Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Manufactured Landscapes (2006) A Film by Jennifer Baichwal


Manufactured Landscapes, another, yet far more interesting, essay on the threatening state of ecology in the world, kicks off with a superior eight minute tracking shot. The subject? A Chinese factory as long as several football fields. The scene is boldly transfixing partly because it finds the sublime in an activity so alien to Western culture yet so pertinent, but also because it is a shocker to see a documentary open with the kind of visual bravura one would expect from either a cinema giant like Kubrick or Greenaway, or a modern minimalist. A narration arises after about six minutes; the voice is of Edward Burtynsky, the photographer whose work is the crux of the documentary.

His photographs are aesthetically striking to begin with but are also telling of humanity's inevitable "manufacturing" of natural landscapes: strip mining operations, oil drilling, and the building of the largest dam in history, the Three Gorges Dam. China is the featured setting of the film, which finds director Jennifer Baichwal following Burtynsky as he works, but as Burtynsky mentions, these environmental changes are actually universal. They are merely exemplified best by the thriving urbanization in modern China. Burtynsky, whose mission is to merely reveal without bludgeoning his audience (he is neither applauding the situation nor "damning" it), creates fine works that rely heavily on the fact that they are persuasive and open-ended. This is largely what Baichwal attempts to do with her film. She succeeds in avoiding a didactic approach, aiming for a more ambiguous, visceral documentary (which uses moody mid-frequency noise as a soundtrack, courtesy of Dan Driscoll).

Suffice to say, the film loses a bit of its visual intrigue after the opening, when it begins to weigh the slideshow presentation of Burtynsky's photographs more heavily than the moving images. The film offers no more handsomely filmed tracking shots; instead it simply contextualizes the world of Burtynsky's photographs by charting the meticulous, often times dangerous work of the Chinese laborers who utilize Earth's resources to create products that fuel nearly every commonplace deed in the world. Fortunately Baichwal accomplishes this, however, she falls slightly short of the frightening power of the original photographs (in order to magnify the force of a scene where Burtynsky reveals a panoramic image he just shot involving some Three Gorges workers, Baichwal zooms in on the photograph and hangs on it to revel in its grandiosity rather than capture it with her moving camera).

It's interesting to see how both the film and the photographs that are documented reflect the cinéma vérité theory, sanctioned by documentarist Jean Rouch which stated that the camera does indeed affect its subjects, and therefore its presence should me made known. In the opening tracking shot, several workers pause to stare at the camera as it glides by, and later on a frozen photograph shows a whole room of workers gazing into the lens. A fascinating aspect of a film dealing with photography. There is a fine moment in the film when a withered old woman knits steadfastly in her stripped home, refusing to leave her familiar lifestyle as the world around her falls apart. Although she is a fitting metaphor for nature and the old world, an entity that has shifted towards the new, man-made forces, this may have been the moment that Baichwal became persuasive rather than evocative, a conflict Burtynsky has sought out to avoid.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Index of Reviews, Sorted by Director's Last Name

(Disclaimer: This index includes almost every review published on this site since its inception in 2008, also the point at which I began writing film criticism. Ever since, I've thought of writing as a natural extension of viewing, and therefore this blog has been a convenient catalogue of my responses to films. My earliest entries – which, in hindsight, look slapdash and ignorant – nonetheless constitute a part of my collective memory of cinema and trace my developing cinephilia over the years. Please proceed accordingly. Only truly abominable pieces are removed from the site.)

A

ABRAMS, J.J.

Super 8


ADLON, Percy

Bagdad Cafe


AKERMAN, Chantal

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles


Jeanne Dielman: Analysis


AKIN, Fatih

The Edge of Heaven


ALFREDSON, Tomas

Let the Right One In


Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy


ALLEN, Woody

Love and Death


Midnight in Paris


Sleeper


Stardust Memories


ALONSO, Lisandro

Liverpool


Los Muertos


ALTMAN, Robert

The Player


ANDERSON, Lindsay

If....


ANDERSON, Paul Thomas

Punch-Drunk Love


The Master


There Will Be Blood


ANDERSON, Wes

(see Peter Bradley Show)


Bottle Rocket


Fantastic Mr. Fox


The Grand Budapest Hotel


The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou


Rushmore


ANDERSSON, Roy

World of Glory


You, The Living


ANGELOPOULOS, Theodoros

Landscape in the Mist


Ulysses' Gaze


ANGER, Kenneth

SHORTS: Scorpio Rising, Kustom Kar Kommandos, Invocation of My Demon Brother, and Lucifer Rising


