curiouser and curiouser

“the city of lost children” doesn’t hesitate to jump right into the freaky, although it still maintains elements of weird sweetness, more apparent in jeunet and caro’s subsequent films, “amelie” and “delicatessen”. i haven’t seen “alien: resurrection”, however, and cannot remark on its sweetness.

the twisted plot centers around krank, a mad-scientist type that looks like a skull. krank’s numerous cloned brothers (played by the always excellent dominique pinon), dwarf mother, and a legion of cyclops have made it their duty to steal children for krank, for poor krank is unable to dream. the whole thing is overseen by a disembodied brain voiced by jean-louis trintignant. there are gangs of children who roam the consistently nighttime streets stealing for something called the octopus, which is a terrifying pair of siamese twins whose asymmetrical haircuts don’t lessen their resemblance to cnn style maven elsa klensch. the sole little girl of the filmleads her own rag-tag gang, falling in with a dim-witted strong man who has lost a little boy he had rescued form a garbage can. te strong man is played by ron perlman, who sticks out like a sore thumb, and is thus a perfect fit. so the little girl, miette, and the strong man, one, set out to rescue the lost child. although ‘stolen’ would really be more appropriate.

the world of the film is utterly complete, vacillating between nightmare and fairy tale, albeit a grimm’s fairy tale with violence and terror. the mise en scene, reminiscent of “brazil”, is flawless, and even though each scene is weirder than the last, it all gels seamlessly, complete with jean-paul gautier costumes, and ending with a song sung by marianne faithful. nominated for the golden palm at cannes, it was beaten by the yugoslavian film “underground”, so i guess they were on a bit of a surrealist kick that year. this is just a completely wonderful film, and i’m kicking myself for not having seen it sooner. thanks, willem.

for the mayor.

‘nightmare alley’ is the first tyrone power movie I have ever seen. my best friend Emily loooooooooooooooves tyrone power, but i’ve just never gotten around to him. But after reading an article in ‘city journal’ about why black-and-white movies were so great, mentioning that power plays the part of a geek in the 1947 film, well, it went immediately to the top of my netflix queue.

power plays stan, a low-life carnie (thank you, movie, for re-enforcing the stereotype that carnies are inevitably low-lifes) who flirts with pretty molly (thank you, movie, for letting the pretty girl have my name) but is more interested in zeena the fortune teller, because she once made a bundle on a telepathic act with her drunkard of a husband, pete. what he wants from zeena is the code that made the trick a success – by the way, the code seems way too complicated to ever work properly. stan sort of accidentally feeds pete a quart of wormwood, but at least he’s out of the way. he ends up being forced to marry molly by zeena and molly’s strong man boyfriend. molly and stan start an act with the code, and are instantly playing ritzy nightclubs and living in a posh hotel. things go from bad to worse when stan reaches a bit too high, going in with a scary psychoanalyst to con a rich man. things lose all semblance of sense as stan is then transformed into some sort of religious hero. the ending looks like it’s on the fast track to depressing, and the uplifting final twist is a disservice to the grimness of the rest of the film.

one thing i learned – boy, is tyrone power good at sleazy! especially in a tuxedo, for some reason. and by the film’s end, he was positively demonic. ihe relationship between sleazy stan and adorable, naïve molly is not the most convincing love story of our time, although there is one fabulous scene where her train is pulling out and he jumps up to kiss her one more time. sadly, the images conjured up in my head by the word ‘geek’ (namely the excellent novel ‘geek love’ by katherine dunn) were not fulfilled by the film. you hear the geek screaming, at the beginning, and then every time stan gets a little drunk, but there’s no actual scenes of his….geekiness. it was a decent film, the plot was certainly a little different from the majority of film noir. and that psychoanalyst was enough to scare you off of shrinks forever.

but i was so hoping to see tyrone power bite the head off of a chicken.

well THAT was a disappointment.

i admit without reserve that i like cillian murphy. and part of the appeal is that i haven't yet seen him in anything truly bad. until tonight. "watching the detectives", with lucy liu. i know, not the most likely combination anyway. but it was supposed to be quirky, about a guy who owned a video store and this kooky girl. i thought i'd give myself a break from my usual routine of somewhat weightier subjects.

i should have stuck to weightier. the acting was mediocre, the plot flimsy, and i was just incredibly uninterested. the film geeks were just a little too geeky, and anyway, wrong. in "butch cassidy and the sundance kid", etta goes out with sundance, not butch. i lasted half an hour.

