SCREENING LOG - 10/21-10/27, 2002

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I watched ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU CHOU, 9, IN PRAISE OF LOVE, REPULSION, THE KID, SOLARIS, L'ECLISSE, PERSONA, JEANNE DIELMAN 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE 1080 BRUXELLES, KAMERADSCHAFT and SAMURAI BANNERS.

The cumulative viewing experiences of the past week require me to say some things for the record, if only to help me work through some ideas (much in the same way that writing reviews helps to work through the movies I've seen). However, you can skip through the prose to get to the reviews.

Over half of the films I saw last week can be assigned the well-known label of European Art Film, as well as the dubious associations that label carries: intellectual, highly aesthetic, profound, difficult, tedious, pretentious -- we've heard them all before. I don't know what possessed me to see so many of these films in a week -- frankly, it's exhausting (and expensive -- I blew $60 on movies in the theater last week, nearly all on the movies described above). These films, in so many ways, fly in the face of one's own perceptions, values and even one's common sense. These movies don't seem to fare well these days, especially when our modern world has enough confusion and uncertainty, and as a remedy we seem drawn to mainstream movies, media and the internet to reassure ourselves that what we know is right and complete.

It is this scenario that sends me to these films, because they offer a remedy to the mind-numbing status quo of both entertainment and life in general, setting new directions for movies and minds to follow. This is NOT to say that these films are all good. I saw a lot of people walk out in the middle of movies last week; I saw a lot of heads turning towards each other in disbelief and derision when the lights went up. Half the time I agreed with them. It's important to know what one feels, and if a strange movie provokes a sincere and well-considered negative response, then something has been learned from the experience.

On the other hand, since a main point of watching these movies is to be challenged, I think it's important to give these films the benefit of a doubt. I don't think the standard viewer demand, that a film fully reveal itself in one sitting, can fully apply with certain kinds of films. One thing I've found for myself when watching these films is that their rewards come hours, even days or weeks after I've seen them -- their visions come back to me, resonating with real life experiences, or even affecting the way I see the world. It is also worth noting that I saw three movies for the second time this week, and my understanding was enriched significantly with each one.

Still, openness has its limits. We can't see every movie twice. It is human to need some kind of foundation to help reach some kind of conclusion, even if it's a temporary remedy. But I see the following reviews not as final statements, but as signposts for further exploration, whether leading to the same movie again or others to come. I think an ideal review should serve that purpose. It's the difference between dealing with lifeless commodities vs. dealing with living, breathing, thinking beings. I consider movies to be among the living.

Speaking of living things, I think it is fitting that my favorite film of the past week is SOLARIS, since its story is probably most relevant to the concerns stated above. Another film that helped guide me through these movies was the dose of Charlie Chaplin I had in the middle of my week. The innocent, raw grace, the fundamental truthfulness of Chaplin's THE KID, served as the main measure in evaluating the more canny and stylized works I saw this week. Did they excite my senses with their possibilities as much as the modern miracle of the Little Tramp's existence? Do they ring with an essential truth that holds its own against Chaplin's undeniable love of both movies and humanity?

In order of preference:

Solaris (1972, Andrei Tarkovsky) second viewing, in theater

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0069293

A scientist travels to a space station whose crew is experiencing bizarre interactions with a mysterious planet, which may itself be a living entity. Even though this masterpiece shares the deliberate pacing of Tarkovsky's other work, I found it had more in common with Stanley Kubrick (the persistence of human will and the relationship between human and non-human are themes shared not only with 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY but much of Kubrick's work) -- moreover, the dysfunctional goofiness of the space crew had an unexpected campiness reminiscent of late period Howard Hawks. These anomalies may lessen the film among those who prefer "purer" Tarkovsky films (though one must acknowledge the significant stylistic differences between all of his films) -- but I for one appreciated its relative lack of austerity, and its rich variety of moods and feelings -- sensual passion, guilt, melancholy, and slapstick humor -- I find these to be rare in any science fiction movie, and they only strengthen this film's quest to explore humankind's limits, its utter hubris, in the way it tries to understand the unfamiliar. I hope Steven Soderbergh knows what he's gotten himself into; if he tries to "colonize" this movie into an easy-to-follow version, the irony would be too rich.