ANTONIONI, Michelangelo

L'Eclisse


Red Desert


ARONOFSKY, Darren

Black Swan


The Wrestler


ARRIAGA, Guillermo

The Burning Plain


ARNOLD, Andrea

Wuthering Heights


ASSAYAS, Olivier

Summer Hours


B

BAICHWAL, Jennifer

Manufactured Landscapes


BAUMBACH, Noah

Frances Ha


Greenberg


BAVA, Mario

Black Sunday (or the Mask of Satan)


BERGMAN, Ingmar

Cries and Whispers


Fanny and Alexander


Sawdust and Tinsel


Scenes from a Marriage (TV, Episodes 1, 2, and 3, and Episodes 4, 5, and 6)


The Seventh Seal


The Silence


Through a Glass Darkly


Winter Light


BERTOLUCCI, Bernardo

The Sheltering Sky


BIGELOW, Kathryn

The Hurt Locker


Zero Dark Thirty


BOGDANOVICH, Peter

The Last Picture Show


What's Up, Doc?


BOYLE, Danny

Slumdog Millionaire


BREILLAT, Catherine

Bluebeard


The Last Mistress


The Sleeping Beauty


BRESSON, Robert

Diary of a Country Priest


L'Argent


Pickpocket


BROSENS, Peter

State of Dogs (w/ Dorjkhandyn Turmunkh)


BUNUEL, Luis

Age of Gold


The Great Madcap


BURNETT, Charles

Killer of Sheep


C

CAPRA, Frank

It Happened One Night


CARAX, Leos

Boy Meets Girl


CARNAHAN, Joe

The Grey


CARPENTER, John

The Thing


CEYLAN, Nuri Bilge

Distant


Three Monkeys


CHABROL, Claude

A Girl Cut in Two


CHARLES, Larry and BARON COHEN, Sacha

Bruno


CIANFRANCE, Derek

Blue Valentine


CIMINO, Michael

The Deer Hunter


COEN, Joel and Ethan

No Country For Old Men


True Grit


COOK, Brian

Color Me Kubrick


COPPOLA, Francis Ford

The Conversation


CORBIJN, Anton

The American


CORMAN, Roger

A Bucket of Blood


COSTA, Pedro

In Vanda's Room


Ne Change Rien


Ossos


CRONENBERG, David

The Brood


Camera


Eastern Promises


D

DASSIN, Jules

The Naked City


DE SICA, Vittorio

Umberto D.


DEITCH, Gene

Zlateh the Goat (Short Film)


DENIS, Claire

35 Shots of Rum


Beau Travail


The Intruder


White Material


DOCTER, Pete

Up


DOLAN, Xavier

Heartbeats


DOMINIK, Andrew

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford


DöRRIE, Doris

Cherry Blossoms


DREYER, Carl

Ordet


Vampyr


DUMONT, Bruno

Outside Satan


DUPLASS, Mark and Jay

Cyrus


The Puffy Chair


DURKIN, Sean

Martha Marcy May Marlene



E

EASTWOOD, Clint

Changeling


ECKMAN, Dan

Mystery Team


ENGLUND, George

The Ugly American


ERDEM, Reha

Times and Winds


F

FEDORCHENKO, Aleksei

Silent Souls


FELLINI, Federico

Amarcord


And the Ship Sails On


La Strada


FINCHER, David

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo


The Social Network


Zodiac


FRAMMARTINO, Michelangelo

Le Quattro Volte


FRAMPTON, Hollis

Zorn's Lemma


FRICKE, Ron

Samsara


FULLER, Samuel

China Gate


G

GATTEN, David

Secret History of the Dividing Line (First Four Films)


GIRARD, Elise

Belleville Tokyo


GLAWOGGER, Michael

Whores' Glory


GLAZER, Jonathon

Birth


GODARD, Jean-Luc

Contempt


Film Socialisme


Made in U.S.A


Pierrot Le Fou


Two or Three Things I Know About Her


GOEI, Glen

That's The Way I Like It


GONDRY, Michel

Be Kind Rewind


La Lettre (Short Film)


The Science of Sleep


GRANIK, Debra

Winter's Bone


GREEN, David Gordon

Snow Angels


GREENAWAY, Peter

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover


GUERIN, Jose Luis

In the City of Sylvia


H

HADZIHALILOVIC, Lucile

Innocence


HANEKE, Michael

The White Ribbon


HAWKS, Howard

Bringing Up Baby


HAYNES, Todd

I'm Not There


Safe


HELLMAN, Monte

Two-Lane Blacktop


HERZOG, Werner

Fitzcarraldo


Heart of Glass


My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?


