la cicatrice intérieure

La Cicatrice intérieure
d. Philippe Garrel, 1972

La Cicatrice intérieure may very well be the most arresting avant-garde film I have ever seen. I've encountered many great ones before, including Michael Snow's Wavelength (1967), Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman (1975), and many of Brakhage's films, but never something that made me so aware (and, by turns, happy) that I was watching a film.

The other two Garrels I've seen, 1968's La revelateur and 2005's Regular Lovers, each have their own poetic essence, with the latter possibly being my favorite of his. But there's something altogether unnerving about a film like La Cicatrice intérieure, whose 60-minute length seems to encompass so much.

In essence, the film is like Satantango (1994), Gerry (2002), and the Brown Bunny (2003) in its portrayal of space and time, but Garrel's work (a tremendous influence on all these films) is more gorgeous and hypnotic, perhaps because of how completely it embraces the, I don't want to say pretension, but materialism of a landscape film.

Knowing very little about the film before watching it, I was shocked to see Nico in it. As it turns out, she was one of Garrel's major collaborators in the stage of his career immediately following La Cicatrice intérieure. Not only is she the emotional driving force of the film--delivering a performance that is both captivating and frightening--but her enigmatic and utterly amazing songs adorn the photography of the film.

In as much as can be reduced (though I don't really want to spend a lot of time breaking this film down), La Cicatrice intérieure seems to be a work about life. Garrel approaches the subject from an elemental point of view, shooting his film in long takes of people walking, without any deceitful editing. The viewer sits there, calm, fully aware of what's to happen in the next few minutes, with little to no surprises coming. This, to some, may seem like a harsh way to spend an hour, but it's really quite exciting and calming. Garrel is exploring what is beyond our physical experience, but the irony is how he does it in the most material and aesthetically-restricted form.

If the screams Nico howls in this film mean anything (and I'm not sure that they do), it has to do with something close to Garrel's title, a scar, an inner trouble. This, Garrel suggests, is what keeps us human, whether we like it or not.

Without a doubt, La Cicatrice intérieure is an unforgettable experience.

the night of the hunter

The Night of the Hunter
d. Charles Laughton, 1955

After six viewings of The Night of the Hunter, it's becoming hard to discuss the film divorced from the way it makes me feel: genuinely happy, mildly disturbed, wildly amused, and even a bit nostalgic. It's a film of such captivating beauty that it defies criticism, which is ironic considering that its screenwriter, James Agee, was himself a prominent film critic. The story of the film, as everyone should know by now, is that of Harry Powell (Charles Laughton), a self-proclaimed preacher more interested in punishing people than saving them. Near the beginning of the film, he's put in the same cell as a man who killed two people and stole $10,000, which are now with his two young children. The rest of Night of the Hunter is an exploration of terror and shadowy compositions as seen from the perspective of a child. Stanley Cortez (who also shot Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons) carefully executes Charles Laughton's compositions, resulting in one of the most visually inventive films of all time, let alone of the 50s. A masterpiece.

head

Head
d. Bob Rafelson, 1968

Bob Rafelson followed Head, a quirky film about the Monkees, with Five Easy Pieces (1970), and these two films couldn't have yielded more different results. The former is a relatively unknown collection of psychadelic imagery held together by the Monkees' tunes, while the latter is a revered character study with Jack Nicholson's most famous performance. Nicholson was involved with this film as well, penning the script with Rafelson. Above all, Head is a product of its era; at its best, it gives us a glimpse at some of what was going on in 1968. People may call this unfocused and simple-minded, but if this stuff is so easy to do, why aren't more films as enjoyable as this one?

