El
patrullero (Highway Patrolman) [Alex Cox, 1991]:
Watched: Mar 17, 2019
If one filmmaker dominated 2019 for me, it was Alex
Cox. Earlier in the year I read his 2008 memoir, "X-Films: True
Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker", and greatly enjoyed its informative
and always self-deprecating approach. I purchased two more of Cox's excursions
into the literary world, his 2017 book "I am (Not) a Number: Decoding the
Prisoner" and 2009's "10,000 Ways to Die: A Director's Take on the
Spaghetti Western", and found both to be of a similar value. Inspired by the
books I was also watching and re-watching Cox's films. Of those that were new
to me, his films The Winner (1996), Revengers Tragedy (2002), Searchers 2.0
(2007) and Bill the Galactic Hero (2014) are either excellent or better than
their reputations suggest, however one film stood out as a definite highlight.
Filmed in Mexico following Cox's departure from Hollywood, El patrullero – or Highway Patrolman as it's commonly
known – ties with Walker (1987) as the absolute pinnacle of the filmmaker's
career. Scripted by Lorenzo O'Brien, El patrullero takes the mythos of the
American western – where the lone lawman attempts to remain moral and just as
he fights corruption and criminality in a lawless border town – and contrasts
it against the conventions of the road movie. The tone is anarchic, carefully mixing
between scenes of broad comedy, character development and gritty violence, while
the filmmaking is ambitious and creative. This was the period when Cox was
shooting his films "plano secuencia", meaning every scene is filmed
in a single, carefully choreographed take. The result is a complete masterpiece
of narrative, theme and aesthetics, and one of the absolute great films of the
1990s.
Phantom Lady [Robert Siodmak, 1944]:
Watched: Mar 24, 2019
The title hints at something supernatural, putting us
in mind of certain analogous Val Lewton produced horror films, such as The
Leopard Man, or The Seventh Victim (both 1943), but this isn't the case.
Instead, Phantom Lady could be described as a "proto-giallo"; a film
noir that predicts many of the conventions and practicalities that would go on
to define that particular sub-genre of Italian murder mysteries so popular
during the 1960s and 1970s. While it doesn't have the black-gloved serial
killer or the stylised death scenes, there is nonetheless something about this
story of a bystander taking on the role of amateur-sleuth to investigate a
grisly murder, as well as the subsequent confession of the killer, whose grip
on sanity has unraveled into tortured exposition, that recalls the
practicalities of later films by directors like Mario Bava, Dario Argento and
others. Films like The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Deep Red (1975)
specifically, which capture something of a similar atmosphere, as well as 'cat and mouse' scenes
of the "hunter" becoming the hunted. While not as powerful in its
emotional drama or as inventive in its storytelling as his later film, The
Killers (1946), the imagery of director Robert Siodmak is at its peak here, as
the film blends the mystery and procedural elements with a thrilling descent
into a third-act psychodrama.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest [Gore Verbinski, 2006]:
Watched: Mar 26, 2019
Dispensing with plot to an even greater degree than the
original film, the likable but otherwise thinly-sketched Pirates of
the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), director Gore Verbinski's first
sequel to the long-running franchise builds on its greatest strength (i.e. Johnny
Depp as the irrepressible Captain Jack Sparrow) and runs with it, creating a
narrative that exists for no other reason than to place its central characters
into situations that allow for much comic misunderstanding, stunts and orchestrated
suspense. The result, a non-stop cavalcade of action and comedy, feels less
like a Hollywood blockbuster than something possessed by the cinematic spirits
of Jackie Chan, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton. It's a film that places the
emphasis on spectacle; upping the ante on what the first film was able to
achieve and creating a series of visuals and set-pieces that are thrilling,
original and brimming with imagination. For me, "Dead Man's Chest" is
the absolute pinnacle of the first three "Pirates" films, and is a
work that marks the beginning of Verbinski's run as
a genuine "termite artist"; a filmmaker working within the mainstream
that is nonetheless able to invest his films with ideas, images and scenarios
that are subversive, eccentric, or defiantly anti-mainstream. In its scope,
ambition and pure force of vision, it's a definite precursor to Verbinski's subsequent fantastic oddities, The Lone
Ranger (2013) and A Cure for Wellness (2016).
Dumbo [Tim Burton, 2019]:
Watched: Apr 08, 2019
The experience of the film for me was like the world
in miniature; the big-top reverie of the American experience distilled to its key
essentials. The real pleasure of the film was not limited to the story and its
presentation, but more redolent in what the film was able to suggest between
the lines of blockbuster expectation. In its tone and intentions, Dumbo is
capitalism and candy floss. It's the triumph of the broken, the different, the
"other", struggling against uncertain odds. It's maudlin
sentimentality. It's love, both between the child and its mother, but also at
first sight. It's the struggle of the independent cinema against the unstoppable
Disney machine. It's escapism. It's a circus train moving across the landscape
in-time to the clamour of musical instruments. It's prejudice and persecution,
pre-packaged in such a way that its message will be understood by young
children, but not lost on the parents and adults also in attendance. It's a
film about understanding. So many of the current crop of
"live-action" Disney remakes are films made without style or personal
aesthetic. They exist first and foremost as product; the imagery is there to
illustrate the story and little else. Dumbo is not only defiantly beautiful as
a piece of cinema, its alive with themes and ideas. While the anti-corporate,
anti-big business subtext might seem disingenuous given that the film is a
product of the Disney™ brand, it's another example of Burton as the
"termite artist", biting the hand that feeds him. The small circus
becomes a metaphor not just for the family (extended, as in the 'community')
but the independent cinema. "Dreamland" as an obvious Disneyland
surrogate, represents the mainstream, with its profit driven incentives,
callous treatment of artists and emphasis on merchandising. The film even ends
with an image of the cinema as a symbol of the great spectacles to come.
Cloud Atlas [Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski
& Tom Tykwer, 2012]:
Watched: Apr 14, 2019
The earnest nature of its message and the eccentricity
of its delivery invite ridicule. After all, this is a film that casts
recognisable superstars and has them speak in a variety of contrived, even
fictional dialects, buries them under heavy prosthetic effects, and even at
times indulges in the more controversial practices of gender and race-bending. To
see Halle Berry portraying a white character, Hugo Weaving imitating a woman
and Jim Sturgess playing Chinese isn't perfect, but it's practical, and plays
into one of the more important components of the film; specifically the idea of
a small group of "souls" inhabiting different variations of the same
characters throughout history. Covering six different timelines and a variety
of locations, from the Chatham Islands in 1849 to a post-apocalyptic future world
in the year 2321, Cloud Atlas is by far the most ambitious Hollywood film of the
past decade. Here, its three directors' cross countries and continents, cross
boundaries of style and genre, and even cross the lines of convention and
common-sense, delivering a film that for all its fantasy and imagination is
focused on a human story of love and perseverance. Like Sense8 (2015-2018), the
mostly brilliant TV series that Tkwer and Wachowskis would go on to helm a few
years later, Cloud Atlas is a story about connections. Individual narratives
find parallel lines that tangle and enfold, while music, words, images and
characters echo across time and space. At close to three hours in duration there
are many that would argue the film is too slight and simplistic in its message
to justify the level of indulgence, but I found it genuinely moving. That the
message can be regarded as "prejudice is bad and we should live as better
people" was not a flaw for me. I found it beautiful, moving and admirably
humanist in intentions.
