Recently Watched Films 2019

[Dan Warburton]

Steve McQueen, Hunger, 2008

Yeah, he was good before Hollywood got its claws in him. McQueen's background in installation work and more experimental cinema shows, and the clinical precision of his framing and willingness to let himself and us get bored with long slow shots (strong echoes of Chantal Akerman's NY period, esp Hotel Monterey) is chillingly appropriate for the story. Imagine how awful the Bobby Sands hunger strike story would have turned out in the hands of a sentimental hack like Stephen Daldry, complete with horrible Hans Zimmer music. This, thankfully, is about as far from that as you can get. Fine stuff.

[henriq]

Arthur Crabtree, Horrors of the Black Museum, 1959

I snatched this because my barber Thierry (Nouvelle Ere, rue des Martyrs, 75009 Paris - been going to him since 1991 and, Pattinson-like (Cosmopolis), will probably continue to do so until one of us either retires or expires), who also happens to be a horror / giallo fan, recommended it. Well, as Armando Ianucci found out, maybe you shouldn't listen to your barber all that much. Sorry Thierry

That's why I cut my own hair I've yet to find out what a clanger is.

[henriq]

Matthew Saville - Noise (2007)

So, said I would write something lengthier on this one, can't back down now.

The noise of the title is the tinnitus that afflicts disinterested and underperforming cop Brendan Cowell (excellent!). Slow and sluggish in responding to the scene of a horrendous subway massacre that opens the film, he gets assigned to a police trailer set up at the site of another murder, in a rather dismal suburb. The job is to take notes and interview whoever comes into the trailer, to see what information can or can't be gleaned from the chatter. Consequently, the cop ends up in the middle of the investigation, without knowing or realising it. Conceptually also, the name of the film has great import. The noise of tinnitus, the sinewave distortion of it - excellent sound design here - that renders information hazy and sluggish, wavering between import and insignificance. And the way the motility and tooling of the policier is in a way restructured, slowed down and massaged to a point where detection melts into sociology, melting again into anthropology. The fact, for instance, that he twice interviews the actual killer in his trailer without knowing it, the physiognomic detailing of the slow witted guy with the dog, the antagonism with the lover of the second victim, dissolving into sympathy and commiseration. Boundaries blurring, the pinprick of a lover's touch clearly audible, the cheek and aggression of the killer drifting from view. Excellent writing, as in so much cinema from Australia. The writing isn't to the fore, not even on the one, but resides more in a hazy, dubbed out backbeat. And the physiognomy attending this: an immediate precursor would be Justin Kurzel's Snowtown. On the one hand cast with citizens of the destitute suburb of Davoren Park where the actual murders took place, in a kind of anthropological framing of the film - and on the other, Daniel Henshall's psychopath in the centre of the action, driven by a hate so toxic the slightest bit of cheek and flare can set it off. And the writing: people aren't really saying much, neither is Henshall's demagogue - just that something has to be done, things aren't right and should be put so. The haze and diffusion, the inarticulation of the bodies framed, forming almost a resistance, a density for the film to track and snake through. Going even further back, Fred Schepisi (an "absentminded surgeon" per David Thomson) with his astounding The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith: the writing slow, patient, hesitant, the whole immensely rich in detail and resonance. A marvellous film, I'll have to do it real justice sometime. Once again, we're devolving: it's film as listening, as recording (pace Alan Clarke). Even, but now I am stretching it a bit (this is FUN!), pointing a little bit to Eric Rohmer, the constant interplay between articulation and occlusion with something like Le rayon vert. And all this in the frame of a thriller!

[Dan Warburton]

That's why I cut my own hair

What hair?

I've yet to find out what a clanger is

Aw, you never got The Clangers on Swedish TV? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clangers

[Dan Warburton]

Matthew Saville - Noise (2007)

Excellent write-up, as ever. This one's on my Very Long Shortlist of Things To Watch for sure, looking forward. Meanwhile, if you've got three hours and 16GB to spare and want to see a truly stunning BluRay 1080 rip, I heartily recommend



Carlos Reygadas, Nuestro Tiempo, 2018

The director and his wife play the two principal characters here, Juan the reclusive poet and his wife Ester who helps him run a bull-breeding ranch in Tlaxcala (East of Mexico City), whose marriage is put to the test when Ester starts balling a visiting horse trainer, Phil. Yes, it sounds a bit banal - call it Bergman with bulls - but it's exquisitely filmed (Reygadas is Juan, of course, but the way he films both himself and the characters and the light is thrilling.. you Deleuze lovers need to see this). Magnificent sound design and choice of music, too: watch out for a spectacular Gabriela Ortiz Timpani Concerto and - surprise - Peter Gabriel singing the "The Carpet Crawlers" on the car stereo. Ha! Hadn't heard that for a while.. and never understood it. Glorious.

[henriq]

That's why I cut my own hair

What hair?

My point exactly!

