornate, story-book script.

Like most film viewers, apparently, I paid little attention to Birth during its theatrical run. What I remember of its marketing campaign cast the film as another Nicole Kidman prestige picture, one of the countless many that have appeared, with assembly line-like regularity, in recent years. My expectations, though, were completely undone by that first shot. While watching Birth's opening sequence I was struck by a feeling I've experienced again and again in the months since, as I've caught up with Glazer's first feature film, Sexy Beast, and with his many television advertisements and music videos: I was watching a filmmaker whose mise-en-scene was purposeful, controlled, surprising, and stylized (in the sense that "stylized" is now commonly used to describe films by Quentin Tarrantino and Wes Anderson, for example) but always in the service of story and character. I trusted Glazer immediately and completely.

I'm harping on this one shot because, having now seen Birth three or four times, and having watched the opening moments of the film more times still, I'm fascinated by the durability of its affect. The high angle perspective makes the jogger a small, dark (he's dressed in all black), and indefinable mark against the white snow. It's barely color photography at all, in fact -- the palette is all shades of gray and beige. This, combined with Alexandre Desplat's "Prelude," puts us in a world that isn't quite real. It's more Chris Van Allsburg than Martin Scorsese. Central Park is recast as the Grimm Brothers' forest, and I wouldn't be surprised at all to find the Billy Goats' troll or a Frog Prince hiding in the shadows beneath that bridge.

Like all great fairy tales, Birth is a dreamscape, really. Fantasy and suppressed desire are manifest in symbol-heavy ghosts and magic. Reason surrenders its claims to knowledge. Emotion reigns. The two films I think of most often when watching Birth are Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and David Cronenberg's The Brood, both sublime and uncanny horror stories in their own right. Glazer's debt to Kubrick is all over Birth, actually -- from the slow tracking shots and symmetrical compositions to the spanking scene, which is lifted, whole hog, from Barry Lyndon -- but it's their shared interest in the psychology of sex, death, and human subjectivity that links Glazer's film most closely with that other "Kidman as impossibly wealthy Manhattanite" movie.

Birth is, I think, a curious reimagining of the ideas that propel The Brood, the 1979 splatterfest in which an experimental form of self-actualization therapy gives birth, quite literally, to the anger and self-hatred that, until that point, had been "safely" repressed by each analysand's super-ego. Always part satirist, Cronenberg treats 1970s psychotherapy with suspicion (if not downright contempt), but, as has become his trademark, the real horror of The Brood is his qrotesque rendering of deep-seated human anxiety -- and anxiety about death, specifically, bound as it is to the corporeal, "flesh"-iness of our always-decaying bodies. (Forgive me if that all sounds obnoxiously pedantic. This notorious image from The Brood is more to-the-point.)

The basic premise of Birth is simple enough: a decade after her husband's death, a young woman meets a ten-year-old who claims to be his reincarnation. Although the boy is certainly a more rounded character than the knife-wielding homunculi of The Brood, he shares their function as a materialization of repressed trauma. (He doesn't just serve this function, of course. It's to the film's credit that, while remaining largely within Anna's subjectivity -- at least from that amazing opera scene on -- Glazer and his cowriters have built nice parallels into the story in order to emphasize the similarities between Anna and the young Sean. Their visits to Clara and Clifford's apartment is one good example.)

Entering spoilers territory . . .

That the central mystery of Birth -- is the boy her dead husband or isn't he? -- can be explained away by an important plot point is, impressively, both utterly beside the point and exactly what makes the entire premise of the film so damn interesting. Had Birth ended without revealing the dead Sean's betrayal of Anna -- had the mystery simply been left unresolved or resigned to the realm of the supernatural -- Glazer's portrait of mourning and grief would have been no less impressive or terrifying. (It likely would have become even more dreamlike, veering closer to the territory of a film like Jean-Paul Civeyrac's À travers la forêt.) As it is, the secret ultimately remains hidden from Anna, so her character, at least when viewed from within the film's world, is unaffected by any alterations to this particular plot point. Or think of it this way: Kidman would perform Anna exactly the same way, regardless of whether or not those letters existed.

But the letters do exist. And though we never get a significant peek into them, we can make certain safe assumptions about their contents. They're written by a woman desperately in love with her husband. They touch on the mundane details of the couple's domestic life together. ("This is my desk. This is where I worked.") They're frank enough and intimate enough to include details about a secret romp on their brother-in-law's couch. They express her regret over the amount of time they are forced to spend apart and her desire to be with him more often. (I wonder, even, if the very act of writing those letters could be a sublimation of Anna's insecurities and suspicions about Sean's fidelity.)

I've always read Eyes Wide Shut as a hopeless attempt by a man to regain the fictional unity of his own identity after having it exploded by a wife who, as is always the case, turns out to be not at all the woman he had imagined her to be. Birth, I think, is essentially the same story. By way of comparison to another "trick" film, at the end of Birth the "real" Sean remains as much a mystery to us as Keyser Soze. Anna so quickly and so easily falls in love with the young Sean not because he's a manifestation of her dead husband but because he so effortlessly performs a role that is wholly the work of Anna's imagination. She has conjured an idealized version of Sean through the magical incantation of her love letters. "I can't be him because I'm in love with Anna," the boy tells a police officer, adrift in his own impressive whirl of identity confusion.

My only complaint with Birth is its relatively clunky ending. The final image of Anna wailing in the surf is like a mash-up of The Awakening and The 400 Blows but without the inevitability or rightness of either. I wish it ended, instead, like Eyes Wide Shut, at the precise moment when all the horrors exposed in the film are once again safely repressed by a single word. In Kubrick's film, the tension is superficially resolved in a toy shop, where Alice restores Bill's sense of himself by simply telling him they should "fuck." In Birth, Anna and her future husband negotiate in a corporate boardroom, where she surrenders all of her desires to more acceptable cultural norms. "I want to have a good life, and I want to be happy," she says. "That's all I want. Peace."

I wish the film ended here. "Okay," he says. Cut to black. And like magic, the monsters disappear.

Why Is This Film Called Birth? Investigating Jonathan Glazer’s Mystery of the Heart Robert C. Cumbow from 24LiesASecond, January 23, 2006

Review (Reversing the Gaze) David Lowery

Interview with cinematographer Harris Savides (Village Voice) Cinematographer Harris Savides on Trust, Birth, and Invisible Light, by Dennis Lim from the Village Voice, October 26, 2004

Reverse Shot review Adam Nayman, Winter 2004

Reverse Shot review Andrew Tracy, Summer 2005

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The New Yorker (David Denby) review

DVD Times Noel Megahey

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Film Freak Central dvd review Walter Chaw and Bill Chambers

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PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs

SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review review [3.5/5] Richard Scheib

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filmcritic.com (Sean O'Connell) review [1.5/5]

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UNDER THE SKIN A- 93

Great Britain (108 mi) 2013 Official Site

Scarlett Johansson has finally learned to play roles that take advantage of how she’s perceived by a largely testosterone-laden male public, as a sex object where beauty is only skin deep, and they are infatuated by what they see. In Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon (2013), she plays the voluptuous tease, believing she’s the ultimate in beauty and sex, as she’s molded herself to match the perfect fantasy image of what guys want, while in Spike Jonze’s Her (2013), she lacks human and physical form and exists only as a voice of virtual reality perfection. Jonathan Glazer’s film takes the same title from Carine Adler’s first and only feature film, the one that features a sizzling breakout performance from Samantha Morton, a largely unheralded yet small gem of a film. Glazer resorts to the sci-fi genre to freely adapt the Dutch-born Michel Faber novel about an extraterrestrial who comes to earth, much like Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), though what plot there is plays out more along the lines of Claire Denis’s Trouble Every Day (2001), but with a different twist, where unlike the book, the film is far more ambiguous and less explanative, leaving the audience in the dark without many clues to figure out just what’s going on. The opening credit sequence, in something of an homage to Kubrick, reveals intergalactic origins, including the abstract atonal symphonic composition by Mica Levi, aka Micachu, which is equally otherworldly, where in something of a wordless visual splendor, a speck of light in an enveloping darkness approaches the viewer, eventually becoming a blinding shot of light, where the connection to humanity is complete when after a few planetary transfigurations the light becomes a reflection of a human eye. Without a hint of backdrop, the extraterrestrials have arrived in the form of Scarlett Johansson in a black wig, who along with a motorcycle helper, retrieves a dead body, and in a remarkable white screen with no recognizable floor, we see her pull the clothes off the dead woman and place them on her own simulated body, where the transformation is complete, as she passes unrecognizably through the crowded streets of Scotland.

Returning to filmmaking for the first time since BIRTH (2004), Glazer, in a screenplay co-authored with Walter Campbell, turns Faber’s extraterrestrial perspective into a feminist view of female objectification, where women are judged and valued through surface artificiality, and what’s inside hardly matters. That’s the central premise of the film as an unnamed Scarlett Johansson trolls for unattached men whose absence won’t be missed by anyone, cruising the streets of Glasgow, initially asking innocent questions, asking for directions, eventually luring men into a white van. Of interest, the director had hidden cameras installed in the van and only informed various male bystanders caught off guard afterwards that they were in a movie. While she speaks a vague British accent, most of the men have thick Scottish accents that make what they have to say incomprehensible. Wearing ankle boots, tight jeans, and a fur jacket, with a thick layer of red lipstick, Johansson has a Sirenesque sexual quality from her insinuations, asking if they’re alone, if they have a girlfriend, if they like what they see, etc. In this way she lures men to a secret apartment that has a hypnotic effect upon them, set to an unsettling score, where they both undress as they enter and she lures them (and their erections) ahead into a black pit of doom, “Dreaming, dreaming,” one man murmurs, to which she answers, “Yes, yes we are.” While she’s able to walk over it, they obviously have no idea even as they are quickly submerged in a sea of thick, oily black water, left to some strange Hellish fate where they’re done for. In the book they’re fattened up and eventually harvested for food back on their planet, which is in need of food, but here, without a word of exposition, the intentions are more darkly obscure.

While the film taps into cultural superficialities, what is clear is that Scarlett Johansson is undeniably beautiful, again representing herself as an ideal feminine object, seen in what resembles naked human form early on, where obtaining her sexually, from a male point of view, is ostensibly the epitome of cultural acquisition, where regardless of what might be under her skin, and here she is entirely alien, she is considered the ultimate prize or male achievement within the context of the film and modern day culture. Despite any intuitive analysis, however, only a bare minimum is revealed, where the film is an eye-opening slap to the face with an impeccable look, nearly wordless and driven by such meticulous composition and visual stylization from cinematographer Daniel Landin. What’s interesting is that the viewer is lured into this unexpectedly haunting and inexplicable world in much the same way as the men are lured to Scarlett, where for most of the picture we haven’t a clue where this is going, where we are as much in the dark as Scarlett appears to be, a stranger in a strange land, as she has a robotic assignment, but she begins to recognize something more beyond her mission. The first sign of this is a peculiar change in the routine, where after a prolonged reflection of herself in a mirror, we realize she has released one of her victims, seen running away off in the distance, still naked. Rather than preying on unsusceptible men, she herself becomes the prey, suddenly the target of her own accompanying motorcycle team who begin searching for her, as if she’s somehow malfunctioned. After spending some time sheltered by a stranger who asks no questions and treats her with kindness and respect, but introduces her to earthly sex, she is somewhat stupefied and retreats deeper into the woods. In a film about the artifice of surface realities, the natural beauty of the woods takes on darker hidden impulses, where the world is not as it seems, yet she is immersed, like her previous victims, in this primeval darkness that all but envelops her, exposing her for what she is. One cannot ascribe human emotions and feelings to this non-human entity, who has her own peculiar eccentricities and curiosities about her, but it’s an interesting transformation from being all powerful to becoming powerless, subject to the baser elements of man. It’s a mystifyingly beautiful and strangely puzzling little film that does wonders with an absolute minimum, much like the non-narrative, abstract idealizations in Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder (2012), where Glazer offers a similar philosophical quest for meaning.

Film Blather [E. Novikov]

For a more all-around satisfying science-fiction experience, Under the Skin offers a stimulating and sometimes flat-out astonishing corrective. With an opening five minutes that contains images as wondrous in their own inexplicable ways as anything Stanley Kubrick put on the screen in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Jonathan Glazer’s new film spends its first hour following its central figure, Laura (Scarlett Johansson), an alien of some sort that spends her days in Scotland driving around in a van, looking for single men and, using her voluptuous physical sexuality, luring them back to her flat and trapping them in a mysterious pool of water where…well, I’ll leave what occurs underneath for all of you to discover for yourselves.

This all sounds fairly ridiculous on the surface, but Glazer, with the invaluable aid of cinematographer Daniel Landin and composer Mica Levi, expertly keys us to view his film in terms of surreal abstraction and poetic metaphor rather than Cuarón’s thudding literalness in Gravity. Already in this first half, he’s exploring issues of sexual agency, female empowerment and the seductive force of physical appearances. But just when you think you’ve pinned down the film’s approach, Glazer throws a mid-film curveball and shifts into an altogether more reflective tenor. After an encounter with a disfigured man seems to throw a chink into Laura’s steely emotional armor, Glazer takes Under the Skin out of the city and into the country, and the film becomes positively Antonioni-like in its sense of contemplation as she gradually discovers her inner humanity. Equal parts puzzling and exhilarating, Under the Skin is the kind of heady sci-fi trip that has the enigmatic power to both provoke intellectual arguments and also, on a more visceral level, permanently burn images into your mind’s eye and haunt your dreams.

Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin tells the story of a shape-shifting alien who sets out across Scotland, in the form of Scarlett Johansson, to seduce and abduct hapless humans. It’s what we used to call a “visionary achievement” — mesmerizing nightmare fuel in the vein of vintage Cronenberg, with the same sleek, disorienting gloss that Glazer put on his extraordinary Birth. You won’t see anything remotely like it this decade, or maybe ever. Glazer is one of our most formidable young talents.

The film offers not a word of exposition. It opens with a series of striking images: abstract shots of of black goo filling some sort of vessel; a man racing down a mountain road on a motorbike; a woman stripping a corpse of its clothes on a bright-white stage. When the alien sets off on her mission, we are at first left to deduce its contours from muffled conversations half-heard over the din of Glazer’s stunning soundscape, accented by an overpowering experimental score by Mica Levi. Then, a series of utterly terrifying scenes that will become cult legend show us — without a single line of dialogue — what she is really after.

Halfway through the film, in a sequence that I will never, ever forget (a momentary insert shot of someone pinching himself is somehow the most heartbreaking thing I’ve seen on screen since The Deep Blue Sea), the alien finds herself with a human moral intuition. The tone briefly changes from nightmarish to elegiac, before shifting again in an ending that hit me like a punch in the gut. The alien ultimately discovers the full scope of what humanity is capable of: astonishing beauty and astonishing ugliness.

Under the Skin made me think of what Roger Ebert wrote about Dark City fifteen years ago. So many movies — bad and brilliant alike — consist of people talking to each other about prosaic matters of normal human experience. Here is a film that wants to show us something bold and new and amazing. It exists in another world, but reveals much about our own.

Trouble Every Day and The Man Who Fell to Earth as directed by Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Glazer's astonishing Under the Skin marks his return to feature filmmaking after a nine-year hiatus. The loosest of adaptations, cherry-picking from Michel Faber's strong novel of the same name, Under the Skin is home to a trio (at least) of indelible images and a style and presentation that function as shunts into a thicket of thorny existential questions; it's the best film I've seen this year and among the best films I've ever seen. Stripped to the bone, as capable of viciousness as it is tenderness, it achieves what seems impossible by creating a sense of the mysterium tremens in the body of a human-looking alien. When it works, it's a stunner worthy of mention in the same breath as Blade Runner, but more significant than its immediate impact is its lingering afterimage. I liked it initially. In the six days since I saw it, scarcely an hour's gone by that I haven't thought about it. Under the Skin, not to be flip, burrows exactly there, and nests.

Isserly in the novel but unnamed on screen (let's call her "X," in honour of the Joan Fontaine character from Rebecca), X (Scarlett Johansson) is introduced dressing, going shopping and dressing again, then driving around the rainy Scottish Highlands in endless pursuit of young men. Once they're snared, something happens: Glazer pulls us into long, dark doorways where X disrobes, her conquests following suit, until one is swallowed in a reflectionless black. It's a metaphor, I think, but for what? The puzzle of Under the Skin is that it's not about anything it's ostensibly about--it has no literal narrative plot, no rises, no falls, and a character who, if she finds an arc by the end of it all, well, the nature of that arc is mysterious, too. Something ineffable happens to X from the beginning--when she pauses in the midst of something beastly to contemplate an ant with intense curiosity--to the end, when she contemplates herself with the same kind of scrutiny. Indeed, by the close, there's value in wondering if she is substantively different from an insect--if any of us are. The film challenges its audience to consider what element of humanity it is we claim as "sentient," a soul as it were, the thing that separates us from lower orders of life--from the machines we create to the enemies we dehumanize. Described as an alien-invasion film, Under the Skin is actually nothing of the sort. Think of it as more a nature documentary of a lifeform with absolutely no relationship to ours.

But what happens in the dark between X and her quarry? It's not clear that they die, although an astonishing late reveal suggests they're not having sex, either. Glazer shoots it minimally: X walking backwards, beckoning like a Hindu goddess, and the men stumbling after until they're engulfed in nothingness--their expression of hope, of lust, never changing to horror or, really, to any sort of understanding that something is amiss. Later, when one of the men is seen free, the mystery deepens, and the nature of the metaphor shifts. What is it that X is doing? The casting of Johansson, in and of itself, is a fascinating choice, in that she's something of a cipher and most effective as an object of yearning (as she was in Lost in Translation). She's amazing in this movie because she's the picture of alien remove: she looks like she looks (though Glazer has made her just exactly off--even her nude scenes capture her cold, insectile), and there's nothing happening behind her eyes. A scene on a beach that moves from horror to unspeakable horror is played perfectly: the chill of it roils off the screen, framed exquisitely by the skeptical maybe-repulsion of a body-surfer approached by X and the next scene in traffic, where X turns slightly to regard a crying baby in its seat.

Glazer spoke to me about X's curiosity--I would counter that saying X is curious is incorrect, because that's ascribing a human emotion to a character assiduously, studiously inhuman. It's jarring, then, when X demonstrates an extraordinary measure of humanity in noting that a severely deformed man has "beautiful hands." Moments later, we see the man pinching himself to be in the company of a woman who looks like Scarlett Johansson. The crowning achievement of Under the Skin is its ability to make us feel uncomfortable in ours. It challenges the male spectator's instinct to judge a beautiful woman, especially a famous beautiful woman, by her appearance, only by casting one of the most beautiful women in the world--and as it does so, it illustrates the ability of beautiful women to see past the obvious physical failings of the men they choose to love. It's the basis of the "Beauty and the Beast" story, after all, though I've never seen it so viscerally presented, in form and function, as a situation in which the roles can be so easily inverted.

A sequence fast following in which X gazes long into a dark mirror--an image echoed in the film's final minutes in a shot that, again, I can't seem to shake--implies...something, a change perhaps, certainly an instinct in ourselves to project meaning, to interpret and make sense of what we see by placing it in a familiar paradigm. Under the Skin offers no answers. Johansson has no more than ten lines of dialogue despite occupying nearly every frame--and what gorgeous, meticulous frames they are. There is latent, pregnant energy in this picture, a thrum of dread that underlays every frame. And yet there's also an ironic playfulness that permeates and suggests the intellectual, literary tingle of reading great, but obscure, philosophy. Under the Skin is a masterpiece.

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Under The Skin / The Dissolve Noel Murray

Under The Skin and the changing shape of science-fiction ... Conversation with Keith Phipps, Nathan Rabin, and Scott Tobias from The Dissolve, April 7, 2014

Review: Scarlett Johansson is riveting in Jonathan ... - HitFix Drew McWeeny from Hit Fix

14 great science-fiction indie films from Under the Skin to ... 14 great science-fiction indie films from 'Under the Skin' to 'The Terminator,’ by Drew McWeeny from Hit Fix

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5 Reasons Why Jonathan Glazer's 'Under The Skin' Is One ... 5 Reasons Why Jonathan Glazer's 'Under The Skin' Is One Of The Best Films Of The Year, by Oliver Lyttelton from The Playlist

Unstoppable Scarlett Johansson Her Again, Anthony Lane from The New Yorker, March 24, 2014, also seen here: a profile of Scarlett Johansson

Slate’s Katy Waldman Hey Anthony Lane, About That Scarlett Johansson Profile..., from Slate March 18, 2014

Talking Points Memo’s Kay Steiger Who Edits Anthony Lane, from Talking Points Memo, March 18, 2014

Anthony Lane's Scarlett Johansson Profile in New Yorker is Anthony Lane's Scarlett Johansson Profile Turns The New Yorker into a Men's Magazine, by Esther Breger from The New Republic, March 19, 2014

Jason Bailey [Flavorwire] On the controversy of the Anthony Lane profile of Scarlett Johansson in The New Yorker

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'Under the Skin' review: Scarlett Johansson mesmerizes in ... Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post

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Under the Skin: Creepy, alluring, great | City Pages Stephanis Zacharek

Austin Chronicle [Steve Davis]

Vancouver Weekly [Indrapramit Das]

New York Times [Stephen Holden]

Review: Scarlett Johansson mesmerizes while getting ... Betsy Sharkey from The LA Times

Under the Skin - Roger Ebert Matt Zoller Seitz

Glenaan, Kenny

SUMMER

Great Britain Germany (82 mi) 2008

Time Out London (Dave Calhoun) review [3/6]

This is big-hearted social realism from Scottish director Kenny Glenaan, who impressed with his past television films ‘Yasmin’ and ‘Gas Attack’. More recently he directed two episodes of ‘Spooks’, which says something about what it means to be an independent filmmaker in Britain at the minute. This is part-meditative, part-knockabout stuff as Glenaan, working from a script by newcomer Hugh Ellis, gives us Shaun (Robert Carlyle) and Daz (Steve Evets), two down-on-their-luck blokes who share a filthy council house in the North with Daz’s teenage son and who live off the disability benefit received by Daz, who is in a wheelchair.

We know Daz used to be able-bodied as we see flashbacks of him and Shaun when they were kids and teens, living on the same estate and spending their days getting into trouble and chasing girls. The film dips in and out of the past, suggesting the source of current woes, from Daz’s drink problem, to the pair’s antagonistic interdependence and Shaun’s inability to let go of the past, especially when it comes to an old flame, Katy, who we discover has become a lawyer (Rachael Blake).

As a portrait of stasis brought on by poverty and a study of youthful abandon gone sour in the face of zero opportunities, this is sensitive stuff, even if there’s little that’s surprising. But the rapport between Carlyle and Evets allows for some welcome gallows humour, while Glenaan and Ellis’s decision to leave much mysterious – Where are we? Why is a young Scot living in the North of England? What’s unfolded in the intervening years? – helps to alleviate some of the more obvious elements of the plot.

Screen International review Allan Hunter in Edinburgh

A carefully-calibrated study of damaged lives and enduring friendship, Summer is a moving and expertly-constructed British drama flawed only by the predictability of the events that unfold. Director Kenny Glenaan has twice won the Michael Powell Award at Edinburgh for Gas Attack (2001) and Yasmin (2004) but neither film managed to secure theatrical distribution. This time around, Vertigo has taken UK rights for Summer which should help to raise the profile of this relatively unsung talent. The company can anticipate generally favourable reviews but will have to nurture an audience for this mournful, modest film in a territory where the release schedule is already overcrowded and viewers have often shown a resistance to the Ken Loach school of social realist human dramas. European prospects might be more favourable.

Summer declares its cinematic sensibility right from the opening shots which confidently establish a sense of English landscape and stillness. Tony Slater-King's evocative cinematography constantly emphasises the sun-kissed brightness of a cherished summer. In the present, Shaun (Carlyle) is a loyal carer for his best friend Daz (Evets) who has been told that he only has a matter of weeks left to live. The prospect of his death fills Shaun with a longing for the past and memories of a perfect, carefree summer when they were both sixteen, Shaun was in love and the world seemed so full of possibilities.

Summer explores the long and winding road that links the present with the past, layering the flashbacks to tell a story in three different time periods - childhood, adolescence and careworn middle-age. We know that ultimately we will discover the catalogue of misfortune which explains why Daz wound up in a wheelchair, how Shaun crippled his hand and why the bond between them has lasted twenty years.

None of the developments in Summer could be classified as a great surprise but the screenplay by Hugh Ellis has an economy and light, dry humour that brings the characters to life and makes us care about the way life and chance has treated them. The film has a political undercurrent in the way the education system fails Shaun but the human element always takes precedence over any social agenda.

Dyslexic, angry at the world and frustrated by his own shortcomings, the teenage Shaun careers towards an inevitable showdown with the law but always remains sympathetic, in part because of the peace and comfort he finds in his relationship with the understanding Katy (Tulej). Carlyle has one of his best roles in some time, conveying the inner tension and anguish of the older Shaun, his haunted eyes and coiled body revealing the heavy burden of his attachment to an idyllic past and the daily struggle involved in not surrendering to despair.

A former actor, Glennan has always been an acute and sympathetic director of actors. The film is well cast and uniformly well acted, especially by Steve Eve ts who brings out the gruff, gallows humour in Daz and a charismatic Sean Kelly as Shaun the bad boy teenager. Glennan also manages to keep the running time to a compact 82 minutes without any sense of sacrificing content or leaving too many elements unexplored.

BFI | Sight & Sound | Summer (2008) Tim Robey from Sight and Sound, January 2009

Derbyshire, the present. Shaun is a permanent carer for his old schoolfriend Daz, a paraplegic with weeks to live. He thinks back to the summer in the 1980s when everything changed in their lives, and to his brief relationship with Katy, who moved away to become a solicitor in Sheffield.

The teenage Shaun has acute dyslexia and is expelled from school after fracturing another boy's skull. During an exam at 16, he makes a mess of the paper, is thrown out, and crushes his own hand in a vice. Shaun and Daz break into the school premises and start a fire. When the police arrive, they give chase, and Daz is thrown off his bike, causing him to be paralysed.

In the present, Shaun tracks down Katy to inform her of Daz's worsening condition. Daz dies. Shaun tells Daz's teenage son Daniel, who reacts angrily. The three of them revisit the lake where Shaun, Katy and Daz spent the summer.

Review

The beckoning pull of memory shapes Kenny Glenaan's third feature, after the made-for-TV Gas Attack (2001) and the Simon Beaufoy-scripted Yasmin (2004). When the past intrudes, it's first announced by a shaft of sunlight flooding the bedroom where Robert Carlyle's haunted bachelor Shaun is taking a breather from his duties as carer for his paraplegic friend Daz. Earlier, lying outdoors in the film's opening scene, he shields his eyes from the sun overhead, as if suppressing a recollection that still casts a shadow over him. He rises to approach his childhood self running through a meadow, but can only look on through a pane of invisible glass, pressing his nose up against it in a state of reverie that's both tactile and strangely quarantined. This barrier is later breached from the other side: Shaun's teenage girlfriend Katy steps through it, rising from a lake in her swimming costume and passing across in an unbroken shot to kiss the adult Shaun as he lies in bed.

Glenaan's thoughtful approach to structuring his story is also marked by a considered use of sound to imply further slippage between the two timeframes. Shaun and Daz's shrieks as they cycle down a gravel quarry continue into the next image, of the adult Shaun and others sitting quietly in a remedial computer class. In a generally well-assembled, well-acted piece of work, the single strongest creative element may be Stephen McKeon's score: this low murmur, working in concert with the flashbacks, rises to a subdued, keening note that seems to want an answering call. If one is supplied, it's in Carlyle's robustly interiorised performance, a Kristin Scott Thomas-style slow burn around which the film builds itself.

The script is less sophisticated than its execution. The flashbacks are aiming for a sort of archaeology of trauma, explaining Daz's paralysis, Shaun's immobile left hand and the disappearance of Katy from their lives, while simultaneously making the usual case for this being an enchanted summer that ended all their childhoods and after which Nothing Would Ever Be The Same. It's a lot to load on one already over-exploited season, as even Stephen King might agree by now. Sometimes Glenaan and screenwriter Hugh Ellis push the 'sensitive' button too hard in their diagnosis of male problems - for example when the young Shaun sits outside the headmaster's office and overhears his mother being told that he has a below-average IQ and must be expelled for fracturing a classmate's skull. There might have been subtler ways, too, to hint at the generational transfer of working-class anger than expressly referring to Daz's wayward son as "a chip off t' old block".

More often, though, Glenaan finds acute visual means to dramatise Shaun and Daz's predicaments. When we see the young Shaun struggling through an English test, his fist clenched fiercely around the pencil that won't let him write, it's a strong and unsettling image of dyslexic frustration. The ame problem causes him to be thrown out of an exam at 16, and he exchanges a resentful scowl with his younger self in the corridor, a mutual acknowledgement of being dealt some shoddy genes. Caring for the now paralysed Daz in later life, Shaun rarely gets the whole frame to himself in their poky household - it's no surprise that cinematographer Tony Slater-Ling is a veteran of cramped quarters and full-tilt domestic squabbles in Shameless.

The film's main virtue is economy - there's hardly a wasted shot - wedded with the patience that defers details of Shaun's employment at a garage snack-stop for a good hour, on the basis that Daz is his real occupation. By contrast the rather sketchily written Katy is the character now defined by her work as a solicitor. In the flashbacks, we're spared too many showy Son of Rambow-style 1980s signifiers save for an amusing shot of the 16-year-old Daz attempting a moonwalk. If this prompts a vague awareness that Carlyle and Steve Evets (as Daz) are slightly too old for their roles, it's something you hardly notice because of Glenaan's sound directorial instincts and beautiful casting - when we see young Shaun in a profile shot next to his mum (Red Road's Kate Dickie), for instance, they're so believably mother and son that minor plausibility problems melt away.

EyeForFilm.co.uk [George Williamson]

Occam's Projector [Czaro Woj]

Tiscali UK Paul Hurley

original review Neil Young from Jigsaw Lounge

Little White Lies Ailisa Caine

Variety review

The Independent (Anthony Quinn) review [2/5]

Glimcher, Arne

THE MAMBO KINGS

USA France (104 mi) 1992

Movieline Magazine review Stephen Farber

Story and character fall by the wayside in the translation of Oscar Hijuelo's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from page to screen. On the other hand, director Arne Glimcher provides a rich explosion of music and dance to make up for the missing nuances. This evocation of the Cuban culture of the '50s is seductively sensual. The cast includes Armant Assante as an aggressive go-getter, Antonio Banderas as his innocent brother, and Desi Arnaz Jr. playing his own father who, in one tasty episode, books the brothers on the "I Love Lucy" show.

Washington Post (Rita Kempley) review

A spirited evocation of the mambo craze which swept post-war America, adapted from Oscar Hijuelos' Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Cuban musicians César and Nestor Castillo (Assante and Banderas) arrive in New York to find love, greed and, ultimately, fame. César thrives on the success of their band, and relentlessly pursues sex and the Yankee dollar, while his mournful brother laments his lost love and homeland. First-time director Glimcher establishes a restless pace, from the opening violence through to the energetic, swirling musical sequences, while screenwriter Cynthia Cidre tones down some of the book's flamboyance and machismo, emphasising the eroticism of sudden passion and repressed desire; and there's a sure feel for period in both tone and technique.

"The Mambo Kings" has the joyous spontaneity of a conga line and the provocative promise of a slithering blonde's sashay. A corny, eye-filling concoction of sound and strife, it recalls the heyday of a dance craze with the Technicolor splash of a 1950s musical. Beyond that, it is an emotionally enticing story of two brothers united by their struggling nightclub act, rather like "The Fabulous Baker Boys" with bongos.

Armand Assante takes charge as Cesar Castillo, a Cuban sex machine whose lust for women is equaled only by his love for his more soulful younger brother. Antonio Banderas, a regular in such Pedro Almodovar films as "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!," plays Nestor, a homesick, lovesick and wholly reluctant emigre, with the sad demeanor of a caged jungle bird. Cesar, a pushy pianist, promotes the band, while Nestor, a trumpet player, writes the songs.

Both characters are based on those in Oscar Hijuelos's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love," but Cesar has been pasteurized. Like the womanizing hero of "The Incredible Lightness of Being," he was upgraded from callous swine to suave caballero. Adapted primarily from the linear first half of the book by Cuban-born screenwriter Cynthia Cidre, the scenario is also considerably brighter. In her writing, Cidre finds both humor and innocence in Hijuelos's macho melodrama. When Cesar oils across the floor to hit on lame-encased cigarette girl Lanna Lake (Cathy Moriarty) there's not a woman in the house who doesn't know why he is a lady's man.

Moriarty, as Cesar's neglected regular girl, was born to be bad, with her contralto growl and Mae Westian curves. "If she cooks like she walks, I'm gonna lick her plate," says Cesar, who benefits mightily from Cidre's wonderful way with words.

Not that Cesar needs to say anything to command the screen, not with those swiveling hips and that matador's stare. Even hunky Nestor's girlfriends swoon like dying swans in Cesar's presence. Naturally this finally gets to Nestor, who still resents Cesar for hustling him out of Havana in 1952. Haunted by Maria, the woman he left behind (lustrous Talisa Soto), Nestor continues to long for the past, a yearning he puts into the Mambo Kings' most famous bolero, "Beautiful Maria of My Soul."

Meatpackers by day, the Castillo brothers and their band quickly win a shot at the big time. But Cesar, a self-destructive sot, spoils their chances for success on the Latin nightclub circuit by antagonizing the money men. Soon they are playing "Hava Nagila" on timbales at bar mitzvahs when they are discovered by Desi Arnaz (Desi Arnaz Jr.). An appearance on the "I Love Lucy" show and an album, "Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love," soon follow. Cesar is gushing like a human champagne bottle, but the backward-looking Nestor realizes that it's not at all what he wanted. Now he must hurt either himself or his brother.

The fourth principal in the torrid affair is Delores Fuentes, a scholarly beauty whose ambitions of someday becoming a schoolteacher are blunted by her love for Nestor. Compellingly played by Dutch-born actress Maruschka Detmers, Delores is forever competing with Nestor's unassailable memory of Maria. Detmers, who recalls a sexy June Cleaver, matches the rest of the cast in the proficiency of her accent. The exception is Arnaz, , who sounds more like a talking frijol than his Cuban band leader father.

The film is hopelessly florid as directed by Arne Glimcher, but that is all a part of the movie's Copacabanaesque charms. An aficionado of Latin music and culture, Glimcher approaches the movie with the enthusiasm of a kid whacking away at a birthday pinata. But he is by no means blindfolded in his first outing as a director. The producer of "Gorillas in the Mist" and other films, Glimcher shows an epicure's taste in his choice of both cast and crew. The look of "The Mambo Kings" is doubtless richer than the text, which is, however, strengthened by Glimcher's nostalgia for the teenage, eager America of the '50s. Besides, the music is the thing, the hot silly rococo lyrics (Glimcher wrote some himself) that lead to the kind of dancing that leads to other things. And how can you resist a movie with the song "Guantanamera"?

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Dan Heaton) dvd review

DVD Talk (Joshua Zyber) dvd review [4/5]

DVD Town (John J. Puccio) dvd review

DVD Verdict (Rob Lineberger) dvd review

The Latino Collaborative Jump Cut, June 1993

CHUD.com (Eileen Bolender) dvd review

Newsweek (David Ansen) review

Movie House Commentary Johnny Web

Three Movie Buffs (Eric Nash) review [2.5/4]

Entertainment Weekly review [B] Owen Gleiberman

Variety review

Washington Post (Desson Howe) review

Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten) review [2/5]

The New York Times (Vincent Canby) review

Glover, Chrispin Hellion

WHAT IS IT?

USA (82 mi) 2005

What is it? Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Well, I'll tell you a few things it isn't. (1) It isn't cheap provocation. Glover, in his Q&A following the screening, not only came off as articulate and intelligent, miles away from the presumed mental imbalance usually imputed to him (neatly summarized by his notorious appearance on "Letterman" -- "wanna see me kick, Dave?!"). He is clearly well-versed in the history of Dada and Surrealism, and What is it? demonstrates this awareness in every frame. Yes, there are some envelope-pushing aspects to this film, including virulently racist country music by Johnny Rebel, a performer in blackface, the summary execution of numerous invertebrates, and most notably, a cast dominated by non-professional actors with Down's Syndrome, two of whom get rather explicitly busy in the grass. So now you know. (Knee-jerk liberals may want to sit this one out, or else come equipped with an Epi-Pen.) But like his hero Luis Buñuel, Glover is attempting to confront his viewership with aspects of human psychology about which the canons of good taste require us to remain guardedly silent. Whereas in the days of L'Age d'Or and Un Chien andalou, female sexuality and blasphemous anti-clerical material was the way to excavate the bourgeois unconscious, today we're much more afraid of bodily difference. And if, as Glover's fictional world postulates, even the mentally challenged might harbor vivid racist fantasies (that is, those whom society is deeply invested in considering utterly innocent could instead be repositories for the worst sorts of unfiltered cultural detritus), Glover also shows these men and women overcoming those reactionary fears and urges. Unlike the snails which so intrigue our putative hero (Michael Blevis), all humans have the potential, and the moral imperative, to evolve. In this respect, What is it? is considerably more progressive in its Freudian politics than the recent work of David Lynch, who sometimes seems to indicate that our psyches are structured and stratified by fear and loathing, and that there's no way out other than the force of Law. (2) It isn't half-assed. Several reviews I'd read gave the impression that What is it? is inept filmmaking, and so I went in prepared for something rough, possibly amateurish but put across with a level of gonzo conviction. In fact, Glover is a born filmmaker. Although aspects of What is it? call to mind Lynch and Herzog, the film actually engages more directly with American underground cinema. The use of watermelons as problematic racist props recalls Robert Nelson, and the somewhat washed-out "reality" sequences have the twitchy looseness of Ron Rice's films. But more than anything, What is it? resembles a heterosexual Kenneth Anger film, with fetishized objects isolated in color-saturated close-ups, and naked nubiles in ritualistic masks performing vaguely Satanic rites. At times Glover's admirable attempt to fuse avant-garde aesthetics with more narrative-oriented Surrealism backfires. His use of Wagner and Bartok, for instance, reaches for the Herzogian sublime but only disrupts the uncoached quotidian power of the Down's-slowed performances. Still, anyone who views What is it? and sees unformed junk simply isn't looking very closely. (3) It isn't very easy to talk about. Glover has created a deeply archetypal film of resonances and associations, with themes and objects rhyming across the running time in a manner that deliberately eschews linear explication. As with all such film work, it's possible to reject What is it? as pretentious and empty, requiring its audience to gaze deep into the seams of the Emperor's New Clothes and, abandoning good sense, impute meaning. One fears being had, I guess. But just as Glover's hour-long slide show (based on his Max Ernst-like collage books) hints at recurrent themes and motifs without lighting decisively upon them -- these turn-of-the-century Gothic gewgaws are unintentional Poe, revealing semi-educated minds channeling the cultural anxieties of their late-Victorian moment -- What is it? hovers at the edge of intelligibility and sticks in the mind as jarring, unshakable images barely harnessed to story or logic. In the end, what it is is a leap of faith, and I found it indisputably worth taking. Crispin Glover is the real deal.

Slant Magazine [Ed Gonzalez]

Walking to Anthology Film Archives, down a street that stank strongly and strangely of Lipton soup, I was struck with a craving for a caramel macchiato, but I never thought a Starbucks would be so hard to find in that part of New York City. It makes sense when you think about it, and as the cold nipped my hands, I thought of CBGB—now gone but its doors still open when I passed it—having kept Starbucks away all these years. (With Mars Bar still kicking, if not necessarily screaming, does that mean the area is safe for a little while longer from the coffee chain's intoxicating pull?) After backtracking and finally finding a Starbucks, I ran back down to Anthology Film Archives past trailers for a motion picture shooting in the area and thought that at least Hollywood was unafraid of slumming this far downtown. I pulled on the door and, finding it locked, peered inside for a publicist. A man approached and, after opening the door, I could see that it was Crispin Glover. "Hello," he said, kindly but without introduction. Already I could tell this was going to be a surreal morning.

Glover's appearance took me by surprise, but that was only because I hadn't read the press release for the film thoroughly. Glover was there not only to introduce his first film, 72 minutes of avant garde madness that recalls everything from Un Chien Andalou and The Holy Mountain to Even Dwarfs Started Small and the collected works of David Lynch, but to narrate "The Big Slide Show," a collection of text and illustrations from the man's books, which include Concrete Inspections, Rat Catching, The Backward Swing, and Round My House. Standing on the stage, his body obscured by darkness except for the part of his face that caught the light from the projector, Glover looked like Hannibal Lecter reading from pages of novels styled in the tradition of Southern fictions and early-20th-century medical journals. My eyes darting back and forth between the screen and Glover's face, I would sometimes catch the actor's gaze in this small room of maybe two dozen people. Damn if there's any through line to follow here—all I can remember is something about rats, a dog named Sal, a "negroid" slave, a trial, and a backstabbing friend by the name of Tom Wiswell—but the actor's "performance" is so convincing it invites surrender.

I thought I could never write a review about this film (assuming, that is, we ever got to it), but a blog entry might suffice: one that would detail how the film began backward and had to be stopped and started again before coming to another less screeching halt, the soundtrack of warped voices over the opening credits suggesting that celluloid might just catch fire at any second and explode before our eyes. Glover came up to apologize for the delay and I wondered if the public showings of the film would be as full of surprises, or if Glover would collect his laptop and other slide-show accessories during the screening as he did here, or if other audiences would entertain the idea of the actor working full-time as an usher at the theater. If so, how much do you think Jonas Mekas would pay him per hour?

What Is It? could be a mash-up of shout-outs to the films of Buñuel, Lynch, Jodorowsky, Herzog, and Kuchar. This came to my mind before Glover, during an effusive speech after the film, indicated that Lynch was once attached to produce the project. (The credits also revealed a thank you to Herzog.) The film, for all of its very explicit connections to other works, is still a thing of unique madness. It is the story of a community of people with Down Syndromes whose bipolar relationship to snails is linked to an underworld where Glover reigns supreme as a Caligula-esque "auteur" with castration anxiety and one of many naked monkey women (!) sits on a watermelon (!!) while slowly stroking the cock (!!!) of a man with cerebral palsy (!!!!) who lies in the fetal position inside a big oyster (!!!!!). This all happens before a Nazi Shirley Temple doll begins to communicate telepathically with the mental handicaps above ground, commanding them to do away with a black-faced Mr. Bojangles-type who claims to be Michael-fucking-Jackson. My mind is, by now, exploding, wondering if Glover even knows that Jackson, at the height of the public's scrutiny over his diminishing blackness, wrote a great song called "Who Is It."

Like Inland Empire, which features toward the end of its three-hour freak-out a ridiculously funny exchange between a trio of homeless people as Laura Dern bleeds all over a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, What Is It? is perfectly content peering at us from the fringes of our moviemaking universe. Lynch's empathy for his characters is more apparent, and in spite of its crummy (but appropriate) appearance, Inland Empire is more elegant, but Glover shares with his former director an interest in reacting against the Hollywood status quo and an obvious disaffection for the way the system operates, from its relationship to actors and the media to the way it panders to audiences. What Is It is not exactly enjoyable, but its caustic ridiculousness is, if not visionary, at least liberating; its fearlessness feels like an antidote to the claptrap Paramount Pictures was no doubt making two blocks away. Walking out of the theater, Glover still rambling for the press, I thought about how wonderful it is that anyone can still walk off the street and into Anthology Film Archives and absorb such strange visions, just as they can walk into Mars Bar and ask for a three-dollar screwdriver.

I Viddied it on the Screen [Alex Jackson]

Reverse Shot (Michael Joshua Rowin) review

The New York Times (Laura Kern) review

Gô Shibata

LATE BLOOMER (Osoi Hito)

Japan (83 mi) 2004 YouTube trailer

TimeOut NY David Fear

You’d have every reason to view underground filmmaker Gô Shibata’s tale of a severely handicapped man (Sumida) whose unrequited crush on a caregiver (Torii) spills into psychosis as pure exploitation. If anything, this grungy horror film’s refusal to whitewash its antihero offers a rebuke worthy of the Farrelly brothers; by allowing him to indulge in the worst behavior imaginable, the movie actually affirms his humanity. Of course, such highfalutin talk doesn’t mean Shibata’s Tetsuo-style touches (bring the noise!) are any less visceral, or its extreme moments any less disturbing.

Village Voice (Aaron Hillis) review

"People who grin all the time, you never know what they're up to," says a friend of beer-guzzling, porn-watching, hardcore-show- attending, wheelchair-bound Sumida-san (played by severely handicapped actor Sumida Masakiyo), whose loneliness and repressed rage are about to detonate. Japanese writer-director Gô Shibata's self-described concept of "a handicapped Taxi Driver" subverts the adversity-triumphing disabled character in the same way Crispin Glover's stilted avant-curiosity It Is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. does, with both films failing to convey how seemingly simple men of limited faculties could suddenly become multiple murderers. The more playful yet misanthropic of the two, Shibata's version is best accepted as black-humored artsploitation, as when Nobuko (Mari Torii)—student caregiver and unknowing object of Sumida-san's erotic fantasies—asks whether our anti-hero ever wanted to be normal (his reply, communicated through a phonetic, Stephen Hawking–like device: "I will kill you"). Cult-classically stylized in low-lit, techno-stuttering DV monochromatics that pixilate and distort as if the film shared blood with Tetsuo: The Iron Man (and maybe a few buckets of horror-shlockster Herschell Gordon Lewis's cherry red), Late Bloomer is strangest for genuinely empathizing with the monstrous Sumida-san as if he were the typical disabled lead in an inspirational heartstring-tugger.

Slant Magazine review Ed Gonzalez

The late bloomer here is not the guy with the fewest pubes but a mentally handicapped man who turns to murder after perceiving to have been slighted by one of his caregivers. Though less posh than The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the film similarly keys its aesthetic mode to the harried mental state of its main character—a psychological study conducted in crummy black-and-white video and scored to what sounds like an ungodly gene splice of Super Mario Bros. and American Life. More Tetsuo than Jean-Dominque Bauby, Sumida (Masakiyo Sumida) watches porn and drinks like a pro, communicating with everyone via a text-to-speech device through which he begins to express an interest in killing those around him, but because of his handicap (maybe even his WALL-E eyes), no one pays him any mind, understanding him as someone who wouldn't hurt a fly. Director Go Shibata's coup is never sentimentalizing Sumida's condition, instead inviting our identification with him as someone just as capable of slipping into a moral abyss, but the director's style can be dumb: When Sumida kills, the video footage is subjected to headachy genre workouts—all forms of frenzied slow-mo and fast-forward flashes—that, while frequently unnerving, are rarely illuminating. If Shibata means to evoke a retarded state through the video, he succeeds, but the visual correlation to Sumida's condition veers toward the condescending. Much cannier is the final shot of film, which shows people locked in a state of rewind, with only the handicapped individuals in the frame moving forward.

Midnight Eye Nicholas Rucka, also including: Midnight Eye: Director interview

As I begin this piece, I need to mention that the director of this film, Go Shibata, is a good friend of mine. Though we disagree about when exactly we first met, I clearly recall having a rather crazy night with lots of yaki-niku and shochu with him and the other Osaka Geidai (art university) students sometime around late spring 1998. At that time Shibata-san was finishing up his first feature film NN-891102 and was very excited to show it to me-little did I know that in a year I'd end up translating and subtitling it.

NN-891102 is not a polished movie. There are sound problems, occasional exposure issues, scratches on the negative, some crude production design elements and other flaws indicative of a debut work. But the thing is, the film seethes with energy and excitement.

Shibata-san seems to work off of instinct and he doesn't sweat whether people will really 'get' what he's doing. That's not to say he doesn't want an audience, but the truth is either you get his stuff or you don't. But even if you don't get it, you'll always find something interesting and different in his films.

Which brings me to his phenomenally energetic and exciting new film, Late Bloomer, which took nearly five years to make.

To best describe the film, one can say that it has the best elements of Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Battles Without Honor and Humanity, Taxi Driver, Freaks, and Psycho. There are elements of directors Wakamatsu Koji, Werner Herzog, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Herschell Gordon Lewis in the film too. At times Late Bloomer has a Japanese New Wave quality to it in its immediacy and penchant for hand held camera work and at other times the film spins off towards pure music video territory. Most assuredly, the collusion of these elements should not be viewed as a bad thing-nor should they discount the film itself. Late Bloomer is almost like improv jazz: riffing on a little bit of everything.

Late Bloomer is the story of Sumida-san, a severely handicapped man, and his downward spiral into hell. When we're first introduced to him we find that despite his physical limitations - and contrary to cultural misconceptions about the handicap - he has all of the desires and personality traits of a physically normal man. Specifically: he loves to party, eat good food, and 'rock out' to his caregiver Take's hardcore band. However, Sumida-san's life begins falling apart when he develops a crush on his new occasional caregiver, Nobuko. Needless to say, the feelings are not reciprocated and when Nobuko starts spending her free time with Take, Sumida-san is driven mad with desire and frustration and things take a turn for the worse…

In the interview which accompanies this review, director Shibata talks about how Late Bloomer grew out of a desire to confound cultural misconceptions and prejudice against the handicap. He himself admits that he was guilty of these cultural biases and claims that one of the most important things he had to overcome during the shooting of this film (comprising the first year and a half of its total production time) was the emotional and social distance that existed between Sumida and himself. This distance is reflected in the type of popular cinema that is produced featuring handicapped people: a particularly safe brand of generic art.

It seems that the world over, the accepted films featuring the handicapped would be best called the 'triumph story:' the overcoming of great odds to achieve even greater goals. The reason for these films appears to be catharsis. Specifically, the audience watches them to feel better about their own lives ("There but for the grace of God go I…"), draw inspiration to live a better life ("If they can do it, so can I."), and, to some extent, feel generally swell about themselves and the way they spent two hours watching something 'socially responsible.' Fortunately this style of filmmaking appeared both absurd and disingenuous to both Shibata and Sumida and in response they created a film that was truly the opposite.

Returning to the topic of distance, Shibata-san said to me at one point that it was only after a half a year of shooting that the distance between him and Sumida started to shorten-and in a sense, that was when the film started to take on its true form. According to Shibata the distance between both he and Sumida continued to abate even after the shooting was wrapped. He states that one of the positive aspects of the film taking as long to complete as it did was the eventual discovery of the true emotional heart of the film, as a result of the distance being bridged.

Which brings me to a key point about why this film, though containing all of the tell-tale signs of an exploitation flick (violence, sex, and random cruelty), is anything but that: we care about Sumida-san. Specifically, we identify with his frustrations and feel the emotional sting of injustice at being handicapped and regarded as less than human.

There's no denying it, Late Bloomer sticks with you for a long time after it's done and has you chewing on this point. While as a viewer you recognize that what Sumida-san has done is reprehensible and should be without absolution, his actions do make some sense. While not a justification of violent behavior, the film makes it hard to be critical of Sumida-san when you're sympathetic to him-and you're angry for him. And you're hurt for him. This is where Shibata-san has made Late Bloomer truly a unique film.

This, it should be noted, is not new territory for Shibata. He explored similar themes in his debut feature film, NN-891102. In both films the audience becomes oddly sympathetic to the protagonist, regardless of how brutal their actions might be. I believe that at the heart of his two films, Shibata wants the audience to not be so judgmental of others, and to take the time to learn about why certain people act and make the decisions that they do. While yes it's true, life isn't fair, it is possible to learn to be more empathetic about others and view situations and people in a more accepting manner. More so if we watch films like this and consider the feelings, opinions, emotions, views and the like, which are explored on screen.

Addressing the technical aspects of the film, it was shot entirely on digital video using three cameras-more out of necessity rather than for artistic purpose. The cinematography is of a standard documentary video quality and with the exception of a few points, is nothing to write home about. That being said, Late Bloomer is unique in its stripping, in post production, of all its color palette. What's left is a slightly murky 16x9 image primarily rendered in gray scale as the result of a lack of proper film lighting, with the occasional high contrast scene featuring crushed blacks and sharp whites. While I wasn't crazy about the shooting style in general, there are the occasional moments of brilliance in the film when the black and white cinematography, mise-en-scene and montage all come together to create strong imagery.

The music is another story and is also quite unique. Having been composed in part and culled from the CDs of electronic music artist World's End Girlfriend the soundtrack is unlike almost any film that is currently in release. In fact, it's a rare day that you hear underground electronic music like this in ANY film and it adds nicely to the overall experience, from the first electronic voice sample announcing "Nice to meet you" right at the start of the film, to the delicate and morose music that underscores the end of the film. Shibata couldn't have found a better and more unique musical fit.

Late Bloomer is without question one of the best films that has come out of Japan recently and I can only hope that it will continue its festival run, secure a proper domestic and international distribution deal and screen widely enough so that more people can appreciate this unique work of an emerging talent. The film world in general needs more films like this and I look forward to seeing Shibata's next film. Hopefully it will take less than five years.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Late Bloomer Charles Coleman from Facets Multi Media

Roger Ebert

New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis

Gobert, Fabrice

LIGHTS OUT (Simon Werner a Disparu)

France (91 mi) 2010

Lights Out (Simon Werner A Disparu) Lee Marshall at Cannes from Screendaily

This genre-bending high-school thriller-drama about three students who go missing at a French lycee opens like a teen B-movie, but soon moves into more intriguing territory. Lit and photographed in hyperreal style by leading French cinematographer Agnes Godard and featuring a loose and rangy instrumental soundtrack by US indie rockers Sonic Youth, it plays with the dark side of suburbia in ways that recall Twin Peaks – though without David Lynch’s edge of madness.

But the film’s refusal to fit into a neat genre box provides a challenge for distributors, who will need to convince teens that this is not too boringly arthouse for them, and reassure their parents (and those inbetween) that it’s not just another high-school movie. Given the lack of name stars and the subtitling hurdle, this will probably be an easier task at home in France, where Lights Out will be released by Diaphana later this year.

Lights Out tell the same story four times, from the point of view of four of its main players. All are students in a nameless high school in a nameless French town, which has very little specifically French about it: with its manicured lawns and neat suburban houses, it could be anywhere from the outskirts of Paris to the outskirts of Des Moines. The period setting is equally difficult to pin down: haircuts and clothes float somewhere between the late eighties and early nineties. But there are no external clues in the film’s hermetic, claustrophobic world, not even from the diegetic songs that supplement Sonic Youth’s jangly guitar breaks: these span at least fifteen years.

Opening with a prologue in which a body is found in the woods after a teen house party, the film soon backtracks ten days to recount the events leading up to the discovery from the perspective of Jeremie, the sports jock whose party it was. From all four stories, which occupy more or less equal screen time, we glean the basic facts. A boy called Simon Werner has gone missing, and rumours abound in the school. Was it the creepy science teacher Rabier (Riaboukine)? Or perhaps his geekish, peeping-Tom son Jean-Baptiste (Mazet)? When Jean-Baptiste himself goes missing along with the class punkette, Laetitia, the rumour-mill goes wild (though rather oddly, the school authorities take no action).

As we tack back through the stories from the points of view of school belle Alice (Girardot) and school sad-sack Jean-Baptiste, missing fragments of the picture are filled in and previously suspect characters are shown in a more favourable light. By the time the narrative baton is passed to Simon, we’re no closer to unravelling the mystery, which is revealed, as we would expect, only at the end of Simon’s story. But we have learned something about how suspicion is fostered and engineered, and warmed to this group of 18-year-olds who are all close to disappearing (as the film’s original French title hints) into the adult world.

Cannes 2010 Review: 'Lights Out' Is A Gripping Gallic High School Drama Kevn Jagernauth from Cannes at The Playlist, May 21, 2010

Coming in at a crisp ninety-three minutes with not a single wasted shot or extraneous moment, Fabrice Gobert's directorial debut "Lights Out" was a refreshing palate-cleanser late in the Cannes schedule, providing relief to the seemingly endless stream of Very Important Movies. With a score composed by Sonic Youth and a mystery that doubles as an insight to the tenuous and intangible qualities of those late sex-obsessed teenage years, "Lights Out" is a clever drama masquerading as a murder mystery.

Set in the early 1990s, though thankfully not thuddingly referred to (giveaways are a t-shirt worn by one of the characters for Sonic Youth's 1992 album "Goo," and another lead character using a Walkman), the film's structure is certainly nothing new. As it opens, two kids leaving a party decide to cut through the nearby woods when they stumble upon a dead body. Cue opening credits. Afterwards, we follow the events leading up to the body in the woods with a chapter devoted to four main characters: Jeremy, Alice, Rabier and finally Simon (the victim and titular character in the original French title for the film "Simon Werner a disparu"). What emerges over the course of each of these entries is a portrait of a high school's inner workings, social structure and the mysterious actions between students and staff.

What Gobert does so well in this picture is capture the oddities of high school life and the personas that circle it that so often randomly shape the perception any one student receives. When the film opens, Gobert plays things out almost like an Agatha Christie novel. It isn't long before everybody is a suspect, each with their own curious reasons that may have wanted Simon dead. But as the film goes on, and Gobert peels back the onion layers of his film, the mysterious meetings, enigmatic glances and out of context moments (there are several key scenes which play a different perspective in each chapter) are logically, realistically explained. In doing so, Gobert's depiction of high school is probably one of the most accurate put to screen: egos bruise easily, sexual desire runs unrestrained and any deviation from the norm is viewed with both suspicion and derision from the gatekeepers of the acceptable and status quo.

So who killed Simon and why? While we obviously won't tell you here, its the ending of the film that will most likely divide audiences. Gobert's final reveal of the killer both confirms Simon's classmates' uneasy feeling about his death and the subsequent disappearance. Viewers may not agree with how or who the writer/director pins these crimes on. However, we contend that his choice is actually more terrifying than anything we could've dreamed up. As revealed, the very nature of the crime means that even at the close of the film the terror that struck the school, and still lies in the students' hearts, will never be locked away and is still out there in the world to strike them at any time in their lives. And yes, we know we're being vague here but we're doing our best to keep as much of the film's conclusion under wraps until you see it for yourself.

We can't really remember the last high school set debut that surprised us this thoroughly, but Rian Johnson's "Brick" would be a good comparison point. Both films use specific genre conventions to add a new spin on the setting to an utterly compelling degree. Extra thumbs up to the eerie score by Sonic Youth that while not particularly flashy and pretty minimal, creates the mood for the film perfectly (also look out for songs by Tom Waits, The Cure and the aforementioned Sonic Youth track -- used multiple times -- in the film as well). Gobert arrives in a big way with "Lights Out" and we're curious to see where he goes next. His steady eye and nuanced hand, combined with a distinct feel for editing and pacing, make him an exciting new talent to watch and "Lights Out" a film worth tracking down.

Fabien Lemercier at Cannes from Cineuropa, May 20, 2010

Guy Lodge at Cannes from In Contention, May 21, 2010

interview Cannes interview from Un Certain Regard, May 2010

Cannes 2010. Fabrice Gobert's "Lights Out" David Hudson at Cannes from The Auteurs, May 22, 2010

Godard, Jean-Luc

Godard, Jean-Luc Art and Culture

A perpetual innovator who indelibly altered the nature of his craft, French director Jean-Luc Godard stood at the forefront of the French New Wave, the late-1950s movement that included François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, and other former film critics from the journal Cahiers du Cinema who refracted the medium into a fine art with both broad technical strokes and subtle textual flourishes. His debut film, "Breathless" (1959), which will always remain his benchmark work, is an introspective homage to the gangster film, featuring an almost comically cool Jean-Paul Belmondo as the Existentialist outlaw who hides out in a Paris apartment with his American muse, a lovely Jean Seberg in a cropped haircut. In a typically light philosophical moment, she blithely intones, "Sometimes I wonder if I'm unhappy because I'm not free, or I'm not free because I'm unhappy."

Godard reinvigorated the art of filmmaking by constructing artistic collages that combine image, sound, and music to convey both text and subtext. His sometimes ironic, sometimes reverential, dialogue with pop culture set the mood for the movement. His stylistic use of the jump cut, the ten-minute tracking shot, and fractured time sequences patented a look that has been imitated and honored up to the present day by everyone from Quentin Tarantino to Wong Kar-Wai.

The ultimate glory of Godard lies in his versatility. From "Contempt" (1963), his art-house elegy to the film industry (with Brigitte Bardot as the neglected wife of an embittered filmmaker and Jack Palance as a slick American producer) to "Alphaville" (1965), his science-fiction commentary on the coming computer age (with its barren, futuristic society at the mercy of supercomputer Alpha 60), Godard forces viewers to stop, look, and listen as their own culture is critiqued. Godard earned his status as a fixture of the avant-garde, dictating his own style and exalting the film medium above all others by declaring that "cinema is neither an art nor a technique, but a mystery."

About Jean-Luc Godard from BFI Godard page: BFI's Godard Page

Jean-Luc Godard was born into a wealthy Swiss family in France in 1930. His parents sent him to live in Switzerland when the war broke out, but in the late 1940s he returned to Paris to study ethnology at the Sorbonne. He became acquainted with Claude Chabrol, Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette, forming part of a group of passionate young film-makers devoted to exploring new possibilities in cinema.

They were the leading lights of Cahiers du Cinéma, where they published their radical views on film. Godard's obsession with cinema beyond all else led to alienation from his family who cut off his allowance. Like the small time crooks he was to feature in his films, he supported himself by petty theft. He was desperate to put his theories into practice so he took a job working on Swiss dam and used it as an opportunity to film a documentary on the project. The construction firm bought the film, an early indicator of Godard's more recent success working on corporate video commissions.

A bout de souffle (Breathless) (1959) was his first feature, based on an idea by Truffaut. Made on a shoe-string budget with Chabrol as artistic supervisor, it was spontaneous, vibrant and groundbreakingly original. Suddenly the typical B-feature crime plot was reborn, with startling cinematic techniques, hand-held camerawork and natural lighting. References to Sam Fuller and Humphrey Bogart and quotations from Faulkner, Aragon and Apollinaire mixed up pop and literary allusions in a dazzling jigsaw of hip cultural awareness. It was a revelation and made Jean-Paul Belmondo a star. It was to be Godard's only box office hit.

By the early 1960s Jean-Luc Godard was probably the most discussed director in the world. He made a an enormous impact on the future direction of cinema, influencing film-makers as diverse as Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino and Wong Kar-Wai.

As the 1960s progressed, Godard became less and less accessible, both in his personal life and his work. After making Week-end (1967), which features a ten-minute tracking shot of a hideous traffic jam, Godard abandoned his increasingly antagonistic relationships with film industry colleagues (his mutual disaffection with Truffaut, for example, is well documented).

He left Paris for Switzerland, which has been his home for the last 20 years. Fascinated with developments in new media, he has experimented with video, making several on commission for clients including Channel 4, France Telecom and UNICEF. Amongst his 'revolutionary films for revolutionary people' is his highly regarded eight-hour history of cinema, recently edited into a 90 minute version.

His latest film is Eloge de l'amour (In Praise of Love), concerning in part an elderly couple who are former heroes of the Resistance and whose life story Steven Spielberg has offered to buy. The film has just received its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival 2001 to great acclaim. It is expected to have a British release later this year.

Godard's reputation for being a bitter and reclusive figure clearly does not go unnoticed, but is not observed without humour, as a recent anecdote in the New Yorker illustrates. He told Richard Brody that he and his partner (the film-maker Anne-Marie Mieville) had clipped a cartoon from the paper which exemplifies their situation: a unicorn in a suit is sitting at a desk and talking on the phone with a caption reading "These rumours of my non-existence are making it very difficult for me to obtain financing."

Fin du cinema?

God or Godard? Rob Nelson from City Pages

If every film critic in the world suddenly confessed his secret longing to be a film curator, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. After all, the two practices are remarkably similar--both involve the foolhardy attempt to spread one's enthusiasm for "good" movies--save for one crucial detail: The curator generally gets away with doing a lot less writing. Alas, one of the most enthusiastic film critics who ever lived, Jean-Luc Godard, skipped film curating almost entirely and headed straight into filmmaking. Yet, representing a kind of archeological endeavor, Oak Street Cinema's "Curated by Jean-Luc Godard" digs through the auteurist's Fifties and Sixties reviews in Cahiers du Cinéma and discovers 22 pictures that he might have loved to screen in public if he hadn't been so busy shooting his own.

From a curatorial standpoint, the series is pure genius. At a time when everything old is new again only if you've avoided visiting rep houses or video stores for the last decade, it manages to repackage the past in a way that appears not only fresh but intellectually astute. Yet from a critical standpoint, the program can't help seeming a tad passé. Assembled a half-century after Cahiers published Godard's then-radical views that Hollywood movies reflect their directors' distinct sensibilities, "Curated by Jean-Luc Godard" means to credit a director's distinct sensibility in recognizing directors (Hawks, Hitchcock, Ford) whose works supply this series with its...um, distinct sensibility.

Trouble is, none of this is all that distinct anymore. The canon-making auteur theory proposed by Godard and his New Wave compatriots is now so commonly accepted as fact in the pages of Entertainment Weekly and on American rep-house schedules alike that damn near any decent series of two dozen old movies could be considered to have been curated by Jean-Luc Godard--or Ted Turner. And the fact that "Curated" solely reflects the cineaste's aesthetic before 1966--when he wrote, "Cinema is capitalism in its purest form....There is only one solution, and that is to turn one's back on the American cinema"--doesn't help its topicality quotient, either.

So: Why attribute yet another double bill of Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not to the catholic tastes of a cinematic giant? Answer: because he's a cinematic giant, of course. "Curated by Jean-Luc Godard" naturally resonates more than would, say, "Curated by Pauline Kael," mainly for the fact that Godard's own critical filmmaking invites an additional round of investigation. Having just seen the new print of the auteur's Band of Outsiders, one could make detailed notes during the Hawks double bill on how Godard reimagined through the lens what he had identified in print as the American master's "love for [an] artificial grandeur connected to movements of the eyes, to a way of walking..."

As that quote suggests, Godard--both the critic and the filmmaker--was chiefly interested in style, and particularly in American style. When the super-cool gangster protagonist of his debut feature Breathless (1960) looks in the mirror, runs his thumb across his lower lip, and mutters, "Bogie," it's clearly the director doing the emulating as much as the character. But even in an early work that blushes with the narcissistic pleasure of obsessive cinephilia, Godard knew enough to look on the dark side. His Bogie fetishist's violent fate--at the hands of a fashionably fickle American woman, natch--highlights the dangers of all that slavish devotion to the Hollywood ideal.

At least in his Fifties reviews, Godard's youthful passion for American pop and the occasional European art film remained nearly unbridled--to a fault. "The cinema is Nicholas Ray," he wrote in 1958--although Ray's war movie Bitter Victory "is not cinema, it is more than cinema." At its most vague and unsubstantiated, Godard's outrageous hyperbole bespeaks the critic's apparent exhaustion from the task of finding--how should I say?--the bon mot. For Godard, Charlie Chaplin is "beyond praise because he is the greatest of them all. What else can one say?" Ingmar Bergman's Summer Interlude--one of three non-American films in the Oak Street series--is "the most beautiful of films" because "it just is." Whereas Bitter Victory--itself the "most beautiful" of films--"is what it is....What is the point of saying that...[it] is edited with fantastic brio?"

Good question. I suppose that for the critic, the point, at least in part, is to help encourage people to see the cinema that has been rendered with "fantastic brio"--the cinema that is "more than cinema." But for the curator or the filmmaker--which is how Godard would bring his own passion to fruition--the point is to show, not tell. Although the revolutionary films that Godard directed in the early Sixties (e.g., Vivre sa vie, Contempt, Pierrot le fou, Masculine-Feminine) are works of criticism as much as anything, they articulate themselves in all sorts of ways, verbal and otherwise, leaving the task of assessing and explaining--or not--to us. Perhaps the filmmaker's parting gift to film criticism was to create the sort of supremely challenging cinema that could inspire reviewers to rise to the level of artists. On the other hand, it may be more apt to say that Godard is both the greatest film critic and the greatest filmmaker who ever lived...because he just is.

Talking Pictures: Jean-Luc Godard's Introduction to a True History of ... Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television, by Phil Coldiron from Cinema Scope, 2012

From April to October of 1978, Jean-Luc Godard made seven trips to Montreal’s Concordia University, delivering two lectures on each occasion. These lectures followed a simple format: the morning was devoted to showing excerpts from classic films, as well as works from the first decade of Godard’s career in their entirety; the afternoon to public discussions moderated by Serge Losique, head of Montreal’s World Film Festival and a Cinema Studies professor at Concordia. Their stated purpose was to begin research toward a video series offering a true history of cinema, a project finally realized two decades later as Histoire(s) du cinema. This book, first published by Albatros in France in 1980 in a substantially different form as Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma, and now appearing for the first time in English in a comprehensive edition via Montreal-based publisher caboose, is, in truth, not so much a book as the direct impression of an experience, a present-tense record of an ongoing conversation in search of true methods for thinking of, and communicating about, the cinema.

The original publication, undertaken by Godard after relations with Losique deteriorated, excised all remarks from both Losique and the audience, leaving only Godard’s words. In restoring the context as fully as possible by re-transcribing the original video recordings of the lectures (there are unfortunately still numerous gaps in audience participation due to various microphone-related snafus throughout the series), translator Timothy Barnard has radically altered its orientation from the self-contained transmission of Godard’s thoughts to an open excursion that invites an audience into the experience. Barnard has, moreover, faithfully rendered Godard’s syntax in its neutrality and precision; Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television is sufficient evidence to counter the too-common myth that following May ’68, Godard began speaking only in riddles and obfuscations. Accepting that the interference of language inevitably does harm to a true engagement with an image, his concern is how to clearly discuss the conditions that surround that image: “You talk about things on the basis of practical conditions. And that’s work.”

If the basis and the mode of communication are clear, it’s the things themselves that prove troubling; as Godard says, “[t]o show a mix-up clearly is quite difficult.” The lecture series format allows him to work through these mix-ups systematically, following a shape like Mao’s spiral, returning over and over to a number of essential concerns. At the heart of the talks, and at the heart of Godard’s entire worldview, is the conflict between the image and the word, which formulates bluntly as “images are freedom and words are prison.” (Godard has recently begun production on a film entitled Adieu au langage 3D.) One can follow even the most seemingly unrelated points of discussion across the fourteen meetings back to this binary. During the lecture on Weekend (1967), which included a French-dubbed excerpt of Germany Year Zero (1948), a conversation on the relative merits of dubbing and subtitling leads Godard to conclude that “because we’re a very cultured or literary civilization, we think it’s better to read bad lines than to hear bad sounds.” The process of working through potential options for dealing with the problem of foreign distribution leads him ultimately to one of many examples of a cultural basis that places the word before the image — which for him is as much sonic as visual (his production company is called Sonimage) — even in situations where both are flawed. One finds this conflict in everything from his disgust with Truffaut’s Day for Night (1973), which “reinforces people’s idea that cinema is a mystery” and obscures the image of history with the language of myth, to his distrust of the star system with its close-ups that privilege the face — for Godard the site of language — over all else, to the probing claim that silent cinema was killed by literature, which saw it as abnormal because of its distance from language. Indeed, it’s this primacy of language in the very format of the talks — an effect of not having access to the equipment that would allow for Godard to carry out an image-based conversation in his ideal manner — that renders this only an introduction, a discussion functioning at one remove working to, to use Godard and Losique’s metaphor, prepare the garden for planting to be done later.

We might then ask why, when the planting has been done and the crops harvested, Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television is worth anyone’s time today. The answer is simple, and three-fold. First, because its statement of ideals provides the skeleton around which a real film criticism could form, one that certainly still doesn’t exist today, when the majority of film criticism is written by, as Godard calls them, “literary types”: “Then they put a photograph so the newspaper reader can be certain that this is the film they’re talking about.” Even as the video essay gains prominence, its most common form is profoundly non-Godardian, one where the image functions as illustration, its freedom stripped away by the prison bars of language. There are some (B. Kite and Gina Telaroli chief among them) who have truly followed Godard’s vision of cinema criticism, working with the full range of expression of the image (a space that still allows for language, as evidenced by Kite’s very talky Vertigo Variations); their work is both the fruit of this gardening and a rallying cry for the continued importance of Godard’s approach.

The second point is that Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television, in its systematic working-through of Godard’s thought, serves as an essential tool in explicating all of Godard’s work up to the present day. Throughout the talks he speaks harshly of his own older works (only Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle [1967] seems to really excite him, and his enthusiasm for even that dampens after screening it), and his level-headed considerations of his own failings are useful as a first step beyond a view of Godard as either deified or hermetically removed. Here again, there is the return of the conflict between word and image, where Godard’s desire to put himself directly into the film in order to plainly show the reality he experiences to allow for its critique (image) runs up against the obscuring quality of the name “Godard” (word). He refers to his years with the Groupe Dziga Vertov and working in television later in the 1970s as an effort “to no longer have a name, to have a different name than my own,” a process which continued after his return to narrative filmmaking, whether in his turn toward canonical texts (the Bible, Shakespeare) or the collective action of Film Socialisme (2010).

The third point is Godard’s clarity and persistence in presenting a necessary fact that is too often ignored, either because it is too small or too big to grasp: that there is a crisis on both sides of the camera, a lack of thought given to the audience, and a lack of a potential audience to accept that thought. For Godard, “very often a film is bad not because it’s bad in itself, but because it is shown in a place where it can’t be seen.” Against the “totalitarian idea that a film should be seen by everyone” Godard cites on multiple occasions the inspiration of the 100,000 workers who attended the funeral of activist Pierre Overney in the creation of Tout va bien (1972). If there are 100,000 individuals who are interested enough in the death of an activist to attend his funeral, then presumably there are 100,000 individuals who would be interested in a film in line with his ideals. The trouble thus becomes finding a mode by which to reach the maximum number, but this nonetheless sets an upper limit, giving one a frame to work in. If, as in the case of Tout va bien, the film only attracts 20,000 viewers, at least one can be certain that it was seen by 20,000 viewers who really saw it. This is a critical reminder in an age where the democratization of video has led to a romantic view of cinema that absolves the director of any concern for an audience, a view that doesn’t so much lead to personal films as to solipsistic ones.

Such a consideration of the audience isn’t just economics or accounting, but a question of form (“There may be 100,000 or 50,000, and you find the form to reach them”), which leads directly to Godard’s formulation of cinema’s revolutionary potential. Fascism and socialism are only words that can be applied freely, but a change in form is a true change, and it is the cinema more than anywhere else “where it is possible to change things that aren’t working. In other places you need too many people, too many things for this to be possible.” The revolutionary movement flows both toward the film, in the process of collaborative creation, and then back out into a receptive audience who see it for what it is and engage its ideas, building a conversation that reaches toward the horizon of revolution.

Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television is true in many ways: in its schema for an engagement with images, in its own engagement with the work of Jean-Luc Godard, in its explication of the central struggle of the image and the word, and in its understanding of the potential for cinema’s future as learned from its past. And so, if by its very design it can only be a failure, functioning at a remove, pointing toward the real work, capable only of introducing us to the struggle, it is nonetheless essential, very surely the most important book on cinema that will be released this year.

Interview: Jean-Luc Godard - Film Comment Gavin Smith interview, March/April 1996

The films you’ve made since beginning Histoire(s) du cinéma are more emotional than anything you’ve done before. Each feels like an attempt at reconciliation with cinema.

Yes. I think, if I may say so, it’s like a sentence by Picasso I was once struck by: “I like to paint until the painting refuses me.” I would say that cinema won’t refuse me for a couple more films, a couple more decades, so it’s a reconciliation. Not with what I want, because I don’t know what I want, but with what I want from what I have. And to be more able to not ask for something else, but to do only what you really like, to deal with what you have. It’s a more peaceful attitude. When I’m doing a picture, I’m not angry anymore when it is not well done. Not to be angry that the picture should be this way or against another way, but just to do it your way.

Yet your kind of filmmaking has always represented a counter-cinema.

Today it is in fact against, but I don’t worry about it anymore. When I’m making a big film I don’t say to myself, It’s against this kind of Hollywood picture, this kind of French picture—it’s just the picture I’m doing. I know that I’m definitely the opposition, but it’s a big land, too.

Your whole career, including your work as a critic, can be seen as a process of negotiating, coming to terms with cinema.

I don’t make a distinction between directing and criticism. When I began to look at pictures, that was already part of moviemaking. If I go to see the last Hal Hartley picture, that’s part of making a movie, too. There is no difference. I am part of filmmaking and I must continue to look at what is going on. [With] American picture[s], more or less one every year is enough: they are more or less all the same. But it’s a part of seeing this is the world we are living in.

Is filmmaking a utopian activity for you, in a sense?

The way I wish a movie should be is a utopia, but to make a movie, to make it, is not utopia.

In Germany Year 90 Nine Zero and Histoire(s) du cinéma you regard cinema as a fallen medium.

Yes, that’s my opinion.

What moments defined that fall?

The First World War and the Second World War. World War I was an opportunity for American cinema to beat French cinema, which at the time was more powerful and well known. Pathé, Gaumont, Méliès; Max Linder was a huge star. The French were weak after the war, and it was a way for Americans to disembark in European cinema for the first time. And they had linked to German cinema. Half of Hollywood was filled by [Germans]; Universal was founded by Carl Laemmle.

The Normandy beaches were the second invasion; World War II was a way to take Europe definitively. And now, as you see in politics the way Europe is incapable of doing anything without the OK of the U.S. government, now in the movies America has taken control of the whole planet. So what was democratic in a lot of its ideas disappeared at a time that I will study in my next [Histoire(s) du cinéma]—a very specific time, with the fact of the concentration camp, that it was not shown [by cinema], it wasn’t answered.

What does Schindler’s List mean to you in this context?

It means nothing. Nothing is shown, not even the story of this interesting German, Schindler. The story is not told. It is a mixed cocktail.

You don’t feel that Italian neorealism and the French New Wave represented a recovery after the war?

No, they were the last uprising. What we call avant-garde was in fact arrière-garde [rear guard].

Are you saying that in the Sixties in France your cinema was under American domination?

We didn’t think so, because at the same time we fought very often for some sort of American cinema—a small one. We preferred Samuel Fuller or Budd Boetticher to William Wyler or George Stevens. Our wish, at least Rivette and I, was to be able to make a musical on a big set. It’s still a hope! We said that Hitchcock was a great painter, a great novelist, not just a director of murder stories, so it was more democratic. But it was utopian because we were too young to see what was really going on. I’m saying it today just because I’m probably the only one to ever look like that. I’m using my eyes and ears to study history. Other people use their eyes to read words.

But in embracing certain aspects of American cinema, were you then inviting in the enemy?

Not at all. We were for Hitchcock, but we were also for Shirley Clarke or John Cassavetes or Ed Emshwiller. When I read recently that an American critic wrote that Hélas pour moi looked like a Stan Brakhage picture, I was very pleased. I was friends with Gregory Markopoulos long before I joined Cahiers du cinéma. Later I don’t think his pictures were good, but I remember him and other people who were for a candid cinema. It was democracy. We didn’t realize that the United States doesn’t look like democracy any more than the communist government of Russia.

In the second installment of Histoire(s) du cinéma you say, “Technique sought to reproduce and drain life and identity from life.” What does that mean?

We should analyze the fact that when photography was invented, it could have been color from the very beginning, it was possible. But if it was in black and white for such a long time, it’s not by chance. There should be a moral aspect since in the European, Western world black is the color of mourning. So we were taking the identity of nature out of the painting and killing it in a certain way—

By photographing it in black and white?

Just by photography, by pretending that the photo identity in a passport is the identity of the man—it’s only a picture, not the identity. And then it makes a big change in painting: There was more detail, a more real image of so-called reality. But in fact we were taking out the identity of nature, and then since there was some morality in the culture, it was done in black and white, the color of mourning. And I add that the first Technicolor, and Technicolor, still today, is more or less the color not of real flowers but the flowers on funeral wreaths.

Since your return to cinema in 1979, there has been a renewed emphasis on cinematic beauty. It seems you link this closely to a notion of cinematic mystery.

Yes. Most of the time there is no mystery at all, and no beauty—just makeup. Schindler’s List is a good example of making up reality. It’s Max Factor. It’s color stock described in black and white, because labs can’t afford to make real black and white. Spielberg thinks black and white is more serious than color. Of course you can do a movie in black and white today, but it’s difficult, and black and white is more expensive than color. So he keeps faithful to his system—it’s phony thinking. To him it’s not phony, I think he’s honest to himself, but he’s not very intelligent, so it’s a phony result. I saw a documentary, not a good one, but at least you get the real facts about Schindler. [Spielberg] used this man and this story and all the Jewish tragedy as if it were a big orchestra, to make a stereophonic sound from a simple story.

Well, he doesn’t give you historical fact—

He’s not capable. Hollywood is not capable. In fact, I’m not capable of doing the picture I should be able to do. I’m capable of aiming for it and making part of it, two-thirds or sometimes nine-tenths. Spielberg is not capable of doing Schindler’s List the way a regular director, not a genius but a director like William Wyler—who was able, just after the war, to make The Best Years of Our Lives, which today, when you see it, you’re amazed by the fact that in Hollywood some honest people and good craftsmen were able to reach someone. Cinema as a whole has greater potential than the Wyler picture, but he was 100 percent his potential. Today, that has disappeared. If there was a race, William would do the 100 yards in twelve seconds; Spielberg would do it in two minutes.

One of the main points of Hélas pour moi is that while narrative is vital to the well-being of civilization, it is inadequate as a medium for recording and communicating fact and truth.

I missed just the same in Hélas pour moi, but since I’m a little better than Spielberg, the picture is better. But commercially it’s not as good. I missed the point. The picture arrived at the end completely different from the way it started.

The role of the investigator/narrator, who is reconstituting the narrative by interviewing witnesses, makes me think of Welles’s Mr. Arkadin.

Yes, I remember Mr. Arkadin and I thought of it. [The investigator] was added after half of the editing because the film didn’t hold together. It is a good film but it could have been …. It was not the intention of the movie. In Mr. Arkadin it was the intention. That’s why I say it’s a better picture, because Orson Welles, even if it was only 80 percent his way of doing things that time, in the end it was part of the picture.

Let’s talk about JLG by JLG.

The correct title is JLG/JLG. There is no “by”—I don’t know why Gaumont put it in. If there is a “by,” it means it’s a study of JLG, of myself by myself and a sort of biography, what one calls in French un examen de conscience, which it is absolutely not. That’s why I say JLG/JLG Self Portrait. A self-portrait has no “me.” It has a meaning only in painting, nowhere else. I was interested to find out if it could exist in [motion] pictures and not only in paintings.

The film presents you in solitude most of the time—is that a reflection of your life or of the self-portrait genre?

I’m very solitary, that’s all—I can’t dismiss it. Inside, I’m very much in communication with a lot of people and things who absolutely don’t know I’m in communication with them. But [on the] outside, yes, that’s my character and that’s the fact of my life, which was too lonely, with difficulties with relations with people. Sometimes I understand people who live like Walden, like Thoreau. But it’s maybe, too, that when I was young I was part of a huge, rich family, with a lot of cousins and uncles. I had so much in my youth that today I think it’s justice that I have less.

Do you see JLG/JLG as a contemplation of mortality? There’s much talk of death.

Of death? No, not at all. At any other time it wouldn’t have been very different. If you have an empty room, I can’t help feeling both guilty and melancholic about the fact that the walls are bare and there is no family, or even a painting of a family up there, because I don’t have a family, just one or two friends. But if I’d put other people in the film, it would become autobiographical and then it’s something different, it’s no longer a self-portrait. A self-portrait is only a face in a mirror basically, or in the camera. Otherwise it’s ridiculous, because then you engage a young actor to play you when you were a child and . . . it’s ridiculous. It can’t be done.

The line “Life is an obstacle in the way of dying, and this film will determine my last judgment”—isn’t that an explicit reflection on death?

Yes…. No, because when I discovered this small photograph of me [the opening image of the film], I wondered why I looked so melancholy already at 6 years. I have a feeling it was not just because my mother gave me a smack; I think it was something deeper. So already I was not happy with the world!

The final words spoken by you are: “I shall live. I have to sacrifice myself by loving so that there will be love in the world.” Are those your own words or a quotation?

I think it’s a quote, but now to me quotes and myself are almost the same. I don’t know who they are from; sometimes I’m using it without knowing.

By repeating a quotation, in a sense you are saying it.

It has to have something to do with me, but I don’t know what exactly. It’s like a color, but with words.

To me, JLG/JLG travels from winter, solitude, and enclosure to emerge into spring, openness, and a renewed sense of the future possibility.

Yes.

One of the final shots is of an incredibly beautiful landscape in springtime. It seems full of promise of life.

Yes. I think it was a good one to make a metaphor of the world, and then shadows coming. But not meaning sad things—just the end of the day.

Earlier in the film you refer to “childhood landscapes with nobody in them, places where things were filmed.” Does each landscape have a specific personal resonance?

No. I didn’t shoot it myself; a photographer went off and shot them, and I chose from amongst them. It was a Geneva photographer, Yves Pouliquen, who likes to shoot landscapes. Most photographers don’t like to shoot landscapes, they don’t like to obey [i.e., submit—obéir] to the light. This one is not good for lighting, but he is good for going alone as a documentary man. And he doesn’t hesitate to spend three hours just to catch the coming of the shadow of a cloud, and then it brings life into the landscape.

Isn’t that something you would want to do yourself?

Yes, but I was too weak. [Anyway,] I know those places so well, because it’s my neighborhood, that for this particular picture I would have been hesitating too much—this one or this one? Since he was new and was ordered to bring back so many feet of shots, this was a good way to do it. I had a feeling that I was not making the picture completely alone too much, there were several people, not me alone, the so-called genius or anarchist.

A visual motif in JLG/JLG is the school exercise books: first the one you write titles in, then the ones with children’s names on them whose pages are blank, then finally back to your own book, which now also has blank pages. Those blank pages seem like another image of the future, of history still to be written.

Yes.

So this film isn’t a farewell or an epitaph, as some feel. Are you suggesting that your future is the same as a child’s in terms of potential or hopefulness?

I have that feeling, yes. Maybe it’s that when you get old, in one way you feel younger and younger but still being old—young oldness, if I may say so, which is very . . . comforting.

To identify with children?

Yes, but not avoiding the fact that you are older. You still have everything to discover. Usually at their second picture, moviemakers say, “What can I do? I’ve done everything.” Now I say, “I’ve done nothing, everything is to be done.” But I’m not worried about the fact that I won’t have time to do it. I know that although there are a lot of things I never thought could be possible in motion pictures—whatever motion pictures are becoming with electronic technology—just [a shot of] an old bookshelf can say a lot of things.

In the end, you can make a film without leaving your own home.

I did, more or less.

During the opening shot of JLG/JLG, as the camera slowly moves in on the photograph of you as a young boy, the shadow of the camera and the cameraman are very visible.

Just for once, I thought of the audience—a small one, so that it understands that it’s “me and me.” [It’s like with] painters’ self-portraits, painting themselves holding the palette and paintbrush.

There are several shots taken from behind video cameras pointed out windows. Why is the focus of each shot on the image in the camera’s viewfinder rather than the image as a whole?

Well, just to make the audience to think of focusing, the idea of focusing. Making a picture in literature, painting, or music, there is no idea of focusing; pictures focus on the subject.

Similarly, in Hélas pour moi, there’s an extraordinary shot of Rachel (Laurence Masliah) very out of focus in medium long shot; she moves towards the camera and comes into focus in close-up.

Yes, I prefer that. There are pictures in Histoire(s) du cinéma of the shot in La Belle et la bête when Josette Day approaches down the long corridor; Cocteau didn’t make a tracking shot, he put her on a small dolly and advanced her toward the camera. In effect it is the same, but the meaning is not the same. [In the shot in Hélas pour moi] you have the meaning: she’s coming into focus. It’s like somebody submerged coming to the surface, because after all, the screen is a surface. I have to make the audience think of that. It’s like music—not to be definite; don’t pretend to mean this or that. American people like to say, “What do you mean exactly?” I would answer: “I mean, but not exactly.” [Chuckles.]

In Hélas pour moi on one level you seemed to be exploring the technical vocabulary of cinema: focus, exposure, camera movement, montage, even a zoom out and in, which I think you almost never do—

No. Very seldom.

Was that an intention from the start?

No, that was during the shoot. Because the movie was escaping me, probably I tried to hang on to some things even though they were completely different from what I wasn’t able to do. The grammar was more important than the sentence itself, or the grammar became un souvenir of what the sentences would have been. The sentence wasn’t made, the grammar was made. It’s like a mathematical theorem that has absolutely no success with scientists because there was nothing else to the theorem except pluses, minuses, and equal signs.

But there’s something exciting about seeing a pure affirmation of the grammar of the medium, if only because it appeals to the senses.

Yes, this is the beginning of cinema. The only thing we can do from time to time is to be modest enough to honor this power once more. If you do it in mathematics, it has no meaning. You can’t do it in literature because the sentence and the grammar are so closely linked you can’t cut them apart. But in cinema you can. If you just do a tracking shot or a landscape without anything else…. That’s why I like some underground American films, for example a magnificent picture by Michael Snow, La Région centrale, which is just a long pan. This is a picture, it’s pure cinema.

But those grammatical exercises in Hélas pour moi seem integrated into the “narrative.”

I thought I had a good [script], but it was too soon to shoot it. The first draft I wrote about 100-120 pages, and then we had to shoot three weeks later. So I said to the producer and the star, “It’s not possible, we need three more months or maybe three more years. Are you ready?” And no one was ready, so I did it, because after all, a picture is a picture, it’s like life. We have to eat when we can each day. Then I have to be sure of a certain amount of things, so that’s maybe why unconsciously I tried to hang on to those grammatical cinematic figures.

Until I saw Histoire(s) du cinéma I never felt that the video image could be so beautiful and sensual. You seem to have discovered a way to realize its potential.

I’m using regular Sony equipment [laughs]—it’s just that I’m using it I hope comme un aspirateur [like a brand new vacuum cleaner] in good condition. I like things to be clean and look good; if it’s a bicycle or a car, [it should] look good. Television isn’t well made but you could make magnificent images on television—it is what it is, it does its best. But I think it’s an image a little bit like a painter’s sketch, which can look as good as a great painting.

Your earlier video work was less painterly. Histoire(s) du cinéma is like painting in its texture.

That’s right. It belongs to painting history and it’s pure painting, but cinematic painting-it’s a part of cinema that has been given away by most people. And not commercials. Commercials do paintings, or this Polish videomaker Rybczynski—they’re just commercials, there’s no meaning, it’s decorum. I sometimes prefer commercials because a lot of money is put into those one-minutes and they make things that are impossible in motion pictures because it would be too expensive. But the meaning of them and the sense of them and the aiming of them, to sell this and that—it’s not good. It’s not good to spend a million dollars on 30 seconds on… I don’t know, a General Motors car that is not worth a million dollars.

But I quite agree: it’s painting and the novel. To me, cinema is only my aim, but it’s not possible, because cinema is not painting. To me, cinema is that [points to a painting in an art magazine of several figures in a landscape]. But I like those people [in the painting] to say words, and then there is a drama—but drama painted like that. Not like in a novel. Very often I look at paintings and I say to myself, What is he saying? Those people—what are they thinking of? I remember my very first article was a comparison between a Preminger picture and Impressionist painting. Maybe it’s not possible, but to me it seems possible—it is my cinema. That’s why it’s coming closer and closer to painting.

Now if I put [the painting in the art magazine] in a picture, what should be the image before and what should be the image after? What I like in painting is that it’s a bit out of focus and you don’t care. In cinema you can’t be out of focus, but if you add dialogue, if you show that in pictures, this kind of looking at reality, then between your very focused cinematographic image and the words there is a land that is out of focus, and this out of focus is the real cinema.

The visual textures of Histoire(s) are layered often in the way that a painting is heavily worked in certain places—with a richness and sensuality.

Yes, sensuality is a good word. The sensuality in painting, which doesn’t exist in novels, is good because each form of expression must have its own forms that the others don’t have, otherwise there would only be one form of expression. From the beginning, pictures belonged to part of each family. Pictures for me are like the bad little last-born of the family of art, the black sheep. But it’s a white sheep—because the screen is white [laughs]. Sensuality is something there isn’t enough of in cinema, which there was more of in the silent era and naturally disappeared with the talkies.

It imprisoned cinema or the image.

Yes, in a way. I try very often to use technology, Dolby for example, to separate the image from the sound, and suddenly when the drama needs it, there they are, both together again.

It’s [clear], especially in American cinema, that you don’t work anymore with the camera through the fact that the camera is [more and more artificial]. I recently saw The Pelican Brief. It’s just commercials. The camera’s moving, but it has nothing to do with the camera movement or stillness or the change of shots of von Stroheim or von Sternberg. There is no meaning, just to pretend we are doing pictures.

You don’t feel that’s another form of sensuality?

No, it’s prostitution.

Another quotation from JLG/JLG: “An image is the creation of the mind by drawing together two different realities; the further apart the realities, the stronger the image.”

That’s an old quotation. There’s almost not a word of my own in JLG/ JLG, but since I was reading and noting them, they became mine.

The film director in Passion says that.

It’s in King Lear, too. It’s a poem by Pierre Reverdy, one of the first dada surrealists, from the time when dada was invented in Zürich in 1921. It expressed very well my opinion that an image is not strong because you see a dead person …. Sometimes, very seldom, just a dead person has an effect. The Vietnam War was stopped not because we saw a lot of dead but because once the American people saw an American student killed in Kent State—only one, not thousands—that was enough. Next morning they were no longer able, [but] it took three or four years and then the bombing of Hanoi.

How would you put that idea into practice, form a certain image out of extreme opposites?

But an image doesn’t exist. This is not an image, it’s a picture. The image is the relation with me looking at it dreaming up a relation at someone else. An image is an association.

Is that where your idea of true montage takes place?

Yes. La vrai mission, the true goal of cinema, was to arrive at a way of elaborating and putting into practice what montage is. But we never got there; many directors believed they had reached it, but they had done other things. Particularly Eisenstein. He was on the way to montage but he didn’t reach it. He wasn’t an editor, he was taker of angles. And because he was so good at taking angles, there was an idea of montage. The three lions of October, the same lion but taken from three different angles, so the lion looks like he’s moving—in fact it was the association of angles that brought montage. Montage is something else, never discovered. It was stopped when talkies came; the talkies used it only in a theatrical way.

When you superimpose the image of Elizabeth Taylor in Place in the Sun with the image of the bodies in the ovens in Histoire(s) du cinéma—that’s montage.

This is historical montage. This is critical work: explaining why the smile of Elizabeth Taylor is such a smile—

Because of the Holocaust—

Because of the Holocaust. And because George Stevens had shot the Holocaust, kept it hidden away for many many years in his cellar, but when he was shooting A Place in the Sun there was kind of both smile and disaster. Even if it’s not an extraordinary film, it’s very intense, and you can’t explain it. None of the other pictures George Stevens made after [were as good]. In The Diary of Anne Frank with Millie Perkins, which is better than Schindler’s List but not a very good picture, he was not able to reach Millie Perkins’s smile the way he does with Elizabeth Taylor.

Throughout Histoire(s) you juxtapose images of great beauty and sublimity with images of horror and atrocity. You seem to be saying that cinema is made between the two.

Yeah, there is an idea of transcendence. When I mixed the newsreel footage of the blindfolded prisoner tied to a post—you know in three minutes he’s going to be shot—I mixed that with An American in Paris, Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron dancing on the Seine. It was unconscious, but after[ward] I said, Yes, I have the right to do that because An American in Paris was probably shot at the same time.

In the first part of Histoire(s) you employ video to achieve remarkable variations on cinematic editing effects—intercut two shots very rapidly, cut to the rhythm of a word processor typing out a sentence. What were you trying to evoke?

It was only to try to meet the images without cutting—very fast superimpositions so that there is only one image but we understand there are two.

It made me think of the 24-frames-per second effect of persistence of vision in film. I thought you were trying—

To elaborate on that, yes.

What about the ultraslow dissolves?

That’s all the old tricks from the beginning of the motion picture business, which [as] the New Wave we were active to destroy—and now with video it’s back, but in a good way.

But there are also transitional effects in Histoire(s) that have no cinematic precedent: for instance, when an image gradually emerges from and eventually erases a preceding image. There are wipes and split-screen effects in motion pictures, but nothing this elaborate. That grammar is uniquely video’s.

Yes, but it’s cinema. Video for me is some kind of department of motion pictures. When you see Histoire(s) du cinéma you don’t have the feeling of the usual video, you have the feeling of pictures.

I’ve seen Histoire(s) as a video projection and also as a tape on TV—

It’s better on TV, if your TV set is properly adjusted and (you have] fairly good stereo equipment. On TV there is no projection. There is a rejection—you are rejected in your armchair or on your bed. In pictures you are projected, but you still have to decide what to be. In TV there is just transmission of something. It’s peculiar to cinema to project, yes.

Again, from Histoire(s) du cinéma, a quote: “The theater is too familiar; the cinema is too unknown.”

Robert Bresson?. . .

I connect this to your description of cinema as “histoire de la nuit,” story of night, and the image I form from those two phrases is the idea of cinema as a realm of mystery. Why do you think it is that your films from the mid-Eighties on seem to have become increasingly preoccupied with the form of the mystery narrative? Détective, Hail Mary, Nouvelle Vague, Hélas pour moi all revolve around some central, intangible mystery or puzzle.

When you become older, the analysis of the structure is part of the novel itself. It’s the difference between James Joyce’s Ulysses and Erle Stanley Gardner. In Perry Mason the mystery is only the mystery of describing, [whereas with Joyce] the mystery of the writing itself is part of the novel. The observer and the universe are part of the same universe. It’s what science discovered at the beginning of this century, when they say you can’t tell where an atomic particle is. You know where they are, but not their speed; or you know their speed but not their place, because it depends on you. The one who describes is part of the description.

The mysteries you were trying to solve in the Sixties and Seventies were based in secular materialism and had to do with things like desire, ideology, language, and power. Since the Eighties, while your films continue this critical questioning, they seem more preoccupied with eternal mysteries of philosophy and metaphysics.

I think so, and if you can bring the metaphysic through ordinary things, then it’s good. This is a task of the artist. A simple apple by Cézanne is more than a simple apple. Or just a simple apple.

Is that what lies behind your use of nature in Nouvelle Vague and Hélas pour moi?

Yes.

Your use of bright natural light in these two films is unusual—exposure is often set for outside when the camera is in an interior, or for the horizon if it’s an exterior shot. Why such emphasis on high contrast?

Because I see contrast. It’s a way of having two images, far away from each other, one dark and one sunny. I like to face the light, and if you face the light, then contrast appears and then you are able to see the contours . . . which was always the problem of European painting, but more consciously since the Romantics and Delacroix. I like to not have the light in the back, because the light in the back belongs to the projector, the camera must have the light in front like we have ourselves in life. We receive and [afterward] we project.

So you never put artificial lights behind the camera?

Never.

But you still use artificial light?

Only because I have no photographer who is as good as the great photographers of 50 years ago. So I prefer to use artificial light, but not to change things: maybe stronger light to be able to focus if we need to. In my opinion there are almost no more photographers. They have been killed by the way they do TV with light all over the set and all the people with the same fill, no shade, nothing. I use cinematographers who are willing to not use extra lights and try to work mainly on good aperture opening.

In Détective there’s a line: “There’s never any light, only hard lighting.”

Détective was well lit, a good photographer [Bruno Nuytten]. He lit the unknown actors well because they were not afraid if they were not seen. But as soon as the so-called stars like Nathalie Baye or Johnny Hallyday came, then he put artificial light and it was not good. He put light on them because they want to see the speakers on TV. What is the importance of seeing the speakers? We only need to hear what they say.

And you disagreed with that.

Oh, completely [smiles]. There was a fight. But I couldn’t avoid it because it was signed on the contract. It was a compromise. A movie is always a compromise.

Cinema=Jean-Luc Godard=Cinema Glen Norton’s definitive Godard site, with links to other articles, interviews, essays, books, and all things Godard

Cinema=Godard=Cinema - GEOCITIES.ws links to online essays

Essays by Journal | Cinema=Godard=Cinema more links to online essays

JEAN-LUC GODARD - French New Wave Director - Newwavefilm extensive biography from New Wave Film Encyclopedia

Jean-Luc Godard | Biography & Filmography | Britannica.com biography

Jean-Luc Godard Facts - Biography - YourDictionary

All-Movie Guide

Full Jean-Luc Godard Biography from Yahoo.com

biographies of Godard, Jean-Pierre Leaud, and Chantal Goya Ephraim Katz’s Film Encyclopedia

Film Reference Robin Wood, updated by Rob Edelman

Jean-Luc Godard | Page 4 of 4 | Film | The Guardian Jean-Luc Godard page from The Guardian

The Religious Affiliation of Director Jean-Luc Godard from Adherents.com

The Godard Experience Jean-Luc Godard Biographical Timeline from 1930 – 1970

Jean-Luc Godard Archives - Critics Round Up links to reviews from 47 films, and more links

Jean-Luc Godard - cinemaseekers.com Jean-Luc Godard and the Search for a True Image (Undated)

The T(h)errorized (Godardian Pedagogy) Serge Daney, translated by Bill Krohn and Charles Cameron Ball (Undated)

Godard for Beginners (Undated)

Close-Ups: The French New Wave and the Face Iain Morrisson from Images (Undated)

MIM Essay: MIM salutes early Jean-Luc Godard - MIM(Prisons) Maoist International Movement essay on early Godard (Undated)

*See also, "Godard's Maoist phase" Maoist International Movement essay on 3 Godard films, LA CHINOISE (1967), LE VENT D’EST (1969) and TOUT VA BIEN (1972) (Undated)

The Role of Godard Internationale Situationniste, March 1966

New Forms of Action Against Politics and Art René Viénet from Internationale Situationniste, October 1967

Critical Writings by Jean-Luc Godard - Monoskop Godard on Godard, a series of interviews edited by Tom Milne, 1972, also seen here: Jean-Luc Godard: Interviews - Page 3 - Google Books Result (pdf)

Theory and Practice: The Criticism of Jean-Luc Godard | Jonathan ... Jonathan Rosenbaum’s look at Tom Milne’s Godard On Godard, October 5, 1972

La politique des auteurs, part 1 World view as aesthetics, by John Hess from Jump Cut (1974) [for part 2, see Truffaut]

Numéro Deux: Godard’s Synthesis: Politics and the Personal Godard’s break from early style, by Reynold Humphries Jump Cut, 1975

NUMÉRO DEUX | Jonathan Rosenbaum April 3, 1976

THE URGENT WHISPER - The New Yorker Penelope Gilliatt, October 25, 1976

Epic Theater and Counter-Cinema Epic theater and the principles of counter-cinema, Part 1 by Alan Lovell from Jump Cut, July 1982

Epic Cinema and Counter Cinema Part 2, by Alan Lovell from Jump Cut, April 1983

Godard and Gorin's Left Politics Godard and Gorin's left politics, 1967-1972, by Julia Lesage from Jump Cut, April 1983

Celebrating France's Directors Who Rode the New Wave G.S. Bourdain from The New York Times, August 11, 1989

Reconsidering the film-politics relation Noel King from Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media & Culture, 1992

His 20th Century | Movie Review | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum’s review of Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinema, July 15, 1993

Godard Talking to Himself | Movie Review | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews Germany Year 90 Nine Zero and JLG/JLG, August 3, 1995

Godard in the Age of Video [SOFT AND HARD] | Jonathan Rosenbaum Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Luc Godard’s 48-minute film, Soft and Hard (A Soft Conversation Between Two Friends on a Hard Subject), November 17, 1995

Jean-Luc Skywalker another look at early Godard, by Richard von Busack, September 4, 1997

Critical Distance | Movie Review | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews Godard’s Contempt, September 4, 1997

Architecture Against Architecture Roemer van Toorn, see article mid-section entitled “The contra-shot in the work of Godard and Koolhaas,” from the Journal of Theory, Technology, and Culture, September 24, 1997

Beautiful, Empty Spaces: Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (1963) - Bright ... Gary Morris from Bright Lights Film Journal, November 1, 1997

The ultimate journey: remarks on contemporary ... - Screening the Past Nicole Brenez, December 22, 1997

The Radical Cinema and its Double Michael Sicinski from Film-Philosophy, 1998

May 1968 and After: Cinema in France and Beyond Pt. 1, Godard and Company, by Donato Totaro from Offscreen, March 1998

The Importance of Being Perverse | Movie Review | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum’s review of Godard’s King Lear, April 7, 1988

Godard in the Nineties: An Interview, Argument, and Scrapbook (Part 1 ... Jonathan Rosenbaum, September 26, 1998

Godard in the Nineties: An Interview, Argument, and Scrapbook (Part 2 ... Jonathan Rosenbaum, September 26, 1998

FILM; Grim, Shocking, Didactic, a New New Wave Rolls In Phillip Lopate from The New York Times, November 22, 1998

The Films of Jean-Luc Godard David Sterritt, 1999 (313 pages) (pdf)

The Man Who Dared Chris Herrington, April 5, 1999

Salon People reflections on Godard, by Charles Taylor, August 7, 1999

Critical Theory and Jean-Luc Godard's Philosophy of the Image 134-page Master’s thesis by Glen W. Norton, October 1999 (pdf)

Words and meaning in the age of images Speaking and Writing About Godard, David Sterritt from Film-Philosophy, 2000

Scanning Godard - Screening the Past Adrian Martin from Screening the Past, June 30, 2000

The Depiction of late 1960's Counter Culture in the 1968 Films ... - Lot 49 Gary Elshaw Master’s thesis, November 2000 (pdf)

An Exile in Paradise - The New Yorker Richard Brody, November 20, 2000

Godard only knows... | Film | The Guardian overview of his work to the present, November 25, 2000

Girls, Guns, and Godard a Godard overview, by Richard Armstrong from Audience magazine, 2001

Jonathan Rosenbaum on Serge Daney • Senses of Cinema April 10, 2001

Godard the second reel - Telegraph SF Said, May 5, 2001

BFI | Sight & Sound | Paris Match: Godard And Cahiers Geoffrey Nowell-Smith from Sight and Sound, June 2001

Thanatos ex Machina: Godard Caresses the Dead • Senses of Cinema David Sterritt, June 13, 2001

A Beautiful Exception: Godard's For Ever Mozart • Senses of Cinema Fergus Daly, June 13, 2001

Hail Jean-Luc Godard | Film | The Guardian a look at Godard in the early 1980’s, by Stephen Jarvis from The Guardian, July 12, 2001

Only the Cinema • Senses of Cinema John Conomos, July 13, 2001

A Tale of Two Conferences: For Ever Godard and ... - Senses of Cinema June 2001 conference, by Maximilian Le Cain from Senses of Cinema, July 18, 2001

For Ever Godard Reviewed • Senses of Cinema June 2001 conference, by Hilary Radner from Senses of Cinema, July 18, 2001

The Godard Streak or Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder ... Godard’s early films, by Geoff Gardner from Senses of Cinema, July 18, 2001

Film; In Its Fiery Pages, A French Revolution Dave Kehr from The New York Times, October 7, 2001

For Ever Godard: Two or Three Things I Know about European and American Cinema Peder Grøngaard from P.O.V. No. 12, December 2001

Dark Heart | Movie Review | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews Godard’s Band of Outsiders, December 6, 2001

Between Seeing and Reading – A Report on the Reading Godard ... Glen Norton from Senses of Cinema, May 21, 2002

The French New Wave Revisited / Nouvelle Vogue moviemakers were ... Phillip Williams from Moviemaker magazine, July 2, 2002

Past Imperfect [IN PRAISE OF LOVE] | Jonathan Rosenbaum Rosenbaum reviews Godard’s In Praise of Love, August 18, 2002

Review: Godard by Colin MacCabe | Books | The Guardian Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at 70, by Colin MacCabe, a book review by Stuart Jeffries, November 21, 2003

Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy | Variety Robert Koehler, April 11, 2004

Film and Landscape - Screening the Past Sam Rohdie, April 30, 2004

Gerald Peary - essays - Jean-Luc Godard Gerald Peary discusses Jean-Luc Godard and Colin MacCabe's book, Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy, May 2004, also seen here: Gerald Peary Essay

Band à part Donato Totaro from Offscreen, May 2004

Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy | Jonathan Rosenbaum book review of Colin MacCabe’s Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy, originaly published at Cineaste, July 13, 2004

Notre Musique: Finding the True Image :: Stop Smiling Magazine Travis Miles, November 24, 2004

Forever Godard Donato Totaro from Offscreen, March 2005

Human Conflict, or the legacies of superfluous men: Hotel Rwanda, The Merchant of Venice, Bad Education, The Woodsman, and Notre Musique Daniel Garrett from Offscreen, March 2005

Nostalgia for the Present: The Godard ... - Senses of Cinema Glen W. Norton, April 15, 2005

'1750 Percussion Rifles' Work of the Document, Rights and Duties of Cinema, by Nicole Brenez and Michael Witt from Rouge. an English version of the introduction to Jean-Luc Godard: Documents (Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2006), the official catalogue of the exhibition conceived by Godard for the Pompidou Centre, 'Voyage(s) en utopie, Jean-Luc Godard, 1946-2006: À la recherche d'un théorème perdu'

According to JLG - Rouge Dominique Païni from Rouge provides more text from Jean-Luc Godard: Documents (Paris: Centre Pompidou, May, 2006)

KINBRODY AND THE CEEJAYS Bill Krohn’s book review of Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard by Richard Brody, from Cinema Scope, May 2006

Godard's Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma Robert Keser from Bright Lights Film Journal, May 1, 2006

Leap into the Void: Godard and the Painter • Senses of Cinema Sally Shafto, May 5, 2006

Times Online Article (2006) Sympathy for the Devil, August 6, 2006

Documentation: Voyage (s) en utopie - Rouge Michael Witt, September 2006

Jean Luc Godard's Hail Mary—his last great film. - Slate Saul Austerlitz from Slate, October 2, 2006

Breathless: French New Wave Turns 50 Australian Cinémathèque, Gallery of Modern Art, August 29, 2007

Noli Me Tangere: Jacques Rivette, Out 1 and the New Wave Sally Shafto from the Australian Cinémathèque, Gallery of Modern Art, August 29, 2007

La rose dans le caniveau: Magic in the streets of Paris Andreas Volkert from The Order of the Exile, September/October 2007

Pairs through the Eyes of the New Wave Gilles Rousseau from the Australian Cinémathèque, Gallery of Modern Art, August 29, 2007

Jean Luc Godard’s Histoire du Cinema Dr. Laleen Jayamanne (University of Sydney) from the Australian Cinémathèque, Gallery of Modern Art, August 29, 2007

The New New Wave in French Cinema Dr. Joe Hardwick (University of Queensland) at Australian Cinémathèque, Gallery of Modern Art, October 5, 2007

May 68: then and now Sylvia Lawson from the Australian Cinémathèque, Gallery of Modern Art, November 9, 2007

"New Wave Film Guide: Nouvelle Vague & International New Wave Cinema - Where to Start" Simon Hitchman, 2008

Трагические музы: Моника Витти и Анна Карина: ana_lee Tragic Muses – Monica Vitti and Anna Karina, by Alan Boshier from Live Journal, February 13, 2008 (in Russian)

New DVDs: Jean-Luc Godard Dave Kehr on the Jean-Luc Godard Box Set from the New York Times, February 26, 2008

A Necessarily Incomplete Guide to Godard | Village Voice Scott Foundas, April 29, 2008

Godard, the embodiment of the spirit of May 68 | Film | The Guardian Ronald Bergan, May 12, 2008

A Girl and a Gun Stephanie Zacharek’s book review of Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard by Richard Brody, from The New York Times, July 13, 2008

BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Creating a Wave and Riding It to Film's Pantheon Jeanine Basinger’s book review of Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard by Richard Brody, from The New York Times, July 23, 2008

The Eye of the Beholder: Marital Discord and Film Making in Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Mepris Jason Mark Scott from Offscreen, August 2008

Five Letters from Godard Apropos of Inside/Out | Jonathan Rosenbaum August 23, 2008

Plus ça change: French New Wave directors are still tearing up the ... Jonathan Romney from The Independent, August 24, 2008

For Ever Godard #1 review of À Bout De Souffle (Breathless), 1959, from Seventh Art, December 1, 2008

For Ever Godard #2 review of Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier), 1960, from Seventh Art, December 2, 2008

For Ever Godard #3 review of A Woman Is a Woman, 1961, from Seventh Art, December 3, 2008

For Ever Godard #4 review of Vivre Sa Vie: Film En Douze Tableaux (My Life To Live), 1962, from Seventh Art, December 4, 2008

For Ever Godard #5 review of Les Carabiniers (The Riflemen), 1963, from Seventh Art, December 5, 2008

For Ever Godard #6 review of Le Mépris (Contempt), 1963, from Seventh Art, December 6, 2008

For Ever Godard #7 review of Bande À Part, 1964, from Seventh Art, December 7, 2008

For Ever Godard #8 review of A Married Woman, 1964, from Seventh Art, December 8, 2008

For Ever Godard #9 review of Alphaville, 1965, from Seventh Art, December 9, 2008

For Ever Godard #10 review of Pierrot Le Fou, 1965, from Seventh Art, December 10, 2008

For Ever Godard #11 review of Masculin féminin: 15 Faits Précis, 1966, from Seventh Art, December 11, 2008

For Ever Godard #12 review of Made in USA, 1966, from Seventh Art, December 12, 2008

For Ever Godard #13 review of Two or Three Things I Know About Her, 1967, from Seventh Art, December 13, 2008

For Ever Godard #14 review of La Chinoise, 1967, from Seventh Art, December 14, 2008

For Ever Godard #15 review of Weekend, 1967, from Seventh Art, December 15, 2008

For Ever Godard #16 review of Sympathy For The Devil (One Plus One), 1968, from Seventh Art, December 17, 2008

For Ever Godard #17 review of Le Vent D’est, 1970, from Seventh Art, December 17, 2008

For Ever Godard #19 review of Lettre À Jane, 1972, from The Seventh Art, December 19, 2008

Histoire(s) du cinéma - >> mind the __ GAP* ? Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma OR “Memory of the world” (a lecture), by Laleen Jayamanne, December 4, 2008

Four Faces Of King Lear The Seventh Art, January 10, 2009

godard60 : 네이버 블로그 Brecht Society, March 2, 2009

KINO SLANG: Contre-Brody Adrian Martin’s book review of Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard by Richard Brody, from Kino Slang, May 5, 2009

KINO SLANG: Several notes... Andy Rector, from Kino Slang, May 6, 2009

Steve Wallace Final Hum598 Prof. Peter Lehman - OoCities The Truth, as Seen by Godard and Herzog, by Steve Wallace, October 2009

Le Mépris: Analysis of mise-en-scène Roberto Donati from Offscreen, November 2009

Joseph Jon Lanthier Two in the Wave, from Slant magazine, May 17, 2010

Nick Pinkerton Truffaut and Godard Rise in Two in the Wave, from The Village Voice, May 18, 2010

Laurent/De Baecque's TWO IN THE WAVE tracks the Truffaut/Godard relationship James Maanen from Trust Movies, May 17, 2010

"Two in the Wave," "Cremaster" David Hudson at The Auteurs, May 19, 2010

Two Daring Directors Who Changed Film History A.O. Scott from The New York Times, May 19, 2010

A Fresh Look Back at Jean-Luc Godard's 'Breathless' - The New York ... A.O. Scott from The New York Times, May 21, 2010, also seen here: A Fresh Look Back at Right Now

50 years of Breathless Philip French from The Observer, June 6, 2010

Breathless: 'Jean-Luc Godard would just turn up scribble some dialogue and we would rehearse maybe a couple of times' Jason Solomons from The Observer, June 6, 2010

Jean-Luc Godard – between sound and space: ECM Records and ... Posts about Jean-Luc Godard written by Tyran Grillo from ECM Records, July 6, 2010

New Wave, old hat: why it's time to move on from the nouvelle vague Francesca Steele from The Guardian, July 19, 2010

The delightful disappearance of Jean-Luc Godard Matt Zoller Seitz from Salon, August 30, 2010

Jean-Luc Godard won't travel to accept honorary Oscar Ben Child from The Guardian, September 7, 2010

The Political Aspect of Jean-Luc Godard's Cinephile Period: Pierrot le ... The Political Aspect of Jean-Luc Godard's Cinephile Period: Pierrot le fou and the Situationist Internationale in the Years Leading up to May 68, by Chris from the Brecht Society, September 25, 2010

Are They Giving an Oscar to an Anti-Semite? – The Forward Benjamn Ivry, October 8, 2010

Will the Academy give an Oscar to a notorious anti-Semite? - Haaretz ... October 18, 2010

Godard's Hononary Oscar Raises Charges of Anti-Semitism - The New ... The New York Times, November 1, 2010

Jean-Luc Godard: The Oscar Question - The New Yorker Richard Brody, November 2, 2010

Jean-Luc Godard's Oscar: Hollywood's Attack on the Jews Richard Cohen from The Daily Beast, November 2, 2010

Everything or nothing #2 Jean-Luc Godard was interviewed by Christian Jungen for the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, translated into an edited English version, November 12, 2010

Jean-Luc Godard's Oscar rekindles antisemitism row | Film | The ... Paul Harris from The Guardian, November 13, 2010

Jean-Luc Godard: a rare interview - New Statesman Lucian Robinson commenting on thoughts from an interview in the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, November 16, 2010

Godard as “Good Samaritan” | Jonathan Rosenbaum December 9, 2010

Two in the Wave – review Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian, February 10, 2011

Two in the Wave – review Philip French from The Observer, February 13, 2011

Truffaut: growing backwards into childhood Michael Newton from The Guardian, February 19, 2011

ReFramed No.1: Jean-Luc Godard - The Political Years (1968 - 1979 ... Jordan Cronk and Calum Marsh from Pop Matters, May 18, 2011

Jean-Luc Godard takes back the culture with Film ... - Chicago Reader Ben Sachs on Godard’s Film Socialisme, June 9, 2011

Jean-Luc Godard: 'Film is over. What to do?' | Film | The Guardian Fiachra Gibbons, July 12, 2011

Bill Krohn - kino slang - blogger Bill Krohn book review of A Short History of Cahiers du Cinéma, by Emilie Bickerton, October 12, 2011

The Tinkerers Bill Krohn describes Cahiers early years (Undated)

French New Wave by Craig Phillips | All about Film December 1, 2011

Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television | caboose 2012

Talking Pictures: Jean-Luc Godard's Introduction to a True History of ... Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television, by Phil Coldiron from Cinema Scope, 2012

VERTIGO | The Interventions of Jean-Luc Godard and Chris Marker ... David Brancaleone from Vertigo magazine, Spring 2012

Jean-Luc Godard's “Militant Filmmaking” (1967-1974), Part I - E-flux Irmgard Emmelhainz, April 2012

Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television - Mubi David Hudson, April 5, 2012

A Skeleton Key to Histoire(s) du cinéma - Screening the Past Adrian Martin, August 2012

JLG/Jean Améry - Screening the Past Alan Wright, December 2012

REAL CINEMA:THE FRENCH NOUVELLE VAGUE | IDEAS | FILM Dana Knight, April 2013

A Musical Neorealism : Jean-Luc Godard's Une femme est une ... Felicity Chaplin, June 2013

French New Wave Malaysian students, Goo Yee Shuen, Leong Shu Man, Liau Shet Li, Loh Yoon Wei, and Soo Joon Hern, July 28, 2013

Jean-Luc Godard: Cinema Historian. Witt book review Daniel Fairfax book review of Jean-Luc Godard: Cinema Historian by Michael Witt, July 8, 2014

Godard's Revolutionary 3-D Film - The New Yorker Richard Brody, October 29, 2014

6 Filmmaking Tips from Jean-Luc Godard – Film School Rejects Landon Palmer, November 20, 2014

Citations - Screening the Past Sam Rohdie, December 2014

lIntersections - Screening the Past Sam Rohdie, January 2015

Jean Luc Godard | The Seventh Art #1 Film of the Year, January 1, 2015

Brother From Another Planet | The Nation J. Hoberman from The Nation, February 25, 2015

Jean-Luc Godard's dystopian sci-fi classic Alphaville turns 50 | BFI Barry Keith Grant from Sight and Sound, May 7, 2015

Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television book review .. Michael Cramer from Senses of Cinema, June 10, 2015

Jean-Luc Godard: A Montage of Attractions | PopMatters Chris Robé, June 23, 2015

10 great films that influenced Jean-Luc Godard | BFI Patrick Gamble, December 17, 2015

Jean-Luc Godard: the artist and his muse | Film | The Guardian Michael Newton, January 8, 2016

Where to begin with Jean-Luc Godard – the early stuff | BFI David Parkinson, February 22, 2016

Light of day: Raoul Coutard on shooting film for Jean-Luc Godard - BFI Raoul Coutard, originally published in Sight and Sound, Winter, 1965/66, republished November 9, 2016

Film Socialisme & the Screenplay Poetics of Late ... - Screening the Past Alex Munt, December 2016

Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) • Senses of Cinema Daniel Fairfax, March 2017

The Aesthetic and Formal Challenges of Jean-Luc Godard's 'Contempt ... Mike Thorn from Vague Visages, March 1, 2017

Critical Consensus: Kent Jones and Jonathan Rosenbaum Discuss ... Kent Jones and Jonathan Rosenbaum Discuss Robert Bresson and Jean-Luc Godard, April 26, 2017

Godard, Jean-Luc They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

Jean-Luc Godard interview from 1964 on YouTube (10:12)

Jean-Luc Godard: The Rolling Stone Interview - Rolling Stone Jonathan Cott interview, June 14, 1969

Interview from 1977 Serge Daney interviews Godard from Cahiers du Cinéma

Genesis of a Camera: Jean-Pierre Beauviala and Jean-Luc Godard ... Cahiers editor Alain Bergala interview of Godard and Jeane-Pierre Beauviala (camera designer and technical expert) in the Cahiers du Cinéma offices from Camera Obscura, Spring/Summer 1985

Godard Makes (Hi)stories | Diagonal Thoughts Jean-Luc Godard in conversation with Serge Daney, December 3, 1988, originally published as ‘Godard fair des Histoires’, in Libération, December 26, 1988

New Again: Jean-Luc Godard - Page - Interview Magazine Andrew Sarris interview, July 1994, reprinted May 4, 2016

“In Images We Trust”: Hal Hartley Interviews Jean-Luc Godard ... Filmmaker magazine, Fall 1994

Jean-Luc Godard's Press Conference from the 1995 Montreal Film Festival, by Henri Béhar

Interview: Jean-Luc Godard - Film Comment Gavin Smith interview, March/April 1996

1997 Interview - Cigar Aficionado Magazine by Scott Kraft, September/October 1997

Geoffrey Macnab interviews Jean-Luc Godard | Film | The Guardian Geoffrey Macnab interview, April 28, 2005

BFI | Sight & Sound | The Godard Interview: I, A Man Of The Image Michael Witt interview from Sight and Sound, June 2005

Everything or nothing #2 Jean-Luc Godard was interviewed by Christian Jungen for the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, translated into an edited English version, November 12, 2010

BFI | Sight & Sound | The Godard Interview: I, A Man Of The Image Michael Witt interview February 10, 2012

Histoire(s) du cinéma images 18 images from the film

Godard Blog: The Jean Luc Godard Community

Jean-Luc Godard - Wikipedia

The 4th Most Influential Director of All Time (2002 MovieMaker Poll)

Survey of Filmmakers: Top 25 Directors (2005 poll by The Film Journal)

Gerald Peary's Magnificent Seven (2006)

Jean-Michel Frodon's 5 Best Directors

Chris Fujiwara's Top 10 Directors

David Sterritt's Top 10 Directors

Top 10 Films: 1956-65 Godard’s Cahiers du Cinéma ratings (both American and French), from Eric C. Johnson | Behold, the Mutants Shall Wither...

BREATHLESS (À Bout de Souffle)

France (89 mi) 1959

CINE-FILE: Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Ben Sachs, also diiferent reviews seen here: Cine-File Chicago: Ben Sachs

The cinematic equivalent of "Like a Rolling Stone," Jean-Luc Godard's first feature was a near-unprecedented marriage of pop culture and intellectual sensibilities, breaking numerous rules of the form and paving the way for a good deal of art in the 1960s. The film's stylistic breakthroughs have been so influential as to seem familiar now—particularly the newsreel-like cinematography and randomly employed jump cuts (which Jonathan Rosenbaum has compared to "a needle skipping gaily across a record"). But beneath the carefree attitude is a rich poetic sensibility, arguably the one consistent trait throughout Godard's varied body of work. In BREATHLESS' justly celebrated centerpiece—an extended lovers' interlude between Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg—Godard mixes literary quotations and frank sexual dialogue across a romantic depiction of time being gloriously wasted. All three elements were revolutionary in 1960, though the explicit use of citation may have attracted the most attention at the time. This was, after all, the film that marked the explosion of the French New Wave, the first filmmaking movement presided over by film critics. And from the opening title card (a dedication to B-movie studio Monogram Pictures) to the climactic shoot-out, BREATHLESS is fascinated by the cinema's influence over real life. Belmondo's petty thief tries to act like Humphrey Bogart, and Seberg was cast, according to Godard, as a continuation of her role in Otto Preminger's BONJOUR TRISTESSE. Five years after the film was released, Godard would make the famous proclamation that a director must put everything into a film; but BREATHLESS—which combined storytelling, criticism, autobiography and formal experimentation more boldly than any narrative film before it—was the first glimpse of what this may look like.

À Bout de Souffle (BREATHLESS) - Crimeculture Roger Westcombe

Few films evoke such a diverse range of responses in viewers. A Bout de Souffle has been described as everything from road movie, gangster revisionism, pro and anti-American, pre-cursor of both Woody Allen’s monologues and the Swedish ‘dogma’ school, "a Gallic shrug" (I like that) and a textbook of cool. I hew to the last of these interpretations, as its strongest impact for me each viewing has been its capturing, from the inside (hence its authenticity), that period of life as a young twentysomething in the inner city and its associated doomed Romanticism: narcissistic, irresponsible, solipsistic and self-absorbed. Early Godard seemed obsessed with such youthful Romantic ennui, still going strong in 1964’s A Bande a Part.

What’s new to say about a film so obsessively picked-over and scrutinised? Well, for starters the notorious jump cuts seem barely perceptible today and hardly raise an eyebrow. More striking are the continuous intrusions of passersby during the extensive location shooting, underlining how improvised was the shoot. And sorry, but how many American cars are there in Paris, really? Yank tin was a feature of Jean-Pierre Melville’s later French thrillers since he used them as mise-en-scene; here their ubiquity just seems OTT.

Scholars will rightly catalog the numerous shots of ‘looking’ (epitomised for me by the shot late in the film of Belmondo’s shades with one lens missing) as antedeluvian post-modernism. Very Godard, they make a nice counterpoint to the ‘looking’ pedestrians as the camera wheels by.

Whatever. If the film works for you (and for many it doesn’t), its appeal will come from the heart, through its peculiarly French cocktail of cynicism and Romanticism, rather than the intellect (where it largely lives on today). Where were you at 22?

The Chicago Reader: Jonathan Rosenbaum

Shot on a shoestring and none the worse for it, Jean-Luc Godard's gritty and engaging first feature, which had an almost revolutionary impact when it was first released in 1960, lays down most of the Godardian repertoire that his later films would build upon: male bravado spiced with plug-ugly mugging and amusing self-mockery (brought to perfection in Jean-Paul Belmondo's wonderful performance); a fascination with female beauty and treachery (the indelible Jean Seberg as the archetypal American abroad); an emulation of the American gangster movie (with reverent nods to Humphrey Bogart, Monogram Pictures, Dashiell Hammett, Samuel Fuller, and Jean-Pierre Melville—a predecessor in this sort of French connoisseurship, who appears as the first of Godard's fatherly sages, playing a novelist interviewed at an airport), and a love-hatred for America in general; a radical employment of jump cuts that has the effect of a needle skipping gaily across a record; a taste for literary, painterly, and musical quotations, as well as original aphorisms; and a restless, witty sense of fun that can make the unexpected happen at almost any moment. Less characteristic of Godard's later work is the superb jazz score (by French pianist Martial Solal), a relatively coherent and continuous narrative, and postsynchronized dialogue. Jean-Paul Sartre declared this a masterpiece at an early Paris screening, and there's certainly no doubt that this is the quintessential existentialist movie in style as well as attitude. Belmondo plays a small-time hood on the run after killing a cop, and Godard himself, in a cameo, plays the informer who recognizes him on the street. Characteristic of Godard's irreverent use of montage is a brief sequence that was cut by the French censors: de Gaulle following Eisenhower in a parade down the Champs-Elysees, followed by Belmondo chasing after Seberg on the sidewalk. In short, mandatory viewing.

Breathless Mike D’Angelo from Time Out New York, also seen here: Time Out New York: Mike D'Angelo (pdf)

Very few films genuinely merit the adjective revolutionary, but if film scholars were asked—High Fidelity-like—to name the five most influential movies of all time, odds are that Godard's wildly idiosyncratic debut would appear on virtually every list, alongside The Birth of a Nation (invention of standard narrative-film grammar) and Jaws (inception of the modern "event movie"). Appearing at a time when the medium was in danger of calcification, Breathless recklessly broke or blithely ignored most of the rules that D.W. Griffith had established four decades previously, substituting visual panache and philosophical meandering for such traditional mainstays as plot and character. (The story involves a petty thief who impulsively kills a cop after stealing a car; he's eventually betrayed by his lover, but virtually nothing actually "happens" per se.) Even when seen from today's perspective, long after its innovations have been co-opted by Hollywood, it's still capable of startling.

So much for placing Breathless in its historical context. If the previous paragraph makes the prospect of seeing the movie feel like homework for Film Snobbery 101, however, rest assured that you can have a blast watching it unspool even if you couldn't possibly give less of a damn about the French New Wave, or if you'd never seen the phrase continuity editing until it popped up in this sentence (and now fervently hope never to encounter it again). Recent Godard pictures like For Ever Mozart and Germany Year 90 Nine Zero traffic so heavily in ironic metacommentary as to be virtually impenetrable to the casual viewer, but Breathless uses the criminal-on-the-lam genre as a template for its director's tinkering, and both Belmondo and Seberg come across as movie stars, rather than as helpless pawns in the service of an academic treatise. Exploring the experimental rarely feels so exhilarating.

On Jean-Luc Godard Christopher Mulrooney from the Film Journal (excerpt)

Baudelaire says all you get from reading newspapers is dirty fingertips. Michel wipes his shoes with them. This is a very characteristic posture. When Patricia reads Faulkner to him, he improves on the text. A Dalinian posture: "People say there's no such thing as happy love. That's nonsense. There's no such thing as unhappy love."

His nom de guerre is Laszlo Kovacs. His meeting with Tolmatchoff is a tour de force with an oblique reference to Bob le Flambeur. The Harder They Fall crops up. The boulevard walk epitomizes Godard's introduction to Paris and leads to the great middle scene in Patricia's hotel room, where Chaplin's skirt-lifting gag (cited by Agee) is repeated.

A picture by Miró, who created some of the most complicated forms in the twentieth century, "like difficult music heard for the first time," is briefly seen after a Picasso or two, and is a delight for the eyes, a moment of visual repose.

A shot from Altman's Countdown is seen in reverse: a sign the camera moves off. The ultimate provenance of the screenplay is Truffaut's. The punchline of Michel's joke about the condemned man is, I believe, not "In the future..." but "Decidedly..." ("Décidément..."), which, if I am not mistaken, is a Truffautisme, related in this context to the director's comment on filmmaking in La Nuit Américaine.

The great man, Parvulesco, stares Patricia down (he has just said that in France men are not yet dominated by women, as they are in America) and tells her, in her capacity as a member of the American press, what this film is all about: "To become immortal, and then to die." He is played by Jean-Pierre Melville, the director of Bob le Flambeur.

Parvulesco is asked, "Aimez-vous Brahms?" Patricia's look into the camera premiered one month after La Dolce Vita.

Patricia's café date begins on an escalator in a shot which anticipates Kubrick or McGrath. The table by the window is not unlike those tables at the end of Losey's The Romantic Englishwoman.

On a dare, Michel runs from the taxi and creates a famous scene from The Seven Year Itch. At the Herald-Tribune office, after two circular panoramic tracking shots, there is a resemblance between Jean Seberg and Janet Leigh in Touch of Evil.

Michel's architectural commentary appears in Quick Change.

The jump-cutting creates abstraction. The Président's motorcade is seen, but not the Président. Patricia descends a staircase in a shot from Griffith's Abraham Lincoln.

Action is avoided with some strenuousness of cutting, "to take the mickey out of it." (Welles)

They apparently go to see Budd Boetticher's Westbound, a Randolph Scott Western, dubbed in French with dialogue by Apollinaire.

Mozart's Clarinet Concerto is played. Michel likes it, because his father was a clarinetist.

And of course it ends among blackmail and cheesecake, with that peculiar lip-wiping gesture Humphrey Bogart would make when face to face with a pretty fellow or lost in thought... on Patricia's lips.

Berrutti's pistol provokes the disaster, which is filmed like the end of Blood on the Sun.

Breathless — Cineaste Magazine Armond White, 2007

In a Seventies reassessment of Jean-Luc Godard's 1959 debut feature, critic Colin L. Westerbeck memorably proclaimed "Breathless exists! Breathless exists so that the Siegfried Kracauers of the world can hold their breath. Breathless exists!" He was celebrating a movie that employed cinematic theory as a practical, elating fact. All imaginable advances that came into popular culture following the appearance of Breathless—when commercial cinema and television imitated and trivialized the formal inventions of Sixties European art cinema (such as Godard's casually innovative use of the jump cut)—are facts that we now take for granted.

A certain kind of nonchalance has come from living with Breathless almost fifty years, and watching it in poor prints, faint VHS copies, squished TV broadcasts. The excitement of discovery is almost gone, meaning it's time for rediscovery. First-time viewers might yet find Godard's rigorous technique a challenge—perhaps even intimidating given how the once-novel jump cut, the hand-held camera, on-location shooting, and natural lighting have now become routine and meaningless parts of visual media vocabulary. But what never ceased to be compelling about Breathless is the tragic love story between Parisian bum Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and American adventuress Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg). Their mismatch might be the most revolutionary aspect of Breathless, revealing that Godard's technical experimentation was integral to modernizing a timeless romantic archetype.

The clash of European tradition and American newness are organic to Michel and Patricia's chemistry. Their sexual allure (and Belmondo and Seberg remain one of the most delectable male-female pairings in movie history) gives a sparkling patina to the cultural-political circumstance of Franco-American relations. Breathess scholars have frequently commented on the notoriously censored edit where Michel skirt-chasing Patricia is matched to a shot of a De Gaulle parade—implying French politicians scampering after American policy—but this merely touches upon an obvious political irreverence. It is the femme-fatale plot of Breathless that provides a more powerfully personal sense of European infatuation with Yankee style and supremacy.

Fact is, the poignancy of Michel's crush turning into a crushing love with the uncaring, career-driven American girl creates a fable about the transitory innocence of post-WWII youth. Godard's depiction of Michel and Patricia's mutual love/hate was either prescient or the realization of an eternal cultural condition.

In this classic broken-hearted love story. Michel represents the culture that American power recently liberated being cruelly paid back by the next ahistorical generation. Thus, it expresses both romantic yearning and political severity—timeless human circumstances. Neither Michel nor Patricia are political animals, but they are barometers of attitudes—the real-life politics of daily habits (his restless sexuality, her seemingly complacent sense of power); survival (his petty theft, her careerism) and opportunism (his stumbling upon death in the mechanical murder of a motorcycle cop, her resigned attitude toward betrayal and spiritual death).

Though rarely discussed as either a love story or a political film, Breathless maintains fascination because it is equally both. Godard's political-romantic ambivalence—toward women, toward America (Hollywood) —locates a crucial and basic complexity about what has been called the American century. That doubled feeling, the Michel-Patricia love-hate paradox, has been the subject of several, even epochal films—from Vincente Minnelli's 1951 An American in Paris to Bernardo Bertolucci's 1972 Last Tango in Paris. Those signposts contain the reverse of Godard's story; the protagonists' positions are altered to American male supplicant and French female idol.

What Godard accomplished through this switch of Minnelli's prototype was a response to Hollywood narrative that spoke back to American mythology. Michel's Bogart-fancy reveals a debt to America that Patricia cruelly collects; as drama it is a psychosexual expression of the European left's view of American imperialism. By the time Bertolucci responded to Godard's modernist vision of cultural and political relations, the male-female antagonism was switched back to the Minnelli model, yet is suffused with a European sense of regret (Brando's American supplicant doesn't reference Bogart but the tragic figures of French poetic realism like Jean Gabin in Port of Shadows and Italian neorealism like Massimo Girotti in Ossessione).

To look at Breathless as an extension of the film noir and gangster movie, based primarily on Godard's stated dedication of it to Monogram Pictures places too much of a limit on all that the film evokes. Its politics run deeper than just a crime story; despite the plot's cop-chase framework, the story moves into more personal-political realm. Godard deepens and elevates his protagonists into figures with the rich psychological compulsions of A-level melodramas like those of Minnelli, Nicholas Ray, and Otto Preminger. (The Preminger connection is made undeniable by Godard's implication of Jean Seberg.)

As the United States' global image currently endures a new era of anti-American sentiment, Patricia's alarming blank expression of innocence at the end of Breathless ("Déguelasse ? I don't know what that means!") seems more resonant than ever. It is more than simply critical of American sexual, romantic, military, political, and economic might; the final image of Patricia also admits enthrallment with that very same irresistible monster. After all, Godard's choice of a career in filmmaking (perhaps the most bourgeois of all artistic pursuits) has to entail a certain degree of guilt for a politically conscious intellectual.

In this sense Michel and Patricia's love story represents innocence in the face of guilt. That's what propels Breathless in the imaginative life of every new generation of college-student film lovers. Although the cinematic canon has shifted in recent years away from Hollywood-based and Eurocentric cataloging, there has been no new film that expresses political and cultural ambivalence as ingeniously as Breathless does.

The legend of Godard's Breathless as the most radical expression of the French New Wave, catapulting the Nouvelle Vague into the vanguard of both cinematic experimentation and popular appeal is revived with its new, enhanced DVD version. For all that the film can now be seen to contain (a love story, a political allegory, a cultural-diplomatic examination, a revolution in film esthetics), its significance is more vibrant than ever. (Best among the DVD extras in Criterion's sharp new release are Godard's early, rarely seen shortCharlotte et son Jules starring Belmondo, a 1959 interview with Jean Seberg, and two interviews with cinematographer Raoul Coutard and assistant director Pierre Rissient that recall the technical risks of the film's production; the use of new techniques and radical attitudes toward filmmaking that should be of particular interest to the current rise in faster, more personal digital-video filmmaking.)

Godard turned theory into practice and romance into politics so successfully that Breathless' central position in film culture and its popularity among serious film-watchers has never receded. Movie history and cultural politics vibrate throughout Breathless. It exists indeed.

Breathless Criterion essay by John Powers, July 08, 1992

Breathless Then and Now Criterion essay by Dudley Andrew, February 28, 2014

“The Face of the French Cinema Has Changed” Criterion essay by Jean-Luc Godard, April 21, 2009

Breathless (1960) - The Criterion Collection

À Bout de souffle (Breathless) • Senses of Cinema Jonathan Dawson from Senses of Cinema, March 13, 2002

For Ever Godard #1 review of À Bout De Souffle (Breathless), 1959, from Seventh Art, December 1, 2008

The Film Sufi: “Breathless” - Jean-Luc Godard (1960)

VERTIGO | "Tensional Differences": The Anxiety of Re-Mediation in ... Ágnes Pethő from Vertigo magazine, Spring 2012

The Potency of Breathless - The American Scholar Paula Marantz Cohen, March 1, 2009

A BOUT DE SOUFFLE (Jean-Luc Godard, 1959) | Dennis Grunes

World Cinema Review: Jean-Luc Godard | À bout de soufflé (Breathless) Douglas Messerli, September 13, 2013

How Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless reinvented the movies. Nathan Heller from Slate, June 8, 2010

BREATHLESS (A Bout De Souffle) - Jean-Luc Godard - Newwavefilm

A bout de souffle: footnotes to the film - The Cine-Tourist

A Bout de Souffle - Film (Movie) Plot and Review - Publications M.B. White from Film Reference

A Fresh Look Back at Jean-Luc Godard's 'Breathless' - The New York ... A.O. Scott from The New York Times, May 21, 2010, also seen here: A Fresh Look Back at Right Now

Breathless: 'Jean-Luc Godard would just turn up scribble some dialogue and we would rehearse maybe a couple of times' Jason Solomons from The Observer, June 6, 2010

Jean-Luc Godard: A Bout de Souffle | Film | The Guardian Derek Malcolm from the Guardian

The use of parody and subversive devices in A BOUT DE SOUFFLE (1960) Melis Alemdar

For a Revolutionary Judgment of Art Guy Debord from Situationist Internationale in 1961

A New Historical Analysis of A Bout de Souffle Tao Ruspoli

BFI | Sight & Sound | A brief history of cinematography Barry Salt from Sight & Sound, April 2009

The One about Jean-Luc Godard's “À bout de souffle” – Dennis A. Amith

The French New Wave: A Cinematic Revolution | The Black and Blue Evan Luzi, March 29, 2010

The Debt to, and Divergences from, Hollywood Cinema in Jean-Luc ... A.R. Duckworth

Breathless | Criterion Collection | Foreign Film | Movie Review | 1960

Breathless - film essential Pablo Hernandez

Breathless (1960) - TCM.com David Sterritt

Belmondo and Seberg in BREATHLESS | Crimson Kimono January 7, 2016

Slant: Matt Connolly

Reverse Shot: Michael Koresky May 08, 2008

The Village Voice: Ella Taylor May 25, 2010

Jigsaw Lounge (Neil Young)

Long Pauses Darren Hughes

Film Court [Lawrence Russell]

The House Next Door: Elise Nakhnikian

Breathless (A Bout De Souffle) | The Ransom Note Patrick Henderson

French Film Classics: Breathless | Movie News | SBS Movies Peter Galvin

The Criterion Collection Database: Dan Callahan May 01, 2007

Sight & Sound: Tim Lucas November 2007

MovieMartyr.com Jeremy Heilman

Letterboxd: Keith Uhlich

dOc DVD Review: Breathless (À bout de souffle ... - Digitally Obsessed Debi Lee Mandel

Breathless Blu-ray - Blu-ray.com Svet Atanasov, Criterion Blu-Ray

DVD Savant Blu-ray Review: Breathless (À bout de souffle) Glenn Erickson, Criterion Blu-Ray

Breathless | I | Blu-ray Review | Slant Magazine Matt Noller and Matthew Connolly

'À bout de souffle' - The Fox Is Black Danica Van de Velde

Breathless - Watch Meet Make

The Village Voice: Andrew Sarris capsule review, 1983 (pdf)

Breathless (A Bout de Souffle): No 4 best romantic film of all time David Thomson from The Guardian, October 15, 2010

50 years of Breathless Philip French from The Observer, June 6, 2010

50 years on, 'Breathless' retains its sense of liberation - The Boston ... Ty Burr from Boston Globe

Breathless Movie Review & Film Summary (1960) | Roger Ebert

The New York Times Bosley Crowther

The New York Times: Stephanie Zacharek September 09, 2007

A Fresh Look Back at Jean-Luc Godard's 'Breathless' - The New York ... A.O. Scott from The New York Times, May 21, 2010, also seen here: A Fresh Look Back at Right Now

Breathless Blu-ray - Jean Seberg - DVD Beaver

The Influences of 'Breathless' New York Times video narrated by A.O. Scott (2:54)

Breathless (1960 film) - Wikipedia

A WOMAN IS A WOMAN (Une femme est une femme)

France (84 mi) 1961

Time Out London: Tony Rayns

Most of Godard's early movies are so much of their particular time that they'll need explanatory footnotes before long. This was the first of his colour/cinemascope tributes to the changing moods of Karina (his then wife); the film's own soundtrack notes that it might equally be a comedy or a tragedy because it's certainly a masterpiece. It has a thin thread of plot about Karina's desire to get pregnant, it flanks her with the pragmatic Brialy on one side and the romantic Belmondo on the other, then stands all of them in the shadow of MGM musical stars of the '40s and '50s, and it collages these elements together with sundry gags, worries, contradictions and asides into a kind of movie that nobody had seen before. The result is brash, defiant, gaudy and infinitely fragile.

Cine-File Chicago: Ben Sachs

Released in 1961, Jean-Luc Godardís third feature is both an assault on and an homage to the Hollywood musical. In a classically limned love triangle, Angela (Anna Karina) wants a baby, and if her live-in boyfriend ...mile (Jean-Claude Brialy) won’t help her produce one, then perhaps his best friend Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo) will. The scenes constantly threaten to erupt into music, but Godard keeps jerking the wheel, splicing-and-dicing the soundtrack so that lush orchestration (by Michel Legrand) mixes with street sounds; the only time anyone sings (it’s Karina, in a none-too-sure voice), the music cuts out underneath her. You can have music or singing, but not both. Especially at first, Godard’s technique, and his brazenness with it, is dazzling; think the energy of Breathless coupled with the invention of Week End. But as tempting as it is to share the camera’s infatuation with Karina, Godard’s treatment of her as a beautiful, capricious enigma begins to seem patronizing, then worse. (The film’s last line transmutes the title into a pun, rhyming "une femme" with "infame": "woman" with "unspeakable.") Even if Godard doesnít debase his source to the same degree, deconstructing the musical proves as fruitless here as it did in Dancer in the Dark. You can take the musical apart, but it’ll take you apart first.

Slant: Ed Gonzalez

Jean-Luc Godard's A Woman is A Woman, along with his great My Life to Live, remains one of the director's more accessible works. Never heavy-handed, the film defies genre-placement. This subversive musical celebrates female empowerment and takes sly jabs at Hollywood film conventions. Godard's use of music is at its best here, not to be rivaled until the impeccable, metallic soundscape of Alphaville. Godard pokes fun at film tropes such as the inconsequential supporting players when two detectives inexplicably invade the home of Angela (Anna Karina) and her boyfriend Emile (Jan-Clause Brialy). The film's absurd underpinnings are heightened by Emile's need to ride around his apartment on a bicycle. When he refuses to impregnate her, Anna turns to Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo) to do the job. Godard is a man who loves women but has never really understood them though you'd never know it from watching A Woman is A Woman. Angela's emotional turmoil is flatteringly complimented by Godard's formal yet airy compositions. Angela may be stubborn and irrational but she's completely hell-bent on self-actualization. Godard's pastiche is self-consciously tongue-in-cheek, riddled with constant references to other films: Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player is mentioned during a game of charades and one character asks "how Jules and Jim is progressing." Godard's especially potent reference to Breathless is an act of self-love. A Woman is a Woman, in the end, is less a film about the perils of romantic love as it is an act of love for the creation of film.

One can almost appreciate Jean-Luc Godard's argument against film preservation considering how his own films have been "preserved." Designed as interrogations-cum-challenges of the then-current zeitgeist, Godard's great films of the 1960s are too often revived as nostalgia, their formal radicalism trivialized as the product of youthful "romanticism." (This turn is especially disappointing considering that Godard continues to make great movies that challenge the zeitgeist, albeit with fewer musical numbers, on an almost-yearly basis.) One benefit of film preservation and re-discovery, though, is that it can expand our understanding of film history as more neglected movies are resurrected. Case in point, two of the year's major cinema events--the traveling Nagisa Oshima retrospective that came to the Film Center in January and the Criterion Collection recently issuing Dusan Makavejev's first three films on DVD--show Godard to have been less of a singular figure of 60s cinema than generally believed. When one sees "Godardian" devices applied to, say, the Japanese or Yugoslavian working-class, then the heralded spontaneity and self-consciousness of Godard (derived from years of getting drunk on movies) seem more like calls for the audience to reorient itself in the world at large. In this light, A WOMAN IS A WOMAN (1961, 84 min, 35mm widescreen)--which famously juxtaposes hallmarks of Italian Neorealism (location shooting, hand-held camera, working-class milieu) and MGM musicals (bright colors, cheerful tone, singing and dancing)--resonates because of its sincere allegiance to the characters, working types who identify with the heightened emotions of musicals but never have the chance to act on them. And PIERROT LE FOU (1965, 110 min, 35mm widescreen), an unwieldy juxtaposition of multiple film genres, seems to cohere around the contemporaneous spectacle of Western intervention in Vietnam. These films screen as part of the Film Center's weeklong tribute to Jean-Paul Belmondo, an actor whose brash movements and introspective eyes were an ideal canvas for Godard's ideas at the time.

The Village Voice: Jessica Winter

"It's not a musical—it's the idea of a musical," said Jean-Luc Godard of A Woman Is a Woman (1961), and accordingly, Anna Karina plays the idea of a musical heroine. As the stripper-cum-housewife Angela, she saunters rhythmically through the streets and cafés of Paris as if each step were choreographed. She abstracts coquetry: The bottomless lunar-beam eyes move at right angles; those thick fluttery lashes curl like quotation marks. Adorning her lanky Charisse frame with blue coat, white fur collar, and red beret, she's Gallic femininity personified, Marianne as Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face. Yet she only sings one tune (about how Angela might be a pest, sure, but she looks great naked), and does about as much dancing as she would in My Life to Live and Band of Outsiders. The rest is winks and poses and grand allusions.

Fitting for a film that traffics in mimesis, the conflict provider is reproduction. "I want a baby in the next 24 hours," Angela announces to irritable boyfriend Emile (Jean-Claude Brialy), who's reluctant to oblige, and who's as self-aware a life performer as his fickle mate. (Before they quarrel, the couple graciously bows to the camera.) Angela turns instead to willing, doleful Alfred Lubitsch (Jean-Paul Belmondo), the third point on her love-triangular design for living—Godard's pastiche evokes one of Ernst's confections as rewritten by Brecht.

At Film Forum in a fresh 35mm print and new subtitles, A Woman Is a Woman was Godard's third feature but only the second to reach the public; made jittery by the Algerian conflict, censors withheld Le Petit Soldat, starring Karina alongside Michel Subor as a French army deserter, until 1963. Certainly the director's fruitiest potpourri—and his first in widescreen and color—Woman turns away from the murky political ambivalence of Soldat back to the flinty, rueful romanticism of Breathless. But Angela's part-time job, source of some domestic conflict, commences Godard's career-long interrogation of the female body as a salable good, and there's an edge of aggression to his fledgling game of cut-and-paste with hardwired narrative grammar. A Woman Is a Woman is Godard light, but not lite: Its breezy postures front for melancholia. Bickersome Angela and Emile chafe against not romance but the idea of romance, reducible to a quintessentially Godardian axiom and typed across the screen: "Everything will go wrong for them because they love each other."

A Woman Is a Woman affectionately name-checks François Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player and Jules and Jim—Jeanne Moreau even drops by for a cameo.

A Woman Is a Woman Criterion essay by J. Hoberman, June 21, 2004

A Woman Is a Woman (1961) - The Criterion Collection

For Ever Godard #3 review of A Woman Is a Woman, 1961, from Seventh Art, December 3, 2008

A Musical Neorealism : Jean-Luc Godard's Une femme est une ... Felicity Chaplin, June 2013

A Woman Is A Woman. Michael Benedikt

When Is a Musical Not a Musical? | Movie Review | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Reader, June 24, 2003

The New York Observer: Andrew Sarris May 19, 2003

Reverse Shot: Michael Koresky May 08, 2008

A Woman is a Woman - Not Coming to a Theater Near You Matt Bailey

A Woman Is a Woman (1964) - Articles - TCM.com Margarita Landazuri

Sunset Gun: Kim Morgan August 10, 2007

The Village Voice: Zachary Wigon

A Woman is a Woman (1961) - #238 | Criterion Reflections David Blakeslee

Jean-Luc Godard's A Married Woman is back and as relevant as ever Ben Sachs from The Reader

A Woman Is A Woman Mike D’Angelo from The Onion A.V. Club

A Woman Is a Woman (1964) - Home Video Reviews - TCM.com Marty Mapes

DVD Journal Clarence Beaks

DVD Savant Review: A Woman is a Woman - DVD Talk Glenn Erickson

Robert Edwards - Digitally Obsessed

DVD Verdict - Criterion Collection Dan Mancini

Une femme est une femme Blu-ray (Japan) - Blu-ray.com

Lights, Camera, Action, Silence!: Jean-Luc Godard's 'A Woman Is A ... Movie Mania Madness

Vulture: Bilge Ebiri Listed at #8 of 50 Best Foreign-Language Musicals Ever October 28, 2015

Camera Journal [Paul Sutton]

CinePassion: Fernando F. Croce

The Chicago Reader: Jonathan Rosenbaum Capsule review

Anna Karina - 豆瓣 Colin MacCabe interviews actress Anna Karina from the National Film Theater, June 21, 2001

Anna Karina · Interview · The A.V. Club Nathan Rabin interviews actress Anna Karina, May 14, 2003

Anna Karina on love, cinema and being Jean-Luc Godard's muse: 'I ... Xan Brooks interviews actress Anna Karina from The Guardian, January 21, 2016

“Be Beautiful and Shut Up”: Anna Karina on Filmmaking with Jean-Luc ... Caveh Zahedi interviews actress Anna Karina from Filmmakers magazine, May 9, 2016

L.A. Weekly: Scott Foundas

'Everything at the same time': Anna Karina as more than a muse in Los ... LA Times

DVDBeaver.com - Review [Gary W. Tooze]

Movie Review - - CRITIC'S CHOICE/Film; Godard's Grand Allusions ... A.O. Scott from The New York Times

MY LIFE TO LIVE (Vivre Sa Vie: Film en douze tableaux) A 97

France (85 mi) 1962

Ana Karina is exquisitely tender in a beautiful, touching, and complex original work, an excellent interior drama, the most tender and beautifully designed Godard film about the coming of age, discovering our humanity. Of interest, this is Fassbinder’s film review as submitted May 1966 for the German Film and Television Academy entrance examinations in Berlin, where he was denied admittance.

The story of a consciousness: Vivre sa vie.

To this day, Vivre sa vie, Godard’s fourth full-length feature film, has remained the author’s best. It is a didactic piece (Lehrstuck), in the Brechtian sense, a film about a “modern” young woman, a documentary about prostitution, and a study of bistros and street life in Paris.

The actual Story of Nana S, as the film is called In Germany, is quickly told. Nana leaves her husband, whose child she has borne, “because things didn’t work out,” even though they liked each other, because she wants her freedom back. It becomes quite clear that she has no talent for day-to-day living. When her money troubles become more and more pressing, she turns to prostitution. Yet she remains basically innocent until her death, which is horrible and senseless, at the end of the movie.

Godard prefaces his film with a quotation from Montaigne: “One must surrender to others and remain true to oneself.” With this quotation in mind, he sets out to show the stages by which a person turns into a conscious human being.

He divides the story into twelve chapters, interrupting the flow of the action with chapter headings, thus never letting the viewer identify with the character and forcing him to follow his train of thought.

Each stage is clearly defined – at the start, for instance, the story of the chicken, which consists of an inside and an outside. If you take away the outside, the inside remains, and if you take that, too, the soul remains. Moreover, the stages are marked by the musical theme which is heard at regular intervals.

Other stages are Nana experiencing the suffering of Jeanne d’Arc, by Th. Dreyer; her statement after the police interrogation: “I want to become another person;” the first man she gives herself to (in a horrendous scene); her acquaintance with Paris prostitution; her encounter with a young man whom she will love; her realization of the interchangeability of her character; a conversation about love and language with the philosopher Brice Parani.

Vivre sa vie is a movie about love and language. Nana and the young man love one another. Godard expresses it like this” The young man reads to Nana a section from “The Oval Portrait” by Edgar Allen Poe, which is also indicative of Godard’s very personal love for the actress who plays Nana.

Anna Karina plays the part and is a novel of genuine expression, believability, and life. The film’s greatness and power to convince us are largely due to her.

RWF 1966

Fassbinder in an interview:

“There is one movie by Godard which I have seen twenty-seven times. This is Vivre sa vie. Together with Viridiana by Bunuel, it has been the most important film in my life.”

My Life to Live Tom Milne

Twelve Brechtian tableaux chronicle the life and death of a whore, starting out as a documentary on prostitution, ending as a Monogram B movie. In retrospect, Godard expressed doubts about the cheap gangster pyrotechnics as being merely a nod to cinephilia. But like the highly stylized prostitution scenes, they are in fact a distantiating device forcing a more direct confrontation with the film's true subject: the enigmatic beauty and troubling presence of Karina, and the mystery of Godard's own passionate involvement with her. This film, as Godard has noted, was the first stage in the inevitable dissolution of their marriage, as described in Pierrot le Fou; and every scene in the film obliquely pinpoints that crisis as originating in the awareness that, as director to star actress, he found himself rapturously but humiliatingly playing client to her prostitute.

On "Salador" Serge Daney (excerpt)

One man bewitched by these powers very soon recognized that he could hardly avoid simulating their Icoups de forceI, and that, by insisting on provoking them, he was all the more clearly showing them to be arbitrary and a trick, no longer even capable of valorizing after the event a sequence of shots in which there was already revealed a radical inability to capitalize; reflection was to make of that inability a rejection, and out of that rejection has come a hesitant theory...We are saying that Jean-Luc Godard , when he was filming VIVRE SA VIE, was thinking of Karina as, he imagined, before him Renoir thought of C. Hessling (NANA), Rossellini of I. Bergman (EUROPA 51), if not Fellini of G. Massina (CABIRIA). But let Nana smile, dance, sell her body or die, the evidence is that a woman is always a woman and that it is an illusion to think that a film can say anything else, an illusion whose results are equally obvious in film theory (every shot is a transition, a difference of effect which is the only more decisive for being final) and in the themes treated (whores are saints, the guilty innocent, etc.) All of which Godard was very aware of when he took a turn (with LE MEPRIS) from which the cinema has scarcely begun to come back.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Jason Halprin

If you think Godard's theoretical approach to filmmaking always outshines his ability to produce portraiture that is believable and emotional and not just one of political or allegorical types, then check out VIVRE SA VIE. His fourth feature tells the tale of a working class young woman, Nana (Anna Karina), as life goes from bad to worse. Despite the breakdown into chapters (complete with title cards) the film is at first an unstructured manifesto intended to convince the audience that capitalism only leads to the commoditization of all things, but this is merely a thread in the complex nature of the film. Communication is flawed, character and cinema are experienced and molded, and there are more than thirteen ways to look at ones wife through a viewfinder. At times Godard is mimicking the tropes of documentary, at others he is relying on overt reference (Dreyer's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, for example), and at others he is doing what he does best (using framing and composition to make sure that no one present misunderstands the emotional distance a character feels). One would he hard pressed to find another film with such an abrupt and sad ending that still makes one leave the theater with a smile. Poetic, beautiful, and concise.

All Movie Guide [Wheeler Winston Dixon]

This typically brilliant film from Jean-Luc Godard was made during his blazing period of brilliance in the 1960s, when he seemed to make a movie every few months, all daringly original, and all completely different. Here, Godard casts his then-wife, Anna Karina, as a young woman who drifts into prostitution, shooting the entire film on actual locations in Paris, and making Karina's character, Nana Kleinfrankenheim, both real and accessible to the audience. There is Godard's customary philosophical interlude, in which Nana discusses her life with philosopher Brice Parain (playing himself) in an all-night cafe, and Godard uses very long takes with a pendulum dolly to bring added realism to their encounter. The film is structured in 12 sequences (just as Masculin/Feminin, a Godard film made three years after this, has exactly 15 scenes); one of the most affecting involves Nana attending a revival of Carl Th. Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), in which she identifies with Maria Falconetti as Dreyer's doomed protagonist. Shedding tears of compassion, Nana watches as Joan is adjudged guilty by an all-male court, and sent to her martyrdom -- an apt reference to Nana's own fate within Godard's film. Fittingly, the entire sequence is absolutely silent, as was Dreyer's film. In another remarkable section, as Nana interrogates her pimp on her duties as a prostitute in voice-over, Godard shows us in a series of quick cuts how mundane and shabby Nana's life will be. Godard's spare, observational style is perfectly in place here, and the film ranks as one of his greatest from his first period as an auteur. Vivre Sa Vie is a remarkable film on many levels, and a devastating commentary on the double standards of patriarchal society.

Vivre sa vie • Senses of Cinema Adrian Danks, April 4, 2000

"I can say how I picture Godard. He's a man who works a lot, so he is, necessarily, completely alone. But this is not just any solitude, it's an extraordinarily populus solitude, populated not by dreams, fantasies, or projects, but by actions, things, and even people. A multiple, creative solitude."

Vivre sa vie, Godard's fourth feature and in tone the most poetic and 'serious' of his films to that date, opens with a quote from Montaigne, "lend yourself to others but give yourself to yourself", before progressing through a series of shots of Nana (Anna Karina) talking to her friend, Paul, in a café. (The film actually 'begins' in its credit sequence, its half-lit, deeply shadowed mug-shot-like images of Nana's face and profile, the snatches of music, the quote from Montaigne, the credits for the film, acting as something of a primer for the multivalent tactics and stylistic techniques that the film will utilise). In this first sequence, Nana's face is not seen directly by the camera, we are behind her as the camera pans and glimpses her image in a mirror. In the process the camera invades and furtively 'steals' her image.

Essentially this initial fixation upon and investigation of Nana's image, in particular her face, from a variety of perspectives, is the essence of Vivre sa vie. So despite its surface break-up into twelve chapters, its notation as a treatise on prostitution (from actual reportage), its essayistic and discursive qualities, and its extremely varied audio-visual devices, all elements which attempt to survey and understand the outside of the subject, Vivre sa vie is most candidly a 'documentary' of Nana's image (and subsequently the image of Godard's then wife, Karina). Elements such as Nana's visual similarity to Louise Brooks, her emotional reaction to and identification with Joan while 'silently' watching Carl Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, and various other references to films and stars, highlight the cinematic self-consciousness of this work and its engagement with a history of images (cinematic, photographic, literary, etc.). The film itself becomes a record (similar in effect to La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc), a catalogue of postures, poses, gestures, everyday, real and performed actions. And also a record of the social, economic, sexual and cultural circumstances that lead to Nana's situation and the philosophical and existential dilemmas she encounters. The film doesn't exactly present an argument but rather a series of observations, approaches and reports denuded of many of the trappings of fictional narrative cinema.

In Vivre sa vie's penultimate sequence, Nana stands, happy and with her lover, head and shoulders against a wall, and framed next to a photograph. On the soundtrack her lover (dubbed by Godard) reads Poe's "The Oval Portrait", a tale of a painter's obsession with a portrait of his wife. The story's description of the process of painting emphasises the portrait's ability to capture, replicate and steal the 'essence' of its subject's life and character. In the conclusion of the story, and upon the painting's completion the husband-artist draws back frightened, as next to the portrait his wife lies dead. Within Vivre sa vie the potential of such an ominous and tragic realisation seems to surround the image of Nana and even Karina herself, but it also reflects back upon Godard's own practice (and points to the very real danger of such obsessive and personalised representation). Nana's death to occur in the following scenes is already etched on her face, marked by the photograph that hangs next to her on the wall, foretold in the prose of her lover. Susan Sontag has taken exception to this scene in her otherwise glowing review of the film; "What is objectionable here is not the abruptness of the ending. It is the fact that Godard is clearly making a reference outside the film." Sontag's objections appear to run counter to the nature of Godard's cinema. It is plainly absurd to complain that Godard's film makes references outside of itself when this is in fact (through quotation, intertextuality, collage, self-reference) one of the director's, and the film's, key aesthetic strategies. It is true, as Sontag states, that this scene self-consciously refers to Godard's role as Karina's director but this reflexive aspect is evident in numerous other details of the film (Godard is always multiply 'present' in the films he makes). Despite its melancholy romanticism, this superficially 'pregnant' moment does not stand out from the rest of the text but melds intricately into the intertextual, reflexive and multi-layered audio-visual scheme of the film. In the context of Nana's character it is no more revealing, fatalistic or poetic than the quote from Montaigne, the strains of Michel Legrand or the story of the chicken which appears in the second chapter of the film ("Inside the inside you find its soul").

Godard's cinema is both highly recognisable and incredibly difficult to pin-down, sum-up, and even adequately describe. As David Bordwell states: "the real problem [of Godard's films] is that they remain elusive on a simple denotative level". Thus we can interpret and read Godard's films but they are often difficult to describe. It is also tricky to precisely think about and simply state the function of any particular thing or device. His films rarely develop a particular stylistic system or regime, creating, as Godard suggests, "a kind of tapestry". Thus, for example, the stark, descriptive chapter titles in Vivre sa vie divide the film up, lend it a literary quality, and yet they don't really structure the work at all. The meaning applied to and use of specific stylistic devices varies from film to film, sequence to sequence. In keeping with this, Vivre sa vie's composition is seldom tight or exclusive in subject (except in the many close-ups of Nana's face), and its aural and visual preoccupations shift while remaining extraordinarily fixed upon its central thematic concerns (the problems of communication, prostitution, the primacy of human will and representational transformation, commodities and commodity exchange). Essentially, there is no one way of reading or categorising Godard's cinema or any one Godard film (is Vivre sa vie an essay, observational documentary, home movie or sociological tract?) but neither is his cinema purely elusive and ambiguous. Each of his films is of-a-piece and yet they can often seem as a collection of isolated moments; they are both dispersive and extremely contained.

Nevertheless, Godard's cinema is characterised by a set of methodologies, thematic concerns and stylistic/aesthetic/philosophical choices and procedures. Principle among these are the notions of mixing and collage. For example, the soundtrack, and even the image track, of Vivre sa vie almost seem as if they are being composed as we are watching and listening. Although the film's sound primarily documents and emanates from the same everyday world as the images (Godard's use of synchronised, location-based sound and sound-mixing is legendary) it nevertheless insistently cuts in and out, while dialogue is delivered in multiple ways (including subtitles which at one point 'fill in' the deathly silent soundtrack). Among the other remarkable, maybe even revolutionary, qualities of Godard's soundtracks are the use of ambient sound and composed music (which again cuts in and out, and only remains on the soundtrack in isolated ten to twenty second bursts). Nothing is irrelevant here. The description of any element as 'ambient' betrays the openness and potentiality of what his films offer. Thus, this sound (let's call it ambient) contributes to the obscuration of dialogue in many parts of Vivre sa vie, but is as much the 'subject' of these scenes as the dialogue.

It is wrong to state, as some critics have, that Godard is an extreme stylist without a stylistic system (as it is also wrong to make this claim about Godard's most significant contemporary disciple, Wong Kar-wai). The choices he makes illuminate his characters and situations, while specific visual motifs, for example the numerous backlit shots of Nana's upper profile, give the film a degree of continuity. And yet, the film does demonstrate a kind of hyperactivity, a willingness to look at its central character from a mass of different of perspectives, angles and through conventionally distinct modes of cinema (observational documentary, meta-cinema, fiction, essay). It is in this sense that one gets the feeling of watching a filmmaker drunk on the possibilities of a newly discovered, and newly free cinema.

This may all make this sound like an overly flashy and insubstantive film, but Vivre sa vie is actually amongst Godard's and the nouvelle vague's most intimate, moving, sustained and revealing works. The complex alternation between inside and outside, documentary and fiction, distanciation and involvement, actor and character, and what this asks of its audience, is the film's most profound achievement.

Through its obsession with the image of Nana, Vivre sa vie becomes a kind of lingering or after-image - best characterised by the close-up of her face and the multiple ways it has been imaged than by the narrative, or any one of the stories it tells or perspectives it unveils. In the end what I most remember is the image of Nana (isolated, crying and cut adrift in the pure space of the frame), the face of Falconetti's Joan, and the synthesis of looks, gestures and tears that characterises the scene revolving around Nana's moving visit to the cinema (the cinema as 'naked' faces, bodies, space and emotion). Godard's citation of Dreyer's film is movingly appropriate as it helps single out what is most remarkable in Vivre sa vie. Both Dreyer's and Godard's films fragment filmic space, and the body, in similar ways and each provides amongst the most singular, painful and even cruel portraits of a character and actor on film. They both present female actors who show, give and nakedly reveal much more than we should ask for in the cinema.

Jean-Luc Godard’s “Vivre Sa Vie/My Life to Live” (1962) – One Extraordinary Woman’s Path Through Marriage, Motherhood, Search for Job, Prostitution, Romantic Love and Verbal Communication with Others Acting Out Politics

For Ever Godard #4 review of Vivre Sa Vie: Film En Douze Tableaux (My Life To Live), 1962, from Seventh Art, December 4, 2008

Vivre sa vie: An Introduction and A to Z • Senses of Cinema Roland-François Lack, August 27, 2008

Vivre Sa Vie | Criterion Collection | Foreign Film | Movie Review | 1962

Vivre sa vie (France 1962) | The Case for Global Film Roy Stafford

Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina and “Vivre sa vie” – seanax.com Sean Axmaker, April 18, 2010

Melbourne Cinematheque Review: VIVRE SA VIE Is Godard, Karina ... Kwenton Bellette from Screen Anarchy

"Vivra sa vie": Shouldn't Love Be the Only Truth? on Notebook | MUBI December 19, 2009

Vivre Sa Vie | DVD Review | Film @ The Digital Fix Noel Megahey

Erasing Clouds [Dan Heaton]

digitallyObsessed [Jon Danziger]

Vivre sa vie Blu-ray review - Part 1 | Cine Outsider

Vivre sa vie Blu-ray review - Part 2 | Cine Outsider

Vivre sa vie Blu-ray review - Part 3 | Cine Outsider

Strictly Film School Acquarello

village voice > film > Vivre sa vie: Vivre sa vie by Nick Pinkerton

Anna Karina - 豆瓣 Colin MacCabe interviews actress Anna Karina from the National Film Theater, June 21, 2001

Anna Karina · Interview · The A.V. Club Nathan Rabin interviews actress Anna Karina, May 14, 2003

Anna Karina on love, cinema and being Jean-Luc Godard's muse: 'I ... Xan Brooks interviews actress Anna Karina from The Guardian, January 21, 2016

“Be Beautiful and Shut Up”: Anna Karina on Filmmaking with Jean-Luc ... Caveh Zahedi interviews actress Anna Karina from Filmmakers magazine, May 9, 2016

Cleveland Press [Tony Mastroianni]

Vivre sa vie review – quintessential soul-searching from Godard | Film ... Philip French from The Guardian

My Life to Live Movie Review & Film Summary (1963) | Roger Ebert

New York Times (registration req'd) Bosley Crowther

DVDBeaver.com - Full Review [Gary W. Tooze]

Vivre sa vie Blu-ray - DVD Beaver

Vivre sa Vie/My Life to Live - Wikipedia

LE PETIT SOLDAT (The Little Soldier)

France (88 mi) 1963

Le Petit Soldat Movie Review & Film Summary (1960) | Roger Ebert

Godard introduces his 'little soldier' as a man turning from action to reflection: Bruno Forestier (Subor) is some kind of secret agent working against Algerian terrorists in France, but he doesn't believe in his fight, and his mind is full of aesthetic and philosophical questions. In fact, he's in many ways a prototype for Pierrot le Fou. Bruno, too, falls in love with Anna Karina, and worries whether her eyes are Velazquez-grey or Renoir-grey; he suffers torture for her, and is finally betrayed, not by her but by the lousy political machine, in which Left and Right are mirror faces of each other. Looked at in the context of Godard's later, militant work, this film's analysis is at once naive and fascinating.

CineScene.com Chris Dashiell

A right-wing hit man (Michel Subor) who is assigned to kill a leader of the Algerian underground, becomes entangled with a left-wing activist (Anna Karina). To describe the film in this way makes it sound as if Godard is serious about plot, but this story is really a kind of reduction of the Algerian War, which was tearing France apart at the time, into the terms of a pulp espionage novel. Godard's second feature (after Breathless) has a brooding, ominous tone and a deft use of the clipped, abrupt editing style which was to be so influential in his challenge to conventional film technique. Watching it, I was struck by how all the things I admire in Godard are already there, as well as the things that bother me about him. The indirect and improvisatory feel of the dialogue, the sense of immediacy and urgency, the lack of traditional emotional cues - all this is compelling. There is a torture scene which is done in such a matter-of-fact style that it frightened me much more than a traditional dramatic treatment would have. On the other hand, Godard has such a careless attitude about the fictional dream that he indulges in pedantic pseudo-profound speeches and plot intricacies that are purposely ridiculous, more like childish pranks than narrative elements. This has always been intentional with him, but I find it a flaw when an artist draws more attention to his own intellectual stance than to the subject or content of said stance, and so far the only films of his I've seen that I think are completely free of this flaw are Breathless and My Life to Live, both of which merge style and content in just proportion while also communicating Godard's points of view, politically and artistically. Otherwise I find his parodistic techniques very hit-or-miss, and with a Godard film one has to take the elements of genuine insight along with much that is boring and self-indulgent. Le Petit Soldat at least has the playful quality of early Godard, and its political attitude was so incendiary at the time that the French government banned it from theaters. It was not shown until 1963, after the war was over.

DVD Talk Matt Langdon

Jean Luc Godard is known mainly for his first film Breathless but he has spent a career making great, near great and important films. His second feature Le Petit Soldad doesn't have the same skillful buoyancy as Breathless but it is does have a certain urgency and is a well-paced political drama.

The film is about a war deserter named Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor) -- who gets embroiled in an anti- terrorist organization and is ordered to assassinate a leftist University professor. But due to his confusion, his own moral rectitude and the love of a woman (Anna Karina) - who is a member of an Arab group - he doesn't commit the murder. Instead he chooses to run away. Subsequently, he is caught by an Arab group and tortured. He escapes but still disconcerted -- and still longing for idealistic qualifications --he decides to commit the murder. Despite this, it is too late for him to truly claim any kind of victory political or personal.

Bruno – like many characters in Godard films – is an ineffectual intellectual without loyalty or commitment who is locked in a self-conscious world of consumer goods, political perplexity and old Hollywood gangster movies. Bruno wants to believe in a political cause and he wants to be in love but due to circumstances he cannot have both so he takes the road of betrayal, which leads to the downfall of himself and everyone around him.

Le Petit Soldad was shot cheaply, it moves fast and on the surface seems to be insignificant. It's like a Greek tragedy done with elements of Italian neo-realism, handheld camera's and real life set pieces. But delve deeper, look closer and you realize that the film is an effective personal / political drama that goes against the grain. The French authorities saw it this way back in 1961 and - due mainly to the references to torture in the Algerian war - banned the film for two years.

From this film came Godard's famous line, 'Cinema is truth twenty-four times a second.' And while Godard may not have believed that statement it does say something about the significance of cinema as a political tool. What Godard has said though of this film is, 'My style of commitment was to say to myself: they reproach the New Wave for showing nothing but people in beds — I'm going to show some who are politically involved and have no time to go to bed."

CINE-FILE: Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Kathleen Sachs

Immediately following the production of his 1960 film BREATHLESS, Jean-Luc Godard went to work on both LE PETIT SOLDAT and A WOMAN IS A WOMAN; though LE PETIT SOLDAT is technically Godard's second film, he had published a preliminary six-page treatment of A WOMAN IS A WOMAN in the August 1959 issue of Cahiers du cinema. Philippe de Broca had already made his version of actress Genevieve Cluny's story, THE GAMES OF LOVE, so Godard documented that in Cahiers as a preemptive measure, and then temporarily shelved it while he worked on LE PETIT SOLDAT. "Having made BREATHLESS, which exemplified existential engagement minus the politics that Sartre considered constitutive of it," critic Richard Brody said in his book Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard, "[he] would now make a film on the subject of political engagement itself--and would contrast it negatively to a more subjective, personal form of engagement." The political engagement in question centers around the Algerian War; the main character, Bruno Forestier, is a Frenchman who fled to Geneva with the assistance of the Organisation of the Secret Army (OAS) in order to escape the draft, and is required to assassinate an Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) sympathizer to prove he's not a spy. While in Geneva, he falls in love a young woman named Veronica Dreyer (played by famous Godard muse Anna Karina), who is later revealed to have once helped the FLN. Both are tortured by their opposing faction, depictions of which caused the film to be banned for three years in France until the end of the war. (Ironically, Godard was criticized by leftist intellectuals for only depicting Bruno's torture at the hands of Algerian revolutionaries and not Veronica's torture by the French, while the French government, claiming to not want to condone torture in any capacity, censored the film specifically because of Bruno's torture scenes.) Despite the specificity of the film's setting, Godard never intended for it to be unequivocal commentary; as Brody states in his book, "[I]n taking on the question and nature of freedom, he was approaching the existential question par excellence." But Godard did intend for the film to be deeply autobiographical, a fact echoed in literally every scene. It was filmed without direct sound, thus allowing him to speak the dialogue directly to the actors and then dub their voices in post-production. He intentionally had the sound designed to seem separate from the film, further adding to its personal nature--though the actors themselves are talking, Godard seemingly inserts himself into the disconnect between the visual and the sound, hinting to the audience that what they're hearing doesn't belong to the film, per se, but to its author. And just as Godard famously referenced other films in BREATHLESS, he references many types of literature in LE PETIT SOLDAT. (He also references other films in the latter, most obviously Orson Welles' THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, but here the literary allusions speak more to Godard's overall vision.) Per Brody's research, a poignant monologue near the film's end contains references to both left- and right-wing authors, and Bruno Forestier is named after a character from the Jacques Cocteau novel La Grand Ecart, in which the similarly named character "dreamt of a pure far-right, meeting up with the far-left to the point of being a part of it, but in which he could act alone." As the film was decried by opposing parties for essentially the same reason, Godard's politics within the context of this film are clearly ambiguous; it's the "acting alone" that embodies his autobiographical motivations. (The film also contains that famous quote, "Photography is truth, and the cinema is truth twenty-four times a second," a fact worth noting for those unaware of its origin.)

Le Petit Soldat • Senses of Cinema Tim Palmer, May 13, 2002

For Ever Godard #2 review of Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier), 1960, from Seventh Art, December 2, 2008

Le Petit Soldat | Film Review | Slant Magazine Drew Hunt

Beauty and Controversy in Godard's Le Petit Soldat | Village Voice Scott Foundas

Le Petit Soldat - TCM.com Jeff Stafford

digitallyOBSESSED.com Jeff Ulmer

Combustible Celluloid Jeffrey M. Anderson

Ozus' World Movie Reviews Dennis Schwartz

Anna Karina - 豆瓣 Colin MacCabe interviews actress Anna Karina from the National Film Theater, June 21, 2001

Anna Karina · Interview · The A.V. Club Nathan Rabin interviews actress Anna Karina, May 14, 2003

Anna Karina on love, cinema and being Jean-Luc Godard's muse: 'I ... Xan Brooks interviews actress Anna Karina from The Guardian, January 21, 2016

“Be Beautiful and Shut Up”: Anna Karina on Filmmaking with Jean-Luc ... Caveh Zahedi interviews actress Anna Karina from Filmmakers magazine, May 9, 2016

The Little Soldier - Wikipedia

CONTEMPT (Le Mépris) A 96

France (99 mi) 1963

an apologetic testimonial to Godard's estranged wife Anna Karina

A story of men cut off from themselves, the world, reality, with a sumptuous use of ‘Scope color, contrasts, and emotions, featuring performances by Jack Palance, Fritz Lang, and the hauntingly lovely Brigitte Bardot. A lengthy argument in the film is a replica of the kind the director was having with his own wife, actress Anna Karina, which was likely the stimulus for the making of this film.

Godard on the film:
"Le Mepris is a simple film, without any mysteries, done away with appearences. Le Mepris proves in 149 frames that in cinéma as much as in life, nothing is secret, there is nothing to elucidate, only a need to live, and to film."

CINE-FILE: Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Ben Sachs

All the films that Jean-Luc Godard made in the 1960s are readily rewatchable for their infectious, trailblazing energy, but CONTEMPT also possesses a magisterial authority that anticipates the poetry of his awesome late period. The primary concern, as always, is Cinema: Taking place on the set of a big-budget film of The Odyssey improbably directed by Fritz Lang (who plays himself), CONTEMPT contains still-pertinent ideas about the ethics of making movies, with Lang representing artistic integrity and producer Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) representing the crassest instincts of the medium. Torn between them is Paul, an ambitious writer coerced into penning the film's script; not only must he play mediator on the troubled shoot, but his professional commitments are about to cost him his marriage. The way in which Godard sets these conflicts against the classical presence of Homer inspired Jonathan Rosenbaum to write that CONTEMPT is a look at modern man as he may appear to the Greek gods. (Godard, writing in 1963, put it more obliquely: "It is about characters from L'AVVENTURA who wish they were characters in RIO BRAVO.") But the film is shot through with a sense of immediacy--especially during the 25-minute centerpiece depicting an argument between Paul and his wife (Brigitte Bardot). Playing out in real-time and jumping nervously from antagonism to reconciliation to sympathy, the scene is instantly recognizable to anyone who has experienced the death of a romance. Godard does little to hide the fact that his own marriage to Anna Karina was failing at the time (Bardot even dons a black wig at one point to resemble Karina), and his candor makes CONTEMPT perhaps the most confessional work of career.

Philadelphia City Paper [Sam Adams]

Luckily, context is just around the corner. Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 Contempt, recently committed to double DVD, is as blatant as Adaptation in its picking-apart of cinematic convention, but Contempt recognizes a reality outside the world of movies (even while allowing that reality is never seen on screen without passing through filters). In a 20-minute sequence that falls in the middle of the movie, aspiring screenwriter Paul (Michel Piccoli) and his girlfriend, Camille (Brigitte Bardot), engage in a domestic dispute, walking through the rooms of their Italian apartment. Though Fritz Lang, who plays a German director (named, of course, Fritz Lang) in the film, famously comments that Cinemascope is "only good for snakes and funerals," legendary cameraman Raoul Coutard uses the widescreen to separate Bardot and Piccoli, most notably in one shot where the camera tracks from left to right and back, moving from Bardot on one end to Piccoli on the other, and always passing a lamp in the middle which turns on and off at random. The film, Godard's first (and last) experiment with a larger budget and known stars, was a compromised entity from the start, but it works the compromises into the plot, most famously in the opening scene, where Godard responded to the producers' demand that he include shots of a naked Bardot by inserting an opening scene where the lovers lie unamorously in bed and discuss how odd it is that you can go to the movies and see a woman's naked ass.

Contempt isn't Godard's most cohesive movie, and it shows traces of the knee-jerk anti-Hollywoodism that smeared last year's In Praise of Love: Jack Palance's headstrong producer (whose name is an amalgam of the movie's real-life financiers) is so ludicrously crass he's not even a caricature: He's like a prick with legs (which might explain Palance's stiff delivery). And Camille's abrupt decision that she has "contempt" for her husband is so arbitrary (in timing, if not in sentiment) that it's tantamount to misogyny. Godard never again tried to subvert the system; after chasing off paparazzi for three months, he must have decided he was better off all the way outside the system.

Criterion's disc comes with a host of alternate viewpoints, from critic Robert Stam's commentary (a little too heavy on grand themes, and skimpy on the close analysis) to a fascinating filmed conversation between Godard and Lang conducted in 1967. Though it's called "The Dinosaur and the Baby," it's Lang who seems to have the fresher viewpoint, his faith in the audience still strong.

Where does the sudden 'Contempt' towards her husband stem from? Discussion board poast deleted anjezabojku

There is an incredibly subtle scene in the film that shows Camille's changed attitute towards her husband. It is very subtle but very intense as well. I believe her loss of respect for him and eventual contempt stems from his passive attitude towards her, especially during the encounter with the American producer. At that moment, one can see in her face, the shock and disbelief she felt towards her husband's action. At that moment she lost respect for him as a man....as she clearly states later in the film "you're not a man."

She no longer knew this person…who became in her eyes so weak, so emasculated that all respect, admiration was lost, and so was love.

User reviews imdb Author: FilmSnobby from San Diego (excerpt):

The scenes on Capri, at the famous Malaparte villa with its wedge-shaped stairs that lead to a barren deck, surrounded by crags that rise like jewels from the calm sea, are some of the most beautiful ever shot. If this was indeed Raoul Coutard's first work with the CinemaScope lens, one can only marvel at his precocious genius.

The centerpiece of the movie is the 30-minute scene in the married couple's flat. It's the most sustained, minutely choreographed, rigorously blocked and written stretch in Godard's career. A similar, though much lighter, scene with Belmondo and Seberg in *Breathless* served as a mere warm-up for the display of petty acrimony in *Contempt*. A marriage dissolves before our eyes. Meanwhile, DP Raoul Coutard, doing some of the most brilliant work of his career, pokes unobtrusively around the couple, getting cozy with them in the bathroom while one of them sits on a toilet, shooting them from far across the room, catching Bardot and Piccoli at the extreme edges of the CinemaScope frame, slowly tracking the space between them as they murmur their little hatreds. But never getting too close: if Bardot slams the door on Piccoli, we're left stranded with Piccoli, and from a distance, too. It's intimacy without melodrama.

On "Salador" Serge Daney

LE MEPRIS (CONTEMPT.) In 1964, everyone wanted to know whether Godard, the enfant terrible of the new cinema, faced with the demands of big budget production and the whims of famous actors, would come away from the venture without losing anything, making all that profilmic machinery in the final analysis unrecognizable. At the time everyone was raving about the magic of cinema and the genius of the auteur, the man who imprints the indelible mark of his vision on everything and everyone. While all that may have constituted a fantasy for Godard (filming at the big MGM studios), it all turns out as if he had finally decided on the impossibility, or more accurately the uninterest, of such an enterprise, which is in fact the real subject of the film. Since it is therefore the story of a failure (and itself a commercial failure), LE MEPRIS becomes a question of knowing whether failure is not perhaps more profound than any success. That is, is it no the demiurges who fail?

What happens in LE MEPRIS? Still the same story -I getting there too lateI, the game already played, where the score is settled and the cards have a fixed value and way of playing them. What is the point of playing the best possible hand, smuggling in meaning between the lines, when the game is already over? Homer wrote the ODYSSEY and Moravia wrote CONTEMPT. Prokosch wanted to put it into images and Ponti wanted to put it on the screen. They summoned famous "artists" (Lang, Godard) whose (commercial) thirst for being scorned they were able to slake. ("One has to suffer," says Lang, and everyone knows that Godard had to shoot things he had not foreseen.) Every new player of the great Culture and Capital game has to respect (and not reflect upon) the traces in his work of what came before him, and which he should not improve upon. Choosing the place (Capri), the story (THE ODYSSEY), and the characters (Lang, Bardot) closest to myth, Godard discovered what he was later to elucidate constantly: that you can't both use and be used by that profilmic material. You deny it, believing you are going beyond it, but you ignore it without going beyond it. It is time, more modestly, to indicate its overdetermination for what it is. Every film is a palimpset.

Nashville Scene [Donna Bowman]

Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Contempt is Godard for people who don't like Godard. Its story of a would-be playwright hired by an American producer to rewrite Homer's Odyssey for the screen is appealingly self-referential, even postmodern--familiar territory for the Derrida generation. The legendary French New Wave director keeps the experimental techniques to a minimum a little film tinting here, a flash-forward montage there. Fritz Lang appears as himself, Godard hovers in the background as his assistant, and Jack Palance chews the scenery as the despotic producer Prokosh (a stab at Godard's producer Joseph E. Levine).

But Contempt is much more than a good-natured romp through studio in-jokes. Framed by the giddy fun of the filmmaking scenes, a quieter, deeper tale of abrogated responsibility, fading emotions, and fatal indecision unfolds in a small Roman apartment. Writer Paul (Michel Piccoli) insists to his beautiful wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot) that he is only taking the Odyssey job to pay for their new digs and to make her happy. But Camille's love for him turns to contempt when he knuckles under to Prokosh at their first meeting, using the American's interest in his wife as leverage for getting a job.

The tortuous thread of their marriage unravels slowly, over a single half-hour scene at the heart of the film. Back and forth go their arguments, like a lamp Paul turns on and off, like the wig that turns Bardot's hair from blond to brunette at a whim. It's not until the third act, on the Odyssey set in Capri, that we understand what draws Paul to this material: Like Ulysses as interpreted by the screenwriter himself, he prefers to push decisions off onto others, as if he's doing them a favor, and then call the results "fate." If the viewer reads this back into the apartment scene, the movie transcends its navel-gazing obsession with movies and becomes as universal as Homer's epic.

Certainly among Godard's most accessible films, Contempt features Bardot's most famous performance, as a wife who consents to be used because her reliance on her husband--who plucked her out of the typing pool--is absolute. Fans of Lang will enjoy his offhand remarks about his own career ("Personally, I prefer M"), especially as a world-weary European foil to Prokosh's delusions of grandeur. And Palance hits exactly the right note, with hilarious and tragic effect, as the ugly American who aims to improve on Homer and German expressionism.

The 1997 restoration and rerelease of Contempt also demonstrates with fresh vigor Godard's way with color. Utilizing a unified palette that ranges from the ancient daylight of Rome to the cerulean blue of the Mediterranean to the lipstick-red sofa in Paul and Camille's modernist apartment, the director views Europe as a place where technology and style have changed nothing important in human nature since the dawn of time. Contempt may be a lark when compared to Godard's more challenging works, but it still plumbs depths unknown to other filmmakers.

Contempt: The Story of a Marriage Criterion essay by Phillip Lopate, December 09, 2002

Contempt (1963) - The Criterion Collection

Critical Distance | Movie Review | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews Godard’s Contempt, September 4, 1997

Beautiful, Empty Spaces: Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (1963) - Bright ... Gary Morris from Bright Lights Film Journal, November 1, 1997

The Aesthetic and Formal Challenges of Jean-Luc Godard's 'Contempt ... Mike Thorn from Vague Visages, March 1, 2017

Le Mépris: Analysis of mise-en-scène Roberto Donati from Offscreen, November 2009

The Eye of the Beholder: Marital Discord and Film Making in Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Mepris Jason Mark Scott from Offscreen, August 2008

For Ever Godard #6 review of Le Mépris (Contempt), 1963, from Seventh Art, December 6, 2008

Film @ The Digital Fix - Le Mepris Mike Sutton

CONTEMPT Dan Schneider from Alt Film Guide

Contempt - Salon.com Charles Taylor, August 4, 1997

Thanatos ex Machina: Godard Caresses the Dead • Senses of Cinema David Sterritt from Senses of Cinema, July 13, 2001

The Cinephilia of Le mépris Rich Swintice from Netribution Film Network

The Modernist Aesthetic of Le mépris will da shaman from Netribution Film Network

Contempt (1963) - #171 | Criterion Reflections David Blakeslee

Criterion Confessions: CONTEMPT - #171 Jamie S. Rich

Akira Kurosawa's Ran and Jean Luc Godard's ... - CriterionCast.com Ryan Gallagher

The Onion A.V. Club [Scott Tobias]

Images Movie Journal David Ng

Bardot in Godard's Contempt | Crimson Kimono

digitallyOBSESSED.com [Jon Danziger]

The DVD Journal | Reviews : Contempt: The Criterion Collection D.K. Holm

Contempt (Le mépris): Criterion Collection : DVD Talk Review of the ... Holly E. Ordway

Contempt Blu-ray - Blu-ray.com Casey Broadwater

Le Mépris | Blu-Ray Review | Film @ The Digital Fix Noel Megahey

Contempt (Le Mépris) Blu-ray Review | High Def Digest Joshua Zyber

Contempt -- StudioCanal Collection (Blu-ray) : DVD Talk Review of the ... Thomas Spurlin

Le Mépris Blu-ray (United Kingdom) - Blu-ray.com Svet Atanasov

Blu-rayDefinition.com - Blu-ray Review (UK Release) [Brandon A. DuHamel]

All Movie Guide [Brendon Hanley]

New York Times [Bosley Crowther]

DVDBeaver [Gary W. Tooze]

BAND OF OUTSIDERS (Bande à Part)

France (97 mi) 1964

All Movie Guide [Louis Schwartz]

Bande à part is the story of three alienated French youths (Odile, Arthur, and Franz) who attempt an ill-fated burglary. Bande à Part is one of the easiest Godard films to follow because its story is presented linearly and without disruptive montage. Although the film does not generate much narrative tension, it does capture the atmosphere among Odile, Arthur, and Franz. Bande à part contains two of the most memorable and exciting scenes of the French New Wave: a scene in which Odile, Arthur, and Franz run through a museum, and a scene in which they dance to a jukebox in a cafe. The dance scene has been borrowed in many films, including Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Rio Das Mortes and Hal Hartley's Simple Men. Bande à part is driven by its actors and the chemistry among them. It uses their interactions to document the feeling of being young and French in the early 1960s.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

Time has been incredibly kind to Jean-Luc Godard's lightweight "crime movie," a notable flop in its time, which has emerged, nearly half-a-century later, as one of the filmmaker's most enduringly (and endearingly) popular films. A seemingly tossed-off distillation of the themes, obsessions, and techniques of JLG's early period, this loose adaptation of a largely-forgotten American pulp novel—Fool's Gold, by Dolores Hitchens—stars Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur as a couple of incompetent dreamer hoods, and Godard's then-wife and muse Anna Karina as a girl they meet in their English class and rope into helping them commit a robbery. Karina gives what is perhaps her definitive performance, combining tragedy, resolve, and girlish charm into a single enigmatic package, and the film's giddy, scuzzy style—packed tight with references, meta-jokes, and directorial flight-of fancy—is downright intoxicating. If you've never seen a Godard film, this might be the place to start.

Bande à Part from BFI films

Gleefully putting into practice D W Griffith's maxim that "all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun", Bande à part (The Outsiders) is Godard's playful tribute to the Hollywood pulp crime movies of the Forties, executed with typically Gallic cool.

Franz and Arthur, a couple of streetwise chancers, team up with the shy Odile (a beguiling performance from Anna Karina, Godard's wife and muse at the time) to plan a robbery. As the trio of misfits roam the cafés of suburban Paris, do a lightning tour of the Louvre, and play-act shoot-outs, the suspicion grows that this is one heist that is not going to go according to plan.

As well as superb photography by Raoul Coutard and music by Michel Legrand, Bande à part features one of the most exhilarating dance sequences in film, which so impressed Quentin Tarantino that he paid homage to it with John Travolta and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, and named his production company, Band Apart, after the film. Hal Hartley also paid homage to the sequence in Simple Men (1992).

Shot in just 25 days, Bande à part was greeted with puzzlement and even distaste when first released. Over the years it has become one of Godard admirers' favourite films and is one that no French cinema DVD collection should be without.

'about as enjoyable as cinema gets'. Time Out

'Packed with fun stuff .. effortlessly modern .. pure, giddy joy on film' The Daily Telegraph

'Godard at his most irreverent and spontaneous' The Guardian

'It's enough to leave you breathless' The Mail on Sunday

On Jean-Luc Godard Christopher Mulrooney from the Film Journal (excerpt)

The Birds is cited briefly early on in a long shot, and there is a certain kinship to Tirez sur le Pianiste. The main characters are Franz (Kafka, owing to Sami Frey's resemblance) and Arthur (Rimbaud, so stated). In view of the credits and a couple of gags, the title comes close to signifying "second unit."

Losey's precision is matched by Godard's imprecision, or rather the desire for freedom evinced by the hand-held camera, which never loses the picture for a single moment. This is the most remarkable achievement of a very great film, but there are other resources: long takes, choreography, and the beautiful geometrical or even Cartesian analysis of forms, all activated by the witty script as image et son.

The results are sometimes surprising, The dance number is an homage to the American musical in passing, but its real intent is precisely what it says it is, to reveal the emotions of the characters, which it does "by exhaustion."

The script, which complements the cinematic ability of Robert N. Bradbury, say, to conjure activity from nothing, compares the little island to the Isle of the Dead and it looks that way, the whole thing amounting to a gag reading of L'Avventura (with its floating camera homage to Hitchcock).

The virtuosic development of Romeo and Juliet in the English class is Shakespeare en français.

Band of Outsiders Mike D’Angelo from Time Out New York

Older film buffs have a tendency—one that younger film buffs find endearing and irritating in equal measure—to romanticize the '60s, remembering it as a time when urban audiences flocked to the great foreign-language movies in comparative droves. A little investigation, however, confirms that such recollections are more than a little bit rose-colored. Band of Outsiders, Jean-Luc Godard's idiosyncratic homage to the American gangster movies of his childhood, will very likely have a longer and more profitable run at Film Forum this summer than it did upon its initial New York release in March 1966; according to a footnote in Pauline Kael's For Keeps, it lasted exactly one week. However sophisti-cated and adventurous they may have been, the Gothamites of four decades past apparently failed to appreciate the film's formal dexterity and tonal incongruity; we should feel grateful to be given a second chance.

Simultaneously playful, lethargic and despairing, Band of Outsiders both celebrates and debunks the iconic glamour of classic Hollywood archetypes. Franz (Frey) and Arthur (Brasseur), aspiring hoods who seem to have picked up their moves and attitudes from various Warner Bros. programmers, persuade Odile (the radiant Karina) to help them burgle a wealthy lodger in the villa where she lives. The crime, when it finally occurs, goes spectacularly wrong; that's hardly surprising, however, since the trio spend the vast majority of the film goofing around like carefree adolescents: dancing the Madison in the middle of a café, observing an impromptu moment of silence (Godard cuts out the soundtrack entirely for the duration), pointing cocked fingers at each other and saying, "bang bang." So nonchalantly disaffected is their behavior, in fact, that their plans for the robbery feel like just another lark; it's genuinely surprising—and oddly disturbing—when they actually go through with it. Ostensibly based on a novel, the film positively throbs with Godard's singular brand of cynical wit; let's not be quite so dismissive this time.

Band of Outsiders (Bande à part) (1964) | PopMatters Michael S. Smith, February 23, 2003

Susan Sontag once admiringly described Jean-Luc Godard as a "deliberate 'destroyer' of cinema." She could not have been more right. Godard's films of the early 1960s were radical experiments challenging French cinema's "Tradition of Quality" and Hollywood's longtime conventionality. In a 1964 interview that is included on Criterion's digital transfer of Godard's Band of Outsiders, the director states it plainly: "This movie was made as a reaction against anything that wasn't done... It went along with my desire to show that nothing was off limits." Cinema had become too routine, and "the point of the New Wave was to go against that."

This interview, recorded when he was filming Band of Outsiders, suggests Godard's contradictions: he loved film so much that he felt compelled to attack it, as a critic for the influential French journal Cahiers Du Cinéma, and then reinvent it as one of the principal auteurs of the French New Wave.

Band of Outsiders is one such reinvention, a playful reworking of narrative form. Immediately drawing attention to his challenge to expectations, in the opening credits of the film, Godard gives himself the middle name "CINÉMA." It's a joke, referring to the New Wave's rebelliousness. Here, the experiment involves combining generic elements in new ways. Band of Outsiders is about kids played by adults, a comedy, a tragedy, a buddy movie, a heist picture, a romance, an exercise in style, and a paean to B-movies and American gangster films. It is "pure cinema," that is, pure invention, but at the same time, it's a series of fanciful set pieces connected by a simple plotline.

This plotline focuses on Franz (Sami Frey) and Arthur (Claude Brasseur), two friends who dress like gangsters and dream about a life of crime. They meet Odile (Anna Karina, Godard's wife and star of seven of his pictures) in, of all places, an English class. She lives in a Parisian villa with her aunt, as well as a lodger, who has stashed away a large amount of cash. It's easy to see where this is going -- Franz and Arthur will coax Odile to rob her own house -- but, then again, it's not easy at all because Godard's narrative is typically convoluted.

Instead of leading directly towards its ostensible end (the heist), Band of Outsiders sends its characters on seemingly random escapades: they drive through the wintry Parisian streets, run along broad boulevards, act out timeworn legends (such as Pat Garrett shooting Billy the Kid). They also smoke, drink Coca-Cola, ride the Metro, and run through the Louvre in an attempt to break a world record for the fastest visit. These adventures, widely imitated and celebrated, give the film a delicate charm, a veneer of spontaneity and risk.

At the same time, the movie offers a highbrow gloss on its lowbrow origins, paying homage to Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Hardy, U.S. cartoons, Charlie Chaplin, Andre Breton, Louis Aragon, Jack London, Arthur Rimbaud, and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, among others. Even Karina's character has a literary source: Raymond Queneau's roman à clef, Odile.

In keeping with this intellectual underpinning, the film also includes moments of reflection: Franz, Arthur, and Odile talk and talk. At one point, they sit in a café and, out of boredom, decide to observe one minute of silence: surprisingly, the entire film goes silent. And in another scene, the trio dances the Madison. The dance requires each to dance separately, without a partner, and Godard's voice-over interrupts, describing the characters' sense of detachment and loneliness. Franz underlines this sentiment later, when he ponders, "Isn't it strange how people never seem to form a whole? They remain separate."

Band of Outsiders repeatedly evokes such melancholy alongside its reverie (a mix that is common in New Wave films: think of Truffaut's Jules et Jim). Its Paris is cold and dark, for the most part without the standard shots of historic landmarks and lovely neighborhoods. Raoul Coutard's photography gives it a bold, stark look, intimating that Franz, Arthur, and Odile's playfulness is prompted by their poverty and melancholy. Paris, and the loneliness it engenders, limits their dreams of escape to poorly conceived robberies and relationships.

Odile embodies such limitations in her meek, furtive gestures. When she observes, "People on the Metro always look so sad and lonely," she's really talking about herself. This becomes clear as she recites lines from Aragon's Les poètes: "Misfortune only misfortune resembles / So deep, so deep, so deep / You long to believe in blue skies / It's a feeling I know quite well." As she speaks, we see several startlingly beautiful shots of sidewalk cafés, passers-by, city lights, before the camera closes in on her face, revealing her despair and radiance.

With such loving images, Band of Outsiders shows that Godard's ostensible "destructiveness" is, more emphatically, a gift of creation. Its fragmentation and experimentation maintain a kind of wholeness, not by conventional linearity and causality, but by an emotional thread. In other words, Godard has made a new cinema out of pieces of the old.

Though adored by many critics and filmmakers, Band of Outsiders has long been available only on imperfect original or bootleg prints. This has only been recently rectified by a restored print and now, by Criterion's release of this magnificently produced DVD. Images are crisp and well defined; Coutard's black and white palette is perfectly sharp, with no apparent washout or bleeding. What is more, the DVD contains worthwhile features: the aforementioned interview with Godard, recent interviews with Coutard and Anna Karina, a visual glossary explaining the film's cultural allusions, and New Wave director Agnes Varda's silent comedy, Les Fiancés du Pont Macdonald. Originally a short film within Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962), this gem features Anna Karina, Sami Frey, and Godard himself as the lovelorn figure of the title.

Criterion has done a valuable service by making Band of Outsiders available. As an exhilarating challenge to familiar filmmaking, it stands alongside Breathless (1960), Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (1962), Masculin, féminin (1966), and Weekend (1967), as Godard's finest work. Its greatest strength, though, lies in its expression of freedom and joy amidst urban misery.

The Village Voice [Amy Taubin] August 14, 2001, also seen here: Prime Movers | Village Voice

Band of Outsiders (1964) is the Godard film for people who don't much care for Godard: a proto-slacker mood piece about two nondescript guys trying to persuade a beautiful girl to help them commit a robbery. Adapted from Dolores Hitchens's Fools' Gold, an American '50s crime novel published in France as part of the pulp "Série Noire," it's more Renoir than Fuller—the least preoccupied with American culture of any of Godard's '60s films.

Returning from the tsuris of his first and only attempt to cross over into the European mainstream (the Bardot vehicle Contempt, which, against all odds, turned out to be one of his great films), Godard took refuge in his own romanticism and in an artisanal mode of production that was of a piece with Band of Outsiders' working-class milieu. The film was shot almost entirely in the unglamorous Paris neighborhoods east of Bastille and the underpopulated outskirts of the city along the Marne, areas that still looked as they had before the war. When aspiring partners in crime Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and Franz (Sami Frey) gaze across the river at the big stone villa where Odile (Anna Karina), their newfound friend, has told them a huge pile of money is hidden, they seem struck dumb by the scene. "It's cold and forlorn here," says Arthur, quoting a line from a poem by Verlaine (without knowing it, of course). The mist rising from the water and the overcast winter sky filter the light so that it seems both soft and bleak, as in an Atget photograph. Band of Outsiders is less nostalgic for the past than it's heartbroken by the present—by the knowledge that the last traces of the world of Verlaine and Rimbaud, of Claude Renoir, the father, and Jean Renoir, the son, are about to be obliterated by the onrush of '60s consumer capitalism. So Godard, who had already made his love-hate pact with the future, kisses the past good-bye by eschewing, just this once, the self-consciously brilliant camera moves, the electrifying edits, the political polemics, the radical narrative disjunctions, and the blam! blam! iconography that had already made him cinema's foremost postmodernist.

In the opening sequence, Franz and Arthur, having cased the house they plan to rob, horse around in the street, pantomiming Pat Garrett shooting Billy the Kid. Three days later, one of them dies in a hail of bullets. The ending is inevitable, and yet when it happens, neither the dying man nor his two helpless friends—watching from a distance and frozen in their tracks—nor we in the audience who are similarly frozen in our seats can quite believe it. We all thought it was only a movie.

Godard's adaptation vacuums the novel of its predictable character psychology and plot twists, leaving only the most minimal narrative. In between the play-acted and the real shooting, the film kills time with a series of set pieces: the celebrated mad dash through the Louvre; Arthur and Franz reading aloud from a daily tabloid, one crime story after another, ending with an account of tribal slaughter in Rwanda (it's the only time in Band of Outsiders that Godard makes reference to a current political event, and nearly 40 years later, the effect is not to date the film but to confront us with the horror of a history that won't go away). And of course, there's the sequence where Odile, Franz, and Arthur dance the Madison in a half-empty café (the sequence that both Quentin Tarantino and Hal Hartley fell in love with and borrowed for their own films).

Brought to France by Harold Nicholas of the tap-dancing Nicholas brothers, the Madison is a non-partnered line dance done to a syncopated beat. As performed by Brasseur, Frey, and especially Karina, it's reminiscent of a piece of Trisha Brown choreography that isolates parts of the body and makes them work against each other. Everything that the film does not tell us in words or actions about these three people is encapsulated in the dance—that although they move in sync, they're each in a separate world, and that this absence of connection is what makes them both poignant and ever so cool.

But the Madison sequence aside, this is a film that conveys a huge amount of its meaning through blocking. The scenes where the men crowd in on Karina, trying to intimidate her by taking her space away, or where Karina tries to beg off from the plan she knows is going to be a disaster by flattening herself against a wall, her legs bent double like a grasshopper's, distill the nasty truth of sexual power relations better than any dialogue. Along with Raoul Coutard's radiant cinematography, what makes the film extraordinary is Karina, the pure curves of her face a contradiction to the marionette angularity of her body.

Long unavailable except in bootleg versions, Band of Outsiders is screening in a new 35mm print that restores the beauty and otherworldliness of its every shade of gray.

Band of Outsiders: Madison-sur-Seine Criterion essay by Joshua Clover, May 07, 2013

Three Reasons: Band of Outsiders (Video) May 01, 2013

Visits with Raoul Coutard Lee Kline, November 14, 2016

Band of Outsiders (1964) - The Criterion Collection

Band à part Donato Totaro from Offscreen, May 2004

Dark Heart | Movie Review | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews Godard’s Band of Outsiders, December 6, 2001

Library of America: David Ehrenstein February 22, 2017

For Ever Godard #7 review of Bande À Part, 1964, from Seventh Art, December 7, 2008

The New York Observer: Andrew Sarris

Band of Outsiders - TCM.com Jeff Stafford

Reverse Shot: Michael Koresky May 09, 2008

Band of Outsiders | Movie Review | Flipside Movie Emporium Gabe Leibowitz

Images Movie Journal David Ng

Band of Outsiders (Bande à part) Chris Fujiwara

100 films Lucas McNelly

“Band of Outsiders” - Salon.com Charles Taylor, August 17, 2001

Band of Outsiders (1964) - #174 | Criterion Reflections David Blakeslee

Anna Karina's Magnificent Movieness | Village Voice Michael Atkinson, August 14, 2001

Godard's 'Band of Outsiders' Clings to Fantasy the ... - Village Voice Charles Taylor, May 3, 2016

Movie Mezzanine: Kenji Fujishima

The A.V. Club: Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

Slant: Jaime N. Christley

The Christian Science Monitor: David Sterritt

Surrender to the Void-[Steven Flores]

dOc DVD Review: Band of Outsiders (1964) - Digitally Obsessed Dan Heaton

Film @ The Digital Fix - Bande à part Anthony Nield

Band of Outsiders Blu-ray - Blu-ray.com Scet Atanasov

Band of Outsiders | Blu-ray Review | Slant Magazine Calum Marsh

Band of Outsiders: The Criterion Collection (Blu-ray) : DVD Talk ... Christopher McQuain

Anna Karina - 豆瓣 Colin MacCabe interviews actress Anna Karina from the National Film Theater, June 21, 2001

Anna Karina · Interview · The A.V. Club Nathan Rabin interviews actress Anna Karina, May 14, 2003

Anna Karina on love, cinema and being Jean-Luc Godard's muse: 'I ... Xan Brooks interviews actress Anna Karina from The Guardian, January 21, 2016

“Be Beautiful and Shut Up”: Anna Karina on Filmmaking with Jean-Luc ... Caveh Zahedi interviews actress Anna Karina from Filmmakers magazine, May 9, 2016

The Oregonian: Kim Morgan

City Pages: Jim Ridley

L.A. Weekly: Ella Taylor

The Los Angeles Times: Justin Chang May 05, 2016

New York Times Eugene Archer

The New York Times: Phillip Lopate August 12, 2001

DVDBeaver [Gary W. Tooze]

A MARRIED WOMAN (Une femme mariée) B- 82

aka: Une femme mariée: Suite de fragments d'un film tourné en 1964

France (94 mi) 1964

A film featuring Macha Méril, a stand-in for the beautiful ex-wife of the director, Anna Karina, which amounts to a look at the disintegration of his own marriage, as this film documents 24 hours in her life, a morning and morning after with her lover, and an evening with her pilot husband, while she ducks down in various taxi cabs hiding while in route to the places in her life. Beginning with images of Méril’s naked body, a male hand stroking her, or later kissing her softly, while also bombarded by the everpresent voice of the male, a stand-in for the director, who seems to be pulling the strings in this relationship, the one making the demands, while she passively, while sometimes disinterestingly, goes along as willingly as she can, but both appear to be an overly pampered, bourgeois couple sucking the energy out of one another until they start to resemble lifeless zombies. Godard barrages her with a male point of interest attempting to beautify her, along with newspaper headlines, magazine articles, an extraordinary array of women’s advertising for brassieres and girdles, secret potions designed to enlarge women’s breasts, articles about the perfect breast, even an incredible image of Méril walking down the street dwarfed by a giant billboard of the perfect brassiere.

Within this development, Méril learns she’s pregnant, perhaps by her husband, perhaps her lover, feeling no particular attachment to either, promising to leave her husband for this Godardian man, but he’s no prize, always overly domineering. There’s a wonderful scene in an apartment where she discovers some records, with close ups on the album covers, that reek of sexuality, even music to make love by, which she instantly wants to play, and it’s the sound of a woman laughing. As the laugh continues uninterrupted, the two of them stand there staring at the floor, not having a clue how to approach one another. The entire film takes place within the four walls of claustrophobic rooms, apartment rooms, hotel rooms, but always generating a closeted world of trapped victims, people who can talk about being free, but who are eternally trapped by their unending routines, the repetitive rhythms of their own making with no escape. Too much of this film resembles a similar film structure in his earlier work with Karina, MY LIFE TO LIVE (1962), which is filled with energy to burn and an uplifting hope about how it feels to suddenly come alive with human vibrancy. That has all dissipated here, as they are now sucking on the exhaust fumes left from their marriage. As always in Godard films, the music of the string quartet which is prominently featured remains uncredited.

Relatively minor Godard which, characteristically, plays off fictional form (a day in the life of an adulterous wife) against documentary moments (face-on interviews in which characters lecture on abstracts like 'Memory' and 'Childhood'). Another of his socio-sexual fables, in fact, curious for the way it was censored. Outraged by its mockery of Marriage and Family, the authorities insisted that the title be changed - from La Femme Mariée (Married Woman, a collectivity, a condition) to Une Femme Mariée (A Married Woman, an individual, unrepresentative case).

The French were scandalized when this came out, with even General de Gaulle himself commenting that he didn't like any film that portrayed French women as faithless. Godard's story is relatively harmless by today's standards. It's a day in the life of a wife (Meril) who tries to choose between her pilot husband (Leroy) and lover (Noél), interspersed with debates about the nature of love, marriage and sex. As Godard films go, it's not one of his best, but it stands out because of the controversy and his portrayal of sex, which is still quite subtle and erotic.

Capsule Review Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Reader

Jean-Luc Godard originally titled this The Married Woman, but the French censors took exception to the article, afraid that the foreign public would reach the wrong conclusion about French marriages in general, and also saw fit to remove a shot of a bidet. Otherwise, this is still Godard's view of life in France in 1964, and one of his most sociological films, as well as one of his most formally accomplished. Macha Meril stars as a woman who oscillates between her husband (an airplane pilot) and her lover (an actor); beautiful use is made of Beethoven's ninth quartet, of a rather elliptical and abstract depiction of lovemaking, and of the wisdom of Roger Leenhardt, a neglected director and film critic of the 40s and 50s who figures here as one of Godard's resident sages.

User reviews imdb Author: Nilbog!

This time there's one female lead choosing between two men, something pretty rare in a medium usually fueled by male fantasies. Charlotte is a young middle-class married woman having an affair with an actor. She has promised her lover she'll divorce her husband, but an unplanned pregnancy makes her question that decision. The film follows her as she attempts to decide between them.

Like other Godard films that followed it (Masculin/Feminin, 2 or 3 Things, Made in USA) one of the primary themes here is the extent to which a modern individual's life is manipulated by commercial culture, and how it influences the choices we make. Perhaps because he had yet to fully mature as a filmmaker, this theme is much less subtle here than in those later films. Charlotte is barraged with nonsensical beauty ads and Cosmo-type articles about achieving the "perfect breast size," and in one famous shot is literally dwarfed by a billboard of "the perfect woman" in a bra. The height of social control is reached in the form of an absurd device her lover gives her that hooks around her waist like a belt and sounds an alarm every time her posture slackens. The effect of this visual over-stimulation on her is pernicious. Like the magazine ads we're shown, her thoughts (heard in voice-over) are fragmented and incoherent, indecisive and ultimately meaningless.

The other recurring Godardian theme appearing here is the commodification of the female body. To her bourgeois husband, who represents the patriarchal tradition and middle-class status quo, she's more an object to be protected (like the records he brings back from Germany) and exploited (he rapes her when she won't make love) than a human being to be understood. Ironically, his unwillingness to forgive a past infidelity and his possessive jealousy only compels her more to see freedom in a lover. But unlike her husband, who treats her like a commercial object, her lover treats her as a sex object ("Is it still love when it's from behind?" she wonders early in the film) and seems interested only in her body. Her scenes with him are composed of tightly-framed shots of his hand stroking her naked body, shots resembling the photographs selling stockings and bras in her magazines. Her lover literally sees her as a whole person only once, when she goes up on the roof naked. Accordingly, he gets angry, out of possessiveness. Godard's dim view of the condition of modern woman sees her as unable to break free of her past (her husband) due to the self-sufficiency and humanity she's denied in the present. As she ages, a woman's role goes from sex object to status-based commodity, and society teaches her that to think otherwise is wrong. This is a concept still ahead of its time today, when violent, over-sexualized junk like the Tomb Raider movies are sold as female empowerment.

As with most of Godard's films, there are always several things going on at once, and this capsule review barely scratches the surface. In the context of his career, the film is best understood as an early version of 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, which he made three years later and is unquestionably better. By that film, Godard had learned to synthesize his social, emotional, and political themes into one seamless whole, discarding the artificial narrative conventions that serve him no purpose. This one, while no classic, is essential viewing for anyone interested in Godard's progression from brilliant filmmaker to serious artist.

For Ever Godard #8 review of A Married Woman, 1964, from Seventh Art, December 8, 2008

Tuesday Morning Foreign Region DVD Report: "Une Femme Mariée: Fragments d'un film tourné en 1964 en noir et blanc" (Godard, 1964) Glenn Kenny from The Auteur’s Notebook

une femme mariée Chained and Perfumed, June 29, 2009

Fuse Film Review: “A Married Woman” — Beautifully Empty-headed ... Gerald Peary

CineScene.com [Richard Doyle]

ALPHAVILLE A 95

aka: Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution

France (100 mi) 1965

Science fiction film noir, creating an eerie atmosphere where form is the content, technology destroys the essence of what is human, the prototype of many stylized films that have followed

Alphaville, directed by Jean-Luc Godard | Film review - Time Out Tom Milne

One of Godard's most sheerly enjoyable movies, a dazzling amalgam of film noir and science fiction in which tough gumshoe Lemmy Caution turns inter-galactic agent to re-enact the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice by conquering Alpha 60, the strange automated city from which such concepts as love and tenderness have been banished. As in Antonioni's The Red Desert (made the previous year), Godard's theme is alienation in a technological society, but his shotgun marriage between the poetry of legend and the irreverence of strip cartoons takes the film into entirely idiosyncratic areas. Not the least astonishing thing is the way Raoul Coutard's camera turns contemporary Paris into an icily dehumanised city of the future.

In my view, this is Godard's masterpiece. It's a perfect example of his willingness to defy expectations, combine B-genres with intellectual techniques, and comment on the history of film while defiantly staking out his own vision of what films should be like. A deft blend of sci-fi, hard-boiled detective film-noir, and art film, the picture features Eddie Constantine as Lemmy Caution (a character he played in numerous 1950s French B-movies) as a secret agent sent to find a professor who masterminded the creation of a futuristic city called Alphaville, which is run by a domineering master computer (voiced by Godard in a guttural whisper). Godard uses no special effects -simply employing the most modernistic features of Paris he could find to evoke his dytsopian future. The film attacks the modern propensity to accept dehumanization through technology, the suppression of personality in favour of a group mind, and the saturation of society by commercial products, while never abandoning its cunning sense of humour or allegiance to B-film aesthetics. The result is one of the most brilliant and unsettling achievements in cinema.

All Movie Guide [Michael Betzold]

In 1965, six years after his feature film debut with the groundbreaking Breathless, writer-director Jean-Luc Godard was an acknowledged leader of the French New Wave. Entering his most prolific period, he produced one of his most ambitious and unusual films, a science-fiction comedy-thriller whose full title was Alphaville, une Etrange Aventure de Lemmy Caution. The character of Caution (Eddie Constantine) was familiar to French audiences as the action hero of a series of films. In Godard's script, Caution is pitted against a computer named Alpha 60 that runs a futuristic totalitarian state. Shot in a bizarrely transformed Paris without the use of special effects, Alphaville is both disturbing and entertaining, full of Godard's anarchic challenges to conventional cinematic technique, yet recognizable as part of the genre of dystopian portraits of the future that includes 1984 and Brave New World. Godard's nightmarish future includes whimsical touches of absurdist terror, such as capital punishment carried out as a sporting event in a pool. The movie combines elements of film noir, science fiction, and political satire to create a distinctive and unorthodox tableau of the future.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Jeremy M. Davies

The story goes that Godard originally wanted to call ALPHAVILLE "Tarzan vs. IBM," but as Jonathan Rosenbaum has pointed out, that title is far more apropos to Boorman's POINT BLANK (released the same year as LA CHINOISE). ALPHAVILLE could be better described as "Murnau vs. Lang vs. Welles vs. Cocteau vs. Borges," since the influence of each of these luminaries are made to duke it out through Godard's sci-fi city of the eternal now as surely as Lemmy Caution must do battle with the agents of the all-powerful computer Alpha 60, controlling its subjects with its unforgettable voice. A love letter to expressionism and pulp—which like every Godardian love letter contains no small amount of criticism—ALPHAVILLE is alternatively off-putting in its esotericism and accessible in its broad and familiar genre gestures; and its groundbreaking work demonstrating that the future is always located just a little bit behind us cannot be undervalued. Starring Anna Karina and Eddie Constantine, reprising his perennial role as hardboiled secret agent Caution, as well as Akim Tamiroff and Howard Vernon—double agents for Welles and Lang, respectively. The woozily romantic score is by Paul Misraki, hardworking composer for the previous Lemmy Caution films.

On Jean-Luc Godard Christopher Mulrooney from the Film Journal (excerpt)

The imagined water.

A satire against computers (as Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 is a satire against television), made up of diverse elements: to drive from one city to another by night is a journey to another galaxy, Paul Eluard's Capitale de la Douleur is the key, the computer that runs Alphaville speaks aphorisms in parody of the car radio in Cocteau's Orphée, a programmer's instrument.

Stylistically a distant relation of Mr. Arkadin, and a forerunner of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Over and above its satirical import, it's a setting of Eluard's verse. The general milieu is that of The Trial (Welles). Image et son are the script, which first of all mounts a terrific analysis of the synthetic "mind" of a computer (it lacks conscience and tenderness, and cannot "save those who weep"), as you might say, with consequences for a society become "slaves of probability" ("No-one has lived in the past. No-one will live in the future." This is the dictum of Alpha 60, which is as much the model for HAL 9000 as Alphaville is the major ground-plan of 2001: A Space Odyssey), and then the powerful selectivity of the cinematography that renders a view as from the Outerlands of many commonplaces of the modern world, but more than that, it answers the script's requirement of legend in view of life' s "oral intransmissibility," and all of this is couched in a French Philip Marlowe's science-fiction adventure.

The long sequences between Lemmy Caution's hotel room and the lobby are perfectly evocative of a hotel stay, thanks to the assiduity and freedom of the hand-held camera.

There is a brief allusion to La Dolce Vita, and Alpha 60 is sometimes represented not as an electronic eye but a mysterious fan, an image that has become ubiquitous. Passing down a corridor, rooms announce themselves as "Occupé" or "Libre".

Alpha 60 quotes Borges, and is confounded with an enigma (a gag later used in the original Star Trek series).

Cinematic Reflections [Derek Smith]

By 1965, after only 6 short years of filmmaking, Jean-Luc Godard had established himself as one of the leading directors of the French New Wave and one of the most influential and original directors of all-time. With Alphaville he turns the science fiction and noir genres on their sides, deconstructing and rebuilding them to his own liking and as always, for his own purposes. Made on a shoestring budget and shot entirely in Paris with a minimal amount of set pieces, the films sci-fi feel comes from the philosophical yet witty script, Raoul Coutard's playfully dark cinematography, and the creepy monotone voice of the Alpha 60 computer.

The story begins with Lemmy Caution, an inter-galactic secret agent sent from the Outlands to Alphaville to find Henri Dickson, another agent from the Outlands with whom they've lost contact. Soon after Lemmy arrives, he finds that Henri has become as sex-obsessed and mindless as the rest of Alphaville's population. More importantly he learns that the residents are under the control of a super-computer called the Alpha 60 that bases all of its decisions on undeniably accurate logical conclusions. Professor Vonbraun, the machines creator, is seen as a god in Alphaville with his picture hanging on almost every wall. When the professor's daughter, Natacha Vonbraun, is assigned to look after Lemmy during his stay, he begins to realize how hopeless the citizens of Alphaville are, but for some reason senses that Natacha is different.

Godard's concern in the film is not the plot although the narrative is more linear and comprehensible than many of his other films. There are two angles that I look at this film - the political and the cinematic. At a quick look at the plot, it may look like an Orwellian nightmare where the individual has given up all power to the government. In a sense it is similar to Orwell's 1984, but Godard takes the nightmare to the next level and puts his own stamp on it. One could make the arguement that Alphaville is meant to represent America (a target Godard never seems to tire of), but it really represents a way of thought where those in power rule through a system of control. With Alphaville, he shows this system gone awry where the people no longer have any free will and the so-called logic of the system makes all the decisions. That which is inefficient or illogical is forbidden, so there is no room for emotion, thought, or love. In other words, as Natacha says "One must not say why but because."

When Lemmy asks Natacha about love and conscience, two words which she had never heard before, she explains that those words cannot be used because they are not in the bible. Lemmy soon learns that what Natacha has called a bible is actually a dictionary and new editions are issued every few days forbidding more words each time. This is simply another Godardian pun about the importance of language in shaping the conscience and the way people think. The constant new editions show the slow progression of Alpha 60's brainwashing techniques in enforcing its own "logical" way of thinking.

The other, and much less obvious, angle of Alphaville is Godard's self-reflective views on cinema. In successfully melding the science-fiction and noir styles without virtually any of the genres typical characteristics, it is the ultimate statement of individual creativity, something he (along with all of the other French New Wave directors) saw almost completely lacking in the films of that era. But it is not just in the way he made Alphaville that he expresses these views, but also in the film itself. Professor Vonbraun wears the same dark glasses that Godard himself was famous for wearing at all times. I wouldn't say that Vonbraun represent Godard, but he does represent the typical filmmaker that is only interested in pandering to the masses rather than expresses themselves as individual artists. The fascist system in Alphaville is as much Hollywood as it is a political system - although considering Godard sees Hollywood as a political entity in and of itself separating the two is rather pointless.

In the end, Alphaville comes down to a battle between the individual the state - in fact one of its alternate titles is Tarzan vs. IBM. It is Godard's ode to free will, love, and the power of the conscience to elevate the individual to unforeseen heights. It works both as a philosophical treatise on politics and film as well as an entertaining and often amusing look at a future overrun by technology. The dark humor allows it to be at once ironic and prophetic while the cinematography and music set the perfect tone for the melancholic atmosphere and strange love affair between Lemmy and Natacha. Often referred to as one of the most unconventional films ever made, Alphaville breaks all the rules creating its own cinematic reality where everything is on Godard's terms...and it works wonders.

Alphaville Criterion essay by Andrew Sarris, October 19, 1998

Alphaville (1965) - The Criterion Collection

For Ever Godard #9 review of Alphaville, 1965, from Seventh Art, December 9, 2008

Alphaville & Its Subtext Michael Benedikt

The Criterion Contraption: #25: Alphaville Matthew Dessem

Criterion Confessions: ALPHAVILLE - #25 Jamie S. Rich

'Alphaville': Why This Piece of 60s Pulp Fiction is Must-See Jean-Luc ... Anne Thompson from indieWIRE, April 25, 2014

Alphaville (1965) and the Absurdities of Cinema – Jean-Luc Godard ... Adam Scovell from Celluloid Wicker Man

The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

The City of Pain - Alphaville Nigel Watson from Talking Pictures

A great site dedicated to Alphaville

Film @ The Digital Fix - Alphaville (Criterion Collection) Raphael Pour-Hashemi

DVD of the Week: Alphaville - The New Yorker Richard Brody

Alphaville Acquarello from Strictly Film School

Alphaville | Chicago Reader Dave Kehr, capsule review

Anna Karina - 豆瓣 Colin MacCabe interviews actress Anna Karina from the National Film Theater, June 21, 2001

Anna Karina · Interview · The A.V. Club Nathan Rabin interviews actress Anna Karina, May 14, 2003

Anna Karina on love, cinema and being Jean-Luc Godard's muse: 'I ... Xan Brooks interviews actress Anna Karina from The Guardian, January 21, 2016

“Be Beautiful and Shut Up”: Anna Karina on Filmmaking with Jean-Luc ... Caveh Zahedi interviews actress Anna Karina from Filmmakers magazine, May 9, 2016

My favourite film: Alphaville | Film | The Guardian Richard Williams, December 28, 2011

Review: Godard's 'Alphaville' still makes a strong connection - LA Times

Movie Review - - Screen: 'Alphaville,' Festival Picture, at the Paris ... New York Times

DVDBeaver [Mark Balson]

PIERROT LE FOU B 86

France Italy (110 mi) 1965

Put a tiger in my tank.

—Ferdinand “Pierrot” Griffon (Jean-Paul Belmondo)

It’s found again.

What?—Eternity.

It’s the sea gone

With the sun.

—Arthur Rimbaud, Eternity, May 1872, Eternity: Arthur Rimbaud - Last Lines

A much heralded work at the time, using a deluge of color filters, a party sequence where the entire conversation is in the wordspeak of advertising, a tribute to a young American director Sam Fuller who is in Paris to shoot a film, a book passage reference to the painting of Velazquez, who at the age of fifty changed the style of his painting to something less realistic, finding the space that lay between objects to be much more fascinating, using a sort of mock energy derived from exhibiting purely adolescent behavior, sort of a cross between Godard’s earlier 1964 films A BAND OF OUTSIDERS and A MARRIED WOMAN, the former showing a kind of boundless youthful energy while the latter reveals the dissolution of his own marriage, again utilizing the talents and beauty of his former model, actress, soon to be ex-wife, Anna Karina (divorced in 1968), who is as luminous as ever, this time cast with a clueless Jean-Paul Belmondo who at age 35 has the attention span of a teenager. The last time they worked together was on A WOMAN IS A WOMAN (1961), which has a similar red and blue tinted color scheme. While this attention deficit disorder may have helped drive the energy in BREATHLESS (1960), it feels artificially contrived here for a filmmaker in his mid-thirties to have his adult leads playfully behave like teenagers. How many times in his career does this director repeat this technique? This feels like an overpraised, yet overly colorful commercial vehicle starring pretty faces in pretty locations, the point in his career when Godard became an advertising brand name, like Warhol’s Campbell's Soup Cans.

While there’s plenty to like here, there’s also a good deal of annoying repetition, where the director is so beholden to maximizing his own style that he allows the film to drown in a sea of indifference, featuring giant comic book images mixed with classical paintings, advertising images, musical themes that literally stop and restart, suggesting emotional fragmentation, with Godard’s neverending critical self-analysis, as reflected by actual passages read from books that Belmondo is reading, attempting to voice the director’s point of view, while Karina could care less, and is instead intoxicated by being alive and is swept up with the joy of living. Their opening scene together may be the most memorable, as not only is there a dead body that they both completely ignore lying in the next room with a pair of scissors jammed into the back of his neck, blood streaming onto the mattress with automatic weapons stacked up in the corners of the room, but Karina breaks out into song, where Godard takes his turn at a Jacques Demy style love affair, a scene that is simply mind boggling in its simplicity and elegance and for the darker world that it strangely ignores. The divide between the two characters only grows deeper, where they retreat to an isolated island, a kind of love purgatory preceding the inevitable abyss to come, the story of the last romantic couple, according to Godard, where they are alone, deliriously happy in one another’s arms in one moment and inexplicably void of any interest in the next.

Based on Lionel White’s 1962 novel Obsession (though uncredited), the tone of the film is just so breezy and disaffecting, oftentimes ridiculous, where any ounce of emotion seems to pass right over this fashionably attractive couple playing outlaws on the run, fleeing to the exotic locale of the French Riviera in the south of France’s ravishly beautiful Cote d’Azur set on the always sunny Mediterranean coast, shot in sumptuous ‘Scope film by CONTEMPT (1963) cinematographer Raoul Coutard, who must have shot a dozen Godard films, where they are seen riding boats, climbing into fast sports cars, and carrying on endlessly quasi-witty, dead-end conversations with one another. At times reminding viewers of an earlier draft of Bertolucci’s LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972), especially when Karina is dressed in her sailor suit and even salutes, very much in the manner of Maria Schneider, where another uncommunicating couple similarly lose themselves to an ever deepening divide. Belmondo spends his time writing in notebooks, as words and phrases go whizzing by the screen awash in different primary colors, suggesting a swirling, everchanging emotional center that continually gets pulled further and further apart. The finale is written as a metaphor, and is considered in some circles as one of Godard’s most brilliant, but seems entirely too simplistic, bordering on the ridiculous to the point of being silly, more a caricature of an event utterly lacking in depth of emotion, completely removed from our attention span by that time. But perhaps that’s the point.

Edinburgh U Film Society [Philip Kelley]

'Put a tiger in my tank' says Belmondo to an outraged Esso pump attendant... and the voyage begins. Pierrot le Fou was a turning-point in Godard's career, the film in which he tried to do everything (and almost succeeded). It's the tragic tale of a last romantic couple fleeing Paris for the South of France. But then again it's a painting by Velazquez (says Godard); or the story of a bourgeois hubby eloping with the babysitter; a musical under the high-summer pine trees; or a gangster story (with Karina the moll and Belmondo the sucker). She was never more cautious about her love; he was never more drily self-aware; and the film agonises for two hours over a relationship that is equal parts nonsense and despair. In desperation he finally kills her and himself while the camera sweeps out over a majestic Mediterranean sea. And a voice mockingly asks: 'Eternity? No, it's just the sun and the sea'.

Pierrot le Fou Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Reader

"I wanted to tell the story of the last romantic couple," Jean-Luc Godard said of this brilliant, all-over-the-place adventure and meditation about two lovers on the run (Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina). Made in 1965, this film, with its ravishing colors and beautiful 'Scope camerawork by Raoul Coutard, still looks as iconoclastic and fresh as it did when it belatedly opened in the U.S. Godard's misogynistic view of women as the ultimate betrayers is integral to the romanticism in much of his 60s work--and perhaps never more so than here--but Karina's charisma makes this pretty easy to ignore most of the time. The movie's frequent shifts in style, emotion, and narrative are both challenging and intoxicating: American director Samuel Fuller turns up at a party scene to offer his definition of cinema, Karina performs two memorable songs in musical-comedy fashion, Belmondo's character quotes copiously from his reading, and a fair number of red and blue cars are stolen and destroyed.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List Adam Hart

This favorite of Godardophiles marked a transition between the aspirations towards narrative and genre of the director's early films and the more essayistic style to come. Godard's final collaboration with his two most iconic actors—Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina—PIERROT is formally playful while maintaining an emotional tug unlike any that would be seen in his work for a decade (the film famously mirrors Godard and Karina's own crumbling relationship). Belmondo and Karina play two lovers on the run, as they escape from civilization. Their desert island fantasy doesn't last, of course, and things rapidly deteriorate, leaving Belmondo's character to pine after his lost love. More than any of his other works, PIERROT masterfully walks the line between Godard's expressed intention to throw everything he can into a film and the compelling, immediate charms of classical cinema-the result being a surprisingly accessible film that will richly repay repeat viewings.

All Movie Guide [Lucia Bozzola]

Based on Lionel White's novel Obsession, Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou (1965) transforms a story about a couple on the run into an existential romance and an essay on the possibilities of film. With no script, Jean-Paul Belmondo's and Anna Karina's flight to southern France becomes a spontaneous series of incidents that reflect on romance, aesthetics, story-telling, and art as an antidote to alienation. Equating men with the intellect and women with the body, and using the widescreen frame to emphasize the couple's psychic division, Godard unites them in romantic moments and musical numbers, but these gestures cannot prevent their final, explosive separation. Stylized colors and compositions celebrate art for art's sake (even though the colors also carry potential meaning), as in the repetition of the couple's response to a murder in three different shooting styles. Allusions to other films, the brief appearance of Hollywood tough-guy director Samuel Fuller, and references to writers, writing, and painters all emphasize Godard's concern with the meaning of cinema and art, and their place in life. Though not as popular as its predecessor Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou won the Critics' Prize at the 1965 Venice Film Festival, and it was a key precursor to his most radical 1960s film, Weekend (1968).

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times in 1966

First, a brief preface. Every time I review a film by Jean-Luc Godard, I receive outraged letters from readers who hated it. It is suggested that my reviews and myself join Godard on the trash heap of history; that the customers wuz robbed. A common complaint is that Godard "made no sense." And so on.

So let this be a warning: You probably won't like "Pierrot le Fou." One of Godard's films, seen by itself, can be a frustrating and puzzling experience. But when you begin to get into his universe, when you've seen a lot of Godard, you find yourself liking him more and more. One day something clicks, and Godard comes together. And then, perhaps, you decide that if he is not the greatest living director he is certainly the most audacious, the most experimental, the one who understands best how movies work.

"Pierrot Le Fou" marked the beginning of Godard's current period. Before it came the black-and-white films -- cool, quick and austere, with an emphasis on interpersonal relationships. After it came the Godard of color, wide screen and an increasing preoccupation with politics, American culture, violence, Vietnam and movies. (All of Godard's films since "Pierrot le Fou" have essentially been movies about themselves -- a statement hard to explain unless you've seen them).

"Pierrot le Fou" was made in 1966 but only released in the United States this year. Thus it comes to Chicago after "Weekend" (1968), a film it superficially resembles. Both films are about a man and a woman on a cross-country odyssey. The form is convenient because literally anything can happen. (When the couple in "Weekend" entered that forest, they even met Emily Bronte.) But "Pierrot le Fou" is more relaxed, more fun, less bitter than "Weekend." And it contains Godard's most virtuoso display of his mastery of Hollywood genres.

It seems to be a gangster picture: Jean-Paul Belmondo leaves his wife and goes to live with his former girlfriend, Anna Karina. She has apparently killed a man. They go on the lam in a stolen car, wind up on a deserted island, play the Robinson Crusoe bit for awhile, and then go back to the mainland to face the music (as Edward G. Robinson might have put it).

But Godard never sticks closely enough to this plot to make it important. He does a curious thing. He will have a scene that is perfectly conventional, like a scene in a Hollywood gangster movie. But it doesn't come out of anything or lead into anything; it is important because of its tone, its texture and not because it advances the plot. Thus a Godard movie becomes a montage of pure technique; the parts don't fit together -- but they add up to an attitude. Does this make sense? More than any other director, Godard resists being written about.

But let me try an example. Belmondo wakes up in Anna Karina's apartment. She is in the kitchen. He is in bed, smoking (a reference, if you will, to "Breathless"). The camera follows her into the bedroom and back to the kitchen. She sings a song to him. A piano supplies a modest background. It is one of the most charming musical scenes in recent movies. She continues to sing, and goes back to the kitchen.

In passing, the camera notes a dead body. It is just there. Nothing is made of it, but its presence changes the tone of the scene. Godard goes into a series of three close-ups: of her, of him, of her again. These shots cannot quite be described, but watch the movement of the actors' eyes. Instead of moving his camera, Godard moves Belmondo's eyes so that we "see" Karina moving. And we know she is going past the body again. This is an extraordinarily complex, effective scene: Not that it means anything, but that it is something. It is a feeling, a mood.

There are other such moments. At a party for advertising people, everyone talks like people talk in ads. But there is one misfit, an American film director (the auteur hero Samuel Fuller playing himself). He talks about being in Paris to make an action movie. His presence and language, and the movie he plans to make, seem infinitely more "real" than the artificial party. He is shot in full color; the others in tinted monotone.

As Belmondo and Karina march across France, they also march through movie history. At a gas station, they steal a car. It is necessary to deal with the gas station attendant. "Wait," says Karina, "I know a trick from Laurel and Hardy." She points up. The attendant looks up. She hits him in the stomach. Why not?

But all you can do, in writing about Godard, is to describe such scenes. And they don't travel well. Godard, a former film critic, once said that the only valid way to criticize a movie was to make one of your own. That is true of his own work, at least.

DVDBeaver - Full Review [Jung Woo]

Last few days, I think there was slowdown in discussing old foreign movies. So I thought I'd write a review for Pierrot le fou, which I saw yesterday. I don't know, this whole thing may not make sense. (I know I write convoluted sentences). But I think it will make more sense once you've seen the movie. This review contains SPOILERS GALORE, but in Godard movies, I figure that there is no such thing as spoiler. Pierrot le fou (1965) (or Pierrot Goes Wild) directed by Jean-Luc Godard

After he reached the age of fifty, Velaquez no longer painted anything concrete and precise. He drifted through the material world, penetrating it, as the air and the dusk. In the shimmering of the shadows, he caught unawares the nuances of colour which he transformed into the invisible heart of his symphony of silence...His only experience of the world was those mysterious copulations which united the forms and tones with a secret, but inevitable movement, which no convulsion or cataclysm could ever interrupt or impede. Space reigned supreme...It was as if some tenuous radiation gliding over the surfaces, imbued itself of their visible emanations, modeling them and endowing them with form, carrying elsewhere a perfume, like an echo, which would thus be dispersed like an imponderable dusk, over all surrounding planes.

So starts the movie as the main character, Ferdinand Griffon(Jean-Paul Belmondo) reads the above passage on Velaquez from an art historoy book in a bathtub. Godard starts out by kindly explaining to the audience in no uncertain terms what the theme and goal of the movie would be. We are lucky that he does so because this is quite a difficult movie. What Godard sets out to do here is to capture the space between objects, the time between the events, the meaning between images or words, and the void between a man and a woman. For this is a story of a man in love with a woman, with recognizable plot elements of film noirs. A brief plot summary is as follows: Ferdinand, recently fired TV advertiser(or so I presume) who is weary of shallowness (reinforced by monochromatic shot of shallow space in this scene) of his bourgeois family and friends, whose dialogue at the party sounds like TV advertisements. Ferdinand has finally enough of it and leaves his family with Marianne(Anna Karina), with whom he had previous affair but remains mysterious to him to the end and for reasons unknown to Ferdinand keeps calling him Pierrot. Somehow they have killed a gun trafficker and flee to the Mediterranean, where they live by hunting and fishing, or telling stories to tourists. Marianne is fed up with it, leaves Ferdinand but returns some time later to have him to help her (and her boyfriend unknowingly) run gun trafficking. Ferdinand finally sees her with her boyfriend and shoots at them killing both. He paints his face blue and wraps the strings of (yellow and red) dynamites around his head, ignites the wire, then changes his mind trying to put it out, but then it goes off. Although the story is fairly traditional, its presentation is not as simple as it seems from synopsis. Many of events that would be considered important in traditional movies are skipped or handled offhandedly. For instance, we learn that Ferdinand or Marianne killed a trafficker only when we find him lying dead with scissors stuck into the back of his neck. Near the end, don't see Ferdinand discovering the two lovers. Instead, we see Ferdinand coming to the island, running to Marianne, and then it cuts to Ferdinand exchaning gun shots with the boyfriend, who is with Marianne. Also in the earlier part of the movie, their escape from the apartment is edited out of its narrative order (we see them getting in to the car, and then back on the apartment roof, and so on). Not only the image, but the sound is fractured and alternates between Ferdinand and Marianne. The plot is interrupted throughout by frequent shots of paintings, comic strips, writings in Ferdinand's diary, and episodes that seems unrelated to the plot. These unrelated inserts are invariably two-dimensional or as flat as possible, and this serves as a cue for commentary on the plot. In one sequence, even movie music is broken into fragments with unmotivated pauses.

So, in other words, the movie is organized as collage of plot fragments, two-dimensional pictures, words, and (did I say this movie happens to be a musical?) two very hummable songs. This approach is apparent from the opening credit, where the title "Pierrot le fou" is fragmented into individual alphabet letters as they appear one by one from A to Z.

Why such an approach that is bound to be confusing and annoying to the most of audience? That's why Godard chooses to explain at the beginning of the movie and remind the audience of this aim with reference to Joyce ("I've found an idea for a novel. Not to write the life of a man, but only life, life itself. What there is between people, space...sound and colors...There must be a way of achieving that; Joyce tried it, but one must be able to do better.") and nature of photography that captures a particular moment with the events around it consigned to mystery.

As Godard explained, this movie is not about how Ferdinand and Marianne does this and that, but it concerns with capturing the sense of intangible, incommunicable space and time that separate them, the unbridgeable distance between Ferdinand and Marianne. It wants to capture the bursts of moments as they are happening. For these moments in the happening are time and space between the concretes. These bursts of moments come in forms of songs, stories they tell to each other and other characters, images of vibrant colors, panoramic shots of the sea and nature, certain movements of hands (in an amusing episode with a slighty mad character for whom the way he caressed lover's arm with hands was much more important than woman herself) and seeminlgy unnecessary details we learn about the characters. (For instance, we learn that Ferdinand was a Spanish teacher when he hardly know anything else about him. And we learn a name of an extra who just says his name, age, and occupation and disappears from the rest of the movie.)

This approach perfectly ties in with Godard's shooting method. In many ways, Godard strove to shoot the scene as it was happening, instructing Belmondo and Karina to act out without pre-written dialogue in some scenes, whose uneasiness spills out in some moments. And this sense of frustration at finding something to say or something to do is beautifully translated into Ferdinand and Marianne's frustration at inability to connect with each other. They love each other, but they cannot link their different worlds. Their words, acts, ideas, and thoughts operate at different levels (Ferdinand at rational and passive, Marriane at emotional and active level) and cannot communicate their love. They cannot even agree on their name. This clash of their worlds is further reinforced by contrast of lush, natural-looking realist shots of nature and other shots that are higly stylized with vibrant primary colors, contrast of high arts and lowbrow pop culture, contrast of blue and red throughout many scenes, among other things.

After Ferdinand explodes in distance, the camera pans to the sea, where calm blue sky and sea converge at the horizon while Ferdinand (who says a story of a man in the moon, who is much like him) and Marianne (in one scene, whose name Ferdinand writes as sea) whisper intimately the lines from Rimbaud's poem. "It's found again", "What?", "Eternity", "It's the sea gone", "With the sun." It's only then that the fragmented, brightly colored space of the movie gives aways to the calm, intangible space in which Ferdinand and Marianne unite at last.

But who can say about the movie better than the director himself? Godard said of Pierrot le fou that "it is not really a film, it's an attempt at cinema. Life is the subject, with [Cinema]Scope and color as its attributes...In short, life filling the screen as a tap fills bathtub that is simultaneously emptying at the same rate."

And there we have this attempt at cinema.

For Ever Godard #10 review of Pierrot Le Fou, 1965, from Seventh Art, December 10, 2008

DVD Times Noel Megahey

Film Court [Lawrence Russell]

'Pierrot le Fou': An Annotated Bibliography, Pt. 1 Glenn Kenny from In the Company of Glenn, February 12, 2008

'Pierrot le Fou': An Annotated Bibliography, Pt. 2 Glenn Kenny from In the Company of Glenn, February 13, 2008

'Pierrot le Fou': An Annotated Bibliography, Pt. 3 » Glenn Kenny from In the Company of Glenn, February 14, 2008

Anna Karina - 豆瓣 Colin MacCabe interviews actress Anna Karina from the National Film Theater, June 21, 2001

Anna Karina · Interview · The A.V. Club Nathan Rabin interviews actress Anna Karina, May 14, 2003

Anna Karina on love, cinema and being Jean-Luc Godard's muse: 'I ... Xan Brooks interviews actress Anna Karina from The Guardian, January 21, 2016

“Be Beautiful and Shut Up”: Anna Karina on Filmmaking with Jean-Luc ... Caveh Zahedi interviews actress Anna Karina from Filmmakers magazine, May 9, 2016

Analyse fondamentale du film Pierrot le fou Raynald Gagné from Cinémedia (in French)

Four essays on Pierrot le fou by Laura Crommelin, Barbara Lemon, Richard Adair and Peter Enright (in French)

MASCULINE FEMININE (In 15 Acts) B- 82

aka: Masculin Féminin: 15 faits précis

France Sweden (103 mi) 1966

No, it’s more a film on the idea of youth. A philosophical idea, but not a practical one—a way of reacting to things. It’s not a dissertation on youth or even an analysis. Let’s say that it speaks of youth, but it’s a piece of music, a “concerto youth.” I have taken young signs, signs that have not yet been deformed. My signs haven’t already been used a thousand times. I can talk about them now, afterward, because when I made this film, I didn’t have the least idea of what I wanted.

Godard on "Masculine Feminine" Pierre Daix interview with Godard from Les Lettres Francaises, June 1966 (pdf format)

We’d often go to the movies. We’d shiver as the screen lit up. But more often, Madeline and I would be disappointed. The images flickered. Marilyn Monroe looked terribly old. It saddened us. It wasn’t the film we had dreamed, the film we all carried in our hearts, the film we wanted to make... and secretly wanted to live.

—Paul (Jean-Pierre Léaud)

Following on the heels of the highly popular Pierrot le Fou (1965), a lightweight comedy featuring a handsome couple (Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina) as outlaws on the run through some of the most gorgeously photographed locales in southern France’s ravishly beautiful Cote d'Azur region, this is a return to low grade black and white, notable for being Godard’s last film in black and white, where Godard’s regular cinematographer, Raoul Coutard, has been replaced by Belgian-born Willy Kurant. Unlike the sumptuous color of his previous effort, creating an almost exhilarating giddiness, this film is shrouded in an overall feeling of gloom, where there’s not an ounce of warmth or compassion anywhere to be seen in the film. In view of Godard’s own crumbling relationship with actress Anna Karina (divorced in 1968), who is absent from this production, only to reappear again in one final film together, the barely seen MADE IN U.S.A. (1966), the director seems to be working out his own personal frustrations within the context of the more despairing characters who lack the energetic optimism of his previous films, becoming a meditation on the seeming impossibility of relations between the sexes. Of course it wouldn’t be a Godard film if he wasn’t also making a satirical comment on the vacuousness of celebrity worship while dramatizing the commercialism of contemporary art and music. Using natural lighting and synchronous sound, shooting many of the scenes at night, capturing the rush of Christmas shopping, exactly as Éric Rohmer does in My Night at Maud's (Ma Nuit Chez Maud) (1969), Godard’s film is a time capsule capturing a city for all seasons, a portrait of everyday Paris. Shooting on the streets of Paris in the winter of 1965, a contrast to Chris Marker’s Le Joli Mai (1963), which was shot on the same streets during the spring of 1962, and Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER (Chronique d'un été, Paris 1960), which was shot in the summer months of 1960, all are early examples of cinéma vérité.

Moving away from narrative, using a near documentary style, as the title suggests the film is more a series of incidents all strung together, where there is little connection to any of the characters. Like a missing adventure from Truffaut’s Introduction to The Adventures of Antoine Doinel, featuring actor Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel, he reappears here in a Godard film as Paul, much the same, now 21-years of age, still a young idealist whose job description continues to be hitting on attractive women, rather awkwardly and usually unsuccessfully. Here he drifts through various jobs, currently working for a public opinion poll, though rather than adhering to a specific script, obtaining scientific objectivity, he spontaneously veers into questions of his own interest (allegedly spoken into his ear by the director), blending fiction and documentary, reflected in a painfully forced, near ten-minute take of a lengthy interview of “Miss Nineteen” (Elsa Leroy), an attractive model/singer who represents the youth of today, which grows ludicrous in the sheer stupidity of the questions, grilling her on subjects she knows nothing about, yet very similar to the kinds of nonsensical questions asked of the Beatles during their early 1960’s press conferences as reflected in A HARD DAY’S NIGHT (1964). While this is going on, there’s also an inner struggle with Paul, where he questions his own motives.

The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette - Pa James Monaco, 2004

Little by little during these three months I've noticed that all these questions, far from reflecting a collective mentality, were frequently betraying and distorting it…Without knowing it, I was deceiving [the people I was questioning] and being deceived by them. Why? No doubt because polls and samples soon forget their true purpose, which is the observation of behavior, and insidiously substitute value judgments for research. I discovered that all the questions I was asking conveyed an ideology which didn’t correspond to actual customs but to those of yesterday, of the past. Thus I had to remain vigilant. A few random observations came to me by chance and served me as guidelines:

A philosopher is a man who pits his conscience against opinion: To have a conscience is to be open to the world.

To be faithful is to act as if time does not exist. Wisdom could be if one could see life, really see, that would be wisdom.

At least part of Godard’s interest in making the film was documenting the conditions during the lead-up to the December 1965 presidential elections where de Gaulle eventually beat Mitterand in a runoff, viewed not so much through a political lens, but from the vantage point of an interested bystander gauging the interests of the public at the time, where the film has more of a sociological feel to it than most. The mood of the nation is considered through a somewhat skewed social milieu, as Godard seems more interested in the youth voters and pop culture. Due to the adult subject matter, however, the film was actually barred for children under age 18, probably the very audience Godard was targeting. One should understand that any film starring Jean-Pierre Léaud at this age is going to delve into satiric foolishness, as he’s always trying to get into a girl’s pants, and will go to any extremes, where here his narcissistic persistence eventually becomes too much of a pain in the ass, though his comical lightheartedness is amusing. While he will forever be defined by two films, Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) (1959) and Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain) (1973), he pretty much plays himself in every film, a likeable and charming, yet somewhat naïve and goofy guy, where women like to have him around as much to make fun of him as to enjoy his company. His jealousy and over possessiveness, however, usually gets the better of him. Here he is paired against Chantal Goya as Madeleine, an attractive model attempting to get a start in the music business as one of the Yé-yé girls, where she’s hoping to gain some success as a pop singer, which at the time is her sole concern. In doing so, she maintains a youthful innocence in her songs while being marketed and/or exploited in a sexy and deliberate way. Throughout the film she is seen as little more than a carefully developed commodity, a child of the Pepsi generation where Paul gets lost in the fantasy aura surrounding her, failing to ever really register with the person herself. In fact it was Truffaut who suggested to Godard that he buy his first television set in order to “discover” this young talent performing on TV while also working in the offices of several popular teen magazines, Salut les copains and Mademoiselle âge tender, giving Godard the opportunity to work her real life into his film.

The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette James Monaco, 2004

This was the era of James Bond and Vietnam. A great wave of hope had risen in the French left with the approach of the December [1965] elections.

Ostensibly the film deals with the developing relationship between Paul and Madeleine who meet at a café counter and engage in flirtatious banter that she initially finds charming, where his opening line is, “What about the twenty-third? You told me we could go out together on the twenty-third,” to which she responds, “And when you say go out, you mean go to bed?” confiding her thoughts in a voiceover, “Maybe I’ll screw him, if he isn’t a drag.” Eventually introducing him to her two attractive roommates, Catherine (Catherine-Isabelle Duport) and Elisabeth (Marlène Jobert), women that seem to have nothing in common with him, yet the relationship blurs the boundaries and turns into a silly ménage a trois when Paul moves in. Paul opens the film a declared radical leftist and works with another leftist journalist friend, Robert (Michel Debord), where the extent of their activism is expressed by mounting posters or political slogans on the street, uttering catchphrases like, “Kill a man and you’re a murderer. Kill thousands and you’re a conqueror. Kill everyone and you’re a god.” Though you can never tell if he’s pretending or if its real life, but eventually Paul becomes a pollster (for the French Public Opinion Institute), which gives him an excuse to ask any probing question he likes, as if he’s always on duty. No one ever asks men these kinds of sexist, air-headed questions, where most of it sounds like male pandering, where they’re just being annoying pests hovering around attractive girls. While the women are just as superficial, they seem to be more honest and up front about it, while the guys are posers, continually pretending to be something they’re not. Time and again Godard returns to the interview format throughout the film, with Paul trying to instill some political interest in Catherine who pretty much avoids his questions, smiling incessantly for the camera, claiming she prefers “reactionaries” as they’re somehow “against” the prevailing tide.

No one is ever seen working, yet they somehow always have money and dress in the latest fashion, so all are likely ravenous consumers. While there are references to revolution or leftist politics, no one is seen organizing or doing the necessary work to make these desired anti-capitalist realities happen, though there are a few humorous asides, instead it’s more of a façade of all talk with no action, mirroring the way these vacuous guys talk with girls, with the endless questioning, which sounds like the mindless kinds of questions asked of beauty contestants. It goes from silliness, like a series of murders taking place before our eyes but nobody cares, an actual appearance by Brigitte Bardot rehearsing her lines in a café, or a scene title that says, “This film should be called ‘The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola,’” to ugly when they all go out to the movies, which turns out to be a sadistic porn film from Sweden, where Paul goes ballistics when he discovers it’s not being shown in the correct aspect ratio, reading the projectionist a lecture on the proper guidelines. Ultimately, however, this becomes another surface level film that never sufficiently delves below the surface, punctuated by interjecting title cards, as Godard is more fascinated by style than substance, where the guys endlessly dwell on talking politics and painting slogans while the girls are continually looking at themselves in mirrors while playing with their hair and shopping for the latest styles. Due to the non-involving nature of the characters themselves, who never generate any heat or electricity, overall the film resembles a hopeless love affair, with Godard identifying with the emptiness of the relationships,reflective of the lost idealism of the 60’s and the dilemma of being young, where the film’s real value is more as a time capsule documenting the times. It represents a transitional stage in Godard’s career where in his late 30’s, for the first time in his life, he’s about to discover politics, where his earlier 60’s films feel so much more charming and exuberant, representing a much simpler time.

Masculin féminin (1966) - The Criterion Collection

There are times in Jean-Luc Godard's 1966 movie when the noise of the street overwhelms the sound of characters talking; not surprising since Godard was more interested in the street. Filmed during a period of political and personal turmoil — American involvement in Vietnam was escalating; Godard's relationship with Anna Karina was falling apart — Masculine-Feminine is one of Godard's most disjunctive narratives with a depressive undercurrent that tugs at its episodes of larkish mayhem. As Paul, just out of the army and eager to meet girls and protest the war in Vietnam, Jean-Pierre Léaud is his awkward, ingratiating self, though real-life yé-yé star Chantal Goya strains even to play a thinly veiled version of herself: jet-black bob notwithstanding, she's no Anna Karina. No matter, since their rather ugly flirtation, which takes the movie through 15 segments called "precise facts," is mainly an excuse for Godard to indict the vacuousness of youth culture, as when he cuts from a beauty queen's admission that she has no idea where in the world wars are being fought to the caption "1965" (as in, "Do you know what time it is?"). The remaining in-jokes, like the episode where Paul leaves a movie to complain to the projectionist about the aspect ratio, seem like vestiges of happier days, while the gunshots that arbitrarily punctuate the soundtrack are harbingers of the political urgency that would soon prompt Godard to abandon storytelling altogether. Shown in a restored 35mm print with new subtitles.

Reel.com DVD review [Tim Knight] (link lost)

When Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin Feminin premiered in 1966, the film's jarring free-form "narrative," blatant political agenda, and sexual frankness bewildered even the director's staunchest admirers. Often referred to as "enfant terrible" of the French New Wave, Godard (Breathless) set out to capture a particular moment in time—1965, to be exact—when France's young people were in "a movement of perpetual rebellion," to quote one of the film's characters. Seen today, nearly 40 years after it received the French equivalent of an NC-17 rating, Masculin Feminin is a film of extremes—and therefore likely to inspire extreme reactions among viewers. For devotees of the iconoclastic filmmaker, the film is vintage Godard: heady, subversive, and formally daring in its explicit critique of bourgeois values. Others may find it didactic, frustrating, and just plain tedious, since it's virtually devoid of anything resembling a coherent narrative. Yet whether you love it or loathe it, Masculin Feminin is indisputably a groundbreaking film, both in terms of content and cinematic style.

Shot off the cuff in the streets and cafés of Paris, the film stars Jean Pierre Leaud (a.k.a. "Antoine Doinel," of Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows and other films) as Paul, a 21-year-old idealist in full revolt against the emptiness of modern life. Adamantly leftist in his politics, Paul nonetheless falls hard for Madeline (Chantal Goya), a dark-haired sylph who dreams of being a singer and loves American pop culture. The couple's stop-start romance, which is further complicated by the presence of her two flatmates and his labor activist friend, unfolds in 15 chapters, which Godard introduces with cryptic inter-titles, usually accompanied by the sound of gunfire. In this tangential, self-reflexive film, bystanders stab themselves for no reason; others nonchalantly immolate themselves to protest the Vietnam War; and an off-screen narrator, presumably Paul, questions a vapid model ("Miss 19") about socialism and birth control. But nothing truly registers for the characters, who go numbly through the motions of living in a capitalist system.

No one comes off sympathetically in Masculin Feminin, which is pretty scathing in its critique of aimless, self-absorbed Parisian youths in thrall to consumerism. (One inter-title refers to them as "the children of Marx and Coca-Cola.") The women especially fare poorly; they're vain, emotionally shallow, and blithely ignorant of politics. As for Paul, he may initially appear to be Godard's mouthpiece, but even he's revealed to be somewhat of a poseur—an "armchair radical" whose anti-establishment rhetoric feels borrowed. He at least protests the status quo and takes action by spray painting Marxist slogans on walls. However, Paul is easily diverted from his ideals by Madeline's lissome charms.

Although Masculin Feminin is frequently strident, it's not humorless. There are some darkly funny satirical moments, as well as a dead-on parody of Ingmar Bergman's angst-ridden dramas in a film within the film. What makes this visually jazzy example of cinema verite a bit of a long slog is the elliptical narrative, which sacrifices momentum for meandering political discourse and social commentary. And while Masculin Feminin may indeed evoke the zeitgeist of Paris, circa 1965, Godard frankly makes the same point over and over again, i.e., bourgeois life is morally and intellectually bankrupt. In the end, this "cinematic essay" by Godard is a film you'll appreciate, rather than enjoy, for its formal and thematic innovation.

Masculin Féminin | Film Review | 1966 | Slant Magazine Ed Gonzalez

The title of Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin, Féminin saw many incarnations after the film's release in 1966. Some wanted to drop the comma, allowing the empty space between Masculin and Féminin to literalize the men-are-from-Mars-women-are-from-Venus gender gap. Maybe some thought the comma was a symbol of second-class citizenship—indeed, women do not follow men in Godard's film, they're inextricably bound to them. Hence a third variation, Masculin-Féminin, which put the Masculin and Féminin on a more even keel (spin the title around 180 degrees and the woman comes first—she's now upside down but first nonetheless). Then there is Masculin/Féminin, not because men sit on top of women, but because masculinity is more easily divisible than femininity, or so Godard would have us believe.

Masculin, Féminin was somewhat of a turning point for Godard, allowing the Novelle Vague auteur to address for the first time the current political climate of the world in one of his films. In many ways, this is the perfect Godard film—complex but accessible, snide but unpretentious, critical but sympathetic—and in many ways anticipates his 1967 masterpiece Weekend, arguably his finest achievement. The film is a provocative and deliriously funny examination of sexual politics in Paris during the height of the Vietnam War, and its genius is the way Godard seamlessly encodes his complex philosophy of the world into a deceptively simple love story between an ex-army recruit, Paul (Jean-Pierre Léaud), and a would-be pop singer, the beautiful Madeleine (Chantal Goya). This is first-class "Freudemocracy," a term Godard coined to describe the sexual-political potential of film.

Not only does Paul's battle with Madeleine represent a war between the sexes, but a clash between disparate philosophical and moral beliefs. Godard claimed never to have read Karl Marx but he coined the word "Cinemarx" to describe a Marxist form of cinema that Masculin, Féminin truly, madly, deeply espouses. Call the film "The Cinemarx Manifesto." Paul is anti-bourgeois and resents America's involvement in Vietnam, but his gripes aren't anti-American per se. Godard considers pop culture a dangerous American export and he questions the political apathy of images and music that don't incite people to revolution (this is the impetus of the director's provocative but heavy and off-putitng Rolling Stones documentary Sympathy for the Devil).

"A philosopher is a man who pits his awareness against opinion. To be aware is to be open to the world." How sad, then, that Paul's posters (provocations encouraging the politically unwashed to votez) are ignored (unseen even) by Godard's "children of Marx and Coca-Cola" (the film's own contribution to the pop culture vernacular of the world). Popular culture essentially creates a party line between Paul and Madeleine and Godard's use of montage and offscreen space suggests this separation. In Masculin, Féminin, men and women spar. But so do the film's images—they slip and slide against each other as if Godard were shuffling a paradoxical set of cards, and every image has the urgency of a vote cast into a ballot box that can no longer be retrieved.

It's telling that people have tried to change the syntax between Masculin and Féminin. The battle of the sexes wages on and we're still trying to figure out how to navigate the interzone. A man is a man and a woman is a woman and Masculin, Féminin is what it is: a philosophical theory in the shape of an elaborate algebraic equation—15 contrapuntal vignettes (ludicrous and gross political and sexual confrontations) separated by signs (Godard's signature intertitles) that add, divide, multiply, or subtract the meaning of individual or collective vignettes—that stresses the everlasting, unexplainable complexity (the joy and frustration) of the war between man and woman.

Masculin, Féminin is very much the Cinemarxist embodiment of Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto. Both are morally, politically, and philosophically inquisitive, and as long as the proletariat fights the bourgeois and men fight women, people will continue to return to Marx and Masculin, Féminin. Unlike Marx and Engels (and his protagonist Paul), a more self-aware Godard seems to understand that pop culture, like wage labor and capital, is not going to go away. Which is why Godard doesn't ask for the eradication of pop culture. Instead, he champions a marriage between image and action, both personal and political. If American pop culture is the devil, Godard not only has sympathy for it, but he tries to navigate it and empower it as well.

Even though Godard likens Madeleine to a consumer product (she and Paul talk to each other as if they were recording and cutting their conversation inside a studio), she is less a slave to her pop cultural consciousness than Paul is to his communist agenda. Godard understands that music (not to mention the threat of a "clothes rod" abortion) implies Madeleine's freedom of expression, but this is an implication that Paul fails to gauge. Is it possible that Godard recognizes a little bit of himself in Paul, a man whose active proletariat consciousness gets in way of his having fun?

In the film, Godard poses a theory that "masculin" can be divided into two words: "masque" (mask) and "cul" (ass). Because Paul is a sexual being, he naturally chases after Madeleine's ass and, in effect, makes an ass of himself. As for the "masque" in the word, one could argue that this is the arterial political and moral motive masked by the sex drive (call this untapped or unseen potential). Paul and his equally arrogant friend seem to claim dominance over the female sex because "feminin" can't be divided into. Oh, but it can—they just haven't figured out a way to do so. Naturally, then, the last shot of the film acts as a female-empowering solution to Godard's philosophical algorithm of the sexual politic. FIN.

TNR Film Classic: 'Masculine Feminine' (1966) | The New ... Pauline Kael, originally printed November 19, 1966, from The New Republic, May 21, 2011

Masculine Feminine is that rare movie achievement: a work of grace and beauty in a contemporary setting. Godard has liberated his feeling for modem youth from the American gangster-movie framework which limited his expressiveness and his relevance to the non-movie centered world. He has taken up the strands of what was most original in his best films—the life of the uncomprehending heroine, the blank-eyed career-happy little opportunist-betrayer from Breathless, and the hully-gully, the dance of sexual isolation, from Band of Outsiders. Using neither crime nor the romance of crime but a simple romance for a kind of interwoven story line, Godard has, at last, created the form he needed. It is a combination of essay, journalistic sketches, news and portraiture, love lyric and satire.

What fuses it? The line, “This film could be called The Children of Marx and Coca Cola.” The theme is the fresh beauty of youth amidst the flimsiness of Pop culture and Pop politics. The boy (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is full of doubts and questions, but a Pop revolutionary; the girl (Chantal Goya) is a yé-yé singer making her way.

It is fused by the differing attitudes of the sexes to love and war even in this atmosphere of total and easy disbelief, of government policies accepted with the same contempt as TV commercials. The romance is punctuated with aimless acts of aggression and martyrdom: this is young love in a time of irreverence and hopelessness. These lovers and their friends, united by indifference and disdain toward the adult world, have a new kind of community in their shared disbelief. Politically they are anti-American enough to be American.

They are also Americanized. This community of unbelievers has a style of life by which they recognize each other; it is made up of everything adults attack as the worst and shoddiest forms of Americanization and dehumanization. It is the variety of forms of “Coca Cola”—the synthetic life they were born to and which they love, and which they make human, and more beautiful and more “real” than the old just-barely-hanging-on adult culture. Membership is automatic and natural for the creatures from inner space. The signals are jukebox songs, forms of dress, and, above all, what they do with their hair. Americanization makes them an international society; they have the beauty of youth which can endow Pop with poetry, and they have their feeling for each other and all those shared products and responses by which they know each other.

There are all sorts of episodes and details and jokes in the film that may be extraneous, but they seem to fit, to be part of the climate, the mood, the journalistic approach to this new breed between teen-agers and people. Even if you don’t really like some pieces or can’t understand why they’re there, even if you think they’re not well done (like the episode out of LeRoi Jones, or the German boy and prostitute bit, or the brief appearance of Bardot, or the parody of The Silence which isn’t as ludicrously pretentious as The Silence itself, or the ambiguous death of the hero—the end of him like a form of syntax marking the end of the movie) they’re not too jarring. The rhythms, and the general sense, and the emotion that builds up can carry you past what you don’t understand; you don’t need to understand every detail in order to experience the beauty of the work as it’s going on. An Elizabethan love song is no less beautiful because we don’t catch all the words; and when we look up the words, some of the meanings, the references, the idiom may still elude us. Perhaps the ache of painful, transient beauty is that we never can completely understand, and that, emotionally, we more than understand. Masculine Feminine has that ache, and its subject is a modern young lover’s lament at the separateness of the sexes.

Godard has caught the girl now in demand (and in full supply), as no one else has. Chantal Goya, like Sylvie Vartan (whose face on a billboard dominates some of the scenes), is incredibly pretty but not beautiful, because there is nothing behind the eyes. Chantal Goya’s face is haunting just because it’s so empty; she doesn’t look back. Her face becomes alive only when she’s looking in the mirror, toying with her hair. Her thin, reedy little singing voice is just as pleasantly, perfectly empty, and it is the new sound. There’s nothing behind it musically or emotionally. The young girls in the movie are soulless—as pretty and lost and soulless as girls appear to a lover who can make physical contact and yet cannot make the full contact he longs for, the contact that would heal. The girl he loves sleeps with him and is forever lost to him. She is the ideal—the girl in the fashion magazines she buys.

Possibly what flawed the conception of My Life to Live was the notion of the prostitute giving her body but keeping her soul to herself, because there was no evidence of what she was said to be holding back. Now, in Masculine Feminine, Godard is no longer trying to tell just the girl’s story but the story of how a lover may feel about his girl, and we can see that it’s not because she’s a prostitute that he gets the sense that she isn’t giving everything but because she’s a girl, and (as the camera of My Life to Live revealed though it wasn’t the story being told) a love object, A lover may penetrate her body but there is still an opaque, impenetrable surface that he can never get through. He can have her and have her and she is never his.

The attraction of this little singer is that she isn’t known, can’t be known, and worst of all, probably there’s nothing to know (which is what we may have suspected in My Life to Live). The ache of love is reaching out to a blank wall, which in this case smiles back. This male view of the eternal feminine mystery is set in the childlike simplicity of modern relations: before they go out on their first date, the boy and girl discuss going to bed. Easy sex is like a new idiom, but their talk of the pill is not the same as having it, and the spectre of pregnancy hovers over them. The old sexual morality is gone but the mysteries of love and isolation remain; availability cancels out the pleasurable torments of anticipation, but not the sadness afterward. The lover is surrounded by blank, faintly smiling walls.

With the new breed, Godard is able to define the romantic problem precisely and essentially. This approachable girl who adores Pepsi—the French cousin of Jean Seberg in Breathless—isas mysterious as a princess seen from afar, more mysterious because the princess might change if we got close. The boy says, what’s in “masculine”—mask and ass, what’s in “feminine”—nothing. And that’s what defeats him. Worse than losing a love is holding it in your arms and not finding it.

In Masculine Feminine Godard asks questions of youth and sketches a portrait in a series of question-answer episodes that are the dramatic substance of the movie. The method was prefigured by the psychiatric interview in Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Léaud, now the questioning hero, was the child-hero who was quizzed), the celebrity interview in Breathless, and cinema vérité movies by Jean Rouch and Chris Marker. It is most like Chris Marker’s rapturous inquiry of the young Japanese girl in The Koumiko Mystery. There are informal boy-to-boy conversations about women and politics; there is a phenomenal six-minute single-take parody-interview conducted by the hero with a Miss Nineteen, who might be talking while posing for the cover of Glamour; and there are two boy-girl sessions which define the contemporary meaning of masculine and feminine. These dialogues are dating-talk as a form of preliminary sex-play—verbal courtship rites. The boy thrusts with leading questions, the girl parries, backs away, touches her hair. Godard captures the awkwardnesses that reveal, the pauses, the pretensions, the mannerisms—the rhythms of the dance—as no one has before. Masculine Feminine is the dance of the sexes drawing together and remaining separate. He gets the little things that people who have to follow scripts can’t get: the differences in the way girls are with each other and with boys, and boys with each other and with girls. Not just what they do but how they smile or look away.

What can a boy believe that a girl says, what can she believe of what he says? We watch them telling lies and half-truths to each other and we can’t tell which are which. But, smiling in the darkness because we know we’ve all been there, we recognize the truth of Godard’s art. He must have discovered his subject as he worked on it (as a man working on a big-budget movie with a fixed shooting-schedule cannot). And because he did, we do, too. We can read all those special fat issues of magazines devoted to youth and not know any more than we do after watching big TV specials on youth. But even in the ladies’ lounge right after the movie, there were the girls, so pretty they hardly seemed real, standing in a revery at the mirror, toying with their shiny hair. Godard has imposed his vision and experience confirms it. What more can one ask of an artist?

There is a question that remains, however: why haven’t more people responded to this movie? Maybe because Masculine Feminine is not only partial to youth but partial as a view, and movie hucksterism has accustomed people to big claims (and movie experience to big flops). Maybe because Godard has made so many films and critics have often urged the worst upon the public. I would not recommend The Married Woman or Pierrot le Fou: Godard loves the games and style of youth but does not have the same warm feeling for older characters. He presents them as failed youth: they don’t grow up, they just deteriorate, and those movies become cold and empty. But there’s life in Masculine Feminine, which shows the most dazzlingly inventive and audacious artist in movies today at a new peak.

Criterion Collection film essay [Adrian Martin] September 19, 2005

The Child Of Marx & Coca Cola: On Godard's Masculin/Feminin Howard Slater from Archives

Godard's Masculine Feminine's Web site

Carnal Capital [MASCULINE FEMININE & THE GIRL FROM ... Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Reader, April 15, 2004

For Ever Godard #11 review of Masculin féminin: 15 Faits Précis, 1966, from Seventh Art, December 11, 2008

BigSofa Idyllopus from Big Sofa

Criterion Reflections [David Blakeslee]

Godard's children of Marx and Coca-Cola - Like Anna ... Filmbrain, January 31, 2005

Coke, Marx, and random killings Ryan from Pigs and Battleships

DVD Verdict [Bill Gibron]

DVD Times Noel Megahey

Epinions [Stephen O. Murray]

Film Notes From the CMA Dennis Toth

The Steve Pulaski Message Board [Steve Pulaski]

Public Transportation Snob [Dan Heaton]

DVD Town (Christopher Long)

The QNetwork Film Desk [James Kendrick]

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Nate Meyers)

DVD Talk (Ian Jane)

DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson)

Pauline Kael on Masculine Feminine excerpted review from the New Republic, the article that convinced the New Yorker to hire her

filmcritic.com (Jay Antani)

Masculine Feminine - SPLICEDwire.com Jeffrey M. Anderson, also seen here: Combustible Celluloid [Jeffrey M. Anderson]

The Dreamers [Rahul Jajodia]

Godard on "Masculine Feminine" Pierre Daix interview from Les Lettres Francaises, June 1966 (pdf format)

The Boston Phoenix Chris Fujiwara

Eternally 'Masculine, Feminine' Desson Thompson from The Washington Post

San Francisco Chronicle [Ruthe Stein]

rogerebert.com [Roger Ebert] November 21, 1967

rogerebert.com [Roger Ebert] April 14, 2005

Masculin Féminin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Masculine Feminine - Communpedia

MADE IN USA

France (90 mi) 1966 ‘Scope

I understood very quickly. This affair had to remain murky for everyone, and my life was on the line.

Time Out New York David Fear

Imagine that Bob Dylan recorded an album in between Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. We’re not talking about a Basement Tapes–style collection, but a full-length record infused with his characteristic verve. Now pretend that this Dylan project never got a proper release here; other than the occasional playing of a mono recording, you weren’t able to hear it. Then, for two weeks, listeners could experience the work in all its high-fidelity glory. There would be dancing in the streets.

Whether Jean Luc-Godard’s fans will start doing the froog in front of Film Forum remains to be seen, but they damn well should. The director’s 1966 Molotov cocktail of American pulp and Parisian paranoia (fueled by the Ben Barka affair) finally gets a proper theatrical run after years of sporadic New York showings. Compared with such agitpop masterpieces as Pierrot le Fou and Weekend, this political thriller-cum-critique may not inspire as much ecstasy or draw as much blood. But it’s still essential for those interested in watching the filmmaker take cinema to new levels of allusion and modernist game playing.

The title isn’t arbitrary: Godard’s paying tribute to the B-movie pleasures of our studios (the film is dedicated “to Nick [Ray] and Sam [Fuller]”) and condemning the Cold War imperialism imported from the USA. The new 35mm Scope print heightens Raoul Coutard’s cinematography and Anna Karina’s beauty (this would be the star’s last film with her ex-husband) to dizzying degrees; it’s as if you’re seeing Godard’s in-living-color commentary for the very first time.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Candace Wirt

After attending a screening of Howard Hawks' classic THE BIG SLEEP (1946) in Paris during the summer of 1966, Jean-Luc Godard aimed to remake the film noir with his ex-wife Anna Karina in Humphrey Bogart's role of Philip Marlowe. Godard dedicates MADE IN U.S.A. to the great American filmmakers Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller, "who raised me to respect image and sound." Loosely adapted from Donald E. Westlake's pseudonymous crime novel The Jugger, Godard's collage of image and sound stars Anna Karina as the mod private investigator Paula Nelson. Paula describes to her audience, "We are in a political movie, meaning Walt Disney with blood." In a nondescript French suburb also known as Atlantic City, Paula investigates the disappearance and possible assassination of her lover Richard; Godard's other characters and the audience only know Richard through his slogan, "Fascism is the dollar of ethics." Paula's nemesis Paul Widmark (Laszlo Szabo) attempts to derail her investigation, leaving Richard's disappearance a mystery forever. MADE IN U.S.A. is Godard's early political statement as simultaneously a Walt Disney cartoon and high Pop Art. In addition to remaking THE BIG SLEEP, Godard said, "I wanted to oblige a friend [Georges de Beauregard], to tackle the Americanization of French life, and to do something with the Ben Barka affair." While Godard's comments range from Algeria to Vietnam, his plot also reflects on the actual disappearance and possible assassination of the Moroccan revolutionary Mehdi Ben Barka a year earlier in Paris. But Godard worries toward the film's end, "There's no changing [Left and Right]! The Right because it's so cruel it's brainless. The Left because it's sentimental. Besides Left and Right are completely obsolete notions." Is this where Godard first begins to bid adieu to language?

Made in U.S.A | DVD Review | Slant Magazine Fernando F. Croce

Though it opens with its heroine waking up in bed and ends with her dozing off in a car, Made in U.S.A unspools as dreamscape. Yet dreams—the characters', the director's, the audience's—in Jean-Luc Godard's astonishing pop panorama have become terminally glutted with commoditized images, unreliable sounds, and robotic slogans. The film's setting, Atlantic Cité, is as wholly artificial as Jacques Demy's Cherbourg, but the hues of its simulacra are more ominous than romantic. The primary colors are eye-stabbingly brash, but the walls they cover are often battered brick and peeling metal; the visuals continuously suggest vivid rouge applied to an old woman's sagging cheeks. That old woman is France, or rather Godard's vision of a culture trying to paper over its political cracks with comic-book panels and movie-star billboards. When the protagonist describes her situation as "a Walt Disney movie but with Humphrey Bogart," it's clear that escapist palliatives are what's being "Made in U.S.A," exported and spilled into minds. Because the picture's mind is Godard's, however, there's a complex ambivalence toward American culture that pushes the analysis beyond mere Yankee-Go-Home rhetoric and into multilayered critique of the world and the artist's role in it.

When the entire world feels manufactured, "truth" can be just another brand name. The heroine, Paula Nelson (Anna Karina), is a seeker. She dons a trench coat, packs a pistol, and wanders in and out of hotel rooms, gyms, and garages, searching for her missing ex-fiancée. "Now fiction overtakes reality," she says. Deranged by Godard's distancing techniques (non-sequitur visual shifts, dialogue drowned out by the whoosh of an off-screen plane), the mystery is also littered with cinephiliac jests: A limping old woman gives her information like the one who confides in Glenn Ford in The Big Heat, while Jean-Pierre Léaud is christened "Donald Siegel" so that his presence as a spastic runty hood can evoke Baby Face Nelson. Just as tortuous as Hollywood crime-movie mythology, political intrigue includes intimations of Algeria, Vietnam, the Mehdi Ben Barka affair, and a shady pair named Nixon and McNamara. Since Breathless, Godard's people have been aware they are characters in a movie, but rarely have they been so oppressed by their intertextual surroundings. Screen space is brutally flattened in Raoul Coutard's widescreen compositions, characters are posed against pinball machines and cutout posters like glued figures on a Rauschenberg canvas. Paula's sleuthing destroys more than it clarifies, yet it's a genuine attempt at resistance. A passive consciousness is a consciousness under attack. (The word "liberty" defaced by a fusillade is a recurring image.) The search is less for a vanished comrade than for a way out of a labyrinth of cultural colonialism.

Godard's films are records (documentaries, even) of personal interests, ecstasies, and agonies at a particular time in the artist's life. The idea for Made in U.S.A reportedly came from a viewing of Howard Hawks's noir classic The Big Sleep and an outline of Donald E. Westlake's pulp novel The Jugger. (Issues over the uncredited lifting of elements from the novel are what kept the film virtually unreleased for four decades.) Another unmistakable force in the project is Godard's own imploding relationship with his muse Karina: In Sternberg-Dietrich terms, this is certainly their The Devil Is a Woman, a frozen veneer over a lake of sadness. Still, it would be reductive to read Paula's shooting of Widmark (László Szabó) and David Goodis (Yves Afonso) as misogynistic disenchantment. In the context of a transitional work suspended between Godard's more playful early experiments and the later, more severe political tracts, it's more useful to see it as the auteur's killing of parts of himself. After all, not even the director's own persona should be exempt from his mercurial struggle to tear down conventions. Made in U.S.A is a staggeringly inventive and profoundly moving picture, a melancholy crossroads in which we see Godard biding adieu to the of yearning innocence of Marianne Faithfull and "As Tears Go By" and moving ahead to the aggressive impudence of Mick Jagger and "Sympathy for the Devil."

Academic Journal of Film and Media [Erich Kuersten]

Jean-Luc Godard's Made in U.S.A. is not the celluloid holy grail, but it's close enough. Four decades after its local premiere at the 1967 New York Film Festival, the least-seen, most quintessential movie of Godard's great period gets an American distributor and even a limited run.

Made in U.S.A. is, at least nominally, a political noir in the tradition of Godard's second film, Le Petit Soldat (1961), although, like Band of Outsiders (1964), it's a thriller about people acting as if they're living in a movie. "You can fool the movie audience, but not me," the star, Anna Karina, tells someone. Made in U.S.A. is self-reflexive as well as self-conscious: When characters—more than a few named for Godard's pet movie personalities—speak, it's often to speculate on the nature of language or note the time passing.

The movie references and cartoon violence suggest the meta comic strip that is Alphaville (1965), even as the wide-screen Pop Art look and percussive sound editing evoke that of Two or Three Things I Know About Her—which was actually made simultaneously with Made in U.S.A. during the summer of 1966, one shot in the morning and the other after lunch. And even more than the half-dozen previous films in which Godard directed Karina, Made in U.S.A. is a portrait of the filmmaker's soon-to-be ex-wife—here cast as a private investigator, wrapped in a trench coat and packing a gat. Godard told an interviewer that he had been inspired to remake Howard Hawks's 1946 version of The Big Sleep, revived that summer in Paris, with Karina in the Bogart role.

As The Big Sleep has a notoriously impenetrable plot (even Hawks could not explain one of its numerous murders), so Made in U.S.A. represents Godard's most sustained derangement of narrative convention. The key sequences are regularly pulverized just at the point of resolution, and crucial passages of dialogue are purposefully obscured by street noise as, alternately seductive and indifferent, Karina's detective goes in search of a lover who is apparently lost, perhaps to assassination, in a labyrinthine, never-fully-explained, international political intrigue.

Made in U.S.A. opens with the protagonist holed up in a cheap hotel room musing about her situation, while a pair of tough guys (nouvelle vague regulars László Szabó and Jean-Pierre Léaud) loiter beneath her window. Hanging out is the operative principle. Made in U.S.A. has aspects of the time-killing vaudeville that characterized the great Warhol movies of the mid-'60s. (At one point, Marianne Faithfull turns up in a café, idly warbling "As Tears Go By" a cappella.) But mainly, the camera contemplates Karina, pondering her private smiles, her Cleopatra mane, her changing outfits, and her uncanny power to transform any given shot into a fashion spread. Given that we hear her voiceover throughout, it's close to a solo.

Plot kicks into gear when Karina "kills" the annoying dwarfish informer, M. Typhus, who appears in her hotel room: "Now, fiction overtakes reality," she murmurs. Fiction is as convoluted and abstractly violent here as in The Big Sleep. Like her model, Karina discovers a series of bodies in the course of her quest; she also leaves a trail of others in her wake, including one whom she simply shoots point-blank. Soon after, she delivers the movie's most famous line—"We were in a political movie. . . . Walt Disney with blood." Around the time that characters named MacNamara and Nixon (and played by a pair of young film critics) turn up as gunsels, the reel-to-reel tape recorders which periodically appear in close-up to play messages left by Karina's dead lover switch to Communist rants. In 1966, however, Godard's politics were still largely cultural and hardly consistent.

Made in U.S.A. is anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist, decrying miniskirts and rock 'n' roll as mind control, but it's also more devoted to the vulgar modernism of mid-20th-century pop culture than any movie Godard made before or would make after. "I think advertising is a form of fascism," Karina's character asserts, speaking for the director. It's a valid complaint and a poignant one, given that Made in U.S.A. is a constant advertisement for itself.

One of last year's best films, Carlos Reygadas's remarkable Silent Light, a sort of ethnographic passion play set among Mexico's Mennonite farmers (and shot in their language), gets its theatrical premiere on another Film Forum screen. I reviewed the movie (". . . both deeply absurd and powerfully affecting . . . ," "The Miraculous Is Sublime," J. Hoberman, September 24, 2008) when it received a brief run as Stellet Licht, last September at the Museum of Modern Art.

Criterion Collection film essay [J. Hoberman] July 22, 2009

Made in U.S.A (1966) - The Criterion Collection

For Ever Godard #12 review of Made in USA, 1966, from Seventh Art, December 12, 2008

The Pink Smoke [John Cribbs]

IFC.com [Michael Atkinson]

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Surrender to the Void-[Steven Flores]

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Made in USA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER (2 ou 3 Choses que Je Sais d'elle)

France (90 mi) 1967

All Movie Guide [Wheeler Winston Dixon]

The latest revival from distributor Rialto Pictures captures French New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard at a turning point. He deconstructs and reconstructs the narrative form as a personal essay with this 1966 rumination of life in the material world. According to the opening credits, the "her" of the title is Paris in the midst of urban renewal, but "she" is also a loving mother and suburban housewife (Marina Vlady) forced into part-time prostitution to make ends meet. Between her workaday tasks -- caring for kids, cleaning the dishes, pleasing johns with curious fetishes -- Godard (narrating in a stage whisper) rails against American aggression in Vietnam with satirical monologues, muses over materialism, and ponders the limitations of language and representation. "Two or Three Things" is revolutionary, impudent and personal, and still he stops to admire the sublime in the ordinary: birth, death and infinity in the swirl of a coffee cup.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List Kalvin Henely

The film that is arguably the best artistic compilation of the political, intellectual, and cinematic currents of late-'60s French culture also happens to be, as the late-great Susan Sontag wrote, "perhaps Godard's greatest feature." TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER was made the same highly creative year as two other works that many a cinephile would consider heavyweight contenders for the same title: WEEKEND and LA CHINOISE. While it clearly shares the genetics of both, TWO OR THREE THINGS is the most comprehensive of the three, packed full of brilliant analogies, from the universe in a cup of coffee (via extreme close-up) to a graveyard of consumer products to a representation of capitalism domesticating prostitution. Godard is, of course, thinking about movies and history—his two favorite topics. For him—as revealed more explicitly in his mid-'90s masterpiece HISTOIRE(S) DU CINEMA—they are one in the same. But here Godard takes his interest in the dual nature of cinema to unequaled heights. He not only asks whether this is that or that is this, but questions the very language we use to ask such questions. He muses: "How do you render events? How to say or show that at 4:10pm that afternoon, Juliette and Marianne came to the garage where Juliette's husband works? Right way, wrong way—how can one say exactly what happened? Of course, there is Juliette, her husband, the garage. But are these the words and images to use? Are there no others? Am I talking too loud, looking too close?" One could say that it's a movie that knows it's a movie that knows it's a movie more than any other movie.

In 1966, Jean-Luc Godard was at his peak as a filmmaker, and to accommodate the producers who were seeking to back his then-commercially successful work, he undertook a strange task; he decided to make two films at the same time, partly to prove he could do it, and partly to keep up with audience demand for his films. One of the films was Two or Three Things I Know About Her, a delectable meditation on Marxism, consumer culture, the Vietnam War, sexual politics, and gender roles, all photographed in sumptuous color, and ending with famous shot of a variety of household consumer products neatly arranged on the lawn of a suburban home. As with most of the best of Godard, the film is an essay rather than a narrative; there is a semblance of a plot, involving Marina Vlady's descent into prostitution to pay the household bills behind her husband's back, but this is merely a pretext for an extended examination of contemporary Parisian life, which Godard finds arid, soul-crushing, and stupefyingly empty. The most famous scene is undoubtedly the "cosmos in a coffee cup" sequence, in which Godard's camera stares intently at a cup of coffee as cream swirls around in it, cutting closer and closer to the steaming broth, as philosophical dialogue fills the soundtrack.

Godard demands much of his audience, but he gives much in return; it is some measure of how "dumbed down" we have become as a culture, even in contemporary European cinema, that films like Two or Three Things I Know About Her, once highly commercial propositions, now seem absolutely incomprehensible to most viewers. It's sad, too, because the film is absolutely gorgeous, and Godard has kept up the fight with his more recent films, such as the superb Notre Musique (2004), which deals with the events in Sarajevo in much the same fashion. But this being the 21st century, in which people have been brought up solely on popcorn entertainment, Notre Musique never made it out of a few major U.S. cities as a theatrical feature; happily, it is available on DVD. Two or Three Things I Know About Her has not, as of this writing, been distributed on DVD in the U.S., but only on VHS, although this may change in the future. And the other feature that Godard was shooting at the same time he was making Two or Three Things I Know About Her? That would be the long-suppressed Made in USA (1996), a brilliant and cerebral crime thriller nominally based on a novel by Donald E. Westlake, which Godard neglected to secure the rights to before filming. That film has just been released on European DVD only, the rights issues having apparently been resolved, at least for the moment. Both films are remarkable, individual, sensual, and utterly personal cinematic visions. The world of cinema seems divided into two camps: those who admire Godard intensely and those who feel that his philosophical tracts are both inaccessible and boring. The second group, who don't understand or appreciate his work, are precisely the ones who need to see it the most. Godard's films are a tonic for the senses in an age of hyper-commerciality -- an era he predicted in this prescient film and other works from this period in his long and still evolving career.

The Brooklyn Rail [David N. Meyer]

1. "Two or Three Things I Know About Her," now being rereleased in a new print from the reissue masters at Rialto Pictures, was a turning point in Jean-Luc Godard's career. Although it's got the barest bones of a story -- about a housewife in a Paris high-rise development (played by Marina Vlady) who has turned to prostitution -- it bears only a vestigial resemblance to ordinary narrative cinema. The guy who had made such classics of the French New Wave as "Breathless" and "Band of Outsiders" was moving on to something completely different. "Two or Three Things" is more an essay about politics or philosophy or aesthetics, a deconstruction of consumer capitalism, an interrogation of the subject-object relationship (really!) and a collection of disparate, perhaps psychologically interlinked images than it is a fiction film of any kind. People stop partway through scenes and address the camera directly. There are shots of construction scenes in Paris, beneath Godard's whispered Marxist-agitprop narration. Ambient noise is sometimes so distracting you can't hear the dialogue, such as it is. There's a semi-famous scene in a bar, dominated by someone in the background playing a pinball machine. (Actually, that happens twice.)

2. Some of the film is really cool. The atmosphere of mid-'60s mod-era kitsch is irresistible, and Raoul Coutard's shots -- there's an amazing close-up of a cup full of espresso coffee, where bubbles of foam congeal and pop like distant galaxies -- occasionally seem to justify the intellectual bombast. I can see that "Two or Three Things" made new possibilities real in cinema, and opened the door for all kinds of experimentation. Godard himself writes about the project with some humility, saying, "This is a little as if I wanted to write a sociological essay in the form of a novel, and in order to do so had only musical notes at my disposition. Is this cinema? Am I right to go on trying?"

2 1/2. Still, I'm just not that big on this kind of thing. I admire "Two or Three Things" on a cerebral level, and it influenced an entire strain of complicated and adventurous moviemaking, some of which I like. (Abderrahmane Sissako's film "Bamako," one of my favorites at this year's New York Film Festival, bears Godard's unmistakable fingerprints.) But despite an aura of wistfulness, and a certain power that accrues from the disjunction between the story of a vulnerable, life-hardened woman, the chaotic collision of sound and image, and the ham-handed political lessons, this film never moves me or shakes me the way that, say, Bergman's "Persona" does. Mind you, I basically feel that way about all of Godard's movies, and several smart people have decreed this to be one of the greatest films ever made. Rather than claiming they're all idiots, I should just trip out on that coffee-cup shot, and what it has to tell us about subjectivity, objectivity and the impossibility of real communication in a consumer society.

Jean-luc Godard lost interest in classical narrative structure about the same time he quit caring about the problems of men. In his early films, still exploring archetypes from cinema’s past, Godard depicted men who died (physically, spiritually, morally) imitating the onscreen icons of their upbringing. Cleansed of that struggle his own self, JLG turned from the problems of men to the problem of masculinity. That did not include profession or being a warrior or a father. Instead, he asked how does a man make the woman he loves fall and stay in love with him. Like Eric Rohmer, Godard has little doubt about the answer to that question: he can’t. At least, not intentionally.

Having dealt with men, movies and masculinity in ‘65’s Alphaville and Pierrot le fou, and finished with modern romance by ’66’s Masculin, féminin, (a period of creative output to rival Bob Dylan’s, only without the amphetamines) Godard turned to women. The dissonance between their social/sexual power and their political/economic oppression became the prism through which he viewed societal ills. Capitalism was foremost, with Vietnam and the consumerism-driven loss of the soul right behind. JLG’s favorite repeating metaphor for this tension—manifest by the lead character in 1966’s 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle—is prostitution.

Based on a non-fiction article in Le Nouvelle Observateur, 2 Or 3 Things follows a young mother who turns tricks—at the urging of her mechanic husband—to pay for their apartment in the soulless, newly-built, high-rise suburbs surrounding Paris. We first meet Marina Vlady, the lead actress, facing the camera as Godard whispers in voice-over: “Is her hair dark auburn or light brown? I can’t tell. Now she turns to the right—it doesn’t matter.” Godard whispers throughout the film, reminding us that an entire world of thought, politics, culture and assumption surround the story-telling.

Though story meant increasingly less to JLG—except as a chariot for his theoretical notions—here the human moments are perfectly observed, moving and never driven by plot necessity. It’s a measure of Godard’s influence that his fragmented narrative—interrupted by long shots of consumer products, epic tableau of building construction and meandering portraits of cars in traffic—proves easy to follow. Forty years ago it might have been confusing. Since then, the larger world of cinema has not caught up to Godard, but it has cannibalized what it can digest.

2 or 3 Things stands as the end of Godard’s classical period and the beginning of his more fragmented, primarily political, Brechtian, post-modern work. It also marks the height, until recently, of Godard’s adoration of visual beauty for its own sake. 2 or 3 Things is astonishingly beautiful. Given that many of the loveliest shots feature unlovely subjects—mostly suburban sprawl—it’s hard to discern now whether Godard sought a Brutalism/Futurist appreciation for the oppressive architecture of social fascism, or if he expects us to find it ugly. He doesn’t seem to find this new world lacking in seduction.

The film moves from parody (Vlady’s husband listening to Lyndon Johnson declare his intention to bomb Moscow) to social essay: Vlady works in a brothel featuring a day-care center and customers paying with consumer goods. “All I have is cat food,” Vlady’s trick mutters. “Will that do?” He adds his can to pile.

Interspersed are exquisite panorama of construction scenes, massive freeways and blank skyscrapers, evoking the framing, composition and just plain weirdness of William Eggleston. (That is, they evoke Eggleston now. 2 or 3 Things appeared a decade prior to Eggleston’s MoMA debut.) Godard’s genius cinematographer, Raoul Coutard (Jules et Jim, Le Mépris, Weekend), captures the oppression and machine-made sensuality of this alien universe: a robins-egg-blue dump truck jerking back and forth, the unbearable weight of a freeway hovering over the workers beneath, a slow pan across a horizon of glass and steel.

Because it stands with Le Mépris as Godard’s most beautiful, cinematographic and profound film—and because its modernity is both Pop and so of any age—this brand-new, remastered 35mm print is a revelation (new, more idiomatic subtitles have also been added). The Pop seduction of consumerism is explored via garish shots of detergent, the inside of electronic devices and construction cranes made ominous and sexual. Unlike the winter-cold irony of Alphaville or the snotty affection of Masculin, feminn, 3 or 2 offers an early glimpse of the exquisite heartache that so informs Godard’s more recent works, like 2001’s In éloge de l’amour and 2004’s Notre musique. Godard cuts between moments crammed with banal dialogue and ambient-sound dioramas of a new city being noisily created. He finds his poetry in the spaces between these moments/shots, and the irresistible horror/beauty of the industrial maelstrom as only Godard could perceive it. He creates an ineffable, purely cinematic poetry, where there is no accounting for the powerful emotions his juxtapositions provide. The impulse to become over-analytical is a by-product of sitting through any Godard picture. But 2 Or 3 Things is the rare Godard film in which the emotions hit harder and linger longer than the ideas. As always, he’s witty as hell. As one montage makes you ache, another makes you laugh aloud.

Contemporaneous critical writing insisted that Godard was determined to shatter filmic narrative convention. Forty years after 2 or 3 Things’ initial release, it’s clear that Godard simply replaced classic structure with his own—more emotionally driven—pacing, plot and emphasis. He may not longer care about what-happens-next, but he puts two images together with an awareness of their power, and, more importantly, of the resonance their montage creates. Nobody thinks like Godard, nobody cuts like him, nobody lets ideas carry emotion and emotion carry ideas as he does. With, like, ninety films made and who knows how many more to come, it’s tough to claim that one is his finest. But there is one you must not miss, one that must be seen on the big screen. This is it.

For Ever Godard #13 review of Two or Three Things I Know About Her, 1967, from Seventh Art, December 13, 2008

Talking Pictures (UK) [Nigel Watson]

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New York Times (registration req'd) Renata Adler

LA CHINOISE

France (96 mi) 1967

Maoism appears as the latest campus fad in Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 film, which takes place largely in an appropriated bourgeois apartment where the half dozen young members of a Sorbonne cell perform their ideological exercises with the cheerfulness of summer campers. Godard seems a little frightened of these regimented children, who blithely decide to assassinate the Russian cultural attache; he brings on the veteran radical Francis Jeanson to rebuke their buried fascism, but by the next year Godard had joined their ranks himself. With Anne Wiazemsky, Jean-Pierre Leaud, and Juliette Berto.

Godard's brilliant dialectical farce, distinctly disquieting as well as gratingly funny, in which five Parisian students, members of a Maoist cell, discuss the implications of the Chinese cultural revolution and the chances of using terrorism to effect a similar upheaval in the West. Dazzlingly designed as a collage of slogans and poster images, it was widely attacked at the time for playing with politics. But Godard was well aware what he was doing creating these 'Robinson Crusoes with Marxism as their Man Friday', and his film stands as a prophetic and remarkably acute analysis of the impulse behind the events of May 1968 in all their desperate sincerity and impossible naïveté.

La Chinoise Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Reader

One of Jean-Luc Godard's most underrated and misunderstood films, this 1967 feature isn't so much an embrace of France's Maoist youth movement as a multifaceted interrogation of it--far more nuanced and lively than the theoretical agitprop Godard would make with others after the May 1968 uprisings. Though it explores the dogmatism and violence of a Maoist cell in Paris, Godard is equally preocccupied by such things as French rock, the color red, the history of cinema, the "revisionism" of the French Communist Party, and the rebels' youthful romantic longings. The spirited cast--including Anne Wiazemsky, Jean-Pierre Léaud, and Juliet Berto--make all this touching as well as troubling. The movie helped inspire student revolt at Columbia University soon afterward, but that's a tribute to its style and energy, not its political intelligence. In French with subtitles. 96 min.

But If You Go Carrying Pictures of Chairman Mao... Filmbrain from Like Anna Karina’s Sweater

My first exposure to Jean-Luc Godard's La Chinoise was a badly damaged and virtually colorless 16mm print that I saw when I was seventeen. I knew little of Marx, Lenin, or Mao at the time (let alone the cultural revolution), but the film, with its cute collegiate Maoists plotting revolution from the safety of a fancy Parisian apartment, had a profound effect on me, and it wasn't long before I had a dog-eared Little Red Book of my own.

Seeing it again after all these years, it's almost impossible not to find it more than a bit dated politically, yet at the same time realizing how important a film it is in JLG's oeuvre. As the screen shots on the left reveal, the recently released Optimum DVD (Region 2) comes from a new print, which restores the film to its proper state, bringing out the rich, almost saturated primary colors that Godard favored at that time. (The DVD can be ordered from Benson's World for a mere £8.99.)

