Nosferatu (1979)

One could say lots of things about Werner Herzog's take on Nosferatu. One could, for example, say that it is more sexist than almost any other movie (the vampire can only be killed by a woman with a pure heart, or how it was: oh look at the true self-sacrifice of a beautiful woman!). The second thing to be said is that it is a brilliant film, one of Herzog's best, a stylistically marvellous show-off that needs no particular technical devices. Bruno Ganz, who is always good, plays Jonathan, the decent bourgeois man with a beutiful wife. He is sent on a business trip to the strange land of werewolves and old tales, in which Dracula resides. Kinski plays Dracula, and of course he adds both drama and strangeness to the role. You know the rest of the story. The only thing Herzog has added is his usual tirade about science and how we are misled by scientific thinking. The film features countless striking scenes (even small ones, as a little girl coughing in a harbor filled with rats, people and a boat). The film is shamelessly pessimistic and the message is: evil will - pervade! The film is a mix of funny and sad. We see a doomed world, and even the Dracula figure itself lacks all marks of 'evil', he is more a tragic figure. On the other hand, Herzog's coy humor is expressed in many places, for example in the character of van Helsing, a scholarly doctor-cum-vampire hunter. Nosferatu, thankfully, has very little of the proneness for blood&guts of traditional horror movies; it opts for aesthetics and atmosphere more than sensation.

Cosmopolis (2012)

Cronenberg is Cronenberg and Cosmopolis is no exception. Cronenberg has always been interested in how the world as we know it is torn apart, how glitches are opened, how the clean surfaces are smudged. In my opinion, this is a far better achievement than many of his last films (Spider, A history of violence, the Freud&Jung film), which does not imply that Cosmopolis is a masterpiece - it's not. It's a messy film that could've been straightened out, some scenes could have been discarded. Especially towards the end, the film loses much of what it had going for it. It is the urban dystopia of the first part of the film that I was thrilled by. Cronenberg's cold, icy gaze looking at these people who are not elusive at all - they are walking dead. A young businessman sits in a limo. Destination: the young man needs a haircut. A security risk has arised on the radar and the president is in town. A rap star's funeral is celebrated somewhere on the streets. The traffic is on a standstill. The security guys advise change of plans. The young man wants his haircut, and the limo continues its strange and hallucinatory route uptown, NYC. (Or I guess its uptown, I don't know exactly.) Business talk mingles with quasi-marxist speeches. The world of business is depicted as a lonely, lofta universe with no contact whatsoever with the surrounding world. Capital shits out golden eggs but the eggs are rotten inside. A world is about to crumble, or will it? The businessman has what he needs in his car, even his own theoreticain and prostrate doctor, and he doesn't let angry demonstrators scare him. He speaks in a monotonous drone and there is no sign of life in him. He quarells in a zombie-like way with his girlfriend, and engages in anonymous sex with a security guard and a mistress. Towards the end, we meet his Nemesis. The nemesis dons a towel on his head; Kraaazy vs. Kraaazy. Is there a Resolution? Oh.... My friend pointed out that Cronenberg's film lacks perspective. What should we understand this scenario as? Dystopia? Or are we already there? What kind of dystopia? I agree with my friend that there are many unclear things here. - - And what should one really say about a film as icy as this one?

I wonder what the Twilight fans thought about Cosmopolis.

Archipelago (2010)

I suppose the budget of Archipelago is not of a millions-and-millions dollar scope, as this is a film in which locations are few, and no particular special effects are used. In other words: it's a simple film, with a simple plot - but that is also why I loved it. Joanna Hogg may not be Ozu, but she sure has a good eye for familial conflicts of the kind that grow and grow, often in a way that is not acknowledged by anyone. A family of three goes to an island to have a vacation. They hire a house and even a maid to fix dinner for them. From the get-go, there is tension in the air. The son is irritated that his girlfriend couldn't come. He is angered by the other family memeber's treatment of the maid. The mother and the sister treats the son as somebody who should get a grip, get "realistic". A never-endeing sadness in how these people are alienated from each other, and how they hide out in their own rooms. We see these tensions in small details, in the way things are discussed or the way discussions are broken in silence. In one scene, we see the family gathered at a restaurant dinner. The sister starts to make a fuss about the soup, and the situation immediately gets excruciating. Gradually, the conflicts get grittier, but there are never any big revelations or anything of that kind. What we have is simply people with certain difficulties in relation to each other. Hogg is not the kind of director that hunts down big drama. Archipelago has the feel of a Mike Leigh or Kore-Eda movie; understated, yet clear (and very English, the upper-class people who shoot partridges on the island included). Locations are used to great effect, making this into much more than just a dark family tale: no details seem superfluous. There is no atmospheric music, no lavish outbursts. It's a film in which ordinary things as the meek, cold sunshine is used to great effect. Hogg knows her medium, no doubt about it. I look forward to her next films.

Maurice (1987)

Maurice is based on a novel by EM Forster and considering this is a Merchant-Ivory production, the film is pretty interesting, daring even (almost). Yes, this is a film in love with its time period (the years before WWI), its props, its sense for innovation, its mannerisms and neuroses. But it is also a film about love. Maurice is the young bourgeois kid who falls in love with a fellow Cambridge man. Their love story does not work out well, as the other lover is more interested in Plato than his lover. His friend becomes a pillar of society, a man who passes the time strolling around his estate and making politics and a name, while Maurice broods and whiles away his time in a boring business office in London. The story revolves around love of the unspeakable kind, the tensions it reveals, the strange glances of people who know, who suspect, who guess. As a film, this is nothing out of the ordinary, but this is not to say that the film lacks style or inventiveness. It is, I must admit, terribly elegant, capturing details and taking its time to tell the story. As an adaptation of the novel, this is a pretty decent attempt at being true to the source. In a exquisitely tasteful way, Maurice takes a deep breath of a society full of lies and pretense. The shortcoming of the film - and the book - is extremely crude depictions of class differences.

Shadow of angels (1976)

Fassbinder acts in a prominent role in Shadow of angels (dir. Daniel Schmid) and it wouldn't have surprised me, had he directed the film, ripe with typical fassbinderian elements: references to Marx, doom & gloom, stagey presentation. This is the uplifting story about a pimp and a prostitute. Their lives are miserable and gradually they become even more miserable, as more people are drawn into their circle. The 'rich Jew' (as he is called in the film) for example, who 'seduces' the prostitute. Love and capitalism - intertwined. Or shall we say: 'love'. Plenty of contempt, contempt for oneself and for others. What makes the film work is its structure. At first we have a fairly realistic setting, but by and by, the film becomes more theatrical. We are dragged deeper into the hell-hole that the story comprises. The actors are veritable zombies, muttering sinister words, never communicating. One may say that the entire thing is intentionally flat. No nothing in terms of feelings or change, or loopholes. Instead, we are fed with existential poison and political commentary: fascism lurks around the corner, be it in the shape of a cabaret artist & father dressed up in a sleazy gown. - - Prepare yourself for a heartwarming experience!