Thracian dawg's reviews

Page contents:
Detour (1945) / Green Zone (2010 ) / She's out of my league (2010) / Farewell (2009) / The Great Raid (2005) / The Bothersome Man (2006) / The Crying Fist (2005) / The Misfortunates ( 2009) / Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman (2005) / Inheritance (2006) / The Ghost Writer (2010) / Time out (2001) / Chinese Roulette (1976)/ Fear and Trembling (2003) / The Accidental Tourist (1988)


Detour (1945)



The Perils of hitchhiking


Our hitchiker, Al Roberts is a bit off; a dyed in the wool complainer that would have given Melvin Rudell from "As good as it gets" a run for his money as one the crabbiest movie characters ever. He's constantly bemoaning his unlucky lot in life and the vagaries of fate, as if the big man upstairs was deliberately yanking his chain. Although, I think that if he stumbled across a million dollars, he'd gladly find some trick of fate to let all that loot slip through his fingers, then gripe about big time for the rest of his life.





The interesting thing about this B movie is the entire time-line of this film noir is only about, give or take 10 minutes long; the time it takes for a hobo to come in from the cold, nurse a cup of coffee for as long as he can inside a warm roadside diner then head back out to the highway and start hitchiking again. That's about it. The entire story is told in a flashbacks and voice-overs. While inside the diner, a trucker asks him where he's going, He says He's heading East, meaning everything has already happened and he's now on the lam.

"Hey, Glamorous, give me change for a dime!" The trucker pops a nickel in the jukebox and plays a love song that immediately sets Roberts off, reminding him about a failed love affair that sent him hitchhiking from the New York to Los Angeles in the first place.

And since it's all his (mangled?) version of the facts; this is where all the tension of the film comes from, is he being honest or is he lying to the audience? I found myself gradually transposing myself into that theorical jury box that would sit in judgement over him and I would have gladly put the rope around his neck---or as one of the characters says: " I'd let him sniff some of that perfume Arizona passes out free to murderers". His version of what happened is so fantastical as not to be believed. He opened the car door and a man fell out and dashed his head against a stone, expiring himself during a rain storm? Or He was tugging on the end of a telephone line outside her room, without knowing it had gotten tangled around her throat due to her drunken state and thus accidently strangled the poor wench? Roberts could be telling the truth or he could also a classical example of the unreliable narrator. Since the idea he and his girl were planning to be married; but she abruptly called it off mere days before their wedding to head out to Hollywood and try her luck as a singer/actress, is a large hint that that great romance existed only in his own mind.

Detour was a low budget quickie that was shot in only six days, but it's oddness, inconsistency and continuity goofs only add to the film. It has flashy dialogue, colorful lines and a great femme fatale. And in a bizarre twist, later in life, the star of the film, Tom Neal actually knocked off his one of his wives in real life and only missed the electric chair by the slimmest of chances.

Detour ~ 7/10

Good mark for a fun film. I watched this twice when I had the disc at my house, because I adored many of the aspects of the film, especially the femme fatal, who is one of the more memorable dames in 40s film, IMO. So over the top, but so fun to watch.

I will fix your image post, as well.

__________________

The Perils of Soldiering

A solid actioneer, but not enough depth or suspence to merit an upgrade into the thriller genre. From the playing deck of emotion, the actors are given a single flash card for their characters. The lumbering CIA operator (Brendan Gleesan): weathered concern. Miller (Matt Damon): intense professionalism. Anxiety for the journalist (Amy Ryan) as it's beginning to dawn on her that she's been turned into a hand puppet for the war machine. Poundstone (Greg Kinnear): a smug bean counter on steriods.

Some shakey logic and wonkiest in the works: early in the film Damon says he's hunting for Weapons of Mass destruction, and I thought this was signalling a tonal shift into comedy. And for several minutes I was waiting for the gags to appear, but apparently the lad was being ernest.

During the big shoot-out at the end, A soldier asks HQ to snatch all electronic traffic coming out a four block radius of the fire fight. But at the end, Echelon can't intercept a simple e-mail communication from a Solider who's gone rogue and who has been actually targeted for liquidation; He's going to slip through unbeknowst to them?

The film also wants to have it both ways for journalism, on one hand, it revels in how most of the major american media outlets have been hopelessly compromised by the state and merely act as boosters for whatever is shovelled at them, then in turn, and shovel it onto the public; then in the closing seconds, they want to pretend these same toothless lap dogs are now Cerberus-like and guarding the holy temple of truth. Yeah, right.

The film is also careful to make sure the tongue wagging and finger pointing is securely aimed at little targets at the bottom and not large pathogical liars at the top.

Miller and Clark Poundstone are the two closest things to hero and villian in the story, but they never cross swords, apart from a hissy fit near the end and the film walks away from their showdown.

Some nice things, like the nighttime stroll through Abu Ghraib. Damon re-channels some of his single mindedness and problem solving from the Bourne films. But essentionally this film is a fictionized action version of the far superior and heart breaking documentary: No end in Sight. This popcorn movie, although entertaining, can scarcely muster half an ounce of that film's righteous anger and only a single droplet of the raging river of despair that flows through it.

