ms-52486 Reviews

To Stay Alive: A Method (2016)

The insane are usually themselves. That is why they are locked away.

[7/10 · 8 December 2019]

This film/documentary puts the focus on a group of people that would usually be described as losers, crazies or weirdos.

The concept is based on an essay of Michel Houellebecq, in which he seems to encourage this said group of people - by declaring human suffering as the source of all poetic expression.

Iggy Pop takes a very prominent spot, maybe a bit too prominent. I would have liked to hear more from Houellebecq himself.

The other protagonists - Anne Claire Bourdin, Jérôme Tessier and Robert Combas - are all struggling with their mental issues to a greater or lesser degree - while trying to express themselves artistically.

La Belle Noiseuse (1991)

Open up a good bottle while watching it

[9/10 · 21 June 2017]

I claim that some films need to be watched while slowly getting drunk - like Jarmusch's Dead Man, or Rivette's 4 hour version of La Belle Noiseuse.

This film is not afraid of art, which makes it stand out over most other films that have a similar subject. The filmmaker immerses himself into the process much like Frenhofer does. He is not scared to show the actual creating of a sketch, or the finding of a pose for the model.

Rivette also captures the very particular lifestyle of Southern France, something that I feel is a bit endangered in today's economy dominated European Union.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Dull Wars

[4/10 · 21 March 2017]

Some films can make you feel interested in the main characters within minutes. Rogue One to me is just another of those overly long movies that fails to create any form of empathy with anyone, even at more than 120 minutes. If a filmmaker doesn't care about the characters he is creating, then how could I as a viewer.

The beginning was promising, with Mads Mikkelsen and Ben Mendelsohn having an interesting showdown in a wide poetic landscape. But the longer the film went on, the more I felt that there must be a book titled "How to make a Star Wars film", and some studio executives got their hands on it. That said, the film is very well produced and superficially looks like a Star Wars epic in every way. But the bland acting (Diego Luna especially) and the constructed story line put me in a rather dull mood. Ben Mendelsohn's Krennic was one of the few interesting appearances. There were some good attempts in showing the moral ambiguity of the rebellion, which had some potential to suck me into the story. Unfortunately the fight scenes in the holy city made the Storm Troopers look pretty silly, almost comedic, and took away any sense of menace.

I do think there is an interesting dramatic story at the heart of it, but somehow after decades of film making, Disney seems to have forgotten how to build a gripping tension. When certain decisive moments in the film occurred, like the arrival of the rebel fleet, I just didn't care.

For me, this is a product leeching off the sentimental memories people have towards the original films, me included. I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone above the age of 11, and I surely won't watch it again.

Finally, I found Leia's CGI face pretty horrible, but the film had already lost me at that point, so I wasn't as shocked as I should have been.

Jason Bourne (I) (2016)

Credibility was eliminated after 10 minutes

[3/10 · 3 September 2016]

We see the Greek-Albanian border, where all the illegal immigrants are gathering to cross into Europe. A group of people step out of a car – those must be government officials or NGO workers, right? Wrong. One of them takes his shirt off and beats the crap out of a bodybuilder. What on earth is going on in these refugee camps? Since I used to get involved into fist fights myself, I wasn't impressed by this wannabe macho bullshit. Next, we see a darkened room and a chick that is connecting her laptop to some kind of network. In the background we hear German voices, but they are actually translated for us via subtitles, probably to point out their relevance: „Use SQL to infiltrate their databases". Nice, so the scriptwriters had access to Wikipedia - couldn't they have made the minimal effort and shown a computer screen with some actual lines of code, like they did in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo? Just to show that they cared about details.

In the same scene, which seems to be derived and edited together from various other movies, said girl hacks into the CIA central database, or something. There is the obnoxious download status bar, as seen a million times before. Connection gets cut from the almighty CIA server, girl needs to run. Then, we see an agency dude hanging on the phone with his boss, played by Tommy Lee Jones: „We have been hacked." We know, idiot! The movie has just shown the entire process to us in the previous scene! Afterwards, some cute CIA agent does overtime on her goofy operating system. After a few mouse clicks, she knows who the hacker in Iceland was. And best of all – she get's a big, fat, red indicator telling her that this female is „CONNECTED TO JASON BOURNE"! I just wanted to be entertained for two hours, is that really so difficult to achieve? After only 10 minutes, I felt the movie had insulted me in about every shot, either with it's fakeness, or it's laziness, or both. Thumbs down.

