Yowza. Contrary to what I may have said before, these guys know how to make a movie. Of course (and as always), I have my complaints (they rely too often on magical/supernatural intervention for plot propulsion), but ultimately, between their writing, their casting, their timing, and most importantly, their eye for design (they recreate the relevant reality to such a heightened degree of verisimilitude as to create purely visual comedy), they succeed at levels most filmmakers wouldn't even dare to attempt.
Contrary to popular belief, The Big Lebowski, in spite of its unbelievably brilliant cast of strange and fascinating characters, is not the best movie of all time, nor is it even the best Coen brothers film (to say this is, I realize, rather sacrilegious). This surreal-yet-real Los Angeles semi-picaresque for contemporary times could have been a perfect movie, but for two things, one being a rather silly song-and-dance dream sequence (recycled into an equally annoying full-length feature by John Turturro in Romance and Cigarettes) and the other being the narrative framing by the Stranger, a deep voiced cowboy who makes a few appearances in the middle of the story (his is the supernatural element in this film; in The Hudsucker Proxy it's the "magic negro" Moses, the clockworker; in Barton Fink it's John Goodman's character after he undergoes a change at the film's end, but I'll discuss that later, as it's a bit different. Fargo doesn't have any magical or supernatural element, and that is why it's easily the best film these brothers have made; it's cleanly real, pure of the adulteration of fantasy). The opening scenes of The Big Lebowski, during which a ball of tumbleweed rolls through the desert and into the city of Los Angeles, stopping at last on the beach, while the famous Tumbling Tumbleweeds song plays and the Stranger extemporizes on the city of Los Angeles are, to be honest, the precise kind of pretentious crap that film school students find useful. The real opening scene, though, in which the dude stands in the middle of a grocery store aisle, sticking his nose into a carton of half n' half to determine its freshness, and then purchases it, writing a check for $0.69, is completely brilliant, and sets the tone for the rest of the richly detailed brilliance that follows, which I cannot even begin to enumerate here. It can simply be said that Bridges is brilliant, Goodman is brilliant, Turturro is brilliant, Moore is brilliant, and everyone is unbelievably good. Goodman's facial hair is astounding, Moore's lines are astounding, and the smoke stains on the cracked tiles of the Dude's bathtub are astounding. The whole goddamned thing is astounding.
But it's loud. It is sown with the seeds of farce that would grow to bear this travesty; it gave other filmmakers the notion that they could take a character like Jesus Quinana and make an entire movie about him (you can't; he's only funny for ten lines of dialogue, as one of a hundred different kooks). Fargo, conversely, is quiet. What's humorous here is the room in which Norm paints his ducks, the two bobbing heads of the smushed-face prostitutes being interviewed by Police Chief Marge Gunderson (the astounding Frances McDormand), Jean Lundegaard sitting on the couch, knitting something the exact same color as her sweater while she watches late-morning television in her pajamas, moments before the dangerously inept kidnappers break into her home. William H. Macy creates something deeply distressing, a man you pity and loathe but hope for, against all odds.
That said, Barton Fink may be my favorite of the bunch, both because of personal identification with the struggling hero (a writer rudely transplanted from his native Brooklyn to the hyperweird and isolating Hollywood) and because of the film's breathtaking visuals (Barton's hotel room, with its oozing, peeling, living wallpaper, is practically a character in and of itself). John Goodman, as Charlie Meadows, Barton's neighbor and only friendly acquaintance, is a brilliantly steamy, sweaty, fat man, shifting from angry to jolly to lonely with a speed and facility shocking to behold. The man can bloody act. It's because of Goodman's brilliance, the slippery despair of his character, and the (bad-)dreaminess of the entire hotel that we are able to suspend our disbelief at the end of the film, when Goodman reappears as psycho-killer Madman Mundt and the entire hotel bursts into flames around him, flames which, like a gas stove's pilot light, continue to burn without quite destroying anything, including Barton, who finally flees with his finally-written screenplay.
The Hudsucker Proxy, a kind of capitalist fairytale, pales in comparison with these other movies, even though that's not quite fair. It suffers the most strongly for the Coen's magical inclination, but that aside, Tim Robbins and especially Jennifer Jason Leigh are flawless, the visuals (as usual) are pitch-perfect (the Hudsucker building, the Hudsucker boardroom, the Hudsucker logo, Norville Barnes' homemade prototype for the hula hoop: a plain circle printed on a yellowed, folded scrap of paper that he keeps in his shoe), and the scene in which Barnes is oriented with the mailroom is probably the greatest of its kind ever. Really, I could do without narrator/magical clock-keeper Moses and his epic battle with the lurking door painter, and without the reappearance of Mr. Hudsucker as an angel, but a fairy tale's a fairy tale, and there's no reason for me to want this movie to be as real as Fargo. So I'll quit nitpicking.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Books: Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver
It's difficult enough to write about a book of short stories, with all its diverging characters and plot lines, but Carver makes it even harder. His stories are simple and natural and perfect; there seems little to say about them, other than that they make you want to read more of them.
The title story, last in the volume, is astonishingly good. Like most of Carver's stories, it describes, in real time (however close literature can ever get to "real" time) people in a relationship at the moment of pressure (in this case, the admittance of infidelity, a common theme). But they aren't all so similar (not that I would mind if they were); there's a story about a boy's battle in a creek for a giant fish (Nobody Said Anything) and a wary letter written by an estranged mother in regard to her now-famous son (Why, Honey?). But these stories diverge from Carver's sweet spot: the feelings of a thirty- to forty-something man and/or woman who is falling apart, like the eerily awkward mother in Are You a Doctor? (one of the volume's best stories), who calls a wrong number but then insists that the man on the line come over to her apartment (and he does). The muffled despair of extreme loneliness, smoked away with cigarettes (and, in What's in Alaska?, with pot), drunk away with beer (in Night School) or buried under food (in Fat) isn't softened by another person's presence—in fact, that other person usually augments the loneliness, by not meeting the first person's needs or expectations (The Student's Wife), by illustrating plainly what is missing.
I have only one complaint, which is that Carver spells "cigarette" without the final "te," and, since his characters do an awful lot of smoking, it's a continual distraction. But if that's the biggest problem with your stories, you're doing pretty well, no?
The title story, last in the volume, is astonishingly good. Like most of Carver's stories, it describes, in real time (however close literature can ever get to "real" time) people in a relationship at the moment of pressure (in this case, the admittance of infidelity, a common theme). But they aren't all so similar (not that I would mind if they were); there's a story about a boy's battle in a creek for a giant fish (Nobody Said Anything) and a wary letter written by an estranged mother in regard to her now-famous son (Why, Honey?). But these stories diverge from Carver's sweet spot: the feelings of a thirty- to forty-something man and/or woman who is falling apart, like the eerily awkward mother in Are You a Doctor? (one of the volume's best stories), who calls a wrong number but then insists that the man on the line come over to her apartment (and he does). The muffled despair of extreme loneliness, smoked away with cigarettes (and, in What's in Alaska?, with pot), drunk away with beer (in Night School) or buried under food (in Fat) isn't softened by another person's presence—in fact, that other person usually augments the loneliness, by not meeting the first person's needs or expectations (The Student's Wife), by illustrating plainly what is missing.
I have only one complaint, which is that Carver spells "cigarette" without the final "te," and, since his characters do an awful lot of smoking, it's a continual distraction. But if that's the biggest problem with your stories, you're doing pretty well, no?