I've yet to find out what a clanger is

Aw, you never got The Clangers on Swedish TV? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clangers

Well, that clears that up. I might have heard about them, come to think of it.

[henriq]

Matthew Saville - Noise (2007)

Excellent write-up, as ever. This one's on my Very Long Shortlist of Things To Watch for sure, looking forward.

Check out the Schepisi film too, that is truly awesome.

Meanwhile, if you've got three hours and 16GB to spare and want to see a truly stunning BluRay 1080 rip, I heartily recommend



Carlos Reygadas, Nuestro Tiempo, 2018

The director and his wife play the two principal characters here, Juan the reclusive poet and his wife Ester who helps him run a bull-breeding ranch in Tlaxcala (East of Mexico City), whose marriage is put to the test when Ester starts balling a visiting horse trainer, Phil. Yes, it sounds a bit banal - call it Bergman with bulls - but it's exquisitely filmed (Reygadas is Juan, of course, but the way he films both himself and the characters and the light is thrilling.. you Deleuze lovers need to see this). Magnificent sound design and choice of music, too: watch out for a spectacular Gabriela Ortiz Timpani Concerto and - surprise - Peter Gabriel singing the "The Carpet Crawlers" on the car stereo. Ha! Hadn't heard that for a while.. and never understood it. Glorious.

Damn, and I opted for the smaller DVD rip. I'll have to get that one, I guess. I went a little Bava crazy over the weekend, my ratio took a bit of a hit. Great stuff, though.

[Dan Warburton]

Matthew Saville - Noise (2007)

Excellent film, yes. Love the way we get almost as confused as the detective does - did you spot the killer first time round? - great sound design too. Proof that you can make a first-class thriller without a) (too much) blood b) Plot For Dummies storyline c) Hans Zimmer. Or his ilk. Indeed, recommended to all.

[henriq]

Matthew Saville - Noise (2007)

Excellent film, yes. Love the way we get almost as confused as the detective does - did you spot the killer first time round? - great sound design too. Proof that you can make a first-class thriller without a) (too much) blood b) Plot For Dummies storyline c) Hans Zimmer. Or his ilk. Indeed, recommended to all.

Plot For Dummies, yes. I remember me and a friend had a big laugh at that in the nineties, where it seemed you always had a fishing picture with the baddie and the supposed goodie chumming it up, and the truth was revealed! Thankfully, I don't watch shit like that anymore. But brilliance like this.

[Piano Mouth]

Sing a Song of Sex - Nagisa Oshima



A mesmerizing meditation on aggression and the male libido, youthful carnage fantasies, and kinky desire.

Shinjunku Swan - Sion Sono



Not bad for what is was, a story of guys scouting service girls and turf wars, lots of street fights, melodrama. Very entertaining and fun to watch.

[henriq]

Matthew Saville - Noise (2007)

Excellent film, yes. Love the way we get almost as confused as the detective does - did you spot the killer first time round? - great sound design too. Proof that you can make a first-class thriller without a) (too much) blood b) Plot For Dummies storyline c) Hans Zimmer. Or his ilk. Indeed, recommended to all.

And if you're asking me, not a rhetorical that is, yes I think I spotted him. As you say, brilliant the way the film plays to the confusion and disinterest of the cop.

[Dan Warburton]

Masao Adachi, Artist of Fasting, 2016

One of Japanese cinema's enfants terribles is back, after a 30-year absence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masao_Adachi) and his spin on Kafka (via Genet) is as disturbing and odd as his earlier films. I didn't know Adachi's work until I saw Philippe Grandrieux's documentary profile of him, still working through the back catalogue. But this is a real trip, be warned. https://thereelbits.com/2016/07/30/revi ... f-fasting/

[Dan Warburton]

Catherine Breillat, Une vraie jeune fille, 1976

If the French keep it off the market (this one was withheld for almost a quarter of a century - bloody hell, that's more than twice as long as the ban imposed on Marcel Ophüls' Le chagrin et la pitié) you know it must be able to rub folks up the wrong way. And indeed it does - but Sade and Bataille trade fours with Johnny and Françoise Hardy, and there's much to laugh at. Magnificent performance from Charlotte Alexandra (a cousin of Jane Birkin's but with more on top, if you know what I mean) as Alice, and watch out for a splendid cameo from Shirley "Honeymoon Killers" Stoler too. More detail here http://sensesofcinema.com/2016/cteq/a-real-young-girl/

[Dan Warburton]

Chantal Akerman, La captive, 2000

Another splendid review from Senses of Cinema (worth your while donating a couple of bob, imo) says it better than I could: http://sensesofcinema.com/2004/cteq/la_captive/ But in case you feel you have to read Proust before you tackle the film, don't worry, I haven't (yet) - and the film still works. There's a touch of Rivette (love those captions... "three days later..."), Bresson and maybe Rohmer (a coincidence the movie ends in Biarritz, like Le rayon vert?) Pialat and Cavalier in its impeccably understated artistry. It is also, as the late lamented director says in a bonus interview, a distant relative of Vertigo. Good pedigree, then.