chloe in the afternoon

Chloe in the Afternoon
d. Eric Rohmer, 1972

As charming as anything I've seen by Rohmer, if not as achingly beautiful as My Night at Maud's (1969). Chloe in the Afternoon contains all of the major characteristics of Rohmer's Moral Tales, including the genuinely insecure male character surrounded by intelligent verbose people, a quiet discomfort which watches over the film, and, perhaps most impressively, Nestor Almendros' photography. Both in its episodic structure and the way its lead character dodges infidelity, Chloe in the Afternoon is very much like a less feverish, more straightforward version of Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

rosemary's baby

Rosemary's Baby
d. Roman Polanski, 1968

Having only seen two of Polanski's films--1965's Repulsion and 1974's Chinatown--I was certainly expecting Rosemary's Baby to be a good film, but I was not prepared for such an unshakable experience. First of all, Mia Farrow is simply stunning as the lead, and John Cassavetes' work here is only matched by his role in his own last film, Love Streams (1984). Though as not as physically powerful as Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby has the edge on narrative conviction; the viewer is effortlessly carried from one part of Polanski's ingenious story to the next, with rarely a down moment. I could go on and on about how the film subverts standard horror archetypes and rhythms, and I probably will, at a later. Truly a great film. I mean, goddamn.

a moment of innoncence

A Moment of Innocence
d. Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1996

In what is surely one of the most accomplished films of the 1990s, director Mohsen Makhmalbaf attempts to recreate an event from his youth. At the age of 17, he stabbed a police officer. According to A Moment of Innocence, 20 years have passed and the officer has gotten in touch with Mr. Makhmalbaf. Throughout the film's brief 75 minutes, each of them spends time with the actor playing the younger version of themselves. The film is consistent in its ironies, and it's clear that Makhmalbaf has this whole thing more planned out than it appears on film, which makes it difficult to tell what moments are staged and which aren't. By the end of the film, however, by having spent time with both of the parties involved with the event, Mr. Makhmalbaf has succeeded in, yes, crafting a moment of innocence, as well as one of the most moving (if ambiguous) endings in modern cinema.

children of men

Children of Men
d. Alfonso Cuaron, 2006

Among the current wave of Mexican filmmakers, Alfonso Cuarón, whose latest film Children of Men opened earlier this month, is the most talented and diverse. Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Blade II, Pan’s Labyrinth) works mostly within the horror genre, almost like a more competent pre-LOTR Peter Jackson; Alejandro González Iñárritu, the most pretentious “art” director of the three, has been making the same film, albeit masterfully, for over five years. Cuarón, however, has the amazing ability to go back-and-forth between his own personal projects (Y tu mama tambien) and Hollywood assignments (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Though expertly-styled, his mainstream films have always fallen short of his independent works; until, that is, Children of Men came along. A big-budget dystopian narrative starring Clive Owen and Julianne Moore, Cuarón’s film also happens to be the best acted, photographed, edited, scored, and directed movie in recent memory.

Adapted from a 1992 P.D. James novel of the same name, Children of Men starts off twenty years from now in London. The rest of the world is in ruins and “only England soldiers on.” There’s another problem: women are no longer fertile, and the youngest person in the world (who was 18 years and several months old) has just been killed by a fanatic. Escaping a bombing at a coffee shop through sheer luck, the film’s protagonist, Theo (Owen), is an alcoholic not particularly interested in the world around him.

Soon after the film’s brilliant opening—consisting of a single shot that begins in the coffee shop, follows Theo outside, and ends with the bombing—he becomes involved with a plan he initially doesn’t understand. Contacted by his ex-wife Julian (Moore), a revolutionary rallying against the British government, he is convinced to find transit papers from his well-to-do cousin in order to get an illegal alien (“fugees” and “fish” in the film) past the security checkpoints that are now a fixture in London. He agrees, partly because of the 5,000 pounds he’s being paid, but also because of Julian, whom it is clear he still loves.

After several other astonishing sequences, it is revealed that the fugitive, Kee (Charlie-Hope Ashity), is pregnant, and the plan to see her past security is a way to get her to the Human Project, an organization working to find a cure for infertility. From the time Theo, Julian, Kee, and two of Julian’s colleagues first set out, Children of Men takes the form of a chase movie, and Cuarón indulges in all its possibilities, choosing to shoot his movie in incredible long takes that are, in and of themselves, worth the admission price (and I paid $9 dollars).

There are two or three breathtaking long shots in Children of Men that would make Andrei Tarkovsky and Bela Tarr look like amateurs. The first, an incredible six-minute sequence which takes place as a car is being attacked, allows the viewer to see it all without a single cut, making a scene that is funny and exhilarating, by turns beautiful and frightening. The second, easily the single greatest shot I’ve seen in a recent movie, is another several minute-long take, except this time Theo is walking through a war-torn immigrant city outside of Britain’s borders, and everything is falling apart. I have no idea how this was choreographed so perfectly, even following the protagonist through a run-down building and up a flight of stairs, but let’s thank God (and Cuarón) that it was.

