Naked lunch (1991)

As much as films about Artists and Creativity tend to irritate and bore me – DAMN IT, Naked Lunch is a funny, disturbing film, one of the fewest films about "creativity" I can actually stand. Clearly, I have a thing for perversely talking typewriters. Even though I don’t like all of his films, David Cronenberg’s interest in metamorphoses and corporeality tend to make for good movies.  As you know, the film is based on Burroughs’s famous novel. Our hero is William Lee, exterminator. We learn that the powder that kills the bugs is not only good for that particular purpose – Will and his wife use the powder as a drug. At a drunken party, they play the Wilhelm Tell game. Will aims a gun at an object on his wife’s head, accidentally killing her. William is approached by a giant bug. We learn about “Interzone”, some kind of North African country. William goes there – or is that where his druggy hallucinations take him – to write some kind of report. Under the influence of drugs, he starts to write a novel. The typewriter he uses is not a dead tool. It’s a communicating creature. So – there we are, in a strange country, where American men (and some women) hunt boy toys, where eerie talking bugs lurk around the corner, and where there is a scheming corporation that William is destined to get in contact with. Nothing is quite what it seems here. Naked lunch builds layers and layers of dread and paranoia. But it does so humorously, almost gently. Even some of the grotesque machine-bugs are gentle. That I have no idea what this is all about doesn’t worry me one bit. I wasn’t really looking for hints about Burroughs’s life and pals. I enjoyed Naked lunch immensely. Even the slightly predictable free jazz soundtrack works just marvelously. I also like the sleazy feel of the sets and the brown desaturated color scale of the cinematography. Every little detail of Naked lunch is just right, even the cheesiest bit of quasi-sexual (always very queer) imagery (you see some literary eroticism going on here … for sure). Sleazy entertainment! "Exterminate all rational thought. That is the conclusion I have come to."

La Chinoise (1967)

My mixed feeling for Jean-Luc Godard's films always make for interesting viewing experiences. Excruciatingly irritating as they may be, I still, somehow, like watching them. Aesthetically, Godard is never a let-down. This is particularly true for La Chinoise, Godard's political film about a marxist-leninist-maoist revolutionary group - a comedy of sorts.

Most of the events in La Chinoise are located in one apartment. Every small detail of the sets has been arranged according to Godard's ideas about mood and style: quotes are painted on walls, furniture are used sparingly - and bright colors are used everywhere. The six main characters in the film represent different classes of society. As a parody of certain traits of ideological mumbo-jumbo, it would work fine. But I'm not sure what is intended as parody, and what isn't.

Let's start with the things I admire in this film. Godard is not afraid of experiments and being playful. In this film, he builds layer upon layer of sounds, colors and words. In many cases, it's fun to watch these chaotic scenes comprising slogans, quotes, music, images, overwhelming color scales and quirky acting. As a collage film: congrats to you, Mr Godard. Godard's mix of mockumentary, cartoons, stylized "lectures" is endearing, sometimes mind-blowingly sharp - while some scenes are terribly flat and simply irritating (the "love" story). As a political film, the peculiar mix of demagogic rhetoric and dove-eyed youth is certainly not without interest; perhaps Godard's film is a believable portrait of French leftist movements during the 60's, along with complicated schisms among its participants.

But if this is to be a political film, then I must say it is a mess. Godard praises the revolutionary force of naivité - naivité stands against the faux-progressive "older" forces who are not brave enough to embrace the openness of revolutionary struggle. The use of violence in the film is depicted in a typically ambiguous way: at least something happens, anything can happen, even though the persons killed happen to be the wrong people. As a film about political violence, I really cannot recommend this. Godard is too chic, too much in love with his own quirks to focus on anything essential that would really hit hard. (That said, I consider one of the film's best scenes the one in which Veronique talks to a philosophy colleague on a train - if the film had been focused on this conversation, something more interesting might have come up.)

To sum up: I don't have anyting against Godard's stylized approach to counter-culture storytelling. The problem is that Godard, in my opinion, has very little insightful to say about the world. However revolutionary his films are, in terms of surface-level aesthetics, I never feel that Godard encourage me to look at the world in a new or unexpected way. For that reason, there is the worrying hunch that his films are empty gestures, small teases, references intended as intellectual gags. - And it is in this sense that I would say that if Godard thinks of himself as a revolutionary film-maker (I know too little to know if he does/did), then I must say that I don't really see the force in his films that would make him one. What I mean is that I very rarely feel that Godard's play with artificiality has the power of revelation, or disenchantment. I just don't get it: what does he want me to see? “Vague ideas must be confronted with clear images,” sums up the film quite well.