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Books: Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
When I first started reading this book, I was doing so at work, online on Project Gutenberg. I got about half through before picking up the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation at the library, and suddenly started reading a lot faster. The Garnett translation on the internet, while perfectly serviceable, gave me a book that was only slightly less tedious than War and Peace, which I fought through with a machete a few years ago (aside: now that I know there is a Pevear-Volokhonsky translation of War and Peace, I might have to read it again. Blast!) But the new translation, free of those strange and clunky anachronisms so common to translated Russian literature, feels "pure" in a way, as if we can read precisely what Tolstoy intended.
This is not to say that the novel doesn't still feel boggy in places; there are lengthy discussions about contemporary politics, the problem of the peasant, what the land-owner's role is in the countryside, and all these do draw out what could otherwise be a two- or three-hundred page romance novel. But there is enough emotion and even anguish, even in these sections having nothing to do with romance, to pull us through. The crises Tolstoy describes are, forgive my cliche, timeless. I could not help identifying with his characters, and developing weirdly strong alliances with some and against others.
Anna, for instance, I loathe. I was rather happy to see her throw herself in front of a train at the end. She's a melodramatic princess, addicted, as so many women are, to constant attention from men. Although her husband is perfectly kind and whole and a good provider (unlike, say, Emma Bovary's husband, Lady Chatterley's husband, or Undine Spragg's husband, although maybe he is a wee bit like Emma Bovary's husband, in the sense that he bores his wife terribly), she allows her head to be turned by the totally unappealing Count Vronsky, who abandons Kitty, the young girl he had previously been courting (luckily for her, because he's plain no good, and would never have married her anyway). Once she's thrown away her entire life for Vronsky, and as good as eloped with him to the countryside, leaving her supposedly beloved son behind, as well as society, which can no longer accept her, she remains neurotic and fretful, constantly worried, in spite of his obvious devotion, that the Count does not love her enough, and that he wants to marry someone else. Her extreme selfishness and lack of responsibility ultimately ruins two men's lives, three if you include that of her son (and why not add another for the daughter she has with Vronsky, for which she doesn't care at all?)
Karenin, her husband, I feel a deeply sorrowful sympathy for; his love and his trust blind him to Anna's affair at first (and perhaps some complacency, although the demarcation between trust and complacency is sometimes difficult to distinguish), and once she tells him about it (in a rather mean-spirited way, I would say), he still forgives her, even gives her free reign to do as she pleases so long as she does not disturb the household, his business. What the man lacks in passion, he makes up for with the more important prudence, and incredibly generosity.
But Karenin is not Tolstoy's ideal man (nor is, of course, the clownish cad Vronsky). Konstantin Levin, who marries Kitty after Vronsky abandons her, is the epitome of prudence, generosity, responsibility, intellect, and depth of soul. Here is a man who perhaps worries too much, is too self-conscious, and so has trouble with society's empty and expensive customs. But in the country, on his farm, he works alongside the peasants at cutting the hay. He is able to silence the raging philosophical questions inside his head by working harder (yes, like the poor horse in Animal Farm). His realization at the end of the novel is worth quoting: "When Levin thought about what he was and what he lived for, he found no answer and fell into despair; but when he stopped asking himself about it, he seemed to know what he was and what he lived for, because he acted and lived firmly and definitely." Perhaps if Anna had the opportunity to work on the farm herself, or in fact do anything laborious at all, she wouldn't have been so ripe for distraction.
This is not to say that the novel doesn't still feel boggy in places; there are lengthy discussions about contemporary politics, the problem of the peasant, what the land-owner's role is in the countryside, and all these do draw out what could otherwise be a two- or three-hundred page romance novel. But there is enough emotion and even anguish, even in these sections having nothing to do with romance, to pull us through. The crises Tolstoy describes are, forgive my cliche, timeless. I could not help identifying with his characters, and developing weirdly strong alliances with some and against others.
Anna, for instance, I loathe. I was rather happy to see her throw herself in front of a train at the end. She's a melodramatic princess, addicted, as so many women are, to constant attention from men. Although her husband is perfectly kind and whole and a good provider (unlike, say, Emma Bovary's husband, Lady Chatterley's husband, or Undine Spragg's husband, although maybe he is a wee bit like Emma Bovary's husband, in the sense that he bores his wife terribly), she allows her head to be turned by the totally unappealing Count Vronsky, who abandons Kitty, the young girl he had previously been courting (luckily for her, because he's plain no good, and would never have married her anyway). Once she's thrown away her entire life for Vronsky, and as good as eloped with him to the countryside, leaving her supposedly beloved son behind, as well as society, which can no longer accept her, she remains neurotic and fretful, constantly worried, in spite of his obvious devotion, that the Count does not love her enough, and that he wants to marry someone else. Her extreme selfishness and lack of responsibility ultimately ruins two men's lives, three if you include that of her son (and why not add another for the daughter she has with Vronsky, for which she doesn't care at all?)
Karenin, her husband, I feel a deeply sorrowful sympathy for; his love and his trust blind him to Anna's affair at first (and perhaps some complacency, although the demarcation between trust and complacency is sometimes difficult to distinguish), and once she tells him about it (in a rather mean-spirited way, I would say), he still forgives her, even gives her free reign to do as she pleases so long as she does not disturb the household, his business. What the man lacks in passion, he makes up for with the more important prudence, and incredibly generosity.
But Karenin is not Tolstoy's ideal man (nor is, of course, the clownish cad Vronsky). Konstantin Levin, who marries Kitty after Vronsky abandons her, is the epitome of prudence, generosity, responsibility, intellect, and depth of soul. Here is a man who perhaps worries too much, is too self-conscious, and so has trouble with society's empty and expensive customs. But in the country, on his farm, he works alongside the peasants at cutting the hay. He is able to silence the raging philosophical questions inside his head by working harder (yes, like the poor horse in Animal Farm). His realization at the end of the novel is worth quoting: "When Levin thought about what he was and what he lived for, he found no answer and fell into despair; but when he stopped asking himself about it, he seemed to know what he was and what he lived for, because he acted and lived firmly and definitely." Perhaps if Anna had the opportunity to work on the farm herself, or in fact do anything laborious at all, she wouldn't have been so ripe for distraction.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Movies: Vicky Cristina Barcelona
When I first saw the trailer for this film (which did not disclose Woody Allen's name, which has become something of a liability these days), I rolled my eyes and gagged and cursed the particular American sentiment that idealizes those wildly romantic Europeans. Later, I saw the poster, which did disclose Woody Allen's name, and immediately began looking for a fork to stick into my eye, knowing that I was now obligated to watch the damned thing.
And so. Two young American women, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) go to Barcelona for a liminal summer, where they meet Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a romantic artist who sweeps each one off her feet. Cristina is a romantic, unsure of what she wants, and still trying to find herself artistically (she rather reminds me of myself at sixteen, and yes, that's meant to be an insult). Vicky is the classic neurotic, highly intellectual, verbally facile, sexually frigid Woody Allen female, the Diane Keaton, if you will. She, of course, has less than no interest in Juan Antonio's proposed threesome, but he eventually cracks her hardened exterior for one romantic evening; now, although she is about to be married to the "perfect" man, she is now a lot less sure of her desires. But it's too late; Cristina, has moved in with Juan Antonio and is living the bohemian life she thinks she's been searching for. For a moment, her happiness is interrupted by the reappearance of her lover's melodramatic ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz) after a suicide attempt, but they quickly all become friends and, in fact, lovers, and Cristina begins to find herself artistically. Strangely enough, as the summer comes to a close, she realizes that she's still not happy, so she leaves them (and their relationship quickly falls apart without her there to temper their passion, which tends toward anger and violence). Vicky gets another chance with Juan Antonio, but passes it up (after a violent intervention by Maria Elena with a pistol), and in the end, both girls return to the states to continue their lives as previously planned.
