Ikiru (Kurosawa, 1952)
Ikiru is the most well known of Kurosawa films that takes place in present day. The main character is a government worker who's wasting his life quietly playing the beaurocracy to protect his own place in it. He finds out he has stomach cancer (Which in the 1950s was a death sentence), and he goes out to try learn how to start experiencing his life before he dies.
In the film, government beaurocracy is presented cynically and satirically. There's a neighborhood of people who want to fill in a local cesspool and build a playground over it. (This might be the inspiration for the show Parks and Recreation). Nobody wants to handle it. No matter what government office they go to, the clark there says it's the business of some other department. Nobody is interested in accomplishing anything in their job or making anyone's life better. Everybody knows the trick: If you do nothing, you will stay where you are. It's not until the main character knows he's dying that he realizes this is a waste of time.
In the first half of the film, he tries to connect with his family, and he tries to learn how to party like the young people. He's not feeling any of it, and characters while charmed by him at first get freaked out when he tries to cling to them. Finally he goes back to work, making the decision that instead of just wasting his time, he's going to use his position to try to get something done. The project he chooses is to build the playground. He pulls all the right strings, goes against his bosses, perseveres and forces people to summon the will to pull the project through. In the last hour of the film, he's dead, and his coworkers are musing on his behavior in the last few months.
The movie presents some very good satire about the way we live our lives, bordering on the preachy now and then. The first half of the film can be a little long winded. The second half of the film is long, but it needs to be in order to pace the man's coworkers' gradual realization of how much they posthumusly admire him. I think it can be a little philosophically one sided. Playing the game to protect your career and living your life to it's fullest potential aren't always mutually exclusive in the real world.
Rating: *** 1/2 / 5
Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950)
Rashomon is one of the earliest films to present a narrative in terms of different characters' different perspectives about an event, rather than just showing the event itself. The facts of the event are clear. A bandit rapes a woman and kills her husband. The bandit, the wife, and the husband (Through a psychic medium) all present their version of the story. Each of them tells a completely different story about the rape and murder, and each tells a story which flatters himself or herself.
Up to the point of the rape, all the stories are the same. That's when they diverge. The bandit tells a story about an honorable fight for the heart of his wife. The wife tells a story about trying to kill herself in shame, until the husband kills himself out of his shame. The dead husband tells a misogynist story about his shamed wife begging the bandit to kill him, then killing himself to save his honor. After the three stories come out, we find out the man who found the body witnessed the whole thing, and he tells a story where all three come off terribly.
The film takes place in 16th century Japan, in a time of extreme poverty where death and murder are commonplace. The main narrative takes place with three men stuck in a rain storm, discussing the events of the rape and murder. One character is a priest, who wants to see the good in mankind, and can't believe a crime like this could happen. He's trying to hold onto his faith in humanity even in such a horrible time. Another character is a misanthropist who sees the human race as animals who will cut each others' throats to survive, and isn't surprised at all by the crime. The third, the witness, is trying to process it all and understand how people could behave this way. The film analyzes the question of whether it's possible to keep your faith in humanity, even knowing the horrible things humans can do.
Rating: ***** / 5
74/101
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
#93: Last Year In Marienbad
Last Year In Marienbad (Resnais, 1961)
Alan Resnais is one of the most notable directors of the French New Wave movement, and one of the best to bring unconventional storytelling techniques and ambiguity of meaning to film. Marienbad takes place in a gothically decorated luxury hotel, with lots of smooth rectangular surfaces and neo-classical marble statues scattered around. A man and a woman meet, and the man claims they met at the same place a year ago, fell in love and agreed to run off together the following year. She can't remember what happened, and as he explores his memory, he's not as certain about his memory as he was either.
There are lots of cuts back to the meeting of the past year, but presented only as the characters recall them, and in stream of consciousness fashion. For instance, there was an incident where the two made love. When she starts to remember it she suddenly acts shocked and drops her glass. He remembers it being a consensual encounter, then starts to remember but refuses the possibility that he forced himself on her. Also, he remembers it as being warm and summerlike outside, but the other guests at the hotel say that he wasn't even there last year, and all the fountains were frozen over at the time. What really happened between these two, or did it even happen at all? The movie explores the uncertainty and ambiguity of memory, which is really more realistic and interesting than the tendency in most movies for people to remember events exactly and accurately to the tiniest detail.
It all works and comes off beautifully because of the presentation style and the simultaneous beauty and emptiness of the setting. I'd recommend it to anybody who really likes French films with unconventional storytelling.