Green Zone ~ 8/10

She's out of my league (2010) Smith

Rise of the metrosexuals

A sensitive love story develops between a mismatched couple. Molly is a hard 10 (Alice Eve) who quit lawyering to do something that will make her more happy. Kirk (Jay Baruchel) is a soft 5 working airport security and recovering moodle. Unfortunately, it's almost as if the filmmakers didn't trust their instincts to allow an audience to find the sensitive film; so they hedged their bets and grafted onto it, some raunchy scenes from your typical adolescent sex comedy.

Some nice things; like Kirk wants to be a pilot, anything involved levitation would be considered as a success to him, and working in the airport, all he has to do is look out a window to be reminded of this secret dream. Some blantant produce placement in the film which normally is a negative thing, but it works for the city of Pittsburgh, in that it shows off all it's best angles, and actually looks like an interesting place to visit.

Each one of the couple is given excellent foils. J.T. Miller and Nate Torrence for Kirk. Although Molly's acid tonqued best friend (Krysten Ritter) is kind of squandered in the film and she steals a lot of the scenes she's in. Take the intimate moment between Molly and Kirk when he confesses an embarassing truth to her. We should be watching them, but we are rivetted on Ritter's open mouthed eavesdropping.

Usually your typical chick flick has a least one scene where all the grrrilfriends get together to drink camomile tea or sip white wine spritzers and talk about their relationsips; their strengths and the weaknesses, offering valid advice to avoid some of the traps and tricks to spice up their relationships, then they talk about how they feel about this advice and how they feel about giving this advice ... Yakety yak yak ... The most interesting thing about this film is that it transposed this same scene into a guy's comedy. The guys hash over his romantic problem. So He's pimped and primed for love by the boys, but not for a relationship, since that isn't in the cards. There is an indefatigable 2 step rule, with no exceptions. An out and out 5 may get a 7, if he's lucky and ambitious or both---but other superior numbers are beyond his ken. Oh yeah, They've all looked in the mirror and given themselves a numerical value based on their ... comeliness. And know their numbers by heart. The film is about Kirk's voyage of discovery until the moment of truth when he stumbles upon an advanced algorithm which, miraculously invalidates the 2 step rule, allowing them to embark on a real relationship together.

Rom com with a few chuckles, if you're interested in a light, low brow comedy, but this is rental material.




She's out of my leaque ~ 7/10

Farewell (L'affaire Farewell) (2009) Carion



Fare thee well, my friend


An espionage film told mainly from a French and Russain point of view---instead of car chases and falling bodies, although when they do fall, they do land with a sickening thud. This film is filled with overt and covert friendships, and their small and large betrayals.

A French engineer in Moscow, simply as a favor for one of the guys in the embassy substitutes in a routine meeting with someone who turns out to be the biggest Russian spy to come in from the cold in decades---and then, won't let himself be passed off on someone else in the French intelligence pool--since the enginner is first contact and a bit of a schlub (with only cursory KGB surveillance) so he sticks with him like glue.

The film is based on the true story of the legendary soviet traitor, Vladimir Vetrov (maybe the people in the west would look more favorably on him if they were aware of his contributions to history) So the Russians were less then helpful in getting this film made, refusing access to the country and some of their top actors. All of the exteriors shots were obtained with a visa for a fake soft drink commercial.

Nice things? The film gets a brownie point for working in a poem that completely expresses Gregoriev's motives. There's a nice contrast between the two actors. Director Emir Kusturica, as the KGB colonel, Sergei Gregoriev. He has a great hounddog face. A bon vivant who knows it's going to end extremely badly for himself but delights greatly in the time he has left; He enjoys chatting Pierre up about French culture. And Guillaume Canet, as the reluctant French spy Pierre Froment who's not really cut out for this stressful world of deceit and absolutely hates with a passion, lying to his wife everyday--he develops stomach ulcers.

Diane Kruger has a small cameo as a nefarious Soviet mole working in Washington---she had a nice part in Carion's last film "Joyeux Noël". Nice musical counterpoints mark the era, when of course all western music was decadent and had to be smuggled in. A nice visual quote from the Nina's pop hit: 99 red balloons "I think of you and let it go" And there's also a telling film clip from a John Ford film that echoes Vetrov's unknown hero status.

Farewell ~ 8/10

The Great Raid (2005) Dahl

http://http://upload.wikimedia.org/w...Great_raid.jpg

Fluff for the buff and brave
　
Hagiography. This film is a bland throw back to the American war movies of the 40's and 50's. One of the reasons this film caught my eye was the director; John Dahl specializes in ticking clock neo noirs and I was more than little curious what the Dahlian touch was going to do with a period war film. I think everyone was a little reluctant in taking liberties and making the material their own, for they risk treading on Hallowed ground. Since the Japanese believed that POW's were subhuman and as the American's advance approached their camp, the 500 men still alive would have been simply murdered en masse. And as they inform us during the closing credits, the Cabanatuan raid is one of the most successful raids in Army Ranger history, they were literally outnumbered a hundred to one, so the tale deserves to be known---but if the tale deserves to be told, it deserves to be told well. Which is not the case.

