Review: Night & Fog (Nuit et brouillard, 1955)

Night and Fog, (1955) Dir. Alain Resnais

A visceral, devastating 30-minute portrait of the Holocaust depicted through the eyes of early French New Wave director Alain Resnais (of Hiroshima, Mon Amour fame), the viewpoint is a novel one as far as many of these types of documentaries go. In its stirring narration, it does not offer solid matter-of-fact chronology, but instead a non-linear framework, as if narrated by memory. Memory is a key theme in much of Resnais' work, this included; his interest seems primarily to lie in mankind's collective memory in regard to mass genocide, how easily we try to compartmentalise it into the past – even merely a decade after the close of the Second World War. The title comes from the German 'Nacht und Nebel', a secretive 1941 Nazi decree which allowed for further suspension of due process and – as the implication lays, under cover of 'night and fog' - for a reign of arrests, torture, and police capture of any perceived threat or challenge to the Third Reich. The consolidation of the National Socialist police state led to and was bolstered by the efficient death machines of Hitler's empire: the camps. Yet the title of the film is its' largest reference to facts, figures, or policies; Night and Fog is concerned with humanity, with our grotesque and inevitable capacity for destruction; with our astounding inability to reconcile ourselves to our own natures.

The camera glides eerily over the newly-growing grass peeking through forlorn railroad tracks, the startlingly unassuming brick buildings, the fences and gates, suggesting the sinister human uses for inanimate objects, allowing our imaginations to fill in the void. It does not deal in political machinations or even mention the ethnicity of those murdered, and this makes a great deal of sense to me; it is interested in widening the experience to emphasise the raw humanity there, the sheer terror of its graphic images of severed heads and bulldozed bodies, taken from footage of Auschwitz and Dachau. Resnais consciously chooses to highlight the tragic absurdity of it all. The film actively avoids doing what so much Holocaust-related material attempts to do; to bookend the period with moral reasoning, to relegate the horror to the dustbin of history, so to speak. Night and Fog does not centre around the dishonest act of elevating its viewers above the despair by raising their arms to heaven and crying, 'Never Again'.

The sorry thing about the sentiment is that it simply isn't true; such slaughter has continued and will continue around the world every day. Resnais resists our paltry attempts to understand the grand scale of our own brutality; to push the whole terrible event into the past as a distant memory, the faulty and reassuring notion that it is something that we have learned from as a species and have moved forward from. The fact remains that for as long as we have existed, we have sought to systematically destroy each other in the form of genocide, and Resnais, cruelly perhaps, denies us the avoidance of this innate truth. As the film moves seamlessly between grainy black-and-white wartime footage of head-reeling monstrousness to unsettlingly serene modern footage of the camps, the effect of our very human tendency to make sense of the senseless is revealed to us. The hopelessness of the documentary's closing moments suggest that some great and terrible evil lies in the human heart, some incurable disease that will continue to plague us - 'We turn a blind eye to what surrounds us, and a deaf ear to humanity's never-ending cry.'

Rambling Thoughts about The Dark Knight Rises

The thing about The Dark Knight Rises is, quite frankly, it isn't worlds away from many other blockbusters. It might even be worse, because we expect better things from Christopher Nolan, and this was apparently the great white hope of mainstream movies. Its' opportunistic hijacking of the Occupy movement and other topical issues suggests political apathy at best, at worst an ugly demonisation of a grassroots protest movement and anyone who argues against the status quo. It seems to criticise the wealthy, corrupted ruling class, but it celebrates the vigilante billionaire as well as the heroic police force. Yet it isn't coherent enough to be propaganda, is far too ideologically muddled; opening figurative doors but never walking through them. In America's current political and social climate, it almost feels irresponsible to lopsidedly and thoughtlessly portray such visions of a demonised underclass. In the way that too many mainstream blockbusters do these days, it simply takes advantage of familiarity with ongoing events without interrogating them to any particular ends. In addition, it isn't particularly cohesive as a moviegoing experience; Nolan makes almost amateurish decisions stylistically; cutting too early, too late, letting scenes either simmer for too long or moving away from them far too quickly. There are a few wonderful moments; the grandeur and horror of Bane's attack of the football field perhaps one of the best, and Christian Bale's performance very difficult to criticise. It is likely an enjoyable ride for the general audience indeed, and I can't say I wasn't engrossed for its full running time. But to hear people laud it without any deeper thought towards its inconsistencies reeks of the anti-intellectualism and shallowness with which we regard American movies. Before The Dark Knight Rises was released, I could have easily hoped for something great - here was a superhero movie with so much importance, expectation, and solemnity afforded to it that it might rise above its lowly genre and become a wonderful vehicle for social or political criticism, statements about the human condition, or, not to be diminished, simply a brilliantly-executed piece of cinema. It certainly seemed to aspire to some of those things. But what we got, at the end of the day, was a superhero movie and nothing more. Distilled simply, my rather cranky argument is this: a film that has become the prime currency of our cultural discussion and anticipation should have strived for something more.