It's quite a disappointment that the characters are simply type-cast cartoons sketched quickly to illustrate a kind of fantasy Allen harbors about those crazy, wild, passionate Europeans (indeed, as he said in an interview, the film could just have easily taken place in France or Italy or Greece or any such picturesque Mediterranean location). The writing is, in fact, so lazy, that, rather than illustrate each character's emotional state in their words and actions, Allen employs a narrative voice-over that seems to be reading the parts of the screenplay that aren't to be read, so simple and naive are his words (for example, when Cristina first sees Juan Antonio's paintings, the narrator says something rather like, "She looked at his paintings with excitement, and felt moved by the vivid colors and powerful brushstrokes.") Much of this narration was so ridiculous that I laughed out loud in the theater, but no one else was laughing; I'm still wondering whether it is meant to be funny (not unlike the brilliant voice-over narration on Arrested Development), perhaps in a self-deprecating way, or whether it is, indeed, just lazy, a kind of quick-and-dirty way to fill in the story between what actually amounts to a string of relationship vignettes between the various sets of lovers.
The real bugbear (as usual, in Allen's recent films), is Scarlett Johansson's inability to act; here, it rather suits her role as a young woman who desperately wants to be artistic, but completely lacks any real soul or passion. Contrasting her with the breathtaking Penélope Cruz, who steals the show in spite of having only half the screentime of her childish, blonde colleague seems to be a cruel and obvious metaphor; not only does Cristina not have the artistic passion and talent that Maria Elena has, Scarlett doesn't have the command of the screen that Penélope has. When Cristina announces to her two lovers that she is leaving, Maria Elena flies into a fit of sputtering Spanish, tossing her wild hair and raving that Cristina will never be satisfied, no matter how many people she uses. Aside from being an overstated, but perhaps fair, indictment of American culture by Woody Allen, it's an opportunity for Cruz to demonstrate, as she does throughout the film, her superiority to the rest of the female cast. Bardem, for his part, plays equally well, with a kind of melting panache in the line of Cary Grant, European-style. It's too bad, though, that his character, like the rest, is so flat.
Ultimately, this is probably Allen's best film for the decade, but that isn't saying a lot. It makes sense, and is even funny, within the context of his oeuvre, but, in and of itself, it's rather disappointing. What's worse is that, when considered against his other films, it lacks any fresh realizations. Perhaps not since the late 1980s has the man made a movie that came to new realizations, philosophically-speaking. How is it that as he gets older, he loses his wisdom?
And so. Two young American women, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) go to Barcelona for a liminal summer, where they meet Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a romantic artist who sweeps each one off her feet. Cristina is a romantic, unsure of what she wants, and still trying to find herself artistically (she rather reminds me of myself at sixteen, and yes, that's meant to be an insult). Vicky is the classic neurotic, highly intellectual, verbally facile, sexually frigid Woody Allen female, the Diane Keaton, if you will. She, of course, has less than no interest in Juan Antonio's proposed threesome, but he eventually cracks her hardened exterior for one romantic evening; now, although she is about to be married to the "perfect" man, she is now a lot less sure of her desires. But it's too late; Cristina, has moved in with Juan Antonio and is living the bohemian life she thinks she's been searching for. For a moment, her happiness is interrupted by the reappearance of her lover's melodramatic ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz) after a suicide attempt, but they quickly all become friends and, in fact, lovers, and Cristina begins to find herself artistically. Strangely enough, as the summer comes to a close, she realizes that she's still not happy, so she leaves them (and their relationship quickly falls apart without her there to temper their passion, which tends toward anger and violence). Vicky gets another chance with Juan Antonio, but passes it up (after a violent intervention by Maria Elena with a pistol), and in the end, both girls return to the states to continue their lives as previously planned.
It's quite a disappointment that the characters are simply type-cast cartoons sketched quickly to illustrate a kind of fantasy Allen harbors about those crazy, wild, passionate Europeans (indeed, as he said in an interview, the film could just have easily taken place in France or Italy or Greece or any such picturesque Mediterranean location). The writing is, in fact, so lazy, that, rather than illustrate each character's emotional state in their words and actions, Allen employs a narrative voice-over that seems to be reading the parts of the screenplay that aren't to be read, so simple and naive are his words (for example, when Cristina first sees Juan Antonio's paintings, the narrator says something rather like, "She looked at his paintings with excitement, and felt moved by the vivid colors and powerful brushstrokes.") Much of this narration was so ridiculous that I laughed out loud in the theater, but no one else was laughing; I'm still wondering whether it is meant to be funny (not unlike the brilliant voice-over narration on Arrested Development), perhaps in a self-deprecating way, or whether it is, indeed, just lazy, a kind of quick-and-dirty way to fill in the story between what actually amounts to a string of relationship vignettes between the various sets of lovers.
The real bugbear (as usual, in Allen's recent films), is Scarlett Johansson's inability to act; here, it rather suits her role as a young woman who desperately wants to be artistic, but completely lacks any real soul or passion. Contrasting her with the breathtaking Penélope Cruz, who steals the show in spite of having only half the screentime of her childish, blonde colleague seems to be a cruel and obvious metaphor; not only does Cristina not have the artistic passion and talent that Maria Elena has, Scarlett doesn't have the command of the screen that Penélope has. When Cristina announces to her two lovers that she is leaving, Maria Elena flies into a fit of sputtering Spanish, tossing her wild hair and raving that Cristina will never be satisfied, no matter how many people she uses. Aside from being an overstated, but perhaps fair, indictment of American culture by Woody Allen, it's an opportunity for Cruz to demonstrate, as she does throughout the film, her superiority to the rest of the female cast. Bardem, for his part, plays equally well, with a kind of melting panache in the line of Cary Grant, European-style. It's too bad, though, that his character, like the rest, is so flat.
Ultimately, this is probably Allen's best film for the decade, but that isn't saying a lot. It makes sense, and is even funny, within the context of his oeuvre, but, in and of itself, it's rather disappointing. What's worse is that, when considered against his other films, it lacks any fresh realizations. Perhaps not since the late 1980s has the man made a movie that came to new realizations, philosophically-speaking. How is it that as he gets older, he loses his wisdom?
Monday, August 25, 2008
Movies: Patti Smith: Dream of Life
Sometimes, I complain that documentaries about famous people are too linear. But sometimes, they can be over-impressionistic, like Steven Sebring's Patti Smith movie. Biography is summarized and done away with in the first few minutes of the picture, in Patti's plain voice layered over the diagetic sounds of a rattling train; we see the view out of its moving windows. The rest of the film continues to use this layering of sound; we see Patti singing one song, sitting on the floor of her room and strumming an old Gibson from the 1930s, but we hear her recorded voice singing a different song, for example. Almost as if the one sound wasn't enough. Which it may not be.
I knew little about Patti Smith before the movie, but don't know much more after it, except that she has a son and a daughter. What I did know I knew from watching an R.E.M. interview about their song E-Bow the Letter (perhaps my favorite-ever R.E.M. song, which features her voice). After that, I procured her album Horses (they mention it), but was kind of disappointed, or maybe just weirded out. Her voice is unquestionably stunning, far outstripping all other female voices of her generation. But her songs are not the most pristine showcases for that voice; on Horses, the trembling beauty is interrupted with spoken word (not so bad) and rhythmic shouting (not so good). I think it's safe to blame 1975 and its concomitant CBGB culture rather than Smith, though she remains completely unapologetic about being loud and visceral and angry when required.
What Sebring does is assemble ten years worth of footage from conversations, interviews, and mostly a lot of just hanging around into a lengthy montage, a kind of extended music video with some talking in between. For a fan, it is probably a whirling delight. For a curious, potentially interested listener who still needs to be convinced, it's not quite convincing.
