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The Dark Knight Rises

To be honest, I had absolutely no idea that there was a first movie. I always hear the term Dark Knight trilogy but how could I have known that it means “The Dark Knight” is actually only the second film in the list? In fact, I have never even heard of “Batman Begins” before we discussed the trilogy while walking to see “The Dark Knight Rises”. It was only afterwards that I found out how the order of films in the trilogy really goes. It is quite unusual for me to fail at researching films this much, but then again, these films falls under ‘blockbuster’ for me, and I never really felt the need to know more about them.

Of course the Dark Knight trilogy is different from your average blockbuster. Typically, when asked about whether I disregard Hollywood blockbusters in favor of auteur films, I tend to bring “The Dark Knight” as an example of a blockbuster I absolutely loved. In retrospect, however, I barely remember why. Reading my previous review on “The Dark Knight”, I doubt I can say any more than what it says already. Apparently, in summary, I liked the main girl (yeah!), I loved the complexity of the Joker as a villain and I think I also liked the twist about Two-Face and the fairly tragic end of the story. For many years, I felt that “The Dark Knight” was THE blockbuster done right and the shining example I have always used when explaining my film preferences.

I am doubtful that this can be extended to the entire film trilogy, even without having seen “Batman Begins”. Considering that “The Dark Knight Rises” was an almost 3 hour ordeal, I am surprised and happy to say that I did not feel bored even once. The story is dramatic, the effects are definitely very cool and all the characters were again very likable. I thought Anne Hathaway was strange as Catwoman, but I have seen her in many films before, making me believe that she would be able to pull it off. And she did. She was able to show off her skills and I am glad there was quite a happy ending, bringing a believable, nice conclusion to the trilogy. But amongst all of it, the most likable character in the film was definitely Joseph Gordon-Levitt who I have liked ever since “Brick”, and who was a nice addition to the film. But his backstory is relatively boring and while you really wanted to root for him, he was just the little guy who had a big heart but not enough power. Without a doubt, he is a worthy successor to Batman (because really, all he needs is the Batman equipment) and it would be interesting to see how he develops, and whether he also would get engulfed into the general darkness of the Batman universe.

Unlike in “The Dark Knight”, there is a “right” and a “wrong” in this particular film, there really are only good and bad characters, Bane aside. Unfortunately Bane was a brute whose only motive is to help his friend. And that friend had motives which were even less understandable. As a result, the villains in this story were rather lame, and the single dramatic twist in the story was almost powerless. The suspense of the entire story lies in the detonation of that atomic bomb, and somehow that just sounds so 50-years-old. Shouldn’t people have gotten over the atomic bomb scare these days? Similar to “V for Vendetta” which I loathe for its simplistic political opinion, I think that the political implications of “The Dark Knight Rises” sounds rather questionable. In fact, everything about it just feels wrong – the depiction of barbaric muslimic cultures (what’s up with that prison anyways?), the derogatory way the uprising of the Occupy-like workers is portrayed… that at least felt like it’s some contemporary issue, but at the same time it’s totally idiotic. What is the point in making that atomic bomb go off anyways except for the suspense of the audience?

I spent a good chunk of time reading up on “The Dark Knight Rises”, which shows my interest in the film and the entire trilogy. I definitely want to see “Batman Begins”, but in general I am pretty sure that I want to stay out of the rest of the franchise. Considering that superhero stories are totally not for me, I find it impressive how the Dark Knight trilogy caught my interest. Watch the film, because you are in for a lot of fun, but don’t expect the epiphany that “The Dark Knight” offers.

Weekend

I promised myself, as well as Shii and Gorp, to finally watch this movie. I haven’t seen all to many “gay films”, especially if you don’t count “Humpday” which is only ironically gay, but the ones I have seen based on recommendations were pretty awesome. So here I am.

Oh the gayness. I actually thought that those non-gay people that the main dude hangs out with are pretty cool. They were probably supposed to show how disconnected the main character feels to “normal people”. By that logic, I guess I have to feel some sort of disconnect to the gays.

As straight people, I think we have literally no means of entering nor understanding the illustrious circle of gays. (It doesn’t really make sense – as a woman, shouldn’t I have a few things in common with these men who are also into men?) A female friend of mine started liking a guy after she thought she was lesbian all her life and then fell into some sort of identity crisis because she was suddenly different from her friends. Isn’t that exactly how it should not be? Well well, I don’t have very many deep thoughts about the whole political agenda of gays, especially since most of my friends just tend to take it for granted. A lot of things are more convenient when you are friends with a gay man, because you can largely treat him as another female (you can undress in front of them without it being awkward, talk “girl stuff” etc.), but apart from that there really isn’t much of a difference.

