Buffalo '66 (1998)

Vincent Gallo is (in)famous for his film Brown bunny which was booed in Cannes and everywhere else ("I will one day be thin but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of the Brown bunny" said one critic, who changed his mind later on, when Gallo re-edited the film). Sure, that film is self-absorbed as hell, but it's not that bad. Today I watched Buffalo '66, which I saw the first time maybe 5 years ago. I don't know what to think about it. Gallo directs, writes, composes and acts the leading role. Billy is released from jail. He needs to pee. He goes to some place where a group is having dancing practice. When finally in a toilet, he is freaked out because a guy looks at him the wrong way. Obviously, Billy is an asshole. He needs a car, and he brutally forces one of the dancers, Layla (Christina Ricci) to drive him to his parents' house. He hasn't told them he was in jail and she is to pretend to be his wife. She makes her best to play along and tries to be nice to them, acting the role clumsily, saying too much. But her mum (Anjelica Huston!) is primarily focused on watching a sports game on TV while her dad mostly ogles the girls' tits. It turns out Billy was in jail for having made a false confession to save a bookie's ass, a person to whom he owes money because of stupid gambling. He now decides to kill the player who "made" him lose his money. The guy owns a strip joint. --- The rest of the story goes on from there, but with many digressions and weird little twists. Most of all, this is a story about a guy who seems to have no clue about who he is and what he is to do in life. From the first scene on, we get the idea that this guy is intent on destroying everything that comes in his way, most of all himself.

Gallo's film has a strange surge. It just does. It's hard not to care about what happens. There are few moments - these moments arrive at the very end - where you can relax and stop chewing on your fingers. Gallo really knows stuff about how to breathe life into a scene. The scenes at the dinner table - the camera swapping places so that different faces are the center of attention - is outright torturous to watch. But it works. Once in a while I start wondering whether Gallo does not know too well which buttons to push. Sometimes all these gloomy scenes become depressive in a way that gives the viewer reason to think that Gallo has worked his ass off to make them semm that way. And that's where my doubts settle in. But as a matter of fact, there's a dark sense of humor that saves most scenes from that - without it, this movie might have been unbearable to watch.

Another issue is the way the relationship between kidnapper and kidnapped develops during the film. There is a mutual dependency between them, sure. But as the focus of the film lies heavily on Billy, there are a few times when I ask myself if this is another film in which we see a troubled male (who sees himself as having to choose between LOVE and ANNIHILATION) being saved by a pretty girl who might be just as fucked up as he is, but who for all her Issues draws him out of his shell by paying attention and holding his hand. Well, decide for yourselves.

Buffalo '66 might be an annoying film. But in terms of style, it is very, very effective in what it tries to do.

Flicka och hyacinter (1950)

Flicka och hyacinter (1950) is a well-made movie. There are some unnecessary melodramatic elements, but they are few - surprisingly few. This is one of those films that has aged quite well. What makes it interesting is that it is - *spoiler alert* - a queer romance story that deals with its subject fairly openly. This dimension of the film would to some appear as just a twist of the story but I wouldn't say that it is. Actually, the film is pretty interesting because it plays with the expectations of the viewer. What is a love story? I'm curious about what kind of reception this movie was met with in its day.

The film is directed by Hasse Ekman, father of Gösta. It's a film that relies quite heavily on dialogue and the use of flashbacks, but it also has some nice-looking scenes of dimly lit interiors. As a mystery story, there's the necessary element of suspense. Dagmar Brink (a great performance by Eva Henning) is found dead in her apartment. It's obvious she committed suicide. Her neighbor, a good-natured writer, sets his mind on clarifying the circumstances of the suicide. He talks to people that knew Dagmar and gradually he comes to the conclusion that her suicide is an act of unhappy love. But it's not what he thinks. This is an elegant piece of Swedish film-making that has much in common with stuff Bergman made both previous to this movie and later on. I don't know to what extent the film is discussed today. Are there Swedish movies of the early fifties that are as good as this one? One thing I thought about while watching it was there was a lot of swearing in it. Maybe it was considered hip.

