Winter Movies - II

CBS Films

Inside Llewyn Davis, 2013
A film by the Coen Bothers

The Coens have “done winter” before, in their icy-black comedy Fargo, but this time the laughs are few and the blackness is grayer. Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) is a not untalented “folk singer” who can't seem to catch a break—he’s too busy sabotaging his own career. Taking place over the span of about a week, Llewyn bounces from one couch to another while alienating people who are his supporters, losing a couple of cats, and taking some hard knocks along the way. This film is a character study, with nuanced performances all around. The cinematography (Bruno Delbonnel) is moody and evocative. The best “feel bad” movie of the year, it is another great film from greatest brother duo in the history of film direction.

Underlying the film lies a rumination on success, failure, integrity and authenticity.  Llewyn has integrity and failure, but no authenticity or success. It is a question posed to any artist who must not only sell his art, but also himself. A young Bob Dylan appears at the end of the film, marking the end of an era which is seems to be over for Llewyn. The ending is deliberately ambiguous, suggesting either that Llewyn has come to grips with his failure and is ready to move on or he has embraced a cycle of failure as the price of experiencing artistic success.

Highest recommendation.


20th Century Fox

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, 2013
A film by Ben Stiller

This is the other “holiday” movie which I saw this season, it is a considerably lighter and brighter (PG rated) film that I simply had to see in the theater—the middle of the film was shot in Iceland—and man, did they ever let it shine! Walter Mitty is an archivist for Life Magazine who has difficulties in engaging with reality at times. He has an interest in co-worker Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig) but doesn't have the nerve to act on it. Walter ultimately finds his “mojo” through a series of real-life adventures involving a mysterious photographer and a lost negative. It has some elements of fantasy and the shifts between reality and Walter’s imaginings are handled well. It is pleasantly non-raunchy. The film has a surprisingly satisfying ending. Walter learns the value of his own regular life, finding himself in the process and is finally able to start a relationship with Cheryl.

But forget all that analysis. Iceland is the real reason to catch this film. Lots of helicopter shots of the country (Iceland is also used as a stand-in for Greenland and Afghanistan) and an extended scene between Stiller and my favorite Icelandic actor, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (pictured above). This film is a must for Icelandophiles—Iceland has never looked better on screen—and is a pleasant (if not terribly challenging) diversion for any non-jaded film buff.

One side note: Although both of these films were shot on film (and are gorgeous to look at) there have been rumors that traditional film manufacture and processing may soon cease, as early as this year! Both Stiller and the Coens have mentioned that these are probably their last movies shot on film. Secret has a sub-theme about the conflict of digital and analog photography, while Inside was post-processed to give the movie a very "60s Ektachrome" look.

French Connections

A three-fer today!

A trio of films I’ve seen in the last two weeks each of which is set in France in the 1960s:

The French Dispatch
A film by Wes Anderson, 2021

I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

There are three extended ‘magazine articles’ as well as bridging segments, all of which take place in France in the 1960s. Grounded by scenes in the office of The French Dispatch, a Sunday supplement of the fictional Liberty Kansas Evening Sun, it would be a sin to give spoilers to any of the stories. Part of the joy of the film is watching it for the first time with no preconceived notions. What I will tell you is that the production design, as is usual for a WA film, is completely over-the-top. My old blog-pal Annie Atkins did many of the text graphics:

There is a full movie’s worth of characters in each segment; Tilda Swinton’s art historian is most notable, but everyone is great. I know I’ll be watching this film again and again:

And now, my second ‘French Connection’:

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
A film by Jacques Demy, 1964

Another movie that has to be seen to be believed, also set in France in the 1960s, but this time in a real city.

All of the dialog is sung to the classic score by Michel Legrand. It is the story of a star-crossed young lovers coping with the obstacles that life throws their way. If you are sentimental, make sure you have a box of tissues with you when you watch. I won’t spoil this one either; instead I’ll mention Demy’s outrageous and sure-handed use of set design. I’m sure that Wes Anderson has seen this movie many times as it explores color palettes that even Wes would be afraid to use. If that isn’t enough of a recommendation, it stars a young Catherine Denueve:

She’s got ‘the look’:

Although it may look as if it is a bit of cinematic fluff the film is actually quite serious, especially in its the conversations with Denueve’s character and her mother which are agonizing and realistic. This film certainly passes the Bechdel Test.

Paris Blues
A film by Martin Ritt (1961):

This is another film stuffed with style.

