Thracian dawg's reviews

Page contents: Porco Rosso (1992) / Melancholia (2011) / Seven Beauties (1975) / Monsieur Lazhar (2011) / Smile (1975) / Young Adult (2011) / Walking and Talking (1996) / The skin I live in (2011) / Army of shadows (1969) / Gasland (2010)


It's been a while since I've seen Le Samourai and Le Cercle Rouge, so I only have vague recollections. I'll have to rewatch them again to form more of an opinion. As for Army Of Shadows, I haven't seen it yet. I know it's supposed to be one of his best, so I'm kind of saving it for a rainy day.

Porco Rosso (1992) - Miyazaki

This tumult in the clouds

The set-up? Marco Rosselini, known to some as "the Crimson Pig" but known to all as Porco Rosso; is the scourge of all pirates operating in the Adriatic sea during the late 20's. He's a bounty hunter who supplies protection to private citizens and companies. His dominance in the sky has so infuriated the local underworld gang that they've hired a fighter pilot from America to blow his little red sea plane out of the skies once and for all.

There's lots of references to other genres and aviation films. The young American "gunslinger" who wants to make himself a quick reputation from Porco. There's a definite Casablanca vibe here. Porco has become a hard bitten cynic, who sticks his neck out for no one. Where have I heard that before? He also appears to be around the same age as Rick.

The film has a nice motif of havens and sanctuaries. Gina's apolitical night club is a place where the authorities and the underworld rub amiable and crooked elbows. Porco's own hideout is a secluded, idyllic island in a sea of blue. Fio (Porco's feisty new mechanic) mentions, when pilots return from the sky they are restored by the experience, like flying is good for the soul.

There's a vague allusion to desperate times. The pile of money he dumps on the desk for his new airplane seems at first a colossal fortune, but due to spiraling inflation it's almost worthless. All the men have abandoned the city looking a decent paycheck elsewhere, and only women are left to repair his plane.

The dangers of conformity. Although once a pilot and war hero for Italy, Porco is now a hunted by this same nation, refusing to go along with the hard right turn. He prefers to be a pig without values, without a patriotic bone in his body, motivated only by money.

Porco Rosso is careful not to live by the sword. When he catches the pirates, he allows them to hold back enough of the loot to restore their plane to working order, reflecting his live and let live philosophy. Above all, this is a dangerous world where life is fragile. Which parallels a similar melancholy pain in the chanteuse, Gina. She's lost all of her pilot husbands in accidents. When Porco shows up at her cafe the first night, she mentions she's just gotten notice, after three long years of waiting, the authorities have identified some remains at a crash site as that of her third husband. She's going to have to wait some more.

And lastly, his metamorphosis into a pig seems highly subjective. It comes from out of the last great air battles in the dwindling months of the first world war where he was the soul survivor; he entered this great dogfight a human, but exited it a pig. If not suffering from PTSD he certainly seems to be carrying a heavy load of survivor guilt. This is also delightfully passive, suggesting personal loss as the root of his troubles, however he's probably more traumatized by the amount of killing he did and that, has transformed him into a beast.



There's little moments of poetry. A faraway plane glints in the sunlight. A vapor trail that turns out to be dead pilots of all nationalities cruising peacefully in heaven. The new engine for his retooled airplane is of course, a Ghibili. The plane's color is muted inside the shop, but once outside, it brightens in the sunlight. The engine looks vaguely animal perched on the top of his plane with it's suggestive maw and frog-like eyes.
　
There's also some inspired silliness. The sailors make a living arrow on the deck of the cruise ship pointing to where the bad guys went. The kidnapped school girls are allowed to play in a cargo hold filled with grenades, machine guns and sea mines. The "no credit" sign hung on the wall of repair shop. When Curtis, the American pilot jumps from a cliff, he sticks his landing and like gymnasts do when flung a little too harshly from the parallel bars, he does a little hop forward.

The film is quick to remove anything that would frighten or trouble a child, but I think the optimal viewing age seems to be north of childhood, way north. The film was originally designed to have been a short in flight movie on a Japan Airlines, the target audience being middle aged businessmen heading into murky international waters or returning home. This seems correct, real life is suggested in countless ways and the horrors of war and emotional trauma intrude seamlessly into this fantasy world.

"For your listening pleasure"




Melancholia (2011) - Von Trier

A tale of two sisters

Part one: Justine. The white stretch limo conveying the newlyweds to her brother-in-law's estate can't navigate the twisting narrow dirt road, so they have to hoof it to the mansion. They show up hours late for their own wedding reception. Things deteriorate from there. Her sister Claire is constantly hovering and solicitous---she warns Justine to buck up, which paradoxically seems to prime her listlessness in the proceedings even further.

