Key Films #15

A Talking Picture [Manoel de Oliveira, 2003]:

The film is titled A Talking Picture, and as a description, or as a prelude to the thing we're about to see, it doesn't mislead.  The dialogues throughout are lengthy and invigorating, relevant to the film's main journey into the past as a reflection of the present - into this idea of communication - but also naturalistic; drawing the audience into the story of these two characters and the people they meet along the way, while also managing to make a broader, more allegorical point on the development of our shared histories in the context of the no less violent struggles - both moral and political - of our own contemporary existence.  Seen through the eyes of a mother and her daughter (who literally cross thousands of years of civilisation on a journey to reunite with their respective husband and father) the film becomes a kind of a loose travelogue, where each port of call, from Lisbon to Goa, presents an opportunity to explore the various historical sites, from the ruins of Pompeii beneath the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, to the mighty pyramids of Giza, where the interactions between these modern-day characters in the presence of these fallen civilisations, create a dramatic statement in keeping with the main emphasis on the progression of history as a shared experience; something that is already a part of history; some echo of the past reflecting on the modern age. 

The central journey from Lisbon to India recalls that of the famed Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, but the route - traversing the Mediterranean and making stops in France, Italy, Greece, Egypt and eventually Turkey - brings to mind a similar progression from Jean-Luc Godard's more recent work, Film Socialisme (2010).  Like that particular film, the presence of the ocean liner becomes a microcosm of Europe in the 21st century, where the dialogues between business woman Catherine Deneuve, model and fashion designer Stefania Sandrelli, stage actress and singer Irene Papas and the ship's captain John Malkovich, allows Oliveira to discuss the idea of nationalism (or colonialism) in the age of the European Union, as well as the struggle to retain a cultural identity in light of the growing homogenisation of western culture, as it flourishes (or did) under the rule of capitalism, in a very direct and unguarded approach.  These dinner table conversations punctuate the more charming and leisurely sequences shared by the mother and daughter, where the sense of history - of these places and their stories - is overwhelming, both emotionally and cinematically.  The end of the film, which I won't spoil, takes this idea of the past as a mirror to the present in an entirely different direction.  The logical but no less shocking conclusion that all this talk of conflict has been leading to.  An impression that civilisations every bit as cultured and enlightened as our own, rose and fell in the blink of an eye.

Gods of the Plague [Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1970]:

The film's overwhelmingly bleak, almost-existential title, Gods of the Plague, is explained in the subtitles of the film's theatrical-trailer, which when not giving away the entire plot, states, via on-screen text: "Criminals are our modern day Gods.  Capitalism our Plague."  From this, the ideological implications of the title establish, in a figurative sense, the allure of the gangster as a modern-day Robin Hood.  It also illustrates, on a more deconstructive level, the role that the film-noir, as a sub-genre, plays in its ability to offer commentary and critique on the state of the world through an exaggerated fatalism, personal detachment and occasional undercurrent of stylised melodrama.  Fassbinder, like his early idols of the French New Wave, looks at American genre cinema and sees the political context that motivates these stories of crime and misdemeanour.  As such, he dispenses with the more conventional or contrived emphasis on things like the heist, the job, the "plot", and instead focuses on the displaced characters - the "underclass" - and the various economic hardships that make the criminal transgressions of these protagonists necessary, if not actually worthwhile. 

The socio-political or socio-economic ideas aren't explored as thoroughly here as they are in later works, such as Fox and his Friends (1975) or The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971), but they do still provide some context (or perhaps even a justification) for the cruel and pitiless world that these characters find themselves drawn into.  In terms of its approach, Gods of the Plague is both a continuation and a refinement of the experiments of Love is Colder Than Death (1969), incorporating many of the same influences - specifically Hollywood noir of the '40s and '50s and the early films of Jean-Luc Godard - alongside Fassbinder's growing interest in a kind of ironic melodrama, as typified by the films of Nicholas Ray and Douglas Sirk.  While Love is Colder than Death was notable for its contemplative pace, long takes, extended pauses and a general feeling of emptiness and introspection, Gods of the Plague seems somewhat more focused in its plotting and in the development of its characters.  As such, it is perhaps the greatest of Fassbinder's early films and one that points the way towards the style and tone of the director's later, more celebrated works.

 

Cosmopolis [David Cronenberg, 2012]:

Beneath the slow crawl of the opening credits, an abstract, Jackson Pollock-esque image of spattered paint takes form; suggesting from the outset the influence of the conceptual, the nonfigurative, on this narrative of meetings and encounters; where the motivations of characters or the progression of certain scenes seem almost elusive; more of a series of starts and stops, like the journey itself, which play to their own natural rhythm; like jazz; the words replacing the music.  This image - this invocation of Pollock - in its appearance at least suggests the same chaos and disorder as the riots and protests that unfurl like living theatre through the cinemascope-like frame of the limousine's stretched windshield; the texture of the paint itself, spattered and streaked in lines and drops of green, black and grey on a canvas that has the shade of decaying flesh, looks to me like the mess of a city; the scrawl of a black metropolis where anarchy and remonstration flow like the veins through a body; reaching out; destroying everything from within.  If this painting - this facsimile of Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) - is a mirror to the character's own conflicted state-of-mind, then the use of Mark Rothko's work during the closing credits suggests some sense of closure or resignation.  A blank state, calm and serene; more a mood or a state of being that is eventually achieved by the central character at the end of this long passage into (self) discovery.  No longer conflicted, just free. 

