returning

Compare this with "Le Mepris." One is a wonderful meditation on film-making saturated with the director's one personal issues. It shouldn't work, but it does, and spells out a real talent. The other is an absurdest's take on war and the ignorant and animalistic impulses that it spawns. This also shouldn't work, and it doesn't. All the cinema-verity arguments in the world aren't going to change the fact that the film sets out to create a wholly unconvincing argument for the absurdity of war.

Perhaps as a 60's French director, Godard wasn't as immune from the vogue political ideas of the time as we might like to think, and this might be him purging it from his cinematic career. And something might be said for the film as encompassing a movement that the director himself doesn't even need to agree with.

But, as Truffaut pointed out, it may be just as hard to film a satire on war as it is to make a decent adaptation of "The Odyssey."

3 out of 5 - Some interesting elements

Chaplin's career is often separated into his silent era and his sound era, and it is generally recognized that talking actors wasn't the only change to his films. During the war years, film stock was limited, even to the most famous of directors. So Chaplin, infamous for his exorbitant number of takes, had to exchange meticulousness in selecting which cut to use for meticulousness in the planning of the film from the start. And it shows, especially in this film. The haunting staircase shots, the gorgeous interiors, and dialogue as clever as ever was written. His sound films were also less episodic, any gags are brief and contribute more to the plot than any of his silent ones.

But there is a continuity throughout his entire career. Tragedy and comedy really aren't that different; both are rooted in human emotion and often accentuated by circumstances and coincidences. In an early film, it would all culminate in a hilarious climax. Here, it is coincidence that gets him caught.

And he still simply loves being in front of the camera. Except, instead of turning and shrugging at the camera or some other more explicit gesture, we get subtle glances.

His monologues from his sound films will always stand out, but this film has Chaplin's best moments as a director (the staircase shot of the first murder), as a comedic actor (when he thinks he's been poisoned), and as a writer (the scene in the boat).

5 out of 5 - Essential

This film raises the problem of how much the background information of the film should influence one's interpretation. Apparently, Polanski wanted to play the hitchhiker himself, hence it would seem that, of the three characters, the young man is his mouthpiece. Only after understanding this does the film as a politically controversial work make any sense. And we have a relatively weak critique of bourgeoisie society and the still existent privileged few all that jazz.

But why do we feel compelled to do this? Why does everything need to be politicized? Those who are fixated on and impressed by this as a satire are missing out on the film as the carefully manipulated suspenseful ride it really seems to be. The film is also interesting as a stepping stone as the first example of a truly innovative and influential narrative, one steeped in manipulation but also in this intimate relationship he holds with the viewer. And the shorts on the Criterion DVD are marvelous and should be essential viewing for film students.

It would be great if Welles' version of the story ever gets released in its unfinished form.

3 out of 5 - Some interesting elements

This film and "Limelight" could well be subtitled as "Chaplin on Performance Art Vols. 1&2." But while "Limelight" focuses mostly on the interaction between the performer and the audience, this film seems to explore two different themes relating to performance: its hypocrisy (the tryout, being told to eat the apple by the director and then being chastised for eating it by the actor), and humour in its deficiencies (note the uproar when Chaplin knocks the table off, exposing the hidden man feeding the animals through the hats). These are both characteristic of Chaplin, walking around in a tramp's outfit on his own Hollywood studio, also the two opposite roles in "Dictator." The production difficulties are notorious, and Chaplin cleverly adds a tyrannical stage-master into the mix. But still what resonates most with me is an example of Chaplin's ideas that great art and, consequently great humour, comes more out of desperation and ignorance, if accompanied with a good heart, than talent and coldly calculated intellect.

That and I consistently laugh during this film more than any other Chaplin.

