SCREENING LOG - 9/19-9/25/2005

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Les Amants du Pont Neuf (1991, Leos Carax)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101318
YES YES (#2 for 1991 between A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY and LIFE AND NOTHING MORE)

The Lost Weekend (1945, Billy Wilder) third viewing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037884
yes (#8 for 1945 between CHILDREN OF PARADISE and THE CLOCK)

From the 2005 New York Film Festival:

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005, Christi Puiu)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456149
The best film I've seen at this year's NY Film Festival so far is also the first Romanian film I've ever seen; for all the abundant sociological detail the film offers of its native country, it makes for an unforgettable universal statement on how humans collectively deal with death and dying. The film begins unassumingly, as the camera just sits with Mr. Lazarescu, an alcoholic retiree, as he nurses another hangover with more booze, only to double in pain. Slowly he crawls to his upstairs neighbor to ask for painkillers, and after an extended back-and-forth with the neighbor and his wife, they call an ambulance. This interaction takes close to an hour to unfold within the confines of Lazarescu's shabby apartment and the stairwell outside, which may try the patience of viewers wanting action -- but there's an insistence here that we experience these moments under Mr. Lazarescu's sluggish rhythm, that we really stick with this sloppy, silly, somewhat unlikeable drunk. This ball-and-chain relationship with the lead character proves to be a vital setup, for once the paramedics arrive the narrative transforms into a whirlwhind journey through an endless night of hospitals and red tape. A harried ensemble of nightshift nurses and doctors alternate between weary wisecracks and outbursts of Hippocratic compassion, as they process Lazarescu like a moaning piece of rotting meat through waiting and examination rooms. Every performance in the extensive ensemble rings with authenticity: Mr. Lazarescu, his neighbors, the matronly paramedic who escorts him throughout the night, and all the doctors, nurses and patients in each of the three hospitals; collectively they bristle, bicker and prattle over Mr. Lazarescu's fate as if it were the fate of their society (and in many ways it is). Shot with a cold documentary objectivity and yet choreographed like an elaborate death ritual, the film plays like the best episode of ER ever made, as if directed by Frederick Wiseman or Robert Altman on a good day.
YES (#2 for new films seen in 2005 between MICHELANGELO'S GAZE and THE SHAPE OF THE MOON)

Bubble (2005, Steven Soderbergh)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454792
This, the first of several low-budget digital video productions promised by Indiewood icon Soderbergh, is a remarkable though not entirely successful foray into realist filmmaking in a uniquely American idiom. Soderbergh uses three non-professionals, each with remarkable screen presence and roughhewn beauty, to enact an unlikely love triangle/sociological study. Portly, middle-aged Martha (played by real-life cashier Debbie Doebereiner) has a mild attachment to the young pothead Kyle, her co-worker at the local doll factory, and together they endure the numbing dayshift of repetitive work interrupted only by lunch from the local Burger King. Rose, a young-single mother, arrives to help with the holiday workload and desirous, covetous eyes flare up among the doll machines. Soderbergh's camera treats the terrain of post-industrial Ohio and its sub-living wage inhabitants like a gothic alien planet a la Antonioni -- shadows are long, spaces are barren, and everything looks spiritually bankrupt except for the genuine looks on people's faces. It's no doubt an outsider's view of America between the blue states, a double-edged gaze that seems genuinely fascinated by how Other Americans live but risks exoticizing and condescending to them even as it tries to figure out the nature of their plight. Unfortunately that agenda gets thrown out the window when the third act devolves into a murder mystery that sheds no light on how these people live and demotes their story to tabloid fodder. It's enough to make one throw up his hands again at Soderhack the dillettante as he exhausts yet another creative direction with no sense of lasting innovation. But maybe it's too early to pass judgment, and one can't deny the promising visions throughout the first two-thirds of this initial foray -- if he really sticks to these lo-fi productions and doesn't grow bored with portraying the salt of the earth, maybe he will get somewhere.
yes