Although Kirsten Dunst was given the best actress award at Cannes; I actually preferred Charlotte Gainsbourg's much more immediate and emotional performance over Dunst's is hugely internal dishevel.

There's immediate hints Justine's upbringing that have something to do with her dysfunction. Her mom and dad are divorced. Her mother is crusty and brutally honest with everyone, almost snappish. Her Dad spends the whole evening working on a possible menage à trois. Her wealthy brother-in-law constantly whines he's paid for this fiasco as a wedding gift to her. Her employer is rather adamant she finish an ad campaign before leaving on her honeymoon. Whew! What's a girl to do?

Part two. A couple days later. Justine returns, as it were to the scene of the crime, her sister's mansion. She is now in the blackest depths of depression. She needs help merely to make it into bed. This time, we discover chinks in Claire's emotional armour. There's a scene when the power goes out and there's an immediate whelp of hysteria in her voice as she cries out for her husband. Claire is probably as fragile and marked as her sister, but she clearly tries to keep it together for the people in her life. This will be the story of her unraveling.

Loved the prologue. It's a series of strange and slow motion imagery; full of anxiety and portent. The image of Justine slow walking in her wedding dress across a grassy knoll; muddy roots from the earth have reached up and grasped her ankles and shins, strangling her progress. Later on, in a whisper, this is how she will describe her depression to her sister.

There's a scene later in part two, in the study when Claire tells Justine to get off her ass and do something; Justine's gaze turns to the bookcase of fine art books displaying abstract paintings. She jumps up and selects more figurative works. Four or five of the prints she selects point directly to the opening prologue. The dying red stag could be that of the black horse sinking. The movie poster refers to the John Millais painting of Ophelia about to drown. Bruegel's "Hunters in the Snow" is quoted directly.

Loved the camerawork: it seems to reproduce the wandering eye of someone catching details and trying to make sense out of all this; the look of disinterest in someone's eyes; the way someone clutches a wine glass; the way Kirsten's dimples mysteriously foreshadow or not, an impending smile. I also was quite taken with the dramatic lighting and the sound. In one scene, the birds are fooled into believing it's dawn when Melancholia rises on the horizon in the middle of the night. The close proximity of the other planet also changes the color and the intensity of the light.

The little touches of humor, such as Udo Kier as the wedding planner. Justine has deliberately ruined "his" wedding and as the night goes on he deliberately holds up a hand to shield his eyes from having to see that bitch, whenever he crosses paths with her. The earth compares in size to Melancholia as a golf ball compares to that of a basketball, and given the celestial right of way, it's not Melancholia that comes crashing into the earth, it's the other way round.

Von Trier's originality easily stands out in several ways in "Melancholia". He deliberately subverts that chick flick par excellence: the wedding film, the one that all little girls have dreamt of by having the heroine, instead of enjoying her night of nights; to one where the bride can barely muster any interest in proceedings. He also subverts the end of the world science fiction film: the heroic last minute machinations of great men launching the escape pods to desperately save humanity is displaced with a simple character study between two sisters.

Von Trier supposedly is afflicted with the crippling bouts of depression depicted here---and given the man can barely hold a press conference without expelled from the country of origin, this seems par for the course. Usually, he takes careful aim to really mistreat and nail his heroines to the wall of suffering; this it's not the case here, since the exact same thing happens to everyone.

So, what's it all about? On one hand, it's pretty compelling; Von Tier is definitely invested in the process but on the other hand, it's essentially all sound and fury without a plot.

One caveat: If you have a choice, opt for the best sound system available.

I actually wrote a very lengthy (for me) review of Meloncholia in the movie tab section last night and accidentally erased the whole thing before I submitted it. I didn't have the heart to do it again, so I'm glad that you reviewed it and I can just add some of my thoughts here. Because I'm lazy.

I think I'd give it one more star than you did. This felt like, and I'm sure it is, a very personal movie from Von Trier. I took this film two ways. The first being a literal end of the world movie and the second as the planet melancholia being symbolic of the disease of depression. It works on both levels, but on the second level it's downright brilliant. There's tons of symbolism. Some was pretty on the nose, but I'm pretty sure when I'll watch it again I'll see some that I missed.

I couldn't help but draw parallels between Justine's destruction of her marriage and her career in one night and at her wedding reception and Von Trier's seemingly willingness to sabotage his own career, or at least his reputation.