It's all open to interpretation, but I took the film to be a critique of the current generation.  A generation that has profiteered from the internet, from social-networking; a generation that is affluent, upwardly mobile, secure but insular; ultimately self-involved.  It is a portrait of a generation that has achieved great wealth and privilege by doing very little and is now, collectively, bored with everything.  Life for these people has become hermetic, detached; a series of appointments, everything a transaction, everything for sale.  The limousine that cuts a path through the crowded streets is not only a garrison from the outside world (a symbol of wealth and status, as well as anonymity) but also an extension of who this character is.  The gradual deterioration of the car as it is attacked by revellers and protestors, becomes an on-screen representation of the character's own psychological deterioration, as the world outside the car - outside his own influence and control - becomes a protest against an uncertain future; one that threatens to upend the influence of capitalism, destroying the dangerous thread that creates balance; that keeps us in place.  Like many characters in Cronenberg's work, there is a sense of someone embracing their own destruction.  The form of the film, static and stilted - creating a feeling of inertia, of time standing still - communicates the boredom of a man who longs for revolution - for death! - just to create some kind of change to the stagnant social order.

Key Films #14

Excalibur [John Boorman, 1981]:

The forest - an exterior lit like an interior - becomes a character in its own right. By day, the trees and foliage shimmer in shades of emerald.  At dusk, an ochre-hued fog enshrouds the trees like slumbering giants, becoming the gatekeepers to another world.  At dawn, the violent flare of an artificial sun casts its crimson glow off the glistening armour of a pale and wounded knight.  The forest, like most of the locations used throughout the film, is a place of magic and miracle; an iridescent kingdom of shadows and light.  While the storytelling is somewhat straightforward in its reiteration of this fabled tale, Boorman's film is nonetheless successful in its grandeur and its decadence.  In its imagery - which is vivid and unforgettable in the pure spectacle of colour and movement - but also in its scale.  The Arthurian legend has been told countless times, both in film and other media, but no other filmmaker has successfully captured the magic and the wonder of these stories with the same vibrant and flamboyant approach that Boorman achieves here.  His Excalibur is, at its purest, an epic of theatrical design and Wagnerian excess. 

This spirited and poetic film captures the true power and majesty of the silent cinema, but with all the sound and fury of that post-70s indulgence. As an experience, the film strikes a continual chord whenever I see it, transporting me, to another time, another place; leaving me captivated by its plot and larger-than-life characterisations, or thrilled by its vision.  In terms of the filmmaking craft Excalibur is without a doubt a work of great passion and imagination, and a great testament to the unsung talent of John Boorman, a true visionary, and one of the cinema's most misjudged and maligned auteurs.

The Phantom Heart [Philippe Garrel, 1996]:

A scene we've seen before.  The two protagonists - a married couple - attempt reconciliation, but they know, as well as we, that the situation, for them, is hopeless.  The scene in question occurs quite early in the film and establishes something of a consistent tone; a feeling of desperation or distance; the sense of something reaching an untimely if no less inevitable end.  As ever, the dissolution of a relationship presents the end of something, but also a new beginning.  The chance to move on, to start afresh, to find similar expressions in the arms of another; to avoid the same failures and faults; to ask ourselves, without sarcasm or pity, 'where do we go from here?'  This is a question that Garrel has returned to in several of his films, from L'enfant secret (1979) and Liberté, la nuit (1983), to She Spent So Many Hours Under the Sun Lamps (1985) and The Birth of Love (1993).  In all these films, his characters are trying to reconcile the experiences of the past with the responsibilities of the present; to make sense of where their lives are heading; to learn from their mistakes. 

In The Phantom Heart, the question is once again suggested by the story of these characters - the husband and his wife - and their relationships with the various figures that drift, phantom-like, not just through the remnants of their past experiences, emotions or shared ideas, but through the traces of a dream.  The dichotomy presented here, between the tangible reality of divorce, middle-age, doubt, fragility and responsibility, and the hopes and desires reflected in the tortured affairs, the creative success and the financial security that comes with it, propels the film; gives context to that lingering feeling of emptiness and futility that punctuates every interaction, no matter how positive or genial it might seem.  Like all Garrel's films, there is something almost impossibly hermetic about its structure, its tone and the use of locations.  A personal quality that borders on the autobiographical, in which these characters, their actions and dilemmas, and the personal spaces that define them, seem to be as relevant and significant to our understanding of the material as the emotions depicted on-screen.

 

 

Love is Colder Than Death [Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1969]:

The title, Love is Colder than Death, plays beautifully to the violence of the film and also to the influence of film-noir as a facilitator for existential longing, brutality and despair.  As a piece of spoken text, it has the sound of something delivered by Robert Mitchum in Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past (1947), or by Humphrey Bogart in Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place (1950).  A five word expression that resonates with a sense of longing for unfulfilled romantic desire, full of allusions or suggestions to scenes, situations, characters and dilemmas that would occur and reoccur throughout Fassbinder's later career.  Specifically, through films such as The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975) and In a Year with 13 Moons (1978); stories where the general brutality of relationships or the duplicitous nature of human beings when pushed into hopeless situations, make death, by comparison, seem like a relief. 

