Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread II

[kihei]

The Big City (Mahanagar) (1963) Directed by Satyajit Ray

Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee) is a traditional wife living in Calcutta with her husband Subrata (Anil Chatterjee), their son, her younger sister, and her husband's mother and father. Subrata has a bank job, but financially the familly is struggling to just keep its head above water. When Arati tentatively suggests that she get a job, first her husband scoffs but then cautiously encourages her. The rest of the family, especially Subrata's father, are scandalized. Respected Bengali women just don't do that--their place is to be subservient and to stay at home looking after the whims of their families. But Arati, though she has no confidence whatsoever, finds a job with a door-to-door sales company, and to everyone's surprise, not the least hers, becomes successful to the point of being promoted and taking on more responsibility. As this is occurring, her self worth soars. Ultimately this places great strains on her marriage as Subrata begins to have serious doubts about the wisdom of the direction she is going in. Suddenly no longer unworldly, Arati has to master a delicate balancing act, and she is not always certain that she is up to the task.

This is a long movie but the time is well spent as much of it is devoted to the gradual change in Arati's character and with her relationship with her loving but worried husband and the rest of her family. As is true of most of Satyajit Ray movies, these slow but significant transformations allow us to understand these characters and to identify with their plight. In fact, another characteristic of Ray movies, even minor characters seem fully formed and developed. As a result, what happens to all of them, what their cares are and how they address them, ends up seeming to matter a great deal to the audience.

I think one of the most astonishing facts about this movie is that it was made in 1963. Ray was amazingly far ahead of his time when it came to focusing on the kinds of assumptions and discrimination that women faced in Bengali society. Not only that, no one anywhere was delving directly into women's issues at this time. Part of the reason the beautiful and talented Madhabi Mukherjee took the role of Arati was that she had never read a script that focused on the woman as the central figure in a movie. Such things were unheard of at the time in India. He doesn't get credit for it, but Ray was a pioneer in this respect.

Of course all this would not be important if the movie failed, but it is a beautiful work, full of compassion, empathy and humanity. Ray seems to believe that faces are the windows to the soul, and the camera work by long-time Ray collaborator, Subrata Mitra, is noteworthy not just for how it helps the story progress but for how it reveals character.

It seems to me ironic in the extreme that Ray was often criticized at home for making movies that were not political enough, as though that was some sort of indication of his social commitment or a required measuring-stick concerning his art. True, he had other fish to fry, more interested in exploring the human condition (and how growth inevitably leads to change) rather than commenting on its ideologies. But, regardless of that fact, looking back, it is stunningly obvious that many of Ray's films have a clear political dimension. As with The Big City, his movies are not just about individual lives, but about people living is specific conditions. His masterful Apu Trilogy is about the fate of one son in one family, but that son's life journey easily can be seen to represent the evolution of modern India from the traditional values of the village to the confusing and troubling challenges brought about in an urban society. And, of course, it would not be unfair to claim that Charulata, Devi and The Big City can be read as early feminist films, focusing as they do on the lives of women trying to cope within a discriminatory moral framework. Ray may not have been obvious about it, but these films stand as fair-minded and persuasive social critiques of his country, notable not for their rhetoric but for their humanity.

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[kihei]

My next pick is Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Big City
Ray (1963)
“Peace within the family is more important than money.â€

Once again this club here exposes me to a director I’ve long planned to check out, but thus far haven’t done so in Satyajit Ray. In The Big City we follow a Bengali family. Subrata, the patriarch, is struggling with work and family is short on money. His wife, Arati, wants to work to help ease the financial load. Though reluctant at first, Subrata relents, a fact that doesn’t sit well with the parents who are still clinging to the old ways despite the modern pressures. Arati takes a job as a door-to-door salesperson. It turns out she’s good at the job too. But just as she’s ready to cave into pressures and quit, Subrata loses his job. The end feels a little movie-y, a little deus ex jerk boss, but the understanding and affection between Subrata and Arati is hard to deny.

It’s a fairly simple film, which I mean as a complete compliment. It felt not just real, but normal. Sometimes I think neorealism tends to wallow a bit in the reality that’s trying to be portrayed (not that that can’t be good and affecting) and it’s easy to see where this could have been that in different hands. Even the parents, who serve as one of the main obstructions in the film, are portrayed sympathetically. There is no place in the modern world for the father-in-law whose sight is now failing him. So while his rigidity is an issue,

There were a few stylistic choices here and there, but nothing distracting from the story. Everything fit.

