Author name: Blake Williams

This is one of the worst films that was released in 2008. A mistake in nearly every department, I feel like Sam Mendes is trying to become the M. Night Shyamalan of American dramatic filmmaking. The most upsetting thing about it is that I actually find some of the ideas in the film interesting, but I feel obligated to dismiss these ideas because they are housed by such a condescending, melodramatic, and narcissistic film. From the moment Kate Winslet starts acting like a brat and fighting with Leo, my eyes didn’t stop rolling. Constant eye-rolling for two hours. Much like Breillat’s Romance, I felt like I was being forced to sympathize in some way with individuals who subject themselves to a deteriorating relationship, despite the fact that there is obviously no reason why these two people should be together in the first place. The first scene shows Leo and Kate meeting, and then, literally two minutes later they are having a massive argument on their way home that almost results in Leo smacking Kate a good one. Yet, I am suppose to pull for these two to move to Paris so that they can save their marriage?

In their family, Leo pays the bills, and Kate is the house mom. The idea is that they will escape suburbia and move to the lively Paris, where Kate will pay the bills, and Leo will sit at home with ‘time’ and they will live happily ever after. I am also supposed to pull for this scenario, even though I know that it will not solve their unhappiness with each other. Another aggravating thing is that the film blames their broken marriage on suburbia, when the film should be considering that these two individuals have a broken marriage because they are incompatible as partners. I know that everyone loves to blame suburbia for some of the worst problems in America, but it would be more interesting to try and convince me in the film why suburbia is ruining this relationship instead of asking me to assume that since they moved to the suburbs that that is of course the problem. I only began to relate to anyone in the film when Leo fessed up to Kate that he had been seeing another girl, and Kate replied that she didn’t care at all. I didn’t care either!

This is such a fantastic film. I haven’t seen Rescue Dawn, but I cannot imagine that it would add up to anything as funny and emotional as what Herzog and Dieter put together here. I kept thinking about all of the camping trips that I went on when I was in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. Every summer, there was summer camp, where my father would force me to spend a week in the summer heat, with no private bathrooms, terrible cafeteria food, and sweaty boys who hadn’t discovered deodorant yet. I hated it, every year, and I thought it was hell. Hearing Dieter explain his circumstances when he was captured, though, makes all of what I endured seem like heaven. Dieter tells his story as if he’s been waiting 30 years for someone to listen to him. He spouts out detail after detail of what he went through with a very focused and energetic demeanor; he sounds like he could be calling an auction.

The film is also occasionally hilarious. During the ‘training’ video about what men in the military ought to do if they are stranded in a jungle, with commentary by Herzog, I couldn’t stop laughing. It was also amusingly bizarre that Dieter was recounting his experiences in front of present day Vietnamese villagers (like those in the poster above). He would tell an insane story of brutality and torture, and then turn and have an awkward laugh with a man standing next to him. It was also very bizarre that Dieter was re-experiencing the moments, like being tied up and blindfolded and being led through the jungle. There is this odd fascination that he has with this experience in his life, as if he bases his entire life on it. I got the impression that he’d come to fetishize his treatment during his imprisonment, and perhaps looked back on it fondly.

Herzog does an amazing job visualizing Dieter’s story. He found some stunning archival footage of decaying cities, soldier’s in wartime, and, most impressive, films from cameras that were attached to planes that were dropping bomb after bomb on villages. His commentary is less aimless here than I’ve ever heard it, but he still shows how he is such a great storyteller.

Wow, I actually liked a Breillat film! This film was able to be completely focused on relationships without feeling forced like in the other films of hers that I have seen. The film is essentially made up of three scenes, two long conversations and then a seen of ‘romance.’ This latter scene was superior to every other such scene that I have seen from Breillat because it never goes over the top. I’ve previously had the feeling that Breillat draws out her sex scenes and makes them gratuitously graphic. Here, though, She shows only what needs to be shown, and the entire scene not only feels natural to the story, but essential. This film’s purpose is to detail the different perspectives that different sexes and generations have on being in a relationship. All of the film’s energy is spent on this topic, and the end result is pretty compelling, and in the end actually poignant. The only, fortunately brief, Breillat-indulgence that I detected in the film was the old man who wanted to court Thomas (the boy in the film) when he asked if he could take the unused chair from his table. I actually thought it was a funny moment, but it reminded me that everyone in Breillat’s universe seems to think about sex 24/7 and is constantly trying to mate with anyone who is breathing.

