I saw Paris Je T'aime at the Glasgow Film Theatre as part of a packed house. It was a premiere I think, I can't remember if there was any particular occasion.
The film itself was hit and miss of course, as pretty much all portmanteau films are. My favourite was the last one, by Alexander Payne.
It's just so perfect for the form, for the five minutes. Any longer and it would've been tiring, and the mystery, sadness and beauty dashed.
But strangely enough, this wasn't the one that stayed with me the longest. That one was the segment directed by Tom Tykwer starring Natalie Portman and Gaspard Ulliel.
The reason I still remember it and am writing about it now is its technique in establishing a relationship. The video above has Spanish subtitles and is in French (I couldn't find it with English subtitles) but I think you can still understand what I mean. The way he remembers their relationship as a slow build up of experience ( "I went with you to the conservatoire, we kissed, we danced, we listened to music, I went with you to the conservatoire, we kissed, we listened to music, we danced...") is to me amazing. This aggregation of similar experiences, how you fall into routines, how you build a life together, it really effected me emotionally in a way other films can't. It's so hard to create a believable couple on screen, a real relationship between two people that the audience swears is real. Somehow this deft little device works when so many other things don't.
It's always in my mind when I'm writing my film.
Tuesday 29 January 2008
Monday 28 January 2008
Tuesday 22 January 2008
A New Theory
A theory has been rattling around my head for a few weeks now. It's not entirely thought through, in fact it's more of a passing thought, but more one that doesn't pass.
I got quite obsessed with The Darjeeling Limited when it came out, and by extension Wes Anderson's entire oeuvre. I re-watched Rushmore (still as perfect as the first time I saw it) and The Royal Tenenbaums (a lot darker than I remember) and even The Life Aquatic (a bit better than I remember, but not much). This Anderson frenzy began around the time the Glasgow Film Theatre started its run of It's A Wonderful Life in December, and with so many people overheard in the foyer talking about its "feelgood" qualities, I began to to foment this theory, perhaps to let out my irritation.
Because I get very irritated when people talk of It's A Wonderful Life as a "feelgood" movie. It is not. It is far more complex than that. Frank Capra is far more complex than that. It's A Wonderful Life starts with a suicidal man. It takes us back to his youth where his carefree self dreams of moving away from his small town to do things, to literally build bridges. He dreams of being a great architect. But then his father dies, and the business his father worked at is under threat from a nasty man. So the young man puts his dreams aside (just for a while) in order to save the business. Once he has saved the business he decides to go back to those dreams, to pick them up where they left off. But the town has other ideas. The other men at the business need him, and he meets a girl. He stays in the town, becomes a local man of good repute, the all-American hero, an all-round good guy. But what happened to those dreams? Where are those bridges he was going to build? I don't see any. He hasn't built a single one.
Oh yes, of course he doesn't commit suicide, he realises what a wonderful family he has, but this family is a small-town family, the same small-town he always wanted to leave. He hasn't built bridges, he hasn't travelled the world. The only good feeling in the film is of the "well I suppose as far as compromising one's dreams go, this isn't so bad" kind. This guy may be happy, but it's not the type of happiness he wanted. It's what everyone else wanted.
Now take Anderson. Oh he's too light, too much style, not enough substance, not enough emotive power. Let's make a list of thematic concerns in:
Rushmore:
- lonely young boy
- death of mother
- stifled dreams
- unrequited love
- patheticness of innocence
The Royal Tenenbaums:
- familial strife
- a father tells his family he is dying. He is not
- incest (sort of)
- attempted suicide
- unrequited love
- mental illness and paranoia
- the death of a beloved wife, mother to 2 young children
- estrangement of fathers (multiple ones)
- racism
- the failures of love
- divorce
- drug addiction (multiple)
- restlessness
- failure
- lack of parental approval
The Life Aquatic:
- world-weariness
- divorce
- best friend dying
- estranged fathers and sons
- jealousy/rivalry
- failure
- lack of answers
The Darjeeling Limited:
- absence (through death) of father
- estranged brothers
- mental illness (possibly)
- estranged mother
- failures of love
- attempted suicide (hinted at)
- actual death - the unfairness of life
You may be beginning to see my point. Anderson is our Capra. Both are as misunderstood as the other. Both are seen as light, happy, fluffy. They are anything but. They realise that the lighter side of life has an undercurrent of melancholy to it, that laughter can sometimes be sad. Aren't Capra's boy-men (Mr Deeds, Mr Smith) made to look foolish, out of touch, made fun of? Their innocence is sad and melancholic, people take advantage of their lack of understanding of the modern world, the big city. These film-makers don't make "feelgood" movies, they make films that reflect life as it is. What a ridiculous term "feelgood" is anyway.
