Madadayo (1993)

You can never be quite sure what a Kurasawa film will be like. He is a quite versatile auteur, which is one of the interesting things about his films. Madadayo is surely less known than the samurai-themed movies, and I must say that it is a shame that it is so overlooked - this is a gem. A strange gem. It is hard even to explain what the themes of the film are. Friendship, one might propose, but the better word for it seems to be devotion (assymetries in relations exist). Or ageing. Or loyalty. Or the changes brought about by modernity. Or change. Yes, I think the latter theme stands at the core of the story and it seems like the film takes a rather stoic perspective on change: changes occur, but what matters is the same.

It is easier to describe the erratic structure of the film. A great part of the film is taken up by birthday celebrations of an elderly Professor-Writer about whom we know very little (not even, I think, his wife's first name). His birthday party is celebrated in a carnevalistic way with his students, chanting "not yet!" defying the horizon of death as the Professor drinks a huge glass of beer. So I suppose this is the core of the film: a plea for life, the way life continues. One would perhaps think that such a story about an old professor would become sentimental. Even though I suspect many see it is Kurasawa's own ode to the artistic life, the emotional tone of the film didn't bother me (but yes, it IS sentimental, but in such an overwrought way that it becomes funny instead). Instead, I was amused by many of the scenes, absorbed by their sheer strangeness. In a lengthy segment of the film, the professor, his wife and the students look for the prof's cat who has disappeared. Also hear, it is the beating heart of life that is focused on. The disappearance of the cat, for the professor, drains life of meaning. He is besides himself in mourning his beloved friend, and all his friends participate in this mourning process.

The style of the film is peculiar. Kurasawa works with extremely artificial-looking settings. The sun burns with a red, eerie glow that I've never seen on film before (maybe I have seen it in some children's movie?). The effect could be cheesy but here, the artificiality is contrasted with the celebration of life, which is quite an interesting way to construct a movie about this theme. Madadayo is a gentle, wistful film which I am glad I had the chance to see.

The Wagon Master (1950)

This blog has been on hiatus for a good while now. I watched The Wagon Master at MoMa just before I left New York. It's an entertaining Western movie that may appeal to those who are not really into western movies. John Ford knows how to make a good movie. What is so fascinating about The Wagon Master is that it barely has a story. We are introduced to these free-wheeling horse traders who are no family men, but not drinking men either. When these horse-traders meet a group of Mormons, they are offered a place with these people as wagon masters. Hesitatingly, they go along with the idea of travelling westward with people whose religion they do not seem to related to in one way or another. Other people join the group, and from this is created a miniature picture of American outsiders. Outsiders of belief, outsiders of society and outsiders of the law. But the film is not so much driven by ideas as it is driven by images of the ordinary and sometimes extra-ordinary challenges of everyday life on the road (and many type of rituals that form a part of everyday life). Ford's film is wistful, romantic and scruffy. It is a film that latches on to the tradition of evoking an image of the "promised land" and the things that has to be sacrificed in getting there. I have a hard time understanding why, but I found this film very entertaining, it is simply a well made film that does not pretend to be anything beyond what it is. It is not a film of pretension, which is maybe what I liked the most. Some have called it sincere and I wouldn't think twice of agreeing to this. (Structurally, this is one of the more unusual western films that I have seen.) One of the striking things about the movie is that it does not trade on the usual image of intolerant pious people. Religion, here, is not given any specific meaning. The Mormons are rather portrayed as a group who have quite complex relations amongs themselves and who take different attitudes towards outsiders of different stripes. As I said, this is a film about encounters among different sorts of outsiders which makes the notion of "beloning" all the more complex. Lastly, I want to add that it is a visually stunning film and that YOU should watch it if you have the chance.

