Le Conseguenze Dell’Amore (The Consequences of Love)

A film that I put on my “want to see” list and forgot why.  It is a mystery… I may never know!  But I did like it.  It’s the story of a man who has become extremely detached from life and carries on in a cold, routine existence.  As he begins to make a connection to another human being, there are… consequences.  The tone is subdued, introspective; much in the same vein as Lost in Translation and its ilk.  The music is a mixed bag: the soundtrack has some wonderful, eerie electronica in it, but the string score is a little much and tries to make EVERY moment feel like a transformative one.  Some nice camerawork.  I doubt this will stay with me for long, but I thought it was worth seeing.  Rating: 8

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Rio Bravo

A double-dose of the Duke today.  Much better this time around, though.  More charming, less bravado… although he’s still undoubtedly the alpha male.  It would seem that I can only tolerate him when Howard Hawks is directing him.  Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson make a fine pair of sidekicks, especially Martin as a struggling alcoholic.  And Angie Dickinson bristles with raw sexuality and is a far more complete female character than you see in most Westerns.  I could have done without Walter Brennan, one of the most irritating character actors ever (one of my favorite moments is when Martin tells him to shut up).  The story is very well-plotted, thoroughly engaging and entertaining.  Nice Technicolor and great use of music, including some lovely songs from Martin & Nelson.  And of course, that superb snappy dialogue that Hawks excels at.  Besides Brennan (who, despite being annoying, has a few good moments), the only thing I can complain about is that the final gunfight may be a bit too chummy and light… even so, I didn’t mind it that much, it was fun.  Quite an enjoyable film.  Rating: 9

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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

I decided to catch up on some of the canonical works I’ve missed, unfortunately sometimes that means watching stuff like this.  I suppose if you like Westerns, this is a good one for you.  It’s got all the hackneyed staples: the saloon with the swinging doors (from which people get ejected by the seat of their pants), hootin’ and hollerin’, the lovable town drunk (played horribly by Edmond O’Brien), the completely useless sheriff, the helpful but generally unimportant black guy, et cetera.  I found something to get annoyed about roughly every three minutes.  Of course, the main thorn in my side is John Wayne, again portraying an absolute prick.  A petulant bully, a misogynist, a swaggering jackass.  Also, the film climaxes with what must be one of the most predictable twists in Hollywood history.  Not even Jimmy Stewart saves this mess, although he was pretty much the best thing about it.  There is some decent photography and a rather clever reveal, and I can’t honestly say I was bored by it, so it’s not a total loss.  But still… not my kind of movie at all.  Rating: 4

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Sans Soleil

More shades of Resnais, specifically Hiroshima Mon Amour with its abundant narration and of course the scenes of Japan.  Also, Last Year at Marienbad with its observations about memory.  And I felt traces of Welles’s F for Fake: a personalized, thoughtful, free-form documentary.  But that’s not to say that Marker is ripping off these films; his work feels wholly original.  Unfortunately, originality doesn’t count for everything, and what starts out as fascinating gradually becomes drop-dead boring.  Some of the bits about Japan were very interesting, but everything collapses under the weight of the voice-over.  I hate to use the word “pretentious”, so I will try to put it a different way… Marker is trying too hard to be “poetic”.  Every line seems like it’s trying to convey incredibly deep ideas, but few of them were thought-provoking.  By the last half hour, I was really struggling to stay focused on it.  Rating: 6

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La Jetée (rewatch)

Forever linked with two bits of data: it’s told entirely (except for about 4 seconds) in still images, and it’s the inspiration for Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys.  I confess I was a bit less than impressed when I saw it about 7 years ago, now I’m more charmed by it.  The still photography is a clever idea that makes it seem like a piece of history, a future archaeology.  And the story is mysterious and engaging, with a kind of contemplative Resnais feel to it.  Just the right length, too.  Rating: 8

