A Viewing List for Twenty Eighteen
Married
to the Mob [Jonathan Demme, 1988]:
Watched: Apr 16, 2018
Once again, it's the personality
of director Jonathan Demme that enlivens and enriches the experience of the film.
From his eclecticism - that bold mishmash of colours, fashions, music and
settings, so vibrant and diverse - to the unwavering humanism already evident
in previous films, such as Citizens Band (1977), Melvin and Howard (1980) and
the preceding Something Wild (1986), the attitudes and relaxed stylisations
favoured by the filmmaker succeed in charming the audience at every conceivable
turn. Even when his characters are shady, or when the social milieu is suggestive
of a particular threat of violence and criminality (as it is here), there's always
a resolve and determination to these people, which is infectious. As such, the
film becomes a celebration, with Demme allowing his actors the space to define and
develop their characters through an expression of their own individual personalities;
their quirks and idiosyncrasies on full display. The ensemble cast is
incredible throughout, with standout turns from Michelle Pfeiffer as the film's
strong-minded protagonist Angela, Dean Stockwell as the slimy
mob boss Tony 'The Tiger' Russo, and Matthew Modine as Mike; a boyish FBI agent-cum-love interest.
Ghost
Stories [Andy Nyman & Jeremy Dyson, 2017]:
Watched: Apr 19, 2018
Pitched in its promotional
materials as a kind of horror anthology - a film in the same tradition as Dead
of Night (1945), Spirits of the Dead (1968) or Tales from the Crypt (1972) -
the eventual presentation of Ghost Stories soon expands into something far more
character-driven and cohesive. Framed around the attempts made by a paranormal
investigator to debunk three supernatural cases that led to his former mentor's
disappearance, the individual vignettes presented by the investigation soon
begin to suggest a different type of story; one that eventually propels the
film towards its revelatory third-act twist. While the general nature of the three
cases and the over-reliance on conventional jump-scares does initially seem
to promise only modest thrills, it's the film's later sequences - and their clever dismantling of the fourth-wall between the supernatural and the
psychological - that opens the film up to a more emotional interpretation, as
well as moments of genuine surrealism. Co-written and co-directed by lead actor
Andy Nyman and the former "League of Gentlemen" collaborator Jeremey
Dyson, Ghost Stories is a film that riffs on the well-worn clichés of the horror genre; playing with the language and iconography that we've come to expect from
other supernatural works - from The Shining (1980) to The Sixth Sense (1999), etc. - but distinguishing itself through a kind of post-modernist
deconstruction. It's a film rich in atmosphere, visually inventive and one that
creates a palpable sense of fear throughout. However, the most disturbing
aspect of Ghost Stories is the sense of loneliness that comes to define the
character's journey as the film draws to a close.
Force
of Evil [Abraham Polonsky, 1948]:
Watched: Apr 27, 2018
The film noir as art film;
elusive, inscrutable and rich with allegorical interpretation. The two brothers
representing Cain and Abel; a descent into subterranean worlds as a kind of
figurative "Dantean" inferno; Faustian pacts and capitalism as a literal
black death. The love story seems like an afterthought, but it's the
performances, heightened and emotional, like the great American theatre, and
the dialog, which has a kind of poetry to it, that are entirely gripping.
Most movie dialog is merely perfunctory. It attempts to evoke naturalism;
finding in its construction the awkward pauses, lack of cadence and layman's
vocabulary that define the ordinary,
or the everyday. Force of Evil however presents something far more interesting in
its use of dialog. There's an "ornate" quality to the language here; a certain
grandeur, though a grandeur that belies an undercurrent of violence and
betrayal. In this sense, one could argue that the film is something of a precursor
to the work of the American playwright David Mamet. Like Mamet's best writing,
the dialog of Polonsky's screenplay has a rhythmical, almost musical quality to
it. It has repetitions and reiterations that continually shift the emphasis
from word to word; changing the subtleties and meanings of sentences in a
profound way; finding subtext and insinuation; expressing everything and
nothing simultaneously. The direction and cinematography are also incredible,
utilising the full creative arsenal of post-German expressionist cinema to
create a world full of atmosphere and emotion.
