About Chocolate Parfaits

Antichrist

Actually this film was the first one I saw after my long drought of two movie-less months. Actually they rather felt like 6 months without any movies, and I was yearning for one. Maybe just by being able to see a film again, I felt more favorable towards “Antichrist”, but maybe it also is just because the film really wasn’t as bad as I feared.

So, I really dislike Charlotte Gainsbourg, as a person (from some interview with her I read) to the way she looks, moves and acts. She’s just downright weird, so unlikeable that I would probably feel pity with her if she were some random person I meet. Ultimately, I simply don’t like seeing her, and for a film in which she is one of the two only characters actually present, I was able to support her for a surpringly long time.

Willem Dafoe, however, the supposedly more positive character of the two, was brilliant though. I wonder what kind of chemistry Dafoe and Eva Green would have had. I get a feeling that the film would have turned out completely different if Eva Green had played in the film. Not necessarily better, because I liked the interaction between Dafoe and Gainsbourg a lot, but different. I think Eva Green has a stronger character, and would have emphasized on the woman’s struggling more than just playing a maniac.

Apart from that, “Antichrist” is exactly what all the newspapers say about the film, except with a little less enthusiasm and a little less exaggeration. But that is because for some reason, German newspapers either find the film to be a masterpiece (which I don’t necessarily agree on) or to be extremely shocking and gory (honestly the film wasn’t that bad). I don’t find all that much shocking about the film, and weirdly enough, I did not feel depressed when I saw it. It was more like an intense, scary atmosphere that sucked you into it, but since the content of the movie is just miles away from whatever I encounter in my life, I wouldn’t feel touched or depressed by it. Just impressed. I would recommend the film if Lars von Trier didn’t make so many more better ones, and I still wish he worked on “Wasington” instead of “Antichrist”. All in all, however, this is probably one of the best horror movies I have seen in quite awhile, although that might simply be due to the fact that I dislike horror flicks.

Close-up

When I just started seeing the film, I wasn’t really sure what the point of it was, and being a little negatively biased against documentary films, I had reservations about whether I would like the style of the film or not. How quickly this opinion changed! It took about 30 minutes until I realized how ingenious the film-making of Close-up is. I came to understand why Kiarostami is so outstandingly acclaimed among other film directors.

The great thing about Close-up is that there really is a whole lot you can say about the film. On the surface, it is just a simple story, but there is just so much depth to it. Since I am quite bad at this, I am delighted to see that (unlike „Alphaville“), there also is a whole lot of secondary literature about the film so that I don’t even have to say much anymore.

There are two things I wanted to note though. The first one that is that I wholeheartedly agree that Close-up shows how much Kiarostami loves cinema. Close-up is a blending of how film, acting and being a human being are tied together, and that makes the film a gem for film lovers, but rather pointless if you are not following the „religion of film buff-ness“. Heh.
The second point is that I like how Kiarostami portrayed Sabzian as a very likeable person, but from the dialogue, you can see how he also subtly asks the viewer to question Sabzian in general. So if he played Makhmalbaf, is he also playing himself at the trial? Is he still acting to be a “good man” or is he actually for real? I liked how it brought forth the everlasting question of how much of a person is actually a role, and of how much of life is actually a play.

In that sense, I am amazed at how this rather simple story was executed: I loved the non-linear storytelling that seemingly focuses on small details at the very beginning only to show you the main character later; I also loved the dialogue at the trial and I was especially a fan of how the sound was cut out in the last scene. It made you look at the characters closer, took out the sentimentality of this very emotional scene and showed instead of telling. Less is more, after all.

Of course I also watched „Il giorno della prima di close up“ another time, since it was on the DVD. Ultimately, it was completely pointelss to see this film without seeing Close-up. Now that I did, I obviously see this short film with completely different eyes. It’s so beautiful and so funny. I also was touched when I saw the last scene of Close-up again. The music of that scene is great too: not kitsch or sentimental but just plain beautiful.

All in all, the subtle brilliance of Close-up is difficult to describe and I have found it to be marvelous. In fact, now I am glad that I have two more films by Kiarostami available: Life and nothing more and Where is the friends’ home. I am so intrigued about seeing them now!