L'autre monde (2001)

Yasmine and the war

[9/10 · 3 September 2016]

The civil war in Algeria lasted for roughly ten years, and this movie was made during the end of the conflict, but before the violence of Islamist splinter groups had entirely ceased. It was almost completely ignored in cinemas and a copy on DVD is nowadays very hard to find. I had to subscribe to a french VOD service where they offered a low quality version of the film and that was only accessible with a VPN subscription. Why did I go through all this hassle just to watch a movie? I had seen L'autre monde in 2002 on a French/German TV channel. I remember the impact it had on the way I look at the more recent history of Northern Africa. It put Algeria on the map for me. It was due to this film that I went to Algeria myself in 2010.

The plot follows a young Algerian-French woman, who's fiancé went missing somewhere north of the Sahara. Yasmine, played by Marie Brahimi, looks like a darker, more strong-willed version of Jean Seberg. Her fragile appearance and delicate features contrast with her death defying determination, which comes from an almost obsessive love.

The film depicts a time after the conflict had reached it's gruesome climax. Things have quieted down in Algiers, the country's capital, at the time when Yasmine arrives in search for her lover. Overly cautious, she has clad herself in a black chador that covers everything but her face, much to the surprise of her uncle and cousin.

In Algiers, she connects with a middle aged police officer, who tries to dissuade her from her dangerous quest. Seeing her determination, he gives her a lead about the site where Rachid went missing when his army unit was ambushed by Islamists.

Yasmin decides to travel to this location in order to find any hint of his whereabouts. On the way, her taxi is assaulted by a group of radicals and all passengers executed – except her, mainly through the intervention of one of the attackers. Taken to the rebels hideout as a prize for their leader, she manages to escape during a raid of government forces, again with the help of the same young fighter. They both hide and Yasmine eventually makes her way back to Algiers, where she takes refuge at the family home of the police officer. He discloses the address of the family of the second soldier that went missing together with her fiancé during the ambuscade. Hakim, the young fighter who has left his extremist brothers, follows in her footsteps to protect her, as he says.

After meeting the unsympathetic family of her fiances companion in some remote desert town, she get's a hint of the hideout of the two deserters. Arriving at the place, she sees nothing but a couple of desolate ruins in the middle of the Sahara desert. A hidden brothel, as it turns out. At this point, about two thirds into the total running time, the movie changes pace and while it had been some sort of road movie thus far, it now becomes a desert utopia, if there is such a thing.

A most disparate group of people hide in those brothel ruins: a french Madam and her employees, a truck driver who Yasmine has met on several occasions during her trip, and finally Rachid and his insane comrade, who's psyche has snapped as a result of the horrors he had to witness. All these people including Yasmine have a thing in common though: they are survivors, free from ideology and political corruption. In their improbable refuge they have, against all odds, created a world that is almost humane, if it wasn't for the girls who had to sell themselves to passing motorists on a regular basis. Yasmine eventually finds out about the events and the journey of her lover Hakim and why he decided to support his benighted comrade. His own anguish finds some relief in Yasmines sensual affection, which she had to camouflage during the entire search. One afternoon, she loses her diary while running down a sand dune, and it is picked up by Hakim the young fighter, who has been lurking behind some rocks, observing everything that goes on in the brothel and it's premises.