Cuarón’s formal rigor is perfectly complimented by the gorgeous work of cinematographer and long-time collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki, who also shot Terrence Malick’s The New World. Children of Men compares favorably to The New World’s beautiful landscapes, and the gritty photography and textures of this film, not to mention the meticulous sound design and editing, are cinema at its most hypnotic.

Seeing Children of Men for the first time—a second viewing already awaits—was not unlike being taken to another, just as immediate, world. Part of me was so blown away by the film’s technical aspects that I don’t really care what it all means, whether it is reactionary or neutral to the issues it presents. Either way, Cuarón is to be commended for tackling such a troubling narrative, whose subject is nothing less than the world today

an inconvenient truth

An Inconvenient Truth
d. David Guggenheim, 2006

In David Guggenheim’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore introduces himself as the “former next president of the United States of America.” It’s an offhand remark, to be sure, but it does reveal why some people may be turned off by the film. Some may go as far as to suggest this is but a political campaign by a guy thinking of running for president in 2008. For most of the movie’s 100 minutes, Gore and Guggenheim do a good job in not straying too far from the subject of their film—an account of Gore’s slideshow presentation about global warming, which he claims to have showcased more than a thousand times in cities all around the world—but An Inconvenient Truth is hardly as urgent as a film like this needed to be, nor is it a comprehensive look at all the issues surrounding the global warming debate.

Instead, An Inconvenient Truth is a glossed-over look at a major environmental issue. Gore gives us fact after fact, some quite terrifying, but at times—such as the introductory cartoon illustrating the nature of global warming—the film can seem condescending and simple-minded.

The center of Gore’s argument—that carbon dioxide emissions are one of the causes for rising global temperatures—is sound, but when he gets too far into his own issue and arrogantly assumes he’s on the winning side, the film falters. For example, most of the time, he doesn’t cite sources; as the uninformed audience, we are to blindly accept everything he throws at us. Gore’s reasoning is in place—a fact made clear by the way he engages the live audience—but I just wish his argument was better constructed.

I’m the last person you’ll hear supporting documentary objectivity—one of the reasons I prefer quirky Errol Morris docs to PBS specials—but parts of An Inconvenient Truth do feel particularly awkward. When Gore starts talking about his son’s accident and his sister’s death from lung cancer, it distracts the viewer from the film’s purpose, which is not to generate sympathize with Al Gore, but with a larger cause: saving planet Earth.

The second problem lies in Gore’s can-do attitude. Clearly, the man is motivated and believes we can all do our share to prevent global warming, but for someone so enamored with mankind, his presentation is terribly one-sided. It fails to acknowledge legitimate skepticism about the global warming issue, including the effect of lowering carbon dioxide emissions versus focusing on demographics. Gore talks of tragedies and tragedies, emphasizing the effect global warming can have on developing nations, but he never strays away from his projected timetables to consider more immediate solutions: providing clean drinking water, basic sanitation, health care, and education for these same third-world countries.

The DVD includes two audio commentaries with the filmmakers, a making-of featurette, and, to top it off, a paper/cardboard sleeve case made from recycled materials replacing the plastic case normally used to house DVD’s.

I’ve spent some time attacking Gore’s and Guggenheim’s methods, but part of me feels An Inconvenient Truth is still worth recommending. If nothing else, it’s a clear argument for an environmentally-conscious way of life, which can only help our current situation. My major problem with the film comes from Gore’s larger aims. In the end, his presentation is quite informative and entertaining. As strange as it sounds, An Inconvenient Truth also gives the viewer a glimpse to what might have been. People criticize (and will continue to criticize) Gore, but could you imagine sitting through a 100-minute lecture by George W. Bush?

volver

Here is a longer version of my Volver review which appeared in the latest issue of my high school newspaper, The Kerronicle.

Volver
d. Pedro Almodovar, 2006

An overhead shot of a desolate kitchen somewhere in Madrid. A lifeless body, paper towels soaking the blood around it. A housewife (Penélope Cruz) meticulously cleans up the mess, and as she begins to stuff the corpse into her refrigerator, the doorbell rings.

