Author: Sasa

Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises)

But maybe Ghibli will stop producing films anyways, which makes my point moot. The latter would actually be sad, even though that would help my goal in trying to see every single one of their films. My love story with Ghibli is a complicated one, and I am most unsure about their newest films. Ironically, I liked “From up on poppy hill” (both a newer Ghibli and a relationship film and, to top it all, a war film). I thought it was positively unusual as it was slice of life about a girl waiting for her father with a little relationship drama added in. I can’t recall a Ghibli I liked without any supernatural elements, so I was surprised that I liked it. For me, it was outstanding in a long strong of Ghibli post-Spirited-Away films that left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth: I thought that The Cat Returns, Ponyo and Arrietty were all weird. Only Howl’s Moving Castle holds a special place in my heart and even that one seemed more style over substance for me.

Unfortunately, “Kaze Tachinu” was mostly a disappointment again. It’s not as bad as some of the other films, as I marveled over the dream sequences with all those fantastic airplanes, but I cringed at the latent war glorification. (Yeah yeah, there are all those warnings about war, but in the end, the main character is seen as a hero who surpassed the evil Germans with his amazing airplane designs). Speaking of the evil Germans, they managed to get some actual German speakers to say things like: “Zutritt nicht erlaubt! Das ist deutsches Eigentum” (or something along those lines). They even put in a completely needless scene of the Gestapo chasing a Jew. I don’t particularly appreciate that tu quoque attitude no matter whether it’s coming from Germany or Japan or anyone, and Ghibli films always irk me with these incredibly subtly political incorrect scenes.
Continuing along the lines of why this film was ridiculous, I think any good line would be ruined if it was spoken with a heavy Japanese accent. But the way that scene was shot is just too much. Not only was “Le vent se lève,… il faut tenter de vivre.” shown in writing at the beginning of the film, it was also said out loud by Hideaki Anno’s with a hideous accent and then translated into Japanese again by the Caproni character, not to mention that it’s the damn title of the film. There is so much pathetic emphasis put onto this sentence (which was ridiculous to begin with) that it almost discredits the film.

To be fair, that is only one small aspect in the entire film. More importantly, I have mixed feelings about Jiro’s relationship with his wife, which is all fiction to begin with. It may look very cute how Nahoko is holding Jiro’s hand while she sleeps and he works, it’s still a soulless relationship in which the guy is a traditional hero type and the girl is a demure damsel in distress, and significantly younger than him. I am not sure when was the last time I have seen such cookie cutter characters in a movie relationship. At the same time, there is something beautiful and pure about them together, I am just not sure if it’s a nice or a horrible illusion.

Despite all of that, I enjoyed the film. When we watched it, Pip and I carefully followed the list of airplanes shown in the film (they were all historic airplanes and depicted quite nicely) and had lots of fun while doing so. The airplane history aspect coupled with those lovely Ghibli-style dream sequences single-handedly saved the film for me and ultimately made me happy that I saw it. However, it blows my mind why anyone else would want to see the film. Even for a Ghibli fan, this film may not be all that great.