So “Weekend”, like most other gay movies, have these clichés lingering on top of them. Are all gays skinny and beautiful (OK maybe they are, if I look around myself), do they all do cocaine and go to gay clubs, do they all sleep around and have one-night-stands all the time? I highly doubt it. We all have our problems, but not all of us are angry about it in this kind of way.

I read several times about how “Weekend” is a movie about two people falling in love with each other, not necessarily the gay stuff. I beg to differ. At least one of them makes a huge deal about being gay, and that is OK considering that they are. Women have a tendency to make a huge deal about being a woman too, but in both cases, it is not about love. Luckily, “Weekend” is also about love, and the main characters have a lot of chemistry. They talk quite openly about their lives, their past and their opinions, in this way that only lovers do, and that is quite awesome. From the way they talk to each other, especially their willingness to disagree with each other, you can feel how just two days of conversation made them really close. Recently, I have been complaining a little about how everything I read, and almost everything I watch, is so detached from myself. I recently had a discussion about the Makioka Sisters and reminisced about how close I felt to those characters. Most of what I watch lacks heart, and the strongest point of “Weekend” is that it has a heart. The characters might be clichéd, but they also are very realistic.

Personally, I feel most similar Tom Cullen’s character, the slightly less angry, much more realistic bottom, the less funny amongst the two of them. The simple fact that I can feel close to any of them means that the film did a really good job. It’s most definitely the best gay movie I have ever seen, so if Brokeback Mountain hasn’t shocked you too much, give this one a try. Oh and this is one of those films with a subtle, great ending scene.

Kokuriko-zaka kara

For some reason, Ghibli’s adaptation turned this style into this. But okay, nobody would really want an 80s manga adaptation which looks like one. Somehow outdated drawing and animation styles are sooo not cool – but outdated stories do not appear to be.

In fact, story-wise, I would almost presume that Ghibli’s film is even more outdated than its original, which is probably a pure love-story, overflowing with emotions, irrationally dramatic scenes and lots of crying. The Ghibli adaptation looks and feels like a modern tale, which both main characters being very straight-forward, honest and ready to take action into their own hands. But at the same time, there is this underlying glorification of those who died in the war, the 60s setting which is still strongly immersed in the spirit of older times – ewww. Apart from that, the film has many faults – the storyline is too slow, the characters are too perfect, the only conflict in the whole film is resolved in the most boring manner possible. There are some directional mistakes, or awkward scenes which I think the older Miyazaki or Takahata would never have made.

In light of Ghibli’s past, it is remarkable that “Kokuriko-zaka kara” (in the following Coquelicot) is a typical slice of life. Howl’s Moving Castle was a most unlucky film. There are only a few Ghibli films which I consider better (Spirited Away, Mononoke, Porco Rosso, Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies) and all of those films came before it. When I saw “Howl”, the memory of “Spirited Away” was still fresh, Ghibli’s absolute masterpiece, and I was disappointed by the “new” film which I thought was beautiful, creative but ultimately a little silly and too childish. Little did I know that the studio will go on to make 3 of their worst movies (Earthsea, Ponyo, Arrietty) only being overtaken in mediocrity by the stupid Ocean Waves. Ironically, Ocean Waves is the only entirely realistic film, whereas Earthsea, Ponyo and Arietty all have fantastic elements. From 2004 until today, I have almost given up on Ghibli. But really, compared to Ocean Waves which I have absolutely loathed for its selfish main female character, and the films between Howl and Coquelicot, I think that Coquelicot is doing an amazing job. It made me feel like such things as nice, happy Ghibli films exist after all. The characters and the storyline is pleasantly simple, and the beauty of the film lies in the detail – the clothes the characters wear, the dynamic way her braided hair is being animated, the food she prepares, the landscape and the depiction of an almost romantic Japanese village etc. etc.

Really, Coquelicot is exactly what Ghibli needed now. Now please go on making a sequel to Porco Rosso.

Moonrise Kingdom

Words cannot describe how much I liked the movie. The same apparently applied to Roger Ebert, who managed to write a review with literally not a single word about whether he liked the movie or not. I had low expectations for the movie. I liked “The Royal Tenenbaums”, loved “The Darjeeling Limited” and was rather disappointed by “Fantastic Mr. Fox”. How likely was it that this movie would be like one of the Anderson films I like? Low, taking into account that the only review I previously read was from The Fox is Black.

