Family Viewing (Atom Egoyan, 1987)

The next stop in my Atom Egoyan watching spree was Family Viewing, a relatively early work that was Egoyan's first real success, gaining fans like Wim Wenders (who insisted on giving his prize to Egoyan) at the Montreal Film Festival. With its great direction and good script, you wouldn't think this film could lose. You'd be wrong. The story revolves around Van, a young man obsessed with his grandmother, who lives with his father, Stan, who is in a twisted sort of relationship with phone-sex operator Aline (Egoyan's wife Arsinee Khanjian, who is wonderful as always), and Stan's girlfriend Sandra, who is in love with Van. All the characters are hardcore voyeurs, always watching themselves or others on videotape instead of connecting with them in real life. This sounds like an interesting premise, and it is, but the film is all but ruined by the terrible performances. Understandably, Egoyan (probably, I'm not sure) had to use amateurs because he was not yet a known filmmaker, but it really ruins the realism of the film. All the actors, with the exception of Khanjian, but especially Aidan Tierney, who plays Van. Van's character is an exceptionally unlikeable one, basically still a child, but thinks he knows everything about the world. He is unbudgeable and obsessed with his grandma, but doesn't understand anything about real life. With a good actor, Van could have been an interesting, complex character, but in Tierney's hands, he is wooden and incredibly unlikeable. It makes the whole movie almost a chore to watch at times, and took me out of the action and into snobby Dana mode. Not a good thing. I recommend this movie for those who want to look at a great filmmaker's past, and see a movie that could have been great, but, for me, the ride itself wasn't enjoyable. 4/10

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Day for Night (Francois Truffaut, 1973)

Day for Night is a kind of holy grail for people who love auteur theory and metafiction as much as I do (wow, that sounded pretentious). Francois Truffaut directs a film about making a film (May I Present Pamela, the kind of film that Truffaut, at this time, would have scoffed at, but doesn't present it as such) where Truffaut is the director Ferrand, starring, among others, Alphonse (played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, Truffaut's most important actor in real life - and one of my favorite actors ever - with the same name as Leaud's famous character Antoine Doinel's son). Wow. It makes my head spin a little thinking about it, but it flows so well in the movie. This film works just as well if you don't know anything about Truffaut's career, a pretty great feat onto itself. But onto the plot of the film: Ferrand is making a big studio picture, with a washed up star (Severine), a closeted gay older actor (Alexandre), a young, very immature, star (Alphonse) who is in love with a script girl (Liliane, played by Dani, who also played Leaud's lover in Love on the Run), and a British/American actress (Julie) who has had several nervous breakdowns and recently married her much-older doctor. The movie is about the hardships and triumphs of making a movie, and on this production, nearly everything that could go wrong, does. It never feels unrealistic or silly, though; the problems are caused by the personalities of those making the movie. Truffaut is very interested in how important the cinema is, and the fact that film is more important than life to those involved. The movie is certainly more about personalities than a plot - the film itself is contained completely within the filming of the movie. The first shot, a huge crowd scene which is echoed near the end of the film, is gorgeous, and really conveys Truffaut's love of making movies, as well as watching them. That love and joy is what makes this film so brilliant. All subtext aside, this is a portrait of a time in film that really can't be duplicated, where good directors (as Ferrand seems to be) were able to make huge, if not silly, pictures. Ferrand (speaking as Truffaut?!) himself says that Pamela is the end of an era, and now, instead of studio pictures, anyone can take a camera on the street and film. While that isn't really true, it is striking that Ferrand says that, because the French New Wave, of which Truffaut is a leading figure, was pretty much people taking cameras onto the street and shooting realism. This film is a simple, entertaining story, an in-joke, and a piece of metafiction all in one. This is my second favorite Truffaut picture (after Bed and Board), and a must for those who love film. 9/10 RIYL: Wes Anderson (he is clearly very influenced by this film, go carts and all), Godard

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36 Fillette (Catherine Breillat, 1988)

While I like Catherine Breillat, I have not yet been impressed with her films on adolecent sexuality. It's as if Breillat matured along with her films, culminating in the wonderful Romance and Anatomy of Hell. 36 Fillette, made relatively mid to early in Breillat's career, is another that I was disappointed with. Lili is 14, ready to be a woman, and is completely intolerable (to me). Breillat is brilliant in juxtaposing Lili's desire to be a woman (have sex) with everything else about her character, which is completely childish - she constantly whines, pouts, and fights with her brother, to the extent that it is often embarrassing and painful to watch. Although I am impressed with Breillat's formation of a character (which is probably autobiographical) in which woman and child live in relative harmony, I could not stand Lili, and wondered constantly why anyone would even choose to be around her. It might have been better to make Lili a more sympathetic image of young female sexuality, but, instead, we get brutal realism that doesn't even seem so real. Lili tries (horribly) to seduce an older man, a real sleazy character who doesn't mind that she's 14. Lili is on again off again about her desire to have sex, but the man is pretty insistant, until Lili annoys even him. Her brother is almost as bad, but he's not on camera as much, so he's not that annoying. The best scene in the movie is between Lili and famous musician Boris Golovine (Jean-Pierre Leaud, whom everyone who reads this blog should know by now that I love). Boris listens to Lili's childish complaints and tries to give her useful life advice. Lili, of course, being 14, doesn't listen, but Boris' try is a noble and funny one nonetheless. All in all, not one of my favorite Breillat films, but one for completists like me. 6/10 RIYL: A Real Young Girl

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Criminal Lovers (Francois Ozon, 1999)

Criminal Lovers is a twisted, queer postmodern version of the Hansel and Gretel myth. Two young lovers (Natacha Regnier and Jeremie Renier, from L'Enfant) kill a fellow student, then drive out to the country to hide the body in a forest. They lose sight of their car after burying the body, but that is only the beginning of their problems. If you know the Hansel and Gretel story, you can pretty much guess what's going to happen next, but Ozon adds some interesting twists to the story. Luc, Renier's character, has been unable to have sex with Alice, but things happen to make him more traditionally masculine. After their encounter with the man in the forest, Luc's masculinity is defined, even though he finds it through untraditional means. Then, there's the competition/attraction between Luc and Said, the student they kill; at times, it seems that Luc is jealous of Said's connection with Alice, and at others, like he is more attracted to Said than to Alice. These postmodern twists make the story fresh and highly interesting. To me, Ozon's films are more about the visuals than the actual story (see my post of stills, be warned of spoilers). The visuals in this film are stunning, dark and creepy, like some fairy tales are. While the ending might not seem happy, there are surprisingly bright moments near the end of the film, where we feel that the characters have come to their logical ends. But, like other Ozon I have seen, the story is lacking in comparison to the visuals. It is an interesting story, but not handled that impressively, as it could have been a great movie, but, as it is, it's a pretty good one. 7/10 RIYL: Catherine Breillat

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The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan, 1997)

