Suspicious River (Lynne Stopkewich, 2000)

The last time director Lynne Stopkewich and star Molly Parker collaborated, it was the 1996 film Kissed, which I had decidedly mixed feelings about. While I liked that it was an exploration of alternative female sexuality, I didn't like much else about it. Suspicious River is a decided improvement over that film. It's as if the protagonist of Kissed grew up, stopped having sex with corpses, but stayed in the same depressing town and somehow ended up in a depressing marriage. Parker plays Leila, motel clerk in Suspicious River who has a boring, repetitive life. While she seems like a smart, bright woman, she moves aimlessly from unskilled job to unskilled job. She stands behind the desk at this small, deserted motel, doing nothing all day, then goes home to her neglectful, anorexic husband who is no longer interested in sex. All that changes until one day when a motel customer comes onto her, and she goes to his room. Not only does she give him oral sex, she demands money for it. He tells some of his friends, and soon, Leila has more or less a second job. There's one scene in particular where Leila walks out of a motel room and it suddenly hits her that she's a prostitute. But no moral judgements are made on her -- Leila does it because she's sexually unfulfilled, bored, and self-destructive. That's just what it is. But one man sticks out among others, and she begins a Belle de Jour-esque affair with one of her clients. But this is a movie that is better the less you know (thanks, Netflix, for one of the most revealing plot descriptions ever), but things don't go well. Both Stopkewich and Parker matured greatly in the 4 years between their two collaborations, and it shows. The direction is often achingly beautiful, and Parker really gives a tour de force performance. Why this film isn't more revered in independent circles, not to mention as a fine piece of feminist filmmaking, is beyond me. By the way, does anyone know why Lynne Stopkewich apparently isn't directing features anymore? It's sad to lose a distinctively talented female directing voice. This film is certainly recommended, even despite the ending that's not up to the level of the rest of the movie. 8/10

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Uzumaki (Higuchinsky, 2000)

If Hyenas was one of the most bitter films I've ever seen, Uzumaki is one of the strangest. This movie is a perfect representation of the left-field wave of J-horror, films that don't make sense and don't mean to. The town in the film is beset by a plague of, well, spirals (uzumaki is Japanese for spiral). People become obsessed with spirals, starting innocuously with snails and pottery, but soon, this obsession becomes overwhelming and gross things start happening. In this middle of all this is stupid, stupid Kirie and her way smarter life-long friend/boyfriend Shiuchi, whose father is the first victim. Suicide by putting yourself into what appears to be a dryer? Awesome. The acting is perfect for the movie, meaning that everyone in the film doesn't seem to be particularly worried about this plague until it's way too late, and no one seems concerned or confused as to where the plague is actually coming from. In fact, the cause of the uzumaki is never revealed in the film, but apparently is in the manga on which the film is based, and that I really want to pick up now. American audiences almost always call this "bad" acting, but it's what the film, and, in some ways, the genre, calls for. I think it fit perfectly. Acting aside, the images in this film are ridiculous. Spiral everywhere: people turned into spirals, hair spirals, everything you can think of. The film retained the green tint of the manga, giving it a dark, other-worldly feel. Even though the premise might seem silly, there are definitely a lot of intense moments in the film; I'm not someone who gets scared by movies at all, but this was one I had to shut off right before I went to bed because it got too intense. Some images are ones that I will never forget. One of the strangest, most visually extreme films I've ever seen, and a must-see for those who love bizarre fare. 8/10

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Scarlet Diva (Asia Argento, 2000)