Rating: **** / 5
72/101
Next: Ikiru, Rashomon, The Conformist
New films:
Animal Kingdom: 0/10
A tedious movie filled with predictable mob movie cliches. None of the characters are interesting, and nothing happens in the movie that's interesting. The title 'Animal Kingdom' refers to their attempt at predator/prey relationships to use as symbolism to explain how the world works. It doesn't work. Nothing in the film works. The one thing in the film I didn't hate was a good performance by the main character's grandmother. The rest of the film is filled with boring, predictable garbage and pointless killings just for killing's sake.
I want you to understand I am saying this without any slight inflection of a 'Comic book guy' voice. I seriously mean it. "Worst…movie…ever!"
Alan Resnais is one of the most notable directors of the French New Wave movement, and one of the best to bring unconventional storytelling techniques and ambiguity of meaning to film. Marienbad takes place in a gothically decorated luxury hotel, with lots of smooth rectangular surfaces and neo-classical marble statues scattered around. A man and a woman meet, and the man claims they met at the same place a year ago, fell in love and agreed to run off together the following year. She can't remember what happened, and as he explores his memory, he's not as certain about his memory as he was either.
There are lots of cuts back to the meeting of the past year, but presented only as the characters recall them, and in stream of consciousness fashion. For instance, there was an incident where the two made love. When she starts to remember it she suddenly acts shocked and drops her glass. He remembers it being a consensual encounter, then starts to remember but refuses the possibility that he forced himself on her. Also, he remembers it as being warm and summerlike outside, but the other guests at the hotel say that he wasn't even there last year, and all the fountains were frozen over at the time. What really happened between these two, or did it even happen at all? The movie explores the uncertainty and ambiguity of memory, which is really more realistic and interesting than the tendency in most movies for people to remember events exactly and accurately to the tiniest detail.
It all works and comes off beautifully because of the presentation style and the simultaneous beauty and emptiness of the setting. I'd recommend it to anybody who really likes French films with unconventional storytelling.
Rating: **** / 5
72/101
Next: Ikiru, Rashomon, The Conformist
New films:
Animal Kingdom: 0/10
A tedious movie filled with predictable mob movie cliches. None of the characters are interesting, and nothing happens in the movie that's interesting. The title 'Animal Kingdom' refers to their attempt at predator/prey relationships to use as symbolism to explain how the world works. It doesn't work. Nothing in the film works. The one thing in the film I didn't hate was a good performance by the main character's grandmother. The rest of the film is filled with boring, predictable garbage and pointless killings just for killing's sake.
I want you to understand I am saying this without any slight inflection of a 'Comic book guy' voice. I seriously mean it. "Worst…movie…ever!"
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
#41: The 400 Blows
The 400 Blows (Traffaut, 1959)
The 400 Blows is a very realistic, semiautobiographical film about a child growing up with no stable, loving adult authority figures. His teachers see him as a problem and his parents see him as a burden. In the past he's found he gets in trouble equally whether he follows the rules or not, and nobody believes him when he tells the truth. So, the rules don't matter to him, and when he breaks them he lies his ass off to avoid getting into trouble.
The trouble is, he's an incompetent liar. He skips school one day to go to an amusement park. The next day he comes in and says he missed school because his mother was dead. Another time he cheats on a school assignment by copying the writing of Balzac. Every lie he tells is doomed to failure, and every time he's caught in a lie his parents and teachers bite back worse and worse.
All the boy's actions throughout the film are misguided, but it's also clear his actions follow naturally from the logic of a ten year old who's been inconsistently parented and withheld support, common sense teaching and affection. All of the adults in the film blame all his actions on problems with his character, and punish him with draconian measures that alienate him further.
The film offers sharp criticism of the attitude of society toward troubled children as well as a strong psychological character study on a marginalized child.
Rating: **** / 5
71/101
Next: Last Year In Marienbad, Ikiru, Rashomon
The 400 Blows is a very realistic, semiautobiographical film about a child growing up with no stable, loving adult authority figures. His teachers see him as a problem and his parents see him as a burden. In the past he's found he gets in trouble equally whether he follows the rules or not, and nobody believes him when he tells the truth. So, the rules don't matter to him, and when he breaks them he lies his ass off to avoid getting into trouble.
The trouble is, he's an incompetent liar. He skips school one day to go to an amusement park. The next day he comes in and says he missed school because his mother was dead. Another time he cheats on a school assignment by copying the writing of Balzac. Every lie he tells is doomed to failure, and every time he's caught in a lie his parents and teachers bite back worse and worse.
All the boy's actions throughout the film are misguided, but it's also clear his actions follow naturally from the logic of a ten year old who's been inconsistently parented and withheld support, common sense teaching and affection. All of the adults in the film blame all his actions on problems with his character, and punish him with draconian measures that alienate him further.