Review: Killer Joe (2012)

Killer Joe (2012) Dir. William Friedkin
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Juno Temple, Emile Hirsch

Killer Joe is one of the best things I've seen at the cinema this year. It's a trailer park noir thriller with threads of black comedy and a strong lashing of Southern Gothic in the vein of The Night of The Hunter. Mitchum's influence on McConaughey's mannerisms seems mentionable, but all of the other elements are there, too: creaking poverty, decay, the dysfunctional (and possibly incestuous) family unit, terrible violence. In the heart of Texas, the bottom line is cash for everyone involved, and it will be gained at any costs, be it through murder, extortion, or betrayal of one's nearest and dearest. A young drug-dealer played by Emile Hirsch gets into debt with some dangerous people, and hires a hitman, McConaughey's titular Killer Joe, to dispose of his mother and cash in on her life insurance policy. Juno Temple, as Hirsch's younger sister, maintains just the right blend of blushingly virginal sensuality and worryingly child-like vulnerability; she's the perfect target for Joe's decision to take on a 'retainer'; doll-like, strange and sweet, like a sparrow crushed in an iron grip. As Joe, McConaughey impressively plays against type with vehemence and flair; his honey-dripping Texan accent and polished, Southern gentleman's charm mask a cold and brutal nature. The film is deeply unsettling and unpleasant, from its mere implications to its gratuitous excesses, though not without a few darkly hilarious moments wedged in between. From its opening, when Gina Gershon opens the door to her stepson in a teeth-grittingly uncomfortable state of undress, to its positively ugly and abrupt ending, it sears with tension, sleaze, and noirish brilliance.

God Bless America (2012)

God Bless America, (2011) Dir. Bobcat Goldthwait
Starring: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr

To begin with, I'm not entirely sure how Bobcat Goldthwait is allowed to get away with making movies at all, but I'm awfully happy he manages to sneak 'em by, because this film is as polemical as they come. It certainly isn't for everybody - a large proportion of audiences will find it grossly offensive and it has the sensibility to make people very uncomfortable, indeed. Its plot is simple: a fed-up middle-aged man has grown tired of America's vulgar, selfish, shallow culture and decides to fight back against the overwhelming stupidity the only way he knows how; with a gun. He is joined by a cynical teenage girl, classmate to the Super Sweet 16 reality TV star who becomes his first victim. It's simple, overblown, and increasingly ridiculous, B-movie style. It's certainly not perfect; it's a super-violent heavy-handed revenge fantasy, and doesn't so much contain characters as it does two vessels for Goldthwait's cranky rants against right-wing and middle America. Peter Bradshaw, veteran Guardian film critic, disagrees with me, and I see why; cinematically speaking, God Bless America does not tick very many marks. It has no particular style or flair. In Bradshaw's view, summarily, the film is essentially a mediocre one-trick pony with a simplistic message.

I can't entirely argue with that, but oddly, I feel the film works mainly through the simplicity of its shock factor; its unfocused, slightly immature, sloppy rage against all that is wrong with America shouldn't work, but it is felt with such clarity that it sort of does. Goldthwait's characters are preaching to the converted, as the saying goes. It's essentially a left-wing spin on a traditionally right-wing concept; the violent vigilante film. It works just as well on the same primal basis; sometimes, striking out against those we passionately disagree with is wonderfully cathartic. This reaction is, of course, rather anti-liberal; but nothing is there to suggest that our main character, Frank, is particularly liberal in his stance. After all, he certainly exercises his 2nd Amendment rights quite happily. There isn't anything ideal about this film, but its existence, and rarity - its balls, to speak plainly - are rather commendable. It's not terribly well-executed, but it's funny, punchy, and hits where it hurts. It feels like a passionate teenager without any sense of measured political discourse made an angry student film, and maybe Goldthwait should know better, but what comes out is a sort of guilty pleasure that feels really, really good.

Classical Hollywood: From Here to Eternity (1953)

From Here to Eternity (1953), Dir. Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra

This Oscar-winning military drama is set at a Hawaiian military base just before the outbreak of the second World War - and accordingly, the attack on Pearl Harbor. Michael Bay should have taken note and canned his scrap-heap of a big budget movie about Pearl Harbor, because Zinnemann's 1953 film does it with more heart, humanity, and panache then he could ever manage. There are a lot of misleading ideas surrounding the movie - mainly due to the iconic image of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing in the surf. The film isn't really terribly focused on the romance, and the famous moment only lasts a few seconds. The film also isn't really about Pearl Harbor, as such, and by the time the world-shaking events occur, the audience is so wrapped up in the very human dramas of regular life at the military outpost that the attack seems oddly surprising. Montgomery Clift, supposed precursor to Brando and Dean, is much less mannered than the latter two, and much more subtle - perhaps more watchable by today's standards. He had a wonderful presence and an injured, repressed quality that got attention but never begged for it. Sinatra is a mischievous but good-hearted friend, strangely skinny-shouldered and ratty standing next to athletic Lancaster and fine-featured Clift. As a modern viewer, one can't help but to pick up on the underlying patriotism and occasional narrative schmaltz that make up a prestige picture like this one, but nonetheless, it is one of uncommonly good scripting, actors, and director. It criticises the poor treatment of lower-ranked men by the officers' ranks, and speaks to the violence, drunkenness, and general corruption of domestic military life, but never takes far-reaching steps to extend this critique toward the government, or to allow its characters anything but unwavering loyalty to their military, in spite of their poor treatment.  The film ends with a wistful scene on a steamboat between Deborah Kerr and Montgomery Clift's lover, Donna Reed, talking about their wayward men. As the camera pans down to the sea beneath them, we get the sense that in 1941, on the precipice of war, a great many more young women would soon be talking just as wistfully about the military men in their lives.

