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My Architect: A Son’s Journey

I suppose I love to say that I never watch documentaries, though I try to open my mind to it. (I have been planning to do that with western films as well, but I never actually got myself to see the main ones.) While I am quite convinced that I would come to like the western genre, I am still not sure whether I enjoy documentaries as a concept. The main goal is of course to learn about things and perhaps see things from another perspective; in other words, my interest in these films is almost purely educational. However, many documentaries I have seen, such as “My Winnipeg” or “Antonio Gaudi”, are so artful that they are way more than just a documentary and it is those which I probably prefer.

“My Architect” is a film on Louis Kahn by his own son, and touches the fine line between a documentary that is basically strictly educational and one which has some sort of artistic merit behind it. There is none of the amazing creativity and craziness of “My Winnipeg”, and it would never match the serene calmness and beauty in the shots of “Antonio Gaudi”. But the Kahn son is doing a fine job showing his own perspective as the son who has never quite learned about his father when he was still alive. He managed to get a bunch of people to say sometimes meaningful, sometimes funny things about Louis Kahn, and while I am not quite sure about the structure of the film (which seemed to have a reasonable beginning and end, but a rather fuzzy everything-in-between) I thought that it was quite comprehensive. Since Louis Kahn didn’t make so many buildings, there was ample time to show off his famous works and even go into some detail for the ones which never came to be. It’s a shame, some of his designs were actually awesome and I would love to see them. Most interestingly, it was interesting to see that Louis Kahn had a terrible family life and practically had 3 women sacrificing their lives for them. Actually, I wonder how he had the time to write all those love letters and make all those children considering that he was working all the time. Since he was in debt, I also wonder how he financed a total of 3 families and built nice houses for them. It makes me wonder if you have to be an asshole when you are an architect. The poor wife. (The two mistresses were just delusional.)

The film has one scene which elevates it a little into the realms of “Antonio Gaudi”, where the son rollerblades on the plaza of the Salk Institute. That one was visually stunning. However, the film ends on a strangely bitter note. 10 minutes before the end, we got those incredibly reverent shots of the Capital of Bangladesh while people are talking about how Louis Kahn is a guru with tears in their eyes. I understand that the son wanted some closure, but he really didn’t have to make it so sappy, especially after spending two hours telling us how low of a person Louis Kahn was.

Having earned an Academy Award nomination in the documentary category, this is probably one of the more famous and better documentaries you can find on an architect out there. As for me, my general interest in Louis Kahn has mostly stayed the same. I have come to enjoy his architecture a little more but I am not sure if I really wanted to know what kind of person he was.

Iron Sky

I like most of the awards. “Skyfall” got best song, “Django Unchained” got best screenplay (although I personally wished it had gone to “Moonrise Kingdom” instead), I suppose “Amour” for foreign film was expected and I am glad that Jennifer Lawrence is getting the critical attention she deserves. To top it all, I am very happy for Christoph Waltz – that was quite a surprise considering he got the same award just 3 years ago. But that “best picture” award? Shameless, shameless. It’s not like I trust critics in the first place, but with “Argo” the choice is so bad it’s painful.

But what can I say, “Iron Sky” is another example at where critics fail me. Now one can easily argue that most serious critics wouldn’t see the film in the first place. So-called ‘cult movies’ are not really in their arsenal so all you will read about are going to be amateur reviewers such as yours truly. As an example, this is one of the better efforts though I admittedly only skimmed the article because its light-on-black blog style hurts my eye. (Another reason why I like changing up the style of my own blog!) On Rotten Tomatoes you will see that most people hated the movie, and reading their reviews you will probably not learn about why they thought the film was bad. This is amusingly true no matter whether the writer liked the film or not. If I read things like “The film fails to be funny” or “Space nazis? What’s not to like?”, my automatic reaction would be to doubt these statements. What they wrote did not apply to me at all, and their review doesn’t even tell me why they think it was like that for them. I wish I was a better reviewer than that, but that requires a significant effort I sometimes do not like to make. As a result, I admire those who can.