A very universal film and message. Now maybe one day I’ll get motivated to tackle The Apu Trilogy.

 

[Jevo]

The Big City (1963) dir. Satyajit Ray

Subrata and Arati are a traditional couple living in Calcutta, he works, she takes care of the housework and the kids as as his father who recently moved into the house after moving to the city from the country side. The only problem is that money is tight in the small home, they don't even have money to replace Subrata's fathers glasses, which he lost on the train while journeying to Calcutta. The only solution is for Arati to get a job, something that doesn't suit the conservative Subrata who believes the woman's place is in the home, even if more and more women are getting jobs. But since Subrata hasn't been able to find a second job for himself he can't force Arati to stay at home. What's even worse, Arati proves good at her job, and she likes it as well, so she isn't about to quit at the first given opportunity either.

Satyajit Ray is one of those filmmakers where I almost always love his movies when I watch them, but I am really bad at getting around to watching them on my own accord, I don't know why. So it's good that about once a year Kihei can force to watch another of his movies. Only problem with that approach is that I'd be grey haired before I get through them all. I also really loved The Big City, it's the best film I've seen in quite a while. Ray touches on many interesting themes in this film, the big one is the liberation of women and their entry in the working force and the conflicts it creates with the more conservative husbands. There's also the interesting subplot with Subrata's father, who was a teacher back in the village but isn't teaching anymore, and he has lost his purpose in life and he isn't finding it in Calcutta. Which shows how urbanisation affects the generation that didn't initially move to the big city, but are now forced to move, because there's no one to take care of them in old age back home. There's a lot to think about while watching The Big City as well as afterwards.

One of the pleasures of Ray's movies is that he's very good at getting great performances from his actors, whether they are children, amateurs or professionals. The same is true for The Big City, in particular the two leads deliver great performances, they give their characters a lot of depth, but also make them compelling, even if Subrata has to take somewhat of a villain role for part of the movie. But seeing how he deals with his unemployment, being the 'housewife', and eventually accepting the new reality is a very good part of the movie.

One thing I've noticed while watching Ray's movies, is how he uses English language in them, or how he makes his characters use English. Because not all characters does, and they don't do it at the same rate. In The Big City the grandfather doesn't throw in English words when he speaks, or at least very rarely. Arati and Subrata does it to some extend, and Arati's boss does it significantly more. I think it has something to do with class, or at least perception of class. Arati's boss sees himself as a man of higher standing, so he uses more English words to sound educated and knowledgeable and assert his superiority of the women he hires. The same can be seen in the Apu trilogy. In Pather Panchali there are very few English words being spoken because it all takes place in a rural village. In The World of Apu, Apu is now an educated young man in Calcutta, and he uses a lot more English words and phrases when he speaks than he did as a child in the first two movies. I'm not 100% sure why certain characters use more or less English, but class is my best bet. But it is certainly not random which characters do use English and how much they use it, that much I am 100% sure about.

 

[kihei]

A very universal film and message. Now maybe one day I’ll get motivated to tackle The Apu Trilogy.

Once you do, you will wonder at why it took so long. It's magnificent.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

First things first…I still owe a pick and I apologize for letting it slide. My next pick is Michel Brault's Les Ordres. Hopefully won't be hard to find…it won (shared) a best director prize at Cannes '74 so it's not totally obscure. It does seem to have fallen off the radar in recent years however.

And now for our feature presentation...

They're not exactly casting off all worldly possessions, but by the end of The Big City married couple Arati and Subrati discover a type of freedom in insolvency, like being liberated from wage-slave subservience. It should be a downer--after all they have both lost their jobs--but it's not. It is a hopeful, optimistic ending. Despite their lack of income, they're better off for what they've discovered about themselves and they know it. What's worse for Subrati than losing his job is the fact that he didn't see it coming. It's an eye-opener for him, he found out the same way his irate customers found out and it made him realize how false his sense of security was. Arati throws her job away in an impulsive act of conscience but discovers she has self-confidence and marketable skills. Together they have the strength and courage to take on the modern world of the big city.