I have a ridiculous girl-crush on Asia Argento, so it's always hard for me to be honest about what I feel about her films, but here goes. Scarlet Diva is Argento's directorial debut, a transparently autobiographical film about Anna Battista, a popular Italian actress who actually wants to direct, gets pregnant, and experiments a lot with sex and drugs. Asia Argento, a popular Italian actress who wanted to direct, got pregnant, and experimented a lot with sex and drugs, wrote and directed the film on digital video, giving it a voyeuristic and home-movie feel. While the dialogue and scenarios are at times incredibly stilted and awkward, Argento really gives all of herself to this movie, something that is to be admired and rewarded, I think. Most of the power of this film lies in Argento herself, who is a pleasure to watch (visually), and also is almost magnetic with the intensity with which she devotes herself onscreen. It's almost as if we are watching a documentary on Argento's lost years, and it's a fascinating one. The reason I can most recommend this film on is because Argento is a female experimental artist, and I respect and seek that out. She's more mainstream, obviously, than experimental artists in the art field, but in film, it's to be admired. Scarlet Diva is a radical (feminist!) document on female sexuality, vulnerability, culpability, love, and, most of all, artistic power. Battista (as Argento herself) is treated as a sex object by every man she knows, when all she wants to be is an artist. It's almost painful to watch Anna almost get raped several times, when all she wants is to discuss the film she wants to direct. Are being a sexual female and an artist incompatible? That's one of the questions Argento wrestles with in the film, and in her life. (The more I write about the plot, the more painfully obvious that there's nothing fictional about it!) But for Argento fans like myself, or someone interested in a particularly sexually charged, radical feminist interpretation of postmodern life, I definitely recommend it. It's not (visually) bad for a first-time director, not at all. 7/10

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Short ones

I've seen a few movies lately that I don't really want to devote a whole post to, but thought I should say something about. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai, 2000): I'm not as big of a Kar Wai fan as most people I know are; the only film of his so far that I have really liked has been Fallen Angels, which is in a style unlike his most famous films. In the Mood for Love, along with Days of Being Wild (which I haven't seen) and 2046 (which I have, and was disappointed in) makes up a trilogy of lost love. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, both of whom I rather like, play neighbors whose respective spouses are cheating together, and so they form a bond based on that infidelity. The film is very visual, with minimal dialogue, and while it's beautiful, it didn't catch me in the place I thought it would. In fact, I fell asleep halfway through. Oops. I woke up and continued, but I didn't love it. 6/10 The Woods (Lucky McKee, 2006): I liked May, I liked McKee's episdoe of Masters of Horror, and I liked this. A suspenseful and intriguing first half gave way to a silly and disappointing second half, but Patricia Clarkson's performance alone is worth a rent. 6/10

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Common Wealth (Alex de la Iglesia, 2000)

Alex de la Iglesia is one of the directors whose entire body of work I'm attempting to see via Netflix. Being sick and having no Netflix at home, I decided to go out and rent Common Wealth, which is my fourth de la Iglesia film (after Accion Mutante, El Crimen Ferpecto, and Dance With the Devil). While it's no Crimen Ferpecto, it is a classic de la Iglesia, full of gore and suspense and comedy, often at the same time. The plot is pretty common; Julia (Carmen Maura, one of my favorite Spanish actresses) is a real estate agent who finds 300 million pesetas in a dead man's apartment. The other tenants figure out she has the money, and terror and hilarity both ensue. The line between ridiculousness and real, horror film-style terror is often very blurred, as Julia is literally trapped in the building by the other tenants. The film's climax is the perfect example of this melding of genres, as (without giving anything away!) there is a chase scene that is both scary and slapstick-funny at the same time. de la Iglesia is one of the masters of black comedy, and of making the grotesque hilarious (something that is even more pronounced in Dance With the Devil). Carmen Maura is near-perfect as a real estate agent who takes and won't let go of what she should never have gotten. She's smart, sexy, and I really wanted her to prevail, no matter what bad things she does along the way. An Almodovar staple, it was refreshing to see Maura do something more extreme in every way. I definitely recommend Common Wealth (aka La Comunidad) to anyone who enjoys laughing at what they shouldn't. It would also be perfect for an introduction into the twisted, hilarious world of Alex de la Iglesia. 8/10

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