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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”.

Un conte de Noël

It’s been a few years since I have felt this physical pain in my chest while I watch movies. I think such a pain happened when I saw “Citizen Kane”, and the last time was probably when I saw “101 Reykjavík”. Apart from that I could never be bothered by seeing a film that I wholeheartedly disliked.

Now, this one is probably not all that wholehearted, and there was one single scene that I found impressive, namely the one when Sylvia confronts Simon with his love for her. “Let me choose my lover!” I like that. However, the power of that confrontation just completely crumbled when she decided to cheat on her husband. Where was the point of Simon suffering through all those years if they end up getting together anyways? Ugh. It’s about the first time in my life that I was annoyed with a film character who plays with two men.

But holy crap, this is the kind of pretentious movie that shows exactly the type of artist I dislike: Overuses of oh-so-artsy cinematographic effects, bad hip hop and electronic music coupled with oh-so-sophisticated classical music, and then the whole story is about family issues over and over and over. As if these people have nothing besides their family. How disgustingly un-french. If we look at the Nouvelle Vague characters only few of them even have families, and except for the case where Anna Karina talks about her mother in “Pierrot le Fou” I can’t even remember them mentioning their families. And where is the comedy? This humour isn’t even black, and I always I know enough about French humour to get it if it were there. And why do we have to confront ourselves with so much oh-so-obscure cultural references? The whole movie just feels so dead that it made me wanted to die.

Today, I had a discussion with 6451 where we remarked that no matter how much knowledge, culture and education we would amass, we would never want to become part of the stiff bourgeoisie with their prescribed canon of ‘elite’. Desplechin just oozes of it by mistakening complexity with a confusing storyline, and as much as it tries to be ‘everything’, there is one thing that is entirely missing (and that you can find in literally every other French movie). That is love for life and everything in the world. Even criticism of the world can be interpreted as a subtle homage to it by depicting the world or even showing what could be different, but film just feels like it’s annoyed by itself. As much as this love might look like hate sometimes, about every single movie I like is an ode to life; and ode to what is possible with a little wit, creativity and a good degree of observation. Just like about every Japanese over age 25, the family in this film is just so dead in their mix of bourgeoisie and neurotism that it serves as a beautiful counter example of how life should not be.

And oh God, I should never go with whatever critics like, it just doesn’t work well for me it seems.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999)

At the first glance, 6.3 or whatever it is on Imdb seems quite right. This movie is weirder than I could imagine… What the heck is wrong with those bicycles? Furthermore, I am never going to get into the Shakespearean speak; when it’s on a stage, I don’t even realize it could possibly be awkward, but when it’s obviously some Hollywood actors, then it really has to be somebody as brilliant as Kevin Kline to make the dialogue feel ‘right’. (Okay, admittedly most of the actors are pretty bad… Both the boys, Lysander and Demetrius are utterly forgettable and Hermia is so incredibly boring that I keep mistakening her with Hippolyta. And no, I’m not a fan of Sophie Marceau.)

However, considering the incredible awkwardness brought by the setting (19th century Italy! These flowers everywhere! The utterly weird looking faires! And ahhh, the bicycles!), the ingenuity of some of the other actors in the ensemble makes this film a surprising and unique pleasure. Kevin Kline needs no mention since his great performance is barely a surprise, but I never expected Michelle Pfeiffer to be so good! She is a beautifully enamored queen and the way she depicted the dignified and proud queen was glorious. Oberon was good. Also, Stanley Tucci’s Puck was great and it’s unfortunately that we couldn’t see him walk and dance more often. By far, he’s my favorite character of the play and if he had been given some more screentime, I am sure this Puck’s hilarity would have been able to live up to his potential.

The absolute best was Calista Flockhart’s character and performance. I was absolutely stunned, especially because I really only have seen her in Ally McBeal before – a role I have never taken for serious. Helena is probably one of the saddest characters in the whole story and one of the seldom fully developed characters who “only” have a one-sided love. This character would either be full of ridicule or sadness, but Calista Flockhart manages to make the best possible out of it – she’s so likeable and cute? I have always found her to be extremely beautiful, but her face always looked a little bit ‘dumb’ to me I guess? In the role of Helena, she’s absolutely perfect. She gets mad and angry all the time, but her wonderful trademark :[ face make her so surprisingly moe. I can’t think of another film character like hers, and that definitely contributed greatly to my enjoyment of the film. I wish they would write a movie solely for Calista Flockhart where she can unveil her potential as an actress.