Rigor feminist film of the week:

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975, Chantal Akerman) in theater

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0073198

This is probably the one film that I've been longing to see more than any other -- its legendary reputation among feminist circles, combined with its unavailability on video, made it into something of an obscure object of desire for me. I finally caught up with it at a tribute to actress Delphine Seyrig, and I wasn't disappointed -- though disappointment takes on a new meaning when dealing with a 198 minute film that baldly defies conventional expectations of what a film should be about and how. Seyrig (unrecognizable compared to her gorgeous starring role in LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD) plays the titular widowed housewife as her daily routine is painstakingly captured in long static frontal shots: cooking, cleaning, babysitting, prostituting herself to pay the rent, more cleaningÉ People have every reason to dismiss this film as artless banality; the scenes go on with an interminable verisimilitude, have no real rise or fall to them, have no clear subtext or winking ironies, are shot rather unattractively, the filmmaker was only 24 when she made it, etc. And yet for some it is impossible to shake off the film's cumulative effect, with implications that reach beyond just women's lives but all humanity -- the most mundane moments of one woman's existence are given monumental importance, confronting and critiquing the history and values of men, mankind, and the movies. The more one thinks about this film, the more one can't stop thinking -- not even Tsai Ming-Liang, whose films resemble this one, has taken this aesthetic to such an extreme, that leaves even more in the viewer's hands to sort out. The diabolical antithesis of Great Movies like CITIZEN KANE, this is a landmark film; you'll either love it, hate it, reject it or be haunted forever -- maybe all of the above.

L'Eclisse (1962, Michelangelo Antonioni)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0056736

The last film of Antonioni's B&W trilogy with Monica Vitti (also including L'AVVENTURA and LA NOTTE) is to my mind the liveliest of his works that I've seen, charged with an acute awareness of the allure of life's material pleasures as well as the gaping emptiness behind them. Vitti breaks up with boyfriend Francisco Rabal after some painfully empty exchanges and immerses herself in a series of inconsequential episodes in Rome, trying to connect with something, anything, and culminating in a romantic fling with stockbroker Alain Delon. Antonioni choreographs each sequence with an energy that resembles the best of Fellini -- but with a profound awareness of the social mechanisms governing human discontent that Fellini's self-absorbed narratives could never detect. The performances are first rate as each character navigates through the chaos of contemporary life in their own way, and Antonioni surrounds and ultimately engulfs them in an environment that is as beautiful as it is menacing. The final sequence completely redefines everything that went before; it takes the central event of L'AVVENTURA one step further and brings Antonioni's insights on the human condition to a whole new level.

ali-112 French film of the week:

In Praise of Love (2001, Jean-Luc Godard) second viewing, in theater

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0181912

I saw this film last year shortly after September 11, and could barely tolerate it; the last thing I needed was an obtuse political tract that couldn't offer me some hope in the humanity of the world, much less offer me anything but anti-American criticism. What a difference a year makes. In a new political environment where America's leaders threaten to instigate World War III, this film is a powerful and beautiful reflection on not only America's but the world's failure to truly learn from its own history, and the failure of movies to do anything about it. A young artist is developing a project about love but can't decide on just how to make it right (he can't even decide on whether to make it an opera, play, or film). He tries to focus on the French Resistance, but winds up at a meeting where "Spielberg Associates" is attempting to buy the movie rights to the story of two Resistance fighters. This is not a perfect film, but its imperfections are part of what makes it poignant -- one of the most influential filmmakers of our time assumes the role of Prospero or Lear, railing against everything he feels is wrong with the world and with a medium that has become his worst enemy; how movies, once a way to liberate us from commercial conventionality, have now become a chief way to oppress us with commercialized promises of liberation (this is poignantly visualized in a movie theater where a poster of Bresson's PICKPOCKET stands beside one of THE MATRIX). Detractors have focused squarely on the film's polemic overstatements ("Americans have no past") while completely missing the film's open-ended ironies ("When I see something, I am actually seeing something elseÉ"), and most importantly, its poetry, captured in a dense soundtrack and the most beautiful black and white photography of Godard's career. If this film is evidence that Godard has indeed run out of gas to take on the 21st century, it also amounts to one mother of a baton to pass on to the next generation.

Antonious Block Ingmar Bergman film of the week:

Persona (1966, Ingmar Bergman) second viewing, in theater

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0060827

To my surprise, I found my original review of this film from January to reflect my latest viewing quite accurately:

"Once I got past the clunky approximations of New Wave cinema Bergman was trying to employ to lend his film some avant garde street credibility, I found a remarkable study of two women and their fragile co-dependent relationship. A film like MULHOLLAND DRIVE would be unthinkable without this film, though their cinematic approaches are vastly different. Whether or not the ambiguous meanings add up to anything (the film is weakest when it's straining to make a point), it's well worth seeing more than once just as an experience."

