ilpositionokb Reviews

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

An incisive satire on social mores and class hypocracy

[9/10 · 11 May 2004]

"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", a leisurely paced, incisive satire on social mores and class hypocrisy, opens with a group of friends arriving on the wrong day of a dinner engagement. this is only the begining of a succession of unexpected and unusual events to follow. The dinner party is the movie's main setting and it is there that reality and illusion often times blend imperceptibly together. The film is structured as a series of surreal sequences, which prompted esteemed film critic Pauline Kael to opine 'His(Director Louis Bunuel) indifference to dramatic logic is complete.' And how. Bunuel's narrative plays an elaborate game with the viewer through it's subconscious imagery and audacious use of time. His tendency to experiment with technique and form often times led to discovery and innovation. The cinema of Louis Bunuel invariably deals with the discrepancy between appearance and reality; decorum and desire. His world view was subversive and anarchistic. He was a cheerful pessimist, skeptical but not susceptible to Bergmanian despair. His skepticism extended to all of those he found playing too neat a social game. The filmmaker's career was one sustained assault on authoritarianism. Witness an indiscreet character in the film who claims: 'No one system can help the masses acquire refinement.' He believed man was, unconsciously, a slave to custom and aimed to shock viewers out of their unthinking acceptance of established values. "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"(An Academy Award winner in 1972 for Best Foreign Film) is a boldly inventive picture. Dozens of frames are filled with clever filmic devices: environmental noises increase inordinately during routine conversations; an ambiguous procession is inserted freely within the text. These cinematic ploys add intrigue to the already peculiar goings-on. The walk by the main group of characters along a country roadside is mysterious and compelling. The players are noticeably silent and contemplative. Is this an anxious dream? The afterlife? An insignificant flashback? Whichever, the recurring sequence underscores the obliqueness and cool obscurity of the film. One might not identify closely with the disenchanted Bunuelian sensibility or the unsentimental stance he takes, however one knows immediately and unmistakably that they are in the gifted hands of a film technician like a Godard or Kurosawa. A director in complete control of his medium. A highly personal filmmaker frequently referred as 'a poet of hallucination who follows the caprices of his fantastical imagination.' Someone whose fanciful paths of creation were invariably led by the irrational. "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", with it's arresting mixture of calculation and carelessness, remains a unique and influential movie. The acerbic films of Robert Altman and the perverse mischievousness of the Coen brothers films, to mention but a few, pay a large debt to the strange universe and unconventional perspective of Louis Bunuel. Film lovers uninitiated in surrealist cinema will find "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" an alluring and beguiling crash course.

Amarcord (1973)

Elaborate Nostalgia Piece

[10/10 · 22 April 2004]

Federico Fellini's "Amarcord" is perhaps the flamboyant directors most entertaining and autobiographical film. His personal recollections on growing up in 1930's pre-war Italy under control of Fascism and the Church, are recorded with lively, colorful images. Fellini stylishly evokes his unique vision of provincial Rimini(Where he was born)through an adolescent viewpoint. The youthful irreverence, casual vulgarity. and tawdry exuberance of the characters flow unrestrained throughout the narrative. Fellini vividly recreates a carnival-like atmosphere filled with incident and observation. He excelled at constructing private worlds; distinct and spirited in their sense of community and place. In "Amarcord" childhood perceptions and improbable encounters are summoned via symbols, dreams, and illusions. Similar to Pirandello, the nature of truth becomes suspect. Fellini does little to dispel this notion. He once stated that 'nothing stifles the imagination more than a good memory'. Fabrication with Fellini often times blends imperceptibly with reality. "Amarcord"(The title translates as "I Remember") is structured in a series of loosely connected tales. Detailed vignettes of public school shenanigans; curious instruction; and the hyper-critical approach of the church. Cinematographer Guiseppe Rotuno favors shooting with a short lense to exaggerate the perspective. He frequently films the sizable features of the actors in extreme close-up contributing to the film's overstated visuals. Fellini was notorious for his preference of using actors with strange and unusual faces. He favored grotesqueness over craft for the most part. (The majority of the cast were selected from amateur groups all over Northern Italy. "Amarcord" is filled with memorable and eccentric characters including a blind accordianist; a foul-mouthed midget nun; a buxom tobacco store owner with a penchant for young men; a lascivious and gaseous grandfather; Volpina the town nymph; Theo the sexually-repressed, mad uncle; and an ever present dim-witted street vendor. Erratic personalities who consistently insist on indulging their illusions. The film uses an on-screen narrator who comments directly into the camera about Rimini's storied past. The pedantic commentator's articulate and austere tone is comically undercut by some off-screen antics.(Ill-timed, loud raspberries; well-tossed snowballs; general heckling, etc.) In the course of the film, an array of odd processions confront the spectator from every conceivable angle. Several of Fellini's films share this infinite movement of characters. Much of the scenario is taken up by the presentation of these large groups of comic figures as they interact around town. "Amarcord", Fellini's last commercial success, is an elaborate nostalgia piece populated with exotic individuals. Endearing misfits who seem to fit perfectly in the director's unconventional universe. One may not know where Fellini is heading half the time, but that's part of his lasting appeal. And in "Amarcord, make no mistake, Fellini is ALL over the place. KB

