About Chocolate Parfaits

A Time to Love and a Time to Die

I don’t actually think Douglas Sirk’s other movies will be as good as this. This movie impressed me so much that I had nightmares from it for three nights afterwards. This did not happen to me in the last movie I have seen (which was this Russian propaganda one). Now it sounds like a bad thing, but objectively, it just shows that the story in the film was so good that it affected me so deeply.

I have read that Douglas Sirk’s films were dismissed as melodramatic at the time, until some Nouvelle Vague directors such as Truffaut discovered him and started worshipping him to the point of cult. To be honest, I can understand both: „A time to love and a time to die“ was very melodramatic and the trailers to his other movies look so melodramatic that I cannot bear it. I was wondering what such a director would do with Erich Maria Remarque’s somewhat dry style (or so it seems to me) and suppose that Remarque himself must have contributed quite a bit to the making of the film considering that he acts in it.

In my opinion, Lilo Pulver was wasted on Fräulein Ingeborg in „One, Two, Three“. Billy Wilder is the type of director who can make everybody, including Marilyn Monroe, act suitable for its role. But with La Pulver, I have the impression that she can do so much more, it’s just that she never had the opportunity to. At least I do think that her role as Elisabeth already feels much more stronger than the one of Ingeborg.

This is the first film I decided to buy because it was simply not available on the internet, but luckily, I did not regret this purchase. Perhaps it’s actually not worth 8 euro to me, but at that moment, I totally wanted to see this film, and I’m glad to have seen it.

Je rentre à la maison

Prog’s „favorite films of the decade“ prompted me to watch this film. With so incredibly many movies from this – our – decade, I wanted to know why he would pick precisely those ones. I, for instance, would have chosen a completely different set of films for my own decade list, which makes this particular list even more fascinating. In many ways I think that „Je rentre à la maison“ is a weird choice.

At the Berlinale this year, Oliveira showed a 60 minute long film and this short running time looked incredibly intriguing to me. „Je rentre à la maison“ is quite a bit longer, but it feels like the whole story could have been told just as well in 60 minutes: Nothing really happens, and long takes are really long here. I thought the movie would be about grandfather and grandson growing close to each other, but you barely even saw them interact. In fact, the movie solely focuses on its main character, and that is where its strength lies.

I think that the cinematography of the film is what makes it the most interesting; I especially loved those shots where people were talking but you didn’t actually see them speak. In the café scene, there was a focus on the main character’s shoes; during rehearsal for the TV show, you only saw John Malkovich. Just thinking of that scene makes me want to laugh. Oh, Malkovich is such a genius for being able to pull that scene off. XD

And the biggest surprise of the whole movie was that Catherine Deneuve had no significant role in the whole movie whatsoever. She did nothing but play in the play at the very beginning and look shocked at the end of her appearance in the film. That’s it?

Finally, I think it was Malkovich’s role and the absolutely brilliant end that made me feel like there is something more profound to this film that it looks like on the surface. For some reason, I kept thinking that the main character would simply go home and die at the end. But it didn’t happen, it was left ambiguous and now that I think about it, it’s a brilliant idea. I wonder if, one day when I am old, I am going to just want to go home too.

L’Atalante

„L’Atalante“ is the type of movie that I have only seen on some critics’ favorites list so far, but nowhere else. It seems to be quite an unknown classic, but hey, I have never heard of „Les Valseuses“ anywhere at all. At least L’Atalante is famous among film makers and film buffs. And what a classic it is, according to its Wikipedia article.

Jules, the first mate is my favorite character of the movie: He looks like Popeye so much, his scenes are the funniest and his tattooes are atrocious. XXXD I really think that his and Juliette have the best chemistry together, especially in that scene in which they are both in his room and have fun.

I was so shocked when I recognized the Canal St. Martin. They say that the cinematography and directing of the film is poetic, and the way the Canal St. Martin was shown in the film, even though it was for a few minutes, definitely is. Apart from that, I am not a big fan of poetry, and I wouldn’t actually call the film poetic myself. It’s a movie I don’t really know what it is or how it can be described. Perhaps this is because I have not seen enough movies from that epoch, perhaps it is because „L’Atalante“ truly is an outstanding movie. It makes me think of „The Catcher in the Rye“ a little bit, just like Salinger, Vigo only made one or two movies, and those few catapulted him into the list of the most acclaimed directors, and if it’s only because Truffaut loved his work.