HILLCOAT, John

The Road


HIROZAKU, Kore-Eda

Still Walking


HITCHCOCK, Alfred

Vertigo


HOU, Hsiao-Hsien

Flight of the Red Balloon


ESSAY: Millennium Mambo, Café Lumiere, Three Times, Flight of the Red Balloon


HUSTON, John

Reflections in a Golden Eye


Under the Volcano


HYAMS, John

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning


I

IANNUCCI, Armando

In the Loop


J

JIA, Zhang-ke

Still Life


JODOROWSKY, Alexandro

Fando Y Lis


The Holy Mountain


Santa Sangre


JONES, Duncan

Moon


JONES, Tommy Lee

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada


JONZE, Spike

Where the Wild Things Are


K
KATZ, Aaron

Dance Party, USA


Quiet City


KARI, Dagur

Nói albínói


KAUFMAN, Charlie

Synecdoche, New York


KAZAN, Elia

On the Waterfront


KECHICHE, Abdellatif

Blue is the Warmest Color


KIAROSTAMI, Abbas

Certified Copy


Close-Up


Like Someone in Love


KIESLOWSKI, Krzysztof

The Double Life of Véronique


Three Colors: Blue


KIM, Ki-Duk

Samaritan Girl


KORINE, Harmony

Spring Breakers


KOSINSKI, Joseph

Tron Legacy


KUBRICK, Stanley

2001: A Space Odyssey


Barry Lyndon


Eyes Wide Shut


KUROSAWA, Akira

Rashomon


L

LAMORISSE, Albert

White Mane


LANTHIMOS, Giorgos

Alps


Dogtooth


LECONTE, Patrice

My Best Friend


LEE, Ang

The Ice Storm


LEIGH, Mike

Naked


LINKLATER, Richard

Before Sunrise


Before Sunset


Bernie


Dazed and Confused


It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books


LYNCH, David

Blue Velvet


The Cowboy and the Frenchman (Short Film)


Dune


Early David Lynch Shorts: Six Men Getting Sick, The Alphabet, and The Grandmother


The Elephant Man


Eraserhead


INLAND EMPIRE


Lady Blue Shanghai (Short Film)


Lost Highway


Mulholland Drive


Mulholland Drive: Informal Discussion


Premonition Following an Evil Deed (Short Film)


The Straight Story


Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me


Twin Peaks (TV)


Wild at Heart


M

MADDIN, Guy

Brand Upon the Brain!


My Winnipeg


The Saddest Music in the World


MAJEWSKI, Lech

The Mill and the Cross


MAKAVEJEV, Dusan

WR: Mysteries of the Organism


MALICK, Terrence

Badlands


Days of Heaven


The New World


The Thin Red Line


To the Wonder


The Tree of Life


MALLE, Louis

My Dinner With Andre


MANN, Michael

Collateral


The Insider


The Last of the Mohicans


Public Enemies


MARKER, Chris

The Case of the Grinning Cat


La Jetee


MARSHALL, Neil

The Descent


MARSHALL, Rob

Memoirs of a Geisha


MARTEL, Lucrecia

The Headless Woman


The Holy Girl


MCCAREY, Leo

The Awful Truth


MCQUEEN, Steve

12 Years a Slave


Hunger


Shame


MIYAZAKI, Hayao

Ponyo


MIZOGUCHI, Kenji

Ugetsu


MOSTOW, Jonathan

Breakdown


N

NARUSE, Mikio

Late Chysanthemums


NELSON, Gunvor

My Name is Oona


NGAI, Kai Lam

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky


NOE, Gaspar

Enter the Void


Irreversible


NOLAN, Christopher

The Dark Knight


Inception


The Prestige


O

OLIVEIRA, Manoel de

The Strange Case of Angelica


OPLEV, Niels Arden

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo


OSHIMA, Nagisa

Empire of Passion


OZU, Yasujiro

An Autumn Afternoon


Late Spring


Tokyo Story


P

PASOLINI, Pier Paolo

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom


PECKINPAH, Sam

The Wild Bunch


PELI, Oren

Paranormal Activity


PENN, Sean

Into the Wild


PIALAT, Maurice

L'Enfance Nue


We Won't Grow Old Together


POLANSKI, Roman

Repulsion


POROMBOIU, Corneliu

Police, Adjective


PORTERFIELD, Matthew

I Used to be Darker



Putty Hill

Q

R

RAMSAY, Lynne

Morvern Callar


RAY, Nicholas

Bigger Than Life



Rebel Without a Cause



REED, Carol

The Third Man


REFN, Nicholas Winding

Valhalla Rising


Drive


REICHARDT, Kelly

Meek's Cutoff


Wendy and Lucy


RESNAIS, Alain

Hiroshima Mon Amour


Last Year at Marienbad


REY, Nicolas

Schuss! and Differently, Molussia


REYGADAS, Carlos

Post Tenebras Lux



Silent Light


RIVERS, Ben

Two Years at Sea


ROHMER, Eric

Claire's Knee


La Collectionneuse


Love in the Afternoon


My Night at Maud's


ROMANEK, Mark

Never Let Me Go


S

SAFDIE, Josh and Benny

Daddy Longlegs (Go Get Some Rosemary)