I knew little about Patti Smith before the movie, but don't know much more after it, except that she has a son and a daughter. What I did know I knew from watching an R.E.M. interview about their song E-Bow the Letter (perhaps my favorite-ever R.E.M. song, which features her voice). After that, I procured her album Horses (they mention it), but was kind of disappointed, or maybe just weirded out. Her voice is unquestionably stunning, far outstripping all other female voices of her generation. But her songs are not the most pristine showcases for that voice; on Horses, the trembling beauty is interrupted with spoken word (not so bad) and rhythmic shouting (not so good). I think it's safe to blame 1975 and its concomitant CBGB culture rather than Smith, though she remains completely unapologetic about being loud and visceral and angry when required.
What Sebring does is assemble ten years worth of footage from conversations, interviews, and mostly a lot of just hanging around into a lengthy montage, a kind of extended music video with some talking in between. For a fan, it is probably a whirling delight. For a curious, potentially interested listener who still needs to be convinced, it's not quite convincing.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Movies: La Vérité
While some films are completely unbelievable and therefore terrible, other films, like La Vérité, and completely unbelievable but somehow still brilliant. I would blame it on Bardot, but she's acted through some stinkers, so I know it's more than that (although she is delightfully charming in this one). In fact, this movie succeeds against all odds; it's set inside a courtroom during a trial, and the story is told via flashback, narrated by the judge, who reads from a kind of deposition of Dominique's social and sexual history. The court's goal is to discern whether or not she actually loved her lover when she killed him—whether it was a crime of passion motivated by his poor treatment of her, or whether it was premeditated murder, done in cold blood to punish her hated sister Annie (to whom he became engaged after ending his relationship with Dominique, and from whom she had stolen him in the first place).
The task with which writer/director Clouzot sets the court is of course absurd, and to watch the two attorneys vie over whether Dominique was, indeed, a slut, has its own unintended comic merits. But the brilliance of the film lies mostly in its depiction of the "outsider" bohemian set into which Dominque falls when she fights with Annie, moves out of their rented room, and finds herself homeless. Her male friends all double as casual lovers (something which doesn't seem to bother her much)—the darker reality behind their funny, proto-hipster outfits and haircuts is that, if she weren't putting out, she wouldn't have any place to stay (or perhaps that, if she weren't so beautiful, they wouldn't demand that she put out).
Of course, Bardot revels in the role of sex kitten, but her desperate affection for Gilbert, who claims to see her as more (but who arguably actually does not) belies beauty's affliction. Dominique is, in a way, addicted to the constant sexual attention of men (which is why, when one drives by on a new motorcycle, she leaves the wimpy Gilbert in the gutter, hopping on for a two minute ride from which she doesn't come home until the next morning, while Gilbert has been pacing in front of her door all night). At the same time, she knows that these attentions are fleeting, and without Gilbert's "true" love, she feels unstable. His love, though, is stultifying; he's not strong enough to keep her under control, and ultimately, he only wants her for the same thing every other man does.
And so whether or not the courtroom scenario is plausible is irrelevant; the film demonstrates genuine emotions and the relationships amongst a certain social set (the bohemians, that is; not the beauties) that will always struggle for the sake of struggle.
The task with which writer/director Clouzot sets the court is of course absurd, and to watch the two attorneys vie over whether Dominique was, indeed, a slut, has its own unintended comic merits. But the brilliance of the film lies mostly in its depiction of the "outsider" bohemian set into which Dominque falls when she fights with Annie, moves out of their rented room, and finds herself homeless. Her male friends all double as casual lovers (something which doesn't seem to bother her much)—the darker reality behind their funny, proto-hipster outfits and haircuts is that, if she weren't putting out, she wouldn't have any place to stay (or perhaps that, if she weren't so beautiful, they wouldn't demand that she put out).
Of course, Bardot revels in the role of sex kitten, but her desperate affection for Gilbert, who claims to see her as more (but who arguably actually does not) belies beauty's affliction. Dominique is, in a way, addicted to the constant sexual attention of men (which is why, when one drives by on a new motorcycle, she leaves the wimpy Gilbert in the gutter, hopping on for a two minute ride from which she doesn't come home until the next morning, while Gilbert has been pacing in front of her door all night). At the same time, she knows that these attentions are fleeting, and without Gilbert's "true" love, she feels unstable. His love, though, is stultifying; he's not strong enough to keep her under control, and ultimately, he only wants her for the same thing every other man does.
And so whether or not the courtroom scenario is plausible is irrelevant; the film demonstrates genuine emotions and the relationships amongst a certain social set (the bohemians, that is; not the beauties) that will always struggle for the sake of struggle.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Writing: First Date
Caroline Childs had a date.
She was terribly excited, but she was also terribly nervous. Caroline hadn’t had a date in fourteen years. She hadn’t had sex in three, and for twelve years before that, it had always been with the same man. Her husband—ex-husband, she reminded herself—Lorenzo DeGrazie, had been carrying on an affair during the last two years of their marriage, completely behind her back, while she took their three children to and from school, cooked his mother’s Italian recipes, and kept up her figure—no small feat, considering the three children and the Italian recipes. Lorenzo, meanwhile, had gotten fat, bald, and smug, and one day he came home from the office with divorce papers.
That had been a year ago and the proceedings were at last complete. Her girlfriends at work had convinced her to have a divorce shower, complete with a gift registry, on the pretense that she hadn’t had one for her wedding (they had eloped). She registered at Bloomingdale's because, even though none of her friends were rich, she felt she deserved, for once, something nice. At the party, after drinking two cosmopolitans and approaching tears at each toast, Caroline was asked whether she had been out on any dates yet. Quickly, she said no, of course not, but after a bit of teasing, she admitted that she did have a crush. He was a single dad; she had seen him walking his daughter to school often. They lived in the same neighborhood and took the same route.
Everyone had gotten excited and asked what did he look like, what did he do, what was his name, how did she know he was single? He looked tall, dark, and handsome, ha ha, she didn’t know what he did, something with restaurants and wine—he had given her his card—his name was Eduardo, and he was single because he didn’t wear a ring, and the one time she hadn’t seen him and his daughter walking to school for a week, and then saw him again, she had asked where they had been, and he had said that his daughter had been away to her mother’s in California, where his ex-wife’s mother was sick.
But he might not be single, just because he’s not married to her any longer. He might have a girlfriend.
The girl who said that got kicked in the ankle for being negative.
But he was single, because he had, finally, after months of banter two or three mornings a week, asked her out. There was a strange coincidence, or perhaps it was just the coincidence of Spring Break, that his daughter was going to be in California again, and her children were going to be with their father’s family in Jersey. Do you like wine? he had asked her, his dark eyes drilling into hers. Ha ha, my ex-husband is Italian! she joked, before she realized that had been perhaps the wrong thing to say.
But he hadn’t minded, and now they had a date, for Saturday, which meant she had a week to get ready. She hated all of her clothes, needed a trim and a manicure, and had no idea what they would talk about over dinner. She was afraid to eat in front of him, worried that her underwear wouldn’t be sexy enough, and uncertain whether she was supposed to even let him see whether her underwear was sexy at all—though, to be honest, she didn’t think she’d be able to help herself. It had been so long. She was ready to just invite him over to her house for cocktails, but all the girls at work said no, no no, you can’t do that.