Born in flames (1983)

I came to the screening of Born in flames with no idea of what the film would be. This lo-fi, anarcho-feminist film is both thrilling and endearing, unlike any other film I have seen (the only comparison I can think of is some of Derek Jarman's more apocalyptic, punk-ish work). Set in a gritty NYC where a quasi-socialist regime has taken over, the film presents an unflinching, militant view of the need for changing the world and listening to different voices. The film presents protests and rebellion in a society that is just only in name ... Oh, I think we live in that society. A women's army speaks and acts out against injustices in different parts of city life, in the workplace, in the economy, discrimination against lesbians, sexual violence, genderized racism. The style of the film is quite fantastic. It doesn't try to create a narrative. Rather, the film is a tract, a brash manifesto if you want, that doesn't settle with any answer other than that we need a beutiful world for everyone, and that it isn't for sure this one. Born in flames is an underground gem, and I'm happy to have seen it. The soundtrack is very nice, too - who can capture the spirit of revolt better than The Slits? Nobody, that's who! The contemporary NYT reviewers said that there is nothing cinematic about the editing style. I would say the opposite: this is an attempt to create a revolutionary, associative film, and the montage style of the movie has everything to do with politics. -- Born in Flames is one of the very few American films I've seen to explore the concept and realization of collective action. It is also one of the most hopeful portrayals I've seen about the nature of acting together, coming together in the need to act. This is the Arendtian take on radical, lesbian and black feminism!

Diabel (1972)

Oh boy, what a crazy mess Diabel is. This little-known Polish costume drama by Andrzey Zulawski  is a surreal tale about .... about ... well I am not sure what, but my guess is communist authoritarian madness, even though the film is set in 18th century Prussian takeover of Poland. I can tell you this (as a warning perhaps), this is not your ordinary cozy historical piece. Diabel is unruly and hallucinatory. We are presented with a young man who is released from a prison in the midst of fierce war events. The man, followed by the mysterious stranger that released him, returns to his home place. Depravity - everywhere. The young man, we are led to think, is a decent fellow really but somehow he is goaded into these horrid actions. The world the film evokes is out-of-this-world gorey. Nothing makes sense, except for a solid chain of events that turn bad into worse. Indecent acts are committed and blood is flowing everywhere. Cinematically, every image has a murky and unsettling quality to it. Zulawski evokes a world in which nobody in particular seems to know what is going on - except for the mysterious stranger. This is brought home by the frenzied camera work and eerie kraut-y music. The entire film thunders with an immense sense of rage. Everything in this world seems to be the product of a moralism that has no real grasp of morality.

Le havre (2011)

It is nice to see that Aki Kaurismäki has so many fans in NYC. Many of his films have been screend this fall in the IFC cinema. For sentimental reasons, I went to see Le havre on X-mas eve. I was terribly late, and had to run through Greenwich village to catch the film. I slumped down in the chair in the first row and was thrown into the utterly familiar world of Kaurismäki. You recognize the places, the stern-faced people, the story. Even the music seems familiar. Kaurismäki has returned to France, but his rendition of life in a port town does not rely on local details. Cafes and streets and apartments - look like they always do in a Kaurismäki film (a blend of realism and artificiality). I don't have a general opinion on whether this is a weakness in Kaurismäki's ouvre. Yes, they are mannered, romantic odes to the simple life and the bohemian way. His characters are familiar too. They are kind, or evil, and speak in essentials only.

The drama in the films could be highly political, but it turns out the material is not politicized, except for during a few moments in the film. Marcel Marx is a shoe-shiner but also a bohemian man. When he comes home from work his wife has dinner ready for him. When his wife gets sick and is hospitalized Marx' world is turned upside-down. One day, having lunch at the quay, he sees a small boy in the water. Le havre is a transit town for illegal immigrants en route for England. Idrissa, as the boy is called, has run away from the French authorities who found the container where he and his co-travellers were hiding. Marx, and his friend, help the boy. It is a beautiful film about kindness and help. At its best, Le havre is a heart-warming fairy tale that has a connection with complicated political realities. Goodness, here, is not described as anything particular: Marx simply sees the boy, and cares for him. A criminal inspector - modeled after every stylized rule in the noir book - simply regains his sanity and goes against his profession. I like that understanding of what goodness is.

