SCREENING LOG - 12/10-12/16, 2002

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I watched FEMME FATALE, GHOST ACTRESS, WEND KUUNI, THE NIBELUNGEN, ARARAT, TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER, MUGHAL-E-AZAM and LANCELOT DU LAC. In order of preference:

Mughal-E-Azam (1960, K. Asif)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0054098

Perhaps the pinnacle of Bollywood grandeur, this epic tale of a tragic love affair between the crown prince of Hindustan and a humble courtesan took several years to make, and the breathtaking scale of the production is on par with TITANIC while the results exceed it. There's an opulent set that brilliantly recreates the splendor of Mughal-era India, an intense musical sequence featuring a chorus of 100 singing girls, a magnificent battle scene with cannons firing at men riding elephants, and two dance sequences that shift from black-and-white into explosive color. But best of all, this extravagance is in the service of a remarkably moving story that pits idealistic love against the real preservation of social order. Pulsing with energy throughout and culminating in moments of dizzying sensuality (there's a scene involving a feather in which the screen seems ready to explode with sexual heat) and drama, this film unleashes barrelfuls of Movie Magic, Bollywood style.

Rigor films about children recommendation of the week

Wend Kuuni (1982, Gaston Kabore)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0084898

A young mute boy is found in the African wilderness by a family from another village. As he learns to live in his adopted community, the dark secrets of his past rise to the surface. A fascinating film from Burkina Faso, it is part documentary, part fable, part sociopolitical examination of African traditions and cultural practices. Allegorically, it's about the New Africa coming to grips with the shaping of its own identity; the slow pace (typical of the African films I've seen) may put some viewers off but it seems to capture the rhythm of this humble way of life. Highly recommended.

Ali-112 things she knows about JLG film of the week

2 or 3 Things I Know about Her (1967, Jean-Luc Godard) second viewing

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0060304

Perhaps the most ambitious of all the Jean-Luc Godard films I've seen, in which a whole host of issues -- the main focus, if there is one, is on the way capitalism has shaped the way we live, feel and talk; our cities, our culture, our valuesÉ way too much for any feature film to tackle, and Godard spends much of the film examining his own strategies as to how to take it on. The "story" revolves around a housewife who makes some extra cash as a prostitute, though from the beginning she is introduced as the actress who plays her (Marina Vlady, in one of the most enigmatic and alluring performances in history). The result is, to my mind, a mess, albeit a necessary one, if the logical response to an oppressive order is a liberating confusion. Approximately half of the film didn't work for me, and the other half was tremendously inspiring.

Lancelot du Lac (1974, Robert Bresson)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0071737

I am not a big fan of Arthurian legend, but it was exciting to see how radically this mythical world was redefined by one of cinema's most singular styles. The film begins with the abandoning of the quest for the Holy Grail, and with it the beginning of the death throes of the Arthurian age. Through Bresson's eyes, this world, fast losing hold of its code of honor, becomes startlingly contemporary, a realm of hidden lust, backroom politicking among knights, and vanquished heroes gushing blood. But what's truly astounding is not the content but how it is depicted, broken down into visual and aural fragments of clanging armor, steely glances and hoofbeats, all fleeting gestures of a way of life set to evaporate into the mist of history. Once again, Bresson uses a handful of carefully selected tools to create a universe of tragic meaning and feeling.

Brunt "strong, silent German" film of the week

The Nibelungen (1924, Fritz Lang)

Considered to be the first epic production by the German master, this two part re-telling of the same mythical tale that inspired Wagner's Ring Cycle is supposed to be over five hours in length, but my video copy only held three. I'm not sure what I missed but zetes has reviews of the complete version as he saw it, and he lends a lot of academic insight to the source material for comparison with the film:

http://www.imdb.com/CommentsShow?0015175-5 and http://www.imdb.com/CommentsShow?0015174-4. As for my take,

Part I: Siegrfried http://us.imdb.com/Title?0071737 employs a masterful control of epic storytelling as it follows Siegfried (who by the way has the most gorgeous hair of any movie hero I've ever seen) on his quest to glory until he is betrayed by those he sought to help. Part II: Kriemhild's Revenge http://us.imdb.com/Title?0015174 centers on his widow's attempt to avenge him, leading her to betray her own people and topple her kingdom, culminating in the burning down of a grand hall that seems stunningly identical to a similar scene in Kurosawa's RAN. The theme of revenge gone out of control seems to be a throughline in all the Lang films I've seen (including METROPOLIS and M) though I couldn't tell you what Lang (or Thea von Harbou who wrote all three scripts) have to say on the matter other than that revenge is worse than the injustice that provoked it. It seems that in all of his films there is an uneasy relationship between the substance of the themes and the style employed to express them -- the latter is often so potent as to topple the former and create a meaning all of its own (for example, the sets and camerawork in METROPOLIS are far more profound than the ostensible message of the movie itself). I can't tell how much light Lang sheds on his retelling of an ancient Germanic myth, but I was certainly entertained throughout, and if anything I can say that Lang's influence on blockbuster filmmaking cannot be underestimated.

Ararat (2002, Atom Egoyan)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0273435

An impossible film both in theory and practice, and fully aware of it. Egoyan confronts his Armenian heritage with this film-within-a-film story of an attempt to make a movie of a tragic 1915 event in which Turkish soldiers massacred approximately 2/3 of the Armenian population. Egoyan bites off way more than he can chew, though that's a liability inherent in the sprawling multi-character stories he tends to employ. Like with John Sayles, Egoyan's characters rest uneasily between being the director's symbolically significant talking heads and being three-dimensional characters in their own right, but here the blend of personal emotions and political and cultural ideals gets whipped into a messy but fascinating maelstrom. Egoyan demonstrates the impossibility of recreating a human disaster that has left only small traces of historical evidence behind, as well as the cultural, political and ethical imperatives to make this history known -- and most important of all, the psychological turmoil that erupts when those two forces collide. This film is best viewed as being conscious of its own fictional construct, otherwise it just looks shoddy -- some of the situations are too implausible to be taken straight, and yet they are employed to bring out a number of revealing truths about why we believe what we believe. Not all of this works, but there is something crucial at the center of it that shouldn't be missed.

Sprockets film of the week

Femme Fatale (2002, Brian DePalma)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0280665

An obvious labor of love and a career-defining work for one of contemporary cinema's great stylists. The story, what there is of it, involves a female thief (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, as sexy as she is empty, and thus the perfect DePalma actress) who double-crosses pretty much everyone in sightÉ ah who am I kidding, there is no story worth mentioning here, and the characters are as cardboard as they come: the whole movie is an excuse for DePalma to indulge in 110% cinematic style, and he delivers. The film almost succeeds in arguing that movies are all about style, that narrative sense, emotional responses and depth of character are the illusions we cling to and have no bearing on the real reason we watch movies. While the film ultimately fails in sending this thesis home, it fails with moments of genuine brilliance and a stunning array of skills that have clearly been cultivated over a lifetime of filmmaking; the artistic passion that DePalma puts into this move makes his nihilism more meaningful and touching than the humanistic platitudes of most Hollywood Oscar-bait.

Chris-435 Charitable Endowment film of the week

Ghost Actress/Don't Look Up (1996, Hideo Nakata)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0229499

The first feature film from the director of the original THE RING is surprisingly mediocre. A mysterious ghost haunts a movie production, which is a promising premise, but there was neither any insight on the movie industry nor were there any good scares.

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