Deconstructing Harry

The person who has inspired the infamous list that started everything has recently discovered Woody Allen, and wholeheartedly recommended this film to me. Indeed I have found it to be a trademark film of his, and since it is much more sarcastic than his major works Annie Hall and Manhattan, I understand why he liked it so much. Deconstructing Harry is full of witty jokes, absurd characters and it is like travelling through somebody’s life with a huge bag of black humour.

Before I started watching this film, I was told quite a great deal about its story, and what intrigued me the most was how the story itself reminded me a lot of Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. It did not surprise me that the parallel was mentioned on the Wikipedia article of Deconstructing Harry. I love the premise of the main character taking a road trip to receive some award and while doing so, reflecting upon his own life. In Wild Strawberries, we had a clearly positive closure after this trip; in Deconstructing Harry, the main character was indeed deconstructed and we see that while he cannot change himself, he at least has gotten to know about himself. I have found that to be quite brilliant. The end of a film (or a story) can make a stunning difference, and in some cases (like for Two Days in Paris or Dogville), the end can be so good that it gives another, greater sense to the whole film. Although Deconstructing Harry did not impress me in that way, I liked the ending.

In my opinion, the best idea of the film was when Harry became out of focus himself. The blending between imagination and reality had something quite Bergman-like and I think Woody Allen did a brilliant job of implementing that. I simply love his neurotic reactions to whenever something happens to him, and it’s quite refreshing to see that he goes all out and just plays the asshole he probably is.

By the way, my favorite character is the prostitute, she’s just the best. Ultimately, she is the only likeable character and she got quite a funny role for that. Also, ugh, a blow job during her father’s funeral, Woody Allen really is the worst.

On 314’s Woody Allen list, Deconstructing Harry is on number 15, which makes it a very good but not absolutely orgasmic Woody Allen title. I agree on that, and I think it’s very much worth it for another concentrated view of Woody Allen’s hilarious perspective on relationships. I am looking forward to what film Mr. Starting List is going to recommend to me next time we speak (which will possibly be in December this year), I am definitely going to try to lure him into a discussion about random films again.

Letter from an Unknown Woman

Just wow. The truth is that I watched this film right after the 2004 version of “Letter from an Unknown Woman” and I am still fascinated by the story itself, no matter which version it is. In fact, I have a backlog of 8 films, plus another 4 that I have started but not finished yet (which are Ponyo*, Le petit soldat, Close-up and Inland Empire). Not to mention that I have a bunch of films available like Antichrist, and they are just waiting to be watched.

To make things easy for myself, I will start by blogging chronologically. Even though it’s been 2 months since I saw this film, I think my opinion and my memory of it are still very clear. I cannot help but comparing it both to the other adaptation and the book itself. While the 2004 version preserved the storyline of the book very closely, even the majority of the dialogue and included a lot of the unknown woman’s monologue, this film gave the characters names and changed a large part of the story.

The names are actually very important. Not giving the characters any names makes them immortal and universal, but also detached and far away from ourselves at the same time. On the one hand, any girl could be the unknown woman, and deep down, many girls probably love like the unknown woman has loved, and many others would probably yearn for it. On the other hand, this kind of love is an ideal (that I find very chinese by the way) that we would never reach, and no sane person would experience such a love. I think I already said way too much about the Letter from an Unknown woman subject itself, so I’ll try to reduce myself with a few comments on this particular adaptation.

I absolutely disliked the main actress. I don’t think she is beautiful at all, and I thoroughly disliked her mimics and especially the way her mouth moved. This might be a very superficial opinion of mine, but I must admit that it contributed quite a bit to my negative views of this adaptation. Apart from this and the major deterioration in terms of the content, the adaptation is quite well done. Max Ophüls is indeed an amazingly skilled director, and he turned the story and the actors he had to work with into quite a pleasant view. I especially liked the “Viennese” atmosphere that seemed quite truthful to me. Especially the music is quite delightful. Obviously Ophüls’ past helped, and I like how he was friends with Schnitzler, hahaha. I am sure he must have done better directing work though, and I am eager to see Liebelei.