4 out of 5 - An excellent film

I always feel a little cheated watching Olivier knowing that we, as a film audience, are really getting a second-rate performance from a brilliant actor. "Hamlet" hinted at a more interesting use of inner architecture, but his "Henry" and "Richard" are mere attempts at spectacle, although entertaining and capable attempts. Him speaking directly to the camera for the soliloquies kind of gives away Olivier's cinematic ignorance.

Amidst all these brilliant stage actors is Gielgud, who shines out in his brief role as Clarence. He has a better persona for film, something more visceral, and would later give two of the greatest performances in all Shakespearean film (Henry IV in Welles' "Chimes at Midnight" and Propsero in Greenaway's "Prosepero's Books").

3 out of 5 - Some strong elements

The silent western has a lot going against it. As a western, the plot is grounded in an exaggerated human experience heightened by a minimised physical environment. The silent film too has to exaggerate the experience, not only in the mannerisms of the actors, but in the setting and props as well. No wonder so many silent westerns are seen as inflated and risibly tiresome.

Add a third problem: the religious experience. This too is often exaggerated because of how profoundly inward the process is. So we have a scene with Hart cleaned up, hair combed back, nodding his head as he reads the Bible. Avoidable? Probably, Demille would have been a better candidate. But we can still admire how free of convention the film is in its structure and methods, something Hart would pursue in his more worthwhile works.

3 out of 5 - Some strong elements

People seem compelled to speak in superlative-terms when talking about the great directors; which film is their greatest, which ones are underrated, etc. But this is a film so simple in its themes, so modest in its methods, that it doesn't lend itself to these labels very easily.

"Nosferatu" was revolutionary, but based on intensity, something that doesn't age very well. Other directors took up this notion of visual intensity (Leni, Boese) but structuralized it, and created the real German Horror masterpieces ("Waxworks," "Golem"). Murnau's discovery came later, with this film. That film narrative wasn't something that you followed linearly, but something you become immersed in. The lack of title-cards is not a gimmick, but a conscious decision not to interrupt the flow of this immersion. Reading is rational (hearing, slightly less so) and prevents this from taking place.

Add a Gogolian tale of aging and dignity, and Murnau makes magic. This is what "touching" and "moving" films should be like.

4 out of 5 - An excellent film

The phrase "better than expected" jumps to mind when trying to review this film. But when the expectations were set as low as mine were for this film, that's not saying much. Still, enough will be said about how the film is unconvincingly far-fetched and manipulatively stereotypical. So let's look at the good.

The theme of success is dealt with most explicitly in Sandler's character, but it seemed as if every character was also pursuing his/her own definition of success. The mother's success was defined by her daughter's weight-loss, projecting her own insecurities onto her. The grandmother wished to prevent people from making the same mistakes that she did. And Flor just wanted to provide for her daughter. So, with all these different definitions, it's interesting to see how they all react to it. Sandler rejects success as meaningless and ultimately destructive to what he really wants, the mother discovers that her pursuit of success is destroying her relationships with those around her, the grandmother finds comfort and atonement, and Flor just sticks it out, doing the best she can and staying true to her original goal.

This is all to say that Brooks is an excellent organiser of characters and their various positions. But saying that everyone reacts differently to success isn't exactly groundbreaking, and should be the subject of a sitcom rather than a film you pay $12 to see. Everything else in this film was just filler for me.

2 out of 5 - Bad outweighs the good

The previous comments for this film have really disappointed me. I'm admittedly quite out of touch with what's suitable for the masses and what's not (and has resulted in some angry friends having endured two hours of what I guaranteed them they would enjoy), but I cannot for the life of me understand how a film like Kill Bill, which can be summarised in two plot synopsis sentences, can be praised for it's creative plot and innovative style, while this film, a stunning meditation on universal themes and challenging in its methods can be called slow and pointless. How can people expect philosophical themes of existence, morality, and individuality to be fully realised in a fast paced film subverted to the Hollywood method. It simply cannot happen.