although i will have the elvis costello song in my head for the rest of the night. if you'll pardon me, i'm going to go and watch some more 'brideshead revisited", episode two.

i tried.

to like "see how they fall" (2004). i did. but after, i thought back on two of jacques audriard's other films that i actually enjoyed -- "the beat that my heart skipped" and "read my lips" -- and was reminded that they both had a little too much unevenness to make them really balanced films. and this film was even more so.

simon, played by the always disconcerting jean yanne, is a business card salesman whose friend mickey, a policeman, is shot and subsequently is brain-dead. simon goes off the rails, and sets out to find mickey's killers, who turn out to be marx and johnny, played by jean-louis trintignant and matthieu kassovitz. i will go ahead and confess that i mostly watched this movie because of kassovitz -- i've had a hard time bringing myself to watch his latest directorial efforts, which have seriously slid since the brilliant 'la haine' and 'metisse', but you're usually safe with him as an actor. marx is a crippled crook, and johnny seems to have the iq of a dim-witted five-year-old. he's the type that should never see the outside of a mental institution. there's a healthy dose of police brutality, and homosexual overtones that build throughout the film. simon loses more and more of himself as he gets closer to finding the guilty parties.

the film looks good, i'll give it that, shot in the shadowy, grainy tones of a gritty american crime film from the 70s. at the beginning of the film, there are a few random moments of narration and title cards, which are, at best, distracting, and at worst, pointless. the range of crooked character, from slightly to outrageously skeevy, are not well-defined enough to make anyone but the main characters stand out. simon's progression from meek, successful, married salesman to vengeful, homosexual, car-battery-torturing psychopath is not believable. it's not that the story was bad, it's just that there didn't seem to be enough to merit an entire film. sort of regret not turning this one off before the end.

'i'm a typist, a virgin, and i like coca-cola'

and that's about the deepest thought that the protagonist of 'hour of the star' ever has. i first tried to watch this film years ago at a university foreign film festival, in what was possible the hottest movie theatre on the planet. i didn't last long. several years ago i read the short novel by clarice lispector, called by an american translator "rare person who looked like marlene dietrich and wrote like virginia woolf". which makes it all the more impressive that someone who looked like dietrich could write a character that looked like macabea and be utterly convincing. written shortly before she died in 1977, 'hour of the star' became an iconic piece of brazilian literature, even though lispector lived most of her life away from brazil.

this was the debut directorial effort from suzana amaral in 1985. the first thing that came to mind when watching the film again is the brazilian film of a few years earlier, 'pixote'. and i sincerely hope that's the last time i ever have to think of 'pixote'. i think in america that we have this image of brazil as all ronaldinho and supermodels, when it may be much more 'carandiru' and 'hour of the star'.

everything about macabea is painful and awkward and wrong, like laura miller in my seventh grade year. she's an orphan, she's naive and ignorant, yet for most of the film she is unflappably contented and accepting, whether moving a sheet over the spot where she wet the bed, or thinking that she's seducing what turns out to be a blind man. she lives in what is not quite grinding poverty, but close enough. on sundays, she rides the metro for fun. people she considers her friends regularly make remarks like 'your face doesn't help'. marcelia cartaxo, as macabea, does have a grand moon-face, but with these eyes shining out of it that are otherworldly in their optimism. and it's when she's at her happiest that you want to cry. ridiculously forgiving and completely unaware of herself ('i'm not much of a person'), she happens upon a sleazy, gold-toothed, weaselly non-boyfriend. things turn from bad to worse, and we as the audience can see some sort of catastrophe coming a mile away, although macabea thinks that she may well turn out a film star or the wife of a rich foreigner.

just two complaints about this film - one is the soundtrack. it alternates between a very respectable classical piece, and this keyboard number that you would expect in a mystery science theater 3000 thriller. it sort of jars the pace a bit. an the ending would have maintained the power and devastation that it had in the book if it could have been a bit more subtle.

all in all, lovely. i think i would have liked it better if i hadn't read the book, but it was a pretty masterful translation overall.