12:08 East of Bucharest (2006)

The last 40 minutes of 12:08 East of Bucharest are among the funniest and most painful moments on film I've seen in some time. Two men and the anchorman, Jdrescu, sit in a row in a drab TV studio. Just the way they sit, uncomfortably rubbing elbows, has a deeply comical streak. The program is supposed to look into the question of whether their home town did have a revolution - or not. Was there any uprising on the main piazza before 12:08 1989 (the moment Ceausescu flew off in an helicopter)? Or did everyone see the fall of Ceausescu on TV, heading out to express their opinions only afterwards? The TV show becomes an excruciating catastrophy, starting with the anchorman's totally nonsensical blabbering about Plato's cave and Heraclitus. A world-weary teacher who is known as a drinker seems to be making up stories about his own heroic past - but that is up to you to decide. His friend, who we know as the guy who dresses up as Santa Claus for children - mutters inaudible things to himself, fiddling with a piece of paper (but who, later on, delivers a moving account of the particular day of interest). People call the show to announce that the teacher is a damned liar. There was no revolution, they say, the square was empty.

Porumboiu's film represents a full-blown type of movie-making. He pays attention to everything, it seems. Colors, sounds - and, most striking of all, the angle of the frames. Most of the scenes put the viewer in a weird place. Either we look at the protagonists from a doorway, through a windshield or we see them from far away. And then I haven't yet mentioned the intentionally clumsy shooting during the last 40 minutes. Brilliant. These effects are employed ingeniously.

What becomes evident in the film is at least that "was there ever a revolution?" signals that there is no agreement as to the kind of change brought about by the end of the Ceausescu regime (who are to count as political revolutionaries, who just sort of tagged along with the flow) - what did it mean for different parts of the country, for different people, groups of society? The film makes the point in several ways but never in a tiresome way. It's very well made, and has depth both in terms of content and style.

Plus: the closing scene is absolutely stunning. Stunning!

Gloria (1980)

Gena Rowlands is great (she always is) in John Cassavetes' attempt to make an action flick - Gloria. It's an interesting movie, too, but mainly because of Gena Rowlands. In the wrong hands, it would have been a terrible film. You know, the kind of movie that has a male director showing off his devotion to the Maternal Instinct (not his own, the leading lady's) in a way that the sensible viewer instantaneously recognizes as pathological and creepy. In Cassavetes' film, Gena Rowland plays a gruff type who reluctantly takes six-year old Phil, a mob informant's kid, under her wing. Her friends killed his family, so their relationship is rather complicated. Yada, yada, silly story, lots of gun-waving, seedy back streets of New York. "I don't want to go to Pittsburgh. I'm tired." "So what?" There's a re-make of this. I suppose they cut out some aspects of the story when they made a new version. If you've seen it, you might know which parts. Well, there are tons of entertaining pieces of dialogue here. "I am the man! I am the man! I do everything I can." "You're not the man. You don't know anything." Gloria might be one hell of a mess (a six-year old kid who sounds like Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino in one...!), but it sure isn't the most boring mess I've seen. Did I mention I adore Gena Rowlands?

Red dust (1932)

Red dust is a romance story starring Cary Grant & Jean Harlow. I must say it is an unabashedly racist movie (giggling Orientals! lazy Orientals!). "Well, it was made during the thirties" is absolutely no excuse. It's also a movie that, due to its content, probably would have ended up in the censor's waste bin a few decades later. The setting is a rubber plantation in French Indo-China. The main characters are the manager, who is the hot-headed type, a prostitute/"adventurer", a newcomer engineer and his wife. The story might have appeared alluring to its contemporaries but it's nothing to write home about, really.

Tôkyô monogatari (1953)

Tokyo Story (1953) lived up to all my expectations. I've only seen one other film by Ozu, Good morning (1959), which I remember for its simple story and lack of extravaganza. The same is true about this one. Static camera, no-nonsense acting and a story that can be summed up in a few lines. An elderly couple visits their children in Tokyo. To their son and his wife their presence is a burden. They are uncomfortable. They also meet their late son's widow, who greet them much more cordially. They return home. The mother dies. Ozu's film registers changes in Japanese life (after world war two) but he does this subtly, abstaining from saying anything about either cultural development or degeneration. His film is not judgemental in the least. He does not moralize over the children who are too busy to attend to their parents. He simply points out differences among the characters. As many have pointed out, the camera angle is in itself an indication of Ozu's perspective (we see things from a quite low angle, almost looking up at the characters - as if in awe). Even though this is not a cold, objective stance, it is not intrusive either. In a certain sense, Tokyo story is not a humanistic film. The message is not "but we're only human, after all" (what I would call contempt disguised in the clothes of humanism). Nor is it "these silly puppets..." Before watching it, I worried a bit that I was going to put myself through two hours of a lugubrious meditation on the dissolution of Family. But it wasn't preaching the message of anything - thankfully. Just describing changes taking place.