I liked that he had a wedding reception as the backdrop of the first half of the film as well. What is supposed to be more happy than your wedding night? It's a great contrast. The part where Justine is telling Claire how hard she was trying and she says, "I smile and I smile and I smile." I thought that was one of the best parts of the film and the most telling.

There is a great usage of characters too. Michael is the classic "I can fix you guy." Kiefer Sutherland was kind of the voice of reason it seemed. The normal guy amongst the mad. It makes his story and his reveal all that much more powerful.

I liked both Dunst and Gainsbourg equally although I think maybe Gainsbourg had the harder role to play. It would be harder to telegraph that inner anxiety while trying to keep it together than someone who has completely succumbed to their illness. Actually, I think everyone in the movie played their parts really well.

This is the best movie I've seen in awhile and my favorite Von Tier movie of his I've seen. It definitely makes me want to see everything else he's done even though I was planning on giving Antichrist a miss.

I was being flippant there for the review. I've seen his Cannes press conference and the adverse reaction to it completely baffles me. I thought it was absolutely fricking hilarious. He was obviously teasing his actors, making in-jokes about the film making process, another Danish film director and especially himself. The context is so obvious, how can the media be that reactionary and philistine? Although, I can see reading his comments only in print would remove all the context from which they were said.

Anyways, my appreciation for him really begins at that precise moment. He doesn't sugar coat the truth, he won't pretend everything is hunky dory if it isn't. The fact Von Trier can be brutally honest about the world around him and himself is an obvious indication of his stature as a world class director. Honesty is the most important trait for an artist. A lie is like a cancer.

Thanks guys this has encouraged me to watch this movie

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Same here! Dancer in the dark is the only von trier movie i've seen...

I wasn't judging. At her party, Justine is by turns polite and says the expected things then acts out and says and does what most people would feel are completely inappropriate things. I just makes me wonder how much Von Trier identifies with her. I don't know the guy, it's just interesting to think about. I certainly could identify with her even at the times I didn't like her very much.

I'd recommend Breaking the Waves and The Five Obstructions, although he technically only directed part of the latter while playing Machiavelli throughout.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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Seven Beauties (1975) Wertmüller

Lust for life

This absurd black comedy begins with a mocking prologue (beatlesque with it's yeah, yeah, yeah's) of Hitler and Mussolini foaming at the mouths center stage, combined with images of the aftermath of their martial ravings with their great armies running for their lives and their own cities and towns being bombed into oblivion.

The Seven Beauties in the title refers to Pasqualino Farfuso's personal burden. His father long gone, the sole male of the family; he has to protect the honor of his seven sisters, and to be honest, the title is being used a more than a little ironically.

He's a great character in Mussolini's Italy before the second world war. Pasqualino fancies himself a ladies man, he has a little saucy strut in his step. He's vainglorious; opportunistic; bit of a bumbler and he doesn't give a hoot about politics. He's slightly diminutive, which is why he keeps a gun carefully tucked in belt, to even up the odds. Thematically, the story could be about the progressive striping away of all his beliefs, unfortunately he doesn't seem to have that many to begin with.

Pasquali can clearly mirrors the folly of Mussolini and Italy. Because the Italians willingly allied themselves with the Nazis---they were complicit in all their crimes. Some of his actions not the exactly likeable or honorable.

The film is rich with irony and symbolism at all the right moments. Because he stupidly confessed to his crime (t'was an honor killing according to him). His lawyer is only left with a single course of action: the insanity defense. So Pasquali goes into the prison courtyard, plants his feet wide apart, strikes a grandiose pose, begins spouting slogans from the great leader's latest sermon from the balcony until he's dragged away---everyone immediately believes he's insane. When Pasquali has endured just about as much as he can of the lunatic asylum, his favorite doctor offers him an out. The army (in desperate need for bodies) is now accepting mental patients.

A large part of the power of the story also comes from the pairing of mismatched individuals. Such as the scene in the train station waiting room. He's just gotten out of a murder rap by feigning insanity, and he's happily boasting about it to the chap sitting next to him. They get to talking and Pasquali declares his deep admiration for Il Duce, the man reveals that his law and order platform was merely a way to transfer wealth from the poorest members of society to the richest. This man has also just been declared insane by the courts and heading to the same asylum with twice the amount of years---though his man's crimes are clearly ones of reflection and thought.