The girls at work were very helpful, in fact. They told her all sorts of things she hadn’t any idea about. One girl, in her twenties, told her that she had to, absolutely had to, have a Brazilian bikini wax if she was even considering letting him see her in her underwear. Caroline was comfortable with her body and ran on a treadmill at the gym every day, but she had never had anything waxed, and had never done anything at all to her personal hair, except soap it in the shower. She had seen some of the younger women at the gym with all kinds of strange configurations—disturbingly neat triangles, the stripes that Cosmo called “mohawks,” and even perfectly hairless mounds that looked as chilly as the Roman statues at the Met. But she had never thought that any of that was an option for her, she just hadn’t even considered it.
The girls asked her even stranger, more personal questions. Did she have vibrating condoms at hand? Flavored lubricant? They told her to go downtown to a store called Toys In Babeland and buy a butt plug. He’s European. He might like that. Caroline was horrified. She didn’t even know such a thing existed. No wonder Lorenzo had left her for another woman; he was European, too! (Eduardo, it turns out, was South American, but no difference.) They asked her what she did for birth control, and she laughed and said nothing; one of the girls, in a stall of the ladies’ room, showed her how to use her mouth to put a condom on a banana, which she had then eaten for lunch. I do it every time I go out with a new guy; it drives them wild! Caroline mustered a grimace that the girl thankfully took for a smile of gratitude. It’s gonna be great! she promised.
And now, the time had come. For her date. For her first date in fourteen years.
Caroline took a deep breath, tucking her hair behind her ears and locking the door behind her. She had done it all: the manicure, the trim, even the wax; she had bought a new black dress, a new kind of perfume, and opened a fresh package of nylons. In her bedroom closet was a discreet paper bag containing condoms, lubricant, and a strange, silicone cork still in its packaging—that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to touch, although she did find her waxed area strangely thrilling.
At the bar, Eduardo was a perfect gentleman. They were having a pre-dinner drink—martinis, rather than wine—and he told her about his business and his country and his life. He had traveled all over the world. Caroline smiled and sipped her martini, blinking her eyes up at him and wondering whether he would want to kiss her, or if she had done all that work for nothing. After she finished her drink, he ordered her another one, even though she told him she didn’t need it—she was feeling terribly tipsy. In fact, she wasn’t feeling very good at all. She needed to go to the bathroom, but she was afraid to stand up, she felt so tipsy. In fact, the table seemed to be falling away from her hands, first on one side, then on the other. She held onto the sides of it tightly, then let go because she was afraid he would see. He kept talking and smiling, his dark eyes drilling down into her. I think, she said, I think I need some fresh air. He helped her up and walked her out. She could barely pick up her feet. She could barely look out of her eyes in front of her. Everything was spinning. His arm was hot around her. Then, she was holding her key, and trying to put it in the lock of her door, but the hole was so small; she couldn’t find it. He took her key from her and opened the door, half-carrying her inside. Do you want a drink? he asked as they stepped into her apartment; she shook her head no and collapsed on the couch. Then he was upon her, like a panther, his body muscled and dark over hers, his tongue down her throat, his hands searching for a zipper. The couch swung wildly underneath her, first one way, then the other. Stop, she said, stop, I feel sick, and somehow, she pushed him—pushed him up, off of her, and out the door, locking it. So sick, she said, to no one, and ran to the sink where she puked and puked. So tired, so sick and so tired, and she dropped right there on the kitchen floor, and slept, until Monday afternoon, waking, maybe, she couldn’t remember, to pee and to puke, since she woke up in the bathroom, her head on the toilet seat. She thought it was Sunday, until she saw her answering machine flashing a message—her boss, wondering where she was.
Oh shit, oh shit. Without wondering what had happened, she took a hot shower and opened the closet to find something to wear. That was when she saw the brown paper bag, sitting where she had left it.
She was terribly excited, but she was also terribly nervous. Caroline hadn’t had a date in fourteen years. She hadn’t had sex in three, and for twelve years before that, it had always been with the same man. Her husband—ex-husband, she reminded herself—Lorenzo DeGrazie, had been carrying on an affair during the last two years of their marriage, completely behind her back, while she took their three children to and from school, cooked his mother’s Italian recipes, and kept up her figure—no small feat, considering the three children and the Italian recipes. Lorenzo, meanwhile, had gotten fat, bald, and smug, and one day he came home from the office with divorce papers.
That had been a year ago and the proceedings were at last complete. Her girlfriends at work had convinced her to have a divorce shower, complete with a gift registry, on the pretense that she hadn’t had one for her wedding (they had eloped). She registered at Bloomingdale's because, even though none of her friends were rich, she felt she deserved, for once, something nice. At the party, after drinking two cosmopolitans and approaching tears at each toast, Caroline was asked whether she had been out on any dates yet. Quickly, she said no, of course not, but after a bit of teasing, she admitted that she did have a crush. He was a single dad; she had seen him walking his daughter to school often. They lived in the same neighborhood and took the same route.
Everyone had gotten excited and asked what did he look like, what did he do, what was his name, how did she know he was single? He looked tall, dark, and handsome, ha ha, she didn’t know what he did, something with restaurants and wine—he had given her his card—his name was Eduardo, and he was single because he didn’t wear a ring, and the one time she hadn’t seen him and his daughter walking to school for a week, and then saw him again, she had asked where they had been, and he had said that his daughter had been away to her mother’s in California, where his ex-wife’s mother was sick.
But he might not be single, just because he’s not married to her any longer. He might have a girlfriend.
The girl who said that got kicked in the ankle for being negative.
But he was single, because he had, finally, after months of banter two or three mornings a week, asked her out. There was a strange coincidence, or perhaps it was just the coincidence of Spring Break, that his daughter was going to be in California again, and her children were going to be with their father’s family in Jersey. Do you like wine? he had asked her, his dark eyes drilling into hers. Ha ha, my ex-husband is Italian! she joked, before she realized that had been perhaps the wrong thing to say.
But he hadn’t minded, and now they had a date, for Saturday, which meant she had a week to get ready. She hated all of her clothes, needed a trim and a manicure, and had no idea what they would talk about over dinner. She was afraid to eat in front of him, worried that her underwear wouldn’t be sexy enough, and uncertain whether she was supposed to even let him see whether her underwear was sexy at all—though, to be honest, she didn’t think she’d be able to help herself. It had been so long. She was ready to just invite him over to her house for cocktails, but all the girls at work said no, no no, you can’t do that.
The girls at work were very helpful, in fact. They told her all sorts of things she hadn’t any idea about. One girl, in her twenties, told her that she had to, absolutely had to, have a Brazilian bikini wax if she was even considering letting him see her in her underwear. Caroline was comfortable with her body and ran on a treadmill at the gym every day, but she had never had anything waxed, and had never done anything at all to her personal hair, except soap it in the shower. She had seen some of the younger women at the gym with all kinds of strange configurations—disturbingly neat triangles, the stripes that Cosmo called “mohawks,” and even perfectly hairless mounds that looked as chilly as the Roman statues at the Met. But she had never thought that any of that was an option for her, she just hadn’t even considered it.
The girls asked her even stranger, more personal questions. Did she have vibrating condoms at hand? Flavored lubricant? They told her to go downtown to a store called Toys In Babeland and buy a butt plug. He’s European. He might like that. Caroline was horrified. She didn’t even know such a thing existed. No wonder Lorenzo had left her for another woman; he was European, too! (Eduardo, it turns out, was South American, but no difference.) They asked her what she did for birth control, and she laughed and said nothing; one of the girls, in a stall of the ladies’ room, showed her how to use her mouth to put a condom on a banana, which she had then eaten for lunch. I do it every time I go out with a new guy; it drives them wild! Caroline mustered a grimace that the girl thankfully took for a smile of gratitude. It’s gonna be great! she promised.
And now, the time had come. For her date. For her first date in fourteen years.