explain to me, 'snubbed'

salman rushdie's latest novel, 'the enchantress of florence' was on the 13-strong longlist for this year's man booker prize.  since the shortlist was announced yesterday, there has been a flurry of articles written announcing that rushdie was 'snubbed'.  This, i don't get.  i definitely count him as one of my favorite writers, with 'midnight's children' and 'shame' at the top of the list, followed by 'the satanic verses', 'the moor's last sigh', 'the ground beneath her feet'…all the way down to 'fury', which i confess i hated and gave up on about halfway through.  i read 'the enchantress of florence', i liked it, but….the thing is, if it had been written by anyone else, well.  it's miles better than what most authors are coming up with these days.  but as a book by salman rushdie, it just doesn't compare with some of his other novels.  this is not to say that it isn't beautifully written, but it lacks an emotional interest in the characters, and the plot is more than a little convoluted.  i wonder how sir salman himself feels about it.  i know he's been a little squiffy in previous years that he didn't win. but look, it would be a bit of a bore anyway if he won EVERY year.  and isn't it possible, just a teensy bit possible, that maybe someone else's book was better this go?  no one's shouting that the other poor authors on the longlist have been snubbed.  he's won 'the booker of bookers'.  stop making such a fuss.    

why, oh why?

can't we get properly subtitled movies? why was the 2007 french film 'la question humaine' released here as 'heartbeat detector'? surely, i am not the only one getting a little tired of this?

it's a hard movie. it's not...an enjoyable movie, but i'm glad that i watched it. mathieu amalric, who always strikes me as a better-looking roman polanski (especially with his twitchy performance in 'kings and queen'), has what seems to be a ridiculously cushy job as something between psychiatrist and human resources manager, restructuring the french branch of a german technology company. apparently, psychiatrist is french for 'spy', because his chief task becomes to find out what is causing the slightly irregular behavior of the ceo, a little too cleverly named mr. just. knowing that nazi themes would be rooting around somewhere in the film, i was wondering if it was going to turn out to be a max mosley/nazi kind of secret, but it turns out to be much more serious. the film focuses on europe's continuing collective guilt at the atrocities of world war II. it's a good question, how far away, how many generations away from it will people have to get before the guilt dissipates? none of the characters concerned were old enough to be perpetrators, but that doesn't mean that they feel absolved.

the look of the film made me think of fritz lang's 'metropolis', all angles and shadows and blacks and whites and greys (and a very obvious nosebleed). made me think, also, of a certain paperback version of paul auster's 'the invention of solitude', with identical men in suits sat round a table. the simple, clean camera work very soon starts to seem cold and distant. the soundtrack plays a huge part. there's no 'background' music, pieces are often played in their entirety, with little or nothing else transpiring, much to the viewer's discomfort. there are two seemingly interminable and melodramatic spanish songs, some classical pieces, and a few indie rock ballads which seem like they should feel more out of place.

the thing about this film is that it is trying to make a very big statement, and while i appreciate the attempt to show that, i'm not entirely certain that the film isn't drowning in its own artsiness.

a quickly pulled shower curtain is always a crowd pleaser

i absolutely cannot remember if i have seen 'the conversation' before. 1974, directed by francis ford coppola -- his deceased son gian-carlo actually appears uncredited as the boy in the church. for a film about private detectives, it's a little slow-moving, although there's a bit of pick-up by the end.

gene hackman is the ominously named harry caul, a real cliche of a detective -- he's a quirky bachelor with very few possessions, ever so secretive about himself, constantly wearing a hideous, cheap raincoat, offended by any sort of blasphemy, and with a penchant for playing the saxophone all alone. maybe this sort of character seemed more original in 1974? the big job involves taping a conversation between a young couple that insists in walking in endless circles around a public square, which takes three detectives at different points. there's a nice scene of caul blending all of the tapes together and sorting out the background noise. after a convention for private investigators (which looks like something maxwell smart might have appreciated -- oh, how i loved the beginning of that show!) there is a raucous after-party at harry's cage of an office, during which it comes out that he had once done a job that may have led to three deaths, and this case seems to be pointing in the same direction. the rest of the film deals with the dictates of harry's conscience, and whether or not he wants the information in the hands of the 'director', or his dirty little underling, played with plenty of lip-curling by harrison ford, and what to do about the fallout of his actions.

there is a dream sequence that could have been lost at no detriment to the story -- dream sequences always make me think of movies like 'oklahoma', and i was vaguely hoping that gene might break into a neat little song and dance. there are a few great scenes during which you are no longer sure whether caul is being paranoid or these things are really happening, and one terrifying moment that could compete with any tartan asia extreme release. the end is reminiscent of the charlotte perkins gilman short story "the wallpaper" in more ways than one. and i have to say, the movies big twist completely took me

i'm guessing it was more enjoyable when it first came out, but thirty four years on, the story seems a bit familiar.

"he used love like most men used money."

what a great tag line.

