Alien (1979)

Not having seen Alien for perhaps 15 years, I was thrilled to see how visually stunning it is. Clearly, it was made under the influence of 2001: A Space Odyssey: elegant/intricate camera movements, long takes, visionary sets. The vision of technology might appear old-fashioned (lots of buttons, blinking lights, the odd rackets), but it rarely elicits laughter. I can't say I am worried about the technical details of the sets/the story. What matters is that the places the film explores, a battered and grimy-looking space ship, evoke just the right associations and feelings (of unease and disorientation, mostly). During countless moments, the camera tracks the movements of characters walking through the space ship's quirky locations. Sometimes, there are no character to follow, just empty space(s) and perhaps the dreadful whirring or almost-audible humming of machines. Alien has a fairly traditional soundtrack (slightly experimental classical music) but it is the details of the environmental sounds I like best. What is more, the film often builds suspension from silence. It is a cliché to talk about the sense of claustrophobia of course, but here that word is actually in place. More than a few traditional action movie storytelling devices is put to use (crackled communication; counting down for hurried take-offs, alluring chases etc.). Somehow these familiar cinematic routes are a good counterpart to the quieter moments.

The monsters we assume hide somewhere abourd the ship we have only a slight knowledge about; we don't know exactly what kind of creatures these are, we just know that they all look very different and perhaps that they can do unimaginable things, like bursting through a man's stomach. We don't know their origin, and we don't know much about their reactions either.  One could perhaps compare these creatures to the bugs Cronenberg takes such a liking to: the alien life form that has some strange and unknown connection to humanity, revealing some surprising aspects of human behavior. This is to say that it is not the aliens themselves that are of interest in Alien, but rather, it is the way humans react to them, are fascinated by them. It might not be that far-fetched to say that Alien has some connections to the string of eco-critical sci-fi movies produced in the seventies (some of which I have written about on the blog quite recently). The crew on Nostromo, a commercial ship, are workers, not adventurers. We know there is an official mission (to ship metals to Earth). But as a weird signal is heard, they land on a planet inhabitad by a desolated ship, in which there are tons of eggs. You know the rest of the story. What keeps haunting the viewer is that the circumstances of the mission and the detour are not really evident. Is brining the aliens to Earth in fact the real mission?

The film is marred by a bunch of silly-ish moments (the lengthy chasing a cat) and a very annoyingly stereotypical characters, the Emotional Woman (maybe the intention is to pay homage to the brilliant B-movies of the 50's, I don't know). Beyond that, Alien is what sci-fi should be; food for imagination, food for associations.

Il Posto (1961)

Something about Il posto reminds me of another great true-to-life film, A taste of honey, one of the best Brittish kitchen sink dramas ever made; heartfelt, but quite sad; realistic, but with a perspective of its own. Switch the kitchen sink to a version of neorealism and you have an idea about what Il posto is like. This is a film that has a very limited story. I don't mean limited in a negative way, it's just simple. A young man with ever-widening eyes looks for a job to support his family (mother and brothers). After going through a ridiculous application process (where he, among other things, is expected to answer yes or no to questions such as whether he is repulsed by the opposite sex). In the end, he is hired, but not for the job he has applied for. He is more of an errand boy than the clerk he hoped to become. During the application process, he has met a girl he quickly befriended. The girl got a job at the same place, but in another department. They don't see much of each other, which breaks his heart. His job is dreary, he is not entrusted with anything important, there are many dull routines. Like Antonioni and Tati, Ermanno Olmi meticiously captures the impersonal environment of the modern city. Many brilliant shots observe long corridor, waiting rooms and streets that all look the same. People gobble up in a dreary-looking corporate lunch room. Toward the end of the film, our young hero attends a dance organized by the workers' club. In a very naked and desolate-looking room, his gaze wanders around (he is waiting for the girl) as an elderly couple invites him to sit with them.