And Your Mother Too (2001)

"Youthful Impertinence and Carnal Obsessiveness"

[9/10 · 21 April 2004]

"y Tu Mama Tambien", the provocative film from Mexico, opens with a graphic scene of wild adolescent lust and never lets up. Filmmaker Alfonso Curon(He co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Carlos) directs with a vigorous intensity and an unsparing artistic vision. He immerses his frames with lurid conversations and sexually explicit attachments. The scenario opens with Tenuch(Diego Luna) a wealthy teenager and his less well-off pal Julio(Gael Garcia Bernal of "Amores Perros") flirting brazenly with the seemingly demure Luisa ("Belle Epoque's Maribel Verdu) at an elaborate party held on the enormous grounds of Tenuch's father. The fact that the attractive, more mature woman is married to Tenuch's older cousin, does little to discourage the youths' hormonal inquiries. The two buddies, fueled with inebriated courage, extend an invitation for Luisa to join them on a trip to an invented beach paradise they instantly name "Heaven's Mouth". Part of their steadfast playfulness with the woman is supported , no doubt, by the likely prospect of being entirely dismissed. Eventually the three do hit the open road together and immediately share an uncommon ease with one another. The forthright, spontaneous talk flows ceaselessly between them.(Possible spoiler) When Luisa seduces Tenuch at a roadside motel, the young man's false bravado quickly dissipates. He responds indecisively to the older woman's sensual commands. Is Luisa introducing the boy to the adult pleasures of sex or attempting to induce her own liberation? Luisa's awakened sensuality mixes mysteriously and enticingly with a deep-rooted, perceptible sadness. (Possible spoiler) Julio witnesses their heated session and mean-spiritedly discloses to his life-long friend that he slept with his girlfriend. This shift in the psycho-sexual dynamics of the 'triangle' and the consequences that occur, recalls Truffaut's "Jules and Jim". One may also cite the mercurial films of Federico Fellini and Pedro Almodovar as cinematic reference points. "Y Tu Mama Tambien" shares the youthful impertinence and carnal obsessiveness of Fellini's cinema and the sex-saturated humor and unblinking openness of Almodovar's work. Curon uses an omniscient narrator who provides backstory, context, philosophical observations and future revelations in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. We're tipped off to the insightful information and commentary whenever the soundtrack eases into a forewarning silence. Curon closely examines themes of freedom, class, loyalty, and the nature of truth. What makes "Y tu Mama Tambien" such a distinctive film is that it's much more than a coming-of-age comic road movie. It's also a fascinating exploration of sexual awakening and a bittersweet tale of lust, loss, and irretrievable innocence. As the film nears it's conclusion, the boys' leering machismo and carefree outlook, contrast tellingly with Luisa's more knowing desires. She's lived long enough to acknowledge the precarious nature of life and she senses that the boys' pervasive spirit and uninhibited ways will eventually fade with time. "Y Tu Mama Tambien" is an exuberant and adventurous work of 'pure cinema', reminiscent of the ambitious, sexually-candid, highly personal art films of 1960's European cinema. We can only hope for more unflinching and challenging films from Alfonso Curon and his contemporaries. The film industry needs it. KB