SATRAPI, Marjane and PARRONAUD, Vincent

Persepolis


SAURA, Carlos

Cria Cuervos


SCHERFIG, Lone

An Education


SCHNABEL, Julien

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly


SCORSESE, Martin

After Hours


Hugo


Shutter Island


Taxi Driver


SCOTT, Ridley

Alien


Prometheus


SIRK, Douglas

All That Heaven Allows


SKOLIMOWSKI, Jerzy

The Shout


SLUIZER, George

The Vanishing (1988 version)


SNOW, Michael

Wavelength


SODERBERGH, Steven

Contagion


The Girlfriend Experience


The Informant!


The Limey


Magic Mike


Out of Sight


Sex, Lies, and Videotape


SOKUROV, Aleksandr

Alexandra


Father and Son


SPIELBERG, Steven

A.I. Artificial Intelligence


Lincoln


Minority Report


SPIELMANN, Götz

Revanche


STILLMAN, Whit

Metropolitan


STONE, Oliver

W.


T

TARANTINO, Quentin

Inglourious Basterds


Pulp Fiction


TARKOVSKY, Andrei

Andrei Rublev


Ivan's Childhood


Mirror


The Sacrifice


TARR, Bela

Almanac of Fall


The Man From London


Prologue (Short Film)


Satantango


Satantango: Take 2


The Turin Horse


Werckmeister Harmonies


Werckmeister Harmonies (Analysis)


TATI, Jacques

Play Time


TESHIGAHARA, Hiroshi

Antonio Gaudí


Pitfall


Woman in the Dunes


TODD, Robert

Selection of 2012 Shorts


TOURNEUR, Jacques

I Walked with a Zombie


Stranger on Horseback


TRAN, Anh Hung

Cyclo


TSAI, Ming-Liang

I Don't Want to Sleep Alone


The River


What Time is it There?


TSCHERKASSKY, Peter

Essay on Motion Picture, L'Arrivée, Outer Space, Dream Work, and Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine


TURMUNKH, Dorjkhandyn

State of Dogs (w/ Peter Brosens)


U

V

VAN PEEBLES, Melvin

The Watermelon Man


VAN SANT, Gus

Last Days


Paranoid Park


VARDA, Agnes

La Pointe Courte


VINTERBURG, Thomas

The Celebration


VON STROHEIM, Erich

The Wedding March


VON TRIER, Lars

Antichrist


Dogville


Europa


Melancholia


W

WATKINS, Peter

Edvard Munch


The Freethinker


WEERASETHAKUL, Apichatpong

A Letter to Uncle Boonmee


Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives


WELLES, Orson

Citizen Kane


The Lady from Shanghai


WENDERS, Wim

Paris, Texas


Wings of Desire


WILDER, Billy

Sunset Boulevard


WINTER, C.W. and EDSTROM, Anders

The Anchorage


WONG, Kar-Wai

Happy Together


In the Mood for Love


WRIGHT, Joe

Anna Karenina


X

Y

Z

ZEMECKIS, Robert

Beowulf


Flight

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Love and Death (1975) A Film by Woody Allen


Love and Death marks the moment in Woody Allen's early career when he had perfected his craft of strictly comedic filmmaking and was prepared to move on first to comedy/dramas and then eventually to the thematically parallel human dramas that epitomize his later work. As such a description should suggest, it is indeed his most hilarious film. Structurally the film is no different than much of his work in which he plays the protagonist; as a youngster he is curious and ahead of his time and as an adult he is ridiculously witty, neurotic, and feverishly attracted to women (however incompetent he seems wooing them). The film begins a la Allen's characteristic voice-over, slyly introducing his character's early life in montage. He is Boris Grushenko, a fearful Russian ignored by his parents and in love with his beautiful friend Sonja (Diane Keaton). When he comes of age and fails to marry Sonja, he is forced into becoming a soldier, a "militant coward" as he remarks, in the Napoleonic Wars. Allen reworks his uncommonly heroic role in the Latin-American army in Bananas by playing a fearful contributor who sees no harm in losing to the French, given the better food that will result. As usual though, Boris somehow finds his way off the battlefield and back with Sonja, ready to propose. What results is Sonja desiring strongly to assassinate Napoleon and Boris getting caught up in the plot.