Secret
Beyond the Door [Fritz Lang, 1948]:
Watched: May 1, 2018
Unfurling with an
inscrutable dream-logic rife with visual symbolism, Lang's enigmatic,
proto-Lynchian mystery, ties the Gothic intrigues of classic novels like "Jane
Eyre" and "Rebecca" - with their similar presentations of lost
girls, damaged men and figurative allusions to rooms that are off limits - to
something comparatively more modern in its psychology and approach. From the
very start of his career, Lang's cinema seemed preoccupied with matters of the
subconscious. Think of the vengeful inventor Rotwang in Metropolis (1927),
driven insane by grief, or the titular master criminal at the dark heart of The
Testament of Dr Mabuse (1933), casting his insidious influence over the city,
like a veritable plague. Using the bare necessities of his routine genre assignments
to explore more interesting ideas perhaps closer in presentation to the form of
the psychodrama, Lang's greatest works frequently dealt with this conflict
between the inner and outer self. This is most apparent in the
film in question. While considered a poor effort by many critics, Secret Beyond
the Door is nonetheless a film where Lang takes his Freudian/psychoanalytical
interests to the absolute limit. The entire film has an internal quality to it,
where the use of voice-over monologues establish the notion of a character
looking back on their own experiences. Not merely 'from the past', in the
conventional sense, but as if suspended; hovering above the narrative, trancelike;
as if recalling events through a form of hypnotic suggestion. It's a film full
of mirrors and mirror imagery, suggesting ideas of replication, doppelgängers,
self-reflection and the fragmentation of the self. It's also one of Lang's most
visually inventive and expressive films.
The
Girl Who Leapt Through Time [Mamoru Hosoda, 2006]:
Watched: May 16, 2018
As with Blade Runner 2049
(2017), this is another film that I didn't manage to make any notes on after my
initial viewing. As such, I'll try to extract from memory the things that most
impressed me, though again, I feel it's a film I'll need to return to in the
not-too-distant future. Nonetheless, the animation here is stunning. Unlike
American animation, which is often loud and hectoring - an endless blur of
action, colour and movement that always seems to be in a great rush to get to
the next big set-piece - Hosoda's film is quiet and reflective. While there's a
definite high concept at work here - a presentation of time travel and
repetitions of chance and coincidence that seems to owe a debt of influence to the
film Groundhog Day (1993) - The Girl Who Leapt Through Time doesn't allow its
science-fiction elements to boil over into action or spectacle. Instead, it
remains focused on the relationship between its characters; the moral concerns
and personal considerations, which are engaging throughout. It's a film that
seems content to focus on the small, seemingly inconsequential daily routines
and activities that define the lives of these characters. The emotions are
overwhelming.
Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 [David Yates, 2011]:
Watched: May 20, 2018
Harry began the story as
an innocent. During the course of his childhood a war breaks out. As a result,
the youth must radicalise; preparing themselves for battle and the
uncertainties ahead. As the series drew to a close I was struck by how much
this parallels the experiences of its own audience. Those that came of age with
the franchise: roughly speaking, millennials, or "Generation Potter";
these children of Marvel and J.K. Rowling. Like Harry, these kids would've
experienced the relatively more colourful adventures of The Philosopher's Stone
(2001) in a state of complete innocence. As the fall of the Twin Towers brought
terrorism and tyranny on a global scale, the subsequent instalments - beginning
perhaps with The Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) - saw the battles at Hogwarts coincide
with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan; the books' subtext of 'in-world'
prejudice (the slurs against the "mud-bloods") or the characters
displaced by war, connecting with the grim realities of the migrant crisis, racial
intolerance and an overwhelming climate of fear. This probably sounds intensely
pretentious, but I couldn't help seeing a connection. As the film's final
moments found its characters framed against a landscape of death and
destruction - ruined buildings and the soil still black from war - I felt the
films had somehow become a mirror to the experiences of a generation, and the wider
cultural events that surrounded their formative years. Not in the sense of the
themes being inspired by these events-
which would be impossible, given that the books predate both the films and the
political climate - but adapted in response
to them; giving this culmination to the seemingly disposable film series an
incredible weight and depth.
Lunacy
[Jan Švankmajer, 2005]:
Watched: Jun 16, 2018
Combining a number of
possible inspirations - from two texts by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Premature
Burial", and more significantly, "The System of Doctor Tarr and
Professor Fether", to the writings of the Marquis de Sade - Švankmajer's
fifth feature-length film, Lunacy, is perhaps best surmised by the well-known
idiom: "the lunatics have taken over the asylum." Set mostly within
the walls of a decaying psychiatric hospital, the early scenes of Švankmajer's
film are a bizarre and sometimes alienating experience. As an audience we
witness these early scenes through the eyes of our protagonist, Jean; a young
man that has been suffering from night-terrors following the death of his
mother. We share his bewilderment and sense of disbelief as he's initially taken
in by a man who claims to be the embodiment of the aforementioned de Sade, and who
allows the patients at his hospital to run riot as a part of some bizarre form
of behavioural therapy. However, as the film progresses and more revelations
become clear, we begin to recognise where the influence of "The System of
Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" is eventually leading us. Without giving
too much away, the satirical crux of Lunacy is a depiction of society under
both the left and right-wing systems of government; a political
commentary that feels somewhat relevant to the world of 2018, in which the perception of society is now torn between the two extremes of the modern left, with its social-constructs, micro-aggressions, identity politics and safe spaces, and the modern
right, with its rhetoric of intolerance, ignorance and hate. For Švankmajer's,
both systems are inherently flawed. Too much order leads to oppression, censorship
and abuse; no order at all leads to chaos. As such, the argument of the
film seems to be this: that to find true freedom one must accept a compromised middle-ground
between the two extremes of anarchy and totalitarianism. It's a bold and provocative
supposition, but one that is intelligently conveyed.