In the night, being some Algerian festive day, with champagne and homemade cake, everybody finds love and some warmth; the blind madam, the insane companion and the traumatized Rachid. Healing and regeneration of the human spirit seems possible. The film lingers on the sensuality of it's protagonists as if it knew that it will have to end all too soon. And inevitably, Hakim makes his way into the compound, only to find Yasmine in the arms of her lover. Knowing nothing but violence, and with fragments of ideological indoctrination still lingering in his brain, he commits a massacre against the unsuspecting people. All is lost, all is destroyed in an act of pure senselessness. As the film ends, we see Yasmine again, her chador fluttering in the wind as she drives through the desert, accompanied by music from Algerian singer-songwriter Amazigh. The lyrics transport a feeling of resilient hope and seem to embrace everything that is wrong and at the same time hopeful in this divided country.

L'autre monde was probably ignored because it's desolate depiction of Algeria was going against the general prospect of peace in 2001. Secondly, it revealed the double moral standards that exist in many Islamic countries concerning religion and sexuality: it showed prostitution and illegitimate love in Islam.

The only critique that I would have myself regarding this film is the weak sub plot of the Islamist rebel fighters. I can only hope that, as time goes by and political opinions have settled, this film will find the audience it deserves. It is the best work by Merzak Allouache, and one of the best films to ever reach us from a North African country.

The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015)

Join the esbat

[7/10 · 22 August 2016]

It was not until I had finished this movie that I remembered the tiny village of Las Paules in the Spanish Pyrenees where I had lived a few years ago. There, in the year 1593, twenty eight women were accused of and hung for witchcraft, almost exactly a hundred years before the infamous Salem Witch Trials. I would have judged The Witch to be a solid, rather unusual and very slow horror flick, but because of this „personal" connection to the theme of the film I decided to spent some more time thinking about it in greater detail.

First of all, I think The Witch is a very well produced movie. According to IMDb, director Robert Eggers most often works as a Production Designer and a Costume Designer, and it shows in the dedication to detail. Here and there, that attention to apparel was almost a bit overdone, which would have turned the movie into a hipster thing, but ultimately, it was well balanced and congruent to the story. Everything has a strong feeling of craftsmanship. The acting is down to earth, accents are thick, the sets look as if a group of Amish had just finished them. In my book, this evokes a pretty neat impression of seventeenth century New England. Which helps in diving into the story.

A father of four is banished from a puritan plantation because of quarrels with the local church. He decides to take his family into the wilderness that lies beyond the high palisades of the plantation village, to find a place where they can live according to their own set of beliefs. Unfortunately, everything goes haywire.

Eggers decides to give us one of the most gruesome moments of the film – the kidnapping, murder and „processing" of the youngest child – right in the beginning. Then he cuts back to the everyday life of the family on their secluded parcel. This is odd, but interesting. What will be problematic for some is that from this point on, the movie has the pace of a slow art house film. Not much scary stuff is happening. The treeline next to the family's home and the dense forest are used in a very effective visual manner to create an atmosphere of general creepiness. Other than that, the only scary attempts come from some off screen rustling of leaves and branches, which seems to indicate that the family is stalked by something. This is repeated several times and felt like a rather cheap scare to me.

There are hints at some sexual tensions between the family members, with some of them entering puberty or adulthood. Those surging feelings are obviously conflicting with the puritan mindset of the head of the family. Issues of poverty and morale are introduced, as the father needs to sell his wife's heirloom for some corn. As he doesn't disclose his actions even when the wife suspects their daughter of theft, questions of honesty and loyalty are thrown in. Tensions rise from scene to scene. At this point, the movie seems more like a study of the problems and constraints that puritan settlers were facing while trying to domesticate the wilderness around them.

When Caleb, the oldest son, get's lost in the woods and stumbles on the doorstep of the very witch that kidnapped his baby brother, things start to completely disintegrate for the family. While accusing each other of making deals with Satan, William the father makes some desperate yet destitute attempts to restore order and keep his remaining family alive. He ultimately fails due to the fact that he is facing Satan himself, who has been infiltrating their lives in the form of a black goat.

As the dust settles, the only person alive is Thomasin, the eldest daughter. In a unfathomable moment, she decides to give herself to Satan and to join the wild esbat in the depths of the forest. This depiction of witchcraft as something evil will probably not make this film very popular amongst certain women's groups, since the perception of what a witch is or was has dramatically changed in the last century. Robert Eggers obviously did not try to be politically correct, instead he created a visual representation of the superstitions and nightmares of our ancestors, and with this, he succeeded.