The Big City dovetails with last week's MOTW The Last Emperor in a couple of interesting ways…In The Last Emperor newlywed bride Wan Jung asks Pu Yi if he would like them to be a modern couple. Whereas their marriage was arranged, modern couples choose to marry each other. In their case, being modern also means adopting western names and decadent lifestyles. The Last Emperor has been described as an "intimate epic" in that it showcases 60 years of Chinese history through the experience of one man. The Big City is also an intimate epic about a traditional couple adapting to modern life. It is epic in that we see in the space of a month or so a new society emerge in the place of the traditional one. Of course the modern world was always there right from the start of the film...the opening shot of a streetcar power line suggests the theme of modern social mobility...but it was not Arati's world. The revelation that there is a place for her outside her home is like discovering a new world. Above all The Big City is intimate. We see this paradigm shift through the experience of a single household, mainly a single person, but the feelings and emotions of all its characters are shared convincingly and sympathetically. They may be a microcosm of Bengali society but they are undoubtedly real people that we relate to and care for. The Big City transcends the particulars of its time and place.

 

[Jevo]

Farewell My Concubine (1993) dir. Kaige Chen

In the mid 1920's two young boys, Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) and Xiaolou (fengyi Chang) meet at a Beijing opera school. It's not a glamorous place, early on it's noted that opera singers are regarded about as well as ****** by society. But the old masters are strict and any wrong notes and forgotten lines are treated with severe beatings. The two boys are talented and gain success even into adulthood, especially with the play Farewell My Concubine, where Dieyi plays the lead female role because of his light voice. The movie follows the two over their 50 year friendship, and shows China's history unfold in the background of their friendship. In that sense it could be regarded as a Chinese version of The Last Emperor, where a personal story in front also tells the story of China during those years in the background.

Like any friendship, this one has ups and downs, but the sign of a great friendship is that they always find each other again after their downs. Be it their friend committing suicide in the opera school to escape a beating, Xiaolou getting married and unintentionally pushing Dieyi away or Dieyi getting into a homoerotic relationship with an opera fan, which puts a strain on their professional relationship as well. Even if it takes a long time, they always find each other again. Dieyi's homosexuality is a big part of the movie, something which was first alluded to when he as a child gets the line "I am by nature a girl, not a boy", the wrong way round. They can't show his homosexuality outright, but it's about as obvious as a jackhammer. Dieyi is very secluded as an adult, and doesn't appear to have much in his life apart from Xiaolou and opera, and his sexuality seems to be a big part of this, as he doesn't feel comfortable going to whorehouses with Xiaolou and such. Instead opting to stay home alone, until he meets the man who he starts a relationship with.

I really liked the way the movie choose to present the history going on the background, and how China changed a lot in the years that movie takes place over. In particular Dieyi is not interested in politics, he's interested in opera. He doesn't care who he performs for, if it's Japanese, Chinese, republicans or communists. While in the beginning art is quite apolitical in the movie, as the movie goes on it shows art becoming more and more political. Suddenly performing for Japanese soldiers means you are sympathiser. And finally during the Cultural Revolution everything goes to a whole new level and Dieyi and Xiaolou are beaten on the street because of their profession. If I compare this to The Last Emperor, I like the way Farewell My Concubine handled this a lot better. I think it gave a better sense of the way that China changed over these years, and it also feels more critical of the China of the past, both republican and communist. But I also think this has been a bigger priority here than in The Last Emperor, where for a Chinese director it is more important to take a good hard look at the past, than it was Bertolucci.

Farewell My Concubine is a pleasure for the eyes. It doesn't have the grandeur, or that's not where it really shines, which is in the intimate, like during performances with close ups of Dieyi with the costumes, make-up and sets, scenes that feel quite intimate despite being performances for an audience. Those scenes are among my favourite of the movie.

 

[Jevo]

My next pick is Dario Argento's Suspiria.