It's a film with too many beautiful scenes to count. Some explore urban landscapes, other peep into rooms, sometimes empty. It's also a film that uses music in a very original way - not as a prop for emotions. Yay for that!

(Afterwards, my friend pointed out the similarity between Ozu and Bresson. He is right.)

Babettes gæstebud (1987)

Babettes gaestebud is a slightly overlooked Danish movie about faith ... and food. It's one of those movie I've watched several times over the years and every time I watch it I notice some new detail. I don't really know anything about the director, Gabriel Axel, except that he made this film and it's fabulous. Babettes gaestebud is one of those rare films in which every scene is flawless, ripe with comedy and beauty, small details and great acting that suits the mood of the film. Two sisters live in a small community of religious people in the coast of Jutland. We're talking 1800's. Their father was a priest. When they were young, suitors swarmed around them. Now, they live on their own. They do charity work and go to church. A woman from France, Babette, suddenly arrives at their doorstep. One of the suitors sends her there. She has fled France and, supposedly, the Parisian Commune of 1871. She works for them - for free - as maid and cook. Babette receives a letter. It turns out she has won at the lottery. She decides to spend all the money on a French dinner in honor of the sisters' later father, the priest. But neither the sisters, nor the villagers, are crazy about the idea. They find it sacriligeous. Food and wine! Earthly pleasures represent Satan's temptations. The villagers, who spend their days slandering one another, decide to resist the sensations of the food and drink by prending that they feel no taste. Do they succeed? No.

Why is this film so good? One: it is one of the very few movies that takes depiction of faith seriously. Faith, in this movie, is understood as our relations to one another. The change that the characters go through are depicted without any big gestures, clearly, but not in a sentimental way. Two: the images of the raw nature of Jutland are stunning. Three: There is a quiet sort of humor in this movie that I really appreciate. A Swedish cavalry officers, one of the suitors, is told by his mates to get his shit together. This guy is the sort who stands on a mountain, brooding. He simply responds, "ääh" and for some reason the entire character comes to life during the course of a few seconds. This goes for almost all characters in the film. A glance, a sardonic remark, a smirk reveals who they are. Gabriel Axel needs no lenghty dialogues or scenes in which the characters are thoroughly PRESENTED to the viewer.

(There are still many questions one could pursue in relation to this film if one wants to. Does it glorify sacrifice? Or is it about sacrifice at all? Sacrifice and art?)

I watched this on yet another crappy VHS and after Babette's gästabud some has had the poor taste to record Torsk på Tallinn. Which I watched, afterwards.

Kinsey (2004)

I watched Kinsey a few years ago. It was dubbed into German and I remember falling asleep at some point. But Kinsey is not really a bad film, even though it tends to give a too simplified idea of what scientific research is. Kinsey's research is portrayed as either being about the extremely (yes, it ends up as a caricature) clinical observation and analysis of facts or it was politically or personally liberating. The movie hints at some substantial questions (what does it mean to conduct research on sex as if it were a neutral form of behavior that without friction lends itself to statistical mappings) but regrettably Condon's film doesn't dwell on that. It dwell, unsurprisingly, on the human interest of the story.
The theme of Kinsey is far more interesting than the way it is shaped into a movie. This is a mediocre film with little originality in it. Yes, we've seen a thousand portrayals of men who go through with their projects no matter what (an inner c-c-calling - a million gall wasps, tons of interviews, all that stern dedication!). Yes, we've seen the guy who energetically fends off criticism and doubt, battling enemies, making new friends, by doing his thing. And, finally, yes, we've seen this Great Man with a supportive wife at his side ("a model of warmth and understanding", as one famous critic has it). A few stereotypes there, sure. But still, there are not many films that ask questions about the role of science in society and the impact of science on how we understand ourselves.
If you want to see a better film by Bill Condon - watch Gods and monsters (with Ian McKellen). That's a film with some originality at least.
... Well, it is at least good to see Liam Neeson perform in a better movie than Rob Roy.
Excuse me, it's time for the daily dose of van de Velde.

Città violenta (1970)

For a boring evening like this, an action movie with Charles Bronson is not the wrong solution. Violent city is gritty, the kind of gritty you expect from a gangster movie made in 1970. What is striking about it is how slow it is. During the first half of the movie, barely a word is uttered. A sense of foreboding in the air. We follow an endless car chase, a guy waiting in a bush, a race car circuit. For an action movie, this is kind of weird. Beyond that, this is nothing out of the ordinary. A hitman hooks up with his old girlfriend. Revenge is to be taken on those who set him up in the first section of the movie, comprising a car chase, a shootout. But who set him up? The rest of the story revolves around mobsters, seedy criminals and power games. Sergio Sollima is the director of this slightly misanthropic action movie and Ennio Morricone made the music. Not bad, but sexist as hell, and uneven in quality. Some great scenes made this film worth its 90 minutes.

