Author: Sasa

Un Coeur en Hiver

It doesn’t happen often but I was extremely impressed by this scene (and the next one in the playlist) posted on Youtube. Unfortunately, though, these are possibly the two only great scenes of the whole film. (They were very, very great though – I liked them so much that I didn’t skip over them while watching the film.)

Maybe I have to keep myself away from all these French movies that are not Nouvelle Vague. I used to like „8 Femmes“ very much, but seriously, nothing feels as amusing and meaningful as the Nouvelle Vague. I get the impression that French films have a certain pseudo-intellectual heaviness, even the ones that I have liked (such as „La Belle Noiseuse“). Sometimes they are absolutely insupportable like „Un Conte de Noel“, sometimes even pointless comedies such as „Les Chansons d’Amour“ have this heavy emoness. In comparison to that, the Nouvelle Vagues, even Resnais whom I sort of dislike, have this incredible lightness in their characters.

This also applies to the characters. As much as I love Emmanuelle Béart (and her lovely face), I can’t help but dislike her severe character in this movie. Nevertheless, she is the star of this movie and a delight to see. Considering her background, I am surprised that she is such an amazing actress; her eyes are even more expressive than Anna Karina’s.

Daniel Auteil ist absolutely perfect as shy boy and Dussollier… ah, he’s always the same. The problem with him is that he looks like a father figure (yay Tanguy) no matter how old he is. He just doesn’t really work as lover, and I should have mentioned this for „Mélo“ already. But, luckily he’s good enough as an actor to sort of make up for it. In fact, this movie is a worse „Mélo“ with completely different characters.
I can’t believe the main character could possibly say „I am sorry, I don’t love you“ and I feel completely cold.

Finally, the last reason why this movie probably didn’t do it for me is the fact that I didn’t enjoy its music, which unfortunately is also playing an immense role in it. I usually like Ravel, and I am all for expressive, complicated, slightly modern music, I would even say that expressionist music is my favorite… but the music of this film is exactly like the film itself: Too heavy to transport its emotions.

Vivre sa Vie

In the last days, I have been playing with the idea of watching this movie quite a lot, and finally I did so (pretty much 5 years after I got to know about it for the first time). Anna Karina is indeed the goddess of the Nouvelle Vague indeed, and this is the film about her and her relationship with Godard. More than Alphaville, even more than Pierrot le Fou, this film is all about Godard’s view of Anna Karina. Even if I didn’t know that they were in love, this is absolutely fascinating. Anna Karina’s Nana is the Anna Karenina of today.

All painters make studies of women; of their face, their movements and their lives. More than anything else, this film is a study like that. In all his films with Anna Karina, Godard seems to be studying her, but this one is the most obvious and to some degree also the most honest. „À bout de souffle“ might be his best movie, but this one is even more beautiful and with a hint of honest depth, especially in her dialogue with the unknown philosopher. Much more than „Le Mépris“ even, the film has so many citable lines and while there doesn’t seem to be an overarching storyline, everything seems to fit marvelously in this movie.

Another scene that stuck in my mind is Anna Karina’s dance. As always, her dances are somewhat weird, making it impossible to qualify her as a good dancer despite her somewhat cute style.

Compared to that, I was not too impressed by the famous Jeanne d’Arc scene. However, I am extremely interested in Dreyer’s „Passion of Joan of Arc“ now, because what they showed in „Vivre sa Vie“ completely drew me in by its intense atmosphere.

Nana’s short hairstyle is slightly un-Karina-ish, but the bangs are somewhat typical for her again and frame her face beautifully. I wish my bangs would look like that on me!

Despite all the character’s wonderfully clear French, I was unable to understand everything. That’s what I get for not wanting to watch non-French subtitles. I just read a wonderful synopsis of the film here. There are so many references and details in the film! It’s quite lovely; I wish such websites existed for all movies.

Personally, I am not entirely sure what to think about this film. I am in love with the distinct episodic style, but at the same time, it’s comparably less fun than Godard’s other films. In general, it is amusing to see that Godard’s best movies (the aforementioned „À bout de souffle“ and „Le Mépris“) actually are not with Anna Karina.