I Hired a Contract Killer (1990)

Last of the buffaloes

[8/10 · 19 August 2016]

The premise of this film is funny and odd: an employee of a British company loses his job, and because there is nothing to life for, he decides to end it right there. But all the attempts on his own life fail. Still determined, he decides to hire a contract killer - and have himself murdered.

While waiting for the executioner in his apartment, he grows bored and decides to visit a bar across the street. There he indulges himself, for the first time, in hard liquor and cigarettes. As if this wouldn't be upsetting enough to his short remaining life span, he meets a flower girl with blood-red lips. Resolutely, he demands that she sits next to him, and inevitably falls in love. All over sudden, life isn't so despicable anymore - what to do? The contract killer is still on his heels...

Kaurismäki takes this story as an occasion to revive his cinematic universe: people standing at a bar and slowly lifting a glass of beer, others sitting in front of worn-out wallpapers while smoking a cigarette. The camera lingers as if those quiet moments were a subtle study of humans on the fringes of society. They are connected through the central theme of the film, but the main focus lies on Henri Boulanger, the former employee. Stoically and with a deadpan face, he undergoes the metamorphosis of his existence, subtly expressing his newfound hunger for life. Standing in a bar and listening to an unknown guitarist (Joe Strummer), he lifts his drink and takes a long gulp. From all we know, this is the equivalent of a spontaneous expression of joy in Finland. You are required to observe and listen quite carefully, but if you do, this very refrained way of celebrating the small pleasures of everyday life is not less powerful, especially against the background of Henri's rather meaningless existence. Kaursimäki doesn't need any loud effects or tearful scenes to convince us, he doesn't even need dialogue, of which there is very little in the film. He tells the story purely through the images and the strong, yet sparing expressions of his protagonists. The lighting of the scenes is somber and full of strong contrasts, giving the film it's own unique visual mark. I Hired a Contract Killer is like a slow burning fire that still provides warmth long after the big fireworks are spent.

Interstellar (2014)

Approved by science - not

[5/10 · 3 August 2016]

This film claims that it was produced with the help of astrophysicist Kip Thorne. Without understanding how a feature film could benefit by being scientifically correct, I became curious. According to an astrophysics website, the event horizon is "A one-way boundary in space-time surrounding a black hole. Any matter or light that falls through the event horizon of a black hole can never leave, and any event inside the event horizon cannot affect an outside observer." So far, so good. Let's see what Nolan and Thorne did with this.

After watching the trailer, I expected a family melodrama with a lot of tearful goodbyes, but I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, the clichés are there, including the obnoxious breakfast table scene, but it's all rather low key. The vision of our planet that is morphing into a giant dust ball is gloomy and apocalyptic, the visuals are rather restrained, there is no cheap razzle-dazzle. The movie seems to build up to something quite serious.

Unfortunately, the plot is a bit hard to believe at times. Need an example? Here you go: Cooper, the corn farmer, without further ado, is chosen to be the pilot and leader of the space mission that must secure the survival of the human species. It's true: he just stumbles into the base and the head scientist of the decision making committee asks whether he would like to fly their spacecraft. Conveniently, the craft is docked right next to their conference table.

The middle part the film develops those central themes that made me watch it in the first place, which is the relativity of time during interstellar travels and the loneliness of man in outer space. According to what we learn from the conversations in the movie, an astronaut can completely miss out on events, because a minute that he spends in his spaceship can equal to an entire month or more on his home planet. Should this ever become a real issue for mankind on it's search for new planets, then it must inevitably lead to stories that would have their match in old Greek tragedies. Together with the stunning visuals, this represented the strongest and most plausible chapter in Interstellar for me. I was ready to go all the way with those explorers. But then they went for the happy ending.