Caroline took a deep breath, tucking her hair behind her ears and locking the door behind her. She had done it all: the manicure, the trim, even the wax; she had bought a new black dress, a new kind of perfume, and opened a fresh package of nylons. In her bedroom closet was a discreet paper bag containing condoms, lubricant, and a strange, silicone cork still in its packaging—that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to touch, although she did find her waxed area strangely thrilling.
At the bar, Eduardo was a perfect gentleman. They were having a pre-dinner drink—martinis, rather than wine—and he told her about his business and his country and his life. He had traveled all over the world. Caroline smiled and sipped her martini, blinking her eyes up at him and wondering whether he would want to kiss her, or if she had done all that work for nothing. After she finished her drink, he ordered her another one, even though she told him she didn’t need it—she was feeling terribly tipsy. In fact, she wasn’t feeling very good at all. She needed to go to the bathroom, but she was afraid to stand up, she felt so tipsy. In fact, the table seemed to be falling away from her hands, first on one side, then on the other. She held onto the sides of it tightly, then let go because she was afraid he would see. He kept talking and smiling, his dark eyes drilling down into her. I think, she said, I think I need some fresh air. He helped her up and walked her out. She could barely pick up her feet. She could barely look out of her eyes in front of her. Everything was spinning. His arm was hot around her. Then, she was holding her key, and trying to put it in the lock of her door, but the hole was so small; she couldn’t find it. He took her key from her and opened the door, half-carrying her inside. Do you want a drink? he asked as they stepped into her apartment; she shook her head no and collapsed on the couch. Then he was upon her, like a panther, his body muscled and dark over hers, his tongue down her throat, his hands searching for a zipper. The couch swung wildly underneath her, first one way, then the other. Stop, she said, stop, I feel sick, and somehow, she pushed him—pushed him up, off of her, and out the door, locking it. So sick, she said, to no one, and ran to the sink where she puked and puked. So tired, so sick and so tired, and she dropped right there on the kitchen floor, and slept, until Monday afternoon, waking, maybe, she couldn’t remember, to pee and to puke, since she woke up in the bathroom, her head on the toilet seat. She thought it was Sunday, until she saw her answering machine flashing a message—her boss, wondering where she was.
Oh shit, oh shit. Without wondering what had happened, she took a hot shower and opened the closet to find something to wear. That was when she saw the brown paper bag, sitting where she had left it.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Movies: La Cérémonie and Les Blessures Assassines (Murderous Maids)
These two ultra-weird movies were aptly paired but perhaps inappropriately included in Film Forum's current French Crime Wave series. The crimes they depict are, I will argue, unmotivated. Additionally, the films are fairly recent (1995 and 2000, respectively), and not modern classics by anyone's measure, whereas films like Rififi and Le Cercle Rouge are canonical.
La Cérémonie features Sandrine Bonnaire as Sophie, the new maid at the Lelievre's country estate. This wealthy family of four (an ex-model, an older father, and a teenaged son and daughter) treats her with respect enough, taking her into town for eyeglasses when she claims to need them, and offering to pay for lessons when they find out she doesn't know how to drive. And yet, she hides from them the fact that she can't read (although they would, of course, have paid for lessons for that too) and comes under the influence of dangerously kooky Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), the postal clerk who has a personal vendetta against the male head of the Lelievre household. A number of very small incidents, all related to Sophie's illiteracy, snowball until she is fired, and when Jeanne comes over one night to help her pack her things, the two women arm themselves with Mr. Lelievre's hunting rifles and shoot dead the entire family, who had been peacefully watching a Mozart opera on television. If that seems rather out of the blue, then I've captured the moment perfectly. The only worthwhile bit of the film is the closing credit sequence; driving from the scene of the crime, Jeanne's car is broadsided and she dies immediately. Sophie runs out and witnesses the wreck, to which the police have already arrived. The boombox on which the Lelievre's daughter had been recording the Mozart opera, which Jeanne had decided to take home with her, is found in the car by a covetous cop, who happens to press the right button and issue an audio playback of the murder. We almost get the feeling that, like the master painter of a Renaissance workshop, the usually fantastic Chabrol only showed up at the very end of the filmmaking process, placing his signature there at the credits without having had a hand in the rest of the nonsense.
We have an equally random, and even more barbaric, murder of employers in Murderous Maids, in which Sylvie Testud plays Christine Papin, an inexplicably high-strung young woman who loathes her sometimes-whoring mother and is desperate to rescue her fourteen year old sister Léa (Julie-Marie Parmentier) from her clutches. Ironically, she takes Léa right into her bed, where they engage in artistic, nude embraces and bite their bottom lips in painful pleasure. I'm certain that there are feminists (and film critics and historians and psychologists) aplenty who would argue that this behavior is totally feasible given the repressive environment in which the sisters find themselves, where they have no privacy, no tenderness, and no sexual outlet, and in which Christine was most likely sexually abused as a child by one of her mother's men. But I am sticking with my bourgeois point of view that this sexual relationship is absurd. It doesn't offend me; I merely find it ridiculous. The head of household here is far less gracious than La Cérémonie's Lelievres, but even her surprise intrusion on the sister's romantic evening, during which they share crepes, naked in bed, doesn't warrant the sudden, brutal death that Christine inflicts upon her (and her present daughter!), with a pewter jug (the closest thing at hand). Nor does it warrant the mutilation wreaked on their bodies by Christine and the now-present Léa, who slice them up with kitchen knives. The sisters are quickly caught (they do not try to hide) and sent to prison, where Christine madly screams for her sister (locked in a separate cell) for days, until the guards bring Léa to her. The older sister, by now clearly insane, claws and smothers the younger, who tries to squirm away, and the guards separate them again. The screen goes black and we're told that Christine, though sentenced to death, died after four years on a commuted life sentence, and that Léa returned to live with her mother, not dying until the year the film was made (without her knowledge or consent). Though the movie is marketed as "a true story," I'm rather doubtful as to its veracity.
A critic with a Marxist bent would be happy to say that these films punish their upper-class characters for their complicity in a destructive social order, and might even propose that my sympathy for the holders of power and money is merely a bourgeois identification with that which I desire. But I would say that these women are emotional basketcases who desperately need therapy and/or yoga, and that these filmmakers need to work a bit harder on generating sympathy for their dark heroines. Why is Sophie so naive and awkward, and why is she so defensive about her (frankly, not all that horrible) deficiency? Why is Jeanne such a roustabout (the backstory about her dead daughter doesn't explain it at all; in fact, it only opens another can of worms). Why doesn't Christine warm to the attentions of the young man at the country house if she is so starved for attention, and, if its because she hates men because of a bad sexual experience in her childhood, why would she open the too-young Léa to sexual experiences, rather than preserve her innocence? None of these women's actions, from the very beginning of each film, make very much sense at all, and therefore, I cannot identify with, feel sorry for, or care about their troubles.
La Cérémonie features Sandrine Bonnaire as Sophie, the new maid at the Lelievre's country estate. This wealthy family of four (an ex-model, an older father, and a teenaged son and daughter) treats her with respect enough, taking her into town for eyeglasses when she claims to need them, and offering to pay for lessons when they find out she doesn't know how to drive. And yet, she hides from them the fact that she can't read (although they would, of course, have paid for lessons for that too) and comes under the influence of dangerously kooky Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), the postal clerk who has a personal vendetta against the male head of the Lelievre household. A number of very small incidents, all related to Sophie's illiteracy, snowball until she is fired, and when Jeanne comes over one night to help her pack her things, the two women arm themselves with Mr. Lelievre's hunting rifles and shoot dead the entire family, who had been peacefully watching a Mozart opera on television. If that seems rather out of the blue, then I've captured the moment perfectly. The only worthwhile bit of the film is the closing credit sequence; driving from the scene of the crime, Jeanne's car is broadsided and she dies immediately. Sophie runs out and witnesses the wreck, to which the police have already arrived. The boombox on which the Lelievre's daughter had been recording the Mozart opera, which Jeanne had decided to take home with her, is found in the car by a covetous cop, who happens to press the right button and issue an audio playback of the murder. We almost get the feeling that, like the master painter of a Renaissance workshop, the usually fantastic Chabrol only showed up at the very end of the filmmaking process, placing his signature there at the credits without having had a hand in the rest of the nonsense.