The perfect example of the mash of differing tones would be when Pasquali declares his intentions to the Camp Commandant. The film literally goes from a brutal drama to a romance in the blink of an eye. He steels away from the daily count and finds the Commandant in a secluded corner of the complex. He pretties himself, pulls his prison cap to a rakish angle and leans against the wall; he blows imaginary kisses and flashes his bedroom eyes at her. It should be mentioned the Commandant makes all his sisters seem like beauty contestants. If only he knew how to say in German: "Is it hot in here, or is it just you?" Or any German for that matter, her knees would be knocking. This scene is completely absurd. His desperation to do anything to live another day is of course, effortlessly trumped by her own sadism and fatalism.

There's only a single moment of disbelief in the film when Pasquali admits during a quiet moment with a fellow inmate to being a rather homely and ugly man. Given the actor: Giancarlo Giannini who has played countless romantic lead roles, this seems to be a bit of a stretch. At times, the canvas is large with sweep of history, but most of the film is intimate. The director Lina Wertmüller frames Giannini's face in close-ups during most of the film, allowing his smokey, expressive eyes to be center piece of the film.

Monsieur Lazhar (2011) - Falardeau

The set-up? A classroom of 11 and 12 years olds lose their teacher in a tragic event. Her replacement (newly arrived from a foreign land) helps them find their way and continue on their scholastic journey.

There's obvious parallels between the children's plight and the back story of the new teacher. Both are in new worlds strange to them; for most of the children this is their first brush with death and Mister Lazhar is adapting to a culture that is still perplexing to him. He compares the immigrant experience to that of a flower that has been ripped up and transplanted into strange ground to find purchase; sometimes it takes root and thrives, sometimes it withers and dies.

There's a wonderful motif of coloring within the lines. Almost all of the interactions in the school have been strictly codified---there's almost an orthodoxy in place. The teacher has to follow the syllabus without deviation. Any kind of physical interaction with the students is forbidden. The teachers are not allowed to offer any kind emotional assistance. Responding to any kind of emotional problem is also off limits---this is the providence of the school physiologist. The children also aware of their rights and these boundaries. Which presents Monsieur Lazhar with a difficult obstacle of wanting to help these children but at the same time, almost forbidden to do so.

Subtleties? Mister Lazhar applies for a thankless job---and gets the one that no one wants. When he writes on the black board, his writing isn't the usual flowing casual cursives, but slightly hesitant and shaky, like he's been battered emotionally. He also speaks in a kind of international French---so some of the local expressions fly way over his head. One subtlety that won't cross the borders: the Conservative Harper Government currently in power imposes rejection quotas on immigration judges, they have to automatically reject a certain percentage of the refugee applicants every year.

Mohammed Fellag (an Algerian humorist and theatrical actor based in Paris) is good as the titular fish out of water character. His choice of diction material completely baffles the children. When the author Balzac writes about large sums of money (French currency was replaced with the Euro several years ago). All the little arms immediately shoot up: who's Frank? The main boy in the story internalizes the anxiety and begins to believe all this trouble may been caused by him. But the best thing about this film is Alice (Sophie Nélisse). She has a great little girl face suggesting promise that needs only the tiniest bit of care and attention to grow into a strong and wonderful grown-up. Tough as nails, she manages to not to break down and shed a single tear ... until the very end.

This is Canada's entry in the foreign film category for the Oscars.



So, does it have a chance take home the trophy? Doubtful. The film doesn't build to any large crowd pleasing popcorn moments, although the film is sprinkled with lots of quiet ones. Unlike dramatic cocktails where the characters are shaken and stirred, I'd liken this film more to a water color, where the characters only commingle and meet at the very edges; leaving that other person with new emotional hues and indelible changes.

Smile (1975) - Ritchie

Hide every trace of sadness

The Set-up? The sleepy hamlet of Santa Rosa, California comes alive every year when they host the state-wide beauty pageant. This year, they've even got five more contestants compared from last year vying for the title of Young American Miss.

The opening scene has Colleen Camp performing the talent portion of a smaller beauty contest; her special talent turns out to be packing suitcases and double entendres which was a fine way to start, cause the film seems to be, stuffed with them.

If the beauty contestant is perceptive, she'll notice the orientation sessions basically give them all the answers. The process seems to ironically weed out an real personality and character in the young women. There's also a subtle cruelty. Especially during the victory ceremonies which rewards a few but the vast majority lose big time; all the contestants have beaming, vaseline induced smiles masking anxiety and they take great pride in jumping up and down faking joy for the winners.

