Walkabout (1971)

Don't Look Now by Nicholas Roeg is one of the movies that has made a deep impression on me and its eerie atmosphere has been haunting me since I watched it. I first watched Walkabout as a teen. 15 years later, I did not remember much of the film, except for the strange feelings it evoked. I didn't remember, or then I didn't understand, anything about the film's exoticism, its at times rather tiring contrast between nature and civilization and its insistent preoccupation with the nude female body. Beyond that, Walkabout has its strong moments of unarticulated dread as well as interpersonal encounters.

The story starts out with two children and their father going out to the outbacks. They get out of the car and instead of a nice picnic out in the wild, the dad starts shooting at his offspring. They run away and the dad kills himself. The film follows the kids as they wander through the barren landscapes. They are dressed like neat school children and their conversations have a strangely detached tone. No trace of civilization is to be seen, except for the radio they are carrying around with them. The viewer loses the track of time. The children find an oasis with some water and one day they meet an aboriginal boy. The boy knows much more about nature than these two children. He hunts, he knows his way about and he knows how to find water. The rest of the film focuses on the communication between these three children. They do not share a language, but they share a life, or rather, they share some moments together.

The film gets rather stereotypical in how it depicts the sexual tensions in the relation between the girl and the boy. The camera ogles the girl's body and we are lead to think that a sexual encounter would somehow be a dangerous infringement on some basic rules. This sense of games is placed among images of snakes, lizards and bugs. It is as if Roeg is trying to show that two of these children can never be fully in tune with nature - only the aborigine can. This seems to be a hugely strange claim to make, especially as the film risks bringing forth the image that aborigines are somehow mythically and mystically close to nature, and that they are, in fact, 'nature'. In the end, Roeg's major message seems to be the futility of hope when it comes to understanding others. We remain captives within our own worlds, he seems to suggest. If the film were less artistically challenging, this pessimism would have bothered me even more.

Nonetheless, the film contains a multitude of truly memorable scenes that are placed somewhere between dream, fantasy and reality. A virtue of the film is how little is explained. Even though there are exoticism at play in how the aborigines are portrayed, the film itself can hardly be charged with romanticizing nature. Yes, it seems to say something about an impossibility to cross the border between civilization and nature, but nature is not represented as a cozy haven of tranquility, at least not only. The film ends on a rather unresolved note that begs a new series of questions, rather than delivering some reassuring answers. Towards the end of the film, there is also an unsettling scene in which the children come across an abandoned mining town that evokes a strong apocalyptic vision of culture as a garbage heap. In scene after scene, Walkabout features commentary on the technological society as a site of alienation, exploitation and decay.

Another reason to watch this movie is its eerie music. The stark images of barren nature are accompanied with children singing an extremely strange little tune.

Talk of the town (1942)

The Talk of the Town (Dir. George Stevens) is 40 % screwball comedy, 20 % crime story and 40 % romance. Does that sound messy? If it weren't for the sweetness of the film, that would definitively be my final verdict. The story starts from the encounter between Dilg, a man accused of killing his foreman who has escaped from prison and Nora, who owns a boarding house. These two seems to have had some sort of past history. Dilg is lodged into Nora's house but there is a complication: a law professor has been promised a room in the house and he starts to live there, too. The first part of the film is light-hearted: will the professor find out about Dilg? The second part takes a more uncommon turn, chronicling these people's lives together and their romantic tangles. A few discussions about law and guilt are thrown in for good measure. Dilg, who is wrongly accused of having killed his boss, scorns conventionalism - he argues that this gives him the right to act some juridical decrees - and the law professor argues for good law practice. Cary Grant is great as Dilg: he manages to be a bit menacing, but kind-hearted nonetheless. 