Allen draws influence from a wide variety of Russian literature, music, and film, as well as using several visual parodies from the work of his idol Ingmar Bergman (visions of "Death" and a two-shot of women in crisis). He finds the perfect balance between physical and verbal comedy, succeeding most in the latter due to his modesty; much of his one-liners are quick offhand comments. A continuous joke throughout the movie is the entertaining philosophical quarrels between Allen and Keaton's characters: they playfully discuss ethics and morals, saying crazy things like "subjectivity is objectivity", and when Sonja attempts to accuse Boris of being jejune, he replies by pronouncing that he is the most "june" of the both of them. There's little more to say without beginning to list off the gags, so I will just strongly recommend Love and Death because it is non-stop laughter.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Best Albums of 2008

I am aware that I write primarily about cinema, but I feel ill-suited to make any sort of "best of 2008" lists for films because I haven't seen a great deal of 2008 films this year. I tend to simply watch whatever comes my way; perhaps next year I will attempt to follow the new releases a bit more and finish with an end of the year list. However, I do indeed listen to a multitude of music, so I am ready as ever to deliver a list of the Best Albums of 2008 and a couple of major disappointments (within my opinion and range of tastes of course).

1. The Walkmen: "You and Me"

A more subdued, melancholy album than most of their work, this set of tunes from The Walkmen is more evocative than ever. I could do no better this year than to swoon in the reverb-soaked guitar lines set to Hamilton Leithauser's ethereal screech that continuously alternates between shockingly high pitches and drunken romantic longing.

2. Fleet Foxes: "Fleet Foxes"

I saw Fleet Foxes a few months back and was absolutely floored. There is no better emerging band out there, and this LP, their debut, is persistently heavenly.

3. Department of Eagles: "In Ear Park"

With great help from a soaringly dreamy opening track, I found myself unable to stop listening to Department of Eagles for two weeks upon my discovery of them. This album is even more impressive than Grizzly Bear's "Yellow House", and Department is their side project. I sure can't wait for Grizzly Bear's new disk, because this group of creative musicians seems incapable of failure.

4. Conor Oberst: "Conor Oberst"

Oberst enjoyed a relaxed recording session for this effort and because of his ability to avoid the pressures of the music industry, he produced an album that is ripe with freedom and festivity. This collection is a fine response to the style of alt-country that he emerged with on his recent album, "Cassadaga". Hearing Oberst's brilliant lyrics is always a pleasure, and fortunately I can stick to my belief that he is the greatest living lyricist.

5. Sigur Ros “Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust”

Upon my first listen to Sigur Ros' latest album, I was disheartened by their shift away from the colossal lugubriousness of their previous work and towards a new, spontaneously joyous, almost Animal Collective-style sound. However, eventually I realized that Sigur Ros can never go wrong, and in fact as well as being the most emotionally and spiritually draining band, they can also be the most uplifting. "Gobbledigook" makes me yearn to be another member of the music video.

6. Why?: "Alopecia"

His satirically imbued spoken word poetry is indicative of a true artist with a knack for not only writing sentences that will flabbergast you with their in-your-face rhetoric, but also for creating tantalizingly gloomy beats.

7. Frightened Rabbit: "The Midnight Organ Flight"

I have to thank Shawn over at A Blog Ain't Too Much to Love for bringing this stellar album to my attention through his end of the year list. Never before have I enjoyed a Scottish accent in a vocalist.

8. The Acorn: "Glory Hope Mountain"

A thumping and clicking percussion section is what sticks in the mind with "Glory Hope Mountain", The Acorn's debut. The band's oneness with the natural world peppers this set of chanting, acoustic-based ditties.

9. Talkdemonic: "Eyes at Half Mast"

Routine stuff from this talented two-piece; smooth melodic refrains with super tasteful drumming. "Eyes at Half Mast" doesn't one-up "Beat Romantic" or "Mutiny Sunshine", but it does sustain their wonderful streak.

10. Wolf Parade: "At Mount Zoomer"

If anything, this is the album that I was skeptical of placing here. Although their music satisfies me very much, I have a difficult time attributing their from-the-gut style to seriousness; instead they sound like a band that would always greatly prefer rocking out wildly in a cramped room to crafting interesting songs. Nonetheless, "At Mount Zoomer" does make me happy, and if anything, "Kissing the Beehive" brushes with musical genius when it climaxes.

DISAPPOINTMENTS...

Kings of Leon: "Only by the Night"
Kings of Leon completely abandoned their dirty Southern roots and set their sights on the corporate world. Honestly, there are probably a solid three good songs on this whole album; most of them are grossly sentimental and recall the status quo work of rock and roll superstars like Snow Patrol. Despite the flawless production and the fact that Caleb Followill's voice is still substantially unique, "Only by the Night" is the biggest disappointment of 2008.