Brief Thoughts: Prometheus (2012)

Prometheus is a behemoth of a film with equally as large hype and expectations surrounding it. As a supposed loose prequel to Alien, it certainly had big shoes to fill. The claustrophobic horror of the chest-bursting, phallus-obsessed, feminist original is sadly much lacking in its predecessor. In spite of rather optimistic reviews, it has a baffling, overblown plot and a frequently cringe-worthy screenplay; the kind where the characters say, 'You'll die if you take off your helmet!' and other 'look here, gasp now!' dialogue in place of a discernible story. I think it pained all of my friends to admit it - we were so looking forward to it, and were almost speechless when we left the dark of the cinema. The blatantly creationist Christian undertones (if you could even call them that, such was the emphasis put upon them) were bizarrely placed in a supposed Alien prequel - an original film predicated on rationality and Godlessness. As far as interestingly portrayed characters, Michael Fassbender as android David may be the only one - but even then, he isn't given very much to do. He stands around, stiffly handsome and sinister, and that's about the most I can say. His position by the end of the film is clearly ridiculous, but the film is utterly po-faced about it. Scott clearly wants us to take Prometheus as seriously as we take Alien, but apparently fails to realise its inherent silliness, and even worse, fails to realise why it is we take Alien seriously in the first place. It's a crying shame, and an absolute mess of a film, one that seems five minutes in the making rather than 30 years. The impressive CGI set pieces were undermined by other details: rubbery humanoid aliens, poor characterisation, and banal 'surprise' sub-plots. Science-fiction, at its best, satirises and holds a mirror to our modern world - is socially and politically relevant. Alien certainly met this criteria, and Prometheus does anything but. It doesn't tell us anything new or relevant; it arguably struggles even to tell a good, coherent story. What a let down.

Brief Thoughts: Harold and Maude (1971), Kill List (2011), Thelma & Louise (1991)

Harold and Maude (1971) Dir. Hal Ashby
Starring: Bud Cort, Ruth Gordon, Vivian Pickles

A great, strange, idiosyncratic little movie. It seems as if a lot of its quirky odd-couple whimsy and deadpan cynicism has found its way into modern indie films - everything from Wes Anderson to less enjoyable (Zooey Deschanel comes to mind) versions. Its influence seems to be largely underrated. Watching Bud Cort's wide-eyed Harold zoom around in his hearse or continually fake his own gruesome death, one could easily respond with exasperation - we've seen all this quirkiness done before, in a try-hard, glossy way. It's difficult to remind yourself that Harold and Maude was the original, genuine article, and its bizarre love story is all the more charming for it. I think Hal Ashby truly sought to make a movie dedicated to the weirdos and eccentrics, a celebration of those with an utter disregard for social convention. The Cat Stevens soundtrack, the almost-predictable-but-not-quite ending, the unassuming and unsentimental depiction of melancholy, romance, and tragedy, all make the film poignant and disconcerting over thirty years on.

Kill List (2011) Dir. Ben Wheatley
Starring: Neil Maskell, Harry Simpson, MyAnna Buring

I initially watched Kill List at the cinema, and just recently have watched it a second time at home. It centers around two friends who live apparently regular lives, except for their highly mysterious jobs - as contract killers. It remains one of the stand-out films from last year, for sure, though I can't help but to feel the shocks come less keenly after seeing them once before. The shocks aren't gimmicky, certainly - it has moments of real terror, and the whole film zips along with an unnerving sense of dread and discomfort. The many domestic scenes in the film are wonderfully naturalistic, painfully tense, and unexpectedly funny, but are punctuated with moments of increasingly dreadful violence and gore - heads, hands, and kneecaps bursting. The film is Hydra-like in its sensibility; naturally lit and acted, but supernaturally inclined; surreal, and yet so disturbingly placed in a sense of immediacy and reality that 'surreal' is never quite the correct word. Although I disagree with critics who claimed the last 5 minutes of the movie ruined it, I do think it seems a considerably weaker and more derivative ending than it did upon the first viewing. Strangely, it still sort of works, maybe as homage. I've never seen a movie which mixes style and genre quite in the way it manages, and it is a wonderfully dark, bizarre film.

