The Year in Film 2019 - Part Six

The Possessed [Luigi Bazzoni & Franco Rossellini, 1965]:

Watched: Aug 06, 2019

This ticked a lot of boxes for me. I love films and stories about characters arriving at a strange, ghostly location, and finding themselves enveloped in the mysteries and conspiracies that exist beneath the polite veneer of a society. Here, the location itself becomes a character; the coastal village and its atmosphere of off-season emptiness, the wintery desolation of places and the sense of somewhere that's fallen into ruin and disrepair. Every architectural space, every backdrop, adds to the haunted, forgotten quality of the film and its central mystery. Some critics have cited The Possessed as a giallo, or even a proto-giallo, featuring as it does a central character plunged into an investigative mystery surrounding a disappearance and death. I'm not convinced by the comparison, as The Possessed seems more interested in the aftermath of a crime, in the unspoken air of tragedy and shame that follows it, than in the crime itself. This is a distant, subtle film, that feels closer to Antonioni than it does to Argento, with the wintery landscapes and modernist shot compositions adding to the feelings of desolation and melancholy that permeate the narrative, and recalling with it the experience of a film like Il Grido (1957) or Red Desert (1964). Co-writer and director Luigi Bazzoni would go on to direct the actual giallo The Fifth Chord (1971) as well as the strange and mysterious Footprints on the Moon (1976). Those later films were photographed by his cousin, the now legendary Vittorio Storaro, in vivid, saturated colours and with a focus on dense urban environments. Conversely, The Possessed, photographed by Leonida Barboni in a high-contrast black and white, lacks the more ornate stylization of those later films, however, it's no less masterful and intuitive in its direction, design and cinematography, or in the development of its lingering mystery.

Cops Vs. Thugs [Kinji Fukasaku, 1975]:

Watched: Aug 06, 2019

Despite the implications of its title, the film sets out to blur the moral and ethical lines between its characters to such an extent that no clear delineation exists between the protagonists or antagonists. "Good guys" and "bad guys" are absent here; there's just survival, with both sides doing whatever it takes to persevere. Much more than a postscript to director Kinji Fukasaku and screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara's earlier series of films under the title "Battles Without Honor and Humanity", Cops Vs. Thugs is a brilliant and engaging work in its own right. Shot in the same loose, docudrama style as the analogous "Battles..." series, Cops Vs. Thugs has a gritty urgency to its scenes of action and drama that seems deferential to the influence of The French Connection (1971) by William Friedkin. Filming on mostly real locations with handheld cameras, presenting statistics and information on screen as if presenting genuine facts, and generally placing the film's fictional narrative within a wider framework of actual post-war Japanese history, Fukasaku and his collaborators elevate what could've been a fairly conventional or even generic Yakuza movie, into a bold, morally complex study on loyalty and corruption.

Symptoms [José Ramón Larraz, 1974]:

Watched: Aug 10, 2019

Like Vampyres (1974) and The Coming of Sin (1978), Symptoms is another film by José Larraz about the symbiotic, possibly psycho-sexual relationship between two women, where the motivating factors of jealousy and desire lead to bloodshed. There are obvious parallels to Roman Polanski's more widely known and influential psychological drama Repulsion (1966), with the same emphasis on a vulnerable young woman suffering an emotional crisis after she finds herself isolated against an overwhelming world, but Larraz, less ashamed of the lurid, exploitation elements of the sub-genre, does something more interesting with the material. While Polanski used the striking looks and naive presence of Catherine Deneuve to engender a sense of vulnerability – reinforcing the character as both beautiful and innocence and as such a natural victim to the predatory whims of the patriarchy – Larraz casts Angela Pleasence, a no less beautiful actor, but one with a more unusual or otherworldly look. While equally terrorized by forces both within and without her control, Pleasence doesn't play into preconceptions about female vulnerability; she isn't used as a prop or model, the way Deneuve is. Polanski set his film in swinging London, where "Jack the lad" predators stalk the concrete jungle, and every automated sound, from construction work, to passing traffic, to voices in overheard conversation, present a potential threat. By contrast, Larraz's sets his film in the lush and bucolic English countryside. The setting gives the film a pastoral fairy tale-like quality, subverting the expectations of the genre and re-emphasizing the dislocation between the character and the natural world. In this regard, a closer point of comparison might be Robert Altman's obscure but brilliant psychological drama Images (1971), a film that is in every way superior to Polanski's more influential forebear. While the film suffers from the usual languors and lapses in logical clarity that mar Larraz's best work, Symptoms nonetheless remains an interesting and thought-provoking film, defined and elevated both by its beautiful cinematography and by the incredible performance of Pleasence in the lead.