PS. Matthieu Kassovitz’s father is pretty cute!
PPS. Her name is Nana Kleinfrankenheim – why the heck is the German title „Die Geschichte der Nana S.“?

Nicht versöhnt oder Es hilft nur Gewalt wo Gewalt herrscht

On a whim, I decided to watch this film without knowing much about it except that Gorp loves Straub/Huillet. This is weird enough because the truth is that politics and messages don’t really coincide all that well with art, which is why the most acclaimed films typically don’t have all that much politics (such as “La Règle du Jeu” or “2001”). And the seemingly very radical political stances Straub/Huillet are standing for typically don’t lead to significant art. Furthermore, I have never been a fan of Heinrich Böll who mostly stands for these utterly boring authors you have to read in high school.

But here, both Böll and Straub were a pleasant surprise. I am absolutely in love with the “citing instead of acting” concept. While I had a really, really hard time to find out what the whole story is about – the fact that the story was jumping around and I couldn’t recognize people’s faces didn’t help either – I enjoyed every single scene. In just 55 minutes, I have rarely seen such a concise style despite the confusion, and I am a big fan of the scene in the restaurant when Fähmer meets with Nettlinger (or not?) That dialogue is pure brilliance, and it makes you think. We are in the same lethargy as the Fähmel family, but then again, if I think about it, I don’t hate those systems, I ‘only’ despise them without any passion whatsoever.

By the way, I have my own personal little history of ‘not speaking up’ when I felt like I should have. I was 6 years old and that experience is probably going to have an impact on me forever. Today, the only thing I can do is not bow down in front of a statue of Mao and not to clap when people are clapping for soldiers at the airport.

Machorka-Muff

Brecht is utterly un-funny, and most of what was produced around the 47 stuck in my mind as incredibly boring too. I like political satire and the Jewish way of seeing even the worst things with a grain of salt, I was amazed when I read Chekhov’s satirical publications, and for me, there is nothing such as a satire that goes too far; there is only satire that is bad.

The story is nothing special, doesn’t go as deep as “Nicht versöhnt” and doesn’t raise so many questions. It was also much less ’emotional’ for me and ultimately feels like a less meaningful movie, but the subtle humour of the film totally made up for it. Just for that, I would totally watch the film again and I feel like with a second time I would discover even more of those subtle scenes that make me grin.

For some reason, I am absolutely fascinated with Straub and Huillet simply because I want to see whether that kind of directing with such a political agenda works. And I think they picked a wonderful character with Anna Magdalena Bach to make a film of; I imagine her to be one of the numerous women who probably would have had great careers today.

Anticipation

In an article I have read recently, Anna Karina says there are 7 1/2 movies she has made with Godard, which would be:

Une femme est une femme
Vivre sa vie
Le petit soldat
Bande à part
Alphaville
Pierrot le Fou
Made in U.S.A.
Anticipation, ou: l’amour en L’an 2000

It seems I have seen 4 1/2 of them, and there are three more I haven’t seen. Years ago, I think it must have been 2005 even, I saw “Vivre sa Vie” (with its German title “Die Geschichte der Nana S.”) on the shelves of the videotheque (yes, back then I actually went there to get movies!). Somehow I was drawn to that movie, perhaps because I have always been a big fan of prostitutes as protagonists, but at the same time I was afraid it would be too artsy for me. Today, as a Godard fan, I am pretty sure that I won’t find the film too artsy anymore, heh.

The weirdest thing about Godard and Karina is that both of them are alive. To me, these people are on the same level as, say, Antonioni, who incidentally has actually died. I know that’s weird, but this is how I feel. Godard’s nouvelle vague films feel like they are from a time that is unreachable for me now.

