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A Story Retold: Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars

    The classic Akira Kurosawa 1961 film Yojimbo, and its spaghetti western remake, Sergio Leone’s 1964 A Fistful of Dollars, tell an almost Shakespearean story of a wandering stranger who comes into a town riddled with violence. The stranger uses wit and martial skill to trick the town’s competing gangs into destroying each other. The two films follow the same basic plot structure but use different tones and filmic techniques to tell the story. Yojimbo has many comedic elements, with witty dialogue and interesting characters in the town, which make up for the relatively few and simple sets. A Fistful of Dollars retells the story, but makes the film more about the action, with more violence, vivid color, complicated sets, and fewer character development scenes.

    Yojimbo was made in black and white, set in a simple Japanese town while samurai were still powerful, but guns were being introduced. A Fistful of Dollars is set in a Mexican town just south of the US border; the gangs in the town have more developed compounds and attempt to operate without the knowledge of the army. The sets of the films are very different, much of the dialogue in Yojimbo, following the ronin Sanjuro, takes place in the bar or on the street, while A Fistful of Dollars has more scenes outside of town and in the vast compound the Rojo gang has. The Rojo gang is made up of three brothers and their followers, they have a walled compound, with large storage rooms, and a courtyard for feasts. The story follows the Rojo’s more than their counterpart in Yojimbo, Ushitora’s gang. Yojimbo’s sets are very simple, with a few small houses and the large open street having most of the action. The Rojo’s rival gang, the Baxters, did not receive much development, while Ushitora’s rival Sebei is made to seem like more of a player in the game. Of the two films, Yojimbo gives off the sense that the town is full of real characters, from the merchants to the low-lives. A Fistful of Dollars has fewer character outside of the gangs, and almost no extras, making the town seem dead, but this strategy allows for the filmmakers to focus on developing the Rojo’s and the Man With No Name’s relationship with them.

    In both films, a rivalry is set up between the protagonist and the other most competent man in town. Unosuke in Yojimbo, and Ramon Rojo in A Fistful of Dollars. Both Unosuke and Ramon are distinguished from their brothers and the rest of the town by their skills as marksman. Unosuke is in possession of a handgun, a rare and deadly weapon that often spells death for samurai. The pistol defines Unosuke as a killer, he goes on to prove his vicious nature throughout the film, before dying to Sanjuro’s sword. Unosuke’s need for violence, even in his dying moments as he says: “without my pistol… I feel sort of naked. I can’t go to the other world without it.” Somehow, when Sanjuro hands him the pistol, Unosuke is unable to shoot, perhaps revealing that violence is not really the answer. Ramon Rojo, from A Fistful of Dollars, is also out for blood, murdering a Mexican Army squad for gold and framing the Americans. This scene was surprising because there was no basis for it in Yojimbo, showing that the western uses action to drive the plot.

    Ramon is given more external motivation than Unosuke, by trimming down some of the content in Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars has fully removed the Sake brewer and the Silk merchant’s characters. The Sake brewer, siding with Ushitora, was given the woman Nui (Marisol in A Fistful of Dollars) to secure his loyalty. Without an intermediate character like the Sake brewer, Ramon himself covets Marisol and stole her from her family. When the Man With No Name rescues Marisol, there is a personal vendetta between them, and makes their showdown much more emotionally charged. Ramon is a master marksman, and the only character shown using a rifle. The sword versus pistol in Yojimbo hits much harder than the pistol versus rifle concept in Fistful of Dollars, but the final fight scene is executed extremely well, with the Man With No Name goading Ramon into using up all his ammo before proving himself to be the better gunslinger.

    The two bartender characters contrast well considering the different approach both films take to violence. Gonji, the elderly bartender is sick of seeing violence in the town, he is distrustful of Sanjuro, who he fears will incite further killing. His temperament reflects the moral stance the film takes: violence and gambling are wrong, and evil men will be punished. A Fistful of Dollars does not talk about morality much at all, the Man With No Name simply finds a situation to take advantage of, without a clear motive. The bartender her befriends, Silvanito, is against his involvement with he town affairs but celebrates as the gang members are killed and tricked. He is not as averse to violence, and watches as Ramon kill the Mexican soldiers. Silvanito does not serve as a moral compass like his counterpart Gonji; both help the protagonists, but take different views to their actions.  

    In conclusion, the plot of Yojimbo is trimmed down slightly in A Fistful of Dollars, but the two films approach the story differently, with Yojimbo functioning like a play, with snappy dialogue and reduced fight scenes, while A Fistful of Dollars capitalized on action, and only developed the most important characters. The focus on action is engaging and visually pleasing, as well as effective at creating tension during the shootout scenes, which any good western should strive for. In Yojimbo, the focus on writing and dialogue gives both a levity and intelligence to the film, while limiting the exploration of the set. Both films follow the plotline well and have excellent final fights.

When the Camellia Blooms (Yaejin)

    In search of fresh small-screen content, I delved into a realm I have not touched since 2016: Korean dramas. Unlike American television shows, which, if successful, might extend over years, Korean dramas are packed into single seasons with sixteen to twenty-four episodes. The one I chose, When the Camellia Blooms features Dong-baek, a single mom, adjusting to a new town, Ongsan. 

    Initially, my interest lay in the portrayal of single mothers, who in Korea are still socially stigmatized. But in the end, I was charmed by the girl power displayed in the show. There is no self-righteous moralizing message. Every character has grave personality flaws, regardless of gender. Sexism is rampantly apparent. However, ultimately, each person makes a decision for him or herself; people pave their own lives. This is the first time I have seen such true equality in the agency exercised by all characters. This is partly due to the drama’s setting. 

    While most landmarks and cities mentioned in the series actually exist, Ongsan is a fictional town. Located in South Korea, it is rural, known primarily for its marinated crabs. Several blocks and alleys make up the entire perimeter of the town. Because of its size, the community is extremely close-knit. It is almost like a clan; everyone knows each other through some connection. The bookkeeper is the uncle of the butcher’s wife’s second cousin’s best friend from middle school: this is completely made-up but it is an example of just how random each connection is. As one person says, you cannot dent a stone pot at home and expect no one to know about it. As nosy as everyone is, when a random neighbor shows up for dinner, the family puts an extra pair of chopsticks on the table. 

    Adding to its flavor, Ongsan is matriarchal. Run by mothers and grandmothers, restaurants are the greatest source of revenue for this town. Recipes are passed on to daughters or daughter-in-laws, which continues this tradition of power. While the governor and politicians are primarily male, women hold more direct power over the townspeople.  A widow with three adult sons rules the streets of Ongsan; none of the other women can face up to her wisdom and experience. The most educated person is a divorce lawyer, an alumna of the top university in South Korea; she has incredible connections beyond the town. 

    This is where Dong-baek raises her toddler son for six years. Infamous as the Princess Diana of Ongsan, she receives unwanted male attention, stirring the cattiness of her neighbors. Although she runs a successful bar that pays for her son’s tutors and baseball lessons, the townspeople refer to her as a bargirl. Instead of using honorifics, which is expected when speaking to adults in Korean culture, everyone speaks to her using language intended for close friends and children.

    Despite the consistent disrespect and her shy personality, Dong-baek will defend herself. Some highlights include when she informs her wealthy landlord that the price of alcohol does not include the right to her smile, and when she asks the neighborhood women why she should be ashamed of raising her son alone. She is neither holier-than-thou nor a withering, subservient wallflower. She is not a caricature: she is an honest hard worker who speaks up when necessary and cries when overwhelmed. She is often strong and sometimes vulnerable, but she is never weak. She is the feminist character I have been waiting for. 

    

Grey: Color and Industry in Red Desert (Eric)

Red Desert (1964), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, begins with an opening credit sequence consisting of out of focus shots of various industrial structures within a foggy, gray landscape. The camera lingers on each shot of the factories in a style reminiscent of Stagecoach (1939), in which the grand landscapes of Monument Valley are established at the beginning of the film. Played over the opening sequence of Red Desert is a nondiegetic vocalization, and the angelic nature of this sound is blended with the diegetic sounds of the factories and machinery in the frame. The sonic focus of this sequence could have been the grating and unpleasant noises of industry, but instead Antonioni chooses to juxtapose the scenes of industry with an almost ethereal vocal track, suggesting the potential for beauty even in this grey, man-made landscape. The rest of the film explores the aesthetic of industrialization and the human ability to either cope or fail to adapt to this changing, modern world.

The first shot after the opening credits is of a flaming oil refinery tower, which suggests both the destructive potential of industrialization and the power and beauty inherent in it. The camera then pans to the right, revealing the rest of this factory landscape. A mass of people inhabits this setting, all of them dressed in greys and blacks. It is then that the protagonist is introduced. Giuliana, played by Monica Vitti, is dressed in green and walks with her young son, who is dressed in yellow. The costumes of these two characters stand in stark contrast to both the extras in the scene as well as the primarily grey color of the setting. Giuliana’s feelings of alienation and her agitated mental state throughout the rest of the film are set up with her costume in this introduction. Her inability to conform and adapt to her environment are reflected by her difference in appearance at the start of the film.

The use of color in the set design is hard to ignore. The sky always seems to be grey, and the walls and streets and buildings that the characters inhabit are primarily grey. Throughout much of the film, Giuliana, often in a state of general mental distress, wanders through a cold, colorless landscape. Near the midpoint of the film, Giuliana finds herself with some friends in a bright red room. The atmosphere in this room becomes very flirtatious, and the characters joke around and drop multiple sexual innuendos. Giuliana, for once, appears to derive some entertainment in this scene, and the vibrant red of the room within the context of these dirty jokes can be seen as representing some sense of primal human spirit and naturalistic passion.

In the penultimate scene of the film, Giuliana wanders into a shipyard, where she attempts to strike up a conversation with a sailor, who does not understand her Italian. As she expresses her feelings of alienation in the scene, she is literally unable to communicate with the man in front of her. In her monologue, Giuliana states that she feels “sort of separated” and that “our bodies are all separate.” Here, the dialogue strongly supports the theme of alienation in the industrial age that Antonioni has illustrated throughout the film. In the final scene, Giuliana walks with her son near the factory that was introduced at the beginning of the film. Poisonous, yellow smoke is seen coming out of the industrial chimneys, and the son asks if a bird would die if it were to fly through the fumes. Giuliana responds by saying that the birds have learned to avoid the yellow smoke. As in the opening of the film, Giuliana wears green, and her son wears a yellow-ish coat. However, while the shots of this factory at the start of the film are almost entirely grey, the closing scene features both the yellow smoke and a mass of green and yellow barrels. These are still images of industrialization, but the fact that they now match the color of Giuliana’s costume suggests that she has finally learned how to adapt to her environment. Like the bird, Giuliana has learned to avoid the poisonous smoke.

 

Restrictive and Privileged Cameras (Charlotte)

Film audiences are accustomed to particular cinematographic conventions. Audiences expect to be given a certain type of privileged vantage point—one that shows them not too much and not too little. They don’t expect things happening within the diegesis of the film to be hidden from them. But, in that same vein, they don’t expect to be shown any more than is necessary. Both The White Ribbon (2009, dir. Michael Heneke) and Blue is the Warmest Color (2013, dir. Abdellatif Kechiche) break with these conventions in especially effective and affecting ways, and it is because of the way these filmmakers refuse to conform to cinematographic conventions that these films are so successful.

The White Ribbon is a haunting film. Set in a feudal German village just prior to World War I, the film follows the adults and children alike as a series of cruel acts unfold without explanation. It is disturbing, but not in the way that a horror movie is disturbing. The disturbing nature of the film arises in large part not from what it shows its audience, but from what it fails to show.

The scene that illustrates this idea best occurs early on in the film. The pastor’s two oldest children, Klara and Martin, did not return home until very late at night, and the pastor decides to beat them as punishment. The scene begins in a cramped hallway. The pastor’s wife, Anna, calls Klara and she descends the stairs. She stops on a landing, above her mother and brother, and the frame cuts her in half. We cannot see the expression on her face nor can we see any kind of silent interaction she has with either of the other two characters. In fact, throughout the opening scene we barely see the characters’ faces, and if we do they are in profile or somehow obscured in part. They barely speak, and so the audience has very limited access to their internal thoughts and feelings. The most significant gesture we see is Anna’s lingering hand on her son’s back. A benefit of this stripped-down, withholding camera is that every piece of information we are given, because we are given so little, is imbued with meaning. By depriving his audience, Heneke makes us hyper-vigilant. The camera pans down the hallway and the three characters walk single-file toward the dining room’s door. We watch from our same spot as they walk away—again, we do not see faces, only the backs of heads. Throughout the scene, the camera hardly ever moves from its spot, it just pivots. It is as though Heneke has made the viewer herself a character in the scene, standing and turning her head to follow the action, but rooted to the spot, unable to move. The three characters disappear behind the door, and the camera remains in the hall. Because viewers are so accustomed to being shown everything, it seems unnatural to not follow the characters in. Martin comes back into the hallway, head down, and the camera from its limited vantage point follows him as he retrieves a switch from another room. He then returns to the dining room and we are once again left staring at a closed door. We can, however, hear him being beaten through the door. The film revolves around a community that is so repressed and secretive. So much goes on behind closed doors, in this case literally, and the camerawork reflects that. The passivity of the camera also gives the viewer a sense of helplessness. We are just standing there, hearing all this unfold from the hallway. The camera is not fully engaged with the scene in the way that we expect it to be, and that distance reflects the distant complicity of every other member of this community throughout the film.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Blue is the Warmest Color, a film following the affair between a young girl and an older female art student. It is affecting because it shows its audience absolutely everything. One scene that illustrates this occurs after the protagonist, Adele, breaks up with the boyfriend she has early on. She returns to her room and breaks down crying. She strips off her scarf and jacket and the camera follows her as she collapses on her bed. We see her in this moment of extreme vulnerability and emotionality in a very intimate space, her own bedroom and her own bed. The viewer is given access to every piece of her private life. Kechiche immediately takes us to an extreme close-up of Adele’s face—and it is worth noting that a disproportionate percentage of the film is composed of extreme close-ups of Adele’s face. It is as though Kechiche is trying to climb inside her head. In the same way that Breathless can be said to be a study of Jean-Paul Belmondo’s face, so too can Blue be said to be a study of Adele’s. Kechiche stays in that close-up for an uncomfortable amount of time, so long that a viewer might want to look away. Adele does not look pretty in this moment, and part way through she picks up a candy bar and takes a bite, chewing with her mouth open. It is a raw, ugly study of a painful moment in this character’s story. It is almost too intimate, and feels invasive. The way Kechiche uses his camera ties into the overall themes because it is a revelatory film—it depicts a love story rarely seen on film, and it is, in many ways, about Adele’s journey to come out. The film seeks to dig into this intimate, private affair and give its viewers access that they otherwise would never have. It is trying to get into the heads of these women, and Adele in particular, and it does so by looking at her face.

In conclusion, these two films serve their overall themes by breaking cinematographic conventions in opposite ways. In taking these risks, their directors have created effective and affecting films.

To Be or Not To Be: The Question of What to Depict in Documentary Film (Mireille)

Documentary filmmaker Trinh Minh-ha has repeatedly suggested that the documentary film should encompass the practice that “what [one] sees is life looking at [them].” This belief, which is shared by other documentary filmmakers, stresses that the documentary film should serve only as observer, capturing solely what the camera lens reveals without any manipulation. Furthermore, neither the film director nor the audience should “impose meaning on every sign [in a film].”

The intent of David and Albert Maysles’ documentary Grey Gardens (1975) is to capture the raw, unedited elements of what is taking place in front of the camera without offering any additional auteurian input. As such, it respects the parameters that Trinh Minh-ha sets forth. In contrast, although Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s Leviathan (2012) also falls within the genre of documentary film, Castaing-Taylor approaches the subject with preconception. Although he allows the camera to capture all that which is perceivable at the location, he does utilize cinematography and editing to distort what has been captured, ultimately creating what can almost be described as a dystopic reality.  

The Maysles brothers crafted Grey Gardens in the style of cinéma vérité; where they wanted the only witness to the action to be the camera. They allow the actions within the Bouvier Beale household to depict the everyday lifestyle and mentality of Edie and her mother Edith, which unfold as they simply record the unedited and unhindered experience. This determination to be faithful only to what is occurring in front of the camera is exemplified in one scene that captures Edie Bouvier Beale’s unedited dancing around the house. The depiction of the decrepit household and Edie’s bizarre behavior create a dystopic moment that arguably pushes the audience to stray away from the experience of “pure” documentary practice and cinéma vérité. Nonetheless, if this action is one that Edie would do even when there is no camera present, then it can only be a study in truth or “vérité”. The fixation to stay “true” to documentary is further noted when the directors capture a moment when both Edie and Edith are arguing. Though it is obvious that the two women do not want to be recorded, the Maysles brothers nevertheless continue filming. In this way, the film fulfills Trinh Minh-ha’s requisites for documentary film that every element is simply captured to create a film without a particular agenda, but one that is even unwilling to edit in response to the subject, and which would otherwise unintentionally make the content false.

In contrast to Grey Gardens stands anthropologist and filmmaker Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s Leviathan. Similar to Grey Gardens, Castaing-Taylor’s film unobtrusively and continually films what is occurring at his location, in this case a commercial fishing boat at sea. The long takes and lengthy sequences that linger on the details of the location are not unlike the cinematography in Grey Gardens; however, the similarity ends there. Castaing-Taylor chooses a filming approach that when paired with his chaotic and disorienting sound design at times confounds the audience. For the first several minutes of the film, it is not clear what is being pictured or what is occurring. Castaing-Taylor shows a collection of abstract images that do not immediately seem to portray anything that is pertinent to the subject of the film, but creates the sense of a removed and dystopic reality. It then becomes slowly apparent to the audience that the filmmaker is on some sort of marine vessel. In this way, this film is different from Grey Gardens as Leviathan offers a swayed perspective. It is apparent that the camera is being utilized to promote the idea that there is someone filming and observing, and that a particular audience is must be present. In fact, the audience seems to be behind the eyes of the observer, lending its unique perception and perspective. In this way, though the film seems to be capturing what is occurring at the location, the personification of the camera wreaks havoc on perception and adds an agenda to the film that arguably breaks the conventions of documentary filmmaking.

The comparison between Grey Gardens and Leviathan begs the question of whether or not it is ever possible for a filmmaker not to impose some sort of auteurian input when depicting a particular subject in a documentary film even when he or she includes every detail of the location and the subject. On one hand, decisions can be made that ignore the will of the subject of the film that ultimately lends a feeling of violation. On the other hand, the film maker can open up the content to allow for personal perspective to shape what is being shown.  What is clear is that in either case, it could be argued that each of these documentary films has, nevertheless, adhered to Trinh Minh-ha’s stipulations with respect to documentary film making. That is, each depicts images that are presented without the filmmaker himself imposing meaning or deducting context. Rather, the images are presented for the audience to perceive as rudimentary elements that they have to reconstruct for meaning without judgment. The means are different, but the ends can be said to be same. To be present in a location after a filmmaker has provided the details of the context as in Grey Gardens might be considered easier; however, it is still possible to recreate the context of a location even when all the details of the context seem not to be visually present as in Leviathan.

Magnolia and Short Cuts: Interwoven Connections Between Families and Strangers (Mireille)

Paul Thomas Anderson has on occasion made clear that Robert Altman has served as an inspiration for his films. Thus, it is not surprising that Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) and Altman’s Short Cuts (1993) both treat the theme of interwoven connections between families and strangers. Anderson progressively, albeit chaotically, brings together every last minute detail of the characters and their back stories which then slowly merge together, unbeknownst to the characters or the audience, to culminate in a point of origin: the relationship and domination of two prominent paternal figures. Short Cuts begins in a manner similar to Magnolia, where chaotic and sporadic camera cuts between the various scenarios that Altman addresses during the course of the film. As in Magnolia, it is not immediately clear how the characters are interrelated, but different from Magnolia, Altman makes subtle, but mundane, intrusions that make the interconnections clear.  

In Magnolia, Anderson utilizes quick successions of intensely packed movement shots as he introduces each of the subjects of the film, creating an almost “jumpy” feel. This intermittent “peeking” into the lives of the individual characters not only leaves the audience unsettled, but echoes the unstable lives of the characters. For example one of the main personas Jimmy is a game show host who cheats on his wife, but it is also suggested that he probably molested his daughter and is dying of cancer; as well as related to past and present child contestants from that game show that appear in the film who have been traumatized by the game show experience. In addition to this, the audience is introduced to Earl who is the producer of Jimmy’s now failing game show and is also consumed by the regret of having abandoned his wife and child as well as his son who uses motivational speaking techniques to peddle sex to a gullible audience. Anderson counterpoints these saccadic excursions with hard zooms; on Jimmy that highlights him as an “important” figure; on an image of Exodus 8:2 on a poster that is in the background of Jimmy’s game show that references and foreshadows an apocalyptic raining down of frogs, as well as on an almost illegible text underneath a painting in one of the character’s house that reads “But it did happen.” All of these elements serve to remind the audience that “every detail counts” to reach a certain point.

Altman’s approach in Short Cuts is more of a subtle knife. Altman highlights the experience of “suburban” mundane living. All of the action takes place in the same neighborhood whose residents are interrelated only by chance. He does not create subjects that are overtly conflicted, but rather only hints at their instability. For example one of the characters Gene, a policeman, makes up unbelievable stories to hide his affairs, whereas another character Lois works from home as a “sex phone operator” while she carries out her domestic duties, and a baker becomes violent because his custom cake has not been paid for. As in Magnolia, the audience is placed on shaky ground, but this time it is the result of anchoring the action in the mundane existence while “peeking” in on the aberrant behavior of some of the characters.

Both Altman and Anderson choose to end their films with a cataclysmic event. However, Anderson’s film creates resolution. The interrelationships between seemingly disparate characters are brought to light, conflicts are resolved sometimes by unrelated people, and the biblical plague that has been foreshadowed throughout the film ensues. Though Short Cuts culminates with an earthquake, which can be considered cataclysmic, it does not have the supernatural and apocalyptic feel of Magnolia’s ending. Furthermore, the ending neither serves to unify the characters nor provides the sense of completion or coming “full circle” that Magnolia does. Instead, Altman chooses to “explain” away any after effects of the earthquake in the context of a nightly news report playing on a television that has been present since the beginning of the film, thus underscoring that all coincidences and aberrations can be put under the umbrella of “everyday” living. In the end, Anderson takes an absurdist direction to unify all of his components and brings the film to a point of resolution through an apocalypse. Conversely, Altman departs from the seemingly mundane human experience, slowly moves in an absurdist direction, and finally leaves the audience in limbo without any real resolution with respect to the relationships between the characters.

Altman and Anderson both explore the possibility that in the end we are all interconnected. Anderson leaves us with the feeling that our interconnectedness may be real, or may be imagined. In fact, Anderson’s filming style and choice of repeated soundtrack (one example being the song One is the Loneliest Number covered by Aimee Mann) leaves the audience with a bizarre hallucinatory feel in which we are uncertain if the interconnectedness is created within each person (“One” is a pseudonym for heroin as drug use persists throughout the film) or is a manifestation of human collective. Altman, on the other hand, suggests that hidden within our very mundane existences lies a web of interconnections of which we may not even be aware; and that our unwillingness to be privy to it may eventually lead to cataclysmic effects on our psyche and our actions. 

The Garrulous Silence of the Inanimate: Soundscape in Film (Mireille)

Although the birth of film began as silent, sound now dominates the cinematographic experience. Irrespective of the genre or length of the film, the presence or lack of sound and music in a film very often helps build not only the narrative tension, but also the scaffolding for the composition. One excellent example of a short film that uses sound, especially music, to accentuate the mise-en-scène and composition of individual shots is Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon (1956). 

The Red Balloon has only a few words of dialogue, but it is not a silent film. From the very beginning, Lamorisse uses music to create an almost dream-like world into which the characters, as well as the audience, can immerse themselves. The soundtrack starts with the opening credits and continues throughout the film. The music is joyous and consists primarily of major keys and scales, reminiscent of music that is played at a fair. After all, the main character is a red balloon, and though usually silent, magical, and joyous, through the soundtrack, Lamorisse allows us to hear the balloon’s voice and thoughts. Lamorisse pairs the openness of the soundtrack with wide and medium shots that effectively depict the vastness of the world beyond Pascal, a young boy and the other protagonist in the film, and the relationship and struggles between him, the balloon and the environment. With this composition of music and filming even the little details of the everyday Parisian life seem heightened. For example, when Pascal is walking through the streets in the beginning of the film the soundtrack is overlaid with the sounds of city life. The immense grey buildings make the world captured by the frame seem daunting and oppressive, and even more so in contrast to the little boy’s small stature. Many of these wide shots also capture the semi-dilapidated and destroyed ruins of France, a historical reminder of the effects of the aftermath of World War II and the Cold War on the city of Paris. However these shots are brightened with the co-presence of Pascal’s brightly colored balloon and the joyous soundtrack.

Though the tune making up the soundtrack is utilized throughout the film, it is not always light and circus-like. At times Lamorisse alters keys and introduces variation of notes to echo or foreshadow the action and the mood. For example, in one scene, when Pascal unties his balloon from a lamp post, Lamorisse slightly changes the pitch and key of the soundtrack and incorporates minor scales into the original sound while adding 5th minor keys. These alterations create, arguably, the most dissonant sound one can obtain on an instrument, and in fact, in this case prime the audience for the upcoming scene in which the boy is bullied and the balloon is eventually punctured. As the balloon withers away the scene becomes silent as we, the audience, experience the balloon being popped as not only its death but also Pascal’s, and the music which has been their voices until now must necessarily end. The music returns once again and back to a major key only at the very end. It then crescendos so that it becomes the only sound one hears as Pascal floats away with many new balloons.