Sarah Pratt is perfect in the film as Alice. She reminded me quite a bit of Isabelle Huppert and Julianne Moore, both in her appearance and with her ability to be simultaneously soft and stern. Her role in the film as Alice seemed to be very difficult to pull off, as she has to believably come off as a woman who has just left her husband, is drawn to ‘rough’ men, and is falling for a ‘charming’ underaged boy (The Julianne Moore comparison is especially apt because of the character similarities with Moore’s recent Savage Grace). Gilles Guillain as Thomas wasn’t bad, but I thought he played him as a bit too suave and confident given his age and supposed inexperience.

One problem that I have been having with Breillat is that she casts attractive people as her leads (except for Fat Girl, in which she appropriately went to the completely opposite end of the spectrum and cast an obese girl (in addition to the attractive rest of the cast)). This film does nothing to alleviate that trend. Breillat is trying to make portraits of human sexuality and relationships with her films, and it is my understanding that she aims for the sex scenes to support her ideas for each film without being erotic or stimulating. But it is difficult for me to take this seriously when she casts actors who seem to be hired from modeling agencies. I have not seen her entire oeuvre, so I cannot speak for any discrepancies to this trait.

A very strange film, it is understandable that this is a cult classic for its nostalgia and views on youth and freedom. The film works because of low aspirations. The film is composed completely of long, single shot scenes that are intercut but 3-5 seconds of black. The prolonged, black shot transitions took a bit of getting use to, and I initially wondered what the point of them was. It did give the film an episodic feeling that is similar to that which is present in most of Jarmusch’s other films (especially Night On Earth and Coffee and Cigarettes). The three characters in this film are standing still in life. Willie and Eddie spend most of their days doing absolutely nothing. The high points seems to be when they play a game of cards or when they power on the television set. When Willie’s cousin, Eva, comes to visit him, it is truly painful watching her being forced to participate in Willie’s daily routine. Eva eventually moves to Cleveland to live with her aunt, and, while she is slightly more active than Willie and Eddie, she still seems to be doing nothing with her life. The three characters eventually go on a road trip together, and despite their trans-America journey, still seem to be motionless. It was depressing to watch these characters willingly do nothing with their lives. There was not an original thought to be found in any of them, and they seemed content with that. The film is compelling, though, and pretty funny, too.

The end of the film was very good. Because of a very specific sequence of events, most happening because of the selfishness and idiocy of Willie, the three characters end up isolated from each other, and from anything familiar to them. Willie is on his way to Budapest, Eddie is going who knows where in the car, and Eva is stuck in the hotel, waiting, again, for nothing. These characters are drunk on the idea of freedom; according to the synopsis, they are self-identified hipsters. They are given so much freedom that they don’t know what to do with it, and instead do nothing. The theme of immigration is everywhere in the film. Eva immigrated to the US, and then she, Willie, and Eddie immigrate to Florida, ‘paradise.’ The idea of escape for something new, something more appealing than reality is their downfall, and their naivete finally isolates them. The irony of the last scene is both funny and devastating. A great way to end the film.

This review contains some very large Spoilers

This was a very pleasant surprise. About one quarter of the way through the film I was convinced that I wasn’t going to like it and that it was going to be a waste of my time. Not that anything in this first half hour was poorly done (that actually proved to be quite not the case), but because films about underground prostitution and abuse aren’t my cup of tea. I’ve never been impressed by a film focused on these themes, and it is generally a boring subject for me. Thus, I was very happy when, forty-five minutes into the film, there was a twist, and then another one five minutes later, that made me watch the movie in a completely different way than I had been. The sunshine and grass-mowing from the film’s opening shots comes back into play, the prostitution ring is left behind, and the film became a very taut study on loss, failure, revenge, and procreation. The title of the film translates to ‘Revenge,’ which not only contributes to many of the expectations that I had about where the film was going, but also to my reading of the film’s conclusion.

