About Chocolate Parfaits

It was a surprisingly hot day, but slowly I am getting used to seeing so many films on one day. All in all, the quality of films is still surprisingly high, today was another day with films I didn’t expect to be that good.

Die Bergkatze
Germany 1921, Ernst Lubitsch, 79’

Since this is a Lubitsch, and the only one they showed at the whole festival, I could not possibly have seen anything else at this time slot (they only showed some possibly bad film with Marlene Dietrich anyways, ugh).

I am a huge fan of “The Shop Around the Corner” and especially “To Be or Not To Be”, whereas I didn’t like “The Marriage Circle” as much in comparison to Lubitsch’s sound films. Even “Ninotchka”, a film that I personally don’t like as much as the two other aforementioned titles, was on a much higher level for me than “The Marriage Circle”. I thought that I might generally prefer Lubitsch’s sound films because his humor becomes even greater when dialogue is involved.

However, with “Die Bergkatze” I was proven wrong. The film might not have the gripping wit of some of his other films, but both the enjoyment and the funniness are at least comparable. Lubitsch seems to be a great master of situational comedy that is just outright funny, even if it means to exaggerate in a mixture of Hollywood slapstick à la Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton and the dynamic, comical relationships of the main characters, which is so very typical for Lubitsch.

Pola Negri is quite a lovely “wild girl”. It’s my first time seeing her, and she really makes me think of Helena Bonham Carter! Hahahaha. In comparison to Gloria Swanson, I must say that I prefer the latter, but in this role, Pola Negri was absolutely perfect. I absolutely loved her in the scene where she is comforting her rival in love – all the while stealing her jewelry. XD

Perhaps the unique laughter of the audience is what makes Lubitsch films so incredibly precious when shown in a movie theater. I might have become a Stroheim and a Pabst fan, and no matter how much I also like Billy Wilder or Fritz Lang’s “M”, Lubitsch will always hold a special place as my favorite German director.

Battleship Potemkin
USSR 1925, Sergej Eisenstein, 75’

First of all, I must mention that I was stuck with 70 other people in a tiny theater with no airconditioning (they forgot to turn the fans on) and with three musicians among which one was playing the trumpet. Now, while the trumpet is not my favorite music instrument, I was looking forward to it because I thought that it would provide great accents to this very dramatic and somewhat martialistic film. Again, I was absolutely wrong. The trumpet was way too loud for the small theater, making the music absolutely impossible to listen to, and thus being more detrimental to the film than contributing to it.

Oh well. Apart from these inconveniences, I am happy to know that I liked the film. I was so looking forward to the children’s cart scene and now I can say that I finally saw it after encountering so many of its parodies. Of course it’s a bunch of propaganda, but it’s such obvious propaganda that we wouldn’t take it for serious anymore anyways. On top of that, it’s more like “Hey let’s kick these aristocrats’ asses” rather than “Hey let’s all happily cultivate our fields together”, and I much prefer that for obvious reasons. (There is something beautiful in revolutions, even though I personally don’t believe in them.)

Now that we got the dreadful propaganda part out of the way, I find “Battleship Potemkin” to be an amazingly well-made film. The flow of the story, the actors, the monumental cinematography! Even for myself who hates propaganda more than anything in the world and always believed that political messages destroys art, I think that “Battleship Potemkin” is valuable on a level that goes beyond aesthetics. For me, there is no doubt that a well-told story with great visuals can be a piece of art, so this film definitely must be one.

The Lodger
USA 1927, Alfred Hitchcock, 74’

What a typical Hitchcock! What a typical thriller! Indeed, what a typical thriller by Hitchcock: There are all the elements you would expect, and I am just completely in awe at how Hitchcock’s films had the same characteristics throughout his whole film career: Silent films, black and white sound films and color films. (Speaking of film types, why doesn’t anybody have come to the idea to make color silent films? I suppose it’s because that would be music videos.)

