Z (1969).

Review #1966: Z.

Cast: 

Yves Montand (The Deputy), Irene Papas (Hélène), Jean-Louis Trintignant (The Examining Magistrate), François Périer (Public prosecutor), Jacques Perrin (Photojournalist), Charles Denner (Manuel), Pierre Dux (The General), Georges Géret (Nick), Bernard Fresson (Matt), Marcel Bozzuffi (Vago), Julien Guiomar (The Colonel), Magali Noël (Nick's Sister), and Renato Salvatori (Yago) Directed by Costa-Gavras.

Review: 

"Politics. They always want to talk to me about politics. But for me politics is everyday life, the way we deal with other people and the way they deal with us. In a certain way, I can say all movies are political. But there's another thing about politics—power. A director has power over other people. And above me, there are people who have power over me. Politics is how we use that power, to be kind or aggressive, and how other people do the same with us."

There are various directors of political and social quality to note, with Costa-Gavras being a key force in that aspect for world cinema. He was born Konstantinos Gavras in 1933 in Loutra Iraias, Arcadia, Greece. His father served in the Greek Resistance against the Nazis in World War II, but his backing of the Communists within the National Liberation Front later caused his son to not be allowed to study in Greek universities when civil war in the country broke out. As such, Costa-Gavras moved to France after turning 18. He studied literature at the University of Paris and was planning to study law before deciding to study film at Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) in 1956. He soon served as an assistant director for people such as Rene Clair (who he cited as saying that everything for a director happens in the editing room) or René Clément (who he cited as teaching him the biggest lesson in technique) during this time. The Sleeping Car Murders (1965) was the debut feature film for Costa-Gavras, which was a mystery film. It was followed by Shock Troops (1967), an action-drama movie about French resistance fighters. Z (1969) was his breakthrough film. Overall, he has directed numerous movies in a career that has spanned a half-century, primarily spending his time directing French productions (with a few English exceptions and his one Greek production in 2019), such as Missing, released in 1982 that adapted a book covering the disappearance of American journalist Charles Horman in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, or with Music Box, released in 1989 about war crime charges, and others such as Amen., released in 2002 that talked about the relationship of the Vatican and Nazi Germany in World War II. On May 22, 1963, anti-war activist and Greek politican Grigoris Lambrakis was struck by two far-right extremists driving in a three-wheeled vehicle after having done a public speech. He died five days later, sparking a wide demonstration and investigation, headed by investigator Christos Sartzetakis. The investigation saw plenty of connections revealed of the police and army to extremists, but the murderers got off due to the favoring of the state. As such, the movie is based on the 1967 novel of the same name (based on the first letter of the Greek word Zi, meaning "he lives!") by Vassilis Vassilikos that detailed the events that followed the death of Lambrakis. Sartzetakis was a Greek writer and journalist who had been sent into exile from his native Greece following the coup of 1967, which saw the military junta take over the country. The screenplay was written by Jorge Semprún and Costa-Gavras. The film was shot mostly in Algeria while being shot mostly in the French language with a bit of Russian and English involved without identifying the country of setting, complete with a disclaimer that says the resemblances between the movie and actual events are entirely on purpose with no coincidences.

It is evident to note the influence the film had on many filmmakers: Oliver Stone mentions the film often as an influence on his filmmaking. Steven Soderbergh wanted Traffic (2000) to capture "that great feeling of things that are caught, instead of staged, which is what we were after." William Friedkin figured out how to shoot The French Connection (1971) by watching this film, which he felt was shot like a documentary. Simply put, it clearly had an effective power on those who watched the film. This is the kind of movie that introduces you to people high in power that want equate their political opponents as "mildew of the mind". It is a political thriller that grips your imagination and never lets go for 127 minutes, finding plenty to say about just how far justice can lead when power lurks beneath the surface. Whether one goes into the movie knowing anything about European politics or not, the important thing to remember is to go into things with a clear head. Greece would not have democracy until 1974, but it doesn't diminish the overall importance of a movie that is essentially a primal scream for sanity, one where its ending will stay with you for quite some time. Life may be followed by death, but that doesn't mean that law is necessarily followed by order. There is no one actor that dominates the film in terms of screentime, but Montand obviously makes the key impression needed as a pillar of would-be hope, which proves tactful in setting up a moment of history (as one might put it) that has human vitality. Papas is the only Greek actor in the cast, but her expression in the face of despondency is all one needs. Trintignant sears through with inquisitive definition that is probably the most clinical charming role of the film, or at least right next to Perrin and his restless energy that pops in now and then. Again, the movie isn't really about one defining performance but instead an organic mix of actors that are each distinct in their own little roles and requirements, such as the adversarial Dux or the hired guns in Bozzuffi and Salvatori that seem completely convincing to what is needed. Costa-Gavras and his crew, such as cinematographer Raoul Coutard and his editor Françoise Bonnot managed to create a great thriller that never seems crafted in artifice or pretentiousness, always having a grip on one's attention wherever it goes in the chase for facts and some sort of reason in a possibly reasonless world. The movie speaks truth to power in the inevitability that comes with unchecked ideology. Its cry for vision that does not vanish regardless of who dies for it makes it one for the ages in enduring passion, one with a bitter ending perfect for the moment that does not erase it as worthwhile entertainment for information. Costa-Gavras crafted a worthy political feature with plenty of interest to spark for all curious in terms of history and beyond that makes for quality truth in film with great execution.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

I hope you folks enjoyed the second edition of New Directors Month in January. I hope you enjoyed the attempt at trying to include as many American and world cinema movies as possible, which saw countries like Iran, North Korea, and Algeria be featured for the first time. There were a handful of finalists in films & new directors in the 18-review month that missed the cut, some of which were the following: Goin' to Town [Alexander Hall], New Women [Cai Chusheng], Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis [Walter Ruttmann], I Am Cuba [Mikhail Kalatozov], Possessor [Brandon Cronenberg], and Don Jon [Joseph Gordon-Levitt]. There may yet be a place to spotlight these films this year or whenever it seems appropriate. As always, suggestions are welcome.

Now, onto Black History Month.

Tár.

Review #1965: Tár.

Cast: 

Cate Blanchett (Linda Tarr/Lydia Tár), Nina Hoss (Sharon Goodnow), Noémie Merlant (Francesca Lentini), Sophie Kauer (Olga Metkina), Julian Glover (Andris Davis), Allan Corduner (Sebastian Brix), Mark Strong (Eliot Kaplan), Sylvia Flote (Krista Taylor), Adam Gopnik (himself), Mila Bogojevic (Petra), Zethphan Smith-Gneist (Max) Written and Directed by Todd Field.

Review: 

"Well, I'd been thinking about this character for a very long time and sort of been asking myself, you know, some questions of how we look at power, you know? Like, who has it? Who feeds it? Who benefits? You know, and from the beginning of time, that hasn't really been a question."

Admittedly, defining a director by the number of films directed is pretty dubious. But it does lead to interesting discussions, as is the case with Todd Field. Born in Pomona, California but raised in Portland, Oregon, he honed his interests in music and acting, with his debut in the latter being in 1986. His interest in directing came in 1992, which began a slew of short films with the American Film Institute. In 2001, he made his feature film debut as the director and co-writer of In the Bedroom, an independent film success. He returned in 2006 with Little Children, which was a critical hit. However, his third feature film did not come for sixteen years, which occurred due to a variety of projects dying in development (of course, he also had the pleasure of parenthood as well, so he obviously had a point in setting a sight of doing particular material he wanted). Field wrote the script specifically in the hopes of getting Blanchett (and only her) to star in the film. Field might be one of very few people to benefit from a car crash, oddly enough. He had been told by Blanchett's agent that she would be too busy to work on any more projects for three years before he got into a car crash. Apparently, the agent felt sorry enough about hearing of the wreck that she stated that Field could be allowed to send Blanchett the script for her to read, which she liked. All diegetic music (source music) was recorded live on-set, whether that involves the piano, the cello, or the Dresden Philharmonic (used for the fictional orchestra seen in the film).