Although the soundtrack dominates the majority of the film, when the soundtrack is absent Lamorisse compliments the images with the sounds that surround the Pascal and his balloon. This change from strictly soundtrack to simply diegetic sound comes almost as a shock to the audience since the scene becomes attenuated compared to the scenes filled with the soundtrack. For example, when a group of school kids notice the balloon, their calls and screams increase in volume beyond what we may normally expect.  We interpret this shift from soundtrack to diegetic sound as what the balloon is hearing. In fact, the sound of the screams appears to lure the balloon to them. The balloon is intrigued by their sounds and begins to taunt them playfully. Towards the end of the film, the children’s screaming and yelling become even more accentuated just before the final confrontation between them, the balloon, and Pascal. The emphasis of the screaming makes their aggression palpable and the eventual violence inevitable since they have “overpowered” the voice of the balloon.

In The Red Balloon Lamorisse shows us that sound does not have to be presented as dialogue in order to capture the intentions and emotions of a character. Rather, the careful combination of auditory and visual cues can fill the cinematographic experience with subtle messages and themes. In this way, the audience’s emotions are not constrained by the meaning of words, but rather, are shaped by the experience of the sound.

Finding a New God in Film (Jin)

 

 

The vampire movie genre has become so hopelessly imbued with the increasily cheesy image of Count Dracula and the overtly romanticized Twilight vampires, that it’d be a waste of time to argue that the film Let the Right One In could redeem the genre as a whole. When watching this film, it is best to forget the vampire context entirely and instead judge it with fresh expectations: not as a horror or romance movie, but as a film reframing human loneliness.

Oskar, the protagonist, with his elvish white hair and equally pale skin, is the perfect picture of adolescent frailty. Nothing conveys loneliness better than the spindly twelve-year old kid being viciously assaulted by school bullies. He is entirely defenseless against his tormentors, and when set against the stark landscape of Swedish winter, his despair is painfully palpable.

By the time his unlikely savior appears in the shape of a small scruffy girl, Eli, we’ve already grown a strong attachment to Oskar. Despite showing hints of nascent homicidal tendencies, such as collecting newspaper clippings of murder cases and habitually play-acting stabbing his bullies, Oskar and his alienation in his divorced home background and complete friendlessness stirs our own childhood memories of loneliness. He carries a deep-rooted longing for understanding that is seeded in each and every one of us, and watching Eli finally fulfilling Oskar’s aching need of a friend is nearly cathartic. The fact that she happens to be a centuries-old vampire and that she possesses a pedophilic, middle-aged caretaker, Håkan, fades away into the background when watching her and Oskar experience emotional intimacy for the first time. As they are lying in bed together, Eli playfully tapping her fingers along Oskar’s back, she is no longer a brutal murderer and he is no longer the troubled child. They are simply two children, bound by a keen longing for companionship.   

The film’s poignancy rises, not just from its ability to draw out our empathy, but on its contextual dissection of the human condition: isolation. Each character, such as the bullies, Håkan, and Oskar’s neighbors, are all marked by traces of loneliness, whether it be helplessly tormenting Oskar in fear of being bullied himself or living alone in a dim apartment broiling with cats. More importantly, each one has found themselves an object of worship: the schoolkid worships the bully leader, the isolated neighbor worships his cats, Håkan worships Eli, and more. Though the film does not rely heavily on religious references, Eli serves in clearly establishing the film’s existential worldview. Oskar, in his suffering, has created himself a religion. First, by poring over the murder-case newspaper clippings and recreating himself as a brutal avenger in his imagination, then by selecting Eli as his physical deity. Eli becomes his messiah, in a fitting reflection of her namesake, the Biblical prophet Eli.

Oskar’s obsessive reliance on this self-imposed religion, however, is not portrayed as a perversion, but rather, an innately human experience. It is a clear portrayal of carnal longing, the desire to fill an inner loneliness, that we, by nature, can fully identify with. Here, the real enemy is not violence nor the loss of morality, as many gore-ridden films are prone to depicting, but isolation. Isolation is the ultimate enemy that everyone fights individually, regardless of situation or social position. In other words, in the film (and perhaps in reality), isolation is humanity’s universal condition. Regardless of how much love one may receive or pour into another, the inner void can only be partially filled, and one is thereby forced to constantly seek objects of worship as temporary alleviation. Isolation is the greatest problem that remains unsolvable, and therefore, any attempt to solve it, no matter how destructive or morally ambiguous, is fully justifiable.

This worldview is further heightened by the film’s use of realism. Violence itself is presented as a natural act; it is an examination of human nature running its course, or rather, human nature given its chance to reveal itself. Stylistic choices, such as showing most of Eli’s attacks as long shots, having the massacre to take place off-screen, and avoiding the use of visual clichés such as jump-cuts and rapid cutting, allow for an objective consideration. Such assaults seem like a matter of survival: Eli finds no joy in killing her human victims, and when Håkan, her helper, murders for her sake, there’s an emphasis on his human clumsiness and horrifying matter-of-factness. Håkan is forced to drag a corpse on a red, plastic sleigh, comically grunting and slipping through the dense snow, and even shoos away a passerby’s poodle that starts lapping at a pool of blood. The violence becomes all the more understandable and relatable, because the film purposefully includes the messy, physical details that precedes or preludes the real killing of people.

The film surpasses most standard depictions of deity worship by redefining what is the ideal god. Eli has spent centuries in alienation, receiving one-sided love from a series of human servants. This indicates that Eli, despite possessing the incredible strength that Oskar needs in defeating his bullies, has equal need of Oskar and his love. This is the exact god we want for ourselves: a god who, despite possessing the greater power we desire, loves us because it needs us. It is not a god that only demands worship, but rather, returns our worship. Perhaps this is why this film so effectively draws us in– it is the depiction of an equivalent exchange, like an ideal human relationship, and of a god figure stunningly made sympathetic. 

The Silent Horror of War in Film (Mireille)

It is probably fair to say that the theme of war is one of the most pervasive in film. Whether for propaganda, critique or shock value, cinema relishes in the recreation of the marching footsteps, the gun blasts, the frenetic flight of those in distress, and the reenactment of violence. I have probably had my fill of these, particularly the mainstream variety that tend to have a similar feel and construct. Specifically, the type of film that is loaded with sounds so intense that it becomes uncomfortable and has a vivid language that is as subtle as a bludgeoning instrument. These films also often follow a rigid plot line with a predictable outcome. It is almost as if humans want the full visceral horror of war, but then need to absolve themselves of the evil, by giving the film a conciliatory ending. The newest Hollywood war film, Dunkirk (2017) by Christopher Nolan in my opinion is no exception. This film once again reverts to the formulaic audiovisual assault, this time almost without respite, and perhaps that was the point. Any chance of uncovering the psychological struggle of characters or the subtle insinuations of humanity questioning its actions is muddied by the inability of your nervous system to recover from the stimulatory onslaught.

Don’t get me wrong, not every mainstream war drama fits this description. Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) twists the cacophony of light, sound and carnage together with a captivating psychoanalysis of the characters that leaves viewers captivated and not just exhausted. Roman Polanski’s The Pianist (2002) focuses on the human spirit not with respect to war, but with respect to art as the battle rages around the central character. However, there are other ways in which to convey the horror of war that may also leave us with enough strength to take away a message that is long lasting and meaningful. Fortunately I have discovered two very different films that do just that: Hungarian film Son of Saul (2015) directed by László Nemes and Zaza Urushadze’s Estonian-Georgian film Tangerines (2013).

In the Son of Saul, Nemes uses the camera to study the psychological makeup of the characters as they live the war rather than depicting the obstreperous elements of the war itself. This approach conveys a type of horror that, in my opinion, is more impactful than the buckets of blood and the gratuitous violence typically shown in war movies. Nemes creates a persistent haunting feeling by shooting on traditional 35mm film in a square aspect ratio. This tight aspect ratio creates claustrophobia and inescapability. The audience feels suffocated by the palpable anguish experienced by the principle characters. Nemes masterfully uses on the point-of-view and handheld shots to thrust viewers into the midst of the concentration camp and allows them to participate in the sadistic labor the prisoners are forced to carry out. The camera movement is slow and the depth of field is quite shallow, allowing the audience to linger in a confused and anxious reality. Nemes has no qualms about showing naked corpses being dragged to incinerators by prisoners or the unceremonious scattering of the ashes from the crematorium into a river to hide the evidence of the crimes committed. Nemes leaves out no detail and punctuates it against a backdrop of a mixture of muted diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The horror has both explicit and implicit components, but requires no brassy elements to bring it to the forefront. The edginess comes from the growing awareness of what is happening rather than a physical response to an exaggerated stimulus. In my opinion Son of Saul is the first film to capture realistically the relentless brutality of World War II.

Tangerines is almost the diametric pole of Son of Saul. Urushadze sets the film during the war in Abkhazia in the 90s. The film is shot in a single location in the Georgian countryside where two friends stay behind as the war erupts in order to harvest their crop of tangerines. In this way Urushadze is able to separate the audience from the war both physically and psychologically. This is in stark contrast to Son of Saul where the single location kept the audience locked into the inescapable horrors that the war creates. In Tangerines there is a utopic feel because there is never any explicit evidence of the war raging around the principal characters. As in Son of Saul, there is no need for the din of war paraphernalia. Rather, Urushadz, like Nemes, chooses muted sounds and background noise in order to bring the audience into the scene. The war becomes part of the narrative when the friends take in two wounded soldiers from opposite sides. The war thus becomes a question of tolerance and resistance of primal urges. Urushadze draws attention to compassion and the moral best that humanity can achieve during war time, a diametrically opposite message from that in Son of Saul. What truly stands out in Tangerines in comparison to Nemes’ film is the occasional punctum of color that occurs when the audience sees the main character picking the actual tangerine fruits from his orchard. This intense coloration enhances the peaceful surroundings in which the whole film takes place and lends it an aura of hope without the need for cliché happy endings. It is in fact the simple fruit, the tangerine, which serves as the symbol of unification allowing the wounded soldiers from different factions to transcend their cultural differences. In this way Urushadze concentrates on educating the audience about the other face of war: the possibility of peace and compromise and resistance to violence.

In the end, the approach to war as film genre could be bifurcated into two factions. One that barrages us with stimuli in the hopes of shocking, but in the end desensitizes, and another that leaves us with a lasting memory of evil or peace. In my opinion, the former may be more exciting, but the latter is more enlightening.

It Did Happen Here, Part Two: Conformity and Violence in Fascist Governments (Conor)

    The November election of Donald Trump will undoubtedly prove to be one of the more significant events in recent American memory. We Americans are now standing in a unique place in history: we are living under a regime that inarguably has fascist characteristics and now must decide how best to face that threat. Films can give us both insights into fascism and the way it affects human beings and potential appropriate responses to fascism. This week I will be examining Come and See (1985, dir. Elem Klimov) and The Conformist (1970, dir. Bernardo Bertolucci) to examine the violent and non-violent strength of Fascism.

    Come and See is a profoundly dirty film. Everyone down to the last extra is absolutely caked in filth for the entire movie. The sound of buzzing flies and a profound sense of decay can be found in almost every scene. The effects of the German occupation of Belorussia on the bodies and souls of the peasants manifests itself through this filth; the evil perpetuated by the roaring tide of fascism is so extreme it makes the entire world unclean. Come and See is unique for its singularly accurate and unglorified depictions of the war on the eastern front. Civilians are massacred, an entire village is herded into a church then burned alive while a female SS officer eats lobster. There is no glory fighting for the Soviet partisans either; they are forced to steal from villagers and conscript young boys into their ranks just to survive. Worst of all they cannot protect Florya, the young protagonist, from the absolute horror and atrocity of the fascist occupation.

    The oppressiveness of the world in Come and See is largely expressed through the manipulation of sound. Dialogue in the film is often drowned out by sounds that would normally be insignificant background noises. When Florya and Glasha are eating in Florya’s house after the rest of village has been massacred, the sound of flies becomes so overpowering that it is almost impossible to hear anything else. The frantic unnaturalness of this effect mirrors the ever more frantic and deteriorating mental state of the characters. Similarly, an earlier scene uses an incredibly loud ringing noise, meant to mimic hearing loss after a bomb goes off, to show the total disorienting effect of violence on the protagonist. The overwhelming sounds amplify the feeling of helplessness and fear that permeate the entire film.

    The world of the film is constantly unpinned. Most of the camerawork is handheld and shaky, and many of depictions of the atrocities are done in long takes. The disorienting cinematography, the misplaced sounds, and even the appearance of the film itself–as it was shot on tape–all bely the intense distorting effect of fascism on the world of the villagers. Fascism is not some abstract evil for these people, it is destroying the physical and psychological fabric of their lives. The formal construction of the film constantly reminds its viewers of how devastating fascism is for a population. A captured SS officer tells the villagers to their faces that they must be eliminated: “some nations have no right to exist” he calmly explains to the faces of the survivors from a village freshly razed by the Nazis.

    Contrasted with this, The Conformist explores the nonviolent strength of fascism, and outlines a very different set of concerns regarding fascism than Come and See. The protagonist, Marcello Clerici, wants nothing more in his life than to be normal. The film often portrays him as an outcast, he is frequently following or spying on others, always looking from the outside in. He even marries a woman he does not especially care for just so he can raise a family in order to more closely conform to societal norms. This drive to go unnoticed and not upset the status quo traps him into becoming a fascist.

     The film expresses this largely through Clerici’s relationship to the setting, and more specifically to the fascist architecture of Italy. He is constantly going to meetings in enormous marble chambers that resemble giant mausoleums. The walls of these buildings are decorated with neoclassical Italian frescos and Italian Futurist murals, demonstrating the fascist obsession with a mystical past and the drive towards a more efficient and technical future. Clerici is completely dominated by these alien fascist landscapes. They limit his movement, ensuring he walks only in straight lines with a short, almost shuffling step. Fascism here enacts a subtler violence against the individual: instead of destroying the body it confines it and forces it to adhere to certain guidelines. Here Clerici’s will to conform can only result in his active collaboration with the fascist system. The desire not to upset the status quo can only result in explicit support for dominant fascist system.

    Because of this it is easy to condemn Clerici for ordering the assassination of his old college professor and his wife, a former prostitute who is also Clerici’s lover. Even though Clerici refuses to actively participate in the murder, leaving it up to his fascist cronies instead, his guilt is palpable. He may not have ordered the assassination, but he provided the assassins with the information they needed to get the job done. The film makes a strong statement that being involved with fascist bureaucracy is morally equivalent to murdering people in the name of fascism. Clerici’s desire to conform ultimately dooms him by associating him with the fascists. There are no innocents, even those who do not directly pull triggers are still equally complicit in fascist violence than those who do.

    Come and See lays out the explicit danger inherent to a fascist regime and shows how fascist atrocities destroy the physical and emotional lives of their victims. The Conformist reveals that those atrocities are only made possible through legions of otherwise innocent civilians who cooperate with fascism out of complacency or a desire to conform to social norms. The great violent evils that fascism is capable of are supported through the nonviolent desires of individuals to conform and be accepted.  The Trump administration has begun normalizing racist, xenophobic, and nationalistic behavior, and if the American people do not explicitly reject this behavior and continue protesting the rightward shift in America, they may become implicit supports of fascist violence.

Trains, and Where They Take Us (Jaeyoung)

 

  [SPOILERS AHEAD]

 As someone who lives somewhat far from campus, I am no stranger to long hours on public transportation. The trip between Baltimore and Massachusetts takes ten hours by bus, which is quite tedious. But it also gives me a lot of time to reflect (and nap). And every now and again, my brain asks me this question (probably primed by the fact that I’m on a moving bus): “Where am I going in life?”

 And I would respond, “I don’t know, what does that question even mean? Next question.”

 However, in the Korean films, Train to Busan and Snowpiercer, the idea of direction is crucial. Given that these films involve a train and a destination, it is not surprising that they both approach this theme. But Train to Busan is pretty blunt with this, as we already know from the title that the protagonists are trying to reach Busan… by train. Now the question this film poses is how this journey shapes the characters: their emotional direction. And if I could be perfectly honest, I don't think that's very interesting of a question.

 To be fair, I should note that Train to Busan is a zombie film; therefore, it is somewhat confined by and borrows from other movies of that genre. The behavior of the zombies is strikingly similar to that of World War Z (fast and maniacal), and it delves into the same ethical dilemma explored by The Walking Dead (who do we let survive, and who is part of our people?). But to its credit, it does break from other zombie films in that it invokes a lot of class-conflict overtones.

 Perhaps the most pertinent example of this comes from the interactions between Seok-woo, a young hedge fund manager, and Sang-hwa, a gruff but charismatic every-man. Their first encounter isn’t pleasant; as Sang-hwa is being chased by zombies, Seok-woo initially decides to sacrifice him for the safety of everyone else. There is a shot where Seok-woo looks like a heartless corporate monster. And then he has a change of heart and lets him in, only for Sang-hwa to scold, “All of you people are the same.”

 But this is exactly the trap Train to Busan falls into: generic characterization. Seok-woo is the yuppie with the heart of gold. His daughter is the innocent “eyes” through which we see a cruel world. Sang-hwa is the masculine comic relief. The list goes on, with a Romeo and Juliet-esque young couple, an unfeeling, dogmatic middle-aged man who serves as the antagonist, and many more in this cornucopia of archetypes.

 And the development of these characters builds like this; Seok-woo, who is only slightly caring in the beginning of the movie, becomes very caring by the end. The young couple, who were flirting in the beginning, die and become zombies together. The antagonist, who is mean in the beginning, becomes even meaner by the climax. Therefore, the direction of this film follows the same predictable manner the title does (and in the way most blockbuster films do). It has a Newtonian storyline, where the force manifests as zombies while objects manifest as the characters.

 In Snowpiercer, we are also led to believe that the story will follow a unidirectional story. In this film, humanity is contained in a single train that is protecting it from an icy post-apocalyptic world. The train is divided into two main parts: the upper class and the “scum” in the tail cars. The story follows Curtis Everett, who leads the tail-car-people in a revolutionary struggle to the front engine. The plot is simple enough.

 But the plot isn’t everything; as Curtis and his crew advance, each compartment is carefully observed; from the vanity of the garden to the debauchery of the dance club, every aspect of human livelihood is carefully recorded. In addition, every loss of life is significant, as Curtis places the burden on himself. Each step becomes harder and weirder as the crew encounters a crueler and wilder world.

 It is evident, then, that director Bong Joon-ho doesn’t just settle for character development. Instead, he allows their environment to change too, creating a dynamic relationship between the train and the revolutionaries.

 And, it turns out, the Snowpiercer is not unidirectional. When Curtis finally reaches the Front Engine, Minister Wilford, the creator and caretaker of the engine, subverts both Curtis’ and audience’s expectation by ceding power to him. Curtis realizes that even if he were in power, nothing about the violent system would change; order and balance is far stronger than any human emotion. And as the perpetual motion engine continues to revolve, the film reveals that Curtis hasn’t reached the finish line. He has only made a full circle, ending up in essentially the same place.

 However, Snowpiercer presents yet another direction with Namgoong Minsu (a security expert) and his daughter, Yona are presented. Namgoong continually reminds Yona to be aware of the outside world, what lies outside the window. While everyone else is focused on what’s happening inside the train, Namgoong has the acuity to see that the world is becoming habitable. Since the train completely derails by the end, destroying the microcosm everyone has been so obsessed about, Namgoong’s prescience prevails. If anybody “wins” in this movie, it is those who (literally) think outside the box. Perhaps this could be a lesson for other filmmakers.

 Now let me ask myself the question I posed in the beginning of this entry: “Where am I going in life?”

 My current answer: “Forward, and then some.”

Happy Gialloween (Conor)

    Halloween is almost upon us, and in the spirit of the holiday I have decided to dedicate my next two posts to horror flicks. With that in mind, I will focus this particular post on Mario Bava’s best giallo, Blood and Black Lace (1964). Giallo is an interesting genre because it started in literature, not in film. Originally, the term “giallo”–the Italian word for yellow–referred to a running series of mystery and pulp novels printed with yellow covers all published by the same company. Eventually, giallo became a synonym for any mystery or thriller story and the loose genre of Italian films that adapted these stories eventually became known in America as giallo;  they are the original slashers. Masked killers stalk and murder numerous people, usually attractive women, and the plots revolve around police investigations and intrigue in a race against time to identify the killer. But giallo is so much more, and at best it falls into a kind of psychedelic noir.

    Bava’s Blood and Black Lace is one of the earliest, most influential, and perhaps the best of all the gialli. The film is moody, pulpy, and mysterious. Drawing from German expressionism, Blood and Black Lace uses elaborate lighting and mise-en-scène to convey character’s internal mental states, but with one major addition: vivid color. The film is full of bright, saturated colors paired with moody, deep shadows and brilliantly colored lights. It is not uncommon to see magenta, green, and blue lights all prominently featured in the same scene. One particular scene–a chase in an antiques warehouse–stands out for having multiple lights with different colors both flashing at the same time.

Blood and Black Lace is also extraordinary self aware: in the aforementioned warehouse scene the masked killer reaches out to turn the lights off while stalking his victim. A moment before he touches it he hesitates and backs off, implying that using the ridiculous lighting used during the actual chase was a conscious aesthetic choice on the part of the murderer. This self awareness is appropriate, as the killer’s near supernatural stalking prowess stems from cinematic tricks, such as restrictive framing. The killer seems to be aware that they are in a film and shamelessly exploits cinematic devices in order to terrorize his victims. In this way Blood and Black Lace is not just a giallo film but a film about giallo–and horror–itself and how it must fundamentally play with reality in order to create tension.

An overall feeling of decadence and superficiality permeates into the DNA of this film. Everything is intentionally skin deep. The models and their associates are, much like the mise–en-scène, all glitz and glam. They dress extravagantly in either black or very saturated color, and their encounters between each other are mostly sickeningly glib. The few glances we get of their inner lives paints a picture of seediness, corruption and moral bankruptcy. None of the victims are truly innocent in the eyes of the film, they are all guilty of egregious sins and at times it becomes hard not too root for the killer if they themselves were not also superficial and petty. Bava’s film comes across as intentionally and sharply skin-deep, a film made to be vacant and petty to mimic the pettiness inside the characters. Giallo doesn’t just flaunt its gaudiness, it revels in it and asks that the viewer does also. Blood and Black Lace demands that you engage with it on an immediately visual level; it is an orgy of color and shadow that commands the viewer’s attention across the film. The actual plot is pretty good too, especially for people searching for a film that can not only frighten but also enrapture. 

The Language of Cinema (Nour)

When I went back and reread my last two blog posts here, I discovered that they (severely) lacked in methodological clarity. I will therefore use this post to provide a more explicit sense of  direction and uncover the standpoint from which, and the  presuppositions and mechanisms through which my last two posts are more meaningful.

The first blog post was about Ehky ya Scheherazade  a film in which women are reduced to their image, appearance, exterior. Although the film professes to show women fighting back, presumably by telling their version of the story of the oppressive patriarchal  order, they are in fact denied access to the realm of the symbolic—they are still to use L. Mulvey's distinction "bearers of meaning" and not creators of it. The stories they tell are told through the language of patriarchy. It is important to add that the film also dabbles into discussions of class. The relation between gender and class is complicated. However, as my blog post, albeit obliquely, has suggested the language of the film is best understood as one resting on sexual desire and not desire for material gains or upward social mobility. I will not argue extensively for this point, but I will point out that the women who "tell their story" in this film, although belonging to different socio-economic strata, display no interest in either moving away from their own strata or in critiquing the very structure which allows for and maintains the division of society into well-defined socio-economic  strata. 

The second blog post was about Run Lola Run. This film posits some difficulties when the critic (any type of critic) conceives of its language as one which rests upon visual sexual desire, the desirous look(ing). One important thing that the seminal Mulvey essay "Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema" has done is that it has shifted the focus from an analysis of the images of women exhibited on the cinema screen to an analysis of the mechanisms which condition and even necessitate certain modes of seeing which are detrimental to the woman. With this in mind, Run Lola Run's complexity comes to occupy two levels. First it provides an unorthodox image of the woman, and second, it allows for a visual, or more generally cinematic, grammar this is radical. We often understand radicalism through an opposition to the mainstream and not by focusing on an act by itself. I will go with this folk notion to define the radical.

(By way of a side, I was speaking to a friend earlier about Mulvey's essay and with a dismissing hand gesture she pronounced the essay old and irrelevant. She could not have been more wrong. Although feminist film criticism has gone beyond the argument in "Visual Pleasure," this essay is still a force to be reckoned with and assertively a foundational text that cannot be irrelevant and old.)

When reading Run Lola Run as part of this language of desire, the film becomes radical in two ways at least. The woman is the ultimate creator of meaning and in fact of the whole world order. She is wrapped in time and space, hence her uniqueness as a singular woman is preserved. Lola's appearance emphasizes this point further as you cannot really see Lola as belonging to the deep blue sea of women about whom predictions can be made. Lola remains mysterious to the on-looker. A skeptic critic reading this post might say: "Ahah! There. Lola is essentially Woman. She is the other. The position of the signifier is still male." Of course, this critic will build a more elaborate argument, which will be most likely valid. I am offering another reading and not discarding one which upholds the language of desire as understood within a patriarchal framework.

To be more direct, in the blog post on Run Lola Run I was suggesting that the center of the cinematic grammar in this film was not exactly the voyeuristic, fetishinzing, and scopophilic phantasy look. Instead it was a look that is more sadistic. If it takes pleasure, it is because it witnesses suffering and pain. The language of desire which Mulvey has suggested involves the creation of an ideal ego (a hero) on the screen, one whom the spectator can desire to be like, one who seduces the spectator.  It also involves assumptions about the isolation of the individual members of an audience in a movie theater looking from a point of safety, indulging in the pleasure of looking. A pleasure which to Mulvey stems directly from being the voyeur.