 

[kihei]

Farewell My Concubine (1993) Directed by Kaige Chen

For 1993, a Chinese menage a trois with overpowering gay overtones seems radical to the point of foolhardy. A history of modern-day China as seen through the lens of such a menage a trois seems equally mind blowing. So why does this movie, beautiful to the eye, seem so hard to sit through and ultimately unsatisfying? I think the answer to that is because of the hoops the director must jump through to tell his story. He tries to have it both ways, and as a result, by necessity, the film is virtually awash in subtext. On the one hand, the artists are presented as decadent drama queens, hot house flowers thoroughly divorced from the lives of the Chinese people. Their plight is not shown sympathetically, at least not directly. And yet from another more clandestine angle, the movie can be seen as a history of discrimination by the Chinese authorities toward gay people and the art that they create. Both narratives exist within the movie, one serving as counterpoint to the other. You can tell by some of the jumpy editing that the Chinese censors had a hard time figuring out just what was going on here some of the time.

While I give the director lots of points for caginess and bravery, I felt I was still stuck with a trio of characters that I didn't like and only marginally cared about. On the plus side, the movie is a treat to watch glide by. The production values reminded me of the sumptuous Amadeus. I think that the director Kaige Chen deserves praise for being able to get this movie produced. He found a way to tell this story that hopefully didn't get him imprisoned. That's a huge consideration. But the price he had to pay ultimately did limit the effectiveness of the film in my eyes. That being said, I doubt I've ever felt more like a thoroughly bourgeois dilettante in stating that opinion.

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[Ralph Spoilsport]

Visually stunning epic romance set against the backdrop of the social and political upheaval of 20th century China? Sounds good, I'm in. And they actually speak Mandarin! And yet I couldn't help but get sidetracked here questioning the authenticity of Farewell My Concubine. We all know that while The Last Emperor may have been a movie about China, it clearly was not a Chinese film...among other things, the use of English rather than native languages is a dead giveaway. But does Farewell My Concubine represent the Chinese of the 90s...are they the film's core audience? I had my doubts. The subject matter seems daring for a general audience, and while I'd think a nationalized, centrally run film industry would want to showcase a Palme d'Or winner as much as possible, Farewell My Concubine in fact opened in just three theatres. I'm not claiming any expertise in this area...I could be wrong, maybe China really was more progressive in social attitudes than I'm giving them credit for, but those are my suspicions. Farewell My Concubine just seems to have been made more for an international audience than a domestic audience, its purpose...if not an outright propaganda statement...to garner prestige for the Chinese film industry.

But let the bureaucrats and politicians have their agendas. If the state supports art for art's sake…isn’t that one of Farewell My Concubine's (many) subtexts?...why complain? What does it matter...everybody hurts, right? And does anyone in filmdom hurt more than Dieyi? The poor kid. He's like a Fassbinder heroine: sold by his prostitute mother, after having a finger chopped off with a butcher knife, he suffers every kind of humiliation, betrayal, abuse and heartbreak imaginable, all the while getting caught up in the grind of cultural revolution, yet stoically perseveres, waiting for the right time to go out in style. I don't know if I could hold out that long.

By the way, Farewell My Concubine is also my first real exposure to Peking Opera, and I've got to check it out if it comes to my area. It looks like a cross between Shakespeare and the circus, and the music is entrancing. Although a younger me would probably rate the music slightly above nails on a blackboard, my mind (what's left of it) is more open nowadays.

 

[kihei]

It would be fun if the four of us could meet in some sort of neutral location bar (Iceland, maybe; I can always be talked into Paris ) and discuss some of these movies further over a pint or two.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Farewell My Concubine
Chen (1993)
“I am by nature a boy, not a girl.â€

As I mentioned in a previous review, I watched this over consecutive nights with The Last Emperor so it made for an interesting (if long) double feature given the historic time period covered in both films.

The film opens with a modern scene in 1977. Two old friends/colleagues who’ll we’ll come to learn as Douzi and ****o (who eventually adopt stage names) are seeing each other for the first time in years. They’re to perform Farewell My Concubine, the opera that made them both stars and has themes that resonate throughout the film. We jump back in time to their childhood, their first meeting, the earliest days of the brutal training sessions including beatings, painful tasks and other physical abuse. The two boys develop a close bond, though it’s clear that the effminate Douzi has feelings beyond mere friendship. The “stage brothers†grow and find success in the opera, becoming stars amid China’s political strife. Douzi, who was subject to sexual abuse in addition to the normal beatings, reluctantly lands with a patron and lover. ****o meanwhile finds Juxian, whom he makes his wife. The partnership begins to splinter with Douzi on the outs of the triangle and dealing with opium addiction and ****o increasingly polticized. Douzi and Juxian even find common ground to free ****o from jail, a deal with the Japanese that anger ****o and would haunt the trio later in their lives. Under political and personal pressures, denouncements and tragedy eventually arrives.