This remarkable sequence from Pedro Almodóvar’s sensational new film, Volver, which opens this Friday at the Angelika, takes place about 15 minutes into the movie, and it stands as a constant reminder of the morbid backdrop for Almodóvar’s tender, compassionate story about a family of women.

Volver (“to return” in Spanish) opens to an extended shot of a windy cemetery. The audience is introduced to Raimunda (Cruz), her daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo), and her sister Sole (Lola Dueñas), who are there to visit their mother’s grave. Irene (Carmen Maura) passed away four years prior, and it seems the family is well adjusted by now. After the cemetery, they drive by the small town where they grew up; they visit Aunt Paula (Chus Lampreave) and Agustina (Blanca Portillo), who takes care of Paula and whose own mother has been missing for four years.

Everything in the film seems rather calm and delicate up to this point, then, on cue, all hell breaks loose (this is, after all, an Almodóvar film). We see young Paula crying, telling her mother that the man she believes to be her father (Antonio de la Torre) tried to rape her. She grabbed a knife to scare him and ended up killing him. As Raimunda is deposing of the body, Sole calls to say Aunt Paula has died. Raimunda assures her that she is much too busy to attend the funeral, and urges Sole to go alone. While there, Sole catches a glimpse of her dead mother. As it turns out, Irene is not yet gone, and decides to come back to Madrid with Sole. In Almodovar’s world, death is not enough to keep a mother from loudly kissing her daughters.

This is the background of Volver. Recounting the rest of Almodóvar’s ingenious, gorgeously explosive story would only diminish from one’s viewing experience. The film’s formal aspects, however, may be even more accomplished than his narrative aims. He bathes his film in bright, lush colors that will be a wonder to see on the big screen; having only seen the film twice on an imported DVD in preparation for this review, I am quite anxious for a proper viewing. Volver’s soundtrack is also very vibrant, from the loud smooching sounds and the whistling of the wind down Almodóvar’s streets, to the beautiful strands of Alberto Iglesias’ lively score (the director’s exaggerated sound effects play a key role in establishing the relationship between the women in the film).

By the film’s end, Almodóvar’s title gains meaning. In a way, he’s returning to a type of film he hasn’t made since 1999’s All About My Mother (also starring Cruz). For the past couple of years, he has focused on films mainly about men: both of the female characters in 2002’s Talk to Her were comatose throughout the film; The Bad Education (2004) was a post-modern noir where the closest thing to a female protagonist was Gael García Bernal in drag. In Volver, the men are, quite literally, disposable. Almodóvar, like Josef von Sternberg and Rainer Werner Fassbinder before him, is a director who adores women, which is precisely the reason why Volver is such a success. Even at the points of highest melodrama, his film never feels exploitative, and it’s encouraging to see that a man can be so deft at writing dialogue for women My favorite exchange: “My mother has died, you must be her ghost or her spirit” “Yes, whatever you want, but get me out of the trunk of your car.”

An ensemble film though it may be—Cannes gave all of its female leads a collective “Best Actress” award earlier this year—Volver clearly belongs to Cruz. Her performance as Raimunda, balancing her husband’s corpse and a mother coming back from the dead, among other things, is as endearing as any I’ve seen in a long time.

It’s clear that Almodóvar has reached the point in his career where he can take any standard family story, add some Almodóvarian touches, and turn out an outright masterpiece. Seemingly rereading Fassbinder on the way back to Douglas Sirk, he brings together low camp—there’s always a place for a prostitute or a drag queen in his films—and high melodrama into an intensely involving and undeniably moving experience. The final scene is almost too lovely. “Don’t tell me that,” Irene calmly says. “I’ll cry. And you know ghosts don’t cry.”

satantango

Satantango
d. Bela Tarr, 1994

Without a doubt, the experience of watching Bela Tarr's Satantango in a half-empty auditorium at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston ensures it is one of the greatest and most revelatory films of all time. As self-contained as its expansive, seven-hour narrative is, the film to me is more of a shocking exploration of what it means to be in a theatre for that long, as well as one of the most perverse experiments ever staged. Tarr's alternately bleak and beautiful imagery is never dull, and, towards the end of the film, I was hoping Satantango's extremely long takes would never end.