Revisiting this film, I was most struck by the editing. Which scenes are chosen to fade into another. Connected to this is what Dumont chooses to include in the film at all, and when you think about what the film is dealing with, it is incredibly abstract and precise, not slow and convoluted. Of course we have Dumont's industrial shots, contrasting nature (the garden, serenity) with modern architecture (the building in England, consequently, the scene of a fight in the distance. Dumont is a master paralleler, if he can give away plot details visually and creatively instead of having his characters state it explicitly, he will do it, making the dialogue as pure and distilled as the film itself.

This is a hugely important film. Not only for continuing a movement in film that is either perverted (the Dogmes) or wrongfully seen as self-indulgent and pointless, but for separating the chaff of cinephiles.

5 out of 5 - Essential

It is possible and dangerous to read too much into a director's final film as being a "swan song" or a "culmination," and it seems to be an easy "insight" by those unable to come up with something better. But here we have a veritable summation and a compelling final statement of a brilliant career.

Whenever I watch an S. Ray film, I always feel lost trying to find a main theme or thrust in the story. Here we have several: ancient custom vs. technology, self-discovery, mystery/doubt, etc. But they all co-mingle in this extraordinarily complex character (based on Ray himself no doubt, hence the high level of insight). His was a cinema of life, scattered and bewildering, yet sublimely beautiful.

Still, Ray remains one of the few great directors from his era who never quite mastered the use of colour. Indeed, the lingering shots of images lacks the power of say the chandelier in "Jalsaghar," and the regret and sorrow on the faces of the family doesn't come anywhere close to the final scenes of "Pather."

On top of this we have Ray trying most explicitly to be philosophical. Some of Manmohan's laments on civilisation resemble passages from "Notes From Underground," and we even have the husband talking about having to "put two and two together," but these themes seem to be mentioned for the sake of mentioning them. Ray, like Manmohan, was an anthropologist, not a philosopher. Still, there are some deeply touching moments in this overall capably and thoughtfully made film.

3 out of 5 - Some strong elements

So many film students have wasted their time trying to study "Kane" as a character study and as a satire. But it wasn't really either of those things, but an experiment in depth for the camera and narrative structures. The frequent comparison between that film and this one makes a lot of sense superficially; the newsreel footage, the interviewees made up to look 20 years older.

But Agniezcka is making a film, rather than a piece for a newspaper: journalism vs. art, capitalism vs. socialism. Although the journalists in "Kane" said otherwise, they were never seeing "who he was" rather "what he was like" ie. his behaviour, how others perceived him etc. Here we have something broader, examining a man confronting society, confronting his friends, and confronting himself all at the same time. Newspaper journalism tells us what something is like. Good documentary strives to really define what or who something was.

This is a highly intelligent structure, moreso than his previous works and moreso even than "Kane." As a meditation on film-making, it moves gracefully from the shots captured by Agniezcka's cinematographer, and the shots of Wajda himself, forcing us to draw parallels.

It's a shame Wajda remains largely unknown. Perhaps the up-coming Criterion set of his "War Trilogy" will change that.

4 out of 5 - An excellent film

This film is the definition of bad, anyone with a entry-level interest in film could tell you that and describe why. I'm not going to do that. As a Christian and a cinephile this film poses a dilemma for me. In the special features the filmmakers talk about how if the film reaches one person for Christ than it will all be worthwhile. For them, the "worthwhile" is all the work they put into it. For me, the "worthwhile" is how this film simply reinforces negative stereotypes of religious art as pandering and anti-intellectual. And I can't help but skeptically state that a conversion caused by this disaster couldn't possibly be genuine and based on anything more than fear, and also couldn't possibly justify the film; from Van Impe's shameless self-promotion to the apologetic problem of "opening your eyes and seeing the light." Watching this now, I was surprised to see some interesting concepts hinted at early on: the world as a network theory is a fascinating area, but it's given little treatment beyond mind-control here. It's not that if we can unite we can accomplish anything, but we already are united whether we know it or not. Instead, the "Christian" view of "in the world but not of it" trumps and ignores any other interpretation. Also, endless amounts of literature have been devoted to these end-times themes and apocalyptic characters that there is no excuse for these cartoon-ish characters. They really should make Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky required reading in High School, or maybe in Bible Schools.