“Anticipation” is like “Alphaville”, except that the whole story absolutely makes sense, as much as a science-fiction story by Godard can make sense. Since I loved the style of “Alphaville” (monotone voices, stylish black and white backgrounds), I was more than happy to see that he has retained this style with this little short film. Although Anna Karina is wearing a horrible dress in it, her role fits her absolutely perfectly. I wish this was a full-fledged feature!

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

I love the expressionist style of this film, although I find it to look much more like surrealism than expressionism (think Monet and Degas). And ultimately it’s the film’s most interesting feature. The whole film looks like a mix of a cartoon and a theatre play, and a wonderfully stylish one at that. I also find it amazing that they were able to produce this film so cheaply, I guess it’s cheaper to produce backgrounds with slightly less detail than “real” looking ones. Nevertheless, I am impressed by the artistic richness of the film.

Apart from that, there was not so much that I found gripping about the story. Sure, the directing was not bad and the acting felt quite solid too; unlike Nosferatu, I also felt that Caligari had a very nice and steady pacing. But overall, the story itself pales next to the style of the film. I wouldn’t stay the story was boring or anything, it was far from that; it was not just nothing special for me. This could partially be due to the somewhat boring music accompanying the film. I can definitely say that I disliked it, and seeing how often Caligari has been re-interpreted musically, I would love to see how different I might think about the film with different, perhaps more modern or jazzy music.

It seems that I have seen the big all three famous (expressionist) German silent films “Metropolis”, “Nosferatu” and “Caligari” now. Curiously, I only know a lot about Murnau and Lang, but practically nothing about Robert Wiene. Perhaps it’s because he never survived into the sound film, and makes me realize yet again how little I know about silent films in general. It really is sad that most of them have disappeared by now.

Spring in a Small Town

I don’t know why I’m avoiding blogging this film, perhaps it’s because there is this „but it’s such a classic!“ feeling. Unlike most other films, where I watch something most often because somebody recommended it to me, I was approaching this film as this uber-respected classic of Chinese cinema. It had to be good, and actually it was.

The problem with this film entirely lied in the crappiness of the copy. Oh God, sometimes the sound completely disappeared (in the most dramatic scenes at that!), sometimes its quality was incredibly bad and the restoration of the image isn’t exactly the best either. I feel so sorry for this movie and hope that someone will restore it in a better way. There is no reason for a 1948 movie to be in such incredible bad state.

But apart from that, I’m quite impressed by the film. Its story is indeed exactly the same as „Springtime in a Small Town“ except for parts of the way they depicted the end, but at this point, for me „Springtime in a Small Town“ is indeed but a weak remake. In my opinion, the original has a much nicer cinematography in black and white. I find the characters much more likeable and understandable (the off narration and the beauty of the female main character helps a lot), and finally the sexual innuendo is even more obvious and creates an immense tension with the constant subtle eroticism – amazing enough at that time.

In the end, I liked the film very much and would totally watch it again one day when they release a better copy.

Cry Me a River

Jia Zhangke makes me weirdest movies in the world, and at least „Platform“ felt amazingly long to me. Certain scenes just never wanted to end… Ugh. „Cry Me a River“ cannot possibly suffer from is with its 19 minutes runtime, and makes me wonder why he doesn’t just make much more short films. At first, though, I found it rather difficult to make out what this short film was supposed to be about. (I was even annoyed at the insertion of the Peking opera, first of all because the singing was bad and secondly because I generally hate the Peking opera.) It was only halfway through that you could feel that these are supposed to be meetings of old lovers. But at the end, when the characters spoke out the lines referencing „Spring in a Small Town“, I loved the film. Everything just fit – including Jia Zhangke’s usual stunning cinematography – and there aren’t many more dialogue lines that I can possibly find more beautiful than that.

I think the MoMA did a wonderful of showing these two movies together, and I feel sorry for the people who left the theater before „Cry Me a River“ started. They missed quite a little, short gem of a film.

A Serious Man

I love the Coen brothers, I really do. I thought “Fargo” was enjoyable and unpretentiously funny, and “The Big Lebowski” absolutely deserves its cult following. „Burn After Reading“ had a very engaging story as well, but I’m not that much of a huge fan of its message. So how else could I have approached „A Serious Man“ but with high expectations?