You know what? I'm not going to heap abuse on Dahl. I blame those clowns who call themselves screenwriters. The most telling flaw of the film is that the screenplay is totally inept. It has a made for TV feel to it, with it's excessive narration. What passes for characterization is a mention whether or not a soldier is single or if he has a ball and chain waiting at home for him. Colonel Mucci puffs away furiously on his pipe is supposed to represent the tragic burden of leadership. Seriously, would he have even packed his smoking kit on a mission as desperate as this? The audience is privy to the pre-raid briefing in which the approach to the camp, the flanking movements and suppressing fire are explained in detail and clocked to the minute, which of course, removes a lot of the suspence. The only reason for including that scene, would have been if there had been a major unforeseen snafu at the last moment which they had to radically revise the whole attack plan.
　
Some nice things though, like the Filipino resistence fighters. Cesar Montano is particularly good as a Filipino Captain as he stoically endures both Japanese and American chauvinism. I would actually love to see a resistence film about these people defending their home land during this time period. I liked the civilian nurse's story (Margaret Utinsky) although everytime they cross cut to her story, it was like applying the brakes to the forward momentum of the raid. Madame Utinsky is set up for some real uncomfortable up close and personal time with a Japanese interrogator; the way he slithers up behind her and strokes her from her fingertips all the way up her arms to the base of her nape intimates she'll going to be raped. But then after a couple of hours, they simply cut her down out of her stress position and let her walk out of the prison. I don't think in the history of torturing I've ever come across a case as fatuous as this. "You know what, I've misused you enough round eye, you can go. Prease don't be ritigious."

The Great Raid ~ 7/10

The Bothersome Man / Den Bryssome Mannen (2006) Lien

http://tordenfilm.no/thebothersomeman/plakat.html

The gloom of eternity

When Andreas (Trond Fausa Aurvaag) steps off the bus into a lunar landscape with a gas station (Northern Iceland standing in for some other worldy place) His growth of beard means its several weeks or months later from the opening scene. This is also immediate visual quote from Wim Wenders "Paris, Texas". This guy is the spitting image of Travis, the guy who wandered out of the desert and back into modern society and his life.

The bus leaves. He turns, there's a one man welcoming committee who drives him into town. Maybe this is some type of experimental out program rehabilitation? He gets a nice apartment and a great paying job with no stress; the boss tells him to take as many coffee breaks as he wants. Everyone is endlessly polite and treats him with kid gloves but this is to be expected since he is a recovering depressive. It's not until he's settles in that he notices he's not the one that's a little off, all the emotion and joy seems drained from these peoples lives. Everyone smiles, but this happiness seems flinty and paper thin.

Tactile allusions to taste and smell translate badly in a film. How do you show food has no taste, or that liquor has no alcoholic kick? The worst thing you can say about this film is that almost an hour of screen time passes before it's clearly established where he is. This first part should have clocked in around 45 minutes, tops. As is, the film really drags until his wild night in the subway.

Nice things? This could be a critique of society, or a spot on version of the everlasting. If all the earthly troubles, aggravations and pain that made our lives such hopeless turmoil was erased from our lives, wouldn't all those other earthly delights and joys be excised along with it?

The ubiquitious street cleaners that almost function as the secret police; They indicate trouble in paradise; if everyone was truly happy they'd be no mess and certainly no need for them. I think Our hero would be always out of place somewhere, it's just one of those things. There's no great bother here, and I certainly don't think he's a bothersome man, maybe he's just contrary. Maybe unhappiness isn't a difference to eradicated. Andreas slowly learns; Heaven is nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to necessarily live there.

The Bothersome Man ~ 6/10

The Crying Fist /Jumeogi unda (2005) Ryoo



Hard knocks

A twin character study of a petty criminal and an aging boxer (who medalled out during an international meet in his youth) who are redeemed and foresaken through boxing. Both of the characters are unsympathic and seem to have willingly embraced their desperate lifestyles. Their unhappiness spills against everyone they meet, and particularly hardest against those people closest to them in their lives.

Most of the story is set in the poorer neighbourhoods, cleverly reminding us of the economic background in which the story is played out. Gang tae-shik (the aging boxer, you may remember him from Old Boy) had turned his silver medal into gold with a craftly investment but the resulting collaspe of the casino economy has rendered him virtually penniliess. He ekks out a living providing a public service; he's a human punching bag, which many would consider several rungs below simple pan handling. Yoo Sang-hwan, the young thug, has grown up in an era with slim oppourtunities and no hope of a decent job or future. So, this begs the question: Are the characters getting their just deserts--or are they merely victims of larger circumstance?

What sets this film apart is it's minor subversions of the genre. The amount of time spent with these two these broken down characters slowly builds up sympathy for their respective plights. The director Seung-wan Ryoo then stands the black and white boxing drama on it's head by then pitting these two underdogs against each other, resulting in a totally grey on grey situation. There's a moment of slight panic as we realize both fighters equally merit the better life that a championship would bring to them, but the other will be doomed to ignominious defeat. We feel every punch and blow to their dignity and swallow whole heartedly all the boxing clichés: Don't throw in the towel. Stay on your feet. Go the distance.

The crying fist ~ 7/10

The Misfortunates / De helassheid der dingen ( 2009) Groeningen

Shitopia

Memoir. A novelist looks back on his childhood troubled by his Father and 3 uncle's hard drinking and rabble rousing. Most Belgian villages have an idiot to bear carry the village flag; 13 year old Gunther's home town of Reetveerdegem has 4 standard bearers, and they all belong to the Strobbe clan. All the boys have featured out into the world and fallen flat on their faces and have all returned to the cramped and cluttered family home to live with Mum, because well, she's got a heart bigger than her pension.