Through a series of interconnected vignettes, La Chinoise follows the activities of a group of students who spend the summer of 1967 quoting Mao, denouncing American imperialism, and thinking how they can start their own revolution in France. (The film eerily foreshadows the tumultuous events of May '68.) They set up headquarters in a bourgeois apartment owned by one of the revolutionary's parents — think The Dreamers, but replace sex and cinema with Marx and Mao.

The core quartet of revolutionaries, which includes Truffaut staple Jean-Pierre Léaud, Juliet Berto, and the soon-to-be Mrs. Godard, Anne Wiazemsky (who resembles wife #1), spend their days listening to Radio Peking, while decorating the walls with Mao quotes, and holding lectures on everything from Lyndon Johnson to Viet Nam to Louis Lumière. The harmony of the group is shattered when several members choose violence (via political assassination) as their method. As supportive as Godard was towards Marxist-Leninist and Maoist sympathies, French Maoist students (among others) denounced the film for its pro-terrorist stance, which conflicted with their own beliefs. (It's interesting to note that France never had an equivalent of The Weathermen or Baader-Meinhof Group.)

Though La Chinoise is as overtly political as any of the films Godard made with Jean-Pierre Gorin, it's still infused with the kind of playfulness found in Bande à Part or Masculin, Féminin. The film draws attention to its artifice through its exaggerated use of color, deliberate camera movements (some nice tracking shots), and its many moments of self-reflexivity. In between the lengthy monologues are the kind of scenes that are quintessentially Godard, including one that finds Veronique (Wiazemsky) telling a pouty Guillaume (Léaud) she no longer loves him ("I hate your sweaters. I hate your face".) It's something right out of Une Femme est Une Femme, and shows that for all his intellectual and political posturing, Guillaume is deep down just another moody, heartbroken youngster. Then of course there is the music and dance scene, and though it's not quite Anna K and the boys doing the Madison, it does have Léaud twisting to the deliciously infectious Mao Mao, by Claudes Channes, which includes lyrics such as "Johnson giggles and me I wiggle Mao Mao / Napalm runs and me I gun Mao Mao". (The song is too good not to share — download and dance along with your favorite comrade: Claudes Channes - Mao Mao.mp3)

Unlike the purely academic Marxism that informs Godard's films made with the Dziga Vertov Group, La Chinoise is equally as interested in the then-burgeoning youth culture movement that was on the brink of exploding worldwide. Some have claimed that this interest stemmed out of his relationship with Wiazemsky, who was almost twenty years his junior. Regardless, the film can be seen as a bridge between the old Godard and the new, with equal parts dialectic and dramatic. In other words, it's a leftist film that even your right-wing friends can enjoy. Well....maybe.

For Ever Godard #14 review of La Chinoise, 1967, from Seventh Art, December 14, 2008

Blow It Up | Village Voice J. Hoberman, October 7, 2007

DVD Times Noel Magahey

WEEKEND B+ 92

France (105 mi) 1967

The first hour is brilliant, an outrageous satire about man’s coming to terms with capitalism creating violent, chilling images, but then it rambles on in outdated Marxian rhetoric, a bit like Fassbinder’s Niklashausen Journey.

All Movie Guide [Jonathan Crow]

Godard's vision of bourgeois cataclysm, after which he began the retreat from commercial cinema to contemplate his ideological navel. A savage Swiftian satire, it traces a new Gulliver's travels through the collapsing consumer society as a married couple set out for a weekend jaunt, passing through a nightmare landscape of highways strewn with burning cars and bloody corpses (a stunning ten-minute take) before emerging into a brave new world peopled by Maoist revolutionaries living like redskins in the woods off murder, pillage and rape. What takes the film one stage further into inimitable Godard territory is the note of despairing romanticism he first mined in Pierrot le Fou. Here too, his hero and heroine emerge as oddly tragic figures, modern Robinson Crusoes wandering helplessly in limbo because, even if they could find a desert island free of abandoned cars, they are incapable of surviving without consumer goods.

Jean-Luc Godard's vision of a bourgeois apocalypse, Weekend savages consumer society and gleefully deconstructs narrative. A typical middle-class couple's casual sojourn into the country lands them in the most nightmarish traffic jam in history. In a single, 10-minute long dolly shot, Godard reveals a seemingly interminable snarl of smashed and burning cars, bored motorists, and dead bodies. The couple then finds themselves mixed up with a band of forest-dwelling Maoists who rape, loot, and cannibalize. As in much of Godard's late 1960s work, a plot summary only hints at the film's rebellious absurdity. Constructed as a series of digressions, the film shatters all cinematic conventions. Characters directly address the camera (at one point, the male protagonist complains to the audience about how ludicrous the film is, at another an African garbage collector with no obvious connection to the film speaks his mind to an off-camera interviewer); music wells up at inappropriate times only to stop suddenly; and the camera spins and moves without any respect for traditional cinema space. Although the film is dated by its valorization of the once-fashionable ideology of Maoism, its cathartic chaos and experimental style still make Weekend a wicked romp for the cinematically adventurous.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List Peter Raccuglia

The final title cards of WEEKEND announce "FIN DE CONTE. FIN DE CINEMA"—"END OF STORY. END OF CINEMA." The film did indeed mark the end of a golden period of feature films for the newly-radicalized Godard. In the years leading up to May '68 and the student movement, Godard was developing a deepening commitment to Marxist-Leninist and Maoist ideology under the influence of his friend Jean-Pierre Gorin. LA CHINOISE and WEEKEND, the final films of this period, shot and released in rapid succession, saw Godard attempting to merge his developing aesthetic vision with his solidifying leftist commitments. The result in WEEKEND is as bitter and cruel to its subjects as it is conceptually thrilling. The cravenly cynical plot follows a young bourgeois woman and her husband as they rush to her mother's deathbed, not out of any sense of filial duty, but rather to ensure that her stepfather does not cut her out of the will. Misfortune and humiliation are by turns caused by and visited on the couple as they wind through country roads strewn with the corpses of crash victims, the twisted wrecks of their vehicles appear with the frequency of mileposts. One remarkable sequence follows the two as they cut through a traffic jam, passing roadside picnickers, a horse-drawn hay cart, a caravan of circus animals, and multiple bloody wrecks. (The nine-minute sequence, accompanied by constant blaring car horns, was shot on a 300-meter-long traveling platform, which comprised the total number of dolly tracks of the same model available in all of France at the time.) A merciless excoriation of the mercenary logic of bourgeois sexuality and marriage, WEEKEND is an exhilarating document of the social and political frustrations that were about to erupt so powerfully.

The Village Voice [Amy Taubin]

A wide-screen, comic-book-styled allegory in which every juxtaposition of primary colors seems like an act of violence, Weekend depicts an affluent French society destroying itself in a frenzy of road rage and cannibalism. A married couple (played by the mid-'60s sex symbol Mireille Darc and the stolid Jean Yanne) drive halfway across the country to try to get the wife's mother to fork over the family fortune. The film opens with two implied sexual triangles. In a telephone conversation with his mistress, the husband assures the unseen woman that he plans to murder his wife as soon as she gets her inheritance. This is followed by a long monologue in which the wife describes in pornographic detail her participation in a threesome where (shades of Bataille) a raw egg and a saucer of milk are used as sex toys.

No sooner have the couple embarked on their journey than they are caught in an epic traffic jam. Accompanied by a cacophony of car horns, the camera tracks for 10 uninterrupted minutes alongside a highway filled with bumper-to-bumper stalled cars until it arrives at the cause of the tie-up: the twisted steel wreckage of a multiple-vehicle crash, dappled with blood and littered with body parts.

From here on, the film becomes more fragmented, violent, and grimly hilarious. Just as the roads are strewn with corpses and burning cars, the dialogue is littered with references to designer goods. The couple hitch a ride with a pianist, who sets up his instrument in a barnyard and proceeds to play Mozart. In a ludicrous parody of the product placement just then gaining a foothold in Hollywood movies, Godard has painted "Pianos Bechstein" in large white letters on the side of the concert grand.

Having killed the wife's mother when she refuses to part with the money, the couple try to get home, only to become hopelessly lost in a countryside teeming with rapists, murderers, loquacious African Marxists, and cannibalistic revolutionary terrorists. The final image of the wife chewing on a bit of roasted human flesh that may have been carved from the body of her butchered husband still delivers the nasty frisson it did 30 years ago. Kinetic and cruel, Weekend is the film in which Godard really sticks it to narrative. Not only is it devoid of a single character anyone could care about, the fact that I've given away the ending doesn't matter a lot.

Slant Magazine [Eric Henderson]

It's perverse how cleanly a film as philosophically and emotionally wrecked as Weekend divides Jean-Luc Godard's filmography into neat halves (for lack of alternate salience, his Hollywood period before Weekend and his anti-Hollywood period since), and how a film so compellingly nihilistic is also a pretty good approximation of a cinephile's idea of a good time. The film follows Corinne and Roland, a married couple (who can't stand each other and secretly plot to kill the other), as they drive from their station of urban ennui out to the French countryside in hopes of snatching away Corinne's ailing father's inheritance away from her mother. Unfortunately for them, their journey is beset by a series of Buñuellian obstructions (including a hitchhiking character called "el ángel exterminador") that begins with a cataclysmic traffic jam-cum-parade (detailed in a bravura 10-minute tracking shot that iconographically portends nearly everything that will follow) and devolves from there. The two paragons of capitalistic personal enterprise are thrown into Godard's matrix of aphorisms and promulgations where the unwritten rules of narrative filmmaking are deconstructed and trashed wholesale in a formal mirror of their own classist debasement.

Weekend is subtitled "a film found in a dump" in one of the film's copious intertitles, but oddly enough this designation is worn as a badge of authenticity, given that the most erudite mouthpieces for Godard's political stance are arguably the two sandwich-chewing garbage men Corinne and Roland hitch a ride with after their own sports car is destroyed in one of the film's continuous car wrecks; sophist trash collectors who spin indignant Marxist litany as though they were trading fours. The interlude devoted to their spiel is probably the most doggedly un-cinematic, un-narrative stretch of the film (when one talks, Godard insists on showing the other one in tight close-up, staring blankly and eating) and the one scene where dialectic becomes diatribe, indicating just how far the film director/rhetorical muse was willing to go to stress the latter.

Otherwise, Weekend is a luridly colorful compendium of aesthetic juxtapositions and audio-visual schisms that evoke the frustrated tenor of the era. The film's characters draw attention to the fact that they're in a movie, then aren't so sure of the false nature of their own violent natures when they set "Emily Bronte" on fire and notice her crying. Title cards frequently intrude upon scenes to discredit the scenes surrounding them. Fades are deliberately miscued, camera angles obfuscatory. The film jumps its sprockets when Roland and Corinne crash their own car (a disaster met with Corinne's immortal, anguished assessment of their loss: "My Hermés handbag!"). Godard calls Jesus a Communist (as he would shortly declare of himself during the Left Bank uprising of '68), but paradoxically calls Christianity "the refusal of self-knowledge, the death of language."

Because Godard takes such a blazing swan dive into his own bilious socio-political contempt for all the inhumane, consumer-centric, anti-intellectual bullshit that modern civilization had collectively if subconsciously (make that "non-consciously') declared its contribution to mankind's notion of progress…because it's his most poetic prickishness, Weekend ironically endures as probably Godard's most beloved film. Unlike most of his later tirades which stand on their own artistic merit but convert precious few, its vision of mankind's secret hope for eschatological redemption (or a reset button in John Carpenter's extremely underrated Escape from L.A.) is buttressed by a compelling, unabatedly distressing formalism that stands nearly alone among movie visions of the end times. At least, according to Armond White, until Godard's archenemy Steven Spielberg's recent War of the Worlds, which (to White's credit) is an equally brutal road movie that's constantly on the precipice of humanity's ultimate destruction. I would call Marxism the resolving "germ" that brings Weekend's nightmarish invasion to a tentative halt if Godard hadn't ultimately thrown both it and human flesh into the same rusty frying pan.

Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) • Senses of Cinema Daniel Fairfax, March 2017

For Ever Godard #15 review of Weekend, 1967, from Seventh Art, December 15, 2008

DVD Times Noel Magahey

Not Coming to a Theater Near You [Ian Johnston]

Not Coming to a Theater Near You (Rumsey Taylor)

10kbullets - DVD review Michael den Boer

DVD Verdict [Adam Arseneau]

The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

Edinburgh U Film Society [Philip Kelley]

DVD Talk [John Sinnott]

New York Times (registration req'd) Renata Adler

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

aka: One Plus One

Great Britain (100 mi) 1968

Like Le Gai Savoir, though more extreme in its abandonment of narrative forms, one of Godard's attempts to 'start again at zero'. Originally conceived literally as one plus one: a theme of construction (the Rolling Stones rehearsing 'Sympathy for the Devil'), and one of destruction (the suicide of a white revolutionary when her boyfriend deserts to Black Power). Endless production problems and disgruntlement on Godard's part turned it into a random collage which the viewer is supposed to 'edit' himself. A daunting task, but the images are often riveting. In the version called 'Sympathy for the Devil', producer Iain Quarrier tacked the completed recording of the Stones' number on to the end of the film (and in an incident at the 1968 London Film Festival that has become legend, was assaulted by an infuriated Godard for his pains).

Fulvue Drive-in Nicholas Sheffo

Before going into his “Dziga-Vertov” mode of alternate Maoist filmmaking, Jean-Luc Godard shot a film in 1968 entitled One Plus One, but conflict with the producers resulted in it being issued two years later as Sympathy for the Devil. It is that latter version that has finally arrived on DVD, but is it really still Godard’s film?

Not as much as his cut, but the majority of the work form the original film has been maintained, except for the more brutal ending, which was dropped here. With the United States’ Vietnam conflict going on, the more robust Marxist movement of the time saw an opportunity to go at it with the U.S. and what they wanted to portray as their power gone mad. It was never that simple, which is why this film has its problems in either version.

The other side of the film revisits the behind-the-scenes filmmaking in Contempt with a new tract of “Black radicals” wanting to destroy American society and step over black women to get to white women. This does not make the white women lucky, because they have anger to take out on them too. The misogyny is extreme, obvious, and seems desperate. If Godard was endorsing revolution, this could not even then be seen as a plus. The director has been endlessly criticized for his treatment of women, especially the way he liked to always show them nude.

He tries to subvert that in a scene in a book store that is filled with fictional novels, various kinds of picture books (including nudes and semi-nudes of men and women), and comic books. They eventually blur as the walls are filled with them, shot in ways to suggest they are the capitalist equivalent of Soviet Agit-Prop, a device he uses in between these sequences and those of The Stones. The point is taken, except he seems to have missed the point of such Pop culture. Since then, this has all evolved into something more, much like music of The Rolling Stones. To give an idea of how narrow Godard sees this culture, which he tries to intellectualize away in one of the character diatribes, there is the issue of the comics. Why are the only comics the Fascist American bookstore carry published by DC Comics?

It is puzzling items and ideas like that that do not gel as they tend to in other Godard films, but maybe he took on more than he realized here. Godard may have expected the Vietnam factor to be projected into this film, but it is not explicit enough for any points beyond the obvious to be made. Even the failures are interesting, though. This is a film that deals in vivid images, so if they do not always add up, they are fascinating to watch, especially when the DVD is this good.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is a fine Digital High Definition-derived transfer that may not be as totally defined as I wish it was, but the original Eastmancolor from the time is exceptionally consistent and authentic. Though the camera moves, especially of The Rolling Stones in the studio, looks like his work with Raoul Coutard on collaborations like Contempt (1963), this is the first time Godard worked with cinematographer Anthony Richard. This is some of the best footage of the band that ever has been shot or ever will be. This alone is more than reason enough to see this film, which is why this variation of the film survives as strongly as it does. As they have with Circus and the Criterion DVD restoration of Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones have been adamant about preserving and reissuing films from their archive with exceptional fidelity and quality. I can’t wait to see more.

The PCM CD Mono is not bad and a better choice than Dolby Digital 1.0 or 2.0 for the DVD. The only time the sound fails is at the end when we hear the completed version of the title song in mono, which sounds a bit slower and touch more distorted than it should. After all the remixes, and the Super Audio CD DSD versions, maybe this should have been redubbed in simple stereo. It’s not like it would have violated Godard’s vision of the film, since he never intended for the final song to be heard at the end to begin with. The few extras include the original theatrical trailer for this cut and a new music video for The Neptunes’ remix version of the song.

Though that is not much in the way of extras, this DVD is an exceptional performer, and even if Godard’s Maoist/Marxist stuff is a joke to see, The Stones work is undeniably great. The World’s Greatest Rock ‘N’ Roll Band in the studio at their absolute peak of power and infamy. Godard later thought he made a mistake trying to synthesize the potential revolution in Rock Music with the actual revolution of the politically radical African Americans against Capitalism and the United States, but in the way he captures the band, there is no mistake. Seeing them work is classic enough.

The New York Times (Roger Greenspun)

Gliding, inquisitive camerawork unobtrusively captures the Rolling Stones rehearsing 'Sympathy for the Devil' in a London studio. Elsewhere in the city, a riverside car-scrapyard is home to a murderous clique of gun-toting, invective-spouting Black Power revolutionaries. In a seedy pornographic bookshop, a young man (Iain Quarrier) reads aloud from Mein Kampf while customers make their selections from the garish titles which line the shelves. We see the city's walls being spray-painted with punning graffiti slogans by a larkish, fashionably-dressed female hipster.

In a forest clearing, an interviewer - accompanied by a camera crew and sound recordist - bombards a young woman named 'Eve Democracy' (Anne Wiazemsky) with a series of topical and/or philosophical questions ("Is it true there is only one way to be an intellectual revolutionary and that is to give up being an intellectual") to which she only answers a deadpan "yes" or "no". At numerous junctures, an unseen narrator (Sean Lynch) reads from a scandalous, steamy (imaginary?) inter-galactic potboiler populated almost entirely by major political and cultural figures of the day (from Pope Paul to Regis Debray.) Meanwhile, back in the studio, Messrs Jagger, Richard [sic], Watts, Wyman and Jones are still hard at work...

One Plus One seems precisely calculated to offend, frustrate and challenge the viewer. Stones devotees keen to see their idols in action will be baffled by the way Godard keeps "interrupting" the movie by cutting away to lengthy episodes which seem to have little to do with either the Stones sequences or with each other - and by his coy refusal to let us hear the finished version of the song (in contrast to the "producers' cut" of the film, released as Sympathy for the Devil, which does include the complete number.) Students of politics and/or history expecting to find some kind of statement about the revolutionary atmosphere of the times will be annoyed by the larkish, sardonic tone adopted by a director who seems to take absolutely nothing seriously; everyone else will at times find their patience severely tested by the picture's hectoring repetitiveness, sophomoric humour and general air of arch obtuseness.

And yet, despite these many flaws, One Plus One is a remarkable work which remains radical, dangerous and stimulating nearly four decades on. Godard fires countless barbs and arrows, many of which veer wildly off course. But he hits his targets often enough to make the film an enthralling, consistently surprising experience - audaciously iconoclastic, often laugh-out loud funny (the 'Eve Democracy' sequence, parodying vapid celebrity interviews, is priceless) and displaying a breezy mastery of basic film-making techniques (camera movement; composition within the frame; film and sound editing) that mean that while much of the content has dated rather badly, the form of the movie remains as bracingly fresh as ever. And it all ends - fittingly enough - with a remarkable, technically astonishing, extended final shot that's enigmatic, beautiful and disturbing in equal measure.

For Ever Godard #16 review of Sympathy For The Devil (One Plus One), 1968, from Seventh Art, December 17, 2008

DVD Times Noel Megahey

One Plus One Master’s Dissertation by Gary Elshaw, One Plus One/Sympathy For The Devil, also seen here: Back: Table of Contents

CINÉTRACTS

France (90 mi) 1968 co-directors: Jean-Denis Bonan, Gérard Fromanger, Philippe Garrel, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Jacques Loiseleux, Chris Marker, Jackie Raynal, and Alain Resnais

(Godard segment 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 23, and 40)

Plot summary IMDb plot summary: A series of 41 documentary shorts, directed (without credit) by several famous French filmmakers and each running between two and four minutes. Each “tract” espouses a leftist political viewpoint through the filmed depiction of real-life events, including workers’ strikes and the events of Paris in May ‘68.

Film Comment Chris Marker Film and Video Collaborations, written and compiled by Sam DiIorio (excerpt)

Ciné-Tracts (1968)
When student revolts and rampant strikes exploded in May '68, Marker contacted a number of people (including Jean-Luc Godard, Philippe Garrel, Jackie Raynal, and Alain Resnais) to make two to three minute 16mm silent films encouraging political resistance. The resulting Ciné-Tracts were meant to be screened at meetings and demonstrations. Marker supposedly made several of them, notably number 5, Mouvement étudiant débouchant sur mouvement ouvrier (ou C'était la nuit·), but since the films are anonymous, specifics remain sketchy.

Cinétracts Master’s Dissertation by Gary Elshaw, One Plus One/Sympathy For The Devil, also seen here: Back: Table of Contents

LE GAI SAVOIR (The Joy of Learning) – made for TV

France Germany (95 mi) 1969

Chicago Reader (Dave Kehr)

Which translates (not well) as The Joy of Knowledge. Jean-Luc Godard's 1968 film was his first flat-out didactic effort, and decisively marked his break with the narrative tradition. Jean-Pierre Leaud (as "Emile Rousseau") and Juliet Berto (as "Patricia Lumumba") sit in a darkened room and discuss the corruption of language in capitalist society for 91 minutes. It's not easy going, but it does establish many concepts essential to an understanding of late Godard.

Time Out

Commissioned (in a moment of exceptional naiveté) by French TV, Le Gai Savoir was Godard's first 'radical' break with established methods of exhibition and distribution; the film was never televised, and has been seen only by political groups and film societies. Two militants meet in a darkened film studio to educate themselves in the ideological meanings of specific sounds and images: their work is essentially 'de-constructive', and it represents an important step in Godard's own return to a 'degree zero' of cinema. In Godard's own terms, the film is not atall revolutionary: it's a confused, idiosyncratic attempt at an analysis of the way things are, not yet a committed attempt to construct the way they should be.

Le Gai savoir • Senses of Cinema Steve Jankowiak, February 13, 2007

Le Gai Savoir by James Monaco - Jump Cut Picture and act—Godard’s plexus, by James Monaco from Jump Cut, 1975, also seen here: Le Gai Savoir: Picture and Act — Godard’s Plexus

Le Gai Savoir by Ruth Perlmutter - Jump Cut Godard and Eisenstein—notions of intellectual cinema, by Ruth Perlmutter from Jump Cut, 1975

One Plus One Master’s Dissertation by Gary Elshaw, One Plus One/Sympathy For The Devil, also seen here: Back: Table of Contents

Le Gai Savoir – Godard teaches while we experience the Joy of ... Lisa Thatcher, January 28, 2013

Only the Cinema [Ed Howard]

WIND FROM THE EAST (Le Vent d'est)

France Italy Germany (100 mi) 1970 co-directors: Groupe Dziga Vertov, Jean-Pierre Gorin, and Gérard Martin

User reviews from imdb Author: adrian knott (adrian_knott@hotmail.com)

Film theorists like to call this type of film an example of "counter-cinema", an attempt by a filmmaker to dislocate the viewer from any pre-conceived ideas of, say, narrative and acting so that he can raise the question of what traditional narrative cinema does to the spectator. In other words, by drawing our attention to the way a film is made he can confound our enjoyment and break the hypnotic effect a traditional film has on us. But who the hell wants that? If I wanted my enjoyment confounded, I'd rent "Flowers in the Attic".

"Le Vent d'est" isn't so much a film as an essay on Communism and the insidious effect American culture has on the individual. It's also possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen. I saw this in an arthouse cinema in the late eighties and for two hours I sat biting my lower lip to prevent myself from laughing out loud. I needn't have bothered, because most of the audience had left within half an hour of the film starting. I wish I could remember it more vividly because I could share with you some of the stuff in it. One scene I do remember, though, is the one where Gian Maria Volonte (the bad guy in the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns) throttles some woman while someone else off-screen pelts her on the back of the head with red paint. What does it mean? Who knows? In this case, I'm proud to be a philistine.

The worst thing about this film isn't the acting, the direction, or the dialogue (these are all irrelevant in this film, anyway). No, the worst thing is that Godard is arrogant enough to suggest that the average audience has no critical faculties of its own. Even worse that he feels he has to draw it to our attention.

User reviews from imdb Author: where's da feesh from Brazil

When one enters a movie theater with the intention to watch a Godard film, one has to bear in mind that: 1)it will not be a 'regular', that is 'industrial' film, with linear narrative; and 2)there will be a strong reaction from the viewer (usually negative, especially from people who are not used to watching this authorial/Nouvelle Vague/Cinema Novo type of film, and even more especially on those that says 'mise-en-scène: Jean-Luc Godard' somewhere during the credits.

"Wind From the East" ("Le Vent D'Est", "Vento do Leste") is a very deep and highly political discussion about communism, capitalism, art, revolution, intellectualism, Maoism, USSR, tradition, paradigms, poetry... It's hard to put it in terms of "it's about...", since the sequence of images is not based in any form of traditional narrative. In fact, it's the very opposite of it, its essence sprouting from the need of subversion, a need directly connected to the social/historical/political/artistic context of the 60's and 70's: to show things in a different way leads the viewer to see differently, therefore to think differently. A experimental cut, poetic even, given the metaphorical quality of the images. The frontiers of film language fades and encounters those of other art forms, not to weaken the film unity nor its message, but to strengthen them both.

One highlight (attention, should NOT be taken as a spoiler): the featuring of Glauber Rocha, director representative of Brazilian Cinema Novo (whose political attitude towards cinema establishes the proper dialog with Group Dziga Vertov's intention), singing Gal Costa's "Divino, Maravilhoso" (something like "Divine, Wonderful").

Long story short: a wonderful film, Godard in tip-top shape! For stuff alike watch "Sympathy for the Devil:One Plus One" [1968], featuring the creative process in which the Stones made song number one from "Beggars Banquet".

For Ever Godard #17 review of Le Vent D’est, 1970, from Seventh Art, December 17, 2008

"Wind from the East" by Julia Lesage - Jump Cut Godard-Gorin’s Wind from the East, looking at a film politically, by Julia Lesage from Jump Cut, 1974

Criticism of Robin Wood by William Van Wert - Ejumpcut.org Robin Wood as poddleganger, by William Van Wert from Jump Cut, 1977

Jean-Pierre Gorin Interview by Christian Braad Thompson - Jump Cut Filmmaking and history, by Christian Braad Thomsen from Jump Cut, 1974, also seen here: Jean-Pierre Gorin interview

Wind from the East - Wikipedia

TOUT VA BIEN

France Italy (95 mi) 1972 co-director: Jean-Pierre Gorin

Download this essay David Bordwell from Film Art

If Meet Me in St. Louis uncritically affirms the value of family life and Raging Bull offers an ambivalent critique of violence in American society, Tout va bien strongly attacks certain features of the state of French society in 1972. We shall use it as an example of how a film may present an ideological viewpoint explicitly and drastically opposed to that of most viewers.

Tout Va Bien, directed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin ... Tom Milne from Time Out

Godard's return to mainstream film-making after his self-imposed four-year Marxist-nihilist exile is a sort of auto-critique, craftily type-casting Fonda and Montand as media intellectuals (she an American journalist, he a former New Wave film-maker now working in commercials) who eagerly committed themselves to the revolutionary struggle in 1968, but are now led to revise that commitment (and their personal relationship) through their involvement in a factory strike in 1972. A little simplistic at times but acidly funny, with Godard's genius for the arresting image once more well to the fore.

Tout Va Bien | Chicago Reader Dave Kehr

Yves Montand, a former New Wave filmmaker, and his wife, Jane Fonda, get involved in a factory takeover in this 1972 self-styled "commercial" film by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin. Actually, it's only a slight step back from Godard's hard-core political tracts, but the few concessions he does make--characters and a story, of sorts--go a long way toward making the rhetoric accessible. Jerry Lewis's famous cutaway set from The Ladies' Man is recycled to expose the factory's power structure; long lateral tracks across a bank of supermarket checkout lanes make a wry comment on the ethics of consumerism. In English and subtitled French. 95 min.

Film Exposed Magazine Saba Chaudry

Released four years after the resistance of 1968, Tout Va Bien is an experimental and self-conscious film which takes a cynical look at capitalist aspirations, and the failure of 1968 to deliver lasting change. Jean-Luc Godard’s uncompromisingly political approach to filmmaking is most evident here, and Tout Va Bien is arguably the most radical and pessimistic of his films. The film’s title translates as ‘all’s well’ or ‘everything’s fine’, but it soon becomes clear that things are anything but.

The film’s first segment unfolds in a sausage plant in the midst of a wildcat strike. American correspondent Suzanne (Fonda) and her French film director husband Jacques (Montand) inadvertently get caught up in the strike when they are barricaded in. Disgruntled workers address the camera with their grievances, but we sense that even they are not completely sure what they’re fighting for. The factory episode affects Suzanne and Jacques in different ways, and leads them to re-examine their sense of purpose. In the film’s second act, the couple argue and are forced to admit the relationship is failing. Finally, in a surreal supermarket sequence, a consumer riot slowly develops as Suzanne investigates her next story.

Godard famously claimed that a linear narrative was not necessary at all for the sophisticated cinemagoer. However, to seek mainstream distribution, Tout Va Bien made certain concessions, providing characters and a story of sorts. Yet the rapidly paced and disjointed storyline remains largely inaccessible, and is often perplexing. The film employs an array of unconventional cinema effects, such as Brechtian monologues, broken eyeline matches, incidents that occur outside the story world, and consistent breaking of the fourth wall – signature elements of the French New Wave movement of which Godard was such an influential pioneer. These techniques are often self-referential and work well in moderation, but their repeated use makes it difficult to engage with the story on any meaningful level.

Despite a standout performance from Fonda (who was herself in the media spotlight at the time for her controversial stance on the Vietnam War), the characters serve a peripheral function, and are mere vehicles for exploring the wider social context. Furthermore, the film spouts an over-the-top Marxist polemic that occasionally borders on self-parody, condemning global capitalism but also expressing disillusionment with Left ineffectualness.

Criticisms aside though, Tout Va Bien’s visually inventive style makes it quite striking from an aesthetic viewpoint. A cutaway, multi-levelled set of the factory in the film’s first segment (a staging which pays homage to Jerry Lewis’ The Ladies’ Man (1961)), allows us to see different rooms simultaneously, exposing the factory’s power structure. The unfolding supermarket riot is captured as the camera tracks laterally back and forth across checkout lanes for ten unedited minutes, making a familiar setting appear distorted and strange.

Tout Va Bien does not try to influence the audience, and provides no clear-cut answers. It is left to the viewer to interpret the constellation of images presented. Thirty-five years on, the film remains an ambiguous but provocative piece, attesting simply to the uncertainty of turbulent times.

Tout va bien Revisited Criterion essay by J. Hoberman, February 14, 2005

Tout va bien (1972) - The Criterion Collection

1968 And All That Henry K Miller from the Context

Godard and Gorin's left politics, 1967-1972, page 2, by Julia Lesage April 1983

Not Just Movies: Tout va bien (Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre ... Jake Cole

976 (108). Tout va bien (Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin ... Also Like Life

Tout va bien - Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin Film Movie Review Mike Lorefice

Tout Va Bien (1973) | Left Film Review Mike C.

Film Analysis- “Tout Va Bien” | Rachel Lauren's Social Theory Blog

Left Behind: The Uses and Abuses of Jane Fonda in High-Maoist ... Melissa Anderson from The Village Voice

Not Coming To a Theater Near You [Beth Gilligan]

Tout va bien (1972) - Articles - TCM.com Jay Carr

World Cinema Review: Jean-Pierre Gorin and Jean-Luc Godard | Tout ... Douglas Messerli

Review: Tout Va Bien by Jean-Luc Godard | Film Quarterly Gillian Klein, Summer 1973 (pdf)

After the revolution: Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin's 'Tout va ... Mallory Andrews from Poptiq

Home Video Reviews - TCM.com Lang Thompson

Tout va bien - Everything's All Right - Jean-Luc Godard - 1972 - film ... James Travers from FilmsdeFrance

Tout Va Bien: The Criterion Collection : DVD Talk Review of the DVD ... Bill Gibron

Tout va Bien – The Criterion Collection #275 (a J!-ENT DVD Review ... Dennis Amith

Tout Va Bien | DVD Review | Film @ The Digital Fix Noel Magahey

DVD Savant Review: Tout va bien - DVD Talk Glenn Erickson

The QNetwork Film Desk [James Kendrick]

dOc DVD Review: Tout va bien (1972) - Digitally Obsessed Jon Danziger

DVDBeaver.com [Mark Balson]

Brecht issue of "Screen" reviewed by Julia Lesage - Jump Cut The human subject He, she or me? (or, the case of the missing penis), reviewed by Julia Lesage from Jump Cut, 1974

Tout Va Bien - Wikipedia

LETTER TO JANE: AN INVESTIGATION ABOUT A STILL

France (52 mi) 1972 co-director: Jean-Pierre Gorin

This is a detailed, perceptive analysis of a news-photo which shows Jane Fonda in Vietnam, looking concerned in conversation with some Vietnamese. Godard/Gorin argue very soundly that this emphasis on the concern of the West, through an image of a film star, rather than on the Vietnamese themselves and what they have to say, is only another form of the colonialism which dominates the Third World. The use of film to analyse the ideologies of still images is very effective; but by turning what should be an investigation of the photo into 'a letter to Jane' telling her off for constructing her image, Godard/Gorin fail to engage with the way meanings are constructed in news images (and other media).

Letter to Jane • Senses of Cinema Jonathan Dawson, March 13, 2002

Letter to Jane is, in one sense, a very long lecture (or harangue) by two filmmakers that is almost the purest example of agitprop in cinematic history as well as possibly the most graceless. But it still makes fascinating viewing and sums up a period in the political life of cinema that can be linked to the more formalist stylistic strictures of Lars Von Trier's Dogma Group.

This extraordinary little movie emerges from the then recently formed French Dziga Vertov film collective, led by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin. The collective produced a number of provocative films that show a distinct move away from the more 'middle class' narratives of a film like Pierrot le fou (Godard, 1965). In Letter to Jane, a single news photograph (see further discussion below) first appears on the screen: it is of Jane Fonda towering above some Vietnamese, and on the sound track Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin discuss the implications of the photograph. Their talk is didactic, and reveals what Laura Mulvey referred to later as Godard's “always interesting” misogyny (quoted in Williams 1992: 84). Certainly the intensity of a film consisting of a still picture and two ideologues berating the subject of the picture has something of the feeling of a show trial about it. The Marxist/Maoist Dziga Vertov movement and Jane Fonda's own short career as a bourgeois idealist collide in what in retrospect is a film by two rather privileged intellectuals who both seem to lack a sense of history's ironies.

Godard and Gorin had originally become united in a dream of a new revolutionary cinema and to all intents and purposes the Dziga Vertov Group became these two men as other members broke off to form their own equally obsessive and more or less purist groups. Pravda (1969) was post-produced by Gorin while Godard completed cutting Vent d'est in 1970. Based on the writings of Mao Tse-tung and Brecht, Pravda is itself a fairly minimalist piece with two voices, those of Godard and an anonymous woman (more misogyny?) on the soundtrack of this 58-minute monotonal polemic. Vent d'est is an equally feisty collage of polemics, politics, and agitprop theatrics. The earlier film Tout va bien (1972) was intended to star Jane Fonda, with the attendant ease of financing but her final reluctance to appear in the production (she had big problems with the script – not least its noisy politics) may well have triggered the more biting polemic of Letter to Jane. In fact Fonda, after a notorious harangue lasting three hours from Gorin, had finally agreed to appear in the film. But her role was a small one, appearing as the host of a radio show for the imaginary American Broadcasting System. Whatever the real reasons for her falling from grace with Gorin and Godard, they seem, 30 years on, to have been repaid in full measure.

Thus, the entire premise of Letter to Jane is a deconstruction of a notorious news photograph of Jane (Hanoi Jane was her nickname in America at the time) visiting Hanoi and surrounded by Vietnamese communists. The best parts of the film function as a withering critique of the iconography of Hollywood and the (fashionably unfashionable) Hollywood star system. Ironically, this system or its European model, was something Godard had in a lesser way made use of, or at least flirted with, in such films as Le Mépris (1963) with Jack Palance and Brigitte Bardot.

This section of the film makes use of stills from The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1942) and other movies including Klute (Alan J. Pakula, 1971 and starring Jane Fonda) and The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940 and starring Jane's father Henry Fonda), as well as publicity stills from Tout va bien. But the main part of the film repeatedly scans the photo of Fonda (taken by photographer Joseph Kraft and subsequently published in “L'Express”). This image is repeatedly analysed, in its original form, or cropped, to enable examination and deconstruction of various elements of the images – such as the traditionally garbed Vietnamese. In spite of the sometimes elegant, sometimes plain bloody-minded commentaries and voiceover debates from Gorin and Godard, the film remains the purest example of minimalist political filmmaking at its most simplistic and as such resembles as much a piece of radical underground anti-film practice as anything in the history of cinema. But the film also indicated a dead end in polemic film practice, remaining cold and alienating for all its exhilaratingly coruscating dialogue and visual intensity.

For Ever Godard #19 review of Lettre À Jane, 1972, from The Seventh Art, December 19, 2008

New York Times (registration req'd) Lawrence Van Gelder

NUMÉRO DEUX (Number Two)

France (88 mi) 1975

Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum)

Despite its experimental format (video images of varying proportions and numbers superimposed on a 35 mm image), Godard's film is wholly lucid. It examines three generations of a working class French family living together, and argues against traditional concepts of eroticism, instead referring the characters' sexual parameters to a whole series of complex emotions which in turn relate to any number of separate factors, political and social. The result was Godard's richest film in years.

Often juxtaposing or superimposing two or more video images within the same 'Scope frame, Jean-Luc Godard's remarkable (if seldom screened) 1975 feature--one of the most ambitious and innovative films in his career--literally deconstructs family, sexuality, work, and alienation before our very eyes. Our ears are given a workout as well; the punning commentary and dialogue, whose overlapping meanings can only be approximated in the subtitles, form part of one of his densest sound tracks. Significantly, the film never moves beyond the vantage point of one family's apartment, and the only time the whole three-generation group (played by nonprofessionals) are brought together in one shot is when they're watching an unseen television set. In many respects, this is a film about reverse angles and all that they imply; it forms one of Godard's richest and most disturbing meditations on social reality. The only full 'Scope images come in the prologue and epilogue, when Godard himself is seen at his video and audio controls. In French with subtitles. 88 min.

Ozus' World Movie Reviews (Dennis Schwartz)

Numéro Deux marks the successful collaboration between Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Luc Godard. It's an experimental film examining the effects of man-vs-machine and of a French working class family consisting of children and grandparents living together. Its unusual format projects on the big screen TV video images of different proportions and split-screen images that are superimposed on a 35 mm image after being shot in video. Godard's argument against traditional beliefs, the work ethic, alienation, and his openly controversial stand on erotic behavior running contrary to traditional family value advocates, pushes forward the sexual boundaries and his radical view that the difficult economic times increase the possibility of more self-awarenesss among the masses. Despite the film's avant-garde nature, it is surprisingly lucid and one of the noted filmmaker's better and more subversive films.

The three-generation family is superbly played by non-professionals who argue, make love, frequently wash, and enjoy the music of Léo Ferré. The wife (Sandrine Battistella) acts if she were a prisoner in her own home, while hubby (Pierre Oudrey) is imprisoned at work. The young boy and girl question growing up in a country where the government is hostile toward workers with the girl especially keen on asking mom about sexual matters, while their grandparents try to reconcile that their salad days are over. Godard appears as himself, a cranky questioning intellectual who draws frightening parallels between the landscape and factories--which have become interchangeable in today's paradoxical political climate. In a provocative and self-assured way Godard questions the social reality of the times and the way it is viewed by those undergoing the most severe changes. He comes to no set conclusions, but opens up a door for further thought on a strange world accepted by most only because it's unbelievable.

The title might refer to making number two and that so many things in life are shitty. Hubby and wife are often ruminating about taking a dump or taking it up the ass. It is filmed almost entirely in the family's cramped apartment.

NUMÉRO DEUX | Jonathan Rosenbaum April 3, 1976

NUMERO DEUX/ESSAI TITRES Dennis Grunes

Numero Deux by Reynold Humphries - Ejumpcut.org Godard’s synthesis: politics and the personal, by Reynold Humphries from Jump Cut, 1975

Chicago Reader [Jonathan Rosenbaum] (capsule review)

SIX TIMES TWO – made for TV

aka: Six Fois Deux/ Sur et sous la communication

France (6 episodes, 100 mi each) 1976 co-director: Anne-Marie Miéville

Recent Godard and Miéville work - Jump Cut Godard and Miéville's recent experiments debated, by Guy Braucourt and Guy Hennebelle from Jump Cut, August 1978

"6 x 2" by Jean Collet - Jump Cut Jean Collet from Jump Cut, July 1982

ICI ET AILLEURS (Here and Elsewhere)

France (53 mi) 1976

Jean-Luc Godard's short feature about the PLO was initially shot with Jean-Pierre Gorin in the Middle East in 1970, but when he edited the footage with Anne-Marie Mieville several years later, many of the soldiers that had been filmed were dead. Reflecting on this fact, as well as on the problems of recording history and of making political statements on film, Godard and Mieville produced a thoughtful and provocative essay on the subject. Coming after the mainly arid reaches of Godard's "Dziga Vertov Group" period (roughly 1968-1973), when his efforts were largely directed toward severing his relation with commercial filmmaking and toward forging new ways to "make films politically," this film assimilates many of the lessons he learned without the posturing and masochism that marred much of his earlier work. The results are a rare form of lucidity and purity. All proportions guarded, it is a little bit like hearing John Coltrane's "Blues for Bessie" after the preceding explorations of "Crescent" and "Wise One" on his Crescent album.

Cinepassion.org [Fernando F. Croce]

After the fervent filibusters, the humbled essay. The foundation is the unfinished, pro-Al Fatah pamphlet the Group Dziga Vertov trekked to Jordan in 1970 to film; many of the insurgents in it have been killed and Tout va Bien and Numéro Deux have been born by the time Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin pick up the footage some years later, so a different kind of analysis is in order. "First, of course, the people," Godard intones about the mutated work's original goal, when it is clear that the real subject is the gaggle of Euro visitors packing cameras instead of guns, seeking revolution ailleurs ("elsewhere") to dodge the post-'68 defeat of ici ("here"). It's the et of the title, however, that is central, the conjunction that links the two places, along with time and space, message and viewer -- film, that is. Godard and Gorin dote on the kiddie-training and rifle-polishing of PLO camps yet, looking back six years later, they see themselves in the child screaming a poem in the deserted, crumby-orange Casbah ("poor revolutionary fool"). The problem, a blinking computer screen informs us, lies in "the flow of images and sounds that hide silence," elements struggling for control of the screen, a corruptible syntax able to slide from the "Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan Executing a Viet Cong Prisoner in Saigon" snapshot to a glossy stroke-mag spread. Godard and Co. admit to succumbing to its lure, the focus is accordingly shifted to a middle-class Paris living room, where insurrection is manacled to the TV set. Folks carrying pictures line up in front of the camera for an ideological flipbook, manifold and interfluent -- Hitler and the Popular Front, Golda Meir and My Lai, Scheherazade, Nixon "the gangster," flickering slides in the dark. The marriage of form and upheaval remains dysfunctional, but the film has the elation of hope: When Anne-Marie Miéville's voice joins in to complement, question, and undercut the Godard-Gorin collage, there is the unmistakable optimism of mutual dialogue trumping proletyzing harangue, and pushing forward.

Cinematic Reflections [Derek Smith]

In 1970, Godard, along with Jean-Pierre Gorin and the Dziga Vertov Group, was commissioned by Al Fatah, the militant Palestinian group, to shoot a documentary. When the film was approximately two-thirds complete, production was halted since many of the Palestinians they had been filming had been killed. Years after the disintegration of the Dziga Vertov Group, Godard and his new collaborator Anne-Marie Mieville, whom he would work with through the 1990s, re-edited this footage into a cinematic essay exploring the failure of the original to address the reality of the images it presents. Dixon writes “Godard and Mieville now manipulate these images to address issues of genocide, social injustice, theatrical presentation, and the endless contradictions and internal complications involved in creating any sound/image construct, fictive or documentary. Ici et Ailleurs acknowledges that although the 1970 footage in the film is “real,” the editorial decisions involved in constructing the final film are equally “real,” and they shape, distort, reconstruct, and otherwise transform the flickering images of dead Palestinians into a work which is a meditation on the creation of history, and the images that record (and transmute) that history into the fabric of our lives.” At this time, Godard realized that the shortcomings of his more dogmatic Dziga Vertov period films were caused because “the sound was too loud”, or rather the truth of images they recorded in the Middle East were lost since the soundtrack “insists on one voice dominating another.”

In reshaping the original footage, Godard and Mieville are able to bring the “here”, in this case a contemporary French family unit, together with the “elsewhere”, Palestine, in a vibrant discussion of the nature of the image and how they come to define our reality. Integral to this discussion was the idea that the images in the original film, Victory, failed in their political objective since they added up to zero. As Godard says, since in a film, images are projected, not simultaneously, but one after another, they cannot form a cohesive whole because the next image replaces the importance of the first.

In a passage of the film, Mieville narrates:

“All that, we had all organized like that. All the sounds, all the images, in that order. All the sounds, all the images, in that order saying: here is what was beautiful in the Middle East. Five images, five sounds that hadn’t been heard or seen on Arab earth. The people’s will, plus the armed struggle equal the people’s war, plus the political work equal the people’s education, plus the people’s logic equal the popular war extended until victory of the Palestinian people. And this is what one, what he, what I, what she, what you had shot elsewhere.”

The humility in this statement is even more remarkable when you take into account that Godard is confessing to the defects of his previous five years of filmmaking. The “flow of images” in the politically militant films of the Dziga Vertov Group are as guilty of manipulation as the classical Western style it condemns. The narration in Ici et Ailleurs addresses “the emotional, physical, and historical distance between the original footage, shot in 1970, and the ways in which Godard and Mieville now manipulate these images to address issues of genocide, social injustice, theatrical presentation, and the endless contradictions and internal complications involved in creating any sound/image construct, fictive or documentary.” A heavy emphasis is also put on the word “et” as a way of addressing the importance of accounting for the past and present, the here and elsewhere, and most importantly, the message and its audience.

Ici et Ailleurs is important in Godard’s filmography not only because it marked yet another shift in his cinematic form, but also because he became willing to engage in a no-holds-barred discourse with his audience, rather than focusing his intensity on the purely revolutionary content of his message. His inclusion of the domestic space (represented by a typical middle class French family) as the point where “any politics must start” is evidence that in accounting for the “here” he has begun trying to link the political relationships and philosophical concerns in his films with the plight of the ordinary citizen. One senses that he is finally achieving what he set out to do after Deux ou Trois Choses, to “look around more than ever, the world, my kin, my twin.” This marked the end of the cold, calculating revolutionary phase of Godard’s career and he would, after this, to create political films, making sure to include the cinephiles and leftists he so fervently speaks to.

COMMENT ÇA VA?

France (105 mi) 1978 co-director: Anne-Marie Miéville

Cinepassion.org Fernando F. Croce

Jean-Luc Godard's wry exercise on the quicksands of communication, the title a trick question -- "How are ya," "How's it going," "How does one go (from Renault to Palestine)?" The setting is a radical Communist newspaper, a film is being shot about how the press operation works; burly, middle-aged editor Michel Marot thinks himself a political emissary, until the typist (Anne-Marie Miéville) shows him up as a hapless receptacle of corrupt media signifiers. Text has long been deconstructed, now it's time to dismantle the machines through which text springs: Marot dictates while Miéville mimics punching an imaginary keyboard, a notepad is scribbled with notes in close-up before being fed through a typewriter, the soundtrack is a symphony of electronic pings and clangs ("the noise of a press machine, and the noise of Vietnam"). Technology that could serve against oppression is shown as already seriously degraded by complacent reading, and the camera takes the editor's befuddled view as he pours through portfolios of commodified images (newspaper photos, magazine ads, war atrocities stills). At the center rests an analysis of such an image, a photo of protesters from Portugal placed under the microscope of Godard's multi-layered montage until, like Fonda's face melting onto the culprit's in The Wrong Man, it becomes a "miracle." Conscience piqued by revolt is the protagonist, "what is unseen is what directs" -- the scrutiny of hands and eyes, with Miéville supplying the voice, her backlit obscured face providing a template for the poster of De Palma's The Fury (which Godard dug). The auteur insists on a hectoring game, yet his delight with new technology is unmistakable and infectious, down to his reconfiguration of the august central shot of 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, the cursor blinking on a computer screen as if stranded in a dark cosmos. "Information, deformation" -- it's up to us to extract meaning from the image, on the page and on the screen.

User reviews from imdb Author: David (davidals@msn.com) from Chapel Hill, NC, USA

I don't think I've ever been so fascinated by a film that offered no fun whatsoever - this is kinda like sitting through a symposium on semiotics. As an exercise in deconstruction (or audience manipulation), COMMENT CA VA is hypnotic, offering a voice-over debate revolving around the effect of images upon a viewer, which is brought to life by contrasting (against the voice-over) white noise, long close-ups of a woman typing (not a man's fingers, as the woman is cast in a secretarial position even as a discourse questioning the kind of social structures that would include sexism or stereotypes plays out in the background, thus challenging the sexual politics of the intellectual milieu that such a debate would be the product of), and montages of static images of riot-and-strike scenes, which focus the discussion of how the expressions and gestures of the individuals in the captured images manipulate an audience that arrives with preconceptions and expectations that can be slotted into existing ways of viewing the world.

Intellectually and philosophically this is fascinating, and descendants of this interrogation of images and their power as signifiers can be found in the work more recent directors as diverse as Tsai Ming-liang, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Spike Jones and Todd Haynes. But in this earlier presentation, Godard drops the fun factor to zero, creating a film that is provocative, and weirdly haunting, but very, very didactic. For die-hard fans (or theory geeks) only.

Only The Cinema [Ed Howard]

EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF (Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie)

aka: Slow Motion

France Austria Germany Switzerland (87 mi) 1980

User reviews from imdb Author: Bob Taylor (bob998@sympatico.ca) from Canada

This was the first feature by Godard after a decade spent experimenting with politics and video. It's as traditional a narrative as we have ever seen from him. The story has three parts. Denise Rimbaud (Baye) represents the imagination; she's a film editor who drops her frustrating work to find some fresh air in the Alps. Paul Godard (Dutronc) is the fearful-dependent side of most of us: he's afraid to leave the city, but can't live without Denise. Then there's business, represented by Isabelle the prostitute (Huppert).

The director, now 50 and with a flagging libido, has a field day with his sexual fantasies. The scene with the two hookers in the businessman's office is wonderfully funny, in its deadpan way it recalls Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle. The use of sound is more imaginative; he isn't using the montage of Beethoven quartet snippets that he often relies on. His camera moves more than in the past; there's a great slo-mo of Dutronc jumping over a table to tackle Baye, then they both collapse laughing onto the floor. The sense of freedom suddenly released is exhilarating.

User reviews from imdb Author: Chris Bright from London

Sauve Qui Peut loosely translates as "every man for himself" and as such I guess is Godard's acknowledgment that 1968's dream of a new society is gone and everyone has to get on with the daily grind. The three protagonists try and save themselves in different ways, Natalie Baye through getting back to nature, Huppert through selling herself and the director Paul Godard through his work. Everyone however is ground down by the social relations they must operate within.

As ever Godard leverages as much of his library as he can into the film, with huge chunks of Duras, Bukowski and sundry other writers cut & pasted in. And he plays the usual games with sound and image, juxtaposing them sometimes to beautiful effect, sometimes dissonant, quite often very funny.

A lot of people find Godard's later work somewhat depressing and it's true it mostly lacks the fizz of his early 60's stuff, however there are compensations; he seems to be putting more of his heart as well as his head into the work in later years. There is more than enough here to draw you in and keep you watching for several viewings.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

By positioning himself stubbornly, permanently, tragically at the terminal end of cinema—or whatever "cinema" may constitute at any given moment in his life, be it the playground of profound hokum and momentous moving pictures of the mid-20th century, or the melancholy world of conflicting images of the present—Jean-Luc Godard out-paces everyone; he lives at the ever-shifting finish line. EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF (also known as SLOW MOTION) marked Godard's return to the film industry after a lengthy period working outside of (or directly against) it. It also marks the start of a period that would last until HELAS POUR MOI in 1993, a run that includes ten features, countless shorts and mid-length films, and the start of the mammoth HISTOIRE(S) DU CINEMA project. Though Godard's early-to-mid-1960s films are the most frequently revived—and therefore the best known—his 1980s films are just as vital and arguably even more radical. The young Godard was a man who used cinema, the most emotional of media, to explore ideas; the middle-aged Godard was a man who had come to realize that people often hold on to emotions for ideological reasons, and that they often adopt or follow ideas because of their emotional significance. In EVERY MAN, the filmmaker, having let go of all aesthetic hang-ups, returns to the territory of his 1960s features (beauty, prostitution, compromised filmmaking, relationships) and rebuilds cinema from the purest level; the film is bleak, vivid, complex, simple, and a lot of other things that only Godard is capable of perceiving as not being contradictory of one another. It's also unlike any film made before it, and like very few films made after it. (1980, 87 min, new 35mm print)

DVD Outsider Slarek

For Jean-Luc Godard, Slow Motion marked a return to commercial features after several years of Marxist-inspired experimentation, two spent making films that were never shown or completed, and a further four working almost exclusively with video and the documentary form. Amidst the euphoria of the more positive reviews for Slow Motion could be detected a few small sighs of relief, that Godard had returned to making films about people rather than ideas, that experimentation was working in partnership with communication, rather than in disregard of it.

The title, Slow Motion, is an English one that does not even attempt to translate the original French - Sauve qui peut (la vie) is actually better served by the American title of Every Man for Himself, though even that was missing the tellingly bracketed la vie, or Life, a central theme of the story. The English title reflects the director's use of step-printed slow motion at particular points in the film, often at moments of significant emotional reaction, whether they be happiness, conflict, fear, pain or recognition - the technique invites us to focus on the moment, on the faces and the feelings of the characters, on how they are affected by what is happening or what they are seeing.

The narrative revolves around three characters, all facing possible lifestyle changes and whose connection to each other becomes clearer and as the film progresses: Paul (Jacques Dutronc) is a television director, separated from his wife and daughter, whom he sees only once a month; Denise (Nathalie Baye) works for the same television company as Paul, has recently ended a relationship with him and now plans a move to the country to be come a writer; Isabelle (Isabelle Huppert) is a country girl who works as a prostitute in the city and is looking to move out of her shared flat and possibly her chosen occupation. There is no all-explaining set-up here - Godard drops us into the middle of the stories and leaves us to piece the information together, and doing so provides one of the film's very real pleasures. Indeed, immediately after my first viewing of the film I felt compelled to run it again, knowing full well that there would be little moments and indicators in the first third that meant nothing until I was aware of how the inter-relationships of the characters would later play out.

The film is divided into chapters: 'Life' (wrongly subtitled here as 'Run for your life'), 'The Imaginary', 'Fear', 'Trade' and 'Music'. Each of these deals with aspects of modern life, partly in metaphorical terms but most directly in how they affect the three main characters. Thus Isabelle, having been introduced in the previous section with the pick-up "Do you want to see a film?" (which itself should raise a smile with cineastes), does not really feature as a character until we reach 'Trade', in which she is paid for her services, threatened into knowing her place in the commercial hierarchy by gangsters, and ordered about by a client who is the very essence of power both fuelled and corrupted by wealth. A chance meeting offers her a possible way out via an old friend, but the job itself appears to involve no actual work, just traveling to distant destinations, staying for a while and returning, a comment perhaps on the increasingly vacuous nature of executive work in the commercial world. I say 'perhaps' because, as often with Godard, clear explanations are rarely forthcoming. Similarly suggestive and enigmatic are the shots of a busy shopping street, dominated by a C&A department store, which serve no narrative purpose as such, but intercut with the business between client and prostitute, the inference is, at the very least, interesting. And you can read whatever you like into the moments when individual characters hear music that no-one else is aware of, given a more visual realisation in the final shot.

That the character of Paul shares the director's surname and that he works in television (a medium for which Godard, the Jean-Luc version, worked in the late 70s) inevitably suggests an autobiographical slant. This is especially evident when, asked to speak to a film class, he reads what sounds very much like a quote from Godard himself, in which he states that he makes movies primarily to pass the time. Whether this autobiographical element extends to Paul's hostile attitude to his ex-wife and almost paedophilic observations about his growing daughter's body is another matter.

Moments and images throughout are echoed elsewhere in the film with different characters and locations. Literature and storytelling cross over from character to character (at one point Denise appears to be almost reading Isabelle's mind) and co-incidence and chance play an engaging and believable part in the narrative structure. There is even a sometimes Buñuelian sense of comic observation, from the man who drives to the post-office in a Formula One racing car and the female farm worker who demonstrates how to have fun with cows, to the client who makes a business call whilst examining Isabelle's naked behind. Godard's beloved literary references are also given a Buñuel style twist, with the writer Margueritte Duras quoted, played over the car stereo and referred to as being just off screen, but never shown.

Despite the sometimes multi-layered soundtrack and some deliberately abrupt cuts from music to natural sound, Godard's technique is far less experimental than during in his 70s films. He relies very much here on the skills of his actors, with lingering shots of faces that again focus our attention on the thoughts and feelings of his characters, beautifully communicated by a fine cast on consistently impressive form.

Slow Motion is a smart, sophisticated and rewarding film from one of modern cinema's most important artists, a treat for Godard fans and as good a way as any for the uninitiated to discover his work.

It can take a little while to get into and start really connecting the dots, but it's worth it. Slow Motion is an involving and carefully crafted work that showcases Godard's less experimental side to fine effect, and is both an accessible and intellectually stimulating work.

DVD Times Noel Megahy

"Sauve qui peut/la vie" by James Roy MacBean - Jump Cut An open letter to Godard, by James Roy MacBean from Jump Cut, March 1986

Channel 4 Film Fran Hortop

Read the New York Times Review » Vincent Canby

PASSION

France Switzerland (88 mi) 1982

For the '60s generation, Godard effectively reinvented cinema, but for many who came to movies in the '70s he trailed a reputation as a verbose, didactic, doctrinaire apologist for the 'lost causes' of May '68. Passion brought a chance to (re)discover what all the fuss was about. Reunited with cameraman Raoul Coutard after 16 years, and with a trio of great actors (Huppert, Schygulla, Piccoli), he orchestrates his personal passions for classical music, romantic painting, and the business of film-making around his favourite theme of how life relates to love. In a film studio, a Polish director is recreating in tableaux vivants a series of celebrated paintings by Goya, Ingres, Delacroix, Rembrandt and El Greco (breathtakingly lit and framed by Coutard), but the backers complain that there's no story. Outside, at the hotel, are many stories, but none is allowed to assume centre stage and focus your vision on a single narrative. Godard asks you to look everywhere at once, offering sounds and images that astonish the senses and tease the mind. It's a film you'll need - and want - to see several times.

Jean-Luc Godard's influence is indisputable. The '90s alone have seen high-profile directors Quentin Tarantino and Wong Kar-Wai paying homage to him in one way or another, and Godard has continued to remain prolific long after most of his peers have slowed down or died. So why has it been so long since one of his films saw release in America? One reason may be his unapproachable reputation. Though Godard's '60s films—such as Breathless, Weekend, and Contempt—are among the most ambitious of the French New Wave, they're also as entertaining and sharply witty as they are difficult. The late '60s, however, found Godard moving in a drastically more strident leftist direction, a move his work would reflect for years to come. A bold and perhaps questionable decision, it also cost him much of his American audience, causing his films to appear here much more sporadically in the ensuing decades, until their release pretty much dwindled off to nonexistence. Video has been a little bit kinder to Godard, but the emphasis is again on his early work. It's strange to think that there's a sequel to Alphaville that has yet to see the light of day here. But the reappearance of 1982's Passion (along with Detective from 1985) is a step in the right direction. Among Passion's characters is a movie director (Jerzy Radziwilowicz) plagued by people concerned about the lack of a story in the film he is attempting to make, which seems to consist only of re-creations of paintings in the style of Goya, Rembrandt, Delacroix and others. It's probably Godard's idea of a joke, and an appropriate one for a film that, although it does seem to have a story, obscures it at nearly every turn. Godard contrasts the sensual quality of Radziwilowicz's film with the cacophonous environment needed to produce it. The production is also somehow related to a nearby factory, which also supplies extras and is home to a stuttering worker (Isabelle Huppert) who tries to resolve her desire to work with her alienated position. If it sounds like a self-consciously political look at work, class, and art, it is. But the film is also aware enough of what it's doing to keep things from getting heavy-handed, as evidenced by a scene in which Radziwilowicz begins wrestling with an actor dressed as an angel. Even if it seems less urgent than Godard's best work, it's worth watching, and its overdue arrival on video is a good precedent for a time in which the acceptance and popularity of foreign films is lower than it was in the days before Godard began working.

Godard's Passion Glen Norton

On Deleuze's Cinema Daniel Frampton

Chicago Reader [Dave Kehr] (capsule review)

FIRST NAME: CARMEN (Prénom Carmen)

France (85 mi) 1983

Jean-Luc Godard continues the autobiographical fantasy of Every Man for Himself and Passion with a blackly comic tale of a broken-down director (played with great satiric flair by Godard himself) enlisted by his sexpot niece (Maruschka Detmers) as a cover for a bizarre kidnapping scheme. Godard, as usual, proceeds by contradictions: just as he aligns Beethoven's late quartets with the noise of Parisian traffic, so the film becomes more abstract as it becomes more personal, more tragic as it becomes more farcical. Godard uses the plot of Merimee's Carmen as a link between a classical tradition and his own modernist work of the 60s; he is searching for a point of equilibrium between the made and the found, the ordered and the chaotic--a point from which to define an aesthetic for the 80s. With Jacques Bonnaffe and Myriem Roussel (1983). In French with subtitles. 85 min.

Something like a remake of Pierrot le Fou in its cosmic despair, doom-laden romanticism, and stinging, insolent wit. Replacing Bizet with Beethoven and recasting the operatic cigarette girl as a cheapo terrorist, this is really an intimate journal musing about three movies in one. As in Passion, there is a bleak acknowledgement of the difficulty of making films (with the string quartet's Beethoven rehearsals indicating how the film-maker is going astray in the tone and tempo of his attempts to communicate). Then there is the story of Carmen and Don José, which obstinately refuses to get off the ground, grinding into a grim stasis where l'amour fou dies miserably as the naked lovers take sexual stock. And finally there is Godard himself, drawing all the threads together in a confessional performance as a burnt-out film-maker languishing in a lunatic asylum, out of which he is tempted only to suffer both professional and personal betrayal by Carmen (last name Karina?). Not for nothing does the film carry a nostalgic dedication 'in memoriam small movies'. This, throwaway jokes and all, is Godard back at his most nouvelle vague in years.

DVD Times Noel Megahey

Godard takes the self-referential nature of his films a stage further in his 1983 film First Name Carmen, himself acting as Jean Godard – a famous film director who is locked-up in a mental institution, pretending to be sick, but in reality avoiding the world and the responsibilities of making films. He is visited by his niece Carmen (Maruschka Detmers), who wants to borrow his video equipment and his empty seaside apartment to make a film with some friends. However, she and her friends are looking for a hideaway from a bank robbery they are about to undertake. During a shootout, Carmen falls in love with one of the security guards, Joseph (Jacques Bonnaffé) and he joins their gang as they prepare to kidnap a wealthy industrialist.

As Mike Figgis observed in his assessment on the extra features of the Artificial Eye release of Weekend, music plays a vital part in Godard’s films and, before his latest feature Notre Musique (2003), Prénom Carmen is perhaps where music is the most important factor in determining the whole structure and tone of one of his films. Prénom Carmen is a jumble of ideas, influences and inspirations – the film operates on at least two levels (three if you want to include the usual conceit of the Godardian meta-narrative – the film director drawing it all together), combining an 80’s cinéma du look aesthetic (a Diva-style plot and Betty Blue levels of full-frontal nudity) with musical, literary and philosophical ideas. There are various allusions to Bizet’s opera, not least in the title of the film, but also in the surface plot and the fatal love affair – the gang of bandits, the outcast police guard who throws his lot in with them for the love of a predatory woman, the symbolic presentation of the roses – a barman even whistles a melody from the opera and there are one or two instances of dialogue being taken from the libretto. The underlying direction of the film however relies more on the secondary character of Claire, a girl Joseph is in love with, but who is not his girlfriend. She is a musician in a string quartet which is rehearsing a Beethoven piece which can be heard as backing throughout the film. The pace and tempo of the film is therefore dictated by the moods and rhythms of the piece – tragic, comic, violent, mysterious and sometimes improvisational, abstract and meandering – reacting additionally to random literary quotes Claire throws into the mix. The film does attempt to tap into filmmaking as an abstract, sensory experience, on the same level as a musical piece, but apart from a bold experiment into drawing together a different variety of elements and allowing them to dictate the structure and direction of making a film, Prénom Carmen never seems to cohere into anything purposeful or meaningful and its wilful obscurity can make it a very frustrating experience.

Disappointingly, Warner haven’t given the 1.66:1 transfer anamorphic enhancement. The image is rather soft and some mild grain or mosquito-net noise artefacts can be seen throughout. The colours look quite good however and tones are cool and clear in a very 80’s manner, although some VHS-like cross-colouration can be detected. The print is also free from marks or scratches and apart from a very slight blurring in movement, there are no really noticeable artefacting or macro-blocking problems. The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio track is adequate, clear throughout, but never really impressing. It occasionally sounds a little bit echoing, but these characteristics are doubtless down to the audio recording itself. Subtitles are fixed on the transfer and cannot be removed. They appear with a transparent border and are clearly readable. There are no extra features. Overall, this is a fair, if in no way exceptional barebones transfer.

New York Times (registration req'd) Vincent Canby

HAIL MARY (Je Vous Salue, Marie)

France Switzerland Great Britain (107 mi) 1985

All Movie Guide [Todd Kristel]

Wily Godard has located the Biblical story of the Virgin Birth among the present-day Swiss. Godard's Mary (beautifully incarnated by Roussel, his Karina-like discovery) has to cope with an unconvinced and irritable Joseph, eventually almost beaten into submission by an oafish Gabriel, who performs the Annunciation at a petrol station. While Joseph learns the hardest of ways that love is not all fleshly desire, a parallel story tells of a young girl called Eva receiving a painful lesson in male inconstancy. Composed like a brilliant mosaic, Godard's film gives fresh meaning to everyday images; makes us listen to Dvorak with renewed appreciation; and shows the female nude as though never filmed before.

On Jean-Luc Godard Christopher Mulrooney from the Film Journal (excerpt)

Banned in Rome, screened in New York and Los Angeles before being picketed off by certain sodalities. Not since L'Age d'Or in Madrid, perhaps…

The work is of supernal beauty. Galilee has not looked better since the feet of the Master trod upon it. The charming philosophical disquisitioning, if you will, is capped with a finale more Biblical than De Mille, even.

It is true, for the benefit of the fellow who asked me if Night of the Living Dead has any naked females in it (because his wife would object), there is some nudity. "I would like," says Dali, "to know what the Virgin's ass hairs would have looked like."

A highly controversial film when it was first released, Hail Mary was regarded as blasphemous by some people. Others may regard it to be a sincerely devout movie; although it modernizes the nativity story, it remains true to the spirit of the biblical account, and while the film does contain a significant amount of nudity (as well as frank language that may offend some people because of the context), it doesn't seem particularly prurient or titillating. Unfortunately, the film doesn't seem very coherent either. Many people would probably regard Hail Mary as confusing, slow moving, and emotionally uninvolving if they saw it. Even those who enjoy Godard's more renowned work may find this movie to be too self-indulgent and pretentious, although it's possible that some of the imagery, and particularly the dialogue, is intentionally over the top. Indeed, screwball moments such as Mary's inner monologues suggest that Godard tried too hard to create an original interpretation of the biblical account and not hard enough to create a compelling movie. Hail Mary does contain some beautiful cinematography, but otherwise this film doesn't offer much beyond its curiosity value.

Slant Magazine [Fernando F. Croce]

Like Roberto Rossellini's The Miracle before it and Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ after it, Hail Mary became a cause célèbre on subject alone, berated by the Pope and picketed by religious groups before it could even open. Also like those films, it's a profoundly felt, gravelly beautiful work of faith, where the potentially parodist aspects of the premise (the Nativity story recast in modern-day Geneva) are consistently tempered by august contemplation. The tenderly reverential attitude of the film would seem surprising coming from Jean-Luc Godard, had it not been so much a part of the great French filmmaker's mellow, ruminating period of rediscovery. Just as Every Man for Himself inaugurated the '80s by resurrecting his human interest that had been pulverized in favor of militant indoctrination, Hail Mary marks the decade's midway point by taking its spiritual temperature. The Bible may provide the outline, but Godard's version isn't a Classics Illustrated retelling: Teenage Marie (Myriem Roussel) plays basketball when not pumping gas at her father's station, taxi driver Joseph (Thierry Rode) is her sexually frustrated boyfriend; a jet whooshing overhead announces the arrival of testy, unshaven Gabriel (Philippe Lacoste), who jumps into Joseph's cab and tells the virginal Marie of her pregnancy.

Set to gusts of classical music and punctuated with images of nature (sunsets, rippling water, rustling trees), Hail Mary is limpid, serene, and, for all the pubic hair on display, glowingly chaste. The copious doses of female nudity, the main factor in raising the ire of protesters, are in fact central to Godard's incantation of the intangible. "Does the soul have a body?" Marie asks her gynecologist, and it is by focusing on their bodies and surfaces that the director can extract the characters' soulful essences into the open. It is often forgotten that Godard's picture was always meant as a companion piece to The Book of Mary, Anne-Marie Miéville's lovely 25-minute short about a couple's imploding marriage as viewed by their young daughter; besides setting the melancholic tone and supplying the formation of a consciousness as its structure, Miéville's short anticipates and complements Godard's in the weight and intensity given to objects and bodies. This sense of physicality becomes enlarged in the film, where the movements of women throwing a basketball around are as imbued with wonder as the child growing inside Marie's belly; then again, Godard has since Breathless linked the mysteries of womanhood with the mysteries of the universe, and Marie's nude body, tossing and turning painfully in bed, is less fetishized than aestheticized as the earthly representation of an aching soul's trajectory toward enlightenment.

It's tempting to see Hail Mary as Godard's twilight armistice with the Christianity that, back in 1967, was just another bourgeois commodity roasted in the Weekend pit. Yet there is a sense in which the radiant spirituality of the picture emerges less from his belief in a rigid set of religious rules than from his faith in cinema's capacity for embodying the exalted emotions of religion: The ultimate instrument of modernist analysis, Godard's cubist fragmentation of image and sound suggests here an ongoing struggle to bring body and soul together. "Despair" is routinely used to describe the tone of the filmmaker's later period, yet, because the post-Dziga Vertov Godard believes as deeply in the power of the medium as the young cinephile of the Cahiers du Cinéma era, the film's feeling is ultimately one of refreshed hope. Indeed, Hail Mary's last 10 minutes or so remain among the most life-affirming movements in the director's career, bringing together form and content to celebrate the title character's celestial awareness and, possibly mirroring the auteur's own spiritual renewal, a new chance for humanity.

Jean Luc Godard's Hail Mary—his last great film. - Slate Saul Austerlitz from Slate, October 2, 2006

940. Je vous salue, Marie / Hail Mary (1984, Jean-Luc Godard ... Also Like Life

DVD Talk [Jamie S. Rich]

Turner Classic Movies Mikita Brottman and David Sterritt

Je vous salue, Marie: The Pretence of Cinematic Law Glen Norton

Scandal to the Jews, folly to the pagans: a treatment for Hail Mary Stuart Cunningham and Ross Harley from The Australian Journal of Media & Culture

The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

'Hail Mary' and 'For Ever Mozart', for Better or Worse | PopMatters Jose Solis, February 3, 2014

The Tech (MIT) [Michiel Bos]

DVD Verdict [Joel Pearce]

DVDBeaver.com [Chis Long]

New York Times (registration req'd) Vincent Canby

DÉTECTIVE

France Switzerland (95 mi) 1985

The trouble with Godard films is the weight of expectation brought to them: sometimes they're strained and serious (Passion), sometimes they're megabores (Hail Mary), and sometimes mini-masterpieces like Détective. This is a cross between a Grand Hotel for the 1980s and film noir: a crumbling Paris hotel houses four groups of people whose paths occasionally cross. One is the group around house-detective Terzieff, still trying to solve a murder of years ago; another is the entourage of boxer Tiger Jones, in training under the eye of his manager (Hallyday); another is a couple on the verge of breaking up; and the last is the Mafia. Much of it, especially Léaud (Terzieff's nephew-aide) and Cuny as a Godfather who judges men by their toilet habits, is riotously funny. Built on the charisma of its stars and on memories of the great thrillers of the 40s, tenuously held together by Godard's romantic pessimism, curiosity and sense of humour, it's co-dedicated, sensibly, to Clint Eastwood.

Jean-Luc Godard's hotel-based film noir borders on farce: as conventional as he gets, but still inventive, subversive and darkly comic.

Jean-Luc Godard made Détective purely to finance his less-than studio-friendly project Hail Mary and it was pretty much the last time he would work within the confines of a conventional production set-up. It is ostensibly a star vehicle, particularly for Nathalie Baye and Johnny Hallyday, once an off-screen couple who had considerable box office cachet. The shoot was difficult, with the director allegedly at his most vile: not the ideal conditions for the making of a masterpiece.

Indeed, it isn't his best film, but notwithstanding these constraints, it's something of a minor triumph. It's as good a star vehicle as you are likely to see, while remaining typically Godard. A B-movie pastiche which is light on its feet, it takes film noir clichés - grubby detectives, an unsolved murder, a love triangle, mobsters and racketeers - and adds a heavy dose of farce, bathos and romantic pessimism.

The film takes place within a Parisian hotel, a louche establishment that retains glimpses of its decadent glory - breathtakingly shot by cinematographer Bruno Nuytten. Here, the ageing hotel detective (Terzieff) attempts to find the culprit of a long-unsolved murder, aided by his chameleon-like nephew, played exquisitely by New Wave favourite Jean-Pierre Léaud. Baye and Claude Brasseur are Emile and Françoise Chenal, a couple on the brink of divorce, embroiled in a scam with a boxing promoter and minor racketeer Fox Warner (Hallyday). In another narrative thread, Alain Cuny's ancient mafia don the Prince haunts the hotel, reduced to a ghostly caricature accompanied by two spooky children.

These corrupt and moribund structures - marriage, the mafia, commerce, albeit the dodgy underworld commerce of fight fixing and drug running - see out their last days in this crumbling hotel. It's small wonder that critics have seen this film as Godard's swansong to the thriller genre beloved of his youth, and by extension, as a farewell to cinema altogether.

It's not a conventional film, although as near to a straight narrative piece as Godard gets. The film's vignette structure and the dominant, interfering presence of the soundtrack (Schubert, Bach, Schumann) deliberately confounds the cohesion of the narrative, as if the viewer is left to solve the mystery of the film with the pieces which remain. It's experimental, energetic and playful but could prove too misleading for some.

It's also smart, funny, stocked with in-jokes and cinematic references, and surprisingly tender - the Baye, Brasseur, Hallyday love-triangle is unbearably brittle and revealing. Godard gets stunning performances from his cast. The climax of the movie, a mischievous subversion of film noir action, is a joyfully, wilfully farcical scene in which Léaud plays the clown to perfection. Godard's sense of detail is equally wicked: the detective's room is full of yellow detective novels; the mafia man makes his final judgement on his enemies by studying their toilet habits.

Verdict
A wicked, witty and yet surprisingly tender pastiche of film noir. A difficult film to make, but a pleasure to watch.

DVD Times Noel Magahey

Jean-Luc Godard’s Détective comes late in the period of the director’s career where he was increasingly uninterested in the ordinary plot and form of traditional cinema. Unable however to find funding for the film he wanted to make, Je Vous Salue, Marie, he agreed to make a more commercially acceptable film featuring many of the biggest stars in French cinema. Like his earlier film, Prénom Carmen, Godard, in Détective, would play with his love for the style and conventions of American detective movies, but filter them very much through his own unique approach to filmmaking.

The whole of Détective takes place in one location – the Hotel Concorde St. Lazare in Paris, where the activities of a number of characters are monitored and speculated upon by a group of detectives who occupy a room where the murder of The Prince once occurred. In one of the hotel rooms is an airline pilot, Emíle Chenal (Claude Brasseur), whose marriage with his wife Françoise (Nathalie Baye) is breaking down. Françoise meets another guest in the hotel, Mr. Jim Warner (Johnny Hallyday), a boxing promoter who is setting up a big fight for his boxer Tiger Jones (Stéphane Ferrara). Also staying at the hotel, Tiger Jones is mentally preparing for his big fight with himself, trying not to be distracted from his training and chocolate bar eating by his girlfriend the Princess of the Bahamas (Emmanuelle Seigner), who walks around topless most of the time. Warner owes money from a dodgy boxing business deal to a number of people in the hotel, among them The Prince (Alain Cuny), a mafia boss whose staff appear to be running the hotel. Watching them all are the detective Isidore (Jean-Pierre Léaud), his Uncle William Prospero (Laurent Terzieff) and a young girl Arielle (Aurelle Doazan).

“To sum up. Lots of stories here, ours and other people’s. Something’s bound to happen.”, says Isidore, the detective, running around the hotel in various staff guises, watching everything that is going on. But despite all Godard’s little hints and conventional murder-mystery conventions (number 9’s on doors turning upside down, guns being brandished) nothing really happens at all until the conventional, yet incomprehensible, end of film shoot-out. The film really adds up to nothing more the a series of situations played out by a number of big stars – each of those situations certainly being of interest for how they are played out by the fabulous cast (including a very young Julie Delpy), but they never add up to anything more than the sum of their parts – rather less in fact, since Godard again seems to be trying to challenge the viewer, again using his love for detective fiction as a metaphor for how life is a puzzle that doesn’t make any sense at all – at least not in any structurally organised way. The director clearly feels that there is no longer any point in telling a story in a traditional manner, since it’s all been done before, it’s all been written before (almost all the characters in the film read books that tell the story of their lives, such as Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ and Conrad’s ‘Lord Jim’) – and, at least as far as Godard is concerned, it has all been filmed before. Détective is therefore little more than a montage of all those movie moments - the breakdown of a marriage, the murder mystery, the mafia mob film. All these elements are well played-out by a strong cast, with plenty of Godardian absurdity and a brilliant formal structure, but it lacks the heart and personal investment of the director that even more experimental Godard films contain. In the absence of such involvement and anything resembling a coherent plot - particularly for a film that was made as a commercial enterprise - it's a bit much to expect the viewer to really care anything at all for the answers to the détective's investigations.

Godard’s Détective is not an easy film to follow, since it doesn’t really make any sense at all, simultaneously playing on cinematic conventions with an apparent murder-mystery plot and a star-studded cast, while at the same time contemptuously deconstructing those conventions to confound the viewer’s expectations. For the Godard fan though, there is a lot here to enjoy, particularly watching a star cast like this go through the Godard experience in a way that would never happen again, but, rather like Weekend, the director is at the end of another stage in his gradual dismissal of the traditional cinematic format and his lack of interest in the film other than the formal process of putting it on the screen, is clearly apparent. Optimum’s DVD release of Détective is almost barebones, but the film itself is well-presented with good A/V quality and optional subtitles.

Détective • Senses of Cinema Anna Dzenis from Senses of Cinema, May 13, 2002

KING LEAR

USA Bahamas (90 mi) 1987

Godard's dullest and least accomplished for some time. Expectedly, only the odd line of Shakespeare's text survives, mouthed by brat-packer Molly Ringwald. People wander in and out; connections are tenuous in the extreme. Mailer gets a scene or two, suggests a Mafia reading of the play, and exits. Enter Burgess Meredith to pick up the cue as an ex-hoodlum, Don Learo, bewailing to his sullen daughter Ringwald, at a lakeside restaurant, the fate of the crime barons of old at the hands of the big corporations. Godard plays a shambling 'professor', his telephone-cable dreadlocks suggesting he may be the Fool. The fragmentation of image, narrative, sound and music are familiar, but here employed to no effect. Intercut are stills of dead, great directors. Intertitles like 'C-Lear-ings' and 'No-thing' testify to Godard's continuing fidelity to the ideas of modern French existentialism. Another of his essays on the impossiblity of making movies in our time, this has all the dreariness of a pathologist's dictated notes.

Cinepassion.org Fernando F. Croce

William Shakespeare Junior the Fifth (theatre director Peter Sellars) struggles to piece together fragments of his illustrious great-great-granddaddy's works while bumping into wizened Mafia capo Don Learo (Burgess Meredith) and his princess daughter Cordelia (Molly Ringwald), each undergoing their own emotional/spiritual crisis. Whatever else it may be -- a grim in-joke, a passive-aggressive semiotics essay, the director's unofficial Hollywood debut -- Jean-Luc Godard's riff on the Bard is above all peerless mockery of commercial high-concept movie-dealing. Working from a napkin-etched contract boasting a screenplay/performance by Norman Mailer that never materialized (though Mailer and daughter Kate pop up in the two takes that did get shot), Godard goes for disembodied pontificating, a post-Chernobyl world evoked via resort dining rooms and porches, and some dreadful slapstick involving one slurring, growling, farting Prof. Pluggy (Jean-Luc decked in patch cords for dreadlocks). Flaws and all (gallivanting in the woods, unfunny mouth-twisting, a what-the-fuck Woody Allen cameo), the film ("a picture shot in the back") straddles beauty and dissonance as only a genuinely radical artist can: Pluggy is Godard's Lear, Fool and dying Renaissance painter, just as Cordelia's demise evokes the death of Eve Democracy at the end of Sympathy for the Devil. Like much of Godard's autumnal phase, it is a lament for vanishing art in a degraded universe -- against this degradation he has only his own ability to craft works of art, and his incantatory struggles to channel the old masters (Bresson and Velazquez, Welles and Goya) mirror the young Shakespeare's attempts to keep his ancestor's greatness alive. Not nearly as successful as Nouvelle Vague or In Praise of Love, but essential later Godard. Also with Julie Delpy, Leos Carax, and Michèle Pétin.

Though not one of Godard's most successful works King Lear still represents a master at his creative and inventive peak, defying the audience to figure out what he's up to, what's setting his work apart from the run of the mill waxed and polished product. Godard sets out to do no less than reinvent modern cinematic art, if not culture in general, in apocalyptic post Chernobyl times. Once again he is more successful at adding a little brightness to the bastardized commercialized world he laments, but it's nice that a few people didn't give up after the '60's. This is not really an adaptation or modernization of Shakespeare's work, though it's some of both. More than anything, it uses the old classic as a starting point for a sometimes surrealistic, often experimental mediation on the creative process. Godard develops the (dolby) audio end with a tremendous amount of complexity, including having brief voice over narrations (usually to identify the still photograph he's changed to) come in over more lengthy ones that are ruminating on art. The characters don't so much interact as think out loud, allowing Godard to explore the differences between what people can, will, and do say. But this, as well as some of the other distortion and seeming distraction, actually brings us back to Lear, to the father-daughter conflict that's at the center of the play. You certainly have to know something about cinema to appreciate this film because Godard is on a first name basis with all the great directors he's channeling for ideas and inspiration, as well as attempting to preserve for a world that has seen it's art destroyed. You also have to know something about Lear because while Godard maintains some of the characters and themes he does away with the plot. Of course, placing prerequisites and requirements on the audience is one of the reasons Godard is so much more interesting than the directors that waste half their time explaining everything.

Watching Jean-Luc Godard's very loose adaptation of "King Lear" is like finding yourself in the middle of a poem whose meaning the poet refuses to make clear.

The film, which was born of the notorious contract-on-a-napkin deal between Menahem Golan, the head of Cannon Films, Godard and Norman Mailer, who was scheduled to star and write the script as well, is more of a free-associative romp on "Lear" than an adaptation.

Or it could be seen as the filmmaker's elaborate revenge on his backers.

Or as a labored, not terribly funny, practical joke, the butt of which is none other than the filmmaker himself.

Whatever the interpretation, the resulting work is infuriating, baffling, challenging and fascinating, sometimes simultaneously. It's a goof, and you can't help but feel annoyed with it; but in places it's a brilliant goof, and the brilliance only causes greater annoyance. The reason for the frustration is that, in addition to everything else, the director is trashing his own talent.

Mailer, who ended up not writing the script, is seen briefly at the beginning of the film, finishing off a script about a Mafia capo, then, along with his daughter Kate (who was also scheduled to star in the film), he takes off, never to be seen or heard from again. (Reports are that The Great Writer, as he is referred to in the press kit, lasted only one day on the set.)

Without his star, the director engaged Burgess Meredith and Molly Ringwald to play the aging Mafioso, Learo, and his young daughter, Cordelia. And though Ringwald is rather sweet in the role and Meredith invests his lines with power, at times they bear a greater resemblance to Mailer and his daughter than to Shakespeare's characters.

In "Lear," Godard is as interested in obscuring his themes as he is in elaborating them. He makes no attempt to actually deal with Shakespeare's original. Everything has been changed, the plot discarded, leaving only a sprinkling of the original lines and a few characters. But did anyone really expect Godard to take a straightforward approach?

The film takes place at an unspecified time after Chernobyl, which has apparently destroyed the world. The setting is the Hotel Beau Rivage in Nyon, Switzerland, which functions as a sort of comfy, post-apocalyptic resort. The central character is William Shakespeare Jr. V (played by the theater director Peter Sellars), who has the task of reconstructing his ancestor's work.

Titles are projected periodically throughout the film, referring to it as "An Approach," "A Clearing" (or "A cLEARing"), "Three Journeys Into Lear" and "A Picture Shot in the Back." There are also scattered references to Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, musings on images and words, shots of classical artworks, Goya and Vela'zquez in particular, and some horseplay with sparklers and a Xerox machine. There's even a brief appearance by Woody Allen, wearing a Picasso T-shirt, as someone called Mr. Alien.

There are fragments of an interpretation here, but only fragments. And some of it is tantalizing fun, but for the most part, we can only venture wild guesses as to what's going on or what the director is getting at.

Especially puzzling are the sequences in which Godard himself appears, decorated like a kind of Rastafarian Christmas tree with variously colored audio and video patch cords, chomping a cigar and speaking, nearly incomprehensibly, out of the side of his mouth. His character is called the Professor, but his function is more that of the Fool -- and a Fool who's been reading up on semiotics at that -- spouting gibberish and making nonsense.

A subcurrent in the film -- in fact, in many of Godard's later films -- is the filmmaker's despair over the impossibility of ever making sense. Behind this is Godard's inability to resolve an essential contradiction in his work -- his reverence for ideas and theories and all sorts of philosophical speculation, and his utter disregard for a sustained, coherent presentation of them. It's as if he believes that a jumble is the best anyone could ever hope to make of things.

The Importance of Being Perverse | Movie Review | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum’s review of Godard’s King Lear, April 7, 1988

Four Faces Of King Lear The Seventh Art, January 10, 2009

DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson)

ARIA

Great Britain (90 mi) 1987 co-directors: Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, Bill Bryden, Derek Jarman, Franc Roddam, Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell, Charles Sturride, and Julien Temple

(Godard Segment: Armide)

Time Out

Ten directors, ten arias. Don Boyd's opera omnibus was bound to be hit-and-miss. Bryden's linking passages, and the Sturridge and Beresford sections, miss; Jarman's and Temple's are largely about Super 8 and Steadicam respectively. Roddam's Tristan and Isolde, like Temple's Rigoletto, is the work of a Brit thrilled by the neon tackiness of America, and determinedly candid in its sex and violence. Russell's Turandot comes on like a decorative episode of the The Twilight Zone. The Godard undoubtedly makes the most waves, being far out and featuring bodybuilders and nubile cleaning ladies: infuriatingly preposterous or light years ahead, its use of sound is astonishingly effective. Roeg's marvellous opener will stir memories of The Eagle Has Two Heads, The Third Man, and most things Ruritanian down Zenda way. Altman's typically bold decision to film the response, to a performed aria, of an audience of Hogarthian bedlamites, provides a mesmerising parallel activity which fans of Free Jazz drumming will find no difficulty in following.

Cinepassion Fernando F. Croce

Not a bad idea -- an anthology film based purely on the dichotomy between image and sound, with the sounds coming Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, et al. Each of the ten filmmakers gets an operatic piece and, predictably, the least interesting ones turn them academic by using music illustratively -- thus Bruce Beresford's rendering of Korngold's Die Tote Stadt as a straight duet, or Julien Temple's use of Rigoletto to adorn a series of traveling shots in a mechanically choreographed farce. By contrast, Jean-Luc Godard structures Lully's Armide as a sly update of the "Ain't Anyone Here for Love?" Jane Russell number from Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a very funny, limpid contemplation of the flesh and a mini tour de force on the power of dissonance (rather than harmony). Along the same lines, Robert Altman plants his camera naturally facing the wrong way during an 18th-century theatre performance of Rameau's Les Boréades, one long reaction shot with the lenses fixated on the groping, garishly rouged-up and probably syphilic asylum inmates jeering from the aisles. Less explicable is Nicolas Roeg's use of Un Ballo in Maschera for a Von Sternberg parody, complete with a Trilby in drag (Theresa Russell in military uniform and mustache, as the Austrian monarch), though Ken Russell's segment is at least consistent with the director's customary defacement of the visual and the aural -- Nessun Dorma is reduced to elevator muzak for splashy hallucinations and oozing wounds. Elsewhere, Derek Jarman locates the serenity of old age in Depuis le Jour, Charles Sturridge sets an impressionistically joyless joyride to La Virgine Degli Angeli, and Franc Roddam crayons in the braiding of sex and death from Liebestod, kinda timid after Buñuel's use in L'Age d'Or and Wuthering Heights. For the finale, John Hurt dons greasepaint and lip-synches I Pagliacci to a deserted theater, a bit of self-reflexive karaoke that only reminds the viewer that, no matter what music plays, the bit is only as good as the fellow at the mike.

Apollo Movie Guide [Brian Webster]

Motion pictures made up of segments by different directors have been made many times, but not with great success. This is no surprise, as filmgoers tend to expect some sort of flow in a movie, and this is difficult to achieve when there are many different hands putting their imprint on the project. More often than not, these efforts are uneven, with strong segments and weak ones and no overall sense of a memorable package.

Aria is another example of that pattern, and an extreme one. Into 88 minutes they have crammed the work of ten different writer/directors. Each has been assigned a classic musical work – generally an operatic aria or several arias. The only direction the directors were given was that they were to interpret the music. Presumably they were also nudged in the direction of making their short films erotic.

The result is a package of ten short films, linked by John Hurt preparing for his role as Pagliacci in the final segment. Three of the musical pieces are by Verdi, with others by Lully, Rameau, Korngold, Leoncavallo, Charpentier, Puccini and Wagner. The ten directors include some names almost as big as the composers, including Robert Altman, Lean-Luc Godard, Bruce Beresford, Nicolas Roeg and Ken Russell.

There is very little dialogue in the film, and where there is some (Julien Temple’s Rigoletto, for example), it is not of much consequence. Some of the segments are sexy, some funny, a few are touching and one or two are just silly. Three of them are memorable: Jean-Luc Godard’s story of two beautiful young women who wander in various states of undress amidst self-absorbed male body builders, Charles Sturridge’s story about three young children who steal a car and take it on a joyride, and especially Franc Roddam’s disturbing story of young lovers (one of them played by Bridget Fonda) making love for one last time in a Las Vegas hotel room. Bruce Beresford’s story of two lovers, including a young, beautiful and naked Elizabeth Hurley, looks and sounds great, although it lacks substance.

As a package, Aria is not satisfying, but its highlights will stick with you for a long time after you see the film. Is it worth watching a film composed of ten segments in order to appreciate three or four? It might not be worthwhile, but it would be a shame to miss Godard, Sturridge and Roddam’s work.

Godard's Armide: A Distance Between Art and Pornography(?) Glen Norton

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Mark Zimmer)

DVD Talk (Jason Bovberg)

Shane R. Burridge

Peter Harcourt - Rouge

KEEP YOUR RIGHT UP (Soigne ta droite)

France Switzerland (82 mi) 1987

The Village Voice [Amy Taubin]

The relationship between Godard and his audience has for ages been that of teacher and pupil, with Godard the invariably foul-tempered prof, and his audience the recalcitrant C stream, regarded as bringing nothing to the encounter except their own shortcomings. This is modified in those films where Godard is an on-screen participant: teacher starring in the school play. Here his role is a film director, referred to as 'The Idiot', who'll make any rubbish assigned him, and who Godard renders via a rather good imitation of Harry Langdon (or possibly Pee-Wee Herman). The film comprises a series of charades (as opposed to 'scenes') which never achieve a middle ground between the over-obvious and the over-obscure. (Air travel as a metaphor for - what? Life?) As in One Plus One much time is spent with a bunch of musicians trying to get their sound right. But the hail of allusions, quotes and gnomic declarations seldom coalesce into more than a groan of schoolmasterly dissatisfaction over things in general.

Soigne Ta Droite (Keep Up Your Right), which was never released in the U.S., is one of those failures by great artists that are more provocative to think about than to experience. It's unclear whether Godard's evident disgust with the project set in during the shooting or when he looked at the material on the editing table and saw how little he had to work with. In any case, the film is infused with a sense of futility, nausea, and creative exhaustion. This is not, philosophically speaking, an invalid basis for a work of art, but it pretty much guarantees that the result will not produce pleasure.

The narrative, such as it is, involves a filmmaker (played in bumbling, silent-comedy style by Godard) who is alternately referred to as "the Prince" or "the Idiot" (after Dostoyevsky's Myshkin). He has been guaranteed financing for a film, provided that he can deliver it within 24 hours. This film (which is one and the same with the film we're seeing) follows the adventures of the Idiot/Prince, who is en route to Paris with his part of the bargain clutched under his arm. ("The hardest part of being a filmmaker is carrying the cans," he opines.) Intertwined with the filmmaker's odyssey is a series of scenes set in a recording studio where the techno-pop group Rita Mitsouko comes up with one tired sound after another in an attempt to make a new album. Only at the last minute does Godard succeed in wresting form from the chaos of worn-out options by returning to ground zero. Soigne Ta Droite ends with three luminous shots of the empty sea and sky viewed through an open French window at different times of the day and night.

PopMatters Matt Langdon

Movie Habit (Marty Mapes)

DVDBeaver.com [Adam Lemke]

NOUVELLE VAGUE

France Switzerland (90 mi) 1990

Cinematic Reflections (Derek Smith)

Godard's opening salvo of the '90s sustains an elegiac note to unexpectedly potent effect. While the connecting narrative's a characteristically wilful and oblique affair, in which fabulously wealthy Giordano adopts drifter Delon as a house guest, their tentative emotional rapprochement set against the scheming of sundry business types, it's the larger view of a society obsessed by consumption and commodities at the expense of culture, moral integrity and human feelings that leaves the stronger impression. From Delon's ravaged features, reams of erudite and cinephile quotation in the dialogue, and Lubtchansky's gliding camera registering the changing light on the Swiss landscape, Godard conjures a fragmentary celluloid music expressing a deep sense of loss. As an intriguing pendant, enterprising German music label ECM have released the film's entire soundtrack on a two-CD set (snippets of Schoenberg and Hindemith alongside the mainstays of their contemporary jazz catalogue), without the visuals, but with notes by a blind writer.

By the time of Nouvelle Vague’s release in 1990, Godard’s style became more refined and his films less pointed and jaded than his aggressive and confrontational, yet brilliant, 1970s period. He continued, as always, to make a significant number of films throughout the 1980s from the tender, personal Je Vous Salue, Marie to the comically ironic tribute to Jerry Lewis, Soigne ta Droite. While the work of this decade (from the mere five films I’ve seen) still retains the mark of a genius, it seems to be building up to his more complex, ambitious, and fluid films of the 1990s and 2000s. Nouvelle Vague may be Godard’s most complex and layered film, but attempting to unlock its secrets makes it one of his most rewarding.

At this point in Godard’s career, it becomes necessary to account for his age. In 1990, at the age of 60, he continued to reflect back on cinema’s past, but with enough distance from the French New Wave and the Dziga Vertov Group period, his films took on an added dimension. In the aptly titled Nouvelle Vague, he explores his own past in Switzerland and in cinema and also creates a poetic statement on memory and how it affects our reality in the present. The overlapping dialogue, sound, and image makes for a challenging, often overwhelming experience that is ultimately liberating since it is not only free of the limitations of narrative but also of the associative nature of sound and image. Its depth comes from Godard’s choice to involve the audience in defining what these images mean as every viewer can and will take something different away from it.

The semblance of a plot is succinctly summed up by Dixon – “The film is set on the Swiss estate of a fabulously wealthy woman, who, out for a spin one day, accidentally runs into a drifter, and, tending to his minor injuries, takes him back to her enormous mansion as a semi-permanent house guest, something like Jean Renoir as Octave in Renoir’s Regle du jeu.” Wealth and consumerism is an important theme in Nouvelle Vague, but it rarely dominates the film to the degree where it’s unable to explore other philosophic concerns or the unique love/revenge liaison between Richard and Elena. We are shown a world overrun with possessions, wealth, corporate takeovers, and businessmen familiar only with business magazines, and the dialogue, consisting of numerous quotes (from Balzac to Howard Hawks’ To Have and Have Not), takes us on a more somber and introspective path. Coupled with the soundtrack which mixes classical music, soft natural sounds, harsh car noises, and the occasional barbaric yelp cut together with abrupt, seemingly random stops, more happens on and off the screen than is possible to take in. The overwhelming effect this has is reminiscent, in spirit if not in content, of Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil. Both films, however, concentrate on how memory affects our perception of future events and can lead to fulfilling nostalgia and a greater understanding of personal and world history or to repetition of past mistakes that lead to potential tragedy.

The very first lines, “But I wanted this to be a narrative. I still do. Nothing from outside to distract memory.” hint at part of what Godard is aiming for with this film. The irony of the statement can only be appreciated by watching everything that follows. He aims to show us that it is impossible for outside factors not to distract our memory and for our memories not to affect our current and future experiences. In the film’s first scene, we hear a horn beeping as the camera tracks a speeding car until it stops. Then the same sound is replayed as the camera moves along a tree limb. The sound is then played for a third time as the camera pans along an empty road and then returns to the shot of the tree as a short burst of classical music overtakes the soundtrack. With this deceptively simple and relatively short sequence, Godard is challenging us to consider how we contextualize these images. We first see the sound and image paired as one would expect, but the series that follows illustrates the principle that with every image there is, in our minds, a pre-determined, associated sound and with each sound a pre-determined, associated image. Though we are shown a tree or an empty road, and we are hearing the sound of a car screeching, our natural tendency is to picture our pre-conceived image that is associated with the sound. The idea that our memory restricts and defines our experiences in life and with cinema is a key theme of Nouvelle Vague and further evidence that Godard’s perspective is broadening as he is connecting his ideas to everyday experiences.

In the final third of the film, Godard says “The positive is given to us. It remains for us to make the negative.” What follows is the most remarkable tracking shot of the film and one of the most remarkable sequences in any of his films. The camera pans along the outside of the house showing several well-lit rooms and the contents within them. At the end, it stops and pans in reverse as a maid turns off the lights in each room, creating the effect of a fading memory. It is the defining shot of the film and a poignant reminder of how our history (be it personal or political) is an integral part of our present and that the denial of this fact will always lead to tragedy.

The great tragedies in Nouvelle Vague occur in two scenes, one in the middle and one at the end, both involving Richard and Elena. In the first, Elena is swimming in the water and urges him to join her. As he tries to tell her that he can’t swim, she quickly forgets (or possibly fails to acknowledge this) and becomes increasingly embittered by his refusal. She soon asks for help out of the water, but he refuses and instead forces her to struggle onto the boat herself. On her way up, she pulls him into the water and with a frighteningly indifferent gaze watches him drown. The tragedy repeats itself near the end of the film, only this time it is Richard on the boat allowing her to drown. At the last second however, there is a shot (mirroring a shot from earlier in the film) of his hand grasping hers. It is a purely transcendent moment, since his initial actions were clearly defined by past experience, yet he is somehow able to overcome his bitterness in an act of forgiveness and pure compassion. In a film that is often melancholy and pensive, it is refreshing that in the end Godard sees at least a small ray of hope for humankind. The film’s final passage adds a beautiful touch:

“Their words seemed frozen in the traces of other words from other times. They paid no heed to what they did, but to the difference which set today’s acts in the present and parallel acts in the past. They felt tall, motionless, above them past and present, identical waves in the same ocean.”

MovieMartyr.com [Jeremy Heilman]

Godard's Nouvelle Vague: Soundtracks and Stories Richard di Santo

Sound without vision: Do soundtrack albums need movies? Jason Anderson from Eye Weekly

'Germany Year 90 Nine Zero' review by Kenji Fujishima • Letterboxd

GERMANY YEAR 90 NINE ZERO (Allemagne 90 neuf zero)

France Germany (60 mi) 1991

Chicago Reader

Jean-Luc Godard's devastating 1991 film about the collapse of the Berlin wall is probably the most underrated and neglected of his major late films, perhaps because its 62-minute running time makes it difficult to program theatrically. The basic conceit is that Lemmy Caution, the American-style tough guy of Godard's Alphaville--Eddie Constantine in his last performance--has been working as a mole in East Berlin since the 60s; cast adrift in West Germany, he wanders through a puzzling post-cold war landscape littered with historical memories of various kinds. Sorrowful and funny, bittersweet and elegiac, Germany Year 90 Nine Zero has an emotional directness rare in Godard's work, and it's certainly the most accessible of his late films. In French and German with subtitles.

Jean-Luc Godard takes the pulse of Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall the only way he knows how: with a whirlwind palimpsest mingling fiction and documentary, present-day footage and images from movie history, in order to exhaustively explore where Germany has been culturally and politically and where it's headed.

To guide us through his all-over-the-place ruminations, Godard revives Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine), the protagonist of his 1965 film Alphaville, this time in a distinctly present-day milieu, undertaking a journey from eastern to western Germany. Ghosts are everywhere in Godard's depiction of eastern Germany, whether through ominous-looking rubble that recall the bombed-out ruins of post-World War II Vienna in The Third Man to the cultural figures he resurrects, whether through his soundtrack, through old-movie footage or through characters bearing referential names. But when Caution finally reaches western Germany, he sees a land overrun by capitalism—department stores, blaring Christmas decorations, inane Muzak and all. Is Germany in danger of losing touch with its cultural past amid all the traumas of the past half-century or so? All Godard can do is remind us of what has come before through his typically dense and provocative mix of sound and image.

Germany Year 90 Nine Zero • Senses of Cinema Marc Lauria, May 22, 2003

Jean-Luc Godard's Germany Year 90 Nine Zero – the title being a pun on Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero (1947) – was made for French television in 1991 and continued his reflexive cinema/video image/sound practice that reached its zenith with Histoire(s) du Cinéma (1989-97). Germany Year 90 Nine Zero can be considered a sort of loose sequel to Godard's Alphaville (1965). The film follows the adventures of Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine), "the last of the secret agents," as he wanders through a post-Berlin-Wall Germany (from the East to the West) through a landscape littered with history. It is 26 years later, and Lemmy is looking exhausted, vulnerable, as befits the landscape of East Germany.

Alphaville situated Lemmy Caution in a near future, where the Alpha 60 computer controls the lives of its inhabitants. They are essentially reduced to the level of robots, identified only by tattooed numbers. Citizens are arrested if they question Alpha 60's totalitarianism. Expressing free-will is a crime, and, therefore, police authority is unquestioned. References to the Fascist past include the use of the actual rooms of the Parisian Hotel Continental where the Gestapo stayed during the Occupation, while the name of the computer's designer is Professor von Braun. Godard takes the generic and thematic components of Alphaville and refashions them as documentary/essay in Germany Year 90 Nine Zero; early sequences show images of the Third Reich, including a Hitler youth rally, a fancy dress ball, a female German SS guard. The sequence of a young woman escaping from a concentration camp is created through a mixture of staged and found footage: some shots manipulated via freeze-frames, fast and slow motion.

Germany Year 90 Nine Zero moves from the collapse of communism to the collapse of individual consciousness in the face of industrial capitalism. The film is used to retrace Godard's own ideological journey from the sixties to the nineties, from the overarching context of unsustainable Marxism to corporate greed. The latter is signified by Lemmy staying at the Inter-Continental Berlin hotel. Which is worse? Capitalism or totalitarianism? A maid tells Lemmy as she makes his bed, "Work makes you free" – apropos ofthe inscription on the gates of the Nazi concentration camps. Lemmy/Godard finds it difficult to choose between the East and the West, both contributing to the schizophrenia of modern Europe.

"As a director, a maker of films, I'm in occupied territory. I'm in the Resistance." [Godard interviewed by Serge Daney in "Godard Makes (Hi)stories," Jean-Luc Godard: Son + Image 1974 – 1991, ed. Raymond Bellour and Mary Lea Bandy (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1992) 164.]

By 1965, Godard was already distrustful of America's occupation of cinema and its inherent use of fiction genres. Alphaville, Pierrot le fou (1965) and Masculin-Feminin (1966) were progressing towards the freedom of the cine-essay – the distancing between author and audience, the acknowledgement that we are witnesses to a deliberately artificial construct. Germany Year 90 Nine Zero is a deliberate rejection of the 'realism' and narrative dominance of classical cinema. Godard achieves this by using several techniques: referencing the film as a film, in which footage of a Jewish woman during winter follows the title "UFA presents"; utilising other films as points of reference such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926) and Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945); using intertitles throughout the film as enigmatic interruptions (the title "History of Solitude" follows a shot of an SS guard framed by the barbed-wire fence of a concentration camp); introducing a number of historical or fictitious characters into the film who are superfluous to the narrative (Lemmy demands of Don Quixote, "Which way is the West?"); staged footage of an ageing Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun is also included. In addition, found footage is used and then manipulated for various effects – such as slow-motion scenes of the victims of the concentration camps, fixing these events in time – devices also used by underground directors such as Bruce Conner and Craig Baldwin. Essentially, Germany Year 90 Nine Zero returns to the Eisensteinian/Vertovian montage of Godard's Dziga Vertov Group of the late '60s and early '70s. But rather than repeat dialectical slogans, he uses montage to make political, social and cultural allusions – the ultimate modernist 'open text' (as opposed to the 'closed text' of Hollywood narrative), making the audience the active explorer of an open-ended network of data, references, statements, and positions.

"Television isn't art, it's culture, commerce, and broadcasting." [Godard in Daney 1992, 161.]

Film distribution, especially in recent times, has been antithetical to 'difficult' works, in other words to films that are progressive rather than reactionary, challenging rather than safe. In 1965, Godard was able to secure Alphaville's financing. By this time his auteur status was assured, as was Eddie Constantine's iconic presence as a hard-boiled secret agent in a satiric sci-fi film, since he was better known as an actor in gangster films; this assurance became a guarantee, a 'pre-sold' deal. Godard's 'avenue' in the '90s, however, was broadcast television, a route that bypassed the regular forms of film distribution. As is widely known, most of his films since the early '70s have been shown exclusively at film festivals. These films have moved further away from the concerns of theatrical and 'mainstream' video distribution. Germany Year 90 Nine Zero runs for an hour, no doubt due to commercial broadcasting's rigid time slots.

Godard's own summaries of Weekend (1967), "A film found on the scrap-heap"/"A film adrift in the cosmos," can be easily applied to Germany Year 90 Nine Zero, as Lemmy wanders through the ruins of East Germany.

Germany Year 90 Nine Zero - Wikipedia

HÉLAS POUR MOI (Oh, Woe is me)

France Switzerland (95 mi) 1993

The Tech (MIT) [Evelyn Kao]

Prospective viewers of the French film Helas Pour Moi should go in prepared for the unexpected, for it is not the typical action flick. Nor is it the typical love story or horror movie. The title Helas Pour Moi (which roughly translates to woe is me) is no indication of what is to come, but it is a fitting title, for it leaves this viewer with that feeling. It is impossible to leave this dizzying film feeling indifferent or ambivalent.

On the exterior, this film is the modern retelling of the Greek myth of Heracles' birth, when Zeus takes the form of a mortal to have sex with his faithful wife. This film however explores the deeper implications of such an event.

Here, a very cruel and very human God descends to earth to experience real love. Here the creator must seek the answers from his creations. He and his henchman target a woman, Rachel Donnadieu (played by Laurence Masliah), for she is truly a strong woman, one who is in love with her husband, Simon (Gerard Depardieu). They seek her out to find the answers to true human desire and affection.

It is a film that explores many questions: What is romanticism? What does it mean to love someone? What does it mean to suffer?

Director Jean-Luc Godard attempts to "write" an essay with his film. It is at once a dissertation into the aforementioned questions and an illustration. In his attempt to answer the questions of human life he displays remarkable ingenuity.

Helas Pour Moi employs a melee of discordant, clashing noises and bits of music from Bach, Beethoven, and other classical composers to disorient and envelop the viewer with the horror and magnitude of the event. Synthesized disruptive voices provide a surrealistic feeling to the film. The choppiness of scenes and flashing sentences and narratives complete the signature Godard style.

Fans of Godard will not be disappointed. Helas Pour Moi has received rave reviews from distinguished critics. For most, the confusion of the different messages will prove to be somewhat overwhelming and will be almost completely incomprehensible.

One may be flooded by the amount of information and by the ideas that are being explored. It is not to be viewed by the lazy. Those unaccustomed to the French language, culture, literature, and philosophy may have difficulties deciphering the message behind Godard's work, for the brief interchanges between characters and plot are often interrupted by the flashing messages and subtitles. It is not an easy task separating the truth from hallucination. It is an extremely dense movie.

Helas Pour Moi is not meant to be viewed lightly - it's not a typical American movie. It is not really an enjoyable film, but more a disturbing, thought provoking one.

Austin Chronicle [Marjorie Baumgarten]

Three or so decades ago, director Jean-Luc Godard was recognized as one of the seismic forces of the French New Wave that introduced us to postmodernist filmmaking and, later on, as a politically committed leftist film and video essayist. In recent years, Godard's feature films have grown increasingly contemplative and, one might say, spiritual. Others might say obscurantist. During this time, his films have also grown increasingly scarce on the American distribution circuit. Made in 1993, Hélas pour moi represents a continuation of Godard's dubious quest. Once again, he plunges into the ineffable with the rigor and discipline of a research scientist and the eyes and ears of an artist. Hélas pour moi is awash in images of beautiful European countryside and placid expanses of nature. As is Godard's style, the images are also broken up with inter-title cards that fragment the story and express various “aphorisms” and outside-the-text commentaries. Additionally, these thoughts are expressed by the film's narrator, a publisher who travels to a little Swiss town to discover for himself the veracity of a tale he's heard in which the body of an innkeeper, Simon Donnadieu (a surname that translates as “God-given”), was really inhabited briefly by God. Wanting to feel human desire, God becomes inspired by the beauty of Simon's wife Rachel and thus assumes Simon's body in order to make love to Rachel. Rachel discovers that she is tempted by the flesh but resists because she does not wish to exchange her favors for immortality. Godard's image of God is a man in a trench coat with a strange, gravelly voice. He is accompanied to earth by a tennis-racket-wielding Mercury. This God is, more likely, Zeus, since Godard's notes for the movie make clear that he has based his story on a Greek myth in which Zeus impersonates Amphitryon in order to sleep with his wife Alcmene. All this is kind of dense going in the movie, although it is punctuated by moments of typical Godardian humor, like when a bicycle is dropped from the sky to see what will happen to it or when the commentary states that The Communist Manifesto and Alice in Wonderland were both written in the same year. As a film, Hélas pour moi is rather abstract and self-limiting. Personally, I prefer the days when Godard used to make movies for “the children of Marx and Coca-Cola.” To me, they're “the real thing.”

Washington Post [Hal Hinson]

Only a genius or a madman -- or some divinely ordained combination of the two -- could have dreamed up a movie experience as revelatory, perplexing and masterly as "Helas Pour Moi." But then its creator, Jean-Luc Godard, is just that combination. Ever since "Breathless," his revolutionary 1959 debut, Godard has forged his own idiosyncratic path, making and remaking himself, and in the process establishing himself as the cinema's foremost theoretician, innovator and prankster.

With "Helas Pour Moi" -- which translates as "Woe Is Me" -- the French-born Godard returns to the religious terrain he explored earlier, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, in "Hail Mary" (1985). "Helas Pour Moi," though, finds the filmmaker in a more somber, contemplative mood; perhaps the "Me" in the title refers to the auteur himself. Or maybe it refers to mankind as a whole, which the film asserts has lost the ability to shape resonant myths for itself. Prayer is gone, as is the place it occupied in the lives of men. All that is left, it tells us, is the ability to tell stories, though the fragmented narrative that the filmmaker employs suggests this, too, has been corrupted.

Though subtitled "A Proposition for the Cinema," at its heart, the film is a quest for spiritual meaning -- a search for man's relationship to God and God's to man. Its story is derived from the Greek myth of Alcmene, in which Zeus assumes the shape of Alcmene's husband, Amphitryon, so that he can experience the pleasure of physical love.

In Godard's version, the story begins when a publisher named Klimt (Bernard Verley) arrives at a placid Swiss village to explore rumors of this extraordinary visitation. The couple in question are Rachel and Simon (Laurence Masliah and Gerard Depardieu), and in a labyrinthine series of flashbacks, Klimt attempts to piece together what has happened to them. The task is no less simple for this mythic detective than it is for the viewer, who must watch as the filmmaker works his way through layer after layer of aphorisms, non sequiturs (both verbal and visual) and references to poetry, film, painting and history to unearth his point.

Actually, it's debatable whether he ever does -- or if he even wants to. For Godard, meaning is as ineffable as the nature of God Himself, who is shown here as a rumpled figure dressed in a trench coat and slouchy hat and carrying a copy of the London Observer. The pleasure, though, lies not so much in comprehending the filmmaker's themes as in witnessing the sheer magnificence of his cinematic capework. "Helas Pour Moi" is confounding, challenging and nearly impossible to penetrate. But because the film puts such demands on our attention, this obscurity becomes its own reward. Godard stopped making sense years ago; now he appears to be engaged in the discovery of meaning that lies beyond words, beyond stories. Luckily, he has not moved beyond the cinema. No one else makes films so alive with ideas or executed with as much daring, beauty or humor.

Strictly Film School Acquarello

The New York Times (Caryn James)

FOR EVER MOZART A- 93

France (85 mi) 1997

An elegant, ravishingly beautiful, if somewhat incomprehensible film, a four part look at modernity, art, music and war while also examining the meaning of life and cinema, which for Godard is probably the same thing. In this case, he sends some youthful idealistic middle class kids off into the woods, armed only with books, in search of Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, with the premise of putting on some obscure play, as if this would have some relevance in war-torn Sarajevo. But they are instead captured by rebels, the women raped, and they are all eventually murdered.

But there is a movie to be made, a cast chosen, money to be made, and there is a ridiculous contrast between the luxurious lifestyle of cinema, complete with paychecks, luxury Volvo and Mercedes cars, giant mansions in seaside settings, and the nearly illiterate education of the fighters in the Bosnian conflict, who have to make do on next to nothing. But in the end, while children are choosing TERMINATOR 4 at the Cineplex rather than anything having to do with history or real events, Godard suggests you don’t turn the page on the truth, that it stands the test of time. Mozart is, after all, Mozart, and not some 20^th century concoction imitating Mozart. Art is life, not some cheap imitation of life. But life has changed since Mozart, it is no longer the clean, harmonic perfection. A beautiful image does not lead logically and inevitably to another. There are instead bullets, fragmented thoughts and lives, brief, unexplained moments in time, where a newly constructed logic is needed to make your way through the age of unreason.

Jean-Luc Godard:

“Four films do not necessarily form a whole, just as four walls to not constitute a house: ‘Theater,’ ‘You Don’t Fool with Love in Sarajevo,’ ‘A Film About In-Tranquility,” and ‘For Ever Mozart.’ The thread uniting the films is the director, the person who undertakes effort, the person who is manipulated, the person who is exploited. War – the theater of operations – prolongs the theater. And cinema prolongs the war. And in both the actors are sold off, and will have to redeem themselves. The music will remain, but you still have to know how to turn the score, how to beat the time.”

Godard looks at the present (Bosnian war) through his past body of work, using the excuse of a film crew working near the Bosnian border. Unfortunately, though at times quite witty, everything was sharper and made a far greater impact the first time. Granted much of what makes Godard interesting is he doesn't stick to one thing, but these early masterpieces at least dealt in good part with a certain theme. Here he briefly revisits Carabiniers, Weekend, Pierrot Le Fou, Contempt, etc., but since he's not really taking the time to develop anything at best it comes off as a small addition and at worst as a lesser version of the real thing. As always the film is extremely beautiful, with Godard being one of the only post-Technicolor filmmakers that can still make color at least as artistic as black and white. This look at art during times of war is at times too jokey, especially when applied to psuedo war crimes, but Godard's response to the folly of men has generally been to show their absurdity. When people are blowing each other to bits it seems pretty silly to attack Godard for bad taste. As always, music is impeccably used. Technically this work is certainly up to par, but intellectually, which is the far more interesting part, it's a slouch by Godard's standards. Normally a Godard film is good for at least a dozen notable quotes; here only a few things such as "Isn't an excess of evil worse than an absence of good?" truly got me thinking.

Most days, if asked to name the most important filmmaker in the history of cinema, my answer would be Jean-Luc Godard … of course. Now that I have had the chance to (twice) see this French contrarian's elliptical and fairly impenetrable 1996 film For Ever Mozart, my overall assessment of Godard has not changed one bit. Yet For Ever Mozart is not the kind of work that's going to ignite many chants of “Forever Godard” -- either by longtime enthusiasts or nouveau fans. If you want to see great recent Godard films, check out Germany Year 90 Nine Zero or JLG by JLG. (If you want to see some great early work, his 1963 film Contempt, starring Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, Michel Piccoli, and Fritz Lang, is scheduled for a local theatrical run in just a few weeks.) For Ever Mozart finds Godard revisiting his familiar themes of art, death, politics, and war, and continuing his ongoing dialogue with the medium of filmmaking itself. At the outset, Godard subtitles For Ever Mozart as “characters in search of history.” The film follows a few different groups of characters, though their storylines have no clear demarcations. A film director (Messica) wants to make a movie about war based on the Spanish novelist Juan Goytisolo's claim that “the history of the 1990s in Europe is a rehearsal, with slight symphonic variations, of the cowardice and chaos of the 1930s.” The film director's daughter, her cousin, and the family's Arab maid are preparing to go to Sarajevo to put on a production of Alfred de Musset's One Must Not Play at Love. The trip proves disastrous as the touring literati are captured, tortured, and forced to dig their own graves. Later on, the film director decides to make a political movie called Fatal Bolero, a work satirized in For Ever Mozart's closing moments as audience members waiting in line to see it decide to go off and see Terminator 4 instead. Godard's film is an elegiac meditation about the inability of art to alter the course of world events. The piece is full of Godard's characteristically aphoristic pronouncements and declarations, as well as a series of striking images and compositions. Yet, the film is also enormously difficult to follow and offers little guidance from its maker. T4 this is not. Nor will For Ever Mozart leave you Breathless.

Forever Godard – Offscreen Donato Totaro, March 2005

A Beautiful Exception: Godard's For Ever Mozart • Senses of Cinema Fergus Daly, June 13, 2001

'Hail Mary' and 'For Ever Mozart', for Better or Worse | PopMatters Jose Solis, February 3, 2014

Those who "play at life and death" David Walsh from the World Socialist Website

For Ever Mozart : DVD Talk Review of the DVD Video John Sinnott

Jean-Luc Godard's 1996 For Ever Mozart - The Digital Bits Tim Salmons

For Ever Mozart | Blu-ray Review | Slant Magazine Chris Cabin

Verboten! - Dave Kehr July 11, 2010

Je vous salue, Jean-Luc - Dave Kehr December 4, 2011

Smiling Batman, Killer Dinos - The New York Times Stephen Holden

Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinema | Chicago Reader

HISTOIRE(S) DU CINÉMA

France (264 mi) 1988 – 1998

Histoire(s) du cinema | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Well over a decade in the making, this eight-part, 264-minute video (1998) is Jean-Luc Godard's magnum opus, but it's never been widely seen; Gaumont, which produced it, has never cleared the rights to its many film clips and artworks shown outside of France, and even there the commercial release has only monaural sound--a significant loss for a work that uses stereo so centrally. (Ironically, the proper sound track is available only in a CD set, accompanied by a translation of most of the text.) Daunting, provocative, and very beautiful, this meditative essay looks at the history of the 20th century through cinema and vice versa, mainly through a rich assortment of clips (sometimes superimposing more than one), sound tracks (sometimes paired with visuals from other films), poetic commentary (with plenty of metaphors), and captions. For better and for worse, it's comparable to James Joyce's Finnegans Wake in both its difficulty and its playfulness. In French with subtitles.

Jean-Luc Godard's eight-part, 264-minute video Histoire(s) du Cinema (1998) has rarely been seen outside France, occasioning this feature-length reworking of many elements in his magnum opus that's neither an anthology nor a digest. The “selected moments” have been transferred to 35-millimeter, and at 84 minutes this reconfiguration is more accessible (if less celebratory) than the original. Both versions portray cinema as a 19th-century invention that recorded the history of the 20th century, though the pessimism here about cinema's failure to bear adequate witness to the Holocaust is even more pronounced. The beauty and power of this ambitious, dreamlike work are incontestable in any version; as in Finnegans Wake, the meanings are more easily felt than understood. The English subtitles are sparse but work better that way.

Slant Magazine Keith Uhlich

Jean-Luc Godard's latest feature, Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinema, is a thought-provoking and infuriating 35mm condensation-cum-summation of his multi-part video series Histoire(s) du Cinema. In an early, typically awe-inspiring montage the director likens his spectators to the brother and sister characters of Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter, cast adrift on a treacherous, mythopoetic river of dreams. This and one other sequence—a superb aural and visual deconstruction of Hitchcock, kicked off by a repeated dissolve between The Birds' fleeing schoolchildren and stock-footage of wartime bombers attacking their targets—are reminders of why Godard remains a vital and important cinematic figure, namely for his youthful approach to editing. The director himself has suggested that every cut is a lie; Godard's approach, then, is the continual juxtaposition and superimposition of "lies" in an ongoing search for truth. Thus, Moments mimics the workings of its creator's mind: one thought, one reference leads inexorably to others, sight and sound mirroring the inherently questioning nature of the human soul.

Lost in Godard's passionate, autodidactic torrent it becomes easy to overlook Moments' superficiality. Sequence by sequence one can feel the director thinking through his suppositions, yet there's something clearly lacking, perhaps a sense of emotional purpose that life experience and age appear to have permanently eroded. I don't like to think of Godard succumbing to the curse of time, but where his fellow nouvelle vague compatriot Eric Rohmer (now past 80) reinvents himself with each new work, Godard is content to hammer home his self-same points ad nauseum. Through much of Moments there's a rote sense of "been there, done that": when speaking of television's detrimental effects on cinema, Godard lives down to the disheveled old fuddy-duddy persona that he physically embodies onscreen. Making grand pronouncements from his back-alley soapbox, the director panders to the death-of-cinema acolytes, those faddish doomsday prophets who latched onto the kernel of a good idea (for television has certainly had its adverse effects) and perverted it into an infallible truth of Leviticus.

If cinema, as suggested, is becoming television, it must also be considered that television is becoming cinema, but Godard seems incapable of dealing in a wholly intelligent manner with the ever-evolving occurrences of the present moment. His work has become about histories past and potentially lost; for his efforts at remembering and reminding his audience of what has come before he should be dealt with and commended. Yet it's sadly revealing when, at the climax of Moments, Godard (in the guise of confession) none-too-piously turns the discussion to himself, undercutting his insights for a last-ditch, De Sade-worthy display of cinematic onanism. Sympathy for the devil, indeed.

Godard's Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma Robert Keser from Bright Lights Film Journal, May 1, 2006

“I need a day to tell the history of a second, a year to tell the history of a minute, a lifetime to tell the history of a day.” That’s the film artist’s dilemma, or one of them, according to Jean-Luc Godard in his intense and visually stunning Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma. With the authority of his half-century of filmmaking, from his jump-cut debut Breathless to last year’s Dantean Notre Musique, Godard here compresses into 87 mercurial, stimulating minutes his decades-in-the-making labor of love called Histoire(s) du Cinéma, which otherwise runs to eight parts and exceeds five hours. What he has produced is less a summary than a tasting menu of the greater work, his attempt to place cinema “against the unfeeling vastness of time.”

Seated at his electronic typewriter (already an extinct technology), the seventy-something Godard, arguably the first citizen of Planet Cinema, looks lean and hungry as he collapses together key moments and telling snippets from cinema’s first century to compose this rhapsodic essay film, at once an ode, a meditation, and a personal epic of the transformative power of the moving image. Elegantly assembling clips that rhyme, allude, and counterpoint, his scaffold of film references evokes to critic Craig Keller the prose complexities of Finnegan’s Wake. When besieged Spanish Loyalists fight for their lives in Man’s Hope, when the newly accepting John Wayne lifts Natalie Wood in The Searchers, when the windmill reverses direction in Foreign Correspondent, these images form a kind of collective filmic unconscious that Godard dubs the Misery and Splendors of Cinema.

The past survives in the art it created, so in this newly dawned millennium, images from The Docks of New York and The Bicycle Thief and The Barefoot Contessa materialize like relics surfacing from a lost world, a paradise of beauty and truth peopled by giants. Yet with true Godardian mischief, the director tweaks history by creating invented scenes from imaginary films.

Ever the film critic who measures artistic distances (“For every 50 DeMilles, how many Dreyers?”), Godard summons up auteurist gods like Borzage, Hollis Frampton, and Paradjanov, but especially and recurringly Hitchcock, whose voice overlays Godard’s own at one point, as the Frenchman slows the motion of the falling wine bottle in Notorious until it shatters frame by frame on the cement floor.

This finds Godard at his most romantic: successively tortured, exalted, and aroused by beauty, yet too exacting and urgently modern to turn his pantheon into a mausoleum. In the unique power of 35mm projected onto the big screen, his celluloid images bloom in opulently saturated crimson and bold yellow and glowing emerald. The ravishing video color-smears that ended Éloge de l’Amour are surpassed here by images of gloriously sensual hues and textures that slide past, flicker, resolve into ingenious photo-collages, and then stream in rhythmic overlapping dissolves (Eisenstein’s name provokes the film to whir into fast-forward). Yet the visuals serve Godard’s autumnal end statement, where tributes to departed artists like Rossellini, Demy, and Becker (“They were my friends”) and to landmark critics like Lotte Eisner, Jay Leyda, Andre Bazin, and Serge Daney run alongside melancholy reflections on the fate of his New Wave movement (“Our only mistake was to think it was a beginning”).

Of course, as he agitates our preconceptions, the ever polarizing Godard can turn prickly, becoming a demanding scold who’s difficult to love, inflaming vulnerable viewers with his maddening paradoxes and poetic aphorisms (“Only the Hand That Erases Can Write”). Reflecting on art, politics, and television, he prods at our limits with guest readings of cerebral texts, by Julie Delpy for one, and a deliberately provocative sound design that at one point blithely overlaps two narrators speaking different languages. Short of fusing himself into the celluloid, Godard does what he can to immerse himself in cinema’s promised immortality, bathing like Fritz Lang’s Siegfried in the blood of the beast. Screenings are rare, but no one concerned with the art form should miss this core statement by one of its most groundbreaking masters.

His 20th Century [HISTOIRE(S) DU CINÉMA & MONTPARNASSE 19 ... Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Reader, July 6, 1993, also seen here: The Director’s Cut

Ironically, the two greatest works by the two most innovative filmmakers of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette, were originally designed as TV series. Rivette's 760-minute, 16-millimeter serial Out 1 (1971) was rejected by French state TV, and he spent most of a year editing it down to a 255-minute version to show in theaters, Out 1: Spectre (1972). Less a digest than a perverse variant -- some shots were rearranged so that they had radically different meanings and contexts, and much of the comedy was turned into psychodrama -- it's the only version that's ever shown in the U.S., though it hasn't been screened for years. The original -- almost certainly the best film ever made by anyone about the 60s counterculture and its demise -- still shows periodically in Europe.

Godard's eight-part, 264-minute video Histoire(s) du Cinema (1998), conceived and made over 20 years, has fared better, but it's still pretty hard to come by. The only version ever sold in France is a lousy mono video transfer; a package of CDs and books in several languages transcribing major portions of the stereo sound track came out here years ago. The only decent copy of the entire work that's available is a set of subtitled Japanese DVDs. The distributor, Gaumont, has periodically announced the upcoming release of DVDs subtitled in English, but they've yet to materialize.

So Godard has edited an 84-minute feature out of his magnum opus and transferred it to 35-millimeter. He calls it "Selected Moments," but like Rivette's Spectre, it's more a new work than an abridgment or anthology. For starters, it lacks the emotional and expressive range of its source, which is more celebratory. But it's a beautifully composed work -- a friend compared its construction to that of a cathedral -- and its views of cinema and the 20th century remain powerful. The subtitles on the lovely print the Gene Siskel Film Center is screening are sparse and incomplete, though given how many elements Godard combines, anything more would surely have been overload.

The original TV series is hard to get, supposedly because of copyright issues. In 1998 Gaumont cleared the rights to the many dozens of clips, photographs, and paintings it includes, but only for use in France. So technically the Japanese edition is illegal. Godard had contracted to draw his music, most of it classical, from the German-based ECM label, which didn't acquire permission to use other sound elements even though chunks of them were drawn from movie sound tracks; that's why the CDs and books have been sold here but not the videos.

Sometimes issues such as copyrights are excuses rather than reasons, and rumor has it that Godard was so late delivering the original series to Gaumont eight years ago that they were fed up with it even before it premiered on French TV -- which probably accounts for why they didn't bother to make a decent video transfer to sell in stores. If copyrights really were a major concern for Gaumont, why would it allow Moments Choisis to be shown outside France?

Histoire means "story" as well as "history," suggesting an ambiguous and very Godardian overlap of fiction and nonfiction. The film's major exhibits come from his own work as well as many film classics, newsreels, paintings, and still photographs, making the overall story autobiographical as well as historical -- and above all mythical. As English critic Michael Witt notes, Godard so fully identifies his own life span with cinema's that for him his death and the death of cinema have become almost interchangeable. It's easy to mock this solipsism, which takes on additional pathos if seen in the context of Godard's self-imposed isolation. But the audiovisual poetry he's able to extract from this premise -- and others -- is much more important than whether it happens to be true.

Two myths -- that cinema was an invention of the 19th century and that it wound up conveying the history of the 20th -- seem to provide the basis for most of Godard's arguments. He also gets actor Alain Cuny to recite a long passage from art historian Elie Faure on Rembrandt while he substitutes cinema for each use of Rembrandt -- implying that this 20th-century art form was a dream of many preceding centuries.

Diving into a meditative, melancholy funk even deeper than that of his other late features, Godard places cinema, including his own, on trial and finds it guilty of failing to bear adequate witness to the Holocaust and other mass slaughters. We "saw nothing in Hiroshima, Leningrad, Dresden, Madagascar, Hanoi, Sarajevo," he observes, adding, "Suffering isn't a star." He implies that the job of entertaining and the task of recording reality are ultimately irreconcilable and that art located somewhere between the two doesn't necessarily build a bridge: "We've forgotten that village . . . but we remember Picasso, that is to say, Guernica."

Curiously, Godard accords the ultimate honor of achieving some sort of power through art to Alfred Hitchcock, "the greatest creator of forms of the 20th century," who "became the only poete maudit to meet with success." We may forget the plots and situations of his films, "but we remember a handbag . . . a bus in the desert . . . a glass of milk . . . the sails of a windmill . . . a hairbrush . . . a row of bottles, a pair of spectacles, a sheet of music, a bunch of keys" because "through them and with them Alfred Hitchcock succeeded where Alexander, Julius Caesar, Hitler, and Napoleon had all failed, by taking control of the universe. Perhaps there are 10,000 people who haven't forgotten Cezanne's apples, but there must be a billion spectators who will remember the lighter of the stranger on the train." We can certainly dispute these figures and the hyperbolic conclusion Godard draws from them, but the sounds and images that counterpoint this monologue are exquisite and irreproachable.

Godard's view of Western cinema is sufficiently inclusive to allow for the alternation of a cool James Dean walking near Times Square and a shouting Ukrainian peasant (in Dovzhenko's Earth) running across a field, but the logic is more poetic than discursive. Film buffs may find more to chew over than other viewers, but they won't necessarily come away with more. When Godard cuts from a production photo of Chaplin directing Limelight (1952) to a clip of two women wrestlers in a ring, is it important to know that the clip is from . . . All the Marbles (1981), the last feature of Robert Aldrich, who can be seen as Chaplin's assistant director in the photo? I'd argue that the musical articulations of the cutting between the two subjects matter more.

A Skeleton Key to Histoire(s) du cinéma - Screening the Past Adrian Martin, August 2012

The Man with the Magnétoscope - Jean-Luc Godard's Monumental ... Alexander Horwath from Senses of Cinema, July 18, 2001

Before and After: Origins and Death in the Work of Jean-Luc Godard ... André Habib from Senses of Cinema, September 18, 2001

Histoire(s) du cinéma • Senses of Cinema Alifeleti Brown from Senses of Cinema, March 16, 2008

Making History – Essay and Interview with Jean-Luc Godard Jonathan Rosenbaum from Euroscreenwriters

An Audiovisual Brain: Towards a Digital Image of Thought in Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma Pasi Valiaho (pdf)

After the Movies Michael Wood from The London Review of Books, December 4, 2008, also here: Michael Wood · After the Movies: Godard's Histoire(s) du ...

Jean Luc Godard’s Histoire du Cinema Dr. Laleen Jayamanne (University of Sydney) from the Australian Cinémathèque, Gallery of Modern Art, August 29, 2007

Histoire(s) du cinéma - >> mind the __ GAP* ? Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma OR “Memory of the world” (a lecture), by Laleen Jayamanne, December 4, 2008

Letterboxd: Alice Stoehr

Siffblog Review [Kathy Fennessy]

Film Scouts (David Sterritt)

Media Art Net | Godard, Jean-Luc: Histoire(s) du cinéma

Global Discoveries on DVD: By Jonathan Rosenbaum

Chicago Reader Blogs: On Film Jonathan Rosenbaum

Jonathan Romney Interview from the Guardian

Los Angeles Times [Kevin Thomas]

Letterboxd: Jesse Cataldo

ÉLOGE DE L’AMOUR (IN PRAISE OF LOVE) C 75

France Switzerland (97 mi) 2001

Manohla Dargis from the Los Angeles Times (link lost – excerpt)

After years spent trying to bury cinema--or at least its more obvious pleasures--Jean-Luc Godard has made a new movie that exalts its glory. A film about history, memory and the distance between the two, "In Praise of Love" is an almost-love story about a French artist and a Jewish woman that also takes measure of the distances between identity and nationalism, Hollywood and the Holocaust; an almost-love story that--because nothing is ever simple with Godard--is framed against the struggle to make art in a world that largely ignores it.

At the anguished center of all these ideas is a brooding young Parisian named Edgar (Bruno Putzulu), whose resemblance to the film's director as a brooding young genius is surely less than coincidental. When the film opens, Edgar is auditioning a young woman for a project he lyrically describes as "the four moments of love--the meeting, the physical passion, the separation, then the reconciliation.

Cine-File: Ben Sachs

In his ELOGE DE L'AMOUR, also known as IN PRAISE OF LOVE, the poet and critic Jean-Luc Godard brings his collection of artistic, cinematic, and literary allusions to bear upon protagonist Edgar's (Bruno Putzulu) project and his own film on love in the course of time. Shooting in black and white film, Godard returns to the streets of his cinematic youth and captures Paris at the dawn of the twenty-first century from its monuments to its wastelands. In this still phantastical city, Edgar tries to create a work of art that portrays the four phases of love (including meeting, passion, separation, and reconciliation) in childhood, adulthood, and old age. In doing so, he portrays his own love of Berthe (Cecile Camp), an act that can serve as a means to his becoming an adult. Godard then interrupts Edgar's story and the one he wishes to tell with an intertitle stating "Two Years Earlier." Now shooting the past in heavily saturated color video that resembles the palette of Fauvists, Godard moves from his beloved Paris to the coast of Brittany where Edgar and Berthe first happen to meet at the home of her grandparents. In need of money, these veterans of the French Resistance "sell their memory to Hollywood," which Steven Spielberg plans to turn into a blockbuster titled Tristan and Isolde. Hollywood "buys the past of others, especially those who resisted. Or it sells talking images. But images never talk." In contrast, ELOGE DE L'AMOUR is a revolutionary's ode to History. In a conversation between Edgar and Berthe along the Seine, she tells him that there is not emptiness, because there is always a voice somewhere, even in silence. Godard expresses this idea through the many characters that speak offscreen or that turn their faces away from the camera. The disembodied voice prompts the viewer to identify with a time and place onscreen rather than a single human being. In turn, the landscape of history becomes Godard's most essential character. At the film's end, Berthe reminds this new man she meets of the significance of the image in addition to sound, "The image, monsieur, alone capable of denying nothingness, is also the gaze of nothingness upon us." In ELOGE DE L'AMOUR, the Swiss poet's hope still lies in cinema.

On Jean-Luc Godard Christopher Mulrooney from the Film Journal (excerpt)

This Cantata for Simone Weil has three main advancements. It exhibits a refinement of grammar to the degree that one can speak of punctuation in half-a-dozen places, and even distinguish a period, a comma, an exclamation mark, etc., articulating a virtually seamless, ideally fluid editing, above all of the sound.

Grammar and sound editing; third is a vast or ample reserve of quotation brought to book in three ways: the direct attributed quote ("I don't seek, I find." "Picasso?" "Picasso."). Next, the unattributed quote, from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance or Husbands, say. Finally, and most remarkably, the tacit or vacated allusion, as to Frankenheimer (The Train) at the outset, much later to Wilde on American cities, and running throughout a variant of Eliot:

…I rejoice, having to construct somethingUpon which to rejoice.

"Every thought should recall the ruin of a smile" (cp. Borges on Whitman), even at the service entrance of a history bought or cajoled from experience.

What is suggested by the color sequence ("pushed" digital video) is, at first, 2001: A Space Odyssey, then more clearly films that have another association (Passion, Through a Glass Darkly, and the television series As Time Goes By). This sequence, which by the principles of Citizen Kane syntax is also not a flashback, though it takes place DEUX ANS AUPARAVANT and IL Y AVAIT DEUX ANS DÉJA (something like Pinter's Betrayal), could be said to affirm the central thesis (love as a structural principle); it throws a dash of salt spray into the wounds.

The rehearsal scenes are an homage to Woody Allen. The Theory of Love presented is akin to the stance of the poet and the Emperor of China. The three ages pose an interesting void (young and old being the subject of a Spielberg & Associates, Inc. takeover, adults remain unaccounted for). Text and song are distinguished, rather as the end of The Conversation expresses itself. The swamp of Yugoslavia is sketched impressionistically. "It's interesting that History has been replaced by Technology, but why Politics by Gospel?" The modern-day Esther exposes herself in front of the Hotel Inter-Continental. René Revel, Gardien de La Paix laid low by the Nazis, is rememorated (provoking a shorthand résumé of Godard's position on individuals in wartime, comparable to his vision of the Holocaust as an affair of railroad typists), as well as Étienne de la Boétie's Discours sur la servitude volontaire. The Confrérie de Notre-Dame…

A battered rowboat christened LA FRANCE LIBRE recalls Fellini's E La Nave Va. "Washington is the real captain of the ship," says an American diplomat named Sumner Welles, "Hollywood is the steward."

The discussion of Americas is a blind to obscure the real question: Which America is real, the regime, the commercial presentation, or that other one?

"America has no history, and so it seeks those of others: Vietnam, Sarajevo." This is a theme of recent fiction (see William Golding).

A short piece of film appears to be Adolf Hitler examining concentration camp bodies.
Sight and picture. "A picture, the only thing capable of denying nothingness, is also the sight nothingness has of us."

The Orchestre Rouge. ARCHIVES DE L'AMOUR. Origines et Péguy.

France in the European Union? It belongs with Britain and the United States.

"Rompez, vagues!"

"The measure of love is to love without measure" (St. Augustine).

The Salon.com reviewer said, "Godard has run out of things to say."

BFI | Sight & Sound | Film of the Month: Éloge de l'amour (2001) Keith Reader from Sight and Sound, November 2001

Éloge de l'amour is Godard's first feature to receive UK distribution since the spectacularly unsuccessful King Lear 14 years ago - probably in part thanks to the recent upsurge of interest in his work by way of a major retrospective at the NFT in London and a conference at Tate Modern focusing on the more recent, largely unavailable material. It is not likely to prove an easy film for a UK arthouse audience for two reasons. Godard's film-making during the period of his prolonged absence from UK screens has become increasingly intense and compacted, at times almost threatening sensory overload through its density of visual and verbal information. Thus it may not be readily apparent that the second segment of the film, which focuses on the attempt by an elderly couple who fought in the Resistance to sell their story to Hollywood, in fact takes place two or three years before the first, which centres on discussions about an artistic project entitled Éloge de l'amour - possibly a film, possibly not - between Edgar (Bruno Putzulu), the work's author, and its backers. Or that the same character, Berthe (Cécile Camp), provides the crucial bridge between the two. Godard here has less abandoned linear narrative, as in so much of his work from Le Gai Savoir (1968), than made it one among a number of polyphonic elements in his text, in the late-modernist vein of a Joyce or a Schoenberg. Éloge de l'amour is far from his most difficult work in this regard, but for audiences more used to the wisecracking mode of, say, Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960) it will pose a challenge, for all its undoubted wit.

Second, the film is shot through with allusions to recent French history and culture - most obviously to the Resistance and cinema, but reaching into other areas too. An example: Edgar speaks about how it is impossible to think of one thing without also thinking of another, to see one landscape without also seeing another, while facing a river scene as a 30s song is heard on the soundtrack. The river scene is located in Auteuil, one of the most historic and upmarket of Parisian suburbs; the song is taken from Jean Vigo's L'Atalante (1934), set on an altogether more workaday stretch of river. Without these cultural references, much of the sequence's import may escape the spectator.

A crucial set of references on which the film depends is to the Resistance - almost the only period of recent French history Godard has not alluded to in his work (other than indirectly in Les Carabiniers, 1963). This may remind us that the Maoism with which Godard was aligned during its late-60s/early-70s heyday drew an explicit analogy between occupied wartime France and a post-war France colonised by capitalism, calling precisely for 'resistance' to the domination of the latter. Godard's work, particularly from 1968 on, has been characterised by a consistent though protean resistance to the institutions that dominate the circulation of moving images. Commissioned by the French state broadcasting network, he responded with work (such as Le Gai Savoir) they indignantly refused to broadcast; with Anne-Marie Miéville he escaped the spreading tentacles of Hollywoodisation to work on video in Grenoble in the 70s; his earlier film-making self or alter ego is chillingly parodied, as though by way of palinode, in Prénom Carmen (1983). The resistance to Hollywood that is one of the film's most significant strands finds echoes then in Godard's earlier work.

One repeated statement in the film is 'There can be no resistance without memory' - a clear allusion to the 'Vichy syndrome', diagnosed by the historian Henry Rousso, which has obsessively generated texts reproducing or analysing the années noires, from Louis Malle's Lacombe Lucien (1974) to Jacques Audiard's Un Héros très discret (1996). Memory, for Godard, has never been a straightforward given, complicated as it endlessly is by the questions of betrayal and representation. The former, all but omnipresent in his work from the American Patricia's denunciation of Michel in Breathless, becomes inescapable in Éloge de l'amour through the revelation at the end from the historian (played by de Gaulle's biographer Jean Lacouture) about the old couple's past. The latter is most famously crystallised in Godard's aphorism 'It's not a just image, it's just an image' - reprised in slightly altered form here - and is incessantly at work throughout Éloge de l'amour in the discussions around film-making and artistic production, as well as in the film's visual texture. It is not only the industry, but also its audiences that have been in thrall to Hollywood (something recognised by Wim Wenders in his 1976 Kings of the Road when he has one character say, 'The Americans have colonised our subconscious'). Godard's practice, as the inclusion of Hollywood in the narrative of Éloge de l'amour indicates, is at once alternative and oppositional, knowing its enemy and working with playful intensity against it. If that makes the film difficult to watch, he might say, so much the better. Godard has been a foe of the uncomplicatedly consumable image right from the start.

It is a measure of the film's conceptual density that I have managed to write three-quarters of a review without alluding to that visual texture, or rather textures. The first two-thirds of Éloge de l'amour are shot on celluloid in black and white, like a homage to a dying medium; the last third is on video in gorgeous, heavily saturated colour. This contrast, echoing and replicating others (Paris/ Brittany, the future/the past) gives overall structure to what may at first appear a confusing set of anecdotes, aphorisms and micro-narratives - Godardian montage at its most sublimely and irritatingly suggestive. From Bresson to Spielberg, Ophuls to Vigo, Godard to Godard, the film abounds in the kind of intertextual allusions that make up the director's Histoire(s) du cinéma. The performances are fresh and uninhibited - certainly more so than those of Alain Delon and Gérard Depardieu in two of the recent 'missing Godards', Nouvelle Vague (1990) and Hélas pour moi (1993).

Éloge de l'amour is its director's most substantial feature for some time, and even those irked by the film's elusiveness are likely to be entertained by the criticism of the State for its inability to fall in love or the sight of two children in local costume calling at a house with a petition demanding that The Matrix be dubbed into Breton. Even Breathless, we should remember, puzzled many of its first spectators.

Eloge De L'Amour | Neil Young's Film Lounge - Jigsaw Lounge Neil Young from Jigsaw Lounge

Plot? Subject matter? Accessibility? A Godard thinks not of such things. They’re outdated concepts – in the 15 years since his last UK release, Godard has relentlessly probed the farthest reaches of the moving image. The results have been uneven, but consistency never was his strong suit – for every A Bout de Souffle in his filmography, there’s a Tout Va Bien. For every Une Femme Est Une Femme, a 2 ou 3 Choses Que Je Sais d’Elle. But Eloge de l’Amour falls squarely into the former camp: next to this, all the other films that gained national circulation in the UK in 2001 (even a fractured objet d’art like Michael Haneke’s Code Unknown) seem like relics fished out of the Titanic.

Or should that be ‘fished out of Titanic’? Among Godard’s preoccupations – as so often before – are cinema (good), America (bad), and their bastard hybrid, Hollywood. Godard deliberately positions himself at the other end of the spectrum: he uses distancing tactics (most disruptively, the obsessive repetition of blackouts and uninformative intertitles) to emphasise the elliptical falseness of what we’re watching. Godard’s real ‘subject’, the artificiality of film, is of course, exactly what Hollywood product like The Matrix spends so many millions of dollars to conceal…

Eloge starts off as smooth as the slickest film noir – the first hour is shot on conventional film, in luminoso monochrome. We follow a brooding intellectual, Edgar (Putzulu) as he scours Paris in search of a young woman for an art project he’s preparing: this project may a film, a play, a novel, or something totally different. Our hero keeps thinking of a certain girl (Camp) he met a couple of years ago, in a fishing village on the Breton coast…

The second, shorter section of the film is an extended flashback to this ‘incident’. It’s a complete geographical and stylistic shift, filmed on rough, handheld video, in garishly distorted colour. Edgar arrives to interview an elderly couple, wartime heroes of the French resistance (Davy, Francois Verny) as research on ‘a cantata for Simone Weil.’ The girl is the couple’s grand-daughter: she doesn’t pay Edgar much attention, and is more concerned about other visitors – Hollywood agents negotiating with her grandparents for the rights to their story. Representing ‘Spielberg Associates’, they reveal that Juliette Binoche has been approached to play the female lead…

Godard’s characters do speak ‘lines’, but it’s not the sort of dialogue we’re used to hearing in films, even in the rarefied world of the arthouse: Godard the scriptwriter has a fair crack at the record for the most names dropped in a single film. A word of advice – don’t try to keep up: the accumulation of highbrow references soon becomes a blizzard, tipping over into parody. Epigrams come thick and fast, most of them apparently referring to Eloge de l’Amour itself: “Things are right there in front of us – why make them up?” Like so much here, however, they’re arbitrary – if they sound right, they go in. Intellectualism is a toy for Godard, much like cinema itself: he can do whatever he wants with film grammar and syntax, but, he asks, so what?

What does it matter is such and such a shot is ‘beautiful’? Eloge is packed full of startling images, brilliantly crafted examples of the cinematographer’s art. It’s also studded with evocative piano music – which comes and goes, apparently at random. The randomness is exactly Godard’s point: he shows us this gorgeous view of Paris and plays us this gorgeous piece of music, and it has an effect on us. But it’s all a matter of technique, and all quite arbitrary: at one point, a young girl rollerskates up and down a flight of steps, and we’re startled, impressed. To her, it’s nothing – she skates off into the distance.

Godard pulls off similar feats with film and video. The Breton sequences see him occasionally freezing, holding, and unfreezing the image, sometimes to astonishing effect: there’s one especially breathtaking bit involving some fishing boats that’s no less ecstatic for being so apparently throwaway; later, a pair of characters do a kind of Fosbury flop over the camera and out of sight. It’s as good as anything in The Matrix, Godard’s apparent bete noire and the butt of Eloge’s best belly-laugh… which this review won’t spoil.

And there are laughs – this is a much more lighthearted piece of work than initial impressions might suggest. While anybody who sees lots of films must see it, even casual cinemagoers should give it a try, if only for the first 20 minutes. It doesn’t change – it’s this good all the way through. Of course, Eloge de l’Amour isn’t for anybody, and many will dismiss it as pretentious nonsense. But they should take the trouble to actually watch it first.

Notes on 2^nd viewing

Eloge made rather more sense second time around, though it was also somewhat harder to watch, especially during the first half – I almost nodded off a few times, and soon realised my initial reaction was slightly over-enthusiastic. But, as with Lynch’s Mulholland Dr (and, indeed, Fire Walk With Me) the two parts must be taken together if the director’s themes and intentions are to be properly addressed. The contrast between the two sections indicates that while the ‘present’ is fractured, confusing, disorienting, the ‘past’ is (much) more seductive and (slightly) more coherent. Or perhaps that’s just how the past feels from the present’s tangled perspective. Or perhaps art is how we make sense of memory…

But art must rely on technology – and Godard’s techniques emphasise how completely both these visions of past and present are illusions, formed out of the mechanisms of film (the present) and video (the past). There’s a clear didactic purpose at work, but the lesson is much easier to take in the second half, when Godard occasionally uses humour to make his points. While his choice of targets isn’t especially original (the USA in general and Hollywood in particular) his line of attack is distinctive and fresh: “which united states of America? Brazil? Mexico? Canada?” Berthe asks a baffled Spielberg representative.

Whereas the earlier, Parisian sections seemed primarily concerned with laying bare the limitations of standard film conventions, the Brittany sequences seem invigorated by the newer medium of DV. Both parts strive fairly overtly towards a poetic combination of sound, text and image, but the pristine Parisian black-and-white images soon become repetitive and over-familiar. The coastal footage is rougher, more exhilarating, and by then we have a clearer idea of what Godard is up to: the obsessive accumulation of key phrases and epigrams, while initially irritating, eventually pays dividends as the second part builds to its genuinely elegaic climax.

This is due in no small part to the key figure of Mme Bayard, the wheezing Resistance heroine who signs up to have Juliette Binoche (“who has just won an Oscar”) play her on-screen. She doesn’t have a huge amount of screen time, and she doesn’t exactly do a great deal, but every time she appears Eloge de l’Amour suddenly broadens into previously unexplored emotional dimensions, bringing Godard’s somewhat dry preoccupations to blazingly vivid life.

Past Imperfect [IN PRAISE OF LOVE] | Jonathan Rosenbaum Rosenbaum reviews Godard’s In Praise of Love, August 18, 2002

The Village Voice: J. Hoberman September 03, 2002

Godard's passion for making movies is gone; all that's left are his "ideas" Charles Taylor from Salon, June 9, 2002

End Game: Some thoughts provoked by recent ... - Senses of Cinema Filmmaker Jon Jost , January 24, 2003

In Praise of Love (2001) | PopMatters Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece, October 10, 2002

His Life to Live | Village Voice Michael Atkinson

DVD Verdict Bill Gibron

In Praise of Love | Film Review | Slant Magazine Ed Gonzalez

Slant: Eric Henderson

2Blowhards discuss Eloge de l'amour Michael

Ruthless Reviews ("potentially offensive") Matt Cale

Éloge de l'amour - Nitrate Online Review Carrie Gorringe

In Praise of Love - Cinescene Josh Timmerman

City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul Matthew Wilder

Time Out New York: Mike D'Angelo

Lucid Screening Andrew

Godard In All His Glory John Harkness from NOW

Godard the second reel SF Said from the London Telegraph

A Dialogue With History: Jean-Luc Godard, the Shoah and American cultural amnesia George Robinson from the Jewish Week

Reel Movie Critic [Shelley Cameron]

In Praise of Godard: An Idyll on a Review Anthony Lane

Movie Martyr (Jeremy Heilman)

TheWorldJournal.com (Frank Ochieng)

Praise be to Godard | Film | The Guardian Jonathan Romney interview, February 10, 2000

The Boston Phoenix Jeffrey Gantz

New York Magazine (Peter Rainer)

Washington Post (Ann Hornaday)

In Praise of Love Movie Review (2002) | Roger Ebert

The New York Times (A.O. Scott)

Jim's Reviews - Notre Musique (Godard / 2004) - JClarkMedia.com

NOTRE MUSIQUE A 95

France Switzerland (80 mi) 2004

This is the first Godard film I've seen in some 20 years that I could really enjoy from start to finish. And while it has the Godard imprint all over every frame, he doesn't go over our heads this time. Instead he offers a concise, beautifully constructed and lyrical film essay discussing the ravages of war that continues to catch the viewer off guard, that features the writer-director himself as a class professor introducing images to his students, asking them to reflect on the dual meanings, the shot, the countershot. Centering on the inquisitive nature of a French-Jewish journalist who opposes war in all forms, she asks: "Why haven't revolutions been started by the most humane people?" to which Godard answers, "Because they start libraries," or later someone states, "Killing a man to defend an idea isn't defending an idea. It's killing a man." There’s a wonderful scene that follows where she interviews a Palestinian writer who asserts that since 1949, Israel has become a myth while Palestinians are reality. People are only interested in Palestinians, he suggests, due to their relationship with their arch enemy, Israel. If they had any other enemy, no one would be the least bit interested in Palestinians. Look at the lack of interest exhibited today in the plight of Native Americans, who are utilized in a somewhat comical role in this film, as if they’ll do anything, dress in costume, sit on a horse, anything to get a laugh, to generate relevance.

“Now those movie Indians wearing all those feathers can’t come out as human beings. They’re not expected to come out as human beings because I think the American people do not regard them as wholly human. We must remember that many, many American children believe that feathers grow out of Indian heads.” —Stephen Feraca, Anthropologist and Bureau of Indian Affairs official, from Frontier Times magazine, winter 1964

Loosely constructed in three sections which are identified as Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, the film asks philosophical questions throughout, providing extremely eloquent imagery with perfect accompanying music. Using fictional, archival, and documentary footage, the pace moves very quickly from some brilliantly abstract opening war-torn imagery, to an examination of the recently war-ravaged Sarajevo, which is in the process of reconstruction and exhibits an eerie calm, to an idyllic lakeside that seems to represent a final resting place, oddly protected by US Marines, accentuated by the transcendent music of Arvo Pärt. There’s a wonderfully constructed balance between humor, philosophy, literature, history, music, and of course, Godard’s celebrated imagery, each contributing to and enhancing the whole.

2004 Toronto International Film Festival Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

The "hell" section is something like an 11. Godard's montage has never been so abstract, so rhythmically flawless as this. It manages to mount a coherent condemnation of the representation of violence, without the slightest pomposity. And he accomplishes this almost entirely through form. (Passages of pure light and texture resemble hand-painted Brakhage frames until you realize that you're looking at pictures of dead bodies.) "Purgatory" is a space out of time, the zone of negative-dialectics, where we're condemned to hash things out endlessly without resolution. There are a few missteps in this section (having Olga bequeath JLG the DVD is a major one; the old "this is the film we are now watching" trick?), but Godard hasn't been this lucid in ages, and I say this as a big booster of late Godard. Whereas In Praise of Love adopted the trappings of narrative but really functioned like poetry, Our Music mostly abandons narrative, but its poetic resonances communicate with jarring directness. (Like Homer, but with action replaced by thought.) And has nobody else noticed that the Native Americans are coaching a young Palestinian woman on how to perform the rhetoric of indigenism? "Hell" is a coda too strange to be conventionally powerful, what with U.S. Marines guarding its shores and girls in bikinis playing pantomime volleyball. But Jeremy Heilman pointed out to me that the boy that Olga sits next to might be Palestinian. He and the Israeli woman share the fruit of knowledge, but not before she makes him yield his seat to her.

Notre Musique | Film Review | Slant Magazine Keith Uhlich

In Notre Musique (Our Music), Jean-Luc Godard's Dante-inspired cinematic tone poem, the great French director takes his audience on a journey from heaven to hell, from image to imagination. Godard divides his film into three stanzas—"Hell", "Purgatory", and "Heaven"—and acts as our guide (our Virgil) through numerous levels of existence. "Hell" is a furious montage of existing texts (cinematic warfare both fiction and fact). Godard takes dreams realized on film and filters them through his video sensibility, degrading and manipulating the images so that they're familiar only in the way of ghostly memories. He sweeps us along the downward spiral's many torrents, fact (the German oppressors) mingled with fiction (a Griffith battlefield), the end nowhere in sight. Godard forces us to see the recognizable anew, opening our minds (our music) with these juxtapositions of history.

Godard begins "Purgatory" on a forceful intertitle ("Do you remember Sarajevo?"), then segues into present-day, post-war Sarajevo where the director himself has arrived to talk to university students about text and image. Unfamiliar faces inhabit this war-ravaged metropolis—politicians and poets, idealists and cynics, vanishing races and budding revolutionaries—and Godard's every composition evokes an earthbound waiting room meant to be filled with the idle chatter of millions. Of course, it's little surprise that the director's voice tends to come through more forcefully than those surrounding him—"Godard likes to hear himself talk," observed a colleague, not too incorrectly—yet Notre Musique doesn't replay the crotchety condescension of the director's previous feature In Praise of Love.

Indeed, when faced with a question from one of his students ("Will the little digital cameras save cinema?"), the usually verbose Godard—backlit into shadow—is struck unnervingly silent, a poetic prelude to Notre Musique's most beautiful moment: the director quietly contemplating a DVD given to him by the young filmmaker and revolutionary Olga (Nade Dieu). Olga figures in the film's final section "Heaven", which begins in a peaceful glade and climaxes at an ocean on the edge of eternity. Here Godard blesses Olga (and his audience) with a Falconetti-sublime close-up—the key to heaven's gate—an image that collapses cinema's past, present, and future into a glorious whole, expressing through spiritual silence what words could never hope to answer.

Marines Protecting Paradise - Gay City News Steve Erickson

No set of films better expresses the sheer joys and possibility of cinema than the run Jean-Luc Godard made from “Breathless” to “Weekend” between 1959 and 1967. Unfortunately, this exuberance has also been used as a club to beat Godard over the head because he’s not spending the present day making “Pierrot Le Fou, Part 25.”

More deeply affected by the near-revolution of 1968 than any other filmmaker, he spent the late 1960s and early 1970s making didactic tracts, turning off most of his old audience, who never got back on board when he returned to more accessible work. Godard’s last film, “In Praise Of Love,” was filled with contempt for the American cinema that he loved as a critic in the 1950s, treating Steven Spielberg as a symbol of everything wrong with the U.S. and its attitude toward Europe.

“Notre Musique,” made after 9/11 and the American invasion of Iraq, is more mellow and more lucid. The anger of “In Praise of Love” is replaced here by a gentle irony and willingness to listen. Structured in three parts, the film is inspired by Dante’s “Inferno.” Part one, “Hell,” is a well-chosen 10-minute montage of war footage, both real and fictional. The longest section, “Purgatory,” takes place at an arts conference in Sarajevo. Godard plays himself in this part, as do writers Juan Goytisolo and Mahmoud Darwich.

The film, however, focuses more on the parallel stories of two Jewish women––journalist Judith Lerner (Sarah Adler), who interviews Darwich, and Olga (Nade Dieu). Both are deeply conflicted about the condition of Israel, but the former feels far more optimistic.

In part three, “Heaven,” we discover that Marines guard the pearly gates.

The war in Bosnia inspired Godard’s relatively weak 1996 film “Forever Mozart,” but “Notre Musique” places the tragedy of that war on a continuum that includes the Holocaust, the genocide of Native Americans and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The film is a tribute to Sarajevo’s survival, finding the humanity amidst its bombed-out buildings, especially a demolished and burnt library. In tracking shots, the camera all but caresses the city.

In Sarajevo, Godard gives a lecture emphasizing the importance of the shot and reverse shot. Holding up two stills from Howard Hawks’ “His Girl Friday,” he says that the shots look the same because Hawks saw no difference between men and women. The shot and reverse shot of “Notre Musique” are natural beauty and human cruelty. One of his best 1990s films, “Nouvelle Vague,” centered on the same juxtaposition, playing out murderous business schemes in the lovely Swiss countryside.

Here, flowers are associated with death. Godard cuts from a shot of them adorning a grave to a man selling them on the street. In the film’s most touching scene, Godard receives a phone call about a character’s tragic fate. As he hears the bad news, the camera abandons him to take in the brilliant colors of his garden.

In lesser hands, this contrast might play out as either cheap irony or facile optimism. In “Notre Musique,” it represents a tentative hope. Its glimpses of “Hell” and “Heaven” are brief, but “Purgatory” lasts about an hour, which says a lot about Godard’s worldview. If earlier Godard films cried out for revolution, “Notre Musique” reflects a calmer, albeit deeply politicized, frame of mind. He’s still something of a provocateur, particularly in the way he links the fates of Palestinians and Jews. (In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, he described himself as “a Jew of the cinema,” despite being a gentile in the real world.)

Godard plays with another dichotomy––documentary and fiction––by having Goytisolo and Darwich, whose interview statements are scripted but taken from their own words, play themselves. (Goytisolo delivers the film’s best aphorism: “Defending an idea by killing a man isn’t defending an idea, it’s killing a man.”) While “Notre Musique” gestures towards reality, its dialogue, filled with literary quotes, remains highly stylized.

The ending of “Notre Musique” is a puzzler, but its images will be especially resonant for New Yorkers, who have seen armed soldiers patrolling our subway stations for the last three years. In one sense, it’s a joke on American hubris. Yet it can’t simply be reduced to an anti-American statement: the film’s “heaven” really does look lovely.

The notion that one might need an armed guard to sit by a lake and read a book or eat an apple acknowledges all the violence depicted in “Hell.” “Notre Musique” suggests that the world is full of flowers and corpses. It does justice to both their beauty and horror, while trying to find reason to believe that a better world can exist.

Notre Musique: Finding the True Image :: Stop Smiling Magazine Travis Miles, November 24, 2004

If Jean-Luc Godard's latest film, Notre Musique, feels both extraordinarily contemporary and somewhat lost in time, it's instructing to remember that the film's contemporary section is titled "Purgatory": a place where all times are collected into one. Within this space, however, there is still movement; a movement away from Hell and toward Paradise. In the context of Notre Musique, "Hell" is perpetual war and "Paradise" is an enclave of peace. Purgatory, and hence the world right now, must be a bit of both. Or as Godard puts it "a past, a present, a future; one image, another image and what comes between, what I call the real image."

Notre Musique opens, in "Hell," with a tour-de-force montage sequence of wave upon wave of explosions, tank battalions, saluting troops, and bombs gliding. Clearly edited from video sources, Godard uses the same chromatic distortion of the video image that he employed in Eloge de l'amour/In Praise of Love (2001) to denature the palette of the image so that the savage mix of documentary and action movie footage begins to take on a terrifying beauty. A narrator reads: "They're horrible here, with their obsession for cutting off heads. It's amazing that anybody survives."

The spectre of war has lingered over the work of Godard from very early in his career; his second film, Le petit soldat (1960), exposed the deadly contradictions of the Algerian war by focusing on the crisis of conscience of French spy. From this psychological model, he advanced to a more general and analytical inquiry of war with his fifth film, Les carabiniers (1963), a comedic and nightmarish catalogue of horrors that finds its strength in the opposition of brutalist stock footage with the freewheeling antics of his anti-heroes.

The pointed collage technique of Les carabiniers was to remain on the shelf for much of the next two decades of Godard's career, just as the general war was to become, for him, more specific at the close of the 60s. Vietnam is brought increasingly to the fore, concomitant with Godard's radicalisation of politics and image, reaching a sort of summa with "Camera-?il," (1967) (Godard's contribution to the omnibus film Loin du Vietnam), an anti-Vietnam War film that ultimately diagnoses its own failure to usefully speak of either Vietnam or the war. Godard had reached a crisis, in that he no longer seemed to know how to speak of "concrete things, concretely," using the instrument of cinema.

The Histoire(s) du cinema project, begun in concept in the late 70s and in practice by the mid 80s, was a way for Godard to find his way out of this crisis. Central to Histoire(s) is the notion of the responsibility of thecinema to the time in which it emerged. As a largely 20th century phenomenon, surely the cinema should bear witness to and help us account for the most significant moments of that century, the most central of which isthe Holocaust. But, Godard claims, cinema has not fulfilled this responsibility; it has failed, and continues to fail, to bear witness. The only thing it can do, is to bear witness against itself, and to suggest to us where it needs to go. As such, Histoire(s) is a return to the cataloguing process of Les carabiniers , using images from the full range of cinema to suggest a shoring up of evidence that both speaks for and against itself, in symphony.

Notre Musique provides a more elegiac, emotive veneer to the Histoire(s) project by exploring what our own options are in a post-war world where the martial lessons of cinema are, for many of us, our only exposure to the horrors of the epoch. We are caught in a purgatory between the weight and terror of the past and the uncertainty of the future. "Purgatory" or "the real image" in Notre Musique is Sarajevo, where a group of intellectuals, including Godard himself, has gathered for an event called European Literary Encounters. A mix of real and fictional characters, the group is unified by their critical interest in the possibility of reconciliation, an appropriate concern in a city finding itself after a decade of war. For Godard, who delivers a lecture to Bosnian students, this reconciliation is the hope of the cinema, that through the opposition of shot/counter shot we can produce the real image. Too often, however, we can't tell the difference between the two images – the Israelis walking from the water to land in 1948, and the Palestinians walking into the water "to drown" in the same year.

Elsewhere, two young Jewish women attending the conference begin to form contrasting poles in their quest for reconciliation. Judith, a journalistfrom Tel Aviv, finds hope in her conversation with the Palestinian poetMahmoud Darwish, who speaks almost tenderly of the poetics of victory anddefeat between the Greeks and the Trojans (aligning Palestine with Troy),posing the question of whether it is right for a people with great poets todefeat a people without. "We have the misfortune of having you for ourenemy," he says to Judith, "and we have the good fortune of having you forour enemy. You gave us defeat and renown." Olga, a student of Russiandescent, finds in Godard's lecture a justification for martyrdom in the nameof peace, suggesting that only if terror is employed for happiness will itbe defused as an instrument of evil.

After her death, Olga finds herself in Paradise, a vernal garden andlakeside promenade guarded by American Marines. What is beyond the hell ofwar and the purgatory of reconciliation is not the cessation of war but itstemporary arrest. There one is free again to read, play games, be together.But it is an enclave, and its guards are jingoistic, bored, and authoritarian, and there is the sense that for Godard, such a place is far from ideal. Better the "real image" than the ideal image, where the work of hell and heaven is not arrested, but on-going. Where we work toward peace, but do not rest in it. Where the work of cinema is still necessary.

The Winter of His Discontent | Movie Review | Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum, January 27, 2005

Notre musique, Jean-Luc Godard • Film Analysis - Senses of Cinema Christopher Weedman, March 17, 2003

Nostalgia for the Present: The Godard ... - Senses of Cinema Glen Norton from Senses of Cinema, April 15, 2005

Notre musique - Reverse Shot Matthew Plouffe, November 24, 2004

Notre musique - Reviews - Reverse Shot Michael Joshua Rowin, October 8, 2004

Two or Three Things He Knows | Village Voice J. Hoberman, November 16, 2004

Jean-Luc Godard and his film Notre musique/Our Music at Cannes Gerald Peary

Notre musique - Jean-Luc Godard - oturn

Masterful Montage | Socialist Review Nick Grant

For Criterion Consideration: Jean-Luc Godard's Notre Musique Joshua Brunsting

A Necessarily Incomplete Guide to Godard | Village Voice Scott Foundas, April 29, 2008

Notre Musique Review | CultureVulture Gary Mairs

NYFF Review: Notre Musique - Like Anna Karina's Sweater Filmbrain, October 2, 2004

Notre Musique (Our Music) | Emanuel Levy

Notre musique - Jean-Luc Godard - 2004 - film review - Films de France James Travers

indieWIRE REVIEW: The Old Man's Back Again | IndieWire Jeff Reichert on indieWIRE, with responses from Michael Koresky and Neal Block

Notre Musique · Film Review Notre Musique · Movie Review · The A.V. ... Keith Phipps

Lucid Screening Andrew

DVD Verdict [Joe Armenio]

Notre Musique (2004) Movie Review from Eye for Film Chris

Chicago International Film Festival - Bright Lights Film Journal Robert Keser, January 31, 2005

Cinepassion Fernando F. Croce

Notre Musique - Cinescene Chris Dashiell

Notre Musique : DVD Talk Review of the DVD Video Svet Atanasov

Film @ The Digital Fix - Notre Musique Mark Boydell

* OFFOFFOFF film review NOTRE MUSIQUE French movie by Jean ... Leslie Blake

NOTRE MUSIQUE | Film Journal International Shirley Sealy

Jesse's Blog: Jean-Luc Godard's "Notre Musique" Jesse La Tour

BFI | Sight & Sound | The Godard Interview: I, A Man Of The Image Michael Witt interview from Sight and Sound, June 2005

Notre Musique (2005), directed by Jean-Luc Godard | Film review Time Out

Notre Musique | Film | The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

Notre Musique - Boston Phoenix Chris Fujiwara

In 'Notre Musique,' Going to Hell and Back (washingtonpost.com) Philip Kennicott

Washington Post (Desson Thomson)

City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul Jim Ridley

A Godard Odyssey in Dante's Land - The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Notre musique - Wikipedia

FILM SOCIALISME (American version) D 55

France Switzerland (101 mi) 2010

Certainly from my perspective, Godard’s films have become more and more a modernist experience unto themselves, flooding the screen with somewhat disconnected images, adding essayist observations or commentary, then streaming them all together into a fragmented, full-length feature, while slapping his name on the picture, somewhat like a painter on the corner of the canvas. Godard was immersed in the video concept long ago, perhaps for the ease and simplicity of obtaining images, matching society’s compulsion for developing their own images now, whether on cell phones or YouTube, often shooting pictures of themselves and then immediately placing them on the Internet. As he’s gotten older, it’s easier to leave the heavy equipment behind and travel as light as possible, patching together images on film as quickly as he can think of them in his mind. This rambling, stream-of-consciousness format serves him well, as he forms an impression, spends as much time as he’d like developing the idea, and moves on, continually moving to the next subject with the ease of turning pages. For the viewer it’s not so easy, as he lost narrative interest some time ago, creating what amounts to an emotionally detached, experimental light show of cinema which the audience can choose to embrace, or not. In some ways, you can write reviews of his films without even seeing the movie, as so much of it is a concept that plays out in one’s head, though purists would find that sacrilegious. Godard, I’m fairly certain, wouldn’t mind, as seeing it in your head or onscreen is much the same thing—that‘s cinema. What matters is getting it on film or being able to describe it.

Of interest, late in life, Godard’s films have become, at least for me, closer to the film experience of Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira—nearly unwatchable. De Oliveira is more the traditionalist, still instructing actors on a movie set and developing stories, where they can talk endlessly about matters of which I have no interest whatsoever, while Godard works in a more free form exhibitionist style, presenting a steady stream of images, ideas and concepts that I have an equal amount of disinterest in, so it’s much the same experience. I’ve felt both stopped taking any interest in making movies a long time ago, probably each finding their lives a dreary and monotonous bore, and now both are simply going through the motions, as if it’s something they feel compelled to do as their life’s work. Why they are still working at ages 102 and 80 is beyond me, well past the age when most people retire, so while it may feel necessary or invigorating for the artist to keep working, for many in the audience it’s closer to an obsessive-compulsive disorder. What’s equally intriguing is the level of interest their films inspire, as they both have legions of supporters who call each completed movie a cinematic masterwork, defending their heroes with a kind of cultish honor, where they will go to battle and fight a war of words defending these artists, believing they are beyond legendary, artists whose unquestioned status was affirmed decades ago. It’s a bit like some of those late, great blues artists that seem to reach an entirely new level of greatness as they age, as these guys continue to travel the circuit and perform before live audiences well into their eighties or nineties, endearing them to an entirely new generation of adoring fans until they eventually die, already immortalized through their recordings.

I’m not a compulsive Godard junkie who lives and dies for his next film, missing large pockets of his works, but have viewed at least something every decade where I’ve easily seen over twenty from about 90 feature-length films, where the closest thing to a favorite is likely VIVRE SA VIE (1962), a near documentary exploration of prostitution and existentialism, as seen through several points of view, not the least of which is a real philosopher sitting in a Parisian café expounding on his thoughts ( we witness a person develop into a conscious human being) while the director himself is so enamored with his female subject (his wife Anna Karina) before the camera that he’s effectively become an adoring client to her prostitute. Told in different stages marked by a musical theme, that brief Michel Legrand piano interlude remains one of my favorite passages in my entire life, which has the capacity to cleanse the soul like a perfect Bach theme. Hearing just a few seconds is enough to send me into a state of ecstatic reverie, much like the gorgeous piano music in Fassbinder (Peer Raben) or Kieslowski (Zbigniew Preisner) films. Not much else in Godard’s collected works have ever sent such an emotional jolt, certainly not recently, though NOTRE MUSIQUE (2004) was surprisingly inspiring, another film that asks philosophical questions throughout, providing extremely eloquent imagery with perfect accompanying music. Using fictional, archival, and documentary footage, the pace moves very quickly from some brilliantly abstract opening war-torn imagery to an examination of war-ravaged Sarajevo.

In FILM SOCIALISME, Godard’s first film shot entirely with high-definition digital cameras, but also the occasional cell phone, Godard freely appropriates books, quotes, excerpts, and footage from others, still calling it a Godard film, where his intent may be about “undermining the idea of property.” Whether using clips from Eisenstein’s POTEMKIN (1925) or borrowing a trapeze act from Agnès Varda’s THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS (2008), or several collaborators who helped provide original footage for this film, FILM SOCIALISME continues the trend in many recent Godard works of simply assembling footage without any apparent purpose, where it could just as easily be a collection of outtakes. In this film, he doesn’t even bother with a translated subtitling, using a “Navajo English,” where never more than about 3 words on the screen are translated. One might make the point that this is exactly what news reports do, single out highlighted words as he does here, like Jerusalem, or Jews, or currency, which may as well be headlines, yet they form the basis of the narrative text of most TV news reports. Godard may be telegraphing his view that more than 98 % of the actual news from news reports is left out, leaving, at least using his film as an example, something that is considered incomprehensible. While this may be his point, I’m not sure anyone needs to sit through 100 minutes of untranslated conversations, where the audience basically learns to ignore the few words on the screen, ignore all conversations entirely, and focus instead just on the images. While Godard does oversaturate colors from time to time, or find gorgeous, painterly collages of mixed media, his use is all too rare in this film, where we are instead inundated with incessant conversations going nowhere. I was stunned to discover an uncredited Olga Kurylenko or Patti Smith randomly walking around a European cruise ship, which otherwise seemed to thrive in overpopulation, collected hoards of disinterested people, and conversations that may include 4 or 5 different languages. But for the most part, the film experience is endlessly boring. I see no reason why audiences couldn’t get just as much satisfaction by watching the trailer, or a 5 or 10 minute version of this film. In fact, if I’ve learned anything from watching Godard’s films of late, it’s that I don’t want to grow old and miserable, and I have no wish to ever travel on a European cruise ship.

Arifa Akbar The Independent, May 14, 2010

The legendary French film director Jean-Luc Godard, whose latest work, Film Socialisme, is showing at Cannes this week, has decided to run its subtitles in "Navajo English" as in old Westerns where the Native Americans spoke in choppy phrases. Because the drama takes place on a cruise ship where no one speaks the same language, Godard has fashioned his subtitles concisely to say the least. If a character is saying "give me your watch", the subtitle will read "You, me, watch."

Film Socialisme Dave Calhoun from Time Out London

Godard claims this is his last film. If so, it’s a fitting exit for European cinema’s genius grouch: angry, politicised, inquiring, brimming with ideas, disdainful of the audience and impossible to categorise. The film falls loosely into three sections. The first, and longest, falls between documentary and drama as we join a ferry making its way across the Mediterranean. Various passengers, including Smith, discuss history, politics and globalisation, with one African actor speaking for an entire continent on the ship’s deck – ‘Poor Europe,’ she says, ‘humiliated by suffering.’ The English subtitles offer only keywords (‘Navajo English,’ Godard calls it) and further stress his campaign against the tyranny of our language. The second segment is an abstract play set in an Italian petrol station and featuring a llama (a comment on fuel dependency and South America?). The third is a rapid-fire collage of archive footage under various titles of place names including Odessa, Egypt and Palestine. The visual style is aggressive: crisp HD images give way to mobile-phone footage; sounds cuts in and out and wind bashes against the microphone. Dense and difficult, 'Film Socialisme' refuses to reveal itself in one viewing, and Godard is no help: ‘No Comment,’ scoffs the final frame.

“Film Socialisme”: Humanism and Paranoia Richard Brody from The New Yorker, June 2, 2011

As I mentioned the other day, I suspect that Jean-Luc Godard’s new film, “Film Socialisme,” which opens tomorrow, will rekindle discussion, such as had become common last fall (on the occasion of his honorary Oscar), regarding his attitude toward Jews: in this film, he mentions Jews on several occasions and in ways that are substantial and, to say the least, non-trivial. It’s a discussion that, for the most part, has been conducted sensationalistically and superficially, which is unfortunate, because Jewish themes have been important, even central, to Godard’s films for almost thirty years. In “Film Socialisme,” Godard brings to the discussion an extreme form of his familiar (and always extraordinary) associative logic, or montage, of ideas. The allusions and references he brings to bear on the subject are wide-ranging, surprising, and, at times, shocking—a blend of historical curiosity and free-flowing hostility.

Here’s a non-comprehensive sampling of references to Jews in the film: Among the film’s international crew of political agents is an elderly Jewish man who, when asked what became of the gold of the Bank of Palestine, points to his teeth (a sordid metaphorical reversal of the process by which, in the concentration camps, the Germans extracted gold from the teeth of Jews they executed). There’s a woman who doubts her Jewish identity because, she says, “I was told. My parents. So what? Telling never suffices.” There’s a cinematic musing on Hollywood—“It’s strange that Hollywood was invented by Jews: Adolph Zukor, William Fox, David Selznick, Samuel Goldwyn, Marcus Loew, Carl Laemmle”—accompanied by an image of gangsters in a shootout, as if these Hollywood pioneers were not merely perspicacious immigrant businessmen but indeed gangsters. And there’s the association of the French word “holocauste” (meaning “burnt offering”) in the Biblical tale of Abraham and Isaac to the modern usage, as if to correlate Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac as a founding act of Jewish faith and the deaths of Jews in the Holocaust as a comparable article of faith for the Jews who survived.

What’s really strange about the connection of “Film Socialisme” to Jews is one that Godard made, and didn’t make, in a recent interview, in which he told Jean-Marc Lalanne of Les Inrockuptibles that the film was inspired by the book “Le Voyage de Shakespeare,” by Léon Daudet, whom Godard referred to as “the polemicist of the turn of the century.” Godard’s description of Daudet (1867-1942) is correct but vague. Daudet was an anti-Semitic polemicist: an anti-Dreyfusard, a member of France’s National Anti-Jewish Federation, a co-founder and editor of the right-wing and anti-Semitic journal Action Française, and, ultimately, a supporter of the Vichy regime.

It’s remarkable that Godard doesn’t find it worth mentioning—as if Daudet’s views are merely the background music of European ideology, a droning and overfamiliar constant. Godard’s films and thought, linked as they are to the great European tradition, are unable to get away from its prejudices regarding Jews; yet the great paradox of “Film Socialisme” is that, from this tainted heritage, Godard derives his most humane, internationalist, multicultural film.

The question is why he finds these prejudices so difficult to escape—why these ugly insinuations have become his habit. One answer is to be found in his way of working—indeed, in his latter-day way of life. The film’s fantasy of conspiracies and hidden motives, of deep contrivances and elusive identities, suggests a suspicion of the world and a radical contrast between Godard’s hemmed-in, disconnected private realm and the wider world. Ultimately the political conspiracies of “Film Socialisme” are as personal, for Godard, as the domestic intimacies: they suggest the imaginings of a man, all too often alone, at his desk, submerged in the works of investigative journalists and anecdotal historians and grandiloquent “polemicists,” all the while collating and comparing, remembering and speculating and imagining; the web of conspiracies he envisions plays the role of Platonic forms, the realities behind the vain banalities of daily life. His solitude is a creative solitude of political romanticism, filled with noble, quasi-utopian feelings and with bitterness directed at the world in which they remain unrealized. The coherence and the contradictions of “Film Socialisme” are equally the image of Godard’s self-exile, of his lonely idealism.

Cannes 2010. Impossible Story: "Film Socialism" (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland) Daniel Kasman at Cannes from The Auteurs, May 22, 2010

I have admit it up front: I only speak English (which is something of an embarrassment in Cannes, where just about every non-American speaks at least their own language and English). This leads into my second admission: I only speak English and I want to talk about Jean-Luc Godard’s new video feature, Film Socialisme, a work of cinema mostly in French, German, and Russian spoken languages (and including many more), but experimentally subtitled in English in incomplete, “inaccurate” keywords graphically placed on the bottom of the frame in distinctive spacing that combines some words and leaves others far apart. The subtitles emphasize what is obvious to an English speaker, and even more obvious to one who only speaks that language: what is missing and left out, what is picked up by the ear but not the eye, and by the eye but not the ear. I saw a different film than many of the people sitting in the theater next to me, and will see another one yet again when the soundtrack is subtitled, challenging me to follow the sounds, their precise words, and, on top of that, Godard’s humorously sparring linguistic-graphic collage he included with the film in Cannes. That challenging collage gives but a petite helping hand to grounding the ambitious imagery of the incredible film.

Like Godard’s last feature, Notre musique, the entirely digital Film Socialisme is divided into three parts. The first is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Taking place on a Mediterranean cruise ship on which it seems Godard gave a variety of video cameras to his cast to shoot around the boat, ranging in quality from the HD the director himself is clearly shooting in all the way down to something that looks like cell phone camera footage, this section colorfully evokes the captivatingly messy digital panoply of David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE. Like the abrasive, beautiful sound mix, which juxtaposes gorgeous musical excerpts with the abrupt dropping and interrupting of audio elements coming from the left and right speakers, Socialisme’s first part is a dense layer cake of imagery. It flattens deck upon deck of the ship as we descend and raise, like traveling through the ship in a glass elevator, from the crisp, silhouetted musings of wayward travelers on the top to the canted, Sternberg-by-way-of-Scorsese golden, dripping opulence of the onboard casino, and, on the bottom, the delirious, crunchy raw footage of the boat’s nightclub. As raw as Notre musique’s opening stock footage montage of hell but infinitely more jumbled, organic, failing, ineloquent, shocking and banal, it is one of the strangest, most free and most beguiling collages of imagery and sound cinema has yet produced, and one produced, like INLAND EMPIRE, entirely by the force of digital cinema. The wind on the deck of the ship roars like static gravel into the cheap camera mikes, and passing glances of vague characters are seen—a photographer, a wealthy banker traveling with his niece, a brother and sister—as this boat, with its nearly anonymous, self-circulating souls (without being shot on film they hardly seem bodies), seems to go nowhere, do nothing but drift on a radiant, undulating ocean.

The radical off-camera voices of the first part are a net to untangle, manipulated by Godard’s sound design as well distorted by the absurdity of recording direct sound on the ship, leave open who is out of frame, who is saying what, to whom, and when, and the precise, frayed audio jumble goes naturally with the colored glass-plate-on-glass-plate effect of the montage around the ship. Part two, for me, was the most sabotaged by my lack of linguistic sophistication. Titled “Quo Vadis Europa,” it is a return to land, a return to high definition, and return to characters in a strange investigation (literally, including a reporter and a camerawoman) into the domestic politics of a small family-run garage in the countryside. The section calls back to Godard’s work in the 1960s, with the fake interviews of Masculin, feminine (and others), and the love of pastoral architecture and setting of Pierrot and Week End. Though little can be said by me about the spoken content of the section, the world of a house and a workshop suddenly seem foreign after so long in the glittering confusion of the ship, practically old fashioned and irrelevant, and the charm of the family’s small blonde child, who can conduct an unseen orchestra, dreams music, and paints Renoir replicas, lends something warm and charming to this uneasy settings.

The final section, dedicated to the real and the cinematic evocations of the path the cruise ship takes around the Mediterranean—Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, “Hell as,” Naples, Barcelona—is on more familiar ground to those familiar with Godard’s video essays, here “touring” places whose history is now as factual as it is mythological, both in the older sense and in the newest, of images overtaking past meanings and histories. Images and history catch up to the real cruise from Socialisme’s first part, and we see marks of the 20^th century throughout: the Holocaust and the founding of Israel, the Russian revolution, World War II and the Spanish Civil war, as well as calling all the way back to antiquity’s art and the simultaneous birth of drama and democracy. How this is juxtaposed to the countryside of the film’s second act is a mystery left until a fuller translation is available—or perhaps simply to another viewing. Known for decades now for his pioneering use of video, Film Socialisme finally sees Jean-Luc Godard use digital video to the fullest, widest productive, dramatic, and essayistic, potential yet, creating a tremendous open space to explore. It is, in a word, video as cinematic, and it is an approach and result that absolutely requires revisiting, as this only partially understood viewing proves the video a densely sorrowful but deeply rewarding experience, one worth mining for a long time to come.

Wiping the Slate Clean: Film Socialisme - Film Comment Amy Taubin from Film Comment, September/October, 2010

“These fragments I have shored against my ruins.”

—T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

I think I’ve used this quotation before—perhaps in relation to Histoire(s) du cinéma—but it has never seemed as appropriate as it does now, applied specifically to the movie rumored to be the last by Jean-Luc Godard, Film Socialisme. But if indeed this is an ending, it is not a summation. The phrase des choses comme ça (“things like that”) is repeated throughout. This is the work of art as provisional, approximate, relative—not ideal. And so, here are some things—pitifully few—about des choses comme ça as chosen by Godard in what might or might not be his last film.

(A note about viewing circumstance: absent from Cannes this year, I missed the opportunity to see Film Socialisme projected on the big screen, Godard’s preference, according to one of several interviews he gave prior to the premiere. What follows is based on DVD viewing—useful for analysis, less than satisfactory as cinematic experience.)

Film Socialisme is a movie in three movements, their relationship, particularly in terms of tempo and the statement and recapitulation of themes, corresponding more or less to classical sonata form: a fast-paced first movement, a slow second, and a third that is faster and shorter than the first. The opening movement takes place on a huge ocean liner cruising the Mediterranean, with brief side trips in various ports of call. The second movement is confined to a small house and an adjacent gas station somewhere in the south of France. The third recapitulates the Mediterranean journey of the first, depicting places where what Godard terms “our humanities” were born—Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas (i.e. Greece, hélas), Naples, Barcelona—largely by scavenging through banked images of 20th-century horror.

This is the first feature-length movie that Godard has made entirely on video. While he has often fashioned a dialectic with film and video, here the kinetic montage of the cruise ship section is created through abrupt juxtapositions (straight cuts, relatively little overlapping sound) of high- and low-tech digital. Four principal cameramen, Godard among them, are credited, and they seem to have wielded every variety of video camera from cell phone to state-of-the-art HD. The chaotically pulsing pixels and overly saturated, smeared colors of the low-tech images result in busy, garish near-abstractions, and when they collide with the high-tech images—hyperreal, flattened fields of fauve blues and yellows, bisected and trisected like lessons in geometry or, in the case of the overhead shots of the sea, filling the entire screen with eddies and waves of blues and whites—the visual drama is extraordinary. All is representation, but not all representation is equal. It is the breathtaking HD images that prove Godard as much a master colorist in digital media as he has been in celluloid.

Generous as the movie is with visual beauty, it is equally withholding of linguistic meaning. The cruise ship is a floating Las Vegas. Godard cites Fernand Braudel’s great history of the Mediterranean as a source, but one might also think of Venturi, Brown, and Izenour’s pivotal 1972 text on postmodernism, Learning from Las Vegas. The several thousand actual passengers on the cruise liner commandeered by Godard function, unwittingly, as “extras.” They are making a putative tour of the roots of Western civilization as a way of escaping the pressures of capitalism in its final throes. They eat, drink, gamble, exercise, pray, and watch movies together, and they constantly record their activities with all manner of cameras. As far as one can discern, they never look at what they’ve recorded, and they are seldom seen engaged in conversation. At one point, the philosopher Alain Badiou is shown lecturing on geometry and philosophy to an empty auditorium. (Godard explained in an interview that he placed an announcement of the lecture in the ship’s daily activities calendar, but no one came.) One interpretation of the movie’s title, which remains “obscure” (to use one of Godard’s favorite words) to the very end, is that the artificial community formed aboard the boat, solely for the purpose of R&R, is incapable of entertaining the possibility of socialism because they can neither communicate with one another nor reflect on themselves or the reflections of themselves they mindlessly produce.

The fragmented text—which largely consists of non sequiturs, gnomic pronouncements, chains of associations broken off before they’ve barely begun—is spoken by about a dozen actors, posed in various parts of the ship, their voices often masked by the sounds of wind whistling across unshielded microphones, the cacophony of the passengers, and bursts of music. The actors present themselves less as characters than as familiar Godardian mouthpieces and archetypes: the war-criminal hunter, the Jewish banker, the young woman accompanying the powerful and much older man, the serious young African who says she doesn’t want to die until she sees Europe happy, and another serious young woman who says the same about Russia. Good luck to those last two. In response, Godard throws the Latin title “Abii Ne Viderem” (“I departed lest I see”) in block letters across the screen.

Most of the film’s text is in French with a smattering of German, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. For the Cannes screening, Godard added subtitles in what he termed “Navajo English” at the bottom of the frame, which were as unhelpful as they were meant to be. If you are fluent in French, you may think you have an advantage, but you don’t because this is a film about the failure of language and meaning. Indeed, the pair of parrots in the opening, pre-credit image—their iridescent feathers a hint of visual splendors to come—and the pair of cats, meowing in unison in a YouTube video that we see slightly later, communicate far better with each other and with us than do the humans. And yet, in a movie that went into production four years ago, Godard, ever the Cassandra, makes glancing references to the global financial meltdown, the economic crisis in Greece, the destruction of the waterways by deep-sea drilling, and more. Nothing in Film Socialisme, however, has the clarity and wit of Godard’s argument that if you believe in intellectual property rights, then logically the entire Western world owes a thousand billion dollars to Greece—for Pericles, Sophocles, and Aristotle—rather than Greece owing Europe anything at all. Which is to say that despite the visual pyrotechnics of the first section, the mood is ominous and despairing. How could it be otherwise?

The title “Quo Vadis Europe” is the segue from the first to the second section, in which we find ourselves in the modest home of the Martin family—father, mother, 10-year-old boy, and teenage girl. The Martins keep a llama on a painfully short leash, tethered in front of their gas station, along with the llama’s donkey sidekick. Otherwise they seem like nice people. The wife’s decision to run for local office brings a two-person TV crew to their door. There are echoes of Wind from the East (70) and, in the insistence on putting children first, the television series France/tour/détour/deux/enfants (77). After the razzle-dazzle of the opening movement, the extended fixed-camera positions of this adagio section seem a bit too grounded, until a shot in which the boy is holding onto his mother as she washes the dishes. Their bare arms seem illuminated as in a de la Tour painting, the flesh made light—an HD miracle indeed. The boy then sits on a couch alone, scratching his arm as if to confirm its corporeality. Part of the slow movement of a Beethoven piano sonata plays on the radio, then a bit of Chet Baker, then a political debate. Gradually you might realize that these scenes of rare tenderness and exquisite beauty are fragments of a portrait of the filmmaker as a young boy, an idea confirmed somewhat later during a scene in which the boy sits on an outdoor staircase, painting an early Renoir from memory. (Braudel wrote the first volume of his history of the Mediterranean from memory during the years he spent in a German prison camp.) The TV reporter, a stunning African woman, asks the boy what he’s thinking about and he answers, “Your ass.” “Does that really interest you?” she asks, to which he answers, “No comment.”

“No comment,” written in large letters, are also the words that conclude the film. They come at the end of the third movement, which reiterates the Mediterranean journey of the first in the form of a montage of footage of the horrors of the 20th century. That we’ve seen this film before is precisely the point. It is the unsparing proof of Freud’s theory of the death instinct and repetition compulsion. Godard revisits footage of wars and atrocities, including his own reedit of Eisenstein’s Odessa Steps sequence. When he slams the door on Film Socialisme with two words, first spoken as a joke by a cheeky boy (English, it turns out, is good for something), it comes as a relief.

“No comment” is a shifter, referring back not only to this enigmatic, painful, off-putting, ravishing Film Socialisme—but to all the Godard films that preceded it. Yet one can’t help but feel that it also refers to what is to come, especially since the few seconds of black that follow the title give way to an empty field of white. Black signifies nothing; white makes one think about what nothing means. Is this a last film? Godard claims he has given up his production studio and is in the process of dismantling his library of videos and books, making it likely that this film brings to a close at last his extended raids on the image bank. But he has also hinted at starting again from zero “with a pencil camera and three photos.” Interviewing himself for the press book that accompanied the Cannes screening, he queries, “A last film?” The reply: “Only the title, Farewell to Language.”

But is that not the movie I’ve just described?

Andréa Picard on Film Socialisme (Cinema Scope)

“The triumph of the demagogies is fleeting. Ruins are eternal.” —Charles Péguy

“What appears before us is an impossible story; we are confronting a sort of zero.”—Film Socialisme

“It takes strength and courage in order to think.”—Film Socialisme

LIBÉRER

FÉDÉRER

Those words, in big, blocky white letters, lingered with me three weeks after seeing Godard’s immensely anticipated Film Socialisme at its Un Certain Regard premiere on Monday, May 17, or, to admirers and dissenters alike, “journée Godard.” Indeed, Robin Söderling enacted this very pronouncement in the fourth round at Roland Garros, following the Swiss-French master’s prophetic words. Just one of the many instances where Godard’s latest (and perhaps final, though never say never) film essay has proven to be an oracular testament, all the more impressive considering its distended four-year gestation period. The arrival of Film Socialisme, it seems, could not have been more opportune or prescient. The downfall and subsequent humiliation of Greece (“HELL AS” and also, “hélas”); the corruption and financial meltdown on Wall Street, which continues to vibrate markets internationally (“Money was invented so that we don’t have to look each other in the eye”); the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatening a menagerie of animals (the gorgeously elegant, though slightly tattered llama, appropriately tethered to a gas pump at a Pop Art-inspired garage station owned by former Resisters both mirrored and contrasted with the oil-drenched pelicans featured on The New York Times homepage); anti-Arab sentiments launched in protest of Rachid Bouchareb’s Hors la loi met by the fascist bulk and swagger of the national guard; and most auspiciously, the pro-Palestine flotilla of activists raided and killed by Israeli soldiers parachuted from the sky all found resonance in Film Socialisme (in the latter two instances, the links came afterward when the film continued to sound out its densely layered and scopic messages). Add to this list the recent publication of the first-ever biography on JLG written and published in French, the 935-page tome by Antoine de Baecque, simply titled (or titled simply, and no less cheekily)

GOD

ARD

biographie

Or, “Godard biographie,” but if anyone has taught us something about the multivalent meaning of spacing, aphorisms, and wordplay, it is the book’s unwilling subject. And yet, following the initial screening of Film Socialisme, Godard was repeatedly referred to by the mainstream press as irrelevant, obsessive, bitter, solipsistic, out of touch with the world, relentlessly and tediously indecipherable; he was charged by The Telegraph with “blathering opacity,” and with having a message both contemptuous and empty. (Todd McCarthy’s distressingly moralistic Indiewire review surely remains the most repulsive.) Fancy that for a work that urgently, if experimentally, addresses contemporary global politics, rampant technological and aesthetic change, environmental and ecological catastrophe, cultural amnesia, and our culture of trash, vulgarity (Ryan Trecartin anyone?), consumption, and fractured communication, the inevitability of growing old, and the perpetually relevant theme of sport, with exalted mental athletics outweighing physical ones. Most misunderstood, perhaps, was the film’s virtuosic visual flair that harnesses the aesthetic charge of Godard’s arguments, and sees him exchanging resignation for inspiration (especially in children), and anger for moments of real tenderness. A male voice stands in for that of the director—“I don’t want to die before seeing Europe happy”—then later, a clip from Antonioni’s Lo sguardo di Michelangelo (2004). Naturally, the filmmaker’s reigning mischievousness and his demanding discourse remain amid this subtle fragility. Godard has long been fond of what Bachelard termed the implicit image, that which stems from the poetics of the imagination, and finds its perceptive place within a stream of thought and unconscious associations. Film Socialisme draws amply from Jean-Daniel Pollet’s 1963 collaboration with Volker Schlöndorff, Méditéranée, one of the most poetic of essay films, using text, image, and dissociative or hieroglyphic editing to convey a wistful, historical meditation in a land of myths. Editing images so that they emerge as the visual equivalent to his infamous aphorisms, Godard has increasingly become “interested not only in thought, but in the traces of thought.”

That Film Socialisme was much maligned by mainstream journalists is of no surprise given its free-form, fragmented narrative, and radically dissonant, but also polyphonic, soundtrack (funny, though, to recall Barthes’ semi-socialist maxim that we are all experts when it comes to sports and cinema). That Godard was accused of having nothing new to say (and worse, nothing to say, period) attests to the flagrant laziness and chauvinistic shirking of critics, whose derision undoubtedly grew from their inability to participate in the film’s socialist régime—a diet rich in contra/diction, dissonance, quotation, clips, crunching, crackling sound, varying visuals, poetry, aforementioned prophecy, idiosyncratic Markeresque history-making, and most pointedly, its own lingua franca. A polyglot concoction of mostly French, some Russian, and a smattering of German, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, and Arabic, the film was shown subtitled in what Godard humourously offered up as “Navajo English” for its Cannes screenings, an already notorious sporadic wordplay of broken verse that lined the bottom of his 1.78 (16 x 9) HD frame, providing highlights or peculiarly poetic condensations of the dialogue and voiceover. As some of the sound is recorded quite crudely—with wind flapping against a cheap mic on a cheap camera—and prone to drop-outs and fading, the eccentric spacing creates not only a gap between words, but also, quite significantly for the viewer, a mental gap between sounds. For example, when the rhetorical phrase spoken in French in a female voice is “Because of what do we owe the light?” the response from a disembodied male voice is “Because of darkness,” while the haiku equivalent becomes the ironically obscure:

Light Obscurity

The image is that of the sea. Sometimes two and three words are joined together to form strange, playful, even silly portmanteaus. This added layer of text recalls the verse-like passages included in the booklets to the EMI soundtrack to the multi-lingual Histoire(s) du cinema (1989-98), not so much in its spacing but in the poetic distillation of the melancholic, monumental essay. (This hybrid translation cannot be used as a transcript for subtitles and instead functions as an aphoristic interpretation, adding an additional level of meaning to the already dense composition.) The script for Film Socialisme will be published in early July from P.O.L. but in French only, sans Navajo—his lingua franca, his Fibonacci (once called “Indian mathematics”). Godard clearly didn’t trust that Cannes would follow his presentation instructions (version originale seulement S.V.P.), having disobeyed him with Notre musique (2004), which he had explicitly requested be shown without subtitles. This time Godard took matters into his own hands, ensuring that the barbarians who crudely cut the queue to get into the Debussy just as quickly bulldozed their way out once they caught on to the dubious nature of the film’s English non-translation. There is an abundance to grasp in the film beyond its French text, but understanding the language assures a fuller experience of this complex, beautiful, and at times quite amusing work. The VOD version (which Godard has criticized, saying he would have preferred a well-thought out and executed distribution plan, such as parachuting teenagers into towns to conduct test screenings to see if a theatrical run would be possible and fruitful!) does not include the “Navajo English,” nor does the theatrical version that was released in France on May 19. Thus, Film Socialisme exists as two films quite distinct the one from the other, both fascinating, intricate, and nimble in their construction, and impossible to grasp in a single viewing, as is the case for so many of Godard’s films, regardless of how many languages one speaks.

“We can only compare the incomparable from the comparable.”—Film Socialisme

As did Notre musique and Godard’s (non)-exhibition at the Pompidou, Voyage(s) en utopie: À la recherche d’un théorème perdu. JLG 1945-2005, Film Socialisme employs a triptych structure (of parts of unequal length) that is markedly less Dantean than in the previous works. As de Baecque points out, Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville share a fascination for triptychs, for an organization of material that infers a past, present, and future, but also an image, another image and what lies in between, that which Godard calls the “true image.” His late period has repeatedly demonstrated an interest in a critical cinema, an art that interrogates itself by giving form to its history as much as providing a history to its art form, punctuated, of course, by the personal concerns of its maker—ones which presumably need no repeating here as they are resolutely, recognizably Godardian. Chris Marker also evidently comes to mind, but at Cannes it was Oliveira, whose sublime The Strange Case of Angelica echoed most profoundly with Film Socialisme. Sharing their theme of the transition into the digital age (an analogue camera here, a typewriter there) with its attendant philosophical implications, threatened histories, and ancient traditions (not to mention the ecological implications of these and the philosophical implications of ecological change that Godard has raised in recent interviews), and a surprising, almost jubilatory use of experimental cinematic techniques (Oliveira’s rudimentary, Mélièsian use of CGI was one of the most enchanting displays of magic until Uncle Boonmee), Angelica and Film Socialisme’s tackling of new, hybrid forms put them at the forefront of those continuing to expand cinema’s vocabulary and its visual potential. Their lamentations for a time past are expressed through contemporary means, conscious of the moral implications of their choices, and revel in the newness of creation. Perhaps most important of all, they adhere to a complete and utter freedom of expression beholden to no one except themselves. Agamben’s notion of contemporaneity aside, Oliveira and Godard live for the cinema (with 180 years between them!) and every frame, every composition suggests as much. (While Oliveira experiments in medieval grisaille, Godard opts for a hot, Fauvist palette, first explored in the searing second half of Éloge de l’amour [2001], then in the blazing, Apollinaire-riffing “Hell” opener of Notre musique.)

The first section of Film Socialisme, or “movement” (as this film, also, is about notre musique, our harmonies and disharmonies), takes place on a cruise ship touring the Mediterranean; the second follows the French family Martin who run a garage and are hounded by a camera crew after one of its members announces a candidacy for the local elections; and the third is a coda collage which ranks as some of the most inspired passages in Godard’s late period, perhaps of his entire career. The image of two red-headed parrots introduce us to a Noah’s Ark crossing Godard’s mythic Mediterranean comprised of Africa (“Alger, la blanche”), Palestine, Odessa, Greece (Hellas), Egypt, Haifa, Napoli, and Barcelona, where tourists touch down at the foot of Western civilization. “Vive les vacances!” as Europe lays in decline, wearing bloody stains embodied by the AIDS epidemic in Africa and the occupied territories in Palestine. With footage shot by four cameramen (Godard, his producer Jean-Paul Battagia, frequent collaborator Fabrice Arragno, and his nephew Paul Grivas) in a sort of cinematic socialism, the first section is a patchwork of images from hi-gloss HD with bold blocks of colour to lo-grade surveillance footage, cell phone images and badly degraded video with psychedelic visual interference, all colour-enhanced and gorgeous in their own way. The glowing, pulsating threat of destruction is heightened through elliptical montage and by the meticulously multi-layered surround-soundtrack, which ensures challenging eye-ear coordination not dissimilar, in fact, to Michael Snow’s La région centrale (1971).

“Abandon ship, abandon ship” can faintly be heard from a voice offscreen referencing the apocalyptic finale of Oliveira’s A Talking Picture (2003), which similarly posits a pre-Babel sea crossing through the fading histories of the founding Western empires, and an inevitable calamitous end. Godard demonstrates a cruel edge to his cynicism in the way he shoots unsuspecting tourists, especially the retirees whom he chastises, not for growing old, but rather for retiring. But the tourists do not abandon ship; they are there to have a good time, travel and enjoy their retirement, consume, and photograph everything, above all themselves and the sea. As Godard also does. Screens are present everywhere, and so are references to the Crusades and the Exodus. Cameras and coins exchange hands, and hang from their necks and rest in the beautiful bosom of an adolescent girl. Goldberg. The mountain of Jewish gold that built the Mecca that is Hollywood. A lovely Russian spy rehearses historical trespasses and a former Nazi endorses the end of memory. French philosopher Alain Badiou delivers a speech on Husserl to a large, empty room filmed in a long shot emphasizing the space and weight of absence. Godard says an announcement was made over the loudspeaker inviting all passengers to attend and not a single soul showed up. Why would they, when their options include a buffet, a nightclub, a casino, a dip in the pool, an aerobics class, and contemplation of the vast, open, cerulean sea? Badiou expounds upon ancient geometry, from whence the film has come. A return to the origins and patterns of European Mediterranean antiquity invokes circularity and a cross-cultural, geographical expanse—likely based upon French historian Fernand Braudel, who has long been an influence on Godard and whose most famous work is his Mediterranean treatise—which transcends the sea. It is to the desert where one must travel to find images, like when the altar of God literally exists in a nightclub cum casino. Or when a camel carries a big television screen. QUO VADIS EUROPE on your floating Las Vegas?

“Money is a public good.” “Like water then?” “Exactly.”—Film Socialisme

Good/goods. Pilfering clips from Pollet, Rossellini, Eisenstein, Chaplin, Ford, Varda et al., Godard makes like his subjects and pathologically steals images from the world (and the inscription of war). Once a klepto, always a klepto, but not when one believes, however paradoxically, that artists have no rights, only obligations. While the patriarch of the Martin family wants to decamp for the Midi to escape their depressing life of paying bills, the socialist pull of communal property seems the ideal. “France would be better off if the verb ‘to have’ did not exist.” But he and his wife have no answers to give their children who demand an explanation of the virtues upon which their nation has been founded. Here Godard initially seems to identify with the dour, embattled father with do-good intentions, but it soon becomes clear that his alter ego is the blond-haired son decked out in the bright red CCCP shirt. His refreshing indignation, vitality, roaming hands—which copy Renoir paintings in order to resuscitate past landscapes—and his obsession with women’s asses seem to suggest the director’s return to youth. The boy is also the only one, other than Godard, to utter the film’s already famous final decree, “NO COMMENT.” While the camera crew pestering the family is a tired routine (though not as preposterous as Patti Smith ambling about the cruise ship as sole member of a non-Imperialist America), the notion of being besieged seems personal and suggestive, alas, of the desire for family comfort amid shared resistance. “The dream of the State is to be one. The dream of the individual is to be two.” If only we could learn to liberate and federate.

“We’ve entered into an era with the digital wherein, for different reasons, humanity will be confronted by problems which will not have the luxury of being expressed.”—Film Socialisme

Godard: “At the end of his life Chardin would say: painting is an island that I approach little by little; at the moment it appears quite hazy. As for me, I will always paint in my own way. Whether it be with a pencil camera or with three photos.” The final section of Film Socialisme soars with aleatory rhythms, reminding us through a rapid montage of images (of war, peace, and Varda’s trapeze artists) that the final stage of Godard’s art-making has not strayed far from his Dziga Vertov period in tenor, yet has significantly in its palette. Le vent d’est has come around again, like tragedy in Athens. Some of the victims have remained, while others have become aggressors, as in the picture of Israel that so preoccupies him and so disturbs his dissenters. As he becomes increasingly removed from society but with a sharpened gaze, Godard’s painting grows ever more pertinent, exquisite and moving, not unlike Cy Twombly’s, imbued as it is with the knowledge that with a touch of a button, history can be all but cleared. Not simply of just an image, or of a just image, but of all images.

Cannes 2010: Day Godard Robert Koehler at Cannes from Filmjourney, May 22, 2010

Film Socialism Michael Sicinski from The Academic Hack

Film Socialisme & the Screenplay Poetics of Late ... - Screening the Past Alex Munt, December 2016

Jean-Luc Godard takes back the culture with Film ... - Chicago Reader Ben Sachs on Godard’s Film Socialisme, June 9, 2011

Slant Magazine [Aaron Cutler]

Kinbrody and the Ceejays: Richard Brody’s Everything Is Cinema Bill Krohn’s review of Richard Brody’s biography, Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard, from Cinema Scope, May 2006

Film Socialisme Annotat… David Phelps from Moving Image Source, June 7, 2011

Only the Cinema [Ed Howard, take 1]

Only the Cinema [Ed Howard, take 2]

Film Socialisme J. Hoberman from The Village Voice

Review: Jean-Luc Godard's 'Film Socialisme ... - Film School Rejects Landon Palmer

Jean-Luc Godard takes back the culture with Film Socialisme Ben Sachs from The Reader

Film Socialisme Chris Knipp from Filmleaf

Movie Review - Socialism - eFilmCritic Peter Sobczynski

Alas! Poor Europe: Godard's "Film socialisme" Leo Goldsmith from Reverse Shot

New York Film Festival 2010: Film Socialism Kenji Fujishima at The House Next Door, September 27, 2010

The Village Voice [Eric Hynes]

Cannes Film Festival 2010: Day Six – Another Year, Tamara Drewe, Film Socialism, and Certified Copy Matt Noller at Cannes from The House Next Door, May 18, 2010

CANNES REVIEW | Oh God(ard): Is “Film Socialisme” the Scandale du Festival? Eric Kohn at Cannes from indieWIRE, May 23, 2010

Exclaim! [Will Sloan]

Bina007 Movies [Caterina Benincasa]

Film Socialisme — Inside Movies Since 1920 - BOXOFFICE Magazine Richard Mowe from Box Office magazine

Moving Pictures Magazine [Jay Antani] June 1, 2011

Cinema Viewfinder: NYFF10 Movie Review: Film Socialisme (2010) Tony Dayoub

Georgia Straight [Mark Harris]

Film Socialisme | Review | Screen Lee Marshall at Cannes from Screendaily, also seen here: Film Socialisme

Melissa Anderson Cannes Report #6, from ArtForum, May 17, 2010

Cannes '10: Day Six Mike D’Angelo at Cannes from The Onion A.V. Club, May 18, 2010

Phil on Film: LFF 2010 - The Seventh Round-Up Phil Concannon

The L Magazine [Henry Stewart]

Toronto International Film Festival 2010: Day 1 – The Town, Biutiful, and Film Socialism Fernando F. Croce from The House Next Door, September 11, 2010

Arthur Mas and Martial Pisani Intervention #7, Explication through the Trailer, essays on the film’s trailers, English version by Craig Keller

Jean-Luc Godard Speaks with Daniel Cohn-Bendit: A Smile That Dismisses the Universe English language translation of an interview by Daniel Cohn-Bendit from Cinemasparagus, May 13, 2010, which includes a French audio excerpt: here , posted May 16, 2010

Two-Hour Interview with Jean-Luc Godard on FILM SOCIALISME Video interview (in French) conducted by Edwy Plenel, Ludovic Lamant, and Sylvain Bourmeau in Godard’s home, April 27, 2010

FILM SOCIALISME Press-Book: Interview with JLG by Renaud Deflins Accompanying press book on the film may be seen: here, and even a fictitious interview between Renaud Deflins and Godard, allegedly taking place April 15, 2010 (from the press book), from Cinemasparagus, May 12, 2010

FILM SOCIALISME: Explication par la bande (annonce) announcement of web-streaming On Demand, from Cinemasparagus, April 30, 2010

Cannes 2010. Jean-Luc Godard's "Film Socialism" David Hudson at Cannes from The Auteurs, May 17, 2010

Claire Rosemberg Godard blames Greeks for Cannes no-show, from the American Foreign Press, May 17, 2010

Peter Brunette at Cannes from The Hollywood Reporter, May 18, 2010

Ben Kenigsberg at Cannes from Time Out Chicago, May 17, 2010

Film Socialisme: Godard's cinema of ideas seems stuck on auto loop Liam Lacey from The Globe and the Mail

The Japan Times [Kaori Shoji]

Cannes '10 Day 6: Shoving for cinema Wesley Morris at Cannes from The Boston Globe, May 17, 2010

Cannes #5: Waiting for Godard | Roger Ebert's Journal | Roger Ebert Roger Ebert at Cannes from The Chicago Sun-Times, May 17, 2010

Film Socialisme :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews June 8, 2011

Movie Review - 'Film Socialisme' - 'Film Socialisme' by Jean-Luc ... A.O. Scott from The New York Times, June 2, 2011

Film: Jean-Luc Godard’s Film, but Not Himself, at Cannes Manohla Dargis at Cannes from The New York Times, May 17, 2010, also posted here: Godard Practices 'Film Socialism' - ArtsBeat Blog

Admiring Godard's Latest and Greatest Joan Dupont profile before the Cannes screening from The New York Times, May 14, 2010

SOCIALISME by Jean-Luc Godard: Trailers No. 2 and 6 March 18, 2010

Jean-Luc Godard's New Feature Film "Socialisme" in 4m and 6s Trailers also avalable from The Auteurs, March 18, 2010

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE 3D (Adieu au langage) D+ 64

France Switzerland (70 mi) 2013 Official site [Japan]

Had anyone without the name of Godard attached to this film attempted to find a release for this mishmash of a movie, no one on this planet would have picked it up, yet 3D theaters are packed to the gills with audiences wondering why this man is such a legend in the world of cinema. When his career began, the French New Wave ushered in a new way to tell “old” and conventional genre stories, love on the run, gangster flicks, youth alienation, where the young guns took their cameras out of the studios and into the streets, giving the appearance of spontaneity and more energy feeding from all directions, where a more playful style brought in new audiences. All the attention of the cinema world was focused on the heralded French filmmakers of Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and even Éric Rohmer. To his credit, Godard has outlived them all, so he continues to draw accolades while he bears a reputation as a “radical” or an “innovator,” which is dubious at best. What stands out most both from his 60’s period until today is how so little has changed in his cinematic style, as he borrows liberally from other sources, whether it be music or literary quotes, and then throws them into the narrative flow of his films as if he’s the author himself, rarely giving credit to the lines he’s actually stealing, or the cinematic methods of others, as instead it becomes part of the Godard inspiration. If students tried this in an academic paper they would fail for plagiarism, but the legend of Godard is heralded as a cinema great. What this actually proves is not that he knows how to make great films, which continues to be in some question, but that he’s earned the distinction of being the last New Waver standing, so this alone guarantees celebrity status. If his films tell us anything about the world of movies, it’s that even more than politics, producers sell their product based on name recognition. Like Warhol and his Campbell's Soup Cans, Godard is a recognizable brand, becoming one of the leading purveyors of celebrity art. In the 60’s, Godard continually made silly pop references, where his films were often as breezy as reading magazine articles, where it was the photo spread that drew all the attention, including the fashionable looks of the beautiful women, where few paid attention to the foolishness that was occurring onscreen, or the way sexist men persistently and inappropriately browbeat and mistreat women, as if the gangster myth is his secret to success, where he was quoted with what has become his movie mantra, “All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun,” taken from a Godard Journal entry May 16, 1991.

For Ever Godard - POV For Ever Godard. Two or three things I know about European and American Cinema, by Peder Grøngaard from P.O.V. No. 12, December 12, 2001:

The Cinematic Essay
According to Godard, “there are two kinds of cinema, there is Flaherty and there is Eisenstein. That is to say, there is documentary realism and there is theatre, but ultimately, at the highest level, they are one and the same. What I mean is that through documentary one arrives at the structure of the theatre, and through theatrical imagination and fiction one arrives at the reality of life. To confirm this, take a look at the work of the great directors, how they pass by turn from realism to theatre and back again.” (Mussman, Toby (ed.). Jean-Luc Godard: a critical anthology. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1968, p. 82).

The same applies to Godard’s films, which oscillate between the genres of fiction and reality. A genre mixture which Louis D. Giannetti describes as follows: “Many of his movies cut across ‘genre’ distinctions, combining documentary realism, stylised tableaux, propaganda, whimsical digressions on art, culture, and sociology in a bizarre and often bewildering mixture.” (Giannetti, Louis D. Godard and others: essays on film form. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1975, p. 20). This kind of cinema is incompatible with conventional storytelling and plots, creating quite another narrative style. Or as Godard proclaimed in an interview: “The Americans are good at story-telling, the French are not. Flaubert and Proust can’t tell stories. They do something else.” (Narboni, Jean and Tom Milne (eds.). Godard on Godard: critical writings by Jean-Luc Godard. London: Secker & Warburg, 1972, p. 223).

What he said in 1965 about Flaubert’s and Proust’s inability to tell stories and interest in doing something else, was also aimed at Godard himself: “I don’t know how to tell stories. I want to cover the whole ground, from all possible angles, saying everything at once.” (Giannetti, p. 19). So he tried something else in the late 50’s and early 60’s, when he entered the film arena with his world of controversial, paradoxical, and poetic fragments. Gradually, he developed the cinematic essay for his own purpose: creating the artistic freedom to express oneself on all levels, by using all kinds of artistic expressions, all kinds of narrative structures and genres. In 1962, after having made four feature films, Godard described as follows his approach to the double role of a critic becoming a filmmaker:

A writer for Cahiers du cinéma, Godard once recalled in an interview that “As a critic, I thought of myself as a filmmaker. Today, I still think of myself as a critic, and in a sense I am, more than ever before. Instead of writing criticism, I make a film, but the critical dimension is subsumed. I think of myself as an essayist, producing essays in novel form or novels in essay form: only instead of writing, I film them. Were the cinema to disappear, I would simply accept the inevitable and turn to television [as he in fact did ten years later]; were television to disappear, I would revert to pencil and paper. For there is a clear continuity between all forms of expression. It’s all one. The important thing is to approach it from the side which suits you best.” (Narboni, p. 171)

At least early in his career, men and women were involved in relationships and actually spoke to one another, where love almost always took a backseat to more important stylistic cinematic issues, like the way the woman is dressed, or the degree of nudity shown, or the flashy car, some mandatory senseless shootout, or capturing the advertisement posters on the street in essential shots with the feature characters. Godard was quoted in the introduction to Richard Roud’s book Godard in 1967, “To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body—both go together, they can’t be separated.” Style over substance became a catchphrase associated with early Godard films, which never delved deeply into character studies, but remained very much on the surface, where any evidence of authenticity or reality was submerged into a near subliminal state, preferring to bathe the screen in artificiality, like a technique out of the Hollywood musical era, where vibrant color, sexy women, and gorgeous on-site locations filmed by a master cinematographer like Raoul Coutard could make idyllic Mediterranean locations literally light up the screen. This was the method to his madness, as it was the ticket to his early success. Much has been written about the French New Wave, and Godard himself, who is not bashful in print, having started his career as a Cahiers du cinéma film critic in the early 50’s. But if you jump to his films of today, human beings are no longer recognizable, or the words coming out of their mouths, which bear no resemblance whatsoever to human characteristics, but instead sound like slogans or more stolen quotes, catchphrases that supposedly reveal something essential about what we are watching onscreen, but have been reduced to sounding ridiculous. People simply don’t speak to one another in this manner, where nothing onscreen bears any resemblance to reality, but has become completely artificial. No longer do men and women engage in conversations where they actually talk “to” one another, that would involve listening and feeling, essential components to “living,” but instead they simply talk “at” one another, where the emotionless detachment and utter disdain outweighs anything cinematically being communicated, where real life has all but been extinguished. There isn’t an ounce of passion or authenticity, the life blood of the cinéma vérité style of the French New Wave films, especially those early 60’s films Godard made with legendary actress extraordinaire Anna Karina, a true screen presence and as luminous as ever on celluloid, where she was divorced from Godard in 1968, the turning point in his career. Remove her from the picture and all the fun is gone, where you’re left exclusively with the melancholy and often morose musings of the director, where his film of cliché’s becomes an overbearing journey of edicts and decrees, like Julius Caesar issuing proclamations that must be followed to the letter by his minions, where there are learned professors like PhD film theorist, historian, and prolific writer David Bordwell, DavidBordwell.net [David Bordwell], who analyze this film literally line for line and shot by shot.

The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette James Monaco, p. 110-111, 2004 (pdf)

For (Richard) Roud, “one cannot hope to convince his detractors; on the contrary, a book which tries to explain Godard’s aims and methods may well only confirm their objections; they will learn more exactly what it is they object to.” True enough, but what is the cause of this split?

First, that aspect of his work—the multiplexity of its language—which has made him, as Roud says, “for many…the most important filmmaker of his generation,” is off-putting for others. At its best, this reaction evinces a healthy disrespect for effete estheticism and apolitical avant-gardism. At worst it is simply evidence of a closed-minded, rigid classicism which sees art as subject to a set of invariable laws and the critic’s job is essentially judgmental…

Second, and more important, Godard’s films require participation. Trained as we have been to expect instant gratification from our cinematic commodities, we have too little preparation for appreciating the kind of open dialectic which forms Godard’s films. They are not machines designed to measure out quanta in entertainment in effective rhythms, but, as he has said many times, essays—tries. They form questions; they don’t draw conclusions. So as not to “cheat” his audiences, Godard announces this in the subtitles of many of his films…Masculin-féminin: “15 precise acts”…These are not finely crafted, finished esthetic objects meant for relaxed consumption; they are sinuous, struggling, quirky, unfinished, tense, and demanding essays. They are meant for active, not passive viewers.

The obsessive hero worship attached to the name of Jean-Luc Godard is stunning, especially with so much of his work bordering on mediocrity, where his films today suggest elitism and pure snobbishness, yet still he has legions of followers that literally worship every word that comes out of his mouth as if he is the founding father and spiritual voice of cinema itself, anointing him as a true cinema god. As to whether he is deserving of this kind of loyal and obedient reverence that borders on cult worshipping certainly feels misguided, especially having seen the lethargic nature of his previous effort, Film Socialisme (2010), where he didn’t even bother to provide translated subtitles for the American theatrical release, instead calling it “Navajo English,” where the subtitle was comprised of no more than three words. Despite the rave reviews then and now, this mostly incomprehensible, non-narrative style of film is really no different than anything else he’s been turning out for decades, where one can only describe the effort as “aimless indifference.” There is no connection to anyone onscreen, absolutely none, and no attempt to make any connection, instead his preferred working method is to write films that are as dramatically inert as possible, where nothing is happening and there is no acting of any kind, just flat, emotionless and expressionless reading of words, oftentimes making no attempt at disguise, but simply reading passages out of a book. Often he’ll just show us the book, nothing else, or the image of a highlighted name of a French philosopher Jacques Ellul on an i-Phone. This is what passes as cinema, which has all the critics heralding a new radical approach from the “master,” but it’s as dry and uninvolving as anything you’re likely to see all year. If anything, it’s the anti-cinema, as it simply fails to register as essential viewing. Outside of some saturated colors that make for a few luminous images, that work just as well as photographs, Godard gives the audience no compelling reason to see this film, and don’t believe the hype that’s it’s the best use of 3D ever, as it’s mostly insignificant. While there are a few 3D camera turns of superimposed imagery, this amounts to about ten seconds and feels more like a marketing gimmick, reminiscent of a cultural strategy from the 60’s counterculture when in 1971 social activist Abbie Hoffman wrote Steal This Book, urging interested readers to bypass the capitalist structure of paying for a book and literally take it for free. That would be the radically appropriate way to watch a Godard film today, because the current $10 – 15 dollar ticket price is highway robbery for as uniquely disinterested a film as this, which most will find endlessly monotonous, a movie that gives the expression “art film” a bad name, and an over-hyped example of old-fashioned Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus snake oil salesmanship at its best, where you might as well call this film “The greatest show on earth.”

Pull out all the superlatives, and then look again and presto! — the magic is gone. Now frustratingly and agonizingly dull, bordering on pretentious and overly intellectual, what once passed for interaction is gone, where instead of a comprehensible storyline, entire films are little more than a series of obscure references and brief monologues spoken to no one in particular. Godard does excel in the use of oversaturated colors, but it’s not enough, feeling overly tedious and just not very alluring to the viewer. It happened some time ago when Godard lost interest in filmmaking, per se, and instead found a revitalization with video imagery, where his 8-part video project HISTOIRE(S) DU CINÉMA (1988 – 1998) is an examination of cinema itself, where who better than Professor Godard should lead a series of exploratory lectures on the history of cinema, pulling imagery out of everything that has come before to make a comment on contemporary times. While no one doubts the significance of this major undertaking, though few in America actually experienced a live screening, the film has mostly become an essential tool in film studies classes, where bits and pieces are reviewed and analyzed, and the idea of compartmentalizing cinema takes on a new significance. It was British filmmaker Peter Greenaway who was quoted in 2007 as saying, “Thirty-five years of silent cinema is gone, no one looks at it anymore. This will happen to the rest of cinema. Cinema is dead.” (Greenaway announces the death of cinema - and blames ...) Godard would concur, reinventing himself in a new kind of cinema that does not even need to be watched in theaters, but can be streamed online or watched on computers or television sets via DVD’s, where viewers can utilize the pause and rewind buttons at their leisure. This significantly alters the viewing experience, where there’s no relationship anymore to the communal theatrical experience, where people congregate and share ideas afterwards through lengthy conversations and discussions. Instead, people take to the Twitter network or churn out thoughts or entire reviews on various websites, where social media is now the engine of cinema discourse, where cinema is no longer confined to theatrical distribution but is open to the entire world. How else does one explain accessibility in such faraway places around the globe, where it’s computers that are actually keeping us connected. One of the more intriguing juxtapositions in GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE is placing a relatively emotionless modern character (Héloïse Godet) next to television screen images of exaggerated silent film melodrama, where extraordinary heights are depicted next to a complete absence of emotion, where Godard continually fills the room with emptiness, where repeatedly the film likes to drift off into existential nothingness. One reason Roxy the dog (Godard’s own pet) is such an appealing character in the film is because it has some life to it. It “acts” alive, playing in the grass outdoors, unlike the lifeless human zombies that otherwise inhabit the movie.

While the film follows around a couple, Héloïse Godet as Josette and Kamel Abdeli as Gédéon, there is precious little connection ever expressed between them, where they’re never seen actually engaging one another’s full attention, but instead each seems to be lost in their own world, occasionally spouting some commentary, like something read in a newspaper, or passages from a book, where nothing uttered has the remote feel of ordinary conversation, but must rise to the level of something significant or professorial, which adds an air of pretentiousness to the entire film. For some reason, likely Godard’s instructions, Josette throws her clothes off in nearly every scene, spending most of the film naked, offering no real commentary other than men like to look at naked women. The soundtrack also is filled with sporadic gunshots ringing out, as if fulfilling Godard’s original prophecy that “All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun.” While the use of a ferry is a regular occurrence, the entire film has the feel of an overall journey, where there is no real time line, as audiences are whisked in and out of fragmented sequences at will, seemingly with no rhyme or reason, which could easily be different time frames, where the overall feel is sketchy at best. As is Godard’s tendency, rather than dwell on ideas or expand on them, he prefers to simply introduce random thoughts throughout, as if each is itself a paragraph or essay on knowledge, but one for the audience to discover. It’s as if Godard is instructing the audience to pause, pull out your i-Phones and look this up, read a few paragraphs on the subject or as much as you please, and then continue with the film, pausing with each new reference, which is exactly what many are prepared to do. At the same time, there are brief snippets of music, where as soon as it becomes recognizable, Godard cuts to something else, where nothing is ever allowed to develop. This concept of cinema through fragmentation or viewing only individual sections at a time seems to play into the idea that the modern film audience simply has no patience for sitting through an entire movie anymore and that their attention span is challenged. Therefore Godard is making movies for an attention deficit disorder (ADHD) world, as if we can no longer read, hold a thought, or carry on a conversation. While he’s always made literary connections, the idea of simply showing the image of a book in 3D suggests they’re already outdated and not in much use anymore, but have also become part of the forgotten relics, like silent era cinema. The constant jump cuts and jarring interruptions, along with so many repetitive images and sounds, turns the film into a video loop that should be running continuously in some art museum where viewers could drift in and out at any particular section or return to it sometime later, where twenty minutes is all anyone would need to spend with this film.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List Michael Glover Smith

In Jean-Luc Godard's 1996 film FOR EVER MOZART, the director poses the question, "In the 'I think, therefore I am,' is the 'I' of 'I am' no longer the same as the 'I' of 'I think' and why?" GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE 3D seeks to answer this Cartesian inquiry with a resounding "no" by offering a philosophical meditation on the fractured nature of identity in our era of mass communication. In his astonishing first feature in 3-D, the now-84-year-old Godard pointedly shows, through an almost impossibly rich tapestry of stereoscopic images and sounds, how language and technology have conspired to create barriers that separate humans not only from each other but also from themselves ("Soon everyone will need an interpreter to understand the words coming from their own mouths," is one characteristically epigrammatic line of dialogue.) The film is split into three parts: "Nature" (a section demarcated by a title card reading "1"), which focuses on Josette and Gedeon (Héloïse Godet and Kamel Abdelli); "Metaphor" (a section demarcated by a title card reading "2"), which focuses on Ivitch and Marcus (Zoé Bruneau and Richard Chevallier); and a short third part (beginning with a title card reading "3D"), which introduces a third couple--Godard and his longtime collaborator Anne-Marie Mieville, who are not seen but whose voices are heard on the soundtrack. The real "star" of GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE 3D, however, is not a human at all but rather Godard's mixed-breed dog Roxy, who is frequently depicted alone, frolicking in nature, commanding both the most screen time and serving as the subject of some of the film's most dazzling stereoscopic effects. The shots of Roxy's handsome snout in the maw of Godard and cinematographer Fabrice Aragno's homemade 3-D-camera rig, which convey an overwhelming feeling of love for the animal on the part of his owner/director, are so rapturously beautiful they may make you want to cry. The film ends by juxtaposing the sounds of a dog barking with that of a baby wailing on the soundtrack, thus linking Roxy not only to nature but, implicitly, to a state of unspoiled innocence that humans possess only prior to learning to speak. Godard's poetic use of 3-D in GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE 3D, the best such use of the technology in any movie I've seen, puts this groundbreaking work in the class of his (and the cinema's) great achievements.

The House Next Door [Budd Wilkins]

Densely allusive and at times sensorily abusive, with sudden blasts of amped-up sound effects and a playful stop-start montage aesthetic, Jean-Luc Godard's cinematic cutup comes complete with full frontal nudity and, in what must be a first for the director, poop jokes. As a consequence, it's a good bit funnier, as well as freer in its rapid-fire associations, than the more strident and structured Film Socialisme. What's more, Goodbye to Language sees Godard make the leap to 3D with jaw-dropping results. There are effects here that will beggar the imagination of your run-of-the-mill multiplex 3D offering, with polyphonic layerings and juxtapositions and plain wonky freak-outs that work not only to showcase the versatility of the technology in the hands of a true cinematic craftsman, but also to supply a rough-and-ready template for a new way of looking at the world. For, as much as a cine-screed this stacked with referents can be said to be about any one thing in particular, Goodbye to Language seeks to stretch the creative parameters of vision (cinematic and otherwise) as such.

"What they call images," a character intones early on, doubtless cribbing from one of the 15 or so authors name-checked at the end of the film, "are murdering the present." As evidence, Godard quotes the "Christian anarchist" philosopher Jacques Ellul on media and freedom, while also showing a character holding up an iPhone with an Ellul website on display. It's an image that cuts both ways: Media like the Internet makes the ready dissemination of information, as well as its almost instantaneous acquisition, a concrete possibility. But, and this seems to be Godard's broader point, they also provide such an inundation of anti-information and nonsense that it becomes nearly impossible to winnow the wheat from the chaff. Possessing knowledge isn't the same as really knowing something, which probably explains a recurring scene where people pick up books, riffle through them, then quickly put them back in favor of something else.

Goodbye to Language's other major through line concerns the animal—in this case a charming mutt credited as Roxie Mieville—as existential "other" to our human nature. An animal's sensorium is not our own and so, while the dog frolics among hyperreal colors, the film's human contingent bicker and screw and pontificate. By film's end, the mutt has lit out for the territories, leaving behind the fractious world of human intercourse. Our only hope, Godard seems to suggest, resides in a sense of art renewed. (Art's current status is illustrated by a man sitting on the toilet who mimics Rodin's sculpture of The Thinker while noisily dropping a deuce.) More than anything, the film's 3D works to make the seen world seem strange and new again, to scrub clean our doors of perception, as Huxley would have it. In a time when many artworks, especially films, wallow in the quotidian, in the muck of the merely actual, Godard, with a nod to science-fiction writers like A.E. van Vogt, seeks out new vistas ("strange new worlds," if you will). To this end, Godard invokes Claude Monet: "Paint not what we see, for we see nothing, but paint that we don't see." With Goodbye to Language, he's attempted to do just that.

Empire of Light | Film Comment Kent Jones, July/August 2014 (excerpt)

Three highlights from Cannes move in poetic and painterly directions

How to describe Jean-Luc Godard’s Adieu au langage. Is it a valedictory work? It certainly feels that way, but then so does almost everything Godard has ever made. It’s difficult to recall a moment from his body of work that doesn’t speak of last things (and first things, in the same breath). Adieu au langage is no exception. Let it be noted that Godard is now at work on a new film.

Let’s look at the film from another angle, that of Godard’s appointed role as diagnostician-superhero with the ability to see through the veil of appearances. True enough, but that role is often described in purely political terms, and this has had the paradoxical effect of reducing Godard by misdescribing him as a noble agitator, the Noam Chomsky of cinema. But the revelatory moments in his work always arrive suddenly, unexpectedly—you might even say that his core aesthetic practice is laying the groundwork for such moments. It’s difficult and perhaps impossible to find analogues in cinema, but far easier in poetry—temperamentally, practically, and spiritually, Godard is much closer to Emily Dickinson or William Carlos Williams than he is to Lang or Ophuls.

The words poetry and poetic have been employed liberally in film criticism, most often to describe visually or sensorially elevated passages that float above narrative concerns; the use of such language acquires an entirely different meaning in relation to a Stan Brakhage, who knew Robert Duncan and filmed Robert Creeley and Michael McClure, or Hollis Frampton, who was one of Ezra Pound’s regular visitors at St. Elizabeth’s. Godard’s case is something else again. We have cinema aligned with the spirit of poetry tending toward pure plasticity and/or musicality (Brakhage), we have narrative cinema with interludes set at a poetic pitch (Tarkovsky), we have poets who have adapted themselves to narrative cinema (Cocteau, Pasolini) and narrative artists with poetic sensibilities (Powell), and we have a few great individual film poems (Shoah, The Tree of Life). But I’ve come to believe that Godard is the only actual film poet, which is to say that he is the only filmmaker to address the audience in the sense described by Wallace Stevens in his essay “The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words”: the poet’s measure of himself as a poet, “in spite of all the passions of all the lovers of the truth, is the measure of his power to abstract himself, and to withdraw with him into his abstraction the reality on which the lovers of truth insist. He must be able to abstract himself and also to abstract reality, which he does by placing it in his imagination.” The “pressure of reality,” as Stevens calls it—the oppressively dull bottom line on which we must all supposedly agree in order to keep the machinery of society in good working order—is nullified by the poet, who takes responsibility for his or her own freedom and in so doing offers a model to the reader. Or, in this case, the viewer.

I cannot give you an accurate assessment of the “content” of Adieu au langage. One might say that previous Godard films begin with what pass for subjects—for instance, the protection of art from business concerns and the American co-opting of memory (In Praise of Love), or the bridge between love and work (Passion)—only to see them complicated and finally abstracted within Godard’s imagination. In his 43rd feature, made very far from anything even remotely resembling commercial considerations and pretty much in his own backyard, Godard’s subject, like Dickinson’s, becomes as vast as it is intimate. If pressed, you might call this subject the difficulty of being, which Cocteau long ago identified as a central concern of poetry. It could be said that Adieu au langage has some kind of narrative, an extremely compressed representation of Godard’s relationship with Anne-Marie Miéville. It also has a governing and unifying set of oppositions and contrasts—the clarifications and complications of language; being as opposed to the idea of being (Stevens again: “Not ideas about the thing but the thing itself”), embodied within the film by Godard and Miéville’s dog Roxy; rhetoric that addresses the I, the we, and the other, and thus charges the film’s 3-D images with a rich metaphorical energy. Godard was ostensibly attracted to 3-D because it remains unencumbered by any rules to speak of, but he eventually breaks its one implicit rule by drawing attention to the separation between the right-eye and left-eye images, most spectacularly in a mind-bending shot that I have yet to fully comprehend on a technical level (believe me: you’ll know it when you see it) and that actually drew a round of applause mid-screening in Cannes.

In Pierrot le fou Ferdinand quotes Elie Faure on Velazquez’s tendency to focus on the spaces between objects rather than the objects themselves. Faure’s observation can be just as aptly applied to Godard. Identifying the aesthetic strategies in Adieu au langage and enumerating the film’s visual elements runs the risk of reducing it to a neat succession of choices and preoccupations. But this is a Jean-Luc Godard movie, an unfolding of revelatory instants—the screen suddenly aflame with the vibrant reds and yellows of autumn, the two points of the 3-D perspective magically diverging and converging, a close image of Roxy looking us in the eye—that at once upend the ground beneath our feet and slice cleanly through the curtain of reality. Adieu au langage is a film that brings us face to face with doubt, despair, and everyday existential confusion, made in a state of pure liberty. It was the most exhilarating and ennobling film in Cannes.

Cannes Review: Jean Luc-Godard's Baffling, Hilarious 'Goo ... Eric Kohn from indieWIRE, May 21, 2014

Jean Luc-Godard's 3-D missive against contemporary society is an enjoyable provocation even if it doesn't all add up. But what Godard movie truly does?

In one of the few narratively coherent scenes in Jean-Luc Godard's baffling 70-minute essay film "Goodbye to Language 3D," a couple look at their dog lazing on the sofa and attempt to understand his disposition. Is he bored? Or dreaming of a better life? Either way, the conversation implies that he's done with the human-dominated world around him—and it's safe to say, based on the stance that comes across in Godard's latest work, that the 83-year-old filmmaker can relate.

Aside from the novelty of watching the French New Wave legend play with 3-D technology (a feat he last displayed in a short segment produced for last year's omnibus project "3X3D"), "Goodbye to Language" offers anyone keen on the director's increasingly esoteric projects with a dense assemblage of signifiers, some more coherent than others. Overall, the concise, often impermeable experience does justice to the title by indicting a society on the verge of self-destruction with its own tools. It's his most outwardly aggressive statement against contemporary civilization since the barbaric climax of "Weekend." While far from a monumental achievement in a career littered with much stronger examples, for Godard junkies "Goodbye to Language" is rich with Godard's temperament—and thus an enjoyable provocation, even if it doesn't all add up. But what Godard movie truly does?

"Goodbye to Language" is also sprinkled with unexpectedly witty moments amid its collection of written dialogue and citations of literary and philosophical texts. The movie plays like the rascally, leaner sibling of 2010's "Film Socialism," another blend of half-formed fictional characters, cryptic onscreen text and collages of random visuals. "Goodbye to Language" barely coheres into a fully realized work, but that's part of its anarchic appeal. Collectively, the fragmentary moments form a confounding poem on the mass decline of human intelligence.

Yet the narrative, if one may be so bold as to call it that, remains simple: A pair of lovers (Heloise Godet and Kamel Abdelli) engage in meandering dialogue about life, art, and their troubled relationship. As we watch them wandering outside and parading around their house in the nude, the solitary canine looks on, while Godard scatters the rest his project with quotes from countless books in voiceover and a barrage of disparate images that range from wartime footage to scenes from classic movies.

To some degree, the overwhelming montage taps into the over-saturation of today's media climate, a point that Godard makes explicit several times: the recurring shot of a flat-screen television broadcasting static speaks for itself, as does a more comical bit in which two strangers continually tap away on their iPhones and exchange them, repeating the action. At one point, as the narration samples highlights from philosopher Jacques Ellul's essay "The Victory of Hitler," someone holds up a smartphone screen showing off the essay's contents. It doesn't take a lot of analysis to determine Godard's intentions: He portrays the information age as the dying breath of consciousness before intellectual thought becomes homogenized by digital advancements.

But that doesn't mean the quotes spread throughout "Goodbye to Language" have no significance. Ellul's essay ascertains the power of the state around the world to limit freedom, even if its citizens don't realize it. That point takes on further definition when the movie suggests humankind has grown limited by devices that tell us everything we think we need to know. Viewed in that context, the movie's incoherence has an unmistakable representational quality.

Godard has always taken a cynical approach to narrative. As early as his 1960 debut "Breathless," his movies have toyed with the superfluous nature of storytelling; sometimes (particularly since the advent of his experimental video work in the eighties), he just focuses on tearing it apart. The filmmaker's droll contempt for his characters takes on its most acerbic form in a scene where the male figure analyzes the meaning of Rodin's iconic sculpture "The Thinker" while sitting on the toilet (replete with scatological sound effects). Grumpy about the absence of daring attitudes and creativity in the mainstream, Godard finds that artistic discourse has been literally relegated to the crapper.

Aside from its critical perspective, "Goodbye to Language" packs plenty of innovation into its brief running time—particularly with regard to its use of 3-D, which highlights a dissonance between thought and imagery that has been exacerbated by our technological resources. In an early scene, Godard pretzels viewers' eyes by overlaying one shot over another as a woman walks off-frame—and into a shot superimposed over the previous one, then returns to her original location as the images merge once more. (That scene in particular elicited a round of applause from the Cannes audience, which tittered when the technique surfaced again during a nude scene featuring both actors' genitals.)

Of course, if any filmmaker other than Godard made a movie so implicitly smarmy and labyrinthine, it might not offer the same reward. But the director carries a set of expectations that inform his toolbox, and since we're looking for meaning in his movies before they even begin, it's safe to say that Godard gives the people what they want on his terms.

At one point, he includes a quote from Claude Monet, who instructs artists to "paint not what we see, for we see nothing, but paint that we don't see." Following suit, "Goodbye to Language" assails literal-mindedness, starting with a Google reference early on that points to the ease with which anyone has the power to conjure knowledge desired in the moment. "Eventually," one character asserts, "everyone will need an interpreter for their own speech."

Given that dreary prognosis, it's no surprise that "Goodbye to Language" concludes with the image of the aforementioned dog fleeing into the woods—not looking bored or lost in thought so much as just fed up. At Cannes, the cute little guy was a de facto stand-in for the director, who blew off the festival -- as he did with "Film Socialism" four years ago. But even if Godard failed to materialize before the eyes of his audience, he certainly managed to burrow behind them and tickle their minds—and that's been the essence of his career from the start.

Film of the Week: Goodbye to Language - Film Comment Jonathan Romney, October 29, 2014

Watching Jean-Luc Godard’s recent work can be a source of joy, but also of terror—especially if you’re trying to write about it. Your eyes are bombarded with violent, abrupt changes of texture, color, and form, sometimes obliged to take in several superimposed images and captions at once—and now, in Goodbye to Language, with the additional stimulus, or demand, of a very idiosyncratic use of 3-D. Your ears, meanwhile, try to apprehend snatches of text, often spoken off screen, fragments of music that start and stop with equal suddenness, and a dizzying array of sound effects—barking dogs, gunshots, a particular intense burst of cawing crows that, in this new film, had me putting my hands to my ears. The sheer assaultive power of Goodbye to Language makes it Godard’s most vibrant and exciting film for some time and, you might say, his most terroristic: he’s never been so true to André Breton’s dictum, “Beauty will be convulsive or not at all.”

But imagine trying to write about all this. You sit there in the dark, barely able to see your notepad because of the 3-D glasses, and you’re only halfway through scribbling down one gnomic caption or literary quotation—and I mean just scribbling, never mind attempting to absorb or interpret—when two more have followed. Godard, or his film, may ostensibly be saying goodbye to language, but if so, it’s as if the Word is being thrown a spectacular bender of a going-away party. Propositions, allusions, sounds, images rush on in wave after wave, each building a new layer on top of—or violently erasing—what’s immediately gone before. Trying to make any sense of it all, even in the most rudimentary or provisional way, is an anguish-inducing process. What’s more, as a critic you’re aware of the armies of commentators who appear to take Godardian complexity in their stride, and of the academic specialists among them: you feel gauche even noting that all this stuff is hard to take in, when you know that there’s someone out there just waiting to point out, “And of course, you failed to notice that the two-second burst of Sibelius signals Godard’s volte-face on his previous position vis-à-vis the Lacanian Real.” Put it this way: I love Goodbye to Language and I couldn’t have missed writing about it, but part of me wishes I’d taken on Ouija instead.

That’s why I was relieved, and filled with admiration, when I read David Bordwell’s enthusiastic analysis of Goodbye to Language on his website, in which he dares state something that’s often considered inadmissible in discussions of Godard. That is, not only is it hard to tell what’s going on in the film in terms of narrative, but it’s also hard to make sense of the relentless flood of text. Before embarking on a useful analysis of the film’s formal qualities, and exactly why they make the film so hard to read, Bordwell refers to Ted Fendt’s extensive list of texts and films quoted or alluded to in Goodbye to Language. Fendt himself admits that knowing Godard’s sources may only be “about as useful to ‘unlocking’ the films and videos as reading a heavily footnoted copy of The Waste Land.” Still, a blockage of understanding is surely essential to an understanding of a Godard work as it is when dealing with any hermetic or gnostic text: bafflement is the first necessary step to eventual (if endlessly deferred) enlightenment.

As always for Godard, Goodbye makes use of an intriguing mixture of familiar and unfamiliar names, and some unlikely ones that you wouldn’t have expected Godard to refer to. Whether or not these texts are part of his all-time personal reference library, or his current bedtime reading, or simply things that he happens to have skimmed recently (as someone is seen flicking through Dostoevsky in an early shot), you always come away with a list of suggestions for further reading. Each film is no more prescriptive for further investigation than, say, a musician’s playlist. We’re told what’s on the (real or imaginary) JLG shelf right now, which is to say: what’s on his mind. Thus, Goodbye contains plugs for the paintings of Nicolas de Staël; the science fiction of A.E. van Vogt (whose novel Null-A Three is seen in French translation) and Clifford Simak (whose City is quoted, unattributed, in a moving passage about puppies listening to stories about humans); V.S. Naipaul (dialogue about Africa alludes to “a bend in the river,” the title of his 1979 novel); the philosopher Jacques Ellul; and the mathematician Laurent Schwartz, whose work in the theory of distribution and the Dirac delta function seemingly informs the film on some level that I couldn’t begin to speculate about.

The question is what this torrent of references might all mean—or rather, how we as viewers/listeners are encouraged to make it mean something. The great riddle of the quotations in Godard’s films is the way that they are taken out of context, used as free-floating emblems, without clear indications of where they’re from, or how they relate to the new text in which they are embedded. The way a phrase will appear enigmatically isolated on screen has the autonomously provocative force of an unexplained slogan on a T-shirt; if Godard had turned up in Cannes this year, he could well have worn one emblazoned with the closing caption of his last feature Film Socialisme: “NO COMMENT.”

Godard’s textual borrowings are often delivered by off-screen voices, so that we can’t easily decide whether the words are being spoken firsthand by characters in the film (if they really qualify as “characters”), quoted by them as overt quotation, or being spoken by the film itself, as it were. Borrowed language is simply absorbed into the film’s overall texture, just as assorted images are implanted directly in the surface of Rauschenberg’s collages on canvas or metal; or just as literary quotations, both modified and unmodified, were stitched seamlessly into the writing of Isidore Ducasse, aka the Comte de Lautréamont, who declared in his Poésies (1870), “Plagiarism is necessary,” thereby offering a militant manifesto for sampling culture avant la lettre.

As for the way Godard’s textual uncertainty confounds and stimulates, take a simple example from Goodbye, heard more than once. A young woman’s off-screen voice asks: “Monsieur, is it possible to produce a concept of Africa?” Fendt attributes the line to philosopher Jocelyn Benoist, but without knowing the original context, it’s hard to say what it means—nor why producing a concept of Africa is the most urgent of priorities, when the continent’s current woes perhaps demand more pragmatic solutions. But the line prods us violently, given its cryptic nature, and given the urgent, even militant tone that it’s given by the voice of the young woman who may be one of the several women seen in the film. The “Monsieur” so urgently addressed may be a teacher—which an older, raincoated man named Davidson (Christian Gregori) who is seen reading, appears to be. Or it may be Godard himself—or the Academy, as it were, Western knowledge embodied and (to judge by the woman’s delivery) found wanting.

But as for knowledge, there’s often a rather hectoring, impatient note in Godard’s films, as if this obsessively eclectic polymath were reproaching us all for not getting the obvious connections that he has made in his studies of politics, history, and culture. For example, a voice (possibly Davidson’s, but I could be wrong) points out that television was invented in 1933 by the Russian inventor Vladimir Zvorykin, then says, “1933—ça vous dit quelque chose?” (“That mean anything to you?”), before pointing out that 1933 was the year that Hitler came to power. We’re free to object that, so what, this tells us nothing, that nothing is proved or really revealed. Yet it’s the impatience implicit in “ça vous dit quelque chose?” that feels dismissive and superior, telling us off for being obtuse, for lagging too far behind Godard’s historical-culture mastery. (Fendt is no doubt right that knowing Godard’s sources may not advance us much, but let me suggest this. You might be closer to understanding a Godard film if you’d read everything the director had read—but then you’d also have to have read it all in exactly the same way that he had read it, making the same connections).

So much for the language to which Godard is supposedly bidding adieu. But what’s the film actually like? Again, hard to describe. The poetic official synopsis gives a seed of narrative of which you can make what you will: “The idea is simple / a married woman and a single man meet / they love, they argue, fists fly / a dog strays between town and country / the seasons pass / the man and woman meet again / the dog finds itself between them / the other is in one / the one is in the other/ and they are three / the former husband shatters everything / a second film begins / the same as the first / and yet not from the human race we pass to metaphor / this ends in barking / and a baby’s cries.” Etc. Like the man said, the idea is simple.

As usual, some responses to the film have been infuriated, with some critics indeed pretty much reduced to barking or crying. But even given the fragments of narrative that Godard has dangled before us in recent features (2001’s In Praise of Love now looks, compared to this, like an old-fashioned movie about movie-making), we long ago abandoned the idea that narrative in Godard is related to mere storytelling, or that filmmaking is about putting a movie on the screen, in the conventional sense. Godard’s recent features are less films, as we usually understand them, than events (both in the media and the ontological senses) and objects. And in Goodbye, Godard’s use of 3-D is a matter of using the screen (with its illusory extra dimension of depth) as a multimedia space in the true sense: he’s creating both a painting and a sculpture.

He has also incorporated the question of 3-D cinema and its nature into the texture and the logic of his film: Goodbye to Language could almost be regarded as an extended visual pun on the 3-D phenomenon. Godard’s short exploratory essay in the form, in the 2013 portmanteau 3x3D, was called Les Trois Désastres (The Three Disasters): 3-D-sasters, get it? He similarly puns in Goodbye by showing us children playing with three dice—trois dés.

Three, however, isn’t the film’s emblematic number—two is. As we know, the third dimension of 3-D is illusory, something created by our eyes’ and brains’ response to two projected images, and Godard is interested in 3-D as a phenomenon of duality. The film is ostensibly divided into two sections, entitled “Nature” and “Metaphor,” but sections under each title alternate throughout, and aren’t immediately easily to pick apart. Both strands involve a man and a woman who are having an affair, as well as, apparently, the German husband of one or the other woman, or both, who suddenly jumps out of a fancy car waving a gun in one of those breakneck, abrupt pieces of desultorily thriller-esque action that’s been a Godard trademark throughout his entire career. Someone gets shot, someone bleeds, but it’s hard to say who, or why.

Both sets of lovers are then seen naked at one or the other partner’s home, sometimes with a TV showing film extracts in the background; one couple consists of Josette and Gédéon (Héloïse Godet and Kamel Abdelli), the other of Ivitch and Marcus (Zoé Bruneau and Richard Chevallier), and at different times both men are seen sitting naked on the toilet. The reference is to Rodin’s Thinker, which as every schoolchild knows, is really of a man taking a crap; sitting in the same position, Gédéon, or possibly Marcus, points out that Rodin’s statue is the image of equality. We all crap, after all—both Gédéon and Marcus do it with accompanying comedy sound effects—but furthermore, “thought finds its place in crap” (“la pensée retrouve sa place dans le caca), shit itself being the emblem of equality because (I think I’m quoting this right) “Dans le caca, il y a ‘ça’ et ‘ça’”—an untranslatable play on the word caca and, I assume, the psychoanalytic connotations of ça (literally ‘that’ but also implying le Ça, the Id).

Anyway, go figure—and Godard’s use of language, whether high-flown or basely punning, is always a provocation to us to do just that, to go off and think about it for ourselves. In fact, the idea that Godard may be working on a higher conceptual plane than the rest of us is always undermined by his willful use of throwaway, facetious, even excruciating gags: Davidson, early on, makes heavy weather of a riff on pouce (thumb), pousser (to push), and Le petit Poucet (Tom Thumb), all by way of telling us that we’re spending too much of our time jabbing at iPhones.

As for how Godard uses the visual qualities of 3-D duality, that’s something else again. The film is shot on a variety of cameras, including the Canon 5D Mark II and lower-end devices by GoPro and Lumix. The types of image and texture are exhilaratingly diverse, causing you to constantly adjust your receptivity. Images of blazingly colored intensity (the wild primaries of In Praise of Love or palettes that echo Warhol’s flower paintings) are juxtaposed with chromatically muted ones. Blurry shots follow ones that are hyper-precise and vivid, like a gorgeously pellucid image of a woman’s hands among fallen leaves in clear water. And images that use 3-D to more or less neutral realistic effect are interspersed with others that heighten the spatial dynamics to startlingly overt effect, e.g. the image of a naked Bruneau holding a bowl of fruit towards the camera. (Forget the proverbial “girl and a gun”—this may well be Godard’s ideal of cinema: a naked girl and a grapefruit.)

As Bordwell points out, in most 3-D films the effect of three-dimensionality eventually wanes, as our eyes and brains simply get used to the illusion (I’m glad he mentioned this, as I’d always worried it was just me). But in Godard’s radically anti-illusionistic use of the medium, you never forget you’re watching 3-D: keeping all its possibilities in play all the time, he somehow finds a further dimension within the three-dimensional. This is nowhere truer than in two magical shots that had people gasping with delight at the film’s Cannes premiere. In both, a woman walks away from a man who remains stationary, as the screen separates into two superimposed images, one moving, one static, one for each eye; even more magically, the woman then moves back to first position, and the divided image somehow regains its initial unity. It’s in-camera magic of a Méliès vintage: a piece of cheap trickery, but brilliantly and simply carried off, finding hitherto unsuspected delight in a simple “improper” use of 3-D. (As Godard has said, the function of 3-D is precisely to remind us that we have two eyes.)

Finally, a man, a woman—and a dog. I haven’t yet talked about the third part of the Godardian couple—which also happens to be the third part of his own couple, a mutt credited as “Roxy Miéville,” and the pet of Godard and his partner Anne-Marie Miéville. It’s easy to get fuzzy about Roxy having more screen presence than any of the humans in the film, which some critics have claimed, and which isn’t altogether true; after all, he (Roxy is male) is just a dog, and no more or less charming than any other dog you might see on screen. The fact is, he’s Godard’s dog, and who would have suspected Godard was a softie about dogs? Roxy may represent nature, but dogs are also one of the fundamental metaphors by which we represent nature to ourselves in our daily lives. Roxy clearly gets Godard out and about—away from the editing suite, and into the hills around his Swiss home of Rolle. And Roxy’s wanderings in the film—he’s seen trotting through woods, sniffing the air on a riverbank, at one point floating down the river in a perilous-looking manner—go paw in paw with the film’s wanderings through certain dog-related thoughts. Dogs are the survivors of the human apocalypse in Simak’s City; a dog is the only living creature that loves you more than it loves itself (according to Darwin, quoting Buffon); “There is no nudity in nature. And the animal, therefore, is not nude because he is nude” (according to Derrida).

It’s very convenient for us, as viewers, to say that we’re more interested in the film’s dog than in its people: it allows us a sentimental escape route to avoid engaging with the film’s own enduring, if jaundiced, interest in humanity. But that’s only something that Godard encourages us to do: when Roxy is on screen, it’s as if Godard, and his camera, are themselves taking a welcome breather, getting away from the cacophony and clutter of human and social concerns. Roxy, after all, sleeps, and seems to be the only one here who does. Two humans (Godard and Miéville?) are heard off-screen speculating about the dozing beast, and the woman speculates that he’s “dreaming of the Marquesas Islands.” (Why? No idea, except possibly that the islands are the subject of a Jacques Brel song.) There’s a hint of envy here: just as Solzhenitsyn (Davidson tells us) didn’t need Google to find his subtitle to The Gulag Archipelago, Roxy doesn’t need the Canon 5D to make his own mental movie about the Marquesas.

But then you suspect that what Godard admires in animals, and envies them for, is the fact that they couldn’t care less about cinema, or about language—just as he himself now has now claimed, in various recent statements, to be outside both areas of human culture. He has also said of dogs that “ils ne communiquent pas, ils communient”—roughly translated as “they don’t communicate, they commune,” although my French dictionary defines communier as “to be, to live, in communion.” Or, perhaps, to create a commonality between things which do not otherwise seem to have anything in common. Could that be a description of Godard’s cinema in general, or of this film in particular? I’m tempted to answer that by quoting a famous line, attributed in Goodbye to Language to Mao Zedong, although it was apparently Zhou Enlai, who when asked about the effects of the French Revolution, replied: “It’s too early to say.”

DavidBordwell.net [David Bordwell]

Goodbye To Language / The Dissolve David Ehrlich

Goodbye to Language - Reverse Shot Michael Koresky

Tree! Fire! Water! Godard! by Geoffrey O'Brien | NYRblog ... Geoffrey O’Brien from The New York Review of Books, November 3, 2014

World Premiere of Jean-Luc Godard's ADIEU AU LANGAGE on May 21st 2014 Craig Keller from Cinemasparagus, June 2, 2014

Adieu au langage (Godard) - The Form of the Interview Craig Keller from Cinemasparagus, September 8, 2014

Adieu au langage (Godard) - "Now what's all this?" Craig Keller from Cinemasparagus, September 15, 2014

Adieu au langage (Godard) - The Dog, the Territory, the Television Screen Craig Keller from Cinemasparagus, October 10, 2014

2014: The Year of the JLG | White City Cinema Michael Glover Smith

Broken Glasses - Slate Daniel Engber from Slate

With Goodbye to Language, Godard Has a Ball Poking ... Michelle Orange from The Village Voice

Review: With Goodbye To Language 3D, Jean-Luc Godard ... Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from The Onion A.V. Club

Godard's Revolutionary 3-D Film - The New Yorker Richard Brody, October 29, 2014

Cinetarium (Jack Gattanella)

Ferdy on Films [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Slant Magazine [Steve Macfarlane]

Spectrum Culture [Jesse Cataldo]

The Film Stage [Peter Labuza]

Jean-Luc Godard Tells Stories in a New Way in Goodbye to Language ... Robert Hunt from Riverfront Times

DVD Savant Blu-ray Review: Goodbye to Language Glenn Erickson

Cannes Report: Contemplating Animal Nudity with Godard's ... Stephanie Zacharek at Cannes from The Village Voice

Sound On Sight (Zach Lewis)

MUBI [Daniel Kasman]

Grolsch Film Works [Flossie Topping]

Sound On Sight (Kyle Turner)

Filmoria [Chris Haydon]

Angeliki Coconis' Unsung Films [Morad Moazami]

Screen Comment [Ali Naderzad]

MUBI [Miriam Bale]

Daily | Cannes 2014 | Jean-Luc Godard's GOODBYE TO ... David Hudson at Fandor

PopMatters [Jose Solis] interview with actress Héloise Godet, November 18, 2014

Goodbye to Language - The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy

Cannes Film Review: 'Goodbye to Language' - Variety Scott Foundas

Cannes 2014 review: Peter Bradshaw on Goodbye to Language May 21, 2014

Goodbye to Language talks its way to top of US film critics ... Andrew Pulver from The Guardian, January 5, 2015

Greenaway announces the death of cinema - and blames ... Clifford Coonan from The Independent, October 10, 2007

Goodbye to Language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Goodbye to Language Movie Review (2014) | Roger Ebert Matt Zeller Seitz

Cannes, Day Eight: Jean-Luc Godard's "Goodbye to ... Barbara Scharres from the Ebert site at Cannes, May 21, 2014

Jean-Luc Godard's "Goodbye to Language 3D" to Open ... Ebertfest opening film

'Goodbye to Language,' the Latest From Jean-Luc Godard ... A.O. Scott from The New York Times

Godeau, Pierre

DOWN BY LOVE (Éperdument) D+ 65

France Belgium (110 mi) 2016 ‘Scope

It’s surprising how far the mighty have fallen, as just three years ago, actress Adèle Exarchopoulos, along with co-star Léa Seydoux, both made history by being given a Cannes Palme d’Or, the first instance that it was awarded to the two lead actresses as well as the director for Abdellatif Kechiche’s award winning film Blue Is the Warmest Color (La Vie d'Adèle, Chapitres 1 et 2) (2013), becoming the only women besides Jane Campion to have won the festival’s top award. As there was some fallout after the announcement with the actresses claiming they were bullied on the set, complaining the director’s style was sexually abusive, making them feel like “prostitutes,” it’s perhaps not surprising that the director has not worked since and has no planned films in the works, where it appears he’s been blacklisted by the industry. Both actresses, on the other hand, have worked steadily. But if this is any indication of the material chosen by Exarchopoulos, who in 2014 was voted Most Promising Actress in the French César awards, her career is on a downward descent, as this film is something of a disgrace, with the worst offensive being it’s pretentious and sexually exploitive. While it’s basically a prison B-movie, where in America a prestigious director like Jonathan Demme began his directing career making a Roger Corman produced women’s prison exploitation flick called CAGED HEAT (1974), leave it to the French to take it completely seriously, where the young actress has shown little growth in her role, but instead retreats to familiar grounds where in the most sexually explicit scenes she once again takes her clothes off. While she’s a beautiful young woman, the problem is there’s little else worth talking about, as the film otherwise exposes a lackluster indifference and is one of the least engaging films seen all year. While not impressed with Nolwenn Lemesle’s Pieces of Me (Des morceaux de moi) (2012), a very average earlier film Exarchopoulos made prior to working with Kechiche, this film is actually much worse, and while her performance is not the primary cause of embarrassment, it does leave plenty of doubts about this actress’s ability to carry a film.

Adapted from the autobiographical book Défense d’aimer by Florent Gonçalvez, the former director of the French Versailles prison describing his scandalous 2011 affair with an inmate, most will find the movie version incredulous, especially the pernicious behavior of the prison director, whose obsessional behavior is so out of line that it’s difficult to take his actions seriously. Bogged down by the shoddy work of a director that refuses to make a single scene inventive or interesting, instead it’s a routine, by-the-numbers scenario that would describe the kind of predictable social drama screened on television on a nightly basis with Exarchopoulos once more assigned a role largely playing to the male gaze. Much like David Fincher’s Gone Girl (2014), which is infinitely more interesting than this, but both are the stuff of relatively light reading airport novels that accentuate salacious material. In this film, viewers may squirm in their seats and grow uncomfortable not from any build-up of suspense, but from how emotionally dull and inert the characters are with one another, where there’s simply no sexual chemistry to justify such a major risk, in this case destroying a marriage, a family, and a career, where the audience has to keep asking themselves—for what? Anna Amari (Exarchopoulos) is seen arriving at a new prison facility, where she’s being transferred to be closer to her mother, Marie Rivière from Rohmer’s Le Rayon Vert (Summer) (1986) and An Autumn Tale (Conte D’Automne) (1998). Receiving the standard new girl treatment, she’s called a variety of offensive names, becoming the target of vicious attacks, eventually forced to defend herself, where enemies are established early on. Unlike real prisons, however, this one is exceedingly quiet, with prisoners often seen roaming the hallways without any guard present, where this film actually suggests there is a great deal of privacy to be found inside prison compounds. Enter Jean Firmino (Guillaume Gallienne), who is initially viewed as a social worker. There is nothing in his character to suggest he is anything more, as one never suspects he runs the institution. He’s middle-aged, happily married, and has a young daughter who seems to idolize him. A visit to his daughter’s school confirms that he is viewed more as a civil servant than an authority figure.

Firmino takes an interest in Anna’s case, helping to prepare her for her upcoming trial, with the film leaving out any backstory about her supposed crime. We never learn what she is convicted of, but surprisingly spends four years in prison even before her sentencing, about half of her time, where she’ll still be under age 25 by her expected release. Firmino, on the other hand, is likely to be in his forties, so there’s about a twenty year age difference. Nonetheless, Firmino continually arranges private time for Anna, though it’s not really all that private, as guards deliver her for every visit, though she’s often left alone on the premises completely unguarded afterwards, and would have to be considered a security risk. What’s perhaps most preposterous, yet so decidedly French, is the assignment of dramatic texts for the prisoners, where Anna is being taught Racine’s Phèdra, a 17^th century ancient Greek mythological play written in Alexandrine verse where the lead character is driven to incestuous desires, a victim of her own impulses, consumed by jealousy and guilt afterwards. However, in her family, descended from the Gods, morality is not really an issue, where death remains the ultimate tragedy, as well as the accompanying fall from grace. A blunt reminder of what’s in store, there’s nothing subtle about this over-hyped drama, moving quickly into acts of sexual taboo, where neither one seems the least bit phased by the potential consequences, showing no conscious whatsoever as they plunge headlong into a scandalous affair, often unable to tell illusion from reality, becoming the talk of the prison, as they spend so much time together. Even Firmino’s wife (Stéphanie Cleau) knows exactly what’s going on, but does nothing to stop it. While it’s more of a cheap and tawdry melodrama without an ounce of passion anywhere, perhaps the only reason to stick around is to see if it will ever end, as it seems to go on forever, where the degree of risk borders on spectacle. Nothing, however, can resuscitate this film from the drivel it descends to, a sick power game with no real balls to speak of, as both apparently lose their minds to an obsession that they foolishly delude themselves into thinking is love. It crossed my mind that one possible ending may be both imprisoned for long durations, holed up in cells at the same facility in different compounds separated by gender, with a view of the other across a spacious courtyard, where they could go on imagining one another while stuck in their own inescapable purgatories. A much better directed version of this is the flamboyant sexual indulgence of Christophe Honoré’s MA MÈRE (2004), a bombastic adaptation of the Georges Bataille philosophical novel that contrasts base sexuality with the divine, striving for transcendence through complete sexual indulgence. This pathetic little misfire is a pale comparison and a candidate for worst film of the year. Surprising that this was chosen for export, but hopefully it won’t ruin anyone’s career.

Down by Love (Eperdument) | Music Box Theatre

Adéle Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color) sizzles in this story of a young inmate who falls for her married prison director (Guillaume Gallienne, Yves Saint Laurent). The film is based on true events that occurred in a Versailles prison in 2011, causing a national scandal.

frenchcinemareview.com [Judith Prescott] also seen here: Eperdument (Down by Love) - Pierre Godeau - frenchcinemareview

For his second feature, director Pierre Godeau’s has drafted in two of the finest of a younger generation of French actors. Guillaume Gallienne of the prestigious La Comédie Française who drew rave reviews for his directorial debut Les Garcons, et Guillaume, à Table for which he also received the 2014 Best Actor César. And Adèle Exarchopoulos who first came to the public’s attention in Abdellatif Kechiche’s Palme d’Or winning La Vie d’Adèle (Blue is the Warmest Colour). But not even these two talented actors can lift Godeau’s pedestrian tale of a prison director’s illicit love affair with a female inmate out of the ordinary. It’s the stuff of TV drama and just as easily digested and forgotten. Despite the French title, the love affair is a passionless, tawdry affair not helped by the down-at-heel prison setting. Exactly why the director Jean Firmino (Gallienne) would risk everything for Anna Amari (Exarchopoulos) is just one of the more baffling aspects of this disappointingly unengaging film.

Jean Firmino is happily married to Elise (Stéphanie Cleau) and together they have a young daughter, Louise. He is the hands-on director of a women’s prison fully involved in the day-today-running of the institution. Anna is already several years into a long sentence for an unspecified crime when she is transferred to Firmino’s prison to be closer to her family. Firmino finds himself drawn to the attractive, enigmatic Anna and his desire to help her improve her education soon becomes an all-consuming passion for the young woman. Anna reciprocates and the two are caught in a dangerous relationship both are powerless to end.

Exarchopoulos has yet to reproduce the success of Blue is the Warmest Colour. Her last two French films – Marianne Tardieu’s Qui Vive and Elie Wajeman’s Les Anarchistes previewed in last year’s Cannes Critics Week – were low-key affairs. And Exarchopoulos runs the risk of constantly playing second fiddle in films which showing a mostly male point of view. She is beautiful and talented and deserves better. Gallienne camped it up beautifully in Les Garcons, et Guillaume, à Table and was excellent as Yves Saint Laurent’s life-partner and right-hand man, Pierre Bergé, in Jalil Lespert’s film of the same name. But he fails to bring his usual touch of originality to the role of Firmino. It’s to be hoped his next film, Danièle Thompson’s Cézanne et Moi, due out in France later this year sees a return to form.

'Down By Love (Eperdument)': Review | Reviews | Screen Lisa Nesselson from Screendaily, also seen here: 'Down By Love (Eperdument)': Review - Screen Daily

The idea of forbidden — or at least incredibly inappropriate — romance takes on interesting contours in Down By Love (Eperdument), a reality-inspired tale in which the woman is an inmate at the correctional facility run by the man. As transgressive behaviour goes (Wait! You mean the warden isn’t supposed to engage in mutually satisfying nookie with a prisoner half his age?) this increasingly unsettling tale sets the bar as high as electrified prison walls and would probably veer towards silliness were it not for the very fine work by its two leads Adele Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color) and Guillaume Gallienne (Me, Myself and Mum; Pierre Bergé in Yves Saint Laurent).

Local enthusiasm for the actors plus the intriguing topic — loosely inspired by a headline-grabbing case in a prison in Versailles in 2011 — should give this March 2 French release a boost. French audiences, already aware that something very close to this really happened, may be more accepting than viewers beyond France but the film works as a startling depiction of l’amour fou.

Jean is pushing 40; Anna is a teenager. He has a wife and adorable young daughter and has worked his way up from a modest background to a position of authority in the state prison system ; she has been incarcerated awaiting trial for four years for something she did when she was a minor. Her crime is never specified but apparently carries a potential sentence of 12-15 years behind bars.

He fancies himself an artist; she’s been made to feel like a worthless perp and doesn’t have the emotional tools to cope when he shows an at-first purely professional interest in her.

He doesn’t know what’s happening to him — only that it’s happening. Neither party puts up much of a fight - love and/or overwhelming physical attraction wins. Jean is on such a cloud he doesn’t seem to realise he has stepped over a number of radical lines. He remains oblivious to prison gossip from other inmates and his own staff prompted by his flagrant favouritism toward Anna. The derogatory chatter is probably not helped by open fondling on the balcony of his office overlooking the prison yard.

What makes the story consistently interesting is that there doesn’t appear to be an element of manipulation. As presented here, she’s not a temptress and he’s not exploiting her for his own craven reasons. However delusional their respective aspirations for shared happiness, they’re sincere. And the ultimate irony is that he could very well end up in prison himself for such an egregious violation of duty.

While we can understand why an imprisoned young woman who never knew her father might relish sexual attention from an older man, it’s a bit harder to grasp why a grown man with major responsibilities would risk everything for forbidden trysts on the prison grounds. But thanks to the performances, we believe their attraction is both real and mutual. Their various couplings are anything but shy, reinforcing the idea that they’re simply meant to be together and this whole prisoner/warden thing is an irrelevant detail.

Exarchopoulos pulls off a blend of pouty yet tough demeanour with aplomb; stage-trained Gallienne coveys authoritative confidence undercut by the vulnerability of a lovesick teenager and a strong whiff of narcissism. Their surroundings — electric gates, uniformed guards, strip searches, cat fights — feel oppressively authentic, the better for the central couple’s insanely risky behavior to play out. Supporting roles in this sad, intense story of sexual obsession are well cast — including cell phones, which play a strategic part.

A nice touch is that Anna relishes studying French playwright Jean Racine’s 1677 tragedy-in-verse Phedre, with its theme of forbidden love among the gods, while Jean zones out watching Secret Story, the French version of reality show Big Brother.

Eperdument (Down By Love) | - 52 French Films

Film Review: Down By Love - CineVue | Award-winning UK film blog John Beasdale

Down by Love / Eperdument | A Year of Reviews Sacha Marie

Éperdument (Down by Love) | Movie review – The Upcoming Laura Ewing

Facets : Cinematheque Schedule: Down by Love

film reviews - Éperdument - Cineman Geoffrey Crété

Pierre Godeau on Directing Exarchopoulos, Gallienne and 'Down By ... John Hopewell interview from Variety, January 17, 2016

Adèle Exarchopoulos on filming inside France's most notorious prison ... Sophie Monks Kaufman interview from Little White Lies, June 14, 216

'Down by Love' ('Eperdument'): Film Review | Hollywood Reporter Boyd van Hoeij

Down By Love review – weirdly sanitised real-life jail-love drama | Film ... Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian

Down by Love - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Godfrey, Peter

THE TWO MRS. CARROLLS

USA (99 mi) 1947

Rock! Shock! Pop! [Ian Jane]

Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck stranded in a musty stage thriller (1947) about a mad artist who paints his wives' portraits before he murders them. Alexis Smith is appetizing as a calculating other woman, but this one is dead in the water. Peter Godfrey (Cry Wolf) directed; with Nigel Bruce and Isobel Elsom. 99 min.

At-A-Glance Film Reviews

The fiery matching of Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck must have sounded like a great idea, and indeed, a better script and director might have met expectations. But while this "soap noir" does create an ominous atmosphere, it is hurt by uneven pacing and overacting (even by the leads, whose work here is less than they are capable of). The beginning is too efficient, skimming by plot points one would have preferred better depicted, and the end is too long, drawing out Stanwyck's discovery of her predicament slightly beyond the breaking point. On the up side, there are some chilling moments here, and even a substandard Bogart and Stanwyck are fun to watch.

User reviews from imdb Author: NewEnglandPat from Virginia

This film is a dark, somber affair of dread and eerie foreboding that has an interesting teaming of two major stars of the film noir era. Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck are the Carrolls who appear on the surface to be a happy and prosperous couple in this good thriller that has erstwhile tough guy Bogart as an artist who seems to lose interest in the women he marries after painting their portraits. The adoring Mrs. Carroll doesn't realize that her dear Jeffrey is really a psychopath whose calling card is a portrait of "the Angel of Death", which puts her at great risk. The artist's odd behavior and sudden trips to London to pay off a blackmailer begin to arouse Mrs. Carroll's suspicions and soon she realizes the great danger she's in. The portrait of Stanwyck's Mrs. Carroll is truly a frightening work, depicting a dark-haired, evil-eyed woman dressed in black, a woman of stern countenance and fearsome demeanor that causes her to faint when she sees it in the company of her step-daughter. The black and white film is gloomy, with many scenes of dark interiors and rainy nights that are accompanied by Franz Waxman's dark, suspenseful music which casts shadows of warning and death throughout the movie.

User reviews from imdb Author: (kryck@lvcm.com) from Las Vegas, Nevada

The 1947 mystery-thriller,"The Two Mrs.Carrolls"is considered by many critics to be a tepid,unrealistic film and one of Humphrey Bogart's lesser works. This couldn't be more false. The film contains brilliant performances by Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck,a great deal of eerie suspense,and delicious bits of English humor. The plot of the film is similar to that of Alfred Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder" and "Suspicion",but has a uniqueness all it's own. It tells the story of Geoffrey Carroll(Bogart),a struggling artist who marries a wealthy woman,Sally(Stanwyck), after his supposed invalid wife dies. Life is normal for them,until Sally begins to feel ill and restless quite often.A doctor says she's suffering from nothing more than a nerve condition,and she believes that's all it is. She is, unfortunately, in for a big surprise.She learns from Geoffrey's precocious,young daughter,Bea(Ann Carter),some things about his previous wife.For starters,she was not an invalid and only got sick the last few weeks of her life.Geoffrey gave her milk at night to make her feel relaxed.This is exactly what he does for Sally.She also learns that a painting of his former wife,called "The Angel of Death",was done while she was sick. Hearing this,Sally comes to the realization that she is Geoffrey's next victim of a well-planned crime.Stanwyck has never been better as a panic-stricken wife,trying to survive her husband's evil doings.Bogart gives a highly underrated performance as a psychopath,who gets brutal when his murder plot doesn't go according to plan.His presence on screen is often frightening.The ending is wonderfully witty and comical.While not in the same league as "The Maltese Falcon"or "Key Largo",this is still a highly entertaining Bogart film,that will not disappoint. I give it a strong 8 1/2 out of 10.

Turner Classic Movies Jeremy Arnold

"Bogart appears uncomfortable. Violence and murder are old stuff to him, but madness and paint brushes are not quite his line," declared Time magazine politely in 1947. Time's analysis of Humphrey Bogart in The Two Mrs. Carrolls was a common one, and the decades since have not changed many opinions. In a chiller that veers into the overwrought, Bogart is cast as a painter in England who likes to kill his wives after painting their portraits. He poisons his first wife to marry Barbara Stanwyck, and after Alexis Smith moves into the neighborhood it's only a matter of time before Bogart is painting Stanwyck's picture.

Though completed in June 1945, The Two Mrs. Carrolls sat on the Warner Bros. shelf until March 1947, supposedly because of its similarities to Gaslight (1944). With Bogart now in the prime of his career, making one classic after another, The Two Mrs. Carrolls was an odd aberration. It did, however, earn Bogart a lot of money. In 1947 he made over $400,000, enough to keep him on the Motion Picture Herald's list of the top moneymaking stars in Hollywood.

Given the movie's plot, it's ironic that while making The Two Mrs. Carrolls Bogart was enjoying newfound marital bliss. Lauren Bacall became the fourth (and final) Mrs. Bogart just eleven days before filming began, and after a honeymoon they both went back to work at Warner Bros. (Bacall was shooting Confidential Agent, 1945.) The newlyweds drove to the studio together early in the morning, reported to their respective sound stages, ate lunch together when they could, and drove home together each evening, probably joking about Bogie's role as a wife killer.

Director Peter Godfrey was a veteran of the British theater who had come to Hollywood in 1939 to direct for Columbia. In 1944 he signed a five-year contract with Warner Brothers and made such well-received pictures as Hotel Berlin (1945) and Christmas in Connecticut (1945). Godfrey's stage experience is clearly visible in The Two Mrs. Carrolls (which itself was adapted from a play) in terms of the film's impressive Gothic atmosphere. Godfrey uses mysterious lighting, images of blowing curtains and haunting paintings, and sounds of creaking boards, closing doors, and church bells to build suspense and a creepy atmosphere. The British press found the movie's "English" atmosphere amusing. As one critic wrote, "Never was there so much quaint old English architecture in one village. Shop door bells tinkle as they hardly have done since Victorian days and it rains perpetually in what Americans fondly believe is the truly British way."

Barbara Stanwyck had been playing both dramatic and comedic roles for a decade when The Two Mrs. Carrolls was shot in 1945. But the following year's The Bride Wore Boots (1946) would mark her last feature comedy. Stanwyck later explained to Hedda Hopper that this was because she couldn't find a decent script. "I've always got my eye out for a good comedy. Remember Ball of Fire and The Lady Eve [both 1941]? But they don't seem to write that kind of comedy anymore - just a series of gags."

Some additional trivia: This was the second movie (after Conflict, 1945) in which Bogart attempted to kill for Alexis Smith. Look for director Peter Godfrey in a bit role as a race track "tout" who gives horse tips, and keep an ear out for Bogart spoofing his Casablanca (1942) dialogue with "I have the feeling that this is the beginning of a beautiful hatred."

Re-Vision: Essays in Feminist Criticism Re-Vision: Essays in Feminist Film Criticism, edited by Mary Ann Doane, Patricia Mellencamp and Linda Williams, reviewed by Ellen Seiter from Jump Cut

DVD Verdict [Ike Oden]

seanax.com [Sean Axmaker]

Film Intuition [Jen Johans]

Classic Film Guide

DVDBeaver [Gregory Meshman]

Gokalp, Mathias

NOTHING PERSONAL (Rien de Personnel)

France (90 mi) 2009

Nothing Personal (Rien De Personnel) Allan Hunter at Cannes from Screendaily

Corporate misdemeanours in a climate of economic recession provide the basis of a mild-mannered satire in Nothing Personal (Rien De Personnel). The first feature from Mathias Gokalp after a number of acclaimed shorts couldn’t be more timely but is rarely more than mildly amusing. It suffers from both monotonous pacing and a straitjacket structure based around the borderline tedium of repetition and the revisiting of key events. Topicality and an engaging ensemble cast might give it a fighting chance on its domestic release but international prospects are more likely to be restricted to Festival screenings rather than sales.

Using chapter headings like The Newcomer, Married Life and All Together, the film unfolds during a swanky corporate event designed to build team confidence and negotiating skills. A nervous Bruno (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) seems to believe he is fighting for his job and confides to union representative Bergerat (Denis Podalydes) that he is still on extended probation under a short term contract that is certainly immoral even if it is not illegal. We are later to discover that Bruno is an actor playing a role that is designed to create conflict and challenge members of the management team.

Rumours begin to circulate that boss Philippe Muller (Pascal Greggory) has plans for thirty redundancies intended to create a lean, mean entity ready to be sold off . Natacha (Melanie Doutey) is among those who start to suspect there is something bigger happening than a contrived exercise in corporate management. Fear and loathing spread as individuals begin to imagine the worst scenarios, guilty secrets are exposed, defiant gestures are made and everyone starts to work from the basis of self-preservation.

Nothing Personal has all the ingredients for a classic helter-skelter farce, but it is played at a lugubrious, unvarying monotone that tends to flatten much of the potential sparkle in the material. The humour is decidedly dry and consequently the film takes a long while to warm up. It just seems to be getting into its stride by the third time some of the original events have been revisited.

There are occasions when Gokalp appears to be mining the same vein of deadpan corporate comedy as Lars Von Trier in his commercial flop The Boss Of It All and viewers may well conclude that they have derived more pleasure from a single episode of the British or American version of the television comedy The Office.

A strong cast work hard to give the film a growing degree of charm. Jean-Pierre Darroussin brings a hangdog insouciance to the role of Bruno, making him credible as a figure of nervous, sweaty anxiety and a more cynical performer. The sheer energy and invention of Denis Podalydes finds comic inspiration in even the most unpromising of incidents and he provides some of the sharpest laughs in the film. Mathias Gokalp appears to be working in the same tradition as Agnes Jaoui and Daniele Thompson but on the evidence of Nothing Personal he still has some way to go before turning his promise into anything on the same level as their past achievements.

Goldman, Paul

SUBURBAN MAYHEM B 86

Australia (89 mi) 2006

A movie with an attitude, backed up by incendiary garage Punk rock music that introduces 19-year old Katrina (Emily Barclay), who, veering into John Waters territory, resembles the Queen Bee ultra-vixen Tura Satana from Russ Meyer’s FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! In a mock documentary style opening interview, she is asked how she feels about being accused of murdering her father, but responds with a smile that it’s made her something of a local celebrity, so it’s OK. We then delve into her spoiled and pampered dysfunctional life, as a stream of faces speaking to the camera reveal she’s given anything that she wants by her father, and if she doesn’t like it, what she really wants is in her possession by the end of the week. Her mother is long absent from being strung out on drugs, who returned once to try to get some money, where she appears in multiple images all over the screen much like an attack of zombies approaching the house, but she is turned away. She’s very close to her brother, perhaps too close, so by the time they hit adolescence, both were fairly active petty criminals. Her brother was put away for life after hacking a man’s head off with a samurai sword for $200 dollars in a Convenience store when the clerk called his sister a slut. She dreams of getting him out, but her lurid visits in prison suggest an ulterior motive. So she hangs out with her guy Rusty, known for having the largest phallus in town, has great sex, then leaves her baby with him or anyone she can find while she disappears for days at a time doing whatever occurs to her at the moment.

Initially, the in-your-face style is loud, raucous, and wildly inventive to the point of hilarity, as the oddball style is jumping off the screen, with candid on camera comments from Auntie Diane offering her view of Katrina’s brother, “Just because he’s a murderer doesn’t make him a bad person.” Katrina, meanwhile, refuses to work, but continues to receive regular beauty treatments, smearing make up on her face with exaggerated lipstick and black eye liner, wearing skimpy mini skirts that conveniently unzip with ease, notorious for her willingness to offer sexual pleasures in return for whatever she wants, and has a reputation for doing it with nearly every man in town, who are all seen in a montage of text messages asking to screw her or complimenting her for her oral prowess, which if you’re still not sure, is accompanied by music from Magic Dirt that screams “I’m a sucker for your love.”

But despite the initial promise, the film never really shows anything besides attitude, and gets caught in its own mire of self centeredness that grows tiresome after awhile, reflected by her scam of a hairdresser girl friend (Mia Wosikoska), actually one of the best things in the film as she resembles a real person, but she gets slammed along with everyone else, leaving behind a neverending stream of played individuals. Her morality is reflective of the film’s title, as underneath the surface of the neatly manicured lawns, the suburbs are filled with people who routinely manipulate others to get what they want, using any means that benefit themselves, showing little regard for others. This is a sign of the times. In the end credits, Toni Collette was inexplicably given credit for providing a special voice on the soundtrack.

Cinematical (James Rocchi) review

In a prosperous Australian landscape where indistinguishable subdivision housing sits seemingly adrift in a sea of wilderness, 19-year old Katrina Skinner (Emily Barclay) strides across the landscape like a colossus, inhaling cocaine and spitting out invective, ruling her peer group with an iron fist and lipstick-smeared mouth, dispensing scorn and oral sex with equal vigor. As Suburban Mayhem opens, Katrina's being interviewed by a film crew about the murder of her father. It's suggested that all this might be a bit of a blow to her, but she smiles to the camera. "Well, I got interviewed for a magazine and now you're making a film about me, so it's okay. ..."

Directed by Paul Goldman from a script by Alice Bell, Suburban Mayhem is about Katrina's rise and rise as her dearly beloved and desperately dim brother Danny (Laurence Breuls) earns a life sentence for murder and then, a short time after, her father is killed. The film is part interviews conducted by the film crew with the people in Katrina's life -- from her dimwit partner Rusty (Michael Dorman) to her heartbroken family friend Auntie Diane (Genevieve Lemon). Another part is dizzy, speed-paced visual comedy and hyper-editing, as when we're told that Katrina has a different boyfriend for every letter of the alphabet and then are shown the menu screen of her cell phone zipping alphabetically from lover to lover. A third part is devoted to histrionic acting in scenes of familial tension and murder; however, these parts don't add up to a satisfying whole.

Suburban Mayhem falls into a chasm of its own making: The revved-up visual inventions over-the-top amorality and occasional laugh line make it impossible to take the film seriously as a drama. But the lengthy scenes of squalid squabbles and family wounds lanced open by sharp tongues make it impossible to sit back and enjoy the comedy. Suburban Mayhem could have been pushed more firmly in either direction, either as gonzo comedy or sober-sided drama. Those films wouldn't have been anything we hadn't seen before, but they would probably have felt less disjointed and uneven than the film we've been given.

Much has been made of Barclay's performance as Katrina, but the part as written is one of those dream parts actors run to like bees to a hive: Sensual, evil, conniving, showy: Katrina's like Lady Macbeth in an acid-wash jean dress. The soundtrack's mix of onetwothreefour! pop tunes revs the film up a little, and there are a few nice shots (a vision of Katrina's drug addict biological mother coming to the house for money over and over and over again is shot to look like a zombie movie moment), but Suburban Mayhem spins between poles so shakily that it goes off track, wobbling with heavy-handed eccentricity and spinning with hysterical, phony emotion.

Last Night With Riviera [Matt Riviera]

Goldsman, Akiva

WINTER’S TALE B- 80

USA (118 mi) 2014 ‘Scope Official site

I have been to another world, and come back. Listen to me.

—opening narration from the book

Magic is everywhere around us, you just have to look, look closely.

—opening narration from the film

Every action and every scene has its purpose. And the less power one has, the closer he is to the great waves that sweep through all things, patiently preparing them for the approach of a future signified not by simple human equity (a child could think of that), but by luminous and surprising connections that we have not imagined, by illustrations terrifying and benevolent — a golden age that will show not what we wish, but some bare awkward truth upon which rests everything that ever was and everything that ever will be. There is justice in the world, Peter Lake, but it cannot be had without mystery.

—lyrical prose expressing one of the themes from the book

What is essentially a children’s fantasy story is expanded into a darker adult world of corruption and evil, yet retains the Hollywood fairy tale romance where love conquers all, in this case even death, though hardly as one might expect. Adapted from Mark Helperin’s 1983 novel, this follows a similar pattern of making Hollywood movie versions of extremely popular fantasy novels, like Peter Jackson’s THE LOVELY BONES (2009), Robert Schwentke’s The Time Traveler's Wife (2009), and even Andrew Adamson’s THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE (2005), where in each case love retains a mythical status that is larger than life, while the complexity of the books is lost in the Hollywood movie adaptations which have been met with critical disappointment. Set in New York at the beginning of the twentieth century, the city itself resembles an ice palace, as the rivers are frozen over with small groups of people seen skating on the shores, also cooking things outdoors on skewers where the hustle and bustle of snowy outdoor activity may resemble the chaotic conditions of a Pieter Bruegel painting, like The Hunters in the Snow or The Census at Bethlehem. The film also leaps ahead a hundred years into the present, while also backtracking several decades to a traumatic incident early on where an Eastern European family is turned away at Ellis Island due parental illness, and in a ridiculously desperate act the parents place their baby into a tiny model boat called the City of Justice and release him to the winds of fate, eventually washing ashore in the Bayonne Marsh of New Jersey where he was raised by shoremen, eventually expelled to New York, where a strange wall of clouds surrounds the city. The boy turns out to be Peter Lake (Colin Farrell), who has learned his trade as a professional thief from Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe, both speaking a thick Irish accent), who appears to be a demon of some sort, as his every breath is hellbent upon bringing evil into this world. Breaking away from Pearly, Peter Lake relies upon his own wits, using stealth measures to steal and remain undetected, which infuriorates Pearly who wants the world to fear the inevitable presence of evil in their midst.

Much like the angel Lucifer breaking away from God in heaven, this is a film that concerns itself with angels and demons, opposite forces that continually intermingle with strange, otherworldly powers, where one simply has to accept the supernatural elements that come into play in this story, where much of the narrative concerns itself with the power of light, where the constant image of light reflections are seen throughout. In contrast, Pearly and his men are aligned with the dark forces and are always dressed in dark colors, where Pearly himself has an unbecoming scar across his face. While Peter Lake is living in a loft high above Grand Central Station’s main concourse, Pearly’s men eventually track him down to an abandoned pier where his days appear numbered until a white stallion horse appears out of nowhere and literally flies him away to safety. This as much as anything describes the somewhat oppressive moralistic lines at play in this film, where human characteristics are minimized in order to enlarge an interconnecting theme that we are all linked together, that everything has its purpose, and that miracles can happen. One of the troubling aspects of the film is the sheer lack of subtlety or nuance in the way the film is presented, where themes are literally driven into the audience’s head like a pile driver, and where the special effects (other than the wintry setting) are largely disappointing. That said, the central developing romance may remind some of TITANIC (1997), especially the mingling of different social classes and the elevated power of love, which is ultimately so transcending. Peter Lake finds himself in what he believes is an empty home of a wealthy family, and what was intended to be a successful haul turns out to be love at first sight, where the astonishing beauty of Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay, from TV’s Downton Abbey) literally takes his breath away, immediately altering the course of his destiny, where Colin Farrell does an excellent job conveying this emotional upheaval taking place within, especially after discovering she’s a virgin who’s never danced with a man before or been kissed, but is also dying of consumption, making their time together precious and unbelievably tender.

While there are dual themes of doom, with Beverly’s impending death and Pearly’s obsession to kill Peter Lake, they are enhanced even further by the presence of Lucifer himself, amusingly played by Will Smith in a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt spending his days reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, cultural references that are a good half century yet to occur. Apparently Pearly has to petition for a change of rules in order to chase down and destroy this couple in a geographical area outside his jurisdiction, as his intent is to prevent any miracles from happening, allowing nothing that would give the populace hope. While this is admittedly silly, Pearly has an underworld network that extends just about anywhere, where his reach is as mythical as his reputation. Once more Peter Lake and his flying horse rescue the fair maiden from the clutches of evil and fly her to the family mansion along the frozen riverbank where her family awaits. His presence draws the attention of her inquisitive father (William Hurt), but also Beverly’s adorable little sister Willa (Mckayla Twiggs), both of whom are curious about his intentions. While it’s a race against death, for a few precious moments love prevails, where the audience is drawn into their enchanting world, largely from their delicate chemistry together and the appeal of their performances, where this mystifying love is one for the ages, as we understand exactly what he means when he tells her “You are impossibly beautiful.” But reality sets in, no miracles happen, and evil prevails, where Peter Lake is thrown into the East River and left for dead, except that he inexplicably survives without his memory, doomed to wander for a hundred years unable to recall who he is, yet retaining his same age the entire time, adding a bookend element to the story that is just as bewildering as the rest of the film, but it’s charged with the “love conquers all” spirit that only exists in fairy tales. Colin Ferrell and Russell Crowe work well together, adding plenty of weight to the forces of good and evil, while Jessica Brown Findlay adds her own youthful charm and innocence. The acting is altogether engaging, easily the best thing in the film, as it retains a bit of the magical allure that the rest of the movie lacks.

Winter's Tale | Film Review | Slant Magazine Chris Cabin

Much of Winter's Tale hinges on the power of light, something that Akiva Goldsman doesn't let you forget. His frames are filled with often blinding and unpleasant candlelight, and his narrative concerns light, reflected off of gems, that gives a crime boss, Pearly (Russell Crowe), special powers. It proves especially useful when used to locate his nemesis, Peter Lake (Colin Farrell), a master thief who was to be his successor and whose red-haired betrothed, Beverly (Jessica Brown Findlay), suffers from consumption and is introduced trying to describe the wonder of the light around her through poetic him-hawing. But of course, it's not just light, but rather His light.

Adapted from Mark Helprin's novel, Winter's Tale is set in 1912 New York, though it exists in a timeless world of angels and demons, pure good and pure evil. Not long after his parents are kicked out of Ellis Island, Peter, the story's immortal protagonist, arrives as a baby in America resting inside a—no joke—floating manger. And Goldsman certainly doesn't take the scenic route to let us know that Pearly is in league with the dark side, as the flamboyant hood takes conference with a pestered Lucifer (Will Smith) and runs a vague, hugely corrupt finance enterprise. At another point, Pearly kills a waiter and uses his blood to paint a vision. The moralistic lines are drawn clearly, and yet Goldsman spends a tremendous amount of time reminding you just how little nuance he has given these characters.

The film's special effects are bland and unconvincing, but the lack of inspiration and inventiveness is never felt as strongly as when Pearly gets riled and dons a demon face that looks akin to an untreated rash. Winter's Tale runs on a tinny religious fantasy, one that involves a flying horse and a world where miracles can be used by anyone in line with the divine. Fantasy is heavily dependent on vision, which Helprin had in spades, but the look of Goldsman's fantasy is limp, timid, and occasionally outright awkward, as in a calamitously edited climactic horse chase through the woods. The filmmaker feigns a strong bond to the concepts of eternal love and heroic destiny, as it is all anybody talks about in the film. But the indifference and impersonal distance he shows toward expressing these ideas through his craft suggests far more calculated and unsavory impulses aimed at flagrant emotional manipulation and cheap philosophizing.

Though consistently visually off-putting, Winter's Tale is, for the most part, all talk. Crowe gets to sink his teeth into a few cartoonish diatribes about how much he loves evil, while Farrell and Findlay stumble through gooey romantic speechifying as if it were verbal quicksand. It's hard to pinpoint one moment that crystalizes the self-serious platitudes that Goldsman's script is built on, though Pearly's bragging of having "crushed miracles" for eons is a strong contender. Crowe's exchanges with Smith are haltingly smug and insipid, and Smith seems especially uncomfortable with what he's saying, as if being forced to repay a debt through performance. Even William Hurt, who plays Beverly's father and has a history of being the classiest part of otherwise dreadful productions, seems to be racing toward the end of his dialogue.

This being a war between God and Beelzebub, Goldsman underlines every utterance with an intangible, cosmic importance, but the filmmaker summons neither the grandeur nor the humanism that such endeavors should rest on. The failure of Winter's Tale isn't in its religious origins, but rather in the graceless, ugly way they are presented, without an iota of insight or self-awareness. In other words, the light was meant to blind you.

Movie Review: Winter's Tale Chris Knight from The National Post

There’s no law that a movie opening on Valentine’s Day has to be cloying, earnest and more sugary than a candy factory. But let’s give Akiva Goldsman the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume he believed that if he didn’t take every opportunity to tug at our heartstrings he’d be drummed out of the writers’ and directors’ guilds.

He certainly tries, but even by this measure Winter’s Tale fails to take flight. At a recent promotional screening, as the end credits rolled, I dare say there wasn’t a damp eye in the house.

The bizarrely bifurcated storyline revolves around one Peter Lake, played by Colin Farrell under an unfortunate pageboy comb-over. A brief prologue tells how Peter was abandoned by his Eastern European parents after they were turned back at Ellis Island. Unexplained is how he developed an Irish accent growing up on the streets of New York City. We’re also supposed to accept the 37-year-old actor as a 21-year-old in 1916. Even given the film’s fantasy/time travel elements, this seems a stretch.

Peter is a professional thief, formerly in the employ of Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe, his Irish accent even thicker than Farrell’s), and now being hunted by him. Pearly is some sort of demon – every time he gets angry, his voice cracks and so does his face. But he takes his marching orders from Lucifer (Will Smith), whom we first meet in 1916 reading a very advance copy of A Brief History of Time.

Peter is rescued from Pearly by a horse with no name, although Pegasus seems a good guess. The scenes where the white steed takes to the air are the worst flying-equine special effects since Clash of the Titans in 1981.

“Horse,” as Peter insists on calling the beast, manages to arrange a meeting between him and Beverly Penn, played by Jessica Brown Findlay of TV’s Downton Abbey. (Thank heavens Rachel McAdams managed to avoid this time travel trap.) Beverly is a charming rich girl who’s wasting away (oh so beautifully and exquisitely) from consumption. Such a pretty word, too; so much nicer than pulmonary tuberculosis.

Being so close to death, she sees things more clearly than most, and is forever making speeches about how everything is connected by light. In case we miss her point, Goldsman obliges her with more lens flares than a J.J. Abrams picture. And because she’s not twee and darling enough on her own, the movie gives her an adorable little sister, Willa.

Winter’s Tale runs to two hours, with the first hour and a quarter taking place in 1916. At this point the setting shifts suddenly to the present, though Peter remains exactly the same. (Farrell, still 37, now looks far too young to be 119.) Stumbling upon a journalist (Jennifer Connelly) with a sick child and a heart of gold, Peter tells her without irony: “I’ve had no memory for as long as I can remember.” So she helps him uncover his past, and another adventure ensues. Pearly is also still around, and Willa has matured into a centenarian played by Eva Marie Saint.

Goldsman connects past and present with ham-handedness and cheesy speeches, and while Farrell does his best with the wonky storyline, it’s all he can do not to laugh out loud at some of its preposterous turns. Audiences need not feel so constrained.

This seems a good time to mention that I’m not familiar with Mark Helprin’s 1983 novel on which the movie is based, except that I see it appears in a 2006 New York Times list of the best American fiction since 1981. Winter’s Tale the film is unlikely to be similarly recognized, even as a bad movie. It’s not at the bottom of the heap; merely a soggy, shaggy dog tale. But don’t take my word for it. Ask Horse: “Is this movie worth seeing?”