“The Lodger” is some sort of Jack the Ripper story where it’s all about unveiling the murderer of blonde haired girls. We are following the lodger, a guy who rents a room with a family whose daughter is blonde (how Hitchcockian too!). Of course the lodger is a rather creepy person, thus everybody suspects him to be the murderer. Of course the whole thing has many plot twists and suspenseful scenes (Will the young girl die? Aaahhh~), before finally coming to a dramatic show-down. The whole film was decorated with stylish (and very dynamic looking) intertitles and geometrical elements etc. etc. The whole film looks incredibly modern, of course partially because Hitchcock conversed his style when directing his thrillers.

I think I have a certain weakness for first films when it comes to great directors. I have loved Jim Jarmusch’s first movie and I was a fan of “Blind Husbands”. For Hitchcock, in this film his blondes are not as blond yet, his main characters less crazy and obsessed. The thriller itself is just as suspenseful as his newer ones, proving how incredible he was.

Since I was mentally so well-prepared for “Die freudlose Gasse”, I ended up feeling much less tired today. I managed to see all the movies without sleeping a wink, but on the other hand, I feel like I wasn’t entirely capable to keep concentrating on them. Nevertheless, it was a good day.

The Butcher Boy, Coney Island, Oh! Doctor
USA, Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle

What can I say, I fell into their marketing trap. They called this screening “Buster Keaton Shorts”, but even though all three films feature Buster Keaton, he was merely a minor character in most of these stories. It seemed even the dog had a bigger role. Nevertheless, I had fun seeing these sketches, as I most often do with these Charlie Chaplin-like shorts. It is sad that Charlie Chaplin is the only one who remained really famous, and after seeing these shorts, I have become an even greater fan of Buster Keaton now.

The Crowd
USA 1928, King Vidor, 104’

Without ever having seen anything by King Vidor (I only knew his name) I was able to go into “The Crowd” without any expectations at all. Since I have already seen “Dr. Caligari”, I have opted to see the other film I might not see anymore. In the end, I am not too sad that I have forsaken my beloved “Dr. Caligari” for this film. Of course I would have wished to see “Dr. Caligari” in a movie theater, but “The Crowd” was also extremely interesting to see.

I was surprised at how modern and timeless “The Crowd” felt, with a story somewhat similar to “Huo Zhe”. As long as our world doesn’t undergo significant changes, the life story of a simple couple struggling through job loss, child raising and finally getting back together will never feel old. In fact, among all the marriage films I have seen, this is perhaps my favorite. Even though it carries a lot of Hollywood clichés especially towards the end, I still thought this was better than in “Viaggio in Italia” or “Two for the Road” or even “Domicile Conjugal” – this film was actually able to move my maidenly heart (cough) and make it believable for me as to why the main characters got together again (like they do in literally every non-French marriage film).

The best “character” in the film was probably the crowd itself. Laughing, running towards the next job offer, congratulating the protagonists to their wedding… I found that part very well made, even if it was merely a simple, perhaps obvious way to do it. The line “The crowd always laughs with you, but cries with you only for a day” summarizes nicely what this small, unpretentious movie is about.

I have a feeling that Bothmer who loves intellectual German films would never have played this film, but personally I would absolutely recommend it.

Die freudlose Gasse
Germany 1925, Georg W. Pabst, 148’

If I thought that “The Crowd” was heart-wrenching, then it is definitely because at that point I have not seen “Joyless Street” yet. Whereas “The Crowd” has many enjoyable, amusing scenes, “Die freudlose Gasse” feels like a Horváth play, except even worse.

The first mentionable thing about the film is that it was indeed very long. I find it annoying that they always show these long films after 10pm and I’m wondering how I will be able to sustain “Intolerance”, which runs a total of 180 minutes. “Die freudlose Gasse” is quite an epic movie with many characters and intertwining storylines all coming together at the end, and so the length doesn’t surprise too much.

Most of the film was extremely painful. To me, Greta Garbo suffered more in this film than Maria Falconetti did in “La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc”. Every character is just incredibly level-headed yet proud and stubborn (much unlike Horváth’s plays, in fact) and I was astonished how realistic and depressing the movie was. For the longest time, I honestly thought that the Italian realism marked the beginning of realistic films, but the “new objectivity” came first. Despite the slightly happy, morally convenient ending and a certain tendency of pathos, I found this movie to be excruciatingly realistic, depicting such extreme poverty.