Les enfants terribles

Let me warn you: I will use this opportunity to talk about Philip Glass’ opera most of all. It was the reason why I saw the film in the first place, since I have never seen a Melville or a Cocteau before (yeah I know, and since we are talking about famous French directors, I have also never seen a Chabrol or a Lelouch). That opera was something like an epiphany, the kind of opera that makes me glad I am an opera buff. They showed it “after hours” at 10.30pm and put some seating onto the revolving platform on the stage itself. We were sitting on that platform looking towards the back of the stage, and every once in awhile we would get rotated towards another part of the stage – the left and right side and the orchestra/audience. The outside scenes were shown towards the back of the stage (like the snowball fight at school), the inside scenes were shown where the orchestra normally sits, then some additional scenes (like Elizabeth’s and Agathe’s meeting) were shown on the left and right side without much decor. Considering that the orchestra for this opera only consists of three pianos (who were sitting next to the “orchestra stage”), I thought that this kind of revolving stage setting was incredibly clever. This is basically a chamber orchestra after all.
Even more than the clever stage setting, I was impressed by the singers and the music. They had a very talented woman play Elizabeth, and the opera itself may be the best thing I have ever heard by Philip Glass. We all loved it (Pixelmatsch, Pip and I) and thought that the recurring theme of horror, becoming more intense as Elizabeth grew more and more crazy, was quite brilliant. Even now, three months later, I can vividly recall it to my head, that is how much the music impressed me. When we got there, I didn’t realize the text would be sung in French and the subtitles were going to be only in German, but Pip said it didn’t matter at all. According to him you could understand everything and enjoy it fully, and it’s not like this was the first time we saw an opera without understanding much of the libretto. Henze’s Phaedra and (surprisingly) Strauss’ Salome also worked for us. If stage-setting, singing, acting and music work together, then words seem almost superfluous. This is somewhat difficult for me to accept, for whom reading a play is one of the greatest things and my typical enjoyment of an opera can be heavily influenced by how much I like the libretto, yet for certain operas, like “Les enfants terribles”, the genius lies elsewhere. I have had too much fun at the opera without understanding the libretto to not believe in the power of the music and stage alone.

Perhaps this is also why, ultimately, I don’t care much for Cocteau’s original work. Without Glass’ music and without that amazing stage-setting (and the resulting pleasant experience), you’d think it’s a completely different story. While I enjoyed the characters’ slow slipping into madness in the opera, I was mostly taken aback in this film. Especially the character of Gérard’s uncle, who loves the kids and thinks they are angels, made me realize even more how little I can relate to them. They are really just crazy, but not in a pleasant way. To me, the whole film was seeing Elizabeth shouting at people how stupid and worthless they are, and Paul being a whiny kid. I never understood the sibling’s game in the opera, but in the film it’s even worse. Maybe there is some metaphor I don’t see or whatever, but from what I can see, the games mean nothing and don’t understand influence the plot which is mostly driven by Elizabeth’s mood swings and jealousy.
I think I should refrain from saying anything about Melville’s style. Ultimately I think I couldn’t really make a good judgment on the direction because I was distracted by how atrocious Elizabeth’s haircut was. Honestly, I thought it was so in-your-face that I couldn’t get over it, as silly as it may sound.

Somehow I was really in love with Dargelos/Agathe. Whoever that actress is, she is darn cute.

All in all, I love to see the same story over and over again. After seeing Glass’ opera, I was sure that “Les enfants terribles” is a story that would mesmerize me again and again (like “Eugene Onegin”, “The Lady of the Camellias”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” or “Letter from an unknown woman” do), but somehow I felt a strong estrangement in the film. I would want to see the opera again in a heartbeat, and I would want to see other versions of the same story too, but the film itself just felt odd to me.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

A long time ago, there was this discussion topic we had in French class about whether a strong message, political or otherwise, is beneficial of detrimental to the artistic value of a piece of literature. Our teacher brought examples of Paul Éluard who went on writing crappy communist stuff and Alfred Döblin who ended up being a mere shadow of himself (though I now don’t remember how exactly). With movies, I have the impression that similar things happen: When you have a very interesting premise, mostly coupled with fairly supernatural stuff, you end up with beautiful visuals, great dream sequences, but a crappy narrative. “Spellbound” comes to mind, one of the most beautiful dream sequences ever, and also “Pan’s Labyrinth” whose storyline was a total disappointment, or any Tim Burton movie. I am not sure what I exactly expected with “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”, but similar to “Pan’s Labyrinth”, I think I just expected something completely different.

In essence, I was not a big fan of the story. It was told in a somewhat confusing manner and at the end of the day I keep asking myself what it was all for. But I was an absolute fan of the visuals, wishing that they had spent more time in the actual imaginarium – that would have made the movie so much better, since all the best scenes were in it. The imaginarium is beautiful and creative, and the way characters get blown up was actually a little funny too. I was a little reminded of the world of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” when I saw this film, and in a good way.