Moments of bittersweet poetry and hopefulness. Example: One evening, they drag their 13 year old niece along with them for a night on the town. They bump into a laggard who heartily brags he now has to wear a colostomy bag; he downs a pint to show the lads how it works, much hilarity ensues until they introduce him to this little girl; who turns out to be the daughter he's never met, and of course they've never told her. He takes a moment to drink her in with his eyes. Or despite being stigmatized as one of the notorious Strobbe family, his school teachers seem to have spotted Gunther's writing talent, and for punishments---which happens often, they routinely ask him to produce a 4 or 5 page story. Later on, this punishment becomes a reward, as the teachers in the boarding school allow him to read aloud his latest composition to the class.

Their favorite watering hole: The Liars pub looms large in their lives, as the brothers are usually at their most mythic, which usually involves some publicity stunt to promote the Pub. His father famously wins the nude cycling race; another brother tries to drink himself into the Guinness book of world records---first choice of course was his father, but he refused, since drinking shouldn't become corrupted into a sport.

His father and his uncles have instilled in him, a fierce family pride this, coupled with talent and drive allow him to break free of the family spiral. Even years later, He remains ever vigilant of his uncles influence, recalling the weekend his Father had returned home from his detox program. He'd actually made it and there only remained one more week and he would have finished it. After supper, His brothers suggest a friendly game of billiards at the pub, good-naturedly his Father refused to go---wanting to hold onto his newly found sobriety. The brothers then tease and cajole and finally brow beat him until he caves in and accompanies them. As his Father gets up from the kitchen table, only his Grandma and Gunther and his father seem to realize that this will be the end of him.

Of course, what sparked his bitter sweet reflection is not the death of any of his uncles or his father, but rather the passing of his long suffering grandmother who quietly he considers as the one who really cared for him.

The Misfortunates ~ 8/10

Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman (2005) Shergold

Masterpiece theatre presents

This is an actors film featuring Timothy Spall in the titular role as Albert Pierrepoint, seconded by Juliet Stevenson as his wife and Eddie Marson who accompanies him in their local pub as the other half of their comic singing duo: Tish and Tosh. The hangman's trade passes down through family, his father and his uncle both toiled in the same trade. And despite his father drinking himself into an early grave from the pressure. Albert also thinks he's heard the call and finally gives in. Whether or not it's right or wrong is only explored only obliquely, this is a rather good biography of the capital punishments most famous son.



What made him such a good hangman? A laser-like attention to detail; the correct measure of rope; promptness; the shock and awe of the actual ceremony (Albert Pierrepoint glowering at you a foot away from your face is something straight out of a horror film); psychic dislocation---Albert never personally never enters the room, it's only the executioner who does. Some historical facts are touched upon, several innocent men protest; he slips the noose around the blonde tresses of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in England.

The film follows him from his ultra-secretive part time vocation; he keeps what he does a secret even to his wife. Until as part of the war effort, Field Marshall Montgomery summons him to display British justice to the world. Albert's stiff upper lip falters only for a second when he flies to Germany and discovers he'll be doing about a wholesale increase of about 1,000 per cent from a regular day's work. Later on, he'll confess that was the first time something broke inside him, but he won't acknowledge this until many years later.

It's soon afterwards his name becomes know to the general public and heralded as the guy who did those all those rotters from Bergen-Belson (this was the camp where Anne Frank perished) Being the public face for capital punishment may not be such a bad thing during wartime. But when the winds of change begin to blow, England's most famous hangman is held up for particular scorn by the death penalty abolitionists.

Within moments of the opening the matter is put up, will he be able to do it? Albert originally was hired only as a hangman's assistant and when this other man crumbled before the task, he stepped in to do the job. The other man experiences only revulsion at this task. This is the ticking clock of the film, when will enough be enough?

Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman ~ 8/10

Good review Thracian. Tim Spall is such a good actor, he was very concincing in Pierrepoint.

I thought this was a very good film and Timothy Spall was almost mesmeric as Pierrepoint.

Inheritance (2006) Moll
　
Aftermaths

Documentary. Quite logically after the WW two, the Germany citizenry, faced with the absolute horror and tragedy of what happened simply as a survival mechanism swept it under the carpet and carried on. Most post war German filmmakers have of course, relentlessly have chipped away at that curtain of silence. With Inheritance we have a single thread from that curtain of history.

Of course growing up after the war in a single family, having no father seemed natural, but when little Monika noticed that some girls had fathers she asked and she was told, like many Germans her father was killed in the war. And there it lay.

Monika had a tumultuous relationship with her mother, they got along like cats and dogs and during one particularly nasty spat---her mother hissed she was exactly like her father and that she'd be hung just like him. Monica immediately went to her grandmother for comfort and clarification---this time her grandmother acknowledged her father had been hung because he killed the Jews. And there it lay.

Monica wasn't confronted with the full measure of her father until when middle aged she saw "Schinlder's list" As the rifle toting Comandante of Plaszow concentration camp, Amon Goeth was almost a God with the power of life and death and the incarnation of evil.

Inheritance is a small intimate documentary basically about the meeting of two grandmothers; one the child of the perpetrators and the other a holocaust survivor. Monika was Goeth's daughter. Helen was his teen-aged slave forced to clean his Villa. This is a hugely internal film. Both women speak from their own experience and react emotionally which, of course is quite naturally gut wrenching for them, but both woman lack an articulateness that would resonate with other questions. One can only wonder in awe at Helen's journey in particular---but both women are capable of forgiveness which is a huge indication of spiritual development.