There's a nice counterpoint between the brunette's (her first time in a major pageant) growing competitiveness and the local businessman's (a trophy salesman) growing disillusionment with small town life. It turns out his wife(Barbara Felton) is a former winner and the perfect embodiment of the beauty queen taken to it's extreme: their home life is picture perfect and cheerful on the outside but completely unlivable and sterile. The one genuine emotion his wife shows is when last year's winner is called back on stage and dethroned, she stands the in the wings, the tears streaming down her face, mourning what must have been the high point of her life.

On a deeper level the pageant seems to mirror the day to day interactions of the townsfolk; jovial banter and vacuous compliments while scrupulously avoiding anything down beat or negative. Nothing is mentioned, but you've got the bumpy ride of that period: the recent war in the middle East when that querulous patch of desert came within a hair's breadth of being renamed Palestine; the oil embargo and the resignation of the President over Watergate all lurk as seismic events in the background.

Likes? Bruce Dern is a delight as Big Bob; a used car salesmen and the main pageant honcho. He's got a perfectly vacuous catch phrase: No rest for the weary! While he pumps your hand and moves on. Isn't that supposed to be: no rest for the wicked? He gives every potential buyer in his car lot a gift of his hot air---in the guise of a free balloon.

The kitschy set decoration. The mechanical bird you turn on to fill a house with cheerful chirping. The ceramic statue in Big Bob's office that tinkles into your drink. The film has been using embroidered inserts, kind of like the name tags on waitresses blouses to chart the day by day progress of the pageant---these turn out to be one of the contestant's day of the week panties.

They drop in an awful lot of subtle---blink or you'll miss them---whoppers. When a woman escorts the pageant supervisor into the auditorium, after a night of domestic violence, she lets drop. "Well, when my husband shot me I wasn't as forgivin' as you" Or the scene when Big Bob takes his son (Little Bob) to the Psychiatrist's office; they accidentally barge in on a session, and the woman immediately bursts out crying hysterically from being spotted there. A short time later, the shrink opens the door and ushered them in for the appointment; there's a micro-second of terror when Big Bob looks for the woman and thinks the Psychiatrist---like some witch doctor has made her disappear in thin air .... until he spots a second exit from the office. They also filmed the last night of the pageant at an actual beauty contest, which left me scratching my head and wondering, since all the top winners literally materialize in the film for the first time the second their names are announced---which contributes to the absurdity.
　
The Master of Ceremonies is wonderfully insincere. Real life and legendary choreographer Michael Kidd has a great part as the brutally dead-pan, down on his luck dance programmer. Also, if you'd like to know what Melanie Griffith looks like without all that cosmetic surgery, there's a pristine, uncut 18 year old version here. "Smile" is one wicked and juicy satire; although the film seems to care and sympathize with the characters ---and mercilessly skewer their hypocrisies of at the same time.

Young Adult (2011) - Reitman

Put on the red dress

The set-up? Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) receives a blanket e-mail announcing the birth of a bouncing baby girl. She begins to fixate and obsess on it until she gradually perceives a subliminal SOS from her former high school sweet heart: He wants her to save him. She packs a suitcase and sets off to her home town to wreck a marriage.

Ouch. This woman is literally without: talk about setting improbable, hopeless goals for yourself. The only real suspense here is just how big of a face plant and splat is she going to make.

Dislikes? The time line seems a bit off. For a small town, a couple having their first kid in their late thirties seems really late: all the couples around them would have had a passel of teenagers by that time. Mavis wanting to relive some of her golden high school days also seems to be a little to the party.

The film lacks an awareness. Mavis drives around her home town noting the changes. She sneers at the latest fast food innovations, unfortunately, the levels of marketing sophistication and strategies almost operate on a subliminal level in the big city. Making her---if you think about it---more of a rube than these so called small town hicks who have actually got it right. The film makers seem to be unaware that she's a perfect little consumer drone. She's got a lot of disposable income. The clutter of her life defines her, but beyond that she has no real identity. The cherry on top of all that is that Mavis provides ghost written material for a more famous (brand name) author.