We have an equally random, and even more barbaric, murder of employers in Murderous Maids, in which Sylvie Testud plays Christine Papin, an inexplicably high-strung young woman who loathes her sometimes-whoring mother and is desperate to rescue her fourteen year old sister Léa (Julie-Marie Parmentier) from her clutches. Ironically, she takes Léa right into her bed, where they engage in artistic, nude embraces and bite their bottom lips in painful pleasure. I'm certain that there are feminists (and film critics and historians and psychologists) aplenty who would argue that this behavior is totally feasible given the repressive environment in which the sisters find themselves, where they have no privacy, no tenderness, and no sexual outlet, and in which Christine was most likely sexually abused as a child by one of her mother's men. But I am sticking with my bourgeois point of view that this sexual relationship is absurd. It doesn't offend me; I merely find it ridiculous. The head of household here is far less gracious than La Cérémonie's Lelievres, but even her surprise intrusion on the sister's romantic evening, during which they share crepes, naked in bed, doesn't warrant the sudden, brutal death that Christine inflicts upon her (and her present daughter!), with a pewter jug (the closest thing at hand). Nor does it warrant the mutilation wreaked on their bodies by Christine and the now-present Léa, who slice them up with kitchen knives. The sisters are quickly caught (they do not try to hide) and sent to prison, where Christine madly screams for her sister (locked in a separate cell) for days, until the guards bring Léa to her. The older sister, by now clearly insane, claws and smothers the younger, who tries to squirm away, and the guards separate them again. The screen goes black and we're told that Christine, though sentenced to death, died after four years on a commuted life sentence, and that Léa returned to live with her mother, not dying until the year the film was made (without her knowledge or consent). Though the movie is marketed as "a true story," I'm rather doubtful as to its veracity.
A critic with a Marxist bent would be happy to say that these films punish their upper-class characters for their complicity in a destructive social order, and might even propose that my sympathy for the holders of power and money is merely a bourgeois identification with that which I desire. But I would say that these women are emotional basketcases who desperately need therapy and/or yoga, and that these filmmakers need to work a bit harder on generating sympathy for their dark heroines. Why is Sophie so naive and awkward, and why is she so defensive about her (frankly, not all that horrible) deficiency? Why is Jeanne such a roustabout (the backstory about her dead daughter doesn't explain it at all; in fact, it only opens another can of worms). Why doesn't Christine warm to the attentions of the young man at the country house if she is so starved for attention, and, if its because she hates men because of a bad sexual experience in her childhood, why would she open the too-young Léa to sexual experiences, rather than preserve her innocence? None of these women's actions, from the very beginning of each film, make very much sense at all, and therefore, I cannot identify with, feel sorry for, or care about their troubles.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Movies: War Child
This is one of the most awkward documentaries I've ever seen (right up there with Zoo), but it manages, as all tales of Sudanese Lost Boys and/or Child Soldiers must, to tear you apart in spite of itself. The story is that of Emmanuel Jal, a boy about my age who now lives in the U.K., where he raps about his childhood; his performances make up a large portion of the footage. The rest is of Sudan, both in 2008, when Jal goes back to see the family he's been separated from for more than 15 years, and in the late 80s, when Jal was the children's spokesman for visiting international aid volunteers.
It's interesting to compare one child soldier's perspective with that of another lost boy's; in What is the What, Achak Deng is hardly a fan of the SPLA, but Jal's relationship with the rebel army is a bit more ambivalent. His father joined them, and then he did too. He explains how the refugee camps doubled as training grounds for the rebel army (as Deng describes as well). All of the Sudan-based footage, interviews, and narration are excellent. What's awkward is Jal's hip hop career and the excessive inclusion of it in the film. Watching Jal stand on a stage and rap about his brutal childhood while a bunch of white people are smiling and dancing in the audience is very, very surreal, and certain songs (like one in which Jal over-extends the metaphor of Africa as a country being raped by Western interests, repeating "vagina" again and again in the refrain) exacerbate this surreality—as if we were watching a comedic skit from Fear of a Black Hat rather than a documentary about a serious international crisis. But Jal is an amazing storyteller, perhaps in spite of himself (we see that talent even in the footage of his childhood interviews).
It's interesting to compare one child soldier's perspective with that of another lost boy's; in What is the What, Achak Deng is hardly a fan of the SPLA, but Jal's relationship with the rebel army is a bit more ambivalent. His father joined them, and then he did too. He explains how the refugee camps doubled as training grounds for the rebel army (as Deng describes as well). All of the Sudan-based footage, interviews, and narration are excellent. What's awkward is Jal's hip hop career and the excessive inclusion of it in the film. Watching Jal stand on a stage and rap about his brutal childhood while a bunch of white people are smiling and dancing in the audience is very, very surreal, and certain songs (like one in which Jal over-extends the metaphor of Africa as a country being raped by Western interests, repeating "vagina" again and again in the refrain) exacerbate this surreality—as if we were watching a comedic skit from Fear of a Black Hat rather than a documentary about a serious international crisis. But Jal is an amazing storyteller, perhaps in spite of himself (we see that talent even in the footage of his childhood interviews).
Monday, August 18, 2008
Movies: Le Cercle Rouge
Jean-Pierre Melville has disappointed me every time thus far (Army of Shadows and Le Doulos), so I don't know why I expected the critically-acclaimed Le Cercle Rouge to be any better than his other critically-acclaimed films. Like Army of Shadows, it's all gray and brown and dreary blue, as if the studio forced him to shoot color against his will (Le Doulos, in black and white, looks a lot snappier). Also like Army of Shadows, it's a bit too long, and extremely quiet. But while keeping actors quiet works for some directors (if we're comparing talk-free French jewel heists, Dassin does it best in Rififi), Melville's edits lack the visual dynamism necessary to keep an audience engaged through the actors' silence. In his slow, drab sequences, there is little to cling to, which leads me to Gian Maria Volontè's performance as escaped convict Vogel, for he is the only one to draw us in.
When the film opens, Vogel is cuffed to the upper berth in a train, supervised by police inspector Mattei (André Bourvil) in the bottom bunk. Vogel makes a rather stunning break by picking the lock of his cuffs and then kicking out the train window, leaping through the broken glass while the train is in full motion. He runs madly through the woods, and we never suspect that he'll make it past Mattei's immediately instigated dragnet, but he throws the dogs off his scent by crossing a river, and when he gets out onto the road, he hides in the trunk of a car parked at a restaurant. It's only mere luck that the car he picked belongs to Corey (the icy, ultra-French Alain Delon), a convict himself, released from prison that morning, at which time he robbed an old enemy at gunpoint and then purchased said vehicle with some of the money. Corey sees Vogel getting into his trunk (where he happens to have left some guns), and he drives out into a deserted, muddy field to confront the man. He shows Vogel his release papers from prison, and they share a smoke. Luck gets them through the dragnet, and they drive onto Paris, to Corey's old apartment. Here, Corey lets Vogel in on a job he's planning: a jewel heist.