Ah, tennessee williams. elvis presley was offered the lead role in the 1969 film 'sweet bird of youth', and boy, am i glad he didn't take it. much of the script revolves around the character of chance knowing exactly how good-looking he is, and, well, elvis would have added a much more sneery dimension to it than paul newman did. paul really was perfection in those days. i adore the fact that his lady love's name is heavenly, because there is a series of books by v.c. andrews starring a character named heaven leigh. heaven leigh casteel was a bit of an inbred, heavenly finleyis the daughter of a thoroughly corrupt politician. the only thing you can really say about shirley knight as heavenly, sadly, is that she is not a particularly good actress. she has the coloring to play the somewhat bland character, but that's about all she's got.

moving on, geraldine page ventures a bit too close to mommie dearest territory for my tastes. but, tennessee has a thing for 'sunset boulevard' types, so i guess it all works, except it might have worked a little better if we actually felt some sort of empathy for princess. i think my favorite character in the whole thing (yes, more favorite than paul) was madeleine sherwood, whose shrill shriek 'gooper!' resonated horribly throughout all of 'cat on a hot tin roof'. she plays dim-witted mistresses just as well as pregnant harpies. speaking of 'cat', though, they could have shifted over even more of the cast, as i would have loved to see burl ives do his big daddy all over boss finley.

so it really does just seem like a vehicle for paul newman, and paul newman alone. which is fine by me. i hate to say it, but the character of chance is not all that bright. you want him to be, on top of his having good intentions, and being in love with the girl that doesn't seem all that spectacular, but he's just not too smart. and mighty free with his sexual favors, if he thinks it might get him somewhere. he's a more subtle gigolo than the guy in 'the roman spring of mrs. stone', but a gigolo nonetheless. i was a bit confused by the apparent reticence to discuss the abortion issue for most of the film, since it was a full three years after the film version of 'suddenly, last summer', which tackled homosexuality, pedophilia, and even cannibalism pretty openly, but, sure enough, at the big political event, the whole thing blows up. i didn't actually find the film quite as enjoyable as 'suddenly, last summer' or 'cat on a hot tin roof', the story just isn't as compelling, and the secrets not quite as big. but if you're in the mood to watch newman strut around in the full bloom of his....everything, then you could certainly do worse than spend a couple of hours on 'sweet bird of youth'.

certainly more sex than your average bollywood picture

but then, there is considerably more politics in the film 'earth' as well, the second movie in deepa mehta's trilogy. the story takes place in lahore on the eve of partition, framed by narration from the woman who was the little girl at the story's center, who went by the nickname of 'lenny-baby'.

the film could have easily slid into melodrama, but even the stark contrast between happy, sunny, pre-partition india and crazed, bloodthirsty post-partition isn't so heavy-handed as to appear simplified. one drawback is that if you don't have some sort of knowledge of the events going into the film, nothing is really explained. several times the love story threatens to overwhelm the historical background, but, apart from that reeeeeeaaaaaally drawn-out sex scene, it balances well.

one nice thing about indian films is that you can always count on someone you've seen before. i have to say that the transformation of dil navan from clowny flirt to murderous bastard might have worked better, though, if played by someone other than aamir khan. or maybe i can just never think of him as anything other than the daring villager from 'lagaan', a film which could well hold the dubious title of 'most exciting film ever made about cricket'. and nandita das was in 'fire', as well as what seems like too many other films for one person.

there are a number of truly unsettling moments, such as dil navan boarding the train his sisters were on, which arrived twelve hours late and filled with corpses. then there is hasan's horrid death. the worst, though, was the little boy that lenny-baby and her friend happen upon, whose entire village was murdered, his mother raped, killed, strippped, and hung up by her hair in the mosque, and on top of all of that, no one will play marbles with him and he doesn't know what cake is.

the characters, unfortunately, tend towards the one-dimensional. shanta is sweet, dil navan is goofy, hasan is the strong silent type, lenny has a leg brace, her parents are wealthy. everyone seems to have one distinct character trait and then their religion. it's hard to grasp what's going on apart from violence. but that might just be because it is far too big of a story to tell in a two hour film -- suketu mehta's excellent book 'maximum city' gets the job done with plenty of time to explain things. it's hard to even fathom the sheer size of the catastrophe, with over a million people left dead.

rohinton mistry summed it up succinctly in his novel 'a fine balance' -- "a foreigner drew a magic line on a map and called it the new border; it became a river of blood upon the earth.'