I got quite obsessed with The Darjeeling Limited when it came out, and by extension Wes Anderson's entire oeuvre. I re-watched Rushmore (still as perfect as the first time I saw it) and The Royal Tenenbaums (a lot darker than I remember) and even The Life Aquatic (a bit better than I remember, but not much). This Anderson frenzy began around the time the Glasgow Film Theatre started its run of It's A Wonderful Life in December, and with so many people overheard in the foyer talking about its "feelgood" qualities, I began to to foment this theory, perhaps to let out my irritation.
Because I get very irritated when people talk of It's A Wonderful Life as a "feelgood" movie. It is not. It is far more complex than that. Frank Capra is far more complex than that. It's A Wonderful Life starts with a suicidal man. It takes us back to his youth where his carefree self dreams of moving away from his small town to do things, to literally build bridges. He dreams of being a great architect. But then his father dies, and the business his father worked at is under threat from a nasty man. So the young man puts his dreams aside (just for a while) in order to save the business. Once he has saved the business he decides to go back to those dreams, to pick them up where they left off. But the town has other ideas. The other men at the business need him, and he meets a girl. He stays in the town, becomes a local man of good repute, the all-American hero, an all-round good guy. But what happened to those dreams? Where are those bridges he was going to build? I don't see any. He hasn't built a single one.
Oh yes, of course he doesn't commit suicide, he realises what a wonderful family he has, but this family is a small-town family, the same small-town he always wanted to leave. He hasn't built bridges, he hasn't travelled the world. The only good feeling in the film is of the "well I suppose as far as compromising one's dreams go, this isn't so bad" kind. This guy may be happy, but it's not the type of happiness he wanted. It's what everyone else wanted.
Now take Anderson. Oh he's too light, too much style, not enough substance, not enough emotive power. Let's make a list of thematic concerns in:
Rushmore:
- lonely young boy
- death of mother
- stifled dreams
- unrequited love
- patheticness of innocence
The Royal Tenenbaums:
- familial strife
- a father tells his family he is dying. He is not
- incest (sort of)
- attempted suicide
- unrequited love
- mental illness and paranoia
- the death of a beloved wife, mother to 2 young children
- estrangement of fathers (multiple ones)
- racism
- the failures of love
- divorce
- drug addiction (multiple)
- restlessness
- failure
- lack of parental approval
The Life Aquatic:
- world-weariness
- divorce
- best friend dying
- estranged fathers and sons
- jealousy/rivalry
- failure
- lack of answers
The Darjeeling Limited:
- absence (through death) of father
- estranged brothers
- mental illness (possibly)
- estranged mother
- failures of love
- attempted suicide (hinted at)
- actual death - the unfairness of life
You may be beginning to see my point. Anderson is our Capra. Both are as misunderstood as the other. Both are seen as light, happy, fluffy. They are anything but. They realise that the lighter side of life has an undercurrent of melancholy to it, that laughter can sometimes be sad. Aren't Capra's boy-men (Mr Deeds, Mr Smith) made to look foolish, out of touch, made fun of? Their innocence is sad and melancholic, people take advantage of their lack of understanding of the modern world, the big city. These film-makers don't make "feelgood" movies, they make films that reflect life as it is. What a ridiculous term "feelgood" is anyway.
Sunday 20 January 2008
The River/No Country For Old Men
Films I've watched the last few days that I need to find the time to write about:
The River
dir. Jean Renoir
1951
Of it's time perhaps, but with surprisingly modern attitudes toward India. Traces of Renoir's famous humanism.
No Country For Old Men
dirs. Joel and Ethan Coen
2007
Absolutely wonderful! Great atmospheric Texas landscapes and a sense of a sort of wearisome doom falling over everything. A seen-it-all, resigned-to-fate morality, with Javier Bardem as a genuinely terrifying killer.
The River
dir. Jean Renoir
1951
Of it's time perhaps, but with surprisingly modern attitudes toward India. Traces of Renoir's famous humanism.
No Country For Old Men
dirs. Joel and Ethan Coen
2007
Absolutely wonderful! Great atmospheric Texas landscapes and a sense of a sort of wearisome doom falling over everything. A seen-it-all, resigned-to-fate morality, with Javier Bardem as a genuinely terrifying killer.