The shop they are planning to hit has just installed a new, electronic safe/alarm system (rather evolved next to the alarm system featured in Rififi, but one that the cast of Ocean's Eleven would sneeze at). To break in, they need an excellent marksman, and Vogel has a connection with a bad cop who's a great shot. Corey calls him on the phone to set up a meeting, and we see Jansen (Yves Montand) at home when the phone rings in the film's only, but very, psychedelic sequence; the man is in bed, sweating and shaking, staring at an opened secret door in the striped wallpaper, out of which lizards, snakes, and rats wriggle and thump across the floor, up onto his bed, and into his face. He seems to be suffering from Heroin withdrawal, and so, later, once he's shaven and showered, met with Corey, and agreed to do the job, when we see him back in his room, wearing a suit, measuring and weighing curious substances, and melting them in a crucible, we are surprised to see that he is molding his own bullet. This bullet will be of the precise combinations of metals that, from the combined heat of the gun and its impact with the alarm system's keyhole, it will melt into and release the lock, instantly leaving all of the jewel cases open for the thieves to plunder. The heist goes off without a hitch.
As in Rififi, it's the translation of the jewels into cash through the fence that creates the problem. The fence Corey originally chose backs out of the deal, and he's forced to go to nightclub proprietor Santi (François Périer) for a connection to another fence. Meanwhile, Mattei has been putting pressure on Santi to help him find Vogel, for the business man has strong connections to the mob and all the Parisian crime scene. Santi continues to refuse until Mattei brings his teenaged son in on marijuana charges; he then yields, and when Corey comes to him for a connection with a fence, he provides Mattei, in an improbably disguise consisting of sunglasses and a pinky ring. Corey takes the bait, though, and drives the jewels out to the country estate Mattei has named, telling Vogel to stay at home. Vogel's sixth sense refuses, though, so he follows Corey out to the estate; the moment he walks in and sees Mattei, he tells Corey to grab the jewels and run. He runs too. Mattei, and the hundred-odd officers lying in wait run after; both thieves are shot down. Jansen, on the scene as well, and back on the side of the law, is accidentally shot dead by Mattei, thus proving his strange, misanthropic commissioner's preemptive accusation (at the film's beginning, when Mattei is called in for losing Vogel, the commissioner insists that all men are guilty).
This seems a tidy conclusion; all men are guilty, all men are dead, crime doesn't pay, etc. But there are a number of strange loose ends that remain unresolved. What exactly was going on in Jansen's apartment with all of those creatures? He cleans up too quickly to have had a real problem. And what is going on with Mattei at his apartment? Twice we see him come home to his three cats, going through his routine of removing his hat and coat, opening the taps of the bathtub, and placing a dish of food from the refrigerator onto the middle of the kitchen floor for the animals. The second time he comes home, the third cat is slow to appear, and ominous music plays while the camera zooms in on the food dish. We are certain the camera will swing around to reveal a murdered feline, but nothing comes of it. And finally, what of the strange tenderness between Corey and Vogel? In the final scene in Corey's apartment, before he leaves to meet Mattei, they share a moment weirdly tender, even lover-like, and after Corey leaves, Vogel makes his decision to follow while fingering a red rose (brought home by Corey from his initial meeting with Mattei at Santi's). Perhaps I'm overreading, or perhaps Melville was just sloppy; why would he plant these seeds and then leave them unattended?
When the film opens, Vogel is cuffed to the upper berth in a train, supervised by police inspector Mattei (André Bourvil) in the bottom bunk. Vogel makes a rather stunning break by picking the lock of his cuffs and then kicking out the train window, leaping through the broken glass while the train is in full motion. He runs madly through the woods, and we never suspect that he'll make it past Mattei's immediately instigated dragnet, but he throws the dogs off his scent by crossing a river, and when he gets out onto the road, he hides in the trunk of a car parked at a restaurant. It's only mere luck that the car he picked belongs to Corey (the icy, ultra-French Alain Delon), a convict himself, released from prison that morning, at which time he robbed an old enemy at gunpoint and then purchased said vehicle with some of the money. Corey sees Vogel getting into his trunk (where he happens to have left some guns), and he drives out into a deserted, muddy field to confront the man. He shows Vogel his release papers from prison, and they share a smoke. Luck gets them through the dragnet, and they drive onto Paris, to Corey's old apartment. Here, Corey lets Vogel in on a job he's planning: a jewel heist.
The shop they are planning to hit has just installed a new, electronic safe/alarm system (rather evolved next to the alarm system featured in Rififi, but one that the cast of Ocean's Eleven would sneeze at). To break in, they need an excellent marksman, and Vogel has a connection with a bad cop who's a great shot. Corey calls him on the phone to set up a meeting, and we see Jansen (Yves Montand) at home when the phone rings in the film's only, but very, psychedelic sequence; the man is in bed, sweating and shaking, staring at an opened secret door in the striped wallpaper, out of which lizards, snakes, and rats wriggle and thump across the floor, up onto his bed, and into his face. He seems to be suffering from Heroin withdrawal, and so, later, once he's shaven and showered, met with Corey, and agreed to do the job, when we see him back in his room, wearing a suit, measuring and weighing curious substances, and melting them in a crucible, we are surprised to see that he is molding his own bullet. This bullet will be of the precise combinations of metals that, from the combined heat of the gun and its impact with the alarm system's keyhole, it will melt into and release the lock, instantly leaving all of the jewel cases open for the thieves to plunder. The heist goes off without a hitch.
As in Rififi, it's the translation of the jewels into cash through the fence that creates the problem. The fence Corey originally chose backs out of the deal, and he's forced to go to nightclub proprietor Santi (François Périer) for a connection to another fence. Meanwhile, Mattei has been putting pressure on Santi to help him find Vogel, for the business man has strong connections to the mob and all the Parisian crime scene. Santi continues to refuse until Mattei brings his teenaged son in on marijuana charges; he then yields, and when Corey comes to him for a connection with a fence, he provides Mattei, in an improbably disguise consisting of sunglasses and a pinky ring. Corey takes the bait, though, and drives the jewels out to the country estate Mattei has named, telling Vogel to stay at home. Vogel's sixth sense refuses, though, so he follows Corey out to the estate; the moment he walks in and sees Mattei, he tells Corey to grab the jewels and run. He runs too. Mattei, and the hundred-odd officers lying in wait run after; both thieves are shot down. Jansen, on the scene as well, and back on the side of the law, is accidentally shot dead by Mattei, thus proving his strange, misanthropic commissioner's preemptive accusation (at the film's beginning, when Mattei is called in for losing Vogel, the commissioner insists that all men are guilty).
This seems a tidy conclusion; all men are guilty, all men are dead, crime doesn't pay, etc. But there are a number of strange loose ends that remain unresolved. What exactly was going on in Jansen's apartment with all of those creatures? He cleans up too quickly to have had a real problem. And what is going on with Mattei at his apartment? Twice we see him come home to his three cats, going through his routine of removing his hat and coat, opening the taps of the bathtub, and placing a dish of food from the refrigerator onto the middle of the kitchen floor for the animals. The second time he comes home, the third cat is slow to appear, and ominous music plays while the camera zooms in on the food dish. We are certain the camera will swing around to reveal a murdered feline, but nothing comes of it. And finally, what of the strange tenderness between Corey and Vogel? In the final scene in Corey's apartment, before he leaves to meet Mattei, they share a moment weirdly tender, even lover-like, and after Corey leaves, Vogel makes his decision to follow while fingering a red rose (brought home by Corey from his initial meeting with Mattei at Santi's). Perhaps I'm overreading, or perhaps Melville was just sloppy; why would he plant these seeds and then leave them unattended?
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