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

[Ralph Spoilsport]

In Bruges. Sin, salvation and slapstick in feckin' Bruges.

Welcome to Sin City. A nickname usually given to places with reputations as party towns, where we indulge our vices and fantasies. The kind of place Ray probably would have preferred to hide out in. Bruges is not the place to forget your sins, it's the place where your sins confront you. The medieval streets, buildings and especially churches wit Jesus' blood in da house are reminders that medieval concepts like the eternal damnation of the soul are still standing tall today in the consciences of modern men.

I first saw this a couple of years ago and my reaction at that time was just meh. Don't know what my problem was, maybe horse tranquilizers? Watching again I haven't laughed so much in a long while. I'm beginning to think that black comedy is the highest form of literary art, for me at least. Bergman or Bresson may investigate the essence of the human soul, but without the laughs. And the laughs are what bring it all together, the sacred and profane. The absurdity of life. Screw "cerebral"...you've got to laugh. Laughter reveals more truth. A moment that really got me was when Ken, the "straight man" in all of this, with good intentions tries to warn some obese American tourists against climbing the stairs to the top of the bell tower, unaware that they've just been maliciously humiliated by Ray. Tries to be Good Samaritan, almost gets head bitten off!

 

[Jevo]

House (1977) dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi

A group of seven school girls, all aptly named after their only personality trait Gorgeous, Kong Fu, Prof, Fantasy, Mac, Melody and Sweet, go to visit Gorgeous' old aunt who lives alone in the country side. All is well and good at the house until the girls start disappearing under mysterious circumstances one by one.

There are many people throughout time who have tried to make movies that are 'bad' on purpose. Most spoof films reveal that mostly they are just bad. But making something that is 'bad' well, is very hard. Because the audience has realise that it is bad, but on purpose, and be in on the joke at the same time. Obayashi does this very well. From the get go everything points to this being a bad soap opera, the bad dialogue, the lighting, the bad acting, the characters named after their only personality trait so you don't forget who's who. Yet there's something that tells me it's a bit of a joke, and it's okay that I'm laughing a little at it, because I'm supposed to. I don't know what does it, but something tells me it's intentional and not just a piece of bad filmmaking. In that way I thought the movie reminded me a bit of Survive Style 5+, one of the first movies I watched in this film club, which also turns everything up to the nth degree, but manages to make it work and really sells it. Sometimes House does go overboard and things just get too ridiculous for me. Like when Mac's severed head dry humps Fantasy. In general I think the movie is quite hit and miss about whether the jokes or scenes land, or if I'm rolling my eyes rather than laughing.

I'll have to say I was quite sceptical of the movie from the start, it's not really my kind of movie. Bad on purpose has never really been my thing. But the movie won me over at times and got me to laugh a bit, so kudus for that, and overall it was a quite entertaining hour and a half watching it. But one thing is quite certain about this film, someone had a heck of a lot of fun making it, and I think that shows in a good way.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Hausu
Obayashi (1977)
“This is starting to get ridiculous.”

I’ll spare the plot recap, which is really nothing more than a flimsy excuse for a series of ridiculous gags anyway. Hausu is — honest to god — one of my all time favorite movies. It isn’t even a “they don’t make them like this anymore” situation because I don’t feel anything has been made like this before or after. Bad on purpose is in the eye of the beholder. I would call it more childish on purpose. It was probably storyboarded in crayons and hung by magnets on a refrigerator. Proudly so. The broadest of broad characters fed (quite literally at some points) into a comic demonic country home. It is absurd. It is unhinged. It is messy, but oh does it bring me so much joy on every viewing. And joy is the emotion I keep coming back to. It feels like there was a joy to conceiving it and making it. It sprays from the screen like torrents of fake blood from a painting of a cat. When Blanche meows the theme music? Have you men no soul?

I love the slap-dash chintzy FX. You have to be pretty good to be this bad. The violence can be a tad horrific at points if the movie would allow you to slow down and think about it — Melody the musician meets a particularly gruesome but even the character can’t decide whether to giggle or scream at her fate. That’s not a bug in the program, it’s a feature. It’s one I am at total peace with. Not everything lands — an early sequence where the heartthrob teacher gets a bucket stuck to his ass feels even too broad for this, to name one. (Though the editing and execution feels like its a proto-Mentos commercial. I expected him to look at the camera and declare, “The freshmaker!” which gave me an unintended laugh). But there are far more hits here than misses for me.