City of Life and Death (2009)

In the winter 1937-8 the city of Nanjing was besieged by Japan. City of Life and Death (dir. Lu Chuan) delves into the horror of the occupation but it also tells many striking stories about human relations. Filmed in crisp b&w, the film has a feel of raw and relentless realism. It draws our attention to systematic killing and raping but it never feels exploitative in doing so. A wide-scale massacre is executed and a German manages to create a safety zone that saves many Chines soldiers and civilians. For all its brave descriptions of war-time atrocities, City of Life and Death sometimes falls into the trap of sentimentality. It tries to look for love in prostitution and heroes in the rank of ordinary men. I have difficulties articulating what my problem with the film was. It was a shattering experience to watch the close-ups of faces expressing deep fear and agony and in the same way the film takes the viewer to unspeakable places of violence and humiliation. We are taken directly to the horrific events of the siege, without the safety net of a historical context. In all this, I cannot repress the feeling that the film imposes a rather rigid storytelling. By overwhelming me, exhausting me, flooding me with images of cruelty versus bravery, it sets out to tell the truth.

Perhaps a further problem is the dichotomy the film risks evoking: the mass against the heroic individual. On the other hand, the film looks at kindness where we least would expect it. Yes, there is the teacher who provides spots of safety but there is also the German Nazi, Rabe who saves people from a violent death. When I started watching this film I feared that the Japanes soldiers would be treated like monsters. They aren't. The soldiers are a motley crew and Lu Chuan shows the multitude of reaction to the horror expressed by the soldiers: there is shock but also jaded responses. Even though I found some things problematic, City of Life and Death is an important film and it is an example of a war movie that never deals in propaganda. This is something to marvel at, given that the Nanjing siege has remained political dynamite. However, as I said, there is a tension, an ambiguity at play. Even though there is no outrageous propagandistic elements here, the way of telling the story, the appearance of relentless realism, does something with how I relate to the images. There is something strange in the conviction the film tries hard to induce in me. Conviction of what?

Aniki bóbó (1942)

A rascally gang of kids roam around town. They ditch school and go to the local toy store. They sit at the harbor and they fight. In the middle of all that, there is an accident; is one of the kids to blame for what happened? Aniki bóbó (Manoel de Oliveira) is neorealism before neorealism: it takes an interest in city life and in ordinary people. The settings - the city of Porto - are vividly portrayed. The problem is that the film also has aspires to edification. The difference between the wide path and the right path is declared in clumsy, overwrought lines. Beyond this aspiration, there is something rather captivating in how the moral conflict is described. With small means, the story places innocent side by side with guilt and remorse. Oliveira studies the hierarchy and the cruelty within a group of kids. There is the poor kid, the bully and the girl everyone fall in love with. The cruelty shown here is not to be seen as 'cute', there is something shattering about how these kids relations are brought to the fore from a perspective of irrevocable events that change everything but that also sheds light on what has been going on for a long time. There is no condescension in how these moral conflicts are treated - or at least such condescension doesn't dominate the film. Oliveira looks at how relations evolve within the flexible borders of play and adventures.

Edward II (1991)

Derek Jarman's Edward II is based on a play by Christopher Marlowe. In an exquisite blend of 14th century stripped-down theatrical sets and contemporary details, Jarman evokes a rather enchanting tale about power, love and royal scheming. (Some have compared Edward II's use of anachronisms with Fassbinder's The Niklashausen Journey.) The film is stagy in a very original sense that somehow never ends up being sterile. Distancing, yes, and many layers of distancing, but there is a sort of frenzy that these methods maintain. In one scene, Jarman even lets two lovers say their goodbyes as Annie Lennox croons a version of Everytime we say goodbye - and it works! Edward is the monarch hated by the court because of his lover Gaveston. Gaveston is beaten, exiled - and killed. Jarman uses operatic tools to get across the cruelty involved in this affair. Even though the film is an indictment of anti-gay resentment, it does not present the king as a cozy lover, nor is the lover a very fine person. Tilda Swinton is excellent as Edward's jealous and angered wife. She's involved with a sadistic military officer, Mortimer. Jarman brings out the darkness of this world of romances and plots. I don't know how this film with all its BIG EMOTIONS doesn't feel overwrought and melodramatic. It is as if Jarman never shies away from even the most dramatic exchange of words, and then he augments these exchanges with a visual expression that renders these moments even more - I don't know what else to call them - heartbreaking. The characters may be power-hungry and self-indulgent, but I still care. It wasn't so much Jarman's illustration of eternal power struggles and sinister hypocrisy that arrested me as I was captivated by the visual spell of the movie: its prisons, cavernous corridors and unnerving fashion.