Review: 'Winter's Tale' Starring Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe & Jennifer Connelly Drew Taylor from The Playlist

Akiva Goldsman is one of those Hollywood screenwriters who has accrued a fair amount of animosity over the years, both because of his perceived lack of talent (he did have a hand in scripting "Batman & Robin," "The Da Vinci Code," and "Lost in Space," amongst others) and for his almost unparalleled level of success (he won a Best Screenplay Oscar for his work on Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind," and in the process taught us all that mental illness could be cured through the healing power of love). Regardless of what you think of him, Goldsman has genuine power, and for the past few years has used that power to secure funding for a lavish adaptation of novelist Mark Helprin's goopy 1983 supernatural romance "Winter's Tale." It is the ultimate Akiva Goldsman statement, mixing both his propensity for high concept gobbledygook with cloying, saccharine sentimentality. The result is a colossal folly the likes of which we haven't seen in years. It's truly unbelievable. We're still reeling.

While the trailers and television spots for "Winter's Tale" are selling it as a sweeping, time-traveling romance, the opening sequences make it very clear that the movie is more like what would happen if Nicholas Sparks wrote "Cloud Atlas"—there are a number of timelines, some supernatural elements, and a whole lot of breathy narration about miracles and chance and fate. But unlike "Cloud Atlas," which was nothing if not ambitious and heady, "Winter's Tale" is lazy and repetitive and doesn't have a whole lot on its mind, coming across instead like an empty-headed, lovesick doodle. This is the kind of movie where the Warner Bros. logo is revealed, before turning a sepia tone the color of iced tea, while sickly sweet music overtakes the soundtrack.

At the turn of the century, a pair of immigrants (one of them is played by Matt Bomer in silly old-timey garb) try to gain access to America, only to be turned away once they've arrived because they aren't healthy enough. They're instructed, by a horribly rendered lens flare (seriously—the movie is riddled with them) to set their baby inside a model ship and then send that baby towards America. You can tell Goldsman is attempting to create and sustain an atmosphere of magical realism, but it instead comes across as strained, half-assed whimsy. While all of this is happening, the story is also jumping forward to present day, where a bedraggled man named Peter Lake (Colin Farrell) is searching Grand Central Station for clues to his past, sort of like a middle-aged Hugo.

Soon enough, the story starts in earnest (and we do mean earnest), with Peter Lake, in 1916 Manhattan, running away from a violent crime boss named (get this) Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe). It looks like Peter's proverbial goose is cooked, until a magical white horse named Athansor (!) shows up and whisks Peter away, by literally flying over the amassed group of gangsters and thugs. Jesus. Just recounting the plot is painful. Imagine having to watch it. Peter decides that the horse is his new partner in crime and begins plans to leave the city. That is, of course, until, once again egged on by the horse and another phony flash of a computer-generated lens flare, has him breaking and entering the house of a gorgeous, consumptive young woman named Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay). It's love at first sight, she curbs his bad boy behavior, blah blah blah…

The details of "Winter's Tale's" plot, which might borrow its name from the Shakespeare classic but has nothing to do with it, are so asinine and unimportant that they don't really need to be recounted here. (In our notes that we took during the movie, the words "TOTALLY INCOMPREHENSIBLE" are double-underlined.) You should probably know that Will Smith shows up at some point as The Judge, giving us the alternate universe thrill of seeing what would have happened if Jay-Z had played the Robert De Niro part in "Angel Heart." Smith, whose apartment in 1916 is decked out in a modern chaise lounge, reads from "A Brief History of Time" (yuk) and wears a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt and hooped earrings in both of his lobes. It's at this point that "Winter's Tale" goes from being pointless and stupid and awful to being straight-up insufferable, that rare monstrosity that is so sure of its own importance and cleverness that it can't even allow itself to be funny.

Peter Lake's love, of course, succumbs, and Crowe's minions catch up with him and drop him off a bridge (don't worry, the magical flying horse gets away unharmed). Lake crawls out of the water, though, which is when "Winter's Tale" doesn't even bother explaining itself, because we're suddenly in modern day New York City, without any clue whether or not Lake has woken up from some kind of supernatural stupor really, really late, or if he's been living in New York for a hundred years in a kind of amnesiac fugue state. (How does such a person, say, pay Manhattan rent? Especially when all he does is draw elaborate chalk drawings of his doomed lover?) The Demonic Russell Crowe is still around, of course, and still supremely pissed off (why? Let it simmer Demonic Russell Crowe!) Meanwhile, Farrell has fallen into some kind of relationship with a plucky, incredibly beautiful reporter (Jennifer Connelly), whose daughter is similarly afflicted, this time with a more modern medical ailment. Cue talk about miracles, and ascending to the stars, and people turning into piles of crushed snow when you kill them. Also: another appearance by Will Smith as hip-hop Satan! Yes!

"Winter's Tale" is unbelievable, in that you seriously cannot believe how fucking stupid it is. It seems to top itself, scene after scene, piling on general ludicrousness, dopey philosophical underpinnings, supernatural hooey (complete with nonsensical "mythology" and "rules"), with all the sophistication of a bedtime story and the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face (yes, those are our bloody teeth, thanks). It doesn't even make any sense in the bubble-world of its own invention, like when Eva Marie Saint shows up as the elderly version of a young girl that Peter knew back in olden times. He has supposedly been gone (or underground or whatever) for more than 100 years. So she is supposed to be, what, 115 by now? Goldsman, whose direction is as poor as his writing, seems to suggest that none of this really matters, because of something about the transformative power of love and flying horses (who are really dogs?) and the eternal struggle between good and evil.

This is a movie that is many things—a profound work of hubris, a misguided attempt at filmmaking, incredibly boring—and yet it is nothing. Instead of being overwhelmed by the woozy feeling that the best big screen romances give you, "Winter's Tale" just leaves you befuddling and probably more than a little bit angry. A lot of good actors (including Farrell, who has been so great in things as disparate as the splatter comedy "Seven Psychopaths" and the deeply-underrated horror remake "Fright Night") are wasted, many of them former Goldsman collaborators who are only here because the filmmaker called in a favor, and the entire movie feels belabored, lumbering from one awful, over-dressed set piece to another. It's wrongheaded, it's horrendous, it's filled with lines of dialogue that are utter howlers, and yet, it's the type of movie that feels so confident that it really is something. It is, in fact, not. This Valentine's Day, if you really love someone, keep them far away from "Winter's Tale." [F]

Winter's Tale / The Dissolve Genevieve Koski

Moria - The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review [Richard Scheib]

Review: 'Winter's Tale' - Film.com Kate Erbland

Review: Colin Farrell and Jessica Brown flounder in the ... - HitFix Drew McWeeny

PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs

Movie Mezzanine [Monica Castillo]

'Winter's Tale' Review: The Worst Movie Ever Made ... - Pajiba Amanda Mae Meyncke

Sam Strange Remembers: WINTER'S TALE | Badass Digest Evan Saathoff

A Valentine's Day Prank? Colin Farrell in 'Winter's Tale' - Blogs Caryn James

Winter's Tale - Reelviews Movie Reviews James Berardinelli

Winter's Tale | Reviews | Screen - Screen International Mark Adams

SBS Film [Russell Edwards]

1NFLUX Magazine [Bethany Rose]

theartsdesk.com [Matt Wolf]

[Review] Winter's Tale - The Film Stage Dan Mecca

Digital Spy [Stella Papamichael]

PopMatters Bill Gibron, also seen here: Film Racket [Bill Gibron]

DustinPutman.com [Dustin Putman]

ColeSmithey.com [Cole Smithey]

Georgia Straight [Janet Smith]

Winter's Tale is so ludicrously sappy it's almost (but ... - The AV Club Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

225Movies

Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 132, Mark Helprin James Linville interviews the novelist from The Paris Review, 2014

Mark Helprin and Akiva Goldsman on bringing Winter's Tale from the ... Mark Medley interview from The National Post, February 14, 2014

Winter's Tale Review - Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy

The Japan Times [Kaori Shoji]

Examiner.com [Travis Hopson]

Kansas City Star [Jon Niccum]

Winter's Tale is pretty but not much else | City Pages Stephanie Zacharek

Winter's Tale (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Review: Colin Farrell and 'Winter's Tale' unabashedly romantic Kenneth Turan from The LA Times

Winter's Tale Movie Review & Film Summary (2014) | Roger Ebert Sheila O’Malley

'Winter's Tale' Takes Beauty and Wonder to Its Limit - The ... A.O. Scott from The New York Times

What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 ... The New York Times, 2006

[Read A. O. Scott's essay.] On Search of the Best, by A.O. Scott, from The New York Times, May 21, 2006

What's the best novel in the past 25 years? - The Guardian Robert McCrum, October 8, 2006

Winter's Tale | MarkHelprin.com

Bookslut | A Winter's Tale of Icy Light, and Justice, in New York City Barbara J. King from Bookslut

Love Among the Snowdrifts in Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale by Kate ... Kate Nagybook review from Heroes and Heartbreakers

Goldthwait, Bobcat

WORLD’S GREATEST DAD B 85

USA (99 mi) 2009

Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking
Can't we give ourselves one more chance
Why can't we give love that one more chance
Why can't we give love give love give love give love
give love give love give love give love give love
'Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And loves dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure

— Queen and David Bowie (1981) Queen - Under Pressure-1981 (Official Video) HQ - YouTube (3:57)

Writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait’s biggest claim to fame may have been doing standup comedy as the opening act for Nirvana on their last North America tour in 1993, that and choosing a name apparently. Here he chooses Robin Williams to star in a little charmer about a beaten down, hopelessly defeated single dad who aspires to be a famous writer, yet his manuscripts are continually rejected, and to make matters worse, has the most reviled, crude, and good for nothing son in town—that would be Kyle (Daryl Sabara), whose only claim to fame is online porn searches and his affinity for auto erotic asphyxia masturbation techniques, which he does in plain sight of his father. Kyle doesn’t like anyone or anything, not even music, nothing except gross out sex,

though he continually abuses the closest thing he has to a friend, Evan Martin as Andrew, and is pretty much the most obnoxious, foul-mouthed swine on the planet. You put the two together and you get worlds of misery and unhappiness, yet this is a dark comedy that pitches rude and tasteless remarks from Kyle’s mouth as if he’s only speaking the dummy’s lines in a ventriloquist act. No one pays any attention to Kyle at high school, except jocks that like to humiliate him and push him around, and he’s not very smart, so he’s on the verge of flunking out of school. To make matters more humiliating, Robin Williams as Lance Clayton, teaches poetry classes in his same school, easily the least favored class at school. They are a tag team of the most thoroughly despised, most ostracized humans in town, like a least favored species. However, everything that should feel like a downer is surprisingly upbeat, as much of this plays out with the loony sarcastic spirit of a Simpson’s episode. Who says dysfunction has to be unpleasant?

Adding to the spectacle of sad sack wish fulfillment are two characters that feel like they’re invented, as they’re so far removed from the demeaned and capitulating spirit of the father and son team of Lance and Kyle. That would be the perky and sexually teasing world of art teacher Claire (Alexie Gilmore), who likes to sneak kisses on the side but wouldn’t be caught dead in public with Lance. Instead, she chooses to be seen with the most popular teacher in school, the role model teacher and part-time basketball player, who also happens to be published in The New Yorker, Henry Simmons as Mike, the guy that fits the noble Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner profile, an image which is immediately lampooned where Mike is sarcastically shown asking for money just to be called on in his class, as everyone’s hand is raised. The divide between the popular and the despised couldn’t be more unbridgeable. That is the set up. And then something unspeakable happens which changes the entire dynamic, turning this into a thoroughly squeamish dark satire on popularity. It all feels like a dream that someone will eventually wake up from, and while not nearly as scathing, it has that dark underside of Alexander Payne’s ELECTION (1999) or Gus Van Sant’s TO DIE FOR (1995), both featuring sexually aggressive perky blonds, but here it takes the form of mild mannered, living under the surface Robin Williams getting his Mephistophelian wish, but at what price? It’s fun for awhile, as there are some wacky twists and turns, accompanied by Z-grade indie music that no one has ever heard of, apparently written for the film by Gerald Brunskill, much of which is exceedingly bleak as well. The problem ends up being that it is what it is, and there’s not much more to it than that, as high school satires are quite common, as are light hearted romantic comedies, and this is largely a spoof about the world we live in as seen through one of our perfect world fantasias, filled with deep seeded bitterness and scorn, as depicted through the mocking lens of derisive black comedy, easily one of the most outrageous films of the year. (listed as #4 on John Waters Best Films of 2009 in Artforum magazine: the best films of 2009 - artforum.com / in print)

When Bobcat Goldthwait writes and directs a feature film, we should probably expect something a little... different. And -- *whew* -- that’s what this pitch-black comedy offers. Lance Clayton (Robin Williams: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian) is a schoolteacher, a failed writer, and father to teenaged Kyle (Daryl Sabara, one of the Spy Kids, almost all grown up), who may be the most obnoxious, most disgusting, dumbest, crudest teenager ever depicted on film. The Clayton boys have a contentious relationship: Dad just wants to connect with his son (Mom died, leaving the two alone with each other), and the kid just wants to be left alone to masturbate, which appears to be the only thing he’s any good at. The first 40 minutes of the film are so revolting that I almost stopped watching: Kyle’s endless vulgarity is bad enough, but Lance’s obsequiousness in the face of his loathsome offspring and inability to parent are even worse. Could any of this possibly have a point? Ah, but then Goldthwait throws a dramatic spanner into the works, and not only won’t you be able to believe that he went there, you won’t be able to believe that he’s gonna take it even further beyond that. Is it a satire that turns the parasitical parent-child relationship on its head? Is it a satire on social manipulation? It’s both. I do wish, however, that how it ends was as outrageous as how it starts.

Pajiba (Dustin Rowles) review

Bobcat Goldthwait is no one's idea of a born filmmaker. World's Greatest Dad, his third film as a writer-director, is more assured than his previous films, Sleeping Dogs Lie and Shakes the Clown, but it's still visually clunky and awkwardly paced. But what Goldthwait lacks in technical skill he (nearly) makes up in audacity, and the wherewithal to follow through on his deliberately off-putting premises. His last movie was about a woman who blew her dog; this one centers on a father (Robin Williams) who makes his son's accidental death look like a suicide and then channels a lifetime's worth of resentment into posthumously ghost-writing his son's journals. His motives, at first, are at least nominally rehabilitative; his son (Daryl Sabara) was sullen and widely disliked, and died accidentally while practicing autoerotic asphyxiation. The movie's conceptual coup is to shift from a satire of Williams' frustrated writer to a two-pronged lampoon of memoir culture and the canonization of the dead. Once he's not around to irritate people, the son becomes an empty repository for their repressed feelings — which, to make matters more complicated, actually does end up changing lives for the better, like that of a classmate who's inspired to come out as gay. Goldthwait adeptly skirts sentimentality and easy outs — he never wavers in his determination to make the son as unlikable as possible — and Williams manages to soften his manic edge without turning into an energy-sucking black hole. The movie's ending is something of a train wreck, but until then there's plenty to mull over. (Read Shaun Brady's interview with director Bobcat Goldthwait.)

IFC.com [Mike D'Angelo]

Martel, Tarantino...and Goldthwait? Scoff if you must, but the Bobcat has stealthily reinvented himself as one of America's most original independent filmmakers, fashioning deeply sincere moral inquiries from apparently puerile scenarios. “Sleeping Dogs Lie” inspired snorts of derision at Sundance three years ago from people who read the logline -- woman admits to fiancé that she once blew her dog back in college -- but those who actually saw the movie were shocked not by canine-cock gags but by its fearless dissection of the old saw that honesty is invariably the best policy. “World's Greatest Dad,” Goldthwait's latest effort, isn't nearly as successful, but its riotous, almost painfully credible first act confirms him as a talent to be reckoned with. He's like Todd Solondz with empathy, oxymoronic though that sounds.

Robin Williams, doing his usual overbearing notion of indie-film "restraint," plays Lance Clayton -- high school teacher, unpublished writer and struggling single dad. His only son, Kyle (former Spy Kid Daryl Sabara, unrecognizably foul), takes sullen teen angst to hilarious extremes, and so long as the film focuses on Lance's dogged efforts to connect with this alien offspring, it's at once oddly moving and pure comic gold. Alas, Goldthwait has something else in mind, and so there's a huge plot twist (which you're better off not knowing) roughly half an hour in, at which point “World's Greatest Dad” abruptly turns into a pretty feeble satire about image appropriation and grief porn, with some weak jabs at celebrity culture thrown in for good measure. Despite his wild-man image as a stand-up, Bobcat doesn't really have the stomach for this sort of Swiftian material; his gift involves locating the sweet beneath the salacious. (He's also developed an unfortunate weakness for the expository musical montage.) But even this misfire demonstrates more true audacity than most celebrated indie directors can muster.

Slant Magazine review Nick Schager

To a greater extent than Sleeping Dogs Lie, Bobcat Goldthwait's World's Greatest Dad clumsily straddles the line between comedy and drama, its story neither outrageous enough to be funny nor substantial enough to be moving. The wannabe-shocking nexus of Goldthwait's latest directorial effort involves high school prick Kyle (Daryl Sabara) talking endlessly about extreme porn and "fags," cursing off his doormat of a father, poetry teacher Lance (Robin Williams), and, after a distended setup that cements Kyle's repugnance, accidentally killing himself during some autoerotic asphyxiation. Lance chooses to stage Kyle's demise as a suicide and writes a farewell note in which his douchebag son comes off as a misunderstood lost soul. Once the letter becomes public, Lance's act of rehabilitation on his son's behalf affords a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone opportunity, as Kyle's reputation—and Lance's, as a father—is restored by a student body eager to posthumously relate to the loathsome departed, and Lance's subsequent penning of Kyle's journal helps him achieve his aspirations to be a novelist.

Goldthwait's aesthetic remains crude, here heavily reliant on music montages set to on-the-nose lyrics. More frustrating still, however, is that despite his conceit's potential for investigating loneliness, self-deception, and the malleable and easily exploitable nature of memory, Goldthwait's zigzagging script keeps things surface-trivial while failing to meld its discordant tendencies. Sentimentality neuters its faux-ribald humor (after the insanity of Brüno, uttering the word "feltching" hardly qualifies as scandalous), which in turn trivializes its somberness.

In World's Greatest Dad, everyone is a phony, from the students who choose to lionize the kid they hated, to Lance's tease colleague (Alexie Gilmore) who fully commits to a romantic relationship only once his star has risen, a situation that doesn't address Lance's central moral dilemma—should he behave ethically or behave in a selfish manner that will make him seem ethical?—yet does provide many situations for dreary "black" comedy. Williams underplays his role nicely, albeit at times to the point of obscuring his character's moment-to-moment motivations, but he's ultimately not the problem, just the most notable victim of a sub-Judd Apatow sick-and-sweet film overly desperate to both traumatize and touch.

I hate to speak ill of the dead, but because that’s one of the underling themes of Bobcat Goldthwait’s third feature film, World’s Greatest Dad (yes, that Bobcat Goldthwait), I’m going to do it anyway. I went to high school with a kid named Jeremy. He was no more than five feet tall, and possibly the most obnoxious, grating, awful douchester I’ve ever known. Whenever he got a chance, he’d draw a crowd and viciously insult me or hit me with his drum sticks, knowing there was nothing I could do about it because he was such a puny, little guy — if I’d gone with my instincts and beat the living shit out of him, I would’ve been the asshole. And he knew it. So I had to put up with it. Day after fucking day. And when he wasn’t fucking with me, he’d do the same with everyone else. He was reviled, a loathsome little guy with zero friends and half a class of mortal enemies.

Then one day, Jeremy had an asthma attack and died.

What happened the next day at school was unfathomable. Girls were bawling their eyes out; guys were offering each other sympathetic pats on the back, and teachers (who also detested him as recently as the day before) were singing his motherfucking praises. Suddenly, the entire school adored the guy. They went on for days about what a sweet person he was, how he had this fantastic sense of humor, and how close they were to him. Everyone wanted a piece of some of that Jeremy sympathy, and it didn’t matter how fake they had to act to get some of it. It was appalling.

It is that experience that I’m sure many of us have had that Bobcat Goldthwait explores in The World’s Greatest Dad, with heartbreaking, hilarious, and spot-on effect. Who says there are no new ideas in Hollywood? It just took the guy from Police Academy and Hot to Trot to find one, and he explores it unmercifully. Robin Williams (yeah, that Robin Williams) stars as Lance Clayton, a schlubby high-school poetry teacher mostly ignored and doormatted by his peers and students. All Lance wants, however, is to be a published novelist — he’d written five books, but none had ever gone anywhere and what he really wants is an audience. Miraculously Lance is also in a secret relationship with a younger and prettier teacher, the sex-hungry Claire (Alexi Gilmore), who has clearly put Lance into the permanent back-up boyfriend position, which becomes clear when she starts ladder climbing, sleeping with the better looking, younger creative writing teacher when he gets published in The New Yorker.

Lance also has a 15-year-old son, Kyle (Daryl Sabara), who is an unrelenting, peeling scab of obnoxiousness. He’s completely obsessed with sex; repeatedly calls his well-meaning father an “idiotic fag”; is a contrarian in every sense; has only one reluctant friend; is obsessed with porn; is painfully profane; and is the kind of guy who sees a girl in the hallway and says, “Come on over. That pussy isn’t going to eat itself, you know?” And while Lance loves his son, he doesn’t actually like him. No one does. There’s no reason to. He’s not tortured or misunderstood or secretly brilliant. He’s just an asshole, and that’s it.

And then one day, Lance comes home to find his son has accidentally strangled himself to death while masturbating. It’s a painful scene — weird and almost funny, but too heartbreaking to laugh at. Lance, who doesn’t want the school to know how his son died, zips him up, hangs him from the ceiling, frames it as a suicide, and composes Kyle’s suicide note, a note that is published a few weeks later in the school newspaper. The suicide note is a huge hit with the high school; suddenly, girls are bawling their eyes out; guys are offering each other sympathetic pats on the back, and teachers (who detested him as recently as the day before) are singing his motherfucking praises. The entire school adores the guy, and his suicide note somehow spoke to them all — it was their little Catcher in the Rye. Lance, so enamored with the attention and starved for an audience, then decides to write his son’s journal, which becomes an even bigger sensation. Kyle is suddenly the Martha Dumptruck of the high school, and Lance is perceived as the world’s greatest dad.

It’s a twisted black black comedy, one that gets unpleasantly uncomfortable at times — part of you wants to root for Lance’s success, while the other part is disgusted at his exploitative behavior. But in any respect, Lance still manages to be one of the few sympathetic characters in the movie. Robin Williams is great in a muted, restrained role — he continues to prove that he’s a far better dramatic actor than he is a comedic one. Goldthwait — who directed 1991’s Shakes the Clown, which also could’ve been a darker more twisted comedy if it hasn’t been marred by the era-appropriate cast (Julie Brown, ugh) — seems to hit the exact right tone for World’s Greatest Dad: When it’s funny — and it often is — you’re too ashamed to laugh. His pacing lumbers at times, but his script is insanely good, and the performances are excellent.

It’s a smart, spot-on satiric film, all the more unexpected coming from a guy who graduated from high school 30 years ago. But, while the clothes and the technologies may have changed, I suspect the fakery has always been there. Leave it to Officer Zed to expose it like no other high school comedy has since Heathers.

Screen International review Patrick Z. McGavin

World's Greatest Dad Michael Sicinski from The Academic Hack

not coming to a theater near you (Katherine Follett) review

FilmJerk.com (Brian Orndorf) review [A-] also seen here: DVD Talk

CineSnob.net (Kiko Martinez) review [B+]

Critic's Notebook [Robert Levin]

Cinematical (Scott Weinberg) review

eFilmCritic.com (Jay Seaver) review [4/5]

Film Threat, Hollywood's Indie Voice review [4.5/5] Scott Knopf

IFC.com [Alison Willmore]

filmcritic.com (Jesse Hassenger) review [2/5]

Movie Martyr (Jeremy Heilman) review [2/4]

Village Voice (Nick Pinkerton) review

Christian Science Monitor (Peter Rainer) review [B-]

Variety (Dennis Harvey) review

Time Out New York [Joshua Rothkopf]

Boston Globe review [2.5/4] Wesley Morris

The Boston Phoenix (Betsy Sherman) review

Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten) review [2.5/5]

San Francisco Chronicle (Amy Biancolli) review [3/4]

Los Angeles Times (Glenn Whipp) review also seen here: Chicago Tribune (Glenn Whipp) review

The Atlantic [Ian Buckwalter]

GOD BLESS AMERICA B- 80

USA (100 mi) 2011 Official site

Who is Bobcat Goldthwait you ask, and is that his real name? Born Robert Francis Goldthwait, he became a professional stand-up comic at the age of 15 while working in high school where he was the homecoming king, but the comic circuit is where he met fellow stand-up artist Robin Williams, star of his earlier film WORLD’S GREATEST DAD (2009), which appeared first at On Demand a month before it was released in the theaters. Goldthwait was the comic opener for Nirvana in their final 1993 North American tour, set the guest chair on fire on the Leno Tonight Show in 1994, a sequence shown during the opening of The Garry Shandling Show here: Bobcat Goldthwait sets the Tonight Show on Fire YouTube (36 seconds), and appeared as himself in the short-lived 1998 comedy TV quiz show Bobcat’s Big Ass Show. Since then he’s worked in television while also writing and directing films, making his first feature SHAKES THE CLOWN in 1991, called by Goldthwait “the Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies,” waiting for the reverberations to subside apparently before his second opened at Sundance, SLEEPING DOGS LIE (2006), about a girlfriend who confesses she dabbled in bestiality earlier in life. Known for his sharp wit, manic humor, and sick and twisted imagination, he’s the kind of guy that offends everybody eventually, but has a good time doing it. There are few darker comics on the planet and probably all his films should come with a disclaimer, “Do not try this at home, this behavior was performed by a professional entertainer.” Already some have been less than enthused, such as Roger Ebert, the voice of reason and film writing conscious of America God Bless America - Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun-Times:

What he has created, in the name of comic social commentary, is an amoral movie about two psychopaths killing people they believe deserve to die. As a general rule, that's an evil reason for taking someone's life. If we agree with Frank and Roxy, we also agree with people who shoot at abortion clinics, kids who open fire at their schools, and drivers in road-rage killings. I see what Goldthwait is trying to do and agree with many of his complaints about our society, but finally it becomes impossible to laugh.

Please bear in mind, Bobcat Goldthwait does not advocate serial killing, but does use this Mad Magazine style metaphor in the movie, as it’s the kind of thing people imagine all the time, wondering what would happen if they could just get rid of someone who is a total and complete irritation to others. Wouldn’t the world be better if we could somehow make them disappear? These are not actual thoughts contemplating murder, but just wondering what it would be like in a more perfect world. It’s not much different than wondering what might have happened if the South won the Civil War, if Hitler or Stalin had died young, or if Mozart had lived well into old age instead of dying at the tender age of 35. How might the world have been different? Many fantasize these kinds of thoughts in their head at some point and time in their lives, just as they might wish a certain President might disappear, imagining someone different running the country. There is no judgment to be made here, as these are simply fantasies made by everyday ordinary people. Goldthwait starts with this premise and then embellishes upon it, extending it into a disturbingly bizarre satire. This is somewhat reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode where a child had the power to make people disappear when he got angry at them, It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, or the more darkly disturbing Travis Bickle character in Scorsese’s TAXI DRIVER (1976), who narrates his inner thoughts about the disgusting filth in New York City, filled with “creeps and low-lifes and degenerates,” where “All the animals come out at night—whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.”

While Scorsese goes for the throat using a dramatic thriller format, Goldthwait goes for over the top mockery of the laissez faire attitude towards a developing social malaise, where pop culture dominates the discussion on television and gossip columns, which spend so much of their time on celebrity worship through reality TV shows or the latest Hollywood news, including any rumors on the latest scandals or gossip, where Brittany Spears, Michael Jackson, or Lindsay Lohen had alternate careers just handling the disastrous press coverage that nearly destroyed their careers, where they, along with Paris Hilton or the Kardashian sisters, are all anyone can talk about. When the nation gets enthralled in the mindless tedium of overblown lives who are pandering to the public with little more than a self aggrandizing “get rich quick” scheme, it contributes to a vacuous wasteland of lazy and unused minds. The same goes for the hysteria developed from fever-pitched political posturing, high pressure advertisements, or the film’s favorite target, the dumbing down of America from its obsession with American Idol. Do we really need to poke fun at those among us who simply have no talent, but who get laughed at week after week? And why are the networks pushing this kind of mindless and belittling behavior as entertainment? The point seems to be the nation is growing an instant gratification complex, where if they don’t get their fix of gossip and Reality TV, or brand merchandise, or have their political way, then they’re doomed to leading empty and meaningless lives.

Like a sick homage to Howard Beale in Network (1976), whose crazed rant: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!!” becomes the mantra for Frank (Joel Murray), a down in the dumps everyman who grows disgusted with the changing times, including loud and inconsiderate neighbors who don’t have the capacity to care about anyone but themselves, or his separated wife who is raising the most spoiled and tantrum ridden daughter on the planet, or his job that fires him for sending flowers to a coworker, a front desk receptionist who was having a bad day, an act that was considered sexual harassment. Beginning with the neighbors, Frank decides to make a statement, where the wish fulfillments of his own daydreams become a harsh and brutal reality. The film spends no time whatsoever on the victims, but is seen purely from the irritated perspective of Frank, who suffers from migraine headaches and is told by a physician that he has a giant sized tumor in his brain that is inoperable. Frank decides to get even with the world, tracking down those he considers the worst offenders, the most despicable people on the planet with no redeeming value whatsoever and target them for assassination. When he blows away a ridiculously shallow teen idol who thinks the world revolves only around her, whining and complaining about the ineptitude of others for failing to give her the constant adoration she needs, this grabs the attention of another lurking teenager, Tara Lynne Barr as Roxy. Impressed by his no nonsense approach, she decides to tag along, which turns this into a road movie, as they scour the underside of America in his neighbor’s stolen bright yellow sports car, about as opposite as conspicuous as you can get.

But this is no LOLITA (1962), and Frank is no hellraiser, so despite Roxy’s attempt to turn them into a pair of BONNIE AND CLYDE outlaws, with posters touting “They're young... they're in love... and they kill people,” Frank is devoutly conservative and refuses to get in her pants, perhaps spoiling 16-year old Roxy’s idea of fun on the run, as they’re more of a father and daughter act. In fact, Murray never overplays his hand or resorts to exaggerated caricature, almost always underplaying every scene, bringing with it a sense of purpose, while Roxy is the one who gets extremely carried away, turning into a gun shooting psycho bitch with an axe to grind. The initial idea grows stale after awhile, becoming more absurd, using petty adolescent disturbances as reason enough to blow people away, where the storyline is relentless in continuing to discover fertile territory for public annihilation. Of course, one of the problems here is that Frank and Roxy follow the same kind of illogical treatise as others, where they simply follow it to a radically different extreme. There’s never any sense that wiping away these rude and obnoxious people will have any effect whatsoever on changing the culture, but instead, just like the problem they’re attempting to eradicate, it only brings them, and the audience, the same instant gratification, where really, they’re no better examples of the shallowness of the culture. Eventually they become a kind of THELMA AND LOUISE (1991), two friends on a mission that runs its course, where it all made sense in the beginning of the journey, but by the end, they are backed into a corner with no place to go, and they have no one to blame for this but themselves. The film is somewhat uneven, starting strong and having its moments, one of which is a brilliant description from Roxy on the groundbreaking merits of Alice Cooper, where there would be no androgynous David Bowie or even punk music without him. But occasional hilarity isn’t a great movie and is more hit or miss. While this is a different form of slightly demented entertainment, pushing the edge of SOUTH PARK (1997 – present) satire, Goldthwait’s not afraid to steal an infamous Tarantino scene word for word from JACKIE BROWN (1997) Jackie Brown - AK-47 the very best there is! - YouTube (38 seconds), while making stellar use of music by Ray Davies of the Kinks singing “I’m Not Like Everybody Else” God Bless America - I'm not like everybody else - YouTube (2:24), which has an eerily familiar quality of menace from an anonymous man in a crowd from TAXI DRIVER.

exclaim! [Bjorn Olson]

Bobcat Goldthwait has seen the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness, reality TV and the cruelty of modern popular culture. God Bless America is his personal howl against everything that drives him crazy and turns ordinary, decent people into raging assholes.

God Bless America is an often hilarious, if not very subtle, satire about a man named Frank (Joel Murray), who loses his job and, instead of picking off random McDonald's patrons, decides to right the world's wrongs by eradicating the most annoying celebrities.

What begins as an act of Darwinian self-actualization, with Frank attempting to eliminate the ridiculously pampered bitch-queen teenage star of a reality show, turns into a cross-country murder spree when Frank is joined by a teenage runaway named Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), as the two become self-appointed culture warriors on their way to eradicating the audience of the season finale of ersatz-American Idol knock-off American Superstars.

God Bless America may be wildly uneven, and it tries a little too hard to pull off the same kind of cultural satire that South Park does several times a year with ease, but it also fills an expressive need to address the modern feeling of being buried in cultural faeces.

The film is particularly funny early on when Frank flips through endless channels of televised garbage, which Goldthwait parodies with razor-sharp accuracy, yet as the film advances, it feels largely like a stand-up comedy rant about how piss-poor modern American culture is. It obviously portrays Frank as an anti-hero, but never goes so far as to really point on the flaws in his logic.

Frank rants about how much he hates everything, but never seeks out alternatives, choosing instead to ingest what he's force-fed. He's as bad as the slobs he rails against ― the only difference is that he complains about it while everyone else just takes it their eye and ear holes. Moreover, there's an icky classism to the film, as Frank and Roxy's ideological targets are largely the unwitting masses rather than the truly evil minds behind the creation of the junk they consume. They move from eradicating junk culture to killing people because they violate minor social mores.

That said, this movie is meant to be entirely absurd, sacrificing logic for parody, which is particularly egregiously in the way Frank and Roxy are reunited in the end, revelling in its absurdity from the moment Frank pulls the trigger on his first victim.

God Bless America may not be the subtlest satire, but it delivers some guilty, snobbish laughs.

Review: GOD BLESS AMERICA Wisely Skewers Modern Society Peter Martin from Twitch

Fiercely funny, savage and wise, Bobcat Goldthwait's God Bless America is the best American comedy I've seen in a very, very long time.

It's an ungainly film because Goldthwait is still developing his skills as a director. That means some scenes are scorchingly well-executed, while others land with a thud, reminiscent of a stand-up comic. Goldthwait has worked up killer material that fills 75% of the running time, which is a much higher percentage than most comedies in recent memory. That leaves too much time for sludge to accumulate between the highlights.

Whatever Goldthwait may lack as a filmmaker, though his voice cries out in the wilderness like an Old Testament prophet, calling attention to all that is wrong in modern American society. You may not agree with his complaints, you may not like his methods, and you may think his proposed solution too simplistic, but you cannot deny the furious, righteous anger of that singular voice.

Joel Murray brings weight, compassion, and conviction to the lead role of Frank, a middle-aged, everyman character who has observed life from the comfort of a boring 9-5 office job, coming home every night to spend sleepless nights zonked out in front of the TV, which displays the cesspool of self-centered, self-serving, selfish society. He fantasizes about offing his oafish neighbors in the crudest, most violent manner possible. Frank spins off into an angry speech at the office, expressing his personal contempt for what he's witnessed, and then learns that he's been fired due to a violation of the company's sexual harassment policy.

That -- and some sobering news about his health -- eventually sets Frank on the road to personal fulfillment through the murder of the most repellent criminal and social offenders in the country. Is he a psychopath? A delusional, self-righteous avenger? Or might he speak the truth about what's needed to root out evil in the land? He crosses paths with teenage Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), a rebel with a violent streak of her own, and together they forge a bloody trail of unhinged vigilante justice.

Like a B-movie version of Sidney Lumet's Network (written by Paddy Chayefsky), God Bless America is a series of speeches linked by outrageous actions that defy credulity. As a writer, Goldthwait is funnier than Chayefsky, but not as incisive in his social commentary. Despite the movie's cross-country adventuring, Goldthwait is painting on a smaller canvas than Chayefsky did; Goldthwait's villains are thinly-drawn staw men who only live to confirm his worst fears about the coarsening of American society, while Chayefsky aimed more at institutional foes.

Goldthwait sticks to an individualistic view, presenting a number of screeds against personal behavior that has worsened over the years in a variety of settings. If, through Frank and Roxy, Goldthwait sometimes sounds like an old man telling the kids to get off his lawn, well, wait until you've spent years carefully tending your grass through thick and thin, only to watch selfish people threaten to destroy it with a few moments of careless actions. And now expand that reaction -- to neighborhoods, cities, counties, states, and, yes, the entire country. If you think things are getting better, or that everyone has always behaved the same way throughout history, well, you may want to take another, more considered look.

And I suggest you start with God Bless America, a cautionary tale for everyone who thinks everything is just fine and dandy.

God Bless America | Film | Movie Review | The A.V. Club Scott Tobias

It’s tempting to say that God Bless America, the latest from the estimable writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait, is a merciless satire, holding our debased culture in front of a funhouse mirror. But it isn’t a funhouse mirror; it’s just a mirror. The debasement on its airwaves isn’t some Ow My Balls-style future Idiocracy, but rather a straightforward reflection of what’s already present. As Frank, the film’s mad-as-hell antihero, flips through the channels, the names of specific shows have changed, along with a few minor details, but the references are clear: three judges mocking a tuneless dweeb on American Superstarz; a reality-TV star whipping a used tampon at a rival (shades of the pooping incident on Flavor Of Love); a Sean Hannity-like gasbag mocking a Cindy Sheehan type (“Just because she lost her son in the war…”); a spoiled teenager blasting her parents for not getting her an Escalade for her 16th birthday.

All of these things have happened on television. The key point about God Bless America is that it’s extreme but not exaggerated, a dark comedy that indulges—and questions—a violent, misanthropic fantasy about laying waste to the cultural landscape while staying grounded in a recognizable reality. In other words, Goldthwait isn’t doing the satirical equivalent of shooting ducks in a barrel here, though his recreations of televised stupidity do offer a funny twinge of recognition. What interests him more is how we live in that culture, particularly those who are alienated by it. If we’re not engaged in the national conversation over the latest in sports news (“If he plays that good with one testicle, maybe the whole team should get cancer”) or entertainment (“I don’t care how many foreigners she adopts, I just don’t like Angelina Jolie”), the world can seem like a lonely place.

Borrowing bits and pieces from Network, Bonnie And Clyde, and Taxi Driver, God Bless America takes off on a honey of a premise: An angry middle-aged man—divorced, recently unemployed, and just informed he has an inoperable brain tumor—decides to murder one of those whiny brats on a My Super Sweet 16-like reality show. In the process, he realizes the daydreams of many who have sat slack-jawed in front of their TV sets, wishing harm on the entitled imbeciles who crave their 15 minutes, as well as the outlets that give them a forum. Had Goldthwait just stopped there, however, God Bless America would be thin broth, a feature-length pander to its audience’s above-it-all attitude. But there’s a point at which the fantasy sours and the film becomes more about his reaction to the culture than the culture itself.

Best known for playing Freddie Rumsen, the woefully outdated, hard-drinking pitchman on Mad Men, Joel Murray brings the ideal everyman quality to Frank, a lonely insurance salesman who’s pushed over the edge. After a pile-up of personal and professional disasters leave him jobless, cancer-stricken, and isolated in his shabby apartment, with only his neighbors’ constant bellowing to keep him company, Frank resolves to blow his brains out. But just when he’s about to pull the trigger, reality and reality TV collide in a phone call from his ex-wife, who says their spoiled daughter is in hysterics because she got a Blackberry instead of an iPhone for her birthday. Whether he means to teach the kid a lesson or just take out his frustration, Frank decides that before he dies, one of the little brats from TV is going down, too.

In the process of making that happen, he meets Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), one of the victim’s classmates, who witnesses the murder and cheers him for it. She’s the 16-year-old version of Frank, but with a more expansive lust for violence: She wants to join him in a full-on, cross-country killing spree of all the types of people she hates, from guys who give each other high-fives to “adult women who call their tits ‘the girls.’” Though Roxy’s bloodlust makes him uncomfortable—and her references to her looks make him more discomfited still—Frank lets her tag along on an odyssey that starts at a movie theater with chattering patrons and continues with a bid to protect a William Hung-like crooner from further televised ridicule.

If God Bless America has one satirical thread, it’s in how the media misinterprets or distorts Frank and Roxy’s mêlées: Their bloody answer to the rudeness of movie-theater patrons gets pinned on a violent Vietnam documentary, for example, and they make a “free-speech martyr” out of a right-wing talker. Goldthwait makes the obvious point that an inane culture would respond inanely to its own victimization, but it also serves to undermine the notion that Frank and Roxy are on a heroic quest. Any early feelings of catharsis inspired by watching Frank address his Howard Beale problem with a Travis Bickle solution start to curdle as the film goes along.

But as Frank and Roxy start to lose their handle on their mission of mercy, Goldthwait starts to struggle, too, in making the second and third acts of God Bless America as purposeful as the first. Goldthwait’s primary strength as a writer-director has been in starting with outrageous, high-concept hooks that develop into subtler, more perceptive studies of human nature. His best film, 2006’s Sleeping Dogs Lie, turns on a woman’s confession about an incident of bestiality, but more generally concerns the baggage everyone brings into a relationship. His 2009 follow-up, World’s Greatest Dad, has a man (Robin Williams) coping with his son’s death from autoerotic asphyxiation, but it’s really about a father’s instinct to mold to mold his child’s memory into that of the good person he wished he’d been.

By contrast, God Bless America never achieves the same intimacy, maybe because the concept is finally too big for Goldthwait to bring down to a fully human scale. While the film gains some perspective on their killing spree, Frank and Roxy themselves—individually and as a partnership—remain vaguely defined, somewhere between sweetly paternal and genuinely psychotic, but never as resonant as Goldthwait intends. Perhaps that’s just a consequence of the mission being bigger than they are: They’re cultural jihadists lost to the cause.

Chicago Reader [J.R. Jones] America's Got Targets, May 9, 2012

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Goldwyn, Tony

CONVICTION C+ 77

USA (107 mi) 2010

A heartbreaking, but formulaic, wrongful conviction story that has absolutely no suspense factor whatsoever as it fits the ROCKY (1976) mode of storytelling which telegraphs the outcome from the beginning. Add to that the presence of Hillary Swank who only chooses bigger than life roles these days that are a vehicle to her career success while supposedly setting an Oprah-like moral example on a larger stage. With this in mind, nothing in this film happens that we don’t expect, as they’d never be making a based-on-true-events story if a guy spends the rest of his life rotting in prison. So we sit around and wait for the inevitable to happen, knowing what we knew before we walked into the theater, but little else, as the director simply doesn’t dig any deeper into the circumstances surrounding a wrongful murder conviction, as even with the help of a few brief performances from indie standouts Juliette Lewis, Melissa Leo, Clea DuVall, and Ari Graynor, the blame lies with corruption within the police force itself, where the need to stand out in a male dominated network of police officers leads to a backwoods style of foul play, where building one’s career takes precedence over ruining a man’s life. Sam Rockwell is excellent as Kenny, the rough and rowdy big brother to Betty-Anne, Swank as his tough-as-nails tomboy kid sister, where much of their life together as mischievous kids is shown in flashback mode, easily the best part of the film, where the two were continually left unsupervised to roam the countryside together, often clashing with the law who filled the void by acting in the role of surrogate parents and grandparents. All of that kid’s stuff charm changed when Kenny was arrested for the brutal murder of a neighbor, largely based on the fabricated testimony of two women in his life.

Everything plays out with the intensity of a movie-of-the-week family drama, as most of this could be characterized as a heartwarming Disney family picture as it loves to portray Swank’s family life prevailing in utter turmoil while she continues to pull her kids together to rally around her brother’s cause, showing an unflailing ability to look at the bright side. Much of this consists of Swank’s visits to Rockwell in prison over the course of 16 years, where his mood changes depending on the circumstances from utter defiance to a patient calm, where they keep up with family business together, to moments of dejection and utter despair, and finally to moments of jubilation where it’s hard to believe this is it. Along the way, Swank gets her GED, goes to college and law school where she meets a best friend, a fellow female law student Minnie Driver, and gets her degree, making her brother her sole client. It’s no surprise that DNA evidence is the key to turning his life around, but here the hardest obstacle to overcome is a box of missing evidence that was supposedly destroyed after ten years in accordance with the laws in the State of Massachussetts. The movie’s miraculous discovery of this missing box is seen as a last ditch shot in the dark, as otherwise Kenny would have remained in prison for life without parole. All of this turns into a family tearjerker where Swank has the unflagging determination of a nun, never once doubting her derelict brother and turning a loathsome eye to anyone who so much as hinted at his guilt. The good and evil scenario is a bit too clear cut, identifying an overzealous dirty cop instead of the absolute incompetence of a failing system, which is much more often the case of the some 250 wrongful conviction cases that have been overturned as a result of DNA evidence. The film also leaves out the ultimate tragedy, that in real life, Kenny suffered a tragic accident killing him just 6 months after his release from prison, a fact which left audiences too disheartened, so they left it out of the movie.

Time Out Online (David Jenkins) review [2/5]

The double entendre of the title is just about the sharpest element of this passable, autumnal potboiler which is based on the real case of Kenny Waters (Sam Rockwell) who in 1983 was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for first-degree murder. Utterly convinced of his innocence (despite him having an endearing wild streak) his sister Betty-Anne (Hillary Swank) goes to Herculean efforts to get his judgment overturned. The film opts for stock the-girl-done-good melodrama instead of getting its hands dirty with the psychological intricacies of the story. The performances are decent, with Rockwell on especially charismatic form, but its credibility just crumbles when you realise that the only element fostering any tension (Is he actually guilty? Is she wasting her life?) only exists because of a contrivance in the script which never has Kenny assuring his sister that he did not commit the murder, something he clearly would have done.

The Onion A.V. Club review [C+] Noel Murray

There are times when clichés can be comforting and even profound in their familiarity, and then there are times when they’re just, well, clichés. Conviction largely traffics in the latter. Based on a true story, the film stars Hilary Swank as high school dropout Betty Anne Waters, who goes to law school so she can free her wrongly convicted brother Kenneth from prison. Sam Rockwell plays the brother, a small town Massachusetts ne’er-do-well who’d been in and out of trouble for most of his life before he was charged in the early 1980s with murder. Swank is convinced that the local cops (represented by a sneering officer played by Melissa Leo) railroaded Rockwell because of his past, so she risks economic ruin and alienating her family to prove his innocence, driven by reports of DNA evidence reversing old cases. Along the way, she betters herself, makes new friends, and learns the value of determination. Conviction is like Erin Brockovich meets Rudy.

The movie is remarkably well-acted—with a superb supporting performance by Minnie Driver as Swank’s eternally patient classmate—and it’s satisfying to watch a character use her wits and resources to fight for the only family member who ever cared for her. But director Tony Goldwyn and screenwriter Pamela Gray dramatize the Waters’ plight in the most obvious ways, largely avoiding the ambiguities of the people and the flavor of their upbringing. Instead, we get the requisite scene of Swank fighting with her husband because he thinks she’s spending all her time on a lost cause, and the scene where she forgets her promised fishing trip with her sons because she has to participate in a mock trial. The only remotely imaginative element in Conviction is its opening flashback, which explains what happened to Rockwell in a series of free-flowing, not-strictly chronological moments. Other than that (and the acting), there’s nothing here that can’t be seen on TV a dozen times a day, in shows that are much more surprising.

exclaim! [Robert Bell]

How do I say this? Conviction is the sort of film that you would take your grandmother to see on a Sunday afternoon. You might warn her that there may be some mild cursing, but for the most part, it's a comfortable choice for the over-70 crowd. You could even stop at the Golden Griddle for lunch on your way there.

Being a biopic and underdog story, detailing working mother Betty Anne Waters' (Hilary Swank) two-decade struggle to get her wrongfully convicted brother, Kenny (Sam Rockwell), out of prison ― putting herself through law school in the process ― every moment is inevitably maudlin, manufactured and predictable. From the outset, Kenny acts as comic relief, a man that may be rough around the edges but has a heart of gold. Similarly, Betty Anne exists only as a moral vessel for adversity struggle, having no characterization beyond her single-minded battle for the reaffirming, uplifting agenda of a film trying to convince us that good always prevails.

And while Tony Goldwyn is good with actors, he's not a particularly visionary, cinematic director, being better suited to mediocre television. In fact, this particular middle-America diversion is just two credible actors and a poop-throwing scene removed from network television-calibre hokum. Characters are never developed beyond plot necessity, with Minnie Driver standing in as the sassy best friend and Peter Gallagher standing around looking lawyerly.

Fortunately, Swank does manage to make her myopic working mother shtick work by showing her fraying edges, looking genuinely perplexed when people suggest that she might be a delusional idiot. Driver also provides some much-needed amusement with her one-note, sassy comment-tossing supporting role.

But what really stands out amidst the obvious foreshadowing and routine plot is the three minutes Juliette Lewis has on screen. That woman does white trash like no other. Given more time in this film, she could easily have been a contender, along with Animal Kingdom's Jacki Weaver, for Best Supporting Actress this year.

Slant Magazine (Simon Abrams) review

Conviction is the kind of more-bland-than-truly-bad Oscar bait that, to its credit, displays genuine affection for its characters. The problem is that its would-be inspirational true story of a woman's triumph over adversity is constructed by people that don't know how to make their undistinguished dramatization compelling. Director Tony Goldwyn (The Last Kiss) and screenwriter Pamela Gray (Music of the Heart) have invested no lingering emotional resonance in Conviction because neither one has the patience for nuance. Every time the camera should linger on a certain shot, or the story's schematic plot could slow down to deepen our understanding of the protagonists' difficulties, it doesn't. Full of functional broad beats and shorthand details, Conviction is melodrama, Cliff's Notes-style.

Goldwyn and Gray assume that we want to cheer on the blue-collar underdog so badly that a few instantly digestible tics and symbols will suffice for the organically developed character traits that should move the film's plot forward instead of the other way around. Hilary Swank plays Betty Anne Waters, a mother of two boys living in a rural part of Massachusetts where people prove their lower-middle-class status by talking with bad New England accents, ostentatiously order Buschmills from their local bartender like they were doing it on a dare, and shop at supermarkets with signs advertising discounted prices for Catsup.

Mary Anne's brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) is a hotheaded wiseass who likes to act out, as when he puts on an impromptu striptease at the local bar right after he beats up a guy that spoke ill of his baby daughter, also in the bar at the time for some reason. When Kenny's arrested and convicted because his blood type matches blood found at the crime scene, Betty Anne goes on a 21-year crusade to pass the Bar Exam and get him out of prison. She does this with the help of her sassy friend Abra (Minnie Driver), who stands by her side through thick and thin, never hesitating to tease Mary Anne about how terrible her mac and cheese is or to tell her to give up fighting for Kenny when she feels that Mary Anne should give up. There's really no room for the viewer to let their imagination run wild in Conviction beyond these details: What you see is unfortunately all of what you get.

In that sense, the most irksome problem with Conviction isn't its grandstanding performances, which are all perfectly acceptable within the realm of hysterics-driven acting (Juliette Lewis has a small role as a laughable caricature of white trash, but even she hits her histrionic marks very well). Instead, the film's reductive scope is to blame. Gray tries to jam in as many key scenes in Mary Anne's road to victory as possible and in the process, drastically reduces the impact of each one. Any sympathetic sense of dread for Mary Anne's ailing home life and suffering brother, whose pain is largely etched on Rockwell's face through intricate makeup effects that make the character's crow's feet look like Tyson's Maori facial tattoos, eventually dissipates. If you start to think things are looking hopeless for Mary Anne, just keep watching: The film's happy ending will come eventually.

The Village Voice [Melissa Anderson]

Pajiba (Brian Prisco) review

ReelViews (James Berardinelli) review [2.5/4]

Twitch [Jim Tudor]

Movieline (Michelle Orange) review [6/10]

Eye for Film (Paul Griffiths) review [3.5/5]

eFilmCritic.com (Erik Childress) review [2/5]

Mark Reviews Movies (Mark Dujsik) review [3/4]

Digital Spy [Simon Reynolds]

Dave On Film Dave Taylor

Screen Comment [Kevin Bowen]

Combustible Celluloid (Jeffrey M. Anderson) review [2/4]

filmsoundoff [alex roberts]

I Heart The Talkies Tara

The Land of Eric (Eric D. Snider) review [B-]

eFilmCritic.com (Brian Orndorf) review [3/5] also seen here: DVD Talk [Brian Orndorf] and here: Briandom [Brian Orndorf]

One Guy's Opinion (Frank Swietek) review [B-]

Critic's Notebook [Robert Levin]

RopeofSilicon (Brad Brevet) review [C+]

DVD Talk (Randy Miller III) dvd review [2/5]

CineSnob.net (Kiko Martinez) review [B-]

CHUD.com (Renn Brown) review

Phil on Film (Philip Concannon) capsule review

Georgia Straight (John Lekich) review

Boxoffice Magazine (Pete Hammond) review [4/5]

indieWIRE (Leonard Maltin) review

Sam Rockwell on Conviction, 'Sam Rockwell Movies' and Being Piloted Around by Han Solo Mike Ryan interview from Movieline magazine, October 15, 2010

Entertainment Weekly review Lisa Schwarzbaum

Variety (Justin Chang) review

The Globe and Mail (Rick Groen) review

Boston Globe (Wesley Morris) review [2.5/4]

Philadelphia Inquirer (Steven Rea) review [3/4]

Austin Chronicle review [2/5] Marjorie Baumgarten

San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic) review [3/4]

Los Angeles Times (Betsy Sharkey) review

Chicago Tribune (Michael Phillips) review

New York Times (registration req'd) A.O. Scott, October 14, 2010

From Waitress to Brother’s Savior, Then Hollywood Hero Robuin Pogrebin from The New York Times, October 12, 2010

Golestan, Ebrahim

BRICK AND MIRROR (Khesht va Ayeneh)

Iran (131 mi) 1965

Before the Revolution Jonathan Rosenbaum (excerpt)

Golestan has made only two features, Brick and Mirror and The Secret of the Treasure of the Jinn Valley (1972). Only seven years separate them, but they hardly seem the work of the same man. Jinn Valley, a satirical, allegorical farce about a peasant corrupted by wealth, is interesting for its brassy visual style and what it says about Golestan’s escalating rage toward the shah’s regime, but it’s also bitter, misanthropic, and elitist.

Brick and Mirror, by contrast, is a masterpiece, perfectly focused in its withering portrayal of hypocritical intellectuals preaching altruism. Its tragic narrative, taking place over 24 hours and moving from a rapid first half to a slow second, shows us a Tehran radically different from anything we’ve seen in the second Iranian New Wave–especially in an early nightclub scene featuring a woman dancing onstage, at least one gay audience member, and a lot of bohemian atmosphere.

What’s deceptive about the film is that it combines a neorealistic look (in black and white and ‘Scope) with visual and dramatic modes that suggest expressionism and metaphysics. Peripheral characters periodically take over the story, and some of their monologues suggest Dostoyevsky in recounting the world’s misery. (The title derives from a somewhat cryptic line by the 13th-century Persian poet Sa’adi that says what the old can see in a mud brick, youth can see in a mirror.)

The film opens at night with a cabdriver named Hashemi (Zackaria Hashemi) listening to a man on the radio read a story set in a nocturnal forest. (The voice is Golestan, recognizable from his prosaic portion of the narration in The House Is Black.) Hashemi picks up a woman (Farrokhzad, seen only obliquely in a cameo) who directs him to a dirt road on a hillside. After dropping her off, he discovers she’s left a baby girl in the backseat. Clutching the baby, he runs after the woman and suddenly finds himself at the head of a steep stairway descending into darkness. Three rapid jump cuts moving down the steps and away from him emphasize his paralysis and isolation. He eventually winds up at a huge construction site, no less theatrically lit, speaking to a homeless woman in a scene that in its ambience briefly recalls Orson Welles’s The Trial.

We move next to a noisy nightclub where Hashemi, baby in tow, explains his dilemma to a group of flippant, dandyish friends and acquaintances as well as to his girlfriend, Taji (Taji Ahmadi). Later, at a police station, he’s advised to take the baby to an orphanage if no one claims her by morning. Taji meets Hashemi there and insists on returning with him to his one-room flat, where they spend an uneasy night: he’s paranoid that the neighbors will jump to conclusions about his sex life, she’s anxiously hopeful that they’ll keep the baby and get married.

The film’s emotional climax occurs the next morning, with Taji alone in the orphanage. It’s an extraordinary sequence, alternating documentary footage of orphans looking at the camera with Taji’s playful and compassionate responses to them, and culminating with a powerful tracking shot that moves down an endless corridor away from her. Formally it’s a precise complement to the earlier jump cuts, as slow and meditative as those were rapid and breathless, each locating a protagonist in a wider world that’s metaphysical as well as physical, standing on the brink of inconsolable grief.

Golino, Valeria

MIELE (Honey)

Italy France (96 mi) 2013

Miele Lee Marshall at Cannes from Screendaily

In Italian actress Valeria Golino’s feature directing debut, euthanasia is a dirty job – but somebody has to do it. Playing in this year’s Un Certain Regard section at Cannes – though perhaps it would have been a better fit for the Quinzaine or Critics’ Week – this feisty low-budget drama works well as a sympathetic portrait of a rootless young woman with a fierce DIY code of ethics whose clandestine missions of mercy to the terminally ill are shaded and scarred by moral ambivalence, not least because she gets paid handsomely for her work.

But after a promising start, Miele loses its way, drifting with its central character, and ends up as a less-than-groundbreaking tale of misfits who bond across a generation gap.

Opening in Italy on May 1, Miele took ninth position on its opening weekend with a middling screen average. That’s not actually bad for a €1.5-million-budgeted indie project, but on home turf the high profile of both Golino and Trinca, as well as the cachet of veteran co-star Carlo Cecchi, will have helped. Elsewhere, Miele has no such seasoning, and could be a hard sell outside of festivals.

The euthanasia theme links Miele with Marco Bellocchio’s recent La Bella Addormentata, but in reality these are two very different films. That was an arch drama about the manipulation of a right-to-die battle that became a national news story, whereas here the central focus is a woman of around 30 who works quietly under the radar and outside the law as a kind of punk, angel-of-death Vera Drake, offering the necessary drugs and knowhow to her ‘patients’ and their relatives.

Jasmine Trinca, the revelation of Best Of Youth, turns in a nervy, nuanced performance as Irene (codename Miele, or ‘Honey’), a tense tomboy with issues. She’s as far as you can get from the docile Italian ragazza of bunga bunga fantasy, yet unable to break away entirely from the influence of men – these being her mostly absent father, the two forgettable boyfriends with whom she sometimes has athletic sex, and Grimaldi, the retired Roman engineer (a savoury performance by Cecchi) who, she thinks, is her latest mercy mission.

Clad in a wetsuit to go swimming near the spartan beach house she lives in – or rather, seems to be camping in – Irene wears rubber gloves to mix her clients’ fatal cocktails, and mostly dons headphones when in transit. She likes to insulate herself, in other words; even when she turns on the seduction button at a party, it’s revealed when the camera pulls back that the man she’s flirting with is separated by a pane of glass.

We watch her travel to Mexico via an anonymous airport hotel in L.A., to buy veterinary drugs designed for putting dogs down, and later, back in Italy, see her standing to one side – respectful, but also uncomfortably present, like an emotional vampire – as a husband gives his dying wife the fatal draught.

All of this builds an intriguing set of character stimuli and an edgy tone that is dissipated in the film’s second half as Irene’s relationship with the world-weary Ingegner Cecchi comes to dominate. The originality of the euthanasia-for-money theme had seemed to presage a slow-burn ethical drama; instead, this ends up on a dead track and we discover we’re on board a more familiar train, one carrying an inwardly fragile tough girl who’s looking for the father she never really had.

But Trinca’s live-wire performance keeps us watching, and despite the occasional self-consciously auteurish touch (a recurrent gaggle of ballerinas in tulle that pass Irene in the street, an ill-advised glance direct to camera), there’s an energy to the film’s direction and editing that bodes well for Golino’s future on the viewfinder side of the lens.

Kevin Jagernauth at Cannes from The Playlist

If Michael Haneke's "Amour" presented death as a sobering inevitability, one that will test the bounds of our ability to love, actress Valeria Golino has a slightly more nuanced perspective in her directorial debut "Miele." While the subject of euthanasia is the entryway into the story, Golino wisely strays from turning her film into an Issues Movie, and instead opts to explore death both as a vessel for closure and a window into appreciating the life we have.

The Noomi Rapace-esque Jasmine Trinca (all cropped hair, switchblade scowl and tomboy figure) leads the film as Irene, aka the titular Miele (meaning honey), her code name when she's on the job as an assisted suicide practitioner. But since it's illegal in Italy, it requires almost Lisbeth Salander-ish levels of covert maneuvers. She travels to Mexico once a month and smuggles back veterinary grade barbiturates which she uses as part of her procedures, and she adheres to a rigorous set of rules to prevent detection, while maintaining a clear but distinct relationship between herself and her patients.

But her guiding principle of only helping terminal ill patients is broken one day, when she's given the risky assignment to help Carlo (Carlo Cecchi), an elderly architect. While Miele has been present at all of her operations, leading her patients with great dignity and care during their final moments (while also giving them plenty of opportunity to change their mind), Carlo simply wants to buy the drugs and instructions on how to use them, while being left alone to decide his fate. When Irene learns after the transaction has been made that he's actually not ill, but simply "bored" with his life, she, desperately and unsuccessfully, tries to retrieve the drugs, and winds up forming an unlikely bond with the cantankerous Carlo.

But this isn't a meet-cute leading, where many filmmakers could have gone, to a heartwarming story of how one young girl melts an old man's heart. Instead, Carlo forces Irene to completely re-examine her own life, one that has left her unable to form any real connections. Her only close relationship is with Stefano (Vinicio Marchioni), a married man, whom she has lied to completely about her life, with their trysts relegated to cars and trailers, out of sight of any watchful eyes. Her only family link is with her father, with whom she shares a cordial but not especially strong tie. In many ways, Carlo becomes her only real friendship, and he's certainly the one with whom she can be wholly honest about what she does.

Golino mostly directs with great care, and doesn't shy away from what Miele does for work, nor does she judge it. Several sequences are dedicated to detailing every step of Miele's procedure, and while Golino leaves aside any moral or ethical discussions, that's because her focus on the emotional and psychic toll it leaves behind. Trinca's performance is strong, as the story progreses, we subtly see how doubt begins to creep into her eyes and face. Nothing is particularly verbalized, but we eventually see Irene unable to be as clinically distant from patients, as she once was. While she never questions helping the terminally ill find a way to leave this life on their own, her concern becomes whether or not she can further bear the burden of handling that responsibility.

And yet, for all the respect with which Golino handles her film and themes, "Miele" could use a few more notes within its narrative melody. Predictable isn't quite the right word, but the picture heads into expected places, with admirable results, but one feels it's missing one more notch or gear to kick the material onto a slightly higher plane. And yet, some slight missteps -- including the distracting use of songs by The Shins, Thom Yorke and David Byrne -- can be overlooked by simply by how well Golino establishes her voice, and a careful control of pitch and tone, particularly on her first feature outing behind the camera.

Death, and the right to choose to die, will always inspire fierce debate and "Miele" doesn't try to solve that argument. Instead, it quietly emphasizes that there can be a grace to passing away, no matter the circumstance. And for those left behind, the acceptance that we sometimes can't control when those close to us go, is lesson that can subtly inspire one to embrace what we have in front of us. [B]

Daily | Cannes 2013 | Valeria Golino’s MIELE David Hudson at Fandor, May 16, 2013

festival brief interview with the director at the festival site, May 17, 2013

Miele: Film Review - The Hollywood Reporter Deborah Young at Cannes

Jay Weisberg at cannes from Variety

Gomes, Marcelo

ONCE UPON A TIME VERÔNICA (Era uma vez eu, Verônica) C 71

Brazil France (91 mi) 2012

The problems inherent with this film are reflective of the current lackluster state of malaise in the Brazilian film industry overall which seemingly lags behind the quality of other major Latin American cinema cultures at the moment, where Mexico (Carlos Reygadas, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, Francisco Vargas, Fernando Eimbcke, and Amat Escalante) and Argentina (Lisandro Alonso, Lucretia Martel, Fabián Bielinsky, Adrián Caetano, Carlos Sorín, Albertina Carri, Martín Rejtman, and Pablo Trapero) in particular lead the way, but even the smaller film industries of Chile, and perhaps even Cuba, Uruguay, and Peru are producing more innovative films than Brazil, where the variance in quality is rather sizeable, subject to horrendously bad movies featuring “Telenova” actors, others copying the latest aesthetic of indie style films, while billionaire producer Walter Salles wields considerable power and influence after the critical success of CITY OF GOD (2002) over a decade ago, but the films he has written, directed or produced in the past ten years have often just been bad films, where he tends to choose topical issues but the focus is on artificiality and surface qualities, often relying upon nude scenes, rarely getting under the surface into complex character development. CINEMA, ASPIRINS AND VULTURES (2005), an earlier film by Marcelo Gomes premiered at the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes, but this film, despite a brave effort by lead actress Hermila Guedes as the title character Verônica, a psychologist working at a public hospital, is ridiculously simplistic and an insult to the mental health profession in its lackadaisical presentation. Even the sitcom television comedy The Bob Newhart Show (1972 – 78) offered greater respect and in depth insight for patients showing signs of depression and various other psychological ailments than this film, even though a good part of it is realistically shot during treatment sessions.

Opening and closing on a swirling montage of nude bathers at the beach, Verônica is seen as one of the party revelers, where the continual movement of bodies and camera are woven into an orgiastic frenzy of sexual freedom, becoming a dreamy image of personal liberation that may only be a fantasy, especially as the camera then moves indoors to a couple having sex, where the bodies exist in an impressionistic mosaic of nudity, but other than cliché’d verbal responses, it’s hard to find any real passion in the room. Afterwards, as if sizing herself up in the mirror, Verônica speaks into a handheld tape recorder and offers detached, diary-like thoughts about her impassive state of mind, identifying herself in the third person, “Patient: Verônica. Had some great sex last night. Or at least she thinks she did.” This recurring motif describes the adolescent self-absorption of her thoughts, continually calling attention to herself, but also the lack of any real insight into her own character. In a Grey’s Anatomy (2005 – present) moment, Verônica is seen celebrating with other members of her graduating class from medical school in Recife, where what’s immediately apparent is the difference between book knowledge and patient knowledge, as she’s thrust into the sprawling overcrowded population of patients waiting to be seen in a public hospital, where it’s hard to believe she’s actually “helping” anyone. Nonetheless she walks past this ever expanding line of patients to get to her office each day, where a variety of ailments present themselves to her, but realistically she always feels like a fish out of water, as there’s little actual interaction with patients when all she does is sit there writing prescriptions all day. Away from work, she spends the majority of her time with her elderly father (W.J. Solha), a retired banker with a love for listening to old Brazilian records, but whose declining health worries her, seen tenderly taking care of him even though his continual advice for his daughter is to head for the beach or go out with friends and live her own life instead of being stuck with him.

The one constant throughout is Verônica resorting to sex as the only outlet for all her internal struggles, spending most of the time with her boyfriend Gustavo (João Miguel), but she continues to express self-doubts, offering vacuous comments like “I, patient Verônica, uncertain about life, like everybody else.” She even seems to believe she has a heart of stone, as she freely has sex with others as well and has difficulty making emotional commitments. You get the feeling that every aspect of her life is self-analyzed, that perhaps the only reason she became a psychiatrist was to analyze herself, as she remains indifferent to everyone else except her father, the one man she can depend on. The dreary and downbeat tone at work and in her life feels monotonous and suffocating, growing even worse when she discovers her father is dying, but this is contrasted by street scenes of the two of them walking slowly through Recife recalling past memories while a blossoming vitality of life exists all around them. When they’re forced to move to a new location, due to needed building repairs, it’s a rather overt metaphor for having to rebuild their own lives. Real life is overly grim, where there’s simply nothing to lure the audience into this perpetual aloofness except the sensuousness of the music heard throughout, where in Verônica’s early onset midlife crisis she has thoughts of becoming a professional singer. While this seems little more than a dream, it does give the director an excuse to film whatever passes through her head, resorting to multiple sex scenes as well as a nightclub singer singing one of those songs you can’t seem to get out of your head, that Verônica actually sings to one of her disgruntled patients, “It’s all standardized in our hearts/ Our way of loving doesn’t seem to be ours at all/ Forever moving love to a new address.” This shifting focus of attention and inability to concentrate on anything except the sensuousness of the beach, sex, music, and dreams does reflect the Brazilian state of mind, as if stuck in a reverie, but in this film she’s imprisoned by it.

Slant Magazine [Diego Costa]

With attention to textures, sounds, grains and even the flow and feel of skin, Marcelo Gomes's intimately rendered exploration of a successful young woman coping with existential ennui plays out with little plot, focusing instead on character journey.

Once Upon a Time was I, Veronica has the central nascent doctor — the titular Veronica (Hermila Guedes) — turning to tape recorders for confessions and a variety of strangers for external pleasure while noting an inability to feel or care about anything in the world other than her sick father.

Told through a series of experiences during her first year as a doctor, dealing with patients that either won't take her seriously or describe vague headache symptoms, this moderate disappointment in achieving her goals is juxtaposed with romantic indifference. Unable to feel anything for the men she sleeps with, she chooses one to keep around knowing the inevitability of coupling once she is left without a father to care for on the home front.

But this very vivid Brazilian film isn't about finding romance and learning to experience life. Veronica responds sarcastically to assertions of love, stringing her partners along and even passing out on one, indifferent to his feelings or experience. Her tape recordings reiterate her sense of displacement and apathy, suggesting an inescapable cage of her building.

Whether this highly capable and intelligent young woman finds her place in the world, or in herself, is the ultimate journey we're taken on. And since this is a story of personal revelation, the traditional external signifiers are non-existent, making this a work of internal reflection as visualised by Gomes's slow and detailed examination of her daily life and inner-voice.

Highly tactile and experiential, this slow-burning character piece speaks volumes about the universal sense of displacement we feel when expectations don't match reality.

Brazilian cinema is too often stuck between an unshakable need for soap-operatic drama and the unfortunate belief that legitimacy can only be achieved by imitating the aesthetic conventions of the most traditional forms of American filmmaking. Once Upon a Time Veronica only timidly attempts to sway from that tendency by forging a faux essay of sorts through its voiceover, a series of diary entries that its sexually aware protagonist chronicles with a voice recorder. Veronica (Hermila Guedes) has just finished med school in Recife and is facing the gap between the theory of books and the harsh reality of Brazil's public health system: enormous lines, unhelpful colleagues, and disgruntled patients who refuse medical protocol and sometimes even spit in her face. She refers to herself in the third person, as "patient Veronica," and exerts self-pity for feeling alienated in spite of having it all on paper. When she's not being a doctor, or a patient of her own self in her journals, she's hanging out with her ailing father, having lukewarm sex with her boyfriend, or daydreaming about beach orgies.

There's a hazy melancholy to Guedes's face that can be captivating, but the film's narrative and aesthetic strategies are too self-aware for it to ever feel ingenious. As Veronica's diary entries are never particularly insightful, the diaristic device ends up feeling hokey. Apart from one great line, "French kissing isn't kissing, it's sex," their function is less poetic than punctuation. The father's vinyls of old-school Brazilian music, the uncommitted usage of a handheld camera, and the short-lived and just as uneven digressive inserts of naked bodies entwined on the beach all feel a little too carefully posited, as if we could read the intention behind every element spelling itself out on the frame like a watermark. Worse, the brief usage of toothless non-actors as patients feels exploitative and hesitant, as if writer-director Marcelo Gomes were trying to intermittently embellish his otherwise traditional narrative with more experimental components (such as unexplained inserts of naked bodies coated in beach sand) as a way to hide the unoriginality of its blueprint.

Although it's refreshing to see the city of Recife portrayed once again in a major release, following Kleber Mendonça Filho's Neighboring Sounds, its specificity feels forced, such as the mentioning of "frevo," a local music and dance style, in one scene as a way to unmistakably highlight the setting and serve it like a dish of exotic haute cuisine to international audiences. Once Upon a Time Veronica is simply too conscious of its form and its global-market ambitions to ever feel honestly interested in the themes it purports to cherish: urban alienation, self-reflexivity, and female sexuality quietly bursting out at the seams.

Spectrum Culture [Pat Padua]

Does finding a scene of Veronica’s father organizing his record collection more interesting than any of this film’s copious sex scenes make me some kind of weirdo? Not when you take into account the self-absorption of its protagonist (Hermilia Guedes), a thirty-something whose life after medical school is marked by teenage-diary type inner monologues like, “Patient: Veronica. Had some great sex last night. Or at least she thinks she did.”

Director Marcelo Gomes’ film follows its titular character as she starts working as a psychiatrist, but she soon turns her apparently unfinished analytical skills on herself, much in the way that the director’s shallow analytical skills fail to develop his characters. This look at the life of a young woman trying to make a career for herself is sprinkled with so much sex that it’s as if an American International Pictures sexploitation script was airlifted down on a Brazilian arthouse director. Once Upon a Time Veronica is a throwback to days when arthouse movies meant a lot of sex, and like many of the arthouse titles that drew high school kids to cable stations looking not for great cinema but full frontal nudity, it’s neither entertaining as sexploitation nor successful as art.

Gomes’ filmmaking style is modestly unassuming, but his script is full of cringeworthy clunkers like, “I, patient Veronica. Uncertain about life, like everybody else.” A nightclub singer provides some musical commentary as blatant as any in American soundtracks: “It’s all standardized in our hearts/ Our way of loving doesn’t seem to be ours at all/ Forever moving love to a new address.”

I held out hope that Brazilian pop music might save the film, but it doesn’t. Still, the most interesting thing here may be the glimpses of her ailing father’s record collection. Veronica’s relationship with her father is her strongest and perhaps only real relationship in the movie, but even this is both underdeveloped and obvious. When she walks with her father past a building that he tells her used to be an arthouse cinema, you half expect him to add, “You see this tattered palace? This is where I used to see boring movies full of sex, not unlike the one we’re starring in right now, my child.”

As if the film could not get any more self-conscious, by the end of the film she reveals that there may have been a reason for all those vapid monologues: she’s been making her own inner movie in her head all along. Which may be exactly why she never seems to be engaged with anyone. Once Upon a Time Veronica begins and ends with an orgy on the beach, which just made me cringe about the painful friction of sand and genitalia. Friction that would have been more than welcome in this unegnaging film.

Once Upon a Time Veronica Makes Art From Sex and Therapy Danny King from The Village Voice

Fr. Dennis at the Movies [Dennis Kriz]

Coming Soon Once Upon a Time, Verônica ... - Facets

TIFF Capsule Review: 'Once Upon a Time Was I, Veronica ... Boyd van Hoeij from indieWIRE

Always Watch Good Movies [Carlos Filipe Freitas]

Once Upon a Time Was I, Veronica (Era uma vez eu ... Neil Young from The Hollywood Reporter

Once Upon a Time Veronica - Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

'Once Upon a Time, Verônica,' a Marcelo Gomes Feature ... Nicolas Rapold from The New York Times

DVDBeaver [Eric Cotenas]

Gomes, Miguel

The Musical Imagination of Miguel Gomes - Harvard Film Archive Gomes Retrospective September 17 – 18, 2010

In recent years Portugal has reemerged as an exciting new destination on the ever-shifting and always unpredictable map of world cinema, an important center for some of the most innovative currents in contemporary filmmaking. Relatively new to the scene is Miguel Gomes (b. 1972), who has joined Pedro Costa and Joao Pedro Rodigues as an artist similarly committed to exploring and expanding the deep-rooted tradition of Portuguese radical cinema defined earlier by Paulo Rocha, Joao Cesar Monteiro and the still incredibly active and inspirational Manoel de Oliveira, whose marvelous new film Eccentricities of a Blond Haired Girl will receive its Boston premiere at the HFA in July. Gomes began first as a film critic before directing a series of refreshingly eccentric short films that revealed his innate talents as a sensual visual stylist interested in an intensely image based narrative in which music plays an equal role to dialogue. Gomes’ early “musical comedies” offer important keys to his feature films by revealing the important inspiration of both musical cinema and the silent film to his uniquely playful and imaginative approach to narrative. The unique energy and puckish charm of Gomes’ little known debut, the Alice in Wonderland-meets-Jacque Rivette narrative puzzle, The Face That You Deserve, took the ludic tendencies of his cinema to a furthest extreme. The festival favorite My Beloved Month of August turned a new and important direction by responding to the “post-documentary” mode of innovative and unclassifiable non-fiction cinema championed by Costa and defined earlier by pioneering works such as Oliveira’s Rite of Spring (1963).

Miguel Gomes brief bio and filmmography at Mubi

Miguel Gomes brief bio and filmmography at Komplizen Film

Miguel Gomes | Doc Alliance Films: Your online documentary cinema brief bio from Doc Alliance Films

Miguel Gomes - Festival Scope: Festivals on Demand for Film ... brief bio from Festival Scope

Miguel Gomes: Portugal's Newest Art House Auteur Portugal, the Best of Its Art and Culture

Miguel Gomes: Portugal's Newest Art House Auteur

Christmas Inventory: Short Films by Miguel Gomes | The ... list of short films from The Cinematheque

Christmas Inventory: Short Films by Miguel Gomes | The ...

NYFF: Miguel Gomes On 'Tabu' And The Pleasures And Phantoms ... Christopher Bell from indieWIRE Playlist, October 17, 2012

Miguel Gomes: Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art - Northwestern ... Block Cinema Gomes Retrospective, November 4 – 7, 2010

Cinema of the World Miguel Gomes – Tabu (2012) | Cinema of the ... Michael Sicinski from Cinema of the World, November 30, 2012

The Defiant Insights of Tabu, directed by Miguel Gomes : The New ... Richard Brody from The New Yorker, December 27, 2012

Of Ghosts and Phantoms Miguel Gomes review of Portuguese film Xavier from Moving Image Source, January 4, 2013

Interviews | The Rules of the Game: A Conversation with Miguel ... Mark Peranson interview from Cinema Scope (2008)

Cinephile: Interview : Miguel Gomes on Tabu Matt Thrift interview at Cinephile, August 17, 2012

Interview: Miguel Gomes, director of 'Tabu' Patrick Gamble interview from Cine Vue, September 2012

Interview: Miguel Gomes, director of the LUX Prize finalist "Tabu ... September 24, 2012

An Interview with Miguel Gomes | Reverse Shot Chris Wisniewski, October 2012, also seen here: Chris Wisniewski

New York Film Festival Exclusive: Miguel Gomes | Anthem Magazine Kee Chang interview from Anthem magazine, October 15, 2012

Interview: Miguel Gomes Talks TABU And The State Of Portuguese ... Dustin Chang interview from Twitch, December 2012

Miguel Gomes interview – Time Out Paris Alexandre Prouvèze interview from Time Out Paris, December 2012

BOMBLOG: Cinema has lost its youth by Giovanni Marchini Camia Giovanni Marchini Camia interview from Bomblog, December 20, 2012

The Pact: Miguel Gomes on Cinema and Tabu | Filmmaker Magazine Zachary Wigon interview from Filmmaker magazine, December 26, 2012

A Conversation with Miguel Gomes (TABU) – Hammer to Nail Tom Hall interview from Hammer to Nail, December 26, 2012

Hillary Weston interview from Black Book magazine, December 26, 2012

In His Great Tabu, Miguel Gomes Offers More Eric Hynes interview from The Village Voice, December 26, 2012

Anything Goes: Miguel Gomes (An Interview) on Notebook | MUBI David Phelps interview from Mubi, December 28, 2012

Miguel Gomes on His Film Tabu, Featuring 'Melodramas, Forbidden Love Affairs, Melancholic Crocodiles, Bands Playing Phil Spector Songs' Eric Hynes interview from LA Weekly, January 24, 2013

Miguel Gomes (director) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MEANWHILE (Entretanto)

Portugal (25 mi) 1999

Christmas Inventory: Short Films by Miguel Gomes | The ... list of short films from The Cinematheque

stylistic tour de force with a great sense of play, whimsy, and pop, Gomes’s romantic “musical comedy” chronicles a love triangle between three inarticulate teens.

CHRISTMAS INVENTORY (Inventário de Natal)

Portugal (23 mi) 2000

Christmas Inventory: Short Films by Miguel Gomes | The ... list of short films from The Cinematheque

Gomes describes this tale of remembered family Christmas as “a fake documentary and a fake animation film, a semi-fiction about children who go to war, play music, and take over.”

31

Portugal (27 mi) 2003

Christmas Inventory: Short Films by Miguel Gomes | The ... list of short films from The Cinematheque

“This is the way you hold the racket to play a forehand. Just move your arm back, the left shoulder facing the ball, step forward with your left foot, hitting the ball” (Miguel Gomes).

THE FACE YOU DESERVE (A Cara que Mereces)

Portugal (108 mi) 2004

The Flickering Wall [Jorge Mourinha]

A sullen primary school teacher falls ill with the measles on his 30th birthday and dreams seven alter egos are taking care of him in a country house. Freeform, overlong comedy-drama of arrested development that falls outside all standard definitions of genre or narrative; technically quite accomplished and full of clever movie-buff winks, it will be as infuriating for most as intriguing for some.

User reviews from imbd Author: Andre Mantua Garcia from Portugal

The Greatest Portuguese Movie of the 21st century and one of the best in Europe at the time. Great sense of humor, incredible sets, amazing actors and the ghost of childhood always floating above our heads. The rhythm of the film is very good and we never close our eyes, because the beauty of it, doesn't let us. Great cinematography. Besides we follow the adventures of these seven "boys" with great joy and tenderness and never do we yawn.Great, great film. If this is the future of Portuguese cinema, i wanna take part on it because it is brilliant. P.s: young Portuguese directors: do not give up!!! go see this film and see why you shouldn't quit...

CÁNTICO DAS CRIATURAS (Canticle of All Creatures)

Portugal (24 mi) 2006

An Evening Illuminated [Iain Stott]

Miguel Gomes’s diverting, generally well-crafted three-part short film follows an Italian troubadour as he walks the streets of contemporary Assisi, singing Saint Francis’s Canticle of the Sun, before jumping back to 1212 to witness a strange encounter between future saints Francis and Clare, in which the latter has to remind the former about his caring philosophy, following a fainting spell. Whilst the final part sees the nocturnal animals of Assisi (voiced by children) discuss their relationships with Saint Francis and each other.

Digital Fix [Anthony Nield] DVD extra feature on OUR BELOVED MONTH OF AUGUST

The extras take the form of Gomes’ 2006 short Canticle of All Creatures and a 16-page booklet containing a lengthy piece from Kieron Corless and a brief note from the director. The former is an intriguing piece, combining fact, fiction and music much like the main feature albeit with a more stylised narrative content. As with Our Beloved Month of August a simple summation really doesn’t do it justice, so just press play and let it take you on its own unique little journey. The booklet essay by Corless, meanwhile, is a wonderful addition, ably combining background on Gomes with analysis of the film at hand plus a few personal touches and a miniature guide to current Portuguese cinema. If the latter whets your appetite then make sure you’re aware that Second Run have Pedro Costa’s Casa de Lava in the works, whilst his debut Blood has also been released by SR as has his masterpiece Colossal Youth on Eureka’s Masters of Cinema imprint.

OUR BELOVED MONTH OF AUGUST (Aquele Querido Mês de Agosto)

Portugal France (147 mi) 2008 Official site [Portugal]

Our Beloved Month of August | review, synopsis, book ... - Time Out David Jenkins

As dazzling feats of narrative acrobatics go, this ingeniously self-reflexive second feature from maverick writer-director Miguel Gomes stands in a league of its own. It opens as a warm, gently freewheeling documentary on the cultural pastimes of rural Portugal that zeroes in on the touring duties of various MOR folk bands. Rambling anecdotes and shots of glowing pastoral vistas are splintered with fictionalised vignettes that observe the film’s dithering crew at work.

The natural response to the material is that it exists simply to offer a sincere and splendidly poetic chronicle of the rustic textures of Portuguese life, until just over the mid-point when – out of the blue – the close-knit members of one particular band usher the film from reality into fiction, and a brooding family drama plays out across the landscape we’ve just been introduced to. Recalling the provocative docu-fictions of Abbas Kiarostami and Jia Zhangke, ‘Our Beloved Month of August’ offers meta-textual manna for adventurous cinemagoers while remaining exhilaratingly true to its sunny, provincial roots.

Jigsaw Lounge / Tribune [Neil Young]

ANOTHER rising star on the film-festival circuit is Miguel Gomes, the Portuguese writer-director who has made one feature (2004's The Face You Deserve) and a handful of shorts, but whose Our Beloved Month of August now becomes the first to obtain commercial UK distribution – albeit limited to a small number of arthouse cinemas. Certain influential highbrow critics regard Gomes as one of the major younger film-makers in the world right now, and August certainly gets full marks for ambition and originality.

A genially sprawling exercise in post-modernity, it combines documentary and fiction to craft a multi-layered portrait of a certain corner of the Portuguese countryside. The place comes alive each August when it hosts a series of travelling music bands that go from village to village staging outdoor concerts, playing cheesy pop with romantic lyrics. The first half of the film – and it is divided into to discrete parts – is fairly "straight" documentary with an ethnographic and anthropological bent, immersing us in the particularities and peculiarities of place.

The second half sees the emphasis change, and a wispy story develops about one of the bands, 'Stars of Alva', in which singer Tania (Sonia Bandera) edges towards a romance with her cousin Helder (Fabio Oliviera). Gomes seems to be probing the gaps between humdrum reality and the creations of art – be they "low" (the pop-songs) or "high" (art cinema.) His playful, self-referential approach – Gomes pops up from time to time, playing a version of himself, along with his producer and crew – works up to a certain point, but after a while a certain smart-alec, patronising atmosphere starts to intrude.

The incorporation of an incest sub-plot is particularly awkward, and in the end there isn't enough substance to sustain the elaborate structure Gomes has so impishly devised. There's considerable talent here, but it's still very much in a wayward, rough-formed state. Like Yang, Gomes is clearly a name to bear in mind, though with the proviso that the extravagant praise heaped on Our Beloved Month of August from certain quarters may well lead him down unproductively pretentious culs-de-sac.

BFI | Sight & Sound | Film review: Our Beloved Month of August (2008) Jonathan Romney from Sight & Sound, February 2010

Arganil, central Portugal. Director Miguel Gomes is making a film, but his producer complains that he isn’t shooting the proposed script. Documentary-style footage portrays summer pursuits in the region, including boar hunting, religious parades and fetes featuring amateur dance bands; residents interviewed include Paulo, a heavy-drinking local legend. Despite Gomes’ lack of organisation, a fiction emerges, acted by locally recruited talent. Teenaged Tânia sings in the band Estrelas do Alva alongside her over-protective father Domingos. Her visiting cousin Hélder joins as guitarist. Tânia and Hélder are mutually attracted, but he hooks up with her friend Lena. Hélder and Domingos fall out, but the boy saves his uncle in a forest fire; before Hélder is due to leave, he and Tânia sleep together. In an epilogue, director Gomes argues with his recordist about “phantom sounds” that have entered his film.

Review

A hybrid work of bewitching perversity, the second feature by Miguel Gomes is perhaps the only film ever to end with an intervention by its own sound recordist – one that, more than anything the director himself says, sheds light on the film’s underlying principle. In one of numerous self-reflexive moments, Gomes complains to recordist Vasco Pimentel that his film has acquired “phantom sounds” that shouldn’t be there: songs have somehow found their way into recordings of natural sound. Bang on cue, an MOR ditty strikes up in this epilogue’s forest setting, like the magical noises on Prospero’s island, while Pimentel explains his job as he sees it: to filter out the superfluous, and to hear the essential.

Named after one of the film’s songs, Our Beloved Month of August in its documentary mode is partly an account of summer pastimes in Arganil in rural Portugal, partly a portrait of the moderately talented but enthusiastic amateur show bands that enliven village fetes. Their speciality is cheerful MOR fodder, numbers that combine sentimental lyrics with irrepressibly, sometimes incongruously, bouncy tunes and rhythms. Like Xavier Giannoli’s The Singer (2006), built around the French equivalent of such material, Gomes’ film urges us to move beyond musical snobbery and hear the essential: this repertoire not only carries a weight of expression, however conventional, but also supplies the social cement of rural communities.

This is indeed a film about community at its most tight-knit: the long-established local newspaper, we hear, is fondly regarded as a ‘family letter’. Population and family appear as mirror images of each other, hence the bipartite structure of the film, which begins as a documentary (at least, a self-reflexive documentary-in-progress) and then develops into a fiction about a family so close it’s riven with actual or potential incestuous stresses. Cousins fall in love and a father apparently cherishes improper desires towards his daughter, herself the doppelganger of a mother who either ran off with a lover or (as father and daughter gloss in an ambiguous tête-à-tête) was abducted by aliens.

Our Beloved Month is a film in search of its genre, rather than its subject matter. As much as a documentary or a drama, it is also a musical, its songs no less its true subject than the real and fictional people we meet. The music is continually framed so as to undermine the film’s stability: early on, for example, we seem to be hearing a song played live at a village fete, only for it suddenly, in mid-flow, to become a record played by a local radio DJ who announces furthermore that her station is delighted to be involved in a film.

Another continuous thread is the self-reflexive farce in which Gomes – depicting himself as a glumly ineffectual townie – noncommittally faces up to the challenge of film. Early on, his (fictional) producer walks in and ruins a complex arrangement of dominoes intended for the opening credits – a neat joke on the futility of over-organisation. In a key comic scene, Gomes and his crew play boules while blithely ignoring two young women who have answered their ad for amateur actors – though we know his film depends on recruiting people such as them. Finding the right presences for the camera, Gomes explains to his producer, is the whole problem: “I don’t want actors, I want people.” The joke at this point is that he has already found them: the producer is played by Joaquim Carvalho, who reappears later as the father of a teenage daughter.

Documentary and fiction merge so teasingly that it is sometimes hard to tell them apart: when two locals, recruited for supporting roles, chat off-duty about their troubles with the chaotic shoot, it appears to be a nicely casual piece of staged improvisation, but reportedly (reportedly, I stress) Gomes simply recorded them without their knowledge.

For all its self-referential complexity, this is also a tender and perceptive portrait of a richly ordinary enclosed world. The film’s interest in unspectacular but intriguing everyday people – such as the somewhat tragic local celebrity Paolo – has much in common, in a far more artificed way, with Raymond Depardon’s series Profils paysans. At the same time, Gomes’ indeterminate melding of reality and fictional game-playing is closer to the mountain-set DIY comedies of Luc Moullet, or Andrew Kötting’s round-Britain travelogue Gallivant.

The film ends with a conventional narrative event – although the incident itself is elided, obscured by impressionistic, gorgeously red-hued images of a forest fire. The payoff, at least, is the phrase “Nephew Saves Uncle” – which becomes a real headline in a real local newspaper. We don’t, alas, get to see what the same paper eventually says about Our Beloved Month of August, but the people of Arganil would surely concur that Gomes has done them proud.

The Rules of the Game: A Conversation with Miguel ... - Cinema Scope Mark Peranson interview

In Arganil, a poor and sparsely populated mountainous region known as “the heart of Portugal,” the beloved month of August is abuzz with natives, tourists, and drunken activity, with fireworks, boar hunting, religious celebrations, roller hockey, alien abduction, and, if you’re part of Portuguese film critic-turned-filmmaker Miguel Gomes’ intimate circle of friends, filmmaking. Gomes set off north from Lisbon, brick-sized script in tow, to make a somewhat conventional film about the affective relationship between father, daughter, and cousin, all three members of a barnstorming middle-of-the-road Portuguese pop band called Estrelas do Alva—although he didn’t have a cast, nor enough money to make the film as intended. But instead of packing up, Gomes and his skeleton crew decided to document the people and the celebrations they saw around them, in the course of their adventures discovering the liveliness of their country, and, whilst playing quoits, a few fresh faces that in an alternate universe could easily become superstars.

In his second feature-length film, with the greatest of ease, Gomes moulds documentary into fiction and vice versa, bridging scenes together by the grace of their own movement and popular Portuguese melodies. In the process, traditional boundaries are obliterated, then rebuilt in a way that defies simplistic logic—a pattern seen in his debut feature, the remarkably obscurantist The Face You Deserve (2004), a kind of claustrophobic version of Rivette by way of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)and late Godard, but that’s only the second half. Organically constructed and impressively humble, Our Beloved Month of August shows the fantastic, mythic elements present in everyday life, and the mundane realities present in filmmaking, presenting the two as links in a neverending chain of dominoes—and goddamned if, against all odds, it doesn’t all come together. But such is life, connections magically folding and unfolding, in a series of invisibly refereed games.

And such is Gomes’ magical oeuvre of, as he has often labeled them, “musical comedies”—along with two features, he has directed six shorts, all of which screened this year at the Viennale (further complete retrospectives will surely follow, Buenos Aires being confirmed as the next). Their oblique subjects range from a coming-of-age ménage a trois (Meanwhile, 1999), a holiday tale of children and their toys that in 1/6th of the time puts Arnaud Desplechin to shame (A Christmas Inventory, 2000), and St. Francis of Assisi (Canticle of All Creatures, 2006). Then there’s a black-and-white whatsit wherein adults claim they are children, and, when they open their mouths, yawp drone-like gibberish (Kalkitos, 2002). For 19 excruciating minutes. In Vienna, a Q & A after a shorts program began with interrogator Olaf Möller challenging: “What the fuck is Kalkitos?” It’s a question not out of line, and a question that might be asked of pretty much every one of Gomes’ films. The answer, but of course, is: “A remake of The Wizard of Oz (1939).”

A Gomes film is likely to evoke numerous cinematic comparisons, but also comprises wild shifts in tone, a characteristic traceable to a keen yet impatient intelligence. All come together in Our Beloved Month of August, one of the year’s best films and an unlikely—to say the least—Oscar nominee from Portugal. Nashville (1975) without its sense of world-historical importance, it’s a film about the creative process possessed inherently by all people on this planet, and only betrays its true nature on multiple viewings. Halfway in, there’s a scene with two nonprofessional actors chatting, surreptitiously recorded by Gomes. One of them complains that the director keeps changing the lines on him, that he’s nervous, and why not. Minutes later, they walk through the old town and the other, who we first met performing karaoke but who becomes the band’s drummer in the second half, is whistling a throwaway tune, which, about half an hour later, is performed for the first time by Estrelas do Alva. It’s the title track, at first just another song among many songs, and only becomes catchy when performed by the full band, vocals and all. This small recognition hints to the ways that in Our Beloved Month of August direction, screenwriting, and editing have molded as one in a magical place somewhere over the rainbow.

Cinema Scope: So what the fuck is The Face You Deserve?

Gomes: Is that a real question?

Scope: Yeah, that’s a real question. Why did you want to make this movie?

Gomes: Let me try to remember. Well, I wanted to do a film about this, you know, crisis of being 30. In Portuguese, there is this sentence that goes, “Until 30 you have the face that God gives you, then after you have the face you deserve.” And so I had this idea to create a character that at a certain point just could not continue. So he was interacting with other people, and then he gets abandoned, and comes down with the measles. And then the film turns into Snow White, so he has to return to his childhood and try to…well, he becomes like a film director, he has to make a film to save himself.

Scope: I told you before it took me two weeks to figure out what the film was about, and I concluded that it was about filmmaking—even if all films are about filmmaking in some way, this one is in particular. But my interpretation is not just that he acts as a director, but the moral of the film—as fairy tales have lessons—speaks to the view that all the rules you know up to 30 you have to forget, you have to start again. And, in particular, regarding how films are made, how they have been made in the past. In The Face You Deserve—in all of your films, including the shorts—there’s an obvious preoccupation with rules, and, actually rules that are often completely absurd. Here the actors obey the rules, and they realize they are absurd by the end.

Gomes: Yes, the rules in my films may be a little bit ridiculous, but I also think that most rules in the world outside my films are also ridiculous. We are even, me and the world. But in this case, yes, I wanted to have this Oz world in the forest and the friends, who are like the seven dwarfs, and, yes, they are obsessed by rules. The film progresses until there is a moment where one of them breaks the rules, then they start to doubt them. When that happens, you’re fucked, and then the film must end. So the last sentence in this film is “Goodbye my friends,” which is a sentence you hear before when one character, Nicolau, buries grasshoppers in a little grave. So this, “Goodbye my friends,” is goodbye to the old rules, but it’s very sad, too.

Scope: In a general sense, though, were you also thinking about changing the old rules of narrative filmmaking, as a process a serious director must do once they’ve reached a certain level of understanding, or maturity?

Gomes: I think there are lots of films that I really like—we’ve talked about The Wizard of Oz, but there’s also Moonfleet (1955)…

Scope: Disney. And in The Face You Deserve you see a lot of Rivette.

Gomes: Yes, and Rivette is very obsessed with rules, and games. But that also comes, for instance, from the classical American cinema, where you can solve a problem with a bet, or just summon up destiny. For instance, I love American screwball comedies. In Bringing Up Baby (1938), the characters behave like children—it’s all games all the time. It’s very regressive.

Scope: Most, if not all, of the short films, are about children—or naïfs, like Saint Francis. Games and fairy tales have an appeal to children, obviously—adults don’t believe in fairy tales any more, or in magic…or, say, in The Wizard of Oz.

Gomes: I believe in those things, but I also think they are kind of ridiculous, so I guess my films have both of those things in there at the same time. They do strange and maybe silly stuff, like burying the grasshoppers…

Scope: They are all rituals, too, not just games, and maybe this is more the point in Our Beloved Month of August—to simply exist people need games, or rituals, or legends. Or a job. There are things society requires to stay together. And every filmmaker has to choose what part of society to concentrate on. You can’t have a believable film with people interacting unless there is something binding them together, even on the most basic level—language, for instance. Language is a rule-based system that can even be absurd, like in Kalkitos.

Gomes: I think the important thing is not rules, but people believing in the rules. There is a time where people believe in certain rules, then there’s another time when they don’t believe in them, but believe in another set of rules.

Scope: That’s what the first short is about.

Gomes: That’s a very bad film.

Scope: Technically, though, you just described a rite of passage film, which is what Meanwhile is.

Gomes: Adolescence is like no man’s land. You have childhood, when you believe in things, then in adolescence there is a moment, for instance, you understand that grown ups are sometimes full of shit and they tell lots of lies…

Scope: The moment you realize that God doesn’t exist.

Gomes: Yeah, sure, and then adolescence, and you start to accept other rules—you are forced to accept them, you need money to live…

Scope: In Our Beloved Month of August, there’s an awareness of the rules of fiction and documentary, and their absurdity, and the willingness to keep some and throw others out and not worry about the consequences.

Gomes: Maybe that’s why I’m now writing a script that has two parts, again. I never thought about these two-part things, maybe it has something to do with creating rules and then destroying the rules you created, imposing another set of rules, and seeing how the rules in the two parts are mixed, or clash, or something like that.

Scope: What rules did you have while making this movie?

Gomes: I had one golden rule. As we were invading this place, Arganil, so we should be in this film. Because we were demanding the locals to play characters, we had to do the same. And everything that was brought with us from Lisbon should be in the film. So every piece of equipment is in the film—the camera, the tripods—that was a rule.

Scope: Why was this so important to you?

Gomes: The film is a clash between cinema with this part of the country, so us and everything that was with us should appear. Normally there is behind the camera and in front of the camera, and this time I wanted to put everything in front of the camera, and even what’s in the middle should appear—which is the camera.

Scope: Some people don’t get this point, and think the appearance of the crew—and you—in the film is, well, self-indulgent.

Gomes: Yeah, they call me a “wannabe Fellini.” But I think it was only fair to do it. In this part of Portugal, they don’t have cinema, or theatre…but I think it’s a film about the common desire of making films.

Scope: For making films or making art in general? Is the guy who jumps off the bridge a filmmaker?

Gomes: This guy Paolo Miller is a simple character. But he’s always acting. He was completely drunk all the time, but he kept acting, almost until he passed out. I let him do his own mise en scène, and it’s the centre of the first part. In the first part I’m looking for people to play characters, and I couldn’t ask him to be a character in the second part because he’s already a kind of character in the first part. The other people give him roles, so in a way he’s bigger than life. And you can see he’s lying, he’s acting. So he concentrated his movement of the film in himself, which is why I chose not to ask him to return in the second part.

Scope: It’s easy to say that the difference between the two parts is that one is documentary and the other is fiction, but that’s not quite accurate. Maybe it’s this point, that in one part the actors are making the mise en scène, and in the other part you are. Is that accurate?

Gomes: Yeah. At least, I’d like it if people think of it in that way.

Scope: It’s not exactly true in one sense—when I was watching the second part again, I was looking at the camera style and trying to see if there was a noticeable difference in the way that scenes were shot…

Gomes: No, I tried not to. I even tried to prevent my cinematographer from putting equipment in the shots, but he snuck things in—you can still see them. But it could not exactly be the same because we knew what was going to happen most of the time. Anyway, some of the scenes with the most explicit mise en scène were in the first part, in the scenes with my producer, and the dominos…those Spaghetti Western scenes.

Scope: When you initially began the film, was there this idea to problematize this traditional fiction-documentary divide? Did the film’s structure develop just in the way as you see it happen on screen?

Gomes: No, it’s not like in the movie, there were no dominos… but yes, we intended to do a film with more than a thousand extras, and it was really making a film with normal cinema means. We were going to try and control the concert scenes. I was trying to do something between what’s in the film and maybe a Minnelli film, something close to Meet Me in St. Louis (1944),for example.

Scope: And then did you realize that there really isn’t a point to constructing this reality? Because you can just take a camera to a concert, shoot the concert, and you’d get the same thing? If not better?

Gomes: Yeah, yeah. And we had no money to do it. My producer told me there was this guy who was going to give money to the film and then he died before he signed the authorization. Seriously. Then we had no money.

Scope: To get back to this idea of fairy tales, I’m wondering how you see Our Beloved Month of August in this sense. Fairy tales are supposed to have morals, but maybe your film reworks the fairy tale in not having a moral, or maybe having a dubious moral—like the critic in Vienna who hated the film because he said it was “pro-incest.”

Gomes: When you arrive to this shot where the girl cries and laughs at the same time, in a normal film this shot should be the moral shot, but, in this case, things are a little bit mixed, she’s crying and laughing at the same time, you can’t tell if it’s the character or the actor who is either crying or laughing… I think the moral may be in that shot, but I’m not sure what it is.

Scope: Maybe moral is the wrong word. We can talk about structure and process, but what were you after in making the film?

Gomes: Well, many things. I wanted to show local stories and the relationships between these people, for starters. I like also the idea of making a summer film—boys flirting with girls—and then also the, well, pro-incest part of the film, this tragic thing, more melodramatic, with the relationship between the father and the daughter…I know I used some rules of the documentary, like using voiceover… so there is a moment where you think you are watching a documentary. But I don’t like documentaries in general because I think they know too well what they are documenting, and in this case I didn’t know what I was documenting.

Scope: Life.

Gomes: For instance. You remember at the beginning there’s this scene with this English guy and this girl from Lisbon who have this bar—it’s the guy’s birthday and he cuts the cake with an ax—and there are lots of people from England, mostly freakish people, neo-hippies. I didn’t know exactly what I was doing in that scene. I knew he was going to cut the cake with the ax, and I enjoyed that idea so I wanted to film that. And then I talked with them, and I didn’t know what was going to happen…

Scope: In that scene you’re talking off camera in English, and if you had a plan, you wouldn’t be doing that…

Gomes: Yeah—I was off camera, and I started to understand that something funny was happening, that the shot was becoming about translation, and about the relationship between the two of them. And that’s good—I thought it would be a boring talk, I would cut it in the editing, but things were happening. You just have to be open to be led in another direction—while you’re shooting. That’s also a rule.

Scope: So when you got to the editing room, and you had all of these scenes, did you know you’d have this flowing structure?

Gomes: When I was there for the first time, in the summer of 2006, I just didn’t know what I was going to do. There was a script and I knew I had to return to the script in some way. And—this is one of the biggest lies in the film—I already had some of the actors already cast, like the cousins (Hélder and Tánia). But I filmed them like the others, as if I found them there at the moment. I filmed about four weeks the first time, then I thought about it, then shot two more weeks, two weeks after. Then I added this material from the first shooting and I asked my screenwriter to be involved in the editing, and I asked my editor to be involved in the rewriting of the script. Because it was almost the same thing. And then we understood, let’s make this first part of the film seem like we’re looking for characters. Maybe if we can convince Joaquim Carvalho—who is Pedro Costa’s producer, you know—to play the character of the producer and the father, just have those scenes with me and him, then he will be a character. So we imagined this structure, we wrote the scenes on cards, decided here the dominos will fall down, here the girl will go to the crew to ask to be in the film when they are playing quoits…

Scope: Did you shoot those scenes already?

Gomes: No, I had the girl, and then I went and shot the scene. And then we just rewrote the script and tried to make some connections between the first part and the second. And it wasn’t very hard, because there aren’t many people, they aren’t doing that many things, basic things—drinking, walking with the parade…It’s easy, but only if you have the time to do it. We had the time because then we shot again in 2007, all of the fictional scenes. If you look at the girl for example, you can see that she’s much fatter…

Scope: And he’s a better guitar player?

Gomes: He’s not a good guitar player.

Scope: And the music, you had those songs in your mind all along?

Gomes: The idea for those songs came with the original idea, which was to do a melodrama with music, the not-so-good music that they play and sing in this part of the country. So we listened to many songs…

Scope: The lyrics are all original?

Gomes: They are the regular songs, and I heard hundreds of records, and chose the songs to fit the scenes. And then during shooting I found some others because I heard people playing them…

Scope: And in the scene with the dinner party, and the drunk guy starts singing this confrontational song about incest…

Gomes: That’s something that happens in the area. But yeah, I got the guy drunk and I forced him to sing the lyrics that I wrote. But this kind of interaction is very typical—in real life sometime it ends in a very bad way because people insult each other, but they have to do it in rhyme. It’s very, very difficult, and they fall down drunk in the middle…

Scope: It’s like a kind of rap music…

Gomes: Yeah, and in that scene it’s also kind of like the Greek chorus. In the real script that we didn’t shoot, this relationship between the father and the daughter was more explicit, but with the revised film, I couldn’t do it in that way. So I had to introduce it there, with the drunk guy singing, “Is this father and daughter or husband and wife?” So I hope that some of the things that you saw before are clearer, and it becomes more explicit from that moment on.

Scope: Let’s go back to the beginning. The idea of making something that has no one set of rules, or has rules that change as they go along—is this a way of making films that’s more enjoyable?

Gomes: I look for pleasure in films… I look for pleasure everywhere, of course. To have fun during the shooting. One of the things that I hope to get from cinema as a viewer is pleasure. For instance, I have pleasure with things that keep transforming. When you think, “Oh, I got it,” then you have a kind of mutation. That gives me pleasure, even as a viewer.

Scope: Not knowing what’s going to happen. Maybe that’s a problem with typical art films today, you know what’s going to happen, and how…So was there more pleasure in Our Beloved Month of August than in The Face You Deserve? Which I gather must have had a tighter script. And also the shorts, for example, A Christmas Inventory…

Gomes: The Christmas film was the only one with, well, they weren’t exactly storyboards….There was a moment in A Christmas Inventory when one of the children started to cry, and she messed up the whole shot, and then I got it. I understood. She did something unexpected, and it was better than anything I could come up with. Then I made 31 (2001), and there was no script. The first day of film school they tell you never put your money in a film, and never film with children and animals because they are uncontrollable.

Scope: And all of your films have children and animals. So you start by breaking the cardinal rule.

Gomes: But maybe they can clash. For example, the establishing of this shot, the girl had a rule. Her tricycle was taken by another boy, so she started to cry. So they were breaking a rule, it was her tricycle, and he took it. And there’s also a clash between cinema and the desires of the actors.

Scope: Not just rules, but boundaries—between the people, and documentary and fiction. And they are artificial boundaries.

Gomes: That’s editing. Editing puts things together. I very much enjoyed editing this film; it gave me a lot of pleasure. Like, for example, this girl standing in this lookout tower, then putting a shot of the forest fire, which was totally fake. But somehow you believe in these things, and this is the most important thing—to believe in the unbelievable. Maybe that’s why cinema can be like a return to childhood, to the time you could believe. And now you have more distance, so you can be ironic, but sometime you can be touched because you want to believe.

Scope: But it’s very rare to get that suspension of disbelief now with Hollywood films.

Gomes: Well, you can, with Wes Anderson. He makes a film with a shark, and it’s like Douglas Sirk. A silly Douglas Sirk, but it’s very touching to me.

Scope: That’s a product of his artificiality, no? He makes precisely these fairy tale worlds—adults behave like children in all of his films, that’s the rule. And children sometimes behave like adults, like in Rushmore (1998), which is what makes that film so beautiful. And this is hard, because you’re not only suspending disbelief, but your own ironic detachment from life. It’s strange how those films work.

Gomes: Eugène Green, who just made a film produced by my producer in Portugal, said it was a Portuguese thing, to be serious and not serious at the same time. Think about Manoel de Oliveira, it’s very difficult to tell in his films if he’s joking or if he’s being serious.

Scope: And he uses John Malkovich, who has that precise quality as an actor, you don’t know what to make of him: Is he supposed to be serious or funny? Or both at the same time?

Gomes: In the Oliveira film The Letter (1999) there is this absurd guy who is singing this 18th century dialogue about love. He’s very ridiculous, singing this ridiculous song, but he’s real, he exists. But I don’t know if it’s a Portuguese thing or not. I’m not sure about anything, to tell you the truth. I’m always astonished by these filmmakers who are prophets who speak the truth. Basically, I know nothing. I can try, but I don’t know if you ask me the same thing in two hours I’ll say the same thing. Maybe I’m not very solid as a person.

Scope: Because you used to be a film critic.

Gomes: But when I was a critic I had to say if the film was good or bad. I guess we are always at the same point when we are doing a test, we are also doing a character, like the guy who jumps from the bridge. You have to be sure of certain things, normally, when you have a test like being a film critic.

Scope: Did you learn anything about filmmaking from being a film critic?

Gomes: Yeah, because in cinema school I didn’t learn a thing. Not one thing. When I was writing about films it made me think a little bit about cinema. The most important thing was that I was forced to write. I was working for a daily newspaper, so if I didn’t deliver the text there would have been, I don’t know…

Scope: An ad.

Gomes: Yeah, they would have been richer. But that gave me some discipline. Now I can be chaotic, but you must have some discipline first. Even if it is a product of the silliest rules.

Scope: Is Our Beloved Month of August the only film ever made where the sound director has the second closing credit?

Gomes: The only concession I made to my producer is that I wanted to have one more layer in the last scene. When we appear, each one of us gets a credit, but I wrote a very detailed description of the film by order of appearance, starting with the chickens and the fox…I wanted to put it all on the screen in between the crew introductions, but the producer said to me, “You have subtitles, too, so it will be a mess.” And I said, “I like the mess.” And he said, “No, no, you really have to do it for me, because I produced your 150-minute film, and I let you put everything you want in it.” So I said, “Okay.”

Scope: And the sound director?

Gomes: Sound is very important to me. And I wanted to end with a scene about people who believe in unbelievable things. This guy, Vasco Pimintel, the sound director, is our version of the guy who jumps from the bridge. He worked with Schroeter, Ruiz, Monteiro, almost everybody. And he’s always saying things that are not exactly right, but he believes it. It’s the old-fashioned John Ford thing: Print the legend. In every shot we are printing the legend, you know. At the end, literally, the scene with the printing of the newspaper, and then the soundman does the same with the whole film, that there are things that nobody can understand, but they are there. He’s our own Jeanne d’Arc, he hears things.

Scope: During the film these weird sounds do appear from time to time.

Gomes: I can talk about pleasure, because of this scene you are talking about, because of this sound that you hear. It’s a kind of mantra that was sung by the whole crew—I was the soloist. Where we shot, there was this little church, with a broken window, and we just put the microphone near the window. Near the door of the church there was also a window, and it made a wonderful echo. It became normal with my crew that I would say, “Now it’s time to sing a mantra…”

Scope: Another game.

Gomes: Yeah, but cinema is a game. Sometimes I think it is good to grab things that are supposed to be functional and make them into a game, this is what children do. Sometimes I give my daughter some toys, but she doesn’t care about them because she wants to play with some stupid thing I have in my kitchen that can kill her, but she gets more pleasure with it.

Scope: The same goes for the script that you show in the film. But it’s for the producers. Was your producer really surprised with what you came up with?

Gomes: Yeah. I think they were a little ashamed about not having the money for the making of the film the way it was intended, so they didn’t come to the shooting, and I was in charge. But even if you are playing games and trying out things, there’s always a border you cannot cross. Okay, I had a very big range. I mean, I could just fuck my producers, and shoot three hours of my toilet…I could do it, because they were not there, but in fact I could not do it. And in the second half it was different. I told the producer maybe it was a three-hour film, and he said okay.

Scope: So it wasn’t as difficult as you made it out to look in the movie… but that’s a game you’re playing with the audience.

Gomes: Yeah…and I also needed that as a McGuffin, to show everything in the first part that will somehow repeat in the second.

Scope: Like in The Wizard of Oz.

Gomes: Yeah, two parts in The Wizard of Oz. There is a danger though in this kind of structure, it can get too mathematical. For example, I love Boogie Nights (1997) because it’s a choreographical thing, but not Magnolia (1999), because it’s meant to be structured; you see the effort. He can do it, but you can’t see the effort, like it’s an accident.

Scope: You mean the first scene in Boogie Nights where all the characters are introduced—it must have taken days to set up, but somehow you don’t feel the effort. Even the camera movement feels light.

Gomes: That’s true.

Scope: This is what I’m trying to get at, and what we’ve been talking around: the myth about your film is that there’s no structure, but there is one, and it still feels light and lively, and that’s why it succeeds. Because I can see that film not working, even the scenes with the crew could feel more like an imposition, but because they are playing games, or hanging around, it feels light. If you read about a film like yours there’s a certain way you think it would appear, but in the end, in the film, the people rise above the structure. And it’s more about life than anything else.

Gomes: You know, when I presented the film for the first time in that region, I said this is a film about a very underestimated subject, which is being alive. Because being alive you have more problems—you don’t have these problems when you are dead. And I think that one of the problems in many bad—and good—films is that they ignore this, the problem of being alive.

Scope: One of the hardest things for an actor to do is convince you that they’re alive.

Gomes: And people are more alive when they are having fun.

Scope: Or when they are not having fun. The scene with the guy who can’t remember his lines because you keep changing the scenes on him…

Gomes: But it reveals one aspect of being alive, which is that he’s very concerned, nervous.

Scope: It’s something you can’t summarize, being alive. But that’s why most cinema often doesn’t work for me today, it’s impossible to separate the actor from the character.

Gomes: But sometimes it’s good. You know, my favourite actor is Robert Mitchum, and he is always Robert Mitchum. And, of course, John Wayne…

Scope: Yes, sure, but they are playing themselves. Or maybe it’s that the time for that kind of acting has gone away, that the rules of the game have changed, and Hollywood is still for the most part playing by the old rules. When Tom Cruise is in the film, he’s always trying to act, but it’s impossible…

Gomes: Johnny Depp is a different story. He has an advantage. Which is that Johnny Depp, as an actor, he likes to have fun. For example, in Sleepy Hollow (1999), my favourite Tim Burton film, he is having the time of his life. Making faces and fainting. He faints like 20 times in this film. It was one of my last texts as a film critic—this is a film about a guy that keeps fainting, that’s his life. This has something to do with cinema, probably.

Scope: Maybe that’s why Anna Faris is so great—she always seems like she’s having fun.

Gomes: Let me ask you something: people are talking about me, Albert Serra, and Lisandro Alonso as if we are together. Maybe because the three of us all had films in the last Quinzaine. And I like very much Lisandro and Albert’s films. And I think that they work with minimalistic structures, even if they do different things…but me, I don’t.

Scope: In Vienna what I said about La libertad (2001), and the reason why it might be the most important film in the last ten years, is that this is the point where it is clear that the divide between documentary and fiction no longer matters. For me, El cant dels ocells is in a way like a documentary: they aren’t playing characters, they’re playing themselves, and it’s shot kind of in a documentary style. And the scenes that they play are the scenes that they are talking about as they are getting to the scene. The method maybe owes much to Warhol, as well. Maybe another way of saying it is that in all three of your films the process of the filmmaking is in the film, and is as important as the final product. Or that none of you, in a way, know what you’re doing—in a certain sense.

Gomes: There you have a point. But we were talking about The Face You Deserve for instance…for me the way I made that film is also in the film. We shot that in Sintra, which is very close to Lisbon, so we left Lisbon early in the morning to shoot the film, and it was like entering another world. The process may be in the film, but it’s not evident in that case because you don’t see me going to this place, and you don’t get to see Sintra and how it works…

Scope: But it’s important to you that you feel it in the film. And it goes back to the John Ford anecdote about shooting in Monument Valley, and the pleasure he derived from going to the location, waking up early, going to the set, working hard, coming back and eating a meal together, and then sleeping like babies. Maybe also it’s that the relationship between the filmmaker and the actors (or subjects) is not so unidirectional anymore. And you can talk about Pedro Costa here too. The actors are making the films.

Gomes: Yes, you must be talking about Vanda. Because it’s like a battle between him and her, and she has more power in the film than anyone else in his films before or after.

Scope: And you can say the same thing about Misael the woodcutter in La libertad, although it’s not a battle there. But now that I think of it, the films are of course very similar and Costa got there first. Okay, In Vanda’s Room (2000) had a bit of a higher shooting ratio.

Gomes: There is this moment in La libertad, where he imposes his own time on Lisandro, and Lisandro accepts, so the guy goes to sleep, and the camera instead goes into the trees. And that’s beautiful. I’m into it. That’s my thing. In Liverpool he’s doing this incredible thing, he’s starting in this place that we knew already from his cinema, and then he’s making cinema! It’s surprising, he knows cinema after all! Unbelievable. He made the best melodrama of the last five years, it’s a melodrama.

Scope: And it’s a Western. The tape’s almost over: that’s my rule. Only shoot one tape.

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TABU A 96

Portugal Germany Brazil France (118 mi) 2012

People’s lives are not like dreams. —Aurora (Laura Soveral)

A bold, brilliantly written and directed film, where at least part of the joy is in its magical film construction, mirroring the original TABU (1931) directed by F.W. Murnau, a joint project with heralded documentarian Robert J. Flaherty, set in the Polynesian South Sea island of Bora Bora, inverting the two halves which were originally called “Paradise” and “Paradise Lost,” shown here in opposite order. The film shares similarities to the original even in theme, as both comment on the effects of European colonialization in an otherwise native setting with a beguiling beauty that is so idealized that it becomes mythical. Blending fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, becomes so seamlessly integrated in both films that the two halves continually comment on one another. The brilliance of the Gomes film is the extraordinarily magical 2^nd half, which is so stunningly beautiful, not to mention amusingly told, that the audience is so captivated by the originality of the story that there’s an instant desire to see the first half again, curious about what might have been missed to see how it all connects. The second half of the film is all narrated by a single character who describes the story, where the sound of his voice is the only sound heard for the duration of the picture, unraveling like a literary work without dialogue or sound effects, other than some carefully chosen songs, giving the appearance of a Silent film, but the miraculous stretching of the imagination is a thing of beauty, startlingly original, more fabulously inventive than the tedious melodrama of the highly acclaimed, Academy Award winning The Artist (2011), which seems like a cheap imitation by comparison. Two magical realist literary works immediately spring to mind, the most obvious being Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), all taking place in the mythical but intensely real town of Macondo, where surrealism and the supernatural are ordinary occurrences, stretching the boundaries of what is considered reality. The second is Michael Ondaatje’s picturesque family portrait in his fictionalized autobiographical memoir Running in the Family (1982), where he returns to his native Sri Lanka (Ceylon at the time of his birth), blurring the lines between fact and fiction, recreating a scandalously colorful, highly detailed portrayal of his eccentric family, set in an exotic landscape of colonial decline.

Shot in gorgeous Black and White by cinematographer Rui Poças, the more realistic first half is in 35 mm while the magical second half is blown up 16mm. Opening much like the Coen brothers’ A SERIOUS MAN (2009), with an amusingly ominous Prologue narrated by the director himself set in the wilds of early European exploration of Mozambique in Africa, a Portuguese colony until 1975, with the sweaty black hired hands using machete’s to chop a way through the brush for a hero known only as “the intrepid explorer,” the unscathed white man all dressed up for a safari adventure in khakis and a pith helmet, but never lifts a finger to help, allowing others to do all the back-breaking work, sadly reaching an early demise when he feeds himself to the crocodiles, distraught with grief over his wife’s death, whose ghost can be seen on the shoreline warning him that he will never escape his heart. In a unique blending of the present with the past, a transition shot suggests what we’ve been watching was being screened in a Lisbon movie theater, which middle-aged Pilar (Teresa Madruga) watches intently with an older gentleman asleep on her shoulder. After a feigned attempt afterwards to impress her with flowery love talk that she ignores, they go their separate ways home. With absurdist deadpan humor, the strictly Catholic Pilar leads an uneasy existence, concerning herself with the problems of others, offering her home to a young Polish girl visiting Lisbon with friends, which is amusingly rejected when the young girl lies about her identity, participating in human rights demonstrations, hanging a friend’s painting on the wall every time he comes over while continually rejecting his attempts at courtship, but her real interest is with her zany neighbors across the hall in her apartment complex, Aurora (Laura Soveral), a candidly outspoken and temperamental old woman and her devoted Cape Verdean maid Santa (Isabel Muñoz Cardoso). Aurora has blown her life’s savings playing slot machines at the casino and is openly suspicious of Santa who she believes is casting Black magic spells. Mostly seen from Pilar’s somewhat saintly perspective, the three women speak directly into the camera offering close-ups with extended monologues, contrasting their personalities, where both Pilar and Santa are driven by duty, straight-laced and conservative, leading dreary, world-weary lives while the more free spirited Aurora rambles on about recurring dreams of crocodiles and hairy monkeys lurking near her bedside, carrying the emotional burden of a troubled past, where her vivid recollections are simply a marvel of invention. While getting the least amount of screen time, the dour and taciturn Santa remains an object of scorn by her employer, though upon reflection, she may actually be the moral center of the film.

Aurora’s medical condition takes a turn for the worse, suffering from the effects of dementia, but recalls a name from her past, Gian Luca Ventura (Henrique Espírito Santo), a rugged, still handsome, silver-haired gentleman that Pilar finds in another retirement home, stopping first for coffee in the artificially designed rainforest of a shopping mall. As they sip their coffee, Ventura narrates in voiceover how he met the young Aurora, Ana Moreira from The Portuguese Nun (2010), fifty years ago in an unnamed African colony. Draped in a literary feel, Ventura’s ingenious story has the playfulness of the García Márquez novel, richly detailed, extravagantly layered, literally transporting the audience into a magical time and place very much like the mythical world of Macondo, which is itself an elusive Paradise, one that eventually disappears altogether. Aurora is the beautiful but spoiled and filthy rich heiress living at the foot of Tabu Mountain where native servants wait on her hand and foot, leading the ideal life with her perfect husband, Ivo Müller, the local game-hunter who resembles The Man with the Yellow Hat‎ in Curious George stories. The young Ventura, Carloto Cotta, is a Bohemian free spirit with matinee idol good looks dodging arrest wherever he goes, eventually settling down next door, where we quickly learn he plays in a band singing Portuguese cover versions of 60’s pop songs, like The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” The Ronettes YouTube (2:46) or the Phil Spector produced Ramones cover of “Baby I Love You” "Tabu" Movie Clip #3, directed by Miguel Gomes YouTube (2:57). The film’s silence and apparent indifference to the native people and culture around them is simply chilling, especially expressed in a pool party sequence where they all appear oblivious to taking any interest in any life forms other than themselves, becoming obsessively self-indulgent, throwing caution to the wind, as represented by Aurora’s carefree love affair with her lusty neighbor Ventura, a completely reckless act that suggests tunnel vision, acknowledging the couple was “indifferent to the fate of the empire,” but perfectly expressing the casually hedonistic European view of colonialization. The rhapsodic sweep of their romance is magically transporting, but also morally unsettling, while as they’re recklessly ignoring the dangerous marital consequences, they’re equally oblivious to the rising tide of angry militarism surrounding them.

Following the Cahiers du Cinéma magazine tradition in France, where Godard, Rivette, Truffaut, and now Olivier Assayas all got their start in film criticism before they ever made a single film, Gomes worked as a critic in Lisbon as well. Although his mother grew up in Angola, Gomes had never ventured into Africa until this film experience brought him to Mozambique, where at least part of the idea for the movie developed from meeting a group of aging Portuguese musicians waxing nostalgic over their days in pre-revolutionary Mozambique, where Gomes indicates “The Africa in the film is more like the mythology of Africa that was produced by colonialism—and, of course, by cinema.” In his review of TABU Miguel Gomes's 'Tabu' - NYTimes.com - Movies - The New York Times, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott faults the director for glossing over the issues of colonialism in favor of a more compelling film aesthetic. “Unlike other recent European films (like Philippe Falardeau’s “Congorama” and Claire Denis’s “White Material”), “Tabu” views colonialism as an aesthetic opportunity rather than a political or moral problem. It is full of longing — hedged, self-conscious, but palpable all the same — for a vanished way of life, in contrast to which contemporary reality seems drab and numb.” But the film structure cleverly plays each half against the other, suggesting there are far-reaching consequences for both the doomed love affair but also practicing foreign policy politics with blinders on, as both lead to tragic ends, which includes the isolated sense of alienation in the first part, also a deep sense of regret. Aurora, Santa, and Pilar reflect the aftereffects of the sins of the past, still attempting to piece together the disassembled remains of the earlier excesses, leaving psychological scars of wounded memories, still fragmented, unable to discern fact from fiction, historical myths from truth, both past from present, where the indifference of modern society is living proof that many of the wounds from the past have not healed, are still not understood, and continue to be mythologized, much like the continuing politicalization of the present, where dissenting points of view are attacked through heavily financed political advertisements, where it’s again hard to find the truth through the fabricated smokescreen of fiction. What makes this film so unique is the clever playfulness of the tone, resembling the imaginative whimsy of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012), but with surprisingly more depth and complexity, adding more rich textures, subtle symbolism, a variety of wonderful characters, and an otherworldly effect, where Gomes finds strange ways to revisit the unpleasantries of the past through such an experimental and powerfully poetic approach. TABU is a corrective for past crimes, this time utilizing authentic African songs and chants in balance and harmony with the surrounding lands, where despite the lush Silent screen visualization, it’s the white colonizers that continually appear woefully out of place.

Tabu - The 50th New York Film Festival | Film Society of Lincoln ...

The ghosts of F.W. Murnau, Luis Buñuel, Joseph Cornell and Jack Smith hover above Miguel Gomes’s third feature—an exquisite, absurdist entry in the canon of surrealist cinema. Shot in ephemeral black-and-white celluloid, Tabu is movie-as-dream—an evocation of irrational desires, extravagant coincidences, and cheesy nostalgia that nevertheless is grounded in serious feeling and beliefs, even anti-colonialist politics. There is a story, which is delightful to follow and in which the cart comes before the horse: the first half is set in contemporary Lisbon, the second, involving two of the same characters, in a Portuguese colony in the early 1960s. “Be My Baby” belted in Portuguese, a wandering crocodile, and a passionate, ill-advised coupling seen through gently moving mosquito netting make for addled movie magic. The winner of the Alfred Bauer Prize (for a work of particular innovation) and FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

Tabu : The New Yorker Richard Brody

A brilliantly nuanced, deeply imagined psycho- excavation of modern Europe by the Portuguese director Miguel Gomes. In calm and workaday Lisbon, Pilar (Teresa Madruga), a lonely, low-key, middle-aged social activist, gently pursued by a gentleman artist, finds her elderly neighbor, Aurora (Laura Soveral), a capricious faded beauty, in decline and struggling under the loving care of a home attendant. On her deathbed, Aurora divulges the name and address of a man who, once found, delivers a tale of his encounter with her—a romantic whopper, from Portugal’s long-lost African colonies, which he narrates while images of them unfold like a silent movie, with sound effects only. In Gomes’s ingenious vision, the smoothed-out, tamped-down, serenely cultured solitude of the modern city, with its air of constructive purpose in tiny orbits, rests on a dormant volcano of passionate memories packed with adventurous misdeeds, both political and erotic. Filming in suave, charcoal-matte black-and-white, he frames the poignant mini-melodramas of daily life with a calmly analytical yet tenderly un-ironic eye. If today’s neurotic tensions come off as a corrective to past crimes, even a form of repentance, Gomes’s historical reconstruction of corrupted grandeur is as much a personal liberation as a form of civic therapy. In Portuguese and English.

Tabu, review - Telegraph Tim Robey

We’re lucky if a single Tabu arrives each year: a film that knows cinema inside out, and uses it to work pure magic. If you can resist the last hour of this ravishing two-part saga of amour fou, unveiled to critical hosannahs in Berlin, you may need a thorough health check. It’s the absolute quintessence of movie romance.

Portuguese critic-turned-auteur Miguel Gomes borrows a title from FW Murnau’s 1931 love story on the South Seas, and flips the captions for its two parts: Paradise Lost comes first here, and what a strange, lonely state it is. In contemporary Lisbon, a kindly and devout woman called Pilar (Teresa Madruga) tries to help her neighbour Aurora (Laura Soveral), an elderly gambling addict who’s slipping into dementia.

The story of Aurora’s past is eventually disclosed to us by her long-lost love, in a voiceover so gorgeously written you may actually die. This is Paradise. We’re taken to the savannahs of an unnamed African colony 50 years before, at the foot of a fictional mountain called Tabu, where the married Aurora (Ana Moreira) – a famous game-hunter in her day – was swept off her feet by a handsome dandy called Ventura (Carloto Cotta). Their affair is delirious, dangerous – yet coolly observed. There’s something timeless about it. The cover versions of 1960s pop songs, most strikingly The Ronettes’ Be My Baby, induce a faraway rapture. A baby crocodile becomes the lovers’ mascot. Words are sung, but not one is spoken – often, we hear only the chirrups of insects. When it ends, the movie leaves you with a perfect ache. If it isn’t the year’s best, I can’t wait to see what that might be.

Slant Magazine [John Semley]

Equal parts nostalgia, homage and French Colonial critique, Miguel Gomes' third feature-length film is as oblique and dreamlike as it is entrancing and haunting. Tabu (a reference to the similarly chaptered black and white 1931 melodramatic F.W Murnau film of the same name) is an experimental work of sorts, using both stylistic and narrative tactics, and juxtapositions to comment on the times, storytelling and the nature of lost hope.

Beginning inversely to Murnau's Tabu, this Portuguese art film opens with the chapter "A Lost Paradise," following a man's emotionally driven quest to commit suicide due to an inability to cope with the death of his wife. Within this paradise lost, washed out with black and white cinematography and cold, wooden exchanges, Pilar (Teresa Madruga) spends her days praying for, and helping, others, even though they mostly exploit her kindness for personal gain. Such as elderly neighbour Aurora (Laura Soveral), whose casino binges have left her confined at home with her caretaker, Santa (Isabel Cardoso).

When a deathbed rant about a crocodile leads Pilar to a man from Aurora's past, the structure shifts entirely to a silent flashback, although it's more a romanticized fable than a flashback, where voiceover and sound effects narrate the highly melodramatic story of Aurora's youth.

Entitled "Paradise," this chapter mirrors the love affair between Aurora (Ana Moreira) and neighbour Gian Luca (Carloto Cotta) with colonialist misdeeds of the time. Passionate, kinetic and defined only by its soundtrack and voiceover, this latter half of the film represents modern nostalgia and the nature of dreams long gone.

In present day, Aurora's dreams â€" quite literally â€" lead her to a self-defeating gambling spree and a bitter, isolated end while her daughter works with whales in Canada, whereas her past infidelities sizzle with vitality. Whether this is merely trumped up idealization of times past or a comment on how modern pragmatism aids in avoiding things like colonial oppression is open to interpretation.

What Miguel Gomes has done here is craft a thoughtful and referential ode to filmmaking styles and ideological stances past and present with great specificity. Carefully telling two thematically similar stories of following one's heart, he challenges us to question our perceptions and the nature of nostalgia in relation to fading concepts of impassioned living.

The Defiant Insights of Tabu, directed by Miguel Gomes : The New ... Richard Brody from The New Yorker, December 27, 2012

The Portuguese director Miguel Gomes’s third feature, “Tabu,” which opened Wednesday at Film Forum (I’ve got a capsule review of it in the magazine this week), is one of the most original and inventive—as well as trenchantly political and painfully romantic—movies of recent years. It’s a film in a rare genre: its plot is so adroitly and sensitively imagined and realized that a mere telling of the things that take place would suffice to reveal the depth of the director’s imaginative discernment—his ample and nuanced vision of the extraordinary elements and implications of ordinary lives. But it’s also realized with a casually audacious sense of cinematic form even as it ignores conventional wisdom regarding cinematic politics.

The film starts in Africa, with a scene of a colonial expedition by a grieving explorer that turns out to be a movie being watched by Pilar (Teresa Madruga), a single, middle-aged human-rights activist in Lisbon, who is, in effect, the movie’s Jamesian central consciousness, the observer (or, ultimately, auditor) of the movie’s dramas, which emerge from the lives of others. In the last week of 2010, she finds her life becoming increasingly intertwined with that of her elderly next-door neighbor, Aurora (Laura Soveral), a domineering, elegant, yet tenuously middle-class woman whose sudden gambling binge leaves her on the verge of ruin—and proves to be a sign of a rapid mental and physical decline. Aurora is in the care of her housekeeper, Santa (Isabel Cardoso), who comes to Pilar for help but must ultimately defer to Aurora’s daughter, who lives in Canada and won’t get involved. Meanwhile, Pilar—whose liberal Christian faith is part of her political activism, takes part in a candlelight vigil to stop an unspecified genocide, spends hours at the computer reading reports and investigations (and who is—in a simple twist too juicy to divulge—preparing to welcome a young Polish Catholic activist with whom she communicates in broken English)—is fending off the romantic attentions of an aging artist, a friend whom she doesn’t love.

Aurora is hospitalized just after midnight on New Year’s Eve in a state of confusion; there, she divulges a man’s name and address. When Pilar locates him, he tells her and Santa a story—the story of the love that he and Aurora shared, decades earlier (seemingly, in the mid-sixties), in one of the Portuguese colonial states in Africa—and his storytelling is heard on the soundtrack as, onscreen, Gomes shows the action he describes, as a non-talking film that’s adorned with effects and music only).

Gomes’s vision, realized in calmly expansive, keenly perceptive compositions in a charcoal black-and-white, is two-fold. First, he reveals a rational modern Europe of noble yet sterile passions, of moderate pleasure, impotent principle, and economized energy; of an aestheticized dignity that is ever so slightly out of sync with the tawdry mercenary activity of daily life. Several moments leap out—there’s a magnificently sensitive tracking shot that moves in on Pilar during an awkward moment outside a movie theatre, when her suitor wants to offer her a painting; as he dashes off, the chirp of his remote car key is heard, twice. There’s also a delicately sardonic aperçu in a shopping mall, where, at a moment of high emotion, Pilar and two others head for a café through a corridor where Gomes discerns, in jolting centrality, a sad little ride for children.

Second, Gomes sees the predatory injustices of colonial life as a sort of Wild West of anarchic self-indulgence and self-reinvention, a perfect environment for romance to flower and to grow to monstrous, untenable dimensions. Nothing suggests nostalgia for or ambivalence about Portugal’s colonial empire. The narrator of the second part, an Italian immigrant, is clear-eyed about the indecent inequities that he took advantage of, and it’s among the sins for which the modern Portugal of Pilar’s circle is in lasting penance. But the very vastness of its cavalier moral obliviousness is one of the things that vanishes with the clarity of vision; amour fou comes off inextricably linked to diabolical evil (which is explicitly invoked in the narration), and the humanist’s circumspect, responsible politics appear also to put relationships on an ethical footing and to put a brake on the emotional life—without completely extinguishing the inner spark of spontaneous extremes.

And for that, in Gomes’s view, there’s art. Whether it’s the movies that Pilar watches with such tense excitement or a pop 45 that the lover’s band recorded in Africa, there’s a way of channelling the monstrosity into something that’s both inwardly terrifying, furious, and monstrous, yet outwardly productive, and even edifying. At the same time as he suggests the risks of a neutered modernity that channels only its acknowledged virtues and responsibilities into its public image, he makes a film that offers a counter-vision—an art that runs moral and political risks even as it dramatizes them. It’s not a film of a nostalgic anti-modernity; it’s a model of imaginative freedom and audacity in a supremely, sublimely modern vein.

Festivals | Berlin: A Few Crazy Thoughts on Tabu - Cinema Scope Mark Peranson

“The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness.”—A.F. Bell, Portugal (1912), by way of Wikipedia

An impressively dense yet fleeting concatenation of doomed love, colonial guilt, a reflection on the changing aesthetics and characteristics of cinema, Tabu is a deeply emotional and heartbreaking film; like its female protagonist, it’s bipolar, both depressive and ecstatic. Though it looks and feels like a different beast than Gomes’ first two features, Tabu shares with The Face You Deserve (2004) and Our Beloved Month of August (2008) the same preoccupation with storytelling and the perceptual contrast between “reality” and “fiction”; there’s even a hint that Pilar, who we see searching for emotions through cinema, is projecting a “fictionalized” version of her relationship with her sad-sack painter admirer onto the impulsive, highly cinematic passion of Aurora and the dashing Gian Luca Ventura…(Follow the Spector.) Even if the imaginary is key to Tabu, I’m getting ahead of myself, and I apologize in advance for over-intellectualizing about a film that struck me as impossibly moving. But there’s no arguing about emotions, and Tabu is a film that gets more complicated the more I think about it. And what about that crocodile?

Like Our Beloved Month of August (whose internecine relations might have earned it the title Tabu), Tabu is divided in two parts—“Paradise Lost” (in high-contrast black-and-white 35mm) and “Paradise” (in the gauzier, fuzzier 16mm of recollection and reminiscence)—with Gomes once again operating under a set of rules stemming from the film’s structure. The first rule relates to his stretching and condensing of cinematic time. In “Paradise Lost,” the triumvirate of women—the benevolent, religious Pilar, the elderly, guilt-ridden Aurora, and the suffering, saintly servant Santa (played by, as Screen Daily put it, “Pedro Costa favourite” Isabel Cardoso)—walk through the gloomy present as if treading through molasses, crunching on prawns, or lighting cigarettes with the weight of history on their shoulders; it brings to mind Rivette’s reflection that due to social and technological change, it would take twice as long to tell the love story of It Happened One Night (1934) today. In “Paradise,” by contrast, Gomes turns Capra on his head, as It Happens One Year speeds by in Aurora and Ventura’s past, months leaping forward from cut to cut as Aurora’s belly grows and the two lovers approach, come together, fall apart, and reunite for one momentous night.

The second productive restriction is the dense and literate voiceover written by Gomes and Mariana Ricardo, and read by Ventura over the entirety of the film’s second half, among the longest (and one of the greatest) in film history. Removing all space for dialogue, the voiceover for that very reason captures the feeling that (as Gomes notes), “Nothing can be said,” the lovers’ silence foretelling the fated end of their affair. That the film is able to sustain this delicate mood for an hour—aided by an off-kilter sound design that includes some, but not all, of the sounds acted out on the screen (i.e., the splashes when Ventura is thrown into the pool in the party scene)—is one of its most impressive technical accomplishments (or, to use the Berlin jury parlance, “innovations”). Suspended between the silent and sound cinemas, but set in the early ‘60s, “Paradise” becomes a lovely, piano-twinkling object of memory.

Much was made in Berlin of Tabu as a cinephile’s film, and indeed it’s kind of a bastard child of Gian Luca Godard (A bande à part [1964] comes most to mind, maybe because of the voiceover) and Out of Africa (1985) (Ventura’s voiceover begins, paraphrasing Blixen, “She had a farm in Africa”). Also name-checked: Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Mogambo (1953), Errol Flynn, Crocodile Dundee (1986), probably a whole lot of Portuguese cinema I can’t place, Murnau’s Sunrise (1927) (seen in the name of a nursing home, and reflected in the name of the female lead, Aurora—which was also the film’s original, pre-Puiu title) and of course Murnau’s premature 1931 swan song, with which Gomes’ film shares a title, an aspect ratio, a format, a colonial setting, maybe a shot of a flower, and a pair of doomed lovers. Murnau projects a Western fantasy of the South Seas with the natives rather than the colonialists at its centre, a conflation of tropical paradise with the innocent love whose fated end comes, after their escape from their island, due to the law of the gods. Into the mi(d)st of Gomes’ Mount Tabu the doomed lovers are brought together by an escaped crocodile, the silent witness to their affair. In his Paradise there is no innocence to begin with, no fall from grace, but rather a tale of history’s “winners” being told by Ventura, the romantic loser.

More than a cinephile’s fantasy, Tabu is an ironic discourse on the colonial notion of saudade (the longing for empire present in Portuguese literature) intertwined with the romantic notion of saudade in Ventura’s longing for Aurora (or Pilar’s emotional longing: you choose). The dimmest take on Tabu charged Gomes with racism, but as Aurora writes in one of her letters, “The image you keep of me hardly resembles reality.” The title “Paradise” appears on screen as servants sweep the floors of big-game hunter Aurora’s colonial estate—ironic distance is established immediately. But it’s even more powerfully expressed in the climax, when Gomes turns the camera on its side for a POV of a dead character who shall remain nameless (and whose murder, I’m compelled to add, is soon after established as the trigger for revolution), then switches to the POV of two black children watching from a slight distance, visually capturing the mindset of colonialism from the perspective of the dominated.

All films contain within themselves traces of their production. In accepting his two prizes in Berlin, Gomes gave similar speeches hailing the independent craftsman of Portuguese cinema (like DP Rui Poças, here doing amazing work), as well as directors like Monteiro, Oliveira, and Costa—creators of a cinema of letters—and speaking out against the current government, who have slashed not only film funding, but erased the Ministry of Culture entirely. With the country’s transformation back into a Third World state, Portuguese cinema is in the process of being colonized as well: while Murnau, after travelling to Polynesia and immersing himself in the local culture, ended up ditching his Hollywood backers and funding his Tabu himself, Gomes required an international co-production to undertake his African safari. But like the explorer who turns into the “sad and melancholic crocodile” in the prologue (narrated by Gomes himself), the director is an adventurer, and there are lands of cinema that remain uncharted even after we’ve visited them; it’s a question of cinematic memory. If Tabu is a “critic’s film,” its references are not destinations but points of embarkation to a place where incantations, ghosts, and a white-suited band out in Africa playing “Be My Baby” in Portuguese evoke a past we don’t even know we know; as Aurora says, “The memory of the world is eternal and no one can escape from it.” The film’s formal play is itself taboo for a neoliberal European co-production, and that crocodile, representing time and memory, is also Portugal itself.

Film of the week: Tabu | Sight & Sound | BFI Trevor Johnston, November 27, 2014

Tabu | Film Review | Tiny Mix Tapes Derek Smith

J. Hoberman Movie Journal

Tabu's Brilliant Look at Colonial Fantasy - - Movies ... - Village Voice Nick Pinkerton

In His Great Tabu, Miguel Gomes Offers More ... - Village Voice Eric Hynes

Tabu | Reverse Shot Jeff Reichert

White City CInema [Michael Smith]

Sound On Sight Ricky da Conceição

Movies [Tom von Logue Newth]

“Cinema Bored Her To Death” : Miguel Gomes' Tabu « Adam Batty from Hope Lies at 24 Frames Per Second

Independent Ethos [Hans Morgenstern]

The ghosts of Murnau | Screen Machine Daniel Fairfax from Screen Machine, September/October 2012

BERLIN REVIEW: Miguel Gomes' 'Tabu' Delivers a Brilliantly Poetic ... Eric Kohn from indieWIRE

GreenCine Daily: FILM OF THE WEEK: Tabu Vadim Rizov

Guy Lodge at Berlin from Hit Fix

Review: 'Tabu' Is Magic Realism In Rapture, As Only The ... - Indiewire Nikola Grozdanovic from the indiWIRE Playlist

Brian Clark Twitch at Berlin

Jigsaw Lounge / Tribune [Neil Young] at Berlin

David Jenkins Little White Lies at Berlin

Movie Reviews - 'Tabu' - 'Tabu': Romance And Virtuoso Style : NPR Ian Buckwalter from NPR

Tabu | Film | Movie Review | The A.V. Club Scott Tobias

Tabu, by Miguel Gomes « Danny Byrne Blog

NYFF: Miguel Gomes On 'Tabu' And The Pleasures And Phantoms ... Christopher Bell from indieWIRE Playlist, October 17, 2012

Cinema of the World Miguel Gomes – Tabu (2012) | Cinema of the ... Michael Sicinski from Cinema of the World, November 30, 2012

Fionnuala Halligan Screendaily in Berlin

Stephanie Zacharek at Berlin from Movieline

In Tabu Portugese auteur Miguel Gomes pays atribute to Murnau Rick Honeycutt

theartsdesk.com [Graham Fuller]

Tabu - Film School Rejects Landon Palmer

Electric Sheep [Pamela Jahn]

EyeForFilm.co.uk [Owen Van Spall]

Michael Joshua Rowin The L magazine

TrustMovies: Miguel Gomes' stodgy, homage-y TABU opens at Film ... James van Maanen

CriterionCast | Joshua Reviews Miguel Gomes' Tabu [NYFF Review] Joshua Brunsting from Criterion Cast

SBS Film [Russell Edwards]

World Socialist Web Site [Robert Maras]

CONEVMOVIES.com [Anton Bitel]

Screen Comment [A.J. Goldmann]

Miguel Gomes: Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art - Northwestern ... Block Cinema Gomes Retrospective, November 4 – 7, 2010

Bonjour Tristesse (English) photos

DAILY | Miguel Gomes's TABU – Keyframe - Explore the world of film. David Hudson from Fandor

Interviews | The Rules of the Game: A Conversation with Miguel ... Mark Peranson interview from Cinema Scope (2008)

Cinephile: Interview : Miguel Gomes on Tabu Matt Thrift interview at Cinephile, August 17, 2012

Interview: Miguel Gomes, director of 'Tabu' Patrick Gamble interview from Cine Vue, September 2012

Interview: Miguel Gomes, director of the LUX Prize finalist "Tabu ... September 24, 2012

An Interview with Miguel Gomes | Reverse Shot Chris Wisniewski, October 2012, also seen here: Chris Wisniewski

New York Film Festival Exclusive: Miguel Gomes | Anthem Magazine Kee Chang interview from Anthem magazine, October 15, 2012

Interview: Miguel Gomes Talks TABU And The State Of Portuguese ... Dustin Chang interview from Twitch, December 2012

Miguel Gomes interview – Time Out Paris Alexandre Prouvèze interview from Time Out Paris, December 2012

BOMBLOG: Cinema has lost its youth by Giovanni Marchini Camia Giovanni Marchini Camia interview from Bomblog, December 20, 2012

The Pact: Miguel Gomes on Cinema and Tabu | Filmmaker Magazine Zachary Wigon interview from Filmmaker magazine, December 26, 2012

A Conversation with Miguel Gomes (TABU) – Hammer to Nail Tom Hall interview from Hammer to Nail, December 26, 2012

Hillary Weston interview from Black Book magazine, December 26, 2012

In His Great Tabu, Miguel Gomes Offers More Eric Hynes interview from The Village Voice, December 26, 2012

Anything Goes: Miguel Gomes (An Interview) on Notebook | MUBI David Phelps interview from Mubi, December 28, 2012

Miguel Gomes on His Film Tabu, Featuring 'Melodramas, Forbidden Love Affairs, Melancholic Crocodiles, Bands Playing Phil Spector Songs' Eric Hynes interview from LA Weekly, January 24, 2013

The Hollywood Reporter [Deborah Young]

Variety [Jay Weissberg]

Tabu | review, synopsis, book tickets, showtimes, movie ... - Time Out Ben Walters

The Guardian [Peter Bradshaw]

Colonialism on film Phil Hoad from The Guardian, March 26, 2013

Tabu – review | Film | The Observer Philip French

Tabu, Miguel Gomes, 118 mins (15) - Reviews - Films - The ... Jonathan Romney from The Independent

Boston Phoenix [Ann Lewinson]

Miguel Gomes's Tabu, and nostalgia for colonialism - The City Pages Sheila Regan

Miguel Gomes's 'Tabu' - NYTimes.com - Movies - The New York Times A.O. Scott

At Berlinale, Something for Everyone - NYTimes.com Dennis Lim, February 16, 2012, also seen here: Dennis Lim

Miguel Gomes (director) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tabu (2012 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

'The Master' named 2012's Best Film in Sight & Sound Critics' poll ... TABU named #2

ARABIAN NIGHTS (As Mil E Uma Noites) w/o after nearly two hrs

Portugal France Germany Switzerland (381 mi in 3 parts) 2015 ‘Scope Official Site [Portugal]

Volume 1 “The Restless One (O Inquieto)” (125 mi)

Volume 2 “The Desolate One (O Desolado)” (131 mi)

Volume 3 “The Enchanted One (O Encantado)” (125 mi)

This is an example of screenwriters thinking they have a novel idea when putting pencil to page, or however it gets done, but simply doesn’t translate well to the screen. To say this is overwritten is putting it mildly, as it is nonstop talking throughout, with a seemingly unending series of characters breaking out into stories, including stories within existing stories, where a monotonous drone of voices plays into an inherent distaste for this lengthy film project, where instead of watching a movie the viewer is literally forced to “read” a movie. The chosen format itself, not the content, will drive away prospective viewers in droves, as many will simply not stick around for Pt. 2 and 3 of this expanded film exercise. Judging by the first episode, there is little to get excited about, as characters are more interchangeable, used simply for reading scripts, than for any dramatic purposes, as they all get lost in the overall thrust of how the material is presented. On the surface, the idea sounds intriguing, creating a contemporary analysis of the effects of modern capitalism, as viewed through the prism of a tiny country like Portugal, blending in fantasies from the Arabian Nights, told from the point of view of a particularly dastardly sultan named Shahryar who has a tendency to slaughter his wives, and his more enchanting current wife Scheherazade, who holds off his murderous tendencies by sustaining his rapt attention through bedazzling storytelling filled with intricate fantasies and mysterious allure that has the effect of always leading somewhere, holding off the inevitability of doom through a kind of rapturous enchantment. The problem here is there is no rapturous enchantment, simply one story leading into another, where the economic reality in Portugal is the connecting tissue. If it’s this tedious in Part 1, it may become unbearably suffocating to endure the entire breadth of this project, which feels like an experiment gone wrong. While others may have the patience to stick with it, there was simply little reward as measured by the first two hours. Sorry, this is not a film to return to unless there’s some driving force from within that makes this feel like it’s worth your while.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Ben Sachs

“This film is not an adaptation of the book The Arabian Nights,” reads an onscreen title at or near the start of each episode of Miguel Gomes' three-part, six-hour, funny, sad, ambitious, and frequently bewildering epic. The text continues: “The stories Scheherazade tells acquired a fictional form from facts that occurred in Portugal between August 2013 and July 2014. During this period, the country was held hostage to a program of economic austerity executed by a government apparently devoid of social justice. As a result, almost all Portuguese became more impoverished.” These titles, which recall the films of Jean-Luc Godard and Adam Curtis in their literariness and blatant political slant, promise a topical work fueled by populist outrage, and indeed, VOLUME 1: THE RESTLESS ONE (2015, 125 min, DCP Digital) is often exactly that. One of its first tales, “The Men With the Hard-Ons,” is a piece of broad satire that expresses unmistakable anger towards the IMF; its last, “The Swim of the Magnificents,” centers on three heart-tugging monologues by people who lost their jobs during Portugal's economic crisis. As ARABIAN NIGHTS progresses, though, the storytelling becomes more fanciful and the political content grows less obvious. VOLUME 3: THE ENCHANTED ONE (2015, 125 min, DCP Digital) begins with tales about Scheherazade and the “time of antiquity” and ends (in a rhyme with the nonfiction material about dock workers that opens VOLUME 1) with an extended documentary about lower-class Portuguese who trap and raise chaffinches. The film's evolution is as graceful as it is surprising, flowing between fiction and documentary, comedy and pathos, spoken dialogue and song. (Gomes, working with Apichatpong Weerasethakul's regular cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, even uses both 16mm and 35mm, as he did in his previous feature, TABU. But while that film had two distinct looks, ARABIAN NIGHTS has at least a dozen, the mélange of visual styles corresponding to the array of narrative styles.) Gradually it becomes clear that Gomes isn't out to make a grand political statement, but rather to create a sweeping mosaic that reflects the confusion and vitality of life at the moment of the work's creation. In this regard, ARABIAN NIGHTS suggests a cinematic analogue to the Clash's triple album Sandinista! (1980), replete with in-jokes, sloganeering, and passages of failed experimentation. Yet even the films' lows—such as the overlong trial sequence at the heart of VOLUME 2: THE DESOLATE ONE (2015, 131 min, DCP Digital)—are invigorating in their ambition and creative energy. Gomes began his 14-month production without knowing what ARABIAN NIGHTS would be about, devising stories in response to what was happening in the world around him. This exploratory spirit can be felt in the finished film, which seems to be discovering itself as it goes along. Its curiosity is infectious.

Daydream Believers - Film Comment Dennis Lim, July/August 2015

The two masterworks that defined Cannes 2015 for me—and, I would guess, for no small number of otherwise disgruntled festivalgoers—were by a pair of fellow travelers, additionally united by their exclusion from the main competition. At first blush their films may seem worlds apart—Miguel Gomes’s wild and sprawling, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s quietly serene—but deep affinities underlie this mutual regard: the fondness for bifurcated tales; the class-conscious appreciation of folk traditions and proletarian pleasures; and perhaps above all, the undying belief in the power of fiction to generate its own reality.

The hunger for stories is inevitably what sets Gomes’s films in motion, and the start-stop, infinitely expanding framework of Arabian Nights is a dream match for his favored mode of shaggy-dog shape-shifting. The amorphous subject matter—the daily hardships of Portugal under austerity—is the kind of material that most filmmakers typically handle with timidity or self-importance, but Arabian Nights is no realist-miserabilist parable. Working for a full year with a team of journalists who sent dispatches from all over the country, Gomes and his co-writers transfigured actual events into a daisy chain of modern myths—the whole production effectively functioning as what one of the film’s myriad subplots dubs a “storytelling machine.”

Tabloid headlines and human-interest footnotes alike are elevated to fable: an adolescent love triangle in which one party turns arsonist; a troublesome cockerel that crows too early; a killer on the run who becomes a folk hero. Some passages travel to Old Baghdad, envisioned as a sunny Mediterranean archipelago, complete with genies and camels; others could pass as straight-ahead documentary dispatches (about shipyard closures, the toll of unemployment, birdsong contests). Volume two alone ranges from a neo-Western to an open-air courtroom drama to a saudade-steeped portrait of a tower block’s morose residents, rich in tear-jerking music cues. Each part assumes a different tenor, more or less as the titles promise: The Restless One, The Desolate One, and The Enchanted One. But even within each film, and within each tale, there are multiple digressions and tonal shifts. Gomes pulls out every storytelling trick in the book: prologues and epilogues, prolix voiceovers and copious on-screen titles, nested narratives and off-kilter framing devices. For Scheherazade, stories are a matter of life and death; Gomes similarly balances the leisurely art of the tall tale with the deadline urgency of the project. A monumental yet light-footed work that remains absorbed in the minutiae of existence, Arabian Nights is an up-to-the-minute rethinking of what it means to make a political film today. It is hard to imagine a more generous or radical approach to these troubled times—one that honors its fantasy life as much as its hard realities.

Film of the Week: Arabian Nights - Film Comment Jonathan Romney, May 22, 2015

But for a response to current events that was politically and artistically miles from the norm, you had to look to an extraordinary one-off phenomenon in Directors’ Fortnight. This was Arabian Nights, an authentically sui generis six-hour, three-part offering from Miguel Gomes, the Portuguese director of Our Beloved Month of August (08) and the deliciously confounding, fabulist confection Tabu (12), a postcolonial romance about a man, a woman, and “a sad and melancholy crocodile.” Tabu especially reveals Gomes as a man who likes telling stories, but at the start of his new work’s first “volume,” Arabian Nights: The Restless One, Gomes appears on camera to muse over how difficult it is for him now to pursue his project of making a film similarly devoted to storytelling. Portugal, he points out, is in economic crisis, the government having imposed a brutal set of austerity measures in recent years that have exacerbated mass unemployment and destroyed the lives of large swathes of the population of an already challenged country. For someone with the enviable and privileged job of making films, Gomes worries, how is it possible to merely spin yarns in such a climate? And he gets up from his table and flees, his bewildered crew picking up their cameras and booms and heading off in hot pursuit.

The exact relevance of the original 1001 Nights to Gomes’s project only becomes apparent after a while—after he has fused together pieces of reportage on two completely different events that happen to be going on in Portugal at the same time at the same place, in the Northern town of Viana do Castelo, a shipyard closure and an attempt to combat an invasion of wasps. Then comes the premise, expounded via a visit to a fabulous Kismet-like episode with princesses, sailboats, camels, turbans, and the finest silks of Araby. Scheherazade saved the people of old Baghdad by telling stories to beguile her angry husband the King; Gomes’s film will use the structure of the Arabian Nights to beguile the times, fulfilling its social responsibility by capturing the realities of hard-times Portugal, but also spinning tales as whimsical and baroque as the director happens to fancy.

What we get is an episodic, fragmentary, digressive ragbag of different stories, genres, techniques, voices—sometimes manifestly artificed, sometimes seemingly giving us straight documentary, but for much of the time, walking a perplexing line between fiction and documentary, much as Gomes did in Our Beloved Month of August, in which real-life firefighters and carnival-troupe performers suddenly found themselves playing their own roles in a melodrama narrative.

And so, over six hours, Gomes’s film goes wherever it wants. At one moment, we’re in a fanciful version of old Baghdad, or on a sun-kissed rocky coast (in reality, somewhere around Marseilles), where the beautiful Scheherazade (Crista Alfaiate) dallies with a succession of admirers who certainly never featured in the original Nights: one is a priapic beach boy named Paddleman (Carloto Cotta, the dashing lover in Tabu), another a break-dancer named Elvis. The next moment, we’re on a Lisbon housing estate, watching the poignant story of a small dog named Dixie as it passes from owner to owner. There’s an outrageous ribald episode (the film’s one piece of overt political satire) in which assorted Portuguese ministers, bankers, and economists are endowed with a form of metaphysical Viagra (the episode is called “The Men With Hard-Ons” and features the sublime English subtitle: “Oh melancholy man, tell me the truth—does your willy wiggle?”). There’s the epic tale of a swimming club for the unemployed (“The Bath of the Magnificents”) which takes in a series of testimonies from assorted real-life Magnificents, and ends in documentary mode with a joyous mass swim on a chilly-looking New Year’s Day. And there’s an extended piece of pure Manoel de Oliveira (to whose memory Gomes dedicated the film onstage), a Brechtian piece of outdoor theater about a courtroom trial involving a pantomime cow and several people in fanciful demon masks. (Put it down to Cannes fatigue, or perhaps to the inordinate length and prolix literariness of this episode, but I couldn’t begin to focus on its drift; but then I did say it was pure Oliveira.)

Arabian Nights is constantly surprising and mutable, hugely entertaining, and to tell the truth, at times a little boring and repetitive—you feel at points that Gomes is over-stretching his material, or simply getting over-fixated on episodes that don’t quite sustain their interest. But in this sense the film has much in common with the “loose baggy monsters” of the experimental novel tradition—hyper-digressive, multidimensional creations such as Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy, Moby-Dick, your Thomas Pynchons and David Foster Wallaces. A little boredom comes with the terrain and makes the surprises more vivid. And there are surprises aplenty, not least on the musical front: the old Latin jazz classic “Perfidia” threads its way through in a multitude of cover versions, Eighties power balladry brings tears to the eye in Dixie’s story, and Volume Three takes the ostensibly cringesome “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” (by the forgotten Klaatu, better known by the Carpenters cover) and makes it its own, not least by using it as the theme for an impromptu tortoise race.

Gomes, you may be thinking, is a wild and creative guy—and yes, indeed he is. But actually, the message of the film is that it is the times themselves, and the people who live through them, that are wild and creative, generating stories no matter how much harsh political conditions might tend to purge the world of narrative exuberance. The Arabian Nights, as each volume’s opening titles remind us of the film’s source, simply provide a structure for coverage of events in contemporary Portugal. And here’s one of the most significant aspects of the work’s radicalism—its innovative process of preparation. Gomes arranged for a team of journalists to fan out over Portugal, interview people, and bring back real-life stories that could be used in the film. The stories were then submitted as research topics to a “Central Committee” which voted on which ones to use, then started forging narratives out of them. Then, as Gomes puts it in his production diary, “in the shortest time possible, the terrified production team will have to find actors, negotiate rehearsals, arrange for sets, and hire a technical team to film that tale. This is how things should run in this office for twelve months.” Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s regular DP Sayombhu Mukdeeprom—who shot in ’scope on 16mm and 35mm, in a variety of contrasting textures and intensities—moved to Lisbon for a year to work on the film, with no idea what the team would be shooting. As far as winging it goes, this is as extreme as it gets: the methods of news reportage and documentary applied to the fabrication of narrative.

It pays off magnificently—at the very least, Gomes and his collaborators have invented an entirely new approach for looking at the real world through an optic that distorts it, defamiliarizes it, and restores to it a rich, poetic form of truth. Just as the film’s fantasy Arabia takes on the colors of the everyday, the concrete realities of contemporary Portuguese working-class life (whether it’s the struggles of firefighters, the subculture of chaffinch hunting and birdsong competitions, or the neighborhood arguments caused by the disruptive crowing of a pet cockerel), all this becomes as fabulous and entrancing as any tale of princes and genies. But there are genies here too, and exploding whales, and politicians with erectile issues. It’s all in the nature of a good story, and Gomes’s stories, even if we only get six hours’ worth, could go on forever. In the real world, they’re going on still.

Jay's Movie Blog: The Arabian Nights Trilogy Jason Seaver

I heard some pretty enthusiastic things about this series from various folks, and the premise - a combination of fantasy and realism used to examine Portugal during the recent economic crisis - sounded interesting enough to give it a shout at someplace as accessible add the Harvard Film Archive. I was a bit surprised that there wasn't a marathon session, although maybe the HFA has had rough luck with super-long presentations - they scheduled a fair number of them over the past year, and we're approaching the point on the calendar where you really don't want to worry about something that is hard to reschedule.

The way I saw it - one movie every other day - worked out pretty well, although it was pretty clear that I want on the same schedule as others - there was a good crowd for Volume 1 on Thursday night, but I suspected I was going to see Volumes 2 & 3 alone on Saturday and Sunday until some other folks showed up at the last minute. I'm guessing most moviegoers probably went for a more concentrated 1-on-Thursday + 2-on-Friday or Friday/Saturday/Sunday-at-7pm schedule.

Then again, the audience didn't seem terribly into it when the fire alarm went off about three-quarters the way through the first and we we hanging around outside the Carpenter Center in the freezing cold; I was next to a few folks who sounded like they weren't into it, and nobody was really seeming that thrilled about going back in. But, you know, it was freezing cold, so maybe that was all that was draining enthusiasm.

It's playing again this weekend, and I certainly recommend it for those who like international, unusual art films. Bummer that they don't ever do much with the mermaid born out of the exploding whale, though.

As Mil e Uma Noites: Volume 1, O Inquieto (Arabian Nights: Volume 1 - The Restless One)

* * * ½ (out of four)

The best way to review Miguel Gomes's three-part "Arabian Nights" anthology is probably all at once, rather than writing about the first film before watching the second. I am currently trying that anyway, not knowing if characters will recur or if anything beyond the broad and explicitly stated themes will connect what is, at least in my city, being presented as three separate features, very much a part of the potential audience trying the first before deciding whether or not to shell out for the other two. I'll be doing so; the first installment may not yet strike me as brilliant, but it is earnest and consistently interesting.

This one breaks down into four segments of roughly a half-hour each, with the first a sort of author's introduction as Gomes sets the scene - not of a long-ago time in Baghdad, but of Portugal in 2013 and 2014, where an already crippling recession and the insisted-upon austerity measures are bleeding working people dry. In Viana do Castelo, the shipyard that has long been the city's industrial heart is closing and an invasive species of wasps is destroying the local honeybee population, with one enterprising man working with the fire department to destroy the wasps' nests. Gomes appears both before the camera and as narrator, despondently trying to make connections, whether between these two local events or between his desires to tell fantastic stories and also represent the unhappy reality of his country. Unable to do so, he flees, setting himself up as his anthology's Scheherazade when the crew tracks him down. It's a quiet, sly way to establish his solidly real-world concerns while setting up a satiric but whimsical tone, though done aptly enough not to overpower the simple documentary pleasures of the opening: A slow pan across the docks as various unseen narrators describe how they started there and how the way of life disappeared. That discussion overlaps with the one about wasp eradication like radio stations on competing frequencies, eventually giving way to Gomes's discussion of austerity. It's informative, but casual, and against imagery that goes from beautiful to absurd.

After a brief stop to consider just how one storyteller was able to tell so many tales in the original Arabian Nights (it involved judiciously-placed cliffhangers and a large writers' room), we are treated to the "Tale of the Men with Hard-ons", and is not nearly as delightfully tacky as the title makes it sound. Picking up the theme of enforced austerity, it involves a number of bankers meeting with government officials and other locals, being offered a miracle impotence cure by a local wizard, and balking at the price he demands when their erections just won't quit. There are some funny bits during the opening scenes of negotiation - a businessman sighing over how his confrontations with his union counterpart no longer feature the same passion and violence, translation not just between Portuguese and English, but rude and obsequious, that sort of thing. But the broad jokes that you'd expect from the priapism never quite materialize; Gomes and his co-writers never even seem to milk discomfort out of the only woman at the negotiating table. Perhaps the point is that these men talk about their massive endowments despite not having the comedic bulges to match their boasting, but that seems like rather more subtle a joke than the situation merits.

The next story, "The Tale of the Cockerel and the Fire", is perhaps the film's strongest, though its connections to the financial troubles are the weakest (politicians call upon the characters, who ultimately show disdain for the whole process). The cockerel of the title has a habit of crowing well before dawn, and a neighbor petitions to have it killed. She refuses, and it eventually goes to a judge, which leads to even stranger things. It's a nifty little story that takes amusing turns, with a whimsical sub-story where the points of a potentially disastrous love triangle are portrayed by kids. It's a story told in almost casual fashion, with makes the fact that Gomes is stacking odd forms of storytelling on top of each other all the more impressive.

The final story in this volume is "The Tale of the Swim of the Magnificents", which sees the film come something close to full-circle in a couple of ways: First, I believe its main character Luis (Adriano Luz) is the union representative from "Men with Hard-ons", although here he is a swim teacher who is also organizing the swim of the title (a January 1st dip in the ocean) with his assistant Maria (Crista Alfaiate). He is also wearing a monitor for his doctors and telling the story of his day. Even if I'm wrong about the character being reused, it's interesting that Gomes gets back to confronting the effects of this economic malaise on common people head-on, as three of the "magnificents" tell their stories to Luis and therefore us, with a common thread of how, once things go bad in one way, everything seems to start slipping out of one's control. The directness of this approach makes an interesting contrast the the developing friction and friendship between Luis and Maria, as well as the more fantastic elements (mostly involving a whale, including one bit that seems so underused that it seems like it simply must be revisited later on). It's the most perfect of cushions on Gomes's pleading for a little kindness and understanding, and the fact that some things can go on even without hot chocolate and t-shirts gives the film a chance to finish on a hopeful note.

When all of these elements are taken together, it's easy to note certain through-lines, and not just the ever-present economic malaise. The strongest, I think, is his fascination with stories and story-telling; every segment in this film has somebody telling a story, embedding this direct, verbal communication within the film, with the implication that those parts of the story are true, even if the rest is fanciful. Still, he's also committed to making sure that what we see on-screen is arresting without being distracting, and to that end gets fantastic work from Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom. Gomes and Mukdeeprom leave artifacts of shooting on film in (or, perhaps, create them if this was shot digitally), and it almost seems to serve a double purpose, giving the images a warmth in how things like fire and gray skies are captured while implying that they as filmmakers don't have access to the newest, most perfect equipment in this environment.

Though I cannot say that I truly love this take on "Arabian Nights" after the first volume, I do find that it grows richer on further examination. If nothing else, it's the sort of first installment that convinces one that the subsequent episodes are probably worth some attention, and which could easily grow in stature depending how they turn out.

As Mil e Uma Noites: Volume 2, O Desolado (Arabian Nights: Volume 2 - The Desolate One)

* * * ¾ (out of four)

Volume 1 of Miguel Gomes's "Arabian Nights" trilogy impressed me, although not quite enough to justify the scale of the thing on its own. This second volume, released a month after the first in their native Portugal but generally playing other territories in much closer succession, plays at just enough of a higher level to give a viewer an even stronger idea of why the whole thing is being sold as an event.

Unlike the first, this second entry (The Desolate One) doesn't start with a story that eases the audience into the concept, instead simply stating that these stories are based upon the format of 1001 Arabian Nights but inspired by stories from the recent period of austerity in Portugal as it establishes the environment for "The Chronicle of the Escape of Simão 'Without Bowels'", the first of the film's three segments. Simão's colorful nickname springs from his being the type of man who can eat a great deal without gaining much weight. He's on the run, dodging drones and meeting with friends, loved ones, and supporters, although it's not until later on that the audience learns exactly why the police are after him. In the meantime, it's enough to process how Simão (Chico Chapas) makes his way through the backwoods and scrub of Portugal, less driven by the desire to escape to Spain than that to stay free. Chico Chapas is excellent as Simão, having the sort of lean and weathered face that reinforces the narration while also poking a bit of fun at how outlaws get mythologized, communicating the man's weariness and nervous state without often speaking. The cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom carries a lot of weight as well, highlighting just how alone Simão is, making the forces pursuing him feel like intruders, occasionally framing him against the remnants of previous inhabitation. Gomes plays with audience perception as well, offering up one sequence that is almost certainly fantasy to make the audience both question others and wonder about a broader mindset.

The middle entry, "The Tale of the Judge's Tears", is likely the film's most eccentric and perhaps delightful. It opens with a beautiful young woman (Joana de Verona) losing her virginity and then calling her mother to discuss it. The mother (Luisa Cruz) turns out to be the judge of the title, whose case - heard in an outdoor amphitheater - seems to be open and shut, but the mother and son who sold their landlord's furniture claim extenuating circumstances, the plaintiff has a story of his own, and soon a network of fraud is revealed that seems to involve the entire courtroom. This is where the episode gets delightfully absurd but also perfectly deadpan, as each new fact that the judge learns is more peculiar, down to outright fantastical. Luisa Cruz is terrific as the judge, generally striking a great balance between treating the insanity around her as believable and treating it as ridiculous. Gomes and his co-writers keep her from being entirely rational with an important bit at the beginning which comes full-circle at the end, making a point without resorting to lecturing.

For the final third of the film, "The Owners of Dixie", the scene shifts to an apartment block where a stray dog appears and is quickly adopted. This friendly animal seems perfectly intelligent and cheerful, a boon to the people who need something cheerful in their lives, although one wonders if that can be enough. One of the things Gomes and company do throughout the series is to use titles and sectioning to define groupings - in fact, the credits to each film start with an index showing at which minute certain segments and sub-segments start - and it's worth noting just how much tension is generated just from placing "1. Gloria, Luisa, and Humberto" on the screen as one woman finds the dog she will name Dixie. It implies that there will be others, and that something will therefore happen to the ones we're seeing. It's not necessarily a level of suspense that the story needs, but it focuses things, reminding the audience of the tumult faced by all the characters when it would be very easy to focus on all the cute little doggie coats Dixie is wearing. There's a bit of a last-minute twist, but it's in many ways more odd than essential.

What separates Volume 2 from Volume 1, and in many ways makes it better, is that Gomes's anger and frustration is just as focused but also allows room to be frustrated by the common people he is naturally inclined to think of as victims. This is clearest in "The Judge's Tears", where the intertwining absurdities on the one hand show that when the economy goes bad, the whole ship sinks with desperation spreading throughout society, even as the judge can't help but note that this does not actually excuse crimes. This frustration links with the other two segments; the twist at the end of the first notes that one's frustration with the system does not mean it should be rejected in its entirety, while the third is careful to note that Dixie seems intelligent, and much of her good spirits come from forgetfulness or ignorance. The government at the time may be cruel and, as the opening titles mention, unconcerned with social justice, but bad situations don't just come from bad policy at the top, but selfish and spiteful behavior all around. It is probably no coincidence that this volume is more overtly sexual than the first one in spots; simple self-gratification can lead to one being unconcerned about the community. Gomes is not letting anybody off the hook, but noting that selfishness is universal, and aggregates.

One must be careful with that attitude - saying everyone is at fault can border on saying nobody is or that nothing can be done - but that's where the care and precision that has been shown throughout the series comes in. "Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One" is frequently great satire, both for its teeth and for how they are often not fully bared, though its whimsy and absurdity are not simply disguise, but entertaining in their own right. If the series keeps improving, Volume 3 must be something fairly terrific.

As Mil e Uma Noites: Volume 3, O Encantado (Arabian Nights: Volume 3 - The Enchanted One)

* * * (out of four)

Miguel Gomes seemingly sets out to end his "Arabian Tales" trilogy with a whimper, as there are long, long stretches of this movie where nothing really happens and the narrative captions emphasize that the story is not moving forward at all. That the movie never actually bored me out of my mind suggests that his talents as a filmmaker outstrip his talents as a troll, and there's something kind of impressive about that.

This time around, the film has the appearance of an actual adaptation of 1001 Arabian Nights despite the captions' insistence that it simply borrows the structure, opening with a middle-eastern girl dancing and a wealthy older man mistaking her for someone else. He is the father of Scheherazade (Crista Alfaiate), who on the 515th day of her marriage to the vizier is growing weary of trying to push her decapitation (and his moving on to the rest of Bagdad's women in the original marry/screw/kill scenario). She spends the day out in the countryside, meeting the people and her father, and tapping a genie of the wind, before returning to her duty. It's a sweet story with the lovely Crista Alfaiate giving a nice performance as this woman for whom beauty a and charm are matters of duty, though she seems more resigned than bitter. Gomes does interesting things with his storytelling, such as superimposing the end of one scene over the beginning of another, notably allowing the dancer to become a ghost haunting Scheherazade's father. The setting eventually becomes less Bagdad in ancient times and more present day Portugal, and Gomes has fun with the juxtapositions. Given that he placed himself in the position of Scheherazade in the first film, one can't help but wonder what his thinking was with this segment - he spends a lot of time ruminating on how storytellers may create adventures in works they do not always experience directly, but he also presents a relatively tranquil image of the world outside, perhaps implying that the government's austerity and lack of concerns for the country's people cannot diminish the simple pleasures that people might take from each other and the beauty around them.

Eventually, though, she must return to the vizier, where she begins the tale of "The Inebriating Chorus of the Chaffinches". It looks at a small community near the Lisbon airport where focus have been trapped and trained to remember various calls ever since soldiers learned this abroad during World War I. Gomes introduces the audience to this practice and many of the neighborhood's enthusiasts, often having information about them and their birds pop up as captions. What he does not do, however, is build much of a story; it's like an observational documentary sort that stretches out for at least half of the film's 125-minute running time. T the narrative captions mention Scheherazade stopping at dawn and restarting at nightfall often enough that this goes on for weeks, enough to make one wonder how she has not been beheaded yet, as this is what the vizier does when a woman does not hold his ingest.

On the other hand, one does kind of understand, as this segment is not nearly as boring as it should be. Gomes displays no interest whatsoever in building a plot out of this material, but he offers up all the materials a viewer (or listener) would need to construct stories of their own: There are bunches of characters with intriguing backstory, facts about finches and their training, a look at the setting that gives it a real sense of place, and footage of a competition that is all but incomprehensible to an outsider but is as a result tremendously malleable. I suspect much of it is either documentary material or performed by non-actors, with Gomes and his co-editors doping yeoman's work to shape what they have into something that does not lead to actual frustration or open revolt in the audience even though at some point viewers have to connect it to the framing story where Scheherazade is obviously stringing her audience along, a fairly narrow path to navigate.

Buried within this is another story, "Tale of the Hot Forest", in which a Chinese student (Guo Jing Jing) describes her time in Portugal and the various situations she found herself in. The audience never actually sees her; indeed, all that's on-screen is video of a November 2013 confrontation between two police forces - one striking and the other attempting to keep order - which plays a part in her story and was occasionally adjacent to the previous one. It's an interesting choice, giving Gomes a chance to give Lin Nuan a bigger canvas than some of the other characters (when you're just using words, there's no reason not to have your narrator become a Contessa's personal companion in her mansion) but also contrasting how an individual's human-scale dilemmas contrast with the crowd scenes that make the news. It also underscores how changeable people can be, as Lin's tale of abandonment perhaps echoes how chips go from fighting to embracing their proposing brother officers.

Looking at the trilogy as a whole, it's interesting to see how interconnectivity becomes more prominent as it goes along. The first film presented very discrete stories, clearly looking at the effects of the economic collapse on individuals and families; the second presents larger social networks. Here, everything bleeds into everything else, from the first super-imposed image on: The past becomes the present, one story spins off from another, and the finch trappers include both a character from the second film and an actor who played a character in a different segment. Fiction and documentary are thoroughly intermingled. The film isn't entirely successful as it gets out to this perspective, as it starts playing games with the audience that are far more entertaining to Gomes than the people watching.

There's a part of me that suspects Gomes made the whole six-plus-hour trilogy in order to get more people to see the chaffinch material he found interesting than might otherwise have done so (sure, a massive metafictional combination of fantasy and political protest is a hard sell, but maybe not to the extent that an hour on finch-trapping would be). "The Enchanted One" is certainly good enough not to quit on the series after two entries, and it's a solid part of the trilogy, though you'd have to be rather interested in finches to watch it on its own.

Cannes Interview: Miguel Gomes - Film Comment Nicolas Rapold interview, September 29, 2015

Arabian Nights, directed by Miguel Gomes, screens this week in The New York Film Festival: Volume 1, The Restless One on September 30; Volume 2, The Desolate One on October 1; and Volume 3, The Enchanted One on October 2. The below interview was conducted at Cannes shortly after the film’s world premiere.

It’s hard to think of another film, much less one addressing socioeconomic strife, that is quite like Miguel Gomes’s The Arabian Nights, comprising three separate volumes that embrace sprawl and variety in style and substance. For (limited) example: dockworkers vent about labor losses documentary-style in Volume One: The Restless One; an alfresco court hosts an absurd chain of grievances and idiocies in Volume Two: The Desolate One; and bird fans engage in song competitions in Volume Three: The Enchanted One. And in arabesque scenes on a mystical isle, Scheherazade herself appears…

Created in reaction to Portugal’s post-crash turmoil, The Arabian Nights is, as Dennis Lim writes in his Cannes coverage in our July/August issue, nothing less than “an up-to-the-minute rethinking of what it means to make a political film today.” At Cannes, FILM COMMENT grabbed a few minutes with Gomes to try and get a handle on this standout of Directors’ Fortnight and, indeed, the festival as a whole.

This movie is kind of crazy—in a good way.

I would say “wild.” That is why I said “OK, let’s rock ’n’ roll!” at the screening. My previous film, Tabu, was much more elegant. This film comes out of a more chaotic situation, which is what’s happening in Portuguese society, but it’s also chaotic because of The Arabian Nights, which is quite a mess. The book is completely crazy. You’re right, it’s a little bit crazy.

With adaptations of literary works, audiences often forget that the original works can be fairly wild too. And with Arabian Nights I don’t think readers had the expectation that the stories would have to be neatly told and all the loose threads cut short.

In fact, what is Arabian Nights? It’s a compilation, a collection of tales from centuries ago. It is based on popular culture, so they are structured in a very wild way. The book—much more than the film—is very scatological, sometimes very violent. It’s completely punk, this book. And because it comes from popular culture, it has very extreme things, very direct feelings, and primal things too. I wanted this film to echo this kind of feeling.

These are also the stories of a storyteller, so they are trying to hold your attention with funny things and shocking things. In the second film, The Arabian Nights, Volume 2: The Desolate One, the court scene is an amazing chain of moments, one surprising bit after another. It’s almost like a sketch show.

Yeah, the fact that it’s a chain, in that case, allowed me to start the film like a comedy and to end it with the sensation of a Greek tragedy. For instance, I don’t know if this exists in America, but there are these songs for children in Portugal and other European countries that are constructed like: “A cat did that…” and then what he did turns into another thing and another thing. And so it keeps accumulating, and the whole song becomes lots of things.

In English there’s a song “For want of a nail…” that ultimately ends “A kingdom was lost.” The guy gets on a horse to tell the king something, but he’s missing a nail in his boot, and so on.

Yeah, like this. That’s a good song. I don’t know it. I like that song.

The humor in the movie is also important, and the satire is especially strong. There’s an undertone of frustration and anger to it—as in the first film, the whole thing about the businessmen with hard-ons. It’s funny, it’s a very blunt conceit, but it’s blunt partly because of the anger behind it.

Of course. It’s also part of the tradition in popular culture to mock the people in power. It exists in every age, in every society, to try to mock them, even sometimes with scatological things. This is very present in Arabian Nights the book. I thought we could also have a place for this in the film. Finally I thought the film had to be so big to have all of this that I said to the producer: “Jesus, I’m sorry but it’s three films. I’m so sorry, but I could not do it otherwise.” Because we had to invent a place for everything. I think that the diversity of the film is what makes it rich. So I had to find a place for the satire, taking a sarcastic approach to the powerful with this idea that these men of power were afraid because they had too much sexual power. This comes from anger, of course, but there are very different kinds of humor in the film.

Humor is a filter that you need. I think a lot about what goes on between the film and the viewer. I started as a viewer, and I still love cinema, and I’m frustrated here at Cannes because I cannot [i.e., don’t have time to] see anything. But one of the things that gets me really mad is when a film is pushing things at me, throwing things in my face, and I cannot do anything. My ability, my power as a viewer is very limited because the film is putting me in a place where I can’t do anything. Humor is very important when you’re dealing with dramatic things, like the kind of reality in this film. It’s very hard in Portuguese society nowadays, and it’s easy to do emotional blackmail with the viewer. Humor is always the filter you can put that will protect the viewer from the dramatic feelings that come out of the film.

But you have to have a balance between all of these things to have a good, honest relation with the viewer. For me, it’s very important to respect the viewer and not say: “OK, I will not do this in the film because it’s very complicated for you.” The best way is to respect the intelligence of the viewer. Of course there will be some people who will not care about what they’re shown. This is life. What is important is to help the viewer, with all the different emotional storms that are within the film.

You also protect the people who are the subject of the film, because you give them many different roles in the movie, not just passive. In the beginning, you have people giving their testimony about problems they’ve had, and you could have done a whole movie that’s just that—people saying that these terrible things are happening. But in the other segments, you have people taking on other roles: a folk hero, for example, or people not at work but in their leisure pursuit, with the finch enthusiasts.

Yeah, we have to show everything. This was very important, in fact, to have a film with such a range. I’m very lucky to have been able to do this film, because I could shoot so much, and so I had the obligation to make different things, to have the unemployed guys talk about their experience of being unemployed. And you feel the weight of this. You feel that they are angry or sad. It’s a difficult situation, but I also have whales exploding, and all of these very different things and characters. You have to have this range to show the complexity of the situation. There is not only one good angle to see things. You have to shift and to change.

This is why for instance [in The Arabian Nights, Volume Two] in “The Owners of Dixie,” the dog story, I have very dramatic situations: a couple commit suicide, people have to ask for charity in order to eat. But you also have another point-of-view: a dog that should be in a Walt Disney film, but he’s in the wrong country and the wrong film. He’s kind of happy! I think the second volume is the most dark of the three, the most desperate. The only character that is happy is a dog because he is not aware of things—everyone is committing suicide, and he doesn’t know about that. He’s just trying to eat and to play with people. I think you also have to have this point of view.

In this I follow the master, Jean Renoir, who said you have to have all points of view of the characters. You have to have all of this in the film because it’s really this that gives you the real scale of things in cinema. I welcome dogs and the rich people and poor people and non-actors and actors and exploding whales.

This raises the question of what you decided to cut. Was there material you didn’t include?

Of course. I was preparing the film, I mean, doing something with the film—shooting, editing, writing, researching, rehearsing, finding locations—for 14 months. During this period, we shot all you see in the film. We didn’t cut any stories, but of course there are scenes that I shot and are not in the film, like in every film I made. Even in a film of six hours, you cannot put everything. For some things, I was not able to do it the right way, or I didn’t find a place to put it in the film. But you get pretty much what we filmed.

Let’s talk about the look of the film. There, too, you see such variety across the three volumes. I was wondering what visual ideas you discussed with your DP, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom.

I’ll tell you about Sayombhu. I think he has some kind of mental disorder, which I love because he was crazy enough to agree to come to Lisbon and live there for more than one year to shoot a film, when I told him: “I don’t have a script, so I don’t have any idea what I’m going to shoot. What I want is for you to be available to shoot, and we don’t know when will be the moments when we are really going to shoot. We have to live there all the time.” I was astonished when he said: “OK, I’m coming.” I said: “OK, you’re crazy.” He said: “Maybe, but I like this idea.” He was great. I have to thank him. He’s very, very good working with natural light. He can do everything.

He accepted the idea that the film would be a patchwork where you could not have an established look. We knew the film would be formed by very different things with very different moods. So what we could do was to relate between a certain moment in the shooting and the characters that we have to shoot, the locations, and try to get in the mood for that kind of a film. In the court scene, with the three moons and the different colors, that was a moment where we created on the set a different kind of lighting that has nothing to do with the workers at the beginning—nothing to do.

Sayombhu and I share something: we are very pissed with the idea of being obliged to shoot on digital. For him, it’s very important, and so he was excited by the idea to keep shooting on 35mm and 16mm. We had anamorphic lenses to shoot on ’scope on 16. That means you have a little bit less definition in the image, and the grain becomes a little bit bigger. We loved the idea of having the ’scope format—the scale for epic films, the thing you do for Ben-Hur. So, doing Ben-Hur, but in a lo-fi way. The lo-fi feeling, of course, is attached to the stories that Scheherazade is telling and the situation in Portugal—more lo-fi, a more poor kind of image. The only thing we shot in 35mm is the sequences with Scheherazade in Baghdad, to make a distinction—like in Tabu, where the first part is in 35 and then the past in Africa is 16. Here, it was 35 for Scheherazade. We talked about doing it in 70mm. I’m glad that we didn’t. It was too expensive and the camera is very, very heavy, so it would have been difficult for us. I’m glad because in France, the lab that worked with 70mm shut down during the shooting process.

The premise of Scheherazade’s song is that she’s telling stories to stay alive. I was curious how you would answer that: why do you keep on telling these stories? What’s your reason?

Because I think that the reality in the last few years in Portugal was very, very hard for everyone. I think that in order to stay alive, we have to tell stories. We cannot renounce fiction. We cannot renounce the possibility of saying things in very different ways. And it seemed very important to tell stories about Portugal and about Portugal nowadays with this range—and to do it, to do it. Because if we are silent, we are dead. Making films is my way of not being silent. That’s my way to react to the situation.

Cock and Bull Stories: Miguel Gomes on Arabian Nights ... Mark Peranson interview from Cinema Scope

Cinema Scope: Miguel Gomes, you need no introduction to the readers of this magazine. Here you are back in Cannes with a three-part, six-hour epic inspired by the Arabian Nights. There’s general consensus among critics that it’s one of the best things here, but some people seem concerned that in today’s distribution landscape, it will be difficult to get the film seen widely, certainly not as widely as Tabu (2012). Are you losing sleep over this?

Miguel Gomes: It’s Arabian Nights, it’s commercial!

Scope: After watching all three volumes over the past week, it works as one movie for me, albeit one I’m glad I didn’t watch over six hours straight.

Gomes: It’s one and it’s three. You know about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? This is one film and three films at the same time. The real film is the journey through the three, in that order. But it’s too violent to see them together.

Scope: After the first screening, I was relieved that I didn’t have to watch the next one immediately. The first volume is not only about work: it’s hard work. In a film of, say, Lav Diaz, there’s time to rest, scenes of landscape, nature, long shots…which you put at the very beginning of the second part, “Chronicle of the Escape of Simaõ ‘Without Bowels.’” Why don’t we start there, with this abstract western where not much is happening.

Gomes: It’s the western part of the film, sure, but nothing happens because this guy is alone. But he makes an effort, so he invents prostitutes, great dinners…

Scope: Does he give himself up because he misses other people?

Gomes: I don’t know, maybe he’s bored? This was based on the story of a guy who was really on the run for 40 days, and was received as a hero when he was caught, because he fooled the police. We didn’t have the money to put that in the film—we spent everything on the whale explosion—but there were really 160 guards with horses looking for this guy and he disappeared. I don’t know if he teleported like he does in the movie, and I don’t know why he let himself get caught at his home…it’s kind of an anti-climax for a criminal, no?

Scope: Maybe he missed his home, you know, like The Wizard of Oz (1939). As opposed to your other features, which each have two distinct parts, this time there’s three. Did you have the conception of the three volumes when you were shooting? When editing?

Gomes: When I was editing. After seeing the finches segment, we had three hours of these wonderful guys that looked very tough taking care of their little birds, and I even hesitated and said, “This isn’t part of Arabian Nights, it’s its own film.” We had filmed the story of Scheherazade in Baghdad—which was going to be the end—then we thought, let’s invert this and put the finches at the end. She’s in crisis, like I am at the beginning of the film. This story of me running away wasn’t supposed to be at the beginning…

Scope: Where was it supposed to be?

Gomes: We didn’t know what the film was supposed to be! We had this nine-hour version, where the section of the finches was 2h40…I thought that Scheherazade should have her own crisis, and the film should end with her in action for the first time. And then I thought, no, she had to continue, and “The Inebriating Chorus of the Chaffinches” is the only story she can tell. In the third volume you have a crisis of telling stories. It starts like a musical comedy for one act, but without a narrative, and then Scheherazade starts telling the story about this group of bird-trappers, and associated with that, parts of my city, Lisbon. I thought this was the way to finish the film, with the something realistic, but also at the same time the most surreal.

Scope: In between those two chapters in volume three we get “Hot Forest,” which is something unique. When Scheherazade is telling the stories, you see the stories in action. But when this Chinese woman is narrating her own life, and onscreen there are images of the police, you can very vibrantly picture her story, the events, in your mind. It’s a different form of storytelling—and you can say the whole film is about different aesthetics of storytelling.

Gomes: In all the film we spend our time trying to organize this battle between the imaginary and reality—what belongs to Portugal, and what belongs to the tale of Scheherazade. And in each section this is organized in a different manner. For instance, that moment you have an extreme opposition because you’re seeing images of thousands of policeman protesting against their colleagues. There are even people who say this was all arranged—at the end they climb up the steps, which was completely forbidden, and caused the chief of police to be fired. There’s this huge protest, and at the same time a fragile voice of a Chinese woman you never see—in fact it’s the same actress who in “The Tears of the Judge” plays a lover of Mr. Wu. Maybe there’s also an opposition between men and women—after the tracking shots of the virgins on the island with Scheherazade in the first volume you get the story of the hard-on men, and there you have all these policemen, thousands of men yelling, and you have a very fragile Chinese woman telling about how she took a lover and got pregnant…

Scope: Is this a true story?

Gomes: No, I invented it. And there is another opposition, one of the strongest, between the public and the intimate—one voice of an invisible Chinese woman telling her story, and you see thousands and thousands of angry policemen.

Scope: Can you go back and talk about the scene in the first volume where you escape from the crew?

Gomes: Like always, there was one day where I didn’t have anything do to; in Our Beloved Month of August (2008), it was exactly the same. I was with the crew trying to film these shipyard workers, but I could only speak to them the next day, so I said let’s shoot this scene where I’ll run away because I don’t know what to do with this film, and maybe we’ll invent a voiceover explaining it. This is honest: making this film troubled me. The six first months were very tough—we had no idea what the structure would be. I’m a little bit used to that way of filmmaking, but in this case, every day I woke up and thought, “OK, I’ll continue, but I don’t have any idea what I’m doing.” The scene with the crew came from a bizarre situation, because you had these guys in the shipyards who wanted to work, but weren’t allowed to, because they were going to be fired. There was a guy doing his work, he’s like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the terminator of wasps. He invented a weapon of mass destruction to kill them—so he just does his job, like in an action film. Then there was me, who was making the film, and I was asking myself how the hell I could do my job. So I shot myself running away.

Scope: When you appear in volume three standing by the Ferris wheel in Arabian costume, are you playing yourself still, in hiding?

Gomes: This was for fun.

Scope: Well, you ran away, and we never see you coming back, so maybe you time-travelled and are living incognito in Baghdad.

Gomes: At that moment, I finished my job, because Scheherazade also had a crisis like me in the film: she ran away because she couldn’t keep telling the sad stories to the king. I only noticed I was writing the same story, filming the same situation, afterwards. I said, “Hell, this is like me running away!” And I appear because we had this wonderful wardrobe and I wanted to try it. I couldn’t resist.

Scope: The first part reminded me of Our Beloved Month of August because the documentary-fiction hybrid there is at its strongest, and also we return to the fires of the countryside. After Tabu people maybe expected something similar, but you went and did something that is much more free. If viewers go expecting a film about Scheherazade and the Arabian Nights, obviously they’ll be disappointed. You’re trying to invent a new way of telling stories, or of adapting a book, but at the same time, you can’t do it without going back to the past. The finches have to study the songs of the masters.

Gomes: The film is also about transmission. In the first volume you have many narrators, and all of these people, like Scheherazade, are telling stories—but she’s making films like Ventura does in the second part of Tabu. So what I wanted is to have different ways to make films. If it’s Arabian Nights, it has to be structured narratively in the way things appear in the book. But I’m Portuguese, I live at this moment and not two centuries ago, and I’m making a film. So I cannot pretend I’m illustrating the book with things from today. I intended to be in the same spirit as certain things in the tales of Scheherazade, which have an always-surreal feeling, because most of these stories—the cock put in court, a criminal that teleports himself, a judge that listens to a talking cow who has a flashback speaking to a tree—okay, it’s not in the book, it’s not the same, but, hell…There’s also a kind of violence in Arabian Nights, it’s completely scatological. I think I’m faithful to the spirit. But I was negotiating all the time with what was happening in reality, and the feeling that I got from the book, not the book itself.

Scope: So you had journalists who were seeking out stories at the same time as you were shooting, and they found stories that you incorporated? Like the cockerel who goes on trial for singing at dawn? You started the project with nothing, and said find me some stuff?

Gomes: Yeah. We read the news too, so if we were interested in a certain story, we asked them to do research. I don’t know what you think is the most delirious…“The Tears of the Judge” is a compendium of all the crimes that we were interested in that were committed in Portugal. For example, something so absurd as the hard-on men had a basis in reality. We started to write the script when one of the journalists told us, after talking to people involved in the meetings with the Troika, that there was one guy who during 12 meetings only opened his mouth once, which annoyed everyone. As for the cock, in fact it’s a double. We didn’t want to risk the real cock, as he’s too famous.

Scope: So you used a stunt cock. Did the cock actually get votes in the election?

Gomes: No. But some people actually voted for all the parties. Like the woman says in the film, she didn’t want to displease anyone. Resende is a very small town, with only 2,000 residents. It’s true that it’s the same place where the story took place of someone who was in love with a fireman and who abandoned his boyfriend and set off fires…though we inverted the genders, now it’s two women and a man.

Scope: Why did you shoot it with children and show their text messages on screen?

Gomes: Yeah, there’s a more visible connection with Our Beloved Month of August, as it’s the countryside, and the actors are mostly the real people that live there. This absurd story really happened that the guy who was left by his girlfriend started to set fires that went on for kilometres and kilometres before getting caught…we thought about the ethics of shooting this: now the guy’s in prison, everyone knows him, so let’s invent a filter. And for me it was to use children. The actual SMS exchanges between the people were also a little bit childish, I saw them, so that contributed to using children. But anyhow the cock is telling their story, so who knows what the cock thinks? The cock on trial was the first story that we filmed. The journalists started a month before—but on the second day of being in the office, the central committee already had “The Story of the Cockerel and the Fire,” so we said what the hell are we doing in Lisbon, let’s go to this place. And the production panicked.

Scope: Why do you think all of these crazy things happen in Portugal?

Gomes: I think they happen everywhere. Of course Portugal is pretty much in a mess because of the crisis, and for me there is a connection between this and the rock-and-roll side of Arabian Nights the book. I was with Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, the DOP, last week as we were doing the grading, and he told me about a guy in Thailand who has 20 or 30 fires in his place every day. And the Mayor came to his place with a television crew, and during this visit, there were two fires in the house! Shit happens everywhere.

Scope: What was it like working with Sayombhu?

Gomes: Someone told me that Apichatpong really missed him, but Sayombhu could be very temperamental. For me he was a very nice, calm guy, maybe a little bit crazy because he accepted to come live in Lisbon for a year without knowing what he was going to shoot. He’s very good at using natural light. I learned a lot from him.

Scope: The film is generally shot on Super 16, with some on 35mm. The first time we see Scheherazade, with the island of virgins, that’s clearly on 35mm. What else?

Gomes: All the sequences of Baghdad—which is Marseilles—were shot on 35mm, and we even thought of using 70mm. Scheherazade, she’s a rich girl. The stories that she tells are a little bit poorer in terms of image quality because it’s 16mm Scope, with even more grain, with this lo-fi analogue feeling for reality, plus we knew that we had to shoot much more footage.

Scope: There’s a wide range of pop music in the film, from “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” to “Say You, Say Me”—I guess the music is most memorable in “The Owners of Dixie,” where you have not only Lionel Richie, but also Rod Stewart. I get the sense that you choose the ’80s music because it means a lot to the suicidal couple, who even own Lionel Richie on vinyl.

Gomes: The film is so huge that we used two versions of The Carpenters song, and I don’t remember how many versions of “Perfidia,” from reggae to Nat King Cole to Mexicans to what else…Because we have lots of space for music! It’s a big film. You have Portuguese heavy metal, The Exploited, all the music in the beginning… the film has the space for all of this. It’s always a question of range. We used the ’80s music—Lionel Richie, Rod Stewart—because the couple that commits suicide are from the VH1 generation.

In that segment, we had to deal with something that was problematic, because that building is actually the building where that couple committed suicide. I thought the building was perfect, but I said I couldn’t do it for ethical reasons. One day I was in the car trying to find another building, and I saw one in the distance and I said, let’s try it, and we arrived and it was the same building. In that moment I understood we had to shoot there. So we started to know all the neighbours, asked them to tell stories about the building (and of course about the couple), and we put them in the film playing themselves in a little segment in the middle of “The Owners of Dixie.” It was the way to have this balance between things, to be there and not to be trespassing.

Scope: Dixie’s second owners are a couple, played by actors, one of whom (Gonçalo Waddington) is training a bird that we later find out is a competitive singing chaffinch—as we see him in the third part, surrounded by actual bird-trappers, in a segment that returns to something resembling documentary. How long did you spend with the birders? Were they fine with you shooting them?

Gomes: In that case we started to shoot in October and finished by May. The last thing we shot was the competition. So it was a long process. We had maybe three total weeks of shooting, and for the other sections we didn’t shoot more than ten days. The problem was what they are doing is illegal—they can’t keep birds like this in cages in their homes. If the police found out, the bird-trappers would pay fines and the police would take the birds away. In the beginning they were a bit suspicious, but then a little by little I had the feeling I was inside of a secret society, with its own language, its own rules. For me it was very surrealistic, these men born in the slums, some of them ex-convicts, caring for these birds. I was impressed with this opposition between the way they looked—their tattoos, clothing—and their delicacy and gentle, tender way of listening to birds. It’s incredible that they’re drinking beer next to the birds, and they don’t talk at all. When there are no birds around, they yell at each other.

Scope: The first section seems to me the most explicitly political, heavily so—especially the beginning and the ending. The second one is more hermetic. Is there a political agenda to the film?

Gomes: The film is not neutral, and I hate the guys in the government. But I don’t want to convince the viewer there’s another party that’s better. I’m not engaged politically at this level. I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness going door to door. In the structure of the three films, the first volume, The Restless One, deals with the question of work—not only, but crucially—and it’s the kickoff of the Arabian Nights, so it’s the moment where you do this kind of synthesis, the first bridge between the fictional mood of Scheherazade’s surreal tales and what was happening in Portugal at that moment, the material aspect of the film, to show people and things that have a direct connection with Portuguese society at the moment of the crisis.

The second volume, The Desolate One, which is more about the law, is more abstract. It’s also much darker: you go to the last ring of hell. There’s no hope, people are lonely in a different way. You have deep loneliness with Simaõ, and this society around the judge that she cannot judge—she’s completely alone before everyone, and she cries because she loses her ability to control things. It’s a very theatrical scene, with dramatic, surreal kind of light—in fact it’s like a Greek comedy that turns into a Greek tragedy. And then you have the only happy character, Dixie. Because he’s a dog, he doesn’t care, he’s not aware—the others are trying to survive, needing money for food.

Scope: Or killing themselves.

Gomes: And the third, The Enchanted One, I think is also pretty political. These guys from the slums aren’t doing the revolution, but they don’t have a good life. Now these guys are taking care of birds, they want to take them to a contest and to have their bird sing more than the other. They have incredible stories. And the text enters and tells stories about them. First, though, Scheherazade’s text is telling bullshit about Baghdad’s sea that drained and became a desert, but then we take the same approach for these guys’ stories—for example, the text says this guy took off a leg of the bird, then you see the bird, and you see it’s for real. Like in Tabu, it works in this opposition of reality and fiction, but I’m doing it here on a higher level…but we’re never completely sure if the stories we’re telling about them are true or not, as opposed to the stories about Baghdad, which are obviously fiction.

Scope: We didn’t talk about the whale, which reminded a friend of mine of The Seed of Man (1969) by Marco Ferreri, which is another version of hell.

Gomes: I didn’t see that film. Whales explode sometimes. I planned to shoot in the Azores, but I never found a story to shoot there. I was on vacation there two years ago and they do lots of whale-watching on boats, and I had this will to shoot some characters watching whales, then diving with them, and the whale would transport them to the bottom of the sea. This idea of filming a whale was to film something I never filmed before. People asked me if it’s a metaphor, as it’s a big thing that explodes, maybe it could be Portugal? The story begins with this guy, Luís, inside the whale, but at the same time he’s at the hospital because he has a heart problem. That’s how we swap narrators, as he has to give reports to the doctor, so he becomes the narrator of the last part of volume one. And he’s from the union and has to listen to the stories of unemployed people, the Three Magnificents, and this could give him a heart attack. Sometimes it’s like he’s going to die—but it’s not his heart that explodes, it’s the whale. I think that’s the most emotional part of the first volume. “The Men with Hard-Ons” is more about rage; it’s satire. But the whale section prepares you for the second volume, the feeling that something desperate will appear.

Scope: I know this is a stupid question, but if you had to choose, what’s your favourite chapter of the film? Is it the finches?

Gomes: It’s Cannes, I’m here to answer stupid questions! I like that everything keeps changing and transferring. Most of the films I see are boring because they don’t change. After five minutes you know that the rest of the film will stay the same; it bores me to death. What I liked most to shoot was the competition of the birds, and the guys chasing the birds in the woods. My favourite parts though are the transitions, like after seeing the Portuguese Prime Minister writing with a Swiss Army Knife on the wood, he rides away on his horse, and you cut to a cock…it’s how you transport things one to the other that interests me.

Scope: This kind of a UFO approach, not to mention the film’s hybrid nature, might create some problems getting the film out there, or even placing it somewhere like Cannes.

Gomes: I wanted this film to screen in Competition. At the beginning we didn’t send it to the Quinzaine, only at the end of the selection process, when the Official Selection made us an ultimatum: you have five days to accept Un Certain Regard. And we said, we are disappointed, we really wanted to go to the Competition, so we’ll give you an answer later, and we showed it to Quinzaine, they liked it, and that was that. If I put a film like Arabian Nights in Un Certain Regard, then what can I put in Competition? I’m quite happy with this film—it’s the result of a process I’ll never repeat in my life. It’s too tiring and too insane, making a film of this scale—it’s not just a question of length, but the range. And also because I think Un Certain Regard and Quinzaine are pretty much the same. Un Certain Regard was created to compete against the Quinzaine. And because we were always interested in showing the film like Scheherazade tells stories, with interruptions, not six hours in a row. From what I heard from the sales agent, they wanted to show it in one day. The Quinzaine is playing a different game, and they could afford the freedom to have this soap opera unfold throughout the festival. But there can’t be too much time between the volumes—one every day would be OK.

Scope: So instead of the Palme d’Or you won the Palm Dog. Tell me about working with Dixie, in this section that comes across as a strange mix of a Disney film, if not a Canadian TV show from the ’80s—I’m thinking about The Littlest Hobo, which I’m sure you’ve never seen—and a downbeat social-realist film.

Gomes: His name is Lucky; he’s a Spanish dog. He responded to three orders in a very incredible way: stay, go, and put it in your mouth. But with this you could do almost everything.

Scope: Do actors need more than “Stay, go, and put it in your mouth?”

Gomes: It depends on the genre of the film. And in the scene with the ghost dog you see he’s so good he can play two characters. We did the special effects with a double exposure—though not in camera. So we shot the sequence twice, trying to guess where Dixie was in the frame. We did this also in the third part, with another ghost with multiple exposures, and the mythical scenes of Simaõ we did in the same primitive way.

Scope: The effects also reminded me of Apichatpong, because of their primitive nature. You also use a superimposition in that scene of Novos Baianos, who just kind of appear over a scene set outside of Baghdad in the third chapter…What the hell is going on there?

Gomes: Those guys are geniuses. They formed a kind of hippie community in Bahia in the beginning of the ’70s and did this psychedelic music. The crew and I were listening to this song a lot. That’s one of the questions of the third volume—how to transmit things, to the birds, to the king—but it’s also about memory, things that could have happened, or only exist in your imagination. There’s also a quest for beauty in this volume. I have to have things that I love, beautiful things. Novos Baianos appear after Scheherazade leaves the palace and starts to be with the people, with bandits in this case. Then the band just appears in the film, like all of a sudden you’re watching television. I really, really enjoyed that—okay, that’s my favourite part. But I have to admit something: this film is too complicated for me. I think I’ll understand it better weeks from now.

Scope: Right after watching the first one I felt the need to rewatch it. I agree with you, it’s a very complicated thing. I think I need to watch it again to write about it.

Gomes: This is a very bad thing to say in your magazine—you should say it’s a simple film. Simple but complex: complex is a better word than complicated…So I’m thinking about your questions, and, for instance, there’s also a community that appears in the first section, the Portuguese fishing for octopus. And then there’s this Brazilian community superimposed on the image, and no one can play music like them any more because the drugs they took no longer exist. This idea of having a utopian community that no longer exists, and the urge of Scheherazade to leave the castle and see the people who are living, as she’s too far away from what she’s telling. I think there’s a big issue there but I can’t explain it at this point. I need more time.

Scope: You say you still don’t understand it fully, perhaps because the film is more intuitively constructed than Tabu. In this sprawling canvas there are connections, but even so it seems to proceed intuitively.

Gomes: Yes, it’s much bigger scale, with more things to deal with, and more difficult during the process to think about all the connections. But if you’re being faithful to something, you can’t even explain it in a rational way, you feel that this is right for the film and this is wrong. Even if this film has a range—for the first time I did a courtroom sequence, a musical sequence, a western—I think that there is a path through the three films, even if it’s a little bit labyrinthine. But this is Arabian Nights, it’s not a structured novel from the 19th century; it’s wilder, like Resnais. Tabu was much more elegant, more connected with Hollywood cinema of the golden age. I do think Arabian Nights has connections with lots of different kinds of films—for one, the social film is being restructured here. It’s not the realism bullshit of…I won’t say names.

Scope: Obviously there is the influence here of Manoel de Oliveira, as well as the historical films of Pasolini…

Gomes: Pasolini was interested in popular culture like me, and he was also interested in non-naturalistic process of actors and mise en scène…He made Arabian Nights! Which is best, Pasolini or Gomes?

Scope: You mentioned Bresson with regards to the third part.

Gomes: Sometimes what’s happening in the image is pretty minimalistic, but you have this world of stories that’s being born in the onscreen text, like I was saying. In a way these characters feel to me like Bresson’s models, with an additional invention, because you have a mute voiceover, like in that film I like by Eric Khoo, Be With Me (2005). Maybe I stole it from him. In the editing we tried the finches with voiceover, and tried rewriting it, but it was so silent that the voiceover took up too much space. So we tried with text, and it worked. There was a moment where it felt to me like the second part of Tabu, a silent voiceover that opens up the universe. Here I had the same sensation.

Scope: And then you just listen to the sounds of birds, it’s very beautiful.

Gomes: The first question I got at the Q and A for the last film was from a woman who was not very happy. She said she liked the second part but the third was not good for her because she had to read. And in cinema you shouldn’t have to read, you have to watch! First of all, I think that it’s useful for people to be able to read, and it’s good for humanity in general. But a film can also be like this…

Scope: A film can be anything, and that’s the point you’re trying to make.

Gomes: I hope to initiate a new genre, the film as graphic novel.

A Thousand Movies in One - The New York Review of Books Adam Thirwell, February 3, 2016

Arabian Nights - Reviews - Reverse Shot For the People, by Farihah Zaman

'Arabian Nights' for the Age of Austerity - Village Voice Calum Marsh, July 17, 2015

Miguel Gomes's 'Arabian Nights' Spins Tales for Weeks | Village Voice Calum Marsh, December 1, 2015, also seen here: Miguel Gomes's 'Arabian Nights' - Village Voice

The Most Ambitious Movie At This Year's Cannes Film Festival is 'Arabian Nights' Adam Cook from indieWIRE

Cannes Review: 'Tabu' Director Miguel Gomes' Astonishing Six-Hour 'Arabian Nights' Oliver Lyttelton from The Playlist, also seen here: Review: Miguel Gomes' Remarkable, Distinctive, And Magical Triptych ...

The Film Stage [Giovanni Marchini Camia]

Film Corner, The [Thomas Zachary Toles]

Arabian Nights :: Movies :: Reviews :: Paste Alissa Wilkinson

PopMatters [Michael Barrett]

PopOptiq Sarah Pierce Lord

Reality of the Fantasy: Miguel Gomes's "Arabian Nights ... Craig Hubert from Blouin Art Info

Cannes 2015: Arabian Nights David Jenkins from Little White Lies

'Arabian Nights': Review | Reviews | Screen Jonathan Romney from Screendaily, also seen here: 'Arabian Nights': Review - Screen Daily

PopOptiq Sarah Pearce Lord

Arabian Nights Trilogy: Innovative Yet Disappointing - Next ... Anthony Le from Next Projections

Arabian Nights | Arun with a View

Sight & Sound [Tony Rayns] Vol. 1, April 22, 2016

Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One - The New Yorker Richard Brody

Arabian Nights, Volume 1: The Restless One : Portugal as a beached mermaid Bénédicte Prot Vol. 1 from Cineuropa

From Cannes: "As Mil E Uma Noites" ("Arabian Nights") Brings ... Tianxing Lan on Volume 1 from The Harvard Crimson

PopOptiq (Max Bledstein) Vol. 1

Sound On Sight Zornitsa Staneva from PopOptiq, Vol. 2, also seen here: Cannes 2015: ‘Arabian Nights Vol II, The Desolate One’: The inexplicable beguilement of surrealist cinema

Arabian Nights, Volume 3: The Enchanted One · Film Review Miguel ... Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on Volume 3 from The Onion A.V. Club, also seen here: Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin is the most beautiful film at Cannes

Complete Trilogy Reviews

Slant Magazine [Chuck Bowen] Vol. 1

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One | Film Review ... Clayton Dillard from Slant magazine, Vol. 2

Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One - Slant ... Christopher Gray, Vol. 3

Way Too Indie [Nik Grozdanovic] Vol. 1

Way Too Indie [Nik Grozdanovic] Vol. 2

Way Too Indie [Nik Grozdanovic] Vol. 3

Cannes 2015. Day 4 on Notebook | MUBI Daniel Kasman on Volume 1

Cannes 2015. Day 6 Daniel Kasman on Volume 2 from Mubi Notebook

Cannes 2015. Day 8 Daniel Kasman on Volume 3 from Mubi Notebook

Volume 1, The Restless One [Theatrical Review] Joshua Brunsting Vol. 1 from Criterion Cast

Volume 2, The Desolate One [Theatrical Review] Joshua Brunsting Vol. 2 from Criterion Cast

Joshua Review Miguel Gomes' Arabian Nights: Volume Three Joshua Brunsting Vol. 3 from Criterion Cast

Cannes Review: "Arabian Nights Volume 1" | Movie ... Irina Trocan Vol. 1 from Movie Mezzanine

Cannes Review: "Arabian Nights Volume 2" | Movie ... Irina Trocan Vol. 2 from Movie Mezzanine

Cannes Review: "Arabian Nights Volume 3" | Movie ... Irina Trocan Vol. 3 from Movie Mezzanine

Miguel Gomes: Arabian Nights: Vol. 1 ... Chris Knipp, Volume 1

Chris Knipp • View topic - Miguel Gomes: Arabian Nights: Volum Chris Knipp, Volume 2

Miguel Gomes: Arabian Nights:Vol. 3 ... Chris Knipp, Volume 3

Blu-ray.com [Brian Orndorf] complete trilogy

Slant Magazine Blu-ray [Jake Cole] complete trilogy

Arabian Nights Trilogy Blu-ray Review | High Def Digest Matthew Hartman, complete trilogy

Wylie Writes [Shahbaz Khayambashi]

Arabian Nights Movie Review: Volumes 1, 2, 3 | Collider Brian Formo

Miguel Gomes' Arabian Nights on Blu-ray / Journey to the West at ... Michael Glover Smith from White City Cinema

Arabian Nights | Gene Siskel Film Center

New York Film Festival Gets Political - The New Yorker Richard Brody, September 28, 2015

Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One - The New ... Richard Brody from The New Yorker

New Horizons Film Festival Review • Senses of Cinema Rebecca Harkins-Cross, September 7, 2015

Six Sweet Hours of Arabian Nights, and Other News Dan Piepenbring from The Paris Review

Dog And Wolf [Mark Wilshin]

Concrete Playground [Sarah Ward]

Watch 15 Minutes From Miguel Gomes' 6.5-Hour Epic 'Arabian Nights' The Film Stage

Daily | Cannes 2015 | Miguel Gomes's ARABIAN NIGHTS ... David Hudson at Fandor

Interview: Miguel Gomes | Feature | Slant Magazine Clayton Dillard interview, December 1, 2015

An Interview With Miguel Gomes on Arabian Nights – Offscreen Amir Ganjavie interview, February 2015

'Arabian Nights — Volume 1, The Restless One' ('As mil e ... Boyd van Hoeij on Volume 1 from The Hollywood Reporter

'Arabian Nights — Volume 2: The Desolate One' ('As mil e ... Boyd van Hoeij on Volume 2 from The Hollywood Reporter

'Arabian Nights — Volume 3: The Enchanted One' ('As mil e ... Boyd van Hoeij on Volume 3 from The Hollywood Reporter

Variety [Jay Weissberg] Volume 1

'Arabian Nights: Volume 2′ Review: Gomes' Intimate Opus Continues ... Guy Lodge on Volume 2 from Variety

Arabian Nights, directed by Miguel Gomes | Film review David Ehrlich Vol. 1 from Time Out London, also seen here: Arabian Nights: Volume 1 - The Restless One (2016), directed by ...

Arabian Nights Vol 1: The Restless One review – resistance through ... Peter Bradshaw Vol. 1 from The Guardian

Arabian Nights Volume One: The Restless One review – fact meets ... Mark Kermode Vol. 1 from The Observer

Toronto Film Scene [Sean Kelly]

Vancouver Weekly [Michael Scoular]

Arabian Nights (2015 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One - Roger Ebert Scout Tafoya

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One - Roger Ebert Scout Tafoya

Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One - Roger Ebert Scout Tafoya

Cannes 2015: "Disorder," "A Perfect Day," "Arabian Nights" Ben Kenigsberg on Volume 1 from the Ebert site

Cannes 2015: "Dégradé," "Marguerite & Julien," "The Grief of Others," "Arabian Nights, Volume 2" and a showcase for diversity Ben Kenigsberg on Volume 2 from the Ebert site

Review: 'Arabian Nights' Offers Satirical Fabulism Amid ... A.O. Scott from The New York Times

Miguel Gomes's 'Arabian Nights' Looks at a Gloomy Nation - The New ... The New York Times, August 27, 2014

One Thousand and One Nights is modern retelling of iconic stories Steve Donoghue from The National, August 17, 2013

Marina Warner unlocks the cross-cultural secrets of the Arabian Nights Claire Dight from The National, May 8, 2014

New anthology of The Arabian Nights has controversial subtext Ben East from The National, June 11, 2014

Collection of medieval Arabic tales offer a window onto a world of wonders Claire Dight from The National, November 27, 2014

British Arabist and author Robert Irwin to reveal tales that made Arabian Nights Justin Marozzi from The National, February 5, 2015

Gómez, Manuel Octavio

NOW IT’S UP TO YOU (Ustedes tienen la palabra)

Cuba (106 mi) 1973

WOMAN, MAN, CITY (Una Mujer, un hombre, una ciudad...)

Cuba (99 mi) 1978

Films of Manuel Octavio Gómez The Personal is Political in Cuba, by John Hess from Jump Cut

Manuel Octavio Gómez interview by Julianne Burton from Jump Cut

Goméz-Rejón, Alfonso

ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL B+ 92

USA (105 mi) 2015 ‘Scope Official site

In the past, Sundance Festival winners tended to be hit or miss, as most met the festival criteria guidelines more than any overall significance as art films. While there have been major surprises, like Todd Haynes gay revelation Poison (1991) or Noah Baumbach’s exquisite short story THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (2005), most Sundance winners tended to be forgettable, interesting in smaller ways that often lost their relevance outside the festival setting. But that has all changed of late, as the festival has strung together an eclectic mix of American indie films that have a rediscovered sense of urgency on social matters while retaining a certain poetic elegance, like Jennifer Lawrence’s unflinching performance in Debra Granik’s 2010 Top Ten Films of the Year: #3 Winter's Bone, Benh Zeitlin’s largely poetic, post-Katrina 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #1 Beasts of the Southern Wild , Ryan Coogler’s parable on race in America, Fruitvale Station (2013), and the performance of a career by J.K. Simmons in Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (2014). While ME AND EARL tends to divide audiences, many finding it too sarcastically irreverent, finding the humor at odds with the somber nature of the film, where it nonetheless retains a startling emotional resonance that is highly unusual for adolescent coming-of-age films. Set in the former steel city of Pittsburgh, a working class town that has been the site of several other indie films as well like Adventureland (2009), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), and THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (2014), but also earlier standards like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), THE DEER HUNTER (1978), and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991), while let’s not forget FLASHDANCE (1983), where the decaying and dried-up steel mills have been transformed into studio backdrops, on equal footing with Atlanta, New Orleans, and New York for choice movie locations. Adapted from the 2012 young adult novel by the same name from Jesse Andrews, a Pittsburgh native and former graduate of Schenley High School on the edge of the Hill District, the neighborhood origin of August Wilson plays as well as Steven Bochco’s surprisingly realistic TV cop drama Hill Street Blues (1981 – 87), writing a fictionalized teen romance story taking place at his old high school where the film was actually shot, while also featuring his actual childhood home as well. The title itself may put people off, where the silly rhyming scheme is reminiscent of the corny Bubble Gum pop hit Me and You and a Dog Named Boo, LOBO - Me And You And A Dog Named Boo - 1973 Official Video YouTube (3:07), while the film’s premise, an awkward, socially isolated young boy named Greg (Thomas Mann) tries to do a good thing by helping cheer up a dying high school classmate named Rachel (Olivia Cooke) who’s been diagnosed with stage-four leukemia. The narrative itself has all the trappings of a sappy after school special on the risks and hazards of fighting cancer, where one might think it couldn’t be more sentimentally maudlin. While it is fundamentally flawed, where the characters feel more stereotypical than real, the film nonetheless rises above its self-imposed artificiality and produces a surprisingly novel approach that is worth the journey.

At the center of the film is its self-loathing narrative structure, recalling Sofia Coppola’s THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (1999), where Greg offers his snarky views of the world around him, where his sarcastic, self-centered outsiderism is pretty typical of the high school perspective, as that’s all he really knows at this point in his life, showered with what he feels is undeserved affection from his parents, having little more than one friend in the world, a black kid named Earl (Ronald Cyler II) that he’s known since grade school, but he refuses to call him a friend, which suggests a certain intimacy, instead identifying him as a co-worker. Told from the point of view of Greg, Earl is an honest and unpretentious sidekick, a man of few words who tends to be a straightshooter, offering clarity in the often muddled world of Greg, but Earl’s life remains elusive, mostly taking place offscreen, where we learn little about his hopes or dreams, but can only evaluate him through his interactions with Greg. Some may think this sells Earl short, as it doesn’t scrutinize his life with the fullness of Greg’s world, but that would be another story, one with greater awareness of the existing racial dynamic that Greg simply doesn’t have. This one instead abounds with a quirky energy throughout that far more accurately reflects the white experience, similar to the wise-beyond-its-years JUNO (2007), where the fundamental, underlying dialogue is filled with sardonic wit and self-effacing humor. Both Earl and Rachel tend to be smarter and more mature than Greg, but that’s why he always feels boxed in by his cultural limitations, unable to feel a part of the greater social experience. In this film, his deluded, self-imposed disconnect is at the heart of the film, where he feels safer without the emotional investment of reaching out to friends, refusing to take the plunge, so to speak, where he reflects the typical overprotectiveness of white culture, where his constant sullenness perfectly suits a seemingly justifiable feeling of alienation. It’s like living in a bubble, where reality is constantly whizzing around him nearby, but it escapes him. When Greg’s mom literally orders him to spend some time with Rachel, someone he barely knows, he reluctantly obeys with the typical resistance of trying to actually connect with someone, where Rachel is not looking for pity and would rather he simply leave her alone. He somehow gets past the uncomfortable zone with awkward humor, where he discovers her room is filled with literally dozens of pillows, far more than anyone could possibly use, so he develops make-believe conversations with the pillows, giving them personalities much as one might do with dolls, invisible friends or hand puppets. Soon Greg adds Earl to his visits, where he’s surprised to learn Earl has no problem sharing personal secrets, where suddenly Greg feels exposed and violated, where he inadvertently becomes the focal point, but it’s only his inflated view of himself, as his so-called problems are nothing compared to what Rachel is going through.

Something should be said for the absurd tone of the film, which is infused with warmth and comic insight throughout, much like the J.J. Abrams film Super 8 (2011), which pays tribute to the Spielberg era of movies, including plenty of film references. But even more than the heavy use of Hollywood special effects, the best thing about that film is the smaller-world interaction of the kids, whose unique personalities add humor and intrigue to the story, where they’re a close-knit group that draws the audience in with their personal appeal. Similarly, this isn’t just a kid with cancer movie, but utilizes an amazing script that accentuates believability, becoming something of a love letter to the Criterion collection, as Greg and Earl have been making Kuchar brothers style ultra-cheap movies all their lives, doing silly and stupid homages to the classic works of Visconti, Kubrick, Clouzot, Schlesinger, or Hitchcock, retitling them Death in Tennis, A Sockwork Orange, Wages for Beer, 2:48 PM Cowboy, or Vere’d He Go? These delightful movie parodies add a dreamlike visual style and are interspersed throughout, adding comic levity, while actually developed by Edward Bursch and Nathan O. Marsh who made 21 stop-motion animated and live-action works seen in the film. Greg also has a 400 BLOWS poster prominently displayed in his bedroom while spending a good portion of the film wearing a NOSFERATU T-shirt, while it should also be pointed out that Werner Herzog is used to comical effect. Even Greg’s imagination resorts to animation, almost always at the sight of his overly attractive dreamgirl and high school crush, Madison (Katherine C. Hughes), usually making a complete fool of himself, where one of the more familiar recurring images is a moose stomping on a smaller woodland animal like a chipmunk, which represents his sinking self-esteem. These nutty films become the shared link between the three characters, where despite the severity of Rachel’s deteriorating medical condition, requiring heavy doses of chemotherapy leaving her glum and dispirited, there remains an upside throughout. It’s Madison who convinces Greg to make a movie for Rachel, something that proves more difficult than he imagines, as it’s hard not to be influenced by the elephant in the room, the looming presence of death. Despite being derailed by critics who lambasted the film, indie maverick Gus van Sant made Restless (van Sant) (2011), an equally intriguing film about a teenager with a terminal illness, where both movies are love poems on the subject of death, where instead of an obsession with morbidity or wretched emotional excess, these films both create a tone of fragility and tenderness, where the characters are a bit goofy, not afraid to make fun of themselves, but always fully aware of the tragedy of their situation. The scene of the film is the use of Brian Eno’s The Big Ship, Brian Eno "The Big Ship" - YouTube (3:04), the moment when Rachel finally watches Greg’s film, a provocative experimental film that generates an abstract Kubrickian Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite moment from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) that is both enthralling and transforming, literally raising the roof off the theater in what is arguably the most intensely dramatic and mystifyingly exotic sequence of the year, a tribute to Andy Warhol, Charles and Ray Eames’ stop-motion animation, and Stan Brackhage, where the euphoric feeling is achieved from utterly sublime filmmaking, where the quietness of the starkly humane denouement afterwards is equally haunting and heartfelt, elevating and transporting the material into magical realms. After the somewhat slight and cynical opening, it’s certainly not what anyone could have expected, becoming one of the transcendent films of the year.

Note

A few words on the racial dynamic in this film, which features a black character, but next to nothing is known about him, where the film shows surprisingly little curiosity about Earl’s circumstances or home life while instead spending nearly all its time in both Greg and Rachel’s bedrooms, which provide an intimate glimpse of their lives. Many viewers and critics find this degree of racial imbalance problematic. For what it’s worth, I fail to share that view, though one can easily see how some might accurately criticize the film for its racial blinders, as the Earl character never really comes to life, is only touched upon without ever being examined, while the white world is delved into more deeply than the black experience, which is near absent. But I do believe this accurately reflects white culture, especially in teenage years, where whites grow up thinking of themselves as the center of attention, where they may spend their days side by side with blacks, but don’t ever stop to think about the “other,” as they’re too busy thinking only about themselves. Blacks, on the other hand, are forced to be aware of whites whether they want to or not. They really have no choice. This difference in perspective is immediately apparent to blacks but unrecognizable to most whites, where the real “cause” of racism as that whites are so overprotected, especially by parents and police, while blacks are viewed and treated differently, as if they can be manhandled, in order to protect the prevailing “white” society from the epidemic that is black on black crime. But that’s nowhere to be seen in this movie.

This film doesn’t spend a minute analyzing racial implications, which is pretty typical of the more privileged white culture, where this film essentially expresses overly sarcastic, overly literate “white” humor, exactly as does an entire vein of indie films, like JUNO, ADVENTURELAND, THE SPECTACULAR NOW, or THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER, not to mention dozens of others. The only difference here is that one of the featured characters in this film is black, so the expectation is that the prevailing white culture would be more respectful and observant of the black experience. While it may not be the racially inclusive and diversified world we’d like, it’s actually more honest to portray whites, particularly teenagers in high school, avoiding the issue, demonstrating little racial acumen, where instead they spend all their time thinking only of themselves. This deluded and self-centered view of the world is at the heart of the picture and only evolves beyond that once Greg chooses to show Rachel the film he made specifically for her, which brings about a radical transformation. This film uses a cinematic aesthetic to demonstrate how art can transcend otherwise narrow cultural interests and social limitations.

[Movies] ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL/ FULL FILM... Caramiezone

Anatomy of a Burger = Anatomy of a Murder (1959), dir. Otto Preminger (title sequence by Saul Bass)
Ate 1/2 (of My Lunch) = 8 1/2 (1963), dir. Federico Fellini
A Box O’ Lips, Wow = Apocalypse Now (1979), dir. Francis Ford Coppola
The Battle of All Deer = The Battle of Algiers (1966), dir. Gillo Pontecorvo
Breathe Less = Breathless (1960), dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Brew Vervet = Blue Velvet (1986), dir. David Lynch
Burden of Screams = Burden of Dreams (1982), dir. Les Blank
Can’t Tempt = Contempt (1963), dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Crouching Housecat Hidden Housecat = Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), dir. Ang Lee
Death in Tennis = Death in Venice (1971), dir. Luchino Visconti
My Dinner with Andre the Giant = My Dinner with Andre (1981), dir. Louis Malle
Don’t Look Now Because a Creepy Ass Dwarf is About to Kill You!! Damn!!! = Don’t Look Now (1973), dir. Nicolas Roeg
Eyes Wide Butt = Eyes Wide Shut (1999), dir. Stanley Kubrick
Hairy, Old and Mod = Harold and Maude (1971), dir. Hal Ashby
La Gelee = La Jetée (1962), dir. Chris Marker
Gone with My Wind = Gone with the Wind (1939), dir. Victor Fleming
Gross Encounters of the Turd Kind = Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), dir. Steven Spielberg
Grumpy Cul-de-Sacs = Mean Streets (1973), dir. Martin Scorsese
It's a Punderful Life = It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Frank Capra
The Janitor of Oz = The Wizard of Oz (1939), dir. Victor Fleming
The Lady Manishness = The Lady Vanishes (1938), dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Monorash = Rashomon (1950), dir. Akira Kurosawa
My Best Actor Is Also a Dangerous Lunatic = My Best Fiend (1999), dir. Werner Herzog
Nose Ferret 2 = Nosferatu (1922), dir. F.W. Murnau
Pittsburghasqatsi = Koyaanisqatsi (1982), dir. Godfrey Reggio
Pooping Tom = Peeping Tom (1960), dir. Michael Powell
The Prunes of Wrath = The Grapes of Wrath (1940), dir. John Ford
Raging Bullsh*t = Raging Bull (1980), dir. Martin Scorsese
Rear Wind = Rear Window (1954), dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Rosemary Baby Carrots = Rosemary’s Baby (1968), dir. Roman Polanski
Scabface = Scarface (1932), dir. Howard Hawks and Richard Rosson
Second (Helpings of Dinner) = Seconds (1966), dir. John Frankenheimer (title sequence by Elaine & Saul Bass)
Senior Citizen Cane = Citizen Kane (1941), dir. Orson Welles
The Seven Seals = The Seventh Seal (1957), dir. Ingmar Bergman
A Sockwork Orange = A Clockwork Orange (1971), dir. Stanley Kubrick
The Complete Lack of Conversation = The Conversation (1974), dir. Francis Ford Coppola
The Last Crustacean of Christ = The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), dir. Martin Scorsese
The Rad Shoes = The Red Shoes (1948), dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
The Turd Man = The Third Man (1949), dir. Carol Reed
The 400 Bros = The 400 Blows (1959), dir. Francois Truffaut
Um = M (1931), dir. Fritz Lang
Vere’d He Go? = Vertigo (1958), dir. Alfred Hitchcock (title sequence by Saul Bass)
Wages for Beer = The Wages of Fear (1953), dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Yellow Submarine Sandwich = Yellow Submarine (1968), dir. George Dunning
ZZZ = Z (1969), dir. Costa-Gavras
2:48 PM Cowboy = Midnight Cowboy (1969), dir. John Schlessinger
49th Parallelogram = 49th Parallel (1941), Michael Powell
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015), dir. Greg Gaines and Earl Jackson

ErikLundegaard.com [Erik Lundegaard]

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, which won audience and jury awards at this year’s Sundance festival, is in love with moviemaking itself. Fortunately, its quirky obsessiveness doesn’t get in the way of witty, heartfelt storytelling.

Mainly, that story is about Greg Gaines, a Pittsburgh teenager played by Project X star Thomas Mann. Since childhood, his best pal has been Earl (newcomer RJ Cyler), who’s from the poorer, blacker part of town. Greg refers to Earl as his “coworker”, presumably because most of their time is spent industriously, making elaborate spoofs of their favourite foreign movies. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see A Sockwork Orange or The 400 Bros?

Gangly Greg, who has intimacy issues, also displays an oddly collegial relationship with his overly cerebral dad (Nick Offerman), who turned the kids on to those movies, plus equally exotic food, and with his humourlessly sincere mom (Connie Britton). The latter guilts him into visiting Rachel (U.K. charmer Olivia Cooke), whose recent diagnosis of leukemia doesn’t make her any gladder in the fool-suffering department. But Greg’s other main hobby is self-deprecation—as expressed in a running voice-over taken by screenwriter Jesse Andrews from his own same-named novel—and he’s just foolish enough to break through her reserve.

Our guy is, of course, more keen on a popular, conventionally pretty classmate (Katherine C. Hughes). But when she tells Greg and Earl to make a movie for Rachel, he’s challenged to create something more than pure insular snark. Greg is further encouraged by a teacher (The Walking Dead’s Jon Bernthal) whose tattooed brand of macho-Zen philosophy keeps him on his toes at school.

The incidental characters are well sketched by veteran TV director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who also employs metacinematic twists of all kinds, including claymation, old movie footage, weird camera angles, and invigorating shock cuts. It’s slightly surprising that we don’t learn more about Rachel, her white-wine-guzzling mom (Molly Shannon), or Earl and his family. But the focus stays on a boy in transition, and the film’s eccentric balancing of playful and serious tones makes Me hard to categorize, or forget.

Review: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl turns the ... - HitFix Gregory Ellwood

PARK CITY — A great film is often one that it transcends the cliches of its genre. The 2015 Sundance Film Festival already debuted one movie that overcame the tropes of the coming-of-age picture, "The Diary of a Teenage Girl," Saturday. And on Sunday, it brought another genre-breaker to the zeitgeist with Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's powerhouse "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl."

Let me start off by saying that the film's main character, Greg (Thomas Mann), would want everyone to know that the dying girl isn't going to die. She's gonna be OK and what you'll eventually see in theaters is really just the story of their friendship. The dying girl is named Rachel, by the way, and she's wonderfully played by Olivia Cooke ("Bates Motel").

But back to Greg.

Greg has spent most of high school trying to be casual friends with everyone while remaining as invisible as possible at the same time. He avoids the "Gaza Strip" battleground of the school cafeteria by eating lunch in the office of Mr. McCarthy (an almost unrecognizable Jon Bernthal), his history teacher, and spends his time watching foreign language flicks with Earl (a fantastic RJ Cyler). Even though he's known Earl since they were five-years-old he'd want you to know they aren't friends but "co-workers" (Greg appears to have an issue with getting close to people). The two spend most of their free time creating their own skewed versions of classic films such as "Senior Citizen Kane" and "2:48 PM Cowboy."

Life becomes more complicated for Greg when his mom (Connie Britton) forces him — literally forces him — to go befriend his classmate Rachel after she's diagnosed with leukemia. Rachel isn't sure what to make of this, but the two slowly bond even if Greg's inherent awkwardness makes it harder for him than for her. Eventually, Greg gets pushed by Earl and another friend into making a film just for Rachel, but months after starting he can't seem to finish it.

Gomez-Rejon, who is best known for his television work on "Red Band Society," "American Horror Story" and "Glee," displays an unexpected vision in his second big screen effort. He uses stop motion animation, unconventional perspectives (one scene features shots from the POV of a melting popsicle) and self aware titles to frame the story in Greg's voice. And yet, every time the film seems to be slightly inspired by contemporary flicks such as "Submarine" or "Son of Rambo," Gomez-Rejon will introduce an element you wouldn't expect which is nothing like those films. It should be noted, a good deal of the credit for the film's look has to go to cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung, a frequent collaborator of Park Chan-wook.

Both Gomez-Rejon and writer Jesse Andrews (who adapted his own 2013 novel) seem very aware of how this genre can become predictable and they constantly disrupt the audience's expectations in different ways. They also put a tremendous amount of true-life humor in Greg, Rachel and Earl's friendship at the beginning of the film. That's because Greg probably isn't telling the truth about what happens to the dying girl, but I didn't tell you that, OK?

"Me and Earl" could not succeed, however, without the incredible performances from both Mann and Cooke. This is the best material of their careers and they simply nail it. Outside of the aforementioned Britton, Bernthal and Cyler, Nick Offerman does wonderful Nick Offerman things as Greg's father, Molly Shannon brings some heartbreaking laughs as Rachel's mom and Katherine C. Hughes finds some three-dimensionality for what could have easily been the hot girl movie stereotype.

It's often easy to overhype a film at a festival like Sundance, but "Me and Earl" is as genuinely wonderful as the kudos will suggest. It's a fresh, beautiful and heartbreaking achievement that continues to surprise until the very last scene. It's dangerous to call something an instant classic, but sometimes it's simply the truth.

The Story Behind Sundance Smash Me and Earl -- Vulture Jada Yuan

I love this movie. I love this movie so, so, so much. Mere minutes into Sunday afternoon’s Sundance screening of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, I started involuntarily whispering those words to the fellow journalist sitting next to me. I laughed hard many, many times. I bawled for minutes on end. And like the rest of the audience, I rose to my feet to applaud in the dark while the credits were rolling, tears still streaming down my face.

More than any other movie that’s screened at Sundance 2015, Me and Earl feels like a breakout hit — it boasts an exciting second-time feature-film director, Alfonso Goméz-Rejón (who’s done Emmy-winning work as one of the most visually experimental directors on American Horror Story); a sharp first-time screenwriter, Jesse Andrews (adapting his own novel); and a virtually unknown young lead, Thomas Mann, whose previous work (2012’s house-party-gone-wild trifle Project X) didn’t exactly suggest that he was capable of such heavy lifting.

So what is the movie about? Well, there is terminal illness involved, and ... keep reading only if you’re okay with possible SPOILERS. On the surface, Me and Earl is another sick-kid movie, about an outcast Pittsburgh boy, Greg, played by Mann, who’s forced by his mother (Connie Britton; Nick Offerman plays his weirdo sociology-professor dad) to be the cheer wagon for a classmate, Rachel (virtual newcomer Olivia Cooke), who’s been diagnosed with stage-four leukemia. What sets Me and Earl apart, though, is Greg’s unreliable narration, as a goofy kid who’s using humor, denial, and a giant imagination to keep from thinking about the devastation in front of him. He's doing his best to distract Rachel by bringing her into the world he shares world with his best friend Earl (RJ Cyler), a black kid from a rougher neighborhood — the two spend their time irreverently remaking art-house classics. (Eyes Wide Butt, My Dinner With Andre the Giant, and A Sockwork Orange.) Director Goméz-Rejón, a former personal assistant to Martin Scorsese and Nora Ephron, among others, has both style and heart to spare, coming off like Wes Anderson and the Wallace & Gromit guys meet John Hughes.

I wasn’t the only one who responded so strongly to the film. Senator Barbara Boxer, sitting one seat away, was looking a little misty. “I enjoyed that so much,” she said. HitFix’s Gregory Ellwood waited fewer than ten seconds after the screening ended to tweet, “Ladies and gentlemen I do not say this lightly. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl may be your 1st best picture nominee of 2015.” Apparently, every major studio head in Park City felt the same way, because Me and Earl is on the verge of closing what would be the highest Sundance sale ever, $12 million, which would put it well ahead of the $10 million ceiling set by Little Miss Sunshine, Spitfire Grill, The Way Way Back, and Hamlet 2. Deadline reports that Fox Searchlight looks like the front-runner, though when I ran into Goméz-Rejón at the movie’s Grey Goose–sponsored after-party, he said that Dimension Films’ Bob Weinstein had sought him out two times in the hour since the screening. [Update: The film has been bought by Fox Searchlight and Indian Paintbrush in a semi-complicated tag-team deal for, we're now told, mid seven-figures.]

Here’s more on the making of this Sundance breakout:

1. Connie Britton signed on without reading the script.
“I had known Alfonso from American Horror Story,” Britton said at the after-party, “and when I heard he was directing a movie, I basically sent him an email and I said, ‘I don’t know what this movie is you’re directing, but if there’s a part in it for me, I want to play it.” She added: “If you talk to Alfonso for five minutes, you realize how brilliant he is.”

2. The film required an entire separate unit to make Greg and Earl’s homemade re-creations of old movies.
“It was like being a kid and making movies with your friend,” said Mann. His favorite Me and Earl homages included Breathe Less, a take on Breathless prominently featuring asthma inhalers, and, explains Mann, “Pooping Tom, based on Peeping Tom, the Michael Powell movie, where it’s a plunger coming at me instead of a knife.”

3. Casting the part of Earl required 500 auditions.
RJ Cyler, a former dance instructor who’d never acted in a movie prior to Me and Earl, auditioned two weeks before shooting began. Amazingly, he landed the role of the street-wise title character, a kid who who wishes he had a dad like Greg’s — someone who could introduce him to all kinds of weird meats. (Greg’s dad likes to cook, among other things, cuttlefish.)

Mann says that as soon as he read the script, a year and a half before they started casting the film, he knew he wanted the role. “It sounded like my voice,” he said. “I knew I could do it.” He heard about auditions while he was visiting his family in Dallas, Texas, and made a tape to send in. When he and Cooke found out they were going to do a chemistry read, they decided to grab dinner the night before to talk about the script and get to know each other. “We both really, really wanted it,” says Mann. “The next day went so well. As soon as they were like, ‘Okay, thanks, guys, great job, see you later,’ and closed the door, we’re both like jumping up and down because we’re like, ‘This is it! We got the part!’ And then weeks went by and they were reading other actors and we were like, ‘What the fuck is going on?’” They, of course, ended up getting the parts.

4. It’s a deeply personal film for both Andrews and for Goméz-Rejón, whose father suddenly passed away the year before the movie was made.
Again speaking at the after-party, Goméz-Rejón said he “needed” the film to help him process is father’s passing. “This is about confronting my dad’s death and coming out on the other side,” he said, “with optimism, and putting myself together, which is something I never did. When I read the script, it was all done with such humor, and my dad, besides being the most compassionate person on the planet, was the funniest. So to be able to make a film for him the way that Greg does for Rachel [in the film] was what I needed to do to move on in a positive way.”

One Brian Eno song perfectly closes two very different movies Greg Cwik from The Onion A.V. Club, July 31, 2015

Warning: This piece contains detailed discussion of the endings of both Me And Earl And The Dying Girl and The End Of The Tour.

Though it lasts less than three minutes and never really goes anywhere, Brian Eno’s “The Big Ship” is pregnant with profundity. An ouroboros of a song, it starts where it stops, and only ends in the sense that it eventually fades to silence. Yet you get the feeling that somewhere, somehow, it goes on forever, the loveliest drone album to never exist. Comprising just four chords—C, F, Am, and Gb (the G is accompanied by a B in the bassline)—it was a fragment of an unfinished song that Eno eventually crafted into the anti-centerpiece of his landmark 1975 album Another Green World. On the album, which vacillates between atmospheric moods and more classically structured songs, “The Big Ship” almost slips by unnoticed. It follows the brooding “In Dark Trees” (the precursor to David Bowie and Brian Eno’s Berlin Trilogy), and subsequently gets usurped by “I’ll Come Running,” a jarring bit of pop as infectious as poison ivy. On its own, purged of context, the song has the warm embrace of a hug and the stimulating result of a hot shower, offering comfort and proliferating epiphanies.

Forty years after its advent, the beguiling instrumental has unexpectedly resurfaced as the climactic song of two different films that debuted at Sundance less than 48 hours apart. In Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s Me And Earl And The Dying Girl, “The Big Ship” permeates a meta-montage of homemade movies that plays as the titular girl fulfills her character description and dies. In the analog scene of The End Of The Tour, as journalist David Lipsky elegizes the iconic writer David Foster Wallace, the song serves a similar purpose, acting as a friend offering a hug in a time of need. Both movies feature self-loathing artists, yet the song pertains to each in subtly different ways.

Me And Earl And The Dying Girl concerns Greg (Thomas Mann), a high school boy and amateur filmmaker with a penchant for the Criterion Collection, who begrudging befriends Rachel (Olivia Cooke, who really needs better roles), a high school girl dying of cancer. To cheer her up, he reluctantly makes a film—“a shitty movie,” he calls it—that plays like a patchwork of moments from their friendship manifest as adolescent reimaginings of standout moments from classic films. The scene takes place in Rachel’s hospital room, dosed in a fervid red, where Greg projects his film on the wall. Me And Earl has been greeted with such fierce hostility by some critics, it makes you wonder if the director personally showed up to each of their houses and murdered their dogs. While the film has certain manipulative tendencies and its narrator’s self-loathing grows grating quickly, this climatic moment presents an undeniable poignancy. Brian Eno’s malleable song aids the scene, the slow swell of the destination-deprived track filling the empty space between moving images. Since Me And Earl references a ton of films and has a super-trendy indie soundtrack, the use of “The Big Ship” isn’t really out of place.

Eno’s immediately recognizable song doesn’t feel out of place in the less pop-culture-driven The End Of The Tour either, partially because Danny Elfman’s score channels Eno’s pensive aesthetic. In 2010, two years after Wallace’s suicide, David Lipsky reads from his book Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, on which the film is based. Lipsky spent four days accompanying Wallace on the tail end of his Infinite Jest book tour, during which the two discussed the foibles of writing while trading quips and increasingly caustic barbs. As Lipsky reads, recalling how Wallace believed that books existed as a way of combating loneliness, glimpses of the elusive writer dancing joyously drift across the screen in slow motion. Unlike the rest of the film, this isn’t presented as a memory: During their final conversation in 1996, Wallace revealed to Lipsky that he liked to go dancing at a local Episcopalian church, a tidbit of trivia that surprised Lipsky. (The cerebral Wallace doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who dances, let alone the kind of guy who dances at an Episcopalian church.) Since the entire film is rooted in Lipsky’s point of view, the slow-motion shot of Wallace throwing his flannel-clad arms up, grinning wide while jumping and gliding as if untethered by gravity, must be conjured in Lipsky’s imagination. The writer in mourning chooses to picture Wallace happy, if only for a brief moment.

The subtle but significant difference between the two scenes is the way they use Eno’s song: In The End Of The Tour, “The Big Ship” acts as consort to a celebratory moment taking place before the writer’s death, whereas Me And Earl employs the song at the moment of death (a death, by the way, that our narrator erroneously insisted would never happen, that liar), a sort of vessel escorting Rachel out of this world. “The Big Ship” works in both films, but its presence in The End Of The Tour is like a natural occurrence. It almost slips by, the same way it does on the album. Director James Ponsoldt elects to eschew any obvious explanation, but the song wasn’t simply chosen because it sounds nice. In his final novel, the posthumously released The Pale King (a streamlined amalgamation of myriad notes and pages Wallace left behind on paper and floppy discs, and scrawled across so many marble notebooks), Wallace cites Eno’s song for its ontological beauty:

This song is making me feel both warm and safe, as though cocooned like a little boy that’s just been taken out of the bath and wrapped in towels that have been washed so many times they’re incredibly soft, and also at the same time feeling sad; there’s an emptiness at the center of the warmth like the way an empty church or classroom with a lots of windows through which you can only see rain in the street is sad, as though right at the center of this safe, enclosed feeling is the seed of emptiness.

Of course, the song still enhances the scene’s beauty even if you haven’t read The Pale King. The genius of including it is its lack of genius: Eno once said, “Genius is individual, scenius is communal,” and this scene is, in the musician’s own invented parlance, completely scenius. The gift of sound and vision coalescing and creating a new aesthetic experience is something unique to movies, something Wallace’s writing, great as it is, could inherently never provide. “The Big Ship” extrapolates the unexpected bliss of Wallace letting loose, the man who uses a bandana to keep his head from exploding now losing himself gleefully to a song that goes nowhere.

Eno and Wallace share a similar affinity for pop that undergoes transmogrification, resulting in art: Eno flensed the hooks and choruses from his pop music so only the music’s essence was left lingering; Wallace took pop culture and exhumed its soul, using his slang-laced prose to dig at deeper, often darker truths. Eno’s carefully calculated percussion, cushioned by synths and shimmering keys like so many fireworks, has the temporal quality of a memory you’ll eventually forget. Its nebulous structure and lack of climax or closure makes it feel almost inconsequential, akin to one of Wallace’s irreverent endnotes. The song, like Wallace, contradicts itself. At once exact yet vague, it lends itself to two tonally different scenes in two aesthetically different films: one that elegizes death, and one that celebrates life. Like the scenes it accompanies, “The Big Ship” is a sustained sensation of a forever-fleeting moment, something as difficult to grasp as a fading memory.

This Is the Part Where I Defend Me And Earl And The Dying Girl David Ehrlich from The Dissolve

What's Missing from “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” Richard Brody from The New Yorker

How They Made Me and Earl and the Dying Girl's Mini ... Angela Watercutter from Wired, June 9, 2015

'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl' Might Win You Over as It ... Stephanie Zacharek from The Village Voice

Sundance Review: Wonderfully Funny, Bittersweet & Inventi ... Rodrigo Perez from The Playlist

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) | The Sheila Variations Sheila O’Malley, also seen here: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Roger Ebert

INFLUX Magazine [Robert Pagan]

Me And Earl And The Dying Girl / The Dissolve Scott Tobias

Me And Earl And The Dying Girl - Screen International Tim Grierson

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl | Reelviews Movie Reviews James Berardinelli

Review: 'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl' Is a Quirky Tragedy for the 'Me' Generation David Sims from The Atlantic

INFLUX Magazine [Steve Pulaski]

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Film School Rejects Rob Hunter

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - The Critical Critics Howard Schumann

Sundance 2015 Review: ME AND EARL AND THE ... - Twitch Jason Gorber

The Film Stage [Jordan Raup]

Next Projection [Derek Deskins]

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl : DVD Talk Review of the ... Jeff Nelson

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl : DVD Talk Review of the ... Olie Coen

Independent Ethos [Hans Morgenstern]

Slant Magazine [Christopher Gray]

Sound On Sight (Dylan Griffin)

Cinema Axis [Courtney Small]

Review: Me And Earl And The Dying Girl | Newcity Film Ray Pride

Daily | Sundance 2015 Awards | Keyframe - Explore the ... David Hudson from Fandor

Why 'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl' Is the Year's Biggest ... Kevin Fallon interview from The Daily Beast, June 11, 2015

'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl' a fresh start for director Mark Olsen interview from The LA Times, June 12, 2015

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore

'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl' Review: More ... - Variety Peter Debruge

Examiner.com [Travis Hopson] also seen here: Punch Drunk Critics [Travis Hopson]

The Cleveland Movie Blog [Joseph Anthony]

Review: Sundance hit 'Me and Earl...' melds tragedy with wit ... Lindsey Bahr from The Denver Post

'Me and Earl ...': You won't want to see it, but you'll like it ... Mick LaSalle from The San Francisco Chronicle

Slate (David Edelstein) review

'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl' a mash note to movies Michael Phillips from The LA Times

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Roger Ebert Brian Tallerico

Review: In 'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,' a Comfort Zone That Cannot Last The New York Times

Pittsburgh Tries to Keep Its Budding Movie Role - WSJ Kris Maher, January 2, 2015

Six Degrees of Pittsburgh Carl Kurlander from Community Voices, February 3, 2015

Gondry, Michel

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND A 96

USA (108 mi) 2004

One of the most wildly inventive and equally bizarre love stories you’re ever likely to encounter, filled with dazzling visual effects which, oddly enough, are actually at the heart of the story, holding onto those feelings (memories) that mean something to you without letting them slip away, allowing us to see what a fragile and tenuous hold we have on what it is that makes us who we are. Written by Charlie Kaufman (BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, ADAPTATION), who in films past, has overwritten to the point of excess, but not here. This is a tightly constructed, original and extremely detailed story, brilliantly edited and acted, with non-stop sequences of brilliance that continue throughout this film. Jim Carrey is the subdued introvert, playing against type, mumbling through most of the film, while Kate Winslet plays an outlandishly free-spirited Bohemian girl whose spontaneity initiates all the action, luring Carrey into her world, mind, body and soul, until she’s had enough of his passivity and is ready to spit him back out. In this film, she can, using a new technological procedure that scientifically wipes out all memories of a person.

Once Carrey finds out what she’s done, he’s devastated, to say the least, and he envisions the world crumbling around him without her, which we see as he imagines it. He vows to rid his mind of all memories of her as well, but during the middle of the procedure, he has second thoughts, and with the help of some oddly inattentive technicians, Mark Ruffalo and Kirsten Dunst, who actually dance and smoke grass over his inert body, he’s able to spend some of the film’s more wondrous moments trying to hold onto as many shared memories as he can before losing her. Most of this is film heaven, told in reverse order, from their break up backwards in time through some exquisitely tender and romantic moments back to their initial encounter, filled with the juicy sparks and language of love. But as the memories crumble and disappear before his and our eyes, all superbly realized cinematically, it also includes the feelings of desperation and inadequacy that accompany opening yourself up to another individual, leaving oneself vulnerable to their criticism, then having to overcome one’s own personal humiliations. Weird, the idea of erasing our memories, yet here one man can literally be seen fighting to hold onto seemingly insignificant moments that have an unseen impact in our lives, the disappearance of feelings that matter most, love. This is a wonderful film about relationships that speaks volumes about the importance of even the worst moments, as it is from those horrendous blunders that we redeem ourselves with the next opportunities that come our way. The title comes from an Alexander Pope poem which, as the lines are being spoken in the film, fills the screen with some of the warmest, most heartfelt images of the magic of love reborn.

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d;

Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;

“Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep:”

Desires compos’d, affections ever ev’n,

Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav’n.

—Alexander Pope “Eloisa to Abelard” (1717)

from TOTAL FILM:

This is easily the most emotionally satisfying adaptation of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s inverted universe. By the way, that’s “universe” as in the uncharted inner-space that makes up the human brain. All of Kaufman’s scripts have seen him delving into the mists of the subconscious. He doesn’t necessarily want to understand it, he just thinks it’s a romantic, interesting, ridiculous, rousing, enigmatic, provocative and scary place to be. Given the human brain is a territory without artistic constraints, why not set an entire movie inside there?

That is, more or less, what he’s done with Eternal Sunshine. Motored by a Philip K. Dick-ish memory conspiracy, the central premise is blissfully simple: abusing the technology of a brain-erasing firm, a spurned loved watches the sequential memories of his ex removed, falls in love with her all over again and tries to reverse the process before there’s nothing left of her. In what’s billed as a “love story in reverse,” the spurned lover is played by Jim Carrey, his ex by Kate Winslet and, through fragmented memory-blasts, we get to see the deterioration of their relationship first, then the bonding, then the flirtations, then, lastly, their first date.

It’s during Carrey’s head-trips that he really lets go, infecting his memories with visual traps and dupes: muggy soft focus, jagged speed-ups, reversed footage...Yet never once does Gondry let the style spin out of control. It serves the story, and the fuzzy mood until, come the final reel, the flickers become motifs, become poignant [torchlights!].

The philosopher Stanley Cavell has called the classic screwball movies like The Awful Truth (1937) and The Lady Eve (1941) "comedies of remarriage," in which couples are rudely bounced from their Edenic connubial gardens and reunited (after a series of farcical/magical contrivances) in a spirit of wry realism: This time they know they'll live bumpily ever after. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Focus Features), the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman teleports the screwball genre into the 21^st century: It's The Awful Truth turned inside-out by Philip K. Dick, with nods to Samuel Beckett, Chris Marker, John Guare—the greatest dramatists of our modern fractured consciousness. But the weave is pure Kaufman. No one has ever used this fantastic a premise to chart the convolutions of the human brain in the throes of breakup and reconciliation. And no one has Kaufman's radar for emotional truth at the farthest reaches of the absurdist galaxy.

The movie opens with Joel, played by Jim Carrey in a dorky woolen cap, and Clementine, played by Kate Winslet in blue hair, meeting screwball cute on a beach at the end of Long Island in the dead of winter. He's painfully shy; she's almost equally painfully gregarious. Joel goes through the normal Kaufman self-conscious nerdy contortions, but something is different: It's almost as if they've known each other before. A short time later (or so it seems—we don't yet grasp the movie's timeline), Joel is weeping in his car, because Clementine didn't recognize him in the bookstore where she works. She was also smooching someone else. It turns out that she has had her memories of their relationship erased by a company called Lacuna Inc., run by Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson). And, because Joel can't live in the world without Clementine, he decides to have her erased from his brain, too.

This is all tricky enough, but in the course of his visit to Lacuna, Joel has a revelation: This isn't happening; it has already happened. Two technicians, played by Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood, are actually in his apartment, beside a sofa bed on which he lies in a futuristic-hair-dryer helmet: They are systematically conjuring up his memories of Clementine—including the memory of his Lacuna visit—and purging them from his mind. Later, the dweebish pair will be joined by the willowy Kirsten Dunst as the company's blithe receptionist, who's mysteriously fond of Bartlett's quotations on the subject of memory, among them the Alexander Pope lines that gives the movie its exotic title: "How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!/ The world forgetting, by the world forgot./ Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!/ Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd."

Joel isn't happy like that blameless vestal in his forgetting—quite the opposite. And it's here that Kaufman shows his real genius. As Joel travels back through his memories of the relationship—not the most recent ones, which come first and are nasty, but the earlier ones, the moments in which Joel and Clementine had a deep and pure connection—he remembers what he loved in her. He goes to a heartbreaking time in which she talks about her fears of being ugly as a child, and he pleads with the technicians in the heavens (who can't hear him—he's sleeping): "Please let me keep this memory." In that instant, maybe halfway through, the picture transforms into a different kind of story, in which the object is not to let go of one's memories but hang onto them, whatever the cost. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is like a topsy-turvy Orpheus and Eurydice, in which the hero must look back—and back and back—or his beloved will be lost forever.

The legendary music-video director Michel Gondry and his cinematographer, Ellen Kuras, get to strut their stuff in these sequences: Their style is glancing and (literally) vaporous. In farce, the hero runs in and out of doors; here, he runs in and out of doors of perception—in and out of blurs. Joel flees with his mental Clementine to places in his life that he hasn't supplied to his memory erasers—places where she couldn't have been, like his kitchen when he was 4 years old and curled up under a kitchen table staring at a baby sitter in a short dress and white boots (now impersonated by Clementine), or the time when some bullies made him smash a dead bird with a hammer. These are wildly funny scenes—but they're scary, too, and surreal, like little body-snatcher movies. The technicians are flabbergasted. They say he's "off the map," and they hunt around his brain for his new whereabouts. And as they erase Joel's synaptic hiding places, the house of his childhood ages and crumbles before our eyes, fences blow away, faces dissolve into rubbery blanks, passersby disappear. There's a melancholy, end-of-the-world mood to the couple's final scenes in Joel's head: the blooming of their love and its obliteration, in the same instant.

I'm not convinced that Gondry is an expressively great film director—that his virtuosity is joined to his heart. But he's a gorgeous illustrator of Kaufman's inner worlds, and in its splintered syntax the movie is astoundingly fluid. The laws of time and space are constantly flouted, yet the film moves along an unbroken thread of memories—a filament that's white-hot with emotion. Like the greatest science fiction writers, Kaufman is using a bizarre futuristic scenario to tell us something about the here and now: about the loss of our most vivid loves to the impermanence of memory; and about the life we lose when, to go on living, we force ourselves to forget. In Being John Malkovich (1999), Kaufman boxed himself into a corner and the movie went sour, but here he comes up with a beautiful and searching last scene—irrational in its hopefulness yet completely convincing.

It's rarely a compliment when I refer to an actor as "straitjacketed," but the straitjacketing of Jim Carrey is fiercely poignant. You see all that manic comic energy imprisoned in this ordinary man, with the anarchism peeking out and trying to find a way to express itself. And you know instantly what he sees in Winslet's Clementine, beyond her physical beauty: She's an overdramatizer, a blurter-out of inner truths. Winslet—who's as scorching here as she was in Iris (2001)—takes a character that could be too lah-di-dah in the Annie Hall mode and makes her chaotic, even violent. Everything that attracts Joel to her will one day drive him mad; yet a universe without Clementine will be a blue and cold and empty place.

The leads alone would make this movie, but the supporting cast enacts a parallel drama that adds dissonances and echoes all over the place. And I've never heard a score quite like Jon Brion's, which is weirder than his work on Punch-Drunk Love. A mixture of pop songs and chamber music, it seems to be carrying on a whimsical conversation of its own in a parallel universe, with hints of calliopes and silent horror movies. The music peaks in the scene in which Dunst recites the lines from Pope and Joel has a vision of himself and Clementine on the street amid a parade of circus elephants—an exhortation, perhaps, on behalf of memory. I thought Kaufman's Adaptation (2002) was wildly overrated, but it obviously did wonders for his confidence: He has the fearlessness now to move the boundary posts of romantic comedy. This is the best movie I've seen in a decade. For once it's no hyperbole to say, "Unforgettable!"

Los Angeles Film+TV - About a Boy - John Powers from LA Weekly

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind takes its title from a line by Alexander Pope, the 18th-century neoclassicist poet whose witty, polished heroic couplets were his way of imposing order on a world that had arbitrarily made him a 4-foot-6-inch hunchback. I suspect that film scripts serve a similar healing function for Charlie Kaufman, a self-confessed neurotic whose post–Woody Allen take on the chaotic modern psyche has made him a genre unto himself. Kaufman has a knack for catchy premises — he slyly turns creep-show scenarios into reality-bending comedy — and though he works with big-name directors (Spike Jonze, George Clooney and here Michel Gondry), his stylistic footprint is so vivid he always winds up being seen as the auteur. He’s the only non-directing American screenwriter ever to turn himself into a brand. Which isn’t altogether a good thing: The very orgy of inventiveness that once made his work feel breathtakingly original now risks feeling mannered and predictable.

Kaufman’s trick is to take psychological states and give them literal form: projection in Being John Malkovich, animal impulses in Human Nature (with its furry Patricia Arquette), schizophrenic and/or coke-induced delusions in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the divided self in Adaptation. The same sort of literalization is at work in Eternal Sunshine, a manic piece of Kafkaesque vaudeville about love, loss and the modern world’s attempt to scrub away anything, however human, that might make us unhappy.

Jim Carrey, still aiming to be Jimmy Stewart, stars as shy, quiet, depressive Joel Barish, reeling from his sudden breakup with Clementine (Kate Winslet), a loud, boozing clerk at Borders whose potato sculptures and ever-changing hair color (often in Froot Loop hues) suggest her instability — and her raucous gift for spontaneous life. Discovering that she’s had all memory of him erased from her brain by an outfit called Lacuna, Joel decides to return the favor. Soon, he’s being treated by the company’s half-baked crew: gung-ho receptionist Mary (Kirsten Dunst), goofy technician Frank (Mark Ruffalo), who wants to get into Mary’s pants, and his trainee sidekick Patrick (Elijah Wood), who’s using inside info to pursue his own romance with Clementine. They’re overseen by melancholy memory-erasure guru Dr. Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), who offers his patients the joys of forgetfulness. But halfway into the treatment, something in Joel starts rebelling against such facile consolation. Fighting to reclaim his memory (and just possibly the love) of the happily named Clementine, he literally chases her (or his fantasies of her) through the spiraling curlicues of his psyche — memories of their shared past; Freudianized fantasies of his childhood; amusingly weird landscapes that, in their pop-dream iconography, recall both album-cover Dalí knockoffs and Tarkovsky’s Solaris (whose scene of indoor rain is quoted here).

Many viewers, including me, have complained that Kaufman’s work often disappears up its own navel, that it’s too damn clever and solipsistic for its own good. He apparently must worry about the same thing, too. For in the dozen years since he wrote for Chris Elliott’s TV show Get a Life, the acme of entertainment as self-loathing, his work has increasingly taken a therapeutic bent: His stories are about escaping angst-riddled self-absorption and learning to live like a normal human. With its warm-blooded romance between Meryl Streep’s Susan Orlean and Chris Cooper’s orchid thief, Adaptation marked a clear emotional advance beyond Malkovich’s mere cleverness, and the new movie takes Kaufman even further. Not only does it boast the most down-to-earth characters he’s yet created (Clementine accurately terms herself “just a fucked-up girl looking for my own peace of mind”), but for all its exhausting twists, the movie wants to grapple with ordinary feelings of yearning and loss. Sliding up its own navel but eventually finding its way out again, it’s a movie about its hero — dare I say it? — growing up.

The idea of making a movie about memory actually came from director Gondry, best known for his Levi’s ads and videos for bands like White Stripes, whose feature debut found him defeated by Kaufman’s script for Human Nature. He shows far greater control in Eternal Sunshine, having apparently learned the key lesson of Jonze’s work in Malkovich and Adaptation: When a script’s really crazy, the director must keep things tethered to reality. Adopting a comparatively plain style, Gondry shuffles levels of reality like a crooked croupier who knows the key to success is to seem unobtrusive. Still, like Kaufman, Gondry tends toward the conceptual, and at moments, he becomes too enthralled with the movie’s teeming riot of images. You can tell he just loves his digitalized magical flourishes, those apartments melting away into seascapes or Carrey, dressed as little-boy Joel, hiding beneath a huge table in a ’70s kitchen.

In Human Nature, Gondry’s obsession with style forced the actors to fend for themselves — Arquette and Tim Robbins remained the mirthless cartoons Kaufman had created. Gondry obviously learned from his mistake. Here, he wins a good-humored turn from an oddly coifed Ruffalo, lovely moments of regret from Wilkinson and a beautifully modulated performance from Dunst, who goes from bouncing on a bed in her panties (sort of a personal trademark, I guess) to becoming the film’s one truly heartbreaking figure. Although Winslet long ago established herself as a compelling screen actress, Gondry reveals something new in her: She’s the world’s scariest screwball comedienne. “Drink up, young man,” Clementine tells Joel on their first meeting. “It’ll make the whole seduction part less repugnant.”

Of course, it’s no surprise that Winslet and Dunst should shine so brightly, for both the warmest and the scariest creatures in Kaufman’s work have always been women — Streep/Orlean’s vulnerability in Adaptation, Drew Barrymore’s radiant portrait of a ’60s chick in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Catherine Keener’s definitive ball-buster in Malkovich. At once bighearted and frightening, Clementine may be the ultimate Kaufman woman. Indeed, there may be no purer image of his vision of femininity than the giddy scene in which she leads the terrified Joel onto a frozen river and keeps assuring him that the ice won’t crack beneath them.

Eternal Sunshine is so daring, well-made and tirelessly inventive that I kept asking myself, “Why isn’t this even better? Why isn’t it moving me?” One huge problem is the hero. Not only is Joel a generically immature sad sack — this drip needs to get a personality as well as a life — but he’s played by 42-year-old Jim Carrey, whose still-bottomless need to be loved invariably smacks of desperation and self-pity (remember the grisly non-divine parts of Bruce Almighty?). He works hard, but as with that other brilliant mimic, Peter Sellers, there’s a hollowness at the center. Winslet has few peers at displaying headlong romanticism — she fooled the world into thinking that Leonardo was the ardent one in Titanic — and Carrey gives her nothing back.

This failure of chemistry helps explain why, in a film about memory, what we actually see of Joel’s time with Clementine lacks the subtle textures of a real relationship — it’s either too cutesy or too acrimonious. Because we don’t feel a deep bond between the two of them, we can’t share their regret for what they’ve lost. For all of Eternal Sunshine’s technical polish — the script’s as neatly turned as one of Pope’s couplets — Kaufman’s conception of their relationship remains surprisingly adolescent. Its desire to explore memory makes one think of Proust, Kundera, Tarkovsky, Resnais, even Dennis Potter, but to think of those names is to instantly grasp Eternal Sunshine’s limitations. It lacks the emotional and stylistic richness you find in, say, Solaris, The Singing Detective, Raul Ruiz’s thrilling Proust film Time Regained, or Resnais’ neglected Je T’aime, Je T’aime, in which a man recovering from a suicide attempt takes part in a time-travel experiment that keeps shuttling him between moments in the earlier life that made him want to kill himself.

Borges once said that great art is algebra and fire. While there’s plenty of glittering algebra in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kaufman and Gondry need more of the fire of genuine human passion, in all its complexity. By film’s end, Joel is a different man. He’s learned to get out of his own head, to accept that things can’t be perfect and to take a chance on love even if you know it may be impermanent. All of these are worthwhile lessons, to be sure — that’s why they’re in self-help books — but they’re nowhere near as sophisticated as the filmmaking that puts them across. As a friend joked, “If you peel away the movie’s postmodern tricks, what you’re left with is about as profound as a Hugh Grant movie.”

I Viddied It on the Screen [Alex Jackson]

DVD Times Mike Sutton

Reverse Shot review Michael Joshua Brown, Spring 2004

Reverse Shot review Ken Chen, Spring 2004

Reverse Shot review Nick Pinkerton, #2 Film of 2004, Spring 2005

ReelViews (James Berardinelli) review [3.5/4]

Pajiba (Phillip Stephens) review

Nick's Flick Picks (Nick Davis) review [A] #1 Film of the 2004

Flipside Movie Emporium (Rob Vaux) review [A-]

Slant Magazine review Jeremiah Kipp

New York Magazine (Peter Rainer) review

Village Voice (J. Hoberman) review

Mark Reviews Movies (Mark Dujsik) review [3.5/4]

"The Science of ___"]/ essay The Science of Eternal Sunshine, Steven Johnson from Slate

Back to the future, or the vanguard meets the rearguard Bert Cardullo from Jump Cut, Spring 2007

CultureCartel.com (Rachel Gordon) review [5/5]

stylusmagazine.com (Jen Cameron) review

d+kaz. Intelligent Movie Reviews (Daniel Kasman) review [A-]

The Film Journal (Alexander C. Ives) review

eFilmCritic.com (Rob Gonsalves) review [5/5]

Cinepinion [Henry Stewart]

PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs

Goatdog's Movies (Michael W. Phillips, Jr.) review [4.5/5]

Reel.com review [3/4] Kim Morgan

Ruthless Reviews review Matt Cale

SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review review [5/5] Richard Scheib

Milk Plus: a discussion of film Private Joker, also seen here: Private Joker's Head (Zach Ralston) review

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

filmcritic.com (Sean O'Connell) review [5/5]

Crazy for Cinema (Lisa Skrzyniarz) review

eFilmCritic.com (Erik Childress) review [5/5]

Q Network Film Desk (James Kendrick) review [4/5]

Chris Jarmick review [4/5]

Movie-Vault.com (David Trier) review

James Bowman review

Reel.com dvd review [3/4] Pam Grady

eFilmCritic.com (Mel Valentin) review [5/5]

World Socialist Web Site review David Walsh

Nitrate Online (Dan Lybarger) review

New York Observer (Andrew Sarris) review

Not Another Teen Neophyte [Vadim Rizov]

DVD Talk (Daniel Hirshleifer) dvd review [4/5] [HD-DVD Version]

DVD Town (Dean Winkelspecht) dvd review [HD DVD Version]

DVD Verdict (Dennis Prince) dvd review [HD-DVD Version]

DVD Verdict (Bill Gibron) dvd review [Collector's Edition]

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Jon Danziger) dvd review [Collector's Edition]

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Robert Edwards) dvd review

eFilmCritic.com (Scott Weinberg) review [5/5]

Jerry Saravia review [4/4]

Harvey S. Karten review [B+]

culturevulture.net, Choices for the Cognoscenti review Scott Von Doviak

eFilmCritic.com (Jay Seaver) review [5/5]

Jigsaw Lounge (Neil Young) review [6/10]

Christian Science Monitor (David Sterritt) review [4/4]

Movie Views [Ryan Cracknell]

FilmStew.com [Todd Gilchrist]

CineScene.com (Shari L. Rosenblum) review

Brilliant Observations on 1776 Films [Clayton Trapp]

CHUD.com (George Merchan) review

hybridmagazine.com review Cole Sowell

Film Monthly (D. Patrick Seitz) review

Movie House Commentary Johnny Web

Variety.com [Todd McCarthy]

A Talk With Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Director Michel Gondry Joshua Clover from The Village Voice, March 16, 2004

Washington Post (Ann Hornaday) review

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: No 8 best romantic film of all time Killian Fox from The Guardian, October 15, 2010

The Boston Phoenix review Peter Keough

Boston Globe review [3/4] Ty Burr

Washington Post (Desson Thomson) review

Washington Post (Michael O'Sullivan) review

Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten) review [4.5/5]

Seattle Post-Intelligencer review William Arnold

San Francisco Examiner (Anita Katz) review

San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle) review

Los Angeles Times [Manohla Dargis]

DVDBeaver dvd review Gary W. Tooze

DAVE CHAPPELLE’S BLOCK PARTY

USA (103 mi) 2005 Official site

Dave Chappelle's Block Party Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Stealthily, and without getting needlessly didactic and leaden, Dave Chappelle's Block Party mounts the best argument I've encountered so far for "conscious" hip-hop as a transformative force. This is particularly gratifying right now, since every season some new outpost of gangsta posturing crops up to cash in. (Screwed-and-chopped H-Town? So five minutes ago.) Chappelle, who recently underwent a well-publicized "breakdown" that by all reasonable accounts was actually the sort of crisis of conscience that the entertainment industry can't accommodate, has taken a simple concept (a Brooklyn block party and free concert) and, without a hint of arrogance, deftly fashioned it into an object-lesson in old-school hip-hop and positive values. The key is, it's fun, and this is Block Party's secret weapon. The going line from big-money hip-hop and the suits who get rich off it is that political rap and soul, anything that so much as flirts with racial uplift, is dry, preachy, and lacks skills. In short, a stone drag. Leading by example, Chappelle clears his throat and reminds us that artists like Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Dead Prez, and Jill Scott are, in fact, mindblowingly awesome, especially in concert. This is a welcome reminder, and if Block Party has any political shortcoming, it's that this pro-conscious argument, with its implicit anti-gangsta dimension, entails class distinctions that Chappelle and the film seem unable to address. Still, the joy is infectious and all-inclusive, and had Chappelle made the political stakes of his gesture more forthright it no doubt would have played into the stereotypes of positive political rap. (All the same, one wonders what this film might've looked like had it been filmed after Hurricane Katrina.) As a filmic document, it's rather transparent; Gondry and DP Ellen Kuras are fluid and on point, but downplaying their personal styles. The film's temporal mash-up editing scheme, presenting the prep work and the show itself as co-present for the viewer, is an admirable formal decision, although it does intrude on the performances. Anyway, this is pretty good shit. Bed-Stuy, y'all.

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP B 88

France Italy (105 mi) 2006

An astonishingly inventive film that relies on outrageous imagery, that has little to no story, and instead spends most of the time in the head of one of the characters, Stéphane (Gael García Bernal), exposing his overactive dream life that covers up his real life infantile shyness. With a stroke of good fortune, a creative young woman moves in next door named Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and is appropriately introduced by her attractive girl friend Zoë (Emma de Caunes), “Stéphane meet Stéphanie,” which may as well be Papageno and Papagena from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, as they immediately become lovers in an imaginary world, but in real life, their standoffish relationship is awkward and cruel, hurtful and disappointing.

The creative aspect of the film is outlandish and wonderful, some of which is amazingly fragile and beautiful, buoyed by a gorgeous musical score from Jean-Michel Bernard, but the elation continues to get bogged down by the more dire aspects of their utterly futile and pathetic existence.

Stéphane returns to Paris for the funeral of his father, excited to have a job waiting for him, but is completely disappointed when he discovers it’s only menial typesetting work at a small calendar publisher, where he believed he’d get his start as an illustrator, carrying a portfolio of illustrated world disasters, offering his amusing narration in the field of Disastrology to further elevate their interest. But rather than being overwhelmed with curiosity and interest, the boss’s response is more like “Are you crazy? Our customers aren’t interesting in anything like that.” Such is the life of young Stéphane, who goes home to imagine himself as both host and guest celebrity on Stéphane TV, where he performs the music and introduces his acts, which can be seen on small cardboard cut-out TV screens on the left, as he stands behind a curtain of what appears to be endless blue sky on the right and dreams what we see onscreen. In his world, he’s always successful and treated with utmost respect, an overcompensation for his real life which has a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality.

At first he’s attracted to the overly sexy Zoë, but when he sees she’s flirtatious with just about everyone, it’s Stéphanie that appears with him in his dreams. Almost like two sides of the same coin, they both have an amazing interest in making things with their hands, and their ideas explode when they first get to know one another, blossoming into a suppressed romance that only exists in his dreams, which leads to superbly designed sequences filled with that wonderful energy of first love. But when they actually see one another, they’re awkwardly nervous, say the wrong things, are overly suspicious and filled with misunderstandings. Both revert to sad and melancholy lives. The theme of the film is similar, though not on the grand scale of THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, which opens with a brilliant zest for youth and a declaration of everlasting love, much of which is realized through the phenomenal musical score of Michel Legrand complimenting the brilliantly elaborate color schemes and set design, ending with a loss of innocence filled with sadness and regret. The poetic realism of Demy, however, dwarfs Gondry’s naive underdeveloped humanism, which was in greater evidence in his earlier work ETERNAL SUNSHINE.

Michel Gondry - Cinema Scope Michael Sicinski

Whereas almost all other music-video directors function in much the same capacity as graphic designers, Michel Gondry, by dint of an unyielding artisanal approach, has made a place for himself analogous to that of an architect. Like Frank Gehry or Peter Eisenman, Gondry is called upon, in essence, to do what he does in relation to an assignment, not in fulfillment of it.

Most video directors “graduate” to feature filmmaking. It’s doubtful at this point that even Spike Jonze would be defined by his work in music video. (Even his Fatboy Slim classic “Weapon of Choice” can’t stack up against Being John Malkovich [1999] or Adaptation [2002].) But any consideration of Gondry’s art must place equal emphasis on his most successful feature films and the rock clips. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) visualized the scenario of mental plastic surgery through a quick-change erasure of mise en scène. This is an expansion of techniques already at work in “Human Behaviour” (Björk, 1993), “A Change Would Do You Good,” (Sheryl Crow, 1997), and especially “Fire on Babylon” (1994), a seldom-seen clip for Sinéad O’Connor. Gondry’s use of folding wood and paper constructs and patently artificial sets in the O’Connor video to symbolically reflect the Janus-faced nature of incest—normal parental relations turn wicked when no one is looking—demonstrates the pliable nature of his artistry. By extension, The Science of Sleep (2006), considered by some to be the ne plus ultra of Gondry’s “twee,” “cutesy” self-regard, is in fact every bit as irksome as its maker intends it to be. Whether or not it contains semi-autobiographical aspects, it’s undoubtedly self-indicting. Its protagonist Stéphane (Gael García Bernal) is a man stranded in adolescent whimsy, living his life as if performing for a TV show inside his own head. The film speaks to a fussiness and a self-pleasure that in some ways refuses simple connection.

Part of the wonder of his productions—the visual reverb of “Let Forever Be” (Chemical Brothers, 1999) or the landscape structuralism of “The Hardest Button to Button” (The White Stripes, 2003)—is their handcrafted, homemade quality. Gondry is analog. But as popular art, they also have the power to irritate, because they are wasteful and excessive, profligate in their needless expenditure of time and corporate money. “You could do that with a computer.” But would a computer remind you of your third-grade recital?

BFI | Sight & Sound | The Science of Sleep (2006) Edward Lawrenson from Sight and Sound, August 2006

Paris, the present. Aspiring artist Stéphane arrives from Mexico, where his father recently died. Staying at the empty apartment of his French mother, Christine, he begins work at a calendar publisher, but is disappointed that the job involves no creative input. While asleep, Stéphane experiences a vivid series of dreams in which he imagines he is the host of a television show called "Stéphane TV".

Stéphane meets his neighbour, Stéphanie, and her friend, Zoë. Initially attracted to Zoë, he befriends Stéphanie and charms her with devices he invents in his spare time, including a mind-reading appliance. Sleepwalking during another of his dreams, Stéphane slips a note under Stéphanie's door; the note expresses his feelings for Zoë, but he subsequently retrieves it when awake. Stéphane is bored at work despite the fun company of older colleague Guy. His frustrations work their way into his dreams. Realising he's attracted to Stéphanie, Stéphane obsesses over her in both his dreams and his waking life, which become increasingly confused. Stéphanie, however, is exasperated by his unpredictable behaviour and rebuffs his romantic overtures. When Christine moves back into the flat following a break-up with a magician lover, Stéphane flies back to Mexico, stopping in on Stéphanie to say a painful goodbye.

Review

Filmgoers know from long experience that any movie purportedly based on the director's dreams should be approached with caution. Attempts to represent dreams on screen can often breed leaden self-indulgence: witness the likes of Akira Kurosawa's Dreams and Northfolk. Revolving for much of its running time around the reveries of would-be artist Stéphane, The Science of Sleep doesn't entirely escape these charges. Flitting between and often blurring reality and Stéphane's hyperactive imagination, the film never satisfactorily coheres. Its headlong dive into the strange depths of its hero's subconscious recalls director Michel Gondry's previous film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004); but whereas that film's dream sequences were allied to a poignant and thoughtful exploration of memory and heartbreak, in this they feel like opportunities to showcase the former music video director's repertoire of film-making tricks.

But what a dazzling display. Using stop-motion animation, over- and under-cranked live-action sequences, model and puppetry work, and backwards-run footage, the film is a glorious catalogue of techniques that date right back to early cinema pioneer Georges Méliès. Like the Lego-animation promo Gondry made for the White Stripes' song 'Fell in Love with a Girl', these deceptively crude effects have a thrown-together charm. Scenes in which Stéphane flies through a cityscape of wobbling cardboard buildings display a handcrafted physicality (actor Gael García Bernal was actually submerged in a water tank in front of a back-projection screen) that makes a bracing change from CGI's slick and feathery photorealism.

The quaint, childlike effect of this jerry-built imagery keys into Stéphane's sense of wide-eyed innocence. The central location of the hero's dreams, for instance, is a TV studio cobbled together from cardboard boxes: the sort of thing kids would assemble on a rainy Sunday afternoon, this construction is part Salvador Dalí, part Blue Peter. The occasional abrupt shift to a more sinister tone - at one point, an electric razor (owned, significantly, by Stéphane's dead father) writhes on the floor like a dying rodent - suggests how unprepared Stéphane is for tough adult realities.

The film is similarly ill-equipped to depict the dull business of Stéphane's waking life. There are some well-observed moments: the droll humour of the scenes at Stéphane's workplace is often as good as anything in The Office, and Alain Chabat brings a coarse, bawdy energy to his role as the hero's colleague. But Stéphane's fanciful notions - sprouting huge hands that make his fiddly job impossible, water taps that leak cellophane - frequently intrude into the sequences of his Paris life. This makes for a film of shifting, unpredictable pleasures, but the busy visual texture undercuts sustained emotional involvement. This is especially true of Stéphane's relationship to Stéphanie, the neighbour with whom he falls in love. Her attitude towards Stéphane remains opaque, and Charlotte Gainsbourg's fey performance comes close to reprising that old arthouse chestnut about the unknowability of the desired woman. But a great speech towards the end criticising Stéphane's obsessive behaviour, delivered with gusto by Gainsbourg, does at least suggest this mystique is as much about Stéphane's projection as any inherent feminine guile.

Like Stéphane, Gondry may be more comfortable with his stop-motion creations and cardboard cities than the full-blooded concerns of human drama. In Stéphane's bedroom, where he makes fantastic objects such as one-second time machines and galloping toy horses, the light is soft and warm and the space comfortably intimate; the view outside, by contrast, is of a chilly, unwelcoming expanse of wintry sky. Gondry must venture beyond his self-absorbed creative realm if he's to advance as a film-maker. The Science of Sleep is possibly a very shallow work, but it's also exhaustively imaginative and bustles with wit and invention.

For now, it's hard to begrudge the time Gondry has spent daydreaming.

By Tom Charity The Science of Sleep from Cinema Scope

“I hate my dreams,” admitted Laurie Anderson. “They’re so… infantile.”

As this year’s Sundance festival selections subside in the memory I’m bound to admit the films I’m looking forward to seeing again are few and far between. Ryan Fleck’s Half Nelson would be one, for Ryan Gosling’s conflicted fuck-up of an inspirational teacher (imagine School of Rock with more sex and drugs, and no jokes). Jonathan Demme’s self-styled “dream Neil Young concert” Heart of Gold would be another. But for the most part, watching even the better part of Sundance dramatic entries one had the feeling of being ahead of the filmmakers, of having seen this low key, character-driven, politically correct movie before, maybe more than once already.

Which probably goes some way to account for the response to the world premiere of Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep. Making my way through the lobby of the Eccles afterwards, exchanging the obligatory first impressions, it occurred to me I’d rarely seen so many critics smiling. Part of this might have been relief. Not only because Science stood in such sharp contrast to everything else we were seeing, but because going in, for once, no one really knew what to expect. Not that Gondry’s talent is in question: there is ample evidence in his pop videos, commercials, and shorts that he’s perhaps the most inventive cine-magician since Georges Mélies. But Mélies never made a feature. Here, Monsieur Gondry was working in his native France , and for the first time from his own original screenplay. Who knew if he could write?

Actually the jury is still out on that question. There is much in The Science of Sleep that might read as irredeemably cute, silly, or juvenile when transcribed on the page. The plot, if it can be called that, doesn’t get far beyond boy meets girl. You wonder to what degree he worked from a conventional screenplay at all. Introducing the movie at Sundance he thanked the French production company Gaumont “for giving me exactly what I asked for even if I didn’t always know exactly what I wanted.” But speaking for myself, Gondry’s film elicited a giddy exhilaration that had next to nothing to do with character arcs, story construction, or political point-scoring, and everything to do with cinema. When it comes to camera-stylo, Gondry is a virtuoso.

How, then, to describe The Science of Sleep on paper? For a start, it’s not the story of a man held captive by the people in his dreams, as early synopses indicated. A man at the mercy of his own imagination is closer to it. We might call it a concept movie, not in the sense of high or low, 25 words or less, but to reflect that the nearest thing to a guiding principle here is chaos theory. Like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), The Science of Sleep seeks to channel the stream of unconsciousness: memory, to be sure, but also fantasy, desire, paranoia, humiliation—the dream life where angels fear to tread.

Fluffy animal suits. Cotton reel ski lifts. Cellophane streams. Rereading my notes the morning after the screening, I wondered if I’d watched this movie, or dreamed it—just as the film appears to dream itself into being from bits and pieces of Gondry’s previous work: the giant hands from the Foo Fighters’ “Everlong” video; animal costumes from Bjork’s “Human Behaviour”; transmogrifying perspectives from the White Stripes’ “Denial Twist”; and everywhere that free-flowing mélange of stop motion animation, optical effects, and location shooting which is his natural mode of expression. (The French title, incidentally, is the more precise La Science des rêves.)

The first words in my notebook are “random thoughts,” the first, perhaps crucial ingredient in the dream recipe concocted by Stéphane (Gael Garcia Bernal) in the cardboard TV studio that’s playing inside his head. The other ingredients: reminiscences of the day, memories, music and enough spaghetti for two. Slicky amateurish in the manner of youth TV presenters across Europe and beyond, sporting a tight-fitting purple suit and high beam smile, Stéphane addresses us in pick-and-mix English, French, and Spanish, throwing in the odd impromptu drum-roll for rhetorical punctuation and operating his own cardboard cut-out camera. In our dreams, we are the auteurs.

If Stéphane TV represents one projected reality, in another (what some might call “the real world”) he’s a young graphic designer newly returned to Paris after growing up in Mexico with his late father. His mother (Miou Miou) has set him up with a job designing calendar art, but when he reports for duty he finds the boss unreceptive to his “disasterology” calendar (each month depicts a landmark human catastrophe) and is installed in a menial position cutting and pasting days and dates instead.

Like a modern day Billy Liar, Stéphane is so bursting with ideas that he can’t quite see straight. He meets his soulmate when Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) moves in to the apartment next door, and he’s run over by her piano on the stairs. Although he’s initially more taken with her sexy best friend, Zoe (Emma de Caunes), it’s Stéphanie he really connects with, instinctively sensing a creative collaborator. With the liberal application of what he calls “randomized synchronicity,” Stéphane sets out to destroy the world and make it over in his image. He will woo the girl and win her with his ingenious devices: a one-second time-machine; an animatronic pony. And then, being only human, he will screw it all up.

Undoubtedly, the film invites Freudian interpretation, though it will take more than a single viewing to decode such a flood of surreal imagery. Certainly it’s not too much of a stretch to read the boyish, artistic fantasist Stéphane Miroux as Gondry’s alter-ego. And Stéphanie, would be his female mirror-(Miroux?) image, a functional, moderate double stripped of male ego. (Charlotte Gainsbourg’s grounded performance makes this character more appealing than you might suspect.) Meanwhile, Alain Chabat—as Stéphane’s sex-obsessed colleague and friend, Guy—might serve as the rampant id, as well as regular comic relief.

On the one hand Stéphane’s irrepressible fantasy life seems to represent a more vital and uninhibited engagement with the world around him. He sees possibilities and correspondences in everyday objects that simply don’t occur to other people (not for nothing does he present Stéphanie with 3-D glasses for real life, even though, as she quite rightly points out, real life is already in 3-D). But on the other (giant) hand, it’s Stéphane’s shaky grip on reality that leaves him prey to his paranoia, neuroses, and narcissism. By the end of the movie he’s less a charmingly whimsical romantic than a psychotic wretch, regressing to an alarmingly infantile state without recourse to the mind suck that afflicts Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine.

It’s not the conclusion that the dream factory would sign off on. Yet Gondry’s effervescent, pulsating, unpredictable movie revels in an uninhibited aesthetic freedom and creative zest that’s utterly alien to the current North American independent scene. I’d watch it again in a heartbeat.

Tokyo!

France Japan S. Korea Germany (110 mi) 2008 co-directors: Bong Joon-ho and Leos Carax

Shaking Up the Crowd at Cannes Manohla Dargis at Cannes from the New York Times, May 16, 2008

Far superior is the metaphorically inclined short “Shaking Tokyo,” a story about a shut-in from Bong Joon-ho, last in Cannes in 2006 with “The Host.” Mr. Bong’s short is the final chapter in the triptych “Tokyo!,” which, as you might expect, mostly takes place in that city. The first, “Interior Design,” is a bit of predictable whimsy from Michel Gondry and involves a wallflower who metamorphoses into a chair; the second short, named for a French vulgarity, finds its director, Leos Carax, in an absurdist mood and throwing scat all over the screen. Too bad that the tough female prisoners in the Argentine drama “Leonera” weren’t around to reply in kind.

Tokyo! Lee Marshall at Cannes from Screendaily

One out of three ain't bad for this Tokyo-themed directorial three-hander. Whimsical Michel Gondry delivers a thirty-minute segment that resonates, while compatriot Leos Carax spoils an otherwise tasty genre exercise by pressing it into service as a message film. Korea's Bong Joon-ho, meanwhile, delivers an artsy rom-com that is too slight even for its half-hour running time.

Unlike Asian horror omnibus Three Extremes, the directors of Tokyo ! have little in common and the Tokyo cityscape isn't enough to make them bond. Another recent urban-themed portmanteau, Paris Je T'aime, managed the act better – perhaps because its 18 segments were more bite-sized. Tokyo ! is unlikely to repeat that film's relatively wide arthouse outreach, with only the four co-production territories looking like dead certs for theatrical distribution. But all three directors have cult fanbases – so long-tail ancillary prospects should be more upbeat.

An animated title sequence and the final credits are the film's only communal spaces. Gondry is the first up with Interior Design, a tale of a couple of amiable urban drifters, Akira (Kase) and Hiroko (Fujitani). Gondry perfectly captures the fantasy-realist spirit of his source material, the graphic short story 'Cecil and Jordan in New York ' by Gabrielle Bell, even though it has been moved to Tokyo. Though apparently inconsequential until it becomes a partly-animated surreal parable in the last five minutes, the segment has a warm indie fire to it that is stoked by the chemistry between the three leads (the other is Ayumi Ito, who plays the pair's former schoolfriend and reluctant Tokyo host).

No shrinking wallflower, Carax puts his cards on the table with the title of Merde, an odd, angry little curio about a Tokyo sewer-dweller that is at its best during rare moments of tenderness. Denis Lavant is suitably extreme as Merde, a green-suited, red-bearded, flower-eating freak who is vilified by Japanese nationalists and idolised by the country's non-conformists after a bombing spree. There's humour in a series of spoof TV news reports and both humour and pathos in Merde's courtroom and prison exchanges, but Carax's attempts to turn what is basically an enjoyable weirdfest into a parable of intolerance falls flat.

Which leaves Shaking Tokyo – a decidely minor outing for Korean genre auteur Bong Joon-ho. Teruyuki Kagawa plays an unnamed hikikomori, an urban recluse who shuts himself up in his obsessively tidy apartment, refusing even to make eye contact with the bike couriers whose deliveries he survives on. Then a pizza girl (Aoi) faints on his floor during an earthquake. Jun Fukumoto's poetic photography – which recalls Chris Doyle's long-lens work in another film about an urban recluse, Last Life In The Universe – is the best thing about this occasionally charming but dramatically flaccid love story.

Cannes Film Festival, 2008: “Tokyo!” (Gondry/Carax/Bong, Japan) Daniel Kasman from the Auteur’s Notebook

Tucked in the middle of the surprisingly inspired omnibus Tokyo! is the first masterpiece of Cannes, Leos Carax’ short feature Merde.

A sneering dark comedy pastiche combo of Godzilla and Oshima’s Death by Hanging, it captures in wicked digital imagery (by the unbeatable Caroline Champetier) the emergence from the sewers of a hideous Denis Levant to wreck havoc on the unprepared Japanese city. Red-bearded like an ur-gaijin, wearing a leprechaun’s garb and crawling up from the catacombs not unlike some silent serial super villain, he roars down the streets in a gregarious, brilliant verité sequence set to Ifukube Akira’s killer score from Godzilla, stealing cigarettes, licking schoolgirls, and generally strutting with an anarchic frenzy

Logically, the next step is to grenade nighttime city crowds, and Levant’s madman—who speaks a gibberish language that only an absurd Parisian defense attorney, himself having the same curled, monstrous nails, devilish beard and milky dead-eye, can understand—is soon captured and condemned to death. Living in the underground remains of Japan’s Second World War detritus and eating only cash and imperial chrysanthemums, Levant’s creature—”Merde”—is too insanely, enjoyable kooky to express any kind of simple allegory. (Arbitrary split screen—now three ways, now four!—and an endless, untranslated interrogation scene seem to underline a certain stunt-like quality to the film’s exuberance and concept.) Instead we only see madness, Carax relishing an all-too-rare opportunity to make yet another unqualifiable, indescribable work of pure cinema, an ode to the monsters of the world.

***

Michel Gondry, with Interior Design, proves that rather than be all by his lonesome, with the help of a screenwriter he can reign in his meta-craftsman indulgence and just tell a story. Of course, we have yet to arrive at character—our heroine leaves her filmmaking boyfriend during the upheaval of the couple looking for an apartment and work in Tokyo but without any real reason for breaking the relationship—but the arc, from Fujitani Ayako’s girl on the sidelines to girl turned into a piece of useful furniture, has a touch of tenderness and much energy, despite the lack of human logic.

Gondry, with much cleverness, makes us assume from the get-go that the filmmaking boyfriend is the protagonist, opening with the joke of having him narrate a post-apocalyptic future over images outside of the window of the couple’s car, stuck in traffic on a rainy night. Is Gondry giving up the obsession with dreamer-filmmaker stand-ins? Probably not, but when Fujitani’s frustration turns her into a wooden chair to be found on the streets, for the first time in a while we see not Gondry watching someone craft whimsy, but rather we see someone inadvertently craft themselves. Feeding a creative impulse inside an ordinary character and not a savant creator is the path that will lead Gondry back to the emotional and narrative splendor of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and his segment in Tokyo! is a very promising step in the right direction.

***

Two out of three isn’t bad, but one must admit that Bong Joon-ho’s Shaking Tokyo has none of the vigor of The Host or Memories of Murder. His enjoyable jerky tone in shorter form here turns into a torpid kind of whimsy—symmetrical interior decoration, push-button tattoos, slightly odd and dramatically convenient earthquakes—none of which carries much impact. And his Imamura-like preference for social losers turns downright quirky-cute with our hero being an agoraphobic shut-in.

As the shortest film of the trio, it gets more than a pass though: it’s final image of the girl who brought our recluse out in the open is a doozy. Literally trembling during a quake which vibrates the glaring light, as if all the fear of leaving the house, facing the sun, and entering the crowd was manifesting itself in the on-fire form of this pretty girl, Bong embraces the latent whimsy of the short and for a few seconds goes all out. No explanation, just magic.

Thursday 15 Emmanuel Burdeau at Cannes from Cahiers du Cinéma

Merde.

This word, used as the title for a mid-length feature by Guitry, became yesterday, around 10 p.m. the title for another mid-length feature, this time that of Léos Carax in his Tokyo! triptych.

In Merde, Denis Lavant comes out of the gutter dressed in green and terrorizes Tokyo crowds. He ends up being hanged, after having tossed a number of grenades en route. It is funny, ferocious, and often facile. It connects well with the first and last parts of the triptych, respectively by Michel Gondry and Joon-Ho Bong. We were happy to rediscover Léos Carax, intact, still alive, as he stated himself, speaking to Thierry Frémaux.

There is more. Merde is a chance for us to say what type of cinema it is that we want. Cahiers du Cinéma readers no doubt already know it. But let’s reiterate it.

It is a cinema that goes from the silent film irises to the multiple screens of the 24 series. That jumps from film to digital media without transition or concern for looking pretty. An outrageous cinema, that makes terrorism its subject, its object, its love: that’s what we saw yesterday, and we’ll certainly be talking about it in the days to come. A cinema of anger and furor.

Films that are stolen, as if kidnapped: that’s the impression one gets, seeing Lavant strolling the avenues of Ginza. And it’s the same impression we get from great films like Cloverfield.

Films that are lost, rediscovered, or reaped are the real deal of our time.

False reporting. Unearthed archives. Violations of privacy.

Thief!

Someone has stolen the cinema!

What luck.

Matt Noller at Cannes from The House Next Door

THORN IN THE HEART (L’Epine Dans Le Coeur)

France (86 mi) 2009

Thorn In The Heart (L’Epine Dans Le Coeur) Lee Marshall at Cannes from Screendaily

Michel Gondry travels with his aunt in this edgy but still rather Gondry-style eccentric family documentary, which begins as a tribute to the filmmaker’s elderly tante Suzette’s peregrinations as a schoolteacher in rural France, but ends in more testing territory by shedding light on a strong, proud woman’s awkward relationship with her son – Gondry’s slacker cousin Jean-Yves.

Though most of this thoughtful, wry, moving and just occasionally uncomfortable film’s slim potential audience will be watching because it’s a Gondry project, that may still not be enough to secure theatrical bookings outside of the director’s native France. Thorn In The Heart seems at times more an exercise in family therapy than a film designed for a general audience.

But then again that’s also part of its appeal. Michel’s aunt Suzette worked as a teacher in various primary schools in the rural, conservative Cevennes region of France between 1952 and 1986. Opening with an alcohol-soaked Gondry dinner that establishes her as the family matriarch but also the life and soul of the party, the documentary then moves into what at first appears to be its main content – a series of visits to her old schools.

Some are still there, but others have disappeared or been turned into second homes. Suzette meets up with surviving colleagues, parents and pupils – who have mixed feelings, with one recounting how madame la maitresse dragged her out of the bushes by her hair on a school trip. Perhaps the most affecting (and historically illuminating) sequence is one in which Suzette catches up with one of the repatriated Franco-Algerian muslims, or harkis, that she taught in a mountain refugee camp in 1963.

Gradually, though, it’s an apparently minor thread that comes to dominate the film: Suzette’s relationship with her rather downtrodden gay son Jean-Yves, who grew up in the shadow of a stern, strong mother who describes him to camera as “the thorn in my heart”. It’s not quite Capturing The Friedmans – but this film does share that far more powerful and focused teasing of the audience’s sympathies and certainties – not to mention its use of Super-8 clips from old family films (shot by Jean-Yves).

Gondry the cinematic trickster is on show in some brief animated sequences, one or two passages in which the crew and subject interact on screen, and a delightful scene in which young primary school kids are given ‘invisible suits’ – presumably made from blue screen fabric – which enable them to digitally disappear.

Thorn In The Heart reads like an honest, considered portrait of a remarkable woman, but it’s not much more than an amuse-bouche for Gondry fans, who are already drooling over the next main course – Green Hornet.