It’s a compelling epic. I never once felt bogged down by it despite having just a cursory understanding of the politics and history and almost no knowledge (beyond its existence) of the Peking Opera, its practices, importance and execution. It’s a beautiful work visually and emotionally engaging throughout. Leslie Cheung’s performance is the standout from an impressive bunch as the delicate yet sharp Douzi, simultaneously fragile and defiant. It’s hard for the heart not to break a little for him. Knowing a little of Chenug’s personal history also added another layer of emotion here. Fengyi Zhang is a capable counterweight as the sometimes dashing, sometimes bullheaded ****o.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

It would be fun if the four of us could meet in some sort of neutral location bar (Iceland, maybe; I can always be talked into Paris ) and discuss some of these movies further over a pint or two.

And I almost planned an Iceland trip this summer too ...

 

[Jevo]

I wouldn't say no to a good beer and a nice chat, be it in Iceland or Paris. I'm not too picky about the location.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

This is Spinal Tap
Reiner (1984)
“There’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.”

The eponymous rock trio at the center of this faux-documentary — blonde lead singer poster boy David St. Hubbins, sensitive guitarist Nigel Tuffnel and inoffensive go-along bassist Derek Smalls — are the loudest band in England. They’re past their sell-by dates (though they don’t fully grasp this) and back in the U.S. to tour and promote their latest album, the tastefully named Smell The Glove. But as is the case with rock bands both real and imagined, as the tour wears on, tensions amongst the band rise (of course there is a Yoko Ono-esque girlfriend with outsized influence) and indignities mount, from canceled gigs, to stage malfunctions, to taking second billing to an amusement park puppet show. On the precipice of destruction and realizing they can no longer rock well into their 40s, last minute salvation arrives. Turns out they’re big in Japan. Indeed, rock and roll will never die.

There’s a certain type of clueless man-child doofus commonplace in film these days whose incompetence is only trumped by their confidence. This is Spinal Tap in many ways feels like the progenitor of all this (for better and worse). But what This is Spinal Tap gets and so many others do not is that these aren’t bad people, just a bit daft and more than a bit full of themselves. It isn’t only the laughs (and oh there are many laughs) that make this film work. The increasing embarrassments, funny though they may be, start generating more than a little sympathy, especially for Christopher Guest’s sad-eyed Nigel who clearly has more than a bandmate attachment to David. Even at their most pig-ish point of trying to explain how the Smell the Glove cover isn’t sexist, you feel a little for these boneheads. The rock thing, after all, is every bit of a costume/pose these man-children are trying on just as their past attempts at British Invasion pop and ‘60s pyschadelia were. While there is a little humbling along the way, my favorite joke might be that they don’t really seem to learn anything in the end. The rock gods giveth (sorta), but don’t truly taketh away.

Reiner is a pro. Not a great, but certainly a director with an impressive and even enviable resume of entertaining films to his credit. Nothing stands out from his work other than him having a good rapport with actors and a steady hand for a certain type of solid studio picture. This is the exception though. Perhaps it just feels so obvious because of the breaking of traditional narrative form and the establishment of an entire sub-genre of “mockumentary,” but it’s an impressively shot and assembled piece of work. According to some stories, there were people who thought Spinal Tap was a real band, which, in a meta-twist it did become though as much as I love this movie, I’m not sure the joke would be as funny in a real, prolonged concert. I do dig the bass line to Big Bottom, though. The build of the running gags such as the drummer history and the band’s various forms all pay off. The scene/skits/vignettes almost all work and the movie overall has to have one of the highest hit rates for quotable lines.

“Why don’t you just make 10 louder?”
... long pause ...
“This one goes to 11.”

Nigel’s defiant/confused response slays me every single time. I could spend the rest of the time here just spouting off lines and scenes, but I won’t. Ok, maybe one more. As Nigel noodles away on an genuinely pretty piece of piano music and talks about Bach and Mozart’s influence on his music, he eventually notes that the name of the piece is “Lick My Love Pump.” There's such an innocence about their inanity that really sells it all.