Thelma & Louise (1991) Dir. Ridley Scott
Starring: Geena Davis, Susan Sarandon, Harvey Keitel


I can't believe I hadn't seen this before, and I really enjoyed it in spite of it being a bit flawed. It's an awful shame that Scott tacks on the ending with a swell of 'cry here' music and a flashback to better times, because the movie really didn't need it - the screenplay is wonderfully well-written and Geena Davis and Sarandon have as much on-screen chemistry as Hepburn and Tracy. Davis' prettily dimpled smiles and innocence give way to a much braver, harder evolution, and she is well played-off by the older Sarandon's cynical waitress, a thin slash of red on her lips and a stern, almost motherly tone to her voice. Their adventures are a testament to that rare filmic thing, a realistic female friendship and camaraderie that runs deeper than their reliance on men. The string of movies about male camaraderie is miles long. The Butch Cassidy and Easy Rider generation, with their intent on escaping stifling respectable lives and searching for real freedom, were revolutionary in one respect, but women were completely sidelined in this vision. Thelma and Louise reject domesticity, dead-end jobs, unfulfilling husbands and boyfriends, a nowhere town they're stuck in. They get to ogle the male body, to carry guns, to drive around with an arrogance previously reserved only for men; but they also get to talk about rape frankly, to be hysterical occasionally, to be fully drawn-out women as well as being figures of rebellion. That it took, more or less, until 1991 for a movie like this to come out - one where we watch women talk, form friendships, and kill for each other to the extent that men are allowed to onscreen - speaks volumes. Thelma & Louise portrays the great majority of the men in the film as foolish and arrogant - a conflated caricature of masculinity in the same way that for a century of cinema, caricatures of man-obsessed, decorative femininity have dominated the screen. For all its moments of mainstream pandering or sentimentality, it is so well-acted and full of such warmth, has so many moments of 'right on' feminism, of turning the classic male road movie on its head, I can't help but to have a huge soft spot for it.

Books on Film

I've been reading some fascinating books about cinema, and my university library is so full of them I never know where to start. So I thought I'd point some out that were of interest to me particularly, and that I'm at some stage of reading at the moment:

From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies by Molly Haskell

Haskell's ambitious critical study of the different 'types' of women throughout Hollywood's history - the vamp, the virgin, the wholesome good girl and the busty sex goddess - highlights the patriarchal attempt to place women in submissive roles in the movies. Haskell covers Hollywood from the 1920's to the 1970's, discussing the star personas of Lillian Gish, Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Doris Day, and so on. By doing so, she fascinatingly uncovers our national tendencies toward sexual repression and our attempt to dominate women's sexuality and free choice by organising, controlling, subjugating, or shaming it. A great Feminist handbook for American film studies.


Hard Hats, Rednecks, and Macho Men: Class in 1970's American Cinema by Derek Nystrom

Derek Nystrom has come up with a brilliant thesis about a common theme in 70s Hollywood, one that seems terribly obvious yet has remained relatively undiscussed; the figure of the working-class white male. From the possible homoeroticism of Saturday Night Fever to the potential danger of the 'redneck' in films like The Deliverance, Nystrom deals with the undergirding theme of the social and political upheaval of the 70's - class. It is one that American myth has sought largely to ignore, but is brought to the fore in many films of this period, with the interplay of working-class masculinity against a more middle-class milieu, feminism, homosexuality, and war. It's easy to digest and has an interestingly fresh perspective on films that have been written about again & again.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)

Looking for Mr. Goodbar, (1977) Dir. Richard Brooks
Starring: Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, Richard Gere, Tom Berenger


Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a film you really do want to like; there's some amount of weighty expectation to it - it was never released on DVD and as such is quite difficult to get hold of, but I've been constantly hearing about how it was one of the early, key texts of New Hollywood. It may be a minor film, but it starred a very young Richard Gere, an equally youthful Tom Berenger, and Diane Keaton fresh off the success of The Godfather. I was always baffled as to why it wasn't more available.

The trouble is, the Diane Keaton character, Terry, is rather likeable. Throughout the film, she has a chilled-out, increasingly free-spirited attitude towards sex and drugs, a prickly inability to go for a 'safe' man, and a mattress-on-the-floor bohemian sensibility, boldly inviting Richard Gere home with her. Even as Brooks beats us over the head with Theresa's 'daddy issues', combined with her cliched 'rebellion' from her strict Catholic family, she feels sympathetic. Brooks poses her character as dangerously sleazy and promiscuous; her nymphomania is attributed completely to her family problems. Yet she seems coolly above it all, in many ways - until the end of the film,I did not feel that the narrative had served to judge her. It is easy to vicariously enjoy her lifestyle - particularly her flagrant disregard for the social values which have for so long defined not only what is right for women to do, but what it is safe for them to do. Essentially, when she is not a rather compassionate schoolteacher, she prowls seedy disco clubs at the nighttime for casual encounters.

It seems strange, and perhaps telling, for me to say that as a woman watching this film over 30 years after its release, there was still something pleasurable about watching Keaton swagger around, for all intensive purposes, like a man. (Though her hysterical laughter at the sight of a condom seems rather more alien, to say that not long after 1977 she certainly wouldn't have been laughing.) But of course - of course - there are consequences. There always must be consequences for this kind of behaviour - reasons and motivations, too, but most definitely consequences. A woman must never exist in the dangerous margin of sexuality where neither slapdash Freudian analytics explain her nor some sort of cautionary punishment await her.

The ending came as such a shock, then, that I found myself angrily trying to work out how I hadn't seen it coming all along. The gut-twisting, seedy ending serves as reactionary, homophobic, and sexist. At its heart, Looking for Mr. Goodbar has a deeply moral conservative stance. One might argue that it was based on a true story, and that in crime-ridden 70's New York, a wildly promiscuous young woman might easily have fallen into the wrong arms. While that may be true, Goodbar presents a stereotypical world - when women join the sexual revolution, dubiously following the steps of men, they must suffer the gravest of consequences.

