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