[Dan Warburton]

Aleksei German, Khrustalyov, My Car!, 1988

I'll admit I was about half an hour in and seriously wondering whether or not I should give up - but that's exactly the point, I think. By the time I arrived at the end (alas, the screenshot above is from the film's closing moments, but it doesn't give anything away) I realised I'd just seen a major work. But fuckin' hell it's wilfully obtuse, maddeningly and deliberately so, setting out to "reconstruct the savagery of the era that the director claims as a metaphor 'for the terrible psychological trauma of national anal rape by the state, by tsars and by Bolsheviks'" , to quote this fine review (and if you want to find out about the plot, such as it is, it's explained very well here) http://sensesofcinema.com/2013/cteq/khrustalyov-my-car/ Sure, there's a touch of Fellini to it, but the framing and language and gestures are, like the weather, brutal. Think Amarcord scripted by Andrei Bely and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and shot in Siberia. And no Nino Rota too, but you may spot Khachaturian and Tchaikowsky instead, amongst others. But music is only part of the sound world on offer: there are as many coughs, sneezes, spits, belches, vomits and farts as words at times, dialogue is frequently interrupted by irrelevant (sometimes stupid, sometimes hilarious) interjections from a cast of characters that passes in front of the camera without warning. It's a real challenge, be warned: but having read the review above, especially that line comparing him to Tarkovsky, I'm ready to check out more work by this director.

[Dan Warburton]

Ulrich Seidl, Models, 1999

"A film about the sadness of show business in the B-league – a depressing entertainment about the lies of self-representation," goes one of the reviews on Seidl's website http://www.ulrichseidl.com/en/ulrich-se ... lms/models The chilling Greenawayesque symmetry of Seidl's later works is still a way off, but his ability to put the camera in the right place is clear. Having said that, I won't be coming back to see Lisa's horrendously botoxed lips or Vivian throwing up or snorting lines off the toilet seat. Yikes.

[Dan Warburton]

Charlotte Zwerin, Music for the Movies: Toru Takemitsu, 1994

Wonderful documentary on a great composer - my vote, I think, for my favourite film music composer (in response to the other thread). Salient extracts from the films, interviews with the directors and Takemitsu itself. Sensitively done, really makes you want to run back to the films. Mission accomplished, bravo Ms Zwerin.

[Dan Warburton]

Carlos Saura, El Dorado, 1988

Werner Herzog's Aguirre der Zorn Gottes is one hell of an act to follow, so you have to admire Saura for having the balls to tell the same story. Of course, he can't compete when it comes to spectacular scenery (is the opening of the Herzog the most extraordinary shot in the history of cinema? I'm taking bets), and nobody can hold a candle to Kinski when it comes to sheer craziness, but it's still a very well-crafted and compelling film. Omero Antonutti delivers a fine performance as Aguirre, revealing more of the man and less of the monster, and the Costa Rican jungle probably bears more resemblance to where the El Dorado expedition eventually ended up (sailing down the Orinoco to the Atlantic) than Herzog's rocky canyon. That said, everyone looks just a little too clean - there's no sign of the damp, dirt and sweat. http://www.losttrails.com/pages/Tales/deAguirre.html

[Dan Warburton]

Bertrand Tavernier, La vie et rien d'autre, 1989

As he did later with Capitaine Conan, Bertrand Tavernier finds a corner of history that nobody has ever chosen to explore, and researches it with exemplary precision. "I'm interested not in the actions [of a war film] but in their consequences," says the director in this fine half-hour interview (French only) https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/074505-02 ... tavernier/
Have you ever wondered how they went about finding the 350,000 missing persons buried in the mud of the French countryside at the end of World War I? Or how they chose the Unknown Soldier whose remains lie under the Arc de Triomphe? Probably not - but the director and his scenographer Guy-Claude François (terrific work) have. With his veteran screenwriter Jean Cosmos, who'd actually worked in government in the aftermath of WWII, Tavernier explores the details of France's first faltering steps towards new life after the disasters of the Great War (as they used to call it, and there was fuck all great about it) with true passion. To use of one Tavernier's favourite adjectives: formidable!

[Dan Warburton]

Karim Traïdia, De Poolse bruid ("The Polish Bride"), 1998

"Anna, an abused Polish immigrant forced to work as a prostitute, is rescued by Henk, a taciturn and reclusive farmer. Gradually, as Anna recovers, Henk slowly wins her trust." So writes one punter over at IMDb, and while I share his/her reservations about the film's ending (highly unlikely, imo, that Anna and Henk should suddenly start fucking like rabbits after hacking one pimp to death with an axe and blowing the other to pieces with a shotgun.. and where are they at the end? In Poland? Her daughter shows up.. but as Henk's bank loan has been turned down I assume he's no longer in his farm.. Not clear, but never mind) I found much to enjoy. Have a look and see what you make of the last ten minutes.