For the characters in Fassbinder's work, love is colder than death, and in this film the attitude is expressed through a fractured, languorous study of petty gangsters struggling to exist in a word rapidly closing in on them.  The sense of fatalism explicit in the title is therefore perfectly suited to the form of the film, which draws heavily on the second-hand references to American crime pictures of the 1940s and '50s, where the overwhelming cynicism of characters or the general loveless nature of the underworld environment breeds a particular kind of person.  One that lives each moment as if it were their last; where relationships burn hard and fast; and where the sense of place - as in 'a lonely place', or in 'a place to call home' - is forever out of reach.

Key Films #13

For Ever Mozart [Jean-Luc Godard, 1996]:

 

In one scene, the bodies of two young dissidents killed earlier in the film by a band of militant guerrillas still sensitive to the conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, are placed in period costumes and "revived" before the whir of an archaic camera, which incorporates them into the making of a film.  In the presentation of this, the underlining "idea", Godard seems to be communicating, as a rhetorical gesture, the common practice of taking the stories of the dead - their histories and their experiences - and turning them into fodder for the motion picture; exploiting the very real, very physical pain and suffering endured by these people - often while ignoring the greater moral causes that led to their untimely demise - for the benefits of creative fiction.  In a sense, this, as an illustration, is a precursor to the later argument regarding the relationship between Hollywood invention and the histories of actual persons, as outlined in the masterpiece Éloge de l'amour (2001).  There, an elderly couple (once part of the Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France) sell their stories to 'Steven Spielberg and Associates' for the basis of a Hollywood picture, only to discover, to the outrage of their eldest granddaughter, that the true facts of their experiences are being distorted to make the events more sensationalist and, as such, more "commercial." 

As with the supposition of that later film, the philosophical subtext of For Ever Mozart finds Godard questioning his own responsibility as an artist, not just through the appropriation of a symbolic young woman, and the use of her death and subsequent resurrection to give weight to the film's comment on the unending exploitation of war, but through the presence of the protagonist, Mr. Vicky; an ailing filmmaker coerced into accompanying some young relatives on a trip to Sarajevo, with the hope of perhaps staging a performance of Musset's 1834 play, 'No Trifling with Love', as both a protest and a declaration of support.  Two of these relatives - headstrong Camille and her young cousin Rosette - are literally adapted from Musset's play, making the back and forth connection between fiction and reality all the more direct.  In later abandoning these young characters for the sake of his film, Godard is effectively challenging, through the actions of Mr. Vicky, his own motivations as a filmmaker; his commitment to his subject in contrast with that more fearful retreat into the personal; into the solitude of his craft.  That Vicky's film is subsequently rejected by its audience again seems like an acknowledgement by Godard of the futility of such gestures; where the art - which attempts, in this instance, to intercede on behalf of human indignity; to respect the voice(s) of the dead - falls, inevitably, on deaf ears.

Night of the Demon [Jacques Tourneur, 1957]:

The opening sequence suggests a journey between worlds.  On one side, the world of the rational, defined, as it is, by the logic, reason and genuine parapsychology put forth by the soon to be introduced central character - the American, Dr. John Holden - and on the other, the irrational, defined, in this instance, by the forces of magic, superstition and the bizarre.  The journey itself is pivotal to the progression of the narrative, in as much as it introduces the first victim, Professor Harrington, and establishes, in a subtle but no less menacing way, the film's primary antagonist, Dr. Julian Karswell; a man supposedly possessed with the ability to conjure a great demon from the outer reaches of hell.  However, in introducing these characters and their 'worlds' in such a way - showing Harrington's literal journey from the safety of his own reality into the world of Karswell; this man of science encroaching on a world of the unexplained - the film outlines the central hypothesis that defines much of the action; the power of fear, either as a tangible manifestation of the unreal - in this instance, the appearance of a genuine demon - or as a symptom of superstition; a psychological sleight of hand. 

The director, Jacques Tourneur, had already proven himself to be a master of terror and suspense with his earlier Val Lewton produced supernatural thrillers, Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Leopard Man (1943).  There, as well as here, every action, no matter how strange and fantastical in nature, has both a supernatural and psychological interpretation, creating a sense of restless ambiguity.  As such, the audience throughout is never quite certain of Karswell's true motivations; if his control over the development of these events derives from a genuine "mystical" influence, or if that otherworldly perspective of his is simply a smokescreen; a way of implanting a seed of suggestion into the subconscious minds of the central characters in an effort to create an atmosphere of uncertainty; fuel for an overactive imagination.  Even the appearance of the demon itself - rendered on-screen as an elaborate special effect - is justified by the dreamlike atmosphere created by the director and his crew; the significance of Holden's introduction, for example - half-asleep on an airplane somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean - once again establishes a character caught between two worlds; a sleepwalker trapped, forever in his own nightmare, both vivid and surreal.