There are some moments where I lost a bit of confidence in the film, though. The first time is when Susanne, wife of Robert, the cop, tells Alex, the protagonist, to come by her house to sleep with her. Theoretically, this offer makes sense given the film so far. But there are two things about it that I did not like. One, is that it really isn’t built up convincingly enough. Alex has been a complete asshole toward Susanne, and is honestly not appealing enough in my opinion to warrant interest from women like Tamara and Susanne. Perhaps the type of man that Alex is is considered desirable in Austria. It is somewhat justified when Alex’s grandfather tells him that he will have no problems finding a woman because he is a hard worker. Susanne has certainly noticed this, always coming by when Alex is chopping wood (He chops much wood in this film). But I was ultimately convinced that this plot point worked when i considered that Susanne probably thinks that Alex would bear children who look similar to Robert. Similar hair color, height, complexion. The other thing I didn’t like about this development in the film, though, was that it told me exactly where the rest of the film was going. From that moment on, I was just waiting for everything to fall into place. What had been a completely unpredictable film up to that point spilled its beans and then most of the mystery and tension was gone. I still enjoyed watching it all play out, though, and the idea of how Alex got his revenge on Robert was an interesting one, which, given Robert’s anxiety over his job as a cop and a husband, could prove more devastating than any physical harm would have.

This was the first feature film made by Jacques Tati, and also my least favorite. Each film of his got progressively better in my opinion, and then after Playtime he dropped off a little bit with Trafic, and I still haven’t seen his final film Parade. This film felt like a live-action Looney Tunes episode that spread out its 5 minutes of good material into feature length. It didn’t help that the film has been poorly restored and it felt like I was watching an out of focus image for the entire duration of the film. Jacques Tati plays François the postman, the only time that he appears in any of his feature films as a character that isn’t M. Hulot (except for the made-for-TV Parade). There are definitely characteristic similarities between the two, so it was nice to see a character that likely helped spawn the great Hulot.

The film, despite not being very funny or interesting, is still nice to sit through. The score by Jean Yatove is great to listen to and has the distinct characteristics of every Tati score. The film also feels like it is stuck in limbo between two eras of filmmaking. It carries much of the physical acting and humor that defined the silent era, while still utilizing, though in a very elementary way, talking and synced sound effects. The old woman who crawls around the city square with her cane and chirps out commentary on the action around her feels right out of Vampyr; she is terrifying. Also, having been shot on both black & white and color film stock, it is a blatant example of the transition from one format to another. I watched the color version, and it has the feeling of black & white film that has been colorized. It was ugly and hazy, but also somehow relaxing to watch.

The quote on the movie poster to the right raves “Possibly the sexiest movie ever made!” I think that I have a completely contrasting view of sexy to the person who said that. In Romance, Marie and Paul have the definition of a broken relationship in this film, and I wasn’t given any reason to understand why either of them can’t just move on and find someone that they are at least interested in having a normal conversation with. They do eat dinner, though, Marie convinced that Paul ‘only loves her when there is a dinner table between them,’ and then they go home where Marie attempts to have some sort of sexual activity with Paul, but he won’t have it, and pushes Marie away and rolls over to sleep. LIke other Breillat films, I’m not sure what she wants the viewer to get out of her films, not in the sense that they are ambiguous and have many possible interpretations, but in that she seems to throw everything she knows about sexuality into her film, and then tries to tie it all up with a big final scene, usually violent. Her films are easy to watch, though. Most of them are filled with anecdotes about relationships and sex, and then a sex scene, and then repeat, but more extreme the next time. The ideas about relationships are interesting, some accurate, and some seem like she is reaching. But I always have a feeling that I am in a fantasy world when I am watching one of Breillat’s films. Her characters live and breathe their sexuality, and aren’t interested in anything else. It is all they speak about and contemplate. Marie is a teacher currently teaching French grammar, even though she is dyslexic? Oh well, her job is good for something though, as she gets intense bondage sessions about of the principal. I haven’t seen a film by Breillat that I have liked yet, and I don’t anticipate that happening.

I watched this with the score by the Cinematic Orchestra. I thought that the score sounded amazing and accompanied the images really well, but it did feel a little bit too modern for the film.  I think that it could have been stripped down to get rid of the electric instruments and the mixing (like vinyl scratching) to only instruments that were used in the 1920s.  I did like the arrangement, though.  I’m sure that once I hear the other, more traditional scores that this one will become a guilty pleasure.

The film, though, is amazing.  Beside the camera tricks and editing innovations, this is just a really solid hour of filmmaking. The film is about filmmaking, and ends up portraying the world as a kind of giant movie camera.  Factory machines and city rhythms mimic the mechanics of the film camera.  The gears and forward and backward motions mirrors the editing of the film.  I often couldn’t tell if I was watching Vertov’s film, or the film that the ‘man’ is shooting.  Maybe everything is both.  The film kept an incredible pace throughout without feeling rushed.  Most shots are less than 2 seconds long I would guess.  The film has many shots of trains that I thought were both evocative of and better than the early Lumiere film.  The camera takes all positions, and is placed under the moving trains as well as above.  The editing splits two or more shots of trains into one to create a whirling and bustling city.  With so much motion throughout the film, it made Vertov’s world feel more crowded and populated than the world is in the 21th century.