On the other hand, there is a disturbing element of the film that has to do with the things I noted above, Kaurismäki's tendency to be locked into his own world. In this world, a bohemian has a wife that tends to his every need, lives for him, has dinner ready. Kati Outinen is of course good as always (I must admit that seeing her weary face and hearing her non-fluent French almost made me cry), but the presentation of the relationship between husband and wife is a bit disturbing in its elevation of traditional gender patterns.

It's a wonderful life (1946)

I wanted an All-American experience and I got it: I went to see It's a wonderful life a few days before Christmas. This Capra classic was even more sentimental than I expected - I had only seen fragments of the film. It is in every sense a film that tries to please the audience by inducing a sense of warmth and hope - everything will be all right in the end; being good and hard-working, rather than running off to live the big city life, will pay off sooner ... or later. There is not much tension to speak of in the film. The changes that occur in the plot are ones that the audience are hit in the head with. I did not find the movie heart-warming, rather I felt it to be insecure in its preaching of goodness and miracles. It is telling that in the midst of steep depression and suicidal tendencies, the turning point for the main characters is an external voice that convinces him that HE matters, HE has worked so hard, look what the world would be without HIM. A film about goodness - yes, but more a film about indulging in one's own inner feeling of "being good". Or maybe I am too depraved and cold-blooded to appreciate this kind of movie. If one wants to say something nice about the film it might be that it has a peculiar anti-capitalist leaning, depicting as it does the lack of sense for the human world inherent in the rules of money-making. But the capitalist is, of course, reduced to the evil man who is driven by senseless greed.

A Dangerous Method (2011)

David Cronenberg was perhaps more fun two or three decades ago, when he was occupied with all sorts of monsters and weird forms of existence. His style has been cleaned up, to the extent that his latest film is a costume drama about prima Victorian people. But yes - the point of the film is to show the ways that this civilization is kept in check, and only barely successfully so. All this is going on in the relation between Freud and Jung. Jung is portrayed as a man who fights with himself. Freud, on the other hand, is presented as a man who rarely doubts, whose presence is a bit suffocating, and whose ideas are piece and parcel of bougeois reality. But, honestly, I am not sure what is supposed to be the most important element of the film. The major part of it is taken up by the relationship, sometimes professional, in many senses of the word, and sometimes erotic, between Jung and a certain Spielrein. Of course, the drama between the two are intertwined with the history of psychoanalysis. But I am not sure whether the film makes an interesting case of two images of psychoanalytic treatment or ideas. It is far too involved in images of a woman on her way to personal liberation and societal normality (or something) and a man's feeble denial of himself. Some of the scenes are plenty of fun. The wackier side of psychoanalysis, embodied by a certain mister Gross, is absolutely hilarious when put in action together with the two family men Freud and Jung. It's also amusing to see Viggo Mortensen as the authority-loving, constantly pipe-sucking Dr Freud. When reading Freud's own texts, I have a hard time not hearing Mortensen's snarky, gruff interpretation. From a cinematic point of view, there is not much to say. Cronenberg's touch is light, traditional - conservative almost. To some extent, I think Cronenberg is playing with this formula. The scenes of female madness are so over the top, and the same goes for the images of the bourgeois, respectable wife who never thinks badly of her man. Sexuality, of course, is reduced to a dark and uncontrollable force that all characters grapple with in their own ways. --- What's new under the sun? Not much, apparently. I found very little that would provide a fresh understanding of psychoanalysis. In my view, Cronenberg was just repeating the old story of psychoanalysis as an expression of the slight discontent we, or at leaste the more affluenct classes, have with society. The interpretation the film seems to give is that traditional psychoanalysis did not help very much to cure this discontent, even though it will make people "less ill" in the eyes of society. But it won't provide any insight into any deeper things. - -- At least partly, this is what the film appears to say.