Hausu is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a live action cartoon. It has always and I hope will always make me smile.

 

[kihei]

Aw, you guys. I'm feeling like a grinch now. Good call on Survive Style 5+, Jevo.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Aw, you guys. I'm feeling like a grinch now. Good call on Survive Style 5+, Jevo.

Well Roger & Me made me somewhat defend GM. That's a fairly Grinchy position too.

 

[kihei]

The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) Marcel Ophuls

By focusing primarily on the inhabitants of one out-of-the-way French village (Claremont-Ferrand) director Marcel Ophuls, son of Max, explores the memories and feelings of a wide variety of French people about the collaboration between France and Germany during World War II. These interviews are combined with commentary from such important political figures as former Prime Minister Pierre Mendez-France and former British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. German officers who served in the region are also interviewed as well as other participants, and extensive archival footage is provided, as well, much of it seen for the first time. Perhaps the most shocking revelation that emerges from all this is that there was way more support for collaboration among the French than was publicized after the war. Although once the war ended France righted itself quickly enough, highly selective memory may have played a large part in that recovery. Certainly there was a vast gulf between those who sided with the Resistance and those who supported the Vichy regime until the bitter end and beyond.

After watching The Sorrow and the Pity, I felt as though I had attended a lecture in a World War II history class. There is a lot of meat on this particular bone, and the movie does an admirable job of presenting both the historical material and the various nooks and crannies of feelings among the inhabitants of quiet provincial Claremont-Ferrand, a village that serves as a microcosm of the French experience during the collaboration between France and Germany. This documentary has been said to open many old wounds when it was first released, and one can readily see why.

Let’s start with what the film taught me that I didn’t know. I had no idea that the British sank much of the French navy in 1940, killing 1400 French sailors, a battle that effectively put the French navy on the sidelines for the duration of World War II. I had no idea that French authorities were even more zealous than their German counterparts in delivering over a thousand Jewish children to be deported and eventually killed in gas chambers. I had no idea that even nearing the end of the war, the French bourgeoisie were reluctant to embrace the French Resistance with many, perhaps most, of them quite comfortable with the status quo. And I really never had a full understanding of how much more serious collaboration was than other forms of surrender that the French could have undertaken, such as ceasefire and occupation.

But what was really most interesting to me about the documentary was the way that director Ophuls portrayed the villagers of Claremont-Ferrand as well as the soldiers from both sides who were stationed in or near that village. I was most impressed by the upperclass gentleman who had been a member of the feared French SS unit during the war. I wanted to loathe him, but he wouldn’t let me. Without trying to absolve himself of responsibility, he had some of the clearest insights and most thought provoking things to say. After fully confessing his anti-Semitic and anti-Communist views and actions, he paused and explained that everything that he read growing up, everything he heard and was taught, reinforced the same bigoted conception of Jews and socialists. If you grow up drenched in that atmosphere at home, at school, and in the French media of the time, if that is all you have ever knew or been told, how can you not end up being a bigot? No wonder that he mistrusts ideology now. His statements reminded me of a Barack Obama line: “No one is born a racist.” Certainly the ideology of the French bourgeoisie and the French upper-classes shared way too much in common with their Nazi counterparts.

The Sorrow and the Pity contains a very relevant warning, too. The movie demonstrates how Marshal Philippe Petain, the leader of the Vichy government that collaborated with the Nazis, set up his government to isolate foreigners, left wingers and Jews by undercutting their status at every turn and by even denying the rights of those who were French citizens. Such actions remain despicable acts, ones that should alarm us still. How easily traditional French values and ideals were corrupted, how readily hateful feelings were allowed to be nurtured, how expediently emotions were permitted to triumph over reason—these distant wartime realities seem not too far removed from some of what is going on in the United States right now.

Couple of odd points to throw in: that poor girl who on her wedding day has to sit quietly at the table and listen to her new father-in-law paint his little picture about how mild the German occupation of France was, his smelly cigar incessantly glowing away. I pitied her in more ways than one. Also, the interviews with two of the eras heavyweights—former British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and former French Prime Minister Pierre Mendes-France—were fascinating, like human figures emerging from the dry pages of a history book. I thought Eden was especially impressive—if I didn’t know better I would have thought he was doing a spot-on impression of Jeremy Irons.