My Morning Jacket: "Evil Urges"
The epic, rootsy "Z" could never have prepared listeners for this amateur AC-DC/Prince collision. Unlike Kings of Leon, they took not a commercial direction but an extremely odd, trivial one.

Of Montreal: "Skeletal Lampings"
What I heard of this album did not please me and when I saw them this year for the fourth time, I was bored out of my mind. "The Sunlandic Twins" and "Hissing Fauna" were sophisticated pop albums; this is just an irresponsibly silly trifle.

Cold War Kids: "Loyalty to Loyalty"
Cold War Kids' second effort is by no means bad. About half of the album lives up to the interesting clumsy sound they introduced with their great "Robbers and Cowards". However, songs like "Avalanche in B" and "Cryptomnesia" showcase lazy songwriting too bent on being rambling and lo-fi. Also, the catchy tracks tend to die right when they're beginning to get going.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Winter Light (1962) A Film by Ingmar Bergman


Last night after viewing Ingmar Bergman's second entry in a loss of faith trilogy, Winter Light, I pondered with my good friend about the wealth of Bergman's cinematic output. Our speculation was that no other prolific director in film history has delivered as many masterpieces as the rigorous Swedish artist. We also agreed that Winter Light was yet another to add to the extended list of greatness. Although I still find The Silence to be the most exquisite work of the trilogy, Winter Light stands as the one of the richest chamber dramas ever devised for the screen. Rivaling Dreyer's Ordet, which was released seven years earlier, Bergman's film is less interested in the ways in which God can interact with the living than the ways that His absence can cause abysmal psychological distress.

Tomas Ericsson, a sickened, droll pastor with an increasingly evident spiritual crisis, acts as the cowardly religious figure of a bleak, wintry Swedish town outlined by rapids. His communions are poorly attended and executed in a lackluster manner (the organist checks his watch periodically while playing, introducing an element of pitch-black comedy to an otherwise serious drama), and the ritualistic murmurs that Tomas recites are telegraphed with a noticeable decline in passion. After the conclusion of the mass that opens Winter Light (which is shot with a tenseness that could easily be absent from such a mundane scene), Tomas retreats indifferently to his vestry where he is confronted by the Persson's, the fisherman husband of whom is experiencing his own spiritual dilemma: a fear of a potential nuclear holocaust as a result of China's dawning of atom bombs. His pregnant wife Karin urges Tomas to speak privately with him to offer consolation. However, Tomas can only muster up a fearful soliloquy of his own accounts of God's silence. His attempt at easement fails miserably and results in Jonas' ensuing suicide, a catalyst for the hushed quandary between Tomas and his past schoolteacher mistress, Marta. Their relationship is not hushed in the sense that they do not speak to each other, but rather in that Tomas continuously swats away Marta's honest attempts at embrace. She, embodied perfectly by Bergman regular Ingrid Thulin, is a non-believer who suffers from masochism and Tomas' coldness. Gunnar Björnstrand, who plays the pastor, was actually very sick during his performance, adding a stark realism to his character.

This grittiness is apparent everywhere in the film, from Sven Nykvist's ascetic camerawork to the brisk weather that shields the communication between Tomas and the policemen after Jonas' (Max Von Sydow) suicide. Bergman's views are extremely pessimistic in comparison to Dreyer's; Tomas persistently questions God's presence and in the end, when it is suggested by the organist that God exists in love, Thulin's character stoops her melancholic head down to declare that she and Tomas cannot ever express true tenderness to one another. Bergman's lamenting of people's incapacity to communicate on a soul-to-soul level runs amok here, just as it does in all of his films. The denouement, however, is perhaps one of optimism: it is a necessity to continue communion no matter what state we are in, for it is always possible to reach out to a lone soul.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Still Life (Sanxia Haoren) A Film by Jia Zhang-Ke (2008)


In many ways, Jia Zhang-Ke's 2008 feature Still Life is modern China's answer to Antonioni's L'Avventura. The backdrop is a flooded Fengjie, whose weathered remnants of buildings are being demolished by workers for low pay, a project deemed the Three Gorges Dam (Yung Chang's recent documentary Up the Yangtze covered the same topic). Jia creates an interesting snapshot; workers are being rewarded to destroy the city of their past lives - thus contributing to China's rapid industrialization - to allow for a new neighborhood to be built. Like L'Avventura, the environment is one that is jostled and undergoing inevitable modernization.