Now I know much better, because my tastes and Bobby Solomon’s are as different as night and day (no, “Drive” is not an amazing movie, it’s vapid and almost boring). Unsurprisingly, while he was disappointed, I absolutely loved “Moonrise Kingdom”. Sure, this is a very typical Wes Anderson film, spotting (from what I could count) 18 out of these 24 Wes Anderson clichés. But for some reason, “Moonrise Kingdom” does everything so much better: Its characters are actually smart and full of real feelings, there is actual character development (perhaps not as ground-breaking as in “The Darjeeling Limited” but still there), and last but not least, it had so many characters I loved. I was fond of the main characters, much more explicitly social outcast than in most of his movies, and I especially liked Frances McDormand’s and Edward Norton’s character. The latter (and Bruce Willis’ policeman role) are probably the only Wes Anderson character ever who are truly likable and care for other children as if it were their own. The whole movie was just such heartwarming distraction from the previous movie we watched. I remember that I liked “The Darjeeling Limited” because it made me feel like there was some meaning to life, and I like “Moonrise Kingdom” because it makes me feel like life is worth living.

More than any other Wes Anderson movie, almost everybody in this film was likable and ultimately ended up supporting our main couple. In that respect, it reminded me a lot of “Golden Slumber”, another one of those few lovely films in which the main character is struggling for something, we all love and root for him, and he gets lots of help from his friends in various situations. Most of the film’s suspense comes from there, but it is the happy kind of suspense which probably is one of the reasons why I watch movies in the first place.

One of the websites I subscribe to, Design*Sponge, features this lovely “Living In” series in which they present things in the spirit of some movie. (They did one on Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Darjeeling Limited) “Moonrise Kingdom” would be absolutely perfect for that. It has some of the greatest details – I loved the high safe house, the manual toilet they built, Suzy’s outfits and the boy scout uniforms, Scout Master Ward’s pocket knife, the interior design of Suzy’s house, her choice of books and the look of the record player… just everything. I want to live in this movie, damnit.

I also liked how the film portrayed the relationship between Suzy’s parents and the police officer – and how it inflicted wounds upon the children. As little children we are always afraid that our parents would commit infidelity and crumble our hopes for true and happy love, but assuming that Suzy decided to back to living with her parents after all is proof that she was able to develop some sort of understanding for her (miserable) mother whom she previously hated.

On a side note, these days I think that Suzy is a cute name. When I was a little child, there was this girl named Suzy in my elementary school class who cried when we got our first grades because she was not able to surpass me, and I hated her for being so ridiculous and cowardly. (Please admit your defeat without making a scene. What incredible sense of entitlement is that?) It also didn’t help that her mother was a teacher at the school and all the other teachers came to console her. Sadly I do not know what became of her, but curiosity is killing me. But hey, that was in elementary school, so now I got over it and admit that I liked her very cute name.

If you dislike this movie, you were either a football star or overly popular in your high school, or you decided to completely discard your childhood, or you are just entirely lame. In any event, I hope you’ll see it. Perhaps even in theaters, because this was quite a visual feat.

Nordwand

Too depressing to write about, on many levels. But I recommend it.

My Winnipeg

You might be surprised at why I would watch random films. At the moment, there are more Netflix films going to expire again soon, and I am yet again contemplating what to see. Ultimately, most Netflix films are actually movies I don’t really want to see immediately. They’re just kind of interesting, or rather interesting enough to be added to my queue. Sometimes, or perhaps most of the times, when I actually bring myself to bring myself to watch one of those films, it’s a happy surprise.

“My Winnipeg” was definitely one of those. First of all, I was amazed at how he managed to make Winnipeg, an arguably terrible city, so interesting! More than anything else, the film is a love story to the city he grew up in, and I wish I was able to express my love for my own city that way. As a local patriotism “I love my city of birth” kind of film, “My Winnipeg” is absolutely unique and – I strongly believe that – unmatched in greatness. It just has everything: The city’s history, the author’s personal history with his city, lamentations about changes of the city… If I ever made a movie about Berlin, this is what I would want it to look like.

On Wikipedia, the film is described as “surrealist”. In fact, as a surrealist film in the veins of Bunuel, video installations and such, “My Winnipeg” has a lot of typical surrealist elements. Even a surrealist dance scene with Freemason was included! The whole film is described as a dream, with seemingly random scenes blended in, and white text on black screens, reminding me of Hitchcock and Godard. Style-wise, “My Winnipeg” is absolutely lovely. Considering that it is some sort of documentary, I was surprised at how suspenseful and funny the film was; considering that it is a surreal film, it is surprising how obvious the film’s political and cultural agenda is. Of course the biggest miracle is how a film can be a documentary and surreal at the same time.