Reitman also stumbles badly by framing this selfishness as a personal defect of Mavis and not providing the audience with enough links to the larger world of instant gratification and greed that is a common side effect of a consumer society. The film is tellingly overwrought with product placement. You got problems in your life? Upgrade to a better one. Or better yet, trash the old clunker and buy a brand new one. The greatest dangers of mindless consumption is not just an overload of fake calories, but pre-fabricated lifestyles that fit comfortably (and are originated) into long range corporate planning schemes; emotional placebos and empty dreams purchased at the local dollar store that eventually kill the soul. In that world, the casual whoring of the Kardashians is the height of success and a legitimate life style.
　
That said, I'll definitely watch it this again whenever it reappears. I tend scratch my head with someone espouses great love for a film with a male character that is so complete a skunk; someone so nasty and destructive that no one in their right mind would allow such a person to be in your life for a couple of hours, let alone a couple of days. But I think I understand that better now. Mavis is egocentric and cruel. Wonderfully insincere. A little hellacious; she's an obvious train wreck but oh so, adorable and I like her (well ... okay, maybe the drop dead gorgeous actress who plays her).

Theron is just so compulsively watchable. The film even plays into this by contrasting scenes with her, shall we say "small town" face with it's all it's normal imperfections with her thick movie star "beauty mask". Theron reveals here, she's actually got two or three separate looks. I also noticed there's a slight mellifluent aging of her voice, which has become a little raspy.

The gravitational pull of Theron forces the other actors to circle around her performance. The only actor in the film who competes with her is Patton Oswald, who also plays another character unhealthily anchored in that same time period. He's the only one who tells her to her face that she's utterly insane. She just shakes her head and takes another swig. Though years later, this invisible nerd is still getting a little contact high from actually conversing with the ice queen.

The main shortcoming of the film is, it appears to be a beguiling fragment that seems to have fallen from a larger and more intriguing story. Mavis is a budding dipsomaniac. She collapses face first onto her bed dead to the world every night and reawakens in the same position, then undresses for the morning.
　
The dramatic high point in this film is a glass of red wine and a silk dress but it's not the dramatic heights (or lows) for this lady. Not by a long shot. Mavis drives drunk all the time and so far has managed not to kill anyone ... yet. She still has a lot more of these little "episodes" to trouble through before she hits rock bottom. Unfortunately for Mavis, she may well be the original blockbuster: the line of drooling, horny enablers willing to hold her hair every night while she pukes in an alleyway, and generally assist in the continuing tumble and downward spiral of her life would coil around the block several times. Which sets up a much more interesting and fearful question: would this woman ever hit rock bottom, and if so, would she realize it?

Walking and Talking (1996) - Holofcener

The set-up? Amelia and Laura have been best friends since childhood. Now in their late twenties, Amelia is feeling a little antsy; Laura's deepening relationship with her boyfriend is monopolizing more and more of the time she used to spend with her.

Nice things? The guys are all basically decent; Laura's boyfriend (Todd Field) is a clearly a sweet guy who overly adores her. He designs jewelry and has the nasty habit of showering her in gifts---he's always bringing home work product for her. Or Amelia's new love interest includes a lot of comical misfires before they close the deal.

Amelia begins the film on a high note. She decides she's ready for the real world and wants to end her therapy. Her therapist suggests a brief cooling down period. When she learns of Laura's impending nuptials and the fear she may be losing her best friend forever; she immediately wants to reverse that decision but we learn her notice may have been more "therapeutic" for her Doctor---whose already moved on and found another patient for her time period. She asks incredibly: "You filled my slot?"

Apart from a 5 minute short, this was Holofcener's first feature. It introduces her main theme of exploring the strong emotional ties between women and I was pleasantly surprised how assured this was right off the bat. I'd rate this higher than "Lovely and Amazing" simply because it's the same relationship, but being sisters it removes some of the tension and this is certainly better than "Friends with Money" when she went a little Hollywood. I can't be sure, but this was probably both Catherine Keener's and Anne Heche's first starring roles and hence, their calling cards for future work.

A few things happen off screen, and it takes a while to understand them. They were once roommates and they had bought the cat together, and so in Amelia's mind, her (their co-owned) cat clearly becomes a barometer for their friendship. The film doesn't have a complicated story line; it's basically the bond between these two women discovering the push and pull of adulthood, but the film has an off hand, observational style that catches the vulnerability, the wit and the emotional clutter of their lives.

The film begins and ends in Amelia's childhood bedroom: as young girls they check out a copy of "The joy of Sex" and it finishes up there, with the last minute preparations of Laura's bridal dress before they walk outside to her wedding in her back yard. Although 1996 is not that far back in time, a lot of every day things (and not so everyday things) appear as historical curiosities now. The way those ginormous computer terminals dominate every desk surface and that cultural relic, the VHS rental store. Also check out the poster, I didn't recognize any of the actors.
　