It is funny and sad at the same time to talk about a movie that came and went with mild fanfare that saw more people talk about the title character and so-called "cancel culture" rather than people seeing it. For the most part, I didn't even find the title character that particularly unlikable, instead finding a twisted pity for seeing how far a bully can go in a downfall when all they wanted to do was to be judged on their own merits that made them both a genius and, well, Tár. Hell, I actually read an article that (jokingly or not) thought that believed Tár was a real person (the name dropping of certain composers that were accused of sexual misconduct, is accurate, however). Field has stated that the film is in many ways a fractured fairy tale (since there has never actually been a female principal conductor of a major German orchestra). I would also say it is also an inversion of both the biopic and ghost story. This is the kind of movie where the lead character finds a mentor in Leonard Bernstein that is basically "I watched tapes of the famed composer and found something worth looking to".  I loathe the idea of calling a movie any certain kind of statement on something, but I will say that it most certainly is not a look into "cancel culture". Actual conductor Marin Alsop (the first woman appointed to lead a major American orchestra) slammed the movie as some sort of film that offended her as a "woman...as a conductor...as a lesbian". Besides, having a few similar characteristics to Alsop isn't particularly a bad thing when one is a movie involving an accused pervert and the other is real life (besides, isn't true equality about having ambiguous characters of all genders rather than sugarcoating?). But this is a movie about the all-corrupting nature of power, one that sees the highs and lows that come with trying to assert their status, which I think is universal beyond the genders (in other words, movies are not always going to be about likable winners making contributions to society, so pick better next time), which corrodes our ideals and fantasies until we don't even recognize ourselves. Besides, a movie can pack plenty of curiosity and interest in a subject with an (perceived) unlikable character if the execution is done right, and I believe that is the case here. Granted, it is a long and winding road to get there, but it ultimately proves worth it to those with the fortitude to see something with as much edge in descent as there is visual style present here.

In a movie with the titling style of a biopic, there is something amusing about that particular character finding it odd to see pupils interested more in the personal history and identity of a musician than their actual work. Blanchett listened to recordings of "razor-sharp, absolutely authentic public intellectual" Susan Sontag. She has stated that the character is basically one who tries to hide from both the unpleasant side of oneself and the inevitable specter of death, which she accomplishes well in ambiguity when you see the contrast between the public and private persona that are driven by sound.  As such, it probably isn't surprising that she dominates the film with a tremendous performance, one composed of such vaunted confidence as a dominator of timing and poise...which makes the eventual descent all the more entertaining. That doesn't mean the other actors are forgettable, since they each do pretty well as mere tools of transactional contrast with Blanchett, whether that involves ones engaging in complicity such as Merlant or the perfect enabler with Hoss or the perfect conniving company man in Strong.

Probably the best scene to look upon her as a character is a scene where she is trying to teach a masterclass about composers and finds herself with someone not interested in Johann Sebastian Bach. It works so well in bitter amusement because of how it presents each presence in where each can be thought to be right and wrong in what ends up being a ten-minute masterclass in a long take vivisection (as executed by Field and cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister). It certainly is a movie that captures great scope for its 158-minute runtime, with Hoffmeister defining the film's visual style as "appearance, being, detachment, and intimacy", and I would say that makes this a highly interesting film to let sift in your mind, one where the second half is undoubtedly best to sift through in dissecting a downfall first-hand. Of course, the nature of its ending and the ways it gets there is entirely up to the viewer to see if it pays off in splendid ways or not (it does for me, with those last moments of seeing where the new skin of a genius at persona-inventing has led them). It is a movie all about details to look forward and backward through, one that asks probing questions about just what a genius means when it comes to the power they wield in public and private and where it can all lead to. Whether one believes it is one of the best films of the year or not, Tár is definitely an accomplishment for both its main star and director in striking power that makes it a curious film to recommend for those who look for contemporary enjoyment or to see what could happen the more times they find themselves coming back to it. 

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Ivan's Childhood.

Review #1964: Ivan's Childhood.

Cast: 

Nikolai Burlyayev (Ivan Bondarev), Valentin Zubkov (Capt. Kholin), Evgeny Zharikov (Lt. Galtsev), Stepan Krylov (Cpl. Katasonov), Valentina Malyavina (Masha), Nikolai Grinko (Lt. Col. Gryaznov), Dmitri Milyutenko (Old Man), Irma Raush (Ivan's mother), and Andrei Konchalovsky (Soldier) Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.

Review: 

“If you ask me what influence I have received from artists like Bresson, Antonioni, Bergman, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, I must say none. I have no desire to imitate any of them. Since the main goal of any art is to find a personal means of expression. A language which to express what’s inside of you.” 

Admittedly, no auteur is easy to define because that is to assume one can peg a director as being only a certain type in specialization in words rather than seeing for themselves, as is the case with Andrei Tarkovsky. He was born in the village of Zavrazhye in the Kadyysky District, Kostroma Oblast of the Soviet Union as the son of a Soviet poet/translator Arsent Tarkovsky, who served in World War II and ended up losing a leg. Tarkovsky studied music and arts in school (with one year of Arabic studying as well), but he was more of a troublemaker than a solid student. His interest in film was not immediately present, as he applied to the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (now known as the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography) after serving in a research expedition as a prospector (with his time spent in a taiga influencing him); noted filmmaker Mikhail Romm was his professor. His first film as a student came with collaboration with Aleksandr Gordon and Marika Beiku, for which it resulted in the 19-minute short The Killers (1956) that saw all the roles played by VGIK students. Gordon and Tarkovsky collaborated with each other three years later with There Will Be No Leave Today as a practical exercise to learn the basics of filmmaking. Tarkovsky directed (and co-wrote) one more short with The Steamroller and the Violin (1960), which served as his diploma film. One film that influenced Tarkovsky as a filmmaker was Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds (1958), but he was also influenced by Japanese cinema as well.  Ivan's Childhood (1962) was his first feature film, coming off the heels of other Soviet films such as The Cranes Are Flying (1957), Ballad of a Soldier (1959), Fate of a Man (1959) in their depiction of the human costs of war that were distinct from previous Soviet works involving World War II (i.e. not just a war movie depicting glory). The Khrushchev Thaw in the mid-1950s certainly helped directors in the country get better chances at making features. Before his death, he wrote a book with Sculpting in Time, which talked about each of his films (along with including other aspects of writing, such as poetry by his father) that attempted to give insight into his manner of filmmaking, complete with including letters of people who wrote to him expressing their thoughts on his films. Tarkovsky died of cancer at the age of 54 in 1986, but his legacy lives on in the seven feature films that he made, such as Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), and Stalker (1979); a statue of him rests on the entrance of VGIK.

The film is an adaptation of the 1957 novella Ivan, as written by Vladimir Bogomolov. He co-wrote the film alongside Andrei Konchalovsky and Mikhail Papava (Tarkovsky also contributed to writing, albeit without credit), one that saw the director be approached only because another director's attempts at doing a film version was rejected. Tarkovsky once stated that art enriches the spiritual capabilities of a man, one that can help rise above oneself to enact free will. He was quoted later as saying that he hoped with this film that he could establish whether or not he had what it took to be a director (stating that any time of trying to "replace narrative causality with poetic articulations" saw film authorities take umbrage), and he expressed certain regrets about how certain scenes were shot. At any rate, the movie is best enjoyed as one where you let the images sift through your mind with concentration, one where memory and poetry end up being far more important than sifting through in a linear fashion. It is a film of rhythmic elements that express time and memory as if they were two sides of a coin. One dwells on Burlyayev not in the usual manner one thinks of when it comes to a coming-of-age story but instead sees him warped by the bounds of time and memory that expresses Tarkovsky's hatred of war expressed in a war that saw plenty of children lose their lives but just as many lose their childhood. It creates an unwieldly dichotomy all throughout the 94-minute run-time, whether that involves dreams or reality within landscapes, or a child within guilt and innocence, or in the end, time within life and death. It is a movie to look upon the imagery within time, such as the time spent in a night-time swamp that sees "Welcome" bodies laid out or the eventual result from going from battle to footage of Berlin. As a whole, Tarkovsky would have plenty of further works to delve further into the nature of time and memory that makes this film seem his "most accessible", but do not let the labeling fool you: it is a curious film that one should absorb as a passage of poetic links to help open one's mind up. As a directorial debut, Tarkovsky certainly succeeds in his expression of what he wants to deliver, simply put.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: Two to go in New Directors Month, with the next one being a movie from 2022.

The Driller Killer.

Review #1963: The Driller Killer.

Cast: 

Abel Ferrara (Reno Miller), Carolyn Marz (Carol), Baybi Day (Pamela Bergling), Harry Schultz II (Dalton Briggs), Alan Wynroth (Landlord), Maria Helhoski (Nun), James O'Hara (Man in church), Richard Howorth (Carol's husband), D.A. Metrov (Tony Coca-Cola), and Butch Morris (Sidewalk Beggar) Directed by Abel Ferrara.