I am also not a big fan of Heath Ledger, so there was virtually no value for me in seeing his last film. However, I had been looking forward to seeing this film for so long that I am glad I finally did. It would go a little too far to say this film is style over substance (the substance was not bad, just a little confusing and the characters one-dimensional), but oh boy what style. If I had all the funds in the world to decorate my house, it would be inspired by the imaginarium’s style.

Fack ju Göhte

Whenever I get back into watching films, I always start with easily disgestible stuff before moving onto more sophisticated things. This time, I started with some comedies, namely “To Rome with Love” and this film, and who knows when this phase of watching movies will end. Probably very soon, because it’s opera season time – yay!

I don’t know how I stumbled upon this article but somehow its comments on teen slang were intriguing. I felt an incredibly strong urge to take a look at this film, and none of those naysaying comments about how the film is just male eyecandy could sway me. (With that said, a movie with male instead of female eyecandy? Fantastic.) My suspicions were right. I thought the movie was extremely funny and delivered a curiously universal humour because, let’s face it, we were all scoundrels in high school. “Chantal, heul leise” is deservedly famous and even made Pip laugh when I showed him the trailer.

For that reason, maybe I shouldn’t spoil the plot, but then again the plot matters little. It’s essentially about some virtually illiterate but shockingly attractive guy who accidentally becomes a teacher, tries to scare the kids into submission but in the process falls in love, starts caring about the kids and ultimately become Great Teacher Onizuka. Overall, Onizuka is a more likable character because he is openly perverse and defiant of society while being protective of his students ever since the very beginning, but Zeki’s development into a “normal” member of society is a cute one to see. Perhaps the film is a little bit too idealistic especially at the point where Chantal (of all people!) joins Jugend forscht, but it’s just a light-hearted comedy and I personally welcome to happy end.
The only character I was unhappy with was Charlie. She is this incredibly ditzy, good-natured prostitute who is somehow in love with Zeki but then helps him find his true love. Oh boy. What is up with Jana Pallaske and these incredibly thankless roles? Just like in this film, she was “the other more ugly girl” in “Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken” when she actually has a fairly pretty face. Maybe her agent just hates her, it’s baffling.

Without any doubt, Chantal was the highlight of the film for me. Those promo videos made with her are the best when you’ve seen the film and have gotten familiar with her role (“Voll süß!”) and I am happy that it made the actress famous. At age 21, it seems like she is already a pro (though I don’t see her going the Alexandra Maria Lara route, go to Hollywood and basically fail there), but I did like what she said about being 15 years old: “At 15 years, you have strength. The intuition is strong. It’s boiling. The energy comes from the desire to try and find yourself which is always stronger than the fear of being hurt.”

I could totally see the film again, right now. After spending years of my youth seeing bad German movies on German youth, I am glad that today’s generation of kids has “Fack ju Göhte”, even if the film is clichéd and, unlike GTO, ultimately quite affirmative of the institution of school.

To Rome with Love

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now moving onto the films that I have watched during my lone hours in Singapore. After I spent about three weeks fretting over nothing (well, there actually was quite a bit of stuff which kept me busy), I have finally gotten back my movie-watching mojo in week 4. “To Rome with Love” was a pleasant introduction to that – it’s been a long time since I saw a Woody Allen film, this is actually a film I looked forward to a lot (it has Ellen Page in it!) and after I completely forgot about it for years, Pixelmatsch recommended it to me. I had a very good feeling going into this film, and so far I have liked all of his tourism films (namely Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Midnight in Paris). At the same time, I knew that this could just as well go very, very wrong as I have never been a huge fan of ensemble films. I really disliked “You will meet a tall dark stranger” and I am so glad that “Midnight in Paris” was nice.

I was in luck, “To Rome with Love” proved itself to be exactly what I expected, and so much more fun on top of it. I only sorry for Alec Baldwin who ended up not really having to do anthing much but making snarky comments at Jesse Eisenberg and Ellen Page. Other than that, their storyline was perhaps my favorite. The characterization of Monica was absolutely fantastic, down to her claim that she is looking for some sort of Weltschmerz and the fact that she couldn’t cook. Oh and the Tic-Tac she ate right before she expected a kiss. Priceless.