The moody black and white location cinematography is augmented by a Duke Ellington score (and glorious cameos by Louis Armstrong). A pair of expat musicians (Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman) who play in a trés cool basement jazz club find their career paths derailed by the arrival of two American women (Diahann Carroll and Joanne Woodward):

This would be standard Rom-Com fare except for the racial themes that form a subtext for the movie. Another twist is that Woodward’s character, who first appears as a Doris Day type, is actually a single mother of two and has no qualms about her sexual desires towards Newman. The four principals have an interlocked relationship, indeed, Poitier and Newman have sort of a man-love thing going while Carroll and Woodward have a genuine friendship:

The big difference between Paris Blues and the other two is that it is not the product of a singular vision like Anderson’s or Demy’s. Instead it is a film-by-committee that took the source material (a 1957 book by Harold Flender) and watered it down; three screenwriters and a book adaptation were credited and the script was further tampered with by studio executives. Originally the two couples were to be mixed-race—still too controversial for American audiences—even if it was set in France. The dialog is also a bit disjointed at times; you would think that with all the writers it had it could sound more realistic. The sprinkling of 50s hipster patios coming from Newman is exceptionally awkward. The music, while well done, is in the style of the 1940s, creating an additional cultural dissonance. There is also reference to cocaine use by one of the band members but with symptoms more in line with heroin addiction. There is also a touch of homosexual jealousy between Newman’s character and a band-mate.

This film is a real curio and lesser than the sum of its parts. In some ways its realistic setting set against its dramatic content makes it more of a fantasy than the other two films!

MSPIFF Revisited- Mamma Gógó

Mamma Gógó, 2010, A film written and directed by Friðrik Þór Friðriksson

Friðrik Þór Friðriksson has directed several notable movies, among them Niceland, Angels of the Universe, Devil's Island, Cold Fever, and Children of Nature. One trait in all of these is the great empathy he has for his characters. This film, loosely biographical, is about an Icelandic film-maker (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) whose latest film Children of Nature (as I said, "loosely" biographical) is doing poorly at the box office while at the same time his mother, Gógó, (Kristbjörg Kjeld) is rapidly developing an advanced case of Alzheimer's disease. This is, despite the plot, not a somber film. It isn't a comedy, but rather a realistic family drama with a vivid backdrop of modern Iceland. As the director's life crumbles, so does the relationship between Gógó and her children. The only person Gógó can communicate with is the ghost of her deceased husband, played by Gunnar Eyjólfsson. Gógó's fantasies develop, with memories of the early days of her courtship- played out in vintage black and white footage. The film's ending has an almost unbearable poignancy; be sure to bring some tissues, Friðrik Þór Friðriksson deserves a film festival of his own (or perhaps a box DVD set with Rokk í Reykjavík as an extra!)

The "film within the film":


79 af stöðinni, 1962, A film directed by Erik Balling

Starring: Kristbjörg Kjeld and Gunnar Eyjólfsson


NOTE: for MSP area readers: It will be screened again Friday, April 29, at 3:30 pm

Icelandic Cinema and Me

There have been a number of notable films with strong connections to Iceland in the last few years.
The IMDb lists 302 titles in its Iceland section. I'll be giving a short impression of the ones I've seen, (using English titles) seeing any one of them is definitely the next best thing to being there...

101 Reykjavík, 2000, probably the most well known release of the last ten years, an unflinching look at the wild side of "101"- the central district of Reykjavík. I had a discussion about this film with a native in the Laugardalslaug pool, he was not at all pleased with its depiction of the city.

Beowulf and Grendel, 2005, Not the Angelia Jolie film, but the same story, told pretty well on a striking Icelandic location.

Cold Fever, 1995, Japanese-Icelandic production, very good, quirky, touching at times. Lots of countryside.

Screaming Masterpiece, 2005, The Icelandic music scene, wildly uneven, a must for music fans.

Dís, 2004, Coming of age story written by a woman who was a night clerk at Hotel Borg (Shen was working the night desk the time I stayed there), not the greatest film, but lots of Reykjavik locales, with a cameo from Vigdís Finnbogadóttir and soundtrack by Jóhann Jóhannsson.

Heima, 2007, Sigur Rós concert film, and much, much more. #1 rated documentary at IMDb.

The Juniper Tree, Brothers Grimm-type story concerning witchcraft set amidst Icelandic scenery. Björk's film debut. A bit thin on drama but very good atmosphere.

Cold Light, 2004, a brooding, dark film about a man haunted by a childhood trauma. Extremely well done, not for everyone. Good views of modern life in Reykjavík.

The Seagull's Laughter 2001, great film about an extended family of women whose worthless men meet their demise in various "accidents." Told from the point of view of a girl on the verge of adolescence. A must see.

Jar City, 2006, an Inspector Arnaldur mystery. Taut mystery with good cast, very dark, excellent location shots.

Noi the Albino, 2003, a peculiar young man in an isolated town on the northern coast of Iceland. Very odd, even by Icelandic standards, well worth viewing if you enjoy a Twilight-Zone type story.

There are obviously many more, some titles I've left off because they were not directly concerned with Iceland (notably Niceland, 2004, A Little Trip to Heaven, 2005, Dancer in the Dark, 2001) and there are some I've been wanting to see but haven't yet had the chance (The Sea, Angels of the Universe) to say nothing of the Halldór Laxness books that have been filmed (Salka Valka, 1954, and Atom Station, 1984.) Most of those are in Icelandic only, some aren't available in compatible formats.

I found Noi at my local Hollywood. Netflix should have most of the others...

UPDATE! Check out Rose's reviews of selected Icelandic films!

Palettes

Everett/REX Shutterstock

It has been a while since the Professor has posted about movies. It isn't that I haven't seen any lately, it's just that I haven't seen many that were exceptional enough to comment on.