I think “My Winnipeg” is one of those films that words cannot describe. It’s certainly not for everyone, but I really liked it.

Coeurs

“Coeurs” is a lot like “On connait la chanson”, but very much unlike “On connait la chanson”, “Coeurs” actually made me laugh a few times. The film has a few delightful, ironic elements that just make me snicker almost involuntarily. Perhaps I also liked this film more because it didn’t have Agnès Jaoui in it – for some reason I don’t tend to like films with her, and it certainly is not because I dislike her as an actress. Maybe she is… unlucky?
In any event, “Coeurs” is marvelously funny. I love how all the characters are intertwined in some confuse network (Thierry works for Nicole, who is seeing Dan, and works with Charlotte, who takes care of Lionel’s father, but the same Lionel is the favorite barkeeper of Dan who meets Gaelle, Thierry’s sister), yet at the same time some of them never meet. The premise is quite wonderful (though it is not Resnais’s) and the execution is splendid. I love the bird’s eye shots which remind you of a theater, and the many small scenes with 1-to-1 dialogues, also reminiscent of theater, but especially so of Schnitzler’s “Reigen”.

At the same time, the film is really not all that funny. Similar to most Resnais films, the end is never happy and the overall topic of the film – emotional solitude – does not quite seem to allow a truly funny films. There is one scene in which Lionel, clearly the most miserable character amongst all of them, tells Charlotte about his back story, and I thought my heart was going to burst. It’s immensely sad, but even more so it was annoying. You never really learn anything about the characters – there is a separation between us and those characters just like there is one between the characters themselves.

All in all, besides the occasional depressing scene, I really like the film and the handicraft that came with it. Really, Resnais changed so damn much over the years. How did he turn from “Nuit et brouillard” to “On connait la chanson” or this movie? Is it really Sabine Azéma’s influence? (That would not surprise me, she appears to be a fascinating, strong woman.) In any case, I am not complaining. I really want to see “Les herbes folles” now.

Delicatessen

Actually a bunch of things are happening in my life lately. The most recent element is most definitely the fact that we became Yelp Elite. As a German student, the term “elite” will always make us cringe, and it is not much different for Yelp. But somehow it is nice to have that badge, especially since we got invited to it out of the blue. (That is quite amusing considering everything you read online involved people applying for it.)

Also, soon it is July 4th, and we got some ribs on sale. I love ribs to pieces and I am sure I will love tomorrow’s ribs. Right after watching Delicatessen, it makes you feel quite strange, haha. But unlike what the premise suggests the film was actually not very gory. Certainly it started with the death of a poor man, and everybody talking about killing other humans, but ultimately you don’t see much blood. Even when the evil guy shoves a knife into his own head, he just tumbles for a few minutes, says something relatively amusing and drops dead. Now I gave away the end of the film, but even that doesn’t matter. Everybody knows that the film will end up that way.

“Delicatessen” is one of those delightful black comedies… of which I have never seen any! Most black comedies have something bittersweet with them, which I always assumed to be an innate characteristic of these stories, because such black comedies are supposed to be a sarcastic view onto humanity. But “Delicatessen” is different, you’d think Jean-Pierre Jeunet has a love for humans like dogs do. All the characters in his films are flawed, likable and extremely strange. Jeunet believes that there is a curious child in everyone of us, and his films are calling out to it more than any other filmmaker does. I am surprised that “Delicatessen” is not a hipster favorite – certainly Amélie is.

What makes a human being into an interesting person? It is really hard to say. Without any doubt, it would be related to how eccentric you are. But neither normality nor strangeness are perceived as a good thing. While it seems that there might be some golden middleground, I highly doubt it. In reality, it’s a trade-off. Do you choose to be interesting like characters in movies, especially this one? Or do you prefer to just not stand out and die forgiven and forgotten?

But I digress. I remember how back in the day, I loved Amélie when I saw it in theaters. Later on I thought the world was dark, hateful and evil, so I was into realistic bleak films and hated the film for its incredibly cheap kitsch. But the third time I saw it, I came back to appreciating the beauty of the film. For Delicatessen, the same thing could have happened. Both Amélie and Delicatessen are delightful, full of optimism for those who are different from others. Heartily recommended. They are just absolutely impossible to hate unless you are an angsty teen who is into ‘grander’ films. Nothing is grand about these movies, but they are still great.