Taste of cherry (1997)

A middle-aged man, Mr. Madii, has decided to commit suicide. However, he needs some help. Madii drives around in his car in the wastelands outside Tehran to find somebody who can help him. He talks to laborers, a young man drafted in the army, a seminary student and a man employed in a museum. He tells them about what he is about to do. He offers them money. But the first people he asks refuse his offer. He is getting increasingly desperate. Taste of cherry is very much a Abbas Kiarostami-film. The quasi-documentary feel is there, the naturalistic dialogue works all right – and the landscape of the film is simply stunning. Still, I feel this is a less successful movie than, for example, The Wind Will Carry Us. Regardless of its slow pacing and naturalism, Taste of cherry has some weak moments, where the dialogue and film language verge on the pathetically pompous. The themes of the film, suicide and the meaning of life are sometimes dealt with in a heavy-handed way. As much as these moments bother me, this is a good film, a moving film. The main character is surrounded by an air of mystery. We know he wants to die. We know he interrupts his interlocutors in a way that signals that he doesn’t really care. He wants to settle the deal. Other than this, we don’t know much. Why this man wants to die, we do not know (there are some very small hints, but in no way are they conclusive). For the first twenty minutes we just see the man slowly driving around in his car, gazing at men. Yes, in fact, it seemed as if this was a cruising hunt, as Madii asked men if they were lonely, if they wanted to take a ride with him, etc.

Nature plays a major part in this film. One might even say that it is a specific perception of nature that the ending scenes revolve around. Nature is not romanticized. Even though one of the characters, who also wanted to commit suicide, talk about the life-inducing experience of eating mulberries, there are other, less traditional, images of nature: a burly machine is shoveling stone, swirling dust, winding roads in a rocky landscape, a town scene in the twilight of the early morning hours. Every frame is filled with a melancholy sense of life, of being alive. Kiarostami underscores this feeling with a masterful combination of sound and images of nature. 

As for the very last images of the film: well, I really don’t know. To me, it didn’t work. I didn’t get the point. I felt it was an unnecessary distancing gesture – what for?

Heading south (2005)

Laurent Cantet is a director I tend to appreciate. I liked The Class, and Human resources is a striking film. So, I sat down to watch Heading south with some positive expectations. The film takes place in the late 70’s. We are presented to a group of women who spend their vacation(s) in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Soon, we grasp why they are there. These middle-aged women have hooked up with local youngsters, with whom they have sexual relationships. It is clear that the boys are exoticized to an almost extreme degree in the eyes of these women: one line that is repeated, over and over again, “it is different here”. Their tourist resort is to be kept as a safe haven, tending to their needs and emotions. “You know money is not a problem.” 

The boys are not “professional” prostitutes (it seems) but at the same time, they are compensated for their “services”. This is of course one of the very few movies to depict female sex tourism. Cantet has perhaps not made a cinematic masterpiece (as a film, this is nothing special, really) but it is more than satisfying in attempting to put these women’s activities in a global perspective of race, class and gender. The three women all offer different perspectives on this kind of half-monetary relationship. Ellen (played with wit and ingenuity by Charlotte Rampling) is the cynic who appears to see through romantic dreams (but it turns out she is not as honest to herself as she thinks she is). Her friend Sue adopts a more playful attitude. Enjoy it while it lasts. Brenda, on the other hand, seems to have fallen romantically for her Haitian “friend”. What these characters have in common is self-delusion. They tend to see themselves as liberators for these boys, to whom they offer passports. The film could have dedicated a larger part of the story to the boys’ perspective. The information we obtain about their lives – a girlfriend, a worried mother, lethal threats – sheds little light on how they experience their everyday life with these women. What I would have wished for is a more direct way to address political issues.  It’s there, all right (especially in all scenes, in which the waiter Albert takes part), but it could have been dealt with in detail – instead of looking at the competition between two self-indulged women. But Cantet’s film is surprisingly low-key, and it has its merits. 

Laurent Cantent is one of the few directors that takes an interest in work/labor. This theme has been recurrent in all his film, and he deals with it in a very non-preachy way. 

Le Silence de la Mer (1949)

The German occupation of France, WWII: A German officer called von Ebrennac is lodged with a French family consisting of an elderly man and his young niece. The man and the niece defiantly refuse to talk to the German. But the German talks. First, hesitatingly, and then freer; it turns out he is no raving Nazi, but a lover of culture, a composer whose feelings about the war are ambiguous. It seems as if he does not understand his hosts and their contempt for him. He cannot stop talking about how much he loves France, and French culture (but not the modern part of it). Germany, to him, is Bach’s turf, not Hitler’s. Vivaciously, he imagines the alliance of two cultures. During a visit in Paris, he goes through some sort of spiritual conversion, in that he sees the reality of occupation: raving Nazis against the backdrop of Famous Monuments.

