The dark knight rises (2012)

I rarely go to the movies. When I do, I am entertained by watching moving images. The Dark Knight Rises (dir. Christopher Nolan) is one of the worst films I've seen in a long time. Of course, Batman is all about the brand, and the brand has to live on. I have never been fascinated by superheroes (beyond watching this TV series about a girl who could speak to stuffed animals) and watching Batman, I am reminded of why this is so. Superhero movies try eagerly and pompously to flatter us, titillating us into believing that the world will not go to hell even though everything looks that way. The world - must be saved and We can Do it. These movies buy into the old worn-out idea that anything is possible and that deep inside some of us, awesome powers are hidden that can change History forever. And so on and so forth. ZzZz. In this movie, we even have a sad-eyed and traumatized superhero with no cartilage in his knee. His enemy is a grunting Wrestling type in a silly mask. Tim Burton's Batman-movies were bearable because of his sense for the Bad and Evil city. In this film, we see the familiar skyline that sends shivers down our spines simply because of ugly associations*. Five orchestras playing on top of each other create a thundering sound that is supposed to 'add some drama' (one of the more successful scenes is a quieter one: a small boy's high-pitched voice singing star spangled banner as the soundtrack to gruesome things going on underground). The actors have been given lines so cheesy that it is a miracle of human nature that they can go through with delivering them without breaking into a big laugh. In the silliest scenes I've seen in a long time, Batman and his Nemesis punch each other in the face, trying hard to make it look like ... well, something that one should take bloody seriously. I try to say something redeeming about The Dark Knight Rises but this would be a distortion of reality and a misuse of language, so I end with a word of warning: do not watch this. Okay, there was something I liked: Albert. I agree with the Guardian reviewer who calls the film a children's fancy-dress party scripted by Wagner.

* The horror portrayed in this Batman film is very much dependent on the real horror of 9/11 and economic crises. Rather than seeing this as a factor that makes the film relevant, I feel it exploits this kind of background, blinding us to tragedy and the unique human life. Here, humans are divided into superheroes and the ordinary people, more or less trampled down by the sinister forces of history.

Two-lane blacktop (1971)

OK - I confess. Some road movies make me fall in love with the US and A. This is not the real country of course, but the places you see in precisely this kind of movie (from the early seventies): dingy gas stations, sleazy cafés, a thousand different landscapes. Two-lane blacktop (Monte Hellman) is, among other things, about racing cars. But don't think you and your popcorn are in for an adrenaline-kicking movie in the style of The Fast and the Furious. This is ... slow stuff, contemplative stuff - the cars may move quickly, but the film does not - and it works. A meditative little film about racing cars; genius, I tell you. I hadn't seen any of Hellman's films before, so I didn't know what to expect. One could perhaps compare it to a similarly macho movie which is just as slow: The family, starring Charles Bronson. Two-lane blacktop starts with a racing scene and ends with one as well. In between we see two guys in a car. Suddenly a girl gets into the car. We don't know her name, and nobody else's either. They hook up with a strange man, challening him to race, cross-contry. People talk in short sentences and everybody seem to hold a grudge against everybody. Drifters & dreamers - boredom mostly, and lonely folk who pick up hitch-hikers. Atmosphere: passive-aggressive, bad vibes in the air. Meanwhile: the gang is talking about spare parts. The strange man and a hitch-hiker listen to a Western song on the cassette player. The youngsters have burgers in a sleazy diner on the wall of which a sign says: no dancing. The girl is learning how to drive a car but that doesn't happen. The girl looks at others. Nobody seems to really bother about the race and who wins it. Instead, they help each other out. One of the racers falls asleep while messing with a car. Early morning. They talk to local people and the local people make sure that they are not hippies. No, hometown boys. You like Americana? Go watch this.  - - Watch out for Harry Dean Stanton (yes, he looks young here, or almost)! This might be a movie that would be silly if one tried to hard in disentangling it - so, please, beware of the Existentialist interpretations.