This type of mechanism is possibly part of Run Lola Run but again this film seems to assume more of its spectator so that moving beyond the appetitive desires become a possibility when watching Run Lola Run. Successfully, or unsuccessfully, the film tries to appeal to the mind and not to the body. The film starts with a narrator saying something close to:

  Mankind, probably the most mysterious species on our planet. A mystery of open questions. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? How do we know what we believe to know? Why  do we believe anything at all? 'Innumerable questions looking for an answer, an  answer which will raise the next question and the following answer will raise a following  question and so on and so forth. 'But in the end, isn't it always the same question and always the same answer?'  Security guard  Schuster: 'A football is round, a game lasts 90 minutes. That's for sure. Anything else is merely  hypothetical. Off we go!

If the film aims to direct the 'looking' onto the patterns of action rather than the bodies in action, then it could be the case that it is attempting to provide a cinematic experience that is less gendered. In other words, the position of spectator is assumed to neither be female nor male. Instead, only a rational mind is assumed to occupy this position. The film is appealing to the faculties of reason and cognition (I hope the beautiful and sublime distinction in the title now makes sense: Kant, "The Critique of Aesthetic Judgment").

The language of desire is not the only language available to cinema. Nor is it the only organizing force behind story-telling in general (this is a bit problematic, but I'll hazard to say it). Yet, it is so hard to elude the grip of such language without some avant-garde techniques. Tykwer turns Lola into an animated cartoon at some points in the film. He turns her into a supernatural hero at other points. What this implies is a split between content and mode of production (the difference between form and matter or content). This break 'activates,' so to speak, the spectator. Mulvey writes in the book Visual and Other Pleasures that the "[s]plits in the cinematic sign (the film essentially) allow ideas to interact with finction and thought with fantasy." ¹  Tykwer is putting his film in opposition to the conventional, traditional, or mainstream. He is opposing the past and the history of cinema. 

My next blog post will be about two avant-garde films that are made by women directors and that are of particular interest to feminist film critics. I will write about Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) and Chantal Akerman's News From Home  (1977). This next post will try to dabble into the radical aesthetics movement through the works of two increasingly influential feminist avant-gardists.

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¹Mulvey, Laura. Visual and Other Pleasures. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989.

 

Uneasy Atmospheres (Natasha)

    Bernardo Bertolucci's 1970 triumph Il conformista (The Conformist) is ill-described as a "political drama."  While the antihero Marcello's role as spy/assassin for Mussolini's fascist government motivates the plot, that plot is by far the least important aspect of the film.  Instead its paramount feature is cinematography, followed closely by the character study of the truly baffling personal history and desire for (the appearance of) normalcy that make up Marcello Clerici.  An incomplete man who knows his desires but not himself, Jean-Louis Trintignant's Marcello ultimately makes us wonder whether his threatening colleague Manganiello is not his sometime enemy but a creation of Marcello's divided mind, a reflection of his hollow and changeable morals (he is, after all, the conformist).

     The noted cinematographic inspiration for The Godfather Part II and surely an unrecognized inspiration for many films of the 70's, Il conformista bears the hallmark of Italian cinema in favoring the symbolic visual language of setting and light over a linear narrative based in plot and action. Windows abound, obscured by colored glass or shutters, looking out on the roofs of Rome and the ankles of women passing by.  Dark stone interiors chill a conspicuously empty government office building whose mile-high ceilings remind us how unjustly exalted the fascist cause once was; a similarly angular marble platform sets the stage for a Clerici family reunion where humanity is neither shared nor even acknowledged.  The film begins and ends with rhythmic and obfuscating lighting constructs, the first being a red light flashing on Marcello through shaded hotel windows and the last, the white lights of the anti-fascist revolution that approach, then abandon him, shining between columns in the street.  These scenes highlight a visual trend in the film:  Shots that let us know Marcello is physically there, but not who he is or what his presence amounts to.  And then there are shots when he simply is not there. I'm not sure what his absence amounts to in the scene where Manganiello directs a speech at Marcello, who is clearly nowhere in the area.

    There is an untouchable enigma behind the striking visuals in this film, a mysteriousness of purpose that lifts all burden of explanation off the dialogue without offering us meaning we may interpret to any specific end.  We are not preoccupied with trying to figure out the conformist or Il conformista; instead, we are overwhelmed by uneasy atmospheres, surreal camera angles, by the unexpected outbursts of eroticism mixed with such innocent desperation to take care of someone or to be taken care of. As if Marcello and his every surrounding bypassed our conscious mind, the film elicits not thought but emotion, visually and so quietly. The world it shows us makes us feel--feel what, we may not be sure--so acutely just by setting a recognizable world slightly off kilter, whether with canted framing or blind revelers, sunlight blazing between leafless trees or litters of puppies nuzzling the morphine-addled Clerici matriarch.

    Two big screen viewings have not begun to tell me what exactly I should make of these visceral feelings or the film that elicits them, and I would rather not see past the enigma--it's too beautiful to look at.

 

 

~ Natasha Hirschfeld

Tokyo Sonata: A Happy Ending for a Middle Class Family, Maybe (Sam)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the director of Tokyo Sonata (2008), has no relation to that other great Japanese director by the name of Kurosawa, but if the skill he demonstrates in constructing this particular story is any indication, he is indeed great. Known for his horror films, this Kurosawa undertook something a littledifferent with Tokyo Sonata.

The film examines a middle class Japanese family and the tensions they each experience as their desires clash with external forces, such as the slumping economy and societal pressures. It primarily seems to be a critique of authority, how it's being undermined in Japan.

In the beginning of the film, the father of the family, Ryuhei, loses his job because of outsourcing – Chinese workers are apparently much cheaper. But he doesn't tell his family the news. Instead, he pretends to go to work every day in his suit – but then waits in line, looking for a new job while collecting unemployment checks. Eventually he takes a job as a janitor, cleaning bathrooms in a mall. Before going home, he changes back into a suit to keep up the appearance that he still has his old office job.

Meanwhile Kenji, his younger son, desperately wants to learn to play the piano. But Ryuhei sternly refuses to pay for lessons. So Kenji saves his lunch money and pays for them in secret, learning from his teacher that he has a talent for it. And Takashi, Kenji's older brother, joins the US military to fight in Iraq, also without Ryuhei's approval. And when Ryuhei finally discovers Kenji, he attacks him in a rage, causing him to fall down the stairs. Kenji suffers a minor concussion. It is Ryuhei's very powerlessness that causes him to so desperately want to assert his authority, but this is ineffective and only leads to his family's suffering. This is also implied to be true of Japan as a whole: the economy is currently slumping and there is no military. Japan is unable to protect itself from either economic threats, such as globalization, or military ones. So the country is similarly powerless, and similarly places arbitrary and overly restrictive boundaries on the behavior of its citizens.

After about this point in the story, the film begins to lose its realist edge. All the events seem driven by preceding events; events as they apply to all of Japan or segments of Japanese society logically lead to their consequences on the individuals in the family. But at this point in the story, not only do several things happen to each member of the family which were not only not at all set up from previous events in the story, but are implausible or surreal enough to merit skepticism.

For instance, Megumi, Ryuhei's wife, is kidnapped by a burglar but becomes willing after seeing Ryuhei in his janitor's uniform at the mall; she drives him to the beach, where they spend the night in a small house. That night she wakes up and sees a strange light over the ocean; the next morning, the burglar is gone. After Megumi sees Ryuhei at the mall, he wanders into the city and is knocked over by a car, unconscious and seemingly dead. Kenji, meanwhile, unsuccessfully helps a friend run away home. He is caught trying to sneak onto a bus to get out of town, and spends a night in jail after being uncooperative with the police.

The next night, all three members of the family return home and have a quiet meal together. Then, several months later, Kenji plays Claire de Lune at a piano audition and completely blows away the other competitors in a display of not only his technical skill, but his emotional competitiveness, his parents watching proudly in the background.

I think this final section of the film is highly ambiguous. Like a dream, it is left open to interpretation. It's possible all of it is a dream, or a fantasy – an overly rosy way for things to turn out that isn't entirely realistic. The point, I think, is to finally show how to escape the cycle of feelings of powerlessness and impotent displays of authority. And that is simply through tolerance of yourself, but of others. This is why Ryuhei wears plain clothes for the first time in the film in this final scene, and why we see that he now supports Kenji's piano playing.

 

Unbearable Conflicts in A Separation (Sam)

The first Iranian film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was 2011's A Separation, and for good reason. In focusing on the separation of a middle class couple in Tehran – and the effect that separation has on their eleven year-old daughter, Termeh – the film widens its scope in a subtle critique of Iranian society and ultimately achieves universality in its relevance.

The film begins with the couple, Nader and Simin, arguing in front of a court judge. Simin wants to leave the country because she no longer feels comfortable raising Termeh there, but Nader refuses to leave on account of his grandfather, who has Alzheimer's. So Simin decides to divorce him – but the judge refuses their application. 

Of course, the title refers to more than just the separation of Nader and Simin. The majority of the film concerns a dispute Nader has with Razieh, a poor woman whom he hires to look after his grandfather while he's at work. That disagreement is too complex and slow-building to summarize here, but suffice it to say that they end up in court, she accusing him of causing a miscarriage, and he accusing her of neglecting his grandfather and of theft. There is a separation between these families culturally as well – the middle-class Nader and Simin, and the poorer, more devout Razieh (who has to call a religious hotline to be sure that cleaning up after the incontinent grandfather is acceptable) and her husband Hodjat. Both sides are full of righteous rage, but because we see all the events and relevant details as they occur, we understand each side's perspective, the source of their misunderstandings, and more importantly, the inevitability of them.

Throughout this conflict, the issue of what Nader and Simin will do to resolve their own disagreement is always present in the background, always informing the actions of the two and also of Termeh. Just as Termeh is torn between her parents, every character is torn by opposing external forces. This is what the title of the film truly refers to: the forces which pull at characters in opposite directions, and which cause a separation in them, or internal conflict. 

In such a situation, no character can escape unscathed. The two families – Nader, Simin, and Termeh on one side, and Razieh and Hodjat on the other – finally attempt to compromise when Nader agrees to compensate them monetarily. But the plan fails when Nader asks Razieh to swear on the Quran that she is sure he was the cause of her miscarriage. He had previously refused to compensate them at all, because this would be an admission of guilt – and he maintained that he was innocent. Because she is such a devout Muslim, she cannot swear.

It's a cruel maneuver on Nader's part, but it's a telling moment. Razieh cannot swear on the Quran because, though both sides are reluctant to admit it, the issue of who is innocent and who is guilty, who is the victim and who is the criminal, is complicated. The deal breaks down, and Razieh and Hodjat are disgraced. But Nader, by now, has already implicitly admitted to Termeh that he is not as innocent as he has claimed to be. He, too, is disgraced.

At the end of the film, Nader and Simin are finally allowed to divorce. And because nothing escapes the separation intact, Termeh is forced to choose between them – the most devastating moment in a film full of moments that will devastate you.

People on the Fringe: Gypsy Culture in Angelo My Love (Shauna)

    There is something fascinating about delving into the world of a sociocultural Other. And indeed, white America has for centuries enacted such an imaginary process, projecting itself onto alternate groups and peoples located on the fringes of society. The process of projection has involved both revulsion and attraction: the savage has functioned primarily as foil and scapegoat (i.e. the Other of didactic Puritanical stories), but also as an exotic entity, impossible to characterize, explain or fully comprehend. Both constructions expose entrenched prejudices, and neither contributes much in the way of new insights about the people themselves.

    The captivity narrative, while declaring savagery and civility to be incompatible and irreconcilable, also conveys a subtext about the complementary nature of indigenous life. The fact that some Puritan prisoners of war preferred to stay with their captors suggests that the world of the Native imparted certain benefits, particularly for women. These advantages, whether material, spiritual, or psychological, were either inaccessible or nonexistent in the civilized (patriarchal) life of the settlement. Implicit in the captivity narrative was the idea that indigenous life satiated a certain social hunger and filled a spiritual void left by Christian civility and codified European traditions. How would “mainstream” society cope with the Native? The answer lies in exclusion — through physical separation and rhetorical devices. The discourse on native peoples has consistently positioned the American Indian beyond the periphery of the colonial settlement (lurking in the forest, or beyond the butte, dunes or hills), or safely contained on reservations, far from the burgeoning cities and sprawling homesteads.

    The gypsy, in contrast, has been less widely articulated or addressed in America’s historical conversation with itself. Though ostracized through policy, the American Indian has at least been acknowledged in America’s cinema culture. Certainly, the characterization of the Native American has been far from ideal. He is rarely afforded the same level of character development as the white frontiersman, and his language is systematically dismissed as unintelligible (a notable exception is John Ford’s The Searchers, in which Ethan’s knowledge of Comanche partly humanizes his antagonist, Scar). The historical practice of casting white actors to play Native American roles further solidifies Hollywood’s seeming prohibition on nuanced, authentic American Indian performances. And yet, even the most bigoted cinematic portrayals of the American Indian allow for a conversation about how the Native is represented in the movies and the American consciousness. One can hope that as audience sophistication increases, so too will sensitivity to racialized portrayals of the Native.

 

    What does this mean for the gypsy, whose portrayal in American movies is not merely negative, but actually nonexistent? The gypsy is an invisible entity in the space of mainstream cinema, which perhaps should not be surprising, given the limited space he occupies in our collective national consciousness. Given this reality, Robert Duvall’s film Angelo My Love (1983) is essential viewing for anyone interested in the treatment of underrepresented peoples in cinema. His luminous commentary on gypsy life depicts the Roma neither as pitiful victims nor grotesque menaces, but as human beings who are at times exuberant, and at times melancholy. Though we may occasionally perceive their language (a hybrid of English and Gypsy) as jarring, and their gesticulations, dances, and affectations as eccentric, we accept their actions and attitudes as rational, given the context. It is the camera that allows us to see into the crowded apartments, decorated with their plush plastic couches; the masses at the Feast of St. Anne; and the men and women gathered around the campfire near Albany, following Patalay’s acquittal at the Kris. Thus, it is cinema that facilitates our receptivity to the gypsies, whom we might otherwise dismiss as inconsistent with familiar laws, social structures, and behaviors. We come to appreciate misdemeanors as pragmatic choices, necessary given the gypsies' position at the city's social and economic periphery.

    The gypsies’ relationship to mainstream society is a complex arrangement, verging on mutualistic. Their status as Other arises not from systematic exclusion by a non-gypsy majority, but from the gypsies' conscious efforts to keep their culture intact. They are ostracized to some extent, yet they are not completely disconnected from the services and institutions that constitute the fabric of mainstream society. In fact, the gypsies partially integrate themselves into the dominant culture —at least on a superficial level— to ensure their economic survival and, to a lesser extent, their children's literacy and education. Paradoxically, the gypsies work to maintain a distinction between their world and the conventional mainstream. Nowhere is this more evident than when Angelo's mother delivers her ultimatum following Angelo's recovery of the family's ring. Throughout the film, Angelo is characterized as a small adult man. He blurts obscenities, exerts complete control over his body, mesmerizes women with his suave demeanor, and embodies the same machismo as his uncles. Yet, he is moved to tears like a small child when his mother says, “You can be Gypsy or Gadjo [non-Roma]— but not both.” The finality of the statement suggests that commitment to discreet elements of gypsy culture is insufficient; what is necessary is the complete repudiation of the mainstream culture, including its rules, logic, and values.

    The film does not simply dichotomize Gadjo and gypsy cultures. True, the rules, moral codes, and rituals enacted by the gypsies within the context of nuclear families, the wedding and the Kris occasionally seem alien, patriarchal, and even clientelistic. And yet, by integrating scenes in which Angelo socializes with non-gypsies, including an inept grade school teacher, an elderly Puerto Rican woman, and the child country music star Cathy Kichen, Duvall connects Angelo's world to a familiar social milieu.

    A wonderful aspect of Angelo My Love is the unapologetic performances by its cast members. Of course, the men and women in the film are not really actors at all. They are not "performing" so much as they are conveying shared experiences, internal crises, and identities. The film text is as much an episodic narrative as it is an anthropological study of New York City's Roma community in the 1980s.

  The film maintains an interesting balance between Old and New World, conveying something about the adaptability of this formerly nomadic people transplanted from Europe. Even during the Kris (trial), Frankie, the de facto judge (reminiscent of a mafia Godfather), and Angelo vacillate between English and the Roma mother tongue. Sentences and soliloquies meld syntax and vocabulary from both languages; a perpetual high-energy rhythm links them together in an almost continuous vocal flood. This mode of discourse conveys the resilience of the people, seemingly referencing their migrant heritage, which likely required rapid adaptation to new environments, cultures, and resources.

    We also learn of the ethnic and cultural variation that exists within the New York gypsy community, perhaps most clearly encapsulated by the Greek/Russian rivalry that provides the ongoing conflict for the film and context for the theft of Angelo’s father’s ring.

    Finally, the costumes and modes of transport in the movie should not be dismissed, for they reveal something about the interconnectedness between gypsy and Gadjo cultures. Whereas the Amish completely reject "English" electricity and cars, the men in Angelo rely heavily on vehicles to pursue enemies, transport their families to religious ceremonies, and court women. The language of cars is ubiquitous: Angelo and Michael hail a taxi to pursue Patalay, Angelo "drives" partway to upstate New York (seated on Frankie's lap), and lacking cash for a cab becomes the justification for Angelo's failure to take Patricia out on her birthday. This sort of motif reveals something striking about the gypsy culture, at least as it is portrayed in Angelo. There is a high degree of devotion to ritualism, folklore, superstition, cultural pride and family honor, yet a reliance on the modes of contemporary Gadjo life. Still, the gypsies maintain a notably ambivalent attitude toward the mechanisms, bureaucracy, and institutions of the dominant culture. As Angelo's mother asserts (and Michael echoes), "Maybe you'll go [to school] today and not tomorrow."

    But perhaps the most interesting conflicts in the film emerge within the gypsy community itself. As Angelo, Frankie and Michael watch Patalay and his fellow Russians singing around a campfire, Angelo observes their ugliness, horrified. Indeed, his statement articulates a reality we've come to appreciate throughout the film (shots of Patalay often fixate on his grotesque fleshy nose; those of Millie linger on her crooked teeth and aged skin). The ideal physical appearance —a handsome face and smooth skin— becomes emblematic of Angelo's clan (and the Greek gypsies, by extension). Angelo's discourse on beauty reveals something interesting about the construction of masculinity in the larger gypsy culture and among the Greeks, in particular. However, we cannot help but wonder whether Angelo's self-proclaimed beauty is not merely a transient sign of youth. His appearance, too, may be susceptible to the physical disfigurement and moral decay that marks Patalay.

Deconstructing the Geisha: Hollywood vs. Mizoguchi (Katie)

Who are geisha, these women of the floating world, whose image is so often associated with femininity in Japan? In the west, geisha are often mistaken for high-class prostitutes – which is a misconception even some Japanese continue to have. Geisha are entertainers, thoroughly trained in traditional arts such as music and dance. The world of the geisha is a complicated web of money, social responsibilities, debts, relations with men, relations with women, and the art of being living, breathing entertainment. The individual's struggle to keep all of these complications in balance makes the geisha's life an inherently fascinating, and cinematic, story. Japanese cinema has a long history of portraying geisha on film, and Hollywood has even taken an interest, cashing in on the appeal of the exotic in the 2005 film Memoirs of a Geisha. 

Memoirs of a Geisha was directed by Rob Marshall, and was adapted from the novel of the same name, written by Arthur Golden. The story follows Sayuri on her journey from being a servant to becoming an accomplished giesha. The film obsessively follows the details of Sayuri's training – her dance lessons, her music practices, the art of dressing in a kimono – and revels in the exoticism of the geisha experience. When Sayuri first gets her hair done up in the traditioanl style, she must sleep on a special propped up pillow surrounded by a circle of rice. When she wakes up, her hair is covered in rice because she fell off her pillow, and her hair is ruined. The film makes a great deal of the pain and preparation of becoming a geisha to emphasize to the audience how strange and foreign these practices are. Yet these glimpses are merely surface level – never is the audience truly brought into Sayuri's inner world.

This is the problem with Memoirs – the struggles of its characters are all surface-level, or flimsy external constructions. For a film so obsessed with the exotic in Japanese culture, the conflicts brought upon its subjects are decidedly Hollywood. The opening scene shows Sayuri and her sister being bought from her family and carted away from their hometown – only for Sayuri to be sold to the okiya, the geisha house, and her sister to be sold to a whore house. Instantly, the life of a geisha is equated with slavery and forced labor. Being a geisha is not something a girl chooses to do, but is forced into.

Sayuri fights against this fate at first, but her perceptions rapidly shift when she meets Chairman Iwamura by chance on the streets of Kyoto. She instantly falls in love with him, and sees that becoming a geisha will allow her to grow closer to him. Thus, she throws herself into the diligent studies needed to become a geisha. Here a love story is substituted for any kind of self-actualization or reflection for Sayuri. She exists to become the perfect woman for the Chairman, and to become that woman she must become a geisha. There is no concept of being a geisha so that she can be a financially independent woman, or so she can support herself. The film does not explore the questions of what happens when personal and professional boundaries are crossed. Sayuri at one point is sexually harassed by a patron, but the film does not venture deeper into the concept of the systematic objectification of women that geisha can fall prey to. These are not the conflicts the film is invested in – it is invested in the love of the Chairman and Sayuri, and the dramatic external forces, like World War II, that keep them apart.

There is one scene which suggests that there is more to Sayuri than just her persuit of the Chairman. When her mentor suggests that Sayuri take on a patron because it is her best choice for supporting herself, Sayuri refuses and shouts back, “I want a life that is mine!” Here is the idea that is unexplored in the film – the opportunity to build a private identity within the structure of the geisha lifestyle.

The work of Kenji Mizoguchi delves into the conflicts inherent in these social structures. In his 1953 film, Gion Bayashi (A Geisha), Mizoguchi portrays two geisha – one an older, established giesha, Miyoharu, who takes in a pupil, Eiko. Unlike in Memoirs, the geisha of Gion Bayashi are not portrayed as slaves or women cut off from any family connections. Eiko's mother was a geisha and was friends with Miyoharu, thus why Eiko saught Miyoharu out after her mothers death. Eiko is not forced into becoming a geisha – she begs Miyoharu to train her. She longs to become like the maiko (young, elaborately dressed geisha)she sees on postcards from Kyoto.

After Miyoharu takes Eiko under her wing, she is quickly trained and then brought into society as a maiko. It is here where the tangled webs of loyalties and monetary transactions become entangled with Miyoharu's and Eiko's personal priorities. Miyoharu and Eiko are pursued by two business men, Kanzaki and Kusuda, who both desire more than just artistic entertainment from the women, in exchange for financial security. On a disastrous trip to Tokyo, Kusuda tries to force himself onto Eiko – and to protect herself, she bites and severely wounds his face. Hearing her screems from a room close by, Miyoharu runs to Eiko's aid – and finds her dazed, her face covered in blood, her hair and kimono askew. The image of the immaculate maiko that Eiko so coveted is now shockingly destroyed and subverted.

Eiko's image of the geisha is further complicated and tarnished in the ensuing difficulties surrounding this incident. They find themselves blacklisted from all of the tea houses they used to frequent, because of Eiko's supposed misbehavior. Miyoharu becomes desperate to keep themselves from being swallowed by debt, and agrees to become Kanzaki's mistress so that she may protect Eiko's integrity. Eiko is disgusted by this idea, but can see that Miyoharu saw no other way out of the situation.

What Gion Bayashi lacks in the glamor and gloss displayed by a film like Memoirs of a Geisha, it makes up for tenfold in its fearlessness in portraying the dichotomies inherent in the geisha world. Geisha depend upon each other, and the bond between Miyoharu and Eiko is ultimately the most important one – yet they also depend financially on the support of their male patrons. Miyoharu especially struggles with having to protect Eiko, keep them financially stable, and still maintain her self dignity – which in the end proves to be a nearly impossible task. Gion Bayashi, in contrast to the flashier Memoirs, shows that the conflict in a film does not have to evolve from a forced love story and a world war. 

 

Punches vs. Plot: Storytelling styles of Ong Bak and Ip Man (Chris D)

    In 2003 the film, Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior, was released to great acclaim. At first glance, the film should be resigned to the discount DVD bin. The plot is full of holes and borders on the ridiculous, the dialogue is contrived, and the acting is terrible. However, through the star of the film, Tony Jaa, it rises from being a laughably bad film to being a testament to the perfection of physical capability.

                Tony Jaa’s acting through the film can be described as bad at best.  This is only compounded by the script giving him little to work with and the plot of the film itself being ridiculous. However, the film succeeds on the choreography and execution of its action scenes. Tony Jaa is an exception physical performer, and all of the terrible acting that he does while not punching something goes away once the martial arts scenes begin. Instead, his body is able to tell a compelling story as he fights. For example, in his first real fight scene in the film, he is put up against increasingly difficult opponents in an underground arena. During the first fight, Ting, Jaa’s character, is able to defeat his opponent effortlessly. The only time that his opponent is able to touch him is through cheating.  However, the second fighter presents Ting with slight difficulty. Ting has difficulty hitting the opponent at first because his opponent is so quick. However, the viewer is able to follow Ting as he learns the man’s patterns of movement and is then able to counter them, leading to his victory. The last fighter proves to be an even more difficult match for Ting, as he subverts everything that Ting knows about fighting. Having been trained in a small village, Ting is unaccustomed to dirty fighting as was evidenced earlier in his fight against the first opponent. However, the last fighter does nothing but fight dirty, and thus the viewer watches Ting get hit with chairs, tables, plates, and even a refrigerator. It is only through struggling through the brutal assault that Ting is able to finally win. These series of fights shows Ting as a resilient character that is able to struggle through hardship in order to achieve victory. He learns from his previous mistakes and through this knowledge is able to defeat his opponent. This character building and storytelling is all done without dialogue, leaving the viewer to watch Jaa’s body language. While the script of the film leaves much to be desired, the story of a man persisting through adversity grabs the viewer’s attention.