I remember that Pixelmatsch never saw it back when it ran at the Berlinale, and I think it was 4651 who told me that the film was silly and bad. But silliness is perhaps the most important rule when it comes to Nazi comedies, so it’s not like that was unexpected. Sure, there are some scenes whose humor can only be described as dumb. The scientist who looks like Einstein fails to realize that the cellphone was battery powered is probably the worst joke of all. Poor Einstein, I would probably have felt offended on so many levels if I was him. Heck I myself feel a little offended being something of a scientist myself; I just dislike the stereotypical parody of the ‘mad scientist’, it’s outdated and there is absolutely nothing funny about that. I also don’t think that Julia Dietze is a good actress – in comparison to all the other characters who are at least doing a fair job, her clumsy acting feels strangely out of place.

With that said, I have absolutely nothing else to complain about the film. In fact, I thought it was a pleasant surprise. The sci-fi battles look much better than most of the campy stuff you usually see, some scenes even had the crispness of what you see in Battlestar Galactica for example. I also thought the story was well-written: The exposition started off quickly by contact with the Moon Nazis in the very first scene and then introducing all important characters, and from there the story never loses steam. It’s a feast of sci-fi action coupled with laughing-out-loud satire, ending in what “Dr. Strangelove” would have been – practically a cake fight. The comedy is very black, bordering on the lines of meanness (especially in that joke with North Korea), and one may need a little distance to whatever you may feel about Nazis yourself. They did have the decency to take the Jews completely out of the equation, and mostly make fun of Nazi antics such as the uniforms, the salute and the rigid hierarchy system. Actually the film makes more fun of politics on earth than it does of actual nazis – they just serve as backdrop for more jokes. But some of those jokes on the Sarah-Palin-like U.S. President and the other countries are quite spot-on, and I especially loved how the Mir appeared out of nowhere (it deorbited in 2001 after all, who remembers it nowadays?). Furthermore, I think cutting “The Great Dictator” down to the infamous scene where Hitler plays with the earth balloon is one of many lovely jokes the film had. Furthermore, a scene like that does not only serve amuse you, a lot of these jokes are actually central to the plot which pleasantly does not have glaring plotholes as you’d expected from a production like this. Everything has a certain purpose, and everything the silly characters do have a reasonable consequence. Even the very reason why the US sent people to the moon again, helium-3, reappears as a plot device at the end.

Seriously, I don’t know what is going on with the bad reviews for this film. It did well enough in box office, and they were planning to make a prequel and sequel of it. There must a reason for the relative success of the film, so if your humor aligns with the blackness, you’ll find it an enjoyable, epic ride.

Half Nelson

For those of you who use RSS to read my blogpostings (are there any?), take a look at the homepage. I am using a new theme now! Two days ago I had a random desire for change. I wanted something more 2013, i.e. more contemporary, perhaps a little more Tumblr and less WordPress. Minimalism doesn’t always have to imply a black and white theme, and there are many details I like about this theme. For example, tables look really lovely and I absolutely love the fact that it shows Gravatars next to the post. Now I am usually the only one blogging here, but when it’s Berlinale time, it’s nice to see Pixelmatsch’s and my postings alternate.

I suppose I have digressed long enough. At the same time, “Half Nelson” is not a very talkative film and doesn’t seem to want you to talk about it either. The film is largely unpretentious: Its premise is simple, nothing much is happening and one may even wonder whether it is trying to say anything at all. Nevertheless, there is something about the film that just screams Hollywood drug movie to me. While “Oslo, August 31st” was about the struggle of a single protagonist with his ‘human condition’, there are various elements in this film that feel very Hollywood to me – neglected black kid, drug-abusing guy whose ex-girlfriend left him but wants to stay friends, unlikely friendship between adult guy and pre-pubescent teen but nobody seems to take offense etc. etc. There is something too optimistic, almost dream-like in the world of “Half Nelson” – in fact, both protagonists seem to be perfect humans if it wasn’t for his cocaine and her bad friends. It is very American cinema to create these practically perfect people with only a single flaw, and that may be the reason why I never felt like the characters were as real as most reviewers praise it to be.

