THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (Luis Buñuel, 1962, Mexico)

 

The Valkyrie’s virginal spirit rises above the tempest of anarchy: as a socialite dinner party comes to an end, the guests inexplicably find themselves trapped by their own desire to escape, the music room a dirge as class distinction and reason are devoured by the subconscious. Director Luis Buñuel guides us through the labyrinthine convolutions of our brains, its electric impulses driving pure instinct as the guests struggle to rise above the animal and not be sheep led to slaughter. 

Buñuel's surreal and absurdist masterpiece examines social order and breaks down the elitist conventions to reveal base desires, addictions, incestuous relationships, and self-destructive motivations that imbue each of us, regardless of wealth or standing. He is more forgiving of the servants as they leave the party before it begins, and the one who stays behind fulfills his role until the very end, trying to assuage the suffering of the imprisoned. But they are comically trapped in a room without bars, the transition to the Dining Room an open archway where they throw their trash…but are psychologically unable to pass through. Time becomes insubstantial like a morphine dream, and as one older man suffers a stroke, a couple locks themselves away to sleep forever. Their spilled blood awakens the brooding killer whose nervous hand has been lurking beneath the polite veneer of cultural mores…and a sacrifice must be made to appease this witchery. 

Buñuel films in beautiful black and white, moving his camera about the crowded room and is able to focus upon individuals while never being intrusive: it is a marvelous technical feat. The performances are inspired as the suspense and madness gradually escalates into believability, as friends turn upon each other consumed by bloodlust and revenge. The aristocrats eventually escape by mimicking their behavior after the fateful sonata; but they become trapped once again under the watchful eyes of their deity. Here in this sacred temple walks the Exterminating Angel whose darkness and decay holds dominion over all. 

Final Grade: (A+)

MAN BITES DOG (Remy Belvaux, 1992, Belgium)

 

"When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news." -John Bogart, Editor New York Sun.

This militant satire is a biting indictment of journalistic expression; of the fast-food media’s desire to report the esoteric as mundane; to canonize brutality for the sake of the public’s “need to know”. Rèmy Belvaux’s film differs dramatically from Oliver Stone’s NATURAL BORN KILLERS in cinematic philosophy though both films are thematically similar. Stone embraces Eisenstein’s intellectual montage principle and extracts meaning from disparate images with rapid-fire quick cut editing, whereas this film’s visual profundity relies on mise-en-scene decoupage. 

Belvaux achieves meaning through the relationship of objects (and people) within the frame; he utilizes long takes and real environments to sustain the illusion of reality. Benoit, the natural born killer, addresses the audience directly because this is his film; he’s the star in his heliocentric universe. This killer stalks the modern jungle, he hunts beneath the canopy of concrete and steel, and he is the innocuous tenant who lives next door. 

Absurdly, a film crew follows this depraved sociopath to document his every move, to glean some titular insight into his motives and psychology. His victims are ignored because they aren’t valuable news stories; they don’t garner high ratings because their lives are as disinteresting and repetitive as ours. Benoit’s ubiquitous narration doesn’t create intimacy; it’s a profane dialogue that separates the audience from his engorged persona. But the film crew soon becomes a part of the story and participates in the carnage, they cease to report the news and become the news, accomplices to murder. 

When a camera measures reality, it automatically changes it, the composition of elements excludes and promotes information within the frame creating a new viewpoint in order to manipulate the audience. The illusion becomes more tangible that the solid world around us. Like “Reality” television and the media’s brainwashing concept of Doublethink, it encourages the propaganda of TruthLie. 

Final Grade: (B+)

YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH (Francis Ford Coppola, 2007, USA)

 

Smoke and mirrors. Time. Illusion. Duality. Transmigration of the soul. Accelerated decrepitude. Nietzsche’s THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA. Philip K. Dick’s exegesis VALIS. This philosophical potpourri is exquisitely photographed by Mihai Malaimare Jr. but frustratingly paced making the two-hour run time seem like an eternity. This is not about the spiritual and philosophical dialogue; this is really a simple story about love and sacrifice. 