                The 2008 film, Ip Man, takes a diametrically opposite approach to Ong Bak. In comparison to Ong Bak’s thin plot which only serves to support the martial arts, Ip Man, uses the martial arts to support the plot of the film. The fights still tell a story, but their story only serves to support the characterization and plot that has been established through the dialogue and interactions between characters.

                The titular character of Ip Man never seems terribly challenged in any of the fights through the film. He is established early on as the best martial artist in his village, and nothing in the film seeks to change that. At no point does the viewer feel any threat to Ip Man from any of the opponents he fights. Every blow that an enemy throws is either blocked or dodged. The ease that he wins his battles could easily become boring for the viewer as, without a struggle, there is nothing to invest in. However, the story that accompanies the fights causes the viewer to care about Ip Man as a person and thus care about what winning the fight means. In addition, while Ip Man starts off wealthy and happy, the invasion of the Japanese causes his life to spiral downward. He has to struggle in his daily life to feed his family. Thus the viewer’s thirst for struggle is satiated by the plot itself. Once Ip Man gets into a fight, the viewer has grown so attached to him and watched him struggle so much that when he succeeds with little effort the viewer is thrilled to see him succeed.

                Each fight in Ip Man has a different energy to it according to where it falls in the plot. The first fight in the film is a simple sparring match and thus the fight seems more playful and honorable. This is a very different energy than the final fight against the Japanese general. After watching the Japanese brutalize his friends and family, Ip Man savagely overwhelms his opponent with little mercy. The film uses fight scenes in a very similar way that musicals use songs. When the characters reach an emotional level that cannot be expressed in words, they fight. In this way, the fight scenes serve to reinforce the plot instead of the plot serving as a vehicle for fight scenes.

                The differences between the way fights are used in Ong Bak and the way they are used in Ip Man is reinforced by the fighting styles of the two main characters. Ting uses a very flashy version of Muay Thai which is full of flying elbows and knees. It seems that every other move he is launching himself through the air in order to brutally attack his opponent. This is reinforced by Tony Jaa’s amazing physical condition which allows him to perform stunts that most people require wires to do. This style of martial arts creates large flashy action sequences full of over the top movements.  Ip Man, on the other hand, uses a very reserved form of Wing Chun. He makes small moves and only expends the minimum required energy to block and strike his opponent. The action sequences created by this style are sharper, and serve to fulfill their purpose just like the movements of the hero.

                These two films showcase the two different sides of the martial arts genre. Ong Bak is a film that exists solely for the purpose of celebrating physical achievement. The film allows Tony Jaa to demonstrate his physical capabilities. The viewer is less concerned with the plot, but instead simply wants to see what ridiculous stunt Jaa will be able to pull off next. Ip Man instead creates a world in which fighting is normal, but makes it secondary to the film. Instead, it is the points in between the fight scenes that draw the viewer in with the fights scenes inserted in order to drive home a point. However, with all their differences, the two films still come down to the same basic concept. They focus on a man who must struggle against adversity in order to eventually overcome it. The protagonists are both skilled and flawed in their own ways. In the end, both films celebrate the physical prowess of the human body in a way that only the martial arts film can.

 

Love, Obsession, and the Movies in Tampopo and Who's Camus Anyway? (Katie)

A gangster in a stark white suit and his mistress stride down the aisle of a movie theater, taking their seats right in the front row. A gaggle of thugs follow after them, placing a table in front of them and quickly covering it with a luxurious basket of foods, two champagne flutes, and a bottle of champagne. The champagne is poured into a flute, and as the gangster lifts it to his lips he looks straight into the camera, addressing us, the audience - “Oh? So you're at a movie too. What are you eating?”

Juzo Itami's 1985 film, Tampopo, is a joyful visual feast celebrating the Japanese's love of - and obsession with - food. The film is a series of vignettes surrounding the main story of Tampopo, the owner of a struggling ramen shop, and Goro, a truck driver who accidentally becomes her mentor in the art of preparing and serving ramen.

And what an art it is – an early scene shows Goro's companion Gun (played by a young Ken Watanabe) receiving a lesson from a ramen guru on the proper technique to eating a bowl of ramen. The food itself is lovingly photographed – closeup shots put the bowl in the center of the frame, then pan in to fully revel in the aesthetic composition of the soup. The ramen master gently lifts the slices of pork on the top and tucks them under the noodles – explaining that this is a token of respect for the contribution of the pork. Ramen in Japan is like the cheeseburger in the US – greasy, salty, cheap and satisfying – but in Tampopo it is treated with the respect usually reserved for high cuisine. While the experience of having fresh ramen may be foreign to most American viewers, the act of eating and savoring food is universal. Tampopo takes eating a bowl of ramen and elevates it to a ritual – celebrating the pieces that make up the whole. When done perfectly, even lowly street food like ramen can become high art.

Many of the film's gags rely heavily on Japanese culture and social traditions, yet the film also incorporates elements from traditional Hollywood genres. Amongst the vignettes in the film are parodies of cultural stereotypes - a young business executive upstages his superiors at a restaurant with his extensive knowledge of French cuisine. A mother on her deathbed rises to make dinner for her family, her last act before death. A group of young women are taught how to eat noodles abroad properly, without slurping or making any noise – except once they see a foreigner in the same restaurant noisily slurping down his noodles, they follow suit. While the jokes in these scenes are heavily Japanese, they become universally accessible in their complete reversal of expectations.

As much as the film celebrates the rituals of food, it is also a celebration of Hollywood genres and film itself. The formation of a genre is a sort of ritual in itself, a meaningful repetition of familiar characters and tropes. Tampopo pays homage to traditional genres – especially the western and the gangster film. Goro the truck driver rolls into Tampopo's restaurant like Shane, there to clean up the town, conquer the bad guys, then move on. The final ramen tasting scene is filmed like a shootout, with the five taste-testers approaching the ramen store with steely resolve, ready for one last test.

The gangster figure in the film is the complete embodiment of obsession and lust, for food, cinema, and life. The opening scene immediately combines food and cinema, and the gangster's lust for both – he demands both the most optimal dining and viewing experience, threatening a man behind him for crinkling his potato chip bag too loudly. He requires silence for his movie viewing, and explains how right before death, one is said to see their life before their eyes, like a movie – and he wants no interruptions when he sees his own. Later, the gangster is featured in a version of the typical romantic sex scene – yet the addition of food and its creative uses make the scene hilariously unsexy. Finally, near the end of the film the gangster is stumbling in the gutter, shot and bleeding to death. As his lover cries over him, all he can talk about is – what else – food. Right before he passes, he hushes her, “Be quiet. My last movie is starting.” Food is life, and life is a movie.

 

For the characters in Mitsuo Yanagimachi's film, Who's Camus Anyway? (2005), the boundaries between cinema and real life become blurred as they endeavor to create a film. Who's Camus centers around a group of film students in Tokyo who are about to shoot a film, and their personal and creative trials as obstacles get in the way.

Who's Camus starts off playfully self-reflexive – as a film about film, there are several layers of interpretation and meaning involved. The opening sequence is a smoothly choreographed long take, with a fluid camera that floats around the college campus, introducing the viewer to the different characters of the film. Two of the filmophile students, naturally, are discussing legendary long opening takes of films, name dropping films like Orson Welles's Touch of Evil and Robert Altman's The Player.

These are the first of many references to films, novels, and philosophers – at times the film feels like it is only accessible to viewers who know the material referenced. However, when one of the producers of the student film, Kamimura, enters a cafe and immediately begins re-enacting a scene from Jean-Luc Godard'sMasculin Féminin, it becomes clear that the name dropping is not just for show. Kamimura remembers and recounts the scene in precise detail, remembering each camera movement, the placement of the extras in the scene, the motions of the film's star. The extras in the film we are watching become the extras in the film in his mind. The lines between reality and cinema are blurred and crossed over for Kamimura, the walking encyclopedia of film.

Who's Camus Anyway? follows the personal drama and conflicts of the student film crew as they struggle to put together their film, called The Bored Murderer, and themselves. The film within the film is about a high school student, Takeda, that invades the home of and then murders an elderly woman, for no apparent reason. As the director and his crew ponder why he would commit this act, they begin to dissect the motivations behind their own – often immoral – behavior. When Hisada, the assistant director of the student film, explains to her boyfriend why she kissed two other men while he was away, she uses similar language to Takeda, the murderer in her own film. To explain their actions both of them make no excuses – they wanted to see what it felt like after they had crossed those boundaries.

The film's most impressive cinematic feat is its last fifteen minutes, which is the actual filming of The Bored Murderer. Here the line between the film, its producers, and its audience is completely erased. The sequence starts out straight forward enough – it is clear when the audience is watching the filming of Takeda's story and when the audience is seeing what the movie looks like – as though it has already been processed and edited together. The viewer changes between the two visual worlds, that of the filming and that of the film. Then things start to get weird. In the film within the film we watch as Takeda washes up after killing the elderly woman. Her husband comes home and starts knocking on the outside of the house, and Takeda begins to panic. The film cuts outside to see the husband knocking on the window – and then Hisada calls cut from off camera, enters the shot, and tells the actor playing the husband that the take was good. Then, within the same shot, the plot of The Bored Murderer continues – Takeda leaps out of the window with a knife, tackling the husband. It is clearly not the actor who plays Takeda committing some prank on set. As the scene continues on, we are back within The Bored Murderer. The next shot is a wide shot – where previously all the crew and equipment had been set up around the house, everything is now gone, consistent with the interior film. The transition between the reality and the fiction within Who's Camus is seamless – the worlds have been united in one shot. The cinematic borders between what happens in front of the camera and what happens behind have been blurred and erased. The filmmakers become part of their own film, and the film is part of them.

 

 

Russia, Mongolia and Hollywood: A Silent Hybrid in Storm Over Asia (Shauna)

 

 When it comes to Soviet Montage, at least from the American perspective, Eisenstein is the dominant figure, Vertov the experimental artist, and Pudovkin the peripheral character defined in terms of his relation to Eisenstein as friend and aesthetic rival. Perhaps this hierarchy reflects the paltry selection of modern English translations of works by Pudovkin and the comparative wealth of resources by Eisenstein. Or maybe it reflects Eisenstein’s deft capacity to theorize and simultaneously self-promote. In “The Fourth Dimension of Cinema,” he routinely cites his own works as “classic”[1] examples illustrative of all the most crucial formal elements of film art.

Eisenstein was not above criticizing, and occasionally dismissing, works by Pudovkin, particularly when he construed them as veering too far his own artistic vision of montage. Eisenstein cites Storm Over Asia (1928) as an example of metric montage gone awry. The technique, he argues, fails when it is paired with “complex rhythmic tasks.”[2] True, the religious procession to honor the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is highly complex and orchestrated, even prior to the added intricacies of cutting and splicing. The sequence is not Pudovkin’s most glorious in Storm. However, it is neither inherently flawed nor fruitless. The awkwardness, which Eisenstein describes as the “forcible application” of metric montage, suggests an inability to convey all of the nuances of this Mongolian ritual practice. We are inundated with visual information (compounded by the vigorous, ethnic score), yet the meaning of vast ceremony remains oblique. The best moments are those in which Pudovkin exercises restraint, for instance, when the static camera fixates on the exotic dancing bodies, filmed in horizontal and diagonal lines, and finally in a curve that snakes from background to foreground. The slightly jarring cuts, which juxtapose accelerating dancers with static musicians, suggest a level of uncertainty, as though meanings and symbols inevitably elude the westerner.

Pudovkin transplants the viewer to a space that is neither fully human nor divine, but rather exists on the threshold of both of these worlds. He does not impose a vision or attempt to contrive meaning from the indigenous dance and music. Rather, he allows the Mongolian masks and costumes, the formations and the dances, to speak on their own terms. The content is beautiful and enthralling, even if the metric montage is occasionally awkward. The sequence evokes the experience of an outsider far more than it characterizes the Mongolians. We empathize with the camera’s gaze, which is incapable of focusing on a single dancer or musician for long. Who is to fault Pudovkin for evoking the experience of walking in on a ceremony performed by a foreign people or culture — that is, the experience of witnessing but not belonging?

 

One of the reasons Storm Over Asia resonates so profoundly in the silent film canon is its thematic, if not contextual, connection to the Soviet heritage and worldview. Although the film does not address Soviet woes, routines, or spaces directly, it grapples with a powerful and pervasive question present in the Russian psyche: To what extent should Russia be construed as “West” or “East”? Pudovkin alludes to the historical debate between Slavophiles and Westernizers through cinematic language, rather than blatant, polemical statements. Few Russians appear in the film, with the exception of the partisans. But the Russians' naturalistic style creates a visual parallel with the seemingly ancient Mongols — suggesting deeper connections to the Mongolians than to continental Europeans.

Storm suggests an underlying ambivalence in terms of Russian identification with either the West or East, though the film tends to empathize with the Mongolians. The sentiment is conveyed through (1) landscapes that manifest an Asian aesthetic in their graphic simplicity and still depiction, (2) the intimacy and sensitivity with which the nuclear Mongol family and its prized ornaments are filmed prior to the son's departure, and (3) the implicit connection between Anglo characters and unnatural processes, including surgical repair of the body, the hygienic and materialistic "rituals" before the visitation to the Buddhist Temple, and the infiltration of technology into the primeval environs of the Steppes.

Throughout the film, the agrarian and uncultivated landscapes range from chillingly vacant, to tranquil, serene and sublime. Ultimately, though, the Steppes pulse with a voracious life force: a mysterious and aggressive wind decimates the British colonial presence. Pudovkin elevates and restores the dignity of the indigenous Mongols through this ostensibly natural (though seemingly supernatural) force. Pudovkin wrote that D.W. Griffith was highly influential in molding his cinematic consciousness. Indeed, the scale and graphic potency of Pudovkin’s landscapes do reveal parallels between the directors' works. But the shots in Storm overlooking the sand dunes, mountains and conifers of the Steppes, are also entirely unique. Prior to Storm, no one had ventured into the rural, nomadic domestic spaces of the Buriat-Mongolian Republic with a movie camera. Pudovkin had attended film school with Valeri Inkizhinov, the actor who played the protagonist, and thereby entered a world previously invisible to film. Had he employed a strictly Hollywood approach, the product would likely not have contained the languid series of stills, dissolving one into the next, forming subtle conflicts of plane and scale, which infuse Storm with a distinctively Eurasian atmosphere. The director complemented his Soviet montage technique with an awareness of Asian art, establishing graphically simple, yet emotionally stirring landscapes, with just the slightest degree of movement (shuddering leaves, shifting ice, or the slow, almost viscous flow of a river).

Storm constitutes an exquisite portrait of Mongolian life, integrating graphic landscapes (in which the individual is frequently subverted to the grandeur and scale of the natural environment) with humanizing close-ups of the native people and the indexical signs present in their lives, such as the amulet that had belonged to the lama, and the prized skin of the silver fox. The Mongolian hunter's family appears aged, crouched, tanned, and wrinkled, yet their faces embody a spirit and spontaneity that is totally absent from the visages of the British Army Commander and his bejeweled and powdered wife. The lighting in the interior of the Mongolian yurt is fascinating and quite beautiful. Whatever wrong Eisenstein perceived in terms of metric montage in the religious dance is fully compensated by the tonal complexity within the shot! The crisscrossing of cast shadows simultaneously gives the impression of individuals trapped within a colonial economic framework, and integrated with the natural space. The continuity between anatomy and environment suggests a higher level of authenticity. These individuals, bound by the complex of shadows, are close to the earth and to each other, in-tune with the seasons, the wildlife, and the hours. In contrast, the British delegate and his wife shroud themselves in unnatural pieces of finery: a long satin sheath wrapped around an obese male torso, the whale-bone corsette cinched unnaturally at the waist, and layers of lotion and powder set on the skin.

The naturalistic quality of the Mongolians makes the surgery performed on Inkizhinov's character all the more loathsome. The victim, after being bound and brutally shot, is essentially reawakened from the dead and brought out of the natural space of the sand dunes into the civilized Anglo interior. Sanctioned violence is followed by sanctioned medical penetration to revive the human form. The body, bound like a mummy, and restricted in its movements, constitutes a mannequin or dummy. It is the physical manifestation of the Mongolian's diplomatic function as a pawn of the British Empire's. The surgical repair is unnatural in that it is totally divested from any spiritual healing (i.e. the sort of healing presented in the earliest moments when the lama prays for the father's recovery).

The Mongolian is wholly castrated, unable to quench his thirst or articulate his thoughts. The moment when he attempts to drink from the fish tank, an action wholly outside the purview of civilized European decorum, is quite poetic: his head on the slick floor, surrounded by the thrashing fish, constitutes a visual metaphor for all the trauma and exploitation he has endured, and his inability to thrive within this world. Yet, like all of the images infused with pathos, it is neither sentimental nor contrived.

The closing scene is perhaps the most unambiguous example of Soviet montage. Pudovkin employs the fastest tempo, the wildest mise-en-scéne, and rapid inter-cutting between a savage, fully restored Mongolian hunter and the intertitles, producing negatives of the image that seem monstrous and supernatural. Yet, it is highly telling that the British defeat is staged without bloodshed: the wrath of the wilderness is the only outpouring of violence. The men fall back, rolling and somersaulting like weightless dolls blown down. It is as though this culminating struggle occurs outside the bounds of mortal life: it is no mere territorial dispute, but a recovery of the dignity and humanity that was lost.

 

 

 

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[1] Sergei Eisenstein, The Eisenstein Reader, trans. Richard Taylor and William Powell(London: BFI Publishing, 1998).

[2] Ibid.

Mexican Women in Salt of the Earth and Biutiful (Shauna)

On a superficial level, there is very little in common between Salt of the Earth (1954), a bare-bones narrative of labor unrest in an arid, desolate New Mexican mining village dubbed Zinctown, USA, and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s vivid, saturated, and jarring portrayal of contemporary Barcelona, entitled Biutiful (2010). Iñárritu addresses a distinctive socio-economic underbelly in Spain, filtering experience through a single Mexican protagonist, Uxbal (Javier Bardem). But he suggestively exposes broader demographic and immigration changes underway across Europe.

Javier Bardem in Biutiful. Creative Commons, by Cinema Davar.

At its core, Salt of the Earth is a decidedly local film. It employed neorealist techniques and was subjected to a variety of constraints imposed by Cold War politics. Political pressures helped to mold a particular atmosphere and imparted an unrehearsed quality to the film. According to Rosaura Revueltas, the actor who played Esperanza Quintero, “[The cast] never saw any rushes. The film was shot blindly. Scenes were never repeated. During filming, helicopters flew overhead in order to protest…”[1] Salt exudes a spontaneity that pervades even the most didactic scenes. This natural quality reinforces Esperanza’s radical and incisive soliloquy. In it, she articulates the crux of the conflict with her husband, Ramón: Anglo employers undermine and antagonize the Mexican miners, yet Ramón is complicit in discrimination, debasing his wife by discouraging her political engagement. The dismissive nature of his responses (“You’re talking crazy!” and “Will you be still!”) betray the truth in her words.

 

Biutiful represents an essentially global film, in which characters from developing nations are linked to each other and to Europe in a tightly wound economic network. This is not to insinuate that Iñárritu disregards the local environment. With the utmost care, he conveys textural and chromatic details of Marambra’s (Maricel Alvarez) apartment, the dank sweatshop housing Chinese laborers, and the living quarters of the Muslim Senegalese. Still, a nascent internationalism emerges, with Barcelona functioning as a hub for émigrés, human trafficking, and other illicit activity. The resulting social universe is exceedingly complex, and the wealth of visual information contained within each frame only compounds that impression. Iñárritu’s filmic precision approaches hyperrealism. His style proves expressive and photogenic, if at times unsettling.

Interspersed throughout the film are supernatural moments, which call to mind the magical realism of Latin American literature. Those moments function as visual breaths, which alleviate the slightly claustrophobic and suffocating experience of material poverty. In one sequence, two massive swarms of birds dance in flight over city. For a moment, they exist not as birds, but as abstract entities. Uxbal fixates on this display, which is at once bizarre and extraordinary.

  

Calatrava Bridge, Barcelona. Creative Commons, Zio Fabio.

Stylistic distinctions between the two films reflect their unique historical contexts. Salt of the Earth was produced under tremendous political pressures. Actual workers participated in the production process, lending a greater degree of authenticity and making  Salt slightly more astonishing than if it had relied purely on professional actors. In some ways, Salt of the Earth and Biutiful represent polar opposites; in terms of scale, stylization, casting, sound, and complexity of the mise-en-scene, the films could hardly be more different. Yet, both films convey a particular experience of Mexican transplants, engaging issues of male anxiety, gender equality and inequality, and the adverse consequences of free-market capitalism. They occupy separate parts of the temporal and geographic spectrum (1950s United States, and present-day Spain), yet the films address a number of related cultural questions. A full comparative analysis is beyond the scope of this entry. Instead, I will outline the construction and experience of women in the Mexican émigré culture.

 

Salt of the Earth may be considered groundbreaking for its apparent foray into feminist activism. It subverts, or at least challenges, an established gender order in post-War America, and does so rather obliquely. When Esperanza articulates her condition, it is without flourish or euphemism. Early in the film, she shies away from politics and tacitly accepts her domestic identity. For instance, she asserts her ambivalence about entering the union meeting with the other women. Moreover, it is Consuela (Angela Sanchez) who proposes the women’s auxiliary branch for the miners’ union. In the wake of the meeting, Ramón brusquely acknowledges, “At least you didn’t make a fool out of yourself like Consuela.”

The formation of the auxiliary, and its ultimate effectiveness in maintaining the picket line after a court injunction prohibits future miners’ strikes, reflects a morality in the filmic universe of Salt, which contends that men and women are essentially the same. Although tensions exist between husbands and their wives, a mutually beneficial partnership gradually emerges in the film. Ramón even invokes unity between “brothers and sisters” in the aftermath of the attempted eviction. Still, feminine acquisition of a labor relations discourse, and the subjection of women to physical violence (in the form of strikes and imprisonment), runs contrary to many of the entrenched gender norms espoused by the men.

In one of the most memorable dialogues in the film, Esperanza asserts Ramon’s total reliance on her involvement in the negotiations: “You can’t win this strike without me. You can’t win anything without me.” He responds with a threatening gesture, but it elicits no spasm of fear; rather, it spawns her complete renunciation of “the old way.” Esperanza’s final instructions, “Sleep where you like, but not with me,” convey the transformative potential of her political engagement in realigning power dynamics within the home.

Interestingly, Biutiful presents a far more ambivalent picture of the Mexican female. In Salt of the Earth, men occasionally adopt a feminine perspective, as when Ramón hangs the wash to dry and wonders why indoor plumbing had not been a major union demand from the beginning. But masculine and feminine perspectives in Biutiful seem nearly irreconcilable. Uxbal’s wife Marambra is presented as rather wretched and manipulative, even if these traits are beyond her control and likely symptomatic of her mental illness. Whereas Esperanza is indispensible to Ramon, Marambra seems only to sap Uxbal’s energy: her alcoholism and apparent bipolarity, her incessant need for sex, and her total economic dependence add up to a woman who resembles a child more than a spouse. Marambra also actively undermines Uxbal’s attempts to create and maintain order in the household. His exertion of control is not coercive, but rather intended to establish much-needed boundaries for his children, Ana and Mateo.

Nowhere is the fissure between male and female perspectives exemplified more clearly than in a late sequence in Uxbal’s brother’s strip club. Whether Iñáarritu intends to communicate something about Mexican, Spanish or European attitudes towards women is not entirely clear. What is evident, however, is that objectification of the female is rampant, and the audience’s limited exposure to such imagery prior to this scene merely reflects Uxbal’s relative dignity within the film’s dubious moral spectrum. Perhaps what is more shocking than the seedy costumes, inflatable decorative flesh, incessant pounding music, and seizure-inducing lights, is the exchange that occurs between Uxbal and a young woman (whom his brother boasts he has slept with). Their physical proximity only amplifies the sense that she and Uxbal are separated by a lifetime of experiences. Her youth underscores his impending death, seemingly accelerated by his drug and alcohol-induced intoxication. When she asks why he isn’t dancing, he responds, “Because I’m dying.” It is unclear why he is doing what he is doing – perhaps it is a defensive strategy in this grotesque and demeaning atmosphere. A profound sense of isolation and male anxiety settles around Uxbal at that moment. It is a loneliness that no female presence can attenuate.

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[1] Esteve Riambau and Casimiro Torreiro,“This Film is Going to Make History,” Cineaste 19 (1992): 50.

The Myth of Economic Opportunities for Women in Osaka Elegy and Flowing (Katie)

Kenji Mizoguchi's Naniwa Ereji (Osaka Elegy) and Mikio Naruse's film, Nagareru (Flowing), are films that seem to speak to each other across the divide of time. Osaka Elegy came out in 1936, while Flowing came out in 1956, and so the films sit in history on either side of World War II. While the films were made nearly exactly twenty years apart from each other, and by different directors, both star the actress Isuzu Yamada, and both are deeply invested in exploring the condition of life for the women in their respective eras. Elegy and Flowing are inherently different films – they differ in their frames of reference, their directors, and subject matter. Yet both films provide commentary on the pre-war and post-war economic and social opportunities for women.

In Osaka Elegy, Isuzu Yamada plays Ayako Murai, a young working class girl who embodies the popular idea of a modern girl, or moga, that was Japan's answer to the flappers in American youth culture. Modern girls were presented as sexually promiscuous, financially independent working girls who were uninterested in politics or social concerns, and only in themselves and their affairs. Ayako is Mizoguchi's answer to the popular image of the modern girl – but he simultaneously subverts the image as he creates it.