Cannes '09: Day Three Mike D’Angelo from The Onion A.V. Club, May 15, 2009

Cannes. "The Thorn in the Heart" David Hudson at Cannes from The IFC Blog, May 16, 2009

Duane Byrge at Cannes from The Hollywood Reporter, May 16, 2009

Justin Chang at Cannes from Variety, May 16, 2009

THE WE AND I

USA Great Britain France (103 mi) 2012

Henry Barnes at Cannes from The Guardian, May 18, 2012

The backseat is the throne of the schoolbus, where bullies and the popular preside over the meek – or at least anyone who dares sport the wrong attitude, hair, or mobile phone. This social staple is the subject of The We and the I, Michel Gondry's polemic against the wisdom of the herd, which opened the director's fortnight at the Cannes film festival.

The plot – loose as it is – follows Teresa (Teresa L Rivera), who climbs aboard a bus taking a winding route through the Bronx to be reinitiated into her pack after a mysterious three-month absence. There's a semi-boyfriend to placate, his braggish mates to stand down. She's lost her place on the backseat and it must be won back. Further down the bus, micro-dramas play themselves out in rounds of bitching and back-stabbing. The atmosphere is as stifling as you'd expect from an extended journey with a group of rowdy teenagers.

Gondry, a 49-year-old Frenchman, makes a surprisingly successful go of following the babble and switch of young, fast-talking Bronxites. Most of the cast are non-professional actors recruited from a local after-school programme. The inexperience shows, but their stories – Laidy (Lady Chen Carrasco) struggles to organise a world-changing sweet-16 party, sleazy Jonathan (Jonathan Ortiz) connects with a beautiful girl riding her bike outside the bus – are well-developed, if simplistic. Gondry's argument – that pack mentality crushes individual expression – follows a similarly predictable route, but there's enough of his signature playfulness (especially in the use of mobile-phone footage to present flashbacks) to keep the journey entertaining.

Best of all is the limited time we spend with the kids who rarely stand out, the fringe elements that toe the line for survival, but have enough spark to speak up when the bullies go too far. It's in these moments of near-revolt – and their subsequent, inevitable quashing – that Gondry's message is clearest. All but the bravest individualist bows to the throne at the back of the bus. The trick is in knowing how low to dip.

The We And The I Mark Adams at Cannes from Screendaily

Michel Gondry’s slow-burner The We And The I is a film that needs an audience to stay through to the end, and while initially a little heavy-handed as it sets up its character-heavy format its strength comes as its young, inexperienced, cast make their impact on the film, with the closing scenes powerful and subtly moving.

While very much US-based, the story will strike a chord with urban audiences around the world and while the challenge will be reaching out to a youth audience who might more easily appreciate that language and attitude of the main characters, it also has strong art-house qualities. The opening film of Director’s Fortnight, it received a warm response at its premiere screening, with Gondry’s trademark quirkiness and visual style fitting in easily alongside the more structured aspect of the storyline.

The film makes a resolute change of direction from Gondry’s last film, when he wrote and directed the big-budget adaptation of The Green Hornet, but with The We And The I he is clearly back in his comfort zone as he tackles how teens behave and interact together, all set against the backdrop of a bus journey in the Bronx in New York.

The format is relatively simple. On the last day of high school a disparate group of students pile aboard their regular bus journey home. Initially belligerent, antagonistic and many of them plain rude, as the bus wends its way through the urban landscape many of the characters become more and more exposed – and some honest – and while the dramas and conflicts are modest their importance to the youngsters are powerful and important.

While pretty much all of the teens who board the bus get some form of screen time – which was always Gondry’s intention – the interweaving stories really have main focus on a handful of characters. These include Laidychen (Laidychen Carrasco) who is planning her sweet sixteen party; Michael (Michael Brodie) who has girlfriend issues and getting increasingly irritated with the behaviour of his pals in the back row of the bus, and Teresa (Teresa Lyn) who had dropped out of school and upset because her physical shape has changed due to the amount of anti-depressants she is on.

When they first board the bus the teens are exuberant and excited, upsetting some passengers with their horseplay and loud, overlapping, conversations. For the audience too some of them can be irritating, but as the journey continues and more and more of them get off the bus, the last half-hour of the film allows focus on two beautifully written and gently moving conversations – between Michael and Alex (Alex Barrios), who until this moment has barely featured in the film, as they talk about families and what they plan to do in the summer, and between Michael and Teresa as they come to terms about what bonds them together.

The film could perhaps be a little tighter – especially in the opening half hour as the varied characters jostle for screen time – but this bus journey is eventually worth the wait as relationships are revealed, attitudes change and real personalities unveiled.

Simon Abrams at Cannes from indieWIRE Press Play, May 18, 2012

James Rocchi at Cannes from the indieWIRE Playlist, May 19, 2012

Cannes '12, Day Two: The latest from the director of A Prophet, plus Michel Gondry gets on the bus Mike D’Angelo at Cannes from The Onion A.V. Club, May 18, 2012

DAILY | Cannes 2012 | Michel Gondry’s THE WE AND THE I » David Hudson at Cannes from Fandor, May 19, 2012

Eric Kohn interviews Gondry at Cannes from indieWIRE, May 17, 2012

Eugene Hernandez interviews Gondry at Cannes from Film Comment, May 17, 2012

David Rooney at Cannes from The Hollywood Reporter, May 17, 2012

Rob Nelson at Cannes from Variety, May 17, 2012

González, Everardo

DROUGHT (Cuates de Australia) B 88

Mexico (90 mi) 2011

Four years in the making, where the filmmaker immersed himself in the arid regions of northeastern Mexico, known as Cuates de Australia in Coahuila, from 2004 until 2007 when he actually began filming. The director’s father was a veterinarian, so his earliest memories are cattle ranches, the subject of this abstract film examining mankind’s place in such a hostile and unforgiving environment. Told without any narration or talking heads, this is more a visual meditation on ranchero culture, where what’s immediately clear is the mix of beauty in the landscape with wrenching human travail, where a son decides to forego college in order to work the land with his father, who’s getting older and can’t do it alone, so for the son there’s no hesitation or second guessing, though the viewers are well aware of his dreams being deferred. What’s inspiring, however, is how he quickly adjusts his dream to wanting to learn to be a better cowboy, where in his community, being a cowboy is more useful or valuable than becoming a lawyer. Shot by the filmmaker in a cinéma vérité style where people occasionally acknowledge the presence of the camera, a constant reminder of an outside force in their midst, this is a film essay on what amounts to a human migration cycle, set in a dry and remote area that is so isolated there are no real roads, no communications, and no electricity. Here a group of ranchers work tirelessly to survive in the desert before the water dries up, utterly dependent upon the land, barren and unforgiving though it may be, literally hiding from death, waiting and hoping for the rains, eventually turning into a mass exodus escaping a drought that leaves death in its wake, where it seems the harsher the environment, the closer the connection is between the land and its inhabitants. This is an ongoing struggle between man and the environment to see who will rule.

The rhythm of the film is one of continual observance without comment, where kids know one another since childhood, including their future marriage partners, where so many teenage girls are seen sitting around with young babies in their laps and where testosterone-driven boys aggressively taunt and challenge one another as a matter of routine. When the water is present, the ranches can operate, though families make daily trips to the storage wells as do the livestock, initially seen standing in the plentiful reserves, which quickly diminish over time, forcing ranchers to continually search for new water supplies until they all completely dry over, leaving nothing to live on and a landscape littered with the presence of death. Interestingly, the desolation of the region leaves it unsoiled by the larger narco drug trafficking wars wreaking havoc with the rest of Mexico, as marijuana or poppy plantlife will not sustain itself here, and even if it could, the openness of the region is accessible to all, leaving noplace to hide anything of value. When a census worker comes to ask a woman what possessions she has, a trace of sarcasm can be heard in her voice when she answers “We have nothing.” So what they do have is another precious commodity—time, creating close-knit families who can actually sit down and talk to one another, where everyday they spend time with their families and grandparents. The relationship with water can manifest itself in strange and mysterious ways, where they play a card game known as entripar where whoever loses must drink two glasses of water until they get sick, where one boy is seen running outside the house to vomit. In other images, water is used by the Priests to baptize the young children, to purify and bless their futures.

In good times, the community turns to sporting events, always involving horseriding, where there’s nothing like watching teenagers scope one another out on horseback. One of the major events is a horse race celebrating the baptism of children, dramatically presented here, where the rivals are such equals it is impossible to tell the winner, where fights between families break out, likely fueled by plenty of beer drinking and a bit of wagering ahead of time, even targeting the director and his film crew, turning into a bit of a fiasco. When the water supply ends, however, livestock begin to die, where ranchers and their families can do little more than watch the skies for signs of rain, where abandoning their homes is an accepted reality, turning into Depression era images of The Grapes of Wrath, where truckloads filled to the brim with children and vital possessions search for makeshift communities near water supplies where presumably (since the camera doesn’t follow) they survive in hobo camps reminiscent of the 1930’s. Once the winds pick up and a surge of lightning fills the darkened skies, hail and rain literally plummet from above, breathing life back into a scorched earth and the life cycle begins all over again. The director is overly fond of an especially primitive sounding music heard throughout by Pablo Tamez and Matias Barberis, apparently 1970’s a capella trio recordings of cantos cardenches, a particularly authentic style of folk song where one might recall impoverished church choirs of only a few singers, where hymns often have the ache of rural desolation in the weary voices. There are some hard to view images and queasy moments where viewers may feel helpless to the dire circumstances, but the director is unsparing in the visual scope of his objective eye, where overall he artfully projects the unique harshness of surviving in such an arid and isolated region.

Review: 'Drought' tells its story simply and effectively - Los Angeles ... Sam Adams from The LA Times

A poetic, almost abstract portrait of impoverished ranchers waiting for rain, Everardo Gonzalez's documentary "Drought" traces the parched terrain of northern Mexico, in the communal region called Cuates de Australia.

The film provides little in the way of background or ongoing story, although a young couple's journey from prenatal ultrasound to birth provides a rough, and somewhat contrived, sense of progress.

González (who served as his own cinematographer) occasionally engages his subjects from behind the camera, but he mainly observes with an outsider's patient eye. He keeps his distance, leaving room for plenty of thoughtfully framed compositions and allowing the hush of a dried-up land to predominate.

It's lonely going after a while, but it also provides insight into the hardiness of spirit necessary to endure the region's long arid spells.

Like the men who criss-cross the rough earth with bent sticks in hand, González is dowsing, only for images instead of buried streams. Often, he finds only a trickle, but like the film's subjects, viewers come to savor each drop.

They Face a Harsh World: 'Drought' and 'We Women Warriors ... Cynthia Fuchs from Pop Matters

Dust. It fills the frame, even as horses gather at a waterhole, as wind blows tree branches, as men tend to cattle. Dust colors the air, brown and grey. Dust stirs and settles, rises and falls. Dust is everywhere in Drought (Cuates de Australia), Everardo González’s mediation on land without water. At once distressing and meditative, the film observes men and women and their children, as they survive each day, look back on a past at once mythic and concrete, and sometimes imagine a future that may or may not be possible.

Selected for DocuWeeks in August, Drought offers little narration and less plot, but it does raise questions, about how people live in adversity, how they make sense of daily disorder. The same might be said of another film at DocuWeeks, We Women Warriors (Tejiendo Sabiduría). Focused on the experiences of three women in Colombia, journalist Nicole Karsin’s first feature film makes clear both their daily hardships and their tenacity. Doris, living in the southern Awá territory, recalls the loss of her activist mother when she was a child, as well as her inspiration: “My mom worked in native villages,” Doris says, “She was a committed leader, and I followed her example.” Even as a student, Doris says, “I enjoyed working with the community,” and so it seemed to her a natural development that she would run for office as a tribal governor. Specifically, Doris sees the job as a commitment to education, “our mission,” from basic needs like desks in classrooms to teachers and lesson plans.

Hope may be all that’s possible for the families living in the Mexican desert town of Cuates de Australia. Drought‘s breathtaking imagery exposes both destitution and splendor, as men herd cattle, children play, and women collect water from a distant stream—all in swirling dust. They treasure their land, harsh as it is. One man points out what’s at an obvious and existential truth: “To get a piece of land, you have to suffer, you have to struggle. It’s not just, ‘This is mine and I’m going to hold onto it.’” For the land, you come to see in González’s film, belongs to no one.

These stark compositions, accompanied by the sound of wind or sometimes, cantos cardenches (local folk songs), show the intersections of sky and mountains, cracked earth and animals’ skeletons. Each shot is beautiful and heartbreaking too. A rancher describes the cycle: “Over the last few days we’ve been running out of water,” he says, “We have to give animals water and all that shit, and then you have to work your ass off to support yourself, and when it rains here, you have to get the fuck over there with your animals.” He leans into his hands to light a cigarette, as he adds, “With the damn burros.”

The film’s meditation on the interdependence of man and animal, land and life, is at once poetic and provocative. A doctor—in an office equipped with an ultrasound machine—informs a young pregnant woman and her husband that their baby is malnourished, the camera cutting between close-ups of their faces, showing simultaneous apprehension and joy. Every day, they survive. And each day, the cycle goes on.

Drought/Cuates de Australia | Article | New York | Remezcla.com Eddie Martinez frm Mezcla

As climate change becomes more and more ingrained in the public consciousness, the effects are fodder for commentary, especially in the realm of documentaries. Everardo Gonzalez’s Drought is an environmental documentary but the key difference is that it focuses on both the environment and the environment of people without moralizing or romanticism. When thinking about how easy it is to do both, especially with the topic at hand, the results are astounding and hypnotic.

Drought is focused on the lives of a small northern Mexican village in Cuate de Australia. It is a place that values its sense of geography; it effect, its location is its identity. The rustic dwellings are threadbare; electricity is rare, TV and appliances are almost non-existent. It’s a place frozen in time, away from the troubles currently racking the country. It is also bitterly poor. Poverty coupled with the harsh environment has cultivated a sense of defiant individualism. It is that tradition that continues to occupy hallowed ground within the Mexican Psyche. However, the passages of time make a mockery of belief systems as nature undermines their sense of station again and again. Luckily, the director exercises restraint and does not let their sense of pride overshadow the undercurrent of fatalism that has seeped into their lives.

It is a hard life but Gonzalez shows with astute skill, that their lives are worth living; their livelihoods are worth the sweat and tears because that is the only life they know. A nation has passed them by and their sense of isolation is the cruel irony of life on the barren prairie. Their animals show the effects most of all, malnourished, they wander in desperate search of water; often times, they meet a sad end. Water, the main leitmotif of the film casts a shadow over the village. Often times it is dirty and unsafe to drink. The only filtration device available at hand is a piece of fabric; its’ only effective at keeping stones and maybe small animals away from the already contaminated water. In short, the villagers adapt but it is a slow death sentence that is probably nestled deep behind the village’s psyche.

However, the film never betrays a sense of total doom; the children are smiling, families are waiting to be created and recreation continues. It is a testament to human resilience but it is also a reminder of the powerful hold tradition has on the individual. From a young man who walked away from higher education to become a rancher to church and social functions, the documentary takes on an anthropological bent but it never takes its eye off the elephant in the room. Such documentaries are to be lauded for it is easy to settle into dogmatic points of view or even worse, be didactic. Scenes such as a spat between two boys, lightens the mood a little with the help of rough language and one of the first shots of a horse will be sure to widen the eyes.

In the end, fate will decide what happens since fatalism is a hallmark of Mexico. But don’t think for a second that they will let their end stop their today. There is still life to be lived, there is still water to be found. There are still people who will watch and come out like I have, enthralled and alternately astounded and frightened at the power that stands outside our windows.

DROUGHT (CUATES DE AUSTRALIA) – Hammer to Nail Paul Sbrizzi

DocuWeeks hosts Everardo González's dry & dusty Me... James van Maanen from Trust Movies

Everardo González's Doc DROUGHT Wins LA Film Fest | Cinema ... Cinema Tropical, June 24, 2012

TFI :: Everardo González Explains His Visual Style For 'Drought' Everardo González from Tribeca Film Institute, July 15, 2012

Meet the DocuWeeks Filmmakers: Everardo González--'Drought ... Katharine Relth interview from Documentary, August 2012

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR “DROUGHT” DIRECTOR EVERARDO ... Michael Nordine interview from Filmmakers magazine, August 9, 2012

A Conversation with Everardo González (DROUGHT) – Hammer to ... Paul Sbrizzi interview from Hammer to Nail, August 24, 2012

Drought: LAFF Review - The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

Variety Reviews - Drought - Film Reviews - Guadalajara Film Fest ... Robert Koehler

González Iñárritu, Alejandro

AMORES PERROS A- 94

Mexico (154 mi) 2001

Amores Perros Anthony Lane from the New Yorker

This three-part tale, the début directorial effort of Alejandro González Iñárritu, gives you a pretty good idea of what life is like in Mexico City and leaves you with an enduring wish never to drive its streets at rush hour. The first section chronicles the near-incestuous affair between Octavio (Gael García Bernal) and his sister-in-law Susana (Vanessa Bauche). The second, which sags with weary symbolism, is about a model who loses a leg. The third and strongest tells of an ex-terrorist and tramp (Emilio Echevarría) who kills for money and dreams of love. The connective tissue between these folks is a car crash, and each of them also either owns or trains dogs. (If your taste in movies doesn't run to pooches with bloody flanks and broken necks, you should probably stay away.) Iñárritu's style carries the day; it may be heated and hectic, but he doesn't bully you into judging these frazzled figures, and, in Echevarría, he has found a figure of great and grimy nobility. In Spanish.

Salon (Andrew O'Hehir) review

The most populous sprawl on earth proves a vivid barometer for the state of 21st-century civilisation in this feverish Mexico City triptych. González Iñárritu's Rottweiler of a movie slams street-level toughs up against glamorous, high society celebrity, then picks over the carnage. In the first story, lovelorn Octavio (García) turns to dogfighting to scrape enough money together to steal away his brother's wife. In the second, a magazine editor leaves his family for beautiful model Valeria (Toledo), just as an accident lands her in a wheelchair. The aftermath - involving an urban legend about a dog trapped under the floorboards - turns their lives inside out. The final story centres on an ex-Communist revolutionary (Echevarría) who prefers the companionship of mutts to people. Steeped in disgust, he accepts a contract to murder a businessman, but even as he confronts the worst, he somehow summons a shred of dignity and hope. Recalling Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction - but edgier than both - this is a hell of a first film. For all its bonecrunching savagery, it's also a fundamentally moral work. The love of animals is one redeeming grace note, even as González Iñárritu makes it clear that the love of mankind is a far greater challenge.

BFI | Sight & Sound | Pup Fiction Edward Lawrenson and Bernardo Pérez Soler from Sight and Sound, May 2001 (excerpt)

Amores perros is a provoking, incendiary new film from Mexico about city dwellers and their dogs. Edward Lawrenson introduces the film and Bernardo Pérez Soler interviews debut director Alejandro González

Near the end of the 154-minute running time of Alejandro González Iñárritu's exhilarating debut Amores perros, an old man, sitting by the side of the road, takes time out to look up at the sky. The character, El Chivo/The Goat (Emilio Echevarría), is an ex-revolutionary down on his luck who's been contracted to assassinate a businessman, and he's waiting beside a telegraph pole outside his target's office in Mexico City, staking things out. But for the moment, El Chivo looks up and squints, the sun darting behind the pole, then out again, its fresh light flickering on the old man's weathered face.

It's a masterful and exquisite moment - one that lets you catch your breath and reflect on the street-level urgency of the previous two hours. An ambitious multi-plotted portrait of overlapping lives in contemporary Mexico City, Amores perros rarely relaxes its grip. Its opening view of the city is as an accelerated blur, glimpsed from the window of a speeding car that's about to crash; its subsequent images are of a place always on the move, teeming with incident, where the collision of coincidence and the irruption of violence are ever present.

This opening car-crash set-piece is the film's pivotal plot point. Amores perros is divided into three sections, each devoted to otherwise unconnected characters whose lives are affected by the crash. Unemployed teenager Octavio (Gael García) heads up the first, alongside his brother Ramiro (Marco Pérez) and Ramiro's wife Susana (Vanessa Bauche). In part this episode plays out like a clammy domestic melodrama - in the cramped, overheated confines of their small family flat, Octavio falls in love with Susana and vows to take her away from her abusive husband. But in order to pay for this, he takes to entering his beloved Rottweiler Cofi in the illegal dogfights regularly organised by an underworld connection.

These sequences have already earned the film a degree of notoriety in the UK. A title card at the beginning might reassure us that no animals were harmed during the film's making, but the dogfights are still vivid, fierce affairs (though arguably it's the aftermath that's most telling - glimpses of the dead dogs, their coats glossy with blood, being dragged off like hulks of meat by their indifferent owners, or of those barely alive being splashed into action to fight again by handfuls of soapy, blood-red water).

But while these sequences are gruelling, they're not gratuitous. As in Robert Bresson's Au hasard Balthazhar, here animal suffering is an index of human cruelty. (The parallel is made explicit towards the end when two brothers determined to kill one another are chained to either side of a room and strain at their binds like dogs held in check before a fight.) Dogs get a rough deal in Amores perros: whereas the first section sees them tear at one another's throats in order to enrich their owners, the second features a pampered pet pooch Richie - belonging to Spanish model Valeria (Goya Toledo) - which disappears under the polished floorboards of its owner's new flat where it nearly starves to death while being gnawed at by rats. Like Octavio, Valeria is involved in the crash that opens the movie - and González Iñárritu charts her slow recovery in the flat her lover Daniel (Alvaro Guerrero) has bought her. If the first section unfurled at a fiery, breakneck pace, this one is more of a slowburner - although no less intense. A mocking echo of happier times, Richie can be heard yelping occasionally, scurrying underneath their feet as Daniel and Valeria attempt to figure out what went wrong between them. The segment is a piercing account of a relationship falling apart - and a painstaking exploration of the hold domestic spaces have over us - shot through with a line of dark absurdist humour that brings to mind Buñuel's treatise on bourgeois entrapment The Exterminating Angel, a late entry in the Spanish director's Mexican period.

A sprawling saga of lives in a violent urban environment, with flashes of self-conscious narrative (the film shuttles back and forth in time) and overlapping plotlines, Amores perros will inevitably invite comparisons with Quentin Tarantino's first two movies. In fact, González Iñárritu seems to be goading us to make them: in the opening scene, which takes place inside Octavio's car as it hurtles through the city, Octavio's friend attempts to stem the blood from a wound Cofi has just sustained much as Harvey Keitel extemporised first-aid on Tim Roth in the back of their getaway car in Reservoir Dogs; later there's a playful parody of the torture scene from that film. But if the comparison works, it's only superficially: Amores perros' moments of violence are forceful but fleeting (when El Chivo shoots dead a businessman in a restaurant, all we see is a trickle of blood bubbling and thickening on a hotplate), and despite the occasional reversal of the film's chronology, it's largely stylistically unaffected.

The final section follows El Chivo, who's been glimpsed throughout the first two episodes as an impassive witness to events. Living in a one-room squat and spending his days wandering the streets followed by the troupe of dogs he cares for, he seems to have retreated from the world some time ago. A former revolutionary, his idealism has long since flagged - when a corrupt police commander asks him why he doesn't wear his glasses any more, his resigned reply is: "If God wants me to see blurry, I'll see blurry". Concentrating on El Chivo's attempt to set up one last hit - and his efforts to find out more about the daughter who believes him dead - the film's final reel also catches up with Octavio, Ramiro and Susana. There's a courageously bleak edge to the turn of events ("To make God laugh, tell him your plans", Susana says of Octavio's hopes), and it's tempting to read a political critique underlying the harrowing portrait of a place that seems to drive its inhabitants to the edge of despair. González Iñárritu himself has stated that the film illustrates the legacy of 71 years of single-party rule (which ended in December 2000): a society where the chasm between rich and poor is ever-growing and crime seems the only means of subsistence for millions of people. Yet the film snatches hope where it can - and it's perhaps González Iñárritu's greatest achievement that, after all its grim stretches, Amores perros comes to a close with a note of muted optimism.

Amores Perros • Senses of Cinema Maria San Filippo, March 2001

Reviews On The Side by Steve Lekowicz

'Alejandro González Iñárritu' Provides an Excellent Analyses of the ... Sarah Boslaugh from Pop Matters, January 4, 2011

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Passion for Movies: Amores Perros - Stuns Our Senses And Dazzles ... Arun Kumar

.:Amores perros opening scene analysis:. | GiuliaDadamo

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Edward Copeland on Film

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Alejandro González Iñárritu's Amores Perros - Filmmaker Magazine ... Travis Crawford interview from Filmmaker magazine, Winter 2001

Entertainment Weekly review [A] Lisa Schwarzbaum

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Amores Perros Movie Review & Film Summary (2001) | Roger Ebert

DVDBeaver dvd review Gary W. Tooze

21 GRAMS B+ 92

USA (125 mi) 2003

Some critics are quick to point out that this film is not as good as his breakout work, AMORES PERROS (2001), again written by Guillermo Arriaga, but unlike the earlier, which has a phenomenal first and third section only, this film sustains an intensity level throughout using a brilliantly conceived narrative line. Extremely intense, despairing, yet wonderfully well-written, this story criss-crosses back and forth in time with brief glimpses into the intersecting lives of three individuals, all brilliantly played by Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, and Benicio del Toro, with my nod to Watts as the most explosive. All three are wracked by guilt about the loss of lives in a random car accident, even though one does get a second chance at life from one of the deceased's organ donation. The look of the film is fabulous, with Jorge Prieto's washed-out colors, as it's in-your-face, bordering on the extreme, with some haunting use of music, especially an extended musical sequence where Naomi Watts silently returns to the scene of the accident, and sits down on the curb coming to grips with the event, juxtaposed against Benicio del Toro alone in a hotel room, getting drunk, and melting a burning knife into his tattooed flesh, wiping out any thoughts of God, and his Christian cross, as a benevolent spirit. I loved the style of the film and the expert story-telling that lured you into each successive frame, beginning and ending with Sean Penn, a dying man in a hospital room ruminating about his impending death, interspersed with vibrant, yet anguishing personal vignettes. It is not until the very end of the film that these stories actually merge and you finally come to understand the depths of each of these three people. Every human being loses precisely 21 grams, the supposed weight of the human soul, which leaves the body at death, the weight of a stack of five nickels, a chocolate bar, or a hummingbird. "How much is lost?" he asks himself. "How much is gained?"

In hindsight, one may re-examine the crisscrossing narrative method and think it’s filled with contrivances, that the events don’t happen naturally, but are forced by the narrative to make near mathematical sense, which is highly unlikely, and adds a touch of pretense to what is otherwise a gripping story.

Village Voice (J. Hoberman) review

There's nothing lightweight about 21 Grams. As in González Iñárritu's acclaimed Amores Perros, an automobile accident collides three different worlds. But here the wreckage is even more devastating, fracturing the very structure of the movie, which is all jagged details breaking through the blur. Like accident investigators, the audience has to pick up the pieces and figure out who, what, where and why. How does ex-con Jesus-freak Jack (Del Toro) connect with lapsing addict Cristina (Watts)? Is she even the same woman seen in happy family scenes? And why is Paul (Penn) an emergency in waiting? For a film devised in (mis)fits and false starts, much of this is surprisingly compelling. The director and his collaborators cook up a fervid spiritual battleground filtered through Rodrigo Prieto's intentionally cruddy camerawork - so low light and grainy it sometimes looks as if Paul's hair has turned green. The hand-me-down symbolism will appeal to those of a Roman Catholic disposition, but the movie is front-loaded with riveting angst. Watts is a revelation and Del Toro's sermon to his kids on turning the other cheek is some kind of stand-alone classic. Matters build to an almost unendurable a pitch of intense anguish. Unfortunately (if mercifully) this emotional peak occurs around the halfway mark. As the jigsaw puzzle fills out and the storytelling becomes more orthodox, the melodrama starts to strain. The director may want to scramble our sense of cause and effect, but when all's said and done, he still wants an ending, even the oldest in the book.

BFI | Sight & Sound | 21 Grams (2003) Paul Julian Smith, March 2004

An unnamed town in the US, the present. College professor Paul (Sean Penn) is awaiting a heart transplant. His English wife Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is hoping to get pregnant through artificial insemination. Middle class housewife Cristina (Naomi Watts) comes home to find her husband Michael (Danny Huston) and two young daughters have not yet arrived. Reformed jailbird Jack (Benicio Del Toro) lives in poverty with his wife Marianne (Melissa Leo) and two children and is obsessed with religion. Jumping backwards and forwards in time, the film recounts the consequences of a traffic accident in which Jack runs over and kills Cristina's husband and daughters.

Paul is given Michael's heart, Cristina spirals into despair and drug abuse and Jack, overcome with remorse, gives himself up to the police. Paul finds out who his donor was and, breaking up with Mary, begins an affair with Cristina. He also discovers that his new heart is being rejected. Cristina tells Paul that they owe it to Michael to kill Jack. When Jack is released from prison he remains tortured by guilt and leaves his family to stay in a motel. Paul and Cristina follow Jack, but Paul is unable to kill him. When Jack breaks into their motel room, Cristina attacks him, but Paul's heart gives out and he shoots himself in the chest. They rush together to the hospital, where Cristina learns she is pregnant.

Review

A. O. Scott of the New York Times recently wrote that when he sees a film at a press screening he tries to look at it twice: once as a filmgoer who simply experiences the film and once as a critic, reflecting self-consciously on that immediate experience. There can be few films that demand this double vision so much as 21 Grams , Alejandro González Iñárritu's hugely ambitious drama in which the lives of a professor dying of heart disease (Sean Penn's Paul), a young suburban mother (Naomi Watts' Cristina), and an ex-con who has found Jesus (Benicio Del Toro's Jack) intersect after a tragic accident. In one of the opening fragments, Jack shows an apprentice hoodlum how a life can fall apart by having him remove a piece from a precarious pile of wooden blocks. The pieces cascade down. Testing formal fragmentation to the limit, González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga risk just this kind of collapse in the first half hour where there seems no way of holding the pieces of the film (of three lives) together. But they offer another teasing analogy: Paul plays electronic chess in his hospital bed. As spectators we are required to participate in 21 Grams' very serious game, facing the challenge that the film-makers have made to the audience as well as to the characters.

For lovers of González Iñárritu's magnificent first feature, 21 Grams might seem at first sight to be Amores perros times two, and not just in its premise of three lives linked and separated by a car crash. Breaking for the border, González Iñárritu brings his creative team from Mexico, but each of their contributions is intensified. While in Arriaga's earlier script the three strands were developed separately and rarely intersected, here they are crosscut kaleidoscopically from the start. Rodrigo Prieto's handheld cinematography was nervous and edgy in Amores perros . Here it is positively vertiginous, swinging between the distraught actors for much of the picture. And the grainy, degraded texture of the image, varying with the use of different film stocks, is more emphatic than before. Even Brigitte Broch's production design seems intensified. She has said that parts of the set which will never be seen (such as drawers which will not be opened) are dressed as diligently as those that are in sight. And there is a dense authenticity to these natural locations: sterile suburbs, raucous singles bars, grungy motels and hell-hole prisons. Shot in anonymous Memphis, a city whose stubby downtown towers few viewers are likely to recognise, and in the scrubby featureless New Mexican desert, 21 Grams is convincing both as a mid-American document and as the universal moral drama that it aims to be.

This curious combination of veracity and abstraction holds for the characters too. It comes as something of a shock to learn that Penn's gravely stoic Paul is a mathematics professor: we know nothing and care less for his professional background. The pressnotes tell us that Watts' Cristina, who switches from one scene to the next between squeaky clean suburban mum and dirty blonde drug-addled wreck, had substance abuse problems before her marriage. I had assumed she began to take drugs only after the accident. Only Del Toro's alarmingly thick-set Jack is provided with a fully fledged backstory: after a life devoted to booze and crime he has embraced religion with alarming ferocity. As his wife (the excellent Melissa Leo) confesses, she no longer knows who he is.

In spite, then, of these virtuoso performances, the focus of the film is more on abstract issues. 21 Grams tackles huge, unfashionable questions rarely posed in current cinema: if there is a God, why does He allow evil things to happen? What is the nature of human identity? How do we cope with guilt? One leitmotif is the line: "We have to go on living." Potentially clichéd, here it reveals the true cost of survival, its brutal and visceral effects. As in Almodóvar's All about my Mother (whose soundtrack Gustavo Santaolalla seems to cite in a wistful accordion theme), organ transplants are used as a metaphor for the all-too physical way in which people touch one another's lives, bringing love and death unerringly in their wake. Paul literally confronts his own heart, pickled in a jar after the operation. "Is that my heart?" he says, adding wryly, "The culprit." In González Iñárritu's relentlessly austere universe even vital organs have their guilt.

For all the brilliance of his plot construction and the seriousness of his moral enquiry, however, González Iñárritu remains primarily a poet of the visible world. Among the glittering, inexplicable shards of the opening sequence is a brief shot of birds rising, black against a blood-red sky. At the end we are treated to its mirror image, with a flock falling like leaves over a sky that is now streaked with blue. After a shattering climax which has brought the three main characters together for the first and last time, this is the clearest sign from this bleak triumph that there is still hope even after that cruellest and most banal of tragedies: a traffic accident.

World Socialist Web Site review Joanne Laurier

Reverse Shot review Vicente Rodriguez-Ortega

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ReelViews (James Berardinelli) review [4/4]

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AboutFilm.com (Carlo Cavagna) review [A-]

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Film Freak Central Review [Bill Chambers]

DVD Times Matt Day

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d+kaz. Intelligent Movie Reviews (Daniel Kasman) review [C+]

Alternative Film Guide Review Andre Soares

Goatdog's Movies (Michael W. Phillips, Jr.) review [3/5]

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James Bowman review

Alejandro González Iñárritu Finds New Life in a Film Obsessed with Death, "21 Grams" Peter Brunette from indieWIRE

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The Providence Journal (Michael Janusonis) review [4/5]

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culturevulture.net, Choices for the Cognoscenti review Arthur Lazere

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Movie House Commentary Johnny Web and Tuna

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eFilmCritic.com review [5/5] Mark Rodger-Snelson

Keeping the Innocence With "21 Grams"; Alejandro González Iñárritu Discusses His Sophomore Opus Interview by Wendy Mitchell from indieWIRE, November 20, 2003

TV Guide review

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Guardian/Observer review

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Austin Chronicle (Kimberley Jones) review [3.5/5]

Seattle Post-Intelligencer review Paula Nechak

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Movie review: '21 Grams' Michael Wilmington from The Chicago Tribune

Los Angeles Times [Manohla Dargis]

BABEL B- 81

Mexico USA France (142 mi) 2006

What makes us happy is different, but what makes us miserable is very, very similar

Most of this feels like we've seen it before, perhaps because the look is reminiscent of SYRIANA, which also overplays the geo-politics of international relations and the sorry state that America plays in it. Unfolding in three different sections which overlap simultaneously, two of the three overreach, sliding into CRASH-like contrivance and deal with stereotypical hot button American political issues, the perception of terrorism, which casts a dark cloud over innocents and the boondoggle that is America's immigration policy with Mexico, which is basically arrest the bastards and ask questions later, neither of which add anything new to the current debate. The third section, by its very lack of political dimension makes it the most interesting. Again written with the aid of Guillermo Arriaga, the third such collaboration, the sections are set in the deserts of Morocco, the border between Tijuana and San Diego, and a transcendent visualization of Tokyo, seen as a beautifully sculptured modernized world that is visually exquisite, including a choreography of moving trains cutting through the high rise configurations during the daytime while capturing a spectacular glowing skyline at night, as seen through the improbable adolescent eyes of a high school team of deaf mute female volleyball players, who are for the most part surprisingly upbeat.

American tourists Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett discuss their entangled lives in a deserted Moroccan café while at the same time a gun is purchased in the desert sands to prevent jackals from eating a herd of mountain goats, two separate incidents that become inevitably linked when Blanchett, riding in a tour bus, is shot by kids who were supposed to be watching the goats but were instead out for a little target practice. This escalates into an international incident when the US immediately determines this must have been the act of terrorists. Police scour the desert neighborhood (what, there's two families for twenty miles?) for suspects while the tour bus makes a detour into a small Moroccan village in the middle of nowhere to seek medical help. Mostly, they become immersed in the curiosity of the townsfolk who come out to stare. Pitt, doing his best Sean Penn overacting imitation, frantically tries to find someone who can help his wife before she bleeds to death as they are hours from the nearest hospital.

Adriana Barraza plays an undocumented Mexican nanny who looks after Pitt and Blanchett's two kids in San Diego, who tries to find anyone to look after them so she can attend her son's wedding, but ends up hauling the kids along to Tijuana for a real barnburner of a party, which at times scares the living beJesus out of the kids, beheading chickens, firing guns into the air, but also features highly festive costumes, terrific music and dance sequences, with plenty of wedding cake, food and beer adding to the frivolity of the event, where a joyously beautiful affair turns into a nightmare when they try to make it back across the border, eventually leaving the kids stranded in the middle of the desert, apparently missing that soccer game they were scheduled to play the next day.

Rinko Kikuchi is introduced to us by arguing a call too vociferously and getting kicked out of a volleyball game, which attracts our interest as all the players are deaf mutes. In a typical locker room sequence afterwards, the girl's camaraderie is evident and there's a joyous support for one another that exists within their own group, but they are obviously looked upon quite differently by the outside world, seen as monsters at one point by other teenage boys when they discover they can't talk. Kikucho takes to the offense by removing her panties, giving the boys an eyeful before she disappears from a local hangout. She lives alone with her dad (Koji Yakusho) following the mysterious death of her mother, both emotionally devastated in their few scenes alone, made even more intriguing when police detectives wish to speak to her father.

Of the three different sections, the first is wretchedly pretentious and unfortunately just drags on and feels like the longest, and the only one featuring an American movie star. In the revolving narrative, one regrets returning to this sequence, as it simply fails to sustain itself. Adriana Barraza is dead on, however, in her role, really coming to life during the Mexican wedding celebration, which is wonderfully conceived through the wide eyed expressions of the American kids, who may as well be complete strangers lost in a wondrous theme park. Easily the best sequence in the film is Kikuchi's entrance into a nightclub dance party after she and some friends drop ecstasy. The music of Earth, Wind, and Fire's "September" is vividly cast in differing dimensions, bursting with a kind of kinetic energy reminiscent of 25TH HOUR, visually spectacular, musically pulsating, but occasionally totally silent from the deaf perspective, with a strobe light flashing on Kikuchi's face, revealing a mix of curiosity and confusion. This sequence evolves later into a stunning expression of heartbreak and grief, where Kikuchi gives that poor police detective a real run for his money, leaving him meandering through his own internalized state of confusion.

The suggestive title refers to the Biblical reference (Genesis 11:1-9) of blind ambition, to a time when mankind challenged the Word of God by building a Tower of Babel that would reach to the heavens, an act that brought God's wrath, whose punishment scattered people around the globe, imposing confusion through multiple languages. This film assumes we remain separated by language and cultural differences, and accentuates the consequences of this modern condition of globalization. The cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto is jarring, hand-held in-your-face, occasionally too close for comfort, while at other times accentuating the distance in the seemingly endless desert landscapes or the sumptuous beauty of Tokyo at night, while the music from Argentinean composer Gustavo Santaolalla is superb throughout and is easily one of the best things in the film, adding a feeling of authenticity in each distinct cultural exploration.

Village Voice (Jim Ridley) review

Writer Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro González Iñárritu team up once again for another portrait of society's social ills, this one even longer and less enjoyable than Amores Perros or 21 Grams. Skillfully made, but preachy as all get-out, the film crosses four stories. In the first, a couple of young Moroccan boys are given a rifle to warn coyotes away from their sheep, but they take a few practice shots at a tour bus, wounding an American tourist (Cate Blanchett). Her husband (Brad Pitt) tries to keep her alive, while waiting for American authorities to fly through enemy airspace. Meanwhile, their housekeeper unwisely takes their kids across the border to Mexico for a wedding, where a drunken nephew (Gael Garcia Bernal) gets them into trouble. The fourth story -- connected very tenuously -- has a Japanese businessman (Koji Yakusho) dealing with his emotionally distant, deaf daughter. Why is she deaf? Very simply: movies about deaf people win awards. Most critics will probably find something profound in this beautiful-looking mishmash, but the profundity exists only in the intent, and not in the execution. See last year's The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, also written by Arriaga, for a better, more understated example of a movie with something to say.

Mike D'Angelo at Cannes

Just when it was beginning to look as if Pedro Almodóvar might win the Palme d'Or unopposed, as it were, along comes what early hubbub suggests may be a credible rival: Babel, the third film (in yet another freakin' "loose trilogy") from Mexico's Alejandro González Iñárritu. If you saw either Amores perros or 21 Grams, and especially if you saw both, you know what to expect: multiple narratives rippling outward from some central act of violence, the upheaval forging unexpected connections among a multitude of disparate characters. Babel's fresh angle, reflected in its title, takes that disparity global, with stories set in San Diego, Tokyo, and a small Moroccan village, plus a brief and disastrous jaunt south of the U.S. border. The cast, likewise, ranges from assured non-professionals to vaguely familiar faces (Japanese leading man Koji Yakusho, Mike Leigh regular Peter Wight) to the likes of Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt, with everyone receiving roughly equal weight. Here, the inciting incident (thanks, Syd Field) is a gunshot fired -- without particular malice -- by a couple of Moroccan youngsters who've just been handed their first rifle: the bullet strikes Blanchett, triggering a medical emergency that requires her children, back in California, to accompany their nanny to her son's wedding outside of Tijuana. Meanwhile, a deaf Japanese schoolgirl (remarkable newcomer Rinko Kikuchi), her puberty blues exacerbated by her disability, begins acting out in increasingly unstable ways; how her tale eventually gets linked to the Moroccan shooting incident I'll leave for you to discover, since I wouldn't want to deprive anyone of a good sound forehead-slap.

Multipart movies have become more and more prevalent over the past ten years or so, and I suspect that's because filmmakers have realized that it's far easier to devise three or four sketchy tales than to develop a single taut and consistently compelling narrative. Whenever one story starts to flag, simply cut to another; if none of these winds up being fully satisfying in and of itself, a handful of recurring thematic breadcrumbs, sprinkled here and there, may inspire intrepid viewers to construct their own...baguette. (Sorry, it's late.) For about an hour, while various balls remained suspended in midair, I found Babel completely engrossing -- the Japanese section, in particular, offers some memorably perverse tidbits, including a hilarious visit to the dentist and the best use ever of Earth Wind & Fire's "September," or at least portions of it. (Wait and see.) But the film's second half, alas, is something of a letdown, as each strand devolves into contrived, self-important melodrama. It's one thing to take a couple of sheltered blond California moppets and watch their eyes pop out of their heads when they see charming Gael García Bernal decapitate a rooster with his bare hands; it's another, considerably lesser thing to send them staggering through the desert with the border patrol hard on their heels. In short, Babel overreaches. Can anybody think of a handy metaphor for that particular sin? I'm coming up blank.

Babel (2006) Bryant Frazer from Deep Focus

This is the Cinema of Escalating Crises, in which the whims and misfortunes of people on any given continent can have a profound impact thousands of miles away. The film’s very first scene involves that most cinematic of weapons, a rifle. After a genial transaction involving cash and a goat, the rifle finds its way into the hands of children (This move represents the first in the film’s long chain of Bad Decisions.) And those children, having no comprehension of the special gravity of bullets, betray their own lives and the lives of others.

One of the kids takes a potshot at a passing bus — to test the gun’s range — and ends up shooting one of the passengers in the shoulder. This sets up one of the film’s many implicit observations about The World Today, which is that if those kids hadn’t been unlucky enough to shoot at a bus full of white people — in terrible fact, a bus carrying Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett — their transgression would quite possibly have gone unamplified and thus unpunished. But the plight of the American husband and his fair-haired wife — the two of them stranded in Nowhere, Morocco, she bleeding profusely and he clambering further toward his wit’s end in each of his scenes — is big international news, and because the U.S. government feels the incident has the whiff of terror about it, the ensuing investigation is swift and blunt. It’s a misapprehension born of miscommunication — or willful misunderstanding.

It’s clear how director Alejandro González Iñárritu reads it. Babel is all about failure to communicate, from a government’s rush to judgment to a border patrol’s kneejerk order-following, and about the narrow fissure between personal and political. Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga take the long view of their story, hopscotching forward and back in time and cutting easily from place to place to create a drama that’s both epic and intimate in scope. Here a scene takes place with the chickens that will feed a Mexican wedding party. There another one transpires among a clique of Japanese girls who make their way through Tokyo talking in sign language. Chieko cannot speak at all, and she’s as desperate as any of the film’s characters to make expressive human contact. She dares it with the flick of a tongue across a few centimeters’ distance — or the flash of beaver across a crowded room. If her tongue fails her, she seems hopeful that the rest of her body may be more bold.

Of all Babel’s interlocking stories, Chieko’s is the only one that feels fully realized. That may be because it’s generally lacking in the overwrought sense of tragedy and injustice that eventually smothers the other narratives competing for your attention. The Tokyo scenes are shot in a colorful, modern style that splits the difference between Wong Kar-wai and Michael Mann. (Geek note: Tokyo has a glossy Panavision look — right down to the background ellipses formed by unfocused lights — because those scenes, and only those scenes, were shot with anamorphic lenses.) The visuals suit her story, which is about loneliness, and poor judgment, in that densest of 21st Century cities.

Is it a spoiler if I mention that nothing terrible happens to Chieko? Because Iñárritu’s gimmick for three films running is Terrible Things, and in that context her story is a radical and refreshing departure from form. If her character grows decisively over the course of this story — and I think she does, thanks largely to the gentle attention of a thoughtful cop — then she’s Iñárritu’s great hope, the beacon of optimism in a sea of dour consequence.

That’s important to this film because Iñárritu is one of those directors who likes to make you gasp, to make you cringe, to have you sucking your breath in and wrinkling your brow and raging inside at the absurd carelessness of it all. Everyone in Babel is shown to be powerless, to greater and lesser degrees, but the character who gets the shortest end of the stick is Amelia, the Mexican nanny to the children of the vacationing couple who are stranded in Morocco by that one random bullet. The desperate father calls to insist that she stay with their children longer than originally planned. Amelia is stricken, because she planned to attend her son’s wedding. Raw deal. (And that’s what happens when the personal needs of the upper-class conflict with those of the lower.) So when Amelia packs up Richard’s very young, very blond children to take them to the wedding, it already seems like a bad idea. When Gael García Bernal shows up as the driver, it seems more dangerous still. Without going into great detail, it soon becomes clear that taking those children to that particular wedding was just about the worst decision that poor Amelia could have made had she lived a thousand years. You spend half the movie watching Inarritu run her through his clockwork torture chamber, waiting for him to amplify her misery into an unavoidable transaction with cruel destiny.

In the press notes for Venus, which I saw the same day as Babel (and which is a much simpler and better film), Peter O’Toole is quoted channeling another actor: “I read a statement by Bill Nighy that to keep people in the dark for three hours without telling them a joke is vulgar.” I found myself wishing Bill Nighy had something to do with Babel. Obviously concerned with the Big Issues, Iñárritu spends an inordinate amount of time screwing his characters — and his audience. It doesn’t serve him well. His interlocking structure and sociopolitical agenda recall films like Traffic and Syriana, but where the Soderbergh touch is supercool, Inarritu’s movies are sweaty from exertion. He wants you to feel all the pain, to catch every nuance of meaning. He aspires to be, perhaps, the Steven Spielberg of miserablism, and Babel is an arthouse blockbuster in high-concept black and white. But the film is so rigid in concept, so intoxicated by what its director surely reckons to be a breathtaking humanism, that its meaning is allowed to flower in the viewer’s mind only when Iñárritu finds room for ambiguity. Fortunately, we have the plight of poor Chieko to latch onto. She’s a lost soul in the city of lights — embraced by her father, haunted by the ghost of her mother, and already stripped nude for a stranger — inhabiting a final pullback that becomes the film’s haunting signature image. The rest — ugly American tourists, nasty border patrols, children shot to death in the African desert — reads as white noise.

By Andrew Tracy from Cinema Scope

Since there are now enough films to its credit for it to almost officially qualify as a genre, it should be noted that the “we-are-all-connected” conceit is not intrinsically flawed, despite the often lamentable results. Crash is a head-smacking horror because it is poorly conceived and atrociously written and performed, which makes the conceit appallingly reductive and ignorant of the very universal reality it pretends to reveal. This latter presumption is likely what makes the whole idea of the genre so distasteful: the conviction that by simply stitching together a series of disparate narrative strands through rankly engineered points of intersection, filmmakers have automatically made Art that’s About Something, since so many Things are indeed going on. It’s only logical to counter that if each of those strands is concerned with nothing other than their relation to each other, they are in fact about nothing—and in the case of Babel, the only revelation of globally shared experience is the unsurprising one that banality in four languages is merely the fourth power of banality in one.

Alejandro González Iñárritu, of course, is one of the genre’s most assiduous practitioners, along with his northern compatriot Stephen Gaghan, and what’s unfortunate about his career thus far is that the narrative pattern to which he’s committed himself has made it difficult to gauge his talent, Cannes prize aside. As storytelling appears to become less and less important both to filmmakers and critics, the connection conceit is perhaps the last (or at least the most obvious) place where the valourized director is definitively held hostage by the lowly writer. Iñárritu demonstrated with his devastating episode for the anthology 11’09’’01—September 11 (2002) how his knowledge of how sound and editing can transform real-life horror into even more heightened and terrible forms—a double-edged sword he wielded with both force and responsibility. But hitching his wagon to screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga after the success of Amores perros (2000), Iñárritu has been subject to the latter’s mechanical contrivances, artless and pointless employment of time shifts, and the faith that if one tosses in just the right quantities of guns, dope, twat shots, and endangered children, one’s seriousness and honesty will be self-evident.

The Perros formula, yielding diminishing returns in 21 Grams (2003) and impasted over what should have been the stark and clear movement of the inexplicably acclaimed The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) has been carried to its logical culmination in Babel—if only it would culminate. But like any genre, Arriaga’s bag of tricks can be opened again and again. If connections themselves are all that matter, are their own meaning regardless of the actions performed and meanings created in the points they connect, then any given set of actions and locations are equally valid. Japan, Morocco, Mexico, and the southwestern US this time out could be Paraguay, Antarctica, the Lower Hebrides, and the whole of the Pacific Rim in the next. And as Iñárritu’s stock has now risen enough that he can attract Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Kurosawa Kiyoshi regular Yakusho Kôji, and everybody’s regular Gael Garcia Bernal, the two could well turn out these globetrotting international all-star spectaculars ad infinitum, ever grander arthouse versions of Around the World in 80 Days.

Of course, seriousness and honesty being the watchword here, the stars must share their screen time with a liberal helping of non-actors. The fallacy here is an old one. “Non-actor” is only a professional designation; when these people are in narrative films, even one which is patterned upon what may be their own daily reality, they cannot transform narrative falsities any more than their higher-paid co-stars. But like everything about Babel, the presence of these people within the film is more important than anything they actually do in it. They’re advance copy, automatic signifiers of the film’s gritty authenticity, just as the trisected storyline denotes complexity and the interlocking of those sections profundity. Babel is presold on all counts, a package tour of what passes for international art cinema to the Friday night moviegoer.

Tourism is, indeed, the most apt metaphor for Babel’s narrative operations. Like all tourism, it thrives on the promise of the exotic: only the spacious and well-appointed American home (which would certainly look strange to an enormous number of Americans) is spared the flash-cutting Orientalist treatment accorded the other locations. (Crazy Japanese TV! Crazy Mexican street life! Crazy Moroccan goat herders!) Like all tourism, it promises a glimpse of unvarnished reality while leaving the spectator secure within his own sphere of knowledge and with a newfound sense of edification—an entirely self-satisfied edification, as if the reality “discovered” was a result of one’s own endeavours rather than something pre-existent and wholly uncaring of those who pass through it. It’s here that filmmaker and viewer narcissism meet: as the places and people onscreen are entirely subject to Arriaga’s machinations, their existence ends with the machine; while our gaze, linked to the all-seeing eye of Iñárritu’s continent-hopping and connection-forging camera, is the ultimate source of meaning. Babel’s aesthetics create a hierarchy even as it vaunts some hazy notion of universal equality.

This last is Iñárritu and Arriaga’s gravest sin, that which makes Babel’s general competency almost worse than the stupefying foolishness of Crash. The very act of placing these four stories together implies some form of equivalency between them, already a delicate proposition when cutting between rich Westerners and impoverished third worlders. But where Syriana offered the more palatable suggestion that the actions of the powerful and the less powerful affect each other in varying ways, a constantly shifting terrain of power relations, Iñárritu and Arriaga believe that by simply according each story equal intensity, they are all of equal importance.

Pain, mental and physical—which is what Iñárritu and Arriaga rely upon to supply their sensory jolts—certainly is universal, but if all one is interested in is its simultaneity, the specifics which will give each individual affliction its meaning and, perhaps, its purpose, is lost. One should always be hesitant to establish a relative scale of suffering, but Stephen Mirrione’s relentlessly associative editing forces the proclamation of some simple truths: the cries of a sexually frustrated, deaf-mute Japanese girl have nothing to do with the cries of shepherd boys being fired upon by police; the desperation of a stranded American tourist trying to care for his wounded wife in a remote mountain village has nothing to do with the desperation of a Mexican nanny trying to re-enter the US after illegally transporting her young charges to her son’s wedding.

The predictable irony of Babel is that as it spreads its reach ever farther across the world, it tells us ever less about what goes on outside our own selves. “We don’t want other worlds, we want mirrors,” wrote Stanislaw Lem in Solaris; in Babel’s case, we don’t even want other countries. If we are indeed all connected, if our experiences are part of some universal pattern, then there’s little reason to investigate what goes on around us, or far away. There are more things in heaven and earth than dreamed of in Iñárritu and Arriaga’s bastardized syncretism, and films that can speak of universals without leaving the very specific environs of Paris (Caché), Naples (Vento di terra), or Seraing (L’Enfant). Babel’s globetrotting is nothing but the rankest, bloated provincialism, all the more unfortunate in that Iñárritu and Arriaga, artistically adrift on their sea of international co-production dollars, no longer have a province, or a universe, to hail from.

At the Movies Michael Wood from The London Review of Books, January 25, 2007

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BIUTIFUL C- 68

Mexico Spain (147 mi) 2010

Not sure who would actually enjoy sitting through such a grim and depressing movie like this, where from start to finish the film is drenched in wretched miserablism, becoming so enamored with its own wearying morbidity that it just feels pathetic. Gone is former screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and gone is the criss-crossing narrative style, often crossing back and forth in time until meeting mysteriously at some designated point. This time the director wrote the screenplay along with Armando Bo and Nicolás Giacabone, but there are still multiple storylines all connected together by a single character, Uxbal (Javier Bardem), who is seen in nearly every shot of this film. Set exclusively in the seediest neighborhoods in Barcelona, the only side we’re allowed to see, you can almost feel the sweat and grime as you watch this film, which is not afraid to show him pissing blood, perhaps the image of the film, shown repeatedly as we soon learn he’s dying of prostrate cancer and has only a few months to live. Yet he’s tenuously connected to two young children who have problems of their own but need him desperately, as their parents are separated with a mother (Maricel Álvarez) who is bipolar and refuses to take her medication, so she’s completely irresponsible, hasn’t a clue how to be a parent, as she frequently leaves them alone to pursue her own prurient interests. So Uxbal has custody of the kids, but he’s also responsible for running several operations involving illegal workers, a Chinese sweatshop that actually locks the workers into the factory at night, while during the day men are sent to a construction site, though they know nothing about construction, while Uxbal also pays off the cops so illegal African street vendors (selling the goods made by the Chinese) won’t get hassled. So, like BABEL (2006), there’s still a multilingual storyline, with different color subtitles to reflect which culture (Spanish – white, Chinese – blue, African – yellow).

One immediately thinks of the Dardenne brothers LA PROMESSE (1996), using the same gritty style, also fond of the use of hand held cameras, but they approach the subject with near documentary precision, exploring the social strata of the world of illegals who work in exchange for a place to stay. González is less interested in exposing the plight of illegals, but simply uses it as a device to make Uxbal’s world more harrowing, as in his demanding life he has to constantly be answering to dozens of different people all at the same time, all suffering in emergency crisis mode, where he has to immediately fix the problems and placate the owners and the police. He has to be all things to all people, and in this way, reiterate the director’s theme of global interconnectedness, which is present in every one of his films. Here, however, the focus is on what happens when one of those connections is about to die and disconnect, continually stressing how this reverberates backwards, making everyone else’s life more difficult. González then shamelessly piles on the difficulties, one after the other, where Uxbal is running around like a man possessed, but running out of steam, where after awhile, the problems are so insurmountable he can’t even answer his cell phone anymore, as he hasn’t the human ability to be everywhere at once. And did we mention, Uxbal also has the ability to commune with the dead, who he sees sitting in chairs next to their recently deceased bodies, or sometimes hanging from the ceiling staring at him, while moths or butterflies are also collecting in the corner ceiling above Uxbal’s bed, a reminder of his own impending demise.

If Hollywood has to continually increase the volume and up the frantic pace of nonstop demolitions to keep the fanboys happy, art films in turn must wrestle with the idea that the only unexplored territory is uncovering yet more layers of human misery. Remember the off-beat film DESPERATE CHARACTERS (1971) – well worth seeing if only to see a different side of actress Shirley MacLaine. The film was a realistic portrait of unhappy people trying to hang onto their lives with a quiet dignity, yet when it came out critics hated the film, calling it “relentless misery,” and that film only explored the internal dead zones of a dried up marriage. Imagine what they would have had to say for a movie as relentlessly downbeat as BIUTIFUL? Javier Bardem won a Best Actor nod at Cannes for his performance here, which feels a bit like Ryan Gosling in BLUE VALENTINE (2010), as both give huge performances in poorly made films that struggle for plausibility. The problem here is that this doesn’t feel any different than the director’s previous films, like he keeps making the same film over and over again, though here the presence of death is more pronounced, heard in an eerie sound design that becomes jarring at times, where Uxbal is on the precipice between the living and the dead, and there are surrealist dreamlike touches that are used to portray the world of the dead. More importantly though, despite the dire gloom, it’s hard to make sense of the pervading confusion in Uxbal’s life as he’s living it, spreading himself so thin, always getting his hands dirty, crawling around in the muck where his best efforts to carry the world on his shoulders are continually thwarted, as if by divine hand, where all he has to show for himself is a man with good intentions drowning in a sea of utter futility.

Biutiful - CineSnob.net Kiko Martinez

While poetic and immaculately shot on a grey palate to make the city of Barcelona look like a place you wouldn’t want to send your enemy, “Biutiful,” the fourth feature-length film from Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (and the first without longtime screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga), is a structural mess. Doing what he does best, Iñárritu shows us human emotion at its weakest and does so with a searing performance by Academy Award winner Javier Bardem (“No Country for Old Men”). But the layers upon layers of narrative Iñárritu experiments with as a writer don’t come from the same fine-toothed brush as Arriaga. After two and a half hours, Iñárritu has muddled depressing idea after idea with what he believes to be craftiness. Instead, it ends up being one of those films you can admire, but not necessarily like very much.

Biutiful, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s first film since he split from screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, with whom he created the fractured, parceled-out, time-toggling—and increasingly globe-hopping, multilingual, and portentous—trilogy Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and Babel, stays in one place (Barcelona) and follows one main character (Javier Bardem’s Uxbal) in a linear storyline. Though its structure may be whittled down in comparison with the earlier works, Biutiful is even more morbidly obese than Babel in terms of soggy ideas, elephantine with miserabilist humanism and redemption jibber-jabber. Beyond dying of prostate cancer—a situation that calls for several scenes of Bardem peeing blood and his pants before affixing an adult diaper—Uxbal must contend with a bipolar wife who’s sleeping with his brother; serve as the black-market point man for Senegalese dope-peddlers and two venal Chinese sweatshop overseers (who also happen to be d/l lovers); and communicate with the dead—a burdensome gift that comes in handy after a horrible incident at the sweatshop. Through this relentless, manipulative muck, Uxbal tries to be a stable, loving parent to his two tykes, especially after Mom gives one of them a shiner. For all the hand-wringing hooey, Iñárritu says nothing more complex than this: Father feels worst.

Armond White reviews Alejandro González Iñárritu's Biutiful -- NYPress also seen here: Beautiful Babble

A friend misread the ad for Biutiful as “Pitiful.“ He wasn’t wrong. This latest overlong mash-up by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu continues down the same meretricious path as his overlong movies. This time Iñárritu triangulates the story of a hustling Spaniard, Uxbal (Javier Bardem); Asian sweatshop workers and the closeted gay Asian who exploits them; plus African illegal immigrant street vendors. It's Babel all over again with the multilingual storylines speaking the same global maudlinity.

Iñárritu knows nothing genuine or credible about the human condition; he specializes in button-pushing, saccharine clichés. One of the worst is Bardem’s suffering everyman trying to hold together numerous catastrophic lives, including his soon-to-be-orphaned children, his drug-addicted ex-wife, his cuckolding brother—all while pissing blood and facing his own death. Bardem’s leonine profile doesn’t make him heroic, Uxbal’s simply the most sad-sack protagonist since that Harlem Little Nell, Precious. Not to be left out of bleeding bladder Liberalism, Iñárritu throws in a breast-feeding black earth mother who can look after his children. Bad ideas make Iñárritu seem original, like the misspelled title taken from his children’s scrawl (as mawkish nod to The Pursuit of Happyness).

There’s blatant hand-held camerawork that focuses on obvious, redundant details of what we already see, then splashes of surreal bad-taste, like a disco where a go-go girls’ heads and buttocks are tits, which look like outtakes from Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. Then there are scenes where the bodies of sweatshop victims float on the ceiling. It’s symbolic of either mankind’s sorrowful, inescapable non-transcended lives, or the low ceiling of Iñárritu’s imagination.

When it was announced that director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga were ending their collaboration after three films, the timing felt right for a break-up. By the time 21 Grams led to Babel, the gut-punching realism and puzzle construction that seemed so fresh with Amores Perros had devolved into miserablist formula. With Arriaga veering off into full-on self-parody with The Burning Plain, his directorial debut, Iñárritu seemingly had the freedom to apply his impressive filmmaking chops to less predictable ends. Sadly, the only real difference between Arriaga at his worst and Iñárritu’s new film Biutiful is that the latter unfolds in chronological order—the pile-up of tragedies, the overworked connectedness of events, and the moments of “transcendent” visual poetry all return with a vengeance.

Bearing a look of perpetual grief, Javier Bardem holds up as well as he can under the circumstances, dignifying a man whose involvement in human exploitation is explained by his own desperate circumstances. In the darkest corners of Barcelona, Bardem works as a black-market middleman who keeps tabs on illegal African street vendors and Chinese migrant workers who are housed shoulder-to-shoulder in sleeping bags below the spaces where they turn out knock-off goods. On top of that, his separation from bipolar wife Maricel Álvarez comes with his entire family (including two children) poised on the brink of financial collapse. But wait, that’s not all! He also has terminal cancer. And his wife is sleeping with his brother. And he can communicate with the dead.

And all this information comes before the really bad stuff starts happening. Biutiful presents evidence of Iñárritu’s skill as an image-maker throughout, from his textured images of poverty in a city not commonly depicted for it to beautifully directed sequences like a sweeping police raid on the African merchants, or a propulsive tour through a nightclub. But he just doesn’t know when to stop: The constant, humorless pummeling of Bardem’s character would be hard enough to take without Iñárritu’s bad habit of trying to relieve it via magical realism. In spite of fine work from Bardem and Álvarez, Biutiful is an irritating, oppressive 150-minute dirge, not the step forward Iñárritu’s dissolved partnership with Arriaga seemed to promise.

Movieline [Stephanie Zacharek]

Biutiful’s title is misspelled in part to call attention to itself, in a manner not unlike the direction of helmer Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. Despite having severed ties with longtime screenwriting partner Guillermo Arriaga, the 21 Grams and Babel auteur evolves only ever-so-slightly with his latest, which is told in chronological rather than fractured order but otherwise once again focuses on three intertwined narrative strands and drenches itself in ungodly miserablism. Iñárritu’s Spain-set story focuses on Uxbal (Javier Bardem), a father of two whose problems are legion: he works as the middleman between a Chinese sweatshop making knockoff purses and bootleg CDs and the illegal immigrant African street vendors that sell them; he has an addict-whore estranged wife (Maricel Álvarez) who’s sleeping with his brother (Eduard Fernández); he can see dead people, and makes money helping the deceased peacefully cross over; and thanks to cancer, he only has two months to live. Uxbal is at once the exploiter and the exploited in his life, and his burdens are so numerous and over-the-top that exploitation also proves a charge to be leveled at Iñárritu. Drowning in an attention-craving eclectic sound mix, shot (as usual) with color filters that accentuate his destitute environments’ seedy pallor, and awash in lyrical symbolic flourishes (butterflies, ants, smokestacks), Iñárritu’s film gussies up and wallows in its protagonist’s suffering, which soon becomes inhumanely dreadful from all angles.

The director’s fetishistic fixation on physical, physiological and spiritual pain is often in poor taste (see: Uxbal and his son’s kindred pants-wetting). Yet what makes it even more unseemly is that the material also occasionally exudes authentic empathy for its anguished characters. From an early dinner table scene in which Uxbal scolds his young son (Guillermo Estrella) about stuffing his mouth too full of food, to a final goodbye between father and daughter (Hanaa Bouchaib), Biutiful considers its subjects’ agony with compassion. And Bardem, although forced to endure excessive Passion of the Christ-level torment, nonetheless delivers a nuanced, multilayered performance that locates conflicted emotional truths in the film’s (few) quieter moments. Focusing solely on Uxbal’s attempts to set his wayward life right before dying might have resulted in a poignant portrait of despair, courage, guilt and devotion. Instead, however, Iñárritu mucks around with superfluous subplots – one involving the Chinese sweatshop owner’s sexual relationship with a co-worker, the other concerning a Senegalese worker’s wife who comes to stay at Uxbal’s home – whose sole purpose is to up the awfulness quotient while reflecting the themes at play in Uxbal’s parental abandonment-rooted tale. The result is a punishingly contrived and deterministic saga, albeit one whose moments of genuine pathos suggest that if he would stop self-consciously striving to make a Great Film, Iñárritu might be capable of making a great one.

NPR [Mark Jenkins]

In his previous movie, Babel, Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu hopped from Africa to Asia to North America in search of global misery. His new Biutiful is simpler in structure, with the action restricted to one city and revolving around a single main character. But the shrill melodrama still hauls several continents' worth of woe.

This is Inarritu's first film since splitting with scripter Guillermo Arriaga, and it relies less on chronological trickiness than the three movies they made together. (The other two are 21 Grams and Amores Perros.) But the story does start near its end, before wandering through a clunky dream sequence on its way back to the beginning.

Our anti-hero is Uxbal (Javier Bardem), a harried Barcelona hustler who hefts enough plot for several movies. He's the middleman between two ruthless Chinese merchants and the illegal immigrants who sell their counterfeit goods on the street. Although he's something less than a saint, Uxbal tries to help both the peddlers, most of them migrants from various African countries, and the Chinese workers who manufacture the knockoffs in a filthy local sweatshop.

Uxbal has custody of his two children, whose mother is a bipolar alcoholic and sometime hooker. Having just learned that he's seriously ill, Uxbal allows his ex (Maricel Alvarez) to get reacquainted with their kids, 7-year-old Mateo and almost-10-year-old Ana. (It's the latter who can't quite spell "beautiful.")

In his attempt to fix everything before his possible death, Uxbal is a grimier version of the Will Smith character in Seven Pounds. And if that weren't enough, Uxbal also has a version of the uncanny knack possessed by the Matt Damon character in Hereafter: Put him close to a fresh corpse and he can receive a farewell message from that person's immortal soul.

By the way, nearly everyone in Uxbal's orbit is a double-crosser: his brother, the cop he bribes and the Chinese black-marketeers (who happen to be gay, one of several complications that subtract from rather than add to the overstuffed tale's impact). It's lucky that Uxbal has another stereotypical figure, a good-hearted Senegalese mama, to help him with Ana and Mateo.

It takes an impassioned actor to play such a character, and Bardem's flame never weakens. The actor is always persuasive, whether Uxbal is fiercely protecting the kids, weeping at a horrific calamity or contemplating his bloody urine in a toilet bowl. Bardem even finds occasions to flash his famous smile.

Inarritu can also rely on such longtime associates as editor Stephen Mirrione, composer Gustavo Santaolalla — who contributes a powerful, percussive score — and cameraman Rodrigo Prieto. The hand-held cinematography vibrantly renders such scenes as a police raid on the African vendors and finds an odd beauty in the muted colors and stained surfaces of back-alley Barcelona. (The Catalan tourist board probably won't be using Biutiful in any upcoming campaigns.)

But the high level of craft can't sustain the movie as its script (written by Inarritu with Armando Bo and Nicolas Giacobone) becomes increasingly hectoring. Like Babel, Biutiful is contrived, bombastic and lacking a sense of proportion: It takes the hardships caused by economic globalization exactly as seriously as it does the mumbo jumbo about talking to the dead. However much Uxbal tries to help Barcelona's dispossessed, Biutiful doesn't really have anything to say about the modern world's economic migrants. Indeed, it could even be said that the movie exploits them.

CANNES REVIEW | Misguided Melodrama: Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s “Biutiful” Eric Kohn at Cannes from indiWIRE, May 17, 2010

Cinefile.com [Nelson Carvajal]

IC Places [Chris Knipp]

Eye for Film : Another Year Movie Review (2010) Val Kermode

alibi.com [Devin D. O'Leary]

Filmcritic.com Chris Cabin

Time [Mary Pols] December 21, 2010, also here: (Watch TIME's 10 Questions with Javier Bardem.)

Biutiful | Review | Screen Jonathan Romney at Cannes from Screendaily

Cinespect [L.Caldoran]

Movies that make you think [Jugu Abraham]

Plume-Noire.com [Moland Fengkov]

Biutiful Review :: Movies :: Reviews :: Paste Sean Gandert

Biutiful: movie review - CSMonitor.com Peter Rainer

Combustible Celluloid [Jeffrey M. Anderson] also seen here: Common Sense Media [Jeffrey M. Anderson]

The House Next Door [Fernando F. Croce] at Toronto

DVD Talk [Brian Orndorf] also seen here: eFilmCritic Reviews

Compuserve [Harvey Karten]

Cannes Movie Review: Biutiful (2010) – RopeofSilicon.com Movie ... Brad Brevet

BIUTIFUL Frank Swietek from One Man’s Opinion

exclaim! [Christine Estima]

Blue Valentine, Another Year, Biutiful | Film Reviews by Joe ... Joe Morgenstern from The Wall Street Journal

I Heart The Talkies

Film-Forward.com Adam Schartoff

DVD Talk [Casey Burchby] a walkout

film review: BIUTIFUL > Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy

The L Magazine [Benjamin Sutton & Henry Stewart]

SBS Film [Lisa Nesselson]

Digital Spy [Mayer Nissim]

Time Out New York [David Fear]

Boxoffice Magazine [Pete Hammond] at Cannes, May 20, 2010

The House Next Door [Matt Noller] at Cannes, May 18, 2010

Biutiful Patrick McGavin at Cannes from Emanuelle Levy, May 18, 2010

Cannes Review: "Biutiful" Anthony Kaufman at Cannes from IFC, May 17, 2010, also seen here: Anthony Kaufman and here: IFC.com [Anthony Kaufman]

Cannes 2010 Review: Alejandro González Iñárritu's 'Biutiful' Is Impeccably Acted And Wonderfully Shot But Isn't Particularly Interesting Kevin Jagernauth at Cannes from The Playlist Nation, May 17, 2010

Cannes '10: Day Seven Mike D’Angelo at Cannes from The Onion A.V. Club, May 19, 2010

Howard Feinstein at Cannes from Filmmaker magazine, May 17, 2010

David Bourgeois at Cannes from Movieline magazine, May 17, 2010

Guy Lodge at Cannes from In Contention, May 17, 2010

Cannes 2010. Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Biutiful" David Hudson at Cannes from The Auteurs, May 18, 2010

Owen Gleiberman at Cannes from Entertainment Weekly, May 17, 2010

Kirk Honeycutt at Cannes from The Hollywood Reporter, May 17, 2010

Variety Reviews - Biutiful - Film Reviews - Cannes - Review by ... Justin Chang

Cannes review: Biutiful Dave Calhoun at Cannes from Time Out London, May 17, 2010, also seen here: Dave Calhoun

Biutiful Review. Movie Reviews - Film - Time Out London Trevor Johnston, January 27, 2011

Biutiful – review | Film | The Guardian Peter Bradshaw, January 27, 2011

Sukhdev Sandhu Alejandro González Iñárritu, the director of 21 Grams and Babel, has unveiled another laborious stretch of designer depression, at Cannes from The Telegraph, May 17, 2010

Biutiful, review - Telegraph Tim Robey, January 27, 2011

Cannes '10 Day 6: Shoving for cinema Wesley Morris at Cannes from The Boston Globe, May 17, 2010

Biutiful movie review --Biutiful showtimes - The Boston Globe Wesley Morris, January 26, 2011

Review: Biutiful - Reviews - Boston Phoenix Peter Keough

Anthony Breznican Journo Brawl! 'Biutiful' vs. 'Certified Copy,' at Cannes from USA Today, May 18, 2010

'Biutiful' review: Movie presents a bleak world view | NJ.com Stephen Whitty from The Star-Ledger

San Francisco Chronicle [Mick LaSalle]

Los Angeles Times [Betsy Sharkey]

Chicago Tribune [Michael Phillips]

The House Next Door [Michael Nordine]

New York Times (registration req'd) A.O. Scott, December 28, 2010

BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) B 89

USA (119 mi) 2014 Official site

This is a self-reflective, existential dark comedy about the inner life of an artist trying to make a comeback of a career that’s taken a tailspin into irrelevancy, a film that resembles the real life career of actor Michael Keaton as Birdman, as Keaton played Batman twice but refused to do it a third time, while in the film he made the multi-billion dollar blockbuster movie Birdman three times, but refused to do another, where in both cases his career plummeted soon afterwards. Stylistically, González Iñárritu has made a freshly innovative and thoroughly entertaining film, grabbing the audience’s attention with a daring bit of supernatural energy on display, as Keaton has a continual dialogue with his inner self throughout the entire picture, where his darker, inner impulses speak in a no nonsense, profanity laden lower register that resembles the voice of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, but is, in fact, Keaton’s own. While expressing what appears to be telekinetic forces, which may only be in his imagination, the film gives the impression that he possesses super powers, while denigrating everyone around him as lowlifes and hangers on, while he’s the real star of the show. This alter ego is a nasty piece of business that often shows up as Birdman in costume, hovering around or even flying behind Keaton, spewing his venomous chatter that’s meant to puff up this fragile ego into believing he can do anything. Driven by a jazzy drum score by Antonio Sanchez that expresses a ferocious energy, becoming the second film, after WHIPLASH (2014), showcasing a feverish drumbeat, providing an incessant stream of improvisation for the actors to feed off. Perhaps just as quirky is the flashy technique of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, whose everpresent camera follows the actors around everywhere, in and out of backstage rooms, down narrow corridors leading onto the stage, as if the entire film was composed of a single shot. Like a run-on sentence, this technique never allows the audience to catch their breath, as there is no down time, no breaks in the action, where it feels as if something is always happening. This constant motion, along with the off-kilter atmosphere behind the scenes, feeds into the manic energy of continual interruption and confusion when staging a play, going through the incessant rehearsals, stroking the delicate egos, listening to the various demands, remembering the names of the stage hands, having to deal with last minute emergencies, where there’s simply no time to collect one’s thoughts.

Keaton is Riggan Thompson, a former super hero actor who is trying twenty years later to regain his credibility as an artist by adapting, directing, and starring in Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, a collection of short stories from 1981, several of which were used by Robert Altman in Short Cuts (1993). One of the personal revelations is discovering Riggan attributes his choice of acting as a profession to a complimentary note he once received from Raymond Carver written on a cocktail napkin. Riggan has enlisted a rag-tag group of offbeat choices to inhabit this play, produced by Jake (Zach Galifianakis), his lowlife agent, best friend and personal attorney, starring first-time Broadway actress Lesley, a jittery Naomi Watts, a co-star he’s sleeping with, Laura, who may also be pregnant, the sensually alluring Andrea Riseborough, a last minute fill-in, Mike Shiner, Edward Norton, an egocentric New York theater superstar that guarantees increased box office, a loose cannon who thrives on method acting, is very specific about certain requested details, who’s also sleeping with his lead actress, while also reuniting with his own daughter fresh out of rehab, Emma Stone as Sam, a recovering drug addict still bitter that her father was never around, now serving as his assistant. Some of the best moments of the film are reserved for Stone, who never seems to disappoint. Keaton has always thrived on an understated, nervous energy, but here he is the butt of all jokes, constantly besieged by his alter-ego, a victim of his own increasingly dark hallucinations, much like the dancer in Aronofsky’s THE BLACK SWAN (2010), while the machinations of staging this play is a walking disaster, as everything that can go wrong does go wrong, becoming an absurd commentary on the supposed higher artistic realms of theater. What cinema brings into the landscape is the element of fantasy taking place in Keaton’s head, where at times he can float on air, or fly through the streets of New York as his character Birdman once did, or with the snap of his fingers make things explode with a barrage of movie special effects that seem hilariously cheap and silly when seen in this light. González Iñárritu seems more interested in using these techniques to get inside this perplexing character, who always seems on the verge of a breakdown while trying to maintain stability, which is interestingly enough the mindset of an actor, always challenged by the unfamiliarity of the next role.

Of course, this kind of thing has been done before, and to much better effect by John Cassavetes and the incomparable Gena Rowlands in Opening Night (1977), another troubled stage production that delves into the internalized anxieties of an actress who has doubts about playing the role, who thinks it’s all wrong, who wants it changed, even though it was written specifically for her. While Cassavetes grounds his film on the beauty of live theater, where the agonies and self doubts are brought into the rigorous rehearsals onstage, where the performance is the thing, bringing to life a living and breathing quality to every moment, González Iñárritu accentuates through artifice, where one of the more brilliantly staged moments is when Riggan takes the stage, but his words are drowned out by the immaculately beautiful and devastatingly sad orchestral music of Mahler, Mahler 9th Symphony (1/9); 1st movement; Bernstein ... YouTube (10:00), a soaring work that initially seems to float on air, adding a profound sense of eloquence and poetic grace. It’s the kind of ravishing moment that takes your breath away, that exists nowhere else in the picture, but in an instant, it’s gone. There’s another surreal scene where Riggan gets locked outside the theater where he has to walk half naked through the crowds of Times Square, where people immediately recognize him as Birdman, wanting to take selfies, calling out that name, as if from the depths of his own conscience, where he will forever be inseparable with the role, yet he also becomes an overnight viral sensation, attracting the interest of thousands who would otherwise not be paying attention to him at all, but this is the younger generation’s concept of fame. The problem is the film can’t sustain this kind of glorious energy, as there’s an uneven quality throughout and there are some questionable choices made as it winds down, where it all has to lead somewhere. As opening night approaches, everyone’s worries and self-doubts are magnified, exaggerated by the omnipresent voice of Birdman, who has utter disgust for the entire human race, whose contempt expresses the degree of Riggan’s self-loathing, where there’s apparently a reason he hasn’t been heard from in 20 years. Riggan loses his bearings, questioning the worth of it all, getting into a senseless verbal sparring match in a bar with the leading New York theater critic (Lindsay Duncan) who denounces the play without even seeing it, claiming he’s not a real theater person, that he’s a celebrity, a cheap imitation, despising his adolescent sense of entitlement. The film is, in fact, a portrait of egocentrism, where every sequence revolves around the star, where the light can either shine or it can literally extinguish itself.

Birdman may just prove that there are second acts in life, American or otherwise. Not only Michael Keaton's best role in more than a decade, it also represents a surprisingly mellow Alejandro González Iñárritu, whose worldview, if not especially brighter, has at least been filtered through a comic lens. It may be wishful thinking, but the global nihilism of his earlier projects now seems mere prelude to a surprisingly poignant meditation on fame and its lingering aftereffects.

Which isn't to say that the film could in any way be described as "feel good." Starring Keaton as a past-his-prime superhero actor looking to regain credibility and relevance by adapting, directing, and starring in Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love on Broadway, it's an exercise in a Murphy's Law-level of absurd occurrences besieging its play-within-a-film. Birdman, né Riggan Thomson, has to be told of the importance of social media by his fresh-from-rehab daughter (Emma Stone) while also dealing with his manager (Zach Galifianakis), ex-wife (Amy Ryan), last-minute-replacement co-star (Edward Norton), co-star whom he's sleeping with (Andrea Riseborough), and co-star whom he actually gets along with pretty well (Naomi Watts) on the eve of their first preview. Iñárritu manages to give each of these characters something interesting to do, the power dynamics between them constantly shifting.

Always-ace cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki frames the proceedings, the vast majority of which take place within the theater itself, as though the entire movie were composed of one continuous shot. The effect is similar to holding your breath or not being allowed to blink. Initially coming across as a gimmick, the Rope-like technique eventually feels seamless. Every scene ends at a point that leaves us wanting more, and yet the next is usually so engaging that we quickly forget about everything else. It's a refreshing change of pace for González Iñárritu, who's usually wont to go overboard and leave too little to the imagination.

Still, his anti-critic harangue is petty coming from a writer-director whose spotty filmography has largely been met with critical praise: In addition to a New York Times theater reviewer who vows to destroy the play before seeing it, there's a note in Riggan's dressing room reading, "A thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing." Both feel overly pointed, but, on a less meta level, do at least serve as credible fuel on Riggan's slow-burning fire: Nothing has gone right for him in years, and the play he's invested so much time and money in is turning into a train wreck that he can do nothing but helplessly observe.

Like a tiny devil on his shoulder, Riggan's masked alter ego sows doubt by telling him to give up these highbrow aspirations and return to the billion-dollar franchise he abandoned in the early '90s. (Sound familiar?) The disembodied voice, strange though it may be, isn't his only "mental formation," as he also appears to have actual superpowers—at least when he's alone. "Popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige," Norton's renowned Broadway thespian tells the Hollywood washout; allusions to both Icarus and the phoenix shed light on just what kind of bird he is, and both are valid points of reference. The desire to still matter after his early successes have long since faded from most people's memories compels him to go beyond his comfort zone and reinvent himself, even if it means flying too close to the sun.

González Iñárritu may be flattering himself if we're to extend the metaphor beyond the character and toward the creator, but if this represents an actual reconfiguration of his sensibilities and not a mere one-off, then perhaps we can consider films like Babel the necessary ashes from which Birdman had to rise and hope his ascendance continues.

In Review Online [Matt Lynch]

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), the latest film from Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, is a showy directorial performance about performance. By design, it's swooningly narcissistic, like you might picture an actor to be, and yet it is simultaneously critical of that same narcissism. Its main concern is the idea of being “in the moment,” yet from its depiction of different acting methods to its formal trickery, it tries to suggest that this concern is both a fabrication and a necessity. Whether any of this works for you is going to boil down to how you feel about its tone, which is placed somewhere in the incredibly wide gulf between broad, go-for-broke farce and self-serious how-we-live-now examination.

Michael Keaton is Riggan Thompson, once the star of a popular superhero movie franchise (which provides the film’s title), now desperately trying to resurrect his career and reputation by writing, directing and starring in a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver story. That there are a couple of obvious parallels between Keaton’s real-life career and that of this character are, of course, not accidental. This extra-textual maneuver, like much of Birdman, is simultaneously ostentatious, clever, and predictable.

Riggan has to deal with, among other headaches: junkie daughter Sam (Emma Stone), fresh out of rehab, currently employed as his assistant and still bitter that he was “never around” as a father; prima donna actor Mike (Edward Norton), a New York theater superstar who trades in an outlandish version of method acting, and who’s sleeping with his lead actress, Lesley (Naomi Watts), a total insecure basket case; Laura (Andrea Riseborough), another actress in his play with whom he is having an affair and who may be pregnant with his child; Tabitha (Lindsay Duncan), a prominent and apparently vicious theater critic; his ex-wife (Amy Ryan); and his lawyer/agent/producer (Zach Galifianakis). To top it all off, there's Birdman himself: Riggan hears his alter ego’s condemning voice and occasionally seems to display his telekinetic abilities. Each one of these characters is angry at Riggan for being too wrapped up in his work to pay attention to the desperate and very real personalities that demand his attention every day.

Iñárritu stages all of this interpersonal drama in a similarly “in the moment” fashion, deploying cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki to create what appears to be a single, unbroken take. The Steadicam hurtles through the cramped backstage hallways, rafters, and dressing rooms of a Broadway theater, between and around everything you can imagine. As gorgeous as it often is as sheer spectacle, it's a gamble that only sometimes pays off, dangerously treading the line between technique that serves its drama and technique that draws undue attention to itself.

And then there are the tin-eared swipes at critics (Tabitha says she will pan Riggan’s play sight unseen, while he rails at her supposed bitterness at being unable to create art), social media (Sam berates him because he “doesn’t even have a Facebook”), and contemporary Hollywood filmmaking (the idea of a Birdman 4 is seen as intrinsically morally and artistically bankrupt), all attacked with such conviction that it’s nearly impossible to tell if Iñárritu is aware of how cliched these targets are. The film rails against petty distractions that get in the way of an unmediated artistic existence, but any insight it might have offered on this topic is subsumed by its jackhammer broadness. For Riggan, as for Birdman, there’s no room for compromise. Art or death: It’s an extension of the film’s concern with being as present as possible, a condition it sees as fundamentally contradictory at best, especially as Riggan’s own narcissism keeps scuttling his efforts.

"Contradictory" may in fact be the most appropriate adjective for Birdman as a whole. It wishes to say something profound about the creation of art, but chooses to do so in such a self-important manner that it essentially invites the very criticism it condemns. It insists that an artist must forsake their coveted validation in order to make something meaningful, then illustrates that in the most shameless, strutting way available. Overdetermined and yet full of spontaneous energy, insightful and whiny, funny and pandering: Birdman has the ungainly feel of an artist struggling with his best and worst impulses, and though he ultimately succumbs to the latter, it's all too brazenly sincere to be wholly dismissed.

A Wing and a Prayer - Film Comment David Fear, November/December 2014

In Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s all-points bulletin on artistic reinvention, second-act salvation, and the existential crisis of men in capes, there’s a moment when Michael Keaton leaves both the ground and the last tether of realism behind. We’ve already seen his character—Riggan Thomson, former star of the billion-dollar-grossing superhero tent-pole “Birdman” movies—levitating in his dressing room like a swami. We’ve seen this would-be thespian telekinetically hurl objects across his dressing room in the St. James Theatre, as, in a bid for artistic credibility, he mounts a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” And we’ve heard the nagging voice in Riggan’s head, the one that keeps gruffly telling him that he was a fool to walk away from his money-printing franchise, and we’ve seen it (meta)physically manifest itself as his alter ego in full plumage—a superhero with no use for a superego.

Then come the explosions, the giant metal screeching bird hovering over New York City, the chaos, the panic, and the army jets whizzing overhead. This is a job for Birdman, defender of truth, justice, and A-list stability. And with that, Keaton suddenly launches into the air, gliding over Gotham with a serene look on his face. He’s left behind this blockbuster outtake and we’ve gone from digressive day trips into Riggan’s imagination to a headlong plunge into his fractured psyche. Up, up, and away.

Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance is many things: a backstage farce, a satire of media ubiquity, a portrait of career resurrection that’s enabled its star and director to effect their own professional resuscitations, a drama about squandered potential. But what this extraordinary work does best—indeed, better than most films about the emotional void of show business—is drop us into the mind of an actor beset by insecurities, vanity-project hubris, and that inner critic who simply won’t shut up, whisking us up into a dazzling, dizzyingly subjective whirlwind.

Part of this is thanks to Keaton, an actor who’s always been dynamic yet only rarely been asked to go deep. Never mind the wink-nudge Batman baggage his most iconic role provides by the simple fact of his presence; his performance here might seem to be penance for the times he’s coasted on charm alone. Asked to negotiate a minefield of self-hatred and neediness, remorse and blind rage, Keaton far surpasses expectations and then some. We’ve seen him do funny and dead-eyed dispassionate, but the open-book vulnerability he displays in Birdman feels new. Credit is also due to his co-stars, notably Edward Norton’s parody of manic Method-acting excess and Andrea Riseborough’s jaws-of-life take on the spurned leading lady/objet d’amour, but this is Keaton’s showcase. He’s finally dropped the mask.

But the other half of the equation is Iñárritu, a talented director who seemed stuck in a misery-porn rut with films like Babel and Biutiful. You knew that he was capable of juggling narratives like bowling pins, and when you have a cinematographer like Emmanuel Lubezki making the film appear to be one long continuous shot, the results easily elicit “how did they do that?” awe. But this is not just a feat of technical virtuosity for its own sake; the Steadicam shots and the unbroken performances are key to getting you into Riggansville, Population 1. And for all the impeccably coordinated antics and digs at press-junket banality and cold-blooded critics, the “stunt casting” and catty dialogue, what you’re left with is more than just an artist rediscovering what fun it is to make movies and mousetraps. You’re watching someone drop the self-seriousness and somehow get more profound in the process. The main character is an actor, but the guy spilling his guts on the stage and wondering if he can still hack it (yes, he can) is also the guy behind the camera. You can almost hear Iñárritu saying: “Birdman, c’est moi.”

Easy Virtue: Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman - Cinema Scope Angela Murreda

What could be a more appropriate fate for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)—a slick film about a disgruntled director baring his soul and guts for unfeeling audiences and critics alike—than its doubtlessly smooth course to award-season glory? While the film is ostensibly an angry manifesto stumping for artistic integrity in the face of a pablum-peddling culture industry that’s traded Raymond Carver for Stan Lee—as well as an illiterate critical class unwilling or unable to cultivate its technical competency—Birdman’s squawk is all but neutralized by its tepid bite. Though it is self-righteously mean in its broad strokes (as all polemics inevitably are), Birdman is also—this being an Iñárritu joint—an overeager, conspicuously crafted art object whose virtuosity is matched only by its digestibility. Snottily sniping at everyone but the exact sort of people who will throw laurels in its path as it makes its victorious procession to the stage of the Dolby Theater in March, Birdman is as hybridized and compromised as its hero: an award-courting schmoozer that disingenuously sings the praises of difficulty.

Michael Keaton makes the most out of a rare lead role as Riggan Thomson, a Hollywood has-been whose franchise days as the titular superhero (sporting a gruff voice closer to Christian Bale’s Batman than Keaton’s own) are long over. Plagued by financial troubles, family woes involving his rehab-stinting daughter turned personal assistant Sam (Emma Stone), and petty jealousies toward professional rivals like Method actor Mike (Edward Norton), Riggan comes out swinging for one last shot at redemption on his own terms. Ignoring the nay-saying inner voice of his feathered alter ego (who confronts him, bristling at his pretensions, whenever he looks in the mirror), Riggan decides to stake what is left of his career on an attempt to direct and star in a lavish, potentially disastrous Broadway production of Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.”

If the incongruity between Carver’s punchy minimalist gem and Iñárritu’s incurably maximalist tendencies is intended as a joke, it’s the only one that has any teeth in this otherwise obstinately unfunny bid for blackly comic satire. While Iñárritu’s brute-force style—less an authorial touch than a two-handed shove—worked effectively enough for the unabashed melodrama and raging indignation of Amores perros (2000) and, arguably, the maudlin martyr’s fable of Biutiful (2010), little in his po-faced filmography up to now has suggested he has any particular knack for comedy—and indeed, Birdman’s tin ear is matched only by the straw men it sets up as the objects of its satirical scorn. Low-hanging fruit is the order of the day here: press-junket whores (“Is it true you’ve been injecting yourself with semen from baby pigs?” one scribbler asks of Riggan—immediately adding “It was tweeted,” as if the mere mention of social media signals vacuity), mouth-breathing, dirt-digging digital hordes (who retweet a blurry video of Riggan locked out of his own theatre during previews and marching past the ticket booth in scummy underwear), and, of course, snobby, old-guard critics, the frosty gatekeepers who would never deign to let novices like Riggan pass before they’ve paid their tithe in blood.

This last target leads to one of Birdman’s most questionable moments: while Lindsay Duncan makes a strong enough impression as austere, silver-haired New York Times theatre critic Tabitha to render moot the suspicion that this compact gorgon is a passive-aggressive swipe at Manohla Dargis, the sight of bullish Mike and sweaty Riggan—two serious dudes who suffer for their art—taking the diminutive critical doyenne to task for being risk-averse gives one pause. There are surely some who will argue that Tabitha is merely a projection of Riggan’s misogynistic, beta-male rage and artistic insecurity, and so it would be churlish to call Iñárritu to account for her representation here. Even if one accepts that, however, the problem is that Birdman, even in its late turn to magic realism, never gets formally unhinged enough to feel like a proper dream—the sort of delusional swan song a second-string actor turned egotistical director might cook up in a dressing room that, as per one of the film’s knee-slapping asides, “smells like balls.”

At best, Birdman is a wish-fulfilment fantasy in the micro-managed Wes Anderson mould, with Riggan’s dilapidated theatre subbing for The Life Aquatic’s hermetically enclosed submarine, its musty corridors arteries through which the assorted ciphers drift from one catharsis to another. And while Emmanuel Lubezki’s much-lauded swooping long takes—invisibly cut together to feel like one long, winding tour through Riggan’s dark night(s) of the soul—are a refreshing alternative to Iñárritu’s flashy narrative patchwork in 21 Grams (2003) or the hyperlinked, pseudo-mystical globe-trotting of Babel (2005), their gliding effect is eventually anaesthetizing. If Lubezki is clearly the film’s MVP, it’s a dubious honour in that his camera pyrotechnics are, ultimately, little more than the delivery system for the film’s banal, endlessly self-congratulatory script. For all its carping about the virtues of unfettered creativity, Birdman is little more than a rote confirmation of what middlebrow artists and prestige-charmed critics already believe: that a little formal bombast, shallowly conceived and laboriously, ostentatiously achieved, is all one needs to make great art.

Interview: Alejandro G. Iñárritu - Film Comment Steven Mears interview, January 12, 2015

Alejandro G. Iñárritu is never one to pull punches, in his films or in conversation. From the horrific dogfight scenes of his 2000 feature debut, Amores Perros, to his recent characterization of superhero movies as “cultural genocide” in an interview, the Mexican-born director’s brutal candor provokes strong responses, not always positive. But his body of work makes apparent that his convictions run deep, and his commitment to the ideas in his films is total, whether it’s structure (Babel’s time- and continent-shifting mosaic of communication failure in a post-9/11 world), metaphor (the title 21 Grams indicates the weight lost at the moment of death, supposedly representing the soul exiting the body), or tone (Biutiful, as befits a tale of a cancer-stricken single father, is unremittingly bleak).

Birdman is both a departure and a renewal for Iñárritu. Markedly lighter than his past efforts—star Michael Keaton just earned a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy (and Iñárritu shared the prize for Best Screenplay)—the film nonetheless makes fervent, contradictory, and topical points about the lives of artists today—the drive to create meaningful work, the compulsion to stay “relevant” while retaining integrity. FILM COMMENT spoke with Iñárritu recently about the beauty of imperfection, the plight of the critic, and the hilarity of the fragile ego.

This is a film about the insecurities that plague artists. The voice of Birdman articulates the anxieties of Michael Keaton’s character. Do you have a Birdman of your own?

Yeah, absolutely. A vulture, I would say! [Laughs]

Has he ever talked you out of anything you wanted to do?

Yeah. You know, in the creative process I think every human being is confronted with doubts and contradictions and flaws . . . and that’s part of it. That’s the deal of it. That’s the complexity of it. Because it’s very contradictory and that’s the way it should be, I guess—to move two steps forward and one back. And so it’s a torturous process, sometimes more for some than others, but no matter who you are you have to have that.

The film, as I was watching it, reminded me of Godard’s Contempt, in that everyone involved in this meta-production is somehow implicated. Actors who take themselves too seriously, actors who should take themselves more seriously, backers, critics—everyone has blood on their hands, in a way. I wonder if you were trying to make a statement on how art is born not just of noble intent but of ego, narcissism, and dysfunction?

Yeah, I think the film dealt with that a lot—what is art and what is commerciality, and when you’re an artist and when you’re a whore. All the time, artists are dealing with that question, especially in film, when there’s money involved in the process. That’s the tragedy of film, which is an industry and an art and a tool of personal expression, and at the same time a way to entertain the masses. That’s a very difficult kind of balance to navigate, especially today, with the rules of the game… Contempt is one of my favorite films, and I was always asking myself how Billy Wilder or how Max Ophüls or how Godard would do it. Those three guys were always in my mind, and also Brecht’s idea to be breaking the wall between the [actors] and the audience, and the shifting points of view, you know?

I want to ask about the critic character played by Lindsay Duncan. She seemed to be less like an actual journalist than an embodiment of this idea of critics who enjoy unchecked power. Is that a fair assessment?

For me I think she represents everything that Keaton’s character has feared all his life. In the universe of the film, I tried to have her express her frustrations that theater is being taken over by bullshit and propaganda and commerciality, and diminishing and not validating this guy that represents all that she hates. Which I think is valid, and sometimes I empathize with that—me, personally. And for him, she represents that—the possibility of being rejected, of not being validated, which is what he fears more than anything. And I found that the best antagonist for him would be that, because she represents the judge, she represents the priest, the mother, everything that he has feared all his life. So I think it was a perfect antagonist.

What do you think is the role of the critic today?

Honestly, personally, I feel mercy for them. I mean, if I had to see, what, 700 films a year, where I’m sure that 95 percent are really bad, because that’s the reality of the world? Well, I feel mercy for you guys. I see films, but only the ones that I know would interest me. But I’ve been a jury member in some festivals, and out of 20 films, you see two that are good, one that is so-so, and one extraordinary. And then the 16 others are unbearable! And 20 films have a very deep effect on me, you know what I mean? It poisoned me in a way. You have to eat poison or shit in order to taste good things, but then your tongue gets fucking burnt, and that’s why I feel badly for critics now, because they have a very difficult role, to judge 700 films, and you can get lost very easily. So that’s why I have respect, I have mercy, and I have doubts about how well you can really evaluate something after tasting so much shit. Do you agree with me?

Yes, especially about the 95 percent.

[Laughter]

Not long ago you spoke very frankly about superhero movies—you called them poisonous and inherently right-wing.

For me superheroes represent that vision of humans as flawless and certain, and all those things that are a delusional projection of how human beings should be. It’s almost fascist—there’s something very scary about that, the vanity. And for me, humans are exactly contrary to all that. I’ve never met a human like that. And I’m much more interested in humans, which I find much more dimensional and contradictory and flawed and driven by fears and anxiety, but at the same time, beautiful, pathetic, lovable creatures that I find fascinating. I think the values of the superheroes are in a way affecting the way the military mind works. So I have a conflict, philosophically, with the generations today not being fascinated by our human flaws and possibilities, and everything that’s human seems to be boring now. It’s scary for me. That’s my conflict—that humans seem to be now no longer subject to analysis and observation, and we cannot see ourselves in films because we feel so bad about ourselves. We have been acting so bad in the last years, the world is in such bad shape, that probably the reason [for the superhero craze]—I’m being outspoken here—is there’s a shame about seeing humans on the screen. And that’s sad.

Godard said the best way to criticize a movie is to make another movie, so is Birdman your critique of a society that’s saturated with fascist values on screen?

All the themes that the film navigates are themes that are really close to me, personally. I feel affected by or curious about them, and I’m part of it. It’s nothing I observe intellectually or detached from—I’m part of that discussion. I’m part of the problem, maybe. But I think that’s why it’s such an important and incredible journey for me, to be able to exorcise many of those thoughts that I have, through this story and these characters, because I empathize with all of them! I have been all of them, and I feel that sometimes I can really empathize with each point of view at the same time, so I don’t have a point of view. I’m not certain—I don’t know who’s right. I don’t know if Emma Stone’s right in what she says to her father. Sometimes I can empathize with her, and sometimes I can empathize with him. So that’s who I am, I guess.

The film isn’t overtly political, but you say that superhero movies are reactionary, and you have a critic who’s resolved to uphold the status quo, and the Birdman voice is constantly cautioning Keaton against being too ambitious. It seems like you’re saying that conservatism is anathema to art.

Yes, I think so. I don’t know if you know that the score of the film was rejected by the music branch of the Academy, because they considered that the classical music [drawn from preexisting music] was taking over the emotion of the film, and I disagree, because the [original] score of the drums was two times more in the film than the classical music. They [the music committee] attach emotion to strings but they cannot attach emotion to drums. For them, drums are not an instrument that’s as good or as emotional or as harmonic as guitars or piano. So yeah, I think the conventions don’t allow expression to be evolving in different ways. And yes, the form of this film—the fact that it was shot as perceived in one single shot—was a way to explore possibilities of experience or extend the emotional state of characters to another grammatical language.

As I’m sure a lot of people have noted, this film is lighter in tone than your other works. Does that grow out of the material or is it a change in your outlook?

I don’t think I’ve changed the subjects of my films—I’ve changed the approach. And, honestly, sometimes when you see how some people in this industry complain about how difficult it is to make a film, I feel like, oh my God, they haven’t been in Third World countries where people work in really shitty places with horrible fucking conditions. I’m not diminishing the pain of the creative process, and the need to be loved and express yourself and be naked and all those things. But what I’m saying is that I knew if I took the suffering of these existential things seriously, I would be betraying the real nature of the pathetic side of it. There’s a very pathetic side of the ego needing to be recognized, and applauded and validated. There’s something that, if you detach yourself a little bit, is more funny than tragic. It’s both at the same time, but I knew that if I took this so seriously, it would be as pathetic as everything [else]. So I prefer to take it from the hilarious vision of the tragic reality of the complex mind of artists. It’s more truthful that way.

The New Yorker [Richard Brody]

The long tracking shot to nowhere: Why flashy camera work ... Sam Krowchenko from Salon

BIRDMAN: Following Riggan's orders - David Bordwell

Birdman - Reviews - Reverse Shot Michael Koresky

Angeliki Coconi's Unsung Films [Pedro Chao]

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture - 2014 [Erik Beck]

PopMatters [Angelos Koutsourakis]

Ferdy on Films [Roderick Heath]

Erik Lundegaard [Erik Lundegaard]

Birdman starring Michael Keaton, reviewed. - Slate Dana Stevens

Birdman Review | Vanity Fair Richard Lawson

Little White Lies [Adam Woodward]

Review: Alejandro G. Iñárritus Birdman opens ... - HitFix Catherine Bray

PopMatters [Chris Barsanti]

Slant Magazine [R. Kurt Osenlund]

New York 2014 Review: BIRDMAN, A Visual and ... - Twitch Christopher Bourne

Review: Michael Keaton soars as a troubled actor in ... - HitFix Drew McWeeny

Birdman / The Dissolve Scott Tobias

Krell Laboratories [Christianne Benedict]

Grolsch Film Works [Ashley Clark]

'Birdman' Review: Where the Hell Has This Movie ... - Pajiba Vivian Kane

Let's Talk About the Ending of 'Birdman' - Film David Chen from /Film

The Digital Fix [Spike Marshall]

Birdman - QNetwork Entertainment Portal James Kendrick

Home Theater Info DVD [Douglas MacLean] Blu-Ray

Blu-ray.com [Jeffrey Kauffman]

DoBlu.com Blu-ray [Matt Paprocki]

Sound On Sight [Lane Scarberry]

INFLUX Magazine [Steve Pulaski]

A Critical Movie Critic [Howard Schumann]

ReelViews [James Berardinelli]

Ruthless Reviews (Potentially Offensive) [Goat]

Can't Stop the Movies [Andrew Hathaway]

Hannah McHaffie [Hannah McHaffie]

BIRDMAN Movie Review: Slightly Less Subtle Than A ... Devin Faraci from Badass Digest

EyeForFilm.co.uk [Jennie Kermode]

South China Morning Post [Edmund Lee]

Daily | Alejandro G. Iñárritu's BIRDMAN | Keyframe - Explore ... David Hudson from Fandor

Interview: Alejandro G. Iñárritu | Film Comment Steven Mears interview, January 12, 2015

'Birdman': Venice Review - The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy

'Birdman' Film Review: Michael Keaton Stages ... - Variety Peter Debruge

Birdman review - The Guardian Jonathan Romney from The Observer

Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) review ... Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian

Examiner.com [Travis Hopson]

Examiner.com [Ben Kenber]

Examiner.com [Jana J. Monji] also seen here: Pasadena Art Beat [Jana J. Monji]

'Birdman' movie review: Michael Keaton winks as a comeback Ann Hornaday from The Washington Post

The Cleveland Movie Blog [Pamela Zoslov]

Birdman - Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

Birdman Movie Review & Film Summary (2014) | Roger Ebert Christy Lemire

Birdman (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

THE REVENANT C- 67

USA (156 mi) 2015 ‘Scope Official Site

A bloated and largely overrated film about the wretched and the damned, where in the world of Hollywood bigger is better, so this existential tale of survival, which could resemble Robert Redford’s minimalistic effort in J.C. Chandor’s All Is Lost (2013), is blown up to elevate and heighten its own sense of importance, literally plagiarizing Terrence Malick cinematic techniques to provide a sense of worldly transcendence, all of which makes this more than it is. While there is a behind-the-scenes backstory about how difficult it was to make this film in the raw, wintry elements of Alberta, Canada, moving to the mountains of Argentina when there was insufficient snow, where the director is quoted as having indicated, “Every molecule of this film was absolutely difficult.” Well that was by choice and by design, as this director intentionally makes the overall film experience as brutal and difficult as possible, enlarging and exaggerating a real-life endurance story from Michael Punke’s 2002 novel The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge to near mythological proportions, but in the process, the landscape is so overwhelming that humans are reduced to a near primitive state, as if living in the Stone Age. While there is literally no story whatsoever expressed in the film, where we don’t understand the men’s connection to one another or what their mission is actually supposed to be, as events simply spiral out of control from the outset when we are introduced to them in the midst of a raging Indian battle, where the majority of their party is lost, forcing them to retreat by making their way onto a giant boat and heading down river, where they believe they are sitting targets for more Indian attacks. At least partially based on the real-life fur trapper explorations of frontiersman Hugh Glass, the subject of Western lore often noted for its frequent embellishment, who was part of General Ashley's expedition of 1823 following the Missouri River through South Dakota into Montana, there is dissension in the ranks which develops into the overriding story throughout the film, as whatever strategy is suggested to accomplish their mission is fiercely contested. But when Glass is mauled by a grizzly bear, the severity of his wounds are so dire that he is left for dead by the members of his party, taking his weapons and essential supplies, only to crawl out of the grave they left him in, trekking 350 miles through the wilderness alone in the dead of winter, literally clawing his way back to civilization, resurfacing at the nearest military post in Fort Kiowa, South Dakota.

According to historian Jon T. Coleman, author of Here Lies Hugh Glass: A Mountain Man, a Bear, and the Rise of the American Nation, one of the attributes of American mountain men was their inherent ability to engage in hyperbole, as they were actively involved in stretching the imagination in the making of their own myths, where fabricating stories was woven into the actual history of the American West. These men were “marginal people laboring in far-off places,” who came to be America’s heroes by working in such dangerous situations and placing themselves in harm’s way.

Calamity preyed on Glass because he was vulnerable. His employer and his nation couldn’t protect him. He never established the alliances with the Indian leaders that safeguarded previous generations of European traders in the West. He bet his life on a poorly conceived scheme: that Americans thought they could sneak into the region, harvest furs with their own labor, and get out before the Native inhabitants punished them for their trespasses. This strategy worked for some—William Ashley emerged golden—but the majority of employees and free trappers slogged through the majestic scenery gaunt, scarred, and busted. The West beat them to pulp.

While this bit of background information at least frames the film, the director’s unwillingness to do the same results in a freefall into a narrative abyss, a hole the viewer is never able to crawl out of, as there is never anything resembling an actual story or any clear understanding of what brought these men together, as they are led by a military commander, engage in an unending war with the Indians, but they’re not soldiers, or even hired mercenaries, but simply hunters and fur trappers sent on an unknown mission, where one would presume Indians are among their trading partners, yet all this is lost in the psychological extremities of the film itself. The opening twenty minutes or so are among the best scenes of the film, as the disorientation plays into the chaos of the battlefield, where the roving camerawork by Emmanuel Lubezki mixes an uncontrollable panic with painterly compositions and the visceral experience of death, offering something of a shock to the senses right from the outset. In the aftermath, as the men drift away to apparent safety on one of their rafts, that panic-stricken mood only grips them deeper, as they are a divisive group led by Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), who defers to Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) acting as their guide, as he has the most experience working in the area, recommending traversing an inland path away from the river and away from the Indians, where they would have to hide much of their gear and come back for it later, as it would simply be too much to carry, a thought immediately contested by John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), who finds it foolhardy to leave the river and all that they collected, which amounts to abandoning their earnings. Throwing it all away does not sit well with him, so he engages in a battle of vicious verbal warfare targeting Glass as untrustworthy, as he’s spent time living among the Indians and is traveling with his own half-Pawnee son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), who dresses and identifies as an Indian. This kind of racist venom may be typical of the times, but it’s brutally ugly, putting everyone on edge, where it soon becomes clear that the resentment is so deep that Fitzgerald would just as soon kill Glass than follow his orders. The severity of the bear attack gives him that opportunity, as it becomes too burdensome carrying Glass through the wilderness, so Henry, fearing another Indian attack, leaves a small attachment behind to give him a proper burial, as his death appears imminent. Fitzgerald volunteers for the assignment and undermines the mission from the start, fabricating a story of having seen Indians nearby, claiming they can no longer wait, secretly murdering his son Hawk, claiming he’s gone missing, then burying the gravely wounded Glass alive.

What follows is an existential resurrection of epic proportions, grim and foreboding, becoming a story of Odysseus enduring what God, man, Mother Nature, and the elements could throw at him and somehow he still manages to survive. A “revenant” is a ghost returned from the grave, often to terrorize the living, but what we’re witness to is an example of torture porn, as there’s some question whether DiCaprio is even acting. Instead he’s forced to endure every notion of physical hardship the director could batter him with, growing ridiculous after awhile, where we’re forced to witness a series of grunts and groans and moaning to the heavens with close-ups on a bloodied face, going to excessively showy and gratuitous heights, literally piling on the misery, becoming narcissistically brutal, where the primitive conditions feel like a return to Neanderthal times, forcing DiCaprio to plunge into frozen rivers, stagger half-naked through the frigid cold, jump off a hundred-foot cliff while riding a horse yet surviving with all his limbs intact, sleep in the carcass of a dead animal, grab fish out of water or meat from a freshly killed animal and eat it raw, blood dripping from his mouth. It becomes pathetic when a filmmaker feels obliged to wring every ounce of anguish and abomination out of the situation, intentionally bombarding the audience with just how dire and destitute his situation is, turning wretched after awhile, reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004), piling on the gloom and doom, so that the mindnumbing effect on the audience feels overly sadistic and tortuous, as if the intent of the director is to literally pile on every vile aspect of human torment, which has the effect of intentionally pummeling an audience into submission. Perhaps even worse, the film is so blatantly moralistic, all good or evil, and goes to such extraordinary lengths to copycat the cinematic style of Terrence Malick in The New World (2005) or 2011 Top Ten Films of the Year #1 The Tree of Life, from the vastness of primeval landscapes (shot by the same cinematographer) to the spirit voices of the dead that accompany Glass’s journey, an offensive tactic to cinephiles, as the eloquence of Malick’s transcendent films are so uniquely reverent and sacred, yet here it feels so meaningless, as his characters are one-note throughout, without an ounce of progression throughout the storyline. Tom Hardy was lauded for his performance, becoming the personification of evil, yet it sounds like he has rocks in his mouth, as you can’t understand a word he says throughout the entire picture. While this over-indulgent effort is hailed for its brutality, garnering 12 Academy Award nominations, yet it’s another Hollywood exercise of excess and exaggeration, feeling stupefying empty for a nearly 3-hour experience, clearly becoming one of the most overrated films of the year.

Guest review by Jonathan Dabian

So, I love the film, actually. And I kind of hate it. But I’ll get to that later.

I think you have misjudged the film. Rather harshly...and a little inaccurately. You don’t like violence and brutality in film. That’s ok. I get that. Unfortunately, I think that kind of blinds you to certain films.

This film exists in the realm of Ernest Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy. For these authors, life is about the interplay of simple animal survival with higher concepts and masculine ideals like responsibility, duty, self-actualization, and engagement with society. Malick plays in this realm too, particularly in The Thin Red Line. I’m not referring to the “nature photography” you were talking about, but about the ways that Elias Koteas’ & John Cusack’s characters handled their duty in leading their men in assaults. They knew the costs would be monstrous, but they had their objectives, and they were determined to honor their duties and fulfill their responsibilities.

I do not think the film resides in the Manichean black & whites you see. Pretty much every character is grey. The American and French trappers aren’t purely victims. They’re ravaging the environment by killing all of the animals the local Native American populations relied-upon for survival. And they’re doing it simply to obtain furs for the fur trade. The Arikara warriors are one of the two main antagonists in the film (from Glass’ perspective), but they aren’t unreasoning. Their rampage is motivated by the willful destruction of their environment by the French and American trappers, the assault upon their tribe by American soldiers, and the kidnapping of their Chief’s daughter by the French trappers. More specifically, Glass is defending himself and his son against the Arikara and Fitzgerald, while simultaneously being party to the destruction of the environment committed by the American trappers and soldiers (see also the destruction of the buffalo herds, which is referenced in at least two shots with the piles of buffalo skulls). Fitzgerald is in the same position being a party to the destruction of the environment and the murderer of Glass’ son. Glass and Fitzgerald are also, however, fighting for their own survival in their own Western/American/Capitalist world. While we can judge them negatively for their destruction of the environment that the Arikara and Pawnee rely upon to survive, we can’t judge them negatively for their desire to survive within their own worlds. EVERYONE has the right to survive (but not at the expense of someone else’s survival). Neither of the main characters, or the four cultures portrayed in the film (American, French, Pawnee, Arikara), are purely black and white (well, maybe the Pawnee).

In fact, the only people in the film who aren’t portrayed negatively in some way are the Pawnee who are victims of both the European colonials and the Arikara. They’ve been driven from their homes by the assault upon the environment, and Arikara depredations (the Pawnee man who saves Glass mentions that his family and village were massacred by the Arikara), assault by soldiers (Glass’ wife was killed by soldiers, and his son nearly so as well); and those Pawnee left are stuck living in a slum outside the fort. Their women are used as prostitutes inside the fort by American trappers.

You mention the “spirit of Terrence Malick.” In many ways this is due to both of them using Emmanuel Lubezki as their shared Cinematographer. However, I maintain that while there’s certainly a lot of “natural beauty” and landscapes in both films, the use of natural settings is thematically VERY different for the two directors. Malick focuses on making his natural scenes quasi-religious and philosophical. Iñárritu uses these big natural vistas in the background, but he doesn’t elevate them to the level of poetry like Malick does (outside of a handful of scenes). Iñárritu uses nature as the background. Malick uses it as the subject. Lubezki just happens to be driving the camera for both.

Glass’ journey is driven due to, initially, his commitment to duty (his job as lead tracker and guide); and then after Fitzgerald’s betrayal and murder of his son, commitment to his son/family. His journey is filled with horrors, but it is necessary, even with the massive threats to his own survival, to fulfill his duty to his son and repay the debt due to Fitzgerald. To abrogate this responsibility would be unthinkable. He might as well be dead otherwise. This is the same dilemma that motivates Koteas’ & Cusack’s characters in The Thin Red Line. Koteas’ character abrogates his responsibility. He disobeys his orders and loses his command and his place among his men. Essentially, he loses his life and his place in society. Cusack’s character does his grim duty. He sees some of his men die. He kills many others (the Japanese). However, he fulfills his duty and preserves his place in society and his ability to continue leading, and protecting, his men. (Actually, I’ve totally forgotten to mention Caviezel’s character too. He faces the same dilemma as Koteas’ character, initially chooses the same path as Koteas’ character, and then re-embraces his duty and pays the ultimate price for it. But in doing so, he protects the rest of the men in his scouting party and the lives of his entire Company). This is very similar to the paths followed by Hemingway’s protagonists Robert Jordan (For Whom the Bell Tolls) and Thomas Hudson (Islands in the Stream). McCarthy’s protagonists Suttree, Moss, and The Man also engage with these issues in Suttree, No Country for Old Men, and The Road (respectively).

Since seeing The Revenant, I have been haunted by the final images of Glass climbing up the hill, favoring his wounds, to see a hallucination of his gentle Pawnee wife in idyllic natural surroundings. In his eyes you can see all of the torture and pain, all of the threats to his survival that he’s endured over the last few weeks (see note below) in order to fulfill his duty. Contrasting all of that pain against an idyllic and peaceful existence with nature, the film is asking the audience: “Was it worth it? Was fulfilling his responsibility worth the horrors he committed and endured? Would he have been better-off disengaging and surrendering his agency, like Suttree, and Caviezel’s & Koteas’ characters in The Thin Red Line?”

Note: Remember, this film doesn’t take place over the course of a day or two. If I remember correctly, after they abandon Glass, the remaining scout says it’s going to take them three weeks to circumnavigate the mountains to the fort. Glass’ journey would have been even longer than that, due to his wounds, thus addressing your comment about his ability to suddenly walk. I don’t think he really regains his ability to walk again until after feeding from the downed buffalo with the Pawnee man and being placed in the make-shift, heated, healing teepee allowing his body to run a fever and burn out his infections.

Side note: As I said in the beginning, I love The Revenant. I also hate it. Mainly because this film has the “spirit” of what I think a film adaptation of the second of Cormac McCarthy’s greatest works (the other being Suttree): Blood Meridian. Blood Meridian is one of those novels that has been in perpetual script development hell in Hollywood. It’s epic. It’s violent. It’s incredibly risky, and probably unfilmable. However, the way Iñárritu filmed The Revenant is exactly how I imagine Blood Meridian. To the extent that, if anyone were to actually make Blood Meridian (and do it justice), it would probably be written off as a copy of The Revenant. That said, I doubt that Blood Meridian will ever be made. The scope of the film is simply too large and too niche.

Incidentally, another thing that makes me angry about this film is that it has MANY events, character traits, and bits of imagery that feature prominently in Blood Meridian. Blood Meridian includes a bear attack. Assaults on, and massacres of, Indian encampments. A LONG journey and manhunt across the entire SW US and Mexico, from the plains and deserts of Texas & Mexico to snow-covered alpine forests in the Rocky Mountains, to the SanFran coast. Massive brutal violent imagery, including mass scalp taking (hundreds of scalps taken for bounties). A main character who is partially scalped (Toadvine in Blood Meridian, Fitzgerald in The Revenant). The piles of buffalo skulls. (Thirty-one million buffalo were slaughtered by American settlers in the plains between 1868 and 1881 in order to protect new cropland and to deprive the Native American tribes of the animal they relied-upon most for their survival. They were nearly driven to extinction. Less than a million are alive today. The furs from the massacres were sent east. The corpses left to rot in the fields. The skulls stacked in piles. This imagery features many times in McCarthy’s various novels, and very prominently in the denouement and epilogue to Blood Meridian.) These were constant threats to the actual settlers of the period, but there are just too many similarities and overlaps between the two to avoid comparison should Blood Meridian ever be adapted to film.

I hope I’ve actually managed to say something half-way interesting, illuminating, and thought-provoking here.

Deep Focus: The Revenant - Film Comment Michael Sragow, December 24, 2015

“We are obsessed with technique, hag-ridden by Facts, in love with information,” the seminal cultural critic Dwight Macdonald complained about his fellow Americans 58 years ago. Hollywood, he wrote, “gives us miracles in ‘authenticity’ of costume and furniture, all verified by experts, but doesn’t bother about the authenticity of the human beings who wear the costumes and sit on the period chairs, reversing Marianne Moore’s famous description of the poet as one who creates ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them.’ (In Hollywood, the gardens are real but the toads are synthetic.)”

The self-consciously experimental director of Birdman (14), Alejandro G. Iñárritu, may be shocked to hear such criticisms leveled at his latest film, The Revenant. But this grueling depiction of cruelty and revenge among pioneer hunters and trappers and Native Americans in the early 19th century is stunningly unimaginative and literal. Iñárritu applies an aesthetic sheen to every aspect of this production and elicits ferocious commitments from his cast, including his star, Leonardo DiCaprio. Still, his determination to catapult audiences into a feral world lacks a visionary pull. He lavishes the most sophisticated cinematic means on the most elemental action, notably an Indian ambush of a base camp for the Rocky Mountain Fur Trading Company and a bone-rattling animal attack that goes on forever. Even the long takes and convoluted camera moves he and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki mastered in Birdman, gutsily executed here in the great outdoors, do little more than generate jolts when they aren’t just delivering visual information about the harshness and vastness of primeval landscapes.

The film’s most enduring pleasures are the miraculous lived-in details of Jack Fisk’s production design and Jacqueline West’s costumes. Fisk lays out the trappers’ camp with such richness and intelligence that you perceive it as a sprawling open-air factory for skinning animals and bundling pelts—a mini Industrial Revolution invading the Indian grounds of the American Northwest. And West outfits the people of this region with skins and fabrics that marvelously reflect their diverse backgrounds and eccentricities, giving us a unique melting pot in hides and furs.

Iñárritu and Mark L. Smith base their script on Michael Punke’s eventful historical novel (called The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge) about real-life frontiersman Hugh Glass, who in 1823 crawled and staggered through 200 miles of wilderness to avenge himself on fellow trappers who had abandoned him after a bear grievously mauled him. (“Revenant” means a person who comes back from death or a prolonged absence.) Their adaptation strips down the book’s profusion of incidents and substitutes their own fictional textures. They interweave flashbacks to a devastated Indian village, and they streak the film with New Age lyricism via odd or otherworldly images, like Glass staring at mountains made of buffalo skulls. They give Glass an Indian wife who is dead and a half-Indian son who is alive (for a while, anyway), presumably to expand Glass’s dimensions as a character. At some points, the mysticism gets so thick it’s as if he’s going on a vision quest. But the flights into Native American spirituality aren’t revelatory or exciting, as they are, for example, in Irvin Kershner’s Return of a Man Called Horse. They’re dutiful and hokey. Glass and his boy Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) do convey a quiet emotional closeness—a shared vigilance for each other in a dangerous world. But the actors can’t take it anywhere before Hawk is killed in front of his father’s eyes, by one of the two trappers hired to stay with Glass until he dies.

In this version of the Glass legend, the explorer not only drags his scarred body over ice and rock to seek revenge on those who left him behind. He also exacts retribution for his son. Perhaps Iñárritu thought that to hold the audience’s attention for a 156-minute string of sadistic setpieces, he had to keep the story “primal.” But revenge becomes mind-dulling, not heart-quickening, when it permeates each corner of a movie. It’s as if Iñárritu simply wanted to take the Sicilian proverb, “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” into the extremes of Arctic weather. Even Elk Dog (Duane Howard), a fierce Arikara brave, is searching for a kidnapped daughter. The result is a resonance-free pageant of payback. The final minutes indicate that Glass is ready for some kind of non-violent redemption. You don’t buy that suggestion for a Rocky Mountain second.

Tom Hardy plays Fitzgerald, the cynical trapper who loses his valuables during the Indian raid and accepts $70 to stay with Glass after he’s mauled; Will Poulter plays the virtuous young mountain man Jim Bridger, who also takes the money and stays; and Domhnall Gleeson plays Captain Henry, the stalwart, principled leader of the expedition. The weakest link is Hardy, who makes Fitzgerald such a blatantly shifty and loathsome character that you can’t believe Gleeson’s intelligent Henry would trust him to guard Glass near the beginning or surrender to the Captain near the end. Poulter gives the most credible supporting performance as the youth who sees through Fitzgerald’s self-justifying roguery but lacks the strength or authority to quash his evil plans. Poulter proves to be a master of mortification when Bridger emanates shame and failure over his inability to do what’s right.

As for the movie’s lead: Robert Towne once defined a star as someone who can make a large audience feel what he or she is feeling. When DiCaprio is on screen, you can’t take your eyes off him. DiCaprio is still a star in The Revenant, though all we get out of him is anguish, vengeance, and confusion. He conjures a connection with the audience via urgency alone. But it’s not enough to save the movie.

Shooting only in natural light and in often hazardous conditions, Iñárritu and Lubezki aim to capture something ineffable about the danger, loneliness, and awe of a white man trekking alone in terra incognita. Defenders of this movie will talk about its “sense of place.” But this film has only a sense of things framed in a world of wonders, like the patched-up keelboat of the trappers, or even Glass’s banged-up anatomy itself—a relentless biological machine fueled by rage. In interviews, the movie’s committed cast and crew keep saying they wanted to achieve not a history lesson but an “immersive” experience. The result is not immersive but assaultive and therefore ultimately numbing.

Iñárritu’s combination of virtuosity and bluntness reduces his film’s absorption with frigid ground and freezing water into another kind of fact-mongering. It’s as if he’s a cinematic Walter Cronkite, saying, “That’s the way it was.” It may be that Iñárritu got so far into the material that he lost perspective. In an interview with Empire he rants against the rapacious capitalism and ecological barbarism of the trappers: “Look at the forests—they turned the fucking trees into fucking tables. They had no respect for the fucking birds and the animals—they killed them and turned them into hats.” Maybe the human beings had to keep their heads warm.

In another interview, DiCaprio has said: “This is a very linear, straightforward, brilliantly simplistic screenplay about a man trying to avenge the death of his son and trying to find redemption—but, along the way, we wanted to find the poetry in-between that.” DiCaprio, brave and honest actor that he is, gives the game away with that statement. Can any screenplay be brilliantly simplistic? And can any production, no matter how inventive, force poetry from a slender, facile script? Responding to negative press about the emotional and financial cost of the difficult shoot, Iñárritu has complained: “I can’t imagine David Lean justifying why he went to the desert to shoot Lawrence of Arabia.” Well, David Lean didn’t have to justify it because he had a dynamic central character who was complex enough to anchor an epic. He also had an eloquent script by Michael Wilson and Robert Bolt.

Iñárritu and Lubezki shoot intricate, prolonged takes while choreographing the actors in sadistic pirouettes. This style is terrific at depicting, early on, an Indian tribe mowing down an armed squadron of trappers with arrows and guns and bladed weapons. The camera moves in fluid yet unpredictable motions that open and tighten like a never-ending noose. But the visual self-consciousness becomes alienating and exhausting. By the end, even scenes as visceral as Indians chasing Glass straight off a cliff work merely as spectacle. You hear nary a “whew,” a “wow,” or a “whee,” because the movie is not just depressing, it’s also depressed. When I saw it, the audience reacted audibly just twice—to a particularly destructive bear hug in the pivotal assault and to an especially vicious slashing during Glass’s climactic mano a mano with Fitzgerald. It’s not a good sign when an epic elicits the kind of jaundiced cheering you hear at subprime action films.

In Iñárritu’s film debut, Amores Perros (00), he seemed to be the rare director who would fulfill the cineaste’s dream of using the camera like a pen to “write” short stories or novels onscreen. In The Revenant, he pours his energy into the creation of a totemic art thing. He is now less engaged with the art of fiction than with what I’ll call artifaction.

On The Revenant - Film Comment David Thomson, January 1, 2016

The first time I saw The Revenant, I felt it was the movie of the year, the most beautiful and eloquent, as vital as the desperate breath of characters in the cold clouding the camera lens. I took it for granted as a box-office success and a contender for the Best Picture Oscar. Who had seen such marvels lately in a movie? Perhaps I was living in the past—not just inhabiting frontier existence before 1850, but being reminded of a time when movies put us in the midst of heart-stopping action.

Example? There is a moment when the solitary, horseless Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) trudges up a long snowy incline. The tracking camera ascends with him, steady over the rough ground, and letting us feel the uplift of prowess as we might have done for Anthony Mann, Mizoguchi, or Max Ophuls. On the soundtrack there is an unexplained thunder—and in a film with so many off-camera noises and the pulse of breathing, we wonder what this is. Then Glass reaches the plateau and we discover that a herd of buffalo are the source of the sound. Glass beholds the spectacle and the passing detail that on the fringe of the herd a pack of wolves are attacking one buffalo. All in one shot!

The sense of participation was so intense I wanted to cheer, and chase away those wolves. And The Revenant is dependent on this overwhelming commitment to being there in the inhuman cockpit of nature. “Wilderness” is no longer a romantic word for environmentalists to enthuse over in their drawing rooms. It is the inferno that disdains civilization, and offers “beauty” as a torment to our hopes and vanity.

This was a great film to be seeing, one that returned us to an original aspiration in moviemaking: Have you ever seen this? Do you know what the world is like? I was into the passion in Herbert Ponting’s 1911 footage of Antarctica and in the fantasy of what it might be like on Skull Island (King Kong, 1933), that moment when authentic travelers and adventurers (Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack) broke through into a new world of psychic dreamscape.

I had to see the film again for that excitement to be challenged, and for the bleakness of The Revenant to strike home. For the exhilaration in its filmmaking, the awe at seeing this enormous project done, can mask the implacable thrust of the title and of Hugh Glass staring at us from the last shot of the film. The title “The Revenant” does not just celebrate a pioneer of the frontier who has achieved a righteous revenge. It means someone who has come back from the dead and will never be the same again. In so many ways, Glass is a tattered ghost.

I’ll come to the beauty of the film, and its power. But power in a motion picture can be very odd. I was at a critics’ circle meeting where some people deplored The Revenant: it was “too male,” too long, too violent, too excessive, too preposterous—and it seemed to shoot a live horse. What was it doing letting breath fog the lens? Stories about the difficulties in making the film got in the way of its impact.

Those critics voted Spotlight best picture of the year. There’s no reason to decry that. But how does a film about institutional rape feel so positive? When will we learn to feel cautious about feeling good? All the President’s Men was once a landmark for brave media rooting out corruption in our state—as if Washington could be educated by a movie! Happy days, and unhappy the fate of easygoing feel-gooders.

The Revenant does not let anyone “feel good” at the close of 156 minutes, and that may sap its box office. Glass has vanquished the malignant Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), and there is a spirit in our movies, going back to Fritz Lang (from Kriemhild’s Revenge to The Big Heat), that says vengeance cannot be denied. But Glass has lost his Pawnee wife, their son, Hawk, his own physical well-being, and perhaps his mind. Alejandro G. Iñárritu offers no comfort. The Indian woman Glass has saved from one more rape does not become his new consolation. Instead she looks down on his exhausted victory with disdain. He is not rich in pelts or plunder, or valuable land in the wilderness. He has not thought of mineral rights. He has no glimmer of hope—and so his bleak interrogation of the camera is close to desperation. As Lang recognized, vengeance breeds desolation.

Iñárritu does not bother with allegory or contemporary reference, but we have to be fools to miss it. This is an age of entertainment movies (from San Andreas to Mad Max: Fury Road) that posit an end to the world and the fearsome, uncivilized rigors of survival. Isn’t that what is depicted in The Revenant, even if the setting appears to be 1823? So, the wild land has diverse warring interests, accustomed to slaughter, betrayal and capitalist ruthlessness as well as feeble rhetoric about honor. The snow is so ready to break out in blood stains. And the most elemental tie in nature—that of parenthood—is under constant threat. Glass loses his son. The Pawnee chief roams in search of a lost daughter. And the fabled bear in the film has a ferocity that comes from protecting cubs.

That’s the spirit in Emmanuel Lubezki’s extraordinary cinematography and the film’s wary regard for natural beauty. Photography easily cheats nature: it dwells on the light of magic hours; it clings to the sentiments embodied in landscape, horizon and sky; it is agape at spectacle, scenery and the magnificence of wilderness. From the paintings of the German-born Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) to the films of Terrence Malick, this mood can co-opt wildness as an idealistic American state of mind. But that ecstatic framing hardly feels the cold, the cruelty, or the isolation, let alone the terror of being hunted by other creatures.

If you want a quick lesson in commitment to external and human nature, just notice how in the bogus, gloating 70mm stupor of in-jokes in The Hateful Eight, its winter prairie is a groomed back lot where a stagecoach (as perky as a Wells Fargo ad) comes bouncing along in a conveniently snow-plowed track!

You can call Lubezki’s work on The Revenant “ravishing.” (He is also Malick’s cameraman of choice.) But The Revenant does not settle for delight, and Lubezki knows that raw light is serving a philosophical vision aware of how close beauty is to the terrible. This place is as harsh and unsupportive as the landscape in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, even if you yearn to photograph it. But that ambivalence is a part of Iñárritu’s view of life itself. As an end-of-the-world parable apparently set as the United States dawns, this story wonders, is pioneering worth it, or is the wilderness waiting for our departure after a brief stay? That’s what Glass’s gaze asks at the end. Malick is quite calm about the oblivion that may await humans, but Lubezki is torn apart by dread and loss. Even the villain, Fitzgerald, has lost his scalp, and nags at his ruined head (Hardy is so good he is going unnoticed by many, another ghost in the film).

The Revenant is also a meditation on what kind of adventure movie is possible now. Just as Iñárritu’s Birdman deconstructs performance, so The Revenant is tense with self-assessment. We cannot watch without realizing that Lubezki is loyal to natural light as if it was a principle of survival. There are a few interiors and campfires, but we are in a world without artificial or theatrical light. You can see that as an aesthetic decision, but more seriously it addresses mankind’s relationship with nature before electricity and all the technologies that give us the merry schoolboy CGI that rips up the West Coast in San Andreas.

The look of The Revenant feels hallowed and authentic; it is historic but now. No one could say it is done without conjuring. Still, Iñárritu wants to work with as little CGI as possible. When Glass is in the final stages of tracking Fitzgerald, far away behind his lone figure, a small avalanche occurs on a mountainside. Glass stops to notice it. An interviewer asked Iñárritu, whether that was CGI, and the director said, no, a helicopter had been employed to set off a real avalanche.

At a moment of climax Iñárritu chose to have an accident, far from necessary, but eloquent just because of that: nature has its own small gestures of revenge or consequence—accumulated snow must be released, just like human wrath. More than that, the film was ready to go to some lengths to make an event feel real. At a final estimated cost of $135 million, The Revenant doubled its initial budget. This is a commercial enterprise made more perilous by adhering to actuality.

The felt reality is crucial. We regret that physical prowess in films has been compromised by the enhancements of CGI. As I watched The Walk, earlier in the fall, I found the film an awkward whimsy, but its scary walk, its reason for being, was spoiled by our sophistication—well, they can do such things now electronically, so why should I care? There have always been stuntmen, optical subterfuge, and safer ways of doing dangerous things, but there is such a difference between sharing in the peril, and wondering how it was done. Cinema action started to wither when kids were more intrigued by the technology than shaken by the dramatic event.

Iñárritu agonizes over this as much as he does the fate of mankind. Nowhere is that issue more apparent than in Glass’s meeting with the bear. No, a bear was not allowed to attack Leonardo DiCaprio. We recognize the resources that have been employed to make the scene work, and delay an actor’s burial. But the reality is as compelling as the confrontation in Herzog’s Grizzly Man. Glass’s damage is plausible and gruesome, just as the bear’s alien being is evident when she dribbles on Glass, as if adding salt to a meal, or asking, “Play with me”.

I felt I was seeing and caring over a real action as much as I believe in the full-circle plane-landing in Only Angels Have Wings or the ordeal of Lillian Gish in The Wind. The documentary subtext in every fiction film has been held to, and we are left—as moviegoers have always wanted—to sort out the real and the dream in a fever of dread and hope.

The Revenant is a profound adventure, a nearly unique portrait of the extravagant desolation in nature and an absorbing argument over the fate of mankind and its big movies. I wonder how it will do, and how a holiday public will respond to it with a jubilant Star Wars in the next theater. The film may fail in some box-office ways, but that could qualify it in a tradition that includes the varying degrees of “flop” in Intolerance, Greed, Bringing Up Baby, Citizen Kane, The Night of the Hunter, Two-Lane Blacktop, One from the Heart, and Heaven’s Gate.

Into the Woods: Alejandro G. Iñárritu Interview - Film Comment David Fear interview, January/February 2016

There’s a moment roughly a third of the way into The Revenant, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s survivalist Western cum frontier existentialism fable,when a group of men are pulling a wounded trapper along on a primitive sled. Their comrade, a man named Hugh Glass, has been mauled by a grizzly bear; the rest of his hunting party, exhausted by Indian attacks and brutal winter weather, are barely able to drag him along the icy path. They come to a steep, snowy incline, and attempt to push the makeshift gurney up the hill Sisyphus-style, Glass’s groans of pain resounding through the landscape. “That’s us right there,” the 52-year-old filmmaker says, referring to himself, his star Leonardo DiCaprio, and the rest of his cast and his crew. “The cold, the snow, the pain, the determination, the frustration—that was us making the movie. Except the characters could go back down and find another way. We couldn’t. We had to keep going up that rock, so to speak. There was no turning back.”

Already mythologized as a difficult production of Cleopatra proportions—the sort that inspires industry gossip and schadenfreude over supposed crew mutinies and accusations of old-school cinemegalomania—The Revenant refuses to do anything the easy way. Shot in sequence in remote locations under the harshest of climates and conditions, filled with long takes involving meticulously coordinated battle scenes and magic-hour lighting courtesy of Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, Iñárritu’s film is a revenge parable that wears its beauty and its batshit-crazy backstory on its sleeve. But it’s also clearly the work of a visionary director, one who saw a transcendental tale of man versus nature in the real-life Glass’s journey, and went to insane lengths to find a form befitting of that deeply embedded material.

The Revenant also builds on Iñárritu’s ability to coax stellar work out of his actors (notably DiCaprio, who barely speaks English—or anything else—for most of the movie) and continues his transformation from the narrative-juggling melodramatist of the “Mexican New Wave” who gave us Amores Perros (00), 21 Grams (03), and Babel (06) into the stream-of-consciousness stylist who pecked out of his shell to make Birdman (14). You can’t say the movie does not bear the mark of its creator, or that this attempt to make a baroque comment on the blood-soaked landscapes that modern America is built on was not an ambitious move forward as an artist. You can love or hate The Revenant for its excesses, glorious and otherwise. But you can’t dismiss it as anything less than a film of incredible commitment, conscience, and chops.

How far back do you go with this project?

It starts in 2010 with [producer] Steve Golin, who passed me a draft of Mark L. Smith’s script, based loosely on the book about Glass by Michael Punke. The only thing that the script took, really, was the name and the central anecdote: that Glass was attacked by a bear, he was taken care of, abandoned, and then took this nearly 200-mile journey in the winter. That’s really the only historical fact—a lot of his story is built on legend.

I was attracted to the idea of doing one more thing I had never done, in terms of moviemaking. I was interested in the idea of looking into resilience, endurance… I wanted to see what could be explored by a man in the wilderness in near-silence, taking on nature, and what the spiritual dimension of this man was.

Had you wanted to make a Western?

It’s technically not a Western. It takes place before the West exists, after Lewis and Clark but before the gold and the oil. And because that moment plants the seed for today, it felt very relevant to me.

How so?

Corporations would hire illiterate poor people or runaways and sign them up for indentured servitude more or less, and the men would usually spend more than they earned by default. Racism was the norm, and ignorance was encouraged. The land was being raped for profit. Essentially, it’s the beginning of modern unregulated capitalism as we know it. Give back nothing, and get away with everything.

Predating the establishment of the West or not, the film still qualifies as a Western, doesn’t it? It’s full of that iconography… even if it’s flipping some of those signifiers on their heads.

It’s more about the iconography and the landscape. But in the purest way, no… I never saw it as a Western. The themes and questions I wanted to explore were ones that I don’t associate with the Western. I know what John Ford and Sam Peckinpah have done with the genre, and I’ve seen a lot of the great American Westerns. I didn’t have a problem when I was younger with thinking that the Western’s ideal of revenge as a goal—as something that would be accomplished and then order is restored, everyone lives happily ever after—was okay. As an adult, I definitely have a problem with that now.

I wouldn’t say that Westerns were a big influence on The Revenant at all, really. I was looking more toward things like Dersu Uzala by Kurosawa, Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev—which is maybe my favorite film ever—Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, even Apocalypse Now. These are movies that are epic, that have spectacle and are very grand statements, but are informed by the crazy fucking theatrical show that is the human condition. The beauty and harshness of nature impacts your state of mind in these movies. There’s a very intimate point of view from one single character in each. That’s the challenge. Anyone can film a beautiful landscape. Unless you have an emotionally grounded story in there, it’s all just fucking sorcery.

Hugh Glass: How accurate is The Revenant? A history of a ... Rebecca Onion from Slate, December 23, 2015

The Revenant, Hugh Glass and his Rifle Phillip Schreier from The American Rifelman, January 11, 2016

World Socialist Web Site [Joanne Laurier]

Salon (Andrew O'Hehir)

Ferdy on Films [Roderick Heath]

Movie Review: The Revenant -- Vulture David Edelstein

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture - 2015 [Erik Beck]

The Revenant – Alejandro González Iñárritu Zettel Film Reviewer

“The Revenant” is Trump, “Spotlight” is Bernie: What this ... - Salon.com “The Revenant” is Trump, “Spotlight” is Bernie: What this best picture race tells us about our divided America, by Misha Berson, February 25, 2016

Emmanuel Lubezki is the real auteur of The Revenant Taj Rosenberg from The Reader

The Baconation [Steve Pulaski]

Aisle Seat [Mike McGranaghan]

PopMatters [Chris Barsanti]

The Revenant :: Movies :: Reviews :: Paste - Paste Magazine Andy Crump

'The Revenant' Dares to Strand Us in the Cold - Village Voice Alan Scherstuhl

Review: The Revenant - Parallax View Robert Horton, also seen from The Seattle Weekly here: The Spectacle and the Splendor of 'The Revenant' - Seattle ...

Review: There's Lots of Suffering in The Revenant, But Bear ... Stephanie Zacharek from Time magazine

The New Yorker [Anthony Lane]

PopMatters [J.C. Maçek III]

EyeForFilm.co.uk [Amber Wilkinson]

Ruthless Reviews (potentially offensive) [Goat]

Revenant, The | Reelviews Movie Reviews James Berardinelli

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DVDBlu Review [Christopher S. Long]

DoBlu.com Blu-ray [Matt Paprocki]

AVForums - UHD Blu-ray [Steve Withers]

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TailSlate.net [Brian Milinsky]

Spectrum Culture [David Harris]

Ruthless Reviews (potentially offensive) [Mike Ruhoff]

The Revenant Review: I Cringed. I Cackled. I Threw Up In My ... - Pajiba TK

Grolsch Canvas [Nick Chen]

ReelTalk [Betty Jo Tucker]

Culture Fix [Andrew McArthur]

The True Story Behind The Revenant, as Told in 1939 | TIME Eliana Dockterman from Time magazine, January 7, 2016

Hugh Glass: One of Early America's Greatest Tales of Survival Mental Floss, March 27, 2015

Talking Pictures [Howard Schumann]

AllMovie [Daniel Gelb]

TV Guide [Daniel Gelb]

'The Revenant': Film Review - Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy

Film Review: 'The Revenant' - Variety Justin Chang

The Revenant, review - The Independent Geoffrey Macnab

The Revenant review – gut-churningly brutal, beautiful ... Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian

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Toronto Film Scene [Sarah Khan]

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Examiner.com [Travis Hopson] also se here: Punch Drunk Critics [Travis Hopson]

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The Revenant - Roger Ebert Brian Tallerico

The Revenant (2015 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hugh Glass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Did Grizzly Bears Really Exist In South Dakota? | SoDak ...

Gordon, Douglas

ZIDANE: A 21ST CENTURY PORTRAIT (Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle)

France (90 mi) 2005 co-director: Philippe Parreno

BFI | Sight & Sound | Film of the Month: Zidane A 21st Century Portrait ... Richard T. Kelly from Sight and Sound, October 2006

Tracking Zinedine Zidane exclusively for the duration of a single football match, Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s artful film polishes but never penetrates its star’s enigma.

Back in 1992, football writer Brian Glanville issued Paul Gascoigne with the warning "watch out, there's a poet about". Glanville's words were inspired by the news that Ian Hamilton was penning a book about the tubby Geordie virtuoso, then of FC Lazio and England. This Hamilton duly relates in his subsequent Gazza Italia, one of the shrewdest accounts of a clever man's love of football, and proof that Hamilton wouldn't let highbrow credentials discount him from rhapsodising about a sport more readily hymned in grunts, chants and rude monosyllables. After all, why shouldn't 'the beautiful game' inspire beautiful and thoughtful books? Why not, for that matter, conceptually arty films?

To argue thus these days is to push on an open door, for football-derived cultural production has boomed over the past two decades. And if the aesthetes found long words with which to praise Gascoigne, who followed his finest hour in England's 1990 World Cup by wearing plastic breasts and belly during the post-tournament open-top parade, then what laurels are owed Zinedine Zidane, the Algerian-born Frenchman who owns a full set of the game's highest honours, and whose ruggedly austere, gimlet-eyed grace has enthralled fans both male and female?

Enter a cinematic collaboration between artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, in which 17 cameras (film and video) are trained on Zidane for the duration of Real Madrid's fairly important league match with Villareal in April 2005. (The film furnishes no context of this type or any other, but Real were chasing Barcelona for Spain's La Liga title.) Not renowned as the chattiest of men, Zidane had nevertheless met with the directors and endorsed their project.

Gordon is perhaps best known for 24-Hour Psycho, in which he projected Hitchcock's movie at two frames per second: clearly this is an artist intrigued by time-based media, and the degree to which images can be scrutinised more fruitfully outside of the whole. One wouldn't then expect a Gordon 'documentary' to be stuffed with archive footage or talking heads. "We thought we could use ideas from the art world," Gordon told the Guardian of his and Parreno's intentions, "and combine them with popular culture." Currently our pop culture offers few pastimes more commonplace than watching football on big screens. (Indeed, Sky TV's monopolistic coverage of live UK football has for some time given digital viewers the option of focusing on a sole player.) Zidane, though, announces itself within seconds as an artwork - in the graphic design of its titles, and by a zoom into an abstracted extreme close-up of a television screen showing the match. Gradually, Zidane himself is centred on the screen within the screen, albeit as a blurred figure on a green carpet. The score - modal drones and meandering guitars by Mogwai - gets into gear, and then we're off, transported into Gordon's and Parreno's multi-camera footage.

Sportswriter Richard Williams has properly placed Zidane among a football elite of "artists and inventors, men who see space and time and angles where we see only confusion". The frame Gordon and Parreno have placed around Zidane assumes - or perhaps devoutly wishes - that nothing he does can be without interest. Indeed, they generate some terrific images, which at times are arbitrary. (The Bernabeu crowd seen behind a stationary Zidane in mid-shot are kind enough now and then to rise and clap in synchronicity, or bang on bass drums.) There is also a degree of arty frippery - pointless frames-within-frames grabbed from a monitor or viewfinder. But above all there is the ball, and the man.

By design, Gordon and Parreno have not incurred the duty of an enlightened reading of the game or Zidane's contributions, how he arrives at them, why they work or don't work - the sort of thing ex-pro television summarisers get paid for as they doodle over half-time replays with light-pens. (Indeed, posterity will best judge the worth of how Gordon and Parreno choose to pass the half-time interval: namely with an on-this-day-in-history globetrot from Najaf to Jakarta, taking in a few fancy-that quirks about exploding toads and woodpeckers, plus a spot of domestic from Gordon: "My son had a fever this morning.")

What is absorbing, though, is to watch Zidane's own watchfulness, his studious tracking of the ball and the opposition's movements. Longer lenses exaggerate his isolation on the field, but then his admirers have long known him for one who can drift in and out of play, and it is in the nature of the attacking midfielder or 'playmaker' to claim moments of stillness. Come the second half, however, with Real a goal down, Zidane raises his tempo. Flushed, sweat darkening his monkish tonsure and coursing down his nose, he starts to exhibit some of his repertoire: a lightning step-over, a foot on the ball, a dribble to the by-line with multiple feints culminating in a left-foot cross headed home by team-mate Ronaldo. In such splendid moments we feel intimate with Zidane's peerless control, his making and holding of space, the adhesion of ball to feet. The film's wider-angled, fuller-body images undoubtedly offer the best vantage with these sequences, much as they best showcase dancers in movie musicals.

But the film-makers have other things they wish to convey: most evidently, a sense of Zidane's introspection, telegraphed in close-ups where the soundtrack is heavy with his breathing and in the use of subtitles drawn from their dialogues with the player. (During the first half, with Zidane's mild frustration apparent, we even get a gesture towards his point of view.) Some of these musings, to do with time and memory, are the stuff of gallery pamphlets and don't really bear the repeated airings they receive. More diverting are Zidane's thoughts on the hand of fate - a sense of knowing he would score before the ball came to him, of arriving at the stadium certain that the cause was lost, "the script written before the game". (Fans know this feeling, too.)

As the match nears stoppage time, the Mogwai music becomes a mounting drone and we watch Zidane first wince at and then wade into a fracas of players, the spark for which is unknown to us, and off he trots for an early bath. Zidane was famously touchy, sent off 14 times in his career, the short fuse and the inner demon integral plot points in his legend. One speaks in the past tense because the final dismissal came in his last game as a professional, the 2006 World Cup final, after his butting of a snide Italian defender who bad-mouthed his mother and sister. Zidane's backstory - the staunch son of Berber Algerian immigrants, raised on a Marseilles estate, who grew up to glorify his adoptive nation only then to get saddled with the impossible role-model burden of embodying a cancellation of French racial tensions (and, probably, to resent as much) - is surely a clue to his bouts of fury, to this and a good few other sendings-off. But it would be the grist of a different movie. To be fair, as football pundits say, the mystique of Zidane probably deserves a film as elusive and taciturn as Gordon's and Parreno's, one that polishes his enigma rather than penetrates it, now that he has trudged from the pitch and into the pantheon for keeps.

Zidane arrives in cinemas simultaneously with the rediscovery at festivals of an earlier and very similar work, Football As Never Before by the German director Hellmuth Costard, in which eight 16mm cameras track George Best through 90 minutes at Old Trafford in late 1970 as Manchester United beat Coventry 2-0. It's a nothing game, and Best was already bent upon drowning his gifts in white wine. But like Zidane, the film is a time-and-motion study, wherein the audience learns nothing about team formation but rather - through the fabled integrity of long lens and long take - is urged to appreciate individual mastery. Best and Zidane repay our attention, instructing us in what becomes a legend most. By contrast, at odd moments in Zidane the fretful highlighted head of David Beckham - once upon a time vaunted by certain hacks as an 'icon of masculinity' - fleets across the frame and is gone.

Gordon, Keith

All-Movie Guide Jason Buchanan

Whether obsessing over a demonically possessed '58 Plymouth Fury in Christine or stepping behind the camera to direct an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s classic novel Mother Night, Keith Gordon has experienced a lot in his filmmaking career. If audiences hadn't suspected the awkward, bespectacled teen's ambitions following such early efforts as Home Movies and Dressed to Kill, they were in for a pleasant surprise when the young actor eventually grew into a seasoned director.

A New York City native whose parents were both actors, Gordon began a love affair with films when he accompanied his father to a screening of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Gordon was thrilled by Kubrick's imaginative sci-fi vision and the seemingly limitless possibilities of the medium, and in the years that followed, he took part in numerous stage productions at school. In the summer of 1976, he was spotted by a casting director while appearing in two plays at the National Playwrights Conference; two years later, Gordon landed his first major screen role in Jaws 2. Though it was only a bit part, the experience he gained on the tumultuous set was invaluable. Subsequently cast in the 1979 miniseries Studs Lonigan, he eventually left school for a film career. Though Gordon initially rejected an offer to try out for the 1979 Brian De Palma feature Home Movies, the audition was in his neighborhood, so he reluctantly gave in. Not only did Gordon win the role of a young student obsessed with filmmaking, but he also received even more valuable experience by having opportunities to discuss filmmaking with De Palma. Following a brief role in All That Jazz (1979), Gordon made his most prominent film appearance to date in De Palma's controversial 1980 thriller Dressed to Kill.

Gordon excelled at playing twitchy, eggheaded teens throughout the '80s in such efforts as Christine (1983), The Legend of Billie Jean (1985), and Back to School (1986), and though his onscreen career seemed to be coming along swimmingly, his creative ambitions were left unfulfilled. As the screenwriter of Mark Romanek's 1985 cult film Static, Gordon saw his aspirations finally beginning to come to fruition. He later made his feature directorial debut in 1988 with an impressive adaptation of Robert Cormier's novel The Chocolate War (Gordon also wrote the screenplay), which earned a Best First Feature nomination at the 1989 Independent Spirit Awards. He gained momentum and crafted a unique anti-war movie with his 1992 sophomore effort, A Midnight Clear, before moving to television to direct episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street and the sci-fi miniseries Wild Palms. Gordon was next faced with one of the more challenging projects of his career when he filmed Mother Night.

A dark, dramatic period tale of love and loss, Gordon's fourth feature, Waking the Dead (2000), earned generally positive notices, as it further established the star status of its clear-eyed leads, Jennifer Connelly and Billy Crudup. In his next feature, Gordon re-teamed with Back to School dormmate Robert Downey Jr. for an updated version of Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective (2003). Although he coaxed a stellar turn out of Downey, however, Gordon's take on the material did little to convince critics that the film was in need of refreshing.

Keith Gordon on Keith Gordon, Part One: From ... - Senses of Cinema Keith Gordon on Keith Gordon, Part One: From Actor to Director, by Peter Tonguette, October 28, 2004

Keith Gordon on Keith Gordon, Part Two: Less ... - Senses of Cinema Keith Gordon on Keith Gordon, Part Two: Less Afraid of Happy Endings, by Peter Tonguette, February 8, 2005

Gordon, Keith They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

Spliced Wire Interview #1 by Rob Blackwelder, March 17, 2000

Spliced Wire Interview #2 by Rob Blackwelder, October 4, 2003

THE CHOCOLATE WAR

USA (100 mi) 1988

Exclaim! [Travis Mackenzie Hoover]

Having co-written, co-produced and starred in an outstanding independent film - Mark Romanek's Static - Keith Gordon made his directorial debut with this perfectly controlled study of teen tyranny. Every year the pupils of a strict Catholic boys' school are cajoled into selling boxes of chocolates to raise funds for their ailing alma mater. Morale is all-important, so when quiet new boy Jerry (Mitchell-Smith) refuses to participate, the school's principal, Brother Leon (Glover), uses the Vigils (a sadistic elite who terrorise their fellow pupils by giving them devilishly difficult 'assignments' to perform) to bring the rebel into line. But even when the full force of the Vigils is unleashed against him, Jerry continues to resist. A lovingly crafted and superbly acted attack on what Fassbinder used to call 'quiet fascism', this is smooth and rich, but with a delightfully bitter aftertaste.

eFilmCritic Reviews Rob Gonsalves

Keith Gordon, who acted in 'Dressed to Kill,' 'Christine,' and 'Back to School,' made his directorial debut with this adaptation of Robert Cormier’s much-banned young-adult novel.

Ilan Mitchell-Smith is Jerry Renault, a freshman at the well-appointed Trinity prep school. Trinity is holding its annual chocolate sale, and Jerry refuses to participate — first on the orders of the Vigils (Trinity’s secret student society), then of his own free will. The Vigils’ “assigner” Archie Costello (Wally Ward) joins forces with the wormy Brother Leon (John Glover) to force Jerry to sell the chocolates.

Gordon takes most of the events right from the book, so he catches the intricate power games between Archie and Leon, between Archie and his right-hand man Obie (a pre-X-Files Doug Hutchison), and between Archie and Vigils president Carter (Adam Baldwin, a bit too old for his role). In fact, Archie (played by Ward with fine icy malice) is more interesting than Jerry.

Purist Cormier fans will find the movie far from perfect; it alters Cormier’s uncompromising finale, though Gordon himself feels his ending is “unsettling in a different way,” which it is. In any event, the story is a classic about grace under pressure and resisting conformity, and it’s a noble first effort from a director who has never sold out.

Glover thoroughly enjoys himself as the casually sadistic Leon; Bud Cort also turns up in a gleeful cameo as Brother Jacques, who turns his students’ prank back on them.

Robert Cormier’s teen-lit classic gets the feature film treatment in this sharp, no-nonsense adaptation. Ilan Mitchell-Smith (the other guy in the pair from Weird Science) stars as Jerry Renault, a freshman at a Catholic prep school ruled by the iron fist of one Brother Leon (John Glover). Leon’s gotten himself into hot water by buying more chocolates than needed for a school fundraiser; he’s got to unload them fast and is thus bullying the student body while invoking the powers of their secret society, the Vigils. Jerry incurs Leon’s wrath by choosing not to buy the chocolate and thus becomes a rallying point in an anti-Leon campaign that the Vigils, led by a malevolent Archie (Wally Ward), must somehow crush. Actor Keith Gordon turns in a surprisingly assured performance in his directorial debut, offering simple but pointed set-ups that emphasise the stifling nature of the classroom and the shady nature of Leon and the Vigils — the visuals don’t punch you in the face but work on you in subtle, unexpectedly effective ways. Furthermore, the cast is uniformly excellent, with Glover walking off with the movie as the supremely self-regarding Leon and Ward surprisingly sympathetic as the beleaguered leader of an increasingly suspicious society of oppressors. You keep waiting for the movie to bog down in preaching or expository talk but it never does; the script is a model of economy and restraint that says what’s needed in a crisp, streamlined fashion. If it’s no masterpiece, it’s still light years better than most films aimed at teenagers. Extras include an informative, effusive commentary by Gordon and an extended interview with the director that’s packed with background detail.

Film Freak Central Review [Bill Chambers] or here: Bill Chambers, Epinions.com

"The nail that sticks up is the one that's hammered down."
-Japanese proverb

Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War--an expansion of Catcher in the Rye's first chapters, or Dead Poet's Society with sharper teeth, take your pick--was my favourite book in high school so for years I feared the film version. Last week, I hunkered down before the set to bite the bullet at last; no matter how deviant the movie was, I could forever cling to the memory of that first read in tenth grade. The opening moments of likeable actor Keith Gordon's directorial debut (he played the psycho-nerd in John Carpenter's banal Christine) put me at ease. This 1988 adaptation is by no means letter-faithful, but the grim tone of the book is preserved and the alterations are exciting.

Ilan Mitchell-Smith stars as Jerry Renault, the new kid at all-boys Catholic school Trinity and thus fresh food for the Vigils, an underground student organization fond of rattling the cages of both students and teachers alike with complex practical jokes. Publicly represented by the snake-charming Archie ("The Larry Sanders Show"'s Wally Langham, née Ward, barely recognizable here), the Vigils convince Jerry to refuse participation in the school's annual fundraiser--a chocolate sale--for ten days.

At the end of his "mission," however, Jerry continues to say "no," causing much consternation for terrible Brother Leon (John Glover), who reluctantly enlists the Vigils to undo their all-too-effective handiwork. Jerry, you see, has become a glamourous symbol of rebellion at the school; overall sales have dipped at a time when Trinity desperately needs the extra funds.

Gordon's compression of several chapters into beautiful, static montages may have been influenced by time or budgetary constraints, but this stripped-down approach captures the simple poetry of Cormier's prose well. The movie is often like watching a bizarre tango between the no-frills aesthetic of Cassavetes and the big-budget minimalism of Kubrick--at times, the camera placement and direction of actors has improvisational zing, while at others, there is a methodical, antispontaneity to the proceedings that is equally engrossing.

This is an inspiring first effort from Gordon full of great performances; Glover is pure malevolence, and Ward is outstanding--Gordon's interpretation of the novel wisely plants omnisexual Archie, a tragic figure all his own, at the forefront, allowing for a more ambiguous line to be drawn between the good guys and the bad. (This was also a good decision because Movie Jerry is problematic: his introversion on paper was somewhat painful to behold, and his quiet protest cathartic, not unlike like that of Melville's Bartleby, but cinematically the character walks a fine line between shy and dull.)

Where the book was almost exclusively an attack on conformity (or, at least, a dark-hearted meditation on attacking conformity), exaggerated by its religious setting (in the film, those boxes of chocolates that Brother Leon hawks even resemble The Good Book, giving the sales campaign the air of door-to-door Bible-thumping), Gordon is after something more complex. His ending, which sticks it to elitism but still manages to avoid a clear victory for Jerry, is less downbeat yet even more shattering than the text's. With a new-wave soundtrack featuring the likes of Yaz and Peter Gabriel, The Chocolate War is a hipper and more perceptive take on separate school life (and, to that end, teenaged boys) than most pictures of such ilk. I needn't have put off seeing it this long.

Slant Magazine [Jeremiah Kipp]

DVD Talk [Jamie S. Rich]

Reel.com DVD review [Tim Knight]

DVD Verdict [Dylan Charles]

academic review a book review, Studying Cormier's Protagonists: Achieving Power Through Young Adult Literature, by Virginia R. Monseau from the Alan review, Fall 1994

A MIDNIGHT CLEAR

USA (107 mi) 1992

"Back in Camp Shelby, before we shipped out, Lieutenant Ware was told that intelligence was doing a lousy job. He figured if he filled the squad with intelligent soldiers, he'd get better intelligence. So he searched the regimental records for the soldiers with the highest scores on the intelligence test and requisitioned us as a squad. Of course, six of us are dead. So, what's intelligence?"
—Will Knott (Ethan Hawke)

filmcritic.com Christopher Null

Keith Gordon's scant few films -- including Mother Night, Waking the Dead, and A Midnight Clear -- rank among some of the biggest cult fan pics ever made. For my money, Clear is his best work, a scathing anti-war tale set in the final days of WWII, when both sides were scared shitless. A group of Germans attempts to surrender to an American intelligence patrol, with disastrous consequences. An all-star cast makes it wholly worthwhile.

As the end of World War II approaches, a group of American soldiers settle in a deserted house on the Franco-German border in order to report on enemy movements. But their foe remains elusive, and after making contact with these young, nervous men, the Germans prove strangely unwilling to attack. Less war movie than psychological thriller, writer/director Gordon's absorbing, stylised adaptation of William Wharton's novel explores issues of faith and morality. The performances are uniformly excellent as the film moves inexorably towards bloody confrontation and spiritual reckoning.

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Brian Calhoun)

“A Midnight Clear” is a dogface saga of the sort that the great Sam Fuller might have directed -- a spare, personal, straight-from-the- trenches account of men at war. But the serene, nearly ecclesiastical tone that writer-director Keith Gordon has given the film would have been out of character for the gritty postwar auteur. And it's precisely this poised, sensitive approach that makes this World War II story uniquely enthralling. "A Midnight Clear" is a war film completely unlike any other, a compelling accomplishment that's more soul than blood and bullets.

Adapted by Gordon from William Wharton's novel, "A Midnight Clear" focuses on the family atmosphere within a depleted squadron assigned to acquire intelligence information about an expected Nazi offensive in the snowy French countryside. The six young soldiers, all of whom, we're told, have IQs higher than 150, are led by Will Knott (Ethan Hawke), a recently promoted sergeant known as "Won't Knott" who also serves as the film's narrator. But the command of the unit in the remote chateau where it's been posted is unusually democratic; consensus, not rank, rules. And so when they begin to receive some rather bizarre communications from a nearby unit of German soldiers, who instead of shooting bullets pelt their foes with snowballs and regale them with Christmas carols, they decide to talk first and shoot later.

The Germans, they discover, don't want to fight at all; fresh from the Russian front, they've had enough of war and want to surrender. With Shutzer (Arye Gross), the squad's one Jewish member, acting as interpreter, a mock skirmish is planned that will allow the Americans to capture their rivals while also making it appear that the Germans put up a fight so that their relatives back home won't be punished. It's an insane, and potentially dangerous, arrangement, but a deal is struck and the fake attack set up. If nothing goes wrong, they could look like heroes, and perhaps get their shellshocked colleague "Mother" (Gary Sinise) sent home with a medal.

Unfortunately, the plan blows up in everyone's faces, setting in motion a series of tragic repercussions as surprising to us as they are to the members of the squad. From beginning to end, Gordon creates a fragile sense of tension. This is the young actor-turned-director's third film (he also directed "Static" and "The Chocolate War"), but his work has never before shown this degree of assurance and skill. Nearly every encounter in the film is like a slender thread stretched to the breaking point, and, in every instance, he finds the emotional heart of a scene.

Aside from his confidence with the camera and his impeccable sense of pace, his real strength is his work with the actors. Though the cast -- which includes Frank Whaley, Peter Berg and Kevin Dillon -- is young, there is no sign of Brat Pack-style self-indulgence. Instead, the ensemble functions just as a group of combat-tested soldiers would; as if, in fact, their lives depend on an almost telepathic sense of unity. The personalities of the actors are distinct, but it's as an ensemble that they most distinguish themselves. And, as their leader, Gordon shows the kind of filmmaking talent that creates genuine excitement.

Edward Copeland on Film

Movie Reviews UK Damian Cannon

CineScene.com (Ed Owens)

Needcoffee.com - DVD Review not feeling the love

WILD PALMS – made for TV mini-series

USA (300 mi) 1993 co-directors: Peter Hewitt (Hours 1 and 2), Keith Gordon (Hours 3 and 5), Kathryn Bigelow (Hour 4), Phil Joanou (Hour 6)

The Sci-Fi Movie Page James O’Ehley

Oliver Stone's cyberpunk Wild Palms TV miniseries owes perhaps more to David Lynch's Twin Peaks than it does to the writings of William Gibson (who actually makes a small cameo appearance in the film).

The plot involves a monopolistic media company in not-so-distant future out to control to the United States through technology and the media. (Its leader is an ex-science fiction writer/Texan billionaire, basically a mixture between Dianetcs leader, L. Ron Hubbard and former presidential candidate, Ross Perot.) The corporation is opposed at every turn by a group of rebels fighting for individual freedom.

Although the plot is confusing at times, Wild Palms is suitably bizarre watching featuring state-of-the-art special effects.

DVDTalk [Joshua Zyber]

Back in the early '90s, despite the fact that the great Twin Peaks experiment had ultimately imploded in its second season and was unceremoniously cancelled prematurely, the ABC network was still attempting to develop "edgy" programming that would set it apart from the competition. Among the first wave of Peaks imitators was the five-part science fiction miniseries Wild Palms, based on a script from Nightmare on Elm Street 3 co-writer Bruce Wagner and executive produced by Oliver Stone (who does not seem to have had much creative input beyond attaching his name to the project). Headlined by a cast of recognizable names and filmed with slick production values, the show premiered amidst a barrage of intriguing publicity that initially attracted sizable ratings. Unfortunately, the audience slipped away in subsequent weeks when basically no one could figure out what the hell the damn thing was about.

Set in the near future of 2007, a time when every home has a virtual reality hologram projector in the living room and business suits are worn with their collars flipped up (you know, just like today!), the story of Wild Palms concerns patent attorney and family man Harry Wycoff (Jim Belushi) who has recurring nightmares about a rhinoceros in his swimming pool. Unbeknownst to Harry, the dream is apparently shared by others with a common connection to a crazed US Senator (Robert Loggia) who founded a Scientology-like religion called Synthiotics and is planning a run for President. The Senator is also a billionaire media mogul with grand plans to introduce a new virtual reality technology into people's homes that will allow them to interact physically with holographic projections, so that every viewer can take active part in their favorite idiotic sitcom. As a side effect, the technology may happen to brainwash everyone into voting for the Senator, but that must be just a weird coincidence or something, right?

After taking a job at the Senator's Owellian media conglomerate, Harry is soon introduced to the workings of a secret war taking place behind the scenes of American politics, where rival factions the Fathers (headed by the Senator's evil minions) and the rebellious Friends (led by Joey, Chandler, and Monica… no wait, sorry, wrong show!) vie for control of the hearts and minds of the American public. Harry will eventually discover that his own friends and family have mysterious ties to both of these organizations, and will himself flop around like a rag doll, first helping one side and then the other as he tries to fit together all the pieces of a paranoid conspiracy puzzle. Surreal dreams, crackpot religious cults, illicit mind-control drugs developed by "rogue neuropharmacologists", and other vaguely plausible futuristic technobabble all swirl around in a big stew of confused ideas that largely amount to a lot of stylish nonsense.

When it first aired, much to-do was made about how "crazy" and "weird" the show was, including lead actor Jim Belushi admitting bemusedly in interviews that he had no idea what any of it meant and was just reading the lines handed to him. You can tell. A lousy actor even at his best, Belushi stumbles through the miniseries like a dinner theater production, playing each scene in the broadest of strokes, clearly having no clue how the scenes connect to one another. In comparison, co-star Dana Delaney is pretty terrific, acting circles around him. Loggia is suitably creepy and convincingly insane. Notable supporting parts are handled by Kim Cattrall (looking frankly haggard prior to her Sex & The City career reinvention), Angie Dickinson, Brad Dourif, Ernie Hudson, Bebe Neuworth, and Ned Beatty. Little Ben Savage plays Harry's son, a precocious and seethingly evil little twerp (essentially the same role he'd later parlay into seven years of Boy Meets World). Keen-eyed viewers will notice The West Wing co-star Richard Schiff in a bit part as a jail guard with two lines. "Cyberpunk" genre innovator William Gibson has a rather forced cameo at the beginning, but look for an amusing background TV appearance from Oliver Stone riffing on the JFK controversy.

Helmed by feature film directors Peter Hewitt (Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey), Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days), Keith Gordon (A Midnight Clear), and Phil Joanou (State of Grace), the Wild Palms miniseries is ambitiously stylized and intriguingly atmospheric, somehow managing to incorporate the idiosyncratic vision of each director (Bigelow throws in a cool shootout at the end of her episode) into a larger consistent framework. It's also pretty bizarre, racy stuff for network TV. The characters all speak in enigmatic dialogue loaded with cryptic pop-culture references. The story is a confusing mess, nearly impossible to follow when watched over a five week span. Strung back-to-back on home video it seems slightly more coherent, but even so it's damned difficult to keep track of who did what to whom and why. Much of it looks pretty hokey in retrospect, both in terms of its fictional science and its dramatic turns (the only Black character of course becomes a drug addict). The Ryuichi Sakamoto theme music is also painfully cheesy. Nonetheless, it does hold together surprisingly better than expected.

Not quite "the next Twin Peaks" the network was hoping for, Wild Palms never caught lightning in a bottle but did develop a cult audience who appreciated its mix of near-future cyberpunk surrealism and old-fashioned film noir mystery. Developed in the days when television programming was still considered largely disposable, to be remembered at all this far into the real future is an impressive achievement.

MOTHER NIGHT

USA (114 mi) 1996

Philadelphia City Paper (Cindy Fuchs)

This stylish adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's novel is an idiosyncratic mix of historical realism, rapt fantasy and offbeat humour. Nolte is Howard W Campbell Jr, an apolitical American playwright in Nazi Germany whose work as a conduit for US intelligence, concealing encoded communiqués in his Jew-baiting broadcasts on German radio, yields widely inspirational Nazi propaganda. Living incognito in New York after the war, his eventual exposure gathers a storm of interested parties - Israeli war-crimes investigators, white supremacists, his supposedly dead wife. An ambivalent meditation on deception, personal responsibility and commitment in an enigmatic world; some may find the studied, circumspect style unaffecting, but there's no denying the fascination of the material.

Keith Gordon's film, from Robert Weide's adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 novel, traces the career of an expatriate American playwright, Howard Campbell (Nick Nolte), living in Berlin before and during the Nazi regime (he calls himself a "Nazi by reputation, nationless by inclination"). As Campbell types his memoirs, awaiting his war crimes trial in Haifa, Israel, flashbacks reveal that he was recruited by the U.S. government — in the (real or unreal: it's never quite clear) person of John Goodman — to become a spy posing as a proponent of fascism. His wartime radio broadcasts contain secret "codes" (coughs and pauses he's instructed to insert by anonymous Allied "editors"), so that he believes his terrible pronouncements are important messages to the free world. What the movie does well is mix up Campbell's internal and external situations, as these reflect fundamental moral crises. His flashbacks become increasingly bizarre, to the point that the film turns into a horribly dark essay on guilt, by association, passivity, and silence. His "success" is measured, ironically, by the fact that the United States never acknowledges his work or clears his name; simultaneously, he's revered by Nazis who claim him as their spokesman, even after the war when he's living (miserably) in NYC. Sheryl Lee plays his wife, or more precisely, she becomes a metaphor for his (and by extension, the U.S. government's) insane self-delusion that his work was ever "good."

Edinburgh U Film Society [Keith H. Brown]

Howard W Campbell is both a war criminal and a war hero. Publicly he is the traitor who broadcast Nazi propaganda from inside the Third Reich. Privately he is the man who sacrificed everything his marriage, his reputation, his future to help defeat the Nazis. Only one other man alive, the mysterious Lieutenant Frank Wirtanen, knows that Campbell was in fact a double agent: encoded within his propaganda speeches, by a careful system of emphases and pauses, were key details of Nazi strategy.

After living quietly in New York for 15 years, making no concerted attempt to hide his identity, Campbell's past quickly catches up with him. A group of American Nazis arrive at his doorstep, wanting to pay homage to the man who inspired them more than any other bar Hitler. If this weren't enough they also have a woman who is, or claims to be, Campbell's wife in tow - Helga did not, it seems, die at the hands of the Russians as Campbell had long thought.

Adapted from Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 novel of the same name Mother Night was released quietly last year and vanished quickly before it had a chance to become a sleeper' hit. This is a shame, for it is that rarity in contemporary American cinema - an intelligent, thought provoking film that is not in thrall to the director/auteur's ego.

Director Keith Gordon displays an assured, confident style. Only occasionally does a hint of uncertainty over how to handle the sudden shifts in the novel creep in - as when August Krapptauer, one of the American Nazis, dies of a heart attack on Campbell's doorstep. But then Vonnegut "the most serious of comic writers or the most comic of serious writers" is difficult in this respect.

The cast are uniformly excellent. I would expect nothing less from the likes of Alan Arkin and John Goodman, but Nick Nolte is another matter entirely. Prior to seeing Mother Night I'd thought of him as basically a dumb action hero. As Campbell he displays surprising depths, brilliantly conveying the angst of a man who finds that the distinction between what he is and what he once only pretended to be has become horribly blurred.

All in all an excellent film. Highly recommended.

Washington Post [Rita Kempley]

An unrecognized World War II hero discovers that he is not at all the man he thought he was, but the man he pretended to be in this absorbing and faithful version of Kurt Vonnegut’s 1961 novel.

An amalgam of moods and styles, the film tracks the changing fortunes of Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American writer and espionage agent who winds up as Adolph Eichmann’s neighbor in an Israeli jail. Nick Nolte, in fine fettle freed from the fancy britches and powdered wigs of "Jefferson in Paris," readily conveys the inner conflict of the traumatized prisoner, who is given a typewriter and told to record his memoirs while awaiting his trial as a war criminal.

Though frequently interrupted by Eichmann (amusingly voiced by Henry Gibson), Howard taps away at his autobiography, which takes him from rural New York to pre-World War II Berlin, where he becomes a success writing plays for his wife, Helga (Sheryl Lee), a popular German actress and the daughter of Berlin’s pro-Nazi police chief.

Howard, who now has ready access to the uber goobers of the Nazi Party, agrees to become a secret agent for the U.S. government. Only President Roosevelt and his contact (John Goodman) know that Campbell is not the Nazi sympathizer he pretends to be as the anti-semitic, anti-American host of a popular German radio show.

While mocking the Allies and promoting Aryan supremacy, Howard is also passing along coded messages to the American Command. Fifteen years after the war, he is forced to reconsider his role. Was his must-hear radio show, in fact, partly responsible for the death of millions of Jews?

While much of the film involves such cerebral navel-probing, the drama truly hinges on Howard’s life-long love for Helga. Sadly, Lee’s blah performance bleeds the relationship of passion. Nolte, however, makes up for her lapses with his genuinely bewildered and anguish-filled portrayal.

Dragan Antulov

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Mark Zimmer)

filmcritic.com brings on Mother Night James Brundage, also here: James Brundage

Film Freak Central Bill Chambers

Mike D'Angelo

Apollo Movie Guide [Dan Jardine]

DVD Verdict Harold Gervais

SPLICEDwire (Rob Blackwelder)

Variety.com [Emanuel Levy]

The Boston Phoenix Peter Keough

Los Angeles Times (Jack Mathews)

WAKING THE DEAD

USA (105 mi) 2000

filmcritic.com Wakes the Dead Jeremiah Kipp

Keith Gordon is one of the best filmmakers we have working today, and he’s been quietly building a strong body of work which merits attention. His cult classic anti-war film, A Midnight Clear and his tour de force adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night were two of the 15 or 20 best American films to come out in the 1990s. Gordon is particularly good at visualizing internal landscapes, particularly slow collapses into paralyzing madness and terrible guilt.

It’s difficult to say whether or not Waking the Dead is his best film, since it’s one of those movies which seeps into you as you view it, then stays with you in the days that follow. It’s certainly his most challenging in terms of tone, structure, and theme, deliberately convoluted and fragmented, moving back and forth between two different, contrasting eras (the idealistic ‘70s and the aggressively opportunistic ‘80s) and the evolution of its deeply troubled central character, Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup).

Fielding has idealistic hopes in his youth to do some small good in the world within a liberal political system, but for much of the film he is caught between his personal ambition for success and those hopeful dreams of social change. He comes from a struggling blue-collar family and has worked enormously hard to get to where he is, but where is that place, and what is it he really wanted in the first place?

Gordon’s theme is idealism, and that is closely connected with Fielding’s spiritual love and connection with Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly,) a young hippie and political activist who works with Fielding’s deadbeat brother (raspy Paul Hipp). The opening scenes in 1972 play out as colorful and a little goofy, and Gordon draws out a few silly moments between Fielding and his brother to the point where an audience may become a little restless, but stick with the film.

It’s slow, methodical, economical -- it requires some patience because it’s a movie with allows itself to breathe, easing slowly into a romantic story on par with Casablanca, a fine companion piece which was also more a story about struggles with idealism than true love. If you ask me, that makes the romance in these films all the more powerful and stirring.

This romance plays out against the backdrop of political change and social activism. They care for each other because they both want to make those changes to better society, but their approaches are wildly different. Fielding wants to change from the inside, administratively, first as a district attorney and, ultimately, as the president. Sarah moves in different circles, with protestors and radicals. The film could have easily become bogged down in moral postulating, but it keeps its message clear and direct.

Gordon is also particularly good at handling the sensual nature of their relationship, which is playful and sweet. When they’re debating a hot issue, and Fielding is starting to go off on her, she starts kissing his stomach. “Hey, what are you doing? Stop that. I’m having a moment here.” he says, laughing. “I had a point I was trying to make...”

The opening scene in the film clearly establishes the event which will haunt Fielding through the entire film, as he witnesses a car accident on television and learns that Sarah is dead. Throughout the rest of the film, whether in the flashbacks of the ‘70s or Fielding’s campaign in the ‘80s, Sarah is ever present –- a ghost when not onscreen. He is convinced that she is there with him at all times, but what her purpose is will perhaps always remain unknown. As his obsessive love for her is rekindled, he believes she is physically there with him in the sidelines, but Gordon allows you to decide whether this is a ghost story or the slow fragmentation of one man’s life, when time collides and the past and present merge.

It sounds very complicated from the plot description -– a mix of political struggles and true love. While it is a rigorous story, moving in a non-linear mode which can be difficult to follow, the emotions are simple and clear, and the central relationship between Sarah and Fielding is the heart of this film, accessible and within the realm of understanding. It’s one of the most accurate depictions of romantic love I’ve seen onscreen.

Keith Gordon has always had a great gift for working with actors, having once been an actor himself. Gary Sinise and Nick Nolte gave the best work of their careers in A Midnight Clear and Mother Night, respectively. Here, Billy Crudup establishes himself as a handsome leading man who can also act. He has a powerful scene late in the film where he’s breaking down at a dinner table, repeating the same sentences over and over again.

Jennifer Connelly is a revelation –- an actress I’ve never found compelling or interesting before, yet wonderfully dynamic and funny here. There’s just something about her performance, the way she tilts her head or says something, which rings true. When she says to Crudup, “It’s infuriating how much I love you,” after a fight, it’s a moment we’ve felt before. The word I would keep coming back to is honesty in her work with Crudup. Gordon brought something out of her, something radiant and powerful, which hasn’t been evident before.

There’s also something of Kubrick in the austere visuals. Fielding sitting in a chair with a vast wall behind him, or the proximity of his face to Sarah’s as they lay in bed together, or the slow, slow zooms in to Fielding’s face as he begins to crack, amplified by the slow, brooding electronic score which runs through all of Gordon’s films.

The deliberately disorienting movement of the story from past to present and dwelling on smaller beats in-between takes us through an emotional arc we’re not used to in our expectation of a story. I wish more films adopted this collage approach, allowing each small piece to build until we have a vivid picture which throws a more accurate reflection of the life we know than the standard three act formula plot. Think about it: How our memories guide and define our actions today, and how the implications of our days past affect our moral choices now.

By the time Gordon has reached his penultimate scene, we’ve had a staggering journey through a person’s life, and a small moment of clarity that may not be easy, or even what we want, but it sums up Sarah’s point made earlier in the film. “Some people fulfill their dream, and that’s a pity. Then there are some people who find what they’re meant to do.”

The Woman Who Isn't There [WAKING THE DEAD] | Jonathan ... Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Chicago Reader, March 24, 2000

Chicago NewCityNet [Ray Pride]

PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs, also here: Phildelphia City Paper review by Cindy Fuchs plus: Interview with Keith Gordon director of Waking the Dead

Nitrate Online (Cynthia Fuchs) Cynthia Fuchs again here, and the interview: Waking the Dead (Interview)

another review of Waking the Dead by P. Nelson Reinsch

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culturevulture.net Gary Mairs

The Flick Filosopher's take MaryAnn Johanson

Renaissance Online Magazine Laura Maccabee

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Bob Mandel)

Film Journal International (Kevin Lally)

Film Freak Central Bill Chambers

Combustible Celluloid (Jeffrey M. Anderson)

Movie Vault [Kraemorr]

The Village Voice [Leslie Camhi]

THE SINGING DETECTIVE B- 81

USA (109 mi) 2003

Re-adapted before he died in 1995 by Dennis Potter, the original writer of the 1986 6-hour BBC television series, a bedridden writer with a horribly painful and discomfiting skin disease continuously fantasizes his misogynist role as a dapper, gumshoe lady-killer who doubles as the lead in various singing groups. What an inspired idea, as the song and dance numbers to the old 50's tunes were a riot, but there weren't enough of them. I loved Katie Holmes, particularly in "Mr. Sandman" and Robert Downey Jr. was superb, but the story itself was uneven, particularly the non-musical childhood sequences, interest levels waxed and waned, only the musical fantasia dimensions carried this through, and overall, that wasn't enough.

British playwright Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective is one of the Holy Grails of television drama—the legendary product of a creative mind laboring under intense afflictions. Potter suffered all his life from a rare, crippling skin-and-joint disease, psoriatic arthropathy, which made Job's trials seem like cheesecake. The hero of his series lies in the hospital with a similar illness, hallucinating as his temperature spikes, and blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction. A two-bit crime writer, he imagines himself a noir-esque "detective who warbles," enmeshed in an obscure plot with some nasty thugs and his ex-wife, whom he converts into a murderous femme fatale. As if things weren't complicated enough, every once in a while the characters—both hospital staff and gangsters—break into song, lip-synching the lyrics to golden oldies in outré musical numbers that provide strangely comic relief to the situation's relentless sadness.

Eight million viewers tuned in when The Singing Detective first aired on BBC television (it later enjoyed a brief, successful run on PBS). I was not one of them. So I can't compare that reputedly glorious original with director Keith Gordon's film version, from Potter's own screenplay. Robert Downey Jr. (whose full-body makeup transforms him into a "human pizza") stars as Dan Dark, the tormented crime novelist with a skin condition. Robin Wright Penn plays his beleaguered ex-wife and Mel Gibson (one of the film's co-producers) is surprisingly effective as a Birkenstock-clad hospital psychiatrist bent on unraveling Dark's problems. Adrien Brody and Jon Polito mug around as the two main hoods. Instead of London we have Los Angeles, and the fantasy musical numbers are set to doo-wopping American tunes from the 1950s.

Potter's script is filled with ample doses of the brilliant parody and bitter humor that made his reputation. Downey's lockjaw delivery makes most of it intelligible. ("There must be something you believe in," a concerned nurse suggests to the despairing Dark. "Genocide," he rattles off, "infanticide, insecticide, suicide . . . etc.") The dramatist's simultaneous send-ups of both the medical profession and the invalid mentality will give succor to anyone who's recently endured the indignity of a hospital bed. The problems come in the shadow world, where everything's a jumble, where Dark's compositional strategy ("all clues and no solutions") eventually becomes wearing, and Gordon's direction can't hold it all together. The musical numbers occasionally illuminate the characters' inner lives (like the wet- dream version of "Mr. Sandman," performed as a nubile nurse ministers to our patient), but just as often they seem extraneous, and the film's happy ending rings false.

filmcritic.com Chris Barsanti

“I’m a prisoner inside my own skin.” So says Dan Dark (Robert Downey Jr.), hack novelist and lifelong sufferer of psoriatic arthropathy, a horrific disease that has left him with barely functioning limbs and an appalling welter of blisters and rashes over every inch of his body. Dark spews rage at everyone who comes near him, from his fed-up wife (Robin Wright Penn) to the gaggle of aloof doctors who occasionally drop by to put him on a different drug.

To get away from the misery of his day-to-day existence, Dark retreats into a 1950s film noir fantasy world straight from one of his books, where he’s a handsome band singer who moonlights as a gumshoe. In the fantasy, he gets tangled up in a plot revolving around a dead blonde dame, the sinister Mark Binney (Jeremy Northam) who hires Dark to investigate her murder, and a couple of palookas in sharp suits (Adrien Brody and Jon Polito) who keep trying to bump Dark off. Unfortunately, the fantasy starts getting mixed up into Dark’s real life – Chandler-esque gangsters showing up at his bedside, and hospital staff bursting into renditions of doo-wop hits that Dark’s alter ego would have sung in an L.A. nightclub – and he has trouble keeping them separate.

The Singing Detective was written by the late, great Dennis Potter (who also had psoriatic arthropathy), and is based on his landmark British miniseries from the mid-1980s, usually cited as one of the hallmarks of television history. Having not seen the original, it’s difficult to say whether or not it was the kind of thing that could have been boiled down into a two-hour feature, but the evidence on screen suggests that it shouldn’t have been.

This is a film that needs to sprawl, but it has the feeling of a greatest hits compilation. The beginning is promising, as we switch with hammerblow urgency from Dark’s gumshoe dream to his horrendous reality – Downey’s mangled face frequently shoved right into the camera, practically daring viewers to flinch. Downey gives one of his better performances here, effortlessly articulating the hopeless rage of his character, who veers from self-pity to sarcastic fury, at one point crying and murmuring that even his tears burn his wounded skin. He even plays the gumshoe Dark pretty effectively, spitting the Bogey-esque lines out of the side of his mouth with tommy gun speed.

There’s obviously a mystery to unravel here, as different themes pop up in the reality/fantasy melange. Dark starts flashing back to his early childhood spent in a tumbledown desert gas station, where he saw his mother consummate an affair with another man. Her face starts showing up in the gumshoe story, along with the man she was cheating with, also played by Northam. But the main themes – which seem quite simplistic in a Freudian way in this truncated fashion – are figured out far too easily by Dark’s new psychoanalyst, Dr. Gibbon (an unrecognizable Mel Gibson sporting a monstrously bald head and bad glasses), who is cut out of the story just when he seems about to become its linchpin.

Frustrating as well are Brody and Polito, a hilarious pair of thickheaded hoods who seem to have jumped right out of Miller’s Crossing. They are given most of the film’s best lines in their few scenes but are then stranded in a Rosencrantz & Guildenstern-type scenario that is never allowed to build any momentum.

Stylistically, the film is a mess, it looks and sounds (with the exception of the desert childhood scenes) like it was shot on one soundstage in about a week with a single 16mm camera and no sound guy. Downey does his best to keep the film’s center from flying apart, but it doesn’t work and in the end, director Keith Gordon (Waking the Dead, A Midnight Clear) doesn’t seem to know how to patch all the film’s wildly incongruous elements together.

Given a bigger budget, another hour of screen time to get everything handled property, or at least a director more at home with both hard-boiled drama and music, The Singing Detective could have been one of the best, most challenging movies of the year, instead of the seldomly successful oddball that it is.

Off-Key: What the Critics Missed in The Singing Detective • Senses of ... Off-Key: What the Critics Missed in The Singing Detective, by Peter Tonguette, February 12, 2004

Indiewire Patrick Z. McGavin

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eFilmCritic.com (Chris Parry) calling it an unmitigated train-wreck

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1NFLUX Magazine [Steve Pulaski]

Gordon, Stuart

EDMOND

USA (82 mi) 2005

Edmond Mark Harris from Patrick Murtha’s Diary

(Originally posted as a "Noir of the Week" at the excellent film noir bulletin board The Blackboard.)

The poor don’t go into the luxury districts, whereas eventually the gentlefolk always wind up at least once…in the disreputable places. (Albert Camus, The Fall)

David Mamet – playwright, film director, and general cultural force – wrote his extended one-act play Edmond in 1982, after achieving success with Sexual Perversity in Chicago, American Buffalo, The Water Engine, and A Life in the Theatre, and just two years before the multiple-award winning Glengarry Glen Ross. It is therefore one of his mature plays, not an “early” or “rough” work, as it has sometimes been described. But there is a reason why it is perhaps the least-known of Mamet’s major plays: it is utterly uncompromising in its vision, which can be accurately described as quintessentially “noir,” and in its execution.

In 23 brief, punchy, sometimes lacerating scenes, Edmond lays out the existential odyssey of a frustrated young New York City businessman who leaves his wife after an argument and heads out “on the town” with unexpected and tragic results. Much has been made of Edmond’s fable-like and oneiric qualities, yet anyone who has ever explored the “disreputable places” of Manhattan can also testify to its realistic feeling. Edmond’s adventures are nightmarish because those places can in fact be quite nightmarish (and were more so at that moment in history; Martin Scorsese’s roughly contemporary Taxi Driver is no more of an exaggeration than Edmond is).

The classic noir situation that Edmond is most reminiscent of is the premise of Fritz Lang’s The Woman in the Window, which similarly embodies Mamet’s principle that “Every fear hides a wish.” The Woman in the Window, though, famously and controversially backs out of its own bleakest conclusions through a twist ending; Mamet allows himself and Edmond no such escape. Instead, Mamet, unfettered by the Hays Code or anything like it, carries a noir premise to its logical, undiluted, and extremely existential conclusion.

In Edmond, Mamet really underlines the existential nature of noir in general (which often manifested itself in a slightly stronger form in noir fiction than in film). I think it is no accident that the heydays of existentialism the philosophy and noir the literary and cinematic cycle were contemporary; something was “in the air.” Noir anti-heroes are often seen as pawns of fate, but can be counter-glossed as protesters against fate, who create their own meanings by the choices they make. The anxiety of noir protagonists recalls this well-known passage from Kierkegaard:

How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?

Once Edmond begins his exploration of night-town, there is “no way out” for him, and each encounter only draws him deeper into danger; yet looked at closely, everything that happens is by his choice. “You are not where you belong,” a fortune-teller tells him at the start of the play, and in a sense the whole action of the drama takes him to where he does belong (even if that destination, prison, seems counter-intuitive). Edmond himself appeals sometimes to fate (“You can’t control what you make of your life. There is a destiny that shapes our ends”), but in the end he seems anything but a pawn; he does convert his fears into fulfilled wishes.

Those fears are very harsh and often quite crudely expressed, as emotions in Mamet tend to be; the racism, misogyny, and homophobia of Mamet’s men don’t go down easy, and are particularly noxious in this play, one possible reason for its neglect. In the course of an evening, Edmond “progresses” from bland businessman to raving, knife-wielding, murderous maniac; yet all the intermediate steps leading to this manifestation of pure id are pretty plausible, partly because Edmond is clearly not an habitué of the “wild side.” What is unremarkable to others of his general type is clearly puzzling to him. The unfamiliar world of strip joints, “health clubs,” pawn shops, three-card monte, and casual pick-ups holds more than the usual perils for this upstanding citizen (another echo of The Woman in the Window).

Edmond is naïve because he has been late in getting to the disreputable places; he doesn’t know how to navigate them. This comes out most painfully in his reactions to the economics of the situation. He quickly and correctly perceives that the goal of all ventures in night-town is to separate him quickly and efficiently from as much of his money as possible. Edmond is well-off (although he has left the house this night without much cash), but unlike other well-off slummers, he balks at the cost of slumming. Everything is “too much.” And his insistence on trying to drive bargains actually takes him farther down faster than if he just paid up immediately. He tries to reject the “costs” of his choices, while still making them – that, too, is an existential stage.

Although Edmond has, for the reasons I’ve indicated, scarcely been the most performed of Mamet’s plays, it has sustained a considerable cult reputation and has clearly remained close to its author’s heart; as evidenced by the appearance in 2005 of a film version scripted by Mamet (hewing very close to the play indeed) and directed by Stuart Gordon (of Re-Animator fame, and a Mamet director on stage as far back as the Seventies). The film, starring a blistering William H. Macy, is an uncommonly strong neo-noir, although clearly not made for any kind of popularity; it got one of those “barely released” releases.

Casting Macy, a powerful actor very at home in the Mamet style, has a curious side effect. In the play, Edmond’s age is given as 34, and in the original production the part was played by the excellent 35-year-old Canadian actor Colin Stinton, a Mamet regular at that time (you can see him as one of the young attorneys in the Mamet-scripted The Verdict, also a product of 1982).

Macy is clearly older than that. He was 54 when Edmond was being filmed, and Mamet changes Edmond’s age in the screenplay to 47. This changes the import of the script in a number of ways. Edmond’s naivete cannot be pigeon-holed as age-related, but has to be traced to other sources. His bitterness takes on a whiff of midlife crisis. Lines like “I worked all of my life!” sound very different coming from a man of Macy’s age than from a man of Stinton’s age. All in all, as forceful as Macy is in this role, I wouldn’t mind seeing Edmond with an actor of the age that Mamet originally envisioned, and of course it can still be cast that way on stage.

But this is the film we’ve got, and it’s a very good one. Predictably, it got some horrified reviews; the racial invective alone comes across as even more transgressive and less politically correct today than it was at the time of Edmond’s premiere. Although I don’t think there’s a specific reference to time setting, the feel of the film is very “Eighties,” and probably needs to be (based on such simple plot points as Edmond needing to use a pay phone, rather than having a cell phone). All the businessmen at the strip club are in suits, for example.

Despite my mild misgivings about his age, Macy creates a memorable “arc” for Edmond and nails every scene. (On stage, this is one of the more demanding parts in the dramatic literature; Edmond is on stage for the full duration of all 23 scenes. The play has some kinship to a 90-minute monologue.) He is riveting in the final scenes in prison, which bring the story to its memorable conclusion: Edmond exchanging a goodnight kiss with the black cellmate (Bokeem Woodbine, excellent) who, on first encounter, had forced Edmond to service him. No Forties or Fifties noir could have gone so far, but Mamet is not using the freedom of our era merely to shock (although he doesn’t mind shocking, either); he is using it to show us that Edmond has found where he does belong – and is, in true existential fashion, more authentic in his cell than he ever was outside it.

Gordon-Levitt, Joseph

DON JON C 73

USA (90 mi) 2013 ‘Scope

A movie for the Kardashian generation, as it’s largely about narcissistic behavior and how that dominates a certain privileged segment of society that’s used to always getting what they want, or are at least led to believe that they do. Through material indulgence, people assume they’re getting what they want, but the short term happiness wears off very quickly as they’re back feeling the need for something else in no time. While the premise and movie advertising plays into this wish fulfillment fantasy, believing that fantasy sex cures all ills, where media advertising is obsessed by marketing nearly everything through sexual imagery, people of all ages buy into this allure of MTV sexualized glamour. The tabloid culture and Hollywood industry celebrate it, creating a blueprint fantasy template that a self-obsessed American culture is a happy culture. At some point, when people realize they’re not happy, they can’t understand what happened. This film uses an addiction to computer porn as the prime example of a short term memory, of a culture that suffers from attention deficit disorder, where people return to the same source of sexual satisfaction over and over again, even as they are having relations with actual people. In this scenario, porn is actually better than real life, as you can make it whatever you want, so you can literally lose yourself in the fantasy, where every fiber in your body is about pleasing yourself, as opposed to real life where some energy is required to stimulate and satisfy a sexual partner, who also talks back, by the way, and may have other desires and intentions. At least initially, the film feeds into this adolescent view, where guys play a ratings game for how sexual girls look in nightclubs, where the object of the game is to actually leave the club going to bed with one of them.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in his first directorial experience, also writes the film and plays the lead as Jon, a young guy addicted to porn while also developing a reputation for having the highest success rate for taking girls home from the club with him. This impresses his two friends, Bobby and Danny (Rob Brown and Jeremy Luke), who wish they were more like him. Jon defines himself by a simple mantra, “My body, my pad, my ride, my family, my church, my boys, my girls, my porn,” where his life is a series of predictable routines, jerking off to porn, driving his ride while yelling belligerent comments to other drivers, working out in a fitness center, eating dinner with his family, while also confessing to the local priest once a week. The film is built around these repetitive scenarios, as they provide the rhythm of the film. Gordon-Levitt is a bit of a smart ass, a bit too cocky for his own good, but other guys look up to that, thinking this exudes confidence with the ladies. When a voluptuous blonde walks into the club (Scarlett Johansson), the guys are rating her off the charts, and to their dismay, nobody scores with her. Obsessed at his loss, Jon tracks her down on Facebook, Barbara Sugarman, eventually hooking up, believing she’s the answer to all his prayers. While she continues to play hard to get, Jon starts changing his life around just to please her, including going back to school to earn a degree that would put him in a higher pay grade. When she sees evidence that he’s doing what she asked, she starts having sex with him, where again he believes he’s reached the promised land, seen living in a Barbie doll princess paradise in her own home, even introducing her to his parents, where his overly critical, football-crazed, profanity obsessed father, Tony Danza, is finally proud of his son, as this girl’s a looker, concentrating only on her tits and ass, where his face lights up, like Bingo!

Rather than lead to a life of happiness and bliss where everybody lives happy every after, the film veers into different directions, where Barbara catches him watching porn just after they had sex, where she’s flabbergasted to think she wasn’t enough to satisfy any healthy man, believing she’s the ultimate in beauty and sex, as she’s molded herself to match the perfect image of what guys want. Jon lies his way out of it, a temporary fix, promising her that he never watches the stuff, but then discovers he can find porn on his more mobile iPhone, where he can view it wherever he goes. He’s again caught watching porn during his class (which he immediately denies) by none other than Esther (Julianne Moore), a more down to earth woman who finds it easy to talk to him, always being straightforward, which catches him offguard, as he’s used to saying what he thinks others want to hear. So while the promotional lead-in to the movie is to stimulate the prospective audience with plenty of fantasy porn imagery, where Scarlett Johansson is little more than a porn queen herself who’s learned to put out sex in order to get what she wants, the so-called cure comes from Julianne Moore who has the audacity to suggest sex is a two-way street, that it can’t all be one-sided. The film elevates this revelation as if it’s a cure for cancer, where very few already hooked on a selfish, me-first lifestyle are going to change their ways from watching this film. Actually, people couldn’t run out of the theater fast enough after this movie ended, as if there was something icky associated with it, and where, perhaps, they didn’t want to be seen once the lights came up. Had it been that kind of in-your-face, emotionally jarring experience instead of this sanitized, artificial fluff, one might have taken this more seriously.

“My body, my pad, my ride, my family, my church, my boys, my girls, my porn.” – Joseph Gordon Levitt, Don Jon.

If you were to opt out “my church” with “my films,” you’d have a quote that perfectly replicates me.

From the get-go, meaning its debut trailer, I knew there had to be something more to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut Don Jon, than just a simple relationships between a beautiful girl and a cocky guy. The fact that the film was originally titled “Don Jon’s Addiction” and that it featured a prominence of internet porn usage by its leading male character, made me think the “addiction” in question wasn’t to any particular substance but to internet pornography.

Sure enough, pornography usage and dependency is one of many small themes that exist in Gordon-Levitt’s film, which is an unsurprisingly confident and boisterous addition to the offbeat, indie, romantic comedy genre of film. Obviously a takeoff of the classic libertine Don Juan, the film stars its director as Jon Martello, a womanizer who frequents clubs to take part in one night stands, and boldly clings to his internet pornography and obsession with the cleanliness of his pad. In the opening monologue, he explains how and why he masturbates and the routine ritual surrounding it.

One night at the club he meets a woman he believes is the most beautiful girl of his life (Scarlett Johansson). After attempts to take her home for a one-night-stand fail, Jon decides to pursue her via Facebook in order to meet her for lunch. He discovers from the help of a bartender her name is Barbara Sugarman, and a lunch date may be the ticket for a long, healthy relationship together. He soon finds out that their personalities are drastically different; he loves to be wild, free, and devoted to only a few things in life, their relationship being one of them. She, however, is a princess in her own mind, who doesn’t believe work and and labor should be done by her but by someone who isn’t her.

This contrasting dilemma is what keeps Don Jon afloat. Not to mention, your tolerance of the film will rest upon how much you like the central character in the picture. He is brash, cocky, vulgar, arrogant, and openly brazen about his opinions and way of life. Gordon-Levitt portrays these traits not with the meanness you’d anticipate, but through extremely seductive ways of entertainment and attractiveness. He makes this ugly character a strong protagonist by using traits fit for an antagonist. For a character, especially one as narcissistic as this, it’s truly a feat.

Exclaim! [Scott A. Gray]

From the minute our minds begin processing images and stories, we're immersed in fantasy gender projections. These myriad memes of idealised sexual and social conduct permeating every level of the media we mentally feed on subconsciously shape the expectations we place upon our potential mates and ourselves.

If you thought Joseph Gordon-Levitt's passion project would be a simple, one-sided sex comedy about the damaging influence of porn addiction on real world dating, think again. Written and directed by its star, Don Jon takes a much more holistic look at the types of addictions that foster skewed perceptions of entitlement in our modern age.

An introductory montage of hyper-sexualized images from horror films, music videos, celebrity magazines, cartoons, billboards, commercials and bus ads is the first nod to the bigger picture Levitt's getting at. To work with extreme examples of the behaviour patterns he's analysing, the actor turned director sets his story of a guy who gets "wicked hard" at the sound of a computer start-up tone in that hotbed of mindless vanity: New Jersey.

Jon (Levitt), a womanizing meathead, loves his body, his pad, his ride, his family, his church, his boys, his girls and his porn — not necessarily in that order. He does more than fine with the ladies, but prefers the ritualized, solitary satisfaction of Internet pornography; he can't lose himself in another person the way he can lose himself in passive fantasy. Clubbing with his buddies, hooking up, jerking off, going to church, working out, washing his car, keeping his dwelling spotless and having dinner with his family is a routine he's perfectly happy with, until he spies the ever-elusive "eleven" that is Barbara (Scarlett Johansson).

She's "the most beautiful thing" he's ever seen, the ultimate arm candy — literally his woman in the red dress. Surely with such a prize he'd have no cause to indulge in his favourite pastime. At least that's how Barbara sees it. Once their relationship progresses to the point where we observe the Titanic poster on Barbara's childhood bedroom wall and have a firm sense of her idea of what a good movie and, by extension, a proper, chivalrous man are, the scope of Levitt's larger argument begins to take distinct shape.

Almost every character exhibits an obsessive habit to reinforce the theme in some way or another: Jon's domineering father (Tony Danza) can't tear his eyes off the football game under any circumstances; his anxious mother (Glenne Headly) can't wait for Jon to procreate; and his laconic sister (Brie Larson) is glued to her cellphone, which becomes such an effective running joke that when she finally does speak it feels like a Silent Bob epiphany punch-line.

The intentionally repetitive structure of the film is thoughtfully edited to punctuate the habitual nature of everything in Jon's life (right down to saying his Hail Marys while pumping iron), carrying the needlessly impatient urgency of someone hunting for a golden moment of gratification.

Jon's buddies get the short end of the character complexity stick, but all of the primary players put in their best effort to make these characters feel like real people unconsciously trying to put on an expected persona, aside from unlikely beacon of authenticity Esther (Julianne Moore, who can convey nuanced pain like few others).

A candid, confessional, unashamed look at how people are trained to romanticize selfishness, Don Jon is more than just an impressive debut; it's an essential and hilarious reality check.

Film Corner [Greg Klymkiw]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, formerly known as the kid from “Third Rock From The Sun” and “Angels In The Outfield,” has blossomed into a bona fide movie star, with memorable turns in “(500) Days Of Summer,” “Inception,” “50/50,” “The Dark Knight Rises,” and “Looper.” Gordon-Levitt’s screen presence is proven commodity at this point, but writing and directing are horses of a different color – and making one’s filmmaking debut with a romantic comedy about porn addiction is another matter entirely.

The ingredients for a disaster – difficult subject matter, a high profile cast, and a nondescript title – are all present in “Don Jon.” But while the film’s flaws are considerable, none are crippling, and the picture shows flashes of a burgeoning filmmaker whose off screen talents might one day equal his easy on screen charisma.

Gordon-Levitt stars as Jon Martello, a native New Jerseyan whose life revolves around five things – family, friends, church, working out, and internet pornography. It’s immediately clear which of those five things has the greatest hold on Jon, as his laptop’s startup sound is quickly positioned as a siren call of digital carnality. Like Pavlov’s dogs, his conditioned response to this vaguely melodic whooshing noise is instantaneous – a lustful call and response repeatedly confirmed by the film’s various carefully edited porn montages.

Jon’s view of women – one that his two best friends share – is accordingly warped, and he swears that no woman has ever satisfied him the way dirty movies do. The trio spends night after night in clubs ranking girls (out of ten), only for Jon to repeatedly take one home, seduce, and crawl out of bed at the first possible moment to get back to his computer. It’s a disturbing cycle of behavior that’s only reinforced by Jon’s tempestuous family life – and, even worse, incessantly laughed off by him and his buddies.

At the behest of his domineering mother, Angela (Glenne Headly) Jon decides to settle down, but the girl he fancies, Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), is little more than a real-life archetype of the girls he watches online. Initially, Barbara’s attractiveness masks her off-putting personality, but soon her vapidity and lack of substance hits Jon like a freight train – even though his biggest reservation has to do with her scornful treatment of his porn habit.

The film’s first two acts come with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The sound design is shrill and the editing abrasive, the narrative delivered with all the grace of an actual porno. But as ugly as it is at times, that’s the point. These people don’t treat each other like people, and if Jon’s father, Jon Sr. (Tony Danza), was anything but a misogynistic pig, Jon might have a reason to aspire to better things – and there’d be no story.

The only multi-dimensional character in the piece comes in the form of one of Jon’s night school classmates, Esther, played effusively by Julianne Moore. Having suffered a major personal tragedy, Esther is broken, but her perspective on life allows her to see Jon for what he is – and call him out on his shortcomings. Julianne Moore is obviously much older than Joseph Gordon-Levitt, so her dual role as mother figure and possible romantic interest for Jon gives the film some much-needed depth.

Moore is terrific in the part, believably melding grief with hard-earned wisdom, as Esther brings out things in Jon that we – and he – didn’t know existed. Is it an unlikely love story? Perhaps. But the nature of the relationship is capricious, and in the company of so much shallowness, it feels vital and genuine. And it goes a long way in justifying the less palatable portions of the narrative.

“Don Jon” won’t blow any minds, but it’s a reasonably accomplished character piece that’s likely to connect with more adventurous audiences. As a romantic comedy in name only, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has trouble avoiding tonal inconsistencies – a problem inherent in genre-bending – and the film fails miserably in seriously addressing porn addiction. But there’s just enough charm and poignancy here to make it worth a watch. Not a bad start for any first-time filmmaker.

PopMatters [Ben Travers]

Don Jon / The Dissolve Genevieve Koski

Film Freak Central Review [Bill Chambers]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Triumphs Over Online Porn in ... - Village Voice Stephanie Zacharek

Movie Review: Don Jon -- Vulture David Edelstein

'Don Jon' Review: Good Vibrations - Pajiba Daniel Carlson

Review: Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Charming 'Don Jon' Starring ... Rodrigo Perez from The Playlist

Review: Joseph Gordon-Levitts limp sex comedy Don Jons ... - HitFix Guy Lodge

The Film Stage [Raffi Asdourian]

ScreenDaily [Tim Grierson]

“Don Jon”: Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a porn-addicted Lothario - Salon Andrew O’Hehir

'Don Jon': The Problem with Porn - The Wire Richard Lawson

Mark Reviews Movies [Mark Dujsik]

Paste Magazine AnnLee Ellingson

Film-Forward.com [Mahnaz Dar]

EyeForFilm.co.uk [Owen Van Spall]

Don Jon - Home Theater Info Doug MacLean

Blu-ray.com [Jeffrey Kauffman]

Twitch [Chase Whale]

The House Next Door [Elise Nakhnikian]

The House Next Door [Zeba Blay]

Review: Don Jon || ErikLundegaard.com

Don Jon : The New Yorker David Denby capsule review

Gordon-Levitt Takes On Directing With 'Don Jon' - NYTimes.com Director interview, September 20, 2013

Don Jon Review - Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy

Variety [Peter Debruge]

Charleston City Paper [T. Meek]

The Cleveland Movie Blog [Matt Finley]

The Oregonian [Jamie S. Rich]

Roger Ebert's Far-Flung Correspondents [Michal Oleszczyk]

'Don Jon' 'a movie about mainstream culture' - Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen

Don Jon Movie Review & Film Summary (2013) | Roger Ebert Odie Henderson

Chicago Sun-Times (blog) Michal Oleszczyk

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Stars in 'Don Jon' - NYTimes.com Manohla Dargis

Goretta, Claude

THE LACEMAKER

France Switzerland Germany (107 mi) 1977

Isabelle Huppert is a beautician's apprentice romanced by an emotionally stunted representative of the upper middle class in a love story cum political allegory by Claude Goretta (The Invitation, The Wonderful Crook). The slightly distanced but basically naturalistic narrative wanders too much, and the ending is too heavy--dramatically and ideologically--for this 1977 film to bear, but there are several well-observed moments along the way. Effective, but as an examination of working-class womanhood, it lacks the spunk of Alain Tanner's La Salamandre. In French with subtitles. 107 min.

As much as anything, it's probably the intriguing ambivalence of a narrative in which connections are never overtly made that turned this into an unexpected box-office hit. Where A Girl from Lorraine treads a clearcut feminist path, The Lacemaker lurks in more shady byways. Its heroine (beautifully played by Huppert as a passive object) seems less a candidate for women's lib than a helpless prisoner of the incommunicability Goretta had in mind when he defined the film as being about the problem between two people 'who are unable to love each other because they do not express themselves in the same way'. The refreshing quality of the film, as one listens to the expressive eloquence of its silences, is that it cannot be reduced to ideological terms. The heroine may be a victim of both social convention and a suave though sympathetic seducer, but with a mysterious inner radiance glowing behind her patient suffering, she is also much, much more.

Spirituality & Practice [Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat]

Isabelle Huppert became a star with this brilliant portrayal of a shy lonely unappreciated apprentice. One of her specialties is playing distant, reserved, and/or withdrawn characters that are seemingly enigmatic if not ineffable, but ultimately teaching us what we need to know about these tragic figures. Huppert spends all her time hanging out with the same person. First it's a hedonistic ugtician (Florence Giorgetti) who puts all her effort into landing a man, abandoning Huppert when she finally succeeds. Later her companion is an intellectual student (Yves Beneyton) who is afraid his friends and relatives won't like her because she's neither bright nor rich enough. Though these influences are disparate, the similarity is their supposed superiority to her. The former has sexual experience, the latter has book knowledge, while Huppert is an undereducated virgin who tags along with them but doesn't exactly participate. The film employs a lot of long shots, shrinking Huppert into the preferred masses. If this is supposed to be some kind of political allegory about the gap between the rich and poor, educated and uneducated it mostly fails, but it's a successful film if we take it largely at face value. This is a film about a relationship crushing a tender heart, thematically similar to Robert Bresson's masterpiece Une Femme Douce even though stylistically inferior. Huppert might not be the right friend or lover for them, but given all the time they spend with her they could put a little effort into getting to know her. She is not the type of person that helps herself, she drops no clues as to what, if anything, stirs her passion, but if they were better comrades they wouldn't simply assume her problem is lacking their social skills, knowledge, and experience. She's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but they don't ever stop to consider what she can give them. They don't appreciate her grace, gentleness, sweetness, kindness, modesty, or natural beauty.

Lacemaker. Free Breathing Barbara Halpern Martineau from Jump Cut

FilmFanatic.org (Sylvia Stralberg)

Chicago Reader (Dave Kehr) capsule review

Gorris, Marleen

ANTONIA’S LINE

Netherlands (102 mi) 1995

Antonia's Line Sarah Kerr from the New Yorker

A Dutch feminist fairy tale about an eccentric single mother (the impressive Willeke van Ammelrooy) who sets up housekeeping on a farm after the Second World War and takes all kinds of strays—from a retarded rape victim to a depressive, Schopenhauer-saturated intellectual—under her wing. The movie could be a crowd pleaser at art houses, but what it's packaging is little more than self-regard: Antonia and her clan are righteous, and anyone who gets in their way is a pig. Written and directed by Marleen Gorris. In Dutch.

Goss, John

WILD LIFE

USA (40 mi) 1985

Wild Life Collaborative Process and Gay Identity, by Gabriel Gomez from Jump Cut, July 1992 (excerpt)

WILD LIFE (1985) by John Goss offers a curious mix of the documentary and the fictional. The video artist investigates the lives of two gay, fifteen-year old Latinos named Carlos and Cesar. These young Mexican Americans are immigrants to the United States. Goss felt an affinity with their dislocation in Anglo American culture. He too felt like an outsider among the Asian American youth of his childhood. From these similarities an affinity develops between the subjects of this work and the author, an affinity well suited to an interview format ma documentary style. However the interaction between this adult artist, who has successfully integrated into Anglo-American culture, and two Chicano teenagers also incorporates resistance and even mutual suspicion. Goss foregrounds these tensions through juxtaposing documentary conventions and re-enactments exposed as fiction. He allows the teenagers to actively portray themselves through play, reconstructing their self-proclaimed "wild life."

Ultimately the object of investigation, these teenagers' "wild life," yields no detailed chronicle, as we might expect from a documentary work. Instead, under Goss' direction, a quasi-fictional narrative emerges about the young men's friendship and differences. The narrative reveals how both tradition and innovation affect this queer pair of immigrants' ideals of style and their communication. Strong personal relationships foster their secure identity. For these two young gay men, one cognizant of both their ethnicity and sexuality, and their strong sense of self-identity, which in turn enriches a diverse queer community.

Gothár, Péter

TIME STANDS STILL (Megáll az idö)

Hungary (103 mi) 1982

This second feature by Hungarian filmmaker Peter Gothar is a little overfull in the way second features often are: the setting is Budapest during the first wave of post-Stalinist liberalization in the early 60s, and the idea is to link an adolescent's ambiguous progress toward sexual and moral maturity with the political transformations taking place in his country. But Gothar's talent for creating smoky, menacing atmospheres and darkly enigmatic dramatic situations tends to obscure his concept--the result is a film that is, in some ways, too good for its own good, haunting, original, and impressive, but not really satisfying. The same might be said of Lajos Koltai's eerily backlit cinematography.

Time Out review

An impressive period film which portrays the life of college kids in late '50s Hungary. Dubbed by some Hungarian Graffiti, this is always much more than a movie about students getting high on Coke (the capitalist drink) and screwing around. Gothár uses historical footage, even patches of pathos and bathos and snatches of rock'n'roll, to probe the painful memories of a generation (his own) that grew up under the shadow of the 1956 'National Tragedy'. Awkward and elusive in parts, it's still a rewarding experience from a director to watch out for.

User comments from imdb Author: george-367 from Norfolk, England

This is an excellent film, rather more than worthy, set, as the previous comment says, in post-1956 (hence post revolution) Hungary. It traces the lives of a group of kids in their last days at school, the father of one of them having fled into exile after the failure of the revolution. The kids are trying to cope with the world the revolution has left behind, and what they chiefly find helpful is western rock n'roll. They want a decadent lifestyle in a puritan state. If rebellion with a cause was no good, why not try being a rebel without a cause? Sex and drugs and the rest.

Sharp, realist, lyrical and poignant, it avoids both sentimentality and cynicism. Nor is it grandeur it is after, but the low hard nitty-gritty of adolescence in a vacuum. Top stuff, and probably the director Gothár's best.

User comments from imdb Author: marosffy from Hungary

Beside all mentioned in the previous comments, this film is about how one can get lost without usable idols and how revolutions fade away. (It is very easy to associate the film with the '56 uprise of Hungary, but by revolution I rather mean the rebelling tendency that is in every man, especially in youth.) The main character Köves Dini is to choose between several possibilities represented by his family, school-mates and teachers. There are every kind: the hard-line communist teacher Rajnák, fallen rebels like his father and Bodor, the old-fashioned catholic headmaster Szombathy, the ambitious brother who does anything to become a doctor, or the ultimate bad boy: Pierre. Since none can be real idol, Dini evidently gets lost, as we can see in the final scene: as drunken soldier he is pissing on the street.

On the other hand, the film is full of revolutionary ideas: after the fight in '56 father has left to America, Bodor gets in prison, Dini and all the kids are trying to escape into rock and roll and plan a daring getaway to Vienna. By the end of the film, everybody give up these ideas: father comes home, Bodor becomes a well paid servant of the system, Magda and Dini returns home from half way to the Border. The only one who holds on is Pierre, but his fate is well predictable: he is most likely shot by the border guards.

Sad as it is, but very true. Sooner or later most of us conform with reality.

On the other hand, don't think that this film is nothing but mere philosophy and sadness. Most of the scenes are in fact funny, full of brilliant dialogs. So can be really enjoyable. A masterpiece any way.

The New York Times (Janet Maslin) review

PETER GOTHAR is a fresh, energetic director from Hungary, a nation that ordinarily produces much more muted stylists. Mr. Gothar's ''Time Stands Still,'' which is on view at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center tonight and Saturday, begins with a starkly beautiful black and white sequence, then blossoms into color, and sustains its visual ingenuity all the way through. There are times when the purpose to which Mr. Gothar's effects are being used is less apparent than the effects themselves, especially for audiences not fully conversant with events in Hungary during the film's 1956-1968 time frame. Nevertheless, ''Time Stands Still'' has a lot of visual excitement and surprise.

The first sequence - half nightmare and half newsreel - shows the furious, terrified father of two young boys leaving wife and children behind as he departs for Vienna as a political refugee. In the next scene, it is 1963 and the boys are teen-agers at an orderly school dance, where the students are encouraged to stay in line and to dance with partners who don't suit them.

The younger boy, Denes (Istvan Znamenak), hears the music play ''You Are My Destiny'' as he gazes at Magda (Aniko Ivan). This is only one of Mr. Gothar's playful uses of American rock and roll music, which suggests the apparently boisterous mood of the times. Although an older character, a political ally of Denes's father, cautions the boy not to raise his hand and never to speak unnecessarily, the film's teen-agers are every bit as jubilantly rowdy as they are cautious.

Much of the action is set in the boys' school, which is given a soft blue-gray aura by Lajos Koltai's cinematography, almost as if it were covered by a thin coat of dust. The school's political hierarchy reveals itself through a series of vignettes, as when a classroom is searched for contraband and a biology teacher is subsequently forced out of his job. The new teacher, a woman, says she is more politic about the school's various spheres of power and has a husband who must literally be locked up when guests come to visit.

The principal, when he gives a speech about the triumph of the 1956 Soviet takeover, is interrupted by a boy in a ducktail haircut who shouts ''Let's Twist Again,'' ''Blueberry Hill'' and various rude things over the intercom. Other boys joke that talk of how ''the workers rushed out to rebuild'' after the invasion must really refer to looting.

''Time Stands Still,'' which takes its title from a Hungarian popular song, is filled with images that are individually stunning, perhaps more so than the film is as a whole. A man and woman talk in shadowy blue profile, while water drips from the brim of the man's hat and pots boil on the stove between them. A blue and white coupe is driven recklessly, urgently in circles by a teen-age girl. A boy and his teacher embrace in a bathroom, with the camera looking down from behind the twisting blades of a fan. Three faces align, in perfect profile, as they face the sun. There is a coda, this time in rose-hued black and white, that lets the film end almost as startlingly as it began.

Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert) review [2/4]

THE OUTPOST (A részleg) A 95

Hungary Romania (85 mi) 1995

Kafkaesque look at Communist repression, using a slowly developing theater of the absurd, an employee is told they are receiving a promotion, but they must travel to a distant outpost, depicting each weird and mysterious step of the way on this unraveling journey into a scathingly dark and humorous future

Pacific Cinematheque (link lost)

Directed by highly regarded Hungarian filmmaker Péter Gothér, best known to Western audiences for his 1981 feature Time Stands Still, The Outpost is a haunting, hypnotic, allegorical tale worthy of Kafka at labyrinthine and creepy best. The film is set in an unnamed Eastern European country in the 1980s, where Gizi (Mari Nagy), a middle-aged office worker, learns one day that she has been "promoted" to head up a "section" of the organization that employs her. She is unceremoniously taken to a train station and sent on a mysterious trip, accompanied by a series of vaguely threatening escorts, and forced to endure a series of petty humiliations along the way -- including the unexplained removal of all brand-name tags from her underwear. Neither the nature of her new assignment nor her ultimate destination are ever divulged. After a long and arduous journey, she finds herself arrived at her outpost, where events take further bizarre and inexplicable turns. Skilfully shot and very well acted, the film is based on a short story by Romanian author Adém Bodor, who co-wrote the script with Gothér. "Almost surreal…[a] portrait of weak, passive resistance to a humiliating establishment and its unpredictable authorities" (Zsofia Vitezy, Moving Pictures International). "Drawing on the illogic and dreamlike world of Kafka, The Outpost is a film that would have done the novelist proud… This is a fine piece of filmmaking from one of Hungary's major directors" (Piers Handling, Toronto I.F.F.). "A Kafkaesque nightmare… There have been dozens of films attacking the injustice of the Stalinist years in Eastern Europe. Péter Gothér's chilling The Outpost offers a fresh approach to the subject" (David Stratton, Variety) . Hungary 1994

Variety.com [David Stratton]

The Outpost is what might result if Kafka wrote about the waning years of Socialism in Eastern Europe. The film, which reflects what happens when people unquestioningly accept the dictates of their rulers, is obscure, bizarre, and ultimately dissatisfying. The Outpost functions as an extended allegory that could easily have been shortened to about half of its final running length. Some viewers may appreciate this opaque, grim depiction of the consequences of totalitarianism, but I'm not among them.

The Outpost has a minimalist story that takes place in an unnamed Eastern European country during the 1980s. A woman, Gizella Weiss (Mari Nagy), has shown enough initiative and inventiveness to earn a promotion to "a new sector". Led by one increasingly less communicative guide after another, Gizella travels by train, bus, railroad cart, horse-drawn wagon, and on foot to reach the outpost. When she arrives, more than two-thirds of the way through the movie, she discovers that the place is a run-down shack inhabited by weasels and an unfriendly man who eats one meal a day and refuses to light fires. When her reluctant companion finally confides to her the reason why she's there, his words are cryptic: "You were sent here to think about why you were sent here."

The Outpost is a very strange film, using stark lighting, bland characters (even Gizella is strictly one-dimensional), and repeated dialogue (men at various stopping points say virtually the same things to Gizella) to drive home its message. The problem is, eighty-five minutes is a long time to sit through such a stagnant movie. There characters are so distant and their actions so meaningless that it doesn't take long for The Outpost's pervasive apathy to reach the audience. We just don't care. Newcomer Mari Nagy is very good as Gizella, and Peter Gothar's fifth feature certainly gets the point across, but The Outpost could have benefited from more substance and a few genuine characters amidst all the self-conscious weirdness.

Gottheim, Larry

THE OPENING

USA (8 mi) 2005

The Opening Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

I blew off my first SFIFF festival day so I could instead see the Gottheim show at SF Cinematheque, which was a wise move. Gottheim is well-regarded in avant-garde circles and is etched into every history of experimental film of the 70s and 80s, but despite this I contend that he's one of the most underrated figures within that history. His earliest, single-shot films from this period are simple and beautiful, but as far as I'm concerned it's with the "Elective Affinities" series -- longer works that incorporate found material and engage in complex, contrapuntal sound / image relationships -- that Gottheim really gets cooking. Having seen two of these films (Tree of Knowledge, in this program, and Mouches Volantes, several years ago), and one that is not part of the series, but pretty closely aligned in approach (1991's Your Television Traveler), I can see why dominant accounts of the a-g 70s may not have afforded Gottheim his due. It's a bit misleading to lump them in with structural film, as a lot of commentators have done. They do indeed play with deep formal structure, but they also engage more directly with social and political material than contemporaneous, like-minded films by Frampton or Snow. (In this regard Gottheim's films share affinities, elective or not, with later Gehr, although the construction of a film like Tree of Knowledge bears more stylistic connection with Frampton's less lyrical, more welderly montage.) But really, Gottheim's later films have a distant cousin in Yvonne Rainer's work, since both filmmakers use unexpected formal arrangements to place incommensurate discursive material into dialog. Your Television Traveler employs aural layering and superimposition to set a documentary voiceover about the space program (particularly the lore around fictional Latino and "reluctant astronaut" José Jimenez) against the more experientially based observations by a woman in Cuba describing her sadness and its meaning to Gottheim. Neither is privileged, but both relate something about Latin American culture and perception, mutually complicating one another. Gottheim's films are shrewd, masterfully wrought, and intellectually astute, without feeling the need to toe some line of circumscribed academic orthodoxy.

All of which is one hell of a lengthy wind-up to a pretty sloppy pitch on my part. I have next to nothing to say about Gottheim's most recent work, a video that begins with a violinist dispatching a few jarring, hesitant notes and then plunges us into the close observation of a Haitian Voudou ritual. Gottheim's videography is carefully modulated for certain distancing effects. His use of consumer-grade Hi-8 turns dark blacks into matte grays, heightening flatness even as the camera hovers just outside the circle of Voudou worshippers. Gottheim and the participants circle around a bowl which the filmmaker noticed in retrospect bore a certain likeness to the terra cotta bowl in his first film, Blues. But I simply don't know what to make of this piece yet. I was especially thrown by the fact that the juxtaposition of the violinist and the ritual recalled the disjunctive editing of Gottheim's mid-period works, but was quickly abandoned. To complicate matters, apparently The Opening sparked a long, raucous debate at last year's "Views," with Gottheim and Ken Jacobs arguing over whether this ritual should be represented in this way. (Or something like that; sorry, I'm getting this third-hand.) The Opening is the first part of a long-form project on Haiti, and like a fragment of Frampton's "Magellan" cycle, it's probably hard to evaluate The Opening in isolation. (In fact, I was hoping I could avoid this I'm-completely-stumped non-review by classifying the piece as a work in progress. No dice -- Gottheim declared The Opening a finished piece, several times over.) The bottom line is, my grade is purely arbitrary, and my comments not that enlightening. I don't know what to make of The Opening. But I trust that its larger meaning will become more apparent as the Haiti project takes shape. Gottheim clearly has something up his sleeve here, and I'm anxious to see more.

Larry Gottheim - School of Cinematic Arts Events - USC ...

Anticipation and Memory – The Films of Larry Gottheim

An Evening with Larry Gottheim - Harvard Film Archive

Gould, Elliot – actor

The Goulden Age J. Hoberman from the Village Voice

Goulding, Edmund

All-Movie Guide Hal Erickson

Film Reference Charles Affron

Goulding, Edmund They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

Jean-Pierre Melville's 64 Favourite Pre-War American Filmmakers (Cahiers du Cinema, October 1961)

GRAND HOTEL

USA (112 mi) 1932

Goatdog's Movies (Michael W. Phillips, Jr.)

The 'Nashville' of its day, Grand Hotel's reputation has outgrown its actual quality, and it is now interesting only as an example of the portmanteau style: an interwoven group of contrasting stories allowing a bunch of stars to do their most familiar turns. Cigarette cards here include lonely Garbo, mercurial John Barrymore, crusty Lionel, business-like Joan Crawford, bent Beery. Supervising and commenting on the operation are ageing Lewis Stone and twittering émigré Jean Hersholt. Throw in Cedric Gibbons as art director and cameraman William Daniels, and you have the perfect MGM vehicle - dead boring. Made a year later with a similar cast, Dinner at Eight is of more note in that it provides acidic insight into the star system that Grand Hotel represents. (From the play by William A Drake, itself an adaptation of a novel, Menschen im Hotel, by Vicki Baum.

filmcritic.com Jake Euker

"People come and people go, and nothing ever happens at the Grand Hotel." Thus observes Dr. Otternschlag (Lewis Stone) of the Berlin hotel that serves as the setting for the Oscar-winning 1932 film. The film, like the hotel, is packed with opulence, and the cast was, at the time, the highest concentration of starpower the screen had ever seen: Greta Garbo as the dancer Grusinskaya whose cold surface is softened by a budding romance with Baron Geigern (John Barrymore); Lionel Barrymore as Otto Kringelein, a critically ill man on an end-of-his-life spree and a former employee of the company owned by the industrialist Preysing (Wallace Beery), whom he dislikes; Joan Crawford as the staff typist who takes up with the sick man; and a supporting cast -- Jean Hersholt, Robert McWade, Ferdinand Gottschalk -- whose fame has dimmed today, but who represented the cream of the crop in a Depression-stricken America.

In 1932, however, the sum was even greater than its parts, and Grand Hotel was such an event that the New York Times review had as much to do with the chaos of the opening-night crowd as with the film itself. Based on the hit Vicki Baum novel, the film introduced the so-called portmanteau genre (Dinner at Eight was the most famed of the follow-ups) in which the lives and stories of a group of diverse people are brought together by circumstances and emerge changed. It also featured Garbo's most repeated line ("I want to be alone"), and its lavish production makes it a touchstone in MGM and Hollywood history.

In that sense, Grand Hotel still offers a lot of entertainment seventy-some years later, and you can admire it today for its now-creaky charm. But as much of what drew crowds in 1932 is lost today: the acclaimed performances (especially that of Lionel Barrymore) now seem broad because film has moved so much further from the stage than it had then, the dramatic devices are long since worked to death, the conclusions of many of the film's small dramas are telegraphed nearly from the time the characters are introduced. The younger Barrymore is still a delight to watch (although shifting trends in male beauty make his fabled good looks a lot more resistible than they reportedly were then), and Garbo, as always, from any distance, shines.

The very best of Hollywood's output from this era -- a film like The Maltese Falcon, say, which followed fewer than 10 years later -- still packs the wallop it did on its first release. Revisiting Grand Hotel is by comparison a nostalgic pleasure, which is something very different. The new DVD release offers a making-of documentary, period shorts, and trailers from the 1945 remake Weekend at the Waldorf. If you're in the mood for a sentimental look back, by all means check in.

Turner Classic Movies Frank Miller

Greta Garbo's status as a screen legend became official when MGM billed her solely by her last name in Grand Hotel, the Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1932. It was a distinction previously earned by such stage greats as Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse. Beyond her impressive billing, the film also cemented her image as the most reclusive star of all time, even giving her the line that would forever be associated with her, "I want to be alone."

Garbo's billing was one of the tools MGM used to induce her to take part in the screen's first all-star epic. At 27, she thought she was already too old to convincingly play a prima ballerina. Nor was she pleased when studio chief Louis B. Mayer decided not to cast her former co-star and one-time fiancΘ, John Gilbert, as the jewel thief who breaks into Garbo's hotel suite to rob her and ends up falling in love. Instead, the role went to John Barrymore, who was so pleased to be working with the Swedish star and his brother Lionel that he gladly signed a three-picture contract with MGM.

Production chief Irving Thalberg had planned Grand Hotel as Hollywood's first all-star feature from the moment he read Vicki Baum's novel about the intertwining fates of five desperate people staying at a posh Berlin hotel. Plans were already underway for a Broadway version, so Thalberg got the studio to invest $15,000 in the show in return for film rights. When it ran for over a year on Broadway, Grand Hotel posted a profit before the cameras even started rolling.

Garbo wasn't the only member of the all-star cast to express reservations about the film. Cast as a romantic secretary tempted to sleep her way to the top, Joan Crawford was afraid she would be lost among the film's high-powered stars and also worried that her character's best scenes would be cut by the censors. Thalberg assured her that the scenes would be filmed in good taste (they were later cut in several states) then ordered her to take the role.

Wallace Beery objected too, noting that the role of a villainous businessman was too far from the jovial roughnecks he'd played in films like The Champ (1931) and Min and Bill (1930): "He doesn't murder women, but he's lower than anybody I've ever played!" Thalberg finally won him over by agreeing to let him use a German accent to distance the character from the roles he normally played.

Most Hollywood insiders predicted the high-powered cast would spend most of their time upstaging each other. That was expected when John and Lionel Barrymore got together. Their upstaging contest in Arsene Lupin (1932), another film about a glamorous jewel thief, had inspired Thalberg to cast them together in Grand Hotel. But Crawford was having none of it. After watching them pull their tricks in a few scenes, she laid down the law: "All right, boys, but don't forget that the American public would rather have one look at my back than watch both of your faces for an hour." Beery tried to steal scenes, too, mainly by ad-libbing in an effort to throw Crawford off. When she complained to director Edmund Goulding, a painstaking craftsman with a strong reputation as a woman's director, he ordered Beery to play the role as written.

There was no question of upstaging in Garbo's scenes with John Barrymore. They were so thrilled to be working together that they went out of their way to help each other. Knowing that Barrymore thought the left side of his face was more attractive and expressive than the right, she spent her lunch break rearranging the furniture in her character's hotel suite to favor his "great profile." When he sensed her insecurity in their love scenes, he whispered to her repeatedly, "You are the most enticing woman in the world." After the scene was over, she publicly announced, "You have no idea what it means to me to play opposite so perfect an artist." And even though Garbo was notorious for going home as soon as her shots were done, during Grand Hotel she stayed on the set to talk with Barrymore, doting on his stories about the theatre. The publicity-shy Swede even agreed to pose for publicity shots with him.

The all-star casting paid off when Grand Hotel opened to glorious reviews and strong box office, bringing back almost five times its cost in its first year of release. It also became the only film to win the Best Picture Oscar® without earning any other nominations. Many historians have suggested that feat as a sign of the picture's greatest strength. Thalberg and his cast had created such a seamless piece of entertainment that no one element stood out more than any other. MGM tried to make lightning strike twice with a 1945 remake, Weekend at the Waldorf, with Ginger Rogers in the Garbo role, but the film came nowhere near the magic of the original. Decades later, there were two stage musical versions: a flop called At the Grand in 1958 with musical diva Joan Deiner as the ballerina and the Broadway hit Grand Hotel: The Musical, starring Liliane Montevecchi, in 1989.

The Greatest Films - comprehensive analysis of classic US film Tim Dirks

Nick's Flick Picks (Nick Davis)

Crazy for Cinema (Lisa Skrzyniarz)

DVD Town [John J. Puccio]

DVD Savant review Glenn Erickson

Reel.com DVD review [Pam Grady]

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Jon Danziger)

DVD Verdict Mark Van Hook

FilmJudge (David Mercier)

Apollo Movie Guide [Jamie Gillies]

Classic Film Guide (capsule)

The Flick Filosopher (MaryAnn Johanson)

DVD Talk (Svet Atanasov) reviews Garbo – The Signature Collection

DVD Verdict [Ian Visser] - Garbo Signature Edition

The New York Times (Herbert L. Matthews)

DARK VICTORY

USA (104 mi) 1939

Slant Magazine [Keith Uhlich]

Davis has a field day as the petulant Long Island heiress who wields her riding-crop to humble the Irish chauffeur (Bogart, no less, badly miscast), then learns she has only months to live and spends the rest of her time discovering resignation and romantically dying (partnered, alas, by the soggy Brent). She and Goulding almost transform the soap into style; a Rolls-Royce of the weepie world.

Dad to A Day at the Races Pauline Kael

Bette Davis in a kitsch classic, playing a rich doomed-to-die girl who throws herself away on meaningless pleasures and then finds redemption in unselfish love-for her doctor, George Brent. A gooey collection of clichés, but Davis slams her way through them in her nerviest style. The steals from all over include a Lawrentian stable groom, played by Humphrey Bogart. Ronald Reagan is among the heroine's swains, and Geraldine Fitzgerald is her best friend. Edmund Goulding directed. Warners.

Even by the standards of a typical Bette Davis melodrama Dark Victory is an embarrassment of riches, a film that opens with Humphrey Bogart (as a smitten proletarian stablehand) effecting a most ridiculous Irish brogue and closes with an extended sequence of Davis's spoiled Long Island socialite Judith Traherne (blinded by a debilitating brain disease) enacting an emotionally devastating "signs of the cross" deathbed march. As directed by Edmund Goulding, a filmmaker sadly more remembered for his orgies than for his creative output, Dark Victory is an extension and refinement of themes from his great Gloria Swanson vehicle The Trespasser from 1929. Swanson's first talkie (also shot in a simultaneous silent version) is as over-the-top as one would expect of the Sunset Boulevard diva and it shares with Dark Victory a perverse yet earnest taste for Christian iconography. Where in The Trespasser, Swanson is a not-so-virginal, Depression-era Mother Mary, deliriously maintaining a bug-eyed martyr's composure even when giving up her young daughter to a wealthy beau, Davis in Dark Victory is a saucer-eyed female Christ, resolved by movie's end to face death with the utmost sense of peace (while being photographed through the most gauzy and flattering of filters). Getting there is half the fun, of course, and it's a blast accompanying Davis for the ride as she plays up her character's spoiled rich-girl tics, falls for stiff-backed brain doctor Frederick Steele (George Brent), shares drinks and witticisms with a young, fey Ronald Reagan, and viciously wields that immortal saber of a line, "I think I'll have a large order of…prognosis negative!"

filmcritic.com Chris Barsanti

You know you’re in trouble when such a classically tooled and sculpted weepie as 1939’s Dark Victory – one that should require boxes of Kleenex and a couple hours of recuperation – doesn’t even begin to wring out a tear until near the final act. What happens when a three-hankie picture just isn’t that sad? You get Dark Victory.

The story is the sort of thing that could fuel a whole season or two of one of your better primetime soap operas: Idly wealthy Judith Traherne (Davis) is 23, single, and bereft of any cares besides what trainer to hire for her thoroughbred horses and exactly how many martinis to drink. Having complained of sight problems and headaches, Judith gets browbeaten into seeing Dr. Frederick Steele (George Brent), a renowned brain surgeon about two hours away from chucking his whole practice to go do medical research on his isolated Vermont farm. Steele takes about five minutes to figure out that Judith has a rare and extremely serious condition that needs to be operated on right away. After the operation, Steele tells Judith’s friend Ann King (Geraldine Fitzgerald) that Judith will feel fine for a while, but in about ten months, her vision will start to go again and then she’ll die, quite suddenly and painlessly. The two then do what any sensible people would: agree to keep the truth from Judith while arranging for her to marry Steele, whom she’s fallen in love with.

It’s quite grandly corny, and Davis charges right through it with aplomb. This is a film that tries to see just how far it can get simply on the power of Davis’ hauteur, which turns out to be pretty far, even with the lamentably obvious comparisons made between the stormy, high-strung Judith and her similarly tempestuous horse. Faring much, much worse are the men, who circle around Judith, alternately trying to protect and possess her, and failing fairly miserably at it all. For reasons unknown save to studio boss Jack Warner – who fought against making the film, only to see it turn into a smash hit and take home three Oscar nominations – Humphrey Bogart is given the thankless role of ever-so pugnaciously Irish stablehand Michael O’Leary and told to play it straight, something that not even Bogey can pull off. The results aren’t pretty. George Brent stiff-necks it through the picture, memorable more for his oily mustache and pinstriped suits than anything else. Making a better impression, oddly enough, is Ronald Reagan, playing against type as a playboy buddy of Judith’s; nobody’s idea of a comic actor (somewhere there are 10-year-olds who’ve never tasted alcohol who can do a better imitation of a drunk), he at least tries to nobly wring a few laughs out of the material.

What’s left, then, as Dark Victory pushes dauntlessly on to the finish line, is Davis herself, raging against the blinding of her eyes. She’s girlish and imperious at the same time, impressively winning sympathy for all her spoiled brat antics, reserving her most mawkish moments for the bitter end. And although Davis can’t quite rescue it alone, the modern viewer does have to appreciate a film where a doctor can examine a patient while the two of them puff away on cigarettes.

The restored and remastered DVD presents quite a fine fullscreen picture transfer but only a slim batch of extras, including commentary by film historian James Ursini and critic Paul Clinton, a trailer and featurette.

Nick's Flick Picks (Full Review) Nick Davis

Crazy for Cinema (Lisa Skrzyniarz)

Greatest Films - comprehensive analysis of classic US films Tim Dirks

Turner Classic Movies Margarita Landazuri

Dark Victory, The Great Lie and Now Voyager Women’s Pictures and the Perfect Moment, by Deborah H. Holdstein from Jump Cut

Re-Vision: Essays in Feminist Criticism Re-Vision: Essays in Feminist Film Criticism, edited by Mary Ann Doane, Patricia Mellencamp and Linda Williams, reviewed by Ellen Seiter from Jump Cut

MediaScreen.com Nick Zegarac

Three Movie Buffs (Patrick Nash)

Apollo Movie Guide [Brian Webster]

Classic Film Guide (capsule)

DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson) reviewing the Bette Davis Collection

DVD Verdict [Amanda DeWees] reviewing the Bette Davis Collection

The Onion A.V. Club [Donna Bowman] reviewing the Betty Davis and the Joan Crawford Collections

The New York Times (Frank S. Nugent)

DVDBeaver.com [Gary W. Tooze]

THE GREAT LIE

USA (108 mi) 1941

Classic Film Guide (capsule)

Sudsy melo as George Brent divorces concert pianist Astor, marries Davis, and then leaves a metaphorical Amazon jungle for the real one, where he apparently dies in a plane crash. Meanwhile, back in the big smoke, Astor discovers that she's pregnant and Davis wants to adopt the baby as a souvenir of her darling hubby. The leading ladies blast away at each other like pocket battleships, while Max Steiner and Tchaikovsky provide a sumptuous musical background.

George Brent's marriage to concert pianist Mary Astor is annulled, allowing him to marry the one he really loves, Bette Davis, and Astor to pursue her career. Aviator Brent is then thought dead in a plane crash overseas. Astor (whose performance earned her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, her only recognition from the Academy!) learns she's pregnant by Brent and tells Davis, who then convinces Astor to let her adopt it and pretend it's her own. Though they've been rivals, they go away together to a remote location until Astor can give birth. Lots of wonderful (caustic) dialogue between the two ladies. Grant Mitchell plays Astor's manager; Jerome Cowan plays Brent's lawyer; Hattie McDaniel plays Davis's domestic help. Lucile Watson also appears. When Brent returns alive, will the identity of the infant's mother remain a secret? Directed by Edmund Goulding, based on Polan Banks's novel January Heights, with a screenplay by Lenore Coffee (Four Daughters (1938)).

Turner Classic Movies Margarita Landazari

The Oscar® for Best Supporting Actress of 1941 went to a Hollywood veteran, Mary Astor, for her performance as a selfish concert pianist who steals Bette Davis' boyfriend in The Great Lie (1941). Director Edmund Goulding, Astor said, gave her the key to the character: "A piano, brandy, and men. In that order."

Astor had begun her career in silent films, at the age of 15. By the time she made The Great Lie, she'd undergone career ups and downs, and survived a major scandal in her private life. Astor was in her mid-thirties, and had finally hit her stride playing a series of brittle sophisticates. The movie year of 1941, in fact, was a good one for her. Besides The Great Lie, she also co-starred with Humphrey Bogart as the treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941).

The Great Lie was a typical "woman's picture" of the era, a not-very-credible story of romantic travails. Davis had approved the casting of Astor as her rival, not only because she admired Astor as an actress, but because Astor had studied the piano and would be believable playing a Tchaikovsky sonata. In a Bette Davis film, it was usually Davis who provided the bad-girl fireworks, but in The Great Lie, Astor had the more flamboyant part. That would have been fine with Davis, as long as the characters and relationships worked. But Davis hated the script. "It's soap opera drivel and it stinks in all departments!" she complained, and enlisted Astor to help her rewrite the script.

The two women re-worked scenes to add substance and conflict. They gleefully improvised dialogue and situations. Director Goulding was delighted with their inventions, and couldn't wait to see what they'd come up with next. Rumors from the set said that Astor was "stealing the picture" from Davis, but both actresses denied it. "She handed The Great Lie to me on a silver platter," Astor said later. The result was a film that overcame its soap-opera limitations and crackled with wit. When she won her Oscar®, Astor thanked two people: Bette Davis and Tchaikovsky.

Dark Victory, The Great Lie and Now Voyager Women’s Pictures and the Perfect Moment, by Deborah H. Holdstein from Jump Cut

Three Movie Buffs (Patrick Nash)

FilmFanatic.org

DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson) The Bette Davis Collection, Volume Three

DVD Verdict- Bette Davis Collection, Volume Three[Gordon Sullivan]

DVDBeaver.com [Gary W Tooze]

THE RAZOR’S EDGE

USA (145 mi) 1946

The Stop Button (Andrew Wickliffe)

A kind of Lost Horizon for the Lost Generation as a soldier returning from the First World War shrugs off his wealthy background to search for spiritual fulfilment. Starting among the smart set in Europe (Paris and the Riviera created in the studio), it then moves rather less persuasively to India. Classic Hollywood kitsch, with the shallow sophistication of Somerset Maugham's novel well matched by the glossiest glitter that Fox could buy. But somehow Goulding (an erratic but underrated director) manages to dominate it all with an almost Premingerian mise en scène, aided by some superb performances (Tierney in particular).

UTK Daily Beacon [Albert Dunning] (excerpt)

Unless you are a classic films nerd like me, Anne Baxter is probably the best actress of the mid-20th century that you do not know by name. Her career was not without leading roles, but all of the brilliant films she starred in featured her in impeccable supporting capacities. The following troika are some of her finest.

“The Razor’s Edge” (1946)

Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney were the Brad Pitt and Charlize Theron of their day, and this picture casts them as mutually antagonizing extremes of human nature in a brave, early attempt to tackle philosophical themes. The eponymous “razor’s edge” is a metaphor for the fine line we all tread in our individual attempts to realize success and find purpose in life. Baxter reinforces this premise with the paragon of meteoric falls from grace. After she survives an automobile accident that kills her husband and child, she descends into alcoholism and despair. To balance the corrupting influence of Tierney’s chicanery, Baxter gives a sincere and delicately careworn performance, for which she won her only Academy Award. Without her, this would be a merely respectable film that descended into obscurity within a decade, but Baxter lends it just the right touch of humanity to make it timeless.

While home video did wonders for increasing film appreciation, I have to wonder if MGM’s embracing of the format for their old catalogue didn’t greatly hinder young people in the 1980s from learning about film. As a child, I had seen MGM, I had seen RKO, I had seen Warner Bros. But I never saw any Columbia (that I remember) and I’m pretty sure I never saw any 20th Century Fox films, because when I did start seeing them in the mid-1990s (on AMC), I was surprised. I had no idea they’d been around and done so much. It’s a laziness, I suppose, but film interest tends to start as a hobby. I guess it got better with cable (my AMC experience) and today, with DVD, it’s probably about even... Fox does have a good classics series, though their box set is rather crappy and doesn’t inspire much interest (just like their VHS box art). Fox didn’t originally release their VHS titles--they licensed them through Key Video--so each title was doubly selected for profitability.

The Razor’s Edge fell through the cracks. It won Anne Baxter an Academy Award (she’s great, but certainly not the best performance in the film, which has five excellent performances), and lost to The Best Years of Our Lives, which is fine. But, it was a big hit. It was Fox’s biggest hit... and it disappeared. I’d never heard of it when I first saw it in 1997 or 1998--and I had worked at a video store with a significant classics section. Watching it today, I’m upset the film doesn’t have the level of respect it deserves. It’s an amazing film; it runs 145 minutes and never feels like it, compressing 9 years into the first hour, then exploring the effects of those nine years in the second. There’s another bit of compression in there too, but the characters manage to grow beautifully over this time. The make-up crew “de-aged” the cast (particularly Clifton Webb), then gradually caught them up and beyond. The make-up and the handling of the timeline work beautifully. I can’t think of a better handling of such a long stretch than in this film.

It’d be easy credit the book the whole way, but Lamar Trotti does an incredible job adapting it, focusing it--The Razor’s Edge features its author, W. Somerset Maugham, in an instrumental role. I can’t believe Herbert Marshall didn’t get nominated for it (I’m looking at Edge’s Oscar competition right now at IMDb), but neither did Trotti so I guess I should. Not even Edmund Goulding got a nomination for directing and he’s fantastic. He’s got these long sweeps of the camera, beautiful movement, but my favorite is his lack of reaction shots. Someone will talk, as familiar viewers, we expect a reaction--we get none. Instead, we get the actor continuing, not breaking. It adds an particular realism--in this hugely produced film--a kind not many films have. It involves the viewer in the situation, which spans 10 years and three or four continents.

Obviously (I already said it), all the acting is great. Tyrone Power is great in this incredibly difficult role--the film is somewhat from Maugham’s perspective, but also from Maugham’s reader’s perspective--so Power is the protagonist, but also the subject and it never separates that duality. For the first twenty minutes, it’s Gene Tierney’s movie, it’s not Power’s. It appear it ever will be Power’s movie. It’s an odd situation--there are other examples (Barry Lyndon, I suppose), but no one else has ever done such a good job I don’t think. As for Tierney, someone else who is overlooked for her acting ability... Tierney turns an amazing performance. I was going to say exactly what’s so amazing about it, but that description would spoil the film if one didn’t know the story. She’s fantastic. I already mentioned how good Baxter is in the film (Tierney’s better--Baxter has a few scenes, Tierney has ninety-five minutes) and Marshall, but Clifton Webb is great too. The film has incredibly complicated characters--so incredibly complicated it’s impossible to judge any of them, even at the end. Maugham--the writer, not the character--was quite good at delaying the readers judgement and I assume, in The Razor’s Edge, it’s just faithful adaptation, because studio films with big stars were never about reserving judgement.

Not since... well, last week, I watch a lot of movies, you know... This film’s level of excellence is rare. Even more, the lack of recognition for this film’s excellence is an unbelievable blemish to film history.

Slant Magazine [Jeremiah Kipp]

KQEK DVD Review [Mark R. Hasan]

NIGHTMARE ALLEY

USA (111 mi) 1947

Bright Lights Film Journal [Gary Morris] (capsule review)

Though perhaps it tries too hard to be 'respectable' and downplays its tawdry trash vulgarity a little too much (the film is tough, but William Lindsay Gresham's superb novel is even tougher), this is still a mean, moody, and well-nigh magnificent melodrama. Power excels as the hick fairground huckster who rises to society celebrity as a fake spiritualist, only to have fickle fortune arc him back to the midway as the boozed-up, live-chicken-eating geek. Blondell, Gray and the strange Helen Walker are the women he uses/abuses to grease his path. Lee Garmes' camerawork, Jules Furthman's script, and Goulding's direction make this one of the most oddball and enduring of the decade's Hollywood highspots.

Circus geeks — those lowdown human wrecks willing to bite the heads off live chickens for sensation-seeking crowds — aren’t exactly au courant on the entertainment circuit these days, but there’s a doozy in Nightmare Alley. Though he’s only seen in shadow, his creepy image and maniacal laughter dominate this rarest of film noirs, unseen for many years in any format due to a rights problem. Set in a cheesy carnival, the film presents an unforgettable gallery of grotesques whose lives intertwine romantically, criminally, and, ultimately, fatally. There’s a con-artist drifter (Tyrone Power), a phony mind-reader (Joan Blondell), her alcoholic husband (Ian Keith), a brutal strongman (Mike Mazurki), and an unscrupulous shrink (Helen Walker), all players in a dance-of-death, shadow-drenched scenario of infidelity, mayhem, and murder. The grim atmosphere, razor-sharp dialogue, and sordid doings are rendered in high studio style courtesy of waspish director Edmund Goulding, who worked with Garbo and Crawford; screenwriter Jules Furthman (To Have and Have Not); and Dietrich’s cinematographer, Lee Garmes. The author of the source novel, William Lindsay Gresham, eventually committed suicide. You'll understand why when (if) you see the film. Not available officially on video at this writing, though it does appear on ebay in prints of dubious quality and in rep screenings in stunning 35mm occasionally.

Nightmare Alley Mike D’Angelo from Time Out New York

The 1940s saw a fair number of downbeat pictures emerge from Hollywood's generally sunny halls—think film noir—but few are quite as relentlessly bleak and tawdry as Nightmare Alley, a pride-goeth-before-etc. saga, which plays like Elmer Gantry by way of Freaks. Unavailable on video, it's one of those cult items you hear maddeningly intriguing things about but fear you may never have an opportunity to actually see. Exiting the theater, however, you may find it difficult to believe that you actually did see it; as its title implies, the film's grim hold on you begins to evaporate as soon as the reverie itself is over.

Tyrone Power, the Tom Cruise of his era (hunky, popular, kinda wooden), is shrewdly cast against type as Stanton, an ambitious carnival barker who's prepared to climb over anybody in sight—including the lovely, trusting phony psychic Zeena (Blondell)—en route to the top, which in his case involves a dinner-theater variation on the kind of low-rent mysticism practiced by Uri Geller and the Amazing Kreskin. His rise to fame and fortune seems almost too easy, and Lee Garmes's moody, atmospheric photography concurs, providing a sense of foreboding from the get-go. When Stanton peers in puzzlement at the carnival geek and wonders aloud how a man could sink so low that he'd accept a job biting the heads off live chickens, you get the unmistakable sense that he's about to spend the next couple of hours finding out.

The film was adapted from William Lindsay Gresham's novel, a fact belied by the narrative's tendency to jump haphazardly around, leaving hefty chronological gaps. Critics of the day, familiar with the book, complained that Gresham's singularly corrosive worldview had been watered down for mass consumption, and perhaps that's true; I'm guessing that the (moderately) happy denouement was a studio "improvement." From today's perspective, the movie is almost improbably sleazy, especially since director Edmund Goulding is best known for prestige pictures like the Bette Davis weepie Dark Victory and the Oscar winner Grand Hotel. Postwar despair doesn't get much more acute than this; no self-respecting film buff can afford to miss it.

The Village Voice [J. Hoberman]

DVD Times [Anthony Nield]

Nightmare Alley Gary Couzens from DVD Times

Film Noir of the Week

Not Coming to a Theater Near You [Tom Huddleston]

Turner Classic Movies Paul Sherman

DVD Savant [Glenn Erickson]

Film Freak Central [Travis Mackenzie Hoover]

Reel.com DVD review [Pam Grady]

DVD Talk [Stuart Galbraith IV]

DVD Monsters and Critics [Andy McKeague]

Combustible Celluloid review Jeffrey M. Anderson

digitallyOBSESSED.com [Jon Danziger]

DVD Verdict [Ian Visser]

The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

filmcritic.com Christopher Null

All Movie Guide [Lucia Bozzola

Nightmare Alley Gerald Peary

The Onion A.V. Club [Noel Murray] reviewing a Film Noir Classic Collection: Vol. 2

The New York Times T.M.P.

DVDBeaver.com [Gary W. Tooze]

Gout, Everardo

DIAS DE GRACIA

Mexico France (128 mi) 2011

Dias de Gracia Fionnuala Halligan at Cannes from Screendaily, May 18, 2011

A hyper-stylised, hard-boiled Mexican cop drama which doffs the cap at its Hong Kong and Japanese crime compadres, Dias de Gracia attempts to peg itself to the World Cup, with the action taking place over three consecutive tournaments.

It’s a nice idea, particularly when it comes to marketing, but Dias de Gracia isn’t a football film per se; the sport provides a vague thematic link and a background noise as sweaty tattooed gangsters put their weaponry aside to shout “goooooal” every now and again.

Managing three plot strands and more than one twist, ambitious first-time director Everardo Gout, working with cinematography Louis Sansans, throws the kitchen sink at the screen: from black and white to heavy saturation and bleached-out colours, fades, blurs and dissolves to jump cuts, steadycam, multiple perspectives, slow motion. And that’s just an average scene. Underscored by Nick Cave’s droning beats throughout, this is about as relaxing as sitting in a dentist’s chair.

Dias de Gracia is more of an over-the-top Sequestro Express or The Elite Squad than Sin Nombre; its multiple timelines may recall Inarritu on paper, but Gout turns in a weaponised Ringo Lam here. Despite its lengthy running time, this could be a mid-range seller for Kinology, especially on MTV-style ancillary.

And Gout, not withstanding the attention deficit issues, also marks himself out as a young director to watch once he relaxes enough to trust his own narrative. Carlos Bardem possibly could add some heft in Spain.

A hard-boiled voiceover, accompanying a gorgeous aerial swoop over Mexico City, opens the proceedings by quoting Colombia’s Gabriel Garcia Marquez: “Life is not how you live it, but how you tell it”. Taking this to heart, Gout introduces his lead character, charismatic cop Lupe (Huerta), a very broadly sketched stereotype.

As we meet him, Lupe is teaching a lesson to two young kids he’s picked up for selling weed, but really he has a heart of gold and a wife who is about to give birth. His partner is corrupt, but Lupe nurtures a fiery sense of justice. “Being a cop keeps me straight,” he says, before he goes straight down the path of every rookie cop in a corrupt police state - to hell, via lashings of heavy weaponry, double-crossing superiors and Sikh crime lords.

Elsewhere, in a different timeframe, a businessman has been kidnapped for ransom and is being held in abject circumstances by a gang whose youngest member is called Iguana. Gradually, we piece together the information that Iguana is in fact Doroteo (Ferrer), the weed-selling child of the opening scenes, and the brother of the maid who works for the kidnapped man’s family.

Gout’s narrative twists and turns - and then some more - throughout 12 years of flashback and flashforward as the stakes rise for Lupe and Doroteo. As it passes the hour mark, Dias de Gracia gives up any attempt at nuance to become a straight-up, full-on revenge drama with an accompanying body count.
Memorably, at mid-point, a tattooed mafia Madame arrives on the scene, dressed in black leather, as if out of The Matrix, to tell Lupe: “Stealing from me is an act of war, and when I say war, I mean The Apocalypse”.

Days of Grace indeed.

Govenar, Alan

THE BEAT HOTEL C- 67

USA France Great Britain (88 mi) 2011 Official site

While the subject of the American Beat movement down and out in Paris in the late 50’s certainly has possibilities, especially since so little has been archived other than through literature, so a documentary exposé sounds enticing. But other than a few still photographs that one could easily find in a library or even online, this film offers no new archival footage from which to base a movie. Instead, it becomes a nostalgia piece, something the actual Beat writers would abhor, as their works defy sentimentality and formula, continually searching for new ways to express ideas of liberation and transcendence. Well, you won’t find that here, as instead it’s just a bunch of old geezers boringly trying to recollect what they could remember about sharing the same cramped hotel space of several literary Americans who went on to become icons of the Beat Generation. And what they remember isn’t much different than listening to relatives talk endlessly about things you’ve already heard a million times. What’s the interest in hearing someone recollect they were connected to this movement if they can’t get the audience to grasp any part of that experience themselves? With names like Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso, and William S. Burroughs, youthful photographs flashing across the screen, you’d hope there might be some hidden gems of personal insight unique to their experiences together, but we should be so lucky, as that might actually constitute relevant material for a decent movie. Instead, insist upon reading the books and the poems, as that remains the source of inspiration, not this movie which is largely a waste of time.

Burroughs and Ginsberg were both involved with obscenity trials in the United States, Burroughs for his unpublished earlier works Junkie and Queer, and Ginsberg for his incendiary counterculture poem Howl, so this eclectic gay group of outsiders fled to Paris to avoid potential arrest (both for their art as well as their lifestyle) and be able to continue working. What they discovered was an incredibly cheap rooming house in the bohemian section of the Left Bank in Paris called the Beat Hotel, as it was mostly inhabited by American writers and artists, where the communal atmosphere lent itself to shared experiences together, encouraging each other on, including parties and poetry readings. It was here that Ginsberg developed the needed distance from his mother’s tragic death in a mental institution where her treatment for schizophrenia resulted in a lobotomy, writing Kaddish, while Burroughs, with help from Brion Gysin, completed a published version of Naked Lunch from randomly strung together pieces of earlier manuscripts. Corso, the youngest member of the Beats, and the next published after Jack Kerouac, composed his poems Bomb and Marriage. Among the few survivors of the era are British photographer Harold Chapman, who documented much of the period in photographs, and Scottish artist Elliot Rudie, whose animated drawings add a colorful surrealist element. Do we really need to see one of them show up at the hotel 50 years later with a disinterested teenage daughter in tow?

The problem here is what a superficial portrait is generated by the film, never getting below the surface to mine anything new. None of the Americans spoke French, so they collectively stuck together and rarely mixed with the French Parisian artists, as they couldn’t communicate, and when they happened to be at the same parties, the Americans had a reputation for consuming too much alcohol, playing pranks, and acting strangely juvenile. While there is some free floating jazz playing throughout, none of it is identified and there is little attempt to connect any of the characters to American jazz music, or to musicians that happened to be in Paris, which was an essential component of the Beat Generation, connecting to the improvisational jazz rhythm and liberating expression of feeling. What this film fails to do is breath any life into what inspired the Beats or indicate why they remain essential to this day, instead feeling like a monotonous misstep, where tired, grandfatherly faces continually attempt to explain the thrills and excitement of youth. That may be what they remember, but what’s shown onscreen never registers a pulse, where there may 10 or 15 minutes of interest here. Burroughs is accurately described as the macabre, angel of death, seen as a Grim Reaper in sarcastic animated portrayals, but each attempt to re-enact scenes fails miserably, as there isn’t an ounce of dramatic believability. Without any emotional connection to the subjects of the film, irreverent rebels and outcasts every one, they are continually described as respectful literary figures, as if being honored with a plaque by an unnamed local dignitary makes a good subject for a film.

Time Out New York [Andrew Schenker]

It might not match the bohemian pedigree of the Chelsea Hotel, but in the late 1950s, Paris’s Beat Hotel housed William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso as the writers created many of their most enduring works. Alan Govenar’s straightforward docu-celebration of this hospitable hotbed of creativity has enough insider details (a reconstruction of the magic tricks Burroughs performed for his friends, the Naked Lunch author’s development process of the cut-up technique) to keep any Beat fan feeling adequately Zen, though the fact that it’s far more concerned with burnishing an overly fetishized lit movement than serving as an in-depth exploration of the hotel’s inhabitants may make you want to check out early.

Village Voice [Nick Pinkerton]

I have seen many passable minds of my generation fritter away their best creative years working on tributes to the creative minds of past generations, and still nothing seems to slow this parade of invariably awed, usually nostalgic, rarely insightful artist docs to the screen. Scaling new heights of inessentiality is The Beat Hotel, which chronicles the period, roughly 1958–63, when a low-rent, squalid residential hotel at 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur, Paris, was home to expat poets and artists including Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and William S. Burroughs. This fertile creative soil, from which bloomed Ginsberg's Kaddish and Burroughs's cut-up technique, was, per one interviewee, "bohemia working at its best"—but, these more famous boarders all being gone, it remains to their former neighbors to hit the usual talking points, perpetuate the legends, and generally Beat a dead horse: Here we have Brit photographer Harold Chapman, Scot painter Elliot Rudie, and Jean-Jacques Lebel, the French translator of Howl. Spicing up the proceedings with some amateurish re-enactments and animations, by now de rigueur in this sort of thing, veteran documentarian Alan Govenar ties things together with a scrubby crowd gathering for the unveiling of a commemorative plaque on the renovated four-star Hotel du Vieux Paris that now resides at 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur. The Beat Hotel serves roughly the same uninspiring memorial purpose.

NewCity Chicago Ray Pride

I know some places in Chicago writers go—not the hatch or the dole—but chill-beer saloons and cafes where coffees are knocked back. (Tea when the weather’s changed or after all those cigarettes or too much shouting in agreement about the bad and the baddies in the world.) And they will write sometimes, unshielded from public view, often a glow dancing from laptops below onto their since-fourteen-years-of-age specs. It’s a commonplace. (I’m thinking of sleeves-up writers, published and publishing, not students, not grad students.) Still, no matter how you’d fantasize, it’s no Paris in the twenties, it’s not Tangiers or Marrakech in the 1950s and it’s not the nameless “Beat Hotel” on side street rue Git le Coeur in Paris’ Latin Quarter where any number of numinous word-pushers of note washed up until the sixties. In Alan Govenar’s diverting feature, a documentary rich with contemporary photography about the figures including Ginsberg, Orlovsky, Corso, Gysin and Burroughs, strong claims are made: “The Beat Hotel was a temple of the mind…” “The cheapest and most dirty hotel in Paris….” “One of the last of the great Bohemian hotels.” Ginsberg started “Kaddish,” Burroughs finished “Naked Lunch,” Gysin fashioned his “Dream Machine.” There’s the fantasy, realized, without the outsider’s nostalgia at a remove or simple sentiment, of cities and their citizens, art as the intersection of walkable space and immovable talent. Harold Chapman’s splendid, iconic photographs are matched by Scottish artist Elliot Rudie’s drawings—both often animated—and the elder pair make affable on-camera presences, along with the accounts of a handful of other survivors. (There are also dramatic reenactments.) 82m.

The Beat Hotel Movie Review: Expat Writers in Paradise Greg Barbrick

The lives and works of the Beats are a continuing source of fascination for many. Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, and Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl,” were a few of the first works in a counter-cultural literary revolution. What separates the Beats from the Boomer hippies of a decade later was their keen intellect, as well as their pioneering spirit in questioning authority.

It is this ongoing interest in the accomplishments of the Beats that fuels director Alan Govenar’s new film The Beat Hotel. Fed up with censorship and blind conformity in Eisenhower’s America, a number of writers and artists fled to Paris. Somehow they all wound up together at a cheap hotel in a rundown area of the city. For a while, it was paradise.

Word of mouth led Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and Gregory Corso to the building on rue Gil le Coeur. They were soon joined by William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Ian Somerville. The place quickly became known as the Beat Hotel, in honor of the residents who found their way there. The hotel was run by Madame Rachou, who had previously been part of the French Resistance during World War II.

Madame Rachou had a soft-spot for society’s outcasts. The hotel was filled with broke writers, artists, musicians, photographers, and gays of all backgrounds. She welcomed everyone with open arms. The rent was dirt cheap and included a hearty meal each day as well.

The film focuses on the years 1957-1963, the very height of the Beat era. The catalyst for all of the media attention the “beatniks” received was the publication of Kerouac’s On The Road. It was a sensation, even if it had been written some five years prior to publication. By 1957 Kerouac was already beginning to swing to the right, a process that would continue until his death in 1969.

GALO Magazine [Sandra Bertrand]

Spectrum Culture Jake Cole (long piece)

Film Monthly.com – The Beat Hotel (2012) LaSonya Thompson

Slant Magazine [Joseph Jon Lanthier]

The Independent Critic [Richard Propes]

The Beat Hotel - Movie Review - 2012 - Documentaries - About.com Jennifer Merin

The NYC Movie Guru [Avi Offer]

Film Journal Intl David Noh

The Beat Hotel -- Indiegogo

Cole Smithey - Capsules: The Beat Hotel

THE BEAT HOTEL Facets Multi Media

Documentary Channel Blog [Christopher Campbell]

Not Just Movies: The Beat Hotel (Alan Govenar, 2012) Jake Cole (capsule)

The Hollywood Reporter [Frank Scheck] also seen at an interesting website here: The Beat Poets of the Forever Generation: The Beat Hotel: Film ...

The Beat Hotel - Movies - The New York Times Nicolas Rapold, also seen here: New York Times

Gowariker, Ashutosh

SWADES

India (210 mi) 2004

Swades Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Houston has two Bollywood cinemas, and when I went to one of them a few weeks ago to see Veer-Zaara, I asked the manager about Swades, Gowariker's highly anticipated follow-up to Lagaan. "Oh, we're not booking that film," he said. "It's been a global flop. It's slow, it's boring, and it deals with all this stuff Indians don't care about, like astronauts. It's a total misfire." Needless to say, I find this characterization unduly harsh, but it has some elements of truth. Swades is nowhere near as accomplished as Lagaan. But it makes up for its awkwardness and declamatory rhetoric with a unique style and pacing that I haven't seen before in an Indian studio picture. There is a homemade, unmistakably personal aspect that runs throughout Swades, buoying it during even its most turgid passages. Shahrukh Khan plays an NRI scientist at NASA who, in the first ten minutes, learns that his application for U.S. citizenship has just been approved. He confides to his best friend that he's ambivalent about becoming an American, and wonders what became of those he left behind, particularly the elderly nanny who raised him. Soon, Khan's character is returning to India to find the rural village she live in so he can bring her back to the States. The credits sequence comes in only after this lengthy expository prologue, and I cannot recall a more subdued opening to a Bollywood film. They titles roll over still, lengthy shots of Khan on the flight to India, gazing out the window, listening to headphones (music we can't hear), and quietly sipping a Coke. It resembles the start of an Alexander Payne picture. Much of Swades behaves like this, and it's easy to see how it is regrettably falling between cinematic chairs, too genre-bound and broadly conceived to be an art film, but too leisurely and thematically single-minded to serve as high-gloss entertainment. Although there are several musical numbers, their staging is austere, and though they do feel somewhat detachable from the remainder of the film, they would be equally out of place in any other Bollywood production. Their visual texture is an uninflected realism, and even A.H. Rahman's music sounds at times like a theoretically orchestrated hybrid of Hindi and Western influences. (The opening song, "O Traveler," is a bit like Shahrukh fronting the Dave Matthews Band.) Also, whereas typically a Bollywood film will thread a number of secondary plots through its primary love story, Swades subsumes everything to one dominant trope: the responsibility that NRIs have to insure that Indians are not left underdeveloped in the face of globalization. Gowariker's treatment of this issue, while sincere, is ideologically muddled. The ultimate message seems to be one of bootstrap-ingenuity and self-reliance, of the peasantry getting off their butts, no longer making infrastructural demands of the government, and lifting themselves into the 21st century. It's a viewpoint any Republican would embrace, yet Gowariker purveys it as the height of progressive thinking. But adding to the confusion is the fact that it takes Khan's character, a man who no longer exactly belongs to this landscape, to serve as the prime mover in this uplift. Gowariker's views are significantly less muddy on the matter of women's rights and caste oppression, but regardless of the argument he is making, the writer-director states it in his characters' dialogue, plainly and didactically. Some critics have found fault with this "artlessness," but whether intentionally or not, this is when Swades' odd hybridity succeeds most. Hollywood message-pictures are clunky because they remain wedded to the conventions of realist dramaturgy. Here, the collision of Bollywood genre tics and earnest speechifying results in a kind of Brechtianism. (In fact, Swades frequently recalled Sembene's Moolaadé.) Naturally, many are finding outright failure where I see productive textual tensions. (And the final half-hour, I'll gladly admit, is a painful botch, a full-on retreat into Bollywood's worst melodramatic excesses.) But holding everything together, and keeping the film's discombobulated missteps firmly grounded, is an unassuming visual style and mode of narrative address that communicates Gowariker's firm commitment to his project and his inchoate, contrarian vision. [NOTE: The title is pronounced SWAH-dezz, not "suedes." In other words, don't be as much of a dumbass as I was at the ticket counter. You're welcome. Also, in the days since seeing this film, I've realized that it has too many flaws to ignore, and they've been nagging at me. Hence the lowered grade.]

Graf, Dominik

DREILEBEN TRILOGY I B 89

BEATS BEING DEAD (Dreileben – Etwas Besseres als den Tod) – made for TV

Germany (88 mi) 2012 d: Christian Petzold

The Dreileben Trilogy is the product of director Christoph Hochhäusler, who was looking for something to write in his film magazine Revolver on the 40th anniversary of the German Film and Television Academy, initiating a public correspondence on film aesthetics and the lack of genre films in Germany with two other filmmakers from the Berlin school, Christian Petzold and Dominik Graf, deciding the only remnants they could find of the genre school was to be found on television. So they decided to jointly participate in a project for German television, not a mammoth omnibus project like GERMANY IN AUGUST (1978), which featured a critical analysis of the German political landscape of the 1970’s as seen from 11 different directors, but instead combining three individual stories, each about 90-minutes in length, revolving around an escaped mental patient who is also a murderer and sex offender, all set in the small town of Dreileben (meaning three lives), using various genre styles to heighten the suspense, offering a unique perspective on a world where people’s lives may overlap and intersect, and where old feelings buried in the past may have a profound influence on the present. Christian Petzold may be the most familiar of the group, where YELLA (2007) and JERICHOW (2008) are both widely acclaimed, each a standout in cleverly creating multiple layers of suspense, including the added twist of interchangeable psychological worlds, where YELLA offers a dreamlike Antonioni reverie replacing the meticulous minutiae of drab or ordinary reality, using offscreen sound and a clever editing scheme to continually tease the audience with completely indistinguishable states of mind, while JERICHOW is a surgically precise psychological thriller, both notable for the accumulation of small, banal details and characters nearly paralyzed by unseen or imaginary forces.

Shot on 35 mm, the opening slow-paced and character driven segment beautifully lures us this into this remote locale, almost perfectly integrating the psychological state of mind of a disturbing incident in town with the nearby woods, which is an enchantingly beautiful green forest, offering a pristine walkway to and from town that characters continually use, where each successive trip into the darkened interior touches on a mounting state of dread, as one continually wonders what may be lurking nearby, where the director offers offscreen sounds and a camera vantage point that apparently offers the sightline of the escaped convict, turning this into a Hansel and Gretel story of two young lovers that get lost in the woods. Jacob Matschenz is Johannes, a somewhat inattentive orderly at the local hospital, supposedly studying to become a doctor, who may have inadvertantly left open a door allowing the escape of a demented murderer and sex offender, where the continual police presence throughout of sirens wailing, helicopters combing the vicinity, and officers on the street confirm he’s still on the loose. Nonetheless, Johannes pays little attention to this escalating crisis developing right outside his window at a nurse hostel, offering him a superb view of the enveloping forest nearby. Instead, he daydreams about the hospital director’s daughter, Sara (Vijessna Ferkic), while becoming infatuated with another young girl, Ana, Luna Mijovic, recently seen in Breathing (Atmen), that he voyeuristically sees having oral sex with the leader of a biker gang at a nearby lake where Johannes has gone innocently enough for a naked swim, carefully concealing himself while she’s left behind after a demeaning and humiliating experience when the biker shows the rest of the gang a video of them having sex, where she angrily tosses his iphone into the lake. After initially rejecting his offer of help, she’s subjected to a brief attack by the escaped patient in the woods before Johannes intervenes, becoming inseparable afterwards, as if fate had brought them together.

The two spend the rest of the film in the throes of love, where they spend nearly every waking moment together, often seen in bed or playfully hanging out in his room, where Ana can continually be seen walking back and forth through the woods on her way into town where she works as a housekeeper in the local hotel. This pattern of continually tempting fate is the underlying suspense of the film, accentuated by hyper-expressive chords of pulsating musical hysteria, as the two routinely ignore the ominous presence of an unseen danger lurking nearby, instead lost in their own little world where nothing else matters. Occasionally brief flare ups occur between the young lovers, where quick tempers and adolescent naiveté seem to account for their momentary blind spots, both exhibiting short attention spans. Accordingly, Johannes can occasionally be seen falling asleep at work while charged with watching the security video monitors, showing yet another voyeuristic side to his personality, often becoming obsessed with what he sees on the monitor, where Ana may be waiting outside for him. Initially, he was excited by her presence, running off to see her, but over time her presence becomes an unanticipated added weight. But it’s at an upscale party at a local resort where the relationship is truly tested, where this on-again, off-again mating ritual inexplicably takes on a hideous dimension, where the motives of both Johannes and Ana undergo a thorough transformation, where their previously inseparable paths diverge into uncommon territory, like split personalities, both becoming unrecognizable to the audience, mysteriously spiralling out of control in a dreamlike finale, leaving the audience emotionally adrift in a suspended state of paralysis. Petzold may spend an inordinate amount of time in his films establishing a meticulous rhythm of ordinary detail, but he also has a way of shifting our attention on a dime into a netherworld where it’s near impossible to distinguish between what’s real and what’s not.

Swiss Mix: Eclectic Highlights from the 2011 Locarno Film Festival » Leo Goldsmith from Fandor, August 18, 2011

But by far the best thing the festival had to offer was Dreileben, a triptych of features about small-town crime and punishment by “Berlin school” filmmakers Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf, and Christoph Hochhäusler that initiated after a 2006 correspondence about genre and German cinema in Hochhäusler’s celebrated film magazine Revolver. (This must-read exchange was translated to English by Christoph Terhechte for the Berlinale, where the films premiered; you can read it here. Centered on the same sets of events — a murder, a manhunt, and a lot of buried history — the three films form a kind of East German Twin Peaks, and while each is a ninety-minute feature encompassing a wide range of styles and tones (slasher film, droll satire, hallucinatory psychodrama), there’s hardly a wasted shot in the nearly five-hour running time.

Film|Neu - germany • austria • switzerland - Films - Dreileben Part 1 ... Eddie Cockrell from the Goethe Institute

Though Dreileben is conceived as an experiment in linked narrative, each film can be enjoyed independently of the others; nevertheless, as with Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy of Blue, White and Red, their interlocking structures and overlapping character references reward sequential—and attentive—viewing.

In the thick Thuringian woods surrounding a picture postcard German town, sex offender and convicted murderer Frank Molesch (Stefan Kurt) eludes the authorities. Meanwhile, rudderless hospital orderly Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) initiates a hesitant relationship with unhappy Bosnian chambermaid Ana (Luna Zimic Miljovic). So absorbed are they in the intricate minutiae of love that the manhunt swirling around them goes entirely unnoticed. This is consistent with director Christian Petzold’s overarching interest in the delicate balance between life and death, and the resulting sense of foreboding and dread is Hitchcockian in its cumulative intensity.

Dreileben 1: Beats Being Dead Review. Movie Reviews ... - Time Out Tom Huddleston, entire Trilogy

German television takes a leaf out of Channel 4’s book with this ‘Red Riding’-style three-parter, as three directors with distinctive styles tell interlinking stories all set in the same fictional Bavarian mountain town. While each of the individual 90-minute films is unmistakeably flawed, taken together they add up to an impressive overview of German small-town life in the early twentieth century, exploring ideas of class, culture, legality and love. Christian Petzold’s opening instalment ‘Beats Being Dead’ is the least straightforward of the three, a fantastical, at times slightly directionless love story between a medical student and a Bosnian chamber maid which gradually builds into an impressively controlled and unsettling study of how social stratification destroys those on the lowest rungs. Dominik Graf’s ‘Don’t Follow Me Around’, meanwhile, is a terse police procedural fused with an intimate bourgeois psychodrama, as a forensic psychiatrist travels to the town to track down an escaped mental patient and is forced to confront the ghosts of her romantic past. Finally, Christopher Hochhaüsler’s ‘One Minute of Darkness’ is a deceptively straightforward chase thriller following the aforementioned escapee as he attempts to evade capture in the ancient, haunted woods surrounding the town, all the while wrestling with his own inner demons.

User reviews from imdb Author: Sindre Kaspersen from Norway

The first part of "Dreileben", a loose trilogy based on a fictitious story about a murderer called Frank Molesch who escapes from a hospital in the rural village Dreileben in The Free State of Thuringia, is succeeded by "Don't Follow Me Around" (2011) and "One Minute Of Darkness" (2011). It was written and directed by German filmmaker Christian Petzold and tells the story about Johannes, a young and energetic hospital worker, and Ana, a vulnerable and free-spirited woman who works at a hotel and lives with her mother and her younger brother. Johannes and Ana meets and falls in love during a summer in Dreileben when the police is chasing an escaped murderer, but Ana's increasing devotion decreases their evolving relationship.

Christian Petzold's stylistic, perceptive and engaging directing is distinct in this slow-paced and character-driven mystery which is finely acted by German actor Jacob Matschenz and Bosnian actress Luna Mijovic as the promising young lovers Johannes and Ana. The brilliant use of sound and the visually noticeable photography by German cinematographer Hans Fromm reinforces the predominant and impending atmosphere in this romantic psychological thriller which is the most rigorously structured and minimalistic part of the Dreileben trilogy.

tiff.net - 2011 Films - Dreileben Andréa Picard

A trio of interlocking films rather than a standard trilogy or omnibus, Dreileben is an invigorating experiment in narrative construction by three of Germany’s leading filmmakers. Christian Petzold (whose Jerichow screened at the Festival in 2008), Dominik Graf and Christoph Hochhäusler began an impassioned e-mail exchange prompted by the German film magazine Revolver. That conversation — on the implications of film style and genre, aesthetic possibility and the so-called Berlin School, a loose movement of contemporary German auteurs — led to the creation of one the most exciting collaborative film projects in recent times, in which attentive viewing yields surprising pleasures and chills aplenty.

The premise of Dreileben (literally “three lives”) stems from an incident in which a convicted murderer and sex offender escaped from a hospital, setting off a manhunt. Each director chose a different angle from which to tell the story, and did so in their respective signature style. The result is an idiosyncratic yet modestly masterful cubist puzzle in which points of view continuously shift focus, and a transmuted storyline engages the audience’s imagination and sense of visual recall. The films cumulatively reveal parallel worlds, moving from Petzold’s cool, Hitchcockian romantic thriller (Beats Being Dead); to Graf’s novelistic criminal investigation (Don’t Follow Me Around); to Hochhäusler’s dual psychological character study that veers toward a Thuringian fairytale. A feverish tension builds over the five-hour whole as characters intersect and suspicions are overturned.

Although made by filmmaker/critics, Dreileben checks its theory at the door to give us the year’s most refreshing, playful and clever instances of inter-narrative filmmaking.

Subtitledonline.com [Rob Markham]

Christian Petzold's Dreileben Part 1: Beats Being Dead depicts a modern small-town world in all its ennui and greyness and stagnant social order. Events unfold in the midst of a dramatic, yet indifferent, landscape.

The film's title translated means "three lives", and is the name of a small town in the Thuringia forest in former East Germany, which provides the location for this trilogy of films made by three different directors in disparate styles. The police investigation for an escaped mental patient and sex offender in the area ties the stories loosely together.

Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) is an intern in the local hospital. He works at the weekends, the head physician's daughter is his ex-girlfriend and in his room at the nurses' home, he has postcards from America. Johannes takes a swim in the lake, then falls asleep naked in the grass. When he wakes up, it is night and a group of youngsters on motorcycles are arguing, leaving a girl behind half naked. This is how Johannes meets Ana (Luna Mijov), who is a refugee from Bosnia and works as a chambermaid in the local hotel. There is also another man in the forest that night.

In the same spirit as Jerichow (2008), Yella (2007) and Ghosts (2005), Petzold exposes the social machinations behind the seemingly simple love stories. He follows the protagonists to their jobs and beyond. Surveillance camera images are important tools in Petzold's storytelling. The maids come to work dressed in yellow, through the back gate. The intern at the hospital has to undress and collect the laundry from a disturbed homeless woman. A party at the golf club is where Ana wants to go, dressed in red, she burns her competition.

Walks in the forest, where the escaped sex offender might be lurking and police with dogs are ever present. Some of the motifs are obvious, such as the the use of the song Cry Me A River, while some scenes only expose their relevance after seeing all three parts of the trilogy. It's not as straight forward a police investigation as in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's elegiac Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011).

Ana, who lives with her mother and little brother in a small apartment and seems to be the only one supporting the family financially, connects Johannes with the guests at the hotel. "You all drink tea," she says, "the guests drink tea all day, like idiots." There are some visual references to Krzysztof Kieslowski, master of the Three Colours trilogy. A poster for "Coffee To Go" with a girl blowing a kiss mirrors the billboard in Red (1994).

Johannes wants to go to medical school in Los Angeles, Ana wants to come with him and quits her job right away. Johannes apologises non-stop. Caught between two women, will he move socially up, or down?

LA turns out to be a fantasy that aims to impress, Johannes imagines himself coming back, dressed in white. Unlike Audrey Hepburn in Billy Wilder's Sabrina (1954), it is difficult to root for him.

NYFF Spotlight Nicholas Kemp from the Film Society of Lincoln Center, entire Trilogy, September 14, 2011

"Over the last few years we’ve done a number of screenings of works that were originally designed for television: the Red Riding Trilogy a few years ago, Carlos and Mysteries of Lisbon last year. Dreileben is a three-part series of films with three completely different directors, but they’re all about the same incident. They’re about a murder that takes place in a small town in Germany and each film looks at the murder from a different point of view—one from the point of view of other townspeople, one from the police investigating it, and one from the murderer himself. There’s a little bit of overlap in all of them, but really we are looking at one incident from three different points of view, three different directors, three different cinematic styles. It’s a fascinating project that was unveiled at Berlin this year; Scott Foundas, Dennis Lim and I all saw it and were quite impressed by it and so we are delighted to have it here in the festival." —Richard Peña, Program Director

Dreileben’s three directors are among the shining stars of the "Berlin School" of modern German cinema. The most familiar of the bunch, Christian Petzold’s recent credits include: Jerichow (2008), which was nominated for a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival; Yella (2007), which was nominated for a Golden Berlin Bear at Berlinale and won prizes for editor Bettina Böhler and actress Nina Hoss; and Gespenster (2005), another Golden Berlin Bear nominee. Dominik Graf is a prolific and award-winning director of German film and television programming whose 2002 feature A Map of the Heart also received a Golden Berlin Bear nomination. Christoph Hochhäusler is a well-known German critic whose recent work as a filmmaker has earned him increasing acclaim.

Phil Coldiron for Slant Magazine: “Happily, I can report that Dreileben, a triptych film made of parts by Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf, and Christoph Hochhausler, takes this fragmented approach and makes something genuinely worth being called Faulknerian with it. The result of a conversation among the three on the state of German cinema, the film sets off from a central event—the escape of a convicted murderer, Molesche (an alternately blank and delirious Stefan Kurt), while visiting the body of his dead foster mother at a nursing home—and tells three tenuously connected stories that in concert present a brutal vision of a world on a wire.”

Above all else, Dreileben is an engrossing and intensely watchable experiment in cinematic storytelling. Born of a correspondence between three key directors of the so-called “Berlin School” of German cinema, this trio of interlocking films revolves around a single event, the escape of a murderer and sex offender from a hospital in a small town in central Germany. In genre, style and tone, however, the three films could hardly be more distinct.

Christian Petzold’s Beats Being Dead (Etwas Besseres als den Tod) is a tragedy of young love between an orderly at the hospital with a promising future ahead of him and a down-and-out, and somewhat unstable, Bosnian refugee who works as a housekeeper at a nearby hotel. The manhunt that unites the three films is mostly relegated to the background as Petzold explores the romantic angst caused by the divergence in the young lovers’ weltanschauungs, only to rear its ugly head in a series of terrifying scenes at the film’s end.

Dominik Graf’s Don’t Follow Me Around (Komm mir nicht nach) brings the audience closer to the main event by following a big-city police psychologist brought in to help with the search for the escaped convict. However, we are quickly diverted again by her discovery of systematic police corruption in the area and her reunion with an old friend, with whom she is staying while in town. Over quite a few glasses of red wine, the two friends discover that they once dated the same man at the same time without knowing it, a revelation with distinct and important implications for each woman.

In Christoph Hochhäusler’s riveting thriller One Minute of Darkness (Eine Minute Dunkel), the audience is finally brought into the point of view of the escaped felon himself, as well as that of the gruff police inspector in charge of recapturing him. While the felon creates a surprisingly tender bond with a young runaway he meets in hiding, the inspector begins to question his guilt after studying the original case that landed him behind bars. Laced with visual callbacks to the first two films and a nail-biting concluding sequence, Dreileben’s final chapter delivers ample payoff on the audience’s investment in the series.

Dreileben: Film Review - The Hollywood Reporter Neil Young, entire Trilogy

BERLIN — One of the most talked-about world-premieresat this year's Berlinale, Dreileben was also one of the longest: a triple-bill of 90-minute German TV-movies running a total of five-and-a-half hours (with intermissions). Named after a fictional rural area in the east of the country where each of the films takes place, the project arose from e-mail discussions between a trio of respected German writer-directors, Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf and Christoph Hochhäusler.

The result (to be aired on German TV this fall) is three separate though linked takes on the same manhunt story, ideally suited to small-screen exposure over successive nights, either broadcast or via a DVD box-set. Though unusual and ambitious in conception and execution, Dreileben is by no means without precedent. The most recent parallels include Lucas Belvaux's Belgian Trilogy (2002), Channel 4 UK's Red Riding (2009), and Lars Von Trier's ongoing Advance Party experiment (which has so far yielded Andrea Arnold's Red Road and Morag McKinnon's Donkeys).

While decidedly uneven — Graf's Don't Follow Me Around (the only one shot on film) is the weakest, Hochhäusler's excellent One Minute of Darkness by some way the most accomplished — overall Dreileben (literally "three lives") emerges as more than the sum of its parts. Adventurous festivals may emulate the Berlinale and screen the films in one marathon sitting; alternatively, programmers might prefer to scatter them across their schedules.

Arguably the most influential of post-Reunification German film-makers, 50-year-old Petzold (The State I Am In; Yella; Jerichow) is also the most internationally renowned Dreileben auteur. His DV-shot contribution Beats Being Dead (Etwas Besseres als den Tod).a twisty, fairtytale-inflected study of teenage love, is a little disappointing by his own high standards. But in its quizzically Hitchcockian exploration of psychological/emotional complexities within a genre format, it's unmistakably a Petzold movie.

Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) is a happy-go-lucky teen working as an intern at a quiet countryside clinic and involved in an on-off courtship with Sarah (Vijessna Ferkic), pretty daughter of the institution's chief surgeon (Rainer Bock). But when he meets Bosnian refugee Ana (Luna Mijovic) a more fiery romance quickly develops against the backdrop of a police-search for convicted murderer Molesch (Stefan Kurt). Molesch escaped - with the hapless Johannes' inadvertent assistance - while "visiting" with his deceased mother at the hospital's mortuary.

All isn't what it seems, however — a recurring theme across Dreileben is the unreliability of appearances — and Johannes' behavior provides unexpected (and unwelcome) surprises for Ana and audience alike. Indeed, the protagonist's characterization is the main problem with Beats Being Dead, third-act developments fitting awkwardly with what's gone before. The finale nevertheless packs a punch with a skillfully-choreographed jolt, followed by a caustically ironic coda that showcases Petzold's flair with classic songs (Julie London's Cry Me A River).

Eight years Petzold's senior, Graf is a respected figure among his German peers. His varied résumé comprises TV-movies and serials, and occasional features (A Map of the Heart). Feeling very "small-screen" in its look and approach, his Don't Follow Me Around (Komm mir nicht nach) is jarringly different in tone from the other two Dreileben movies, which are more downbeat and focused.

Here, the manhunt serves as pretext to take criminal-psychologist Jo (Jeanette Hain) away from home and stay with long-time best friend Vera (Susanne Wolff), who resides near Johannes' workplace. Scriptwriters Graf and Markus Busch alternate between policier material — as Jo, helped/hindered by corrupt local cops, ingeniously tracks down her man — and talky domestic passages where Jo and Vera reminisce about a boyfriend they unwittingly "shared" years before. Wine-fueled conversations are played out at unrewarding length; the manhunt scenes, conversely, are excessively brisk and choppy. The (implausibly easy) capture of Molesch is presented almost as an afterthought, via narrated stills.

Graf struggles to integrate a streak of off-beat humor within essentially serious material. The story-strands only occasionally and arbitrarily come together, as if the Jo/Vera business was being shoehorned into the darker template established by the other two movies. Indeed, the most effective elements are perky book-ending sequences featuring Jo's young daughter Lucinda (Malou), an adorable moppet who steals her every scene.

There's also a key child-performer in Hochhäusler's One Minute of Darkness: Paraschiva Dragus, who plays the little girl who befriends Molesch during his time on the run. Briefly glimpsed in Beats Being Dead and Don't Follow Me Around,the escaped convict moves front-and-center here.

In the first two Dreileben movies, Molesch comes across as a psychotic boogeyman. As Hochhäusler and co-scriptwriter Peer Klehmet reveal, however, Molesch is really more hunted than hunter: lost in Dreileben's forests — where he encounters a fellow "runaway" Cleo (Dragus) in scenes reminiscent of James Whale's Frankenstein — suffering from educational subnormality, emotional trauma and mental illness.

He might even be innocent of the murder of which he'd been convicted some five years before, as this verdict depended on circumstantial evidence involving a closed-circuit video-camera (a gap during one crucial recording provides Hochhäusler with his evocative title.) The resulting update of Hitchcock's favorite "transference of guilt" theme is given extra dimension as we follow veteran cop Marcus (Eberhard Kirchberg), deploying unorthodox methods to belatedly unearth the facts.

Slow-burning One Minute of Darkness (Eine Minute Dunkel) is chiefly concerned with atmospheric investigations of place and the probing of a disturbed personality. Punctuated with moments of droll humour and touching poignancy, the film weaves its alluring, surprisingly suspenseful spell with assistance from a rumbling, bass-heavy score and pin-sharp digital cinematography courtesy of Germany's most reliably excellent DP, Reinhold Vorschneider (In the Shadows).

A sometime film-critic, 38-year-old Hochhäusler (The City Below) has quickly emerged as one of his nation's most promising younger directors. One Minute of Darkness amply confirms and consolidates that reputation, wrapping up the slightly cumbersome Dreileben on a triumphant and haunting note. Indeed, the closing seconds are perhaps the finest in the whole project — beautiful, chilling and tragically ironic.

Worlds of Possibilities: Christian Petzold, Dominik ... - Cinema Scope Dennis Lim, September 2011

After a decade-long procession of HBO critical darlings, in the wake of Olivier Assayas’ Carlos and now Todd Haynes’ Mildred Pierce, received wisdom holds that television—or more precisely, its funding structures and serial configurations—represents our best hope for narrative filmmaking. Such pronouncements tend to assert the benefits of duration and scope, the breathing room, and the level of detail that bigger canvases allow. But the greatness of the three-part, three-director Dreileben is not, or not simply, a matter of scale.

Like the Red Riding Trilogy (2009), Dreileben consists of three self-contained but interlinked films, each by a different filmmaker (Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf, Christoph Hochhäusler), all dealing with related crimes in the same location. But while the Red Riding films span a decade, Dreileben circles around a single time and place, locating different entry points (which turn out really to be points of departure) and refracting the nominally central incident through different perspectives (which often means marginalizing it). Each installment tells what the filmmakers call a “horizontal” story—impelled by the forward motion of a romance, an investigation, a manhunt—but the point of Dreileben is to stack them on a vertical axis. While Red Riding enforces a unity of mood, each Dreileben film, despite existing within the same clearly delineated physical world, suggests a subtly different universe from the others. Which comes as no surprise given how it originated: not through omnibus-film gimmickry or convenience but in the course of an actual exchange of ideas.

The starting point was an e-mail correspondence among the three filmmakers, published in Revolver magazine in 2007, on the state of German cinema that revealed mutual concerns and sharp disagreements. Graf was born in 1952, Petzold in 1960, Hochhäusler in 1972, and each has a distinct relationship to the now decade-old “new German cinema” that has come to be imprecisely known as the Berlin School. Graf, a respected senior figure and a stalwart of German television, predates the Berlin School’s emergence, and has criticized what he sees as the reticence and passivity of many of the films. Petzold is often identified as one of the movement’s de facto founders, part of the pioneering wave that studied at the dffb in the ’80s and ’90s. Hochhäusler belongs (with Benjamin Heisenberg and Ulrich Köhler) to the Revolver-aligned second generation, whose careers have progressed and diverged in ways that reflect the constant sense of flux, born of habitual self-examination, that defines this loose group.

It is perhaps to be expected, given all the former and part-time critics and academics in its midst, that the evolution of the Berlin School—and it has evolved, in more tangible and interesting ways than most so-called movements—rests on an interplay between theory and practice, a compulsion among its affiliates both to discuss and to demonstrate what it means to make films in and about Germany today. If the Berlin School’s house style—cool, precise, observational—was positioned as a reaction to mainstream storytelling conventions, the recent move toward genre experimentation, with an embrace of more robust narratives and more expansive emotions, seems partly a reaction to the marginalization of the early films. (Dreileben begs to be seen in the light not just of the Revolver correspondence, which weighs the possibilities and traps of genre cinema vs. auteur cinema, but also of Heisenberg’s The Robber and Thomas Arslan’s In the Shadows, two exemplary genre reworking and high points of last year’s Berlinale.)

One of Graf’s main charges is that the minimalism of the Berlin School, “instead of expanding narrative possibilities,” represents “a narrowing of gaze.” Expansion is inherent to the structure of Dreileben, which fans out from the tabloidish scenario of a convicted killer and sex offender who escapes while paying his last respects to his mother in a hospital. Petzold deals with the victim-to-be, Graf with one of the investigators, and Hochhäusler with the killer himself. As genre narratives, each comes freighted with expectations, as does the setting. While many Berlin School movies have taken place in the border zones and liminal spaces of contemporary Germany, Dreileben unfolds in Thuringia, the mythic, heavily forested region known as the nation’s “green heart.” (The verdant, imposing landscapes come across most vividly in Petzold’s film; folklore is most directly referenced in Hochhäusler’s, which invokes witch hunts, haunted caves, and the legend of the slumbering emperor Barbarossa.)

Petzold’s Beats Being Dead is as taut as it is volatile, a fever-dream compound of romantic tragedy and slasher noir that focuses on two young people who cross paths with the killer: Johannes (Jacob Matschenz), a pre-med student working as a nurse to fulfill his national-service obligations, and Ana (Luna Mijovic), a chambermaid and Bosnian emigré. As in Jerichow (2008) and Yella (2007), Petzold inscribes cold, hard truths of class and money into almost every scene, fusing erotic tensions with socioeconomic ones—a flirtatious moment sours with a suspicion of stolen cash; the climactic betrayal happens at a country-club shindig. The film is yet another of Petzold’s ghost stories set among the living dead, but if that has often meant a measured detachment, the mood here is deeply mysterious, at once playful and irrational.

Beats Being Dead has the flavour of myth and the power of a trance. Petzold underscores his fairy-tale inspiration—Undine, the tale of the water nymph who yearns to join the human race—by having Ana and Johannes begin their love story by a lake, in the nude. There is a comic edge, a kind of screwball syncopation, to their push-pull courtship—one of them is forever walking away, chasing after the other, or apologizing. Music is crucial to the film’s tone of ominous romanticism. In contrast to the minimal, ambient scores of Petzold’s previous films, he envelops the action here in a Bernard Herrmann-esque cocoon (a leitmotif-heavy swoon by Stefan Will), and makes inspired use of Julie London’s “Cry Me a River” as the siren song that casts the spell—and, in the enigmatic, pitch-perfect final scene, breaks it.

Graf’s contribution builds directly on his Revolver remarks, where he complained of the Berlin School’s “distrust of communication, of language.” Don’t Follow Me Around is a screenwriter’s movie, in the best sense: talky and witty, packed with revealing tangents and glancing micro-observations. Shot by Michael Wiesweg in soft-toned Super 16—a striking contrast to the crisp, controlled visuals of the other two entries—Graf’s film makes a virtue of skittishness. The distractable camera snoops, wanders, lingers on odd details, and the narrative likewise keeps shifting its attention.

The protagonist, Jo (Jeanette Hain), is a police psychologist, called in to investigate the escaped killer. But the real point of her trip is an internal affairs investigation into local corruption. The core of the story, in any case, turns out to be Jo’s reunion with Vera (Susanne Wolff), the old friend she stays with—and an unexpected conduit to an ex-flame. Both women find out that years ago in Munich they were in love with the same man at the same time, unaware of each other’s existence. Jo and Vera’s relationship—which gets more complicated as the women compare notes while withholding information—reinforces Dreileben’s larger context: a world of imperfect knowledge.

In A Minute of Darkness, Hochhäusler turns back to the primary narrative, which he propels to a genre payoff and imbues with philosophical richness. A brooding dual character study, it follows the killer (Stefan Kurt) in his interlude of freedom (overwhelmed by the natural world, rendered with tactile immediacy by Reinhold Vorschneider) and the grizzled policeman (Eberhard Kirchberg) who revisits the original case, haunted by the missing minute in the surveillance footage of the crime. Hochhäusler has said that the early inspiration was Petzold’s misremembered summary of Schiller’s novel The Dishonorable Reclaimed, which he had inaccurately described as the story of “a man who became a murderer only because he was hounded,” but the premise also recalls Hochhäusler’s own Low Profile (2005).

The taunting lacuna at the centre of A Minute of Darkness, the most self-reflexive aspect of Dreileben, speaks to the impossibility of certainty in the absence of observable evidence, the danger of imposing stories onto what we cannot know for sure. This conundrum is, of course, intimately linked to the de-dramatized cinema of the Berlin School: the fear of narrative as, to quote Hochhäusler, something that “contaminates the picture,” a lie, and what’s more, a lie that could become the truth.