Unfortunately, I have to admit that I didn’t like the film as much, and I think it’s mostly because it did not feel like a Coen movie that much. We do have a large cast of characters but are awfully concentrated on this main character, there are a bunch of funny scenes augmented with Jewish humour and finally, I think that the actors are absolutely great. However, I have found myself bored for the first time with a Coen film, amazingly enough.

I’m not sure if it truly was the case, but „A Serious Man“ seemed to be much slower than the other Coen films I have seen. Furthermore, this is a film where you can’t see the end (this is not necessarily bad), but you also can’t see a journey! (This is horrible.) Of course I understand that he will not be finding any answers by going to these rabbi, and quite a lot of scenes in the story did make me laugh in their heartwarming Jewishness, but seriously, what was all that about? Am I missing anything? Is this my next „Requiem for a Dream“ where everyone is going to tell me how great it is except I don’t see it?

By the way, just like the Coen brothers, I love screwball comedies. I just wish this movie would have turned out a little bit more like a screwball comedy. Which means that „A Serious Man“ just lacks Frances McDormand! XD

Woman in the Dunes

In some ways, this movie is entirely different from most of what I see. This is most evident in the way I perceived time while I watched the film. It’s definitely not a ‘fast’ movie and if you think about it, nothing much happens. More than that, the director’s cut goes way over my usual limit (which is the typical two hours run time), yet I haven’t found myself looking at the clock even on single time. Watching the sand is breathtaking in this movie, very unlike Araya which plays around with the imagery of sand as well, but displays a completely different atmosphere. While “Araya” is a very realistic, documentary-style movie where sand is a sign of these people’s poor and harsh lives, “Woman in the Dunes” indeed is a somewhat Sartre-ish story.

In terms of the philosophy or the existentialism that we are supposed to find in the film, I’m not particularly fond of it. It doesn’t quite add up for me; while “No Exit” absolutely makes sense to me, and in “Waiting for Godot” I feel a lot of truth in it, there are elements in “Woman in the Dunes” that make me take it a little less serious than the Europeans. (In fact, Abe’s plays feel a lot like Beckett’s to me.) What are these things: First of all, the story made me utterly frustrated, which is a good thing because that’s how it’s supposed to be, and this impression was intensified by the marvelous directing and those haunting shots of the everlasting sand. But it made me scream “Of course I would want freedom! Freedom over everything!” inside. It felt absolutely clear to me that most aspects in this „allegory of life“ do not apply to real life.

I guess opinions can differ on this. When looking at the end, I realize that most people seem to have their own interpretation. First of all, there is the possibility that the woman could have died, and then we wonder why the man ended up staying. Is it because he was obsessed about his work? Because he thought the rest of the world does not offer him anything anymore? I don’t think so. I think it’s mainly because the fact that he found something that was like an achievement. Now he doesn’t want bugs to get recognition anymore, he wants to show off to the villagers. This is quite lame, I guess, but it seems plausible to me and ties into the past of the character (he wanted to get out his old life, he wants his name in a book etc.)

But oh God, it was frustrating to watch this movie sometimes, especially when the villagers showed their true colors in this not-really-rape scene. While „Dogville“ offers a relieving conclusion at the end, this movie has a 1984-type end and is even worse than 1984 because the man was forced into this situation at some point in his life, he was not born into it like most dystopian science fiction stories.

Not taking into the consideration the frustration I felt and the ‚meaningfulness‘ of the story, I think that Abe’s story is at least just as good as a Ionesco or a Beckett and Teshigahara’s directing has absolutely met my high expectations. The portrayal of the sand is absolutely breathtaking, and every single shot of the movie is extremely stylish in a very subtle way. In terms of film making, the film is a masterpiece in my opinion. Actually I kept thinking of Antonioni all the time.

Of course the actors were brilliant. I especially love Kishida Kyoko’s acting. And oh my God, she is „mukashi mukashi“ in Princess Tutu! (The narrator, that is.)