1 out of 5 - Poor

This film claims historical accuracy, but it seems to be more allegorical than similar films which don't make that claim. I'm still trying to decide how exaggerated some of the "confessions" were, but then again this is a period of history I know little about. The Christ figure was interesting, and the parallel was loose enough to be interesting, but it was made too explicit at times to be considered very clever. Explicitly calling one of his "friends" a Judas is a little too much. Huxley created a more interesting Christ-figure in "Devil's of Loudon," voluptuous, yet gifted and filled with a righteous aim.

What was most interesting to me was how the hypocrisy of those on high was related to the camera. Not in an exaggerated way, but in a way where we are given insight into the decisions being made, and witness the final hypocritical decision. The Queen anxiously touches her neck when she hears that one of the "witches" has been strangled, only to gracefully gaze at her complexion in the mirror and fix her makeup. A beautiful symbol of priorities, and how a minor amount of sympathy is trumped by pride. Another scene placed the Inquisitor in a large chair sipping on a snifter of wine, dictating to his secretary a letter describing the trial, asking him to underline how "horrified" they were at what they discovered, when of course, he hardly seems horrified anymore.

Throughout the film is the battle between what to implicitly express visually, and what to explicitly allude to, and they don't often work well together. Still, there are enough scenes which focus on the former to overshadow the latter.

3 out of 5 - Some strong elements

This film is such a splendid experience that it's difficult to really describe objectively why. The plot, the characters are revealed at a perfect tempo, keeping the audience engrossed and anticipating what's next. Any film with such sparse dialogue needs to make the rare lines worthwhile, and Saura certainly does, probably learning from Erice, the master of indispensable dialogue. Ana Torrent invites all sorts of Erice comparisons, but I see Saura taking a step beyond him here visually.

"Beehive" was a landmark film, and unlike anything that had been made. But the camera maintained the same distance and the story was fundamentally allegorical. Saura experiments with distance, sometimes following the characters closely, sometimes giving an omniscient birds eye view of the area. Sometimes remaining a mere witness to what's happening. It's very carefully calculated to best enhance the scene and keep these extraordinary events within the realm of possibility.

If there's such a film as a director's film, this is it. Although it is certainly worthwhile for the performances as well.

5 out of 5 - Essential

For me, watching this film felt like eating fast food. I was able to feast on the name-drops and felt a kinship with these young cinephiles. But the lack of real substance left me feeling slightly uneasy when it ended.

A film about film(s) needs to parallel them in a more clever way than mere imitation. The Isabelle/Mouchette comparison exposes how weak the use of these "flashbacks" really are. Mouchette is profoundly human, we rarely see more than her face or her hands. She seeks redemption, has inexplicable outbursts of anger, but also moments of spontaneous compassion. Isabelle is none of these things. But she isn't de-personalised enough to make this an apt antithetical comparison. It's lazy film-making, name-dropping for the sake of name-dropping. The "Freaks" reference had the most potential, but they chose not to pursue it.

The film could have been saved with a more worthwhile look at the riots and the politics behind them. We get about three lines from Pitt's character before he is shut up by a naked Isabelle and tossed into another ten minute sex scene. This isn't the visceral experience it makes itself out to be, "Tango" was a great example of film through sensuality, through distant perception. Not so here.

2 out of 5 - Bad outweighs the good

It's been interesting to see the reaction to this film. From what I can tell the two main criticisms are 1)that it rips off the teen-comedies of the 80s and 2) that it deals too lightly with porn-related issues. It's first important to note that films that simply rehash a tested formula can be accused of "ripping off" whereas a film which borrows elements but reworks them in a new and creative way, paying homage to their predecessors but taking the genre into new directions is certainly not ripping them off. It's wonderful to see high school life dealt with so intelligently while staying entertaining and fresh.