Le Silence de la Mer (dir. Jean-Pierre Melville) suffers from a few flaws, yet it is still a good film. The problem is that it overstates its case. The German is made too one-dimensional; a romantic whose perspective is destined to be shattered by reality. Of course, this is a good description, but the question is how it is made honest, so that rough edges are not glossed over. The silent Frenchmen are also overly simplified, but their silence is expressive enough to keep up tension.  But another problem is a very problematic depiction of secret love. We hear a man’s voice, the elderly Frenchman’s. He talks about the burgeoning feelings for the German shown by the niece. But she is silent throughout the film. A pretty face, a white neck, twitching, busy hands, whose movements are interpreted by another. Melville evokes the different ways in which we are silent, how silence changes from hostility to intimacy.

With Dutch angles, extreme close-ups and over-lighted sets, Melville transcends conventional film-making. Melville works with the medium, and tries to capture an atmosphere. The minimalism of the film could be the work of Bresson. Most events take place in one single room, where a clock is always ticking. Some scenes are really striking. For a film with so much talk in it, it is interesting to note that it is not the German’s monologues that keep this film going. The monologues are heavy with words, and they do not always work.

Of course, the political surrounding of the film should not be forgotten. The manuscript is based on a book written as a part of the French resistance movement during the war. The book, at the time, was very famous. Still, it is interesting to learn that the film was a commercial success. I think this has still to be one of the best films by Jean-Pierre Melville I’ve seen so far. To be honest, I’m not crazy about his crime films. To me, this film was much more interesting than his tongue-in-cheek crime flicks.

Born to Kill (1947)

I am either equipped with a poor taste, or Born to kill (dir. Robert Wise) is a perennial example of good, sleazy film noir. Reno: a gruesome murder has been committed. Right from the start, we know who the killer is. For that reason, Born to kill is no mystery film. The murderer, Sam, is a man who knows himself to be an unstoppable charmer. On a train to San Francisco, he meets a lady, Helen. What he doesn’t know is that the woman on the train, a tough divorcee, was the person who discovered the dead bodies.  Sam clearly fancies an affair with Helen, whom he considers an equal in terms of cynical mentality. There’s something there, all right, but Helen is about to get married. Sam chooses the next good option that comes along and marries Helen’s wealthy sister (which doesn't stop the erotic tension between him and Helen). It soon dawns on Sam & Helen that the murdered girl’s female admirer has hired a private investigator. And so on, and so forth.

So what the heck is so funny about this? Well, I like the no-nonsense energy of the film. There are logical holes in the story, but regardless of that, the film moves on towards its tragic end with a mixture of screwballsy misunderstandings and illicit relationships. The dialogue is of the kind we expect: keep it short, keep it expressive. Born to kill also features some good examples of how the infamous Hayes code was dodged. There are several hints, quite explicit, too, of gay relationships.  As all the good noir films, there is no trace of moralism. What happens, happens. One can interpret the end as the expression of conscience – but just as likely, on can read it in the opposite way. Born to kill is lots of fun in all sorts of ways.

Contemporary critics were appalled by the Vices excercised in this film. God bless films who "pander to the lower levels of taste" and are an "offence to a normal intellect"! I love this film.

The Third Man (1949)

Graham Greene is Graham Greene and this is not a bad movie. It was directed by Carol Reed - one of the very few well-known female directors from that period.

The story is by far not as remarkable as the atmosphere. The plot is set in post-WWII Vienna. Vienna is divided into four zones. The political tensions are evident in the story. Holly comes to Vienna to see his friend Harry. When he arrives, he is told that Harry is dead, killed in a car crash. Holly suspects there’s something more at play here than a mere accident. He meets Harry’s girlfriend, and talks to several of his acquaintance. Then the story takes a sudden turn. Things are not what they appear to be. Well, as I said, I wasn’t exactly engrossed by the story. There were plenty of other things to pay attention to. The weirdly fitting soundtrack is one of them. It could have been music for a comedy, but now, in this setting, it became something else. And the most striking aspect of the film is the way Vienna is depicted; a dark place of endless secrets, weird characters and pompous buildings next to the ugly-looking traces of war. Reed hits home the point by using jarring angles, tilted shots and events drenched in haunting shadows. In more than one scene, we see a face only partly lighted, otherwise remaining in the shadows. For this reasons, it is more than logical that the main character is a writer of pulp stories. The film itself is never excessive – always tasteful. Small details catch my eye; a restless cat, a screaming kid, a balloon salesman. And let’s not forget the grand finale, located in the grand-looking but mucky sewers. Great stuff, all the way, at least style-wise.

And yay for the ending scene! Very stylish. Very decent - and brave - choice.