The uniqueness of the film is also reflected in its second main character, played by Dita Parlo. Somehow she looks so entirely different from all other women from that time; she’s so unique I can’t quite judge whether she is a good actress or not. Something about her leaves me speechless. There are erotic pictures of her on the internet, and there must be something about her that inspired Madonna and Dita von Teese although she barely shows any flesh in the movie.

In some ways, the movie makes me think of „Stranger than Paradise“. Juliette is a stranger in Paris and on the Atalante, and the film moves on from one interesting detail to another. Even the soundtrack is lovely, there is one main theme that makes you want to sing along with it, and it even has a few musical elements with people singing. (Of course this is quite unlike „Stranger than Paradise“.) I have even dreamed of the main tune of the film a few times. Furthermore, „L’Atalante“ is so surreal at times that it also reminded me of „Le Chien Andalou“.

Finally, I think it is difficult for me to judge this crème de la crème of the 30’s, except that I actually enjoyed watching this road boat trip movie. I suspect that this is the type of movie that actually becomes better and more enjoyable the more often you see it. And reading some good articles about it seems to help quite a bit too.

La Règle du Jeu

And yet again we have one of those ‚most acclaimed‘ movies ever. The more I watch these movies, the more I get the impression that I will never understand what makes these kind of movies stand above all others. What makes „Citizen Kane“ so great that everybody and their mother loves the movie so much? I have wondered the same about „Vertigo“ recently, and now I am wondering the same about „La Règle du Jeu“.

Apart from that, „La Règle du Jeu“ is surprisingly fun for such an old movie. The best scene is the one in which wife and mistress become friends after laughing about the husband together. The next highlight was the chaotic scene during the stage performance. As the marvelous French Wikipedia article on the movie says, Renoir used a theatre stage technique in which many different characters interact with each other on different levels, creating a comical and chaotic scene in which everyone is in an uproar. This is precisely what I love about comedies so much, and it is executed brilliantly in „La Règle du Jeu“. I also thoroughly liked the performance of the actors, and it seems Renoir also has influenced it a lot by letting them improvise and asking them to play ‚comeddia dell’arte‘-style.

Speaking of characters, who do you think would be my favorite character? ;) Hint: It’s a woman, amazingly enough. She is the best actress and lightened up the beginning of the movie with her playful way of acting, I loved it. Apart from her, I didn’t care much for any of those other characters, although every single one of them contributed to the hilarity of the story. It especially becomes clear at the very end when Robert asks Octave „Ah, so you love her too?“ with this non-chalant voice of his. Ahaha.

It is mostly in little details about the mise en scène that „La Règle du Jeu“ is great, not so much the storyline or even the characters who are all pretty stereotypical. Perhaps this focus on a beautifully crafted mise en scène is what these movies so highly acclaimed, and why I personally tend to prefer the more story- and character-focused „Gosford Park“ over „La Règle du Jeu“.

All in all, if it were me, I’d say that I prefer „La Règle du Jeu“ over „Vertigo“, and I like „Vertigo“ more than „Citizen Kane“. Oh, and I like „2001“ more than all of them.

V for Vendetta

From the very beginning, I liked this movie. I mean, what is there not to like: It met every single of my expectations of a better Hollywood movie. The main characters were engaging, it was very easy to follow the story quickly and swiftly and most of all, it was an engaging yet relaxing thing to do on my trip to university. That was all that I wanted, and I found myself very interested in what is going to happen next by 1/3 of the movie, the time when I arrived at university.

I am done with the film by now and have never seen a movie that started so high and fell so low in my esteem. (In fact, it didn’t reach the very bottom: If “JSA” is a 10 and “A Good Lawyer’s Wife” is a 1, then “V for Vendetta” is still a 7 on that scale.)
While it started off in quite a stylish and sophisticated fashion, with V quoting some good books and giving off the air of perfectly knowing what he does, the film showed more and more of its silliness through its course. This all cumulated in this incredibly silly last scene in which those soldiers didn’t even shoot – aaahhhh! It’s probably the point when I realized that the whole film is a little too unrealistic for its own good, and it’s the only mass demonstration scene I have seen in my life that did not move me in any way.

So, this horrible scene aside, I see that the film has its merits. I think that it had a good story to tell, and if it inspired young people to delve deeper into the subject and, say, read “1984” because of that – great. Apart from that, I have found the film to be at least equally gripping as “The Dark Knight” was, and I am glad that it was more about content, dialogue and storytelling than action scenes in which it is actually only important who dies. Would I recommend this movie then? Oh yes I would. It’s extremely stylish, a whole lot of fun to watch as long as you don’t take it for serious and it stars La Loliportman in a nice role.