I watched this with my girl-friend who is very concerned with the whole porn industry and how the actresses are treated. But she couldn't see what was so offensive about the way they were portrayed in this film. The film isn't making a statement about the porn industry, it's talking about growing up. It's hyperbole, not hypocrisy. Strange how the gray-haired critics feel obliged to take offense.

3 out of 5 - Some strong elements

Great musicals always have great people working at every different level in a united way. The script, the songs, the actors, the camera-movements all must stand on their own while contributing to the musical proper. We have classic cases of this where all those involved went their separate ways and were never able to recreate that magic. Instead of this somewhat accidental result, we have here a carefully calculated masterpiece. It was recognised that this was an important social work, and there were a number of things that needed to happen in its execution. They needed Brecht's (a dramatist becoming increasingly fascinated with cinema) cooperation, they got it. They needed a capable expressionistic director, they got it. They needed creative writers to narrow the work down to a typical film length, they got them. They needed strong powerful actors to circumvent any possible lingering sentimentality, they got them as well. This was an age where film was becoming run by the studios, but in creative ways striving to create great art, and we have stunning works like this to prove it.

5 out of 5 - Essential

Wilde is likely the least cinematic of the great playwrights. His humour is steeped in audience interaction and real-time, something difficult to replicate in the cinema. Here, there are certainly many capablefigures involved, and this is by no means a dull film, but for those of us who have seen a live presentation of this work, this remains but a copy of something worthwhile.

With "Pygmalion" Asquith was able to examine the re-definition of a character with the camera, as Eliza changed the camera's perception of her changed as well, both growing more refined. But here everything is too straightforward for any such experiments.

3 out of 5 - Some strong elements

Upon first glance, this may seem like Mizoguchi re-hashing the themes and methods from his more successful films. And a lot seems to be read into the fact of this being his last film and, consequently, it somehow has to stand as a "swan song" or a culmination of his work. But it must be recognised that, form what I can tell, it was never meant to be so. This isn't like Kurosawa's "Madadayo" or Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander," but rather a more specific look at something he had always incorporated (the role of women in Japanese society) but had never attacked as specifically and focused as here. His famous female characters were appropriate vessels for his universal humanism, and he used their plights to make some of the more moving films of his era. But there is little universal going on in this film, it is a direct and poignant attack on a lack of change in a progressive area. The characters misfortunes all reinforce this ethical treatment, as opposed to examining any intrinsic leanings in the human soul. The film is more interesting than truly moving, and you won't see the emotional superlatives that are heaped on his other masterpieces. Still, it is an important film and it would have been interesting to see in which direction he would have gone after this.

4 out of 5 - An excellent film

Bergman's ventures into English-speaking cinema were notoriously disastrous. And one must ask how much one should view this as a Bergman film or as simply a film. Objectivity is a must.

David Carradine never made a good film, but a good director can use a bad actor. Indeed, think of Welles using Heston and Leigh in "Touch of Evil," in fact, Carradine's commentary on the MGM DVD resembles Heston's comments on working with Welles. And had this been a svenkfilm with a minuscule budget, Bergman probably could have although he was much more of an "actor's director" than Welles was.

But it's hard to figure out what Bergman was really after with this, and we can only assume that he was too overwhelmed with the size of the crew, and perhaps associated his old films with his estranged home country, driving him to similarly cast off his previous ways. But this is a portrait, a period piece. Fear and paranoia are at large (the dialogue makes this VERY explicit), and virtually every cliché aspect of the political thrillers from the early 70s are implemented.

