Recently Watched Films

[Dan Warburton]

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[MRS]

Yeah, okay. That quote just brought back to memory a paper that never came together addressing the diachronic trumping the synchronic in Tarkovsky's last three. Ah, the best laid plans. . .

Remember the montage in Real Genius where they're all studying and the one guy just erupts? That's pretty much how it ended for me.

I still can't take my mind's eye off the last scene of Repo Man. Ghastly. But HDS is king, nonetheless.

[walto]

This actress is the biggest problem with Angels and Insects. She needs to be fragile and breathtakingly beautiful, and she's neither. Actually kind of homely, I think. The costumes are excellent in this film (the designer won an Oscar for them), but otherwise it's a mediocre movie of a decent book. I'm a Byatt fan (though Morpho Eugenia isn't her best work) and the discussions about Darwin, Paley, ants, etc. are what make the book worth reading. It's a poorly plotted "novel of ideas" (such books usually are poorly plotted). But movie is all about the butterflyesque costumes.

[markt]

Alex Cox, Repo Man, 1984 (yet again!)

Not to be crude, but I've really never seen any kind of point in this movie. I realize there's some cult status for whatever that's worth. That last scene? Oh my god.

I'm biased here, but I absolutely love Repo Man! Seeing it on VHS at a friends house when I was 12 or 13 years old was totally revelatory for me.
I picked up the DVD a couple months ago and still think it's fantastic. I actually don't have any beef with that last scene, either... (though I do cringe a little when Emilio sticks his head out the window and says "Whoa, this is intense" )

Anyways... Tonight I watched:
Cranes Are Flying (Kalatozov, 1957)

[hatta]

Synecdoche, New York

[markt]

Isn't that fantastic? (The Kalatazov!) Amazing camera work (damn good acting too). I've got that one and Soy Cuba. On the hunt for The Red Tent.. anyone seen that?

I really loved it. I had never even heard of it before last night, just found a decrepit white VHS case with a sticker that said "Cranes are Flying - B&W - 1957" in my school library and thought the title sounded interesting.
It's definitely one of the best things I've seen recently. Even some tracking problems and a pretty shoddy subtitling job couldn't take anything away.

From one extreme to another, tonight I watched:
El Mariachi (Rodriguez, 1992)

I was bitching about how much I hate Robert Rodriguez to a friend of mine recently, and his response was something like 'I know his recent stuff hasn't been so good, but what about El Mariachi?'
I hadn't seen it since I was a teenager so I borrowed it from him, and it just.... really didn't do it for me. There were some pretty entertaining parts, but overall I just couldn't really get into it.

[Gaendaal]

Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008)



I was torn by this film.

The representation of the dehumanising brutality of the regime in The Maze prison was stark and unflinching, forcing you to recognise the horror that the prisoners endured...but there was no context, no recognition of the fact that the people we were supposedly meant to be sympathetic towards were members of the IRA, an especially violent terrorist organisation. Sands is made out to be an almost messianic figure (which drove a friend of mine, one with experience of sectarian violence, into apoplexy) with no real discussion about the reasons for him being in prison.

I left the cinema feeling angry not only with the way the Northern Irish situation was dealt with by my own government and those on the Republican side but also with the director for making what felt like a very naive film out of an insanely complex situation.

It's stunningly shot - and the 20 minute, single-shot dialogue is nearly unbearable in its intensity - but it ultimately felt empty and gratuitous.

[O'Grady]

Tsai Ming-Liang - He liu (The River)(1997)

I found this a lot darker relative to his other films, not only in theme but the way it was shot. The sex scenes for example, amazing.

[MRS]

Tsai Ming-Liang - He liu (The River)(1997)

The sex scenes for example, amazing.

Yeah, the bath house scene where it's hardly visible and he's seemingly near tears (and not due to any overt physical pain) is really visceral stuff.

[markt]

Russian Ark (Alexander Sokurov, 2002)

I've probably liked other Sokurov films more, but this was pretty great.

Off topic: Where did all of Dan's posts go???

[jon abbey]

he decided to leave IHM, and burn his bridges on the way out so he wouldn't be tempted to come back again (since this is about the third time he's "quit"). juvenile? indeed.

[markt]

Just found the thread over on IHE, Jon. Weird...

[surfer]

If (Anderson, 1968) - boy, the constant shifting between B&W and color is really distracting. Not impressed by anything in this movie, about as dated as Easy Rider.

[P. Wretch]

If (Anderson, 1968) - boy, the constant shifting between B&W and color is really distracting. Not impressed by anything in this movie, about as dated as Easy Rider.