The last part of the film ruins everything. It is now confirmed that Hollywood is willing to bend space and time in order to get what they want, which is usually the resurrection from death. In order to understand how little they cared about scientific accuracy, one would have to remember the statement from the astrophysics website I noted above. Not only does Cooper communicate with his daughter from inside the black hole, he also manages to escape it without a scratch and – reunite with his daughter. Astrophysics are turned upside down and our brains go into hibernation. There is no room for interpretation or imagination, because Interstellar spoon feeds us the final scenes. When the movie ended, I felt suffocated and out of touch with reality. Maybe never before have I felt so sharply the contrast between a blockbuster and a film that has enough trust in it's own audience to let them form their own thoughts. 5/10

Red Desert (1964)

A colorful look into the void

[13 June 2016]

There is a place in modern civilization that I find more horrible than any nightmare mankind has ever created before, except maybe the holocaust. It's exactly those soulless, faceless industrial compounds that dump toxic waste into the ground and poisonous fumes into the air. Whenever I see them in real life, my heart sinks. It's the ugly backbone of human progress, I guess.

Il deserto rosso is a very thoroughly replica of this nightmare. The film makes us look at it for two hours from all imaginable angles. To make the disheartening effect even stronger, it shows us a group of people who seem to have adapted to live in such an environment, or maybe were oblivious of it from the beginning. It's actually very simple to survive in a dehumanized place: you just have to dehumanize yourself. If you don't, you might end up like Guliana.

She's the main character, played by Monica Vitti, and seems to be the only one affected by her surroundings. She almost cannot deal with it. Her symptoms of anxiety and depression seem to stem from an accident she had earlier, while it is unclear whether the accident was the cause or the effect of her despair. She feels attraction for a drifting coworker of her husband, because they both dream of escape. An escape that only seems possible in her imagination, as depicted in the one sequence of the film that is not utterly hopeless: the young girl on the beach.

I find this film really hard to rate. The cinematography is superior. I still see Guliana's green coat against the background of the grayish industrial plant and the dark vegetation. It's also totally depressing. It points a finger at the chimera we have created, but does just that, in highly composed imagery. Some viewers can abstract these things in their brains and therefore be detached, some might find that complying with an empty existence equals „hope". For me, it was a bit too close for comfort.

Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002)

Not always coherent but engaging

[7/10 · 12 June 2016]

Seven directors and their view of time. Or maybe I should say six: Spice Lee's contribution might be interesting in another context, but seems misplaced here.

The opening quote by Marc Aurel and the interludes with the melancholic trumpet and the flowing water feel a bit cheesy if you look at them in 2016.

Several other reviewers have provided synopses for the segments, so I will only review the moments that stand out for me: The big old cook/nurse in Victor Erice's short that makes us not only understand, but feel the human bond of an extended, close-knit Spanish household a few decades ago.

The tuberculous Indian warrior Tari in Herzog's short documentary, holding the white alarm clock to his head. It makes you cringe, because the scene makes him look like a true savage, almost like an animal. It touches you, because we know and, more importantly, the Indian knows that his time has run out.

The strange mixture of female beauty, loneliness, silence, and comedy of Jim Jarmusch's segment.

Chen Kaige gives us the moment where a group of simple minded, „modern" Chinese movers, who's brains have been dulled by the faceless progress that surrounds them, have a glimpse at the glory of their own unique past.

Most of these directors have the one unique gift, to make us feel interested in their story or characters after only a minute or two.

All in all, this collection of shorts does not always feel coherent, but maybe that wasn't the intention to begin with. It's like looking at short sketches of contemporary masters of cinema, and learning what they can do with 10 minutes of time, which is a lot. A very good way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Trapped

[7/10 · 11 June 2016]

The film opens with wide shots of snowy North American mountain ranges, and I thought that Tarantino might have discovered his sense for landscapes. I felt that he might be paying homage to Sergio Leone, too. But these are just a few opening shots, and for most of the remainder, the movie stays indoors.

The dialog in the coach, on it's way to Minnie's cabin, feels rather slow, especially because it is at the very start of the story.

From the very beginning, these things indicate that Tarantino had a lot of time, a lot of film rolls and total freedom in terms of decision-making. The scene with the door and the nails is hilarious at first, simply BECAUSE it drags on way too long, but when it gets repeated for the third time or so in full length, any editor or playwright or producer would have objected, I guess.