Pauline Kael, I talk about you too much.

A good amount of the time, I angrily disagree with whatever Pauline Kael had to say about movies. As a long-residing queen of movie criticism at the New Yorker from 1968 to 1991, she courted no small amount of controversy with her opinions. Yet it always seems to me that no matter how violently I disagree with her, and no matter how much I scratch my head and wonder how such a brilliant woman could have so obviously missed the mark, she is one of my very favourite film critics. She was responsible for a crop of followers nicknamed the 'Paulettes', who reviewed and wrote movies in a style inspired by her. Paul Schrader (most famously the director of American Gigolo and writer of Taxi Driver) started out as a film critic and Kael hanger-on, and cites her as hugely influential. I've become something of an accidental 'Paulette' myself, as I seem to be constantly pointing out her opinions to anyone who'll listen.

Pauline tended to either love a movie or hate it - it was rare she felt indifferent about anything. She passionately insisted that movies should not be intellectualised out of reach or elevated to too highbrow a status, as they were made to be enjoyed by the masses. She crushed art-house directors like Antonioni and Resnais under her critical boot-heels for their so-called pretension. At the same time, she is one of the critics who helped to elevate movies to a more highbrow position. She refused to watch a movie more than once, frequently contradicted herself, and was strangely harsh on anything she felt had too much of a 'message'. On top of this, she frequently broke the golden rule of unbiased movie criticism: don't fraternize with the directors...or writers...or stars. (Warren Beatty, I'm looking at you.) So, having said all this, why is she worth talking about?

Quite simply, because if you start to read any of her reviews, you can't tear your eyes away. Her talent for imagery and observation is unmatched, she could turn a phrase like the best of novelists, and regardless of what was said about a movie, she always managed to find something completely new to say about it. A particular talent she had was for giving descriptions, with unerring accuracy, of the personas of stars. Take De Niro in Taxi Driver, for instance: 'Robert De Niro is in almost every frame: thin-faced, as handsome as Robert Taylor one moment and cagey, ferrety, like Cagney, the next.' Describing Sissy Spacek in Carrie, another film she and I actually agree on, 'She shifts back and forth and sideways: a nasal, whining child pleading for her mother's love, each word scratching her throat as it comes out; a chaste young beauty at the prom; and then a second transformation when her destructive impulses burst out and age her. Sissy Spacek uses her freckled pallor and whitish eyelashes to suggest a squashed, froggy girl who could go in any direction; at times, she seems unborn - a fetus.' And her description of Stallone in Rocky is the best I've yet read, though it surprisingly endorses his acting ability:

'There's bullnecked energy in him, smoldering; he has a field of force, like Brando's. And he knows how to use his overripe, cartoon sensuality - the eyelids at half-mast, the sad brown eyes and twisted, hurt mouth. [...] Stallone is aware that we see him as a hulk, and he plays against this comically and tenderly. In his deep, caveman's voice, he gives the most surprising, sharp, fresh shadings to his lines.'

Pauline was all about the physicality of actors, their energy and the way they used their bodies and faces. She was concerned with the visceral enjoyment factor of the films she watched, her pure delight in them as movie magic; as entertainment. She celebrated the thrill of Jaws and the campy pleasure of The Warriors. No one I've read so far seems to write about movies with the same sort of barbed wit and passion. Yet, when I read her dismissal of Network or her disdain for Raging Bull, I feel completely baffled, mildly outraged. What could she have been thinking? But somehow, whenever I watch a movie, I keep going back to her reviews. Sometimes she even points to flaws in films that once I notice, I can't seem to un-see, reminding me that my own critical faculties clearly need more development. What I'm about to say I'll repeat in hushed, reverent tones, careful to point out that it is one of my favourite films. But in all honesty, now that she's mentioned it... maybe Network is a little bit preachy.







(All quotes are from Kael's collection of reviews, When the Lights Go Down, pp. 130, 210, 214)

Bite-Sized Thoughts: JCVD (2008) & SCUM (1979)

In no particular order, here are some of the miscellaneous things I watched this weekend:

JCVD(2008), Dir. Mabrouk El Mechri.
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme,Valerie Bodson,Herve Sogne

JCVD is a strange little Belgian film that blends drama, documentary-style and farce disturbingly well. The premise revolves around Van Damme getting caught up in a post office robbery and hostage situation, but to give away much more would be a sin. It's unpredictable from start to finish, containing biographical elements from his life, playing with the line between reality and narrative. Van Damme, of course, plays himself, something that he arguably does in every film he's been in, but in a far more literal sense - his fame in Belgium is off the record, and yet this beloved national hero is suddenly the midst of a public scandal. Van Damme is startlingly good, using his physicality in an entirely new way. Muscular yet clearly aged, with tired eyes and a sort of still-prideful humility, he lopes around in the film with palpable melancholy and growing bewilderment. His monologue near the close of the film seems painfully true to his biographical details, and all the more affecting because of it. With its Godardian style and winking eye toward Van Damme's aging action hero/nice-guy persona, JCVD is unclassifiable but entirely worth watching. (Also, I highly recommend one of Van Damme's height-of-career films as a precursor in a double bill. Double Impact might do nicely. No pretension here!)