Unsurprisingly, I liked the other segments too. My favorite scene of all is perhaps the one where Michelangelo’s father sings Pagliacci in the shower on stage, it was like a summary of the highlights of the opera including its dramatic ending and Pagliaccio’s “La commedia è finita!” at the end. I was surprised at how much I remembered from the opera, and suddenly felt a strong appreciation for the opera’s lovely music. Mr. Leoncavallo, I did you wrong when I thought the music was boring when I saw “Pagliacci” the first time. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t heard opera music for awhile, but the film gave me an intense urge to see one again.
I also liked that Woody Allen is not as sex-crazed anymore. Surely his characters still are (in a sense), but it’s different nowadays, and he settled comfortably in the role of the Dad who is even more neurotic and annoying than he’s ever been before while displaying a lot of self-deprecating black humour. Even his characters gained a little more dignity than Allen’s earlier films, with the husband and wife getting back together and Jack going back to Sally (though not entirely by his own choice).

I was pleasantly surprised to see Riccardo Scamarcio in the film! It’s been 7 years since I saw “Tre metri sopra il cielo” and I will forever remember it as the most clichéd chick flick I’ve ever seen. (Pixelmatsch, he is also the main character in “Mine vaganti”! Did you notice?) I was expecting Roberto Benigni in it (and there he was, hehe) who is an Italian cliché almost like the Spanish steps are, but Scamarcio came as a surprise.

Over the years, my preference of Spain over Italy has clearly changed to the opposite, even though I am probably indulging in clichés as much as Woody Allen is. That’s fine, just let me enjoy my pasta.

La Vénus à la Fourrure

From your perspective, I may have entered a blog posting frenzy, but the truth is that I am actually in a movie-watching frenzy. I dream of a life in which I can watch two or three movies a day… every day. One movie after breakfast, one movie after lunch and one movie after dinner, something like this. When writing blog posts, I almost always end up checking out other films, or my old lists, and that will naturally make me desire to watch more. I casually jotted down the titles I am most interested in right now, which immediately came to a list of 15 films. Fifteen!

“Venus in Furs” is one of those rare films that Loris has also seen, so here you can watch me struggle and fail to write something smart about it. (Though, honestly, I didn’t quite do a great job with “Carnage”.) Unlike “Carnage”, which is very much set in modern times and deals with modern themes, “Venus in Furs” takes a very old subject with a grain of salt. I kept rolling my eyes on how outdated the film’s topic was, but then I realized that it was actually making fun of its old-fashionedness. Luckily, the subtlety with which Polanski portrays the descent of Novachek into his power fantasies and the humour in which these fantasies are laid bare by a splendid Emmanuelle Seigner. I’ve always wanted to see Mathieu Amalric in drag, and this role was perfect for that.
There is something very sexy about the film, the eroticism of the characters’ relationship is very obvious, yet at the same time we see almost nothing actually beautiful or sexual. Not a single piece of fur is actually shown in the film, so even with the right light, hair and make-up, Vanda always looks like she is mocking what she does there, despite the gravitas in her voice. Unsurprisingly, she manages to change voice and tone in a split second, illustrating how silly their make-believe playing is and just how deeply Novachek has already sunken into the game.

After seeing the film, I spent a day reading Sacher-Masoch’s “Venus im Pelz” which is pretty much exactly what I expected. That book in which I didn’t understand every reference (who was Messalina again? Oh she was Britannicus’s mother!) actually surprised me with how well the characterization proceeded. It’s a straight-forward story in which the message “Be a master or a slave” is reiterated a million times, but what makes it lovely is the way the characters’ passion is described. With that said, I actually enjoyed the scenes in which Wanda and Severin make love in a “normal” fashion. The way they sunk into each other arms in passionate kisses sounded much nicer than the description of Severin’s suffering and Wanda’s commands. ‘Genuine’ passion is just more realistic in my book (and closer to what I experience, I suppose) and it’s much more timeless. I think that kind of sadistic passion is fairly outdated and becomes completely obsolete when the genders are equalized (just as the book claims, in fact), whereas simple love-making might occur in any society and at any times.