The story in Tarantino's films was always rather simple, but it didn't matter because they were a tour de force of sharp dialog and good acting. Reservoir Dogs, my favorite QT film, even deliberately ignored the story and instead focused on the intense chemistry and the funny statements of the characters, and it worked brilliantly. The dialog in The Hateful Eight is not as exceptional as we might have expected, and since the story is extremely simple and unfolds in one location only, the only thing that keeps us interested is the acting, really. It is mostly well done, even when Madsen seems to be totally trapped in his way of walking and talking, and Roth coming across as an imitation of Waltz at one point. Russel and Jason Leigh as the odd couple stand out and create much of our interest in the plot in the beginning. Some character's development seems unlikely, especially the swift conversion of the more racist ones.

Takeshi Kitano said in an interview that he finds Tarantion's films to be very well produced B-movies, and I think there is a truth to that. Like the movie characters that are stuck in the cabin, Tarantino seems to be a bit stuck with his semi-trashy, comic-like way to tell a story. He explored this in 8 films now. He could start to use landscapes or create characters that have motivations that go beyond a bag full of money, and I really wonder what his power as a filmmaker could do with those other aspects of the medium. But I guess that's not his thing, and he obviously is not reinventing himself. He does add a new facet to it though with a few political statements here and there.

Never mind the violence, which is just a lot of fake blood and bits and parts flying around, but never shocks us with its realness. If you would like to explore what violence looks like outside of the world of a comic book geek, I suggest movies like Gomorrah by Matteo Garrone. The fellatio scene has it's equivalent in the basement scene of Pulp Fiction.

All this might sound harsh, maybe too harsh. I wasn't bored throughout the almost 3 hours running time, but I have to say that I have been watching a lot of slow movies recently, so my patience has been trained. There were a few twists and turns in the second part of the movie, and the end was somewhat interesting, but it also felt a bit weak after a 3 hour buildup. No reason for a 1 star rating, since the acting, the costumes, the sets etc. are too good for that. I give it a 7.

L'Eclisse (1962)

I don't know what it is, but I like it.

[8/10 · 8 June 2016]

I don't know what this film is. It runs for more than two hours, has only an excuse of a plot and yet I wasn't bored for a second. This by itself seems like a glorious achievement.

Admittedly, it is easy to keep staring at the screen because Monica Vitti is so magnetic. The desolation and alienation of those empty suburban streets is balanced and somehow lifted by the very good cinematography. It's as if Antonioni gave us the diagnosis and the cure at the same time. He takes a look at things that is both realistic and removed from reality.

He observes and unmasks the weirdness of modern life. But journalists do that too, so there's more. The African dance is unexpected and energetic and completely breaks the rhythm of the film for a moment, while the stock exchange turns into a cage of raging monkeys. Those images are very inexplicable, and they are interspersed by more tangible statements about racism, nuclear threat, obsession with numbers and other absurdities of life. It all blends together into one big picture, while the director seems to be saying: this is how we live, this is where we are going.

The movie is full of details, like the necklace made of a solid iron chain that the Vitti character is wearing in her last scene.

The final sequence, which is also the climax of the film, can mean anything and nothing. Instead of „rewarding" the audience for their patience, Antonioni takes it one step further. He removes the bridle of his horse and just let's it go. It can easily be overloaded with interpretations or just taken for what it is. I found it weird and hypnotizing.

I think this is also about filmmaking and it's power and possibilities, rather than filmmaking as a means to tell a trivial story.

8½ (1963)

Hot and cold shower

[9/10 · 8 June 2016]

I found this film to be an emotional roller-coaster ride. Many things are being said about the opening sequence. Terry Gilliam claims it to be the most important film sequence in his life, and I can see why. Like the overture of an opera, it captures all the conflict and all the drama that is laid out through the rest of the film. It grabs you and will not let you go anymore.