Review: 

"You’ve got to be clear on what you’re doing, what you’re making, and why you’re making it. The first arbitrator of what you do has got to be yourself. Especially if you work from your imagination, you better be very careful with your priorities, man. Not to control your imagination, but to be clear about how you’re being a human being. "

Being provocative certainly could do wonders to having a long and winding career as a filmmaker if done correctly, and Abel Ferrara certainly deserves the appreciation of that label. Born in the Bronx, he made movies from a young age, tinkering with it in high school before making them more regularly when attending Rockland Community College (doing so to try and avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War). He then attended State University of New York at Purchase and the San Francisco Art Institute before he left film school in 1976. He directed his first feature film...with an adult pornographic film 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy (1976). But The Driller Killer (1979) would garner him actual attention, even if it really came from the fact that the United Kingdom called it a "video nastie" due to its cover (well, it also is a movie about a power drill killing spree, but Americans didn't have a problem). The movie was filmed on weekends with a script that basically had improvisations so scenes could lead to other scenes, since the actors were a mix of professionals and non-professionals. The film was written by Nicholas St. John (writer name for Nicodemo Oliverio), a childhood friend of Ferrera who would write for several more of his films; the lead character apparently was inspired by a guy Ferrera knew who had a problem with homeless folks. There are two versions of the film: the 96 minute version is the one released in theaters, while a 101-minute version was found decades later before a DVD release, as Ferrera cut five minutes prior to release that involve a bit of character development. Over the next four decades, Ferrera has directed a variety of features with varying levels of provocateur status in genres (while also directing a bit in television along with dabbling in acting), such as Ms. 45 (1981), King of New York (1990), Bad Lieutenant (1992), and Mary (2005).

Evidently, Ferrara had described the film as a comedy rather than an exploitative horror film. Eh, the best way to view the movie is to look at as a weird punk movie, an expression of an artist's frustrations and stresses brought out in Freudian stabbing with a drill. It a strange curiosity, since it is more a composition of the danger in mixing fear and anger together rather than straight exploitation trash. It isn't content with sticking to any kind of expectation you might see from the portrait of a guy with just a bit too much stress, right down to how it closes its proceedings, and it means that one will either enjoy or throw their hands in the air. It is a movie about the fear of becoming a failure that leads one to drilling at their problems in ways that somehow make complete sense and yet seem completely ridiculous at the same time. It is a gritty and grimy movie, one where you can practically feel these people on screen. Ferrera (who cast himself to star, just like did with his previous film) makes a quality focus in terms of expressing what a starving artist looks like in all of its primal instincts in terms of stress and desperation, one that doesn't require your pity. He has stated that when watching the film decades later, he thought that it was composed of people who "look like they would never make another film", which meant that they basically put everything they had in it. In that sense, I find myself thinking the movie would be hard to recommend to those who desire something straight to the point in their horror movies. It is a messy movie made with gusto for being messy that I end up liking mostly for its brazen confidence to stumble wherever it likes. It is somehow punk enough to not care about the consequences of its actions in its psycho-drama that it ultimately ends up playing a punch line in the overall result. There is something to be said about a movie with drills and punks that ends up riling your senses in straight-shooting ways that invite further provocation from a director who clearly is interested in doing so. For a film publicly available to view, it won't be for everyone, but sometimes you have to drill out the doubt and see for yourself where punk exploitation can go. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Man with a Movie Camera.

Review #1962: Man with a Movie Camera.

Cast: 

Mikhail Kaufman (The Cameraman) Written and Directed by Dziga Vertov.

Review: 

"My film therefore signifies: The struggle between everyday vision and cinematic vision, the struggle between real space and cinematic space, the struggle between real time and cinematic time."

The story of the director behind the film is basically the entire review, if you think about it. Born as David Abelevich Kaufman, he was a pioneer documentary film and newsreel director that was raised in the Russian Empire (in Bialystok, Poland, which at the time was in the Empire) born to Jewish intellectuals. After a childhood spent at the Białystok Modern School, he studied music theory before he began studying at the Psychoneurological Institute, as operated by psychologist Vladimir Bekhterev. His family fled to Moscow when the German armies made their advance during World War I. He eventually changed his name to be referred to as Dziga Vertov, with both names roughly translating from phrases about spinning (the former is the Ukrainian word for spinning top while the latter comes from the verb vertit’sia). The Revolutions of 1917 served as his guiding point to becoming a filmmaker, as he (aged 21) began as a newsreel camerawork during the Russian Civil War. He developed an idea involving film truth with Kino-Pravda, a series of newsreels directed by him alongside Elizaveta Svilova and Mikhail Kaufman in 1922. His Kino-Glaz theory, as he would put it, would propose that the camera is an instrument like the human eye that is suitable for seeing the happening of real life without the need for artifice like studio staging. In the next decade, he would direct various features with A Sixth Part of the World (1926) or Enthusiasm (1931), a sound feature with mechanical sounds that he called a "complex interaction". His last film with artistic control was Lullaby (1937), for which afterwards he was relegated to newsreels, as the age of Stalin did not favor his methods in the Soviet Union. His methods of filming have proven influential to several film movements, most notably with cinéma vérité. His two brothers Boris and Mikhail Kaufman became filmmakers in their own right, the former being a cinematographer on esteemed features such as On the Waterfront (1954). Vertov died at the age of 58 in 1954, but his legacy as a filmmaker grew in the next couple of decades, ranging from a group being named in his honor to the dawn of various cinema movements that all had some relation to his style, such as Direct Cinema, for example.

The resulting film is a documentary in numerous formats: it documents a day in the life of the Soviet Union, it documents the audience watching said film and it documents the editing of the film. There exists pages that visualize Vertov's intent with shooting the camera, whether that involves a camera lens that filmed like a gun. The best way to watch a movie that is just 68 minutes long is to just allow the images to sift through your mind to see how the rhythm moves on a visual level, where it isn't so much just describing things that happen more so than seeing how sincere Vertov is in actually wanting to make a movie that is just a camera in motion. Sure, movies would absolutely never get rid of actors or artifice, but the film is still sincere enough in its visual curiosity for the ordinary. People are born, people die, but the images endure all the same. It never comes off as pretentious for what it wants to show within the space of the camera, balancing the fine line of showing wonder without overextending oneself. It shows the magic of what can be shown in a camera alone without making it a novelty that can be exploited like cattle. It experiments even when showing a camera "moving", much in the same way an artist experiments when doodling. As such, seeing shots captured when the camera is strapped somewhere that isn't just a static shot or the use of montages is something that still looks far more than just ordinary when it is used in a film like this.

The reputation of the film at the time was not particularly favorable. Sergei Eisenstein called it "pointless camera hooliganism". It alienated those who believe it was more of a case of trickery or alienating. However, the reputation of the film has improved greatly in the next nine decades, to the point where some have called it one of the greatest movies ever made. As the movie is in the public domain, it is readily available, although there have been several soundtracks that have been released in the last 40 years (the original film was accompanied by live music), whether that involved Un Drame Musical Instantané, or British jazz with The Cinematic Orchestra, or even with multi-theremin ensembles. As a whole, Man with a Movie Camera is all of the things you would think could come from a film without actors and plenty more, one that endures for what it says on and off the camera about ourselves.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.

Review #1961: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.

Cast: 

Natalie Wood (Carol Sanders), Robert Culp (Bob Sanders), Elliott Gould (Ted Henderson), Dyan Cannon (Alice Henderson), Horst Ebersberg (Horst), Lee Bergere (Emilio), Donald F. Muhich (Psychiatrist), Noble Lee Holderread Jr. (Sean Sanders), K. T. Stevens (Phyllis), and Celeste Yarnall (Susan) Directed by Paul Mazursky.

Review: 

"You start out thinking there are rules, but as life goes on you find out it doesn't work that way."

Oh sure, Paul Mazursky was a director of social movies, but how many people made their debut in film that was a director's debut film? The Brooklyn native was the son of a piano player (who often took him to the movie theater) and a laborer; interested in acting from a young age, he graduated from Brooklyn College. Right before graduating, he mounted a production of a play, and it stoked the interest of a writer who was getting a script of his filmed; Mazursky as introduced to Stanley Kubrick for what became Fear and Desire (1952). The film wasn't a huge hit, so he waited tables alongside serving as a uniformed messenger for a delivery service for a time, and he also did his own nightclub act in the mid 1950s. He would dabble in a variety of supporting roles over the years in film and television, with his first writing job being for The Danny Kaye Show in 1963, where he reconnected with Larry Tucker. Tucker and Mazursky would write on the show for four years. They did their first script together for an idea that Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider had about a fictional rock-and-roll group; the resulting pilot became The Monkees, the only script that the two worked on in the resulting series run. In 1968, they wrote their first film script with I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968). He made his debut feature as a filmmaker with Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). In addition to directing, Mazursky wrote this film with Larry Tucker (who served as producer). He would direct a variety of features over the next two decades, such as Harry and Tonto (1974; the only one of his films to win an Academy Award, which went to Art Carney for acting), An Unmarried Woman (1978), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), and Enemies, A Love Story (1989). Mazursky stated his technique as one with plenty of preparation, from rehearsing with the actors for weeks to planning out shots before filming would start. A five-time Academy Award nominee, Mazursky died at the age of 84 in 2014. For this film, Mazursky was inspired by an article he read in Time magazine about Fritz Perls, a "gestalt therapist" that was described as being in a hot tub with naked people at a place called the Esalen Institute (located in the Slates Hot Springs in Big Sur, California), a place formed in 1962 dealing with New Age therapy. Mazursky was interested in seeing what the fuss was about and he went up there with his wife. The result of being the only couple at a place like that resulted in a flurry of script pages, and Mazursky later went to Tucker to collaborate on finishing the script. The film was a general success with audiences and for its crew, obviously.