But don’t get the wrong idea, on many levels the film is rather brilliant. We already know that Ryan Gosling is an awesome actor, but his chemistry with Shareeka Epps is unusually great. The film is definitely at its height when the two of them interact and show their subtle friendship. In fact, when she got locked out of her house and the two of them ended up making dinner together, I realized that the film was more than just an understated artsy drug film. I was not actually looking for reality here, but for a human moment. It may have taken me a long time to get into their relationship, but somewhere along the road, I warmed up towards those characters who objectively have absolutely nothing to do with me.

For the most part, I understand why everybody loves this film (heck, Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote a laudatio for it!) and I thought it was enjoyable to watch, but overall it was not my type of film so I am unable to get overly excited about it. With that said, I have absolutely no idea who recommended it to me anymore. It must have been in the “other recommendations” list for years.

The Colour of Pomegranates (Sayat Nova)

Similar to Godard’s Mépris, this film is much easier to appreciate when you understand what is happening. After reading 314’s essay about the use of colors in Le Mépris, the film became my second favorite Godard film. For Sayat Nova, you can guess quite a few metaphors (like the shell on the chest or the ‘blood’ of the pomegranates) but that is not enough to get anything in the film. When I started watching the film, I had absolutely no idea what was going on, even though I knew this was about Armenia being oppressed and it was a biopic of Sayat Nova. But it was only after I read a few articles on the internet actually explaining the film that I truly came to enjoy it. As this guy observed, such articles are quite hard to find.

Of course one may want to ask if this is the way the film should be viewed. Isn’t it enough to just take in the beautiful pictures? Well, one can certainly choose to, but I think it is much more interesting to discover and learn about the many layers the film has. Sayat Nova seems to be a fascinating character, having composed poetry in multiple languages and coming from a rich culture which has elements of Turkish, Persian and Russian culture. How can one not be fascinated by this amalgam? Another aspect is my personal interest for political meanings hidden behind poetry. In my last posting on Lee Chang-dong’s “Poetry” I claimed that I do not understand poetry (and thus most often do not like it), but I totally appreciate the point of using poetry to express a hidden meaning – forbidden love, political critique, buried feelings. In the spirit of “University of Laughs”, censorship can actually contribute to creativity and such poetry is its best example. Then, if there is an underlying meaning behind these beautifully composed shots, I definitely would want to know what these symbols and allegories mean. Just looking at the pictures is totally not enough for me and the possibility of understanding the film greatly contributes to my enjoyment of it, even if I may never actually understand it.

Speaking of beautiful pictures, Tarkovsky was a friend of Paradjanov’s. It makes a lot of sense, they both have an amazing feel for aesthetics and “Sayat Nova” is very reminiscent of “Andrei Rublev” in its theme and feel (also, the ending shot). But even more so, I see the similarity to the splendid picture compositions of Méliès. The beauty in these films is so strangely universal, you don’t even have to be into artsy films to see that. One could make a photography class about image composition with this film. I do not doubt the ‘poetic’ nature of this film for a second, and given the nature of the topic, I am doubly convinced this convoluted poetic style is exactly what the film needs – it is a biopic of a poet and the content was so controversial in Soviet Russia.

Looking past the beauty of the film, one could almost call this film propaganda for the Armenian culture. I have been wondering how the film even came to be when the filmmaker was prosecuted, it does not exactly look so cheap after all. It turns out that it was actually filmed in Armenia by Armenfilm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenfilm and can be considered an Armenian attempt to assert its nationalistic pride. If that is so, then “The Color of Pomegranates” may be the most artful and subtle piece of ‘propaganda’ ever – more than anything though, it’s an attempt to showcase and preserve a culture which is dying out, and the Armenian culture is lucky that Paradjanov did that so masterfully.