The Todd Haynes film Carol is, indeed, exceptional. Todd Haynes makes very stylish movies, from his Douglas Sirk inspired Far From Heaven, with its deep psychological color schemes, to his film I'm Not There, where he gave each of the six or seven Bob Dylans in it a completely different "look". His latest film, made from the 1952 Patricia Highsmith novel, is a love story between a shop-girl/photographer and a wealthy woman who is in the middle of a divorce. I must remark on the stunning cinematography by the great Ed Lachman, as well as the production design by Judy Becker. The early fifties never looked so true (and yes, I can remember them) especially the department store sequences and the pre-modern decor. All of this worked in support of the very delicate play of emotions between the two main characters—a showcase of of subtle acting.

Jim Jarmusch gives us a different look in his 2013 vampire film Only Lovers Left Alive:


RPC

Kind of silly, this film explores the notion that ageless vampires are cultural connoisseurs, a lot of time is spent prowling the streets of modern Detroit, a metaphor for a collapsing society. The always great Tilda Swinton is magnificent as Eve, while Tom Hiddlestons Adam is suitably dark. Lots of fabulous vintage guitars and electronics. The great John Hurt portrays a 500-year old vampire Christopher Marlowe, still kvetching about how Shakespeare stole his work!

Sometimes films get lost in the shuffle and are hard to find. After browsing my usual haunts for a cheap copy I finally broke down and purchased a new copy of Robert Altman's seriously deranged 1977 masterpiece 3 Women :


Lion's Gate Films

Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek reach the highest levels of absurd realism in this strange story of personality-transfer. More great color motifs going on here, as well as great art design and really, really creepy murals by Bodhi Wind.

As long as I'm on Shelly Duvall and Robert Altman, we recently re-watched Popeye (The Weaver's favorite film.)  Robin Williams does a great Popeye and Shelly Duvall, in the role of a lifetime, is Olive Oyl. The Harry Nilsson soundtrack is a little weak at times but, I have to admit, for a colorful comic-strip movie it is pretty entertaining:


Paramount Pictures

It has an insanely great comic-riffing scene between Popeye and Poop-deck Pappy (Ray Walston).

On a whole different plane (a spy-plane?) is Steven Spielberg's cold war legal procedural Bridge of Spies. Set in the early sixties, it is a much more somber mood-piece:


Walt Disney Films

Scenes of men in suits in courtrooms offer a limited palette to be sure, and the murky photography (Janusz Kaminski) and period-correct production design (Adam Stockhausen, supplemented with the graphic design of Annie Atkins) gives a result that is not what one would call "festive." This kind of movie-making is like a BIG MACHINE with lots of power, running on a very high level, although the story is a bit slow. Tom Hanks is perfectly cast but I'm still not quite convinced of the genius of Mark Rylance. The Coen Brothers worked on the dialog; it helped keep this film from becoming a pedantic bore. Spielberg can make movies like this in his sleep.

Speaking of the Brothers Coen, Hail, Caesar! will be out next week. I'll be sure to review that one:


Working Title Productions

Either Way

Á annan veg
A film by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson
Iceland 2011

Another Icelandic film that had hitherto escaped my attention, found hidden in the Anoka county library system’s computer catalog. A true road movie: all of the action takes place on or near desolated stretches of Iceland's rural roads. I had seen one of its stars, Hilmar Guðjónsson, in a 2012 production of Rauð (Red), a play about Mark Rothko. I saw him in 2015 as well, in the Vesturbaerlaug swimming pool, but that was a different kind of “exposure.”

Set in the mid-80s, two road workers are spending their summer manually painting lines and pounding in stakes along a mostly deserted highway. Alfred (Hilmar) is 24 and restless, eager to return to the city. Finnbogi (Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson) is 33, and is using the summer to take a break from a stormy relationship with Alfred’s sister. The relationship between the men is strained to begin with, and goes downhill from there. A lot of not very enlightened talk about women eventually comes to a breaking point. I won’t go into plot; this more a film of atmosphere and nuance. The Icelandic scenery in the film is among its bleakest, this is most definitely not an Icelandic Tourism film. A hard film to like. While the actors are fine, I found the set-up and payoff not worth the effort. The film did have some success on the festival circuit where its “indie” production sensibilities would be an asset. It was remade as Prince Avalanche in the U.S. in 2013, starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch, which bombed at the box office.

Woody in Exile

Café Society
A film by Woody Allen, 2016

A Rainy Day in New York
A film by Woody Allen, 2019

These two movies and the rest of his recent work has been denied U.S. distribution because of child molestation allegations by Mia Farrow, her daughter Dylan and their son Ronan. No court will address these charges therefore I won’t comment on them either, they have effectively established Woody Allen as a persona non grata and exiled his releases to overseas markets and streaming.

All that aside, these cinematic misfires stand on their own, although Allen’s  duds are better (or at least more interesting) than most of the other dreck that passes for entertainment today. It is often said that a successful author only writes one book in their lifetime–the rest are re-writes. In defense of Woody he has explored numerous tropes in his career: New York City, sexual mores, neurotic behavior, and a nostalgic yearning for the past. These two films contain all of these; both use New York City as a central character, express nostalgia for the 1930s, and have older men ineptly romancing beautiful young women.