This is the earliest film that i have seen that I would put into the ‘just footage with music’ category that Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka fall into.  I like this more for several reasons.  One, it has obvious nostalgic value.  It was great watching this on a flat, widescreen display and thinking how far everything has come since this film, and how this film still has better things in it than most of what is made now.  Also, this film isn’t as cynical as those more recent films are.  Instead of being interested in the destruction of humanity and the earth, Man With a Movie Camera celebrates the growth and the life of the city and boldly anticipates the motion picture revolution that it knows is going to come in the next several decades.  This is an optimistic and energetic film that I will try to watch with every score that has been written for it.

A strange follow up to Summer Hours in my Assayas double feature, Boarding Gate, which was released the year before Summer Hours, feels like it was made decades apart from Assayas’ next film. While I didn’t come close to liking this as much as Summer Hours, I did appreciate it, and thought it was good for its genre(s). There are two, centerpiece conversations between Asia Argento and Michael Madsen that are great to watch, mainly because Argento is so good in the scenes, and Madsen is able to prevent himself from distracting from her. A couple of times during the first scene between the two, when the Argento first appears, I thought of the audition scene from Mulholland Dr. ‘Acting is reacting’ I said to myself. Argento reacts amazingly. Madsen is Madsen. spoiler I was glad when his brains got blown out..end spoiler.

I am catching on that Assayas thinks globally in his work. Characters escape trouble, hopping from country to country, and there are characters in the film that flip flop from speaking one language to another who I couldn’t believe spoke the languages they were speaking (and some should’ve stuck to one language). The film also seems to flip flop from genre to genre, and it seems divided into very distinct chunks that are nothing like the rest of the film. The film is worst when it felt like I was watching an episode of CSI and best when Argento speaks for a long time. I look forward to Late August, Early September for more delicious seasonal studies.

After two viewings it’s still great, and certainly one of the best films to come out last year. Predictably, I picked up on more details this time, and it was fun watching the characters’ behaviors knowing that they were going to make an important announcement in a few minutes. I didn’t appreciate the ending quite as much this time, I thought that the girls’ dancing was a little too staged, and I thought it was a little unbelievable that this large gathering of teens would be given free reign in that house so shortly after Sylvie was caught shoplifting. But, the overall tone of this film is brilliant, as is the plot. With the decade winding down, this is going to be a defining film for me of these first ten years of the 2000s.

Posted on 12/21/08 at 3:41 AM:

This is the first thing that I have seen by Assayas other than his short in the Paris, Je T’aime compilation, and it almost completely blew me away. Somehow managing to be about everything without being ‘a movie about life,’ the focuses on the three children of a recently deceased parent who try to decide what to do with the deceased belongings, many of it incredibly valuable and sought-after artworks that the Musee D’Orsay and Christie’s have interest in. Most of the film is spent discussing these works and following them as they find their new homes, and it’s all fascinating and gut-wrenching. The film has an energy that reminded me a lot of the last two Desplechin films, dizzyingly energetic displays of family interacting, arguing but still loving each other in a very real and pure way.

The Ozu-esque title seems to refer to the characters who are in the peak of their lives, the middle season of the year. Warm weather, long days. The only problem I had with any of the characters was with Juliette Binoche. Usually she is perfect, and I think that she did her best here, but I think she was miscast. I can buy Binoche as many things, but there was something about her as a money-hungry New York artist that didn’t sit well with me. She wasn’t even all that troublesome. But her make-up was too heavy, and her hair too fake. Maybe it’s because I usually think of her as a mother. She seems like an ideal mother. I’m happy with my mother, but if I could have a new one it might be her, but not in this film. She’s not a big problem, though. Her character, like all of the other major characters, are all pretty complex characters that were constantly on the verge of being unlikable but then charm me in some way.

I also feel like this makes a decent companion piece to Rachel Getting Married, which I also really liked a lot. The ending of this evoked the wedding after-party in Rachel, and is perfect, just like most everything else. This really crept up on me, and I look forward to seeing it again very soon. For now, it shoots right near the top of the year, for me.