Coming at a single starting point from multiple angles, Dreileben takes what might be called a cubist approach to storytelling, reinforcing a basic fact of human coexistence, that shared experiences reverberate in different ways. But as an epistemological exercise, which such Rashomonic endeavours tend to be, it has an obvious advantage over, say, Lucas Belvaux’s La Trilogie (2002)—with three filmmakers working in concert but also autonomously, subjectivity is built into the project. In toto, the Dreileben films offer many of the pleasures of the puzzle movie: stories intersect and characters move between foreground and background; ellipses are filled in and questions answered, one segment providing a (sometimes literal) reverse angle on another. These are satisfactions that tapestry movies, with their criss-crossing plots and chance encounters, supposedly provide. But Dreileben avoids the sins of Babel (2006) and its like: the smug omniscience, the thesis-driven diagramming, the dutiful slog of connecting the dots and filling in the blanks. Instead, each installment enriches and complicates the others. These stories do not add up so much as tunnel outward. To put it another way, Dreileben represents a termite solution to a white-elephant problem. Taken together, the movies attest to the limits of knowledge and the potential of imaginative empathy. The self-contained modesty of each film belies the immensity of the project: Dreileben conjures not just three lives but worlds of possibilities.

CineVue [Daniel Green]

The House Next Door [Kenji Fujishima] entire Trilogy

Dreileben | Reverse Shot Leo Goldsmith, entire Trilogy

NYFF 2011. Three Directors, Three Films, One Town and One Crim NYFF 2011. Three Directors, Three Films, One Town and One Criminal: “Dreileben” by Daniel Kasman reviews the entire Trilogy from Mubi, September 29, 2011

Dreileben Michael J. Anderson and Lisa K. Broad review the entire Trilogy from Tativille, September 25, 2011

Christopher Bell The indieWIRE Playlist, entire Trilogy, October 1, 2011

Dreileben trilogy (2011) – Brandon's movie memory

More VIFF vitality, fancy and plain David Bordwell from Observations on Film Art, October 16, 2011

Vadim Rizov The L Magazine, entire Trilogy, September 30, 2011

London Film Festival 2011 Diary Special: Dreileben | Front Row ... Sam Inglis, entire Trilogy

@ Moria - The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review [Richard Scheib] entire Trilogy

Electric Sheep Magazine [Pamela Jahn] entire Trilogy

R Emmet Sweeney Movie Morlocks, entire Trilogy

NYFF 2011. Petzold, Graf and Hochhäusler's "Dreileben" on Notebook ... David Hudson offers the links from Mubi Notebook

15th EU Film Festival: THE DREILEBEN TRILOGY Kevin B. Lee, entire Trilogy

Dreileben | Filmlinc.com | Film Society of Lincoln Center entire Trilogy

Dreileben - Harvard Film Archive entire Trilogy

Kevin B Lee Fandor, entire Trilogy

Filmleaf [Chris Knipp] entire Trilogy

User reviews from imdb Author: Aamir Ahmad (kgpianasimov) from Portugal

User reviews from imdb Author: JvH48 from Netherlands

Variety [Boyd Van Hoeij]

Review: Dreileben - Reviews Peter Keough, entire Trilogy, from The Boston Phoenix

read it here This must-read exchange was translated to English by Christoph Terhechte for the Berlinale, where the films premiered (pdf)

DREILEBEN TRILOGY II C- 69

DON’T FOLLOW ME AROUND (Dreileben – Komm mir nicht nach) – made for TV

Germany (88 mi) 2012 d: Dominik Graf

This film makes the biggest departure from the original concept, which was to experiment freely with the use of genre films, claiming this aspect was missing altogether in German films, but there’s little evidence of it here in this second segment of The Dreileben Trilogy, all part of a series of interconnected films, each taking place in the same location and linked by a familiar event, the escape of a deranged killer. Dominik Graf is not a name widely known overseas, as he is a professor for feature film directing at the International Film School in Cologne, but his success has largely come in the German television industry. Graf’s claim is that the Berlin School prefers visual style to narrative and well written screenplays, an example of which is noted German cinematographer Uta Briesewitz whose Berlin School aesthetic helped shape the look of the first three seasons of the American television show The Wire, claiming the film school actually downplays the role of language in cinema and overlooks the possibilities of characters communicating with one another onscreen. Accordingly, this is a decisively different tone than the other two episodes of the Trilogy, a chatty, dialogue driven film, where almost all the action is advanced not by what the audience sees, but hears through various conversations. What this really turns out to be is an attempted critique of the bourgeoisie, in particular the professional class, where if it was meant to be a comic satire, it falls flat. What this is most reminiscent of is Fassbinder’s THE THIRD GENERATION (1979), a savage satire on the comic ineptitude of the radical left, people who name drop talk of revolution, including the right books, quoting the right phrases, going to all the important meetings and demonstrations, where the middle class actually turns radical action into a convenient lifestyle choice. What was once spirited street defiance, confronting the government and the police through mass disobedience, has turned into a comfortable bourgeois lifestyle without any real ideology except self-centered indulgence.

Jeanette Hain plays Jo, a criminal psychology specialist who is called into the town of Dreileben to offer her expertise to the police in helping catch an escaped killer. She is provided a working team to assist her round the clock, but mostly they do nothing more than sit and toss ideas around from 9 to 5 before heading off for lunch, where food is really what’s at the top of a policeman’s agenda, continually introducing her to new places that serve heaping portions on a plate, offering their rave reviews of noted German delicacies. Jo has only a single surviving victim to interview who can help identify the killer, and her remembrance is not very helpful, as what she describes is more animal than human, so this does not exactly consume her time. Instead, because of a foul up at the hotel where she planned to stay, she instead pays a visit to a best friend, Vera (Susanne Wolff) and her pseudo writer of a husband Bruno (Misel Maticevic), both living in a historical home that was used by various East German radical organizations at one time or another, where Bruno loves to point out their former meeting rooms. They spend the majority of their time rehashing old times over several bottles of wine every night, which turns out to be little more than gossip sessions. The director struggles to incorporate humor into what is essentially a serious story, so if these intimate conversations were meant to be comic, they’re not, and they’re overlong, minimizing the importance of the criminal at large while they instead share stories about a boyfriend they unwittingly had in common. Bruno is reduced to little more than an innocent bystander. The film all but forgets the premise of her visit and instead explores the parameters of Jo and Vera’s long term friendship, whether it can withstand some bracing truths about what happened years ago, as they intently delve into each other’s past history, an attempt to stress an otherwise overlooked factor throughout the Trilogy.

There’s an interesting contrast between the cop scenes, now introducing a slightly deranged cop and a corruption-within-the-force angle, where their attempts to track down the killer are reduced to brief episodes of non activity, mostly people just standing around, while instead all the focus and attention is on long, drawn out scenes of after-work drinking and socializing. Unless you knew ahead of time that there was a deranged escaped convict on the loose, you’d barely know this was part of the story, though there is a freeze frame photo-op. If Graf is supposed to be a screenwriter aficionado, his characters never have an intelligent word to say throughout, making this a tepid and uninteresting experience of the worst kind, as there’s only sketchy character development featuring mediocre acting, lengthy wine-fueled conversations, few police updates, no action to speak of, and literally nothing for the audience to grab hold of. What this film has to say about professionals is more about their jaded and slightly askew perceptions of themselves, where they are continually seen as petty and insecure, constantly asking for personal reinforcement to help boost their sagging self-esteem. After all, they’re supposed to be catching a killer on the loose. Jo’s suggestion on how to catch him not only seems ludicrous but downright criminal in itself, where any department that actually carried out this plan would subject themselves to personal lawsuits for damages in the multi-millions of dollars for placing an innocent civilian in harm’s way. This feels like television scriptwriting, as it has no place in the real world, which is more interested in convictions that will stick. Of vague interest, this is the only episode in the Trilogy actually shot on 16 mm film, but you can hardly tell, as this segment, largely shot indoors, makes the least effective use of the actual locations in an area known as Thuringia, which was part of East Germany, known for its historical and legendary past, and while this is the 2^nd episode in the Trilogy, chronology-wise this is the final episode.

User reviews from imdb Author: Sindre Kaspersen from Norway

The second part of the "Dreileben" trilogy was directed by German screenwriter and director Dominik Graf who co-wrote the screenplay with Markus Busch. It tells the story about psychologist Jo, a single mum who lives with her parents in Erfurt. Jo has been hired to assist the local police in Dreileben with their ongoing investigation of escaped murderer Frank Molesch. When Jo arrives in Dreileben she is invited to stay with her old friend Vera and her husband Bruno who are renovating their house. As Jo and Vera begins to reminiscence their youth, they discover that they once had a common romantic interest. This sudden revelation creates doubt and changes their relationship.

This slow-paced and dialog-driven mystery drama focuses on the relations and the dynamics between the three central characters, draws ardent and extensive milieu depictions and is more of an intimate and psychological drama than a thriller. The atmosphere is as significant as in the first and the last part of the trilogy and the acting performances by German actresses Jeanette Hein, Susanne Wolff and German actor Misel Maticevic is prominent. The second part of the Dreileben trilogy provides the most detailed milieu depictions and is a finely directed study of character about a woman who whilst investigating a murder case becomes more interested in examining her own personal feelings.

Subtitledonline.com [Rob Markham]

Part 2 in the Dreileben trilogy, Don't Follow Me Around, is the story of Johanna (Jeanette Hain), a police psychologist, who is sent to the small town in Thuringia, where a dangerous mental patient is on the loose. Her assignment is two-fold, she is to assist the local police, as well as investigate them for corruption under cover.

Director and co-screenwriter Dominick Graf is very good at having a lot going on at once. The private past plot, the police corruption plot, the escaped patient plot and a marriage on the rocks plot all intertwine and yet, they all make sense and move each other forward.

There are more unhealthy breakfasts, police lunches, ice-cream stop overs, thrown out sandwiches and drunken dinners in this one, than there are in all the other New York Film Festival films combined.

At the start, Johanna drops off her little daughter with the grandparents, played by Rüdiger Vogler and Lisa Kreuzer. Vogler and Kreuzer, who were the stars in Wim Wenders' 1974 road movie Alice In The Cities, stay put this time with the kid, and provide some background. The grandmother, who smokes at breakfast, knows whom to blame. "The doctor wants me to smoke five cigarettes." The grandfather explains to the little girl that her mother is going to the legendary place, where Kaiser Barbarossa is sleeping under the Kyffhäuser mountain with his knights in a cave. When there are no longer any ravens flying, he will awake and restore Germany to greatness. For those who have seen part one of the trilogy (Beats Being Dead), the escaped mental patient in the forest may come to mind. Operation Barbarossa was also Hitler's code name for the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

When Johanna arrives in the area, there is a mistake with the hotel booking, so she ends up calling and staying with her old university friend Vera (Susanne Wolff), who moved to Thuringia with her novelist husband Bruno (Misel Maticevic) and is in the middle of renovating their interesting old house, the former culture centre of the town during GDR times.

The two women reminisce, over many bottles of wine, about their college days and discover, now, so many years later, that they had the same boyfriend, once upon a time.

The colleagues from the local police feel insulted to have a woman from the city come to help them. A local pub is, ironically, called Glasnost. At the county fair, Johanna picks out a red-haired woman as bait for the wanted man, whose life will unfold further in part three (One Minute Of Darkness).

Someone is convinced that what was shot was an animal and had hooves. Think David Lynch. "He changed into a deer", makes as much sense as the "Barbarossa hunter", an unfortunate tourist at the hotel who tries to find traces of the famous Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I. Water damage, a tricky badger, the blood of a dog, the father of a child, all equally important with strings nimbly tied together at the end. The fantastic interrupts the profane.

An ambitious project: three different directors, one central location, one core plot element, three feature length films. Discreet films yet this is a television project, a medium where scope does not preclude detail, and vice versa. Perhaps Dreileben is the best of both worlds, as it really is unfair to talk about how stellar an episode of serial television is, when that episode is contigent on surrounding entries. Each film in this trilogy—directed by Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf and Christoph Hochhäusler—can and does stand by itself, mysteries explained by the other features left as more powerful, unsolvable ambiguities reverberating around the frames' edges. Disassembly is easy, then, but reassembly is also possible, and strange. Without the television's producer to guide a relative aesthetic consistency between directorial entries, we have three puzzle pieces that somewhat-fit into a narrative, a space and a mystery.

Petzold's Beats Being Dead stands alone, not just as the finest film of the three but as the most self-sufficient; the director's tautly restrainted framing, use of space and spare mise-en-scène is particularly well-suited for engaging with a kind of surgical analysis and precision his story's tropes of genre and fairy-tales. We enter the film in the middle of a sullen-eyed and slow-motion class climbing story: our hero is a hospital resident lazily studying to become a doctor; above him is the head doctor's wealthy, blond daughter, placed behind doors, inside cars, within security monitors, always out of reach; and below them both is a young Bosnian girl who cleans rooms at a hotel, is tossed off by a local biker gang and who latches on to the young man as a step up in the world.

The love flaring between the hospital resident and the Bosnian girl is the film's center, as both aspire to the vague pleasantries of an abstract, barely suggested higher plane of livelihood. Around their lives is a fairy-tale forest in which lurks the murderer whose escape and flight from the police is the event shared across Dreileben. Petzold structures his work like a diagram, a proof to be run and proven, a cinematic technique that is as dry as it is potent—each location, each shot change, every chance word spoken, all carries the weight of impactful content on the progression and developmental of this scenario, of this lower-middle class guy plus lower class girl plus indeterminate forest space equals success in life and love for who? So rigid is this form that the mystery that slides between and around all three films becomes powerfully evocative in Beats Being Dead because it's the only uncertainty in Petzold's world. This escaped killer, these walks people must take to get everywhere, this pervasive sense of danger, that one might be knifed at all times—the kind of atmosphere where a class-climber or a lover's (are they the same thing?) wrong word or wrong move can not just ruin one's life but end it. The chilling ending evokes both potentialities, entwined, love and money, dismay and death.

Where Beats Being Dead is a clean proof drawn in ink on graph paper, Dominik Graf's second entry in the series, Don't Follow Me Around is a patchwork, a roving, 16mm camera eye (compared to Petzold's 35mm and Hochhäusler's RED camera) of fuzzy globs of color and a hyper-attentive, almost skittish editing, recalling Alain Resnais' desire to piece together time, space and meaning through fragmented, documentary observation of world details splintered off from conventional understanding. Yet this film is also the most melodramatic, most screenplay-like, focusing on characters (rather than Petzold's machines, Hochhäusler's figures) with paths, emotions, secrets, desires. The heroine is an investigating psychologist who visits the central town to assist in the capture of the escaped madman. Graf holds her in a ramshackle, bohemian house of East German cultural heritage with an old girlfriend of hers and the girlfriend's husband for late night wine-fueled discussions and early morning, coffee and bathrobed pacing, and contrasts this with densely assembled, divergent and opaque "investigation" scenes filled with oblique local incident, culture and characters.

Graf slyly hides one police investigation behind another, and similarly hides several melodramatic reveals behind the reminiscence of the friends, which turns on its head (and on itself) when they find out they shared a lover at the same time in their lives many years ago. All this is shot with a piecemeal approach, finding a great deal of screen tactility to the image and likewise accumulating like a interested tourist the locality's details in passing, almost-mysterious glances, shading the edges of the frame and of the central story with suggestions of stranger things, real histories and a real town, a populace, a great deal of off-screen and suggested texture that Petzold carefully withholds from his film, where you'd hardly know there was a town at all. The film devolves considerably when the investigations fall to the wayside and characters' pasts and secret motivations come to a head, the film calming down considerably, losing that Desplechin-anticness that is able to juggle stories, characters and decor bric-a-brac with near-manic aplomb. But the layering effect Graf is going for, placing locality, character, psychology, spaces, crimes and corruption all on the same cinematic quilt leaves one with a greater complexity than does the resolution of the story.

One Minute of Darkness, Hochhäusler's final entry, gets the short shrift in the set by seemingly being left with settling all the resulting conventional generic tropes scattered on the sidelines of D1 and D2: the psychology and movement of the escaped convict and the psychology and technique of a local investigating detective. The movements of each are dull, but the visual scope of the film is as expanded with D3 as with the others—we plunge headlong into the forest that lined the paths and buildings of Beats Being Dead and hugged Don't Follow Me Around. Details shine, too, in that way that sleek genre films carry with them an evocative glamour in their attention to key, telling elements in a mise-en-scène optimized for honed storytelling. The Yves Klein-like blue mountain-tech monochrome of the convict's stolen windbreaker, for example, creates a constant visual element of electricity in the frames; the sluggish, hunched physique of the detective, looking like a suburban, beleaguered William Friedkin, also has a sliding kind of presence—something to help the images move, one to the next, something that's needed due to the uninteresting nature of both the chase and the investigation.

Nevertheless, this hide-and-seek is apparently necessary, because its movement traces a line around the town and around the trilogy, its generic binding, if you will. The convict's movements through the forest (finding a young girl, as in Frankenstein) and the detective's through the town (scenes with his wife in their home, as well as spending time in the convict's childhood house) thus represent the fairy-tale of mobility and motion in D1 and the residential-domestic aspects of D2. As such, One Minute of Darkness visualizes directly both the sociopathic (and potentially psychopathic) side of the one and the crime-solving psychological clues and manipulation of the other. Thus despite being the least expressive of the three films, Hochhäusler's film seems to pierce through its breathern, and reveal inside them the core generic—and criminal—powers that drive these stories, this town and these films.

CineVue [Daniel Green]

Films Dreileben Part 2: Don't Follow Me (Dreileben—Komm mir nicht ... Eddie Cockrell from The Goethe Institute

Dennis Lim Cinema Scope, entire Trilogy, September 2011

The House Next Door [Kenji Fujishima] entire Trilogy

Dreileben | Reverse Shot Leo Goldsmith, entire Trilogy

Dreileben Michael J. Anderson and Lisa K. Broad review the entire Trilogy from Tativille, September 25, 2011

Christopher Bell The indieWIRE Playlist, entire Trilogy, October 1, 2011

Dreileben trilogy (2011) – Brandon's movie memory

More VIFF vitality, fancy and plain David Bordwell from Observations on Film Art, October 16, 2011

Vadim Rizov The L Magazine, entire Trilogy, September 30, 2011

London Film Festival 2011 Diary Special: Dreileben | Front Row ... Sam Inglis, entire Trilogy

@ Moria - The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review [Richard Scheib] entire Trilogy

Electric Sheep Magazine [Pamela Jahn] entire Trilogy

R Emmet Sweeney Movie Morlocks, entire Trilogy

NYFF 2011. Petzold, Graf and Hochhäusler's "Dreileben" on ... David Hudson offers the links from Mubi

NYFF Spotlight Nicholas Kemp from the Film Society of Lincoln Center, entire Trilogy, September 14, 2011

15th EU Film Festival: THE DREILEBEN TRILOGY Kevin B. Lee, entire Trilogy

Dreileben | Filmlinc.com | Film Society of Lincoln Center entire Trilogy

Dreileben - Harvard Film Archive entire Trilogy

Kevin B Lee Fandor, entire Trilogy

Filmleaf [Chris Knipp] entire Trilogy

Swiss Mix: Eclectic Highlights from the 2011 Locarno Film Festival » Leo Goldsmith from Fandor, August 18, 2011

User reviews from imdb Author: JvH48 from Netherlands

Dreileben: Film Review - The Hollywood Reporter Neil Young, entire Trilogy

Variety [Boyd Van Hoeij]

Dreileben 1: Beats Being Dead Review. Movie Reviews ... - Time Out Tom Huddleston, entire Trilogy

Review: Dreileben - Reviews Peter Keough, entire Trilogy, from The Boston Phoenix

read it here This must-read exchange was translated to English by Christoph Terhechte for the Berlinale, where the films premiered (pdf)

The Wire, Dominik Graf and the Berlin School « silent listening July 27, 2010

Dominik Graf bio from Mubi

DREILEBEN TRILOGY III B+ 91

ONE MINUTE OF DARKNESS (Dreileben – Eine Minute Dunkel) – made for TV

Germany (90 mi) 2012 d: Christoph Hochhäusler

While Christoph Hochhäusler is an established German filmmaker, it may be his writing about contemporary German cinema as co-editor and publisher of his film magazine Revolver that has brought him to international acclaim, as it was here that The Dreileben Trilogy took form, where Hochhäusler publicly challenged fellow Berlin School filmmakers Christian Petzold and Dominik Graf to express their thoughts about a lack of genre films as well as the changing German aesthetic emerging from the mid 90’s that has taken a distinct interest in German locations while also examining political and/or cultural ramifications. It’s only fitting then that Hochhäusler provide the concluding episode (shot in digital) and the segment that is most genre driven. Dreileben is a small town in the German countryside engulfed by nature, where the enormous surrounding woods have a way of culturally isolating the inhabitants, creating an almost fairy tale and mythic illusion, which are frequently referenced through the Grimm Brother’s Hansel and Gretel, explored in the initial episode, but also Wagner’s Ring cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, loosely based on characters from Norse mythology where giants and dwarves thrive in the darkness of the Thuringia woods, often finding themselves at odds with one another. It is here the focus has finally shifted from a peripheral role to the featured attraction, as the concluding episode is largely seen through the eyes of a mentally disturbed escaped killer, Frank Molesch, played by Stefan Kurt in a simply extraordinary mix of innocence and deranged confusion. Molesch seeks refuge in the forest and spends most of the film roaming aimlessly through the woods, but Hochhäusler also retraces how easily he initially escaped from the hospital, as the police allowed him to visit his dead mother in the Dead Room at the hospital, but only guarded one of the two exit doors. The concluding episode, like Kieslowski’s RED (1994) in his Three Color Trilogy, has the most connecting links to previous episodes, and although each claims to be an independent, stand alone film, it helps if one is familiar with the earlier references, as the finale sheds new light on everything that has come before.

The finale also introduces us to a new character, the chain-smoking Marcus Kreil (Eberhard Mirchberg), a Columbo-like seasoned police inspector who is on medical leave, but can’t stay away from tinkering with the case, as the town is under siege from strange attacks and unresolved murders, where the audience is treated to gruesome forensic photos of the deceased. While we get a taste of his family life, where his overbearing wife berates him for not staying in bed and his dim, constantly demanding son wants his approval for another hair-brained business proposition, hoping his dad can interest the police department into using his exercise equipment that is otherwise sitting dormant in an empty gym collecting dust. Marcus is often seen alone scrutinizing the video security tapes of the hospital, including the evidence used to convict the killer, the last man to see the girl alive, where the title is based on the tape going blank just prior to a young girl’s murder, leaving lingering, unanswered questions, where he is hoping to discover new clues, but he’s also interested in changing the focus of the investigation, trying to fathom why Molesch would go on a murder spree, trying to understand how he thinks, where he often visits Molesch’s mother’s vacant home in the middle of the night hoping to pick up new information, where the constantly wandering Molesch is also seen hovering nearby. In fact, the latest police strategy is to form tightly connected search lines combing through the woods, where Molesch can frequently be seen just out of reach desperately trying to escape, reminiscent of Peter Lorre’s frantic attempts to escape the police manhunt in Fritz Lang’s M (1931). When he’s flushed out of the forest, he often meanders into various pieces of the preceding episode, where despite a sighting, his detection was appropriately misidentified, a clue to the filmmaker’s goal of challenging the audience’s expectations.

This finale has a rhapsodic approach when the convict is free to roam through the countryside, feasting on wild berries, talking to himself, his mind often wandering to thoughts of his dead mother, where instead of a vicious monster of the loose, Molesch seems more like a simpleton, a manchild who has been tossed out into the world, frightened and alone, where his mood shifts and nervous body language are often inexplicable. Perhaps the highlight of the film is a sequence in the woods where Molesch has amusingly stolen sandwiches from a picnic table of visiting tourists enjoying the hillside view of the town nestled in the valley below, where he retreats into the woods to first identify and label the contents of each sandwich before gobbling them down, when he is unexpectedly interrupted by a young girl (Paraschiva Dragus) hanging from a tree limb above who is also hungry. She immediately trusts and protects him, warning him where the police are, quickly escorting him to safety, developing a tender bond between the two where they sit by an evening fire as he sings a silly song in a beautifully realized tribute to FRANKENSTEIN (1931). The dual narrative tracks of the finale center upon exposing the heart of each character, the cautiously circumspective police inspector and the gentle giant, often maligned monster in the woods, where at one point the police dragnet forces his retreat into the hidden confines of a cave, which turns out to be a historical witch’s cauldron, where he has to hide from another tourist group as they listen to legendary tales of witch burnings and witches capturing unsuspecting hikers. Still in the cave when the evening fog rolls in, Molesch can be seen trying to squirm under the enveloping layer quickly filling the empty spaces, obviously threatened by a fear of the unknown. This all too human quality, ironically from a monster regarded as a deranged serial killer, described by Hochhäusler as “a man who became a murderer only because he was hounded,” becomes a major theme of the film, how easily we jump to the wrong conclusions, as if anything, this Trilogy suggests humans are continually prone to making mistakes.

User reviews from imdb Author: Sindre Kaspersen from Norway

The final part of the "Dreileben" trilogy was directed by German screenwriter and director Christoph Hochäusler who co-wrote the screenplay with Peer Klehmet. It tells the story about escaped murderer Frank Molech who has sought refuge in the forest of Dreileben and the middle-aged investigator and family man Marcus Kreil who is putting all his time and effort into catching him. As Marcus thoroughly examines the case evidence he begins to believe that there is something wrong about the case.

This acute psychological thriller draws an intimate portrayal of the murderer and as in all parts of the trilogy the use of sound is brilliant and reinforces the pivotal and impending atmosphere. German actors Eberhard Kirchberg and Stefan Kurt's acting performances is commendable in this engaging study of character which shifts between the driven investigator and the deeply disturbed murderer, and so is the directing in the darkest and most plot-driven part of the Dreileben trilogy, which takes the viewers into the deep forest of Dreileben and into the mind of the murderer. A fine end to a brilliantly narrated, directed and nuanced trilogy about a hideous crime and a beautiful and enigmatic place.

Christoph Hochhäusler's Dreileben Part 3: One Minute Of Darkness is the most straight forward police thriller of the Dreileben trilogy.

After watching the first two Dreileben films at the New York Film Festival press screenings, my fellow critics and I were speculating: Will part three focus on the escaped mental patient? Will it shed light on unanswered questions about characters we already know? Will someone named a variation of John (Johannes in 1, Johanna in 2) play a prominent role in the plot? Yes, yes, and yes - although not as one might expect.

A nervous omission by the intern Johannes in the hospital of part 1, gives Frank Molesch (Stefan Kurt), a convicted sex offender, the opportunity to escape. His mother has died, and when he sees an open door in the "Dead Room" of the hospital and a convenient laundry transport, he takes advantage and eventually hides in the famous woods, where tourist groups are out and about to discover Wagner's Thuringia while listening to Rheingold or hiking to the Feuerloch Cave, a witch's cauldron, and a historical center of witch hunting.

The veteran detective Marcus Kreil (Eberhard Kirchberg), is trying to catch Molesch, and becomes more and more obsessed. He cannot even enjoy the family barbecue or respond appropriately when a gym owner suggests to rent out his studio for the police sports club as a favor. He goes to Molesch's dead mother's house to do some research. On a box of old Christmas decoration is written "For When I'm Gone" and inside are the fragments of the troubled man's early life. In the house of the dead woman time stood still, East German nostalgia looms large. While the detective is in the "Witch's house", Molesch, who has more than an initial in common with Fritz Lang's 1931 film M (in which another town was looking for another murderer), is with the deer hunters in the woods. Is there another killer?

Piece by piece the puzzle connects:

Young Molesch was given up by his parents, his foster mother kept a day-by-day book of what he did wrong. Meanwhile, the adult Molesch has encounters with tourists, who, recognising the "monster from TV", behave as if they saw a bear instead of a hungry human being, who is stealing their sandwiches. The next encounter mirrors another film from 1931, James Whale's Frankenstein, as Molesch meets a little runaway child, who sits in a tree and is hungry. He sings a song from an old commercial for cough drops to the child as they sit by a fire in the woods. Fires can regenerate, and with a few more twists, various crimes are more or less solved. A lot can happen in one minute of darkness. Don't forget to look out for another Johanna, and count the women who have fallen victim.

After seeing three films in and around the small town of Dreileben, the landscape has become familiar and inescapable, a kind of Shutter Island. Like Scorsese's psychological thriller, the light(ed)house, contains all contradictory messages at once.

Subtitledonline.com [Rob Markham]

There's been no worse trend in 21st-century cinema than the emergence of the water-cooler puzzle movie. Defined by the films of Christopher Nolan (ambiguous highbrow entertainments) and Alejandro González Iñárritu (sentimental works of art-house prestige), they exist to carry no meaning of their own, preferring to offer a string of possibilities up to the viewer as a flattery to her ability to figure out a meaningless problem or make meaningless connections. It would be a mistake to call these talking-point machines generous; as much as the franchise film, these are the apotheosis of film as product, as a child's desire for a new toy has been replaced by an adult's to confirm his own intelligence.

Happily, I can report that Dreileben, a triptych film made of parts by Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf, and Christoph Hochhausler, takes this fragmented approach and makes something genuinely worth being called Faulknerian with it. The result of a conversation among the three on the state of German cinema, the film sets off from a central event—the escape of a convicted murderer, Molesch (an alternately blank and delirious Stefan Kurt), while visiting the body of his dead foster mother at a nursing home—and tells three tenuously connected stories that in concert present a brutal vision of a world on a wire. Because each happens to run a feature-length 90 minutes, the three sections of Dreileben are being shown individually elsewhere, a regrettable decision given how thoroughly dependent on the direct mingling of divergent aesthetics and contradictory narrative facts the cumulative wallop of the film is.

Unlike the dire Red Riding Trilogy, Dreileben occurs in vertical rather than horizontal time, with each of the three sections complicating any sense of temporal certainty in the others. This conflicted time is just one facet of the struggle for a coherent narrative that lies at the heart of the project, a fact that manifests itself on every conceivable level across the film's nearly five hours. Graf's section, Don't Follow Me Around, embodies this conflict most distinctly on the level of narrative: What begins as a procedural modulates into a chamber piece centered on the drama caused by the revelation of a mutual lover shared by two old friends. Graf builds the film out of cluttered, illogical compositions (his favorite being a fractured image that splits two people in close contact into completely separate spaces) and unmotivated camera moves that give the impression of an organizing intelligence situated forever beyond our recognition.

Petzold too concerns himself with issues of perspective, beginning his section, Beats Being Dead, as a series of touches and annoyances that's one of the most accurate portraits of young love in recent memory before breaking it up with the intrusion of a gratingly suspenseful score and a number of menacing point-of-view shots whose view is never directly revealed (Petzold disappointingly gives away the game on this rather early by confirming the presence of a looker). The whole of Beats Being Dead gives the impression of being a smart trifle occurring on the fringes of a more urgent story, though its focus on the class conflict between social climbing med student Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) and his immigrant-maid girlfriend Ana (Luna Mijovic, like a young Hanna Schygulla with her pouty, knowing face) eventually falls near the heart of the film.

The final section, Hochhausler's One Minute of Darkness, focuses directly on the motivating story, following the killer on the lam in something like a less allegorical Essential Killing and the mental decline of the police chief tasked with finding him and haunted by the original murder, caught on surveillance cameras at all but the crucial minute. With its copious use of fantastic elements, tossed-off handling of narrative details (one major point of the plot is, as far as I can tell, beyond all comprehension, though it does serve to reinforce a thematic point), and eventual arrival at Dreileben's political core, One Minute of Darkness is both the film's outlier and the most crucial to an understanding of its philosophical project. Molesch, having spent 80 minutes running from waves of police through the German woods, eventually arrives at his foster mother's home where, in the midst of a literal hell, he burns documents relating to his past, chief among them a newspaper relating his biological father's persecution as a labor organizer. Confronted with one history, he responds violently toward his situation, leading to a replay of the scene that closed Beats Being Dead (though one that's shot as if from a slightly incorrect memory), which folds in all of the issues of class and repression that have circled the story into a single instant.

Though its ending offers a number of possible interpretations, this inability to pin down a single meaning is both an organic part of the project, and more importantly, each reading proves of real political and social insight (as opposed to the no-stakes games of Inception or Babel). Dreileben makes distinct and deeply meaningful use of film and digital: Beats Being Dead and One Minute of Darkness were shot HD, the former in crisp images that lay the situation bare, the latter in rich, stylized green browns and shadows that mirror the film's increasing skepticism of a comprehensible situation, while Don't Follow Me Around's soft, grainy 16mm is appropriate to its shifty, nostalgic story; all three are presented digitally. And with the emphasis on a very cinephilic sense of image recall, it's useful to look at Dreileben as the festival's thesis film. Here's hoping that there are even a handful that can match it.

CineVue [Daniel Green]

Dreileben Part 3: One Minute of Darkness ... - Goethe-Institut Eddie Cockrell from The Goethe Institute

Dennis Lim Cinema Scope, entire Trilogy, September 2011

The House Next Door [Kenji Fujishima] entire Trilogy

Dreileben | Reverse Shot Leo Goldsmith, entire Trilogy

Dreileben Michael J. Anderson and Lisa K. Broad review the entire Trilogy from Tativille, September 25, 2011

Christopher Bell The indieWIRE Playlist, entire Trilogy, October 1, 2011

Dreileben trilogy (2011) – Brandon's movie memory

More VIFF vitality, fancy and plain David Bordwell from Observations on Film Art, October 16, 2011

Vadim Rizov The L Magazine, entire Trilogy, September 30, 2011

London Film Festival 2011 Diary Special: Dreileben | Front Row ... Sam Inglis, entire Trilogy

@ Moria - The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review [Richard Scheib] entire Trilogy

Electric Sheep Magazine [Pamela Jahn] entire Trilogy

R Emmet Sweeney Movie Morlocks, entire Trilogy

NYFF 2011. Petzold, Graf and Hochhäusler's "Dreileben" on ... David Hudson offers the links from Mubi

NYFF Spotlight Nicholas Kemp from the Film Society of Lincoln Center, entire Trilogy, September 14, 2011

15th EU Film Festival: THE DREILEBEN TRILOGY Kevin B. Lee, entire Trilogy

Dreileben | Filmlinc.com | Film Society of Lincoln Center entire Trilogy

Dreileben - Harvard Film Archive entire Trilogy

Kevin B Lee Fandor, entire Trilogy

Filmleaf [Chris Knipp] entire Trilogy

Swiss Mix: Eclectic Highlights from the 2011 Locarno Film Festival » Leo Goldsmith from Fandor, August 18, 2011

User reviews from imdb Author: JvH48 from Netherlands

Tender Speaking: An Interview with Christoph Hochhäusler | Senses ... Marco Abel interview from Senses of Cinema, February 2007

Dreileben: Film Review - The Hollywood Reporter Neil Young, entire Trilogy

Variety [Boyd Van Hoeij]

Dreileben 1: Beats Being Dead Review. Movie Reviews ... - Time Out Tom Huddleston, entire Trilogy

Review: Dreileben - Reviews Peter Keough, entire Trilogy, from The Boston Phoenix

read it here This must-read exchange was translated to English by Christoph Terhechte for the Berlinale, where the films premiered (pdf)

Christoph Hochhäusler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christoph Hochhäusler Mubi

Gramaglia, Michael and Jim Fields

END OF THE CENTURY: THE STORY OF THE RAMONES B 86

USA (108 mi) 2004

Behind the scenes look at one of the most dysfunctional bands ever, yet influential as all hell in the rock n roll industry, as they literally changed the musical landscape introducing an earth-shatteringly loud and stripped down punk rock sound, making everything that came before them obsolete - at least in their minds. Predating the Clash or the Sex Pistols, those bands went on to fame and fortune, literally stealing their sound and stage presence while the all-too-neglected Ramones continued to struggle, never having a hit song or record, basically blacklisted by radio for their supposed offensive lyrics and behavior, forcing them to continually have to tour on the road.

All grew up in the Forest Hills section of Queens, a neighborhood that one lied about coming from, as it offered nothing of interest to anyone, where they got high sniffing glue or smoking pot, they developed a love for outlandish live bands like MC 5, the Stooges, or the New York Dolls. Identically dressed in black leather jackets, T-shirts, ripped jeans, and sneakers, each had a distinct personality. Johnny Ramone, the right wing lead guitarist who would rather punch somebody out than have to listen to their shit, developed the ferociously raw, two or three chord songs that were all very short, very loud, and very fast, with no solos, moving directly from one song to the next. Joey, the left wing lead singer, was the shy, introverted obsessive-compulsive who took on an electrifying persona behind a microphone. Dee Dee was the drug-addicted bassist with a flair for catchy lyrics, who opened each song yelling 1-2-3-4! And Tommy was a producer who played drums by default, as no one else would.

At a time when there were no alternative rock bands on the scene, when music was self-infatuated with long solos and over-produced, they developed an underground following at the CBGB club in the bowery section of New York in 1974 by stripping the music down to the bare essentials, alongside Talking Heads or Blondie, who later succumbed to the ill-fated pop sounds of disco, while the Ramones remained forever in a time warp. Blondie’s description of the Ramones – they were very organized, they came onstage like the SS, very militaristic – spawning future grunge and metal bands that copied their love for speed and sheer power. In a SPINAL TAP moment, Dee Dee is seen describing how they improved the quality of amps, so their music could get even louder. Eventually, Johnny and Joey stopped speaking to one another, especially after Johnny married Joey’s longtime love, yet they continued touring together for another 18 years, stuffed into the cramped quarters of their van, driving each other bonkers. While there may not be any new, earth-shattering revelations in this film, the style is not over-glossed and is true to the band’s unpretentious, raw energy and honesty.

Lost Edens, Unsung Heroes, and Metalheads on the Couch Phil Nugent from the High Hat (excerpt)

Two other new documentaries, David C. Thomas’s MC5: A True Testimonial and Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia’s End of the Century, a profile of the Ramones, apply a straighforward “story of the band” treatment to a couple of legendary groups who, for some reason, have yet to appear on “Behind the Music.” The MC5 movie, which is powered by surviving co-founder Wayne Kramer’s steady, cohesive rap, makes fascinating viewing alongside Festival Express, because the two documentaries cover roughly the same period in American pop but could have been filmed on another planet. “The summer of love,” one of the band members says, “didn’t come to Detroit.” Instead, the Five had their hands full just proving that they had the right to be on stage when it meant breaking away from the assembly line that seemed to be their birthright. Their music and politics were blunt, primal and angry, which, especially after they linked up with White Panther revolutionary (and currently, much-respected New Orleans disc jockey) John Sinclair, got them less attention from the record-buying public than the government; the well-fed young’uns hanging out whining for their free tickets in Festival Express may have kidded themselves that they were making some kind of political statement, but the MC5 can take pride in having the only rock documentary I know of that includes not just stirring performance footage but also FBI surveillance material. At the time, it might have seemed that the Five were trying to embody the politically charged spirit of ’60s street politics and failing, but now it looks as if, like Iggy and the Stooges, they were inventing punk before anybody felt a need for it or knew how to take it.

As End of the Century documents, the Ramones charged into the gap left behind by the dissolution of the MC5, the Stooges, and the Velvet Underground and the gradual drying up of the early-’70s glitter rock scene — a hole that somehow seemed to be there despite the best efforts of Pablo Cruise and the Bay City Rollers. They in turn provided key inspiration for the most politically minded British punks — a fact attested to by the Clash’s Joe Strummer, who appears here doing his best imitation of John the Baptist. Remembering a time when Johnny Ramone told him that their stage set had gotten two minutes faster, Strummer recalls only being able to respond, “My God!”) the Ramones were strictly aestheticians of a sort, hitting the stage “like the military,” as Debbie Harry puts it here, and stripping the music down to its loud, direct essence, the better to produce a sound that they could drive through a concrete bunker. In old black-and-white footage of their early days at CBGB’s, Joey spins his own one-man show at the center of the stage while flanked by Johnny and Dee Dee, who grind away at their instruments while digging their feet into the floor and setting their jaws as if they were standing on a beach defying a hurricane to knock them on their asses. They look built to last, and it’s a good thing they were, because it turns out that their failure to set the world on fire commercially did not go wholly unnoticed.

In order to deal with their frustration, these rock and roll soldiers — Strummer compares them to “a piledriver” — at first turned on each other, often onstage. Clem Burke, of Blondie, recalls their habit of quarrelling during their performances as “endearing,” and indeed, the footage that’s included of them arguing over which song to do next is as cute as any scene of four guys from Queens telling each other to go fuck themselves is ever liable to be. To hear them talk now, they barely regarded each other as tolerable enough company to make arguments worth having. It probably says something about how deeply they cared about their music that the choice of which song to do next was regarded as important enough to inspire a conversation. The vulnerable, romantic Joey — who, it’s said, “made everything that was wrong about him seem beautiful,” as good a definition of the punk philosophy as any I’ve ever heard — eventually turned in on himself after Johnny stole and married his first serious girlfriend. (They were still together when Johnny died last September; she remains off-camera throughout End of the Century, though at one point she can be heard offering her opinions during one of Johnny’s interviews. Johnny and Joey never talked about this development, ever, though it is suggested that having this heartbreak dealt to him by the ultra-right wing Johnny inspired Joey to write the song “The KKK Took My Baby Away.”)

The Ramones were perhaps never as great as they had been after they made the misguided Phil Spector-produced album that lends this movie its name; the failure of that record to sell pretty much ended their idea that they’d ever make it into the clover, but they were loyal to their vision and to their audience and continued to tour and record for another 15-plus years. During that time — the bulk of their long career — the band members were often barely on speaking terms, and they went through drummers as if they were Spinal Tap. Yet they remained determined to give concert audiences their money’s worth and were capable of spitting out something as solid as Too Tough to Die or “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” as soon as word reached them that nobody was expecting another worthwhile record from them, ever. (Johnny, in particular, might have been put on Earth to prove, there are advantages to being the orneriest sumbitch who ever came down the pike.)

Unlike MC5: A True Testimonial, End of the Century includes fresh interviews with all the key players, though both films serve as toasts to absent friends. Dee Dee, whose desire to be a real New York rock star with a funny hair cut that didn’t match the funny haircuts on the other guys in the band and a heroin habit to call his own was the bane of Johnny’s existence, died of an overdose shortly after the movie wrapped with the Ramones’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Joey, of course, died tragically of lymphona shortly before the induction. The movie includes footage of that happy occasion, which was soured just a wee bit when Johnny used his speech to offer thanks to President Bush but not to Joey. He was a helplessly honest man. But now that he’s gone, too (prostate cancer), God’s probably giving him a stern talking-to.

Granik, Debra

WINTER’S BONE A 95

USA (100 mi) 2010

“He didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, and finally did.” —Teardrop (John Hawkes), describing how difficult it was for his brother not to snitch

An outstanding film, certainly one of the films of the year, a performance driven work that digs deeper into the protectivist, individualistic spirit of America than anything else seen in recent memory, certainly matching the mood of the nation at the moment which may feel the government is overextending into the lives of private citizens. Not sure there’s another film out there where visiting your family represents such a life-threatening risk, as the backwoods rural view of government and authority is so low here that they’ll do anything to keep it out of their life, even risk death in various confrontations with the police, as people in this neck of the woods believe that individual freedom comes with the right to exclude any and all persons from their property, including their own kin. Of course, if they’re manufacturing crank in crystal meth labs, that might have something to do with it, much like Kentucky bootleggers whose families for generations have survived by building homegrown stills. Nevertheless, this unflinching backwoods criminal exposé layered in silence and ancient rituals of honor features individuals fighting with every fiber of their body to protect what they’ve got, even when what they’ve got is pretty close to nothing. It’s an amazing portrait of a bleak, isolated, rural American culture in the mountainous Ozarks that is so outside the mainstream that much of it resembles the empty, rundown, post-apocalyptic future depicted in Cormac McCarthy’s nightmarish THE ROAD (2009). Shot on an indie budget of $2 million dollars entirely in two counties in Missouri, locals were used in speaking parts and as extras in order to keep the regional dialect as accurate as possible, including singer Marideth Sisco who was discovered during singing practices and the roles of both younger siblings. While the New York director co-wrote a script with Anne Rossellini from a novel by Ozark resident Daniel Woodrell, mostly what’s riveting here are the tense face to face confrontations between family members, where access is as guarded and secretive as the Cosa Nostra, with equally violent threats and horrible outcomes.

It’s extremely well-written and closely observed, without an ounce of condescension or moral pretense, carefully outlining the landscape, people, and regional habits, featuring unforgettable performances that blindside the audience with the innate force of a shipwreck, as the viewer is plunged directly into the heart of an underground culture where some archaic unwritten code seems to thrive in the form of intensely driven desperation that remains out of sight, under the surface, where one set of standards exists for men, another for women. “Ain't you got no men that can do this?” opens the door into women’s business, where they ruthlessly protect the criminal business interests of their men, even from family. But to those living there who have a realistic sense of just who and what they’re dealing with, these are some eerily frightening players to go up against, as they’d just as soon hurt you or even kill you than have to talk to you, as every little bit of understanding, if word gets out, can only hurt their operations. “Talking just causes witnesses.” Trying to make her way through this world is Jennifer Lawrence as Ree, a determined and single-minded 17-year old who has been left by her father to raise her mentally incapacitated mother and two young siblings on her own in their ramshackle house with only hand-outs from neighbors and an occasional squirrel to shoot. Ree’s father is on the run from the law, charged with cooking crystal meth, but he put the house and land up to remain out on bail, and his whereabouts are a mystery she quickly needs to solve. If he misses his scheduled court appearance, within a week she could lose the house, leaving them all out in the cold. In desperation, she searches for him, trying to find the truth about where he is, dead or alive, but runs into brick walls from highly resistant family members who warn her that she’s stirring up trouble. Turning to her dad’s brother, the skeletal Teardrop (John Hawkes), he’s a fierce man with an attitude, as he understands the lay of the land, but he can’t help Ree, as if her dad has dropped out of sight, it’s for a reason. He nearly breaks her neck to prove the point, and then takes it out on his wife. Men rule the roost in these parts and there’s little women can do about it. It’s a drug-infested world where there’s a lucrative pipeline of money to be made, yet people live in broken-down shacks and subside on next to nothing to reveal nothing out of the ordinary, offering no signs to the police. Whatever happens takes place on the privacy of their land and it’s nobody else’s business to come sniffing around asking questions. This is the way, followed with near Biblical enforcement.

Like The Odyssey or Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, there’s a lot more going on here under the surface as Ree moves deeper into the stealthful operations of her family, each character is carefully drawn, filled with the wretched lack of humanity that defines many of them, yet they also offer small doses of kindness and make an effort to respect her family name. Dale Dickey as Merab is positively superb as the crusty wife of Ree’s grandfather, a Vietnam vet wearing a “Stray Dog” biker jacket known as Thump Milton (Ronnie Hall), a man she fears more than any who runs the more difficult side of the family operations which is kept completely off limits, so Ree is quickly shown the door, along with a parting cup of coffee and a reminder that they won’t be so hospitable next time. As the intensity mounts and Ree’s desperation grows, the atmosphere borders on horror suspense, as the promise of a wrath of violence continually lurks under the surface with a looming ferocity. When her dad’s court date comes and he never shows, Ree coldly awaits eviction but soon faces her grandfather’s punishment instead and is hauled off into the barn for a brutal (offscreen) ass-kicking from Merab and the other women, where the camera doesn’t linger on the physical infliction, only the painful consequences for the sins of her father where the thought of death is close at hand and held in judgment by a vengeful clan of societal rejects, people who answer to no law but their own. Who should show up, but Teardrop of all people? He knows what he needs to know and offers his say, in so many words, which has the poetic sound of grace to it. It’s an exquisite moment, like a miracle or an answered prayer, but one that has the ring of truth, as there’s no doubt every ear is listening. But there’s a hellish underside to this eloquence, something Ree suspects, calling it family intuition. When she later reveals to Teardrop, “You have always scared me,” he promptly points out “That’s ‘cause you’re smart.” But there is still more hell to pay. What is left borders on the surreal, as if existing only in the imagination, as it couldn’t possibly be real. But throughout this entire ordeal, one fact never wavers, and that is Ree’s steely resolve to answer for her father’s sins, to face them head on with no illusions or false hope. Thrust into the middle of a turbulent nightmare, you get the sense she will find the right balance and weather all storms. So far, Lawrence’s quiet resiliency is the performance of the year.

Cannes '10: Day Two Mike D’Angelo at Cannes from The Onion A.V. Club, May 14, 2010

Today’s aforementioned jawdropper was Winter’s Bone,richly deserving winner of the Grand Jury Prize (fiction division) at Sundance this year. I’d heard good things about Debra Granik’s previous film, Down to the Bone (she’s got a thing for either phallic symbolism or calcium),but I was still wholly unprepared for the almost freakish assurance of this sophomore effort, which establishes a dogged yet otherworldly atmosphere in the opening titles and then somehow manages to sustain that tricky mood right through the poignant final shot. And just as Down to the Bone singlehandedly jump-started Vera Farmiga’s career, I suspect that Winter’s Bone marks the beginning of a long-term love affair between discerning moviegoers and Ms. Jennifer Lawrence, who plays a 17-year-old desperately trying to find her father before he skips bail and the bond company seizes the family’s ramshackle house. If that sounds like generic Sundance miserabilism, it’s because you haven’t yet experienced this film’s thrilling amalgam of uninflected naturalism (visual) and bold stylization (verbal). Shot entirely in Missouri, Winter’s Bone turns the Ozarks into a science-fiction landscape, artfully blending the familiar, the esoteric (for those of us in major urban areas) and the flat-out bizarre; it may sound like an odd point of comparison, but I found myself thinking more than once of Rian Johnson’s Brick, which imposed the insularity and argot of hard-boiled detective fiction onto a high-school campus. Granik achieves a similar feat of cognitive dissonance in a less overtly gimmicky context, and Lawrence turns in a performance so steely and yet so heartbreaking that maintaining an intellectual distance soon becomes impossible. I wish Cannes luck matching this one, frankly.

Time Out New York review [5/5] Joshua Rothkopf

“Bred and buttered” is how teenage Ree (Lawrence), her jaw jutting out, describes her scrappy lineage to a bail bondsman. She stands her ground; somehow, any other phrase would be wrong for so earthy a movie. We’re in poverty-stricken Missouri, a region much maligned since Deliverance. Yet there’s confidence in the steady way Winter’s Bone accrues all the expected clichés—rifles, a skinned squirrel, even a banjo or two—and still retains a delicate sense of dignity. (It’s adapted from an unusual thriller by Daniel Woodrell.) Even more valuable is the light it sheds on the Ozarks’ terrible problem with meth labs, as it sends its young protagonist on a dangerous quest to find her missing dad or legally lose the famlly home. Leaving her two younger siblings to fend for themselves, Ree is the heroine of an indie Unforgiven.

Who could be responsible for such sensitive observation? Director Debra Granik, an NYU grad of obvious curiosity, has only two features (including this one) to her name. Her 2004 debut, Down to the Bone, was the kind of excoriating addiction drama that emphasized a household’s unraveling. It’s also the movie that put Up in the Air’s Vera Farmiga on the map.

Again, Granik has foregrounded a bold woman, expertly balanced between fearlessness and Ree’s own private nervousness. Following the thread takes her to a very dark place; Winter’s Bone sometimes feels like a haunted house, where only extreme deference to scary people will save you. (Ree, a beautiful girl, almost seems unaware of what she risks, though we aren’t.) Deadwood’s gaunt John Hawkes looms out of a drug haze; you have to remind yourself that he’s her kin.

The Village Voice [Dan Kois]

'Never ask for what ought to be offered," 17-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) tells her little brother in Winter's Bone, Debra Granik's dark and flinty Ozark fairy tale. Those are words to live by for Ree and her people, scattered across the hardscrabble crooks and hollers of the southern Missouri woods. But in Winter's Bone, based on a thin but potent novel by Daniel Woodrell, a tough-minded girl is forced by circumstance to demand exactly what no one wants to offer: the truth.

Ree lives in a small house with her brother and sister and their mentally ill mother. When the sheriff brings news that Ree's father, Jessup, put the family's house up as bond after an arrest for cooking meth—and that he has subsequently gone on the run—Ree goes looking for Dad to convince him to turn himself in. That search starts by questioning the small-time crooks she has seen at family reunions, and spirals, eventually, to local kingpin and distant relation Thump Milton.

Met at every turn by narrowed eyes and tight lips, Ree soon gets the picture that asking questions is, as one neighbor puts it, "a real good way to end up et by hogs." But while the first half of Winter's Bone is essentially a slow-paced procedural with a pint-size detective, Ree is no Nancy Drew. She gets by on instinct and determination rather than wit, and she's not above cruelly shaming a married friend when her husband refuses to share his car: "You never used to eat no shit."

Lawrence gives a guarded and watchful performance. Buried in parkas and hats to ward off winter's cold touch, her face a mask, Ree lets her resolve break on only two memorable occasions—one, a plea to her catatonic mother for help; the other, the film's unexpected but welcome descent into the Gothic.

"Ain't you got no men that can do this?" Thump's exasperated wife asks when Ree won't get off her front porch. Ree does gain a sidekick for a time, a hatchet-wielding, black-eyed uncle played by the vivid John Hawkes. But for the most part, she's sticking her nose in dangerous places all on her own. By the hard-and-fast rules of this peculiar criminal subculture, that means Ree can only be touched by other women, though that's little comfort when a pack of grizzled grannies kick her teeth in.

It's those same women, moving behind the scenes in this male-dominated world, who hold the key to unlock the secrets on Winter's Bone. In the end, the most interesting aspect of this quiet, sometimes frustrating, sometimes thrilling film is the way it teases out the intricate power structures that flourish even in as godforsaken (and lovely) a place as the Ozarks. Ree lives where every eye demands an eye in return, but where even a sworn enemy won't come into your house until you invite her through your door.

And it's a credit to thoughtful writer-director Granik—whose first feature was 2004's Vera Farmiga breakout Down to the Bone—that we come out the other end of Ree's quest impressed, but also disquieted, by her strength. For it's uncertain to what end that strength might be used. Ree makes a point of avoiding the drugs that her relatives abuse, and she shows no interest in crime. But the hard-nosed matrons of Winter's Bone can see, as we can, that little Ree is tough enough, and mean enough, to rule those woods in a few short years if she sets her mind to it.

IFC.com [James Rocchi]

Screening in the U.S. dramatic competition at Sundance 2010, "Winter's Bone" brings to mind a number of prior Sundance highlights. Like "Frozen River," it depicts a woman driven to hard choices by hard circumstances; like "Brick," it sets a teen protagonist into a thoroughly modern set of problems that might be better described by the scenes and structures of classic film noir. Like director Debra Granik's previous Sundance film, 2004's "Down to the Bone," it depicts a very American kind of poverty, one not only of economics but also of emotions. Based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, "Winter's Bone" has more than just the echoes of other films to offer, though. It has the forward motion of a thriller, yes, and the who-knows-what questions of a mystery. But it also has a delicacy to it, as 17-year-old Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) searches for her absent father while caring for her younger siblings and ill mother, and director Granik, shooting with the RED digital camera, wrings bleak poetry out of the ruined landscape of the Missouri Ozarks.

Ree is not looking for her absent father in the general sense, or to heal some past wound; local Sheriff Baskin (Garret Dillahunt) explains to Ree that her father Jessup, arrested for cooking crystal meth, put the family home up as his bond - and then disappeared. If he doesn't appear in court in a week's time, Ree and her family will lose everything: Baskin says to Ree, "Make sure that your daddy knows the gravity of this deal," but Ree doesn't know where he is. And no one will tell her. Trapped in the silences and secrets of the local criminal underworld, Ree goes to family and friends and neighbors and enemies, knocking on doors and seeing what happens like a Chandler hero, motivated by nothing less than survival.

Ree's inquiries go nowhere - even with her uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes), a whipcord-lean thug whose capacity for violence is terrifying. Almost all the men Ree encounters are terrifying - tight-wound with silence, lashing out when it breaks - but the women around her aren't much different, and, like Ree, trying to deal with the men in (or absent from) their lives. Lawrence's performance is strong and unstudied, but it's also clearly constructed; Ree is headstrong, but not foolish, and she's only putting herself in harm's way because the consequences of failure are worse.

Granik and cinematographer Michael McDonough shoot with flat, this-is-what-happens authenticity (with the exception of one black-and-white hallucination, where squirrels twitch and shiver in the woods as the sound of chainsaws fills the air), but also wring myth and majesty from the landscape. Ree walks through a landscape that looks like Lear's blasted heath with rusting pickup trucks and abandoned satellite dishes scattered casually through it; when a group of women take Ree to a place of deliverance with brutal kindness and terrible mercy, it is hard not to think of Macbeth's witches.

"Winter's Bone" takes place in a world of addiction and anger, of crime and consequence. When Teardrop decides to help Ree - as much as he can, and in his way - she moves back from the foreground of the narrative, and yet that comes precisely at the moment when we know she's done all she can. Hawkes, best known for his work on "Deadwood," is a real and rich presence here, a murderer who is still a man, a criminal who is still a brother. "Winter's Bone" shows a world where the bonds and bindings of family and community become a stranglehold, but where some light, winter-bright and seemingly bleak, can still leak through the cracks.

There are moments in the harshly beautiful Winter’s Bone in which the characters are so deeply, unfathomably mean in response to a 17-year-old girl’s pleas to find her father (or at least his body) that we search their faces for a glimmer of sympathy, kinship—anything human. Some filmmakers (say, Michael Haneke or Lars von Trier) would settle for their masks of indifference or malevolence, because that would clinch the case, Q.E.D., that these clannish Ozark hill folk were born to, or just worn down to, pure evil. And the heroine, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), would seem like Little Red Riding Hood discovering that Grandma is in league with the wolf, and give us reason to root for her to make the bad guys pay. But Ree won’t stop trying to appeal to something decent in her people, many of whose last names are also “Dolly,” who maybe know what happened to her dad and have buried that knowledge in ground already overfilled with skeletons. This director, Debra Granik, doesn’t let the actors go dead: There is movement, barely perceptible, under the surface. Some vein of compassion, however thin, must be down there. Somewhere.

Granik and Anne Rosellini based their screenplay very closely on a novel by Daniel Woodrell, who lives in the Ozarks and should be better known. What people say about Cormac McCarthy (“expands the territory of American fiction!” etc.) goes double for him. Possibly more. At this point, McCarthy has virtually given up hope (he had little to begin with) for a decency unmoored from people’s instinct for survival. Woodrell’s prose, stark as it is, carries traces of Mark Twain’s sly wit and wonder. In the Welsh author John Williams’s Back to the Badlands (in which he hits the road to visit the real-life settings of contemporary crime writers’ work), Woodrell drives through a town called Collinsville, “a place you’d be hard pressed to find on any map.” Later he says, “These are people so alienated from American culture that it’s like a parallel universe.” Even Woodrell keeps his distance from the scariest and most shrouded of them, and so would Ree Dolly if she weren’t compelled by the threat of homelessness to journey into the woods and up those barren hills in search of answers.

From the opening shots of Winter’s Bone—vivacious children on a trampoline in a landscape denuded of life, while a woman sings (unaccompanied) an Ozark lullaby—Granik creates a lyrical tension between determination and despair. When a cop drives up to say that Ree’s father, arrested for cooking crystal meth, has apparently jumped bail, and that he used the family’s house for collateral, Ree says she’ll find him; and when the policeman says that’s unlikely, she responds, “I said, I will find him.” Her mother is mentally ill and near catatonic, and Ree takes care of her young brother and sister. They’re barely surviving, even if they manage to keep the house. (While she guts a squirrel, her brother asks if they’ll eat the intestines. “Not yet.”) After telling her siblings never to beg, never to ask for what ought to be given, she sets out to ask for what ought to be given, and is willing to beg if she has to. And she has to, in every charged encounter, beginning with her best friend (Lauren Sweetser) and then her father’s brother, Teardrop (the febrile John Hawkes), who tells her if she goes much further she’s liable to get “et by hogs or wishing you were.” Warned off, shunned, beaten, Ree keeps mustering the will to get back on her feet.

Watching the hauntingly self-contained Jennifer Lawrence, my eyes sometimes strayed to the way she fingered her simple woolen cap, careful not to let it fall—a poor thing, but her own. (I felt as if I could smell the cold in it.) Lawrence and Granik don’t overplay the pathos. They don’t look for moments to show Ree’s vulnerability—because Ree can’t afford to show her vulnerability, even to herself, any more than she can drop that woolen cap. (Bloodied and barely conscious, she tells her friend to make sure her siblings do their homework.) Only once does she go soft, when she sits beside her mother: “Mom, look at me. Can you please help me? This one time? Please help me this one time. I don’t know what to do … ” But even as these words pour out of her, you can see in her eyes that she doesn’t expect an answer.

Despite winning the big prize at Sundance, Winter’s Bone isn’t what we used to call indie “deadbeat regionalism”: Beneath its hardscrabble plainness is an odyssey, mythic in its intensity, that builds to a climax not with bad men but the aging and haggard women who keep this underworld kingdom impregnable. The leader, the wife of Thump Milton, is Merab, and as she’s played by Dale Dickey it’s impossible to take her full measure. Motherliness and murderousness have somehow melted together; you can’t spot the line between free will and loyalty to her (male-driven) clan. I think you could watch this remarkable performance a hundred times and never get to the bottom of it. Her final scene with Ree, a midnight boat ride into the marshes, is what bad dreams are made of; the silent scream to which it builds can be felt in your bones—the purest catharsis imaginable.

For all the horror, it’s the drive toward life, not the decay, that lingers in the mind. As a modern heroine, Ree Dolly has no peer, and Winter’s Bone is the year’s most stirring film.

Movieline (Stephanie Zacharek) review [7/10] also seen here: REVIEW: Winter's Bone a Little Too Pleased With its Own Folky Bleakness

Monsters and Critics [Anne Brodie]

Twitch [Kurt Halfyard]

"Winter's Bone": American film of the year? Andrew O’Hehir from Salon, June 12, 2010

Movie Martyr (Jeremy Heilman) review [2.5/4]

The Onion A.V. Club review [A] Keith Phipps

Review: Winter's Bone Kevin Kelly at Sundance from Cinematical

CHUD.com (Devin Faraci) review

Winter's Bone | Review | Screen David D’Arcy from Screendaily

eFilmCritic.com (Jay Seaver) review [5/5]

Mark Reviews Movies (Mark Dujsik) review [3/4]

exclaim! [Robert Bell]

One Guy's Opinion (Frank Swietek) review [A-]

RopeofSilicon (Brad Brevet) review [A-]

The House Next Door [Elise Nakhnikian]

Combustible Celluloid (Jeffrey M. Anderson) review [3.5/4]

Film School Rejects [Robert Levin]

Film School Rejects [Landon Palmer]

Sundance ‘10 | “Winter’s Bone” Director Debra Granik Keeps It Real indieWIRE, January 22, 2010

Smells Like Screen Spirit [Dave Campbell]

The L Magazine [Henry Stewart]

Tracking Shots [Larry McGillicuddy]

Winter's Bone Attempts Unlikely 'Sex Sells' Gambit Kyle Buchanan from Movieline, May 28, 2010

The Verge: Jennifer Lawrence Kyle Buchanan interviews actress Jennifer Lawrence from Movieline, January 25, 2010

Debra Granik, John Hawkes, and Dale Dickey on How They Pulled Off Winter's Bone Kyle Buchanan interviews all three from Movieline, June 9, 2010

First Listen: 'Bred and Buttered' by John Hawkes, from Winter's Bone Kyle Buchanan interviews actor John Hawkes from Movieline, June 14, 2010

Why women directors don't need Hollywood Rachel Cooke interview from The Observer, October 3, 2010

The Hollywood Reporter review John DeFore

Entertainment Weekly review [A] Lisa Schwarzbaum

Variety (Justin Chang) review

The Boston Phoenix (Shaula Clark) review

Tulsa TV Memories [Gary Chew]

San Francisco Chronicle (Amy Biancolli) review [4/4]

Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan) review

Chicago Tribune (Michael Phillips) review

Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert) review [4/4]

Paste Magazine - CAPSULE [Michael Dunaway]

""Daniel Woodrell: The Ozark daredevil" by John Williams" John Williams from The Independent, June 16, 2006

Grant, Cary – actor

Cary Grant's Lasting Legacy: Screwballs and Beyond Andrew Sarris from The New York Observer, June 6, 2004

The Cary Grant centenary (1904-1986) is currently being celebrated in many venues. David Schwartz, the chief curator of film at the American Museum of the Moving Image, has provided an ultra-auteurist perspective with his "Cary Grant x 5" series, focusing on Grant's stellar appearances in films directed by Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, George Cukor, Leo McCarey and Stanley Donen. About the only serious omissions in terms of transcendent Grant performances are George Stevens' Penny Serenade (1941), The Talk of the Town (1942), and of course, Gunga Din (1939). Clifford Odets' gloomy None but the Lonely Heart (1944) won Grant one of his two Oscar nominations, and for the past 60 years it's been mistakenly regarded as his only "serious" piece of acting.

The Schwartz series is running from May 29 to June 27, and consists of such Howard Hawks works as Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), Bringing Up Baby (1938), I Was a Male War Bride (1949), Monkey Business (1952); from Alfred Hitchcock there's Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955) and North By Northwest (1959); from George Cukor there's Sylvia Scarlett (1935), The Philadelphia Story (1940) and Holiday (1938); from Leo McCarey, The Awful Truth (1937), My Favorite Wife (1940)-which Garson Kanin completed after an illness incapacitated McCarey- Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) and An Affair to Remember (1957); and from Stanley Donen, Indiscreet (1958), Charade (1963) and The Grass Is Greener (1960). The American Museum of the Moving Image is located at 35th Avenue at 36th Street, in Astoria, Queens (1-718-784-4520). If you happen to miss any of these Grant classics, I am sure they are available on VHS or DVD, or both.

The eminent film critic and historian David Thomson described Cary Grant as "the best and most important actor in the history of cinema. The essence of his quality can be put quite simply: that he can be attractive and unattractive simultaneously; there is a light and dark side to him, but whichever is dominant, the other creeps into view."

I'm tempted to endorse Mr. Thomson's appraisal, if only because Grant was so ridiculously underrated by his peers and other pundits when he was alive. I would, however, prefer to place him in a triptych of equal acting greatness with James Stewart (1908-1997) and James Cagney (1899-1986). Observers at the time ranked Grant well below such overrated performers as Spencer Tracy, Fredric March and Gary Cooper.

Among English-speaking actors, John Gielgud (1904-2000), Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) and Ralph Richardson (1902-1983), though titans of the theater, had considerably less presence onscreen. And even their shining icon, Shakespeare, fared better on the page and the stage than on the screen.

One of Grant's major problems was that, come award time, comedy was never taken as seriously as drama; it's still the case today vis-à-vis Bill Murray's in Lost in Translation versus Sean Penn in Mystic River . Nonetheless, Grant can be credited for virtually inventing the screwball-comedy genre with his strange mix of shy, nervous detachment and clownish bravado, which worked well with the underlying censor-imposed uncertainty of sexual by-play in the genre.

Grant was also the first big star to escape the bondage of a single-studio, long-term contact (though it's never quite clear which, if any, of his first 26 movies before The Awful Truth gave him the power to call his own shots). Mae West tried to claim credit for "discovering" Grant for She Done Him Wrong (1933), but the young actor had already made eight movies before West's famous come-on certified his stud status. The late George Cukor insisted that Sylvia Scarlett (1935) put Grant in line for stardom. Since the movie itself was such a commercial and critical dud at the time-and contributed mightily to making Katherine Hepburn "box-office poison"-Cukor's assertion seems downright bizarre. Nor did Grant's involvement with Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg in Blonde Venus (1932) do much for his own image.

Although he appeared in films with such yesteryear icons as Carole Lombard, Sylvia Sidney, Tallulah Bankhead, Jean Harlow and even songbird Grace Moore, he was most effective in a lighthearted way with Nancy Carroll in Hot Saturday (1932) and Woman Accused (1933), and Joan Bennett in Big Brown Eyes and Wedding Present (both 1936). Topper (1937) with Constance Bennett as his after-life consort, (and Roland Young as the eponymous survivor of this otherwordly fantasy farce), helped establish a certain high-society gloss for his persona, but was otherwise by far the least enduring of his "classic" screwball comedies.

Then came the one shot that, more than any other, provides the visual cue for the screwball era. It occurs early on in McCarey's The Awful Truth : Grant is seen seated atop a luxurious sofa with his right elbow balanced casually on his right knee, which is bent over the sofa's armrest, and his left arm is extended to his left knee, which is bent over the seat cushions. His posture is that of infantile irresponsibility. Off to his right stands Irene Dunne as his wife, still swathed in ermine after a night out with her "music teacher," a perfectly typecast snake-in-the-grass in evening clothes (Alexander D'Arcy). Two other couples are standing at either side of the frame, along with a seated but skeptical aunt (Cecil Cunningham) in the center, as witnesses to this early morning-after marital misunderstanding.

The one conspicuously askew element is that of Grant, perched unconventionally in what would otherwise have been a traditional Coward-Maugham-Barry-Behrman drawing-room tableau of suspected infidelity. The acrobatics of Archie Leach, combined with the acquired sophistication of Cary Grant, proved time and again that the rich need not be stuffy and stodgy in manner. The talkies had found at last a well-tailored romantic gentleman with the physical gifts of a baggy-pants comedian. It was not just a matter of the pratfalls and somersaults that Grant performed throughout his career, but the innumerable bits of business that tilted his body parts in some speedy flash of behavioral vaudeville.

Grant's darker side emerged mostly in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, particularly in Suspicion , in which he seems to be planning to murder his wife, played by Joan Fontaine-and he would have, if the original homicidal ending had been kept as both Grant and Hitchcock had wanted (the studio intervened for the sake of protecting Grant's "image"). François Truffaut has valiantly defended the revised ending on the grounds perhaps that a wife's somewhat comic paranoia is more interesting than her justifiable fear would have been.

In Notorious (1946), Grant doesn't set out to kill his sweetheart, played by Ingrid Bergman; her husband, played by Claude Rains, is taking care of that little detail. Still, Grant's character is not above torturing Bergman's patriotic Mata Hari by constantly throwing her checkered past at her.

A delicious dividend of the Grant series is the dazzling diversity of his leading ladies, with whom he enjoyed unfailingly felicitous chemistry. These included Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, Katharine Hepburn, Ann Sheridan, Ginger Rogers, Joan Fontaine, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint, Irene Dunne, Deborah Kerr and Audrey Hepburn. And it all seemed so logical that even male viewers could not help admiring Grant's seamless sophistication in the presence of beautiful women. Then, as now, it takes two to tango. When shall we see his like again?

The Glory of Cary Grant and Other Girlish Delights Elizabeth Abele from Images

Grashaw, Vincent

COLDWATER D 62

USA (104 mi) 2013 ‘Scope Official site

Another film that attempts to raise the level of social awareness, highlighting the level of abuse taking place from the privatization of juvenile detention centers that seemingly answer to no one, as they are not regulated by the state, where parents often send their kids away to these remote wilderness camps under near military rule because they can’t deal with their out-of-control behavior, thinking a little discipline will do them good. Little do they know that the operators running the facilities are more out of control than anyone could imagine, literally placing these kid’s lives at risk. Perhaps hoping to cash in on the festival circuit success of Destin Cretton’s Short Term 12 (2013), a film of near documentary social realism that explored the volatile nature of abused teenage patients in a residential treatment facility, crafted by someone who had first-hand experience working in similar facilities, while here the story developed from a friend of the directors who was sent to a reform facility and is supposedly inspired by real events. Grashaw was the producer and co-editor of BELLFLOWER (2011), a low budget Sundance film with extremely violent overtones, while directing, co-writing (with Mark Penney), and co-producing this film. While the subject here is intriguing, as is the lead performance by first time actor P.J. Boudousqué (whose resemblance to Ryan Gosling likely got him the job), the heavy handed approach used by the director emphasizes and exaggerates a level of sadism by the sergeants in control that becomes sickening, bordering on torture porn when they intentionally target infected wounds, refusing to treat a major injury properly, cruelly inflicting methods of torture as part of their routine brand of punishment. One questions the fascination with the gruesome aspects of the details, prolonging the uncomfortable factor in many of these scenes, emphasizing the unendurable pain along with the helplessness of these individuals, like the intentional shock effects in exploitation prison B-movies. “We are in the business of transformation,” they are told once they arrive to the facility, but instead they are brutally bullied and tortured into blind obedience, using military style techniques to break down any lingering effects of individuality, where the counselors on the grounds are former inmates themselves.

Because of the film’s insistence upon continually emphasizing the cruelty of those men in charge, the film takes on a one-dimensional tone of evil, never developing any levels of characterization or complexity, but leaving those men as little more than cardboard cut outs, spewing the same venom throughout the entire film. They are not shown as being human, but individuals that thrive on inflicting misery onto others, as if this is the only fact that matters to them or offers meaning to their otherwise empty lives. More than likely these are ex-military men who were never able to make the transition to peacetime, who continue fighting their own embattled inner demons, but the director refuses to explore any hint of humanity in men who are only shown to be monsters. Instead the film is shown through a stream-of-conscious style through the eyes of a lone individual, Brad Lunders (Boudousqué), who’s seen initially as a brash young kid with a cute girlfriend (Stephanie Simbari), but he’s a lowlife that deals in drugs and gets involved with the wrong people, which eventually leads to disastrous consequences. Kidnapped in the middle of the night by those that run this boot camp, where his clueless mother yells “I love you” as they haul him away in the back of a van to a remote juvenile prison facility that is 25-miles from the nearest town. After hearing the gung-ho speech from Colonel Frank Reichert (James C. Burns), a former marine, it’s clear that whatever deluded mission these men aspire to, they are really sadistic control freaks that enjoy the unfettered power they have over what amounts to kidnapped kids, where they see their jobs as making them miserable on a daily basis, rousting them out of bed at the crack of dawn, forcing them to run long runs in the desert heat without water, and then punishing those who can’t keep up, from taking away privileges to locking them up for days on end in a detention center where they are brutally tortured. While the graphic reality sinks in, a backstory is filled in via flashbacks, where we see scenes of Brad’s earlier life spiraling out of control, illustrating a deteriorating sequence of events that led him to this godforsaken place. What’s perhaps most incomprehensible is that these kids were not sent by some court-appointed agreement resulting from a criminal case, but by their parents who are paying for this abominable treatment.

Midway through the film, we discover a year has passed, where Brad’s noticeable anger and temper have disappeared, as now he behaves like the docile and obedient “slave” they have turned him into, where he’s been given special privileges and told he has what it takes to make that next step out of there. Initially, Brad despised the trustees, inmates who cooperate with the counselors by being their eyes and ears in the barracks, literally spying on the other kids and reporting information back to the Colonel, but now he’s become one of them. While it appears he finally has a path out, he’s thrown a curveball when one of his former drug running buddies Gabriel (Chris Petrovski) arrives at the facility with that same badass attitude, where he’s torn between trying to help his old friend and not doing anything that would jeopardize his chances of getting out of there. The director supposedly spent ten years researching the type of camps depicted here, but it remains disconnected to any existing reality or outside world, where he lacks maturity or any cinematic understanding of how to find or express anything unique about the subject, never really getting under the surface, visually or otherwise, lacking observational skills, where he simply skims over the lives of almost everyone involved. This is simply bad filmmaking, with no directorial imprint, as this film could have been made by anybody, where the focus is less on providing a realistic exposé of the detestable conditions of the camp than the overcontrolling and disturbing expression of sadistic behavior, which receives all the exaggerated emphasis in this film, becoming so extreme and distorted that it loses any connection to reality. An equally brutal and sadistic film on the exact same theme is Marius Holst’s 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #9 King of Devil's Island (Kongen av Bastøy) (2010), a Norwegian film about a real life juvenile detention center on an Alcatraz like island of Bastøy in the North Sea, which was historically the site of monstrous acts of inhumanity to children, showing the same horrors, but getting much deeper into the mindset of both the prison administrator and these angry and vulnerable kids who are constantly being abused and taken advantage of, where the administration’s intent is to make use of child inmates for cheap, exploited labor. This film lacks the subtlety and poetry of the Norwegian film, a much darker psychological horror story that with little dialogue allows the boy’s point of view to develop into a sense of community, as they are all victims of the same inhumane living conditions. In COLDWATER, there’s no sense of camaraderie, as outside of Brad’s flashbacks, we never get to know any of the other characters. Accordingly, there’s little sympathy generated onscreen to the highlighted acts of abuse, or the kids rebellious response to it, where the film never builds that sense of moral outrage that it’s looking for and instead exists in a vacuum where nobody gives a damn.

Fans of Bellflower, which was produced by Coldwater director Vincent Grashaw, would be well advised to check their expectations at the door. Coldwater isn’t the loud, in-your-face acid trip that film was. But it simmers with a similar intensity as it tells the horrfiying story (a composite of true anecdotes) of a young man taken against his will to a paramilitary juvenile detention camp. It’s an engaging script, directed with confidence and panache by Grashaw, and the last half hour should have you right on the edge of your seat the entire time. Grashaw draws out fascinating, textured performances from his cast, notably James C. Burns as the retired marine in charge and Nicholas Bateman as a conflicted trustee. But the real revelation is the lead actor, newcomer P. J. Boudousqué, whose frustration simmers just beneath the surface, and whose eyes betray a mind always racing. Grashaw’s obviously got a bright future, and if this role is any indication, so does Boudousqué

Fangoria [Sam Zimmerman]

One of the most debilitating aspects of life is frustration, frustration born out of being stuck. In COLDWATER, Brad Lunders (P.J. Boudousqué) is caught at first in a cycle of recreational drug dealing and personal, familial anger, only broken by a tragic event that leads to an even more vicious purgatory in the titular juvenile rehabilitation facility. What follows is a stark, bleak portrait of the wrongheaded aims of violent, military-style rehabilitation, as well as an intimate tale of that inner vexation.

In his feature directorial debut, Vincent Grashaw’s biggest success with COLDWATER is making the film ooze with what it feels like to be violently going nowhere. The film is often efficient in its storytelling, an ultimately deceptive move that heightens just how it hurts to keep ending up in the same spot. That spot is the rural landscape of the Coldwater facility, a place that externalizes Brad’s inner turmoil. Run by a retired colonel and his lackeys (some of whom have graduated from inmate-hood themselves), Coldwater is hellish and uninhibited by outside law enforcement.

This above-the-law attitude is where COLDWATER, the film, is at its most wince-inducing. Grashaw and cinematographer Jayson Crothers shoot the violence and vicious abuse of the boys so point-blank and graphic, much like the teen inmates’ situation, it’s impossible to escape. It turns viewers into inmates themselves, tightening the body and feeling as if violence in turn will be the only way out. This leads to few moments of retribution throughout. Fist fights and flee attempts certainly feel like a welcome breeze in the moment, but as the picture keeps coming back to, they all lead to a familiar end.

Well into Brad’s stay, one case of abuse goes too far and finally gets the eyes of social services on Coldwater. As pressure mounts on the colonel, it so does on Brad. A new arrival is an old friend, forcing Brad to confront what he thought he was letting go. It’s familiar, but remains captivating thanks to the aforementioned cold, brutal aesthetic. It becomes clear only a major shift will change things and when one gets underway, COLDWATER spills into violence that damns all involved, leaving no room for retribution you hoped would come.

COLDWATER’s closes with text damning unregulated rehabilitation facilities across America and their involvement in dozens of teen fatalities. This realistic, grounded perspective of the film transitions from juvie-exploitation heritage to a bit of a procedural, weary epilogue. Thankfully, just prior to the sober, closing text, Grashaw gives over one last time to the throes of a twisty thriller, leaving COLDWATER a satisfying, lasting and chilling experience.

Slant Magazine [Elise Nakhnikian]

There's a certain kind of fantasy, appealing to teenagers, that involves imagining yourself in a situation harsh enough to justify the alienation and rage flooding your soul. The attraction is the perverse satisfaction of enduring nightmarish scenarios, no matter how high the deck is stacked against you. Coldwater has the feel of one of those fantasies, from its melodramatic mixture of grandiosity and powerlessness to its view of the world as a torture-chamber crucible for an angry young man who has to grow up too fast. So it comes as no surprise that writer-director Vincent Grashaw wrote the film's first draft soon after graduating high school.

The story opens with Brad (P.J. Boudousqué, who looks and acts distractingly like Ryan Gosling) being dragged out of bed and into the back of a van by a bunch of thugs from Coldwater, the private juvenile "rehabilitation" facility his frazzled mother has enlisted to straighten out the rebellious, drug-dealing teen. For a while, the film alternates between hellish scenes from this mini-Gitmo, where people are constantly being tortured and killed or killing themselves, and flashbacks to Brad's life before he was brought there. Most involve Brad's tragedy-bound girlfriend, Erin, or his best friend, Gabe (Chris Petrovski), another self-styled tough guy ("You gotta go talk to Erin, fool. She be looking for you all pissed and shit," Gabe tells Brad in one flashback).

Behind the impassive demeanor of a kid determined not to lose his cool, Brad takes his licks, learns how to (mostly) avoid trouble, and befriends Jonas (Octavius J. Johson), whose ankle the brutal staff break and then grievously mistreat, driving Jonah so hard that he winds up losing his leg. Then Gabe shows up, too angry to learn to play by the rules. Brad tries to protect his old friend, but when that doesn't work he helps him escape, setting in motion a disastrous (and sometimes confusing) chain of events.

The adults are all ciphers or caricatures, useless or worse. Brad's mother is bewilderingly absent for the two years he spends in Coldwater, though when she finally shows up she clings to him lovingly, apologizing abjectly for having sent him to such a place. The doctor who treats all the boys' wounds, a former Coldwater boy himself, was so traumatized by his experience there that he appears to be struck entirely dumb. Even the journalists who hound Brad as he gets into a cop car after being falsely accused of a crime are unconvincing, trotting clumsily after him with mikes held out as they talk over one another, a child's notion of a pack of reporters.

And that's a shame, because abuse is a very real problem at private juvenile rehabilitation facilities. Even deaths are far too frequent, if not nearly as frequent as they are in the film (there are "dozens of teenage deaths on record" since 1980 in state run and private U.S. facilities, a title crawl at the end informs us). That means there are a lot of real-life counterparts to Brad, Gabe and Jonah, and they deserve a less naïve, and hence less distancing, film than this one.

PopMatters [Dorothy Burk Vasquéz]

As the SXSW Film festival winds down, the films seem to get bloodier... and slower.

Austin is all bright and beautiful now. The storm clouds that constantly threatened day-long misting at the beginning of the festival have cleared away. There was something glorious about walking the streets of Austin on Wednesday as I made my way from the convention center to the Alamo Ritz, where I was set to see another of my most-anticipated SXSW films, Coldwater. Despite the gorgeous weather outdoors, day six proved to be a bit of an emotional downer in the film department. There was unexpected bloody outrage, a strong dose of melancholy, and a final, tough dose of mind-numbing confusion.

Part One: That’s a Lot of Blood

Director Vincent Grashaw’s Coldwater is the story of a young man sent to a juvenile reform facility 25 miles from the nearest town. His mother sends him there to have him straightened out by a retired war colonel and his power-hungry band of counselors. These facilities really exist and have been at the center of controversy because they are not heavily regulated in any state. Such boot camps are also not used as a part of a court-imposed sentence resulting from a criminal case. No, parents send their children to them. I was expecting some tough scenes from this movie; I’m not blind as to what happens in these facilities. As Grashaw noted in his post-screening Q&A, no one actually knows how many kids have died in these reform facilities.

I just wasn’t expecting all of the scenes to be tough scenes. Grashaw slowly reveals the back story of Brad (P.J. Boudousqúe). A troubled young man, he has a hard time adjusting to the facility, the colonel in charge and the counselors. Colonel Frank Reichert (James C. Burns) is a sadistic leader enjoying uncontrolled power over a group of poorly adjusted and vulnerable boys. Even the toughest of them can’t stand up to him or to the counselors who make their daily lives miserable with long, dehydrating runs and verbal and physical attacks. Brad arrives at the facility with Jonas (Octavius J. Johnson), who ends up suffering greatly at the hands of Reichert and his counselors.

In the middle of the narrative, Grashaw alerts the audience that an entire year has passed with Brad in the facility. We now come to a different Brad; he works as a trustee for the colonel and is told that he has what it takes to become a counselor. We see him fighting to survive and stay clean until his old friend Gabriel (Chris Petrovski) shows up at the camp. Brad senses that his efforts to get Gabriel involved in drug dealing may have landed him here. We get the idea that he feels some compulsion to help Gabriel, but it’s not really clear how until much, much later in the film.

The horrors in Coldwater continue unchecked for the majority of the movie. It’s a very visceral experience, leaving the audience no room to hide from their own discomfort. As it comes to its surprising and staggering final scenes, we realize that we shouldn’t have been surprised at all about what type of people these brutal reform facilities produce. In that way, Grashaw has done a good job of making the point he wants to make about these reform camps. The film does seem slow at some points, but does a sufficient job of keeping audience attention so that we can make it to the end without too much fidgeting. A lot of viewers will feel uncomfortable with the level of violence in Coldwater, but Grashaw can’t really be faulted for trying to portray reform camps most people will have the pleasure of never seeing in some sort of realistic light.

The Film Stage [Jared Mobarak] also seen here: JaredMobarak.com [Jared Mobarak]

Indiewire [Katie Walsh] The Playlist

Review: COLDWATER, A Potentially Incredible ... - Twitch John Jarzemsky

Film School Rejects [Rob Hunter]

Film-Forward.com [John Brady Hamilton]

Moveable Fest [Stephan Saito]

Prisonmovies.net [Eric Penumbra]

New City Film [Ray Pride]

Juvie Drama Coldwater Focuses on the Emotional Side of ... Sam Weisberg from The Village Voice

BCG After Dark [Amanda Dyar]

Facets : Cinematheque Schedule: Coldwater

Director interview indieWIRE interview, February 13, 2013

Entertainment Weekly [Chris Nashawaty]

The Hollywood Reporter [John DeFore]

Toronto Film Scene [William Brownridge]

National Post [Chris Knight]

Austin Chronicle [Joe O'Connell]

Oregonian [Jeff Baker]

San Francisco Examiner [Joseph Airdo]

Coldwater Review - Los Angeles Times Gary Goldstein

Pasadena Art Beat [Jana J. Monji]

Coldwater - Roger Ebert Brian Tallerico

Grassadonia, Fabio and Antonio Piazza

SALVO

Italy France (109 mi) 2013

Cannes by Koehler: Salvo | Film Comment | Film Society of Lincoln ... Robert Koehler at Cannes from Film Comment, also seen here: Robert Koehler

After a desultory first 24 hours, it took a speedy walk down the Croisette to Espace Miramar—home of Critics Week, the festival’s all-too-easily overlooked independent sidebar—to catch the festival’s first truly good film: Salvo, the debut crime drama from Sicilian filmmakers Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza. A sharply chiseled intelligence is on display from the first, wordless scene, which shows hit man Salvo (Saleh Bakri) in bed as his air conditioner conks out during a brutal Palermo summer heat wave. The cutting is precise, rhythmic, furtive; there’s the suggestion of something imminent—perhaps the bad day that is to come as Salvo’s alarm clock rings, only to be followed by a power outage.

Immediately after making its mark, Grassadonia and Piazza’s film takes off running. Sooner than we can gauge, Salvo is suddenly on the job and in a world of hurt. All too aware that his car is being pursued, he and his gangster colleague get the jump on his pursuers, and the directorial duo stage a stunning shootout in which the wide-screen camera doggedly stays by Salvo’s side, jarring yet fluid, turbulent yet thoroughly in control. Salvo, it becomes abundantly clear, is a man who won’t give up, managing to track down the crime boss who put the hit on him.

This is mere prelude to what constitutes the film’s heart—a string of extended sequences, the first of which is so astonishingly elongated that it seems suspended in time. When Salvo enters the boss’s home to make the kill, he unexpectedly encounters the man’s blind sister, Rita (Sara Serraiocco). Grassadonia and Piazza have been fixated on Salvo’s point of view by this point, but something surprising happens: they transfer their visual obsession to Rita, who instinctively tries to steer clear of whatever this intruder has in store.

The filmmakers’ grasp of on- and off-screen space and sound is part of what makes Salvo an incisive piece of cinema and lends its distinct texture, and this quality is at work in two different dimensions. When Salvo attacks the boss, the camera remains trained on Rita, whose sense of hearing is heightened by her virtual lack of sight. Sound takes over, delivering the kind of vivid and violent pictures to the viewer’s mind that would have benefited Amat Escalante in the blunt and unimaginative torture sequence served up in his disappointing Cannes Competition drama, Heli. Later, sound again rules when Rita is held prisoner by Salvo, who turns out to have no clear idea what to do with her. (His own boss, a man of the old Sicilian school, simply wants her snuffed out.)

Off-screen space also works not just in any given moment of the movie’s most intense scenes, but across longer stretches of time. Salvo’s prisoner begins to see again; the confined Rita finds herself anew, almost reborn as a woman, and the two of them come to a well-earned rapprochement that far surpasses the cheesy norms of B crime movies. While this is going on, another drama—unseen, off screen—has been unfolding with the boss, who realizes that Salvo isn’t coming to work anymore. The dramatic shock that flows out of that story back onto the main on-screen drama may be the movie’s most sublime gambit, one that at first may even seem to be a mistake, or a misstep. Salvo embraces crime genre tropes and then stretches them into a new shape, so that old devices look and feel new. It reminds us that the confinement of genre, not unlike Rita’s own constrained circumstances, can have unexpectedly fresh results.

Salvo Lee Marshall at Cannes from Screendaily

The meeting between a Sicilian mafia hitman and the blind sister of one of his victims is a catalyst for change in Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza’s feature debut. Like Paolo Sorrentino’s The Consequences Of Love or Leonardo Di Costanzo’s recent The Interval, Salvo defies our expectations of the gangster genre film, using a tentative but inevitably doomed boy-girl rapprochement to play off against the violence and suffering outside and stake a claim for humanity, even some kind of mystic salvation, in the midst of savage chaos. This it does convincingly, with a passion and intensity which, however, would be more effective if the characters had more depth and the whole thing didn’t feel so stretched.

Salvo is a reworking of the co-directors’ short film Rita, which told a similar story through much younger protagonists. Equally impressionistic in its use of the blind girl’s ‘point of view’, Salvo plays out in a hot and claustrophobic Palermo of rented rooms, jerry-built seaside houses, dark basements, mob-controlled streets and crumbling factories, and it’s the directors’ control of this oppressive atmosphere, their vision of a world out of joint, which stands out. This strength of vision will potentially help the film secure a few arthouse berths outside of Italy despite its narrative shortcomings.

The car radio news tells us we’re in Palermo, and in the middle of a heatwave, as we see Salvo (Bakri) and the tough-skinned but world-weary old Mafia boss he works for (Pupella) foil an attempt on the boss’s life. Searching for the man who ordered the botched execution, Salvo enters his beachfront house, and the adrenalin of the foot-chase suddenly slows down, and strays into existential mystery territory, as Salvo pads silently through the building, coming across the rival boss’s blind sister, Rita (Serraiocco), counting money in the basement.

The two enter on a charged, slow motion ‘chase’ through the house that is a premonition of how the relationship between them will develop. These first, almost dialogue-free twenty minutes, which display impressive control of lighting, off-screen noises and camera point of view, are utterly absorbing.

It’s not a problem at this point that we know so little about tough-guy Salvo or the young blind woman whose sight gradually begins to return when he inexplicably spares her, other than the fact that they are both victims in their way, pawns in a dirty game (this said, even Salvo’s boss, who like many of the Mafia rich lives in squalor, seems oppressed by his role in the organised crime charade).

But the script’s lack of interest in motives and backstories becomes an issue as the story meanders on and we gradually realise we aren’t getting much more than the here and now. With brother dispatched, Salvo locks a furious, desperate Rita in a room in a remote abandoned cement factory and returns, warily, to his life in a dingy rented room above a dry cleaner’s.

Here, in some scenes that verge on the dourly comic, a termagant of a mother tyrannises over her weak-willed son (Lo Cascio). Like a soldier returned from enemy territory, Salvo no longer quite fits in: he returns to his clan, but suspicion surrounds him, and, silent and observant as he is, he’s smart enough to realise this.

Rita, meanwhile, has been put on hold back in the cement works. Salvo, we feel, is not the only one who doesn’t know quite what to do with her. When after putting up a hell of a fight she suddenly thaws to her captor, it’s like the sudden thawing that comes in act three of a standard rom-com: it’s in the script, so we just have to take it on board.

Much of the imagery is pregnant with symbolism: in Italian, the name Salvo is also a verb meaning ‘I save’, and there is some business to do with the laying on of hands, and wounds on Rita’s palms. So is Salvo the hitman a saviour, a miracle worker? The question would be more interesting if we were more engaged by the characters that provoke it.

Daily | Cannes 2013 | Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza’s SALVO David Hudson at Fandor, May 17, 2013

Camillo De Marco interviews Grassadonia and Piazza at Cannes from Cineuropa, May 18, 2013

Salvo: Cannes Review Jordan Mintzer from The Hollywood Reporter

Boyd van Hoeij at Cannes from Variety

Grau, Jorge

LET SLEEPING CORPSES DIE (Non si deve profanare il sonno dei mort)

aka: The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue

Spain Italy (93 mi) 1974

here Neil Young from Jigsaw Lounge

“I hope you get very scared and that you suffer profoundly” – Jorge Grau.

Trendy antique-dealer George Meaning (Italian star “Ray Lovelock”) heads off to the countryside for a quiet weekend. After a motorbike mishap, he falls in with Edna (wooden Cristina Galbo), who’s travelling to visit relatives. When Edna is attacked by a glassy-eyed tramp (striking Fernando Hilbeck), it’s the first sign that something is very wrong – the tramp has been dead and (supposedly) buried for a week. Investigating further, George discovers that the government’s ‘Agricultural Department’ has been conducting experimental ultrasound tests in the area designed “to destroy insects and parasites” by messing up their nervous systems. But the tests have the additional effect of bringing the recently dead to murderous life, and the zombies soon leave a bloody path of havoc in their wake. The police prefer a more rational explanation for the murders, however, and the hippyish George appeals to the cop in charge (Arthur Kennedy) as a suitable suspect…

Like every good Euro-horror, the breezily unapologetic Night of the Living Dead rip-off known by its Spanish director as No Profanar el Sueno de los Muertos (literally ‘Don’t Disturb the Dream of the Dead’) has been released under a confusing plethora of different titles. But it’s as The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue – memorably juxtaposing the lurid and the mundane - that the film has attained cult status. So it’s somewhat baffling to see the enterprising Anchor Bay company choosing Let Sleeping Corpses Lie for the long-overdue DVD release, relegating the better-known ‘Manchester Morgue’ tag to small print on the front of the box.

Perhaps it’s because, famously, there is no Manchester morgue in The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue – we see Manchester, and a morgue, and a van marked ‘Manchester Mortuary’. But the re-animation is precisely confined to a five-mile radius that includes the fictional backwater of ‘Southgate’. Then again, in a way it’s somehow appropriate that a Spanish-Italian co-production, featuring an almost entirely Spanish and Italian cast and crew, with most of its interiors shot in Madrid – but explicitly set and largely filmed in the UK – should spawn decades of geographical confusion.

Some commentators, for instance, think that the striking opening sequence – showing a dystopian seventies inner-city Britain, choked with fumes, strewn with litter, caked with grime – is set in London.

But Grau’s shots of Manchester cathedral, Deansgate and John Dalton Street (however fleeting) reveal the exact location of George’s trendy boutique. We follow him as he takes off through the mean city streets – past a population so desensitised they don’t bat an eyelid when a buxom streaker runs naked in their midst – and out into the open countryside. But what countryside, exactly?

Nearly all sources routinely locate the film’s action in ‘The Lake District’. And we see a road-sign indicating the junction of the A5075 and the A590 – just outside Levens, Cumbria, a county that is indeed dominated by the Lakes’ picture-box scenery. But while Levens itself isn’t part of the Lake District, it’s as close as the movie ever gets. The main action unfolds in the much less tourist-infested Peak District – specifically around Castleton, Hathersage and Dovedale, in Derbyshire.

Hathersage is cited by Grau in the interview that’s part of the Anchor Bay DVD’s extra features (the subtitle reads ‘Attersedge’) as the location for a memorable sequence that foreshadows the climax of John Carpenter’s The Fog (1979). Attacked by the living dead in a graveyard, George holes himself up in the nearby church, along with a local bobby. When the cop makes a desperate sortie for help, he’s soon downed by the zombies – who proceed to disembowel him and devour his entrails in one of the film’s numerous surprisingly hardcore moments of convincing gore.

But while the sympathetic copper’s sacrifice is explicitly heroic, Grau’s instincts – as he confesses in the DVD interview – are very much anti-authoritarian. His “mistrust of men in uniform” is understandable given the fact that he was living under General Franco’s Fascist dictatorship at the time. On one level, Manchester Morgue is of course a sensationalist piece of standard exploitation horror – but Grau’s political subtext is fairly hard to miss. The disastrous pest-control scheme is a government initiative (best of luck to them, incidentally, if they believe that insects even have such a thing as a central nervous system) – and then there’s the full-bore reactionary caricature that is Kennedy, who gets to snarl more than his share of the script’s most heavy-handed dialogue.

Generally fed up with modern society’s “permissive rot”, Kennedy’s cop sees George as the epitome of all that’s wrong with the world, taking his “long hair and faggot clothes” as a personal affront. As a sympathetic representative of the swinging Seventies, however, George is no Peter Fonda. When first glimpsed, he’s pottering around his antique shop, kitted out in tie and cardigan. And though he soon takes to the highways on his motorbike, resplendent in leather coat and shades, this Maurice Gibb lookalike blows his cool as soon as he opens his mouth.

Dubbed into English, George’s voice makes him sound like a camp, creepy square – a sardonic mixture of Michael Caine, Kenneth Williams and Peter Cook’s E L Wisty. He’s quite staggeringly unsympathetic towards Edna, and it’s only when the even more unappealing the cop appears on the scene that George emerges as any kind of likeable action hero – though this says more about the cop than his bete noire – as he turns machine-breaking Luddite.

George’s voice manages to damagingly undercut the film’s more disturbing elements – the zombie attack sequences may be unexpectedly extreme in their violence and gore, but even more shocking is their aftermath, in which the hollow-eyed nosferatu placidly munch on the internal organs of their victims. And having them revive their fellow corpses by means of smearing blood on the eyelids is a nice, quasi-religious touch (even if it isn’t developed to any significant degree – though George does comment “it’s not my fault if Christ and the saints aren’t in fashion!”) While the whole plot is quite engagingly loopy, it does hang together more coherently than you’d expect, given some of the wilder convolutions of Grau’s imagination.

There may not be anything in his directorial contribution to match the striking originality of his location choices, but the Peak District backgrounds do ensure that Manchester Morgue is always interesting to look at – and Grau, largely resisting the urge to indulge in then-trendy zooms, does through in the odd effective arty touch, like a vicious nocturnal murder illuminated by the intermittent glare of an automatic camera flashbulb. But while it may be easy on the eye, the film is often tough on the ear – supposedly this is the first horror film made in full stereo sound, and Grau does his level best to push the new technology as far as it will go. He crafts an elaborate cacophony of throbbing heart-beats, electrical distortions, animal groans and corpse-rattle sighs – but, typically, can’t resist padding out the score with a generous helping of standard-issue seventies cheese.

Gray, F. Gary

BE COOL C 74

USA (119 mi) 2005

THE SCHOOL OF ROCK, without the kids – a formula vehicle for John Travolta and Uma Thurman to hook up once again, after their memorable 1994 dance sequence in PULP FICTION, supposedly a follow up to Elmore Leonard’s 1995 picture GET SHORTY, in which Miami loan shark John Travolta breaks into the criminal side of the music business. And while there is plenty that works in this film, including solid performances by Travolta and Thurman, brief appearances by Danny DeVito and James Woods, featuring plenty of Los Angeles locations, including courtside seats at a Laker game, much of this film is also amateurish and dreadful, like the wretched performances of The Rock and Vince Vaughn, as two pimp-obsessed would-be soul brothers, while their gun for hire nearly eats himself to death. Also annoying is the chop and cut way to actually choreograph the Travolta and Thurman dance number, which loses any sense of cohesion with a swirling camera that can’t keep still.

The director, Gray, is a graduate of Highland Park High School, and does it strictly by the numbers, creating a rather lifeless movie. The Rock actually does have one interesting scene, auditioning for a part in a movie, where in a monologue he reads all the girls parts in the kiddie cheerleading flick BRING IT ON. Christina Milian, however, sizzles in this rags to riches story about a Cinderella singer at the bottom trying to get to the top of the music business, featuring several musical numbers throughout, from being the lead in a singing group in a sleazy porn club, to playing solo at the piano in what seems like a neighborhood recreation center that attracts hip hop dancers, culminating in an improbable duo with fairy godfather Steven Tyler and Aerosmith, who jettisons her to the top. Along the way, everyone wants a piece of her, from Harvey Keitel, an underworld thug who owns her contract, to the Russian mafia who obtain her contract, to Travolta and Thurman, the supposed good guys who want her contract, to the surprisingly always funny Cedric the Entertainer, the mega-bucks rich record producer and his pistol-packing band of WMD rappers, who are owed money from Thurman’s out of luck business and have come to collect their piece of the action.

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON B- 82

USA (147 mi) 2015 ‘Scope Official site

The sound begins over the Universal logo, where the first words spoken onscreen come straight out of Dr. Dre’s prologue to the N.W.A. Straight Outta Compton album released August 9, 1988: “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.” Without any major tours, and with no radio airplay, the album reached platinum status, making the artists major stars, eventually going double platinum. In a startling series of terrific opening sequences, one by one, the film introduces each of the three major figures, opening with Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) in the midst of a contentious drug deal at a local crack house when the cops show up with a tank and battering ram, everyone frantically running in all directions, with Eazy vanishing over a rooftop several doors down as the main title comes up. In one of the most brilliant musical choices, the immediately recognizable opening notes of the breezy jazz of Roy Ayers, roy ayers everybody loves the sunshine - YouTube (3:58), perfectly defines time and place and the laid back culture of Southern California, taking us back to a hot Los Angeles summer in the 70’s as Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) is having a serious argument about the future with his mother (Lisa Renee Pitts, excellent in the role, one of the few women featured in the film), who wants him to find a real job instead of the small handouts received as an up and coming DJ at local clubs, where the friction is deep enough to cause a split, as Dre takes his record collection and moves into the home of a friend. Ice Cube (Cube’s real-life son, O’Shea Jackson Jr.) is seen writing rap lyrics while riding the bus back into the inner city from his suburban high school in the valley, where the bus is intercepted by some serious, gun-toting gang members who feel compelled to school the young novices about dying on the streets when you come between the Bloods and the Crips. Eventually all the featured characters are brought together by Dre, seen as the mastermind behind the music, like the Quincy Jones of rap, a “Master of Mixology,” taking all the records in his collection and breaking it down, adding new riffs and a bolder bass beat, rebuilding it into something altogether new. Adding Cube’s raw lyrics and a stable of rappers, including DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr.), The D.O.C. (Marlon Yates Jr.), and MC Ren (Aldis Hodge), they convince Eazy to get out of the drug business (where sooner or later it’s likely he’d either get caught or killed) and invest his money in the music business, starting their own company, Ruthless Records, which led to the first release by N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit’ Attitude).

The history of Hip-hop and rap music didn’t start with N.W.A., as Hip-hop’s origin was the East coast’s South Bronx of the early 1970’s, representing an expression of rebellion and discontent, a predominantly black genre that grew out of crime-ridden neighborhoods languishing in urban poverty, pioneered by lower-class black artists in New York with white record producers between 1975 and 1983. Despite an effective boycott of the music by both black and white radio stations that continues to this day, what N.W.A. did was provide a ghetto swagger and bravado, a racially charged indignation about the black urban experience of the late 80’s that was expressed through graphically raw and ferociously explicit lyrics, eventually catching on in mainstream America, showing an ever-increasing nationwide popularity where by 1991 white suburban teenagers are consuming 80 percent of the market, according to Walter Edward Hart’s Sociology Masters thesis of December 2009 at the University of Texas, The Culture Industry, Hop Hop Music and the White Perspective: How One-Dimensional Representation of Hip Hop Music Has Influenced Racial Attitudes, The Culture Industry, Hip Hop Music And The White .... The first rap groups to break through to white audiences were Run DMC in 1984, two middle class black kids of college educated parents whose image onstage evoked gang street life, while Public Enemy, whose theatrical black nationalism was featured so prominently in Spike Lee’s iconic film Do the Right Thing (1989), where their single “Fight the Power,” Do The Right Thing Intro - YouTube (3:40), was the biggest college hit of 1989.

Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Mother fuck him and John Wayne
Cause I'm Black and I'm proud
I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped
Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps
Sample a look back you look and find
Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check

Rap contains powerful cultural, social, and racial associations that speak to the racial divide in America, using visual and often inflammatory rhetoric to conjure up images, where the music can often send unintended cross-cultural messages. N.W.A began a popularization with gangsta rap, but not with their 1987 debut release, “Panic Zone,” N.W.A. Panic Zone (3:31). A bigger impact was made with the B-side, “Dope Man,” N.W.A. Dopeman (6:18), which is essentially an Ice Cube record that describes the grimy details of a world mostly hidden from view for most middle class listeners, black or white, allowing a fascinating glimpse into another culture. Eazy-E’s rendition of “Boyz-n-the-Hood” was less concerned with social commentary and was more about conveying a day-in-the-life of a particular lifestyle, as voiced by someone who lived and breathed that lifestyle before he ever walked into a recording studio. What’s interesting about the music is not only that it led to Ice Cube’s role in the dramatically powerful John Singleton film BOYZ N THE HOOD (1991), but that it allowed the world a window into the South Central Los Angeles community at the same time as the Rodney King beating took place at the hands of the LA police, where N.W.A.’s music elicits howls of youthful rage, spewed with a venomous urban slang that white audiences had never heard before. While rap is still proportionally more popular among blacks, its primary audience is white and lives in the suburbs. By June 22, 1991, three months after the Rodney King incident was captured on YouTube, Video of Rodney King Beaten by Police Released - ABC News (1:16), the #1 song on the Billboard magazine charts was Niggaz4life by N.W.A., a rap group from the Los Angeles ghetto of Compton, Watts and South Central, casually unveiling a universe of violence, drugs, guns, and elicit sex, whose records had never before risen above No. 27. The music is at its most dramatically powerful while depicting the draconian methods used by the Los Angeles police force to control ordinary citizens, especially in black neighborhoods like Compton. Where once conversations were needed and a degree of human interaction between white and black cultures was required, but the searing lyrics of N.W.A. captured explosive images that were previously off limits to mainstream America, providing a shockingly explicit description, offering a disturbing snapshot of life and a chilling prophecy of the Rodney King beating a few years later, where all the officers were subsequently acquitted, leading to outrage and subsequent riots, turning the neighborhood into a war zone, all captured on live television, where now a flip of the switch of the TV stations could take you straight into the heart of the black community. According to Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Director of African and African American Research at Harvard University:

Both the rappers and their white fans affect and commodify their own visions of street culture, like buying Navajo blankets at a reservation road-stop. A lot of what you see in rap is the guilt of the black middle class about its economic success, its inability to put forth a culture of its own. Instead they do the worst possible thing, falling back on fantasies of street life. In turn, white college students with impeccable gender credentials buy nasty sex lyrics under the cover of getting at some kind of authentic black experience.

What is potentially very dangerous about this is the feeling that by buying records they have made some kind of valid social commitment.

According to Hank Shocklee, co-producer of Public Enemy:

If you’re a suburban white kid and you want to find out what life is like for a black city teenager, you buy a record by N.W.A. It’s like going to an amusement park and getting on a roller coaster ride—records are safe, they’re controlled fear, and you always have the choice of turning it off. That’s why nobody ever takes a train up to 125th Street and gets out and starts walking around. Because then you’re not in control anymore: it’s a whole other ball game.

Chuck D of Public Enemy described rap music as “Black America’s CNN,” where the film clearly understands the value of N.W.A.’s art in terms of its observational description of life in poor black neighborhoods, and while the media called N.W.A’s music gangsta rap, their own chosen term was reality rap. While rappers later embraced the gangsta label, including N.W.A. themselves, it was only with the understanding that “gangsta” was by itself an inadequate description of their music, as the term could be used in a derogatory fashion by the media to undermine the music’s significance, becoming trivializing and stereotypical. With a story written by four different screenwriters, there are plenty of disconnects in the latter stages of the film, with characters disappearing or barely making a presence, where the film is highly entertaining up to a point until it gets bogged down, not knowing what to do with the group’s success. The early struggles are easily the strongest part of the film, where the talented kids are seen as visionaries, promoting a provocative style of music that had a voracious listening audience, yet the older black club owners didn’t want to hear that gangster shit in their clubs, thinking it was too aggressive and would only invite a gang element and the cops around, causing needless trouble and headaches, so they had to play it on the sly when the owners weren’t around, but it caught on instantly leading to wild enthusiasm in the crowds, where there’s an electricity to the group’s genesis and their early success. There’s an interesting similarity to Mia Hansen-Løve’s house music tribute, Eden (2014), showing the introduction of Chicago house music in Paris clubs in the early 90’s, as both films feature DJ’s working a party scene, prominent drug use and both capture the texture of the times, where the first time people hear this music there’s an instant connection, sounding raw and simple, which sounded amazing and felt like something new. STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON is a much more significant story, considering the social implications, because the brilliance of the music is its striking reaction to the surrounding conditions of routine racial profiling and police brutality to anyone black, where the stereotypical mindset of the cops is to continually assume gangbanger or outlaw, associating black males with negativity and unwarranted threats of imminent danger. The stark public reaction to hearing West coast songs like “Straight Outta Compton” N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton - YouTube (4:21) or “Fuck tha Police” N.W.A. "Fuck Tha Police" Music Video (5:14) is like hearing black punk music, as it has an immediate incendiary effect, where even today, protesters in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri wear “Fuck tha Police” T-shirts.

Fuck tha police
Comin straight from the underground
Young nigga got it bad ‘cause I’m brown
And not the other color so police think
They have the authority to kill a minority

Fuck that shit, ‘cause I ain’t tha one
For a punk muthafucka with a badge and a gun
To be beatin on, and throwin in jail
We could go toe to toe in the middle of a cell

Fuckin with me ‘cause I’m a teenager
With a little bit of gold and a pager
Searchin my car, lookin for the product
Thinkin every nigga is sellin narcotics

The film doesn’t really get into the East coast versus West coast differences or even show a sociological impact, but simply follows the lives of a few main players. A contentious aspect is the portrayal of white manager Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti), who eventually partnered exclusively with Eazy-E to manage their recordings and negotiate contracts, which at least allowed N.W.A. to get into a recording booth and record their first album for Ruthless Records. Playing fast and loose with the facts, this all too conveniently fits the stereotype of a white manager ripping off black artists, as exemplified by Morgan Neville’s well documented portrait of Darlene Love and others in 20 Feet from Stardom (2013), a veritable history lesson on the roots of racism in the music industry. Since this film is told from the point of view of its own producers Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, who hand-picked the director as well, where Gray got his start in the industry making music videos for both of them, a knock on the film is that he is little more than a conventional Hollywood director, where he had a chance to connect this film to the disturbing racial animosity of the present, where decades later white cops are still shooting unarmed black youths in record numbers, headline-grabbing tragedies that continue to haunt black communities across the nation. Certainly part of the N.W.A.’s appeal across racial lines is that their message was so bluntly angry and real in response to these problems, but the film doesn’t go that way, taking a less provocative, safer approach by strictly remaining a biographical profile, and the film suffers because of it. Instead it turns into a performance video style movie where N.W.A. goes on the road and becomes an instant success, becoming a self-gratifying, congratulatory movie, paying only lip service to how the FBI wanted to censure their music and how the police in Detroit actually stopped a concert after warning them not to perform “Fuck tha Police,” becoming a rallying point in the film, generating plenty of sympathy for the recording artists, but never elevating the material to being about more than just these few guys. At least early on there are several excellently staged sequences of police brutality, incidents that feed the lyrics of their music, but in the end they’re just a bunch of rich guys living in huge mansions with swimming pools, where they’ve become part of the establishment.

Like so many successful groups before them, N.W.A split up at the peak of their success, as Heller and Eazy-E were at the top of the food chain living in lavish mansions while the rest of the guys were still living at home with their moms. It wasn’t hard to see that something wasn’t right. Nonetheless it took these guys a long time to come to the realization that they needed to “own” their own material and not leave it in the hands of dubious managers. Ice Cube figured it out early, and the rest initially called him a traitor for leaving the group and going solo, but he wasn’t getting paid for what he was contributing. So for him it was a no-brainer. But the film is very fuzzy on what actually happened, leaving out pertinent details in the rise and fall of N.W.A., including how Suge Knight (R. Marcos Taylor) lured both Ice Cube and Dre from Ruthless Records to his own Death Row Records, playing fast and loose with the facts, but simply showing Knight to be a huge man surrounding himself with gun-toting gangsters, a man with a hair-trigger temper and freaky psychotic tendencies. Remember this is the man who is allegedly behind the shootings of Biggie and Tupac, who had members of the LA police force working on his security detail in order to keep him protected from the police, but this is also a man who in a state of rage actually ran his car over two men on the set while making this film in January 2015, leaving one dead and the other hospitalized, where he remains incarcerated at the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles. While they did show lavish pool parties that reflected the Southern California Hugh Hefner Playboy lifestyle for the rich and famous, they never showed any of these guys (except Eazy-E) even smoking a joint during their rise to success while also failing to mention the misogynist lyrics and battery charges filed against Dre for abusing women, some over an extended period of time. But you won’t see that here, making this more of a condensed, feelgood portrait, where Dre comes off as a saint and musical genius, where the only time he throws a punch is protecting his little brother. Not sure the film needs to spend as much time as it does documenting the hospitalization and eventual death of Eazy-E from AIDS in 1995 at the age of 31, who died from the effects of his own lifestyle, slowing the film down to a crawl, going to great lengths to ratchet up the sympathy in a memoriam tribute. By the end, Dre walks away from Suge Knight as well and the rest is history. While Dr. Dre claims to be the first rap billionaire, according to Tatiana Siegel from The Hollywood Reporter, July 31, 2015, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube Break Silence on N.W.A Movie, Suge ..., his current net worth is estimated to be closer to $700 million, Ice Cube is at $140 million, DJ Yella has become a porn producer of more than 300 films, directing 26 and performing in three, while MC Ren released a single solo album in 1992 that has currently sold just under a million copies.

Connecting the N.W.A. story with today, one realizes how little has actually changed between blacks and police, and why, after such a brilliant opening, the film loses its direction, caught up in its own commercialization instead of at least mentioning people who have become household names for the most tragic reasons, as there is no mention of Michael Brown being shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri on August 7, 2014, or Dontre Hamilton was fatally shot 14 times by police for disturbing the peace in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on April 30, 2014, Eric Garner died from a police choke-hold for selling illegal cigarettes in the streets of New York on July 17, 2014, John Crawford III was shot and killed by police at a Walmart in Dayton, Ohio on Aug. 5, 2014, Ezell Ford, a mentally ill man was shot 3 times, once in the back by a white police officer in Florence, California on Aug. 11, 2014, Dante Parker died in police custody after being repeatedly stunned by a Taser in Victorville, California on Aug. 12, 2014, Tanisha Anderson died after officers slammed her head on the pavement while taking her into custody in Cleveland, Ohio on Nov. 13, 2014, Akai Gurley was shot and killed by a police officer, claiming “accidental discharge,” while walking in a public housing stairwell with his girlfriend in Brooklyn, New York on Nov. 20, 2014, Tamir Rice, age 12, was shot and killed when police mistakenly thought his toy gun was real in Cleveland, Ohio on Nov. 22, 2014, Rumain Brisbon was shot and killed by a police officer who mistook a pill bottle for a weapon in Phoenix, Arizona on Dec. 2, 2014, Jerame Reid was shot and killed after a car was pulled over by police, where he was a passenger exiting a car with his hands in front of his chest in Bridgeton, New Jersey on Dec. 30, 2014, Tony Robinson was shot 3 times for allegedly disrupting traffic in Madison, Wisconsin on March 6, 2015, Phillip White died in police custody after a violent encounter with police where he appeared to be in medical distress and may have been bitten by a police dog while pinned to the ground in Vineland, New Jersey on March 31, 2015, Eric Harris was shot and killed by a 73-year-old reserve deputy officer who allegedly mistook his own gun for a Taser, captured on a police dashcam video in Tulsa, Oklahoma on April 2, 2015, Walter Scott was shot in the back by police while running away from a traffic stop for a broken tail light in North Charleston, South Carolina on April 4, 2015, Freddie Gray who died in a hospital of a spinal cord injury a week after he was arrested for allegedly possessing a switchblade, handcuffed and placed in the back of a police van where he was not seatbelted and taken to a police station instead of a hospital, where he was found already in a coma from a broken neck in Baltimore, Maryland on April 19, 2015, Kris Jackson was shot dead for a parole violation, killed while attempting to climb out a window wearing only shorts and socks, with his legs hanging out the window, unarmed, yet he was perceived as a “deadly threat” in South Lake Tahoe, California on June 15, 2015, while Joshua Dryer was shot and killed by police as a passenger when the driver was being uncooperative during a traffic stop in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 23, 2015.

According to Oliver Laughland, Jon Swaine, and Jamiles Lartey from The Guardian, July 1, 2015. US police killings headed for 1,100 this year, with black ..., of the 547 people killed by police in the United States by June 29, 2015, 478 were shot and killed – and more than 20% were unarmed, where black people are being killed by police at more than twice the rate of white and Hispanic or Latino people. While 31.6% of black people killed were found to be carrying no weapon, that was true for only 16.5% of white people. To show just how exaggerated this excessive force has become, police shot and killed Antonio Zambrano-Montes for throwing rocks at cars, firing 17 shots at him, “armed” only with a rock, an incident caught on video in Pasco, Washington (with a population of 67,000) on February 15, 2015, while only 6 bullets were fired by the Finland police force (with a population of 5.4 million) for the entire year of 2013. Not released until August, 2015, one year after the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, perhaps a more appropriate film ending might have been the eulogy for Freddie Gray, where the Reverend Jamal Bryant offered his own personal reflections to Gray’s mother, Gloria Darden, from Stacia L. Brown at the New Republic magazine, April 30, 2015, Looking While Black - The New Republic:

On April 12 at 8:39 in the morning, four officers on bicycles saw your son. And your son, in a subtlety of revolutionary stance, did something black men were trained to know not to do. He looked police in the eye. And when he looked the police in the eye, they knew that there was a threat, because they’re used to black men with their head bowed down low, with their spirit broken. He was a threat simply because he was man enough to look somebody in authority in the eye. I want to tell this grieving mother ... you are not burying a boy, you are burying a grown man. He knew that one of the principles of being a man is looking somebody in the eye.

"'Straight Outta Compton' Review: Hip-Hop History With Attitude" Joe Morgenstern from The Wall Street Journal

The first words on screen in “Straight Outta Compton” come straight out of Dr. Dre’s prologue to the N.W.A. album of the same name: “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.” Watching the movie, an explosively entertaining biopic about the hip-hop group that brought gangsta rap into the mainstream of popular culture in the 1980s, you will witness other things, too—the mingling of authentic protest (much of it aimed at cops) with shameless commerce; the deathless appeal of Hollywood clichés. The film, whose producers include two of the group’s most prominent founders, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube—the director was F. Gary Gray—is notable for its omissions (at least one of them egregious) along with its strengths, but that shouldn’t be surprising. This is history retold from the perspective of triumphant survivors.

It’s an origin story, as compelling as any tale of how superheroes got their superpowers, though also familiar, as such tales must be, since it traces a classic path from obscurity to artistic and commercial success. Dr. Dre as a passionate youngster, Andre Young (Corey Hawkins) struggles against the rules and constraints of his hardworking mother, Verna ( Lisa Renee Pitts): “You don’t know what I’m fighting for!” he tells her before leaving home. The young Ice Cube, played by the rapper’s son, O’Shea Jackson Jr.—the resemblance is downright eerie—works out his hip-hop rhymes in a notebook on a bus. (That’s classic too. The same scene occurs in “8 Mile,” with Eminem playing a fictional version of himself.) Hugely energetic and relentlessly profane, the film is blessed with strong performances by little-known actors—not only Messrs. Hawkins and Jackson, but those playing other members of N.W.A.’s core group: Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, Neil Brown Jr. as DJ Yella and Aldis Hodge as MC Ren.

Once the young rappers find their shared voice and hurl it at a gleeful public, “Straight Outta Compton” is off and running: “These songs are burnin’ up!” a DJ exclaims in one of those showbiz tropes that give reliable pleasure. But the cops provide a grim and recurrent counterpoint to the group’s evolution, whether at the beginning, when L.A.P.D. officers working the streets of Compton hassle the stars-to-be for no reason on several occasions (with resonance added to these scenes by recent cellphone- and body-cam revelations) or later, when N.W.A.’s scabrous language and signature protest song, “F— tha Police,” draw the ire of the F.B.I. and prompt cops in Detroit to shut down a now-infamous 1989 concert.

Another theme impinges with increasing frequency—and stridency—on the group’s performances, which are far and away the most appealing parts of the picture. That’s the role played by N.W.A.’s manager, Jerry Heller ( Paul Giamatti, whose portrayal grows from shrewd den mother to diabolical conniver and crook). No account of this complex chapter in American entertainment can ignore the sordid, often violent disputes and personal rivalries that led to Ice Cube’s defection and eventually tore N.W.A. apart. Yet the script, by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff, is almost obsessed by all of that—the most malign presence is R. Marcos Taylor as the famously brutal record-label executive Suge Knight—while making short shrift, or no shrift at all, of crucial questions about personal conduct and the content of hip-hop lyrics.

There’s no mention of Dr. Dre’s vicious assault, in 1991, on the TV host Dee Barnes. Female characters who do appear on screen—in speaking roles, rather than in cheerfully repetitive bacchanals—are marginal to the action. “Straight Outta Compton” celebrates N.W.A. as poster men for free speech in their perennial disputes with would-be censors. That’s an appropriate part of the equation, but the movie declines to discuss the group’s hate speech—the violence, misogyny, antigay views and scattershot racism that pervade its songs. (Anti-Semitism comes up only because Heller is outraged by Ice Cube’s attacks on him, as well as on N.W.A., the rapper’s former group, in his notorious song “No Vaseline.”)

With a running time of 147 minutes, the film not only runs low on energy toward the end—internecine battles can’t compete with the early excitement of gifted young kids making it big on a national stage—but turns ploddingly sentimental in its sudden focus on Eazy-E’s painful decline, and death, from AIDS. No time is reserved for complexity or contradiction, not even an odd turn of events that Ice Cube has subsequently recounted in connection with the 1989 Detroit concert. The cops did indeed rush the stage, stop the show, corral the fleeing rappers and arrest them, just as the movie shows. But “all they wanted,” Ice Cube told a TV interviewer zestfully, “was damn autographs.”

The story being told in F. Gary Gray’s Straight Outta Compton is as relevant today as it was a generation ago when five young men turned brutally honest rhymes, hardcore beats, and the frustration of living in their inner-city Los Angeles neighborhood into music: the most powerful weapon of their time.

Life for L.A. inner-city youth in the 80s was anything but glamorous with crack dens, gang bangers and ne’er-do-wells on nearly every street corner. Ironically, it’s this very lifestyle that gave rise to N.W.A, one of America’s earliest and most successful purveyors of the gangsta rap genre. That paradox is beautifully illustrated in one of the film’s later scenes that has Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson), Eazy E (Jason Mitchell), and company watching footage of the Rodney King beating and its riotous aftermath from the lush confines of their expansive mansions.

By the time of the riots in 1993 the guys had lost their edge. That ardent passion against all things “authority” had disappeared as the group turned its focus from hating on cops to battling bad record deals and greedy producers. Success always seems to have a way of turning bile into fat, and N.W.A certainly weren’t immune to its effects.

Ironically, this is also the point at which Gray’s film loses most of its opening act attitude and turns into something more closely resembling a VH1 Behind the Music documentary than it does the ‘roided-out depiction of a dangerous but creative time and place in Urban American history. At nearly 150 minutes, Straight Outta Compton is about 30 minutes too long as Gray spends the latter third running down the group’s demise in a documentary-style timeline. Yes, there’s a lot to cram in, including the “diss” record battles, the money problems, and Eazy E’s well-publicized death to AIDs, but the formation of the group and seeing what drove these guys out of the ghetto is far more interesting than what tore them down. The abrupt change in tone, pace, and attitude hobbles the experience significantly.

The story is told through the eyes of Ice Cube, Eazy E, and Dr. Dre as they leave their paltry DJ gigs in central LA’s bars and clubs, and come together -- with the financial backing of Eazy E’s drug money -- to form the group that would shoot to stardom in the early 90s from the controversy of their “Fuck tha Police” recording, defiant arrest in Detroit, and their subsequent investigation by the FBI.

Other group members are portrayed by Aldis Hodge as MC Ren while Neil Brown, Jr. is DJ Yella. But the standout performance comes from Jackson who conjures his father’s emotions -- not to mention a striking likeness -- with a chilling depiction that should keep the elder actor on his toes.

As always, Paul Giamatti stands out as controversial N.W.A. manager Jerry Heller, who first noticed the group’s rising success and partnered with Eazy E to manage their recordings and negotiate contracts. To a fault, Eazy sticks with Heller despite indications that he was skimming money and signing away their recording contracts. There’s still a lot we don’t know about the real-life Heller, but his under-handed treatment of the group is never softened in Straight Outta Compton. In fact, it becomes clear in the film that he was the main catalyst for the group’s demise.

Another of the film’s notable performances is turned in by R. Marcos Taylor as Suge Knight, the co-founder and CEO of Death Row Records, the outfit that would eventually lure Ice Cube and Dr. Dre from Heller’s Ruthless Records label. Taylor’s screen depiction of Knight is both terrifying and ferocious -- even knowing the real-life ruthlessness with which Knight conducted his professional business while he was still a free man.

Don’t be fooled by Straight Outta Compton’s self-positioning as a coming-of-age story with themes of friendship, brotherhood, and triumph. Sure, there are all those things. But this is one nasty mother -- well deserving of its “R” rating -- that, despite its setting in a time some twenty years gone, holds little back as it continues to fan the flames of relevance with today’s ongoing urban struggles.

'Straight Outta Compton' doesn't match the real Compton Joe Mathews from SF Gate, August 20, 2015

Don’t believe the hype around “Straight Outta Compton.”

Watching or reading about the new movie about the groundbreaking rap group N.W.A., you might think the biggest problem facing Compton is its unfair and outdated reputation for violence and gangs. But today, the Los Angeles County city also has an even more stubborn problem: It’s boring.

The Compton depicted in the hit film is scarily entertaining — a mix of menace and schemes and murder. In this, it fits decades of musical portraits of the city — “bodies on top of bodies, IVs on top of IVs,” as the Compton hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar has rapped.

Give credit to these artists. Turning the small city of Compton — 10 square miles and fewer than 100,000 people — into a big national icon of the ghetto was one of the great marketing tricks of our age. But it’s a profoundly peculiar success. For all the name-checking of Compton in our culture, Compton itself remains invisible in its own mythology.

The new film is not about Compton, but about brilliant music makers who have left town. Compton is described as a tough place, but in brief scenes of Compton — a conversation on the pleasant mall outside City Hall, kids riding motorbikes down a nice residential street — it doesn’t look tough. These glimpses reflect the truth: The real Compton does not fit the ghetto cliche.

Yes, Compton is poor, but it’s really a working-class suburb, defined by its single-family homes. This isn’t the projects: Only 19 percent of its housing is multiunit, compared with 31 percent across California. Compton’s south side, along the 91 Freeway, is a thriving business district that includes the corporate offices of leading grocer Ralphs.

While musicians have portrayed Compton as an upstart, it is actually one of Southern California’s oldest cities. Griffith Compton and other pioneers arrived in 1867 from Stockton. For most of its history, Compton has been the “Hub City” connecting Los Angeles to the north and Long Beach to the south, and serving as a stop in the rise of generations of Southern California families working in oil, aviation and other industries — poor whites, then African Americans after the war, more recently Latinos. My own great-grandparents — Paul and Nancy Mathews — are buried off Compton Boulevard.

But perceptions of Compton have been formed by decades of media reports on crime and gangs, ethnic conflicts and public corruption. As a young Los Angeles Times reporter covering Compton a decade ago, I was one of those reductionist media sinners, focusing almost exclusively on corruption and mismanagement. People in Compton often argued that my focus was unfair, because Southern California has no shortage of cities with similar problems.

Then as now, Compton’s leading citizens have eagerly corrected misimpressions of the city. Today, the facts are on their side. Surveys show Compton is a good place to start a business. It has a strong mayor and has seen sharp declines in violent crime.

But, outside the city, the old impressions of Compton have held, and that’s not entirely the fault of reporters or rappers. Civic leaders, for all their talk about eliminating negatives like crime, haven’t advanced a compelling counter-narrative of what makes Compton special.

Recently, they’ve been touting the development of the Gateway Towne Center, a nice mall with all the chains (Home Depot, Target, 24 Hour Fitness, Starbucks) you can find anywhere. That desire for normalcy is understandable given the city’s reputation. But it’s awfully boring.

To distinguish itself, Compton needs attractions entirely its own. This could start with redesigning its shabby major thoroughfares to make them more inviting to pedestrians, bicyclists and other patrons of the diverse local small businesses there. With L.A. County’s public transit system undergoing a transformation, Compton should re-establish itself as a Southern California hub. The 3-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. Transit Center, with retail and office space along the Blue Line, is a good start.

And Compton must stop running from its rap reputation and find creative ways to exploit it. On the movie soundtrack album “Compton,” Dr. Dre raps, “We need a little bit of payback.” So does Compton; entertainers who profited from the worst stories of Compton should be pressured to devote dollars to creating destinations there.

To his credit, Dr. Dre, a member of N.W.A. and producer of the new film, is donating his album royalties to establish a first-class performing arts venue the city desperately needs to attract old acts and nurture new ones.

It’s time to build a Compton as interesting as its reputation.

How 'Straight Outta Compton' fails its audience Alyssa Rosenberg from The Washington Post, August 20, 2015

“Straight Outta Compton” is the second movie released this year in which Paul Giamatti plays a sinister impresario connected to musical genius. And while he’s equally unnerving as music impresario Jerry Heller and Eugene Landy, the psychologist who took control of Brian Wilson’s (Paul Dano as a young Wilson, John Cusack as Wilson in later years) life in “Love & Mercy,” it’s no contest as to which Giamatti picture is the better depiction of the actual music-making process.

There’s an early scene in “Straight Outta Compton” where Dre (Corey Hawkins) essentially teaches Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) to rap, helping him find the beat he’s supposed to hit and coaching him into expressing the conviction that would make “Boyz N Tha Hood” N.W.A.’s breakout song. But otherwise it’s pastiche; an encounter with the cops outside a Torrance, Calif., studio leads seamlessly into “F— Tha Police”; a very young Snoop Dogg (the always hugely welcome Keith Stanfield) hangs out at the house where Dre is at work on a beat that will become “Nuthin But a G Thang” and begins rapping a final draft of the lyrics; “California Love” blooms, fully finished, from the speakers while Tupac (Marcc Rose) is at work.

“Love & Mercy” was animated by director Bill Pohlad and writers Oren Moverman and Michael Alan Lerner’s insight that even geniuses have to put in the work to make great art. Watching the sweat equity that Wilson put into “Pet Sounds” illuminated the tension between the Beach Boys themselves and between Wilson and his father (Bill Camp) in a way that none of the discussions about money in “Straight Outta Compton” really serve to do. And while suggesting in “Straight Outta Compton” that every track on the iconic album (and many that followed) arrived in the world fully formed may imply that Dre in particular is a genius, it also makes the whole process of making music seem a little boring.

The way “Straight Outta Compton” treats music has justifiably gotten much less attention than director F. Gary Gray’s decision to exclude an important part of N.W.A.’s story: the role of women as both collaborators and label mates, and as victims of violence. But both choices are animated by a lack of interest in the rough sides of process and personality, and to a certain extent, a lack of trust that the audience will be kept engaged for 2½ hours by anything but hagiography.

“Straight Outta Compton” is comfortable depicting its characters treating women poorly, even violently, as long as the women in question are entirely disposable. Our introduction to Eazy-E involves him viciously cussing a drug dealer’s girlfriend for the simple crime of getting him a 40 at the dealer’s request. Later in the scene, when members of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums squad show up to raid the house with a motorized battering ram, E flees the house, slamming a refrigerator door into the woman with such force that she’s thrown across the room.

After N.W.A. goes on tour to support “Straight Outta Compton,” Ice Cube (played by Ice Cube’s son O’Shea Jackson Jr.) throws Felicia (Asia’h Epperson), a groupie who has been having oral sex with another member of the group, out into a hotel hallway after a man claiming to be her boyfriend shows up toting a gun. To me, it was an ugly scene: I felt such fear for this young woman, thrown out of a hotel suite, nearly naked, at the mercy of whatever violence her boyfriend felt justified in meting out to her. But I’m not sure it’s intended that way. Felicia isn’t a person in “Straight Outta Compton”; she’s an Easter egg for the audience, an origin story for a meme. The film’s sympathies are with the members of N.W.A., with their cleverness in finding a way to sacrifice a woman that will protect them from the consequences of their own profligacy.

And women like Dee Barnes, Michel’le and Tairrie B, all of whom had longer-standing professional and personal relationships with members of N.W.A., and all of whom were allegedly beaten by members of the group, don’t appear anywhere in “Straight Outta Compton.” There’s no question that the movie leaves out their worst acts and that Gray preserves a clear line between their conduct and that of the movie’s villains. For all that Eazy-E looks out for himself first, he lacks Jerry Heller’s avarice and endless self-justification. And for all that Dre craves independence and control, “Straight Outta Compton” suggests that he’s appalled by business partner Suge Knight’s (R. Marcos Taylor) capacity for violence and tendency to implement his business decisions with force.

Part of what’s interesting about “Straight Outta Compton” is that although the characters position themselves as “hard,” the movie often presents them as strikingly emotional, even vulnerable. Gray gets terrific work out of his ensemble in these moments.

One of the most striking sequences in the film comes early, when O’Shea Jackson, soon to be known as Ice Cube, gets stopped by the police while he’s trying to cross the street to return to his own home. As the police curse his parents, Doris (Angela Elayne Gibbs) and Hosea (Bruce Beatty), who is left vainly asserting that the couple have the right to stand on their own front law, O’Shea’s lips twist in rage and shame. Later, Dre gets frisked by another cop, his face turning into a mask of disgust.

While fury in response to racism is an important motivation in “Straight Outta Compton,” and Gray mines it for both artistic inspirations and the characters’ drive to build their own companies, the film’s characters exist on a broader spectrum.

When Dre, who had encouraged his brother to stay in school rather than coming on tour with the group, learns that the boy has died in a fight, Hawkins does a tremendous job of portraying Dre’s struggle for control, even in front of his friends. “That’s my little brother, man,” Dre tells them, struggling not to weep, pounding one fist into his palm, locking his fingers together. “My little baby brother.” At a raucous news conference, Ice Cube, who has been fighting for a fair contract given his role in writing so many of the group’s lyrics, is asked by a black reporter, “What’s a guy from Compton do when he starts to make real money?” There’s a very long pause, and Jackson answers, with barely disguised anger and disappointment at his bandmates, “Buy Raiders gear. And curl activator.”

As the years advance, N.W.A. splits up and these very young men become adults, “Straight Outta Compton” shifts into melancholy. Ice Cube ruefully locks eyes with a cop on patrol while driving through the riots that burned through Los Angeles after Rodney King’s attackers were acquitted. As Eazy-E’s career wanes — he loses his house and returns to drug dealing — and, unbeknownst to him, he begins suffering from HIV symptoms, shame and regret creep into his interactions with his friends and with Heller. A scene where Eazy fires Heller has the melancholy and pain of the breakup of a romantic relationship. And after he falls into a coma, Dre weeps by his bedside and Ice Cube can’t even go into the hospital room. “I need to hear his voice, Dre. I can’t see him laid up like that,” Ice Cube tells his old friend, almost panicked with grief.

I don’t object to humanizing N.W.A. As a matter of art, these scenes bring out great acting. And as a matter of politics, they add dimensions to black men who were flattened by the media for years. But “Straight Outta Compton” participates in that flattening, even if the film works in a different, more flattering direction. It’s an incomplete movie in a way that precludes it from greatness. (A clunky script that mostly serves to highlight the strength of the performances that transcend it also weighs the movie down.)

It’s possible to acknowledge the fact that the same men who were made raw by police brutality and harassment, divided by business deals and their own ambitions, and ultimately separated by disease and death also hurt women. In fact, however much Gray wants to dismiss an attempt to reconcile these elements of his subjects’ lives as political correctness, it’s necessary to do these things; to tear down the pernicious lie that only monsters are criminals; and to reckon with the way that racism, police violence and violence against women and children might exist in the same, dangerously dynamic system. It doesn’t pass responsibility on to the LAPD to acknowledge that people who have been brutalized might pass their damage on to others. And just because “Straight Outta Compton” doesn’t depict members of N.W.A. attacking women doesn’t mean those events didn’t happen or that they’ll be forgotten.

Straight Outta Compton - Slate Magazine John Swansburg

David Samuels Rap on Rap 1991 | The New Republic David Samuels from The New Republic, November 11, 1991

The Politics of Race in Rap » Harvard Political Review Jonah Hahn, June 8, 2014

14 Things We Learned About 'Straight Outta Compton ... Rolling Stone magazine, August 14, 2015

'Straight Outta Compton' Fact-Check: How True Is the ... Jen Yamato separates fact from fiction in The Daily Beast, August 4, 2015

Review: Straight Outta Compton is largely successful ... - HitFix Drew McWeeny

Review: STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, An Artful ... - Twitch Christopher Bourne

Slant Magazine [Steve Macfarlane]

Sound On Sight (J.R. Kinnard)

Screen Rant [Kofi Outlaw]

'Straight Outta Compton': Review - Screen International Tim Grierson

Straight Outta Compton (F. Gary Gray, 2015) Michael Stenski from Seattle Street Scene

Digital Journal [Sarah Gopaul]

The Truth in 'Straight Outta Compton' Gets Lost in the ... Amy Nicholson from The Village Voice

FilmFracture [James Jay Edwards]

Straight Outta Compton Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from The Onion A.V. Club

'Straight Outta Compton' Movie Review | Rolling Stone Peter Travers

N.W.A Tell All: Inside the Original Gangstas' Cover Story ... Rolling Stone magazine, August 12, 2015

Dr. Dre, Ice Cube Break Silence on N.W.A Movie, Suge ... Tatiana Siegel from The Hollywood Reporter, July 31, 2015

The Hollywood Reporter [John DeFore] film review

How NWA came straight outta Compton and went mainstream Danny Kelly from The Guardian

Examiner.com [Travis Hopson] also seen here Punch Drunk Critics [Travis Hopson]

Straight Outta Compton' review: An enlightening portrait of NWA Ann Hornaday from The Washington Post

Dallas Film Now [Peter Martin]

Straight Outta Compton Movie Review (2015) | Roger Ebert Odie Henderson

Beatings By Dr. Dre — Medium October 6, 2014

NWA's Straight Outta Compton Movie May—Or May Not ... Hillary Crosley Coker from The Muse, February 9, 2015

Here's A Timeline Of Unarmed Black People Killed By ... Nicholas Quah and Laura E. Davis from Buzzfeed, May 1, 2015

US police killings headed for 1,100 this year, with black ... Oliver Laughland, Jon Swaine, and Jamiles Lartey from The Guardian, July 1, 2015

Remember When Dr. Dre Bashed a Female Journalist’s Face Against a Wall? Rich Juzwiak from Gawker, July 31, 2015

N.W.A Tell All: Inside the Original Gangstas' Rolling Stone ... Rolling Stone magazine, August 2015

Ice Cube Has a Message For Bitches, Hoes, and Their ... Rich Juzwiak from Gawker, August 12, 2015

Ava DuVernay Shows Love For Straight Outta Compton Marle Lodle from Jezebel, August 16, 2015

Dr. Dre's Ex Has an Idea Why His Abusive Past Didn't Make the NWA Biopic Clover Hope from Jezebel, August 17, 2015

Gawker Dee Barnes, August 18, 2015

Dr. Dre accuser slams 'Straight Outta Compton' Kelly Lawler from USA Today, August 19, 2015

Dr. Dre's Attack On Dee Barnes Was Cut From Original 'Straight Outta Compton ... Juliet Bennett Rylah from LAist, August 20, 2015

Straight Outta Compton: The Top 5 Moments From N.W.A.'s History That Didn't ... Michael Miller from People magazine, August 23, 2015

Straight Outta Compton has it all wrong says NWA manager Jerry Heller | Daily Mail Online Daniel Bates, August 25, 2015

Gray, James

An Interview with James Gray | Reverse Shot Andrew Tracy, 2008

LITTLE ODESSA

USA (98 mi) 1994 ‘Scope

filmcritic.com (Christopher Null)

Little Odessa, the stunning feature debut of 24-year old writer/director James Gray, is about to become the victim of distributor politics. As a result of recent changes in upper management, Fine Line Features has chosen to limit -- if not completely withdraw -- support for this film. Considering the strength of the material, the adeptness of Gray's direction, and several memorable performances, this is a classic case of cinematic injustice. Little Odessa deserves to be seen by as many movie-goers as possible, not just those living in the few locations where Fine Line choses to release it.

At the focal point is Joshua Shapira (Tim Roth), a deeply-troubled, emotionally detached hit man who has come home to Brooklyn to commit an assassination. Although difficulties in his past make it dangerous for him to be seen near Brighten Beach, the real impediment to a return is his father, Arkady (Maximilian Schell). For, while Josh loves his dying mother, Irina (Vanessa Redgrave), and his younger brother, Reuben (Edward Furlong), there is nothing but antipathy between father and eldest son. Nevertheless, left without a choice, Josh ventures back to the Russian/Jewish community, and eventually encounters all the members of his family. While there, he also hooks up with an old girlfriend, Alla Shustervich (Moira Kelly), a young woman who is reluctantly attracted to the lonely killer.

Little Odessa is an extremely complex motion picture, layered with powerful themes and fascinating characters. The dysfunctional family dynamic is examined from a different perspective -- this is a case of the best intentions gone awry. The film's ending has a strong allegorical, as well as dramatic, impact. Not only is the final sequence emotionally crushing, but it slams home a vivid and telling message about prices paid by both the innocent and the guilty for crimes within the community. And the consignment of a Jewish body to an oven calls to mind a chilling association.

At the opening of Little Odessa, Josh is in a hell of his own making. During the course of the film, there are opportunities for redemption and love, all of which are rejected. Josh has no emotional capacity; when he makes love to Alla, the act is passionless and mechanical. He is unable to respond to his brother's simple offer of devotion. He cannot cry when he faces his dying mother. Only his father provokes a reaction, and that is a decidedly negative one. By this performance, Tim Roth adds yet another impressive credit to his resume.

Equally as complex is Josh's tormented, self-pitying father -- a man who has lost all authority over his household and his existence. Assimilation to the American way of life is a continuing struggle for someone like him, born and raised on traditions and values that his children don't share. Arkady loathes Josh as much as he hates himself. He has a mistress, but feels guilty about not being with his dying life. He is educated, yet is forced by economic circumstances to run a newsstand. He loves Reuben, yet his actions seem always to hurt his younger son. Maximilian Schell, an accomplished actor who hasn't had much screen exposure in the past few years, encourages in viewers a mixture of resentment and sympathy.

Moira Kelly, despite the most limited screen time of a member of the primary cast, turns in one of the best performances of her career. Her confusion, self-doubt, and conflicting feelings for Josh, as well as her recognition that the relationship is doomed, add a subdued poignancy to Alla that less skillful acting would not have conveyed. Edward Furlong, a young actor gaining presence with each new role, somewhat underplays Reuben, but not to the point where it interferes with the story. Vanessa Redgrave does her usual fine job.

The violence of Little Odessa is brutal, quick, and always shocking. As in Schindler's List, scenes of bloodshed are presented graphically, but never gratuitously. The deaths in this film, when they occur, cause a momentary contraction of the viewer's stomach muscles. This is a credit to the director, who has a clear vision and uses all the tools at his disposal to attain those ends.

Because of the richness of the subject matter and the complexity of the characters, gangster movies, especially those with strong ethnic overtones, make excellent vehicles for social commentary. Little Odessa is the latest example of what such a film can accomplish. With an emotional impact as strong as its intellectual appeal, Little Odessa is deserving of a far better fate than the one Fine Line Features has consigned it to.

DVD Talk (Gil Jawetz)

Edwin Jahiel

Austin Chronicle (Steve Davis)

Washington Post [Rita Kempley]

Los Angeles Times (Peter Rainer)

The New York Times (Caryn James)

THE YARDS A 95

USA (115 mi) 1999 ‘Scope

Like an offshoot from THE GODFATHER (1972), using a tense and beautifully realized naturalism with an equally impressive cast, this searingly intense story remains Gray’s best work exposing the behind-the-scenes corruption where various well connected families vie for control and power from the lucrative contracts awarded to provide repairs of the New York City subway system. The director’s own father worked for a company that supplied parts and needed services for the New York subway, adding an autobiographical touch of authenticity to this story written by Matt Reeves and the director. It is this close, intimate glimpse that gives the film its power, basically the story of two best friends, a young Joaquin Phoenix as Willie, an on-the-edge character in over his head, as usual, and Mark Wahlberg as Leo, fresh out of prison on car heists, where he apparently took the fall for the rest of the gang. Shot by Harris Savides who subsequently became Gus van Sant’s cinematographer, the film opens with a welcome home party for Leo awash in warm golden tones with glowing faces accentuated by candlelight, where the restless mood showcases what’s best about James Gray films, where the everpresent food and din of voices underscores a growing sense of underlying urgency. As Leo greets his mother, Ellen Burstyn, his aunt, Faye Dunaway, and cousin, a stunningly gorgeous dark haired Charlize Theron as Erica, the energy carries them to a nightclub where Willie wants to show off his girlfriend Erica in a dance sequence bathed in red, which grows ecstatic to the gyrating, rhythmic music of Bellini - Samba De Janeiro - YouTube (2:48), which matches the frenetic mood of Willie who quickly gets in a jealous fight when a guy tries dancing with his girl. From the outset, territorial boundaries are set, like neighborhoods or families or contracts, where men are willing to do battle in order to protect these invisible lines, where the perception is this is all they’ve got.

In order to make up for the troubles he’s caused his mother, Leo intends to go straight, but all he knows are the ways of the streets, where he immediately falls back into the same crowd that got him into trouble in the first place. He goes to see his uncle Frank, brilliantly played by James Caan as if he was the reincarnation of Sonny Corleone given a new chance at life, the guy who now runs the railway contracts, where he explains “If it's on a train or a subway, we make it or we fix it.” But Frank is hesitant to involve his nephew in the dirty business and tries to steer him straight, but Willie who works for Frank will have none of that, believing there’s plenty of cash to go around, so he starts involving Leo in some of the petty graft, which involves the police, train employees and the local politicians, where it appears everyone is on the take. Since this well-oiled system is so entrenched in local business practices, who is Leo to suggest it’s wrong? This is perfectly underscored at a family dinner, where Frank is surprised Leo’s working with Willie, who is basically his bag man, the guy who pays off all the bribes and keeps everyone happy, but he accepts the situation when the women at the table start wondering what’s wrong with Leo working with Willie, since they’re such good friends? Rather than a typical crime drama where the bad guys are clearly identified by their gun toting violence, this gets underneath the workings of a civilized society where everything is operating under the natural order of business, and when it’s family, everyone looks out for everyone else’s interests. The character of Frank is actually inspired by Gray’s own father who was involved in a train racketeering scandal from the 80’s.

This is an exceptional crime film film that underplays and nearly eliminates macho dialogue but does place most of the interior scenes in dimly lit rooms that are nearly engulfed in shadows, where Phoenix especially wears the darkness around him like a garment, where his haunting close ups have an especially eerie feel to them. Howard Shore chooses very sparingly to use grave, ultra dramatic music, adapting the dark and gloomy mood of Saturn from Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Based on the title, it’s inevitable that the most significant scene in the film takes place in the railroad yards, where Willie and a small group routinely damage railroad cars, which steers repair business to Frank, so he brings along Leo, thinking what harm can come of it? But all hell breaks loose when a yardmaster refuses to play along, which sends everything spiraling out of control. Leo gets fingered for something he didn’t do and he’s forced to go into hiding, once more taking the rap. But on parole, he’s not afforded a second chance, so he either has to come clean or disappear. The brain trust of the family operation works overtime on this one, as rather than someone they can simply get rid of, this is one of their own. The moral lines are drawn, but everyone is in a quandary. There’s a calm intelligence and seductive beauty to the way this movie is filmed, right down to the plentiful family meals, the accuracy of the speech inflections, the backroom negotiations playing out at supposedly public meetings, and the use of seedy locations, where Wahlberg’s role is reminiscent of Brando in ON THE WATERFRONT (1954), but he plays it with more quiet reserve, continually expanding his emotional range. Erica has a spectacularly moving sequence with her stepfather Frank which could literally be an outtake from THE GODFATHER, while sisters Burstyn and Dunaway provide family cohesion with trust and believability. The performances throughout are simply masterful and cannot be underestimated, as this has the despairing air and undignified feel of people being trapped by the system.

A NOTE OF WARNING - - it should be pointed out that this film was originally shot in 'Scope, yet the Blu-Ray DVD releases have inexplicably been released in a 1:78 aspect ratio, compromising the look of the film, where the cinematography is one of the more stunning aspects of the film. Quoting from this Amazon review written by purplefigment:

Buyer Beware.. The Yards [Blu-ray] from Echo Bridge Entertainment:

This is a product review for 'The Yards' Blu-ray release by Echo Bridge Entertainment.

Heads up that this 'The Yards' [Blu-ray] release (and additionally the 'The Yards' / 'The Lookout' (Miramax Double Feature) [Blu-ray]) from Echo Bridge Entertainment is heavily compromised (as are most everything released from their Miramax/Dimension Films partnership so far).

- It has been modified to fit your screen (because modified full screen releases were the best ideas from the VHS/DVD days) with 1.78:1 aspect ratio instead of its original intended 2.39:1 aspect ratio and of below average quality even then.

- It has had its audio mix downgraded from its original 5.1 track to 2.0.

- It is missing the extras that were available on its previous DVD release.

Consider the previous Director's Cut Miramax Collector's Series DVD release (never a good sign when the DVD equals or surpasses a Blu-ray release in areas), The Yards - Director's Cut (Miramax Collector's Series). That DVD release is in its intended aspect ratio, 5.1 audio track and contains numerous extras.

The Yards Geoff Andrew from Time Out London

A sensitive, intelligent and ambitious variation on the traditional going-straight story. Wahlberg is just out of prison and determined to stay out of trouble. Inevitably he runs straight into it when, under the influence of his uncle (Caan) and old pal (Phoenix), he gets involved in railyard sabotage and unforeseen murder. In terms of conventional suspense, the film is too muted and sombre to deliver the goods convincingly, but as a character study and an exploration of different notions of family, friendship, duty and loyalty, the careful attention to detail pays off. A great cast helps, as does the sometimes surprising use of music (notably Holst's 'Saturn').

The Village Voice [Dennis Lim]

Coming home from hard time on car-robbery charges, Mark Wahlberg rides the New York City rails, an image that turns out to be cruelly prescient in The Yards, James Gray's solid, classically constructed crime thriller. Wahlberg, an innocent man who took the fall for his buddies, is looking for a fresh start, but with so few options for ex-cons in the working world, there's a reason a single crime can morph into a life of crime. Desperate for money to pay the rent and take care of heart-diseased mother Ellen Burstyn, he appeals to shady uncle James Caan, owner of the Electric Rail Corporation, an operation that makes and repairs subway trains. Caan offers him a job as a machinist, a skill requiring two years of training school, but Wahlberg's only real option is to join cousin Joaquin Phoenix and his band of palm-greasers and thugs on the crooked end of the business. In order to win lucrative government contracts, Phoenix works to undermine Electric Rail's minority-owned competitor by sabotaging its trains and ruining its safety record. But when his operation backfires one night, leaving a yardmaster dead and an overzealous cop in a coma, Wahlberg is pinned for the crime and sent into hiding. Step by calamitous step, the events in The Yards proceed with a dreadful logic, drawing the hero into a tragic scenario he has no power or leverage to resist. Gray, who made his debut with the bleak determinist crime drama Little Odessa in 1994, treads on similar terrain here, but if the material suffers from familiarity, his direction is sure-handed and elegant, almost stately in its epic sweep. Although a couple of the relationships fail to pan out, particularly a rote love triangle involving Caan's daughter (Charlize Theron), Gray's depiction of big-city corruption is marvelously detailed. As he proved with Odessa, he's especially skilled at sustaining a somber, foreboding mood. And, in the midst of showier performances by Caan—finally claiming the position his character vied for in The Godfather—and Phoenix, whose eyes seem to swallow the light, Wahlberg's quiet, self-effacing presence in the lead is likely to go unnoticed. But his subtle turn sets the tone for The Yards, elevating it from an ordinary crime yarn to a grand, enveloping piece of storytelling.

After only two features, James Gray is emerging as a distinctive, confidently unfashionable voice in American movies. The 31-year-old, whose sorrowful debut, Little Odessa, brought a bracing chill to the flushed, Tarantino-smitten indie landscape of the mid '90s, seems intent on perfecting a single-mindedly downbeat fusion of '70s-Hollywood grunge, autobiographical ethnography, and Greek tragedy. The Yards is nominally a tale of shady business dealings and local-government corruption in the subway yards of Sunnyside, but as in his earlier, frostier Brighton Beach hit-man drama, Gray's real subject is the constricting force and painful attrition of family bonds. The Flushing-born director, whose father was a subway contractor, has apparently dredged up childhood memories and, with touching fearlessness, projected them onto the movie-backdrop of his youth: Coppola and Scorsese, On the Waterfront, Rocco and His Brothers.

Working-class Queens lad Leo Handler (Mark Wahlberg), the film's designated stooge and moral conscience, returns home after serving time for auto theft. Determined to stay clear of trouble—not least for the sake of his fretful, ailing mother (Ellen Burstyn)—Leo seeks honest employment from Frank (James Caan), the wire-pulling train-parts mogul whom his Aunt Kitty (Faye Dunaway) has married, only to wind up reluctant deputy to his boyhood pal Willie (Joaquin Phoenix), now Frank's dirty-work henchman. To enrich the complications, Willie also happens to be dating Kitty's daughter, Erica (Charlize Theron), a slinky kohl-eyed beauty whose every interaction with cousin Leo carries an incestuous frisson.

A botched attempt at competitor sabotage sets in motion Leo's rapid downward spiral, and Gray never eases up on the sense of looming cosmic tragedy (Howard Shore's studiedly oppressive score envelops the film like a shroud). The script, which Gray cowrote with Matt Reeves, isn't always up to the boldly operatic style: Throwaway exchanges ring truer than declarative monologues, which tend to affix themselves like lead weights to the already grave proceedings. Still, Gray balances the hugeness of the canvas and the occasional broadness of his strokes with spare, scrupulous detail in the individual characterizations. He's helped by the instantly iconic elders in his cast—Caan, in particular, is excellent, subtly registering the guilt and exhaustion of a lifetime's cumulative compromise—and by the two young leads. Phoenix effectively downplays Willie's tortured, confused ambition, and Wahlberg is boundlessly sympathetic in delineating Leo's stoic despair.

The schematic narrative flirts with muffled, overwrought implausibility—scale is very much an end in itself. But Gray knows well enough to slip in a moment or two of perfectly judged awkwardness (Erica stiffly and abruptly resting her head on Frank's shoulder after a weepy apology) and the odd unnerving bit of disorientation (when Leo is dispatched to a hospital ward on an execution mission, his terror is filtered through gauzy screens and sickly green light). The Yards is no less handsomely mounted than Little Odessa—veteran music-video cinematographer Harris Savides suffuses the interiors in a nostalgic burnished ochre that makes it easy to forget the film's present-day setting. The tradition of American independent directors making movies that relate chiefly to other movies should not be encouraged, but there's a difference here. Gray's brand of film-buffery manifests itself, simply and irresistibly, as ardent, uncynical movie love.

This Distracted Globe [Joe Valdez]

“Miramax is brilliant at publicizing its successes, but it’s even more brilliant at burying its failures,” said Dennis Rice, their former president of marketing. Miramax Films was notorious for test screening its movies – often in malls in New Jersey – and barely releasing the ones that scored poorly. Some went straight to video, even those with major stars. Here’s a look at some of the studio’s B-sides, bombs and greatest misses.

Synopsis
Leo Handler (Mark Wahlberg) returns to Queens after serving a sixteen month prison sentence for auto theft. Guests at his welcome home party include his buddy Willie (Joaquin Phoenix), his ailing mother (Ellen Burstyn), his aunt (Faye Dunaway) and his cousin Erica (Charlize Theron), who has become Willi’es girlfriend, in spite of a history she once had with Leo.

Leo visits his uncle Frank (James Caan), owner of a manufacturing company that supplies the New York subway. Leo is under the impression that Frank is a powerful figure in the borough and can help him, but his uncle suggests that his nephew consider vocational school. Instead, Leo starts working with Willie, who Frank entrusts with keeping the various city officials who award subway contracts happy with cash or Knicks tickets.

Willie is also in charge of a crew who routinely go to the railyards to wreck the equipment of the competition. Leo comes along as a lookout, but things get out of hand; Willie kills a night watchman, and Leo puts a cop in the hospital. Not sure Leo can be trusted to keep quiet if he’s arrested, Willie reluctantly notifies him that he has to take care of the cop.

Production history
James Gray was a graduate of USC Film School. His debut feature – a deliberately paced crime drama starring Tim Roth called Little Odessa – had been well received in 1994. Gray’s father worked for a company that supplied New York subways, and for his sophomore effort, Gray was writing a script incorporating stories he’d heard, along with tales of corruption in the city during the ’80s.

Gray’s script was close to 200 pages long. Harvey Weinstein – co-chairman of Miramax Films with his brother Bob – demanded that Gray get it into focus. He was allowed to bring in a classmate from USC named Matt Reeves to rewrite it. The strength of their finished product attracted Mark Wahlberg, who had just become a star, and Joaquin Phoenix and Charlize Theron, who were on the verge of becoming stars.

With a budget of $17.7 million, The Yards went before the cameras in the summer of 1998. Gray delivered his cut of the picture in September. Put before a test audience, it did not score well. Weinstein insisted on an ending that was more upbeat, which Gray conceded to and shot over three days in May 1999. Miramax was still not pleased with the response the film was getting, and buried it for another year in post-production.

Gray received an invitation to screen The Yards at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2000. Reaction was mixed. Some critics praised the artistry of the film’s look, while many panned its clichéd plot. It was finally released in October 2000 – without TV commercials – in only 150 theaters. It disappeared with less than $1 million at the U.S. box office.

Opinion
The Yards landed on a few top ten critics lists that year, but it wouldn’t surprise me if after further reflection, it ends up on some lists of the best films of the decade. The story is old hat, but absolutely nothing about the way Gray frames that story is. He favors a quiet, elegant ambiance, and cast actors who give some of the greatest performances of their careers.

With director of photography Harris Savides, Gray bathes the film in painterly melancholy. It’s like Michael Mann low budget; a crime film, but one replacing macho intensity with seductive beauty. Rooms are as dim as any since Gordon Willis lit The Godfather. Characters whisper, hold back their emotions. There’s no more joy than you’d encounter at a funeral wake, but Gray isn’t making a fun B-movie here. This is an A-film with style and class.

Mark Wahlberg’s role is one he was born to play – a working class kid brooding with menace and resentment – and he gives a career performance. Joaquin Phoenix is as charismatic as Wahlberg is restrained, demonstrating brilliant emotional range. Theron shows equal if not greater depth. She has a scene with James Caan where she swallows her pride and begs her stepfather to help Wahlberg that blew me away in how soulful she plays it.

The film flawlessly cast, pairing two generations of terrific actors. Caan and Dunaway are sublime in this, expressing so much with a bare minimum of dialogue, while Ellen Burstyn’s chemistry with Wahlberg is something special. I cannot praise the performances in this film enough. Costume designer Michael Clancy and art director Judy Rhee deserve a lot of credit. This cast looks working class.

Composer Howard Shore adapted “Saturn” from Gustav Holst’s Planets Suite, but the film uses little music and even less dialogue, instead utilizing terrific sound design to set a vivid mood among the rustic railyards. The story is as old as the hills; Gray had to know this would never appeal to a mass audience. I didn’t exactly go bananas for The Yards in 2000, but I’m bananas about it now, and strongly recommend it.

“The film reminds one of Edward Hopper’s paintings, especially his city scenes … So, it’s kind of a letdown that what happens in the interim is somewhat familiar,” writes Michael W. Phillips Jr. at goatdog’s movies. He gives it 3 out of 5 goats.

Neil Young at Jigsaw Lounge says, “In retrospect it’s all a little ‘so what-ish’, a film so concerned with being serious and mature and important it ends up weighing itself down like one of its own subway cars.”

“While writer/director James Gray tells the story with an impressive urban palate, set in and around the Queens subway car yards, it never really catches fire,” writes Jeffrey Anderson at Combustible Celluloid.

Interviews | Subverting the Moment: James Gray on ... - Cinema Scope The Long Gray Line: Returning to The Yards, feature and director interview by Andrew Tracy from Cinema Scope

As with most critical shorthand, “classical” is a much-abused and little-examined term, an abdication of description but a positive boon for instant classification. It functions handily as both light praise and implicit condescension, the traditional scorn for the “well-made” narrative film incarnated in yet another of its protean modes. While general summations of contemporary sensibilities will always remain just that, it should at least be agreed upon that an unexamined term is not worth using—and to rely on a certain term to imply aesthetic paralysis is to paralyze the perception of what exactly is being viewed on the screen.

So a working definition, then: the classical is the use of certain recognizable outward movements to enable the expression of inward movements—not simply tracing the contours of a pre-existent design, but employing those contours to set quite contradictory or opposing forces in motion. The Coens’ No Country for Old Men will soon be having its praises sung from pillar to post—the band was warming up at Cannes—but its bid for existential weight (courtesy of the source material, this non-reader assumes) has no heft beyond the parameters of its outer shape; its thematics are as functional and utilitarian as the meticulous taskmastery of Josh Brolin’s able Vietnam vet and Javier Bardem’s pageboy-cut Terminator. As per usual, the Coens have placed everything in quotation marks: this is their “terse, stripped-down” film, making its quite impressive construction feel borrowed even without any recognizable antecedents immediately coming to mind.

Compare then James Gray’s first film since The Yards (2000), We Own the Night, which has been unfavourably (classically?) likened to a “’30s MGM film,” and why not—after all, we have one upstanding brother (Mark Wahlberg) sporting his virtue on the side of the law, and one black sheep (Joaquin Phoenix) rubbing shoulders with the underworld; crisis, moral choice, and assumption of “responsibility” follow in due course. The outer contours are all in place, the conclusion is foregone, and the movements that take place along those predetermined lines are tender, touching, shocking, and devastating. Though lacking the almost epic dramatic scope of The Yards, and hampered somewhat by the dictates of recreating a period setting on a limited budget—whereas the club scene in the earlier film possessed a tactile, feral sexuality that bled into the real, Phoenix’s ‘80s disco palace clearly ends at the edges of the set—We Own the Night features some of the best American filmmaking currently on display, a virtuosity tied directly to its understanding of the possibilities offered by classical narrative. The inexorable progression, the “predictability” of Gray’s story is not laziness, but the source of the film’s emotional and thematic weight: how the inner desires, and élan vital, of those accepting the mantle of their preordained role can move against the current of their respective fates.

This is particularly the case with Phoenix’s Bobby Green, the manager of a Russian mafia-owned nightclub who has adopted his mother’s maiden name to conceal his connection with his narc brother Joseph and police chief father Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall). Bobby’s progression back into the family orbit he denies is foretold from the very beginning of the film—“Eventually, you’re either going to be with us or with them,” Duvall warns him—but Phoenix’s beautifully controlled performance indicates just what this return takes from him: a lustful, outsized, overflowing sensualist is reduced to a slow, sad, wounded man, the outer and inner demands of filial duty sapping the life force he once incarnated. The irresistible bonds that return him to his brother and father are profoundly irrational, and ultimately damaging, ones, particularly in how they alienate him from his fiancée Amada (another fine, sympathetic performance by Eva Mendes), who functions not simply as Bobby’s plot-dictated appendage but as his very reason for being. The tenderness, the genuine love and powerful sensuality of their relationship—Gray opens the film with their slow but intensely erotic coupling on a couch—is both the source and expression of Bobby’s joyfully Dionysian innocence. When he later collapses sobbing into his brother’s arms, telling him that he doesn’t want to be alone, Gray tellingly cuts to Amada on the other side of the room, excluded and abandoned, and knowing herself to be so. At film’s end, the return to the sanctified familial fold complete, Bobby and Joseph both silently recognize what the former has lost along the way; and their closing exchange of fraternal love serves not as an affirmation of that love, but as a lament for what has been lost and a rebuke to that which has taken it.

The inevitability of We Own the Night is its means of illumination; it is a formal, structural, creative force. The choices Gray makes within his scenes, the tenor of the actor’s performances, the atmosphere of intimacy and quiet intensity, the shocking violations of that intimacy by sudden and striking violence—these virtues do not exist in spite of the mechanisms of the film’s outer movements, they are occasioned by them. Gray understands intrinsically that narrative is something to respond to, that the dictates of traditional storytelling models allow for choices in how they are to be handled. And this is part of the tension, and the pleasure, of narrative for the viewer: that one’s involvement in the movements of the narrative coexists simultaneously with a consciousness of how those movements are being shaped. We Own the Night holds no surprises apart from those of talented collaborators constantly choosing the movements that will create the most affecting, genuine, and expressive moments. This is hardly the only thing that cinema can or should do, but it’s certainly one of them—and to deride such achievement is to summarily shut the door on one of cinema’s many rich possibilities.

CINEMA SCOPE: When did you start developing the story of We Own the Night?

JAMES GRAY: I had finished The Yards and didn’t really know what I wanted to do next, but I knew I wanted to complete a kind of loose trilogy: one on the gangster side of things, and one about local politics, and then one on the law, on cops. The problem there of course is that there have been a million cop movies. I knew I didn’t want to do something on crooked cops, and I didn’t want to do a procedural, something that focused on the daily grind of investigative work. That’s been done thousands of times, and by some people brilliantly well, so I had to find something to distinguish my approach.

Then I saw a photo on the front page of the New York Times in late 2000, a photo of all these grown men who were hugging and crying. It was a police funeral, some guy who had been killed in the line of duty. And I cut it out and put it on my wall. And at the same time I had gone back to Shakespeare, because he understood narrative better than anybody. I had read Henry IV Parts I and II, and I thought, what if I told a Shakespearean story, a classicist story, in the context of the world of the police? That’s something that nobody is doing right now, because there isn’t an obsession with narrative. But I am obsessed with narrative. I wanted to do something stripped down, mythic, with this kind of classic structure.

SCOPE: You’ve just used “classic” in a very specific sense, but that’s also a label that’s frequently attached to your filmmaking—whether in praise or otherwise. Do you think of your work in those terms, however defined?

GRAY: I honestly don’t ever think of how I’m classified, or how I would classify myself. I do what it is that I feel closest to, what matters to me, what moves me, what I would like to see in the movies. It’s not something I give any conscious thought to whatsoever. I don’t ever think about my relationship with the idea of classical Hollywood cinema.

SCOPE: You based The Yards partly on the Queen’s political scandal of the mid-‘80s, but you set that film in the present day. Why did you choose to make We Own the Night a period piece, to situate it so precisely in the New York of 1988?

GRAY: The reason the picture is set in the ‘80s is because the New York of today is no longer recognizable as a locus of danger. It’s filled with Starbucks and Gaps. Well, it is filled with terror, but a different kind of terror—terror from without. The thing about the ‘80s is that it was an incredibly violent period in New York’s history, and so the sense of jeopardy in the story could be heightened. Life and death, that’s what you look for as a storyteller. The setting is crucial insofar as it sets the context for these characters’ actions. If the film was set in the present day it would be difficult to understand why these people are gripped by the idea that New York is falling apart, because it doesn’t seem like it is now—although of course it still kind of is, as there are still some parts that haven’t changed.

SCOPE: The theme of family recurs in all three of your films, which makes sense if you define them as a kind of trilogy. Why is family so central to your work?

GRAY: It’s very important to what it is I’m trying to do. I’m drawn to familial issues because they seem the most basic and elemental of human relationships, and thus the least dated, the most timeless. And similarly, I’ve always thought of the films I’m trying to make as things that can retain their relevance—something completely divorced from what’s in fashion. I’m much more interested in the content than in the form of the film—and I’m certainly not negating form when I say that! What I mean is, there seems to be a belief prevalent today that form is it, form is everything. The idea of “content” is almost hackneyed and pedestrian in the eyes of some. When making a film, form is in your face every day: Where do I put the camera? Do I move it? Where will I cut? How will I cut? How’s the pace? And so on. Content is harder: it’s more cumulative, demands greater contemplation. It demands to be merged with, and emphasized by, the form. That synthesis is really your craft. A sense of story, politics, history, character—that’s what I view as “content.” That’s harder than moving the camera or jump-cutting your way to happiness.

SCOPE: Your films are all unabashedly male stories, but there’s never a sense that the women in the films are simply adornments to the plot, as requisite wives or mothers or girlfriends. What role do the women in your films fulfill? How do you conceive of them when you’re writing?

GRAY: Well, I always like to make the point in my films that the world is a patriarchy, that men have all the social and political and economic power. White men in particular. I would like the films I make to reflect the world the way it is, not the way I’d like it to be. What I’d like the world to be is totally uninteresting. I don’t think that’s the role of art; the role of art is to help us cope. In a way art is the atheist’s best weapon against loneliness. It’s the atheist’s religion. It’s coping with mortality. So if you’re making something that doesn’t resemble the world in which we live, what’s it going to mean to me, what does it matter to me? I don’t recognize it.

SCOPE: Do you think, though, that in reflecting something there’s a danger of perpetuating it? That making male-centric films about male centrality helps create the reality it claims to reflect?

GRAY: I suppose someone could make that argument, but if that’s the case then you wouldn’t be able to create anything at all. You’d have agitprop, not art. And anyway, I don’t think my films are in any way about macho posturing. They’re always attempting to reconcile the more feminine side of men, the more tender and emotional side that’s always pushed under the noise level. Men are not encouraged to say “I love you,” men are not encouraged to be emotional, so in its own way it’s rather subversive to show them expressing those kind of feelings.

SCOPE: Much of the criticism that’s been directed towards your films has targeted precisely this emotional quality. There’s a tendency to write it off as melodrama—another undefined, and frequently misapplied, term.

GRAY: I really think that’s connected to an even larger problem with filmmaking, and film watching, these days. For the average viewer today, for visual literacy you’d have to give them an A+—they know exactly when you’re borrowing something from this, mirroring something in that. But for narrative literacy you’d have to give them a D or an F. And I think that’s because they don’t have to work anymore, they’ve gotten flabby. Hollywood today is not interested in making stories. And neither is the indie art world. Americans are no longer the premiere narrative filmmakers. They don’t do it, they don’t want to do it, it’s not interesting to anybody. It’s seen as quaint. And I think there’s a reluctance to accept a filmmaker, an American filmmaker at least, who has a certain seriousness of purpose—because I make no bones about the fact that I’m trying to do things that have a seriousness of purpose, and that that’s connected to a certain idea of narrative. It’s not a joke, an ironic and distanced joke. Maybe if everybody were making earnest films I’d want to do something ironic and distancing, I don’t know. But for me the coin of the realm is to put as much soul and humanity into the work as I can, and the way to do that is to validate the characters.

SCOPE: Which is of course reliant upon a filmmaker’s skill with his actors, which I’d say is one of your greatest strengths, and a particularly undervalued one. It seems like most contemporary criticism doesn’t really have a language to deal with acting, to appraise it as they appraise the visual quality of the film, or to conceive how it helps create the film.

GRAY: They don’t. And that blind spot where acting is concerned is in a certain sense connected to the blind spot where narrative is concerned, another reason why narrative is so depressed right now. What I love in acting is when you are constantly subverting the moment. The key is playing the moment with utmost sincerity but subverting it, and they’re not contrary. Playing the moment means making it clear, not losing ambiguity, but making it so it’s not vague—and at the same time conveying that clarity by a line, or a gesture, or an expression that is seemingly antithetical to the idea or the feeling that is being expressed.

Subversiveness is crucial to a work of art, but it depends on how you define subversiveness. You can do something that’s subversive on the surface: the ending comes in the middle, everybody wears a funny hat, everybody talks about other movies, whatever. And there have been great movies made in that tradition. Or you can do something that is subversive underneath the surface. Making a pop subversive work where the style is the thing, is not truly subversive in my mind, because everybody’s doing it, and it’s not that hard. It’s not making you confront something that’s atypical, it’s not making you confront something that’s surprising, it’s not making you confront something that’s unsafe. But what if your story itself is saying something that makes you uncomfortable? That’s harder to do, it’s harder to find, and it’s more rewarding when you do.

SCOPE: The emotional atmosphere you create in your films is certainly distinctive from either the forced animation or forced aimlessness that characterizes a lot of American cinema these days, “mainstream” and “indie” both. There’s a hushed, tender, intimate quality to the performances you elicit from your actors, in a way akin to what a director like Jacques Tourneur seemed to be striving for, a subtly stylized kind of naturalism.

GRAY: I think that’s what’s most cinematic, truly. You can yell on the stage, there’s a lot of yelling going on, everybody’s making a fucking point. That’s typically true of most mainstream movies as well, everybody shining up their Oscar clip. To me cinema is best at the most personal, intimate, tender, quiet moments that you can muster. You want to use the weapons at your disposal, and that’s one of them. Plus I feel like that’s what life is, for the most part. Most people are not flamboyant and loud. Most people have their arguments in the car on the way home by themselves after the dispute at hand. Most of life isn’t arguments. Of course there are arguments that have to be had, there are moments that simply explode. Phoenix and Wahlberg get into a fight in The Yards, and they even have a set-to in this movie, though that’s more of a verbal one-upsmanship thing…

SCOPE: It’s telling that when Phoenix lets loose at Wahlberg, there are two other people in the room, like he has an audience who he’s performing for.

GRAY: Absolutely! He’s trying to show him up, really. So of course my films do have these moments of confrontation, sometimes violent confrontation, but what’s interesting to me is always the intimate moments, the moments between the lines, these moments where you’re trying to steal intimacy.

SCOPE: On that note, I’d like to ask you about the opening scene of the film, this very raw, very erotic (if aborted) love scene between Phoenix and Eva Mendes. Why did you choose to open the film this way?

GRAY: That comes from the idea I had for the very end of the film. I knew what I wanted at the end, so I wanted to do the complete opposite at the beginning. So what would the complete opposite be? The complete opposite is that this guy and this woman are passionate—they’re passionate about each other, they’re passionate about their lives and their lives together. Everything in this guy’s life is so sensate, so rich and vibrant and filled with sensory pleasures, and there’s something beautiful about it. The surface story of the film would be this guy who becomes a cop and “redeems” himself. That’s the MGM ‘30s version. The real story of the movie is that this guy has something great—maybe not what his family thought was great, not what mainstream society thought was great, but it was. And they fucking ruined it. And they ruined it for adherence to some banal, moral principle of the father. And I think that is subversive, because in a perverse way, it makes the film into something of a pro-drug movie! That’s not really what I meant to do. But I wanted to start the movie in a way that was like, “oh, it’s debased. Ohhhh, it’s debased.”

SCOPE: Did you write the two lead parts with Wahlberg and Phoenix in mind from the beginning?

GRAY: Absolutely, wrote both parts for both guys. Joaquin was always on board from the beginning, and you can see why: the character has such a wonderful arc for an actor, and it’s fun—challenging, but fun—for an actor to play. Wahlberg has a much more unsung, much less bravura part, and in a way that’s an even braver thing to do as an actor—not that we should rank these things, because nothing’s easy—to be a guy who loses himself completely and becomes a nothing.

In their own very different ways, I think these guys are the best American actors in their age range you can find today. Joaquin has that quality that we value in the great ‘70s actors, in De Niro or Pacino or even Montgomery Clift before them: they’re always in a rage at themselves, in a state of constant turmoil. Somehow they can project that inner life which is about confusion and anger and eternal conflict. And Wahlberg’s got this totally authentic blue-collar earnestness, he can speak to such depths of feeling with such little dialogue. So I’m really forever in their debt that they helped to get this project off the ground by lending their names to it [as producers] and sticking with it over the six years it took to get it made.

SCOPE: The film has at least three bravura set pieces—the bust at the stash house, the car chase in that torrential downpour, and the final pursuit through the reeds—that are not only brilliantly executed, but utterly unlike anything you’ve ever attempted in your previous films. How did you like shooting these sequences?

GRAY: I didn’t like it very much at all. I found it quite unpleasant. They’re very boring to shoot because you have to shoot them one thread at a time. So you plan them meticulously, everything has to be planned out. And you have to keep your eye on the prize, no imagination—in fact imagination is actually a problem. You have to understand how these things are done: you say “OK, shoot the gun when I say action and flip backwards—OK, action! Shit, that didn’t look real, let’s do another take.” So they’re very boring. And then when you see people getting hurt doing these things, it’s horrible. There was a head-on collision because of a mistake in timing during the car chase, and the stunt man in the stash house sequence really hurt himself going out the window and crashing into the fence. And I said to myself, you know, I’m not really interested in doing this ever again, because I don’t think anybody deserves to die while making a film. But having said that, these scenes are the most pleasing to edit and make sound effects for. They’re interesting in a different context, as a post-production experiment.

SCOPE: The stash house bust might be the most nerve-wracking action sequence in the film, but the car chase is certainly the most impressive from a technical standpoint—not only in creating all the rain digitally, but in conveying the incredible intricacy and terror of what’s happening primarily from Phoenix’s perspective in the driver’s seat.

GRAY: I tried to design that sequence so that it was aligned with the thematic idea behind the narrative as a whole. What you should be seeing, in a sense, is that the heavens played a role in what happens to this person: there are uncontrollable elements operating all around him, including the weather, and the whole sequence is determined by his point of view. In a way it’s the opposite of The Yards, which is kind of a God’s-eye view of several different characters. In this sequence I was trying to do something very different, to do a car chase in which the entire perspective of the sequence is specific to Phoenix, filtered through his perception. The same with the reeds sequence, which was actually inspired by the sugar-cane sequence in I Am Cuba (1964).

SCOPE: There seems to be something of an homage to The French Connection (1971) in those two sequences as well: shooting the car chase next to the El tracks, for instance, and that riverfront warehouse where the deal goes down at the end.

GRAY: Actually, the reason we did the car chase by the tracks is because we were trying to find a location that blocked out direct sun, to help with creating the rain effects later. But if people think that’s inspired by The French Connection, I certainly don’t mind. At the end of the film there is a more direct homage, with removing the drugs from the fur coats and the location—but of course those are the kinds of places where these things happen, they’re not going to be meeting in the middle of a city park.

SCOPE: You worked with a new cinematographer on this film, Joaquín Baca-Asay, but there seems to be a very deliberate attempt to recreate the kind of effects Harris Savides achieved in The Yards, especially the rich, golden glow shooting through the night scenes.

GRAY: Well, of course I was deliberately aiming to capture this look, because I like it: what I call the sodium vapour, this orange streetlight glow that produces these rich tones, the almost classical beauty of it. The two films do look very similar, in fact they’d look even more similar if certain film stocks hadn’t been eliminated from usage. The Yards was shot on a great film stock called 5277, which no longer exists, so that’s probably the reason the new film doesn’t look even more like the last one.

SCOPE: As Savides shot Fincher’s Zodiac—beautifully, I thought—on DV, what, as an alleged (or accused) “classicist” is your stance on DV?

GRAY: The thing about movies, of course, is that they’re a technical medium as well as an artistic one, so you can never exclude technology from the debate—it’s absurd to sound apologetic if you say, “Can I ask a technical question?” But—and I hate to say this—I think the question of DV or not-DV is one of the least interesting discussions and debates that there is. I don’t think format is the real problem with movies. The problem with movies is not the delivery device of the medium, not the way they look, not even the way they’re distributed, really. The problem with movies is the movies. The problem with movies is the content. The problem with movies is laziness, narrative laziness. So we can talk about the digital revolution forever, but it will never address what is really ailing the culture, which is that they don’t care about storytelling.

SCOPE: So is DV not even an option for you?

GRAY: I’d use it, but the thing is it’s not there yet. I mean, with Harris, you’re talking about the best cinematographer working today, and even he couldn’t get it exactly right. It was close, and it was great, but it took a lot out of him. It gave him a hell of a lot of trouble and a hell of a lot of heartache and it didn’t save them any money. This whole discussion about film or DV is kind of moot, in a way, because the system will determine it for you—like I said, the stock that The Yards was shot on no longer exists. But it is strange the way things are appraised, because if you said, “This new format came along and it’s got a better contrast ratio than digital and it’s got better resolution than digital,” —well, that’s film. If everybody were shooting digital and film came along, everybody would want to shoot film. So my own view is why shoot with something that’s not as good? I’ll do it when I have to, but until then why bother?

BFI | Sight & Sound | The Yards (2000) Geoffrey Macnab, December 2000

Slate [David Edelstein]

Gray's Anatomy Rob Nelson from City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul

The Yards - culturevulture.net Arthur Lazere

World Socialist Web Site David Walsh

The Yards Nick Davis from Nick’s Flick Picks

Slant Magazine (Blu-ray) [Joseph Jon Lanthier]

ReelViews [James Berardinelli] also seen here: James Berardinelli

PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs, also seen here: Nitrate Online (Cynthia Fuchs)

The Yards Chris Dashiell from CineScene

kamera.co.uk - film review, The Yards Chris Wiegand

Jigsaw Lounge (Neil Young)

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Chuck Aliaga)

Norm Schrager also seen here: filmcritic.com walks The Yards

Steve Rhodes

Goatdog's Movies [Michael W. Phillips, Jr.]

A Subway Story, Too Good to Be True Andrew Sarris from The New York Observer

The Yards Directed by James Gray James Luscombe from Exclaim

Jam! Movies Bruce Kirkland and Bob Thomas

Past Picks Online [Jimmy Gillman]

411mania.com - Director Cut DVD Review [Chad Webb]

The Yards: Exclusive Unrated Director's Cut - digitallyOBSESSED Chuck Aliaga

DVD Talk - Miramax Collector's Series (Preston Jones)

DVD Verdict (Blu-ray) [Clark Douglas]

The Yards Blu-ray Blu-Ray.com

The Yards — Inside Movies Since 1920 - Box Office Magazine Lael Lowenstein

Cinema Sights [James Ewing]

The Yards Review Edwin Jahiel

EyeForFilm.co.uk Angus Wolfe Murray

eFilmCritic Reviews Erik Childress

TalkTalk

Harvey S. Karten

Movie Magazine International [Casey McCabe]

Dennis Schwartz

FilmHead.com

Berge Garabedian also seen here: JoBlo's Movie Emporium reviews "The Yards"

Rolling Stone [Peter Travers]

BBCi - Films Matt Ford

The Japan Times [Kaori Shoji]

The Yards - Boston Phoenix Peter Keough

The Yards Marc Savlov from The Austin Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle [Bob Graham]

Tragedy Thrives in 'The Yards' - Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

WE OWN THE NIGHT B+ 90

USA (117 mi) 2007

From the opening, this is a very stylish film in a classical sense, almost resembling early Scorsese, as the action proceeds in such a solemn, brooding manner, accentuated instead by the overtly stylish look of the film, carefully chosen music, and occasional big set pieces – all Scorsese trademarks. It has a sort of anti-Godfather storyline to it, as instead of the "good" son getting into the dirty business his father never wanted for him, it's the "bad" son who is lulled into one of the weirder portrayals of the cop world in any film I've seen, as it's laced with religious references. Despite the completely different subject matter, the lush look of this film actually resembles NEW YORK, NEW YORK (1977), especially the nightclub sequences that are jam packed with people along with some phenomenal musical choices, which in this film happens to be Blondie (“Heart of Glass” and “Rapture”). Despite our familiarity with what might have been jukebox music at the time, these scenes simply come to life bursting with a sense of nightclub nostalgia. Even the opening sequence of black and white photos recording police procedural work is highly effective, as it immediately draws the viewer into this extremely familiar world. Cops shows are all over the TV, all over the news, and are a fairly routine subject matter at the movies. So what distinguishes this one is the sense of immediacy that comes from the sheer look of the film featuring gorgeous cinematography by Joaquín Baca-Asay.

Despite opening in a warehouse sized nightclub where all the world appears to be one big party, featuring plentiful drugs in plain sight and a night club manager Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix) getting down and dirty with his girl friend (Eva Mendes), their jocularity contrasts severely with Bobby’s family, who are introduced at a policeman’s fundraiser for a fallen officer, beautifully shot in the basement of an immense church, featuring plenty of macaroni and cheese, where Bobby’s brother (Mark Wahlberg) is a highly decorated detective and his father (Robert Duvall) is chief of police. Their solemnity is apparent, and what they have to say, an exquisite shot shown in the darkened emptiness of the church upstairs, is completely disregarded by Bobby, a sure sign of a nonbeliever who is oblivious to their world, so much so that he’s changed his name, which to his father is like voluntary excommunication from the church. They try to warn him of an unsavory customer that frequents his nightclub, but all that’s on Bobby’s mind is the thought of how great his life has become with a gorgeous girl and a seemingly neverending supply of drugs, which sets the scene for the late 80’s when drug lords were literally taking over the streets of New York and cops were dropping like flies. The title of the film refers to a police motto that actually was blended into the official police insignia worn on uniforms.

After a raid on the nightclub led by an arrogantly gallivanting Wahlberg, singling out the unsavory Russian character, Wahlberg is caught offguard and is shot in the face point blank. The sheer balls of killing off a star-laden character (Wahlberg won the Academy Award as best supporting actor last year) so early in the film is nothing less than shocking, so imagine one’s surprise when he actually recovers after a long recuperation period, returning to the force as good as new as if nothing happened. And after arresting the Russian in a sting operation on the sight of his drug processing plant, a scene that starts with a creepy trip into total darkness, but soon deteriorates into the shoot ‘em up amateurishness of television, imagine our surprise when he later escapes and knows it was Bobby that fingered him. Everyone’s lives are suddenly the targets of an underworld kingpin that is loose on the streets. Contrived as this story is, it’s still laceratingly layered in nothing less than extraordinary production values which keeps the immersion into this journey riveting, even as Bobby and his girlfriend are ushered into a witness protection program. When they try to move them to a different location in a caravan of cars led by dad himself, it turns into a spectacular car chase scene shot in a torrent of rain, shot almost like a horror film, seen from Bobby’s obscured view behind the back and forth windshield wipers, revealing only the briefest outline of forms and shapes which are otherwise washed out in the deluge, but they are swerving through traffic under attack by men with shotguns who like monsters in the dark suddenly pop out of cars in a throbbingly tense moment, one of the best scenes in the film, as if the water could wash away all their sins. But that is not about to happen.

Bobby makes a near religious conversion, joining the force in an unprecedented manner at a heightened rank due to his intimate knowledge of the bad guys, an act which leaves his girlfriend in a rage, as the life expectancy of police officers is under siege at the moment, and why would he choose to jettison himself directly into the middle of the fray? Who chooses to live in the eye of a hurricane? The finale takes place in the marshy wetlands of high grass outside New York City, a scene reminiscent of RED SUN (1971) with Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune, or perhaps Woody Allen and Mia Farrow in BROADWAY DANNY ROSE where they were traipsing through the swamps of New Jersey. At any rate, this scene has the solemnity of a police initiation ceremony, with Bobby in the middle of it, where the rising transcendent music from Wojciech Kilar is especially effective, as if this film is one long journey into the sanctity of police morality, cleaning up the streets, shoving the dirty work under a rug so no one has to see, but maintaining a conspicuously clean image for the public in the face of fighting dirtbags and scumballs, while you rise above it all in a near religious significance. This film is truly the baptism of a young police officer, shown as the transcendence of one man from his carefree youth to his solemn duty as a responsible adult, unusually shot and shown, at times riveting, always compelling, directed with a certain degree of flair and showmanship, as this is a skilled work that turns a relatively ordinary story into something special. Interestingly, the opening title sequence is held off entirely until the very end, allowing the rhythm of the film to unfold without interruption.

The Village Voice [Nick Pinkerton]

Of all the members of a generation of filmmakers who wanted to be the next Scorsese, James Gray was different: He wanted to be the next Scorsese, Christopher Marlowe, and Georges de la Tour. That ambition seems little diminished in this, his third film in 13 years, set in his chosen milieu of outer-borough lowlife. Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix), sybaritic manager of a Brooklyn nightclub, shuns his family's NYPD legacy, and his father and brother on the force (Robert Duvall and Mark Wahlberg) resent his independence. The '80s drug wars are raging, and both dealers and cops vie for Bobby's cooperation; circumstances align him with the "good guys," and an ironic tragedy of falling into grace is set in motion as Bobby's new sense of duty damns him to the solemn moral wilderness of law and order. Helpless with comedy, heavily reliant on coincidence, and out of step with all current cinematic vogue—the film received a divisive Cannes reception—We Own the Night finally resonates as a beautiful, dolorous nocturne. The closest thing Gray's done to a commercial actioner, the film also applies his genius for tone (aided by superlative sound work) to set pieces that throb with trauma: a tinnitus-soundtracked shoot-out and a rain-slick car chase set to the tempo of windshield wipers.

The Flick Filosopher (MaryAnn Johanson)

The vintage squad-room photos that open James Gray's sober policier set a tone of elegant menace, their alluring black-and-white tones turning blood splatters into abstract art. Shot with a vaguely retro sheen and set in 1988 Brooklyn (presumably to avoid any hint of gentrification or Giuliani-era cleanups), We Own the Night sets the stage for a tragedy of classic proportions. Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix) manages a warehouse-sized nightclub; his brother, Joseph (Mark Wahlberg), and father (Robert Duvall) are police detectives. Fond of silk scarves and unbuttoned dress shirts, Bobby has de-ethnicized his surname to hide any connection to his family, but an investigation into the Russian drug trade throws them together again, with discomfiting and dangerous consequences. Like James Mangold, from whose Cop Land Gray borrows (and improves) several ideas, Gray is a nouveau classicist, fond of well-composed setups and stately rhythms. But there's nothing studied about his style, and he comes up with a few dead-great sequences, notably a pair of chase scenes, scored with a two-tone industrial drone, that rank among the most tense and thrilling in recent memory. Pleasantly beefed-up to play the swell-headed Bobby, Phoenix works his amplified gut like a champion, and Duvall's predictable gruffness seems to have more underneath it than usual.

The 1980s New York City evoked by this flawless, seamless crime thriller -- of working-class cop parties defined by trays of baked ziti and chicken marsala, of the glam nightlife of drug- and booze-soaked dance clubs -- is the exquisite backdrop to a story so drenched in raw, ineffable male anger and love, so equally perfectly pitched, that it howls with authenticity. Decorated Brooklyn cops Joseph and Burt Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg: Invincible, and Robert Duvall: Lucky You), an inseparable father-and-son team, approach club manager Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix: Walk the Line) with a proposal: help them take down the Russian drug dealer who’s using his club as a base of operations. Why should Bobby help? He’s their, respectively, brother and son, though he’s so embarrassed by the family that he uses his mother’s maiden name... which makes him precisely positioned and carefully hidden at the same time. The startling turns that take Bobby toward possible reconciliation with his family recall grand crime dramas from GoodFellas to The Departed, and writer/director James Gray (who made the underrated The Yards a few years back, also with Phoenix) graces us with moments so beautifully eerie and grim that they are instantly fixed in the memory as classic gems of cinema -- such as the finale, a footchase for bad guys set among the marshy wetlands at the far reaches of New York City, a setting I’m not sure we’ve ever seen on film before. Wahlberg continues to astonish as an actor finding a wide range of character and expression within such a seemingly small scope -- any surface similarities here to the character he played in The Departed are instantly dismissed. But this is Phoenix’s film, and he is riveting as a man who is stunned to discover he has scruples.

Planet Sick-Boy Jon Popick

In 2000, writer-director James Gray bored audiences into a nationwide coma with The Yards, which featured two very un-electrifying performances from a pair of future Oscar nominees: Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix. Wahlberg played a good kid to Phoenix’s bad-ass. There was also some nice eye candy (Charlize Theron), and an old guy from The Godfather (James Caan) playing a father figure to the two leads.

Seven years later, Gray is back, and aside from a couple of decent set pieces, looks to send audiences into another deep, deep sleep this time around. We Own the Night may as well have been titled The Yards II: Electric Bugaloo (or maybe Coma Relapse). Wahlberg and Phoenix return, not playing the exact same roles, but embodying similar shells. One is a straight-laced narcotics cop, and the other manages a Brooklyn nightclub where the Russian mob keeps drugs flowing as if from an open tap. Eva Mendes, which I believe might be Cuban slang for “Can’t Act,” replaces Theron as the all-important eye candy, and Robert Duvall steps in for Caan as the father of the two leads.

You couldn’t make this sort of thing up.

The first half of Night could be a film all on its own. It’s 1988, and the fuzz try to get Phoenix’s Bobby Green to work with them in their pursuit of a Russian heavy (Alex Veadov), but he’s having too much of a good time gambling, snorting coke, and fingering his sexed-up Puerto Rican girlfriend (Mendes). Green does a 180 when his brother (Wahlberg) gets shot in the face, execution-style. Before you know it, he’s wired up and after a very tense scene, the baddies are caught and tossed in the clink. I was ready to grab my coat and leave, but checked my watch only to see just 60 minutes had passed.

<sigh>

The second hour is when Night begins to fall apart from a storytelling standpoint. Realism is jettisoned and replaced with tedium and clichés. Instead of playing to the strength of its leads, the script almost seems to highlight their weaknesses (in other words, you don’t see Wahlberg’s abs once). There’s a slick car chase scene, but that’s offset by things that will either make you scratch your head or laugh out loud. The ending is entirely too tidy and gives viewers the impression that a war on drugs can actually be won.

Slant Magazine [Dan Callahan]

We Own the Night confirms James Gray's position as a major American film director. It's been a few years since his second movie, The Yards, a suggestive, gorgeously photographed crime story, and more than a decade since his precocious debut, Little Odessa. Those shy, anguished films had an enclosed, studied quality, a timidity coupled with a loamish straining for operatic intensity that left them unresolved but hard to forget.

With this third work, Gray sets all inhibitions aside and begins confidently with a series of black-and-white cop photos set to melancholy saxophone followed by the image of uninhibitedly sexy party girl Amada (Eva Mendes) pleasuring herself on a '70s-style gold couch. Her boyfriend Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix) enters the frame and caresses her thigh, then her breast; there's a cut to them waiting to kiss, with Amada's tongue fluttering in the air, then a cut of Bobby pulling down her top, so that one of her breasts pops out—all set to Blondie's "Heart of Glass." This arousing vision of a warm erotic paradise, unrepentantly heightened by the use of drugs, haunts the rest of the movie, which deals with raw loss, the chill of betrayal, and the opposing institutions of the mob and the police force.

After the sensual overload of the first scenes, We Own the Night seems slightly stalled and morose as the main conflict is set up between Phoenix's happily dissolute club manager and his disapproving cop father, Burt (Robert Duvall), and cowed cop brother, Joseph (Mark Wahlberg). But Gray keeps his attention on telling details, visually contrasting the rich, delicious food Bobby gets when he visits his Russian mob bosses with the cafeteria macaroni and cheese at a policeman's gathering. It's in small things like this that Gray tips his hand, slowly revealing the film's theme: how rigid, colorless morality drains away all the pleasure out of life. Duvall's corny old man fighting the drug wars would be seen as a hero in many other American movies, but Gray gradually and subtly reveals him as a tyrant and joy-killer who destroys the lives of his sons, a flatfoot Don Corleone to Phoenix's brooding, implosive Michael.

Gray is an obsessive stylist, and the images in his movies seem to question and answer each other, in whispers; thus, Faye Dunaway's steely mama falters as she tries to move forward toward the end of The Yards just as stone-faced Duvall sinks to his knees after being told Wahlberg has been injured (later in this film, another old man will be brought to his knees, but the authority figures retain their debilitating power in Gray's work, regardless of the positions of weakness he forces on them). Vanessa Redgrave's dying mother reaches out from her sickbed in Little Odessa while Mendes's Amada retreats to her motel bed here, her life-giving sexuality extinguished by needless suffering.

As the film builds and deepens, Gray dramatizes the demoralizing sort of physical and psychic helplessness that was one of Hitchcock's lifelong themes, nowhere more upsettingly than in a long car chase sequence where Bobby is terrorized by pounding rain on his windshield, guns being brandished from other cars on the road, and Amada's screams in the backseat. During the climactic shoot-out, Wahlberg's Joseph falls to the ground, lightheaded with fear as he stares into the eyes of a slain fellow officer. These visions of vertigo add up to a highly convincing portrayal of existential dread, only slightly ameliorated by the final helpless expressions of love between the two trapped, ruined brothers. We Own the Night is ambitious, gritty, and finally elating, and it represents a large leap forward for Gray, who hopefully won't have to wait quite so long between projects as he develops his delicate poetic vision further.

Interviews | Subverting the Moment: James Gray on ... - Cinema Scope The Long Gray Line: Returning to The Yards, feature and director interview by Andrew Tracy from Cinema Scope

Screengrab Mike D’Angelo at Cannes

Mike D'Angelo back home in New York writing for The Las Vegas Weekly

Cannes: We Own The Night Glenn Kenny

DVD Talk Brian Orndorf

We Own the Night Emanuel Levy

Screen International Allan Hunter

eFilmCritic.com [Erik Childress]

James Gray and We Own the Night includes and interview with the director by Bryant Frazer from Deep Focus

Salon.com [Andrew O'Hehir] including an interview with the director

Film Intuition [Jen Johans]

We Own the Night Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Glenn Kenny from Premiere

Foote on Film (John H. Foote)

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Los Angeles Times [Kevin Crust]

The House Next Door (Matt Noller)

TWO LOVERS B 84

USA (100 mi) 2008 ‘Scope

According to Gray, who was present at the screening, the origin of the film is Dostoevsky’s short story, “White Nights,” made into a movie by the same name by Visconti in 1957 with Marcello Mastroiani, failed to mention the Bresson version called 4 NIGHTS OF A DREAMER (1971), both of which credit the original source, while this film simply rips it off. Gray indicated he needed to get away from the gangster genre, claiming he wanted to move beyond genre and make a more personal movie that generated emotional resonance, but the fact of the matter is if he’s stealing from other sources, which he freely admits doing, naming half a dozen other Italian neo-realist films from the 50’s and 60’s that were incorporated into this film, then all he’s capable of producing as a result falls within the films-already-made genre category, in this case a realist romantic drama. What it feels like to me is Gray’s version of a Barry Levinson neighborhood film without Levinson’s meticulous sense for period detail and his tendency towards naturalistic performances. Gwyneth Paltrow is a technically proficient actress who likes to get it right and shoot a scene in few takes, while Joaquin Phoenix plays around with his characters through improvisation, supposedly a match made in Hell, but both got along marvelously according to Gray, where they actually reversed roles in the method acting department.

Knowing nothing ahead of time except this was a James Gray film, it comes as a pleasant surprise when each of the acclaimed actors in this film make their appearances, familiar friends who tend to improve the quality of films. Unfortunately, despite excellent performances all around, the chemistry between the characters leaves something to be desired. Phoenix plays Leonard, an intensely personal, lonely and isolated character who remains emotionally scarred from a broken heart that never mended years ago, a condition that still leaves his parents on alert since he’s attempted suicide. His mother, Isabella Rossellini looking more and more like her own mother, keeps him firmly within her sights, making sure she’s doing all she can to prevent another occurrence, while his father, the calmly reassured Moni Moshonov, runs a dry cleaning business and employs his son, keeping him busy with job responsibilities. They are caring Jewish parents living in their old neighborhood home who wish for nothing but his happiness, helping things along by setting him up with a rival businessman’s daughter, Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), a meek and introverted girl who already adores him. Just as he agrees to a date with Sandra, he meets the extroverted girl of his dreams, a beautiful and emotionally supercharged neighbor, Michelle (Paltrow), who always seems to be at the end of her rope, whose life remains in a perpetual state of turmoil, who will forever remain a woman in peril. Caught between his feelings for the two girls, Leonard’s life is an upheaval of conflicting emotions.

James Gray always makes good looking films, not in the glossy Michael Mann caliber, but he gets close, especially in his luminous big city pans and his unforgettable night club scenes which have a throbbing sense of urgency to them, featuring terrific sets, pulsating music, and fast camera action where everything the audience sees is a blur of neon-lit motion. Here break dancers take to the floor, followed by Leonard doing his own slowed down variation that is still highly entertaining before the floor is jammed with dancers. Unfortunately Phoenix generates little spark with either woman while the tone of his own character remains sad and downbeat throughout the entire film, literally from the first to the last moment. So despite the terrific look of the film and the director’s attempt to make it emotionally honest and real, the unrelenting theme of damaged goods fails to hold the audience’s attention, as it’s difficult to care about characters that don’t care about themselves, which pretty much explains this film.

I am in the distinct minority on this one, Gray’s followup to last year’s We Own the Night, a standard-issue crime melodrama made interesting by Gray’s stunning visual sense and emotional sincerity. The same goes for Two Lovers, a melodramatic relationship drama that succeeds on the strength of Gray’s images and romantic earnestness.

The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Leonard, a troubled man living with his parents after another failed suicide attempt. Phoenix plays Leonard as a good-hearted but possibly slightly autistic romantic, a photographer torn between relationships with the unexciting but loving Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), the daughter of his father’s business partner, and his unpredictable but emotionally damaged neighbor Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow). Gray explores these two relationships with obvious and over-heated dialogue, but his images are anything but standard.

Gray shoots night-time in the city as well as any director this side of Michael Mann, and his glittering, forceful compositions carry a great deal of emotional heft. One scene between Phoenix and Paltrow is shot on the roof of an apartment building, with the doorways of a roof-top shed framing the actors as Gray moves his camera gracefully around the building. Gray’s has some antiquated ideas about romance, but he means them, and his narrative’s ultimate trajectory gets at some fundamental issues surrounding human love. The film’s final scene, which has been grossly misinterpreted by some as falsely sunny, is a near-devastating balance between happiness and uncertainty.

Two Lovers is not a great film; it’s not even close. But it confirms Gray as, I think, one of the most exciting new directors to come out of Hollywood. He’s not making movies quite like anyone else around, but whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends on who you ask. If you ask me, it’s a very good thing indeed.

Plume Noire review Moland Fengkov

Barely a year after We own the night was released, the director who used to make us wait between films (seven years between The Yards and We own the night) is back on the big screen with Two Lovers, his opportunity to abandon the thrillers emblematic of his work (Little Odessa, The Yards, We Own the Night) and explore the inexhaustible theme of love. More of a turning point than a success but not a real change of direction in his filmography, Two Loversstill possesses the sense of tragedy that clouds the work of director James Gray.

From the first shots it's obvious that Two Lovers differs from the usual American romantic comedies that treat the state of love as absurd. No laughs here, though tears are promised and the tone is set from the first sublime shot. Filmed from behind under an ashen sky, Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) moves in slow motion on a dock before jumping into the water. A gull moves through the frame and an industrial deafening roar fills the space. From the suicide attempt at the opening of the film, James Gray paints a bruised character whose scars are unlikely to heal.

Leonard lives with his parents after breaking up with his fiancée. His parents push him to his new partner's daughter (Vinessa Shaw), who sees him as his successor. When he meets his new neighbor Michelle(Gwyneth Paltrow), his heart begins to hesitate. Between the conquered brunette who promises him a tidy life and the blonde who only sees him as a faithful and devoted friend, Leonard will have to make choices that won't leave him unscathed.

Two Lovers is a film for an audience that's already come a long way on the road to love. No happy endings with Gray; we know what the outcome will be. Gray doesn't play the mischievous director with a twist at the end. All situations are known: we know what he's going to write on Michelle's arm, we know what bad news she'll announce at their last meeting, we know what Leonard will do with the ring he didn't give her. Why do these scenes work? We've seen it a thousand times, and despite everything they go straight to the heart? Behind the classicism of the staging and the story itself, the film invokes the intimate experience of the audience and returns them to their own solitude, their own suffering and their own frustrations. He speaks directly to the heart, to those who have loved, to those who have faced the worst disappointments, who have hit rock bottom and planned to give it all up out of love and have capitulated to the weight of destiny and fate. If we know the end of Gray's film, it is precisely because his film is located on the side of the tragedy. That of a character who fails to escape his destiny (here, taking over the family business and having a family with a young and beautiful promise chosen for him) and who fails to embrace ideal love after having touched it.

Despite some dramatic shortcuts, Gray expedites the process of seduction to get to the essence of his message: what interests him here is how impossible it is for his characters to escape destiny - Two Lovers reveals itself to be an excellent and enjoyable surprise that finally does away with the aesthetic and style that helped build Gray's oeuvre.

Screen International review Allan Hunter at Cannes from Screendaily

Two Lovers is the third successive James Gray feature to play in Competition at Cannes and it has become harder to discern why the selectors keep such resolute faith with this particular American auteur. Two Lovers is a maudlin, melancholic tug at the heartstrings that marks a welcome break from Gray's preoccupation with crime and corruption. It is well-crafted and ably acted but never especially moving and winds up feeling like something from the classier end of the American TV movie spectrum. Neither eye-catching indie nor surefire blockbuster, it will struggle to find a comfortable commercial berth, leaving its future dependent on the drawing power of Gray regular Joaquin Phoenix.

Phoenix is the best thing about Two Lovers. His character Leonard is the kind of ordinary Joe so beloved of golden age American television drama and 1950s movies like the Oscar-winning Marty. Phoenix effectively captures all aspects of the character from his shy, boyish charm to unsettling desperation in his quest for love. The way he scratches his nose, re-arranges his clothes or seems to retreat from any crowd all help to create a sense of Leonard's discomfort with the world. Eve n when his actions become reckless he always remains sympathetic. Phoenix's sheer presence makes you root for the happy-ever-after ending that you know will never materialise.

Leonard has returned to the family home in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn after a broken relationship and a suicide bid. His father (Monoshov) and mother (Rossellini) welcome him back into their dry cleaning business and plot towards his future happiness.

The obvious new partner is Sandra (Shaw), daughter of the businessman buying their firm. Her sweet simplicity is defined by her choice of The Sound Of Music as her favourite film and precious little else. It becomes increasingly difficult to accept her ready tolerance of all Leonard's broken dates and unreturned calls. The reason for his lack of attention is the distraction of new neighbour Michelle (Paltrow) who soon becomes the object of his obsessive devotion and his wildest hopes for a better future.

An old-fashioned film in many respects, Two Lovers is perhaps also something of an homage to the kind of character-driven, adult relationship dramas that flourished most readily in American cinema during the 1970s. What it lacks is the kind of intensity and raw emotion that allowed those films (Klute, An Unmarried Woman, Cinderella Liberty etc) to cut so deep and endure so well. Michelle's disaster-strewn involvement with a married man is too much the cliché to bring much heft to the story and Sandra is more of a convenient safe option rather than a fully-rounded character able to convince us that Leonard is genuinely torn between two lovers.

Joaquin Baca-Asay, who also shot Gray's We Own The Night, does an impressive job, depicting Manhattan as a lush fairytale world when Leonard makes a rare visit out of Brooklyn. Technically, this is a very polished piece of work but it's the unsatisfying nature of the relationships and the obvious qualities of the story that leave the viewer feeling underwhelmed.

BFI | Sight & Sound | Two Lovers (0) Sight & Sound, April 2009

Cannes: Two Lovers Karina Longworth at Cannes from Spoutblog

Cannes Film Festival, 2008: “Two Lovers” (Gray, USA) Daniel Kasman at Cannes from The Auteur’s Notebook

Some Came Running: Cannes, Competition: "Changeling," "Two Lovers" Glenn Kenny at Cannes from Some Came Running, May 20, 2008

Cinematical (Kim Voynar) review

Thursday 22 Notes for a Study in Gray, by Emmanuel Burdeau at Cannes from Cahiers du Cinéma

The Hollywood Reporter review Ray Bennett

A California of Noir Shadows and Blood A.O. Scott at Cannes from The New York Times

THE IMMIGRANT B 83

USA (120 mi) 2013 ‘Scope

What led the American director to this subject matter is open to question, the last big wave of European immigration, which is given the epic, grandiose treatment, co-written by the director himself along with the late Richard Menello, reportedly with Marion Cotillard in mind, where it’s the overwrought writing that is the weakest link in this picture. Gray met the actress over dinner with her husband Guillaume Canet, claiming he had never seen her in anything before, but was instantly drawn to her, “I thought she had a great face, and not just physically beautiful because she is, but a haunted quality, almost like a silent film actress. I’ve talked about this, but she reminded me of Maria Falconetti in the Carl Theodor Dreyer film THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928), able to convey depth of emotion without dialogue specifically. I watched every film of hers I could get my hands on. And then I knew I had to write something for her. So that’s the genesis of this thing. I wrote the movie for her and Joaquin Phoenix, and if they hadn’t wanted to do the movie, I’m not sure I would have made it.” Taking a turn from his earlier contemporary work dominated by male characters, Gray gets the idea to craft a historical period drama set in 1912 New York City, including the arrival at Ellis Island, the gateway for millions into America (which shut down shortly afterwards in 1924, allowing only refugees afterwards), where he attempts to recreate the emotional and moral price of the immigrant experience as seen through the eyes of a female protagonist alone in America, separated from her family, where she’s forced to navigate her way through murky waters. Guided by his own family’s history (it’s their photo in the locket), the movie is largely based on the experiences of the director’s grandparents who were Russian immigrants that came through Ellis Island in 1923, a historical period that saw a large influx of Italian immigrants, as this is the era of Sacco and Vanzetti (2006) and the First Red Scare of 1919-20, when the nation was caught up in a witch hunt hysteria of rampant racism and xenophobia. In this setting, shot onsite, Marian Cotillard is Ewa Cybulska, seen arriving at Ellis Island with her sister Magda (Angela Sarafyan), Polish immigrants who share a similar dream of making a new life in America. Things go badly from the start, however, as Magda is instantly pulled out of the line and quarantined with a lung disease (later diagnosed as tuberculosis), leaving Ewa to fend for herself, promising she’ll find her sister, though she is separated as well and placed into a line where she’ll be sent right back to Europe, as written reports from the ship during the crossing suggest she “may be a woman of bad morals.” Hovering around the proceedings is the strange figure of Bruno Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix), a man who seems to prey on the misfortunes of others, as he notices Ewa in line and bribes an official to admit her into his custody. The bustling street life, where Gray recreates the crowded streets of the tenement-era Lower East Side in the Bronx, bathed in sepia tones by cinematographer Darius Khondji, recall similar scenes from Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER: PART II (1974).

Bruno brings her back into his home in a largely Jewish neighborhood, where his use of Yiddish commands a certain respect, as people don’t bother him, where we soon learn he runs a small burlesque strip theater that is a front for a whorehouse run by the daunting figure of his boss, Rosie (Elena Solovey). Immediately the audience gets a sense of his moral manipulation, where he pretends to treat her kindly and with respect while forcing her into the compromising position of having no other choice. Bruno’s method of bribery is the only hope to get Magda (confined to the hospital) released, but that requires a large sum of money, while Ewa remains penniless. Cast as the Statue of Liberty in his Prohibition era theater, she is the subject of whistles and catcalls, becoming one of his most popular acts, even as she’s seen recoiling at being touched, where her initiation into the business is particularly degrading, where Cotillard plays the part with excessive fragility and innocence, reminiscent of Björk’s overwrought performance in Lars von Trier’s DANCER IN THE DARK (2000), both forced into insufferable misery, where economic circumstances lead them into the depths of human depravity and despair. If there is anything particularly troubling about this picture, it is this incessant tone of torment and suffering, where the entire film is cast in a cloud of neverending gloom, where most of it feels like a funeral dirge. Lacking the lyrical poeticism of Bresson’s Mouchette (1967), one of his bleakest films, Gray elevates the suffering of unappreciated and misunderstood women, using the classic Hollywood-style soap opera treatment of overly manipulative melodramas by Barbara Stanwyck in STELLA DALLAS (1937) or Greta Garbo in CAMILLE (1937), where there’s also an element of Maria Falconetti’s saintly masochism, made worse by the wretchedness of sexual servitude. Ewa escapes to her aunt and uncle, relieved, as she was told by immigration authorities that their address was invalid, where there is a moment where she can breathe again, only to be turned back over to officials for deportation back to Poland, as her uncle runs a “legitimate business” and refuses to be stained by her “morals” accusations. While awaiting departure, one of the strangest developments in the entire film is an entertainment sequence for detainees at Ellis Island, which includes no less than Italian tenor Enrico Caruso singing Puccini, and Orlando the Magician (Jeremy Renner) doing a levitation act, both given a near mythical context to reinforce the idea of America as a land of dreams and unimagined opportunities.

It’s not Orlando, who attempts to befriend her, however, but Bruno who returns to spare Ewa from deportation, again springing a bribe for her release, but only under the pretext that she’ll work for him as a prostitute on a 50/50 basis. While Orlando promises her hope, it’s Bruno that deals in the harsh aspects of reality, making the necessary connections by exploiting women for money, pitting the two men against one another as rivals in love, which seems overly ridiculous as Ewa can be obtained by any man for a price. This love triangle is reminiscent of Gelsomina’s fate in Fellini’s LA STRADA (1954) or Mieze in Fassbinder’s BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (1980), thoroughly mistreated women (prostitutes) who are desperate to find a way out of their economic and emotional strangleholds. While there’s plenty that feels overbearing and lacks any realistic connection to the audience, where the American dream of freedom is bathed in a baptism of soul crushing suffering, what distinguishes this film is Ewa’s unwavering hold on her own self worth, her continuing devotion to her sister, and her faith in God, where she says in Polish “Nie jestem niczym (I am not nothing),” becoming a prominent theme echoed later in the film. Even as her lowly position moves from bad to worse, where she is continuously debased by her mortal sins, egged on by Bruno who cheerfully exclaims, “You helped your sister today!” in the end she only ends up thoroughly hating herself. Easily the most poignant scene of the film takes place in an immense Catholic church where Ewa offers a prayer and a full-blown confession to a priest, confessing her “many, many sins,” where she asks “Is it a sin to want to survive when I have done so many bad things?” While acknowledging being raped on passage, where people were starving without food or water, her thoughts are heart wrenching as she longs for absolution, yet remains convinced, despite the redemptive power of her faith, that her sins have condemned her to eternal damnation. While Bruno is a Jewish street kid, reminded of his place by the police who beat him, call him racial slurs, and steal his money, with no illusions about the necessity of hard work, Ewa’s compassionate nature contrasts his seeming indifference, where the film combines the Catholic and Jewish concepts of sin and spiritual salvation, using Ewa’s arduous journey as a life of exile and suffering, where she’s seen as a mythic innocent, despite her sins, recalling the meadows back home in a surprisingly lyrical dream sequence. It’s Bruno—pimp, ultimate betrayer and manipulator—that delivers an epic notion of self-loathing in a tortuous monologue where he’s so disgusted with himself that he literally “feels” as if he’s already condemned to damnation, yet it’s Ewa who tenderly consoles him, the repugnant man who may have condemned her to the same fate. In the finale, the two share separate fates, shown in a split-screen image captured in the same shot, where the notion of forgiveness remains an unanswered question, as Ewa’s thoughts of transcendence remain at odds in a coldly indifferent and uncaring world, but one hopes she may yet reach a better place.

Of Note:

Enrico Caruso, along with Rudy Vallee, Jimmy Durante, Bob Hope, and Lionel Hampton and his orchestra, among others, all performed at Ellis Island as one of the steps along their world tour that included entertaining U.S. military troops. Also, Cotillard had to memorize twenty pages of Polish dialogue, while Maja Wampuszyc, who played her nervous aunt in the film, taught the actress how to speak Polish.

Jigsaw Lounge / Tribune [Neil Young]

Gray has long been hailed as the ‘next Scorsese’ by French critics, and has now been in competition on the Croisette no fewer than four times. But like its three predecessors, claustrophobically intense period-piece The Immigrant went home empty-handed, the jury-room debates evidently mirroring the largely tepid reaction among the press. And while it found favour among certain Gray die-hards, most English-language reviews praised only the lead performances from Marion Cotillard (as Ewa, a Polish woman struggling to get by in early-1920s New York) and Joaquin Phoenix (as Ewa’s apparent benefactor, whose “help” leads her down the path of prostitution.) Lacking the edge and sparkle that elevated Gray’s 2007-8 double-whammy We Own the Night and Two Lovers, The Immigrant is a strangely inert enterprise, bogged down in a quest for atmospheric verisimilitude, and unable to transcend the fundamental inadequacies of its contrived, manipulative storyline.

The House Next Door [Elise Naknikian]

CIFF scored a major coup by hosting the Chicago premiere of James Gray’s The Immigrant, a truly great new American film that is in the process of being tragically buried by its distributor The Weinstein Company (it won’t be released until 2014 and, even then, may go straight to video-on-demand). I was therefore particularly gratified to see this on the big screen. Gray’s masterful drama tells the story of Ewa (Marion Cotillard), a Polish immigrant who arrives at Ellis Island in the early 1920s along with a tubercular sister (who is promptly quarantined). After being threatened with deportation, Ewa reluctantly turns to a charming but ruthless burlesque show manager and pimp, Bruno (Joaquin Phoenix), who promises to help her out. Tragically, it isn’t long before Ewa is prostituting herself in the streets and finds herself in a doomed love triangle with Bruno and his cousin, a seemingly kindhearted magician named Orlando (Jeremy Renner). While this might sound like a familiar melodrama scenario, Gray consistently pushes the material in directions more challenging and rewarding than you might expect, profoundly exploring notions of love and forgiveness within a specific Polish/Catholic milieu, while also wringing from his story the emotions of grand opera. Gray’s fifth feature, his first period piece, is his most ambitious work to date. It is also his masterpiece.

Marion Cotillard is an icon of suffering in James Gray's somber passion play The Immigrant. As he did in Little Odessa, The Yards, and We Own the Night, Gray introduces us to a dysfunctional family and a criminal subculture prone to preying on the weak, going light on narrative twists to focus on the milieu and the interplay between his main characters. But where the best of his work sweeps you up in a tide of emotion and imagery so strong you aren't tripped up by on-the-nose dialogue or underdeveloped characters, The Immigrant sometimes makes it difficult to suspend disbelief.

In the film, Joaquin Phoenix stars as Bruno Weiss, a pimp posing as a burlesque showman, and Cotillard as Ewa Cybulski, a traumatized Polish refugee. Ewa survives the Cossacks and a harrowing trip to Ellis Island (we don't see what happened to her on the way there, but we hear about it later), only to find her tubercular sister whisked away to the infirmary while she's slotted for deportation, deemed guilty of false charges she gets no chance to contest. From almost the moment Bruno steps into this rigged game, bribing a guard to get her off the island and into his tenement flat, it's clear to Ewa—though not to him, since he half-believes his own lies—that Bruno is more predator than protector. But no amount of wary self-awareness can save her from complete dependence on him, or from the barrage of assaults and humiliations he subjects her to, a painful parade of abuses that make her into a kind of Christ figure for those "tempest-tost" refugees to whom the Statue of Liberty, the film's opening image, has so often broken her promise.

Phoenix is touching as a broken, self-doubting man posing as a winner. At first, as Bruno blusters his way around his sleazy world, trying to impress his new prisoner/crush, the slump-shouldered slouch that Phoenix often gives to his characters is hardly noticeable, but the character winds up a twisted homunculus, temporarily crippled by a bad beating and writhing in a bubbling stew of self-loathing—until Ewa, in effect, blesses him.

Gray spells out his theme of guilt and redemption when Ewa confesses her "sins" to a priest or tells an aunt that she believes God sent her Bruno to teach her the importance of forgiveness. But those speeches feel redundant, like the frequent references to the sister who keeps Ewa tied to Bruno, since only he can get her off the island (or so Ewa believes). This primal, uncomplicated story is best when Gray relies on his actors' faces and body language to tell the story.

Cinematographer Darius Khondji makes the film's early-20th-century New York City look both claustrophically dark and gloomily gorgeous, finding richness in its chocolate-y browns and blacks and golden gaslight, and Cotillard suffers beautifully in it. But the period details so faithfully recreated by the production designers, and the encounters set up by Gray and his late co-writer, Richard Menello, sometimes feel as over-engineered as Ewa's speech about forgiveness. It's interesting to learn that performers were sometimes brought in to entertain the detainees at Ellis Island, but it's heavy-handed when the magician, Orlando (Jeremy Renner), who performs on the night Ewa spends there promises the detainees the American dream. And the ending feels like one of Bruno's semi-self-deluding cons, beautifully framed but ultimately unconvincing. After Gray has gone to such pains to bring this perilous, pitiless world to life, why should we believe his implicit promise that Ewa will beat the system?

Vulture [David Edelstein]

Writer-director James Gray creates male characters who are unable to control their emotions and suffer visibly, even floridly. That puts some viewers off, especially when — in movies like We Own the Night and Two Lovers — the camera loiters over Gray’s evident alter ego, Joaquin Phoenix, in Phoenix’s rage-and-snivel mode. Is Gray as self-indulgent as his protagonist? Oh, maybe. Sometimes. But few directors can sustain a mood so thick with melancholy and moral ambivalence. And Phoenix is, at best, a great actor, a holy fool who plunges into uncharted waters and prides himself on his flailing. They’re quite a pair.

Their latest collaboration is The Immigrant, set in New York circa 1921, but this time there’s an even more vivid presence than Phoenix. Marion Cotillard plays the title character, Eva, an obviously traumatized young Pole first seen waiting in line at Ellis Island with her coughing sister, Magda (Angela Sarafyan). The cough gets Magda quarantined, while Eva’s reputation for loose morals on the ship from Poland will likely lead to her deportation. The source of that rumor is a mystery for most of the film, but from how Eva quivers at its mention we know that something happened.

A lifeline of sorts arrives via Bruno Weiss (Phoenix), a Jew in an expensive suit who bribes a guard to spring Eva from custody and behaves, at first, like the courtliest gentleman. Who is this man, and what are his ulterior motives? It turns out that Bruno keeps a stable of immigrant women for sewing, performing at a racy Lower East Side vaudeville theater, and one other task (three guesses). He’s not a nice man, and Eva is sick over what she eventually has to do. But it looks to be the only way she can make enough to free her TB-ridden sister from the bowels of Ellis Island.

Well into The Immigrant, Gray introduces a third major character, a Houdini-esque magician named Emil (Jeremy Renner), who’s Bruno’s cousin and sometime antagonist. Emil is instantly smitten with Eva — he delivers, with a flourish, a white rose into her hand and wastes little time in planning to Take Her Away From All This. Is he as gallant and ingenuous as he appears? Or is his guileless persona his best trick?

With the aid of cinematographer Darius Khondji and production designer Happy Massee, Gray captures the look of sepia-toned period photographs (he must also have studied the Vito Corleone sections of The Godfather Part II), but the movie’s feel is modern, psychological. How could it not be with Phoenix so prominent? He doesn’t play Bruno as an obvious Fagin type — he’s too tortured. (This Jew has a big dose of Catholic guilt.) Bruno is an actor, too, and one whose feelings for Eva are starting to interfere with his shtick. It’s not an easy performance to watch — it’s messy. In the last scene, when Bruno gets a beating and his jaw swells up, Phoenix slips into Brando inflections from On the Waterfront and The Godfather, and I’m sure the imitation is unconscious. He’s using all his resources — one of them is his sense memory of watching the greatest of all Method actors. He’s lost in the moment.

Cotillard is more controlled, but her emotions are, if anything, more powerful. No matter how much Eva hardens her features (and heart), the mask keeps slipping. Eva isn’t an actress, a natural liar. Every bit of cunning costs her a piece of her humanity; her drive for self-preservation is at constant odds with her self-disgust. Although Eva is a devout Catholic, I can imagine the character evolving in an Ayn Rand direction, resentful of charity for others after what she was forced to endure. That I think so far beyond what happens onscreen is a testament to Cotillard, who transcends easy melodrama, who is not afraid to be harsh. She’s now the best leading film actress in the world.

The Immigrant has been the source of a semi-public battle between Gray and Harvey Weinstein, who reportedly pressed for cuts and allegedly threatened, as is his wont, to dump the film if he didn’t get his way. (Weinstein is a smart man, but doesn’t have much faith in his audience’s patience.) Gray stuck to his guns and the movie — a shade under two hours — has its longeurs, especially in the last, grueling act. But I didn’t see any scenes that could be shortened. On the contrary, the character of Emil seems truncated and, maybe as a result, far-fetched — he could use a little more screen time. And I wanted much more of an actress named Dagmara Dominczyk, who holds her own against Cotillard and then some as another of Bruno’s “girls” — one who’s seething with resentment at Eva’s tendency to hold herself above what she’s doing.

Weinstein’s problem with The Immigrant might just be that it doesn’t end on that upbeat, Oscar-bait note that marks so many of his prestige projects. The aura of hopelessness never dissipates. The final shot — a diptych in which each of the main characters moves toward into the fog, toward his or her own fate — offers no easy consolation. But the movie earns its dissonances. It’s richer than anything onscreen right now. It’s worth the pain.

The Immigrant - Projectorhead Sudarshan Ramani

James Gray's The Immigrant is an American masterpiece ... Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from The Onion A.V. Club

New Republic [David Thomson]

Village Voice [Stephanie Zacharek]

Slate [Dana Stevens]

The Playlist [Jessica Kiang]

NPR [Ella Taylor]

Ferdy on Films [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Cannes Review: Fifty shades of James Gray on ... - HitFix Guy Lodge

The Immigrant / The Dissolve Scott Tobias

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The House Next Door [Jordan Cronk]

Spectrum Culture [Drew Hunt]

SBS Film [Lisa Nesselson]

IndieWIRE [Eric Kohn]

A Critical Movie Critic [Howard Schumann]

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'The Immigrant' Review: The Most Beautiful ... - Pajiba Vivian Kane

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EFilmCritic [Jay Seaver]

Sound On Sight (John Oursler)

Sound On Sight [Christopher Clemente]

“It's a very, very personal movie”: James Gray, the great ... Andrew O’Hehir, including an interview with the director, from Salon, May 20, 2014

James Gray on Cotillard, critics, and why The Immigrant is ... Guy Lodge interview from Hit Fix, May 16, 2014

James Gray on drawing from family history for The Immigrant Scott Tobias interview from The Dissolve, May 16, 2014

MUBI [Adam Cook] Interview with the director from Mubi, October 5, 2013

RogerEbert.com [Michal Oleszczyk] which includes an interview with the director, May 26, 2013

The Hollywood Reporter [Todd McCarthy]

Variety [Peter Debruge]

Time Out New York [Keith Uhlich]

Examiner.com [Travis Hopson] also seenhere: Punch Drunk Critics [Travis Hopson]

St. Louis Film Critics [Kent Tentschert/Carol Hemphill]

U-T San Diego [Jake Coyle]

LA Weekly [Stephanie Zacharek] also seen here: Village Voice [Stephanie Zacharek]

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Grebin, Perry and Michael Nigro

AMERICAN CANNIBAL: THE ROAD TO REALITY D 58

USA (87 mi) 2006

The Ultimate, Ultimate Challenge? How about The Ultimate Cop-Out, as this film fizzles out in the end with its tail between the legs, basically disintegrating into a cloud of insignificance. Initially screening in the Tribeca fest documentary film category, a few eyebrows were raised, somewhat skeptical about the film’s actual intentions. Made to resemble a real documentary, using real life people, such as Kevin Blatt, the producer of the Paris Hilton sex tapes, a man proud of his porn connections and his interest in pushing media buttons, and various other people within the industry playing themselves, but there are telltale signs that something is amiss, my favorite of which is the Jean-Luc Godard Éloge de l'amour picture on the office wall that keeps falling down. The film is about two struggling TV writers from New York City, Dave Roberts and Gil Ripley, whose agent urges them to stop writing TV scripts no one will finance and get in on the reality show biz craze, pitching ideas to various producers. They’re actually very good pitch men, as they can consolidate the concept for a TV show in under two minutes, making it completely coherent, with both men contributing. They feel they’ve got a winner when Kevin Blatt takes an immediate interest in their show Virgin Territory, where certified male virgins are forced to endure nothing but naked women and porn for days on end but are not allowed sex of any kind until the last one holds out, who is then allowed to lose their virginity to a porn star, especially loving the catchphrase, “When you win it, you lose it.” But in a complete turnabout, Blatt tanks on the idea, but loves one of the exaggerated throwaway ideas they mentioned as an example of reality shows going too far to the point of being ridiculous, an idea about people being sent to a deserted island and starved, where the ultimate reality would be someone getting so desperate that the winner would be the first to start eating the flesh of someone else. Blatt, with his eye on a quick buck and perhaps a few fringe benefits on the side, jumps on the idea and immediately starts the process of auditioning potential contestants, amazingly finding people who are surprisingly game, where we see someone asked if they would eat a human finger, answering sure if it was necessary to win, leading Roberts and Ripley to wonder what was happening to this lark of an idea, as things seem to be steamrolling out of control. Did they really want to stake their careers on this thing?

Set in a fictitious country, which is actually Vieques, Puerto Rico, one disaster follows the next, as they are not allowed to use the initially approved geographic area, moved to a more remote location which has not been scouted, where scorpions are sited on the beach, or some union workers, including the announcer, are notified they are off the show, as this is a non-union project, while insurance matters and other legal issues keep trickling in. They later learn one of the contestants lied on her application and is reportedly hypoglycemic, a medical condition that requires regular eating cycles. So, of course, one wonders what the hell is she doing there? Nonetheless, the show must go one, and despite constant whining and bickering from Roberts and Ripley, one who is aghast, believing they have sold their soul, the other who is just glad to be receiving a paycheck, they plod ahead in a state of perpetual confusion for six days until the hypoglycemic contestant is seen passing out into a coma, gashing her chest during the fall. She is helicoptered out of there to the nearest hospital and everyone else is immediately sent home, where no information is forthcoming about the girl. Blatt won’t answer calls and the production company never even acknowledges there ever was an accident on the show. Agitated to the point of relentless friction, Roberts and Ripley part company, one heading to Los Angeles, leaving the other behind. The audience is left to sort out the missing pieces themselves, as we never learn the fate of the girl because the filmmakers are too busy fabricating excuses to weasel out of their own concept. The filmmakers have never acknowledged their film is a ruse and instead offers this film as Exhibit A for just how outlandish this Reality TV phase is willing to go. Were viewers supposed to be disappointed because we never got to see flesh-eating contestants? Did we find ourselves laughing at the sheer stupidity of some people, namely ourselves, for wanting to watch this sort of trash? Hardly, but it does appear the series of contrived rationalizations at the end will make this a quick fade from anyone’s memory.

While there’s no mention of this in the film, I always thought Reality TV was television’s version of corporate downsizing. Why should the TV industry be spared from the ravaging cuts and mass layoffs that have affected other businesses? You get what you pay for, and with Reality TV, the bottom line is it cuts costs. No one says you have to watch it or like it, but it’s an inevitable fact of life, just like putting off reading War and Peace.

It's hard to make a really probing documentary about show-business types, because they're way too aware of how they come across on camera. Besides, there isn't much about the soul-sucking center of the entertainment industry left unexplored. But American Cannibal: The Road To Reality still stings. It's a depressing, at times mortifying look at young TV writing partners Dave Roberts and Gil Ripley, as they try to shore up their fledgling production company by pitching a reality show. Their initial idea is Virgin Territory, a contest that would line up a porn star to provide a virgin's first sexual encounter; while that pitch lures porn entrepreneur Kevin Blatt—the man who distributed the Paris Hilton sex tape—Blatt winds up more interested in another of Roberts and Ripley's ideas, to trick contestants for a Survivor-style reality game into thinking they're going to have to eat each other or be eaten.

American Cannibal is ostensibly about the phony, exploitative nature of reality TV, and though documentarians Perry Grebin and Michael Nigro hit that point too hard by piling up interviews with TV experts who speak in exaggerated cautionary tones, it's hard to deny the sickly feeling that arises while watching two smart, well-meaning guys sell their souls. Grebin and Nigro cheat a bit by keeping their own presence—and the way it may have convinced some people that Roberts and Ripley were legit—largely out of the movie, but the situation still feels all too real, from the way Blatt hustles his notorious Hilton connection to the way would-be reality-show stars eagerly offer to do anything to get on TV.

Something goes horribly awry with Roberts and Ripley's show before they can even complete a pilot, which is a shame, because while it lasts, it's fascinating to watch how reality TV really works: casting the host (Donny Most and Bruce Jenner both audition), shooting setups while the bored contestants lie around doing nothing, and so on. Still, no matter how Grebin and Nigro are selling it, American Cannibal isn't about the horrors of reality TV. It's about guys like Roberts and Ripley, who convince themselves that any job in show business would be preferable to waiting tables. One minute, they're slaving over their word processors, gleefully trying to write the perfect pitch. The next, they're backstage at one of Blatt's strip clubs, watching a naked woman dance with her tampon string hanging out. And glaring at each other, accusingly.

The Village Voice [Rob Nelson]

American Cannibal purports to be a documentary about two struggling television writers who sell their souls to work in the grungy realm of reality TV. What it actually is, as The New York Times's David Carr suggested last year in an article that questioned the cinema-verité bona fides of Perry Grebin and Michael Nigro's movie, is a mockumentary that mixes fiction and nonfiction. That the filmmakers refuse to publicly own up to their charade is certainly disingenuous. Yet such dishonesty is also intrinsic to their larger meta objectives, as American Cannibal's ostensibly authentic narrative cannily reflects the way in which reality TV manufactures fraudulent "truth," and how such phony legitimacy can be both misleading and still seductive and gripping.

Armed with a believable documentary aesthetic, Grebin and Nigro follow partners Gil Ripley and Dave Roberts (not their real names) as they attempt to rebound from a failed Comedy Central pilot by endlessly pitching reality program ideas. This professional trajectory eventually leads them to Paris Hilton sex tape promoter Kevin Blatt, who signs on to produce a throwaway idea by the duo called American Cannibal, a Survivor-style show that would tantalize hungry castaways with human flesh. It's a ludicrous premise, and yet one that, as interviews with reality TV vets like Real World co-creator Jon Murray make clear, is indicative of a creative field that thrives on lowest-common-denominator extremeness and is fueled by do-anything star-seekers. As they're reluctantly pulled into Blatt's porno environment, Gil begins to bristle at their enterprise's seedy worthlessness while Dave, desperate to support his wife and kids, embraces it wholeheartedly.

American Cannibal too neatly plots out this conflict, and the seams of Grebin and Nigro's ruse become even more visible once the show's production is marred by a mysterious (and incredibly suspect) calamity that serves as the film's dramatic climax. Nonetheless, if their subterfuge isn't entirely successful, the directors' untrustworthy storyline is so guilty-pleasure gripping that it not only makes an effective (though somewhat obvious) case against reality TV, but illustrates how deceptive line-blurring between the "real" and "unreal" is what helps makes the genre so compelling.

Reel.com [Jim Hemphill]

Several times in Perry Grebin and Michael Nigro's documentary American Cannibal, interviewees comment upon the fact that reality television owes its success to the fact that people can't take their eyes away from a disaster. This thesis is both dissected and proven by American Cannibal, a film that critiques reality television and its impact on society while catering to the exact same desires. For in the end, this is less a piece of incisive cultural commentary than a riveting portrait of two nice guys whose lives and careers go into a tailspin, one moral compromise at a time. The film tells the story of Dave Roberts and Gil Ripley, a television writing team that has nearly tasted success but never quite broken through; as the documentary begins, the men have just shot a pilot for Comedy Central that didn't get picked up. Hungry both creatively and financially, Ripley and Roberts reluctantly decide to pitch reality show ideas in an effort to get something on the air. Both writers dislike reality television but convince themselves that a successful show will serve as a stepping-stone to bigger and better things.

The first act of the documentary follows Ripley and Roberts as they go from one pitch meeting to another, trying to sell ideas, like a show in which virgins compete for the chance to have sex with a porn star. In these scenes Grebin and Nigro do a nice job of showing the daily life of a TV writer—a life that consists of a lot more selling and networking than actual writing. Ripley and Roberts come so close so many times that the audience begins to share their desperation, and thus we can understand how they start out in the offices of major cable networks but end up in the back room of a strip club pitching to Kevin "K.B." Blatt. Blatt, a bottom-feeding promoter whose two great achievements are selling porn star Houston's labia on the internet and marketing the Paris Hilton sex tape, is interested in the team's "virgin" idea, but he's even more excited about another concept that the guys call "American Cannibal." The problem is that "American Cannibal," a show in which contestants are starved on an island and then taunted with the prospect of eating each other to survive, is a joke. Ripley and Roberts throw the idea out as a gag they've come up with to mock how outrageous reality television has become, but Blatt takes the premise seriously and says he'll finance it. Thus, the two struggling writers have funding for a show in which they have no real interest and now need to devote their lives to producing.

One might expect American Cannibal to become a routine attack on the coarsening of American culture and entertainment, and while this element does exist (hypocritically, given Grebin and Nigro's hunger for the sensational), the documentary is far more valuable as an anthropological study of a side of Hollywood one doesn't often see on E! News Daily. In its best moments, American Cannibal is a fascinating exploration of a collision between two pervasive show business types: the working filmmakers exemplified by Ripley and Roberts and the hustling opportunists represented by Blatt. Blatt is a guy with zero talent, even less conscience, and a small amount of cash by Hollywood standards, yet by sheer desire to become a player he makes himself essential to Ripley and Roberts' process—to their everlasting regret. Without forcing the idea, the filmmakers use the Darwinian formula of the reality show as a metaphor for Hollywood itself, a place where the competition is so fierce and the anxiety so great that stupid but aggressive predators like Blatt are not only inevitable but necessary for the preservation of the system. American Cannibal plays like a horror film for anyone who still believes that television has the potential to enlighten, or at the very least entertain without completely rotting the audience's brain. It's a movie about the contrast between two forms of motivation that drive those who create entertainment: Blatt, who just wants greater access to money and attractive young (very young) women, and Ripley and Roberts, who are initially inspired by their love of the art (a one-sheet for Godard's In Praise of Love hangs prominently in their workspace). The cruel irony is that the immoral Blatt's skewed worldview is ultimately rock-solid and impossible to erode, while the writers lose their artistic bearings long before the movie's midpoint. The strength of American Cannibal is the provocative manner in which it asks the audience to consider who is to blame for Ripley and Roberts' downfall: the writers themselves, the system that employs them, or the viewers whose taste makes a program in which people are challenged to eat each other not only possible, but inevitable.

Desperation, onscreen and off, has been a key element of reality TV from the beginning, and no wonder. Whether it's seven strangers in a dorm-like condo or a dozen jocks on a remote island, this patently unglamorous, formally sketchy, verily flopsweating genre exploits our lumpen identification with the ordinary schmoes who'd stop at nothing to yank airtime away from bona fide celebs. "Real life" is one big game show, and the underdogs—UPN included—refuse to play by the rules. Would you believe Amish in the City? How 'bout Extraterrestrial in the City?

Pop will eat itself as always, but even more scavenging these days might be the indie film, its audience thinned to near-nonexistence by small-screen fare. Case in point: American Cannibal, a reality-style movie about the making of a reality show that was maybe almost aired. It follows two hungry young hustlers who pitch a porno financier on their virgin concept—kids competing not to get laid—but who instead take his money to concoct a sick Survivor wherein starving contestants are faced with the prospect of feeding on one another. The film begins in requisite shaky-cam mode with the revelation that The Ultimate Ultimate Challenge, shot on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico (but never completed), put one of its would-be cannibals in a vegetative state before blacking out itself.

For real? Does it matter? American Cannibal screened in the documentary category of last year's Tribeca fest and immediately drew skepticism. The Times reported that at least two of the movie's main subjects were given pseudonyms, and quoted filmmaker Perry Grebin's vague description of an aesthetic other than vérité: "We created scenarios in which events unfolded, over which we did not have control, which is very consistent with the documentary tradition." In fact, scenario-creation would seem more consistent with the tradition of reality TV, if not flat-out fiction.

Grebin and co-director Michael Nigro, whose collective résumé includes work in playwriting, publicity, criticism, and screenwriting instruction, may or may not be documentarians. But they can at least be credited with provoking the question of whether cinema should continue being held to higher standards than television when it comes to delineating what's real. You may recall that Rupert Murray, maker of 2005's purportedly authentic doc Unknown White Male, was practically put through psychiatric evaluation by film critics, whereas MTV's superstar producer Jon Murray, one of American Cannibal's bemused talking heads, could seemingly get away with murder in The Real World.

In any case, American Cannibal, something like the (mock-)doc equivalent of The Producers, really, really should've been funnier. Its Bialystock and Bloom—identified here as Dave Roberts and Gil Ripley of KanDu! Productions—come across as mere frat house hopefuls on a pledge-week dare to infiltrate the biz. Not even their pretensions stand up to scrutiny, as the oversized Godard poster in their office keeps falling behind the couch. Frenzied reality pitches to Comedy Central and the IFC fall short of the plate, so the pair proceeds to Kevin Blatt, the colorful character who moved 700,000 units of One Night in Paris, a/k/a the Paris Hilton sex tape. Blatt also boasts of having auctioned a porn star's surgically severed genitals on the Internet.

"We are a giant industry of pimps and whores," muses Blatt, who passes on the boys' "medically verified male virgins" concept, but throws in a hundred grand for KanDu!'s Ultimate Ultimate pilot, the Vieques Island escapade in which everything goes wrong. The would-be survivalist contestants mysteriously take ill after a single hour of production. The Screen Actors Guild, objecting to host George Gray's participation in a non-union show, throws down an ultimate-ultimate challenge of its own. Ripley, believe it or not, is reduced to tears after learning that one of his hunger artists has collapsed, possibly from hypoglycemia. "I don't even know what happened," he says, "and it's totally our fault!" Something on the island smells fishy. Not even television's most pathologically truthful realist would take responsibility while tape is rolling.

For all we know, the fear factor might have been even higher on the Ultimate Ultimate shoot, but, as a title card informs us, "The production's insurance rules prohibit the documentary crew from recording any challenge events." Funny those same rules somehow didn't prohibit the producers from planning to starve their contestants and force them to consider eating human flesh to survive. While creating their scenarios, Grebin and Nigro might've considered a Springtime for Hitler ending wherein KanDu!'s surefire flop becomes a hit. But that would likely have required a little more reality than the filmmakers had available.

The Lumière Reader Jacob Powell

Jean-Pierre Melville's 64 Favourite Pre-War American Filmmakers (Cahiers du Cinema, October 1961)

Green, Alfred E.

All-Movie Guide Hal Erickson

Alfred E. Green inaugurated his nearly five-decade film career as a utility actor at the old Selig Polyscope outfit. He became assistant to Selig's top director Colin Campbell, working on such early moneymakers as The Spoilers (1914). By 1917, Green was soloing as a feature director at Paramount, putting such luminaries as Mary Pickford, Thomas Meighan and Wallace Reid through their paces. His first talkies, lensed at Warner Bros., were two stagebound but enjoyable George Arliss vehicles, Disraeli (1929) and The Green Goddess (1930). He spent most of the 1930s at Warners, turning out films of decent box-office value but highly variable quality: he managed to direct Bette Davis in one of her best performances (1935's Dangerous, for which she won an Oscar), but also helmed one of her worst efforts, Parachute Jumper (1933). In 1946, Green directed Columbia's The Jolson Story, one of that studio's biggest hits, and the most financially successful of all of Green's films. Seven years later, Warner Bros. tried to repeat the magic by hiring an ailing Green to direct The Eddie Cantor Story (1953), but the film was a dog, hampered not only by stodgy direction but by the weak performance of Keefe Brasselle as Cantor. Even in his declining years, however, Alfred E. Green was capable of excellent work: his independently produced The Jackie Robinson Story (1950) is one of the best-ever sports biopics, transcending its tiny budget with some masterfully staged baseball sequences.

Classic Film and Television Home Page Michael E. Grost

Green, Alfred E. They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

BABY FACE B+ 90

USA (71 mi) 1933 restored original print (76 mi)

A recently discovered, uncut archival print, which adds about 5 minutes to the original theatrical release, has been screened lately as an illustrious example of the pre-Hayes code films, where beginning in 1934, the Hollywood Production Code censors began taking their jobs more seriously and under the influence of the Catholic church, started cutting scenes considered undesirable, based on a dozen or more different criteria, among which included interracial scenes, homosexuality, promiscuous drug use, nudity, sexual innuendo, or use of language considered lewd or vulgar, such as the use of the word “virgin.” But what stands out in this film is nothing particularly illicit or risqué, but instead it’s the sin-sational performance by a young Barbara Stanwyck who breaks all the rules of acceptable social conduct by sleeping her way to the top of a giant corporation, dropping men like flies as she soon attaches herself to someone higher up on the corporate ladder, eventually creating something of a boardroom scandal as she selfishly hoards every penny and dollar for herself, even as the lives of those around her are destroyed. Raised by her own father to be a saloon girl who daily has to fend off herds of swine, she leaves her mill town the first chance she gets and heads for New York City to begin her life anew.

It’s an amusing journey as she literally steps on people to get where she wants, all predicated on a Nietzschian philosophy espoused by an elderly German shoemaker back home who drummed passages of Will to Power into her head that every man, woman, and child is exploited, so learn as a woman to use whatever means are available to get what she wants by exploiting men, suggesting it’s easier for women, as men will fall for their traps. Yes, this is a horribly misogynistic view co-written by producer extraordinaire Darryl F. Zanuck himself along with two other writers, supposedly giving the public what they want, but in doing so, they oversimplify the story by making it all too easy for her ascent to the top, turning powerful men into mere puppy dogs on a leash. And, unfortunately, there are several variations of endings, none gratifying, as none are as cynical as the rest of the film and instead try to incorporate some kind of moral payment for the crime and a change of heart, which feels like nonsense, as Stanwyck has clearly defined her preferred route to success. A similar variation on the story was more graphically displayed in Jean-Claude Brisseau’s SECRET THINGS (2002), which features two women targeting corporate executives who use their ability to control others through the art of masturbating openly either in public, or in just the right business setting to catch their man.

Stanwyck couldn’t be more revelatory exuding confidence and a scornful sexual flair, as she really despises these men of power, one of whom is John Wayne in an early role, and has some hilariously cynical dialogue along the way that she delivers with perfect comic timing, fighting off crooked politicians (who she hits over the head with a beer bottle) along with shirtless mill workers while learning to slam doors on former bosses who can’t seem to get her out of their heads, sacrificing marriage and careers to be with this dubious woman of distinction. It’s an amazing display of avarice and audacity on Stanwyck’s part, tough as nails in these early roles where sex is always suggested and never shown, as by the end of the film she’s wearing the most outlandish hats with form-fitting evening gowns lined with elegant furs, hoarding a box full of jewels worth a half a million dollars, and this during the height of the depression. This is a memorable, no stops performance that is an utter joy to experience, giving the viewer all the more reason to seek out early Stanwyck films, who had already starred in films with sexually explicit titles like Mexicali Rose (1929), Ladies of Leisure (1930, Illicit (1931), Ten Cents a Dance (1931), The Purchase Price (1932), or Forbidden (1932).

Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum) capsule review

This 1933 Barbara Stanwyck vehicle about a small-town woman who sleeps her way up the corporate ladder, directed by the underrated Alfred E. Green, remains one of the raciest movies of the 30s, even after massive cuts by the censor; it's also one of the most cynical about being female and getting ahead during the Depression. With George Brent and John Wayne in an early, highly uncharacteristic part. Well worth looking at. 70 min.

Time Out review Tom Milne

Directed with more pace than style, but what matter with Stanwyck in peak form? Starting out as a barmaid in dad's speakeasy in the Pittsburgh slums, she moves to New York when he dies, and calculatingly climbs man by man from basement to penthouse. For all the moralising which has her pre-Hayes Code golddigging lead through fraught paths to true love, the character probably grew into the Phyllis Dietrichson of Double Indemnity.

BABY FACE Martin Rubin from the Gene Siskel Film Center

The early 1930s provided both a relaxed screen morality and a censorship crusade that resulted in stricter enforcement of the Hollywood Production Code in 1934. One of the "pre-Code" films that most incensed the prudes was this raunchy tale of an opportunistic steel-town girl (Stanwyck) who sleeps her way up the corporate ladder of the Gotham Trust Company. Censorship czar Joseph Breen made major alterations; we are screening the recently rediscovered original version. Archival 35mm print courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Peter Reiher (link lost):

Barbara Stanwyck, though certainly more devilish than your average Hollywood heroine, goes through a crisis of conscience. The censored version arose because the New York State Censorship board wouldn't pass it in the original form. The studio cut around five minutes and altered another minute or two of existing scenes. The crux of the film was still the same - a beautiful but poor woman ruthlessly sleeps her way to the top. The censorship had two main effects. A number of things that made it plain that she was about to sleep with some man were toned down. Any intelligent adult viewer would still have known it, but the things cut sort of rubbed it in your face. Similarly, some dialog that made it clear that her father had put her out as a prostitute at a young age (and, maybe, abused her himself) was cut. The other major change was in the character of the shoemaker who gives her advise. In the uncut version, he's an unrelenting follower of Nietzsche, urging her to use whatever means necessary to get what she wants. In the censored version, he talks about "a right way and a wrong way," and instead of sending her a book urging her to be even more callous in her pursuit of power, he sends her a note saying how disappointed he is in her for using "the wrong way" and an inspirational book meant to reform her behavior.

The ending is similar in both films, but rather overdone in the censored version. She finally marries a rich man, but he finds himself in deep financial trouble, which only her ill-gotten gains can save him from. She refuses to help, and gets on a boat to Europe. But she has a last minute realization that she really loves him, and rushes back to save him. He's rather ineptly attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the stomach, of all things. (An earlier spurned beau got it right by shooting himself in the head.) She calls for an ambulance and goes to the hospital with him. On the way, her bag of loot spills on the floor of the ambulance, and she says it doesn't matter, clearly choosing her man over wealth. So far, both versions are the same. That's the end of the uncensored version. The censored version adds a scene here, where the board of the husband's bank is discussing how her booty saved the bank from ruin, but impoverished her and her husband, who is now working at a steel mill in Pittsburgh, where she started out. And how happy they are, which is highly unlikely given her earlier feelings about her home town. We get a repeat of an earlier establishing shot of the steel mills of Pittsburgh, and we fade out.

I think "Baby Face" is an enjoyable melodrama with a brisk pace and a strong central performance, as well as a somewhat complex attitude towards using sex as a tool for advancement. (The main character would never even have met Her Man if she hadn't. This isn't one of those films where she ends up marrying the nice boy she knew back home.) It's one of my favorite pre-Code films. But one of the great films of all time? I don't see that. It does serve as a nice poster child for the whole pre-Code vs. censorship phenomenon, but otherwise I can't see why it belongs on an All-Time Top 100 list.

San Francisco Chronicle [Mick LaSalle]

For decades, "Baby Face" -- the 1933 film starring Barbara Stanwyck -- has been pre-Code 101. If you want to turn someone onto pre-censorship movies at their most fun, sleazy and outrageous, just take them to "Baby Face," and from there they'll be inspired to explore the whole era.

But last year, miraculously, "Baby Face" got even better. An archivist at the Library of Congress discovered a print of the original version of the film, before it was trimmed and slightly re-shot to get it past the New York state censor board in 1933. Make no mistake: In its familiar incarnation, "Baby Face" was already risque enough to qualify as one of the most notorious of pre-Code films, something that could never have been released in any form following the coming of the Production Code in 1934. But in its original version, it turns out to be even more fun and outrageous -- and a deeper and more complete experience, as well.

The original "Baby Face" opens for a one-week run at the Balboa, sharing the bill with "Night Nurse," a 1931 Stanwyck film that's just as amusing as "Baby Face" and, if anything, more perverse. ("Night Nurse" stars Stanwyck and Joan Blondell as a pair of nurses who stumble across a scheme to murder two children, as part of an insurance scam.) "Baby Face" tells the story of a woman from a sorry background -- her father was her pimp -- who goes to the big city, intent on becoming rich by enslaving men sexually.

The differences between the original and the release versions of "Baby Face" are small, and yet combined they spell the difference between a good three-star movie and a delightful four-star movie. In the original, Lily (Stanwyck) goes to the city, not just with the vague intention of sleeping her way to the top (as was the case in the released version), but with the decided intention to act according to Nietzschean principles. Thus, everything she does becomes part of a philosophical proposition. We know where she's coming from and how she's thinking, in a way that we didn't before.

The rawness goes beyond shock effects. It grounds the audience in a specific world. In this version, we discover, for example, that Lily's father has been pimping her out since she was 14. We also see how she makes it to New York. In a grim seduction scene that, unlike some that follow, isn't at all played for laughs, she has to have sex with a railroad worker in an empty freighter, in order to get a ride for herself and a friend.

If you've never seen Stanwyck in a pre-Code film, you've never really seen Stanwyck. Never in her later career, including "Double Indemnity," was she ever as hard-boiled as she was in the early 1930s. She had a wonderful quality of being both incredibly cool and yet blazingly passionate. Her cynicism was profound, and then, without warning, she would explode into shrieking, sobbing, saliva-spraying hurt and rage. What an indelible, one-of-a-kind talent.

If you do see "Baby Face," don't miss "Night Nurse." Over the years, I've taught classes in pre-Code movies, and I've routinely chosen "Night Nurse" over "Baby Face" as the best example of Stanwyck in this period. Now that "Baby Face" has been restored, choosing between the two will be more difficult. But with both on the same bill, that's a choice you don't have to make.

moviediva (excerpt)

BABY FACE censor cuts (based on Mavis 2444-7)

Speakeasy
1. Cragg asks Lilly about the book he's loaned her, and makes specific reference to "Nietzsche, the greatest philosopher."
2. Lilly's father is shown counting money before Ed arrives.
3. Camera pans Lilly's body from Ed's POV.
4. Father gets money from Ed, clearly to pay for his tryst with Lilly.
5. Shots of Ed patting Lilly's knee are longer.
6. After she slaps Ed, Lilly exits and pours herself a beer. Ed grabs her from behind, and she breaks a bottle over his head.

Lilly and Cragg
1. Close up on book WILL TO POWER by Nietzsche.
2. Cragg's speech to Lilly is totally different. Rather than implore her to choose right over wrong, he now tells her to exploit men to get what she wants.

Lilly and Chico in a train boxcar
1. Discovered by an inspector, Lilly seduces him.

Gotham Trust Personnel Department
1. On the way to Gotham Trust, Chico longs for pork chops.
2. Personnel assistant is shown following Lilly into the boss' office.

Mortgage Dept
1. Brody tells Lilly to "stick around after 5."
2. Brody and Lilly seen entering Ladies Rest Room. Rest of scene plays out identical to OCN.

Brody at Lilly's apartment
1. Lilly won't allow him in, tells him to "think of your wife and kids."

Lilly in Carter's office
1. Carter ogles Lilly twice, the second time not in the OCN.
2. Carter reaches for his pen, apparently to write her a check.

Lilly's apartment
1. Carter arrives at Lilly's apartment at night, leaves in the morning.
2. Later, Lilly is seen getting out of chauffeured car.
3. Lilly asks Chico not to call her "honey" so much.

Christmas Day
1. Another major change: Cragg sends Lilly a copy of Nietzsche's THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON. A passage is highlighted that concludes, "crush out all sentiment." Again, this is completely different in tone from the OCN, in which Cragg sends her an admonishing letter.

Stevens and Carter
1. Stevens is distraught, telling Carter is he knows "some man is keeping her."

New Years
1. We see Carter shot, but the remainder is identical to the OCN.

Lilly and Trenholm in a Paris apartment
1. After Trenholm says he hadn't really thought about marriage, Lilly says, "it needn't last forever. You could divorce me in 2 weeks."

Lilly and Trenholm return to New York
1. Outside Gotham Trust, Trenholm sees people trying to push their way into the building; apparently there's a run on the bank. This is trimmed in the OCN.

Lilly on the boat
1. As Lilly plays a record, she sees the faces of all the men whom she's seduced, beginning with the train guy and ending with Trenholm.
2. Trenholm's VO: "I know you've known other men before me, probably more than one. But I don't care."

Ambulance
1. Attendant tells Lilly that Trenholm has "got a good chance." Trenholm smiles weakly at her. THE END.

moviediva

Baby Face • Senses of Cinema Kendahl Cruver from Senses of Cinema, October 20, 2005

Turner Classic Movies both original and uncut versions on DVD, by Jeremy Arnold

Turner Classic Movies the original theatrical release, by Jeff Stafford

Turner Classic Movies the Restored uncut version, by Marty Mapes

Baby Face (1933) Bryant Frazer from Deep Focus

DVDTown [John J. Puccio]

Classic Film Guide full review

filmcritic.com (Don Willmott) review [3.5/5]

Jeff Meyer retrospective also reviewing BORN TO BE BAD

User reviews from imdb (Page 2) Author: theowinthrop from United States

100 films Lucas McNelly

The Cinema Pedant Patrick

Combustible Celluloid [Jeffrey M. Anderson]

CineScene.com (Chris Dashiell) review

DVD Times - Forbidden Hollywood Collection Volume One Gary Couzens

DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson) also reviewing the Forbidden Hollywood Collection (Volume One)

Monsters And Critics [Frankie Dees] also reviewing the Forbidden Hollywood Collection (Volume One)

DVD Verdict-Forbidden Hollywood Collection (Volume One) [Rob Lineberger]

TV Guide review Michael Scheinfeld

The New York Times Mordaunt Hall’s original 1933 review

DVDBeaver.com [Gary W. Tooze]

Baby Face (film) - Wikipedia

Motion Picture Production Code - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pre-Code Hollywood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Production Code of the Motion Picture Industry (1930-1967)

GreenCine Daily: To the Motion Picture Production Code on its 75th ... Mick LaSalle from GreenCine, July 31, 2009

Green, Danny

MR. SOPHISTICATION B+ 91

USA (97 mi) 2012 Mr. Sophistication

The Chicago premiere of MR. SOPHISTICATION took place at the Chicago Film Festival and was something of a coming home party, largely attended by family and friends, where Danny Green, whose career has largely been as a second unit or assistant director, wrote and directed this film with Harry Lennix in mind, and stood by the door afterwards thanking everyone who attended the film. This is an intelligent and beautifully written role, where the real guts of the film takes place onstage where Lennix plays stand-up comedian Ron Waters, whose gritty, sharply observant commentary about the world is startlingly hilarious, mostly speaking confessionally about himself in the style of Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, where he’s a guy whose life is fucked up in many ways but once he’s onstage, he can’t help but be honest with his audience. Chicago’s introduction to local actor Harry Lennix was starring in the original 1988 Pegasus Players’ staging of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, the first Chicago production of an August Wilson play, a role he revived 9 years later at the Goodman Theatre in 1997, winning a Joseph Jefferson Award as the best actor of the year both times. Having seen him in the latter production, he was positively stellar in the role, reportedly one of August Wilson’s favorite actors, playing a particularly difficult part with painfully explosive moments, one of which climaxes the play. Normally a soft-spoken guy showing a quiet reserve, Lennix literally transforms himself onstage. Goodman’s director Chuck Smith commented on the character he played “Levee is as far from the real Harry as you can probably get. Levee's an atheist, he's streetwise and he's hot-tempered. Harry's the opposite. I don't see any of the real Harry on stage when he's playing Levee. He's also the most pleasant person to work with in the theater.” Lennix grew up in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood and was an altar boy, attending Quigley South Preparatory Seminary, deciding at a young age that he wanted to become a Dominican Priest and the first black Pope before eventually discovering theater at Northwestern University, where his original theatrical role was only two years after graduation.

What’s different about this film is the lack of two dimensional caricatures and stereotypes, bringing a mature and sophisticated intelligence to the material, writing fully realized characters that are uncomfortable with themselves even as they are apparently successful in life. The film opens in Chicago where Waters performs to an enthusiastic audience, literally bringing the house down in a club owned by his wife Kim, Tatum O’Neal. Despite their success, each is absorbed in their own careers, where he’s the entertainer while she handles the business end, but they don’t seem to have time for each other, where after 10 years of marriage there’s an unspoken emotional disconnection where real intimacy has been compromised by a routine of getting along. Robert Patrick is literally transformed from the badass alien from TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991) to a hip Hollywood manager, Sterling French, a guy with influence and connections in the business who offers Waters a second chance at the LA comedy circuit, as he apparently screwed up his career earlier, one of the headliners of the 90’s until he began walking out on live performances due to erratic drug related behavior (like whatever happened to Sly Stone in the late 60’s and early 70’s?). Kim has suspicions about a return to Hollywood where temptations run amuck, as their current run of success was a long time coming, but Waters is a driven artist who needs the stage and is ready for a renewed opportunity. When he arrives in LA, he’s treated like a star, given first class accommodations and a white convertible, where opening night is a complete success, as his progressively edgy material has such a blatantly realistic feel, with silhouetted closeups on his face where cinematographer Keith L. Smith beautifully captures the smoke-filled intimacy of the claustrophobic nightclubs. Rather forwardly, a beautiful young 24-year old quickly introduces herself and latches onto him immediately, Rosa (Paloma Guzmán), where they are still together weeks later.

One of the more interesting scenes is between girlfriends, Kim and her best friend, Monique Gabriela Curnen, which reveals the backstory of her husband’s calamitous descent. Nursing him off narcotics took years, for which he is heavily indebted to her, trusting in her and believing they are for real as a couple even as they undergo continual adversity. Rosa, on the other hand, is a pleasure machine working in a dress store on Rodeo Drive, where she wants to build a life around Waters, making him feel like a king. Now honestly, who wouldn’t be tempted? The script, however, delves into the depths of his indecision, flattered by the adoring attention which strokes his ego, but also aware of what he has with an independent minded woman his own age. When Kim hears about the other woman, she flies to LA, where for better or for worse, she’ll either save her marriage or end it. It doesn’t work out the way you might expect, as there’s no dramatically confrontational scene, instead it slowly plays out in Waters’ head, where he gets a little antsy for both women every once in awhile and literally has to work it out in his blisteringly honest onstage routines, which are the heart and soul of the film, and are simply brilliant. Tatum O’Neal is surprisingly good here, showing an ease with the Hollywood glamour world, where she’s been through it all before and is not phased by the showbiz artificiality, showing she’s quite capable of holding her own in the high pressure Hollywood scene. Her composure is really one of the keys to the film, as it helps define Waters as a man, where there’s an unspoken comfort zone between them that helps alleviate the natural tension of what he does for a living, which is extremely high pressure. Nonetheless, Lennix is every bit a star, commanding our attention throughout, where he’s literally dazzling onstage, as his delivery is so effortless, where the secret to the success of this film is the relaxed, underlying believability of the characters, where the complexity of their lives is what comes alive onscreen.

View, The Examiner Catherine Hood

Looking for something new and thrilling this month? Showing over 180 movies from countries all around the world, the annual Chicago International Film festival is taking place in its 48th year. From October 11th to the 25th, the movie making industry will be
in town celebrating the achievements of the international film culture.

Amongst the extraordinary line-up in the two week festival, is “Mr. Sophisticated” a film that highlights the possibilities and consequences of the use of talent striving for fame and fortune. The feature stars actor Harry Lennix, a powerful actor who you've probably seen in everything from "The Five Heartbeats", "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions" to numerous turns on shows such as "ER" and "Law and Order". He turned in a masterful performance in my personal favorite "Titus" as Aaron the Moor.

“Mr. Sophistication" seems to carry a plot that feels familiar to stories of very talented and yet troubled and morally conflicted people who gain and then lose success. Lennix fills the role as Ron Waters, a has-been comedian in Hollywood. The question that seems to be the focus of the film is whether or not Waters (Lennix) can change or if he will again fall from his opportunity of success because after all success does have a price. The film also stars Tatum O'Neal another very familiar face on the screens. The film makers make mention of Richard Pryor in the press release which draws up the expectation of witnessing deep personal tragedies for Ron Walters, but with Harry Lennix in the role, I am confident it will be a performance worth the emotional roller coaster.

CIFF 2012: Mr. Sophistication - Ferdy on Films Marilyn Ferdinand

Harry Lennix is an actor who can be easy to take for granted. He’s worked in numerous films and television shows, always adding his solid presence to round and deepen even the most by-the-numbers script, though I hasten to add that most of the projects he has chosen are anything but ordinary. I was particularly impressed with his work in the lost and lamented Joss Whedon series “Dollhouse.”

Mr. Sophistication has a title that applies more to Lennix than Ron Waters, the character he plays. Ron is a stand-up comedian who threw a blazing-hot career and first wife (Gina Torres) away with his rampant drug use and subsequent erratic behavior. At the beginning of the film, he is doing his “ripped from my life” routine to a packed house at the Chicago nightclub his wife Kim (Tatum O’Neal) owns and runs. After the show, his former agent Sterling French (Robert Patrick) comes backstage to tell him that people in Los Angeles have been asking for him and that he can make a comeback—but only if there are no repeats of his drug-induced theatrics. Ron, dissatisfied with a wife who is a businesswoman with no time to meet his emotional and physical needs and enticed by the chance to be on top again, accepts French’s offer.

He is given VIP treatment when he gets to L.A., with each of his guests commenting on the plush digs he has at an upscale hotel. His first set at one of L.A.’s elite comedy clubs garners him plaudits from old and new fans alike, as well as an evening seduction from 24-year-old beauty Rosa (Paloma Gúzman) that develops into an affair. Rosa falls in love with Ron, and he is very indiscreet about being seen with her anywhere and everywhere. Word of his affair gets back to Kim, and she hops on the next plane to try to save her marriage. On the brink of a major break as warm-up comedian for pop singer Niki J. Crawford (herself), he finds himself at the edge of an emotional cliff, torn between Rosa and Kim.

It’s clear from this synopsis that there’s nothing new or different about this story, and aside from the absence of designer drugs, all the things you’d expect to see in such a tale—the surface love inadequately hiding the cutthroat, elitist attitudes of show people, lots of drinking and smoking, self-justifying characters—are on display. Yet, I am recommending this film without reservation on the strength of some very powerful performances by actors who have been given excellent dialog to work with and the steady hand of director Danny Green.

Green seems to have a particular facility with actresses, encouraging them to reach for their strength and their sexuality in equal measure. Both Tatum O’Neal and Paloma Gúzman play smart, strong women who are formidable competitors for Ron’s affection. O’Neal gets to portray not only an older and wiser woman who is persistent and confident in her own abilities, but also a sexy woman who understands Ron’s need for emotional support; she doesn’t use only sex to entice him back, but also the kind of intimate honesty and open dialog that is more important to Ron than physical fulfillment. Gúzman may be smoking hot—her intense concentration on Ron when she first sees him perform is a laser beam of admiration and desire—but she also speaks with youthful intelligence, offering Ron a chance to be all the things he wants to be because she can show him and teach him about the joy of love and life, sometime she accurately diagnoses as his one gaping lack up to now. In a single, memorable scene, Gina Torres tantalizes Ron as she shows with a look of complete love for her second husband, multimillionare ex-basketball player Rick Fox playing himself, that she is happier without him.

It is, however, Harry Lennix who stops the show with his complete realization of his complex character. Lennix dexterously handles the emotionally raw comedy scenes like he has been doing stand-up all his life, a Hemingway who takes what has happened to him during the day and turns it into comedic genius by the evening. So, we believe Ron was a superstar comic with a rare gift that he feels compelled to fulfill outside the safe confines of Kim’s club. We also see how his emotional vulnerability, both real and calculated, draws women irresistibly into his orbit. Ron is capable of lying through his teeth with complete conviction, and still feel very ashamed of himself. His justification that he is an artist who needs to be free sounds like bullshit even to him, but that’s his story, and he’s sticking to it. When he almost blows his big chance, it is because he is so emotionally messed up about his feelings for both Rosa and Kim that he takes his unfunny talking therapy out on his audience.

I loved the look cinematographer Keith L. Smith created, setting us down in dark, smoke-filled nightclubs and swank parties like we belong there—I really felt comfortable in rarified circumstances I’d normally never get a chance to experience rather than like a tourist watching “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” a comfort that is very hard to pull off. Green allows for some Southern California sunshine, but after the obligatory drive down Rodeo Drive, he mainly abandons the glitz for more lived-in areas of Los Angeles, such as the mixed area of the boutique where Rosa works.

Watching Niki Crawford move in and out of rooms with her entourage in tow actually made me laugh, but Crawford herself never came off as a caricature. The final credits roll over her performance at the Cavalcade that represents Ron’s revival in both career and spirit. It also is a lovely grace note for a wonderful showcase of talent that Danny Green has given us in Mr. Sophistication.

`Er' Player Harry Lennix Returns To The Role That Launched Him ... Sid Smith from The Chicago Tribune, June 29, 1997

In 1988, a tall, lanky, 23-year-old actor named Harry Lennix took our theater scene by storm with his dynamic portrayal of a combustible trumpet player in August Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom."

"Ma Rainey" is an ensemble piece set in a 1920s Chicago studio, where Ma and her musicians gather to make a new record. But the story turns ultimately on Levee, whose powerful, explosive, separate moments end each of the drama's two acts.

With characteristic modesty, Lennix says of that time now, "Part of it was the novelty of this new voice in American theater, August Wilson. I was lucky enough to ride the wave."

But, then, he worked pretty hard, too: "Levee is a difficult, painful role. He damn near drove me crazy."

In the decade since, Lennix has gone on to other stage, TV and movie roles. He has a recurring part as Dr. Greg Fisher, in love with an HIV-positive physician's assistant, on television's top-rated "ER" (though he's not sure yet if he'll be back next season). He played a gay man on his way to the Million Man March in Spike Lee's movie "Get on the Bus," which is just out on video, and he's in the upcoming film "Since You've Been Gone" with "Friends" star and onetime fellow Northwestern University student David Schwimmer.

But at the moment Lennix is trying to come home again, starring once more as Levee in a revival of Wilson's drama opening Monday at the Goodman Theatre. Now 32, Lennix is finally the same age as the character that launched his career.

He promises no rerun: He says it's almost like playing two completely different parts.

"I don't have any recollection of what I did the first time," he says, a memory lapse due to more than the passing years: "I was working full time by day and doing the show at night. I had a bad ulcer. I was in rehearsal for another play and not keeping regular hours. I couldn't do it that way now-it would kill me. I think I blocked out a lot of that time."

"I think Harry is an extremely talented young man and an exceptionally fine actor with a strong sense of confidence about who he is," says Jonathan Wilson, the director of that that who took a chance on Lennix and cast him in the 1988 production.

"I had met Harry at Northwestern, where he was doing good things in theater on campus, and I never had a doubt about casting an actor so young," Wilson adds. "He has a knack for being extremely committed to what he's doing. Levee requires an extraordinary emotional commitment, and Harry gave that and sustained it for a long run, some six months."

Levee is a hot-headed, talented upstart trying to leave the back-up band by writing songs. But at the end of Act 1, thanks to a gripping, 2 1/2-page monologue, we learn of the violent trauma in the character's past, when as a youngster in Mississippi, a group of white men assaulted his mother and his father was lynched and set afire.

In Act 2, after Ma Rainey's white handlers basically cheat Levee out of his songs, he himself erupts with a violent act that is the climax of the play and Wilson's shrewd encapsulation of years of injustice reduced into a single stage moment.

"You have to go to great, dark places to do the role right," Lennix says. During the interview, he was struggling with the need to hold back and pace his preparation. "Sometimes, in rehearsal, it's hard to hold back, but you must. You don't want to blow all your wattage early. But it's like driving a Ferrari. If you don't occasionally hit high speed, you'll ruin the car."

Still, he doesn't worry that Levee has escaped him after all these years. "I can't call up the emotions from before. But for a black actor to play a black guy who had to deal with all these terrible things is not something foreign to me. I can pull from any number of experiences."

"Levee is as far from the real Harry as you can probably get," says Chuck Smith, director of the revival. "Levee's an atheist, he's streetwise and he's hot-tempered. Harry's the opposite. I don't see any of the real Harry on stage when he's playing Levee. He's also the most pleasant person to work with in the theater."

`Shy growing up'

Lennix grew up in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood, the son of a widow who raised four children -- and sent them all to private school -- by working as a laundress for a church rectory. She was raised a Baptist, but she converted to Catholicism thanks to Lennix's father, a Louisiana Creole, would-be jazz singer and full-time machinist until his death when Lennix was 2. "I think I get my interest in music and the arts from him," Lennix says.

Lennix attended Quigley South Preparatory Seminary at a time when the student body was only 10 percent African-American. "There were occasions of hostility, and I met with some bigotry," he recalls. "But overall I loved the place. My time there remains the only serenity I've known as a human being."

He dabbled in sports and the saxophone, which he played as Levee in the original Pegasus Players' 1988 "Ma Rainey," altering Wilson's text a bit -- at the Goodman Levee is once again a trumpet player, which Lennix is learning during the rehearsal period.

At Quigley, he wasn't sure where the future would take him: "I'm a frustrated baseball player, musician and priest," he says.

But even in high school he acted in plays, and when he enrolled at Northwestern, he picked drama as a major because he thought it would improve his chance of admission. "It seemed like an easy major," he says.

Perhaps for him it was. Quiet, gentle, soft-spoken and polite in person, Lennix seems to transform on stage and, in some roles, create an explosive, overwhelming presence. His first run as Levee took place only two years after graduation from Northwestern.

As Malcolm X, in "The Meeting," which has been frequently revived here, even as recently as last winter, Lennix portrayed a complex historical character with dignity and believability.

Lennix's first movie break came in 1991 with "The Five Heartbeats," a part he scored while still living and working here. In 1992, he left for New York, and, two years ago, relocated to Los Angeles, where he now lives.

His role as Dr. Fisher on "ER" gives him lots of visibility, though as a guest star, he isn't paid as well as the regulars.

"But that's a little like complaining about making the NBA minimum salary," he admits and adds he hopes to return next season: "Great set, great clothes, great food," he says of the show.

To date his movie roles remain modest. (In "Guarding Tess" he was a mostly mute secret service agent, for instance.) But at least one of Lennix's personal dreams came true when he got to work with director Spike Lee on "Get on the Bus." In it, he played a sensitive, deliberate gay man determined to out his closeted partner during their sojourn to the Million Man March.

"I was up for the part of Malcolm X (in Lee's 1992 movie) and we became friends," he says. "I think America owes him a tremendous debt. He has revamped, reinvigorated and re-energized independent filmmaking. Some of his films are more effective than others.

"But he launched a new generation of black filmmakers, and he's always daring."

' Mr. Sophistication,' ' Alaskaland,' ' Benji' (Among Others ... - Indiewire

American Theatre Wing - Biography - Harry Lennix

The Interview short film Harry Lennix

A Walk Through Four Decades of Good Theatre - PerformInk Online Albert Williams

Q&A: Chicago-native 'Mr. Sophistication' star Harry Lennix Matt Pais interview from Redeye, October 17, 2012

Green, David Gordon

All-Movie Guide Andrea LeVasseur

Born in Arkansas, raised in Texas, and schooled in North Carolina, the young writer/director David Gordon Green built a solid understanding of the South before making his debut feature film George Washington in 2000. The slow-moving and thoughtful film was cast with nonprofessional actors, many of whom were black kids who had never acted before. Green has admited being influenced by Robert Altman and Terrence Malick films from the '70s, with an emphasis on subject matter over acting styles. As a young filmmaker, Green was a refreshing alternative to the hip and clever independent directors of the late-'90s, many of whom he openly dismissed in interviews. In 2003, he released All the Real Girls, a romantic drama starring Zooey Deschanel.

The Films of David Gordon Green - Harvard Film Archive

Since his brilliant debut with George Washington (2000), David Gordon Green (b. 1975) has finally earned his reputation as one of the most talented filmmakers to emerge from the new American independent film scene. A child of the South, Green was born in Arkansas, raised in Texas, and studied film at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he honed his trademark Southern Gothic style.

Green’s films are steeped in the rhythms of Southern life, coupled with a poetic lyricism that distances him from the ironic sensibility and Gen-Y affectations of his contemporaries. Instead, Green favors a nuanced, observational style that recalls the cinema of Robert Altman and Terrence Malick, to whom he is ofen compared. Indeed, like Malick, Green favors elliptical narrative and dialogue, a mode of filmmaking that depends more on mood and image than on story, and a delivers a strong sense of place, especially the natural environment.

Distinguished by their stunning cinematography and contemplative dialogue, Green's films focus on the transition from innocence to understanding, with characters who straddle the divide between childhood and adulthood, struggling to achieve emotional maturity through a growing understanding of their relationship to the world around them. The Harvard Film Archive is proud to welcome David Gordon Green for a sneak preview screening of his new film, Snow Angels.

Captain Obvious: David Gordon Green

Born in Arkansas, raised in Texas, and film schooled at the North Carolina School of the Arts, young director David Gordon Green has a firm grasp of Southern culture. His slow-paced films have drawn comparisons to Terrence Malick, who actually helped produce Green's 2004 gothic thriller Undertow. Green's films exhibit the same keen eye for location as Malick's while being more character driven. Green's first film, George Washington, was shot during a Winston-Salem, North Carolina summer in 1999, and its cast consists of young untrained actors discovered at YMCA casting calls. The film went on to enjoy film festival success and it secured a multidude of awards. He followed his successful debut with a quirky love story entitled All The Real Girls, which stars Green's college pal and budding actor Paul Schneider and is set against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The film's ultra-awkward dialog, no-ambition characters, and portrayal of strange love on the outskirts of society made it a sort of anti-Hollywood love story. Characters miscommunicate, and while they feel powerful human emotions, they're too inarticulate to ever introspectively describe them. It's one of those polarizing films that will either dazzle you or piss you off, and that's when you know the director's onto something. Since 2003, Green has made Undertow, a solid southern gothic tale of brothers running from their father's killer, this year's Snow Angels, which is touring the festival circuit and stars Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell, and a Seth Rogan-penned action/comedy entitled The Pineapple Express that should see daylight sometime next year.

Here are a few excellent tracks from the moody All The Real Girls soundtrack. -- Capt. Obvious

Listen:
MP3: Bonnie Prince Billy - Even If Love
MP3: Sparklehorse - Sea Of Teeth
MP3: The Promise Ring - Say Goodbye Good

George Eastman House :: Press Room :: Dryden Theatre welcomes ...

The Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House celebrates the films of director/screenwriter David Gordon Green and producer Lisa Muskat with a retrospective in March and April. Kicking off the series will be the Rochester premiere of their film Snow Angels and a visit from Green and Muskat themselves at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 6. The filmmakers will introduce the screening and answer audience questions.

Snow Angels, a deeply personal project that uniquely mixes humor with tragedy, tells converging stories of love and loss among two couples: one adult and one adolescent. Green's most mature work to date also features his most impressive cast of experienced and fledgling actors: Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale, Griffin Dunne, Amy Sedaris, Michael Angarano, and Olivia Thirlby.

The Green & Muskat retrospective at the Dryden includes seven feature films plus Green's student films made at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Also included are showings of three new independent features produced by Green and Muskat: Great World of Sound, directed by Green's fellow NCSA-alum Craig Zobel; Jeff Nichols' stunning debut, Shotgun Stories; and Chop Shop, Ramin Bahrani's follow-up to his acclaimed Man Push Cart.

Muskat, a graduate of the University of Rochester, has been Green's primary producer on all four of his feature films to date. She, like Green, is a major force in independent filmmaking.

About David Gordon Green
At the Berlin Film Festival in February 2000, moviegoers got an early introduction to the work of a very young writer-director who would become one of the new century's most important American filmmaking artists, then 24-year-old David Gordon Green. The world premiere of Green's low-budget, independently made, and mysteriously titled George Washington was cause for celebration in the way it favored poetic visuals and real human behavior in telling the story of a group of youngsters in a poor North Carolina town. Shunning conventional narrative, controlled performances, and overly emphatic dialogue, George Washington was hailed by critics who welcomed it as a movie in the tradition of Charles Burnett and Terrence Malick.

Green's follow-up, All the Real Girls, tells of the rehabilitation and heartbreak of a young ladies' man (Paul Schneider) when he falls for a no-less-innocent teenage girl (Zooey Deschanel).

While the love story is honestly heartfelt, Green never loses his touch for injecting humor into painful and awkward situations. All the Real Girls premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded a special jury prize "for emotional truth."

Undertow, Green's third feature, found him working with his idol, Terrence Malick, who served as co-producer and introduced Green to the story of an adolescent boy and his younger brother on the run from their murderous uncle. Featuring rapturous images lensed on Savannah, Georgia locations by Green's steadfast cinematographer, Tim Orr, Undertow pays homage to other films like The Night of the Hunter and Southern-set action classics from the '70s like Macon County Line, while always maintaining its own offbeat sensibility.

David Gordon Green Fansite

Chelsea Pictures: David Gordon Green brief bio

'If I ever do anything clever, shoot me' feature and interview by Danny Leigh from the Guardian, September 25, 2001

IGN: Photos: Staged Reading of A Confederacy of Dunces Steve Head from IGN, June 25, 2003

WIP turns Green with 2 projects Gregg Goldstein from the Hollywood Reporter, March 20, 2007

David Gordon Green, mainstream director? - Los Angeles Times Brooke Hauser, February 26, 2008

EXCL: David Gordon Green Talks Suspiria Remake - ShockTillYouDrop.com Edward Douglas, March 5, 2008

David Gordon Green Heads to 'Suspiria'? - Cinematical Monika Bartyzel from Cinematical, March 6, 2008

:: The Playlist ::: David Gordon Green Remaking Horror Classic ... The Playlist, March 6, 2008

Whatever Happened to David Gordon Green? David Haglund from Slate, October 27, 2011

Green, David Gordon They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

WSWS Interview (2000) by David Walsh from the World Socialist Website, September 28, 2000

"MORE MULATTO THAN CHOCOLATE": Film Freak Central Interviews the ... Interview with David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider by Walter Chaw, February 16, 2003

PopMatters Film Interview | David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider - All the Real Girls by Cynthia Fuchs, April 3, 2003

kamera.co.uk - feature article - Interview - A Quick Chat with ... by Jason Wood, July 10 – 20, 2003

IGN Interview (2004) by Spence D, October 22, 2004

indieWIRE Interview (2005) by Wendy Mitchell

Believer Magazine Interview by George Ducker, November 2006

Interview at IFC.com by Aaron Hillis, March 4, 2008

Director David Gordon Green on ‘Snow Angels,’ Amy Sedaris, and ... interview by Bilge Ebiri from Vulture, March 6, 2008

Interview: Snow Angels Director David Gordon Green by Katie Rich from Cinema Blend, March 6, 2008

Spotlight on David Gordon Green - ComingSoon.net interview by Edward Douglas, March 7, 2008

ReelzChannel: Exclusive interview with David Gordon Green by Heather Huntington, March 7, 2008

Past The Popcorn » A Talk With David Gordon Green by Greg Wright, March 14, 2008

eFilmCritic - Interview: David Gordon Green on "Snow Angels" feature, interview, and review here: Snow Angels, by Peter Sobczynski, March 23, 2008

Movies | David Gordon Green: an indie director's path | Seattle ... interview by John Hartl from the Seattle Times, March 23, 2008

A Chat with David Gordon Green - Mad About Movies - The Oregonian ... by Shawn Levy, March 24, 2008

Wikipedia

PLEASANT GROVE

USA (15 mi) 1997

DVD Times Anthony Nield (excerpt)

Just as interesting are the two short films, one of which, Pleasant Grove, also comes with optional commentary, this time by Green and Orr. Neither work is especially great, demonstrating their origins as student works, but they do prove instructive in demonstrating how Green’s style has evolved and, in many ways, stayed the same. Indeed, the influence on George Washington is immense, with some of the cast members also being present here as well as various lines of dialogue and situations.

User reviews from imdb Author: AdnanZ

This short student film was made circa 1997 when David Gordon Green was about 21 or 22. The cinematography is poor but the script, acting, and direction are all indicative of greatness to come, specifically in the form of "George Washington", a film not dissimilar to "Pleasant Grove" in most ways. The writing suffers from a lack of polish and maturity, and while sections of the script are outstanding it doesn't become a satisfying film by the end. Still, at 15 minutes in length "Pleasant Grove" is an interesting enough student short, which isn't of much interest to people who dislike David Gordon Green, but fans of his will want to see this (and probably have already done so). 6/10

Criterion Confessions [Jamie S. Rich]

PHYSICAL PINBALL

USA (21 mi) 1998

User Reviews from imdb Author: Mitch-4 from Chicago, IL, US

This accomplished short, done as a student project, appears on the Criterion Collection DVD of director Green's first feature, "George Washington".

It's remarkable that this young Southern white boy can make a film with an even younger Southern black girl at its center, and not have it be about race issues, or gender issues either. Probably Green would say it's more about the semi-rural community life.

I didn't understand why the widower father thought he could help his daughter pick out menstrual supplies. Wouldn't his first reaction be to have her talk to the school nurse, or an aunt, or in fact the cousin who does soon enough show up by chance?

GEORGE WASHINGTON A 95

USA (89 mi) 2000 ‘Scope

I like to go to beautiful places where there's waterfalls and empty fields. —Nasia (Candace Evanofski)

Indie films have never been the same after this release, now the Indie prototype, a film that became so critically praised for its bleak visual poetry and laid back, seemingly improvisational style, where the camera observes but never intrudes on the lives of a group of young kids, played by non-professionals. Set in the rural small town countryside of what feels like junkyards or abandoned warehouses near the train tracks, a group of young kids spend their summer hanging out. Oftentimes the viewer feels like they’re eavesdropping in the middle of conversations, as a recurring image is a group of kids sitting around with nothing to do as the camera captures the idle curiosity of young minds. In this way, we come to understand each of the characters and their relationship to one another. There are distinct groups, a group of mostly white male railroad workers who easily chat with the black kids hanging around, making sure they don’t steal their cars, but talking or joking with them as they pass the time, a group of young kids ages 8 to 14, who become the focus of the movie, also the older sisters who spend their time fixing one another’s hair and engaging in boy gossip, and the actual parents who are so poor and beaten down that they are near psychotic. Though the director is white, having grown up in Texas, the lives examined are mostly black, set in North Carolina where poverty is a given, as everyone is dirt poor, but the story is narrated with a strange mystical wisdom by Nasia (Candace Evanofski), a 12-year old girl who is seen breaking up with Buddy (Curtis Cotton III), who is a year older, but she considers him too immature for her tastes. Instead she’s attracted to George (Donald Holden), a quiet kid who was born with a permanently soft skull, where he wears a football helmet to protect it, without which he could suffer a tragic brain injury. They are joined by an amateur pair of car thieves, Vernon (Damian Jewan Lee) and Sonya (Rachael Handy), the oldest and youngest, Sonya being the only white in the group. Buddy is crushed and is seen receiving consolation from various friends, including Rico (Paul Schneider), one of the railroad workers. In this small circle of friends, life goes on.

Drawing on the stream of consciousness literary worlds of Southern writers William Faulkner, Harper Lee, Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers and Truman Capote, certainly what stands out in this movie is the impressionistic way the story is told, with a brief flurry of small vignettes, each one given an added poignancy by a naturalist tone that runs throughout, expressed without an ounce of condescension, beautifully shot by Tim Orr, where the balance of wisdom beyond their years juxtaposed against the decaying landscape all around them adds an extra dimension not normally captured in movies today. These are the kinds of kids no one listens to, yet we listen intently to every word, and these are the kinds of places the world has forgotten, which are never shown in film or on TV, yet we are visibly moved by the meticulous attention to detail which adds an astonishing beauty to a bleak and forgotten landscape, all beautifully expressed with authenticity and utter sincerity. This plays out like a time capsule, where a kind of innocence unfolds, where adults are all but absent, yet what these kids yearn for or have to say is every bit as meaningful as any adult drama. Intoxicating and dreamlike, much of this feels like a reverie, but there is no escaping the truth of their lives, which haunts them every waking second. A tragic event occurs that changes their lives, that alters the focus of their languid afternoons, something purely accidental that is too big to share with the world which they have yet to fully understand, so it remains secret, something unspoken, that gnaws and eats at them as time goes on. Each has to answer in their own way, which can become mystifyingly incoherent, beautifully edited with an understated but artful elegance.

The world comes apart at the seams, yet it oddly stays just the same, wrapped in traditional small town values where a 4^th of July parade becomes one of the biggest spectacles of the year, something that brings out a goodness in people. “Sometimes I smile and laugh at all the good things you're going to do. I hope you live forever,” Nasia tells George, an affirmation of hope that by all indications vanished long ago, yet there it is, plain and simple. This odd balance between the way it is and the way it could be is heartbreaking, as what did these kids do to deserve less of a chance than any of the rest of us? They speak of their futures as if they still have one, when we’re used to seeing pictures of wayward teenage youth who have tossed away theirs and will spend the rest of their lives rotting in some god forsaken jail because they never knew what it was to be loved or cared for. Abandoned at birth, some kids’ futures are taken away from them before they can even speak. But these kids are surprisingly prescient, as if they sense something different lies ahead, something good, something meaningful, where they still dare to dream for a better world even as all evidence points to eternal hardship and around them nothing but eviscerated decay. Occasionally reverting to slow motion or still images and using a minimalist electronic score by Michael Linnen and David Wingo that at times sounds reverential, this is a haunting work that comes at the viewer like overlapping waves, one after the other, revealing a timeless universality from a child’s eye, an unforgettable mood piece that examines life’s mysteries unlike any other, that stands alone in its grasp of simplicity and grace.

Time Out Tony Rayns

A little like Gummo re-imagined by Terrence Malick, Green's extraordinary debut feature is a film without a centre. Narrated by a young girl, it shows vignettes from life in a small Southern dirt town around 4 July, focusing mainly on the kids (most of whom are black) and a notably laidback railroad track repair crew. Nothing of consequence happens until one boy dies in an accident and the others decide to hide his body rather than report the death; after that, the group fragments and each kid starts to edge towards maturity. Lyrically shot in 'Scope by Tim Orr, the film absorbs elements of documentary and improvisation to produce a remarkably organic whole.

User comments from imdb (Page 3) Author: Cosmoeticadotcom (cosmoetica@gmail.com) from United States

George Washington was the first feature film ever made by indy wunderkind director David Gordon Green. It was released in 2000, to generally favorable reviews, and it truly deserved them. It has been recently released on an invaluable Criterion Collection DVD which I recently purchased. Most critics erred and went in for a facile comparison to filmmaker Terrence Malick, but this film has several things that Malick's films do not have. Yes, like Malick, Green is fond of lingering poetic shots of seemingly everyday things, but Green's film is far more concerned with individuals than any of Malick's four feature films are. Malick's 1978 Days Of Heaven does have its reach, though, as the black and white still photographs at the end of George Washington homage the black and white stills of that film, just as a young girl's narration echoes the young female character's in Days Of Heaven. But, the characters in George Washington are mostly poor North Carolina preteens of an eternal present, not historic artifacts, and they convey a sense of self that is absent in Malick's films, which mostly deal with issues, not people.

That said, this film is not really a narrative, more of a simple series of linked vignettes that trace a several week period over a summer, which opens with a dreamy panoramic and poetic monologue spoken by a young girl named Nasia (Candace Evanofski), that weaves poetry out of the banal snippets that drift in and out of even the most prosaic minds, such as, 'I like to go to beautiful places where there's waterfalls and empty fields.' This is not immanently poetic, but juxtaposed with the camera work it takes on a heightened, almost ecstatic, state. Some criticize the film by stating real children do not speak that way, but, a) I've known them, and a read of Anne Of Green Gables shows they've always been around, and b) the poesy is not of the character, but what the character says in relation to her station on life…. This film is not a great film, but it shows great potential, just as Malick's first film, Badlands, showed great potential, but not accomplishment. But it is a special film because it makes its specialness from what is remembered by all people, from their youth. As they go on with life, George and Nasia will likely drift apart, but both will have their own reasons for remembering that long ago summer the film charts, and we viewers will understand why.

Raging Bull Movie Reviews (Mike Lorefice) review [3/4]

Finding beauty amid decay and rot, and heroic redemption in a small town haunted by vestiges of hopelessness and death, 25-year-old director David Gordon Green's astonishing George Washington introduces a major voice in American independent film. In sharp contrast to the visual indifference found in most low-budget fare (worsened by the degraded pallor of the digital-video craze), the film's picturesque rural landscapes recall Terrence Malick's Days Of Heaven, as does its dreamy, philosophical/poetic narration. Comparisons to Harmony Korine's caught naturalism are also hard to deny, but out of these and other influences, Green has created a new and glorious alchemy, fusing Malick's rapturous style with a uniquely offbeat and compassionate way of looking at the world. A collection of loosely assembled episodes centered on young, poor, mostly black kids in rural North Carolina, George Washington captures the lazy rhythms of everyday life in a defiled, post-industrial Southern town. ("It looks like two tornadoes come through here," one boy jokes.) Forced to fend for themselves without parental supervision, the 12- and 13-year-old children have become wise beyond their age, already experiencing adult feelings of love, regret, and longing. When the narrator, a levelheaded little girl played by Candace Evanofski, is asked why she dumped a sweet-natured runt (Curtis Cotton III) for the serious-minded title character (Donald Holden), she replies precociously, "I wanted a more mature man." An accidental death, made all the more horrific by Green's casual staging, provides some semblance of a narrative, but only in the subtle ways it alters the tone of the characters' lives. Some feel remorse about the incident, one child is numbed by it, and another interprets it as a call to heroic service for his family, friends, and community. The vignettes in George Washington risk seeming vague and ill-defined—it's hard to describe the film without sounding like a stoner—but Green and his young cast are remarkably laid-back and assured, allowing themes to bubble up naturally from the setting and the performances. The director, who shares screen credit with cinematographer Tim Orr, reportedly spent a large portion of his budget on camera lenses, and his gorgeous Cinemascope images lend warmth and lyricism to an economically depressed environment. George Washington doesn't downplay the inescapable hardship and tragedy that pervades its setting, but few films offer a more hopeful and transcendent portrait of innocence lost.

Amidst languid Malickesque lingerings of decaying machinery, Green creates a very honest yet allusive visual poem centered on the boredom of life in small town America and the feelings and emotions, frustrations and bewilderment of various types of relationships. The Days of Heaven style voiceover is notable because Nasia (Candace Evanofski) is thinking to herself, and like the film bouncing randomly between the significant and insignificant. Much of the realism of this documentary like work comes from its willingness to present life in its directionless and haphazard form. There is no plot; Green simply presents an aimless summer in a small poverty stricken town inhabited largely by African Americans. Major and minor events happen that will change the course of the characters lives, but the film is about the search and the longing, often for things we can't quite describe that may technically be unattainable. I often wonder if we'd have even one tenth of the misunderstandings if we could simply view all relationships through the lens of everyone being bored and just wanting to find some way to amuse themselves? One kid wishes there were 200 more of himself because they'd be the only 200 people who wouldn't let him down. Green seems to share Malick's uncertainty of message, so the film works better in bits and pieces than as a whole. The characters are mainly adolescents and stay within their limitations, but possess an emotional range and vulnerability that's rarely expressed credibly in movies because it's not something that can be measured or solved. There's so much desire and uncertainty here, questions rather than answers, and in every case they are those of an entire country rather than its solitary inhabitants. The audience knows more than the characters in almost every film, but this film is so much more moving for it because the subject matter is the mysteries of life as much as anything else. We see the gratitude of the boy George (Donald Holden) saved from drowning, but George may never know because the kid's mother doesn't invite him in. Like life, the majority is guesswork and it's up to George to know he did a good thing even if no one seems willing to show or tell him. But George wants to be a superhero, and he needs that reassuring so his actions don't seem to be taking place in a vacuum causing him to feel a frustrating pointlessness to it all. Despite the shoestring budget and its dilapidated scrap metal settings, this is one of the most beautifully photographed films you'll ever see, Green's warmth and sympathy shines through in every frame of Tim Orr's photography.

Movie Views [Ryan Cracknell]

It doesn't take big events like a bank robbery, a massive earthquake or aliens landing on Earth to make a person grow. For most, it's the small things in life that do the trick: that first kiss that ends in disaster, a baseball through Mr. Smith's stain-glass window, the ceremonial flushing of a pet goldfish who ate one flake of fish food too many. But too often we go to the movies for the big bangs and excitement. It makes for a great two-hour escape from reality. But it's also refreshing to occasionally confront life on the screen. So goes David Gordon Green's George Washinton, a quaint and heart wrenching film about a small group of children on the verge of adolescence growing up in a poverty-stricken part of North Carolina.

George Washington opens with the after church breakup of Buddy (Curtis Cotton III) and Nasia (Candace Evanofski), a pair just getting ready for the turmoil of junior high. Yet their breakup goes more along the lines of old-fashioned adult melodrama.

Buddy asks, "Can I kiss you one last time?" He goes on to declare his love for Nasia and implies they had a special bond. The last time I was that age, I was just starting to realize the whole guy-girl attraction thing. Love, well that was reserved for hyperbole purposes only: hot, buttered popcorn, riding my bike down a big hill without the brakes, staying up until the wee hours of the morning watching wrestling - simple stuff like that. Of course, you're not supposed to take the breakup at face value. Adolescence is supposed to be about the simple things in life, yet Green takes the opportunity to eloquently show that these children live complex lives. And it's not by choice.

Everything surrounding the kids is broken. Their homes are run down. Their daytime haunts are abandoned lots and parks strewn with everything from garbage to gutted cars. Inside an old stage a small tree has popped up through the old floor. The only place that seems to be in good shape is the local pool where all of the town's kids gather during the summer. But even with the surrounding destruction, the children seem to share a common optimism.

Nasia is the film's narrator, occasionally chiming in with her own personal commentary. She's got a thing for George (Donald Holden), a bit of an outsider amongst his group. George has a soft head that keeps him out of the water. He's often shown wearing a football helmet to further protect himself. Nasia sees a great future for George. She seems him as a future president. With the atrocious shape the town is in, the material world can only get better.

The one thing that does appear to be strong is the bond of friendship. Everyday the same group gets together to do much of nothing because there's nothing better to do. Still, they enjoy just hanging out and exploring the same old spots. So when a tragedy hits, the group's world is sent into disarray.

One of the big differences between a child and an adult is responsibility. Grown ups have lots, while a kid might have a pet turtle or a paper route to worry about. But the tragedy that befalls George, Nasia and the rest of the group forces them to take responsibility, or at least feel it. It's the same coming-of-age tale that you often see with bikes, baseball and first kisses, only bikes and baseball are trivial in George Washington. We don't live in a simple world and Green has captured the fact that you don't come of age by hitting a home run or by building a soap box racer with dad. You come of age when you take responsibility for what you do.

George Washington, Green's debut film, is filled with striking imagery. It has the feeling of a breathing issue of National Geographic as told threw the words of George Steinbeck and through the brush of Norman Rockwell. Cinematographer Tim Orr, who re-teamed with Green for All the Real Girls and also worked on Raising Victor Vargas, emphasizes the importance of location within the film. The plotting might seem slow at first, but when there's such sweet lines as, "My mom's so nice she'll knit you a sweater when you first shiver," Green keeps your attention on the simple things within the film.

It may seem like hyperbole, but George Washington is a remarkable film. With just two films under his belt now, Green is fast becoming something of a prodigy in the industry. His films might never make a lot of money, but as long as he keeps his work beautiful and captures the poetic truths behind everyday life in the world he knows, Green will continue to develop a core of support for his work.

Scott Renshaw review [9/10]

George Washington, the first feature by 25-year-old David Gordon Green, is the year's most fascinating American indie precisely because it's the most baffling. This haphazardly lyrical, yet heavily symbolic, account of a tragic incident involving a racially mixed group of kids on the outskirts of a small Southern city is a true anxious object—it's at once brilliant and inept.

Green's intentions are as obscure as his command of film craft is unclear—his originality is indistinguishable from his mistakes. Not surprisingly, George Washington's curiouser-and-curiouser quality has been amply reflected in its reception: The movie was rejected by Sundance, the festival that logic dictates as its natural habitat, to premiere weeks later in Berlin's International Forum of Young Cinema; there it became a word-of-mouth must-see that, despite strenuous marketing, was ignored by every major American distributor. Passed on by "New Directors/New Films," another congenial showcase, George Washington surfaced instead at the New York Film Festival; having been dismissed by Variety in a perfunctory two-paragraph review, it was hailed by The New York Times as a movie for the ages.