Café Society concerns Bobby (Jessie Eisenberg) a Bronx native, who moves to Hollywood in the late 1930s and falls in love with Vonnie, a young woman (Kristen Stewart) who is seeing Phil (Steve Carell), Bobby’s uncle, who is a Hollywood agent and also a married man. A romantic triangle grows out of this situation, although there are no real sparks seen on screen. Vonnie is something of a cold fish, and neither Bobby nor Phil are very appealing either. There was a time (the late 1930s?) when movies had stars in them: actors who were not only capable of delivering a convincing performance, but actually had a charisma that showed on the screen. The love scenes between Vonnie and the much older Phil are not only dead, they are squirm-inducing. Stewart’s Vonnie gives the impression that she is about to throw up at the thought of Carell’s Phil touching her:

Bobby moves back to New York and becomes successful running a nightclub with his hoodlum brother. There are some unappealing family dynamics at work and when Phil and Vonnie (now married) visit, things get complicated and the story sort of peters out at the end.

A Rainy Day in New York is sent in current times, but could just as well have been set in the 30s. A young college couple, Gatsby (Timothée Chalamet) and Ashleigh (Elle Fanning) arrive in New York for a weekend where they endure bad weather and suffer a series of misadventures. Gatsby is mentally stuck in NYC’s 1930s Café Society (he is an accomplished pianist who frequents jazz clubs), while Ashleigh is a film/journalism grad student (with a thing for old movies) who has an appointment to interview a famous film director. While she is conducting her interview, Gatsby wanders off, finding an old friend who happens to be making a student film and needs an actor to play a love scene with Chan (Selena Gomez), a woman who turns out to be the younger sister of Gatsby’s ex. At the interview Ashleigh is hit on by the director then his screenwriter and, finally, a famous and sexy actor. Meanwhile Gatsby has “issues” with Chan, and a prostitute, and his mother. This is a better plot than Café Society, but the dialog is stilted, often hilariously bad at times. All the men are creepy and Chan’s vocal fry is so thick it sounds as if she is a 70 year-old chain smoker. The redeeming grace is the performance of Elle Fanning. Her role of virgin/seductress is played to the hilt; while the camera is on her the film comes alive. She has been the best thing in a wide variety of off-beat movies, this might be her last role as an ingenue:

Woody Allen is in his mid-80s, these scripts are so out of touch with modern reality it is as if they had been written by someone in their mid-120s! His last great film may have been Midnight in Paris, which examined the false allure of nostalgia rather than wallowing in it the way he has in these two films.  The cinematography by Vittorio Storaro is first-rate, although he does go overboard on the color saturation at times—making these films seem even more like a cartoon than they already are, although they aren’t funny.

The Death of Film Criticism

Annie Atkins.com

                       The Grand Budapest Hotel

I braved yet another cold, gray, late-winter day to catch Wes Anderson's latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Being the center of an almost religious cult of fans has its drawbacks—the true believers become insufferable and the haters gotta hate something. It is a most unfortunate situation. The film itself is magnificent in almost every aspect: direction, cinematography, actors, music, art and graphic design (it could be a textbook!), with a madcap plot and even subtle historical allegories. What's not to like?

The problem for me was that the build up to the film was so dramatic and pervasive (thanks to the internet and its army of film reviewers) that what should have been a joyous trip of discovery was diminished by overexposure. It's my own fault, and I knew it going in. There was so much information on the internet, so much really fun eye candy and provocative writing available, that I felt powerless to resist its allure. It was something of an experiment (read as: rationalization) to see just how far I could go with it. I went too far. I almost wish I had known nothing about it before I saw it.

So, I learned my lesson. No more film criticism, no more “b-rolls” and “making of” features, no YouTube clips or multiple trailers on upcoming movies. I’ll try to go in cold, without conscious (or sub-conscious) prejudices, an open mind and heart and hope for the best—at least as far as Wes Anderson is concerned. All these previews and reviews didn’t ruin the film for me (it’s a hoot!) but they did take away some of the surprise and awe.

I’m already looking forward to see it again.

The Virgin Suicides

Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, 1993

Film by Sofia Coppola, 1999


Paramount Classics

More impressions from my summer reading/viewing. I was only dimly aware of this story, but enough references to it kept cropping up to force it on my mount TBR. The story is told from a first-person plural narrative- a group of men tell the story of and try to come to grips with the suicides of five sisters in a Michigan suburb, set in the early seventies, when they were teenagers.

The book is terse, the narrator(s) are not particularly eloquent, but meticulous in its description of the suburban life-style and the fantasy world of adolescent males. The sisters exist in a parallel reality, mostly unattainable, imprisoned by well-meaning parents. The film "fleshes out" the story with strong visuals, and in the process creates a considerably different impression. Not better or worse, but the appearance of the girls and boys charges the story with a realistic sexuality which the book somehow fails to project. The book is almost like a dirty joke, the film is a ballet- indeed, one could watch this movie with the sound off and probably get just as much out of it.