The next film in my new Egoyan obsession was The Sweet Hereafter, which is probably Egoyan's most well known and acclaimed film. It's the story of a small town, devastated by a school bus crash that killed most of the town's children, and the big city lawyer with his own problems who comes in to get the victims lined up for a class-action suit. The plot sounds typical, but the characters are anything but. The townspeople are not just grieving small-town yokels, and neither is Mr. Stephens, the lawyer, a slick big-city guy looking to take these people for all the money they can. Everyone has their own ways of grieving, from sex, to anger, to the bus driver's extreme contrition yet unfailing optimism. Stephens has a daughter, Zoe, whom he loves so much, yet who despises him and is in an unending downward spiral. Billy, played by Bruce Greenwood, tries to convince his fellow townspeople to dismiss the lawsuit against the bus manufacturer. Nicole, Sarah Polley in a solid performance, is a survivor of the crash who is now paralyzed, and holds the whole lawsuit's fate in her hands. There is also a subtle incest subplot, which plays a huge part in the movie's ending. Egoyan portrays these people as just like any others, with huge secrets and hidden sides. The performances are all very real, and the scene where Billy sees the bus with his children on it spin down the icy hill to the children's deaths is one of the most tragic I have seen on film. Another amazingly powerful scene is when Stephens recounts the story of when his daughter almost died as a baby, when he held her life in his hands, literally. These two centerpiece scenes evoke the tragic nature of everyday life. Most of the film is so understated, however, that the tragedy is almost muted. The realism goes further than my emotions can follow, I suppose. So while I definitely liked this film a lot, it didn't reach the heights I thought Exotica did. 7.5/10 RIYL: The Ice Storm

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Intimacy (Patrice Chereau, 2001)

Patrice Chereau, director of Queen Margot, which I thought was beautiful, if not a little confusing, made his English-language directorial debut with Intimacy, which could not be more different than the previous film. While Margot was filled with gorgeous, lavish sets, radiantly beautiful Isabelle Adjani, and a pair of devoted, star-crossed lovers, Intimacy features a realistic (read: relatively grimey) modern-day London, the more realistic looking Kerry Fox and Mark Rylance, and a pair of lovers who don't even know each other's names. And they like it that way, for a while at least. Fox, as Claire, shows up at Rylance's Jay's apartment every Wednesday at 2pm for intense, wordless sex. That is fine for a while, but Jay eventually wants more, so he follows Claire to find out more about her life. This changes their entire relationship. I really loved just about everything about this movie. Rylance as Jay is so amazing, one of my top twenty performances ever. He is seemingly passive, but with this intense past of a lost wife and kids, and a failed career as a musician. He resents the bartenders at the bar where he works as the barman because they have their whole lives ahead of them, and see greater things for themselves. He lives in a rented house, with not many friends, and really has no future past what we see in the film. He tries to deny his age with his lifestyle, but, in one really revealing scene, has sex with a much-younger woman and is disgusted by her chattiness and overall optimism that is pretty characteristic of the young. Claire, again played impressively by Kerry Fox (whom I really liked in Jane Campion's An Angel at My Table), is a small-time actress with a husband (whom Jay befriends, in one of the film's more interesting sequences) and son who also teaches an acting class. She takes her frustration and rage at Jay out on her class several times, with painful consequences. These characters are so rooted in reality that it's very easy to lose yourself in the movie. Not only that, but the neediness in the relationship is based with Jay, a very interesting and welcome change from the needy, obsessive woman stereotype. Rylance (whom I have come to love after Angels and Insects, and recently found out he grew up in my city, which makes me appreciate him more - do more films, Mark!) and Fox are incredibly brave in their dedication to the explicit sexuality of the film, which includes much full nudity and even unsimulated oral sex (Chloe Sevigny wasn't that groudbreaking after all). The performances, above everything else, make this a depressing trip away from real life, but some of the dialogue falls a little short to make me love it without reservations. One of the truest films you'll ever see, there's no doubt about it. 8/10 RIYL: The Brown Bunny (although this is light years better), Battle in Heaven (a movie I loved equally, and deals with sexuality in the same realistic vein)

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The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)

There will be no movie this year as polarizing as The Fountain. Actually, I can think of few filmmakers as divisive as Aronofsky himself. Ask two people about Requiem for a Dream, and you'll probably get one person telling you it's an amazing, harrowing portrait of obsession and addiction (I'm pretty much in this camp), and one telling you what a hacky, melodramatic story of lowlives it is. This film is even more so, with many critics calling the story sci-fi psychobabble, while others saying it is a beautiful story of obsessive love. I am again in the pro-Aronofsky camp, and while I do agree that the story does border on new age imagery and sloganry, I see it is a true, albeit extreme, story about the lengths one will go to for true love. Not only is the story of the film beautiful, the cinematography is literally breathtaking at times (no CGI was used, only effects over photographs, and it is amazing), especially when Rachel Weisz is concerned. Aronofsky made this film as a tribute to his love, who appears radiant and glowing onscreen more often than not, and it's not a huge jump to assume that the Hugh Jackman character is a stand-in for Aronofsky himself. The story has three parts: one, around the 1500s, with Jackman as a conquistador Tomas and Weisz as Spanish queen Isabella; the next, central story, in modern times with tumor researcher Tommy and his tumor-suffering wife Izzy; and the third, hundreds of year in the future, with Jackman as a bald space traveller with the tree of life, haunted by Izzy's ghost, who urges him to "finish it." The central story is by far the most developed and also the most interesting and well-done. Jackman, of whom I haven't been a fan until now, is great as a man obsessed with saving his wife's life, even as she slips further and further into sickness. He's so obsessed, in fact, that he misses large parts of her life while researching. Their scenes together, especially one that takes place in the bathroom, are achingly beautiful and intensely painful, and makes the audience wonder what lengths they might go for love. The ancient Spanish story, and especially the stunning first scene, are also beautiful, with the queen wanting her conquistador to go into New Spain to find the tree of life. When the three stories come together in the last third of the film, it is devastating, but also becomes too laden with special effects and new age mantras to be effective. The last ten minutes, I was taken out of the film because of how silly I felt believing it. When critics say that the film takes on these huge ideas in uneffective ways, this is it. Because it's the last thing I was left with, it brought me down a little on the movie, but there are still immensely beautiful images, especially concering the tree of life. The concepts of immortality and eternal love are heavy ones, and Aronofsky has definitely not made a happy film (I spent a lot of the time with tears running down my face, but then again, I'm a definite movie cryer). But taken in context with Pi and Requiem for a Dream, one can see that Aronofsky is becoming more optimistic, and maturing past these almost apocalyptic views of the world he presented before. Love is the driving force in not only these characters' lives, but, it seems, Aronofsky's as well, and the movie is a testament to its power. 8/10

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Lemming (Dominik Moll, 2005)