I am absolutely interested in Teshigahara’s other movies now, especially his collaborations with Abe. From what I saw in this film, I think that Teshigahara is absolutely underrated. Who cares about Ozu?

Burn after Reading

Loris, the most cynical person I’ve ever met in my life, tells me that he found this movie too cynical. I’m really not sure if I totally agree on that. I mean, yes, all the characters in the movie are idiots (except for the Six Feet Under father, heh), but then again, who cares? The question is whether these characters can produce a great story or not.

But really, the story is not so bad! This definitely feels like a Coen movie where I don’t really mind that the characters are bad people, that’s exactly the same for the Lebowski people. Here, however, we have a bunch of amusing characters and are yet again the roles are perfectly written for them. I have never seen Brad Pitt this great! This simple, slightly naive yet energetic idiot is just perfect for him. In this movie, I even accept Tilda Swinton as cold-hearted bitch (she is one!)

All in all, I would say that I definitely prefer “The Big Lebowski” over “Burn After Reading”, because drinking too many White Russians is just so much more enjoyable than “it’s not all fun and games”. It’s too bad it’s been so long since I have seen “Fargo”, and in that point, I guess I understand what Loris meant: This movie is just completely devoid of goodness. Especially when considering the end, it seems like everybody in this world is just plain… evil or stupid or both.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)

Usually, you would refer to the year of a movie (like the 1935 version or the 1999 version in these cases), but when a certain adaptation is extraordinarily good, you would name the director. This one is Reinhardt’s version of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, and much deservedly so.

Compared to the 1999 version, I can’t believe how much better the directing is. How so much better! A Midsummer Night’s Dream is so full of potential, making the difference so amazingly striking. It hasn’t happen very often that I have seen in different mise en scènes of the same story (I’ve seen “Letter from an Unknown Woman”, “Alice in Wonderland” , and “The Magic Flute” in two opera houses), and I find it fascinating to make comparisons.
In this case, there is not enough praise I can give to the directing of adaptation. There are so many scenes that are made even much funnier by the way Reinhardt has set them into place. I loved the scenes where the four lovers ran after each other through the woods; I loved the way Puck imitated them; and the very best scenes were the ones when the four of them confronted each other. With good, but not outstanding actors, these scenes actually made me come late to class. You can’t just stop watching a movie in the middle of such a funny fight, right? Acting, cinematography, pace – it was just too perfect and so much better than the mud .

One character I didn’t actually like as much was Puck. His acting was wonderful (despite the slightly was unpleasant laughters), and was immensely funny. But I’m not so sure if I like this slightly evil instead of just playful Puck. I kind of liked the calm dignity of the 1999 Puck much more.

Luckily it’s not like the more modern version had no redeeming qualities. In general, I would say that the combination of Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer and Calista Flockhart (not to forget that Oberon and Puck was brilliant too) is superior to the cast of Reinhardt’s film. In general, none of the actors are bad at all, all of them are steady (compared to the horrible Demetrius, Hermia and Lysander in the 1999 version). Plus there is James Cagney! And Osgood! (Joe E. Brown that is… as Flute he’s so brilliant!) With these astonishingly fun and energetic actors playing him, I am still wishing Bottom had a larger role.

The one thing I did not quite understand in the film are the… singing and dancing scenes? Granted, they are mostly beautiful and the dancing scenes are very well executed. And as much as I understand that this is also an opera adaptation to some degree, I didn’t quite see the need of showing seemingly pointless dancing scenes. At first, I found them to be very pretty, especially in comparison to the awkward mask given to the fairies in the 1999 version, and I am quite enamored with Mendelssohn’s music (especially the overture!), but getting rid of the the singing and dancing scenes would have cut the 20 minutes that this film exceeds the standard 2 hours.

While “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” does not garner as much attention as “Alice in Wonderland” did (not like you can compare them), I feel like I would happily pass at the other adaptations of the play. Next time, I want to see the play “in person”.