La Prisonnière

La Prisonnière [Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1968]:

Redolent of the kinetic art that plays such a large role in the film and the lives of its characters. In theme, it's like the missing link between Buñuel's Belle de jour (1967) and Tsukamoto's A Snake of June (2002): as in another film about repressed female desire finding expression through sadomasochist fantasy; albeit, once again from a "male gaze" perspective. Either this or it's Clouzot's quietly unsettling take on the themes of Beauty and the Beast, where a woman falls under the spell of a monster and attempts to change him. The psychedelic climax is extraordinary cinema.

In many ways, this final work is an example of Clouzot reusing the plot points and aesthetic experimentation that he'd planned to use in his unfinished film, L'Enfer (begun in 1964 but abandoned after Clouzot suffered a heart attack three weeks into the shoot.) Élisabeth Wiener is excellent in the lead role here, backed by great support from the small ensemble, which includes Bernard Fresson, Dany Carrel and Laurent Terzieff. 

Every element of the film is loaded with symbolism and significance. The apartment with the shutters down, suggesting the closed-off repression of the suburban couple soon to have their lives disrupted; the emphasis on kinetic art, which, like the film, are effectively aesthetic objects that transform reality; the motif of mirrors and refracted windows that distort the perspective of the audience to match the distorted perspective and warped outlook of the central characters; the commentary on mass produced art and the commodification of human expression; the themes of voyeurism and objectification, both in art and desire; to say nothing of the premonitions of death and transfiguration, which are hinted throughout.

Beverly Hills Cop III

Beverly Hills Cop III [John Landis, 1994]:

In the same way that Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) was unmistakably "a film by Tony Scott," Beverly Hills Cop III is unmistakably "a film by John Landis." Cars smashing into each other, Motown music numbers, vaudeville-level skits, directors’ cameos and a flat, presentational filming style, which resembles early Hollywood slapstick, are characteristics here. The plot is thin, but if anything lets the film down it's Murphy. He's the weak link here, delivering a performance that’s less the detective Axel Foley we know and love from Beverly Hills Cop and more a bored version of himself. Murphy told Landis he wanted to play the role as more sensible and subdued, as if the character had mellowed with age, but this translates into a performance that's mostly on auto-pilot.

Nonetheless, I don’t think this is as bad as most people consider it. It’s certainly not the worst film Landis directed during this period, and despite his shortcomings as a person, he nevertheless remains a talented action director who shoots gunfights like he’s directing a 1930s western (a compliment.) A filmmaker like Joe Dante or Tim Burton probably would’ve done more with the Disneyland-like setting, using it to satirize the generic escapism and rollercoaster-ride nature of franchise cinema, but for Landis it’s just an opportunity for spectacle and broad visual humor. Bronson Pinchot returns briefly as Serge (the gallery manager from the first film) and practically steals the show.

Beverly Hills Cop II

Beverly Hills Cop II [Tony Scott, 1987]:

From the first scene, the tonal and aesthetic contrast between this film and its 1984 predecessor, is striking. The first Beverly Hills cop began with an upbeat pop song, which established a knockabout tone of mainstream entertainment, while also providing an ironic counterpoint to the film's opening montage of Detroit and its areas of economic adversity. From here, director Martin Brest launched into an introductory sequence that defined the film's effortless combination of action and character-comedy. It was a sequence that told us everything we needed to know about the central character, Eddie Murphy's fast-talking detective Axel Foley, while in turn setting up the clash of cultures between this blue collar professional and the world of greed, affluence and criminality that the titular location comes to represent.

Rather than begin with a similar scene of comic action, this sequel, directed by the unsung Tony Scott, begins with a percussive soundtrack over color-tinted images of downtown Beverly Hills, before launching unexpectedly into a violent jewelry robbery. The imagery, which was unfussy and presentational in Brest's film, is now heavily backlit, with deep shadows and a careful approach to composition. The cuts are short but match the rhythm of the music. The art direction and costume design stress style, glamour and decadence over functionality. It's a sequence of remarkable filmmaking ingenuity and proof of Scott's total command of the filmmaking elements. It's just unfortunate that such intelligent stylizations are often wasted here on a weak and derivative script.

The problems with Beverly Hills Cop II are manifest. On one side we have Scott directing a high-art heist movie that recalls the works of the “cinema du look” [where he applies the same incredible audio-visual aesthetics of his earlier film, The Hunger (1983), to a proper action movie], while on the opposite side we have a derivative sequel to Beverly Hills Cop almost intruding on this other, more interesting narrative. The script for the latter seems barely there and exists as a loose template for Murphy to improvise around. The same scenes and scenarios from the first film reoccur, giving this film an over-familiar quality. But everything about this new installment has been beefed-up and dumbed-down, resulting in a Beverly Hills Cop film that tries to play to the same audiences as Commando (1985) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985). A not uneasy mix of elements.

