sil-17

I really wonder if some people have a smidgen of critical thinking at all, especially after reviewing the negative comments on this board regarding Michael Tolkin's uncompromising, "The Rapture", made in 1991. A profoundly soul-searching experience, many mainstream Christians can't handle the film as it demands the Bible-thumpers fess up to "what if your Bible is TRUE as taken LITERALLY. Then what? Well, it LOOKS LIKE THIS! Oh!!! You don't LIKE it???!!!"

And what Revelations FEELS like on screen is pretty spooky. What's wilder is that Mimi Rogers, swinging between extremes of hedonism and unflinching, terrifying faith - the woman who just can't "find her limits" - takes God on.. on His terms! This is a nervy film for those who want to go the distance. Yes, it has minor flaws (underbudgeted, for one), but Mimi Rogers is riveting, and Tolkin's script is jeweled and darkly humorous ("Who ya sharin' it with, Sharon?" and "God will not meet you halfway, Mommy!!!") without stooping to Tarantino pubescence.

Folks who chant their dogma and wear God like a dog tag will be pulverized and/or angered by the intelligent, flawed and sincere woman who is refused God's kingdom because she think He's a fascist, and calls Him on it!!. The kids will probably find it depressing and "uncool" - otherwise their cubicle jobs could not be tolerated.

According to the liner notes of the Rykodisc soundtrack re-issue (1998) of "ultimo tango a parigi", the script for "Last Tango" was originally written and intended for a pair of male homosexual lovers. Once one understands that, the film make a lot more sense (and not just the butter scene). That said and done, Bertolucci's festival of burnished orange is a lyrical nod to the ravages of grief. Barbieri's music is memorable, used almost as an additional character in the film, and, as one reviewer here has noted, Brando's scene with his dead wife ("Fake Ophelia") is a knockout. Something magical happens when the film finally arrives at its Last Tango and sends up Gallic attitude and sexual histrionics. Watch. I won't spoil it.

Images that may mean multiple things and dovetail into each other like problems being considered in three-dimensional chess, a melancholy score by Pino Donaggio, and Sutherland and Christie's ying/yang pairing transform a minor, darkly humorous story by Daphne du Maurier into possibly one of filmdom's major achievements where style and substance wed to create something unsettling and spectacular. I regard it as the turning point where once-respectable Pauline Kael lost her credibility (she mis-read the whole film and called it "chic trash", apparently she was having a flash forward to the Reagan years when every film would have to qualify as "feel-good"), and everything afterwards seemed like a rerun of its many ideas, and none so deft or generously realized. After 30 viewings, there is simply nothing I enjoy viewing so much as Roeg's touchstone, whether I watch it as a psychological grief study, a treatise on synchronicity, a meditation on perception, or a sly, darkly humorous Gothic yarn having its awful fun with the predicament of a middle class married couple stranded in wintry Venice.

It is not a film for those who merely "watch" film like passive snails, or kids who think a good edit is a John Woo sequence. No, Don't Look Now is transformative alchemy, and the uninitiated need not apply.

A previous reviewer seems to have missed the point that Bertolucci equates homosexual repression and homophobia as necessary to the establishment of Fascism, and moreover, a likely outgrowth or reaction to such repression. Fascism is heavily "fasc-inated" with an idea of "normalcy" or standardness and uniformity. (Sigh).

All that explained, The Conformist is a textbook for cinematographers and it revolutionized 70s and 80s production design. Some of the set pieces remain unrivaled, and any student of Art Deco or Futurism will have an eye orgy.

Sometimes the psychology is a bit textbook and lacking subtlety, but Jean-Louis T. and the lovely Dominique Sanda gloss over it all, as does Georges Delerue's mournful score.

This one gets four stars.

Someone PLEASE PLEASE tell me where I can obtain a copy of this Ugo Tognazzi vehicle from 1962, which also starred the luscious Catherine Spaak. One of many of early 60s Italian comedies that explored the bittersweet longings of aging adults amongst youth culture, CRAZY DESIRE or THIS MAD URGE boasted Ennio Morricone's first score and some haunting pop songs of the period, plus a lot of good looking Italian youth in beachwear. Most poignant, though, was the aging but dapper Tognazzi in his sports car, clinging wistfully to his younger self. This film is burned in memory now for 30 years as I, myself, approach that turning point. See it with someone you're growing older with.