Tim Roth is excellent as Dominic, the aging linguistics researcher who is struck by lightning and becomes young once again (yes, I consider 40 young!) and becomes supra human. He is unable to complete his research, his Raison d'être, because of the death of Laura, his love many years before. He is cold and unloved in his old age and maybe realizes the mistake of his youth. When his age is reversed, his two personalities light/dark at first live a symbiotic existence. But when Dominic meets Veronica (who is very similar to Laura, his lost love) and he realizes that her physical body is being used by an ancient spirit, his reflections clash. Through her, he can finish his work as she regresses through the evolution of language soon to reveal the original proto language…but there’s always a price to pay. She begins to age quickly so Dominic must sacrifice his life’s work for the woman he loves but can never have. He has gained youth but without the folly of youth. And that is what this film is all about: to love someone so completely that they become more important than yourself. But Coppola’s film is too concerned with exposition which grinds the plot to a halt, making this intelligent story a bit of a bore…like sitting through a philosophy lecture with a hangover. 

Final Grade: (C)

ROMAN HOLIDAY (William Wyler, 1953, USA)

 

Joe Bradley is heartbroken and left abandoned, not before the Alter but a Princess’ vacant throne. Princess Ann, played by the beautifully childlike and radiant Audrey Hepburn, is given a shot in the arm to relax her but instead she escapes from her gilded cage and into the bustling Rome nightlife. Down and out reporter Joe Bradley stumbles upon this dazed and confused stranger and thus blossoms a 24-hour love affair; between both “Anya” and Joe…and the vibrant city of Rome.

Director William Wyler films entirely on location, which imbues the narrative with superlative energy and creates a romantic Neo-realism: the walk through the market and the use of non-actors bring this fairy-tale to the crowded streets, a stark juxtaposition that is necessary to empathize with the characters. Two superb DPs capture Wyler’s vision, Franz Planer and Henri Alekan,  and their Academy Award nomination is deserved! Their deep focus photography places the Princess in large, looming rooms where she becomes just another decoration, like the foreboding angels that adorn these cavernous halls. Planer and Alekan also film her escape sequence like a film noir, their chiaroscuro and high angle compositions creating the needed tension. Edith Head wins her fifth Oscar for costume designs, and Audrey’s wardrobe perfectly accentuates her performance instead of overshadowing and obscuring.

Audrey’s performance of fiery independence and firm morality elevates the plot’s text concerning the feminist emancipation of a woman who ultimately must choose duty over a man. Dalton Trumbo’s script subverts the carefree romantic comedy with allusions to prostitution and drug use (the sedative that will make her happy…morphine?), that could victimize instead of empower. Also, the ascent into journalistic ethics by Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) who sacrifices a great story for love; he’s a shyster that has grown into a man. “Anya” meanwhile has understood that her duty to the many outweighs her need to the one...or herself. Eddie Albert provides slapstick relief as the sneaky photographer (LA DOLCE VITA wouldn’t coin the phrase Paparazzi for another 7 years) and he too makes the difficult choice.

Wyler plays with romantic convention, as we await the typical ending when lovers reunite, specifically: once in the car as “Anya” disappears around the corner, the camera holds upon Joe and the empty street for a few moments of suspense; and secondly, when the Princess and her entourage depart the ballroom and Joe is left standing alone, hoping for her to run back into his arms. The final tracking shot of Joe’s forlorn walk is through the empty hall, his footsteps a harsh staccato that echoes his loneliness; a sad love that could have been but can never be. It’s perfect.

Final Grade: (A)

JACKIE BROWN (Quentin Tarantino, 1997, USA)

 

Jackie Brown is always starting over; fearing her middle-aged life has become grounded under the weight of a few ounces of cocaine and $50,000 cash. Desperate, she schemes to play the Feds against the gunrunning criminal Ordell Robbie and come out with nearly half a million dollars: enough money to retire and buy a future of moderate comfort and relaxation. 

Director Quentin Tarantino begins with a wonderful tracking shot of the lovely Jackie Brown (gracefully portrayed by Pam Grier) as she prepares for work, gliding along the airport terminal like a bored Benjamin Braddock; the camera seems to caress her beautiful visage and alluring profile while Bobby Womack’s funky score sets the film’s tempo. Tarantino eschews his elliptical narrative patterns and tells a straightforward story, though he uses split-screen to great effect and shows us the final money exchange from three different points-of-view. Samuel L. Jackson imbues his character Ordell Robbie with the perfect balance of homicidal energy and human emotion, showing a tainted affection for his “little surfer girl”. Robert DeNiro as Robbie’s accomplice is mysteriously minimal, allowing him to be a mostly silent partner. The revelation is the gifted performance by Robert Forster whose face is a roadmap of a hard life: he is able to infuse a strict humane morality and unassuming desire into Bail Bondsman Max Cherry (great name!), and we must believe in his breech of ethical conduct for the plot to work. Tarantino smartly focuses upon Jackie and Max instead of utilizing slick editing techniques and shocking gore and tells a believable and touching romance without a single sex scene or exploitive skin shot. 

