F for Fake (rewatch)

In a bit of a rush tonight, it’s late and I’m sleepy.  My feelings about this movie haven’t changed at all.  Rating: 9

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Stroszek (rewatch)

I will revisit some of my comments from four years ago, when I gave this movie a 6 score.  “Bruno S.’s acting style (or lack of one) worked perfectly for Kaspar Hauser, but here it’s distracting.”  This is somewhat true, his stilted delivery is like someone who’s concentrating too hard on remembering his lines.  But it’s not as bad as I thought it was.  At times, he actually seems quite natural.  “It’s just kind of slow and pointless.”  Well, that was just a dumb thing to say.  I think I was thrown by how un-Herzog the film is, it feels more like something from Wim Wenders.  Yes, it’s a little slow, but not unbearably so.  As for pointless, maybe, but if it doesn’t have a “point” at least it has some sort of direction.  “The cacophony at the end is really unbearable.”  Oh, totally.  I could hardly stand listening to it, although the accompanying images are fascinating.  Overall, I’m still not over the moon about it, but I’ve gained a little more appreciation for its charms.  Rating: 7

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Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Not strictly a remake of All That Heaven Allows, although I admire it just as much.  Fassbinder borrows from Sirk’s film (anyone who has seen both would immediately see the similarities), but makes it clearly his own.  He boils it down a pure essence… as a result, this unconventional romance is as genuine and touching as any other on film.  Much of the credit here belongs to Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem, who create such sympathetic characters.  The handling of racial issues is perhaps simplistic, and yet that contributes to the film’s power, the message of hope in the face of adversity.  Also some wonderful cinematography, with vivid colors and striking use of space and frames.  I’m glad I found a Fassbinder film that I could truly love.  Rating: 9

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Heart of Glass (rewatch)

I like this one even less than the first time.  There are a few wonderful images (and Fricke’s music is nice), but I really think it would have been better if it was just a short documentary about glass-blowing, since those are the most interesting scenes.  Everything else is too gimmicky by half, and if you strip away the gimmick there’s nothing left.  Just boredom.  And I’ve said it before, but I don’t like Clemens Scheitz.  He was to Herzog what Edith Massey was to John Waters… a quirky old person who can’t act at all, but the director has some kind of personal attachment to.  But at least Massey is funny.  Rating: 6

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The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (rewatch)

First time I saw this, I really loved it.  Second time, I was a little less impressed.  Now I love it again.  Go figure.  It’s very haunting and beautiful, and has a Zen quality to it.  Also the application of the much-abused Pachebel’s Canon is one of the best I know of.  Rating: 9

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Even Dwarfs Started Small (rewatch)

This remains one of my top Herzog movies.  I was actually stunned to realize that it’s been 4 years since I watched it, it feels much more recent than that.  I suppose that’s a testament to its ability to lodge itself in your brain.  Such a strange, wonderful, funny nightmare.  As it escalates further and further towards complete insanity, I found myself exclaiming (out loud) “God almighty!” more than once.  True, there are parts of it that drag, and you could rightfully complain that it’s “weird for the sake of being weird”, but the positives outweigh the negatives.  Rating: 9

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Lessons of Darkness (rewatch)

Herzog has done the fictionalized narration over documentary footage thing several times in his career, from The Unprecendented Defence to Wild Blue Yonder.  But I think this is the best application of it.  It’s used very sparingly, and when it is used, it speaks of a higher truth than the simple facts would suggest.  And really, it’s the astonishing images he captures that speak for themselves.  A beautiful vision of Hell on Earth.  Rating: 8

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Eastern Promises

Cronenberg’s recent fixation on brooding gangsters is really fucking boring.  I feel like I’ve seen this movie a hundred times before, and I couldn’t wait for it to be over.  Let’s get back to original ideas like drug-addled twin gynecologists and guys with videotapes in their stomachs.  Rating: 5

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The Call of Cthulhu

I’ve only read a few Lovecraft stories, and found them exceedingly silly.  However, when I heard about this concept — doing Lovecraft as a 20′s era silent movie — it sounded perfect to me.  It’s very clever, and in retrospect seems like such an obvious choice.  The German expressionism really captures the essence in a magical (but still kinda silly) way.  Rating: 7 

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Berlin Alexanderplatz

A review in 13 parts with an epilogue.

(Friday night)
1: I confess that I’m going into this with an attitude.  With 50 (yes, 50!) other movies to watch, it’s a little annoying that I’ll have to spend the better part of my weekend to get through just one.  Also, I haven’t particularly loved any of the other Fassbinder films I’ve seen (but there haven’t been many).  On top of that, I’m a little skeptical of the film’s stellar reputation.  I suspect that part of it is due to people not wanting to admit they sat through 15+ hours of something without its being a masterpiece.  Despite all this, I have to say: so far, so good.  I’m fairly invested in the story already, I’m intrigued by some of the more offbeat elements (the internal monologues, the cataloguing, the technical analyses of sex and violence) and the camerawork is quite nice.  The look reminds me a bit of Once Upon in Time in America, perhaps because of all the yellow filters.