For your listening pleasure:




The skin I live in (2011) - Almodóvar

Eye of the beholder

The set-up? After a series of family tragedies, Robert Legard has retired from active life and withdrawn to his country home/private medical center, with it's state of the art research capabilities and operating room.

As a character, Robert (Antonio Banderas) is a wonderful mash; a successful plastic surgeon at the top of his profession and a kind of a world beater in terms of medical research, and yet the sum total of what he doesn't know about his own private life is astonishing. He invents a kind of super skin capable of resisting the various "handling" traumas of life which subtly brings into question the actual living and breathing person inside all that outward perfection. Which introduces the character of Vera; she's (Elena Anaya) the fateful burn victim stoically enduring every procedure no matter how painful in order to live another day. The depths of her suffering is more than a little unsettling.

There's actually quite a long list of things to like about this film. The lensing is outstanding---there's a sense of poise to everything. I particularly loved the shots positioned on the horizontal axis which, in addition to being constantly visually arresting, subconsciously establishes the idea of superiority and looking down at something or someone.

Other nice things? The exquisite set decoration---just the lamps in this film are completely insane. The escaped tiger on the prowl. The shot where the "therapeutic" tools lined up on a dresser which suggest the bars of a prison cell and a life sentence with no hope of parole. If we remove the good doctor from the mix, this story could easily be either be the tragedy of one woman, or another woman's indestructible desire to live. Robert's little lab rat is watched on camera 24/7 on the various screens in the house and yet she's also rather steely eyed and observant---nothing escapes her attention, which Robert misreads as coquetry.

But best of all, the film is kind of a puzzle. Almodóvar really plays with your identification with the various characters, achieving at times, complete reversals of sympathy and this usually happens imperceptibly. Vera's skin colored body suit is a great visual example of this. Unfortunately, the film seems to be a little distant: most of the characters seem to be a little dicey and immediately set off your spidey sense---making one a little reluctant to sympathize with them emotionally.

This is basically a horror film with all the gore excised, so the audience is left with suggestion and drama. There's a depth to the story, so film is guaranteed to provide lots of fodder for the after screening coffee shop or restaurant discussion. The irony of Robert's vocation becoming his avocation---he's basically paid to do exactly that. Is he a kind of Professor Higgins character, who instead of phonetics and frilly dresses, uses scalpels and blow torches? The logical conclusions of merciless eye for an eye style retribution and justice. Or the idea that suffering indelibly molds and defines who you are?
　

Army of shadows (1969) - Melville
　
Band of brothers

The set-up? A portrait of a small cluster of resistance fighters in France during the German occupation.

Everything in this film seems slightly skewed from what it should be and mildly disorienting. The opening shot establishes this perfectly: soldiers parading past the Arc de triomphe in the distance and marching towards the camera ... they turn out to be German instead of French soldiers.

When Phillippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura) arrives in the---as the French policeman escorting him refers to as the "creme de la creme" of concentration camps; he's ushered into the camp commander's office for a meet and greet. As he reads Gerbier's file, we hear his thoughts and the totalitarian mind set: he's immediately wary ... that Gerbier has made it to the confines of his little barbed wire hostel warrants careful attention. If he was just a simple hooligan he would have been taken out and shot already. He was put on trial, but it was dismissed for lack of evidence? In a totalitarian regime, You simply fabricate the evidence or to inform the judge what his decision will be: this means he's got friends in very high places. How high? His superiors? Mistakes can happen, it's not unheard of a man wrongly accused rising through the echelons, maybe one day in the future, he or one of his close friends could be his boss, so he needs to tread protect himself from him. Then the essential question: Are they setting him up? Is this a test? He devises his own test, sending Gerbier into a barracks divided between loud mouths and political aware prisoners and seeing which side of the barracks he will be gravitate towards.

The funny thing is ... the camp commander was right in his suspicions. When Gerbier's dossier draws a red flag down the line not long afterwards; the Gestapo arrives to personally escort him for more intensive information retrieval center. The camp commander is right there, for all to see (subtly claiming the credit) when he's handed over.

Nice things? The film pulls the curtain aside to peek inside their morose day to day existence and anonymous sacrifice. The figures tend to be dwarfed by the spaces around them. Lonely figures walking down empty country roads. Prisoners sitting against the walls in stone cells or slumped in a chair in the center of a spacious office.

The look of the film is just plain gorgeous, that kind of grayish blue filter over everything that kind of parallels the constant tension in the film which makes the time period of the film seem longer time wise then it really is, the film basically takes place during that single metaphorical season, the dead of winter.