Atonement

Lately, I have this bad habit of watching movies and then letting them un-reviewed in my backlog. So, the truth is that I am waiting for my next package of movies to arrive tomorrow, along with three more movies I have to see: „Blow Up“, „Bug“ and „Time to live and time to die“. After those three, there still is quite a large number of films in my watchlist. However, I must admit that my newest addiction has actually tampered my obsession for movies a little lately: I started watching „Six Feet Under“ and love it to pieces. It manages to make me interested and addicted to it even though I actually dislike some of the characters! Brenda is probably the worst character I have ever seen in a story, and that is all TV shows, anime, books, movies etc. counted in. But what can I say? The story is just really, really well-written, and while I wish there were more funny scenes and a little less relationship emo, I can’t help but continue watching. „Six Feet Under“ made me remember again what it means to marathon a show again, and oh I love it.
And by the way, I also re-watched “Coffee & Cigarettes”, and I still love it just as much as 5 years ago!

It is ironic that this particular TV show would have such an effect on me. After all, a film like „Atonement“ actually also provides some very easily digestable and enjoyable distraction. Perhaps I just found myself to be unable to take this movie for serious, and I don’t actually feel like writing about it at all for a very simple reason: I knew the story before. No matter how great the directing is (and except for this one horrible war scene, it was nice and somewhat pittoresque), the emotional impact the end makes on the viewer is probably what makes the film so good. When I heard about the story, its tragedy impressed me so much that I wanted to see the movie or read the book. But the movie itself did not give that feeling back, and I doubt the book would. Then again, I think McEwan is an amazing writer, so I might pick up the book simply because I actually like the story.

For those who have read the book, I don’t see all that much merit in the film, although I think that it looks like a solid adaptation. For those who have not read the book and don’t know about the story yet, I would absolutely recommend the movie, because it really is doing a good job in what is wants to bring across. It’s just never going to be a classic or anything, it’s a Hollywood mainstream movie we are dealing with here, after all.

Punch-Drunk Love

Lately I have been buying a lot of cheap DVDs, and somehow I could not resist getting this movie as well. I have had it on my watchlist for years (but a lot of movies are on that list for years unfortunately), and now that I saw it in the store yet again, I could not resist.

For the first 30 minutes, I had the impression that this DVD would be my first mispurchase, and that it wasn’t even worth the 3,50 euro I spent on it. But then, it dawned on me that everything that was weird and dilettant-looking in this movie might very well be done on purpose. Take the title scene (see above) in which they reunite in Hawaii, run towards each other and kiss: I realized that it was a brilliant idea not showing them kiss in a close-up, but to show their dark silhouettes blended with many other people’s silhouettes passing by. That was when I thought „This director knows what he’s doing“. This weird directing combined with even weirder music and especially some TV-show-like blurry pseudo-stylish inserts were most likely all to underline the feelings of our clumsy, yet aggressive main character.

In fact, the movie has started to become brilliant with the appearance of an amazing Emily Watson. She has these slightly creepy-cute-ish looking eyes and a :3 smile that gives her face very unique features. It feels like the role was written for her. Since she looks so likeable, you can even forgive her for being a little scheming and stalker-like at the very beginning. In fact, I found her so adorable when she tells Barry that she wants to eat his cheeks, ehehe. The chemistry between her and Adam Sandler is absolutely great and totally saves the film.
Perhaps the only disappointing scene was when Adam Sandler did *not* beat the heck out of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character, heh. (PSH was absolutely great as the villain of the movie with that beard of his, harr harr.)

All in all, this was quite a lovely comedy and I can see myself watching it again one day when I feel like a heart-warming, but not kitsch-y love story.

L.A. Confidential

Perhaps this is due to the actors. I am a big fan of all three main protagonists now, and oh my God, has Russell Crowe ever been sexy like this? Hmmm. Unlike „Black Dahlia“, every single of the actors actually had some personality, their characters and the way they work and what they think about the world or their job actually matters in the story. I think that is one of the most important reasons why „L.A. Confidential“ exceeds „The Black Dahlia“ by… millions.