So, uh, this is a mostly boring art piece for which I have a certain personal fascination for. Its visuals are stunning and enjoyable, and I hope that they will bring out a better-looking version of it one day.

Poetry

Really, poetry is the film’s biggest “weakness”. Actually I probably shouldn’t say it’s the film’s weakness, because it makes sense on an objective level. It is rather that I have such little understanding or capability of appreciating poetry that most of the film escaped me on an emotional level. I understand that an apricot fallen to the ground may be beautiful and prompt you to see beauty in the small things in life, but how that translates into poems I absolutely don’t know. Every single poem in the film was totally uncomprehensible to me. If I write “The cat is sleeping in my bed / I want to throw a cough drop at him”, is that a poem? Why would it not be? More importantly, how do poems convey anything? To me, the ones presented in this film mostly sound unintelligible. (On a side note, I do like stories written in verses, or poems which have a clear distinct message but packed into linguistically beautiful metaphors. It’s probably mostly the modern ones I don’t get behind.)

Having explained this hurdle, I am tempted to compare the experience of this film to “Secret Sunshine”. Both films have a similar atmosphere and both films managed to draw me in throughout their entire course. This effect was even stronger in “Poetry”, which leads me to believe that some of its aspects represent a bigger artistic achievement than Lee Chang-dong was able to get with “Secret Sunshine”. Even though I had a good feeling about what was going to happen in the film, it was drawing me in and no matter how slow the scenes were, I could not avert my eyes. “Poetry” is definitely much more of a mood piece than “Secret Sunshine” was, and almost contained no humor very much unlike “Secret Sunshine”. Even if I may not quite understand the point of those poems we see in the film nor the almost absurd childhood stories of the poetry class students, I was fascinated by the desperation and grace of the main character. She is certainly a chic lady and pretending to be cheerful, all the while hiding her inner turmoil and showing her displeasure with the world with something as quiet as walking out of a meeting. That character is the anchorpoint of the film – when she walks around, I feel reminded of Jeanne Moreau in “Ascenseur pour l’échafaud”. (The comparison is not so great – while Yang Mija is a progressive female character, Jeanne Moreau’s character is mostly portrayed a pretty face to look at whose character can be described by “is in love with some guy other than her husband”.) These female leads have an incredible presence on screen, and the emotions they show in their role should be as iconic as Maria Falconetti’s Joan of Arc.

As a story, “Poetry” seems to have much less of it than “Secret Sunshine” but in my book it is the more interesting one. While “Secret Sunshine” has some side elements such as Song Kang-ho’s pursuit of the woman he loves, everything in “Poetry” either happens to set the mood or to further the straightforward storyline. They could easily have worked in some more funny elements, such as giving the vulgar police officer a bigger role as comedic relief. But that is not the point of the story. The way the story is written give it a bigger an impact, because we see in depth how Yang Mija struggles with her grandson who hides an atrocious crime behind his dumb face.

I appreciate the intenseness of the film, but overall I don’t think “Poetry” and I mesh well together due to all these poetic elements I simply don’t understand. But I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who likes Lee Chang-dong’s films or slow Korean dramas in general, it is a well-written film and has an absolutely stunning main character.

Kramer vs. Kramer

While Pixelmatsch has 2 more movies to blog about (and the final ranking which I am of course most excited about), I am determined to kill my backlog. This year has been rather fruitful in terms of films. But while I think that I saw many worthwhile films and learned a lot (“Dersu Uzala” or “Tony Takitani” were certainly great and almost eye-openers), there has yet to be something completely blowing my mind. I think my favorite movie of this year (so far) was RoboCop.