My Case [Manoel de Oliveira, 1986]:

It begins with three versions of a single scene; three repetitions.  In each version, the basic action remains the same.  A man, played with great integrity and conviction by Luís Miguel Cintra, invades the stage of a small theatre company in an effort to plead his case to an unseen, impassive audience, suggested only by the off-screen presence of Oliveira and his crew.  As the man gestures and pontificates with a crazed abandon, thwarted in his continual attempts to put forward his own tormented appeal against the protestations of 'others', we're instead made witness to the testimonies of the various supporting characters; amongst them the star of the play currently being rehearsed, its beleaguered director, a harried stagehand and a lone member of the audience who appears, as if from nowhere, as if indicative of the audience of this film - the cinematograph - as opposed to the play within.  After the three initial repetitions, the film cuts to a stylised, post-apocalyptic landscape, against which a dramatisation of The Book of Job - where each of the main characters once again appear, but this time in a different guise - provides a late riposte to the first scene (and its three iterations), while also allowing the central figure, still portrayed by Cintra, to finally plead the solemnity of his case. 

Although the action of each reiteration is effectively the same - at least in terms of its development and the choreography of events - the three scenes are still presented via a different, highly contrasting cinematic approach.  The appropriation of different styles - from the more conventional 'filmed play', to a silent cinema pastiche, to something eventually more avant-garde - seems intended to draw our attention to the artificiality of the medium and our own perspective as the audience of a film.  The self-awareness of the form also creates a context for that remarkable moment during the third repetition, in which a man, interrupting the interruption of Cintra, sets-up a movie projector and screen in the centre of the stage, and uses it to project images of actual atrocity and despair.  In this one moment, Oliveira seems to question the complacency of his characters (and us, the 'unseen' audience), making it clear that Cintra's "case" - or at least one interpretation of it - is partly related to the inability of man to mediate on behalf of the great sorrows of the modern world.  This interpretation is perhaps more in keeping with that unforgettable final image of da Vinci's the Mona Lisa, where the art - as ever, in its capacity to transform complex themes into simple gestures - is able to provide a 'case' for humanity (a reason or justification for our existence), which this man, in his very personal, very self-righteous indignation, could not.

Key Films #12

Othon [Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub, 1970]:

 

To give the film its full title, 'The eyes will not close at all times, or maybe one day Rome will let herself choose in turn; after 'Othon', by Pierre Corneille.'  The title establishes the filmmakers' rigorous attention to language - the use of language as 'form', its textures and its rhythms - and the significance of the text; the 1664 tragedy by the French playwright and poet, Pierre Corneille.  The text - set during the short reign of Emperor Galba, 68 to 69 BC, and concerning both matters of the heart and matters of the state - is not filmed, it is spoken.  Only by communicating the words aloud can it be filmed, personified, made real; finding its expression, not through the conventional "cinematic" manipulations required to condense the plot into a series of significant set-pieces, or 'events', but through the meticulous delivery of the actors, who adapt the play through speaking the words; creating the sense of narrative as rhetoric, the audience, not so much the 'viewers', in the traditional sense, but spectators; observers to the scene.  This gives the film a theatrical quality, but a living theatre; a theatre of life.  The approach, where once again old words are placed into a contemporary setting - suggesting the idea of the past, as an echo, running parallel with the present - recalls the ideology of later films by Angelopoulos, such as The Hunters (1977), or Alexander the Great (1980). 

The notion of the past existing within the present, side by side - like a revenant, or as a reverberation through time - is further suggested by the filmmakers' daring approach to staging; wherein the use of anachronism - of locations that are significant to the actual historical events, used, irrespective of their current, contemporary position - deconstructs the reality of the film; reminding us throughout of the artificiality of a scene; the subconscious truth that these characters are merely actors, reciting words as they're written on the page.  However, it also suggests the theoretical idea of the past as an ongoing spectacle that takes place all around us, unseen, again, like an echo to prior events.  The notion that the past (or pasts) is always amongst us - that any place we visit, any place where we stand, is a part of history - a part of our own history, and a part of someone else's.  As the drama unfolds, these actors in period costume, posed like living statues among the ruins of Mont Palatin or within the grounds of the Villa Doria Pamphili, recite their lines against the noise and confusion of busy streets; the sights and sounds of cars and traffic, or the passing aeroplane that rumbles overhead, all remind us of the flow of the present; of time still moving forwards, oblivious to these old ghosts, which still exist; living and re-living their personal dramas and dilemmas, from one century into the next.

 

Transformers: Dark of the Moon [Michael Bay, 2011]:

 

Let's take it for what it is: Godzilla meets Gamera, updated for the modern age.  A 'kaiju' movie with a multi-million dollar budget and a screenplay that consists of thirty-minutes worth of exposition followed by over a hundred minutes worth of explosions and debris.  And yet, buried somewhere deep beneath the standard Baysian miasma of product placement, vulgar nonsense and rock 'em sock 'em robot carnage, there is the sketch of a more interesting movie; one that gestures towards the state of America - the state of the world - both politically and socio-economically.  In essence: a film about a young couple, struggling through the current financial crisis.  'He', realising that his university degrees aren't worth the paper they're printed on, has to suffer through the indignity of the job interview process, corporate career politics and watching ineffectually as his girlfriend is slowly wooed by a billionaire playboy with powerful industrial connections.  'She', having to take responsibility for the couple's desperate monetary situation, is forced to endure the leering advances of an arrogant boss, objectified by his sordid gaze (and by the gaze of the director) so as not to jeopardise the financial security of the couple, still learning, as young couples do, how to make things work. 