Antonia's Line (1995)

"A film which Celebrates the Infinite Possibility of Life"

[10/10 · 20 April 2004]

"Antonia's Line", winner of an Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture, explores themes of time, place, and memory with a light touch and an abundance of warmth. It's tender treatment of family and community registers affectionately in the viewer's hearts. The film opens in medium close-up of an elderly woman(Antonia) accepting her dying fate with dignity and quiet resignation, and then dissolves fluidly into a flashback of Antonia and her free-spirited daughter Daniele returning to the rural town of their ancestry. The picturesque village fondly recalls the odd townsquare of Federico Fellini's "Amarcord", complete with it's eccentric inhabitants. The villa boasts a howling woman named Madona: an overzealous priest(Who leaves the church because 'he can't reconcile his enjoyment of life with the churches' enjoyment of death'); a cynical intellectual named "Crooked Finger" who steadfastly quotes from Shopenaur; and a dim-witted young man with the unbecoming sobriquet "Looney Lips" to name just a few. "Antonia's Line", written and directed by Marleen Gorris("Mrs. Dalloway") celebrates the infinite possibility of life. The film, withstanding it's take on the afterlife("This is the only dance we dance") luxuriates in it's glowing affirmation of the present and the past. The main setting is the outdoors dinner table, where family and extended family measure their vision of life with laughter and temperance. Gorris views humanity as 'an intersection of perspectives', and some of the movie's best moments come from these subtle exchanges during dinner. "Antonia's Line" is filled with clever, fantastical imaginings, (Possible spoiler) from the loquacious grandmother rising abruptly in her coffin, to a well-aimed wing extending from an angelic statue. Throughout the film one sees more fanciful evidence and privately senses the director's fascination with the subversive filmmaking style of Louis Bunuel and his surreal mischievousness. (Possibile spoiler) Similar elements of fantasy pervade the film's final frames where the decease venture back and witness Antonia dancing joyously with her partner;a scene reminiscent of the finale in Fellini's "8 "1/2". Gorris then cuts seamlessly to the present(Antonia-aged greatly- dancing the same dance) where the film began. "Antonia's Line" ends in great insight with the lines: 'As this long tale comes to it's conclusion, nothing has come to an end. Something always remains,.........so life begins, without knowing where it came from or why it exists, because it wants to live'. The film's immodest achievements mark this as a major work from an ambitious and intriguing filmmaker. Kurt

Smoke Signals (1998)

A Caring and Poignant Look into Life on a Reservation.

[9/10 · 17 April 2004]

"Smoke Signals", the first film written, directed and starring American Indians, delineates the contemporary Native American experience with a soulful wit and an incisive attitude. It's setting is the Coeur d' Alene Indian Reservation in Idaho where the K.R.E.Z. disc jockey(Broadcasting live from his trailer) proclaims the morning 'a great day to be indigenous'. The film's focal character, Victor(Adam Beach) is a closed-off youth with indiscernible ambition. He languishes around the expansive grounds dwelling over the absence of his father and a perceived lack of opportunity. "Smoke Signals" details the strange dynamics of Victor's friendship with childhood pal Thomas Builds-a-Fire(Evan Adams) who frequently regales the locals with his practiced storytelling skills. Victor is stoic and athletic, with an affected warrior look. Thomas is unnervingly talkative with a smiling naivete and a decidedly bookish appearance.(Thomas also serves as the film's narrator) Novelist Sherman Alexie wrote the script. It is based on stories from his book "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven". He uses a casually irreverent humor to help tell his tale of personal and national identity. In a brief scene with his mother, Victor kids- 'What do you want a contract? You know how Indians feel about signing paper'. And later Thomas recounts how Victor's dad almost spent time for protesting the vietnam war only to have the charge plea-bargained to 'being an Indian in the twentieth century.' The movie's interesting cultural details(Fry bread, the significance of long hair, etc.) and salient dialogue accentuate it's themes of truth, self-acceptance, and the capacity to forgive. The cinematic structure is equally impressive. Director Chris Eyre employs several unsuspecting flashbacks to reveal the film's central secret. Victor and Thomas's present journey for answers alternates seamlessly with the lyrical recollections of the past. (Possible spoiler) In the end, the determined Thomas helps his friend come to terms with his father, his ancestry, and his exclusive place in life. The understanding Victor gains enables him to liberate the persistent bitterness and disappointment from his world. "Smoke Signals" deserves a look for those who missed it's theatrical run. It presents viewers with a caring and poignant glimpse into life on a reservation and the unique perspective of today's Native Americans. Kurt