How many movies were there that said one word about infidelity or even the idea of swapping wives at the time? When it comes to interpersonal relationships in society, it shouldn't be surprising that a movie like this came around as a comedy-drama. I do recall that I once knew people that were associates of people that I used to call good friends that participated in an open marriage for a brief time (because obviously you have to tell someone this rather than keep it hidden). Since I was a college student, it amused me (I am probably the type who takes bitter amusement at things), particularly in an era where phones communicate information far faster than in 1969. There was supposed to be a point to the previous sentences, but I sure as hell can't tell you what it means, aside from the fact that certain things seem far funnier when they aren't happening to you, as if making fun of annoying people is enjoyable (therapy or no therapy). In short: the times may change, but certain habits in romance do not, no matter how one tries to pass off insecurity as members of the revolution, with full honesty and emotional openness seem more like brand names than the vanguard for sexual liberation, where the adults seem more like they want to be kids. The movie is more of a well-shot curiosity rather than a fully endearing classic, but it still is generally involving enough to make its pursuit of human interest feel real. He aspired to make an atmosphere of familiarity among his actors that would make it so the actor knows the can't make a mistake, one where his style is all about making people think things are improvised, although the psychotherapy scene (involving Muhich, Mazursky's real-life psychoanalyst) was slightly improvised. On the one side of the quartet, you have the freshly born couple of "new honesty" that play deep into irony when freely talking about love affairs in Culp and Wood. Culp (fresh off the end of I Spy) is probably the most interesting to me of the four, in that he seems the most pathetic in his earnestness of new-found feeling, captured greatly in a scene where he talks with a guy who was having fun under the covers with his wife. If the 1970s would end up being called the "me decade", Culp and his mannerisms in reacting to the dawn of a time where one remodels oneself is destined for strange things galore. Wood had basically gone into semi-retirement by the time of this film, and she would appear as a main actor in four films over the next decade-and-a-half. Her vulnerability in the face of "found freedom of the sexes" is quite striking in how well she does in how rich in irony it all is. She may be enthusiastic about trying to push ahead in openness, but you still see the real person inside when it comes to seeing the cracks in trying to play enlightenment all the way through. On the other side of the quartet is a square couple in Gould and Cannon (both who rose to prominence with this film after years of Broadway and television, respectively), brittle and uptight as could be expected from people that are as effective in the teetering side of matrimony, which is probably best represented by a long ten-minute sequence between the two that sees a whole argument scrub itself in resolute realness. They are all insecure, it just so happens some of them look different when presented as fully honest or emotionally open. You generally can see at least one of these people as someone you might know, whether that involves hypocrites practicing marriage or stiff spirits. It does so without playing to some sort of moral high ground, as the director clearly likes these people enough on a level to play fair and let the audience make their own ideas. The ending is ideal in its messy resolutions that basically have the characters in a circle with one idea of what they didn't want on the pursuit of what they believe they want as people with lovers (some folks thought at the time that it was a cop-out ending, but come on now, I've seen bigger cop outs). As a whole, this is the kind of movie that moves to its own beat in portraying the human element in most of the messy qualities that come with attempts at trying to fix one's marriage or grow in emotional honesty, which results in a useful feature of its time. It isn't quite great, but it is a suitable messy movie of messy people from 1969 worth checking out as the first venture from Paul Mazursky.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Next up, an old movie on the ledger since 2019.

Branded to Kill.

Review #1960: Branded to Kill.

Cast: 

Joe Shishido (Goro Hanada), Koji Nanbara (the Number One Killer), Isao Tamagawa (Michihiko Yabuhara), Annu Mari (Misako Nakajo), Mariko Ogawa (Mami Hanada), and Hiroshi Minami (Gihei Kasuga) Directed by Seijun Suzuki.

Review: 

"It's not really the genre I'm interested in, but the character of the yakuza or a killer. They wander between life and death. As a character they are more interesting than normal people. They live very near death, so we can describe how they die, where they die, and when they die. You have a wider range of possibilities than you otherwise would if you were depicting a normal person."

See, there are maverick film directors anywhere you look, you just have to find them. Seijun Suzuki actually studied first at a trade school in Tokyo in 1941 and wanted to apply to the college of the Ministry of Agriculture before failing the entrance exam that had him land in Hirosaki instead. He got recruited to serve in the Imperial Japanese Army in 1943, which resulted in a series of incidents such as multiple ship wrecks, service as a trainee officer that saw him spent most of his money "on booze and women" (in his words), and a closing rank of Second Lieutenant in the Meteorological Corps. He found certain horrors of war comical, such as an occasion of him being thrown into the sea during a bombing raid. At any rate, he went back to Hirosaki to continue his studies after the war ended before trying to apply to the University of Tokyo before failing out and finding a place at the film department of the Kamakura Academy. In 1948, he took and passed the entrance exam at the Shochiku Company and became an assistant director. He described his work there as being "a melancholy drunk". He got hired in 1954 by Nikkatsu, which had been closed during the war-time era by the government and relied on luring assistants with better pay. He soon graduated to directing in 1956, for which Suzuki would make a variety of features at the company, such as pop musicals, comedies, and action films. However, he had a desire for better quality scripts, as he felt that the only way to deal with B-tier scripts was to "have fun" with the material in playing with stylization, much to the chagrin of the studio. Youth of the Beast (1963) and The Bastard (1963) are considered turning points in his career, with Suzuki referring to the former as his "first truly original film" and the latter an important one in "making the fundamental illusion of cinema more powerful" (referring to his collaboration with Takeo Kimura as designer) Suzuki directed only eight films after basically being blacklisted after the release of this film (with his last one being in 2005), but Zigeunerweisen (1980), the first in what became his "Taishō Roman Trilogy", was a noted success among the indie circuit before dying in 2017 at the age of 93. The influence of a film that was originally a massive failure has spread far and wide, ranging from esteemed directors such as John Woo and Quentin Tarantino to others such as Jim Jarmusch (who mirrored a particular scene from this film for his own feature in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai).

The story goes that Nikkatsu wanted to make a low-budget B-movie (a hitman movie that wasn't too far off from what they usually did with yakuza films) that would have Shishido as star. When they hated the script given to them, they asked Suzuki to rewrite and direct. The result was one that saw a script written by Hachiro Guryu (translates to "Group of Eight"), which was the combined efforts of Suzuki, Takeo Kimura, Atsushi Yamatoya, Yōzō Tanaka, Chūsei Sone, Yutaka Okada, Seiichirō Yamaguchi and Yasuaki Hangai. Suzuki's style of collaboration and improvisation is how one gets the idea to have a killer that loves the smell of boiled rice or actors play the roles as they saw fit. How many movies do you know that have butterflies come onto the screen that signifies obsessive love? Or characters that sleep with their eyes open and urinate where they sit? This is a spontaneous movie that plays fast and loose with the genre of noir in being a freeform oddball movie. People in this film are ciphers and the action is abstract, complete with a cat-and-mouse climax that can only be watched for oneself rather than trying to describing it in detail. It is as if Suzuki made films about things he wanted to understand rather than make a so-called "comprehensible movie", where time and space are just wherever the hell he chooses. He aspires to entertain in a way that might actually seem quite modern to those who look for offbeat character films (whether as action or road movies), complete with delirious cuts and a striking look that ends up making more sense the further one gets into its absurd mind. It is probably the biggest indictment of expectations one could imagine: if you think you are getting a gangster movie filled with sex and violence, you will get all that and plenty more within a lurid package that likely requires multiple viewings to really absorb itself, although the less patient will obviously find little to stick with; the ones who pay attention and the ones who don't pay attention might have similar reactions. Shishido became an actor in the mid-1950s, but he only started to get bigger parts when he underwent surgery to make his cheekbones bigger, which resulted in a number of action parts, including a handful of Suzuki films. He makes for an ideal absurd man to fit an absurd film, the perfect anti-hero fool. He glides with the grace of a clumsy cat trying to leap onto a ledge, being curious all the while. Ogawa was a burlesque dancer that did the film because none of the ladies in the studio were willing to do the role (which is spent mostly in the nude). It was her only film appearance, and she makes the most of it in terms of eccentricity of raw charm that sticks out far more than just being someone used for scenes of, uh, intense, lovemaking. Mari and her thoughts of death at the time of making the film made an odd pairing when it came to accepting a script for a character obsessed with death, which results in a worthy pairing in the macabre with Shishido as a riff on the femme fatale. Nanbara seems more a riff on stern studio executives who wear down certain players, which works well in terms of making the ideal conniving figure in a film filled with cofounding types, particularly since he only steps into focus midway through the 91 minute runtime. 

