SCREENING LOG -1/13-1/19, 2003

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I watched KISS ME DEADLY, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, THE QUIET AMERICAN, F FOR FAKE, BALLAD OF A SOLDIER, LE FILS/THE SON, INCIDENT AT BLOOD PASS, and LES DAMES DE BOIS DU BOLOGNE. In order of preference:

Les Dames de Bois du Boulogne (1945, Robert Bresson)

I came to this film expecting an early-career hackjob by one of the most unique artists in cinematic history, but what I got was a great film, accomplished and heartfelt in its own right yet fascinating to compare with what films he made later. Bresson's recurring theme of human faith and innocence victimized by worldly cruelty is very much at the heart of this story of a spurned woman who sets up her ex-lover with a former taxi dancer, knowing the girl's past will scandalize the couple. His characters (who, for the last time in his films, were played by professionals) are portrayed with an inexpressive restraint that was odd for its time (though not nearly as extreme as his later films), but it really serves the film well, in resisting the impulse to sentimentalize, and in illustrating how their true desires are repressed by bourgeois social norms, as well as the deception that is central to the story. Not as grandiose in scale but as profoundly moving in its own quiet way as CHILDREN OF PARADISE, which came out of France in the same year -- most highly recommended.

Kiss Me Deadly (1955, Robert Aldrich)

Ralph Meeker plays Mickey Spillane as the quintissential Cold War crusader: punching, jawboning and smooching a trail through seedy villains and sexually hysterical femme fatales until he finds his Holy Grail: the apocalypse of the atomic era. A fully ripened film-noir, so turgid with raw attitude, sleaze and festering evil that it practically explodes at the end. The opening credit reel gives it away: this is a world turned completely upside down and gone out of control, where violent beatings becomes a virtue, if not a pleasurable act to savor; it's even erotic, in a crude way. There's a bit of narrative sprawl, and not all of this comes together, but there is something undeniably essential to this film that defies explanation and seems to define the terms for understanding so many films about 20th century anxiety, amorality, sex and sleaze that have come in its wake.

F For Fake (1973, Orson Welles)

A wacky film that feels roughhewn and urbane at once, Orson Welles narrates through a labyrinth of interconnected anecdotes involving two master forgerers of the 20th century, painter Elmyr de Hory and biographer Clifford Irving, who is most famous for his fabricated biography of Howard Hughes. The whole film itself feels somewhat like a con, with Welles repeatedly challenging the audience to trust what he is telling them, even as he spins an irresistible yarn about the nature of authenticity and artistic credit. At times the postmodern insights feel a bit shallow and jokey, but the film builds in layers of meaning over time, and the final words and images of Welles leave me with no question that something profound has transpired, with Welles assessing the merits of his lifetime of work, as if he were Prospero giving one fond final look at his books before tossing them away. Essential viewing for anyone serious about understanding the art and legacy of one of the all-time greats.

Incident at Blood Pass (1971, Hiroshi Inagaki)

The last film from the director of CHUSHINGURA(1962) and THE SAMURAI TRILOGY stars Toshiro Mifune as a man with no name (perhaps this is a kind of sequel to YOJIMBO, which I haven't seen) who finds himself in a tavern surrounded by a motley assortment of male and female characters, each at varying odds with each other, with tensions occasionally exploding into violence. The story is quite accomplished in the way the upper hand is shifted from one character to another, which shifts the viewer's allegiances to the characters as well. This results in quite a powerful evocation of a world in imbalance, where honor, morality, justice and love are transient values, subservient to one's own ruthless cunning. It's possible that there's some kind of personal statement being made by the filmmaker here, but I'm not familiar enough with his work to assert that.

