Recently Watched Films 2019

[Dan Warburton]

Peter Strickland, The Duke of Burgundy, 2014

"The Killing of Sister George cloaked as Vampyros Lesbos", quips this fine review https://www.filmcomment.com/article/rev ... trickland/ - and, as all you lepidopterists know, the Duke of Burgundy is a species of butterfly (below). British expat director (he lives in Hungary, where this was filmed) Strickland is an intriguing character, as well versed in improvised music (my pal Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg pops up here as he did on Berberian Sound Studio) as he is in schlock sexploitation movies. Jess Franco, Kenneth Anger and Stan Brakhage all get namechecked in this interview https://theseventhart.org/peter-strickl ... -burgundy/ but I detect more than a whiff of Greenaway in the combination of sexual shenanigans and anal collectoritis. And the scripted dialogues recall Lanthimos's Alps (see above), too. Intriguing stuff.

[henriq]

Karel Reisz, Who'll Stop The Rain, 1978

Nick Nolte plays a battle-hardened but somewhat naïve Vietnam vet who gets suck(er)ed into bringing back a bag of heroin by Michael Moriarty - and, say what you like, I know some people here can't stand him, but his performance here is so fuckin' laconic it's simply awesome. It all ends up in a splendid shootout in some hippy hideaway in the desert, and, yes, that Creedence song gets some heavy airplay. I enjoyed myself.

Ha, lurking videophile that I am I got the new rip from KG, though haven't had a chance to see it yet. But, as they always say, the book is so much better. I might come around to Moriarty at some point, though I will always fucking hate fucking Creedence

[henriq]

Patrice Chéreau, Intimacy, 2001

Definitely one of the best films I've seen all year (and as I've just passed the 500 mark, yippeeyay, praise indeed). Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox, magnificent performances. I see though that not everyone liked it (the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw was obviously put off by the sex scenes, poor lamb) - but this review is about in line with my way of thinking https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/11/movi ... tango.html Again, magnificent use of sound - yes, London is noisy - and splendid editing. Nice Marianne Faithfull cameo too, as a bonus.

Merde, must watch! I've had it for ages. By the by, did you see that Pérsecution is seeded again? Not the HD but a smaller one, looks good enough. Absolutely magnificent, that.

[henriq]

Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub, Der Tod des Empedokles, 1987

A free copy of the Hölderlin poem https://www.sunypress.edu/p-4709-the-de ... ocles.aspx to the clown who wrote this review over at IMDb: "Consumer grade camcorder + drama textbooks + people off the street in pantomime costumes. You can even hear the wind! This is so amateurish it's ludicrous. It's hilarious." Well, sigh

Sigh indeed. I both can and cannot understand why you spend time at IMDb...

[Dan Warburton]

Werner Herzog, Nomad: In The Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin, 2019

As the above screenshot makes clear, Werner Herzog obviously had much in common with the legendary travel writer, whose Viceroy of Ouidah became Klaus Kinski's last Herzog outing, Cobra Verde. But, as is often the case with Herzog documentaries, it sort of ends up being more about him and his movies than the subject in hand. For hardcore Herzog fans this is rarely a problem, but to hear him rap on yet again about carting that boat over the hill in Fitzcarraldo and namechecking (and sampling) several other films of his along the way, is a little tiresome. As is the pretty but rather-too-present Ernst Reijseger / Mola Sylla soundtrack. Surely they could have found more archive audio of Chatwin himself? Still, if it makes you want to (re)read Chatwin's books, I suppose it's worthwhile. I've just dusted off my copy of The Songlines. So there.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

Donbass, Sergei Loznitsa, 2018

Sergei Loznitsa's previous film was a near-miss, before it turned, in its final part, into a fiasco, a fellinesque stab at both satire and surrealism (for lack of a better word). All that came before was merely an attempt at high-art, predictably stilted in its depiction of Russia drab reality and the hardships of a young woman unable to bring some parcel to her husband in prison, let alone see him. Donbass is a lot more palatable but not without faults, as its interest is mainly informative about an inscrutable - even more so for we westerners - conflict and its absurdities. It could qualify as some sort of docufiction since its vignettes are partly based on youtube videos, a trendy device nowadays - Roben Ostlund also does that a lot. Most of those vignettes achieve a sense of suspense and absurdity by concealing informations to the spectator, before making a point or some sort of ironic twist at the end. Sometimes it feels earned, or it makes for funny, though uneasy, scenes but on the whole, it appears to be a bit too mechanical. Depth is lacking, which is also perhaps to an extent the point. I'm also under the impression that an opinion from someone from Ukraine or Russia would be a lot more interesting than mine.
(A lot of reviews are speaking about the post-truth era, but, not to sound cynical, was truth ever a thing in war?).

