In a Year With 13 Moons

This movie fails for me because I couldn’t make myself care about Elvira, no matter how hard Fassbinder tried to make me.  All the time I’m being told how sad and tragic her life has been, but all I could see was a needy, self-absorbed dimwit.  Get over your silly gender/sexual issues already, for fuck’s sake.  Look at All About My Mother: those people have gender issues but they don’t spend the whole movie whining about them.  They have other things to do besides weep over how lonely they are.  And five minutes of gory slaughterhouse footage… really?  Is THAT what you think it takes to get my attention?  I’m honestly insulted.  I also hated most of the writing.  Everyone speaks like they’re in a novel, but a BAD novel, full of interminable, uninteresting monologues.  I did like the moments of humor; they weren’t terribly funny, but they provided a welcome break from the doom and gloom pity party.  But of course, with Fassbinder you always get incredible cinematography.  That, along with the last 30 or so minutes of the film, saved it from a much lower score.  I appreciate how personal it was for Fassbinder, but it’s not at all my cup of tea.  Rating: 5

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Camera Buff (rewatch)

This is a surprisingly rich film, touching on a wide variety of themes.  Self-discovery, familial duty, censorship, and of course passion for cinema, and the responsibility of the filmmaker.  It’s Kieslowski’s most autobiographical work, and his comments on filmmaking are fresh and honest.  He realizes that simply pointing a camera at something does not capture the truth, and that films can have consequences.  One of the things I love about him is how he never breaks down into black and white, right and wrong.  Filip’s wife is a ballbreaker, but she also has some legitimate gripes.  His boss seems like a dick, but we later learn he has good reasons for some of the things he does.  And I adore watching Jerzy Stuhr (who also co-wrote the script), I need to track down some of his non-Kieslowski work, besides Big Animal (which is Kieslowski-related anyway).  I really liked Jerzy Nowak too… his role is small, but he has a wonderful air about him.  Rating: 8

IMDb

Also on the DVD: Talking Heads, another short.  A broad range of Polish citizens are filmed, by increasing age, answering the questions “Who are you?” and “What do you want?”.  It’s a fairly novel concept, and the responses are interesting.  It’s notable that almost everyone speaks on a very high-minded, philosophical level, but then one must assume that Kieslowski cherry-picked the best ones.  Rating: 7

The Scar (rewatch)

Less interesting than your typical Kieslowski, but not really such a bad film.  The subject matter (the bureaucracy and issues associated with building and running a factory) is inherently drab, but he gets a surprising amount of mileage out of it.  Bednarz is a character facing morally complex problems, and with some trimming this could be a pretty good episode of Decalogue.  As a feature-length, it doesn’t quite have the legs, but it’s not unwatchable or anything.  Rating: 7

IMDb

Also on the DVD: Concert of Requests, an early short.  Rather typical student film, although it has one or two interesting nuances.  Rating: 6

Floating Clouds

This one wasn’t much of a pick-me-up either.  It centers around a very dysfunctional, co-dependent couple and the progress (or lack thereof) of their relationship over the years.  Naruse’s films are always well-made, but in my opinion they don’t do much to distinguish themselves, especially compared to similar work by Mizoguchi and Ozu.  Their main characteristic seems to be an air of cynicism.  This one seems to be his most highly regarded, but to me it was neither much better nor much worse than any other I’d seen.  The jumps in time were the most interesting aspect.  As I said, it’s well-made, and I liked it, I just didn’t think it was especially noteworthy.  Rating: 8

IMDb

Vidas Secas

Very, very depressing film about an impoverished family in Brazil.  Somewhat similar to Black God White Devil from the following year, but without all the heavy-handed religious allegory.  Dos Santos utilizes a much more neo-realist approach, although like Rocha, he gets a bit avant-garde with the soundtrack.  Although the film is harsh, I never felt like I was being manipulated.  The high-contrast black & white photography gives the impression of heat very tangibly.  You really can feel the sun beating down on you.  A very good film, with the only major flaw being some poor dubbing.  Rating: 8

IMDb

Doctor Zhivago

Thoroughly engaging from start to finish.  Lean was quite gifted at taking his sweet time to tell an epic tale without making you look at your watch.  Somewhat overlooked these days, probably because it’s a romance (yuck, icky girl stuff!), but it’s just as good as Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai.  A great and memorable cast of characters.  Rating: 9

IMDb

India Song

Now THIS is boring.  Utterly dreadful.  If Duras is making some kind of statement about the tedium of the idle rich, then bravo.  A lily-white woman hangs out all day at the French embassy in Lahore with her lily-white husband (I think? the story is deliberately obtuse to the point of annoyance) and some more lily-white Europeans that she apparently boffs whenever they ask.  We never see any of this alleged boffing, although we do get a 5-minute closeup of Delphine Seyrig’s breast, just in case you missed it in one of her other roles.  They all look perfectly depressed and bored, but not as bored as I was.  No wonder they’re so long-faced all the time… they’re in the middle of an exotic and fascinating country, but they seem to never leave the grounds of the embassy.  Hell, they barely ever leave the drawing room.  I think we’re meant to learn something about romance, but it’s as if it was written by a 15-year-old girl who knows nothing about romance.  There’s more to being in love that just talking about being in love and how much it tortures your soul.  Points for a somewhat original narrative (although it’s blatantly influenced by Resnais) and some painterly images (which you will have a LONG time to study), but otherwise a real drag.  Rating: 3

IMDb

And Life Goes On

I’ve already written about the intricate connections between this movie, Where Is My Friend’s House? and Through the Olive Trees, so I won’t get into the details again.  It’s a brilliantly self-referential concept.  I only wish I had watched them in order.  It was fun spotting the connections and recalling things that would be recreated in the third film.  I’ve love to watch the three movies back-to-back.  The more Kiarostami I see, the more I like the cut of his jib.  I do have to say that if you divorce the film from its meta-narrative role in the trilogy, it could be considered dull (always an issue with Kiarostami).  But I wasn’t bored by it.  There’s a lot of human drama here, it just isn’t played out with operatic outbursts or grand gestures.  Rating: 8

IMDb

The Naked City

A decent police procedural from decent filmmaker Jules Dassin.  I’ve always been somewhat underwhelmed by Dassin’s work, and never more so than here.  To be fair, he’s got a good eye… the photography sports some good ideas, and I like the use of real locations.  But the movie is hampered by weak acting, uninteresting characters, and especially the annoying narration.  Rating: 6

IMDb

Play Time (rewatch)

I’ve been so focused on catching up with some of the classics I’ve missed, that I’ve been neglecting all the DVDs I bought recently to enjoy re-watching.  Although there are a few moments when Play Time gets a little bit tiresome (mainly during the nightclub episode, which goes on too long), it certainly is enjoyable to watch.  A work of mellow social satire as the inhabitants (and visitors) of Paris find themselves constantly at battle with ridiculous and sterile modernities.  Inventive and brilliant.  It made me want to revisit the first two Hulot films as well, I might just end up buying them.  Rating: 9

IMDb

Also on the disc, the short Cours du Soir, not directed by Tati but he wrote it and stars in it as a mime instructor.  Amusing, but not the best showcase for his talents.  There’s a callback to L’Ecole des Facteurs.  The horseback sequence has some funny ideas, but the obvious time jumps are distracting.  Rating: 6