Il divo (2008)

As a person not really familiar with Italian politics, many of the central events of Il Divo were not very familiar to me. Surprisingly, this did not make the film boring or confusing. Rather than being a film about the development in Italian government, Il divo is an almost opera-like tale about a man without qualities, a stone-faced politician who walks through violent political events with a fascinating non-presence. It is precisely this non-presence that seems to have been the inspiration for the director, Paolo Sorrentino. Giulio Andreotti was prime minister in Italy during a time of unrest in Italian history. He was blamed for many crimes (among them, ties to the Mafia) and was acquitted from only a few of them.

I found Il divo to be immensely funny. It's hard to believe that a film about an Italian prime minister could be so funny, but sonehow - it was. Toni Servillo, who played Andreotti, did a magnificent job in embodying this elusive character, who walks through absurd-looking corridors and halls with a hunched back. Andreotti is the bureacrat who almost never appears as a real human beings, not even in the scenes with his wife. The boring face of the main character stands in radical contrast with the lavish style of the film: extravagant camera movements, bright colors, surreal turns (in one scene, we see an otherworldly dance --- drab costumes have suddenly transformed into Fred Astairs!). Sorrentino masterfully changes from style to style: from realism to the absurd, from the violent to the mundane. He never overdoes the political agenda of the film. The soundtrack goes from pompous classical music to seedy pop. It works. If one puts aside references to Tarantino, the film that I thought of several times while watching Il divo was El custodio, a mix of Twin Peaks and societal critique. Il divo is one of the strangest film I've seen in years and one of the best to tackle political corruption.

The long voyage home (1940)

More John Ford films on the blog! The long voyage home is almost as loose-limbed as The Wagon master. The film is based on a play by Eugene O'Neill. From the perspectives of the numerous characters, the films explores complicated relationships to what it means to have a home. The setting of the film is an English cargo ship during world war II going from the west indies to baltimore and then England. Tension is created by the multitude of types aboard the ship: the philosophical type, the playful guy, the spiteful cynic etc. I expected the film to be some kind of adventure movie, but it wasn't that at all. What we have is rather an elegiac psychological drama about the turns of life at sea. In the second part of the film, there is an extremely lengthy segment in which all "action" is completely suspended. The crew has finally arrived in England, and most of them decide not to sign on to another boat. They are all intent on helping their friend Ole get to his boat that will take him to Sweden. But they settle for the seedy bars instead.... -- One of the things I like about The long voyage home is that it is so open-ended. The viewer must decide for herself what she sees as central in the events of the film. There is no grand "point", no big conclusion, no calming or feel-good resolution. We are presented to these characters and almost every one of them seem pretty lost. This is what Ford does: he describes a time and place where people have no given place in the world, where certainties are few. It is interesting that this film was done in 1940 - and it gives a very vivid image of the ongoing war. In The Long Voyage home there are no heroes, no heroism. There are just human beings who try to make up their minds about the shape of their lives. It's a grim movie - honest.

Varasto (2011)

I was positively surprised by Varasto (dir. Taru Mäkelä). One might see it as a light comedy with streaks of sitcom-TV logic, but it is also possible to see the film as a critique of class society. The film might have a humorous tone, but the image of the working class in contemporary Finland is very harsh. Anyone can be thrown into the fringes of society. Rouska and Raninen works in warehouse section of a paint shop. The job bores them and they kill time by playing darts. Rousks has an on/off affair with Karita. To earn a few extra euros, he makes under-the-table business with supplies from the store which he sells to a cynical communist. Rouska lives the ordinary bachelor life (eating meatballs directly from the package) until two things happens. Karita gets pregnant and the boss starts looking into the inventory in the shop. The tone of Varasto is sometimes just as cynical as the persons. Trust isn't possible; one always has to keep one's eye open so not to get screwed. The characters do everything to drive home their interests, at the workplace but also in private relations. The film does not take the perspective that this is how life has to be, but rather, that a specific economic situation is imprinted in people in the form of self deception. One might complain that the characters in the film remain one-dimensional stereotypes, but to be honest I didn't have that problem. Varasto is a good example of how a comedy can treat societal issues withiut becoming too preachy. In this, it has much in common with American screwball comedies from the thirties. 

The Fountainhead (1949)

The only thing the name Ayn Rand conjures up in my mind is the image of a Republican kid who considers himself an intellectual. From what I've heard about Rand, she seems a very extreme author, famous more for her freedom-loving ideas than her literary style. But you don't have to align with the intellectual world of Ayn Rand to be confused by The Fountainhead (dir. King Vidor). It's just such a strange film. The story, of course, revolves around the way freedom, individuality and creativity stands against collectivity and the People. The main character is an architect who designs buildings which are not always popular among the common people. His buildings are too "modern" for the common man, whose taste in this film is represented as a hodgepodge of different classicist styles. The architect struggles and struggles. Unable to find any clients, he works as a laborer in a quarry. There, he meets a journalists who admires his work as an architect. In a long, strange scene, we see their first encounter. For a good five minutes, the camera cuts from the architect's laboring, swelling muscles to the gaze of the journalist. The music of drills and machines embellish this romantic scene. After this follows scenes in which the journalist tries to lure the architect into her bed, but he mocks her, then rapes her. The rape scene is done in a way to let us believe that it is the journalist's desire to be raped. The story continues along two threads, that of the "romantic" windings of the relationships of the two characters, and the struggle of Roark the architect to get through with a new grand project in a way that in no way compromises his genious. We learn what happens when the great Artist is confronted with compromises from greedy and collectivistic businessmen. We also learn that a great Artist's eloquence can acquit him from the crime of having blown up a building.

The strangest aspect of the film is the last scene, which could without much alteration work as a part of any Riefenstahl film during the Nazi era. It is an understatement to say that Fountainhead is pompous. It is so over the top that it almost becomes funny. The film's notion of freedom and creativity is so bizarre that it is hard to connect it with the usual idea about market individualism. I think it is hard to find a film that is more hostile to "society" (which is here tantamount to vulgarity) - the basic premise of the story is that there are individuals whose ideas should not be compromised in any way by what other people may want or need. It is not evident what the conclusion is. A form of aristocracy perhaps, where some people are allowed the space for action and limitless rights (to blow up ugly things, for example), whereas others are doomed to laboring.  -- Even though this is a through-and-through crazy film, somehow, it was interesting to watch it.

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.