“Kramer vs. Kramer” is another attempt of mine to see a few classics. It was about 15 minutes into the film that I realized I had already seen it before, on German TV back when I was a child and long before I had any interest in films. It was the kind of movie we saw at random in the typical evening movie slot at 8.15pm. I have many childhood memories of these movies, and “Kramer vs. Kramer” was one which I remembered pretty well, I just didn’t remember the title nor the actors. At the time, I remember how the relationship between father and son became warm and loving and vividly recall the two scenes in which they make French toast together – their chaotic first attempt and their heartwarming teamwork at the end of the film.

I was probably 9 or 10 years old when I saw the film, and was fascinated by the premise. Any child, no matter how much they may be convinced their parents would never walk out on them, would probably be able to relate and fear their parents’s separation. I completely understood Billy’s position and totally saw myself in him. Interestingly enough, when I saw the film again, I thought that Billy was awfully spoiled. Of course I get behind his behavior and realize how much a child would be affected when suddenly faced with a disappearing mother, but Billy’s behavior at first just seemed nonsensical at times. My first reaction was basically “Argh what an annoying kid”. It is only with time that Billy warmed to his father and I warmed up to him.

“How cute!” That was my final reaction to the film. As a tearjerker, Kramer vs. Kramer is probably the perfect movie. In many aspects, the film is awfully realistic despite its typical Hollywood feeling, which can only be attributed to the greatness of the actors, particularly Dustin Hoffmann who is absolutely great with the boy. The feelings of love in a parent-child relationship are strong without being kitsch in any sense, and I can only hope that I will be able to establish such a close bond with my own children as they do in the film, or as my parents did with me. The other relationship I really liked about the film was the one between the father and his neighbor – a genuine platonic male-female relationship is so lovely!

There are many other aspects I never paid attention to back in the day. Especially the drama in the courtroom surprised me from today’s perspective. How are you a better parent because you make 4000 dollars more a year? How are you an irresponsible parent if you have neglected your work in the past because your child needed medical attention? Why are you to blame when your child had an accident nobody could have done anything about? Especially so when the child was in your care while the other person walked out of their responsibility altogether? It is ironic how the mother technically won everything – she left the dirty work for her ex-husband to do for 2 years, only to come back with a higher paying job than him, a new boyfriend and take the child away again.
From the other perspective, I was a little taken aback by the argument that the wife failed the marriage. If anything, they both failed together, but in most cases (as it seems so with this one) it is hard to say that anyone is to blame. On top of that, the lawyer argues that if a husband does not cheat, does not strike you and does not drink, he is a “good husband”. My goodness. Nora’s husband also never did any of that but he still exploited and abused her, and Ibsen saw that in 1879. For all the progressiveness in the father-son-relationship, that particular scene along with the fact that the wife even had a Doll’s-House-like dilemma suggests that the film contains rather traditional aspects after all. Thank goodness at least here we have an understanding husband who managed to change his ways.

I am glad to have seen “Kramer vs. Kramer” again as an adult. It confirms how memorable this film is, despite its Hollywood-ish elements which push all the right buttons to make you feel emotional.

That Darn Cat (1965 & 1997)

We watched both films in a row, starting with the younger one which featured actors we knew but had much worse reviews. I believe that it’s almost always more pleasant to see the remake before the original, or otherwise disappointment is practically guaranteed. “That Darn Cat” may not be a great example of a film (or two films, in this case) but it sheds an interesting light on remakes.

When it comes to remakes, the most popular question to ask is probably “What makes remakes so disliked?” (This is assuming that not everybody religiously uphold the original for no rational reason because they are such rabid fans.) But I think it would be much more interesting to wonder what makes a remake actually good. In some sense, remakes could be seen as taking the material of something and retelling the story. Known mythologies, Shakespeare plays and popular 19th century novels all get adapted over and over again. Did you know there are millions of operas on the Orpheus story? I have my own personal favorites (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Eugene Onegin) and there is something fascinating about watching a movie whose story you already know. I think I recently mentioned how we watch movies precisely because we want to know what happens next, but what makes me want to watch the next rendition of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”? The simple answer would be that there are some stories we love so much we don’t mind the repetition, just like how I could watch “Before Sunrise” over and over again. But much more than that, I find it interesting to see how changes to the original are handled in the remake (adaptation of a play into a movie, changing the tone or the setting in a movie etc. etc.) How is a remake a good one? How much should one deviate from the original? A good remake is one which is not perceived as such – when people forget about the original, it is an easy sign that the remake was a success. Most often this means they took a flawed original with a good idea and execute it better instead. Making a remake because the original is already a huge success is more likely to lead to a failure. But even then I think there are good reasons to do something again. One reason could be for an auteur to revisit some material he did before. Ozu’s “Floating Weeds” comes to mind immediately. Another good reason would be to take a classic and redo it with a modern twist. “Cruel Intentions” is far from being a great movie, but as a remake it is doing a lot of things right.