SCUM (1979), Dir. Alan Clarke.
Starring: Ray Winstone, David Threlfall, Martin Phillips


Rounding off the weekend with the least fun of the bunch, I watched the Play for Today-based (and initially banned) movie SCUM, starring a shockingly baby-faced Ray Winstone as a young offender in borstal at the end of the seventies. It's a gut-twistingly cruel film, featuring institutional corruption, rape, suicide, and particularly pugnacious scenes of racism. Archer, an eccentric hippie-type, poses the only voice of reason in the film, decrying the role of institutional punishment and its harmful effects. It's a close to the knuckle, sparingly shot, male-dominated film, the only feminine figure being that of the elderly woman who does occasional and useless checks on the boys' well-being.It merely depicts the violence and corrupt forces in borstal (including one vile warden who watches on as a young boy is raped) and allows the audience to walk away with their conclusions. Anti-Thatcher from the ground up, SCUM makes for uncomfortable viewing, but it is a central piece of British cinematic history - and a wonderful example of the heavily ideological social realism of the period which Britain did, and does, so well.

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

The Bad and the Beautiful(1952),Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell


It's Vincente Minnelli month at the BFI Southbank in London, with special showings of his films throughout May. He was the sort of director of the studio system whose films, admittedly, seem dated; though Meet Me in St. Louis is a perennial Christmas classic, his films do err on the side of sentiment and melodrama. Having said that, The Bad and the Beautiful stands out as something considerably different from Minnelli's other films. Alongside Sunset Boulevard (1950, Billy Wilder) which is arguably the better of the two, it is a within-the-system critique of the system, exposing the hypocrisy, greed, and corruption of the Dream Factory from the top to the bottom.
The film opens at an unknown man's funeral; as the mourners leave, Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) hands out wads of cash to each of them. We don't have time to feel too quizzical - it is quickly explained that Shields' father is so hated he must pay people to mourn. Kirk Douglas is impressive in his David O. Selznick-inspired role as a megalomaniacal movie producer who squeezes the life out of his directors, stars, lovers, and friends.Portraying screen sirens like Lana Turner and Elaine Stewart as unstable alcoholic floozies and conniving wannabes, the film captures not only the predatory but the preyed-upon. One of the best moments must be when Lana Turner arrives at Douglas' mansion to discover his betrayal; the long shadows of his grand staircase divide the floor as moonlight floods through the windows. Lana sweeps in wearing a decadently fur-trimmed dress and carrying a bottle of champagne, but her Hollywood dreams turn to dust in the doorway and she is shouted out of the house, sobbing. It is a quintessential Hollywood moment of melodrama, and in spite of the film’s harsh critique of it, The Bad and the Beautiful mimics this style so closely that it’s difficult not to get swept along in the magic. The romance of Hollywood seems something Minnelli seems to recognise too; the last few moments of the film do not linger on Jonathan Shields' heartlessness, but on his conniving charm. Like Hollywood itself, Shields' charm outlasts his misdeeds; he serves as the perfect metaphor for the whole corrupt and glamourous system. The characters in the film are still fascinated hangers-on in spite of the injury caused - much like the audience, they cannot shake the stars from their eyes.

My Personal 10 Cry-it-Out Films

(Anna Karina in 1962’s Vivre Sa Vie watches Renee Maria Falconetti in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc.)



10. Irreversible, 2002, Gaspar Noe

Irreversible is a notorious film by French director Gaspar Noe, infamous for its extreme violence and challenging style; it is filmed in dizzying circular movements and jarring motions under a seedy low light. It is also accompanied by a tonal frequency which, although barely audible, is known to cause discomfort in those who hear it. Narratively speaking, it is one of the few films which plays completely backwards. Interestingly, this function makes the content of the film somewhat easier to digest; if made in a linear form, the sheer misery of the plot would have seemed pointless and exploitative. Played backwards, the moral dilemmas become more apparent. ‘Time destroys everything,’ the film reminds us, but by this point, many of its viewers may feel similarly destroyed. The infamous rape of Monica Belluci’s character is easily one of the most upsetting moments in modern cinema. The camera remains static for several minutes, forcing the audience to focus on the act. Truthfully, sensitive viewers ought to avoid this film–as should those who expect to make logical sense out of the crimes depicted, or expect the film to take a definitive moral approach in order to justify its excesses. Critics remain divided; some see it as a nihilistic view of the evils of society, while others decry it as inflammatory, unnecessary violence. I personally volley between either view, but see it moreso as a fascinating cinematic experiment–less like a part of a visual medium than it is a visceral experience. Whatever your opinion of it, you won’t forget it too soon.