Some review I have read mentioned how the changes to the original story gives this adaptation psychological depth, as the obsession of the woman is shown in a more negative way. Unlike in the book, she actually marries after all, and she is scolded by her husband for wanting to be with the man she has always loved. Personally I was not moved by the movie at all, and I am not sure if I like the idea of the Unknown Woman to have taken “revenge” on the man by forcing him into a duel, or at least indirectly led him into it. It kind of defies the whole purpose of her unconditional love that asks for nothing.

All in all, this film has achieved an acclaim that I cannot quite understand personally. I honestly wish there would be more essays about other interesting films out there, like Godard’s “Alphaville” or Tanovi?’s “No Man’s Land”. For someone who loves Stefan Zweig’s Letter from an Unknown Woman so much, this film was a must-watch of course.

PS. I don’t think I am ever going to finish Ponyo. Honestly it is quite a ridiculous film in my book, and I am not all that eager to see the end, even though I actually have seen about 2/3 of the film. There also is no reason to blog about it really.

Letter from an Unknown Woman

What can I say, I loved the film. Just yesterday, I have read the book, and I find it astonishing how well the adaptation touches the original atmosphere of the book. So, there are a few deviations but those are so minimal and of such non-existent importance. Even the chronology and a lot of lines have been directed ported into the female narrator’s voice. While it might sound surprising (considering how the setting was changed from Vienna of the 1920s into Beijing of the 1930s and 40s), I find it very explicable how it is possible to transport the very essence of the story including most of its text into a film adaptation set in China.
First of all, the main character does not relate much to her time, she is mostly a thoroughly timeless character and whose love has no boundaries, especially not her environment. Everything in the world is him, and he – as a character – is never going to change. The whole story could just take place with a famous actor or pop singer today and the Unknown Woman’s love would still feel exactly the same.
Second, and most importantly, you can see how much admiration the makers of the film have for the book. I have known beforehand that Stefan Zweig’s colorful and slightly kitsch style is very, very popular in Asia; it’s just the type of romanticism that Asian people seem to like. I even find the Chinese translation of the lines of the book to be even more beautiful than the original German, which already heaviness and melancholy. To me, it seems that it’s very easy to transport these kinds of feelings into an Asian language: The Chinese language has so many words that differentiate different types of love, and also puts an emphasis on the heaviness of such a love. At some point, the Unknown Woman says that she fell in love with him at first sight. „Love at first sight“ has a very common expression in Chinese (which, of course, has 4 words), but in Chinese, it does not only say „love“ but it says „endless love at first sight“, with the word for love expressing the type of love which designates lovers on a passionate, sexual, romantic basis. It means that you have very deeply fallen in love with someone at first sight – forever. In Chinese, that expression has the connotation of being a very heavy and desperate burden rather than some happy and romantic illusion which might fade. Asian cultures have this ideal of unconditional, eternal and immensely strong love, and they cherish this love and make tributes to them in their movies („Dolls“ is also a brilliant example).
With that said, it does not surprise that the Ophüls version from 1948 is supposedly less faithful to the original book, because the Unknown Woman takes some sort of revenge on the author. It makes her more realistic and gives her masochistic character another more human, and perhaps also deeper psychological level. But it is not what happens in the book.

What can I say, I loved the novel and I was prepared to love the film, which I did in the end. It is also interesting to see what different kinds of impacts film and book make on me. While the book puts the Unknown Woman’s thoughts into words and makes them understandable for us, the film mostly shows her expressions and her movements. All in all, the book made me much more emotional because I felt like those words were just there, on my lips, but I am unable to put such thoughts into words; the book gave me the feeling to ‚be‘ that woman and to love such a man. However, it was the film that touched to the verge of crying. While I have found the majority of the film beautiful instead of heavy and melancholic, I thought that the very last scene, in which the Unknown Woman meets the old servant, was indescribably sad. Throughout those years, she has become a stunningly beautiful woman who walks out with expensive jewels and a marvelous dress, and it is in that moment that she has to face the hardest situation in her life. It is in that moment only that it dawned on me how immensely sad her fate is, and I felt tears in my eyes.

Finally, I cannot say that I recommend this movie, because it really is not the type of film that you have to see if you are not interested in the topic at all. It is indeed very stylish with many beautiful shots with old Chinese houses, cities and landscapes, and Xu Jinglei is a wonderful actress who is amazing at subtly transporting feelings. The film deserves its award in San Sebastian absolutely. It totally is my type of movie and it does what it wants to do brilliantly, but I would not put it onto my list of best movies ever.