Monday 14 January 2008
Une Femme est Une Femme
This was an absolute joy. I'm going to be pretty much on message with this one, no startling insights here. I'm going to place my critical weight firmly behind every other critic of this film in saying it is a delight, from start to finish.
Perhaps a simple list of the multitude of inventive, funny, sad.. scenes in this film will surfice:
- An argument enacted out entirely through books. Anna Karina and Jean-Claude Brialy getting out of bed, balancing their upright lamp over a shoulder and marching around the apartment searching for books, the titles of which spell insults.
- Jean-Paul Belmondo desperate to get home to watch Breathless
- Belmondo's gregarious grin to the camera after mentioning his "friend" Burt
Lancaster
- Anna Karina's song that ends with the lines "because I am too gorgeous"
- Brialy blowing a kiss to Karina and nearly knocking an old lady flying
- This interchange between Brialy and Karina:
Angela: Would you rather have fish or meat for dinner?
Émile Récamier: Fish.
Angela: What would you have preferred if you were having meat?
Émile Récamier: I dunno. Veal.
Angela: And if you were to have beef rather than veal, would you prefer a steak or a roast?
Émile Récamier: A steak.
Angela: And had you answered roast, would you prefer it rare or well-done?
Émile Récamier: Rare.
Angela: [jump-cut to Angela returning with the well-done roast] Well, honey, you're out of luck. My roast beef's a little overdone.
- The scene in the bar with Karina and the Aznavour song
- Brialy's scarf
- Brialy's hair
- Their apartment's decor - white walls, red lampshades
- Belmondo's argument with a hotel owner
Oh it goes on and on and on. Just watch it!
Perhaps a simple list of the multitude of inventive, funny, sad.. scenes in this film will surfice:
- An argument enacted out entirely through books. Anna Karina and Jean-Claude Brialy getting out of bed, balancing their upright lamp over a shoulder and marching around the apartment searching for books, the titles of which spell insults.
- Jean-Paul Belmondo desperate to get home to watch Breathless
- Belmondo's gregarious grin to the camera after mentioning his "friend" Burt
Lancaster
- Anna Karina's song that ends with the lines "because I am too gorgeous"
- Brialy blowing a kiss to Karina and nearly knocking an old lady flying
- This interchange between Brialy and Karina:
Angela: Would you rather have fish or meat for dinner?
Émile Récamier: Fish.
Angela: What would you have preferred if you were having meat?
Émile Récamier: I dunno. Veal.
Angela: And if you were to have beef rather than veal, would you prefer a steak or a roast?
Émile Récamier: A steak.
Angela: And had you answered roast, would you prefer it rare or well-done?
Émile Récamier: Rare.
Angela: [jump-cut to Angela returning with the well-done roast] Well, honey, you're out of luck. My roast beef's a little overdone.
- The scene in the bar with Karina and the Aznavour song
- Brialy's scarf
- Brialy's hair
- Their apartment's decor - white walls, red lampshades
- Belmondo's argument with a hotel owner
Oh it goes on and on and on. Just watch it!
I Don't Want To Sleep Alone
This film finally came to Glasgow, and to be honest, the trailer was better. Whilst I admired its bravery and vision it left me cold. I wouldn't see it again. I would look at stills from it - as Espos magazine did recently - for years, all those lovely pastel blues, greys and browns, but it's a hard watch basically.
It follows a nameless, and rather unlikable Chinese immigrant in Kuala Lumpur. He is beaten up and nursed back to health by a fellow immigrant, a Bangladeshi. The Chinese man has a brief affair with a local girl and risks the jealousy of the Bangladeshi man, who has grown attached to him.
This story is entirely emotionless, except for one scene where the Bangladeshi man (neither character has a name by the way!) is persuaded against slicing open the Chinese man's throat with the edge of a tin can. To go from gruesome to forgiveness using just the two actors' eyes is fantastic. And that's where my admiration comes in, ever so briefly. Two things I marvelled at with this film: the bravery of persuing this film using no dialogue. No-one says anything. The majority of the film is silent, and what human voices there are come from the radio that seems to be on in every scene. I admire Tsai Ming Lang's bravery but it doesn't come off. The alienation one feels towards these characters is most probably as a result from the lack of dialogue, and even the lack of names! Thinking about it now, perhaps that was part of the strategy, an analogy for the anonymity of immigrants in great capitalist metropoli, but I don't buy it.