L'Enfant (2005, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456396
In contrast to Soderbergh's neophyte examination of the working class, we have the Dardennes, who have built a steely reputation on the backs of alienated labor. Over a decade of high-profile, legislation-turning work, they've fused Marxist social theory, Christian spirituality and old-school melodrama into a winning formula that would make Pasolini green with either envy or nausea. Nausea was what I felt from their last effort, THE SON, which took its shoulder-fixed camera path to salvation to claustrophobic extremes. The new film, which took top prize at Cannes, demonstrates far more variety in its styles and moods, and works like a summation of everything the Dardennes have tried in their previous work. The title may refer to the baby born to an unwed teenage couple, but it's more likely to refer to the impulsively immature father (played by Jeremie Renier, perhaps a shade too old to play adolescence convincingly), a small-time hood who decides to sell the baby to the black market for some easy Euros. Unfortunately he neglects to tell the mother, and after she collapses in a hysterical fit he decides to get the baby back -- oh if it were that easy. The Dardennes set up the father's downfall masterfully in the first act by alternating scenes of his illicit dealings with moments of lyrical whimsy between him and his girl, as they play childish pranks on each other and roll around a lot. The two worlds inevitably collide such that he can no longer thrive in either, leading to a series of desperate acts culminating in a bravado action sequence, perhaps the most masterful cinema the Dardennes have ever filmed (and strangely enough, the most commercial). The film isn't ashamed to admit taking heavy inspiration from Bresson's PICKPOCKET -- the ending practically screams for comparison -- but although I'm ready to call L'ENFANT a masterpiece, and perhaps a more satisfying film on the whole than PICKPOCKET, I'm not convinced it's a better film. L'ENFANT is as perfect a film as one could ask for, it's far more "perfect" than PICKPOCKET, but the flaws of the latter somehow are more inspiring than the perfection of the former. Even the brutal experience of THE SON starts looking more interesting due to its innovative boldness. L'ENFANT certainly showcases the Dardennes standing at the peak of their form; from here they can either dare a leap into unseen heights or slide into safety.
a shaky YES (#4 for new films seen in 2005 between THE SHAPE OF THE MOON and REGULAR LOVERS)

Paradise Now (2005, Hany Abu-Assad)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445620
Much vaunted at this year's Berlin Film Festival, this high profile feature by one of Palestine's most prominent directors chronicles the final days of two suicide bombers, as they leave their hapless auto mechanic jobs in search of glory as terrorist martyrs, only to have their plans go awry in execution. I am a big fan of Abu-Assad's previous feature, the documentary FORD TRANSIT, an irreverant and surprisingly artful look at Palestinian bus drivers, full of black humor and self-reflexive looks at life in the Occupied Zone. Sadly, little of the real-life spark can be found in this fiction feature, which falters from the onset by failing to set up the inner life of these suicide bombers in terms other than the familiar. The plot, with its love interest, action twists and declamatory dialogue driving home the standard social arguments against oppression, feels mechanically commercial. The result is a film that seems ripe to win awards for its social importance irregardless of its cinematic qualities.
mixed

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005, George Clooney)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433383
Cold War nostalgia may seem like an oxymoron, but if World War II nostalgia for righteous warfare helped to fuel the invasion of Iraq, certainly the legendary showdown between pioneering newsman Edward R. Murrow and anti-communist witchhunter Joseph McCarthy may inspire a present-day battle over patriotism and civil liberties. George Clooney's second feature is nothing short of a clarion call for journalistic fearlessness in the face of the evil axis -- secretive government, crass commercialism and mindless celebrity culture -- that threatens to compromise the integrity and substance of the news media. The film's use of luminous black and white (shot more in the sterile modernist style of 60s Godard and Pennebaker than lush 50s noir) is a brilliant stroke -- it creates a seductive, nostalgic texture to indulge the viewer while making the outrageous original black and white footage of McCarthy on television feel chillingly contemporary. The performances are first rate, including Clooney as Murrow's partner-in-broadcasting Fred Friendly, Frank Langella as the conflicted network executive, and Ray Wise (quite haunting as a beleagured news anchor). But the most fascinating performance is that of longtime supporting actor David Straithairn, getting a much-awaited starring turn as Murrow, and turning it into a study of quizzical introspection in the eye of a media storm. Straithairn plays Murrow as a consummate professional, a workaholic with no sign of a family who would like nothing better than to stay in the business of reporting the news truthfully, and who insists on keeping himself personally uninvolved even when he is inextricably involved. How Straithairn-as-Murrow navigates through this vortex of private and public spaces is where the action lies; otherwise what we have is a glossy, self-enclosed and rather claustrophobic celebration of how Us (the Left) defeated Them (the Right) 50 years ago and how We can do it again, with about as much feel-good subtlety as a campus rally.
yes (#17 for new films seen in 2005 between THE HIDDEN BLADE and RIZE)