The film was such a failure in theaters that it was removed from distribution as soon as it could be, and his pay was dropped not a year later (the company president once said that not only did Suzuki make incomprehensible films, he also should "open a noodle shop or something instead"); the company even went so far as to not allow his films to be distributed or released, which ticked off a student-run film society that wanted to do a retrospective on Suzuki's career. He then sued the company for breach of contract (among other things), which resulted in the company being found to have used Suzuki as a scapegoat for their financial bungling. Suzuki got his apology but did not return to the director's chair until A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness in 1977, for which he spent his time doing commercials and supervisor in anime. Nikkatsu made their own "reimagining" with Trapped in Lust (made in 1973 as one of their "Roman Porno" films, which were sexploitation films), while Suzuki directed a loose sequel filmed at Nikkatsu with Pistol Opera (2001). As a whole, it may not be up to everyone's speed when it comes to what you might think of in terms of crime thrillers, but it will surely prove to stick in one's mind long after it has played its final trick, which works mostly for the better for those who like who is behind it. It may be the kind of movie you look back on with reverence or the opposite, but it endures regardless.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

I say this now only because I have a surprise in mind if things go well: Go Bills.

District 9.

Review #1959: District 9.

Cast: 

Sharlto Copley (Wikus van de Merwe), Jason Cope (Christopher Johnson / Grey Bradnam / Speaking Alien Voices / Cameraman Trent), David James (Colonel Koobus Venter), Vanessa Haywood (Tania Smit-van de Merwe), Mandla Gaduka (Fundiswa Mhlanga), Eugene Wanangwa Khumbanyiwa (Obesandjo), Louis Minnaar (Piet Smit), Kenneth Nkosi (Thomas), William Allen Young (Dirk Michaels), Nathalie Boltt (Sarah Livingstone), and Sylvaine Strike (Katrina McKenzie) Directed by Neill Blomkamp.

Review: 

"I don't know whether the film has that feeling or not for the audience, but I wanted it to have that harsh 1980s kind of vibe—I didn't want it to feel glossy and slick."

The important thing to say about this film by Neill Blomkamp is that it was his very first one. He was born in Johannesburg in South Africa, and his studies at Redhill High School in the city led him to meet Sharlto Copley (who had graduated from there a few years earlier). Blomkamp had a passion for 3D animation and design from a young age, and he struck a deal with Copley to do 3D work for pitches on projects for Copley's production company; Blomkamp moved to Vancouver to study at Vancouver Film School at the age of 18. Beginning in the late 1990s, he did a variety of animation work for various television shows and films, such as lead 3D animator for 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001). He also shot commercial work and shorts when not working, and it was a reel of his work that got the attention of Peter Jackson. One of those shorts was Alive in Joburg, which was a mockumentary short about aliens marooned in Johannesburg (Blomkamp asked questions to black South Africans about how they felt about Nigerians and Zimbabweans, which is where the idea came from about what would happen if there were aliens living in South Africa). Jackson soon tapped Blomkamp to try and direct a film adaptation of the Halo video game series; the result was nothing short of failure, but Jackson was willing to work with Blomkamp on something else in mind, with Jackson serving as producer. Blomkamp wrote the film with his production partner and wife Terri Tatchell. Since the release of this film nearly fifteen years ago in August 2009, Blomkamp has directed three further films with Elysium (2013), Chappie (2015), and Demonic (2021).

The film takes inspiration from "District Six", an actual residential area in South Africa (specifically Cape Town), which had seen thousands of people be forcibly removed beginning in 1966 during the apartheid era of the country to make way for white people (this was a country that had three different Group Areas Acts that dealt with racial groups living in certain places only); a museum resides in the area, along with a plaque. The film even had shooting done in an area that just saw people moved from an area of impoverished housing (Chiawelo, in Johannesburg). As such, Blomkamp has made a film that shows the effects of social engineering within communities that basically turns into hell. In that sense, one could argue it is not only a science fiction action film but also a horror feature. After all, there is a considerable body-count that comes from the consequences of trying to segregate others. Xenophobia action films that also feature a mechanized battle suit and booming alien weapons make for a neat combination. The aliens in the film remind one of crickets, and the phrase used to refer to them is "prawn". Granted, prawns are actually small species of sea creatures, but the Parktown prawn (also known as the African king cricket or tusked king cricket) is a species of cricket that is generally held in low regard in Africa. Of course, not everyone was big on this film. Did you know Nigeria banned the film? Apparently they took it really seriously that Nigerians would eat aliens, proving that there are people easily irritated by any sort of slight anywhere (this also works for so-called most "white savior" articles). Simply put: it's a movie about seeing just how folks all around the world could unite in their hatred of the other and the result of when push comes to shove.

For the "documentary" sequences, Copley (who had never acted in a professional feature before) ad-libbed all of his lines, and Cope did improvisation as well, specifically with the eviction sequences. Copley does well within the reaches of the performance requires, which desires someone who can pull off a growing sense of humanity even when he starts to look less like it. He has the timing to pull it off, endearing in both sides that come from this personality, whether that is the bumbling bureaucrat or the frenzied creature on the run. Cope accompanies him with varying levels of performance that is meant to strike a different chord from the usual alien visitor on the run type, which works to the idea of the film of portraying creatures that are murky in their own motivations (i.e. they seem both humane and disgusting). Grimy aliens and slimier humans is a worthy path to see in a film, you know. James and Khumbanyiwa both play the dark side of absolute belief in what they want (which involve the creatures, obviously), which makes their eventual fate all the most satisfying since they make quality adversaries. The rest of the cast is fine, even if they come and go within the bits and pieces of "found footage", but one is here for the 112-minute runtime in seeing quality CG effects go together with a fairly compelling story. The third act involving a round of shoot-out action is probably the most standard part of the film, but it is always nice to see visualized pushback within an inevitable closing point for a sci-fi film (in other words, action doesn't stifle my excitement for material as long as it is done right, as opposed to just being a bland puddle). A sequel has been teased for years (the ending of the film sort of teases an idea or two, in a messy sort of sense) but time will tell if there is a return to a district of creatures of aliens and humans that may be more alike than they believe. As a whole, it is a worthy first start for its director in terms of quality storytelling filled with wrenching imagination that is executed with most of the right beats for entertainment.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Interrogation.

Review #1958: Interrogation.

Cast: 

Krystyna Janda (Antonina 'Tonia' Dziwisz), Adam Ferency (Lieutenant Tadeusz Morawski), Janusz Gajos (Major Zawada "Kapielowy"), Agnieszka Holland (Communist Witkowska), Anna Romantowska (Miroslawa "Mira" Szejnert), Bożena Dykiel (Honorata), and Olgierd Łukaszewicz (Konstanty Dziwisz) Directed by Ryszard Bugajski.

Review: 

"Studying philosophy provided me with many useful skills: it taught me logical thinking and rigorous discipline. When I write a script or when I work on set I still have the habits of a disciplined philosophy student."