By the end of the film, Ayako does become the image of the modern girl – finely coiffed hair, stylish accessories, western clothing – but she is styled in other images first. She is first dressed very simply, in Japanese style robes with her hair pulled into a modest bun. Ayako is the picture perfect obedient daughter. When her father is about to be arrested for embezzlement, she becomes the mistress of her boss – donning a more expensive kimono and the elaborate hairstyle of a bride. When she finds that the only way of supporting herself and her family is to continue to be the mistress of older men, Ayako dons the western look of the “modern girl.” In her patriarchal society, this modern girl is viewed as a threat because of her ability to provide for herself and choose her her sexual partners. But for Ayako, its just a costume for a roll she must play in order to survive.

When her former coworker, Susumu, who also had proposed marriage to her previously, comes to visit her at her own apartment, the dramatic nature of Ayako's costume is acted out. She greets him in one half of the room, and they sit down to a western style table and chairs, and she seems the master of this lavishly decorated apartment. Yet as she confesses to Susumu what she has done, becoming a mistress to support her family, she moves into the other half of the apartment – which is decorated in a very traditionally Japanese style. She becomes more defeated as the scene goes on, retreating further into the room – the illusion is revealed, and the audience and the actors have all been brought backstage. The illusion of the modern girl is destroyed, and economic mobility is confirmed to still be under the rule of patriarchal authority.

In Mikio Naruse's Flowing, Isuzu Yamada now plays Otsuta, the head geisha of a struggling geisha house. Here, the post-war outlook on economic authority for women is even more bleak. In Flowing there is barely even the illusion that it is glamorous or an option for the women to be the masters of their own money and destiny. The life as a geisha is not shown as an existence floating above the world, a sequence of delightful parties and merriment - but one of debt and duty, resentment and resignation. The world of the geisha is collapsing in around Otsuta, who strives to keep her house together, as being a geisha is what she is most suited to.

The Tsuta house seems to be a place of dead ends for the women who live in it. Otsuta is a middle aged woman long separated from her husband and father of her grown up daughter, Katsuyo. Once a renowned geisha, Otsuta has fallen on difficult times and has few junior geisha to support her house. Katsuyo, although brought up within a geisha house, never had skills for the arts, and feels unsuitable to ever be married. Someko is a senior geisha buried in debt, who is later abandoned by her much younger boyfriend. At the start of the film, the house takes on a new maid, Oharu, a widower who has been rejected from other households for being considered too old to do maid's work. For each of them, they have nowhere to go but the Tsuta house, and depend on its functions for their livelihood - even as the geisha profession is becoming less profitable. Their confinement to this lifestyle is absolute, unless they marry out of it – an option each of them has found is not for them. The film even rarely strays from the setting of the house, only occasionally going to the neighboring streets and stores. Economic and social mobility is not even an illusion for Otsuta anymore.

Even with the bleak outlooks portrayed in both films, their endings show that neither Ayako or Otsuta are defeated by their social confinement. The last sequence in Osaka Elegy shows Ayako in profile striding down a dark street – and then instead of just fading out, the camera swings around to see a closeup of Ayako walking straight towards us. The audience is forced to look at her, and on her face is not a look of resignation. She is walking straight ahead into the future.

Likewise, the women in Flowing do not give up on the geisha house. In the last sequence, Otsuta is singing and training young geisha students along with Someka. Katsuyo is practicing sewing in a room above the shamisen rehearsal. Outisde, the river continues flowing, and life continues on.

 

And Introduction to Mikio Naruse with When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Katie)

    Amongst film directors from Japan, there are three that are the most internationally recognized: Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, and Kenji Mizoguchi. Each of them has a certain claim to fame. Kurosawa, for his sweeping epics of samurai and sword play. Ozu, for his immaculte depictions of every day life for the common family, and the delights and dissapointments that are brought on with the passage of time. Mizoguchi, both for his vivid period films and stirring contemporary films focused on the difficulties of women in society. 

    Outside of Japan, Mikio Naruse is relatively unknown compared to these three, although he is often considered as just below them in prestige. Naruse was a contemporary of them, and directed around 80 films in his lifetime. Naruse even was trained at the same studio along with Ozu, and the two are often compared together for their thematic focus on the Japanese family in transition as the culture was rapidly becoming urbanized. Yet Naruse's films have a much bleaker viewpoint, with none of the transcendence or light comedy of Ozu's. His filming is less stylized and not as recognizably "Japanese" as his contemporaries, although the content and heart of his films were completely relevant to the society. These features may be why Naruse has been long overlooked in international film studies. Naruse's storytelling, however, is just as finely crafted as those of his contemporaries. With films centering around strong female characters, Naruse's stories are rich with emotional depth and clarity. The strengths that lie at the heart of his films are exemplified in his 1960 film, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs. 

    When a Woman Ascends the Stairs follows the story of Keiko Yashiro, played by Hideko Takamine, an aging widow working as a bar hostess in the glittering nightlife district of Ginza in Tokyo. She was married at a very young age to her true love - who died in a truck accident, leaving her with nothing. Now, after turning to hostessing to support herself, Keiko is too old for her line of work and finds her future prospects closing in around her. 

    In the first ten minutes of the film the audience is shown how Keiko can escape her life as a hostess. In the opening scene, the other hostesses from her bar are celebrating the marriage of one of their former co-workers. Marriage is one way out. After being scolded for poor sales by the owner of the bar, Keiko wishes she could open up her own bar and be her own boss. Investing and becoming a self-employed entrepreneur is another way out. Naruse then presents the darkest, and most extreme alternative - as Keiko returns to the bar, a crowd of hostesses gather around a stretcher being rushed into an ambulance. A hostess from another bar has committed suicide. Death is another way out. These are the options available to Keiko, each confining in a different way. Marriage would permanently make her dependant on a man, and owning a bar would commit her to a business that she despises. Death would be completely giving up, proving that she was unable to handle the difficulties forced upon her. 

    Keiko's obstinence, and her absolute refusal to humiliate herself for anyone else's gain, demonstrates Naruse's attention to the emotional realities of women. The entire world of the Ginza bar is not seen from the customer's perspective - an entitled male perspective - but from the worker's behind-the-scenes viewpoint. The film shows how they approach their work, and is not the narrow portrait of the giggling and charming hostess only there to serve her patron. Even if the other hostesses are not as emotionally burdened as Keiko, they each have their own emotional core and physical reality that their actions stem from. For each of them lies the struggle of earning a profit, maintaining self respect, and preserving the outward image of a woman who is self-reliant. Yuki, the owner of Keiko's rival bar, buys a car even as she struggles to cover her dept. Keiko struggles with debt as well, as she can barely  
afford her appartment and a new kimono. For these women, the physical demands of reality are 
innescapable. The glitz and glam of Ginza nightlife is not the reality for them, it is the image they are bound to uphold for their customers. Keiko's reality is one of dissapointments, debts, and self compromise. 

    Naruse's outlook is bleak, but the attention he gives to telling the lives of his characters is absolute. His insight to the struggles of women is as illuminating as it is grim. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs is an excellent introduction to the richness of Naruse's storytelling, and a film that can hopefully draw more viewers into Naruse's world of strong female characters. 

Just Like Me (Diana)

Katia Lund and Fernando Meirelles, the directors of City of God, produced a spin off television series called City of Men. The show follows the lives of two teenagers and best friends Acerola and Laranjinha; every episode deals with the various challenges the kids face while growing up in the favelas (slums) of Rio de Janeiro. 

The episode, called Uolace & Joao Victor, follows a day in the life of two seemingly different kids divided by their place in the city. Uolace, better known as Laranjinha, is a black kid who resides in a favela. He lives life day to day, spending most of his time on the streets trying to find food to eat. His mother works two jobs to support him and only comes home on the weekends leaving Laranjinha to fend for himself. Joao Victor is a white kid who lives in an apartment complex right outside of Laranjinha's favela. He's not rich but lives comfortably (all though he would complain about his old and out of style nike sneakers). His mother is the opposite of Uolace's, she's overbearing and constantly nagging Joao Victor. It seems as if their lives couldn't be any different. This is established by Meirelles editing style at the beginning of the episode. 

Rio de Janeiro, Asphalt City (www.creativecommons.com)

In one scene, Meirelles presents the contrasting lives of the two characters. In one shot we see Joao Victor making dinner for his mother and himself. His food is healthy and natural and he takes great care while preparing his meal. Laranjinha's life is paralleled with Joao Victor's through hard cuts. One second we see Joao Victor in the quiet and comfort of his own home, the next shot wee see Laranjinha and his friend wandering the chaotic and frenzied streets trying to make money to buy food. When he finally makes enough money, him and his friend order a slice of pizza. By establishing these characters in such dissimilar settings, Meirelles is emphasizing how different their experiences are within the city. The interesting thing he does here is while establishing their differences, he creates a connection between the two using sound. The song Tempo Perdido, by popular Brazilian rock band Legiao Urbana, surrounds both characters. Joao Victor sings the song as he cooks, while at the same time, the song plays on the street that Laranjinha begs on. One can't help but question the motives of the director here; on one hand he can't make it any more clear how different the two kids are, but on the other hand he establishes a alliance between the two with the music.

 

Rio de Janeiro, dirt city. (www.creativecommons.com)

As the episode progresses, we begin to see the lives of these seemingly opposite boys come together through plot and editing. The boys symbolize the two faces of the city; the asphalt city and the dirt city. Both boys wake up everyday to the sound of police sirens, but from different perspectives. Laranjinha experiences it first hand, he's in the thick of it while Joao experiences it from his window. The episode presents this very interesting relationship between the two boys; though they come from opposite sides of the city, they are more alike than they know. The last scene of the episode is the one that brings the whole story together. We see Joao Vitor at night, staring out of the window at the favela. In voice over, he expresses his fear about his uncertain future. Under his window passes Laranjinha walking home late at night who in his own voice over expresses the same concern. Here, Meirelles does another very interesting thing with sound. As the kids come to the realization that they are alike, their voice overs beging to overlap eachother. They eventually end up saying the same thing, "What he doing awake alone at this time of night? He looks sort of lost. Just like me." This is the episodes payoff. In the end we see that they're both just kids. Despite all the hardships they deal with living in Rio de Janeiro, they face the same troubles. Growing up is hard to do no matter who you are.

 

Acting on Impulse vs. Respecting Tradition: Complicated Courtship in Jaffa and Lemon Tree (Glennis)

           The female protagonists in Jaffa (2009) and Lemon Tree (2008) may differ in terms of religion, ethnicity and age, but both women have something in common: major obstacles stand in the way of their desired relationships. In the case of Jaffa, religion and ethnicity prevent Mali, a young Jewish woman, from marrying her Palestinian boyfriend.  In Lemon Tree, age differences and marital standing are significant hurdles separating 40-something widow Salma from her 30-something lawyer, Ziad. While both movies explore the subject of complicated courtship, Jaffa and Lemon Tree employ different filmic techniques to reveal how severe the obstacles are that affect each relationship.  

            Lemon Tree makes use costumes and props to explore the changing nature of the relationship between Salma and Ziad. At the beginning of the film, Salma dresses in a very conservative manner. She wears long, dumpy dresses and a headscarf. After all, Salma seeks Ziad’s legal assistance for a very serious purpose: her neighbor, the Defense Minister of Israeli, has ordered that Salma’s lemon grove be cut down in order to prevent terrorists from attacking his house from Salma’s orchard. The Palestinian woman inherited the grove from her late father and will not allow her trees to be cut down. Needless to say, Salma’s first meeting with Ziad is as unromantic as it gets.

            The lawyer’s desk is covered with stacks of paper; he eats slimy sardines from a can and offers Salma a taste. The woman politely declines. However, the lengthy takes during the shot/reverse/shot sequence between them suggest that the widow and the lawyer are intrigued by one another. As the film progresses, costume choices reveal how the two grow closer. One night after they’ve had a few meetings, Ziad knocks on her door when soldiers won’t let him back into town due to a curfew restriction. The nightgown-clad Salma realizes that Ziad is at the door and purposefully decides not to wear her headscarf.

             Her decision not only defies cultural norms, but also it suggests her growing sense of intimacy with Ziad. The two are repeatedly featured in medium shots during the scene, a technique that displays them as a unit separate from the outside world. The close-up of Ziad stroking Salma’s hand proves that their relationship is at its peak. Later in the film, Salma is shown applying lipstick and adjusting her fashionable and brightly-colored attire. Her stylish appearance signals her desire to have Ziad find her attractive. The young lawyer clearly takes notice of her efforts when he checks out her courtroom attire and says: “You look stunning. Enough to drive a guy crazy.”

            While costumes showcase Salma and Ziad’s growing interest in one another, the use of photographs in the film emphasizes the obstacles standing in their way. A large picture of Salma’s disgruntled-looking late husband stares Ziad down everytime the lawyer enters the widow’s home. Close-ups of photos in Ziad’s office of his wife and daughter from Moscow emphasize where the man’s loyalty should lie. Finally, Salma’s act of burning a newspaper clipping of Ziad’s engagement to another woman is significant. The older woman decides to remain a respected widow rather than engage in a torrid affair with a fickle attorney.

            Though Jaffa also makes use of costumes and props to comment on the nature of a relationship, this film especially takes advantage of editing and cinematography to showcase the obstacles the potential partners face. Whereas Salma and Ziad often appear in the same shots in Lemon Tree, Mali and Toufik are usually positioned in separate shots. Shot/reverse/shot patterns suggest a great divide exists between them. The on-going conflict between Jews and Arabs is so severe that Mali and Toufik have more difficulty escaping into their own universe than Salma and Ziad do in Lemon Tree. Extreme close-ups on the two farewell letters that Mali writes during the film emphasize the controversial nature of the young lovers’ relationship. In order to keep her family, Mali must shatter her relationship with Toufik. In order to be with Toufik, Mali must give up her family. The extreme close-up on the approval letter for Mali’s abortion puts into perspective the intense decisions the young woman must make as she chooses between her soul mate and her parents.  

            Costumes and props also suggest the divisive nature of Mali’s relationship. The two duffel bags initially serve as a symbol of hope for the couple. Mali’s face is glowing as she packs her bag; she smiles as she clutches a white dress that she’ll presumably wear on her wedding day. However, the fact that the only place to hide the packed duffel bags is under the filthy mattress in a side room of the father’s car shop hints that Mali’s elopement won’t be easy or glamorous. Not surprisingly, the duffel bags eventually symbolize lost opportunities. When Mali must hide the evidence that she and Toufik tried to run away, the young woman has no other option but to chuck the bags into a dumpster.

           However, when Toufik contacts Mali again after his prison stint, it becomes clear that the now-thirty year-old woman misses her childhood love. Camerawork reveals Mali’s desire to see Toufik again. The woman is positioned in a medium shot with her back to the camera as she speaks to Toufik on the phone while they plan a meeting place. That Mali is turned away from both her parents and viewers suggests that the single mom is ready to act on her own impulses and finally stand up to her parents.

I am Love (Diana)

Io Sono L'Amore (or I am Love) is director Luca Guadagnino and leading actor Tilda Swinton's opus; it took 11 years to develop and shoot the project. The film follows the radical change and deterioration of an Italian upper class family called the Recchi's. At the beginning of the film, the grandfather and head of the family announces his retirement (due to a terminal illness) and leaves the family textile company and factory in the hands of his son Tancredi and grandson Edoardo Recchi. This decision instantly leads to a schism in the family; Tancredi is interested in progress and moving forward with the company through selling while Edoardo insists on keeping with the tradition of his grandfather and maintaining ties with the past. Throughout the film, Edoardo is unable to cope with the impending change occurring in this family; he senses the end of an era. The film itself manages to capture this loss beautifully. Beneath the perfect surface of this family lies the internal conflict of the past and future within these characters. Of course, I am Love is not just about death and destruction. As the title suggests, love has something to say. The film is about more than just loss and death. With the end of an era comes the start of another one; I am Love is about rebirth. The question is...what's love got to do with it?

With Love by. Sudarsham Vijayaraghavam (creative commons)

In an interview pubished by The Guardian, Guadagnino and Swinton discuss their own perspectives and ideas on love and loneliness and how they are reflected in I am Love. In the interview, Swinton states "I think the deal is that you are fully lonely, and the sooner we accept and embrace our loneliness, the healthier we are. Real love has nothing to do with that romantic idea of oneness, of distracting and healing each other from our loneliness. It's about witnessing each other as individuals and saying: I'll show you mine if you show me yours,". I am Love is born from this ideal and the characters in the film come to terms with this as the film progresses. We see love occcur in the story through the main character Emma Recchi's love affair with her son Edoardo's best friend Antonio. This ideal is perfectly captured through Guadagnino's direction and gorgeous vision.

The stunning and statuesque Tilda Swinton in the film Orlando (1993) Guadagnino's muse for Io Sono L'amore (2009) (creative commons)

Emma Recchi (played brilliantly by Swinton) is the perfect example of loneliness; her solitude is made apparent through her family life as well as through the environment she inhabits. Emma was "discovered" by an Italian art collector named Tancredi in Russia (her home country). Tancredi traveled to Russia to find his latest masterpiece and instead found Emma. After meeting, the two married and he brought her back to Italy; she hasn't returned to Russia since. Emma talks about how when she arrived in Italy, she had to learn to become Italian which meant dropping everything about her past. Her husband has given her all she has; the beautiful home she lives in, her family. He as even given Emma her Italian name; at one point she realizes she doesn't even know what her real name is anymore, only remembering the nickname "Kitiesh". The only things that define her are the objects that she owns and the environment that surrounds her. Emma Recchi is always perfectly put together. She lives in a beautiful but museum-like house, huge and full of things but emotionally empty. She has everything she would ever need and more, and yet she's in a cage. Throughout the film, Emma's image is constantly juxtaposed with art (especially with the architecture of Milan). Tall, gray, statuesque, and cold; Emma is nothing but a work of art herself, something to be looked at but never touched. She is the perfect trophy wife, beautiful and intelligent. But despite all of the things she owns, she's completely lifeless, she's set in stone just like the statues that Guadagnino compares her with. She is not her own person, she is defined by all of these objects and material things. She is lonely.

Costars Edoardo Gabbriellini (Antonio) and Tilda Swinton (Emma): lovers in Io Sono L'amore (2009) (creative commons)

No one really knows Emma, and at times she doesn't even know herself. It isn't until she meets Antonio that she is able to freely exist and just be herself. There is one scene in particular that really exemplifies this as well as Swinton's ideals about love being about experiencing another person and seeing them as an individual. The first time Emma and Anotnio get together and make love, Antonio begins sheding off Emma's clothes. One by one, Antonio removes all of the beautiful objects that define her; her pearl necklace, her wedding ring, her expensive Italian clothes. A shot reveals a pile of the objects that decorated her strewn on the floor. Emma stands there completely nude, she is exposed and yet she seems to be completely comfortable and natural. Now that she has done away with the materiality, she can finally just exist and be herself. The two lay on the floor side by side simply experiencing each other's presence, "witnessing" one another. It is at the moment that Emma begins revealing things about herself and her life before she became a Recchi. Her individuality is finally revealed. After Antonio and Emma's affair begin, Guadagnino begins juxtaposing her image with gorgeous shots of nature. We understand through the editing and juxtaposition of images that Emma has been reborn and is now her natural self. Antonio and Emma's relationship exemplifies Swinton and Guadagnino's ideals about love; Antonio and Emma aren't interested in the future, they are taking it one moment at a time. And in this moment, they are simply being. For them, this is what love is.

Music and Mise en Scene: Jewish/Arab Relations in The Band’s Visit (Glennis)

In The Band’s Visit, the dashingly handsome Haled has a rather unusual pick-up line. The young Arab man repeatedly approaches attractive, unassuming Israeli women and says: “Do you like Chet Baker?” Smiling and looking seductive, Haled usually responds to the women’s confused expressions by introducing himself. “I play violin in orchestra,” he says. “But I play trumpet also.”

            Haled’s shameless flirtations with Israeli women suggest that political and religious differences don’t prevent all Arabs and Jews from interacting with one another. In fact, The Band’s Visit reveals just how much Jews and Arabs – and all people, for that matter – have in common. Eran Kolirin’s 2007 Israeli film follows an Egyptian police band as it heads to Israel to play at the opening of an Arab cultural center. A mishap involving the spelling of their destination leads the Egyptian musicians to a tiny, remote town far from where they’ll be performing. The band’s interactions with the Israelis who take them in reveal how both sides of the Arab/Israeli conflict experience love and loss (and music).

            While the film’s plot sounds simple enough, The Band’s Visit offers sharp and thoughtful dialogue, refreshing comedic touches and authentic performances that make the movie anything but hokey. And as if those weren’t enough reasons for me to like the film, the character Tawfiq (Sasson Gabei) has the most righteous, take-no-prisoners nose I have ever seen in my life. It frankly deserves a movie of its own.

            That said, the use of music and aspects of mise en scene are what make this movie an especially noteworthy study of Jewish/Arab relations. The melodramatic piano theme that plays as the Egyptian band arrives at the airport at the start of the film is a very smart, ironic touch. These men look so serious and put-together in their matching, powder blue, highly-decorated police uniforms. The sappy, simplistic piano melody in the background makes the band members seem over-dressed and out of place.

The next instance when sound becomes particularly important is when the musicians get off the bus at Beit Hatikva (not Petah Tikva). The wheels of their luggage roll loudly (and obnoxiously) against the sand and dirt as they approach the small town. The extreme long shot of the men walking on sand adds insult to injury – they’re in the middle of nowhere and the camera is rubbing it in. The way the men fill the frame in this scene is also significant. They walk in a straight line in the center of the frame, an ironic touch since the no-man’s-land of Beit Hatikva is a far cry from the rules and regulations that dominate their police force in Alexandria. 

            Music is used for the first time as a unifying device – and not for mocking purposes – when Egyptian musician Simon plays his clarinet outside of the Beit Hativka café. Simon’s haunting melody plays out over a shot/reverse/shot pattern of the Egyptian man producing music as a Jewish man, Itzik, watches in awe. The medium shot of the two men after the impromptu performance reveals that music is a shared passion for these lonely souls. Music becomes an especially strong unifying force during an awkward dinner table scene in which a few of the Egyptian musicians dine with Itzik’s family on his wife’s birthday. Silence and scattered conversations in Arabic and Hebrew fill the scene until one of the men starts humming and the other men slowly join in him song. Medium close-ups ensue as each man gains the courage to belt out the tune. The close proximity between the camera and the men’s faces reflects how the men are becoming closer with one another.

            Costuming plays an important role throughout The Band’s Visit. The way Dina (Ronit Elkabetz) is dressed reveals a lot about her level of interest in the Egyptian men. At the start of the film, Dina’s loose, blue sweater, cut-off jeans and tennis shoes suggest the spinster is more concerned with comfort than style. Dina wears this outfit as she cuts open a huge watermelon in front of Haled and Tawfiq. As the Israeli woman skillfully uses an enormous knife, a reaction shot of the two men prove they are impressed and possibly a bit scared. These aspects of mise en scene emphasize Dina’s courage and determination. However, the red evening dress Dina wears to show Tawfiq the town reveals her sexy side. The form-fitting dress clearly catches Tawfiq’s eye, stressing that Arabs and Jews can be attracted to each other despite the many issues that may separate them. That the uptight, conservative Tawfiq admits Dina looks “very fine indeed” is evidence that Arabs and Jews may not be so divided after all.

            A significant use of music happens while Dina and Tawfiq are eating out. After they discuss how other patrons have been staring at them, Dina decides to play an Arabic love song on the jukebox. Because Dina and Tawfiq have been speaking English to each other throughout the film, the woman’s choice of an Arabic song showcases her willingness to understand his culture. As the female singer clearly calls out to a lover, Dina dances in front of Tawfiq. Without his hat – which Dina forced him to leave behind – Tawfiq looks much more at ease and receptive to her advances.

            A final powerful musical moment occurs when Haled plays a trumpet solo for Tawfiq and Dina. The close-ups on their faces as Haled plays his sultry trumpet solo emphasize the feelings of sexual desire that consume Dina and Tawfiq. However, Haled’s position at the table – sitting directly between Dina and Tawfiq – suggests that Dina may not be spending the night with Tawfiq after all. Even without his stiff hat, Tawfiq is no match for Haled’s charm.

Duende (Diana)

 

 

When I see a dance performance on a stage or on the street I especially enjoy seeing how much dancing means to the performers. For them it’s not a hobby, it’s life. Everything they do is surrounded around expressing themselves with their bodies. For these dancers, what they do is spiritual. The only film for me that has been able to capture this sense of spirit in dance is Tony Gatlif’s film Vengo (2000).

   

Flamenco Dancers (creative commons)

 

Vengo is a film entirety about the spirit of dance. The story follows Caco, a proud passionate man who’s the head of his gypsy family and neighborhood. As the leader of his clan he spends most of his time in a power struggle with the neighboring gypsy group. In addition, his beloved daughter Pepa has just recently passed putting him in a state of unbearable grief throughout the film. Besides the plot of the film, Gatlif discovers and explores the flamenco culture that runs throughout the community and the characters lives. Everyone knows how to dance and sing flamenco; and it’s not disingenuous. The dance is improvisation and spontaneity; it’s about expressing the soul and spirit through the movements.

The idea of spirit is explored throughout the film through the exploration of flamenco culture. This idea can be expressed through the idea of duende. Duende is an incredibly difficult concept to pinpoint and I owe all I know about to my older sister Laura who is a professional flamenco dancer. According to her, duende is a heightened state of emotion in which spirit possesses the flamenco dancer. It is in this trance like state in which the dancer does their best work authentically expressing themselves through the movements and music. It also said that duende is state in which one becomes closer to reaching a higher state of being (essentially closer to God). The characters in Vengo explore the rich and beautiful concept of duende. You can also tell that the idea of duende is of interest to the director because he explores it through other cultures besides flamenco. 