It wasn't possible for me to sit through the first viewing, because I was too repulsed by all the sociable chatter in the first half of the film. I got the point Fellini wanted to make (I think), but I still couldn't take it. But the opening sequence was so incredible, that I decided to continue watching the film where I had last stopped. What I got was like a hot and cold shower.

Alternating between the chaos and the madness that Guido's life is, and calm, isolated settings, the film comes at us like waves. In his more introspect moments, Guido is usually talking to a female character, and it is here that his visions and his demons are revealed to us. The way he opens up to his sister beneath the spaceship scaffolding reminds of the struggle of an artist who tries to create something personal which he beliefs will not only lift himself above everything, but others, too. His more stable sister just laughs at his pathos and self-pity.

We also meet him as the egocentric, irresponsible character that he is. He discards women that do not physically attract him anymore with the strictness of a World War II general. Claudia Cardinale, his muse, confronts him with the sobering fact that he does not know how to love.

It all culminates in a press conference that Guido is forced to attend because his producer is putting the pressure on him. Facing the whirlwind of questions from the reporters, and having no answers, he decides to escape by crawling beneath the table and shoot himself. Whether it is fantasy or reality, we don't know, and it doesn't seem important. The movie ends on an up because Guido somehow manages to find a way out of his isolation and to embrace the people, characters and collaborators that accompany and form his life.

A very personal film. I think the opening sequence will be a good indicator whether you will relate to it or not.

Mystery Train (1989)

Test your patience

[30 May 2016]

Looking at the critics of Jarmusch's films, it seems that there are people who think that his movies are slow, boring and tedious. I am not one of these people. I even like Permanent Vacation quite a lot.

But Mystery Train didn't work for me. I kept looking at the remaining running time of the video and was glad when it was over. It is hard to pinpoint the reasons, but I will try.

I was doing fine throughout the first segment. The second segment was still alright, until the two ladies met at the hotel and decided to rent a room together. Here, my interest in the plot hit a low point. To make us watch – again – two people in an almost identical room, while we hardly got to know the characters, just seemed like a bad decision. It felt tedious. While I rather liked the juxtaposition of the European and the North American type of personality that are represented in those two ladies, the movie seemingly started to repeat itself. The third segment made me wish the movie would end soon.

The music, which is essential in other Jarmusch films, is not as impressive in this one. It does help to build an atmosphere here and there, but some specific songs and even their announcement in the radio are repeated over and over again.

Repetition seems to be the main feature of the structure of this film. Maybe Jarmusch did not want to comply with the usual kind of expectations. While I can understand this in an intellectual way, my stomach feels painfully tense.

I liked the eccentric people, the locations (until they started to show up again) and the cinematography. The two clerks were funny, but they couldn't make me feel more interested in what was going on in their hotel.

To sum it up: this movie doesn't go anywhere. It keeps circling around an old hotel, inhabited by some more or less interesting characters, and that's it. The three segments do not culminate in some kind of memorable conclusion, instead, everybody just goes their own way. I don't need a plot to enjoy a movie. But without a plot, there just wasn't anything interesting left in this one.

Permanent Vacation (1980)

The Human Zoo

[7/10 · 26 May 2016]

This movie is split into several independent scenes, like separate paintings in a gallery. What connects them is Allie, the main character, and the shabby streets and abandoned buildings of some neighborhoods of New York. Every scene focuses, besides Allie, on one more or less disturbed character, almost like a human zoo. After a few words are exchanged, Allie leaves them, and no deeper connection is made. That's it. In the end, he departs on a ship headed for Europe. Our limited insight into why he does what he does comes mainly from two voice overs in the beginning and the closing of the film.

I wasn't bored for a single second, something that seems to be a huge issue for other people when they watch this film. The slowness, the surreal dialog, the eccentric characters and the morbid backdrops combined with a very strange music had some sort of hallucinatory effect on me. It was not only a look at a past era, with some shots reminding me of Edward Hopper paintings, but also into the condition of the drifters and lunatics who populated those streets. It is arguably a pretty superficial look without an attempt to develop any of the characters. I'm not really sure why this should speak against this particular film, since it not only defies character development, but also any conventional structure, plot or storytelling. To consciously create a debut movie that a lot of people will find „boring", without trying to go for some obvious effect, is a pretty bold move in my eyes. It would be easy for a more biased person to think that the scenes drag on only for the film to reach it's feature length.