Green, a native Texan, studied filmmaking in North Carolina, and that's where George Washington was shot. The locations seem less a specific American reality than an emptied-out world, populated by the amiable survivors of some ancient cataclysm—perhaps the wreckage of regional granola cinema. George Washington feels sui generis because while it evokes a number of models it fails to successfully imitate any of them. Green's arty, scene-setting montage, his use of slight slow-motion underscored by a portentous drone-tone, the movie's skewed voice-over narration, its sumptuous Cinemascope compositions, and lush bucolic mood remind many people of Terrence Malick. This modest movie is draped in visual grandeur, like a kid trying on an overlarge suit—far from overweening, the effect is oddly disarming. (To add to the mystery, cinematographer Tim Orr gets an onscreen credit nearly equal to Green's, but barely a mention in the press notes.)

Similarly, George Washington's teenage rat pack and derelict locations have prompted comparison to Harmony Korine's confrontational Gummo. (In Berlin, Green even made the Korine-like assertion that his favorite movie was The Bad News Bears.) For all its troubling incidents, however, what's most shocking about GW is its tender regard. The movie is unabashedly utopian. (Green lived communally with the cast and crew during production.) It also suggests Boaz Yakin's Fresh in its programmatic subtraction of all popular culture from the lives of its child protagonists. (And, as with Fresh, GW was made by a white filmmaker who has been assumed to be black.) But, unlike Yakin, Green allows his performers remarkable space before the camera to simply be, whether surprisingly good or eloquently terrible.

Green's nonprofessional cast is a lumpy blend of self-conscious kids and awkward adults—an equation that's regularly complicated by many scenes in which the actors are called upon to riff and banter across generational lines. In addition to the narration, delivered with many a casual non sequitur by 12-year-old Nasia (Candace Evanofski), the characters are prone to soliloquies. Just about everyone in the movie is some sort of philosopher—except for the 13-year-old designated hero, the silent, self-contained George Richardson (Donald Holden), whom Nasia adores.

The scenes in which these kids discuss their precocious love lives and generally get up in each other's business, with oversized Vernon (Damian Jewan Lee) aggressively wondering why Nasia dropped his pal Buddy (Curtis Cotton III) in favor of the inexplicable George, have a charming absence of profanity. The film's unusual narrative progression reinforces its attempt to capture some imagined childish innocence, as does the backstory assigned its protagonist. The plates of George's skull have not successfully melded; for much of the movie, he wears a football helmet to protect his soft head. But George is not the only vulnerable creature. Fooling around with a group of kids in an abandoned building, he gets his head bumped and inadvertently responds by hurling Buddy to the ground. The boy passes out and dies. The other children hide his body, complete with T. Rex mask, in some abandoned lot—a sort of Spielberg-meets-Los Olvidados maneuver.

As the town prepares to celebrate Independence Day, the kids start to freak—Vernon bonding with diminutive, stony Sonya (even younger than 12 and already a hardened car thief). Subsequent developments have little to do with solving the mystery of Buddy's disappearance and much with a desire to somehow make things right. Rather than suspense, the movie dwells on absence. In the most astonishing ploy, George actualizes his wish fulfillment by saving another kid's life and is declared by the newspapers to be the hero that Nasia tells us he always knew he would become. (George's sense of destiny is reflected in the movie's title, although not the least of its comic enigmas is the portrait of a smiling president George Bush on his family's kitchen wall.) Solemnly directing traffic and checking smoke alarms in helmet, tights, and cape, George casts himself as the neighborhood superhero.

By any objective standard, George Washington is a meandering experience, filled with stilted performances and characterized by an erratic point of view. A missing poster identifies Buddy as 10, although he has earlier been referred to as 13. Scarcely an omniscient narrator, Nasia theorizes that "Buddy ran away because he still has a crush on me." A scene in which George's sullen and possibly violent uncle confesses his own childhood trauma (being sexually abused by a dog) is, like much else in the movie, simultaneously touching and ridiculous. (In a follow-up sequence, the man who has perhaps killed the mangy stray George adopted as a pet fashions the boy a sort of Davy Crockett cap from its remains.)

George Washington would not be so confounding were it less polished or more overtly fantastic—but the sense of failed magic realism is what gives the movie its pervasive sadness, which is to say, its magic. Having balanced his movie on the edge between poignance and absurdity (and worked without a net), Green provides the perfect vanishing act—leaving the audience wondering what he could possibly do for an encore.

DVD review of George Washington Dan Schnieder from HackWriters

The Nation (Stuart Klawans)

DVD Times Anthony Nield

Slant Magazine Ed Gonzalez

CultureCartel.com (David Abrams) review [4.5/5]

Kamera.co.uk Hannah Patterson, also an interview here: A Quick Chat with David Gordon Green

CineScene.com (Chris Dashiell) review

Flak Magazine (Eric Wittmershaus) review

George Washington Gerald Peary

City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul (Rob Nelson) review

Criterion Confessions [Jamie S. Rich]

Jon Popick review [8/10]

Xiibaro Productions (David Perry) review [3.5/4]

User comments from imdb Author: bacchae (beastie@metalab.unc.edu) from nyc

User comments from imdb Author: Howard Schumann from Vancouver, B.C.

culturevulture.net, Choices for the Cognoscenti review Arthur Lazere

Q Network Film Desk (James Kendrick) dvd review [3.5/4]

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Dan Heaton) dvd review

Movie Martyr (Jeremy Heilman) review [4+/4]

Apollo Guide (Dan Jardine) review [84/100]

SPLICEDwire (Rob Blackwelder) review [2.5/4]

Eye for Film (Angus Wolfe Murray) review [3.5/5]

Qwipster's Movie Reviews (Vince Leo) review [3/5]

Movieline Magazine review Daniel Papkin

CNN Showbiz review Paul Tatara

filmcritic.com (Christopher Null) review [4/5]

Movie Habit (Marty Mapes) dvd review [3.5/4]

KQEK (Mark R. Hasan) dvd review [Criterion Release]

CultureCartel.com (John Nesbit) review [2/5] one of several who missed the point of this film, claiming no real sense of direction

DVD Talk (Jason Bovberg) dvd review [2/5] [Criterion Collection] suggesting the film is meaningless, with distressingly little to say

One Guy's Opinion (Frank Swietek) review [C-] pretentious and shallow

Movie-Vault.com (Vadim Rizov) review [6/10] another dissenting view, calling it pretentious and naïve

Film Journal International (Daniel Eagan) review another that believes the screenplay feels artificial and goes nowhere

eFilmCritic.com (Greg Muskewitz) review [3/5] very plain and ordinary, but little enthusiasm, and over-praised

The Village Voice [Nick Pinkerton] David Gordon Green Moves to the Mainstream? July 15, 2008

2000 Toronto International Film Festival An interview with David ... by David Walsh from the World Socialist Web Site, September 28, 2000

Entertainment Weekly review [B+] Lisa Schwarzbaum

Variety (Joe Leydon) review

BBC Films (Jason Korsner) review

Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten) review [4/5]

Philadelphia City Paper (Sam Adams) review

Seattle Post-Intelligencer review William Arnold

San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle) review

Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert) review [4/4]

YouTube - 'George Washington' by David Gordon Green Opening Scene (5:40)

ALL THE REAL GIRLS A 96

USA (108 mi) 2003 ‘Scope

This played at Sundance and was released very quickly afterwards. I found the script refreshingly original and more accessible, not so oblique as GEORGE WASHINGTON, as it's about heartbreak, something we've all experienced, and somehow, it’s our lives that magically reappear onscreen. This film has a wonderful intensity level that grows stronger as the film progresses, as we become personally involved with the outcome. Much of the opening ensemble sequences were damn near incomprehensible, multiple Southern drawls all talking at once, like David Gordon Green was using one of Altman's sound men. And as brilliant and powerful as this film is, my only disappointment was it was missing an ending that knocks your socks off, like the rest of the film does. Instead, it just moves quietly into another day. To be a film for the ages, which I felt it came so close to being, I felt it needed more.

David Gordon Green on Zooey Deschanel: “That was all her. That was rehearsal. That's her heart and her soul. Those little whispers and little moments; it’s not a witty screenwriter behind there, it's a genuine girl that feels things and has a sensitivity you fall in love with. At least I do. It’s those little moments that make relationships I’ve had memorable. It's the weird little quirks in girls’ mannerisms and behavior. Going on a structured date and going through the routines of relationships is inconsequential and ultimately forgettable. But it’s those little things that just stab you when they’re gone, when you know you’re not going to get that whisper in your ear anymore.”

One could easily mistake this for a Terence Malick film, which is an exceptional compliment, co-written by the director and the leading man, Paul Schneider, as it thrives in a world filled with tenderness and an understated, poetic elegance. The power of this film evolves slowly with the exposure of tiny revelations from each carefully nuanced character, all so beautifully etched into this small-town Southern environment of Marshall, a North Carolina mill town, perfectly captured by the extraordinary ‘Scope work of cinematographer Tim Orr. But this is some of the best ensemble acting on screen today, particularly poignant is the performance of Zooey Deschanel, who is nothing short of brilliant, and the supporting performances of Patricia Clarkson (Schneider’s mother) and Shea Wingham (Deschanel’s brother and Schneider’s best friend). I loved this story of two would-be lovers who can’t make a move without the whole town knowing about it, so they act in ways they never intend, and then hardly recognize themselves afterwards.

I did read one of Dostoevski’s short stories this year, WHITE NIGHTS, which was the source material for Bresson’s 4 NIGHTS OF A DREAMER, also an earlier Visconti film with Marcello Mastroianni under the book title, and I’ve heard there is another 1959 Russian film by the same name which I’ve never seen, but this story did bring the film ALL THE REAL GIRLS a little closer into focus. In the same way ALL THE REAL GIRLS is about “him,” yes, it shows “her” in all her glory, and Zooey Deschanel dominates the screen time, but ultimately, it’s about a guy who loves and doesn’t get the girl.

This film has a familiar feel with THE SLAUGHTER RULE, another film exquisitely acted that beautifully captures small-town Montana, but Green broadens his vision in this film by creating long, extended sequences of wonderfully small moments, working on cars, hanging out in a playground, sitting by a riverside, talking on a porch, or in an industrial wasteland, in a café, in a bedroom, some moments seem lost and disconnected, but others are achingly real, and in combination with the luminous imagery, there are moments of brilliance in this film, the power of which is that they are just so damned believable. This is one gorgeous film experience with a terrific musical score, where the emotional authenticity from the characters perfectly matches the visually rich power of the images.

All the Real Girls Anthony Lane from the New Yorker

For his follow-up to "George Washington," the young director David Gordon Green has turned his gaze upon a quiet mill town in North Carolina. You can tell the place is quiet because Paul (Paul Schneider) enjoys a reputation as its most carousing and cavalier stud. In fact, Paul is a nondescript time-waster of twenty-two, a blunt boy whose best friend is really his mother (Patricia Clarkson). Having tasted and discarded half the local womenfolk, Paul is nonplussed when he finds himself falling for, and then two-timed by, Noel (Zooey Deschanel). Green presents this as an education of the heart, a lyrical act of persuasion that is backed up by random shots of sunsets and tumbling creeks. To the rest of us, it looks like comeuppance. Why the sweetly unreadable Noel should hang around the place a minute longer is anybody's guess.

Film Reviews by Mike D'Angelo, Will Doig and Logan Hill - Nerve ... Logan Hill from Nerve

This week, David Gordon Green's stylish southern parable Undertow makes its DVD debut, but it's not great date material (unless you think you'll both enjoy seeing Jamie Bell stagger through a forest with a rusty nail struck through his foot). Instead, go for his 2003 romance All the Real Girls, a film with no puncture wounds but one heartbreaking performance from Zooey Deschanel, the geeky lust object in the new Hitchhiker's Guide.

An unabashed Southern romance, Green's story follows small-town lothario Paul (Paul Schneider), who falls head-over-heels for the virginal boarding-school girl Noel (Deschanel), who happens to be Paul's wingman. The slow, halting flirtations between Paul and Noel are some of the most genuine I've ever seen, but Green isn't making some fetish out of Southern Authenticity. In fact, he's often critiqued for just how sophisticated his films look, as if such halting, naturalistic dialogue should only be shot with a Super 8 and lit with a flashlight (and as if only places like Brooklyn, say, deserve visual vernaculars as stylish as their dialects).

But I love the way Green lovingly frames his characters within artful shots of bowling alleys and backyards, because the shots themselves are so very seductive. Green may write ineloquent dialogue and frame awkward pauses, but he doesn't settle for some too-simple idea of stripped-bare authenticity. He embraces the storytelling and flat-out goes for it. I admire the pragmatic bravado of a filmmaker like Green and a lothario like Paul: the honesty it takes to look someone straight in the face, and tell them, in the words of like-minded romantic studio band Wilco: I am trying to break your heart.

The Onion A.V. Club [Keith Phipps]

"Why haven't you ever kissed me?" Zooey Deschanel asks Paul Schneider in the opening scene of All The Real Girls. From the way they look at each other, and the easy good humor between them, her puzzlement seems justified. The surety of Schneider's hesitation, on the other hand, suggests he has his reasons, though the only one he expresses is that kissing her means telling Shea Whigham, his best friend and her older brother. He keeps another one quiet: She's been away at boarding school while he developed the reputation of a lothario. A third, he may not admit even to himself: He already knows he loves her. The standoff can only last so long, but it's the thoughtful pause that sounds the keynote to George Washington director David Gordon Green's second feature. Like his debut, All The Real Girls takes place in a small Southern town in the grips of a rhythmless languor. Life takes place by riverbanks, in yards stacked deep with half-repaired cars and pianos, on porches, and in bowling alleys. Where most movie small towns exist solely for leaving or revisiting, Green's feel like worlds unto themselves; the roads leading out of town might as well end in cliffs. Green's films could pass for idylls if he didn't seem so keenly aware of his characters' potential to hurt. Deschanel and Schneider—who both give rich, funny performances—and everyone around them have inner lives that don't always translate into words. When they speak, it's usually in dialogue halfway between poetry and inarticulate fumbling, struggling to fill the gap between feeling and language. Sometimes they make it work in agonizingly direct confessions, and sometimes words fail them. Green's ability to convey the lives within, however, never fails. Reprising the lyrical, drifting style of his debut and again working with uncannily gifted cinematographer Tim Orr, Green lets images pick up where words leave off and lets a generosity of spirit guide the film, capturing the messy knot of motives and feelings behind even the most apparently thoughtless actions. At one point, Schneider's mother (Patricia Clarkson) confesses that she sees in him all the men who left her behind over the years, a confession that's as wistful as it is cautionary. Of his two lead characters, there's only one virgin, but Green makes Schneider every bit as vulnerable as Deschanel. His love for her marks a fall into the world of emotional experience after a lifetime of keeping a distance, of holding off on the kiss of a lifetime for fear of the consequences, and of the rewards. Green's world may look like paradise, but with his second film, he confirms his mastery of finding the grace that's only possible after a fall.

There’s a Silver Jews song called "Inside the Golden Days of Missing You" that laments the twin states of getting over love and getting over getting over love: "and then the feeling fades away, but you sort of wish it would have stayed." All the Real Girls is those words put to pictures, but not at first. It begins with a kiss, a first kiss that almost doesn’t happen, in a three-minute-long shot of a boy named Paul (Schneider) and a girl named Noel (Deschanel). They want to kiss, but it’s complicated. She’s his best friend’s little sister, back in town after years away at boarding school; he’s older, the town tramp who’s never before felt this way about a girl. The first kiss is tender, halting, funny, and real. From there the courtship continues, and there’s a sort of sumptuous ache to knowing how lucky these two are, to get to that intimate, thrilling place with someone else. But then, luck like that usually runs out; it does for Paul and Noel, and that’s where another kind of ache, a brutalizing one, comes in, in knowing these two had something good that’s now gone – and how do you get over that? Why would you want to get over that? The miraculous thing about All the Real Girls – yes, miraculous – is in how relentlessly real it is in its dramatization of the beginning, middle, and end of "in love." Writer/director David Gordon Green’s impressive first film, George Washington, was beautiful to look at, but there was an artificiality to it, most especially in the dialogue’s pretty staginess. All the Real Girls is just as obsessively scripted – every word within is indispensable – but it’s also so much more naturalistic. The words are lovely, but believable, too, in the honest, grave, grandiloquent way young lovers get when they’re flush with first love. Huddled in bed with Paul, Noel whispers (in Deschanel’s flat but captivating cadence), "You’re the first person I’ve wanted to talk to for more than five minutes … ever." Later, stung from betrayal, Paul bellows, "If anybody smiles at me ever again I’m gonna freak out." Neither one means it, of course, but it doesn’t matter. In the moment, it’s the truth, and All the Real Girls is nothing if not a succession of moments – truthful, lyrical, and yearning – that resonate long after. It’s a movie made of moments, the antithesis of "plot-driven," but the sum of these moments is magnificent, the culmination of so many elements: acting, scripting, score (by locals Michael Linnen and David Wingo), and cinematography. Director of photography Tim Orr (who also shot George Washington) lenses this dying mill town in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains with an almost awesome reverence, turning the mundane into the remarkable – a puddle, a factory, an abandoned playground, the wrinkled, washed-out face of a middle-aged man who has known tremendous loss. Loss quietly but ruthlessly dominates the lives of the town’s inhabitants – loss of youth, beauty, virginity, love, livelihood – and most everyone is going nowhere fast and knows it. But Green has such compassion for these characters that, while their lives may seem small, even wasted, he approaches them with the utmost respect – from Paul’s mother (Clarkson), who makes a living as a clown and feels a lack of dignity for it, to Noel’s older brother Tip (Wingham), who still parties like a teenager despite being a full-grown man with a baby on the way. Paul, especially, is never pitied, although he’s deserving, having done everything in his power to undo the good things that come to him. Schneider (who co-authored the idea for the film with Green) isn’t a typical leading man; he’s big and lumbering, sometimes dopey, and wonderfully affecting in his portrayal of male insecurity. At one point, he says he just wants it to be like Noel never existed. The pain is too much. Paul thinks he wants the feeling gone, but even he, in his knuckleheaded way, is self-aware enough to recognize the miracle of what has passed – his first brush with real feeling and all the joy and agony it brings. As a viewer, to witness that – the fruition then combustion of love, the real feeling and then the grieving when it’s gone – that’s something of a miracle, too.

World Socialist Web Site David Walsh

Slant Magazine Chuck Rudolph

CultureCartel.com (Keith Uhlich)

filmcritic.com Nicholas Schager

indieWIRE Ray Pride

PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs, also including an interview with David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider

BFI | Sight & Sound | All the Real Girls (2002) Xan Brooks from Sight and Sound, September 2003

kamera.co.uk review of All The Real Girls Hannah Patterson

ALL THE REAL GIRLS (David Gordon Green, 2003) | Dennis Grunes

Movie Views [Ryan Cracknell]

Film Freak Central Walter Chaw

Nick's Flick Picks Nick Davis

Slate [David Edelstein]

Not Another Teen Neophyte [Vadim Rizov]

stylusmagazine.com (Liz Clayton)

Reel Movie Critic [Shelley Cameron]

Erasing Clouds review Dan Heaton

The Film Journal (Rick Curnutte)

Movie Vault [J. Alan Terzino]

DVD Verdict Michael Rankins

Offoffoff - the guide to alternative New York Joshua Tanzer

baaab's Insanity site -review

Reel.com DVD review [Tim Knight]

EyeForFilm.co.uk Angus Wolfe Murray

eFilmCritic Reviews nurd on film

Close-Up Film [Ruth Bushi]

ViewLondon (Matthew Turner)

eFilmCritic.com (Collin Souter)

About.com Hollywood Movies (Rebecca Murray)

Film Journal International (Erica Abeel)

DVD Talk (Jason Janis)

eFilmCritic.com Robert Rosado

CultureCartel.com (Dainon Moody)

Movie House Commentary Johnny Web

digitallyOBSESSED.com (Jon Danziger) this is ultimately a largely unsatisfying movie

Movie Gazette review [Anton Bitel] a film with indy-artsy pretensions

hybridmagazine.com Ellen Whittier calling it a sophisticated indie hack job

New York Magazine (Peter Rainer) all it offers are the same old Hollywood cliché’s

CineScene.com (Shari L. Rosenblum) insidiously dishonest

Modamag.com - DVD Review [Brian Orndorf] insatiable lust for abstract imagery and realism at all costs

Talking Pictures [Howard Schumann] too superficial and precious to be fully satisfying

Ruthless Reviews ("potentially offensive") Matt Cale, among the most boring characters in the history of film

"MORE MULATTO THAN CHOCOLATE": Film Freak Central Interviews the ... Interview with David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider by Walter Chaw, February 16, 2003

PopMatters Film Interview | David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider - All the Real Girls by Cynthia Fuchs, April 3, 2003

kamera.co.uk - feature article - Interview - A Quick Chat with ... by Jason Wood, July 10 – 20, 2003

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Washington Post (Stephen Hunter)

Washington Post (Desson Howe)

Chicago Tribune [Mark Caro]

UNDERTOW B+ 92

USA (107 mi) 2004

A different style of film at play here, with little of that poetic stuff that drove people nuts in his first two films. Tim Orr’s camera work is sensational and speaks for itself, using jump cuts, freeze frames, negative color frames, a few new twists, but basically the story is told using a straightforward narrative style and the whole thing is damn near conventional. Or is it? In the Q & A afterwards, the director indicated Terrence Malick, whose work he’s constantly been compared to, sent him this script after seeing GEORGE WASHINGTON and asked if he’d like to direct it? The opportunity to make this film paired the two together for the first time, with Malick running interference with the producers and the money people, while Green could just stick to the artistic end. I’d say it all works out very well. Green indicated he actually had to make it 5 minutes longer than he’d like, something to do with keeping the story coherent, but nothing was taken out, despite some powerful, graphic images of violence.

This is a swamp thriller, weird and frightening, very atmospheric, set in the deep recesses of a land that time has forgotten, yet people living there seem completely relaxed and at ease with themselves. Joe Conroy wrote the terrific screenplay and Phillip Glass contributes some of the music. Josh Lucas is positively amazing as the evil uncle. He is the reincarnation of Robert Mitchum in THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, or even CAPE FEAR, just a powerful presence every time he is onscreen. Add to this a little bit of Hansel and Gretel getting lost in the woods, only here it’s two brothers, uncommonly well acted by Jaimie Bell and Devon Allen. One would never know Bell is a British actor, as he is completely in synch with the backwoods territory. Add to that the first film since GUMMO that elevates white trash to this level of rich, superbly detailed artistic realization, where the film title aptly depicts the harsh pull to the bottom of the lowest economic stratosphere. Green’s understated use of natural, barely audible dialogue continues to impress, sometimes overlapping into the next scene, and is a gentle, evocative expression of how his characters feel, allowing them the freedom to improvise and be themselves. Add to that Bill McKinney, who was the hillbilly rapist in DELIVERANCE, who looks great and delivers some great lines: “Did you ever eat alligator?” Someone asked Green if he changed the ending, as it looked like he created a last minute happy ending. Green nearly choked: “A happy ending? You thought that was a happy ending?” Let your conscience be your guide. At least in my mind, this is what a B+ film looks like.

Time Out London

David Gordon Green’s latest feature joins ‘Mean Creek’ and ‘Palindromes’ in offering a kind of nasty pastoral, a child-centred tale of selfish violence played out against the indifferent splendour of American woodland. Living on a shabby Georgia farmstead with their sullen, widowed dad John (Dermot Mulroney), Chris (Jamie Bell) is a hard worker with a bad rep, little bro Tim (Devon Alan) a delicate flower who eats paint and organises his books by smell. Trouble arrives in the shape of their slithery-charming uncle (Josh Lucas), a prison escapee determined to retrieve a cache of semi-mythic gold coins that he thinks John has hidden. The consequences play like ‘Night of the Hunter’ out of Cain and Abel. Although more action-oriented than Green’s ‘George Washington’ or ‘All The Real Girls’, the plot’s picaresque pursuit is mapped on to his familiar impressionistically sun-woozy South, a timelessly impoverished rust-and-grass milieu of train-hopping and drinking from the udder, documented with rough-hewn, handheld zooms and location sound (interwoven with Philip Glass’s wailing juvenile chorales). The attention to nature and ingenuous, pre-adolescent narration again recall Terrence Malick – here acting as producer – but Green’s mode is messier; again concerned with redemption, his film’s quasi-biblical elements and the occasionally schematic feel to the plotting and supporting roles rub up strangely against the beautifully realised naturalism of both central characters and mise-en-scène. Pet effects such as freeze-frame and negative colour also create distance, seeming to aestheticise rather than express the action. But then, life is mess, and the acknowledgement of this is part of what makes Green’s work so potent.

FilmJerk.com [Brian Orndorf]

A codgery voice warns of "violence and bloodshed," an innocent teenage couple diffidently cuddle, a cute li'l fella explains that he's organizing his paperback collection "by the way they smell." It's summertime in the verdant, baffling realm of Southern regionalist David Gordon Green.

Green goes gothic in Undertow, which brings the earnest aestheticizing mannerisms of George Washington and All the Real Girls to a narrative modeled on The Night of the Hunter. Undertow starts with a bit of Smokey and the Bandit–ism but soon turns darker. John (Dermot Mulroney) lives in the Georgia backwoods with a mess of hogs and his two boys—teenage Chris (Jamie Bell) and tiny Tim (Devon Alan), who sometimes wears a pilgrim hat and compulsively eats mud and paint, explaining that "it's an anxiety disorder." The ménage is menaced by the appearance of John's ex-con brother Deel (Josh Lucas); exacerbated by hidden gold and Philip Glass menace music, sibling rivalry turns murderous. Soon the boys are fleeing for their lives through a timeless landscape of hobo jungles and bayous, conversing in an odd mixture of psychobabble and Appalachian blank verse.

Green has been a polarizing figure ever since his Sundance-rejected George Washington became the sleeper sensation of the 2000 Berlin Film Festival. Is he an authentic talent or a pretentious Terence Malick wannabe? All the Real Girls was borderline insufferable and yet there were moments that had a startling emotional truth. Undertow's flopsy-mopsy kids, backwoods kooks, metaphysical babbling, and arch line readings can be tough to stomach. However cloying, the movie creates a powerful vortex. It's surprisingly visceral—at times almost thrilling.

The Onion A.V. Club [Nathan Rabin]

Over the course of just three feature films, writer-director David Gordon Green and cinematographer Tim Orr have created a cinematic world as instantly identifiable as David Lynch's or Federico Fellini's. It's a place in the American South where kids grow up as wild and free as weeds, uncorrupted by the emptiness of contemporary pop culture. Rust creeps across abandoned cars and junkyards seem to outnumber cell phones. Before Undertow, this world largely existed without villains. Green's third film technically qualifies as a thriller, but it's a thriller the same way Breathless is a crime film and The Long Goodbye is a detective movie. The director takes what he needs from the genre and discards the rest, never sacrificing his idiosyncratic personality.

Nursing a pipe and a bone-deep sense of loss, Dermot Mulroney stars as a stoic, decent widower who retreats to a life of farming and semi-seclusion with his two sons (Jamie Bell and Devon Alan) following their mother's death. Bell's wild streak worries Mulroney, especially after Mulroney's jailbird brother (Josh Lucas) descends upon their home with a glint of madness and vengeance in his eyes, nursing bitter grudges and eager to settle old scores. What follows feels as much like a road movie as a conventional thriller, with Bell and Alan taking off à la The Night Of The Hunter, with Lucas in unhurried pursuit.

The pacing, not surprisingly, feels less languid than usual for Green, who never rushes when he can amble. But the film remains relaxed: The director seems less concerned with generating suspense or tension than with following his rambling characters and muse wherever they happen to take him. Bell gained international fame as a sexually ambiguous working-class boy with unstoppable dancing feet in Billy Elliot, but he gives such a guileless, natural performance here that it would be easy to mistake him for a non-professional discovered somewhere in the deep South. Undertow may prove the least immediately satisfying of Green's films, but it remains an achievement, emotionally rich and rife with biblical and mythic undertones.

filmcritic.com Rachel Gordon

However you may feel about David Gordon Green’s movies, his strong suit is his ability to create powerful moments from the simplest daily activities. His characters feel like whole people, whether you’re aware of their entire personal history or not. And the settings in which his films take place play an intricate role in the overall story without getting tedious or feeding into stereotypes.

The same could be said for Undertow, a richly filmed human drama of two boys being raised by single father John (Dermot Mulroney). Chris (Jamie Bell), being the stronger teen, is forced to do much of the labor around their small rural farm while little brother Tim (Devon Alan) eats poorly due to stomach problems. John’s brother Deel (Josh Lucas) comes to stay after being released from prison to exact revenge for losing his woman and his inheritance to John, and Chris must forget his illusions of leaving familial obligations to ensure his and Tim’s survival.

Unfortunately, once the chase begins between Deel and the brothers, attention begins to wane. Though beautifully shot, it’s not all that interesting to watch the kids travel and Deel follow them at every turn. After the engaging tension that had been built to see if either of the brothers would fall for Deel’s rebellious charisma over their father’s more necessary stoic discipline, the emotional connection falls flat from the repetition of encounter and escape.

The acting is graciously understated with dialogue that is clean and crisp while steering clear of heavy-handedness. With so many talented aspects coming together between the camera operation and those moving in front of it, it’s a shame that the circumstances that move the film from one scene to the next fail to keep you attached to the conclusion, which errs on the side of predictability.

But despite the disproportionate attention given to the landscape in lieu of character interaction or development, Undertow does provide a more unique coming-of-age angle with Chris’ thrift and street intelligence. Jamie Bell does an excellent job of carrying some of the weakest moments and keeps you caring about the various predicaments, even when you know how they will end. Josh Lucas’ Deel is also so menacing that he provides true urgency for Bell to play off of.

On the downside, Tim is possibility the most randomly strange kid ever to appear in a feature length film, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Undertow goes out of its way to identify him as “different,” almost stuck in a vague childhood as he attempts unsuccessfully to play with cars. The film shows us his difficulties with eating and ulcers, but then shows him eating paint, laying on the strangeness so thickly that it never bothers to confront any of these problems when given plenty of opportunity to do so.

While it’s far from a perfect film, Undertow does combine several strong sections of people who are easy to relate to in an environment that remains compelling in its use of everyday objects and life routines to tell an intelligent story instead of relying on melodramatic speeches or orchestrated fighting. You may have a good idea of what’s to come, but many of its scenes deserve respect.

musicOMH.com Michael Hubbard

IGN Interview (2004) by Spence D, October 22, 2004

DVD RE-RUN INTERVIEW: David Gordon Green Talks About "Undertow ... interview by Wendy Mitchell from indieWIRE, April 26, 2005

Variety.com [Scott Foundas]

Washington Post (Stephen Hunter)

Washington Post (Desson Thomson)

DVDBeaver.com [Mark Balson]

SNOW ANGELS C+ 79

USA (106 mi) 2007 ‘Scope

Honestly, I can't believe it myself, but I was thoroughly disappointed with the recent critically appraised "masterwork" by American indie phenom David Gordon Green who is slowly slinking his way out of those shoes.

Anyone who saw Kate Beckinsale in VACANCY (2007) or Gus Van Sant’s ELEPHANT (2003) has pretty much seen this film, which is an attempt to combine the two through an indie style infested with the horror genre. The fact that this director uses the horror element as his defining, climactic scenes is a bit disappointing as he gains nothing by this except to infuriorate an audience with commercially exploitive, violent imagery. What is this, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS? While Green continues his infatuation with accumulating details from small town life, which overlap like moons revolving around a planet, using the standard indie format that he helped define in his earlier films, unfortunately this offers nothing new and instead retreads into familiar, overly predictable territory where the sum of the parts do not produce an integrated whole. All of Green’s earlier films offered an emotional payoff, a window into a unique, off-the-beaten-path world that was always grounded in the authentic realism of his characters even if depicted through dreamy, impressionistic poetic imagery. The non-professional actors blending into the landscape from GEORGE WASHINGTON, the honesty and sheer authenticity of Zooey Deschanel in ALL THE REAL GIRLS, vulnerable children terrified by the disturbing evil of Josh Lucas in UNDERTOW, are all emblematic of a peculiar insight crafting a tender emotional core that typifies Green’s works. Not so with this film, where we are treated to a familiar overlapping look at the inhabitants of this small town, almost always accompanied by a continuing stream of well chosen but completely standard indie music, but where the main characters couldn’t be less sympathetic or real. Despite the serious nature of the subject matter, the strange and eerie world of stalking and spousal abuse, this lackluster film offers little in the way of getting a better understanding of the subject. Instead it offers us a cliché’d and stereotypical view of mental deterioration as seen through the eyes of a horror flick, namely an ordinary guy in an ordinary town turns into a nut case wreaking havoc on everyone’s lives, but the director is not named Alfred Hitchcock and the film is not PSYCHO (1960).

While the film does do a good job introducing second tier characters, especially a budding love affair between high school kids Arthur (Michael Angarano) and Lila (Olivia Thirlby), but then Green all but abandons them in order to defer to the main attraction, the horribly ugly marital discord that only gets worse between a separated married couple Annie (Kate Beckinsale) and Glenn (Sam Rockwell), both of whom appear chosen by central casting and deliver typically overwrought performances straight out of the horror genre and completely out of balance in an otherwise emotionally subdued, carefully nuanced film. The second tier group has multiple family troubles of their own, but it’s at least laced in some realm of authenticity, although, do we ever see Lila’s family, as she seems to have an incredible amount of free time, including spending the night at someone else’s house on a school night? Most parents might expect a phone call. The sweetness of the kid’s attraction is an ominous subtext to the inhumane cruelty coming from Annie and Glenn’s world. Annie has an affair with her best friend’s husband, and despite the exasperating anguish this causes her friend, makes no effort to stop, despite having little interest in the guy, while Glenn is borderline berserk from the word go, and his alcoholic binges tainted with religious sermonizing on the radio warn us immediately about what he’s capable of doing, where his psychotic insecurities only grow more worrisome, that and the sound cue offered in the first few minutes of the film. It takes no brain power to connect the dots, but in an otherwise intelligent film, this feels unusually lame.

So what this film has to say about marriage, divorce, spousal abuse, parental neglect, alcoholism, religion, high school, first love, or small town violence, especially blending them all together like this, is surprisingly little. The film simply lacks the depth of Green’s earlier efforts, despite using the exact same indie blueprint that worked before. Where the depth of the actors carried his earlier works, here the conventional lead performances all but doom this film to mediocrity. Despite the histrionics, these are not memorable performances. All have done better work elsewhere. Even the abrupt edits in this film continually changing the subject only postpones the inevitable that we know is coming, betraying any interior development, remaining instead nearly entirely on the surface. The shouting, the threats, the profanity, are exactly that, a world gone terribly wrong, which can happen anywhere to anyone, especially with such a high rate of divorce in this country. The real setback is a promising young director who has lost his way, offering us a film riddled with mainstream compromise, especially in his manipulative depiction of the ugliest scene in the film, where it’s trying to be something it isn’t, which is a Hollywood film all dressed up in an indie package. Despite receiving some of the best critical reviews in his life, this is a step backwards, a fairly unimaginative, substandard effort from a director who has abandoned his own cinematic virtues for an apparent new career path veering towards Hollywood.

Time Out New York (David Fear)

David Gordon Green made his name by channeling the poetic pastoralism of Terrence Malick. But if this adaptation of Stewart O’Nan’s novel is any indication, what this iconoclastic indie-film director really wants to do is become a utility player. (His two upcoming projects, a Judd Apatow–produced stoner comedy and a remake of Suspiria, only confirm the suspicion.) Considering the diminishing returns of 2004’s Undertow, the decision to tone down the transcendental nature fixation may be a wise choice. This tepid melodrama, however, shows that the filmmaker hasn’t found a way to use his considerable strengths to enliven stock material just yet.

As the film’s various strands of miserablism start to converge—yes, the gunshot that we hear near the beginning will indeed come back to haunt us—a few moments suggest a left-field sensibility at work. Most directors wouldn’t let Sam Rockwell, playing a born-again alcoholic with a mean streak, take his usual shuck-and-jive act to such dark places, or embed a Béla Tarr tribute in a bar scene. But Snow Angels never lets the story’s minor and major tragedies gain traction; and there’s no big picture present, just one downer vision of Americana bumping into the next.

indieWIRE Steve Ramos, including Green’s interview with indieWIRE:

The moment in "Snow Angels" that qualifies stand-alone filmmaker David Gordon Green as the most artful of film masters occurs when Glenn (Sam Rockwell), a broken man, dances with two drunken patrons at a rundown tavern in the small Pennsylvania town he calls home. A birthday cake sits on a nearby pinball table without explanation. The room is dark, so dark that it's hard to say if one of the shuffling patrons holding Glenn is a man or woman. But everything is placed with the same attention to perfect detail as his previous three feature films, "Undertow," "All the Real Girls" and his best film, "George Washington."

Glenn's dance brims with true human feeling. It's a brave sequence, something I can't imagine another American filmmaker attempting. That's what separates Green's filmmaking from all others - his bravery for tackling unique storytelling.

Glenn (Rockwell) and his pretty wife Annie (Kate Beckinsale) have separated and both struggle to piece their lives back together. Glenn wants reconciliation with his wife and young daughter. Meanwhile, she embarks on an affair with a married man. As bad decisions lead to tragedies, "Snow Angels" makes a turn midway and shifts from family melodrama to a thriller with a climax alongside a frozen lake. Of course, this is a thriller done the David Gordon Green way, meaning it's quiet, subtle and completely natural.

Sam Rockwell gives a physical performance, bashing his head against his pick-up truck. Rockwell does what Green needs everyone to do - he comes off believably as a regular Joe. Michael Angarano puts his aw-shucks personality to good use as Arthur, an affable teen who works with Annie. Olivia Thirlby stands out as Arthur's nerdy girlfriend. Theirs is the sweetest on-screen kiss in recent memory.

The only false notes belong to the too beautiful Kate Beckinsale. It's as if she's the only cast member who refused to wipe away her Hollywood make up for the sake of the story. "Snow Angels" is Green's first film shot above the Mason Dixon line as well as the first feature he adapted from a novel instead of his own writing. Yet, "Snow Angels" syncs perfectly with everything Green has shown audiences up to this point (including beautiful work from his regular cameraman Tim Orr). Green's growth is his ability to craft suspense.

The undeniable truth of Green's filmmaking is that there is no ambivalence about his movies. You either love his sense of deliberately paced naturalism or you find it lulling. Point Blank: I am a fan and will always celebrate his work.

The Village Voice [Nathan Lee]

Stomping about on a frozen football field, shy trombonist Arthur Parkinson (Michael Angarano) and his high-school bandmates fumble their way through a rehearsal for an upcoming game. Unclenching his jaw, the conductor, Mr. Chervenick, unleashes a peevish motivational critique of their Peter Gabriel number: "PEOPLE!? DO YOU HAVE A SLEDGEHAMMER IN YOUR HEART!?"

More than one false note is sounded in this portentous opening to Snow Angels, an unusually blunt melodrama by David Gordon Green, melodious poet of such sentimental delicacies as George Washington and All the Real Girls. There's no mention of "sledgehammer" in the celebrated debut of novelist Stewart O'Nan, from which Snow Angels has been adapted, but they agree on what comes next: a pair of gunshots, followed by a flashback narrative to account for them. O'Nan discloses the nature of this catastrophe on his fourth page; Green keeps mum until the end, charging his tale with an effective (if manipulative) aura of suspense.

Snow Angels' cumbrous metaphorical overture develops into a full-blown symphony as the film cross-cuts between the emotional bludgeoning of two unhappy couples. Louise Parkinson (Jeannetta Arnette) is splitting with Don (Griffin Dunne), a self-absorbed philander and science teacher at their son's school. Across town and miles further down the path of estrangement, Annie Marchand (Kate Beckinsale) has a restraining order against her alcoholic, suicidal, Jesus-freak ex-husband Glenn (Sam Rockwell). Caught in the middle are Annie's young daughter and adolescent Arthur, whose burgeoning romance with Lila (Olivia Thirlby), a quirky art chick, complicates the dramatic counterpoint of Snow Angels.

As always, Green's sympathies lie with his melancholy youngsters and, happily, his own heart is full of subtle instruments. The affair between Arthur and Lila is beautifully played—tender, restrained, honest, and good-humored, graced with wry, pitch-perfect dialogue that nails the defensive snark and vulnerability of the Juno generation. "I like your shoes," Arthur offers without the slightest sarcasm. "What's wrong with them?" Lila snaps back.

Snow Angels exhibits a mellowing—if not full abandonment—of Green's trademark emo-Malick mannerisms. His camera can't entirely resist an ersatz-'70s art effect here and there, but by and large he plays things straight, erratic as they become. What saves this heavy, heavy material from sinking into the chill, familiar turf of the Small-Town Midwinter Tragedy is his practiced ear for verbal idiosyncrasy and off-kilter conversation rhythms. Scenes tend to end a beat or two early, syncopated by a bit of whimsy or deadpan that skews the immediate tone and gives the movie a jittery forward thrust. Resolution is all the more satisfying, then, when the script calls for a sustained dramatic payoff or big emotional crescendo.

The film feels transitional for Green—one foot in the moody, interiorized indieverse of his previous work, the other taking a big step toward more conventional projects. In shaking off his influences and affections, will he shed imagination and intuition as well? Snow Angels answers—with apt hesitancy—probably not.

Chicago Reader (J.R. Jones)

Interviewed by Charlie Rose at the start of his career, David Gordon Green explained that he got into filmmaking because he wanted to travel. The remark seems ironic now, given that he’s become one of America’s most accomplished young filmmakers by staying close to home. George Washington, named the best debut film of 2000 by the New York Film Critics Circle, was shot in Winston-Salem, where Green studied filmmaking at the North Carolina School of the Arts. His second feature, All the Real Girls (2003), was shot in Asheville and Marshall, each about a two-hour drive from Winston-Salem, and his third, Undertow (2004), ranged no farther afield than Savannah, Georgia. Those three movies have established Green as a uniquely southern voice; in an increasingly transient and rapidly homogenizing nation, his movies are rooted in a profound and often magical sense of place.

Nowhere is this more true than in George Washington, a loose-limbed tale that, in its simple humanity, erases the line between black and white, adult and child. In the DVD commentary Green explains that he wanted to establish “how the people communicate with each other and how they communicate with the land around them,” and there’s a strong sense of the characters as part of the landscape. He and cinematographer Tim Orr had a field day with the wild terrain of Winston-Salem, aptly described by Green as a combination of “industrial decay and natural beauty”: train yards overgrown with weeds, collapsing cinder block covered with brilliantly colored graffiti, mechanical cranes swinging clawfuls of garbage against a limitless blue sky. A father and son converse in a yard cluttered with sectioned tree trunks, and a boy declaims from the stage of a derelict school auditorium, a sapling growing out of the floor in front of him. The whole movie seems to take place in some strange, self-contained world.

Green, who grew up in Texas, has attributed his sensibility to the school, a creative hothouse far removed from the career tracks of New York and Los Angeles. But his films also owe a debt to the regionalism of filmmaking in the 70s, when local landscapes figured strongly in the work of directors as varied as John Waters in Baltimore, George A. Romero in Pittsburgh, Charles Burnett in South Central LA, and Martin Scorsese in New York’s Little Italy. Even more influential for Green was Terrence Malick, a fellow Texan who powerfully poeticized the central western states in Badlands and Days of Heaven. Burnett, Scorsese, and Malick seemed particularly interested in characters trying to come to terms with their environment, which made them who they were but also locked them into situations or behavior they wanted to leave behind. This is true of Paul, the hero of All the Real Girls; known all over town as a heartless lothario, he’s forced to contend with his own reputation when he falls in love with his best friend’s younger sister. The town’s estimation of him, and the trap it represents, is summed up by an old girlfriend when she dresses him down in a tavern: “Guys like you, you don’t quit and you never leave. You’re gonna be here forever.”

Critics have described Green’s movies as southern gothic, and with Undertow the director seemed to be listening to them: the first half, with its family secrets buried under the kudzu, plays like a William Faulkner novel, and the second, in which two brothers flee their murderous uncle, is like The Night of the Hunter transplanted to the malevolent greenery of Deliverance. In all his movies Green tries to make the time period as vague as the location is precise, and that’s especially true here: aside from the rusty 70s-era cars and a punk-rock chick who materializes near the end, Undertow could be taking place in the ramshackle ruins of the Depression. Coproduced by Malick, it’s an impressive exercise in naturalistic cinema. But rewatching Green’s first three features consecutively, I was struck by how fresh George Washington and All the Real Girls still seemed, whereas Undertow felt naggingly derivative.

All of this makes Snow Angels a real departure for Green: based on the 1994 novel by Stewart O’Nan, it marks the first time Green’s adapted someone else’s work as well as the first time he’s shot a feature in the north. Green was commissioned to write the script, and he took over as director when the producers’ first choice dropped out. Though he retained a small nucleus of trusted collaborators, including Orr, the rest of the cast and crew were new to him. And while the scenes in his earlier movies tended to grow out of the locations, the setting here was less integral: the novel takes place in western Pennsylvania, but Green chose to shoot in Nova Scotia, where he figured he could count on a plentiful supply of the snow that figures so heavily in the story. (The weather didn’t cooperate, so he had to import 80 dump trucks of snow from Newfoundland.)

Still, one can easily imagine what attracted Green to the project. Butler, the small town north of Pittsburgh where O’Nan set his story, doesn’t seem much different in character from the southern towns in Green’s early films: as in any small community, the people all know each other, and when tragedy strikes, it touches them all. O’Nan cuts back and forth between two narratives: in one a young waitress, living with her mother and raising a three-year-old daughter, is harassed by her unstable, born-again husband; in the other a teenage boy struggles with his parents’ separation as he experiences first love with an oddball classmate. The link between the two stories is casual—the waitress once babysat the boy—but it’s enough to support O’Nan’s graceful counterpoint as he ponders the nature of love relationships at three different stages of life.

Green demonstrates his usual sensitivity to the details of small-town America—like the Chinese restaurant where neither the owner, the waiters, nor the customers are Chinese. One location provides a subtle connection between the two story lines: outside the local mall the erratic husband lets his little daughter enjoy the coin-operated rides, and later the young lovers are passing the same rides when they awkwardly encounter the boy’s father with a new girlfriend. Green’s favorite visual motif is the series of landscape shots separated by quick fades to black, and in Snow Angels he exploits it to fine rhetorical effect by using the same sequence at the beginning and the end, suggesting that even after a tragedy the town’s rhythms continue. There’s even a lightly self-referential scene in which the teen’s girlfriend shows him a collection of photographic studies she’s taken around town. “These are all here?” asks the boy, who’s lived there all his life. To which she replies, “You’re not very observant.”

Despite these touches, however, Snow Angels has a workmanlike quality. The performances are never less than genuine, and the movie hurtles onward to a harrowing and heartbreaking conclusion. But Green’s best movies haven’t hurtled—they’ve sauntered, lazy with the heat and with humidity, as unexpected insights sprouted through cracks in the sidewalk. He’s always favored improvisation among his actors, and though there are some choice instances of it here—particularly from the amazing Sam Rockwell, who plays the deranged husband—the movie is so heavily plotted these moments barely have room to breathe. Snow Angels is a powerful drama, but if I didn’t know Green had directed it I probably wouldn’t have guessed. Such are the drawbacks of travel: the more you adjust to new people, the more you might wonder where your old self has gone.

DVD Talk theatrical [Jamie S. Rich]

stylusmagazine.com (Sky Hirschkron)

Filmcritic.com Movie Reviews Chris Barsanti

Cinemattraction.com [Robert Levin]

New York Sun [Bruce Bennett]

All the Real Wails Ray Pride from New City

ReelViews (James Berardinelli)

Not Coming to a Theater Near You [Beth Gilligan]

CompuServe [Harvey Karten]

TheMovieBoy Review [Dustin Putman]

James' review from Sundance James Rocchi from Cinematical

Film-Forward.com Elizabeth Bachner

Film School Rejects [Loukas Tsouknidas]

Cinema Blend [Katey Rich]

Reel.com [Brie Beazley]

Film Journal International (Doris Toumarkine)

Variety.com [Justin Chang]

Los Angeles Times [Carina Chocano]

Chicago Tribune (Michael Phillips)

filmcritic.com (Chris Barsanti) review [2.5/5]

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS C 73

USA (111 mi) 2008 ‘Scope

Green’s first film GEORGE WASHINGTON (2000) grossed a quarter of a million dollars, making a tidy profit, as the film cost less than $50,000 to make, while his next ALL THE REAL GIRLS (2003) remains his highest grossing film ever at half a million dollars, but lost large sums of money since it cost 2.5 million to make. His next films have been made on shoestring budgets, but they, too, have likely lost money. So is it any wonder for this wunderkind to finally want to make some money? It’s extremely unfortunate, but more people are likely to see this piece of crap than the earlier, much better made works by this director, who seems to have come full circle. It’s official, the David Gordon Green that once defined superlative indie filmmaking, whose distinctive, highly individualistic imprint spawned a generation of imitations. is no more. Apparently he decided he didn’t want his works to go unnoticed sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust, receiving superlatives from the few who watched them, completely ignored by the rest of the world, so Green decided to join the consumerist mass that is entertainment moviemaking. This is simply Hollywood filmmaking gone slightly berserk by making an offbeat, comedy express, stoner movie that is of little lasting value, that could easily have been made by dozens of interchangeable Hollywood directors, as there’s little distinguishing it from the rest, except this one grossed $75 million dollars.

Not nearly in the same league as, say, Linklater’s A SCANNER DARKLY (2006), which is an astonishingly clever glimpse of the Southern California drug subculture, using top tier actor’s voices in a darkly subversive animated satire, while this is filmed more like a road movie, a day in the life of a couple of likable but dazed and confused losers who continue to inhabit human form while smoking huge quantities of pot all day, the stronger the better, where Pineapple Express is the ultimate product on the market. James Franco as Saul is the only supplier in town, while Seth Rogen (one of the co-writers), is his favorite customer David. The two ingest large quantities of marijuana and trouble ensues. While it’s nice to hear Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue,” not so nice to hear Bob Marley’s anthem “Time Will Tell” as our heroes are selling weed to a group of high school kids. The film amusingly uses clever dialogue in the first half, and Franco especially delivers in his role, but Rosie Perez is indistinguishable in her role as a crooked cop other than having Tarantino-like lines of dialogue at the point of death, but it never really amounts to much, relying instead on big scale production numbers that include a ridiculous car chase and plenty of gunfire, explosions, and demolitions. Literally dozens are killed before our eyes and yet each has little, if any, impact. It’s more like playing a video game and watching obstructions to scoring points disappear. The lovable losers betray one another with ease, showing themselves to be cowards at heart, only to redeem themselves with superhero-like abilities, hugging each other afterwards and weeping over their hard earned friendship, all of which adds up to a huge so what?

The Onion A.V. Club review Scott Tobias

Thanks to a TV biopic from 2001, someone was able to convince James Franco that he was the next James Dean. His career has gone accordingly, with sensitive-but-brooding pretty-boy roles in City By The Sea, Tristan & Isolde, Annapolis, Flyboys, and the Spider-Man movies. But Freaks And Geeks fans know that Franco is the inverse: A fake James Dean, someone who uses his looks to score chicks, but is really an imposter and a loser, and a damned funny one at that. There are many things to like about Pineapple Express, an old-school action-comedy retooled as a stoner goof, but Franco's return to humor is a cause for celebration, or at least relief that he's finally come back to us. As a perpetually baked pot dealer, Franco colors his many laugh lines with a sweet, childlike naïveté that's completely disarming. It also helps set the tone for a film that's as loose and playful as major studio movies get.

Written by Seth Rogen and his writing partner Evan Goldberg—the duo also scripted last summer's Superbad—Pineapple Express refers to an exclusive strain of weed that Franco offers to Rogen, his favorite customer and secret best friend. Rogen's job as a process server allows him to toke up in his car between jobs, but one night, while waiting to hand out a subpoena, he witnesses a murder, and murderer Gary Cole witnesses him right back. As it happens, Cole is also Franco's chief supplier, and he traces the marijuana strain back to the source, sending Franco and Rogen on the run with a crooked cop (Rosie Perez) and a couple of bumbling henchmen (Kevin Corrigan and The Office's Craig Robinson) hot on their trail.

The wildcard in Pineapple Express is David Gordon Green, a director known for offbeat, beautiful, semi-improvisational indie films like George Washington and All The Real Girls. He's an unconventional directorial choice for a mainstream action-comedy, but his impeccable eye defies the indifferent visual style of most Judd Apatow productions, and he has a glancing touch that keeps the violence from mucking up the fun. (His staging of the big action finale is the most hilariously awkward free-for-all since the pirate shootout in The Life Aquatic.) A subplot involving Rogen's relationship with a high-school student (Amber Heard) could have been excised, though at the expense of the one of the film's funniest scenes. But good stoner comedies like Pineapple Express have a rambling, shaggy-dog nature that can make quirky little detours and non sequiturs more essential than story itself.

As pot comedies go, Pineapple Express is one of the best. It delivers several genuine laughs and doesn't rely (completely) on stoned reaction shots to get them. But considering that this pronouncement really only puts the film in higher standing than Dude, Where's My Car? and various Cheech and Chong installments makes that statement looks less complimentary than one might hope for.

Yet another summertime widget of gleeful obscenity and disarming male vulnerability to come out of the Judd Apatow comedy factory -- Apatow had the original idea, while Superbad's Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote the script -- Pineapple Express comes with high expectations, not all of which are dashed. While much of Apatow's previous work has focused on the perils of sex or the camaraderie of social outcasts, this film comes with more of a standard-issue plot that harkens back, mostly in unfortunate ways, to the action-comedy hybrids that ruled the multiplex back in the 1980s. Only this time, the main characters are stoned; cue fetishized shots of bulging baggies of ripe green buds, gigantic bongs (this film's piece d'resistance is called the Bong Mitzvah, hails from Tel Aviv, and proves useful in hand-to-hand combat), and a massive pot cultivation operation that shimmers in the characters' imaginations like El Dorado.

It's not to say that basing an entire film around the old Guy Witnesses a Murder scenario can't seem anything but hackneyed these days, but original it isn't. And so when schlubby pothead process server Dale (Rogen) inadvertently sees a gangster and his crooked cop partner (Gary Cole and Rosie Perez) gun a man down, he flails in panic and goes on the run, dragging along his perpetually stoned dealer Saul (James Franco). Rogen and Franco make for a genuinely engaging matched pair, particularly given their near-permanently addled states of mind. The real heart of the script is actually in the tight bond that the two develop, leading to several confrontations and heart-to-hearts that are as touching as they are willfully homoerotic. As in most buddy comedies, women are conspicuously absent here, and considering that Dale's girlfriend is actually still in high school (a funny and unexpected twist), this leaves more than the average share of comedic possibilities on the floor. But instead of playing around more with Dale and Saul's burgeoning friendship, the overlong script keeps circling back to their shambling escapes from danger and excessive gunplay.

The action and comedy mix has never been an easy one to manage, and unfortunately Pineapple Express fails in that respect almost completely. The problem is one of tone, and the film seems to get the mix right when Saul sees the first murder, a quick and brutal affair. But after that, as the arsenal of weaponry increases, and a subplot develops with a rival Asian gang, the whole affair practically turns into a bad action film. A lot of blame here can be leveled at the script, which doesn't trust its audience enough to think they won't be bored without all the violence.

But some blame has to go as well to David Gordon Green, whose beautifully brooding earlier work (Snow Angels, George Washington) makes him a particularly poor choice as director for a drug comedy. Like Doug Liman with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Green thinks he's mocking action-film excess (see all the purposefully overdone slo-mo work with blazing automatic weapons in the overextended finale) but really he's just making another bad action movie. Green knows what he's doing when it comes to choosing and directing his cast, who all perform at the top of their game here, in particular the wonderfully easygoing Franco, not to mention Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robertson, who somehow squeeze more juice out of the old bickering hitmen cliché. But mostly, instead of trying something new, the filmmakers retreat to the past. It's lazy sneering, and that attitude nearly ruins a perfectly good comedy. Hmmm... maybe more bong jokes would have helped.

The Village Voice [Nick Pinkerton]

Has David Gordon Green gone pop? The question hovers over BAMCinématek's retrospective, which culminates in a preview of Pineapple Express, a "stoner-action-comedy" from the Apatow family, and the first script Green's directed that he didn't write.

More accurately, Green's gone pragmatic: "The passion projects, they're necessary for me to make, regardless of if anyone wants to show up at the box office or get behind them and market them," he says. "[But] there's an actual business, an industry that needs to be respected if not catered to."

Recall that the film that broke a then-25-year-old Green, 2000's George Washington, was the antithesis of a careerist calling card, shooed from Sundance's doorstep. From the filament of a young-adult-fiction plot device shines a racially mixed cast of nonprofessionals, mostly children. Their voiceovers and monologues, in which the kids yearn toward true love and civics-class ideals, give the compartmentalized scenes a melic unity.

Here, Green and stalwart cinematographer Tim Orr establish their signature visual vocabulary, taking pages from William Eggleston's Guide, rendering train yards and gutted Studebakers widescreen-epic. "Rustic" may be a real-estate cliché, but when we're acclimated to accept Ontario as a stand-in for every American landscape, it's invaluable to discover the dead ends of George Washington's North Carolina towns.

Green's All the Real Girls (2003—great title) traced the contours of first love as Paul (co-screenwriter Paul Schneider), a Podunk pussyhound, moves in on Noel (Zooey Deschanel), a virgin with saintly sad eyes back from the boarding-school cloisters. Paul's self-consciousness justifies Green's deliberately awkward scene-setting (canoodling in the middle of a bowling lane etc.); Paul wants every moment with Noel to be different from anything before—their first kiss is the film's coda; he kisses her palm instead of her mouth. As Paul learns, unconventionality doesn't always work out—the film contains a handful of scenes that should make anyone want to charge the projection booth with corrective scissors and splicing tape. These first movies finally "work" only as much as a viewer can accept them as innocent rather than unctuous—in this case, good faith gives better than resistance. Sync up with Real Girls and it'll ransack the mental attic where unhappy youthful memories are stowed away; it gets me so blue I can't even tell you.

Undertow (2004) was Green's first attempt to use his atmospheric sensitivity as a means rather than an end—his Southern-fried thriller. It's cluttered with allusion: to Malick (producer here), to that old-time religion and Macon Country Line, to Charles Laughton's nonpareil Night of the Hunter, which it screens alongside at BAM. The movie's grisliness resonates, but the rigged-together peripheral scenes forming the film's on-the-road section don't build to any cumulative effect, with non sequitur small talk frequently upstaged by flora. After some years grounded on unrealized projects—prominently, a Confederacy of Dunces adaptation—there was Snow Angels, Green's relocation to the frost-blanked North, released earlier this year. Its tale of interlocking small-town love affairs, rendered with curlicue camerawork, was sentenced to death-by- indifference, labeled an oh-so-last-season study in suburban soul-sickness. Maybe, if its triptych of relationships was intended to signify universal truths—but as a movie about humans rather than archetypes, it's potent stuff. Audiences passed it by on their way to Juno.

For Green, it's a familiar feeling: "To watch those movies not thrive and barely make a ripple within the industry is pretty frustrating." And so: Pineapple Express, concerning two habitual koosh huffers who misstep into a drug war. More of Superbad's Cult of the Best Bro and Seth Rogen's scene-stampeding blue comedy is cause for alarm, but this is the best movie (as opposed to an arrangement of scenes) to ever come from Camp Apatow, steeped in the textures of Valley lowlife, with beautiful work from James Franco and Danny McBride, who looks like a Birmingham grocery bagger and exhales pure comedy. The concussive brawl between three guys all having their first fist fight is the action set-piece to beat this summer.Would Green rather be Michael Ritchie now than Terry Malick? "I'm doing a lot of things that are all over the place . . . so I don't get kind of bogged down in what could otherwise be a pretty depressing angle of the industry." Upcoming is a remake of Suspiria ("The way that horror is going, I think we're losing sight of the artistry and the complexity and the kind of strange, surreal, emotional element"), a John Grisham true-crime adaptation, and "a cartoon TV series." ("That doesn't include all the weirdo projects— little, bizarre, personal, intimate portraits and things that I try to develop on the side.")

Is it a triumph for Hollywood cynicism when Green, who made his rep with a movie where kids and adults commiserate over dreams, now scores laffs off grown-ups peddling weed to grade-schoolers? Before hoisting the "Sellout" effigy, let's show good faith once more. How much stagnancy in the multiplex (and arthouse) comes from our best and brightest sticking to the ghetto of indie cred when they could be working? Green's a smart producer now (he backed last year's superlative Shotgun Stories), a proven hustler, and committed to giving back to vernacular American film culture. I'll only say: Godspeed.

Alternative Film Guide [Keith Waterfield]

The House Next Door (Jonathan Pacheco)

seanax.com [Sean Axmaker]

Film Freak Central review Walter Chaw

DVD Talk theatrical [Jamie S. Rich]

Paste Magazine [Robert Davis]

eFilmCritic.com (Rob Gonsalves) review [3/5]

Only The Cinema [Ed Howard]

Robert Cashill, Popdose

CineScene.com (Chris Knipp) review

Mike D'Angelo review

The New York Sun (Nicolas Rapold) review

Movie-Vault.com (LaRae Meadows) review

Screen International review John Hazelton

eFilmCritic.com (Mel Valentin) review [3/5]

The Village Voice [Robert Wilonsky]

Cinepassion.org [Fernando F. Croce]

Time Out New York (Ben Kenigsberg) review [2/6]

Austin Chronicle (Kimberley Jones) review [3.5/5]

Seattle Post-Intelligencer review Sean Axmaker

The Globe and Mail review [1.5/4] Rick Groen

Los Angeles Times (Jan Stuart) review

Chicago Tribune (Michael Phillips) review

The New York Times (Manohla Dargis) review

THE SITTER C 76

USA (81 mi) 2011

One way to approach David Gordon Green’s descent away from art films and into the more lucrative Hollywood industry is to think of this movie as little more than an extended short, as basically this is a one idea film, all the things that could go wrong with a completely inept and unqualified babysitter, using a variation on WC Field’s contemptuous view of children theme and then attacking the audience with anarchistic set pieces that will either leave you laughing at the derisive nature of the beast or bolting from the theater in disgust. If the idea is simply to provoke a reaction, then Green has likely succeeded, though this was probably more fun on the set than the finished product onscreen, likely the case in far too many comedies. What’s missing here is a cohesive whole, as instead it’s something of a sprawling mess of various likely improvised ideas that never really come together.

Rather than a just missed comedy, this may be a huge quasi experimental misstep that is amusing by just how far away from comedy this movie occasionally travels, reminiscent of the Macaulay Caulkin HOME ALONE (1990, 1992) series which was one extended misadventure filled with ludicrous set ups and sight gags that in themselves became ridiculous after awhile. What this mostly resembles, however, are the Doctor Seuss children stories, where kids are left pretty much on their own with no discernable adult presence where they run amok creating havoc and mischief for a brief period before everything returns back to normal by the time their parents get home. That’s pretty much the film, which includes the random screw ups of the adult sitter in charge, the man-child Jonah Hill as the clueless Noah. It always helps if the kids can have mature moments when they act much older than their ages, allowing each, by the end, to benefit from the time spent with one other.

From the outset, using his familiar cinematographer Tim Orr, Green loves to use inventive camera shots, from double to triple screen, superimposed imagery, slow mo and fast action sequences, and even a sideways cam, all a bit offsetting and disruptive from the comfort zone of the viewer, but also offering a taste of the world being viewed from a slightly different vantage point that has tilted askew. While some may find stereotypes offensive, they are fairly prevalent in comedy sketches, and this film has a field day exuding the pleasures of exploitation flicks which are in the wheelhouse of this director who grew up with 70’s and 80’s films. Taking a riff on the American mainstream family portrayal, Green takes a look at living in the posh neighborhoods of the lily white suburbs with overly pampered and alienated kids, clueless parents who have their own sexual repressive and adulterous issues, where one parent routinely has to look away in order to maintain the high quality of life to which they’ve become accustomed, where morality is a smokescreen, something you purchase in order to impress others with instead of upholding any personal convictions.

This is the backdrop of the story, where Noah, an aimless, overweight and unemployed twenty something who has amounted to nothing in life is still living at home with his single mother, where they both commiserate over the evils of his absent dad who has left them high and dry, now running a highly successful business yet still lags woefully behind on his alimony payments. Noah routinely degrades himself for female companionship, where self-absorbed Marisa (Air Gaynor) allows him to pleasure her while keeping all other sexual contact off the table. When his mom finally has a chance to go out and have an evening of her own, it’s nearly spoiled when the couple she’s going to a social event with loses their babysitter at the last moment, allowing Noah to fill in, where he’s interestingly introduced to three misfits, Slater (Max Records), the overmedicated kid who’s pretty much afraid of all human contact, Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), the adopted Central American child with a penchant for explosives and wearing cowboy boots with pajamas, and Blithe (Landry Bender), the reincarnation of Jonbenet Ramsey, an adorable young child with an eye on becoming a celebrity with a flair for gossip and the excessive use of sparkle make up.

When Marisa calls from a party offering full sexual contact if he’ll score some coke and come pick her up, all bets are off on conventional babysitting as Noah stashes the kids in the back of the family minivan for a rollicking escapade on the town, where he has a few stops to make along the way, all of which explode in his face with things going wrong, including a hilarious trip to a warehouse filled with scantily clad male bodybuilders where a gay escort on roller skates (Sean Patrick Doyle) leads them inside to see Karl (Sam Rockwell), the coked up, out of control drug dealer (with his portrait on the wall) who wants everybody to be his friend, actually ranking them by number, where he’s continually challenged to make on the spot readjustments with each new person he meets. Karl believes in manly hugs, loyalty and likeability, pointing guns at anyone who falls out of line, which is Noah when Rodrigo makes off with Karl’s personal stash. Turning into something of a spirited, free wheeling romp, where blacksploitation action, gangsta rap, and a gorgeous black girl friend Roxanne (Kylie Bunbury) literally drop out of the sky offering him a reprieve from the mediocrity of life in the suburbs. A lighthearted story about being true to yourself, it’s a minor riff on middle class complacency, much of which feels generic and is not so much about anything as expressing a message of creating your own unique style of living, where it’s best not to take anyone or anything for granted. While enjoyable at times, it’s also completely forgettable.

The Sitter | Film | Movie Review | The A.V. Club Scott Tobias

Little has flummoxed cinephiles like the curious case of David Gordon Green, a writer-director who started his career with George Washington and All The Real Girls, poetic visions of youth that had him looking like Terrence Malick’s heir apparent, but has lately resigned himself to major-studio slacker comedies like Pineapple Express and the unfortunate Your Highness. Green’s latest, The Sitter, seemingly falls firmly in the latter camp, as it once again champions an oafish layabout (Jonah Hill) who’s dragged into an adventure kicking and screaming. Yet in its best moments—and there are several good ones scattered across this ramshackle comedy—The Sitter is a reminder that Green’s sensibility has always been heavy on whimsy and play, and that maybe he hasn’t strayed that far from home. Trouble is, when you’re paying feature-length homage to Adventures In Babysitting, rather than something like Malick’s Days Of Heaven, the ceiling gets awfully low.

Built comfortably around Hill’s talent for amiable hostility, The Sitter casts him as a Bad Santa-type who reluctantly takes a babysitting job to help give his single mother a night out. His child-care style is just a notch above gross negligence. His three charges are all terrors in their own way: Max Records is an intensely neurotic, overmedicated head-case; younger sister Landry Bender imagines herself as a Kardashian, but looks more a Toddlers & Tiaras contender; and Kevin Hernandez, an El Salvadoran orphan, is a troublemaker with a flair for pyrotechnics. On a mission to please his awful girlfriend, Hill loads the kids into a minivan and heads into the city to score coke from an eccentric dealer (Sam Rockwell). Needless to say, things don’t go as planned.

In spite of the affection Green has for Adventures In Babysitting, The Sitter views the city as more goofy and surreal than hostile, which defuses the ugly racial politics of Babysitting and other ’80s suburban-family comedies. And unlike Elisabeth Shue, Hill has no intention of being a responsible caretaker, which makes him just as impulsive and easily distracted as the kids, dragging them (and the movie) into unexpected comic situations. (Filling out Rockwell’s drug lair with ’roided-out bodybuilders, a roller-skating lackey, and cocaine-packed dinosaur eggs is just one indication of the film’s loopiness.) Given its lumpy, episodic nature, The Sitter misses as often as it hits, and the stoner listlessness that dominated Your Highness occasionally creeps into the storytelling. Yet the precocious naïf behind George Washington hasn’t disappeared entirely here—it just takes a little squinting to see him.

Slant Magazine [R. Kurt Osenlund]

Of today's working directors, is there a bigger genre-swapping sellout than David Gordon Green? After proving his mettle with dramas like George Washington, All the Real Girls, and Undertow, Green must have been growing tired of raves from Roger Ebert not translating into hefty box office, and when the stoner experiment Pineapple Express soundly broke that cycle, the luster clearly proved too sweet to abandon. That may be an oversimplification, but however much he's howling on the set, Green surely can't be finding too much personal fulfillment helming post-Pineapple Express drivel like Your Highness and The Sitter, two utterly worthless comedies that reflect the fatigue of the Apatow-spawned subgenre of rude, random, pop-saturated, pretty-fly-for-a-white-guy romps.

Green's latest could fool you into thinking it was written, shot, and edited in the same week, so lazy and unrefined are its narrative and construction. Serving as the first solo star vehicle for Jonah Hill (the newly slimmed-down comic, still very full-figured here, is an executive producer), The Sitter is an ugly rendering of an infantile script that constantly exploits stereotypes for cheap guffaws, and employs the hollow trend of hoping ultra-specific, zeitgeisty lingo will distract from inert, derivative storytelling.

Written by first-timers Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka, the film aims to be the worst-behaved bad-kiddie-behavior adventure ever, a movie that never would have been greenlit when titles like Adventures in Babysitting, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, and Problem Child were in their heyday. It begins with an orgasm, as Noah (Hill) is introduced with his face between the legs of Marisa (Ari Graynor), the ditzy blond druggie who uses him for cunnilingus. On hiatus from college and living with his divorced mom in a "stage of stasis," rudderless Noah does little good for himself, and he's primed and ready for the easy morals and insta-backbone this movie is sure to provide. When Mom (Jessica Hecht) reports that the other half of her double date needs a sitter or else it's no night out, Noah reluctantly takes the gig, his mama's-boy act of devotion the film's only truly honest virtue.

Born to big-boobed MILF Mrs. Pedulla (Erin Daniels), Noah's pint-sized pals for the evening include Slater (Where the Wild Things Are's Max Records), a gymnastics-watching introvert whose anxiety is actually just homosexuality; Blithe (Landry Bender), a pink-swathed tween in a "celebutant" phase whose every life lesson she learned on E!; and Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), an adopted orphan from El Salvador whose depiction as both dangerous criminal and family dog—complete with microchip-like tracking device—is more than a little offensive. Every character in The Sitter, big and small, is a shrill caricature, from Slater's spoiled Jewish classmate to the panicky valet who's working her bat mitzvah, one of many pit stops Noah and the kids hit after Marisa sends them all on a goose chase for cocaine (she promises Noah sex if he'll be her drug delivery boy).

Pieces of this superficial approach yield mild, bizarro interest (like ambiguously gay drug dealer Sam Rockwell's bodybuilding entourage, on loan from Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" video), but most insult and confound despite their flashes of boxed-in humor, like a whole gang of "magical negroes" whose soulful superiority offers the usual contrast against Noah's awkward pastiness, but who basically exist to save his ass in the climax and utter the line, "You done messed with the wrong babysitter." In its most egregious example of useless, barefaced track-covering, the film attempts to counteract its coy racism by setting Noah up with a beautiful black college friend (Kylie Bunbury), whose unlikely attraction is less a sweet, go-for-the-nice-guy gesture than a reflection of the chauvinistic arrogance that's been rampant in fat-boy comedies since John Candy wooed bikini babes in Summer Rental.

To his credit, Hill does very little to tarnish his ever-sharpening image. Despite the lousiness of the material, he continues to show some promising chops under all that endless sarcasm, bringing near-impossible sincerity to deeply contrived scenarios like Slater's coming-out talk, and doing his best to suffer through the mush of Noah's clichéd daddy issues. He fares far better than Green, whose couldn't-care-less direction, which allows for way too many hideous hip-hop-in-the-city montages, suggests the ganja left over from his last two films was in great abundance throughout production. His heavy hand is as good a meaning as any to assign to the unintelligible metaphor of a geomagnetic storm, which gets frequent mention from start to finish and, all told, hovers over the film like a green fog of toxic waste.

REVIEW: Jonah Hill, The Sitter Offer (Mostly) Inoffensive ... - Movieline Alison Willmore

Having begun his career as American independent film’s great hope with delicate, languid features like George Washington and All the Real Girls, David Gordon Green has devoted the last few years to turning out goofball stoner comedies that, aside from their hip and very current casts, could seem like forgotten oddball ’80s artifacts discovered in a box of dusty VHS tapes at a garage sale. While it’s not a career trajectory anyone who went googly-eyed over his early output would have guessed for him, there’s an unmistakable undercurrent of glee to these recent films that suggests Green — who still works with many of the crew members with which he started, including composer David Wingo and DP Tim Orr — is having a great time making exactly the type of movies he wants to.

How enjoyable they are to actually watch is a knottier question. Pineapple Express was hazy, sloppy fun, but Your Highness felt like one long inside joke no one deigned to explain. The Sitter pulls back from the latter’s sometimes jarring abrasiveness and aims to sprinkle sweetness and reconciliation between the laughs — without, this time, putting them in air quotes. It succeeds at tickling the funny bone and warming the heart, though it’s not terribly good at either — The Sitter’s a lazy ramble of a movie that’s amusing enough to hold your gaze for 81 minutes while leaving you feeling a little cheated when it’s over.

Jonah Hill’s slimmed down considerably in the months since shooting this movie, but as genial waster Noah Griffith he still looks like a child’s drawing of a person — a small circle on top of a large circle from which legs and arms directly extend. Noah’s living at home in the suburbs of New York with his single mom (Jessica Hecht), having been kicked out of college for reasons left fuzzy. Whatever his misbehaviors, there’s never a doubt that he’s a fundamentally good kid who’s run temporarily aground, and that sense of underlying softness dulls the edge of The Sitter’s attempt comedy. Noah may not be the greatest choice to take care of children and may make some seriously dumb decisions, but he’s of course going to fix his own mess, even when that own mess involves an angry but hug-happy drug dealer named Karl (Sam Rockwell) and $10,000 in cocaine.

Noah’s pursuing a doomed entanglement with neighborhood girl Marisa (Ari Graynor), who keeps him around for physical favors (which she refuses to return) while still being fixated on her ex-boyfriend. It’s her suggestion he pick up some drugs and join her at a party in Brooklyn that starts the night on its course toward disaster, since Noah’s already been roped into babysitting the three children of family friends so that his mom can accompany the parents to a swank party where’s she going to be introduced to a romantic prospect.

The kids are cartoons, but amusingly contemporary ones: Little Blithe (Landry Bender) lacquers herself with makeup and talks like a pre-pubescent Paris Hilton nightmare. Explosives-happy adopted Hispanic sibling Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez) acts like he’s a refugee from a drug cartel, though his inexplicable costume of choice involves yellow pajamas and cowboy boots. And 13-year-old Slater is a jumble of anxiety and angst, carrying his meds around in a fanny pack. Played by Where the Wild Things Are’s Max Records, Slater’s not at all funny, but does provide some heartfelt emotional distress that’s poignant and probably better suited to some other movie.

So The Sitter’s nightlong obstacle course is set — wrangle children, buy coke, get money together to placate the dealer when things go wrong, and finish in time to join Marisa at a party and finally consummate that pseudo-relationship. These goals take the four on a journey through lower Manhattan and actual Brooklyn neighborhoods, including South Slope, Greenpoint and Bushwick — the film’s sense of New York, and of being a suburban kid who may head there to play but has to eventually leave and head home at the end of the night, is one of its best qualities. Its worst is its weird treatment of race, which beyond Rodrigo’s ridiculousness includes Noah’s triumphant winning over of a group of black friends by letting himself get punched in the face — “I feel so cool right now,” he declares. Perhaps attesting to that white-kid inferiority complex is the soundtrack — Noah Griffith’s infinite playlist involves songs by 2 Live Crew, Slick Rick, The Sugarhill Gang and Biz Markie, perfect for a Long Island kid who prefers his hip hop comfortably old-school.

Childhood resentments are aired, revelations are had, and age is come of by the end of The Sitter, with an oddly anticlimactic conclusion that never ties into the geomagnetic storm set to happen that night that the characters have spent a fair amount of time talking about. All the ends are easily tied away, and seemingly major disruptions are forgotten as soon as it’s time for bed — which is about as quickly, one guesses, as this movie will fade from mind.

Review: 'The Sitter' Is A Rough, But Absurdist Romp & Serves As a ... Drew Taylor from The indieWIRE Playlist

Review: Jonah Hills woefully unfunny The Sitter deserves to ... - HitFix Drew McSweeny

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The Sitter Review: A Mundane Comedy that Defiantly Wears ... - Pajiba Dustin Rowles

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The Sitter: Guns, Cocaine and Jonah Hill's Adventures in Babysitting ... Mary Pols from Time magazine

FilmFracture: What's Your Time Worth? [James Jay Edwards]

The Sitter — Inside Movies Since 1920 - Box Office Magazine Kate Erbland

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The Sitter: Film Review - The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore

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'The Sitter' movie review -- 'The Sitter' showtimes - The Boston Globe Ty Burr

Critic Review for The Sitter on washingtonpost.com Ann Hornaday

'The Sitter' movie review: a comedy in name only Amy Biancolli from The SF Chronicle, also The Houston Chronicle here: Review: 'The Sitter'

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PRINCE AVALANCHE B+ 90

USA (94 mi) 2013 ‘Scope

True love is like a ghost. Everyone talks about it, but few have ever seen it. —Alvin (Paul Rudd)

I reap the rewards of solitude… I write letters to your sister, I read, I paint, I sew, I had a cat, so I used to take care of my pet, before it was killed. I have a lot of prescription medications, but I try not to use them. —Alvin (Paul Rudd)

Here’s to fire in our hearts. Drink up boys. I love the impurities. Mother may I? Yes I may! —Truck driver (Lance LeGault)

Thank God in heaven that David Gordon Green is back to making indie movies, and this is a beaut…gorgeously sublime, beautifully shot by Green’s longtime cinematographer Tim Orr, a film about making something out of nothing. The inspiration comes from the devastating aftermath of a 1987 central Texas wildfire laying waste to 43,000 acres, destroying 1600 homes. Set in the following year, the trees remain starkly barren, but there’s plenty of growth in the underbrush. Largely philosophical, yet told in a naturalistic manner, perhaps on the surface this is the most simplistic film Green’s ever made, but filled with implications and moral conflicts. Adapted from a Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson Icelandic movie entitled EITHER WAY (2011), though one is not exactly sure how this rather awkwardly medieval American title was chosen (though there is a reference to a prince who has been banished from his kingdom), sounding a bit more like one of the Merry Men in Robin Hood, though this film has a modernist 20^th century bent to it, feeling more like something out of the existential absurdity of Beckett or Ionescu. The film is about two poor bastards who are stuck working out in the open on a roadside highway construction crew helping rebuild roads cutting straight through the natural devastation, whose job is to paint the yellow lines on the newly paved asphalt over an endless stretch of highway, then glue street reflectors in between, while also placing reflector signposts along the way. Living a rustic life in a two-man tent along the side of the road, Alvin (Paul Rudd) is the more serious senior partner, the roadside boss, while his underling Lance (Emile Hirsch) shows little aptitude for living outdoors, behaving more like a kid with attention deficit disorder, claiming he’s horny all the time and can’t wait to get back to the city during his time off on weekends.

Shot in just 16 days, the film is a minimalist display of an economy of means, opening with an extended wordless sequence where the paramount expression throughout is David Wingo’s superb musical score written for the instrumental accompaniment of the Austin-based band Explosions in the Sky, where we immediately rediscover this director’s natural affinity for poetic expression, beautifully balancing sound and image before a single word is spoken. Despite occasional retreats back into silence, this is a dialogue driven character study that is haunted by the natural environment that envelops them. Neither character easily expresses their emotions, both hiding behind a façade of convention, where Alvin pretends to know what he’s doing, as it sounds like he always has a reasonable plan, but he’s undercut by his own lack of spontaneity and fun, while Lance is a happy-go-lucky kid that only thinks about sex, as if it’s the only inner drive that matters, yet he also has a contemplative side that he never admits to, as it has little to do with how to score with women. As these two guys spend every waking hour together, it’s only natural they’d eventually get on each other’s nerves, which parallels the boredom and monotony of carrying out the same repetitive task over and over again, day after day, where the tedium keeps them on edge as well. While these are the surface realities, the film actually explores the human drama taking place inside each of their lives, where they couldn’t be more different, as Alvin has to plan his every move, while Lance just goes with the flow, relying on his natural instincts to carry him through. While their lives are slowly evolving, there are subtle intrusions from outside forces that continually alter the landscape just enough to keep the characters (and the audience) off balance, where in one of the more curious sections, in the ruins of a burned out home, Alvin acts out his imaginary good life with his future wife.

Perhaps most fun are the surprise visits by aging truck driver Lance LeGault, (who died during the making of the film, receiving a dedication notice in the final credits), who hauls heavy loads through the construction zone, often stopping to hand out bottles of moonshine to the work crew while also dishing out various pearls of wisdom before disappearing into the night. Most mysterious are the repeated appearances by a ghostlike Joyce Payne as The Lady, an elderly woman pained by the fact she lost everything in a fire that destroyed her home, where all that’s left are quickly disappearing memories. “Sometimes I think that I’m digging in my own ashes.” Initially viewed by Alvin, who helps her search for lost belongings in the wreckage of her home, later she has a near apparition appearance with the Truck driver, who refuses to acknowledge her presence, though they are often seen together by Alvin and Lance. In fact, by the end, they both feel like ghosts in denial of their own existence. Serving as an unlikely interconnection, symbolic of their own as yet undetermined future, caught in the purgatory of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, an inescapable hell on earth, the aging couple’s fading illusions serve as a reminder that our young friends are heading for a similar catastrophe, as Alvin doesn’t understand what his own girlfriend really wants, while Lance continually idealizes his perfect companion. The dreams of both are heading for certain destruction unless they drop all pretensions and somehow start to actually care about the lives of others. Afraid to leave their selfish comfort zones, both couldn’t be more vulnerable and awkwardly naked on display out in the middle of the emptiness of a desolate landscape that somehow retains its illuminating vibrancy. Through a wall of branchless trees still standing, a thriving forest remains in spite of the apocalyptic signs of destruction. Similarly, when all hope is lost, these two numbskulls literally rise from the ashes and have the chance to walk upon a new day. There are no illusions that anything will get any better, but having shared and endured each other’s most tragic flaws, they seem better prepared to meet whatever lies beyond the curve of the road and face the unexpected future.

The House Next Door [Kenji Fujishima]

For those afraid that David Gordon Green had completely abandoned the lyrical style that marked such early films as George Washington and All the Real Girls for the crude stoner-comedy mode of Pineapple Express and Your Highness, well, it's back in his latest film, Prince Avalanche, though perhaps not in the way one might have expected.

Simply on the level of tone, the film, a Judd Apatow-like bromance elevated to the realm of near-myth, is an extremely odd, deliberately jarring work—the kind of film where a tossed-off fart joke coexists with a mournful montage of a man, Alvin (Paul Rudd), contemplating the burned-out ruins of an old woman's house. But the film has even weirder angles to it than that: how the old woman eventually turns out to be a ghost of some sort, and the how the leavening mysterious female presence offers a counterpoint to the broadly macho old-man ghost that offers Alvin and his fellow road worker, Lance (Emile Hirsch), drinks and, by extension, tempting them to indulge in their inner macho selves.

Make no mistake though: It's a man world in Prince Avalanche in much the same way it often is in Apatow films, with women treated basically as either emotional enigmas or objects to satisfy a man's sexual urges. Green, however, conflates the personal drama with the aftermath of a massive wildfire that rocked the rural Texas landscape in 1988 (Alvin and Lance are road workers helping to rebuild the area)—a context that lends the film a grand metaphorical aura strengthened not only by Green's poetic sensibility, but also by the splendors of usual Green collaborator Tim Orr's widescreen cinematography, finding emotionally resonant bits of visual beauty in even the most charred and barren of settings. For those who were somehow waiting for the artistic apotheosis of the bromance, Prince Avalanche is it, for better and for worse.

Review: Prince Avalanche | Film Comment Jonathan Robbins

Based on a 2011 Icelandic film, writer-director David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche tells the story of stick-in-the-mud Alvin (Paul Rudd) and horndog Lance (Emile Hirsch). The pair spend the summer of 1988 repainting the highway in a forest-fire-damaged stretch of central Texas and bickering over just about everything. Besides being Alvin’s assistant, Lance is the brother of Alvin’s girlfriend, Madison. Whereas Alvin revels in the solitude of nature, Lance prattles on about his pathetic sexual conquests and near-misses (“We almost went full lamb chop!”), which he recounts in mind-numbing detail. The two men share a small tent, mutual incomprehension, and eventually, a sense of understanding and deep friendship.

Every so often, the men cross paths with an affable elderly truck driver (Lance LeGault) who offers them large quantities of moonshine and his own philosophical musings. They also encounter a woman who helplessly sifts through the ruins of her former house, reduced to ashes by the fire. Mostly, though, Lance and Alvin have only one another for company.

Sporting a sizeable mustache and wide-rimmed glasses, Paul Rudd gives an excellent performance as a man whose self-serious approach to self-sufficiency makes him difficult to relate to, but also somehow sympathetic. (At one point, Alvin asks Lance incredulously how he could have possibly gone through life without learning to gut a fish.) Penning long, awkwardly poetic letters to Madison from his tent, Alvin is a throwback, and if his streak of Emersonian self-reliance is noble, it also complicates his domestic aspirations. Lance and Alvin have a kind of Beckett-inflected masculine partnership that shares elements with Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy.

Prince Avalanche has more in common with Green’s earlier work as a director which earned him comparisons to Terrence Malick—All the Real Girls (03), Undertow (04)—than with his later, more commercial comedies, Pineapple Express (08) and The Sitter (11). His new film’s slow pace, meandering dialogue, and snark-free sense of humor contribute to its pleasing and distinctive feel. The journey taken by Alvin and Lance has few plot points, but the film is remarkably gripping and rich. Earnest without being sappy, Prince Avalanche is a movie about relationships, and how unlikely ones can blossom under the proper circumstances.

Cinematographer Tim Orr imparts a strong visual style that makes the post-inferno Texas woodland setting come alive and contributes to the film’s surreal feel. There are some lovely shots of nature—from a tangle of tree branches set against the blood-colored dusk to the image of a solitary Alvin contentedly frying up a foraged dinner. A spot-on original score by Explosions in the Sky and David Wingo contributes mightily to the film. A film unlike any now out there, Prince Avalanche is a genuine affirmation of taking the road less travelled.

Klymkiw Film Corner [Greg Klymkiw]

Opening with a textual title card, pointing out that over 40,000 acres of Texas woodlands burnt down inexplicably in the mid-'80s, David Gordon Green's decidedly dramatic and contemplative—yet still occasionally absurdist—character piece, Prince Avalanche sets up a thematic template of man's relationship with nature.

Alvin (Paul Rudd) and Lance (Emile Hirsch) work along an isolated rural highway, painting on lines and hammering reflective markers into the dirt shoulders. Alone for weeks at a time, Alvin and Lance are forced to bond over trivialities and observe the most embarrassing and unflattering attributes in each other.

Where Alvin sees the solitude as an academic exercise of sorts, taking the opportunity to learn German and catch up on his reading, Lance finds the quiet frustrating and boring, talking mostly about his next change at getting laid.

They already have a central bond, with Alvin dating Lance's older sister, but their odd couple dynamic represents either end of the social spectrum, suggesting that the motivations for wanting constant companionship (like Lance) is not entirely dissimilar to the need for quiet (like Alvin). Lance's need for constant distractions and diversions is, in a sense, a way of avoiding introspection, whereas Alvin's avoidance of social situations is a way of avoiding the introspection attributed to being different.

What's interesting about Green's deliberately paced, often tangential, existential yarn about loss, repetition and, eventually, social rebellion and anarchic principle as a means to discovering the true self, is that it avoids exploiting comedy. Lance routinely says ignorant things and Alvin occasionally dances by himself in the river, but these moments are handled with the same stoic gravity as every other plot point in the film. Even an elderly drunk that comes along every once in a while to give Alvin and Lance booze, telling them what a great job their doing, exists as a presumed comic sidebar that ultimately becomes just another facet of the central themes of loss, avoidance and social order as invading and dividing force.

Moreover, Green often takes extended breaks from the narrative to focus on images of nature in relation to the habitual routine aspects of human life with only a musical score doing the talking. It's a very calculated way of asserting worldly values and forced introspection onto an audience expecting the sort of standard comedy that Paul Rudd and David Gordon Green are known for.

It's true that the assertions about destructive forces—like fire—stripping away the forced, presentation-based, identities we all assume is quite glib and overly simplified. But there is something about Prince Avalanche that allows for deeper, personal interpretation about friendships and the many signifiers we establish to judge and shut each other out.

While it may be too oblique and slow for some, this deceptively simple treatise on manmade barriers (the regulation and development of a road being the ultimate visual metaphor) does have some touching kernels of wisdom for those keen on taking the time to consider and apply them to their own lives.

Film Freak Central Review [Angelo Muredda]

Slant Magazine [Nick McCarthy]

In Review Online [Carson Lund]

PopMatters [Marisa LaScala]

Prince Avalanche / The Dissolve Scott Tobias

Sundance Review: David Gordon Green Returns To Form With The ... Rodrigo Perez from The Playlist

theartsdesk.com [Nick Hasted]

Review: Prince Avalanche strands Paul Rudd and Emile ... - HitFix Drew McWeeny

Prince Avalanche | Reviews | Screen Tim Grierson

Smells Like Screen Spirit [Linc Leifeste]

1NFLUX Magazine [Jason Howard]

The Steve Pulaski Message Board [Steve Pulaski]

jdbrecords [Jeffery Berg]

Paste Magazine [Jonah Flicker]

Alone Together, And Learning What That Means - NPR Joel Arnold

In Prince Avalanche, the Apatow Crew Goes Existential - Village Voice Alan Scherstuhl

Twitch [Eric D. Snider]

Film.com [William Goss]

DVD Talk - Blu-ray [Justin Remer]

DVD Verdict (Blu-ray) [Clark Douglas]

Blu-ray.com (Blu-ray) [Michael Reuben]

The Film Stage [Jordan Raup]

UpcomingDiscs.com » Blog Archive » Prince Avalanche (Blu-ray) John Ceballos

Sound On Sight Neal Dhand

Movie Mezzanine [Dan Schindel]

Film Pulse [Kevin Rakestraw]

Prince Avalanche Movie Review : Shockya.com Brent Simon

Prince Avalanche (2013) Movie Review from Eye for Film Amber Wilkinson

Prince Avalanche Review: Choose Your Own Adventure ... - Pajiba Amanda Mae Meyncke

Movie Mezzanine [Tom Clift]

Sound On Sight David Tran

Tiny Mix Tapes [Matt Biancardi]

Film Blather [E. Novikov]

David Gordon Green on returning to his roots, for now ... - The Dissolve Nathan Rabin interview, August 6, 2013

"Anti-Casting" of Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch in Prince - Village Voice Amy Nicholson interviews Green and Paul Rudd, August 6, 2013, also seen here from The LA Weekly, August 15, 2013: Prince Avalanche Director David Gordon Green Finds Inspiration in ...

TV Guide [Cammila Collar]

Hollywood Reporter [David Rooney]

Variety [Dennis Harvey]

Prince Avalanche – review | Film | The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

Prince Avalanche – review | Film | The Observer - The Guardian Mark Kermode

Prince Avalanche: A different kind of road movie - The Globe and Mail Liam Lacey

Toronto Film Scene [William Brownridge]

examiner.com [Christopher Granger]

Examiner.com [Kirk Haviland]

The joy of watching paint dry in 'Prince Avalanche' - The Boston Globe Loren King

The Cleveland Movie Blog [Milan Paurich]

SF Weekly [Sherilyn Connelly]

Prince Avalanche Movie Review (2013) | Roger Ebert Matt Zoller Seitz

'Prince Avalanche' Features Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch - NYTimes ... A.O. Scott

Raging Grass Fires Cut 50-Mile Swath in West Texas - Los Angeles ... The Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1988

Brush Fire Contained in Texas - New York Times March 14, 1988

JOE B+ 92

USA (117 mi) 2013 ‘Scope

People who are in trouble are the kind I know best. They’re the kind I grew up around.

—Larry Brown, author of the book, Joe, 1991

Well, it’s not Nicolas Cage from WILD AT HEART (1990), but it may as well be the same guy twenty five years later after he’s spent a stretch of time in the penitentiary for assaulting a police officer, who it turns out was actually assaulting him, while also losing his girl and any thought of family, where all he has left is a rundown house that’s been condemned, a bulldog on a short chain, an old beat up truck, the dirt road in front of him, and as much cigarettes and whisky as he can smoke and drink before he dies. Surrounded by lowlifes with limited options in life, Joe (Cage) exists in a backwater town, seemingly on a short string, with a raging temper, where he has to drink himself into a stupor just to keep from going off on all the things that aggravate him. While this is not a David Gordon Green original, as he did not write or even adapt this film, it was adapted instead by Gary Hawkins from the 1991 novel of the same name by Mississippi author Larry Brown, who died in his early 50’s, but wrote about the rural South and the hard-luck people he knew while growing up. His characters tend to be mechanics, whores, or parolees, hardworking people whose brutal lives are made more complicated by alcohol, sex, and violence, often caught up in circumstances that lead to their own self-destruction. A spare portrait of the near destitute, Green’s setting shows people barely eking out an existence in an economically ravaged community, where it has the Southern gothic feel of life teetering on the edge, where the day-to-day will to survive is the existing reality, a movie teeming with disturbing characters and a murky regional atmosphere, reminiscent of Billy Bob Thornton’s SLING BLADE (1996), where Thornton was a friend of the author, but also the rural poverty of William Friedkin’s Killer Joe (2011), Scott Cooper’s Out of the Furnace (2013), Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin (2013), and perhaps most especially Jeff Nichols’ Mud (2012), which has a similar figurehead father and son dynamic. With the director living in Austin, this is the second film in a row shot in the rural outback of Texas, following the absurdist musings of Prince Avalanche (2013), where this is a powerful character study with Nicolas Cage as the life force of the film, offering a towering performance as an ex-con who continually has to fight his inner demons, where one can only imagine the kind of trouble he got himself into earlier in his life, as he still has that same hellraising spirit, but he’s a likeable figure who knows everybody in the community, who treats everyone with respect, including the police, who have to reign him in from time to time, but he also has a bottle in his hand in just about every scene.

With a peculiar occupation, Joe manages a tree poisoning business, where the lumber companies are not allowed to remove living trees in areas that need to be cleared for planting new growth, but they can remove dead trees, so his job is to do the preliminary work needed to clear the land, injecting poison into the trunks of targeted trees, using a crew of regulars, including a group of black workers he picks up in his truck at a convenience mart every morning, where the jovial chatter and camaraderie of the workers establishes the rhythm of the film. Into his life walks Gary, Tye Sheridan, the older of the two kids in Mud, also one of the kids in Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011), seen here as a troubled 15-year old boy who is physically abused by his alcoholic father, but looking for work to help support his economically deprived family, which includes a sister that never speaks and a mother that cowers to the intimidation of her drunken husband who spends all the money on booze, leaving them with nothing. While young Gary is a hard worker eager to learn, Joe is drawn to him, like a younger version of himself, immediately recognizing signs of abuse, where what money he makes is beaten out of him by his monstrous father, often seen wandering aimlessly through the streets as G-Daawg, played by Gary Poulter, who is the real deal, in real life a homeless man with a bipolar condition, discovered on the streets of Austin by the film crew, where Green has a habit of hiring locals for his films. But he’s not an extra, but one of the featured roles, where Poulter couldn’t be more convincing for the part, literally inhabiting the role, an outsider who is ostracized from his own family and community, which only aggravates his desperate need to drink, making him meaner and more sinister, becoming the darkest and most depraved force in the film. But he’s matched by another undesirable, Ronnie Gene Blevins as Willie-Russell, a slightly unhinged character that goes ballistics upon hearing insults to his character, a man with a vicious scar on his face, and an axe to grind with Joe, who apparently insulted him at a bar and humiliated him, leaving him little choice but to seek revenge. The film, by the way, is dedicated to Poulter, as a few months after shooting was finished, he was found face down in a shallow pool of water in Austin, where his death was ruled to be accidental drowning, with “acute ethanol intoxication.” This fate only accentuates his devastating presence in the film.

Despite a multitude of secondary characters, the bulk of the film follows Gary’s fascinated attraction to Joe, turning up on his doorstep at all hours of the night, even in the pouring rain, seeking advice for his spiraling out-of-control life, where Joe’s about the only adult person who will talk to him. There’s a calmness and a decency about Joe around the kid, taking an interest, often showing him how to do things, becoming a father figure even as his own turbulent life is in constant disarray. With the amount of alcohol he consumes, it’s a wonder that he can even stand through a good part of this film, where some viewers may feel a bit of stereotypical overkill with dilapidated shacks, roadside brothels, dysfunctional families, mute children, killer dogs, and a constant dose of violence and alcohol, as if the film is literally wallowing in its own misery, while Gary’s youth is a constant presence of innocence and the hope that his future can be different. There’s a sagging morass of dubious moral character attached to Joe, where his unsavory past is never far from the present, as his drunkenness and hair-trigger temper are not a good combination. When he claims, “What keeps me alive is restraint,” one has to think that’s an attribute he barely recognizes or comprehends. When the chief of police Earl (Aj Wilson McPhaul) pays him a visit, he’s the one that actually shows courtesy and restraint, where they were both hellraisers in their youth, but Earl’s outgrown that and become a wiser and more responsible man, while Joe still remains a drunken carouser hellbent on anger and destruction. The interest in the kid brings out an entirely different side of him, where he wants to be stable and protective even as his own life slides into utter chaos. Gritty, darkly humorous, with turns of extreme violence, this is easily Green’s darkest film, where Cage, in perhaps his best work since ADAPTATION (2002), fights through his own rugged frontier individualism and perfectly navigates his way through the turbulent waters of a depressed community, where he never for a moment finds peace, but he may, through this kid, find purpose. The uncompromising indie style harkens back to Green’s earliest and still his best work, using his lifelong cinematographer Tim Orr, whose visual poetry is an essential part of the film, along with an ominous electronic score from David Wingo and Jeff McIlvain. As in the best character studies, filmmakers have a way of drawing us into the unique world of people whose lives onscreen matter, where the outcome is not just powerfully moving, but heartbreaking.

TIFF 2013 | Joe (David Gordon Green, USA)—Special Presentation Alexandra Zawia from Cinema Scope, September 2013

Ex-con Joe (Nicolas Cage), last name Ransom, is a right-doer with a killer dog in a fucked-up, miserable world deep down South ruled by unemployment and an economic situation for which the word “crisis” is inadequate. It’s a place inhabited by alcoholic and abusive parents, hookers, and teenagers who are trying to do better. Taking a shine to 15-year-old Gary (Tye Sheridan), who wants to break free from a sketched-out future in this dump of a town, Joe gives him a job with his own company, which is clear-cutting trees to make accessible, arable land.

If all this sounds like a clichéd and less nuanced version of Jeff Nichols’ Mud, it should. David Gordon Green is more of an old hand at this sort of stuff than Nichols: he’s been acclaimed (sometimes deservedly, sometimes less so) for Americana-heavy dramas like Undertow and Snow Angels, though he stumbled of late with poor Hollywood comedies like Your Highness and The Sitter. Prince Avalanche, which debuted in Berlin earlier this year, seemed to mark a return to the lyrically-infused indie mode that earned him his good name, and in its second half especially, Joe conjures some of the same regional atmosphere that enriches its sister film. But any good stuff is counteracted by the redundant and pointless miserablism of the whole exercise:
drifting awkwardly between several genres, from coming-of-age story to comedy to melodrama, it may be that what Green ultimately had in mind was a Southern version of a western. (A southwestern?) Cage’s acting steers away from the self-parody and boredom that has defined his recent work, but he’s no cowboy.

In both his comedic and dramatic works, prolific director David Gordon Green has demonstrated a preoccupation with the idea of manhood as a performative, limiting, almost unsustainable act that his characters struggle to adapt to or understand. Whether merely avoiding the restrictive responsibilities implicit in masculine maturation — something evident in his comedies, where man-children reluctantly reject a heteronormative status quo in favour of irreverent youthful indulgence — or contemplating the idea of acquiescing to social constraints in a fractured, violent American landscape in his dramas, adulthood is perpetually a crossroads.

With Joe (his bleak vision of screenwriter Gary Hawkins' adaptation of the acclaimed Larry Brown novel), the fragility of social order and the presentation of manhood as thinly repressed rage are under scrutiny. The titular Joe (Nicolas Cage), an ex-con managing a team of Mississippi lumber workers clearing land by poisoning unprofitable trees, spends most of his time in a haze of drinking, working, enjoying the company of whores and occasionally winding up in an altercation with a power-hungry police officer or a mouthy bar patron. He's an unenviable representation of economic sustainment amidst a poverty-stricken Mississippi landscape, doing his best to keep his anger at bay, knowing that all rage exerted outwards comes back twofold.

This is why, when we meet him early on, he's on the receiving end of a drive-by shooting, having slapped a local man with a scarred face (Ronnie Gene Blevins) at a bar for being a dick. This same man incidentally runs into 15-year-old Gary (Tye Sheridan) while throwing his gun into a river. Gary, the son of an itinerant worker (Gary Poulter) living the tail-end of a pugnacious alcoholic life — stealing and killing to sustain his addiction while kicking the crap out of his wife and kids if they question him — is candid and honest with this man, but is forced into a physical act of domination when reason won't quell his surly, antagonistic disposition.

Since Gary, wanting to earn enough money to buy a pick-up truck and get some food for his mother and sister, is working for Joe, this action sets into motion a series of escalating conflicts that position Joe at a fork in the road of either tragedy or redemption.

Joe, as a character, is inherently paradoxical and simplistic simultaneously. He likes honesty and integrity, protecting those that demonstrate these characteristics. Whether letting a friend's daughter shack up with him or giving Gary incentives to get his life on a better track, he does good things amidst his drunken stupors and run-ins with local police officers trying to wave around a little arbitrary power. He knows that an act of violence will put him back in prison, which is equated here to the tenuous survival of his dog — always chained up and terrorizing anyone that dares step foot on his property — but he flirts with it constantly, having the instinct to dominate other men and assert his (typically beneficial) moral values.

Amidst the gritty depictions of violence and profane living conditions (we get a candid, harsh look at Gary's dilapidated home and submissive relationship with his relentlessly selfish, mean-spirited father), there's a slight glimmer of hope when Joe takes Gary along for a ride to shop for a new truck. The pair have an unlikely bond that, despite being surrounded by human squalor and misery, which culminates in a devastating, galvanizing scene, with Gary's father doing everything necessary to get a bottle of cheap wine from a homeless man, is mutually beneficial and even, at times, comic in its candidness and occasional impropriety.

This connection does ultimately heighten the sense of pervading dread looming over this fatalistic Southern drama, giving us that idea that the brittle bonds holding together this depiction of machismo as a tenacious, gnawing act of oppression won't break. What's heartbreaking and what makes David Gordon Green's slow-building yet unsentimental and uncompromising, almost metaphorically apocalyptic film his most comprehensively layered work yet is that we know exactly how it will all end, but keep hoping for the best anyways.

'Joe' - A Review: Hey, Joe, Where Ya Gonna Go with That . John Beifuss from The Bloodshot Eye

"Southern Gothic" may be too genteel or literary a term for "Joe," even if the new film from director David Gordon Green is adapted from an acclaimed work of Southern literature, a 1991 novel of rural crime and violence by the late great Oxford, Miss., firefighter turned author Larry Brown.

How about "trash noir"? That might be a more descriptive designation for "Joe" and a string of similar if not necessarily Southern stories about reckless, outlandish behavior among the poor, rural and undereducated -- stories that include "Out of the Furnace," "Killer Joe," "The Place Beyond the Pines," Craig Brewer's "Black Snake Moan," "Sling Blade" and the recent HBO hit "True Detective."

Chained dogs, poisoned trees, a "nasty old drunk daddy," a snarling scar-faced bad guy (Ronnnie Gene Blevins) and a dirt-road whore house are among the "trash noir" elements of "Joe," which marks a credible return to drama for both Green -- who directed such independent films as "George Washington" and "Undertow" before switching to commercial comedy for a half-decade with "Pineapple Express" -- and Nicolas Cage, cast as the title character, a bearded, tattooed and sometimes violent man in racially integrated rural Texas who makes a living by killing healthy trees so the timber companies can plant hardier species to harvest. (The trees are killed with blows from "juice hatchets," small axes that squirt chemicals into the trunk with the impact of each chop.)

Cage's co-star is teenage Tye Sheridan, already impressive in "The Tree of Life" and "Mud" (directed by Arkansas' Jeff Nichols, whose feature career was launched with the support of Green). Sheridan is a young Gary, desperate for work to support a family that receives only abuse from its drunken figurehead, Gary's father, known as G-Daawg. Gary's father is played by Gary Poulter, who is utterly convincing, with good reason: Poulter was a bipolar homeless man, recruited for the film; he was found dead in Austin a few months after shooting was finished, face down in a shallow pool. The cause of death was ruled to be accidental drowning, with "acute ethanol intoxication."

Beautifully lensed by Green's career cinematographer, Tim Orr, "Joe" is filled with such nonprofessional actors, and their presence gives the film much of its authenticity. Perhaps aware that only by playing it cool could he compete with these natural eccentrics, Cage eschews the wild-eyed weirdness that has been his M.O. -- for better ("Bad Lieutenant: New Orleans") or worse ("Ghost Rider") -- in his recent and often unworthy commercial projects; he's powerful yet amusing as a man slowly coming to embrace the possibility of being a role model and surrogate father for the needy Gary. "What keeps me alive is restraint," Joe comments, and perhaps Cage should adopt that motto for at least a couple more movies.

Whether the lead character is Jed Clampett or Ed Gein, the line that separates the comic from the tragic and the real from the risible In movies and television shows about Southern or rural lowlifes, deadbeats, hillbillies, lummoxes, rubes and psychos is easily erased -- and perhaps that's as it should be, because anyone familiar with the South knows the region resists caricature by virtue of its eccentricity. Born in Little Rock and film-schooled (is that a verb?) in North Carolina, Green is aware of this, so he doesn't mind spiking violence with comedy and vice versa, whether he's directing Nicolas Cage in "Joe" or Jonah Hill in "The Sitter." I'm partial from the get-go to movies like "Joe," and this time, I felt my partiality was rewarded.

Gender-sensitive viewers may not be so accepting. As is often the case with such genre exercises by male creators, the women here are pretty much interchangeable or superfluous, as demonstrated by the on-and-off presence of Adriene Mishler as Joe's sort-of girlfriend, who is less important -- both to Joe and to "Joe" -- than the rescue guard dog that Joe keeps under the porch.

Joe | Film Review | Tiny Mix Tapes Neurotic Monkey

Slant Magazine [David Lee Dallas]

Nicolas Cage's Joe Lays Bare a Culture's Collapse Amy Nicholson from The Village Voice

Edelstein: The Nicolas Cage You Used to Like Is Back in Joe David Edelstein from Vulture

Joe / The Dissolve Nathan Rabin

Venice Review: David Gordon Green's 'Joe ... - Indiewire Blogs Oliver Lyttelton from The Playlist

David Gordon Green - The Playlist | Indiewire - Blogs succession of articles from The Playlist

The Lost, Unmade & Abandoned Projects Of Director David Gordon Green Rodrigo Perez from The Playlist, April 14, 2014

PopMatters [Jesse Hassenger]

1NFLUX Magazine [Steve Pulaski]

Review: Nicolas Cage finds no Southern comfort in ... - HitFix Guy Lodge

[TIFF Review] Joe - The Film Stage Jared Mobarak

'Joe' Is a Comeback For Both Nicolas Cage and David Gordon Green Eric Kohn from indieWIRE

Movie Mezzanine [Noah Gittell]

The QNetwork [James Kendrick]

Slant Magazine Blu-ray [Chuck Bowen]

DVD Talk - Blu-ray [Thomas Spurlin]

DVD Verdict (Blu-ray) [Michael Nazarewycz]

Blu-ray.com [Jeffrey Kauffman]

Shared Darkness: Joe Brent Simon

SBS Movies [Eddie Cockrell]

Next Projection Julian Wright

Joe vs. Nicolas Cage's “shtick” / The Dissolve Mike D’Angelo, April 22, 2014

JOE Silences A Million Nicolas Cage Jokes - Badass Digest Evan Saathoff

EFilmCritic [Jay Seaver]

Culture Fix [Andrew McArthur]

Qwipster.net [Vince Leo]

TIFF 2013 Review: JOE Paints a Searing Portrait of ... - Twitch Ryland Aldrich

EyeForFilm.co.uk [Richard Mowe]

Joe | Reviews | Grolsch Film Works Ashley Clark

Ashley Clark Filmmaker magazine blog

Daily | Venice + Toronto 2013 | David Gordon Green's JOE ... - Fandor David Hudson from Fandor

David Gordon Green Narrates a Scene From 'Joe ... - ArtsBea interview with the director from The New York Times, April 10, 2014

David Gordon Green Talks ‘Joe’ & Reveals How He Convinced Nicolas Cage To Star In His Dark, Tiny Indie Drama Rodrigo Perez interview from The Playlist, April 10, 2014

Interview: David Gordon Green & Nicolas Cage Talk Flawed Father Figures Of ‘Joe,’ Evading Southern Clichés & More Charlie Schmidlin interviews both Green and Cage from The Playlist, April 9, 2014

Joe: Venice Review - The Hollywood Reporter David Rooney

'Joe' Review: Nicolas Cage Stars in David Gordon Green's ... Justin Chang from Variety, also seen here: Variety [Justin Chang]

Xan Brooks from The Guardian

Punch Drunk Critics [Travis Hopson]

The House Next Door [Elise Nakhnikian]

Nicolas Cage in fine, gritty form as a hard-living 'Joe' - Los ... Betsy Sharkey from The LA Times

Joe Movie Review & Film Summary (2014) | Roger Ebert Peter Sobczynski

Nicolas Cage Stars in 'Joe' - NYTimes.com Stephen Holden

MANGLEHORN B 84

USA (97 mi) 2014 ‘Scope

David Gordon Green continues to confound, even at this stage of his career, where he’s no longer the young indie filmmaker that made visually spectacular films about relationships and growing up, like George Washington (2000), or his big budget stoner comedies, like The Sitter (2011), while the new phase he’s entered into includes working with name actors, such as Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch in Prince Avalanche (2013) and Nicolas Cage in Joe (2013). It’s highly unusual, to say the least, to finally see an actor of Al Pacino’s stature to be working with the heralded indie director, and Holly Hunter as well, where the viewer simply hasn’t a clue what to expect. What is indisputable, however, is that Green is one of the best directors of his generation, where he was one of the first, with many following afterwards, to come from the North Carolina School of the Arts Film School, which has also produced Green’s cinematographer Tim Orr, actors Danny McBride and Paul Schneider, but also new indie filmmakers Jeff Nichols and Aaron Katz. Refusing to be pigeonholed, this film feels like a spectacular failure, as it strives to be unlikeable and commercially off the edge, where he’s not going out of his way to build a new audience. But what it has is an uncompromising spirit, where Pacino isn’t simply some lovable old man with a cat, like the popular Art Carney in Paul Mazursky’s life-affirming HARRY AND TONTO (1974), where Carney won the Academy Award for Best Actor in the same year Al Pacino was nominated for THE GODFATHER II (1974). Instead this film has the balls to deviate from standard practice and allow Pacino to play a despicable and thoroughly deplorable human being. While it’s likely this was the criteria that drew him to the role in the first place, as it’s the exact opposite of what leading men are used to playing. At age 75, the general feeling is that Pacino can do whatever the hell he wants to do at this stage in his career, as he’s free to choose the material that interests him the most. Still, it may come as something of a surprise just how detestable and loathsome he really is in this role, where the audience has to put up with him in nearly every frame of the film. To put it bluntly, this is not an easy experience. Yet that’s the unwelcoming quality both Green and Pacino bring to this film. Accordingly, it speaks volumes about the recalcitrance of old age.

First and foremost is the voice, where Pacino’s gravelly, world-weary voice narrates the entire film, much of it dictated letters written to a long lost love named Clara, who it appears was the love of his life―not the woman he married, we learn much later, but the one that got away, who in his mind has been built up to be so much more than she ever was in real life. In short, she has become an obsession that he can’t control, as he measures everything else that happens in the world next to his image of her, where nothing even comes close. Accordingly, his life is a series of neverending disappointments, with occasional moments when things aren’t so bad, but what follows is a flood of disillusionment with the way of the world. A.J. Manglehorn (Pacino) is a lone locksmith by trade, burrowed into that hole of an office where he works and barely ever speaks to anyone, preferring a life of solitude where he continually chatters away to his cat, or the friendly bank clerk Dawn (Holly Hunter), who he waits to be serviced by, where for two or three minutes they’re like long-lost friends as he deposits his weekly earnings, doing it all over again the next week at the exact same place and time. To say he is a creature of habit is an understatement, as at his age, he comes to rely upon the safety and normalcy of routine. You might even say it’s what keeps him alive, as that’s all he has to look forward to. Without it he’d be lost. What immediately stands out is what a cranky old bastard he is, bitter and difficult most of the time, where he seems to thrive on giving people a hard time. But really, he’s simply not used to other people’s company as he spends so much time alone where he experiences a tortuous relationship with the past. Reliving the failures of one’s life and always reaching the same dead end is not very inspiring, as it leaves him emotionally deflated and disgusted with himself, where he’s in no mood to please others, as he’s so self-absorbed in his own pathetic misery.

His composed letters to Clara are the only moments of optimism and joy, where thinking of her gets his mind right, as the world looks different somehow, filled with color instead of looking dreary and gray, and not so cluttered with meaningless material. As we hear the umpteenth letter that he composes to her, we can’t even imagine the profound depth of misery and loneliness that accompanies every carefully chosen word. He gets up the nerve to actually ask Dawn out on a date, which touches a piece of his memory that he hasn’t used in a while, where it’s a bit out of character, but their conversations are extended by several innocent meetings at a local community center serving all-you-can-eat pancakes. While it’s clear she’s looking forward to it, perhaps she comes on a bit too strong, even though they’re meeting in a mostly empty, nondescript cafeteria. Not at all on the same page, Manglehorn instead launches into a lengthy soliloquy on Clara, like releasing the fogbanks of his own personal obsessions, showing no regard for his guest, which Dawn finds rude and ill-mannered, eventually leaving in stunned anger. Manglehorn’s response is to take the uneaten food off her plate and add it to his own meal. While he’s normally cranky and disgruntled, he usually reserves his surly nature for when he’s alone. Throughout the film we see evidence of weird and inhospitable moments with his own wealthy but estranged son (Chris Messina), who he barely knows, or a somewhat demented turn from Harmony Korine as Gary, who runs a seedy massage parlor but remembers Manglehorn fondly as the coach of his Little League baseball team, apparently one of the few good guys in his overly troubled childhood. No moment is stranger than a surrealistic multi-car accident that borders on a tribute to Godard’s WEEKEND (1967), where bodies are lying inertly on the ground or hanging out of doors, as doctors have not yet arrived on the scene, but instead of blood there are crushed watermelons strewn around everywhere, where the color red saturates the bizarre landscape. The scene is even more impactful by the way it is shot, as Green uses slow-motion to allow observing detail as Manglehorn walks past the carnage, with the muffled sound altered as well, all the while holding onto his prized cat, perhaps his only real friend in the world. That horrible collision may as well be a metaphor for his life, a series of neverending accidents all strung out together. But the film is not entirely downbeat, as there is room for one of the more unforgettable scenes of the year, as even Al Pacino is upstaged by a heavyset black man (Tim Curry) entering the bank holding a bouquet of yellow flowers, breaking out into song, singing at the top of his voice, where out of the blue one of the black female managers (Monica Lewis) comes out from the back and joins him in singing the gospel hymn “Love Lifted Me,” Love Lifted Me - Hezeklah Walker & The Love ... - YouTube (5:11), where their offbeat duet may be one of the better staged love scenes of the year, the kind of moment where everyone else just stops to appreciate the novelty of the unraveling event. It’s a strange and crazy moment in an otherwise dismal journey into the lonely abyss of old age, where Manglehorn is a man that seriously spends entirely too much time with himself, but it’s a brave glimpse into being alone, that dark empty corridor where we are all heading some day.

Al Pacino Is Sad in David Gordon Green's Lovely, Tiresome ... Sherilyn Connelly from The Village Voice

An old man working alone in a dusty shop is always a sign of emotional malaise and a tortured relationship with the past, be it Rod Steiger in The Pawnbroker or Al Pacino in David Gordon Green's Manglehorn.

A.J. Manglehorn (Pacino) is an antisocial locksmith whose best friend is his cat (which is a perfectly healthy state of affairs, for the record) and who constantly writes letters to long-lost love Clara. A budding romance with bank clerk Dawn (Holly Hunter) is threatened by Manglehorn's inability to move beyond Clara's memory, and his own difficulty in relating to other humans in general, including his wealthy yet estranged son Jacob (Chris Messina).

As is to be expected from Green in his pensive mode, there are lovely images in Manglehorn, including a long, Crash-worthy shot of a watermelon-truck accident, some moments of avant-garde editing and sound design, and a light dusting of magical realism, particularly in the final shot.

But Manglehorn is also the latest entry into the tiresome Sad Man Learning to Love Again genre. A movie is always better with Holly Hunter in it, but the fact that she's eighteen years younger than Pacino goes to show that even quirky indie films aren't immune to Hollywood's pervasive ageism toward women.

In David Gordon Green's Manglehorn, Al Pacino turns in his third performance of the last year as a man in the grips of a post-midlife crisis. This time he's Angelo Manglehorn, a locksmith whose obsession with a lost love is preventing him from fully inhabiting his own life. Dreamily kind for the most part, but given to fits of furniture-hurling rage and truth-telling so blunt it borders on sadism, Manglehorn drifts through his own life, observing the often quirky people around him as if from a great, sad distance. In one emblematic scene, he happens upon a multiple-car pileup and strides down the line of automobiles as the slow-motion, blurred sound, and the bright red watermelon guts strewn over the cars (one of the vehicles was carrying a load of melons) give the whole thing a surrealistic vibe. His house looks depressed too: dimly lit and all dark, metallic colors, even the wood paneling tinted a faint, sickly green. His only hope of connection with another living being, aside from his beloved cat, appears to be Dawn (Holly Hunter), a demure bank teller with whom he plays out a painfully awkward, lurching courtship.

Manglehorn is too talky by half, especially when two or even three scenes are superimposed on one another, their soundtracks running simultaneously to create a largely incomprehensible wall of sound. The loosely structured, episodic narrative truncates the story of the man's estranged son, Jacob (Chris Messina), and gives too much screen time to a petty operator played by Harmony Korine, who brings little more to the part than a jittery, motor-mouth energy, and the touches of magic realism feel out of place. But Pacino and Hunter's sheer talent and charisma cut through much of the fog as they radiate a powerful sense of frustration and longing, Pacino in basset-hound hangdog mode for most of the film as Hunter movingly plays against type.

Manglehorn Can't Match Al Pacino's Performance -- Vulture Bilge Ebiri

David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn is a character study that starts off pretending to be something else — though I can’t say for sure what that something else is. The character in question is a sad-sack Texas locksmith, played by Al Pacino. He’s got a commodities trader son (Chris Messina) and an ex-wife he claims he never loved. He’s got a granddaughter he adores. He’s got a pimp pal (Harmony Korine!) in a porkpie hat, eager for his business. He’s got a sick, constipated cat, whom he cares for greatly. He’s got a lovely bank teller friend (Holly Hunter) with whom he could pursue something more — but he seems curiously oblivious to her charms. There are many doors, it seems, that he could open and walk through to a better, more fulfilling life. But no. That van he drives around, emblazoned with the words “Manglehorn Lock & Key,” is more than a vehicle — it’s a symbol for the state of his heart.

What Manglehorn does do is spend much of his time writing flowery letters to a long-lost love named Clara. He’s been writing them for years, filling them with painfully romantic pronouncements: “You could’ve saved the world with those eyes. You could’ve stopped evil in its tracks.” And: “You remember how you used to whisper about the future to me, right before we’d fall asleep?” And: “The only thing I want to do anymore is love you. Even hearing those words makes my heart pound.” The letters come back stamped “Return to Sender,” and every day Manglehorn goes to his mailbox, which has a beehive growing right under it (more symbols!), and picks up his daily dose of rejection.

In his very first films, David Gordon Green distinguished himself as the rare Terrence Malick protégé with his own aesthetic and vision: Films like George Washington, All the Real Girls, and The Undertow combined a youthful verve and playfulness with Malick’s ethereal Americana. That feels like ancient history now: The prolific Green has since carved out a surprisingly diverse body of work, with improv pop comedies like Pineapple Express, sturdy adaptations like Snow Angels, and wonderfully evocative doodles like last year’s Prince Avalanche. Yet I can’t help but feel Malick’s influence in Manglehorn’s florid, almost embarrassingly personal letters — in the way they open up the raw, childlike emotions stirring within. But the way Pacino reads the letters is anything but childlike. In voice-over, he speaks in a broken murmur, the voice not of a man in love, but of one drowning in regret.

Manglehorn drifts around a bit before getting to what seems like the heart of the matter — the protagonist’s inability to connect with the world because of the way he’s locked things away inside. He can’t get over Clara, or this idealized vision of Clara he’s created in his head. And as touching as Pacino is here, the film doesn’t truly come alive until Hunter fully enters the picture. A belated, uncomfortable date between the two of them is the high point, both because it features two of our finest actors getting to play off one another, but also because it locks the film and its themes into focus.

Green clearly wants to break free of the typical molds of telling these stories. He experiments stylistically now and then with slow motion, flash-forwards, and elliptical cutting, and you can sense his frustration, his desire to impose some personality over this small slice of life. At the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder if Manglehorn might have been more affecting — leaner, sharper, better able to draw us into its small-scale world — if Green had dispensed with the formal playfulness. There’s a powerful austerity to Manglehorn the man’s tale that Manglehorn the film itself — well acted and touching though it often is — doesn’t quite match.

Deep Focus: Manglehorn | Film Comment Michael Sragow

When an actor in his early prime rights himself from a tailspin, tastemakers are quick to embrace him as a comeback kid and then “brand” the phenomenon. Ben Affleck suddenly became “a Renaissance man” for directing Gone Baby Gone and Argo. Matthew McConaughey, after Mud, Magic Mike, and Dallas Buyers Club, enjoyed his “McConaissance.” When one of acting’s elder statesmen begins to get not just a second or third but a fourth or fifth wind, his resurgence fails to rouse the same excitement. Robert Redford carried All Is Lost on his back, but he was not nominated the year McConaughey won his Oscar. Redford was also marvelous in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as he’d been a few years before, in An Unfinished Life as well as his voice role for Charlotte’s Web. Without a journalistic nickname or a social-media bandwagon, or some startling change in image that would put a new face on his artistic revival, Redford didn’t receive his proper due.

So let me start an “Al-lelujah” chorus for the intelligence and élan of another elder statesman, Al Pacino, who has played a trio of burnt-out cases in a string of micro- to low-budget films, and has made each of them unique and revelatory. In Barry Levinson’s The Humbling, Dan Fogelman’s Danny Collins, and David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn, he’s as inventive, unsentimental, and inspiring as he was in the first two Godfathers or Dog Day Afternoon. I’ve already praised The Humbling as an original work of art; I found Danny Collins a warm and ebullient entertainment (its Blu-ray and DVD hits stores on June 30); and Manglehorn is an exasperating, sometimes touching mood piece. Together they comprise a portrait of the artist as an aging man.

In The Humbling, Pacino is a tragicomic stunner as a pro who has lost his vital spark. Pacino has never unveiled more of his vision of what an actor gives to his roles than he does as Simon Axler, an acclaimed classical performer whose extinct gift for interpreting Shakespeare or Chekhov or O’Neill was his only existential anchor. In Danny Collins, Pacino is improbably entertaining as a glitzy pop-rock star—blending (Fogelman has said) “Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, and Rod Stewart.” The movie’s conceit is that Collins was once an artist and could have stayed one if he’d received an encouraging letter John Lennon wrote and sent to him care of an interviewer. Once he does get it, 40 years later, Collins starts writing his own songs again and repairing personal rifts.

In Manglehorn, Pacino is at his most idiosyncratic and audacious in the role of an everyday artisan who should have been an artist. A.J. Manglehorn, the title character, nurses a raging passion for Clara, his long-lost love, but he can’t express it in his chosen craft and spot—locksmith in a small Texas town. All he can do is write fervid, hyperbolic love letters, telling Clara, for example, that her eyes alone could save the world and stop the devil in his tracks. He doesn’t have an address for her. His mail goes out to post offices around the country and gets stamped “returned to sender.” In one of the movie’s many failed lyric flights, a beehive buzzes under Manglehorn’s mailbox; whenever he opens it, he risks being stung. You wonder why the mailman, let alone Manglehorn, would put up with it. Green and screenwriter Paul Logan pile on other symbolic or would-be magical flourishes involving mimes, balloons, backwoods break-dancers, wrecked cars, and splattered watermelon. Green’s subjective and impressionistic editing, shooting, and sound are annoyingly fancy and determinedly gritty at the very same time.

Still, Pacino makes Manglehorn’s anguish palpably real. The movie manages to be arresting when Green just lets his star rip with actors playing characters who try to lift Manglehorn up or tear him down. Manglehorn and his almost estranged son Jacob (Chris Messina) have mastered the art of wounding each other as they talk right past each other. Manglehorn, you see, coached his son in Little League. Decades later Jacob seethes over the attention his dad paid to the team’s star, Gary (Harmony Korine), though Jacob is now a rich investment manager and Gary owns a tanning salon that’s really a massage parlor. Gary is as pushy and jittery as Manglehorn is reticent. Their acquaintanceship is a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Manglehorn’s devotion to his cat sparks some genial badinage with a bank teller named Dawn (Holly Hunter), who dotes just as much on her dog. Pacino puts across Manglehorn’s furtive hunger to connect with Dawn though he fears it will disrupt his nonstop fantasizing about Clara. Sunny and sensitive, Hunter’s Dawn is like a miniature American version of Sally Hawkins’s Poppy in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky. During a nightmare dinner scene, she conjures an extraordinary quality—a wounded sort of wistfulness. When Manglehorn starts singing Clara’s praises, Dawn realizes that her date can’t budge from his romantic obsession with another woman. The dialogue sounds like free association—Manglehorn says Clara could talk about anything, from Vesalius to Isaac Newton and Tina Turner, and presumably to Ike Turner, Albert Einstein, or Einstein Bros. Bagels. But the actors’ power transcends all the arbitrary talk. Nobody has played genuine solipsism and clueless bonhomie better than Pacino does here, and Hunter’s stripped-wire responses make Dawn’s mortification cut through his verbal haze, at least for the audience. After she gets up and leaves in a tough, heartrending moment, Manglehorn digs with his fingers into the food on her plate.

As Manglehorn, Pacino ruthlessly depicts the mania and denial that go into the makeup of a “hopeless romantic.” I wish Green and Logan didn’t surround his portrayal with so many flossy touches, including the delayed disclosure of a secret behind a door (it’s more soap-opera cliché than Gothic horror). Manglehorn’s emergence from an absurdly long arrested adolescence is rarely as satisfying as Axler’s blurring of theater and life or Collins’s late-life renewal of conscience. Pacino makes it fascinating nonetheless, and that’s partly because all three movies can be seen as a continuum.

Unlike the days when Pacino could go from sleek, self-contained Michael Corleone to the physically and emotionally disheveled Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon, Pacino is now the least chameleon-like of great actors. What makes him unique is his fusion of old-fashioned “star” performing with the intimate emotional investment of a modern creative force. His slouched, forward-tilting profile doesn’t change from picture to picture. His way of delivering dialogue—either chewing words over with fraught deliberation, or abruptly hurling them out—has become as distinctive as Christopher Walken’s witty reverse emphases. His increasingly hoarse, smoky vocal quality tends to swamp whatever accent he adopts for a particular film. A.J. Manglehorn says he lived in Texas for 40 years but originally came from somewhere “North”; what audiences will mostly hear is part South, part South Bronx.

Yet because of Pacino’s ultra-specific and soulful acting, you could never mistake the characters in these three movies for one another. Unlike Manglehorn, Axler, for most of The Humbling, gives off an aura of awareness, even when he’s drowning in angst. He can be terrifically observant of others, and ruthlessly analytic about himself. What’s tragicomical about his plight is that all he has are his acting tools to make sense of a chaotic life. When he becomes blind to his lover’s true feelings and delusional about her actions, you know his time is running out.

Review: Slow-burn drama Manglehorn gives Al ... - HitFix Catherine Bray

David Gordon Green's 'Manglehorn' - Indiewire Jessica Kiang

Manglehorn :: Movies :: Reviews :: Paste Tim Grierson

Slant Magazine [Chuck Bowen]

SXSW Film Review: Manglehorn | Consequence of Sound Michael Roffman

Manglehorn / The Dissolve Keith Phipps

Review: Al Pacino really acts again, but deserves better ... Mike D’Angelo from The Onion A.V. Club

Film Racket [Jason McKiernan]

Film-Forward.com [Caroline Ely]

Movie Review: "Manglehorn" | Movie Mezzanine Mallory Andrews

FilmFracture [James Jay Edwards]

Sound On Sight (Ty Landis)

The Film Stage [Tommaso Tocci]

Sound On Sight [Justine Smith]

Cinemalogue (Todd Jorgenson)

The House Next Door [Tomas Hachard]

MANGLEHORN | siskelfilmcenter.org Marty Rubin

David Gordon Green's MANGLEHORN - Fandor David Hudson

TwitchFilm [Chase Whale] Interview with th director, March 2015

BULLETT [Michael-Oliver Harding] Interview with Harmony Korine, September 13, 2014

'Manglehorn': Film Review - The Hollywood Reporter David Rooney

Venice Film Review: 'Manglehorn' - Variety Peter Debruge

Manglehorn review - The Guardian Xan Brooks

Al Pacino and Holly Hunter unlock the tenderness of ... Michael Rechtshaffen from The LA Times

Manglehorn - Roger Ebert Brian Tallerico

Review: 'Manglehorn' Stars Al Pacino as an Aging ... Nicolas Rapold from The New York Times

OUR BRAND IS CRISIS B 88

USA (107 mi) 2015 Official Movie Site

David Gordon Green uses Sandra Bullock in the social activist, Julia Roberts Best Actress role from ERIN BROCKOVICH (2000), transported to the mean streets of La Paz, Bolivia in this clever fictionalized remake of Rachel Boynton’s 2005 documentary film by the same name, where Bullock actually assumes the role of real-life Clinton political strategist James Carville who was improbably hired to resuscitate the flailing campaign of one of the political candidates in the 2002 Bolivian presidential election. Brought out of retirement by an old friend Nell (Ann Dowd), who’s certain she’s the right person for the job, though she’s been living in near seclusion, “Calamity” Jane Bodine (Sandra Bullock) seems to have lost touch with the human race, initially showing no interest whatsoever in getting her feet back into the fire of another political campaign, then doing a complete reversal after discovering the opposition candidate, currently running away in the polls, is being managed by her professional nemesis Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton), a master of the dirty tricks campaign. With that she tosses her hat into the ring, making a dubious arrival on her lengthy flight into the mountainous region of La Paz, stumbling down the stairs off the plane, immediately suffering from altitude sickness, surrounded on all sides by mountains, where the city elevation varies from 10,500 to 13,500 feet. Something of a medical wreck for the first couple of days, she belongs in the infirmary, barely able to stand, much less run a campaign, keeping a low profile in order to observe just how objectionable and dysfunctional her candidate really is. A former President, Pedro Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida) is behind in all the polls as he was literally loathed and despised when he “served” in office earlier, viewed as aloof and uncharismatic, developing a tin ear when it comes to listening or responding to the needs of others, but is known for being his own man, stubbornly set in his ways, wealthy and aristocratic, where money appears to be no object, which explains how Jane was literally plucked out of obscurity.

Just when you think this film is going nowhere, as you quickly tire of Bullock’s continual sick gags, a return to the physical comedy of the silent era where she barely utters a word, all it takes is the slimy appearance of a snake-like Candy himself to get everyone’s blood boiling, as he’s a slick marketeer, where his lovable ads cover up the fact that he’s a completely unscrupulous human being that may as well be the devil incarnate, as the guy loves political trash talking, getting in your face and personal, all done with the arrogance and southern charm of moral duplicity, where he’d sell out his own mother in a nanosecond. What’s perhaps most astonishing is that Jane has little regard for actual Bolivian politics herself and makes no attempt whatsoever to learn, running a campaign where it’s never about “issues,” but instead resorts to an all-out frontal assault, waging a war generating tabloid-style headlines, where winning is the only object. When it becomes clear her candidate simply doesn’t have the charisma needed to win, she resorts to denigrating the other guys in the race, starting salacious rumors, planting false stories on TV and in the newspapers, effectively placing the other candidates on the defensive. While much of this is played for laughs, as the degree of comic absurdity is remarkably clever, even for the lowest of gutter politics, but there’s also an underlying level of decency playing out throughout as well, as represented by Anthonie Mackie as Ben, one of the American consultants who is something of a straight shooter, providing an unshakable moral center throughout, but most significantly personified by a local kid named Eduardo (Reynaldo Pacheco), a decent guy and a true believer, even if he comes across with the innocence and naïveté of Daily Planet photographer and would-be cub reporter Jimmy Olsen. Eduardo’s claim to fame is a photograph taken when he was a baby being held in the arms of President Castillo, symbolic for depicting Castillo as the father of the nation, making Eddie a steadfast supporter for life, though his views sadly change on Castillo’s first day in office. While the film attempts to show democracy in action, with behind-the-scenes meetings, making use of polls and support groups, developing a candidate’s image in one breath while tarnishing the opposition in the next, going on the road for multiple campaign stops where literally anything can happen, the film is more obsessed by the cynical shenanigans of professional smear artists, the ones who willingly start false rumors or make outrageous accusations, at least planting the seed of doubt in the minds of the voters.

Of particular interest, there are repeated images of seemingly spontaneous grass roots demonstrations on the street drawing swelling crowds, beautifully captured by Green’s longtime cinematographer Tim Orr, as well as campaign visits to the more remote hinterlands, where Green’s eye for detail is remarkable. The insight into the cultural diversity of this tiny nation is utterly captivating, though the film is mostly a comic portrayal of imported arrogance and betrayal, leaving behind a real-life horror show, where Castillo is based upon the exploits of Sánchez de Lozada who was twice elected President of Bolivia, spending his childhood years receiving an education in the United States, studying literature and philosophy at the University of Chicago, resulting in the fact he never developed a natural Spanish accent, leading many Bolivians to refer to him as El Gringo. While the back and forth chemistry between Billy Bob Thornton and Sandra Bullock leads to hilarious overkill, amusingly rising to the level of contemptuous and personally hateful, the poison interjected into Bolivian politics is no joke considering the backwardness and poverty levels in Bolivia, which was the second poorest nation in the hemisphere after Haiti prior to World War II, though there is enormous mineral wealth almost exclusively mined by outside colonial interests prior to the nationalization of the industry following the 1952 revolution, where there were 14 coups d’états in the 20th century alone, with only China, Greece, Haiti, and Thailand with more throughout their entire histories. Still to this day, 8% of landowners own more than 95% of the farmable land, or put in another way, 615 landowners own more than half the farmable land in the country, while hundreds and thousands of peasants are forced to serve them for little or no pay. Nearly two-thirds of the population are indigenous people, the largest of any Latin American nation, where more than 90% of them are illiterate, while 80% speak no language other than their own, which means they can’t understand the official governmental language of Spanish. While this is a unique demographic, to say the least, especially the incomprehensible and mostly illiterate rural vote (described at one point where winning them over would be like an American candidate having to sway 200 million Apaches), the cynicism asserted by the American politicos reduces legitimate social concerns to a Wild West shootout, winner take all, where the sad fact of the matter is the winner is no more experienced, trustworthy, or driven to promote healthy social changes than the guy they’re kicking out, as the election campaign doesn’t produce political messages or ideas but is all about mudslinging and annihilating the opposition’s credibility. Ironically, the “loser” of this election, populist candidate Evo Morales, is currently the sitting President of the nation elected four years later in 2006. Talk about long term consequences — a year after winning the 2002 election de Lozada resigned and fled back to America after being chased from office after a reported massacre by armed Bolivian troops at a public demonstration over the Bolivian gas conflict, where strikes and roadblocks brought the nation to a standstill, resulting in 67 deaths, largely protesters and bystanders, but also some soldiers and policemen, where de Lozada’s extradition request to stand trial in Bolivia is still under appeal more than a decade later.

Our Brand is Crisis (2016), directed by David Gordon Green ... - Time Out Joshua Rothkopf

Behind shades and a seen-it-all attitude, Sandra Bullock glints like a black diamond in a movie than could have been tougher

Several different Sandra Bullocks come out to play in this generous showcase for her range: the steely-eyed survivor of 'Gravity', the underrated slapstick clown of 'Miss Congeniality', the action warrior of 'Speed'. 'Our Brand Is Crisis' is a nasty political comedy in the vein of HBO’s 'Veep', and Bullock is Jane Bodine, a burned-out campaign manager drawn out of retirement to skew a Bolivian presidential election. Here she tries on a weary cynicism that plays tartly against Billy Bob Thornton’s horny competing strategist, resulting in a toxic flirtation that you wish the whole film were about.

It’s not: earnestness and crushed idealism dilute the cocktail, perhaps a result of the forward sense of lefty outrage that co-producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov have made a stock in trade in movies like 'Argo'. Based on a much sharper 2005 documentary by Rachel Boynton, 'Our Brand Is Crisis' scores points for preserving the essence of its unworthy real-life candidate, a philandering fat cat and former head of state here called Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida), from Bolivia’s actual Gonzalo 'Goni' Sánchez de Lozada. (Castillo is a guy who watches his election results in a bathtub with a flute of champagne.) Languishing in the polls and facing a serious deficiency of character and leadership, Bullock’s Jane issues the order to go negative, commanding all staffers to amp up the national anxiety.

The duelling dirty tricks zing half the time (one winner has Thornton’s slimeball stealing a piece of Jane’s language for his own candidate – it turns out to be a quote from Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels). But subplots involving naive volunteers getting their hearts broken feel like strands from a less ambitious movie. Anyone interested in knowing the victor can find it online, but surely the real Jane (who wasn't even female) didn't wander down the street in a dazed, guilty fug. It feels like a phoney last-act fit of conscience when watching her moon the competition – literally, from a moving vehicle – is so much more fun.

TIFF 2015 | Our Brand is Crisis (David Gordon Green ... - Cinema Scope Steve Macfarlane

A fictionalized, present-day reimagining of Rachel Boynton’s terrific 2005 documentary of same name, Our Brand is Crisis would have an uphill battle on its hands even if it were a masterpiece, which it most certainly is not. David Gordon Green’s latest is instead a pleasant enough if decidedly un-hip studio diversion starring Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton as sociopathic American electioneers who find themselves at loggerheads over a Bolivian presidential race. It’s in keeping with Boynton’s original that the narrative centres less on Bolivian politics and more on gringo strategists; Bullock plays “Calamity” Jane Bodine (a synthetic concoction by screenwriter Peter Straughan), called in for One Last Job to refurbish the destitute campaign of former right-wing president Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida, who incidentally played Bolivian president Rene Barrientos in Steven Soderbergh’s Che [2008]). Thornton’s Pat Candy is a thinly veiled version of diehard Clinton campaign manager James Carville, who is prominent in Boynton’s film but was made most famous in the documentary The War Room (1993).

Beltway snake oil is the order of the day, then, and for a workplace comedy about career politicos, Crisis does a far nimbler job than expected avoiding both over-reductiveness and over-exposition. Initially, it’s a breezy comedy about Bodine’s gawky re-entry into the spin cycle; then it’s an absurdist travelogue of Bolivia via the warring campaigns, whereby Castillo’s gruff anti-electability makes him a lovable dark horse for the audience, even while his attitudes towards the actual electorate look worse and worse. The realization that Crisis is asking its viewers to root for the bad guys gives way to a pleasant tonal schizophrenia on Green’s part as Bodine and her fellow operators get sucked into the campaign vortex, but it never gets truly dangerous—liberal-friendly bromides are never far off, like when Castillo adviser Ben (Anthony Mackie) offhandedly tells a staffer that “Sometimes a leader has to do what’s right for their country, whether the people want it or not.”

Inevitably, the high human toll of Candy and Bodine’s hired-gun cynicism rears its ugly head, and Our Brand is Crisis turns downright pedantic. Whether these anti-heroes believe their own bullshit is well beside the point, as they’re committed at least until the job is finished, but in the film’s painfully rushed final act Jane begins to realize the consequences of her power moves, capping Crisis with a painfully forced message-picture catharsis that represents way too much reality, too late. Actual Bolivian history (including the 2006 election of Evo Morales, Latin America’s first indigenous president) might as well not exist for Crisis’ interminably syrupy coda. In her rude awakening, Jane comes to resemble a protagonist more “relatable” and (albeit by accident) more pernicious: the do-gooder expat, tromping around the Global South looking to make a difference. Until then, Our Brand is Crisis is as good as a Hollywood film about private-contract electioneering in Bolivia could possibly be—and perhaps better.

First-look review: David Gordon Green's Our Brand Is Crisis (2015) - BFI Ashley Clark from Sight and Sound, September 13, 2015

At this point in the prolific directorial career of 40-year-old Texan David Gordon Green, it’s something of a fool’s errand to attempt to impose a sense of order on his output, such is its thematic and tonal diversity. His early dramas (George Washington, All The Real Girls, Undertow) were united by a lyrical earthiness, which was unexpectedly replaced by raucous, scatological comedy (Pineapple Express, Your Highness, The Sitter).

There followed lightly surreal studies of emotionally weak men failing to perform socially-encoded roles of masculinity (Prince Avalanche, Joe, TV’s Eastbound & Down, Manglehorn), and now comes something completely different: an antic political comedy/drama, Our Brand Is Crisis, written by Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), and based on Rachel Boynton’s 2006 documentary of the same name. If there is a thread which connects Green’s work, it’s the compassion that he tends to afford his characters, however dubious their behaviour. This makes the campaign management milieu of Our Brand Is Crisis – painted by Straughan as a soulless, cynical landscape of slick machinations and puppetry – an interesting fit for the director, on paper at least.

A well-cast Sandra Bullock waxes alternately spunky, monstrous and fragile as ‘Calamity’ Jane Bodine, a notoriously spiky, now-retired strategist who begins the film living in self-imposed, solitary seclusion in a log cabin. In a riff on countless crime thrillers, Jane is called upon to perform One Last Job: to run the campaign of an unfancied nationalist candidate, Pedro Gallo (Joaquim de Almeida), in the forthcoming Bolivian elections.

Jane is initially skeptical, but gets fired up again when she discovers that her long-time rival Pat Candy is managing the campaign of Gallo’s main rival. Candy is played by a purse-lipped, whispering Billy Bob Thornton, and he delivers a particularly lascivious performance; his snatched, emotionally-charged scenes with Bullock along the campaign trial are among the film’s sharpest.

In its enjoyable early stages, Our Brand Is Crisis carries an Altman-esque quality (it’s specifically redolent of his satirical 1988 TV miniseries Tanner 88). Jane’s immersion into a new climate unfolds as a frantic tangle of humorous misunderstandings and quick-fire, overlapping dialogue. Bullock has a great knack for physical comedy, and it comes to the fore in scenes where she struggles to adapt to the Bolivian altitude. It’s a shame that the sparky ensemble dynamic between her campaign team isn’t exploited to greater effect. Ann Dowd and (the especially charismatic) Anthony Mackie do particularly fine work with limited screen time as, respectively, the most morally dubious and steadfastly ethical members of Jane’s team.

Sadly, Green’s film devolves into an anonymous mulch with little to offer beyond its central insistence that contemporary politics — here engendered here by the transposition of US slicksters onto Latin American soil — is a den of snakes, and that policies are subordinate to character. Our Brand Is Crisis exists under a shadow cast by better, sharper films and TV shows which paint a similarly grim view of the industry (TV’s Veep and The Thick of It; Pablo Larrain’s No), and this shadow gets longer as this stylistically negligible film muddles on. Jane’s personal story makes for an uneasy parallel with the broader story of Bolivian national politics, which is rendered muddily; almost as an afterthought. There’s also an ill-advised, patronising subplot involving a young Bolivian campaign assistant, which should certainly have been left on the cutting room floor.

As the film limps to a predictable finale, one gets the sense above all else that the chameleonic Green has struggled to impose any sort of personality of his own on proceedings.

Deep Focus: Our Brand Is Crisis - Film Comment Michael Sragow from Film Comment, October 29, 2015

David Gordon Green’s Our Brand Is Crisis satirizes, sloppily, the risk of adapting American politics to other nations and exporting American democracy as a “one kind fits all” form of government, even to underdeveloped countries. The film is based on the Bolivian presidential election of 2002, which exposed the rifts in a republic still struggling to meet its indigenous peoples’ needs after nearly two centuries of independence.

Fictionalizing Rachel Boynton’s jaw-dropping 2005 documentary of the same name, Green and screenwriter Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) strive to catch audiences up in the adrenaline-pumping competition between American political consultants “Calamity Jane” Bodine (Sandra Bullock) and Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton). As they powwow in La Paz for rival candidates, the film means to convey the absurd thrills and chilling consequences of playing politics as blood sport.

Calamity Jane is supposed to be a mercurial, instinctive genius at messaging and spin. She’s the ideal woman to batter sense into the head of a blunt, arrogant candidate—the former president Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida), who failed to deliver on his campaign promises 15 years ago. Castillo’s beliefs in the free market and international trade have raised the hackles of Bolivians who detest foreign investors for exploiting their natural resources and leaving them in poverty. Candy is supposed to function as the grinning Satanic antagonist who has defeated Jane several times before and catalyzes her to up her game. His candidate, Rivera (Louis Arcella), is a self-styled populist with a great head of hair.

The result is less a comic broadside targeting globalization and media politics than a political Punch and Judy show re-imagined for James Carville and Mary Matalin. Thornton has said that Carville’s baldness wasn’t the inspiration for shaving his head to play Candy. But the real-life Castillo—former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, aka Goni—hired the Washington, D.C. firm of Greenberg Carville Shrum to manage his race for a non-consecutive second term. In Boynton’s film, Carville shamelessly uses his fame, clout, and earthy down-home humor to keep Goni happy and to promote the work actually done by other strategists, pollsters, and focus-group experts in his company. In the documentary, there is no race to the finish between two American superstars: only Goni’s campaign hires expensive Yankees. Green’s feature focuses on the fictional Jane-Candy axis rather than on the perilous spectacle of egalitarian Americans supporting an elitist candidate like Castillo.

Though Jane and Candy don’t court and spark like Matalin and Carville, Thornton, with his self-satisfied gleam, and Bullock, with her appealing blend of earnestness and gusto, play off each other wittily. You believe they share the rare emotional intimacy of big-time operators who recognize each other’s wiliness and force. Unfortunately, though, most of the time they act like frat house prank-masters. At the movie’s nadir, Jane prods her campaign bus driver to overtake Candy’s bus on a winding mountain road. She caps this insane race by mooning Candy and his candidate—a crowd-pleasing gesture, to be sure, but one that lacks the heart and invention of memorable lowdown high jinks. Maybe Green was seeking a visual rhyme: Candy’s bare pate matches Jane’s naked ass.

Telling the story mostly from Jane’s often screwy perspective, the filmmakers struggle to generate a wised-up rooting interest and vivid gallows humor comparable to what audiences feel watching newshounds maneuvering for Death Row scoops in His Girl Friday or medical virtuosos outsmarting the bureaucracy in M*A*S*H. To rouse any rueful laughter about professional bravado when the stakes are life or death, the filmmakers must convince us that their characters are super-competent and clicking on all cylinders even when they’re rash or amoral. But Our Brand Is Crisis wastes too much time setting up Jane as a burned-out case who steps back into the fray mainly for a chance to beat her nemesis Candy. The movie stumbles from the get-go, when Jane reacts with dizziness and nausea to the high altitude and thin air of La Paz, prodding Bullock into pratfalls and vomit gags better suited to Miss Congeniality 3 (a movie I hope is never made).

Jane lays her claim to brilliance in one fleeting section. It starts when she witnesses one of Candy’s local operatives cracking an egg on Castillo’s head and Castillo responds by punching the culprit in the face. Jane instructs Castillo to own the moment and refuse to apologize, thus personifying toughness and grit. Castillo’s opponents have touted the fragility of Bolivia’s democracy and economy so they can call for change and fresh direction. Jane urges Castillo to peddle the message that Bolivia faces unprecedented crises and requires battle-hardened leadership. Pressing the political reset button is a shrewd move, but is it really a stroke of inspiration? Jane herself compares her new motto, “our brand is crisis,” to textbook fear tactics. She invokes the “Daisy” commercial that made American voters regard Barry Goldwater as a man with an itchy nuclear trigger-finger.

The rest of her campaign rests on cheap shots, dirty tricks, and cunning. Castillo learns to turn toward the TV camera when he tears up in an interview. Jane uses a photo of Candy’s candidate standing near Klaus Barbie to suggest that he’s a Nazi, and she tells a train conductor to pull the man away from the start of his own whistle-stop tour.

Apart from Bullock and Thornton, the talented American actors don’t get a chance to strut their stuff and they rarely mesh as a team. Jane mostly calls on them for isolated favors and shows of support. Anthony Mackie’s glimmer of soulfulness is wasted on the slapdash role of a campaign organizer who flirted with being a Buddhist monk; Ann Dowd’s electric knowingness goes for naught as an old pro with connections to the State Department. And Scoot McNairy’s straight-faced goofiness fails to ignite the throwaway part of a TV-ad director who has terrible ideas, like depicting Castillo as a savior catching peasants who fall through the clouds. Zoe Kazan is amusing as Jane’s private-eye/opposition researcher, but she’s basically playing a one-joke character: a young woman so devoted to being elusive that she goes by the name “LeBlanc.”

The seams in this ensemble are surprising—after all, just four months ago, with Manglehorn, Green proved he was an ace actors’ director. Then again, Green has become one of American film’s great (or near-great) unpredictables. Almost alarmingly productive, he also produces independent movies (like Great World of Sound) and at least once has written a script for another director’s film (Andrew Neel’s forthcoming Goat). As a director, Green has shifted between poetic, sometimes witty character studies (George Washington, Prince Avalanche) and brash commercial comedies (Pineapple Express; HBO’s Eastbound & Down). He’s an adventurous moviemaker—in Our Brand Is Crisis he even brings a unique visual sense of dislocation to routine drunk scenes. But in search of rough-edged spontaneity, he sometimes lets movies get away from him.

At the turning point of Our Brand Is Crisis, Jane says that instead of forcing their man to fit the campaign’s narrative, she and her team should change the narrative to fit the man. Green too often does the former in Our Brand Is Crisis, especially with the character of Eddie (Reynaldo Pacheco), a young campaign worker from a La Paz slum who serves as an awkward symbolic stand-in for all of Bolivia’s disaffected youth. Eddie volunteers to work for Castillo because his father revered the politician, who did create and expand social services and enfranchise indigenous people in his first term as president. Pacheco and de Almeida share one subtle, piercing scene: Castillo tells Eddie that a president can be a father to his citizens and, like a parent, be strict with them. Eddie is so moved by the invocation of fatherhood that you’re not sure whether he registers Castillo’s ominous paternalism.

Of course, the documentary doesn’t need to invent spokesmen for Bolivian aspiration, because Goni’s main antagonists are not political functionaries but his actual political threats: the center-right populist Manfred Reyes Villa, and the indigenous workers’ champion Evo Morales, who did become president four years later. In the Boynton film’s most devastating irony, the liberals at Greenberg Carville Shrum believe that focus groups empower poor Bolivians by forcing candidates to respond to their needs. But Goni and his advisors don’t venture from their techno-bubble long enough to gauge the fierceness or depth of the voters’ discontent.

Green and Straughan treat the Americans’ myopia as the stuff of political soap opera. They portray Calamity Jane as a woman who ultimately sees through the emptiness of her manipulation politics and abruptly changes her career. It’s the dramatic equivalent of a Hail Mary pass, and not even Bullock can make the catch.

Review: The Lively Comedy Our Brand Is Crisis -- Vulture David Edelstein

US political consultants at their dirty work in Bolivia - World ... Joanne Laurier from The World Socialist Web Site

Brand Echh: Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob ... - Grantland Alex Pappademus

Sandra Bullock Embraces the Political Dark Side - Village ... Amy Nicholson from The Village Voice

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'Our Brand Is Crisis': Film Review - Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy

Toronto Film Review: 'Our Brand Is Crisis' - Variety Peter Debruge

Our Brand Is Crisis review – laboured political satire | Film | The ... Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian

Narcos and Our Brand is Crisis both sell Latin America short ... Noah Berlatsky from The Guardian, November 7, 2015

Our Brand is Crisis review - The Guardian Benjamin Lee

Our Brand Is Crisis review – dirty political dealings in South America ... Mark Kermode from The Observer

Our Brand Is Crisis, film review: Sandra Bullock is ... - The Independent Geoffrey Macnab

Our Brand is Crisis review: 'Sandra Bullock deserves your vote' Tim Robey from The Telegraph

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'Our Brand Is Crisis' a rattling mix of elements - SFGate - San ... Mick LaSalle from The San Francisco Chronicle

Review: 'Our Brand Is Crisis' - Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Why Warner Bros.' misfire 'Our Brand Is Crisis' is so troubling ... Richard Verrier from The LA Times, November 2, 2015

Our Brand Is Crisis (2015 film) - Wikipedia, the free ...

Our Brand Is Crisis Movie Review (2015) | Roger Ebert Glenn Kenny

Review: In 'Our Brand Is Crisis,' the War Room Goes to Bolivia Manohla Dargis from The New York Times

Green, Eugène

THE LIVING WORLD (Le monde vivant)

France Belgium (70 mi) 2003

Jan Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack

Two weeks prior to the screening:

HACK: I'm really excited to get the chance to catch The Living World.

STEVE ERICKSON: Yeah, I'll be interested to know what you think. I didn't like it.

HACK: Why not?

STEVE ERICKSON: Well, it's really cutesy . . . sort of like if Wes Anderson did a Bresson film . . .

HACK: Wow!

STEVE ERICKSON: Yeah, as soon as I said that, I realized that sounded like it would be really good. But it's not.

The day after the screening:

HACK: You're right, Steve. It's not. Part of the trouble is that in addition to his film's overly precious humor (e.g., Nicolas the young ogre-slayer thwarts the ogre's trap of dousing the fighting area with slug-slime, since his mother equipped him with "anti-slime shoes"), Green, to my eyes, completely misunderstands Robert Bresson's approach to cinema. He treats it like a syntax, a way to reduce shots to their basic elements of signification. Why show a whole body when you can focus on his hands, a whole room when you can convey it using only a corner, etc.? But Bresson wasn't merely interested in getting the point across in the most economical way possible, like some sort of filmic equivalent of Hemingway prose. He used unusual close-ups, visual metonymy, and especially his rigorous, poetic editing style to transform the photographed world into a new type of space, with an architectural structure all its own. Green reduces Bresson's procedures to an overall flatness, an uninflected demonstrative mode. A key example of this is his construction of shot / reverse-shots -- alternating four flat frontals, four over-the-shoulders, then four close-ups. The format is almost didactic, and while this would seem to make sense in the context Green is struggling to create (the medieval fairy tale as lesson or exemplar, combined with making the structure of film language transparent to the viewer), the director achieves this gracelessly and to no clear artistic purpose. Green's intellectual purpose, however, could scarcely be clearer. His repeated evocation of the Jules Ferry Laws (when French primary education was made officially secular), his name-check of Lacan, and the second half's non-stop iteration of the magical power of words, speech acts, verbal agreements and the like, serve to promulgate a single idea endlessly, with no evolution or interrogation. That idea, one that Green seems to have borrowed from post-structuralist re-evaluation of medieval philosophy, is that the separation of language from the represented world, its reduction to a deterministic system (like Saussure's langue, the arbitrary relationship of a "signifier" and a "signified"), has purged the world of imagination, religiosity, the magical thinking that allows us to grant words an unseen power. (Lacan is significant here, since his psychoanalysis allows a space for this magical thinking in the unconscious, particularly in that zone of subjectivity paradoxically designated as The Real.) Heady stuff, to be sure, but Green is essentially staging a human puppet show in order to demonstrate his thesis, a conclusion he has arrived at long before the cameras began rolling. What remain missing from The Living World are precisely those elements -- aesthetic discovery, uncertainty and risk -- that would serve to bring Green's imaginary world to life.

THE PORTUGUESE NUN (A Religiosa Portuguesa) B+ 92

Portugal France (127 mi) 2010

This is unconventional filmmaking that by adhering to its own rules and guidelines makes a significant difference by intentionally altering the viewer’s expectations. Mixing a combination of intentional artifice with near documentary realism results in a mixed bag that continually keeps the audience off balance, as the film constantly shifts between the mediums, where the excruciatingly realistic photography of the city of Lisbon by Raphäel O’Byrne is balanced against the unemotional, seemingly wooden dialogue that is right out of a Bresson film, in particular DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST (1951), where the rhythm of small intimate moments is spare and minimalist, with no excess emotion, rarely speaking unless absolutely necessary, using a steady stream of close ups where the actors occasionally stop and look directly into the camera, carefully creating a visual sphere of what it is to be human, recreating mechanical gestures, physical movements, using parts of the body, like hands or feet, all leading to one particular moment in the film, a transcendent moment that is excruciatingly intense, where the core of one's beliefs are challenged and perceptions are shattered. Bresson was less interested in the character than the idea the character represented, which is the intention here as well. While the style appears detached and monotonous, using the stiff formality of Portuguese centenarian Manoel De Oliveira, an icon revered in Portugal who at 101 is the oldest working director, but Green, an American born Parisian, has other intentions, where his use of the camera is positively scintillating, an unseen force with a driving sense of unending curiosity, where he reels us in with the opening shot of a graffiti-laden street from high upon a hill, a slow 180 degree pan of the city of Lisbon, using natural sound with ships at sea moving off in the distance, vessels in transit suggestive of a journey in progress, people pursuing new directions, where his use of ships are lives in motion, reminiscent of Ozu’s use of trains.

Using chapter titles, we are initially introduced to a young French actress Julie (Leonor Baldaque), one of only two actors in a supposed 17th century film being shot in Lisbon about a nun who falls in love with a military officer, where the actors only have two scenes together, with all the dialogue read in pre-recorded letters, calling it “unconventional,” where the hotel desk clerk acknowledges “I never see French films, they're too intellectual.” While the described period drama does sound dreadfully forgetful, where one can’t help seeing the irony in the director’s call on the set for “action” and the utter lack thereof, Green then proceeds to break the barrier of this common perception, where the camera follows Julie as she explores the streets of the city, where she happens upon a friendly but parentless child alone in the streets, Vasco (Francisco Mozos), or meets the director (amusingly played by the director Green) for a late night drink with another panoramic view overlooking the city. The streets are immaculately clean and the film may as well be a picture postcard of the city, yet there’s a pervading sense of sadness that is beautifully expressed by local musicians she hears playing in an empty cantina, where they describe an unfulfilled yearning, as if they sense her innermost thoughts and are singing just for her. The intimacy captured on camera is exquisite, as each new encounter is extraordinary, where she meets a distinguished older aristocrat (Diogo Dória) who lives alone in a purely candle lit manor, luminous in its darkened elegance, where his stately politeness feels otherworldly and seemingly exists from another era, yet at the same time masks his own hidden vulnerabilities, while Julie is distinguished by an air of natural grace that seems easily adaptable, especially as she converses effortlessly in two languages, but she, too, guards her true inner feelings, which she’s incapable of expressing.

This film is not without plenty of self-effacing humor, where one of the funniest scenes in the film is catching the director himself in a candid moment on a disco floor attempting to dance with two beautiful women, who eventually completely ignore him and pair off together, leaving him to console alone with his drink at the bar. Julie, however, steps out for some evening air and is approached by yet another young gentleman (Carloto Cotta), this one coming directly to the point, wishing to sweep her off her feet, yet his exaggerated seriousness is undermined by her playfulness and surprising quick wit, where both engage in somewhat preposterous conversation where she insists he is the reincarnation of Dom Sebastião, a 17^th century gay king who’s had plenty of time, namely four hundred years, to find a way to adapt to more modern times, which in this film’s context, is utterly enthralling, as it perfectly blends the past into the present, while she flirtatiously keeps her true intentions hidden. Julie stumbles into yet another musical setting, set in a wine-drenched subterranean bar atmosphere of mostly couples sitting at small cramped tables bathed in a warm romantic light, this time filled to the hilt with customers where every inch of space is filled. The completely modest and unpretentious Aldina Duarte sings with searing emotion, offering a poetry of the soul that again captures an enduring sadness, which must reflect the national character, before elevating the mood into something a little more up tempo. But the scene of the film takes place in a nearby chapel, another beautifully candle lit interior decors, where a nun (Ana Moreira) curiously keeps a regular all night vigil, which captures Julie’s imagination, especially since she’s playing the part of a nun in her film. Their conversation, though saturated in the manners of an indescribable formal language where each speaks sincerely and with utter clarity about their quest for love, with their thoughts uniquely stripped of any pretension, revealing finally their inner most feelings, fragile, gentle, spare, yet soaringly uplifting in a spiritual sense, a breakthrough moment focused on moral purpose offering a poetic, transcendent grace.

The Portuguese Nun, review - Telegraph Sukhdev Sandu from The Daily Telegraph

The Portuguese Nun is a luminous new work by Eugène Green. No other director could have made it. Loosely inspired by a (fake) book of 17th-century love letters, it stars Leonor Baldaque as Julie, a French actress who travels to Lisbon to shoot a movie based on that book. There she encounters a range of characters, from aristocrats to young students, with whom she talks, walks, kisses.

Talking: this is a film that trusts language – as well as silence. When they speak, the characters, economical in their movements, often face the camera directly. The effect is ensnaring, spiritual even. Gorgeous to behold, graced by a lovely fado score, this is exquisite cinema.

The Portuguese Nun – review | Film | The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

Elegant, eccentric and absolutely captivating, this is simply a gem. It's a film with a heartfelt love of Lisbon – beautifully and calmly photographed – and with serene, almost eerie self-possession in its long, slow takes and stylised, decelerated speech. Director Eugène Green uses direct sightlines into camera in the manner of Ozu, and the mannered minuet of his dialogue clearly owes a good deal to Manoel de Oliveira. It produces the dream-like impression of a classical drama transplanted into a contemporary setting. Leonor Baldaque plays Julie, a French actor in Lisbon to shoot a movie based on the 17th-century tale of a nun seduced by a soldier. She becomes aware of spirits from the past arising before her and within her. Green's camera is perpetually trained on Julie's delicate face: an intense portraiture. She has encounters and adventures of the most rarefied and high-minded kind, and her director (played by Green) is, in one rather bizarre scene, shown disco-dancing in a stately manner. There are musical interludes which are mysterious and obscurely moving. The Portuguese Nun is mesmeric – that overused word – subtly comic and weirdly gripping. It reminded me of Jacques Rivette's Va Savoir: beguiling in its quietness, an idiosyncratic adult refinement of childlike innocence. Come to it with an open mind, and you might well see one of the best films of the year.

The Portuguese Nun David Jenkins from Time Out London

‘The Portuguese Nun’ is French writer-director Eugène Green’s love letter to Lisbon. His reverence for the city's history, architecture, skyline and music inspires this meandering tale of nervy, French-Portuguese actress Julie (Leonor Baldaque) and the epiphanies she experiences while filming a series of silent tableaux to illustrate a recitation of the anonymous French seventeenth-century text, ‘Letters of a Portuguese Nun’. Now, if your trusty pretention-o-meter is already overheating, then just switch it right off, as the tone Green adopts here is one of almost childlike sincerity dashed, of course, with a strain of delicate, absurdist humour.

This is Green’s fourth feature, and his first to receive UK distribution. It’s constructed in his customary style that draws heavily on the sort of clipped, neutral non-performance favoured by Bresson and the crisp, flat-on compositions of Ozu. The film is an exercise in economy and yet swells with romance and mystery. Baldaque’s huge, olive-green eyes are her primary acting tool, and Green allows his camera to drink in their gaze. We drift around the city, as one scene melts in to the next and Julie’s search for meaning takes in her co-star, a suicidal local, a displaced child, the reincarnation of a dead king and the director of her film (Green himself). Radiant, perplexing and distinctive, Green’s world is a place where art and life converge: it’s an enchanting place in which to get lost.

Second to Nun S. James Snyder from Artforum, October 21, 2010

RARELY HAS A MOVIE opened with the serene, picturesque tranquility that flows through the first minutes of The Portuguese Nun’s (2009): a slow and sumptuous 180-degree scan of the Lisbon skyline, shot from the hills above, accompanied by only the sounds of wind and water. It’s a gorgeous but strangely detached beginning to director Eugène Green’s cinematic daydream—an ideal encapsulation of his peculiar filmmaking method—designed to jolt the viewer out of the role of passive observer through characters who move awkwardly about the city, who speak without affect or inflection, and who occasionally gaze directly at the camera when offering philosophical asides about the human condition. Combining these unlikely elements, Green creates movies that are ridiculous yet somehow revelatory. Where some will see slow-moving tedium, others will be alerted to the potency of the film’s words and themes, and the nearly palpable mise-en-scène; much like Kubrick, Green is less interested in characters than in the ideas and ideals they embody.

His thesis concerns the ways in which travelers can be spiritually awakened, even transformed, by fleeting chance encounters and undiscovered countries. (The same theme could apply to Green himself, who abandoned his regular French locales to mold this love poem to the ethereal hub of Portugal.) The protagonist Julie (Leonor Baldaque) is a French actress who travels to Lisbon for the first time as the star of a film shoot. She plays a nun. But as she imbibes the wonders, her interest in the movie wanes. Julie’s nightly conversations with her director (Green) quickly veer from acting critiques to philosophical digressions. As she strolls through town, befriending an array of locals—from a lonely, suicidal aristocrat (Diogo Dória) and an orphaned boy, to a dashing young flirter—she delves into a place of introspection, her “conversations” more closely resembling meditations on life and love. When she stumbles upon a real nun (Ana Moreira) at a nearby church who spends every evening lost in prayer, Julie’s quest to “find her part” becomes something much more profound.

Green’s style can be off-putting to mainstream audiences, as he rigidly divides the story into chapters, often diverting from the central plot, if only to gaze at the city below or to bask in a mournful fado performance at a nearby café. The concept of momentum doesn’t quite apply here. Baldaque, Green, and Dória deliver their lines so statically that emotional sincerity is all but abandoned, as the director instead concentrates our attention on the meaning of his script and the staging of the conversation. But by ignoring these surface pleasures, Green emphasizes instead the deeper questions of Julie’s midnight musings, and the freedom afforded by a new city and fresh perspective. She is a beacon of empathy, always curious and easily moved, and while there is considerable silence in The Portuguese Nun, it’s a deafening silence, filled with both hesitation and hope.

DVD Times Noel Megahey

While the stiff formality of Eugène Green’s filming style can seem rather bizarre and unsettling to anyone unfamiliar with his work (or indeed the techniques of Robert Bresson), the simplicity of his style does seem wholly appropriate for the direct questions that he puts forward for consideration in his work. This is particularly the case in his latest film The Portuguese Nun (A Religiosa Portuguesa, where the principal character Julie – a French actress making a film in Lisbon – is faced with a number of choices to make that on the surface seem simple enough, but the choices she has made in the past have not always been the ones to bring her lasting love and happiness.

In the film she is making in Lisbon – an adaptation of a 17th century novel Les lettres de la religieuse portugaise which is being directed by Denis Verde (Eugène Green himself) – Julie plays a Portuguese nun who succumbs to the attentions of a French officer (Green regular Adrien Michaux), giving up the one eternal love of her life dedicated to God for an ephemeral but passionate affair. The actress recognises something of herself in the character she is playing, but at the same time is unable to understand what drives her to make the decisions she makes.

Julie’s identification with the role and the situation extends out into the life in Lisbon during the time of the shoot there, the young woman’s encounters with several people of differing classes and personalities – as well as a romantic encounter with her leading man – all presenting her with choices to make. The choices aren’t always simple ones, and it can be easy to deceive oneself that one’s reasoning is to do something good when the opposite is actually the case. The actor, a man in a deep relationship with the one woman in his life, Marlène, justifies his occasional flings, including the one with Julie, as being necessary to express the passion that is absent from his relationship – a lack of passion that he tells himself is perhaps what keeps it alive.

This is a similar kind of self-deception that Julie has applied throughout her life and her relationships in the past, and it’s one that she applies to her meeting with a mysterious aristocratic gentleman she meets one night, but sometimes those actions, regardless of the original intentions, can have unexpectedly positive outcomes. There are however several other encounters in the film – including a significant one with a genuine Portuguese nun, and another with a young man who she believes is the reincarnation of Dom Sebastião, but it’s Julie’s encounter with a young six year-old boy Vasco that presents her with the opportunity to change her life.

As wonderfully rich as the film is in the various encounters and conversations, in the humour and the deep philosophical, cross-cultural questions that it raises and the connections it makes between the past and the present, there is much also to delight in the almost naïve filmmaking technique that Eugène Green characteristically employs to present the almost baroque nature of the story and its classical subject matter (a similar unconventional approach is adopted by José Luis Guerín in the medieval leanings of his film In The City of Sylvia). The style adopted by Green in A Religiosa Portuguesa evokes both Bresson and Ozu, but goes even further, taking the stiff formality of delivery of Bresson models a step further into inexpressiveness, the two-shot conversations often delivered face-on to the camera even more directly than Ozu. There’s a sense also that the director, an American by birth, moving away from the Bresson-influenced style and content of his first three films made in France, is appropriately adapting his style towards Manoel de Oliveira when making a film in Portugal, but it would be hard not to evoke the Portuguese director when filming as he does here with Leonor Baldaque in Lisbon.

While its lack of anything approaching naturalism is likely to distance some viewers, the effect can be powerful, the characters offering themselves up directly and openly to the camera and the viewer’s gaze in tight close-up in a manner that is enchanting and revealing, working on a level beyond conventional dialogue and staging. Ultimately, even this question about filmmaking choices and the right way to represent them on film is considered in the film itself, or in the film within the film. In her last shot, the actress goes against the very precise instructions of the director to deliver a gesture that she believes to be true – true for both her character and herself.

Sight & Sound [Peter Matthews] February 2011

The Village Voice [Nick Pinkerton]

The House Next Door [Fernando F. Croce]

Comment: The Portuguese Nun via @Frieze Kieron Corless feature includes an interview with the director from Artweeters

Eye for Film : The Portuguese Nun Movie Review (2009) Anton Bitel from Eye for Film

Movie Review: 'The Portuguese Nun' | Arts Entertainment | Epoch Times Joe Bendel, also seen here: J.B. Spins: Green's Portuguese Nun

Cineaste Jared Rapfogel in Jeonju, South Korea, 2010

The Portuguese Nun (2011) film review | littlewhitelies.co.uk Mar Diestro-Dópido

The Portuguese Nun - Eugène Green Doundou Tchil from Classical Iconoclast

Visit our Blog for reviews of individual films Michael Castelle from Cine-File, March 4, 2011

User reviews from imdb Author: Matthew Stechel (mateob25@aol.com) from United States

User reviews from imdb Author: coertcom from Netherlands

The Portuguese Nun – review | Film | The Observer Philip French

DVDBeaver.com [Gary Tooze]

LA SPIENZA

France Italy (101 mi) 2014

Film Comment: Chris Darke November 03, 2014

I’ve enjoyed some of Eugène Green’s previous films, but La Sapienza left me cold. Alexandre (Fabrizio Rongione), a disillusioned architect, and his psychotherapist wife Aliénor (Christelle Prot Landman) take a voyage to Italy where they meet a younger brother-sister pair (Ludovico Succio and Arianna Nastro) and cross-generational self-discoveries ensue. Was it the characters’ sleek, depthless privilege that made me fail to connect? Or, with their Bresson-indebted, uniformly expressionless to-camera gazes, the fact that they look like they’re all permanently posing for passport photographs? The melodramatic family backstories—an ailing marriage, a dead child, and a pair of over-fond siblings—certainly made La Sapienza feel like a soap opera written by a screenwriting team schooled in minimalist modernism. In theory, a potentially fascinating mismatch, but sadly not in this case.

La Sapienza - The New Yorker Richard Brody

This stylized philosophical romance ponders European cultural treasures with the unencumbered awe that only an American expat can muster. The director, Eugène Green, a native New Yorker who has been living in France since the nineteen-sixties, focusses on a Parisian couple, Alexandre (Fabrizio Rongione), a rationalistic architect with mystical yearnings, and Aliénor (Christelle Prot Landman), a sociologist with spiritual inclinations, who head for Italy so that Alexandre can complete his studies of the baroque architect Borromini. There, they encounter another couple, of sorts—Lavinia (Arianna Nastro), a frail young student, and her brother, Goffredo (Ludovico Succio), a teen-age architect-in-training to whom she’s overly attached. Aliénor, detecting crisscrossed affinities, dispatches Goffredo to Rome with Alexandre so that she can stay with Lavinia in the lakeside splendor of Stresa. Green conjures vast ideas from this intimate story, filming architectural wonders with analytical ardor and revealing the architects’ discovery of the importance of light in design. Green’s richly textured, painterly images fuse with the story to evoke the essence of humane urbanity and the relationships that it fosters, whether educational, familial, or erotic. In Italian and French.

Film Comment: Nicole Armour November 03, 2014

In Stresa, the pair encounter teenage Goffredo (Ludovico Succio) and his sister Lavinia (Arianna Nastro). It’s a fortuitous meeting that gradually enables the couple’s revival. Aliénor nurtures Lavinia through an illness, while Alexandre reluctantly chaperones aspiring architect Goffredo through Borromini’s Turin and Rome. The substance and mannered delivery of La Sapienza’s copious, idea-driven dialogue produce a suggestive, dreamlike quality: Goffredo and Lavinia might be apparitions embodying the couple’s younger selves, the children their marriage never produced, or spirit guides leading Alexandre and Aliénor toward enlightenment.

While Green’s film is dense with historical fact and theory, it’s not averse to plumbing life’s mysteries. Suffused with warmth, it expresses a potent admiration for human striving and accomplishment. Goffredo explains that his architectural ambitions spring from the desire to create spaces that accommodate people and transmit light, which he repeatedly invokes in its most symbolic sense—as vision, inspiration, sanctuary, and antidote to darkness.

The camerawork within the Borromini buildings is rhapsodic. As Alexandre explains that the architect employed strict geometries to create a sense of movement, the camera pans horizontally, then sweeps vertically—triumphantly—toward the interiors’ crowning regions. Green’s mise en scène makes the spaces feel alive, both with the history they’ve witnessed and as embodiments of the artist whose aesthetic decisions they harmoniously relay.

Going for Baroque: The Films of Eugène Green - Cinema Scope Blake Williams, September 06, 2014, also seen here: Cinema Scope: Blake Williams

To get it out of the way at the outset: Eugène Green, now 67 years of age, began making films when he was 53, all of them built around and deeply concerned with a set of traditions belonging to the arts of the Baroque period, particularly its theatre. His body of work (to date, five features and three shorts) is one that is not merely “inspired” by the late 16th-century style’s tastes, concepts, and modes of thinking; it is entirely saturated in the Baroque itself—in its manners of thought, being, loving—and it accordingly exhibits many of the exuberant, contradictory, proto-Rococo tendencies suggested by this affiliation. The films unabashedly announce themselves as such, and any discussion or discourse surrounding them, or any of the research, writing, or theatre direction that Green has produced up to this point in his career, tends to (perhaps necessarily) approach these works through the lens of Baroque sensibilities above and before all else. Because of this, opening his films up can be quite a challenging task, as they seem to do all the work for us while still managing to remain philosophically dense and complex. Counterintuitively, opening up to them is fairly easy to do. Lacing mannered formal precision and rigidly loquacious personae with fairy-tale tropes (e.g., werewolves, lion knights, and ogres) and cheeseball one-liners, Green’s work is often at odds with itself in refreshingly playful and zany ways, evoking wholly original and sublime sensations.

Thus, it can be difficult to place where Green might fall with respect to other contemporary filmmaking traditions and circles. He got some help early in his cinema career from the Dardennes, when they offered to co-produce his second feature Le monde vivant (2003)—an association that no doubt helped grab the attention of the Quinzaine, where the film premiered—and there is a conceivable kinship between the filmmakers, particularly with regards to their overlapping concerns for their subjects’ spiritual dimensions. Yet, because of certain hallmarks of Green’s style—such as his stark shot/countershot strategies, executed with direct-address monologues, or his belief in the power of words and gazes to reveal the inner energies of characters—he is most often placed into conversation with the more rarefied names of Ozu, Dreyer, and Bresson, especially the latter. From Bresson, Green developed a number of the aesthetic philosophies that have preoccupied his cinema practice as well as his writing, namely for his 2009 book, Poétique du cinématographe. He craves a cinema in which “the hidden knowledge beneath what is visible is revealed”; a cinema with no morals, “for the truth is always contradictory.”

For Green, the centre of his infatuation with the Baroque style and with cinema’s capabilities lies in what he calls “the Baroque oxymoron,” which concerns the people of the period’s devotion to the development of a more scientific understanding of the universe despite staying fully faithful to the notion that God is the supreme being. It’s this dialectical framework that has been the chief structural and methodological tool for all of Green’s films to date, down to the perversity of making “Baroque cinema” in such a mannered form. Baroque sensibilities have been in the film medium’s DNA since Early Cinema; its “cinema of attractions” demonstrate a heavily weighted favour to celluloid’s capacity and allowances for extravagance and visual excess, both spectacular and irrational (Eisenstein may well have been the first openly Baroque filmmaker, resisting cinema’s reliance on Renaissance perspectival realism but proffering the conviction that pathos was best achieved through a barrage of shock-inducing montage methods)—all apparently antithetical to what Green sets out to do in his work.

It is almost certainly not coincidental, then, that the first image of the first film of his career, Toutes les nuits (2001), should evoke the Early Cinema pioneer of excess, monsters, and reality-disrupting montage: Georges Méliès. A puff of fog drifts across a deep, nearly black-blue sky enveloping a bright, waxing moon—clearly some sort of manmade cut-out, its black-box artifice as inviting and radiant as any prop from a children’s theatre production. “You are present in a sweet dream, in a sweet and gentle dream,” coos Baroque soprano Claire Lefilliâtre on the soundtrack, “but day after day you are absent.” Nearly everything in Green’s cinema appears here in this first film (“I continue to use the same elements of style…because they seem to me necessary and efficient in relation to what I am trying to achieve. I could not imagine doing otherwise”), with Lefilliâtre’s lyrics providing that lovelorn contradiction that he finds so essential. This theme of presence is key to his work, namely the way certain realities, be they emotional, spiritual, or temporal, become clearer via their absence. We experience this in his static blocking and the aforementioned shot/countershot strategy—the actors, straddling presentational and representational performance modes, stare into the camera and recite their lines as if speaking them to themselves, the words channelling whatever energy that’s alive in their bodies and transferring it into our own. Godard’s faith in language may have finally sailed, but Green here indicates a reliance on speech as if it were man’s last remaining mode of communicating and transferring love.

The narrative of Toutes les nuits also takes advantage of its remove from the present, restaging Flaubert’s 1869 novel Sentimental Education in the years bookending May ’68. The film traces the parabolic trajectory of a friendship between Henri and Jules (Alexis Loret and Adrien Michaux, both regulars in Green’s films) as they fall in and out of love with Emilie (Christelle Prot, same), forming a bifurcated structure typical of Green’s narratives, offering comparisons of adjacent figures (or, often, couplings) whose lives, desires, and beliefs inevitably reflect or challenge one another. These relationships and inter-relationships play along with—but never mimic—other elemental relationships in the film: the pastoral world’s flirtations with civilization, the intellect’s mockery of ignorance, the intercourse between light and nothingness. For Green, there are few worse fates that could befall a word than to be translated into another language. Likewise, there is grammar in all of these relationships, however immaterial the involved elements may be, and they cannot be rendered into new forms; to do so would be to betray the precise and always purposeful being of the thing itself. Rather, these partnerships sit amongst one another in the collected space of the film, their conversation suggested but never silent.

Two years later, Green would push his concerns even deeper into semantics and presentational abstraction with Le monde vivant. An overt fairy tale on its surface, its melodramatic narrative concerns a Lion Knight (Loret) (whose “lion” is portrayed by an adorable white golden retriever packing an MGM roar) as he attempts to rescue the local ogre’s wife, Pénélope (Prot), from her own husband so that they may be happy together. His task is complicated by the fact that Pénélope, despite hating her life with her child-ingesting spouse, refuses to repudiate the ties—their marriage, her word—binding them together. Only the ogre’s death can liberate her from this loveless hell, but the Lion Knight’s attempt at killing him cuts his own life short when he loses a battle with the ogre after slipping on his slug slime. In his fantastical set-up, Green presents “the word” as a unifying stricture only in the scenario that it resides in the realm of other words. “It is strange to be alone even though we are two,” the dying knight proclaims to Pénélope in his final moments of life, to which his love responds, “Grammar makes it so.” The wordplay is only bittersweet, however, as the exasperated Lion Knight, eyes glazed over, interjects, “Where I am going, grammar will not let you follow.” The narrative splits, and the late knight’s new friend, Nicolas (Michaux), avenges his death by battling the ogre while wearing a pair of slime-proof shoes his mom gave him. In what has to be the most Dreyerian turn of events in Green’s oeuvre, the Lion Knight returns to the picture, resurrected by Pénélope’s words, which transferred the love from her living body into his, and what was dead is no longer so. “In the living world, the breath of the spirit is the breath of the body,” he preaches. Embracing him, Pénélope bursts into tears, and cries out, “Your body is real!” The rational world says this cannot be, and yet in cinema, defined by Green as “the word made image,” it is absolute.

If Toutes les nuits and Le monde vivant mythologized “the word,” elevating it up to a transcendental revealer and giver of life and love, Green’s third feature, Le pont des Arts (2004), worked to counteract this exaltation. Language in Le pont des Arts is predominantly repressive, a tool for violence toward whomever it’s directed. It’s also the second and currently final Green film that has a villain—a man so evil, so brilliant as to not even warrant a name. The Unnamable (Denis Podalydès), as he’s called, is the brutal conductor and curator of an exclusive Baroque ensemble. To miss a note, a beat, a pitch, or to apparently lack whatever innate and unlearnable je ne sais quoi he’s looking for is to ignite a ferociously insulting diatribe (comparisons to strangled kangaroo included), which is precisely the fate incurred by Sarah (Natacha Régnier) upon her performance of Monteverdi’s “Lamento della Ninfa.” The song (which is actually sung, once again, by Lefilliâtre) is a masterpiece in and of itself—so much so that the five-minute track is played six times in the film, three times all the way through—and serves as an almost irrefutable case study against the argument that the word itself is the ontological bearer of beauty in language; rather, the voice is. Then again, Le pont des Arts is still Green’s magnum opus precisely because of how profoundly dialectical an object it is—a sprawling and all-encompassing volley of polemical thesis statements as articulate as they are self-refuting. Though contradiction is patently Green’s “thing,” the film bears the marks of an artist wavering on the passions to which he’s devoted his entire life, and it’s his only film to come close to matching the excess of the Baroque style.

Five years later, Green returned with his most conspicuous take on Baroque Catholicism, A Religiosa Portuguesa (2009). An actress named Julie (Leonor Baldaque) is in Lisbon to shoot her scenes for an upcoming French art film. As she checks into her hotel, she tells the clerk that her character, a nun, will never be seen speaking in the film; in lieu of speech, a recording of a 17th-century French text will occupy the soundtrack. “I never see French films, they’re for intellectuals,” he tells her. She counters that her films are popular in Portugal, to which he retorts, “Only in Lisbon, where there are many intellectuals. No city is perfect.” It’s a cheeky anti-intellectualist throwaway that may well have been inserted to call back to Les pont de Arts’ own elitist air, but it’s not incongruous to the attitude that meaning in art is beside matters of erudition. (For that matter, critics who call Green’s cinema “pretentious,” even those who aren’t using the term pejoratively, just aren’t in tune with his sense of humour.)

Once Julie begins her shoot, she decides to spend her free time wandering the streets of Lisbon, leading to a series of encounters with a young orphan boy too poor to attend school, and an infatuation with a nun whom she watches from a distance. The film’s core themes reside in the Catholic Church’s affiliation with the historical Baroque style, the threat of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation prompting the Church to exploit its aristocracy in an effort to impress potential new members. Their power in full display, this reaffirmed religion as a prime subject in art and eventually architecture throughout Europe, and permanently integrated spiritual opulence into the style’s aesthetic. When Leonor finally confronts the nun, she explains her profession in terms of truth: “I try to show the truth through unreal things,” to which the nun responds, “God did the same when he created the world.” The 11-minute tête-à-tête covers God’s relationship to Reason, nature’s materiality, and the search for inner truth and meaning, and it feels less like a cathartic fusion of worldviews than a treatise—something Green’s films are prone to slip into in the home stretch, as so many threads strive towards a discernible point of convergence. It’s a strategy that, four films into his career, emerges as a schematic method of tidying, despite the evidence that his films work best when left intricately unresolved.

It’s a relief, then, that the arrival of Green’s latest film, La Sapienza, should carry with it a fresh take on his choice material, directed by a new-to-him formalist hurdle (digital filmmaking), and his first concentrated consideration of modern architecture. While it’s his first digital feature, Green’s first experience with the medium was with the short film, Correspondences, his contribution to the 2007 Jeonju Digital Project. That was a work specifically preoccupied with digital distanciation, and portrayed a young man’s series of email exchanges with a girl he met at a party. Its characters’ words isolated to voiceover, the film is predominantly comprised of shots of one or the other of them silently typing, reading, or contemplating the other’s written text. (A small, rustic wax candle beside the man’s laptop is as close to materiality as the film gets.) Green’s cinema as a project has been an attempt to invoke immaterial energies from within material beings, and his position has so far been that the materiality of the celluloid strip allows for a lossless transference of love and emotion that is not possible with the immaterial, i.e. the virtuality of the digital image.

La Sapienza expands his disparagement for the digital by refracting it into its mise en scène. Stresa vistas are cut with icy shots of glassy grey modernist architecture and set amongst steely blue, industrial cubicles. Within the urban malaise, award-winning architect Alexandre (Fabrizio Rongione) and his wife Aliénor (Prot) are slumped in a deep, stoic silence, reduced by their surroundings to blasé urban dwellers. They walk, dine, and sleep as if running on sedatives, and their infrequent conversations are purely functional rather than personal. Alexandre’s announcement that he’s spontaneously decided to depart for a field study to work on some of his old Francesco Borromini research is met with Aliénor’s terse interrogation, “Was it planned?”—as if love would stand a chance of surviving a life composed in blueprints. They soon meet young siblings Goffredo (Ludovico Succio) and Lavinia (Arianna Nastro), and Goffredo’s interest in architecture allows him to tag along with Alexandre on his voyage through Italy.

From this point, the film’s basic art-as-therapy narrative becomes a side product to a bizarrely moving tour through Borromini’s body of work. Whatever hindrances digital filmmaking creates for the inner soul of people, it doesn’t apply to capturing buildings. Green creates in La Sapienza’s middle hour one of the great documents of an architect’s magisterial brilliance to appear in cinema, evoking the canted architectural studies of German experimental filmmaker Heinz Emigholz. Gliding up and across Borromini’s intertwining arches and rings, Green’s camera caresses the intricate ridges of his Roman churches and courtyards. Tilting up until our gaze surpasses the domes’ peaks—often decorated with a cross—he stretches our eyes up into the sky, as if willing the spiritual euphoria that he believes his medium is so inadequate in delivering. And yet, as if by a miracle, it does arrive, falsifying whatever evidence compelled Green to assume he was using a medium built for solely secular pleasures. The Baroque thrives on such contradictions.

Interview: Eugène Green - Film Comment Violet Lucca interview, March 17, 2015

Perhaps as a side effect of being forced to watch Battleship Potemkin multiple times in film school, many contemporary critics use “formalist” as a pejorative. However, the films of Eugène Green adhere to the rigorous conventions of the Baroque theater and succeed in parsing philosophical issues with a winning wry sense of humor. His latest, La Sapienza, is a rich work that approaches the experience of aging through two sets of couples: French middle-aged married professionals who have lost their passion for work and each other in the face of the modern world; and an adolescent Italian-Swiss brother and sister. Meeting by chance in a park in Switzerland, the couples pair off by gender. Alexandre (Fabrizio Rongione) reluctantly takes his younger counterpart Goffredo (Ludovico Succio) under his wing, repeating a tour of Italian architecture he undertook as a student, and their relationship slowly comes to mirror that of Baroque architect Francesco Borromini and his younger assistants. At the same time Alexandre’s wife, Aliénor (Christelle Prot), and Goffredo’s sister, Lavinia (Arianna Nastro), establish a thoroughly nurturing and warm rapport.

FILM COMMENT digital editor Violet Lucca spoke to Green after La Sapienza’s premiere at the Locarno Film Festival.

How do you go about composing a frame? Do you begin with an image or do you begin with an idea?

Actually, all of my frames are composed, at least basically, when I write the script. If there’s a dialogue, it’s more that I have my own convention for making something strong come out of the actor when he’s speaking. At the beginning, since it’s less intense, I film in a more or less normal way: that is, the camera is behind one of the speakers so that you see his shoulder or part of his head, what in French is called en amorce, and then you see the other character looking at the person he’s talking to. But when it becomes more intense, I start putting the camera between the two characters, so that the spectator receives fully what someone [in the conversation] would receive. I think about the progression so that usually the intensity increases, the frame becomes more and more close-up. The waist, then chest, then bust [i.e., head and shoulders], and then just part of the face. And then if it’s a very long conversation, as in The Portuguese Nun [09], where there’s a 20-minute conversation, I go farther away and then closer again. So these are very simple things, but that’s what I like. Simple things are, for me, strongest.

I also like to try and capture the energy that comes from absence, or from absence after presence. So, for example if a character is going to enter the frame, I usually start with an empty frame and, for example a foot shot, a foot frame—I do a lot of foot frames. I often start on the ground and then the feet enter, so the spectator feels the distinction between the empty space where there’s no presence and the physical presence. And then sometimes if a character goes out of the frame, I still keep the camera there because I want the spectator to feel the transformation of the inert matter, where there is still the personal energy of who was there, who is no longer visible but who remains present by his energy, and by his absence.

Why did you choose this particular Baroque rivalry and pair it with this contemporary story of these older people being revitalized and finding meaning through mentorship?

Because Borromini for me represents the true artist—that is, an artist who believes in his art and whose first concern is not to succeed socially but to go through what he thinks is the necessary path towards his art. When people think about the history of architecture and Romans in the 17th century, it’s always the rivalry between Borromini and Bernini. And for me it represents two points of view in relationship to art. It’s something very vital and with a great deal of meaning today, because a great deal of what is produced today as art is actually just a means of getting wealth and social position, but there’s no real artistic engagement. Often the most interesting artists are not the most visible in the social sphere.

There’s also a spiritual conflict. In France the conflict is very important in the 17th century, between the Jansenists and the Jesuits. And for me, the French have an ideology which came from the 18th and 19th century, and which is taught in school as distinct about France from all other countries—France being classical and not having gone through “Baroque is a sin.” They always oppose what they call French classicism—the word didn’t exist in the 17th century, and even less the concept—to Roman baroque. But actually, in the context of French culture—as in the way that I define Baroque culture—the culture around Port-Royal, the center of Jansenism, was actually the most Baroque culture in France. I make a parallel between that opposition and the opposition between Borromini and Bernini.

Bernini worked mainly for the Jesuits and his spiritual director was Gian Paolo Oliva, who was the Supreme General of the Jesuits. Borromini was very pious but it was a private sort of piety. In the Roman context, his work resembles what the Jansenists value in French [architecture] because it’s very pure, it’s all just white. For example, in the Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza [a church Borromini designed], it’s just white forms, but the energy comes from the conflict between the forms and not from just superficial decoration, which is mainly what Bernini [used], at least in his decorative style. Sant’Andrea al Quirinale is also purified but it’s very academic actually, it follows rules, and…voila. Have I answered your question? [Laughs]

And why did you pair this story with the story of the architect and his wife?

Because what he goes towards is la sapienza—sapience in French—that is, knowledge which leads to wisdom, which is not the same thing [as knowledge]. In all pedagogical relationships an older person can always give information and know-how to the younger person, but a younger person can also bring a spiritual opening to it. I have to get along very well with younger people and now, even though I am not very well known, a certain number of young artists contact me and I’m in contact with them because they want me to look at their work, and I do that very willingly. But at the same time it’s not completely altruistic, because I learn things also from them. It’s not egoistic either—

It’s an exchange.

It’s an exchange, it’s a human relation, and I think that happens with the two couples, the two men and the two women [in La Sapienza]. And also there’s the idea of sacrifice, which is at the heart of all religions, actually, and the subject is opened already when they go to visit the Holy Shroud, because Goffredo realizes that, if it really isn’t the shroud of Christ, then he says it’s the shroud of another Christ that has also been sacrificed. There’s the idea that an artist is not a martyr but someone who gives, who makes a sacrifice in his life. We know nothing about Borromini’s personal life—he had apparently no real personal life. He had some friends with whom he had some intellectual exchanges, but otherwise he was a completely solitary person. And so when, in the scene that [dramatizes] Borromini’s relationship with his young assistant, he says that “I did the sacrifice for you,” Alexandre realizes it’s also for him, and that in a certain way Borromini made a sacrifice for him through his art and also through his life. It’s a sort of Christ-like idea that the artist is a human reflection of the sacrifice and the spiritual sacrifice.

There’s a lot of doubling in the film: visually, such as when the older couple is eating at the dinner table in the restaurant, and in a broader sense, in the two deaths that shape their lives. How did you choose that motif? Is it referencing architecture or is it something in a different direction?

No, I always say that one of the reasons why I feel so strange about my work is that modern thought is always conceptual—it begins with concepts and evolves rationally. Whereas I naturally have—it’s not something I choose [laughs]—what I call a “mythical” way of thinking. In contemporary language, when someone says that something is “mythical,” that means it’s not true, but that’s the opposite of the word’s real meaning. The word “myth” comes from mutos in Greek, and in the archaic Greek and Homer, mutos means “truth-sayer,” and in the classical period it takes the meaning of a story, a narration. It always means a narration which by simple unfolding expresses a truth. And so I tend to think in mythical terms. I’m not very enthusiastic about psychoanalysis. I think I’m closer to Jungians than Freudians. So this idea of doubling as you say, it came naturally to me; it had to be part of the story, and afterward I realized what it meant, but at first it just came as if I was telling a story to children to bedtime and it came that way. And then I realized that I was right to do it because it had a lot of meaning.

How do you choose your actors? How much room do they have to experiment with a gesture or a vocal inflection?

I choose them mainly for what I feel that they have as a person. Also for their physical aspect, but for me the physical aspect always suggests something interior. Christelle Prot, I’ve worked with her in several films. I did my first film [Toutes les nuits, 01] with her, which I shot in 1999, so it’s been 15 years. And Fabrizio [Rongione], I’ve seen him in a lot of films—in all the Dardenne Brothers films and in certain Italian films. The Dardenne Brothers co-produced one of my films, and when we presented it in Brussels, I found him also interesting as a person, and in addition he’s bilingual. The two young actors, we had to do auditions to find them. There were auditions in Turin, and they sent me videos of the audition. I didn’t know Arianna had an important part in another film, but of all the girls I saw, she interested me the most. And Ludovico, I think for the [part of the] boy they did at least 30 or 35 videos, and the only one who interested me at all was Ludovico. He has a physical aspect which corresponds often to my young men characters, but there was something, his way of speaking, something interior which cannot be quantified. And when I met them both I was sure that they were the right choices.

As far as working with them, we just do usually one or two readings of the script before shooting, and I prevent them from making psychological intonations, because psychological intonations are always forced. They come from the psychological theater, and people have the habit now of accepting them as real or natural, but they’re not natural at all. For example, if you say a sentence, when there’s a punctuation you do a descending cadence and when there’s a full stop you do a big descending cadence. And in psychological acting, since the actor doesn’t want to recognize that he’s saying a text that has already been written, when there’s a punctuation he always goes up. So I just make them go down. Otherwise I just ask them to talk as if they were talking to themselves, because I don’t want them to think, I don’t want an intellectual interference with the flow of interior energy. When you speak to yourself, the words have a lot of importance, but you don’t try to convince yourself of something, so you’re not looking for rhetorical devices.

I voice a lot of affection for the actors that I film with Raphaël [O’Byrne, DP on all Green’s films]. Recently there was a screening in Paris of Toutes les nuits, my first film, which I hadn’t seen it in five years. And two of the main actors were there, and Raphael as well, and they were very moved. Someone came to see me and said that you can see how much compassion I have for the characters—and actually the actors because the actors are the characters. It’s a nice word: compassion not in a patronizing sense, but in the sense of a spiritual communion and understanding.

I have one more question. So the character you play—

The Chaldean.

You might see that as expressing some feelings you have about the U.S., or why you left the U.S.?

No, it’s related to the powerful connection between architecture and existence, for the group or for the individual, which the Chaldeans [evoke]. The Chaldeans are being chased out of Mesopotamia [editor’s note: an area that includes Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Turkey], which is where they have been living for 2000 years, probably even more than that. But no, as far as what I call “Barbaria” [the U.S.] in the film, I had the impression when I was very young, 5 years old, that everything that goes through me is language, and what was spoken around me, I didn’t feel it had that value. So I started on a quest to find the language. When I was an adolescent, I thought I was going to go to Great Britain or Ireland to make my life through English, but I realized that even English, real English, doesn’t correspond to my interior being, and it had to be another language. So it became French. [Laughs] I respect English, but…

What made you choose that particular culture, the Chaldeans, anyway?

I just shot a documentary on the Basques, but the Basques resist, whereas before the “Barbarians” made their war in Iraq, there were a million Chaldeans. It’s not only that they have a religion, but they have a language, which is the only vestige of what was the general language of all the Middle East. It was the language of Jesus, it was the language of the Jews at the time of Jesus, and this language is only living as the language with this population now. It will be like Yiddish or another language where the people are dispersed, the survivors. After one generation, the language will disappear.

The language of the Chaldeans is one of the bases of our European culture, because it was the language of Jesus and the apostles and probably the first Gospel, and St. Matthew was probably first written in Aramaic. So it’s related to the fact that all of our culture is disappearing. But besides its value as the disappearance of a language from a human group, it could have been a Caucasian language or a language from South America, of course.

MUBI's Notebook: Marie-Pierre Duhamel September 02, 2014

Reverse Shot: Michael Koresky Visions of Light, September 26, 2014

Ferdy on Films [Marilyn Ferdinand]

The A.V. Club: Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

Slant Magazine [Carson Lund]

4:3: Brad Mariano August 20, 2015

Filmmaker Magazine: Vadim Rizov September 26, 2014

ScreenAnarchy [Dustin Chang]

The House Next Door [James Lattimer]

Reverse Shot: Nick Pinkerton September 30, 2014

Blu-ray.com [Brian Orndorf]

MUBI's Notebook: Michael Sicinski September 05, 2014

Observations on Film Art: David Bordwell October 01, 2014

Filmmaker Magazine: Paul Dallas

Filmmaker Magazine: Howard Feinstein

Letterboxd: Mike D'Angelo

The A.V. Club: Ben Kenigsberg

The Chicago Reader: Ben Sachs

Vulture: Bilge Ebiri

Daily | NYFF 2014 | Eugène Green's LA SAPIENZA - Fandor David Hudson

Interview | Eugène Green on La Sapienza | Sight & Sound | BFI Nick Pinkerton interview, May 5, 2015

BOMB Magazine — Eugène Green by Nicholas Elliott interview Winter 2015

Variety: Scott Foundas

La Sapienza Movie Review & Film Summary (2015) | Roger Ebert Godfrey Cheshire

Review: In Eugène Green's 'La Sapienza,' - The New York Times A.O. Scott

La Sapienza (film) - Wikipedia

THE SON OF JOSEPH (Le Fils de Joseph)

France Belgium (113 mi) 2016

The Son Of Joseph · Film Review The Son Of Joseph is a droll parable ... Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from The Onion A.V. Club

The films of eccentric French writer-director Eugène Green aren’t for every taste—they’re deliberate, declamatory, highly formalized, anti-modern. But those willing to tune into his peculiar wavelength will discover an artist with a sense of humor and a rare mix of sincerity and irony, looking for lost meaning in a busy world. The Son Of Joseph is his most accessible movie to date, though only in terms of narrative: a comedy, almost a farce, about a sulky teenager who goes looking for his supposed biological father, directed in Green’s signature offbeat, Robert Bresson-esque deadpan. The closest thing to his work in American film would be something along the lines of Whit Stillman’s Damsels In Distress or Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool and Ned Rifle (the latter even shares a central theme with The Son Of Joseph), though Green’s films are even less realistic than those exercises in literary archness. An American expat who has called France home since the 1960s, Green taught baroque theater for decades before taking up film, and his movies betray an obsession with earlier forms, mostly baroque and medieval—not just their aesthetics, but also their directness.

But here’s the thing: Green’s movies are funny, even when they aren’t, strictly speaking, comedies. Most of them take place in a version of the present imagined in the terms of the distant past, poking fun of modern life by framing it like an anachronism, where waiters and secretaries enter bearing exposition, like nameless servants in an old play. (His 2007 short Correspondances, for example, reimagined email as an early epistolary novel, leading to what is perhaps the definitive Eugène Green image: a MacBook being typed on by candlelight.) Raised by his doting single mother, a nurse named Marie (Natacha Régnier), Vincent (Victor Ezenfis) seems mocked at every turn with references to paternity, from his best friend’s sperm bank racket (“a modern business, artisanal and ecological”) to a café sign that simply reads “Father And Son.” And so, off he goes to discover the identity of his father, which leads him to Oscar Pormenor (Mathieu Amalric), a successful publisher of literary fiction and a complete prick.

Oscar specializes in mentoring young writers, all the while ignoring his own legitimate children, whose names he has trouble remembering. When Vincent first tracks him down, it’s at a sparsely attended but very lavish gala for a novel called The Predatory Mother, a farcical sequence in which the young man gets mistaken for a rising literary star by a dim critic (Maria De Medeiros, best known as Butch’s girlfriend in Pulp Fiction). It so happens that Oscar also has an estranged, sweet-natured brother named Joseph (Fabrizio Rongione, who played a different kind of father figure in Green’s La Sapienza), who takes a liking to Vincent after a chance meeting in the lobby of a hotel. Green’s pursuit of purity is also a pursuit of symmetry, and like most of his films, The Son Of Joseph blurs the line between running gags and symbolic motifs, whimsical parodies and allegories. (The film’s use of Christian imagery is self-effacing, complete with a donkey and chapter headings like “The Golden Calf” and “The Flight Into Egypt.”) It’s overlong, but behind its jabs at literary pretension, droll punchlines, and minimalist sight gags lies a search for the kind of guidance that parables used to impart.

Letterboxd: Michael Sicinski January 28, 2017

If it ain't Baroque...

Although the primary focus of Eugène Green's newest film is an ostensibly fatherless boy, Vincent (Victor Ezenfis), and his quest to locate the source of his mysterious paternity, there is a secondary set of themes involving the demimonde of high-powered French publishing. (In this sphere, Vincent's biological father Oscar, played by Mathieu Amalric, is a prominent fiction editor.) Amidst the book launch parties and public readings, we meet Violette (Maria de Medeiros), a literary critic.

She fawns over Oscar and behaves like something of a flibbertigibbet, channeling the haughty journalist figures Katherine Hepburn once played but with half the gravitas and none of the facts. ("I scribble reviews in the Literary Lift. You read it, no doubt?") At one party Violette coos, "I just spoke to Nathalie Sarraute," to which Oscar deadpans, "she's dead."

We can compare this to Vincent's trip to the Louvre with Joseph (Fabrizio Rongione), Oscar's brother and the petty thief who will become Vincent's surrogate father. Even as they walk through this palace of "dead" painting, they are inspired by it in real time, and Green takes care to linger on individual canvases by Georges de la Tour and Philippe de Champagne, in whole and in part. This echoes the large Caravaggio poster that Vincent has on his wall, and tells us something about Green's attitude toward art in general.

Green's division between Joseph and Vincent on the one hand, and Oscar and Violette on the other, could hardly be clearer. Art is either to be loved and learned from, or to be traded, commodified, and gossiped about. As for Vincent's mother Marie (Natacha Régnier, who is particularly great in this), she almost exemplifies this kind of movement, from someone who was once taken in by the lure of style and success (Oscar); once burned by that superficiality, shut down; and then, with Vincent's help, is now opening up to something more genuine (Joseph).

We know from previous Green films, such as La Sapienza and The Living World, that Green favors the Baroque to other periods, particularly the contemporary. This may seem backwards-looking, but one could argue (as Deleuze has) that the Baroque offers plenty of untapped potential. Since it is typically a mode that is positioned between dramatic movement and medium-specified stasis, in some ways it prefigures the invention of cinema in 1895.

It's possible that Green's loveingly stilted Bressonianism is another way in which he pays homage to the paradox of the Baroque, since the characters who are of most concern here (Vincent, Joseph, Marie) are the least dynamic, most poised between cinematic movement and frozen time of statuary. By the end, they are "liberated," crossing the screen and roaming down the beach. But arguably, having achieved the status of Holy Family, they are outside of human time altogether. So perhaps in Green's odd Baroque universe, movement is for those who transcend. The rest of us are stuck in the rat race of the profane.

Film Comment: Yonca Talu January 03, 2017

Permeated with baroque influences, the singularly witty and insightful films of American-born French auteur Eugène Green exhibit a profound concern with the making of identity. His 2001 debut Toutes les nuits, inspired by Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, chronicled the romantic and ideological formation of two disenchanted youths in the wake of the May 1968 uprisings in France. With his breakthrough film, Le Pont des Arts (2004), Green shifted his focus onto spirituality, and has been crafting compelling tales of awakening and enlightenment for the last decade. The Son of Joseph, his follow-up to the visually entrancing, erudite La Sapienza (2014)—the story of an embittered architect who experiences rebirth through an exploration of history—offers an exhilarating survey of the filmmaker’s philosophically imbued, idiosyncratic universe.

An extension of Green’s interest in frustrated protagonists searching for meaning, The Son of Joseph centers upon Vincent (Victor Ezenfis), an angry and conflicted teenager who yearns to discover his father’s identity. Unable to extract answers from his angelic, self-sacrificing mother—a Virgin Mary figure portrayed with dignified composure and heartrending pathos by Natacha Régnier—Vincent decides to take matters into his own hands. His quest leads him to a pompous and gossipy party of Parisian literary elites, depicted by Green with a delightful, biting sense of humor resulting from his first-hand knowledge of that milieu as a seasoned novelist. Realizing that the father he longed for so desperately is a delusional and despotic king, Vincent attempts to punish him via a scrupulous reenactment of Caravaggio’s The Sacrifice of Isaac (a copy of which hangs in the teenager’s bedroom). But just as Vincent is about to slit his victim’s throat, his attention is arrested by a beam of sunlight on the pristine white door across from him: it’s a moment of divine revelation that stops him from murder and leads to his meeting with the titular surrogate father who infuses his life with purpose and hope.

Some viewers may be quick to dismiss The Son of Joseph, a whimsical take on the Nativity story, for its familiar narrative and stripped-down style. But it is precisely the clarity of expression achieved through simplification that makes for the mystifying beauty of Green’s film. His approach to composition and staging, deeply informed by Baroque art, rests on a clash between harmony and movement. Unlike traditional directors inclined to reveal exposition through dialogue or action, Green employs an imaginative compositional device to introduce his bewildered protagonist. In a perfectly balanced long shot of a street, two men busy with their phones bump into each other and then depart in opposite directions, leading the eye to the center of the frame where Vincent emerges into view. In addition to serving as a parody of modern-day alienation, the scene epitomizes Green’s brilliantly orchestrated, sharp, and dynamic mise en scène that speaks to the senses.

The filmmaker’s equally meticulous and radical direction of actors, often described as “Bressonian” because of its emphasis on emotional restraint and heightened diction, is designed to reveal the characters’ inner lives. Confrontational moments between Vincent and his mother acquire a transfixing intensity through the extended use of direct address, and demonstrate Green’s knack for eliciting intimate and transcendental performances from his leads. The director’s artistic project crystallizes in a transporting scene depicting a Baroque recital in a dimly lit church. As Vincent becomes absorbed in the ecstatic, trance-like performance, time vanishes and deep healing occurs: it’s a spiritual journey toward the realization of the self, in which past and future merge into a magical and eternal present.

Film Comment: Jonathan Romney September 29, 2016

A publisher’s wronged wife suspiciously picks up a pair of discarded black lace panties from her husband’s office floor. We know they’re his secretary’s, but the publisher, without breaking stride, says with absolute sangfroid: “That cleaning woman always leaves her things around.” In fact Mathieu Amalric delivers these words with barely inflected impassivity, and the first thing that struck me on hearing them was how differently they would be delivered in any other film. Think of the same line in, say, a mainstream French sex comedy, or a Woody Allen movie, or even a British Carry On farce, and you can imagine it being milked for its full comedic weight—you can imagine various flustered, overtly farcical readings, anything but the insouciant flatness it’s given in Eugène Green’s Son of Joseph.

In the context of a film by French director Green, whose work can often be somewhat high-minded and scholarly, the line seems in any case like an utterly incongruous foreign body. But listen to it being spoken with formal coolness, and you realize how much delivery and inflection, or lack of inflection, can completely transform the most clichéd comic material. In Green’s hands, the old routine about telltale knickers is transformed into something preposterously stately—as if a low-brow sex gag had been sneaked into a performance of Racine.

Son of Joseph—playing in the New York Film Festival on October 9 and 10 and the London Film Festival on October 13 and 14—is a strange and wonderful film by a strange and wonderful writer-director. Green is perhaps the ultimate acquired-taste filmmaker—you either take to his thing passionately, or you don’t get it at all—but Son of Joseph is arguably his most accessible film, certainly his most joyous. American-born—although he long ago reinvented himself as French, and tends to disparagingly refer to the U.S. as “la Barbarie”—he has since 2001’s Toutes les nuits developed an idiosyncratic form of cinema that makes its point of departure certain Bressonian techniques, notably an impassive acting style and formal staging that often features characters speaking directly to camera when they are in dialogue with each other. Some of his films are clearly classifiable as dramas—2014’s La Sapienza, the austere The Portuguese Nun (09)—while others are more openly comic. A few are poised on such a delicate knife-edge of irony, with a Brechtian touch, notably the self-reflexive mediaeval-quest narrative The Living World (03), that it’s hard to know exactly what we’re dealing with, other than the uniquely Greenian. Add to this a fascination with Baroque music, art, architecture and literature; a use of highly formal, anachronistic speech rhythms; and a most unfashionable preoccupation with spiritual, mystical, and religious themes, notably the elusive idea of “presence”; and you can see that Green is a filmmaker who establishes his own voice absolutely and invites viewers to join him in his own unique space, or decline the invitation outright.

All Green films formally resemble each other, and one can’t imagine him ever radically departing from type. But he has inventively explored the vein of the “same-but-different” from film to film, in the same way that French Nobel-winning author Patrick Modiano tends to write almost the same novel every time, with telling variations, inviting readers to go deeper into the same territory every time rather than claiming to take us somewhere new. It’s an artistic program as valid as any other.

Yet, while Son of Joseph is recognizably Eugène Green through and through, it has a freshness which suggests a new surge of energy and inspiration. Son of Joseph is, like all Green’s films, deeply serious; but it’s also irresistibly comic. As the title suggests, it’s a sort of Nativity story—but a Nativity without Jesus, the story of a young man, the son of a Virgin Mary-like single mother, who acquires a father, and a man named Joseph who achieves redemption by becoming his adoptive father. The young hero is Vincent (strikingly jawed newcomer Victor Ezenfis). He’s a sullen teenager first seen hanging out with, but pulling away from, what parents would call “bad company”: first a couple of kids busy tormenting a caged rat (the only instance so far, I think, of violence or indeed evil in a Green film), then a dorkish friend who proposes to sell sperm online (“a modern business, traditional and ecological”). Vincent doesn’t want to be part of their world: he rejects both cruelty and the profit motive, yet doesn’t seem to have a passion of his own. What haunts him, however, is the lack of a father. He lives with his mother Marie (the pellucid-eyed Natacha Régnier), a compassionate nurse devoted to supporting others, but Vincent says he doesn’t care about others: “I don’t want to help people. I love no one.”

Vincent’s passions are finally stirred when he reads a returned letter that Marie had written to the father he never knew, her estranged former lover—a mandarin of the Parisian publishing world, one Oscar Pormenor (Amalric). Vincent decides to stalk Pormenor, which affords the film a broad but delicious parody of the French literary milieu, a Parnassus of hyper-precious pretension. This world is an easy target, certainly, but Green sends it up a treat—much as he spoofed the self-regarding Olympus of the contemporary Baroque music scene in his similarly satirical Le Pont des Arts (04). Stealing the film here is Maria de Medeiros as the ever-tipsy littérateuse Violette Tréfouille who instantly decides that the unknown Vincent must surely be a major author in the future; next thing you know, simply by virtue of entering the room, he’s “the new Céline.”

Eventually, Vincent pursues Oscar to his office with murderous intent. We know it’s murderous because we’ve seen on Vincent’s wall a reproduction of Caravaggio’s The Sacrifice of Isaac, in which Abraham is about to slaughter his son. Before long, both reproducing and inverting the Biblical scenario, Vincent has his knife to his father’s throat. But just as Abraham’s hand is stayed in the painting by a forbidding angel, Vincent’s is stayed by… what? Conscience? Inability to kill? Or the merest glimmer of light on the door opposite him, which we’re free to think of as the token of an angelic presence. Certainly, when Vincent and Joseph (a nicely relaxed Fabrizio Rongione), who happens to be Oscar’s errant brother, later discuss the Abraham and Isaac story, it’s suggested that Abraham was told to kill his son not by God, but by his own pride; it was the voice of God that stopped him. It’s up to the viewer to decide whether to read Son of Joseph as a religious story per se, or as a worldly tale that happens to be informed by Biblical or theological subtexts (with the chair in his office resembling a potentate’s throne, Oscar is also the Herod figure in this Nativity).

What’s extraordinary, however, is the way that Green persuades us to take religious themes seriously in a way that few contemporary directors, certainly in Judeo-Christian cultures, would find hard to pull off. One way he does this is to engage so seriously, and so seductively, with the artistic productions of Christian European culture: with the architecture of churches, with the music of the Baroque period (here, including the compositions of not-quite-household-names Emilio de’ Cavalieri and Domenico Mazzocchi), and with painting, the camera here musing in depth on works by Philippe de Champaigne (a particularly emaciated Dead Christ) and Georges de La Tour (Joseph the Carpenter, in a breathtaking chiaroscuro sometimes emulated by Green’s regular DP Raphaël O’Byrne), as well as that of Caravaggio.

For fear of overloading the plate with cultural references, I’d also say that Son of Joseph is Green’s most Shakespearean film to date, in the way that it mixes registers—taking us from the seriousness of emotional conflict and speculative debate to a form of farce that’s flip, even goofy, and yet imbued with a poised dignity that makes the absurdity all the funnier. One of the pleasures of the film is the absolute control of style, which has never been surer in a Green film, for example in the use of color. One cut takes us from Joseph in a darkened bar, lit in richly artificial blue and red, to an outdoor shot in Paris’s Luxembourg Gardens, where the sudden shift to the daylit green of a pond and a background of trees not only represents Joseph’s release into daylight, but feels like a liberating shot of chlorophyllated fresh air for the viewer. There’s a simplicity to Green’s compositions that sometimes feels diagrammatic, anything but realistic in the customary sense, yet very concisely delivering the simple reality of actors’ and objects’ presence in space: for example, a shot of Vincent and Joseph sitting opposite each other in a café, a Robert Doisneau photo on the back wall looking as if it’s suspended in space between them; or later, a shot of three people in blue, sitting against the blue of the sky and the sea.

t’s no accident that one shot alludes to Hergé’s Tintin comics: like Hergé, Green reduces visual information to a simplified form, and thus somehow allows everything we see to take on what you might call its purest essential meaning—chance is reduced, the superfluous is excluded, and what remains therefore has a maximum amount of space on screen in which to breathe and to resonate. Thus, if Green hangs for a few moments on the image of a desk with one drawer left open, it’s not a question of asking what that image signifies, it’s more a question of its being given time to be seen, to resonate, in front of us. The open drawer, just like the characters in the film, is granted its presence; to use the title of another Green film, it’s allowed to assume its place in the living world.

Son of Joseph ends up with an absurd situation: visiting Joseph’s country home, he, Marie and Vincent find that Oscar is hosting a party there. Discovered on the premises, the trio go on the run, borrow a donkey from a passing “good man” (Jacques Bonnaffé, once the lust-struck hero of Godard’s First Name: Carmen) and suddenly look for all the world like a Holy Family en route to the manger, albeit with a grown-up son already in place. The film is a curious mix of transformed and inverted Biblical scenarios, but the mixture of allusion and simplicity gives it, like all Green’s work, something of the quality of a parable: just as his images become eloquent through reduction, so his stories become immensely resonant through reduction to their clearest form, granting them a purity and indeed a timelessness. Just as the knights in The Living World narratively occupy a medieval universe yet are manifestly and visibly, through their jeans and their references to Lacan, situated in a 21st-century world, similarly we believe in Vincent, Marie, and Joseph as a symbolic Holy Family, even while seeing them as three present-day actors filmed on a Normandy beach with a donkey. And the very fact that presenting characters as a Holy Family is a singularly incongruous thing to attempt in modern secular cinema—this only renders the feat more persuasive, more magical even.

All this might make Son of Joseph seem like a rarefied, abstract thing, but it’s full of tenderness, pleasure, wit, and music—including the music of the language itself, which takes on a ringing, verse-like quality thanks to the formal delivery and the anachronistic pronunciation and phrasing (one line, from Vincent to a friend, is, “C’est de quoi que tu voulais me parler?”—not so much, “What did you want to talk to me about?” as a more formal “Of what did you wish to speak to me?”). For all its seriousness and its occasional glimpses of despair and spiritual darkness, Son of Joseph exudes and inspires joy—whether it’s in the beatific gaze of Natacha Régnier, in the triumphant smile that eventually breaks out on Ezenfis’s face, or in the depiction of father-son bonding through museum visits and the shared pleasure of terrible puns.

Reverse Shot: Jordan Cronk October 11, 2016

Eugène Green's “The Son of Joseph,” a Grand and Comedic Drama of ... Richard Brody from The New Yorker, aso seen here: The New Yorker: Richard Brody

Slant: Carson Lund

Brooklyn Magazine: Michael Joshua Rowin January 12, 2017

Sight & Sound: Nick Pinkerton December 02, 2016

Little White Lies: David Jenkins

The Village Voice: Melissa Anderson January 11, 2017

Brooklyn Magazine: Eric Barroso October 03, 2016

Observations on Film Art: Kelley Conway October 13, 2016

Sight & Sound: Kieron Corless 5 Picks from the London Film Festival, October 06, 2016

Filmmaker: Howard Feinstein October 07, 2016

Brooklyn Magazine: Emma Myers March 02, 2016

Fandor: David Hudson

Filmmaker Eugène Green on making a place for religion in the modern ... Ignatiy Vishnevetsky interview from The Onion A.V. Club, January 12, 2017

Director Eugene Green interview: 'My shoots are always a very joyous ... Geoffrey Macnab interview from The Independent, December 5, 2016

'The Son of Joseph' ('Le Fils de Joseph'): Berlin Review | Hollywood ... Boyd van Hoeij from The Hollywood Reporter

Variety: Guy Lodge

The Son of Joseph review – a droll teen drama with hints of Wes ... Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian

Son of Joseph Movie Review & Film Summary (2017) | Roger Ebert Glenn Kenny

RogerEbert.com: Godfrey Cheshire

Review: 'The Son of Joseph' Fancifully Repackages the Nativity - The ... Ben Kenigsberg from The New York Times

The Son of Joseph - Wikipedia

Green, Frank Hall

WILDLIKE B+ 90

USA (104 mi) 2014 ‘Scope Official site

Not your typical picture, as this one has a rhythm and tone all its own and grows curiously more interesting, something of a feminist variation on THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999), a lonely trek through a vast wilderness precipitated by tragic events, where the common element in each is the decency of the human condition. Perhaps the biggest drawing card is the expansive and breathtaking backdrop of the Alaskan frontier, shot by Hillary Spera on 35mm film, though most likely projected digitally in nearly all theaters, which allows viewers an altogether different perspective than most unfolding dramas, as the splendor of the natural wilderness in typical John Ford fashion takes center stage, becoming the most dominant overall characteristic, taking the place of the cramped artificiality of Hollywood studios. At the center of the story is a lone 14-year old girl, Mackenzie (Ella Purnell), seen traveling by herself from Seattle to the airport in Juneau, Alaska, where she’s picked up by her uncle (Brian Geraghty), feeling none too pleased about the idea, barely uttering a word. In an odd choice, the uncle is never even listed by name, even in the credits, making him a completely anonymous character that could be anyone. While he tries to make her feel at home, she’s obviously troubled by recent events, which include the death of her father, while her mother has entered a residential treatment program for something unmentionable. Having no friends in the area, and no place to go, Mackenzie feels completely disconnected, totally dependent on her uncle to show her the majestic beauty of Alaska. What impresses her the most, however, is the smartphone he buys her, which raises her spirits immensely, finally feeling more relaxed and happy. In a peculiar move, her uncle sneaks into her bedroom late one night after she was asleep and takes advantage of her, where her response can be seen in the emptiness of her eyes, becoming a sexual occurrence that unfortunately repeats itself, usually followed by some intimate conversation about how they have something “special” together according to him, already perceiving the two of them as a couple. While her demeanor reflects no reaction whatsoever, her first sign of life occurs while visiting the Mendenhall Glacier with her uncle and another leering guy friend he brought along, where her uncle has bought her a pair of hiking shoes specifically for the occasion. She bolts at the first opportunity, quickly realizing how difficult it is to escape Juneau, as it is bordered completely by mountains and water, where there are no roads out.

Left to her own devices, Mackenzie immediately feels trapped, apparently unwilling to go to authorities, where she has to rely on unconventional methods that border on the bizarre, trying to find a trusting face, or a safe place to hide, eventually following the morning crowd to the ferry, where purely by chance, she latches on to someone she rather awkwardly met earlier, though from a distance, so he had no idea she was following him until a tour bus dropping off hikers in the middle of the Denali National Park exits the premises, leaving her alone with a middle-aged man, Rene Bartlett (Bruce Greenwood), whose intentions are to backpack into the interior of the park. Without a word, she simply follows from a safe distance, though he can’t comprehend what’s happening. Instructing her on hiking etiquette, he informs her that what she is doing is inappropriate, as hikers are solitary creatures, often for their own personal reasons, where it normally requires a good deal of preparation “prior to” the journey, meticulous planning that goes all out of whack when he’s traveling for two. Nonetheless, she resists each and every opportunity offered and follows anyway, offering no explanation whatsoever, which is a bit disturbing, but despite his obvious exasperation, he can see she’s completely ill-prepared for a trip into the wild. What follows is a near wordless trek through the heart of Alaska, hiking throughout the day, where they appear small against an enormous landscape of mountainous beauty, but also unforeseen dangers, as later he skillfully sets up camp, prepares a meal, and allows her to sleep in the tent while he sleeps under the stars. Unfolding gradually, the pace of the film slows to take in the grandeur of the Alaskan interior, where the film bears some resemblance to Julia Loktev’s The Loneliest Planet (2011), but the focus of this film is less on the physical movement of hiking itself and more on the psychological mystery brewing within. Eventually becoming more cooperative, there is a brief window into the scarred souls of each of them, where Rene acknowledges his trip was a planned tribute to his late wife, as they both enjoyed hiking together in Alaska, while Mackenzie acknowledges the recent loss of her own father. Without actually bonding, the audience senses a redemptive power in their journey, while also reminded of the looming presence of her uncle, who is leaving tons of email messages on her phone. Curiously, the director made a similar journey backpacking into the Denali National Park with his wife for 8 days in 2003, where his fictional film characters follow many of the exact same locations.

Along the way, they meet a bush pilot (Ann Dowd) out in an open expanse along with a man who designs kites, testing his product flying high up in the sky, where this strange interlude offers a temporary respite, a safe haven from a tumultuous world, where campfire discussions have a calming influence. It’s only later that Bart begins to realize the gravity of the situation, seeing Mackenzie ignore the constant messages coming into her phone, where he has a chance to glance at the obnoxious messages streaming in from her uncle, who has resorted to stalking her, even sending the police after her as a missing runaway teen, where in the messages he’s blaming Mackenzie for what happened between them. In a panic, all she can do is run away when the police get too close, where the story becomes an entangled journey of evasiveness, as sexual abuse affects everyone differently, but children especially are the most vulnerable, often targeted by a family member or someone they know, leaving them confused and distrustful, where it’s often difficult to navigate their own path to recovery afterwards. Mackenzie simply doesn’t want to deal with her uncle ever again, preferring to put him out of her mind, yet his hounding presence adds an element of horror that continually plagues her. The film is to be credited for refusing to explain itself as it goes along, becoming more of a challenging experience, doling out only pieces of the puzzle, where the audience is often as confused as she is, especially the unconventional methods she takes to protect herself, never explaining anything to anyone. Symbolically, Bart becomes her father figure, stepping in as the father she no longer has, offering her guidance and protection from harm, while she becomes the child Bart and his wife never conceived. The difficulty for Bart is figuring it all out without ever hearing a single word from Mackenzie, who has simply shut out this particular tragedy, as she’s not in a position to save herself, whose only thought is returning to Seattle under the protection of her mother. With her uncle constantly on her heels, showing up when she least expects him, probably tracking her from the phone he gave her, her options are minimal, where it’s curious how the immensity of the Alaskan landscape so perfectly expresses the vastness of her interior psychological trauma, with the world eventually closing in, where she becomes instead a trapped animal in a cage. Rather than developing into a chase movie, fraught with action scenes, this takes place almost entirely in her head, revealed through facial expressions, where there is a remarkable dynamic of the prominent characters that only reveals itself over time, becoming a series of incidents, random moments, and a few thoughts shared together along the length of their journey that allows Renee to finally “help” Mackenzie in his own way. It may not be what anyone expects, and no strategy is ever discussed, but Bart’s inherent kindness adds a note of optimism in an otherwise brooding interior/exterior mystery.

Reel Georgia [Ali Coad]

Frank Hall Green’s quiet, low-budget drama, "Wildlike," is a modest story of an unlikely kinship between a young and volatile Mackenzie (Ella Purnell) and an experienced and haggard Rene (Bruce Greenwood). Mackenzie, still reeling from the loss of her father, is forced to stay with her uncle, played by the doe-eyed Brian Geraghty, at his home in Alaska. We quickly learn he’s a creep and he’s abusive, and that’s all we know and really all we need to know. She leaves, and rightfully so, and that propels the rest of the film into action.

Mackenzie soon meets Rene, a practiced hiker caught in weeds of his own grief. They become an unlikely pair, and the dynamic dances between platonic, protective, and subtly sexual. The film is their story; it’s them coming to terms with themselves and with each other and with the hands they’ve been dealt in this life. It’s not a story I loved—it felt tired to me, that the characters were exhausted by the story they’re living. What I did love: the title. It’s rich and full without being too sharp. She’s not fully animal but she’s proven she may belong in the Alaskan frontier. She’s not quite wild, but she’s wildlike. I adore that idea. It’s noncommittal and let’s Mackenzie off the hook; and to me, that felt honest and sincere. I also loved that more than anything this film was an ode to Alaska—to nature’s faithfulness to what’s true and honest and beautiful, to its healing powers and to its overwhelming beauty. There were colors so pure it almost hurt your eyes to look at them, and that’s a sensation I find true to what you might find in a place that’s totally wild.

User Reviews from imdb Author: nataliehmayes from United States, November 18, 2014

WildLike unfolds beautifully on screen - an authentic and thoughtful tale of recovery, relationships, healing and hope.

Mackenzie (Ella Purnell) must leave Washington state and go live with her uncle (Brian Geraghty) when her troubled mother enters a treatment and counseling program. Although seemingly conflicted, his lingering, uncomfortable gazes eventually give way to inappropriate behavior, and Mackenzie decides to flee his custody and find her way home. However she quickly realizes that Juneau will be difficult to leave, fully bordered by either mountains or water. A chance encounter with the recently widowed backpacker, Rene Bartlett (Bruce Greenwood), evolves into a method of escape, and Bart finds himself an unwitting partner in Mackenzie's plan to return to Seattle. Set amidst the majestic Alaskan wilderness - a place of boundless beauty, challenges and respite - their journey soon becomes more important than the destination. Free from distractions, Bart and Mackenzie (small against this magnificent landscape), experience the power of redemption and restoration. When Bart realizes the gravity of Mackenzie's situation, his concern for her deepens, and he realizes that her salvation is dependent upon his reaction.

This is a quiet, subtle film. In fact, there are times when the mountains seem to speak loudest. Indecencies against children are far too common, and they frequently happen in a "non-Hollywood" manner; often discreetly and calmly perpetrated by those closest to the victim. Attempts to navigate life and its relationships, after being victimized, are fraught with difficulties, leaving survivors confused and distrustful. Modern movies have become somewhat scarce on pure heroes. Even "good guys" are frequently so flawed that it's difficult to really root for them. The strength and tenacity shown by Purnell's character, along with the true unfettered goodness exuded by Greenwood, are welcome and refreshing.

WildLike masterfully proves that sometimes the Last Frontier is actually the beginning of a new life.

American Literary Magazine - Washing Film Festival [Brandon Latham]

Directed by Frank Hall Green, Wildlike is one of many films in the much anticipated D.C. Independent Film Festival (DCIFF) that will continue from February 25 through March 1. The film stars Ella Purnell, Brian Geraghty and Bruce Greenwood.

A genre-defying film with an unmistakable indie spirit, Frank Hall Green's directorial debut, Wildlike, is a wonderful viewing experience that is both breathtaking to look at and refreshingly optimistic. Much like one of its central characters, the film seeks to quietly meditate on grief and explores whether it is right to accept tragedy and move on or defiantly hold on tight.

At the center of Wildlike is Mackenzie, a 14-year-old girl played by adorable up-and-comer Ella Purnell, who is plucked out of her comfort zone and plopped into the isolated Alaska coastline. It is difficult to tell at first why she is going, and Purnell's performance shares very little about what is going on in Mackenzie's head. They might come slowly, but the reveals do come.

Mackenzie's father died about a year ago and she is sent to live with his brother, her uncle. She receives him coldly, clearly uninterested in spending any time with him -- she only agrees to check out where he works so she can use the computer -- and even less interested in living in Alaska, saying that it is too cold, but with the implied subtext that the temperature is not her only complaint. The uncle is played by Brian Geraghty of Boardwalk Empire and Ray Donovan. His baby face and pale skin come in handy in his character as the strangely kind, distant relative from the middle of nowhere, making his repeated gifts and uncomfortable compliments hit that much harder.

When Wildlike becomes more than just a teen coming-of-age or family drama is when, one night after playing frisbee and remarking how Mackenzie must drive the boys crazy, her uncle walks into her room in the middle of the night, slowly sits on the edge of her bed, lifts the covers and climbs in. The way Mackenzie just lies there, eyes half open but completely empty, is the most haunting component of the scene. It is as if she is far less surprised about what is about to happen than we are, soaking the situation in indifference. Did he mention his intentions off camera? Does she want him to come in on some level? Is this even the first time?

The first act is marked by superb editing and framing, which make the objectively banal house take on an eerie personality, and make the villainous predator seem just as vulnerable as his prey. But mostly it is marked by a really alluring lack of characterization. For viewers, it is easy to become intrigued by and protective of Mackenzie but not because she is relatable or otherwise sympathetic. It is because she is a blank slate, like an expressionless puppy that you can't look away from because you are always trying to figure out what it is thinking. After a few scenes in which she is visibly depressed and subsequently runs away into the Alaskan wilderness, it is clear what she is thinking, but still not where it is she really comes from. Over the course of the film, it all makes more sense, especially regarding her mother and where exactly she wants to run away to. But this is not explained too fast. One of the greatest strengths of Wildlike is that its pace of revealing crucial story details is patient and relaxed. It reflects Green's discipline as a writer that he trusts his audience to be patient enough to pick up the pieces as they come.

What's great about Wildlike is how smoothly the dynamic changes, with palpable sexual tension and music that paces the action's progression only making up the first part of the movie. The film then transitions into a combination of a buddy road movie and a chase thriller, but not as comical or thrilling as those respective genres suggest.

This transition marks where the plot of Wildlike hits the gas. Mackenzie partners up with, or more accurately, forces herself upon, another damaged individual, a hiker paying tribute to his late wife by backpacking through the Alaskan wilderness in Denali National Park.

Mostly, this is where Wildlike becomes unspeakably beautiful. Maybe that's giving too much credit to the movie, but the aforementioned editing, partnered with the photography and location scouting (Green wrote the film partly inspired by an Alaskan backpacking trip of his own) do deserve commendation. It may just be that central Alaska is among the most breathtaking places in the world, and a hell of a place to set a film. Anne Dowd plays a passerby who flies in a personal aircraft around the park. What a joy it must have been to have a sequence from atop the expansive and colorful landscape instead of the all too familiar rocky and glacial coast.

The hiker is named Bart, played by Bruce Greenwood--a versatile icon at the twilight of his fame. Greenwood's celebrity brings an extra dimension to the character, for better or worse. The old adage goes that casting a star saves the screenwriter many pages of writing because the audience already feels they know something about the person they're watching. What Greenwood seems to bring is a sense of formality and grandeur. Not the same grandeur of a James Bond-type, but the sort that derives from his past roles as U.S. president in two major Hollywood films (National Treasure 2, and as JFK in Thirteen Days). Such familiarity in his acting persona may not work in the context of a grieving old hiker, but when he teaches Mackenzie the ways of the woods, it gives him a sense of authority and makes you want to trust his every word.

The goal of the screenplay is to portray the relationship between Bart and Mackenzie as one of mutual consolation of tragedy, but the impression that is left bears more resemblance to something along the lines of an educator and disciple. Mackenzie doesn't have a parent. Bart never had any kids. They are extremely compatible as companions, and the film's charmingly optimistic conclusion is a plea for everyone to find a perfect platonic match. In life, you never know what type of person might come through for you.

The Playlist [Oktay Ege Kozak]

Moveable Fest Stephen Saito

WildLike – 1 Scared, Scarred Girl + 1 Scarred, Tired Old ... Sheldon Wiebe from Eclipse magazine

TheMovieNetwork.com [Nick Leyland]

Wildlike | AFF Review Linc Leifeste

Wildlike | Review Don Simpson

Teen-v.-Nature Drama 'Wildlike' Boasts a Performance ... Sherilynn Connelly from The Village Voice

Wylie Writes [Addison Wylie]

Facets : Cinematheque Schedule: Wildlike

Wildlike | Chicago Reader Ben Sachs

RVA News - Richmond Film Festival [Susan Howson] Interview with the director, February 9, 2015

The Hollywood Reporter Justin Lowe

The Examiner - Wildlike is quietly profound

Indie Memphis Film Festival 2014 - Memphis Flyer Chris McCoy

Anchorage Press - Anchorage Film Festival [Teeka Ballas]

Alaska Dispatch News [Egan Millard]

Wildlike Review - Los Angeles Times Katie Walsh

Review: 'Wildlike' Pits a Teenage Girl Against the Alaskan ... Daniel M. Gold from The New York Times

Green, Guy

A PATCH OF BLUE B 84

USA (105 mi) 1965 ‘Scope

Selina: “I know everything I need to know about you. I love you. I know you’re good, and kind. I know you’re colored and I…”

Gordon: “What’s that?”

Selina: “…And I think you’re beautiful!”

Gordon: “Beautiful? Most people would say the opposite.”

Selina: “Well that’s because they don’t know you.”

A variation on the Cinderella fairy tale, told Hollywood style in a wrenching racial melodrama about an 18-year old blind girl, Elizabeth Hartman as Selina D’Arcy, who’s been kept out of school and forced to do menial chores at home all day doing the cooking and cleaning for her tyrannical mother, Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters), before meeting a stranger in Gordon Ralfe (Sidney Poitier), who happens to be black, though she doesn’t learn this until late into the picture. Gordon befriends her and takes an interest in what’s happening in her life, which leads to a cataclysmic upheaval in her life once her mother finds out. Literally locked inside her apartment with few opportunities to ever go outside, Selina leads a stifling existence, where her mother’s mental and physical abuse has no bounds, yet she won an Academy Award for a playing a woman so monstrous that she belongs in the discussion for worst mothers ever depicted onscreen, (which may be reserved for Franziska Weisz in her vile portrayal in Dietrich Brüggemann’s Stations of the Cross (Kreuzweg) in 2014), where her grotesque sadism and sheer lack of humanity overshadows any and all racist shortcomings. As portrayed in Steve McQueen’s more recent 12 Years a Slave (2013) or Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012), white slave owners are depicted as not just evil, but are exaggerated into such sadistic caricatures that it’s reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004). While this is an extremely popular characterization in Hollywood movies, it’s highly questionable whether this over-exaggeration may do more harm than good, resorting to a sado-masochistic indulgence to such an extreme degree that ordinary racists are paragons of virtue by comparison, so it really misses the point. Coming a year after the legislative passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it’s hard to believe someone who so completely embodies racial bigotry would win an Academy Award for her performance, even though this film lays it on a bit thick in drawing the moral lines between good and evil, where Rose-Ann literally has no redeeming qualities whatsoever as a human being. Winters herself revealed in interviews afterwards that it was difficult being this abhorrent, “I’ve always found something to like in the characters I’ve played, but not this time. I really hate this woman.” Adapted from the 1961 novel Be Ready with Bells and Drums by Australian writer Elizabeth Kata, the film alters the tone of the novel where the young girl shares her mother’s prejudices, going into a state of shock once she learns the truth about her newly discovered friend, handing him over to a mob of racist vigilantes. That doesn’t happen here where the subject of race is cleverly downplayed, where instead it’s a film about a sheltered and abused blind girl’s personal liberation and freedom, optimistically breaking the shackles of the past and walking into a new era.

Just two years earlier Poitier became the first black actor to win an Academy Award for his performance in LILIES OF THE FIELD (1963), which is interesting considering one of the central scenes of the film is the spirited rendition of the gospel song “Amen” Lilies of the Field - Amen - YouTube (3:06), where the musical arrangement and Poitier’s voice were supplied by Jester Hairston, as Poitier was notoriously tone deaf. Certainly one of the most exceptional performances of his career went unrecognized by the Academy in A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961), featuring an all-star black cast, where his youthful anger couldn’t have more perfectly fit the raging sentiment of the times. Poitier went on to play the parts of noble and dignified black men not only in this film, but also TO SIR WITH LOVE (1967), IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967), GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (1967), and FOR LOVE OF IVY (1968), where as much as any other celebrity, white America came of age in the 1960’s identifying with the decency of Poitier as a black man, making him a safe choice with movie audiences that embraced him, helping raise awareness for more equal treatment of all races. While this is an extremely conventional film, what’s interesting is how it balances the ordinary moments of Selina and Gordon spending time together and then how traumatizing it feels with her own mother, who treats her with little more than outright contempt. There’s an interesting use of flashback and dream sequences, which were much more commonly used internationally in the 60’s than they are today, allowing directors greater freedom in exploring the psychological state of mind of the characters, where in this film it also provides a window into Selina’s brutal past, where her childhood was anything but innocent. Gordon immediately picks up on this, where this perfectly normal girl, except that she’s blind, has endured and somehow prevailed under the most tragic circumstances. In many ways it resembles the fragility of The Glass Menagerie, where Selena has been kept inside a cloistered existence all her life, completely unaware of the world outside that represents her yearning for freedom. We eventually learn what a house of horrors she did come from, as her blindness was actually caused by her mother (discovered in bed with another man) who in a state of rage threw a bottle of hydrogen peroxide at her father when she was only five, where he ducked out of the way but it landed on her face, causing burned scars around her eyes and immediate blindness. The title of the film references one of her earliest memories, where all she remembers is seeing a patch of blue sky out the window.

The other surprisingly good aspect of the film is the inventive musical score by Jerry Goldsmith, and while it overemphasizes moments of sentimentality with heartwarming string music, very much a period of its time, it also takes a novel approach for more ordinary moments, creating a slightly jazz-tinged scenario with an interesting use of percussion, where the off-kilter music actually helps the audience see the scene in a uniquely different way. The weight of the world seems to rest on Selina’s shoulders, having to endure a daily barrage of insults from her mother, who picks on her constantly, literally blaming Selina for all the troubles in her life, particularly her impoverished economic status, suggesting her own life would be so much better without the added burden. To complicate the woes, Rose-Ann’s drunken father lives there as well, known as Ole Pa (Wallace Ford), and while he’s kinder to Selina than her berating mother who actually slaps her around, he’s pretty much useless, as he never really interferes. He is willing to drop her off in the park one day, much to Selina’s delight, as the idea of spending an entire day outdoors is like a dream to her, having no problem whatsoever with having to wait until early evening for him to pick her up on his way home after work. While sitting under a giant tree, she happens to meet Gordon as he lives nearby, where they quickly become good friends. Astounded that she’s never had any education, and has been deprived of all the things that make life interesting, he helps her manage her away across a busy street intersection and introduces her to the food from a nearby cafeteria, while also teaching her how to use a public telephone and rest room. Anchored to the same spot all day, she’s not hard to find, where he has a hunch she might still be out there during a heavy downpour of rain, helping her to the nearest protective cover. In their meetings, she expresses the awe of discovering new things, like pineapple juice or different flavors of ice cream, while also confessing some of the most disturbing incidents that have happened under her mother’s care, which in her eyes is an ordinary occurrence. There is an unworldly moment that certainly takes us by surprise when Gordon sings to her (in French no less!!) the words to a French children’s song that plays on a music box, A Patch of Blue: "Il pleut, il pleut, bergère." (49 seconds), but other than that, there’s nothing particularly dramatic about their scenes together, which is the beauty of the film, although the interracial eight-second kiss between them was cut for Southern audiences. Well-acted and always intriguing, even Gordon’s brother Mark, Ivan Dixon, so superlative in Michael Roemer’s Nothing But a Man (1964) a year earlier, questions his budding friendship with a blind white girl, realizing it could potentially cause a scandal, which it does once Rose-Ann accidentally sees them together on the street, bringing the wrath of Hell down upon her, scolding her for associating with a “nigger.” Untouched by the sordid reality surrounding her life, Selina is pure of heart, where the music box becomes her most prized possession, as it symbolizes her friendship and developing love for another human being, where it ends on an ambiguous note, as the doors to her future swing open, but the social services available for the blind, mentally ill or disabled in the mid 60’s were hardly a picnic, many discarded for simply being too much trouble for their families, as evidenced in the hackneyed recut version of an early John Cassavetes film A Child Is Waiting (1963), which actually takes place on the premises of a California State Hospital for the Handicapped. Clearly, however, as evidenced by the idealism expressed in both films, the seeds are planted for a more humane society. If the 60’s was anything, it was an era of optimism and hope for a better future, despite the lingering Vietnam War and existing racial and economic disparities.

Note

For her performance, Elizabeth Hartman, who was 22 years old at the time, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, but suffered from lifelong depression, which worsened following her divorce in 1984, giving up acting and instead moving to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she worked at a museum while receiving treatment at an outpatient clinic. On June 10, 1987, at the age of 43, Hartman committed suicide by jumping from the window of her fifth floor apartment.

Chicago Reader Pat Graham

Elizabeth Hartman—a Julie Hagerty out of step and season—made her debut in this 1965 feature, as a blind girl who falls in love with a black man (Sidney Poitier), much to the consternation of all. Shelley Winters won an Oscar for being her own unbearable self (as Hartman's nagging mother) and Guy Green (The Magus) directed with eyes on the noble Kleenex box and visions of Stanley Kramer running through his noggin. 95 min.

Artsforum Magazine [John Arkelian]

“Dark’s nothing to me. I’m always in the dark.”

So says, Selina D’Arcy, a young woman who has known nothing but abuse and neglect all her life. Blind, and deprived of friends, education, freedom, and even basic kindness, she leads a bleak, unfulfilling existence, until a chance encounter changes everything. Selina (memorably played by Elizabeth Hartman in her film debut) is a gentle soul, who has retained her sweetness and inner innocence despite growing up in a harsh, ugly environment. She is a fragile, vulnerable blossom that has somehow appeared in a dung-heap. Her mother, Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters) is a harpy and a bully – coarse, loud, abusive, and utterly loathsome. Her grandfather, Ole Pa (Wallace Ford), is intermittently protective but also ineffectual on account of his recurring drunkenness. Selina has been much wronged; but, remarkably, she has not been tainted by bitterness, self-pity, or proximity to the debased lives with which she is surrounded. Accidentally blinded in her childhood as a helpless bystander to a violent altercation caused by her prostitute mother, Selina spends her days doing housework and stringing beads into simple necklaces to earn some money.

She has been exiled from life, let alone any chance of fulfillment. But a thrill of liberation comes with her new experience of trips to the park, though she is dependent on others to get her there and back – modes of conveyance that are maddeningly unreliable. Once there, a stranger, Gordon (Sidney Poitier), shows her kindness. Their encounter grows to friendship, and Gordon starts to acquaint Selina with life’s simple experiences: Selina tastes pineapple juice for the first time, eats at a deli, hears classical music, is given a gift, and learns what it is to have a friend. And it is a friendship worthy of the name love.

The result is a stellar character drama, with award-caliber performances and the all too rare power to move its viewers. And it’s beautifully played out to the bittersweet strains of the great Jerry Goldsmith’s haunting score. As noted, it was the film debut by Elizabeth Hartman, who died in 1987 at the prematurely early age of only 43. “A Patch of Blue” was written and directed by Guy Green, based on the novel “Be Ready with Bells and Drums” by Elizabeth Kata. Green sees the film as being about, ‘just tolerance, loving one another.’ The film won Best Supporting Actress (Shelley Winters) at the Academy Awards, and it was nominated for Best Actress, Cinematography, Art Decoration, and Original Score. It won Most Promising Newcomer (Elizabeth Hartman) at the Golden Globe Awards, and it was nominated for Best Film, Director, Actress, Actor, and Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Foreign Actor at BAFTA and Best Written American Drama at the Writers Guild of America. Available on DVD as part of Warner’s “TCM – Greatest Classic Legends: Sidney Poitier” four-film collection.

A Patch of Blue - Turner Classic Movies Roger Fristoe

After becoming the first African-American performer to win a Best Actor Oscar®, for his performance in Lilies of the Field (1963), Sidney Poitier had emerged as such a box-office force that MGM's Pandro S. Berman declared he would produce A Patch of Blue (1965) only if Poitier agreed to play the leading role. Based on a novel by Australian novelist Elizabeth Kata, the script told of a friendship between a black man and a young white woman who has been blinded by her sadistic, bigoted mother and is therefore unaware that her new friend is of a different race.

Once Poitier had committed to the project, he worked with Berman and writer-director Guy Green in updating the screenplay and making it more attuned to his onscreen personality. In the novel, the girl shares some of her mother's prejudices and reacts traumatically when she discovers the truth, pushing her newfound friend into the hands of racist vigilantes. "Nothing of that kind was left in the picture, the meaning of which depended on the fact that she did not mind discovering her friend's Negro origin," Berman commented. Thus, as re-envisioned by Poitier and his associates, the story takes on a much more optimistic tone; even though the friends eventually part, each has benefited from the relationship.

MGM tested 150 unknowns before signing Elizabeth Hartman as Poitier's costar. "I believe I was lacking the things they wanted an actress to lack," the Youngstown, Ohio native modestly commented to Sidney Skolsky at the time. The columnist observed that the 24-year-old Hartman was "shy, timid - She always takes her Raggedy-Ann doll to bed with her." Although she would appear in a half-dozen other films, Hartman grew increasingly reclusive with the years and died at 45 in a fall from her fifth-floor apartment, an apparent suicide.

Shelley Winters, cast as the monstrous mother, said in interviews that it was very difficult for her to speak the racial epithets used by her character in A Patch of Blue. "I've always found something to like in the characters I've played, but not this time," she said. "I really hate this woman." Despite her animosity toward the part, Winters won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar® for her shrewish performance. The film also was nominated in the categories of Best Actress (Hartman), Art Direction/Set Decoration, Black and White Cinematography and Original Score. Although neglected this time by Oscar, Poitier won a nomination for a British Academy Award as Best Foreign Actor.

A Patch of Blue proved a box-office winner, even in the South. In Atlanta, its first two weeks' grosses broke a record held by Gone With the Wind (1939). Old taboos still held, though; a modest, eight-second kiss between the leading characters was cut for Southern audiences. Poitier, meanwhile, had become frustrated by the limitations imposed upon his screen romances: "Either there were no women or there was a woman, but she was blind, or the relationship was of a nature that satisfied the taboos. I was at my wit's end when I finished A Patch of Blue."

Film Intuition: Sidney Poitier DVD Collection Review [Jen Johans]

Brian's Film Review Blog: A Patch of Blue Brian Dunn

Program Notes: A Patch of Blue (1965) | Kansas City Public ... Robert W. Butler

DVD Savant Glenn Erickson

DVD Talk [Jamie S. Rich]

KQEK DVD Review [Mark R. Hasan]

Film Review: A Patch of Blue - The Shades of Black and White Runell

Corndog Chats [Adam Kuhn]

Classic Film Guide

A Patch of Blue movie review | Home on the Range Wanderwest

Matchflick.com [Terrance]

20/20 Movie Reviews [Richard Cross]

Movie Mirror [Sanderson Beck]

A Patch of Blue | Best Movies by Farr

DVD Verdict- The Sidney Poitier Collection [Brett Cullum]

A Patch of Blue | Variety

A Patch Of Blue (Film) - TV Tropes

"Elizabeth Hartman, 'Patch of Blue' Star, Is Suspected Suicide" New York Times, June 12, 1987

Elizabeth Hartman : People.com profile piece, September 7, 1987

A Patch of Blue - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

THE MAGUS

Great Britain (117 mi) 1968 ‘Scope

Exclaim! Travis Mckenzie Hoover

Woody Allen once remarked that if he had his life to live over, he’d do everything the same, except watch the film version of The Magus. He wasn’t alone in mocking this 1968 John Fowles adaptation, which though scripted by the author was directed by the ham-fisted Guy Green with the kind of tentative approach to fantasy that’s the sure sign of a second-rate talent. Its tale is that of English teacher Nicholas Urfe (Michael Caine), who comes to Greece to teach but falls into the hands of fantastical enigma Maurice Conchis (Anthony Quinn), who could be a magician, psychiatrist or producer but keeps Nicholas hanging as to the ultimate nature of his identity. He’s not the only one up in the air: Caine himself complained that nobody could tell what the movie was about, and matters are made worse by the temporal shifts and fantasy sequences, which are about as convincing as a rubber monster from a B-movie. Worse is the romantic intrigue — not only is Anna Karina wasted as the old girlfriend who knows better than the lead but the mystery woman on the island is played so atrociously by Candice Bergen that you have to cover your eyes. There’s a movie to be made from this material but it would require Alan Resnais to sort out its complexities. This movie isn’t so much complex as it is complicated; it’s a puzzle so pointless that you don’t feel inclined to put it together. Still, it’s one of those floridly bad movies that could only have been made in the ’60s, so it may entertain some in spite of itself. The only extra: a sombre but idolatrous featurette on Fowles.

BFI | Sight & Sound | DVD review: The Magus (1968) Tim Lucas from Sight and Sound, February 2007

When his novel The Collector was chosen to be filmed by veteran director William Wyler, novelist John Fowles was not a happy camper. Though the resulting film is today considered a modest success, Fowles' recently published journal finds him immensely dissatisfied with the treatments, shooting script and female lead (Samantha Eggar), appraising the finished picture as "no better, and not much worse, than I expected." His grumpiness persisted through the film's 1965 premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where he met star Terence Stamp's friend and former roommate Michael Caine, whom he subsequently diarised as "a Cockney boy made good... He can't act, but takes himself very seriously; hot for birds, for the dolce vita, for prestige. Very ugly, these new ultra-hard young princes of limelight." How pleased Fowles must have been, then, to win the right to adapt his bestselling sophomore novel The Magus for the screen, only to have Caine cast in the lead.

Entrusted to Guy Green - a gifted cinematographer (Great Expectations) and screenwriter - The Magus has become one of the few forgotten films of a decade so fecund with invention and brilliance that even its disasters (Casino Royale, Can Hieronymus Merkin Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?) have spawned dedicated followers. Almost incidentally resurrected on DVD by 20th Century Fox as an ancillary release to another 1968 Caine feature (Bryan Forbes' Deadfall), The Magus is now available for reappraisal in its original 2.35:1 scope ratio for the first time in nearly 40 years. The brightly coloured anamorphic result is surprising, in that it's neither as bad as remembered nor as good as it had the potential to be. Though its tendencies to precious dialogue and pun-making symbolism (Caine's character is named Nicholas Urfe, being a modern-day Orphée) are a bit alienating, one is nevertheless grateful to be met by a film of some intelligence and pretension (not in a bad sense) to art, more interested in amplifying the viewer's mind with questions than in answering them. As one character declares emphatically, "Answers kill!" (Try pitching that idea today.)

Every inch the ultra-hard prince of the limelight, Caine plays the romantically shallow English teacher Urfe, who is eluding a love-affair turned too serious with air hostess Anna Karina. Accepting a teaching post in Phraxos, Greece, vacated by an instructor who committed suicide, Urfe finds a scrap of paper in the dead man's room bearing the words "The Waiting Room" - the first of many clues leading him to the palatial villa of the mercurial Conchis (Anthony Quinn), a possible psychic/psychiatrist/war criminal/revolutionary/film director who guides his narcissistic guest/victim through a maze of psychodramas towards a state of Zen-like enlightenment. The carrot used to bait our hero through this film-length series of time- and mind-bending hoops is Candice Bergen (not yet the warm-blooded actress of Carnal Knowledge), who may be an apparition, the personification of a Greek goddess, or someone far more down to earth. Fowles himself, uncredited, can be seen in the opening scene as a disgruntled shipworker.

Coldly acted, dispassionately directed, and filmed by cameraman Billy Williams (Women in Love) in a florid manner that hasn't aged well, The Magus nevertheless earns our interest as part of the great 'mind-fuck' movie tradition bookended by The Servant (1963) and The Stunt Man (1980), and as a not entirely phony Hollywood stab at the Art Film. Consciously or not, it may also have provided writer David Sherwin with a template of sorts for Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man! (1973), often compared to Candide but likewise about a narcissist replacing an absent but strongly felt predecessor on a mythic quest that leads through labyrinthine adventures towards the conclusive image of a cryptic smile.

Supposedly shot in Mallorca and Greece, the setting looks remarkably like the island of Capri, and The Magus shares with Godard's Capri-filmed Le Mépris (1963) a bronze statue of Odysseus which we encounter here like a beloved supporting player. It would have taken someone like Nicolas Roeg to make the most of this, but the version we have is more misfire than disaster - an amusing enough jigsaw puzzle, a few pieces short of a satisfying picture, whose pleasures are tied to process rather than placation.

DVDTalk [Paul Mavis]

Fulvue Drive-in Nicholas Sheffo

The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

The Spinning Image (Graeme Clark)

The New York Times (Renata Adler)

Green, Joseph

YIDL MITN FIDL (Yiddle with a Fiddle)

Poland USA (92 mi) 1936 co-director: Jan Nowina-Przybylski

This lively musical comedy was a big hit in its day. It stars the vaudevillian Picon, an infectious mugger of strange bird-like mien who was then probably the biggest stage and film star in the Yiddish firmament. The tale - the prototype for Streisand's Yentl - has Picon as the optimistic street violinist who, disguised as a boy, leaves her shtetl with her bassist father in search of fame and fortune. It turns into an entertaining, if cheaper, version of a Hollywood staple, but especially in the early rural scenes, before the big-city success and the ocean-liner trip to America, Green injects a deeply lyrical atmosphere, with dream interludes and rhapsodic Renoir-esque shots of swaying trees and the countryside. Even more poignant, given how close this was to the coming Holocaust, is the incorporation of location work and the use of non-professionals: the shots of the old Polish shtetl courtyards and the villagers' faces which were shortly to vanish forever.

User reviews from imdb Author: lucy-19 from London

A young girl and her father are on their uppers in pre WWII Eastern Europe.

She plays the fiddle and he the double bass so they set off on their travels as wandering klezmorim (musicians). He's worried that she will attract the wrong kind of attention, so she dresses as a boy. (It wouldn't fool anyone, but suspend that disbelief.) They catch a lift from a passing haycart and sing and play their theme tune, Yidl mitn Fidl. "Life is a song!" (fortunately lidl rhymes with fidl), "Life is a joke!". They fall in with two other musicians: Froym, on violin, and Isaac, on clarinet. The band is a hit. Yidl falls in love with the goodlooking Froym and is particularly sent by his fiddle-playing (I know how she feels). She pours out her heart in a plaintive song (all music written by Abe Ellstein). They get booked to play at a wedding. Yidl finds out the bride doesn't want to marry her elderly fiance, so they kidnap her. "Life is a joke!" they tell her, and her voice adds something to their "philharmonie". In fact she's talent spotted in Warsaw and given a gig at a theatre, but at that moment her old love Yossl turns up and she runs off with him. I won't spoil the ending. It ends happily, but ... See it.

Yes, it's creaky and naive, and Yidl's impersonation of a boy can get a bit trying at times. The music, even through a scratchy soundtrack, is heart-stopping. In Yiddish with English subtitles. xxxxx

Joseph Green codirects with Jan Nowina-Przybylski this cheerful Yiddish musical comedy. It was the first international Yiddish hit. The interiors were shot in a Warsaw film studio, while the location shots were in Kazimierz. It stars the diminutive Molly Picon, who was at the time the most popular vaudevillian on the American Yiddish stage.

When the Yiddle (Molly Picon), a violinist, and her bass playing father (Simche Fostel) can't pay the rent, they wander the countryside and with the Yiddle disguised as a boy they play in the town streets to get some small change donations. They are soon joined by other street musicians, the talkative clarinet playing Isaac (Max Bozyk) and his fiddler handsome son Froym (Leon Liebgold), whom Yiddle falls in love with but can't reveal her true gender.

The film's centerpiece takes place in a restaurant where a wealthy but unpleasant elderly merchant, Zalman Gold (Samuel Landau), is set to marry a pretty young bride, Taybele (Dora Fakiel), who loves a poor electrician but is forced to marry the rich man by her mother. While the guests are dancing, the unhappy bride runs off with the musicians and joins them as a singer. Yiddle is jealous that Froym is in love with Taybele, but when the musicians go to Warsaw she soon learns that Froym's only helping her locate her true love electrician boyfriend. While singing in the courtyard, a theater producer (Symche Natan) discovers Taybele and hires her to be the headline singer in his revue. When she gets stage fright and leaves the theater, the Yiddle drops her disguise as a boy and wows the audience as she takes Taybele's place. The successful show then travels to New York, where the Yiddle reunites with Froym in a happy ending.

The film gives you some rough idea of what life was like for the Polish Jews of 1936 (a way of life that no longer exists), and also dazzles with a lot of lively songs. Picon does her corny comic shtick, which didn't do much for me; but she has oodles of charm and her role was the prototype for Streisand's Yentl.

Yidl Mitn Fidl Yiddish fictional cinema, by Sarah Schulman from Jump Cut

Green, Terry

NO GOD, NO MASTER C 72

USA (94 mi) 2012 Official site

This is a period piece movie from the early 1920’s where the merging storylines of history seem like a compelling subject for modern audiences, as the nation was coming to grips with mail bombs landing on the doorstep of Standard Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and banker J.P. Morgan, also other prominent politicians, businessmen, and law enforcement officials in the summer of 1919. In an era that existed before the formation of the FBI, Bureau of Investigation Agent William Flynn, played by the inimitable David Strathairn, is the department’s best bomb expert, where he’s assigned the task to sort out what lies behind these malicious attacks. Inspired by true events, one would think the parallels to the contemporary War on Terrorism might be appropriate, as the film documents the earliest acts of terrorism to ever take place on American soil. Shot entirely on the streets of Milwaukee, the film has an authentic feel, with Chicago theater well represented by Steppenwolf Theatre cast member Mariann Mayberry as firebrand anarchist publisher Emma Goldman, the founder of Mother Earth magazine, home to radical activists and literary free thinkers, while Remy Bumppo Theatre member David Darlow plays the imperial John D. Rockefeller, perhaps the richest man in America at the time, and one of the targets of the mail bombs. While well-intentioned, the director is simply overwhelmed by the complexity of the intersecting storylines, which are presented in a traditional, straightforward manner, lacking any sense of originality, depth, or cinematic artistry, giving it the feel of a fairly conventional made-for TV movie. Unfortunately, modern era audiences would do well to revisit this period in American history, though this film, and Clint Eastwood’s recent portrait of J. Edgar (2011), are not the places to start. A much better film would be the well-researched documentary film Sacco and Vanzetti (2006) made by longtime Ken Burns collaborator Peter Miller, which does an excellent job exploring the witch hunt hysteria of rampant racism and xenophobia of the First Red Scare of 1919-20.

Besides a police procedural following the detective work of Flynn and his partner Ravarini (Sam Witwer), where they answer to the Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, Ray Wise (famous for being the father of Laura Palmer in the early 90’s TV show Twin Peaks), his right-hand man is J. Edgar Hoover (Sean McNall), who is compiling a list of names from radical leftist, anarchist, and immigrant groups who are considered a threat to the nation’s security, as they are alleged to belong to groups that advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government. Accordingly, they are targeting labor activists and anarchists who are seen as agitators of social unrest. While it’s often confusing to tell the difference between supporters of the early labor movement, who are fighting for a decent wage and safer working conditions, and anarchists or communists who oppose the prevailing order hoping to inspire a revolution, following the example of the Russian Revolution of 1917, many ordinary workers are caught in the crossfire, where the Justice Department charges Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, basically two lifelong laborers, with the murder of payroll clerks, where they are both convicted during the frenzy of anti-immigrant fervor, where the two were executed largely for refusing to disavow their political beliefs. While this is going on, Flynn is also caught up in a romantic relationship with the single mother living across the hall, the widow of his former partner who was killed by an explosive devise, and her angry son who is sneaking out of the house and identifying with the violent rhetoric of the anarchists. Even as Flynn tracks down the bomb factory and identifies the source of the mail bombs, Palmer is more interested in his ambitious plan to deport thousands of immigrants, many of whom are guilty of nothing more than being an immigrant, yet they are used as pawns in the frustrated efforts of U.S. government officials to eradicate terrorism from within their ranks.

The American origins of the film title come from an anarchist and labor slogan that first appeared at the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike, where pamphlets and banners held aloft by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) contained this message, though it originated earlier with Nietzsche’s 1886 book, Beyond Good and Evil, and was later printed by Margaret Sanger in a feminist pamphlet a few years later promoting contraception, insisting that women are masters of their own bodies. Given short shrift here is the Women's suffrage in the United States, where many women were part of the anarchist movement, not just Emma Goldman, as advocating for the right to vote was a radical social change requiring protests and demonstrations, where women were subject to arrests and many were jailed in their quest to pass the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Instead the film pits immigrant groups one against the other, mostly Italians and the Irish, where the Irish have the jobs and the political power that the Italians came to American searching for. Early in 1920, the Justice Department launches a series of raids against immigrants and labor organizations, known as the Palmer Raids, where over 3000 are arrested and subject to deportation, where the arrests are without search warrants and the detention stations are in overcrowded, unsanitary facilities. In their zeal to create a public image of decisive action, the agents arrest everyone attending organization meeting halls, including visitors and even American citizens, and while they claimed to take possession of several bombs, in fact the sum total of all the raids netted four ordinary pistols. Eventually a District Court Judge orders the arrests illegal and unconstitutional, but not until after they stir the nation into a frenzy of anti-immigrant sentiment. It is under this historical backdrop that the movie unravels, where the failings of this film are much like Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013), where storylines unravel through a backdrop of history, both feeling shortchanged, coming off as one-dimensional, where the director ends up thoroughly manipulating the audience with a series of contrived events, using a deeply swelling musical score to garner sympathy for the ugly injustice of it all. The brief Black and White opening that resembles archival footage stands apart from the rest of the film, never really making a connection, yet the stark reality sets a tone that quickly gets lost in the build-up of orchestrated outrage.

Chicago Reader JR Jones

This fairly engrossing historical drama (2012) revisits the anarchist bombings of 1919 and the ensuing raids staged by U.S. attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer to round up and deport immigrants, events whose contemporary implications are duly noted by writer-director Terry Green (Almost Salinas). David Strathairn holds the whole thing together with a compelling performance as real-life FBI agent William J. Flynn, presented (somewhat inaccurately) as a defender of liberal values; Ray Wise is appropriately scary as the right-wing Palmer, though Sean McNall seems to be playing his young protege J. Edgar Hoover by way of David Bowie. Flynn's pursuit of a terrorist cell makes for a well-oiled police procedural; late in the game, however, Green decides to pull in the Sacco and Vanzetti case, in which two Italian immigrants were likely framed for murder following a payroll robbery in Massachusetts. Their story line not only waters down the cop drama but soon devolves into revolutionary poetry and sappy string music.

NO GOD, NO MASTER Facets Multi Media

In the summer of 1919, a series of intricate package bombs are mailed to a cross-section of prominent politicians, judges, and financiers. Among the addressees are John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Oliver Wendell Holmes—all targets of an anarchist plot to overthrow the U.S. government. Seasoned Bureau of Investigation agent and bomb expert William J. Flynn (David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck) is given the assignment of hunting down the plotters and bringing them to justice. But Flynn's journey into the world of homegrown terrorism proves to be a test of both his courage and his faith in the government he had dedicated his life to preserving.

Based on actual events—and featuring such real-life characters as U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (Ray Wise, Twin Peaks), Sacco and Vanzetti (James Maddio and Allesandro Mario), Emma Goldman (Marian Mayberry), Carlo Tresca (Edoardo Ballerini), and J. Edgar Hoover (Sean McNall)—No God, No Master sets the stage for a timely thriller with resoundingly similar parallels to the contemporary war on terrorism and the role government plays to defeat it.

No God, No Master / The Dissolve Chris Klimek

“Let’s do some good!” Kevin Costner’s Eliot Ness crows at the start of a botched liquor raid in 1987’s The Untouchables, the triumphant collaboration of screenwriter David Mamet and director Brian De Palma, both doing the warmest, most accessible work of their careers. Terry Green’s earnest potboiler No God, No Master is set about a decade earlier than The Untouchables—circa 1919-21 instead of 1930—but it aspires to the richness and operatic scope of De Palma’s film, albeit on a much humbler budget, without Mamet’s pungent dialogue, and with good character actors instead of movie stars.

Still, the comparison holds. No God, No Master is, like The Untouchables, a romanticized account of Prohibition-era events that more or less really happened. Like The Untouchables, it opens with a precocious child being blown up by a bomb meant for someone else. And like The Untouchables, its hero is a fundamentally decent, initially naïve G-Man. (Whatever Costner’s limitations as an actor were a generation ago, the role of incorruptible anti-bootlegger Ness fit him like those three-piece suits that earned Giorgio Armani a perhaps unwarranted wardrobe credit on the picture.)

In No God, No Master, cool hand David Strathairn plays Bureau of Investigation (the “Federal” came later) agent William Flynn, assigned to track down whoever is responsible for a mail-bomb campaign targeted at prominent American men of the era: Standard Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and banker J.P. Morgan, Jr., among many others. Flynn’s inquiries would probably be more difficult if the explosive parcels weren’t all identically wrapped and addressed in the same handwriting, which seems like an awfully dumb, lazy way to conduct a terror plot—but hey, it was a more innocent time. Then again, considering that a whole roomful of the package bombs are intercepted because they were shipped with insufficient postage, it’s likely this criminal conspiracy wasn’t burdened by genius.

Flynn begins investigating anarchist groups that recruit young immigrant men by giving voice to their anger about unfair labor practices. He crosses paths with one Carlo Tresca (Edoardo Ballerini, who looks like Gary Oldman back when he was a Gary young-man), a union organizer urging the same workers to protect their rights by nonviolent means. Flynn is a reasonable fellow, sympathetic to the workers’ grievances. In a meeting with Rockefeller Sr. (an imperious David Darlow), Flynn even dares to rebuke the old skinflint for paying his laborers in a currency only valid at his own stores. “I have no intention of allowing myself to be intimidated by a bunch of discontented immigrants,” Rockefeller huffs.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Alexander Palmer (Ray Wise, most famous for playing a different Palmer, the father of Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks) is rounding up immigrants on flimsy evidence and deporting them as quickly as he can manage. (Green doesn’t overemphasize the point that this was hardly the last time the United States reneged on its commitment to protecting civil liberties.) Sean McNall leaves an oleaginous residue in his minor role as Palmer’s sniveling aide, an ambitious young Justice Department attorney named John Hoover—though he prefers “J. Edgar”—who busies himself drawing up lists of undesirables.

Strathairn is the only actor in No God whose work could be called subtle. He never plays Flynn—who in real life, went on to precede Hoover as the Bureau’s chief—as a zealot or a bully. He’s a principled cop who takes his job seriously, but he’s here to save lives, not protect the profits of the world’s Scrooge McDucks.

Green’s script deviates from the detective plot to encompass the story of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, Italian immigrants who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 robbery in Massachusetts, and executed seven years later. They maintained their innocence, and the film supports the widely held view that they were framed because of their involvement in the anarchist movement. Alessandro Mario makes an an irresistible Vanzetti. He triggers the violins in Nuno Malo’s swelling score every time he fixes his deep-set eyes on the horizon and whispers soulfully in Italian about how he is an honest man, like his father before him, and like all honest men he deserves an honest wage, and more than an honest wage, he deserves dignity, etc. He’s a one-topic kind of guy. But who isn’t, in a movie this overstuffed?

Anarchist Emma Goldman (Mariann Mayberry) appears for a handful of blink-and-miss-them scenes, too, just long enough for her name to ring some distant bells for fans of composer Stephen Sondheim (she’s a character in Assassins) or historian Sarah Vowell (who gave Goldman some play in her great non-fiction book Assassination Vacation). There’s far more happening in the margins of this film than its compressed 94-minute runtime can fully support. With its staccato scenes, period costumes, and (with the exception of Flynn) flat characterization, No God, No Master sometimes feels like a musical from which all the songs have been cut.

And while many scenes don’t get enough room to breathe, others are just ill-conceived. Flynn’s confession to his young, dumb partner (Sam Witwer) that he feels responsible for getting his prior partner killed is torn straight from the Big Little Book of Cop-Movie Clichés. When Flynn asks an immigration official for a list of persons denied entry to the U.S. in the last 60 days, not only does the guy have the document drawn up and sitting on his desk already—it’s one page long. Finally, there’s the deus ex machina climax where Flynn enjoys the only-in-the-movies pleasure of handing Palmer a bombshell of a letter from President Woodrow Wilson—a letter Palmer, his superior, somehow didn’t know about first. Wise’s reaction is worth the contrivance required to get there, but it didn’t have to be this contrived.

So: It’s clunky, it’s hokey, it was clearly made on the cheap. It’s also ambitious in a way that more expensive films are rarely allowed to be anymore, illuminating a fascinating, underexplored era of American history, when the country had emerged from its long puberty as a global power, but struggled to live up to its own ideals. No God, No Master is plenty touchable, but it punches above its weight.

Palmer Raids - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reel Honest Reviews » Blog Archive » 'NO GOD, NO ... Pamela Powell

Village Voice Danny King

INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING: PASSION OR PROFESSION ... Terry Green from Filmmaking magazine, August 12, 2012

Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

'No God, No Master' explores America's first war on terror Chris Foran from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Review: 'No God, No Master' turns history into preachy ... Robert Abele from The LA Times

'No God, No Master': Anarchist bomb drama lights too many ... Mary Houlihan from The Chicago Sun-Times

'No God, No Master,' a Look at 1919-20 Raids - NYTimes.com Jeannette Catsoulis

Greenaway, Peter

BFI Feature

"He has other reputations as well - as an academic, as a maker of curious artefacts, as a cataloguer of the bizarre and as a librarian of the absurd."

Peter Greenaway might well have been describing himself in this thumbnail sketch of Canton Remodell, a character in an unmade project.

Originally trained as a painter at Walthamstow College of Art, Greenaway is among the most ambitious and controversial avant-garde film-makers of our time. Heavily marked by theories of structural linguistics and philosophy, his films reject formal narratives in favour of impactful imagery, hidden meanings and an obsession with lists and cataloguing.

In conjunction with four bfi DVD releases, this site gives you the opportunity to explore the work of Peter Greenaway: from his inventive early shorts (1973-1978) which established the obsessions that run through his later work, to the feature films - The Draughtsman's Contract and A Zed & Two Noughts - that marked his arrival as a highly significant avant-garde director.

About Peter Greenaway from BFI

Peter Greenaway embarked on his career as a filmmaker in 1966 aged 24. After graduating from Walthamstow College of Art, he began a long period of employment as a film director and editor at the Central Office of Information, a UK government department responsible for making public information films. Both of these institutions (art college and COI) have heavily marked his film work, bringing together a strong visual sense as befits a painter, and an obsessive exploration of the absurdity of bureaucracies and the possibilities or otherwise of the documentary form. These two elements can be seen throughout his early short films.

Throughout his career, as well as making films, Greenaway has remained active as a fine artist, exhibiting paintings at Lord's Gallery in 1964; illustrating three books in 1970 (The Alphabetical Gang Lion; Gang Lion and the Visual Flush and Tulse Luper and the Centre Walk); producing the Water Papers (a set of fifty drawings) in 1974 (exhibited at Arts 38 and Curwen Gallery in 1976) and the paintings and drawings involved in A Walk Through H (1978) and The Draughtsman's Contract in 1982.

With the making of the astonishingly successful The Draughtsman's Contract, Greenaway not only entered the domain of the feature film, but he also helped to change the face of British film itself. Bizarre, intensely personal films were no longer perceived as crazy projects but as commercially viable (with help from the newly established Channel 4). Thus began a long, successful career in which Greenaway's talents and obsession found a platform in films such as A Zed & Two Noughts, Drowning by Numbers, The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover, Prospero's Books, The Pillow Book and The Tulse Luper Suitcases.

Peter Greenaway.Org official website

Peter Greenaway Tribute The Cinematic Endeavors of Peter Greenaway

All-Movie Guide by Jason Ankeny

Film Reference Saul Frampton, updated by Rob Edelman

Peter Greenaway: Information from Answers.com biography

Klassy's favorite greenaway websites - StumbleUpon Stumble Upon

BFI Feature The Early Films of Peter Greenaway

Mondo Digital reviews of many Greenaway films

Movies With Their Own Language Vincent Canby from The New York Times, May 26, 1991

CORNER An Encyclopedic Imagination, Peter Greenaway in the light of Jorge Luis Borges, essay by Maria Esther Maciel from Corner magazine, Fall 2000

Database Cinema: Greenaway and Vertov [From: The Language of New ... 3-page essay by Lev Manovich from The Language of New Media, 2001 (pdf format)

Guardian Unlimited Article Why j'aime Peter Greenaway... and why I loathe his films, by Jean Roy and David Thomson, May 22, 2003

Age Article (2006) Tripping the Light Fantastic, by Susan Shineberg, October 7, 2006

The Village Voice [Nathan Lee] Early Bloomer, an overview from an upcoming retrospective, July 3, 2007

WHAT MAKES A PETER GREENAWAY FIILM SO UNIQUE? The Auteurs blog, April 2009

Greenaway, Peter They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

1997 Salon Magazine Interview by Christopher Hawthorne, June 6, 1997

BBC Audio Interview (1988) by Christopher Cook from BBC 4, August 29, 1988

Peter Greenaway's pact with death Catherine Shoard interview from The Guardian, March 18, 2010

Michael Nyman - Music - Recordings - The Nyman / Greenaway Soundtracks

501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers

Wikipedia

U B U W E B - Film & Video: Peter Greenaway which includes A Walk Through H viewable on video (40:31)

U B U W E B - Film & Video: Peter Greenaway &Tom Phillips - A TV Dante (1983) viewable on video (89:20)

THE FALLS B 88

Great Britain (195 mi) 1980 The Falls

I like to think of The Falls as my own personal encyclopedia Greenaway-ensis. —Peter Greenaway

Interviewer:
If indeed you can fly, why do you use professional aircraft to get you to Britain?

Armeror Fallstag:
To help exhaust the oil supply.

Approach this work with no expectations, as it would be hard to anticipate just what’s in store for any prospective viewer, as this film is a strange mix of the use of an original idea, and then elaborating on that idea for over three hours with 92, count ‘em, 92 variations on a theme. This is something of an endurance marathon, as it’s a strange concoction that will likely leave many viewers puzzled by the sheer audaciousness of the director’s unusual technique, which couldn’t be more monotonous in some instances and repetetive, leaving many with little choice but a quick exit out of the theater. But let’s examine what’s in store for those with the patience to stay behind, as the film sets the tone for much of Greenaway’s later work. There isn’t an ounce of commercial filmmaking on display here, as the entire film is based on a unique science fiction concept that has something to do with the rise and fall of mankind. A strange and mysterious event has occurred offscreen known as the VUE (Violent Unknown Event) which has left more than 19 million people infected in peculiar ways, leaving them strangely alterred, where the world is puzzled by their connection to birds and the need to fly, even if it brings about their own death or the mangled deaths of their pets. A VUE commission has established a directory of the infected people, a small sample of which is the basis of this film, examining 92 people whose last names begin with FALL.

One by one, each is introduced by name and number as well as a brief piano interlude that is nearly identical for all 92 entries, occasionally interviewed, sometimes recalled by loved ones, sometimes reduced to mere statistics, the film is basically a scientific recording of an event as documented by a narrator who reads a brief biography of each person, which is about as dramatically appealing as reading various excerpts from an encyclopedia. However these catelogued lives have become so afflicted by the events that many are now eccentrics exhibiting peculiar behavior, many dream of water or develop a habit to go around in circles, some never age, several allude to the myth of Icarus, all develop a passion for birds, each suddenly speaks a new language (totalling 92), though a few lucky souls can speak multiple new languages, like some form of seers, some grow feathers or improve their eyesight, one man has bird lice, some have begun to mutate, while others attempt to teach their pets to fly. It’s basically one ridiculously sustained, elaborately long joke told with typical deadpan British humor where initially the narrator sounds like he’s straight out of the Monty Python troupe, as there’s a zing associated with each absurd reading, each one more ridiculous than the next. And this goes on and on, not always for laughs especially, but for the sheer exhaustive pleasure of obsessive completism, as the challenge is to make it all the way through, each one a new story presented in fake documentary style, each one a film on its own.

First of all, it helps to understand that Greenaway is an avant-gardist and something of an art historian, as visually there is experimental imagery used throughout, mixing made up filmed material with archival found footage, still photographs, illustrations, graphs, drawings, video and even anatomical charts, anything that lends a sense of authenticity, as some are identified with such brief remarks that there is no accompanying footage of any kind, while for others, several minutes are devoted to the obvious afflictions that have occurred after the event. Secondly is the emotionally dry narration which drones on throughout this entire film, read almost without interruptions, where the flood of words is literally an assault to the senses, seen as all-consuming while continually bombarding the viewer with something to think about, usually inventing some fabricated story that is weird or ridiculous, containing some elaborately structured material, each centered around a different personality. Several exhibit similar characteristics, many are related, as many themes and images are repeated, like the musical cues. Several different narrators are used throughout, and while the sound of their voices is slightly different, each simply gives the biography a straight reading, adding little emphasis or color, but occasionally reaching the utter depths of the absurd, as many of these individuals are killed or maimed along the way, many suffering bird delusions believing they can fly, but their deaths are simply read as accumulating statistics, much as one might read a slight increase in temperatures due to a passing weather pattern. It’s quite clear the director has little interest in these invented people or their lives other than to tell his long and elaborate narrative, which continues to be read one name at a time for over three hours.

Written and edited by Greenaway, it’s interesting that a film 30 years old holds up this well, as it's as "out there" today in the avant garde regions of modern cinema as when it was made, where the bombardment of sound is as radical as the free-form imagery. The brief piano intros are written by Michael Nyman, who appears as a character as well, as do many of the people working on this film, as it features a cast of hundreds. Heard playing over the final piano intro is a brief 5 second piece about four and a half minutes into the slow, second movement from Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra K 364. Additional music is provided by Brian Eno, which includes some of his previous work, including “Golden Hours” from the album Another Green World, brief excerpts of “Jugband Blues,” the last song Syd Barrett recorded with Pink Floyd, also the assistance of John Hyde and Keith Pendlebury. In the last 15 or so names, it’s apparent a new camera is being used, becoming much more painterly as the colors take on a richer hue, though much of this throughout appears to be a combination of 16 mm and video. Fragments of Greenaway’s earlier short films also appear, such as VERTICAL FEATURES REMAKE and A WALK THROUGH H, both from 1978, which document the origins of Tulse Luper, WATER from 1975, but also gorgeous black and white excerpts from his 1966 short TREE, which are accompanied by Anton Webern’s Five Movement’s for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 10. All are included as part of someone’s biography. Greenaway’s fascination with the number 92, which also appears in his TULSE LUPER series (referenced briefly in this film as well), initially came from hearing John Cage’s work “Indeterminacy,” mistakingly believing there were 92 sections, when in fact there were only 90. Greenaway has written two books on the subject, The Falls, which is a slightly revised screenplay, and Flying Over Water, where Greenaway examines the origins of VUE from an art history viewpoint.

Among some of the more memorable characters:

#2, Constance Ortuist Fallabur, also seen here: Constance Ortuist Fallaburr comparative flight historian, possessor of "an earth-bound shape, she shuns flight for herself." C.O. instead furnishes the multiple homes she owns with cast-off airport furniture. (2:21)

#3, Mellorder Fallabur, also seen here: Melorder Fallaburr Military flight historian – Unlike Constance, his wife, Mellorder's mutations include ptagium phyllitus (skin-wing agreement), making him a bird-like creature theoretically capable of flight. At the time of THE FALLS, he's trying to get permission to fly off of the top of the office building next to his birthplace. (4:20)

#4, Appis Arris Fallabus, also seen here: Appis (Arris) Fallabus Dutch kite salesman-partially blind, sensitive to temperature change, plagued with body lice, and he needs to lubricate his body to dissuade parasites. His father was murdered by Van Hoyten, and he awaits the death of his over-protective mother in order to enjoy immortality on his own. (3:29)

#11, Carlos Fallantly, also seen here: Carlos Fallantly One of the few French victims of the VUE, Fallantly fell in love with a turkey after the death of his wife during the Event. Currently in prison for shooting the government vet who put his turkey down after a fowl pest epidemic. (2:26)

#15, Starling Fallanx, also seen here: Starling Fallanx Throughout the biography Starling, who in real life is the wife Marcia of soundtrack musician Keith Pendlebury, who plays Allia Fallanx (Biography #14), sings a different-worded version of “The Lady is a Tramp.” (2:25)

#16, Ipson and Pulat Fallari, also seen here: Ipson & Pulat Fallari are played by the celebrated directors the Brother Quay. (4:34)

#18, Aptesia Fallarme, also seen here: Aptesia Fallarme She could fill a warm porcelain bath in twenty minutes, a warm tin bath took a little longer. To fill a cold tin bath in less than an hour needed other inducements, like a view of the sea, a cow being milked, or the sound of a waterfall. The image of Tippi Hedrin is featured over his early film WATER in this segment. (3:20)

#22, Sashio Fallapsy, also seen here: Sashio Fallaspy "It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here." “Jugband Blues,” Pink Floyd (2:00)

#24, Casternarm Fallast, also seen here: Casternarm Fallast Casternarm: "One, two, three, four...Capercaillie Lammergeyer, Cassowary..." Casternarm Fallast, occasional pianist, professional indexer and itinerant propagandist for a well-known opera company. The VUE has not impaired his livelihood but has widened his outlook on birds. (2:28)

#27, Propine Fallax, also seen here: Propine Fallax Despite the serious attempts to amalgamate them into one person, there have in fact been three Cissie Colpitts since 1931 who live in Goole and establish an experimental film repository in the watertower. This is administered from a room in the nearby maternity hospital, one of the primary epicenters of the VUE. The three Cissys and the watertower reappear in `Drowning by Numbers,' and their collective mission is to have a child after eliminating husbands. Fits the Prospero role of replacing God with a new logic. (3:01)

#29, Antopody Fallbatts, also seen here: Antopody Fallbatts Antopody Fallbatts. Biography sub judice pending 'cruelty to birds' investigation. (9 seconds)

#31, Agrendo Fallbazz, also seen here: Agrendo Fallbazz Agrendo Fallbazz. Drowned in a ship's swimming pool. Bereavement clause honoured for sixteen weeks. Full biography in later versions of The Falls. (8 seconds)

#39, Loosely Fallbute, also seen here: Loosely Fallbute Interviewer: "Did you have any sensation, any clue what had happened? The Fallbutes both began to speak Cathanay within twenty-four hours of the Violent Unknown Event. Both Astraham and Loosely share certain VUE symptoms suggesting that proximity to a site or another VUE victim might be relevant. Most noticeable in the Fallbute case is the presence of matching skin discoloration. (2:29)

#42, Bwythan Fallbutus, also seen here: Bwythan Fallbutus Bwythan was the official linguist for the VUE Commission, able to speak 14 VUE languages, nine at a diplomatic level. (2:22)

#43, Menenome Fallbutus, also seen here: Menenome Fallbutus Cathine’s daughter's, Menenome and Olivine Fallbutus, spent the summer months in the company of a red chair. In honour of this chair, and no doubt in his pursuit of Cathine, toy-maker Cisgatten Fallbazz had given Menenome and Olivine a picture book. (2:02)

#48, Bewick Fallcaster, also seen here: Bewick Fallcaster The identity also appears to be that of Appopinquo Fallcatti, an unsuccessful bird-image manipulator who thought to ingratiate Tulse Luper by flattery. Bewick (Swan) Fallcaster introduces a glancing reference to the classic man-into-bird metamorphosis through divine intervention. (1:50)

#49. Catch-Hanger Fallcaster, also seen here: Catch-Hanger Fallcaster Catch-Hanger Fallcaster had been a teacher. She had taught Russian to Germans. And certainly before the VUE, she would never have admitted to a great knowledge of ornithology. The VUE had made Catch-Hanger three inches taller, paralyzed her index fingers and improved her eyesight. She now taught Abcadefghan to anyone who wanted to learn. Catch-Hanger has translated Tulse Luper’s “Birds of the Northern Hemisphere” establishing a definitive pronunciation of the Abcadefghan equivalents for the Falconidae. (1:22)

#56, Appopinquo Fallcatti, also seen here: Appropinquo Fallcatti Appropinquo Fallcatti spoke Agalese and Orthocathalian and he was classified as an elderly male man with a body temperature of one hundred and nine degrees centigrade, the average temperature of sedentary passerines. Fallcatti moved to Barmouth. In the evening, when the light was not too bright, Fallcatti ventured out and sat in this promenade kiosk, sometimes with his wife, sometimes alone. Fallcatti is now planning a dramatised version of the Violent Unknown Event to rival the Passion Play at Oberammergau. (2:42)

#68, Obsian Fallicut, also seen here: Obsian Fallicutt A dreamer of water and allergic to direct sunlight, he attepts to find evidence that the VUE is "an expensive, elaborate hoax perpetuated by A.J. Hitchcock to validate the unsettling and unsatisfactory ending of his film, THE BIRDS," who studies Hitchcock's thriller so closely that he identifies a new bird species which he christens the "Alfred." This wears away the affection of his wife, Raspara. (3:30)

#74, Pollie Fallory, also seen here: Pollie Fallory Pollie Fallory: Capercaillie, lammergeyer, cassowary... (3:03)

#75, Afracious Fallows, also seen here: Afracious Fallows The Violent Unknown Event had partially paralyzed the face of Afracious Fallows, enlarged his heart, thumbs and genitals, made him scrofulous, softened and widened his feet and thoroughly wrecked his career as a school-headmaster. Afracious regularly sought to relieve his depression by driving a stolen car around the traffic island in the centre of Abersoch until the petrol ran out, or until he was stopped by the Police. (2:56)

#80, Ascrib Fallstaff, also seen here: Ascrib Fallstaff, Pernicious inclusion of fictional character. Criminal charge pending (9 seconds).

#81, Armeror Fallstag, also seen here: Armeror Fallstag At an open-air concert at Phoenix, Arizona, Armeror Fallstag is reputed by his fans and promoters to have flown 310 metres, and they are not speaking metaphorically. (4:24)

#83, Geoffrey Fallthuis, also seen here: Geoffrey Fallthuis Eleven years ago, a tree that grew on a site was the subject of an unfinished film (as music of Webern is heard playing over Greenaway’s early short, TREES). The film was made by Geoffrey Fallthuis, student pupil of Tulse Luper, and at 19, the shortest and youngest of the Luper admirers who supported the Luper program for an unassisted naturally evolving landscape. The tree, a wych-elm, had been planted on the south bank of the Thames, when the area was the garden of a London broker who apparently specialized in the importing of timber for the manufacture of musical instruments. Due to a number of coincidences of date, name and geography, Geoffrey Fallthuis chose to structure the cutting copy of his film, at least, on Anton Webern's Five Pieces for Orchestra, a choice later cemented by the knowledge that another Schoenberg pupil, Hans Eisler, had composed a work to a tree, an oak that had survived the bombing of Berlin. (5:10)

#88, Erhaus Bewler Falluper, also seen here: Erhaus Bewler Falluper Before the VUE, Falluper was a master cataloguer, an enumerator and a collector of statistics. He inaugurated grand and extensive projects that other less gifted statisticians invariably completed. (4:00)

Tucson Weekly (Stacey Richter) review

Director Peter Greenaway's first feature, The Falls (1980), is a post-modern chronicle of 92 characters, all with the word "fall" as part of their names. They're among the 19 million victims of a catastrophe called the "Violent Unknown Event." Hailed as an absurdist masterpiece, The Falls delivers all the lush visual imagery and downright weirdness for which Greenaway is famous.

All Movie Guide Hal Erickson

After cutting his teeth on 14 years' worth of short subjects, director Peter Greenaway made his feature-film debut with the pseudo-documentary The Falls. The added length does nothing to dilute Greenaway's singular sense of the absurd. The story, if one can truly call it that, deals with a phenomenon involving birds and anacronymically known as V.U.E. The letters stand for Violent Unknown Event, and in the course of the film's hallucinatory 190 minutes we are introduced to 92 of the syndrome's victims whose names all begin with the letters "F-A-L-L." This film is pure avant-garde and obviously not for all tastes.

Time Out

Greenaway's fantasy expands enormously the same obsessions as his earlier A Walk Through H and Vertical Features Remake: a cross between Alice after the Holocaust and the ramblings of a deranged film librarian. Set in a strangely serene future - after a Violent Unexplained Event which has irrevocably changed Life as We Know It - The Falls sets out to document the biographies of 92 victims of the event, all selected on the basis that their names begin with the letters 'Fall'. The strategy is ingenious, substituting an amazing excess of 'content' for the formalism that has (usually) defined the avant-garde. Not recommended to people who like one story, two characters, and a happy ending. But for those who like riddles, acrostics, sudden excursions, romantic insights, and the eerie music of Michael Nyman (plus bits of Brian Eno)...come to Xanadu.

Greenaway on The Falls Peter Greenaway from BFI Feature

The Falls is the magnum opus of this time. Now recreated in essence with all the new technologies of the 21st century in The Tulse Luper Suitcases - a project of peripatetic, picaresque encyclopaedia. I had always vowed to remake this essay every ten years - a goodly time to update a directory. Indeed The Falls did find its way into a book published in 1993 - twelve years after, and now it's 2003 and time to make a remake.

The original of The Falls was finally finished in 1980 and on 16mm with magnetic tape soundtrack. It is over three hours long and is divided into 92 end-to-end biographies of people who in some way have been apocalyptically associated with the VUE, the Violent Unknown Event, a phenomenon connected with birds - their flying or non-flying characteristics, their voice and song, their individual species habits, their man-manufactured mythology. Every civilisation in geography and history has had ambitions to fly. Here with uncertainties, ambiguities, vested interest informations and dis-informations is a compendium of human tragedies and celebrations, accompanied by the notion of birds. Audubon and Hitchcock are included, and so are all the familiars of the personal mythology of Tulse Luper, polymath, polyglot and sometime tiresome autodidact who had a mocking theory about almost everything.

A history of the world should be a history of every one of its inhabitants, but that, like the Borgesian same-scale-as-the-world map, absurdly mocks human effort, so a section of humanity has to stand in for the mass, and in this case, all those people in the VUE Directory whose surnames appropriately begin with the letters FALL - will have to suffice. The Fall of Man, but more significantly the great Fall of Angels that introduced discord into the world - are, of course, referenced.

BFI Screenonline: Falls, The (1980) William Fowler, also including video clips

Although The Falls is Peter Greenaway's first feature film, and a long one at over three hours, its character is very much in tune with the shorts that preceded it. In fact, the use of the list of 92 sufferers from the 'Violent Unknown Event' (VUE) allows Greenaway, in effect, to combine 92 short films into one long one; he himself went as far as to describe these as 92 different types of films.

As with Greenaway's earlier work, the literal voices of the film are largely provided by narrators, one of whom, Colin Cantlie, was a colleague of Greenaway's at the Central Office of Information. Having made films at the COI, Greenaway was now almost parodying them in his exploration of the documentary form, a process that seems to reach its zenith with The Falls.

Although the film is divided into sections, certain themes (birds, death, jokes) and even names and characters cross between them. The effect is to suggest that some larger story exists within the cracks, with the onus on the viewer to piece this together. Even within each biography the viewer must actively interpret the narration, titles, drawings and archival film to create their own sense of that which is being told. Here Greenaway reveals the acknowledged influence of the Canadian experimental filmmaker, Hollis Frampton, whose films work in a directly similar way.

Certain sections of the film hint at autobiographical details connected to Greenaway himself. We are told that Appropinquo Fallcatti wrote ecological dramas and through their success was able to work full time on a project connected to the BFI, here referred to as the Bird's Facilities Industry, rather than the British Film Institute (which funded The Falls). Similarly, an H.E. Carter is frequently referred to as a filmmaker who provides 'dream samples' for the VUE catalogue. The films attributed to Carter provide the more lyrical moments in The Falls, and are invariably made up of footage shot by Greenaway for earlier projects, for example, the extracts from the film Water. Other autobiographical suggestions lie with Casternarm Fallast, who wishes to make an opera using the names of 92 unusual birds. The number 92 determines the number of biographies in the The Falls, but is also important in Peter Greenaway's multi-media project, The Tulse Luper Suitcases, of which, again, there are 92.

User reviews from imdb Author: Trp1985 from Sri Lanka

Peter Greenway's 'The Falls (1980)', made after a period of unique short films is by no means an amateur work shot by an unsure hand. In fact, many Greenaway enthusiasts consider this his best film from an oeuvre which includes notable features such as 'The Cook, The Thief, The Wife and Her Lover' 'A Zed & Two Noughts' 'Drowning by Numbers' etc. It's trademark Greenaway, a filmic encyclopedia that exhibits all his obsessions with list-making, cataloguing, ornithology, and intelligent witticism. This is as far from mainstream film-making as it gets—so steer clear if you have a short attention span and propensity for dramatic stimulus every five seconds. I'm sorry but, it's strictly art-house stuff.

The basic premise of the narrative is that people are struck by a malevolent occurrence known as the VUE (Violent Unknown Event). So, in a step to further investigate the consequences of the event, the VUE commission has compiled a list of people whose surnames begin with the letters F-A-L-L and all of who've been struck by the VUE (supposedly over 19million people are infected, but the taxonomy has been narrowed down this particular way). Now we have 92 people whose surnames begins with F-A-L-L (Fallbaez, Falllows, Fllbateo, Fallax etc); thus, 92 short biographies detailing their lives and the VUE's effects on them will be presented to us throughout the length of the film (which is a whopping 3+ hours). We learn that most victims are blessed with new languages (of which there are 92), an interest in ornithology, physical deformations, and some with an ability to fly (Bio 81, Ameror Fallstag). As such, the 92 victims' short and sometimes non-existent biographies are narrated in a faux-documentary style by a monotonous narrator, strictly in a bureaucratic way—but that itself is a parody, as the desire to seriously catalogue this absurd disaster results in some moments of 'nerdy' comic humor ('On the night of June 12th of the VUE, Carlos's wife suffered a stroke, and Carlos transferred his affection to a turkey')

From a personal point of view, this maybe the most unique 'first' feature from any renowned film director (David Lynch's 'Eraserhead' comes close), yet the exhausting and at times tedious encyclopediac detailing found in 'The Falls' is unrivaled. The 92 Bio's are all structured in a different way, so in a sense they are 92 separate films—disparate in tone, mood, editing etc. Peter Greenaway himself has stated that it could be '92 different ways to make a film'.

The best way to approach this 'difficult' picture is to first get a whiff of the style via Greenaway's early short films (some of which are referenced in the 'Falls'), such as 'A Walk Through H' or ' or 'Vertical Features Remake'. You'll note that there are some common characters throughout, such as Tulse Luper, Cissie Colpitts, Van Hoyten etc—I'll leave you the trouble of figuring them all out. Nevertheless, as stated earlier, 'The Falls' is considerably atypical even when compared to Greenaway's later, more celebrated works. So come prepared, and expect to be exhausted and awed, bored and excited as you wade through this alphabetically catalogued disaster.

not coming to a theater near you (David Carter) review

From the start, The Falls puts the viewer immediately off guard. The film opens with a frenetically moving camera exploring a black and white landscape while a succession of ninety-two names scroll upwards. Both the names and visuals are meaningless and indecipherable to the viewer. A stern voiced narrator offers up a brief explanation but one that does little to clarify the situation: The Falls is a visual catalog, a living dictionary of loosely connected individuals and their biographies. Complicating matters, The Falls is the neither the first nor last entry in the catalog, simply the biographies of the ninety-two individuals with names beginning with FALL. We are told that those depicted in The Falls are all victims of the Violent Unknown Event (VUE) and represent only an infinitesimal portion of the nineteen million affected by the occurrence. As the title card for the first entry appears – #1 Orchard Falla – the viewer seems to know less about the film than when they began.

This disarming beginning not only gives us a glimpse of the ideas at play in The Falls, but also some of the concepts and obsessions that would frequently reappear in Greenaway’s later work as well. Mystery, lists or catalogs and games are all present in this brief introduction. The viewer’s curiosity is piqued immediately and an eagerness to delve into the mystery of the VUE appears even before one is fully sure of what exactly it may be. Mysteries of differing types are present in most of Greenaway’s films, ranging from whodunits to esoteric musings about the mystery of life, two thoughts that factor heavily in The Falls. The existence of a Directory spanning some nineteen million biographies prefigures Greenaway’s later preoccupations with cataloging, numbering and classifying, as seen in films such as A Zed & Two Noughts and Drowning by Numbers. The latter of those two films also includes an extensive system of elaborate games played by the characters. One could call what Greenaway is doing in The Falls another type of elaborate game—rather than presenting a fictional narrative, it purports to be an authentic document presenting a history of events that never truly occurred.

We aren’t left to wonder about the goals of Greenaway’s simulacrum for long, as Orchard Falla’s story begins a parade of inventive and often amusing segments. In the first of many pieces that owe no small debt to the dry and absurdist humor of Monty Python, Orchard Falla’s life is described in terms of perpetual toothaches, putting bird skulls in his shoes and disappointedly staring at distant coasts. Greenaway increasingly ups the ante on the bizarre affectations of his subjects as the film continues and, as with the introduction, we see the beginnings of several themes in this first segment. The deadpan delivery of the odd and confusing personages continues throughout the film and, again, he brings up more tantalizing details that have no explanation within the segments themselves. The chief of these is “The Theory of the Responsibility of Birds” and the beginning of The Falls’ main obsession: birds and flight.