Catch Me if You Can (2002, Steven Spielberg)

The exploits of 1960s teenage con artist Frank Abagnale, played for maximum entertainment value. Despite the light and breezy feel of the film, this is obviously a very personal film for Spielberg; it's all too apparent that he identifies with his protagonist and his broken-home upbringing, presenting us with an unapologetically adolescent view of the world, complete with snazzy colors and nubile female bodies bouncing from frame to frame. Spielberg's theme of the questing superchild is back in full effect, but instead of really exploring it as he did in A.I: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, he prefers to indulge in a narrative and cinematic smoke-and-mirrors show and invites us to do the same, much like he did with MINORITY REPORT. Stevie does a great job selling Abagnale's fratboy antics; the smoothness of the storytelling is surely the sign of a master's touch. But he can't help but tack on a moralizing ending that reduces the conflicts of the story to a mere matter of faulty parenting; never mind all the people who were left exploited in Frank's wake (next to the charismatic DiCaprio, the person we feel most sympathetic for is a hooker who hustles $1000 out of Frank's pocket for a one-night stand). These reservations aside, it's a remarkable work, even profound, in a regressively child-like way.

Ballad of a Soldier (1959, Grigori Chukraj)

Sweet, sentimental, and inoffensive tale of a Russian WWII soldier who after blowing up a couple of German tanks gets less than a week's leave to visit his mother, and falls in love with a charming peasant girl along the way. What's most intriguing about this well-made and engaging film is how Hollywood it feels. The incidental scenes depicting the travails of soldier's returning home from the front feels much like William Wyler's THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, but I am very interested in comparing this with Vincente Minnelli's THE CLOCK, which from what I understand has a similar story.

The Quiet American (2002, Philip Noyce)

A handsomely plain adaptation of Graham Greene's novel about a love triangle between a cynical British journalist (Michael Caine, as affably Michael Caine as ever), his Vietnamese mistress (Do Hai Yen, who, as these films require, is exotically, inscrutably beautiful), and a charismatic young American doctor (Brendan Fraser, whose natural golly-gee manner is played up for effect) in 1950s Vietnam. On the one hand, it's remarkable to have a new movie that casts a rueful eye on U.S. government intervention in politically unstable regions, given the present situation of the world; but this film seems strangely noncommittal to making any real argument on behalf of anything, but that's no surprise coming from Miramax. The film seems to ask itself (or maybe it doesn't, in which case it should): am I a love story, exotic action adventure flick, or a political tract, and if all of the above how do they relate to each other? What does it mean to have a lovely girl as the symbol for the soul of Vietnam, being contended over by a sighing, flaccid European and a zealous American boy scout? Just what say do the Vietnamese have in this ideological chess game, other than as pawns? Using 20th century models to understand a 21st century global crisis, if that's what was behind the release of this film, is useful only up to a point; the rest feels like vague nostalgia for noirish jungle thrillers and a political scenario that seems simplistic compared to what's going on today (as if Vietnam was ever a walk in the park!). If anything, this film stirred up my old doubts about Greene's post-war Eurocentric chauvinism and self-tragedizing posturing, evident even in a masterpiece like THE THIRD MAN. As was the case with Miramax's THE HOURS and THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, whatever points it has to make are made so safely that they lack real grit -- but perhaps it's as much as the Blockbuster crowd wants to deal with.

Le Fils/ The Son (2002, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne)

My biggest disappointment of this week was watching the latest film by Belgian super-realists the Dardenne brothers. I really enjoyed their breakthrough film LA PROMESSE and have yet to see their highly acclaimed ROSETTA, which might help me connect better with their very uncompromising aesthetic as evidenced in this film. Practically the entire film is shot from behind the back of a carpenter (Dardenne mainstay Olivier Gourmet, who won the Best Actor award at Cannes for this role) as he regards a new apprentice in his woodshop who, as it turns out, killed his own son some time ago. The highly subjective cinematography is supposed to align our experience of this world with the protagonist's, but for the most part it bored me; with the camera in constant jittery motion, I could never feel like I could focus on anything. The Christian themes and symbolism felt too simple for me, and while the film, which spends a lot of time showing the carpenters doing their job, seems to celebrate the redemptive power of diligence and craftsmanship, I can't say the same for the craft displayed in the making of this film. It's clearly made in the manner of Bresson, but it feels like a straight telling of events without the blindsiding twists of fate or cinematic brilliance that make Bresson's films so invigorating; it's more prosaic than poetic. I might come back to this later with fresh eyes but for now, I just can't embrace it.

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