Probably the most intentional and most admirable aspect of the film is how it parallels the film-making styles with those contemporary to the setting. This is an intriguing idea, adapted by Merhige for "Shadow of the Vampire." And Nykvist is certainly up to the task, shooting hauntingly dark back alleyways and staircases. "Caligari's" influence is beyond the obvious mental institution associations, but the way the character's paranoia (beyond the horrid dialogue) is transferred to the camera following him. Add the Pabst-esquire cabaret scenes and this could be a full-fledged expressionist homage, but it doesn't compensate for the banal script and the conspiracy undertones. Even the Camera, the film's greatest aspect, is polluted with 70s-ish zooms and focus pulls, resembling something by Jewison or Siegel.

Still we can allow a certain amount of artistic purging in the timeline of Bergman's career. And if this was a necessary step to "Sonata" and "Fanny," than it is certainly worth it.

2 out of 5 - Bad outweighs the good

My qualms with this adaptation are in what was chosen to be emphasised and what was simply hinted at instead. Visually this is one of Svankmajer's most important works; his interpretive props and the way in which he establishes his signature scenarios make this film worthwhile. But as an Alice interpretation, it is sub-par.

It may have been simply a springboard into a visual territory he wanted to explore (the underworld, fantasy, talking animals), but Alice was never meant to be so bleak, nor was fear supposed to be the dominating emotion. Rather the story is filled with wonder and innocence.

3 out of 5 - Some strong elements

The European pseudo-noirs of the 60s and 70s reaped the benefits of being able to skip a number of steps in the writing process simply by adopting styles and themes from previous films. What was left was to add one's own spin to an existing story. Fassbinder was a genius at taking a style and making it his own, not in a superficially Tarantino-ish way, but in a way that was at once equally unique and dependent, retaining the benefits of a style and pushing it even further into his own territory.

In this sense, this film is an early experiment: a war veteran turned contract killer stoically carrying out his duties, but in a post-war German environment and with homoerotic undertones galore. But it's remarkably coherent and compelling considering how little the plot gives away explicitly. Indeed, this would become one of his trademarks.

4 out of 5 - An excellent film

It's interesting that this film was based off of a script written by Welles before he got involved in film. And it suggests that we can trace this film's development through his earlier masterpieces. But it's not a simple conglomeration of specific filming techniques and the like, but a development of his genius. It makes sense to use a pseudo-shakespearean tale as the foundation, but this isn't about the acting. Here we have the depth of "Kane," the intrigue of "Shanghai," the elucidating factor of "Othello," the exertion of "Arkadin," the sweeping motion of Touch of Evil," and the oppression of "Trial." Needless to say, every effort to should be made to track down this film, and the masterpiece by which all other masterpieces will be judged.

5 out of 5 - Essential

I'm going to go ahead and make the rather bold statement that Rossellini's biographical films are the true end and completion of the project he started with the neo-realists. I do this in a rather roundabout way involving personalist philosophy and Andre Bazin, but what most interests me is where the other neo-realists ended up. Fellini found a strange hybrid with elementary surrealism, De Sica plunged into sentimentality, Visconti's outlook became increasingly epic and grandiose. But in Rossellini we arrive at pure personality, and pure reconciliation of physical circumstances and self-determination. It is apparent that this is not a typically exaggerated biography, but this is not mere truthfulness. It's all in the approach, and Rossellini understood this perfectly. The shots are very characteristic, and the sets have a low-budget, but Rossellini's vision is the dominant, and very welcome, force of the film.

5 out of 5 - Essential

It's easy to make really general comments about a film like this. The fact that it's one of the only remaining Japanese films from this era causes people to say that it "started Japanese cinema" and was "unlike anything the west ever made." The latter of these two comments is particularly false as Kinugasa himself admitted to ripping off "Caligari" on more than one occasion. But style was meant to be imitated, and doesn't take away from this film's importance. What we have here is experimental themes and composition built on already established visual styles, opening the doors for a truly brilliant layering of narratives and realities. For this purpose, the madhouse is the ideal setting, and the writers knew this. This is a landmark film, and every effort should be made to track it down.

5 out of 5 - Essential