Unfortunately, there's a huge pot of ideas and questions that is never stirred. Like Monika mentions crossing paths in her home town with Hermann Goering's surviving daughter and instantly hated her for being one of those bad Germans. There must be countless other stories like this. The film itself throws up certain ideas but never explores them. My only criticism of this documentary, is that ultimately, it's slight and understated. One wonders how different this same film would have been cast with actors trained to portray raw emotion and amplify their smallest feelings.

The film contains a version of Goeth's botched execution; he was actually hung three times---the inept polish hangman's hissy fits and his celebratory dance at the end were edited out.
　
The Inheritance ~ 7/10

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/ima...F8&n=130&s=dvd

The Ghost Writer (2010) Polanski



Suspense. You know what, since the movie never supplied our eponymous writer with an actual name, I'm going to call for the character Ewan McGregor played Casper for simplicity's sake. He prefers spirits over all other beverages... rendering him a highly functioning alcoholic.

With no interest and zero knowledge about politics Casper was hired to spice up and add a little intrigue into the political memoir of former British Prime Minister, Adam Lang. A sedate (and very well paid) four week retreat in Martha's Vineyard ironically changes within hours of getting the assignment when his Lang's past leaps back onto the front pages; Casper's main task may now consist of cooling it out, laying it down and pumping a massive sedative into his biography. Natch, a book release in this current environment of media interest would generate millions of dollars in excess sales, so the publisher's have asked Casper to crank this sausage out in half the time.

There is a preexisting manuscript. The first ghost writer and got ripping drunk one night and fell overboard from a ferry ride from the mainland, leaving behind him a big book of hopeless drudgery which almost compels Casper to follow the far more intriguing story, that of his predecessor's demise.

The film is endless suggestive: Since when do you need to go through a metal detector to get into a publishing company?

When Casper first meets the great man for the first time, he says he's his ghost, which Lang takes to be a passive aggressive tease about his future, or that it could also imply that Casper's refering to himself. Or deeper still, it could imply they're both dead.

The island home with it's concrete walls seems more like a bunker than a tranquil summer home. It's wall sized windows, create a kind of spacial dislocation (are we inside or outside?) These same windows create vulnerability; we spy on the characters during personal moments or when a TV helicopter hoovers into the backyard scoring some footage of the secretive war consul inside the house.

The grounds keeper with his a losing battle to keep trying to keep the endless wind blown mess of winter from the patio surface. However, metaphorically for public life like Lang's, this could also imply the endless revisions that are now on going.

In the last shot of the film, A poster for the great man's book peeps out from the neighbouring building; this seems to suggest he's been quietly watching this kind of thuggery for a very long time.

The parallels to real world entity's and identities are easy enough to spot. As a man wanted by the American judicial system for decades now, the parallels to Polanski's own life are also obvious. But Polanksi lets fly an amazing arrow that nails American hypocrisy right through the heart. The yanks have a propensity for tilting the playing field in their favor through aerial bombardment, black ops and outright invasion of other countries with astonishing regularity. Embracing human rights and democracy by joining the world's community at La Hague would result in an endless series of quite damning convictions; so America, as one of the worlds last great military empires quite judiciously has refused to sign. In the film, Lang could be convicted in absentia by the World Court. The United states is not a signatory, so this verdict would have no jurisdiction in the states. If worse came to worse, the fictional Lang could live out his life as a convicted War Criminal protected by Uncle Sam and never be called to Justice. I don't know about you, but I can hear Polanski snickering all the way from Switzerland.

There's a rogue's gallery of bit parts and cameo's. I'll single out the great job done by Olivia Williams as Lang's flustered wife (I wonder if that elusive great staring role will come her way?)

I enjoyed the Ghost Writer simply for it's reliance on framing the shot, telling the story in a compelling way and suggestion, which some would call a wee bit old fashioned. As a Director, one can only do this if you've attained a certain level of mastery and a complete grasp of the art of film making.

The Ghost Writer ~ 9/10

Time out / L'Emploi du temps (2001) Cantet

The Sword of Damocles

Psychological drama. The film opens with a wonderfully cryptic scene: A man sleeping in his car is awoken by his cell phone. The windows are white with frost. A school bus arrives, children pile out, they seem to thaw the windows with their mere presence. The man stirs from his sleep and steps out of the car to stretch his legs. There's a bit of pretense built up that this man is a workaholic, but soon it becomes apparent, that Vincent---our sleeping man, does nothing all day, apart from doing research that supports and supplements this fiction.

There's some humour involved about him recounting to his wife, his hectic, stressful day like Tarzan in the jungle swinging from crisis to crisis while he stands before a cow pasture or a roadside gas station empty of business.

I think Time Out is more than a screed against the dehumanizing effects of joblessness. Vincent freely confesses to his newly found partner in crime (who's just offered him a promising entry level position in his smuggling organization) that He loves the road. He lives for driving. Before he was fired---at first, this vague desire would manifest it self when he'd turn into a parking lot, linger a second. then peel away impulsively, blowing off a business meeting here and there. Later on, the call of the road would have him playing hokey entire days. This is probably what earned him a pink slip, not an economic down tick in the company's fortunes.