Lemming is the latest offering from Dominik Moll (With a Friend Like Harry), starring Laurent Lucas (whom I was impressed with in Calvaire) and Charlotte Gainsbourg (daughter of Serge and, most recently, costar of The Science of Sleep) as married couple Alain and Benedicte, pleasant enough yuppies who invite Alain's boss (Andre Dussolier) and wife (Charlotte Rampling, terrifying as ever) over to dinner one night. Mr. and Mrs. Pollock are hours late, and when they do arrive, Alice, the wife, is bitter and outwardly angry, not only at her husband, but also toward Benedicte, whom she calls pathetic. Nothing is ever the same for Alain and Benedicte after this visit, and especially after Alice calls on Benedicte a few days later. Not only is the Gettys' relationship changed and threatened, they have found a lemming in their drain pipe, an incredibly ominous sign for the rest of the film. What starts out as a drama about infidelity and what makes someone happy in modern day society turns into, in its second half, a ghost story about possession and the concept of reality. Unfortunately, these two good concepts are handled far too slowly and heavily to be of any real interest. Gainsbourg is great as Benedicte, the mild-mannered wife who shows no real emotion until after the Gettys' visit. Rampling is barely on screen (only four scenes!), but her presence is felt throughout the entire film, the sign of a great actress. Too bad Moll didn't use her nearly enough here. Lucas turns in my favorite performance of the film, as Alain, who is torn between sexual desire and his absolute need for his wife. But when the elements all come together, as in Benedicte and Alain's trip to a mountainside cabin, the result is less then impressive. As several reviews I've read have said, the movie promises to be about that which is most intriguing and strange about existence, but in the end, is really about nothing. Psychological trauma has, unfortunately, never been so boring. Plus, the film, at over two hours long, could have been cut by at least half an hour and not really lost anything. I recommend this film for the performances, but not for the entirety, which tries to be a Lynchian interpretation of the suburban postmodern life, but fails. 6/10 RIYL: Merci Pour Le Chocolat, some elements of other Chabrol

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L'Enfant (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2005)

The brother team of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne built upon their former successes (such as one previous Palme d'Or for The Son, which I still need to see) with another grand prize winner at the Cannes film festival, L'Enfant. Bruno is a young thug who presumably makes a very meager amount of money stealing and then selling items, as well as doing things like renting out his girlfriend Sonia's apartment for a few days. In fact, Sonia returns from the hospital after giving birth to their son Jimmy to find her apartment occupied by total strangers. Things just get worse for Sonia, who goes with Bruno to a homeless shelter, is left by him, and eventually is betrayed in a very shocking way - Bruno decides to sell Jimmy to an agency that does under the table adoptions. Sonia faints, goes to the hospital, and tells the police what Bruno has done; he, meanwhile, gets his son back, but gets into even greater trouble trying to make some more money so he (and his girlfriend and son, with whom he is not allowed to see) doesn't starve. The movie is Bruno's journey from childhood (it is pretty clear that he, and not Jimmy, is the child of the title) into real maturity, and understanding what it means to be a man, a lover, and a father. Whether or not by the end of the film he has completed, or even started, that journey is highly debatable, but the journey is an emotionally complex, wrenching one. Jeremie Renier as Bruno is really stunning - the scene where Bruno nonchalantly tells Sonia what he's done, and does not understand her reaction (pointing to the money he got, he says, "This is for us. I thought we could just have another one"), is worth the price of admission alone. Deborah Francois as Sonia is very good as well - the Dardenne brothers do a very good job of showing how Sonia is not more than a child herself, as with her constant wrestling and play-fighting with Bruno. Even though most of the movie is sparse, with little dialogue and few visible emotions, there are also moments of almost perverse humor, like when Bruno pushes an empty baby carriage around the city. Comparable to Bresson in simultaneous emotional depth and shallowness, L'Enfant is a beautiful little slice of life, and although the Dardenne brothers are incredibly talented at letting this story come to a completely natural conclusion, it was too distant for me to care a great amount. 8/10 RIYL: Robert Bresson

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The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg, 1930)

One of the classics of pre-World War II cinema, von Sterberg's first in a series of fruitful collaborations with Marlene Dietrich is the story of Lola Lola, a singer at The Blue Angel with whom Professor Emmanuel Rath (Emil Jannings) becomes obsessed. Professor Rath is a sad character, initially and after his tragic demise; at first, he is tortured and constantly teased by his students, who have no respect for him, and then, he is abused by the patrons of the Blue Angel, and, eventually, the members of the troupe themselves. This isn't a story about Lola Lola, although almost everyone would describe it that way. Instead, it's the story of a sad man who tries to make his life better, and fails miserably. When I put it that way, it's pretty depressing indeed. But watching the film and talking about it are two different experiences. While watching the film, I didn't dislike Lola, and instead was almost frustrated with the Professor's rigidity toward life, but while thinking about it, I realize how much of a part Lola's indifference and misunderstanding of Emmanuel caused his downfall. Lola's musical numbers, which I thought were the reason this film was a classic, were pretty utterly forgettable, as Dietrich is charismatic but more so when she's seducing a guy one-on-one. Dietrich's Lola is an incredibly interesting, confusing character. Many of the things she does do not have any basis in logic (such as marrying the Professor, which I was sure she would not do), and instead, as in other von Sternberg films, are just means to an end - the Professor's eventual complete fall, as well as the beautiful visuals and journey the couple takes. Jannings turns in the performance one could only hope for a role this paradoxical. He turns from stuffy, self-righteous professor to literal clown in a matter of ninety completely believeable, devastating minutes. Also, anyone seen the 1959 remake? How does it hold up? 7/10 RIYL: Greta Garbo films (her only peer of her time, I think)

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Henri Langlois: Phantom of the Cinematheque (Jacques Richard, 2004)

"Feed people crap for so long and they lose their taste buds." - Henri Langlois, on the state of French mainstream film I had, regrettably, never really heard of Henri Langlois before watching this excellent documentary on his life and vast influence on not only French cinema, but the whole world of film. Langlois founded the Cinematheque Francais in the 1940s, and ever since, it has been a global force both in preserving rare films (Langlois made deals with Germans during WWII to get rare films they might otherwise have destroyed) and encouraging a new wave (the French New Wave, in fact) of filmmakers. Both Truffaut and Godard matured as filmmakers and radicals under Langlois' wing, along with countless other auteurs. Langlois gave his entire life up to preserving and promoting film, oftentimes stealing prints that were otherwise going to be thrown away or putting himself into major debt (such as selling a plane ticket home in order to obtain a print) in order to give films to the world. The Henri Langlois Film Museum truly was a sight to behold, a place where there were countless pieces of memorabilia, such as the set from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the mummified mother's face from Psycho, but it was shut down due to the government's barely disguised spite of Langlois (they tried to oust him in 1968, leading to the amazing events in the spring of that year that almost shut down Cannes. I had heard about it on some of the Criterion special features for an Antoine Doinel films, but the archival footage here is simply amazing) and has not been (to my knowledge) reinstated. This film is really everything a documentary on such a revolutionary man should be: informative, funny (the parts about people imagining Langlois' sexual relationship with Mary Meerson are hilarious), intelligent, and, most importantly, inspiring. The taped interviews with people like Eric Rohmer and Truffaut is often revelatory, and always compelling. It is infuriating how poorly Langlois was treated by the French government, but it really is amazing to see how much one man's tireless efforts can do for a whole industry. American film really needs a Langlois, not only as a father figure, but as a good kick in the ass for a relatively complacent industry. I know this film made me want to make films! 9/10 RIYL: French New Wave