Hoffa (1992)

How could I resist watching a film, based on a script by David Mamet, about a union leader? Impossible. My enthusiasm waned a bit a few minutes into the film and it kept waning, because Hoffa (dir. Danny De Vito) is simply not a very good film. Do I get a wider understanding of the labor movement in the USA? Well, maybe a little, but not really. An interesting thing here is how fiercely Hoffa & his Teamsters brethren (this is a male thing) take a stand against communism - considering the political climate in the US and A at the time, this was maybe simply an act of realism, but still. As a film about a political movement, this movie is, I think, a failure. de Vito focuses on the action-packed rallies and picket lines  (fighting the scabs) along with the crime association and as far as context gets, we end up with very little. Hoffa wasn't an awful film, but it turned out to correspond with my expectations about what a film about a union leader would be like to a very large extent, which, in this case, is not a good thing. Some good acting - yes (Looking at Jack Nicholson's gestures, I really believe that this man is living for the Teamsters, even though I can only guess at the significance of that). The best scenes in the film are the more relaxed ones, where these union gentlemen talk shit and drink coffee. But they are very few. It is the kind of film in which almost every line should be as information-packed as possible. So what kind of image of Hoffa does the film present? He ends up neither a scoundrel nor a saint. This neutral aspect of the film has its merits, but also flaws, as the image of Hoffa is at times too secretive. We see his official face and actions, no more. What I intend to say is not that there should be more intimate bedroom scenes with conversations with his wife - but rather that we do not gain an understanding of what kind of fight this man is involved in.

Whip it (2009)

Whip it (dir. Drew Barrymore) is known to be something of a feminist movie for teenagers (and older teenagers). Well -. Maybe it suffices to have a female protogonist who is involved in a tough sport to call the film feminist (considering the stale activity most young girls in American movies mostly are immersed in: drooling over a boy). And maybe it is fair to say that the film was a funny way to delve into alternative culture and the angst of kids living outside the big city (in this case, Austin, Texas) and who work in a crappy joint and who don't know what to do with their lives. We first see the main character, Bliss, charmingly played by Ellen Paige, lolling about in a beauty pageant, cheered by her mother, for whom this seems to be the most important thing in the world. The girl has other ideas about what is important in life, and it is on this tension the film builds - the conflicts between children and parents. Even though Whip it mostly follows the trajectory of the typical teenage and sports movies (problem ---> resolution, a lie --> the big revelation) it is a cheerful film that presents a different image of a girl's life than being pretty and appearing more stupid than one really is in order to please a boy's indulgent psyche. Roller derby is a raunchy sport and the film shows how this sport is much more complex than scoring points (the film touches on the subject of class and age differences, the players being in their thirties and mostly from bluecollar backgrounds). It's the small details that made me like the film: American Analog Set is played on the car stereo and the director has had the imagination to make Bliss' mother a postal worker. A thing like that.

American Gigolo (1980)

If there is one film that excavates the American soul it is ... ah well, nevermind. If you like sleazy movies (with a splash of neo-noir aesthetics) from the eighties, this is for you. Richard Gere plays the prostitute who is framed in a murder case. Don't expect a spiritual journey. Expect nice beach views, homophobic gestures (or maybe that is up to interpretation - the main character may be a closeted gay guy) and Blondie on the stereo. What is interesting here is of course how this kind of movie takes another path than Pretty Woman, even though the trade looks pretty glamorous here as well. He drives fancy cars and plays the game the best he can, without having much of a clue most of the time - this character is simply a tad bit stupid. The difference with the traditional movie about female prostitutes is that this fellow is always somehow in control, even when he is not. His job might be tough at times (going with customers whom he despises) but he never appears humiliated (as is often the case in these traditional representations of the prostitute) and when he is starting to be seen that way, the director makes sure to transform him into an active subject that is indignant and who, even when he crawls to his pimp with his tail between his legs, preserves some kind of Cool. Richard Gere's character is a lonely and cold figure, and it is hard to take anything he says and does as anything else than self-deception. The audience is supposed to be a bit shocked by the gigolo's apparent interest, which goes beyond the professional, or that is what it to look like, in older women.  - - - The film's take on mature, female desire? Absolutely repellent. The perspective of the film is that these poor, wrinkled ladies should be a bit thankful that they have the attention of a beautiful younger male, regardless of the fact that they pay good money for these little adventures. I guess, morally, this film is an insult to anybody. Beyond that - it works pretty well, if American Kitsch is your thing (it certainly is mine).

