Tag: PIFF

Le Trou

As I have learned at the Berlinale this year, French movie makers seem to love breaking out of prison stories; in one entry (outside of the competition) this year, they showed a biographical picture on one guy who managed to escape prison multiple times. Perhaps this is related to French people’s general unhappiness with their „état“: While there never has been any successful revolutions in Germany, la Grande Nation can look back at a few of them. Maybe there is a relation between great revolutions and great films about prison breaks; at least „Le Trou“ is a good example.

I have heard of „A man escaped“ before, but never of „Le Trou“. After seeing it now, I am wondering why it did never got higher recognition. Now, of course the scope of the film is rather narrow: It really is about not much more than five men in a prison cell together attempting to escape and planning it out over a long time. So the only area where it gains depth lies in the realms of human relationships between the five. The 25th Hour is probably the last serious film I have seen about friendship, which is weird since normally you would expect it to be a similarly strong feeling as „family bounds“ (Little Miss Sunshine) or „love“ (I won’t even start with examples). And „Le Trou“ depicts the characters and their deep friendship to each other in a skillful way, and it adds to the immense suspense of the film. Every single time when I heard a sound, I was truly afraid that the guards would notice something – the fact that the director used no music in the film whatsoever is absolute genius in my opinion.

In these kinds of films, it is great when you ignore all your knowledge about movies and don’t try to predict the outcome of the film. I, for instance, felt a lot more enjoyment from being ignorant like that, and I wholeheartedly recommend this obscure gem of a film. And I want to see „A man escaped“ now, although I actually don’t expect it to be as great as „Le Trou“. That one is a nazi story after all and critics might be a little biased about it, who knows.

Out of the Past

After „Angel Face“, Gorp said that we should watch „Out of the Past“. How right he was; it was only after seeing the film that I got to know that „Out of the Past“ is a highly acclaimed example of a film noir. It got quite a prominent mention both on the 250 film noirs list on They’re shooting pictures, aren’t they? and on the Wikipedia article for film noir. I can perfectly see why: „Out of the Past“ has nearly every single film noir cliché element in it: A femme fatale, a nice woman, a detective in a beige trench coat, death and revolvers, plus it’s shot in black and white (well, Wikipedia says that this is a requisite to qualify as noir).

By the way, I have never watched „The Maltese Falcon“, I just happen to have read the book, because it was a gift. In contrast to „Angel Face“, „The Maltese Falcon“ seems to be another rather generic example of a film noir.

Recently, when I have been talking about how I tend to dislike western movies, I realized that there also is no good reason why I like film noirs. They are not much more suspenseful, smart, sexy or enjoyable by default, the only good reason that comes to mind is that I like the visual style of film noirs. Apart from that, the genre is just as good as the other, it seems. I am definitely willing to give western movies another chance, although I have no idea what I should start with.

Now, enough genre talking, back to the film itself: Ultimately, the story carries a little less depth than „Angel Face“ in my opinion. But it’s not the story, it’s more the style and the suspense that makes this movie so outstanding and maybe also deserved more acclaimed than „Angel Face“. Our protagonist here is quite capable and rather witty („You don’t get a vaccination for Florida, but you do for Mexico“) and thus much more likeable and manly than the one in „Angel Face“ who actually doesn’t do much, the femme fatale is even more evil since she kills people purely for her own financial profit and finally the story is told in such a suspenseful, complex way that I have found it thrilling throughout the whole film. I also liked the ending shot and the mute boy was probably my favorite character, heh.

Perhaps I must admit that I have found the female protagonist of „Angel Face“ more attractive. She was even more of a center figure in the film and you could sense her charm and evilness in the air; it was a little less so for this film, which had less atmosphere but much more action. Finally, I suppose that „Out of the Past“ is the perfect beginner’s film noir; if you don’t like this one, you probably won’t like any of them.

Angel Face

Perhaps it’s just me but I have always been unable to find a version of this film on the internet. Now, I think I understand: It’s a film noir (which means it was a rather cheap B movie at the time of its release) and it’s an unusual one, perhaps even a little outdated for today’s tastes. But oh how marvelous this simple film is.

I admit that I could not help myself but fixate myself on the evil-looking eyebrows of the main character, but even while doing so, I could see how intense her look was and what a wonderful femme fatale she is. The greatness about the story lies in how powerful she is on the one hand, but how weak on the other hand. She does not lie about her evil character, and the male protagonist is always aware that she is dangerous, but he cannot escape her. Other femme fatales are much more subtly evil while her look just says „Look at me and fear me“. She lies, but she does not deceive as much as others do, and most of all, she actually has a very human and understandable weakness which leads to her downfall: a strong desire of being loved.

Another greatness about this film are the visuals in my opinion. The main character is always wonderfully dressed without looking as fake as Scarlett Johansson and especially Hillary Swank do in „The Black Dahlia“. I also think that there is a great chemistry between the two main characters, which is especially apparent when she plays the piano and he watches her; the mood it creates is impossible to re-do in modern times.

While you expect most film noirs to be very complicated and shocking, „Angel Face“ comes off very differently. It ends on a very shocking note too, but no in the typical sense. It’s not like a dangerous woman has planned everything beforehand and then her evil schemes are revealed by the male protagonist at the end. This film follows a very straightforward and chronological line in which the spectator knows everything that happens, but is surprised by the events at the end. „Angel Face“ is a Nouvelle Vague film with the structure and the looks of a film noir.

Don’t let yourself be fooled by the weird tagline on the cover. I wouldn’t say the whole story is about love, and it definitely is not sure how the female protagonist loved – who did she love anyways? But there definitely is quite a bit of psychological depth and sexual attraction here, making the film an unknown classic – it definitely is not your typical film noir and you should rather start with “The Maltese Falcon” or whatever is a prime example of a noir, but if you don’t mind the simplicity, you will most likely enjoy the mise en scène of “Angel Face”.

Un Chien Andalou

The first time I encountered this little film was way back when I was at the permanent exhibition of the Cinemathèque Francaise in Paris. They have shown quite a lot of short clips of films (including the sequence in which Charlie Chaplin falls into the machine in „Modern Times“), and this was quite a memorable and prominent one. Although I have planned on seeing this film ever since I went to the Cinemathèque Francaise, it was only by pure coincidence that I have finally watched it: They showed it at the Scharf-Gerstenberg museum in Berlin, an art museum specializing in surrealism. It makes sense since this is probably the most typical example of a surrealist movie, and obviously I did not understand of it at all. The Freudian symbols and Dali’s style were all there, but it didn’t help to make any sense. Not that I minded, it’s more like the whole movie is a dream; if it were not so old, it felt like it could have directly sprung from my dreams.

My own dreams are a little bit weird though; I rarely dream of landscapes and never of animals, but there is a proportionally high appearance of staircases, ruins and elevators. Especially the elevators are fascinating if you ask me, I don’t even live in a house with elevators, and the elevators of my dreams are always much more dramatic and stylish, some of them even impossible to construct in real life.

So, enough of my ranting, I think I made myself quite clear: „Le Chien Andalou“ is not the type of movie to understand or feel, it’s the type of movie that inspires.