What succeeds entirely is the placing of this anonymity in the context of these great city landscapes. As the group of young Bangladeshis transport a saggy, soiled mattress across the city, they are shown in the corner of the shot, scurrying along the edge of dual carriageways and motorways, the whirr of cars going by and the looming advertising hoardings and skyscrapers behind them. This image is one of vermin, rats scurrying through sewers and in bins. They are portrayed - and treated by the "successful" - as precisely that, forgotten nuisances.
It follows a nameless, and rather unlikable Chinese immigrant in Kuala Lumpur. He is beaten up and nursed back to health by a fellow immigrant, a Bangladeshi. The Chinese man has a brief affair with a local girl and risks the jealousy of the Bangladeshi man, who has grown attached to him.
This story is entirely emotionless, except for one scene where the Bangladeshi man (neither character has a name by the way!) is persuaded against slicing open the Chinese man's throat with the edge of a tin can. To go from gruesome to forgiveness using just the two actors' eyes is fantastic. And that's where my admiration comes in, ever so briefly. Two things I marvelled at with this film: the bravery of persuing this film using no dialogue. No-one says anything. The majority of the film is silent, and what human voices there are come from the radio that seems to be on in every scene. I admire Tsai Ming Lang's bravery but it doesn't come off. The alienation one feels towards these characters is most probably as a result from the lack of dialogue, and even the lack of names! Thinking about it now, perhaps that was part of the strategy, an analogy for the anonymity of immigrants in great capitalist metropoli, but I don't buy it.
What succeeds entirely is the placing of this anonymity in the context of these great city landscapes. As the group of young Bangladeshis transport a saggy, soiled mattress across the city, they are shown in the corner of the shot, scurrying along the edge of dual carriageways and motorways, the whirr of cars going by and the looming advertising hoardings and skyscrapers behind them. This image is one of vermin, rats scurrying through sewers and in bins. They are portrayed - and treated by the "successful" - as precisely that, forgotten nuisances.
Sunday 6 January 2008
Lust, Caution
Don't let the terrible title put you off. The film's quality is inverse to that of the title. Never a shot too long or too short, never a word out of place, acting right on the money scene after scene after scene, this is premium film-making. It is the type of film that makes going to the cinema such a spellbinding experience. It is the movie equivalent of chocolate, but really, really good chocolate. The Valrhona of cinema.
It is a story that grips you for every one of its 157 minutes, that ticks all the story boxes: what happens next, what happens next, what happens next?!
You know when a film tells rather than shows? This film shows, every moment of anguish, every moment of fear is etched on the screen. Some films would tell us the student radicals were inept and would proceed to show pratfuls and most probably the boys more interested in girls and the girls more interested in make-up. It would be like a lecture, the film's voice telling us something and then illustrating it. This film does not do that. The students are inept because we see them being inept. Ang Lee doesn't overdo it (they do kill someone after all, but it is rushed, hurried, unplanned), but we know that their muddled plans will never quite lead to the desired end.
When Wong Chia Chi lets fly at her spymaster, cursing him for this mission and describing in minute detail the hell of sleeping with the animalistic Mr Lee we know every word of her speech to be true because we have seen it for ourselves. Ang Lee doesn't let us miss anything.
There have been few times in my film-watching career where I've been aware that I'm watching an utterly masterful film. The first - and still most vivid - time was during The Godfather. I remember just sitting there and it hitting me: this is perfect film-making. So is Lust, Caution. Or nearly perfect: the title needs a bit of work.
It is a story that grips you for every one of its 157 minutes, that ticks all the story boxes: what happens next, what happens next, what happens next?!
You know when a film tells rather than shows? This film shows, every moment of anguish, every moment of fear is etched on the screen. Some films would tell us the student radicals were inept and would proceed to show pratfuls and most probably the boys more interested in girls and the girls more interested in make-up. It would be like a lecture, the film's voice telling us something and then illustrating it. This film does not do that. The students are inept because we see them being inept. Ang Lee doesn't overdo it (they do kill someone after all, but it is rushed, hurried, unplanned), but we know that their muddled plans will never quite lead to the desired end.
When Wong Chia Chi lets fly at her spymaster, cursing him for this mission and describing in minute detail the hell of sleeping with the animalistic Mr Lee we know every word of her speech to be true because we have seen it for ourselves. Ang Lee doesn't let us miss anything.
There have been few times in my film-watching career where I've been aware that I'm watching an utterly masterful film. The first - and still most vivid - time was during The Godfather. I remember just sitting there and it hitting me: this is perfect film-making. So is Lust, Caution. Or nearly perfect: the title needs a bit of work.