I still find it difficult to pinpoint what kind of filmmaker Pabst really is, especially since he seems to be changing quite a lot. I definitely will have to see “Die Büchse der Pandora” and “Die weiße Hölle von Piz Palü” to be able to say anything.

After only two days, I am beginning to show the first signs of fatigue. Obviously it’s not because of the movies themselves, none of them have been bad at all. It’s more like my body cannot sustain seeing so many movies on the same day anymore. During the first movie that I have rather disliked, I ended up falling asleep for perhaps 1/4 of the film.

Schastye (Happiness)
USSR 1934, Aleksandr Medvedkin, 95’

Why this movie is among the 1000 greatest films of all time is absolutely beyond me. Some critics must be freaks or something, but really this is nothing but a nice film at most. It has a few funny scenes (without being really, really funny) and the actor portraying the protagonist is fairly decent. Apart from that, we are dealing with quite a propagandistic piece of cinema, in which about we, uh, learn about the lives of farmers in Soviet Russia. Topic-wise, I am not a big fan of films that are all about harvesting, at hard-working women, making horses move and keep them up from eating too much etc. At least there was no war propaganda, thank God.

Film-wise, I also disliked it. I might be plain ignorant, or it could be the horribly preserved copy of the film, but there wasn’t much direction-wise about this film that I have found memorable so far. All in all, it was interesting to see a film like this, but maybe I could also have done without.

Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam
Germany 1920, Paul Wegener, 85’

I am sad that I couldn’t have seen “Greed”, but oh well, such is life. “Der Golem” was accompanied by this amazingly great duo with violin and piano. At first, it felt weird to have a violin there and I realized how much I was used to hearing the piano to silent films. But as soon as I quickly got used to it, I am so glad that they had the violin for it, adding so much more drama and complexity to the film score.

Perhaps I would have liked the “Golem” even more if I had seen more monster movies, but it was very great already. The only sad thing about the film was that the story didn’t offer all that much (the jews are in danger, the rabbi creates the golem to save them, then has problems to control his creature). But in terms of directing, production values and design, the film was a refreshing contrast to the bland “Happiness”. Paul Wegener’s facial expressions as golem were pure gold, and I am a huge fan of the German expressionist style, which I immediately recognized to be quite similar to “Dr. Caligari”.

“Der Golem” is definitely a must see, and a film that is much better when seen in a large movie theater with live music, making me feel very lucky that I had the opportunity to.

Blind Husbands
USA 1919, Erich v. Stroheim, 90’

One can easily see that this is Stroheim’s first film. I missed the prostitutes, the voluptuous female bodies and the decadent décor, ha ha. To be honest, I even missed a real scandal in this whole thing. Sure, even this film is very sexy, psychological and subtly criticizing the bourgeoisie in a beautiful way, but at the end of the day, this film was merely about one blind husband who doesn’t realize that this evil German officer is courting his wife. I was actually a little surprised at how simple and morally convenient the story ended up being.

All the other elements of a typical Stroheim film seem to be there, be it good or bad ones: On the good side, we have wonderful details such as “Auf der Alm gibt’s ka Sünd”, on the bad side, the film is awfully long (and straining me quite a bit after so many days full of movies). “Queen Kelly” was greater when it comes to its female characters and the depiction of royal decadence, but “Blind Husbands” featured Stroheim himself! He is absolutely wonderful as the bad guy, although I must admit that I admire his achievements as director much more than as an actor. Whereas he typecasted himself quite a lot, as a director I find him to be absolutely unique. I don’t think anybody in this world could mirror the fervent and craziness he worked with, and we should consider ourselves lucky that he has made some films, even if it’s just these few. He’s… the Kafka of film-making or something.

Finally, I have this perhaps naive hope that “Foolish Wives” (since Gorp likes it so much) and “Greed” (the supposedly most acclaimed Stroheim) will be even better than this.