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Angels and Insects (Philip Haas, 1995)

Angels & Insects is the best Peter Greenaway film Greenaway himself never made. The story of undlying sexual and emotional pathology in Victorian England, the plot (adapted from a novella by AS Byatt) and imagery reminded me so much of Greenaway's signature style that I had to remind myself several times that it wasn't him. It is the story of William Adamson (Mark Rylance, who was the bright spot for me in Institute Benjamenta and is equally brilliant here), an etymologist who lost all his Amazonian specimens in a shipwreck, now housed by the Alabaster family. He ends up marrying the older daughter Eugenia (a radiant Patsy Kensit), making an enemy of the son Edgar, and becoming great friends and intellectual partners with the younger daughters' tutor, Matty Crompton. As he becomes more and more entrenched in the family, their internal politics and quirks (to put it lightly) are revealed, leading to devastating consequences. William is obsessed with insects, and the Alabaster family is a life-size version of an ant colony, a parallel that is made several times throughout the movie. The Alabasters are no less primal nor complicated than these instinctual creatures. Even though I had known the big twist, when it is revealed, it is no less chilling and distressing than if I hadn't known it at all. Rylance is pitch-perfect in his role as a genuinely good guy who really does come to care for Eugenia and is terribly betrayed. Kristin Scott Thomas as Matty, the voice of sanity in this insular household, is well-suited for her role and performs it pretty well. The imagery of insects pervades the film, and is very much reminiscent of A Zed & Two Noughts' obsession with decay. This Victorian culture is decaying, and modernity is creeping in when the Alabasters had their back turned. They try to hold it back, but it's inevitable. 8/10 RIYL: Peter Greenaway (it's a real mixture of The Draughtsman's Contract and A Zed and Two Noughts)

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Exotica (Atom Egoyan, 1994)

Before Exotica, I had only seen the somewhat disappointing Where the Truth Lies from Egoyan before, but knowing much of his reputation and having seen a few impressive interviews with him (This Film is Not Yet Rated the latest example), I was more than willing to give this movie a shot. Am I ever glad that I did. A kind of interweaving-tales movie before those became so ridiculously en vogue (although I am a sucker for them, almost always), Exotica is the story of Christina, a dancer at the Exotica club; Eric, her ex who is still obsessed with her; Francis, Christina's best client who is dealing with a personal tragedy; and Thomas, a neurotic, gay Jew who runs an exotic pet store and a successful egg-smuggling business. The lives of these people, and those with whom they come in contact, weave in and out of one another's. Egoyan leaves large blanks in the viewer's understanding of these characters, which was admittedly frustrating during the first hour of the film. I wasn't sure how much I liked it, because at times, I had no idea what was going on, or what events people were referring to. This is, obviously, Egoyan's plan, and as pieces of the puzzle fall into place in the film's second half, it becomes a masterpiece of the kinds of lives we lead, versus the kinds of lives we'd like to lead. Every character in this film is in pieces, in one way or another having lost something very important, and it makes you wonder who is "normal," and whether these people have very dark secrets hidden behind their own curtains, as well. Along with the beautifully flawed nature of human existence, Egoyan brings to the center a topic I love discussing (having been a Women's Studies concentrator in college), but haven't had much to think about lately: sexuality and the flesh, and how they can be used in multiple ways, even all at once. The Exotica club is a home and a jail for these characters, and Christina, the main (although not only) source of sexuality in the film, is botha therapist and "jailbait," a sinner and a saint all at once through the same actions. Zoe, the club's owner, is pregnant (and, through IMDB research, Arsinne Khanjian, the actress who plays Zoe, is Egoyan's wife and was actually very pregnant at the time), and seeing a pregnant woman in her underwear or walking through a strip club in extravagant costumes is a beautiful visual paradox. The performances, while great (especially Bruce Greenwood as the tragic Francis), especially in the beautiful and devastating final scene, where it all comes together, cannot possibly stand up to Egoyan's brilliant script and directing. If any film other than Pulp Fiction had won the Palme d'Or in 1994, I would cry unfair! This made me an instant Egoyan acolyte, and I will be watching all his films asap (in fact, The Sweet Hereafter is on the agenda for the holiday weekend). 9/10 RIYL: Amores Perros (similar structure, same themes of obsession/love and family)

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RIP Robert Altman

The world lost a great director and a great man today; Robert Altman died at the age of 81. In addition to being a great fan of his films (Short Cuts is one of my top ten of all time), I met him a few years ago while interning at Chicago public television station WTTW, and while he looked very old, he was still sharp and funny and smart and as impressive as you'd assume he would be. Rest in peace, the film community will surely miss you.

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The Abandoned (Nacho Cerda, 2006)

It's not hard at all to make a good horror film (a few recent examples will tell you that), but it is incredibly hard to make a great, thought-provoking one. As a part of Horror Fest (of which I only got to see this one, and am disappointed in my broke self), Spanish director Nacho Cerda crafted one, this tale of Russian-born, British-raised, American-living film producer Marie who goes back to the motherland to find out the truth about her parents, as she was abandoned as an infant and has never been able to find out the truth. She finds out that she has inherited a family property, a farm in the middle of nowhere. The middle of nowhere in Russia is really creepy. Once there, and coincidentally abandoned by her guide, she meets her twin brother Nikolai, who has also just been able to find out about their parents. Another creepy coincidence! In fact, the word for this movie is creepy, as it's a traditional ghost story made even more tense by its hallucinogenic effects and tampering with time. That's right, Cerda makes time and place completely impermanent in this film, as in the terrifying last half hour, when things are definitely not as they seem. Places that were familiar are now enemy, and going back into the past (at least in your mind, as we're never sure what's actually happening) is an option. Plus, Nikolai and Marie have creepy doppelganger-ghosts that show them how they die. Or do they? Cerda presents so many unanswerable questions that this movie can be frustrating to the left brain, but it's better if you just let the ambience take its toll. I appreciated this film in a great many ways, even though I think I might have been the only one in the theater who liked it much (moans & groans were heard at the end). One thing I really loved about the movie is its breaking of pretty much every horror film mold (maybe why people didn't like it?): there's no nudity/sex, and, in my favorite twist, the heroine is a 42 year old woman. Take that, nubile starlets! Anastasia Hille, who played Marie, is great in this role as uptight Marie, who steps into this horror world she cannot control, unlike everything else in her life. The final twist is a good, pretty cerebral one, that turns everything on its head. So there people on the IMDB boards are talking about what a terrible movie this is - if you like surreal, yet incredibly real and scary horror (with a little bit of gore for good measure) film, definitely check out The Abandoned - I read an interview with Cerda that said it'll be in UK theaters around Christmas (a good time for family reunions, he joked), and hopefully US theaters sometime after that. In the meantime, I'll be checking out Cerda's Aftermath and Genesis sometime soon. 8/10 RIYL: Altered States, Jacob's Ladder (cerebral, hallucinogenic horror films)