The soundtrack pumps the film with synergistic energy, communicating emotions through R&B classics and punctuated rhythms: from the sweet soulful Delfonics to the sweaty nights of Harlem in Womack’s vibrant Across 110th Street…and even the gravel voiced poetry of Johnny Cash. Based upon the Elmore Leonard novel RUM PUNCH, the plot has one divisive fault: when Beaumont is arrested for possession of drugs and a firearm while on probation, this would be a non-bailable offense as a detainer would be placed against him. The story doesn’t work without setting him up for the fatal fall, a precursor to Jackie’s likely future. But stranger things have happened in an overburdened Court System, so this isn’t necessarily an impossible event…just very unlikely. Finally, Jackie and Max share a brief kiss before going their own way: for Max, it’s life as usual and for the fiercely independent Ms. Brown…her heart has become as savory as a Cherry. 

Final Grade: (A)

THE GREAT DICTATOR (Charles Chaplin, 1940, USA)

 

Chaplin condemns the Fascist simulacra, machines in the shape men fueled by nationalism, and curses leadership founded on murder and hatred: the philosophy of the double-cross. A prescient call for humanity amid the infrastructure of isolationist denial, combining pathos and Thanatos into a delectable satire that provokes while it entertains, extruding desperation for a world on the brink of madness.

The film contrasts the protagonist, a Jewish barber and war hero, a man who loves his country, with his doppelganger the poisonous Dictator who has usurped his homeland, a megalomaniacal leader whose goal of world conquest is soon to be realized. Chaplin’s bombastic ballet begins on the eve of The Great War, as the unnamed barber loses his memory in a plane crash and ends with his impassioned speech on the morning of the Second World War, as Tomainia prepares to invade its peaceful neighbor. The story in between is contrived with Chaplin’s sublime artistry, finding humor in the humane, portraying his Jewish characters with complexity and dignity. In retrospect, it is frightening to consider his precognitive narrative as his protagonists are relegated to the poverty of the ghetto, stricken with fear of the concentration camps, denied the Rule of Law by goose-stepping thugs of the double-cross. His parody of Adenoid Hynkel (Adolf Hitler) and his Murder’s Row of Garbitsch (Joseph Goebbels), Herring (Hermann Goring), and cohort Benzino Napaloini (Benito Mussolini) is dead-on. Hynkel becomes intoxicated with power, balancing the world in the palm of his hand, and it’s not difficult to imagine Hitler doing the same.

The little barber stands up to the Stormtroopers, a voice of reason lost amid the inane babble of propaganda, and joins forces with Schultz, a soldier court-martialed for speaking against Hynkel, and together they are sentenced to a concentration camp. Their escape leads to the barber’s mistaken identity as the Dictator, and to save their lives he must deliver a speech as Hynkel: this impassioned plea transcends the confines of the story, it is a declaration of peace, of rediscovering free-will from the program of bigotry, a monologue for mankind to rise above machine morality, to think with the compassionate heart and not the deadly gun. Chaplin’s powerful voice is imbued with gentleness and humility, a stark contrast to the gibberish spouted by flamboyant Dictators who are full of nothing but hot air.

Final Grade: (A+)

WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (Béla Tarr, 2000, Hungary)

 

Music is the language of the gods…and the gods lie. What begins as a celestial ballet ends in chaos and confusion even though the eclipse has ended. Amid a stark cold winter in a small Hungarian town, a corrugated tin trailer appears like a leviathan slowly surfacing in the dark surf. The Prince of Lies hides behind this decomposing Lovecraftian nightmare. His hateful words instigate the villagers, who are like violent lost children, towards a cleansing, a purging of the weak and sick. The rampaging townsfolk assault and murder patients in a hospital, their humanity sacrificed to the Prince of Deception, their allegiance pledged to Death.

We experience the madness through Jànos whose gaunt visage haunts the film, his sunken eyes staring into the Abyss seeking revelation. But his soul is swallowed by the Whale and, after the tempest, vomited out broken and desolate forgotten by everyone but his uncle. Béla Tarr’s bleak vision strips bare human nature and reveals the animal inside: hidden and repressed but always present. His deep focus black and white photography creates a foreboding sense of doom because it grimly depicts reality’s hidden side with characters disappearing into the pervasive fog and darkness.