Regular Lovers (2005, Phillippe Garrel)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443844
Phillippe Garrel continues to confound me. The only other film I've seen of his, I CAN NO LONGER HEAR THE GUITAR, was so determinedly fixed on close-ups of his characters doing nothing in particular as their lives fell apart, that I couldn't stand watching it even as I registered shocks of recognition with my own life. Garrel starts his new three-hour opus by doing something similar, yet in such an explosive context -- the May '68 Paris riots -- that it can't help but be riveting. In many ways the riots that open the film invite comparison to Spielberg's handling of D-Day in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, but only to underscore the gaping difference between Spielberg's craft and Garrel's art. Garrel's fixed-camera long takes linger with uncommon concentration on the violence, as if to dip it in amber and preserve it for infinite reflection -- each shot is a mix of nostalgic recollection of images that burned forever in one's mind, but chastened with an endless wondering of how it happened and what became of all this revolutionary fervor. It is simply one of the greatest film sequences I have ever seen, probably the best hour of cinema I've seen at this festival. The rest of the film isn't as easy to champion -- it morphs into a very, very long pas de deux between one of the revolutionaries and a sculptress in the midst of a lot of nothing going on. The initial meetings between the lovers are charged with electricity, just in the way Garrel shoots how they look at each other. But there's virtually no narrative to speak of. It may very well be that once the riots died down, these kids had no real sense of purpose other than to fend for themselves emotionally or otherwise -- and with that goes the narrative. Still that doesn't make for easy viewing (the most amusing moment comes when one character looks dead into the camera and mutters "Bernardo Bertolucci" as if to mock the director of THE DREAMERS for turning May '68 into an old man's wet dream). But there is something here, something that is determined to rekindle the spirit of the French New Wave, that insists that it didn't die with MOTHER AND THE WHORE even as it treads dangerously towards mimicking its restless downward spiral of inquiry. Slowly I'm being convinced that Garrel is the closest thing we have today to Carl Dreyer, in terms of how doggedly he chases after a moment and tries to immortalize and interrogate it beyond all reason.
yes (#5 for new films seen in 2005 between L'ENFANT nad MYSTERIOUS SKIN)

From the NYFF Shochiku tribute:
Souls on the Road (1921, Minoru Murata)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0012631
yes (#7 for 1921 between THE KID and LOTUS BLOSSOM)

Ornamental Hairpin (1941, Hiroshi "I Can Do No Wrong" Shimizu)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427424/
YES YES (#2 for 1941 between CITIZEN KANE and HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY)

The Hidden Blade (2004, Yoji Yamada)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442286
Octagenarian Yoji Yamada is a curious blend of master and hack, combining his immaculate-to-a-fault production values and morally resolute melodrama with a serene sense of mastery of characterization and tone. This, his 78th feature, is another foray into the samurai genre following the success of THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI, and it's just as squarely constructed and pleasurable to watch, with sporadic moments of brilliance. This time a hard-headed samurai (played by the Japanese tourist in Jarmusch's MYSTERY TRAIN, who seems to have morphed into an Asian Russell Crowe) is hard-pressed by his forbidden love for his ex-maid, trapped in an abusive marriage; the sobering need to adapt to Western military tactics (and eventual obsolescene of samurai); and treasonous political intrigues involving an old friend. At stake are his emerging personal values in the face of his longstanding samurai ethos -- as with TWILIGHT SAMURAI, Yamada does much to critique much of the macho bravado found in his predecessors, reducing the violence to isolated instances where most of the tension lies in anticipation of the violence. And when he resorts to newfangled CGI technology for his special effects, he does it to underscore a point about cheap technology vs. art (he uses it for when a samurai master's hand gets blown off by a rifle). In this way Yamada manages to critique both the old and new and carve out a little place between commercialism and art for his own quirky vision.
yes (#16 for new films seen in 2005 between ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW and GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK)

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