Today was less stressful than yesterday, and it was also easier to figure out what to watch. I still can’t get over the fact that I couldn’t watch “Foolish Wives” because of “3 Bad Men”, and this line of sadness will continue with “Dr. Caligari” vs. “The Crowd”, “Intolerance” vs. “Häxan” and “Greed” vs. “Der Golem”. Oh well, such is the movie theater I love to hate.

La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc
France 1928, Carl T. Dreyer, 110?

As one of the critics’ favorites, I have always meant to see this film, especially after I have fallen in love with “Vivre sa Vie”. But every picture I have seen of this movie was Maria Falconetti’s sad face, and felt like the movie must be dreadful to watch.

For some reason, this was totally not the case, yet I don’t know why. Perhaps it was precisely because I didn’t feel too emotional when I saw the film; in fact, it felt extremely artificial to me, in a similar way as Goethe’s “Iphigenie auf Tauris” did. For precisely that reason, I find both “Iphigenie auf Tauris” as well as “Jeanne d’Arc” very beautiful. I found Maria Falconetti’s performance extremely impressive, especially for a woman who was not trained to be an actress. I was also surprised by the depiction of the other characters, the evil clericals. Everybody else commented how funny and poignant they looked, and I must admit that I agree. They gave quite a nice picture of religious terror.

As always there were aspects of the film I disliked, namely that the events in the film weren’t even close to the historical truth: In reality, there was no revolt at the end of Jeanne’s death (ugh “You have burned a saint!”), there was no good man trying to help her and of course her trial was nothing like it was depicted in the movie. I also don’t believe that Jeanne’s true character was so jesus-like. Of course this was all intended and contributes to the film’s beauty, but ugh.

All in all, I was positively surprised by this film that I expected to be rather boring to watch. The atmosphere of the film was absolutely gripping (perhaps helped by the beautiful and large theater as well as the professional musical accompaniment), and I “enjoyed” it very much. I found myself glued to the screen, although I didn’t cry like Nana. As a woman, I guess I don’t suffer much in life.

By the way, the whole movie was shown in French without any translation whatsoever. I was very amused.

Queen Kelly
USA 1929, Erich v. Stroheim, 101′

The only unfortunate thing about the film itself was this absolutely dreadful Africa scene, where Kelly was to be married to some old ugly guy. It shows how much longer the film would have been when just a scene like that was this long. The most unfortunate thing about the whole event were the obnoxious girls sitting behind us. They managed to laugh at the most stupid moments (and not laugh at good moments), and commented on the film loudly the whole time… Amazing, really. It made me think of the day when I watched “To be or no to be”. It was in the main theater in the Babylon and whenever something funny happened, the whole audience was roaring with laughter. Back then, I loved laughing with that audience as much as I hated having to see “Queen Kelly” with this audience today.

Poor Stroheim, of course he was an evil maniac, but the resulting film didn’t deserve to be seen by such simple-minded women. It’s not even like “Queen Kelly” was intellectual or anything, but it did have quite a lot of great jokes. (Horizontal profession! Hahaha.) The majority of the film was a feast for the eye and the comical mind. Before I saw this film (my first Stroheim that is), I was a little doubtful of all the frivolity and generous spendings, but now that I see it, I must admit that I find it very enjoyable to look at, and Stroheim’s love for details is exactly what I love about his films.
I’m not so sure what I think about the length though. The Africa part was incredibly long-winded and from the stills we can only guess that it was intended to be something like 3 times longer. In comparison to that, the movie (Kelly’s affair with the prince) is perhaps just an introduction to the story. How amazing and scary at the same time. It is a piece of irony that the combination of Stroheim’s mad direction and other people’s mad cutting have ‘created’ these masterpieces.

As always, a silent also lives by the fact and acting skills of its main character, and Gloria Swanson had plenty of both. I don’t find her to be an outstanding beauty (and actually think that she looks a little bit like Adele Sandrock, hahaha), but oh wow she was good. I felt like I recognized some of her facial expressions from “Sunset Boulevard” and in retrospect, it was very fascinating to see one of the silents where her skills were exposed in such different way. She was absolutely perfect in this role of innocent yet smart and slightly precocious girl, and made the movie so much better for me. The queen herself was a delightful contrast to it – I loved how she threw her poor cat to the floor! Just lovely.