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Let's Go to Prison (Bob Odenkirk, 2006)

Despite its incredibly poor showing at the box office this weekend, I really think that Let's Go to Prison deserves a spot in the list of great comedies this year (2006 has really been a stupendous year for comedies). The major film directorial debut of Bob Odenkirk, Mr. Show co-creator and one of my favorite comedians ever (in fact, I think Mr. Show is the best comedy series of all time), and written by Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant (of The State and Reno 911!, both of which are also in my top five comedy series of all time), Prison is the story of John Litshyski (played very ably by Dax Shephard, one of the more underrated comedians working right now), a career felon who decides to take revenge on the (now-deceased) judge who put him in jail by framing his son, Nelson IV (the brilliant Will Arnett), and becoming his cellmate. A ridiculous premise, but who cares: the comedic payoff is gold. Arnett is priceless as the spoiled rich boy who starts off as a real asshole to everyone (including the board of his father's charity, the head of which played by Odenkirk in a great little role) and, through his prison experience, becomes a punching bag for all the other felons, the ruler of the jail, and, eventually, a (relatively) good guy. John is his companion through this all, setting him up to be beat up and raped, selling him for weed and cigarettes to Barry (Chi McBride - seriously, he is becoming a great comedy guy out of nowhere), and eventually fighting him to the death. All the actors are superb in their roles - this (along with Talladega Nights) is one of the best-casted films I've seen in a while. Odenkirk directs Lennon and Garant's script with a real eye for comedy - I doubt many other directors could have milked so much hilarity out of Technotronic's "Move This." This movie is being unfairly marketed as a anal rape joke-fest, a sophmoric comedy about jail. While it is, at times, those things, it is also much more, and I recommend everyone to go see it while you can, if only to support the people who made this movie - I'm afraid that if it doesn't do well box office-wise, our chances to see people like Odenkirk and Arnett on the screen will (tragically) decrease. 9/10 RIYL: Arrested Development (Arnett's character brings to mind GOB Bluth more than once), Mr. Show

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Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Gus van Sant, 1993)

Gus van Sant is a filmmaker I really have issues with. I respect him very much, I really like some of his movies (Elephant is probably my favorite), kind of like some others (My Own Private Idaho, which really thought it was way better than it actually was, although there are some amazing moments), and hated some more (Last Days was one of the most pretentious, boring films I saw this year). I was excited to watch this film, as it promised a great premise (I know a lot about Tom Robbins, although I haven't ever read him) and a pretty good cast - Uma Thurman (who is really hit and miss), along with smaller roles by Keanu Reeves (whom I adore, no matter what), Crispin Glover, and Lorraine Bracco, among many others. The first half of the film really impressed me, while the second left me a bit cold. However, the visuals really overrode any flaws in the script/acting, as has happened with other van Sant films, and really make this a film worth seeing. Uma Thurman plays Sissy, a lady blessed (or cursed?) with abnormally large thumbs that make her the best hitchhiker in history. She eventually joins up with the lesbian separatists at the Rubber Rose Ranch, who are protecting a group of herons they've given peyote. Yep. Lots of other stuff happens, but most of it is pretty inconsequential, if not entertaining. The performances are all pretty good, and right for the characters, save Rain Phoenix, who, in her first leading adult performance, is pretty stiff and uncharasmatic as the (supposedly) incredible cowgirl leader Bonanza Jellybean. Most of the critiques I have read of the film are critical of the film's "antiquated" view of feminism, but it seems that most of these critics forgot that this film takes place in the early 1970s, a time where separatist movements were just coming into vogue, and radical (lesbian) feminism was beginning. These cowgirls are really radical, whether they seem so anymore or not. As I said earlier, this film is definitely worth a view, if only for the incredibly visuals - the movie is oftentimes hallucinogenic and surreal, which is only fitting for the subject matter. It's not a great movie, but it certainly doesn't deserve its reputation as one of the worst films ever made, either. 6/10 RIYL: Gregg Araki (another queer filmmaker with a similarly outrageous aesthetic)

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Accattone (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1961)

There are few directorial debuts as impressive as Pasolini's Accattone. The master who would go on to direct Teorema and Salo (which I still have not seen), among other controversial classics, and who would be murdered under very suspicious circumstances right after the release of Salo, started his directorial career with this tale of Accattone, a Roman pimp who struggles to survive in post-war Italy. Accattone, at the beginning of the film, is pimping Maddalena (Silvana Corsini, who is beautiful and magnetic in a strange way, which is how I feel about many of Pasolini's heroines), who has a broken leg, yet is forced out onto the street anyway. She is picked up by a group of guys, then, in the film's most disturbing sequence (to me), is beaten up, raped, robbed, and left for dead in the middle of nowhere. Although she is able to identify her attackers to the police, they somehow get out of jail and she is put in jail for a year for perjury. This, rather than most of the overt poverty and squalor, is what upset me most about the movie, the asking-for-it and victim blaming mentality of this society. Accattone doesn't even care when he finds out Maddalena is in jail, despite being not only his main source of income, but also (probably) his girlfriend. Accattone falls in love with proper, naive Stella, and eventually gets her on the street, as well. This is my favorite Italian neo-realist film I have seen so far, with the brutality of the Italian economy beating down these characters. If it is this impossible for people who do not have "legitimate" jobs to survive, one imagines what it must have been like for the other sectors of society. The jobs characters are shown having are either Stella's work cleaning bottles, for which she says she gets paid just enough not to starve, and Accattone's one day of work hauling six tons of steel into a truck. This is a society beaten down by war, being the loser in a gigantic war, and the citizens that inhabit this story barely survive. The most poignant and painful moment in the film comes when Accattone visits his young son, who doesn't recognize him, and steals a gold necklace from him, just to pawn for a little bit of cash. Neo-realism doesn't get much more depressing than this, but the beauty of human life shines through in little pieces, such as flowers, stars, or Stella's pretty dress. The inevitably tragic ending underscores that these little things are what make life worth living, as everything comes crashing down in the end anyhow. Although Pasolini would probably scoff at my optimistic view, I like to think that in order to not let this beautiful film crush a part of my spirit. A quick note on the DVD itself: it's terrible. The transfer is crappy, the white subtitles against a black & white print make them intelligible at times (and there are even missing subtitles at points), and, worst of all, there are no DVD chapters. Just a warning; however, the movie is well worth seeing, even through the terrible DVD. Criterion, issue this movie! A Pasolini box set is well past due. 8/10 RIYL: Roberto Rossellini, Bernardo Bertolucci (who was the AD on this movie)

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This Film is Not Yet Rated (Kirby Dick, 2006)