[henriq]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa - Pulse ("Kairo") (2001)

This is one of Kurosawa’s finest, it blew me away a few years ago and is still great. What struck me now - and the first time, come to think of it - is how beautiful it sounds. The music is awesome (I see one copy of the soundtrack CD available on Discogs for an obscene amount - shall I…?), as is the overall sound design, so beautiful that you could probably close your eyes and just enjoy it as a piece of sound art in its own right. I was watching this at work just now, and many times I had to pause the film to discern the source of the room tone pervading the movie: the ambiance of the big empty machine hall where I work gelled perfectly with the tone of the film. Tone in so many ways: the elastic compaction of music, dialogue and sound design carrying the hazy, liminal rhythm of the demonology the film tracks and shapes. Lovely how the demons and ghosts appear as in the slightest of fissures, hiccups, a slight but terrifying thickening of the atmosphere. One of my all time favourite demons: the girl in the empty arcade hall, turning slowly and gliding just the tiniest step out of focus, glitching into horrifying shape. Also interesting how the somewhat unfocussed narrative mirrors the horizontal spread of the urban legend of the film: of course everyone knows what the red tape signifies, the Forbidden Rooms it delineate. Maybe here, in a way, an indictment of the poisonous chatter and unease of the social media looming on the horizon. Beautiful!

[jon abbey]

This is one of Kurosawa’s finest, it blew me away a few years ago and is still great. What struck me now - and the first time, come to think of it - is how beautiful it sounds. The music is awesome (I see one copy of the soundtrack CD available on Discogs for an obscene amount - shall I…?), as is the overall sound design, so beautiful that you could probably close your eyes and just enjoy it as a piece of sound art in its own right. I was watching this at work just now, and many times I had to pause the film to discern the source of the room tone pervading the movie: the ambiance of the big empty machine hall where I work gelled perfectly with the tone of the film. Tone in so many ways: the elastic compaction of music, dialogue and sound design carrying the hazy, liminal rhythm of the demonology the film tracks and shapes. Lovely how the demons and ghosts appear as in the slightest of fissures, hiccups, a slight but terrifying thickening of the atmosphere. One of my all time favourite demons: the girl in the empty arcade hall, turning slowly and gliding just the tiniest step out of focus, glitching into horrifying shape. Also interesting how the somewhat unfocussed narrative mirrors the horizontal spread of the urban legend of the film: of course everyone knows what the red tape signifies, the Forbidden Rooms it delineate. Maybe here, in a way, an indictment of the poisonous chatter and unease of the social media looming on the horizon. Beautiful!

I recommend checking out of some of the Taku Unami discs on my label (Erstwhile), he works a lot with the group of people around Kurosawa, and has cited KK's work as an influence quite a bit. the Teatro Assente disc I put out with him and Takahiro Kawaguchi was recorded in an old famous movie theater in Tokyo, and the photos in the package were taken by Akiko Ashizawa, who was (still is?) Kurosawa's cinematographer for a while.

also on a film tip, I think my favorite KK is Shokuzai, a 5 episode miniseries he did in 2012, 270 minutes in total.

[henriq]

I recommend checking out of some of the Taku Unami discs on my label (Erstwhile), he works a lot with the group of people around Kurosawa, and has cited KK's work as an influence quite a bit. the Teatro Assente disc I put out with him and Takahiro Kawaguchi was recorded in an old famous movie theater in Tokyo, and the photos in the package were taken by Akiko Ashizawa, who was (still is?) Kurosawa's cinematographer for a while.

also on a film tip, I think my favorite KK is Shokuzai, a 5 episode miniseries he did in 2012, 270 minutes in total.

Hello Jon, yes I know and own quite a few Erstwhile records. Both Motubachii and Teatro Assente are in my collection, must give them a new spin some day. Fun story: I listened to Forlorn Green and the dynamics are just scary some times, one detonation in particular that had me scrambling to lower the volume and rendered me a bit of a complaint from my upstairs neighbor the next day.

Must check out Shokuzai. When Kurosawa is good he's really good, Cure, Charisma, Kairo are all awesome. But I do think he fails a bit at times: much as I liked Tokyo Sonata in the first parts of it, staying close to the ground of Japanese society much like Imamura or Oshima before him, he fumbles a bit and tries to lift everything into a rosy humanist glow towards the end. It deflates, at least for me, the momentum and energy that he builds earlier. Give me a terse Akira Kurosawa or Nagisa Oshima any day.

[Dan Warburton]

Must check out Shokuzai.

