A Viewing
List for Twenty-Fifteen
The Red Spectacles [Mamoru
Oshii, 1987]:
Oshii
manages to corral the influences of '60s Godard (post-modernism) and '80s
Godard (poetic ennui) alongside elements of Seijun Suzuki and Jerry Lewis;
finding a middle-ground between the pop-art sci-fi reportage of Alphaville
(1965) and the comical-philosophical patchwork of Keep Your Right Up (1987) or
King Lear (1987). For those that find the director's later (and for me no less
essential) films to be largely humourless, self-serious ruminations on tired
cyber punk concerns, The Red Spectacles is a work of genuine comic brilliance,
both deadpan and slapstick; albeit, with a mystical, vaguely metaphorical
climax that questions the nature of reality, existence, perception, etc. It
also works as a fairly successful if academic experiment in cinematic
stylisation analogous to what von Trier would attempt in films such as The
Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1988) and Europa (1991); in short, a gnomic
synthesis between genre deconstruction, social commentary and self-referential
critique.
Song of the Sea [Tomm
Moore, 2014]:
A poetic,
intensely lyrical family drama, which, like the greatest works of Studio Ghibli,
has been sold as a conventional children's adventure story, but in reality
seems a far more penetrating examination of deeply human concerns - such as
bereavement, grief, abandonment and the end of childhood innocence - which will
only be truly felt by an older, more sensitive audience. The imagery throughout
is rich and magical, beautifully designed and animated with great imagination,
but always relevant to the central story of the two children and their familiar
disconnection. From the old woman transformed by the fearful children into the
image of a great owl, to the lonely giant turned into a mountain by his
sorceress mother so as to stop him from drowning the world in an ocean of tears,
the flights of fancy only deepen the metaphorical interpretations of the work.
The Canterbury Tales [Pier Paolo
Pasolini, 1972]:
Pasolini as the
figure of Geoffrey Chaucer gives the film a more tangible through-line than his
earlier, similarly picaresque but looser exploration of Boccaccio's The
Decameron (1971). Here, the same medley of stories - which run the gamut from
satirical swipes at politics and religion to bawdy "sexcapades" and Chaplin
pastiche - are tied together by the presence of Chaucer as self-reflexive
surrogate for Pasolini; casting his critical eye not just over a medieval
burlesque but its reflection on the modern world. The films' third act
depiction of Hell as a surreal Hieronymus Bosch-like fantasia elevates the work
above the level of the "merely great" to the realms of absolute
genius! One of the most bizarre and inventive sequences Pasolini ever filmed. Lyrical,
funny and disturbing in equal measure.
3 Women [Robert Altman, 1977]:
Altman's
strangest film. A pre-Lynch take on Lynchian themes of dissociation, identity,
alienation, the blurring of perspectives. Nods to Persona (1966) escape the
curse of empty "Bergmanesque" imitation by being delivered in
Altman's unique and characteristic approach; the camera drifting nomadically
across complex scenes; picking out startling shots, strange objects, moments
that seems inconsequential but make sense on reflection. A haunting and
hypnotic work that rivals the director's earlier psychological study, Images (1972).
Nymphomaniac: Vol. I & II (Director's Cut) [Lars von Trier, 2013]:
1. Joe
fashions a story from the ephemera of Seligman's room. Why? Is she telling her
own story or something else? The framing device gives credence to the more
preposterous moments; creates a context for Joe to indulge in fantasy but also
for Seligman to interject; to deconstruct the material. In this sense the film
is not just a thesis on the themes herein, but a self-reflexive study on von
Trier's own methodology. 2. Joe's story about the paedophile suggests hidden
implications at the end. Why is she telling these stories to Seligman? What
response is she looking for and does she get it? Is the film a chronicle of one
woman's self-destruction/transfiguration through sexual experience or a cruel
game of deception and entrapment? I would say both. The subtleties of the
ending introduce a profound degree of potential reinterpretations. 3. A
pornographic variant on The Princess Bride (1987) with all of the same
self-reflexive dialogues about the relationship between 'author' (Joe as
surrogate for von Trier) and 'spectator' (Seligman as surrogate for the
audience). However, the film is also the clearest, most penetrating iteration
of the filmmaker's recent themes; depression, self-destruction, gender
identity, the cruelties of nature, etc. A revelatory masterwork for von Trier.