Above all else, Kirby Dick has made a very important documentary in This Film is Not Yet Rated, revealing the incredibly arbitrary and ultimately unfair (to indies, gays, women, and more!) MPAA ratings system that all films must undergo if they want major distribution. Although more and more theaters, in my experience, are showing experimental and unrated films, there is still a definite barrier caused by the ratings system. Kirby Dick hires a private investigator and talks both with filmmakers who have been screwed by the MPAA and former and current members of the ratings and appeals boards. In the process, he reveals some very important and interesting things about the way films are rated (there are no written guidelines to rating), the raters (their identities, for one, as well as the unfairness in term length and qualifications), and Jack Valenti himself (a former politician who is a pretty good lobbyist for the major film industry). The interviews with filmmakers are my favorite parts of the film, with John Waters being his hilarious self, Kimberley Peirce offering her thoughts on the MPAA's view on female sexuality, and Matt Stone showing the difference between ratings for indie films and those on the major studios. The amount of facts Dick reveals in the film is astonishing, and his own process with the ratings and appeals board is revelatory in the unfair, ridiculous ways these boards work. The tone of the film ranges from (annoyingly) zany to downright self-righteous, and neither of those extremes work very well. Dick does best to stick in the middle and present these facts, as they really don't need embellishment. Like other recent documentaries like The Corporation and An Inconvenient Truth, This Film is Not Yet Rated left me fuming afterward, angry at this system that says it is for the filmmaker, and yet makes it incredibly hard for independant, forward-thinking filmmakers to get their visions out to the public if they are at all sexually challenging. But, unlike those aformentioned documentaries, Dick's left me with this anger that is almost self-defeating. He offers no solutions, nothing the public can do to fight this system. Getting the raters' names and all this information out there is a good thing, but there's got to be a next step. Dick offers the audience nothing but information, which, in a documentary as outrageous as this, is just frustrating. It's definitely worth seeing, but don't expect any closure. 7/10 RIYL: Any of those left-leaning muckraking documentaries of the last few years

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Chocolat (Claire Denis, 1988)

Not to be confused with the Johnny Depp vehicle of the same name, Chocolat is the slow, intellectual portrait of a French family's life in colonial Cameroon, and all the racial and class politics that come with being a colonizer, no matter how liberal you may see yourself. It is the story of France, a young girl who has probably the most symbolic name in all of cinematic history, who lives with her mother and father in colonial Cameroon. The frame story involves France as an adult back in Cameroon (although we never know why, as Denis leaves France's life between childhood and adulthood a complete mystery, except for her comment that she is more or less a tourist in Cameroon), taking a ride with a local man and his son, who remind her of Protee, her family's houseservant as a child. She looks back at her childhood with the hindsight of an adult who sees now that the racial and class subjugation her family propagated onto the people of her town was wrong, even though her parents had nothing but the best intentions. The story of France's childhood does not revolve around a single event, but chronicles her burgeoning awareness of her difference in this place. She and Protee (played by Isaach de Bankole, whose role here as the proud black outsider is in ways similar to the one he would later have in Lars von Trier's Manderlay) are almost playmates; he takes care of her and educates her, through action, about the Africans around her, but France does not really understand the power that she, as a white girl, has over these people. In one cute yet devastating scene, France feeds Protee some soup as if he was a baby, and even makes him eat some off her hand. She has no malice in these actions, but they are representative of the white liberal's position in African colonialism. The emotions in the film are all below the surface, not represented to the audience as they are not to one another. The life of France's family is all superficiality, formal dinners and guests (who pose moral problems for different reasons, and are an interesting centerpiece to this slice of life). France's mother Aimee has this barely-hidden sensuality bursting out of her, which almost explodes onto Protee and several guests, but still remains completely internal. France's father has a genuine interest in Africa, but does not serve him well as the governor of their small town. One of the guests challenges everyone's view of Africans as subjugated, even if they don't think about it, but even Protee is so threatened by this that he forces the guest to leave. Chocolat is an interesting portrayal of colonialism, the other side of a film like Black Girl that does not make the white colonizers look much better. In this film, however, they are real people, not easily ignored or hated. The Dalens family is easy to empathize with, something that makes their plight even more interesting. The cinematography is beautiful, but I would not recommend this for those without patience (as with other Denis films). 7/10 RIYL: The Lover (another interesting, although more erotic, portrayal of white people in a foreign, colonized land), Black Girl

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More (Barbet Schroder, 1969)

More, Barbet Schroder's directorial debut, is the kind of film that screams out to be remade, and one that I would definitely do were I a filmmakeer (oh, one day!). It is the story of the sixties fading into the seventies, psychedelics into hard drugs, innocence into jaded hipness, complete with an original Pink Floyd score. It is the story of Stefan, a naive German student, hitchhiking through Europe, who meets Estelle, a New York art student who takes him to Ibiza. They smoke a lot of pot, and, eventually, Estelle's heroin habit resurfaces, and they both become addicts in this idyllic fantasyland. Stefan arrives in Paris, where he hitches a ride with Charlie, with whom he becomes fast friends. Charlie takes Stefan to a party, where he meets Estelle. Charlie tries to warn him against Estelle, saying that she has ruined men before, and that Stefan would be wise to stay away from her, but he doesn't listen and falls for her immediately. They meet up a few days later, in a ridiculous scene where Stefan smokes pot for the first time, and decide to go to Ibiza together, being young, beautiful people with nothing better to do. When there, they stay for a while with Dr. Wolf, a friend of Estelle's father who is also probably her lover (it's left ambiguous in the film), but decide to run away to the countryside when Stefan gets jealous of Wolf. In the process, Estelle steals 200 doses of heroin from Wolf, along with some money, and Wolf pursues and eventually finds them. By that time, they are both heroin addicts, living this spaced out life in paradise, and my favorite scene in the film is when Stefan (formerly a righteous anti-drug person, now a heroin addict) and Estelle attack a windmill, a la Don Quixote. It's a beautiful, quasi-romantic version of drug abuse, but, like in Neil Armfield's Candy (that owes a debt to More), things go terribly wrong, as their relationship sours and Estelle eventually does lead to Stefan's downfall, as Charlie predicted. The dialogue is, at times embarrassingly, typical of the time, with the philosophies and wonders of drugs espoused by these young people, who came of age in the time of the hippies, but are looking for something more. It is an ageless tale, one that resonates with me even now; looking for a better life through illegal substances, and thinking you can change the world with them. This is a film that should be more widely seen, despite some definite ties to the time, as the story is timeless, and the characters believably tragic. It's a film I would remake, most definitely. 7/10 RIYL: Rohmer's Six Moral Tales (of which Schroeder was a producer)

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Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles, 2006)