Sophia Coppola's films as a director (Somewhere, Marie Antoinette, Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides) feature a certain distance between the characters in them; "Modern" in the sense of lack of resolution. Perhaps that is the type of story which intrigues her. TVS certainly fits that genre. The book's ending felt like it was a bit of a cheat to me, the film's didn't. The girls' vapid languor resonated more on screen; on the page they were quite remote. As a coming of age film, this is hardly Pretty in Pink, or even Heathers. It has been compared to Twin Peaks, but in the film (and the novel) the horror is of the banal, not the perverse. It is an anti-Hollywood ending.

Nordic Lights Film Fest

Whenever there is a showing of a new Icelandic film in town I naturally try to see
it and today there were FOUR! Two features, Skrapp Út and Heiðin and two shorts, Síðastibærinn and Bræðrabylta were shown at the venerable (read: old and smelly) Parkway theater in south Minneapolis. Lately, I've been following Ben Hopkins' English language blog about Icelandic films and Heiðin (Small Mountain) was rated highly there as well as at IMDb. Skrapp Út looked a bit dodgy, and I had already seen The Last Farm, and they were being shown at 11:00 AM, so Heiðin and Bræðrabylta won by default. The Weaver graciously consented to join me and we made the thirty mile trek to the theater, where we were rewarded with real Norwegian candy in the lobby:









Bræðrabylta (Wrestling) about two gay Icelandic wrestlers, was a short film that almost defies description. Icelandic wrestling is very stylized- the contestants grasp straps on their opponent's thighs and attempt to throw them to ground. As they maneuver for an advantage it looks very much like close dancing. It was really pretty good, a little heavy on the symbolism, yet very naturalistic. Johann Johannsson's fine score helped make this odd little film feel "bigger" than it was.

The feature, Heiðin, was a film that started out as a slice of life of a small northern Icelandic town on election day, but slowly changed into a multi-generational family study. This was another "small" film, with very good acting and straightforward direction. The plot developed nicely, if very slowly, and reached a surprising conclusion (with a nice cameo from the singer Hafdís Huld.) What kept this from being a really good movie was the atrocious "Music Library" soundtrack by the hack composer Danny Chang- awful, tasteless disco/synth. Why wasn't a talented Icelandic composer used?

I've mentioned it before, but these festivals are becoming all digital projection now. It was so awful, I'm really thinking of never going to one of these again.

We topped off this mixed bag of a day out with coffee at the nearby Cafe Levain, a restaurant built around a commercial bakery, where we sat amidst the supplies:




Good coffee makes everything better.

Masked and Anonymous

A Film
By Larry Charles and Bob Dylan
Sony Pictures Classics, 2003

In the vast universe of Bob Dylan’s work this film is in its own galaxy, a one-off melange of music, current events, history, show biz and philosophy. It bombed on its release over a decade ago, but upon re-watching it last night, I found it to be classic “Bob.” Dylan has always been a keen observer of the human condition and he has used this ability create new music over a framework of eternal themes. The dialog (whether spoken by Bob or someone else) is full of Dylan's trenchant observations, zen riddles, and even a few jokes.

The unbelievably strong cast has a ball in bringing Bob’s characters to life. John Goodman and Jessica Lange are a pair of promoters, trying to score big on a televised benefit featuring the washed up singer/songwriter Jack Fate (Dylan). It boasts of Angela Bassett, Bruce Dern, Val Kilmer, Giovanni Ribsi, Mickey Rourke, Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz (in a mesmerizing performance). The action takes place in a decaying third world country, riddled with corruption amid the constant threat of revolution. This is a very dark film.

In it, Bob does perform several songs live with his current touring band. His music is used elsewhere in the film in a variety of ways (sometimes performed by other artists) giving an effect akin to an iPod on shuffle, but somehow fitting in context. As a whole, the film may be less than the sum of its parts, but then Bob has always been hard to pigeon-hole, and this effort is no exception. I think this film may actually be more topical now than when it was released. I suspect it will come to be appreciated even more in the future.

Highest recommendation.

Saturday Strangeness

Saturday was a "culture day" at Flippist World Headquarters, a day of passive participation with no preconceptions or expectations. With the Weaver in tow, I set off to the second annual Nordic Lights Film Festival, which offered movies from Scandinavia coupled with mini-concerts- one of which was the Finnish-American folk duo Kaivama. They played traditional and modern Finnish fiddle tunes, some of which even featured a harmonium! Not something I run across every day, but very nice, with an excellent violinist:



The film we watched was Country Wedding (Sveitabrúðkaup) a film directed and written by Valdís Óskarsdóttir, which was a major disappointment for me. It was an Altmanesque-style slice of life about the members of a wedding party trying to find a country church and ending up finding out more about each other. It was supposedly a comic film, but ended up just being nasty. A good deal of it was improv, and although the cast was composed of fine actors, they were not very inspired, and certainly could of used more scripting:



After wards, it was just a short walk across the street to the sublime cafe Levain:



Wonderful food in a French-style restaurant connected to a good bakery, with the odd touch of having a very good solo clarinetist discreetly playing in the kitchen.