9. The Wind that Shakes the Barley, 2006, Ken Loach

Ken Loach’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley is a fascinating, somewhat romanticized take on the Irish War of Independence and the beginnings of the IRA. As with anything Loach attaches his name to, it is a highly ideological film, starring Cillian Murphy as Damian, an idealistic resistance fighter. Its main cast of characters–young men committed to Irish nationalism at all costs–are prone to verbose debates about socialism, nationalism, British occupation and the nature of the war. Impressively, Loach manages to fill the film with passionate intellectual dialogue without seeming self-righteous or overly contrived. The cruelty of the Black and Tans and the hideousness of the violence that the band of rebels must both face and inflict is never taken lightly or played for shocks. Each act is weighted heavily with dilemmas on moral relativism. The idealism and righteous justification of the original rebellion slowly gives way to a cynical agreement that divides the IRA. As the group splinters, idealism fails; corrupt in-fighting breaks out and Cillian Murphy’s Damian stands staunchly by his beliefs. Great sacrifices are made for a cause which has never been won, and as an audience we know that the IRA was to later become infected by violent radicalism. The Wind that Shakes the Barley is a poignant film about war and the failure of ideals. The wrongdoing of the British government and its capitalistic stance take a lashing in the film, but it is on the grounds of futile personal tragedy with which Loach shows us the inherent evils of the conflict and the suffering caused.

8. East of Eden, 1955, Elia Kazan

For avid James Dean fans like myself, Elia Kazan’s Hollywood classic East of Eden is not merely sad but impossibly tragic. In his meteoric rise over the course of a mere three films, Dean left an indelible impression. East of Eden was the first of these films, based on John Steinbeck’s family epic, and also starring Julie Harris and Raymond Massey. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of either the novel or the film is aware that the story is a retelling of the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, two rival brothers driven to murder by jealousy. Dean’s Cal is wonderfully wounded as Massey’s less-loved son; his watery blue eyes, jerky mannerisms, and slouching frame portray a lifetime of slights–an eccentricity gained by living life in the shadow of his brother. The penultimate scene is undoubtedly the one in which Cal presents his father with a hard-earned gift. His excitement and nerves are palpable; he is desperate for his father’s attention. Dean’s tendency to ad-lib and his love of Method Acting came into play; he had put himself into such an emotional state in the scene that when the gift is rejected, he lunges at Massey, grabbing him by the collar. Massey is visibly shocked but stays in character as Dean sobs and attempts to embrace him. The resulting immediacy of the scene is heartbreaking; there is always the sense that a great deal of Dean himself was in the character. But what truly renders the film tragic is the terrible awareness we have as viewers that this beautiful young man, so movingly injured and troubled, was to die so soon. At a mere 24, his talent was lost to the world, and the brief, painful moments he spent onscreen both delight and torment us. From the compelling moment he appears onscreen, hunched over in a pair of denim overalls, to the conclusion of the film, his presence reminds us of both the mythic figure he has become and the agonizingly truthful performer he was.

7. Fish Tank, 2009, Andrea Arnold

Fish Tank, the much-lauded Andrea Arnold film which won a great deal of festival laurels, is devastatingly bleak; very much an inheritor of all the great British social realism films of the past. It deals with the same themes; the same working-class alienation and hopelessness. The story involves a young girl on an Essex council estate and her estranged relationship with her single mother. Andrea Arnold’s uniquely feminine viewpoint as it depicts mother/ daughter relationships is spot-on. The previously-unknown star is Katie Jarvis as 15-year-old Mia. She bubbles with resentment and spite, but also a tender naïveté; she is not likable but inspires empathy nonetheless. Jarvis seems instinctively perfect for the role–one of the most believable onscreen characters I can fairly say I’ve seen. Michael Fassbender is equally as captivating as the almost haphazardly predatory boyfriend of Mia’s mother. He is open, funny, sexy–and an utter reptile. Like Mia, we are drawn in, trusting him because he offers the only affection in the girl’s life. As we watch this paternal affection become perverse, we, like Mia, realize our hopes were misplaced. The anger and frustration turn her into what amounts to a caged animal; things escalate. Escape routes from the misery of the young girl’s life fail to materialize; her burgeoning dancing career also reveals itself to be hollow. Fish Tank is a stirringly sad, achingly well-made film, the likes of which Loach would give a nod to.

6. Umberto D, 1952, Vittorio De Sica

Umberto D, directed by the well-loved Vittorio De Sica, is a classic of the Italian Neo-Realist movement. Highly influential for documenting real postwar Italy during its worst moments, it brought popularity to on-location shooting, use of non-professional actors, and addressing hard-biting issues. Umberto D tells the story of its titular character, a lonely elderly man living during an economic downturn which has left him practically destitute. He is accompanied by his dog, Flike, and the young maid living in his vicious landlady’s house. We watch as he struggles to retain his pride, and as he suffers when poverty threatens to steal what Umberto values most–no longer his life, but his dignity. Carlo Battisti, a professor who had never acted before, is fantastic as the world-weary, prideful Umberto who casts a lonely eye on the changing city around him. The old man wanders the streets of a Rome which has no time or use for him; an Italy which has forgotten the infirm and the elderly and their right to be taken care of by the state. The film has been criticized for using Umberto’s little dog for sentimental purposes, but his desperately codependent love for his pet mirrors real life too closely. Flike is Umberto’s only and dearest friend. Too often in modern times do we discard and disrespect the elderly, when they are at their weakest and most in need of love and companionship. Umberto D reminds us of that, not only highlighting the injustices of Italy’s postwar pension cuts, but painting a heartbreaking portrait of old age and its downfalls. I refuse to reveal more by way of plot about this film; I can only say that it would take a heartless person indeed not to be deeply moved by it.