This is less a review than a collection of thoughts on this incredibly thought-provoking movie. Let me just mention, though, that it is absolutely as hilarious as I expected and hoped it would be, and that I think Sacha Baron Cohen really is the new face of comedy. I honestly can't praise him enough for his boldness and his absolute dedication to character, something that is shown by his refusal to put his own face in the limelight, and instead keep the focus on the character Borat (although countless Borat interviews got a little tiring, I was still very respectful of someone who's not as fame-hungry as he is dedicated to the project). The first time I saw the film (opening day, the first showing), the audience was either completely silent or completely engrossed and hanging on every joke. I, being in the second category, was, at times, doubled over with laughter. Without spoiling any of the surprises the film has in store, Borat's appearance on the local news and at a Southern dinner party are among the hilarious highlights. The second time I saw it (the next day, with the father and brother at a mega-mall theater) was quite a bit more problematic. Unlike the first audience, the second really enjoyed the Jew jokes. Quite a lot. I mean, the biggest laugh in the theater was at the "Running of the Jew." Now, I could very possibly be underestimating my fellow movie-goers, but that huge response made me very uneasy. It was definitely more possible that the people were laughing at the Jew puppets than at the ridiculousness of the Kazakh holiday, or even that Cohen made up said holiday. Borat's anti-semitism is in your face, even aggressive and angry at times, but it's not real. As most people know by now, Cohen is a devout Jew who comes from a deeply religious family and even observes the Sabbath. The anti-semitism, then, comes from a very personal place within Cohen; I can only imagine how painful and cathartic writing the Jew jokes must have been. Cohen might have exorcised some of the demons he's felt being Jewish in a subconsciously, even counsciously, anti-semitic world. He chose America as the setting to show the world these demons, and after viewing the film, it seems rightly so. Some scenes in the film are painful to watch, especially the rodeo manager who wants to string up gays and the frat boys who, well, think this country would be better off if we still had slaves. Borat doesn't need to parody these people, they do it to themselves. Instead, he goes after the minds of the audience, and those in the movie who think themselves liberal, understanding people. It had more of an effect on me than a hundred Crashes could have. This movie isn't for everyone, and I'm surprised it did as well at the box office as it did (although I think word of mouth will propel it to the top of the box office again this weekend). I am not surprised that Fox, at the absolute last minute, pulled it out of more than half of the theaters it was supposed to debut in. This film is not for mainstream America, I think, although the fact that it's doing so well makes me doubt that statement (but audience reaction reinforces that, so I'm utterly stuck). This movie is confounding, thought-provoking, and hilarious. Thank you, Mr. Cohen, for unleashing this beast on the world. Only a few jokes fall flat throughout the whole film, and it's definitely one of the best this year. See it. Seriously. 9.5/10 RIYL: Curb Your Enthusiasm (same kind of self-effacting humor, same director)

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La Collectionneuse (Eric Rohmer, 1967)

The fifth of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales that I've seen, La Collectionneuse is the story of two men, Adrien and Daniel, who stay at a friend's villa for a month in the summer, only to find that their friend has also allowed Haydee to stay. They play games with Haydee, sleep with her, are cruel to her, and think about morality, much like in Rohmer's other films. This is one of my least favorite Moral Tales, because of the uttery despicability of Adrien and Daniel, two incredibly pretentious, cruel, empty young men. Adrien is the protagonist and narrator of the story, and his rationalizations of his behavior toward Haydee (with whom he has a quasi-affair even though he has a girlfriend whom he professes to love very much) are among the most pompous I've seen in film history. Daniel and Adrien use Haydee physically and then abuse her verbally, especially in one particularly vicious scene, where the two sit a few yards from Haydee and discuss what an 'immoral slut' and 'collector' of men she is, and how she occupies the lowest rungs of society with her masculine (my word) behavior. Perhaps they see themselves in Haydee, and hate her for it? Anyway, Haydee never quite fights back, only ignores them and occasionally half-heartedly defends herself. To her character, though, she does not take their idle insults to heart, recognizing that they are just another way to fill up their empty lives by putting down others. Haydee is a likeable character, with her lack of shame for her sexual pursuits. The movie is really brought down, though, by the two main men in the film, who are so unlikeable that it just gets boring. Once Daniel leaves the film, the final third is rather boring, even, and the ending, predictable as it was, left me angry. La Collectionneuse represents the men in Rohmer's cycle at their worst: pretentious, angry, and misogynistic, traits that get tiring rather quickly. 6/10 RIYL: Truffaut at his most immature

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Imprint (Takashi Miike, 2005)

This infamous, unaired episode of Showtime's Masters of Horror certainly is horrifying, but I also think it's an example of Takashi Miike - one of my favorite directors - at his most ridiculous. The story of an American journalist (a truly terrible performance by Billy Drago) who travels to Japan in order to marry the prostitute he promised he would come back for, only to find out that she's dead. Another prostitute, a woman with beautiful blue hair and a deformed face, tells him the story of how his beloved Komomo died, starting with a brutal but tolerable lie and moving to the horrific truth. The woman asks the journalist Christopher, before telling him the truth, why people want to know the truth so badly, why no one can ever been content with a more pleasant lie. This is the question Miike wants the audience to ask themselves after hearing the women's tale - wouldn't we have been happier with the lie? The woman tell of working with Komomo, and, both because of her immense beauty and because she talked about her American lover, how she was tormented by the other women in the geisha house in which they both worked. The woman was Komomo's only friend, supposedly, and defended her from the attacks until one fateful day. The scene where Komomo is tortured is incredibly intense and painful to watch, even worse for me than anything from Audition or almost even Visitor Q. Unfortunately, the length and excess gore of the scene make it seem almost superfluous; the scene would have been more effective had we seen less, I believe. When the woman tells of her story, growing up with her abortionist mother and abusive father, the story becomes even more intense. There are plenty of fetuses deposited into the river, some of which are creepy, but others that are so fake looking to be silly. The movie borders on silliness in its climax; without explicitly ruining it for those who haven't seen it (although there's no real twist ending, the twist comes more in the middle of the film), the special effect that goes to work on the woman's head is incredibly silly, so much so that I couldn't take it seriously. The movie is so intense as to be ridiculous at times, something I'd seen Miike work with before (such as in the superb Ichi the Killer), but always with a sense of humor that makes the ridiculous real. There is no humor in this movie, not even in the final scene, which is creepy, but again, a bit too much. Before it sounds like I didn't like this movie, I must say that I do recommend it for fans of Miike or Masters of Horror, if only to see what was so controversial that Showtime refused to show it. It is pretty controversial, but almost for shock value at times. I can't really blame Miike for this, as he didn't write the script, but this is still a triumph for him if only because of how gorgeous and atmospheric it is. The prostitutes all have red hair and kimonos (except for the unnamed woman), and the scene where they are all sitting in the room together is heavenly in its use of color. The woman's blue hair is a radiant symbol throughout the film, and even during the silly parts, everything is so eerily beautiful. 6.5/10 RIYL: Audition

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Milestones!

Wet Streets has hit a pretty big milestone, the 1000 hit mark! Thanks to all of you readers, past, present, and future. I promise to keep writing as long as you keep reading. I've opened up comments (both here and at Oh Comely) to those without a blogger account - I didn't even know I had it set like that, apparently it's blogger's default. Oops. So everyone can comment away! Speaking of comments, I'd love for people to comment with film recommendations - if I haven't seen it, I'll put it in my queue, and if I have (and remember it well enough, that can be a problem), I'll post my thoughts on it. Comment away, please! I would love more feedback. Seriously, thanks for reading. I'll try to keep it up.