The Director suggests that a steady income is not enough. You should also do meaningful work. One should be aware of your contributions to society at large and your community and draw pride from that. Cantet also draws a sly parallel between the counterfeiter who produces knock-offs of high ticket trinkets and seems to suggest this obvious cheat, in the scheme of things is a much nobler calling. Rather than the companies and the multi-nationals who simply package the air---selling managerial templates and scenarios, in essence, producing nothing.

The wonderful Aurelien Recoing (Vincent) is a study in alienation; a stage actor by profession---this was his first film role. He's always on the outside looking. He's always alone in the crowd. He always looks fatigued; who'd a thunk doing nothing could be so exhausting?

Vincent's life is already circling the drain, so when he swindles more money from one his friends or his family, this only quickens the turn and narrows the spiral even more. There's an almost unbearable scene when he visits a close pal from youth; who actually seems like the picture of happiness, he's a house husband and musician and his wife allows him to do this while she brings home the bacon. They've heard from a friend about his money schemes and are eager to invest. They willingly hand over their paltry life's saving to him.

On the downside, the film loses a lot tension in the trip overseas. While watching the film, the majority of French viewers would have easily spotted the parallels between this tale and the source material from which the story was drawn from. That of the saga of convicted murderer Jean-Claude Romand who was front page news in France a few years before. This huckster spent 18 years pretending to a Doctor and when his house of cards was about to collapse, he slaughtered his entire family before the truth could be revealed to them. On the upside, Time out now has a topical buzz now because of the economic collapse and more than a few of these investor scandals that have come to light.

An interesting ending. All the mess has happened off screen. Judging from the temperature, the story began in autumn, it's now spring and He appears to be having an job interview---through his father's help, he's latched onto another upper management paper shuffle. As the guy begins to drone on about the essential and vital work the company does, We see Vincent tuning out; imagining himself back in his car, locking his seat belt in place, stepping on the gas and leaving this all behind. Again.

Time out ~ 8/10

Chinese Roulette — (1976) — Fassbinder

Honi soit qui mal y pense

The first ten minutes of the film is a torrent of reveals; the film begins with a quiet tableau of a mother (Ariane) and daughter (12 year old Angela) sharing an idyllic moment together listening to classical music on opposite sides of the house while waiting for the head of the household to come home for the evening's festivities. The first reveal is that when dear old dad (Gerhard) strides into the family abode; Angela hobbles up to his peck on the cheek using forearm crutches. He has to leave immediately on a “Norwegian business trip” and is only dropping by to collect his luggage. Ariane also has a trip planned to the world's fashion capital in Italy and has to leave right after him, abandoning their daughter in the care of the governess (Trauntiz) on this holiday weekend. The second reveal is that when Gerhard arrives at the airport, instead of jetting off to Oslo, he picks up his mistress who flew in. Later that afternoon when they finally settle in at the big house in the country, they awkwardly stumble upon his wife already groping her own lover on the floor of the game room. This is a little embarrassing: they've double booked the mansion. Are the men going to roll up their sleeves and duke it out? Who is going to ask whom to quietly vacate the premises? It turns out, husband and wife are well aware of each other's infidelity; although Ariane has never actually met the Parisian mistress in the flesh and her attentive boy toy turns out to be Gerhard's personal hatchet man; the good looking, swarthy Kolbe. They burst out laughing: ménage-ŕ-quatre anyone?

There is a stock cinematic metaphor for a trapped character where a director can surreptitiously place a caged bird in the background to suggest their confinement. Indeed, when the handyman hears a car pull up outside, he peers through the iron grill on a window (the mansion is a gilded cage) to catch Gerhard and his mistress walk willingly inside. There is an entire flutter of birds in the corner of the game room suggesting that everyone in the mansion clings to their self-delusions like little birds to a twiggy perch, and they wouldn't know reality even if it climbed up to them, licked its lips and said . . . meow.

There is a theatrical convention that if you produce a gun in the first act, it has to be fired in the third. Here, the gun is stored in a transparent drawer beneath the chess board, all the interactions and games symbolically have the threat of violence because the loaded gun is always visible there.

Unfortunately, the story is slightly unfinished; a thriller element is briefly introduced when Gerhard tells Kast (the caretaker) that Ali Ben Basset has been murdered in Paris and they are now the last two surviving members of the old gang. Crickets. At the end there is a religious procession outside the mansion, but we never find out what holiday or anniversary they have been avoiding. The character names are a bit on the nose; welcome to the Christ family foibles, the holiday edition. Plus you need an extra maid to scoop up all those fallen angel wing feathers in the stairwells. There is an overload of brechtian distanciation in the game room (the main setting); the chess table; the liquor cabinet; the bird cage; and the sound system are all encased in plexiglass. When a character feels vulnerable or threatened they can simply hide behind a bit of furniture to create a barrier or shield between them and their interlocutor. The battery of spotlights needed for film production is clearly visible in certain reflections.

Although Angela plays the wrecking ball; she isn't manipulating anyone, She is simply observing the world of deceit around her and calling them out on their lies. Angela tosses a whorish epithet at Kast at breakfast, but is this a dig at her past as a madam or at her present incarnation? Obviously, her main duty in running the mansion is juggling the exclusive access to the facilities for each couple. When Dad phones home to tell to Trauntiz— strike that, to chat with mommy, He would have known that she has already left for the airport; Angela immediately intuits the real reason behind the call: his actual destination for the weekend is the country mansion! She jump starts the intrigue by calling Kast immediately afterwards to tell her: congratulations, Mother has decided to go somewhere else and she has given you the weekend off, enjoy it.