The Spiral Staircase (1945)

If the story of The Spiral Staircase had been realized as an ordinary full-color, thriller movie in 2012, it would most probably have been an insufferably inane experience to watch it. Somehow, this type of material could still be the skeleton of a decent film in 1945 and my theory is that we can give our praise to the director, Robert Siodmak, and the cinematographer. The film is standard suspense fare. A woman is murdered in the very beginning of the film and we learn that more muders are probably to come. Helen, a mute woman, works as a servant for an eccentric family in a big mansion. We start to suspect that she might be the next victim of the killer who tracks down handicapped women. The film often plays on the eerie sensation of not being alone in a room. Tracking scenes of rooms and hallways, along with extreme close-up, create the backdrop of a horror film. It is hard to believe that camera placement can mean so much, but here it really does. The relainship between the people that populate the story always veer toward the ambivalent and the slightly sadistic.

The Human Condition I & II (1959)

How is a good man to act in a corrupt system? This seems to be the question that haunts Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition. Considering that the two first films were made in the late fifties, it is surprising how critical they are of Japan and Japanese politics and traditions. The Human condition can be placed in a humanistic tradition of films that take a raw and yet humane perspective on the human lot. This tradition is one-dimensionally associated with European directors such as de Sica and Visconti but obviously this tradition gained a footing also in non-European film. The first two films in the three-part series constitute an immense outcry against cruelty defended in the name of nationalism. What still confuses me is how Kobayashi felt about Japan and nationalism - and what perspective is expressed in the films. In some segments, especially in the second film, set in the army, it seems as if the director would grant the possibility of non-fascist nationalism. Militarism is heaviliy criticized, but it is unclear whether the discipline and pennalism of army life is considered as a corruption of sound Japanese values.

The story of the first two films is a simple one despite the fact that they span more than six hours of packed drama. Even though there are some bombastic scenes (with big, grand and desolate-looking landscapes), the big gestures do not feel empty. The viewer can see a real form of anger and an attempt to reveal truth. Kaji, an engineer, is the main character, around whom the narrative revolves. Being the good man who struggles against the darkness of his times, it is the tension between Kaji's reactions and the reality of the situation that form the moral heart of the film. In the first film, the man is sent (his wife accompanies him) to work as a manager in a prison camp/mining company in Manchuria. He has written a tract on labor conditions and now he sets out to transform his humanitarian words into practice. Of course, his superiors don't let him go through with the progressive reforms, but he won't let himself be bogged down. He is a strong-willed man who cares about people as much as he also seems to care about how he perceives himself. What we see the end is both a tragedy for a human being and a tragedy in history. The conditions of the times are such that one man's moral stand won't have an impact in the long run. The structure of the story in the second film is similar. The man has departed from the mines and is now conscripted to army service, where he is first an ordinary recruit and then he leads a group of new recruits, trying to represent a more decent form of leadership than the one characterized by cruelty and sadism. His group is sent to the front and the front is not a cozy place. 

One ambiguity in the film, that concerns the question about what it means to be a good person, is Kaji's moral character and how it is portayed. (Even though Kaji wants to do good, he is also shown to be slightly self-righteous.) In the worst interpretation of the first two films, it seems as if the major moral tragedy is not the cruel treatment of Chinese prisoners or the horrible deeds committed in a war, but the tragedy seems to stem fron an incongruity between principles and reality. In this reading, Kaji is above all a man of elevated principles - a man that wants to have his hands clean and to act as consistent as possible. Here, the constant tension is that between strength of character and the loss of control in an impossible situation. In another reading of the film, the director, a bit clumsily, shows how a human being's perception of reality is kept intact or how it is broken down. In the first reading, the meaning of 'reality' is neutral. Reality pops up its head and trumps over moral initiatives. In the second reading, 'reality' is moral reality so that losing one's sense of reality is also losing one's moral orientation, one's moral perception. In the first interpretation, morality is personal decency that can be retained or lost - in the second, morality is something we live with others.