Beverly Hills Cop

Beverly Hills Cop [Martin Brest, 1984]:

While it's disguised as an action-comedy (and a very good one), it wouldn't be unreasonable to say Beverly Hills Cop is more accurately a culture clash study on class relations, where blue-collar cop Axel Foley navigates the false fantasia of Beverly Hills and comes out on top. Every setting and scenario invites the audience to jeer and sneer at a community that hides corruption and inequality behind an elite surface. It doesn’t go so far as to become satire, but it's not merely escapism.

Here, the film could be seen as a companion piece of sorts to that other Jerry Bruckheimer production of the early 1980s, American Gigolo (1980), in the sense that Axel Foley, like the protagonist Julian Kay from the Paul Schrader film, is a working-class character navigating a world that he inherently doesn't belong to. He's there to provide a service, playacting roles and scenarios in order to plausibly navigate certain situations. The fake surface of the city becomes a carnival mirror, further alienating the protagonist by confronting him with its perpetual elitism, class bigotry and big money criminality.

Beverly Hills Cop [Martin Brest, 1984]:

That many of the film’s interactions are with people in the service industry isn’t accidental. Reception staff, waiters, valets, maître d's, cops, exotic dancers, gallery assistants. These are the invisible people that make the fantasia of Beverly Hills possible. They exist there only in the sense that they provide a service. They work to belong.

We can delight at Murphy’s incredible performance - which is absolutely tailored to his unique, comic skillset - but the film offers more than just the surface delivery of its admittedly engaging elevator pitch. From the opening montage of Detroit’s areas of economic decline, contrasted with the later montage of Beverly Hills opulence, to breaking up the party at elite social clubs and a literal raid on a mansion, the film is pushing its (playful) attack on systems of inequality for the benefit of its largely working-class audience.

My Bloody Valentine

My Bloody Valentine [George Mihalka, 1981]:

The valentine’s Day theme may have been better suited to a high school setting, closer to a film like Prom Night (1980) or April Fool's Day (1986) for example, so placing this in the confines of a blue-collar mining community with a backstory about a cursed town steeped in tragedy is certainly a choice. The identity of the killer seems like an afterthought here (I'm not convinced the twist stands up to much scrutiny, though a re-watch might be in order) but as an early example of the slasher genre this does a lot of things well. The use of the mine provides great production value and authenticity, and there are some really terrifying murder sequences, which take full advantage of the killer's incongruous and imposing look.

Intersection

Intersection [Mark Rydell, 1994]:

A largely forgotten remake of Les Choses de la vie (1970) by Claude Sautet (forgotten, despite featuring a stellar cast of then superstars: Richard Gere, Sharon Stone, Lolita Davidovich and Martin Landau specifically), Intersection seemed to be released at a curious intersection in 90s cinema. Its tone and aesthetics are very much in step with the cycle of post-Jagged Edge (1985), post-Fatal Attraction (1987) thrillers from the early 1990s, such as Shattered (1991), Dead Again (1991), Basic Instinct (1992), Final Analysis (1992) and others - films that wove themes of crisis and infidelity around mostly affluent characters, and used them to indulge in thrillers that often weren't very thrilling, but rather oddly dreamlike - however, it was released in competition with films like Pulp Fiction (1994) and Clerks (1994). The culture was moving on from this kind of adult contemporary cinema and embraced the comparatively more vibrant and profane works of a new generation, and as such Intersection received almost entirely negative reviews and sank like a stone into the dark waters of cultural oblivion. 

The general criticisms of the film from the time seem fair; Gere's character isn't sympathetic and his life crisis at the center of the drama comes from a place of entitlement and egotism. It's difficult to follow this character on an existential journey when nothing beyond the vagaries of life and death are ever really at stake. That said, I found the strange scene towards the end of the film, in which the protagonist meets what could be, figuratively or even literally, himself as an old man (complete with a granddaughter modelled on his latest mistress) to be so fascinating and quietly surreal in nature that it brought together the various themes of the film and elevated the third act.

Leatherface

Leatherface [Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, 2017]:

While well acted (particularly by veterans Stephen Dorff and Lili Taylor in key supporting roles) and with strong production values throughout, no one who ever watched a prior version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" series imagined THIS as a potential backstory for the title character. Directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, best known for the gory French horror films Inside (2007) and Livid (2011), have a lot of fun furnishing this origin story for the most American of horror movies with lashings of Gallic grotesqueness, but they fail to provide psychological insights or consistent character development.