The
Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque [Éric Rohmer, 1993]:
Watched: Jun 19, 2018
Conversational to the
point of didacticism, Rohmer's extended rumination on the political divides of
a small village and its questions of commerce and redevelopment in the face of
a changing cultural identity is exhausting, but also quietly adventurous. While
much of the film is presented in the characteristic manner that one associates
with Rohmer's work - familiar as it may be from earlier or even subsequent
films, such as The Aviator's Wife (1981), Pauline at the Beach (1983) and A
Tale of Springtime (1990) - there are nonetheless several bold deviations from
the typical "Rohmerian" aesthetic. These deviations include 1. moments
of actual documentary - comparable to some extent to similar sequences found in
the filmmaker's earlier and no less brilliant Four Adventures of Reinette and
Mirabelle (1987) - 2. a sub-plot that feels more befitting of a Hollywood
romantic comedy, and 3. a later sequence that can only be described as a kind
of folk-musical. The last of these deviations was the most surprising, not
least because it broke from Rohmer's typically relaxed sense of naturalism;
aligning the work instead to the stylised historical opera of something like Moses
und Aaron (1973) by Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet. Arriving at the end of what is otherwise a
kind of dry cinematic discourse on the themes aforementioned, this coda felt
entirely remarkable; connecting the film, in some small way, to the legacy of
one of Rohmer's most bold and unconventional earlier efforts, the masterful
Perceval le Gallois (1978).
The
Whispering Star [Sion Sono, 2015]:
Watched: Jun 19, 2018
If we were to attempt to
simplify the experience of the film, then The Whispering Star is essentially
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) remade by Andrei Tarkovsky. Again, it's a
simplification. However, like The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Whispering Star
involves a non-human character who travels to our planet to fulfil a specific task
- in this instance, delivering packages to the scattered pockets of
civilisation - and invariably becomes a kind of witness to the folly of
mankind. Aesthetically, it's more modern - if not post-modern - than any of Tarkovsky's films, particularly in its
transformative final scenes, but nonetheless, the film shares an affinity for Tarkovsky's
contemplative tracking shots, monochromatic
imagery, ruined locations that suggest the collapse of civilisation, and
an interest in the elements; the rain, wind, sand and fog. Apparently filmed in
and around the district of Ōkuma - the site of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear
disaster - the authenticity of the film's desolate locations and its depiction
of humanity clinging to the last semblances of contemporary existence while poverty
and desperation take hold, is quite extraordinary. Like Jia Zhangke's
brilliant Still Life (2006), a film where the writer and director set a fictional
relationship against a real backdrop of the village of Fengjie - at the time
being destroyed by the building of the Three Gorges Dam - the placement of the
science-fiction story into this particular setting suggests a clever blurring
of the line between fiction and documentary. It also gives an added weight to
the central character's observations on human experience, perseverance and
survival.
Amour
Fou
[Jessica Hausner, 2014]:
Watched: Jun 21, 2018
Hausner's control of the
formalist elements of the film are impeccable. In terms of the aesthetics - the
art direction, costume design, cinematography, etc. - Amour Fou is a complete work.
However, there is much more to the film than just stylisation. In telling the
story of the relationship between the writer Heinrich von Kleist and his lover
Henriette Vogel - a courtship that resulted in the pair committing to a
murder-suicide pact in the winter of 1811 - Hausner views the events through a
modern lens; inviting an element of irony (even cynicism) into this retelling
of history in order to challenge the audience's perceptions of Kleist, German
Romanticism and the myth of the male genius. In keeping with this ideological
approach, the film's depiction of Kleist is not that of the romantic dreamer,
the sensitive soul or even the vulnerable adult beset by crippling neuroses,
but a cold, aloof, ineffectual figure; a man-child who doesn't so much die as
an attempt to express some fatalistic sense of devotion, but instead, selfishly
kills Vogel and then himself out of a state of manic depression. In presenting the
story in such a way, Hausner creates an intentional indictment of Kleist and a
sardonic dismissal of romanticism in general.