The Collector (1967)

Charm and Guile between the Sexes

[9/10 · 17 April 2004]

"La Collectionneuse", the third film in Eric Rohmer's six moral tales, is packed with lacerating observations on life, love, and the nature of man. It is a sensitive conversation piece with elegant people commenting poetically on their lives and of those around them. Attractive men and women who reflect openly about the conflicts of intellect and impulse; inclination and action, solitude and companionship. Rohmer characteristically paces this eloquent tale of sexual temptation with long, fluid takes. "La Collectionneuse(Collector Girl) centers around a young, hedonistic girl(Haydee) who saunters laconically around the provincial environs of a large vacation home, seemingly indifferent to the two older men's(Adrian and Danele) existence. Haydee exudes a casual independence and an unflappable reserve. Her cursory dealings with her young lovers prompts Danele to cast her as 'the atrocious ingenue'. Though they find her unexpectedly alluring, both men regard 'the idea of collecting boyfriends opposite of purity'. Rohmer, the director of "Chloe in the Afternoon" and "A Tale of Springtime", enjoys revealing which individual can best cast their charm and guile to their best advantage. This 'game' between the sexes only leads to unwanted desires for the men and a resumption of her search by Haydee. Rohmer handles the material with a light touch throughout and concludes his story by offering a tenuous solution to the prevailing tension in the movie between one's solitude and fraternity. Adrian privately confesses that 'I was overwhelmed by a feeling of delightful independence, of total self-determination. But in the emptiness and silence of the house, I was overcome with anguish'. A universal truth clearly-rendered by one of cinema's most ingenious and graceful filmmakers.

Ashes and Diamonds (1958)

An Explosive Evocation of Post-War Chaos

[9/10 · 17 April 2004]

"Ashes and Diamonds", the final segment of Andrzej Wajda's celebrated war trilogy("A Generation" and "Kanal" preceded it) explores the effects of world war II on Poland's disillusioned youth. Wajda's unglorified vision of warfare and it's bitter aftermath, is informed with moral and historical ambiguity, leaving the viewer with several independent decisions to make.

After a first viewing, "Ashes and Diamonds" is a story of violence and love, skillfully-plotted and compulsively told; a typical suspense thriller with it's perilous assignments and stylish black and white cinematography suggesting noir. On another level, the film contains elements of high tragedy.

"Ashes and Diamonds"(The title is taken from a poem by Norwid) posits that the wrong done to a generation of youngsters, who died in a suspect cause, was deplorable. Wajda's frames are filled with bold and exciting images that infuse his work with an an admirable visual intensity. The filmmaker's penchant for hyperbole and symbolism; for the ornate and the spectacular, led to a persistent charge of 'baroquenesss'. It is my observation however, that the consistant visuals and atmospheric richness of his cinema, blend congrously with his thematic concerns. "Ashes and Diamonds" is an explosive evocation of post-war chaos. In it's compassionate attitude towards the individual, the community, and the nation; with it's committment to historical and social relevance, and in it's eloquent approach to human destiny, "Ashes and Diamonds" remains one of the most significant and provocative films ever to come out of Eastern Europe. Kurt Note: The plot of this review was willfully excised so as not to get anywhere near a 'spoiler' tag.