Infernal Affairs III

Of course I have seen the first and the second movie; it’s even been years ago and I would see them again in a heartbeat. Just as I have expected, this is totally not the case for the third part. I think that the contents of the movie were quite memorable (unlike the storyline of the other two parts which I feel I have forgotten already, and so I keep re-watching them to remind myself again).

The most redeeming factor of the film are a. the nice soundtrack and cinematography, b. the brilliant actors and c. the nice ending which actually made sense. While the end was a little sad for our favorite character Lau, I ended up sympathising with Yan’s friends a lot, and have come to like the fact that their efforts in honor of their friendship were rewarded.
In the end, while it was actually good and actually worth a watch, I admit that the film is a treat for die-hard fans of the prequels, but most definitely not interesting from any other aspect at all.

L’Eclisse

Okay, so the truth is: Watching this movie hurt. Not because it was bad, that is very far from it, but because it was absolutely brilliant. For the first part of the movie, I was mainly astonished at its style; in fact, I have never ever seen a cinematography that is as beautiful as this, not even with Godard. On the other hand, I was surprised at the directionlessness of the plot during the first 30 minutes of the film.

Very slowly, however, I came to understand what the whole building up of the story is about. In retrospect, the whole first part of the movie was to introduce us to the two main characters, which is why we had this long breaking up talk at the very beginning, why we saw Vittoria with her mother and with her friend playing Africans, why we had these extremely long scenes at the trading floor. It was all to show us the environment in which these characters live, and by extension, showing us why they were unable to truly get close to each other.

Maybe that is what I have found to be so disturbing, sad and hurtful – right in the moment when the both of them grew closer, they both decided not to pursue that relationship anymore. Whatever reason it might be, whether it really was just running away or realizing that the other is a horrible match for you or something completely different doesn’t matter. The scary thing is that something made this relationship end, and this type of end feels incredibly horrible to me.

In many aspects, “L’Eclisse” is wonderful. Especially when the two main characters met and started engaging in a relationship, the film became interesting and even a little suspenseful in its slowness. More than anything, however, “L’Eclisse” is one of those wonderful Antonionian portraits of the Italy of its time, and I can’t wait to see the other two of Antonioni’s Italian trilogy. I also surely will be seeing „Zabriskie Point“ at some point, just out of curiosity.

Blowup

I am in the process of watching the second half of “L’éclisse” also by Antonioni and I have no idea what I should think about this director. While “L’éclisse” is the ultimate good-looking borefest, “Blowup” actually was interesting and beautiful at the same time. Both films are similar in many ways: They both build up the story very slowly, they both emphasize on the cinematography and small gestures. I suspect that this is Antonioni’s style. However, in the way both films deal with relationships, they are utterly different.

And what beauty this film is! I never cared about the mod subculture and probably never will in the future, but this film feels like it serves as brilliant portrait of the 60s that I have never quite really taken an interest in before.
Right now, I am not sure where my fascination for this film actually comes from. The aspect of photography completely relates to my personal interests, not to mention how every single photo taken in the film is absolutely marvelous. To me, “Blowup” feels like an ode to photography as an art form, as a way to look at the world, at this something on the verge between reality and illusion. It’s all about pictures, and it fits to Antonioni like nothing else; every single of his shots look like it could just as well be an art photo.
Another reason why I might have been so fascinated by this film is that I haven’t seen anything for quite awhile. While the last films I have seen were quite great and some of them also rather subtle and deep (like “Je rentre à la maison”), it’s been awhile and I barely remember much of them anymore. After killing time with random things and studying, I felt so immensely refreshed to see a film like this. More precisely, I felt like myself again.

Personally, I think Malcolm McDowell would have been the perfect actor for the main character. That might have made it to one of my favorite films, but now it’s just a film that I find pretty damn good.

The film has an audio commentary: I looked into it for about 2 minutes and already got to see so many interesting details about the film – I wish I had the time to listen to it, so that I would have more to say about the film and comment on its style with a little more background knowledge. Maybe next time.