One quick scene in the film explains how important duende is for people within flamenco culture. In this moment of the film, three of Caco’s closest friends (who happen to be flamenco musicians) manage to find duende in the most unusual place. During a walk outside, one of the characters suddenly stops beside a tree; he begins walking towards the tree not stopping until he forces himself into the brush of the trees branches. His friends stop and follow him into the tree almost quietly understanding what he’s serarching for. The man listens to the leaves of the tree swaying with the wind. Finally he exclaims “It seems like this tree has duende”. Almost instantly he begins singing with the rythym of the wind and of the nature swaying around him, he has tapped into this spirit of duende. We see here that duende or spirit is everywhere for these people. Here we see duende as a natural thing that occurs outside of the realm of the film. It is everywhere in the world. 

Gatlif also explores this idea of duende within the characters and almost shows it as something everyone aims to achieve. One scene in particular expresses how Caco (the main character) becomes possessed with duende. The scene begins with the three elderly women that take care of the town watering Caco’s flower garden. The two of them comment noisily about the dying garden. One of the women comments on how it’s a “soulless garden that is fading away”. This is a complete break away from the scene discussed before where Caco’s three friends find duende in the nature outside of the church. Right away in this scene, Caco is being identified with the withering garden; his soul and spirit are fading away. The scene then shows us Caco who is still passed out cold on the bed in deep sleep. In the distance we hear church bells dinging and almost instantly a breeze lifts into the room causing the hanging emblem to spin in circles. Suddenly we are brought into Caco’s dream where he sees three Sufi women traditionally dressed performing the Sufi spinning dance. As the dancing get’s more frantic, Caco tosses back and forth in his sleep, physically disturbed by his dreams. Suddenly as if out of nowhere, Caco’s dreams become much more abstract. The physical shots become complex and layered through the use superimposition. A sufi dancer whirls in the background, superimposed on top of that are images of significant symbols in his life; the virgin mary that protects his daughter’s grave, the face of his favorite family members, etc. What we see here is Caco experiencing duende. The multilayered vivid images heavily contrast the fading soulless garden mentioned before. Gatlif uses chaotic editing techniques to visually represent this heightened state of emotion.

Sufi Whirling (creative commons)

 

For those of you who don’t know about this traditional Sufi dance known as dkhir, it is a type of meditation practiced by members of the Sufi religion. In this dance, they whirl around in circles hoping for the chance to reach a higher state of being. As the spinning goes faster and faster, the spinners get more ecstatic and ultimately evolve into a trance like state which is described as the path to getting closer to God. For me, this is very similar to the flamenco idea of duende. Both cultural groups are essentially reaching for the same thing; a chance to arrive at this trance like state that brings them closer to some kind of higher spirit. Everyone is looking for this spirit to lift them up and take them to a higher place away from the struggle and heartbreak of their daily lives. In the end, isn’t this what everyone is looking for? 

Vive le Tour!: Vignettes from the Tour de France (Mike)

 

Louis Malle’s Vive le Tour!, a 19-minute homage, chronicle, and examination of the 1962 Tour de France, does not adhere to the typical sports documentary structure or formula.  The viewer is never told where or when the race takes place, who is competing (only Van Looy’s name is mentioned), what stage of the race it is, or what the standings are.  It doesn’t follow a linear sense of time, focus on or highlight the pivotal moments or key individual battles (such as in Joel Santoni’s La course en tete), nor follow a specific rider or team of riders (like Pepe Danquart’s Hollentour, or Hell on Wheels); and although there are lyrical qualities to its editing, cinematography, and narration, it is not a visual poem (such as Claude Lelouch’s …Pour un Maillot Jaune).  Shirking a traditional narrative, Malle creates a montage of random, individual moments connected mostly by their idiosyncrasy.  We see the drinking raids, where riders loot bars and restaurants for drinks (beer, lemonade, champagne, etc.), and we watch as the motorcyclists following the pack try to pick up the cyclists’ food bags with their feet.  We see two riders share a Fudgesicle, one rider hold another’s seat steady as he tries to pee and pedal simultaneously, and a rider with a fractured skull muttering “My head is cold.  Cover my head with something.  I’m cold” as he is airlifted away from the course by helicopter.  In weaving these vignettes together, Malle creates a layered emotional palette that captures everything from the short, subtle moments of humor of the Tour, to the darker, more tragic ones of pain and struggle.

Despite not adhering to the typical sports documentary formula, Vive le Tour! still captures the intensity, tension, and drama of the race.  At one point the music stops, and we hear only the sound of wheels, pedals, and gears in motion.  The riders’ lax style from before has disappeared, and now they are leaning forward, their weight shifted towards the front of the bike, their eyes narrowed and focused on the road ahead of them.  The physical strain is unimaginable as they climb from 600 feet to 6000, then descend to 800, and then climb again to 9000.  Malle cuts in on the faces of the different individual riders, and we watch as they struggle for breath, their mouths open and white around the lips, their eyes bulging and their veins popping from their neck and face.  For each moment of light hearted humor there is one of struggle, physical and emotional strain, and tragedy.  Riders crash, and even some of the toughest are carried off in ambulances.  One racer, his face and shirt covered in blood, pedals on as he is being bandaged up.  Another, pushed beyond his limits from doping (or, as Malle calls it, “charging”), quits, claiming he’d “eaten some bad fish.”  In one of the film’s most extended and dramatic scenes, a rider, virtually unconscious from exhaustion, climbs back onto his bike and attempts to ride on, eventually collapsing on the side of the road.

Malle works on another level in the film, though, demonstrating his skills as a filmmaker.  In the opening segment, he chooses not to focus on the riders or the race itself, but instead the spectacle that surrounds them, the carnival-like atmosphere, the anticipation and celebration of that brief moment when the riders pass by.  We see a nun giving a thumbs up, a man eating a sandwich, a group of boys wearing paper hats, the parade of cars and floats, and the swarms of people lining the street.  This spectacle is lost on the riders, though.  As Malle tells us in voiceover, they “…can’t see the crowd.  They think, ‘I’ll see my wife or my mom,’ but they don’t see a thing.”  On the word “think,” the perspective changes.  The camera shifts from static shots of the crowd as the blur of riders passes by to the point-of-view of the riders themselves.   The camera moves quickly down the road here, the crowd now transformed into the blur of figures and colors.  We are brought into the internal world of the cyclists; we hear what they hear (the “incredibly loud” sound of the crowd around them), we see what they see (the camera becomes their eyes), and we think what they think (Malle’s voiceover telling us what runs through their minds).  Malle thus presents us with two different perspectives, two alternating realities that he will shift throughout the film.  By doing so, he moves beyond the typical, objective portrayal of the Tour de France and allows us to see it from multiple viewpoints, to experience it as both observer and participant.  Malle is thus able to capture in 19-minutes what few filmmakers are able to in 90, presenting us with a layered and captivating examination of one of sports’ most intense and historic competitions.  He does not simply document the race, highlighting the significant moments and characters, but instead gives us a complex and unique experience that alternates between comedy and tragedy, subjective and objective, spectator and racer.

 

Football and Hieroglyphics: Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (Mike)

Directors Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno immediately establish the context of their film: Madrid, Saturday, April 23, 2005, “from the first kick of the ball until the final whistle.”  They open with an establishing shot of the field, the 22 players positioned on their sides waiting for the kick-off.  The image itself is grainy, similar to that of a television broadcast, and a commentator speaks in Spanish in the background; it's the typical view of a football [soccer] game.  The camera then moves in, cutting closer to the field as the game begins.  It follows the action at first, tracking the ball as it moves between the Villarreal players from the center spot to the backfield, and then to the far sideline.  We watch the right-winger as he moves up field with the ball; in this moment though, our focus is no longer on the ball, where it is and who has possession, but instead on the figure of Zidane, the number 5, as he enters the center of the frame.  He stands out immediately to the viewer, almost ascetic in his disposition; his monk-like bald spot and slouching frame, reserved and collected in his expression and movement.  He closes off the midfield lane and a defender comes to his support to block the sideline to his left.  The ball is passed forward off screen and the other two figures sprint out of frame after it.  The camera doesn’t follow them or the ball though, choosing instead to sit on Zidane as he walks back into position; it will stay on him for the remainder of the film.

The image is then transformed, as the grain of the picture is broken into small, green, individual pixels.  Gordon and Parreno redefine the pitch here, restructure it from the space in which the game takes place to a stage, a set, a canvas, a screen, the place in which Zidane will establish and express himself as a player-artist, an individual; it will become a space for him to be studied.  The letters Z-I-D-A-N-E appear individually over the pixels, before being placed on top each other to form a single symbol, a hieroglyphic of his name.  The camera zooms out slightly, the number of pixels multiplying, and the faint figure of Zidane once again becomes recognizable.  Like the pitch, Zidane here is broken down into pixels, signifying that he too is to be looked at and examined differently, to be broken down and analyzed in a new way.

The pixilated image reforms back into the grainy television screen as the ball moves from the Villarreal half to the Madrid 18-yard box.  A low cross cuts across the face of goal and Madrid are pushed onto the back foot.  The left back, Roberto Carlos, takes the ball, fighting off a Villarreal striker and passes it forward to Zidane.  The camera then cuts to the Frenchman just as he is about to receive the ball.  The visual style changes here, as the blurry long shot of the field becomes a high definition medium of the player.  The camera cuts back to the grainy image as Zidane takes the ball in stride, and we watch as he carries it forward, driving up field past a defender.  He sends a pass low and cross field through the defense, ahead of a Madrid forward, pushing him and the flow of the game to the opposite end of the pitch.  His genius, his artistry is established here; in less than six touches he has demonstrated his control, accuracy, reading of the game, his ability to turn defense almost instantly into attack, his ability to create, to transform and dictate the flow of the game.

Zidane is in many ways similar to a filmed poem, lyrical in its examination and use of rhythm, movement, space, and sound.  German filmmaker Hellmuth Costard used a similar approach in his 1971 film Football as Never Before, in which he filmed George Best with eight 16mm cameras over the course of a game.  What is interesting though is that Gordon and Parreno seem to share less in common with Costard as they do with French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot.  Whereas Costard focused more on capturing the balletic quality of Best and the footballer, Gordon and Parreno, like Clouzot in The Mystery of Picasso (his own examination of the artist), go beyond the medium they’re documenting and raise a deeper question of film as a medium, how we film the artist, and of the artist himself.  Like the Mystery of Picasso, the film forces us to ask, what can we really learn about the artist from watching him work, about his “secret process” (as Clouzot calls it), about his internal world and what drives him.  Unlike Clouzot though, who eliminates the face and figure of the artist, showing instead only the canvas and the work as it unfolds, Gordon and Parreno focus on Zidane, the artist, and not on what he produces.  We are thus forced to try and understand Zidane not through his role on the field and what he contributes to the game, but instead on him, his movement, his behavior, and his interactions with others.

In the opening segment Gordon and Parreno tell us we will be “face to face,” with Zidane, “as close as [we] can.”  We learn a number of different things about him through the film.  We see his incredible touch, control, balance and technical ability.  We’re able to notice the simple shifts in his movement, the subtle changes in his position as he receives and feeds the ball.  He is a solitary figure, rarely interacting with any of the other players, and speaking only once (when he tells the referee he should “be ashamed” after awarding the other team an undeserved penalty).  We watch as he wanders the pitch, roaming the field more as an observer than an active participant.  He is reserved, economical in his play and movement, neutral in his expression.  And yet he becomes the game’s central character, the protagonist to a narrative we can’t really see.  He creates one goal with a brilliant run down the left wing past three defenders, sending a lofted cross to Ronaldo on the back post for an easy header (changing the flow of the game in Madrid’s favor), and he is issued a red card in the end after hitting a Villarreal player when a fight breaks out on the pitch (a strange foreshadowing of his exit from the World Cup final a year later after he head butted Italian defender Marco Materazzi).

The medium of film and the different techniques of the filmmakers also allow us to better understand Zidane and his internal world.  The shifts in diegetic (the sounds from the pitch, the noise of the crowd around him) and non-diegetic sound (the soundtrack, the sounds of kids playing), and the text over the image (excerpts taken from an interview with the player) help bring us into his inner world.  We learn what goes through his mind, his strange shifts in consciousness, his acute awareness of everything around him.  But do we ever fully understand Zidane through filming him as he works?  Do we understand or unravel his “mystery,” his internal workings.  Through the 17 different camera angles, the use of text, the layered sound, through breaking his figure down into pixels, do we come to understand what drives him, what pushes him, what goes through his mind as he receives and passes the ball.  He is a mobile character, constantly in motion, constantly forcing the camera (and us) to follow him, to readjust, to change focus.  We never fully move into his inner world, never share that visual connection with him or seeing the field as he sees it; only once are we given a shot from his perspective, an eye line match of the scoreboard reading 0-1 in the second half.  Even as we see him from 17 different angles, even as the text, his internal voice, hints at what he hears and experiences on the field, he remains elusive to us.

The filmmakers use the letters of Zidane’s name to form a symbol in the beginning of the film that they deconstruct in the end.  This symbol, this hieroglyphic suggests that Zidane himself, as a player and artist, is a symbol, a hieroglyphic we try to understand.  When this figure is dismantled, we are forced to question whether we have dismantled Zidane’s character, whether we have deciphered the hieroglyphic?  By bringing us face to face with Zidane, as close as we can get, are Gordon and Parreno allowing us to better understand him or are they suggesting that no matter how close we get to him, we can never fully know what drives him, never know his “secret process.”  What makes him play the way he plays, what makes him do the things he does?  In the final scene, when Zidane rushes into a fight he’s seemingly uninvolved in and hits an opposing player in the face, we are left confused.  How is this the same expressionless ascetic-like figure from before?  We never learn why he hits the other player, or what drove him to enter the dispute in the first place. There was no provocation, no personal attack on him, nothing to justify this sudden burst of anger; instead, like his play, this act seems to be an instantaneous surge of energy and emotion that only he understands.  In the moment after though, when Zidane has been shown the red card and given his marching orders, he calmly and collectedly untucks his shirt and leaves the pitch. 

 

 

That Anime Thing: Philosophical Cartoons? (Leela)

It’s official. Cartoons aren’t only for kids. Animation has always been a visual art ignored for its own storytelling abilities. Every year, someone’s complaining how the latest Pixar movie was excluded for Best Picture.  Yet no one can deny the heart warming tale of WALL-E or the fantastic adventure of Princess Mononoke.  Even further, the invasion of Japanese Animation, more commonly known as Anime through the 1980s and 1990s has even further increased the popularity of animation.

Today, if you go into Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, you can find a whole section devoted to Japanese Animation.  Anime shops and conventions are all over the country.  Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away even became the first animated feature to ever win a top festival.[i]   Also, The Wachowski brother’s The Matrix as well as James Cameron’s television series Dark Angel drew heavily on Anime for inspiration as do many video games. Children grow up watching anime like Pokemon or one of the other Anime hundred shows on television today.  Indeed, these days, Anime has become embedded into our media and culture.

Yet, does Anime existing as an art form? Is it delivering a message? Is it mindless entertainment like the reality shows on VH1 and MTV? Or is it the stuff of classics, like we’d find of TCM? The answer would be all of the above.

Hayao Miyazaki has received worldwide acclaim for his films. Known for his pacifist, feminist, and often nature focused messages, Miyazaki has created films that get recognized as films, not just as Anime, but as true animated films.  His most famous include Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky, and Howl’s Moving Castle.  Just as many Anime these days, Miyazaki’s films incorporate both CGI and hand-drawn style to create a look that is purely Miyazaki and Japanese in origin.  

Looking at Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki clearly weaves in the themes of humanity, technology and nature. On one hand, there’s Irontown. Irontown cuts down trees, kills the local wide life, and their leader, Lady Eboshi personally wants to kill the spirit of Life and Death. In this way, we see humanity, and technology against nature. It’s the ever burning fires of Irontown versus the vast forests, Lady Eboshi versus The Wolf Girl. At the same time, technology is a savior of the people. Lady Eboshi takes in leapers and prostitutes to employ in the city. Miyazaki further reflects this in his framing of Irontown. In some shots, the fires of Irontown seem endless and ready to overtake the people. In others, people eat and sit together, coming together as a community.  Visually, Miyazaki beautifully weaves in these themes as well as integrates CGI and hand drawn worked eloquently.

Miyazaki’s films are not the only Animes expressing popular philosophical ideas. Death Note, created by Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba, explores morality in today’s society.  Death Note follows the story of a boy, Light Yagami, who gains the power to kill anyone who he knows the name and face of.  Using this power, he kills various criminals, discovering their face and names through a range of media outlets.  As he kills, the crime rate gets lower and people start to revere him as a god.  Ohba and Obata question whether Light is a savior or a murder, does ultimate power corrupt, or  is murder acceptable if you’re killing criminals? What is the value of a human life, even an evil one? Visually, Death Note is almost Hitchcock-ian,   taking techniques from Hollywood and incorporating them into the style of Death Note, as well as a variety of Animes.  This exchange goes both ways, however, as seen in The Matrix and other movies. Even further, currently, Death Note has been optioned by Vertigo Entertainment. [ii]

These thinking cartoons often go further than Hollywood movies, even with similar budgets. Princess Mononoke was created for a whopping $20 million, not far from the $35 million The Hangover costs.  Yet not every anime is gold, of course. Like many movies today, Japan has its fair share of non gold. Luckily for most of us in the US, most of that doesn’t make it over the ocean.

 Nonetheless, it is easy to see how Anime has grown in popularity.  Approaching popular philosophical questions via a new and entertaining animation style has lead to a major fan base, not only in the US, but all over the world. And what sorts of things are coming up now? How about Ikigami? Ikigami tells the story of a government worker who delivers Ikigame(life papers) which tells individuals they have 24 hours to life. Or how about Higurashi no Naku Koro ni(When the Cicada Cry), which plays with time and narrative format?

Either way, I, for one, hope to see more from Anime artists in the field of storytelling.

 

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[i] Japan’s National Cool – Douglas McGray http://pub.idisk-just.com/fview/bDGRfnKGJ679cGhnn63IZ6P3hpgfuHXKsmo80UFp14sUwMPPFBhVrutQ7qDmFu09/Z3Jvc3MtbmF0aW9uYWwtY29vbC10ZXh0LW9ubHlfMDkwNDIx.pdf

 

[ii] Vertigo Entertainment developing US Death Note Remake – Anime News Network http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-06-02/vertigo-entertainment-developing-u.s-death-note-remake

Waltz with Bashir: life imitates art, calls for animation (Inhye)

Waltz with Bashir (2008) follows director/producer Ari Folman in his journey to rediscover his past from the 1982 Lebanon War. Initially, his pursuit is to confirm an ambiguous scene he witnessed as a soldier by interviewing veterans and interpreting their memories with a psychologist friend.  The film shifts from a series of personal recollections to a diplomatic appeal when each man’s account reveals the haphazardness of the soldiers, commanders, general public and war in general.

 

 
Waltz with Bashir is a hand-drawn animated documentary with careful attention to details. Waltz with Bashir. Flickr Creative Commons.¹

The genre is an interesting hybrid of documentary and animation: actual people are represented in cartoon versions of themselves yet dialogue is intact. Visually, it’s bold, stylish and impressively meticulous.  Over 3,000 frames were hand-drawn with tactful consideration to various visual cues (shadows, motion parallax and fine texture details) reminding us of the incredible effort and patience often overlooked in animation. With visual language this captivating, it's not hard to forget this is an educational documentary: Folman learned from previous documentary projects that cartoon-izing interviewees makes them readily familiar and accessible, thus more engaging to the audience. ²

And to portray each man’s shell shock, only the flexibility of animation can cater to human memory’s distortion, an underlying theme in the film. Whereas Folman’s memory is elusive, his friends can explicitly recall every dog that was shot, dismembered body parts floating amidst demolition, or their escapist wet dreams. “War is like a very bad acid trip,” Folman said, and that “animation is the only way to tell this story, with memories, lost memories, dreams and the subconscious.”³ Here, it's clear Waltz with Bashir proves life does indeed imitate art.

What then sustain the integrity of documentary amidst the punchy animation are the real voice recordings. Actual testimonials anchor us in reality so no matter how embellished the stories seem, the weariness and vulnerability in each veteran’s voice remind us that war is impossible to exaggerate. Appropriately, the film ends with real footage of the Sabra and Shatila massacre aftermath that Folman himself witnessed: the camera pans slowly across stacks of dirty corpses yet can barely keep up with the hysterical women that follow. We see it all through Folman’s cartoon eyes, emphasizing the contrast between the fanciful, imaginative world to the real.

Although animation will indefinitely be known for the naïve, childish fables of Saturday mornings, it is perhaps that stigma of novelty and innocence that accounts for Waltz with Bashir’s ingenuity: we are not used to seeing explicit content in cartoon, making the scenes all the more compelling. Funnily enough, lavishly funded war dramas with Hollywood actors can rarely resist glamorized action scenes or romantic conflicts. Waltz with Bashir ultimately does not challenge the seriousness of war and gives animated films the last laugh.

 

Image Credits

¹"Waltz with Bashir poster." Flickr Creative Commons. Wolf Gang. 11 Nov. 2008.

Works Cited

²"Ari Folman: "Animation, or Not at All"" Interview by David D'Arcy. GreenCine. All Media Guide, 23 June 2009. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. <https://greencine.com/central/arifolman>.

³"Ari Folman Finds Freedom in Animation." Interview by Steve Erickson. Film and Video. Studio Daily, 18 Dec. 2008. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. <http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/currentissue/10304.html>.

 

Organic, no additives (Inhye)

The storyline of The Celebration (1998) is simple. It centers around a wealthy Danish family celebrating its patriarch’s 60th birthday: Helge is enjoying his dinner party when his son, Christian, accuses him in front of all the guests of raping him and his twin sister, Linda (who recently committed suicide). When Helge later admits to his fault during a family breakfast, his eldest son Michael tells him to leave the table so the rest can finish their meal. The family is clearly is dysfunctional, but contextually The Celebration is subtly complex, leaving more grays than black and white. What we’re shown on screen is so candid we’ve become nuanced to the family’s situation, discouraging us from making hasty judgments.

Why? Because the camera is truly like an eye in The Celebration: sequences are undiluted and coarse, almost encroaching and nosy. The sense of uncomfortable intimacy can be attributed to the hand-held camera movement, the lack of special effects, and the tightness of the shots mimicking eye contact (long shots in The Celebration only serve to provide general scenic framework). The second-hand awkwardness is vicarious and we feel twinges of shock and subtle comedic relief, rather than bursts of them: realistically, the film borders voyeurism, not fabricated entertainment, and there is barely a trace of post-production. But this seemingly rudimentary approach to filmmaking is incredibly calculated.  In the Dogme 95 approach to filmmaking, everything must be painstakingly planned to avoid the need for post-production, cover-ups or cinematic gimmicks.

Its “Vow of Chastity”¹ states:

1. Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in. If a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found.
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed.
3. The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must not take place where the camera is standing; shooting must take place where the action takes place.
4. The film must be in color. Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (that is to say that the film takes place here and now).
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen.
10. The director must not be credited.

Extracting poignancy from the mundane is Dogme 95's objective, maintaining that art does not have to rely on frills. Thus, not only does the filmmaker have to rely solely on the pedestrian for provocation, the audience is then given an unprocessed version of a story. These films can’t be watched passively: attention must persist or else we “fall behind,” risking appreciation for Dogme 95 entirely. Like in everyday life, in which we can be unsettled by the smallest deviations from the norm, The Celebration demands the same sensitivity: there is no “cheating,” like forewarning music or exaggerated shots to guide our expectations.

And obviously Dogme 95 has its limits. By its definition, it cannot film fantasy, imagination or history, all concepts cinema is characterized by, and in many ways, obliged, to depict. This strict doctrine exiles almost every popular filmmaker but it should not be considered as a backlash at or challenge to Hollywood. All films aim for the same goal of surprise, empathy and escapism: The Celebration goes to show that a narrative, a family affair, a deeper look into the less-dignified life can evoke all three.

 

Works Cited

¹"Dogme 95 -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 19 Nov. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95>.

The Son/Le Fils (Andy)

The Son (Le Fils), released in 2002, is the third major fiction film from Belgian auteurs Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. While it bears similarities to the Dardennes’ earlier vérité chronicles of working class life, this haunting, compact film sidesteps sociopolitical commentary in favor of a humanistic story that is independent of time and place.

Olivier (Olivier Gourmet) teaches carpentry at a juvenile reentry center in a poor, unnamed Belgian city. When a young man named Francis (Morgan Marinne) enters the system, Olivier becomes strangely obsessed and begins trailing him through the halls of the center and the back alleys of the city. Francis is quietly desperate for adult guidance, and asks Olivier to join the carpentry class. Olivier refuses, but continues to spy on Francis. For the film’s first half-hour, there is no explanation for Olivier’s behavior. You wonder if you’re watching Death in Venice Belgium.

*Spoiler warning*
Then, in an almost offhand way, the Dardennes make the big reveal: five years earlier, Francis killed Olivier’s son during a botched robbery. Francis is unaware that Olivier is his victim’s father, but Olivier is all too aware of the connection.

Olivier, burdened by contradictory desires for forgiveness and revenge, allows Francis into his class. As he and Francis develop a relationship, Olivier’s moral dilemma becomes a source of almost unbearable suspense. The film’s last act, in which Olivier drives Francis to an isolated lumberyard, will literally stop your breath.

The Son is beautifully shot in an intense vérité style. For most of the film, the camera follows Olivier as if it were mounted to his right shoulder. The Dardennes eschew a soundtrack or musical score, using a cacophony of passing cars, banging hammers and whining buzz saws to emphasize Olivier’s raging moral conflict. As tension builds in several scenes, so does the ambient noise.