Since I enjoyed “3 Bad Men” very much, I am not too sad that I wasn’t able to see “Foolish Wives”, but I definitely want to see every other Stroheim now. I think I love my crazy film directors too much…

The Stummfilmfestival in Berlin has started. I got a ticket for all the movies, so I will be seeing practically everything I can. Also, 6451 is in Berlin and so we will happily see quite a lot of each other.

Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (Diary of a Lost Girl)
Germany 1929, Georg W. Pabst, 109′

Before the film started, an announcer told us that this Pabst film was based on book aimed at maids. I knew that maids in the 19th and beginning of the 20th century loved reading these cheap thin books, but I also knew that most of these books contain disgustingly clichéd and badly written love stories. I could barely believe that Pabst (nor Louise Brooks) would make such a movie, which also was aimed at that audience.

Indeed, the film’s story was amazingly… girlish. A girl was driven out of the house by her stepmother for being impregnated by some evil guy, then fled from some dreadful reformatory for girls and subsequently got herself into a brothel, oh well. What make this film so interesting are firstly Louise Brook’s face and secondly Pabst’s directing.

I expected quite a lot from Pabst, and was not disappointed. The film was pretty much exactly like I hoped for, there were no Murnauesque special effects, just solid acting, a lot of subtle humor and a pleasant, fluid pace. Pabst knew very well how to make his characters interact, making this the probably the most lively silent I have seen so far. Besides Louise Brooks herself, we see a lot of close-ups of other characters who transport their feelings and intentions through facial expression alone. Nevertheless, there is something melodramatic about this direction style, and I have a feeling that Tarantino likes Pabst for the same reason for which certain critics like Sirk. XD

Straight Shooting
USA 1917, John Ford, 71′

Admittedly, we saw this film because it fit into the schedule. I have never, ever seen a John Ford movie, and ever since I got into movies, I have never ever seen a single western yet. The fact that this super old movie was supposedly well preserved was quite intriguing. I decided to give it a chance, even though the story didn’t sound all that exciting: Farmers and ranchers were engaged in some sort of war, in which the superhero-like protagonist decided to help the poor farmer’s family when he saw an old man and a cute girl cry over the murder of the son. What then ensues can easily be qualified as gun porn, but it was a very nice-looking one.

Ultimately I had my little irks with how useless the girl was in the end (ugh, this is so American really), but in many ways, the film was a nice introduction into western as well as a great contrast to “Tagebuch einer Verlorenen”, oozing so much manliness.

3 Bad Men
USA 1926, John Ford, 92′

I cried manly tears! No, seriously, this was one of the most amusing and fun films I have seen in quite awhile. Just like “Straight Shooting”, it fulfills all the Western clichés, where outlaws are actually lovely and funny people helping a damsel in distress and where everybody finally realizes that the true gold is the gold of a fruitful harvest.

It might have been interesting to see what John Ford’s original intent for this movie was, but as it is presented now, it was very enjoyable and amusing to watch. This is the kind of movie that one has to see, because there is not much to tell about it. All in all, it has a funnier and more complex story than “Straight Shooting”, and seems to be much more mature both for storytelling and characterization.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (USA, 1920)
USA 1920, John S. Robertson, 80′

I have never seen any of the over 100 film versions of “Dr. Jekyll” before, and have only seen parts with Ingrid Bergman (which I liked very much, she has such a lovely shocked face). As my first film of this kind, I haven’t had very high expectations for the film. Indeed, there wasn’t much in this film that impressed me too much. In terms of direction, it was far less sophisticated than even “Straight Shooting”, and besides John Barrymore who plays both Jekyll and Hyde quite well, everything in the movie was pretty bad: Lighting, other people’s acting, the flow of the story… We rarely see any bad silent films, because we haven’t even seen the highly acclaimed good ones. “Fräulein Else” is perhaps the only film I have seen which doesn’t even had a Wikipedia article, and that one wasn’t even too bad – just not exactly good or memorable either. This version of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” was little more than underwhelming. John Barrymore saved it a little bit, but that wasn’t enough for me who was tired after this marathon, heh.

