marie antoinette

Marie Antoinette
d. Sofia Coppola, 2006

As good as I was expecting it to be, Marie Antoinette, Sofia Coppola's latest feature, does a good job in updating the historical drama, a genre that has not produced many good films in recent years. With the possible exception of The New World (2005) and Far From Heaven (2002), I can't think of another recent period piece that's as well observed; you'd have to go back to Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975) to find such meticulous filmmaking. Coppola's film revolves around the life of the Austrian teenager sent to France when she was just fifteen as a diplomatic way to help divisions between the two nations. What follows is not a tedious history lesson, but a lush narrative filtered through the eyes of a teenager. Set to the tune of "I Want Candy," we sit there watching Dundst shop and dress up, and the film's photography (shot by Lance Acord) is as good as we're likely to see this year. I hate to say it, but sometimes it takes a rich girl from one of Hollywood's most prominent families to remind us just how much fun the movies can be.

i walked with a zombie

I Walked With a Zombie
d. Jacques Tourneur, 1943

Miles away from the gore fests associated with horror films, Jacques Tourneur's somber I Walked With a Zombie instead establishes its eerie ambience through expressive compositions and rhythmic editing. The film tells the story of a Canadian nurse asked to help an ailing woman in St. Sebastian. Upon arriving, she finds that the woman's husband doesn't want to let her in on the details of her sickness. As it turns out, the woman is indeed the living dead, she's alive enough to walk around but dead in the sense that she doesn't know what goes on around her. Tourneur then throws in mysterious voodoo rituals and a strange love triangle that make this movie truly memorable.

gerry

Gerry
d. Gus Van Sant, 2002

Rewatched about an hour of Gerry today. I have seen it three times before, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I always felt like I should like it more. The hour I saw today did not really change my opinion of the film, but more than ever it feels like a film I can always revisit (if only partially). Having just finished reading Beckett's Waiting for Godot, I finally understand the comparisons, although Van Sant's biggest influences in Gerry seem to be Bela Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies, Claire Denis' Beau Travail, and the films of John Ford. Van Sant followed this one with Elephant (2003), a good film on its own right, but one that pails in comparison to Gerry's raw beauty. Last Days (2005), the final film in his trilogy of sorts, is also not quite up to par, but I would recommend all three. I still have problems with the way Gerry ends, but in cases like this, does it really matter?

volver

Volver
d. Pedro Almodóvar, 2006

After spending the last five years or so making films centered around men, Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar returns to a film much more like 1999's All About My Mother, which is to say, a woman's movie. His latest film, Volver (which literally means "to return"), is a delightful melodrama and a glorious entertainment. Though not as challenging and transporting as his last work The Bad Education, Almodóvar has reached the point in his career when even by reworking his past films he can make something amazing. The film begins with Raimunda (Penelope Cruz), her daugher Paula (Yohana Cobo), and sister Soledad (Lola Dueñas) visiting their mother's grave. She apparently died along with her husband in a fire while they slept. Soon after that, however, the mother, Irene (Carmen Maura), returns. I will not reveal the details of the story; even though I was expecting some Almodóvaresque twists and surprises, I was pretty shocked by some of Volver's developments. Anywho, I am writing about this for my school paper, so I do not want to spend too much time on it here. Let me just say that this will probably be in my top five favorite films of 2006. Watch it.

la collectionneuse

La collectionneuse
d. Eric Rohmer, 1967

Though not as completely engaging as My Night at Maud's (1969) or Claire's Knee (1970), La collectionneuse is still a throughoughly enjoyable film. Most of the movie's pleasures lie in Nestor Almendors's beautiful cinematography, along with Rohmer's perfectly crafted shots. The script of La collectionneuse also seems more relaxed than in the other Rohmers I've seen, probably because the three main actors--Haydee Politoff, Patrick Bachau, and Daniel Pommereulle--worked on the dialogue with him. Overall just really great, organic material. Not a transcendental masterpiece or anything, but any movie that takes place in a seventeenth-century villa on the Riviera is okay by me. I think.

metropolitan

Metropolitan
d. Whit Stillman, 1990

I was uneasy through the first couple of sequences of Whit Stillman's Metropolitan. Bear in mind, I've just seen two Rohmer films (My Night at Maud's and Claire's Knee--loved them both), and now here I am watching an American version of the same kind of 90 minute observation of privileged and articulate people. This kind of blows over once the audience discovers the main character, Tom (Edward Clements), is as much an outsider to the New York debutante lifestyle as the rest of us. Chris Eigeman plays the kind of character I would imagine Jason in Gilmore Girls to have been in his early twenties; Clements and the rest of the cast (which includes Carolyn Farina as the terribly attractive Audrey Roget) is quite superb, as is Stillman's writing and direction. Metropolitan turns out to be a charming, funny, and sad portrayal of what it means to grow up and leave friends behind, even if most of us don't live like the characters in the film.

the pervert's guide to cinema

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema
d. Sophie Fiennes, 2006

Not the outwardly provocative film the title suggests, The Pervert's Guide to Cinema is instead a rather fascinating psychoanalytical look at a wide variety of movies, all guided by pop philosopher Slavoj Zizek. Really, this type of movie only works for people interested in the works being discussed, and considering a lot of my favorite films take up Zizek's time, I was bound to be taken by it. The film discusses films by Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, Andrei Tarkovsky, Lars Von Trier, Charlie Chaplin, Michael Powell, Fritz Lang, et cetera. Despite the notoriety of the films*, I can't help but feel the film isn't complete. For instance, there's not a single mention of Luis Buñuel, Jean Cocteau, Nicholas Ray, Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer. Hopefully there's a sequel.

*Complete list of films:

Alice in Wonderland

Alien

Alien Resurrection

The Birds

Blue Velvet

City Lights

The Conversation

Dead of Night

Dr. Strangelove

Dogville

Duck Soup

Dune

The Exorcist

Eyes Wide Shut

Fight Club

Frankenstein

The Great Dictator

Ivan the Terrible: Part 2

Kubanskie Kazaki

Lost Highway

The Matrix

Monkey Business

Mulholland Dr.

North By Northwest

Persona

The Piano Teacher

Pluto’s Judgment Day

Possessed

Psycho

Rear Window

The Red Shoes

Saboteur

Solaris

Stalker

Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

The Ten Commandments

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Three Colors: Blue

To Catch a Thief

Vertigo

Wild at Heart

The Wizard of Oz