It seems like I prefer Polanski’s lessser-known films like his really old and really new films. “La Vénus à la fourrure” is definitely one of them.

The Wolf of Wall Street

Unlike the last few years, I am not indiscriminately interested in this year’s Academy Award contenders. “Nebraska” sounds boring, “Dallas Buyers Club” has a weird theme so not even Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey can convince me to watch it, and don’t even get me started on “12 Years a Slave”. I think “Gravity” and “Her” should have won, like, every category except the acting ones. The only film left to see was “The Wolf of Wall Street”. Someone in my former lab claimed that Martin Scorsese was his favorite director, and I realized that I was generally interested in the guy too. He shall be added to the directors list.

Unfortunately, “The Wolf of Wall Street” reminded me way too much of “The Aviator” which I started watching years ago with a friend, and we gave up after 1 1/2 hours. He liked the film and I thought it was utterly boring. Now that I am more interested in films and know a little more about the background of the film, I might pick up “The Aviator” again. But if it’s anything like “The Wolf of Wall Street” that also might never happen.

It’s not like it was a bad movie, in fact many aspects were interesting and I enjoyed much of it. It’s just too much of an autobiography, and more importantly, the guy it is about is not even that interested. Your average Wall Street guy does not lead a life like his; they may all be drugged, they may all be crazy, but not all of them have a young modelesque wife and they rarely start a fraudulent company trying to rival the big investment banks. In fact, most of them are leading relatively boring lives, spending 14+ hours a day at the office and work for, you name it, one of the big investment banks. Just like “The Aviator”, this film recounts the life of a very unusual guy and the film’s success is dependent on how interesting that life actually is. In the case of Jordan Belfort, his life is… OK. I guess I would have preferred less anecdotes, more black humour and, overall, a shorter film. Maybe I just don’t like biographies where a film goes through major events of a person’s life throughout many years. It only worked for “Boyhood” where, notably, the film does not show any major events but barely touches upon it.

I was extremely amused to see the actual Jordan Belfort appear in the film at the very end, it reminded me a lot of Erin Brockovich where the real Erin Brockovich appeared at the beginning of the film. From the few seconds you see Belfort on screen you can easily tell that he’s a salesman – much more so than Leonardo DiCaprio is. Did Leo fail his job this time? Hahaha.

I don’t think I was a huge fan of “The Wolf of Wall Street”, or maybe I just expected something different, but overall it was a fine film.

Guardians of the Galaxy

I hope that movie theaters never die out. Sound films quickly killed silent films, but home video thankfully never killed movie theaters. There are just so many reasons to see a film on the big screen – stunning visuals, surround sound systems and other people’s laughter. As a result, I try my best to see movies which are meant for the big screen right when they come out, and I am a little sad that we missed “Maleficent” and “Edge of Tomorrow”. I will probably never bother to see them on a TV screen.

“Guardians of the Galaxy” is another example of these films. Featuring a really fun prison break-out, the film is all about its visual effects and straight-forward entertainment. It did really well until somewhere in the second half – perhaps the moment where the main characters start develop their lame, predictable romance – the film becomes quite stupid. Well, let’s focus on the good: The main characters are all likable and, in fact, the further they are in the hierarchy, the more I like them. In other words, Groot is my favorite character (“I am Groot!”), followed by Rocket, Drax, Gamora and, well, Star-Lord. Actually Star-Lord and Gamora would be much easier to like if it wasn’t for that romance; they should have had a relationship like Malcolm and Zoe and that may have saved the film.

There is something lovely about this idea of misfits saving the world (something like the young, sweaty superhero fan’s wet dream), and for the most part “Guardians of the Galaxy” portrayed these misfits in a lovely, humorous way. It is only later on when there were more fights and less jokes that the film became sappy (“I will die with my friends” alright) and just a little bit unbelievable. Then again, I almost started crying at the “We are Groot” scene, so who am I kidding.

Overall, I care little about the Marvel universe and rarely like comic book adaptations. With that in mind, “Guardians of the Galaxy” did quite well and I enjoyed seeing a meaningless action flick in theaters again.