Every so often, I have to remember that films aren't always made in a vacuum in terms of being made and released as quickly as possible. There are films that have odd release years just as much as the moon revolves around the Earth. Various countries had "New Waves", Poland had a "Cinema of moral anxiety", which basically portrayed the crisis that came with Communist Poland. So yes, it was time to do a film that could not easily find release in the Polish People's Republic until right before the end of its era as a satellite state of the Soviet Union in 1989. Anyway, let's start at the beginning. In 1972, Poland asked Andrzej Wajda, a noted director at the time (The Promised Land (1975) and The Maids of Wilko (1979), for example), to serve as artistic director for a film studio in the country (as was the idea for esteemed directors of the time in the country). Beginning on December 13, 1981, the government of the Polish People's Republic installed martial law, which lasted for over 19 months, which saw the arrest of thousands of activists dedicated to fighting the oppressive Communist state.  Zespół Filmowy X would end up making a handful of films for a decade until its closure in 1983, when the country shut down the studio due to their political positions that manifested in their films. One of those films was Przesłuchanie (Interrogation), which was a film about false imprisonment under the Stalinist era (which lasted until 1956, three years after Stalin died) of the Republic. Filmed in 1981 for release in 1982, the original version had included scenes set in contemporary times and dealt with a general statement about the past regime that seemed to the Ministry Arts and Culture to tie into the current regime. Almost lost in the discussion is the director responsible for the film in Ryszard Bugajski, who co-wrote it with Janusz Dymek. He was born in Warsaw in 1943, a year before an uprising began in the city that saw countless people die. His family was slated to die by firing squad, but a bomb fell before the wall where they were lined up that saw the firing squad die instead. They lived in Choszczowka as a hiding place until the end of the war. He had numerous interests leading up to him graduating high school, such as his first interest in being a musician, but he also dabbled in drawing, painting, and writer. He even attended Warsaw University with the intent of studying philosophy. However, when he accidentally went to the movie theater (in his words) and saw 8½, he realized that he wanted to become a filmmaker. Three years of philosophy was now right down the tube as he tried to apply for film school; he first attended Lodz Film School in 1969. A couple of television shorts followed before he directed his first feature with Kobieta i kobieta (1979), but more important to the discussion is how he kept Interrogation alive. When the film was rejected, he made a 35mm copy and hid it from the authorities while later making video copies to distribute underground, which would see private screenings in basements for years. He moved from Poland to Canada in 1985 and worked in film and television before returning to the country in 1995, six years after the film was granted release when the country experienced revolution in 1989 in ways similar to the other satellite states of the Soviet Union. A director of a number of films and television, he died at the age of 76 in 2019.

Janda cited the lives of two women in Tonia Lechmann and Wanda Podgórska as the inspiration for the story in the film, with the latter having spent six years in prison and serving as consultant to Janda on the film. She told her what would make sense in the do's and don'ts in terms of impudence and playfulness that could still be tolerated. The result is a film that will work best for those who know exactly what they are looking for in terms of harrowing experience, one that maintains 118 minutes of useful perspective on the horrors of brutality and the people who have to react to it in their own ways. It is no surprise that it was called "the most anti-Communist film in the history of Polish People's Republic", because this is a triumph of resolve and dedication by all involved to make a film that doesn't shy away from the horrors of the past in order to make a film that strikes at the horrors of the present (and all that could be yet to come). It is a reminder that anyone can be a target for torture or interrogation, and that the best way forward is courage and open resistance rather than betrayal or static refusal. In other words, it isn't just a movie where people with torture such as flooding the cell with water or seeing rats everywhere or trying to play people against each other in betrayal. There are plenty of harrowing scenes, such as its opening sequences that go from innocent exchanges of marital disputes to drunken kidnapping or one involving people accepting death only to find deception instead. Janda pulls off a tremendous performance, a spirit that is mulched into the ground by an unyielding system of terrors that only have the guts of trickery and force at their hand but not the strength to stop unyielding resistance. Her fragility is put out there in raw detail from blank sheet to awareness in a wholly absorbing manner that is one of the most captivating experiences of acting seen in a film. Gajos and Ferency are the two visible men behind the shameful force of brutality, each with their own sense of conviction about what they actually believe. Holland is actually known for her work as a director and writer on a handful of features, both in and outside Poland, which she first left in late 1981 before the country imposed martial law. She and the other prisoners of fate do pretty well, interacting with Janda with weary timing that endures in the foreground. It is a movie that runs so consistently on edge, one without a shred of false tricks in its depiction of tyranny and despair for the decisions made by humanity against other humans in the clearest sense possible. The movie runs the course of misery and the highs and lows of human spirit with its own perspective of where it can all lead to in its swift ending that make it a fascinating piece of world cinema, one that could not be denied in its status as a Polish classic made by the Polish.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: A co-production between New Zealand, South Africa, and America...

David and Lisa.

Review #1957: David and Lisa.

Cast: 

Keir Dullea (David Clemens), Janet Margolin (Lisa Brandt), Howard Da Silva (Dr. Alan Swinford), Neva Patterson (Mrs. Clemens), Richard McMurray (Stewart Clemens), Clifton James (John), Nancy Nutter (Maureen), Matthew Anden (Simon), Jamie Sanchez (Carlos), Coni Hudak (Kate), and Karen Lynn Gorney (Josette) Directed by Frank Perry.

Review: 

It should only be natural to cover a New York director. The son of a stockbroker and an Alcoholics Anonymous aide, he was interested in the theater from a young age, working as a parking lot attendant as a youth for the Westport Country Playhouse. He attended the University of Miami before studying under Lee Strasberg and going on to produce plays in Connecticut. He served in the Korean War and became involved with television in 1961 before making his first film with David and Lisa (1962). He would make a variety of films that were generally on the edge of the studio system. In total, Perry directed fourteen feature films, where he was known for films such as The Swimmer (1968), Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), and Mommie Dearest (1981) before he died in 1995 at the age of 65, with his last directorial effort being a documentary in On the Bridge (1992) about his struggle with prostate cancer.

It is an adaptation of the novella of the same name by Theodore Isaac Rubin, a psychiatrist and author. It was Ann Perry (daughter to playwright Eleanor Perry) who brought the novella to the attention of the Perrys. Eleanor Perry wrote the film, the first of numerous collaborations as writer with F. Perry, who was enlisted to direct (their partnership dissolved in 1971 after they divorced). Each of the Perrys received an Academy Award nomination for their work, which is no small feat for a film made for roughly over $150,000. Admittedly, the premise does sound like a film that could have just been a cheap feature for the exploitation circuit, considering that the lead character is a kid who has an intense fear of being touched. But it is a quirky love story, one that isn't just a feature of sensationalism or goop for cheap tricks, one that asks what it means to help people not stay numb inside. Dullea got his start in acting in television in the 1960s, such as Route 66 (which got him his first film role with Hoodlum Priest (1961). Dullea received notice for this role, although he did grouse at the momentary idea of him being thought of as a troubled youth for typecasting (Dullea has been quoted as saying that his true preference is for the theater). In a role filled with compulsive tendencies that could make one not know where he might spring himself next, Dullea proves worthy to the challenge of making a compelling performance, one where we see the pain wrapped inside someone scared to let someone reach within. The scenes with his parents aren't too long, but they underlie the stark contrast between the perceived "normal" family members and how he was shaped by them. This was the film debut for Margolin, who had thought about being a doctor before being encouraged to give her other interest in acting a try; in 1961, she went from prop girl at the New York Shakespeare Festival to 18-year-old Tony Award nominee. She pulls a double act in self-realization, which means a good chunk of dialogue is short or in rhymes, but she handles it in a way that is warm without cloying that makes for compelling chemistry between Margolin and Dullea. Da Silva provides solid support in efficient timing (mostly spent with Dullea) that isn't there to wax poetically or grandstand in authoritative boredom. The movie is mostly kept inside the psychiatric center, with a few interesting exceptions, such as a sequence where the group is seen out in public and reacts to a rude sentence told to them by repeating it right as they are walking off, as if being in the same room as others a bit different than them is too much. 

It is a tactful movie about people thought to be outside the margins: people who need psychiatric help. It doesn't do so by sugarcoating the leads or turning it into a simple black-and-white tale of treatment. It is the kind of movie where a simple gesture of togetherness in a film as well-executed as this makes the difference between ham-handedness and dynamite, for which the film rests in the latter category. It is a crushing tale of acceptance that makes a useful character study of two wayward souls finding some sort of path forward together. Quick to the point in 93 minutes without needing easy resolutions or cheap tricks, David and Lisa is a testament to the power of independent filmmaking and the potential it can bring thanks to the efforts of the Perrys and all involved.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Pulgasari.

Review #1956: Pulgasari.

Cast: 

Chang Son Hui (Ami), Ham Gi Sop (Inde), Jong-uk Ri (Ana), Gwon Ri (Takse), Gyong-ae Yu (Inde's Mother), Hye-chol Ro (Inde's Brother), Sang-hun Tae (Rebel Forces), Gi-chon Kim (Rebel Forces), In-chol Ri (Rebel Forces), Riyonun Ri (General Fuan), Yong-hok Pak (The King), Pong-ilk Pak (The Governor), and Kenpachiro Satsuma (Pulgasari) Directed by Shin Sang-ok.