For all its flaws, the Human condition is truly hard to watch because of its emotional harshness. Stylistically, it is a film that explores the catastrophe with a lofty camera perspective, so that the scene is often filmed slightly from above or from a distance. Sometimes, it is as if the characters are swallowed up by the majestic landscapes. The style of the film is well in sync with the emotional power of the story.

Pulp fiction (1994)

Pulp fiction has almost 20 years on it's neck and still it feels like more. I rember being amused by some of the absurd, brain-scraping action in the film and as I re-watch it, I find myself smiling a couple of times, but, beyond that, I am bored to death and, to be honest, quite embarrassed of the fact that this was such a popular film that made a strong mark on a number of hip films to come. I rember a colleague complaining about the immaturity of Quentin Tarantino; he is the kind of director that tries to make violence look funny and cool. After these 20 years, I tend to agree with my colleague. Stylistically, this film isn't new at all. Things like this - messy narrative, episodic storytelling, strange connections - have been done so many times before this, and I don't see that Pulp fiction breaks any new ground (Godard!), beyond making a certain form of film language popular (taking a scrap of this and a scrap of that, assembling it into a hodgepodge of cool). I tend to appreciate the humor of for example Wes Anderson more than Tarantino (even though I found Death Proof  surprisingly hilarious). Anderson's films have a kind of tenderness to them that Tarantino's films are, in my humble opinion, lacking. Of course, the film has it's merits. The sometimes offbeat, bullshit bantering is one thing you will never forget; yummy coffee is praised in the middle of a horrible brain-cleaning job. True to the overall style of the film, this type of bantering is always stylish and snappy. One thing I didn't remember is Tarantino's eye for locations. Dilapidated apartments and shady 'hoods are important ingerdients of this bizarre film. All lines are totally overwrought and the only thing that matters seems to be the coolness of it all: all characters have this icy, detached attitude and they are all, of-course very eloquent. And yes, I have a hard time sitting back and enjoy the philosophical rambling about spirituality, fate and decisions. - My impression of films from the nineties is that they all, somehow, dealt with the subject of chance vs. fate.

Happiness is in the fields (1995)

Étienne Chatilliez' Happiness is in the fields turned out to be an entertaining comedy that made me laugh out loud several times - but it is not the kind of film I will remember. Life is pretty shitty for Francis. Trouble at work, no fun at home. Francis is the owner of a toilet-seat producing factory (!) where the workers make too much trouble. The daughter has decided that she wants a fancy wedding and the wife is cold. Francis spends quality time at the bar with his mates. Then something happens. A tawdry TV show presents stories about people who look for somebody. A sentimental story is churned out about a woman that hasn't seen her husband in ages - and the husband looks just like Francis! He decides to act as if he were that lost husband, and that turns out to be the best decision he ever made. Happiness is in the fields is a light-hearted affair that is funny in scenes that don't try much, but succeeds in that quirky silliness, that special oddity. Francis' mate Gérard saves the film. Watch it on a rainy day if you lust for the stereotypical French, whimsical comedy.

Aberdeen (2000)

I remember this much: Aberdeen (dir. Hans Petter Moland) is a good film. Trying to recall my initial experience of watching it, I couldn't really atriculate why. Perhaps for this reason, I was a bit disappointed while watching it a second time. The images of a frail relationship between father and daughter still moved me, and I was still impressed by the bleak locations of the film - but a few flaws were hard to ignore. Stellan Skarsgård is great as the drunkard, father of a daughter whom he barely knows. Sometimes he overdoes the trick, but when you see him barfing in the car, you believe what you see, and you feel with the man. Being an alcoholic does not look cool, it does not look nice; it looks like piss and puke and bad, yet ambivalent, conscience. Usually, he stays away from the sentimental, but there are a few lapses. Lena Headey's role is trickier. She is the rebel, a person who is not afraid to speak her mind, and her mind tends towards the dark and cynical. Headey is great, fierce. Sometimes, her lines and gestures are simply too streamlined, and we know all to well what we are supposed to think about her: sad, sad girl who lacks the ability to form deep commitments. A cliché about 'wild women'. The miserable turns into miserabilism. Charlotte Rampling, whose performances tends to be dazzling and mesmerizing, does not really shine here; she is given too little space.