What better way to end a culture day than to return home for a viewing of Samuel Fuller's pulp masterpiece The Naked Kiss,?

This wild little film from the mid-sixties had just about every thing a pop-culture fanatic could want: a tough-cookie ex-prostitute with a soft spot for kids, a hard-boiled cop, a brittle madam, and a millionaire playboy with a terrible secret. Almost every scene seemed to be lit by a massive hard light; the black and white cinematography was as subtle as a sledgehammer (as was the dialog.) Constance Towers, a talented actress (who is still active in movies and television) had a field day, beating up pimps, singing with crippled children (in a production number which defies description) and generally carrying the film when it threatens to veer into Ed Wood territory. If you are a fan of this kind of schlock, it is sort of in the early Russ Meyer bag, but neither as funny nor as well done- it was just strange.

Scorecard: 2 hits, 1 miss (Country Wedding), and one split-decision (Kiss), not as good as last year, strange to be sure, but ok, nonetheless!

Ten Years Ago on FITK

Winter Movies - I


Criterion

Summer Interlude, 1951
A film by Ingmar Bergman

Long, cold winter nights usually bring out the Melancholy Scandinavian in me. In order to appease the dark gods I watch an Ingmar Bergman film. I've seen many of them but the earlier releases are hard to come by so I was intrigued when I saw a DVD of this title in my library.

The film takes place in two time frames, set twenty years apart. Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson) is a aging ballerina who knows her days as a performer are numbered. She is romantically pursued by a reporter but shuts him off when there is a chance of intimacy. She takes a ferry to a summer home in the Stockholm archipelago where she remembers a youthful affair.  The affair is ended by tragedy, and Marie ends up under the spell of her creepy "uncle" who encourages her to build an emotional wall to prevent her from being overcome with grief. Many of Bergman's standard tropes are on view here: shots with mirrors, corrupt clergy, chess matches, grotesque characters. The scenes of the young people in love are sometimes naive and quaint yet at times passionate, possessing a subtle beauty revealed by the cinematography by Gunnar Fischer (The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Smiles of a Summer Night). The images are worth watching for their own sake.


IFC Films

The Saddest Music in the World, 2003
A film by Guy Maddin

Set in Winnipeg in the winter of 1933 (where the snow is eight feet deep), this strange, dream-like fantasy has to be seen to be appreciated—a description can hardly do it justice. It was very loosely based on a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro. Baroness Helen Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini) announces a competition to find the saddest music in the world—a publicity stunt to promote her brewery. What follows is an inspired sequence of performances, coupled with a back story involving Helen, an American producer, his alcoholic father (who had amputated Helen’s legs in error) and a pair of prosthetic glass legs filled with beer! A perfect winter film, mostly black and white, with portions shot on super-8!

(A) Symmetry

The film Julie & Julia finally got me into a cinema for my annual summer flick. It seems as if I have seen a film starring Meryl Streep in a memorable role every summer for many years: Mamma Mia last year, The Devil Wears Prada before that, A Prairie Home Companion, The Hours, Adaptation, etc. In her portrayal of Julia Child, Meryl tops them all. Amy Adams does a convincing job as Julie Powell, a real-life blogger who attempts to cook all 500+ recipes in Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year. The two stories are woven together in Nora Ephron's masterful screenplay and steady direction. The film's conceit may actually be a little too "neat", but in a summer of violent and/or dumb blockbusters I'll take it without complaint.

There's another symmetry in the film, a symmetry in the relationships of the two women with their spouses. This depiction is a most welcome change in a filmed drama. Men and women actually can co-exist in supportive harmony! Who'd a thunk it? There is some friction between Julie and her husband, but that is more about Julie's blogging mania (sound familiar to anyone out there?) than any disrespect or deceit. The two stories trace a similar arc, and the conclusion, which of course is no surprise to anyone, is nevertheless very satisfying. A wonderful film.

The Young Girls of Rochefort

A Film by Jacques Demy, 1967

Film musicals have gained a reputation for being purely entertainment, glittering but lacking depth. French director Jacques Demy defies this categorization of musicals as his two masterpieces The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort embrace happiness and sorrow and are works of nuanced emotional complexity.

The Young Girls of Rochefort takes place in a town on the western coast of France. The titular “young girls” are a set of twin sisters, Delphine and Solange Garnier, played by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac (both were in their mid-twenties when the film was shot), living near the center of Rochefort with their mother, a café-owner named Simone, and their younger half-brother, BooBoo. “We’re a pair of carefree young things,” they sing, “waiting for the joys that love brings” as they dance around their music studio in matching pink and yellow outfits. The plot is set into motion with the arrival of a traveling carnival that brings to town many romantic prospects. At the same time Maxence, a sailor who can’t stop painting the face of a woman he sees in his dreams, ponders her existence. Gene Kelly even makes an appearance as a composer looking for love. The Young Girls teases the audience by showing a series of missed opportunities between couples and then, of course, ultimately brings them together.