The film offers sharp criticism of the attitude of society toward troubled children as well as a strong psychological character study on a marginalized child.
Rating: **** / 5
71/101
Next: Last Year In Marienbad, Ikiru, Rashomon
Sunday, August 15, 2010
#24: The Grand Illusion
The Grand Illusion (Renoir, 1939)
This is one I don't have a lot to say about. It's a World War I anti-war movie about a bunch of French soldiers in a German POW camp. The film is filled with little victories, which are immediately canceled out and revealed as futile. They spend months digging a tunnel, only to get moved to a different prison a few days before it's finished. They try to tell the new prisoners it's there, but they don't speak the same language. They hear France captured a new German base, and they celebrate. A few days later it gets taken back. Neither side ends up really benefiting from the war. The film also shows the human toll the futile war takes along the way.
It's undoubtedly one of the most iconic anti-war movies. I find some of the characters annoying, and I find the setting a little to antiseptic to be a war movie. But, those are minor complaints.
Rating: *** 1/2 / 5
70/101
Next: The 400 Blows, Last Year In Marienbad
This is one I don't have a lot to say about. It's a World War I anti-war movie about a bunch of French soldiers in a German POW camp. The film is filled with little victories, which are immediately canceled out and revealed as futile. They spend months digging a tunnel, only to get moved to a different prison a few days before it's finished. They try to tell the new prisoners it's there, but they don't speak the same language. They hear France captured a new German base, and they celebrate. A few days later it gets taken back. Neither side ends up really benefiting from the war. The film also shows the human toll the futile war takes along the way.
It's undoubtedly one of the most iconic anti-war movies. I find some of the characters annoying, and I find the setting a little to antiseptic to be a war movie. But, those are minor complaints.
Rating: *** 1/2 / 5
70/101
Next: The 400 Blows, Last Year In Marienbad
Monday, August 9, 2010
#5: 8 1/2
8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963)
Fellini's most critically praised film is also, among the ones I've seen, his most dense. It's very dialog heavy, it's narrative is very layered, and it requires knowledge of other films at the time. It's also fairly self-referential and self-satirical. The lead character is a filmmaker who's working on a new film. He thinks it's his best, most ingenious work, and everybody around him is trying to drag his ideas down. Throughout the film we see skits from his movie. There's a lot of random confused symbolism, a lot of random scenes from his past, and random criticism of catholic shame, and none of the scenes seem to have any coherent theme between them. To top it off, he's building a big expensive launching pad for a spaceship, because the world is ending and people have to escape.
People around him are talking about him behind his back, criticisms are telling him what's wrong with his ideas, and he's trying not to listen. He's annoyed by them. Later, his wife shows up. There's a character playing his wife in the movie, and it's a very negative one sided portrayal of her. He tries to give a long winded analysis of the character, and his wife as well as other female characters tell him "He just doesn't know how to love". The weight of all the criticism he's been taking in, and now the effect the film is having on his personal life, start to make the film fall apart in his mind. He realizes, he wanted to put everything into the movie, and it ended up having nothing.
There are a lot of little nuances and jokes that could be applied to other Fellini films and other personal struggles he's had making films. The film (Unlike some other films about filmmaking, such as Contempt) has a compelling and interesting narrative, and some very entertaining scenes. But it also serves as an analysis of the culture of art films and a satirical self-portrait of Fellini's film making process. It's not a beginner art film, but it's a very rewarding one for those familiar with Fellini's body of work.
Rating: ***** / 5
69/101
New films:
Get Low: 6/10
Get Low is a film about a man who has lived alone in a secluded cabin for forty years and now wants to throw a funeral party for himself. He tells everyone to come and tell stories about him. But really, everybody only knows him through third hand gossip. What he wants to tell a story of something he did forty years ago that he's been punishing himself for. Robert Duvall plays the lead, Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray are in it. The acting is great, and the actors will probably get some oscar nominations they deserve. The problem with the film is the script. It tries too hard to make him loveably quirky, when I would have appreciated a more balanced perspective a bit more. The film will probably get a best picture nomination it doesn't deserve.
Fellini's most critically praised film is also, among the ones I've seen, his most dense. It's very dialog heavy, it's narrative is very layered, and it requires knowledge of other films at the time. It's also fairly self-referential and self-satirical. The lead character is a filmmaker who's working on a new film. He thinks it's his best, most ingenious work, and everybody around him is trying to drag his ideas down. Throughout the film we see skits from his movie. There's a lot of random confused symbolism, a lot of random scenes from his past, and random criticism of catholic shame, and none of the scenes seem to have any coherent theme between them. To top it off, he's building a big expensive launching pad for a spaceship, because the world is ending and people have to escape.