There is a lot of truth to this aspect of the film; a lot of things that I recognise from my own experience or the experiences of friends.  Of course, it's just one facet of the film - one facet that exists in the shadow of the more necessary sci-fi extravaganza  - but one that nonetheless dominates the entire first act, and feels, almost - in its construction, or in the development of its scenes - like a self-contained 'miniature-movie' that was somehow just dropped into the narrative.  Granted, there is still much of Dark of the Moon that is repellent (the racial stereotypes, the crass sexism, the homophobia, etc), but nonetheless, I still found myself floored by the honesty of these early scenes; the way the situation of the characters is tied intrinsically into the destruction of the world (almost as metaphor), as well as the more sensory aspects of Bay's approach; the impression of the film, or that experience of a film reduced to an endless blur of images, colours, sounds and movement.  The noisy chaos and disorganisation that the director is often scolded for works perfectly in the context of the story, where the sense of urgency is reflected in the urgency of the run-and-gun aesthetic, or where the reminders of 9/11 as acknowledgement of the true contemporary context of any current disaster movie, suggests a sense of heightened reality, giving this fantasy an edge of very real, very physical danger.

 

Phantom [F.W. Murnau, 1922]:

 

The necessity of the framing device is unclear until the very end.  Only then do we finally grasp the meaning of the character's initial unhappiness; his despondent disposition, which seems improbable given his obvious accomplishments; the nice house, the pretty wife, the sheltered existence, etc.  As the protagonist sits down to write out the story of his past-life, the justification of this wayward gloom becomes apparent.  That age old story of ambition, corruption and greed.  The protagonist of Murnau's film, Lorenz - a bookish clerk who works for the local government and has hopes of one day becoming a successful poet - is presented from the outset as an idle dreamer; a man sensitive to the dire circumstances of his family life - the domestic hardships of his ailing mother, the scandals of his younger sister - but is, to some extent, weak to their suffering; much preferring to lose himself in books and fiction than to face such harsh realities head-on.  It is this inability to engage with reality that ultimately leads Lorenz into peril; his blinkered view of life - not quite selfish, but still seeing the world from his own limited position - blinds him to the deceitful nature of those around him.  It is only during the course of the film - or his own retelling of it - that Lorenz is confronted by the duplicitous nature of the world; his own lack of perspective or emotional maturity leading him astray; corrupting him, like so many characters before (and since). 

In this respect, the narrative of the film is not so remarkable; just a standard melodrama with a crime and punishment edge.  However, it's the adaptation of the film that makes it work.  That initial framing device - the extended flashback - allows Murnau and his writer Thea von Harbou to imbue the film with an aspect of meta-fiction; an acknowledgement of the story's inherent fabrication.  As such, the film becomes a sort of confessional, informed by the central character's own recollections of events and therefore marked by a more personal and somewhat 'subjective' sensibility.  By recognising the voice of the protagonist - as 'narrator' - Murnau is able to be more creative with his depiction of the character's eventual descent.  In one sequence, the feeling of isolation felt by the tortured Lorenz (his sense of paranoia; of the world closing in on him) is depicted literally, with the buildings collapsing, three-dimensionally - like in a children's 'pop-up' book - suffocating the character and recalling a similar, more famous image from the recent blockbuster Inception (2010).  It is this haunted, dreamlike aspect to the subjective stylisation of the film that for me separates (or elevates) Phantom from the many other silent melodramas that deal with similar concerns.

Prisoners of Love

I meant to post this a month ago, on St. Valentine's Day to be exact, but I was held up with other things.  It's effectively a list of my favourite "romantic" films, loosely assembled; just general comments on a handful of movies that centre on the emotion of love, in all of its various guises.  As ever, the following notes aren't in any conceivable way 'reviews'; they're just observations on a theme, intended to give a very vague justification for the inclusion of a particular title and why I found it so compelling.  No doubt the selection of each title and my own analysis of it says more about me as a viewer than it does about any of the films in question, but again, the list is not definitive; just a selection of films that came to mind when I first thought about the subject.  Unfortunately, several key films are probably missing from this selection, but I may make an effort to write about them at a later date.

Also: I regret that I now post a lot of these list related things, but I'm not really up to doing the longer essays anymore.  Ideally, that is what I'd like to do, but it's hard work and never really feels worth the effort.  Hopefully any potential blog-visitor won't mind these trite diversions.  Boring content is better than no content, right?

 

L'Atalante [Jean Vigo, 1934]:

 

The concerns and insecurities of a newly married couple are expressed in poetic-realist style in Vigo's final film.  Thematically, the story on paper is pure melodrama; the struggle of this couple against the harsh realities of a situation, full of hardship and adversity, has been done and done again.  However, it is the direction of the film that sets it apart from many other works of the same period.  The stylisation of Vigo's approach, which throughout combines the gritty actuality of 1930s Paris - perfectly evoking the atmosphere of its cluttered streets and foggy canals - with a stylised lyricism that turns the entire film into an external expression of the character's innermost thoughts and fears.  Small moments, like Juliette's dance on the deck, seem expressive of her own restless need to articulate the beauty and the freedom of youth, as her new life on this barge becomes both suffocating and unbearable in its solitude and routine. 