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Fanny & Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)

Touted by some as Bergman's best, and even the best European film of all time, I was excited to check out Fanny & Alexander. Although I do still like The Seventh Seal better, this movie had much more than I expected, namely, meditations on good and evil, magic and religion, and even an evil stepfather! Plus, there's a fart lighting scene, which I think is the only one in Criterion Collection history. But all silliness (and this movie certainly has its intentional silly moments) aside, the layers upon layers of reality and the portrayal of both the grim and joyous sides of life make this a must-see. The titular characters are children of Oscar and Emilie Ekdahl, the owners of a small Swedish theater, and the film begins at a Christmas celebration soon after the turn of the (20th) century at the Ekdahl matriarch's house. The first hour is about the family: the men's indiscretions, the wife's acceptance, the maids (especially Maj, Oscar's mistress and the children's nanny), and the secrets a family shares and hides. Soon, however, the peace is broken by Oscar's death. The scene of his death is one of the most touching scenes I can remember, both because of Oscar's pledge of eternal love to his wife and children and because of Alexander's raw, childlike fear of his father's death. After Oscar's death, Emilie remarries, and everything more or less goes wrong. The family goes to live with Emilie's new husband, the bishop who has had several wives already, one of which died with her children in suspicious circumstances (of which Alexander has vision, which he recalls nightmarishly and leads to even more nightmarish consequences from the bishop). He is truly an evil stepfather, someone who forces Emilie to leave her entire life behind, yet does not reveal his true self until it's too late. At this point, the film turns metaphysical and philosophical, and to give any more details would ruin the surprises. I was expecting a quiet tale about a family, as that's what Bergman does best, and instead I got this beautiful epic that incorporates evil with good and magic with God. Several scenes were simply stupendous, such as Alexander's punishment by the bishop. Bertil Guve, who plays the pre-adolescent Alexander, was at first a typical annoying boy, but then becomes a brave, sly boy who stands up for himself and his family, no matter what the cost. Younger Pernilla Allwin, who plays Fanny, is given little to do, but when she is in center stage, shines. My favorite performance of the film, however, belongs to Ewa Froling as Emilie, the Ekdahl mother who does anything to give her children a better life, no matter where it takes her. She is strong even when she cannot afford to be, and reminds me of the wonderful women in my life. The only problem I have with this film is the length. Although I only rented the three hour version (there is also a five hour television version), I felt it to be a bit long for me. This is the magic of Bergman, making these people's lives expansive and epic, but I have trouble paying attention for so long at times (blame the MTV generation, I guess). A wonderful film, but can be trying for those impatient, as I can be. If you are, give it a rent anyway, I promise, like me, you won't regret it at all. 8.5/10 RIYL: any of Bergman's other films, really!

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Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)

Safe is a hard film to talk about, because it's so glacially paced and internal. Carol White, played understatedly and wonderfully by Julianne Moore, is a typical 80s affluent housewife, with a southern California mansion, a rich husband, and no job. She fills her days with things like lunches with friends, aerobics, and picking out the absolute perfect couch for her home. She is disturbingly blank, with no real personality, just a desperate need to please everyone around her. Things go (even more) terribly wrong, though, when Carol starts getting sick, headaches, nausea, and panic attacks, with no apparent physical cause. Carol attends a seminar on "environmental illness" on a whim, becomes convinced that it's what is making her so sick, and eventually gets so bad that she needs to move out to a community of the environmentally ill in the New Mexican desert. Much of the social critique in Safe is too obvious for me to really appreciate. It's pretty obvious, for example, that Carol's vacuous life is probably the thing that's caused her illness; her psyche has started revolting against the utterly empty, material life she has been living, so much so that she has to move out of modern culture entirely and back to a more primitive, basic way of life. The interesting thing about Carol's illness, though, is that she gets worse as she goes to the treatment center, forcing her to eventually isolate herself completely (even as the prospect of a new, meaningful relationship reveals itself), in the brilliant, quiet final scene. If modern society is really what is making Carol sick, why does she get worse as she isolates herself more and more? Is it meaningful relationships that she craves? Obviously, self-love (as represented in the last scene) is the first step to any kind of real life, but at what cost? Safe is also intriguing in the context of disease movies (which Todd Haynes discusses in the DVD pamphlet), especially AIDS. AIDS, a new disease at the time, is mentioned several times in the movie in conjunction with EI. The guru of the community Carol moves to also has AIDS, and, coincidentally, seems to be exploiting Carol as badly as her husband has been. Both are new diseases, the products of modern culture, and ones that are misunderstood and stigmatized popularly. But I wonder again what Haynes, an openly gay man as well as early AIDS activist, is trying to say with these parallels. Okay, this was more of a musing post than a review, but Safe does that to you. It left me thinking for a while afterward, and probably still into the future. A must for those who don't mind incredibly slow films with little to no resolution (which I'm almost always frustrated with, myself). 8/10 RIYL: Short Cuts

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Manji (Yasuzo Masumura, 1964)

What starts out as a Japanese exploitation film about two women falling in love turns into a very interesting, almost Hitchcockian psychological thriller about obsessive love. Sonoko and Mitsuko meet at an art class and fall in love, despite and because of the ostracization they feel from the others at the school. The close friendship that these women immediately develop turns into an obsessive love, as Sonoko starts ignoring her husband in favor of her "sister," who slowly (but very surely) turns against her and makes her into a slave for love. The film begins with Sonoko subconsciously painting a picture in her art class of the Goddess of Mercy with Mitsuko's face on it; this foreshadows the power Mitsuko has over Sonoko for the rest of the film. Mitsuko is like a goddess to those who love her, and, in the film's climactic scene, she literally becomes a goddess. Mitsuko is a prototypical femme fatale, a manipulating schemer who gets people to do whatever she wants them to. Throughout the film, she is in complete control of Sonoko, and eventually Sonoko's husband, and although she appears to be in an abusive relationship herself, I got the feeling she could have turned the tables to her advantage any time she wanted. This constant manipulation comes to a head in the last thirty minutes of the film; the cinematography of the perfectly choreographed sleeping powder scenes is truly beautiful. The colors seem more bright, even though these people's lives have been ruined. The frame story (Sonoko speaking to a psychologist, I think) lets us know that Sonoko survives the story, but that doesn't make it any less tense. And the final scene, where Sonoko voices the doubts that saved her life yet will haunt her for the rest of her life, is truly heartbreaking. This movie is definitely worth seeing as a great example of the Japanese New Wave, and the second, psychological half really makes up for the borderline exploitative first half (not that I have anything against exploitation flicks, at all). A truly adult film, in all ways imaginable. 7/10 RIYL: Heavenly Creatures (another great film about obsessive female friendship)

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