Litan (1982)

This blog has been on hiatus for a while now. // The Spectacle microcinema is a favorite of mine in its offering all sorts of odd movie experiences. Yesterday's screenings consisted of two films, of which I saw one, Litan. Paying audience (I think): 2. It's a weird little film that is unlike most anything else. This is a good thing, and a bad thing. It's hard to find a cheesier horror flick than this one. It's also difficult to find a weirder one. Jean-Pierre Mocky's film takes place in a nightmare that just won't end. In the centre of this feverish dreamy reality is a funeral music playing gang with death masks on their faces. A town, Litan, is in many ways a city of death. Characters are dying off like flies, some of them later to return to life in some sort of zombie-mode. In the end, the distinction between the dead and the living starts to wane. -- The film can be blamed for lots of things but at least it doesn't try to explain all the feverish weirdness on display. Entertaining? To some exant. Will I remember it next week? No.

Who can kill a child? (1976)

I doubt that anyone knows what to do with the film Who can kill a child. While I saw it in a micro-cinema in Brooklyn, the audience reacted in two ways: some seemed confused, while others just chuckled, revealing their appreciation of underground horror film with quirky storylines. I don't know. Sometimes I was as disturbed by the chucklers as I was by the film, which in itself is pretty disturbing, even though more violent films have been made. Maybe it's be beginning of the movie in relation to the rest that is so unnerving. We see rueful scenes from concentration camps and wars - in all these violent situations, a narrator tells us in Brittish English, children are victims. The plot of the film starts off with two Brittish tourists lolling around on the streets of a small Spanish town. They are to travel to an island off the beaten track. There are rumors that strange things are going on there. The Brittish couple keep up their cheerful tourist attitude while exploring the island, only to find that it seems rather deseted, except for some children. Things get creepy. They go into a bar to find something to eat. The bar is empty too. A child comes into the room, and we see that something is the matter with the kid. Soon enough we "know". Or really, we don't know. What we know is that the kids on the island have turned into brutal murderers and killed off the adults. ---- Gore, you sigh. But wait, the thing that makes this film so peculiar is how quiet it is. Mostly, nothing much happens, but we all feel a deep dread in our stomachs. The camera slowly tracks the two main characters in ther confused "tour" of the island. It's a horror movie that has more in common with Rosemary's baby and the Birds than Texas Chainsaw Massacre. What is the point? Are the children taking revenge on the adults? Are we to get a new, more sinister perception of children? Like I said: I don't know.

Tomboy (2010)

Céline Sciamma's Tomboy is a bittersweet tale about a ten-year old kid who grows up to realize that she lives in a highly gendered world. Laure moves to a new place with parents and little sister. S/he goes out to play and meets Lisa, who soon becomes friends with - Mikael. Laure hangs out with the other kids, plays football and games. They think Mikael is a cool boy and a tough kid (Laure beats up the child who was unkind to her/his sister). What we have here is a simple story about what it is to be young. The film manages to capture those awfully fragile moments of being hurt and insecure - it is rather moving actually. It deals with gender in a clear, but no simplistic, way. We are shown a set-up where gender matters, where small boys play football with each other, while the girls are offered the role of spectators. A quiet boy like Mikael soon earns the badge "you are not like the other boys". It's a sad, heartbreaking story, always told gracefully without being blunt or trying to make things easy. I also admire the film for letting kids be kids, with silly stunts, small gestures and big gestures. The film speaks from the children's perspective, and not the perspective of adults who think they have all the answers. The adults in the film, for a start, don't. I have rarely seen a more moving portrait of the relation between parents and children. We have the father who lets his kid be - he loves her unconditionally. The mother has obvious problems with the kid's "conforming" and this is one of the few places on film where an adult is so clearly also feeling like a scared child, with all the messy emotions that involves. Sciamma really brings out the vulnerability that many situations contain, the vulnerability of not knowing what a situation has turned one into, and the vulnerability expressed by people who think they know. It's a beautiful little film. You should see it.