The entire cast is wonderful, but Dorléac (who died soon after the film was made) is a revelation, especially in her tastefully erotic dance sequence with Kelly. Michel Legrand’s jazzy score is a treat, the dance sequences are great fun, as well as the over-the-top set design. Real life should be so colorful. Barbie and La-la-land are two recent films that were strongly influenced by The Young Girls of Rochefort. In addition to its visual appeal, its balance of tragedy with hopefulness is something that very few films achieve.

This is not a film to miss.

Highest recommendation.

Rituals of Courtship - The Blind Date

“Do you have a friend who could go with Mary?”

So begins the process, where one becomes a part of a double-date. Kenny and “Taurus” were a couple, Kenny had literary aspirations and Taurus was a true free-spirit. Taurus had a long-time friend, Mary, who she thought might be a good match for one of Kenny’s friends–me. It was early fall, not yet really cold at night and with dusk around 7:30 it was possible to go to a drive-in theater and catch a double feature and still have time for some other “fun” after the show.

Or something like that.

I thought movies in the late sixties were pretty much uniformly bad, unless they were European or directed by Stanley Kubrick. Kenny liked horror movies, but since he was driving and we were going “Dutch” I didn’t care what we saw. The idea of a good “date movie” still hadn’t gelled in my brain, and Kenny’s choice of films was probably not the best either.

The first film was Count Yorga, Vampire, a “modern” vampire film. Set in L. A. in 1969, it had originally been intended as a porn-film, but the producers evidently though they would more successful if they cut out the x-rated footage and aimed it at the horror market. It was creepy enough, with a pretty good Count, but all the other actors (and the sets) were from the porn circuit, lending it an unmistakable odor of degenerate despair. Extremely violent scenes of rape and gore (one involving a cat!) kind of killed any light banter the four of us might have started in the car. The ending was “modern” as well- THE VAMPIRES WON!

The second film, while not as existentially bleak as Yorga, was just as depraved with a large dose of cultural bias added as well. Brides of Blood has been described as one of the “crown jewels of Filipino horror films.” An American scientist and his curvaceous assistant travel to a remote South Pacific Island to study a lost culture which has a ritual of sacrificing female virgins to a horrid monster. The drums would start, the girls would be tied to a stake and the monster would come and ravage and dismember his helpless (and topless) victims. This film also had another gimmick: Bloodvision. Whenever the monster's appearance was imminent, the filmstock would be colored red. I cannot remember how it ended, or if we even stayed to the end. The show wasn’t quite over, though. Kenny had evidently taken some type of mind-altering substance between features and when we were driving home he suffered some kind of minor freak-out at an empty railroad crossing.

Needless to say, Mary and I didn’t hit it off that night. Kenny and Taurus broke up soon after, Kenny married on the rebound, divorced and ultimately made up to Taurus and they were happily married for many years.

LESSON: None than I can see, other than the obvious one. A good date movie makes you both laugh, makes you both happy, and makes you both feel better about yourselves, and life in general. And then you might get lucky.

The next date movie I went to was A Clockwork Orange.

"Cracks" in the MSPIFF

Cracks, IFC Films

It's mid-April, which means that the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Film Festival is underway. Now in its 30th year, the MSPIFF brings a sense of world culture to the windswept prairies and a welcome break from a spring which has yet to be "sprung"- I drove home from the screening through a mini- snowstorm. This year's offerings seem a little lackluster- too much competition from other festivals perhaps? Many of the films offered were several years old and had been bouncing around the circuit (and cable TV) for a while. I did manage to find a few entries of interest, one of which played Friday night.

Cracks, directed by Jordan Scott, was a girls' boarding school drama set on an unnamed island in England in the mid-nineteen thirties. The island setting is appropriate- the "team" of girls and their faculty "leader" are living a sheltered existence, in a world of artificial order suppressing desire and spontaneity. Cracks form in this alternate universe when a worldly girl with a past arrives from Spain, upsetting the status quo and shattering the group, with devastating consequences.

That description may come across as a mix between Lindsay Anderson's If.... and William Golding's Lord of the Flies, but the film it should be compared with is the 1931 film Mädchen in Uniform. The strong theme of self-destructive homosexuality in Cracks made it seem as if it had been written in the thirties, and as the film progresses the "cracks" it develops are in its character motivations.

The acting is all first-rate, with director Jordan getting the most out of "girls", especially Juno Temple as Di, the team captain. Eva Green, as Miss G, the team's adult leader, carries the heaviest dramatic load in a part which is a little underwritten. The film is at its best when it shows the girls being girls; the awkward theme of sexual perversity disappears during a beautiful midnight skinny dip sequence.

My Weekend With Baltasar

                          "No! No more cruddy digital projection!"

I'm not really as upset as the fellow in the picture seems to be. Actually, I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with him tonight. we've met before, via a mutual acquaintance: Baltasar Kormákur, the Icelandic director of such films as 101 Reykjavík, Hafið, A Little Trip to Heaven, Devil's Island, and a film that I'm going to see again tonight, Jar City, based on the book Mýrin by the noted crime writer Arnaldur Indriðason. I've seen 101 and a couple of Kormákur's stage productions. Furthermore, I was almost run over by him the last time I was in Rekjavík as I was leaving the National Theatre's box office!