Mr. Holmes [Bill Condon, 2015]:
While the
concept of a logical Holmes encountering the one thing beyond his understanding
(actual human emotion) could have been played for cheap sentimentality,
Condon's film hits somewhat harder. As an investigation into memory as an
effort to understand what it is to be hurt by something beyond rational
comprehension, the film ably touches on issues of war, genocide, failure and
grief in a profound and hugely compelling way; deconstructing the notion of the
procedural (or, more plainly, the detective story) until it becomes a
penetrating and insightful rumination on age, memory, experience, repentance
and the inability to let go.
Welcome to New York [Abel
Ferrara, 2014]:
A fearless
political commentary disguised as psychological examination. Ferrara uses his
Strauss-Kahn facsimile as personification of both the financial crisis and the
attitude of those in positions of power; here protected by laws that leave them
free to use and abuse the lowest rung of society. The character, like the
condition itself, becomes a wild animal; pawing and groping his way through the
culture made flesh; consuming everything.
The resulting arrest and trial is like an indictment against the city itself;
that inbuilt corruption of money as something above the safeguarding of actual
human experience that allows all other levels of corruption to be maintained.
Anchored by Depardieu's grotesque, violent performance, and a series of
penetrating dialogues that hint at the true circumstances at play, Welcome to
New York is arguably Ferrara's most powerful and necessary work.
Phantom of the Paradise [Brian De
Palma, 1974]:
De Palma
buries a personal commentary on creative freedom and the exploitation of the
artist beneath a post-modern blend of Goethe and Leroux, camp B-movie horror and
exaggerated glam rock. Peppered with additional nods to silent comedy,
Hitchcock (naturally) and Welles - to say nothing of a frenzied, faux-reportage
climax that deconstructs the line between fiction and reality, and reminds the
viewer of the counter-culture experimentation of the filmmaker's earlier, much
underrated Dionysus in '69 (1970) - the film works both as a vicious music business
satire and as a dazzling phantasmagoria, full of heightened emotions, bold
imagery and clever storytelling. The intelligent, self-reflexive soundtrack by
Paul Williams is without question one of the films greatest assets.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne [Walerian Borowczyk, 1981]:
Here, lurid
exploitation meets art-house exploration, blending slasher movie tropes and
soft-core/soft-focus sexuality with deeper philosophical questions regarding
social identity, transgression and the 'beast within.' The atmosphere is
evocative of the adult fairy tales of Rolin and Argento, such as The Iron Rose
(1973) and Suspiria (1977) to name just two, but taken to a level of frenzied
sexuality and heightened violence that only compliments the films' rich
psychological themes. The combination of the baroque and the brutal is no less beautiful
and atmospheric than in a film like Neil Jordan's later masterpiece of 80s
meta-horror, The Company of Wolves (1984); another mesmerising and unsettling
work of dreamlike psychosexual surrealism.
L'argent [Robert Bresson, 1983]:
A film less
about 'money' or its power to corrupt or debase, than a film about actions and
their consequences. A good man is very gradually turned into a criminal by the
dishonesty and villainy of the world around him. As such, the man is less an
individual than a reflection of his own society. Bresson's characteristically
austere approach is perfectly suited to this story of dehumanisation; where
even a third act atrocity is presented without sensationalism or melodramatic
excess. As political commentary, the film very subtly communicates the ironies
of criminality; that those who initiated the chain of events receive little to
no punishment, while those on the bottom rung of society are forced to suffer a
genuine humiliation, speaks volumes. More than anything, Bresson's masterpiece
embodies the philosophy of Godard's 'Uncle Jeannot' character from his First
Name, Carmen (1983); "when shit's worth money, the poor won't have assholes."
A work of art.