The Turandot Project

The first documentary in ever that I have seen. Since this film is relevant to my interests (China, Zhang Yimou and perhaps my favorite opera) and I secretly always have wanted to see this opera in China, I console myself with seeing this documentary.

It’s a lot like I expected it, and I think I am rather forgiving that this movie just oozes of propaganda, perhaps because I expected it. But really, are they sure they want to show so much shameful footage, like the soldier who’s all like “our army is cultured” or Zhang Yimou’s “It doesn’t matter how they move, they just have to sing”? On top of that, the singers are rather bad, and the misunderstandings and bad translations are rather embarrassing, especially from the Chinese side. Uff.

Apart from that, as controversial as the production looks like to me, I actually like the looks of the production. I am a child of bombastic Chinese performances, and I think that colorful, megalomaniac beauty like from some fairytale is exactly what this opera needs. However, I am not entirely convinced that “Turandot” should be authentically Chinese looking, au contraire. “Turandot” is a Chinese princess, sure, but it clearly is no Chinese name. In fact, it’s more Persian/Middle Eastern and since names don’t matter all that much: Maybe my biggest irk with “Turandot” is that it is not a very typical Chinese story, but really does feel like a “1001 Nights” story. Also, many of its elements are allegoric and purely symbolic, as it is clearly a fictional story, a parable even. There is something disgusting about people talking about truth and authenticity, when the authenticity they talk about is the so-called Chineseness. “Turandot” is as Chinese as falafel is Israeli, and I can’t believe they get some ignorant or shady Chinese people talking about how “Turandot is originally Chinese, and now it’s performed at its original place”, ewwww. Also, there was not a single world about the real reason why “Turandot” was never performed in China before. (For those who are interested, it’s the same reason as to why “Paths of Glory” was never shown in France until 1975: “Turandot” supposedly shed a bad image on China like “Paths of Glory” did on the French army.)

In the end, I am still looking for my own perfect “Turandot”.

PS. Heavy metal is opera.

Conversations with Other Women

I was browsing the internet to see what other films she did besides “Brick”, and when I saw that this is going to be some sort of dialogue-based love story between 40-somethings played by Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter, I could not resist. I knew that the story wouldn’t be anything special, and I wasn’t really sure if I would like the split-screen, but ultimately the film showed to be exactly what I expected.

Only I didn’t like the dialogue all that much. Perhaps I just have wanted more than the two characters talking about their own love lifes, screwing each other and subsequently childishly trying to ruin the other person’s life during a short moment of rage. All in all, I wasn’t too impressed by the writing itself, it was more like exactly what you would expect from a movie like this, and to me, it only speaks for how immensely boring people must be in their fourties. As a depiction of such, it was fairly brilliant though; I love the contempt in their voice when they say “23 August the 12th” (his new girlfriend) and “Jeff the cardiologist” (her new husband) XD

Apart from that, I liked how the story unfolded, and I actually must admit that I even liked the split screen approach. Sure, it’s a little bit annoying, but the smart way the film was cut contributed to the depiction of the character: Either both of them were shown, or their past was shown. That was rather nice, in my opinion.

Despite the wonderfully acted yet absolutely dislikable characters, I have ended up finding both of them fairly interesting. He’s clearly still wooing her and she has already adopted a very sad, nonchalant view of the world, in which she has to hide the fact that she smokes from her current husband. For these kinds of somewhat sophisticated details, I liked the movie, and it was thoroughly enjoyable to watch, but ultimately the film doesn’t leave all that deep of an impression.

Julie & Julia

The bad points first: Number one, the horrible englench. I want to cringe every single time they say “buuuuuuf burginen” and perhaps there is nothing as un-French as this movie. Number two, the character of Julie. I am aware that the real Julie is even more of a bitch, but even this Julie isn’t all that lovable. In fact, every single time I see her, I get annoyed by those non-problems she has. The only thing that redeemed this part is Doug Chris Messina, whom I really loved. Number three, the chick flick factor. Men are always loving and supporting, and they even watch stupid cookshows with you and laugh their heart out!