The dramatic nerve of the film, family bonds, usually skews the path of treating family relations as a black-and-white issue. These people, father, daughter, a dying mother, obviously have many problems with each other, they piss each other off, they are disappointed at one another - but at the same time there is something else also, a form of absolute responsibility. Aberdeen is beautifully shot and one of the great merits of the film is the way shabby places come alive: an oil rig seen from a distance, an ordinary-looking road, a sleazy diner. On the downside, there are a couple of heavy-handed twists that appear both unnecessary and that digress from what makes this film so good: the intimate, spunky moments between father and child.

Rebecca (1940)

Rebecca is considered a classic film and after having seen it, I can see why, even though some aspects of the film feel a bit dated. A widowed man meets a young girl during his vacation in France. He charms her and they fall in love with each other. The man is extremely rich but the girl isn't. He takes her to his home, an enormous manor house. The place is haunted by the late Mrs. The new wife, who wants to please her husband and restore everything to what it once was, finds herself more and more alienated: who was this Rebecca and how did she die? I cannot call myself a Hitchcock connoisseur, in fact, I haven't seen all that many Hitchcock films. This one was a positive surprise: an elegant film about repressed memories and obsession. Hitchcock made a horror movie without any supernatural elements; it is just the kind of movie when we really get a sense for places as occupied by those who are no longer alive, without the slightest reference to any kinds of undead creatures. All Hitchcock has to do is take us on a tour in a house, every little squeak and patch of light immersed in repression and strangeness. Rebecca is an extremely entertaining movie, perhaps because all of the visual details seem to bear so much significance, every small frame a heap of meaning, explicit and hidden. So much is going on at the same time, but the story is focused and developed in a disciplined way. While the story may seem perfectly harmless, the entire film is boiling with a strange kind of menacing energy. - - The character that fascinated me the most was the obsessive, stern-faced housekeeper, clearly enthralled by the late Mrs - and obviously in the business of destroying the happiness of the new Mrs. During this time, the rules about what could and couldn't be shown in Hollywood films were strict. Was this a conscious way of trying to break these codes and hint at a forbidden type of desire? Unsurprisingly, this film present THE typical image of lesbians: obsessive, perverted - and they HAVE TO DIE!

Dogtooth (2009)

Having read a number of reviews of Dogtooth (dir.: Giorgos Lanthimos), I was so curious that I bought the dvd version. It is a strange little film, a neighbor of gloomy pieces such as Haneke's The Seventh Continent or Lucile Hadzihalilovic' Innocence. Three children are imprisoned by their parents in a lavish house. They have never been outside, and the parents feed them strange ideas and fantasies. Even language is manipulated in the parents' home-brewed tutoring. Once in a while, a woman arrives in the house to service the eldest son sexually and at first she obligingly goes along with it. Of course, there is tension in this isolated and perverted universe. I am not sure whether Dogtooth is to be read as an allegory or as a more literal, Fritzl-like story. Of course, one of the many things that make this film uncomfortable to watch is the child-like prisoners - infantilized by their parents, captivated in an eternal, nightmarish childhood. In this film, even playfulness take on a hellish dimension, as the activity we see is as far as one can get from the free activity we tend to associate with play. On a more negative note, Dogtooth has the same kinds of problems that some Haneke movies are, in my view, riddled with. I have a hard time articulating what this is: maybe something to the effect of a suffocating perspective, from which all we can see is human misery, portrayed in a clinical way. Perhaps I even hava a difficult time figuring out how this movie was labeled 'black comedy' - or wait, there were in fact some scenes that made this intelligible (as the mother telling the children that she was about to give birth to twins - and a dog). In far too many scenes, I felt that the only point was to make me squint. Another way to make this point is that I, at least during a couple of scenes, seriously had to ask myself what the point of the film was, and that I could not really provide an answer for this. Is it a film about parenting and paranoic fear of 'the outside world' and all the harm it can do to a kid? Is it a political film? A film about brainwashing and reality? Or an extreme form of obedience/servility? Probably all of this at the same time. It will be hard to listen to stories about parents 'protecting' their children without thinking about this film. Don't get me wrong. I was gripped by Dogtooth; my questions concern in what way I was engaged by the miserable story. It is the kind of movie when it is hard to look and yet as hard to look away. Relevant here is also the aesthetic form of the film: superbly icy, sterile cinematography, focusing on the eerie white interiors of the home along with the domesticized greens and blues of the garden. Composition are often skewed, so that a leg or a head is missing. It is indeed an eerie film. 