The dance suggests the dissatisfaction that this character must feel within the cold embrace of her husband.  A young woman, who in her provincial way, only wants to experience the thrill of the city and the excitement of its classy stores and vibrant culture, but in her heart and mind is still drawn to this simple man, who can only love her with trepidation.  As ever with these films, the man must eventually prove his love to the women; plunging himself into the cold waters of the canal to be stirred by the image of her love and to be reborn as the man she wants him to be.  The final scene, which hints towards a potential future - unwritten, full of sadness and joy - is perhaps the most beautiful reconciliation in all of cinema.

 

Les amants du Pont-Neuf [Leos Carax, 1991]:

 

The film builds on the foundation of a scene in Carax's earlier feature, the excellent Mauvais Sang (1986), in which the protagonist, Alex, unable to express in words his love for the beautiful Anna, does so through physical expression; erupting into a mad, acrobatic dance through the late night streets of a quiet Parisian suburb to the sounds of Modern Love.  For a brief moment, the entire film seems charged, as if by some unseen electrical current, through the passion of this central character.  The editing, cinematography and soundtrack all intervene on behalf of the protagonist to help communicate the transformative effect that his unfulfilled romantic desire has had.  In Les amants du Pont-Neuf, the entire film has this same feel of an outward, physical expression.  When these characters are no longer able to communicate in words or even gestures, the film intercedes, disrupting the natural flow of the narrative, a scene or even a shot, to express a thought or feeling, aurally and/or visually. 

For instance, the above image of Michèle's printed face as it withers within the flames might serve a greater purpose to the development of the film and its plot, but it also suggests, on a purely figurative level, the volatile powers of jealousy and obsession.  The flames of passion, literally, destroying the individual identity, to be replaced by the shared indentify of this couple, this symbol of the new French cinema.  The entire film is like an ode to the madness of love, elusive and allegorical, where the vast spectacle of the Bastille Day celebration becomes a cinematic representation of the burst of emotion, excitement, violence and confusion that we associate with the feeling of love.

 

Buffalo '66 [Vincent Gallo, 1998]:

 

The only American romantic comedy, post-Annie Hall (1977), that might actually be worth a damn?  Gallo's obnoxious protagonist kidnaps Christina Ricci's placid teenage tap-dancer and has her play-act the role of his new wife in a harebrained attempt to impress his equally obnoxious parents, who couldn't give a shit either way.  In doing so, Gallo skewers the artist/muse relationship that dominates most western art, in which the sensitive 'artiste' projects his own desires onto the blank canvas of a woman, validating her existence with the Midas-like stroke of his genius.  Like Pygmalion in reverse, Gallo's character attempts to transform Ricci into the woman he wants her to be, coercing (if not actively bullying) a performance out of her in an on-screen deconstruction of the relationship between actress and director, but in the end, the force of her personality is too strong. 

Ultimately, it is Ricci herself that ends up transforming Gallo, validating his existence by countering the bitterness of his confrontational despair with a calming sympathy and an attempt to understand, without judgement or critique, the sadness of his life.  As deplorable as Gallo's character is, the mentality of Billy Brown is that of a person that has never experienced "real love", and as such cannot decipher how to react when finally embraced by a character capable of loving him, unconditionally, in return.  As with the director's next film, the modern masterpiece The Brown Bunny (2003), the vulnerability of this character, in his honest and unguarded disgrace, is both candid and overwhelming.

 

Faithful Heart [Jean Epstein, 1923]:

 

Two lone misfits find love in a loveless place, only to be pulled apart by the manipulations of a cruel and heartless society, more concerned with unburdening responsibility than with the happiness of the individual.  As with L'Atalante (1931), the story, on paper, is nothing unusual.  It is the direction of the film and the intensity of its performances that elevates it above the majority of other more conventional melodramas of the silent-age.  Epstein's direction of the film recalls Vertov in its street-level observations, its energy and its atmosphere.  The noise and the grime and the chaos of the streets and tenements is palpable.  The waterside, where the characters steal moments in the arms of each another becomes an oasis, where the image of the city across the waves is like the promise of a bright future. 

The park, with its fairground attractions, feels almost abstract, as if we're looking at reality as a reflection in a funhouse mirror; a cinematic expression of the disorientation of the characters' emotions when challenged by the endless hardships of a perilous misfortune.  Throughout the film, the sense of drama comes from the endured suffering of these characters, who only wish to be together, but are denied any semblance of happiness by a world that resents both the purity of their spirit and their dedication to one another, which must struggle, against all odds.

 

In the Mood for Love [Wong Kar Wai, 2000]:

 

Like Brief Encounter (1947) or The End of the Affair (1999) - both possible contenders for a list of this nature - In the Mood for Love is a film burning with repressed emotion.  The initial inability of the couple to commit or to express their love as anything more than a subtle glance or a tentative caress, makes every interaction fraught with a devastating conflict; an inner sadness that destroys the characters from the inside out.  There is a loneliness to the film; a sense of repetition that jars against the short moments of intimacy and freedom that these characters eventually find in their own brief encounters; their attempts to steal away moments of time shared and spent.  The filmmaking approach communicates this feeling visually, presenting the narrative in fragments; significant moments that emphasise the emotions of the characters, their desires but also those feelings of guilt and shame. 