Yes, me too. Thanks for the heads up Jon. Meanwhile, for those who don't have time to watch movies --



Jean-Luc Godard & François Truffaut, Une histoire d'eau, 1961

Ah, fresh air! If you haven't got time to revisit the classics of the Nouvelle Vague, this 20' short will do nicely. It's a total joy from start to finish: Truffaut shot footage galore of some freak floods outside Paris, but didn't know what to do with it all, so he turned it over to his (then) pal Godard, who grafted one of his sharpest, funniest / punniest scripts on top, and edited with virtuoso brio. Without a doubt the best short film either of the two directors ever turned out, and along with (I'd argue) Rohmer's La boulangère du Monceau the best Nouvelle Vague short full stop, it is, as we say round these parts, incontournable.

[Dan Warburton]

Carlos Reygadas, Post Tenebras Lux, 2012

It was booed at Cannes, but it didn't stop the director being awarded a prize at the Festival. Like many others. (As Maurice Pialat said to the howling punters there back in 1987, "I don't like you either." https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2q7guf ) Anyway, back to Reygadas.. This is one that's divided opinion right down the line, as you can see from some of the assembled reviews here https://www.metacritic.com/movie/post-tenebras-lux The narrative isn't really all that difficult to follow (though some scenes, like the rugby match at an English school, seem to have nothing to do with it at all), but it's probably not all that important to follow it anyway, as it's certainly not linear, like the fractured image used to film many of the scenes - Sokurov fans will appreciate that, methinks. Somewhere between Malick, Kubrick and Lynch, it's at times magic - the two kids are Reygadas' own, and the opening scene with the little girl and the cows is gorgeous - at times incomprehensible (so who's the red neon devil with a big dick and a toolbox? I'm not spoiling anything, you'll see), but not something you're likely to forget. More info here https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/m ... nebras-lux

[ANU]

Carlos Reygadas, Post Tenebras Lux, 2012

It was booed at Cannes, but it didn't stop the director being awarded a prize at the Festival. Like many others. (As Maurice Pialat said to the howling punters there back in 1987, "I don't like you either." https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2q7guf ) Anyway, back to Reygadas.. This is one that's divided opinion right down the line, as you can see from some of the assembled reviews here https://www.metacritic.com/movie/post-tenebras-lux The narrative isn't really all that difficult to follow (though some scenes, like the rugby match at an English school, seem to have nothing to do with it at all), but it's probably not all that important to follow it anyway, as it's certainly not linear, like the fractured image used to film many of the scenes - Sokurov fans will appreciate that, methinks. Somewhere between Malick, Kubrick and Lynch, it's at times magic - the two kids are Reygadas' own, and the opening scene with the little girl and the cows is gorgeous - at times incomprehensible (so who's the red neon devil with a big dick and a toolbox? I'm not spoiling anything, you'll see), but not something you're likely to forget. More info here https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/m ... nebras-lux

since you read french, one of the best review i've ever read : https://www.chronicart.com/cinema/post-tenebras-lux/

[Dan Warburton]

since you read french, one of the best review i've ever read : https://www.chronicart.com/cinema/post-tenebras-lux/

Merci beaucoup "Reygadas a trop de talent pour la modestie, et pas assez pour la simplicité. Souhaitons qu’à l’avenir il se défroque enfin." Ouch! Excellent review, yes.



Marco Ferreri, Break Up, 1965

A shorter version of this typically disturbing Ferreri / Azcona tale of a bored, rich industrialist who becomes obsessed with blowing up balloons and trying to measure how much hot air they contain instead of devoting his attentions to his pretty girlfriend (Freud ahoy) appeared as a segment of a three-part sketch film of the same year, Oggi, domani, dopodomani - but, despite the only available rip being of pretty dubious quality, it's worth your while if you're a Mastroianni fan to check out the extended cut. Cut probably not being the best word to use when balloons are around. Some extraordinary partially colorised scenes in a nightclub I don't recall from the shorter version too. And with this, I can at last say I've now seen all the Marco Ferreris - but I am still waiting for a decent version of La Dernière Femme. As I've no doubt said before.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

Which ones would you recommend Dan ? I only saw La Grande bouffe - and Touche pas à la femme blanche which I had forgotten -and I'm frequently telling myself frequently that I should watch more of his films - starting with L'Udienza. But what's next ?

[Dan Warburton]

Which ones would you recommend Dan ? I only saw La Grande bouffe - and Touche pas à la femme blanche which I had forgotten -and I'm frequently telling myself frequently that I should watch more of his films - starting with L'Udienza. But what's next ?

Without wanting to appear difficult Ben, it's probably easier to list the ones (the few) I don't like as much! Ciao maschio, Storia di Piera, Il futuro è donna, I Love You, La chair... I think he went through a fallow patch in the early 80s. If I had to choose just one, it'd probably be Dillinger e morto, because Piccoli is sensational. But I love the crazy western shot in the building site of the Forum les Halles, Touchez pas à la femme blanche. And since I wrote that silly post above, I've discovered two more that I haven't seen, La casa del sorriso and Le banquet. The KG rip quality looks atrocious, but where else can you get this stuff?

