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SCREENING LOG
- 9/15-9/21, 2003
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I watched GILDA, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, ONCE UPON A TIME,
LOST IN TRANSLATION and 15. In order of preference:
zetes fixer of the week
The Lady from Shanghai (1947, Orson Welles)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0040525/
One sitting wasn't enough for me to get my head around this
sinuous maze of a movie whose sole concern seems to be its
own feverish tall tale telling. Welles plays a blustery Irishman
who gets entangled in a web of romantic and murderous intrigue
involving a crippled lawyer (Everett Sloane, more sinister
than I'd ever imagined him to be), his drop dead gorgeous
wife (Rita Hayworth, of course), and their mysterious colleague
(Glenn Anders) who enlists Welles into his cockeyed plan to
fake his own suicide. Perhaps not to everyone's taste -- but
there are some images and moments (the encounter in the aquarium,
the dialogues between Welles and Anders -- "Target Practice!!!!",
the Peking Opera House, and of course the Hall of Mirrors)
that shimmer with the moonlit clairvoyance of a mad genius.
I'm starting to really acquire a taste for Welles post-AMBERSONS,
pre F FOR FAKE and have a hard time deciding whether this
film or TOUCH OF EVIL is the better film, for all their baroque
intensity of invention. #2 for 1947 between GERMANY YEAR ZERO
and MONSIEUR VERDOUX
DFC-2 Complex Film about Complex Children of the Complex
Week
15 (2002, Royston Tan)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0313150/
My major discovery of the week was at the Georgetown Independent
Film Festival where this 30 minute teenage explosion from
Singapore played in the middle of a program of shorts and
it simply blew me away. The nominal plot involves a trio of
insolent, indolent schoolboys (all three playing themselves
in real life, giving the film a bizarre semi-documentary feel)
who decide to contribute a gangster rap number to their school's
upcoming musical variety program. From there the film dives
headfirst into a swirling typhoon of riotous teen imagery
-- fistfights shockingly depicted as video games and rah-rah
musical numbers with the boys dressed in drag delivered directly
to the camera are juxtaposed with graphic real-time footage
of the boys getting tattoos and body piercings, as well as
startlingly quiet moments of homoerotic intimacy. Every scene
seems to be a stunning and defiant expression of the raw brilliance
of youthful self-assertion running headlong into the brick
wall of Singaporean social order -- the cumulative effect
is one of tragic waste. First-time filmmaker Tan has since
expanded this short into a feature (which is currently playing
at the Vancouver Film Festival) -- but this explosive little
work is more than enough to put both Tan and Singaporean filmmaking
on the map.
Once Upon a Time (1922, Carl Dreyer)
//us.imdb.com/title/tt0013059/
This early gem (which, available at a runtime of 75 minutes
while missing several fragments), is a quizzical entry in
the Dreyer oeuvre, a rather grim fairy tale about a princess
(played by Scandinvaian silent star Carla Pontopiddian) who
spurns suitors from all lands but is seduced and subjugated
by a cunning potter. The study of a strong-willed woman's
tense and tragic relationship to the world, her impossible
ideas broken down by reality, is certainly a recurring Dreyer
theme: here Dreyer manages a remarkable shift in the audience's
regard of the princess, from consternation to sympathy. The
sumptuous black and white cinematography, where everything
seems to give off an eerie glow, is an unmistakable Dreyer
signature. #5 for 1922 between NOSFERATU and THE TOLL OF THE
SEA
Gilda (1946, Charles Vidor)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0038559/
I'm of two minds with this classic, partly because the film
feels like two movies smushed together: part film-noir intrigue,
part sudsy relationship melodrama (with some knockout musical
numbers thrown in for good measure), in any case the story
involves a hustler (Glenn Ford, bland as a pancake) hired
by a German exiled in post-war Argentina to look after his
kept woman (Rita Hayworth, more on her in a second). It's
difficult to read this love triangle because the harsh, cruel
film-noir moments run jagged against the more tender emotional
ones that emerge later on -- but at the same time these incongruencies
are what makes the film fascinating, not just as a study in
genres but also of the femme fatale as an immensely desirable
object -- do we trust her or spurn her? I can't think of a
better actress than Hayworth to pull off such a multiplicitous
role -- sexy, dangerous, tender, innocent, sin incarnate in
need of redemption, or at least acceptance. I didn't go for
the silly soapy plot contrivances but I suspect that over
time those perfunctory elements will recede and what's unique
about this film will linger and glow -- most certainly in
the form of Rita as Gilda, whom I suspect is one of the most
complicated embodiments of the female identity in film. #12
for 1946 between THE KILLERS and DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID
Lost in Translation (2003, Sofia Coppola)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0335266/
As was the case with AMERICAN SPLENDOR and its most worthy
project of proving that "ordinary life is complex stuff",
here we have a film whose premise I have every reason to embrace,
but am left somewhat let down. This time the laudatory topic
is the experience of foreign culture, in moods both enlivening
and alienating -- moods are what Ms. Coppola seems to excel
at, equipped with a hummingly hip soundtrack and all the pulsating
neon Tokyo has to offer. As with AMERICAN SPLENDOR, the editing
keeps things going at a brisk clip while making mincemeat
of the viewer's concrete sense of time, place and human experience
-- we seem to be getting a stuttered highlight reel of cool
touristy scenes and sensations, often successfully distracting
the viewer from realizing that they're not getting the goods.
Somehow it doesn't add up, unless one is content with Antonionian
cliches about empty existence adrift abroad amist the charming
silliness of the Japanese (cliches that may very well ring
true on a surface level, which is pretty much where this movie
mostly resides -- the film's incuriousness about foreign culture
is what's most frustrating about it, and probably what will
make it a big hit among American viewers eager to guffaw at
another culture after MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING). It's certainly
watchable and enjoyable, especially when such eminently likeable
actors as Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray are at the foreground
of the often funny and charming proceedings, even though the
characters they have to work with are flimisily drawn, saddled
with flimsy domestic problems with flimsy unappreciative spouses.
Giovanni Ribisi plays Johannson's unattentive videographer
husband in such a bizarrely mannered way that I wondered if
he was doing an unflattering impression of Coppola's real
life husband, director Spike Jonze -- which lends the film
an enriching autobiographical subtext, which was about as
enriching as it got for me. #3 for 2003 IMDb releases between
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and AMERICAN SPLENDOR # 20 for new
films seen in 2003 between CITY OF GOD and AMERICAN SPLENDOR
As a bonus point of comparison, here's my review of Coppola's
previous feature THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. http://www.alsolikelife.com/kdogg/journal/v/Virginsuicides.htm
In both films I feel that she has a strong sense of film texture
and mood, but in both films I get the sense that she basically
doesn't know what she really wants to say, or how to dig deeper
into her subject than surface-level observation, and can only
provide poster art imagery to conceal her uncertainty.
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