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

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I watched FAR FROM HEAVEN, THE LITTLE FOXES, LE PETIT SOLDAT, A TIME TO LIVE AND A TIME TO DIE, RED LION, PONETTE, L'ARGENT, TRIBULATION 99: ALIEN ANOMALIES UNDER AMERICA and SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY. In order of preference (all are, at the very least, well-worth seeing):

A Time to Live and a Time to Die (1985, Hou Hsiao-Hsien) second viewing

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0090185

This film, which first brought Hou and the Taiwanese New Wave to international attention, seems deceptively simple, like your run-of-the mill growing-up-humbly-in-a-third-world-country narrative: a young boy, whose family has been transplanted from China to Taiwan, faces a hard path to adulthood complete with neighborhood tussles and family deaths. But gradually its manner of telling draws you in: at first, events seem like fragmented vignettes, but are actually blended in a succession that has been described as "like watching clouds floating by." His propensity towards graphically composed, image-driven storytelling recalls the styles of Ozu, Satyajit Ray and even Tarkovsky, but where Hou excels is in applying his style towards an examination on the nature of history. For my money, there has never been a filmmaker as consumed by the idea of history than Hou, and this deeply autobiographical film may shed light on his motivations. By the time we reach the devastating ending, there's an overwhelming feeling of a time and place, an entire way of life, that has slowly disappeared before our eyes, but even more heartbreaking is the profound sense of guilt, of youthful opportunity squandered in hoodlum-like loitering, of parents whose presence was taken for granted until the sudden arrival of their ineffable absence. Watch this film to see how movies are humankind's noble, anxious attempt to retrieve lost time, and how the retrieval only reflects back on the mournful permanence of that loss.

L'Argent (1984, Robert Bresson) second viewing, in theater

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0085180

While most critics consider his earlier films to be his best, I side with those who consider this, his last film, to be his ultimate statement of the modern world and one of the very best films of the 1980s. The movie follows a counterfeit bill as it is passed from one person to another until it ruins the life of one man. Through this course of events, the world seems like an elaborate, dehumanizing system of exchanges and transactions: every scene is packed with a stunning succession of doors, pockets and hands endlessly opening and closing. The world seethes with a materialist sickness, victimizing those who don't understand its rules, and that feels ripe to explode at any moment. Stunningly, Bresson's rich use of everyday sounds and colors endows this world with a terrifying beauty, and the conciseness, the absolute pared-down purity of his storytelling makes PICKPOCKET look like a talkfest. Bresson summons forth Armageddon in the bloodiest climax of all of his films, and yet leaves the viewer to ponder if this mass killing is not a salvation of its own kind. Whether one sees this as Bresson's most pessimistic treatise on humanity, or his taking his beloved idea of salvation through grace to its most radical extreme, this is a film as full of life, death and the mysteries of the world as one will ever encounter.

Chris-435 Charitable Endowment Movie of the Week

Red Lion (1969, Kihachi Okamoto)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0063995

I would have never guessed that the samurai genre would venture into Preston Sturges territory, but that's what happens in this action/comedy/drama about a footsoldier in the new Imperialist regime (Toshiro Mifune) who pretends to be a high-ranking official in order to persuade his home village to give themselves peacefully to the new order. However, the film is more than just comedy: there's romance, high intrigue, boffo swordfights and most surprisingly of all, some leftist political content (gradually it becomes apparent that the red wig on Mifune's head has more than just camp significance going for it). A hard film to pin down, but never less than fascinating. Highly recommended.

A Chris-435 Type of Movie Movie of the Week

Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America (1992, Craig Baldwin)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0105639

Made by one of America's top underground filmmakers, this "pseudo-pseudo-documentary" on the "history" of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America is the last word on conspiracy theory narratives, even though it predated the rise of The X-Files and the sleek paranoia of 1990s movies and television. Baldwin takes the faulty connect-the-dots logic of conspiracy theories to a breathtaking extreme: using endless reels of stock footage taken from Mexican horror movies, newsreels, educational films, and God knows what else, Baldwin tells the story of how aliens from the planet Quetzalcoatl have had their way in the coups, massacres and shady dealings that have dominated US-Latin relations throughout the 20th century. While the historical information Baldwin presents may or may not be factually based, the inspired lunacy of the presentation and hard-driving logic explaining the events begin to make terrifying sense. The facts are ultimately not as important as the fear and uncertainty that drive our desire to piece them together; our storytelling tells more about our attitudes towards reality than about reality itself. This kind of insight makes Oliver Stone's JFK look naive in comparison.