The narrative is driven by visual and aural language: each languid frame an emotional composition and the rhythm of clacking boots, shuffling feet like a lonely harmony. 

Final Grade: (A)

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (Mike Nichols, 1966, USA)

 

The pugnacious spirit of Virginia Woolf haunts this viscous drama about the dissolution of reality and the emotional and intellectual walls we hide behind in our relationships. As children, we are taught that “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me”. This is not true: words are terribly destructive and are the most insidious instruments of torture. 

After a night of partying, George and Martha invite a new couple over their house for a nightcap. The verbal barbs and violent behavior shocks Nick and Honey (who was once puffed-up) as the married couple rips and tears into each other, their sweaty booze-soaked words polluting the atmosphere. At first it seems a bit embarrassing but soon becomes obvious that these two people loathe each other and will stop at nothing to destroy themselves…and those caught in their path. Nick and Honey are drawn into this madness with games like Humiliate the Host, Get the Guest, Bringing Up Baby, and Hump the Hostess. As their resolve diminishes, the guests begin to join in these sadistic games until they are fractured and broken pawns manipulated by George and Martha to be witness and participant to the debauchery. 

The acting is first rate and, though Sandy Dennis and Liz Taylor won Oscars, I think it’s Richard Burton who really plays the heavy. His performance is like a riptide, calm on the surface but with a violent undertow. Mike Nichols direction is perfect but it's Haskell Wexler's Award-Winning photography that creates both distance and intimacy, as he is able to film in close-up and move the camera around the tight, private spaces. After a night of total war, George and Martha embrace in one of the most touching and sublime endings in movie history. “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? I am, George. I am.” 

Final Grade: (A+)

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER (Rankin/Bass, 1964, USA)

 

Hermie and Rudolph must shed the cloak of conformity and fight a desperate battle against their tyrannical oppressor: Santa Claus. Rankin Bass Productions have created a Cold War parable concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Soviet Union’s incursion into the Western hemisphere.

Rudolph is a freak of nature, spurned by his own father, a rebel with a cause: he is Che Guevara with a fiery streak of individualism and bulbous glowing nostrils. He meets another expatriate, a would-be Dentist named Hermie, full of dangerous knowledge, an elf whose philosophical enamel armors him from abuse and allows him to earn his egoistic authenticity: he is Jean-Paul Sartre. For years, they struggle under the illusion of a Communist regime that preaches Equality and Justice for all but soon learn that friends are dangerous enemies: Santa is a Dictator who is an allegorical stop-motion Fidel Castro.

Together, they fight against Santa and escape the island prison, only to meet a Capitalistic silver and gold companion in Yukon Cornelius: he is obviously an undercover CIA agent bent on the assassination of our heroes and the destruction of this tiny economy. Their travels bring them in conflict with the Abominable Snow Monster, a secret weapon genetically engineered by the US government. It is no coincidence that Yukon knows of the Bumbles bouncing ability, as he plans to fake their own deaths and endear them to the Communist population.

The trio flees to the realm of King Moonracer, the Czar of his own nation, who allows Santa a portion of his diabolical wealth: the sadistic misfit toys, mystical armament meant to infiltrate North America in the guise of holiday gifts; an allegory of the nuclear missiles poised to strike the United States from the shores of Castro’s Eden. After the final battle where the Bumble is apparently defeated, a political rally brings them all together where Santa manipulates Che into one last sacrifice.

When Yukon appears with the Bumble, it is only a matter of time before Rudolph will meet his lonely doom upon a bloody snowbank. Even Santa senses the deathly presence and escapes into the sky, murdering one of his misfit soldiers, a bird that can’t fly, by dropping him from the sleigh without an umbrella. Hermie must realize that there is No Exit and Hell is indeed other people.

Final Grade: (A)

SEVEN SAMURAI (Akira Kurosawa, 1954, Japan)

 

Kurosawa’s allegory of class distinction amid feudal anarchy during Japan’s Sengoku era remains one of the greatest achievements in cinematic history. His innovative storytelling techniques and unique aggressive cinematography captures the frisson of conflict: both the writhing emotional turmoil of hopeless poverty and the katana slashing bloodletting of moral justification. With no laws or central government, a small commune of farmers is at the mercy or bandits, who raid them every year, killing their young men, raping their women, and stealing their crops. But they decide to fight back. How can a village of impoverished farmers, with nothing to offer but food, hire protectors to willingly risk their lives in a battle against well-organized bandits? Find hungry samurai. 