What little we do learn about the VUE over the course of the film points strongly to an avian genesis or at least a decidedly ornithological bent. Birds and flight overwhelm The Falls and Greenaway displays an impressive and exhaustive amount of bird knowledge—species, anatomy, symbolism and mythology. The Falls’ fascination with birds and flying is an extrapolation of man’s fascination with the same, flight being a source of wonder for man for centuries and a relatively still-new ability of humanity. Flight in this regard is used to represent any unknowable or unattainable goal for man, and the victims of the VUE are sometimes presented as if they are members of a strange religious order or cult. There is a religious undertone to many of the segments and the subjects either love or hate birds, thus becoming the “devout” and the “atheists” of the film. The myth of Icarus is both mentioned by several of the subjects in reverent tones and alluded to in one of the more common effects of the VUE: the victims’ persistent dreaming about water.

The film alludes more subtly to the Icarus myth in the way in which each of the subjects in The Falls is negatively affected by the VUE. The changes vary from dramatic body transformations to the adoption of new languages, both of which prove to be handicaps to an extent. Several of the subjects remain unseen but their deformities are listed and range from minor changes to limb loss and strange growths. The new language speakers represent a different sort of limitation the social and personal separation that occurs when one can no longer communicate with their family or fellow citizens.

Change and transformation are at the heart of The Falls. The film posits a world where nearly one percent of the world’s population – roughly equaling the number of casualties in World War I – is dramatically changed forever by an event that no one fully understands. The Falls can therefore be viewed as an attempt to contextualize the unexplainable, to apply human logic to the illogical. Viewing the Standard Directory and, by extension, The Falls as this type of endeavor allows one to see why Greenaway has taken such a comedic tone in the work. The film is a satire, but one that intends to skewer the documentarians rather than their subjects. Greenaway’s goal for the film is to point out the absurdity of man’s attempt to assert control over the nature world by forcing an ill-fitting system of classification on it. Man’s desire to be able to say, “I understand this” is folly to Greenaway and to explore this in the film he has constructed a labyrinth of the inexplicable (the VUE) and the absurd (the victims).

An attempt to catalog and classify the work of a filmmaker as varied as Peter Greenaway may also seem to be folly. This strange and hilarious mockumentary at first seems out of step with the rest of his feature-length output. However, The Falls strongly points to Greenaway’s later work by showing his esteem for the mystery and wonder of life. Unanswered questions figure heavily in Greenaway’s subsequent films and the two films that follow The Falls both see characters paying for their curiosity with their lives. Greenaway’s oeuvre puts an emphasis on the fantastic in life but, unlike the makers of the Standard Directory, his goal is to capture a fleeting glimpse of it, not to contain or to dissect it. The Falls is his first attempt at reaching this goal and should be seen not as an amusing deviation from his later films but as a Rosetta Stone to understanding them.

The Falls Greenaway movie website, also seen here: The Falls at petergreenaway.org.uk

PETER GREENAWAY - "THE FALLS", AND MORE - BY HARLAN KENNEDY Peter Greenaway: His Rise and “Falls,” a reprint of Harlan Kennedy from Film Comment, January/February 1982, from American Cinema Papers

Simon Field The New Social Function of Cinema, from BFI, 1981

Maxigas 37 page essay, 2004 (pdf format)

What is The Falls? BtInternet

The Falls / Падения / Die Falls (1980) DVDRip » Rare Cinema ... English/Russian site, including good photos

Epinions.com [Ernest Brown] includes my favorite quote about the film: THE FALLS rivals Andy Warhol's EMPIRE for the label of the "Gone With the Wind" of avant-garde film

Synoptique - Packing up the Past, Packing for the Future : A ... A Personal Response to TULSE LUPER SUITCASES, an essay comparing The Falls to Tulse Luper, by Zoë Constantinides, from Synoptique

CORNER An Encyclopedic Imagination, Peter Greenaway in the light of Jorge Luis Borges, essay by Maria Esther Maciel from Corner magazine, Fall 2000

Music in The Falls Eric Levy from Greenaway movie website

Shane R. Burridge retrospective

SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review review [4/5] Richard Scheib

Peter Greenaway: The Falls Colin Marshall

filmcritic.com (Christopher Null) review [3/5]

User reviews from imdb Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

User reviews from imdb Author: Sergio Eduardo Orlandi Repka from London, England

User reviews from imdb Author: Steve Rouse (catfish@mcmail.com) from Manchester, England

User reviews from imdb Author: Chris Bright from London

User reviews from imdb Author: Infofreak from Perth, Australia

User reviews from imdb Author: andrew osnard (hitch1899_@hotmail.com) from panama city, panama

User reviews from imdb (Page 2) Author: Graham Greene from United Kingdom

Greenaway: The Early Films box set - Independent Film Quarterly Todd Konrad

The Falls (1980) The Auteurs

The Lumière Reader (capsule) Mubarak Ali

THE FALLS Shock Cinema

This is Epth Nation 2.7 | Peter Greenaway's “The Falls” May 7, 2006

Why championing Peter Greenaway is a pain in the ass. « Friday ... Noah from Friday Night in the Kingdom of Doom , April 9, 2009

Peter Greenaway: From "The Falls" | Waggish David Aeurbach from Waggish, October 31, 2009

A jpoc review

DVD Verdict [Jesse Ataide] reviewing The Early Films

The Onion A.V. Club [Tasha Robinson] reviewing Greenaway: The Early Films

Combustible Celluloid [Jeffrey M. Anderson] reviewing The Early Films

The Films of Peter Greenaway Mondo Digital, reviewing various Greenaway films

Washington Post (Desson Howe) review

Greenaway's Witty, Wearying 'Falls' - Los Angeles Times

PETER GREENAWAY'S 'THE FALLS' Vincent Canby from The New York Times, also seen here: The New York Times (Vincent Canby) review

BFI Feature The Early Films of Peter Greenaway

BFI synopsis The Falls

3 x Peter Greenaway | Film International The Early Films of Peter Greenaway

Zeitgeist Films | Greenaway: The Falls

Michael Nyman - Music - Recordings - The Nyman / Greenaway Soundtracks

SoundtrackCollector - Soundtrack Information

The Falls - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Falls, published by Dis Voir

artnet.com Magazine Reviews - PETER GREENAWAY'S FLIGHTS OF FANCY Kim Bradley from Art Net

Casuarius Biography #2, also seen here: Constance Ortuist Fallaburr on YouTube (1:11)

The Falls - Lacer Fallacet Biography #7, also seen here: Lacer Fallacet on (2:04)

The Falls - Carlos Fallantly Biography # 11, also seen here: Carlos Fallantly (2:27)

No#18. Aptesia Fallarme - Peter Greenaway - The falls Biography # 18, also seen here: Aptesia Fallarme (3:31)

The Falls - Throper Fallcaster Biography # 54, also seen here: Throper Fallcaster (2:37)

Peter Greenaway: The Falls, #74 - Pollie Fallory Biography #74, also seen here: Pollie Fallory (3:03)

The Falls - Afracious Fallows Biography #75, also seen here: Afracious Fallows (2:56)

The Falls - Armeror Fallstag Biography #81, also seen here: Armeror Fallstag (4:25)

Erhaus Bewler Falluper Biography #88, also seen here: Erhaus Bewler Falluper (4:01)

THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT

Great Britain (103 mi) 1982

Although set in an English country house in 1694, this is essentially science fiction of the most dazzling kind, being a far more vivid exploration of an alien world than 99 per cent of big budget Hollywood films. The story about a painter who undertakes to draw an estate is as intriguing as the culture it displays. Greenaway's 17th century is a place of ribald honesty as well as unfathomable mystery, and it revels in the spoken word. Of course this is non-genre, low-budget cinema, and some people will be irritated by its singlemindedness; but for others it's proof that wit can sometimes carry a film to places special effects just don't reach.

Goatdog's Movies [Michael W. Phillips, Jr.] also here: Movie Vault [Goatdog]

Elliot Wilhelm, the author of Videohound's Guide to World Cinema, calls this film "the product of a brilliant smart-ass." I am inclined to agree. It is visually stunning in that kind of Merchant-Ivory way, except that it has a slightly off-color look to it, much like director Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover; it is beautiful but somehow sinister and has the look of decay about it. It's hard to pin down. The film is a puzzle of sorts, but you don't realize until about two-thirds of the way through that you're watching a mystery. As viewers, we are in much the same boat as the protagonist, an artist played by Anthony Higgins who is hired to draw several commemorative pictures of the estate of a rich woman for her husband, who is more interested in his land and his horses than he is in his wife. We just don't know what's going on until it's too late.

We get an early inkling that this isn't your standard costume drama fare. Higgins initially refuses to do the drawings, and a series of deftly edited scenes shows us the process by which Janet Suzman, the matriarch of the estate, and her daughter Anne-Louise Lambert convince him to change his mind. He agrees after the proposal of the titular contract; he is to draw twelve pictures, and Suzman is to submit to his sexual desires. The family lawyer, a real sleazeball played by Neil Cunningham, draws up the contract to make it official.

Higgins travels to the estate, from which the patriarch has recently left for a journey to France. He is a meticulous jerk; he insists that people and livestock be moved around at his behest, and he takes his time drawing. He's a good artist, though, as Suzman reluctantly admits as he ravishes her daily. Meanwhile, there crops up some question as to where the patriarch really is: did he travel to France, or has he been murdered? Higgins scoffs at the idea, until the scheming daughter points out incriminating elements of his very drawings that, collectively, don't really add up to anything but look like they do. In the meantime, Higgins draws his pictures, insults the impotent German wife of Lambert, played by Hugh Fraser, and unwittingly becomes more and more involved in a murder plot that may or may not be real.

That's the maddening joy of this film: you don't really know whether there's anything sinister going on or not. The way the film looks and feels suggests much more than the "clues" that supposedly implicate Higgins in the murder that may have occurred. As I said, there's something sinister about the saturated colors, stately pacing, and ever-moving camera that Greenaway uses to bring to life this rotting estate. The thing is, you want there to be something going on, because Higgins is such a perfect ass that you wish he was guilty of something. His dialog is full of subtle and not-so-subtle barbs that imply that he thinks he's the only worthy person around; the way he abuses Suzman and, later, Lambert is a perfect gauge of his character. In the end, you find yourself rooting for his downfall, for whatever reason the other characters can find.

digitallyOBSESSED! DVD Reviews Debi Lee Mandel

The Draughtsman's Contract was Peter Greenaway's breakthrough feature film. Set in 1694, near the close of England's Restoration era, he builds a metaphorical tour de force of artistic inheritance disguised by the juxtaposition of extravagance and geometric simplicity.

Mrs. Herbert (Janet Suzman) is desperate to regain her husband's attention by appealing to him through what he does care about—his house, his property, his gardens. When the controlling Mr. Herbert tells her he will be leaving for a fortnight, she urgently pleads with Mr. Neville (Anthony Higgings), a skilled draughtsman, to stay on in his absence to make drawings of the house as a gift for her husband. Neville arrogantly succumbs and the contract signed.

Although the dispassionate draughtsman coldly abuses the unhappy Mrs. Herbert, as the days pass and his drawings progress, it is Mr. Neville who is disabused of his vainglorious pride. When it is decided that Mr. Herbert's gone missing, Mr. Neville is led to the discovery that he has committed the clues to paper, condemning himself, "...more than a witness...an accessory to misadventure."

Neville could be likened to Greenaway himself (the director created the actual drawings used in the film), as they are both perfectionists, controlling to the point of obsession: "For drawing #4, from 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the front of the house that faces West will be kept cleared. No horses, carriages or other vehicles will be allowed to be placed there and the gravel on the drive must be left undisturbed. No coals will be burned that would issue smoke from the front of the house."

The signs of this auteur are everywhere, from the symmetrical structure of the interior scenes (including the ubiquitous arrangements of fruit) to the use of the camera through the draughtsman's grid, framing scenes that restrict not only his protagonist's vision but also that of the viewer, constricting our focus so that we see only what Neville sees within his limited scope. Nothing is accidental or left to chance, exactly as Neville, an utterly unimaginative artisan, void of creativity and emotion, demands of his environment: "Madam, I try very hard never to distort or dissemble."

The grid is key as it frames the hours of the days, the views of both house and property, and characterizes the narrow view of the draughtsman and his ilk. It is an object of restraint, of containment, echoing the personalities that DO NOT prevail in this story—in the end, it is those who contrive, by any means to break free, that triumph.

And it is surely not coincidence that this drama is set at the end of the Restoration era, in the formal gardens of an English estate: these were the last days of such rigid, punctilious geometries. Poetry flowed in blank verse; art and architecture began their evolution toward more natural forms. Greenaway sets us in a society on the verge of the Baroque, the great leap toward organic abstraction—a softer, more feminine landscape. As a cinematographer, he confines our vision to the picture plane, while he himself takes great lengths to force the cinematic art beyond its atrophic limitations.

The Draughtsman's Contract • Senses of Cinema James Mackenzie, February 13, 2001

DVD Times Anthony Nield

CineScene.com (Chris Dashiell)

EyeForFilm.co.uk The Hoodler

Movie Gazette (Anton Bitel)

Edinburgh U Film Society [Andrew Hesketh]

DVDBeaver Gary W. Tooze

A ZED & TWO NOUGHTS

Great Britain Netherlands (115 mi) 1985

Film Walrus Reviews: Review of A Zed and Two Noughts

A car accident caused by a swan outside Rotterdam Zoo leaves ex-Siamese twin brothers (Brian and Eric Deacon, the two noughts) widowers, so they take up with the driver, Alba Bewick (Ferreol), who had one leg amputated and is considering the other. Grief also propels them into investigations at the Zoo into death and decay. Then there is Van Meegeren, surgeon brother to the Vermeer forger, with designs on Alba's legs... As usual with Greenaway, the ideas are large, endless and perverse; and they are teased out with the exquisite formal perfection of a court minuet. Moreover he frames, colours, and shoots with a top dollar perfection (the camerawork is by Sacha Vierny). A film with all the cool, intellectual thrill of the Kasparov-Karpov game.

Kamera.co.uk Graeme Cole

If you're one of Peter Greenaway's loyal fans, you know what you're getting - and in my opinion he doesn't get much better than with A Zed & Two Noughts. If you're not au fait with the maverick, art-orientated auteur, then this isn't a bad starting point. ZOO is by no means straightforward but, to the open-minded, it's relatively accessible, comprehensible, and thoroughly involving.

A Zed & Two Noughts (the title hints at the extensive symbolism within) is a masterfully crafted tale of people desperately searching for patterns which make sense of life and death. The film finds beauty and meaning in the scientific and artistic rationalisations that the characters build up around themselves, and in the violent, random events that bring them down again. Oswald and Oliver Deuce (two O's) play brothers whose wives are both killed when a swan falls from the sky and causes a car accident. One brother seeks answers in the laws of evolution; the other obsesses over the decomposition of dead bodies, filming the rotting carcasses of increasingly large animals - the sped-up videos that are shown back to us are morbidly mesmerising, as troops of maggots parade around the disintegrating corpses in unison. Meanwhile, the driver from the fatal crash has one leg amputated and is keen to have the other removed for the sake of symmetry (itself a theme reflected in Greenaway's impeccably framed shots). She is being encouraged to do so by the shady figure of surgeon and Vermeer-forger Van Meegeren: Vermeer, we're told, never painted legs ('Our heroine never had any legs,' explains Greenaway in the notes, 'because they were amputated to make her better fit the film-frame.')

All of this is set against the background of a corrupt and dwindling zoo populated by amputee chimps, power-crazed management and Jim Davidson (playing a vile and dim-witted security guard). The themes and ideas are expertly handled; as is revealed in Greenaway's enlightening commentary, he was just as engrossed in the film's eclectic subject matter as his compelling characters. In collaboration with legendary cinematographer Sacha Vierny, Greenaway sought to utilise 26 different types of light source, from moonlight to cathode tube to rainbow, and - in homage to Vermeer - the light almost always comes from the left, half-a-metre above the ground. Regardless of the actual technique, ZOO is visually sumptuous, packed with beauty, ugliness, meaning and, frequently, humour. Greenaway's arch dialogue and high-art toilet humour are not for everyone, but his vision of Englishness is accurate and unique. At every turn, the story becomes more outrageous, implausible and convincing, and exploring Greenaway's unique way of looking at our stupid, brilliant human world.

In addition to the film and Greenaway's commentary there is an informative introduction filmed by the director, some disappointingly sparse footage extracted from Philip Hoffman's making-of documentary (copyright issues, perhaps?), original trailers and a handful of playful hidden features.

digitallyOBSESSED! DVD Reviews Debi Lee Mandel

I know one fact about this didactic director, Peter Greenaway—that he is a painter—and that is all I need to know. Everything falls in to place. He composes every frame, meticulously, based on the fundamentals of classical design and structure as if any frame could be snatched from the reel and hung at the Tate. This is the art of cinematography, and he is a master.

A summary of A Zed and Two Noughts, or most any Greenaway film would be like briefly describing the Sistine Chapel—and it takes the Big Book to do that. This film is a lesson in dichotomy: life/death, birth/decay, everything and nothing. He reminds us that our own redemption lies in the cyclical aspect of nature and the blending of these universal opposites into the dizzying blur of existence.

"If the evolutionary span of life on earth is represented by a year of 365 days, then man made his first appearance on the evening of 31st December, just as the daylight was fading...." - David Attenborough, narrating the documentary that underscores the film

A Zed and Two Noughts—ZOO—is a rich feast for the universal food chain. It begins at the end, meaning, the beginning of the end for its characters. In a freak accident (swan vs. automobile), the 2 passengers killed are the wives of two brothers who work at the Zoo: Oliver Deuce, an animal behaviorist, studies the lives and habits of animals; Oswald, a microbiologist, studies the variety of life forms that thrive upon death. The brothers obsess on their tragedy and attempt to comprehend its meaning in their individual ways. Curiosity about the processes of their science, once so clinical and removed, now fascinates them to the point of morbidity. Everyone and everything is subjected to analysis, until they themselves are finally sacrificed. In watching, we ponder the elusive qualities of existence, see the cosmic concepts of opposition, played out through the recurrence of black and white—"Is a zebra a white animal with black stripes or a black animal with white stripes?"—which pass through the spectral arc and end in the murky ooze from whence life came.

This film is not illustrated text—the storyline merely forms the foundation necessary to understand the images and concepts Greenaway presents. He uses his characters as they use each other, a means to dissect the world in order to understand it. Greenaway is not a storyteller in the common cinematic sense; rather, he has made manifest the adage "a picture paints a thousand words". Not that the dialogue is unimportant—everything here is important—but it more provides guidance for the viewer who is used to being "told."

We are provided obvious clues: the brothers' names both begin with "O" and their surname is "Deuce"; later, as it becomes more difficult to tell them apart, we discover they are twins. The crash survivor whom they come to both love and torture, Alba Bewick (the swan that caused the accident was a white Bewick) loses her legs, and she is juxtaposed by a bizarre seamstress and bestial storyteller named Venus de Milo (rendering her symbolically armless). Greenaway makes us consider common things in new ways, which is the proof of any artist, in any medium, whose work lasts over time.

There is no sentimentality here—Greenaway is not Renoir. He deconstructs the world and reorganizes it through his lens. He shows us in vivid detail how simply we are all the same; how quickly and easily we, the highest life forms, become the fodder of the lowest. This is high-calorie food for thought, presented in a dazzling, decomposing buffet that both attracts and repels us. Nothing pretty here, but this film is stunning, frame by frame, layer by methodically decaying layer.

Symmetry and Structure in Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts ... Daniel Espejo, December 29, 2001

A Zed and Two Noughts (Peter Greenaway) - Film Reviews - No Ripcord Grant Phipps

Film Analysis: Peter Greenaway's “A Zed and Two Noughts” (1986 ... Patricio Amerena’s Blog

Shane R. Burridge

All Movie Guide [Donald Guarisco]

filmcritic.com (Christopher Null)

Movie Gazette (Anton Bitel)

The Age Jim Schembri

A Zed & Two Noughts - Peter Greenaway

DVDBeaver.com [Wendy Carrey]

A Zed & Two Noughts - Wikipedia

DROWNING BY NUMBERS

Great Britain Netherlands (118 mi) 1988

Obsessed with obscure English folk games and father to corpse-collecting Smut, coroner Madgett becomes involved with three generations of women all named Cissie Colpitts. Unsurprisingly, his amorously optimistic agreement to keep mum about the aquatic deaths of their husbands lands him in deep water. Greenaway returns to the playful punning, ludicrous lists, and quizzical conundrums of his earlier work: opening with a girl counting a hundred stars, the 'plot' then proceeds with those same numbers appearing either in the dialogue or in suitably bizarre images. Equally teasing is the film's complex web of absurdly interlocking allusions to games, sex and mortality: famous last words, Samson and Delilah, Breughel, circumcision, etc. Elegantly scored and luminously shot, it's a modernist black comedy filled with arcane, archaic and apocryphal lore, and hugely enjoyable.

Man is an abyss, playwright Georg Buechner once wrote. You can get dizzy looking in. No one fits that description better than British director Peter Greenaway. Peer into his "Drowning by Numbers" and you'll see a vertiginous gorgeful.

Sardonic, multilayered and definitely numeral-crazy, "Numbers" engages the mind rather than the gut. But it's enthralling nonetheless. On one level, this 1988 film is an absurdist black comedy in which three copycat relatives (all named Cissy Colpitts) drown their tiresome husbands. When Cissy One (Joan Plowright) kills her adulterous spouse, local coroner Madgett (Bernard Hill) suspects foul play. He also finds himself in love with her.

When Cissies Two and Three (Juliet Stevenson and Joely Richardson) follow murderous suit, he makes a play for them too. But he has reports to file and a growing number of angry, bereaved relatives at his heels.

The movie's an intricately chartered tour through Greenaway's mind, a mental maze beshrubbed with the science of probability, statistics, numerology, Darwininan laws and the history of Western art, to mention just a few of the director's obsessions.

Numbers, of course, are everywhere from the beginning. After a teenage girl recites the names of 100 celestial stars while skipping rope, the 100 count begins again. It continues throughout the "Cissy" story, the numerals appearing with visually witty regularity. Number 18 is painted on a rabbit cage. Four digits later, you'll see Joseph Heller's "Catch-22." Stare closely at that dead bee and you'll find 45. You're bound to notice 76 and 77. They're emblazoned on the rumps of two cows.

If this is beginning to sound like a silly game, you're right on track. "Numbers" is a cinematic compendium of pastimes, the more ludicrous the better. Madgett and his peculiar, bespectacled son Smut (Jason Edwards) are fanatics for all sorts of games, particularly ones with a Lewis Carroll twist. In Sheep and Tides, for instance, they tether a flock of sheep beast by beast to an equal number of armchairs, on which teacups are placed. This nonsensical -- not to mention hysterically funny -- activity is to determine the turning of the tides.

"On account of their special relationship with sheep," Smut points out, "shepherds are disqualified" from taking part.

"Numbers" introduces you to other Madgett/Smut sports, such as Deadman's Catch and Hangman's Cricket. It also shows Smut's ill-fated obsession with circumcision and the skipping-rope girl. (Children never fare well in Greenaway movies. Perhaps you saw last year's "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.") It also shows what becomes of the three rather pleasant husband-killers and their beloved coroner.

Plowright is wonderfully wry. "I've just killed Jake," she tells Stevenson matter-of-factly, moments after fatally dunking her husband. Her next retort, about Cissy Two's tubby husband, is unprintable. It's also extremely funny.

Hill makes an appropriately conflicted, eccentric coroner. As Smut, Edwards is a perfectly grimy collector of frogs and snails, in counterpoint to Richardson's appealing, sugary Cissy Three.

Obviously, this is not your Mel Gibson good time. But it's a highly absorbing cornucopia of things Greenaway, exquisitely shot by veteran cinematographer Sacha Vierny, and hauntingly scored by Michael Nyman. For all its esoteric pleasures and numeral convolutions, it never gives up the gallows humor:

"I could never marry a coroner," Cissy Two tells Madgett. "I could never be sure that you'd washed your hands."

Edinburgh U Film Society [Neil Chue Hong]

Kevin Patterson

Movie House Commentary Johnny Web

THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER

France (123 mi) 1989 ‘Scope

Allwatchers.com: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover David Loftus

Murder, betrayal, lust, food, sex... perfection
—Shekfester

This is arresting British writer-director Peter Greenaway's 1989 masterpiece. It takes place almost entirely in an elegant restaurant, with elaborate meals, gorgeous decor, excellent service ... and adultery, murder, and cannibalism. The bored wife of a barbarous crime boss decides to take a gentle bookseller as her lover, and her husband brutally retaliates. But she gets her gruesome revenge on him in the end. Helen Mirren, the thinking man's sex symbol, has never been sexier (the adulterous encounter in the spacious white restroom is incredibly erotic!). Greenaway sets this ghastly tale in sumptuous sets, with a use of color that is to die for -- if you'll pardon the expression. Tim Roth and Ciaran Hinds may be glimpsed among the supporting cast. Definitely sui generis.

Peter Greenaway: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

Greenaway's film begins with a man stripped naked, force-fed shit and pissed on, and it ends in cannibalism. Between, there lies a simple tale of adultery, jealousy and revenge. Wealthy London hoodlum Gambon nightly visits the ritzy restaurant he has bought, humiliating his wife (Mirren), chef (Bohringer) and thugs with his nouveau riche vulgarity and threats of violence. Understandably tired of him, his wife embarks on an affair (in the loos, naturally) with another regular customer, the quiet, bookish Howard. It's the details - as in all Greenaway movies, far from incidental - that provide most interest: odd connections made between sex, eating, love and death. Since the characters are here less educated than usual, the witty wordplay of Greenaway's finest work is missing; and though it looks sumptuous enough - with Sacha Vierny's 'Scope camera relishing the reds, golds and greens of the set and Jean-Paul Gaultier's gaudily stylised costumes - shooting in a studio seems to have cramped the director's taste for elegantly surreal symmetries. For a Jacobean-style drama about deadly emotions, the film lacks passion; only in the final half-hour, with Michael Nyman's funereal music supplying a welcome gravity, does it at last exert a stately power.

Terrence Rafferty from The New Yorker (link lost)

A movie about a crude British thug, Albert Spica (Michael Gambon), whose favorite method of terrorizing people is ramming things down their throats. Albert himself eats only haute cuisine; he and his wife (Helen Mirren) dine every night at a posh restaurant called Le Hollandais. This is an Art Movie, refined and terribly formal; the director, Peter Greenaway (who also wrote the script), places this barbarian smack in the middle of "painterly" compositions and encourages us to see him as a steaming hunk of offal desecrating the beauty of an artist's creation. He looks at Albert with the disdainful stare that the pukka sahib directs at a servant who has inconvenienced him. Greenaway, however, has a lot more in common with his loutish protagonist than he thinks. He obviously regards himself as an aesthetic virtuoso, but he's just a cultural omnivore. (He chews with his mouth open—we can identify almost every piece of art that has fed his imagination.) The only thing in this movie's tidy, hermetic universe that Greenaway is unable to control, or disguise with fancy brushwork, is his loathing of the body. The movie features several gross-out scenes, including a climactic act of cannibalism; the Motion Picture Association of America gave it an X rating. (The distributors released it unrated.) What's offensive about the picture, though, isn't its violence or its visceral shocks but the patrician arrogance, the smug aestheticism, the snobbishness that suffuse every frame. Greenaway is an intellectual bully: he pushes us to the ground and kicks art in our faces. Also with Alan Howard (the Lover) and Richard Bohringer (the Cook). Cinematography by Sacha Vierny.

Washington Post [Desson Howe]

British director Peter Greenaway's "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover," treats the ugliest content imaginable in the most beautiful way possible. Give or take another masterpiece coming down the pike, this intricately assembled, viscerally provocative tract on consumerism gone full and grisly circle, is without a doubt, the most accomplished, astounding film of the year.

That ugly content begins immediately when, in "Cook's" shocking, opening sequence, protection-racketeer Albert Spica (Michael Gambon), with his henchmen around him, forces a slow-paying shopowner to eat excrement, then urinates on the hapless man, before rolling in to Le Hollandais, a gourmet restaurant the crude-tongued philistine has decided to patronize.

The film's scatalogical -- and other graphic -- horrors continue, as Spica, the Thief of the title, and one of the cinema's most awesomely evil creations (only Dennis Hopper's Frank in "Blue Velvet" comes malevolently close), conducts a reign of cloacal, social-climbing terror over his wife (a serenely desperate Helen Mirren), his gang of louts, the restaurant's customers and its staff, headed by a quietly willful French chef (Richard Bohringer).

Things take a few grim -- and vengefully fitting -- turns for the worse when Mirren, with desperate (and uncoy) vigor, takes a lover (Alan Howard) right under her maniacal husband's nose; Spica gets wind of the affair and the battle lines are drawn.

But, in the manner of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," where the objectionable is a facetious metaphor for social commentary, Greenaway, best known for "The Draughtsman's Content" and "A Zed and Two Noughts," places these alarming activities in the context of a grand, multiple-themed design, that is an unblinking treatment of a world sinking in its own moral -- and literal -- putrescence. "Cook" touches upon, among other Greenaway obsessions, religious themes, the French Revolution, Thatcherian England, Jacobean drama, Dutch paintings, the theater of cruelty and the Darwinian inevitability of rotting.

What would be pure smut by itself, in this allegorical light, becomes a thing of beauty -- aberrant beauty perhaps, but beauty nonetheless.

That beauty extends to "Cook's" visual design. With cinematographer Sacha Vierny, production designers Ben Van Os and Jan Roelfs, and costume designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, Greenaway has created a stunning repast of thematically colored sets and garments, in which characters' costumes magically change as they walk from, for instance, the fecund-green scheme of the kitchen to the outlandish, pompous reds of the main dining area, where Spica and his gang (dressed haute Jacobean) like to hold forth.

The Motion Picture Association of America's ratings board, which regularly waves bloodbath spectacles such as "Die Hard" and "Lethal Weapon II" into R-rated territory, has stopped "Cook" at the taste border with an X -- a ruling that will result in reduced media coverage, advertising and theater distribution for the film, and will scare a lot of moviegoers away. It's an undeserved setback for a great film.

digitallyOBSESSED! DVD Reviews Debi Lynn Mandel

As the curtains open, a pack of dogs sniff out and fight over rotted bits of discarded meat in a restaurant parking lot. We know at once that Chef de cuisine Peter Greenaway returns to analyze the food chain (A Zed and Two Noughts) in another sumptuously beautiful and profoundly gruesome feast he calls The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.

Le Hollandaise is an impossibly grandiose and elegant restaurant, visited nightly by its new owner, Albert Spica (Gambon). Albert is a king of thieves; a coarse, despicable man with impeccable taste. Each evening's display of his despotic rule of this palatial restaurant—and its patrons—is a tasteless intermezzo (make mine champagne sorbet, please). Bound to him are a motley group of underlings, and his brutalized wife, Georgina (Mirren), who populate his table and amuse him with their sufferings.

Albert's downfall is that he adores his wife even as he abuses her. Georgina finds any and every means to escape him, even momentarily, and often visits the restroom for a smoke. When the bookish Michael, a regular patron who always dines alone, chances upon her in the back hallway, the pair begin a passionate and perilous affair "right under his nose." With the help of the cook, the thief's wife and her lover sate each other in between courses, from a bathroom stall to the larder to the fully laid pantry, until the night Albert is apprised of his wife's betrayal. The lovers manage to evade him (in the most palpably disgusting conveyance imaginable) for an all-too-brief respite, catered by the cook.

Greenaway is the Picasso of cinema, an iconoclast steeped in the traditions of his medium who strives to destroy the boundaries by intellectually dissecting the rules. Like Picasso, Greenaway turn beauty into horror, horror into beauty, and succeeds beyond ordinary comprehension. As with all his films, every scene is painfully perfect; every frame a painterly visual that awes, disgusts, violates and transcends the viewer. This physiological dichotomy is madness and brilliance and mesmerizes this reviewer so that I can not look away no matter how grotesque the image becomes.

Lighting serves as the underpainting of key sets upon which Greenaway builds intricate and elaborate tableaux, layering voluptuous foodstuffs, floral arrangements, table settings, kitchen cutlery—and the people using them—to create the most impressively lavish depth-of-field effects. The sous chef rapidly and deftly chopping various vegetables, the blade held properly yet dangerously close to his own flesh as Albert roars destructively through the kitchen in search of his wife is, simply, inspired genius.

Helen Mirren is fearless as the desperately unhappy Georgina, a wickedly unexpected performance for those who know her best as the hard-driven Jane Tennison of Masterpiece Theatre's Prime Suspect. Michael Gambon is believably cruel as the violent, egomaniacal Albert, whose extravagance knows no bounds. Gaultier's costumes are fabulous and, as ever, Michael Nyman's score is masterfully incorporated into the film like a fourth primary color.

At this point, I should say "not for the squeamish" but there is no one more squeamish than I am. Any discomfort is surmounted by the elegance of craft and style laid before us.

Mes compliments au chef.

eFilmCritic John Linton Roberson

Goatdog's Movies [Michael W. Phillips, Jr.] also here: Movie Vault [Goatdog]

Talking Pictures [Lucinda Ireson]

DVD Town (Dean Winkelspecht)

Edinburgh U Film Society [Keith H. Brown]

DVD Verdict Patrick Naugle

The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

EyeForFilm.co.uk Angua Wolfe Murray

Apollo Movie Guide [Scott Weinberg]

Combustible Celluloid (Jeffrey M. Anderson)

Helen Mirren Appreciation Society enter the film name in Search to get to the review

The New York Times (Caryn James)

Movies With Their Own Language Vincent Canby from The New York Times, May 26, 1991

PROSPERO’S BOOKS

France Netherlands Great Britain Japan (129 mi) 1991

Washington Post [Joe Brown]

Though faithful to the text of Shakespeare's The Tempest, Greenaway's characteristically dense film could hardly differ more from literal adaptations like Branagh's Henry V. Structuring its motifs around the 24 books Prospero took into exile (as imagined by Greenaway, they dealt with water, cosmology, pornography, ruins, hell, music, etc), the director conveys the arcane knowledge the Duke needs to take his magical revenge. By having Prospero 'invent' the other characters and their lines (all spoken by Gielgud until the final act), he equates him with the Bard, lending the play a modernist dimension as an exploration of creative processes. The movie serves not only as an acknowledgment of the imminent end of Gielgud's career, but as a demonstration of how new technology has expanded film's potential, its superimposed images offering an almost unprecedented complexity of information. To some degree, the relentless proliferation of ideas smothers the dramatic highs and lows, but this is a minor quibble compared to the sheer ambition and audacity of the overall conception.

Go ahead and brush up on your Shakespeare. It won't help you navigate through "Prospero's Books," British director Peter Greenaway's ravishing but incomprehensible adaptation of "The Tempest."

Shakespeare's final play is about a duke exiled to an enchanted island with only his lovely daughter and a fragment of his beloved library for solace. Sir John Gielgud wanted to film "The Tempest" in the worst way before ending his career, and after approaching several directors, he settled on Greenaway, maker of the controversial "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover." The resulting film is the work of a footnote fetishist. Even the Bard himself would be at sea with this version of "The Tempest," an unfathomable flood of intoxicating imagery, a banquet of beauty so rich and overripe it is ultimately indigestible.

The film begins with Greenaway's fanciful visualizations of the contents of Prospero's 24 precious volumes, a treasure trove of arcane knowledge, bestiaries, an herbal, cosmographies, atlases and books of colors, love, pornography and architecture. A short film of this conceit would have been entrancing.

"Prospero's Books" is Greenaway's peculiar brand of insular, rococo filmmaking at its most extreme. The auteur creates an unimaginably lush screenscape that occasionally feels like a trippy hippie light show inspired by Ecstasy. Everyone but the filmmaker will need a map -- which Greenaway has in fact provided, in the form of a 164-page softcover art book/script/explication that accompanies the release of the film. (And just think -- some people can't even write a letter!)

As a lure, the ad blurbs promise that "Prospero's Books" features copious nudity, and Greenaway hired hundreds of unclad extras to populate this Paradise. But the effect is strangely unerotic. Or maybe not so strangely, as Greenaway, as always, is primarily fascinated with the organic processes and decay of the body. And every bodily secretion and excretion gets its moment on the screen, beginning with the sprite Ariel endlessly peeing into the pool where Prospero bathes and writes.

As in "Drowning by Numbers" and "A Zed and Two Noughts," Greenaway also indulges his fascination with games and puzzles here, and it is amusing to identify the Great Masters paintings Greenaway alludes to in his tableaux vivants. His compositions are dense and gorgeous, full of superimpositions and framed images, and finally exhausting to the eye.

Submerged somewhere beneath all of this is the play, poor thing. Gielgud's Prospero, who has used the knowledge in his books to create his own fantastic world in exile, also provides the voices for every character, including the four Ariels of various ages, all in blond Harpo Marx wigs and red beaded chokers, and Caliban (performed as an extended and painful-looking series of contortions by modern dancer Michael Clarke). It's a lovely idea, but Gielgud's musical, magical voice is electronically multiplied and otherwise tampered with, a la Laurie Anderson, rendering him -- and Shakespeare -- all but unintelligible.

CineScene [Howard Schumann] also here: Talking Pictures (UK)

Edinburgh U Film Society [Andrew Hesketh]

Pedro Sena

Austin Chronicle (Steve Davis)

The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

Movies With Their Own Language Vincent Canby from The New York Times, May 26, 1991

THE BABY OF MÂCON

Great Britain France Germany Belgium Netherlands (122 mi) 1993 ‘Scope

Set halfway through the 17th century, Greenaway's film follows a church play performed for the benefit of the young aristocrat Cosimo (Lacey). In the play, a grotesque old woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. The child's older sister (Ormond) is quick to exploit the situation, selling blessings from the baby, and even claiming she's the true mother by virgin birth. However, when she attempts to seduce the bishop's son (Fiennes), the Church exacts a terrible revenge. An agnostic's vision of the Nativity, The Baby of Mâcon is an elaborate desecration of Catholic iconography, and a merciless assault on superstition and religion. Greenaway breaks down the barriers between the play and the outside world, the actors and their audience, so that the performance itself becomes just another corrupt religious ritual. The film is repetitive, cold and misanthropic; everyone here is a fraud, a cynic or a simpleton; even the baby proves malign.

La Movie Boeuf [David N. Butterworth]

Greenaway's elaborate, ornate, sometimes bewildering essay on the theater of religion (and vice versa). It's not surprising that the only available print of Greenaway's 1993 Baby is adorned with French subtitles -- it was never released (and hardly even screened) in the U.S., and tanked even in Greenaway's native England. Nominally set in France in the 1600s, the film is an overwrought spectacle as theatrical as it is cinematic. Lengthy shots take in tableaux with hundreds of vividly costumed extras; at times the actors even comment with dissatisfaction on the lines they've been given. On the one hand, Greenaway's runaway posturing is sometimes no more than baffling, his dialogue stilted, the movie's gory violence an attempt to provoke the audience by turning its stomach (a frequent Greenaway trick; see The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover). On the other, it's visually stunning, on a level few directors ever have the resources to play with; such pageantry is rarely seen outside the opera house. The story of a famine-plagued medieval town whose hunger for salvation reaches mass hysterical levels, Baby frequently echoes their delusions, and engages in bits of stagy sleight of hand which don't translate well to film. (The child's lines, for example, are all sung by an offscreen voice, which on screen is merely distracting.) But it's hard to regret having witnessed such a monumental display, even if it's no easier to explain its appeal.

eFilmCritic John Linton Roberson

"A Masterpiece That Will Be Banned Till Humanity Grows Up."

In this day and age, I never fail to be surprised at what a repressed culture we still have, despite all our pretensions to the contrary. It may seem that expressions of the extreme are mind-numbingly common in our culture, but look again; in all the sex, violence and depravity we see in our media, is there any attempt, through showing us this continual flood of blood and sex, to tell us anything about their meaning, and why we watch when we claim to be offended and repulsed?

Of course not. The last thing a salesman wants is for you to think. At the very least, it fosters an independence of mind that makes his job harder. We are shown the version of our ids Hollywood and Madison Avenue have taught us to respond to like one of B.F. Skinner's rats. Tits(and, the ads establish in our heads, therefore beer or cars or virtually anything)equal sex. Guns equal power. We are shown simplistic, filtered shocks carefully tooled to keep our minds in a relaxed, semi-hypnotized state of being vaguely thrilled, but not too occupied to take in the Volvo ad afterward. Bang. And now this. Smooch. And now a word. And so on.

The purpose of the mainstream media is simply to keep a glorious stream of commerce flowing 'round, and they have the power to enforce this now as never before, because of a stupid, lazy public who go to see Joe Eszterhas or Mel Gibson trash at the theatres, or rent it from Blockbuster in versions edited for their protection. God knows what might happen if they started thinking for themselves. And they exploit these at best tacky and at worst prurient and exploitative versions of bits of our world just to take our money, and degrade the minds of all in the process. One wonderful cycle of buggery.

Thus when a work comes along and uses elements of extreme violence and sex in an intellectual, rather than titillating, way designed to shock you into consciousness, to force you to consider the subjects as you may not have before, it is seen as wallowing in these elements for their thrill value, because that's the only reason mainstream media ever use them. The idea of art as something autonomous and not an ancillary to marketing is fast dying, and it could be argued it's been dead in the U.S. since the early 90s.

When a film comes along like that,it's usually shunted right out of public consciousness. It seems that if it cannot be easily advertised or discussed on TV it hasn't a chance in hell. Worse for that film, if it's about something that may undermine the very principles upon which their running commercial hallucination depends.

THE BABY OF MACON by Peter Greenaway is one of that sort. It's a difficult, challenging, brutal, grotesque, and darkly beautiful masterpiece that makes his previous scar to the collective unconscious THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER(1989) look like BABE.

The film was inspired by Greenaway having looked at an advertisement on a billboard featuring an infant as its graphic center of attention. The whole question of using images of innocence to gull people out of their faith, money and lives, and the profanation of said images in the process and the very ideas they represent, is the focus of the film. Greenaway's obvious burning hatred of said exploitation deliciously poisons every scene.

Following, since most in this country may never see it, is a summary of the film. The story is available in numerous places on the Web and I first read it in a script before finding a copy.after a long intense search. This is a title that requires patience in finding; it has no U.S. distributor and only shows up onh the arthouse circuit infrequently, with prints that usually melt or break. Nevertheless, the plot details are no less shocking when seen for having been heard described. Indeed, reading the script only made me want to see this film more. There are layers of meaning within meaning in this film that can only be understood on seeing it, so I am not ruining anything.

The story is in fact a play being enacted in the 17th-century palace of Cosimo DiMedici (Jonathan Lacey), one of the last of the famous(but by this point declining) Italian merchantile dynastic line. As it is upon his life and good health that the tenuous fortunes of the family depends, they make sure to keep him indoors and so thoroughly entertained he doesn't leave. He's quite sheltered, ignorant, credulous and religious in a very bizarre and fanatical way. As this is during the Counter-Reformation, the question of religious faith is quite a central(and bloody) one to the whole plot. The play he watches concerns a reputedly miraculous child born, supposedly, to a virgin(Julia Ormond) in a city poor and devastated by plague, apathy and neglect, whose cathedral(the most important part of the town in the minds of European Catholics of the time, the state of which was taken as a sign of the town's good or bad fortunes) is falling to ruin. The real mother of the family was quite old and ugly, making it easy to believe such a beautiful child could not be hers, and indeed the mother of the virgin, who locks her away to prevent any question of motherhood. She immediately presents the child--along with herself as madonna--to the public, who come to her asking for miracles. She grants them blessings in exchange for gifts, money, and in one case, prostitution to keep her father busy.

The whole operation is, of course, thoroughly corrupt from the start, and the power goes to the virgin's head almost immediately, suddenly famous and admired in the only way she ever could be. A proto-scientist(Ralph Fiennes), legitimized bastard son of the local Bishop(and only referred to as The Son), investigates, convinced that either the child is not hers or she is not a virgin. This culminates in a scene in which she tries to prove her virginity to him by making a gift of it. But the child, apparently more miraculous than they had thought, causes the Son to be killed before her precious virginity, also central to HIS myth, can be sullied. The child is taken away by the Church, who continue the exploitation but in a much more coldly efficient way, selling the child's bodily fluids and excrement--and anything else they can take without killing him--to the public as relics. Business booms. The Virgin sneaks in and smothers the child with a pillow.

Because a virgin cannot be executed, she is given over by the Church to the local militia, who take turns raping her on a bizarre math of the Bishop's, based multiples of numerous historical precedents he cites, totalling in all 286. Only seven or so are heard or visually hinted at onscreen; it's never actually shown, because it all takes place behind a curtain, but is far more horrible for only being experienced through Julia Ormond's sickeningly tortured, terrified and incredibly realistic screams; this is the scene that has prevented this film from finding a U.S. distributor. But it is not itself exploitative; the scene is wrenching and repellent(should a rape scene be pleasant?) but necessary, as it represents the logical culmination of the madness already at work in the story and the story-within-the-story, which melt into one big mess at this point.

Cosimo has been getting in on the action throughout the course of the play, not quite understanding it isn't real. The actors improvise to include him, not about to offend such a wealthy and gullible patron. But this turns deadly when his actual militia are called upon to participate at this point in the plot. They do not understand it's just a play either, and really rape the actress playing the Virgin. Her screams are quite real, but ignored. She is quite dead by the end, after which the Church auctions off all it still can of the child--his clothes, his limbs, his head, his skin; where do you think they got the anatomical relics of saints so popular & profitable at the time of the Church's peak of power?

The rape scene is horrifying, more frightening than the goriest horror film. And the only reason it has this power is Julia Ormond's blistering talent. Were it not for the convincing screams, the scene might not be so extreme. But again, how should rape be depicted, if at all? The scene is not titillating. The audience of the film is not party to titillation(as was the case in THE ACCUSED, by contrast) because Greenaway, unlike most filmmakers, doesn't sexualize rape. It presents it as violence, and revolting violence at that, and I can't imagine anyone finding the concept remotely attractive from having seen this. If anything, it would inspire you to work for a crisis center.

This is an uncompromising study of exploitation and trickery, and the madness of crowds. Of people starved and kept stupid and led around and bled like sheep by those they believe in. It succeeds thoroughly in this. The structuring of the film is brilliant too, with a further surprise in the layering of stories revealed at the very end. It questions our willingness to watch and our appetite for sensation. And as this is Greenaway, it's all told framed in lush, painterly cinematography & production(mostly in varying intensities of red, as COOK was in shades of green), costume & set design more elaborate and detailed than Kubrick at his most obsessive. Greenaway's are at the least the best-LOOKING films of the past 20 years. His models for composition are almost entirely in the world of painting, not cinema, and thus you will see no cliches or quotes already recycled a thousand times from filmmakers of the past. What you will see is a masterpiece whose every frame could easily stand alongside the best El Greco or Raphael; I do not overstate. I am glad that Greenaway pursues his obsessions so thoroughly in his work without a thought about popular appeal. We have to have ONE filmmaker left swimming in a culture other than pop.

This, more than anything else, is a horror film; but the horror is in the madnesses humans thinking no more for themselves than sheep do--which is 99% of the time throughout history--are capable of, under the influence of authority, of religion, of fashion, of any catalyst of stupidity you can name.

Hunt this film down. If I may, here's where I found it: <http://members.tripod.com/BTDV>; (Admin can remove if that's a no-no) Find it, if you can take something harsh. You've never seen anything like this.

Michael Brooke

Gareth Rees

Movierapture Keith Allen

The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

Review by Chris Renson

Movie House Commentary Tuna and Johnny Web

Philadelphia City Paper (Cindy Fuchs)

THE PILLOW BOOK

France Great Britain Netherlands Luxembourg (126 mi) 1996

Renowned for making highly aestheticized, mathematically precise and occasionally impenetrable films, Peter Greenaway has now come up with one that is, on its surface, replete with romance. At its most accessible level, The Pillow Book traces the psychic trajectory of Nagiko. As a child she's enchanted by her father's ritual of writing her name on her face, every year for her birthday, and her mother's reading to her from a 10th-century Japanese courtier's pillow book (basically a diary that lists, for instance, "things that make the heart beat faster"). The grown-up Nagiko (Vivian Wu) escapes from her arranged marriage to a "boorish sportsman," leaving her Kyoto home for Hong Kong to find her ideal partner, a calligrapher-lover. When she meets Jerome (Ewan McGregor), an English-born translator, her interest shifts: she becomes the writer (like her father) and Jerome's perfectly smooth body becomes the "paper." Like most of Greenaway's movies, this one takes some dire, even grotesque, turns, hitting the director's familiar themes (betrayal, justice, obsession and horrible death) and formal experiments (layered images, window-like inserts). Wu and McGregor are indeed lovely to look at (and spend much of their screentime naked), yet the film is caught up in more than a few cliches, including the "exotic Orient," la-la love montage, moral costs of decadence, and corporate bad guy (here, a publisher with whom Jerome has sex in order to secure a contract for Nagiko). Occasionally moving, always pretty, it also veers into pretentiousness, especially when it comes to Nagiko's aphoristic writing (for instance, "Closed eyes cannot read").

Nashville Scene [Jim Ridley]

In his new movie The Pillow Book, Peter Greenaway cites the two reliable pleasures in life: "the pleasures of the flesh, and the pleasures of literature." And so they are--everywhere but in Greenaway's films. In The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, Greenaway viewed human sexuality with all the fondness and fervor of a clap specialist. In Prospero's Books, when he wasn't taking a leaf blower to the pages of The Tempest, he mangled the text with pissing cherubs, prancing nudes, and superimpositions of feet. Only a masochist would suffer this kind of pleasure.

That said, I confess a grudging respect for The Pillow Book, the least exasperating and most accessible of Greenaway's recent movies. (With Greenaway, "accessible" means the running time is only an era instead of an eternity.) The story, about a Japanese woman who uses her body as a canvas for calligraphy, bears Greenaway's familiar fixations with ritual, fetishism, and surfaces. But the movie doesn't seem as sadistic or as misanthropic as his earlier work. For the first time I can remember in a Greenaway film, there are moments of beauty that aren't undercut by cruelty or self-indulgence.

Greenaway has always used actors as screens made of skin; to some extent, that's what all filmmakers do. He carries this idea to its extreme in The Pillow Book, a movie whose heroine, Nagiko (Vivian Wu), exists only as a blank writing surface for male artists. Motivated by revenge against the publisher who destroyed her father, she finally seizes a brush and begins her own writing project--a work painted on the body of the publisher's young lover (Ewan McGregor, who's so likable and lively that he bursts his narrow role).

Greenaway has always had a striking graphic sense: His 1982 debut, The Draughtsman's Contract, a sort of 17th-century Blow-Up, made novel use of fixed frames. Since then he's tried to expand the visual possibilities of the screen by piling on smaller screens and plastering text over images. Sometimes the technique conveys the idea of montage as images in conflict--one picture may linger over subsequent events in a postcard-sized box onscreen. Sometimes it just looks like Windows 95. Both are true of The Pillow Book, which is spectacular and silly in equal measures. Graphically, the movie is often stunning, as when a solarized jet and a woman's silhouette blur into ideograms. Other times it's just laughably literal-minded. If someone mentions a child eating strawberries, then, by God, Greenaway's going to flash you a child eating strawberries.

But he still can't create believable emotions or people. Greenaway's characters may work fine as painting surfaces, but they have no interior life or independence that would arouse passion, and the director practically handles their couplings with tongs. Even the lurid revenge story becomes abstract and tedious--it's like a James M. Cain potboiler adapted for shadow puppets. Greenaway folds and shapes the screen in intriguing ways, but this whole exercise in cinematic origami is so airless and fussy that when it ended, I was left wondering exactly what he thinks the pleasures of the flesh and literature are.

Watching the films of Peter Greenaway, from "A Zed and Two Noughts" to "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover," you get the overall impression of a cold-steeled aesthete who’s incapable of sentimental feelings. As a filmmaker, Greenaway finds his passion in numbers, coincidence, stone-cold logic and a certain blindness to cruelty. He’s the grown-up version of a boy with a bee, a bottle and a razor blade. He can slice that insect into several sections -- which he will dutifully catalogue in a grimy notebook -- but it won’t occur to him that the bee is in agony.

So it’s strange to see him getting positively tender in "The Pillow Book." Although this movie, about a woman’s obsession with body painting, has most of his cold, intellectual hallmarks, its central story is a relatively syrupy romance. Has Greenaway gone soft and fuzzy on us?

The movie is constructed as a mystical, somewhat sadistic fairy-tale. In contemporary Japan, Nagiko Kiohara (Vivian Wu) has been indelibly affected by an annual ritual she has undergone throughout childhood. On every birthday, her writer/calligrapher father (Ken Ogata) has painted a greeting on her face with brush and ink, while her aunt (Hideko Yoshida) reads to her from Sei Shonagon’s 10th-century diary, "The Pillow Book."

The young girl becomes fixated on the classic book, a compilation of Shonagon’s observations about court life, literature and natural history. She’s also affected by a sexual transaction which she witnessed on her fifth birthday. It seems her financially dependent father is forced to satisfy his homosexual publisher (Yoshi Oida) in return for getting published.

When the father-daughter ritual ends upon her 18th birthday, Nagiko seeks a similar birthday relationship with her new husband, who happens to be the publisher’s nephew. Unhappy in this loveless, arranged marriage, and frustrated at her husband’s unwillingness to paint her body, Nagiko begins a wanton, spiritual search. She seduces dozens of calligraphers, who cover her body in symbols.

Many wham-bam, pen-and-sex encounters later, Nagiko (who has become successful as a model and has moved to Hong Kong) meets Jerome (Ewan McGregor), who happens to be the publisher’s lover. Nagiko works on a double plan: to exact revenge on the exploitative publisher and to find someone who will solemnly write birthday greetings on her in the manner of her beloved days with her father. In the meantime, she falls in love with Jerome.

The images, filmed as always by cinematographer Sacha Vierny, are painterly and supple. Befitting the theme (something between "You are what you write" and "I can read you like a book"), there are shots layered within shots; and elegantly inscribed words are superimposed on the screen, so that text and image become one.

But the story, which includes a prolonged display of McGregor’s no-longer private parts, is simplistic and banal rather than exacting and mannered. And when Greenaway attempts to express the love between Nagiko and Jerome in an extended, visually multilayered musical sequence, the effect is cloyingly empty. Greenaway, whose mind is one of the most impressive, complicated organs that ever sat on the shoulders of a filmmaker, seems to be playing connect the dots to himself, almost dumbing himself down to be commercial. "The Pillow Book" finds the British director both unlike himself and too much like himself. It’s the kind of bizarre conundrum Greenaway would have delighted in, if it weren’t at his expense.

Shooting Down Pictures » Blog Archive » 971 (113). The Pillow Book ... Kevin E. Lee

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8 ½ Women

Netherlands Great Britain Luxembourg Germany (118 mi) 1999

Kamera Jovan Ilic

Behind Peter Greenaway's latest film, 8½ Women, lie two connected ideas about the cities of Kyoto and Geneva. In Kyoto, Japanese women make themselves repeatedly susceptible to sexual blackmail by their Pachinko parlour gambling habits and, at the collapse of the Berlin Wall Geneva, for a time, became the prostitution capital for women who wanted quick access to the West with a valid, few-questions-asked passport.

When Geneva-based businessman Philip Emmenthal (John Standing) inherits some Japanese Pachinko parlours to add to his already significant wealth, his son Storey (Matthew Delamere) offers to manage them. In the process of looking after these gambling houses which can be found on every Japanese high street, he enthusiastically throws himself into Japanese culture.

Following the death of his mother, Storey tries to deflect his father's grief for one woman by enthusing him of the archetype "Woman." And so, father and son convert their large Geneva family house into their own private bordello, filling it with women they rescue from Pachinko parlour gambling debts and other situations of shady finance around Europe.

Thus, in 8½ Women, we find ourselves in familiar Greenaway territory. Above all, the director remains attracted to lists and taxonomy systems and the function they can perform of stripping things and events down to their absolute basics of organisation. Greenaway has described himself as a clerk and a cataloguer who simply makes movies about lists. But his point is also that the world cannot be comprehensively incorporated into any set of lists.

This time, as the title suggests, Greenaway's list attempts to deal with the portrayal of female sexuality. But despite allusions to both Fellini and Godard, 8½ Women distinctly fails in commenting on how cinema has portrayed women as sex objects. His list of archetypes here - nun, cross-dresser, whore with a heart of gold etc - remain just that. Lacking in any subtle nuances of emotional development, these cariacatures simply fail to become women, leaving us with a film about two male protagonists and their fantasies. Greenaway also fails in his attempt to produce a black comedy. Clever, but not funny, 8½ Women fails to hit the spot on all levels.

filmcritic.com pummels 8 1/2 Women Jeremiah Kipp

Peter Greenaway’s latest foray into highbrow elitism will test the endurance of even his most fervent admirers. 8 ½ Women indulges his fascination with the human body by allowing a father and son to fulfil their sexual fantasies by setting up a brothel comprised of the title characters, and systematically ogling each of the voluptuous and unusual female forms they encounter.

The compulsive listmaking and mathematical precision of Greenaway’s earlier films is present and intact, but the center of 8 ½ Women is ultimately hollow and painfully obvious. His very concept reduces women to childish fantasies such as the sexually repressed nun (Toni Collette), the pregnant woman (Natacha Amal), the nubile bombshell (Polly Walker), the prudish accountant who wears thick glasses (Vivian Wu, from The Pillow Book) and the woman who adores her pet horse and pig (Amanda Plummer). The “half-woman” has no legs, of course.

If the women are reduced to mere allegorical formulas, the two men at the center of the movie are mere ciphers. International businessman Philip Emmenthal (John Standing) is mourning the death of his wife, and spends the first forty-five minutes of the film drowning in his own tears. He is consoled by his bratty son, Storey (Matthew Delamere), who first attempts to cheer up old dad by sleeping with him. That works out well, so Storey allows dad the opportunity to sleep with him again, this time creating a menage a trois with his new girlfriend (Shizuka Inoh.)

Finally, after treating dad to Fellini’s 8 ½ at their local cinema and having lengthy discussions over whether the director slept with all of his actresses or allowed Marcello Mastroianni to do it for him, they make a decision. They will convert dad’s house in Gevena into a brothel to indulge in their own sexual fantasies. Hence, their acquisition of eight and a half women.

The problem with 8 ½ Women is that, essentially, what you see is what you get. The story lacks the passionate drive of Greenaway’s revenge tragedies (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and The Pillow Book) or the idealistic craving for knowledge and beauty which made Prospero’s Books and The Belly of an Architect into poems of art and architecture, the quest for idyllic philosophical bliss. Those films contained the elements which comprise 8 ½ Women in the form of Sacha Vierny’s beautiful cinematography, the fascination with the human body, the stylized classical dialogue and the rich colors and textures found more often in paintings than in cinema.

However, they also featured sympathetic protagonists who had worthwhile goals. It’s nearly impossible to feel anything but apathy toward self-pitying Philip and sulking Storey. They remain merely chess pieces to give voice to the images Greenaway presents (i.e., we see Amanda Plummer riding nude on a horse, and Philip will turn to Storey and say something like, “Look – there goes Beryl riding around naked on a horse again.” and Storey will say something like, “Oh, how interesting. She always does that.”)

The plot consists of these men eventually taking these women, sleeping with them, and, slowly but inevitably, letting each of them slip through their fingers. The question any viewer will be forced to ask themselves is, ultimately, what does it matter? Beautiful images of gorgeous women on a fine estate do not a movie make, no matter how self-consciously the male gaze is being deployed.

One is left to wonder merely how Greenaway convinced such fine actresses as Toni Collette (Velvet Goldmine; The Sixth Sense), Polly Walker (Dark Harbor), and Amanda Plummer (Pulp Fiction) to degrade themselves in such thin material? This British Svengali seems able to convince the crème de la crème of great actresses to strip for his pleasure. Perhaps this highbrow artiste has always really wanted to smear his nose in smut, and 8 ½ Women is the vehicle for him to come into his own.

BFI | Sight & Sound | 8 1/2 Women (1999) Richard Falcon from Sight and Sound, January 2000

Nitrate Online (Gregory Avery)

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culturevulture.net (2) Tom Block

PopMatters Susan M. E. Glen

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Reel.com [Rod Armstrong]

eFilmCritic iF magazine

Village Voice (Dennis Lim) not enjoying his theater experience at all

Variety.com [Godfrey Cheshire]

Philadelphia City Paper review by Cindy Fuchs

The Japan Times [Giovanni Fazio] interestingly also reviewing Julie Taymor’s TITUS

THE TULSE LUPER SUITCASES, PART 1. THE MOAB STORY B- 82

Great Britain Netherlands (127 mi) 2003 Peter Greenaway: The Tulse Luper Suitcases

I’ll admit it; I’ve never seen a Greenaway film. Trained as a painter, it is said he became a filmmaker after seeing Bergman’s THE SEVENTH SEAL. From a distance, I’ve always gotten the impression that these were “difficult” films, and sometimes you’re just not in the mood for prolonged periods of difficulty, particularly while in the throes of a sleep deprived film festival. Greenaway was present at the screening and indicated he sees himself as something of an art historian, and perhaps a cubist filmmaker. His view on cinema is that the form of presentation has shifted radically, so much so that only about 8% of film watchers still sit in a movie theater, while the large majority sit in front of their television sets with a remote control, able to stop or pause the film at any time, or rewind or fast forward to suit their own individual tastes. So he has created this Tulse Luper film series, perhaps a summation of his life’s work, as a way of looking ahead, making multiple film references, but presents it in a format where it will likely be seen by most using a DVD player. Also, he indicated this version shown tonight was the 5^th version of the film, and if all goes as planned, it will continue to evolve into different transformations so that it will never remain the same. I got the feeling Greenaway still sees himself as a painter first, and everything else is filtered through his view on painting and art. Where I disagree with his premise is when he states there is no socialization in cinema appreciation, or very little, so much so that his “perfect” way of viewing cinema is in a darkened room, alone, by himself, in a perfectly centered position.

This film features the travels and tribulations of one Tulse Luper, stuck in a universe oddly obsessed with the number 92, the atomic number for uranium, as there are 92 characters, 92 major events, and 92 suitcases carrying obscure items. This feature, part one of three parts, where only parts one and three have been released so far, gets to suitcase number 21. These suitcases become the man, as it is from their roving perspective that moments in 20^th century history are seen or re-imagined, suggesting a world with fluid or ever-changing ideas rather than any fixed interpretations. Tulse Luper, an alter-ego of the writer-director, can go anywhere in time and take on any transformation imagined. The film begins the year uranium was discovered in 1928 in Moab, Utah, and will end, at least in these initial 3 parts, in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin wall. What we witness in this film is Tulse as an English/Welsh journalist/spy and collector of lost things, getting pummeled over and over again by various fascist authorities while also screwing the women of these powerful men - going where no man has ever gone before, so to speak. Greenaway uses various techniques, mixing medias, sometimes transforming the screen in much the same way Guy Maddin does, but always filling it with more than we can conceivably handle. Greenaway indicated he does not believe in cinema in one showing, believing it works best with repeated, multiple viewings. Well, that’s nice, but at this sitting, we get one shot at it. While I love the ultra-dramatic, originally written music, and I can appreciate the dense construction that goes into what we see, ultimately I can’t say this really works for me, as I was more fascinated or curious in the style than I was interested in the film itself. And speaking for myself, I’m not sure I will get a lot more out of it with repeated viewings, as that is unlikely to happen. So at best, this was a curious experience. Greenaway himself, however, if you ever get a chance to hear him speak, I’d say jump at the chance. That experience was a rare pleasure. [also seen here: Dreamlogic.net]

Plume-Noire.com Movie Review Moland Fengkov

One doesn't give birth to a work by resting only on a profusion of average techniques and "did-you-see-me?" effects. With The Tulse Luper suitcases, the "epic" of a man whose adventures embrace almost an entire century, Peter Greenaway sins by excess of ambition. Drowned in an orgy of visual effects, his story goes straight down without any element, whether it's the mise en scène or the actors themselves, managing to help it. Unbearable to the point of nausea.

The idea could have been seductive. To follow the adventures of a writer from 1928, the year uranium was discovered, to 1989, marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall, throughout the globe (from Utah to Kyoto, while passing through Europe, Manchuria and Siberia), justified much more than two hours in his company. The idea of using suitcases (92 in all, the atomic number uranium) as symbols of his voyages, or, like encyclopedic archives, showed an enthusiastic inspiration. Ambitious to the point of insanity, Greenaway presents this film like the first part of a trilogy, which is not limited to the big screen, since his project also comprises of a televised series, a DVD for each suitcase, a Web site and books.

Onscreen, a showy display of his visual arsenal, sprinkled with fairy dust, invades the screen without slowing down the rhythm. Frames within frames, horizontal and vertical split-screens, superimposed archival footage, screen printed inlays, postcards, etc. Not content with attacking our eyes, the film also goes for hearing. Voices are repeated into infinity, and the voice-over offers no respite. After throwing all of these elements in a mixer, Greenaway serves us his experimental dish. And bon appétit.

Greenaway shows in two hours that he has not digested the new visual languages, that he wanted to confront other more traditional ones. His film resembles the result of a sleepless night on special effects software, during which he forgets to check the manuals, satisfied to randomly click and clutter his screen. One easily imagines his illuminated face, marveling in front of the potential of modern information technology. Not content to take himself for James Joyce, the director self-congratulates by quoting himself from his works, like A Zed & Two Noughts or The Draughtsman's Contract. In front of so much energy spent in vain, one is desolate and hopes for only one thing: that he packs his bags.

The Tulse Luper Suitcases (2003-04 Peter Greenaway) Jason Overbeck from Bent Clouds

eFilmCritic.com (Greg Muskewitz)

Reel Movie Critic [Lee Shoquist]

The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Richard Scheib

Movie House Commentary Johnny Web

Cinema Autopsy (Thomas Caldwell) capsule review [4.5/5]

Mar Michael Sicinski reviews episodes 1-3 from the Academic Hack

NIGHTWATCHING

Netherlands Great Britain Canada Poland France (134 mi) 2007 ‘Scope

As to be expected in a film by renowned director Peter Greenaway, Nightwatching is heavily influenced by theatrical and fine art techniques. Many scenes take place on a vast wooden stage, dressed appropriately for the scene, and every shot of the film is framed, lit and coloured as if it were a Renaissance painting. But in Nightwatching this is not merely a stylistic device but intrinsic to the narrative, which is concerned with the creation, interpretation and impact of Rembrandt’s famously theatrical Night Watch painting. After reluctantly agreeing to take the commission to portray the Militia Company of Amsterdam Musketeers, who feature in the painting, Rembrandt discovers a number of disturbing and unsavoury facts about the men he is painting, including a murder conspiracy. Nightwatching depicts Rembrandt’s bold attempt to expose these men through the allegory in his painting, and the resulting fallout he suffers. Casting Martin Freeman as Rembrandt was an inspired decision as Freeman gives Rembrandt an enormous amount of warmth, sympathy and even humour. Nightwatching is completely fascinating and an absolute triumph of film style.

Jam! Movies review Jim Slotek

Nightwatching, Peter Greenaway's clever conspiratorial take on the creation of Rembrandt's The Night Watch, is everything fans of the director want to see.

It's bawdy, smart, mannered and shot with a texture that's inspired by and true to the subject matter. That is to say, it is framed and lit like a painting -- a metier with which the sometime artist Greenaway is intimately familiar.

It is both imaginative historical fiction (despite all its idiosyncrasies, there is no real evidence Rembrandt was trying to communicate any message of nefariousness in his world-famous commissioned portrait of the Amsterdam Civil Guard), and refreshingly human. One of the greatest painters in history is, here, portrayed by a comic actor (Martin Freeman, of Britain's The Office and A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy) with little gravitas but plenty of sympathy, humour and ultimately nobility.

Indeed, the Rembrandt van Rijn we are introduced to, naked (as are many of the women in the movie at various times), is one whose life, work and appetites tend to dovetail. His sex life overlaps between his mistresses, his models (Rembrandt painted nudes with a realism unique for the time) and his agent-turned-wife Saskia (Eva Birthistle). In fact, one of the movie's real strengths is its female cast, particularly Nathalie Press as a pubescent scullery maid who inspires Rembrandt as she tremulously faces the daunting life ahead of her as a woman in that world.

This Rembrandt is a sharp-tongued social gadfly who gets away with painting against the grain of public sensibility and getting paid handsomely for it.

But fortunes change, and with the added responsibility of Saskia's pregnancy (a difficult one that adds to the drama), Rembrandt is forced to "sell out" and accept a stodgy commission that he considers beneath his talents - the Amsterdam Civil Guards portrait.

His hard-feelings toward military portraiture and the static rendition he's expected to deliver leave him predisposed to think the worst of his subjects. And luckily for the plot, they do turn out to be a bunch of power-hungry oafs and knaves, capable even of killing their own.

Mere disgust turns to dark loathing when one of the few Guards he's friendly with, Piers Hasselburg (Andrzej Seweryn) is killed in a shooting "accident." His suspicion of murder leads him to a cesspool of sexually-charged jealousy and the revelation -- via a troubled servant-girl named Marieke (Natalie Press) -- of their involvement in a brothel of painfully young indentured servants.

And with that, our historical figure turns from self-serving free spirit to rebel with a cause, letting his muse turn a standard portrait into a series of clues to all the dark goings-on -- effectively committing career suicide. In effect, the murder is Nightwatching's MacGuffin, a mere catalyst to the artist's character arc, which is richly portrayed by Freeman.

Nightwatching is, in the end, a sexually-charged work of febrile imagination and labyrinthean 17th century politics. And it succeeds in the daunting task of turning a historical icon into flesh and blood, with all the fear, lust and emotion that entails.

PopMatters (David Ray Carter) review

Movie House Commentary Johnny Web

Row Three [Marina Antunes]

seanax.com [Sean Axmaker]

DVD Talk (Casey Burchby) dvd review [4/5] 2-disc Special Edition

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User reviews from imdb Author: The_Black_Rider (AnglicanGallows@aol.com) from New Jersey

User reviews from imdb Author: Galina from Virginia, USA

Variety.com [Jay Weissberg]

Peter Greenaway's pact with death Catherine Shoard interview from The Guardian, March 18, 2010

Toronto Star (Peter Howell) review

Taipei Times (Ian Bartholomew)

Greene, Robert

OWNING THE WEATHER B 84

USA (92 mi) 2009 Official site

To its credit, this is as fair-minded a documentary as you’re likely to find, as the points of view are well articulated while offering new insight into a lingering question: If you had the scientific capability to alter weather patterns, would you do it? It’s a fair question, and one that doesn’t really have a definitive answer, as the science itself is still in question. Evidence a local weatherman in Laredo, Texas, a transplant from Connecticut who was obsessed by hot weather conditions, so he moved to the city of his dreams, Laredo, Texas, became a TV weatherman known as Richard “Heatwave” Berler, and used his platform to weigh in on a local city council resolution to appropriate money to study the accuracy of weather modification programs. Initially the council voted to go ahead with the idea. Coming from a scientific background, Berler questioned why no scientific evidence was presented in support of this proposition? As interest in his comments grew, so did his time on the broadcasts, increasing from offhand comments that took just a few seconds to becoming the lead story. Eventually, the city council changed their minds and voted to drop the idea. And therein lies the problem. The government has only publicly weighed into this problem once, when they investigated the ability to alter the power of hurricanes through cloud seeding in a government research program called Project Fury. After the first two hurricanes quickly weakened, they believed they had solid ground to call it a success, but subsequent attempts showed no signs of affect whatsoever, so they eventually dumped the project. Of interest, President Johnson secretly used cloud seeding as a military operation during the Vietnam war hoping that increased rain would turn the Ho Chi Minh trail into a sea of mud, making it unpassable, leading to a subsequent treaty where both Russia and the USA agreed to eliminate weather modification programs as a military option.

Much of this is presented in an amusing manner, suggesting we are already altering our lives through climate control, as we live in heated or air-conditioned houses, walk outdoors for ten seconds to our air-conditioned cars, go to work in our air-conditioned offices, returning home again where we may only spend a few minutes per day in the natural weather conditions. Since we’ve become accustomed to this kind of luxury, is it any wonder if we think we can alter Mother Nature to fit our own sense of comfort? Some of these ideas sound entirely far fetched while something else seems entirely plausible, but the people interviewed actually have a background exploring these issues, from private citizens to scientists, government employees to researchers, or military experts to investigative journalists who have written stories. Today, more than 50 different weather modification programs exist, spread throughout the United States, where most are capitalist attempts to expand their business, such as winter cloud seeding programs in hopes that a greater snowfall will enhance their ski operations. Also these programs are spread throughout the state of Texas in hopes that increased rainfall will produce greater harvests. Some believe the case is a proven fact, while others remain skeptical, as it’s hard to measure the success of these programs, as you can’t get results using specific target dates, like can you make it rain by 5 pm on Tuesday? The answer is most likely no. But if you keep it up all year round, it may have a seasonal benefit. Global warming’s roots are traced to human behavior, so people collectively already alter weather patterns, so there are proposed ideas to send hundreds of thousands of satellites into space to block the sun’s rays, effectively reducing the amount of sunlight to the planet, which would lower the earth’s temperature. Does that sound like a good idea? Also volcanoes are known to reduce temperatures by all the flying dust in the air which blocks out the sunlight, so could scientists simulate this idea? Much of the geographical areas desiring these programs are out West where they experience droughts and a shortage of water supplies. If you could, would you advocate cloud seeding if it would increase the annual rainfall by 10 – 15% each year? Or is this a shortsighted solution to a human problem, like the high density overpopulation in what amounts to desert areas where there’s a shortage of water to begin with, like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix?

My own take on this is that it sounds like these are desperate times, so we are seeking easy, quick fix answers which can solve problems through money alone, like stopping smoking or losing weight by taking a pill rather than by making hard lifestyle changes. If the U.S. is falling short of their expected goals to reduce carbon emissions, they’re hoping for a magic cure that will take the pain out of changing a nation’s over-consumption habits. They continue to build new houses on Hollywood cliffs subject to earthquakes, or in hazardous flood plains as well as close proximity to rivers which seasonally overflow. People are flocking to live on the Florida waterfront where hurricanes rip the coastline apart year after year. Are these weather problems or bad human judgment problems, so when they lose their homes to an act of nature, they immediately want the government and/or an insurance company to help bail them out? Is the idea of having the power to alter the weather intoxicating for the sheer illusion and the audacity of a grand idea, like Reagan’s Star Wars satellite missile defense system that was never proven to work, but cost billions of dollars to find out? Throughout history there have been attempts by mankind to alter the weather, or to make it rain. Now that there are scientific possibilities, with all the unknowns involved, and the track record of the human race to make mistakes that they later regret, is it a good idea to experiment with the sky? With the BP oil spill currently wreaking havoc in the Gulf of Mexico, a leak that modern technology has not yet been able to plug due to the difficulties encountered that are beyond the company’s expertise, it begs the question: Why are we drilling for oil in areas so remote and so difficult to reach that we can’t fix the problems if something goes wrong? If we started altering weather patterns, wouldn’t we be in the same predicament if things went wrong that are not easily fixed, and couldn’t harmed victims rightly sue those responsible for making the changes. Perhaps the best advice comes from a decades old, butter substitute Oleo margarine jingle: It’s not good to fool Mother Nature.

Chicago Reader JR Jones

You've heard that joke "Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it"? According to this documentary by Robert Greene, there are currently more than 50 weather-modification programs in the U.S., most of them scientifically dubious cloud-seeding projects intended to produce snow for ski parks or rain for drought-ridden areas. Greene traces the history of weather modification back to the early 20th century, when distressed communities turned to professional rainmakers like Charles Hatfield, and surveys the current wave of geoengineering schemes to combat global warming (satellites that will refract sunlight away from earth, giant hoses that will spray sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere). The movie's theme is nicely encapsulated by Harper's contributing editor Garret Keizer when he asks whether "a creature that can't control its intake of chili dogs should be in charge of the wind and the rain."

NewCity Chicago Ray Pride

Director-cinematographer-editor Robert Greene’s “Owning the Weather” is another in the growing catalog of cautionary tales about what happens when man messes with nature. The weather is the source of most everyone’s everyday commonplaces; some writers dwell on it, other novels take place in worlds without weather. It’s a great subject, and Greene interviews scientists and laymen alike in his survey of the history of failed weather modification plans and other plans aborning. The global implications of contemporary eco-tampering as displayed here are frightening. At its debut at the Full Frame documentary festival last year, Greene told Independent Weekly, “No one would ever say they want to own a cloud to own the weather. But we’ve sold the electromagnetic spectrum; we’ve sold water. If you take things to their absurd end point you can see more clearly what’s on the table.” With a score that would not be out of place in a science-fiction film, Greene paints a compelling, if frightening portrait of the case for and against taking control of the weather. 92m.

OWNING THE WEATHER Facets Multi Media

The weather might be the most important thing to humankind. It affects our moods, what clothes we wear, what foods we eat and how we live. Despite centuries of scientific victories that have enabled us to exert some control and "air condition" the elements out of our lives, we may never escape the weather.

The desire to modify the weather has been around forever; but the threat of catastrophic climate change, water wars, and intensifying hurricanes, a new breed of weather control emerged. Mixing character-driven verité with the scope of an essay film, Owning the Weather tells the story of weather modification in the United States, from Charles Hatfield's infamous rainmaking days to modern plans to engineer the climate. There are more than fifty active weather modification programs in the United States alone. Through the eyes of key individuals on the front lines of a crucial but largely unknown debate, the film introduces the cloud seeders struggling for mainstream recognition, the "legitimate" scientists who doubt them, and the activists who decry any attempts to mess with Mother Nature. Will the scientific renegades in the weather modification community ever shed the label of "snake-oil-salesman"? Will they succeed in securing government funding for the first time in decades? Traversing vast ethical, political, and social currents, the film asks the question, "will we have to own the weather to save the planet?" This compelling study of science, nature, ingenuity, and eccentricity unfolds as a stark meditation on, and cautionary tale about, our all too human need to control.

Kenneth R. Morefield at 1More Film Blog

If one proverbial mark of a good narrative film is three good scenes and no bad ones, one way to gauge a documentary is whether or not it is capable at some point or another of making you sympathetic to multiple perspectives. It’s not that I want to always end in the mushy middle, but if an issue is complex, then I expect my thoughts about it to develop as more information is brought forward.

Really skillful documentaries (or at least ones I like) have a tendency to trust that you are following the arguments and add nuance to them rather than simply hammering home the same point over and over again. One of several pleasures about Robert Greene’s documentary reviewing the history and current state of weather modification (or “geo-engineering”) is how often you’ll be thinking something in response to one of the talking heads, only to have someone else in the film raise that very point.

There is a difference, though possibly a subtle one, between balance and fairness. The former is too often lazily approximated in the mass media by giving the microphone to first one spin doctor than another from the other side. The latter involves building the sort of ethos where the viewer or reader really believes you are going where the story is leading–that you are following a train of thought to its conclusion, rather than shaping a series of interviews around a conclusion you’ve already reached. Greene’s documentary certainly has a point of view, but unlike many documentaries about polarizing topics, it doesn’t communicate contempt for its subjects or viewers who might see things a little differently. The result is a film that is thoughtful in the best sense of the word.

OWNING THE WEATHER – Man-Made Nature? Michael Tully from Hammer to Nail, January 7, 2010

“The concept of geoengineering seems to be asking me to buy the hypothesis that a creature that can’t control its intake of chili dogs should be in charge of the wind and the rain.” — Garret Keizer, Contributing Editor, Harper’s Magazine

I have a friend who has a job and functions well enough in society, yet he is borderline obsessed with matters of governmental conspiracy. These concerns are most sharply pointed in the direction of the United States powers-that-be and their ongoing role in many devious covert projects. A few months ago, he told me that they know how to manipulate the weather. When he linked this information to Hurricane Katrina, I checked out. I didn’t even bother to look into his claim of weather modification. It sounded like hokey sci-fi to me.

And hokey sci-fi it is. But after watching Robert Greene’s Owning the Weather, it’s also clear that, as the saying goes, reality often takes its latest cues from hokey science fiction. Greene’s thoughtfully skeptical investigation into the controversial topic of manmade weather manipulation is overflowing with statistics and insights that will make an uneducated viewer (i.e., yours truly) feel wobbly.

Most impressively, Owning the Weather is a very fine example in how to make an information-heavy, data-laden documentary that doesn’t succumb to its own headiness. Greene never forgets that he’s making a movie, and respects the medium by cleverly employing the tools of the trade—soundtrack, cinematography, editing—to add genuine drama and tension. He also shows a surprising thoroughness in traveling all over the globe to follow up on points that his interviewees have made. By the end of Owning the Weather, it feels like he’s left no stone unturned.

Which isn’t to say that there is a definitive resolution. While it appears that Greene sides more with the detractors than the supporters, he also takes the time to state a valuable case for the concept of weather modification. It’s obvious that our natural atmosphere is heading in a precarious direction, yet the ultimate question remains (as expressed so well in the above quote): If we caused the problem, then can we trust ourselves to fix it? Though it may not be as overtly and immediately terrifying as Chris Smith’s Collapse, Owning the Weather makes for a similarly unsettling companion piece. At the very least, it woke up this ignorant viewer.

Director interview David DeFranza interviews the director from Treehugger, December 11, 2009

ACTRESS

USA (86 mi) 2014

CINE-FILE: Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Michael Glover Smith

It is not often one uses the term “mise-en-scene” when referring to documentary films but the opening shot of Robert Greene's ACTRESS is as stylized as anything Douglas Sirk ever did: a young woman, incongruously wearing a red party dress, stands in front of her kitchen sink, doing the dishes by hand. The camera frames her from behind in a medium-long shot—with two red potted flowers that match the color of her dress on either side of her in a perfectly symmetrical composition. The woman is Brandy Burre, an actress best known for a recurring role on HBO's acclaimed series The Wire, and the staged nature of this shot both sums up her dilemma and introduces viewers to the movie's tricky strategy of hybridizing non-fiction and melodrama elements. After this opening, we soon learn that Brandy has retired from acting in order to move to Beacon, New York, with her restaurateur boyfriend, Tim, and their two young children. Brandy is not satisfied, however, with playing the new roles of “mother” and “housewife,” and the film turns into a complex essay on the nature of what it means for her to perform; as Brandy herself at one point candidly confesses, she has a love/hate relationship with “putting herself out there.” Over the course of the year that Greene documented Brandy's tumultuous life, her relationship with Tim crumbles in the wake of his discovery that she is having an affair, and she decides to return to her first love of acting and resumes auditioning for parts. Of course, none of this would matter if Brandy Burre were not a compelling screen presence and if viewers did not sense a feeling of extreme mutual trust between her and the filmmakers (at one point, the camera actually accompanies her into the shower). One also has to wonder to what extent Greene's presence as documentarian may have precipitated his subject's major life changes. Whatever the case, ACTRESS is a film of uncommon emotional power: Brandy's late revelation about falling out of love with Tim over his indifference to installing a diaper-changing station in his restaurant bathroom feels more intimate—and electrifying—than any scripted scene from any film I saw last year.

Slant Magazine [Clayton Dillard] earlier version seen here: The House Next Door [Clayton Dillard]

Robert Greene's Actress convincingly reconciles private passion with public desire by suggesting that, for women in particular, the 21st-century limelight is always on, no matter the setting or venue. The film chronicles Brandy Burre, an actress who retired after becoming pregnant in 2006; most famously, she appeared as Theresa D'Agostino in 15 episodes of The Wire. As the film opens, Burre is performing the banal duties of a stay-at-home mom, slumping around, picking up toys, putting away board games, and reassuring one of her children, who complains of a headache, that "cereal will heal your brain." Greene shoots these scenes on low-grade digital video, almost mimicking the visual fuzziness of pre-digital home videos. The film earns its Warholian title through these scenes, which linger on the domestic passions Burre seeks now that she has stepped away from acting. Sitting and speaking about her new life as a mom, she points to her children as her new "creative outlet." And almost as if trying to convince herself, she says it a second time.

However, Greene's camera isn't confined to quiet moments of quotidian behavior; in a bravura sequence, Burre showers in slow motion, accompanied by an operatic song that renders grandiose what has previously been tranquil. Stepping out of the shower and into the hall, still in slow motion, Burre is handed a white, plastic coat hanger by one of her children, which she foists in the air. The camera tilts to follow her movement and hones in on a close-up of the hanger, which Burre raises in equal parts elation and despair. If this is her creative outlet, she must repurpose the domestic space into a stage, something Greene is acutely aware of throughout this sequence and much of the film.

Perhaps the film's most compelling scene comes as Burre flips through different episodes of The Wire, explaining her character's role to her mother. In changing from disc to disc and speaking of what's on screen as if a distant, unreclaimable moment of artistic prowess, one can't help but be reminded of This Is Not a Film, when director Jafar Panahi, under house arrest, cycles through his films, switching discs and narrating, realizing that he will likely never be able to create so freely again. In these moments, art becomes personal home video, replete with nostalgia for moments in time that can only be glimpsed by representation; of course, these representations mask what happens off screen—mainly, the sustaining intensities of the artists involved.

The final portion of the film details Burre's attempt to make a comeback, the results of which won't be spoiled here. Nevertheless, Greene ultimately makes too little of his primary conceit: a documentary about an actress. The layers of potential representation here should be apparent enough, but when Burre becomes teary-eyed and self-absorbed throughout these sequences, Greene's approach underwhelms, particularly because it's clear that Burre's on-screen pleas might not be genuine at all, but the emotional appeals of a gifted thespian. Perhaps that's ultimately Greene's point: the line separating a put-on and genuine revelation within an era of ubiquitous performance is not only thin, but nonexistent. If Burre is embellishing for the sake of the film, then she's what she says she is: an actress. And in Actress, it's ultimately unclear how one would begin to separate the two. In this case, a lack of clarity is illuminating.

In Review Online [Ty Landis]

Cereal Will Heal Your Brain

“Every once in a while, I’d like to be thrown over a chair and made love to. That’s what it’s about.” Brandy Burre is driving as she speaks, on her way from the suburbs to an evening out in the city. The camera is close on her profile, the light around her dimming as the sun sets. She continues, “It’s not that he wouldn’t do that, it’s just there’s so much between us, if he did it, I’d be like, ‘What are you doing? Why?’ So it’s easier just to dream about it with someone else, I guess.”

The headlights of oncoming cars reflect off Burre’s face as the camera cuts to another, closer angle, her face in full as she listens to the radio, which sound expands. It’s the sort of image that connotes her musing, the sort of image you expect to see in a fiction film, richly colored, choreographed and contemplative. And yet this scene appears in Actress, Robert Greene’s documentary about Burre, during a time when her life takes some turns. Like many other moments in the film, this one presses against the conventional boundaries of documentary, presses against your expectations.

The movie is able to press for a number of reasons, in particular the subtle, seductive, and sometimes jarring collaboration between Green and Burre. As she looks back on her family life—she has two young children with her husband Tim Reinke—and also on the acting career she put on pause in order to pursue this life, Burre ponders and also embodies the questions that might come up for anyone who’s made choices, who’s followed a particular path or left behind another. As she thinks through her past and considers new options for a future, including her hopes to return to acting (she’s best known at this point for her role on The Wire, as political campaign fixer Theresa D’Agostino), the film observes and also works with her.

This work features ongoing explorations of what it means to be an actress, to play roles. Burre described her roles—as mother, wife, and actress—even as you see they are both combined and disparate. “We were playing the roles,” she says of her early days of marriage with Reinke, She played “the mom role” while he was immersed in “the breadwinner” role. You see these performances throughout the film, as Burre looks after her kids (one morning, when three-year-old Stella worries that her brain “hurts”, mom efficiently refocuses and reassures her, “Eat cereal, the cereal will heal your brain”) and her home (more than once, she stands over the sink, washing dishes, water rolling her her hands, her gaze unfixed, toward the window before her). Reinke also appears, walking through the kitchen and glancing toward the camera, dressing and playing with Stella and eight-year-old Henry. They’re parents, together and separately. He wins bread, she takes Stella to the park.

“At the beginning,” Burre notes, “We were so busy playing house, it was such a new adventure.” Tears well in her eyes, and a sad piano soundtrack grows in volume. “We just forgot each other, you know.” She remembers that when they married, she was already pregnant with Henry, a time the film makes visible when she and her mother look back on her scenes in The Wire. “They kept pushing back shooting, another month, another month,” she says, as they watch her former self on TV. She was five months pregnant when her final scene was shot, and even as camera angles do their best not to show that, she notes here, “Look how heavy I look!”

From there, she played mom. And now, the rift in her marriage is clear, and though the film doesn’t detail events or dates, Burre’s monologues shift, looking toward an unknowable but possible future. “I can’t wait until we get to the other side,” she says, “Because I don’t feel like we’ve been friends for a long time and I miss being friends with him.”

The sadness she carries is visible, but so are her survival, her deliberation, and her perpetual self-performance. Throughout, Burre appears utterly and exquisitely self-aware, which makes her several moments of apparent confession at once emotionally effective (she’s a fine actress). They also appear to be intelligent, thoughtful glosses on the act of confessing, on the ways self-expression becomes and is interwoven with self-performance. Actress underscores this idea in its elegant framing, its selective lighting, its careful cutting of one scene with another. It also allows Burre the screen space and time to make her own image—or so it seems.

Actress / The Dissolve Noel Murray

Krell Laboratories [Christianne Benedict]

Grolsch Film Works [Yohann Koshy]

Review: Ordinary life takes center stage in the smart ... Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from The Onion A.V. Club

Zero for Conduct [Michael Atkinson]

The Astonishing Doc Actress Reveals an Over-40 Pro ... Calium Marsh from The Village Voice

StageBuddy [Jose Solis]

MUBI [Ben Sachs]

Short Takes: Actress | Film Comment Nicolas Rapold

MUBI [Fernando F. Croce]

'Actress': Film Review - The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

Actress Movie Review & Film Summary (2014) | Roger Ebert Christy Lemire

'Actress' Centers on Brandy Burre's Life - The New York Times A.O. Scott

Greenebaum, Elliot

ASSISTED LIVING D 61

USA (77 mi) 2003

Much as it tries to be interesting and relevant, this is a miserable attempt to show life in a senior citizen home, as it showcases all the dysfunctional people that work there, which is the fictionalized part of the film, the drunken administrator, the nurse that brings her daughter to ramble around the premises completely unsupervised, the high on marijuana orderly, and the rest of the uncaring staff, while in the background it shows residents in wheelchairs in a more documentary style. The reality holds our attention, but the fictionalized story sucks, as it features an orderly who prepares himself each day by getting high, then calls patients on the phone, as if he is the dead relatives calling from heaven, which is really a rather putrid thing to do, and then pretends to be the surviving relatives as well, which creates a real life dilemma with the aging patients, who need, for real, to contact their living relatives. The idea that an untrained, high on drugs orderly, would attempt to fictionalize these very real people’s lives is rather disgusting, and he was subsequently fired for his behavior. Making a film which showcases the actions of an orderly who was subsequently fired leads us nowhere, as it really isn’t about anything at all.

Assisted Living Bruce Diones from the New Yorker

Elliot Greenebaum's careful, elegiac film is about the final work day of a numbed-out nursing-home janitor (Michael Bonsignore) and his interactions with an Alzheimer's patient (Maggie Reilly). The semidocumentary feel of the film, which was shot at an old-age home in Kentucky, and the extraordinary lived-in faces of the residents make for a transforming, moving experience. The beautifully nuanced performances of Bonsignore and Reilly as they reach out and awaken each other create a hushed intimacy, and Greenebaum pays reverent attention to the quotidian details of the lives of the aged (the putting on of a slipper, the combing of hair). The movie may sound treacly, but it's not; there are some rough edges to Bonsignore's character that are not smoothed out and an ambiguous ending that feels right.

Greengrass, Paul

All-Movie Guide Matthew Tobey

Renowned for his startling realism, British-born director Paul Greengrass got his start working on the U.K. documentary series World in Action before taking his first stab at a feature with 1989's The Resurrection. The harsh anti-war film followed a soldier in the aftermath of the Falklands war and was nominated for the Golden Bear award at that year's Berlin Film Festival.

Throughout most of the '90s, Greengrass worked primarily in television, helming such well-received TV movies as Open Fire and The One That Got Away, but he returned to the big screen in 1998 with the romantic comedy drama The Theory of Flight. The film had a lighter tone compared to Greengrass' other work and was met with mixed reviews. However, his next project, 2002's Bloody Sunday, was a return to form and garnered nearly unanimous acclaim. The fictional account of the titular massacre netted the director both another Golden Bear and the audience prize at Sundance.

Greengrass' next film would find him taking a more commercial turn, as he took over directing reigns from Doug Liman for the sequel The Bourne Supremacy. Despite the dark tone of the action film, it was a box-office hit, and Greengrass earned enough cred to land a directing gig on United 93, Universal's docudrama about the ill-fated airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001, after passengers overtook a group of hijackers. Using a cast of relative unknowns, Greengrass created a stark and unglamorized portrait of the tragedy and those involved. Though many approached the film with trepidation for fear that it was an attempt to exploit and capitalize on a still-open wound, it won high praise from audiences and critics alike, landing on several year-end best-of lists and earning Greengrass his first Academy Award nomination.

In 2007, Greengrass returned to the Jason Bourne saga with The Bourne Ultimatum, the third and arguably most-intense entry in the espionage series. The pared-down action and striking handheld camerawork won over audiences and critics, even more so than Supremacy.

Filmbug Biography

Film Comment Article (2002) Over the Edge, Into the Abyss, by Graham Fuller from Film Comment, September/October 2002

The Boston Phoenix Article (2007) Keeping It Real, by James Parker, June 20, 2007

Greengrass, Paul They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

Times Online Interview (2004) August 12, 2004

BBC: Calling the Shots by Rob Carnevale

Combustible Celluloid Interview (2006) by Jeffrey M. Anderson, April 27, 2006

Guardian Interview (2007) by Mark Brown, January 26, 2007

BLOODY SUNDAY B 89

Great Britain Ireland (110 mi) 2002

Bloody Sunday David Denby from the New Yorker

A stunning re-creation of events that took place in 1972 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, when British paratroopers, trying to restore order after a particularly unruly period, opened fire on a peaceful demonstration, and fourteen Irish Catholic civil-rights protesters died. The British writer-director Paul Greengrass uses a handheld camera that tilts, skitters, and pitches about madly as it makes its way among the seething Irish and the frightened British soldiers. The actors are caught on the run, saying their lines quickly and harshly as they run in and out of rooms or move through the crowds, which come together, break, and re-form like foam on a beach. With James Nesbitt as the Irish member of Parliament who led the march and who believed in Martin Luther King, Jr., and a strategy of non-violence. The movie is his tragedy—the tragedy of innocence.

The Village Voice [J. Hoberman]

Paul Greengrass's Bloody Sunday is a startlingly immediate re-creation of the January 1972 Derry massacre occasioned by an Irish protest held in defiance of a British ban.

Establishing the inevitable collision, Greengrass cuts back and forth between the spirited Irish Catholics preparing to march through their republican neighborhood and the grim, gray-faced British command making plans to stop them. The nominal protagonist is Protestant MP and pacifist civil rights leader Ivan Cooper (James Nesbitt), who cheerfully orchestrates the march and then is overwhelmed by the unfolding catastrophe. All characters are encountered on the run. The movie is shot verité style as a detailed mass of hectic vignettes—jagged jump cuts, sudden blackouts, overlapping everything. The "you are there" faux combat photography, a sequence that runs nearly three-quarters of an hour, is as remarkable in its staging as Black Hawk Down's, except that Bloody Sunday was shot largely on 16mm, Greengrass is frequently closer to the action, and here, for the most part, the victims are unarmed civilians. (Thirteen were killed and 14 wounded, although it feels like many more.)

The spectacle of British paras firing point-blank into a running, crawling, cowering crowd—executing one wounded man at close range and putting a bullet in the brain of another who's frantically waving a white handkerchief as he attempts to rescue a comrade—is as visceral in its way as any such staged atrocity since the Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin. Bloody Sunday doesn't surrender its grip on the viewer even after the action shifts from the streets of Bogside to a local hospital where the weeping masses are still under the guns of the war-painted British soldiers.

Bloody Sunday, which was attacked as "viciously anti-British" by one Conservative MP when it was televised last winter, compounds its shock value by showing the Brits planting evidence and then leaving us to ponder the decorations that the officers responsible subsequently received from Her Majesty the Queen.

BFI | Sight & Sound | Bloody Sunday (2001) Richard Kelly from Sight and Sound, March 2002

Derry, 30 January 1972. MP Ivan Cooper (James Nesbitt) prepares to lead an anti-internment march by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association through the city's Catholic 'Bogside'. Major General Ford of the British Army (Tim Pigott-Smith) reminds journalists that such marches are illegal. Brigadier MacLellan (Nicholas Farrell) prepares an operation to apprehend suspected 'hooligans' on the march, spearheaded by paratroopers under Colonel Wilford (Simon Mann). Teenager Gerry Donaghy (Declan Duddy), previously arrested for rioting, assures his loved ones that he will avoid trouble. Cooper seeks assurance from the Provisional IRA that they will not initiate violence.

The marchers proceed on their pre-agreed route, but a group breaks away towards Army barricades and begins rioting. MacLellan authorises soldiers to fire water-cannon, rubber bullets and CS gas. Amid mounting chaos, shots are heard, and civilians are wounded. While Cooper addresses the gathering, the Paras move into the Bogside and fire live rounds at rioters.

Ford and Wilford advise the media of three civilian deaths, but at the city hospital Cooper learns there are 13 dead and 14 wounded. Debriefed, each paratrooper insists their targets were armed. Mortally wounded, Gerry is stopped at an Army roadblock, and nail bombs planted on his body. At a press conference, Cooper warns the British government that they have handed the IRA a propaganda victory.

Review

'We've just fired a fucking horrendous amount of ammunition, we've got to know why, and we've got to have some weapons.' Thus does writer-director Paul Greengrass imagine the Parachute Regiment's instant post-mortem on Bloody Sunday, voiced by Colonel Wilford of First Battalion ('One Para'). Thirty years on from the dire events of that day, the Paras still don't seem to have their story straight.

As Greengrass (whose last film was the ITV docudrama The Murder of Stephen Lawrence) reminds us in closing intertitles, Lord Chief Justice Widgery's subsequent inquiry swiftly decided that Wilford's men had met IRA gunfire as they entered the Bogside, and that several of the rioters then 'dropped' by Para sharpshooters were themselves armed. And yet the offensive weapons sought in justification of this carnage were not found. Thomas Kinsella's poem 'Butcher's Dozen' (1972) cast glaring light on the contradiction by giving a sardonic voice to one ghost of the civilian dead: 'A bomber I. I travelled light/Four pounds of nails and gelignite/About my person, hid so well/They seemed to vanish where I fell.'

So was Bloody Sunday, as Derry's city coroner pronounced it, an act of 'sheer unadulterated murder'? Any film-maker who ventures a verdict dissimilar to Widgery's will assuredly take immediate flak from those members of the British and Irish media who scorn and revile the Republican movement. But Greengrass' dramatic re-enactment, galvanised by documentary techniques, is so dense and alive with detail that it should be viewed attentively. Dublin's Ballymun estate makes a vulnerable stand-in for the Bogside, but Greengrass' feel for the map and timeline of real events is assured, while Ivan Strasburg's roaming camera and the deft use of elliptical fadeouts drive the action forward.

Greengrass picks his protagonist shrewdly in the pacifist Protestant MP Ivan Cooper, played by Cold Feet favourite James Nesbitt as an affable radical, ever-ready to lead a rousing chorus of 'We Shall Overcome'. Depicted as cannier than the firebrand figures of Eamonn McCann and Bernadette Devlin, Cooper roves the Bogside, glad-handing and trouble-shooting, joking with old ladies who invite him to Mass, spreading the gospel of peaceful protest. Crucially, the only man immune to Cooper's charm is the local Provo OC: 'Marching's not gonna solve this thing,' he mutters darkly.

As for the security forces, Greengrass evokes a chain of command stretched tenuously between Army HQ and the Paras in the field. The key link is Major General Ford (a breezily supercilious Tim Pigott-Smith), relaying the government line that the 'Derry young hooligans' should be taught a hard lesson. And at the sharp end of the walkie-talkie is Wilford (played by SAS veteran Simon Mann), instructing his Paras to 'scoop up' the 'yobbos' and return fire if fired upon. The red berets, mindful of recent army casualties in Belfast and Derry, psych each other up into attack mode, and Greengrass frames the troubled mien of Mike Edwards' Private 027 as a barometer of the rising aggression.

Still, once the thud of rubber bullets becomes the crack of live rounds, Greengrass contrives to have his camera elsewhere. We hear the first shots, but know not their provenance. Later, once the Paras are firing freely, we see angry marchers restraining gunmen among their own numbers (seemingly of the Official - rather than Provisional - IRA). But the Paras' final assault on Glenfada Park is plainly presented as a rampage, and Greengrass foregrounds the worst iniquities: Jim Wray, lying paralysed by one bullet, duly executed by a second at close range; and Barney McGuigan, shot in the head while waving a white hankie.

Greengrass closes on a prophetic note, Cooper's warning to the Brits ('You will reap a whirlwind') prefigured by grim-visaged youths queuing in the stairwell of the Creggan estate to receive firearms from an IRA quartermaster. (Shades here of the angriest ghost in Kinsella's 'Butcher's Dozen', who rails: 'England, the way to your respect/Is via murderous force, it seems;/You push us to your own extremes.')

Greengrass' achievement is such that there is little point in the further re-staging of Bloody Sunday as painful history-play. Interested viewers should look now to Lord Saville's ongoing inquiry at Derry Guildhall, established in recognition of Widgery's failings. A hugely sophisticated fusion of oral testimony and audio-visual evidence, Saville might yet establish a narrative of Bloody Sunday that is beyond question, one that Derry unquestionably deserves.

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY

USA Germany (108 mi) 2004

The Bourne Supremacy David Denby from the New Yorker

Fast, faster, and fastest—that's the way the cutting rate goes in this sequel to "The Bourne Identity." The director, Paul Greengrass, jumps ahead within scenes, then jumps again. Greengrass is like a man breathing so fast that he never draws much oxygen into his lungs. Yet, of its kind, "The Bourne Supremacy" is incredibly skilled. Greengrass arranges pursuits and escapes that fly like arrows. He tears up staid old Moscow in a car chase and turns routine C.I.A. procedural stuff—people looking at computer screens and barking code names and other gibberish at each other—into nerve-racking contests of will. The movie is stripped down for action, and its hero—the survivor of a botched operation who suffers from amnesia—has no identity beyond his superlative physical skills and a vague sense of guilt. Harried, chased, both hunted and hunter, the blunt-nosed Matt Damon is a superhero reduced to pure reflex, yet, by means of his isolation and his stoicism, he becomes almost a romantic figure. Set in Goa, Naples, Berlin, Moscow, and, should you blink, perhaps Madagascar and Sardinia, too. With Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, and Franke Potente. Adapted by Tony Gilroy from a Robert Ludlum novel.

UNITED 93 B 84

Great Britian USA (111 mi) 2006

From the acclaimed director of SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, which uses an identical hand-held film style to recreate a historical event, this is another one of these fictionalized reality docudramas that features constant camera movement and quick edits in an attempt to resemble reality, in particular attempting to capture the confusion, panic and hysteria of the moment. In a recreation of Flight 93, one of 4 planes hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists on 9/11, this is the only one that never reached its target, so in this film it becomes an emblem of America fighting back, supposing that the passengers eventually, although belatedly, stormed the hijackers in an attempt to liberate the plane from the hijackers, but the al-Qaeda terrorist who was flying the plane dropped it straight down into the ground in an open field in Pennsylvania and all perished. What this film does is synchronize what was happening through multiple viewpoints, in many instances using the exact same personnel working that day as air traffic controllers in Boston and New York, including the FAA national administrative staff who were so bewildered they eventually grounded all airplanes, but also the pilots, passengers and crew inside the plane, the actions of the terrorists themselves, and the attempts of NORAD to get their military act together in the air, an attempt, by the way, that never materialized. The film resembles as much as possible the feel of the moment, knowing no more than what was known at the time. It’s stunning to discover that while various organizations were scrambling for information to catch up with possible, though at the time never confirmed, hijacked planes, they never did reach any conclusions until after the planes had succeeded in their suicide missions. It was only through the use of television that people around the globe discovered what was happening.

The quick edit style, moving back and forth at a rapid pace, was cinematic overkill, as stylistically, one grows weary of the monotony of the similarity, of the neverchanging way this director tells the story. The film evolves through a choreography of minutiae, of everyday, ordinary moments of passengers arriving at the airport, employees arriving at work, recreating the boring and bland details of any other day with painstaking detail, which leads to the anticipation and tension of the abrupt chaos of witnessing the unfathomable Twin Tower attacks as well as the two assaults inside the plane when it was actually hijacked and the pilot’s cabin stormed, first by the hijackers and then by the passengers, turning this film into such a visceral event, almost physicalizing the experience as much as possible, which adds tension and theatricality, but serves as entertainment, not art. On that level, I really wondered why the film was made at all, other than to subject the audience to the tension of the two assaults on the cockpit. The film did fictionalize the ending, showing the passengers storming the cockpit, frantically trying to get their hands on the wheel, a screenwriting supposition that is without factual evidence. Unfortunately, at least speaking for myself, I was already so bored with the relentless monotony of the cinema style that I was watching, always with a detached eye, never fully engaged, already knowing the outcome, hearing the music and the pounding percussion effectively heightening the mounting tension, so I just about gag when I hear people say in the same breath that this is a good way to honor the victims. What, to turn their lives into movie entertainment? This film did not change how I felt about that day, or add any layer of understanding that I didn't have before, but it does give the audience a feel-good picture of at least the passengers fighting back, certainly more effectively than the government has, currently leading us astray in Iraq, where after the passage of 5 years, the Al-Qaeda masterminds behind this event are still at large, believed to be somewhere in Pakistan.

Film Society of Lincoln Center Gavin Smith from Film Comment

To chronicle the events of the morning of September 11, 2001, on film is to accept a set of inescapable constraints. It is to venture onto sacred ground bearing a daunting burden of responsibility—to the facts, to the sentiments of the immediate families, to the American mood, to the sensitivities of a still fraught and roiling national psyche. It’s hard to imagine many filmmakers capable of walking this line and not succumbing to the temptations of mythmaking and monumentalism, but anyone who saw 2001’s Bloody Sunday would know that English docudrama director Paul Greengrass belongs to the select group of individuals up to the task.

A stark, wrenching, and overwhelming viewing experience, shot in a cinema vérité style that becomes increasingly fragmented as events accelerate, United 93 is a film of two interwoven parts; its first half is primarily concerned with depicting what went wrong on the ground, offering a riveting and meticulous inside view of the appalled helplessness of those manning the Eastern Seaboard’s air-traffic-control system and the failure of the air defense chain-of-command. Devoid of sensationalism, the film’s second part details the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 by five Muslim terrorists—and the passengers’ subsequent struggle to retake the aircraft by force. Greengrass’s version of what transpired aboard the Boeing 757, extrapolated from the behavioral profiling of each person on the plane and the eyewitness reports given by the jet’s passengers using cell and air phones, is ultimately the product of well-considered, rigorously conscientious speculation. By contrast, the events down below are reenacted, with a number of real-life participants playing themselves, most notably the head of the National Air Traffic Control Center, Ben Sliney, the man at the eye of the 9/11 hurricane.

In a very real sense, Greengrass hasn’t simply accepted the intrinsic constraints of this undertaking, he’s embraced them, boxing himself in even more by entrenching formal guidelines that serve as aesthetic counterparts to the moral obligations built into the subject matter. Hence the 91-minute flight is shot in real time and, a few brief preliminary scenes aside, the film’s scope is narrowed down to a handful of settings: five windowless control rooms and the inside of the passenger jet. It’s a film composed entirely of interiors, of totally controlled environments in which control is irrevocably usurped. Aside from a bird’s eye view of Manhattan at night in the film’s opening moments, Greengrass permits himself to shoot only from camera positions that can be justified by the conceivable presence of a human observer—we never see the exterior of the plane once it’s airborne, and the devastation of the Twin Towers is seen only from the remove of the Newark Airport control tower and the television screens in the various control rooms.

Allowing only the briefest (but nevertheless gasp-inducing) glimpses of catastrophe—the distant form of an airliner flying low across the horizon towards Manhattan; the ground rushing up to meet a plane locked into an irreversible nosedive—United 93 can be said to present the events of 9/11 strictly as a series of abstractions unfolding on the radar screens and monitors of air-traffic control centers and in the operational chatter of the men and women staffing them. As such, its moral stance is that of a somber, uncompromising anti-spectacle.

Greengrass’s film is many other things besides: a cathartic act of bearing witness, an experiment in therapeutic reenactment, an anti-procedural, a meditation on the agonizing limits of communication—and a memorial. When all is said and done, Greengrass got it right.

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM

USA (115 mi) 2007 ‘Scope

The Bourne Ultimatum David Denby from the New Yorker

Matt Damon, looking more like a bullet than ever—short hair, blunt nose, no stubble—returns as the out-in-the-cold C.I.A. agent Jason Bourne, who carried out illegal assassinations for the agency, which now wants to get rid of him. As before, agency powers sit at a bank of computers tracking Bourne (who may be a thousand miles away) while he tries to evade their gaze as well as the goons, some working for the C.I.A. and some not, who want to kill him. Eventually, he gets himself in a position to survey the surveyors and hunt the hunters, but all he wants is the return of his identity, which was filched from him during his training. The director, Paul Greengrass (who also made the second film in the series, “The Bourne Supremacy”), composes the movie in tiny fragments, but we see what we need to see, and the result is pretty nearly always thrilling. Some of the chase sequences go on for as long as ten minutes. With David Strathairn and Joan Allen as agency bigwigs. The screenplay, vaguely suggested by Robert Ludlum’s novels, is credited to Tony Gilroy (who has worked on the entire series) and many other writers.

I’d like to use The Bourne Ultimatum as a stick with which to beat modern American movies – which may not be completely fair to Paul Greengrass’s movie, mildly mature and refreshingly nitty-gritty summer-actioner that it is. But there’s something wrong on display here, something essentially amiss with the basic syntax of contemporary moviemaking as it has evolved in Hollywood – and, yes, I’m talking about camera style, which in this case (as in The Bourne Supremacy and countless other new films) suggests nothing so much as what a movie would look like if it were shot from inside of a high-speed clothes dryer. Forget the valid but easily dismissible old-fogey naysay about the handheld shaky-cam effect being simply irritating – it is, to the extent that I and everyone I know had to look away from the screen occasionally, so as to avoid motion sickness or migraine. No, let’s just consider this extremely popular movie as an act of visual storytelling – the yardstick by which most of film culture’s great old lions (Renoir, Mizoguchi, Murnau, Ford, Welles, Keaton, etc.) gained their eminence. Any five-minute hunk of Greengrass’s film would serve as an illustration: storytelling – clarity, eloquence, rigor, substance – is an irrelevancy in this movie world. You watch, but the camera smooshes are so constant and extreme you can’t focus on anything at all, much less follow an action narrative visually. You’re just looking at white noise, and listening to pounding quasi-African music, waiting for the filmmaking to settle down after many minutes of tumult to inform you where you are, and what had just happened. It’s not exciting in itself – we’d have to see it for that to occur. What it seems to be as a simulacrum of cinematic excitement – a faked impression of chaos, designed to make us feel the action rather than experience it on our own as observers. It’s a feint, a magician’s diverting maneuver – not even the trick itself. America might love this, but as movielover I cannot tolerate being made to feel anything. This is Spielberg’s legacy, after many a fashion, a fascist-style agenda that intends only to dictate to the viewer what his or her experience will be, shot by shot, smudge by smudge.

It goes without saying that this is the exact antithesis of the storytelling mise-en-scene that made the great filmmakers great (one cannot imagine any filmmaker, even Spielberg, be revered in years hence for this smash-&-shove brand of cinema, and Greengrass will surely only be remembered for his much more astute and patient docudramas). The old argument used to be montage vs. mise-en-scene, Eisenstein vs. Murnau, a combat that Murnau and his many sons and daughters had decidedly won, in the heads of attentive cinephiles if not in the kill-a-Saturday-night market at large. But now the fight seems to have evolved into visceral effect (Eisensteinian montage included, plus the new digital-editing achievements, plus whatever) vs. visual experience (meaning, having the experience of seeing things actually happen) – the difference between spinning in circles and falling down, and skiing down an unknown mountain. One is childish distraction, the other, potentially, transformative and substantive and profound. Cinema, even popular cinema, is not, I dare pontificate, indistinct chaos and high-speed blurriness, but the pleasure of actually seeing, say, Buster Keaton ride a motorcycle’s handle bars across a speeding train’s path, or Anna Karina dance the Madison, or Joey Wong sail through the fake HK air, or Clive Owen hustling through a war-torn city block and up multiple flights of stairs, following a baby’s cry. Or, insert your own favorite.

[Cahiers du cinéma] Emmanuel Burdeau from Cahiers du Cinéma

Jason Bourne has recovered his real name, David Webb, and even his date of birth. He’s doing better:The Bourne Ultimatum brings a powerful close to the trilogy begun five years ago. The time finally seems to have come for the spy played straight by Matt Damon to catch his breath. Let’s seize the opportunity to take stock: how has action film developed since an inanimate body was fished out of the water off Marseille one day in 2002?

The reader will recall that the young man’s amnesia was a sign that the action genre was starting over from scratch. Gone were the days of escape artists, the excitement of driving the wrong way on a one-way street in Manhattan and leaping from the pavement to the lawns of Central Park to put the urban grid to the test, but also to catch sight through the windshield of the traces of a jungle or an ocean, the promise of another world, both older and newer: under an open sky. For a while, the best actions films methodically devoted everything they had to producing visibilities that were both material and utopian. This moment in history came to an end with the radical fulfillment of its program through the Internet, the end of the Cold War and the fall of all the walls. And through 9/11, of course, the last great event torn from the horizon of total visibility.

This was the context for The Bourne Identity. The time for a rapidly stagnating ubiquity had already passed. Matrix and Unbreakable had given away the game: a superhero flying over the surface of the planet actually has no power at all, he is simply flying over the void. What remained to be done was to follow the direction inaugurated by these two films and transfer astonishment to the other side, to the side of the body. Like Neo and David Dunn, Jason Bourne had no idea who he was, but to his own stupefaction he knew how to make coffee and tie sailors’ knots, to speak Flemish, French and German and, if need be, to fight.

The body’s exteriority to what it is capable of achieving and the automatism in the action scenes showed the preponderance of Asian action films on American ones. In this period of political wavering, American action films also disarmed the reasons for heroism. This explains why The Bourne Identity compared Bourne and the other programmed assassins in the Treadstone program to the all-purpose employees of a multinational corporation and teamed the spy up with vagabond Marie, the reject of German prosperity. In a poetic manner, her stupor easily matched his own.

In 2004, when Paul Greengrass succeeded Doug Liman to direct a second installment, the situation had already changed. Since Bourne couldn’t eternally be surprised at his prowess, the film had to readjust its aim and set off to rediscover the world. But the plot of The Bourne Supremacy doesn’t rocket from Goa to Naples and from Berlin to Moscow to marvel once again at the disappearance of distances due to globalization. It does so to accomplish in space the awakening the previous film had only operated on the body. In Moscow, the impressive car chase ends in a tunnel, with metal crushed against the guardrail separating the lanes before the exit. Action’s primary task has been reversed: the goal is to charge head first into walls rather than go through them. Bourne and the others now had to dash from one continent to another in search of the last corner of the universe for a beautiful crash, in order to firmly establish the intact consistency of a world. Back to planet earth. Live Free or Die Hard recently provided an interesting example of this with a computer conspiracy that doesn’t make anything virtual but, on the contrary, gives old John McClane a serious boost.

The Bourne Ultimatum continues this trend of rebooting the real. Bourne charges from Moscow to Turin, Paris, London, Madrid and Tangiers. A new chase takes place in the latter city, the most stunning chase yet, a race through the alleys, rooftops and terraces that ends like a Tsui Hark scene, with two bodies crumpled into each other in a shower stall amidst a tangle of laundry and towels. The action is clearly delving deeper and deeper into the exiguous, one fold after another. To fully understand how we got to this stage, we need to take a detour via the film Paul Greengrass shot between the two Bourne movies, the odd United 93, which was as fascinating as it was painful. Here, 9/11 actually serves as a justification for the end of the reign of total visibility. But without dwelling on the Twin Towers: the essential rests in the relationship between a panopticon and a black hole. The former is thwarted, the technicians in the numerous control centers are helpless to affect what’s taking place in the hijacked planes. Best then to transport one’s self to where it all happened, even though no images have survived: the constricted “blind” space of the plane that crashed into a field near Shankville, Pennsylvania, far from the White House, thanks to a revolt among the passengers.

The Bourne Ultimatum repeats this combination of a powerless control apparatus (in this case, a room full of computers and screens in the CIA’s New York headquarters) and a pocket theater. We’ve already mentioned a bathroom in Tangiers, we should also include London’s Waterloo Station crammed with people (great scene) and its warren of halls, staircases etc. Greengrass’s style fits this confinement: he has a passion for real time and slightly hysterical imitation of documentary methods. He’s happiest with his camera following behind a shoulder and likes to toll the suspense gong with sound and image at every cut.

One could therefore criticize Greengrass for a level of confusion that generally points to a director who wasn’t made for action. But we could also recognize the evolution of the genre and the reasons for this confusion. Today action doesn’t take off from a place that preexisted it; it attempts to recreate the conditions of spatiality. In fact, it no longer checks up on the consistency of the world: it resurrects it by charging into windows, faces, laundry and safety belts. All folds in the waxed canvas. Action is no longer concerned with glaring visibilities. Its task is the production of illegible phenomena reclaimed from a double empire of the void: the globalized desert and the dead eye of control.

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) Bryant Frazer from Deep Focus, also including an interview with the film editor: my interview with Christopher Rouse

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS C 73

USA (134 mi) 2013 ‘Scope Official site

In America, you just can’t explain the passion exhibited for typical Hollywood action movies like this one, as it receives all kinds of critical accolades and people buy into the deluded belief that this is good filmmaking, when in fact this is fairly typical of what any decent Hollywood director can do, and this one is no exception. Paul Greengrass is a British film director who made a name for himself with BLOODY SUNDAY (2002), where his startling use of handheld cameras gave the viewers a near documentary, you-are-there perspective in a stunning recreation of actual events that took place in 1972 when British paratroopers opened fire on a peaceful Irish demonstration killing 14 Irish protesters. The style was immediate, as it won the top prize at the Berlin Film festival, which it shared with Miyazaki’s SPIRITED AWAY (2001), and it remains at the pinnacle of his best work. Since then, Greengrass directed the second and third installments of the Bourne series (2004, 2007), both extremely popular, while also directing UNITED 93 (2006), a somewhat fictionalized recreation of what happened on 9/11, for which he received near unanimous praise. So while the man has established credentials in both Britain and America, this is not among his best work, despite the overpraised accounts, but is instead just another one of the over-amped Hollywood productions, something of a recreation of actual events when a U.S. cargo ship, the MV Maersk Alabama, was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009, taking the captain hostage briefly until he was rescued in a daring Navy SEALS operation. Based upon the book, A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea, by Stephan Talty and ship captain Richard Phillips, the film stars the ever likeable Tom Hanks as the lead character, who actually takes a crack at a Boston accent early in the film, but it disappears throughout the film.

While the captain’s actions have been described as heroic, some crew members have considered him reckless, as there were 16 pirate attacks and eight hostage situations in the three weeks prior to their hijacking, yet he ignored warnings to stay at least 600 miles off the coast of Somalia, presumably to save money in a shorter distance, as the ship was just 240 miles off the coast instead, where he is being sued by 11 members of the 20-man crew for reckless endangerment, and call the movie version a big lie, Captain Phillips Is a Lie: Real Captain Is No Hero, According To Crew. Hollywood has a history of embellishing the truth, and even award Best Picture Oscars, as they did in the case of Argo (2012), often creating American heroes for their beloved stars while other equally deserving, or in some cases even more deserving actions are ignored for the sake of a fictionalized movie. While that is a major issue in the case of Argo, not so much here, even though it may earn Hanks another Oscar nomination. The real issue here is the filmmaking itself, which goes on far too long, showing little character development, instead featuring characters screaming and yelling all the time, while exhibiting Hollywood overkill, where the constant drumbeat of rising percussion from Henry Jackman’s score just overplays its hand, attempting to push this film down people’s throats, as if that makes for an exciting, pulse-pounding thriller. A better editing job might have helped, where the introductory establishing shots in both Somalia and Vermont are superfluous, as no backstory is really provided, or needed, while Billy Ray’s script couldn’t be more cliché ridden, showing no interaction between crew members other than the usual gripes about overwork, and equally appalling language coming from the military ship captain as they receive incoming instructions about the hijacking in progress.

While some may be thrilled by the enthralling build-up of suspense, much of it slowed to a crawl, as the pirates attempted to locate the missing crew, room by room, step by step, going ever lower into the bowels of the ship, yet the drumbeat kept pounding, as if there was something more happening. This is all generic Hollywood filmmaking in the style of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972), and then again in TITANIC (1997). Not much has changed here, as except for a few brief moments, which are exhilarating flare-ups, such as the taking of the ship, the seizure of the bridge, the crew overpowering one of the hijackers, the attempted exchange of captains, and a few brief exchanges between the U.S. military vessels and the Somali pirates with the captain in a lifeboat at sea, most of the time is spent simply adrift at sea, with pirates continually arguing about what to do. Some of what the movie depicts is borderline ridiculous, such as the pirates refusing to allow the captain, or one of their own men, to dress serious wounds of two of the pirates, as they have him surrounded with automatic rifles while he’s unarmed, so what threat does he pose? The wound poses more of a threat, as a prolonged, untreated infection could lead to something far worse, and it was negatively affecting the ability of both pirates to maintain focus. The real discovery here is first-time actor Barkhad Abdi as Muse, the head pirate that convincingly plays a man who’s used to facing adversity, perhaps more than any of the others, who continually stands up to Captain Phillips, and the American military, displaying a unique brand of bravery himself, even if he is an outlaw, as he has to continually keep a group of undisciplined followers from self-destructing. Perhaps what’s most interesting about the film is Muse gets more attention than any other character in the film, including the title character, which is the one choice the film gets right. While Abdi is terrific throughout, Hanks really only displays any specialized acting skills in the final few moments, when he’s still in shock after the NAVY SEALS rescue mission, but those few minutes of confusion may be the most humanizing moments in the entire film.

Exclaim! [Scott A. Gray]

With heavy hands and shaky cam working overtime, Paul Greengrass delivers a patronizing pat on the back to the American people disguised as a sophomoric critique of globalization. The topic de jour is Somali pirates. How could Hollywood resist a set of sympathetic antagonists, the description of which suggests a blend of nostalgic romanticism and real-world issue mining? They couldn't, so expect to see more of these hungry symbols of progress gone awry on the big and small screens until someone figures out how to give them their fish back or the next newsworthy, morally ambiguous aggressor shows up. But this movie is only sort of about them; it's not called Captain Muse.

As all the marketing campaigns make sure you're aware of, Tom Hanks stars as the titular Captain Phillips, in this "based on a true" story. Affronts to national security (read: ego) don't sit well with the U.S. government, and Greengrass uses this tale of the first American cargo ship hijacked in 200 years to demonstrate what happens to people who screw with the Red, White and Blue, as well as to celebrate how very brave all the sailors were in the face of danger, of course.

First, we meet the players: Phillips and his crew, just trying to do their jobs delivering cargo, as well as Muse (Barkhad Adbi) and his gang, just trying to do the same for their bosses. Greengrass, working from a script by Billy Ray (not Cyrus), derived from the account by Richard Phillips (spoiler alert: he wrote a book), skimps on the personal backgrounds and motivations of most characters on both sides of the conflict, displaying greater concern for depicting how they behave in a group dynamic and under pressure.

The director of United 93 tacks on a subplot involving Phillips calling home to his wife (a completely underused Catherine Keener), as they've both been so worried about the news reports of piracy in the area he'll be sailing. But its primary function is not emotional grounding; it's to indicate how professional Phillips is for being so up on his duties and safety protocols.

His stalwart, stick-in-the-mud, rulebook-thumping is credited with keeping the situation from getting uglier than it did, with early scenes of Phillips and his wandering accent battening down the hatches and preparing his flippant crew for the worst.

Captain Phillips is lethargic, pandering and lazy. The "intimate realism" of the sort of purposely unstudied cinematography Greengrass favours in this film is a timesaving excuse to ignore the artistry of framing. Only in the wide shots, after greater forces are brought into play, is there a firm sense of control and spatiality. Intentional as that tactic is — we get it: the military is in charge — it's a tactic of manipulation on par with a score practically begging the audience to feel tension that's otherwise absent.

Viewers sporting cause bracelets or flags planted on their front lawns will be the most vocal supporters of this desultory Oscar bait. For the rest of us, unless you want to see Hanks make his "oh Jenn-AY!" face without watching the "box of chocolates" scene again, don't waste your time.

Tiny Mix Tapes [Robert Ham]

Captain Phillips arrives at almost the perfect time in popular culture, a period when artists and their benefactors work strenuously to contextualize and then fictionalize major events at a breakneck pace. It may have only been four years ago that a container ship was overtaken by Somali pirates and the ship’s captain taken hostage for 72 harrowing hours. But simply reading Richard Phillips’ telling of the story isn’t enough: we want to witness every sweaty moment of it.

To the credit of the film’s producers, they handed the job of bringing this to film over to the right people. Paul Greengrass has already proven himself capable of turning real life events into engrossing cinema with his previous directorial efforts Bloody Sunday and United 93. And Billy Ray, while not the most artful of screenwriters, is best at no nonsense dialogue, especially when it comes to true stories (Shattered Glass, Breach). Their efforts combine perfectly for this film: although you know where this story is going and where it ends, it is fantastically gripping entertainment.

With those building blocks in place, the film really falls on the shoulders of the actors to bring out the nuance and emotion. Tom Hanks may not be the most obvious choice, but he should be commended for what he does here, absolutely believable as a man treading a delicate line with four young men shoving AK-47s in his face. His captain makes all the right moves in attempting to protect his crew, even willingly offering himself up as a sacrifice, but Hanks’s real skills as an actor don’t come into play until the end of the film as he shudders through the aftermath of what he’s gone through. Newcomer Barkhad Abdi does commendable work as the sleepy-voiced leader of the pirate gang. He never pushes too hard with this role, maintaining a scintillating air of mystery and danger that is almost alluring until he threatens to bash Phillips’ head in.

Where things get tricky is in the rather one-sided view of the geopolitics involved in this incident and its portrayal. Greengrass and Ray give us a bit of exposition showing the pirates being forced to take to the seas by local warlords, but other than one throwaway line towards the end of the film, there’s no real sense of motivation here. You get none of the real factors that lead young men like these into a life of piracy and servitude: extreme poverty where 53% of the rural population lives on less than $1 per day.

It gets even knottier when considering the racial issues potentially at play here. Captain Phillips may be as true to the real incident as possible, but when it is fictionalized, captured on digital film, and projected on a screen, it ends up placed in a long, unfortunate history of cinematic visions that serve to keep us viewing people of color as dangerous others. Greengrass doesn’t help this cause any by showing the other three pirates involved as bug-eyed, overly aggressive, and drug-crazed (the over-emphasis on the Somalis’ use of khat is particularly egregious). Such a portrayal might be to the letter factual, but not adding even the slightest of dimensions to these characters seems only to help their blood-soaked fate a little easier for America to swallow.

The House Next Door [Kenji Fujishima]

The more movies he makes, the more Paul Greengrass's have-it-both-ways m.o. as a filmmaker becomes clearer, aiming to craft high-octane action spectacles that also thoughtfully address topical events and current sociopolitical realities without becoming overly didactic. Some, of course, will object on principle to the mere act of turning events such as the Iraq War and the 9/11 attacks—two of Greengrass's previous subjects—into pulse-pounding thrills in the first place, arguing that he's exploiting real-world trauma for the sake of shallow entertainment. If nothing else, though, his latest film, Captain Phillips, reveals, perhaps with even more clarity than before, Greengrass's well-meaning rationale behind his methods—and with it, their imposing strengths and troubling limitations.

Back when Greengrass made Bloody Sunday in 2002, many remarked on the startling sense of "you are there" authenticity and immediacy he brought to his recreation of the notorious Bloody Sunday massacre in Ireland in 1972. Some have subsequently pegged this as a "documentary-style" approach to volatile subject matter, but really, Greengrass's directorial vision is fundamentally visceral; politics may enter into the film, but only in the context of the way it manifests itself in characters' external actions. And when said external actions often deal with terror and violence, whether from riots, hijackings, or simply foot chases, as Greengrass's films usually do, perhaps it's appropriate that his films frequently feel like heart attacks waiting to happen.

Greengrass's wholly exterior approach to tackling thorny political subject matter is admirable in theory, at least. Instead of taking an explicit stand, he presents the characters and situations to us in as realistic a manner as possible, trusting the audience not only to pick up on characterizations and motivations in the context of the present tense (a telling glance here, a throwaway act there, with nary a second for clunky exposition), but to draw our own conclusions based on what he depicts on screen. This supposedly apolitical stance is what many embraced in Greengrass's United 93, which was praised for its "objectivity" in recreating the events on 9/11 that led to the crash of the titular airplane in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The art of filmmaking, however, is a series of choices made by filmmakers in what to show and how to show it; politics, thus, are unavoidable however rigorously one tries to avoid it. Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty offered an object lesson in the fallacies of "apolitical cinema": Even as Bigelow purposefully avoided a triumphal tone in its epic chronicle of the hunt for Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks, the film essentially rehashed official accounts, offering little of interest beyond Bigelow's skill with action and suspense as well as some frankly generic human interest (Jessica Chastain's Maya is, like 24's Jack Bauer, so obsessed with her job that it more or less consumes her soul). As gripping as it was to watch, one would look in vain for any genuinely fresh insights into global politics, much less the people behind the scenes.

That, unfortunately, is also the biggest stumbling block of Greengrass's faux-journalistic approach. As a thriller, Captain Phillips is undeniably top-notch, with Greengrass judiciously employing his "shaky-cam" style to consistently gripping effect for this based-on-real-events chronicle of Somali pirates who, in 2009, attempted to hijack the Maersk Alabama captained by Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks). But by focusing so ruthlessly on dramatizing this attempted seizure and subsequent hostage situation in as viscerally immediate a manner as possible, Greengrass is essentially putting his faith in the drama—the characterizations, the real-life sociopolitical issues they raise—to take care of itself.

But there's only so much that expert thriller mechanics can do to camouflage the shallowness of Billy Ray's screenplay. Captain Phillips also aims to be a two-tiered character drama, focusing not only on the American captain himself, but also on Muse (Barkhad Abdi), one of the Somali pirates who leads the charge of their hijacking attempt. The idea is that Phillips and Muse are, in some ways, equals, as both make impressive shows of being in charge of their units even when they're sometimes merely being blustery, both focused on their missions, but not entirely at the expense of their capacity for human empathy, both ultimately at the mercy of economic and political forces larger than themselves. Ray rarely goes beyond the surface when it comes to actually filling in these characters and sketching in those larger forces. He gives Phillips one monologue at the beginning in which he expresses his nostalgic yet accepting move-forward perspective in living in today's economy. Muse doesn't even get the benefit of a tent-pole monologue like that; instead, we have to settle for barebones suggestions that money problems are what drive him to piracy.

Money is at the heart of one crucial exchange in Captain Phillips that exposes the inadequacy of the film as anything more than just an electric thriller. At one point, Phillips asks, out of what appears to be genuine curiosity, why Muse and his cohorts feel a need to engage in piracy in order to gain money. Muse's response—"If only there was any other way"—is piercing in its unspoken implications of a whole third-world nation so beset by economic travails that they've been led to believe that there's absolutely no alternative than committing armed theft in order to achieve their dreams of prosperity. But while a smarter and more probing film might have seized on those implications and actually explored them, Greengrass and company are so tied to their thriller mechanics—which, even more than in United 93, isn't above the injection of bombast thanks to Henry Jackman's noisy Hans Zimmer-like score—that they can't even be bothered to ask such questions in the first place. By the end, even as Hanks has a magnificent meltdown upon the conclusion of this ordeal, the ostensibly moving moment is tempered by the knowledge that we not only don't really know Phillips as an individual beyond the nobility and vulnerability he shows in this time of crisis, but we haven't really gleaned any extra illumination about the state of our world today despite the lip service the filmmakers pay to addressing such issues.

Slant Magazine [R. Kurt Osenlund]

“Captain Phillips”: A disturbing celebration of American ... - Salo “Captain Phillips”: A disturbing celebration of American military power, by Andrew O’Hehir from Salon, September 30, 2013

“Captain Phillips,” the shutdown and American ... - Salon.com “Captain Phillips,” the shutdown and American nationalism in decline, by Andrew O’Hehir from Salon, October 12, 2013

How Accurate Is Captain Phillips? - Slate Forrest Wickman from Slate, October 11, 2013

Edelstein on Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips -- Vulture David Edelstein from The Vulture, October 6, 2013

Greengrass Responds to Captain Phillips Critique -- Vulture Lindsey Weber from The Vulture, October 18, 2013

Captain Phillips - World Socialist Web Site Julien Kiemle

Captain Phillips / The Dissolve Keith Phipps

Anthony Lane: “Captain Phillips,” “Parkland ... - The New Yor Anthony Lane from The New Yorker

The Village Voice [Stephanie Zacharek]

j.b.spins Joe Bendel

Paul Greengrass' Harrowing, Absorbing Thriller 'Captain Phillips Rodrigo Perez from The Playlist

PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs

Paste Magazine Mark Rozeman

In Review Online [Calum Reed]

Erik Lundegaard

Film.com [David Ehrlich]

PopcornReel.com [Omar P.L. Moore]

Alt Film Guide [Tim Cogshell]

Movie Mezzanine [Russell Hainline]

'Captain Phillips' Review: Adrift - Pajiba Daniel Carlson

Review: Tom Hanks grounds the emotional and upsetting ... - Hi Drew McWeeny from Hit Fix

1NFLUX Magazine [Steve Pulaski]

Twitchfilm/Filmfest.ca [Jason Gorber]

Movie Review - 'Captain Phillips' - High Stakes On The High ... Bob Mondello from NPR

Tom Hanks Is Dauntless in 'Captain Phillips' - The Wire Richard Lawson

Captain Phillips - Reelviews Movie Reviews James Berardinelli

JamesBowman.net | Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips - Home Theater Info Doug MacLean

DVD Savant - Blu-ray [Glenn Erickson]

DVD Sleuth [Mike Long]

Blu-rayDefinition.com - Blu-ray [Brandon A. DuHamel]

DVD Verdict (Blu-ray) [Erich Asperschlager]

Blu-ray.com [Martin Liebman]

DoBlu.com Blu-ray [Matt Paprock]

AVForums - Blu-ray [Cas Harlow]

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture - 2013 [Erik Beck]

Digital Spy [Stella Papamichael]

Captain Phillips Movie Review Devon Pack from Ruthless Reviews

Angeliki Coconi's Unsung Films [Hannah McHaffie]

The Society For Film [James Marsh]

The Film Stage [Forrest Cardamenis]

Phil on Film [Philip Concannon]

Front Row Films

Georgia Straight [John Lekich]

Hollywood Reporter [Todd McCarthy]

Meet Captain Phillips's First Mate, Shane Murphy -- Vulture Gwynne Watkins interview from The Vulture, October 16, 2013

TV Guide [Jason Buchanan]

Theguardian.com [Mark Kermode]

Examiner.com [Kay Shackleton]

'Captain Phillips' movie review: Tom Hanks's ... - Washington P Ann Hornaday from The Washington Post

The Cleveland Movie Blog [Pete Roche]

Kansas City Star [Jon Niccum]

Dallas Film Now [Peter Martin]

Tom Hanks navigates 'Captain Phillips' to first-class reviews - Lo Kenneth Turan from the LA Times

Captain Phillips Movie Review (2013) | Roger Ebert Susan Wloszczyna

Captain Phillips - The New York Times Manohla Dargis

MV Maersk Alabama

Gregg, Clark

CHOKE B- 82

USA (89 mi) 2008

A thoroughly enjoyable dark comedy about looking for love in all the wrong places featuring the always superb Sam Rockwell as a degenerate ne’er-do-well who has trouble keeping his pants on, using any available opportunity to slip into his self deprecating, sleazebag role as a skuzzy horndog. Taking liberties with realism, as much of this is portrayed like a macabre, sick, tongue-in-cheek joke, the film thrives on oddball depravity and emotional disinterest. Rockwell plays Victor, who works as a guide at a Colonial theme park along with his best friend Denny, Brad William Henke, a thoroughly fucked up meathead who has masturbation issues, namely he can’t stop doing it. Denny always seems to be sent to the stockades for one minor infraction after another, usually by the hardass manager played by the director himself, while in the evenings the two attend sex addiction meetings, though Victor only attends so he can screw one of the fellow members, Paz de la Huerta, while also claiming to be her sponsor. Joel Gray, no less, runs on at the mouth at the meetings about his celebrity ridden Truman Capote-esque lifestyle that keeps spinning out of control. Throw into the picture Angelica Huston as Victor’s overly eccentric mother, seen dually in her present state as a patient suffering from dementia in a nursing home while also appearing in flashback sequences during Victor’s childhood dressed in a hat, trenchcoat and dark glasses, always evading the law while kidnapping him from various foster families, lugging this kid around the country on one wacky adventure after another.

Adapting the script from Chuck Palahniuk’s cryptic novel, the director establishes the bottom feeder, leacherous mood through Rockwell’s dry humor on display through his sarcastic, thoroughly disconnected to the point of being disgusted with himself first person narration portraying a character who never feels anything except through sexual gratification. Yet he steadfastly visits his mother even though she no longer recognizes him anymore and instead believes he’s part of a team of lawyers scheming to get her out. Known to all the elderly residents on the floor, though not always in flattering terms, as one after the other accuses him of some underhanded activity, yet for all their moral outrage, at least he comes to visit, which can’t be said of their own families. Meanwhile, a new doctor on the team, Kelly Macdonald as Dr. Marshall, attracts Victor’s eye at about the same time a local stripper named Cherry Daquiri (Gillian Jacobs) attracts the attention of Denny. Macdonald and Rockwell really sizzle onscreen together, as her character feels particularly vulnerable because she’s very much attached to his mother, whose voracious humor and broadmindedness she adores. Despite terrific performances throughout and an occasionally zany script, there’s a level of one note fatigue that sets in for Victor’s charming but loathsome personality that remains at heart a despicable low life, even as he periodically rises from the gutter. The film is shot in grainy, colorless video by David Gordon Green’s cinematographer, Tim Orr, which adds a medicinal look to the film which is not at all pretty to look at. Despite the presence of some big names, this retains a low budget, indie feel throughout as it’s outrageously witty, offers plenty of simulated sex, and is always willing to take chances.

The Village Voice [Robert Wilonsky]

Briefly: Choke, from Chuck Palahniuk’s typically overheated novel about a sex addict who blames his crazy mother, is the first movie chockablock with nude women I’ve ever fought to stay awake at. Sam Rockwell strips himself down to pure appetite and has a buoyant spirit. But the film sure doesn’t. It’s bizarrely flat—it has no affect. It’s like Palahniuk translated into Robotese …

There's a whole lotta fucking going on in Choke, Clark Gregg's adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's first-person novel about a sex addict named Victor Mancini with severe Mommy issues—fucking in a cramped airplane bathroom, on a barnyard's itchy haystack, in a grimy toilet stall, in a hospital's chapel even. Sam Rockwell plays Victor, an emotionally disconnected Colonial America theme-park employee who, in his spare time, ditches his sexaholic meetings to screw one of his fellow addicts on the bathroom floor; good thing he's her sponsor. Gregg has shuffled around some scenes (the book's first is now toward the film's end) while rendering the story altogether stickier with sentiment. But in the end, Gregg and Palahniuk wind up in the same place—with a dude for whom doing it just ain't cutting it anymore. And Palahniuk and Gregg, who has perhaps the film's funniest role as the theme park's strict taskmaster, both suffer the same flaw: They explain and explain again the genesis of Victor's demons, to the point where the novel and movie play almost like parodies of novels and movies in which a character has to get in touch with his feelings in order to become a better man. Basically, Victor's gonna fuck himself crazy or fuck himself sane—yawn.

Time Out New York (Joshua Rothkopf) review [3/6]

Chuck Palahniuk writes novels with the callow, comic viciousness of an amused surgical intern. Sitting through David Fincher’s Fight Club is a bit like backpedaling in front of a shark. Typically, Palahniuk’s characters are self-abusers, yet onscreen, it’s the audience that bears that brunt. But what’s this? Choke, like a lot of indies coming out of Sundance, is sweet and huggable. That’s, of course, a serious deviation from Palahniuk’s original text. But director-actor Clark Gregg, who also adapted the novel with the author’s blessing, hasn’t exactly failed. He’s made a zingy amusement about sex addicts, those so drawn to humping, they cut out of group therapy to do it in supply closets. Gregg puts a stronger emphasis on their healing. And heal they do; no sharks here.

Leading this randy if sensitive squad is Victor, who, as played by the likably louche Sam Rockwell, can’t help but steer the film into benign territory. Victor, a good son, patiently endures the alienating rants of his institutionalized mom (Huston) and agonizes, not for long, over getting into the whites of a hot doctor (No Country for Old Men’s Macdonald). His sideline is induced public choking to gain financial sympathy from Samaritans, a ploy that doesn’t feel especially germane. Best are the scenes set at a Williamsburg-like colonial town, where Victor glibly serves as a “historical interpreter,” which means regular trips to the barn with milk maidens. All of the emotional breakthroughs are safely telegraphed; fans of the film will be terrified if they dig any deeper between the book covers.

Zoom in Online (Mike Raffensperger) review

Mixing nihilistic wit, stringent social satire and jagged pathos, Chuck Palahniuk’s writing has a tendency to careen wildly between bracing mordancy and messy, faux-shocking salaciousness. For a time, Clark Gregg’s adaptation of the Fight Club author’s Choke delivers enough of the former to compensate for the latter as it focuses on the plight of Victor (Sam Rockwell), a shaggy ne’er-do-well sex addict with a masturbation-crazed best friend named Denny (Brad William Henke) and a dementia-addled mother named Ida (Anjelica Huston), as well as growing feelings for mom’s doctor Paige (Kelly Macdonald). Victor is a slovenly cretin whose main tactic for finding love involves deliberately choking in restaurants so others will save him, and Rockwell imbues him with sarcastic guttersnipe scuzziness that’s rooted in anger and resentment at his psychotic druggie mother, who during his youth would habitually kidnap him from his foster parents to accompany her on lunatic adventures. With a wiseass smirk that masks acute pain, Rockwell makes Victor’s porno-lounge-lizard debauchery downright endearing. Choke’s bouncy narrative, however, quickly turns muddled, failing to find a consistent rhythm – or a visual style (à la David Fincher’s Fight Club) that might match the material’s nasty, hyperactive vigorousness – as it transitions between present-day sex-therapy sessions, Victor’s twisted relationship with Denny and Paige, insinuations of Victor’s divine lineage, and flashbacks to his childhood that lack the scope necessary to fully convey the source of his maternal issues. Palahniuk’s caustic humor translates most sharply in to-hell-with-everything Victor’s daily grind at a colonial America park. Yet aside from a few choice sequences, Gregg’s script largely comes up short on the transgressive or poignant front, offering up mundane “extreme” bits of nastiness and half-baked sentimentality that aren’t offset (much less electrified) by the filmmaker’s straightforward direction.

The Onion A.V. Club review Tasha Robinson

Given the eventual breakaway cult status of Fight Club, the sole Chuck Palahniuk book to make it to the big screen, it's surprising that more filmmakers haven't seized upon his work for inspiration. Then again, Fight Club is one of his very few books that's fixated more on real-world frustrations and cinematically acceptable violence—that is, fistfights and explosions—than on weird factoids, over-the-top gore, and twisted sex. And most of Palahniuk's books, translated accurately to cinema, would look something like the cluttered, flavorless Choke, which crams the novel's nervy narration into an irritating voiceover, and leaps around in time and space with all the attention span of an ADD-addled child.

Sam Rockwell stars as the narrator, a grungy con artist who splits his time between sex-addict meetings (where he slips off into the bathroom to fuck the girl he's supposed to be sponsoring), his job at a cruddy colonial-themed tourist park, and visits to his institutionalized mom (Anjelica Huston), who no longer recognizes him. Periodically, he enters restaurants and forces food into his windpipe, choking and permitting strangers to rescue him, so they'll feel affection and responsibility for him. In theory, he does this to bilk money out of them; in practice, after a lifetime of cadging after whatever scraps of affection Huston threw his way, he seems to be desperate for connection, which explains many things about his flailing, miserable life.

Actor-turned-first-time-director Clark Gregg gave himself a minor role, as a huffy theme-park supervisor who's tired of Rockwell's apathetic antics, but his charmingly exasperated, dorky performance stands in contrast to the relative slackness of his script and direction, which dribble out scenes from Palahniuk's book without a sense of connection, drive, or personal stakes. It's no surprise that Rockwell's protagonist lacks focus or personality—the search for identity is one of Palahniuk's running themes. Every aspect of the character's life is about playing a role that might draw attention or affection: his theme-park job, his restaurant stunts, pretending to be his mom's lawyer so she'll speak with him, accepting whatever identity the demented old biddies around her force on him. But onscreen, the conceit falls exactly as flat as Rockwell's bland character, who's no more than a collection of tics and random quirky events. He and the story are both working to come across as transgressive and darkly comic, but they're too halfhearted to be funny, and too sloppy to be biting. Palahniuk's book wasn't nearly as sharp or edgy as it was trying to be, but it's a sack of razors compared with this limp adaptation.

filmcritic.com (Bill Gibron) review [2.5/5] also seen here: Reel.com review [2/4]

Let's face it: No one thought Fight Club would be anything other than another flash of David Fincher directorial determination when it first came out. Critics and audiences were not enamored with the machismo and mayhem epic, even with stars Edward Norton and Brad Pitt in the lead. No, it took a few years for the cinematic scales to fall from everyone's eyes, turning a cult flick into a classic. Perhaps actor turned auteur Clark Gregg is hoping for the same time-aided appreciation. His interpretation of Club author Chuck Palahniuk's novel Choke is equally quirky and unsettled. One senses, however, no future re-evaluation for this uneven effort.

Since leaving medical school, sex addict Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) has worked tirelessly to keep his mentally deranged mother (Anjelica Huston) in a private nursing home. By day, he's a "historical recreationist" at a local colonial village. By night, he travels to various restaurants around town and pretends to choke. Once saved, he hits up his good Samaritan marks for any and all kinds of financial assistance. Desperate to learn who his father is, Victor teams up with a new doctor named Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald) to decipher his mother's memories, as well as translate an old diary which may provide some clues. Of course, in between consultations, it's nothing but fornication and copulation.

Choke has one of those titles which describes its success as a film to a succinct single syllable. Like the talented athlete who can't get his team into the playoffs, or a golfer that muffs the easy putt for championship glory, Gregg's riff on Palahniuk's concepts (the film varies somewhat from the book) never delivers the knockout blow. Instead, we end up with several interesting narrative threads that barely hold together.

At any given moment, we are intrigued by Victor's rate of random intercourse, his unusual past with his nonconformist mother, the beefy best friend Denny (well played by Brad William Henke) who can't stop touching himself, and the determined doctor offering hope to our hapless hero. But Gregg can't locate a way to connect the dots, to make the various outlandish allusions add up to something substantial. Instead, Choke is a movie of moments -- some good, some groan-inducing, and a few that make no friggin' sense whatsoever. But thanks to aggressive turns by Rockwell and a beaming Huston (she steals every scene she is in, including the '70s-spiced flashbacks), we are willing to stick with the struggles.

Gregg clearly forgets that most of Palahniuk's prose is punditry. Fight Club centered on the emasculation of the modern male. Survivor mocked our always-crass consumerism. By making the title con a mere sidebar, by substituting another "twist ending" for more of the author's takes on addiction and conspiracy theorizing, Gregg undercuts the meaning of his movie. Instead, he hopes to get by on the oddness of ideas, the jarring juxtaposition between a parent dying of Alzheimer's and a son who can't keep his libido in check. Toss in Victor's unusual possible ancestry (let's just say he's entitled to a God complex) and you've got nothing but nutty non-sequiturs.

Still, if one is capable of completely forgetting the normative needs of a movie, if they can back off from the occasionally confrontational approaches to simply enjoy some fine performances, Choke will go down easy. All the shock and schlock posturing will have very little influence on your possible enjoyment. But for anyone who found Fight Club a manifesto for a less-numbing new world order, Gregg's interpretation of this part of Palahniuk will feel like a minor message at best.

BFI | Sight & Sound | Choke (2008) Kate Stables from Sight and Sound, December 2008

Slant Magazine [Bill Weber]

indieWIRE review Nick Pinkerton from Reverse Shot

eFilmCritic.com (Brian Orndorf) review [4/5]

Screen International review Patrick Z. McGavin at Sundance

ReelViews (James Berardinelli) review [2.5/4]

CompuServe [Harvey Karten]

The New York Sun (S. James Snyder) review

Film School Rejects [Neil Miller]

Cinematical (Erik Davis) review

eFilmCritic.com (Peter Sobczynski) review [3/5]

eFilmCritic.com (Charles Tatum) review [1/5]

ShortEnd Magazine [Noralil Ryan Fores]

The Globe and Mail (Rick Groen) review [2/4]

Austin Chronicle (Kimberley Jones) review [2/5]

San Francisco Chronicle (Ruthe Stein) review

Los Angeles Times (Robert Abele) review

Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert) review [2.5/4]

Grémillon, Jean

Jean Grémillon Resurrection of a Martyr, an overview by Chris Fujiwara from the Boston Phoenix, November 22 – 29, November 2001

DAÏNNAH LA MÉTISSE

France (51 mi) 1932

User reviews from imdb Author: writers_reign from London, England

The noun masterpiece and the verb butchered have a tendency to find themselves juxtaposed somewhat cavalierly in the same sentence. In some cases - and most erudite film buffs will cite Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons as a prime example - there is sound evidence for such assertions but all too often the relevant Cutting-Room floors are strewn with self-contained sequences rather than the debris of some 'kill every tenth frame' edict of some philistinic Front Office Herod. Amongst the filmmakers I love, admire and respect is Billy Wilder and on at least three occasions he shot a sequence that failed to make the final cut as it were. Chronologically the films were Double Indemnity in which an end sequence showed the execution of Walter Neff (Fred McMurray), Sunset Boulevard in which an opening sequence took place in a morgue as one by one the cadavers explained how they wound up with tags on their toes which segued fluidly and naturally to the flashback narration of Joe Gillis (William Holden) and The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes which contained a never-seen complete self-contained case for Holmes to solve. In the first case I doubt very much whether an execution sequence would add anything more than footage to what remains a brilliant film; the morgue sequence may have been interesting but its omission fails hopelessly to emasculate a masterpiece; as to the last, with the exception of Buddy, Buddy, The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes is the Wilder movie I personally find the least satisfying and the missing sequence may just have tipped the balance.

Which brings me to Jean Gremillon's Dainah. We're obliged to offer judgement on a scant four reels, roughly half the footage shot by Gremillon and it seems that even the extant footage may have been assembled out of sequence; more of that later, first let's examine what we have. All the action occurs on board a cruise ship which a title card tells us has just spent three weeks in the Pacific. A Greek Chorus of two middle-aged women, Berthe (Gabrielle Fontan) and Alice (Maryanne) are gossiping as the ship's orchestra plays for dancers. A light-skinned woman (Metisse translates as of mixed race) Dainah is established as a flirt. She is next seen in the cabin she shares with her husband, a Black man (Habib Benglia) who is clearly jealous of her. The husband (referred to in the credits only as le mari) is then seen in his capacity as an Illusionist entertaining the passengers, who are wearing masks. Dainah wanders off on her own and a crew member (Charles Vanel) who works in the engine room, falls into conversation with her and perhaps mistaking her friendly flirtation for something more, attempts to rape her. Her husband reports this and Vanel is interrogated by the Captain and Ship's Doctor. Shortly afterwards the husband confronts him, there is a scuffle and Vanel falls to his death. This would seem to be Gremillon's take on Othello; Othello was a Black man who was accepted into a White world on the basis of his skill at warfare; the husband here is also a Black man accepted into a White world (and in 1931 there would not have been too many Black people enjoying first-class cabins on Cruise ships) by virtue of a skill that others lack, he is an adept Illusionist; both Black men had White wives - Dainah is not, of course, pure White but Gremillon contrives to shoot them in close proximity where the coal Black arm of the husband makes the skin of the arm next to his appear pure White - and both stories featured a lady's handkerchief. Whilst it's true that Dainah also lacks a Cassio the Charles Vanel character may be seen as an Iago, fuelling the jealousy of an already tormented husband. There are no less than 34 'linking' shots - the ship underway, the ocean, the funnels belching black smoke - employed, eleven of them between the opening credits and the first scene, which is indicative of missing footage, in addition there are nine separate songs played by the ship's orchestra. Three of them are unknown to me but I did recognize Chloe - sung over the opening credits - Little White Lies, St Louis Blues, Limehouse Blues and I'm Confessing. Chloe, Limehouse Blues and I'm Confessing are heard more than once which suggests that - to quote Noel Coward from Private Lives - that orchestra has a remarkably small repertoire or each song was shot only once but the relevant sequences have been cut and reassembled. Chloe's lyric is redolent of obsession 'if it's wrong or right I got to go where you are', 'ain't no chains can bind you, if you live I'll find you', whilst 'I'm Confessing (that I love you) is emotive in the context of the plot, Little White Lies is a possible oblique comment on a mixed race marriage as well as the lies informing it (interstingly Noel Coward wrote one of his finest 'rhythm' songs, Half-Caste Woman that same non PC year, 1931, that Dainah was released) and Limehouse Blues also celebrates an area in London Dockland which was home to both Chinese and English citizens.

Whilst I hesitate to introduce 'masterpiece' into the mix there's no doubt that Gremillon went on to make some outstanding movies and was certainly capable of turning out brilliant movies but with Dainah it looks very much as though the jury will be permanently out.

GUEULE D’AMOUR

aka: The Ladykiller

France (94 mi) 1937

When Gabin chances to return - older, sadder and in unbecoming civvies - to the shady bar where, as a legionnaire, he once held sway, a taxi-girl remarks incredulously (and callously) on his former reputation as the garrison's Don Juan. The intense poignancy of this 'privileged moment' is symptomatic of the way in which both actor and director have revitalised what is basically a trite, off-the-peg melodrama about a man destroyed by his passion for a woman.

The Village Voice [Elliott Stein]

It's amazing that a film of this quality should be so completely unknown. Made in 1937, it's the masterpiece of Jean Gremillon, Jean Renoir's only serious rival in the prewar French cinema. Difficult to define stylistically (which is perhaps the secret of its greatness), the film consists of a series of tonal variations on the theme of the femme fatale, ranging from romanticism to naturalism to sophisticated comedy. Jean Gabin is "Gueule d'amour" ("Lover Lips"), a soldier famous in his garrison town for his way with women; when he meets the mysterious Mireille Balin (Gabin's costar in Pepe le Moko), he gives up everything to follow her to Paris. Gremillon seems the master of every style he attempts, but his genius lies in the smooth linking of those various styles; the film seems to evolve as it unfolds, changing its form in imperceptible stages. In French with subtitles. 90 min.

Gueule D'Amour Dan Callahan from Slant magazine

In France, Jean Grémillon is known as a great pre-New Wave French director, second only to Jean Renoir. In America, he's barely known at all, partly because only one or two of his films are available on video, and even then they're very hard to come by. His obscurity here was somewhat rectified by a comprehensive program of his films at Brooklyn's Bam Rose Cinemas a year or two ago. It was in that program that I had the pleasure of seeing Grémillon's Gueule d'amour, also known as Lover Boy or, more pointedly, Lady Killer. It's a haunting film. Jean Gabin plays Lucien, a provincial soldier with a Don Juan reputation who meets his match in a rich Parisian, Madeleine (Mireille Balin). The class struggle in their queasy dance of death eventually gives way to a brutal sexual conflict that ends in murder and abasement. Gabin, with his soft voice and sensual hesitations, never had a more suitable role, and Balin brings a palpable erotic charge to her femme fatale part. The film clings to the honeyed morbidity of sultry music and smart talk, yet it also puts the sting into an archetypally Gallic l'amour fou. Gueule d'amour is a perfectly proportioned movie. Though the dialogue is excellent, it never overwhelms the main event: the images. (By contrast, Marcel Carné's once highly regarded French noirs now seem totally dominated by Jacques Prévert's scripts). In Gueule d'amour's opening scenes, Grémillon moves the camera lightly and infectiously, always reacting to music (the director had trained as a musician). Later on, when the mood darkens, Grémillon slows down and stages several painterly images of Lucien's degradation; the camera is static in the last scenes, and the chilly compositions unforgettably express Lucien's humiliation. In the world of Gueule d'Amour, happiness is quicker than Mozart, and despair is methodical and melancholic as Brahms. René Lefèvre, who had played in The Crime of Monsieur Lange for Renoir two years earlier, is ideally cast as the third lead character, René, a child-like, touchy-feely friend of Lucien's who loves him in the pure way that Madeleine does not. What's really startling about the ending of Gueule d'amour is that it takes the misogyny of French films from the '30s and brings it to its logical conclusion: love between men. When René kisses Lucien on the cheek like a loyal lover and waves goodbye to him as his train pulls away, he has become a martyred romantic heroine, like Bette Davis in 1942's Now Voyager. Exquisite and disturbing, Gueule d'amour is still one of the screen's least seen masterpieces.

L’ÉTRANGE MONSIEUR VICTOR

aka: The Strange Mr. Victor

France Germany (103 mi) 1938

Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum)

Or the strange Monsieur Grémillon... Though unquestionably a major film-maker, Grémillon - also an accomplished musician, painter and documentarist - has remained a marginal figure even in his native land, a French Humphrey Jennings, perhaps. In this bleak study of malevolence, an example of his painterly rather than poetic realism, Raimu plays (magnificently) a modest clerk whose mousy respectability conceals the psychology of a monster.

In his finest work, including this masterful 1938 noir, the remarkable French filmmaker Jean Gremillon (1901-'59), trained as a composer and musician, used mise en scene, script construction, editing, and dialogue delivery to explore the complex relationship between film and music. Raimu, one of the greatest French actors, plays the "strange" title hero, a respectable Toulon merchant who secretly operates as a fence for local thieves; after he murders a potential blackmailer, an innocent local shoemaker (Pierre Blanchar) is sent to prison for the crime. Seven years later the fall guy escapes and returns to Toulon to see his son; unaware of Victor's guilt, he persuades the merchant to shelter him, then becomes involved with his wife. None of the moral ambiguities are lost on Gremillon, who eschews the usual distinctions between heroes and villains to make this a troubling and offbeat melodrama. Shot both in Toulon and at Berlin's UFA studio, this potent dissection of appearance and reality may be less impressive than Gremillon's subsequent Lumiere d'ete (1943), which benefits from Jacques Prevert's dialogue, but it's brilliant filmmaking all the same. With Madeleine Renaud and Vivianne Romance; coscripted by Albert Valentin, Charles Spaak, and Marcel Achard. In French with subtitles. 103 min.

User reviews from imdb Author: writers_reign from London, England

Anyone who loves French cinema is likely to salivate just reading the Opening Credits of this entry. Despite propaganda to the contrary films begin with SCREENPLAYS - show me the 'auteur' who can shoot a ream of Blank paper and I'll show you someone who doesn't exist - and here we have not only Charles Spaak, one of the four (together with Jean Aurenche, Henri Jeanson and Jacques Prevert) Outstanding writers of the early Sound-to-post-War French cinema but also Albert Valentin whose work on Boudu Saved From Drowning was uncredited but went on to write 'La ciel est a vous' (also with Spaak), 'La vie de plaisir' and 'Le Mouton a cinq pattes' and directed three of the finest films in French cinema, 'L'Entraineuse', 'Marie-Martine' and 'La Vie de plaisir'. Behind the camera was Jean Gremillon, often consigned to footnote status in the reference books but a very fine director indeed who had already released 'Dainah Le Metisse' and 'Guele d'amour' and would go on to shoot 'Remorques', 'Lumiere d'ete' and 'Le Ciel est a vous' among others. Towering above the cast was Raimu; outside France it was Jean Gabin who received all the attention and this was not undeserved as he was an exceptional actor but WITHIN France Raimu was the 'man'. An accomplished stage actor he had already made a handful of silent films when he replicated his stage performance in Marius, the first episode of the great Marcel Pagnol trilogy and from then on his career as a star of the screen was assured. Closely associated with Pagnol he worked also with many of the top French directors running the gamut from tragedy to comedy. Playing his wife here was Madeleine Renaud, also an accomplished stage actress who would become Gremillon's favorite actress and appear in three more of his finest films, Remorques, Lumiere d'ete and Le Ciel est a vous.

If the opening credits activated the taste-buds the film itself delivers a banquet with Raimu as the essentially mild businessman who allows himself to become tainted by organized crime but attempts to extricate himself when his much younger wife (Renaud) presents him with a son. Inadvertently he kills the mobster who is leaning on him but a totally innocent man, Bastien (Pierre Blancher) is found guilty and draws ten years in the slammer. The film then becomes an early psychological study of a good man dealing with guilt and growing apart from family and friends. In a wonderful twist Blancher escapes after serving just over half of his sentence and Raimu takes him in thus forming an unwitting menage a trois (Blancher's own wife, Viviane Romance, had quickly divorced him following his incarceration, leaving him free to fall for Renaud). In 1938 this was a very sophisticated screenplay which is acted to the hilt and remains one of the most satisfying accomplishments of thirties French cinema. Once again my thanks to the Norwegian guy without whom ...

REMORQUES

aka: Stormy Waters

France (81 mi) 1941

epinions [Stephen O. Murray]

A number of cross-references apply: Reed's The Key, likewise a melancholy tale of doomed love set against a background of rough seas and salvage vessels; Le Quai des Brumes, the two stars' initial pairing, Gabin here reprising his blend of the tender and the explosive, and Morgan again entering the movie trailing clouds of sadness behind her; and Fassbinder's Querelle - though this one's set in the real Brest, grey and wind-lashed, but still, cinematically, one of the capital cities of desolation. Remorques was begun in summer '39, shut down when war was declared and finished during the Occupation. Sometimes, as when Morgan contemplates the dead starfish which Gabin has given her, it feels precisely like the last European movie of the 1930s.

User reviews from imdb Author: writers_reign from London, England

Films like this were the bread and butter of French Cinema in the first two decades of Sound and this one boasts a glorious roster from Gremillon himself to Andre Cayette, an uncredited Charles Spaak and, of course, arguably the Greatest of them all, Jacques Prevert. In a film in which the sea is a major character it was a master stroke to begin the story on land and with a set piece, the wedding of one of the mariners which allows a natural chance to establish Gabin's Andre Laurent and hear his praises sung to the heavens then see him in happy domesticated mode, dancing with his wife of ten years and far from happy with his lifestyle though deeply in love with him. An S.O.S. call establishes that these men are the crew of an ocean-going tugboat who help ships in distress in return for a piece of the action. A second master stroke is the delayed appearance of Michele Morgan who we know is about to provide the love interest/temptation for Gabin. She turns out to be the 'wife' of the morally dubious captain of the distressed ship and can't wait to leave him. The fact that shooting began in 1939 only to be halted by the outbreak of war, resumed roughly one year later has led some viewers to see this as a bridge between the poetic realism of the late thirties and the Cinema of Occupation although personally I don't buy into this whilst relishing the Prevertian 'touch' of having Catherine (Morgan) hail from Le Havre which was, of course, the setting for the initial Gabin/Morgan movie Quai des Brumes. The couple of 'holes' in the script - Morgan's husband, reluctant to let her go, makes no attempt to trace her whilst she, with no visible means of support, appears to be living in a luxury apartment - are mere cavils and whichever way you slice it this is one to treasure.

LUMIÈRE D’ÈTÈ

aka: Summer Light

France (112 mi) 1943

The Village Voice [Elliott Stein]

This little-known 1943 masterpiece of the French cinema, whose title translates as "Summer Light," is the work of Jean Gremillon, a filmmaker who worked--against the auteur grain--in a wide range of different styles. Made during the occupation and eventually banned by the Nazis, this film unites documentary and surrealism, sex farce and baroque tragedy in describing the romantic alliances between an artists colony and the castle of an evil nobleman. The film has been compared to The Rules of the Game, yet it has its own strange, ever-changing texture--it seems in some ways an anticipation of Godard. With Paul Bernard, Pierre Brasseur, and Madeleine Renaud; written by Jacques Prevert and Pierre Laroche. In French with subtitles. 112 min.

User reviews from imdb Author: writers_reign from London, England

A cynic with a little culture under his belt may be tempted to dismiss this as Idiot's Delight With Spin but to do so is to reveal a shallowness not lacking in the film. Robert E Sherwood enjoyed a success with his play, Idiot's Delight, the subsequent movie adaptation was ho hum at best and several decades later the Broadway Musical version, Dance A Little Closer, was a disaster. Sherwood focused on a disparate group of people holed up in a mountain inn on the eve of World War II. Jacques Prevert's screenplay focuses on a disparate group of people holed up in a mountain hotel smack dab in the middle (1943) of that same world war yet of hostilities there is nary a mention. This was the third movie in which Gremillon featured his favourite actress Madeleine Renaud and he would do so yet again in La Ciel est a vous - and in passing coax a career-best performance out of Charles Vanel - and it's easy to see why he was so enamoured of her. Virtually forgotten today - much like the other Madeleine (Robinson) in the film - she was among the finest of an exceptionally fine generation of French actresses and she scores heavily here as a discarded mistress running a hotel in a remote mountain region. In a role written for Michele Morgan Madeleine Robinson offers strong support as a young lover, also rejected by Pierre Brasseur's troubled artist, who represents hope for the future in her new romance with a young engineer. All the values are sound, top writer, top director, top actors (Brasseuer, Renaud, Robinson) and make this an unfairly neglected minor masterpiece.

LE CIEL EST À VOUS

aka: The Sky Is Yours

France (105 mi) 1944

Made near the end of the German occupation of France, Jean Gremillon's 1944 film is one of his most respected efforts, a simple story of a lower-middle-class couple who sacrifice everything to support the wife's bid to break the women's record for long-distance flying. Gremillon's training as a musician shows in the film's organization into several distinct movements--a technique he employed in Lumiere d'ete, which here reaches perfection. With Madeleine Renaud and Charles Vanel. In French with subtitles. 105 min.

User reviews from imdb Author: writers_reign

Charles Spaak is one of those French scenarists - along with Henri Jeanson, Pierre Bost and Jean Aurenche - who tended to be overshadowed by the mighty Jacques Prevert. Any writer who can list La Kermesse heroique, La Belle Equipe and La Grande Illusion on his cv - and those were just a few of his PRIOR credits, post-Ciel they include Remorques and Le Corporal Epingle - would be almost certain to land a job on 'The World Turns' were he alive today. Spaak has delivered a quiet charmer here albeit propaganda fodder for Vichy. Charles Vanel acts out of his skin as Pierre Gauthier (what, one wonders, inspired this choice of name - with its overtones of Theophile Gauthier - for the two lead protagonists) mostly by NOT acting, or not SEEMING to. He is well matched by Madeleine Renaud as Therese, his wife, who, given the somewhat thankless role of role MODEL to French women everywhere, succeeds beyond the wildest dreams of Petain in creating a flesh-and-blood PERSON. Sterling support by Ann Vandene as an amalgam of those early pioneering female pilots and Raymonde Vernay as the mother-in-law from outer Hell make this a film to cherish. It's strength lies in the accumulation of detail and the warmth of the relationships. With a less surer touch than that of Gremillon the subplot involving the daughter, a would-be musical prodigy, could be seen as over-egging the feminist pudding but here it takes its unobtrusive place in the main story of Renaud realizing her potential as a aviatrix. 8/10

Gréville, Edmond T.

PRINCESS TAM TAM B- 82

France (77 mi) 1935

Let’s go among the savages. The real savages! Yes, to Africa! —Max de Mirecourt (Albert Préjean)

One thing’s for certain, and that is that Josephine Baker was a major star, a genuine star, but that the movie industry in the 1930’s simply didn’t understand how to utilize her talents without decreasing her stature onscreen, usually by making her an exotic creature (in the eyes of whites) instead of a human being. Most likely because there were few black writers in that era, the breadth and scope of her roles were minimized, determined by white writers who turned her into one of their fantasies instead of incorporating her into anything resembling a real life character, where she could do more than just perform, but also act. Unfortunately, this is something we never get to see her do, be her genuine self onscreen, instead she’s always required to perform. As a direct expression of Colonialist mentality, it’s no accident that the demeaning and humiliating role she’s asked to play here is an uneducated native girl from Tunisia that a wealthy white French writer, Max de Mirecourt (Albert Préjean) attempts to civilize in the European manners. The first image we have of Baker is running across the desert sands (yes, a desert) with a lamb on her shoulders. The director has a nice feel for a moving camera, especially effective in the Tunisian street scenes, where the North African architecture, hats, flowing robes, children playing, and street café’s are on full display. When Max has an argument with his wife in Paris, he decides he needs some inspiration, so he and a friend Coton (Robert Arnoux) decide to go live among the “savages” in Tunisia, but stays in the most elegant and aristocratic estate that reflects the luxury and extravagance he’s accustomed to, with a room larger than most people’s apartments, where he and his friend are waited on hand and foot by African servants. In contrast, we see Baker, identifying herelf as Alwina, stealing oranges from the tourists and then having to fend off the other street beggars.

In the “love among the ruins” segment, Alwina joins a group of street urchins begging the tourists on the steps of some ancient Roman ruins before leaping up and performing a dance for them, while they show their enthusiasm with music and wild clapping. The natural sexuality she exudes is simply effortless. However, when she sees a line of camels carrying tourists to the ruins, she immediately asks to be their guide, accepted without question by Max, but the whites in his company derisively call her a savage. Max finds it amusing that after his friends insultingly call her a wild animal, she secretly empties the salt from their salt shaker and replaces it with sand, where the tourists find themselves grating their teeth during their afternoon picnic. The photography of the ruins in the distance juxtaposed with close ups of camels create a cinema vérité sense that you are there. Afterwards, more accustomed to her own habitat, Alwina is seen climbing the trees and playing with the monkeys, but even the black servants are seen whipping her for trespassing on the grounds where the whites are staying, at which point the writer gets the bright idea to educate and Europeanize her. While Max reads the tabloids about his wife’s flirtations in Paris with a rich Maharajah, he takes Alwina on a boatride, where she breaks into song, singing “Dreams (Reves)” to the lapping of the waves.

Europeans are constantly portrayed like grown up children, continually throwing out demands for the most trifling of matters, pampered and spoiled, used to getting what they want instantly and subject to tantrums when they don’t. In contrast, Baker has a gorgeous elegance and free flowing rhythm that is continually misunderstood and all but ignored, where the Europeans attempt to place their stamp of approval on her, basically making her look and act white, introducing her as an African princess to the high society of Paris, where together with Max in a top hat they’re seen at the opera, race track, and art galleries, all the places Max’s wife is also seen with the Maharajah, becoming the gossip scandal of the day. However, tired of playing the pretentions of the upper class, Alwina decides to go out on her own and have some fun for a change, discovering a little joint where some blacks are customers and playing African music which reminds her of home, where she breaks out into song singing “Sous Le Ciel D’Afrique (Under the African Skies),” also performing a rhythmic dance. It all comes to a head when Max’s wife sees the Princess dancing in a sailor’s club and asks the Marahajah to throw a gala affair, with fireworks, Busby Berkeley dancers, and Chinese plate spinners. But when she hears the sounds of African drums, having already been slipped a micky from one of Max’s wife’s friends, Alwina leaps to the stage, whips off her silk lamé dress and performs a stirring, uninhibited dance, where guys come out to accompany her, as if it’s all part of the act. Max couldn’t be more ashamed, incapable of appreciating her for who she is.

There’s no question that all eyes are on Josephine Baker in this film, who carries every scene, as none of the other characters ever matter, as they’re simply selfish and ill-mannered socialites, of no use to anyone. So in the end, despite France’s historical presence in North African colonies, particularly during the time this film was made, the depiction of the French couldn’t be more negative, and from a French filmmaker, while the Africans are always displayed with an air of dignity and grace, led by an American star (playing an African) who was more appreciated in France than in America. The cinematography by Georges Benoît is excellent, on occasion expressing a startling and refreshing realism, continually balancing close ups with medium shots, doing a stunning job with the choreography in the party sequence, which is mostly a delight to watch. But what’s most unique, besides Baker, is the fact that even in a tepid little story which would never be seen except for the presence of a star, the subject of race can make it a much more emotionally compelling and complex film. America’s response, of course, was to limit and restrict where the film played, due to its depiction of an interracial love story, meaning Baker, a bona fide black American star, was never seen in the South and never found the appreciation she deserved in America, spending the remainder of her life in France, where she lived here: Les Milandes- Josephine Baker's castle in France.

Gréville had a cinematically adventurous side, but principally he was one of the most dedicated crumpeteers ever to direct even a French movie, and his horrible predicament here was to be assigned a spectacularly sexual leading lady who, because she was black, he was required to de-eroticise. Baker plays a Bedouin beggar taken up, rather as a pet, by wealthy novelist Préjean (a straight-looking Edward Everett Horton, of scant appeal today). He introduces her to the glamorous complications of Paris, she falls unrequitedly (well, of course) in love, ho-hum. From first shot (close-up of a slapped face) to last (a donkey munching a copy of Civilisation) Gréville keeps things on the boil, but still - a no-win situation from everybody's point of view.

User reviews from imdb Author: st-shot from United States

Josephine Baker was every bit a part of the Paris scene during "The Lost Generation" as Hemingway and Stein. Bolting the blatant and institutional racism in the United States she settled in Paris where she went on to great stage acclaim with such acts as her Banana Dance. It was only logical that her free spirit style make its way to film as she does here in Princess Tam Tam.

French writer Max de Mirecourt experiencing writers block and problems with his pre jet set wife decides to run off to Tunisia to get his groove back. Their he runs into lust for life Alwina (Baker) who celebrates the creature comforts with gleeful passion. Along with a friend he hatches a Pygmalion like plan to present Alwina as a Princess Tam Tam to French society and much to the ire of his wife who in turn is being seen around town with a maharajah on her arm.

Strictly a showcase for Baker, Tam Tam does make some cursory observations about bias, class and materialism but it remains centered around Josephine's wild child to illustrate it. All the leads remain ancillary in her presence with her irresistible zest for life providing nearly all of the film's energy. She may not have the formal training of Isadora Duncan but her off the cuff tumblesault at some Tunisian ruins is as timeless as Duncan's iconic photograph without the pretense. Silly premise aside Princesse Tam Tam does afford the viewer an unfettered lengthy glance at one of the most unique icons of Paris between the wars.

Turner Classic Movies Frank Miller

They called her "Black Venus," the first African-American woman to become an international sex symbol. As such, she paved the way for such later entertainers as Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt and Dorothy Dandridge. But to do all that, Josephine Baker had to leave the U.S. for Europe.

After two marriages and a hit on Broadway, all while she was still in her teens, Baker sized up the racism of her native country and fled to France, where she became a headliner at the Folies Bergere within a few years. She tried film in the silent era, but that wasn't the best medium for a musical star. She came back to the movies for a hit in the 1934 French film Zou Zou. That rags to riches story about a laundress who becomes a musical star, was such a hit that her manager and fiance, Pepito Abitano, used the same formula for her follow-up, Princess Tam Tam, the following year. This time, however, he added a touch of the Pygmalion myth, with a French novelist (Albert Prejean) converting her from Tunisian street urchin to high-society sensation in order to get back at his straying wife.

Producer Arys Nissotti gave Baker the kind of backing her star presence deserved. For the African scenes, the company went on location in Tunisia, capturing street scenes of life there in the '30s. As back-up singers for her big production number, they tapped one of Europe's top singing groups of the decade, the Comedian Harmonists, a German act that would soon be disbanded by the Nazi government of their homeland because three of its members were Jewish. They would later be the subject of a successful film and stage musical, both called The Harmonists.

But the center of the film was Baker, who got to showcase her skills at singing, dancing, acting and comedy, not to mention the intense sensuality that made her a legend in France. The latter may have been too much for U.S. audiences, particularly given the film's depiction of interracial romance. Although the film had a successful opening in New York, it was denied the Production Code Administration's Seal of Approval, keeping it out of most mainstream theatres in this country. Yet it remained a popular offering in independent theatres catering to black audiences through the '40s. The picture was rediscovered in 1989, when the print was restored by Eastman House in Rochester, New York.

User reviews from imdb Author: Ron Oliver (revilorest@juno.com) from Forest Ranch, CA

A French novelist, disgusted by his wife's society friends, goes to North Africa for a respite. There he encounters a vivacious & talented Bedouin girl, living in poverty. To spite his wife, who is romancing a Maharajah, he decides to train & educate the girl, and present her to Parisian society as the PRINCESSE TAM TAM...

The marvelous Josephine Baker is perfectly cast in the title role in this very enjoyable French film. With her enormous eyes & infectious smile, she makes contact with the viewer's heartstrings immediately. Her over-sized personality & obvious joy of performing make her a pure pleasure to watch. Baker makes us care about what's happening to poor Alwina during her transformation & introduction to European mores.

Albert Préjean does very well as the Pygmalion to Baker's Galatea; also effective are Georges Peclet as a half-caste servant, and Jean Galland as the mysterious Maharajah.

The film is very handsome & well made, looking a little reminiscent of Busby Berkeley movies being produced at the same time in America - although unlike American films of this period, PRINCESSE TAM TAM hasn't any racism. It should be pointed out that there was no Hays Office or Production Code in France. Some of the dialogue & action is rather provocative, but it must be admitted that Baker singing & dancing to 'Under The African Sky,' as well as her culminating performance in the Parisian nightclub, are two of the cinema's more memorable moments.

Actual location filming in Tunisia greatly enhances the film.

Josephine Baker was born in St. Louis in 1906, into a very poor family. Her talent & driving ambition, however, soon pushed her into moving East and she was briefly a cast member of the Ziegfeld Follies. Realizing that America in the mid-1920's held great limitations for a gifted Black woman, she managed to get herself to Paris, where she eventually joined the Foliés-Bergeres & Le Negre Revue. The French adored her and she became a huge celebrity. A short return to America in 1935 showed Baker that things had not changed for African-Americans. She returned to France, became a French citizen & worked for the Resistance during the early days of the War. Baker relocated to Morocco for the duration and entertained Allied troops stationed there.

After the War, Baker's fortunes began to slide and she faced many financial & personal difficulties. For a while, she was even banned from returning to the United States. Finally, Baker accepted an offer from Princess Grace of Monaco to reside in the Principality. Josephine Baker was on the verge of a comeback when she died of a stroke in 1975, at the age of 68.

Having appeared in only two decent films - ZOUZOU & PRINCESSE TAM TAM - Baker is in danger of becoming obscure. But she deserves her place alongside Chevalier, Dietrich & Robeson, as one of her generation's truly legendary performers.

“Foil, Fiction, and Phantasm: Josephine Baker in Princess Tam Tam” Claudine Raynaud from The Scholar & Feminist Online, Fall 2007/Spring 2008

“Nationalizing and segregating performance: Josephine Baker and stardom in Zouzou (1034) Scott Balcerzak from Post Script, Fall 2006

“Queen Latifah, Unruly Women, and the Bodies of Romantic Comedy Lindas Mizejewski from Genders Online Journal, 2007

dOc DVD Review: Princess Tam Tam (1935) - digitallyOBSESSED Jeff Wilson

DVD Talk [David Cornelius] from the Josephine Baker Collection

DVD Talk Review: Princess Tam Tam John Sinnott

User reviews from imdb Author: Benjamin Dobbin from United States

User reviews from imdb Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

User reviews from imdb Author: Arne Andersen (aandersen@landmarkcollege.org) from Putney, VT

User reviews from imdb Author: DKOSTY from United States

Josephine Baker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Movie Mirror Sanderson Beck

Princess Tam Tam - Review/Film - Movies - New York Times Vincent Canby

The Official Josephine Baker Website

The Official Josephine Baker Website Biography from the website

glbtq >> arts >> Baker, Josephine Biography from the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer culture encyclopedia

Josephine Baker Biography from Red Hot Jazz

About.com: Josephine Baker biography

Josephine Baker John Bush biography from All Music

"Josephine Baker Biography" Women in History

"V & A - About Art Deco - Josephine Baker" bio from About Art Deco

"Josephine Baker" bio from The African American Registry

A History of Josephine Baker in the 1920s 1920’s Fashion and Music

"Stork Club Refused to Serve Her, Josephine Baker Claims" The Milwaukee Journal, October 19, 1951

"Josephine Baker Is Dead in Paris at 68" Obituary from The New York Times, April 13, 1975

The electric body: Nancy Cunard sees Josephine Baker (2003) – Philip M. Ward essay of dance style and contemporary critics, 2003

"Firestorm Incident At The Stork Club, 1951" David Hinckley reviews the media wars between Baker and gossip columnist Walter Winchell from New York Daily News, November 9, 2004

Susan Robinson: Josephine Baker (Gibbs Magazine) August 1, 2005

"Profiles in Courage for Black History Month" National Black Justice Coalition, February 28, 2006

Lester Strong - Josephine Baker's Hungry Heart - Gay & Lesbian Review Magazine September/October 2006

"Review of Josephine Baker: A Centenary Tribute" Ann Shaffer reviews Hommage à Josephine Baker: disque du centenaire=a centenary tribute; [songs from 1930-1953], from Black Grooves, October 4, 2006

"Josephine Baker (Freda McDonald) Native of St. Louis, Missouri" Black Missouri, February 10, 2008

"Discography at Sony BMG Masterworks"

A Josephine Baker photo gallery Silent Ladies

Photographs of Josephine Baker Virtual History

St. Louis Walk of Fame: Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker Find a Grave

Les Milandes- Josephine Baker's castle in France

Grier, Pam – actress, foxy lady

FSLC announces FOXY, THE COMPLETE PAM GRIER, March 15-17 Pam Grier Retrospective from Film Comment, March 15 – 17, 2013

Programing Associate Josh Strauss said, “An icon and fiercely spirited screen presence who was the feminine face of urban cinema in the 70s, Pam Grier inspired that genre’s mainstream success. She has continued to serve as a muse and inspiration for many filmmakers since, culminating in her critically lauded turn in Quentin Tarantino’s classic noir, JACKIE BROWN. It will be a thrill to offer a comprehensive look at her work as well as have Pam herself, at Film Society to talk about and reflect upon many of those films and her experiences making them."

Born on May 26, 1949 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and raised in Denver, Colorado, Pam Grier was spotted by an agent at a beauty contest in Colorado Springs, who invited her to come to Hollywood and try her hand at acting. She subsequently moved to Los Angeles and began taking acting classes while she worked as a switchboard operator for American International Pictures. Soon after, she had made it onto the big screen in BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970) and BIG DOLL HOUSE (1971).

Following appearances in HIT MAN (1972) and BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA (1973), Grier gained notice in Jack Hill’s COFFY (1973) as the title character, “the baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town”. The next year, she cemented her status as the undisputed queen of urban cinema as the high-class prostitute out for revenge in Hill’s FOXY BROWN (1974).

Grier solidified her status as a film star throughout the 70s with a string of films including SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM (1973), SHEBA, BABY (1975), BUCKTOWN (1975) with Fred Williamson, FRIDAY FOSTER (1975), and GREASED LIGHTNING (1977) opposite Richard Pryor. The 80s were highlighted by FORT APACHE, THE BRONX (1981) with Paul Newman, the Ray Bradbury classic, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1983), and the Steven Seagal actioner ABOVE THE LAW (1988), as well as regular turns on the television via Michael Mann’s “Crime Story” and “Miami Vice”.

Grier continued to work in both film and television throughout the 90s with memorable appearances in John Carpenter’s ESCAPE FROM LA (1996) and Tim Burton’s MARS ATTACKS (1996). However, it was Quentin Tarantino’s JACKIE BROWN (1997) that offered the actress an opportunity to play a character tailor-made for her unique brand of strength and charisma, resulting in the best critical notices of her career as well as her first Best Actress nominations for both a SAG Award and the Golden Globes. Roles in the thriller IN TOO DEEP (1999) and Jane Campion’s HOLY SMOKE (1999) immediately followed, as well as a reunion with Carpenter on his film GHOSTS OF MARS (2001). Grier became a very familiar sight on television as well, with appearances on several series culminating in a regular stints on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (2002-2003) and Showtime’s “The L Word” (2004-2009). On the big screen, Grier has most recently been seen in Tom Hanks’s LARRY CROWNE (2011) and Rza’s THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS (2012).

Pam Grier Biography - Facts, Birthday, Life Story - Biography.com

Pam Grier | Movies and Biography - Yahoo! Movies

Pam Grier: Biography from Answers.com

Excerpt from Foxy: My Life in Three Acts Oprah Show

Forever Foxy Oprah Show

How Richard Pryor Gave Pam Grier a Cocaine-Encrusted Vagina ... Kyle Buchanan from Movieline, April 26, 2010

Pam Grier Tells What She's Learned in 'Foxy' - NYTimes.com May 4, 2010

Fuck Yeah, Pam Grier!!! Photo dedication, June 28, 2010

Pam Grier's Life at Home Oprah Show, February 3, 2011

Pam Grier takes raunch to the ranch | Film | The Observer Shahesta Shaitly from The Observer, December 10, 2011

Racialicious Crush Of The Week: Pam Grier | Racialicious - the ... Andrea Plaid, August 31, 2012

The career and legacy of Pam Grier Wesley Morris from Grantland, March 15, 2013

Foxy: The Complete Pam Grier - Film Society of Lincoln Center Pam Grier Retrospective from Film Comment, March 15 – 17, 2013

Bring Back the Afro Simon Doonan from Slate, April 1, 2013

EXCLUSIVE: Pam Grier on Film Retrospective, Working on Her ... Yolanda Sangweni interview from Essence magazine, March 14, 2013

Images for Pam Grier

Pam Grier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Griffith, D.W.

Griffith, D.W. Art and Culture

Both spiritual father and sustaining mother to an infant art, D. W. Griffith expanded the artistic horizons of audiences, safely shepherding cinema into adulthood and nurturing its unique language. Malcontent as a mere film actor, Griffith joined Biograph Studios in 1908 as a writer and director, delivering a copious body of work -- over 500 short films in just five years. Many early cinema stars earned their close-ups and honed their craft with Griffith, who was a busy promoter of silent stars such as Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish.

Credited with innovations including crosscutting, close-ups, and the iris shot, Griffith had such a pervasive influence on film that his name became synonymous with the medium. His performers respected him absolutely as patriarch, mogul, and creative captain. As his popularity and box-office receipts skyrocketed, so did his expansive aesthetic; he melded grandiose historical settings with intimate scenes of heart-wrenching human drama. His greatest triumph was the epic "Birth Of A Nation" (1915), a work that paradoxically cemented his fame and shattered his enviable reputation. This three-hour Civil War Reconstruction melodrama became a landmark in American filmmaking, both for its artistic merits and for its breakthrough use of flashbacks, fade-outs, and close-ups. The film was harshly condemned, however, for its racial bias and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan; several subsequent lynchings were blamed on the film.

As Griffith continued to direct feature films into the 1920s, the scale of his productions got ever bigger, and so did the messages he hoped to convey. "Intolerance" (1916), a cinematic defense of intellectual freedom, unveiled an altruistic Griffith who sought the olive branch from that segment of the public alienated by "Birth of a Nation." Bloated, confusing, and lacking in internal consistency, "Intolerance" came at a huge cost to morale and finances. Its failure forced Griffith into dependence on other backers, permanently breaking his spirit and his aesthetic concentration.

Although Griffith made numerous other films, none ranked in sheer brilliance with his two monumental works. Among the best of these later efforts were "Broken Blossoms" (1919), released by his newly formed corporation, United Artists; "Way Down East" (1920); and "Abraham Lincoln" (1930). As his story lines became blander, his audience rejected him in favor of movies about gun molls, gin mills, and gangsters. Griffith, who was both worshipped and maligned in the span of a lifetime, died alone and forgotten by the industry he helped to build.

Film Reference Russell Merritt

Perhaps no other director has generated such a broad range of critical reaction as D.W. Griffith. For students of the motion picture, Griffith's is the most familiar name in film history. Generally acknowledged as America's most influential director (and certainly one of the most prolific), he is also perceived as being among the most limited. Praise for his mastery of film technique is matched by repeated indictments of his moral, artistic, and intellectual inadequacies. At one extreme, Kevin Brownlow has characterized him as "the only director in America creative enough to be called a genius." At the other, Paul Rotha calls his contribution to the advance of film "negligible" and Susan Sontag complains of his "supreme vulgarity and even inanity"; his work "reeks of a fervid moralizing about sexuality and violence" and his energy comes "from suppressed voluptuousness."

Griffith started his directing career in 1908, and in the following five years made some 485 films, almost all of which have been preserved. These films, one or two reels in length, have customarily been regarded as apprentice works, films in which, to quote Stephen Zito, "Griffith borrowed, invented, and perfected the forms and techniques that he later used to such memorable effect in The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, and Way Down East." These early "Biographs" (named after the studio at which Griffith worked) have usually been studied for their stylistic features, notably parallel editing, camera placement, and treatment of light and shadow. Their most famous structuring devices are the last-minute rescue and the cross-cut.

In recent years, however, the Biographs have assumed higher status in film history. Many historians and critics rank them with the most accomplished work in Griffith's career. Vlada Petric, for instance, calls them "masterpieces of early cinema, fascinating lyrical films which can still affect audiences today, conveying the content in a cinematic manner often more powerful than that of Griffith's later feature films." Scholars have begun studying them for their characters, images, narrative patterns, themes, and ideological values, finding in them a distinctive signature based on Griffith's deep-seated faith in the values of the woman-centered home. Certain notable Biographs—The Musketeers of Pig Alley, The Painted Lady, A Corner in Wheat, The Girl and Her Trust, The Battle of Elderbush Gulch, The Unseen Enemy, and A Feud in the Kentucky Hills—have been singled out for individual study.

Griffith reached the peak of his popularity and influence in the five years between 1915 and 1920, when he released The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, and Way Down East. He also directed Hearts of the World during this period, a film that incorporates newsreel and faked documentary footage into an epic fictional narrative. A First World War propaganda epic, Hearts of the World, alone among his early spectacles, is ignored today. But in 1918 it was the most popular war film of its time, and rivalled The Birth of a Nation as the most profitable of all Griffith's features. Today, it is usually studied as an example of World War I hysteria or as a pioneering effort at government-sponsored mass entertainment.

Although Griffith's epics are generally grouped together, Paul Goodman points out that his films are neither so ideologically uniform nor so consistent as recent writers have generally assumed. With equal fervor Griffith could argue white supremacy and make pleas for toleration, play the liberal crusader and the reactionary conservative, appear tradition-bound yet remain open to experimentation, saturate his work in Victorian codes while struggling against a Victorian morality. Frustrated by his inability to find consistent ideological threads in Griffith's work, Norman Silverstein has called Griffith the father of anarchy in American films because his luminous movements in these epics never appear to sustain a unified whole.

\Yet, as Robert Lang observes, the epics do share broad formal characteristics, using history as a chaotic background for a fictional drama that stresses separation and reunification. Whether set in the French Revolution (Orphans of the Storm), the American Revolution (America), the Civil War (Birth of a Nation), or in the various epochs of Intolerance, the Griffith epic is an action-centered spectacle that manipulates viewer curiosity with powerfully propulsive, intrinsically developmental scenes culminating in a sensational denouement.

Griffith also made a much different sort of feature during these years—the pastoral romance. These have only recently received serious critical attention. In these films, which are stripped of spectacle and historical surroundings, the cast of principal characters does not exceed two or three, the action is confined in time and space, and the story is intimate. Here, in films like Romance of Happy Valley, True-Heart Susie, and The Greatest Question, Griffith experiments with alternative narrative possibilities, whereby he extends the techniques of exposition to the length of a feature film. Strictly narrative scenes in these films are suspended or submerged to convey the illusion of near-plotlessness. The main figures, Griffith implied (usually played by Lillian Gish and Bobby Harron), would emerge independent of fable; atmosphere would dominate over story line.

From the start, critics and reviewers found the near absence of action sequences and overt physical struggle noteworthy in the Griffith pastorals, but differed widely in their evaluation of it. Most of the original commentators assumed they had found a critical shortcoming, and complained about the thinness of plot, padded exposition, and frequent repetition of shots. Even Kenneth MacGowan, who alone among his contemporaries preferred Griffith's pastorals to his epics, scored the empty storyline of The Romance of Happy Valley for its "loose ends and dangling characters." More recent critics, on the other hand—notably Jean Mitry, John Belton, and Rene Kerdyk—have found transcendental virtues in the forswearing of event-centered plots. Ascribing to Griffith's technique a liberating moral purpose, Mitry called True-Heart Susie "a narrative which follows characters without entrapping them, allowing them complete freedom of action and event." For John Belton, True-Heart Susie is one of Griffith's "purest and most immediate films" because, "lacking a 'great story' there is nothing between us and the characters." Equating absence of action sequences with the elimination of formal structure, Belton concludes that "it is through the characters not plot that Griffith expresses and defines the nature of the characters' separation."

If these judgments appear critically naive (plainly these films have plots and structures even if these are less complex than in Intolerance and Birth), they raise important questions Griffith scholars continue to debate: how does Griffith create the impression that characters exist independent of action, and, in a temporal medium, how does Griffith create the impression of narrative immobility?

By and large, Griffith's films of the mid- and late 1920s have not fared well critically, although they have their defenders. The customary view—that Griffith's work became dull and undistinguished when he lost his personal studio at Mamaroneck in 1924—continues to prevail, despite calls from John Dorr, Arthur Lennig, and Richard Roud for re-evaluation. The eight films he made as a contract director for Paramount and United Artists are usually studied (if at all) as examples of late 1920s studio style. What critics find startling about them—particularly the United Artists features—is not the lack of quality, but the absence of any identifiable Griffith traits. Only Abraham Lincoln and The Struggle (Griffith's two sound films) are recognizable as his work, and they are usually treated as early 1930s oddities.

All-Movie Guide bio from Dave Lewis

PBS American Masters biography

D.W. Griffith • Great Director profile • Senses of Cinema John Steinle from Senses of Cinema, July 31, 2006

1914 interview with Griffith by Richard Willis from Taylorology

D.W. Griffith's First Movie Linda A. Griffith, the first wife of D.W. Griffith, from Film Fun magazine, 1916

Mainly About D.W. Griffith (1922 Article) Motion Picture Directing, Chapter VIII, by Peter Milne, 1922

Variety 1928 a review of Griffith’s 20-year film budgets from Variety

Racism, History, and Mass Media Mark I. Pinsky from Jump Cut, April 1983

the value of watching silent films. an essay by Peter Reiher

The D.W. Griffith Award essay by Gerald Peary, February 2000

Pioneer Film Director Dishonored By Those Who Follow In His Footsteps Christopher P. Jacobs from High Plains Reader, in a two part series, December 23, 1999 and January 6, 2000

Gilda's Blue Book of the Screen Article D.W. Griffith (1875–1948), by William M. Drew, August 10, 2002

D.W. Griffith Making History, D.W. Griffith on DVD, by Matthew Kennedy from Bright Lights Film Journal, May 2003

The Outsiders: How D.W. Griffith Paved the Way for Ed Wood Jesse Walker, from Reason Online, February 8, 2005

What is the 21st Century?: Griffith is Always Modern on Notebook | MUBI Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from Mubi, August 10, 2009

The Best of the Decade...One Hundred Years Ago (First Installment) Gabe Klinger from Mubi, January 6, 2010

D.W. Griffith - 10 Great Directors Who Have (Allegedly) Done Terrible ... Frazier Tharpe, February 1, 2013

Prana Independent Films Review Spot: Influence of D.W. Griffith on ... Prana Independent Films, April 17, 2013

The Road: D.W. Griffith's Contributions to Cinema Collin S. McCuiston, February 8, 2015

Griffith, D.W. They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

The 2nd Most Influential Director of All Time (2002 MovieMaker Poll)

Premiere's 10 Directors Who Changed Cinema

Kent Jones' Top 10 Directors

A CORNER IN WHEAT

USA (14 mi) 1909

User reviews from imdb (Page 2) Author: wesconnorsehny (wesconnorsehny@yahoo.com) from United States

Early film of "social relevance" directed by D.W. Griffith. It's a little difficult to follow -- apparently, Mr. Griffith is showing the contract between the wealthy "Wheat King" (played by Frank Powell) and the poor "Farmer" (played by James Kirkwood). The farmer does the manual work, laboring in the fields. The wealth businessman reaps the profits, in luxury. In the film, Mr. Powell's character becomes more and more greedy, making the price of goods so high the poor farmers can't afford the goods they helped create.

Of the supporting players, Henry B. Walthall is most impressive as Kirkwood' associate. Griffith mixes location and set nicely. Watch the wicked "Wheat King" meet a pitiful, ironic end in the "Corner in Wheat".

User reviews from imdb Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

For the cinematic limitations of its time, there are some good techniques in this short drama. The story, which is about a ruthless man trying to control the wheat market, is interesting though often heavy-handed - but it's the way it is filmed that makes it of interest. The actual story is preceded by a look at farmers growing wheat, and it includes a nicely planned shot of the sowers going back and forth, in a way that cleverly gets around the fixed camera limitations of the time. The main story shows good technique as well, using well-conceived cross-cutting to emphasize the differences between the world of those who rely on the wheat and the world of those who profit from it. It has an effective closing shot, too. It's pretty good drama and an interesting example of how these very old films were made.

User reviews from imdb Author: Ron in LA from United States

Populist/Progressive propaganda directed by D. W. Griffith about a wealthy commodities speculator who is indifferent to the suffering caused by the price distortions following his monopolization of wheat. Comments of the other reviewers are a bit harsh, its only a 14-minute film so it can only do so much in the way of character development or plot. While it is creepy to see Griffith outflank later Communist propaganda to the left, you still have to admire the cinematic achievement. Griffith is using a comparative editing technique generally attributed to Eisenstein, but sixteen years before Eisenstein's first film, so the short is a must-see for cinema students for that reason alone. For the rest of us, it is an engaging fourteen minutes that delivers powerful images, notwithstanding its questionable footing in economic theory.

User reviews from imdb Author: Author: Cineanalyst

(Note: This is the first of three short films by D.W. Griffith that I care to highlight by commenting on them. The others are 'The Girl and Her Trust' and 'The Battle at Elderbush Gulch.')

D.W. Griffith usually made only three types of films: melodramas, social commentary and suspense (usually either battle scenes or the last-minute rescue, or both). His features often contain all three genres. His films were often set during the Victorian age or the Civil War era, or some other turning point in American history. His films of modern setting drip of Victorian sentiments. Mostly, his films were theatrical (the stories, interior shots and acting, most consistently). Griffith's films are categorical because he, apparently, rarely used scripts and was the rare studio director that interacted with the scenarists, and thus invented the role of studio director.

'A Corner in Wheat' is simple: it is social commentary. Based on a Frank Norris story, the anti-monopoly narrative fits with a recurrent theme of Griffith's films--sympathy for the poor. (It's rather hypocritical, however, considering that Griffith worked for a member of the Motion Picture Patents Company.) The story, albeit better than its contemporaries, is not of much interest, or, rather, is not why I highlighted this short film.

In 1903, Edwin S. Porter crosscut scenes out of temporal order in 'The Great Train Robbery.' Parallel-action crosscutting as dissection of a scene with spatially separate actions appeared as early as 1907 in Pathé and Vitagraph films. The crosscutting in 'A Corner in Wheat' is exceptional because it functions as contrast between the wheat magnate's dinner party and the wheat farmers not being able to afford bread at a market. I'm not sure who helped Griffith with the editing, but it was probably James Smith, as usual. The parallel editing is appropriately slow paced, so again in the comeuppance dénouement. As well, the final shot was a good attempt at poignancy. The rest of the photoplay, especially the camera positioning, is primitive.

A Corner in Wheat: An Analysis Erik Ulman from Senses of Cinema

The Best of the Decade...One Hundred Years Ago (First Installment) Gabe Klinger from Mubi, January 6, 2010

Nick's Flick Picks (Capsule Review)

1 and 2 A CORNER IN WHEAT, Pt 1 (6:58), Pt II (7:05) on YouTube

THE UNCHANGING SEA

USA (14 mi) 1910

User reviews from imdb Author: barhound78 from United Kingdom

Inspired by a poem by Charles Kingsley, this is a touching tale of love lost and found from D.W. Griffith.

Set in a small fishing community, a young wife says farewell to her husband as he sets out to sea. However, his small boat is lost and she presumes him to be drowned. Years pass by and their daughter grows up to find love and to marry whilst all of the time the "widow" continues to grieve. However, her husband did not die but was washed up upon the shore with amnesia further up the coast. As she stares out upon the abyss that took her love, he once again sets out to sea.

Charming in its simplicity and boasting some crisp photography, The Unchanging Sea is a gentle early short in which Griffith (like in his masterpiece Broken Blossoms) imbues his love story with a tenderness and minimalism not often associated with the often histrionic early silent cinema.

User reviews from imdb Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

Starting with a convincing sea-side atmosphere that benefits from being shot outdoors, this short feature adds a worthwhile story and some good low-key performances to create an understated but thoughtful and sometimes memorable movie. There is quite a lot of material in less than 15 minutes of running time, and yet it never seems rushed. The image of "The Unchanging Sea" is used effectively to emphasize the timeless nature both of the sea itself and of the lifestyles of those who live by it. The sea's constancy is distinguished from the uneven course of the hopes and trials of individual lives, making for an interesting contrast, which gives the picture a distinctive feel.

The story, which moves across many years of life in a fishing community, is often moving, and the understated approach is effective. For the most part, the characters make only small gestures and changes of expression, and yet their reactions always seem sincere and heartfelt. It is effective both as cinema and as a portrayal of the sea-going community. Excessive drama or emotions would have overshadowed the substance of the story, rather than enhancing it. As a result, there is more worthwhile material in this short film than there is in many films that are several times as long.

User reviews from imdb Author: wmorrow59 from Tarrytown, NY

Anyone who believes that the acting in silent dramas was always laughably exaggerated should see this film, which was directed by D. W. Griffith during his formative period at Biograph. Anyone who thinks the cinematography of 1910 was crude in all cases should take a close look. And for that matter, anyone who thinks that these very early movies conveyed only the most basic emotional information in a primitive fashion, and therefore no longer have the power to move modern viewers-- except to unintended laughter --should see this, too. Simple it may be, even "simplistic," but THE UNCHANGING SEA still packs a bit of a punch in its final scene, which is admirably underplayed. There are no arm-waving histrionics, the tempo is slow and somber, as it would be if performed today by first-rate actors.

Of special note is the shot in which our central figure, the wife of a fisherman, walks down to the sea with the men, including her husband, as they launch their boat. The husband has just learned that his wife is pregnant. We see her from behind as she watches the men depart, and we just know-- it's there on the screen, we can feel it --that tragedy lies ahead. Again, nothing is italicized.

You wonder about Griffith's reputation? Take a look at THE UNCHANGING SEA. It isn't usually mentioned in the same breath with his best-known short films, but in its own quiet way it belongs with the best of them.

The Unchanging Sea Paul Harrill from Senses of Cinema

THE LONEDALE OPERATOR

USA (17 mi) 1911

User reviews from imdb Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

This is a very good drama with a fine performance by Blanche Sweet who, almost unbelievably, was only 15 at the time. If D.W. Griffith had not remade it the following year (as the fine feature "The Girl and Her Trust), then Sweet and "The Lonedale Operator" might be better remembered.

The story is very similar to that in the better-known remake, with Sweet playing the daughter of a telegraph operator, who takes over when her father becomes ill, only to find herself thrust into a highly dangerous situation. The scenario was written by Mack Sennett, which makes it very interesting to imagine Sennett and the somber Griffith working together. It's surprisingly tight, and only a funny bit at the end (which works well) breaks the tension.

If you've seen and enjoyed the remake, this one is also well worth watching. It's less complex, but it's quite good in its own right. Sweet gives the heroine a different nature than does Dorothy Bernard in the remake, and both of them are quite good in the role, with no need at all to choose one or the other as the 'best' of the two performances.

from imdb more:

One of the 50 films in the 4-disk boxed DVD set called "Treasures from American Film Archives (2000)", compiled by the National Film Preservation Foundation from 18 American film archives. This film was preserved by the Museum of Modern Art. This version has a piano music score and runs 17 minutes.

Only the Cinema [Ed Howard]

THE GIRL AND HER TRUST

USA (17 mi) 1912

User reviews from imdb Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

This short drama is quite a masterpiece for its time, using every available technique along with great skill in story-telling and photography, all of which take a fairly simple story and make it interesting, believable, and exciting. There is good detail that helps define and explain the characters, expert use of cross-cutting and editing to heighten the suspense, and a nice variety of indoor and outdoor settings. Dorothy Bernard also deserves credit as the young woman willing to risk danger in order to fulfill her trust.

Many of Griffith's short films show not only masterful technique, but also an impressive efficiency that wasn't always present in his later, longer features. "A Girl and Her Trust" is one of the best of all his shorter movies, and it deserves its place as one of the best-remembered and most praised movies of its era.

User reviews from imdb Author: Michael DeZubiria (miked32@hotmail.com) from Los Angeles, California

The Girl and Her Trust, like all films made in the early 1900s, is very simple and very short, but Griffith introduces a number of filmmaking techniques that remain widely in use to this day. Earlier films generally played like a stage play, with minimal cutting or editing, and each scene taking place in the same location and generally in the same shot. The Girl and Her Trust was one of the first films to suggest that editing could create artificial environments by linking sets together, and it also gave a better idea of what exactly was going on (the close-up of the girl as she places the bullet in the keyhole is a great example).

Besides that, this film also had a very well-made chase at the end, in which the good guys are in a locomotive chasing the bad guys (the guys who stole the $2000 from the girl - her 'trust') who are pumping furiously on a railroad handcart. Although technically crude by today's standards, this scene had every necessary element of a good chase sequence, and it works very well. The film also introduced the idea of cross-cutting in filmmaking, as well as the idea of filming outdoors (a technique barely and clumsily employed by Edwin Porter in The Great Train Robbery). The Girl and Her Trust is a historic film, but as with all films that were made in the early 1900s, you need to keep its age in mind. It's not going to blow you away with visuals or sound, but if you keep in mind the time period in which it was made, you can begin to really appreciate its innovation.

User reviews from imdb Author: Author: Cineanalyst

This is as good a film as any to track the development of editing and camera placement in early narrative short films. 'The Girl and Her Trust' has the same story outline as, at least, three other Griffith shorts: 'Lonely Villa,' 'The Lonedale Operator' and 'An Unseen Enemy.' All four are last-minute rescue suspense films, with few differences between them. They all result in the setup of a girl, or a few girls, locked in a room separate from thieves stealing money; the girl uses a phone, or telegraph, to call men for help. I don't know why any of the ditzes never thought of escaping out a window. At least in 'The Girl and Her Trust,' there's the malarkey about her fulfilling her "trust."

By no means did Griffith invent this sub-genre; he mastered it with rapid editing. It's futile to attempt to exact the beginning of the sub-genre, but the aforementioned films, especially 'Lonely Villa,' are remakes of a 1908 Pathé film, 'The Physician of the Castle.' Suspense is absent in that film; there are only 26 shots in its 6 minutes. Biograph released 'Lonely Villa' the following year, and there are approximately twice as many shots in its 9 minutes. In 1912, Biograph released 'The Girl and Her Trust,' which has almost as many shots as the 119 that appear in the subsequent film, 'An Unseen Enemy.' Furthermore, Keystone parodies (such as 'The Bangville Police' and 'Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life') of Griffith's last-minute rescue pictures displayed even rapider, if choppy, editing.

The reason for the additional number of shots has as much to do with staging and additional crosscutting as it does with drawn-out lengths. First, Griffith had criminals and innocents in separate rooms of the setting of the crime; crosscutting between rooms prevented plots from being dull, as he stretched suspense for longer lengths. Then, there's extended crosscutting between the crime and rescuers. Indoor shooting is also Griffith's greatest weakness; he never would get past the theatricality of a missing wall.

'The Girl and Her Trust' has the benefit of taking more of the action outside, as the girl must follow the criminals to fulfill her trust. Outside, Griffith and Billy Bitzer trucked the camera beside a moving train, creating a trademark tracking shot they'd return to in 'Intolerance.' There's also an overhead angled tracking shot of the criminals and Dorothy Bernard on a handcar. With such innovation and time and space constraints, however, Griffith made the fallacy of not respecting the axis of action (the train goes right, and then goes left, but it's supposed to be the same direction). That can disrupt suspense. Lastly, Griffith rarely, if ever, used medium shots and close-ups in his early films. By 1912, every Griffith film had them.

(Note: This is one of three short films by D.W. Griffith that I've commented on, with some arrangement in mind. The other films are 'A Corner in Wheat' and 'The Battle at Elderbush Gulch.')

Three Movie Buffs [Patrick Nash]

THE MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY

USA (17 mi) 1912

User reviews from imdb Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

Most aspects of this short melodrama were made with skill. The acting is generally quite good, the characters are interesting and believable, and the plot is interesting even though a couple of details strain credibility. It's probably one of the very earliest movies about gangs or gangsters, and it portrays the "Musketeers" and their affairs in a way that is more believable than any of the romanticized portrayals that came into vogue later on.

The cast features some names well-known to silent film fans, with Dorothy Gish and many other familiar names. Even some of the small roles feature talented performers, so perhaps it is no surprise that the movie features a high standard of acting.

The story shows the interactions between the gang of "Musketeers" and some other persons who have the misfortune to live nearby. The story and the production make pretty good use of the possibilities, and aside from one or two overly convenient plot turns, they do so in a worthwhile way.

Quite a bit happens in just over 15 minutes, with constant action that is photographed and edited well enough that you largely forget that it was all done using the limited photographic options of its time. This is a good one to watch for anyone interested in very old films.

User reviews from imdb Author: Warren Cockerham from United States (link deleted):

Fortunately, for Cagney, Bogart and Robinson, Elmer Booth died in 1919 thanks to Tod Browning's driving skills. It's worth thinking about the cultural implications of Elmer Booth's Snapper Kid as the first cinema gangster; considering D.W. Griffith is credited as the creator of this character. The success of this (one of his last) 1912 Biograph short may have been this closet southern-racist's gateway to the west.

Many consider Birth of a Nation to be the prototype of nearly one hundred years of conventional Hollywood fair. However, Musketeers employs editing continuity and cross-cutting techniques that made Griffith and Hollywood famous. But, what's more interesting is that this short film highlights the first known gangster racket. Before prohibition, the most successful gangster racket was white-slavery. Tucker's Traffic in Souls (1913) deals with the issue in much more detail than Griffith's short. However, the racket is there, on screen for the first time. The Snapper Kid saves a woman that lives in his tenement from being drugged by another Gangster. Later, the two rival gangs shoot it out in an alley that looks like something straight out of a Jacob Riis photograph. Of course, the woman's husband was robbed by Snapper Kid earlier that day. But, during the fight, her husband reclaims his purse. The couple show their gratuity to the Snapper Kid by getting a cop off of his back - a cop who later pays the Snapper Kid for protecting the tenement.

Extoration, anti-heroism, neighborhood gang rivalries, rackets, chain-smoking, business suits, fedoras, bosses, and foot-soldiers: it's all there (with less sentiment), and three years before Griffith's protégé Raoul Walsh takes a crack at it in a feature-length film called Regeneration.

The Musketeers of Pig Alley from the Wellington Film Society

THE BATTLE OF ELDERBRUSH GULCH

USA (29 mi) 1913

User reviews from imdb Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

Given the limited cinematic methods available in 1913, this is an impressive achievement, and it still makes for pretty good viewing today. It's also interesting in that its perspective is largely morally-neutral (except perhaps from what today's viewers might read into it), so that the excitement comes mostly from the danger of the situation, rather than from one side being entirely right and the other being entirely wrong.

The build-up to the battle is done rather well, enabling you to identify with the characters, while making some points of its own. Neither side in the confrontation is really in the right, yet Griffith's technique arouses your keen interest in the events to come.

But it is the filming of the actual "Battle at Elderbush Gulch" that is so noteworthy. To create such a sensation of action, turmoil, and emotion using the limited camera field of the times is remarkable. There are a lot of carefully chosen and composed shots, and Griffith also adds in some techniques that were new or relatively new at the time. There are several well-chosen 'iris' shots, and a variety of close-in and distant camera fields that pull you in and out of the action as the director wishes.

It's a fine achievement for its time, at the very least in technical terms, and would probably be well worth a look today for those with an interest in silent movies.

User reviews from imdb Author: (bsmith5552@rogers.com) from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

It's hard to imagine that "The Battle of Elderbush Gulch", directed by the legendary D.W. Griffith, was made a way back in 1914. It is a showcase for Griffith's emerging style.

The story centers around a group of settlers called the Cameron Brothers and their families which include a young waif (Mae Marsh) sent out from the east to live with her uncles and a young wife (Lillian Gish) who has just given birth. A group of Indians tries to capture the waif's pet dogs and are driven off by the men folk. During the confrontation the Indian Chief's son (Henry B. Wathall) is killed. The Indian chief plots his revenge and launches an attack on the small community of Elderbush Gulch.

It is this attack, which is quite brutal and graphic for this or any other time, that forms the core of the picture. The Indians slaughter the towns folk, women and children alike and drive them out of town towards the Cameron's homestead. The newborn baby becomes separated from its mother and all hell breaks loose. Someone goes for help and returns in the nick of time with the calvary.

The battle scenes contain some graphic violence. For example, we see a woman being scalped alive and there is also a sequence where we see a horse being shot down. I have never seen an animal being slain so convincingly on screen. Mr.Griffith was becoming a master of staging large scale battle scenes, a talent that he would use extensively in his epic Civil War drama, "The Birth of a Nation" released the following year.

Even though it runs a scant 29 minutes, "The Battle of Elderbush Gulch" is nonetheless an exciting and historic bit of film making. See if you can spot Lionel Barrymore and Harry Carey in bit parts.

User reviews from imdb Author: Cineanalyst

No other film before 'The Birth of a Nation' better shows the potential D.W. Griffith could direct something of such scope than does 'The Battle at Elderbush Gulch.' His direction of the battle scenes here are the best predecessor to those in 'The Birth of a Nation,' even so much as for this website to say that the later film references this one. Griffith's last film for Biograph, 'Judith of Bethulia,' had battle scenes, too, but nothing was added to the grammar. It was a larger battle than the one in this film, yet Griffith didn't have the budget or time to make it grand. He was going over-budget and making a feature-length film without permission from studio-heads.

The battle scenes in this film are on a smaller scale. Within that battle, there's focus on small skirmishes via extensive crosscutting. It's brutal--an infant is tossed around at one point, which I hope was a trick-shot of some sort. There's lots of smoke. There are multiple plot lines throughout the film, which are interlinked fluently in the climax.

All of this creates an omniscient, unrestricted narrative. The bird's eye views of the fighting are a style still used today, although the irises aren't. Griffith and Billy Bitzer further display their mastering of camera distance with frequent use of medium shots. They haven't figured out how to do an onrush shot yet, though, as the camera position of the cavalry is boring; they'd correct that in 'The Birth of a Nation.' There's the missing wall in interior shots; they'd never correct that.

As fellow posters have condemned, this film is a precursor of 'The Birth of a Nation' in another way: racism. Although I suppose it is racism either way, I doubt that Griffith intended to portray the aborigines ridiculously (he clearly stated that he considered Blacks to be childlike, although he didn't agree that was racist), but rather it was the result of his lack of understanding any particular tribal culture or fully understanding film representation. That the aborigines appear silly is probably just bad acting. Only Lillian Gish and Mae Marsh really know what they're doing. Anyhow, Griffith's earlier short film, 'The Redman's View' was an attempt to be respectful of the Native-American population, even though it's a boring film.

(Note: This is one of three short films by D.W. Griffith that I've commented on, with some arrangement in mind. The other films are 'A Corner in Wheat' and 'The Girl and Her Trust.')

THE BIRTH OF THE NATION

aka: The Clansman

USA (187 mi) 1915

Edinburgh U Film Society [Mark Radice]

Based on the Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr's deliriously racist The Clansman, a melodramatic novel about the American Civil War and its aftermath, Griffith's film is remarkable for its technical innovations and for the truly epic feel created by the carefully orchestrated, swirling masses of figures in the battle scenes. It's also remarkable for having had no written scenario, costumes that were made by Lillian Gish's mother, battle scenes that were shot in a day, and a cost that meant Griffith had nothing left but the shirt on his back. The biggest challenge the film provided for its audiences is perhaps to decide when 'ground-breaking, dedicated, serious cinematic art' must be reviled as politically reprehensible. The film's explicit glorification of the Ku Klux Klan has never tempered with time.

The importance of this film in the history of American cinema cannot be overstressed, being the first American film of any size and scope, and more importantly, it won worldwide respect for motion pictures, turning them into an art rather than an entertaining gimmick. D.W. Griffith's first epic masterpiece created many top-ranking stars from its giant cast, and made a legend of himself.

The prologue depicts the introduction of slavery tp America in the seventeenth century and the beginnings of the abolitionist movement. The major part of the film depicts the events before, during and after the Civil War. It focuses on the exploitation of the newly-freed negroes and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the south. Griffith shows it at once as a drama, a romance, and a documentary, with the vivid period reconstruction outweighing the personal stories of the cast; a big film for big history: Atlanta burning, the surrender of Lee; the assassination of Lincoln, and the Southern recdnstruction. Woodrow Wilson watched the film and said "It is like writing history with lightning; my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."

The president wasn't alone at the cinema; the general public flocked to pay the unheard-of huge admission fee of $2, making it an outstanding fmancial success for Griffith and the Epoch Producing Co. But it sparked a rage over its alleged anti-negro bias and Griffith's apparent attitude towards the Ku Klux Klan, being condemned as "a flagrant incitement to racial antagonism", and state authorities were urged - unsuccessfully - to ban the film. Griffith himself was said to be hurt and bewildered by this criticism; and even though it is still debated to this day, it hardly seems relevant, almost 80 years since the film's release. Birth of a Nation has passed into history as, biased or not, the most important film in American screen evolution, possibly the world.

digitallyOBSESSED! DVD Reviews Mark Zimmer

Birth of a Nation is a problematic film in many ways. It is of undeniable historic importance, both in the film industry and in American culture. It was the first great historical epic, a masterpiece of filming and editing, and was the highest grossing silent film ever; it also was responsible for the resurrection of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century. At the same time it is gooey historical melodrama cloaking a socially abhorrent political statement, making an indefensible package.

This sweeping three-hour epic, based on Thomas Dixon's notorious book The Clansman, covers the American Civil War and Reconstruction from a decidedly southern viewpoint. If you thought Gone with the Wind was racially insensitive, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Two families, the abolitionist Stonemans from the north, and the genteel slave-owning Camerons from Piedmont, South Carolina, are the focus of this film, and we follow them through their adventures in the war and after. An integral part of the second half of the film is the attempt to justify the existence of the Ku Klux Klan as a necessary means to remedy being "crushed under the heel of the black South."

The director, D.W. Griffith, was the son of a Confederate officer and as this film makes clear was himself a thoroughly un-Reconstructed southerner. The blacks in this film (other than the faithful Cameron family retainers) are the grossest of stereotypes and often are presented as something decidedly less than human. The southern whites are all presented as saintly heroes while most of the northern whites are reduced to cartoon scalawag figures. In particular, the Stoneman patriarch, an abolitionist senator, is treated as a hypocritical buffoon. Loosely modeled on Senator Thaddeus Stevens, Stoneman wears an ill-fitting wig from which his daughter is constantly picking nits. His one aim seems to be to force racial intermarriage on the south, while he reacts in horror to his mulatto protégé's desires to marry Stoneman's own daughter (Lillian Gish). Stoneman also is shown early on lusting after his mulatto maid (Mary Alden). Alden for her part wildly overacts and mugs at the camera to the point of inducing nausea; the other performances are acceptable, within the constraints of the stick-figure stock characters they are given to work with in the screenplay.

While the politics of the film are execrable, and its plot thin and sappy, there is no denying that Griffith was a master of his art. The battlefield scenes are cut together in a thrilling manner, and the centerpiece of Lincoln's assassination is extremely well done. Even though we know what will happen, the sense of fate inexorably creeping toward the destined moment is well-wrought and greatly moving. The dual last-minute rescues are expertly cut together to heighten suspense in a way that puts the similar concluding sequence in Return of the Jedi to shame.

I watched this film in conjunction with a reading of the memoirs of Griffith's assistant cameraman, Karl Brown, and it was fascinating to see how the moments that seemed disjointed, pointless and wearisome to film were perfectly edited into the seamless and moving tapestry of this sprawling movie. Birth of a Nation is clearly intended to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and that it certainly does well. It is hard to imagine how the same man who made this obnoxious, hate-filled film could turn around immediately and make the plea for brotherhood and understanding that Griffith did in Intolerance (1916). Apparently that tolerance did not extend so far as to black Americans; this attitude has, I fear, irretrievably spoiled my fondness for Intolerance.

The Birth of a Nation (1915) - TCM.com Reprinted by permission of Donald Bogle from his film reference work, Blacks in American Films & Television: An Illustrated Encyclopedia

A legendary classic, a racist masterpiece. Technically innovative and sweeping. Director Griffith made brilliant use of the close-up, cross-cutting, rapid-fire editing, the iris, the split screen shot, and realistic and impressionistic lighting. His once-record-breaking $100,000 spectacle ran over three hours and eventually altered the entire course and concept of the feature film. But the treatment of its black characters has also made this possibly the most controversial American film ever released.

An Old South/Civil War reconstruction Era drama, The Birth of the Nation [1915] focuses on the family of kindly Dr. Cameron. On the Cameron plantation in Piedmont, South Carolina, masters and slaves are friendly. In the fields, the darkies contentedly pick cotton. Lively pickaninnies dance and perform for their white masters outside the slave quarters. Mammy joyously runs the big house. All is calm, at peace, in order during these glory days of the Old South.

Then the War breaks out. The old world of gentility collapses. A troop of Negro raiders terrorizes the Cameron family. Afterward during the Reconstruction period, carpetbaggers (led by the corrupt Senator Stoneman) and "uppity" blacks from the North move into Piedmont, exploiting and corrupting the former slaves, unleashing the sadism and bestiality believed to be innate in the Negro, turning the once-congenial "darkies" into renegades, and using them to "crush the white South under the heel of the black South." The former slaves quit work to dance. They roam the streets, shoving whites aside. They take over the political polls, disenfranchising the white citizens. A black political victory culminates in an orgiastic street celebration. Blacks dance, sing, drink, rejoice. Later they conduct a black legislative session, itself a supposed mockery of Old South ideals, in which the freed legislators are depicted as lustful, arrogant, idiotic. One bites on a chicken leg. Another sneaks a drink from a liquor bottle. Another removes his shoe and props his bare foot onto his desk. The stench created by the barefoot legislator becomes so foul that another passes a rule that everyone must wear his shoes during legislative meetings! Other rulings are also made. A title card reads: "It is moved and carried that all whites must salute Negro officers on the street." Another title card proclaims: "The helpless white minority." Still another announces: "Passage of a bill providing for the intermarriage of blacks and whites."

Matters reach a heady climax when the lusty renegade black buck Gus hotly pursues the delicate young Cameron daughter. Rather than submit, the poor thing - the Pet Sister as she's called - flees and throws herself from a cliff into the "opal gates of death." (Interestingly enough, during a showing of The Birth of a Nation - many decades later - to an all-black audience at Howard University in Washington, D.C., when the poor Pet Sister jumped to her death, the black audience stood up and cheered. The Birth of a Nation can still rouse tension and hostilities.) Later the mulatto Silas Lynch attempts to force the fair white Elsie Stoneman (played by Lillian Gish) into marrying him. Finally, when all looks lost, a group of stalwart, upright white males, wearing sheets and hoods, no less, soon have a victorious confrontation with the blacks. Defenders of white womanhood, white honor and white glory, they restore to the South everything it has lost, including white supremacy. Thus we have the birth of a nation. And the birth of the Ku Klux Klan, too!

Absurd as some of the plot of The Birth of a Nation might sound today, the film had enormous power and extraordinary effects. The final ride of the Klan was an impressive piece of movie propaganda, superbly filmed and brilliantly edited. Indeed it was so stirring that audiences screamed in terror and delight, cheering the white heroes and booing, hissing, and cursing the black baddies.

Griffith also "introduced" the mass movie audience to the black film stereotypes that were to linger in American films for the next 70-some years - the noble, loyal manageable Toms, the clownish coons, the stoic hefty mammy, the troubled "tragic" mulatto (she's Senator Stoneman's mistress), and the brutal black buck. All had appeared in previous short films; indeed they were carryovers from popular fiction, poetry, and music of the 19th century. But never had they been given such a full-blown dramatic treatment - and in a film seen the world over. Of course, the stereotypes in The Birth of a Nation were all the more disturbing and grotesque because the major black roles were played by white actors in blackface. (Real African Americans had only minor parts.)

The Birth of a Nation became one of the biggest moneymakers in movie history. At a private White House screening, President Woodrow Wilson praised the film. Like The Clansman, the Thomas Dixon novel on which it was based, the movie appealed to the nation partly because of its mythic view of the Old South and particularly because of its exploration of the great white American nightmares: interracial sex and the strong sexual black man. A scary black/white fantasy, the film's ending wiped away white America's sexual fears about the Negro and temporarily at least permitted the national psyche to relax.

Controversy, however, followed The Birth of a Nation. The NAACP launched a formal protest movement against it. (In later years when the film was re-released, there were new protests.) Afterwards the film industry, fearing controversy more than anything else, assiduously avoided any depiction of strong, aggressive, defiant sexual black men. Most of the black males audiences were to see in later films of the late 1920s and 1930s were comic, non-threatening figures such as the characters played by Stepin Fetchit and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. The buck figure actually does not return in full force in American films until some 55 years later with such pictures as Shaft and Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song. At the same time, some black leaders, determined to counteract the shocking black images of The Birth of a Nation, set out to make black films with positive characters, and eventually there was a whole new wave of independent black filmmakers such as Oscar Micheaux.

Fandor: Michael Sicinski May 29, 2013

Fandor: Shari Kizirian March 03, 2015

The New Yorker: Richard Brody

The Greatest Films - comprehensive analysis of classic US film Tim Dirks

Reverse Shot [Saul Austerlitz]

The Birth of a Nation (1915) - Notes - TCM.com

D.W.Griffith: The Birth of a Nation Derek Malcolm from the Guardian

The Birth of a Nation (1915) - TCM.com David Sterritt

The Sheila Variations: Sheila O'Malley

D.W. Griffith on Blu-ray: THE BIRTH OF A NATION & WAY DOWN EAST J. Hurtado from Screen Anarchy

MovieJustice (Dan DeVore)

FromTheBalcony [Carl Langley]

Film Commentary by CGK

Movie-Vault.com (Vadim Rizov)

The Birth of a Nation (1915) - Home Video Reviews - TCM.com Brian Cady

Cinematic Reflections (Derek Smith)

MediaScreen.com Paul Brenner

That Cow (Andrew Bradford)

The Guardian: Ashley Clark March 05, 2015

The Birth of a Nation Movie Review (1915) | Roger Ebert

Full Review New York Times 1915 Review

The New York Times: Dave Kehr November 25, 2011

DVDBeaver Gary W. Tooze

INTOLERANCE

aka: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages

USA (197 mi) 1916

Griffith's immensely influential silent film intercuts four parallel tales from history (spanning Babylon, Christ's Judaea, Reformation Europe, and turn-of-the-century America) to embroider a moral tapestry on personal, social and political repression through the ages. The thematic approach no longer works (if it ever did); the title cards are stiffly Victorian and sometimes laughably pedantic; but the visual poetry is overwhelming, especially in the massed crowd scenes. And the unbridled eroticism of the Babylon harem scenes demonstrate just what Hollywood lost when it later bowed to the censorship of the Hays Code.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List Kathleen Sachs

South Side Projections' presentation of D.W. Griffith's famed epic is given added luster as it will be accompanied by world-renowned composer and conductor (and writer) Somtow Sucharitkul, for whom first seeing the film was a life-changing event. According to South Side Projections' website, "The turning point in [Sucharitkul's] life came as a teenager when his English teacher took his class to see INTOLERANCE with a live pianist in London at the British Film Institute"; per Sucharitkul's own Facebook page, this is a chance to fulfill his "lifelong dream...to improvise an accompaniment to [the film]." (Currently the artistic director of the Bangkok Opera, his past achievements are too long to list here--but it's certainly worth the Google search) Speaking of improvisation, Griffith did just that when making INTOLERANCE, which contains four separate but parallel storylines, ranging from one set in ancient Babylonia to one set at the time when the film was made. Famous for its groundbreaking use of intercutting that's as fast as the train barreling down at the climax, the film was in fact born of the latter storyline, later referred to as the "modern" story, which was conceptualized before Griffith's THE BIRTH OF A NATION and originally called THE MOTHER AND THE LAW. As Richard Schickel states in his book D.W. Griffith: An American Life, "studio workers at [a lower] level were under the impression that the stories that were eventually melded with it in INTOLERANCE were separate projects; indeed, they were given separate production numbers." He continues: "Thus INTOLERANCE was a mighty improvisation, an attempt to salvage what would have been, pre-BIRTH, a more-than-acceptable little picture, turning it eventually into the story of spectacle that he--and the public--expected of America's premier director." The version and exhibition format to be shown is unclear as of this writing; regardless, this film's restoration history is one of the more interesting I've come across, as it's as long and varied as Sucharitkul's CV. And that's saying something.

Turner Classic Movies Scott McGee

Intolerance (1916) is a landmark American epic that interweaves stories of prejudice and inhumanity from four historical eras, ranging from Babylon to the modern day. Many future stars, such as Lillian Gish, appear in major roles, while others, like Erich von Stroheim and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., appear as extras. Director D.W. Griffith intended Intolerance to stand as a rebuke against evil and injustice, and as a rebuttal to the severe criticism that he received after the release of his previous picture, The Birth of a Nation (1915).

The epic, three-eighths-of-a-mile-long sets that were created for the Babylonian sequence towered above the streets of Hollywood, but probably not as high as its reputation in Hollywood legend. It is hard to imagine now how the set must have appeared to the citizens of Los Angeles. In the age before skyscrapers dotted the Los Angeles horizon, the Babylon set, towering 165 feet above the Hollywood bungalows, and by far the most expensive set ever made by that time, looked like an ancient city springing up from beneath Los Angeles itself. Griffith's conception of the grandeur of the Babylon sequence was inspired by Quo Vadis (1912) and Cabiria (1914), both made in Italy. In turn, Intolerance influenced other silent epics, such as Robin Hood (1922) and The Thief of Bagdad (1924).

The undisputed hero of the construction of the Babylon set, as well as other sets in Intolerance, was Frank "Huck" Wortman, the chief carpenter, set builder, and stage mechanic. A rough, down-to-earth man who chewed tobacco and spat out of the side of his mouth, it was Wortman who saved Griffith thousands of dollars in production costs by imagining and improvising new ways of making huge sets look the part. The beautiful archways in the Jerusalem set, for example, were ingenuously created by bending thin boards and coating them in plaster. Overall, Griffith depended heavily on Wortman to raise the Babylon set to newer, more stupendous heights. Everyday the sets kept growing larger and higher than the original plans called for. There was a very real fear that they would collapse, so whenever a nighttime windstorm fell upon the city, Wortman and several other crewmen would jump into their cars and race to the set in order to reinforce the cable supports. While the publicity for Intolerance greatly exaggerated the sets as reaching 500 feet high, the truth behind the legendary sets placed the bar for future epic movies in terms of grandiosity and workmanship.

filmcritic.com David Bezanson

David Wark Griffith was in many ways the first film director -- a master craftsman who invented modern film editing and camerawork and originated many (most?) of the cinematic devices used today. His silent epics are lavish, impressive spectacles. Griffith's films suffer less from the technical limitations of silent movies than from their ideology-addled screenplays and crudely rendered morals which are half-lost in confusing action and broad humor. In short, Griffith's films have pretty much the same flaws as a lot of Hollywood movies today.

Intolerance was Griffith's follow-up to The Birth of a Nation, the first important commercial motion picture. Nation cost $100,000 and made ten times that, and was praised by President Woodrow Wilson, among others. But the movie’s endorsements of segregation and the Ku Klux Klan received some criticism (go figure). Like so many egoistic auteurs after him, Griffith took the criticism badly while letting the praise go to his head. Griffith blew a Titanic budget (for the time) making Intolerance, a self-indulgent, confusing ten reels about man's inhumanity to his fellow man. If Birth of a Nation was the first blockbuster (and the birth of the movie industry, in fact), Intolerance was the first Ishtar -- i.e., the first reminder that when it comes to making art or even entertaining the public, Hollywood doesn't have all the answers.

The film is a historical melodrama that splices together four separate stories that supposedly share a common theme. The plot that consumes the most screen time is the "modern" tale of two young lovers (Mae Marsh and Robert Herron) in a steel mill town tyrannized by the upper class. Intermixed with that is a strange story about a tomboy-turned-heroine (Constance Talmadge) who tries to stop the conquest of Babylon by the Persians, circa 500 B.C. The other two plots are afterthoughts: a confusing series of scenes set during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (Paris in the 1570s), and a sketchy but moving depiction of the life of Christ which does not get much screen time. In all of these stories, the powerful (rich people or priests) oppress the less powerful, so the unifying theme is sort of a cartoonish depiction of injustice, not really intolerance. The plots ultimately degenerate into exciting melodrama -- the end is a seat-hanger -- but still, for a movie about religious intolerance, there are too many preachy moments. Since there is no sound, of course, the morals are delivered in cryptic and pretentious on-screen messages. The public of 1916 obviously decided they didn't need any of it and stayed away. Intolerance was a huge flop.

Though Griffith’s career never recovered, Hollywood did, and for several decades it stayed grounded in solid entertainment values (and even made many suave and historically accurate epics, such as Gone With the Wind, that hold up today). But every “great” director since the 1960s (and many who aren’t that great) has made at least one bloated blockbuster that left audiences scratching their heads, and Intolerance pointed the way.

Surprisingly, as a visual spectacle this very old film stands up well. The number of men, women, children, livestock, trains, and chariots put in to stage the film's myriad crowd scenes, battles, millworkers' strikes, Babylonian bacchanals, etc. is mind-boggling. The sets are more elaborate than anything that would be attempted again by Hollywood until the 1960s. Even the most bored viewer will ask at times, "How the hell did Griffith do that?" And the next inevitable question is, "Why?"

The fast-paced final reel redeems the movie, even if the point is impossible to understand. And perhaps the best reason to watch Griffith's films is the opportunity to see where Hollywood came from and to see modern camera angles and devices used for the first time.

Warning: the newly released video version includes the dubbed organ music that accompanied the silent film, which modern audiences will find intolerable. Watch with the sound off.

Commentary Track [Rishi Agrawal]

Film Commentary by CGK

ToxicUniverse.com (David Abrams) Going to Sunday School with D.W. Griffith

The Greatest Films - comprehensive analysis of classic US film Tim Dirks

Decent Films - faith on film [Steven D. Greydanus] also reporting here: Vatican film list

DVD Beaver - DVD Comparison Gary W. Tooze

BROKEN BLOSSOMS

aka: The Yellow Man and the Girl

USA (90 mi) 1919

There's a marvellous moment when Barthelmess, as the gentle Chinese who offers Gish shelter from her brutal father, gathers an imaginary spray of moondust to sprinkle on her hair as she huddles in bed. But for all that he is making a fervent plea for tolerance, Griffith is careful to let the hint of romance go no further: miscegenation has no place in his hoarily traditional melodrama of waifs and strays and the villains who make them so. This is in fact Griffith at his best and worst. On the debit side, some risibly highfalutin titles, some naive attempts to impose wider contexts on what is essentially a fragile short story (already stretched dangerously thin), and a monotonously simplistic view of the drunken prizefighter father's brutality. Very much on the credit side, though, are stretches of pure Griffith poetry, marvellous use of light and shadow in cameraman Billy Bitzer's evocation of foggy Limehouse, and a truly unforgettable performance from Gish.

Broken Blossoms Dale Dobson from digitallyOBSESSED

D.W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms stars Lillian Gish as Lucy, a fifteen-year-old Cockney girl who lives in mortal fear of her adoptive father, the struggling boxer known as Battling Burrows (Donald Crisp). When she stumbles into the shop of Cheng Huan (Richard Barthelmess) after a brutal beating over a kitchen mishap, the Chinese shopkeeper's gentle affection promises a better life for both of them. Meanwhile, the angry, virulently racist Burrows searches for his "stolen" daughter.

This intimately-scaled dramatic feature was something of a departure for D.W. Griffith, director of such silent-screen epics as Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, and it plays a bit like an extended version of the director's shorts made at the Biograph studios. Griffith invented much of the language of film as we know it, and his skill is in full flower here—compositions are attractive, editing is seamless and the story flows naturally, using narrative text inserts and relying only occasionally on the clumsy convention of dialogue cards.

Lillian Gish's luminous beauty and subtle acting (by silent film standards) enhances this melodramatic tale; a medium shot of young Lucy sitting alone near the London docks is charged with unvoiced longings and quiet suffering. Donald Crisp is appropriately bombastic as the larger-than-life Battling Burrows, and one can almost hear his unreasoning roars of anger and discontent. Richard Barthelmess fares less well as Cheng Huan, due to his makeup more than his performance—his Caucasian cleft chin and heavy-lidded "Chinese" eyes give him a sleepy, dim-witted appearance that's totally at odds with his character's gentle, wise approach to the world, muting his joys and sorrows to some degree.

Barthelmess' appearance is not the only racially-insensitive element here—Broken Blossoms was produced in 1919, and the conventions of the time are certainly in evidence. Another Asian character named Evil Eye is portrayed by the decidedly Occidental Edward Peil Sr., and a white actor in blackface can be glimpsed briefly in an opium den scene. While it's not at all surprising to 'hear' Burrows refer to Cheng Huan as a "dirty Chink," it's more disconcerting to see the same term used in the neutral, black-and-white narrative text inserts, along with the slightly less pejorative "Yellow Man." The story proper is open-minded and progressive, but modern eyes will widen a bit at the casual racism of eight decades ago.

Broken Blossoms takes effortless advantage of its nascent medium, filling the space of a few days in a handful of locations with even pacing, richly drawn characters and engrossing action. If you've never experienced the joys of the silent cinema, I can think of no better introduction than Broken Blossoms, a classic in every sense of the word.

Slant Magazine Ed Gonzalez

No dialectic approach to film form would be complete without discussing the innovations being cultivated by D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein in the early 1900s. Just as Eisenstein's radical principles of montage would forever inform the way films were cut and consumed, Griffith's equally essential narrative innovations would be overshadowed by the controversy surrounding his epic Civil War reconstruction epic The Birth of a Nation. Coincidentally, Griffith's propagandistic Intolerance would irrevocably inspire budding Soviet filmmakers like Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Kuleshov when the film was shown in the USSR in 1919. If it's impossible to fathom the state of modern cinema without Eisenstein and Pudovkin honing their principles of montage by cutting radically into Griffith's text, it'd be equally impossible without the dichotomous Griffith having refined such techniques as the iris shot, the mask or the simple flashback.

Between 1908 and 1913, Griffith made over 450 films for the New York-based Biograph Company, perhaps none more memorable than the 17-minute one-reel The Lonedale Operator, about a substitute telegraph operator (Blanch Sweet) who must fend off a group of bandits. The film's technical innovations were then unheard of, and upon its release the film was considered by some to be the most thrilling picture ever produced. Griffith was no stranger to populating his films with quick-witted, independent women, which explains why the director is well regarded in some feminist circles. Though Griffith is remembered mostly for Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, many rightfully consider 1919's Broken Blossoms (also known as The Yellow Man and the Girl) to be his towering achievement. The film starred Griffith regular Lillian Gish as a poor girl from the seedy Limehouse district of London who is brutally abused her father and later falls in love with a Chinese man.

Broken Blossoms is often regarded and dismissed as Griffith's apology for his alleged celebration of the Klu Klux Klan in Birth of the Nation. Political correctness may have forever damaged Griffith's memory but there are plenty of critics and film connoisseurs who recognize the radiance of Birth of a Nation despite being the creation of a man who was very much a product of his time. Because Broken Blossoms is so earnest a portraiture of an impossible love between the races, it's easy to accept Griffith's claims that he didn't mean any harm with Birth of the Nation. Griffith, of course, was too smart to allow a film like Broken Blossoms to be taken as a simple blanket apology. Via the film's poetic inter-titles, Griffith not only addresses the complicated love between Lucy Burrows (Gish) and Cheng Huan (Richard Barthelmess) but the critics who accused him of racism with "the whip of unkind words and deeds."

Though they weren't financially successful, films like The Musketeers of Pig Alley and The Mother and the Law were largely concerned with the plights of poor working people. The love story at the center of Broken Blossoms is deliberately overstuffed but unmistakably colored with infinite shades of biting irony and social critique. Griffith painstakingly evokes China as a serene Buddhist paradise, but Cheng's philosophy of life is really no different than that of any good Christian. (Cheng tells a group of skylarking sailors: "What thou dost not want others to do to thee, do thou not to others.") Cheng arrives in the godless streets of London and is soon seen as just another "Chink storekeeper." He is handed a book about the perils of Hell from a group of missionaries leaving for China on their way to convert so-called heathens though they are clearly oblivious to the horrors that reside within their own "scarlet house of sin".

The film's feminist appeal lies in Griffith's photojournalistic evocation of the Limehouse district as a deathtrap for women. Lucy is advised against marriage by a woman who washes clothes for a roomful of sweaty children and later bumps into a couple of prostitutes outside. Just as Griffith felt he was falsely accused of racism, the film's heroine constantly suffers the scorn of her vicious father. Battling Burrows (Oscar-winner Donald Crisp) is a monster, but Griffith understands the man's frustrated desire to lash out against something (here, his own daughter) in the face of economic and masculine defeat. So horrible is Lucy's torture at the hands of her father that she has to literally sculpt a smile from her perpetually downtrodden expression using the tips of her fingers. Beaten to a pulp by Battling, Lucy seeks refuge inside Cheng's shop. She faints on the rug like a broken flower and awakens as his White Blossom.

"Her beauty so long hidden shines out like a poem," declares one the film's inter-titles, and Griffith recognizes the simple yet incredible power of an unforced smile. Cheng feeds this beauty with the rays he steals from the lyric moon. Because cinematic convention forbade physical contact between the actors, Griffith had to settle for grand poetic gestures and dramatic artifice to evoke the rapturous, nurturing love between Lucy and Cheng. For Griffith, Broken Blossoms was intended in part as a supreme act of reconciliation, but the film works less self-consciously as an ode to misdirected contempt, selfless love and various modes of worship. Just as the film's extended boxing sequence is an act of brutal masculine reverence, Griffith recognizes Cheng's love for Lucy as an act of holy worship. Because social convention forbids their love, Lucy and Cheng persevere in death. Griffith lovingly evokes this transcendence via a shot of a man worshipping in a Buddhist temple and ships dancing in the distant horizon.

Broken Blossoms - TCM.com Felicia Feaster

Commentary Track [Rishi Agrawal]

The Greatest Films - comprehensive analysis of classic US film Tim Dirks

Broken Blossoms Artful Racism and Artful Rape in Broken Blossoms, by Julia Lesage from Jump Cut, December 1981

Reading against the grain revisited Aspasia Kotsopoulos from Jump Cut, Fall 2001

BFI | Sight & Sound | A brief history of cinematography Barry Salt from Sight & Sound, April 2009

MediaScreen.com Paul Brenner

Erasing Clouds [Dan Heaton]

Cinemarati [Nick Davis]

Movie Martyr (Jeremy Heilman)

MSN Entertainment [Sean Axmaker]

Full Review New York Times 1919 review

TRUE HEART SUSIE

USA (86 mi) 1919

Though "True Heart Susie" is no masterpiece, this 1919 silent movie romance of small-town innocence and naiveté is D.W. Griffith as his sentimental best. Lillian Gish is the true heart of the title, a dreamy country girl so in love with her childhood sweetheart (boyish Robert Harron) that she secretly finances his higher education and then watches a conniving flapper from Chicago (the delightful Clarine Seymour) lure the shy-boy-turned-country-minister away with wiles not lost on the audience. Gish's Susie is true indeed, if an eternal child oblivious to the social realities around her, but there's a puckish quality to Griffith's direction. Even the intertitles have a tendency to mock her blithe obliviousness, as if Griffith were tired of such sentimentalizing cinema that he does so well. Features an original score performed by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, and a bonus film, the light 1916 comedy "Hoodoo Ann," supervised and scripted by Griffith (under the pseudonym Granville Warwick) and starring Mae Marsh and Harron under the direction of Lloyd Ingraham.

PopMatters [Michael Barrett] also reviewing HOODOO ANN (1916)

True Heart Susie is a delicately comic romance from D.W. Griffith’s pastoral “short story” period, when he sought to recover from the losses of his monumental Intolerance (1916) with a series of films for Adolf Zukor’s Artcraft. This is another of his films with Lillian Gish, and therefore another important addition to the too-slowly growing output of his films on DVD.

But first we’ll talk about the bonus feature, Hoodoo Ann (1916). It’s a “second feature” in several ways, neither as good, nor in as good shape as True Heart Susie, and especially appropriate as a second feature. It’s another slice of romantic rural cornpone with the same leading man, Robert Harron, cast as the same gawky adolescent boy-man he’d play three years later in True Heart Susie.

Griffith produced and wrote the movie, (as Granville Warwick), for the short-lived but pivotal Triangle Film Corporation that he formed with Thomas Ince and Mack Sennett. Technically, Griffith didn’t direct it; that credit goes to Lloyd Ingraham. Yet Griffith might as well have directed Hoodoo Ann because it employs the styles he perfected and virtually imposed, and we can’t imagine Ingraham wishing to depart from it if he could.

In what is basically a Mary Pickford role, Mae Marsh plays Ann, an absurdly friendless and exploited orphan at an establishment for women in their 20s pretending to be teens. (Check out any teen comedy of today to see how far we haven’t come.) Her “hoodoo” or bad luck is explained by the black housekeeper Cindy, (Madame Sul-Te-Wan, an important figure in silent features). This half of the 64-minute tale ends with a spectacular fire that begins in a seemingly far-fetched manner, (someone steps on matches), and while the children for some reason are sleeping in the middle of the day. Did they all have to change into nightclothes for an afternoon nap?

Ann is promptly and perhaps informally adopted by an old couple, the wife of whom is played by Loyola O’Connor, who would play the heroine’s aunt in True Heart Susie. Then her romance with Jimmie, (played by Harron), is allowed to develop, but not without a complicated, near-tragic misunderstanding.

It may not sound like it, but this film is largely a spoof on the melodrama it subscribes to. Its hand is tipped when Ann and Jimmie go to the picture show and see a western in an extended film-within-the-film sequence where half the comedy are the exaggerated clichés on the screen and the other half is the reaction shots of the rapt uncritical viewers.

Unless I misread the scene, the on-screen heroine seems to be played by our same actress, Mae Marsh, showing off her comic skills even more broadly. So our little Ann is watching a version of herself, and her attempts to mimic herself will lead to a bizarre, parody of near-tragedy.

Unlike True Heart Susie:, which is tinted and digitally mastered (with no apparent digital restoration) from a 35mm duplicate negative from the British Film Institute, Hoodoo Ann is untinted and mastered from a slightly faded master positive. This means faces sometime “bloom” whitely, losing some of the details that are essential to reading a silent performance (you can notice the increase in sharpness during the moments when scenes fade out).

Silent acting is an art form unto itself, as is silent cinema, and neither is in any way incomplete or unsubtle. Silent films deal in actions and emotions, and the interplay of emotions within and between scenes can be as subtle as you please. Those who doubt it should be directed to the Jane Austen-like subtlety of Lois Weber’s Too Wise Wives (1921), or Josef von Sternberg’s exquisite Docks of New York (1928, still not on DVD).

Or they can be directed to Lillian Gish’s performance in True Heart Susie, especially during the moment after she discovers all her romantic hopes are floundering. A festival of reactions chases each other across her face, and not always the ones you’d expect. If you’re not struck breathless, you may want to rise from your chair and cry, “That’s acting!”

In both of these films, Griffith (or Griffith/ Ingraham) plants the camera before a series of shots that interlock their spaces like boxcars, one standard view per location, so that as characters walk from one room to another or pass from outside to inside, you know the blueprint of the house or the map of the town. One very effective detail is how Griffith employs depth via the “fourth wall” (the camera space) by having characters abruptly enter and exit the frame under the camera’s shoulder rather than stage right or left.

Sometimes a detail, (such as a full-length person), is isolated by cropping off the image around them in darkness. A character’s thoughts and dialogue are often illustrated with flashbacks or fantasies, the better to dispense with title cards. And of course, climactic crosscutting is employed.

Some scenes are analyzed in more detail, but close-ups are usually reserved for a moment of emphasis. Gish usually claims this privilege. At the risk of repeating a favorite anecdote, we’re reminded why, when Gish was praised for her wonderful close-ups in The Whales of August (1987), co-star Bette Davis supposedly said, “They ought to be. The bitch invented them.”

And like Hoodoo Ann much of this film, especially the first reel, is based on a form of comedy that gently spoofs its own conventions while faithfully employing them. An early card declares of the adolescent couple: “Of course they don’t know what poor simple idiots they are --and we, who have never been so foolish, can hardly hope to understand.” This is an acknowledgement of the hokum we’re above, an invitation to join in anyway for old time’s sake, and a sly, subversive challenge to our pretensions.

And the thing is, it works. The final twists, by which Gish’s secret empowerment of her callow boyfriend’s success backfires and fate must intervene through various characters, can have the viewer stamping in the stall, just as wall-eyed as the naive movie-goers in Hoodoo Ann. The sharp thrusts of Gish’s reactions, all the more piercing for their finely honed delicacy, are largely responsible for this.

By the ‘20s, Griffith would be widely regarded as a purveyor of dated Victorian melodramatics still wearing old hats and dramatic clodhoppers while everyone had supposedly moved on to the grand sophistication of Cecil B. DeMille. Of course, the audience didn’t know what poor simple idiots they were. Do we now?

David Shepard, that Carnegie or Nobel of silent film presentation is responsible for producing this disc. In a thoughtful extra, composer Rodney Sauer not only identifies every piece of contemporary music compiled into the score for “Susie” but allows you to access them.

True Heart Susie - CreateSpace Jay Carr, also reviewing HOODOO ANN (1916)

Sexual Strategems Critical Feminist Strategems, reviewed by Maureen Turim from Jump Cut

Bright Lights Film Journal Gordon Thomas, November 1, 2007

Ozus' World Movie Reviews Dennis Schwartz

Variety

WAY DOWN EAST

USA (145 mi) 1920

Way Down East | Chicago Reader Dave Kehr

D.W. Griffith's most popular film after The Birth of a Nation was based on a florid Victorian stage melodrama about a seduced and abandoned orphan girl who seeks refuge with a farm family. Through his star, Lillian Gish, Griffith gives the story an emotional power that lifts this 1920 silent feature to the level of a folktale; it becomes something simple, strong, and timeless.

Way Down East, directed by DW Griffith | Film review - Time Out Tony Rayns

Griffith's Victorian perspective on illegitimacy (plus his view of maternity as 'woman's Gethsemane', etc) threatens for a while to make Way Down East the tract on monogamy that it announces itself as. It has two lifelines out of that morass: one is Lillian Gish, whose virtuoso performance makes the heroine's growth from gullible innocence to bitter experience credible; the other is Griffith's old standby, the reliable mechanism of suspense melodrama, here escalating busily and inventively right up to the famous ice-floe climax. The result is a good deal more interesting than camp, but Russ Meyer fans won't have any problem perceiving this as a rural prototype for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, with its classical simplicity, its comic relief yokels, its villainous squire, and its matchless moral.

Way Down East (1920) Starring: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess ... Patrick Nash from ThreeMovieBuffs

D.W. Griffith made his five greatest pictures with Lillian Gish as his muse. She starred in The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920) and Orphans of the Storm (1921). While C.B. DeMille was making extravagant escapist entertainment with Gloria Swanson, Griffith and Gish were striving to create ART.

Way Down East is about a young girl from the country. She lives with her ailing mother and they are very poor. The girl goes off to the city to beg for financial assistance from rich relatives that want nothing to do with her. She meets a wealthy man who pretends to fall in love with her, then he stages a fake wedding and takes advantage of her innocence. She gets pregnant and then learns that the wedding was a sham and that she is now an outcast from decent society.

She returns to her mother with the tragic news. Her mother soon dies and the poor girl is left alone in the world with a small baby to raise. Her baby isn't long for this world however. So the girl is once again alone. She meets a religious family that lives on a farm and they take her in, being unaware of her scandalous past of course. The grown son of this family quickly begins to fall for the new girl who seems incredibly sweet and such a hard worker.

Of course her secret comes out eventually and the girl, in the midst of despair and shame, is told to leave by the patriarch. She gets lost in a blizzard and winds up on an ice flow in a river heading for a waterfall. The boy comes to the rescue and his family, overcome with guilt at the way they have behaved, welcomes the girl back into their home with open arms. The movie ends with her wedding to the boy.

Lillian Gish was probably the greatest dramatic actress of the silent era. The scene where her baby dies in her arms is brilliant. The way she realizes that his tiny hands have grown cold, then begins blowing on them and rubbing them. Finally she cannot deny the truth any longer and she collapses in hysterics. Too bad the Oscars weren't around yet because she deserved to win for this one. She even suffered permanent damage to her right hand from trailing it in the icy water for so many hours during the shooting of the climax. Talk about suffering for your art.

As emotionally powerful as this movie is it is not without its flaws. It is a bit longer than it needs to be and there are a few inappropriate attempts at slapstick that seem forced and out of place. Richard Barthelmess is good as the hero. He had such matinee idol looks. But this movie is really a one woman show for Gish.

As a movie director D. W. Griffith was truly a visionary and Way Down East ranks as one of his five greatest pictures.

D.W. Griffith's Morality Tale, 'Way Down East', has One of the Greatest ... Jose Solis from Pop Matters, February 6, 2012

Way Down East - TCM.com Susan Doll

The Greatest Films - comprehensive analysis of classic US film Tim Dirks

Thoughts on: “Way Down East” | Silent-ology January 12, 2015

Way Down East Blu-ray Review - Blu-ray.com Casey Broadwater

Joshua Review's D.W. Griffith's 'Way Down East' [Blu-ray Review] Joshua Brunsting

DVD Savant Blu-ray Review: Way Down East Glenn Erickson

Way Down East | Blu-ray Review | Slant Magazine Joseph Jon Lanthier

D.W. Griffith on Blu-ray: THE BIRTH OF A NATION & WAY DOWN EAST J. Hurtado from Screen Anarchy

Way Down East (1920) A Silent Film Review – Movies Silently Fritzi Kramer

"Way Down East" (1920) director D. W. Griffith, cinematographer Billy ... cinematographer Billy Bitzer

Filmcritic.com Paul Brenner

Review: 'Way Down East' - Variety

Washington Post [Mark Adamo]

Way Down East - Wikipedia

ORPHANS OF THE STORM

USA (150 mi) 1921

Edinburgh U Film Society [Martin Hunt]

Griffith's neglected epic stars the Gish sisters as victims of the chaos that hits Paris during the French Revolution. Authentic down to real champagne at an aristocratic bacchanal, the film depicts the storming of the Bastille with spectacular flair. While the director's handling of humour (clumsy) and pathos (heavily milked) demands some generosity from the audience, the eternal radiance of Lillian Gish shines through everything. The restored print under review (in 1998), from New York's Museum of Modern Art, is fine on detail but suffers from excessive tinting.

"No more gorgeous thing has ever been offered on the the screen. It has motion within motion, action within action, and it builds up to crashing climaxes with all that superb deftnition which makes Mr Griffith first and always the showman". So read one review in Moving Picture World after Orphans of the Storm premiered. After watching the film you might agree that the comments are exaggerated, yet still relevant more that 70 years after they were written. D.W. Griffith, the father of the motion picture, was directing his favourite actress, Lillian Gish, and her sister Dorothy, in this melodramatic epic set in revolutionary France.

The story has Henriette and Louise as the orphaned sisters enduring a series of tribulations designed to tug your heart strings. Louise is blind, and cruelly separated from her sister, raised by thieves, and Henriette is the sweet innocent plundered by lecherous aristocrats. It's an implausible tale, but casting that aside it's also a beautiful fairy story with an excellent climax that has Henriette facing the guillotine. Griffith and Lillian Gish together made a series of films that are truly "classic" - Birth Of A Nation, Broken Blossoms, Hearts Of The World, Intolerance, True Heart Susie and Way Down East. Most are only known to film buffs and historians, becoming slightiy creaky after the passage of time. They were all silent movies, and different to anything then or since, and Orphans is one of the best examples that captures the particular mood and magic Griffith could create.

Griffith also subtly put in an anti-communist message, with title cards like "The tyranny of kings and nobles is hard to bear, but the tyranny of the maddened mob under blood-lusting rulers is intolerable" and others that stab at anarchy and bolshevism. But he was mainly interested in making a good film that would enthrall its audience.

Turner Classic Movies Felicia Feaster

Set on the eve of the French Revolution, D.W. Griffith's 1921 epic Orphans of the Storm interweaves history and melodrama in equal measure. Griffith follows the intertwined fates of two orphan girls, Henriette (Lillian Gish) and Louise (Dorothy Gish), whose fates are tied to the country's cruel divisions between rich and poor. Louise is the unwanted product of a marriage between an aristocratic member of the powerful De Vaudrey family and a commoner. She is taken away from her mother and deposited on the steps of Notre Dame where she is rescued by an impoverished man with a daughter of his own, Henrietta. The little girls grow up side by side as sisters. But they eventually lose their parents -- and Louise's eyesight -- to the plague.

The sisters' destinies are again cataclysmically affected during their journey to Paris to see a doctor who will restore Louise's eyesight. The trip brings them into disastrous conflict with a decadent aristocrat, the Marquis de Praille (Morgan Wallace), and the slowly escalating mob violence of the French Revolution.

Lillian Gish first suggested that her frequent collaborator Griffith film the enormously popular play "The Two Orphans," which had been translated into 40 languages, thinking of her sister Dorothy in the role of the other orphan. Interestingly, Griffith cast Dorothy as Louise, the passive blind victim, when it was Lillian who was best known for playing helpless heroines. Most who knew her would attest that Dorothy was the more vivacious and strong willed of the two sisters. Lillian had written of her sister in 1927 "She is laughter, even on the cloudy days of life; nothing bothers her or saddens her or concerns her lastingly."

Griffith decided to enlarge the scope of the melodrama by weaving in historical details from the French Revolution including the historical figures Danton and Robespierre. He made every effort to be true to real events and took additional inspiration from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and History of the French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle, which Lillian Gish noted every major player in the film studied. Carlyle's book was, in fact, also a major influence on Dickens, who took the incident of an aristocrat's carriage running over a small child from Carlyle's book (Griffith incorporated this into his film).

Griffith also used Orphans of the Storm as a means of commenting, obliquely, on contemporary politics of his time. He drew parallels between the anarchist mobs that overthrew the French aristocrats, and what he says in opening titles to the film are the present American dangers of succumbing to the kind of "anarchy and bolshevism" he perceived in the recent Russian Revolution. It is, of course, a great historical irony that those Bolsheviks Griffith railed against were quite smitten with the director's incomparable ways of generating film tension in crosscutting as well as his cinematic means of conveying good and evil via sophisticated editing and framing techniques. As the father of film syntax Griffith was an enormous influence on the Soviet filmmakers Sergei Einstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin, who were inspired by many of his films including the anti-Bolshevik Orphans of the Storm.

Orphans of the Storm was the last movie the Gish sisters made together and Lillian's last film for Griffith. The film received rave reviews including one in The Moving Picture World which gushed "No more gorgeous thing has ever been offered on the screen," but only moderate box office success, and a great deal of the film's thunder was stolen by the premiere one week later of Erich von Stroheim's Foolish Wives (1922). Silent film scholar William K. Everson has also attributed the film's lackluster box office to a change in audience tastes including their more jaded and cynical sensibilities, as well as the film's lack of a strong male star. But Griffith was determined to make a financially lucrative picture, and so changed aspects of the film after its New York run, toning down some of the violence and adding more comic elements which many critics felt incongruous with the film's dramatic features.

After the enormous success and popularity of the films Griffith made between 1915 and 1920, The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), Hearts of the World (1918), Broken Blossoms (1919) and Way Down East (1920), Orphans signaled the end of Griffith's great epics as the popularity of his brand of melodramas began to wane. His later films never reached the money-making heights of his previous efforts.

ToxicUniverse.com (David Abrams)

MediaScreen.com Paul Brenner

MovieMartyr.com [Jeremy Heilman]

Self-Styled Siren

Full Review New York Times 1922 Review

Grimaldi, Antonio Luigi

QUIET CHAOS (Caos calmo) C+ 79

Italy Great Britain (105 mi) 2008 trailer stills

Otherwise known as THE SON’S ROOM (2001) Part II, using a different director for actor Nanni Moretti who this time loses his wife in the opening reel of the film, ironically after he and his brother perform heroic rescues of drowning women at the beach. As an advocate of Moretti’s initial film, a small gem of poetic understatement on grief and redemption, one who believes the Cannes jury got it right when it was awarded the top prize, I’m also aware that many simply detested the film, including The Village Voice’s J. Hoberman who felt “inclined to despise a smugly benign attitude behind this film.” Well perhaps those that hated Moretti’s film will like this one better, a charming, somewhat nuanced tale on grief and recovery with a preposterous narrative thread that the audience is simply expected to accept. Moretti is a TV business executive who after his wife’s loss suddenly stops showing up for work and invests all his energy on the health and recovery of his 10-year old daughter Claudia, (Blu Di Martino), spending the majority of his day across the street from her school in a park, which becomes a microcosm of the world around them. If only this was an option for working families. I’m not aware that even the most benevolent employers in the world would allow this kind of absence, yet he continues to discuss work over the phone and meet with business associates who one by one visit him in the park to give personal updates on the progress of an impending merger of the company. But even accepting the unlikely idea that these things happen, the pop musical selections in this film simply don’t work with the exception of Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song,” as they abruptly change the mood from intimate to a more box office happy song you might play on a jukebox in a crowded bar. The intentional commercial strains are a bit obvious.

Adapted from a best selling book by Sandro Veronesi, the film has a notorious sex scene between Moretti and actress Isabella Ferrari that the Vatican found scandalous, which perhaps guaranteed box office success for this picture, though having seen it, I’m not even sure it’s an essential part of the film. While performances are excellent overall, including a ditzy performance from his wife’s sister, Valeria Golino, who at one point starts peeling her blouse off in the middle of the street, her emotional outburst to a car accident that she caused, the film does occasionally add absurd humor, especially from Moretti’s brother (Alessandro Gasman), who’s terrific throughout and is a bit of a playboy character. The emotional tone which is at the heart of this film too often feels contrived, as Moretti remains mostly calm and detached after his wife’s death, where there’s even a suggestion they were not close, yet there’s a transition after a single visit to a parent group help meeting to belated tears of grief that feels prompted by the script instead of any character development. The use of the park bench as a form of REAR WINDOW (1954) is a clever touch, as there is an underplayed charm to much of the personal interaction that takes place between minor characters nearby, including a surprise appearance by none other than Roman Polanski as the new CEO in charge, but you can’t help feeling there are tonal shifts throughout this film that aren’t the least bit natural. The father/daughter relationship does feel genuine, largely due to the enormous appeal of his young daughter, but with Moretti in the lead role and co-author, some may feel coerced to see this as a variation on Moretti’s original theme, though it’s not nearly as subtle as Moretti’s film and much of it feels like it’s treading the same emotional territory.

User comments from imdb Author: buonanotte from United Kingdom

Nanni Moretti (playing the role of an experienced TV executive) at some point says: "...Take care about Italian cinema? Yes, of course. It's everyone's priority!". It's not the first time that filmmakers mix art and reality and this time the result fits perfectly. "Caos calmo" has a simple but intriguing plot. Most of the movie takes place around a bench in a park but there's nothing surreal (A part probably from a spicy sex scene...) and it never looses rhythm or credibility. If you like Moretti's movies you're gonna love it but you'll be much more interested if you are wishing to see a fresh and sweet'n'sour story. Despite a mournful start (The death of a mother/wife) Grimaldi tries not to show us tears or desperation. We see a huge number of hugs instead and a large amount of children (The bench is in front of a school). We see sunny days and professionals on their break, enforcing the "human" aspect of every character. The film is never raw as it's never too soft. I think that next time Grimaldi should be allowed to push a little bit more in order to find his own mark.

User comments from imdb Author: evey92 from Italy

Oh, what a pleasant surprise: finally an intelligent Italian movie won the box-office battle. Yes, many people went to see the movie because of the notorious sex scene between Nanni Moretti and Isabella Ferrari, branded as obscene by the Vatican, but I hope they understood that behind the four hot minutes there was a movie, a true, heartfelt movie. The screenplay simplified many aspects of the novel, however they did a wonderful job: I prefer the movie to the book, for once, also because I just couldn't get on with the book. The Berlin Film Festival didn't appreciate "Quiet Chaos"; I'm not a professional critic, but I can assure "Quiet Chaos" is a movie full of sensibility, sweetness and depth, and it doesn't tell the usual, banal and cloying story. Nanni Moretti isn't wooden at all; Alessandro Gassman and Isabella Ferrari prove they can act; Alba Rohrwacher, Silvio Orlando and Valeria Golino are great actors and never disappoint; but the most sparkling star is the young Blu Yoshimi, with her impressive eyes and smile and her natural talent. I hope she'll have a bright future. The soundtrack comments the images beautifully; now I'm desperately seeking "Cigarettes and chocolate milk", by Rufus Wainwright, a magnificent song that must be part of my play list.

Zoom in Online (Mike Raffensperger) review

In troubling times, solace is often found in strange places. Enter Quiet Chaos. This serene, simple film from Italy made waves at this year's Berlin Film Festival, and for good reason. Rare is the movie that receives both critical and commercial success, and rarer still for a foreign film with a fully Italian dialogue. Helmed by weathered director Antonio Grimaldi, Quiet Chaos is not without its flaws, but it does possess a certain, well, quiet charm.

The story follows Pietro Paladini, a successful business executive struggling to connect with Claudia, his 10 year old daughter, after the unexpected death of his wife. Unable to lock-step with his own life, Pietro takes Claudia to school, deciding to wait in a nearby park all day for her to return. Finding a sort of peace there, he returns everyday thereafter in a comforting routine of people watching, games with children and glimpses of Claudia. His friends, family and business partners all visit him to offer condolences and support, but find him in a state of incomprehensible calm. Eventually each visitor submits to Pietro's unflappable composure, unloading their own woes and worries on him.

Unfortunately, those woes and worries don't always tie in well with the larger narrative. The story gets a bit muddled with business mergers, a pregnant sister-in-law, designer jeans, a romantic entanglement and a sexually charged interplay with a woman Pietro saves from drowning early in the film. As an effort to tell a cohesive story, these side plots are a distraction. As an effort to drive home a theme, the relational disconnect of modern life, it works well.

And this is perhaps the film's greatest strength. It captures what post-modern life feels like. Pietro's inability to grieve, his detachment from those around him and the swirling turmoil of the everyday creates the storm of life, with Pietro firmly in its eye. Subtle, lucid photography add to this surrealism, which Pietro tries to make sense of by creating internal lists; airlines he has flown, places he will never return, things he knows about his wife. It's a well-used device that translates suitably from the novel, offering the audience a way to relate to an outwardly temperate man. Mix in a stellar soundtrack featuring well known American and English groups like Radiohead and Rufus Wainwright, and Quiet Chaos delivers one very emotionally satisfying experience.

The performances across the board are superb, from leading man Nanni Moretti (an accomplished filmmaker in his own right) to a supporting cast of believable, well-rounded characters. Little Blu Di Martino who plays Claudia delivers a solid performance, plucking at the right heartstrings. It's a difficult role for Moretti and Martino, demanding significant restraint yet desiring abject sorrow. They play extremely well off each other, creating a touching and believable father-daughter relationship.

There is little grandeur to Quiet Chaos, but that only adds to its appeal. Lacking the spice of a Little Miss Sunshine or the snark of a Juno, it's a smooth, simple and deeply human story that sits warmly in the belly.

Treat yourself.

The Hollywood Reporter review Natasha Senjanovic

ROME -- In "Quiet Chaos," directed by Antontello Grimaldi ("Bits and Pieces") and featuring Italian enfant terrible actor-director Nanni Moretti, what unfolds is a father's love for his 10-year-old daughter as he copes with the unexpected death of his wife. This marks the first time Moretti has starred in a film not directed by him in 13 years.

"Quiet Chaos," which recently screened at the Berlin International Film Festival and is playing in Italy, will not disappoint international audiences that have come to appreciate Moretti's trademark irony and growing maturity as an actor. Make no mistake, this is a Moretti vehicle as there are few scenes in which he does not appear.

After a painfully stiff opening, the film slowly but assuredly loses its literary feel -- it was adapted from the eponymous novel by Sandro Veronesi by Moretti, Laura Paolucci and Francesco Piccolo -- to find its pace and heart. In the same moment that media executive Pietro Paladini (Moretti) and his brother Carlo (Alessandro Gassman) save two women from drowning, Pietro's wife dies from a fatal fall. Left alone with his daughter, Claudia (Blu Yoshimi), he worries about her lack of emotion over the loss as well as his own. Neither has broken down since the death, enveloped by a strange calm, and he does not understand why.

Shortly thereafter, on the first day of school, Pietro promises Claudia that he will wait for her in front of the building all day, without moving. He proceeds to do just that. One day turns into two, then a week and eventually months as he sits in a park in front of the school, observing and getting to know the other mothers, neighborhood residents and regular passersby.

His co-workers and family try to persuade him to get a grip on himself and return to work. Slowly, however, they start seeking Pietro not to offer consolation but to get advice. He becomes caught up in a pregnancy, the breakdown of the marriage of the woman he saved and his company's forthcoming merger.

A reluctant guru who wants only to be left alone, Pietro tries to make sense of his feelings and, in an effective use of narrative, creates lists in his head to keep himself occupied such as the airlines he has flown and houses he has lived in throughout his life.

Managing to avoid facile sentimentality, the story grows emotionally more and more engaging thanks to Moretti's impeccable comic timing and neurotic acumen. While we never forget we are watching Moretti, we do see a deeper side to him as his brusque awkwardness finds a perfect outlet here.

Not knowing how to help Claudia, in his own fumbling yet unrelenting way Pietro seems more surprised than anyone to realize that showing his daughter he loves her means offering her trustworthiness and stability, which we are led to believe did not come easily to him before Laura's death.

Moretti makes ample room for the other actors, from Gassman, whose playboy nonchalance is balanced by his deep love for his brother, to Silvio Orlando, who plays Pietro's nebbish colleague. Yoshimi is wonderfully low-key as the precocious yet hard-to-read Claudia. French stars Hippolyte Girardot and Charles Berling also give solid turns in their secondary roles.

"Quiet Chaos" already has sparked controversy for a sex scene between Moretti and Isabella Ferrari. Certainly not scandalous by European standards, the sequence is difficult to watch because Moretti is often called Italy's Woody Allen and like the American icon has always been known for his woman-crazed yet relatively sexless intellect and comedy. It therefore seems like watching a family member having sex, and rough sex at that, which makes the scene all the more perplexing. At best, it might have been intended to show that his increasing tenderness is truly new to him, but it is in such contrast to the rest of his character that it simply makes Pietro less sympathetic.

Luckily, Moretti carries the film through to its touching finale with an emotional restraint that belies the profound desire for salvation of an imperfect man and father.

Screen International review Lee Marshall in Berlin from Screendaily

cinemattraction (Maxine Harfield) review

BFI | Sight & Sound | The London Film Festival: Quiet Chaos - No ... Geoffrey Macnab from Sight and Sound, November 2008

Variety.com [Jay Weissberg]

Catholic storm over Moretti's 'stand-up sex' movie | Film ... The Guardian, February 14, 2008

Grisebach, Valeska

BE MY STAR (Mein Stern) B+ 90

Austria Germany (65 mi) 2001

This near-documentary style film could also be titled “Unloved” or “The Loneliness of a Short-Termed Relationship,” written and directed by Ms Grisebach, the story follows two young teenagers who believe they have found love, but really, it’s more like physical attraction, and painfully, the camera meticulously follows the development of their relationship where between them, they really have nothing to say, yet they can’t live without one another. I was reminded by how lonely it was being a teenager, as you have had so few meaningful experiences of your own that you really don’t know anything yet, rarely does one have intelligent opinions, everything is reflected in the world around you, but not in you, so this film accurately reflects how few kids have anything to say and how isolated they are by this inability to communicate. The acting by Nicole Glaser and her real life sister, Monique, was superb, especially an elongated dance sequence of Nicole dancing alone. The emotional feel of the film is always unsentimental and honest, but quite restrained; all the emotions are largely kept in check, so the audience keeps waiting for something to burst, as it would in an adult relationship, but with kids, the film may be more about what doesn’t happen than what does.

Gröning, Philip

INTO GREAT SILENCE (Die große Stille) B+ 92

France Switzerland Germany (169 mi) 2005 Watch the trailer

The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
—1 Kings 19:11-12

Filmed somewhat in the Wiseman mode without any narrative explanation until the end, using a single digital camera with different lenses ranging from crystal clear sharply defined, mostly outdoor images to grainy, softly smudged out of focus impressionistic images to experimental, altered time imagery, we learn that Gröning waited 13 years to get permission to film inside the Grande Chartreuse monastery, situated in the French Alps near Grenoble, where near silent monks of the Carthusian order, founded in 1084 by St. Bruno, continue to lead a rigorously ascetic existence. No history or background information is provided, instead we witness the arrival of new monks who are accepted into the order, where they are immediately immersed, as are we the viewers, into the steady rhythm of everyday life in the monastery. Using only Biblical text as inner-titles, we follow the philosophical thread of the texts being practiced in the daily lives of the various monks, who read Biblical texts or carry out academic research, including the use of a computer, who spend much of the day on their knees in silent prayerful genuflection or singing Latin chants in unison as a group at Church services, or in silent contemplation as they take meals alone in their rooms, which consists of fruit, soup and a salad, which they eat in solitude as they stare out their windows, and on occasion they can be seen sweeping up, keeping their quarters clean.

There are shots of each monk staring straight at the camera for a few moments, as over time, we learn to identify some of them, one of whom is blind, a man who gives us his explanation of Godliness, that the closer you are to God the happier you are, and the closer you come to death, the nearer you come to meeting God, “for God, there is no past, only the present.” New monks seem to wear black and white robes with hoods, while the older wear only white. One monk with a white beard is the only monk who spends a great deal of time outdoors and he wears a blue robe, which is caked with dirt most of the time, as he is constantly busying himself with hard work, taking care of the water supply from a well, shoveling snow in winter, planting and protecting the vegetable gardens, or performing various carpentry work. The man simply loves the great outdoors despite being hunched over and walking with a limp, occasionally resorting to a cane. Outdoors, the monks seem to converse freely, sometimes acting very child-like, such as a beautiful moment when they take a walk through the mountains in the snow before cavorting down the steep inclines like a toboggan slide, using their feet as skis, trying to maintain their balance, sometimes trying to knock their fellow monks over as they both fall into the snow, but other times they all gather together outside as a group picking each others brains, attempting to unlock the mysteries of life and faith, filled with a healthy curiosity that abounds, each moving towards a possible state of grace. The camera continues to find natural settings which by themselves account for a contemplative mood, such as snow falling, trees in the wind or moving clouds, ice melting, the immense mountainous expanse or shifting stars in the sky.

But overall, this is a long, drawn out, wordless cinematic essay on solitary religious expression, where the camera walks the halls as just another member of the order, becoming a silent participant, where we see the monks give each other hair cuts using old-fashioned electric clippers that jam occasionally, but each member gets their head sheared to near bald, or one monk lovingly cares for a group of friendly cats, where most are quite shy about revealing themselves, but mostly we see the monks routinely return to the Church in both candle-lit darkness and the natural lightness of day to chant and pray and hold mass, led by one of their own, a service initiated by the ringing of church bells. What we don’t see are baths or showers or shaving rituals, not even the presence of a doctor, also there are no images of death or funeral ceremonies. No cemetery grounds are ever seen or visited. Instead this is a near dialogue-free journey into one of the farthest corners of the earth, a hermetic existence rarely opened up to the world until this film. Personally, I was disappointed by the repeated interruptions of the Biblical inner-titles translated into French, German, and English, as if the filmmaker was providing texts that the monks themselves constantly referred to. I would have much preferred no interruptions, which might have felt more like an experimental, free form expression, but this would also have provided a more spititual and mysterious aspect to the film, which is, after all, about the search for meaning in life. One particular hallway is frequented in the film, with numerous archways above it, as if each is a stepping stone, and like the pathway of life, one must learn to traverse the entire hallway before it opens up into a great expanse at the end, perhaps a metaphor for that eternal state of grace.

european-films.net Boyd van Hoeij

A mesmerizing, almost three-hour film with real-life monks instead of hobbits and the Bible as its ultimate source rather than Tolkien, such is the premise of Die große Stille (Die grosse Stille / Into Great Silence) from German documentary maker Philip Gröning. His portrait of life in the Grande Chartreuse monastery near Grenoble is a masterfully labyrinthine work that seemingly extends in all directions indefinitely -- just like its architectural setting. But after Gröning’s grand tour, one would still be able to live there comfortably, knowing what goes on where throughout the year. Adventurous arthouse distributors, documentary festivals and broadcasters will want to contemplate programming this quite unique film experience.

Filmed, edited and produced by the director, the film is clearly a labour of love that wants to offer a glimpse of religious life without ever truly fathoming it, leaving part of the mystical hanging in the air for the audience to ponder. To this end, Die grosse Stille offers images but almost no dialogue, expressly making the monks into archetypes rather than personalities. There is never an indication of why these men have chosen the solitary religious life or that somehow their numbers are dwindling (though it is quite clear that the Grande Chartreuse complex is made for more men than are seen) or that there exists indeed any other kind of problem in their lives. All that matters is the steady rhythm of life in a cloister, and Gröning is only interested in the monk’s daily life to the extent that it represents the daily life of any monk living in confinement -- the film could have been made in a monastery in 12th century Tibet and would have fundamentally been the same.

There is only the sense of steady contemplation and prayer, day after day, season after season. On Sundays the religious men are allowed their walk beyond the monastery walls and have a chat with each other, but otherwise days are made up of reading, praying and silently taking care of the community in one form or another: cooking, cleaning, gardening, sowing, cutting wood or doing accounting with the aid of -- gasp -- a computer. Short portrait shots of the monks looking directly into the camera and repeated intertitles taken from Jesus’ teachings help the film find a tone that is both meditative and inquisitive at the same time -- akin to the way the monks seems to approach the mysteries of faith.

The film was shot using a single digital camera and the image quality ranges from pin-sharp to extremely grainy since no extra lighting was allowed inside the convent. Gröning exploits these restrictions to lend many close-ups an air of the pointillist paintings of Seurat. (The work of cinematographer Anthony Dodd Mantle, part of the film’s 2nd unit, might have something to do with it as well: he helped define the DOGME aesthetic and a similar technique was used to show the thoughts of the characters in Susanne Bier’s DOGME film Elsker dig for evigt/Open Hearts). The shots of minute details are contrasted with wide shots of the monastery under a wide and often cloud-filled expanse of sky, where the sun, moon and stars alternate each other with the regularity of a Swiss watch. The implication is clear: through a simple observation of both simple details and larger-than-life structures over a long period of time, these monks become fully immersed in the mystery of God and the universe. For lay people, Gröning’s portrait of their lives might offer a sanctuary of silence, contemplation, respect and inquiry into a quickly vanishing tradition that helped build the world we live in. And it only requires 164 minutes -- hardly a lifetime.

Reel.com [Bonnie Fazio]

German director Philip Gröning received permission several years ago to film a documentary inside the Grande Chartreuse—the head monastery, situated in the French Alps, of the centuries-old Carthusian order of monks. As the monks, founded by St. Bruno in 1084, are mostly silent—a conversational interlude is allotted weekly, for example—and live a cloistered existence, certain restrictions were imposed: Gröning had to make his film without artificial lighting; without music (other than the monks' chanting of their daily offices) or outside commentary; without a crew.

Although Gröning explains on the film's official website that these conditions meshed perfectly with his intentions, filmmaking in such circumstances is nonetheless an achievement in its own right. And Gröning deserves great credit for depicting the monks' world so faithfully that viewers almost feel as though they, too, are living in a monastery.

In early exterior shots, the quiet is so complete that we can hear the snow falling. Other, interior sounds—the turning of a Bible's pages; fabric smoothed before cutting for a novitiate's robe; the light creak of a chair or floorboard—emphasize the absence of chatter and distraction. Occasionally, there are loud noises, such as those made by the chopping and sawing of firewood.

Generally, stillness prevails. Monks spend their days reciting the canonical offices (both alone and, thrice daily, as a group), praying, reading, attending Mass, eating (both alone and, once a week, as a group), and working. The Carthusian order combines hermetical and communal aspects, so these religious men are not isolated from one another—they just live outside of most worldly concerns.

Gröning's film is experiential, and, by necessity, not particularly informational. Not every viewer will succumb to its spell. Indeed, many will grow restless with the long, sometimes grainy shots (Gröning used 35mm and Super 8) of men praying, reading and studying, and of snow falling, ice melting, and stars crossing the sky (this reviewer admits she did). Scraping vegetables, shoveling snow, feeding the monastery's cats—these serve as welcome, action-packed interludes. A few Portland International Film Festival audience members—a group notoriously tolerant of slow-paced cinema—tiptoed out before the film had ended. Not many of us are suited for a Carthusian vocation.

The film's pacing and its meditative, almost hypnotic quality are completely in fulfillment of Gröning's intentions, not at all a failure to engage. Silence won't engage everyone, but it achieves its purpose.

Official site of the Carthusian order

"Into Great Silence" is a transcendent, transporting experience, a trance movie that casts a major league spell by going deeply into a monastic world that lives largely without words. In the hands of filmmaker Philip Groning, it becomes clear that silence is not the absence of sound, it's a physical place, a destination with value and meaning in a chaotic world, arrived at with difficulty and departed with regret.

German documentary filmmaker Groning tried for 15 years to gain admittance to the Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps near Grenoble before the intense, white-robed Carthusians, on site since 1084 and known as the most rigorous and ascetic monastic order in the Western world, let him inside the walls.

Groning stayed at the monastery for six months, living the life of a monk as well as serving as writer, director, producer, cinematographer and editor on this two-hour and 42-minute film that has played successfully across Europe.

The length is essential, for "Into Great Silence" intends not to observe or provide information. It wants to completely immerse the viewer in the monastic experience, to enable you to feel what it is like to live the life, showing rather than simply telling what being there was like.

Not surprisingly, the first instinct with this film, as it would be with a life of meditation and devotion, is to resist, to feel that not enough is happening to keep us interested and involved. When you add the fact that the monks almost never speak, it's hard to imagine what the fuss is about.

Gradually, however, Groning's unobtrusive, respectful camera work draws you into the rhythms of the monastic life, into both the time spent in solitary prayer and the various subsistence occupations the monks take on.

From seeing the careful measurement needed to construct a robe to watching vegetables literally go from seeds to soup, "Into Great Silence" allows us to feel as if we're partaking of a contemplative, life-out-of-time experience.

The unexpected paradox of "Into Great Silence" is that the overpowering quiet has the effect of intensifying any and all sounds, making the smallest noise seem pregnant with meaning. Whether it's the turning of pages, the ticking of a clock or the rustling of fabric, that great silence makes us more alive to what is going on around us. To be aware of the world, the monks would likely say, is to be aware of God's munificence in creating it for our benefit.

To emphasize the centrality of Catholic worship to the monastic experience, "Into Great Silence" periodically puts biblical texts, for instance Christ's pointed admonition that "anyone who does not give up all he has cannot be my disciple," up on the screen. Especially poignant is a quote from 1 Kings that explains that, although God was not to be found in earthquake or fire, "after the fire came a gentle whisper."

Worship also plays a key part in the monastery's soundscape. The ringing of bells divides the day and calls the monks to their frequent prayers, and the only time a monk is seen to rush is when the bell ringer is late to his task. Especially haunting are the nighttime worship services featuring Gregorian chants that are positively hypnotic coming out of so much silence.

All this may sound rather cold and forbidding, but "Into Great Silence" shows the monks living fuller lives than one might imagine. They benefit from the communality of monastic life, are allowed to talk during once-a-week walks outside the monastery's walls, and can be seen using their boots as skis in wintertime and incongruously sliding down steep and snowy hills.

"Into Great Silence" is finally a film where nothing seems to happen but everything comes to pass. Though it likely will not persuade people to join the ranks, experiencing life behind the walls has an undeniable effect. We've been allowed a glimpse of eternity. And who would not be changed by that?

Decent Films - faith on film [Steven D. Greydanus]

BFI | Sight & Sound | Into Great Silence (2005) Catherine Wheatley from Sight and Sound, February 2007

The House Next Door [Annie Frisbie]

Film Journal International (Chris Barsanti)

Director Philip Gröning discusses life at the Grande Chartreuse monastery, the presence of God in the world, and his award-winning film

Interview with director Philip Groening Angela Zito from The Revealer

Slant Magazine [Keith Uhlich]

RogerEbert.com (Jim Emerson)

Red Army Faction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Grosse, Nina

THE WEEKEND (Das wochenende) C 74

Germany (97 mi) 2012 ‘Scope

Nina Grosse has mostly directed TV movies, so there’s nothing that suggests she is remotely qualified to tackle this material, based on a novel by Bernard Schlink that she allegedly rewrote, basically removing nearly all political content, in a film re-examining the effects of the RAF activities during their reign of terror from the 1970’s to the late 90’s in Germany, as viewed from the present when revolutionary talk is no longer in the air. Sebastian Koch plays Jens Kessler, released after spending 18 years in prison for activities that are never named in this film. A small collective prepares to greet him, but with extreme trepidation, as their lives have taken such a reverse course from their youth, becoming part of the complacent, petty bourgeois, middle class, the status quo that they were once railing against. Feeling guilty over their transition from radicals to capitalist consumers, no one wants to be reminded of the indiscretions of their youth. Kessler’s release, however, does exactly that. His sister Tina (Barbara Auer) has purchased a country home in what was formerly East Germany, getting a good deal as housing prices remain cheap, but the squabbling couple of the opening is a former girlfriend now married to someone else, Inga (Katja Riemann) and her husband Ulrich (Tobias Moretti), where Inga appears to be in shock at the idea of a mandatory visit and hastens to find an alternative excuse to quickly excuse themselves. The enormous home and spacious grounds feel more like a retreat and couldn’t be more blended into its natural elements, where the back yard leads to an actual forest. For whatever reason, in films portraying Baader-Meinhof or RAF radicals, they always live in these luxurious surroundings, an odd comment on their anti-capitalist politics, as it would be unthinkable and impossible, for instance, to see the Black Panthers living in such lavish wealth.

When Inga and Ulrich arrive to this little welcome home party, followed by a journalist who wrote a book about the movement, Henner (Sylvester Groth), the initial impression is that they have all completely moved on with their lives, but Kessler is an unsettling presence, as he’s still living in the moment of his arrest, feeling irate that he was set up, holding fast to the same principles and revolutionary attitudes of the past even as there is no link to anyone in the present. While there are various socialist parties existing in Germany today, Kessler never mentions any of them, but continues to live in the past as if that radical world still exists, as it does in his mind, where he spends most of the visit sitting outside alone smoking cigarettes, avoiding social contact. The actual conversations together have an absurdly ridiculous feel to them, as Ulrich attacks his pompous arrogance for continuing to believe they were anything other than killers, while Kessler angrily calls him a reactionary, where the reunion turns into an adolescent rehashing of personal insults, where the director’s focus written throughout the re-written screenplay appears to be an insistence that radicals apologize for their past sins. Kessler, on the other hand, feels no remorse, and in this film version the viewers aren’t even allowed to know what sins he committed, which is a superficial whitewash of history. Instead of any intellectual discourse, which would likely be the real subject of such a gathering, this turns into a dysfunctional family melodrama, as soon the children enter into the story, which completely changes the overly somber and self-absorbed tone of the movie, where Kessler at one point says “I feel like I just lived through my funeral.”

Without being invited, Inga’s daughter Dora (Elisa Schlott) arrives on the scene, a seemingly shallow blond with a groupie complex about her father, where to her it’s all about slogans and massive protests, where her father is more of a name emblematic of a commodity, like a Che Guevara T-shirt, where the past has a thoroughly sanitized but heavily romanticized aspect about it, as if those were the good years, unlike the present where no one believes in anything anymore but themselves. Her over-protective and indulgent middle class lifestyle is in stark contrast to Kessler’s radical views. Dora summons her brother Gregor (Robert Gwisdek), who has been mentioned and forgotten by his parents in the same sentence over the weekend, but his entrance into the family proceedings couldn’t be more boldly ostentatious, and it’s the only moment throughout the entire film that has any level of theatrical tension or unpredictability, as he bitterly hates his father with such a vengeance, it’s like Hamlet going after his stepfather, as the kid feels like he’s been wronged and he vows amends, literally challenging the masculinity of this legend of a man, attempting to undermine his stature in a clever but vehemently wicked manner. What has to be running through the viewer’s minds is the idea that these spoiled and ungrateful children are a reflection of the failed politics of the past, where the chickens have come home to roost, literally deflating the idea that Kessler actually stood for something. But in truth, their shallowness more accurately reflects the mindset of the filmmaker who hasn’t a clue what she’s dealing with here, turning the idea of radical politics into the Days of Our Lives.

It's Hard Out Here for a Revolutionary - Fipresci Jacob Lundström from FIPRESCI, September 2012

Adapted from a novel by Bernard Schlink, whose book The Reader was made into film in 2008 by Stephen Daldry, The Weekend (Das Wochenende) chronicles the loneliness of a long-distance revolutionary. The RAF terrorist Jens has isolated himself from his friends and family, not only as a consequence of his 18 year long time spent in prison, but also because of his firm political convictions.

Jens' sister brings him to a house in the country, where old friends join in to celebrate his release from prison. One of them is his former lover Inga, who brings her husband to the table, an affluent pastry professional who enjoys the good life. A petit-choux bourgeois who embodies everything Jens finds reprehensible. Forget about class antagonism, let's eat some cake?

Another guest is a former fellow underground fighter who has written a book about the time, which Jens dismisses as "armchair psychology" neglecting their "political objectives".

I don't know if it is an irony lost on the filmmakers, but the same could of course also be said of The Weekend.

Armchair or not — in fact Jens seems to be doing most of his soul searching in a symbolic watchtower in the woods — are there any class enemies hiding in the mist or is it just an ideological illusion? — The Weekend dwells deep in psychological territory and is open to interpretation. Nina Grosse's film asks if courage means to hold on to one's beliefs or to reconsider them.

It doesn't take long for Jens to poison the celebrations with his accusatory remarks and blunt inquiries into who ratted him out. His struggle seems to have become stale, transformed into judgemental self-righteousness, constantly calling his friends out on their hypocrisy. Which apparently leaves him all alone in the fight.

The Weekend has the bitter after-taste of the semi-romantic revolutionary biopics of the last few years. Instead however of depicting the rise of the armed left-wing movements in the 1970s, as in Uli Edel's The Baader Meinhof Complex or Olivier Assaya's Carlos, The Weekend starts off after the fact.

In that sense, it is a politically depressed film, which doesn't suggest any possible progressive way forward. Nina Grosse has made a film about a politically disillusioned generation, in a time — or is it age? — since all the characters are well over 50 — when it is no longer chic to be revolutionary.

The reawakened love story between Jens and Inga is the main focus of the narrative (along with his confrontation with their son). But even if Inga wouldn't want to go back to hiding from the police in a tiny apartment in Hanover, her new encounter with Jens proves to be an eye-opener. Whether it is because of her convenient, but passion-lacking marriage or her sleepwalking bourgeois lifestyle, she revolts against it all in the end, is however not definitive.

Incidentally, the film itself tells the story of the lost radical aspirations of cinema. It is a well-acted but conventional kammerspiel, contented with capturing individual self-realization. The only thing The Weekend has in common with Jean-Luc Godard's film from 1967 is its title.

Variety Reviews - The Weekend - Film Reviews - Montreal - Review ... Dennis Harvey

Directed by Nina Grosse. Screenplay, Grosse, adapted from the novel by Bernhard Schlink.

With: Katja Riemann, Sebastian Koch, Tobias Moretti, Barbara Auer, Sylvester Groth, Robert Gwisdek, Elisa Schlott.

Another pulse-taking of a Germany still in recovery from -- and in thrall to -- the far-left terrorism of the 1970s, "The Weekend" reunites former radicals when their last comrade is released from prison. Nina Grosse's film takes considerable liberties in adapting the 2008 novel by "The Reader" author Bernhard Schlink, eliminating some characters whole, rejiggering others and excising some broader political-parallel musings. Result is an accomplished, consistently interesting but not especially satisfying drama of limited appeal to offshore auds less familiar with the historical events in question.

After 18 years behind bars, Jens (Sebastian Koch) is finally being released, news that his sister Tina (Barbara Auer) spreads to some of their onetime allies in the Red Army Faction, aka the Baader-Meinhof Gang. (In this fictive scenario, none represent specific real-life figures in that militant group, in contrast with some other recent film treatments.) It's a small, uneasy guest list at this "little welcoming get-together": Jens' former girlfriend, Inga (Katja Riemann), accompanied by her husband, Ulrich (Tobias Moretti), and journalist Henner (Sylvester Groth), who's written a book about their shared past.

Jens isn't entirely pleased by the reunion, which gets off to a rocky start when he denounces Henner's tome for "reducing it all to armchair psychology and disavowing our political ideas," while Ulrich -- who entered Inga's life after this tumultuous early chapter had ended -- bluntly dismisses the RAF as killers whose lofty goals didn't justify the deaths of innocent people. What's more, though they haven't been in contact for years, a still-smoldering spark between Inga and Jens has the potential to upend her now well-ordered bourgeois life. There's also another piece of unfinished business: the matter of who in the group turned police informant, resulting in Jens' capture and imprisonment.

Afraid to be left alone with her brother, Tina begs the others stay for the whole weekend. Things get even more turbulent when Inga's shallow wannabe-actress daughter, Doro (Elisa Schlott), turns up, then promptly summons half-brother Gregor (Robert Gwisdek), who bitterly resents Jens for his perceived abandonment.

Schlink used the same basic premise to explore not just the conflict between '70s radical fervor and middle-aged yuppie complacency, but also to draw comparisons to the Nazi era and the post-9/11 one. Grosse has dropped the latter, perhaps wisely, and also trimmed the cast list.

Yet despite that narrowed focus, the characters feel even less developed than in the novel, which some complained was already frustrating in that regard. Solid performances can only do so much to fill in the gaps, let alone imbue a murky non-ending with some import. Particularly for viewers who know little of the long shadow cast by the RAF, this glummer Deutsch "Big Chill" will provide scant insight of the kind provided by such prior similarly themed pics as "The Legends of Rita," "The State I Am In," "The Day Will Come" or (natch) "The Baader Meinhof Complex."

Though there's perhaps less than meets the eye here, that's precisely where "The Weekend" is most effective: Benedict Neuenfels' lensing balances human intimacy and the pastoral environ with a sharp intelligence echoed by Mona Brauer's editing. Other tech and design contributions are thoughtful.

Camera (color, HD), Benedict Neuenfels; editor, Mona Brauer; music, Stefan Will; production designer, Knut Loewe; art director, Martin Berg; costume designer, Ulla Gothe; sound (Dolby Digital), Paul Oberle; sound designer, Moritz Hoffmeister; re-recording mixers, Christian Bischoff, Michael Riedmiller; assistant director, Petra Misovic; casting, An Dorthe Braker. Reviewed at Montreal World Film Festival (competing), Aug. 26, 2012. Running time: 97 mi

Grossman, Barthélémy

13 m² B 87

France (84 mi) 2007 ‘Scope Official site

This is an ultra-stylish, in-your-face heist thriller that centers on the lives of three criminal participants who live in the banlieue projects of District 93 outside Paris, something of a modern day Three Musketeers tale gone wrong where the guys are such imbeciles that they self destruct almost immediately. Told from the point of view of the criminals, we are initially exposed to a living-on-the-edge lead character José, who is none other than the first time writer/ director himself, a guy who gets himself involved in scams that leave him continually looking over his shoulder at who might be following him. To say he is in trouble is an understatement, but he’s such a street punk he doesn’t really realize how much trouble he’s in, playing everything by ear, never once thinking things through. When a project friend Farouk (Lucien Jean-Baptiste) gets him a gun, within no time he uses it, where at least the audience knows this guy’s life is spiraling out of control. When he and Farouk decide to rob an armored vehicle, reigning in José’s weak-kneed cousin Reza (Youssef Hajdi), we know all hell will break loose.

The manner in which the heist is shown, the centerpiece of the film, is interestingly not shown at all, but heard instead, as we hear them rev the engines of their motorbikes while a camera shoots down a narrow path between two graffiti-ridden walls as their hysterical voices describe what happens on the scene, all leading to their quick escape into their primitive hideaway, like a self-imposed darkened prison cell which, surprisingly enough, is not far from the scene of the crime. However this sensual deprivation is highly effective as a storytelling device, as the audience remains as in the dark about the search to capture them as they are. Their plan is to remain holed up there until the coast is clear, but within seconds they are arguing incessantly about what went wrong, as shots were fired prematurely, people were hit, but they somehow got away with 2 million euros in cash. So while these lamebrains have got the money, it somehow never occurs to them to stock up on food and actually, you know—hide. As a result, they continually show themselves in and around the neighborhood where they are supposed to be hiding. It’s unbelievable that something so elementary is beyond their grasp, but that is the charm of this picture.

Instead this turns into a claustrophobic piece about living in such cramped quarters under an increasingly insurmountable amount of tension. Each hour and day that they remain there becomes twisted out of proportion, as it’s obvious they don’t have a clue what to do, and while we don’t see anything, we can feel the forces closing in around them as their own self-imposed tension and ineptitude slowly tightens the noose. The audience is acutely aware that dumping the guns connecting them to the crime and hiding the money might erase any connection to the crime, even if caught, so it’s unfortunate that the characters themselves aren’t better criminals where their lack of street savvy eventually betrays the hard-boiled focus of the film. The dialogue remains profane and gritty with some exquisite mobile camerawork that captures the seedy world they live in, where occasional bass heavy riffs add an ominous texture underlying the established mood of paranoia that something is lurking around every corner.

Festival of New French Cinema JR Jones from The Reader

Three Parisian lowlifes plan to rob an armored truck using motorcycles and AK-47s, but their botched heist leaves a guard fatally wounded and they hole up in a tiny bunker with their loot, waiting for the heat to die down. Barthelemy Grossman, who wrote, directed, and stars in this low-budget crime drama, has cited Martin Scorsese and John Cassavetes as inspirations. But one can hardly imagine Scorsese passing up the kinetic possibilities of the high-speed robbery as Grossman does, confining it to the soundtrack while his camera does an arty tracking shot down a graffiti-littered alleyway. And surely Cassavetes would have come up with more revealing drama among the three cloistered fugitives than Grossman’s standard-issue recriminations and double-crosses. The plot is nicely structured and the ghetto locations persuasively shabby, but the movie could use a shot of adrenaline. 80 min.

12th Annual Festival of New French Cinema Facets Multi-Media

Actor and first-time director Barthélémy Grossmann's 13m² is a down-and-dirty and claustrophobic urban thriller in the tradition of the early films of Mathieu Kassovitz. José (Grossmann) is looking for a way out of his small time suburban life. After overhearing his girlfriend and stepbrother talking, he and his two best friends arrive at a plan to attack and rob an armored vehicle full of cash. But everything goes wrong and they are forced into hiding inside of a 13 square meters bunker. There, they will have to test their friendship, their motivations, and their loyalty, as every move outside triggers even more paranoia. As a young actor, Grossmann decided that the roles he was being offered were not interesting enough, so he became a writer-director and wrote himself a role in a tough thriller told from the criminal's perspective. The desperate dialogue among the three petty crooks has more in common with Samuel Beckett than Quentin Tarantino, and Grossmann could be a force to be reckoned with if he keeps up this tough yet touching filmmaking. "If I'm not the next generation of European film directors, then I don't know who is," he says, without a hint of irony. His filmmaking heroes are American directors like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and John Cassavetes, who began their careers as driven iconoclasts working outside the studio system. "I like their attitude and lifestyle," Mr. Grossmann says. "If they didn't make movies, they'd die. All day long I think about film -- like those guys. I want people who see two minutes of my films to say 'that's a Barthélémy Grossmann movie.'" Directed by Barthélémy Grossmann, France, 2007, 35mm, 84 min. In French with English subtitles.