2: And here comes the Nazi stuff.  For some reason I thought it would come later, or maybe even not at all.  Now it reminds me even more of Heimat (another extremely long German movie).  I was less interested in this episode, I usually don’t like a lot of overt politics in films.  But I will soldier on… only 13 hours left to go!  As an aside, I should mention that in my head, this movie is always called Berlin Alexanderpants.

3: This is better, now we’re getting back to the real human elements of the story.  The vile Otto, the lonely widow, the relationship with Lina, and of course Franz, who is shaping up to be a complex character.  I’m anxious to see what happens to him next.

4: The length is starting to get to me, I suppose because this particular episode was so slow and mopey.  On the other hand, it really does add to the novel-esque air of the project (I feel like I won’t ever have to read the book after this is all done).  If this wasn’t an especially plot-heavy episode, it does seem like it was an important phase for Franz to work through.  How’d he afford all the beer, though?

5: A weird one.  This business with Reinhold and the girls just comes out of nowhere and doesn’t feel much like the Franz we’ve gotten to know.  The use of music — the seemingly endless stretches of avant-garde piano — was very interesting, though.  I’ve been trying to figure out if the occasional flashing lights mean anything.  Signaling a new direction in Franz’s life, perhaps, but then again they’re ALWAYS on in his apartment, so perhaps not.

6: This movie has been called experimental, but so far it’s relatively conventional.  Long, yes, but it was originally seen as a television series anyway.  I’m enjoying the story, but I don’t know what’s up with Franz’s character.  At times he’s extremely eloquent and insightful, but then other times he’s hopelessly naive… maybe even borderline retarded.  Anyway, I’ve got to pack it in for the night, but I’m looking forward to watching the rest tomorrow (I wonder if Lina will show up again at some point).

(Saturday)
7: At the halfway mark now.  Nothing much new to add, on to part 8. 

8: Between waking up late, taking my cat to the vet, and getting caught up in the S.C. primary coverage (yay Obama!), I’m way behind schedule.  I should still finish it tonight, but there probably won’t be time for anything else.  I get more anxious when I have a lot of stuff to watch, it makes it harder for me to enjoy what I’m doing.  I’m interested in Berlin, but fatigue is also setting in and I’m looking forward to the end.  It’s a good story, and I have no big complaints, but I wouldn’t call it genius filmmaking yet.  Ambitious, yes, genius, no.

9: Now the politics are creeping back in, but it arises much more organically from the plot.  The parallels between Franz and Germany are interesting… I’m curious to know how much of this is Döblin (who wouldn’t have known how bad it would get) and how much is Fassbinder.  I’m getting annoyed with Fassbinder’s narration, too much of this authorial voice intruding on things.

10: This idea for adding to my review after every episode seemed clever at first, but now it’s getting to be a hassle.  I can’t think of much to say.  God, FIVE hours left still?  I think tomorrow I’ll watch the shortest movies I have on deck.

11. I’m still expecting Lina to return at some point.  They built her up as such an important character for the first 3 episodes, and then she just drops out of the picture (is she still with Meck? they never say).  But perhaps she’s gone for good… people drop in and out of our lives all the time.  This story has quite a Dickensian flavor to it.  Another aside: every time I see a picture of Fassbinder, he looks like a drowned rat.  

12. I see now that it was a mistake to try to watch all this consecutively.  It would have been better to break it up as it was originally seen on TV, perhaps one episode a day.  Not that I’m sick of it (I’m not), it’s just kind of tiring to digest it all at once.  Anyway, I won’t be able to finish tonight.  One more episode, but the epilogue (the longest part) will have to wait for tomorrow.  Part 12 is notably light on Franz, instead concentrating quite a bit on Meize and Reinhold.  I don’t like Meize that much, she’s not a very convincing character to me.

13. Fassbinder lays on the narration way too thick here, but perhaps that’s how the novel is, too.  Oh well, I’m beat.  We’ll wrap this up in the morning.

(Sunday)
Epilogue: The ending is both expected (in that we knew Fassbinder was going to go over the top eventually) and surprising (in that he manages to go so far over the top and then rein it back in, and in a satisfactory manner).  The bag of tricks he pulls from — Fellini-esque dream scenes, jumbled religious symbolism, contemporary music out of nowhere, Nazi imagery, and a cameo by himself — are perhaps appropriate, but still annoying.  I don’t know what to think anymore, to be honest.  I’m all Alexanderplatzed out, I’m tired of writing about it (even if I haven’t said much).  Bottom line is this… I pretty much enjoyed watching it, it was generally very well-done and interesting (especially in what it says about Germany), and Lamprecht was terrific.  But I didn’t think it was unassailably brilliant, and I wouldn’t watch it again.  Rating: 8

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