Angela can't walk, so her parents overcompensate by allowing her little indulgences. She demands and gets that master and servant; parent and child; spouse and hidden paramour be allowed as equals at the impromptu family reunion, but this is an exercise in cruelty. If anyone oversteps their boundaries, they will pay dearly for their insubordination on the morrow. The eponymous party game (where the dinner quests try to guess the identity of someone in nine questions) can become uncivil in a heartbeat. Each response can produce a battery of gloating or startled reactions. After one zinger, there is actually a shot where the camera pans right across the entire room holding on other team's faces for their reactions then, at the end of the line . . . the camera repeats the same pan, this time returning in the opposite direction. Yeah, this is right in Fassbinder's frothy, melodramatic wheelhouse.

This film will be probably too refined for a general audience and this chamber piece will only be of interest to Fassbinder aficionados. The deep metaphor in the film is that her parents have given a walk on all their transgressions but it is Angela who has taken every single punitive lash meant for them and now has to live life as a cripple because of that divine settling of accounts. A lot of the intrigue depends upon unpacking all the hidden connections and echoes between the characters. For instance, Gerhard is hiding in plain sight. His criminal origins have been almost completely erased, He is now a respected businessman, successful entrepreneur, a well behaved man about town; but the story takes place at the Traunitz mansion, which is the namesake of the governess; a lucrative past business con (now forgotten) was swindling her father out of his castle and pocketing her great inheritance. Traunitz doesn't appear to bear any rancor about the role reversal. Gerhard is also a master of passive aggression. He is of course, livid his wife showed up at the mansion the same time he did and blasts Kast for her incompetence yet this rebuke only registers as a minor bit of information when he sniffingly informs her that there will be a couple more mouths to feed than originally planned for dinner. Watch him climb onto the kitchen table and turn his back on Kast; finishing off her game of solitaire and pocketing her win. The only time his mask slips is during the guessing game; at first, his responses are highly flattering but as the game progresses his answers are increasingly nasty. He loves to blow kisses at his wife across the game room and tell her that she is the one great love of his life, while clutching the waist of his French mistress. In a world with an ounce of honesty, they would be happily married to their long time companions.

I'll leave off my take on the film with a few likes. Before heading into breakfast with the men folk; Ariane stops in the hallway (next to a wall of white) she only takes up a third of the frame on the left as she glares down at her daughter on the stairs. Cut to Angela innocently looking up at her on the landing; I liked that the camera pans right in this shot to suggest a match cut . . . like mother, like daughter. Fassbinder also works in a couple of nice visual transitions from Angela's to her mother's scenes, beginning with a glamour shot in the foreground of Ariane's long graceful gams encased in stockings of silk. There is a wonderful bit of set decoration; the doorway from the living room (the one with all the couches) into the game room has abnormally wide door jambs which makes it seem like the frame to a large floor length mirror. It helps that in certain scenes that two lamps have been set on the floor in each room so the lamp in the background living room always looks like the reflection of the lamp in the foreground game room. One is always a bit startled when characters step from the living room into . . . thunderdome. And watch for all the bicephalous and tricephalous monstrosities in the game room; Ariane has a habit of walking over to someone, both friend and foe, and laying her head on their shoulder. One of the delights of a Fassbinder film is the various iterations of the characters and actors. He portions out the lion's share of the roles from his own theatrical troupe, starting with brief uncredited cameos all the way to the film's star. Three of the supporting actors here played the lead role and long suffering, masochistic heroine in at least 11 other RWF productions. In the last swirling camera movement at the end of the movie when Gerhard and Ariane finally clench in one last desperate embrace, there is a one frame were you can clearly see Fassbinder directing the on-screen action in his patented black leather motorcycle jacket in the background. This is one of three films he shot in 1976. I think his record is five films for a single year.

Chinese Roulette — ★★ ˝


P.S. The film has one hilarious continuity error. Gerhard has forgotten to tell Traunitz to stay away from the mansion that weekend and on the way there he pulls over to a phone booth to warn her off, Angela instead picks up the receiver . . . yes? Fassbinder tries to cover this by having the Governess inconveniently rocking out on a difficult musical passage (reading sheet music no less) on the bed behind Angela. Although, it won't be until after Chinese roulette game begins that it will be revealed that Traunitz is actually deaf. During the preceding 54 minutes, there were numerous occasions when someone (without a direct sight line) or even addressing the back of her head, commanded Traunitz to fetch something and she reacted as if she heard them perfectly.

Nice review of The Ghost Writer. Good work.

Fear and Trembling / Stupeur et tremblements (2003) Corneau

Forget about the glass ceiling ... what about the rice paper floor?
　
The Set-up? Amélie has just won her dream job, beating out hundred of applicants for a translator post in the super large Japanese Yumimoto Corporation. The European gal's number one dream of becoming Japanese is about to come to fruition. Technically she's already Japanese. She was born in Japan and spent the first five years there, before moving back to Europe. She's in a way, returning home.