As a final testament, it is not just beloved as a comedy, but also by many real rock bands who have confessed that the film has been closer to reality than most would like to admit. Several articles detailing such on the web, but this one hits a lot of high points of both pre-Tap and post-Tap shenanigans that have occurred.
http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/music/the-real-tales-of-spinal-tap

Maybe it’s that grounding (intentional or not) that has always made it work and that still keeps it fresh?

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

My next pick will be:
The Earrings of Madam de ...
Ophuls (1953)

 

[kihei]

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) Directed by Rob Reiner

I can't remember if This Is Spinal Tap actually created a sub-genre--the mocumentary--or simply was the best pseudo-documentary spoof that I had ever seen. But the film certainly had both an immediate and lasting impact. In the immediate sense, there was a shock of recognition concerning what an ideal target rock music of this era represented for satire. So many of the jokes--turn it up to 11; the dumbing down of the word "visionary"; the whole bloated self-importance of the scene; and on and on--were funny because underpinning their playful but pointed humour was the dead certainty that Reiner had found a deserving target. If ever a scene was ripe for satire, this one was it. What made the movie special and its humour so enjoyable, though, was this was not a satire by some totally unhip outsider with a political or moral agenda but by someone who had a really good understanding about the inanities of the rock world but could look at them affectionately. Reiner got it; he understood; and as a result his touch was perfect. While there are hilariously embarrassing moments galore, there is nothing in This Is Spinal Tap that seems mean-spirited or vicious. Its satire is ultimately quite gentle. We never turn on the characters; if anything, they become more endearing as the film progresses.

I've always suspected that Reiner was putting a mirror up for us in the audience watching the movie--that the audience wasn't escaping his scrutiny. Our ability to recognize the accuracy of Reiner's satire had a lot to do with how thoroughly we had bought into the scene. The movie wasn't funny because its content came as a surprise; the movie was funny because that content seemed so familiar, so on-target. It was a clever choice on the part of Reiner to focus on a metal band. A lot of people thought poorly of metal at the time, and the movie embraced some of the most popular stereotypes. That distanced the audience just enough from the proceedings not to make it uncomfortable. It wasn't the Beatles getting slagged--it was some dumb ass metal outfit. But after This Is Spinal Tap it was harder, for me anyway, to look at my favourite rock bands without thinking, yeah, they had a little Spinal Tap in them.

I haven't seen as effective a mockumentary since, though Australia's vampire spoof What We Do in the Shadows comes pretty damn close.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

I haven't seen as effective a mockumentary since, though Australia's vampire spoof What We Do in the Shadows comes pretty damn close.

Man, I do love that one too.

I know most will ride for the Christopher Guest movies, particularly Best in Show, when it comes to this type of film, but there is just enough meanness to those that I can't fully embrace them. I laugh plenty, but sometimes he feels a little cruel.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

In This Is Spinal Tap perpetual-childhood friends Nigel and David are living the rock 'n' roll dream until in steps Jeanine; soulmate for David, rival for Nigel, Australian's nightmare for others. This bizarre love triangle is the heart of the movie, it's exactly the same as Farewell, My Concubine. Well, it's not exactly the same, but there are strong similarities. Alright, there aren't many real similarities at all, but still...the parallel should be obvious.

Amid the raucous boomer humour and music nerd in-jokes are some genuinely touching moments, such as post-breakup Nigel wishing David a good show, or David and Jeanine clearly smitten with each other, or David's attempts to maintain harmony in the band despite the tension. (Harmony of any kind is a challenge for these guys). Even the exasperation of Ian's "I quit" meltdown is heartfelt. We can identify with these rock gods, they're humanized. We're not laughing at them, we're laughing near them. As if being dead funny weren't enough, This Is Spinal Tap has emotional depth to push it to eleven.

Gotta post my favourite part:



P.S. Speaking of slagging the Beatles…if you haven't seen All You Need is Cash, Eric Idle and Neil Innes' spoof of The Compleat Beatles, you're in for a treat.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

It would be fun if the four of us could meet in some sort of neutral location bar (Iceland, maybe; I can always be talked into Paris ) and discuss some of these movies further over a pint or two.