Jia introduces a coalminer from Shanxi who is in search of his past wife and eventually his daughter. His pursuit begins with motivation, but is diverted by the demands of the scrambled climate and the rich social fabric that Jia presents. About one quarter through the film, a nurse, also from Shanxi, arrives with her own set of goals: finding her more immediate husband. Amidst these catastrophic times, there is a noticeable decline in human values and an unfortunate inability to establish an identity and mold past relationships. Antonioni's film dealt with similar thematic ground: the failure of personal identity and by extension, the advent of isolation in a changing world. When the coalminer and nurse do finally meet, there are no fireworks. Each of them realize what has been lost and cannot be salvaged; the result is an uncomfortable vow for remarriage between the coalminer and his ex-wife, and a sad agreement to divorce between the nurse and her husband.

Jia typically refrains from deep characterization however to revel in the awesomely beautiful setting with HD video. In fact, scenes involving an influx of characters are often shot in deep focus to dissolve the protagonists into the anonymity of their surroundings, making them just one in the crowd. Such interiors, which often involve a crowded grouping of people in anguish, are shot quite spaciously, allowing for the viewer to almost feel the breeze coming through the broken walls. One calmer shot fantastically composes five shiny bare-chested workers seated closely eating bowls of noodles. Still Life succeeds the most however when the camera quietly observes the deconstructed landscape with a splendid use of natural light. Immense pan shots reveal ravishing juxtapositions of foreboding mountains adorned by fog, decrepit buildings inhabited by ghostlike silhouettes of men hammering away at the bedrock, and a glistening Yangtze river. Jia's perceptive attention to detail is exhibited in these fine pieces of photography and in the rhythmic sound design of the workers' clanking.

Unfortunately, the dazzling fiction/documentary fusion is interrupted occasionally by the surreal: a UFO speeding by the vista or a building's infrastructure lifting off like a space shuttle. Jia discusses how the setting seemed to him like it had fallen prey to an alien attack, but if these images are some puzzling result of mass dementia, I feel they are not aptly suited (not to mention they are distractingly digitized). This minor flaw unfortunately feels like vital punctuation and not simply visual flair. Without a doubt though, Still Life, like L'Avventura, displays with eloquence the personal effects of a wavering environment.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Citizen Kane (1941) A Film by Orson Welles


The opening sequence of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane introduces a myriad of striking detail shots around a cryptic mansion. A fence standing before fog, a cat seated slyly by a creek, a man's mouth whispering the word's "Rosebud"; each lends itself to a rather bold noir atmosphere, especially given the fact that they were indeed the first frames being committed to film under a studio agenda by a writer/director who came to be one of the most exemplary cinematic practitioners of sound film. Welles transitions from this cryptic style frenzy to a news montage covering the life and death of Charles Foster Kane, the heavyweight of New York City press. The two scenes are remarkably dissonant, and such a decision is certainly an audacious one for Welles. Once the film finally snaps into reality (that is, in relation to the remaining conventions of the film) in a small screening room, the sheer tenacity of the image's willingness to play with a Godly slice of light officially signals the coming of a truly grand film.

Welles, who assembled a band of Hollywood experts to work with on Citizen Kane, including scriptwriter Herman Mankiewicz, cinematographer Gregg Toland, and quintessential Hitchcock composer Bernard Herrmann, must still unavoidably be deemed the one man wrecking ball for the film. His portrayal of Charles Kane, the massively successful press tycoon based loosely on the real-life William Randolph Hearst (who attempted to block the film's release because he found it offensive), is charismatic, hilarious, and believably varied. The film covers his whole life in flashback, however the chunk of material surrounds his entrepreneurial adulthood, rising to power in the news industry and carrying his power spontaneously to new heights, such as the creation of a prestigious theater to showcase his not-exactly-prima-donna-material mistress. A reporting crew in the present (after Kane's death) is on a mission to decipher the seemingly immortal last line of Kane: "Rosebud".

The film cycles in between the story of Kane's life and the quest of the reporters with faint urgency. Nearly every stretch of fine tuned pacing holds its parallels with the ensuing 67 years of Hollywood movies. Each newspaper montage created since most certainly has a tiny place in its heart for Citizen Kane. This doesn't necessarily excite me, for I find that the newspaper montage has become an insanely banal technique, but rather cements my belief in Citizen Kane's influential nature. The culmination of the film is shattering; Kane retreats to an almost cumbersome palace (these interiors are the high points in the film visually) with his singer wife Susan Alexander only to discover what his success and money have really brought him. Pluck out the simple but universal message and witness how so many films since have reworked it, but never to such a virtuous degree.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Wavelength (1967) A Film by Michael Snow


Michael Snow's cardinal avant-garde short Wavelength is a 45 minute zoom in on a photograph on a wall in a dank domestic space, interspersed with an occasional foray into a crime scene (or is it just a death?) that occurs immaterially inside of the room. This is no zoom in the conventional sense however; it's as if Snow hunted down the worst possible zoom lens, assembled it onto a grainy Super-8 film camera, and anchored it down precariously on a rickety tripod. His film begins on a wide shot of four tall windows in the back of a poorly lit interior and proceeds to hug and chug along sluggishly towards the middle panel of the wall, which after about 35 minutes, appears to hold a photograph. It is not until the final 5 minutes that it is evident what exists inside the photograph, yet there is still a grainy, indiscernible look to the image; there is no certainty as to whether it's an overhead view of calm waves, rigid rock formations, or the surface of the moon.