It is obviously a low budget production of someone trying out different approaches, but it also clearly has everything that would later make a typical Jarmusch film. The long silent pauses, the odd people, the run down locations, the still frames and, lastly, the music. I almost feel as if Jarmusch's more recent Only Lovers Left Alive is a variation of this film.

The film is an experiment with technical flaws that I am not really qualified enough to completely point out, but at it's core it has a strange and haunting quality. It had me thinking about it a few days after watching, something most other films don't accomplish.

Fireworks (1997)

Pretty unique piece of cinema

[9/10 · 19 May 2016]

When I first saw this movie about 15 years ago, I was ecstatic. Little has changed since then.

The story is about the downfall of one cop and the transcendence of another. It is also a deeper look into a mind that exists in extremes.

First, the few things that I didn't like as much as the rest. The score seems very western-oriented and sentimental, and I cannot help but thinking that it was done that way to make the movie more appealing to western audiences. Just as in any Asian restaurant in the West, where they add flavors to adapt the dishes to a western taste. In one instance, the violence seems to be a bit self-serving: when his wife is bullied while watering the flowers, it doesn't really have anything to do with the story, nor does it add anything. And finally, there are some logical issues (why would the Yakuza boss drive out to the spa personally?).

That said, the film is so strong that these issues are more like fly spots on the windshield of a sports car.

At it's core, the film is violent in an almost pathological way and at the same time beautiful in a grand way. My sister, who saw the film and found it "somewhat poetic", was ultimately turned off by the blood and slaughter. You therefore cannot fully appreciate it without accepting or even admiring it's violent aggression, for instance when Nishi is poking the eye of the Yakuza mobster with his chopsticks. At other moments, Nishi becomes iconic. When the mob killer is pointing the gun at him in front of the elevator, his calm fatalism makes Tarantinos films look like comic strips.

When Horibe, the wounded cop, is looking at the bouquets that are displayed in front of the flower shop, the film show us the moment of his inspiration. It is expressed in a way that makes the viewer realize the exalted state and intimacy of the moment. Takeshi knows what he is talking about, since he is the artist who did all the paintings, and they are scattered throughout the movie. Sometimes, they contradict the mood of a scene and give it a slightly ironic feeling. But they always add color to the mostly monotone backdrops (hospital interiors, dimly lit bars).

His very unique humour is also everywhere in the film, in little self-enclosed sketches that I personally find quite funny, they also serve to add some lightness to an otherwise very severe theme.

The camera is mostly still and the frames are composed in a very focused, reduced and determined style, which is probably not unusual for Japanese cinema.

This is more of an experience than a movie.

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

Movie with ups and downs

[7/10 · 13 May 2016]

Some of the more annoying things in this movie have already been mentioned. Nevertheless, I think it is worth watching because of it's dense atmosphere, it's beautifully morbid settings and the overall, albeit slow rhythm. This should not come as a surprise, since all films by Jarmusch I have seen so far were rather slow, with long pauses of characters staring at nothing.

The opening sequence alone with the spinning record made me feel interested in the main characters, something that other movies do not achieve in 90 minutes or more.

I really didn't like the name-dropping, which was not interwoven with the dialogue or the "plot" at all, just two people talking about things that you think they would have told each other centuries ago. I think the dialog might be the weakest part of the film.

Another thing that made me cringe a little bit was the sequence towards the end with the Lebanese singer. Someone must have really liked her music, which sounded like Kitsch to me, and the sequence felt like a promotion.

This film seems to depend heavily on whether you like Adam or not, because his world view dominates throughout. If you find him self-absorbed and pretentious, then it must be a real pain to watch. However, I think you should not necessarily judge an artist (which he is) by bourgeois moral standards. Looking at the world, I can somewhat understand his depression, which made the picture immersive for me in the end.