We'll meet some time in a sleazy bar in a Central American ****hole. We can discuss auterism and production values until our respective assassins show up.

I'll be on the run for stealing a typewriter.

 

[Jevo]

This is Spinal Tap (1984) dir. Rob Reiner

Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) is a docimentary filmmaker and heavy metal fan. Marty saw Spinal Tap live years ago when they first toured the US, now they are back and with a new album, and Marty is doing a documentary about the band as they travel the US. Spinal Tap consists of David Hubbins (Michael McKean) as lead vocalist, Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) on lead guitar, Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) on bass and some guy on drums who will probably die in a freak accident some time soon, as that's what happens to drummers in Spinal Tap. The thing about Spinal Tap is that they are easily 10 years past their best by date, only they don't seem to realise it themselves, no one around them seem to realise it either, or want to realise it.

This was my first time ever watching this movie, but I have heard of it many times and maybe I let the hype get to me. But I was a bit disappointed with how little I laughed. I still laughed, but not as much as I had hoped. Good thing there's more to the movie than laughs then. One thing that stands out is how much the movie cares about it's characters. For a movie that had every opportunity to be downright mean to the characters, it never is. They are dumb, spoiled, have the mind of a teenager, and that is shown several times, but the movie doesn't bully them. It feels like it's a movie made by Marty DiBargi, a blinded fan trying to show what really happened in the best possible light, and that's still not enough to make it look pretty. I think this also helps ground the movie. We get sympathy for the guys, sympathy they might not deserve but they get it anyway, the viewer gets to view them as something more than just vessels for laughter. Which I guess is a big reason the movie became the cult hit it is, because people care about the characters and love returning to their antics. The movie also does a good job of making their behaviour be disillusioned rockstar behaviour, while still keeping it believable. If you've seen Anvil! The Story of Anvil about the Canadian heavy metal band, you'd see that there's a striking resemblance between fiction and real life, even when accounting for the fact that the Anvil movie might have been edited in some way to have resemblance to This is Spinal Tap, the characters are very much alike.

I'm yet to be completely convinced by a mockumentary yet, it never feels completely right for me, but This is Spinal Tap is the closest one has come to win me over yet. And I certainly get where all the fans of the movie are coming from now, even if I doubt I'll be returning to it in the future myself.

 

[Jevo]

Les Ordres (1974) dir. Michel Brault

During the 1970 October crisis in Quebec many hundred people were imprisoned after the enactment of the War Measures Act, which allowed police to imprison people with charging them with a crime, and most of these people were also released again without being charged with anything. Les Ordres are the stories of some of these people, as they tell their stories and they are re-enacted, with the same actors both telling the story and the doing the re-enactment, giving the film a somewhat unique docu-fiction style.

Michel Brault is certainly not a fan of the actions made by the government and the police after the implementations of the War Measures Act, especially not Pierre Trudeau, then PM of Canada. The movie opens with an old quote by Trudeau, condemning people just blindly following orders saying basically that they are just as big oppressors as the ones giving the orders. I don't think Trudeau is mentioned for the rest of the movie, but it has a big implication for how the rest of the movie is perceived, and how it relates to that quote as well as Trudeau himself. We see many of these blind oppressors throughout the movie, the police officers arresting people with little care for who they are arresting or why. Perhaps because they can't answer the why. Also the prison guards who asks no questions about why these people are here, or why no one is rushing to charge with a plethora of crimes. Maybe the Canadian government and the Quebec government are ******** who are willing to treat innocent citizens worse than regular criminals, but they still need regular people to close their eyes to do it. And it's these regular people that are the true evil in Brault's eyes.

Brault does a great job of presenting these arrests as a great injustice not just to the individuals imprisoned but also to the rule of law. The minimalistic style and black/white increases the sense of peril and hopelessness in the movie. Brault is however no stranger to using pathos to increase our sympathy for the characters, and our dissympathy for the police. Showing a father being forced to leave his two small kids alone in the apartment as he gets dragged away, or another man not being allowed to see his dying father. If it happened, it happened, and Brault is not too fine to not use it in his film, if someone gives him gold, you can't fault the man for using it.

