Vesna na Zarechnoy ulitse (Spring on Zarechnaya Street)

After being bowled over by I Am Twenty, I was looking forward to more Khutsiyev.  This is a less impressive film, but has some charms.  The story revolves around a factory worker who falls hard for his night school literature teacher.  There’s not a whole lot to it, but the characters are likeable, especially Sasha.  There appears to be some underlying message about bridging perceived class differences, but it’s a bit hard to tell because the subtitles were awfully rough.  If for nothing else, the film is enjoyable for its lovely music and glorious cinematography.  The camera provides some wonderful moments, particularly during the final act.  Rating: 7

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A Time for Drunken Horses

An orphaned group of Kurdish children tries to survive by smuggling goods across the Iran-Iraq border.  Oh, and one of them is a cripple desperately in need of an operation.  One-note and manipulative, it starts out wallowing in misery and gets predictably more miserable.  I guess the saving grace is that it doesn’t end with the crippled boy being blown to smithereens by a landmine, but it might as well.  Yes, it’s a sad situation but I felt little emotional connection to anything going on because it all felt so carefully manufactured to be a massive downer.  The child actors are fine as long as they just have to look resigned to their fate… when called upon to do anything beyond that, the performances are more uneven.  And to my amateur eye, the cinematography was nothing more than adequate.  To be honest, after heaping praise on so many Iranian films, it’s a bit refreshing to find one that’s a clunker.  Rating: 4

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Seeking Asylum

While I have yet to find a Ferreri film as stunning as Dillinger Is Dead, this one is almost as gorgeously enigmatic.  Taking the “unorthodox educator” motif to new extremes, Roberto (a youthful Roberto Begnini) is a kindergarten teacher whose methods are “unconventional” to say the least.  He casually and cheerfully entertains the children with whatever pops into his head… gleefully providing them with a television, plopping a donkey in their midst, letting them loose in a factory, and eventually absconding with them.  Rarely are there any consequences for these actions, and the kids and Roberto have a whale of a time.  We learn that Roberto may have been some sort of revolutionary troublemaker in his past.  Is he practicing a subversive form of revolution, or is he insane, or is he simply unbound by societal restrictions?  Ferreri never seems to tip his hand, and the ambiguous (but potentially very very dark) ending leaves no sense of resolution.  Are the Robertos of the world doomed, and if so, is that such a bad thing?  Begnini has a natural charm and rapport with the children, even when his behavior makes you uneasy.  I’m a bit at a loss as far as interpreting this film, but I’d love to see it again.  Ferreri is fast becoming one of my favorite directors.  Rating: 8

IMDb

Bicycle Thieves (rewatch)

It’s been about 10 years since the last time I watched this.  Criterion’s release comes with a massive booklet of analysis, but I only skimmed it briefly.  I wanted to try to watch without being influenced by someone else’s opinions or theories. I had a number of thoughts, all sort of jumbled.  The first thought was of the film’s massive influence.  For example, at least half of the Iranian cinema I’ve seen seems to stem from it… a very small scale problem on a personal level being given great significance.  An object that means everything to the protagonist.  I also thought of how every time I watch it, I have a hope that this time it will turn out different.  Despite knowing what happens, I feel disappointed at everything that goes wrong for Antonio, and every mistake he makes.  But then I had another thought: I really don’t like Antonio.  He’s brash, impatient, rude, and only shows the minimum affection for his son and no one else (we see no gratitude towards the friends who help him look).  Maybe the film’s genius is that we care what happens despite this.  But then after a while I do stop caring.  I’m having trouble reconciling my feelings about it.  I think it’s just so relentlessly, inevitably miserable that I have a hard time saying I “like” the movie.  But I do respect its impact and believe that a film that can make me feel this conflicted must be doing something right.  Rating: 7

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Betrayed (a.k.a. When Strangers Marry)

A woman marries a man she barely knows, and has reason to believe he’s a killer.  This might be the closest thing in classic film noir to a David Lynch movie.  Everything about it is slightly off-kilter and over-the-top… no one acts quite normal, effects are exaggerated, things happen that have no connection to anything else.  It’s not exactly surreal, just weird and mysterious and… well, kinda Lynchian.  You could chalk some of this up to the cheapness of the film (the sparse sets often lend to the sense of otherworldliness), but who cares when the effect is so potent?  William Castle is someone whose work I’ve dismissed as silly before now, but perhaps I haven’t looked at it in the right light before.  Yes, there is a silliness to the script, but almost every scene brings something unusual or unexpected or just plain cool.  Maybe the often illogical turns of the script are “bad writing”, but it only made me love the movie more.  Plus you’ve got the adorable Kim Hunter (A Matter of Life and Death), a pre-stardom Robert Mitchum, and a good Tiomkin score.  I just loved this movie, in all its cheap glory.  Rating: 9

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The Unsuspected

Several familiar elements (from Laura, among others) add up to a not especially surprising or original thriller, but one thick with noir atmosphere.  Curtiz knows how to put together a movie, and makes no major missteps here.  A slate of good performances, with the standouts being Claude Rains and Audrey Totter.  The plot is a little confusing at times, and doesn’t entirely sort itself out by the end (the motive for the opening murder is only described in vague terms) but it’s satisfying enough.  The highlight of the film is the dynamite lighting by cinematographer Woody Bredell, classic deep blacks and piercing whites, with long, looming shadows.  Rating: 7