Guadagnino, Luca

I AM LOVE (Lo sono l'amore) B- 82

Italy (120 mi) 2009

The two most bombastic films seen in the past decade have both been Italian films, the recent Marco Bellochio film VINCERE (2009), where the film’s opening 45 minutes literally explode off the screen with a phenomenal energy, matched by the unforgettable performances and the film’s perfect placement in a historical setting, and this film, where the operatic excess only worked to the film’s detriment. This film plays out like an epic, with sweeping grandiosity, an immense family estate with marble floors and servants galore revealing the cool arrogance and exaggerated high style of the ultra rich aristocracy, set in the modern age in Milan, featuring exquisitely detailed cinematography by Yorick Le Saux, and a huge John Adams symphonic and operatic score that literally drives various montages that build with a percussive drive behind them. This is a startlingly ambitious work, reminiscent of Visconti’s THE LEOPARD (1963), Betolucci’s 1900 (1976) or Olivier Assayas’s LES DESTINÉES (2000), films that reveal with a historical sweep the fall of the aristocracy, where intimate human portraits are mixed with the ruthless affairs of running a family business. But while some of the dynamic camera style and chosen artistic flourishes may have worked for targeted scenes, when they are repeated throughout the entire picture they lose their effectiveness and power, and ultimately, especially by the end, become obstacles the film cannot overcome.

Tilda Swinton is, of course, a film miracle, as she has been since her revelatory mid 80’s films with English filmmaker Derek Jarman. Never content in conventional films, she delights in expanding the film repertoire, which she does magnificently here while barely uttering a few words in Italian. She is Emma, the family ice goddess, the prized possession trophy wife of the Baron Tancredi (Pippo Delbono), who traveled to Russia to bring her back to Italy where it feels as if she remains in captivity. Edoardo, the patriarch of the family (Tancredi’s father), is having a lavish birthday dinner with the family in full dress attire where people must read a fully prepared seating chart to find out where they sit. It’s no surprise that he announces his retirement, or that he’s handing over the reigns of the company to his son Tancredi, but it is something of a surprise that he also includes Tancredi’s son Edo, (Flavio Parenti). Also present at the table is Edoardo’s sister, Marisa Berenson, whose presence in Kubrick’s lavishly photographed BARRY LYNDON (1975) seems no accident. Another grandchild at the table, Betta (Alba Rohrwacher) causes something of a stir when she presents her annual gift which for the first time is not a drawing, but a photograph, as she’s switched artistic preferences. There is also a visitor who arrives in the snowy night, Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini) bearing a small gift that he offers to his friend Edo, a desert he prepared himself, as he is a chef. He is briefly introduced to Emma before he disappears in the night. This introductory sequence reveals all the major players and their relationship to one another, from which a Chekhovian drama ensues.

Edo’s friendship with Antonio includes the idea of building his own restaurant on his father’s estate in the countryside, where there is a panoramic vista from high up on a hill with a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains. Despite Antonio’s expertise, which is never in doubt, his father resists, which leaves Edo a window of opportunity to intervene as a business partner. Meanwhile, Emma discovers a note in her daughter’s belongings that reveal she’s in love with another girl, something she keeps secret from the family when Betta decides to move to London, where she cuts her hair short and dresses in pants, eventually revealing her transformation to Emma on her own. Edo, meanwhile, continues to show off his friend Antonio’s cooking prowess, where one of the more delicious scenes in the film is watching Tilda Swinton swoon and nearly faint over the perfection of the served prawns. Like the lure of the aroma in the Saturday morning cartoons, Antonio’s provocative culinary skills draw Emma to his countryside village, where she accidentally on purpose runs into him, only to be drawn into a passionate affair. At first, the edit pulls away so quickly from their first kiss that one thinks there must be an error in the film reel, as it’s presented as a subliminal image. Did it happen, or not? In time, they discover a quiet serenity together up in the hills of his home overlooking that perfect vantage point. For Emma, it’s a life she never had the chance to experience, but of course, the ramifications on her family could prove disastrous. Would she rather spend the rest of her life without love like a caged bird, or should she risk the chance to be happy? As if on cue, disaster strikes. All the pomposity and bombast actually contribute to the feel of love surging through her veins for the first time, but it strains credibility once the mood darkens, turning into a meaningless display of artistic pretentions, as if all the air were sucked out of the film, becoming a lifeless display of dysfunction and futility.

User reviews from imdb Author: writers_reign from London, England

This is a film heavily influenced by Visconti in both its world of aristocracy and fluid camera movements that move from almost set-piece theatrical blocks to lyrical open air vistas. We're back with our old friend the multi-generational upper-class family; ultra successful in business for several decades but now on the fringes of fragmentation to say nothing of crumbling from within as first the daughter then the mother step outside the boundaries of acceptable public moral behaviour and follow their libidos masquerading as their hearts. The acting is first rate across the spectrum, the settings are sumptuous and well photographed, the whole, strangely satisfying.

Cinema Autopsy (Thomas Caldwell) review [0/5]

Set in Milan at the beginning of the 2000s, I Am Love begins with a series of stunningly beautiful shots of the Italian city in winter, combined with dramatic music and gorgeously hand drawn opening title graphics that recall the great European films of the 1950s. We are introduced to various members of the Recchi family who are gathering to celebrate their grandfather’s birthday, the man whose textile business has brought the family so much wealth. One of the family members gathered at this occasion is Emma Recchi (Tilda Swinton), the Russian-born matriarch of the family whose son and husband are named as the joint successors of her father-in-law’s business. While initially seeming like it could develop into a Shakespearian drama of father versus son over control of the business, I Am Love instead focuses on Emma to develop into a film about emotional repression and what it takes to break free and experience passion despite its consequences.

The defining quality that makes I Am Love such captivating cinema is its extraordinary beauty. Writer/director Luca Guadagnino has made a visually transfixing film where the lyrical editing and gorgeous cinematography present the already visually arresting settings and decor in a way that is completely breathtaking. In particular, French cinematographer Yorick Le Saux’s tendency to slightly over-expose all his shots to give everything in the frame a radiant glow. The result is a mesmerising atmosphere that is made even more dreamlike when combined with the discordant score by minimalist composer John Adams.

Not completely dissimilar to the way Quentin Tarantino mines exploitation and B-grade cinema to inspire and reference his films, Guadagnino has appropriated and paid homage to many of the great art house directors as well as some key Hollywood directors. Guadagnino is extremely well versed in cinema history and academia so you could spend hours debating the points in which I Am Love evokes the films of Sergei Eisenstein, Michelangelo Antonioni, Douglas Sirk and Alfred Hitchcock. However, it really is the cinema of Luchino Visconti that is most recognisable as one of Guadagnino’s influences, especially The Leopard. However, while The Leopard’s themes of an upper class and older generation stepping aside to make way for the new have some thematic similarities to a number of the sub-plots in I Am Love, it is the rich visual detail in both films where the main distinction lies.

I Am Love is an astonishing film that deserves to be savoured although it struggles to maintain the initial level of interest after a particular plot development upsets its previously serene mood. Also, while the intense visuals are undeniably impressive, they don’t consistently connect to the story emotionally. Tilda Swinton delivers a bold and powerful performance as Emma although it would have been nice to see more of some of the other characters more fleshed out, in particular her two children who are breaking free of their family’s restraints in their own ways. Like Luke Ford’s A Single Man, I Am Love is somewhat a case of style over substance but at least that style is rich enough for it not to matter.

Time Out London (Dave Calhoun) review [5/5]

A work of masterly daring and skill, the new Italian film ‘I Am Love’ plays out in the late 1990s within a super-rich family called the Recchis. Their power base is a Milanese villa introduced to us by young director Luca Guadagnino as a gilded cage – a marble-and-stone palace too large and ornate to support intimate family life. In the film’s early scenes Guadagnino laps up this mansion, exploring it with a swirling, fluid camera that turns its world into a character itself. The fictional Recchis recall the Agnellis, another troubled industrialist family which feathered its nest on the back of fascism, but they trade in textiles, not cars, and Guadagnino gives us a brief shot of their mechanised looms at work to stress how business is woven into the fabric of this family’s soul.

We meet the Recchis on the cusp of change – and change is the film’s main interest, along with the dangerous strength necessary for any woman to counter the forces of tradition and expectation in such a family. We begin by watching the elderly family head (Gabriele Ferzetti) at dinner as he nominates his successors in a scene of ‘King Lear’-like power and unnaturalness. But soon he is dead and our focus and heroine becomes Emma Recchi (Tilda Swinton), the dutiful Russian wife of Tancredi (Pippo Delbono), the family’s new head, and mother to two grown-up sons and a daughter attempting her own flight from this patriarchal world. Emma’s burgeoning friendship with her son’s business partner, Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), a rural chef, is the nudge that will bring this house of cards down in dramatic, tragic fashion.

The story is bold enough, but true daring is at play in the film’s style. Guadagnino has the confidence to mix big, brash ‘Dallas’-style establishing shots of Milan and London and complicated scenes of busy parties with much more intimate, expressive moments. Dialogue becomes less important as the film progresses, and Guadagnino invites us to read the film rather than the characters’ lips. He also manages to bring the film to an operatic crescendo without losing sight of emotional realities.

There are many reasons to recommend this sensual and good-looking film about personal and female liberation. The music is one; it is central to a work that demands that all the film’s elements work together to create a total cinema. Guadagnino and his star and co-producer, Swinton, persuaded John Adams, the composer of operas such as ‘Nixon in China’ and ‘Doctor Atomic’, to allow his work to be used in a film for the first time and his crashing, arresting, impulsive music is gripping from the start.

It’s a fitting collaboration. Adams has given modern opera a much-needed shot in the arm and that’s what Swinton (who speaks Italian throughout) and Guadagnino are striving to achieve: ‘I Am Love’ is a brazen blueprint for a cinema that straddles past and future while worrying little about trends of the present. It’s a bold experiment rooted in tradition. It plays like smart opera and looks like a marriage of poetic documentary with classical European drama. Swinton and Guadagnino call it ‘Visconti on acid’ and that’s as good a phrase as any to describe the film’s intoxicating allure.

User reviews from imdb Author: susannah-straughan-1 from United Kingdom

The poster for Luca Guadagnino's film shows a regal Tilda Swinton in an eye-catching red dress surrounded by her sober-looking family. In another version, the frock has undergone a cheeky digital makeover to a shocking pink that matches the movie's bold, declaratory title. The symbolism might seem a little obvious, but this is a story in which one woman's passion comes bursting to the surface – with tragic consequences.

"Something part palace, part prison, part museum" is how star and producer Swinton envisaged the house at the centre of this contemporary drama about the Recchis, a wealthy Milanese family. Opening with a series of almost monochrome shots of a snowbound Milan, Guadagnino closes in on the elegant but forbidding 1930s mansion, where Russian-born Emma (Swinton) and her husband Tancredi (Pippo Delbono) are preparing to host a dinner party.

On the surface, Emma is an attractive middle-aged woman, perfectly at ease with her three grown-up children and comfortable within the sumptuous trappings of Italian society. Guadagnino and cinematographer Yorick Le Saux linger over the chandeliers, wall hangings and gleaming napery that indicate decades of affluent living. But as the white-gloved lackeys hover over the birthday celebrations of ageing patriarch Edoardo, we sense that something – or someone – is about to shatter the family's much-prized unity.

Soon there is an announcement about the future of the family textile business, but it isn't the defining event of this opening set piece. Guadagnino's interest lies not in soap opera-style financial wrangling, but in how two of Emma's children unwittingly lead her towards a personal epiphany. First her daughter Betta (Alba Rohrwacher), a talented artist, causes a minor ripple by declaring that she's now more interested in pursuing photography. Emma's subsequent discovery of a heartfelt note inside a CD box reveals that Betta has fallen deeply in love – with a girl.

During the meal, a young man turns up looking for Emma's son Edo (Flavio Parenti). He awkwardly refuses to join the party, but it's clear that Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini) a handsome and supremely talented chef, has struck a chord with the lady of the house. So, as Edo eagerly makes plans to open a restaurant with his friend, Emma is drawn into a high-risk affair.

The power of Swinton's performance lies not in her mastery of Italian dialogue but in her gradual, unspoken surrender to passion, over the dictates of convention. This is a film in which speeches are, for the most part, far less important than the sense of underlying tension generated by John Adams's operatic score and Le Saux's restless camera work. Late in the film there's a sinuous tracking shot that follows Emma's impulsive descent to the basement kitchen for a stolen moment with her lover.

Guadagnino's willingness to take risks in the pursuit of what Swinton has called "pure cinema" is what distinguishes this film from other stories of forbidden love involving ladies who are old enough to know better. Epicureans will experience as frisson as Emma is seduced by Antonio's lovingly prepared prawn dish. The lingering shots of those seductive crustaceans could have been ridiculous, but they're another small and believable step in Emma's awakening to the possibility of a new love. When the action moves to the glorious countryside around San Remo, Emma allows Antonio to cut her hair, in an apparent nod to her daughter's recent change of style. Her rebellion reaches a crescendo in the extraordinary al fresco sex scene, shot in huge close ups to the accompaniment of teeming insect life that threatens to drown out everything else.

Guadagnino and Swinton first worked together on The Protagonists (1999) and this latest collaboration evolved over a period of nearly 11 years. It's too early to say whether they can be measured against some of their inspirations –Tolstoy, Flaubert , Hitchcock and Visconti – but there is much to admire in this stylish and well-acted drama.

There are faults: some of the camera placements are too artily self-conscious and Emma's interactions with her husband and children often feel rather perfunctory. Unlike Visconti's The Leopard, this isn't an in-depth exploration of family dynamics buckling under the forces of history. But neither the director nor the star can be accused of timidity in the way they embrace the protagonist's headlong rush towards her destiny. And even the Master of Suspense would have applauded the shocking climax of a confrontation in the garden, which made me jump out of my seat.

User reviews from imdb (Page 2) Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

In this lush and ambitious new Italian film we meet Emma, a Russian woman (Tilda Swinton), who long ago married into a wealthy Milan industrialist family. When the family's aging patriarch and company head, Edoardo Recchi Sr. (Gabriele Ferzetti), retires at a grand birthday luncheon with all the family present, he turns control of the firm over to Emma's husband Tancredi (Pippo Delbono) and son Edo (Flavio Parenti). But later Edo seems more interested in starting a restaurant with his friend Antonio, a cook (Edoardo Gabbriellini). Emma's daughter, Betta (Alba Rohrwacher), an artist who lives in London, turns out to be a lesbian. As plans move along toward starting the restaurant, Emma gradually falls in love first with Antonio's cooking, then with him. The factory is sold, and the family disintegrates. Guadagnino has made an impressive film in the grand manner: it has touches of Antonioni and Visconti. But the setting is the turn of the millennium, and of course times have changed. I Am Love's elaborate visual style and intense, operatic music strike a new and distracting, but not unpleasing, note. The film, photographed by Yorick Le Saux, is a visual treat, with some of the most appetizing and tactile scenes of cooking and eating put on film in a long time, and a delicacy of light and color that lingers in the mind. Again Swinton shines at something that might seem impossible, or just a stunt, and the film interweaves its themes of capitalism, food, and family in sometimes intriguing ways.

From the beginning, the family's vast art deco villa and the loyal servants play key roles. Maria Paiato is strong as the housekeeper, a de facto family member who's the only one some can turn to in times of crisis. The cold elegance of the opening sequence may even evoke Pasolini's Salo. Anyway, the film won't let us stop being gawkers at the rituals of wealth. As Emma, Swinton at first is the perfect hostess, closely involved in the food preparation and attentive to details of the seating, but she is in ice queen mode, perhaps still, after so many years, not at ease in this world.

That will change. After the grand, stiff luncheon, scenes alternate between various family members. There's a constant undercurrent of sexual politics. Both Edo and Emma respond favorably, even warmly, to Betta's being a lesbian. The physicality of Edo's friendship with Antonio almost crosses over from boyish affection to love. Is this just Italian or a teasing homoerotic subtext to make Antonio's later affair with Emma ironic? Antonio, a stranger at the birthday party (which symbolically occurs with a snow storm outside) who has just beaten Edo in a race and as a peace offering brings a cake he has baked, becomes Edo's best friend, and the restaurant plan is hatched. Antonio cooks a sample meal for Emma and his rosy shrimps, which explode onto the screen in intense, lovely closeups, seduce her utterly. She is the ice queen no more. The way to this lady's heart is through her taste buds. As the cook-lover, Edoardo Gabbriellini seems a little bland and ordinary, but there's nothing wrong in that. He's fresh and young. He doesn't seem much like a cook either, but maybe he isn't one. Who's really seducing whom?

Emma and Antonio have only to run into each other in San Remo, near where the restaurant is to be, for the romance to begin. The suspenseful, tense first part of this sequence has been compared to Hitchcock. Emma is drawn toward a Russian church, and then sees Antonio and surreptitiously follows him, then dashes out of a bookstore to meet him clutching a book she hasn't paid for. When they make love in the open air the camera treats us to a feast of insects on flowers with Stravinsky-like music throbbing in the background. Here the film is at its most lavish and expressionistic; but this isn't the only place. At times the camera movement and excessive closeups seem pointless, but that is offset by the refined color sense and seamless visual transitions.

Meanwhile things are happening to the company. The men are agreeing to sell, despite Edo's protests about what he is told is a nonexistent tradition of family responsibility to the workers. "He liked playing at being like them," he's told of his father. The selling-off of the factory is prompted in London by a smooth but repugnant Indian American in suit and turban called Tubelkian (Waris Ahluwalia), who declares to Emma (who, somewhat improbably, understands no English) "Capitalism is democracy."

This is at another big ceremonial meal at the villa, this time prepared by Antonio. It not only signals the dissolution of the family's tradition as nominally benevolent lords of a factory but also brings tragedy, after Antonio's preparing Edo's favorite fish soup, a Russian dish only his mother knows, reveals to him that his mother and his friend have betrayed him. If the climax leaves one pondering afterward it is because of how deftly the various themes -- the tragic May-December love story; the disintegrating family of Milanese industrial aristocrats; and the appetizing world of slow-food gourmet cooking, the latter, though not taken too seriously as this may sound, could be a way of integrating levels of society. Everybody loves good food. The seemingly anachronistic decision to focus on a grand industrial family, which might appear only one more sign that Italian film-making is out of touch, turns out to have been in fact a very wise choice. I Am Love strikes epic notes but also bursts with energy and physicality. After all, so does Homer. Reservations remain about the obtrusiveness of both John Adams' music and, at times, both the images and the editing. But if Guadagnino has spun out much ado about not quite so much as meets the eye, he does a very good job of it nonetheless.

Review: I am Love - Film Comment Nicolas Rapold from Film Comment, May/June 2010

In the cold, hard light of morning, Luca Guadagnino’s breakthrough feature feels less like a rapturous love affair than a pleasurable but functional one-night stand the details of which may grate and embarrass but over which one ends up obsessing, for good reasons and bad. On first viewing, the literally spotlit epiphany of desire that a plate of shrimp triggers in the film’s main character seems glorious—actually, it seemed a bit much at the time, too, but you went with it—yet with distance and time, it plays as blunt and more than faintly ridiculous, like many of the film’s flourishes. So, it might be said, is any coup de foudre when viewed coolly—and I Am Love is indeed predicated on the rush, intent on intoxicating and stunning through grand sweeps and pulse-quickening urgency, architecture and nature made vertiginous, and, above all, putting the melo back in melodrama through the sinus-clearing power of composer John Adams.

Tilda Swinton returns as . . . Tilda Swinton—the woman with a secret, as ever a headlong audience surrogate, though this time going easy on the mystical quirk. Swinton’s Emma Recchi is the dutiful Russian-born wife of a Milanese textile magnate; when the extended family gathers for the grandfather to announce his successor, she is there to smooth feathers with a quiet word or glance. And so it would continue according to script until her son Edo’s new friend, a talented young chef named Antonio (a mostly inert Edoardo Gabbriellini), enters the picture. The enchanting prawns are part of what sends Emma into a tizzy, though a subtler scene comes when we see her, invited by her daughter to visit, mentally realizing that the trip allows a detour down Antonio way—capturing the moment, which it is any romantic’s pleasure to savor in retrospect, when you first find yourself adapting your plans under the influence.

It’s a short step from there, as Jonathan Romney has rightly observed, to Lady Chatterley territory, both the rapturous bucolica of Pascale Ferran’s 2006 film adaptation and the fervid rhetoric over industry in Lawrence’s original text (repurposed to the globalization-speak that comes out of the mouth of an investor negotiating a takeover of the Recchi business). Emma dallies with Antonio in a shed by the house he aspires to turn into a restaurant with Edo’s help, as well as an alfresco fling that hums with flowers and sunbursts (handiwork of Ozon and Assayas DP Yorick Le Saux)—the spring romp to make the opening’s snow-covered gargoyles a distant memory. But what truly galvanizes the images (beyond their triggering memories of our love affairs with The Conformist or Vertigo) is the “score,” a tailored pastiche of extant Adams compositions that includes music from Nixon in China. It pulses along relentlessly, like a sonic EKG of Emma’s ever-more-dynamic highs and lows, perhaps never so emphatically as in the climactic sequence that purports to reveal the limits to the Recchis’ assimilation of this never-really-quite-Russian-seeming Russian.

The predictable end, which comes with an abruptness that feels altogether too constructed, completes the fantasy of transgression that’s at the heart of the movie’s appeal, however elaborate the trappings. Despite Guadagnino’s aspirations to greater significance (which seem to amount to: conservative dynastic families will bite you in the ass—and let’s not even get into the iffy sister solidarity between Emma and her lesbian daughter), it’s hard to escape I Am Love’s actual status as, well, an effectively crafted thrill ride yielding less than meets the eye. Pace claims to “reveal possibilities that you didn’t know existed in narrative cinema” (Romney again), I Am Love is too invested in forcing the surrender that should come naturally.

Movieline (Michelle Orange) review [8/10]

Digital Fix Noel Megahey

theartsdesk.com [Sheila Johnston]

eFilmCritic.com (Jay Seaver) review [2/5]

Screenjabber review Robert Barry

Phil on Film (Philip Concannon) review

The Onion A.V. Club review [B+] Tasha Robinson

User reviews from imdb Author: Chris_Docker from Scotland, United Kingdom

Cinema Blend [Katey Rich]

Combustible Celluloid (Jeffrey M. Anderson) review [3.5/4]

FilmJerk.com (Brian Orndorf) review [C] also seen here: DVD Talk and here: Briandom [Brian Orndorf]

The L Magazine [Henry Stewart]

Strictly Film School review Acquarello

Interview: Luca Guadagnino and Tilda Swinton Catherine Shoard interview from The Guardian, April 1, 2010

Entertainment Weekly review [C+] Lisa Schwarzbaum

Variety (Jay Weissberg) review

Time Out New York [Joshua Rothkopf]

The Guardian (Peter Bradshaw) review [3/5]

I Am Love, Luca Guadagnino, 120 mins, (15) | The Independent Jonathan Romney

The Independent (Anthony Quinn) review [4/5] April 9, 2010

The Daily Telegraph review [5/5] Tim Robey

The Boston Phoenix (Peter Keough) review

Philadelphia Daily News (Gary Thompson) review [B]

San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle) review [3/4]

Los Angeles Times (Betsy Sharkey) review

Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert) review [4/4]

The New York Times (Manohla Dargis) review

Guédiguian, Robert

THE ARMY OF CRIME (L’Armee du Crime)

France (139 mi) 2009

Patrick Z McGavin at Cannes from Stop Smiling magazine, May 21, 2009

Interestingly, French director Robert Guediguian’s stirring, tougher The Army of Crime provides a sharp counterpoint to Tarantino’s comic fugue. It’s a beautifully made period piece about the extraordinary true story of the Manouchian Group. Written by Giles Taurand (who’s done excellent work for Raul Ruiz and Andre Techine), the film is about a group of ethnic and naturalized French citizens that formed an audacious Resistance network that carried out lethal attacks against German occupiers and their French collaborators.

The group was named for Missak Manouchian, an Armenian poet whose father was murdered during the Turkish-engineered genocide during World War I. He recruits a progressive gang of Jews, Poles, Hungarians and Czechs drawn to the French concepts of liberte, fraternite, egalite to undercut their foreign occupiers and Vichy collaborators. Guediguian beautifully, expressive weaves a fresco out of the various stories and identities of the various principals. The work harshly and unflinchingly points out the venal behavior and savage techniques of the Vichy authorities and police structure in blatantly utilizing anti-Semitic propaganda, racial hatred and torture to defeat the partisan insurgency. It’s not going to generate a tenth of the coverage occasioned by Tarantino’s new film, but it is by far the braver, more imaginative and harrowing work.

Peter Brunette at Cannes from The Hollywood Reporter, May 18, 2009

CANNES -- Just when you might begin to think that there is absolutely, positively nothing more to be said about the Holocaust, along comes the formidable Marseille filmmaker Robert Guediguian with "The Army of Crime" to wring one more excellent variation out of that overly familiar if always powerful theme.

His subject is the real-life "army" of foreigners (non-French Jews, communists, veterans of the Republican forces fighting against Franco in Spain, anti-fascist Italians, and so on) who mounted an ongoing, organized, and effective resistance against the Nazi occupation in Paris. Though it drags here and there and is a bit flat in places, the film is solidly made and for the most part quite involving. It should do well in theatrical release in territories around the world, and even better in ancillary venues, especially television and DVD, given the huge, never-satiated world-wide audience for films about World War Two. Festival programmers should also give a close look to this film, which performs admirable educational duty by dramatizing for the first time a largely untold story.

The only well-known actor in the cast is Virginie Ledoyen, who plays the devoted wife of the informal leader of the group, the Armenian poet and worker Missak Manouchian (brought to convincing life by Simon Abkarian). The standout performance, however, is that of Robinson Stevenin, who plays, with startling intensity, Marcel Rayman, a Polish Jew who loves killing German officers up close, after bumming a light for his cigarette.

There is very little in the way of Hollywood-style dramatic build-up here, and the film's power comes largely from the underplayed, super-fast bombings and assassinations that regularly punctuate the narrative. Since these are also real people, there is a large, convincing space left to pesky domestic concerns that of course always occupy a large part of everyone's time, even when there's a war going on. Guediguian has taken great pains to make each character highly individualized and completely convincing.

What's also missing here--and happily so--is the star power and oversized scale of most Holocaust films (the most recent example being Tom Cruise in "Valkyrie"). Obviously working on a very limited budget, Guediguian keeps his camera focused on interiors, street corners, and nondescript alleyways, to the extent that one barely realizes that one is in Paris. But this too paradoxically adds to the novelty and believability of the film.

Nor does Guediguian spare his countrymen, constantly pointing out how eager the French authorities were to please their Nazi masters, beyond the Germans' most ardent wishes, with a steady supply of French Jews gathered at Drancy and the infamous Vel d'Hiv, dropping off points for Auschwitz.

By the end of the film, the Nazis and their French collaborators manage, through torture and betrayals, to round up these heroic partisans. They then embark on a public relations effort to question the bona-fides of these so-called "liberators" that made up what the Nazis themselves christened the "Army of Crime" in an effort to cast doubt upon their heroism. Twenty-two men and one woman were executed in February 1944, and just a few short months later, Paris was liberated for good.

Dan Fainaru at Cannes from Screendaily

Timed for release at a point when France is battling issues of xenophobia, The Army Of Crime chronicles the famous “Red Poster” case in wartime France when a group of foreign partisans defied French apathy to form their own resistance against the Nazis. The story has been told before in Frank Cassenti’s 1976 L’Affiche Rouge, but Guediguian takes a different approach here. Well-intentioned though it is, The Army of Crime’s excessive running time is an impediment, and its academic take means it will probably ultimately work better on the small screen.

With a large cast of name actors including Ariane Ascaride and Jean-Pierre Darroussin (both Guediguian veterans) and Virginie Ledoyen, coupled with a strong technical team, this handsome production should also perform well for StudioCanal on DVD. Certainly, its theme deserves all the attention it can get.

Exiled Armenian poet Missak Manouchian (Abkarian), living in occupied Paris with his wife, Melinee (Ledoyen), takes charge of an underground resistance unit determined to fight the Nazi occupiers. Though a pacifist at heart, he feels impelled tot take action with a group of mostly young hotheads from all parts of the world, barely out of their teens. The Germans rely on the French police to quell the insurgents at first, but after the murder of a high-ranking general they ramp up the pressure and Manouchian and his people are caught and tortured.

Their case is put on the famous “Red Poster” distributed throughout France in which they are denounced as “The Army of Crime”. Needless to say, they are put on trial and found guilty without exception. Execution awaits.

Guediguian sticks to an episodic format throughout The Army of Crime, from the overlong introduction presenting his sprawling cast of characters, down to their final demise. This constant jumping from one mini-plot to another makes any kind of attachment to the characters difficult to achieve. He stays close to the actual events of the time, and if there is some minor retouching of the chronology, it does not affect the film’s overall impact.

Guediguian deals competently with several running themes, chief amongst them being the multi-ethnic nature of Manouchian’s group, which included Jews, Poles, Italians, Spaniards and of course Armenians. He also touches on the Val d’hiver mass arrests of Jews who were later deported from Drancy to Auschwitz, and the French co-operation with the Nazis.

Despite or maybe because of the cast’s size it’s difficult to assess individual performances. In fact, Guediguian tries to throw so much into the pot there’s not enough time to shake the audience out of their every day lives. They will look, understand what it’s all about but never, for one second, forget they are in a movie house and the people up there are actors.

Fabien Lemercier at Cannes from Cineuropa, May 17, 2009

The Army of Crime David Hudson at Cannes from The IFC Blog, May 19, 2009

Jordan Mintzer at Cannes from Variety, May 18, 2009

THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO (Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro)

France Belgium Italy (107) 2011

The Snows of Kilimanjaro Jonathan Romney at Cannes from Screendaily, May 15, 2011

Inspired not by the eponymous Hemingway novel but by Victor Hugo’s poem How Good are the Poor, the latest film from Marseilles director Robert Guédiguian will strike many as old-school leftie sentimentalism of the most shameless kind. But, despite the obvious creakiness of its melodramatic narrative, there’s no denying the passion, big-heartedness and political conviction that go into The Snows Of Kilimanjaro (Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro).

The latest of Guédiguian’s films to draw inspiration from his home turf, Marseillais working-class district L’Estaque - celebrated most famously in his 1997 Marius and Jeanette - this engaging if sometimes implausible film may be vin ordinaire in terms of cinematic execution, but shows a distinct auteur touch in its idiosyncratic emotional energy.

One of the most likeable regular ensembles in the business make this a watchable pleasure even when the contrivance stretches belief. The French following of Guédiguian and his well-liked actors should give the film a solid if unspectacular domestic presence, but abroad, the film will have to be sold on its quintessential Frenchness to get beyond an honourable festival airing.

Wearing its old-school socialist commitment on its sleeve from the start, the film begins with union rep Michel (Daroussin) reading out a list of names picked from a box - men who are losing their factory jobs. Out of solidarity, he has put his own name in the box, and faces unemployment with dogged optimism.

At their wedding anniversary, he and his wife Marie-Claire (Ascaride) are presented with a bundle of money and a ticket for an African dream holiday. But they lose both when they are robbed at gunpoint. A chance clue reveals to Michel that one of the thieves is former co-worker Christophe (Leprince-Ringuet), embittered at losing his job.

In fact Christophe, who likes to act the defiant bad guy, is also a dutiful carer to his two kid brothers. Marie-Claire and Michel realise that if Christophe faces justice, the boys will be left uncared for - which prompts much often over-explicit musing on solidarity, social responsibility and what the question of being working class means to different generations.

At its best, Guédiguian’s L’Estaque cycle revives the regional pride of Marcel Pagnol and the socialist humanism of Jean Renoir, and these qualities shine in the best scenes between the cast members, who exude a rare sense of family intimacy. Darroussin’s crumpled gruffness makes him extremely credible as a thinking, feeling socialist, while Ascaride remains unchallenged as French cinema’s reigning ‘woman of the people’ in the Anna Magnani mould.

Some characterisation is uncomfortably broad - there’s no shortage of cold-eyed bureaucrats and snippy hautes bourgeoises, while Karole Rocher goes wildly over the top as a textbook ‘Bad Mother’. But Guédiguian also revels in subverting expectation - it’s the largely unlikeable Christophe who really gets Michel thinking when he fires off a few political home truths at him.

The film is uneven and sometimes mawkish, but you have to take Guédiguian’s films as you find them. And if you can get past the sometimes huggy earnestness, this one is engaging, thought-provoking and altogether hard to dislike.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro: Cannes Review Jordan Mintzer at Cannes from The Hollywood Reporter, May 14, 2011

This socialist-friendly film examines the dilemma a former union rep faces when he is robbed by an ex-coworker in a similarly dire situation.

Although it shares a title with Hemingway’s short story, and fetish actor Jean-Pierre Darroussin sports a scraggly beard, there’s no doubt that The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Les Neiges du Kilimanjaro) is a Robert Guediguian movie, from its Marseilles setting to its socially conscious scenario to its simple and old fashioned mise-en-scene. This very Pagnol-esque moral tale about an aging couple dealing with the aftereffects of a robbery will appeal mostly to the auteur’s reliable arthouse followers, who, like the film’s main characters, are getting on in years.

“We’re bourgeois,” claims recently retired dockworker Michel (Darroussin) to his wife, Marie-Claire (Ariane Ascaride), and anyone familiar with Guediguian’s left-leaning cinema knows this is not necessarily a compliment. A former union rep who included himself in a lottery of managerial layoffs, Michel has plenty of time on his hands, some of which he spends taking care of his grandchildren, the rest of which he bemoans his cushy lifestyle while longing for the camaraderie of Marseilles’ ports.

But things quickly change when Michel and Marie-Claire are held up at home by unidentified gunmen, who steal the cash and plane tickets they received for a wedding anniversary trip to Tanzania. When Michel haphazardly discovers that one of the robbers, Christophe (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet), is a young worker who was laid off with him, he and Marie-Claire must decide whether arresting the unemployed Christophe is the right thing to do, especially when they learn that he supports two abandoned younger brothers (Yann Loubatiere, Jean-Baptiste Fonck).

While the screenplay (co-written with Jean-Louis Milesi) was actually inspired by a Victor Hugo poem, the themes in Hemingway’s tale of regret and self-loathing are expressed in the dilemma Michel faces, forcing him to question whether he earned his comforts through collective compromise and the abandonment of socialist ideals. And though like in any Guediguian flick (Marius and Jeannette and The Town is Quiet, to name a few), there are moments that veer towards preachiness, the narrative actually works through some tough issues, even if the outcome suggests a certain loosening in the director’s political stance.

In terms of style, there is definitely nothing anarchistic about this very classically made movie, whose workable imagery and rather lightweight musical choices (Joe Cocker’s “Many Rivers to Cross” serves as a sort of theme song) could easily place Snows somewhere in the 1980s, and possibly on the Lifetime network. This, along with straightforward and sometimes slow-moving performances by regulars Ascaride and Darroussin – the latter who recites his lines at a snail’s pace, as if to better captivate an audience of seniors – manage to dilute the effectiveness a film that is otherwise sincere in its intentions.

Guerín, José Luis

IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA (En la ciudad de Sylvia)

Spain France (84 mi) 2010

Chicago Reader [Jonathan Rosenbaum]

Two hypnotic and haunting 2007 features by Spanish experimental filmmaker Jose Luis Guerin, about the same romantic obsession. (The reference points are W.G. Sebald's novel Vertigo and Alfred Hitchcock's film of the same title.) The silent Some Photos in the City of Sylvia (65 min.) uses black-and-white stills with English intertitles to recount an unseen artist's return to Strasbourg to search for a young woman he met briefly 22 years earlier while making a Goethe-related literary pilgrimage. The far more elliptical In the City of Sylvia (84 min.) tells the same story with color, carefully articulated sound, and minimal, subtitled French dialogue; in this film the artist returns only six years after his pilgrimage. Both works are mysterious, beautiful, and primal. It's a pity the first, an intimate study and scenario for the second, is being shown after only one screening of its more languid successor.

Distributor Wanted: In the City of Sylvia J. Hoberman from Film Comment, May 27, 2011

Screened once in the 2007 New York Film Festival, In the City of Sylvia is pure pleasure and pure cinema. Catalan filmmaker José Luis Guerín’s fifth feature puts a dreamily minimalist spin on the Orpheus myth. A sensitive young romantic searches, against all odds, for his lost soul mate—fetish seems too cruel a word. In this case, however, the underworld is a paradise. Has any city on earth ever been as ridiculously ripe with gorgeous women as summery Strasbourg? Or is that another sort of hell? The artist sits in a café and sketches and looks and sketches and looks and then . . . but will Eurydice look back? And suppose she does—what then? Sensuous and gently self-mocking, Sylvia is predicated on a love of cinematic process as well as human grace, not to mention the labyrinth wherein Sylvia presumably dwells. Much of the movie was shot in real time and most of it is in the wordless tradition of silent cinema. (Could Guerín have been riffing on Vertigo with the pursuit at the heart of the movie?) The drama is almost entirely visual. Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” does figure in the coda but the real 30-year-old song that this movie illustrates is Johnny Thunders’s “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory.” Except at the movies, that is.

In the City of Sylvia Review. Movie Reviews - Film - Time Out London David Jenkins

The foolhardy attempts of a bookish lothario to stoke the fires of his fading memory are captured with mad invention in this unusual film from Catalan iconoclast José Luis Guerín.

The serene plazas and back alleys of Strasbourg are the hunting ground for Xavier Lafitte’s Él, a young artist who has taken to trailing beautiful women around the city in the hope of locating an old flame called Sylvia. What at first feels like a fractured, experimental and slightly seedy mood piece on male perspective and fantasy blossoms into a meditation on desire and becomes something both profound and logical.

That it works is in no small part due to Guerín’s sterling work behind the camera. A rambling set-up leads to a surprisingly gripping mid-section as he pursues Pilar López de Ayala’s Ella through the streets. Every frame is calculated to develop the film’s dense framework of literary, artistic and film references – with particular reverence set aside for Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ – as well as delivering a credible recreation of the urban experience with the help of rhythmic editing and detailed sound design. The use of recurring shots and motifs, as well as a penchant for lingering on the pensive faces of mainly female passers-by, all hint that Guerín sees this as a single thread in a much bigger and even more wildly coloured tapestry.

Cineaste David Sterritt

Spanish writer-director Jose Luis Guerín is one of several contemporary filmmakers—others include Pedro Costa and Jia Zhangke—who agree with Jean-Luc Godard that fiction and documentary are like the surfaces of a Möbius strip, since traveling one path always means traveling the other too. Every photographed film documents the things that appeared before the camera, regardless of narrative, and nonfiction filmmakers arrange their materials into patterns meant to communicate events and ideas effectively.

Guerín’s two features of 2007 skillfully navigate the overlapping territory between reality and fiction, placing invented stories into real environments. In the City of Sylvia uses the French city of Strasbourg as the setting for a tale about a young man’s search for a woman he met years earlier and might not recognize even if he somehow ran across her. Its companion piece, Some Photos in the City of Sylvia, works out a similar story more experimentally, investigating links between film and still photography and the relationship of both to perception and memory. A new DVD from Cinema Guild presents In the City of Sylvia as the main attraction and offers the companion movie, which I find considerably more compelling, among the extras.

Filmed in color in various Strasbourg locations, In the City of Sylvia centers on an unnamed man who spends his time at a sidewalk café, filling his notebook with sketches of a woman’s face. Gradually we learn that her name is Sylvia, that he met her briefly six years ago, and that he desperately wants to see her again. While drawing and daydreaming at the café, he scans every female face in sight, then follows someone who might be Sylvia through the streets and onto a tram—only to learn that she’s a complete stranger, albeit a good-natured one who’s quite agreeable as she makes it clear she never wants to lay eyes on him again. Ever hopeful, he returns to his sketchbook and his search.

Some Photos in the City of Sylvia is more modest in its appearance and more complex in its meanings. It’s a shorter, silent film consisting almost entirely of black-and-white photographs, and the DVD presents it as a “visual screenplay” made as a dry run for the subsequent film. Yet its story ranges farther afield, brings a wider range of allusions into play, and allows Guerín more freedom to test novel interactions among visual, literary, and historical modes of expression. Here the protagonist, who remains unseen, has not encountered Sylvia in twenty-two long years, opening a far greater gulf—and vastly more room for slippages of memory—between him and his elusive prey. His interest in Strasbourg stems from his fascination with The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who spent time in Strasbourg as a young writer. The protagonist also visits Florence, where Dante took Beatrice as his muse in 1274, and then Avignon, where Petrarch conceived his sublime love for Laura half a century later. Sundry motifs ricochet between the two films, complicating their dialog with history and affirming Guerín’s close engagement with medieval art and literature. But it’s the silent, visually streamlined picture that most movingly evokes the connections between centuries of European culture and today’s filmic and photographic art.

All of this said, I hasten to add that the Sylvia films are not always as high-minded as they may sound. The protagonists are sentimental stalkers who never tire of staring at, brooding over, and trailing after women they don’t know, and we spectators vicariously share their voyeuristic hunt. Putting moviegoers into cahoots with voyeurs was one of Alfred Hitchcock’s specialties, of course, and Guerín references both Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960), cinema’s greatest studies of visual obsession. Guerín also shares Hitchcock’s fondness for mirror images, filling countless shots with reflections of characters, settings, and other reflections.

An additional influence on the films is W.G. Sebald’s great 1990 novel Vertigo, although madness plays a more aggressive role there. And two more filmmakers must be mentioned: Godard, who surely inspired the optically fragmented words and coopted advertising imagery, and Chris Marker, whose 1962 short La Jetée tells a different kind of time-traveling story about a man possessed by a remembered face, also narrated via still photos and informed by Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Guerín shares those filmmakers’ interest in politics, too—Strasbourg is the home of the European Parliament—but he’s a less progressive thinker. His protagonists are obvious products of transnational capitalism, traipsing through unfamiliar places in pursuit of rewards they understand poorly and will probably never possess. They rarely pay much heed to the homeless people they pass, and only in Some Photos… does Guerín intercut a few shots of beggars with Dante’s assertion that looked at through truly loving eyes, “all…becomes noble.” Even this moment seems more aligned with the film’s zealous romanticism than with any sense of political urgency, and Guerín does little to critique his heroes’ narcissism and nostalgia.

My preference for Some Photos… notwithstanding, In the City of Sylvia best expresses Guerín’s contagious fascination with the interplay of destiny and chance. Both movies embody tensions between scripted action and uncontrolled settings, but leitmotifs in the second film serve to concentrate its focus in this regard. When a café waitress spills some drinks, for instance, one can only guess whether this was written and rehearsed beforehand; when the protagonist then knocks over his beer, a preplanned pattern of accident cum metaphor seems to be revealing itself; but was it design or coincidence that placed an obese homeless woman on a corner he passes later, discarding an empty beer bottle that rolls haphazardly down the street, rather like the Sylvia seeker himself? Whatever the answers to a slew of questions like this, chance and happenstance share the spotlight in the end, when the pages of the meticulously framed sketchbook flap randomly in a breeze.

Much more could be said about the kinship of the Sylvia films—it’s marvelous, for instance, that the live-action movie starts with a long, motionless shot that’s almost a still photo—and about the integration of motifs within each film, as when Some Photos… mentions that Goethe climbed a Strasbourg cathedral tower to cure himself of…vertigo! I agree with critics who warn against thinking of these distinctive works as simply two versions of the same story, and they certainly shouldn’t be thought of as a fully realized film preceded by a mere preparatory sketch. Cinema Guild’s release offers a fine way to explore them, supplementing them with Guerín’s brief In the City of Lotte, also from 2007, a booklet essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum, and vignettes that really are preparatory sketches. These imperfect but beautiful films deserve a wide, appreciative audience.

The Auteurs Daniel Kasman

Cinelogue [Carson Lund]

Playtime magazine [Matt Schneider]

The House Next Door [Steven Boone]

Nick's Flick Picks (Full Review)

Thirtyframesasecond [Kevin Wilson]

The Lumière Reader David Levinson

Strictly Film School Acquarello

Toronto Screen Shots [James McNally]

Keyframe: the Fandor Blog [John Lichman and Kevin B. Lee]

DVD Times Noel Megahey

DVD Talk [Christopher McQuain]

DVDTown [Christopher Long]

FilmNet [Tom Elce]

Spirituality and Practice [Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat]

Adam Micklethwaite Eye for Film

Night on Planet Earth [Alex Barrett]

In The City Of Sylvia Movie Review (2007) review by Eye for Film Amber Wilkinson

In the City of Sylvia | The Measure Mark Asch from L Magazine

Screenjabber [Justin Bateman]

Filmstalker Richard Brunton

Nerve [Colin Serjent]

Phil on Film: March Round-Up Phil Concannon

a page of madness [Nicholas Vroman]

Cinema Liberated [David Tam]

Film4.com

Film review: In the City of Sylvia | Film | The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

Film review: In the City of Sylvia | Film | The Observer - The Guardian Philip French from The Observer

In The City of Sylvia (PG) - Reviews - Films - The Independent Robert Hanks

New York Times (registration req'd) Nathan Lee

2011 JEONJU DIGITAL PROJECT

An Heir (Un héritier) (22 mi) 2011 France South Korea d: Jean-Marie Straub

To the Devil (42 mi) 2011 d: Claire Denis

Memories of a Morning (Recuerdos de una mañana) (47 mi) 2011 d: José Luis Guerín

France/Spain (112 mi) 2012

I’ve seen great films by each of the three filmmakers, and this was not that. —Patrick Friel, alternative film festival director and programmer

For the past 11 years, this was originally conceived as an experimental collective work, initially featuring Asian film directors, but eventually opening up to Europe, Africa, and the United States where now three different challenging and cutting edge directors are given the green light to contribute short films to the Asian Jeonju Film Festival in what was considered at the time an up and coming new medium. As the world has caught up to the digital age, with Hollywood abandoning actual film by the end of this year, shooting and preserving films only in digital from now on, perhaps this experiment should re-institute the use of 35 mm, which will eventually become the ultimate rarity in cinema.

Jean-Marie Straub worked initially with Renoir, Bresson, and Rivette before meeting student Danièle Huillet in the early 50’s, becoming his collaborative and married partner until she died in 2006. Known for adapting the works of others, they re-worked novels, operas, and plays, but also other original texts, usually with political overtones, stressing intellectual content through an austere and unvarnished style of filmmaking.

Claire Denis is the daughter of a civil servant, spending much of her childhood in different African countries before returning to France where she assisted other directors such as Dušan Makavejev, Costa-Gavras, Jacques Rivette, Wim Wenders, and Jim Jarmusch before directing her first feature at the age of 40, so like Toni Morrison in literature, she brings an unconventional maturity into her works. She's one of the unsung filmmakers of our era, a director who fairly easily moves between an experimental, avant garde style with slight to nonexisting narratives to more conventional narratives, usually focusing on the personal lives of marginalized working class characters whose very ordinariness separates them from mainstream movie viewing.

José Luis Guerín is a professor of film studies in Barcelona, beginning his career in experimental films, becoming something of a natural observer, offering meditative, visual essays on ideas that emerge from a given situation, allowing a constantly inventive slow process of discovery to develop what’s interesting and unique. Working without any set screenplay, showing little interest in plot or narrative, Guerín purposefully extends the boundaries of narrative and documentary forms, often reveling in visual and sensory beauty, showing a curious and creative imagination at work.

An Heir (Un Héritier) B- 81

Perhaps a companion piece to an earlier short LORRAINE! (1994), both adapted from the same author, this is a rigid, highly stylized and rather bookish account of life in the French Alsatian region, which borders on Germany, and has historically been a disputed territory between the two nations, annexed to Germany in 1871 following the Franco-Prussian War, but returned to France after World War I. Perhaps most unsettling was the German unofficial occupation during World War II, actually drafting as many as 130,000 of the local residents to fight in the German Army as early as 1940, where nearly a third were killed or missing in action. After the German defeat, Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France. With this backdrop, the film is a brief conversation between two men, one of whom is the director (born in Lorraine), before the other, physician Joseph Rottner, delivers an extended monologue, where the film consists of him literally reading from large paper documents of text, which offers his personal account of bitter resentment, detailing the humiliating and demeaning treatment that the French suffered at the hands of the Germans during his childhood. Adapted from the 1905 novel by French nationalist Maurice Barrès, In Germany’s Service, a young doctor describes his personal travails growing up in a German-occupied Alsace after the Franco-Prussian War.

While acknowledging he is the heir of an aristocratic landowner known throughout the region, it’s interesting and somewhat amusing that he suggests this gives his cause greater weight, since he can walk through the region from top to bottom and be recognized and respected by the people in the territory, believing he has the skills to communicate effectively with all walks of life who inhabit the region. With this in mind, he then launches into his angry personal diatribe against the atrocities he experienced at the hand of German authorities, where the French were continually singled out for greater punishments. As his family had the economic means to leave, they instead chose to stay, where he rather amusingly portrays himself as a kind of Resistance fighter, an Alsatian patriot. Leave it to the aristocracy to assume credit for all that’s good, aligning their fellow French together against a common enemy, while easily castigating others for their diabolic treatment of the French. While this sends a sympathetic nationalistic message of liberation veiled in the archives of history, one can only think that it would do the French aristocracy a world of good to be reminded of their former subservience, as it duplicates just exactly how they behave when they historically exploit and mistreat their fellow working class.

To the Devil C 74

Using a Jean Rouch style interviewing technique in the wild, Claire Denis flies to French Guyana and Surinam in northeast South America just north of the Amazon region in search of a Rastafari rebel outlaw known as Jean Béna, bringing along a young actor hoping he can learn to emulate him in an upcoming film. The region has a historical significance, as African slaves broke away from the governmental authorities and have remained unshackled ever since, known as the Aluku, an isolated tribe that fled down the Lawa River into the jungle, remaining self-sufficient for several hundred years. Béna is a noted figure from this tribe, one of the more enterprising, as he apparently runs a gold mine operation. Denis interviews a few people in the region who are quick to point out Béna never killed anybody, that the underlying motive is a land grab, as the tribe is slowly being pushed off their land, so his reputation as a wanted outlaw is being exaggerated by the government who want to get their hands on the gold. Denis then finds the man in a backwoods region, visiting the mining operation as Béna explains his life and how he makes a living. Unfortunately, Béna himself is not a particularly charismatic figure, though his defiance of the government’s campaign to oust him and his people is evident, painting a contemporary portrait of colonialism and its aftereffects in an obscure part of the world. Supposedly a small piece of a planned larger work, this section rambles and feels a bit aimless after awhile. Given free reign to say whatever he pleases, Béna never generates much interest or enthusiasm, overshadowed by the unique texture of the region’s history.

Memories of a Morning (Recuerdos de una mañana) B+ 90

Easily the most visually intoxicating of the three, the film opens with shots of leaves continually seen out the window of Guerín’s own Barcelona apartment, moving through various changes in the seasons, through wind, rain, and snow, where the last leaves hold on until they eventually disappear, forming an exquisite montage of time passing, of the leaves dying and falling off the branches, only to be reborn in the spring when they come back again in full force. What emerges afterwards are views from out the window to the apartment building across the street, briefly hinting at REAR WINDOW (1954), where the compartmentalized units are divided and separated from one another, but seen in its entirety from the view across the way, where we see a naked man playing a violin, though his body is digitally covered, also a woman tending to her potted plants, a man playing saxophone, another dancing, where there is a myriad of different activities coming from the outdoor balconies. Through a collection of impromptu street interviews, the viewer is told of how the naked violinist named Manel jumped off the balcony to his death, where each individually recalls the moment. Many offer testimonials to a private but unhappy man, a friend to few, becoming an essay on loneliness, the neighborhood itself, and the tragic consequences of suicide.

Guerín provides a well rounded view of a deteriorating sense of community by the collective voices of the people who live there, including small children who bluntly indicate Manel didn’t play that well, only so-so, and he never said hello to them in the hallway. This sense of disconnect is as much a part of the tragedy as the death itself, as both are revealed through a memory play of human recollections. All the people exhibit a warm and personable flair before the cameras, where one wonders if this isn’t a smiling and idealized view, if once they’re off camera they don’t become lost in the business of their own affairs, basically covering up their own frail insecurities. What distinguishes this film is how the director incorporates a growing sense of inevitability and a natural rhythm of life (and death) into the overall concept, shooting and editing his own film, giving it a distinct shape. There’s an interesting sound design where we hear various people in the building play musical instruments, from a young female violin player who plays furiously on her balcony to a saxophone player who sits on the window ledge and offers jazz riffs to the movement of the pedestrians seen below. These musical backdrops offer a parallel line of reflection, as does the haunting rhythm of Guerín’s editing. While this never unearths anything earthshakingly original about the living or the dead, it instead captures a distinct flavor of the loneliness of modern life through a uniquely impressionistic tone poem.

Jeonju Digital Project 2011: Straub/Denis/Guerín | siskelfilmcenter.org Marty Rubin

Each year the Jeonju International Film Festival commissions three short works by leading world filmmakers. The 2011 selection features contributions by three masters of modern European cinema.

Jean-Marie Straub’s personal and pastoral AN HEIR (UN HÉRITIER, France, 22 min., in French with English subtitles) uses excerpts from a novel by Maurice Barrès to revisit his own painful memories of growing up in German-occupied Alsace.

In TO THE DEVIL (France, 45 min., in French with English subtitles), Claire Denis takes the leading actor of her next film to meet the real-life model for his character, a renegade living on a remote stretch of the Lawa River between Surinam and French Guyana.

The highlight of the triptych is José Luis Guerín’s MEMORIES OF A MORNING (RECUERDOS DE UNA MAÑANA, Spain, 45 min., in Spanish with English subtitles). Utilizing the impressionistic techniques of IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA (if SYLVIA was a riff on the “city film,” the more miniaturized MEMORIES might be termed a “street-corner film”), Guerín uses a disturbing incident in his Barcelona neighborhood to thread together a rich tapestry on music, culture, community, the fragility of life, and the tenacity of life. HDCAM videos courtesy of the Jeonju International Film Festival

EXIT ART - Upcoming Screenings | Jeonju Digital Project 2011

Since its launch in 2000, the Jeonju Internaional Film Festival in South Korea has furnished its reputation as one of the world’s most forward-thinking film festivals, not only by programming vital new international cinema but commissioning it as well. Each year, the festival’s Jeonju Digital Project produces and distributes three short digital films by some of the world’s most exciting, uncompromising filmmakers. Initially focused on supporting works by emerging talent around Asia, the festival expanded the Project in 2007 to include directors from Europe, Africa and the U.S. Past participants in the Project have included such key figures as Jia Zhangke, James Benning, Hong Sang-soo, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Pedro Costa, Harun Farocki, Naomi Kawase, Lav Diaz and many others. he Project’s most recent program features works by three of Europe’s most fascinating directors: adventurous French maverick Claire Denis (Beau Travail (1999), White Material (2009), 35 Shots of Rum (2008)), radical literary-materialist Jean-Marie Straub (Moses und Aron (1975), Sicilia! (1999)) and the endlessly curious José Luis Guerín (In the City of Sylvia (2007)).

To the Devil – NYC Premiere!

“Denis’ latest work is a digital short that combines documentary, autobiography and essay film. As research for an upcoming feature, Denis travels to French Guiana to meet Jean Bena, a notorious figure celebrated by some and demonized by others. She brings with her the young actor who will play the Bena character in her film. In the process, she weaves in the history of the nearby Aluku, an isolated tribe descended from African slaves who fled into the jungle rather than be pressed into work in the gold mines.” (Synopsis courtesy of the Harvard Film Archive).

(dir. Claire Denis, 45 min, 2011, South Korea, In English and French w/ English subtitles)

Memories of a Morning – NYC Premiere!

“The most successful of the 2011 project is by the least well-known of the three directors. Jose Luis Guerin produced a very personal film about a tragic suicide in his own neighborhood that also works beautifully as a portrait of these people. The result is a moving work, both in its sadness and also in the joy found in the lives of the local residents. What emerges is a portrait of a cold neighborhood where no one says hello to each other that is, Guerin discovers, full of warm relationships and people. Nevertheless, they couldn’t alleviate the loneliness that drove the man to take his life, and in fact may be part of the alienated modern world that caused the man’s death, since we learn there have been many other suicides in recent years. The only small weakness is that Guerin seems to have too many endings, unable to choose one effective note to conclude and instead throwing everything in. But this film certainly makes me curious to see more of his films.” — Marc Raymond, The One One Four

(dir. José Luis Guerín, 45 min, 2011, South Korea, In Catalan and Spanish w/ English subtitles)

An Heir
“Un Héritier (An Heir) compresses Barrès’s 1905 novel In Germany’s Service to profoundly moving effect. An account of an Alsatian’s life under German occupation, it begins with two men walking through a wood. The older (played by Straub), from Lorraine, asks the younger why he remains in Alsace, where he suffers. “I am an heir,” Monsieur Ehrmann replies, recounting his familial and professional ties in long monologues (eloquently delivered by actor Joseph Rottner). He is a doctor devoted to the people, even to the husband who assaulted him when he tried to save the man’s wife. He recalls the humiliations and punishments to which French-speaking Alsatian schoolchildren were subject. Straub moves from a tracking shot in the first section to long shots and close-ups; finally, he alternates between black leader and Rottner’s readings—a catalogue of film syntax as minimal as it is replete. By the end, the weight of history lived through the individual is more complete than in any imaginable reconstruction of the novel. Ehrmann’s remark that he is “assaulted by speeches that arise out of the earth” could easily describe Straub’s incomparable aesthetic and consummately beautiful images, in which sunlit faces, rocks, and trees are at one with the colors and music of the words spoken in their presence.” —Tony Pipolo, Artforum.

(dir. Jean-Marie Straub, 22 min, 2011, South Korea, In French w/ English subtitles)

Jeonju Journal Pt. 1: In a Young Festival, Old Masters Go Digital ... Kevin B. Lee from Fandor

The Jeonju International Film Festival may not be the biggest film event in Asia, much less Korea; both distinctions go to its Pusan counterpart, that massive showcase that dominates the Pacific Rim film scene in the fall. But Jeonju has virtues that Pusan’s programming sprawl and industry din can’t offer. There’s a more specific curatorial focus that gives challenging, independent-minded cinema ample room for consideration. Since its start in 2000, the festival has embraced this century’s digital cinema revolution, showcasing low-budget works on consumer-quality DV or HD camcorders, the only technology accessible to emerging filmmakers in much the world.

Championing the cause of digital filmmaking, the Festival has made a name for itself with its annual centerpiece, the Jeonju Digital Project, where it commissions three filmmakers to produce digital shorts to premiere at the festival. It’s proven to be a brilliant means to bring respected auteurs under the Jeonju tent: James Benning, Pedro Costa, Jia Zhangke, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Denis Cote all count as JDP “alumni.” This year’s triumvirate – Claire Denis, Jean-Marie Straub, and Jose Luis Guerin – may have been the most prestigious to date.

The three directors also have the greatest median age of any JDP class: 62, well above the thirty- to forty-something profile typical of past participants – and certainly well above the overwhelmingly collegiate demographic of the Jeonju film crowd. From what I was told, the Festival is timed to the end of spring term so as to attract thousands of movie-loving students to serve as volunteers or audience members (not both, however; volunteers get free room and board, but aren’t allowed to watch the films). Not only is this the youngest film festival audience I’ve ever seen, but also the most well-behaved. At every screening I attend, there are virtually no walk-outs; the kids sit through the credits and applaud when the lights go up.

I had to wonder what these kids thought of the JDP projects, since to appreciate them (with the possible exception of Guerin’s short, the most fully realized of the three) likely requires considerable familiarity with these established directors’ previous work. And yet, there is a spirit of romantic defiance against oppressive forces in each of the three films that might readily appeal to these youths, say, if it was expressed by Leonardo di Caprio aboard an ocean liner.

Straub’s 22 minute short An Heir is a brief adaptation of a novel by the early 20^th century writer Maurice Barres, about a young French doctor in German-occupied Alsace after the Franco-Prussian War. Interestingly, the 78-year old Straub films himself walking alongside the doctor as he talks at length about his professional and political struggles, as if Straub were his confidante. Like all of Straub’s previous films (most co-directed by his longtime collaborator, the late Danielle Huillet), it’s a work of intractable dignity, unyielding at first glance but surprisingly supple in how it shifts between modes of fiction and documentary, cinema and literary recitation.

Some expressed disappointment with Claire Denis’ To the Devil as less a stand-alone work as a DVD extra for a project yet to go into production. But as a hardline Denis fan, I was glad to get a significant glimpse of what her next project might look like – provided its sensitive subject matter passes muster with French government purse holders. The 44 minute short follows Denis and an actor to the border of French Guyana and Surinam, where Africans descended from escaped slaves have formed their own tribal community in the jungle, but are now being slowly pushed off their land since gold has been discovered. The governments depict them as bandits; Denis deems them heroes, fighting for their future just as their ancestors did 400 years before. There’s not much of the sensual visuals or dreamy, associative editing that have made Denis a top-tier director; the film plays as raw anthropological research. But the premise is certainly promising for a feature replete with some of Denis’ favorite themes: life on the fringes of culture and community, the borders of human comprehension and endurance.

But the unanimous favorite of the JDP shorts was Guerin’s Memories of a Morning. Those who have seen In the City of Sylvia know that few filmmakers today can work their camera through public spaces with as much live-wire energy as Guerin. Here, the space is both public and deeply personal: the street outside his apartment window, where a musician neighbor fell to his death from the opposite building. Guerin opens with archival video he had taken of the man practicing violin at his window. It was a sound that connected everyone on the block, as Guerin proves through interviews with dozens of neighbors that ring with warmth and intimacy, even in sorrowful reflection.

Guerin weaves their testimonials – heartbroken, perplexed, and somewhat fatalistic – with shots of the spot where the violinist’s body landed, returning again and again to the stark mark of absence in his community. He ultimately ends up in the man’s apartment, where traces of his depressed life remain – a volume of Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, sketches, a lonely, half-finished wine glass. But these phantom artifacts are cast in an afternoon glow of otherworldly beauty, as if light itself were the last word in the sum effects of our lives. Guerin’s camera is unabashedly romantic, and with it he tries to fathom a darker, deadlier strain of the same yearning impulse. He may not get to the bottom of his neighbor’s fatal mystery, but his attempt is a gesture of near-perfect grace.

Locarno 2011. Old and New Straub Robert Koehler from Mubi, August 9, 2011

In Review: Jeonju International Film Festival (Part Two) at The One ... Marc Raymond from The One One Four

15th EU Film Festival: JEONJU DIGITAL PROJECT 2011 Kevin B. Lee, also seen here: cine-file.info/forum

Straub, Denis, Guerin line up for Jeonju Digital Project | News | Screen Jean Noh from Screendaily

Variety Reviews - Jeonju Digital Project 2011 - Film Reviews ...

THE ACADEMY OF MUSES (La academia de las musas) B- 81

Spain (92 mi) 2015 Official site [Japan]

While Guerin is viewed as an experimental filmmaker, often creating images that appear to be a collage from different sources, producing painterly, impressionistic glimpses of life as seen through a fractured prism of light, his unorthodox approach has always been viewed as meditative and intellectually probing. While that may be true here as well, this film, while its intent may be satiric, smacks of sexism, where it’s hard to get past the blatant moral transgressions being depicted. Ostensibly an academic lecture of ideas, where Barcelona University philology professor Raffaele Pinto stands before a class of interested students and poses ideas on the origin of love in art, suggesting artists since the dawn of time have always relied upon female muses as a source of inspiration. His ideas are actually engaging, as he breaks down complicated works of literature like Dante’s Inferno into easily understandable conversation pieces, described as men having a relationship with women, even with their dead spirits, a notion that has been around since the Greek mythology of Orpheus, where poets have carried around “the idea of love.” What immediately stands out is that only attractive female students ask questions and articulate their positions in class, though the heightened level of classroom discussion is engaging. What happens afterwards, however, may leave many viewers at a loss, as these attractive women are seen with the professor outside of class as well, often getting into their personal lives, where he’s seen as a father figure and confidante, perhaps even their private confessor, taking on a priestly role. When we realize he’s having sex with these women, where relationships escalate to his personal lovers, all bets are off, as this is something else altogether. While Guerín’s films regularly explore the boundaries between documentary and fiction, yet real or not, this is a decidedly troublesome aspect of the film as it clearly crosses into morally forbidden or taboo behavior. One of the most damning scenes in the film is a prolonged argument between the professor and his Spanish wife Rosa (Rosa Delor Muns), which begins in an animated fury but soon unfolds into utter silence, with Rosa staring blankly out the window, neither one able to acknowledge the other.

Described at the outset as “An educational experience with Professor Raffaele Pinto, filmed by José Luis Guerín,” where you’d think initially that you’re walking into a classroom, like Wiseman’s uncommonly uplifting At Berkeley (2013), but as the word “experience” starts mulling around in your head, the meaning of the word expands into an imaginary concept where we hear the expression, “To teach is to seduce.” Throughout the centuries poets and writers have felt emboldened in describing fiery love affairs, carnal pleasures, and intense longed-for desires, where this film seems interested in merging academia with the imagination, where there are no boundaries or prohibitions, allowing passions to exist in private dialogues and ordinary moments. While it’s one thing to theorize, this film takes the lecture out of the classroom and allows it to live and breathe in the real world. While Pinto is a balding man in his early 60’s, the women in his class are considerably younger and more attractive, yet sharp as a tack, where their intelligence rivals their beauty. Emanuela (Emanuela Forgetta) is a voluptuous and fiery Italian student who seems as knowledgeable as the professor, while the others are Spanish students, where Mireia (Mireia Iniesta) is seen confiding in her, revealing she is pursuing an online love affair, apparently wondering if words alone can sustain love, where you don’t even have to meet the object of your desires in person. Carolina (Carolina Llacher) is a short-haired student who seems more interested in challenging the professor’s theories, using more contemporary, free-form verse, for instance, instead of the preferred classical language. Except for the professor, none of the women are referred to by their names, remaining anonymous throughout, although at least once Carolina is referred to by name from one of the other students. This tends to minimize any associated reality and instead they are more mythical creatures, existing in the stream of thought, necessary in the pursuit of ideas. As far as Pinto is concerned the women are real, where his justification to his wife is, “I fall in love within a teaching relationship,” a rationalization that she simply refuses to accept.

In private discussions, student papers are critiqued and evaluated, where he retains his professorial relationship, but especially concerning Carolina, he’s not very open minded to new ideas or concepts. Who’s to say what she expounds is any less exemplary than his own philosophy, but he excoriates the very notion that she would communicate “outside” the boundaries of “his” guidelines, which at the very least appears to be hypocritical and sexist. Poetry of any kind remains within the stream of thought and can be used to communicate and express a myriad of ideas, perhaps even more than the professor is willing to consider. When she is soundly rejected, she again confides with Emanuela, the student/professor among them, who reminds her she knew this would happen, so what did she expect? Mireia actually travels with the professor to Naples as his mistress, and is the only one seen naked in bed, where they visit various museum artifacts afterwards, reminiscent of Rossellini’s love in the ruins film, Journey to Italy (1954). Afterwards she meets in a coffee shop with Rosa, hiding nothing, actually defending her right to be the object of the professor’s desires, yet Rosa has a larger overall view, noting that at some point, it is inevitable that the man will tire of her, and in her diminished state, what will she represent then? Rosa is the only one in the film who seems rational and human, angered by her husband’s actions, bothered by this young girl’s insolence, yet retaining every shred of dignity even in such a compromising situation. From her position, her husband’s experiment is nothing more than selfish male indulgence, where he’s using his position to manipulate the behavior of younger more attractive girls, where he can claim the ones he wants and reject the ones he’s not interested in, where it’s actually surprising he hasn’t gotten fired. Despite all the flowery academia, one wonders if any of that actually comes into play when a man finds a woman he’s attracted to. As the professor and his wife agree to share their extensive wall-sized bookshelf rather than break it in half, there is something to be said for enduring love, the kind that exists beyond all the artifice and youthful bluster, where perhaps this is all a diversionary smokescreen, as ultimately, sexual attraction can never really be explained in a classroom, as it rarely happens the way the poets see it. Instead we are a smaller microcosm with a much shorter attention span, but we do have the capacity to dream.

Academy of the Muses - Film Society of Lincoln Center

The director of In the City of Sylvia returns with a thought-provoking meditation on film form, art, love, and gender. University of Barcelona philology professor Raffaele Pinto leads a simulated college seminar on women’s roles in inspiring art and historical literary muses, attended entirely by actresses. Their objections to his arguments are sharp and profound—as are the professor’s post-class discussions with his wise wife. The film also incorporates moments of the women in and around Barcelona, relating both mythological parables and deeply personal stories about their relationships. A favorite at the Locarno Film Festival and Film Comment’s fourth best undistributed film of 2015.

Cine-File Chicago: Kyle A. Westphal

If you only know José Luis Guerín from his 2007 film IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA, then the first thing you should know about his latest work is that THE ACADEMY OF MUSES probably has more dialogue in its first two minutes than SYLVIA featured in its entirety. To call this a deliberate decision would only be playing coy. "As a filmmaker I subordinated all my resources to the staging of word," notes Guerín in his director's statement, "to that infinite space opened through the confrontation between two faces. No rhetorical or stylistic added: nor music, or cross-fade, neither gimmicks mounting or descriptive plans, not even a single transition shot [....] Nothing to hide: the film assumes its industrial insecurity condition, it admits its modest tools: there is nothing to hide or conceal." He's not kidding; shot on consumer grade video, the aesthetic is ascetic. The moments of pictorial beauty that flitter by—the reflections of trees in a car windshield, the images of passersby bouncing off the windows of a small cafe, the competing focal planes that hazily suggest an infinite expanse in a nondescript room—are not so much accidental as incidental to the larger design: they're temporary felicities that occasionally intersect with something coarser, more permanent. Much of the film is given over to classroom discussions in the Philology Department at the University of Barcelona, where we gradually discern that poetry, eros, patriarchy, and the Western canon are functionally one and the same. Professor Raffaele Pinto matches wits with his students, delighting in any opportunity to puncture their linguistic sensitivity. "We cannot avoid language," he observes, spoken like a University of Chicago provost convinced that he has perfected a logical refutation of academic safe spaces, "we are prisoners of language, we can't communicate or think or improve our living conditions, except through language." Yes, but who dictates that language—and who stumbled innocently upon the notion of muses midwifing the creative energy of our poets? Do the muses possess agency, subjectivity, and interiority of their own? According to whom? Later on, Professor Pinto meekly brushes aside his own agency: he asserts that teaching is an act of seduction, and there's not a damn thing the poor man can do about that. When his wife asks whether he's slept with a student, the professor answers, without missing a beat, that poetry is the quest to understand what happens after death. (With all the nymphs gathered around middle-aged philosophers on park benches discussing the contours of the universe, you'd be forgiven for wondering whether you'd stumbled into a curiously chaste Jean-Claude Brisseau movie.) This is a confounding, irascible film, straddling the line between rebuke and awe just as readily it does between fiction and documentary. If you agree with the supposition that love means sharing bookcases, this movie was made for you.

Cineaste: Aaron Cutler August 23, 2016, also seen here: The Academy of Muses — Cineaste Magazine

The Catalan director José Luis Guerín’s films are based on extraordinarily beautiful images paired with simple—even banal—ideas. This description holds true for his most recent completed film, The Academy of Muses (2015), which is receiving its U.S. theatrical release following its world premiere at the Locarno International Film Festival last year. It also holds true for his previous films, which will screen at New York’s Anthology Film Archives in late August 2016 within a retrospective accompanying this run. Innisfree (1990), for instance, visits the titular Irish village where John Ford’s The Quiet Man (1952) was shot and interlaces sequences from the older film with interviews with the place’s current-day residents, calmly showing the impact of Hollywood upon their personal histories. Train of Shadows (1997) reconstructs fragments of a lost silent-era film made by a man who died the day of its shoot, offering both a direct representation of and a metaphor for cinema’s ability to revive the past.

Guerín’s best-known film, In the City of Sylvia (2008), and its companion work, Some Photos in the City of Sylvia (2007), jointly recollect a journey taken by a man to Strasbourg to look for a woman encountered there years earlier. The earlier film relies on black-and-white still photographs taken by the filmmaker, who narrates his own story; the later color film casts actors to fill in for Guerín and the woman and uses the structure of a languid chase film to bring his pursuit of her to life.

An opening title describes the film as “An educational experience with Professor Raffaele Pinto, filmed by José Luis Guerín.” The work’s grounding encounters take place in a seminar room of the Philology Department at the University of Barcelona, where discussions are led by Pinto, a real-life Italian philology professor. His discipline is the study of historical developments in language and human thought, and he proceeds to use Dante Alighieri’s writings with his largely female student body to illustrate his ideas. The love of Dante for Beatrice, he argues, finds corollaries in the passion between the doomed lovers Paolo and Francesca, themselves inspired to adulterous passion by reading a tale of the forbidden romance between Lancelot and Guinevere. With increasingly seductive tones, Pinto argues love to be an ideal formed by human beings over the course of centuries—not only by male poets that envision their female beloveds as inspiring muses but also by women that actively cast themselves in the roles.

To this end, he proposes a modern-day “Academy of Muses,” in which the women before him will test whether ancient notions of passion are still relevant today. His gambit can be seen validly as a lurid chauvinist ploy, with some of the students encouraged to test their powers upon him (“I fall in love within a teaching relationship,” he later justifies). Yet it also leads to many marvelous moments in which bilingual academic debates spill out beyond the walls of the classroom and breathe vibrantly in physical form, beginning with the visages of the muses themselves.

Academy emerges from a fictionalizing premise. Although Pinto and the seminar’s participants appear under their real names, their onscreen gatherings and relationships have all been staged and largely improvised for Guerín’s camera, mirroring the idea of love as a fiction that brings people together. This idea is articulated most forcefully by Pinto’s Spanish wife Rosa (played by Rosa Delor Muns), who argues with him when they are alone that artists have done harm by creating the concept of love. One could easily find flaws in her argument. After all, if poets espouse love, and poets are human, might not that espousal be an articulation of a real human sentiment, and more than a mere seduction tool? Yet one cannot argue with the forcefulness of her delivery, as Guerín, positioned outside the couple’s tree-covered window, shows the man seated comfortably in a chair holding sway over his hypocrisy, while the woman stands with her head down, arguing bitterly with all her might.

In her battle to keep her husband, we see that Rosa has much to argue against. Two of the academy’s muses come to stand out to her eyes, to the professor’s, and to ours. The blonde-haired, slight Mireia (Mireia Iniesta) has found herself stimulated by an online-only relationship with a man and seeks to understand whether she can love someone through words alone. At one point, she travels to a museum in Naples and wanders amidst a hall of white marble statues, as though seeking advice from ancestors (with echoes of Rossellini at work). The more voluptuous, darker Emanuela (Emanuela Forgetta), in comparison, tries to perceive her own mind and heart through more sensorial immersion. We watch as she, inspired by debate with her university peers, travels to Sardinia with recording equipment in hand and stands in a field amidst a flock of sheep as a farmer recites earthy love poetry. (Is Rossellini here again?)

Throughout, Guerín’s camera fixates largely upon an essential aspect of cinema: human faces. Not a single kiss is exchanged onscreen, with the passion instead lying in the efforts people make to mentally maneuver between their feelings and the rationalizations thereof. A common visual strategy that Guerín adopts as they do so is shooting through glass surfaces. When Rosa argues with Raffaele, for instance, or when the professor furtively meets a younger muse, we see not only the performers, but also the outside world layered over them through windows. In such moments, the filmmaker announces his presence as someone distant from the action, respecting the privacy of the encounters contained within his frame. He and the lovers before him work together to create the semblance of secret worlds.

Guerín himself has said, in an interview with Film Comment about Academy, that he believes that, “Documentary is always about the public space.” If so, then fiction might be about the private space created in moments such as these and others. For instance, it additionally sometimes happens when people are speaking in Academy that the film’s imagery will cut to black and then return several seconds later, without a break in the conversation. Although no seeming change has occurred with the characters, the film has opened up a space for us as spectators to fictionalize the action by internalizing its discourse and making it part of our own imaginings.

The film’s organically emerging narrative ultimately deals with the conflicts waged between Rosa and other women for her husband’s attention. That narrative is best experienced as a series of brilliant, fragmented shards, in keeping with the fragmented nature of human thought. Among the most incandescent are brief instances when the muses fuse complicity with Guerín and inspire his imagination as well as ours. “The task of poetry is to bring light into the world,” we are told at one point in the film. “Unfortunately, without the muses, poetry becomes solipsistic madness.”

In seeming illustration, beauty comes to act as an organizing principle. The garrulous tedium of the classroom space, in which Mireia appears as simply one figure among many, eventually vanishes in favor of a shot of her posed alone and soulfully in the surroundings of Dante’s privileged Lake Averno, an instance that she has seemingly conjured up in the wake of all the preceding talk. At another point, Patricia (Patricia Gil) narrates the Greek myth of Apollo and Daphne to a young girl, and her excited relaying of a tale of transformation and pursuit leads the camera to briefly, breathlessly dance among trees before returning to earth.

Academy’s climax is a café encounter between two possessive women over a man, with both coming to understand that they can each—if they wish—continue to own a part of him in their minds. The closing credits, coming soon afterward, reveal the film’s performers in a way that suggests the possibility of their all continuing to stay with us. Desire, after all, is internal and personal, and can last for as long as memory can. The film’s staged explorations of literature’s effect on the psyche are ultimately revealing of the force held on the psyche by cinema, a medium with the power to preserve people as we once knew and possibly treasured them.

Interview: José Luis Guerín - Film Comment April 8, 2016, also seen here: Film Comment: Christopher Small

José Luis Guerín’s Academy of the Muses, which screened in the Signs of Life section at the Locarno film festival, plays something like a Frederick Wiseman movie—half a drama of speech and half a drama of faces, its subject no less than the confrontation between sound and image itself. Portraying the seminar and home life of a university lecturer, the film’s crystalline images—characters and their expressions framed under quicksilver reflections of the illusory outside world of passing traffic and dangling branches—generate a conflict of their own: between an emphatic refusal to cut to the other side of a conversation (as in some Eric Rohmer) and the escalating drama of the reflections that enclose them (à la Nathaniel Dorsky). More startling still is that the film’s documentary power is channeled into a narrative as classical—in both the Ancient Greek and Hollywood senses of the term—as any of the subjects the muses and the professor discuss in their classes. Pitting the philosophical against the unfolding challenges of the domestic, Guerín’s film takes place in the midst of a battle between living with one’s nascent ideas and putting them into the practice of everyday life.

FILM COMMENT spoke to Guerín, best known for In the City of Sylvia (07), shortly after the second screening of Academy of the Muses in Locarno. The film screens April 16 in Art of the Real at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

I wanted to start with a comment you made after yesterday’s screening, that Jean Rouch’s The Human Pyramid was one of your biggest influences.

More an inspiration. I think that, with Jean Rouch, it’s always a question between choice and chance. Every filmmaker proposes in their work one part for control and one part for chance. In Hitchcock, for example, it’s all control. Anything left to chance is bad, a complete accident. That’s not the case for Rossellini or Renoir—sometimes with them it’s all left up to chance, a reliance on pure accident, which creates the unique convergence of movement you see in their work. In this context, the experiments of Jean Rouch are very important. And his experimentation was specifically very important for the Nouvelle Vague generation. Maybe without Rouch it wouldn’t be the same at all. In the films of Godard and Truffaut, their technique and the Nouvelle Vague’s system of shooting in this particular way—without light, storyboards, etc.—all comes from Jean Rouch.

There’s something special in the heart of all of your films, something that’s also present in both Rouch and Rivette’s cinemas: this idea of starting with what seems like a total documentary, and then over the course of the film, the audience observes the process of wrestling fiction out of these documentary images.

I started with fiction movies. My first film was just fiction. I was young: 22 or 23 years old. And after my first film I had the feeling that I was in a cul-de-sac. That I was faced with a problem with regard to fiction movies, at least. I saw that fiction films worked with actors, with characters and caricatures—with archetypes. I totally believed in the actor “acting,” this very ancient form of dramaturgy. So I looked to documentary as a solution to my new problem; with documentary principles, I now had a way to renovate narrativity, dramaturgy—searching with these new tools for these other forms of storytelling. A critic said to me after the premiere of Academy of the Muses that my style takes the form of the principle of the prime number: one part fiction, one part documentary, another fiction, and so on. And of course, there’s ultimately something hybrid about the result you see in the final film. When I made pure documentary films, I used some techniques from other documentary movies but also many from fiction films. When I made a documentary, I constructed scenes using the rules of big-budget narrative montage.

In your film Innisfree [90], even though it’s ostensibly a documentary about Ireland, it’s almost as if you’re using fiction as a jumping-off point for the documentary. You take John Ford’s The Quiet Man and say something like: “Maybe if I film the same land, the same people and traditions, it will evoke something of this artist’s fiction.”

Yes. The most important thing for me about the village in Innisfree is the colonization of dreams and the imagination. If you want to understand a community, you need to research these different colonizing techniques, like the history of Celts, the British, the Catholics, and the Druids from the past—all these things that form the history of Ireland. More specifically, in this special village, you have the colonization of the imaginary as a result of the shooting of this big movie by John Ford, called The Quiet Man. And the people at this place, upon our arrival, knew the dialogue of the film very well. It completely changed the collective imagination of this village.

For example, a very funny thing from Innisfree was that in this village the people had caps just like those worn by the fishermen from Flaherty’s Man of Aran. That is to say, from the Aran Islands. This type of cap has no use, no history for the villagers—it’s from the Aran Islands. Why in this village does everyone now wear this type of hat? Because when John Ford, the director, asked all the people of the village to wear these hats in order to realize his own version of Ireland, they suddenly absorbed this new identity, an identity based on Ford’s imagination. Cinema changed the life of the people in this village for generations. It’s a frontier between imagination and reality, and it’s at the center of village life and at the center of my proposition in Innisfree.

Ford, in turn, was responsible for the colonization of my dreams as a child. My first contact with the cinema was through Westerns. I knew better the history of the American West than I did Spain’s history. I could tell you how people would arrive on the express train, how the railroad was constructed, about the conflicts between North and South, between outlaws and marshals. It was, and is, my world. And all because in this moment, making Innisfree, the open spaces of Ireland, the Irish public, the drinking, the saloons, the community feeling… it was like the John Ford Westerns of my memory.

There’s this idea you work with over and over again, of imposing movies on the world and changing reality. Because The Quiet Man exists, there’s a generation of villagers who wear this type of hat, completely alien at first but now part of a new culture, of a new reality. In Academy of the Muses, exactly how much is imposed upon a pre-existing reality and how much is left to chance?

It’s a fictional film, totally.

All of it?

Yes, though there are some sequences that are built from techniques close to documentary, like, for example, the first sequence in the classroom. But at the same time, shooting this scene, where the lecturer has a discussion with his students, he would have never spoken like that had the camera not been there. He spoke like that because I was there looking at him through my camera. Usually, documentary filmmakers think that the camera is bad because it alters the behavior of the subjects. They want to neutralize the camera to retain “spontaneity.” But that’s not true—the camera provokes new interpretations. It provokes a new action. Sometimes documentary captures things that are there; it’s a reproduction of life. But sometimes film is not a reproduction of reality. Like with John Ford, it’s the creation of a new reality.

And as the film goes on you can see everything—the people, the drama, etc., evolve.

Yes, exactly. I knew that my camera was creating this new reality in the classroom and elsewhere.

Particularly, there’s one image in the film that’s almost the Rouchian turning point, a moment one always sees in Rouch’s cinema when the whole film is reborn in a flash before our eyes. The lecturer’s wife, having just had an argument with her husband, is staring out the window. It’s a close-up from outside, the shifting reflections of trees outside masking or maybe framing her expression.

Yes.

It’s startling! In the scenes building up to this, the film’s very loose and almost amateurish—very emblematic of documentary qualities. And then with this one image everything is recontextualized. Suddenly, we’re aware of a powerful, imposed emotion upon the image.

Interesting. In the first scene, you see the teacher in the public space: the classroom. Documentary is always about the public space. And then, it’s other things—back to fiction. All the same, I shoot through the window and use reflections in this way because it’s so violent, shooting into and through these different spatial planes… But with every different character, the teacher behaves differently. He changes a lot if he is in front of the community, or, on the other hand, if he’s with his wife. She’s conversing with him whenever we see her. She’s almost the critic of his public life. The perception of the lecturer changes a lot. It’s like in Citizen Kane. There are so many different people who speak about the same character, and it’s always a different image we get that we ultimately don’t see. In Kane, here’s the point of view of his wife, of Joseph Cotten, and so on. Everyone has a completely different perspective. And one alone is not emphasized, not this person, not that person… And in Academy of the Muses, I show that his behavior, the scenario, is different when he’s with his wife, or with a student, or with another student—it changes a lot.

It’s almost like the people in the film are open to changing the fiction themselves.

On the one hand, there’s the differing perspectives on this single character. But it’s also the motion of people within the movie. For me, cinema is motion. Every character has his own motion, his own arc and transformation. For example, the teacher’s wife, in the first part, is maybe the mère castratrice—she hates poetry, creativity, etc. But at the end of the movie she’s the only one who is able to love him. She grows and transforms completely, blossoming over the course of the narrative. Every character has a single line of motion: an evolution that we can trace. I remember the films of George Cukor, with the women and their dialogue. He gives each character their own specific taste. It’s clear at the end the individual impressions they leave with us.

And in the Sardinia sequence, which looks like a documentary, like Innisfree even, the three shepherds are being interviewed by one of the students, herself holding the microphone and walking around them within the same frame. The act of recording is not kept off screen. For these characters, there’s no difference between making the film and playing a part in it.

In this sequence, the research done by the character is also the research of the filmmaker. The tool is the same.

That’s the same microphone?

Yes, I just gave it to her.

How big was the film crew?

Just one woman recording and mixing sound and then myself, on the camera.

In every scene?

Every scene. She’s worked with me on all my movies. But the tiny crew is also my answer to the current Spanish crisis, the heavy cuts to culture and cinema. It’s a choice I made not to demand a lot of public funding, not to pursue these formal avenues for financing. At the same time, the film was born in this exact context because there was no obligation to deliver the finished movie on an exact date, or even to deliver a movie at all. When I started production, I didn’t know that it was going to become a movie. I didn’t want to fit into the industrial model, to work with deadlines and so on. I thought maybe it could form several short films or maybe some kind of video installation. Small objects and such, but then after a while I realized that it would be a full movie. I like the idea of a sketch in cinema a lot.

And there are some images that an entire professional crew could never have conceived or executed in a hundred years, but at the same time there are also scenes that are very simple, improvised. They have the feeling of amateur images, designed off-the-cuff.

Yes.

It’s something I love about your film. It creates a strange effect, like the shabbiness in Rouch’s The Human Pyramid.

You have to be careful with the tools you have, your material and the way you work. I hate the cinema of the nouveau riche: this idea of pretending to have all the tools in the world. I don’t want to hide the absence of an industrial model in my film; I accept the fragility of it within such-and-such industrial models. Whenever the image was not good, I didn’t try and cut around it—instead, I inserted a black screen, I retained the absence. No transitions. No simulations of a transition that doesn’t exist.

I like this idea that one sees in all of your work, also and especially in Unas fotos en la ciudad de Sylvia [07]. With The Academy of the Muses, you surrender your tools at the start: there’s no hiding. You just say, “It’s only going to be me on the camera and one other person on the sound. Simple images.” And, consequently, as in Unas fotos, because the film has become so small and condensed, whenever anything happens it’s a total shock to the audience.

I agree. I guess that bronze is very beautiful if not compared with gold. That’s not from me. That’s from Adolf Loos, the architect. There are no noble materials; there are only noble ways to use whatever materials you have at hand. And for me, cinema is like this. I use my little camera, with the particular qualities, the etiquette of this little machine…

Almost like Pedro Costa’s cinema.

It’s not like a cinema camera, and I accept that. Every filmmaker needs to find his particular tools. With each new movie, I try to find something I couldn’t find in the previous, a technique or a certain something I cannot repeat. [Laughs] I don’t know why I said that.

Have you seen the interview Jacques Rivette did with Renoir?

Oh, yes. Very good stuff. Cinéastes de notre temps. It’s incredible, maybe the best movie by Rivette.

In that episode, he says that even the most beautiful vase in the modern world will never compare to the most primitive pot that has been buried in the dirt for a thousand years, freshly unearthed and immediately more important that any art today.

Exactly. As for production, Renoir also says that a good bottle of wine should just be for a handful of friends. The more people you invite to a banquet, the more you have to water down the same good wine.

Fandor: Cristina Álvarez López September 2, 2016

Movie Mezzanine: Kenji Fujishima

Jose Luis Guerin's 'The Academy of Muses' - IndieWire Eric Kohn

The Village Voice: Michael Atkinson August 30, 2016

EyeForFilm.co.uk [Jennie Kermode]

Spectrum Culture [Jesse Cataldo]

The Academy of Muses | Film Review | Slant Magazine Carson Lund, also seen here: The House Next Door [Carson Lund]

Brooklyn Magazine: Benjamin Mercer September 01, 2016

MUBI's Notebook: Daniel Kasman August 10, 2015

Screen Slate [Jon Auman]

Memories of the Future [Jesse Ataide]

The House Next Door [Michael Pattison]

Cineuropa.org [Alfonso Rivera]

Battleship Pretension [Scott Nye]

Letterboxd: Mike D'Angelo

Letterboxd: Michael Sicinski

Cinema Axis [Matthew Paradis]

Brooklyn Magazine: Jordan Cronk Art of the Real Keeps Redefining Documentary Film, April 06, 2016

Fandor: Adrian Martin Five Varieties of Love, November 23, 2015

Cineaste: Richard Porton December 04, 2015

Senses of Cinema: Jaimey Fisher September 15, 2015

The A.V. Club: Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

Letterboxd: Preston Wilder

Slant: Diego Semerene #22 Film of the Year, December 09, 2016

Brooklyn Magazine: Eli Goldfarb

Daily | Locarno 2015 | José Luis Guerín's THE ACADEMY OF MUSES ... David Hudson from Fandor

"24 Fps Magazine: Interview with Guerin by Gabe Klinger" July 19, 2008

MUBI's Notebook: Nathan Letoré interview, September 01, 2015

Bright Lights Film Journal: Michael Guillen interview May 12, 2016

'The Academy of the Muses' (L'Accademia delle ... - Hollywood Reporter Boyd van Hoeij

The New York Times: Review by Ken Jaworowski September 1, 2016 also seen here: Review: Look, Yes, but Listening Is the Key to 'The Academy of Muses ...

"José Luis Guerín" Harvard Film Archive, January/February 2008

THE ACADEMY OF MUSES official trailer on Vimeo (2:11)

Guerra, Ciro

THE WIND JOURNEYS (Los Viajes del Viento)

Colombia Germany Holland Argentina (120 mi) 2009

The Wind Journeys (Los Viajes Del Viento) Lee Marshall at Cannes from Screendaily

The Wind Journeys follows up Ciro Guerra’s well-received 2004 debut, The Wandering Shadows, with another odd-couple tale that is far more epic in scope. Both travelogue (it was shot in 80 locations in northern Colombia) and affecting master-disciple drama, The Wind Journeys has a polished ethno-musical appeal that amply makes up for its occasional road-movie longueurs.

With its stunning widescreen landscapes, colourful musical interludes and sure human touch, The Wind Journeys occupies a niche not too far from nature-and landscape dominated world cinema releases such as Himalaya or Tulpan.

We first see dour, taciturn accordionist or juglar Ignacio (Martinez) on his donkey, leaving town after the death of his wife. He’s trailed by a stubborn teenager, Fermin (Nunez), who is determined to become his apprentice, and may just possibly be his son. Ignacio wants nothing to do with him, but Fermin hangs on in there, Sancho Panza style, as the two journey across some of the spectacular unspoiled landscapes of Colombia’s Caribbean provinces, from the high sierras to the lagoons.

Ignacio is heading for the distant village of Taroa to give his accordion back to his own maestro – who won it, legend would have it, in a duel with the devil.

The long drawn-out quest arc is leavened by some more conventional dramatic conflicts. First comes Ignacio’s inistence that he doesn’t play any more – an abstinence which is finally broken in the film’s first and most spectacular musical set-piece, a competitive accordion duel in the town of Becerril.

But it’s the master-pupil standoff that is the film’s main dramatic motor, and it’s nicely underplayed, with Fermin proving his worth to Ignacio in a voodoo drumming scene, then getting himself beaten up in order to get his master’s accordion back. Though a layer of folk magic, legends and curses underpins the story, there are no supernatural shortcuts: on the several occasions when we half-expect Fermin to suddenly reveal his hidden powers, he doesn’t – but he wins our and his master’s respect nevertheless through sheer determination.

The landscapes and characters are so rooted in archetypes and distant from world events that we don’t really grasp the film’s period setting until we see a music festival banner identifying the year as 1968. There’s a rich symbolic, at times dreamlike quality to the various stages of the quest – the voodoo drummers, a machete fight on a bridge, an Arhuaca indian village in the mountains where the injured Ignacio is nursed back to health. Paulo Perez’ ravishing photography stresses the dominance of nature over man, pulling back in a series of longshots to show our heroes as specks in the landscape.

Justin Chang at Cannes from Variety, May 21, 2009

The rugged majesty of the Colombian landscape forms a spectacular widescreen backdrop for a simple, bittersweet tale of regret and companionship in "The Wind Journeys." Awash in scenic vistas and infused with a touch of the supernatural, this beautifully judged two-hander tells the story of an aging accordion player and the young wannabe musician he's reluctantly allowed to accompany him on his long trek north. Fest travel will take writer-director Ciro Guerra's second feature far and wide, particularly in Latin American territories, and smart, venturesome distribs should be able to capitalize on the film's abundant visual and emotional rewards.

Ignacio Carrillo (Marciano Martinez) has spent most of his life as a juglar, or minstrel. Now in his twilight years and still mourning his wife's recent death, Ignacio vows never to play the accordion again, and sets out on his donkey to return the instrument to his mentor in northern Colombia. Tagging along for the trip is rootless, restless teen Fermin Morales (Yull Nunez), who longs to apprentice himself to Ignacio and learn to play the accordion -- and later, the drum, though he demonstrates little talent for either instrument.

Though he's too taciturn and withdrawn to be openly hostile toward his fellow traveler, Ignacio makes it amply clear that Fermin's presence is unwelcome. Guerra's script has its share of familiar elements -- Fermin, no surprise, is in need of a father figure -- but its most remarkable quality may be its fundamental honesty. The scribe never tries to force a bond between the two characters; nor does he take the easy route of supplying Fermin with latent musical abilities.

Yet despite the absence of conventional payoffs, drama and suspense are hardly in short supply. A drawn-out sequence in which Ignacio decides to break his vow, as he's lured into a battle of escalating one-upmanship with an arrogant accordionist, proves enormously satisfying, and the story takes a believably harrowing turn when Ignacio is robbed and it falls to Fermin to recover the stolen instrument. The tale is enriched by myriad references to sorcery and other mystical undercurrents, the most resonant being an alleged curse on Ignacio's distinctively crafted accordion.

Given little dialogue beyond his singing performances, gifted non-pro Martinez strongly inhabits a figure as tough and unyielding as the landscape, though in the grip of an unarticulated sorrow; Nunez has piercing moments as a young man trying to make something of himself. Local side characters, speaking a wide range of dialects, are well inhabited but generally portrayed as antagonistic.

As helmed by Guerra (avoiding the sophomore slump after his prize-winning 2004 debut, "La sombra del caminante"), "The Wind Journeys" unfolds at a slow but steady pace commensurate with that of its two leads, offering gorgeous but never unnecessary stops and detours along the way. Whether framing a hut on a cloud-wrapped hilltop or the cracked, parched ground of a desert, Paulo Andres Perez's widescreen compositions often dwarf the characters in their sheer scale and grandeur, offering up the region's desolate beauty as an object worthy of endless contemplation.

Ivan "Tito" Ocampo's score subtly supports the film's musical performances.

The Wind Journeys David Hudson at Cannes from The IFC Blog, May 24, 2009

Matt Bochenski at Cannes from Little White Lies, May 22, 2009

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (El abrazo de la serpiente) A- 94

Colombia Venezuela Argentina (125 mi) 2015 ‘Scope Official site

Winner of the CICAE award at Cannes, which promotes art cinema, this surprisingly haunting period film, shot in black and white, with a brief expanse into color near the end, is not nearly as inventive or fantastical as Miguel Gomes’s 2013 Top Ten List #4 Tabu (2012), though it exists in an entirely different universe, offering a unique vantage point of those historically connected to Amazon rain forests and the indigenous population residing there. The film is a road map for a journey into the past, exposing the brutal effects of colonialism imposed upon an indigenous population in Colombia, including the aftereffects of centuries of barbaric atrocities, slave labor, forced religious conversions, an elimination of their native languages, all highlighting the mammoth differences in cultural perspective between whites and local natives, as whites have plundered the rain forests in search of rubber and annihilated all but the last traces of an indigenous population, where the surviving native tribes no longer trust white people, having learned from personal experience that scheming whites are the lowest scourge of the earth. The idea of profiting off the natural treasures found growing in the rain forest seems preposterous to the native people, who have for centuries developed a reverence for the sacred and curative powers of natural plants, such as the prized yakruna flower with alleged healing powers that whites wish to harvest in order to extract the purest rubber, where all whites see in the flower are dollar signs. Even as these explorers hide their real intentions of what they plan to do with this plant if they find it, their writings about their expeditions provide the only window into this lost world. What distinguishes this film is its ability to frame so much of the narrative around a non-white cultural perspective, holding a mirror up to Western civilization’s pattern of abuses in the region, offering a scintillatingly refreshing viewpoint that artistically evokes a curative solution for the hubris and arrogance that has perpetually guided outsiders into the region.

Blending fact and fiction, the interconnected narrative follows a dual track thirty years apart, based upon the diaries of German ethnologist and explorer Theodor Koch-Grunberg in 1909, played by Jan Bijvoet from Borgman (2013), and another expedition that followed in his footsteps by American biologist and plant enthusiast Richard Evans Schultes in the 1940’s, played by Brionne Davis from AVENGED (2013), who had read Theo’s book, where each journey into the Amazon rain forest was in search of an elusive flower with amazing medicinal properties, where both men come in contact with the same medicine man or shaman, Karamakate, Niblio Torres in his youth and Antonio Bolivar as the older man, the last surviving member of his tribe in a region overrun by colonialists. The blending of time adds a surreal quality to the film, where the slower pace of life along the river traversing by canoe through spectacular jungle foliage is already depicted in a lush, dreamlike atmosphere, beautifully shot by David Gallego, with an extraordinary sound design by Carlos García, enriched by the vivid sounds and sights of the flora and fauna, where as many as nine different languages are spoken along with native songs and ceremonial chants. Wasting little time, the film gets right into the heart of the story, where a young Karamakate waits on a riverbank with a painted face in ceremonial attire, spear in hand, wearing only a loin cloth as a canoe approaches carrying a deathly-ill German scientist and a native companion Maduca (Yauenkü Migue) dressed in clothing worn by whites. Asking if he would save his friend’s life, the shaman refuses, claiming it was the white man that destroyed his village and wiped out his entire tribe, where he’s all that’s left, showing an equal amount of contempt for both of them, telling them to go look elsewhere. When Theo suggests there are survivors from his tribe and he knows where to find them, the irritated Karamakate reluctantly agrees to help, so long as they disturb nothing, while refusing to eat meat or fish and leaving the jungle intact. Blowing a substance (likely a mixture of coca leaves) directly into his nose, Theo soon recovers, readily abiding by a new set of guidelines established by Karamakate, who must continually inject him with this curative medicine to avoid a relapse, as only the yakruna flower can provide a permanent cure.

As they begin their Odysseus-like journey, the film possesses a near mythical quality as they encounter a series of unfortunate circumstances, deliberately entering Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, where the making of the film itself recalls the impossible encounters of Herzog’s FITZCARRALDO (1982), or the madness of AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (1972), continually mixing the future with the past, where the filmmaker literally alters any concept of time, as it’s all part of the same “experience,” where Karamakate informs them “Listen to what the river can tell you. Every tree, every flower brings wisdom.” For the shaman, this is also a journey of rediscovery, as his powers have grown rusty from disuse, identifying as a chullachaqui (an empty shell of a human being), allowing himself to be a part of the world again where he once again lives in harmony with all things. He ridicules the useless pile of suitcases that Theo lugs along at every step, suggesting “they’re just things” weighing them down, throwing them overboard at one point, while Theo claims he is a man of science, where he has to provide evidence of where he’s been or no one back in Germany would believe him, showing him notebooks of drawings he has made, or specimens he has collected along the way, which includes taking Karamakate’s photograph standing proudly as the master of his domain. This same photograph is used to guide Richard back into the same region decades later, as they retrace the same steps traveled on the earlier journey still in search of the elusive plant. In a way, the narrative structure resembles Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995), where an Indian leads a white man on a protracted journey of awakening just before the hour of his death, retracing their steps as they cross between several spiritual realms leading up to the “final crossing.” As we see Theo socializing with a group of natives in their own language, where there is plenty of singing and dancing, he demonstrates the advanced power of a compass, which one of the natives takes to immediately, offering a handmade craft for its possession, which angers Theo, as it’s one of his most prized navigational tools, suggesting technology will alter their natural evolution, but Karamakate reminds him that blind ignorance is not some pure romanticized notion, “You cannot forbid them to learn. Knowledge belongs to all men.”

While there are many horrors seen along the way, perhaps the worst are the crimes perpetrated by the rubber industry, as they come across a grove of bleeding rubber trees, a reflection of the white presence in the Amazon, where Maduca angrily spills all the cups collecting the white sticky liquid released from gashes in the trunks of the trees, fuming over the Effects on indigenous population where the rubber barons viciously rounded up the local Indians by force, placed them in chains, killed them on the spot or cut off the arms of those that disobeyed, while ordering them to tap rubber out of the trees, where on one plantation alone that began with 50,000 Indians, only 8,000 remained after the harvest. In some areas 90% of the Indian population was wiped out. A distraught one-armed man they encounter is beside himself in grief at what they’ve done, knowing he will be held responsible, asking them to kill him right there on the spot, as he will surely not live to see another day. Further down river they run into a deranged Spanish priest running a Catholic mission filled with orphaned native children who lost their parents to the rubber plantations, all dressed in white robes, where they are forbidden to speak in their native, or “pagan” language, including ancestral fables and stories, as any cultural reminders of where they came from is subject to brutal punishment, where the absurdity of the situation is so dire that the priest prefers to inflict the wrath of a public whipping even as the Colombian army approaches on a rampage through the countryside where in all likelihood they will eventually be slaughtered. Besides a need to unburden themselves of material possessions, to explore the mystery of existence through consciousness alone, Karamakate reminds both scientists that they carry psychological baggage and cannot be cured of their illness because the white man has forgotten how to dream. In spite of the sinister undercurrent, there’s a meditative quality to Guerra’s direction that culminates in a transformative final scene that transcends into a near-religious mystical experience, where the only way to heal is by learning how to dream, all emerging from their journeys as different men, as they are finally allowed to “experience” what they came in search of, literally exploding out of the subconscious like the final scenes of Tarkovsky’s ANDREI RUBLEV (1966), becoming a montage of brilliant, swirling colors, a hallucinogenic, dream-like vision revealing the magnificence of the cosmos, complete with animal gods and heavenly constellations, where the universe exists in all its abstract manifestations, pushing the boundaries of what is real and imagined, offering a poignant closing dedication to those “peoples whose song we will never know.”

TIFF 2015 | Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra, Colombia ... Blake Williams from Cinema Scope

Ciro Guerra, taking after Werner Herzog, understands the influential power of research narratives when it comes to representing a nation’s colonialist past—especially with regards to meticulous details. Why else would the chief selling points in the loglines of his last two features boast of these productions’ pedantic commitments to, e.g., a surplus of filming locations—as many as 80 for The Wind Journeys (2009)—or the purportedly record-setting inclusion of nine languages (some of them dead) in Embrace of the Serpent? But who cares, really, when the colonial legacy supposedly at the heart of the latter’s concerns are so shoddily and offensively dramatized that they might as well have been resigned to window dressing?

Guerra’s game, far as I can tell, is one of posturing via rote understandings of de rigueur thematics (viz. nationalism and colonialism) and arty aestheticism, neither of which he has any sort of exceptional handle on. High contrast black-and-white Scope photography of the Amazon jungle is not breathtaking a priori; said black-and-white photography does not recall Miguel Gomes’ infinitely more considered and superior colonialist critique Tabu (2012), much as we’d all rather be watching it; Jan Bijvoet is not Klaus Kinski just because he’s white and gaunt with straggly hair; and an out-of-nowhere psychedelic finale is not mesmerizing or transporting simply because it evokes, i.e., plagiarizes 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s Star Gate sequence. These are but reaching gestures from an artist who is willing yet unable to present to the world an original idea.

Festival Review: The Embrace Of The Serpent | Dog And Wolf Mark Wilshin

A beautiful, haunting monochrome vision of a lost world, Ciro Guerra’s The Embrace Of The Serpent exposes the indigenous peoples at risk from the white man.

A native waits on the shore. A warrior. Almost naked but proud. He’s a Cohiuano and the last of his kind. And the only one who knows the secret of the yakruna flower. A white man approaches. This is the meeting that unfolds twice in a dual narrative in Ciro Guerra’s The Embrace Of The Serpent – as the suspicious indigenous guide Karamakate (Nilbio Torres and Antonio Bolivar) becomes ensnared by the adventurers’ lies. It occurs once in 1909 with anthropologist Theodor (Jan Bijvoet) and again in 1940 with botanist Richard (Brionne Davis) – both loosely based on real people (Koch-Grünberg and Evans Schultes respectively), whose writings are now the only witnesses to this lost world. They’re not the brutal, profiteering rubber barons, but still they come with promises of friendship and protection – Theodor so determined to leave only footprints behind that he tries desperately to regain his stolen compass, so that the natives won’t change their methods of navigating by the stars – while hiding their true intentions of taking the plant away with them in order to extract the purest rubber. Beautifully shot in black and white, El Abrazo de la Serpiente invites us into a dazzling lyrical, symbolic vision – in which the indigenous peoples are metamorphosed into a leopard that kills the treacherous white snake. A retrospective tale of vengeance, the continuity of tradition and the far reaches of western learning, The Embrace Of The Serpent powerfully recreates the impressions of a world now disappeared and the fractious relationship between those who live in the rainforest and the scheming colonisers. It’s a complete cosmos of shamans, hallucinogens, animal gods and heavenly constellations, and intelligent filmmaking at its most sublime.

INDIEWIRE [Jessica Kiang]

A few minutes into Colombian director Ciro Guerra's "Embrace of the Serpent" we have met three of its four main characters, and they have encountered each other. In black and white, period-set images of the Amazonian jungle reminiscent of Miguel Gomes' "Tabu," a canoe carrying a gravely ill white man, Theo ("Borgman" star Jan Bijvoet), is punted onto the bank by the loyal native tribesman who serves as his traveling companion. On the bank stands a lone tribal shaman, Karamakate (Nilbio Torres), whose painted face, loin cloth, feathered armbands, phallic-looking necklace and erect, impassive stance seem an unspoken rebuke to the western-clothed native who has come to plead with Karamakate to save his white friend's life. That rebuke is soon spoken, however, in no uncertain terms: Karamakate has nothing but loathing for the white man who wiped out his tribe, and nothing but contempt for a native who might abet one of their number.

But Theo, an explorer/scientist/anthropologist, offers Karamakate perhaps the only thing in all the mystical universes that might change his mind: the slender hope that members of his tribe survive and Theo knows where to find them. In a rage of confusion, Karamakate runs off and petulantly destroys the inside of his hut, before returning to the men and agreeing to nurse Theo, provided they lead him back to the remnants of his people. It is a human moment that points to the remarkable job Guerra does throughout of making the tragic, unforgettable figure of Karamakate, who is played by two different actors in the film's two different time periods, both unknowably foreign and exotic in culture, yet totally human and relatable in motivation and psychology. Just a few minutes in, the viewer is entirely submerged in this fantastical, quasi-mythical, soul-crushing yet often very funny story.

Somewhere between a rebel yell and a lullaby, a primal scream and a Homeric lament, "Embrace of the Serpent" is the kind of wildly original work that the Cannes Directors' Fortnight sidebar was built in hopes of discovering. The making of the film, according to the director’s short preamble prior to the screening, was an arduous, drawn-out process — yet again, it seems that filming in the Amazon region "Fitzcarraldo"-style, presented its very specific set of physical and psychological challenges. Yet none of the arduousness behind-the-scenes shows in the final film, which unfolds with a stunning directorial sureness (and this is only Guerra's third feature) and a layered intelligence that at times lands an insight so wincingly wise and true it takes your breath away. So, when Theo becomes angry when a tribal chief steals his compass, because he fears the technology will erode the native know-how of celestial navigation, Karamakate skewers his condescension, saying simply "You cannot forbid them to learn."

Because the backdrop against which both strands of the story unfold is the disappearance of the native tribes, and the shocking crimes against humanity that the white settlers perpetrated on them in the name of the rubber industry. These men invaded and ravaged the lands the natives had lived in concert with for centuries, stole their know-how, and subjugated entire peoples into the most vicious slavery, brought to horrifying life in one of the film's most nightmarish sequences.

The story is set first in the early 1900s and then in the 1940s, when Karamakate (played as an older man by Antonio Bolivar) again encounters a white man seeking his help: plant enthusiast, Evan (Brionne Davis), who has read Theo's book and comes in search of the rare flower, the Yakruna, that cured him. But it's not only the infrequent shifts between the two strands that lend an unusual edge to the style. The luscious black and white photography from DP David Gallego is never just pretty, there is always something unsettling and dark lurking in its corners, a sense aided by a spectacularly evocative sound design from Carlos Garcia.

But most of all, Guerra's storytelling, inspired by the writings of two real-life pioneering Amazon explorers, on whom his two white characters are loosely based, seethes with an authenticity and immediacy that it's hard to remember many other period films achieving. Which is not to say there are no missteps: When Evan and Karamakate return to the mission site to discover an isolated cult with a self-declared Messiah in charge, it becomes an all-out horror movie very quickly. Now, as a self-contained segment, it is brilliant and terrifying, but it feels out of place tonally with the rest of the film. And it is also just a little long, even before it goes full-on "2001" in a color hallucination sequence late on, with the shaman's spell it casts wearing off just fractionally before it ends.

But these reservations stack up to nothing at all next to the unearthly beauty of this film, and its ancient, soulful wisdom, shot through with a colossal sadness. While it may deal in massive ideas about colonialism, genocide, religious hypocrisy and the legacy of resource exploitation in one of the most primal places on Earth, Guerra's talent is to funnel all that background into an intimate, deeply felt story of four individual men and two canoes.

"Embrace of the Serpent" is simply a work of art, and one of the most singular cinematic experiences you could hope to have in Cannes, or anywhere really. It's an absorbing, even thrilling head trip. It is a Heart-of-Darkness voyage of discovery. It is a lament for all the lost plants and peoples of the world. But it will maybe live longest for me in Karamakate: an immaculate portrait of the unfathomable loneliness and crushing survivor's guilt that comes with being the last of one's kind. [A]

International Cinephile Society [Marc van de Klashorst]

Embrace of the Serpent is like no other movie I've ever seen Todd VanDerWerff from Vox

A Critical Movie Critic [Howard Schumann]

amazon EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT - Twitch Patrick Holzapfel

Cannes 2015: EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT May Change ... Manuel de Layet from Quiet Earth

Film Review: Embrace of the Serpent Chris Barsanti from Film Journal

The Strange And Intoxicating 'Embrace Of The Serpent' Mark Jenkins from NPR

Screen International [Tim Grierson]

Eye Piece: Columbian Stunner Embrace of the Serpent Renders the Amazon in Ghostly Silver David Gallego from Moviemaker magazine

Joshua Reviews Ciro Guerra's Embrace Of The Serpent [PIFF 2016] Joshua Brunsting from Criterion Cast

VIFF: Embrace of the Serpent: 'Hypnotic exemplar of cinema ... Kamran Ahmed from Next Projection

TIFF: 'Embrace of the Serpent' is an exquisite masterwork ... Shane Slater from Awards Circuit

The Film Experience [Nathaniel R] Nathaniel Rogers

Embrace of the Serpent | The 13th Floor Steve Austin

Vanity Fair [Jordan Hoffman]

Cannes: ‘Embrace of the Serpent’ wins at Directors’ Fortnight Michael Rosser

Hollywood Reporter [Jordan Mintzer]

Variety [Justin Chang]

Embrace of the Serpent review – dreamlike exploration of the Amazon's imperialist pollution Jordan Hoffman from The Guardian

'Embrace of the Serpent' Follows Westerners Through the Amazon from the Native Perspective Stephen Garrett from The Observer

Embrace of the Serpent review – you will be transported Mark Kermode from The Observer

El País [Claudia Rojas] (Spanish)

'Embrace Of The Serpent' movie review by Kenneth Turan LA Times

'Embrace of the Serpent,' Ciro Guerra's Searching Tale About Invaded Amazon Cultures Nicholas Casey from The New York Times

Review: 'Embrace of the Serpent,' Where Majesty Meets Monstrosity Stephen Holden from The New York Times

Embrace of the Serpent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Guerra, Ray

THE UNSCRUPULOUS ONES (Os Cafajestes)

Brazil (100 mi) 1962

User reviews from imdb Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The First Frontal Nude Scene in the Brazilian Cinema, In a Nouvelle-Vague Film

Jandir (Jece Valadão) and Vavá (Daniel Filho) are two scums and small time crooks from Copacabana, who want to raise some easy money shooting compromising pictures of Leda (Norma Bengell) and blackmailing her rich uncle. Leda convinces them to use her cousin Vilma (Lucy de Carvalho), the daughter of the victim. "Os Cafajestes" is one of the most important Brazilian films ever. This was the first movie made in Brazil by director Rui Guerra, from Mozambique, in the beginning of the Brazilian movement "Cinema Novo" (New Cinema), raised against the Brazilian "pornochanchada" (very silly comedies with great popular appeal). "Os Cafajestes" is totally influenced by the Nouvelle-Vague and is very daring, presenting the first frontal nude scene in the Brazilian cinema, with Norma Bengell naked for about four minutes. The story is very amoral, and the film was completely mutilated by the producer, due to the censorship of the government and the Catholic Church. Therefore, there are gaps along the story, and consequently the characters are not well developed. Further, I regret that this important film has not had a decent distribution. My VHS, horribly recorded in LP, was released by "Isto É", and the image does not stop scrolling and the sound in some parts makes almost impossible to understand what the actors and actresses are speaking. There are only thirty-seven votes in IMDb, meaning that there is no worldwide distribution of this movie. I feel sorry for the overseas movie lovers, not having the chance to know such a film. My vote is eight.

User reviews from imdb Author: debblyst from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The first thing you'll remark when you see "Os Cafajestes" today (if you are lucky enough to find it) is how accomplished, daring and mesmerizing it still looks. The existential drama of 4 characters -- two men (low-life scum Jandir, small-time pseudo-playboy Vavá) and two women (used up Leda, provocative petit bourgeois Vilma), who indulge in dangerous, deceitful games that include sex, photos, cars, beaches, drugs and blackmail -- has great visual style, thematic boldness and an acid criticism of amorality and egotism. That, plus the virtuoso camera- work by Tony Rabatoni, the blazing summer whiteness of Cabo Frio beaches and dunes, the surprise turns in the plot, the edgy dialog and the (then) complex treatment of sound and image make this an unforgettable film, one of the most impressive directing debuts in the history of Latin American cinema, regrettably little known outside Brazil.

Many historians cite "Os Cafajestes" as the zero milestone of the Brazilian New Wave/Cinema Novo; that's debatable, but not the fact that it was the first Cinema Novo critical success that was also a smash commercial hit. It introduced a complex, fresh, demanding cinematic grammar, in part derived from the French New Wave (director Ruy Guerra studied at IDHEC in the 50s), in part akin to Antonioni's aesthetics, but decidedly the result of Guerra's own conceptions and artistic freedom, unburdened by concessions to studios or the market. This independent, low-budget film made entirely outdoors proved to young Brazilian filmmakers that uncompromising cinema was viable, could click with audiences and even be lucrative (well, it was the 60s). "Os Cafajestes" took critics and public by storm and forced Brazilian cinema into adulthood.

"Os Cafajestes" provoked the hugest "succès de scandale" Brazilian cinema had known, with its candid approach to nudity (the frontal nude scene on the desert beach, with Norma Bengell being "stripped and raped" by a circling, dizzying, threatening camera must rank among the most unforgettable sequences ever filmed); drugs (Jandir and Vavá take amphetamines all the time, and pot-smoking is the core of the long beautiful sequence in the fortress of Cabo Frio), social criticism (laughing off bourgeois values such as virginity, marriage, family etc) and racy sexual innuendos (the two macho protagonists are sexual failures, the two young women have active, unhampered sexual needs).

The notorious Bengell nude scene made history, not only because of its length (4 uninterrupted minutes!), visual impact and breathtaking camera-work but also for treating nudity anti-erotically: it's a scene of humiliation, degradation and cruelty, absolutely essential to the story. Guerra, knowing he would have to face raging censors, chose to make it the undisputed core of the film; if censors chose to cut that, they might as well censor the film entirely. Guerra won, and the film opened in 1962 with a brand new censorship rating in Brazil: no one under 21 was allowed in. Such scandal led, of course, to a massive box-office hit (the biggest in all Cinema Novo): the film payed itself within 5 days of exhibition. "Os Cafajestes" belongs to the finest lineage of "scandal" films, along with e.g. "Viridiana", "Last Tango in Paris", "Souffle au Coeur", "Ai no Corrida" or "La Dernière Femme".

The film is structured on oppositions: the first two-thirds are bathed in heat and sunlight, when the two men dominate and Leda is humiliated; the final third is a long beach sequence at night (with precarious lighting that betrays the film's low budget) where Leda and Vilma turn the tables around and Jandir and Vavá are cruelly and justly belittled.The open finale (almost a "must" in the 60s) became a tug of war between director Guerra and producer-star Jece Valadão and may seem too "loose" for some viewers; it certainly lacks impact, but is nevertheless perfectly tuned to the film's agenda (listen carefully to those news on the car radio).

There had never been a star like Jece Valadão in Brazilian movies before. With his rugged, macho ugly/good looks, raw sex appeal and cynical, menacing persona, he was born to play Jandir, probably the best role and performance of his long career (with the possible exception of his amazing "Boca de Ouro", also in 1962). Norma Bengell, who also scored in 1962 with her supporting part in Cannes-winning "O Pagador de Promessas", made Leda her signature role: her total commitment to such a difficult, soul- and body-bearing part, allied with her sad beauty (a mix of Monica Vitti and Jeanne Moreau), secured her instant stardom and a career in European films and theater. Daniel Filho is "caught" acting here and there, but is appropriately cowardly and shallow as Vavá, and performs some really dangerous stunts on top of a car hood.

Besides Rabatoni's dazzling camera-work, the locations in the then still desert beaches of Barra da Tijuca, Cabo Frio and Arraial do Cabo (all in the state of Rio de Janeiro) are stupendous: we can FEEL the heat, the sand and the salt, and literally squint with the whiteness of the blazing sunlight on the screen. The carefully composed shots are reminiscent of Antonioni's "L'Avventura" and are on the level of great film formalists like Pasolini, Zurlini, Wenders, Bellocchio or Polanski. The music (by Luis Bonfá, composer of the Orfeu Negro classic "Manhã de Carnaval") has a throbbing Brazilian free jazz feel, adding to the film's anti-romanticism. The dry, wry, matter-of-fact dialog rejects all schmaltz, venturing into the risqué (when Jandir sees a girl approaching him with a Bible in her hands, he asks her "what's that comics you're reading?")

I could go on and on; instead I'll just state my fervent request that some DVD distributor (hello Versátil, Videofilmes) will do cinematic justice and release a sparkling new copy of this masterpiece, with subtitles in English and Spanish (at least), so people around the world will know what they've been missing all these years. My vote: 10 out of 10, hands down.

OS FUZIS (The Guns)

Brazil Argentina (80 mi) 1964

User reviews from imdb Author: Jugu Abraham (jugu_abraham@yahoo.co.uk) from Trivandrum, Kerala, India

I saw this film in India some 15 years ago and its images remain with me. I do not know Portuguese. I saw this Portuguese language film without English subtitles, yet the power of the visuals and the soundtrack was overwhelming. That in my opinion is the best testimony of good cinema.

There is an Indian film in Telugu made by director Mrinal Sen called "Ooka Oorie Katha," which had a similar impact on me. I found much of Sen's visuals very close to Guerra's film.

I have not had the opportunity to see any other film of Guerra to date. Yet on the basis of this film alone I would rate him and Nelson Pereira dos Santos as the most exciting filmmakers from Brazil. Their grammar of cinema is different from that of Hollywood, that of Europe, that of Asia and even that of Cuban cinema (which is closest in style to the work of the two directors).

From what I recall, film was not in black and white but presented in a dull sepia (not full color). I wonder if it was originally made in black and white and then treated with sepia color in the eighties for effect.

I recommend this film to anyone who likes good cinema that is different from conventional Hollywood material.

User reviews from imdb Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In 1963, in the village of Milagres in a very poor area of Brazil, a group of soldiers arrive to protect the store of a politician from a group of starving people. They have rifles for guarding the food and avoid the sacking by the population. One of the soldiers, completely drunken, kills a local in a dispute with his colleagues for killing a goat. The truck driver Gaúcho (Átila Iório) revolts against the passivity of a father that has just lost his little daughter, who died of starvation, and the pacific population that only prays and follows a preacher, and fights against the soldiers.

"Os Fuzis" is a Brazilian classic movie of a movement called "Cinema Novo" (which means New Cinema). "A camera in the hand and an idea in the head" was the slogan of the Brazilian filmmakers in the 60's, and they intended to make low budget movies with social concerns and rooted in the Brazilian culture. "Vidas Secas" (1963), of Nelson Pereira dos Santos, was the first film of this movement. "Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol", of Glauber Rocha, and "Os Fuzis", de Rui Guerra, also belong to the first phase of this movement, and explored the rural theme, approaching basic problems of the Brazilian society, such as the poverty and bad human conditions of the peasants of the Northeast of Brazil. In 1964, with the military coup d'êtat, the "Cinema Novo" directed the story lines to the urban society. It is amazing to see that in 2005, Brazil still has the same problems in the country as showed in this movie, in greater or lesser scale, such as poor, starving, illiterate and religious people; arid lands due to the dry climate and without irrigation; abuse against these person by the police or military forces; collectivism to protect these bad authorities; corrupt politicians and inoperative and demagogic government. This film was awarded with the "Silver Bear" in Berlin Festival. My vote is nine.

SWEET HUNTERS (Ternos Caçadores)

aka: Jailbird

Brazil France Panama (115 mi) 1969

Time Out Tony Rayns

An ornithologist (Hayden) goes on a field trip to a deserted island near the mainland with his wife (McNally) and small son, and is joined by the wife's sister (Strasberg), who is getting over an abortion; later, an escaped convict (Whitman) is discovered. A situation which may seem naturalistic enough, but the form never is: incidents are isolated, cross-relations are oblique, emotions are unexplained. And as the narrative gradually coheres, Guerra daringly undercuts it with a series of disturbing emphases. As haunting and ambiguous as anything of Herzog's.

GODS AND THE DEAD (Os Deuses E Os Mortos)

Brazil (97 mi) 1970

User reviews from imdb Author: andrabem from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This film was made by Ruy Guerra, one of the pillars of the "Cinema Novo" - a movement in Brazilian Cinema that changed radically the esthetics of Brazilian films. Its major directors were, among many others, Glauber Rocha, Ruy Guerra, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Luis Sergio Person, to name only a few.

The "Cinema Novo" was influenced by the Italian neorealism and the french "Nouvelle Vague" but achieved its own identity. During the 60s such classics as "Terra em Transe" by Glauber Rocha, "Vidas Secas" by Nelson Pereira dos Santos, "São Paulo" S.A." by Luis Sergio Person etc.. came into being.

"Os Deuses e os Mortos" was released in 1970 when a second and still more radical movement was sweeping the Brazilian cinema, known as "Udigrudi" (brazilian joking translation for underground) that subverted radically the narrative structure of the traditional film. "Os Deuses e os Mortos" was born in this context.

The first films made by Ruy Guerra can be considered examples of the classic "Cinema Novo": "Os Cafajestes" (1962) deeply influenced by the "Nouvelle Vague" but nonetheless revealing a strong personality and "Os Fuzis"(1964) where Ruy Guerra drank from the neorealist source and also one of the mainstays of the "Cinema Novo".

Now "Os Deuses e os Mortos" (1970) with its luscious colors and its surrealist narrative is what we could call a psychedelic film. I don't remember many things of the film. I know that I was deeply impressed and tried to see it again. It describes (as far as I remember) the fights of the landowners in Bahia during the 30s. I recall fights, many fruits, banquets, faces painted in white (am I mistaken?) and colors, many colors. I was completely taken by surprise!

And this film is almost forgotten! No VHS or DVD copies on the market. No one mentions it. "Make a grave for the unknown soldier" sings Jim Morrison, and I say "release a DVD of the forgotten film". I mean of course "Os Deuses e os Mortos".

Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings [Dave Sindelar]

New York Times [Howard Thompson] (registration req'd) Top of Form

THE FALL (A Queda)

Brazil (120 mi) 1976 co-director: Nelson Xavier

The Fall Formal Innovation and Radical Critique, by Robert Stam from Jump Cut

ERÉNDIRA

France Mexico Germany (103 mi) 1983

Once upon a time there was a comely maiden who lived with a tame baby ostrich and her wicked granny in a windswept hacienda dripping with alabaster and gilt and paper flowers. But the foolish girl forgot to snuff out the candles one night, and the magnificent palace blazed into ashes. 'My poor darling,' murmured the grandmother gently, 'your life will not be long enough to repay me', and she set the virgin to work as a courtesan. And admirers came from far and wide to follow their exotic progress through the Mexican desert and to lie with Erendira... This febrile fairytale, adapted by Gabriel García Márquez from his own novella, is handsome to behold and laden with symbols, though of what it's difficult to say. Only Irene Papas, as the imperious, peacock-plumed beldame, brings a touch of mad comic grandeur to brighten the portentous solemnity.

Movierapture [Keith Allen]

A little less straining for the fantastic might have better served the fantasy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novella, in which an adolescent girl accidentally destroys the mansion and treasures of her despotic grandmother and is forced into prostitution to repay the staggering debt. Director Ruy Guerra relies on special effects and even animation to re-create the dream-state desert of Marquez's story; he achieves some lovely effects, but at the expense of the matter-of-fact approach to the supernatural that makes Marquez's work so enchanting and surprising. Dramatically, the film resolves into a trite conflict between the evil grandmother and the angelic peasant boy who loves Erendira and wants to save her--trite because the broad acting immediately lifts the characters to the level of fable, cleansing them of the naturalistic dirt that might have given them some life. With Irene Papas, Claudia Ohana, and Michael Lonsdale (1983).

User reviews from imdb Author: Eric-1226 from Seattle, Washington

I first rented this film many years ago, and was completely enthralled by it. Just recently, feeling a strange need to revisit some of the way-too-few films that I've immensely enjoyed in my lifetime, I decided to give "Erendira" another look. And I'm glad I did, as I soon discovered that even the passage of time has not in the least dulled the shine of this film.

The story is about a teenaged girl (Erendira, played remarkably by Claudia O'hana - in some respects she resembles Winona Ryder!) who accidentally burns down her grandmother's mansion after which the grandmother, played downright hypnotically by Irene Papas, forces the girl into a life of prostitution on the road to repay the damages.

The viewing is at once fascinating and compelling - though, inspite of the basic premise, which deals with prostitution, is tastefully void of gratuitous steamy sexual content. The story revolves more around the interactions between the girl and her grandmother, and the various other colorful characters with whom they come into contact on their sojourn - which, by the way, is in the rough and tumble part of rural Mexico.

The film is very atmospheric, arrestingly enigmatic with a decided dreamlike quality. It sometimes borders on the bizarre, but not to the point of, say, a David Lynch film. It's also worth mentioning that the film is very allegorical in nature, read the comments from previous viewers below...

Often in the background you hear the sounds of a lone accordion, quiet and melancholy, adding just the right musical accents to highlight the Mexican setting. The cinematography of the rural places, many of which are in the desert, is quite superb.

The film moves at a nice pace, neither too fast nor too slow, and after every scene I felt I had to rewind the tape and play it over again, just because it makes you want to do that. For me anyway, it really is that compelling.

Hopefully you will see the film in its Spanish language version, with subtitles. I studied Spanish in high school as well as in college, and I was happy to be able to understand much of the dialogue. Por ejemplo: "El mundo no es tan grande como pensaba." ("The world's not as big as I thought" - i.e., It's a small world.)

This film somehow reminds me of stumbling upon a dusty old bottle of vintage wine, which, upon drinking, is immensely satisfying, however, you are left with some sadness upon realizing that there aren't more bottles just like this one.

Erendira (Claudia Ohana), a teenaged girl, lives with her grandmother (Irene Papas), for whom she endlessly toils, until, one night, she accidentally burns down the old woman's house. Having calculated the debt Erendira owes her for the destruction of her home and belongings, the grandmother decides the only way the girl will be able to repay such a vast amount is if she makes use of her only assets, her youth and female gender, by prostituting herself. Together, the two women subsequently travel through the desert in which they live, where Erendira sells her body to countless thousands of men and becomes a legend. Then, in one town, having had sex with an army of soldiers, Erendira meets a young man, Ulysses, who falls in love with her.

Ruy Guerra's Erendira, which is based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novella of the same title, is a brilliant, haunting, and beautiful film.

The story on which the movie is based has the feel of a legend or a folktale, and, by remaining consistently faithful to that work, Guerra's film does as well. Its mythic structures, and the peculiar, fantastic charm with which Erendira's various adventures and trials are frequently infused, give the movie a liminal quality and strike at something deep within the viewer's heart, arousing therein real compassion for the innocent, victimized girl. The director has, consequently, crafted a fabulous, intoxicating, and terribly sad tale.

Few screenplays have any literary merit, but Marquez's script for Erendira does. Many of the lines spoken in the movie have been taken verbatim from his story and are clever, intelligent, and frequently very funny. There are, for instance, allusions to the great hero of Spanish romantic literature, Amadis de Gaula, who is made into Erendira's ancestor. The protagonist's world is thus connected with the fantastic tales of that hero and with their wondrous, otherworldly magic. This feeling of enchantment is further increased by the girl's grandmother's ravings and by her own conversations with Ulysses, all of which are filled with playful, delicious gibberish. The whole of the film is brought to life by the beauty of the quirky, inventive dialogue.

The director does not, however, rely only on his screenplay to infuse his movie with an intoxicating sense of wonder. In fact, the film is greatly enriched with a variety of other bizarre touches. Ulysses' Dutch father smuggles oranges, each of which grows a diamond in its center. Countless thousands of men queue to have sex with Erendira as she travels amidst the troupes of performers, musicians, animals, and freaks that have accumulated around her. While she sleeps, Erendira's grandmother howls and babbles weird, nonsensical tales about her youth. Paper birds tossed into the air at a political rally metamorphose into living birds. A butterfly flying by Erendira is transformed into a painting on a wall when it alights there. One strange, dreamlike moment follows the next, lending the movie an otherworldliness that greatly enhances both its beauty and its sorrow.

The film's concluding scenes, in particular, are wildly exaggerated, oddly funny, and fantastically evocative. Their strange, hallucinatory qualities suffuse the final confrontations between Ulysses and Erendira's grandmother with a weird terribleness. The grandmother emerges as some supernatural ogre, a fearsome, unkillable witch who bleeds green ichor, and yet Ulysses' battles with her are decidedly comic. By so divorcing the events depicted from those of the ordinary world, Guerra prevents the emotions elicited from being directed towards particular individuals. The viewer's experiences of the characters' struggles, of Ulysses desperation, of Erendira's wretched misery, and of her grandmother's evil, transcend the limitations of their persons so that the viewer does not merely delusively sympathize or detest various fictitious beings, but feels desperation, sorrow, and cruelty as such, as pure emotions divorced from any objects.

Finally, I should note that the film's actors consistently acquit themselves well, although the two female leads deserve particular recognition for their work. Claudia Ohana's performance is subtle, gentle, and evocative of a profound sympathy. She infuses her character with a simple decency and a dreadful sadness. Irene Papas' portrayal of the girl's grandmother is, however, not only just as memorable but is also truly stunning. She brings to life all the woman's monstrous, unearthly cruelty so that she emerges as a figure of dreadful awe

Erendira is a beautiful and harrowing film. While it leaves the viewer deeply saddened by the horrors it has shown him, it also reminds him of the profound beauty to be found even in sorrow.

Erendira A not-so-innocent film, by Thomas Kiely from Jump Cut

Goatdog's Movies (Michael W. Phillips, Jr.)

Pedro Sena

Read the New York Times Review » Vincent Canby, October 1, 1983

Garcia Marquez: Words Into Film Larry Rohter from The New York Times, August 13, 1989

Six Countries, Six Visions B. Ruby Rich from The New York Times, August 13, 1989

ÓPERA DO MALANDRO

aka: The Opera of the Rascal

Brazil France (105 mi) 1986

User reviews from imdb Author: Gonzalo Melendez (gonz30) from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This film based on the album by Chico Buarque (Brazil's most legendary rock/popular music composer since the 70's) meets and exceeds any expectations based on its origins. The beautiful music is performed (choreographed, sung, danced, and acted out) by some of Brazil's greatest artistic treasures including Elba Ramalho and Chico Buarque himself. Big name stars Edson Celulari, Claudia Ohana, and Ney Latorraca provide the looks, glamour, and are dubbed for optimal effect…… ..........................................................OPERA DO MALANDRO is a period piece, set in wild Rio de Janeiro in the early 40's. Its art direction, costumes, and period details are to be commended. The "opera" ultimately is about the life of a typical "malandro", a fixture of Rio and urban Brazilian society as ubiquitous as the American Mafia mobster. The Brazilian version is considerably more human and vulnerable, and more of a lady's man, "cool" stud, and smooth talker. This portrait of the "Malandro" is vividly and colorfully portrayed in this pleasant movie, pretty to watch, hear, and enjoy.

User reviews from imdb Author: Prof Lostiswitz

Very enjoyable, not to be taken too seriously. Setting this slice of lowlife in Rio at about the time of Pearl Harbour was inspired, since it shows the conflict between the democrats like the malandro (hustler) and fascists like the cabaret-owner Otto Strudel. The sexy bits are perfectly choreographed, proving once again that the Brazilians are the only people who can make intelligent erotic movies.

This movie is based on a stage-musical by Chico Buarque, which must have been a real treat. The movie incorporates the dance-numbers very effectively, especially the duet where Ludmila Strüdel (Claudia Ohana) and Margot `energetically' dispute their claims to the malandro's affections. Another great dance-number, a tango, occurs in the dingy warehouse where Max and Ludmila are about to be married; the police-chief (a childhood friend of the malandro) is to perform the ceremony, but then he turns up in his official capacity to arrest everybody. None the less, the happy-go-lucky Cariocas are able to salvage a happy ending at the last moment.

If you thought the movie musical had had the biscuit, check this one out (also Pennies from Heaven, 1981).

Ruy Guerra, the director, is one of Latin America's foremost cinematographers, best known among gringos for Eréndira (starring his sometime wife Claudia Ohana). She also stars in this one as Ludmila Strüdel, and you can see that she has a lot of what it takes. Ruy Guerra is also an actor; he played the good-guy Pedro de Ursúa in Herzog's `Aguirre, the Wrath of God' and got to be imprisoned by the mad Kinski-Aguirre. I shall definitely be looking out for more of his works in future.

User reviews from imdb Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In 1941, Brazilian government was aligned with Nazi movement, in spite of being against the popular desire. In Lapa (Rio de Janeiro), the rascal, pimp and smuggler Max Overseas explores the cabaret singer and prostitute Margot (Elba Ramalho), the former mistress of the chief inspector Tigrão (Ney Latorraca). When the daughter of the cabaret owner Otto Struedel (Fábio Sabag), Ludmila Struedel (Claudia Ohana), leaves her boarding school and returns to her family, she proposes Max to be her husband and partner in a legal importation company of their own. But Margot and Tigrão do not accept the idea.

"A Ópera do Malandro" is a musical with many particularities and contradictions: this movie had been the most expensive Brazilian production until 1986, with the cost of approximately US$ 800,000.00. This film was completely shot in studio, without outdoor scenes. Most of the sceneries were manufactured in rubber. Further, there was the use of brand new reflectors. The director Ruy Guerra was one of the filmmaker from the Brazilian movement Cinema Novo, and this film was completely contradictory to the philosophy of the followers of Cinema Novo, using brand new technologies and the language of Hollywood movies. The direction is excellent; the performances are fantastic, highlighting Claudia Ohana, who is simply sensational in the role of Ludmila. The cinematography is amazing, using negatives of a new film at those years and with a fantastic lighting. The costumes are very beautiful and the story is very engaging, with wonderful songs of Chico Buarque. I saw this play in the theaters, and this movie is also excellent. The song "O Meu Amor" is presented in the censored version, using the word "ventre" (belly) instead of "sexo (sex) of the original song. My vote is eight.

Nick's Flick Picks [Nick Davis]

PORTUGAL S.A.

Portugal (90 mi) 2004

Bright Lights Film Journal [Robert Keser]

Portugal, S.A. (Americans would say Portugal, Inc.) uses a sensational telenovela format seething with sex and blackmail to expose the chicanery of the ruthless power brokers who vie for the spoils of the "free market." These include bankers, journalists, clerics, and the government officials who serve them. Longtime Brazilian leftist Ruy Guerra, a founding father of Brazil's Cinema Novo movement, musters little idealism about religion ("Priests earn their living listening to poor people's complaints so they can pass them on to the rich"), but stops just short of implicating the story's priest character in the bed-hopping, leaving him the task of interjecting Machiavelli's maxims about power. Any romantic idealism the public might invest in their government representatives blisters away in the heat of raging venality and total self-interest on display here, though Guerra saves especially pointed barbs for Portuguese financial sharks who run for refuge to Brazil every time the law turns against them. Sharply lensed in convincingly glittering corridors of power, a world where sleek Jaguars and Mercedes whisk the players to their strategic liaisons, this film seems unthinkable in terms of American (or Australian or British) politics. It would require a West Wing that brings to the surface all the administration's secret corporate interests, excising none of the greed or corruption, to match both Guerra's nerve and his achievement here.

Guest, Christopher

All-Movie Guide Hal Erickson

An alumnus of New York City's High School of Music and Arts and Bard College, actor/writer/director Christopher Guest made his initial Broadway appearance in the 1970 revival of Room Service; two years later, he co-starred in Moonchildren. Guest's early acting accomplishments have tended to become obscured in the light of his extensive work for the National Lampoon folks: he wrote several articles for the Lampoon magazine, and was a writer/performer for the organization's radio programs, record albums, and stage reviews. His extensive comic talents went largely untapped in such "mainstream" acting assignments as the made-for-TV Blind Ambition (1982), in which he portrayed Nixon intimate Jeb Stuart Magruder, and the theatrical feature The Long Riders (1982), in which he was co-starred with his younger brother Nicholas.

In 1982, Guest played divorced suburbanite Bucky Frische in Million Dollar Infield (1982), a made-for-TV movie produced and co-written by Rob Reiner. His association with Reiner extended into appearances in the latter's big-screen directorial efforts: In This is Spinal Tap (1983), Guest not only penned the script but also played heavy metal rocker Nigel Tufnel; and in The Princess Bride (1986), cast as the evil Count Rubin, he offered a sly impression of British character actor Henry Daniell. Guest has since parlayed his "Spinal Tap" association into something of a second career, touring as Nigel Tufnel with fellow "Tap" members David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) and composing many of the group's "hits." On TV, Guest was a regular during the 1984-1985 season of Saturday Night Live and shared a scriptwriting Emmy for a 1976 Lily Tomlin special. Making his directorial debut with the Tinseltown satire The Big Picture (1989), Guest has gone on to helm the TV-movie remake of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1993), the "Johnny Appleseed" segment of Shelley Duvall's cable-TV anthology American Tall Tales and Legends, and most of the episodes of Rob Reiner's 1992 TV sitcom Morton and Hayes.
After once again appearing as Nigel Tufnel in The Return of Spinal Tap (1992), the latter '90s found Guest expanding on his successes in the world of showbiz mockery by taking the directors chair with a few irreverent faux documentaries of his own. Re-teaming with fellow bandmates McKean and Shearer for the musical numbers in Waiting for Guffman (1996), the critically praised comedy proved that Guest's eye for satire was indeed as sharp as his pen. Following with some vocal work in Small Soldiers (1998), Guest returned to the director's chair for what would be comedian Chris Farley's last film, Almost Heroes (1998). Both of these projects proved to be brief diversions, though, and, as old habits die hard, Guest couldn't resist his urges for parody for long.

Though not related (in a traditional sense) to show business, Best in Show targeted a subject that some may say was screaming for parody, the world of Championship Dog shows. His skills as a director more focused and refined than ever, Guest lead a talented cast of the usual suspects in creating yet another hilarious and scathing take on a what many considered to be well-deserving subject. After earning a Golden Globe nomination for "Best Comedy" at that year's ceremony, the film went on to live a healthy life on DVD and cable television. Guest's next film set its sights on a target that many may agree was begging for the treatment even more so than that of his last subject, and though A Mighty Wind's spot on folk song parodies would prove almost so effective as to be considered the real deal, the film itself differed from Best in Show in that it sharply divided its supporters and detractors as few of his films had.

Guest is married to actress Jamie Lee Curtis.

Filmbug Profile

Guest, Christopher They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They

Salon Interview (2000) by Jessica Hundley, October 6, 2000

Movie City News Interview (2003) by Gary Dretzka, April 14, 2003

Guardian Interview (2004) by Richard Grant, January 10, 2004

WAITING FOR GUFFMAN B 87

USA (84 mi) 1996

SPINAL TAP-style fake documentary about a small town community theater group in Blaine, Missouri who try to celebrate their not-so-heralded town’s 150^th anniversary with a musical “Red, White, and Blaine,” featuring lots of improvisation from dentist Eugene Levy, my favorite Dairy Queen counter girl, Parker Posey, a travel agent couple who has never left Blaine, Fred Willard and Catherine O’Hara, and the very gay theater director who failed miserably in New York but is needed in his hometown, Blaine, played by the director himself.

BEST IN SHOW

USA (90 mi) 2000

Best in Show Michael Agger from the New Yorker

Christopher Guest reunites much of the cast of "Waiting for Guffman" for another mock documentary; the target this time around is the cloistered world of championship-dog breeding. Guest directs and scripts with a loose, improvisational style (no dialogue was written down), and while some of the scenes glide along with a quick-witted tempo, others are awkward. The dogs themselves are splendid, and when the satire works the laughs are plentiful. Best-in-group awards go to Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock as an uptight suburban couple whose courtship involved adjacent Starbucks franchises, John Michael Higgins as a preening owner who outshines his shih tzu, and Fred Willard as a chipper commentator who showers asinine comments on the proceedings. If Guest has a trademark style, it's the airtight earnestness he demands of his cast—there's not one wink in the entire film.

Guggenheim, Davis

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH B 85

USA (98 mi) 2006

While the (ironically) chilling information is well presented, it doesn't take a hard enough stance. In reality, it's way too polite and public service oriented. The trailer playing ahead of the film, on the other hand, speaking of inconvenient truths, a Michael Winterbottom film on the real life capture and eventual oops-we're-sorry release of 3 Muslim Brits who were sent on THE ROAD TO GUANTANAMO, where they were tortured - - now that film looks searingly intense. Prison images juxtaposed against Rumsfeld's comments that all prisoners are treated fairly and in accordance with modern conventions, that was particularly hard to bear and is likely to be an especially controversial film. In my view, Guantanamo will be harder for Americans to face than United 93. We all know what happened on 9/11, even if the ending of the film was somewhat feel-good fictionalized. We as a nation are still in denial about facing what we're doing at Guantanamo. Leave it to another Brit to use hand-held cinema verité, physicalized visceral graphic imagery to wipe our noses in it.

While the information in this film, troubling scientific evidence that clearly suggests the earth’s climate is getting warmer at an unprecedented rapid rate with disastrous consequences lurking ahead within one generation unless something is done immediately to change our present course, evidence that is only refuted by intentional political distortion that is designed to elicit doubt in the minds of the voters, this still plays out too much like a public service announcement. Al Gore’s personal life is interspersed throughout the filming of his multi-media presentations that he has given throughout the globe, over a thousand times since 1989, trying to change people’s minds city by city, person by person, family by family, until the world realizes the seriousness of ignoring these inevitable consequences.

Of interest, he begins by personalizing the struggle, revealing his thoughts that he feels he has failed in this mission to educate the globe, as evidenced by his own government’s refusal, along with only one other major nation, Australia, to agree to meet the emission reduction standards in the international Kyoto agreement. The film also captures a few life-changing moments in his life, the death of his 6-year old son, the death of his sister to lung cancer, most likely caused by his own family’s traditional tobacco farming, moments in his life that caused him and his family to re-evaluate their purpose on earth. Utilizing graphs and images, as well as a few quotes, Gore lectures to what appear to be mostly students. His friendly, affable manner is polite and engaging, and the up close and personal family moments add respect and help us believe this man, and when the overwhelming mountain of evidence accumulates by the end, we don’t doubt the seriousness of his mission, but it’s impossible not to doubt the seriousness of our nation. And films like this will too easily be labeled the misguided antics of the left, led by Gore himself, an easy target of Republicans who can cast him as a misguided, sour grapes Democrat, a man on the outs now that could’ve been a contender.

The most compelling scene for me was his use of a digitalized frog, showing a boiling vat of water. If a frog jumps into the boiling water, its instincts are to immediately jump back out. The startling preservation alarm buttons go off, which serve to save the life of the frog. However, if the water is only lukewarm, the frog will instead sit in the water, and it won’t jump out, even as the temperature is slowly increased to the point of life threatening danger. Its instincts are to stay in the water rather than to jump out, as the immediate panic button never sounds. In that case, the frog needs to be rescued, and Al Gore pulls the frog out of the water, reminding us with a gentle smile that it’s all-important to save the frog. There are other similar observations that are equally as jarring, describing how the sun reflects off the polar ice caps, but if the ice diminishes, it no longer reflects, but is absorbed directly into the water, raising the temperature levels, which in turn melts the ice faster. This results in the retreating glaciers, especially in one of the last great ice masses, Greenland, or the melting of centuries old ice-packs in the Arctic and Antarctica, which should they continue to melt at their present course, would in fifty years cause flooding in major cities and land areas, causing a colossal catastrophe resulting in millions of refugees. Add to this the carbon omissions, which when released into the atmosphere, actually changes the density of the atmosphere, making it heavier, preventing sunlight reflection from leaving the atmosphere, instead returning to re-heat, and ultimately overheat the planet.

Again, the science is not in dispute, but the film fails to go far enough, as it does not get down and dirty in the political ramifications, as it all too politely mentions and suggests, but fails to fully address the impact and obstacle that well-financed lobbyists represent by protecting the interests of the auto and oil industries, who have a multi-million dollar business to run. Instead it turns into a grass roots organizing tool of write your congressman, talk to your parents, call your gas company, and of you don’t like the answers, run for political office yourself, providing a website to contact for further information, http://www.climatecrisis.net. Like THE CORPORATION, or ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM, it takes more than compelling information to make a good film. This didn’t have the Errol Morris probing intensity in FOG OF WAR, and Al Gore wasn’t nearly as compelling as Robert McNamara in the dissemination of information on camera. As evidenced by the snoring of the man who sat behind me throughout the entire film, Gore is unfortunately preaching to the converted, and that alone is not likely to change enough people’s minds fast enough.

An Inconvenient Truth Amy Taubin from Sight and Sound

A documentary based on a multimedia lecture about global warming, which former US vice-president Al Gore has been giving all over the world since his questionable defeat in the 2000 presidential election. The lecture is presented in its entirety, pieced together from presentations at various venues. The film-makers also accompany Gore on the road, recording his musings about his near 40-year engagement with environmentalism and his moral commitment to communicating the message that humanity is facing nothing less than a "planetary emergency". These informal conversations and scraps of autobiographical material are used as cutaways from the public forum. Although about two thirds of the film is devoted to the lecture itself, it is the back and forth between Gore's public and private faces that drives the narrative.

Review

An eco-horror movie that is anything but escapist entertainment, Davis Guggenheim's documentary An Inconvenient Truth elicits one audible gasp after another from viewers. It does so through its clear, low-key presentation of the evidence that global warming is not only incontrovertible fact, but is now accelerating at a rate few scientists predicted. Al Gore, who in a rare flash of irony refers to himself as the man who "used to be the next president of the United States", stands at a lecture-hall podium, looking like an awkward, more portly version of Jimmy Stewart. Focusing on the connection between the rising level of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere (largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation) and global warming (which has already resulted in rising air and ocean temperatures, increasingly severe droughts and storms and the melting of the polar ice caps), Gore relies on charts and pairs of back-projected, before-and-after photos to illuminate and drive his points home. The famous photo of the earth taken on one of the first space missions is juxtaposed with a recent image taken from space: 40 per cent of the polar ice caps have melted in the past 40 years.

In one of the film's only engineered effects, Gore mounts a hydraulic lift to illustrate the steep upward curve of parallel lines representing global temperature and carbon-dioxide concentration over the past ten years. "You've heard of 'off the charts'," he quips. The clumsy joke has the chill of gallows humour.

Gore's thesis is that we have about ten years to arrest a warming trend that is not merely "cyclical" and which has resulted in ten of the past 14 years being the hottest in recorded history. Without immediate action, we risk an irreversible slide into global destruction. "Is it possible that we should prepare for threats other than terrorism?" he asks in one of the few moments that hint at the anger and contempt he feels for the Bush administration. A similar moment occurs when he details how a Bush public relations appointee changed the wording of a Nasa report to make it appear that global warming is mere speculation rather than a proven theory on which virtually 100 per cent of scientists agree. The fact that more than 50 per cent of journalistic coverage in the US still presents global warming as debatable if not an outright hoax proves how successful the Bush strategy has been. Remember that almost all media outlets are owned by the very corporations which would find it most "inconvenient" to convert to a green economy. The overall economic cost of such a conversion is an issue that Gore glides over just a bit too quickly, but that doesn't damage his basic argument that change is an absolute necessity and a moral imperative.

But if global warming has been a central concern for Gore since his college days in the late 1960s, why did it go virtually unmentioned in his failed 2000 presidential campaign? "It is very difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it," says Gore, quoting the American writer Upton Sinclair. Implicating himself in the "level-five denial" that humanity collectively suffers from, Gore explains how his family continued to grow tobacco and he continued to support pro-tobacco legislation long after the US government confirmed the link between smoking and lung cancer.

It was only when Gore's sister died of the disease that his family quit the tobacco business. The implication of the story is that having learned his lesson through personal loss, Gore is ready to take on the establishment, no matter what the cost.

Like recent break-out documentaries such as Fahrenheit 9/11 or Supersize Me, An Inconvenient Truth ties a life-or-death social/political issue to a single crusading personality. The strategy has enormous audience appeal; a film that appears to be little more than a Powerpoint lecture on a subject no one wants to confront has already grossed close to $15 million while on limited release in the US. Does its success portend the second coming of Al Gore? Only someone who wants to divert attention from the issue of global warming would tar An Inconvenient Truth as a presidential campaign film. Nevertheless, you have to think, at least metaphorically, that a way of playing for time against imminent ecological disaster would be to turn back the clock to 2000 and allow the American people to elect Gore all over again.

An Inconvenient Truth Geoffrey Macnab in London from Screendaily

“I’m Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States... I don’t find that particularly funny,” former vice-president Al Gore declares early on in Davis Guggenheim’s fascinating documentary, bounding on stage before one of his multi-media lectures about global warming.

Gore is a contradictory figure, aloof and folksy, reserved and passionate, sanctimonious and self-mocking. Quoting Mark Twain, cracking deadpan jokes, citing endless graphs and statistics, the portly former presidential candidate earnestly alerts his audiences to the fact that the planet is on the verge of catastrophe.

In normal circumstances, An Inconvenient Truth would be a curiosity item at best: a project with obvious currency in schools and universities and at political meetings - but with only the most limited potential to crossover into mainstream theatrical distribution.

However, there are some powerful groups determined to ensure Gore’s gloomy warnings are heeded. The documentary was co-produced by Lawrence Bender (best known for his work with Quentin Tarantino) and backed by Jeff Skoll’s Participant Productions (the crusading outfit behind Good Night, And Good Luck and Syriana among others).

Since its premiere at Sundance in late January, An Inconvenient Truth has generated intense media interest. It will be screening in official selection at Cannes just prior to its (limited) US release later this month through Paramount Classics. A book is being published to accompany the film and there is already a strong internet campaign behind it. In territories like the UK, UIP distribute in the early autumn.

Gore himself seems ready to market the movie tirelessly, if only because he so fervently wants to wake up the world to the fact that “humanity is sitting on a time bomb.”

Documentaries and politically committed dramas have done well at the box-office in recent yeas, but An Inconvenient Truth (as its own title hints) will remain a hard sell. Footage included in the film show just how ostrich-headed politicians remain in the face of overwhelming evidence about the perils of global warming. Unless their jobs or those of their constituents are at immediate risk, few care. Moreover, what Gore has to tell his audience is downbeat and unsettling in the extreme, even if he does suggest it’s not too late to avert disaster.

Nonetheless, Gore presents his information clearly and sometimes wittily. He certainly seems far more relaxed here than in the 2000 presidential campaign, when his stiff, stand-offish demeanour is thought to have cost him crucial votes. It helps, too, that the film is so slickly shot and edited.

Director Guggenheim has an extraordinarily varied CV, encompassing everything from teen thrillers like Gossip and TV shows like 24 and Deadwood to documentaries about the LA school system. His function here is to provide the best possible platform for Gore. This he does effectively enough.

Nonetheless, on one level, the documentary can’t help but seem a missed opportunity. What’s frustrating is that Guggenheim isn’t able to probe more deeply into Gore’s story or to examine just how deeply he was affected by having the 2000 election snatched away from him.

Alongside the lecture material there are fleeting insights into Gore’s private life. We hear him reminiscing about his childhood; we see him at the turning where he wrecked his car as a teenager; we watch him poring over spreadsheets on an Apple Mac. There is a surprising amount of footage of him walking through airway departure lounges. He talks movingly about how his priorities changed when his six-year-old son almost died. We visit the farm on which he used to spend four months of each year as a kid (For the other eight, he was holed up in a small apartment in a hotel in Washington DC where his father was a senator.)

This material is tantalising but unsatisfying. One can’t help but wish that Guggenheim was able to go further in providing a full biographical portrait of one of the unluckiest figures in recent US politics. That, though, was not the purpose of the film. The real intention was to bring Gore's travelling slide show on the environment (a presentation he has given more than 1,000 times) to the biggest audience possible.

Gore wants us to know that the snow is disappearing on Kilimanjaro and that the ice caps are melting and that the world is currently prey to some of the most extreme weather in human history.

If he has to reveal a little bit about himself to make us listen to his arguments about climate change, he’ll do so, but he makes it very clear that he wants the science foregrounded. If he is a showman, he is a very reluctant one. The surprise is just how accessible the film remains in spite of his reticence and the bleak message he has to share.

CANNES, France, May 23 — "An Inconvenient Truth," Davis Guggenheim's new documentary about the dangers of climate change, is a film that should never have been made. It is, after all, the job of political leaders and policymakers to protect against possible future calamities, to respond to the findings of science and to persuade the public that action must be taken to protect the common interest.

But when this does not happen — and it is hardly a partisan statement to observe that, in the case of global warming, it hasn't — others must take up the responsibility: filmmakers, activists, scientists, even retired politicians. That "An Inconvenient Truth" should not have to exist is a reason to be grateful that it does.

Appearances to the contrary, Mr. Guggenheim's movie is not really about Al Gore. It consists mainly of a multimedia presentation on climate change that Mr. Gore has given many times over the last few years, interspersed with interviews and Mr. Gore's voice-over reflections on his life in and out of politics. His presence is, in some ways, a distraction, since it guarantees that "An Inconvenient Truth" will become fodder for the cynical, ideologically facile sniping that often passes for political discourse these days. But really, the idea that worrying about the effect of carbon-dioxide emissions on the world's climate makes you some kind of liberal kook is as tired as the image of Mr. Gore as a stiff, humorless speaker, someone to make fun of rather than take seriously.

In any case, Mr. Gore has long since proven to be a deft self-satirist. (He recently told a moderator at a Cannes Film Festival news conference to address him as "your Adequacy.") He makes a few jokes to leaven the grim gist of "An Inconvenient Truth," and some of them are funny, in the style of a college lecturer's attempts to keep the attention of his captive audience. Indeed, his onstage manner — pacing back and forth, fiddling with gadgets, gesturing for emphasis — is more a professor's than a politician's. If he were not the man who, in his own formulation "used to be the next president of the United States of America," he might have settled down to tenure and a Volvo (or maybe a Prius) in some leafy academic grove.

But as I said, the movie is not about him. He is, rather, the surprisingly engaging vehicle for some very disturbing information. His explanations of complex environmental phenomena — the jet stream has always been a particularly tough one for me to grasp — are clear, and while some of the visual aids are a little corny, most of the images are stark, illuminating and powerful.

I can't think of another movie in which the display of a graph elicited gasps of horror, but when the red lines showing the increasing rates of carbon-dioxide emissions and the corresponding rise in temperatures come on screen, the effect is jolting and chilling. Photographs of receding ice fields and glaciers — consequences of climate change that have already taken place — are as disturbing as speculative maps of submerged coastlines. The news of increased hurricane activity and warming oceans is all the more alarming for being delivered in Mr. Gore's matter-of-fact, scholarly tone.

He speaks of the need to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions as a "moral imperative," and most people who see this movie will do so out of a sense of duty, which seems to me entirely appropriate. Luckily, it happens to be a well-made documentary, edited crisply enough to keep it from feeling like 90 minutes of C-Span and shaped to give Mr. Gore's argument a real sense of drama. As unsettling as it can be, it is also intellectually exhilarating, and, like any good piece of pedagogy, whets the appetite for further study. This is not everything you need to know about global warming: that's the point. But it is a good place to start, and to continue, a process of education that could hardly be more urgent. "An Inconvenient Truth" is a necessary film.

His Adequacy hits out over climate change Charlotte Higgins at Cannes from the Guardian, May 22, 2006

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and its skeptics: a case of environmental nostalgia Robin Murray and Joseph Heumann from Jump Cut, Spring 2007

WAITING FOR SUPERMAN C- 69

USA (102 mi) 2010

This is a film with a premise, that the public school system is broken and is in immediate need of repair, and then proceeds to editorialize, offering justification for the stated premise, but never dissenting views, which means you’re not getting a fair and balanced view of the subject. There is a story here about the crisis of the public educational system in America, but this isn’t the film that tells it, as it doesn’t begin to expose the root causes of the problem and instead deals only with the symptoms, placing total blame on the Teacher’s Unions, claiming in one breath that tenured teachers can’t be fired, but in the next that it requires loads of documentation that discourages principals from actually taking the time. The film does not explain if tenure policies differ from state to state, so we’re left with the impression that the policy that exists in Washington D.C. exists elsewhere as well, which is simply not true, as it changes from contract to contract. This is the kind of playing fast and loose with the facts that can really aggravate the viewer, as it also blames the Democratic Party, suggesting they have received the highest amount of contributions from the Teacher’s Union, then shows photos of Bill and Hillary Clinton, as if they’re Public Enemy No. 1, without offering any substantiation how this deprives school children of a better education. Since Republicans don’t believe in adequately funding public schools but instead recommend private schools, a policy that all but decimates the existing public school system, so who would you have the unions contribute their money to? This seems like common sense, but the film only points fingers and doesn’t really evaluate the problem. While it's true that no urban teacher's union has ever been able to make the claim that they actually helped poor kids, singling them out is oversimplification, as there's certainly enough blame to go around, which this movie simply isn't interested in examining.

It’s ridiculous to place the blame for declining public education on the teacher’s unions, which were also around during the so-called glory days of American education, but they’re an easy and convenient target, more of a scapegoat really. The unions do not prohibit school boards from firing bad teachers, as this film would have you believe, but they force the schools to show just cause for their actions, as if this bit of fair play is itself unfair. Everyone wants a quick fix, so when school boards can’t get what they want immediately, they blame the union for their intransigence. Bad teachers can be rooted out of the system, but the schools must provide documentation to justify their actions. This, they claim, is the root of declining test scores? This shows no awareness for the acute political causes for underfunding public schools in the first place which originated with taxpayer advocate Howard Jarvis’s Proposition 13 in California in 1978, which proposed lowering taxes by a whopping 30 %, then provided a cap on the future rate of increases, causing a shift in support for schools from local property taxes to state general funds which are notoriously in debt, which led to President Ronald Reagan’s nationwide tax cuts a few years later in 1981, believing cutting taxes was good politics, which has remained the Republican position for the past thirty years, leading to a nationwide tax revolt that routinely underfunds public schools, leading to a middle class reliance on private schools. None of this was mentioned in the film. States have had to rely upon a myriad of unorthodox methods to make up the difference, such as obtaining a portion of casino or riverboat gambling revenues or state lottery jackpots, but this barely makes a dent in the amount of funds needed. California public schools, which in the 1960s had been ranked #1 nationally in student achievement, are said to have fallen to #48 in some surveys. This can hardly be attributed to the increased power and inflexibility of teacher’s unions. It is simply inequitable underfunding, well documented, by the way, in educator Jonathan Kozol’s book Savage Inequalities.

And that leads us to a second problem, as the film relies almost exclusively on the views of two school superintendents, Geoffrey Canada, who is charismatic and personally riveting throughout and founded a private charter school in Harlem’s most financially depressed neighborhood, President and CEO of the Harlem's Children Zone, whose success, largely dependent on private money, is the only real evidence offered that children of poor economic means can succeed on the same playing field as more priviledged school districts, a man who is himself the subject of author Paul Tough’s book, Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America, and Michelle Rhee, an inexperienced and likely unqualified chancellor of a similar Washington D.C. school district who attempted to make wholesale changes, firing principals and teachers, shutting down twenty-something schools, then redirecting school funds so less went to existing bureaucracies and more went directly to the schools, and was then surprised that there was such a negative reaction to it, where her plans for reform were immediately stalled. As she put it, “It wasn’t about the children, it was about the adults.” This should come as no surprise, as if parents and teachers shouldn’t have a say in the matter. No union officials were contacted, instead they used existing film footage to demonize the President of the Teacher’s Union, a few teachers were shown in classrooms, but few if any offered comments outside the classroom, and no other professional educators were interviewed for this film, which relies instead on Jonathan Alter, a senior editor for Newsweek magazine who derides the teacher’s unions, without any supporting credentials for why he is being used as an expert on education. In other words, the filmmakers used the opinions of those who agreed with their premise, and disregarded everyone else. As a result, the information obtained is hardly revelatory and doesn’t really add anything to the existing problem other than re-iterate that there’s a crisis out there by spouting out statistics and then fails to offer recommendations for improvement other than charter schools, which can hire non-union teachers and accept private funding. There is no argument made for or against charter schools, they are simply assumed to be better, though due to limited capacity, very few students get in, ultimately relying on the sheer luck of the draw in a lottery system. In the absence of real dialogue or discussion, the filmmakers go for the heartstrings, choosing a few children and their single moms who are desperately attempting to find alternative schools for their kids, which shows how random the current system is which uses a lottery, suggesting those whose number is called are offered hope while those who were not called remain excluded from any possibility of hope, where the filmmakers zero in on close ups of sad faces on children.

Finally, the editing is atrocious in this film, which skips back and forth in time, starting a conversation with one person, say Michelle Rhee, leaving it unfinished, coming back to it twenty minutes later, only adding another idea, coming back to it again thirty minutes later, failing to ever include the entire thought process where an idea is advanced, discussed, and evaluated, where opposing points of views are considered, and where the audience learns the outcome for what she was proposing. This film doesn’t do that, so the points of views raised are never challenged, and quite often not even explored. As we see children being taken away from their families where they live “in a college atmosphere” on the school premises from kindergarten to 12^th grade, no one thinks to ask social workers how the children feel about it, or whether this has a destabilizing social effect as kids are uprooted at such an early age from their families supposedly for the betterment of their education. No figures or statistics were provided to justify this highly unorthodox measure, or offer any proof of whether it succeeds or not, or even what the ideas are pro and con. This kind of desperate measure does not always work out for the good, as kids away from home can miss their families and feel depressed and despondent. There’s certainly some question as to whether or not this is even a good idea, but all the filmmakers care about is that it’s a radical action, which in their eyes makes the case for their film.

This is the height of irresponsible filmmaking, pointing its fingers at the Teacher’s Union and by implication the Democratic Party, as if they’re the problem, without even mentioning any 30-year history of the Republican Party’s refusal to adequately fund public education, which just happens to coincide with the downward slide in public student achievement. This is ludicrous and all too simplistic, and becomes poster child propaganda, an unintentional rallying cry for Tea Party advocates who can now point to this movie as a reason to rally against *any* support for public schools. The irony is that the mentality behind this film is likely to be liberal sentiment, with huge public support by Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates, and as Diane Weyermann, one of the executive producers, was in charge of the Sundance documentary film division before branching out to form her own production company. Unfortunately, they do such a poor job of documenting the root of the problem, namely they don't do their homework, and instead play the blame game, where the few examples they offer for alternative schooling solutions, privately funded charter schools, plays right into the hands of people who clearly have no use for public schools in the first place, specifically Tea Party advocates and Republican conservatives who prefer to cut taxes and lower funding for public education, the same tried and failed solution that caused the problem in the first place, which this film doesn't even mention!! So rather than a rallying cry in support of public schools, which the movie labels “drop-off factories,” from the conservative's view it's instead a rallying cry calling for the end of funding for public education, which for advocates of public schools is like shooting yourself in the foot. What were they thinking?

Time Out New York review [3/5] David Fear

Gather round, students, for a lesson about America’s piss-poor educational system: Too many teachers are letting kids slide by with far-below-minimum requirements. Johnny can’t read; neither can Juan or Jamal, as certain neighborhoods are cursed with public schools that prove we do, in fact, live in a class-based society. Don’t even ask about the stranglehold of unions or the bad-apple-enabler known as tenure. Some crusaders are fighting the good fight, like Washington, D.C.’s muckraking chancellor Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada (savor the irony of that surname), the charismatic founder of Harlem’s Children’s Zone. But when it comes to building the foundation for our future citizens, a lot more than class has been dismissed.

That’s the thesis behind Davis Guggenheim’s earnest documentary, which both points fingers and presents success stories that could pave the way forward. It’s a work of advocacy blessed with footnoted statistics (animated charts and graphs don’t lie, people) and a budget that allows for perks like Simpsons clips—and strapped with a titular metaphor that, anecdotal or not, couldn’t be more strained. The plentiful pop-doc touches ensure that this wake-up call won’t put you to sleep, even if the ratio of spoonfuls of sugar to medicine occasionally seems skewed. Still, it’s hard to argue with the film’s climactic, Spellbound-ish cross-cutting of charter-school lotteries, a trick that’s as brutishly effective as it is corny.

The Onion A.V. Club review [B+] Nathan Rabin

With An Inconvenient Truth, documentarian Davis Guggenheim and former vice president Al Gore set out to save the world from an environmental cataclysm beyond the imagination of even Roland Emmerich. With his muckraking new exposé Waiting For Superman, Guggenheim wants to make sure we have a society worth saving. Having tackled global warming, he’s now moved on to another important issue: turning around a failing public-school system that should be the shame of our nation.

Waiting For Superman surveys a grim academic realm where powerful teachers’ unions reward apathy and treading water, rather than innovative thinking or excellence, and the only test where American students consistently score high is on academic self-confidence. We aren’t No. 1, but we labor under the delusion that we represent the apex of academic accomplishment. With outrage, sadness, and compassion, Guggenheim examines the root causes of this public-school meltdown and offers suggestions for breaking the gridlock afflicting our educational system, most notably in the form of charter schools unbound by the institutional inertia that’s killing our schools.

Guggenheim begins Waiting For Superman by trying to reconcile his leftist politics and belief in the importance of strong public institutions with his more pragmatic desire to provide a superior education for his children. Like An Inconvenient Truth, Superman can sometimes feel more like a lecture and an info-dump than a gripping narrative, but to his credit, Guggenheim never lets us forget the high, human stakes involved in saving public schools from themselves. Guggenheim posits charter schools as potential saviors, and there’s tremendous drama and suspense in watching parents who want only the best for their children pin their hopes and aspirations on a lottery that determines which kids get into charter schools. Superman argues convincingly that everyone should have the right to a good education, not just folks lucky enough to score winning numbers: It should be a birthright, not a matter of chance.

The Village Voice [Melissa Anderson]

The enormous power of Davis Guggenheim's documentary flows from the multiplication of a single choice. "Waiting for 'Superman'" puts five tender young faces on a national scandal that is all too often described with dispiriting statistics—the state of public education in the U.S. These are kids who are eager to learn and have solid support at home. (Another choice, and a wise one, was to exclude the children of flagrantly dysfunctional families, since their needs transcend schooling.) The film's subjects—five co-stars, really, with the charisma of eager innocence—differ in age, race and family circumstances, yet they're all stuck in schools that may break their spirits and maybe their hearts.

The title comes from a story told by one of its adult stars, Geoffrey Canada, a widely celebrated education reformer and the firebrand founder of the Harlem Children's Zone. When he was little, he says, he believed in Superman, and was later dismayed to discover that "there was no one coming with the power to save us." Mr. Canada contends that the power to save our schools already exists. Like other activists who appear on camera, he finds the main instrument of salvation in publicly funded charter schools. As if that weren't controversial enough, "Waiting for 'Superman'" fingers teachers' unions as the main obstacle to reform, and paints Randi Weingarten, the former head of the United Federation of Teachers, as a pedagogic Darth Vader.

The filmmaker, Mr. Guggenheim, is no stranger to controversy: he won an Oscar for his previous film, "An Inconvenient Truth," an expansion, with elegant visual aids, of Al Gore's lecture on global warming. This is a time when urgent issues are often explored in polemic documentaries, as well as a fateful moment when the future of public education is being debated with unprecedented intensity. "Waiting for 'Superman'" makes an invaluable addition to the debate.

The film keeps its advocacy in plain view: Mr. Guggenheim doesn't pretend to be a Superman surrogate with simple solutions to save the day. Audiences will argue the merits of his approach, which creates a stunningly scornful metaphor—educational opportunity in America conducted like a game show—out of the lotteries around the country that are currently used to give children a shot at entering desirable charter schools. (In purely dramatic terms, the film's structure is shrewd, and its climax devastating.)

Yet there's no arguing the urgent import of those sweet faces. One of the five, Anthony, a Washington, D.C. fifth grader who lost his father to drugs, has been entered in the lottery for a boarding school with 24 spaces for 61 applicants. Anthony is anxious about the prospect of leaving home for an environment of academic rigor—"it's bittersweet to me if I get in"—but if he does get in his life will change dramatically for the better, and he knows it. Daisy, an eager fifth grader in Los Angeles, wants to be a doctor, a nurse or a vet, but she may never get the chance because she's headed for a middle school where only 13% of students are proficient in math. The status quo can be changed, Bill Gates says in an interview, "but it takes a lot of outrage and good examples." The film delivers on both counts.

Davis Guggenheim's call-to-arms documentary on the failures of the U.S. public-education system—thoroughly laudable in intention if maddening in its logic and omissions—originated with his own guilty conscience. An Academy Award winner for 2006's An Inconvenient Truth, the director—whose debut doc, 2001's The First Year, heralded the dedication of five public-school teachers—now drives his own children (mother: Elisabeth Shue) past three crumbling public schools on their way to an expensive private one. "I'm lucky—I have a choice," Guggenheim, who narrates throughout, admits, before asking an important question: What is our responsibility to other people's children?

Maybe, for starters, demanding a stronger, securer social safety net. But macroeconomic responses to Guggenheim's query—such as ensuring that all parents earn a living wage so that the appalling number of kids living below the poverty line in this country is reduced—go unaddressed in Waiting for Superman, which points out the vast disparity in resources for inner-city versus suburban schools only to ignore them.

Ducking thornier, more intractable problems (and relying too heavily on animated graphics), Guggenheim instead comes up with a proposal that no one could possibly take exception to: We need better teachers. But the biggest impediment to firing incompetent instructors and replacing them with excellent ones, the film argues, is the teachers' unions; Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation for Teachers, is made to look especially villainous, shown in a clip rousing her members by proudly proclaiming the AFT as a "special-interest group." (Weingarten has attacked the film on the Huffington Post and in the September issue of the AFT's newsletter.)

Again, few would disagree that the unions' bloat and bureaucracy have often had a deleterious effect on public education, nonsensically protecting the rights of people who have no business being in a classroom. As Michelle Rhee, the take-no-prisoners chancellor of D.C. schools and a reformer hero, puts it, "There's this unbelievable willingness to turn a blind eye to the injustices that are happening to kids every single day in our schools in the name of harmony among adults." But Guggenheim's insistence on not engaging with the injustices that children of certain races and classes face outside of school makes his reiteration of the obvious—that "past all the noise and the debate, nothing will change without great teachers"—seem all the more willfully naïve.

In addition to Rhee (who, after the results of the D.C. mayoral primary last week, may not stay in her job), almost all of Guggenheim's saviors of education support or have started charter schools, which can hire nonunion teachers and receive public money but are not subject to the rules and regulations of public schools (and which do not have high success rates, a fact Guggenheim refers to only in passing). But the charter schools that the filmmaker champions—like SEED in D.C. and the Harlem Success Academy—all rely on lotteries, a system in which a child's future is determined solely by the luck of the draw, and one decried, rightly, by the filmmaker in the beginning.

It is precisely these acts of sheer chance—picking a numbered ball or a name from a computer—that Guggenheim spends too much time documenting, as he tracks the plights of five bright, adorable, determined children who are hoping to get into charters. These kids, four of whom are black or Latino and live in impoverished urban neighborhoods, give the film its real emotional (and moral) heft, talking about their favorite subjects and academic dreams. To film their—and their parents'—agony as they wait to hear their names called (and the crushing disappointment when they don't) doesn't really advance Guggenheim's arguments so much as work against them—and provide borderline exploitative melodrama.

Will heartbreaking scenes like this drive an audience (or Academy voters) to action, as Al Gore's global-warming presentation, supplemented by a cartoon polar bear, seemed to in An Inconvenient Truth? "Great schools won't come from winning the lottery. They will come from YOU," the final credits announce, before exhorting us to text "POSSIBLE" to 77177. For a crisis so dire, this palliative comes across as absurdly glib.

The Myth of Charter Schools Diane Ravitch from The New York Review of Books, November 11, 2010

Davis Guggenheim: Waiting for Superman (2010) Chris Knipp

Slant Magazine (Matthew Connolly) review

Movieline (Michelle Orange) review [7.5/10]

TIME Magazine review Richard Corliss

eFilmCritic.com (Mel Valentin) review [2/5]

Cinematical (Scott Weinberg) review

One Guy's Opinion (Frank Swietek) review [B]

Mark Reviews Movies [Mark Dujsik]

Boxoffice Magazine (Steve Ramos) review [4/5]

CHUD.com (David Oliver) review

8th-Circuit [Ryan Matsunaga]

Still Waiting for Superman Dana Goldstein from Slate, September 29, 2011

The Hollywood Reporter review John DeFore

Entertainment Weekly review [A-] Lisa Schwarzbaum

Variety (John Anderson) review

The Globe and Mail capsule review [3/4] Guy Dixon

The Boston Phoenix (Tom Meek) review

San Francisco Chronicle (Walter Addiego) review [3/4]

Los Angeles Times (Betsy Sharkey) review

Paul Tough, author of Whatever It Takes

In the Magazine: The Harlem Project Paul Tough’s extensive essay from The New York Times, June 20, 2004

Lens: Vision Chester Higgins Jr. from The New York Times, June 7, 2006

Geoffrey Canada: 'Whatever It Takes' To Teach Kids : NPR Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America, by Paul Tough (296 pages) at NPR, September 15, 2008

Against all odds - Los Angeles Times book review by Erin Aubry Kaplan from The LA Times, September 28, 2008

Book Review - 'Whatever It Takes - Geoffrey Canada's Quest to ... Linda Perlstein from The New York Times, October 17, 2008

California Proposition 13 (1978) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

California Proposition 13 (1978) - Ballotpedia

Flashback by Ronald Reagan on Proposition #1 on National Review Online Reflections on the Failure of Proposition #1 On spending and the nature of government, by Governor Ronald Reagan, December 7, 1973

Proposition 13 Then, Now and Forever | Stephen Moore | Cato ... Stephen Moore from The Cato Institute, July 13, 1998

Supply-Side University-030606 When the Reagan Revolution Really Began Jude Wanniski from Polyconomics, June 6, 2003

Proposition 13: A Look Back | Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association Joel Fox, May 10, 2006

A School Chief Takes On Tenure, Stirring a Fight - NYTimes.com Sam Dillon from The New York Times, November 12, 2008

Rhee Tackles Classroom Challenge - TIME Amanda Ripley from Time magazine, November 26, 2008

California's Budget Crisis: The Effects of Prop 13 - TIME Kevin O’Leary from Time magazine, June 27, 2009

Ronald Reagan and Proposition 13 Make California an Object Lesson ... Ken Watts from The Daily Mull, July 1, 2009

The Rubber Room - The New Yorker Steven Brill from The New Yorker, August 31, 2009

Click here to see a chart of how all 50 states and the District of Columbia rank in per pupil spending. June 29, 2010

What Would Reagan Really Do? - Newsweek Andrew Romano from Newsweek magazine, July 13, 2010

Lively Dust: California tax cuts - a cautionary tale LaVonne Neff at Lively Dust, September 28, 2010

Is Michelle Rhee’s Revolution Over? Judith Warner from The New York Times, October 1, 2010

Washington Schools Chancellor to Resign Ian Urbina and Sarah Wheaton from The New York Times, October 12, 2010

Rhee's Resignation Isn't Expected to Slow Public School Reform ... Sam Dillon from The New York Times, October 13, 2010

Michelle Rhee resigns; Gray huddles with her successor Tim Craig and Bill Turque from The Washington Post, October 13, 2010

Rhee Quits as Washington, D.C., Schools Chief Amid Clash With ... Tom Moroney and Jeffrey Young from Bloomberg News, October 13, 2010

Michelle Rhee: Education reform huckster Gene Lyons from Salon, April 6, 2011

'Class Warfare' - By Steven Brill - Book Review - NYTimes.com Sara Mosle book review from The New York Times, August 18, 2011

The “Shock Doctrine” comes to your neighborhood classroom David Sirota from Salon, September 6, 2011

The bait and switch of school “reform” David Sirota from Salon, September 12, 2011

School: It’s way more boring than when you were there Daniel Denvir from Salon, September 14, 2011

The students are coming! Gary Kamiya from Salon, November 16, 2011

Reform beyond Michelle Rhee Maggie Severns from Salon, November 18, 2011

Don’t believe the education “reformers” Gene Lyons from Salon, November 18, 2011

What real education reform looks like David Sirota from Salon, December 9, 2011

New data shows school “reformers” are full of it - Salon.com David Sirota from Salon, June 3, 2013

Academic Performance Index (California public schools) Wikipedia

Jonathan Kozol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Savage Inequalities Wikipedia

Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools Google Books

Savage Inequalities | Commonweal | Find Articles at BNET Barbara Roche from Commonweal, April 10, 1992

SAVAGE INEQUALITIES Walking Steel book review, Fall 1995

Essay Still Separate, Still Unequal: America's Educational Apartheid, by Jonathan Kozol from Harper’s magazine, September 1, 2005

Guiol, Fred

PASS THE GRAVY A 95

USA (22 mi) 1928

Voted the funniest Silent film of all time by the Italian Pordenone Film Fest, the only Silent Fest in the world, featuring a Leo McCarry script, produced by Max Davidson, with a hilarious dinner scene eating a prize-winning rooster

Guiraudie, Alain

THE KING OF ESCAPE (Le Roi de L’Evasion)

France (97 mi) 2009

The King Of Escape (Le Roi De L’Evasion) Mike Goodridge at Cannes from Screendaily

France’s Alain Guiraudie scores his third film in Cannes Directors Fortnight in a decade with this oddball comedy about a 43-year-old gay man who makes a stab at going straight. Infused with unexpected streaks of whimsy and fantasy, The King of Escape should find a small audience in France but its international life will be limited to the gay and lesbian film festival circuit and gay-themed arthouse distributors.

Guiraudie’s film doesn’t tackle themes as old-fashioned as homophobia or gay-bashing. His myriad gay characters are all comfortably lodged into the texture of their society, in this case the small towns and farms of rural southwestern France. In The King of Escape, they go to cruising spots and have relationships, while everyone in the region seems indifferent to the fact they are gay.

The main character is Armand Lacourtade, a gentle, overweight agricultural equipment salesman (played by Ludovic Berthillot) who is tired of life as a single man and bored of the constant empty sex of the gay scene. One evening, he rescues a 16-year-old girl Curly (Herzi) from a bunch of teenage boys who are harassing her and she falls for him, starting a chain of events that will see them both go on the run from the police and her father who is also Armand’s boss.

Armand’s conclusion – that if the majority of the world settles down in straight relationships and has kids, maybe it will work for him – is flawed, but Guiraudie establishes early on in the film with a lengthy dream sequence that nothing should be taken too seriously in this world.

Alongside Berthillot and Herzi (so memorable as the bellydancing girl in The Secret Of The Grain/Couscous), the film features a colourful cast of supporting men such as Curly’s bullying father (Palun), the local police chief (Clavier), a gay farmer (Laur) and a well-endowed 70-year-old (Toscan) who befriends Armand. All of them are obsessed with an organic aphrodisiac called “do-root” that Laur is cultivating in the forest which has the same effect as Viagra while enabling the user to lose his inhibitions.

The fluidity of sexuality on show here marks a refreshing difference from the average film where gay is gay and straight is straight. When Armand propositions his boss, the boss replies that he is not attracted to him but will accept a blow job. The old man Toscan describes how during his heterosexual marriage, he used to have five or six guys a night, while the sex scenes between the bulky Berthillot and Herzi are explicit and apparently satisfactory to both parties. And by the final scene, Armand is back with a man and everybody is having sex with everybody else.

The most audacious move by Guiraudie is to cast Berthillot, a wonderfully sympathetic actor who is the antithesis of the gay stereotype – physically bulky and with bruised features that have seen him play cops or criminals in the past. Spending a good deal of the film running around the woods in his underwear, he brings confused vulnerability to Armand throughout his experiment in heterosexuality.

STRANGER BY THE LAKE (L'inconnu du lac) B+ 92

France (97 mi) 2013 ‘Scope Website Trailer

A sexually explicit film that might qualify as porn noir, where if there is an insatiable public appetite for watching gay sex onscreen, this is the film of choice, as the salacious titillation is just the preliminary course, so to speak, only part of what evolves into a modernist existential thriller, one that evokes a darkening mood of murder and enveloping danger. What’s immediately apparent is the meticulous precision of the film, which gives pause for reflection, as it does exhibit a rare intelligence, but the overly detached, deeply repressive territory may be too subtle for most viewers, as this minimalist, near Bressonian exercise offers few clues as an intricately probing psychological thriller. What it does do is perfectly capture an enclosed space, a restricted territory, a perfectly secluded summer lake that becomes a haven for gay men to lie around naked on the beach, occasionally swimming, before pairing off in the nearby woods for actual unsimulated sex, where the director confines his camera to the same few locations, never once leaving the beach surroundings, becoming stiflingly claustrophobic, and eventually suffocating. The film’s structure is built upon a carefully designed monotony of surface detail, where the rhythm is established through a series of repetitive routines, where the audience gets lulled to sleep by the familiarity, as each new day begins with the exact same camera shot of an approaching car searching for a spot to park in the small lot, then there’s a short walk through the woods to the beach where unadorned figures are seen sporadically lying about sun-bathing nude, as friends politely acknowledge one another with kisses to the cheek as they arrive. While there’s an interesting geometry to the way bodies remain at a careful distance from one another, perhaps more intriguing is the realization that this view of the beach can’t be shot from anywhere except the middle of the lake, which becomes a disturbing point of view as the film unravels. The characteristic long shots and extended takes from cinematographer Claire Mathon are reminiscent of Michael Haneke’s CACHÉ (2005), which invite the viewer to focus their attention on anything out of place and on carefully placed details.

The film is seen through the eyes of Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), a twentysomething who is a regular at the beach, where we follow his vantage point even as he is swimming in the water, where his surveillance of the shoreline reveals a man sitting off to the side away from the others, Henri (Patrick d’Assumçao), a somewhat chubby but congenial outsider who remains clothed and never goes into the water, striking up an easygoing friendship, chatting each day until someone more desirous arrives. Henri is a recent widower, a reported bisexual who remains a picture of loneliness and solitude, never venturing to the cruising section of the beach, never talking to anyone except Franck, but often comments on gay behavior. Since there are so few doors into this enclosed culture, his insights are particularly welcome, even when offered so casually, as they offer a window into this tightly constricted universe. Franck’s sexual interest perks up with the arrival of Michel (Christophe Paou), sort of a cross between Mark Spitz and Harry Reems, a muscular swimmer with a perfect physique, where everything about him is desirable, except he has a needy partner, with whom he disappears after a brief exchange. Later that evening, however, when Franck is alone in the woods overlooking the tranquil lake, he watches Michel drown his partner before swimming ashore. Despite the continuing presence of the murdered man’s car in the lot and his beach towel and clothes on the beach, Franck remains silent about what he saw while entering into a furiously passionate, sexual affair with the killer, as if the murder was an aphrodisiac to his senses.

As the relationship deepens, Franck attempts to expand it beyond the confines of the beach, but Michel continually rejects the notion, insisting his private life remain private. When the body washes ashore and the police begin asking questions, Franck is surprised when Michel shows no discomfort whatsoever over the loss of his partner.

Much like Henri, the Police Inspector (Jérôme Chappatte) offers curious insight into this secretive community, becoming a commentary on sad and empty lives that mechanically have sexual experiences with no lasting value, often without sharing names, as almost immediately, they’re in need of sexual replenishment, routinely changing partners. The film bears an uncanny resemblance to Éric Rohmer’s A Summer's Tale (Conte d'été) (1996), especially the idyllic seaside location searching for love, becoming a summertime flirtation without the sexual explicitness, but featuring characters who are unable to make commitments and are constantly avoiding emotional connections. In this secluded spot on a picturesque lake, there is no real love or commitment, but an anonymous game of musical chairs, where man is often seen as a hunter surviving on animal instincts, searching out sexual conquests or liaisons, yet remaining imprisoned by the existential nature of remaining isolated and alone. Aware of the potential danger, or more likely excited by it, Franck ignores the advice of his friend Henri and indulges his passion, where an alarm bell goes off when Michel invites him into the water to go swimming, which all of a sudden exudes a sense of overwhelming danger. In the water, Michel is the alpha male, where all others must submit to his dominating physical prowess, becoming an object of obsession in Franck’s eyes, who still remains hopelessly drawn to him. It’s impossible to understand what possible self-justifying logic Franck uses where he’s willing to risk death for a love he barely understands and instead feels controlled by, veering into the psychological void of amorality, questioning the limits of illicit sexual desire and the eroticism inherent in dangerous situations. The film appears heavily influenced by French writer/philosopher George Bataille, author of Christophe Honoré’s MA MÈRE (2004), a transgressive work that equates base sexuality with the divine, where transcendence is achieved only through indulgence. Elaborating on a Sartrian No Exit theme, Guiraudie may be drawing upon a gay preoccupation with self loathing, failing to live up to “straight” society’s conception of beauty and sex, and in pursuit of an ever elusive perfect erotic desire, may equate sexuality with a drive towards death (including anal sex without condoms), where in perhaps the scene of the film, Franck joins Michel *in* the lake at the scene of the crime, at the exact same evening hour when no one else is around. What happens afterwards only punctuates the intrusive presence of blackness that has pervaded Franck’s desirous soul, like an otherworldly presence, forced to live in the self-imposed blindness of a murky void, where the director offers no comfort that there is any way out.

My favorite movie at this year’s CIFF is Stranger By the Lake by Alain Guiraudie, a filmmaker too little known outside of his native France. That will hopefully soon change as his latest, which won acclaim at Cannes (and raised more than a few eyebrows due to its inclusion of unsimulated sex acts), is set to receive wider international distribution than any of the director’s previous works. Stranger By the Lake works on multiple levels: at its most basic, it’s a dark (and darkly funny) erotic thriller about a young man named Franck (the superb Pierre Deladonchamps), who witnesses a murder at a provincial lake known to be a cruising spot for gay men. Franck’s attraction to the murderer, the handsome, almost God-like Michel (Christophe Paou), prevents him from going to the police, which allows Guiraudie to explore the “transfer of guilt” theme popularized by Hitchcock — this would make a great double feature with Strangers on a Train. Unlike most most “erotic thrillers,” however, the film’s explicit sex scenes seem less designed to titillate than to serve as a jumping off point for a complex inquiry into the nature of voyeurism and sexual desire. Finally, the movie functions almost as an ethnographic documentary, and a beautifully photographed one at that, into a very specific subculture; the camera never leaves the single setting comprised of the lakeshore, the woods and a nearby parking lot, a self-imposed, Hitchcock-style “limitation” that becomes a virtue given Guiraudie’s masterful mise-en-scene. One of the very best films of the year.

Time Out New York [Keith Uhlich]

Now, here’s something completely, enchantingly different. Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake eschews the realism of The Past and Like Father, Like Son and emphasizes, by sheer virtue of gorgeous scenery and immersive sound design, a near-mythical aura to its idiosyncratic, beguiling mix of love story and murder mystery. Much of the film takes place by the shores of an unspecified lake, one that is popular among cruising gay men. Franck (Pierre de Ladonchamps), however, is looking for something deeper than a mere hook-up; after meeting Michel (Christophe Paou), he believes he’s found the romance that he seeks. Contrasting his youthful idealism, however, is the much older and paunchier Henri (Patrick d’Assumçao), a recent divorcé and perpetual loner only now getting in touch with his homosexuality while expressing to Franck an anti-romantic weariness. The murder-mystery elements start subtly popping up after Franck goes to the lakeshore one day and finds no one there, only a helicopter hovering above; Franck gradually begins to suspect Michel may be involved in some way.

Stranger by the Lake could be seen as a coming-of-age tale, one in which Franck has his ideals about true love challenged by Michel, who seems only interested in temporary sexual pleasures (which Guiraudie isn't shy about depicting in graphic detail, going at one point for the kind of cumshot one usually only sees in pornography) rather than forging any long-lasting connections. Henri adds another wrinkle to this film's meditation on love, expressing a desire for Franck that is wholly non-sexual in nature. But the real delights of Guiraudie’s film lie in its playful details: the recurring comic-relief character seen with his pants down desperately jerking off in front of men with whom he desires to hook up; the police inspector who always seems to appear out of the shadows at inopportune moments. All of this helps enforce a light alternate-universe vibe that thankfully never detracts from the seriousness of its themes, its final shot of Franck trapped in the natural dark packing an unexpected punch in its expression of a man dealing with the implications of his smashed illusions.

Now for a virtuoso of another sort: A bevy of Twitter responders pointed me to the final film of my second day in Cannes, Alain Guiraudie’s transgressive and transcendent Un Certain Regard entry Stranger by the Lake. Guiraudie is unfortunately little-known stateside beyond a devoted few, and it’s doubtful this mesmerizingly odd mix of queer-culture ethnography and Hitchcockian thriller will win him many converts. Consider that a wholehearted recommendation.

As in The Past, location is key: The entire film takes place by a shimmering summer lake—an Edenic haven for gay and curious males of all shapes and sizes to lie around nude and sneak off into the nearby whispering woods for sex. Our lead is the beautiful, swimmer’s-bod buff Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), who struts around with genial confidence. He’s not one of those pretty boys who will avoid anyone plus size, but though he strikes up an easy friendship with the lonely, obese Henri (Patrick D’Assumçao), Franck’s eye and libido are more tickled by the ’70s porn mustache-sporting Michel (Christophe Paou). The only potential problem? One evening, Franck witnesses Michel drowning one of his conquests, which he discovers does little to negate his attraction.

Plenty of gay-themed films have included murder as a plot point; William Friedkin’s loathsome Cruising made an early-AIDS-era spectacle of the small divide separating loving and life-ending penetration. What distinguishes Guiraudie’s approach is his keen eye for queer conduct and comportment: He spends most of the first half-hour acclimating us to the movie’s microcosmos—a libidinally unashamed world of charged gazes, full-frontal displays, and open-air eroticism—before seguing into a deeply unsettling exploration of infatuation.

Go in aware that much of the sex is unsimulated, then revel in the ways Guiraudie uses his rigorous perspective, in addition to an always gorgeously-composed widescreen frame, to normalize behavior that is anathema in polite society. (It’s little surprise that the work of Georges Bataille is one of the director’s acknowledged influences.) But also go in knowing that there are very real, very potent emotions underlying every action, be it an explicit sex act, a lingering embrace, or a horrible realization that meting out death does not necessarily preclude love.

Slant Magazine [Diego Costa]

Much like he did with the incisive and playfully idiosyncratic The King of Escape, director Alain Guiraudie deconstructs and evaluates the homosexual lifestyle and resulting ideological makeup without pulling any punches in Stranger by the Lake. Here, he's moved past the comically framed Peter Pan comparisons of Escape to consider the act of cruising within a cultural climate conscious of AIDS.

This film is very much a work of repetition and formality, documenting days that bleed together around a small lake where Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) cruises every day, exchanging friendly greetings with other nude sunbathers before following whatever bland, traditionally attractive fresh meat catches his eye into the nearby woods. The division of days is signified only by a static shot of Franck's beat-up car pulling into a clearing and wandering off into the trees with nothing but a towel.

Aside from some minor variance in the assortment of fully nude men standing around the beach or wandering around in the woods, nothing about Franck's experience changes, save the introduction of Henri (Patrick d'Assumçao), a recently divorced, "curious" man (of a less traditionally desirable body type and age) that sits off to the side, clothed, uninterested in cruising.

Franck is social with the man, inquiring about his background briefly before running off to follow whatever anonymous peen he has his eyes set on for the day, which is how he's introduced to Michel (Christophe Paou), a conventionally attractive oddball that casually drowns a tryst after he becomes too attached to him.

This murder happens early in the movie, leaving absolutely no mystery to the "killer" angle; Guiraudie isn't interested in literal mystery so much as he wants to understand the queer psyche. Franck witnesses the kill but, rather than freaking out or reporting Michel to the police, he pursues the man, thrilled by the danger of it all, ultimately putting into action the subconscious, self-hating desire to die that cruising represents.

That all of this has to do with AIDS isn't much of a secret. Early on, Franck attempts to fellate a stranger that refuses to engage without a condom. Franck isn't impressed, which corresponds with his decision to have bareback sex, sans lube, with Michel at the first opportunity.

Fortunately, Stranger by the Lake isn't satisfied with drawing a mere, rather obvious comparison amidst its cyclical exercise in surprisingly engaging cinematic redundancy. A police investigator, troubled by the dead body, is the only party concerned about the murder. That the men — quick to dispose of each other after orgasm is achieved or, as represented by the quickly sparked relationship between Franck and Michel that never leaves the beach, after the hormones have worn off — care more about the police officer interfering with their ritual is, in itself, a commentary about their community.

Similarly, the juxtaposition of Franck's friendship with Henri — one based upon mutual compassion and interest in each other as people — with that of Michel, one that revolves around carnal impulses and a lack of consideration for compatibility beyond ejaculation, which is demonstrated in close-up, suggests an inherent, self-destructive superficiality. As passive cultural performers, these men display their goods as readily as they judge others by their physical assets, which, as something contrary to the heterosexual male ideology, helps shine a light on just where the marginalized self-hatred stems from.

Though all of this seems vaguely homophobic, Guiraudie's casual, knowing eye suggests that he's assessing the situation from the inside, merely trying to understand and depict a subsection of society, warts and all. If anything, it's an admonitory or call for self-awareness from inside the gay community, asking those titillated by watching a film with copious full-frontal nudity to consider, just for a second, what might be a few feet above the large member and ripped six-pack they're ogling and fetishizing thoughtlessly.

Guiraudie is mirroring the queer preoccupation with heteronormative beauty with a tendency to loathe and compare the self to a very limiting, rigid mainstream culture that demands assimilation, even in a physical sense, leaving the subjugated other to have an imposed self-hatred and, ultimately, death wish.

The Lumière Reader [Brannavan Gnanalingam]

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things: New York Film Festival I Howard Feinstein from Filmmakers magazine

Stranger By the Lake - Film School Rejects Shaun Munro

Staying Vertical | NYFF54 - Film Society of Lincoln Center

Cannes Review: Stranger by the Lake is a stylish new entry in the ... Guy Lodge at Cannes from Hit Fix

Stranger By The Lake | Reviews | Screen Fionnuala Halligan at Cannes from Screendaily, also seen here: Stranger By The Lake

CIFF 2013: Stranger by the Lake (L’inconnu du lac, 2013) Marilyn Ferdinand from Ferdy on Films

Stranger By The Lake (2013) Movie Review from Eye for Film Richard Mowe

Five to see at the LFF: queer cinema | British Film Institute Alex Davidson from BFI Sight & Sound, September 18, 2013

Cannes 2013: Tough acts to follow | British Film Institute Geoff Andrew from Sight and Sound, May 2013, also seen here: Geoff Andrew

Cannes 2013. Illusory Isolation: Alain Guiraudie's "Stranger by the Lake" Adam Cook at Cannes from Mubi, May 18, 2013, also seen here: Adam Cook

Cannes 2013, Day Two: Iranian director Asghar Farhadi chases A Separation with another stunning drama Mike D’Angelo at Cannes from The Onion A.V. Club

Domenico La Porta at Cannes from Cineuropa

interview with the director from the Festival site, May 17, 2013

Owen Gleiberman at Cannes from Entertainment Weekly

Stranger by the Lake: Cannes Review Jordan Mintzer from The Hollywood Reporter

Cannes Film Review: 'Stranger by the Lake' Boyd van Hoeij at Cannes from Variety, also seen here: Boyd van Hoeij

Cannes 2013: A Touch of Sin, The Past, Stranger by the Lake Keith Uhlich at Cannes from Time Out New York

Only Connect: Cannes Report, May 17 | Cannes | Roger Ebert Barbara Scharres at Cannes from the Ebert blog

Cruisin' Together: Cannes Day Three | Cannes | Roger Ebert Michał Oleszczyk at Cannes from the Ebert blog

STAYING VERTICAL (Rester vertical) B 88

France (100 mi) 2016 ‘Scope

An erratic, hilariously funny, yet extremely bizarre film that goes overboard on sexual indulgence mixed with comic absurdity, that was apparently inspired by news stories of wolves returning to France, where Guiraudie has fashioned himself something of a Charlie Kaufman screenplay featuring a procrastinating screenwriter driving his Renault around the rural country roads of France suffering from writer’s block. That makes this a road movie, of sorts, though there are plenty of stops along the way, veering into mythological fantasy sequences and an exploration of the surreal. While the story itself couldn’t be more offbeat and wacky, it retains the same cool precision of the director’s earlier film, Stranger By the Lake (L'inconnu du lac) (2013), using a surgical yet outrageous style to convey an anxiety-ridden, inner turmoil of eccentric characters who are mostly seen in deadpan expressions. The lead character Léo (Damien Bonnard) is an everyman kind of guy with no distinct personality, known for having recurring telephone conversations with his agent about a long overdue script that he claims is nearly completed, though he hasn’t written a word, that invariably end with Léo asking, “Could you wire me 3000 euros?” As he travels the roadways, he encounters a young teenage kid on the side of the road, Yoan (Basile Meilleurat), doubling back to ask him if he’d like to be in a film, adding a homoerotic subtext, telling him, “You don’t see too many faces like yours around here,” but is resoundingly rejected. Not taking no for an answer, it’s clear Léo has something else in mind, but the kid is not interested, so instead he ends up hiking through an open plateau of sheep grazing territory, where he encounters a young shepherdess Marie (Linda Hair), who keeps a rifle by her side on the lookout for wolves. Léo is ecstatic about the possibility of seeing a wolf, where he thought it might only be rumors. Marie’s view is vehemently different, claiming they are a pest to the herd, a clear and present danger for farmers in the region. While she wants to kill them all, he values every life. Next thing you know, the two are on the ground groping each other and having a frenzied sexual encounter. Inviting him to stay, their sexual tryst continues under the watchful eyes of her two children along with her haggard-looking father Jean-Louis (Raphaël Thiéry), who looks like a punch drunk boxer well past his prime who’s taken a few too many blows to the head, leaving him constantly looking dazed and confused, like a live version of the ogre Shrek, or something out of a Bruno Dumont movie.

Léo appears to be something of a drifter, a perpetual wanderer, who moves back and forth between the city and the outlying area, seen in a tiny urban apartment slouched over a typewriter, making no progress whatsoever on his screenplay, yet he always returns back to Marie, helping to look after her unruly kids. Adding to the weirdness, Guiraudie loves to show the nude female anatomy of Marie in a close-up view of her genitalia along with her abdomen and ample breasts while lying in bed, reminiscent of Gustave Courbet’s famous painting L’Origine du monde (11,000 × 9,113 pixels), quickly cutting to a graphically raw, live birth delivery, complete with all the vaginal fluids intact in a scene that may be difficult to forget, that may have some in the audience reeling in shocked surprise. Cleaned up and wrapped in a blanket, Marie shows little interest in holding her baby, a duty that goes to Léo instead. Next thing you know, Léo, assuming Marie’s role, is out in the fields guarding the sheep, where off in the distance he can see Marie and her two kids scampering away, abandoning Léo and the baby, apparently suffering from postpartum depression, but also trapped by the claustrophobic existence with her father, where she is clearly unhappy. When Jean-Louis incredibly uses the crying baby as bait to attract the wolves, placed out in the middle of an open field while he stands nearby with a rifle, Léo, a born wanderer, has little choice except to hit the road with a baby in his arms. When he returns looking for Yoan, what he discovers appears to be an empty house with Pink Floyd music on full blast, though we learn he’s ripped off the old man he takes care of, Marcel (Christian Bouillette), a cantankerous, foul-mouthed old man who spews racist and homophobic insults, calling the kid a thief and an ungrateful “little faggot” who stole all his savings, among other things, suggesting he may have run off to Australia. Crushed to be left all alone, Léo befriends him and tries to help out, but he’s still got that baby. In perhaps the strangest sequence, Léo runs off to an enchanted forest to visit a new age psychotherapist in a white coat using the latest natural methods, Doctor Mirande (Laure Calamy), where she’s able to read his anxieties through the placement of plants on his body, using them like an EKG electrocardiogram chest exam. As we see him row a canoe upstream through a mythical forest, baby in tow, he hears the calling of his agent (Sébastien Novac) looking for his script. Like a deeply troubling dream, he panics and hides in the lush foliage, terrified that he might be discovered, only to surface sometime later while the doctor and agent are calmly having afternoon tea.

Léo can’t play the scriptwriting card anymore, leaving him destitute and without income, yet still clinging to this baby, who has a kind of Bressonian Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) effect, as hardships seem to follow the baby carrier, robbed and stripped naked by a group of homeless men, who attack him like a pack of wolves, leaving him to wander the hinterlands completely naked. With no place else to go, he returns to Marcel, grumpier than ever as he feels abandoned and so close to death, leading to one of the more intently sexualized visions of euthanasia with Léo more than happy to oblige, erect penis and all, set to the rollicking score of Pink Floyd. It’s a mindblowing moment, the kind you won’t see anywhere else, made even more absurd when he’s back on the run afterwards, yet shocked to discover a tabloid picture of himself on the front page with headlines screaming “Man sodomizes, then euthanizes, elderly man in front of his baby.” Now thoroughly disgraced in the eyes of the public, his humiliation and fall from grace is not complete until social services comes to take his baby away from him, returning the infant back to the arms of the mother that never wanted him in the first place (now with a familiar new boyfriend), as if that provides some needed societal equilibrium. Retreating back to the farm, where sexual advances by Jean-Louis were previously rebuffed (though that itch is currently being scratched by someone else), Léo sleeps out in the barn, never parting from the flock of sheep he vows to protect. “Wolves Kill Here” is a hand-made sign from Jean-Louis, a reminder of a terrible incident where several of his sheep were slaughtered with no one watching over them, which is etched indelibly in Léo’s mind. In the beginning he expressed a kind of idealistic admiration for wolves, though now he’s come full circle, realizing they are a predator threatening his sheep. This is a film that boldly creates plenty of dead ends and misdirection, cryptically heading off-road into the mystic, as Léo ends up as a kind of Christ-like mythological wayfarer, always showing more compassion for others than for himself, the kind of person that would never cause harm to anybody else, yet absorbs the constant wrath of others, mirroring society’s pain and discontent. The shepherding motif remains perplexing throughout, the idea of protecting the lambs from the slaughter, yet equally curious is this idea that the wolf is both within and without, depicting a sexual beast of unsuppressed desire that lies within, contrasted against this surreal view of a dark Buñuelian universe with wolves on the loose ready to devour their pray at any moment, suggesting perhaps that we must learn to protect ourselves against our own predatory instincts.

Léo (Damien Bonnard), a blocked filmmaker seeking inspiration in the French countryside for an overdue script, begins an affair with a shepherdess (India Hair), with whom he almost immediately has a child. Combining the formal control of his 2013 breakthrough Stranger by the Lake (NYFF 2013) with the shapeshifting fabulism of his earlier work, Alain Guiraudie’s new film is a sidelong look at the human cycle of birth, procreation, and death, as well as his boldest riff yet on his signature subjects of freedom and desire. The title has the ring of both a rallying cry and a dirty joke—fitting for a film that is, above all else, a rumination on what it means to be a human being, a vertical animal. A Strand Releasing release.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List - CINE-FILE Chicago Michael Glover Smith

Alain Guiraudie’s unique brand of pansexual Surrealism has accrued a steady cinephile following since 2001 when his second feature, THAT OLD DREAM THAT MOVES, drew praise from no less a luminary than Jean-Luc Godard. The transgressive director’s international breakthrough didn’t come until 2013, however, when his sexually explicit serial-killer thriller STRANGER BY THE LAKE took Cannes by storm. STAYING VERTICAL, Guiraudie’s darkly comedic follow-up, is as narratively loose and shaggy as STRANGER is tight and compressed, and is likely to puzzle viewers unfamiliar with his non-narrative earlier work. The digressive plot follows the misadventures of Leo (Damien Bonnard), a creatively blocked screenwriter who traverses the French countryside in search of inspiration. After fathering a child with a shepherdess (India Hair) who abandons him to raise the baby alone, Leo encounters a menagerie of male caretakers and father figures of ambiguous sexuality in a series of dreamlike scenes that increasingly gain power in both hilarity and allegorical resonance. Although Guiraudie is more of a poet than a polemicist, this delightfully off-the-wall oddity is perhaps best understood as a provocative defense of gay parenthood in a country where such a notion remains a lightning rod for controversy.

Cannes 2016: The Well-Told Tale - Film Comment Dennis Lim, July 5, 2016

Another taxonomist of unorthodox eroticism, Alain Guiraudie made his Cannes competition debut with his latest shape-shifting pastoral, Staying Vertical. In Guiraudie’s previous film and critical breakthrough, Stranger by the Lake, a cruising ground becomes a murder scene, an outdoor stage for the dueling forces of eros and thanatos. In the new film, sex and death merge even more sensationally in a setpiece that combines euthanasia, borderline necrophilia, and a blast of Pink Floyd-ish prog rock. This is but one out-there encounter in an oneiric odyssey for the protagonist, Léo (Damien Bonnard), a blocked filmmaker cruising the French countryside in his Renault, seeking inspiration for an overdue script and finding all manner of carnal stimuli. He’s drawn to a young man who lives with a much older custodian (possibly lover), and begins an affair with a shepherdess (India Hair), with whom he almost immediately has a child.

Guiraudie’s films are modern-day fairy tales, rooted in concrete glimpses of his native southwestern France but also given to free-associative flights of fancy. Staying Vertical cycles among a limited number of locations—farmhouse, pasture, a winding mountain road, a gray coastal town—as its characters rearrange themselves in an egalitarian diagram of desire. Guiraudie’s great subject, which his films engage in both content and form, is freedom, perhaps never more so than in Staying Vertical. Taking a sidelong look at what most other movies would flag as social issues—single parenthood, assisted suicide—the film also flirts with the mythic, in the interludes with a swamp-dwelling healer and the ever-present specter of the wolves roaming the periphery. The title has the ring of both a rallying cry and a dirty joke, though the film above all asks to be read as a rumination on what it means to be a human being, a vertical animal. The vast spectrum of life is here, from frontally filmed birth to ecstatic death, sex as the origin of the world (several shots overtly reference Courbet) and also the end.

NYFF: Staying Vertical - Reviews - Reverse Shot Michael Koresky

Writing on the topic of subversive cinema in 1974, Amos Vogel wrote, “Thematically, the simplifications of realism have been left behind: concern with the human condition has not. We are inundated by ambiguity, allegory and complexity, by an existentialist humanism devoid of certainty or illusion.” Things are different today; we could say that realism has definitively returned, in all its simplifications. Ambiguity, allegory, and complexity have been supplanted by the desire for brutal directness, a need for representation of authenticity and truth in a world globalized into indistinctness. Even the films that offer the least thematic clarity seem to feel the need to make their nebulous cases loudly and plainly. This might be why Staying Vertical, the very strange new film from French filmmaker Alain Guiraudie, comes across as surreal but not ambiguous.

Guiraudie’s film is part of a spate of recent, essentially narrative art films that ask us to identify with characters only to continually reject our ability to do so by forcing those characters to act and react illogically to the world around them. Carlos Reygadas’s Post tenebras lux or Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, for instance, function as dreamscapes without much to hold on to outside of their impressive conceptual structures. Jumping from one plane to another, they’re internalized but not always legible as interior portraits. This makes them different from ostensibly surreal films like David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive or Claire Denis’s L’intrus: in each, the flights of fancy that send their narratives off into the ether are tangibly tagged to a specific, tenable character’s subjectivity, to memory or love or fear or guilt, and thus constantly grounded in experience.

Alain Guiraudie’s films are of the former type, less interested in spontaneity and fluidity than a grand overall scheme. By design, there’s little liberation to be had from his films, their points about desire and identity take precedence over behavior and motivation. In such early films as That Old Dream That Moves and especially No Rest for the Brave, Guiraudie introduces characters who move through emotionally legible situations only to be abandoned by their creator (meaning Guiraudie, for these films appear to be wholly secular) to strangely unmotivated actions. There’s a pliable, whatever-way-the-wind-blows nature to the people in them—to use an iconic cinematic example, they’re less existential figures of alienation than the half-sculpted pieces on a handcrafted chessboard being considered and moved around by those alienated figures. Guiraudie’s breakthrough from 2013, Stranger by the Lake, appealed to a slightly wider audience partly because he applied his approach to a recognizable Hitchcockian genre template, and because he replaced his usual, seemingly stream-of-consciousness narrative sprawl with a newly pleasing geometric precision reliant on visual and compositional repetition.

All of this is preface for trying to describe the odd experience of watching Staying Vertical, an aggressively conceptual cycle-of-life saga that brings the director back to his earlier model, in which characters ramble through a freeform narrative with no fidelity to logic, and their every move speaks to an overall design more than moment-to-moment intuition—very little in the film makes behavioral sense, leading to a sense of fragmentation. For a while, the film has a pleasingly casual forward motion. It’s summer, and Léo (Damien Bonnard) is making his way through the countryside, meeting a string of characters who will prove to be recurring. The first encounter, with Yoan (Basile Meilleurat), a cute young man with wolflike features somewhat similar to his own, whom he spots on a rural road and approaches, telling him he has a face made for the big screen, would seem to imply Léo’s preference for boys. Soon enough, though, after being brushed off by Yoan and hiking through rolling hills and forest with no discernible destination, Léo meets Marie (India Hair), an earthy shepherdess and single mother with two kids. Though she must constantly protect her flock from wolves, and Léo suspiciously voices his partiality for the lupine, she invites him into her home for a bout of intense sex. Soon enough though, he’s staying for an extended spell, helping watch the kids, a sudden domesticity in a restful, bucolic setting. After a quick cut, Guiraudie brings us back to an urban, claustrophobic apartment, where Léo is hunched over a typewriter.

Though we initially take him as mere drifter—he says as much—we come to discover he is a filmmaker writing a new script, which happens to begin exactly how Staying Vertical starts, on that rural road en route to the country where he spotted Yoan. Perhaps the wanderings and encounters we’ve seen thus far are methods of research for Léo; perhaps they’re just to clear his mind. Either way, knowledge of his profession lends the film an idea that Léo is in creative control of his destiny, writing his journey. Any grounding we may suddenly have that we’re watching a simple metafiction, though, drops out from under us. Soon, it’s autumn, and Léo’s back on the same path, stopping at the house on the road where he first met Yoan. The house is owned by the elderly Marcel (Christian Bouillette), who claims that Yoan is not his son but a thief he forced to live there to work off the debt he owes him. As before, Léo leaves this place and makes his way to the farm, where Marie invites the wolfish man back in. Without warning, Marie is giving birth to Léo’s baby, which is revealed in a shock cut to a live birth in immense close-up, which functions as a graphic match (in all senses of the term) to the film’s earlier, sexualized close-ups of Marie’s genitals. Guiraudie, whose last film was something of a visual paean to the scrotum, again shows that he is as intrigued by the physical tools of desire as the cerebral discussion of it.

Now a father, Léo finds a new calling, although just when one might expect the film to settle into a more domesticated routine, it proceeds to fly further off the rails. He becomes more wayward, responding to his new paternal duties by shirking responsibilities, both to Marie and the movie producer looking for a draft of his script. He eventually absconds with the baby, rowing upstream into a mythical forest, relating his parental fears to a woodland psychiatrist while affixed to electrode plant pods. He then finds himself forced to protect the child from scowling, bulbous shepherd Jean-Louis (Raphaël Thierry), Marie’s father, who tries to use the infant as bait for the wolves that keep massacring his flock. And he starts to again pursue Yoan, though his attention is then diverted to the craggy, racist, and lonely Marcel. Amidst all this, the baby wails into the dark night.

That Jean-Louis and Marcel both become potential love interests, or at least sexual beings, for Léo speaks to the film’s increasingly surprising and free-floating pseudo-erotic energy, leading to a climactic moment of gerontophilic transgression: a Pink Floyd–accompanied assisted-suicide fuck, which brings the film conceptually full circle from birth to death while at the same time serving to further confound viewers who may have already given up hope for sure footing. These various strands seem to lead to something about the unpredictable topography of new millennial sexuality, the fluidity of gender roles, the anxiety of new parenthood, and, finally, the complete deconstruction of the nuclear family—one that is reconstituted essentially without a mother. Staying Vertical is thus provocatively queer, even though it often feels like that’s all it is. Because each scene plays more like a new, self-contained panel than a reasonable continuation of what came before, the film exists on its own wavelength of aggressive playfulness, an idea of its own subversion. Léo’s bizarre, circular journey is open-ended but ultimately rigid; never predictable but predetermined all the same.

Staying Vertical | Film Review | Slant Magazine Chuck Bowen

Cannes Review: Alain Guiraudie's 'Staying Vertical' Is At ... - The Playlist Jessica Kiang

Cannes Review: Wacky Gay Sex and a Fear of Wolves Aren't the ... Eric Kohn from indieWIRE

Alain Guiraudie's Staying Vertical (Rester vertical, 2016) – first ... - BFI Jordan Cronk from BFI Sight and Sound, September 23, 2016

Cannes 2016. Alain Guiraudie's "Staying Vertical" on Notebook | MUBI Daniel Kasman from Mubi Notebook

The Film Stage [Giovanni Marchini Camia]

Staying Vertical – first look review - Little White Lies Sophie Monks Kaufman

The Most Shocking Movie at Cannes This Year Is Staying Vertical Richard Lawson from Vanity Fair, May 13, 2016

'Staying Vertical': Cannes Review Allan Hunter from Screendaily

Screen Comment [Ali Naderzad]

Alain Guiraudie Shakes Up the Competition With 'Staying Vertical' Alex Ramon from Pop Matters

Cannes 2016 - Staying Vertical (Alain Guiraudie) - International ... David Acacia from the International Cinephile Society

Cannes 2016: Staying Vertical Review | Collider Talia Soghomonian

Staying Vertical | TAKE ONE | TakeOneCFF.com | Jack Toye from Take One

'Staying Vertical' Bizarre but Fascinating | Arts | The Harvard Crimson Tianxing V. Lan

Brooklyn Magazine: Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli September 30, 2016

Senses of Cinema: Daniel Fairfax July 10, 2016

The House Next Door [Sam C. Mac]

Some Cannes regulars get weird, but only one of their ... - The AV Club Mike D’Angelo

The Village Voice: Bilge Ebiri May 13, 2016

Staying Vertical | 2016 Cannes Film Festival Review - Ioncinema Nicholas Bell

Dog And Wolf [Alexa Dalby] also sen here: BFI LFF 2016: Staying Vertical (2016) - Dog and Wolf

Previewing the 52nd Chicago International Film Festival - Week Two Daniel Nava from Chicago Cinema Circuit

'Staying Vertical' Cannes Review: Alain Guiraudie Explores Writer's ... Ben Croll from The Wrap

The Upcoming [Jasmin Valjas]

The Hollywood News [Paul Heath]

Filmmaker: Blake Williams May 16, 2016, also seen here: Cannes Dispatch #1: Sieranevada, Staying Vertical, Slack Bay, Toni Erdmann

Reverse Shot [Jordan Cronk] May 18, 2016, also seen here: Cannes Film Festival 2016: Part One - Features - Reverse Shot

Staying Vertical and Money Monster | Latest movie reviews from ... Jason Solomons

Daily | Cannes 2016 | Alain Guiraudie’s STAYING VERTICAL David Hudson from Fandor

'Staying Vertical' ('Rester vertical'): Cannes Review Boyd van Hoeij from The Hollywood Reporter

Cannes Film Review: 'Staying Vertical' Owen Gleiberman from Variety

Staying Vertical, directed by Alain Guiraudie | Film review - Time Out Guy Lodge

Rester Vertical review – exercise in myth-making and sexual adventure fails to stay upright Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian

Rester Vertical director Alain Guiraudie: sex can be 'a world of suffering' Benjamin Lee from The Guardian

Cannes 2016: Staying Vertical pushes the envelope of human sexuality into every orifice - review Tim Robey from The Telegraph

Staying Vertical Cannes review: more madness than method Donald Clarke from The Irish Times

Cannes Day 3: Five weird things about 'Staying Vertical' | Austin Movie ... Austin Movie Blog

Cannes 2016: "Sieranevada," "Staying Vertical," "I, Daniel Blake," "Clash" Barbara Scharres from The Ebert blog

The New York Times: Manohla Dargis May 12, 2016

Staying Vertical - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Güney, Yilmaz

SÜRÜ (The Herd)

Turkey (129 mi) 1978 by proxy co-director: Zeki Ökten

Classic Films Michael Sicinski from the Academic Hack (scroll down to October)

Super-weird Turkish film #2. Only this time, there’s no primitivism. It’s Güney (via his directorial surrogate, Ökten) in precise control of his tones and themes. The film begins in a rural village, with the patriarch blaming the tribe’s bad luck on the fact of his son having married a woman from a rival tribe. Superstition abounds, with longstanding family feuds giving way to magical thinking. She has had several stillbirths, and the tribe blames her, assuming that she has infiltrated the clan so as to end the family line. The old man wants to beat his daughter-in-law to death, and even claims the right to do so. As it happens, the family must drive their sheep herd to the city, and the son insists that his sick wife accompany them so that she can seek medical attention. All concerned make grievous judgment errors, which are blamed on the “cursed” woman. The Herd is a frustrating film, seemingly trapped in a misguided, backwards wordlview and unable to step beyond it. But – and this is Güney’s genius move – upon arrival in Ankara, the tribal thinking is recontextualized and critiqued. Granted, the impersonal bustle of the capitalist city bears its own dangers. But Güney’s strategy is to fully occupy (and, to an extent, pay respect to) rural belief systems, only to subject them to materialist criticism. The final scene, in which Güney takes the side of modernity in no uncertain terms, is a stunner.

Cinema in Turkey: Yílmaz Güney Dennis Giles and Haluk Sahin from Jump Cut

Gunn, Bill

GANJA & HESS

aka: Black Vampire; Blood Couple

USA (110 mi) 1973

I had a strange dream last night. I dreamed you murdered me.
─Ganja Meda (Marlene Clark)

The only American film to be shown during Critics Week at Cannes in 1973, the director ironically died just a few months before the Cannes premiere of Spike Lee’s DO THE RIGHT THING (1989).

Time Out Tony Rayns

Gunn's film maudit was the most ambitious 'black movie' of its day and a milestone for indie film-making in the US. Opening captions explain that academic Dr Hess Green (Jones, Night of the Living Dead) has been invulnerable and addicted to blood since being stabbed (in a parody of Catholic dogma) with a dagger from 'the ancient Black civilisation of Myrthia'. Affluent and (thanks to discreet raids on a local blood-bank) comfortable, he avoids murdering for sustenance until stuck with a new assistant (Gunn), who turns out to be a suicidal alcoholic. Deliberately fragmented and punctuated with disquieting cutaways to art works, the film charts his growing sense that he is afflicted with a curse, across his marriage to his assistant's widow Ganja (Clark) and his provision of a stud-victim to feed her 'hunger'. Theological musings jostle with sexual-visceral imagery in a mix which is still very potent.

Electric Sheep Magazine [Alison Frank]

Ganja & Hess was conceived as a black vampire movie: producers Jack Jordan and Quentin Kelly wanted to capitalise on the recent success of Blacula (1972) and other ‘blaxploitation’ films Hollywood had started making to appeal to African-American audiences. Playwright and novelist Bill Gunn readily accepted the producers’ offer of $350,000 to make his first feature film, but was determined to create something far more ambitious than a genre film. He decided to use vampirism as a metaphor to explore the idea of addiction in all its forms.

Ganja & Hess is utterly original, but if I had to compare it to another film, it would be Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating, which was released the following year: both films are set in a large house where statuesque actors and actresses engage in dreamlike scenarios where time telescopes. More broadly, in its uncompromising creativity Ganja & Hess reminds me of the supremely unusual films, past and present, screened in Paris’s Latin Quarter: films that are experienced first and understood only later (if ever). Films where the only thing certain is that you’ve never seen anything quite like them. Films so fresh and innovative that you feel anything could happen. Films that restore your youthful impression of time and space opening up before you with unexpected possibility.

Ganja & Hess is worlds away from the cool swagger and forthright action of a film like Shaft. Professor Hess Green is an academic who surrounds himself with books and art, rides in an elegant chauffeured car and speaks in French with his son. As the film’s producer and editor point out in the DVD’s extensive extra material, this was revolutionary, as audiences had never before seen a film centred on a cultivated African-American character. Actor Duane Jones was particularly well suited to the role: although he is best known as the star of Night of the Living Dead (1968), he also worked as a college professor. The director himself appears as George Meda, the assistant who infects the professor with vampirism. Marlene Clark plays Meda’s wife, Ganja, who comes looking for her missing husband and quickly develops a relationship with the professor.

Ganja & Hess appropriates the vampire myth into a specifically African-American context through richly layered cultural references that include ancient legend, art, song, and costume. The film is bookended by documentary-style footage of an African-American evangelical church, seen as a place of passion and togetherness as well as a source of comfort and salvation.

The film was released in its original version for barely a week. It was this version that won Best Film at Critics’ Week in Cannes but was reviled by critics at home. The producers accordingly hired a different editor to recut it as a sexploitation film, which screened at drive-ins under various titles including Blood Couple, Double Possession and Black Evil. The director, one of the producers and the original editor were so disgusted that they had their names removed from the film. This new home entertainment release finally gives audiences another chance to see this ambitious and innovative film as its creators originally intended.

Temple of Schlock which includes a scathing letter to the editor of The New York Times from the director James Gunn

Much has been written about the damage inflicted upon GANJA AND HESS (1973), the fascinating, barely released vampire film that reunited the late writer-director Bill Gunn and actress Marlene Clark three years after Warner Brothers shelved their first collaboration, the x-rated erotic thriller STOP. “I loved working with Bill because he was so imaginative, creative and totally committed to the material,” Clark says. “GANJA AND HESS was his dream, his vision, and there wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do to make it work. And in the process, he brought people together. Film crews had been traditionally all-white, yet here was a crew that was totally mixed -- and their devotion to Bill, and to what he was trying to say, was really quite impressive.”

Also impressive were the challenging roles Gunn wrote for Clark and her co-star, the late Duane Jones (from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD). "You couldn’t wish for a better character,” the actress says of Ganja Meda, the mysterious woman who shares the curse of immortality and the thirst for human blood with Jones’ Dr. Hess Green. “There are so many levels to her personality. She’s such a collection of contradictions. Playing that part was very rewarding. And Duane was a treat to work with. He did a terrific job.”

GANJA AND HESS was the only American film screened during Critic’s Week at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, where it was named one of the 10 Best American Film of the Decade. It opened at Manhattan’s Playboy Theater a few weeks later. “The first time I saw the movie was at the opening-night screening in New York,” Clark reveals. “There was a splashy party afterward -- and being the lead actress, I was pretty much the star of the party! Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. It was wonderful.” The bubble burst the next day, however, when almost every New York critic panned the film. “When I read the reviews, I thought, ‘They didn’t get it,’” Clark remembers. “Many critics believe that black people make very straightforward, literal movies -- so Bill was really an enigma to them. They just did not understand what he had done.”

Gunn’s unique cinematic treatment of African-American spirituality and vampirism was also lost on the film’s distributor, Kelly-Jordan Enterprises. After a one-week run in Manhattan, the original 110-minute version was pulled from circulation and replaced by a 76-minute bastardization called BLOOD COUPLE, with new credits listing “E.H. Novikov” (a pseudonym for film doctor Fima Noveck) as director. For nearly 25 years, it was this version that viewers were subjected to, both in theaters and on video, under such misleading titles as DOUBLE POSSESSION, BLACK EVIL, BLACK VAMPIRE, and BLACKOUT: THE MOMENT OF TERROR.

For their “Complete Edition” of GANJA & HESS, All Day Entertainment expands and improves upon their original DVD, which itself was a high watermark when released in 1998. Gunn’s one-of-a-kind film couldn’t get a drop of respect back in 1973, but for its 25th anniversary a decade ago All Day beautifully restored the cerebral bone-chiller to its full 110-minute glory. Well...almost. An MIA two-and-a-half minute scene found in Gunn’s own print but absent from all other sources has thankfully been reinstated. The extras from the first disc are present, including the extensive poster/still gallery and the informative audio commentary with Clark, producer Chiz Schultz, and director of photography James Hinton. Also returning, this time as a DVD-ROM feature, is the terrific essay by Tim Lucas and David Walker that explains the history of the film and the differences between Gunn’s cut and the 76-minute version by film doctor Fima Noveck. A new 30-minute featurette, “The Blood of the Thing,” consists of a recent interview with Schultz and film editor Victor Kanefsky peppered with Q&A footage of them (along with Hinton and assistant producer Janice Adams) at a New York screening. In “Ganja & Hess Reduced,” All Day’s David Kalat provides an 18-minute audio commentary for some of his favorite scenes. Gunn’s shooting script and a print interview with Noveck (conducted by Walker) round out the DVD-ROM extras on this excellent package.

The Village Voice [Nick Pinkerton]

Bill Gunn died, aged 59, in April of 1989, the day before his play The Forbidden City premiered at the Public Theater, and months before the flashpoint of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.

Would lone-wolf Gunn have fit in with the new renaissance of black American filmmaking any more than he did with the last? Situated to make his directorial debut alongside Melvin Van Peebles, Ossie Davis, and Gordon Parks, Gunn's 1970 auteur debut, Stop, was shelved by Warner Bros. BAM's Gunn retrospective unearths the film, a Puerto Rico–set, bisexual, interracial ménage à quatre—a languid, druggy-decadent psychodrama of high emotional toxicity at a time when emerging black filmmakers were expected to work in familiar genre and earthy "reality."

Gunn began his career as an artist in the Village, by way of Philadelphia and the Navy. He worked as an actor through the '50s, understudying as "Bashir" in a staging of Gide's The Immoralist to friend James Dean (who painted Gunn) and playing the lead in Take a Giant Step. An April 10, 1957, edition of this paper spotlighted Gunn under the headline: "OFF B'WAY: These People May Become Stars."

It didn't happen. "When a good part for a Negro actor does come along, they always offer it to Sidney Poitier," Gunn told Variety. "If he turns it down, they rewrite it for a white actor." So Gunn started writing, for stage (Johnnas) and page (1964's presumably semi-autobiographical novel All the Rest Have Died). Both feature a character Gunn would return to, the sensitive black artist (or potential artist) who's got no place to do his thing.

For a moment, it seemed as if Gunn would escape his prophecy. His Hollywood breakthrough came in scripting The Landlord (1970), a culture-collision comedy set off when Beau Bridges's upper-class ofay buys a town house in black Brooklyn (specifically, on Prospect Place in Park Slope), inhabited by the dream ensemble of Diana Sands, Louis Gossett Jr., and Pearl Bailey. Premised on a novel by Kristin Hunter, the best lines are all Dunn, showing absurdist wit and when fatuous "Right on!" was the fashion. Which isn't to say his words aren't devastating: Who could forget Sands's description of growing up white as growing up "casual," and all that implies?

Gunn's purest expression was 1973's Ganja & Hess. Hired to crank out a Blacula knock-off (with a drug-joke title), Gunn instead wrote a surreal love triangle among black sophisticates, devoid of sex-machine phoniness, and directed it in a muttered, disorienting style, with a strange brew of Afro-Euro symbolism. Duane Jones is Dr. Hess, a gentleman scholar studying a pre-Christian African blood cult; Stop's gorgeous, sloe-eyed Marlene Clark is Ganja, as lively and droll as Hess is lethargic. Gunn himself plays the turbulent artist who infects the doctor. He had a genius for writing monologues, and delivers them with absorbing intensity, especially in his character's schizo suicide dream of playing both murderer and victim, showing Gunn's fascination with the divided self. (From All the Rest: "My blood has been invaded by blood that is also mine"; The Landlord: "You whities scream about miscegenation and you done watered down every race you ever hated.")

Gunn was disappointed to find American tastemakers didn't share his curiosity. Addressing reviews of Ganja & Hess, Gunn wrote: "[A] critic wondered where was the race problem. If he looks closely, he will find it in his own review." He continued to create, but never directed another feature. Rhinestone Sharecropping, Gunn's 1981 names-have-been-changed (Gunn's to "Dodd") "novel" of the movie business, retells his disastrous experience adapting (uncredited) Muhammad Ali's biography into The Greatest (1977). Personal Problems (1980), an "experimental soap opera" developed with Ishmael Reed, wasn't picked up. Gunn's last film role was playing a painter in the lovely Losing Ground (1982) for Kathleen Collins, a young director who'd clearly watched and learned. The setting was the Hudson River Valley, where Gunn lived; both filmmakers featured black characters that were as unapologetically sophisticated, hip, emotional—and screwed up—as they themselves.

Such characters were only slightly less commercially viable back then than they are in today's Precious marketplace. Gunn's alter ego, in Rhinestone: "I wrote what I felt, which always lacks the sign posts that lead the average man to the ghetto. Critics wrote 'Mr. Dodd lacks the quality of his people.' " In the book's author photo, we see Gunn in boots and greatcoat before a stone hearth, like melancholy country gentry. It's the portrait of an individualist—and an American artist who seriously deserves his due.

Ganja and Hess - Turner Classic Movies Chris Fujiwara

The immensely talented director, writer, and actor Bill Gunn (1934-1989) was a seminal figure in African American art. Recognized in his lifetime as an important playwright and stage director, he is now best known for his work in films. Yet his contributions to cinema were limited, no doubt mainly for two reasons: an institutional racism that confined and tokenized African Americans and Gunn's refusal to work within ordinary commercial frameworks.

In 1973, the year of Gunn's major filmmaking achievement, Ganja & Hess, Gunn had already directed one film, Stop (1970), for Warner Bros. Dealing with both male and female homosexual relationships, the film was saddled with an X rating and shelved by its distributor. It remains unreleased, though a video copy was screened in 2010 in a Gunn series at BAM in Brooklyn. Writing on that occasion in the Village Voice, Nick Pinkerton called Stop "a Puerto Rico-set, bisexual, interracial ménage à quatre - a languid, druggy-decadent psychodrama of high emotional toxicity at a time when emerging black filmmakers were expected to work in familiar genre and earthy 'reality.'"

Perhaps inspired by American-International Pictures' announcement of their production of Blacula (1972), independent company Kelly-Jordan Enterprises approached Gunn in 1972 to make a "black vampire" film on a $350,000 budget. Gunn accepted with misgivings. "The last thing I want to do is make a black vampire film," Gunn confided in a friend. Nevertheless, he thought he could redeem the project by using vampirism as a metaphor for addiction. "If I had to write about blood, I was going to do that, but I could not just make a movie about blood," he later said. The producers' inexperience meant that Gunn had a free hand in writing, directing, and editing Ganja & Hess. Shot on location at the Apple Bee Farm (Croton-on-Hudson, New York) and the Brooklyn Museum, the film was released in 1973 and was selected for the Critics' Week at the Cannes Film Festival that year. Discouraged by poor box office, Kelly-Jordan took the film out of distribution and sold it to another company, Heritage Enterprises, which issued a rescored and drastically recut version under the title Blood Couple. (This version has been released on VHS under a number of titles.) Gunn disowned this version, and, fortunately, his original cut was donated to the Museum of Modern Art, whose screenings of Ganja & Hess helped build its reputation as a neglected classic of independent African American cinema.

The bare outline of the plot of Ganja & Hess suggests a very strange horror film. The hero is Dr. Hess Green, a wealthy anthropologist who is doing research on the Myrthians, an ancient African nation of blood drinkers. When his unstable assistant, Meda, stabs him with a Myrthian ceremonial dagger, Green becomes a vampire endowed with immortality. Meda's wife, Ganja, comes to Green's house in search of her husband, who has committed suicide, and Ganja and Green become lovers.

What the recital of the plot fails to make clear is the extent to which Gunn has incorporated the horror elements of his story into the rich texture of a work that deals with a range of themes: the opposition between African religion and Christianity, class and social divisions among urban African Americans, sexuality, the independent Black Woman, and more. Gunn's complex storytelling makes it impossible to reduce Ganja & Hess to any simple allegory. Preying on the black urban underclass, Green is not only a romantic, aristocratic hero but also a murderous exploiter of people. On the other hand, his final search for redemption in the arms of the Protestant church is a surrender and a betrayal. Ambiguities abound: what are we to make of Meda's obsession with suicide, or of Ganja's hostility toward Green's docile butler? By complicating the viewer's responses to all the characters and situations, and to the religious and cultural symbols surrounding them, Gunn evokes some of the paradoxes of African American experience, seeking not to resolve them but to place the viewer in the middle of them. In its strengths, Ganja & Hess is reminiscent of Hal Ashby's stunning The Landlord (1970), for which Gunn wrote the script, and it seems likely that the most interesting aspects of The Landlord are due to Gunn rather than to Ashby (whose later and better known films do not reproduce these elements).

Languid, cloying in the beauty of its images, Ganja & Hess sometimes accumulates great visual force. In a scene of love-making-slash-killing, the victim seems transformed into a glistening apparition, as much crystal as flesh. The soundtrack is striking, with its insistent use of African chant, contrasted with soul-rock passages. The warped solemnity of much of the film is successfully tempered by elements of deadpan black comedy (as in the scenes between Ganja and the butler). Gunn draws effective performances from Duane Jones (the male lead of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead [1968]) as Green and Marlene Clark as Ganja. Jones's elegant, abstracted bearing sharply delineates the doctor's psychological predicament, while Clark, matching him in poise, negotiates Ganja's transformation from a tough, aggressive, me-first survivor into a romantic increasingly fascinated with her new lover. ("Ganja is not unlike Billie Holiday," write Manthia Diawara and Phyllis Klotman. "She is a woman who defines her values in the skepticism of the Blues tradition.") Gunn himself makes a strong impression as the enigmatic and ill-fated Meda. In casting himself in this role, Gunn perhaps had in mind the link between art and death that is one of the underlying themes of his film; perhaps he also had in mind the chronic difficulties of the black artist in the United States, difficulties he had long struggled with and that helped ensure that Ganja & Hess would be his last film.

The Village Voice [James Monaco] March 14, 1974 (pdf format)

notcoming.com | Ganja & Hess - Not Coming to a Theater... Adam Balz

Hammer to Nail [Brandon Harris]

Acidemic Journal of Film and Media [Erich Kuersten]

On Matters of Sex, Religion, and Identity: ' Ganja &... Brent McKnight from Pop Matters

Ganja and Hess Read TCM's Home Video Review on this film Michael Atkinson from Turner Classic Movies

At Moria - The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review [Richard Scheib]

DVD Talk [David Walker]

Digitally Obsessed - The Complete Edition [Mark Zimmer]

DVD Talk [Stuart Galbraith IV] The Complete Edition

Audio Video Revolution [Bill Warren] Restored Director’s Cut

The A.V. Club [Nathan Rabin] Restored Director’s Cut

Rock! Shock! Pop! [Ian Jane] Restored Director’s Cut

DVD Review - Ganja and Hess Todd Doogan, Restored Director’s Cut

Slant Magazine - Blu-ray [Jaime N. Christley]

DVD Verdict - Blu-ray [Tom Becker]

Rock! Shock! Pop! [Ian Jane] Blu-Ray

Horror's Not Dead - Blu-ray [John Gholson]

Blu-ray.com [Dr. Svet Atanasov]

Blu-ray.com [Casey Broadwater]

Fulvue Drive-in - Blu-ray [Nicholas Sheffo]

Zombie Hamster [Matty Budrewicz] Blu-Ray

DVD Drive-In - Blu-ray [George R. Reis]

Badass Digest [April Swartz]

The Spinning Image [Graeme Clark]

New York Times [A.H. Weiler]

TV Guide

Cinema Scandinavia [Emma Vestrheim]

DVDBeaver [Eric Cotenas]

Guo, Xiaolu

SHE, A CHINESE

Great Britain France Germany (98 mi) 2009

She, a Chinese The Auteurs

Mei, a young Chinese girl bored with life in her little village, decides to quit for the nearest town, Chongqing. But life there isn’t much easier either; sacked from a clothing factory shortly after starting work, she makes do with a job in a hairdressing salon. There she meets and falls for Spikey, a local mafia’s contract killer. For this brute of a man – who has no qualms about asking her to beat him in the street with a nunchaku – she seems simply another notch on the bedpost. One evening, he comes home covered in blood and dies at her feet. Mei discovers several bundles of banknotes under his mattress, and sets off for London where she has an opportunity to marry Mister Hunt, a man of seventy. In her new husband’s silent home, a new life begins. Will she be satisfied with this monotonous routine? Paced to an original soundtrack by John Parish – working with PJ Harvey and the band Eels – and chaptered in telling titles such as Sometimes you wonder who you really are and Mei feels love under the Big Ben calendar, Xiaolu Guo has made a film in which the challenges Mei must confront do not deter her quest for a more promising future. The filmmaker uses elements of nature – stifling summer heat, a duck bleeding to death, a dog wolfed down by a fox –to express her protagonist’s feelings. Through this journey and the people Mei meets, She, a Chinese conjures the mix of cultures in the early 21st century and how people, lifestyles, consumer goods, and music all cross borders. Although these cross-cultural currents bring about a degree of chaos in Mei’s life, she finds the will to escape isolation, and to follow her desires, come what may.

Guðmundsson, Guðmundur Arnar

HEARTSTONE (Hjartasteinn) B 89

Iceland Denmark (129 mi) 2016 ‘Scope Official Website

A rather sprawling first-time feature film by a young Icelandic director, Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson, winner of the Q Award for Best Gay, LGBT-themed film, who previously made a series of award winning shorts, including ÁRTÚN, which won the Best Narrative short film at the Chicago Film Festival in 2014, focusing this time on the relationship of two 14-year old boys that have been friends since an early age, the more diminutive Thor (Baldur Einarsson), whose father is absent, the runt of the litter living at home with a single mother and two older sisters, and the taller Kristján (Blær Hinriksson), who is living with a physically abusive father. No easy life for either of them, as the film provides intimate details about their lives growing up in a remote fishing village in Iceland. Much of it spent outdoors in the rolling hills next to the sea, the boys are part of a generational hierarchy led by an older boy, Ginger (Sveinn Sigurbjörnsson), who is little more than a bully, running around with a group of enforcers where he continually picks on boys younger than him. In an opening moment he can be seen shooting birds for the sheer pleasure of it, leaving them to rot afterwards. This act is paralleled by another scene with the two boys hanging with a group their own age, where they are singling out a certain fish, bullrouts, calling them ugly, and then stomping them to death, creating a pervasive mood of meaningless aggression. These seemingly tiny acts are contrasted by the largesse of the Icelandic landscape, beautifully captured by cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, as looming out the window or off in the distance is a unique mix of mountains meeting the sea, where the harshness of the land seems to mirror the temperament of the older men, who tend to be stubborn, gruff, and at times painfully cruel. No one represents this more than Kristján’s abusive father, Sigurdur (Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson), who terrorizes his wife and family, where his mean streak is a sign of his masculinity, in his eyes, as nothing ever comes easy, where you have to work your fingers to the bone just to survive this heartless world.

Thor and Kristján have it different, as they have each other’s backs and have been best friends forever, where if you ever see one of them, the other is likely to be with him, as they are an inseparable pair, spending all their time together. Their parents don’t seem to mind, as that’s less they have to look after, as the boys can seemingly take care of themselves, always off on some adventure, heading for the hills and faraway corners of the region, idly exploring something around town, hanging out with others, chasing after farm animals, or just generally following their curiosity, where they have plenty of time to talk about anything at all. At home, Thor is surrounded by the presence of strong women, something he can’t fully appreciate, as his older sister Hafdís (Rán Ragnarsdóttir) recites dark and melancholic poetry at morning breakfast, where the more outspoken middle sister Rakel (Jónína Þórdís Karlsdóttir) tells her to just shoot herself already and get it over with. All three gang up on their mother Hulda (Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir) when she has designs on a man, as the general consensus is she’s better off without them, but if truth be told, they don’t get a vote. Hulda remains young and attractive, especially for the region, where one of the neighbors, Sven (Søren Malling), has a thing for her, handing Thor a necklace to give to his mother, something he wouldn’t be caught dead doing, instead giving it to his own girlfriend Beta (Diljá Valsdóttir) as a sign of going steady, while her less attractive girlfriend Hanna (Katla Njálsdóttir) has designs on Kristján, but only because she thinks she’s supposed to, as there’s no real chemistry between them. Nonetheless they constantly double date, have their first kiss, spend time alone, even try sex, with Beta kind of pushing the action with Thor, which he willingly follows, while Kristján, who is tall and attractive, does his best not to be impolite to Hanna.

The interest in the girls eventually changes the dynamic between both boys, especially when Kristján playfully plants a kiss on Thor’s mouth, trying to pretend that it’s meaningless, a harmless joke, but it’s clear there’s more behind it, sending both into a tailspin of avoidance, where a mysterious gulf comes between them, neither one able to verbalize what they’re thinking, where a cloud continues to silently hang over both of them. As if to test their mettle, Sigurdur decides to take these boys on an ominous mission, hiking quite a ways before they reach the edge of a steep cliff, where one boy will be lowered by rope on a harness to collect eggs from the vertical sea stacks, that appear like high-rise apartments stacked up on top of one another in the high cliffs rising out of the sea, with thousands of swarming birds living in the cracks on the rocks, a dangerous and life-threatening mission for men at any age, but for boys, it foolishly and deliberately risks their lives, with Sigurdur asking Thor to take the trek, almost as if that’s one way to get rid of him. While it’s spectacular imagery, anyone who’s ever witnessed one of these bird sanctuaries realizes how foolhardy this must be, but if anything, it only brings the two boys closer together afterwards, as it’s a harrowing, near-death experience. Perhaps in shame, that he could never carry off such a risky maneuver himself, Kristján, in an impulsive moment, apparently tries to shoot himself, but miraculously survives. After returning home from extensive hospital care in Reykjavík, his family refuses to allow Thor anywhere near their son. There’s a price to be paid in small towns for close friendships, as people in town gossip and carry on as if they have nothing better to do, where these two boys are taunted and tormented, even shunned by those their own age, including the two girls, who refuse to speak to them. With Kristján secluded offscreen, where Thor has to wonder what in the hell he did to deserve being exiled in his own community, the emotional anguish and social isolation is overwhelming, as there is literally nothing he can do to change people’s opinions, reminiscent of that early scene where a fish was singled out and labeled ugly before it was stomped to death. People grow up harboring ugly thoughts about anyone or anything that’s different, where especially in small towns, it can drive some kids to suicide. The poetic finale is filled with the turmoil of confusion and anger, yet plays out with a unique tenderness that is an essential thread throughout every friendship. Showing great attention to detail, the film plays out in a languorous pace, which doesn’t seem to fit the more adrenaline-paced world of kids this age, yet the detached overall manner adds a timeless, near omniscient view, as if the mountains and oceans and souls of the dead are all observing from a distance.

Heartstone (Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson, Iceland/Denmark ... Michael Sicinski from Cinema Scope

Heartstone is the type of debut film that is brimming with good intentions but ultimately doesn’t make a strong enough case for its existence. Trading in coming-of-age tropes and stock markers of identity, Heartstone at least has the courtesy to spread its youthful anxieties over a stunning Icelandic coastal landscape, allowing its children to skulk around on verdant rolling hills and take truth-or-dare plunges into crystalline lakes and streams.

But as for Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson’s specific narrative mien, much of it is sketched in outline very early on and never deepens very much beyond that. Thor (Baldur Einarsson) has hit puberty with a vengeance, which means he is crushing hard on local girl Beth (Diljá Valsdóttir). He is also having trouble maintaining his sanity as the only boy in his household. (Straight from the files: hot-to-trot middle-aged mom; flighty artist-poet older sister; rebel-bitch middle sister.) Thor spends most of his time with best friend Christian (Blær Hinriksson), whose abusive dad makes Thor wonder if maybe it wasn’t so bad that his own pops fucked off to the city to leave him drowning in estrogen.

While Guðmundsson is clearly striving for an observational vibe and easy youth rapport, there’s no avoiding the fact that Heartstone’s plot trajectory has been jury-rigged for maximum angst. One character struggles with his sexual identity. Another is asserting her own desire while unfairly being labelled the village whore. There’s a hyper-aggressive town bully who must be taken down a few pegs in the end. And we’re even given Chekhov’s proverbial gun, which is indeed fired right on cue. None of this compromises the film’s basic watchability, but neither do these contrivances establish Heartstone as the very best thing you could do with your time.

Heartstone is a very successful debut of a young director Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson: the awards at the Venice International Film Festival and the Netherlands Production Platform received while the film still was in development prove it. Before Heartstone, Guðmundsson created a reputation of a very talented short film director, with his short films having won over fifty international awards. The film with such regalia definitely cannot be the one you forget easily.

The topic of teenage adolescence in the cinema has gained its popularity a long time ago as this is something every person goes through, a unique experience that is too personal to share. And this is exactly what lies behind the movie: a personal story based on director’s experience of growing up in a remote fishing village.

As in any Scandinavian film, nature is an inalienable part of the story. But this story, surrounded by a cold sea, flat grounds and green mountains, is about human’s nature in the first place. Being a teenager, being a single mother trying to get your personal life back on track once again, being a younger brother of bullying sisters, being a homosexual and living with a homophobic father… Natural harshness and natural beauty are the yin and yang of this story. A story of a strong, beautiful bond between two boys is framed with aggression and violence from the very first moments. Talking about the opening scene, the most unpleasant thing is not the fact of killing the bullrouts, this is quite normal for a fishing village, but the act of meaningless aggression one of the boys shows towards the fish calling it ugly and jumping on it. This is really striking. Thor is exposed to constant humiliation thanks to his sisters. His inner aggression that can only find the way out in a form of offending other people, spitting and kicking the grass. At some point the only question you have is if there is any escape from this world of cruelty. But the interesting thing is that for the characters this is the world they are used to live in, the normal world – their world, just as it is.Heartstone, like a construction set, consists of many separate details: relationship between parents and children, homosexuality, life in a rural village and life in a closed society, first love, awakening sexuality, puberty, closed society, friendship, suicide… The film is about discovering your true self, a painful and harsh process that no one can escape. We are exposed to this all alone at an early age, with no support, unable to express what we are feeling and what we are going through. This experience never leaves without a trace; it defines our lives. ‘As a kid or teenager, I used to wish that I could show the grown-ups around me how our world really was’, says Guðmundsson, ‘and that’s what I want to do as a film-maker.’ The story in Heartstone is about awkward, obstinate teenagers becoming grown-ups – still awkward and obstinate but a little bit wiser, stronger and better.

Heartstone (2016) directed by Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson ... Isaac Lee from Letterboxd, also seen here: http://wp.me/p1eXom-2A6 and here: Heartstone Review by Cinema Omnivore - MUBI

First feature from Icelandic director Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson, this year Venice’s Queer Lion award receiver, which also competes in the Venice Days category. HEARTSTONE patiently limns a poignant coming-of-age crisis between two 14-year-old boys Thor (Einarsson) and Kristján (Hinriksson) in a remote fishing village with admirable unpretentiousness and sensitivity, only if its 129 minute length could have been pared down into something more coherent to deaden a tinge of fatigue instigated by its monotonous locale and milieu.

There is no one single second taking us away from the placid community, so first-timer Guðmundsson enlists famed DP Sturla Brandth Grøvlen to majestically singles out Iceland’s unique coastal landscape and topography to an effect that it effectively looms large as a wordless character breathing menace and bleakness within spitting distance, which is aesthetically enthralling in its own terms, especially for us, armchair sightseer.

Thor and Kristján are thick as thieves, yet physically, the latter is in full-blown physique, tall and robust, while the former is vexed by the fact that his pubic hair has yet to sprout. Nevertheless, impelled by nascent sexual awakening, curiosity or even boredom, Thor tentatively chases local gal Beta (Valsdóttir), and naively thinks they can form a secure rectangle of two pairs, him and Beta, Kristján and Hanna (Njálsdóttir), Beta’s bestie. As any boring teenagers stuck in a hamlet before the circulation of Internet and smart phone, they arrange secret sleepover, play truth-or-dare until Kristján becomes a killjoy when Thor and him share a platonic kiss, a warning sign too big to ignore, and inevitably they attempt boy-girl intimacy, but a self-conscious Kristján bluntly flinches from Hanna’s advance while Thor successfully scores with Beta

Also, audience will realize in the halfway that the film has been subtly and unswervingly shifting its preference from the usual subject – the one who struggles with his sexual orientation and gestates an unspeakable affection towards his best friend – to the unknowingly desired, a heterosexual boy who can playfully joke about homosexuality, but the fact that his best friend, with whom he spends every day, playing and messing around, is secretly in love with him, has completely eluded him, until something bad happens and he becomes the last one to know. The same old story, we have seen many a time, but the changing of focal point assuages the tragic undertow and takes its aim to show what happens to those who are affected, when the film reaches its tail end, it is ultimately affirmative, not at all self-congratulatory, in the end of the day, their bond doesn’t turn sour because of the revelation and its controversial nature, on the contrary, it has been bolstered up since the purity of their friendship has never been sullied, this is what really counts, no matter that they have to face the unpleasant separation, c’est la vie. As in the final scene, the metaphor is self-evident, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, there is a tough world out there, not just for all the Kristjáns.

Leading actor Baldur Einarsson, is a key factor attributes to the movie’s triumph of hitting its emotional core with appreciable compassion and conviction, such an unfeigned force of nature to be reckon with in his debut, and he incredibly captures the challenging emotional heave of his rite-of-passage. The rest cast is given lesser arcs to juggle with, nevertheless, Hinriksson impresses with his physical forbearance in one symbolic scene where he dabbles into a freezing pool in the wilderness, whilst Filippusdóttir, who plays Thor’s mother, actually, a single mother of 3 teenagers, frustratingly beckons an inauspicious future of adulthood (both Thor and Kristján’s familial situations are far from perfect), of those who are enmeshed in that narrow-mindness and dreariness, astonishing scenery is for gallant tourists only, it cannot fill the void of emptiness in those who are powerlessly stuck.

An exceptional discovery in Venice 73’, HEARTSTONE should be on the watchlist of cinephiles who has a sweet tooth for tactful character analysis or exotic atmosphere, there is absolutely no question that it can be resonant with a far broader demography on top of its queer tag.

Cineuropa.org [Vittoria Scarpa]

Heartstone Premieres at Venice Film Festival | Iceland Review Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir

CloseUp.it - Alessandro Izzi

MaSeDomani.com [Vissia Menza] (Italian)

Gli Spietati [Luca Baroncini] (Italian)

ScreenDaily - Sarah Ward

HEARTSTONE / A Film By Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson film website

Daily | Toronto 2016 Lineup, Round 7 | Keyframe - Explore the world ... David Hudson from Fandor

New Icelandic gay film getting great response - GayIceland Friðrika Benónýsdóttir interviews the director, September 13, 2016

'Heartstone': Venice Review | Hollywood Reporter David Rooney

'Heartstone' Review: An Atmospheric Icelandic Coming-of-Age Tale ... Guy Lodge from Variety

Heartstone (film) - Wikipedia

Gutierrez, Sebastian

WOMEN IN TROUBLE B 84

USA (94 mi) 2009

I am an immortal whore. —Holly Rocket (Adrianne Palicki)

Unfortunately, due to the low budget, this was shot on video and has that darkened, can’t-see-enough onscreen look that simply can’t helped. The problem with low budgets at times is that they look low budget. The first episode in a planned trilogy, where the second apparently is already in the can, this is a Grindhouse style audacious sex comedy with plenty of hot chicks in low cleavage who invariable get themselves into some kind of trouble, where they spend much of the movie commiserating with one another. At times this is insanely funny, written and directed by Sebastian Gutierrez, also casting his daughter Isabella as the weird teenager Charlotte who is seen offering therapeutic insights to her own therapist, as Charlotte’s mom is banging the therapist’s husband. The low key, matter of fact, Adams Family style of Charlotte contrasts with nearly every other character in the film, most of whom are exceedingly high maintenance and exhibit a flair for the dramatic. Taking its comic tone from the idea that Earth Girls Are Easy, the ever charming but drastically dumb Holly Rocket (Adrianne Palicki) and her big sister in porn Bambi (Emmanuelle Chriqui) are interrupted before they can perform their sister-on-sister sex scene, which is especially difficult for Holly because she vomits every time she goes down on a woman (but always off camera, she claims). Meanwhile Carla Gugino plays porn goddess Electra Luxx, who gets stuck on an overheated elevator with Doris the screaming lady, Connie Britton, who is so distraught that she can’t stop screaming. After stripping down for comfort, when Electra tells her lesson number one when stuck on an elevator is to save your oxygen, this according to her firefighter father, the two actually share private moments, where we discover Doris is really Charlotte’s mom, but her sister assumed that role early on and wouldn’t relinquish, and that Carla has a product of her vagina on the market that sells for $89.95, a novelty item as she calls it, undercutting other major porn stars who sell theirs for $129.95. Somehow you get the picture. But the two become lifelong friends. More trouble ensues.

The charm of the film is the irreverent tone, occasionally resorting to speed subliminal images where a thousand images are rolled into a nanosecond, and the manic pace of the film where the zany screwball comedy, salacious dialogue just falls off the tongue with ease, but the real stars are Gugino as Electra, playing sexy, worldly wise, emotionally direct, and experienced, and Palicki as Holly, who is something of a revelation, always feeling as if she’s in mid crisis mode, a young semi-clothed girl who drops her pants or performs sexual favors without batting an eye, who thinks every reference is a sexual innuendo, yet as a wannabe porn star ingénue in the making she gets some of the best lines in the film. Not everything works, so at times it feels like dead space onscreen, but mostly there’s a frantic sense of urgency in the direction. At times this is hilariously funny, as good comedies speaking frankly about sex are rare, especially ones featuring half naked gorgeous women in lingerie running around, but despite the madcap antics and musical score by Robyn Hitchcock, some of which works perfectly, not much of this sticks with you afterwards, as there’s not a whole lot of meat on the bone. There are emotional connections, and some of the relationship sequences where someone bares their soul are effective, the problem is they’re instantly forgettable after the movie is over. For a film festival, this is a nice change of pace, as a whiff of bare naked ladies speaking frankly about sex is always an eye opener in between dreary films from the Czech Republic and Kazakhstan, but this will likely play better on the American DVD market as a novelty item, especially when the young director completes his trilogy.

Special note – supporting actress Adrianne Palicki

Holland Sentinel Pamela Fisher

“Women in Trouble” has the split second timing of a 21st century raunchy English parlor comedy/sex farce. Characters come and go at a dizzying pace — and they all seem to be clad in bustiers, garters and thongs at first blush. The story revolves around a collection of disparate women: a flight attendant, porn star, psychiatrist, massage therapist, bartender, call girls, psychiatrist, and mother and daughter whose problems revolve around fickle men behaving badly. Authenticity in larger-than-life character roles is no small feat, but name actors pull it off — mostly. The cast includes: Carla Gugino, Connie Britton, Adrianne Palicki, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Simon Baker and Josh Brolin.

While the premise is a little over-the-top at first, the threads of their stories come together in unexpected ways. Solid, nuanced performances by an able ensemble cast provide moments of genuine pathos amid a sometimes Baz Lurman-esque visual overload.

Written, directed and produced on a shoestring budget ($100 a day to actors) by Sebastian Gutierrez, this production was astonishingly filmed in his house. Cinematographer Cale Finot delivers stunningly lush and visually eye-popping montages sporting crayola-bright production values. The sometimes too raunchy dialog and themes may overwhelm. Second showing 9 a.m. Saturday. A theatrical release to art house cinemas in New York and Los Angeles is planned for fall.

Film Guy John P. Meyer

Now for the fun stuff: Women in Trouble is an outrageous (and outrageously funny) ensemble piece directed and written by Sebastian Gutierrez. The cast boasts a bevy of beautiful women including (but not limited to) Carla Gugino and two talented actresses from network TV's hands-down best drama, Friday Night Lights: coach's wife Connie Britton and high school hottie Adrianne Palicki).

The story centers on legendary porn star Elektra Luxx (Ms. Gugino) and her young protege Holly Rocket (Ms. Palicki), who has an unfortunate, deep-seated aversion to eating... um... never mind. After the fashion of Babel or Crash, Elektra's life becomes intertwined with those of a diverse collection of women ranging from a psychologist whose husband is cheating on her, to the sister of his mistress, to an airline stewardess with a taste for wild adventure and a seemingly sinister adolescent girl who witches imaginary cigarettes into glowing life.

When you get a chance to see this movie (and I hope to God you will - presumably it will achieve either art-house release or DVD distribution or both), look for a stunning mile-high cameo from Josh Brolin - and then brace yourself for an amazingly nasty (and side-splittingly hilarious) reminiscence from Ms. Palicki's character involving the sad demise of her childhood pooch.

Director Gutierrez is to be congratulated for making his actresses feel so much at ease that they seem to have left their inhibitions at the sound stage door. While there are plenty of bared psyches in this show, there are - amazingly - no completely bared bodies. Although there are an abundance of enticingly draped ones.

Gutierrez's presentation style (as edited by Lisa Bromwell and Michelle Tesoro) is decidedly Rodriguez-like, with artfully-inserted tongue-in-cheek segues, a saturated color pallete and a hard-driving, Spanish-tinged score. This one is not to be missed.

eFilmCritic.com (Jay Seaver) review [5/5]

SCREENED AT THE 2009 SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST FILM FESTIVAL: To a certain extent, I don't care who the audience for "Women In Trouble" is - it made me laugh out loud and then did a little more than amuse me, and that makes it good in my book. On the other hand, I liked it enough to want people to see it, and I worry that men won't be interested in a movie where a female ensemble talks about their feelings while women won't appreciate that the characters are prostitutes and porn stars dressed for pulp magazine covers and engaging in raunchy comedy. Or does that mean it's got something for everybody?

There are allegedly ten Women In Trouble, although the number is somewhat inflated. Choosing a starting point at semi-random, there's Charlotte (Isabella Guitierrez), a smart but odd girl at her weekly appointment with psychiatrist Maxine (Sarah Clarke), who is blissfully unaware of what is going on between her husband (Simon Baker) and Charlotte's mother Addy (Caitlin Keats). Earlier, we met adult film stars Electra Luxx (Carla Gugino) and Holly Rocket (Adrianne Palicki); Electra has just found out she is pregnant, but on the way back from the doctor's office she gets stuck in an overheated elevator with Doris (Connie Britton), a claustrophobic with a past of her own who happens to be Charlotte's aunt. Holly, meanwhile, agrees to do a "sister act" with fellow call girl and best friend Bambi (Emmanuelle Chirqui), but bad things happen, leading them to cross paths with some other characters. And on a seemingly unconnected flight, stewardess Cora (Marley Shelton) needs the help of her partner Maggie (Garcelle Beauvais) when she and a rock star (Josh Brolin) join the mile high club and things go terribly wrong.

The story is probably better represented by a chart than a paragraph like that, which is actually leaving out one or two of the title characters and a number of others, including the one played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who, despite being in the opening titles, doesn't appear until the scene that runs after the closing credits. It could be a bit of a confusing mess, but writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez does a pretty good job of keeping it relatively simple at the beginning: Characters are introduced in small groups, and each one that is going to be important is given a trait or a line that sticks in one's memory so that when the characters' storylines start merging and intersecting, it's not difficult at all to keep everything straight.

The risk of that approach is that it can reduce the characters to one-note ciphers. That happens in a few cases, but most of the time, Gutierrez gives his cast room to work. It's somewhat inherent in the movie's genesis and means of production: The movie started as scenes that didn't fit into other projects, and the shooting schedule was a very quick twelve days, with each cast member only available for a day or two. So the movie winds up being, in large part, a series of two-person conversations in single locations. That gives the cast some pretty nice opportunities to show their stuff.

Most of them seize that chance. Two women stripping down their underwear and talking about subjects that include the sales of a rubber replica of one's vagina is probably not what Alison Bechdel was thinking about when formulating her rules (nor is it typical chick flick material). The ladies in question are Carla Gugino and Connie Britton, though, and it doesn't take long before the audience is less ogling the skin than listening to them talk about all manner of things, from the sex toy to rivals to lost children. They're great to watch together, a little skittish and unsure, but down-to-earth enough that it's not hard to believe that they could bond as tightly as they do.

It's not hard to praise Gugino and Britton for their performances; they're both folks who have paid their dues in supporting parts, less-seen movies, and television, and they bring that to their characters. But also deserving a lot of praise is Adrianne Palicki, who plays a character that can easily be dismissed as just a dumb blonde, a call girl making the move into adult films. It is, however, a really wonderful performance; Palicki gives Holly Rocket enough (misplaced) confidence to make the dumb blonde jokes work and insecurity about, well, something she does at work, to make her kind of lovable despite that. It's a shame that she doesn't really get to go full-on rapid-fire until the closing credits scene. Nearly as notable is that as casually vulgar as porn-star "office humor" is, her big character-developing speech is really just spectacularly gross, and she somehow makes it funny, sad, and sweet by the time she's done with it.

And for all the talk of character work and good acting and maybe subverting the pulp, sexed-up way the movie's women are presented, the thing that the audience will take away is that Women in Trouble is a funny, funny movie. It's often crude and raunchy, broad as can be, the sort of comedy women don't often get to do, and they stay funny even after they've been given some depth. Gutierrez and his cast do a great job of playing both sides of the street, making us take these character seriously even as they make us laugh.

Will crowds go for that combination? I don't know, and I take some consolation in the fact that the people involved don't seem to care - they've already finished shooting a second movie with about half the cast returning, and have a third planned. If Gutierrez and company can keep making them this good on a budget, I'll certainly keep watching them.

Film School Rejects [Neil Miller]

Variety (Joe Leydon) review

Gutiérrez Alea, Tomás

Jaskari: Tomas Gutierrez Alea and the Post-Revolutionary Cuba (Undated)

Tomas Gutierrez Alea: The Dialectics of a Filmmaker Paul A. Schroeder

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea • Great Director profile - Senses of Cinema Julia Levin from Senses of Cinema, October 5, 2003

Homosexuality in Cuba Critical dialogue by the Editors and Staff from Jump Cut, December 1978

Revolutionary Cuban Cinema Part 1 by Julianne Burton from Jump Cut, December 1978

"With the Cuban Women" by Pat Aufderheide Revolutionary Cuban Women Part 2 by Pat Aufderheide from Jump Cut, May 1979

Artistic Freedom In Cuba Critical dialogue on Artistic freedom in Cuba, exchange by Michael Scrivener, Jump Cut editor, November 1979

Film Criticism in Cuba interview with Enrique Colina by Jorge Silva, from Jump Cut, May 1980

The Viewer's Dialectic , 1, Tomás Gutierrez Alea from Jump Cut, Feb 1984, also seen here: "The Viewer's Dialectic" by Tomás Gutierrez Alea - Jump Cut

The Viewer's Dialectic 2 Tomás Gutierrez Alea from Jump Cut, March 1985

The Viewer's Dialectic III Tomás Guiterrez Alea from Jump Cut, April 1987

Jorge Sanjinés and Tomás Gutierrez Alea by William Alexander Class, film language and popular cinema, by William Alexander from Jump Cut, March 1985

Cuban cinema in exile by Ana M. López The "other" island, from Jump Cut, June 1993

Letter from Cuba by Michael Chanan from Jump Cut, January 2003

TSPDT -Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

DEATH OF A BUREAUCRAT (La muerte de un burócrata) A 97

Cuba (85 mi) 1966

Chicago Reader (Dave Kehr) capsule review

A pleasant, very funny social comedy with a faint black lining. The film is full of hommages to silent comics--a Laurel and Hardy scene from Two Tars, some precipice tottering from Harold Lloyd--but its taste for quaint caricature and topical satire places it closer to the Ealing comedies made in Britain in the 50s. Amazingly, it was actually made in Cuba in 1966, by a director, Tomas Gutierrez Alea, who later traded his comic sense for social allegory (Memories of Underdevelopment, The Last Supper).

Time Out (Wally Hammond) review [4/6]

This arresting early work by one of Cuba's foremost film-makers is a black comedy about institutionalised bureaucracy at its most pedantic. After a model factory worker is killed in an accident at work, he's buried with his union card as a mark of eternal solidarity; trouble is, when his wife applies for a pension, she's told she must present the card before she can get any money - and there's a law forbidding exhumation within the first two years of burial. It's a surprising piece to have been made in the Cuba of the mid-'60s, but the laughs come as much from a Buñuelian sense of absurdity as they do from any outright criticism of Castro's regime.

The New York Times (Vincent Canby) review

RED tape can strangle a society more efficiently than even the wiliest revolutionaries or, as the case may be, the wiliest counter-revolutionaries. Forced to deal with the pomp, ceremony, protocol, forms, fine print and contradictory instructions of their bureaucracy, citizens first seethe with anger and then they may simply give up in frustration. There are times when a lost rubber stamp is mightier than the sword.

This is the underlying theme of Tomas Gutierrez Alea's quirky, high-spirited Cuban comedy. "Death of a Bureaucrat," which opens today at the Cinema Studio. The film, made in 1966, two years before his extraordinary "Memories of Underdevelopment," is as much a movie maker's movie as it is a social satire. Mr. Gutierrez Alea happily helps himself (and us) to the styles of all sorts of film comedians, including those of Chaplin, the Keystone Kops and Laurel and Hardy, as he tells the tale of the good-natured, none-too-bright young man who attempts to come to the aid of his recently bereaved aunt.

The woman's husband, having been an "exemplary worker," was buried with all sorts of honors and tributes. Among his achievements he invented a Rube Goldberg type of machine to mass-produce busts of the hero, José Martin, but he was accidently caught in the machine's gears, This "poor man's Michelangelo" (as he's called) was also buried with his union card, which the widow needs if she is to obtain the pension that is due her.

The nephew's problem is that be cannot obtain an exhumation permit for two years and then, after he has stolen the body from the cemetery, he can't obtain a permit to rebury the corpse until he obtains the exhumation permit. As the poor man goes from office to office, meeting with every conceivable type of indifference, sloppiness and self-importance, his adventures lead to a final, fatal but highly satisfying confrontation.

Slapstick comedy is not the form that Mr. Gutierrez Alea is most at home in. Indeed, with the exception of Jacques Tati and Blake Edwards, there are few directors who understand the graceful mechanics by which slapstick comedy operates. Yet Mr. Gutierrez Alea has managed with remarkable skill to concoct a comedy whose lunatic fun absorbs the outrage.

At one point there is a superbly wild custard pie-and-flowers battle at the cemetery, which begins when the irate cemetery officials start to dismantle (Laurel and Hardy style, or is it Edgar Kennedy?) the hearse of the undertaker who wants to rebury the corpse without the proper forms. How the custard pies find their way into the fracas I'm not sure, but they are beautifully splattered over landscape and people. Harold Lloyd is recalled when the nephew finds himself locked into a government office after closing time and, to escape, must climb out a window onto a narrow ledge in front of a large clock high above the street.

The pace of the comedy is erratic. Like the uncle's bust-manufacturing machine, it moves in fits and starts, but at its best it is most satisfying. Salvador Wood is very funny and straight as the nephew and Silvia Planas is a model of patient grief as the widow who becomes resigned to keeping the corpse at home, preserved as best it can be with ice borrowed from the neighbors.

Even when the comedy is strained, "Death of a Bureaucrat" should work on the gut responses of anyone who has ever stood in lines at bureaus dealing in driver's licenses, rent control, gas, water, electricity or — perish the thought — complaints. I also find irresistible any movie that contains a banana peel that gets stepped on.

Death Of A Bureaucrat Madcap comedy Cuban style, by B. Ruby Rich from Jump Cut, May 1980

MEMORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT (Memorias del subdesarrollo)

Cuba (97 mi) 1968

Director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea is more famous for making Cuba’s first gay-themed movie, 1993’s ‘Strawberry and Chocolate’. But in 1968, for his fifth feature he adapted Edmundo Desnoes’s novel and made a disconsolate meditation which shocked his Marxist masters and now occupies a defining place in Latin American cinema.

Historically, it’s very specific – it reflects the hiatus between the US-led Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and John F Kennedy’s announcement of Cuban missile manufacture the next year. But the film stimulates with its stylistic eclecticism, formal experimentalism and intellectual curiosity. ‘You’re nothing,’ says 17-year-old Elena to her lover, Sergio, a 38-year-old intellectual who feels redundant after the revolution. As Alea’s camera roams Sergio’s empty flat (his wife and child have fled), we watch him spying on sunbathers or reminiscing about visits to brothels.

This putative essay in self-criticism mutates into something more melancholy, lyrical and universal. As a film about change, outsiderdom and the gaze, it holds a rich fascination. And, despite the film’s flow being interrupted – by Godardian caprice, documentary realism or Russian constructivist-style inserts – it achieves a satisfying integrity.

CINE-FILE: Cine-List Michael Glover Smith

What better way to celebrate the United States' recent re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba than by watching the film considered the greatest ever produced under Fidel Castro's regime? Director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea is probably best known in the U.S. for his penultimate film, the innocuous gay love story STRAWBERRY AND CHOCOLATE (released here by Miramax in 1994) but his most acclaimed work is MEMORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT, a masterpiece of Godardian self-reflexivity from 1968; anyone seeking to understand the state of the contemporary Cuban soul would do well to check out this masterpiece, the unforgettable chronicle of Sergio Corrieri (Sergio Carmona Mendoyo), a bourgeois intellectual who chooses to remain in his native Havana from the pre-Revolution era through the rise of Castro, the Cuban Missile Crisis (which prompts his family into exile), and beyond. Like a Latino version of the characters Marcello Mastroianni specialized in playing for Federico Fellini, Sergio lives an empty, decadent existence, pursuing hedonistic affairs with young women in a vain attempt to recapture his former happiness. Far from being the work of Communist propaganda that one might expect from a Cuban film of this era, however, MEMORIES is instead a deeply ambiguous character study and a brilliantly fragmented work of cinematic modernism. Beautifully shot in black and white, it looks and sounds like a kissing cousin of the contemporaneous French New Wave while also functioning as a vivid portrait of a specific time and place in Cuban history.

Jigsaw Lounge (Neil Young) review [7/10]

Somewhat self-satisfied and self-consciously arty - but mostly successful - adaptation of novel by Edmundo Desnoes, who pops up briefly as himself and is (amusingly) ridiculed. Script by "Cuba's greatest director" Gutierrez Alea and Noes. Of historical/political importance as first film made in post-Revolutionary Cuba to be shown widely worldwide and obtain release in USA. But stands up on own merits four decades on, and remains largely accessible to those with little or no prior knowledge of the Revolution/aftermath/Castro.

Havana, 1961-2. Sergio (Sergio Corrieri) is 38. Affluent bourgeois intellectual. His family, his ex-wife and his (few) friends fled to Miami in the wake of Castro's coup. Sergio remained - largely due to inertia. Gets by on the proceeds of rented apartments. Spends his days smoking, ruminating, peering out at the city through a telescope from his high-rise flat, flirting with girls/women, recalling past 'conquests' (which we see glimpses of, in a style that sort-of-prefigures Annie Hall).

Film structured as a kind of loose diary/record of Sergio's mental processes. Interspersed with documentary footage of news events, etc. Ambitious attempt to simultaneously trace psychology of an individual while also providing socio-political snap-shot of a country in transition. Over-ambitious?

Sergio not the most engaging/sympathetic of characters - as someone says (and he agrees), he's "neither a revolutionary nor a counter-revolutionary." Bemused by being caught up in historical maelstrom. Detached, a bit snobbish. Looks from certain angles like a non-bald John Malkovich. Everything/everybody to him is "underdeveloped" - including Cuba itself. We see that Sergio's problem is that he's over-developed. Misfit, outsider. Lethargy of a man who realises he's old before his time. Strong performance from Corrieri - necessary, as none of the other characters is 'developed' very satisfactorily. Film reflects egotistical hero's solipsistic worldview all too well.

We see Sergio reading highbrow books, visiting highbrow modern-art galleries and Ernest Hemingway's old house, listening to highbrow music... but, oddly, he doesn't seem to go to the cinema. If he did, presumably he'd be a fan of the nouvelle vague (presumably such films were shown in Castro's Cuba?) - Memories itself very much of that Godardian style: freeze-frames, repetitions, captions, agit-prop sections, experimentation. Some dazzling moments (the last shot is striking, surprising, enigmatic), some dead patches where it grinds to a bit of a halt. On the whole, much easier to admire than it is to like. Which was presumably the intention?

Memories of Underdevelopment | Film Review | Slant Magazine Ed Gonzalez from Slant magazine

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's gutsy Memorias del Subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment) is a difficult work of political activism. This stirring blend of narrative fiction, still photography and rare documentary footage catalogs the many intricacies and contradictions of a bourgeois Cuban intellectual's loyalty to Castro's revolution. Though Alea himself was devoted to the cause, his films forever scrutinized the self-devouring nature of Castro's Cuba. (Alea died in 1996 shortly after the one-two success of the Oscar-nominated Strawberry and Chocolate and Guantanamera.) If Mikhail Kalatozov's I Am Cuba championed the need for revolution in the country, Memories contemplates the failure of the new government to recognize and negotiate the lingering bourgeois threat left in the wake of Fulgencio Batista's fall.

When his wife and parents leave for the United States shortly after the Bay of Pigs invasion, 38-year-old playboy Sergio (Sergio Corrieri) resigns himself to a ritual of neurotic self-analysis. From his apartment, he observes the threat of foreign invasion that haunts the hazy, not-so-distant horizon. Bored and unemployed (he owns the apartment building he lives in), he chases after women all over Havana before finally meeting and bedding 16-year-old Elena (Daisy Granados), who he seemingly attempts to mold after his ex-wife by giving the young girl the woman's hand-me-downs. If Alea deliberately likens the virginal Elena to a country that welcomes its own defilement, Sergio's acquittal by the courts (he's accused to raping the girl by her parents) is no doubt indicative of the man's obsession with Cuba's own defilement of its Marxist loyalties.

Underdevelopment refers both to Cuba's political stagnation and Sergio's own sense of false enlightenment. The way Alea pieces together the film must count as its own act of political resistance: documentary footage calls attention to a complex individual-group dialectic tearing up the country from the inside while a series of self-referential, surrealist interruptions are alive with better-than-here hopefulness. "She makes me feel underdevelopment everywhere," says Sergio of Elena before visiting the home of Ernest Hemingway, who according to Sergio killed animals and mounted them on his walls so he wouldn't have to kill himself. One of Alea's most jarring framing devices situates Elena as an exotic specimen ("a beautiful Cuban señorita") trapped beneath the lens of American imperialism. Like Hemingway and Elena herself, it's only a matter of time before Cuba itself would self-destruct.

The film is haunted by one particular image that appears early on: poet and revolutionary José Martí's face withering to near obscurity on the wall of a building. Hiroshima Mon Amour is a major point of reference for Alea. In both Resnais' Hiroshima and Alea's Havana, human ghosts come to grips with the implications of their past and grapple with the weight of building a new present for themselves. Like Elena, Cuba struggles to "establish links" between its war-torn past and disenchanted present. Memories of Underdevelopment remains a difficult and enigmatic work precisely because Cuba has yet to emerge from a kind of historical and cultural vacuum created by the vise of foreign threats, invasions and embargoes. And like Sergio, the country and its people can only wallow in the unfulfilled promise of its revolutionary consciousness.

The New York Times (Vincent Canby) review

The time is 1961, not long after the Bay of Pigs, and Sergio (Sergio Corrieri), the hero of Tomas Gutierrez Alea's superb Cuban film, "Memories of Underdevelopment," moves through Havana as if he were a scuba diver exploring the ruins of a civilization he abhorred but cannot bear to leave. The world he sees is startlingly clear. It is also remote. The sounds he hears are his own thoughts.

"Everything happens to me too early or too late," says Sergio, an intellectual in his late 30's whose critical faculties have effectively rendered him incapable of any action whatsoever. After his estranged wife and his mother and father have fled to Miami, with the other bourgeosie, he thinks he will write the novel he has always thought about, but then Sergio's standards are too high to allow him to add to the sum total of civilization's second-rateness. He finds himself blocked.

Perhaps if the revolution had happened earlier, he tells himself, he might have understood.

Sergio makes half-hearted little efforts to maintain his old ways. He picks up Elena (Daisy Granados), a pretty, bird-brained girl who wants to be an actress, and he tries to educate (he says "Europeanize" her. He takes her to art galleries and buys her books but her brain remains unreconstructed and birdlike. "She doesn't relate things," he tells himself. "It's one of the signs of underdevelopment."

He takes Elena on a sightseeing tour of Hemingway's house. "He said he killed so as not to kill himself," Sergio remembers, looking at some mounted antlers. "In the end he could not resist the temptation."

Even suicide is beyond Sergio. All he can do is observe, much of the time through the telescope on the terrace of a penthouse apartment he must give up, sooner or later.

"Memories of Underdevelopment," is a fascinating achievement. Here is a film about alienation that is wise, sad and often funny, and that never slips into the bored and boring attitudes that wreck Antonioni's later films. Sergio is detached and wary, but around him is a hurricane of life.

Gutierrez Alea was 40 when he made "Memories" (in 1968), and he is clearly a man, like Sergio, whose sensibilities are European. Yet unlike Sergio, and unlike the director of "Eclipse" and "Red Desert," he is so full of passion and political commitment that he has even been able to make an essentially pro-revolutionary film in which Castro's revolution is observed through eyes dim with bafflement.

The result is hugely effective and moving, and it is complete in the way that very few movies ever are. I haven't read Edmundo Desnoes's original novel (published here in 1967 as "Inconsolable Memories"), but I like the fact that Desnoes apparently likes the film that, in his words, had to be "a betrayal" of the book to be a good film. Gutierrez Alea, says the author, in the film's program notes, "objectivized a world that was shapeless in my mind and still abstract in the book. He added social density. . . ."

Memories of a Revolutionary Cinema • Senses of Cinema Allison Arnold Helminski from Senses of Cinema, January 9, 2000

Memories of Underdevelopment extended essay by Julia Lesage from Jump Cut, May-June 1974

Talking Pictures (UK) review Howard Schumann

Tomas Gutierrez Alea: Memories of Underdevelopment Derek Malcolm from the Guardian

The Guardian (Peter Bradshaw) review

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER (De Cierta Manera)

Cuba (78 mi) 1977 co-directors: Julio García Espinosa, Sara Gómez, and Thomas González Pérez

One Way Or Another The revolution in action, by Carlos Galiano from Jump Cut, December 1978

One Way Or Another Dialectical, Revolutionary, Feminist, by Julia Lesage from Jump Cut, December 1978

STRAWBERRY AND CHOCOLATE (Fresa y chocolate)

Cuba Mexico Spain USA (108 mi) 1994 co-director: Juan Carlos Tabía

Time Out review Tony Rayns

The core problem with Cuba's first gay-themed movie is that it's so...Cuban. It's about everybody's favourite party topics, but it's so busy worrying about machismo and homophobia that it forgets to let its hair down. In Cuban terms, it must seem tremendously daring to put acid social criticisms into the mouth of a raging queen. To the rest of us, the result feels more like Stanley Kramer than Lily Savage. The film replays the central gestalt of Kiss of the Spiderwoman (stolid communist meets and is subverted by florid queen) with a simple twist: here the queen is the smart one. Sociology student David, a true child of Castro's revolution and an inner minefield of misogyny and prejudice, runs into long-suffering queer Diego, whose cluttered apartment is a cross between a library, a dodgy art gallery and a junk shop. The encounter changes both of them. Dull, obvious and bafflingly timid.

Eye for Film (Angus Wolfe Murray) review [4/5]

A Cuban love story between two men sounds unexpected, even original, except this is not gay porn. What, you may ask, is it? What does the sophisticated, “artistic” Diego (Jorge Perugorria) see in the shy, politically naïve David (Vladimir Cruz), other than a great bod and childlike innocence? Well, who wants intellectual stimulus when shallow sex is more fun?

At the start it seems like a witty, camp seduction scenario, with Diego making all the running. David says he’s straight, but he’s also a virgin, which means he could go either way, which gives Diego hope. He’s a student from a poor family who feels grateful to the revolutionary government.

“Look at me,” he says. “I study at the university. A peasant’s son.”

“Like Stalin,” Diego quips.

They are incompatible and yet their friendship grows into a love that has no name, no label, no stigma. With infinite subtlety, aided by a performance of genuine quality from Perugorria, the film moves on. The flirtatious beginnings evolve into a relationship of considerable depth, during which David’s simplistic communist beliefs are shaken by Diego’s cosmopolitan style – he reads John Donne, drinks Johnny Walker, likes nothing better than afternoon tea and listens to Maria Callas – which may be an affectation to protect him from constant homophobic threats. He is trying to set up an exhibition of religious effigies, gaudily painted plaster figures of Christ and other prophets, created by an ex-lover, which, by the very nature of their subject matter, is controversial, if not forbidden.

This is Cuba in the Nineties. To be different is dangerous. Diego knows that he sails close to the wind and might be arrested at any time. He trusts his friends, which may be a mistake, as he trusts his flamboyant, hysterical, emotionally fragile neighbour (Mirta Ibarra), who fancies David rotten, while, at the same time, planning his own exit strategy.

The film is beautifully written (Senel Paz) and perfectly acted. It feels like an adaptation from a play, as the action takes place almost entirely in Diego’s apartment, restricting its scope a little. It was the first Cuban film to get a commercial release in the US and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language category, 1994.

PopcornQ review Eric Gutierrez

When Cuban writer Senal Paz won the 1990 Juan Rulfo Prize for El lobo, el bosque y el hombre nuevo (The Wolf, the Woods and the New Man), Cuba was entering the "Special Period," the official euphemism for life after Soviet subsidies.

With the economic crisis resonating from the dinner table to the movie screen, the Cuban film industry that had been financing thirty to forty films annually only four years ago, now struggles to make three or four. So the odds would seem to be against a feature adaptation of Paz's critical tale of Cuban intolerance and government repression of homosexuals.

Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate) was not only made, it swept all the top awards at the 1993 New Latin American Film Festival in Havana, won critical and popular acclaim at festivals from Berlin to Telluride, and was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1995.

Paz and director Tomas Gutierrez Alea (Juan Carlos Tabio directed during Alea's hospitalization and shares codirector credit) insist theirs is not a "gay film" or critical of Cuban revolutionary ideals. On the contrary, its message of tolerance and inclusion reflect the "clarified" party line on homosexuality. Taking place in 1979, before the Mariel boatlift, the movie charts the unlikely friendship of Diego, a flamboyant gay artist, and David, a rigid political science student and Communist party stalwart. Diego wants sex. David wants to be a good revolutionary and uses the friendship to spy on the evidently subversive and "antisocial" gay man. When he realizes how profoundly Diego is committed to Cuba and its culture, hard-line dogma and personal prejudices melt in the film's climactic embrace.

Jorge Perrugoria's initially campy turn as Diego grows more complex as he's forced to choose between who he is and the country he loves. Vladimir Cruz's David stands in for the Cuban Everyman, yet reveals the humanity behind the communist compaÃ±ero. Both actors make impressive feature film debuts.

Cuba's legacy of forced labor camps for homosexuals (known as UMAPs), and official persecution of gays as "human scum" was exposed internationally in Nestor Almendros's 1983 documentary Improper Conduct. Ten years later, Fresa y Chocolate is being praised as a historic breakthrough. Despite entrenched prejudices, Cubans almost rioted for seats at initial screenings, fearing the film would be yanked by government censors. The day it was released, a crowd of over 200 refused to disperse until a final screening was added at 2:30 a.m. The film's popularity continued to grow unabated. Many Cubans in exile, however, condemn the film as cynical propaganda and a shallow take on the truth.

"Strawberry and Chocolate has caught the interest and provoked admiration among those who do not know or who wish to ignore the rules for survival of the average Cuban in Cuba," wrote Sergio Giral, former director of the Cuban Film Institute, in the Miami Herald. Having defected in 1992, the openly gay filmmaker condemns the film as "too little too late for those of us who know the truth and are still waiting for our `UMAP's List.'"

With Cuba more reliant than ever on international goodwill and hard currency, Diego and David's platonic hug is seen by those who have suffered for their sexual identity as an attempt to give the revolution a kinder, gentler face. In a country where gay and lesbian Cubans can still lose their jobs and be thrown out of the party, the film doesn't reflect any substantive change as much as a political PR coup.

How truthful is this film, they argue, when most young gay and lesbian Cubans are shocked to learn that Castro himself spoke in March 1994, in the pages of Vanity Fair, about "rectification," allowing that the revolution perhaps went too far in the treatment of homosexuals?

Paz, Alea, and Tabio have all come under fire since the film's release as apologists for the regime that created or encouraged the intolerance the film attacks.

Paz dismisses the criticism as coming from those whose vision of Cuba, revolution, and the power of film are as unyeilding and limiting as the policies and prejudices his film examines.

STRAWBERRY AND CHOCOLATE Melodrama, Sex, and the Cuban Revolution, by John Hess from Jump Cut, May 1997

GAY CUBA John Hess from Jump Cut, May 1997

Louis Proyect review

Linda Lopez McAlister (c/o inforM Women's Studies) review

Cynthia Fuchs (c/o inforM Women's Studies) review

Thirtyframesasecond [Kevin Wilson]

Edwin Jahiel review

Washington Post (Desson Howe) review

Pedro Sena retrospective

Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten) review [3/5]

Tucson Weekly (Tom Miller) review

San Francisco Examiner (David Armstrong) review

San Francisco Chronicle (Edward Guthmann) review

The New York Times (Caryn James) review

Guttentag, Bill

LIVE!

USA (96 mi) 2007

Live! David D’Arcy from Screendaily

Bill Guttentag's hilarious satire of reality/game show media culture, Live! takes its subject to the wall with a live televised Russian Roulette competition. Presented as a The Making Of… story, Live! also attacks the ghoulish opportunism of independent documentaries.

Live! will show viewers of The Apprentice that "you're fired" can have a very literal meaning. The wildly funny film has topicality, a zinger script, and, with Eva Mendes, a sexy comic actress working in its favour. Mendes, along with the notoriety of exploitation television, should make Live! easy to market as a comedy. The film's smart media critique could also corner the talking-heads market.

Mendes rising career promises to give Live! a strong place on the video shelf. For foreign audiences, the comedy offers everything outrageous that many of them were ready to believe about the violent spectacle of American culture.

Live! is the story of Katy, Mendes, who is hired at American Broadcast Network (ABN) to shake things up and build ratings. The only thing that overshadows her wardrobe is her ambition and she can talk as well as she can dress. It isn't enough that she's rising in the ranks of shameless TV hucksters. She's made a deal with Rex (Krumholtz), an indie documentarian, to film her ascent. Live! is a film within a film.

Once Katy and her team brainstorm the idea of Russian Roulette, earnest contestants vie to be on the show, following the principle that every American thinks he'll win the lottery – or in this case, that he won't win. There's a model named Abalone, an aspiring small-town actress, an African-American writer who thinks the show will get him published, a surfer and a struggling farmer whose son has an incurable disease.

Mini-profiles filmed to introduce the contestants to the television audience are whithering parodies of Pop Americana.

Mendes is glib and ballsy, and hard to take your eyes off as the exec who sells a suicide game show where the recurring line is "The gun, please." Her bearing is a bit like the comic Reese Witherspoon with a killer instinct, and a bit more like the iconic slash-and-burn corporate climber with a different outfit for every meeting.

If Mendes can continue at this level (and with scripts as good as Guttentag's), then she'll soon be opening movies.

As Rex, David Krumholtz plays an outsider character who seems to have a conscience, but gives in to the opportunity to film something never filmed before, even if it means standing by and watching someone die.

Also caving to the pressure of ratings and profits is the company's lawyer (Maugher), who defends broadcasting live suicides on First Amendment grounds.

With office comedies (and game shows) everywhere on television, this one stands out because of Guttentag's punchy and relentlessly wry script, much of it delivered by the supporting cast in corporate dead-pan. Guttentag seems to know that world well. He created and produced the NBC series Crime And Punishment. He also won Oscars for two documentaries: Twin Towers (2003) and You Don't Have To Die (1989).

Guttentag's ending fails to reach the level of humour, dramatic intensity and critique that the subject demands (and that the film has prepared you for), but by that time the audience is hooked, and may not even care.

Production designer Robert De Vico has the zen-design of the media office just right. His set design for the game show is as wild as the concept, configured like a spinning revolver, in which each contestant stands in his or her own personal chamber.

Costume designer Dayna Pink has a knack for choosing clothes that complement whichever gambit Mendes's character is pursuing. Live! will ensure her plenty of space in the glossies, even before it's in the cinemas.

Guzmán, Patricio

THE BATTLE OF CHILE PART 1: THE COUP D’ETAT (La batalla de Chile: La lucha de un pueblo sin armas – Primera parte: La insurreción de la burguesía)

Venezuela France Cuba (3 parts 191 mi) 1975 Part One (191 mi)

User reviews from imdb Author: anchorite@geocities.com from Albuquerque, USA

An extremely frank and incisive view into the minds of the Chilean upper class and general atmosphere surrounding the murder of president Allende by general Pinochet. A local TV station interviews supporters and detractors of Allende before his triumphant election victory, and up to his eventual murder during an American backed regime change. One sees the minds of the upper class gracefully migrate, as they swear by nonviolence and democracy before the election, and become apologists for militia killings and arrests once their candidate loses and the military begins to turn against Chile's people. A textbook on the erosion of democracy by the extreme right.

User reviews from imdb Author: patrick parker from montreal (where kisses go when they die)

there is little i can say to describe how unbelievably affecting i find this film series.

first, the history of these films is pretty interesting. assembled from reams of film taken during the period (including significant bits from chris marker), the majority was shot by a crew that came to chile to document what they anticipated being the first ever democratic transition to socialism. what they ended up producing, of course, was a chronicle of the right-wing military coup that disembowelled salvador allende's government.

this documentary is composed entirely of first hand footage, and as such, it takes us behind the facade, into the halls of power, as it were. and what we discover there is both inspiring and heart-breaking: naive intellectuals working in good faith to solve problems that they don't realize arise by direct design of their parliamentary and military enemies; bright eyed cabinet ministers entreating the population not to raise arms, despite the military's obvious coup prepartions; right-wing generals, loyal to allende's government for no other reason than their own honor, being arrested or tracked down and assassinated by the junta; the final unrepetant speech allende delivers on national radio, a glorious epitaph to a life dedicated to freedom and resistance, delivered as military jets reduce the presidential palace to rubble.

this is a documentary for those who wish to learn or to remember, to reflect on a historical moment when another way seemed possible, when people fought for the things they believed in, and when washington didn't even have to justify overturning a regime (or co-ordinating the coup, as it has now been proved they did in this case).

there are very few films that can achieve anything even approaching the relevance, the poignancy and the vision found here. if you can find these films, i suggest you take the four or five hours, and acquaint yourself with this tragic history telling itself.

"THE Battle of Chile," which opened yesterday at the Film Forum, is an admittedly biased, pro-revolutionary film that raises more questions than it can easily answer. Though it is fabricated of facts, it seems to skirt issues. It is monotonous and long, but it is an important, profoundly disturbing work. It makes one wonder if there is such a thing as a truly revolutionary film form, or if revolution exists only in the eye of the beholder.

The film is a three-hour-and-10-minute, two-part documentary on the last months of the democratically elected, pro-Marxist regime of Chilean President Salvador Allende Gossens, who reportedly committed suicide during the right-wing military coup that overturned his Government in September 1973. The film was directed by Patricio Guzmán, a young Chilean, and assembled in Cuba by him and his Chilean associates from some 20 hours of footage smuggled out of Chile after the coup. "The Battle of Chile" is not an easy film to watch, not because the events it details are so sorrowful, so inevitable, which they are, but because the film itself is so studiously impersonal.

Mr. Guzmán has done nothing less than photograph the conflicting forces of contemporary history and found, when he emerged from the darkroom, that the forces of contemporary history are so faceless there's very little to distinguish one side from the other. The only thing that gives point and direction to "The Battle of Chile" is Mr. Guzmán's Marxist interpretation of the events, but this interpretation—relying, as it does, on the age-old conflict between proletariat and bourgeoisie as well as on the exploitation of a poor nation by a rich one—doesn't do full justice to the Chilean tragedy as we know it to be.

The country we see in this film looks like a playground for mischievous gods, the result, I suspect, of the director's conscious decision not to appeal to bourgeois sentimentality. The film is virtually one long, unbroken montage composed of scenes of mass demonstrations, either pro- or anti-Allende, of people chanting slogans or marching with banners that contain slogans, of press conferences, of union meetings, of rallies of every description. Everyone is anonymous, even the subject of periodic man-in-the-street interviews.

The effect is to depersonalize history to such an extent that even the documented interventions in Chilean internal affairs by agencies of the United States is made to seem remote, a tide of history, something for which no one need take personal responsibility. I doubt that this is the way Mr. Guzmán intended his film to be taken, and, indeed, I doubt that is the film's effect in other parts of the world where simply the mention of the Central Intelligence Agency is enough to cause cold sweats. Revolutionary films cannot be all things to all people.

I assume that the filmmakers must regard the late Dr. Allende as some kind of hero, though, because we see him here only as part of an official background, not as a character but as a personage, in newsreels on state occasions, even he remains remote. And because he was not a very imposing man physically, the movie appears to make him a less dynamic, heroic figure than he really was.

In "The Battle of Chile," President Allende appears to be a sort of weightless symbol, whether surrounded by aides or as the central figure at mass rallies, where he was adored. His fate, the film seems to say without wanting to, was as much the result of the failure of his supporters to inform and protect him as it was the victory of the enemies who conspired against him.

No matter how one reacts to "The Battle of Chile," it is undeniably an epic. It is also depressing in the way it keeps trying to make complex events seem simple. There's a scary moment at a pro-Allende rally where the thou-stands of assembled workers are instructed, "Jump if you are not a fascist." Just about everybody starts bobbing up and down on cue, as if that, after all, was what the battle of Chile was all about.

World Socialist Web Site Paul Bond

Battle Of Chile Struggle of a People without Arms, by Victor Wallis from Jump Cut

Battle Of Chile Angry Arts Collective from Jump Cut

JWR [James Wegg]

DVD Verdict [Victor Valdivia]

THE BATTLE OF CHILE PART 2: OBSTINATE MEMORY (La batalla de Chile: La lucha de un pueblo sin armas – Segunda parte: El golpe de estado)

Chile France Cuba (88 mi) 1976

User reviews from imdb Author: Jamie O'Halleron (lynchboy2001) from Dublin, Ireland

The Battle of Chile surely must be the most interesting from the Chilean troubles from the 70's, handled with style & fervour by the passionate director, who by all accounts is a left-wing sympathiser. The film starts with a roar with the failed coup d'etat, & from there builds up the tragic story of the Allende lead "Marxist" party, telling us who plotted against them & why, all set behind the backdrop of mass public support, eventually quashed by right-wing terror. The film has to be admired also for publicly stating that the CIA helped the bourguoise eventually kill close to 30,000 people, and the fact that this film was a huge risk to the lives of the makers (who had to smuggle it out of Chile and edit it as exiles). Overall it deals with the worker's plight not only in Chile, but as a case study around the world (Brazil & Bolivia for example), and only watching these types of films (this is part 2 of a trilogy) do you sense the realities of this world, and shake off the ideals set by society. Well worth a watch.

New York Times (registration req'd) Lawrence Van Gelder

Twenty-five years ago this week, on Sept. 11, 1973, the democratically elected Marxist president of Chile, Salvador Allende Gossens, died during a military coup as planes of the Chilean air force bombed La Moneda, the presidential palace in Santiago.

What followed was rule by a repressive military junta led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, which lasted until the election of a civilian president in 1989.

The anniversary of Allende's death is recalled in a poignant and thought-provoking double bill opening at the Film Forum. The first portion is "The Coup d'Etat," the 91-minute central section of "The Battle of Chile," Patricio Guzman's remarkable record of the Marxist period, a documentary first seen in New York in its 191-minute entirety in 1978.

The second portion is the 58-minute "Chile: Obstinate Memory," the 1997 film that Guzman compiled when he returned to his homeland to seek out survivors among Allende's supporters and to show "The Battle of Chile" for the first time to members of a generation born in the intervening years.

Not only does the program provide a striking portrait of the fervor of revolution and despair surrounding its death, it also raises disturbing questions about the impact of historic events on those who live in their aftermath.

Some among the young weep at the repression of popular will and the "disappearances" of so many of the supporters of the Allende regime. Others look about at the stability and prosperity of Chile and their own untroubled lives and see good in the coup, arguing that it anticipated and bypassed a far more destructive civil war between Chile's haves and have-nots.

And there are those partisans of the revolution who lived through it and now recall their dead comrades and deal as best they can with their memories.

"Wanting to forget is self-defense," says Allende's widow, Hortensia Bussi. "I want to forget."

Removed from the context of the longer version of "The Battle of Chile," Guzman's "Coup d'Etat" is freighted with tragic inevitability as its cameras -- some operated by cinematographers who died in the making, others who vanished forever in the junta's prisons -- track the few months from late June 1973, when an initial coup attempt failed, till Allende's overthrow and death.

Unabashedly pro-revolutionary, the cameras seem to be everywhere among the workers and marchers who put Allende in office with a third of the national vote. At the same time, Guzman's film makes it clear that while the workers may control many of the factories, Allende cannot muster the support in the Chilean legislature to carry out a Marxist program. And it leaves no doubt where the sympathies of most in the armed forces lie.

"Chile: Obstinate Memory" would be a moving document even if it had confined itself solely to those who supported and survived the revolution. But by turning to members of a new generation, it poses the most profoundly troubling of historical questions: Did those who died die in vain?

JWR [James Wegg]