It's worth nothing though that I ranked the film below others I had seen that week, such as THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and A BEAUTIFUL MIND. THAT has certainly changed. There's no question that this film has some intensely powerful moments, and opens a lot of doors in perceiving the mysteries of personality. Perhaps my chief point of skepticism is as follows: this film is about the fragmentation and recoupling of the psyche, and so it seems that to reflect that idea Bergman utilizes a fragmented aesthetic that continually keeps the viewer off-balance. But is throwing half a dozen cinematic tricks, (stock footage of movie projectors and spiders here, a voiceover narration there, direct address to the camera here, thudding horror movie music everywhere) a sign of genius or desperation? Who's to say, but afterwards I kept thinking back to my college biology class (maybe the image of the dissected sheep triggered that), how strands of DNA, the stuff which holds the code to life, is actually interspersed with a lot of meaningless "junk DNA", whose sole purpose is to keep the useful DNA in its proper place. There certainly are some scenes that seem to hold the mystery of life in PERSONA, and maybe the junk is there to make that more evident.

DFC-2 G.W. Pabst film of the week:

Kameradschaft (1931, G.W. Pabst)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0022017

German miners defiantly cross the border to rescue their French counterparts who are trapped after a mining disaster. A solidly packed action film disguised as a political tract, this may amount to a working man's version of GRAND ILLUSION. The political commentary may not be as nuanced as Renoir's work, but it does have some truly nail-biting sequences in the collapsing mine to make for a powerful viewing experience. Pabst's roving camera is as evident as his silent work, but the real surprise is the richly layered soundtrack, giving evidence that Pabst had made the transition from silents with remarkable ease.

brunt silent classic of the week:

The Kid (1921, Charles Chaplin)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0012349

Chaplin's first feature, in which the Tramp takes care of an abandoned child. With lots of loosely associated bits, it's not as thematically developed as his later work, but Chaplin as a physical performer is as wonderful to watch as he always was. Lots of flair unconnected to anything greater than itself; this is like watching Michael Jordan before the Chicago Bulls started winning championships, which is certainly not a bad thing.

Chris-435 Charitable Endowment film of the week:

Samurai Banners (1969, Hiroshi Inagaki)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0064353

The indomitable Toshiro Mifune plays a disenfranchised samurai who schemes his way to power as advisor to an upstart feudal lord in 16th century Japan. The engrossing plot, splendid colors and magnificent climactic battle make for a satisfying entertainment, though Inagaki's tempo and compositions are geriatric in their conventionality, and it's never really clear what the film is actually about -- possibilities include an allegory for the 20th century Japan's overreaching of power, or the Mizoguchian tragedy of woman's exploitation in the political schemes of men, but none of these ideas are really seen through with conviction.

All About Lily Chou Chou (2001, Shunji Iwai)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0297721, in theater

Those who loved such floridly disjointed adolescent dreamscapes as DONNIE DARKO or GEORGE WASHINGTON may take interest in this film, which amounts to being a Japanese equivalent. A young, socially awkward teenage boy whose only solace is an internet chatroom devoted to his favorite singer occupies the center of this loose succession of vignettes featuring the various cruelties that teens inflict on each other, including assault, rape and murder. The feverishly surreal texture of the film keeps the material from slipping into outright luridness, and is sure to haunt viewers who might identify with its themes of alienation and angst. But as was the case with its American counterparts, the stylization becomes a fetish object in itself, and made me feel that the film wasn't really being level with me. Still, it has its share of remarkable moments.

9 (2001, Umit Unal), in theater

This film is not listed in IMDb.

Six witnesses to a murder give conflicting video testimony in this, the first Turkish film to be shot on digital video (and also the first Turkish film I've ever seen). The rat-a-tat script and frenetic editing give one the impression that the witnesses are responding directly to each other, even though they are in isolated interrogation rooms; an intriguing effect, but perhaps too fast and loose for its own good. It plays like an MTV version of RASHOMON, and while each character represents an interesting aspect of Turkish society (The disenfranchised Communist, the Woman with a sexual history, the closet Homosexual) the film offers more in the way of slick, suspenseful entertainment than probing social insight.

Repulsion (1965, Roman Polanski)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0059646

Catherine Deneuve plays a frigid virgin who, left alone in her apartment, descends into homicidal sexual psychosis. This might have been a groundbreaker in its time, but seeing the film now for what it is, I was stunned at how amateurish it looks, which made the calculated contrivance of the plot more garishly obvious and predictable. Maybe I've been jaded by watching too many short thrillers done by film school students, but this film barely rises above that level: the sexual subtext is third-rate Hitchcock, the acting is clunky and the exploitation of the female character atrociously bombastic in its quasi-profundity. I'm starting to understand the theory that Polanski, even with a masterpiece like CHINATOWN, can be too arch for his own good; I've seen plenty of B-movies that don't leave me nearly as cold.

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