The farmer’s hire six Ronin who decide to help; though these masterless samurai don’t turn away the food, their rationale seems to be retribution for this perceived moral injustice. Maybe each hides a shameful secret and seeks cosmic exoneration for a good deed, especially at the risk of their lives. A seventh nameless warrior jokingly called Kikuchiyo, who plays the violent jester and offers slapstick relief, is a counterpoint to the other’s stoic and grim disposition. The samurai aren’t even welcome in the village they have sworn to protect: the farmers cower and hide; even disguising their daughters to look like young boys. True to their code, the samurais repress their disgust and humbly prepare the village’s defense and remain willing to fight to the death. 

Kurosawa structures this narrative in chronological order and slowly develops important characterizations: each farmer and samurai is described with a unique quality or attribute thus creating believable individuals. His compositions and choreographed movements within rioting crowds or during quick slashing duels explode with spring wound tension. The rain-soaked apocalypse is violently beautiful: a ballet of blood, a dance of death, and the bandits slaughtered to the last man. Kikuchiyo proves himself a virtuous warrior but as the farmers begin the cycle of growth and rebirth once again, it’s the samurai who are spiritually defeated. They have become an anachronism; their time and need are past. 

Final Grade: (A+)

EASY RIDER (Dennis Hopper, 1969, USA)

 

Creators Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda capture the tumultuous zeitgeist of the late sixties landscape as sea change drowns the status quo, seeking independence from political tyranny and fascist morality. Their goal is freedom, but the Wardens of the Old-World Order do not take kindly to those who rattle the cages and shake the foundations of their archaic beliefs. 

The film begins with a rustic vignette of static junk, a drug deal in a timeless sweaty and grimy Mexican villa that match cuts to twentieth century technocracy, as sleek jets airliners dominate the sky above while the same drugs change hands: this time to a wealthy American businessman. Hopper films an interesting visual dichotomy between the poor farmer who is selling drugs to probably feed his family and the wealthy American whose aim is pure profit, the disease of rogue Capitalism. But the protagonists become a willing cog of the machine they despise, a vehicle that transports profit without remorse or morality, and Wyatt eventually realizes this conundrum. The systemic change cannot begin outside; it must begin in the mind and spirit of the individual, but they hide their troubles and sorrows in the fog of opaque opiates and fractured lucidity. They are typecast and victimized by narrow-minded yokels, but they play the part of the stereotype and are unable to understand that the more they attempt individuality the more conformist they become. This is evident in the “Maggie’s Farm” sequence where they discover superficial brotherhood but sense Desolation Row. Wyatt is most at home on a simple homestead with an honest farmer and his large family, people living off the land with hard work. Again, Hopper utilizes a great match cut between shoeing a horse and changing the rear tire on the patriotic Harley. 

The stunning cinematography by Lazlo Kovacs reveals bleeding sunsets and the jagged bones of unknown spaces, a seemingly alien landscape that shares an oblique existence with splintered ideologies. The superheroes partake in the runaway American Dream and their epitaph is a lonely chorus of the Star-Spangled Bummer. Wyatt and Billy brutally learn that he not busy being born is busy dying…but it’s alright, Ma it’s life, and life only. 

Final Grade: (A)

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT (Lars von Trier, 2018, Denmark)

 

This is the house that Jack built.
This is the girl
with the flat tire
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the woman,
who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,

that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is woman with two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the simple girl,
humiliated and mutilated,
next to the woman and her two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

These are the five men tied in a row,
near the simple girl,
humiliated and mutilated,
next to the woman and her two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

Now appears Virgil to guide the Architect,
leaving behind the five men tied in a row,
near the simple girl,
humiliated and mutilated,
next to the woman and her two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

Through concentric circles of Hell until the bottomless pit,
Virgil guides the Architect,
leaving behind the five men tied in a row,
near the simple girl,
humiliated and mutilated,
next to the woman and her two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

Now falls the Architect into the pit he deserves,
guided by Virgil,
leaving behind the five men tied in a row,
near the simple girl,
humiliated and mutilated,
next to the woman and her two children,
hunted and shot like animals,
now prone besides the woman who lost her husband,
positioned next to the girl with the flat tire,
that lay in the house that Jack built.

Final Grade: (C)