Frankenstein [Bernard Rose, 2015]:

Watched: Aug 18, 2019

The career of Bernard Rose is an eclectic one. From his beginnings as a director of music videos in the 1980s, he produced such bold and memorable clips as the Martin Scorsese influenced "Red Red Wine" by UB40, the impassioned and sensitive LGBT+ related "Small Town Boy" by Bronski Beat, and the infamous "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. His film career has been similarly varied and provocative, moving from films about classical composers – Ludwig van Beethoven in Immortal Beloved (1994), Niccolò Paganini in The Devil's Violin (2013) – to a film about the noted Welsh drug smuggler Howard Marks – Mr. Nice (2010). He's also written and directed several films based on the works of Leo Tolstoy – among them the big budget Anna Karenina (1997) and the micro-budgeted Ivans Xtc (2000). However, it's his work in the horror genre that Rose his best known for. In each decade of his career, Rose has produced one horror film that really stands out among the competition. From cult classics, like Paperhouse (1988) and Candyman (1992), to the hugely underrated political meta-horror Snuff-Movie (2005), Rose has worked to redefine the conventions of what horror cinema is capable of. Only the dreadful found-footage horror Sx_Tape (2013) strikes a wrong note. Bouncing back from that particular film, Rose has created perhaps his most thought-provoking and singular work with this updating of author Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus." Some attempts to place the story in modern setting strike a false note and strain credibility. Nonetheless, this is an oddly engaging adaptation of Shelley's text, which weaves the familiar themes of motherhood, abandonment and doctors playing God, but adds additional commentary on the plight of those marginalized from mainstream society. One sequence, occurring as a dream, is so haunting, and redolent of the poetic and elemental influence of the filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, that it has remained etched in memory.

A Pistol for Ringo [Duccio Tessari, 1965]:

Watched: Sep 05, 2019

I must hold Alex Cox responsible for this one. It was through reading Cox's exhaustive "10,000 Ways to Die: A Director's Take on the Spaghetti Western" (2009) that my interest in the film was piqued. Cox's writing style is direct and conversational, knowledgeable without being condescending and intelligent without falling into pretense. Discussing the film in question he was able to skillfully establish the cultural and aesthetic value of the work, as well as its storytelling capabilities, making the experience of the film seem both accessible and exciting. Directed by Duccio Tessari, a screenwriter who previously contributed to the writing of Sergio Leone's middling but influential first western, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), A Pistol for Ringo is devoid of many of the more iconic conventions that would become prevalent in the Italian westerns, post-1966. The "Leone-isms", as defined by later masterworks like For a Few Dollars More (1965) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) – which established the extreme close-ups on eyes and hands, the operatic soundtracks, the extreme widescreen compositions and the prolonged build-up to a brief stand-off – are absent here, with the film instead showing a more pronounced influence from later, post-studio American westerns like Warlock (1959) by Edward Dmytryk or Marlon Brando's One-Eyed Jacks (1961). Led by a charismatic turn by the actor Giuliano Gemma, A Pistol for Ringo isn't simply one of the best Italian westerns, it's one of the best westerns period! Beginning with a brutal bank robbery that establishes the various characters and their relationships through scenes of action presented as plot-development, the film eventually settles into a quietly dramatic siege picture that uses the confined nature of the setting and the dynamics between characters to generate some extraordinary intrigue and tension. As the robbers take hostages at a hacienda, the title character begins a game of deception, pitting both captors and captives against each other.

The Year in Film 2019 - Part Two

The Fifth Cord [Luigi Bazzoni, 1971]:

Watched: Feb 12, 2019

The Fifth Cord is best described as a 'giallo' in blue. Its colour scheme frequently coming back to the shade in question, which saturates the image, giving it a melancholy feeling. A kind of day-for-night emptiness that seems quintessentially matched to its procedural elements of urban alienation and police investigation; creating an impression of sadness and isolation that stands in contrast to the sun-kissed exoticism of other films from the same sub-genre, such as Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971), Don't Torture a Duckling (1972), The House with Laughing Windows (1976) or the later Tenebrae (1982). As a work of pure formalism, The Fifth Cord is a film concerned as much with the visual representation of lines and shapes, or blocks of colour and light streaming through vertical and horizontal blinds, as it is in the machinations of the murder mystery. Every location is interesting and commands the frame. Photographed by the legendary Vittorio Storaro, who brings to the film something of the same stylisation that he brought previously to Bernardo Bertolucci's great masterpiece The Conformist (1970), The Fifth Cord remains one of the most distinct and visually intelligent films in the sub-genre's history. Luigi Bazzoni is one of the real enigmas of Italian genre cinema. At his peak he directed only five feature-length films, three mysteries and two westerns, and then, following a break of almost twenty years, returned to make a series of documentaries. I saw his later film, Footprints on the Moon (1975), around the same time I started this blog and it was one of the films I most wanted to write about. Like the film in question it's a bizarre mystery, elevated by incredibly ornate art nouveau interiors and Storaro's photography, which, as a subversion of its genre, feels closer to Last Year at Marienbad (1961) than A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971).