I have no idea why they decided to do a remake for “That Darn Cat”. If it was their goal to modernize the story, then the 1997 version is indeed a massive failure. After all, the general idea “cat helps capture kidnappers” is rather timeless, but I suppose the 1965 is rather dated. In general, they had good ideas for the remake. They kicked out the older sister who is your clichéd 1960’s woman and only kept the fresher and much more interesting younger sister, turning her into an only child with a more modern character. Unfortunately their definition of “modern character” is an annoying brat wearing black and hating on everybody. That she suddenly became popular at the end of the story was the icing on the cake. But that is not all. The film tries to mock small-town-thinking and pettiness but only manages to be funny for the first 30 minutes. While I thought it started off with amusing, quirky characters, they quickly descended into unbearable stupidity, culminating in that amazingly idiotic scene with the butcher’s girl and the policeman confessing their love for each other. Most of all, I also couldn’t stand how 70% of the film was about how nobody was taking the two main characters seriously, and how they had to struggle through stupid jokes until their success at the very end. The one thing I really liked in the 1997 version was the premise (in theory, it had more interesting characters and a very amusing Doug E. Doug), and the cat! Darn Cat (or DC as they call him) is perhaps less elegant looking and ultimately less trained, but so damn cute! His cute fluffiness is the star of the film, and I only wished they had shown him more often.

The 1965 version, however, is strangely overrated. With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94% you’d expect outstanding entertainment. Well, “Source Code” garnered critical acclaim but I have no idea why. Compared to “Moon”, its story is lukewarm at best. “That Darn Cat” is a beloved children’s show, and I suppose lots of people remember it fondly from their childhood. But as a film itself? Again, the main reason to watch the film is DC himself. I was impressed at how well-trained these cats are! When I look at Rodion it baffles my mind how much these cats can do. (Then again, Siamese cats are amongst the smartest cats out there, and I suspect that Rodion is a naturally dumb example of his kind. It is good for us because it makes him an unusually warm and trusting cat.) The Siamese cats playing DC can act angry without actually hurting anybody and make movements which look almost human. It’s an immense pleasure to watch how the cats actively interact with humans. For the most part, the older film looks prettier (how stylish are the sisters?) and has a better script. Nevertheless, some of the characters, like the sisters and their boyfriends started to get on my nerves, their relationships is governed by silliness without providing much to the humor (unlike DC himself). Other side characters were better, like the spying neighbor who may be a cliché but at least made me laugh quite a few times when she clashed with her husband. I also liked the subtle beginning of a relationship between the older sister and the detective, though I understand that this aspect of the film was ultimately superfluous. Being all about the antics of DC, generally less characters and more interaction with DC would be beneficial for the film.
One major aspect I disliked about the older film was the way things went surprisingly smoothly in the story and how much you have to suspend disbelief to make it work. Furthermore, the little sister ended up lying to the police and got away with it, even though up until that point they never had strong evidence that DC indeed met the kidnapped lady.

Overall, it was fun seeing these films. Strangely enough, both versions of “That Darn Cat” started off great in the first 30-45 minutes but then ended up dragging at the end, leaving a more or less unsatisfying aftertaste. After seeing both movies on the same day, I strongly desired to watch something less… dumb.