Olmi doesn't conjure up dystopian views on the work and routines. Rather than revolutionary Spirit, the film exudes patience and quiet humour. Il posto is documentary-like, it doesn't preach, it doesn't deliver a simple story about What Work is Like in Modernity. My applause for that! It is the little things that give away the boy's increasing sense of disillusion and disappointment (the girl he rarely meets, the monotonous job); mostly, the boy's expressive eyes constitute the emotional power plant of the film. Very little has to be said. All characters are developed without attempts at creating (stereo-)types. The dialogue revolves around the activities in which the characters take part. No attempt is made to characterize the characters' emotions through dramatic dialogue. The film's close attention to the relation between characters and surrounding bear a resemblance to Bresson. In yet another great scene, the boy and the girl strolls around in a fancy part of the town. They decide to drop in at a café, as that seems to be the kind of thing that adults do. In a very unsure and hesitating manner, they both do their best to emulate the behavior of grown-ups. One could say that one of the main themes of the film, evoked in a witty and ingenious way, is the transformation from youth to adulthood, and the role of work in this process. The biggest merit of the film is to depict things that are normally taken for granted as a natural progress in a young person's life and in society in general. Olmi makes us look at the world of work from a distance, through the boy's quizzical eyes. Olmi's film is deceivingly simple - the truth is it is one of the best films about work I've seen in a long time. 

Barfly (1987)

The affable drunk is a staple in film and on TV. Sometimes it works really well (I wouldn't mind sitting through an Absolutely fabulous-marathon right now!). Barfly - I don't know. In many ways, this film is just what I expected it to be. Henry is an unremitting drunk (the screenplay was written by a certain Mr. Bukowski). We learn that it takes more to be constantly drinking than ...  So, Henry's got some talent for drinking. Usually, he hangs out at the local coctail dive (showering in piss-coloured light). Sometimes he just feels an irresistable need to fight the bartender. Naturally, he's popular among the ladies. He takes a liking to a local character named Wanda, and she takes a liking to him. They are the perfect couple, sharing the unabiding joy of a glass of Scoth (or 15). We also learn that Henry has some hidden literary talents (which, of course, also makes him popular with the ladies). The main point of the film seems to be to show us the bohemian who detests the Straight life of the common Joe. Because, you know, Henry wants to live and he cannot live in "a golden cage". You get the point / I get the point. Barfly obviously has some charm (especially the depiction of the local dive exudes some genuine warmth) but most of the time, I cannot stop feeling this film is just ridiculously romanticizing "the Bohemian". But hell, I'd rather watch Barfly than Into the Wild. At least, this is a cheery film almost without traces of sentimentality. Plus: I like Mickey Rourke.
Convincing performances of drunkenness is remains of the toughest challenges on film - Rourke might be one-dimensional, but he's pretty good at that.

Smoke (1995)

Smoke (dir. Wayne Wang) was one of my favorite films as a teenager. I have vivid memories of Auggie's Brooklynite cigar store and the people that cross his path, even though perhaps ten years have passed since I saw this film. Re-watching it, I was a little nervous it wouldnt have aged well. In fact, with the exception of a few instances of pretentious & forced dialogue, it still strikes me as a good, slow-paced film about how human relationships unwind in the most unexpected ways. The scruffy surroundings of New York, Harvey Keitel's robust presence and low-key conversations make for a decent film that revolves around the magic twists and turns of ordinary life. One could argue that this film is more about atmosphere than content and sure, that's right. One could also argue that some human difficulties are sugarcoated with sweeping gestures in the direction of "humanity", and heck, if I'd been watching the film in a more unsympathetic mood, I would have said something like that. It's the quiet moments where nothing really happens (people hang out in Auggie's store) that save this film from what would otherwise have been a big complaint: dramatized vagueness. And believe it or not, Tom Waits' music remains gorgeously timed. --- But if you watch this film, turn it off before the closing credits, my god, what a song. I also found the ending re-enactment of a story told in words completely superfluous. After finishing the film, I wonder what it is exactly that makes the feeling of the 90's loom so heavily over Smoke. Lots of low-key, episodic and loose-ended films were quite successful at that time.

A Place in the Sun (1951)

I think I read somewhere that A place in the Sun (dir. George Stevens) is a hugely romantic film. The truth is, however, it's a hugely cynical film. That is not a bad thing. The film has enough guts to satirize the unbending rules of social climbing. Of course, this is covered up in a love story, but to be honest, the love part is pretty invisible around here. We see a lot of infatuation, a great deal of (self-)deception and some murky, dark intentions, too. Most of the people just don't know what to do with themselves, they are just shuffled along, driven by capricious motives. The story is simple. A young man is hired in a factory owned by his relative. He is in love with one of his fellow workers, who becomes pregnant. Too bad; the boy has already found another, more interesting, and, you guessed it, wealthier girl. What to do? To be a film from the era of right-wing censorship, this is pretty impressive stuff (the end of the film is not exactly jolly). Great acting at times, too. Elizabeth Taylor had a few really good roles and she shines in this performance of the self-indulgent, socially dazzling girl who thinks she can have it all. Montgomery Clift is good as well as the fickle George. Along with that, some bad acting, especially from the overwrought representation of the hysterical girl in Trouble. It has been complained that the film is confusing with regard to the viewer's sympathies with the characters. For my part, I like the fact that the film's main character, nice boy Clift, treads the path between boy next door and grim killer.