People around him are talking about him behind his back, criticisms are telling him what's wrong with his ideas, and he's trying not to listen. He's annoyed by them. Later, his wife shows up. There's a character playing his wife in the movie, and it's a very negative one sided portrayal of her. He tries to give a long winded analysis of the character, and his wife as well as other female characters tell him "He just doesn't know how to love". The weight of all the criticism he's been taking in, and now the effect the film is having on his personal life, start to make the film fall apart in his mind. He realizes, he wanted to put everything into the movie, and it ended up having nothing.
There are a lot of little nuances and jokes that could be applied to other Fellini films and other personal struggles he's had making films. The film (Unlike some other films about filmmaking, such as Contempt) has a compelling and interesting narrative, and some very entertaining scenes. But it also serves as an analysis of the culture of art films and a satirical self-portrait of Fellini's film making process. It's not a beginner art film, but it's a very rewarding one for those familiar with Fellini's body of work.
Rating: ***** / 5
69/101
New films:
Get Low: 6/10
Get Low is a film about a man who has lived alone in a secluded cabin for forty years and now wants to throw a funeral party for himself. He tells everyone to come and tell stories about him. But really, everybody only knows him through third hand gossip. What he wants to tell a story of something he did forty years ago that he's been punishing himself for. Robert Duvall plays the lead, Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray are in it. The acting is great, and the actors will probably get some oscar nominations they deserve. The problem with the film is the script. It tries too hard to make him loveably quirky, when I would have appreciated a more balanced perspective a bit more. The film will probably get a best picture nomination it doesn't deserve.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
#37: The Night Of The Hunter
Night Of The Hunter (Laughton, 1955)
Night of the Hunter is one of those short, simple films about simple ideas without an excess of dialog. The premise is simple. A boy's father robbed a bank, killing two people in the process. He makes it home and gives him the money, and tells him not to tell anyone where it is, then gets caught and hung. But before he's hung, he meets a serial killer in jail who was caught for stealing a car, and lets it slip out that the money is hidden somewhere at home. So, the serial killer goes to the boy's village and marries his mother. Everybody is enamored with him because he's so convincing pretending to be a preacher. Have you ever seen a cartoon or parody movie where a bad guy has 'Love' and 'Hate' tattooed on his fingers? That's from Night Of The Hunter.
The major themes of the movie are 'false prophets' and predators. The killer is the predator and the children are the prey. In the middle of the movie there's lots of shots of animals hunting animals, spider webs and the like to symbolize the childrens' total vulnerability.
The movie opens with a bible quote: "A good tree can only bear good fruit. A corrupt tree can only bear corrupt fruit. You will know each by their fruit". In addition to the 'hunter', the killer is also the 'false prophet'. It's not until the children meet a woman who is not fooled and sees the situation as it is that they get protected from the predator.
But, the real villain of the film is the kids' father. The serial killer is just an animal, an automatic function of the world lacking free will. It's a fact of nature that if the children have all this money the predators of the world will come after it. The father should never have put that kind of adult responsibility in the hands of children not equipped to handle it.
The movie is short, simple, well written with great imagery, and expresses it's ideas really beautifully.
Rating: ***** / 5
68/101
Night of the Hunter is one of those short, simple films about simple ideas without an excess of dialog. The premise is simple. A boy's father robbed a bank, killing two people in the process. He makes it home and gives him the money, and tells him not to tell anyone where it is, then gets caught and hung. But before he's hung, he meets a serial killer in jail who was caught for stealing a car, and lets it slip out that the money is hidden somewhere at home. So, the serial killer goes to the boy's village and marries his mother. Everybody is enamored with him because he's so convincing pretending to be a preacher. Have you ever seen a cartoon or parody movie where a bad guy has 'Love' and 'Hate' tattooed on his fingers? That's from Night Of The Hunter.
The major themes of the movie are 'false prophets' and predators. The killer is the predator and the children are the prey. In the middle of the movie there's lots of shots of animals hunting animals, spider webs and the like to symbolize the childrens' total vulnerability.
The movie opens with a bible quote: "A good tree can only bear good fruit. A corrupt tree can only bear corrupt fruit. You will know each by their fruit". In addition to the 'hunter', the killer is also the 'false prophet'. It's not until the children meet a woman who is not fooled and sees the situation as it is that they get protected from the predator.
But, the real villain of the film is the kids' father. The serial killer is just an animal, an automatic function of the world lacking free will. It's a fact of nature that if the children have all this money the predators of the world will come after it. The father should never have put that kind of adult responsibility in the hands of children not equipped to handle it.
The movie is short, simple, well written with great imagery, and expresses it's ideas really beautifully.
Rating: ***** / 5
68/101
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