As somebody who loves Nora Ephron’s films (or more like I only like “You’ve Got Mail” and totally love it), I have thoroughly liked this film. If only it wasn’t based on a real blog I dislike! Perhaps the film would have been great if they only made a film about Julia Child, but then again I am very in love with the idea of
Really, Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci are so incredibly good, and wonderfully cute together! I was very in love with the France part of the book simply because the characters worked so well together. Having seen a few other Meryl Streep films, but never having seen Julia Child, I found that Meryl Streep acted weird (so loud and all? Hahaha), but that was obviously because she was not playing herself after all! The onion cutting scene! Ahahaha! I cannot remember a single funny scene in the New York part, that was just emo, ewwww.
And the food! As expected, it was depicted beautifully in the film, as is the fun that comes with cooking. Oh how much I want to cook now, hahaha. I wish I were a good cook and could try out all of Julia Child’s recipes too… in 365 days! XD

All in all, this was a wonderful feel good film, despite all the criticism I had on it. Partially because I love the characters and the topic of the story (<3 French cooking), I felt much better after seeing this film. Rarely, but sometimes this is all I need in a movie.

A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy

I think the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is the story I have seen the most films about. There were the 1935 and the 1999 version, there’s “Smiles of a Summer Night” by Bergman and now this film. Considering that Woody Allen loves Bergman and based this film on “Smiles of a Summer Night”, this is the second movie I am seeing which references a film referencing something else (see 12 Monkeys -> La Jetée -> Vertigo).
This makes it even more fascinating for me to see all these different facets of the same topos going through these different directors. If only it weren’t Mia Farrow but Diane Keaton in this pivotal role, I think the film could potentially have become one of the greatest Woody Allens.

Ultimately I think what was truly missing in this film is the chemistry between the characters. Apart from that though, the film was brilliantly written. I love the way all these Shakespearean elements are put in: A rather romantic nature, this little device that creates a fairytale picture everybody finds himself in and all those love misunderstandings. I had much fun trying to figure out who is going to end up with whom beforehand, and even though I turned out to be wrong, I liked the conclusion it came to. Absolutely lovely, and so like Woody Allen.

This is definitely one of the best Woody Allen films, especially with Woody Allen’s own wonderful role, and I must admit that I had it even more fun with it than with “Crimes and Misdemeanors”.

Bonjour Tristesse

When I was 18, I was smitten by the idea of “Bonjour Tristesse” but without even knowing anything about the story itself, I was sort of scared of reading the book. A coming of age book by a French girl who is leading a decadent life with nothing to do, I was imagining smoking melancholy in black and white – and got scared although I never smoked. In fact, this movie is nothing like I ever imagined “Bonjour Tristesse” to be, except for the fact that I can identify myself strangely with it.

Luckily I don’t lead such a decadent life and melancholy and emptiness is the last thing I have in my life. Apart from that though, I am very in love with the details of the film: Anne’s white, completely useless cap; Cécile’s playing with men and comparison chart with Anne; this amusing Marilyn-Monroe-type woman and her wonderful straw hat; what I love the most are the black and white “French style” scenes in the bars of Paris. I think they give the film a nice frame and show to me yet again what a great director Otto Preminger is. Sadness is what ultimately prevails in this film and I think that was conveyed perfectly throughout the superficial happiness.

Unfortunately I’m not a great fan of Jean Seberg’s acting and I actually hate how this film is spoken in English altogether. Everything is supposed to look and feel French, I’m quite an idiot for not having just decided to see a French dub or something. It’s a perfectly French film except the main character don’t speak French, now how weird is that? For me it destroyed the mood a little bit, since the film relies on this French atmosphere very much.

Finally I must say that I liked how the happenings in the film came together, and I find the characterizations of all characters quite well done. Though I assume that the book is ultimately better than the film, I have lost interest in it now. The mystery of “Bonjour Tristesse” had been uncovered for me, and what rests there is the memory of a good movie that I couldn’t take my eyes off.