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Let the Bullets Fly

Jiang Wen has three great films to his credit.  The first an unusual coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution (In the Heat of the Sun).  The second an astonishing black comedy about the Japanese occupation (Devils on the Doorstep).  The third an enigmatic split narrative about a handful of small-scale comic dramas (The Sun Also Rises).  So I was greatly looking forward to his fourth effort… which also happens to be the second highest-grossing film of all time in China (number one being Avatar).  The plot is a little too complicated to sum up neatly, but basically it involves Jiang, Chow Yun-Fat and You Ge in a Good/Bad/Ugly style battle of wills, a labyrinthine series of deceptions and double-crosses.  And… well, goddamnit I’m disappointed.  It’s not bad entertainment, with some really clever plotting, enjoyable characters, witty dialogue and situations, gorgeous shots, and exciting action.  It’s a fun, if occasionally confusing, movie.  But it’s pretty shallow stuff and lacks the artfulness of Jiang’s previous works.  Besides that, there’s some shoddy CG work, a gross-out scene I could have done without entirely, and Chow Yun-Fat hams it up a bit too much.  Maybe I shouldn’t have had such sky-high hopes.  I’m glad that Jiang has found commerical success, I just hope it gives him more freedom to go back to doing more unique work.  Rating: 7

IMDb

Cinevardaphoto

Although packaged as one film, this is actually three shorts from three different decades (all documentaries related to photography), so I will review them separately.

Ydessa, les ours et etc. - A fascinating look at the artist Ydessa and her remarkable installation, which consists of two rooms crammed floor to ceiling with collected photographs of people and their teddy bears, and a third room with a shocking surprise that puts the rest of the exhibit in an entirely new context.  Varda treats the subject with both playful wonder and silent gravitas, never straying too far in either direction.  It’s a film that’s surprisingly touching and very thoughtful, one which opens up several intriguing associations and avenues of thought.  Rating: 9

Ulysse - Varda starts with a photo she’d taken nearly 30 years earlier, of a man, a child and a dead goat on a beach, and spins off on a number of typically Varda-esque tangents.  She catches up with the man (now a fashion editor) and the child (who can’t recall the day), she places the photo is its historical context, she recalls that period of her life, she shows the photo to children, and she ruminates on its philosophical and mythological meanings.  This seems like a precursor to The Beaches of Agnes.  Interesting stuff.  Rating: 8

Salut les cubains - The oldest of the Cinevardaphoto shorts, and the least compelling.  Varda brought back hundreds of photos from a trip to Cuba soon after Castro came to power, and she presents them in a rapid-fire montage.  There are a few wonderful moments, particularly when celebrating Cuban dance and culture, for the most part this is pretty dry material, Varda rushing far too quickly from one subject to another, as if aware that these aren’t very interesting topics.  Rating: 6

IMDb

Shorts by Agnes Varda

Elsa la Rose - The poet Louis Aragon ruminating on his love and his muse, Elsa Triolet.  Very dull with few ideas, and frankly I thought the poetry was awful, but maybe it loses something in translation.  Too self-consciously arty.  Rating: 3

Réponse de femmes: Notre corps, notre sexe -  A feminist statement in which women respond to questions about motherhood, sexuality and self.  Very much a product of the 70′s and it does feel a bit dated, but there’s a playfulness to it which has its charms without diminishing its message.  Rating: 6

Plaisir d’amour en Iran - Varda brings together love, architecture, sex, poetry and art in Iran.  It’s a lovely piece, but one that actually feels TOO short, as if it were only scratching the surface of ideas that could be developed further.  Rating: 6

Les dites cariatides - Varda explores the caryatids of Paris — the giant statues of women supporting architecture.  It’s pretty interesting stuff, especially when she contrasts them with the male figures, who always appear to be struggling like Atlas.  But it kind of goes off the rails when she drags Baudelaire into it.  Rating: 7

7p., cuis., s. de b., … à saisir - A realtor tries to sell a former hospice to a doctor and his wife, triggering an imagined future, a dreamlike reverie of the lives of themselves and their children.  It reminded me of Greenaway in its formal approach to space and its oblique symbolism.  Also a bit of Resnais in there in its casual treatment of chronology.  One of Varda’s better shorts.  Rating: 8

T’as de beaux escaliers, tu sais - A tribute to the Cinematheque… or rather, its staircase.  Featuring relevant stairs-related clips from Fantomas, Ran, Pepe le Moko, Citizen Kane, Contempt, The Scarlet Empress, The Story of Adele H. and a few others I didn’t recognize.  Short but sweet, an amusing and original approach to a subject.  Rating: 8

The Makioka Sisters

My first blind-buy in a long time.  And a somewhat risky one.  Although Kon Ichikawa is responsible for one of my all-time favorites (Revenge of a Kabuki Actor) my other experiences have been a mixed bag, and this movie in particular seems to have lukewarm reviews.  It’s both better than I expected and worse than I hoped for.  Ichikawa’s imagery is beautiful, especially in capturing those gorgeous landscapes (not to mention the endless selection of ornate kimonos).  And the characters are strong, each sister having a distinct, fleshed-out and compelling personality, backed up by some fine performances.  But it’s a hard movie to get excited about.  The story has a few touching moments and intriguing conflicts, but in general it’s somewhat bland drama that takes longer to play out than it should.  It’s awfully mellow for Ichikawa, pretty to look at but lacking in flair.  I did enjoy the interplay of characters and it’s really not a bad film… but it did remind me why I stopped making blind buys.  Rating: 7

IMDb