There's an immediate visual hint that this task may prove more daunting then she imagines, She's a white woman lost in a sea of olive skinned dark haired, dark eyed Japanese men. The organizational system of this multi-national company almost seems like a caste system; where supervisors are free to indulge themselves in the most egregious behavior possible, and the subordinates must accept ... with plenty of fear and trembling (which is derived from the proper etiquette for meeting the Emperor). There's a rigid system of step promotions, and the path is long and arduous, a single mistake dooms you for years. So with unlimited enthusiasm and with the very best of intentions Améliesan enters this bizarre parallel universe where every right she does becomes a wrong. Fear and Trembling is a wonderful comedy of errors, so delightfully absurd it quickly becomes an ordeal of mythic proportions.

But two motifs seem out of place with this Kafkaesque tale. One, her idolatry of her immediate supervisor. This inappropriate attention towards Miss Mori comes off as slightly homoerotic---thankfully Miss Mori dismisses Amélie as a half-wit and doesn't pay her any mind.
She sits across from Miss Mori, idolizing her as the epitome of all things Japanese. Unfortunately, Miss Mori clocks in at over 6 feet, which puts her in the eyes of most Japanese men on the same level as a circus freak in terms of matrimonial desirability. As a woman, She's had to claw her way up inch by inch to get where she is today by sacrificing her personal life, so this kitten's claws are razor sharp and hurting. Completely clueless, Miss Mori is the last person she should be idolizing; She sits across from Miss Mori every day stealing glazes at her; impeccably dressed with not a hair out of place, It never occurs to her to mirror Miss Mori's vestimentary code. Her own delightfully disheveled hair---anywhere else in the world would be considered stylish and hip. But of course here, is seen in a negative light.

And secondly, her daydreaming before the picture window. The amount of steely eyed concentration it takes to do a simultaneous translation with a one or a two sentence delay is mind boggling. It rings psychologically false that a professional interpreter would be given to these day dreaming spells.

However, these two motifs do fit within a portrait of the artist finding his or her voice. The penchant for observation and reverie are essential components in the emotional make-up of a writer. The source material was from a novel by Belgian author, Amélie Nothomb, who cranks out a new book every year like clockwork.

Mr Tenshi (Kondo Yasunari) serves as the lone friendly face in the building; taking her aside and explaining to her a couple of her monumental boners. It would have made great sense if Améliesan grabbed him as her mentor and actually guided her through this cultural and bureaucratic mine fields. Unfortunately, she never befriends Mr. Tenshi and is left stumbling along in the dark corridors. And we're left wondering what more could she do wrong? Apparently, lots. This emotional discovery that she's slightly out of step with the work-a-day world could take place anywhere. Throw in cultural differences in a foreign country and this story is wonderfully overwrought.

I liked the harpsichord music. And the great film clip from "Merry Christmas, My Lawrence" another film with that dealt with the cosmic gap of cultural misunderstandings and also draws a parallel that what started out as a friendship has denigrated into two opposing camps at war. And apart from the two times Mr Tenshi explains her errors, that's all the explanation we ever have. I liked that We never know what she's doing wrong. I liked that during the opening credits, both Amélie and Miss Mori appear as Geisha. Sylvie Testud who played Amélie is one tough little pixie. She picked up the Best actress Cesar (the French Oscars) for this film.

Fear and Trembling ~ 9/10

Class review thrace, cheers Hadn't heard of this

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The Accidental Tourist (1988) Kasdan

One Grey suit will suffice

Drama with funny bits. A travel guide writer tries to get on with his life after a personal tragedy.

Nice things? The Leary clan is still delightfully eccentric and spatially challenged; Each sibling heads downtown on some routine errand and ends up getting lost and driving around in circles for hours. The family pooch seems to have picked up on Macon's slow withdraw into himself and begins to act out with increasingly vicious behaviors. The scene where Macon tries to slip a letter under her door explaining why he can't have dinner with her. When Muriel pulls him into an embrace, her face becomes luminous with light, her eyes close, as if in a dream, then flick open when he mentions his wife---even though he doesn't know he's still in love with his wife, it registers with her.

In complete opposition to Hurt's understated freeze-out; Geena Davis deservedly snapped up the supporting actress Oscar that year for her Muriel Pritchett supporting role that complemented him perfectly.

Ever so often there's a motivational cut to a flashback needlessly explaining some plot point. It's kind of weird how everything now seems over-explained. It's almost as if part of the script was mistakenly formatted with an Easy-eye font. Example: Macon writes books for people who don't like to travel, the whole idea is to get through the trip without being bothered once. Which of course, becomes the big metaphor for his life: get through it without a single shock or stumble. Paradoxically, in contrast with everything else in the film, the Director Lawrence Kasdan has wisely chosen not to overemphasize William Hurt's wonderfully understated performance.

Despite an overall depreciation for this film---it seems a tad overstated now; Hurt's performance has really appreciated. There's too much pain in love. He'd rather sail through the rest of his life, alone and safe. He reminded me a lot of the recent protagonist in Tom Ford's "A single Man" Both George and Macon are one dark night away from swallowing an ice bucket full of sleeping pills, but both men stubbornly carry on. On this, maybe the fifth or sixth time I've seen this, the editing of the movie has seriously soured my enjoyment of it. O how the mighty have fallen.

The Accidental tourist ~ 7/10

http://www.impawards.com/1988/accide...urist_xlg.html