One thing Baltasar does well is create stunning images, both on stage and in movies; the first time saw Mýrin, without subtitles, I was left with quite an impressionistic view of modern Icelandic forensics. Tonight's viewing (after having read the book) should be a little more coherent, but just as rewarding. He just won a "best picture" award for Jar City at the Prague Film Festival. It's worth a look, it will also play Monday night in Minneapolis, you might be able to catch it at other festivals this spring as well.

UPDATE: Just got back from the festival showing, the movie is as good (or better) than I remembered it (yay!), but it had been transferred to digital (boo, hiss!) with a BIG degradation of image quality. The theater was packed, the film received a good response, with a lot of Icelandic-oriented discussions going on in the lobby both before and after the showing. One viewer at a time, Rose.

If this is the only "print" in the country, it might be better to wait for the DVD or pay-for-view. Some kind of "truth in advertising" law must have been broken here, film is film and digital is digital. High quality digital is possible, but this wasn't it.

Would That It T'were So Simple

Alison Rosa, Universal Pictures

Hail Caesar! 
A Coen Brothers film.

I'm a big fan of the Coen Brothers work, they even have their own 'section' in my DVD library. Whenever they release a new movie I'm there on its opening weekend. Hail Caesar! is a giddy romp through the now obsolete world of the Hollywood studio system of the early 50s. I won't give any plot summary other than the most basic: Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a 'fixer' for Capitol Pictures goes through a series of tribulations on and off the studio during a day and a half of his life.

The Coens movies aren't for everyone. There is so much information in them that each one of them usually requires multiple viewings to allow it all to sink in. Many people don't have the depth of knowledge needed to be able to pick up on the various obscure references these films contain and find them uninteresting. That fact, coupled with the almost perverse situations in which the Coens place their characters, might give even the most open minded viewer pause (Joel Coen once described The Man Who Wasn't There as a film about a barber who wants to be a dry cleaner.) Despite all  that, I think it would be a sad world indeed if there were no Coen Brothers comedies. Hail Caesar!, while not as uproariously funny as, say, the middle third of The Hudsucker Proxy,  is humorous and packed full of philosophy—much as A Serious Man was.

Hail Caesar! is notable for its cast—almost all the principals are stars in their own right and even relative newcomer Alden Ehrenreich, playing a 'bad' actor, lights up the screen.  The production is, of course, first-rate.  Cinematographer Roger Deakins, who has worked with the Coens numerous times, is able to accurately portray the six different 'films within the film' as well as capturing the early 50s world which the actors and directors inhabit.

One note on the some of the disparaging reviews of HC I've read: there is a large number of critics who insist that Hail Caesar! is, compared to their other efforts,  a 'minor' Coen Brothers film. These types of reviews have always surfaced with almost every one of their films, The Big Lebowski was especially savaged upon its release, Inside Llewyn Davis was another. One reviewer of Hail Caesar even proclaimed that the 90 second (!) swimming  sequence in HC  'interminable': this is definitely not a film for those suffering with ADHD.  Fortunately, most reviews have been sympathetic, if sometimes missing the point. The Coen's films are modern morality plays, thinly disguised as light entertainment, but there is always more to them than what they reveal on a first impression.

I you want to read a "real" critic who does understand Hail Caesar and the Brothers Coen, check out the great Sheila O'Malley's glowing review.

Arrival: A Film Review

Paramount

It has been a long time since I've reviewed a new release movie. Director Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi drama Arrival is the rare "blockbuster" that is worthy of mention. Arrival is based on based on the 1998 short story Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. Although it has moments of awe (and vertigo) the story is the thing here, a looping, reflexive narrative that not only comes to a conclusion, but also leaves the viewer haunted. Anyone who has raised a child will be especially touched.

The small cast of actors with speaking roles is headed by Amy Adams, a linguist who is impressed into service to establish communications with aliens who have arrived at twelve points on earth in gigantic "pods." Adams gives an inspired performance that is both bold and extremely intimate. Jeremy Renner portrays a physicist, and a senior military official is played by Forest Whitaker. Michael Stuhlbarg is an antagonistic CIA agent while Tzi Ma is Chinese General Chang. All fine actors, but not exactly a typical blockbuster lineup. The real stars of the film (besides Adams, who is Oscar-worthy) are screenwriter Eric Heisserer, editor Joe Walker, and composer Jóhann Jóhannsson; their contributions are extraordinary. Villeneuve’s direction is assured and paced, although a bit hokey at times. The cinematography, by Bradford Young, is fairly murky throughout, I assume it was to give a thematic consistency to the film. His close-up work with Adams, however, would make a stunning short film by itself. His use of shallow-focus was used to great effect in the close-ups, but in group scenes many of actors were out of focus, taking away from the realism of the shot. The aliens were great.

One caveat: I saw this film in a modern multiplex cinema with digital projection. Part of the murkiness I saw may have been due to an under-powered projection lamp. A movie in 2016 should be at least as vibrant as the remastered Perry Mason episodes I’ve been watching on TV recently—and they are in black and white! This should look good on a DVD, however,  but make sure that your subwoofer is up to par.