La Captive

Yeah, this is just not really a good movie. I have a thing for Chantal Akerman, but then again I don’t. To be perfectly truthful, I am watching this film because of Stanislas Merhar. When I was much younger, I used to like the “Comte de Monte-Cristo” mini-series with Gérard Depardieu, where Merhar was Albert de Morcerf. In the book he never stood out to me as a character, and in the mini-series they turned him into a whiny little douchebag. I have always been wondering if it was just the actor being strange or if he was acting strange. Stanislas Merhar never really did anything else of note. I was surprised to stumble upon this, and I found myself obsessing with him as an actor in the film.

Sylvie Testud might be a good actress, but most of the film actually relies upon Merhar’s character. Calling Simon crazy is an understatement, and Merhar plays him beautifully in my opinion. He does have this strange way of swinging his arms and shoulders heavily when he walks, and maybe his role in “La Captive” is not too different from the one of the weak, troubled young man, but I don’t disapprove of that. His inquiring way of asking questions, the restlessness of his mind reflected in the way he wanders around – always following Ariane, but rather following an image he projects onto her rather than herself. He follows her so closely that she feels it and he does not appear to truly want to hide that. Bottom line – this man is openly creepy, the key ingredient of any good French film on obsessive love.

I have a thing for dark, obsessive love in movies. “Lolita”, “A short story about love”, even “Vertigo” – they are all great because the main characters act in a way people would be creeped out by in real life. But in art, we can indulge in these actions, analyze them, perhaps also condemn them, but ultimately what we really want is to sympathize with them within the realms of the film. Every one of these films is a little painful, because obsessive love must be dark. Yet love is always painful… Towards the end, when the couple is about to separate, he tells her to admit to her lies. His inability to trust and the way it troubles him – that dialogues at the end of the film hit home pretty well and it reminded me of my teenage angst from 10 years ago.

Style-wise I thought the movie was pretty lovely. With a backdrop of old-style Parisian apartments, the film is full of beautiful women and a lingering eroticism between them is actually always present. How French, isn’t it?

Now “La Captive” cannot be compared to those masterpieces about love, and without ever having read Proust, I guess the film also cannot compare to the book (just like no “Monte Cristo” film could ever be comparable to the book), but that is alright for I don’t know the book. It’s one of these silly films I like for no particular reason.

PS. Speaking of obsession, I think one of the nicest obsessive love stories is Snape’s in the last Harry Potter book. He single-handedly redeems the house of Slytherin, the actually most likable house of all. Slytherin is for all those calm, smart and nerdy introvert, not like those Gutmensch-y Gryffindors full of mischief. Yet the Gryffindor spirit is what we envy, the carefree positiveness, the willingness to act rather than to ponder, the place in the sun. For this winter I am considering knitting scarves again, one in Ravenclaw, one in Gryffindor and one in Slytherin colors.

Bonnie and Clyde

I didn’t actually know that they were real people. All I know that this is a famous classic, and that I have always wanted to see it.

As a historical account, the film doesn’t have much to offer. It’s largely an adventure film, exploiting some real facts but mostly it stands on its own. But as an adventure film, the film is a little bit too gory, with the characters constantly fearing to die to the point of panicking like crazy. Perhaps it makes most sense to view the film as a misguided love story.

Most of the good scenes in the film involve Bonnie and Clyde together – alone. They have their relationship troubles, especially when Blanche was added to the group, but their first meeting, the scene where they bonded with the farmer family who got driven away from their farm and finally their last day together were probably the most interesting parts of the film for me. In fact, the most memorable part of the film was precisely the end, where Bonnie and Clyde actually died together. I find it remarkable that they put Bonnie into a romantic white dress, and that this death scene had to come shortly after they found something like bliss in their relationship. The impact of the scene was also heightened by the disturbing attractiveness of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. (How does she manage to keep her hair so immensely stylish all the time?)

The only good scene not involving Bonnie and Clyde alone is definitely the one with the hostages. Gene Wilder only had a very short role but boy he is awesome in it already. It was probably the only truly humorous scene of the entire film and it worked well.

Apart from that, “Bonnie and Clyde” was an interesting, fairly suspenseful story, and quite revolutionary for a film at that time. Criminals (in fact murderers) were portrayed as likable, yet they died a gruesome, very visually shocking death. But for me, the film has too many weaknesses to be recommendable. All other characters besides Bonnie and Clyde were rather boring and just served as plot devices, and the 60s style of the film strongly disturbed me considering that it is supposed to play at the beginning of the 30s – that mixture doesn’t necessarily look bad, but it certainly looks very wrong. Watch the film but don’t expect too much.