[Dan Warburton]

Miklós Jancsó, The Red and the White, 1967

What a sublime piece of work - and a savage commentary on war, not so much the atrocity of it (though there are literally hundreds of people bludgeoned to death or shot here, there's no visible gore) but the sheer almost polite banality of it. No wonder the Soviets didn't like it when it came out - though you could argue that just about any war, not only their 1919 Civil War - I don't think the world was ready for it. Maybe still isn't. Slow Cinema starts here - Mr Tarr will concur, I suspect. Fine video essay on his stunning long takes here:
https://mubi.com/fr/notebook/posts/vide ... -the-white
http://sensesofcinema.com/2015/cteq/the ... ence-shot/

[Dan Warburton]

Kô Nakahira, The Assignation , 1959

Excellent, compact (71') tale of the wife of a university law professor in a polite but sexless and joyless marriage who has an affair with one of his students, until one night in the park they.. Nah, why should I spoil this? It's well worth a look. Sharp, jazzy score, crisp editing, fine acting. Featured torrent, too, so it's free if you're a Karagargan.

[Dan Warburton]

Peter Fleischmann, Hunting Scenes from Bavaria, 1969

I've wanted to go to Bavaria ever since I fell in love with Herzog's Heart of Glass ages ago (and probably long before that, as I used to have a poster of Neuchswanstein castle in my bedroom), but after seeing the jawdroppingly hypocritical, perverse, sexist, racist, you name it, antics of the villagers here I might just have to rethink my decision. Then again W.G. Sebald came from there, so.. but then again he never went back. Anyway, what a terrific(ally depressing) indictment of small town mentality and prejudice. There are no good guys here - even the victimised Abram, hunted down (literally, but no spoilers) for having homosexual tendencies does little to hide them.. And the grinning mentally challenged teenager he gropes proves to be just as despicable and hurtful as the adults. Crikey. Great film. Watch out for a young Hanna Schygulla too.

[Dan Warburton]

Ken Jacobs, Star Spangled to Death, 2004

Well, I finally made it through all, what, six, seven? hours of this sprawling utterly fucked montage of 1930s über-non-PC documentaries and blackface "comedies" (Justin Trudeau's got nothing on Al Jolson), 1950s scientific documentaries on animal experiments, Nixon telecasts and cheesy Eisenhower-era pap, interspersed with footage of Jack Smith and his troupe clowning around NYC in the 60s (I think) and Jacobs' own intertitles taking W to task for the War on Terror, many of which appear as mere flickers on the screen and half of which are impossible to read, and, despite the blurb at the end of the film, not available it seems online. It's lauded as one of the holy grails of American Experimental Cinema, but it's a real slog. I've never quite understood the attraction of Jack Smith, but I'll have another look at Flaming Creatures and report back in due course. Won't be revisiting this one, though, I reckon.

[Dan Warburton]

Sharunas Bartas, Indigène d'Eurasie ("Eastern Drift"), 2010

As he gets older, Bartas seems to be making more, um, conventional films - this is basically a gangster-trying-to-quit-the-game noir pursuit movie, a sort of wintry version of The Getaway without the happy ending (but the Jim Thompson book didn't have a happy ending either). To quote Variety's plot summary: "Left broke when an associate (Erwan Ribard) stiffs him on a debt, drug smuggler Genia (helmer Bartas) has no choice but to ask for money back from a Russian mobster if he’s going to get out the biz and retire to France with his French g.f. Gabrielle (Elisa Sednaoui). He travels to Moscow where he crashes with ex-g.f. Sasha (Klavdia Korshunova, pic’s best thing), a hooker with a heart. After it all goes tits up (in every sense — pic sports lots of gratuitous nudity), Genia goes on the run with Sasha, ending up in France via Belarus and Lithuania. Dire editing, Bartas’ inability to shoot action, act himself or direct thesps all create a tedious excursion." I can't speak for the editing - I can, I think, spot dire editing in a straightforward Hollywood flick, but I suspect what this reviewer considers to be bad is probably what the director intended. As for "inability to shoot action", I'd take issue with the word inability - reluctance, maybe? Presumably the reviewer isn't familiar with Bartas' earlier, Tarr-like stasis.. I wonder if he'd also accuse Tarr of dire editing and inability to shoot action in his slo-mo noir The Man From London. Anyway, Bartas is very good imo as an actor here, and his two leading ladies are drop dead gorgeous. Shame they don't all make it to end of the film. Not saying any more