I also thought that Kim Basinger was really well cast. The first and only time I watched a film with Kim Basinger was „8 Mile“, ahaha. Before I saw that movie, I read an article in the „Spiegel“ that she wore an Escada dress that sold out immediately after she won an Academy Award. (I still remember that because I loved the dress back then.) It turned out she won it for „L.A. Confidential“, very deservedly so if you ask me. I don’t think she is a natural beauty and she doesn’t look like Veronica Lake all that much, but there is some sort of dignity around her that I really like somehow.

Enough ranting about Kim Basinger, no matter how great she was and how sexy and fatale she looks in this coat. Compared to „Vertigo“ and other titles, I can’t believe nobody has really mentioned this movie to me. Really, the only reason why I got the film was because the Special Edition DVD was only 3 euro. And now, it’s easily one of my favorite films in my collection, or so I think. Scary.

I think the last film that I have found so gripping was „One, Two, Three“. That was another movie that made me want to continue watching. I even thought I want to re-watch the film right away. You can easily imagine how rare it is that I would feel like that about a simple film that does not even hold any identification potential for me. No, „L.A. Confidential“ is nothing but an immensely very well-written adaptation of a novel. I could rant on and on about the film, but ultimately there is not much to say about it, except that I wholeheartedly recommend it unless you are on a „I want to see meaningful and deeply emotional films“ trip.

Vertigo

To make things clear first: This is different than „Requiem for Dream“. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching „Vertigo“ and I think it is a good movie, but ultimtately it just did not blow me away. Perhaps I have expected too much, but everyone seems to love this movie to an extent I do not understand.

Of course „Vertigo“ had a great story: it was mysterious, it had a shocking end, and most of all, I really love the „Vertigo effect“ and Alfred Hitchcock’s directing. I will probably never understand why he is so incredibly famous, and why he was the only director I have ever known until I was, like, 15. So, what is so great about „Vertigo“ apart from that?

For myself, the film had quite a few weaknesses. First of all, I don’t like Kim Novak all that much. I loved her in „Kiss me, Stupid“ because I like how she was the comparably less attractive, but funny and good-hearted prostitute. It was a role that fit her perfectly. Here, she is supposed to be the fine woman, who is supposed to have the charme of a femme fatale. For me, she doesn’t unfortunately. Her face is beautiful, but in a different way than your typical film noir actress.
Second, I found it a little weird that the end of the movie came so incredibly fast. Just two, three seconds there was this last shock and then it was all over. No single shot about what happened to the characters afterwards, sadly not even anything about this other woman who was in love with the main character. I understand that it is perhaps a little difficult to do some sort of epilogue, but was it really the best thing to suddenly end the movie like that?
Finally, my biggest irk with the story is that I don’t quite accept its „psychological depth“ or whatever. From what I saw, I think that the main character is just an obsessive idiot who was unable to love a woman beyond her surface. Perhaps there is more to it, but right now, I can’t see it, and that makes the latter part of the whole story incredibly sad and unnecessary. It is a pity because it is quite beautiful how Judy fell in love with that ex-cop. But I don’t think you were supposed to feel sorry for her or anything.

So, why do you like „Vertigo“?

Barry Lyndon

The title of this blog post is a failed reference to „Fanny and Alexander“. For some reason, I feel like there are lots of between them: Both are epic stories centered about the life of a man (or a boy), both movies are somewhat episodic, and finally Lady Lyndon barely appears in the movie just like Fanny does. XD Ultimately, both movies gave me a similar vibe, I don’t know why.

„Barry Lyndon“ is another one of those movies that took a little time for me to like. I barely knew anything about the story except that it’s about a guy who wants to enter the ‚noblesse‘ but fails, and that it is based on a book by Thackeray. That was everything I needed to know that the movie would be very, very boring. I could only hope that Kubrick’s gorgeous directing would make up for that, and luckily it did: „Barry Lyndon“ was rather suspenseful especially towards the end, it brought Victorian England to life in a very believable way and finally, I think that it did a good job at characterizing Barry Lyndon himself as an ambiguous, very human type of person. He is brave, yet cowardish, full of life, yet obsessed about getting a title. Most of all though, I felt sorry for Lady Lyndon: She really had a very small but sympathetic role in Barry’s life and her appearance made the film so much nicer too, heh. She was the only naive, pure-hearted character in the whole story.

All in all, I can easily see why „Barry Lyndon“ ended up becoming Kubrick’s least popular movie: It really is not suited for everybody’s palate. However, I enjoyed it and I think it was an outstanding movie. It just happens to be one of my least favorite Kubrick’s behind masterpieces like „A Clockwork Orange“, „2001“ and „Full Metal Jacket“.