Roma, città aperta (1945)

No, I wasn't blown away by Rome, Open City (1945). I was too tired when I watched it and what occupied me most during the first hour was trying not to snore too hard. Yes, there were some good scenes capturing ordinary life in a war-stricken city. Yes, the scenes were shaped in an interesting way, often with a sudden change of frame. Yes, it was fun to watch a stern, lesbian (or something) Nazi. But no, I wasn't much impressed. I hold Germania anno zero as a much better film.

The Crossing Guard (1995)

The Crossing Guard is immediately recognizable as a Sean Penn movie; Bruce Springsteen on the soundtrack, grimey streets, no-nonsense cinematography. And it has a lot of themes typical for a Sean Penn movie, too. Troubled males, remorse, redemption. John has served time in prison for having run over a girl, Emily, while drunk-driving his car. He is released and the father of the child, a man torn to pieces by grief, tries to kill him but there are no bullets in his gun. The story revolves around John and Freddy, the father, building up tension before their final rendezvous. Luckily, The Crossing Guard does not focus entirely on revenge, there are too many movies out there that do. It's more a film about people locked within grief. This is not a terrible film but not a particularly original one either. Jack Nicholson's debauchery, his grinning face, his tortured demenour, isn't that convincing. We get it, Freddy is depressed. Freddy drinks. Freddy hangs out in strip joints. But Freddy remains a caricature of what grief is. One of the most embarrassing (for Mr Penn) moments in the film is when Freddy brings home a girl from one of the joints and she plays him a song on her cheap synthesizer. Stripper with a heart of gold! C'mon! Penn should cut down on his use of clichés. Indian Runner is a much better achievement than this is, even though these films have lots in common.

(By chance, Anjelica Huston acts in both of the films I watched tonight. She is good in both.)

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

I am not a dedicated fan of Wes Anderson (though I like most of his films) but I found The Life Aquatic strangely moving and strangely melancholy. As usual it's a smart film with deadpan dialogue (it's a smart movie but also a slow movie). The story prides itself with tons of quirks and odd characters, among them the guy who performs David Bowie songs in Portugese. Beneath all this is a quite simple story about affection and loss. This film won me over for several reasons. There were a couple of beautiful scenes involving underwater creatures, it has Bill Murray who once again plays this weary kind of person whose greatest self-expression is a sigh. But I never really understood what troubles this guy. And Life Aquatic has some goofy moments that work just fine, and some that are just too much on the slapstick side of what kind of humor I can stomach. And by the way, this is one of those rare movies in which I don't hate Cate Blanchett's mere presence.

Don't come knocking (2005)

You know what? Films about men who are afflicted with Deep Problems should be restricted to a Dumb & Dumber slapstick comedy formula. There are too many dramas in the world about silent, raging men into the soul of whom the viewer is invited to take a deep, fascinated look. Usually these film heroes ride cars on the lonely highway and usually they have weatherbeaten faces in which we are to count the years as in a log. Without exception, these existential heroes have issues with Women. The existential hero runs away from something. It tends to be some girl with blond hair who works as a waitress in Montana.

Don't come knocking is not Paris, Texas even though these films have lots in common. The guy who just has to disappear. The guy who flees his past. The open road. The glaring neon lights Etc. You immediately recognize this as a Wim Wenders film, from the first frame onwards. He's established his own style, right. But what Paris, Texas has and what Don't come knocking lacks is restraint. The latter film has too much neon, too many 360* camera turns, too much haunting guitar plucking for its own best. These things have now degenerated into clichés. Wim clichés.

The leading man of Don't come knocking is Sam Shepard. He plays an actor who just has to run away from the movie set to deal with his past. He is the eternal troublemaker who starts to feel he has wasted his life. He visits his mom. He tracks down the girl he made pregnant. She is a waitress in Montana ... He wants to be reconciled with his rock n' roll lifestyle indulging kid, but the kid is more interested in being an eternal troublemaker. Just like his old man.

Wender's film was perfectly watchable but it is a failure in several ways. His characters are over the top and appear to be paper dolls rather than real people, the acting is not good and the soundtrack is used in a much too aggressive way. There are a few good scenes, though. One of them involves the waitress. She is not going to make up with the man who left her 30 years ago. She delivers a long speech about why this is impossible. It's a rather good speech even though the delivery by the actress is completely embarrassing. Without it, the film would have become far more sexist than it is now. Another great scene is shot in a neon-drenched hellhole Casino where Sam Shepard staggers around in drunken frenzy.