Thursday 3 January 2008
Silent Light
If ever certain film-makers felt aggrieved on being accused of favouring style over substance, then this is the type of film that gave birth to such accusations. I actually enjoyed Carlos Reygadas' Battle In Heaven, much to my surprise. I felt it managed to balance style and substance reasonably well, and the arch stylistic elements did not blur the story of a man having a mid-life crisis complicated by his religion. Something worked in that film. Nothing worked in this film.
It is hard to care about a film that subjugates everything to the movement of a camera, to the extent that it resembles idolatory. An example: a doctor walks into a room and sits down with a man whose wife has just died. The doctor looks at the man, who is staring straight ahead, into space. The camera slowly tracks forward, to just past a two shot. It stops. The doctor sighs. "Your wife died of a heart attack" he says. THIS WOULD NOT HAPPEN! A doctor would not wait, the man would ask what happened, even if he was in shock, or in a daze, he would be stirred by the doctor's arrival! What should be a heartbreaking scene becomes ridiculous. You find yourself counting down the silence.
Another example: A man and a woman are driving in a car. They are man and wife, and have had some problems. He has had an affair, and has tried to stop it. He has found that hard. "I've seen her again" he says. The camera stays on him. He drives, his face emotionless. Cut to the wife. She looks ahead, to the road, not at her husband. She looks out the window. She looks at him. She turns away. She looks at him. "How long ago?" she asks. Again RIDICULOUS.
By two thirds of the way through the film, I just couldn't be bothered anymore. Yes it was beautiful to look at but you can look at photo essays for that. And thinking about it, you could probably find more about the Mennonite community in which the film was set through a photo essay than this. There was absolutely no reason to set this film, this story in this place. A man has an affair and finds it hard to make moral choices. Affairs are looked down on in the community. It could be set anywhere.
You don't care about anything in this film. Every scene is an exercise in alienation. Alienation of the viewer that is. Bit by bit, steadily but surely, you are broken down to the state of not giving a damn. You hope for an olive branch from Reygadas, something to draw you in, something to make you feel something, but it never comes. There is some sort of barrier between you and the film. In the cinema, you are intensely aware of the people around you, of your existence in a darkened room watching something on a screen. Great films make you forget that.
At university we were always told that film-making is about decision-making. We were right to be told about it. It is full of decision-making. You can't escape it, you can't make a film without it. It comes down to this: you need to know what you are doing and why you are doing it. I don't believe Reygadas knew either.
It is hard to care about a film that subjugates everything to the movement of a camera, to the extent that it resembles idolatory. An example: a doctor walks into a room and sits down with a man whose wife has just died. The doctor looks at the man, who is staring straight ahead, into space. The camera slowly tracks forward, to just past a two shot. It stops. The doctor sighs. "Your wife died of a heart attack" he says. THIS WOULD NOT HAPPEN! A doctor would not wait, the man would ask what happened, even if he was in shock, or in a daze, he would be stirred by the doctor's arrival! What should be a heartbreaking scene becomes ridiculous. You find yourself counting down the silence.
Another example: A man and a woman are driving in a car. They are man and wife, and have had some problems. He has had an affair, and has tried to stop it. He has found that hard. "I've seen her again" he says. The camera stays on him. He drives, his face emotionless. Cut to the wife. She looks ahead, to the road, not at her husband. She looks out the window. She looks at him. She turns away. She looks at him. "How long ago?" she asks. Again RIDICULOUS.
By two thirds of the way through the film, I just couldn't be bothered anymore. Yes it was beautiful to look at but you can look at photo essays for that. And thinking about it, you could probably find more about the Mennonite community in which the film was set through a photo essay than this. There was absolutely no reason to set this film, this story in this place. A man has an affair and finds it hard to make moral choices. Affairs are looked down on in the community. It could be set anywhere.
You don't care about anything in this film. Every scene is an exercise in alienation. Alienation of the viewer that is. Bit by bit, steadily but surely, you are broken down to the state of not giving a damn. You hope for an olive branch from Reygadas, something to draw you in, something to make you feel something, but it never comes. There is some sort of barrier between you and the film. In the cinema, you are intensely aware of the people around you, of your existence in a darkened room watching something on a screen. Great films make you forget that.
At university we were always told that film-making is about decision-making. We were right to be told about it. It is full of decision-making. You can't escape it, you can't make a film without it. It comes down to this: you need to know what you are doing and why you are doing it. I don't believe Reygadas knew either.
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