Darren Aronofsky clearly had the Dardenne brothers in mind when he made The Wrestler, though, in this writer’s opinion, he merely cribbed their visual and aural style to add some vérité credibility to a trite script. He doesn’t come close to emulating the unadorned psychological realism that is effortlessly displayed in The Son.
 
Like The Wrestler, many critics have called The Son a Christian allegory. While no one has explicitly spelled out the nature of this allegory, one possible interpretation would be that Olivier represents God, his dead son represents Jesus, and Francis, the son’s murderer, represents humanity at the mercy of a force that can destroy it or forgive it.

Out of Time: The Passion of Joan of Arc (Kelsey)

Carl Theodor Dreyer directed The Passion of Joan of Arc in 1928.  And yet, despite this unequivocal fact, the film does not belong to the year 1928.  It doesn't seem to concretely belong anywhere; indeed, the film is strangely atemporal.  Instead, the film belongs to a world where a close up can be stretched out over 85 minutes; where an entire world can be built on the physiognomy of a face.  And this world is built upon the face of Maria Falconetti, a face unadorned by make up but imbued with the ability to turn the most subtle of facial ticks into a moment of emotional anagnorisis.  The entire film is like a prolonged flash of revelation, and though Falconetti's eyes get increasingly wider and more desperate, they never stop conjuring up that which remains unspoken.

The film, if the opening titles are to be believed, dutifully follows the written record of the trial, imprisonment, and death of fabled martyr Joan of Arc.  She is not the only character shot almost exclusively in close-up; the men who decide her fate are shot in a similarly close range, though admittedly to very different effect.  If the camerawork acts as an hour an a half long elegy to Joan, it is effectively putting the men who judge her on trial.  They are captured in harsh black and white tones and even harsher facial expressions.  They are the ugly, jeering men whose faces keep no secrets but tell only lies, and the camera pans across their faces as if they were Roman portrait busts riddled with imperfections, at home in a museum but never at home in Joan's psyche. 

And it is in Joan's psyche that the film takes place: these leering men stand in for the Satanic visions they constantly accuse Joan of having, and the look in Joan's eyes as they turn upward towards heaven does in fact seem to emanate the ethereal.  And these awful faces get closer and closer until they seem to close in on Joan entirely, violating her space and the space of the film.  And all of this is filmed with extreme attention to detail: from the warts on the faces of her accusers to the insects that occasionally land on Joan's face.  And it is this strange detail, enlarged and crystal clear, that allows the film to escape any form of realism.  By creating a film based on minutiae, tiny little flaws and facial movements that would be unremarkable in a wider shot become absurd and surreal, and through attention to the mundane, the film is able to portray the ethereal.     

In the last scene of the film, Joan is burned at the stake.  As flames engulf her tiny body and her shorn head, the camera pans across a different sort of people: not the judges who assigned this fate to Joan, but regular people, openly weeping at the sight before them.  And the claustrophobic close-ups all of the sudden seem a bit less claustrophobic, as Joan begins to disappear into the smoke and tears roll down the faces of grown men.  The image of birds soaring across the sky is intercut with the flames of the stake and the mounting anger of the people.  And with this moment of emotional synchronicity, the disparate close-ups are no longer at odds.  It is as though the discordant elements of Joan's tale have come together, and the film, which oftentimes feels like an 85 minute reconstruction of a second, is finally able to end.  And the stake goes up in flames, and Joan is finally set free.     

 

Trapped Between the Walls (Josefine)

I prefer the French title of Laurent Cantet's award-winning film, before its loose translation into English loses the essence of the story. Entre les Murs, or Between the Walls, is certainly a more interesting name than The Class, and it more descriptively denotes a great theme of this story: that of being trapped.

A balding, but still attractive 30-something year-old, Monsieur Marin (played by François Bégaudeau who scripted the film from his own novel) is once again stuck teaching twenty some odd adolescents in a poorly run public school on the outskirts of Paris…and his students are stuck right back.

Marin makes a concerted effort to teach his reluctant students. He battles the universal forces that derail students’ intellectual development, from the stumbling block of their petty in-class disputes to the hurdle of negligent parents. Marin’s fight is familiar to anyone who has been a student or teacher in such a class.

Aside from a few gold star moments – Marin gets Soulayman, the class’ top trouble-maker, to enjoy and excel at an assignment of creating a self-portrait – the teacher’s struggle, even to get through a simple poetry lesson without allowing the restless students literally to drive him up the cinderblock walls that surround him, is futile. Their time-wasting diversions and distrust of his teachings – one student asks why it is necessary for them to learn the pluperfect subjunctive case, making the precocious yet dead-on observation that speaking thus is “bourgeois” – are inexorable and exhausting.

The students’ struggle is just as tiring. Those who care to learn are impeded by the trouble-makers’ disruptions, and those who don’t fit in – such as Wei, the Asian student who has far from mastered spoken French – are ruthlessly ridiculed (we all remember how cruel high school kids are).

Essentially, the story boils down to whether or not Marin can save Soulayman. In spite of the few flickers of hope, such as the self-portrait success as mentioned above, Marin is unable to convince the rest of the faculty, plus the moronic head of school, that Soulayman could amount to something, or that this school could help him. Despite Marin’s sincere efforts, which admittedly flounder a bit in the final moments when his own job may be on the line if he persists in his defense of Soulayman, Marin cannot save his mischievous, misunderstood student from the inevitable – expulsion.

The film ends on a bittersweet note. The last scene shows Marin and other faculty playing soccer in the courtyard as the students cheer them on, seemingly having forgotten about Soulayman’s unfortunate departure. It’s the first and only time the school appears a community rather than an ostracizing jail cell. The last shot, with the children’s happy cheers faintly heard through the closed windows, zeroes in on the empty classroom, and the walls that bind it, reminding us of the all too familiar feeling of high school: entrapment. 

Now showing at The Charles

What is the Cleanest Way to Kill Male Chauvinism?: Divorce Italian Style (Kelsey)

Marcello Mastroianni enters the film "Divorce Italian Style" with his hair perfectly slicked back, his ubiquitous sunglasses covering his world weary eyes, and a cigarette holder dangling from the side of his mouth.  He is the picture of over-coiffed, under-worked, chauvinistic hauteur.  He also happens to be exiting the bathroom of a train.  And this entrance sets the tone of the entire movie: a bored aristocrat with a very distinct image of himself, perpetually undercut by the image being presented to us by Pietro Germi, the director of this 1962 Italian film.

The film is not merely Italian; however, it is very specifically a film about Sicily.  In Sicily, sons of Barons have nothing to do but sit around in their fathers' decaying castles, ruminating on their lineage and their honor while the voices of overbearing wives and screaming parents echo throughout the halls.  Such is the fate of Ferdinando, called Fefe by his adoring wife, who wanders about the overcrowded rooms in the family estate with the air of someone who is one last gasp away from asphyxiation.  So when this thirty-seven year old "falls in love" with his sixteen year old cousin, a pretty girl who lives on the other side of the crumbling castle, a viewer is less inclined to see it as true love and more inclined to greet the burgeoning relationship with a resounding "ew."  However, longing looks soon give way to physical affection, and in a way only acceptable in Italian films and E.M. Forster novels.  But while Fefe and his cousin Angela are off playing garden of earthly delights, there is still the problem of his wife, Rosalia.  And here we come back to Sicily.  Because in Sicily, divorce is completely, utterly, it's not even negotiable illegal.  Murder, however?  Is kind of okay, as long as there is sufficient reason.  So, Fefe hatches a plot to kill his wife, involving one of Rosalia's old flames, a tape recorder, a hole in the wall, and a fair amount of falsified evidence.  And his attempts at playing the mastermind work almost perfectly, until one night when the entire town has gathered to watch "La Dolce Vita."  Just as Anita Ekberg implores Fefe's onscreen counterpart to "Follow me, Marcello, follow me!"  Rosalia and her once upon a lover are following the last train out of town.  And of course they leave on a train, because in this tiny little world of Sicily, where the only thing people have to do is sit around in stifling rooms and narrate their own lives, trains don't merely give people momentum: they give the narrative momentum as well.

So poor Fefe is left in something of a quandary.  He has been dishonored, women spit at him in disgust, and he receives bags of hate mail.  However, he greets these new circumstances with the same level of detached disinterest with which he greets everything.  Indeed, when shuffling through his mail, when he comes upon a letter sympathetic to his plight, he tears it up, deeming it detrimental to the inevitable court case to come.  And come it does.  It is every bit as wonderful as Fefe had imagined it would be, as the lawyer touches on every topic from emotional distress to disreputable fathers.  And Fefe, of course, gets off with three years of jail time, the minimum sentence for crimes of passion.  And when he gets out, Angela has waited for him.  Sort of.  So perhaps life really does begin at forty.  Or perhaps Fefe is just sinking, sinking, sinking, just like his reputation post Rosalia's runaway and just like all those fantasies he had of Rosalia's death (death by boiling vat of soap and death by quicksand were the standouts).  But there is little else to do but sink, in this world where one day the news headline is about a man in space and the next day it's about a man killing his wife and getting away with it.  The times are changing and this world of Fefe, coated as it is in layers of hair pomade, sweat, and male chauvinism, is inevitably going to sink.  And personally? I vote death by vat of soap.     

"People Only Die of Love in the Cinema": Searching for the Normal in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Kelsey)

The very first words spoken in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg are "Is it finished?"  This question, a less than auspicious start to a film, is posed by a man to his mechanic.  The mechanic, a young man in a bright blue jumpsuit, replies: "The engine still knocks when it's cold, but that's normal."  So begins Jacques Demy's 1964 film; with this relatively normal, almost colorless exchange between the two men.  Of course, these seemingly mundane lines are sung, because every word of the film is sung.  And the seemingly mundane mechanic shop is infused with every color imaginable, because Jacques Demy turns car repair into a feat requiring Technicolor.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, however, does not deal with these Technicolor trifles with the over the top pageantry of an American musical.  There is no musical number about how much they "gotta dance!" here, and indeed, there is no dancing.  The camera is the thing that follows choreographed patterns, as the film has numerous long takes that move from one character to another without missing a beat.  In fact, the entire film is choreographed, and it is only the characters that remain almost motionless, emotionally stagnant amidst Demy's always mobile, always surprising visual splendor.  The story at the center of the film is as seemingly banal as the dialogue: a girl loves a boy, the boy goes away to war, the girl gets pregnant (of course), and the boy returns home to find that the girl isn't waiting for him.  So goes this bittersweet tale of love and loss.  But the film does not just rise above its uninspired plot: it uses its uninspired plot to explore these uninspired people who are its center.  And while their real life, provincial French counterparts may not be surrounded by pink patterned wall paper that perfectly matches their pink cardigans, their pink headbands, and their pink umbrellas, there is a fundamental melancholy to the film that belies its candy coated exterior.  And those bright colors only serve to heighten the intensity of the emotions: the two main characters, Genevieve and Guy, "je t'aime," "je t'aime," "je t'aime," so often that by any right the words ought to lose all meaning.  And yet, when set to Michel Legrand's lovely score and surrounded by the always colorful set design, their repeated proclamations reach a sort of emotional fever pitch.  So when Genevieve falls to the ground; in a faint at the merest suggestion that Guy has forgotten her, it's almost believable.  Because in this world, where a pretty, pink clad Catherine Deneuve almost fades into the pretty pink background, the visuals and the sound don't just heighten the emotions, they give them an air of verisimilitude that they would otherwise be lacking.

The last scene of the film is set in December, and it is no longer raining but snowing: there's no need for umbrellas in Cherbourg when it's December.  And it is at a gas station that Genevieve and Guy have their last meeting: her in a fur coat and mourning, him in another blue jumpsuit.  The first thing she says to him, after all of their years apart, is that it's cold.  He tells her to come into the office.  There are no declarations of love, only a sad lingering sense of what might have been.  When asked what type of gasoline she wanted to fill her car with, normal or super, Genevieve chooses super instead of normal, just like she chose fur coats over car mechanics once, a long time ago.  So it's cold, and things are fine.  They're normal, perhaps.  And yes, they are finished.  But as she drives away with her child, and his wife returns with his, we realize that maybe, even outside this world of fuchsia wall paper and pseudo operettas, normal might be alright.   

 

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Kelsey)

The pivotal scene of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul occurs with the two main characters seated outside, their figures almost lost amidst a sea of bright yellow patio chairs.  Their hands are intertwined, and tears run down the woman's face as she says to the man: "Sometimes I wish I were all alone with you in the world, with nobody around us."  And they are almost alone, isolated by the yellow chairs, but even here they cannot escape the cruel gaze of onlookers, who stare at them contemptuously from across the courtyard.  But despite this onslaught of societal disapproval, they declare their love for each other, and the scene ends with the woman deciding that they need to leave for awhile.  She promises him that when they return, it will be better.  That perhaps people will be nice to them. 

The woman is Emmi, a middle aged German who cleans floors for a living.  The man is her husband, a Moroccan immigrant who works as a mechanic.  He is called Ali, not because it is his name, but because in Germany, all Arabs are called Ali.  They are also called much worse things.  So when Emmi invites Ali home one night after dancing with him at a bar, and they develop an affection for each other that leads to marriage, their world reacts with almost universal scorn.  They try to stay afloat amidst this tide of disapproval, but their love does not go unchallenged.  Fassbinder creates a minimalist microcosm of racial intolerance and societal injustice by mapping it onto fairly standard melodramatic tropes.  The plot itself is taken from the Douglas Sirk film All that Heaven Allows, wherein a widowed Jane Wyman falls in love with a much younger Rock Hudson, only to meet with the disapproval of her friends and family.  Sirk's film is melodrama at its finest, where pretty exteriors and calculated mise en scene mask the deep cut of societal scorn.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul has calculated mise en scene as well: Fassbinder's characters are perfectly groomed, as Emmi wears heels and patterned dresses to clean floors and Ali wears sharp grey suits to go to seedy bars.  Their world is insular, with only a handful of tertiary characters that, despite appearing regularly, seem to blend into a single person with a single expression.  And these bit players are constantly separated from Emmi and Ali: by staircases, by window grates, by an opened door.  This visual scheme serves to isolate the central couple, but it also acts as an indictment of the herd mentality that leads to blatant and unchecked racism.

The title comes from Ali's broken German.  When Emmi expresses her mixed emotions at the very beginning of their relationship, he tells her that "fear eat the soul."  Ali's linguistic difficulties preclude him from making any melodramatic speeches: he expresses how much he loves Emmi with the span of his arms, and his ability to flatter her never moves beyond such trite adjectives as "good," and "nice."  But his sayings have a broken, aphoristic quality that suggest a sort of innocence, and which force the viewer to remember that it is not merely Emmi that is bearing the brunt of societal disapproval.  Though she expresses her fears through tears and he expresses his with taciturn naivety, they are both affected by their situation.  But the titular fear, the gnawing, soul-crushing fear that the film is exploring is not really their fear: it is the fear that they elicit.  It is the fear that every other character in the film has when they catch a glimpse of the Emmi and Ali walking hand in hand; a fear that all too quickly turns to hate.  So while Emmi hopes to find a "little piece of heaven," the rest of the world will never quite let this happen.  Because even if society begins to accept Emmi and Ali, a piece of heaven is more than this world allows.

The Brothers Quay: Exploring the Czech "Tactile Experiment" (Shauna)

Recently, I rediscovered the stop-action animated shorts of the Quay Brothers, two Czech experimental filmmakers.  I was first exposed to their works as a kid stuck on the couch with the flu.  My dad brought home the video, and prefaced it with a mention of my great-grandfather who had escaped Czechoslovakia trekking around Europe before coming to the U.S.  Symptoms gave way to awe for the quality of movement of the puppets and props.  Whoever had crafted and manipulated these figures, I thought, had given them a unique spirit.  Indeed, the Quays endow each figure with a dark and surreal brooding, an element they refer to as “pathology.” 

Frequently in Quay films, visual relationships, particularly the spatial and temporal links between a figure and its “poetic” universe, supersede narrative associations.  Although narrative structure exists, it is embedded within the visual and abstract.  Compositions and movement through space emphasize transformative processes and the tactile experiences of life and dreams.  Dialogue is largely absent.  Language that does exist fulfills a primarily graphic function.  Often, words allude to the genre of Czech surrealism, or provide an Eastern European contextual heritage for the mise en scène. 

Ident commissioned by BBC2 (1991). Creative Commons.¹

The Quay Brothers tend to emphasize the creation and revision of atmosphere as the basis for their filmic process.  In one interview, they compared inventing and sustaining a climate to choreographing a ballet.  Both film and dance hinge on the integration of lighting, décors, bodies in motion and, perhaps most critically, music.  These elements coalesce to form the dynamic environment that engages, isolates or opposes characters.  The necessity for music in dance is completely self-evident.  The role of music in Quay films differs somewhat.  Music does not dictate the physical patterning of puppet movements; rather, it infuses each shot's universe with a lifeblood.  Music exists in lieu of dialogue.   Verbal exchanges would add an unnecessary redundancy to the subtle, abstracted drama provided by the musical score.  The brothers acknowledge that passive viewing yields few insights into their work.  Attentive sensitivity is absolutely necessary to fully appreciate each sequence.  

Quay Brothers at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee Switzerland. Creative Commons.²

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, an entire kingdom is encapsulated in a wooden cube, whose linear architecture, small geometric windows and high-tension wires suggest that an alien modernity pervades the derivative mythical world.  The brothers reconfigure the epic myth to fit within the constraints of a brief, though precisely executed, pilot.  Gilgamesh's kingdom, spatially estranged and bordered by strong currents of wind on two sides, serves as the motivation and vehicle for his fatal encounter with rival bird-man Enkidu.  Enkidu's venture out of the Enchanted Forest and into Gilgamesh's domain triggers the contriving of the beast's trap.  The trap exploits Enkidu's carnal instincts and subdues his psychological discomfort in the realm of the kingdom.  The "sandbox" kingdom becomes an acetic, almost clinical foil to the forest, and the trap starts to resemble a grotesque operating table.  The musical score adds a disconcerting dimension to the muted palate of the kingdom.  Seedy saxophone music plays during Enkidu's lewd encounter with the trap.  Following Enkidu's demise, Gilgamesh emerges, accompanied by childish carnival music.  The tune is a sound approximation of his sinister, clownish features and diminuative feet, pedaling madly on his tricycle.

In The Street of Crocodiles, the brothers again appropriate a preexisting narrative as the skeletal foundation for their filmic universe.  However, once more, space and geometry subvert narrative structure.  The decors plays a critical role in evoking the precise climate of a Polish retail complex shrouded in dust, debris and refuse.  The environment's essence, in the Quays' words, is "degraded reality."  Yet, the imperfections, indentations and reflections are acceptable, even wonderful, in the cool diffused light.  The most interesting aspect of this environment is the "breakdown," conveyed by the deranged movements of mannequins, screws unscrewing and the reforming of a knot in a string that serves as the gateway into the labyrinth of dust and decay.

In an interview in Paris, the Quays distanced themselves from filmmakers Nick Park and Tim Burton, two key contributors to the genre of stop-action animation.  While technical similarities and a common choice of medium unite these filmmakers, distinctions of equal weight can also be made.  The Quays' works are informed by their Eastern European heritage and surrealist aesthetic, while Nick Park captures the essence of the suburban domestic U.K.  Park (Wallace and Gromit), frequently expresses cynical attitudes towards the status quo (see Creature Comforts), but these sentiments are couched in comedy.  Even at its darkest moments, his work retains a ludicrous hilarity to which we can relate.  Moreover, the narrative structure remains paramount.  Even Wallace's absurd gift of mechanical pants serves a narrative function in The Wrong Trousers, advancing the plot towards the climactic heist scene.  In contrast, the absurd image of a broken tennis racket strewn over high-tension wires in Gilgamesh's domain serves no such function.  Rather, it is merely an artifact of the brothers' village memory.

The Quays are equally hesitant to draw analogies between their shorts and the works of Tim Burton, suggesting that his mise en scène is more closely related to the tradition of horror.  Indeed, graveyard scenes in The Nightmare Before Christmasemploy chiaroscuro and exaggerated angles that hearken back to German Expressionism.  Burton composes a narrative that integrates the qualities of a musical: imaginative backgrounds and songs advance a linear plot.  The Quays instead compose a non-verbal cinematic dance.  The musical score and environment of that dance are the primary concern, and the narrative is far more cryptic. 

Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers, 2007. Zeitgeist.

1. Photographer: "The Justified Sinner." Dec. 27, 2008. Creative Commons.http://search.creativecommons.org/

2. Photographer: Hendrick Speck. Nov. 22, 2008. Creative Commons. http://search.creativecommons.org/

Movie Atmosphere (Cameron)

I have now seen three Korean movies on the big screen with no English subtitles and little help with translation from my Korean friends (unless there was something REALLY bugging me about the plot that I had to ask about). I really want to keep this experience free of any language cheating. I’ll write about that later, but first, let me tell you a little bit about the actual experience of going to a Korean movie theater.

To be honest, my first cinema experience in Korea (they call the theaters “cinemas” and since Americans do that too sometimes, I might as well) was to see Get Smart with my American friend who looks like he could play the lead in a film about Norsemen. I was surprised to find how easy it was get tickets in English even though at first I got confused stares from the ticketing boy behind the counter since I definitely look the part of a real Korean-speaking Korean. But after some gesturing and slow speaking, we got two tickets for around 7,000 won or roughly $6 (reminds when tickets were that price a few years ago in the States). In Korea, you can choose where you want to sit in the theater, which is very convenient if you are just a pair of movie-goers but I suspect not so convenient if you are part of a large group. Anyways, since I prefer to sit towards the back and smack in the middle of the row, I rather like reserving my seats in advance. I think they do that in Australia, too. Or was that London…anyways back to Korea.

You can choose the regular salty kind of popcorn at the snack stand or you can choose a “sweet” option with caramel corn-type flavoring. I think I prefer the good ol’ salty kind, though. They usually don’t have candy, but they often offer things like hot dogs, nachos, and pretzels. Koreans really love ojinga, or dried squid, so they have that available in most places, too. Of course, each cinema has its own offerings in terms of snacks, but if you want anything American-esque I recommend getting it from the convenience store around the corner since the stewards don’t seem to mind if you bring in your own treats (although I wouldn’t flaunt that you have them in your possession either). While I haven’t tried the ojinga from the snack stand, I have had it from the grocery store and it is rather good, if a little chewy. Kind of like a milder, saltier, softer form of beef jerky without the rawhide appearance.

Anyways, there are three main cinemas in Gumi. Lotte Cinema, which has two locations in Gumi, is kind of like the local AMC theaters and CGV is has more international offerings (I have seen Under the Same Moon and am looking forward to the Korean release of Let the Right One In from Sweden). Both theaters show international releases from Hollywood, albeit a few months late sometimes. They are all in high rise buildings as everything in Korea is built upwards instead of outwards because of the lack of space. Movie-goers can either take the elevator or the escalator to get to the appropriate floor. The elevators in the downtown Lotte Cinema have stewards that check your tickets and direct you to the right floor, but I prefer the escalator ride in the CGV building because you can look outside the large paneled glass windows to view downtown on the way up and it’s particularly pretty at night. I also love seeing the larger-life movie posters they have posted on each level – they are much bigger than the ones in the States which also makes them better in my opinion.

I have never seen such professional movie ushers outside of the ones you see in old movies. The ushers at Lotte Cinema and CGV have quite meticulous uniforms (usually dark pants or skirts and matching vests with ties or some sort of fancy closure at the neck). There is also a lot of bowing and “oso-o-shib-shi-o” (welcome) and I kind of feel like a celebrity when an usher is particularly polite. In this case, I prefer the ushers at CGV because there are more of them and they stand outside the theater entrances as opposed to the downtown Lotte Cinema where they are just at the elevators on the first floor (in fact, after I leave the elevator and step into the dimly-lit lobby on the higher floors I always feel like I’m lost). Because of the seating arrangements and perhaps the ûber-efficient Korean timing between shows, it’s almost impossible to enter the theater if you get there more than ten minutes early. Usually I’m sitting with my friend outside twiddling my thumbs and staring blankly at the ads for upcoming films. In these cases I hate small talk because I have to talk for hours every day with my classes so I don’t like talking when I don’t have to these days (some people may be relieved to hear that).

Whenever I enter the movie theater in Gumi, I am always surprised that no matter how recent the film is, there are never that many people in the theater. Even when I went to see Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day in Seoul (Korea’s answer to NYC), it wasn’t particularly full (more thoughts on this later). So when I went to see Get Smart I was surprised to find that my friend and I were two of maybe eight people there. This made it blatantly obvious that most of the American humor in the film went unregistered by the Korean audiences as we Americans were the only ones laughing hysterically for 90% of the time. The slapstick humor was the most translatable.

When you sit down in a Korean theater, the lights are dim, sometimes they are playing some K-pop music, but most of the time it’s just silent. Then they play commercials that you could find on TV or advertisements for local businesses. After that, you might get to see one or two previews for some upcoming films. I have always been a big fan of previews and love it when I forget what movie I actually came to see. I guess this is because my imagination fills in the rest of the storyline from the teasers. So it’s kind of disappointing when I only get to see one or two, and even more so when the teaser is in Korean and I have no idea if what I just saw is really what I think or did I misinterpret? Anyways, I’m always surprised how quickly the feature film starts and even after having gone to the cinema multiple times I am still confused at first if what I’m watching is another preview or really the start of the film. That’s American brain-washing for you. Or conditioning. Whatever. It’s confusing.