5. Waltz with Bashir, 2008, Ari Folman

This animated documentary about the Lebanon War is haunting, gorgeously rendered, and very enlightening to people (like myself) who know very little about the historical circumstances surrounding the conflict. It is the account of a solider unable to shake his memories and guilt over what he witnesses during the war, and illustrates its story via flashbacks and through interviews. The result is unsettling–particularly the final switch to live footage of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. These harrowing few moments at the conclusion seem all the more brutal in contrast to the wobbly, darkly surreal animation the film employs. Ultimately, it leaves us not only to question the culpability of the Israelis during the massacre, but the moral guilt we share in standing by during many of the world’s genocides, past and present. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Waltz with Bashir indicts its audience for its complicity in this, and brings that road to hell into stark, devastating light.

4. Hiroshima, Mon Amour, 1959, Alain Resnais

Resnais’ landmark film Hiroshima, Mon Amour is a painfully beautiful contemplation of love, loss, and the power of memory and guilt. It is both written (by novelist Marguerite Duras) and filmed with poeticism and tenderness; it tells of a meandering love story between a Japanese architect who has survived the attack on Hiroshima, and a French actress in self-exile for falling in love with a German solider during the Occupation. The couple walks through new Hiroshima, two lost souls wandering down glittering but oddly desolate streets. The quietly powerful photographic images provide an austere backdrop to the emotional fallout of the bomb. The opening footage, depicting Hiroshima and its residents in the wake of the nuclear attack, is easily some of the most chilling footage committed to celluloid. Resnais’ film speaks to the human ability to overcome both personal and wide scale tragedy; but also to our fumbling inability to do so, leaving us suspended in time by our grief.

3. Blue Valentine, 2010, Derek Cianfrance

Blue Valentine does not gain its power from stylistic inventions or cinematic sleight of hand, but through its sheer honesty and realism. Starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a frustrated young blue collar couple, married with a small child, it is truly an antithesis to the ‘Hollywood treatment’ of love and relationships in film. Instead of soaring highs and poetic lows, it is committed to portraying the mediocrity, the stifling of hopes, the humorous moments and pathos of daily life in a suffocating marriage. Critics and audiences disagree across the board as to why Dean and Cindy’s marriage falls apart; as to who is at fault, if anyone at all. The beauty of this is that it mirrors the true uncertainty involved in the collapse of a relationship. The film works in flashbacks from the very last few days of the marriage to its beautiful and harrowing beginning; romantic and awkward moments, an unwanted pregnancy, failed plans. The incidences of an unfulfilled life and the minor unmentioned U-turns along the way batter the couple’s love for each other in what cannot be described as anything other than brutal. Gosling and Williams are utterly believable, and their brilliant performances make the film. For those, like me, who watched the film as one half of a couple, the film is not only heartbreaking but terrifying in certain ways. It preys on the mind for hours afterward, posing questions about relationships, unspoken restlessness, and the risks we inevitably take in pursuing love. For this reason, I find the film almost unbearably sad.

2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1975, Milos Forman

This may seem terribly obvious to any film fan, but Forman’s classic film based on Ken Kesey’s novel is inevitably appropriate on such a list. Jack Nicholson’s McMurphy, leader of a ragtag group of variously mentally ill patients in the ward, is one of the most memorable characters in American cinema, as is his almost inhumanly evil adversary, Nurse Ratched. The terrifying depiction of the inner goings-on of mental institutions and the tyrannical power they wield over their patients is significant; the power struggle grows increasingly ridiculous until the results are unbearably tragic. The injustice and senselessness of the chain of events to follow leave us breathless by the conclusion.

1. The Elephant Man, 1980, David Lynch

Easily the one of the least ‘Lynchian’ David Lynch films; it contains much in the way of surrealism and monstrousness, but it is his most linear, least abstract film by far, and one that is often accused of sentimentality. Perhaps this is so–how could the true story of John Merrick, a young Victorian man suffering from a hideously deforming disease, be treated with anything other than sentiment? John Hurt’s Merrick may seem like a monster, but the monstrousness comes from a cruel, vain society which condemns him to live his life as a freak–even the short-lived kindness he receives from Anthony Hopkins’ Doctor Treves is not without its ulterior motives. Its stirring blacks and whites belie its recent production; many modern films are done this way, but so few are able to evoke the magical and mysterious quality, which make them reminiscent of a bygone age. Merrick is almost knightly as he suffers so nobly; his gentleness is violated repeatedly and the little dignity he gains is lost in one ghastly scene in the train station. Humiliated and lonely, Merrick dies at the tender age of 27, possibly of suicide, though no one is certain. The brutality of Merrick’s treatment and his shocked gratitude towards his friends is enough to keep me consistently tearful throughout.

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Finally, if after watching some of these films, you need a pick-me-up, remember what Oscar Wilde had to say: ” […] Art does not hurt us. The tears that we shed at a play are a type of the exquisite sterile emotions that it is the function of Art to awaken. We weep, but we are not wounded. We grieve, but our grief is not bitter.”