Really? I think it's one of the few British feature films of the 60s that can stand alongside the best of the French and Italian New Wave. I can understand that the 'school rebellion' theme might seem cliched, but I think it transcends that.

In any case, I'd take the first two films Lindsay Anderson made with Malcolm McDowell (this one and O Lucky Man!) over Kubrick's more celebrated Clockwork Orange, which repeats some of the themes in a more aggressively obvious way.

[surfer]

Really? I think it's one of the few British feature films of the 60s that can stand alongside the best of the French and Italian New Wave. I can understand that the 'school rebellion' theme might seem cliched, but I think it transcends that.

In any case, I'd take the first two films Lindsay Anderson made with Malcolm McDowell (this one and O Lucky Man!) over Kubrick's more celebrated Clockwork Orange, which repeats some of the themes in a more aggressively obvious way.

I hate to say it, but yeah. Influenced by the worst of Godard et al, but without his sense of playful surrealist style and anarchy. 400 Blows is a hundred times more nuanced than this heavy-handed mess. Reminded me of PF's The Wall, "Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone!" Everything about it was so over-the-top: the instructors are all Niedermeyer sadists, I expected someone to belt out "IS THAT A PLEDGE PIN ON YOUR UNIFORM!"

The church hymns to start each chapter, the god-awful Hollywood Romanticism ala James Dean of the McDowell character ("There is only one thing you can do with a woman like that, make love to her once, and walk into the ocean and die.") And the end, machine-gunning the congregation as they run out of the church, even Roger Waters was rolling his eyes.

But, not coming from that background historically or culturally or educationally, maybe I'm missing some context.

(I didnt think it was awful, but it was pretty bad considering what I was expecting.)

[jon abbey]

Reminded me of PF's The Wall, "Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone!" )

that's unfair, that was 10+ years later and probably at least somewhat influenced by If...

that being said, I agree that it's somewhat overhyped. I like O Lucky Man! quite a bit more, flaws and all, it's much more ambitious.

[surfer]

that's unfair, that was 10+ years later and probably at least somewhat influenced by If...

To me, they both exhibit the same juvenile fantasies and 1-dimensional cliches and simplistic revolutionary jargon, so it doesnt matter which is derivitive of which. "If" is derivitive too, but of Godard and Truffaut and Vigo and others too I'm sure. I'm no huge fan of Clockwork Orange, but at least that movie had a sense of style and originality and deadpan humor that transcends its garbled "message". "If" complete lacks (or fails at) that.

[surfer]

Anyway PW, I've always respected your opinions on film, so I'd be interested in hearing what you think about "If".

[P. Wretch]

Anyway PW, I've always respected your opinions on film, so I'd be interested in hearing what you think about "If".

Well, obviously my opinion differs here, and there's always room for difference (don't want to bring up shades of the circular Cronenberg/Lynch thread). First, I would argue that Lindsay Anderson was by no means merely a derivative filmmaker: he had pioneered experimental documentary formats in the 1950s, and was influenced by a quasi-surrealist British documentary tradition (notably Humphrey Jennings, who made eccentric wartime propaganda). But this context isn't necessary for a justification.

If... is a departure from the earlier stuff. I would look at it less as a didactic film with a political message than something closer to a dream vision (Anderson was left-wing but sceptical about politics). Vigo's short Zero de conduit is an obvious reference point; there are many moments in the film where realism is undermined, in addition to the unpredictable colour/b&w shifts, notably where one of the teachers is killed and then sits up in a giant wooden drawer in the next scene. The ending is deliberately ambiguous: I don't think one can take it as a given that the final battle scene actually takes place - the final appearance of the title 'if...' suggests that this might have been merely a wishful fantasy, which casts a more bitterly defeatist atmosphere over the whole thing.

There's obviously a major autobiographical element: the film was shot at the very same school that Lindsay Anderson had himself attended, and it exudes contempt (perhaps too obviously, you might say) for the elite British education system which merely served to reproduce the ruling class, and to a considerable degree continues to do so 40 years on. The hymn-singing scenes, the military rhetoric, and all that kind of thing would have had a particular resonance for men of Anderson's generation and class. To a lesser extent I can identify with this milieu (although I didn't attend a boarding school), so perhaps my viewpoint is not entirely unbiased.

The whole thing might well seem more trivial from an American perspective: I would be the first to admit that the history of British film is generally weak in comparison to classical Hollywood or French traditions; maybe If... only seems impressive because it had so little national precedent.

[surfer]

Interesting, I appreciate your take, thanks.