2006: the year in film

For me, the film of the year was Andrew Bujalski's sophomore effort Mutual Appreciation. Its carefully-observed scenes and avant-garde editing won me over right away, something Bujalski's first film, 2003's Funny Ha Ha, failed to do. Essentially, this film is a mixture of Cassavetes and Rohmer. What more could you want?


Hou Hsiao-hsien's latest film Three Times is basically three different films, with the first of the segments being the best. It's an impossibly gorgeous and romantic account of a series of encounters between the two lead actors, Shu Qi and Chang Chen. The rest of the film doesn't quite live up to its lovely opening, but it hardly falters either.


I did not get to see Richard Linklater's other 2006 movie, Fast Food Nation, but it's not hard to call his Phillip K. Dick adaptation his best film since, well, the last one (give the guy a break, it's Before Sunset). A Scanner Darkly employs the same animation style as Linklater's own Waking Life, but to very different results. Both heartfelt and critical, Scanner shows how much its director has grown since Dazed and Confused.


Pedro Almodovar's latest doesn't quite live up to the formal rigor of The Bad Education, but Volver is a wonderful film on its own right. Almodovar's Volver is an undeniably moving and endlessly enjoyable melodrama in the style of Sirk or Fassbinder.


Brick, Rian Johnson's take on neo-noir, revisits the genre in a high school setting, and his inventive and stylized world is never less than fascinating. I look forward to watching it again.


L'enfant, the winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, is yet another rigorous experiment by the guys who brought us 1999's Rosetta. In essence, this film is quite simple, but the Dardennes' Bressonian approach to cinema is as refreshing as anything else I encountered this year.


Spike Lee's pseudo-heist movie Inside Man may very well be the comedy of 2006, as well as a throwback to old crime genre films. Not as powerful as his last notable film 25th Hour, but Inside Man could not have been more entertaining.


Quintessential Altman and a fitting swan song to one of the greatest of all filmmakers. R.I.P. Bob.


I feel like I am underrating Sofia Coppola's historical drama Marie Antoinette. It's certainly a ravishing film, but throughout my viewing I felt something was missing. In any case, it was one of the best looking films of the year.


Having not seen Carlos Reynaga's debut feature, Japon, I had no idea what to expect from Battle in Heaven. His unique brand of cinematic metaphors closely resemble those of French auteur Bruno Dumont, whose detachment from his subjects allow his films to work on multiple levels. Battle in Heaven is worth watching if only for its breathtaking photography of Mexico City.

idiocracy

Idiocracy
d. Mike Judge, 2006

Mike Judge's new film in seven years--the last being 1999's Office Space--did not receive a proper distribution from its studio, 20th Century Fox. Hard to see why, as it's quite an enjoyable film, but also a biting satire of American culture. The film, a fusion of sci-fi and low-brow humor, begins with the assumption that an average man from the year 2005 (played by Luke Wilson) could very possibly be the smartest man on the planet by the time 2505 comes around. By then, culture has been reduced to watching a guy kicked in the groin on a 70-inch TV and ordering fries from an automatic dispenser (sound familiar?) The succes of Idiocracy is that it doesn't always play it straight; a casual viewer may even confuse its commentary for a simple comedy, which is a risk all good satires take. Hardly a masterpiece, but I imagine Idiocracy is better than most 2006 studio releases, and let's just hope it finds an audience on home video (as Judge's previous film, Office Space, did).

beauty #2

Beauty #2
d. Andy Warhol, 1965

What better way to start off the new year than with a previously unseen Warhol? Part of me believes that if ever there was a film that defied criticism, this is it. Beauty #2 is what it is, and whether you love it or hate depends on if you find the idea of a static shot that seems to last for 66 minutes fascinating. If you're the kind of person that can sit through films like Jeanne Dielman, Warhol's own magnum opus Chelsea Girls, or even a Tarr--as I myself am--then you should find plenty to like here. If you, however, like most of the world require heavy plot and characters to be satisfied by a film, then keep away. Edie Sedgwick has more to do there than she did in Vinyl, and it pays off, as she is reason enough to sit through this film. In the end, Beauty #2 is kind of a struggle (even for a Warhol fan), but it's never less than fascinating.