Perhaps this was Snow's intention, an ode to the zoom technique as a distorter of perspective. His films, often times meant more as statements than as fully realized pieces, are constant structuralist exercises. He works habitually with the long take, investigating one setting for an obnoxiously lengthy amount of time, frequently exhausting different means of camera movement: zooming, panning, tilting, or dollying like a kid who just received a film camera for Christmas. His heavily stylized work should not be written off as a haughty amateurism though. Wavelength is truly a transcendent, spooky experience. Throughout the camera's trip towards the wall, Snow trifles with the image psychedelically by adding mesmeric filtered flashes and subtle superimpositions. When a woman enters the room, first by shadow and then in physical form, and calls the police, she is flickered on the screen like a ghost, speaking nearly inaudibly to disorient the viewer from the bare story that unfolds. After about 15 minutes, the soundtrack settles into an intoxicating high-pitched whirring and never hints at stopping, until it finally terminates in the final minute, just in time to leave a nauseated viewer's ears ringing.

It seems that one of Snow's goals is to yank as many negative emotional responses from the audience as possible, such as fear, boredom, annoyance, comatose, and discomfort. It's likely that you'll want to punch someone by the end. Nonetheless, the experimental film is worth viewing because of it's critically groundbreaking nature and for its genuinely mysterious examination of a room. The image does not change, so its inevitable that you'll find yourself thinking "is that the same white bus that runs by the windows continuously?", "what exactly is that yellow blinking ball down on the street?", or finally "what exactly makes up this photograph I am staring at?". If you're interested, check out this radical 1960's avant-garde film here.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

The Prestige (2006) A Film by Christopher Nolan


I've awoken myself from my week and a half long post-Satantango trance in a rather contradictory manner: the former film relishes the concrete with masterful minimalism and Christopher Nolan's The Prestige relies heavily on narrative devices and artifice. Nonetheless, Nolan's tale of rivaling magicians in turn-of-the-century London devises an entirely distinct spell that has helped to cease my relentless trips to the blogosphere candy that revolves around Bela Tarr (if only for a month or less). However, I am not attempting to analyze The Prestige's lopsided tricks, but instead to find someone who shares my opinion on the film's confusing blemishes. For a film that is meant to be an odyssey towards the punchline, as much of Nolan's work is (his transfixing Memento is a telling example), the punchline is largely unsatisfying and fishy.

Before I get to such oddness however, I'll summarize the film. Utilizing a hyperlink method, Nolan reveals bits and pieces of the competitive relationship of Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Richard Angier (Hugh Jackman). The two ostensibly begin as allies and following the tragic death of Angier's wife at the hands of Borden, they slowly descend into a malicious magician rivalry. Borden's magic is of greater talent but less showmanship, whereas Angier is the man following in the artistic footsteps of Borden's fascinating tricks, namely "The Transforming Man", which involves the apparent transformation of Borden from one box at one side of the stage to another at the other side. Early in Borden's career, Angier makes an appearance at one of his smaller bar performances, acts as a volunteer, and shoots three of Borden's fingers off, so there is bad blood fueling from both sides. Angier's lovely assistant (Scarlett Johansson) becomes fed up with his ambitiously combative ways, and when he sends her on a mission to work with Borden in an attempt to steal his secrets, she takes the opportunity to hop on Borden's train officially.

This stirring drama is stamped with Nolan's endless attempt to extract spectacle from every scene, and surely he has the ability to do so, but his decision to tell a fragmented story is detrimental. The experiment was fruitful in Memento because of the fragmentary nature of the protagonist, but here it feels like a tricky cinematic device with no inherent purpose. I believe I would have loved this film much more had it been told in a linear fashion. Nolan's willingness to challenge the audience is respectable, but the film could have been sharper without such a manipulative ransacking of time. The climax makes use of Hitchcockian thrills with great deftness, suspending vital moments with eerie orchestra sizzles. Wally Pfister's moody cinematography is extremely compelling, exploiting the magnificently designed Victorian sets with mysterious lighting. The Prestige of the film, or what's described as the third act of a magic trick where the twists and turns are revealed, is either so obvious it's dumb, or it's so ridiculous that it must be a puzzling mishap. I don't want to ruin Nolan's signature twist, but let's just say that the film is more interesting during its tenure than during its revelation.