Metropia (2009)

On the level of narrative and character development, Metropia (dir. Tarik Saleh) was a thin affair. The story is a simple one. The oil reserves are drained; Europe is now connected via a metro line spreading all over the continent. Festung Europa is strengthened and in the most popular game show, a lucky bastard is awarded asylum in Europe. A multinational company has developed a shampoo that contains surveillance antennae. The usual dystopian vision: ordinary Joe gradually understands that he is being monitored by Big Brother, and in dealing with this situation, he has to re-evaluate his entire life. What sets the film apart from the thousand other Orwellian sketches is the film's eerie animations - yes, this is an animated film. The film provides funereal images of an unsettling cityscape, bathing in darkness and gloom. Many scenes take place in the metro system and it is in these scenes that the film manages to engage me despite its overall flaws.

Dead ringers (1988)

Dead ringers is very much a David Cronenberg film. Two twins pursue the same woman, who cannot separate the one from the other. Gradually, the twins' identities start to blur. Of course, I mean: of course, the twins are gynecologists. As this is a Cronenberg film, the gruesome perversity of corporeality must be explored. But Dead ringers is a much less raunchy affair than earlier films such as Videodrome or The Fly. Cronenberg's style here, and in many other films, is based on a drab scenery, quite dry dialogue, and then - the sudden rupture of strangeness. Often, this works. At time, Dead ringers is, however, too monotonous for its own best and I mean monotonous not as in slow but as in the film becoming empty, so that this viewer starts to scream inside: yes, yes, I've seen this scene a thousand times, we know that these guys' inner lives are falling apart! What I like about the film relates only secondarily to the story. I adore Cronenberg's fondness for what first appears like icy, clinical elegance (look at Jeremy Irons' fabulously bloodless appearance as both of the twins in the beginning of the film!) - and then this whole world is torn to pieces, it gradually transmutes into something completely different, very un-clinical. Dead ringers is a quiet and subdued film with a grisly content. Put it on at 3:00 am on a Tuesday night and you will have a blast!

The Legend of Paul and Paula (1973)

I know extremely little about films produced in DDR. The Legend of Paul and Paula (dir. Heiner Carow) was apparently a popular movie in its day. I am surprised by this, as I found the film quite bizarre, almost on a par with Fassbinder's Satan's brew! It is more the style than the story that made this film quite a universe of its own. The camera is often hand held and scenes tend to wind up in a way you least expect. A strange technique is used to cut strange elements into a familiar setting. Paul and Paula are in love but they can't be together. Or are they really in love? Well, maybe they are, in their own, eccentric way. Class differences - check, funny images of work - check. The film follows the path of romantic tragedy, a couple who do not end up in each other's arms, but the way the film carries out this little plot is way out of step with conventional norms of romantic stories. The legend of Paul and Paula is hysteric, grotesque at times - erratically playful with style. Oh - and if you decide to watch this film, don't forget to check out the settings: very un-glossy urban scenery. And also: the ending, the ending! If the romantic comedies of the present Hollywood type would end this way, I wouldn't hesitate to watch one or two. Even though this was by no means a masterpiece, it was a funny, strangle little film that made me curious about the cinema of the GDR.