Woman on the Run [Norman Foster, 1950]:

Watched: Feb 17, 2019

The actuality of late-1940s San Francisco turns this already compelling noir into a time capsule of real locations, brimming with energy and atmosphere. As a protégé of Orson Welles, director Norman Foster builds on the standard thriller template and elevates it through "Wellsian" affectations and idiosyncrasies, including formalist stylisations, canted angles and the kind of shot compositions that recall The Lady from Shanghai (1947). However, the filmmaker isn't just paying homage here; the characters are compelling, while the storytelling is relaxed but suspenseful. In the lead role, Ann Sheridan is one of the great protagonists in the history of the noir subgenre. She's resilient, driven and remains sympathetic without having to play aggressively on the standard weak-willed characteristics of "the damsel" as often presented by the non-femme fatale characters in these kinds of films. Even when the narrative requires her to be placed in moments of peril, she still maintains an air of strength and commitment. The final act, set both above and below the boardwalk and between the rides and attractions of an end of pier funfair, demonstrates levels of suspense and storytelling engagement that place the film quite comfortably alongside the analogous thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock, such as Notorious (1946) and Strangers on a Train (1951).

The Last Movie [Dennis Hopper, 1971]:

Watched: Feb 19, 2019

Comparisons to Orson Welles's long gestating and only recently completed "final" feature, The Other Side of the Wind (2018), seem fair; Hopper's once obscure but newly resurfaced follow-up to Easy Rider (1968) is a similar relic to the counterculture, and to that brief period in American cinema, liberated by the influences of Europe and Japan, where anything seemed possible. As a complete work, The Last Movie is at points enthralling, disaffecting and completely disorienting, with moments of visual transcendence. The image of a native film crew re-enacting a shoot with wooden cameras is especially brilliant, as Hopper and his collaborators find a perfect figurative shorthand to the immaterial nature of cinema, its inaccessibility as a genuine folk art, and how the practicalities of making a film, when reduced to this kind of childlike game of performative playacting, are reclaimed and demystified. While the film can prove difficult and even distancing, it feels like an important work that's worth enduring in order to grapple with some of the themes and ideas that Hopper and his co-writer Stuart Stern are presenting. Step back from the film's chaotic mosaic of conflicting plotlines, alienation techniques and drug-induced lunacy, and The Last Movie reveals a sensitive and elegiac commentary on the end of American idealism, "the west" and the western, and the disintegration of the Hollywood machine. It's a frustrating and often languorous experience, but it nonetheless remains a singular and impassioned piece of work that is unlike anything produced today.

Climax [Gaspar Noé, 2018]:

Watched: Feb 23, 2019

The first hour of Climax hints at a genuine masterpiece: something powerful, visceral, original and shocking; "pure cinema" with an emphasis on form, movement and rhythm. To experience some of the film's strongest sequences is to experience one of the most confident and compelling uses of sound and image to convey an atmosphere of chemically enhanced boredom giving way to jubilation, abandon, and subsequently chaos. It falls apart somewhat in the final third, refusing to progress to a deeper level, never quite developing into a narrative that exists beyond the drug trip disorientation theme. That said, I still liked Climax more than any other work I've seen by Gaspar Noé; a filmmaker I usually despise. The film probably had more potential to do something extraordinary, something that reached beyond the experiments with form, or the attempts to shock or provoke, to find a genuine purpose or philosophy that becomes emotionally as well as psychologically transcendent, but it's still a film that contains moments of brilliance, and one that I'm keen to return to. Even if his sincerity and integrity as an artist can be called into question, Noé has always been a skilled technician, and Climax finds the filmmaker working at the peak of his abilities.

Beauty and the Beast [Jean Cocteau, 1946]:

Watched: Feb 24, 2019

It was the film critic Mark Cousins, and the 'tweet' in which he argued that the then-recently released Glass (2019) was to M. Night Shyamalan what The Testament of Orpheus (1960) was to Jean Cocteau, that reignited the spark of interest I had in the work of the artist in question. Having subsequently re-watched both Orphée (1950) and its abovementioned companion piece, I turned my attention to a film that I've read about and seen clips from since the very beginning of my developing interest in film but had otherwise never fully seen. Long since considered to be a classic of French cinema and a key work of fantasy cinema in general, Cocteau's adaptation of the 1757 story by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont is a marvel of atmosphere and imagination. Before the advent of computer-generated imagery, the early cinema, from Georges Méliès to Robert Wiene, was akin to a magic act, where special effects were created 'in-camera' using a variety of theatrical techniques. Cocteau maintains the traditions of those early pioneers by creating fantastical, otherworldly images through simple techniques, such a slow-motion, mirrored images, double-exposures, miniatures and forced-perspectives, and even reverse-motion, all creating the impression of a twilight world that seems to exist outside of our own. The thematic interpretations that have carried from Leprince de Beaumont's text through to other adaptations made since are still apparent, but it's arguable that Cocteau, who was a homosexual, was using the relationship in his film to comment on the marginalisation and debasement of homosexuals in post-war society, as men were ostracized and turned into "beasts" by the prejudices of others, simply because of their romantic desires. Either way, the film is defined by Cocteau's usual interest in acts of faith, poetic gestures, and the existence of doorways, windows and magic mirrors leading between worlds.