This strange adventure of Lemmy Caution takes place in a vague undefined future, the citizens of this mysterious Technocracy branded and controlled by the master computer Alpha 60. Though built and designed by man, this electronic sentience has surpassed its creator and spread its virus throughout Alphaville…and beyond. All identity erased, emotions purged, individual expression violently repressed and dissenters executed.
This prescient tale mirrors our modern world as we become willing slaves to omniscient faceless power, the masses controlled by revisionist history and the fear of a bleak foreboding future. Automatons living only in the moment with no link to experience, emotion, or wisdom, with no need to express their thoughts and attempt to understand the decaying world around them: art has become archaic, a needles psychological burden that is punishable by death. Lemmy’s camera captures static images, lives caught in the exact moment of the explosive flash, like shadow-people burned on the crumbling walls of Hiroshima, a virulent metaphor for this hopeless society.
Goddard films this dystopian world in oblique and incongruent angles of glass and steel, making Paris seem like Fritz Lang’s cold alien landscape of METROPOLIS. He captures the future-noir feel that would years later influence BLADE RUNNER: Lemmy is a tough pistol packing gumshoe reflective of the classic Hollywood convention. This visual frisson creates an unsettling and timeless atmosphere that is increased by the bombastic and overwhelming score. The unblinking eye of Alpha 60 is a precursor to HAL, but here the computer’s voice is the deep guttural musings of destruction.
After a few typical shootouts, Lemmy’s mission is finally complete when he destroys the computer with poetry: the internal language of human nature, of understanding our own identity, a viewpoint incomprehensible to this logical and infallible machine. Love does indeed conquer all.
Final Grade: (B+)
Three flat mates discover just how shallow their friendship has become, their morality stripped like the skin from a corpse and consumed by gluttonous cupidity. Director Danny Boyle’s (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, 28 DAYS LATER) debut thriller is a darkly humorous dissection of the human condition. The players are Alex who is a reporter, Juliet a doctor, and David a boring accountant.
The film begins as they hilariously belittle prospective renters for their flat, which strengthens their camaraderie, showing just how well they tolerate and respect each other. But a mysterious man finally rents the room and dies from a drug overdose…and they discover his briefcase full of money. And someone always comes looking for a briefcase full of money! Their disposing of the body and the thugs who come looking for the money propels the plot forward, but the subtext is concerned with the effect that this has on their interrelationship. Alex and Juliet spend money frivolously while David, who had to cut apart the corpse, begins to spiral into an internal abyss of guilt, self-loathing, and all-consuming greed: after all, he’s the one who really earned it.
Boyle’s overhead shot of the winding staircase is metaphor for the narrative, while David imprisons himself in the attic drilling holes to peer god-like upon his victims. The tight editing and taught acting combined with Boyle’s surreal camera-angles (the crawling baby would be put to better use in TRAINSPOTTING) elevate this film above a standard low-budget thriller. Though a few plot-holes exist such as the noise and smell not alerting other residents, and the police failing to notice strange holes in the ceiling, the knife-edge narrative is still compelling.
Alex subverts his friendship and hides the blood money (literally, his blood drips through the cracks), and he becomes our empathetic connection to the story. The dreamlike ending is ambiguous: Alex is laughing while a coroner is taking his picture, the police looking rather bored in the background. We see this from above as if his spirit rising: is he dead or alive?
Final Grade: (B)
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether
that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was
born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve
o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike,and I began to cry, simultaneously.” -David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Thus is born Guy Montague.
Bradbury is concerned with a world that allows itself to burn knowledge before reading, a prescient warning that society is becoming imbued with apathy and ignorance: it’s not the government censoring our minds…it is ourselves. This is François Truffaut’s only English speaking film and one that is better appreciated upon each viewing. He forgoes a literal adaptation Ray Bradbury’s novel but captures the humanistic ideal at the heart of the story: Truffaut smartly focuses his camera upon Guy Montague’s inner ordeal instead of flashy special effects.
Nicolas Roeg’s cinematography burns up the screen with its hypnotic entropy; pages crackle and curl, their knowledge floating away into ashes, and the flames seem alive, their dance of death consuming paper, flesh, bone, and our future. The opening credits are spoken as Roeg zooms his focus upon the ubiquitous television antennas, the color scheme changing abruptly like watercolors splashed upon the sky. Oskar Werner’s performance is subtle yet very effective; he conveys a wavering apathy and honor but a young girl sees beneath this façade; she is able to see the true face beneath the fireproof mask. Werner is able to make us believe in Montague as he begins to see the world with new eyes…eyes that now peer upon Dostoyevsky and Goethe, and an imagination that falls into the printed page to experience the brave new world beyond. The choking fumes of kerosene and burning flesh no longer obscure his senses. The always beautiful and fantastic Julie Christie has duel roles: as Montague’s narcissistic wife Linda and the young daydreaming Clarisse, both women guide Montague towards fulfilling his ultimate desire. The Bernard Herrmann score perfectly fits the cadence of the narrative; it’s frantic strings race towards a fiery confrontation or the music softly embraces intimacy or exudes cold indifference.
There are a few interesting details in the film: the newspapers contain no text and look like comic books, the wall mounted television looks rather like a modern plasma set, Linda plugs her ears with an “iPod”, and the people riding the train are so wrapped up in themselves they make no eye contact, their gestures are masturbatory and self-indulgent. When Linda betrays her husband, Montague incinerates the bed first before tuning the flamethrower upon his superior and fleeing into the cold dark night of the soul. He escapes and finds refuge with Clarisse who is a member of a commune that memorizes books…then must burn them. They become repositories for this precious prose, to be written down and shared once again someday; hopefully the madding crowd will one day put aside its ignoble strife and desire knowledge and find truth (and themselves) in these imaginary worlds. Montague becomes Edgar Allen Poe’s Tales Of Mystery. What book would you become?
Final Grade: (B+)
Hitchcock’s sensibility was to make mundane items diabolical instruments of death, to create heart pounding suspense out of the ether of routine: in this case a phone, a pair of stockings, scissors, and a key all hold the answers to a life and death equation.
The beautiful Grace Kelly stars as Margot, an unfaithful wife whose affair is secretly known to her husband Tony. Having tendered a life insurance policy months before, Tony plots to murder his wife and collect the money. The perfect plan goes awry when Margot miraculously survives but Tony, quick witted and confident, subtly convinces her to lie and sets her up as the murderer! But Margot’s paramour, a mystery writer, unwittingly dissects the crime and reveals the true killer and his criminal intent. Hitchcock smartly decides to keep the pacing tight and the set claustrophobic. He doesn’t dilute the suspense by adding extracurricular settings or dialogue: he confines most of the story to one set (like the original stage play), which allows the audience to concentrate on the clever mystery.
Early in the film, Margot dresses in bright colors (Grace Kelly is gorgeous in the red dress!) but as the tone darkens so does her wardrobe. Though the film is short at 105 minutes, Hitchcock utilizes an Intermission to split the film in two, which adjourns the adrenaline rush immediately after the murder to the final act. The second half includes a stylized and surreal courtroom drama utilizing oversaturated colors and close-ups. This intensifies the drama because the question isn’t “Who Dunnit?’”…But instead becomes “Will He Get Away With It?”
The plot has a few glaring flaws: a police investigator would never interview a victim (or suspect) in the presence of the spouse; the police need a Search Warrant to have access to the property (especially the apartment!) of a suspect. Hitchcock commands our attention with every subtle inflection and innocuous revelation, as the plot races towards the final solution at the end of a Hangman’s noose.
Final Grade: (B)