My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

Once in a while I think about how few films about goodness. Most film are considered deep because they delve into the darkness of the human soul or dare to look evil in the eye. My Neighbor Totoro is basically about help and the friend you need in hard times. The much needed friend in this case is a huge, round cat-like troll. The film was released in 1988, the same year as the much sadder but equally captivating Grave of the Fireflies (directed by Takahata). The story is very simple. A father and his two daughters are moving to the country. Their mother is hospitalized and the grown-ups only half-admit how seriously ill she is. However, unlike many other movies about kids (and for kids) My Neighbor Totoro is not structured around alienation between grown-ups and children. Miyazaki creates a world in which fantasy and reality need not be clearly demarcated. This is also a film in which nature is depicted as inviting and kind rather than scary and threatening. One of the daughters explore the close surroundings of the house and she is lead by a small bunny-like figure through the woods, into a tunnel that takes her to a huge creature. Neither the creature, nor the woods, is seen as dangerous. If the film has a message, it is an ecological one. If anything, the film inspires a sort of wonder. Instead of expressing contempt for its viewers by piling adventure on adventure My Neighbor Totoro is a rather quiet movie that tackles big emotions and situations. It is also one of the very few movie I know of that in a way that does not seem sentimental places reverence and moments of communion and togetherness at its center.

Early Summer (1951)

It's a cliché to say that Ozu is the master of capturing the everyday details of family life. Yet, it's true, and Early Summer reminds me of what a perfect sense for drama Ozu has: he highlights deep-going tensions, without overstating his case. Like other of his films, the story is set in a society that goes through drastic changes. Noriko is the single woman living with her parents, her brother and his family. They all think that she has reached the age at which she must find a husband. Noriko has an office job and hangs out at cafés with her friends: she seems to enjoy life. Her parents grieve the death of the son they lost in the war and they place high hopes upon Noriko that she will finally settle down. Her boss has find a suitable match, a wealthy business-man, a few years older than her. A brilliant move from Ozu's side is that we never get to see this suitor. Rumors, pictures and talk take the place of the real guy - for a film that to such a great extent revolves around images (the image of the right life) this is really such a wise cinematic choice.

The film gently shows how well-meaning intentions can be oppressive. Noriko's brother epitomizes the old society: he wants things to be as they always have been and all the time there is a disgruntled look on his face. He's working all the time and at home he spreads an air of worry. Their parents are thinking about moving away to the country, but not until their daughter is married off. Their relationship is depicted as loving, yet also filled with quiet sorrow. Conflicts are played out in an almost gentle way. Noriko is not the type of person who confronts her family with fierce opposition. This does not mean she chooses her own path. Many issues surrounding love relations are merely touched on. There is a sub-plot about a suspicion that Noriko might fancy women. Perhaps she has a relationship with her friend Aya. At least, they form a sort of alliance against their married friends. It is not clear how one should understand the end. One could say that Noriko chooses her own path, marrying a widower she feels comfortable with. Her parents are not immediately happy about this solution. One could also describe what happens as submission.  

When one reads about Ozu's film one sometimes gets the impression that he makes very austere films. That is perhaps right but what one then forgets is the humor they showcase. In Early Summer, for example, Ozu has included the two most terrible pair of kids on the planet, and he allows much space to their rambunctious play. This is also a film of contrasts. We see glimpses of hip Japan on the one hand - the modern office and the relaxed space of the café - and the intimate and sometimes intimidating family surrounding. Noriko belongs to both of these spheres and by watching her demeanor in  various relational settings, we see different angles of for example ideas about marriage as they appear in a boss-employee relation, among family members or among close friends. Ozu's reputation of being a chronicler of the home should not be exaggerated. Early Summer features many beautiful scenes that takes the character to the beach. In one of them, we see Noriko running with her supposed sister-in-law. There is so much wistfulness and happiness in that scene.

Blood Simple. (1984)

Blood Simple is all gore and violence - and somehow it ends up being a mesmerizing and stylistically brilliant film; Ethan&Joel Coen at their best. The film features jealous lovers, revenge and ravenous desire - and somehow all of this appears to be an inevitable series of events, despite the fact that everything goes wrong, in some way or another. If everything did not seem to be bound to happen in what appears to be some hidden necessity this film would be rather nonsensical. The magic of Blood simple is that somehow it ends up in a specific place and all the time you don't even bother to ponder on how it got there, it just did, because it had to.