Martha (1974)

I re-watched Fassbinder's Martha today on a crappy VHS tape. It's a brutal but interesting film. What hit me this time was the significance of one of Helmut's lines. He says something to the effect of him wanting Martha all for himself, that he be Martha's entire world. What I realized when I watched the film the second time is how repressed Martha's understanding of herself is. She lives a life in which everyone expects her to be clingy and needy and she has learned to get used to the cold shoulder. (In that, the film poses question about resistance and the meaning of "willing" submission.)

Blackboards (2000)

Samira Makhmalbaf is the director of Blackboards /Takhté siah (2000). It's a simple, yet politically conscious, film much in the same style as the two other films I have seen by her, The Apple and At five in the afternoon. All three films showcase great acting and many poignant scenes, driven by very simple, close-to-life dialogue. In Blackboards, the main characters are two teachers, Said and Reeboir, who trudge the craggy border area of Iran and Iraq. The story takes place during the Iran-Iraq war. They look for students whom they can teach how to write. They are Kurds and what we get a glimpse into in this film is Kurdish people who have fled their homes, and who intends to return. The teachers hooks up with a group of elderly people, and another group of children carrying goods on their backs. They persist in offering them their services, as teachers and in Said's case, guiding the group of elderly people to the border. The film mostly depicts their perilous journey among the hills. They are in constant fear of border military who aims gunfire at them. Makhmalbaf really has an eye for people and social interaction. She creates amazingly intimate scenes by elucidating the specific occasion. An ailing old man needs to pee but is unable to do that, other men carrying him by each arm and encouraging him to pee. Said approaches every kid he sees with the question, "can you read"? The kids are smart and do not trust this stranger. Suddenly, Said is married to a woman in the group. The woman is not interested. What is atypical and great about Blackboards is how quickly and successfully it manages to introduce its characters. But not by painting with broad streaks, by means of dramatic entrances or eccentric behavior. Characters are established in sensitively written dialogue, in which everything is of importance, even annoying repetitive questions and even things like peeing and eating nuts.

La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928)

This is yet another silent movie that has an inventiveness to it that most contemporary films lack. Dreyer experiments with angles and perspectives, with light, with close-ups and frames. In contrast with most movies, this is an overwhelming cinematic experience. There is no need for 3D glasses to lend depth to the images. The passion of Jeanne d'Arc is a stunning movie about heresy, divine revelation, faith and religious hypocracy, about psychological blackmail and one individual against an institution in which nobody speaks for themselves, in their own name, but in the name of tradition, even in the name of God. Dreyer strips away the political background and if you ask me, that is not a problem. He makes his own Jeanne d'Arc and I find the film's relation to the "real" Jean D'arc uninteresting. Dreyer made a good decision when he based the film exclusively on the trial documents and the excecution of Jeanne d'Arc. (I remember being unimpressed by Luc Besson's action-packed movie from the late 90's that starts with images of the English destroying Jeanne's village and raping the women etc.) What everyone remember Dreyer's film for is his unique images of the human face. And it's not the close-ups in themselves that have this striking effect. The story itself takes place in the expressions of these faces, against the backdrop of minimalist, but carefully structured sets. No trinkets.
What is rather surprising about this film is the strong anti-institutional message. The representatives of the Church are depicted extremely harshly, as blabbering cowards, puffed up by self-righteousness.
(According to Wikipedia, Cat power made music for several screenings of this film in 1999 ... I am quite curious what kind of music she made ...)

Le testament du Docteur Cordelier (1959)

I must confess I had seen no film by Jean Renoir prior to watching Le testament du Docteur Cordelier. That's embarrassing. I have a strong doubt that this movie is not considered a peak in the Renoir ouvre. Actually, this take on Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is quite funny, but not so much more than that. The scenes in an urban setting are great. And it is always entertaining to watch another movie that pokes fun at eccentric psychiatrists & psychologists. I couldn't stop thinking that the violent scenes might have had an influence on the perspective on violence in A Clockwork Orange. The Hyde character is a mix of Chaplin and Alex in Kubrick's movie, swaggering, spastic, an embodiment of movement. The physicality of this character is rather fascinating to watch - and the idea of "violent impulses" that is evoked here. This was perhaps even the most interesting aspect of the film, the physical transformation Jekyll - Hyde.

I will watch some other Renoir film soon.