There's no visceral kick to the film; most of their actions are internal house keeping chores, maintaining secure lines of command and supply. When they are called to take up arms, it's unglamorous and unemotional, it's also neither vengeful or heroic, just surviving to live one more day. The film is actually a great contrast to the current wave of black Op action films, where the hero has been completely lobotomized of any kind of political or moral thought through their extensive military training.

Gerbier comments late in the film that a second wave of Maquis is springing up that needs organizing. The constant ads for career advancement and great wealth in Germany is slowly being revealed for the big lie that it is. It's not until the end of the movie, at the beginning of 1943 that the Vichy Government beings forcibly shipping able bodied men to Germany as slave labor which creates the last great wave of resistance fighters---but those individuals have been spurred into action through self-interest. Whereas the men and women in this film, are the vanguard. Whether they be short order cooks or engineers who have simply read the newspaper and realized that the situation is bad and getting worse, not just for them, but everybody and they band together to fight for the common good.
　

Gasland (2010) - Fox

Morality as an externality

The set-up? Banjo playing Josh Fox gets a form letter from a G & O (Gas and Oil) company offering to lease his land at 4,000 dollars an acre for placing a drilling rig(s) on his land. Before signing on the dotted line, he hears some minor grumblings down the road from some people who already have drilling rigs. He hops in his truck to investigate.

My major caveat of the film is that Fox obviously isn't a film maker or a journalist---the film is full of form problems. His use of intertitles is wrong; he should be using to them highlight certain key phrases like "The Halliburton loophole" or "A 100 times the allowable limit"

With his reasoned and folksy approach, it's obvious he believes (for some bizarre reason) that fairness in reporting or "journalistic neutrality is all about keeping a reporter's personal opinions from the story; when in fact, it's purpose is to hide the systemic bias and vested interests of the news gathering organization from public scrutiny.

Fox also buries his information. He establishes (with the constant refusals by the G & O companies for interviews) that they maintain a solid brick wall of silence. So at the end of the film, when their lawyers have to appear before a congressional committee and have to finally supply answers. He should placed the information he gathered directly against their outlandish claims.

For instance, during this hearing, a G & O lawyer states that numerous studies from independent labs and the EPA have never found the slightest evidence that gas drilling is harmful for people or the environment. However, earlier in the film, Fox interviewed a guy from the EPA who states that because of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the EPA no longer actively investigates or monitors G & O operations. They no longer have that mandate. He also relates one case where one independent lab---using highly unscientific means reached the conclusion that everything was peach keen, unfortunately this independent lab was entirely stocked with a G & O scientists. Fox also could of inserted the warning labels on the drilling equipment where it states rather dramatically: prolonged exposure to this chemical may result in serious illness or death.

The corporate strategy is clearly visible in the film. From the top of the ladder all the way down the rungs, they all have innocuous gate keeping duties. Never put anything on paper. Shred the paper trail. Never give any interviews. Deny everything. Claim the fifth Amendment. In that system, no one is taxed with the burden of telling the big lie, unless they can do with a smile.
The Energy Policy act of 2005 exempted G & O companies from clean air and water obligations ... the Energy Policy act of 2005 exempts G & O companies from clean air and water obligations (yeah, I did that on purpose); effectively striping working class families of their citizenship; since it reduced them not even to the level of consumers, but mere litigants. Which is a master stroke, since these families never sue the root cause of what is making and will make everyone sick, but only to recover the medical costs of the chronic illnesses related to having a drilling rig near their home. And if they make it all the way through the process to an actual settlement, that decision is then immediately sealed and hidden. So the family down the road from them, goes through the same the tragic cycle, and so on and so forth. It goes without saying, these G & O companies will enjoy the longest legal winning streak in the history of mankind.

The film advances the corporations claim that revealing their trade secrets would endanger their economic prosperity. The secret ingredient of their success is of course, not the toxic cocktail of chemicals they dump into the living environment, but kindness and trust of their fellow human beings. The idea that someone would knowingly poison the air you breathe and the water you drink is beyond comprehension for the vast majority of people. No one could be that deliberately evil.

Documentaries tend to be all about information with a modicum of cinematic technique, but there's a nice visual suggestion in Gasland---with all the venting flames--- that the metaphorical place we call Hell may be much closer at hand than we think.

Nice reviews doggie thanks

Nice review. I loved this movie and would rate it at least a 4.

As usual, your review is spot on analytical and descriptive. The irony and symbolism in this movie is what makes this pure art and I have to rate it a 5.
Not every man is able to rise to the occasion.