I was not familiar with the October crisis before watching this film, so perhaps I was an easy target, but Brault certainly has me convinced about the injustice that was carried out. The big question about something like this is always if the end justifies the means. I'm sure Pierre Trudeau would say it did in this instance. Brault has me on the fence after watching the movie, and he does so without the movie ever feeling manipulative. To me, Les Ordres is a small well hidden gem.

 

[kihei]

Les Ordres (1974) Directed by Michel Brault

Some films aren't entertainment vehicles or directorial explorations so much as they are social documents that bear witness to wrongs that have been committed. I always think of Les Ordres as serving this function. The invocation of the War Measures Act to quell an "apprehended insurrection" in Quebec in 1970 was a scary time for all Canadians and a time of deep uncertainty. In effect, the civil liberties of the entire country, not just Quebec, were suspended for the duration of the time that the Act was the law of the land. The purpose of this act was to respond to an extremist group in Quebec, the FLQ, who had kidnapped a British diplomat and killed a Quebec politician. Although there was virtually unanimous agreement that the government of Canada must respond to this threat to its authority, there was great controversy about how our then Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, went about doing so. A majority of the citizens of Quebec and a small part of the population in the rest of Canada thought that invoking the full severity of the War Measures Act was irresponsible and dangerous. And indeed, authorities in British Columbia took advantage of the suspension of civil liberties to trash the press of The Georgia Straight, an underground newspaper in Vancouver.

Les Ordres documents the abuse of the Act in Quebec where the insurrection took place. In Quebec, the Act was seen by many as a blunt weapon applied to a situation that required a tiny scalpel. It was seen as an attempt by the Prime Minister to intimidate all separatiste protest groups as well as their many sympathizers. Though Canadian opinion is still wildly divided to this day, Brault's movie stands as an indictment of the federal government's abuse of civil liberties. Indeed, while over 450 people were arrested, eventually none of them were charged.

While I think that Les Ordres is a very important social document, it never struck me as much of a movie. And I have no idea how it played, or even if it played, outside of Canada. Criticism of the act occurred mostly in Quebec. Though civil libertarians throughout Canada were appalled, most people in the rest of Canada strongly supported the measure which I think only goes to show that in times of national crisis one of the first things to be threatened are the civil liberties of its citizens. Frightened people often consent to desperate measures in the name of social order. Les Ordres shows the impact the War Measures act had on too many innocent people.

subtitles

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

In an early scene a mother argues with her teenage daughter before school one morning while the father stays out of it. Later, when asked why he didn’t back her up, the father tells the mother that it might have made the situation worse. There are times when authority figures have to lay down the law, whether it’s suppressing a terrorist threat or telling Monique to come straight home from school, and the appropriate level of force needs to be considered. Over-reaction can cause a backlash and a whole new set of problems. Michel Brault's Les Ordres is political drama and kitchen drama.

In “Blowin’ In The Wind†Bob Dylan asks “how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?†I’m quoting Dylan here because I forget the exact words of the Pierre Trudeau quote about injustice that opens Les Ordres, but the gist is the same. This movie turns our head toward a sample of Montrealers who awake one morning in October 1970 to find their world turned into a Stalinist nightmare: martial law has come town and the cops are banging on the door. Searched without a warrant, arrested without charge, held without bail, imprisoned indefinitely and subject to an array of cruel and unusual punishments from fake executions to forced knitting.

Innocent until proven guilty? Not today--they are all guilty in some way, even if by the least association: cops arrive to arrest union rep Boudreau, he's moonlighting in a cab, so they arrest Mme. Boudreau instead. She's his wife after all, she must know something. Cops arrive to arrest Lavoie, a young lady answers the door. Oops. Lavoie lives next door. Take the lady in anyway. She's his neighbour after all, she might know something. Les Ordres riffs on the Quebec separatist slogan "Maitre chez nous" (masters in our own house) and shows who's boss by focussing on the household dramas, the effect the War Measures Act had on family life. Not only is that what makes it engaging but it also allows us to take the focus away from political specifics. The arrested are left-leaning, that much is obvious, but do they in fact have any connection to the terrorist organization FLQ? The cops didn't need evidence, and neither does Brault.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

btw--Any thoughts on the switching between black & white and colour? Was landing in prison supposed to be like landing in Oz?


Next pick...Claire Denis' Beau Travail.