The inter-cutting of slow-motion shots suggest the slowing down of time - the way time stands still when this couple are in the presence of one another, making the most of every hour, minute, second - while the distance of the camera, the way it imprisons these characters behind various objects, framing them through doorways or windows, not only shows the figurative imprisonment of these protagonists by the social conventions of the time but also suggests the presence of the audience, as observer; as much an intrusion into the lives of these characters as their own friends and neighbours.  All of this repressed emotion and solitude leads towards the beautiful expression of the final scene, with its ruined temple and its whispered declaration.  A secret ode, from one character to the other, that stands as possibly the most moving depiction of unrequited love ever committed to film.

 

A Matter of Life and Death [Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1946]:

 

Most films present the idea of love as a thing worth dying for.  In A Matter of Life and Death, it's presented as a reason to live.  Perhaps the only reason; reason enough to snatch life from the jaws of death; to argue a case for existence in the celestial court when all other explanations have failed.  If The Village (2004) by M. Night Shyamalan suggested the hypothesis, "the world moves for love; it kneels before it in awe", then Powell and Pressburger's film could be seen to suggest that even in the afterlife such emotions, such commitments, are worthy of a similar acclaim.  Of course, much of the film's fantasy can be read as metaphorical, as the wounded protagonist finds himself teetering on the brink of death, his mind inventing an imagined reverie, as if willing himself back to life.  However, such practicalities do not rob the film of its feeling of pure romanticism, nor the honesty of its emotions. 

To die for love might be fine for the existentialists, but in the cruelty of war and its endless devastation, there is no greater cause than survival.  Without fully anticipating the hollow 'hippy' mantra of an aphorism like "make love, not war", the film, in its vision of the afterlife as an officious, black and white bureaucracy, against the vibrant Technicolor of the everyday, seems to be championing a commitment to the beauty of existence or the feeling of love - its spirit of emotion - as reason enough to endure, to persevere.

 

Ondine [Neil Jordan, 2009]:

 

The pairing of the characters represents a collision between fantasy and reality, which, as usual for Jordan, is one of the main themes of the film.  The central character, an alcoholic fisherman with a disabled daughter, casts his net into the deepest blue sea and pulls from it a beautiful young woman, desperate and afraid.  The woman is thought to be a Selkie (a mermaid like creature popular in Nordic myth), but darker secrets lurk beneath the sadness of her eyes.  As ever with Jordan, myths and meta-fiction entwine with the faint traces of film-noir, as the love story develops into a sinister mystery that imbues the more leisurely or lighter sequences of adventure, or family bonding, with the threat of a very real, very brutal violence and retribution.  Despite this pervasive darkness, or the jarring ruptures of the narrative - intended to suggest the 'voice' of each narrator, inventing the story as it unfolds - the film, as a work, as a story of love, is entirely moving. 

The soundtrack by Kjartan Sveinsson, which incorporates both the piano melody and the vocal refrain of the song All Alright by Sigur Rós - which throughout the film becomes a siren's call to the fisherman, alone and in pain - blends beautifully with the sunken and submerged look of Christopher Doyle's shadowy cinematography, which turns the naturally rugged and verdant vistas of the Irish coast into a mythical kingdom, both dangerous and enchanting.  Though the love affair is intended to dramatise, in an abstract sense, the personification of the two forms (social-realism and bedtime fable), the weight of feeling created by the film - its sense of lyricism and the grand, passionate gestures of its characters and scenes - is illustrative of a writer/director attuned to a particular kind of romantic sensibility; one poetic and unashamed.

 

Prénom Carmen [Jean-Luc Godard, 1983]:

 

They meet, these characters, against a whirlwind of violence.  'He', a guard at a Swiss bank, 'she' a bank robber, and member of a terrorist group.  The violence of the heist - choreographed like a musical number, or like a scene from a film by Jerry Lewis - mirrors the violence of their emotions, intense, confusing; the chaos of the scene reflecting that inner chaos of the heart; the mayhem, the irrationality of two people suddenly in love.  The film, from the outset, is a story of love, but is also a story about the madness of love; the magic venom that transforms the soul.  Like the earlier, no less remarkable masterpiece Pierrot le Fou (1965), Godard once again places the audience in the presence of a young man willing to follow a beautiful nuisance to the end of the earth, even if his passion, jealousy and obsession for this woman will inevitably lead to destruction.  While 'Pierrot' was undoubtedly striking, the full force of its emotional tragedy was guarded by post-modern abstraction.  This later work more readily (and more recklessly) embraces its central theme of beauty as the beginning of an endurable terror; indulging the emotions of its characters; presenting them through a jarring contrast of slapstick comedy and an anxious, mournful spirit that infuses every expression, every scene, with a wanton desperation. 

In very loosely adapting the narrative of Bizet's opera, Godard turns the character of Carmen into a Circe type figure; a seductress, effortlessly bewitching the various men of the film and transforming them into swine.  A figurative acknowledgement of their own willingness to debase themselves and their beliefs for the love of this ferocious woman.  While such an adaptation of the character might have pushed misogyny, it is ultimately the emotional weakness of the men - the protagonist in particular - that leads these characters into peril.  While Carmen is undoubtedly unbound by social conventions, existing almost as a force of nature - as wild and as spirited as the crashing waves that Godard uses to invoke Woolf and to suggest the tempestuous nature of the relationship - it is the male necessity to possess - the need to control - that ultimately spells disaster.  In Godard's film, the madness of love is effectively a madman's 'story' of love; a confession, from the depths of his despair.