Review: 

Admittedly, this is a film that seems quite simple to cover, because all it is a film involving a monster based on the legend of the Bulgasari. After all, it is a remake of Bulgasari (1962), a film from South Korea known for being the first Korean film with special effects along with being lost to viewing; incidentally, this film was remade as Galgameth (1996) in America. This is a film directed by Shin Sang-ok, a director born in 1926 in the city of Chongjin, the third-largest city of what is now part of North Korea (since the Empire Japan had occupied the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945). The son of a Korean doctor of medicine, he studied at the Tokyo Fine Arts School before becoming involved in film with Viva Freedom! (1946), which was the first Korean film made after the end of Japan's rule over Korea. Long story short, Korea was separated into two republics that each claimed sovereignty over the Korean peninsula, and Shin made films within the South. He would later be referred to as the "Prince of South Korean Cinema", complete with his own production company, with Shin's wife Choi Eun-hee being a star in various films in the 1960s and 1970s. Shin would direct various films beginning in 1952, which resulted in films such as The Houseguest and My Mother (1961), Red Scarf (1964), Salt (1985), and Mayumi (1990) before he died in 2006 at the age of 79. The film was written by Kim Se Ryun and produced by Shin and Kim Jong-il. 

Yes, you heard that correctly. In the late 1970s, Shin saw his film company collapse. In 1978, Choi, recently divorced from her husband due to infidelity, was visiting Hong Kong when she was kidnapped. Six months later, Shin was kidnapped while visiting Hong Kong in an attempt to do film business, although he was not told about Choi until much later. He spent time in prison after failing to escape, with the result being that the two would not reunite until 1983. Enter Kim Jong-il, the future head dictator of communist bloc North Korea. He had a film library of over 15,000 and wanted to see better films come out of the country, as he saw the inherent flaws within his county's film industry (under the belief that since the actors were going to be fed no matter what, they were not pulling their biggest effort). An Emissary of No Return (1984), Love, Love, My Love (1984), Runaway (1984), Salt (1985), The Tale of Shim Chong (1985), and Pulgasari (1985). In 1984, they had done a news conference in Yugoslavia to say they left South Korea "voluntarily" to escape harassment from the country. In March of 1986, they were granted to travel to Vienna in an attempt to find funding for Kim to make a movie about Genghis Khan. The result of their visit with a journalist ended with them running off successfully to seek asylum the United States embassy. Well, that sure is one way for Kim to try and change the world's perception of his country, by talking about kidnapping a filmmaker to make movies for him and being caught on tape saying those words.

Yes, this is a monster movie with effects provided by a crew (Toho!) that apparently was tricked into making it for what they thought was a Chinese film. I know it seems odd to cover a film that was made in North Korea and was made under duress, but well, here we are, with a Korean monster movie more baffling than Yongary, Monster from the Deep (1967). If you didn't know the backstory of the film, you would probably just call it a mediocre mash of cliches that looks bizarrely like a film made two decades earlier rather than 1985. It was apparently supposed to be a metaphor of propaganda for "unchecked capitalism" and the "power of the collective". Hell, the Soviets knew how to make films that were supposed to be propaganda than this, because one really could see this as a movie about the dangers of an unchecked liberator or they could have fun with dubbing it as a silly movie about a baby Godzilla telling the power of an iron diet. My favorite moment is the various attempts to take down this mythical being, one of which involves digging a large pit and tricking it into falling down there before the evil royalty starts digging over the beast. None of the actors particularly stand out when it comes to trying to draw even an ounce of properly ripping off Godzilla (specifically The Return of Godzilla, since it was released one year prior). It is mostly just comprised of medieval battle sequences that were probably thought of as almost passé years ago and a slightly amusing effect when trying to portray growing monster that has horns. Hell, the way the monster dies feels like cheating, since it eats a person hidden in a bell (the same one who gave it life in a sense by putting blood on the thing when it was the size of a doll). Goofiness is the only thing to think about in a movie that was thought by its producer as a "masterpiece" (when Shin left the country and told the truth, the film was then shuttered away for years) - let that be a standing mark about having a large film library doesn't necessarily mean one knows how to make a quality film. 

As a whole, it is far too amusing to be considered anything other than schlock, but its curiosity value will depend on just how much the backstory matters to understanding what the hell is up with a monster movie made in a dictatorship. It is about as amusing as seeing a poorly-made car run through the traffic cones, for what it is worth. Shin Sang-ok might not have had his best effort here, but he sure made an impression as a filmmaker in all of Korea nonetheless. He gets the credit far more than his kidnappers do, that is for sure.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

I Married a Witch.

Review #1955: I Married a Witch.

Cast: 

Fredric March (Jonathan Wooley), Veronica Lake (Jennifer Wooley), Cecil Kellaway (Daniel), Susan Hayward (Estelle Masterson), Robert Benchley (Dr. Dudley White), Elizabeth Patterson (Margaret), Eily Malyon (Tabitha Wooley), Robert Warwick (J.B. Masterson), Mary Field (Nancy Wooley), Nora Cecil (Harriet Wooley), Ann Carter (Jennifer Wooley), and Aldrich Bowker (Justice of the Peace) Produced and Directed by René Clair.

Review: 

To start with a director, the middle is sometimes a pretty good idea. René Clair was a director of various films over four decades, born to a soap merchant in Paris in 1898. He served in World War I as an ambulance driver before becoming a journalist. His film career came to start because of persuasion by Damia (the stage name of singer Marie-Louise Damien) to visit the Gaumont film studio, which ended up resulting in him getting cast as a lead role in acting. He became an editor to a film magazine in 1922 before doing a bit of travelling to Belgium and subsequently becoming an assistant director to Jacques de Baroncelli. In 1924, he got his chance to direct with a couple of shorts in The Crazy Ray [Paris qui dort] and Entr'acte before his first feature film came with The Phantom of the Moulin Rouge [Le Fantôme du Moulin-Rouge] (1925). By the time the silent era was over, he developed a reputation as one of the most notable French names in cinema. His sound features would be an interesting case. Le Million (1931) and À nous la liberté (1931) were noted classics involving Paris, but the failure of The Last Billionaire [Le Dernier Milliardaire] (1934) was not only a flop but also the last film he did in France for years. A deal with Alexander Korda while in London led to a deal between the two to make films together, and Korda directed two films for him (The Ghost Goes West and Break the News). He then moved to America and directed a handful of feature films, which started with The Flame of New Orleans (1941). He did not return to France until 1947. He directed four films in America for various studios. His reputation dipped in light of the French New Wave deeming him a member of the establishment, with his last film being The Lace Wars [Les Fêtes galantes] (1965). Clair died at the age 82 in 1981.

 

The film is an adaptation of the book The Passionate Witch, which was being written by Thorne Smith (best known for his two ghost books in Topper) prior to his death in 1934 that saw Norman H. Matson finish it to see publication in 1941. Robert Pirosh and Marc Connelly are credited with the screenplay, but several writers were left uncredited for the dialogue, such as Clair, André Rigaud and Dalton Trumbo. Preston Sturges was originally the main producer of the film (it is him that brought Veronica Lake onto the project by convincing Clair and Paramount Pictures), but artistic differences with Clair led to him leaving the project with no screen credit. Incidentally, this film and Bell, Book and Candle (1958) would prove the inspiration for the television series Bewitched. There is something quite hypnotic that comes through with the chemistry of March and Lake, acting in their one and only feature together. Lake (a twenty-year old at the height of a career that saw her last three films be released in 1951, 1966, and 1970) proves quite bewitching in the right sort of timing, one who alternates between bubbly and later hopelessly smitten, which makes her ideal for a screwball supernatural film that rests on her shoulders for confidence and mostly succeeds; Clair later stated that she was a gifted actress who didn't believe she was gifted, and that statement seems to hold water now. March (25 years older than Lake, talk about contrasts) plays the straight and wavering role to general amusement without coming off as just the fool. They make a worthy pairing, which is probably an indicator of their talent given that they disliked working together (with names of "poseur" and "sexpot" being thrown around). Kellaway proves a solid conniving presence in support, a useful adversary in a silly film with plenty of goofs and magic to go around, while Hayward makes a solid icy foil of ambition. What can one expect from a film of witchcraft that sees wedding crashers and a flying car? It is offbeat, but it is consistently on time with amusement that never seems to cloy at the viewer in desperation or take itself too seriously. Instead, it uses peculiar charm and timing to make a film worth celebrating and viewing after eight decades because of the craftsmanship at hand to turn a bedeviling witch film into worthy entertainment for the young and old at heart. There may be no perfect answer to where to start with Rene Clair as a filmmaker, but this one is a solid place to consider.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: I know, not enough hints about what comes up next in a month for new voices. I got one hell of a spotlight coming with this one film from Korea...