After Get Smart was over I was content to sit there and watch the credits (I love to do this if only to wait until the very end to see if the director has put in some sort of special treat for people like me who sit and watch until the very end). However, in Korean culture this is a very rare and slightly strange habit and so I always feel pressured to leave right away after the credits roll even if I want to see the cast list (I guess there’s always IMDB...). So I started to leave the same way I came in but was surprised (yet again) to find that you use the emergency (or so I thought) exit instead and find yourself in an entirely different and disorienting part of the cinema. And always, since Koreans sort their trash into recyclables, liquid waste and compost, I never know which trash can (they call them rubbish bins, after the Brits) to use and have to peer into them every time even though they are labeled in Korean and I could just memorize which ones are which.

But that’s ok with me, since I always have other things on my mind, like how I always forget that I’m in Korea whenever I go see an American (or English-speaking) movie despite the Korean subtitles at the bottom. And then, when the credits roll and I get out of my seat and see all of the Koreans around me "pop" I’m back in the reality of being far away from friends, family, pizza-by-the slice, cheap booze and cable TV.

See you again soon! 

 

Truffaut's "The Wild Child" (Carlos)

Recently Truffaut’s L’Enfant sauvage (The Wild Child, 1970) has found its way back into theaters. Over thirty years later it’s fresh and engaging, a testament to its timeless relevance. The film introduces the wild child by distant observation. For several minutes we watch a filthy kid with an apelike posture maneuver through dense forest and adeptly climb tall trees. He puts up a fight against two hunting dogs, disabling one before disappearing into a sea of foliage. Once caught, he’s mocked by the villagers and dragged through town by a leash tethered to his ankle. In these moments it's difficult to tell the civilized apart from the savage.

Doctor Itard, played by writer-actor-director Francois Truffaut, takes the purportedly deaf and mute child in and decides to civilize him. They name him Victor. The wild child sniffs at a mirror - an unknown object. Itard comes from behind with an apple, presenting it to the Victor through the mirror. The child reaches for the reflection until he realizes the stunt. Victor finally grabs the real apple, demonstrating a capacity to learn.

"The Wild Child" doesn't present us with melodramatic close-ups or a swelling musical score. It is directed with the same patience and simple dignity reflected in Truffaut's understated performance. A particularly touching montage involves the doctor's attempts at teaching Victor how to speak. He takes Victor's fore- and middle-fingers and presses them against his own larynx as he goes through the vowels. In another static shot he sits with Victor in front of a mirror. They practice pronunciation by lit candlewick that flickers with every utterance.

Truffaut craftily pulls at our strings by structuring the film with constant ups and downs. Whenever it seems like Doctor Itard's attempts at educating and socializing the boy are mere exercises in futility, the wild child's next move both surprises and impresses us. He develops a fondness for order, and learns how to ask for things he wants. It is particularly poignant that the first word Victor learns is "lait" (milk in French). The savage is suddenly humanized, and we're made to acknowledge a childhood bereft of nurturing and proper sustenance. Even at his most "uncivilized,” however, Victor conveys a connectedness to the natural world that the civilized will never experience or comprehend. Itard frequently observes Victor standing in the rain, rocking back and forth. He performs a similar ritualistic dance under the moonlight. The filmmaker affectionately develops Victor from a barbaric idiot into a dignified being with a reverence for the natural world.

One of my favorite moments is a brief cutaway to a deaf mute child at the institution sitting on a windowsill. He relays to a peer what the wild child is like. Using big, expressive gestures, he describes his teeth, the dirt covering his body, how he bites and claws out of fear; all the ways he differs from them. Scenes like these give the scenario depth and dimensionality. Viewers are permitted to witness multiple perspectives as Truffaut illustrates his fascination with children and their distinct world views.

The most surprising aspect of the film is how convincing Jean-Pierre Cargol is in the title role. Only a few times does his behavior seem contrived or rehearsed. Otherwise he shifts abruptly from quiet, wide-eyed observance to unrestrained animalistic ferocity. Later in the film Doctor Itard enters Victor’s room at night. Victor sits up in bed, taking Itard’s hand and resting it on different sections of his face. Voiceover confirms this is Victor’s way of communicating. It’s arguably a more effective mode than language could ever be. Cargol sustains a blank expression as the camera pulls in for a close-up. His performance is as touching here as it is when tears run down his face.

"The Wild Child" has plenty to say about childhood development. Nothing gives Dr. Itard, and arguably Truffaut, more joy in the process than witnessing Victor's discovery of invention -- he makes himself a chalk holder. Itard regards this as one of the more significant steps in development. Later he teaches Victor how to retrieve objects on command. He points to “marteau” on the board and Victor brings him a hammer. If he achieves the task successfully Itard rewards him with a glass of water. He concludes that if Victor fails, he corrects himself out of fear of punishment and not out of a sense of moral order. Itard decides to test his moral code by punishing him for a successful completion. Victor bites him in rebellion and Itard regards this as the biggest success. Following the act we see Victor more contemplative, and from then on there is weight and reason to his behavior.

In a moment of disenchantment, Doctor Itard concedes that his experiment has failed. The film cuts to Victor, curiously observing the small flame of a lit candle. He tests the heat with the palms of his hands and runs over the quivering flame with fluttering fingers. Victor is fascinated by fire – the cornerstone of civilization. He is learning how to control it. Candlelight serves as a motif in "The Wild Child," as it represents the taming of feral forces. Cinematographer Néstor Almendros (revered for his work in Days of Heaven) takes advantage and paints dark interiors with soft, flickering light. The stunning black and white was more a stylistic choice than a necessity.

Normally I have issues with voice over, but in "The Wild Child," Dr. Itard’s spoken journal entries provide a necessary backbone. The film is comprised of scenes established as vignettes, each opening and closing with a pinhole effect. Presented as series of episodes, the film itself plays like a string of journal entries. It doesn’t end with closure because it’s not about whether or not Victor will be “fixed.” The WIld Child is more I think about what it means to indoctrinate individuals into accepting and obeying societal conventions. It also sheds light on how substantive the early years are in the formation of a human being. Whatever the reason, it’s strongly recommended.

The Wild Child (French: L’enfant sauvage) [1970] 83 minutes. 1.66:1 Aspect. Written and directed by Francois Truffaut. Starring Jean-Pierre Cargol and Francois Truffaut. Available on DVD.

 

 

Patience pays off - The Grocer's Son (Carlos)

It’s an age-old story:  the prodigal son returns home on account of his bed-ridden father. How many permutations of this have we come across before? Some might argue we’ve run that well dry, both in the novel and film form. It was with some reluctance that I entered the theater seeking a French independent feature setting out to rehash a subject worn thin countless times in the past.  The result was surprisingly refreshing. 

30 year-old Antoine (Nicholás Cazalé) is struggling to make ends meet. His father (Daniel Duval), whom he severed ties with years ago, has a heart attack and Antoine begrudgingly returns to Provençe at mother’s request. In light of his illness, the family grocery store is in need of a cart driver and Antoine’s older brother, François (Stéphan Guérin-Tillié) insists that for once Antoine lend a helping hand. Accompanied by next-door neighbor and love interest, Claire (Clotilde Hesme) our surly protagonist begins a slow process of reflection and self-exploration, coming of age late in the game, but gracefully against a backdrop of the beautiful French countryside.

That’s one way of putting it. The point, however, won’t be found in the narrative. What resonate are the quiet, ineffable, and undeniably filmic moments that mold the film into what it is: a patient and rustic reflection of life and family embraced by the calm permanence of a pastoral landscape.

The film opens in a blur. Home movies shot on super-8 projected and pulsating; we’re in such a tight close-up that the shaky footage becomes broad brushstrokes of warm hues – the aesthetic of intimacy. We cut on swish pans to Antoine at the subway station, trains scream by in blurs.  In the first few minutes directorEric Guiradobridges the bleak tones of a glum urban world and the tender, nostalgic imagery of childhood. As Antoine returns to the home he fled from ten years earlier, the rushing subway cars evoke memories of the faded celluloid that intimately documented his youth. It’s a really nice intro.

Antoine’s first foray into selling groceries door-to-door doesn’t go well at all. He’s got an attitude; he’s incredibly unfriendly and blunt. All of Provençe’s inhabitants are in their winter years – slow moving and hard of hearing. It doesn’t help that Antoine’s as cold and unapproachable as Camus’ Mersault. In fact, the most unpleasant thing about the film is its protagonist. Thankfully, The Grocer’s Son makes all the right turns and Antoine learns a thing or two about kindness and hospitality, transformed by the third act from a stone faced stoic into an affable young man who might be ready for a commitment or two.

Director Guirado develops a rich cast of characters (most notably the old folks) who engage in seemingly trivial interactions, but as the film adeptly demonstrates, it’s those moments in between that breathe life into the story, give the subjects dimensionality, and compel us to feel compassion for and identify with the faces we see on screen.

“The Grocer’s Son” (French: “Le Fils de l'épicier”) 2007. 96 minutes, 1.85:1 Aspect. Starring Nicholás Cazalé, Clotilde Hesme, Stéphan Guérin-Tillié. Directed and Co-written by Eric Guirado.Now playing at the Charles Theatre. 

 

 

 

Anti-Epic - Aguirre: the Wrath of God (Carlos)

Imagine five weeks spent under the weight of heavy leather, steel chest plates and helmets, slogging through sludge and dodging volatile rapids in the dizzying heat and humidity of the Amazonian jungle. Writer-director Werner Herzog’s third feature, Aguirre: the Wrath of God is a well-lauded masterwork, its success due in part to Herzog’s unbridled approach to production. 

The film opens with a master shot of the Andes Mountains, small dots trickle down a lush green mountainside, and the camera zooms in to reveal a line of conquistadors and enslaved Indians struggling with every step as they descend from Quito into dense jungle. The shot overwhelms the viscera because what we observe is a documented event -- the film’s cast and crew relive the sweat and toil of the historical moment, and the result is astounding. 

 

“The story takes place in the Peruvian jungle – you have to go there, there’s no alternative to that.” 

 

With a budget of $360,000, a stolen camera, and a crew of no more than eight people at a time, Werner Herzog makes one of the most important and relevant works of recent history, committing images to celluloid that would eventually inspire Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and arguably Mallick’s entire oeuvre. Aguirre: the Wrath of God covers the tale of an ambitious and impossible Spanish expedition led by conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro in search of El Dorado, the lost city of gold. Convinced that they’ve veered off path, Pizarro puts together a small group of men, led by aristocrat Don Pedro de Ursua (Ruy Guerra, an accomplished Brazilian filmmaker in his own right) with Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) as second in command, to continue traveling along the river before the expedition is terminated for good. The group includes the asinine Fernando de Guzman, Padre Gaspar de Carvajal, and Aguirre’s beautiful daughter Inez, along with a handful of slaves and soldiers. Eventually Aguirre will undermine Ursua’s power and lead the group by force, threatening any dissidents with death. Handheld camera follows at eye level, observing the group as they fumble through thick foliage and muddy swampland. Four of the Indians are forced to carry (and balance) a ridiculous sedan chair housing the beautiful Flores (Helena Rojo), wife of Ursua. There is an immediate sense of disconnect between subject and setting that remains throughout the length of the film. 

 

Hardly anything is known about Lope de Aguirre. At most fifteen pages worth of material exist on the historical figure, giving Herzog enough room to create moments within which characters are developed filmically. Freed from the constraint of historicity, Herzog creates believable scenarios intended not to advance the storyline necessarily, but to convey an inner mood by testing the limits of physical and mental endurance against all odds. He admits to having done little to no research prior to writing the script (which in prose form was swiftly finished within two days), which is mind-boggling. The filmmaker entrusts location with the task of spurring undeniably authentic moments, the life of the film exists within the individual’s relationship to the surrounding environment. 

 

Furious nature gains an independent life in the close up. Herzog deviates from the narrative and closes on a raging river; the shot is held for about a minute. By slowly pulling into focus, cinematographer Thomas Mauch calls attention to the entropic movement of the murky, rolling waves. A mesmerizing and haunting soundtrack by long-time collaborators Popol Vuh links the landscape to the mindscape, and we begin to observe the group’s inevitable downward spiral as Aguirre loses his mind in favor of megalomania and delusions of grandeur. 

 

Camera as participant 

 

On a turbulent trip down a river, one of the large rafts gets stuck in an eddy. The rest of the group waits on shore for the cornering current to give way. Several shots are fired overnight and the following morning everyone on the raft is dead, while two native oarsmen are missing. This event as observed is never given a proper explanation; it remains as mysterious an occurrence to the viewer as it was for the rest of the group. 

 

Herzog advances the notion of the Unseen by deliberately keeping the enemy out of view. The Indians are present but never seen, and there is a sense that the spectator is also not safe. A soldier trekking through the forest steps into a trap and is swept up and out of frame. The only indication of murder is a sprinkle of arterial blood against a bright green leaf, as observed by another soldier who runs in a panic to warn the others. 

 

Pizarro’s men awake to find the river has risen fifteen feet overnight. The rafts they’ve built have drifted away. This was not staged – the river had indeed risen during the shoot and the rafts were lost. Herzog understood it was necessary to make this problem a part of the film. Having conflicts such as this arise organically results in sincere expressions of confusion and frustration as the men scrounge for iron with which to hold new rafts together. 

 

One of my favorite moments is when Aguirre stands against the edge of the frame opposite a slave playing a panpipe. Beside the music, everything is silent, Aguirre is thinking. This shot serves little purpose in the context of the story, but it is essential to advancing the inner mood. Klaus’ face in this respect is pivotal to the impact of the film. Often the camera stops to observe his expression, which becomes more and more unhinged as we move farther into the jungle.

 

Aguirre: the Wrath of God follows a doomed mission. When the men march down the steep mountainside they are descending into the depths of hell. Hunger, isolation, exhaustion and fear will soon drive them to death or madness. In the face of impossible odds, to the very end Aguirre’s eyes express an insatiable greed and want of power; he looks toward the horizon with confidence as everything crumbles. 

There will be a screening of Aguirre: the Wrath of God on Thursday, October 30 in Hodson 303. Don't miss it!

Aguirre: the Wrath of God (1972). Written and directed by Werner Herzog. Starring Klaus Kinski, Del Negro, Ruy Guerra, and Helena Rojo. 100 minutes. Available on DVD, presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

The Ultimate Good: Godard’s dystopian crime-noir Alphaville. (Carlos)

It is a daunting task to write anything about the consistently innovative and compulsively prolific auteur Jean-Luc Godard. His early films were determined to bend and shatter cinematic conventions,and the oftentimes cryptic Alphaville (1965) is no exception. I don't claim to be able to fully decipher the film, or any Godard picture for that matter, but I’ll begin to peel back the outermost layers of this dense and multifaceted work.

Silence. Logic. Security. Prudence.

Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) is Secret Agent 003, sent from the Outlands to Alphaville, the capital of the Galaxy, to apprehend its designer Professor Vonbraun (Howard Vernon) and track down missing Agent Henri Dickson. Posing as a journalist he works his way through labyrinthine corridors and systematized networks of officials to  undermine Vonbraun's control and destroy Alphaville itself. Along the way he falls in love with Vonbraun’s purported daughter Natasha (Anna Karina), and opts to save her from the system. Alphaville represents a society where, to paraphrase Natasha, no one has lived in the past or the future. Its inhabitants are caught in an infinite loop that simply ensures a controlled and sustainable society. In Orwellian fashion, the technocratic dictatorship has systematically stripped its people of individualist concepts such as love, conscience, emotion and poetry. Everyone keeps a “Bible,” a periodically edited dictionary of permissible words, and the catalog shrinks on a daily basis.

On the surface Alphaville is an exercise in genre. Godard crafts this story for the screen by synergizing the science fiction and crime-noir genres, calling attention to each by hyperbolizing the essential ingredients of their respective recipes. Within the first ten minutes Godard throws at us the typical elements of crime pulp in rapid procession. The objectification of women, brutality and barbarism, confrontation and gunplay are all displayed within the same electric scene through a single take. Often labeled as the Godard film for those who don’t like Godard, Alphaville is undeniably fun. It constantly engages the viscera, whether or not we’re out to penetrate the profound.

An uncanny, throaty voice gurgles from every wall and ceiling. A sentient cluster of supercomputers that go by the name of Alpha60 governs over Alphaville as judge, jury, and executioner. To Caution and the viewer it represents the inhumane and militantly logical, but to most of Alphaville’s citizens Alpha60 is unquestionably just and in its heuristic calculations utterly infallible.  Alpha60 interrogates Caution during a mandatory examination at Resident Control. A pulsating, incandescent bulb that fills the frame in a close-up is the cinematic ancestor of the iconic HAL 9000 camera-eye -- cold, calculating and unwaveringly logical. (It is duly noted that before Alpha60 there was Big Brother.) When Alpha60 asks Caution what illuminates the night he responds, “la poésie.” Caution replies to administered questions that anticipate laconic responses and “yes,” or “no,” answers with emotively-driven poetic expressions. He manages to puzzle Alpha60, and we are suddenly confronted with a clash between human language and computer language, light and electricity, human intuition and logical calculations.

The female inhabitants of Alphaville have it the worst. A striking young blonde in a loose coat shows Lemmy to his room. Along the way she caters to his every need and offers to join him in the bath. As she strips down to her undergarments we see a serial number tattooed across her shoulder. In Alphaville women have been programmed into domicile objects at the service of men, deprived of individualism and free thought. Godard develops this point to such an absurd degree that later a pack of scientists indifferently stroll past a nude woman displayed in a glass case. It is pure objectification.

Godard sets Alphaville in the late-twentieth century. Lemmy Caution says he’s a Guadalcanal Veteran, which references the naval battle in 1947. Much of the film (primarily due to budgetary reasons I’m sure) was shot on-location in mid-1960s Paris, and the filmmakers do little to conceal it. These decisions are clearly deliberate and intended to suggest that Alphaville’s dystopian future is happening in the present, at least in essence. What it lends visually is unique and unprecedented when you consider for example that  Caution’s "space vessel" is a white Ford Mustang. We’ll get back to set design in a bit.

Brilliantly lensed by Raoul Cotard (Godard’s long-time cinematographer), the use of black-and-white stock in the style of noir informs the viewer’s experience of the film in several ways. The bleak, monochromatic image here reflects the constraint and rigidity of computer language, a binary world comprised of ones and zeroes. I felt at once the sensation of being crammed inside a chassis of humming circuitry; an affect derived also from confining, frame-within-a-frame compositions and tenebrous, low-key lighting.

It is when the Alpha system begins to self-destruct that we become most aware of the film’s claustrophobic frame. Without Alpha60 its citizens lose all sense of cognizance and social construction, tumbling through corridors and pressing up against walls as if attempting to pass through them. Caution drags Natasha out of the crumbling construct and tells her to think of the word love, otherwise she’s as “lost as the dead of Alphaville.” They head for the Outlands on an intersidereal highway, surrounded by the vastness of space, and the film builds to a satisfying close on the stunning Anna Karina as she learns to say for herself: “I love you.” Good stuff, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

 “Ah! The day breaks.”

Flickering cathode tubes above illuminate a clinical corridor. The architectural style of “super modernity” emerges as Alphaville’s visual grammar: the transitional space of instructions, notices, and signs. Godard summons the work of French anthropologist Marc Augé to inform his vision of a bleak and empty existence: a space that is neither relational nor historical, and without any sense of identity is described as an empty zone, or non-place. Corridors, elevators, and lobbies comprise the bulk of Alphaville’s filmed locations, suggesting that the city consists entirely of such non-places. Slaves to logic, the inhabitants of Alphaville have relinquished their culture and ancestry, down to the architecture that surrounds them.

The systematic breakdown of signifier and significance pervades the diegesis and the film’s construction itself. We are frequently faced with graphic close-ups of arrows, always pointing rightward. They are the arrows of direction and momentum, a reflection maybe of a consistent narrative current persistently moving forward. Sometimes we cut to equations and certainties of the physical universe, such as a neon sign flickering E=mc². Several returns to these signifiers incite the deterioration of associative meaning. If this is indeed the case the reasoning is clear. We are as much a part of the world of Alphaville as its deluded citizens.

All these layers of meaning and modes of expression Godard masterfully weaves into a definitive vision of a crumbling dystopian empire. For a first time viewer the result may be jarring, but stay with it. It pays off plenty in the end.

Alphaville (1965). Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Starring Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, and Howard Vernon. 99 minutes. Available on Criterion Collection DVD, presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

 

Tell No One: A prototypical and tone-perfect American thriller...from France. (Carlos)

The crime novels of Chandler and Hammett laid the foundation for American film noir, with their veritable list of eclectic characters and convoluted narratives, filled with enough edge-of-seat twists and turns to keep viewers attached from the retina. Along the same cinematic vein lies director Guilamme Canet’s gripping new thriller Tell No One, which through economy of imagery and swift, expert direction keeps this sweltering murder mystery at a cool and succinct two hours length.

Alex Beck (François Cluzet) is an amiable pediatrician madly in love with his childhood sweetheart and wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze, Diving Bell) who in the course of the exposition is violently murdered during one of their many nostalgic visits to a beautiful and private lakeside getaway. The bulk of the film is set eight years after the incident, when pipeline work around Lake Charmaine exhumes two bodies belonging to the purported murderers thought to have fled after the killing. On one of the bodies police find the key to a safety deposit box containing a bloodied hunting rifle and photographs of a domestically abused Margot. The news brings the many holes in the old and dusty criminal case to light and Alex, who hasn’t yet gotten over his wife’s untimely death, thrusts himself into the role of self-prescribed detective. He immediately becomes the primary suspect, believed to have been after Margot’s life insurance policy, making the mission to solve the murders himself even more pressing. All the while he begins receiving cryptic emails containing surveillance footage of Margot alive and well, and messages like “TELL NO ONE,” and “WE ARE BEING WATCHED.” In several interview scenes reminiscent of those in Citizen Kane, he visits friends and family, one by one, asking them to recall the events preceding her death. He soon discovers that many layers of deception and misinformation barricaded him from unveiling the truth.

“Tell No One” is gorgeous. Fluid camerawork becomes a welcomed stylistic conceit, and many scenes set in domestic interiors are shot hand-held and lit only by practicals. The mix of styles never compromises tone, as Canet is clearly aware of what works and when it works. The numerous montages, often enriched by a largely American pop soundtrack including, quite memorably, U2’s “With or Without You,” contain all the necessary elements of a prototypical sequence of the sort, swiftly edited and rife with spotless graphic match cuts. And yes, just the right number of zooms.

At times Canet and cinematographer Christophe Offenstein momentarily depart from the narrative flow to capture moving images of filmic beauty, which so happen to run parallel to the main current of action. When we first meet Alex’s sister Anne (Marina Hands), we watch her gracefully jump over hurdles on horseback, images so captivating that when Alex tells her he loves to watch her ride we're simply inclined to agree. The film is full of such welcomed respites that encourage the viewer for just a moment to reflect on the purely aesthetic.

The picture is so multifaceted that several themes emerge from the get-go. One is the examination of the relations between the different classes in French society, which is an addition to the story absent in the American novel. Another is the potential for lies and secrets -- especially those harbored among the elite, it seems – to birth a snowballing number of violent crimes. The most notable aspect of the film, however, is what it says about the authenticity and credibility of the moving image. More important than what it tells us is what it intentionally leaves out. “Tell No One” succeeds as a mystery because often the information divulged represents either a shade of the truth or downright deception. Canet makes the point, whether he means to or not, that when viewers are presented with captured moving images they are inclined to believe what is seen (given enough reason to suspend disbelief). It is this quality of cinema that allows for writhing suspense and effective plot twists. This idea is explored within the diegesis of the film as well. Margot’s presence on real time surveillance footage gives Alex enough reason to believe she is still alive. When Captain Levkowich (Francois Berléand) presents Alex with photographic evidence of Margot’s bruised body, we begin for the first time to wonder if he can be trusted, despite overwhelming evidence in his favor. The captured moment becomes for us irrefutable.

“Tell No One” is an impeccable study of the American thriller and murder mystery. Canet makes his homage to the American system clear in the opening scene, where a fluid, meandering frame sways as if dancing around a table of good friends, one with child and the others, young and in love. “Lilac Wine” by Jeff Buckley plays over warm, angelic smiles and hearty laughter. What could possibly go wrong? From then on it contains all the necessary tropes and develops them with deftness. Alex’s love for his wife is so strong and pure, and Cuzet is so affable an actor (too many people have mentioned to me that he looks like Dustin Hoffman, so I can’t leave that out), that we have little reason to question his motives. Captain Levkowich is the figure of authority sympathetic to Alex’s hopeless plight, willing to openly oppose confident claims by others of the man’s guilt. An almost skeletal woman with a knack for pressure points plays the role of an eccentric thug seeking out Margot and Alex for reasons that aren’t immediately clear. The list goes on. The film is not entirely clothed in American modus operandi, however. At times the film cuts off its soundtrack in mid-melody to affirm we are watching a carefully crafted and calculated thriller -- a product of the cutting room. Godard has not been abandoned.

In many ways, “Tell No One” is one part Big Sleep and one part The Wrong Man. It contains an insatiable and ever-twisting narrative characteristic of Chandler’s definitive novel (the Hawks film does it justice) and the craftsmanship and surging momentum of a Hitchcock picture. It doesn't strike the chord of a classic but it may be too soon to tell. What is clear however, is the skillfulness and technical proficiency of young actor-director (and co-writer) Canet and the tremendous talent of its all-star French cast.

I’ve left out quite a bit of the good stuff, so be sure to catch this great movie still playing at The Charles Theatre before it leaves the big screen for good.

“Tell No One” (French: “Ne le dis à personne”) was released in 2006 (France) and 2008 (USA). 125 minutes, 2.35:1 Aspect. Based on the 2001 novel by Harlan Cobel. Starring Francois Cluzet, Kristin Scott Thomas, Marina Hands, Marie-Josee Croze, André Dussollier. Co-written and directed by Guillaume Canet. It is his second film, following the comedy “Mon Idole” (2002).