Imdb lists quite a few operas that appear in the movie. Of course I recognized “La Traviata” (somehow not fitting at all), but I have no idea where “Una furtiva lagrima” appears! Also, “Casta diva” sounds great! I immediately fell in love with that aria, and it seems to be a Tosca-like role – every opera star and their daughter seems to have sung it. Melikes.

The amazing thing of the story is not only that it’s Shakespeare funniest play (in my opinion), it is being dissected by literature people like crazy. While Hamlet is actually very serious and deep, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” has been made deep – Why is it that people have to choose a play like this to analyze love when there so many more great love stories out there that present its complexity with at least just as well. This story is a perverted play, and it’s good that way.

Maybe the best part of the whole movie is actually the Pyramus and Thisby play in the play. It made me laugh out loud at least two times… How often do we see a play that is so bad that it makes you want to laugh constantly?

In the end, I am not sure what to think about this adaptation. It’s somewhere between extremely ridiculous, yet unique and fun. Oh and it makes me want to see the play! I remember that I loved “As you like it” on the stage, and I dream of seeing a good mise en scène of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” one time in my life.

The Big Lebowski

I have recently heard that a film should teach you something about life by telling a story. Now, a story can be absolutely brilliant but the mise en scène can be absolutely horrible and unwatchable. Now, “The Big Lebowski” surely is greatly directed, there is no doubt about that. And the storyline itself is absolutely wonderful and full of funny references, which definitely has contributed to its cult status.

The film makes me want to drink a White Russian. It reminds me that I need a signature drink – I’m considering making it a martini as pre-dinner cocktail and a white grasshopper.

Now, at least 3 people told me that I should watch the film, and perhaps right now was the perfect time for me to do so. It’s as if seeing “The Big Lebowski” made me realize what I like about a movie: When it attempts to solve the mystery of life by telling a story and incorporating a million details of humanity. To me, posing questions by showing is so much nicer than any psychological analysis in a scientific context. In fact, I have read an absolutely horrible ‘scientifical’ article today, which reminds me yet again that I am most definitely never in my life going to study film. I would like to study something (like a mix of theology, political philosophy, history, photography and directing) that is not explicitly film – with the intent to actually study film. At least to me that sounds like something more reasonable.

I’m sorry for digressing. So what made “The Big Lebowski” enjoyable on so many levels? First of all, it was quite funny and entertaining. The whole story is like a roller coaster in a floppy way like “Some Like it Hot” was and it’s full of quotable scenes making it funny for seemingly any type of humor. But there’s more to that, and the fact that the Coen brothers do the Jarmusch thing definitely helped; they write up characters to match the acting of their friends like the roles of John Goodman and Steve Buscemi (who I love btw!), making those characters so much more “alive” even when they don’t have so much acting time. John Goodman’s character is an amazing asshole, but he drives the story further, provides some good laughs and is an amazingly non-stereotypical way to depict a character who could just as well stand for a whole generation of middle-aged men. The same applies to the Dude, the likeable loser: He fails at life, but at the same time it feels he has his heart at the right place and he was smart enough to look through the other Lebowski’s plan. The combination of hilarity, identification potential with the characters and an intriguing story where the characters are confronted both with each other and unusual situations make “The Big Lebowski” into a treasure box of truths about what life is. The best example is Donny’s death – we see how non-chalantly the other two deal with it and yet there is some mix of emotions and irony in the scene where Donny’s ashes are shattered. It’s like “Fight Club” without the fights.

I also love how there is no actual conclusion to the story, no big picture, just a good storyline. There is no climax or some dramatic end that the story has built up to (think fight against the big boss), there is no mastermind behind or it a big plot revealed – there isn’t even a million dollars to begin with. In the end, it’s more like an adventurous slice of life, the ultimate paradox.

If you have read this far: Yes, I find the way I am ranting about “The Big Lebowski” weird too, and it is utterly different from how I used to speak about “Fargo” which I would consider a very similar type of Coen movie. Maybe at that time I just wasn’t as susceptible for films like that, or I just didn’t get the story. Who knows. At any rate, I am aware that the thoughtful layer of “The Big Lebowski” is a very subtle one and therefore seems quite difficult to pinpoint to me. But it’s the main thing I got out of watching the film (oddly enough), so I apologize.

So don’t watch “The Big Lebowski” for the stuff I have ranted about, but do watch it if you are into black comedies.