Osaka Elegy.

Review #1954: Osaka Elegy.

Cast: 

Isuzu Yamada (Ayako Murai), Seiichii Takekawa (Junzo Murai), Chiyoko Okura (Sachiko Murai), Shinpachiro Asaka (Hiroshi Murai), Benkei Shiganoya (Sonosuke Asai), Yoko Umemura (Sumiko Asai), Eitarō Shindō (Yoshizo Fujino), Kunio Tamura (Dr. Yoko), Kensaku Hara (Susumu Nishimura), and Takashi Shimura (Inspector) Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.

Review: 

"Filmmakers must study the film image and its potential for expression. This is our primary responsibility."

It never seems too busy to cover another classic Japanese director of the first time, as with the cast of Kenji Mizoguchi. Born in Hongō, Tokyo, his family went through poverty due to a failed business venture by his father during the Russo-Japanese War. The result was that Mizoguchi's sister was put up for adoption (effectively selling her to a geisha house). In childhood, he suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, which resulted in a lifelong gait. His first work as a teenager ended up being as an apprenticeship in designer for yukata manufacturing, as arranged by his sister (his mother died before he was even twenty). He studied art (specifically Western-style painting) before working in advertisement design before entering the film industry as an assistant director at the age of 22 in 1920 with Nikkatsu. He directed his first film with The Resurrection of Love (1923). A good deal of his films from the 1920s and 1930s are considered lost, but a good deal of those films were remakes of works from German Expressionist cinema and the works of authors such as Eugene O'Neill. It was Osaka Elegy (1936) and Sisters of the Gion (1936) where he felt he first reached maturity as an artist, while The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939) is considered his major pre-WWII achievement. He also made a couple of films during the war that honed a bit of patriotic effort such as The 47 Ronin, a two-part jidaigeki (historical drama) released in 1941 and 1942. Described as a master of the long take (as described by himself as "One shot, one take"), Mizoguchi made over one hundred films until his death from leukemia in 1956, which included internation recognition in the later years of his career with films such as The Life of Oharu (1952), Ugetsu (1953), and Sansho the Bailiff (1954). A tireless pusher of his crew, he is called one of the prime directors of Japan's "golden age" of cinema alongside Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu, although it probably doesn't reflect well on me that Mizoguchi was third covered among the three esteemed directors.

Osaka Elegy (1936) and Sisters of the Gion (1936) share the same writers (Yoshikata Yoda and Mizoguchi), cinematographer (Minoru Miki), producer, and select actors (Yamada and Umemura, Shiganoya, Shindo), and each has received attention among viewers of the pre-war era of films (Japan invaded China one year later); Osaka came out first. This film involves a switchboard operator trapped in having to make a decision about trying to help her family out of a rough situation that ends with her being wrapped in a situation with her boss. Yamada is an ideal presence among the modern woman wrapped in a world of conniving people with wavering moral fiber. She is flawed like the people that try to pursue her, but she conveys compelling curiosity over how much we care about her qualities. She is an individual in a place that cares about father figures and obligations more than her. With that in mind, Shiganoya and Takekawa are quality representations of the hypocrisy that befalls people falling into a downward spiral, whether that involves foolish pride or foolish trifling in affairs. The bunraku (puppet theatre) theatre sequence works well in outlining the nature of these people as if they were puppets themselves, mere playthings constrained by distinct hands and behavior. I admire the last sequence that follows Yamada into an unknown future, one where she asks about any supposed cures for delinquency before wandering off, no doubt to participate again in the cycle of moral decadence (the sequence involving the reunion between the family is also effective in its stark realities).

At any rate, a 71-minute pace is not much to ask for Osaka Elegy, which is a fairly episodic feature on the suffering that comes with the trouble of being a young woman in a world that has only certain needs for them. The camera is a curious observer, leering at us at numerous angles without requiring many cuts that is quite riveting. It is a deft feature, one that is clear in its uncompromising tragedy with striking realism that makes it an interesting effort and useful starting point for viewers in world cinema. It is visually precise without becoming a preachy movie, one that finds that trying to escape the muck of social and gender norms can result in being on the same level as they are. True colors being laid out makes for a sobering and realistic feature. As a whole, it is fairly accomplished melodrama, devastating in tragedy of the modern woman without asking for tears that made for a worthy first venture of maturity from an accomplished director in Kenji Mizoguchi as an expression of useful imagery.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

One Night of Love.

Review #1953: One Night of Love.

Cast: 

Grace Moore (Mary Barrett), Tullio Carminati (Giulio Monteverdi), Lyle Talbot (Bill Houston), Mona Barrie (Lally), Jessie Ralph (Angelina), Luis Alberni (Giovanni), Andrés de Segurola (Galuppi), and Nydia Westman (Muriel) Directed by Victor Schertzinger.

Review: 

Admittedly, you sometimes have to pull a name out of a hat when it comes to looking for directors to spotlight for the first time. Sometimes you have to take stock and realize that some folks can fall by the wayside in the annals of time. Did you know that Victor Schertzinger was an Academy Award nominee? In the first ten years of the ceremony, roughly over two dozen people were considered for the award for Best Director combined, and Schertzinger was one of them, nominated in an brief time with just two other nominees for 1934. So yes, I would say losing to Frank Capra while W. S. Van Dyke is your other competition is possible grounds for a spotlight for a director dead for eight decades. But a man from Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania surely has more to note than something as weird as awards. For one thing, he was a violinist in his childhood, performing with orchestras and bands while attending Brown University and the University of Brussels before moving onto songwriting by the 1910s. His first venture into film came at the request of Thomas Ince. He, along with Reginald Barker and Raymond B. West, were directing the film Civilization, and Ince commissioned him to compose the orchestra accompaniment for the film. He was then recruited to become a director, starting with The Pinch Hitter (1917), the first of a handful of films with Charles Ray (popular for at time in the silent era as a "young wholesome hick") as star. Schertzinger has been called the first artist to write a musical score for a film. In all, Schertzinger directed films in both the silent and sound eras before his sudden death in 1941 from a heart attack at the age of 53. He had directed over eighty films and composed fifty scores, which included: Something to Sing About (1937), which featured a singing and dancing James Cagney, The Mikado (1939), an adaptation of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera with participation from the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Road to Singapore (1940), the first of a string of road films with Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, and Bob Hope (there were seven in the next two decades, with Schertzinger directing the first two).

The film was based on an unproduced play developed by Charles Beaahan and Dorothy Speare, while James Gow, S.K. Lauren, and Edmund H. North helped write the screenplay. At the helm as star for this film was certainly a distinctly interesting choice: an operatic soprano nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale". She had a couple of film credits to her name at the turn of the 1930s, which included a debut with Irving Thalberg as producer in A Lady's Morals (1930). Moore went to Broadway first in 1920 before making her debut in opera in 1928, where she spent many seasons at the Metropolitan Opera singing countless operas (most notably Louise). She dabbled in film, appearing in eight of them from 1930 to 1939, but opera is generally her most known forte, aside from performances in support of the Allied Forces during World War II. Moore died in 1947 at the age of 48 in a plane crash. Her performance is manageable, one that seems best when performing opera or with songs (such as the title song, as written by the director), while the attempts at romance teeter a bit in credibility. You can see how this ended up being her most noted film as an actress: it hones appeal in her singing with a bit of naturalistic acting that lives and dies on the material. Carminati (an Italian film actor busy since the silent era) fares better, because his wry steely sensibility seems far more interesting as a contrast that doesn't seem implausible. Of course, since it is a film that has to eventually chug its way through misunderstandings, it can only maneuver itself so far with familiar beats. It may interest you to know that Talbot was a member of the first board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild in 1933, with his involvement in the labor union apparently affecting his career when it came to getting leading roles by the mid 1930s. He makes a decent straight man in support, never without edge but not looking to roll their eyes at such oddness. The movie is more of a curiosity with its opera and singing elements than any real romantic push, and it should be mentioned that the film was more of a hit with getting bookings in bigger theaters than with the rural circuit (a positive for Columbia, which saw two of its films vie for awards in the year that was the one for It Happened One Night). It proves involving with the singing done by Moore, which doesn't seem stilted to my ears. The film received six nominations for the Academy Awards, which ranged from its director to its star to its technical production, which resulted in wins for its music scoring and its sound recording alongside a technical award for Columbia Pictures due to its "Vertical Cut Disc Method". As a whole, the movie is a somewhat serviceable romance movie, achieving more interest with its dabbling in opera and singing more than the slowly developing game of insult-and-romance. Average, but a general winner for the folks that needed it most with Moore and Schertzinger to make it a useful curiosity for those interested.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.