gorbman

Duvivier's AU BONHEUR DES DAMES is a gorgeous surprise, since along with SUNRISE, METROPOLIS, and a few other of the masterpieces of the period, it taps into so many key movements and concerns of the 1920s. It's a faithful adaptation of Zola's novel by the same name, part of his sweeping "Rougon-Macquart" series that casts a panoramic look on 19th century French society. The story, banally put, is a proto- "You've Got Mail." But instead of the giant bookseller edging out the human-scale bookstore in the neighborhood, it's a small fabric merchant vs. the huge department store. (The department store was a new phenomenon in the mid-to-late 19th century.) Like SUNRISE, this movie shows the seduction of the fast pace of the modern city, mass consumption and revolution of our desires--and the insults that modernity hurls at older ways of thinking about community and "values" such as honesty, family, and propriety.

AU BONHEUR is now available on DVD, with a very good musical score. It is an exquisite example of what silent-era cinematic "Impressionism" was all about--including fantastic experiments with conveying sound, emotion, speed, and confusion through images and their editing. In sum, this is an important film and a beautiful one. Wacky ending, but let's not spoil it... With not only Dita Parlo (cf. Vigo's L'ATALANTE and Renoir's GRAND ILLUSION), but Nadia Sbirskaya (Renoir's CRIME OF M. LANGE).

Grace Chang was a big star phenomenon in the 50s and early 60s. It's not hard to see why in MAMBO GIRL. What we'd call camp (but who knows what this excessive style means to viewers 40 years ago?) starts with the very opening credits, as we see Chang's legs sinuously move to music down stairs on a stage. With big nods to Western styles--opera, torch songs, Latin music, film noir--this movie proclaims its modernity. The contemporary Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang is a huge fan of Grace Chang--see especially his loving homage to her outrageous songs in 2000's THE HOLE (e.g., the "Achoo Cha- cha"). In MAMBO GIRL Chang is the seductress with the heart of gold, giving a performance every bit as spellbinding as Marlene Dietrich or the 20th century's other Euro/American movie and music divas.

The French director Agnes Varda spent a couple of different years in Los Angeles, and this particular year produced her documentary "Murs, murs" and her fiction film "Documenteur". The title means "Walls, walls", but also puns with the word "murmurs." Varda located dozens of murals around LA and filmed them. Many of these are gone today, so this is a true documentary, documenting a wonderful aspect of southern Californian visual culture. She interviews the artists, a truly multicultural and multicolored group--and shows the paintings in their urban contexts. One memorable scene shows a mural at Venice Beach with young people dancing in front of it (probably near where their sons and daughters are roller skating or skateboarding now). An enjoyable movie by a European with deep aesthetic appreciation for marvelous, imaginative, colorful imagery that was considered throwaway pop culture at the time.

The thing that has always been interesting about Rivette is the different sense of time that he creates through a more slowly developed story, spanning 2-4 hours on screen. Then when a real development comes along, it's such a surprise and pleasure (dare I say "as in real life?"). MARIE AND JULIEN has a mysterious story, but it's not suspenseful--you can guess what's going on fairly early into the film. Pleasure lies in getting to know the characters, watching Marie arrange a room, watching Julien take a clock apart and put it back together--and having your suspicions about the story verified. It's all perhaps more like reading a novel than watching a normal Hollywood film characterized by a tightly formulaic, time-bound 90-minute plot. And it's no accident that Julien is a clock repairman: that big clock he dismantles seems to stand for the very method and structure, and sense of duration, of this wonderful movie. A clock's ticking is supposed to be even, "in beat," but it's interesting too when the ticking is uneven!

Agnes Varda's first documentary short, on the chateaux of the Loire in France, was commissioned by the French Tourist Bureau; she used the commission

imaginatively to cut her teeth on documentary filmmaking. Only a third of the movie actually focuses on the chateaux. She gets interested in amateur

painters in the area, in gardeners and groundskeepers, on funny names of

small towns on the Loire, and on fashion models looking terrific against the

backdrop of the beautiful historic palaces. Varda was a successful

photographer when she took up filmmaking in 1954, and her visual aesthetic is exquisite in this film. Lots of wordplay in the voiceover commentary, and

playing/punning with words and images, will hopefully be translated and

available someday to English-speakers.