There's the malevolent owner of a run-down bar who hires a detective to - yeah you know - kill his carefree (but tough) wife and her lover, a bartender. The private eye (M. Emmet Walsh) plays in his own league of sleaze. A grin on his face and a stetson on his head, he's the ultimate hitman. Every second he's onscreen is g-o-l-d. That's not to say that the rest of the characters are fluffy angels. The logic of Blood simple is that in the end EVERYONE must die, or well nearly everybody. The contrivances the Coen brothers use so well is that at no time do I start to doubt the universe into which we are thrown. Somehow, it all makes sense, or should we say, sense is thrown out of the window. Colors and composition are used to build scenes that seem spontaneous and extremely well-planned at the same time. The camera wanders about in the barren Texas locations: abandoned oil pumps, a bar, a gravel road or a few nakes rooms. You really get the sense that you are THERE, in that bar, on that grovel road, in those romms - complicit. The light hovers austerily. The gruesome is at all times interlinked with the comic, even though this is by no means laugh out loud comedy. The grim with the surreal, that is perhaps what makes Blood simple so captivating.

All the President's Men (1976)

Alan Pakula decided to make a movie about the Watergate scandal and what is so brilliant about All the President's Men is how tight it is. Instead of trying to give a perspeciuous representation of 'what really happened' Pakula opts for the paranoia, the uncertainty, the confusion, the gradual dawnings. The two main characters are investigative journos and it is exclusively through their eyes we follow the story and the revelations. They follow the trail of what is initially a story about some people breaking into the Democratic party headquarters. What some have seen as a flaw of the film I consider as a virtue: there is no neat picture. A thousand details are in the air and it is almost impossible to navigate clear-headedly among them. One gets confused. One could say that the film is just as much about journalism as it is about the Watergate scandal. There are telephone calls, clandestine meetings, follow-ups and attempts to see what the whole thing leads up to. The investigation is conducted in a spirit of curiosity but also in a gradually expanding awareness about the political impact of the work. I was so relieved that this is not the kind of film that tries to assemble a bunch of high-energy action scenes. Instead, we are taken to frenzied or bored editor conferences (with an avuncular executive editor, not the kind of portrait of newspaper people we are used to), hurried discussions and lots of snippets of phone calls. Strenuous and tireless work, waiting, alert reactions whenever something important happens. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman are great as the two reporters. The portraits don't get overly heroic. All the President's Men expertly conjures up the feeling of rottenness in politics and it does so by taking a look at the people that surround politics without being the center of it: journalists, administrators, book-keepers. This was a very different film than I expected it to be, much less macho than I feared it would be. In the best way possible! Before watching it, I thought it would be a prolix dramatization of the Watergate scandal and that it would somehow dig out the most dramatic events of that story. The real film is not like that. Its very specific angle - the work of the journalists - actually felt like a meaningful way to think about the Watergate scandal, and also prevents the film from seeming dated.

Rancho Notorious (1952)

Vern is hoovering the country looking for the guy that shot his fiencé in a robbery at their house. He gets some clues that leads him to a place called Chuck-a-luck, a gambling place. (He is also lead to prison, where he goes just to fish for some information.) At Chuck-a-luck gunslinger Frenchy is held as the main suspect. Chuck-a-luck, a hideout near the Mexican border, turns to be a haven for outlaw. A woman called Altar manages the place and at night she sometimes sings tunes. (I keep confusing details of this film with stuff from Johnny Guitar.) Vern notices that Altar wears the brooch his fiancé once had and now he sets out to dig out the details of how she got that brooch. A little romance might help. Then there's a bank robbery and some hostility by means of which Vern finally learns who is the murderer. Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious has its merits as a woozy Western. The story is secondary and the limited locations of the film are the main thing. The reason to watch it is spelled Marlene Dietrich. If there's anybody who can play an outlaw manager, it's her: she acts the role of a woman who is treated like little more than a pawn, and Vern romances her only for instrumental reasons. She's quite alone, it seems. Well, she even gets to sing a little! Beyond that, this is a messy film that doesn't quite hang together.