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Aaltra

I couldn’t remember why I wanted to see this movie or anything about it, so I had that rare experience of going into a film with zero expectations.  I’m guessing that I heard it mentioned in some relation to Kaurismaki, because the style is similar.  A deadpan, minimalist black comedy, and it even ends up in Finland.  Two bickering neighbors — played very well by the co-writers/directors — get crushed by a tractor/harvester (brand-name “Aaltra”, hence the title) while fighting, and they both lose the use of their legs.  They wind up on a kind of road trip together, and bond over their mutual ability to be utter bastards.  It’s pretty funny although there is quite a bit of unnecessary downtime that doesn’t enhance the mood or anything.  Nice black & white photography.  Nothing earth-shattering, but fun.  Rating: 7

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W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism

I watched this with great trepidation.  I absolutely loathed Makavejev’s Sweet Movie, a sophomoric mish-mash of half-baked political allegory and witless shock value.  I was even more wary when I saw that useless hippie Tuli Kupferberg (of The Fugs) was involved — another champion of empty gestures and mindless sloganeering.  So I will say that it wasn’t as bad as I feared.  The button-pushing wasn’t as annoying as Sweet Movie and the stuff about Wilhelm Reich was actually quite interesting.  I would have been pleased if the entire film had just been a documentary about Reich.  Of course, no such luck.  Makavejev again engages in cinema of juxtaposition, that lazy art of throwing a bunch of loosely connected bullshit in a blender.  The parts with Kupferberg were particularly idiotic… ooh, stroking a gun like you’re masturbating with it, how SHOCKING and IN YOUR FACE.  A waste of time, but at least it was only 85 minutes worth.  Rating: 3

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Marat/Sade

France 1808, the Marquis de Sade and the other inmates of an insane asylum put on a play/musical about the radical Jean-Paul Marat and the failures of revolution.  The film (itself an adaptation of a play) is to be praised for its unique and fascinating form.  The increasing chaos of the performance is captured beautifully by the photography, which is marvelously composed but always slightly off-kilter.  I suspect Kubrick may have been influenced, and not only because Patrick Magee (as de Sade) would later appear in A Clockwork Orange.  There is a seething intensity with a playful undercurrent, and the songs are quite good as well.  However, I didn’t care much for the content.  Too talky and preachy, too political and philosophical… like the worst of Godard.  And the acting is entirely too “ACTING!”, which is probably to be expected when you’ve got the Royal Shakespeare Company playing crazy people.  I’m glad I saw such an original work, but I can’t say I enjoyed it very much.  Rating: 6

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El Norte (rewatch)

What a joy to have this, one of my all-time favorites, on DVD at last.  Granted, it’s not a great transfer and there’s no extras at all (it’s also full-frame, but I believe that might be the original aspect ratio) but it still beats a VHS.  If I were watching this for the first time now, I suppose I might be more critical of the film.  I might point out that most of the white actors are pretty lousy (although their roles are exceptionally small) or that the ending is rather heavy-handed.  Because I fell in love with El Norte some 20-odd years ago, I guess I’m more lenient with it.  And those seem like minor complaints anyway.  I can’t find fault anywhere else.  The main performances are wonderful, the music is marvelous, the blend of touching drama with occasional comic moments is dead-on, and the characters are endlessly lovable and relatable.  It’s simply a work of beauty and heartache, that never gets too preachy about its message.  Rating: 10

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The Quiet Duel

This brought several films to mind.  Primarily Red Beard, another (much better) Kurosawa film with Mifune starring as an almost-too-saintly doctor.  The penultimate image of a baby symbolizing hopeful prospects for the future recalls the ending of Kurosawa’s next movie, Rashomon.  The scene where Mifune goes on his self-pitying rant and speaks to the camera made me think of yet another early Kurosawa, One Wonderful Sunday, where a character makes a direct appeal to the audience.  And I was also reminded of Bergman’s Brink of Life, but only because that also centers around an obstetrics ward.

But as for Quiet Duel on its own merits, it’s good and bad.  The aforementioned scene with the rant is overwrought melodrama… not that Kurosawa (or Japanese cinema/theater in general) ever shies away from “overwrought”, but this was really just too blunt.  And at times the film threatens to devolve into an educational reel about syphilis.  But overall, the finer qualities tend to shine through, with Kurosawa’s terrific sense of composition and a few masterfully executed scenes (the opening sequence and the climactic confrontation at the end in particular).  And the story is watchable and satisfying.  Rating: 7

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