Superstar: the Karen Carpenter Story (1987, Todd Haynes)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0094075

The student film that put Haynes on the map, this 45 minute biography of the 70s pop phenom's tragic descent into the hell of anorexia is a cult classic, in no small part because it is blocked from legal distribution by Karen's brother David for its unauthorized use of their copyrighted music. (I had to watch a roughed-up bootleg video screened by the Festival for Illegal Art, which also screened Tribulation 99). The other big reason for the film's notoriety is that the characters are all performed by Barbie Dolls in amazingly well-crafted dollhouse sets. This is a brilliant stroke that gives Karen's oppressive pursuit of bodily perfection its perfect physical form. Looking at the transgressive boldness of these artistic choices makes the relative conservatism of FAR FROM HEAVEN look all the less exciting. What is also apparent in this film is Haynes' inspired didacticism; he's not afraid of putting his agenda in very clear letters on screen: disorders like anorexia are symptomatic of the repression suffered through the everyday values and interactions imposed on women. But what's most revealing and moving is how obviously Haynes identifies with his Barbie Doll Carpenter, and it's fascinating to ponder how much of the subject's obsession finds its mirror in Haynes' stylistic and thematic fixations.

DFC-2 Child of God Movie of the Week

Ponette (1995, Jacques Doillon)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0117359

A very young girl goes on an extraordinary spiritual quest when her mother perishes in an accident. 4-year old star Victoire Thivisol and her preschool ensemble may have been thoroughly coached by the director, but they could have fooled me Ð writer/director Doillon's attempt to capture the issues of death and God from a child's eye view are remarkably evocative. It's only in the disastrous "miracle" ending that this film resorts to pathos. That aside, this is a moving and honest drama that asks fascinating questions about how the young mind develops its ideas.

ali-112 Free to Be JLG Movie of the Week

Le Petit Soldat (1963, Jean-Luc Godard)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0054177

Michel Subor is a French secret agent who inexplicably balks at his assignment to assassinate a leader of the Algerian resistance movement. A loose examination of one man's uncertainty and conflict with his own ideals; this is Godard's first overtly political film as well as an intriguing attempt to bring his chauvinistic tendencies (national as well as sexual) under scrutiny. The hero's (read: Godard's) retreat into romantic comfort as a palliative from political uncertainty only backfires tragically, and despite his macho attempts to set forth his views, a five minute tour-de-force monologue makes the ideological confusion of the times all too clear. A film that's startlingly relevant for the increasingly troubled times we live in today.

Eav and Addison Velvet Haynekerchief Neo-Classic of the Week

Far From Heaven (2002, Todd Haynes)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0297884

Fear and loathing of sex and race descend on Julianne Moore's happy suburban housewife in the 1950s, who must contend with her husband's (Dennis Quaid) closet homosexuality while taking an interest in her black gardener (Dennis Haysbert) at the risk of becoming a neighborhood pariah. The two standouts in this formidable work of revisionist nostalgia are Moore's tour de force of soulful self-repression and the production design, so gorgeously lush it plunges the viewer in the same suffocating ambience that the characters experience. Quaid's discomfort in his sexually miscast role actually enhances his character's true-to-the-period discomfort, and the handsome, sensitive Haysbert makes for a nice projection of a white person's image of an ideal black person. Haynes definitely takes Sirk's ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS and makes it into his own work, though the spark of Sirk's ironies are lost in the translation for the sake of promoting a more contemporary, realistic approach, but whose sociological insights are either token left-of-middle revisionist sentiments, or so subtly embedded in the screen that it's almost not worth trying to dig out. In other words, a pleasurable, ultimately harmless, jewel-encrusted tract chock full of Socially Redeeming Content: the perfect formula for indie crossover appeal and Oscar glory.

The Little Foxes (1941, William Wyler)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0033836

A handsomely mounted film adaptation of Lillian Hellmann's play with Bette Davis conniving with and against her brothers over her husband's inheritance. Though it receives relatively little critical attention these days, in its day it was considered a landmark achievement in film realism, almost completely due to Gregg Toland's innovative deep-focus camerawork. While this film was the one I enjoyed the least this week, it sparked the most potentially radical shift in my way of valuing films. I've long held to the auteurist line that put Wyler in the category of highly-trained hack, having no obvious stylistic or thematic signature to his body of work. But seeing how adept this film is at discreetly cueing the viewer to feel this way or that, I have to take my hat off to his achievement; I think he was brilliant at effacing his own directorial presence from the work, so that the audience could engage as directly as possible with the story and characters, who, consequently, have more responsibility in making the film work (and the ensemble here works splendidly). After all, doesn't it make sense that only when the artist removes any trace of his hand in the work can reality truly be represented? Nonetheless, the results in this film are rather vanilla, no matter how well crafted it is. But one must give credit where credit is due. And so, meet William Wyler: the supreme anti-auteur, the director who wasn't there.

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