SCREENING LOG - 3/11--3/17, 2002

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I watched Napoleon, Simon of the Desert, Shaolin Soccer, Ohayo (Good Morning), episode 3 of The Decalogue, short films by Maya Deren, and Au hasard Balthazar. In order of preference:

short films by Maya Deren

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently showing an exhibit of Surrealist art. The highlights for me of this otherwise disappointingly sparse collection are some Joseph Cornell boxes and this special screening of films by the woman who kick-started avant-garde cinema in the United States.

Watching Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) again makes me realize how derivative MULHOLLAND DRIVE is, not to mention the art of feminist icon Cindy Sherman. In this 15-minute masterpiece, a woman (Deren) dreams that she repeatedly sees herself entering her Hollywood house, with knives and flowers hovering in the symbolic mix. A variety of innovative camera techniques create an overall effect of voyeuristic submergence in a subconscious both fascinating and frightening. Compare this to Salvador Dali's dream sequence in Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND a year after and it's pretty clear who's the Dream Queen. At Land features Deren walking through a half-dozen disparate locations, made fluid by ingenious editing techniques. Ritual in Transfigured Time is an intriguing study of the camera as dancer, moving along with a choreographed dance among several figures.

Au hasard Balthazar (1966, Robert Bresson)

Jean-Luc Godard claimed that this is "the world in 90 minutes" and he's not far from the mark. A donkey named Balthazar changes hands between a series of masters who are invariably inept and cruel, while the daughter of its original master suffers a parallel destiny. To say that this film is great is to candy-wrap the fierce challenges it launches at humankind, not to mention cinematic convention. By placing a donkey in the middle of the action, a whole new set of challenges are leveled at the audience's expectations; the lines that divide good and evil, human and animal, sentimentality and cruelty, secular and sublime. As such the film finds successors in RAGING BULL, VAGABOND, and (surprisingly) A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, though not even the latter rivals this one in thought-provoking frustration and awe.

Ohayo (Good Morning) (1959, Yasujiro Ozu)

A late masterpiece from the late master. The story, which at times feels incidental, centers around two boys who refuse to speak when their parents refuse to buy a television set. What appears at first to be a lightweight effort is actually a remarkable meditation on human communication in all its forms: the "good mornings" of the title, insidious gossip, fart jokes, hand signals and awkward romantic conversation all figure into the cavalcade of brilliantly rendered interactions between parents, children and nosy neighbors.

Napoleon (1927, dir. Abel Gance)

This 4-hour silent biopic of the great dictator is a madly brilliant testament to the ego, presumably Napoleon's but implicitly Gance's. Every shot, however innovative (the use of moving handheld is particularly striking) calls attention to its own cleverness in ways that would make Wes Anderson look humble. Small wonder that no less a megalomaniac as Francis Ford Coppola funded the restoration. I found the famous climax, whose use of three-panel widescreen foreshadowed Cinemascope by 25 years, underwhelmingly oppressive.

Simon of the Desert (1960, Luis Bunuel)

Quintessential Bunuel, which I'm becoming less endeared to. The story of Simeon Stylites (Claudio Brook), who stood atop a pillar for 25 years while resisting the devil (played unforgettably by Sylvia Pinal). The film is masterful, hilarious and scathingly brilliant, but more than ever I feel like I'm missing certain bits of information in order to see that he's doing more than scoffing at religion in particular and mankind in general. The final scene is hilarious though it too leaves me with a bitterly Bunuelian taste in my mouth.

The Decalogue, episode 3 (1987, dir. Krzystof Kieslowski)

Episode 3 of Kieslowski's landmark television series on the Ten Commandments addresses "Thou shalt observe the Sabbath". A man leaves his family's festivities to spend a hectic evening with an ex-lover in distress. It becomes evident that old flames never die, and the matter-of-fact manner in which Kieslowski lets the two come to something of a mutual understanding over irresolvable feelings is remarkable.

Shaolin Soccer (2001, dir. Stephen Chow and Lik-Chi Lee)

The top-grossing movie in Hong Kong and nominated for 13 Hong Kong Film Awards, this action comedy concerns a poor Shaolin monk who reunites with his fellow monks to form a championship soccer team. Paraphrasing what Pauline Kael once said about THE PRODUCERS, here the concept overshadows what materializes on screen -- though I will say that this film boasts the funniest use of CGI special effects I've yet seen (they could rename it CROUCHING PENALTY KICK, HIDDEN GOOOAAAALLL!) The humor is uneven and shows signs that Stephen Chow, whose manic, side-splitting films (THE GOD OF COOKERY, THE KING OF COMEDY) have outgrossed his more famous countrymen Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-fat back in the homeland, is becoming as complacent as they have. Apparently Miramax has bought the U.S. rights, so expect a botched release or non-release in the near future.

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