 

Roselyne and the Lions [Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1989]:

 

Throughout the film, Beineix uses the spectacle of lion taming as a metaphor for the often destructive impulses that drive the majority of relationships, where anger, jealousy, passion and pain threaten to obliterate the bond that exists between two people, driven close to insanity by their obsessions and insecurities.  The spectacle of the film, where the 'tamer' and 'trainer' attempt to control these monsters that stalk and prowl the barred perimeter of the cage, works as a visual representation of their love for one another; all-powerful and all-consuming; dangerous and destructive; volatile enough to spill out into violence or blossom, flower-like, into something beautiful; a display of pure emotion, which, in its graceful theatricality, becomes art.  The art of living or the art of ardour. 

By countering the often volatile relationship of these characters with the visceral scenes of lion taming, Beineix could have risked sexism (if not genuine misogyny); turning the woman into nothing more than a "wild beast" there to be tamed by the lash and command of the domineering male.  Instead, he presents the character of Roselyne as both strong and independent.  It is her power and her passion for the lions that ultimately tames the jealousy of the headstrong Thierry, making it clear that their relationship, like all relationships, is a collaboration, full of compromise and accord.

 

Solaris [Steven Soderbergh, 2002]:

 

The planet throbs like a beating heart.  Dual strands of energy pulsate across the face of its lilac globe, mimicking the same gesture of the protagonists when their hands first met, momentarily, during an earlier embrace.  The film - which plays like a powerful encounter between two people trapped in the cycle of a relationship doomed to repeat itself, endlessly, like an echo through the depths of space - brings to mind the haunted expressions of a film like Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) or Muriel (1963), where its fragments of narrative, and the sense of time and space as something oppressive or tyrannical, turn the experience into a breathless reunion between the wounded and the dead.  This feeling of a memory made real, turned frightful by the bitterness and isolation of these characters lost in space, is further suggested by Soderbergh's cold, formalist approach; where the framing of actors as immaterial objects against a labyrinth of buildings or planetary structures, or the play of lights, which evoke the inner emotions of characters unable to express, is more suggestive of a feeling of sadness and regret than any conventional line of dialogue. 

In the metaphysical manifestations of this planet, 'Solaris', the astronaut Chris Kelvin is able to relive the lost love that haunts the very fabric of his being, but only if he's also willing to relive every moment of pain and self-hatred that led to her untimely demise.  The entire film, in this acknowledgement of the often selfishness of grief and the pain of letting go, becomes, like the planet itself, a mirror to the characters' despair.

 

Trouble Every Day [Claire Denis, 2001]:

 

The title song by Tindersticks captures the wounded tone.  A feeling of late night loneliness, passion and obsession, reflected in the combination of staccato drum, mournful piano, shimmering strings and the voice of Stuart A. Staples, anguished and in pain.  Each sound, in collaboration with the other, fills the empty spaces of Denis' film; the lonely streets and the soulless roads that evoke the loss of life, or the black cloak of the river, which communicates the idea of separation; the two sides of each relationship, unable to reunite.  In Trouble Every Day, the primal, "animalistic" nature of relationships - the desires and the insecurities, the commitment and its demands - is dramatised in such a way that it becomes akin to a horror movie, both violent and intuitive.  It is a film about love, in the sense that it focuses on two couples, both in-love, but at the same time the victims of love - caught in destructive situations that are devastating, emotionally as well as physically - but it's also a film about responsibility, about the other side of these relationships, the lengths that two people will go to protect their partners from the influence of the outside world. 

The intensity of the film, its performances and the invasive, observational focus of the direction, is overwhelming.  The characters, in their crazed states, become like vampires; stalking the lonesome highways or the endless corridors of a hotel looking for a partner, a victim, a mate...  Their desire becoming more like an addiction as they're effectively consumed by love, insatiable in their appetite for sexual gratification, pleasure and release.

 

The Village [M. Night Shyamalan, 2004]:

 

Though more powerful as a political allegory (this film about deception, which deceives the audience, but only to make a point), Shyamalan's multi-layered masterpiece is also a beautiful love story.  A vivid declaration of love, not just in the longed-for courtship of its central characters, Ivy Walker and Lucius Hunt, but in the unrequited relationship of their respective parents, Edward and Alice, forced to sacrifice any possibility of love as a consequence of their strict, archaic beliefs.  It is Shyamalan's sensitivity to his characters that makes him a master; the way he evokes the relationships between people - and the pain of these relationships - through subtle gestures, body language and the space between words.   The influence of the Brontë sisters is palpable, not just in the air of mystery, or in the "mad woman in the attic" reveal, but in the atmosphere of the film, its colour and its mood. 

The nocturnal encounters between characters, cloaked in the light of a nearby lantern, or enshrouded within the thin veil of encroaching fog, suggests the clandestine nature of their relationship (a secret within a secret), before a dramatic turn of events forces at least one of these young lovers to risk life and limb; to atone for the sins of the village.  These characters are prisoners of love in the literal sense, and their relationship, no matter how pure and true, is there to be exploited, as a symbol, as a possibility, by the governors of this community.