Barton Fink (1991)

Without exception, Joel & Ethan Coen have made a string of humorous, sometimes gritty but always quirky, movies. Barton Fink is all of these things. You might say that Barton Fink is more style than content, but that does not matter much. I liked it. If you manage to create a strangely intimate film about an aspirational left-wing playwright who tries to make it big in Hollywood, you really should not complain (he is assigned to make a movie about, ahem, wrestlers). Crass is the word that springs to mind when trying to encapsulate the film's take on Hollywood business. The fact that the story takes place in the 30's make little difference. This is the kind of film that builds atmosphere by means of lengthy takes in which the only thing we see is a dingy/stylish hotel corridor. I like that kind of thing, and I cannot resist the quiet and sometimes gross humor that transforms Barton Fink from a stylistic show-off to an affectionate film about loneliness and ... you know, good old writer's block. There are hundreds of films about writer's block. Writer's block is the stuff of horror movies (think: The Shining) and sweet comedies such as Wonder Boys. There seems to be few better ways of satirizing the life of the Genius than focusing on the pathetic self-engrossed version of writer's block. The heart of the film belongs to John Goodman, who acts the role of a insurance man who, under the facade of likeable and down-to-earth companion, is not what he appears to be. John Torturo as the neurotic and world-weary playwright is good as well. In short, Barton Fink is a funny film and lovely-looking film about selling one's soul to the devil.  

Melancholia (2011)

I can't get my head around Melancholia. Or, in some respects I can, and some things just baffle me. I watched the movie a week ago, and I still don't know quite what to say. The film starts on the grandest note possible. The thundering intro to Tristand & Isolde rattles the viewer's bowels. We see images in slow-motion. People are moving around, slowly, slowly. A small child. Two women. A horse. But we also see a planet moving towards Earth, and, after a long, long time, colliding into it. This long prelude is on a par with the most bombastic, yet strangely dazzling, scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Lars von Trier is not the man of understatement here. APOCALYPSE is spelled in capital letters. But that doesn't make me any more convinced I know in what way this is a film about the end of the world.

What I find perfectly rewarding is the drastic changes in styles that occur several times during the film. The Wagner-fuelled prologue is very different from what comes next; an upper-class wedding is depicted using a wobbly, nervous cinematography. Early on, we get a sense everything is not quite right. The bride makes several attempts to escape from the wedding dinner, among other, worse, things, and her parents can't stop hating each other and acting like small children. It's all a nightmare of dysfunctional relations, really, too much for a desperate wedding planner (Udo Kier!) who tries to keep up appearances. In the last segment of the film, the pace is slowed down and we follow the bride and her sister's family in the days after the catastrophic wedding. The planet from the prologue is re-introduced. The planet Melancholia is known to approach Earth, but according to "reliable scientists" it will pass by Earth on a safe distance. Each family member deals with the news in her own way. Justine, the bride, is wrapped up in depression. We don't really see her react in any way, in relation to the strange planet or anything else, for that matter, until the very end. Her sister Claire takes care of her, while at the same time trying not to check the latest news updates on the Internet. She is a down-to-earth person who just want things to work out, but that planet keeps her awake at night. Her husband (who resembles the male protagonist in Antichrist) represents himself as the voice of reason, of science and clear-headed sobriety.

What makes this film bearable, good even, is that for all its overblown end-of-the-world scenarios, for all its cheap metaphors and tired clichés of the mad woman eating jelly with her hands - the film takes a stand to represent depression in a novel way, not as an irrational aberration but as a place where you will see reality from a certain point of view. For that reason, the ending scene has an eerie beuty to it. I say this even though I'm not sure I should buy von Tries defense of the depressed. But in this health-crazed culture where each of us is encouraged to tread through life in sound knowledge of "business being business", von Trier's film provides a refreshing protest.

There are even more reasons for watching it. Charlotte Rampling is excellent, as always. Even though one could lament some overly beautific images, I really dig the film's sharp contrasts, making the erratic cinematography of the beginning nudge with the tranquility of the later segment. Melancholia has some weak parts and some pieces of dialogue are just out of order in being so, so pretentious - but it still is a film I've been thinking about all week, re-enacting some images in my mind's eye.