In conclusion, I found The Sorrow and the Pity riveting even at four hours and worthy of the highest praise, one of the most important historical documents ever provided by movies.

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[kihei]

My next pick with be Orpheus (1950) by Jean Cocteau.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

A while ago I read something about the John Ford classic western The Searchers which surprised me. I think it was posted by a viewer on the movie's IMDB message board page. Get this: Debbie, abducted as an eight-year old by native warriors,was not Nathan's neice, she was actually his daughter. Huh? Who knew? But as far as all the characters in the film are concerned, Debbie is the daughter of Aaron (Nathan's brother) and his wife Martha. So the audience believes that too. It is never mentioned otherwise and the only people who may know Debbie's true parentage aren't talking. Seemed far-fetched but watching the movie again I picked up on some tell-tale signs suggesting that Nathan and Martha indeed had some history before he left to fight in the Civil War. It's a plausible interpretation.

(EDIT: John Wayne's character is ETHAN, not Nathan. I knew that.)

Is there a similar thing going on in Cronos? I couldn't shake the feeling that Jesus was not Aurora's grandfather at all but really her father. If I recall correctly we don't ever learn what happened to Aurora's father, only that he left the scene when she was too young to have any memories of him. And who is Mercedes...Aurora's mother? Looks kind of young to be Jesus' wife. I'll have to pay more attention to this angle next time I watch.

One reason this theory intrigues me is that it seems an odd choice to have Jesus as the central character of the story. I'll bet most storytellers would focus on De La Guardia's efforts to find the Cronos device with his nephew Angel, and the antique dealer would be out of the picture after the first scene. De La Guardia obviously has been on the hunt for the device longer, he has the "user's manual" after all. But De La Guardia's motivation is straightforward: he's a successful businessman, so obviously he always wants more of everything...more wealth, more power, more life. But what stake does an old antique dealer have in acquiring the device? Could be greed, same as de la Guardia; or it could be guilt.

Often in horror movies the victims find themselves haunted, hunted, cursed etc. because of some past misdeed. Call it karmic retribution: somehow they bring the horror upon themselves because of their past sins. Could he have betrayed his son and caused their estrangement by having an affair with his wife? Could be that Jesus is feeling that the elevator to the afterworld will be going down for him instead of up. Reason enough to want to indefinitely postpone dying.

Sorry, not really a review but a bunch of questions...just wanted to throw them against the wall, see if they stick. Any thoughts?

Wait...maybe Angel is Aurora's...oh nevermind.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Sorrow and the Pity
Ophuls (1969)
“Give me your watch and I’ll give you the time. That’s collaboration.”

I strive for as much original thinking in these little capsule reviews as I can (though I do not always succeed). In the case of films I haven’t seen, I try to avoid any reviews and I often won’t read any of your write ups until after I’ve written most, if not all of, mine. But I have to zero in on one specific observation Kihei made in that The Sorrow and the Pity felt like a lecture in a WWII history class — a thoroughly engrossing one. That four-plus hour run time sounded daunting at first, but with the pacing and the content, it never once felt like a chore. So much I never knew as well. While I certainly knew of the Resistance and the divide within France, I’ve never learned about it in such detail. I also didn’t know how and to the degree the British turned on the French Navy. That action makes sense in my mind, but it’s certainly nothing I was educated about. The horrific stories of torture. The almost more horrific stories of the flat out wilful ignorance of certain segments of the population. These were things I knew, but to see it brought to life by those who lived it gives it added dimension.

It is all upsetting. And yet so human. It was hard for me to watch and not think, “What would I do in the same situation? Where is my line for what I can accept and what I cannot?”
Who am I to judge?

Also like Kihei, I found it hard not to make parallels to events happening here in my own country — the political codification of Xenophobia. The U.S. has had plenty of problems with people who aren’t like me historically (spoiler alert: I am a 30-something, middle class white dude), but the open embrace of intolerance as a political plank feels more calculated and vicious than ever and it is showing now signs of abating. But that is a topic that isn’t appropriate for these forums.

The Sorrow and the Pity is yet another testament to access as well. I’m always struck when documentary filmmakers are able to get people to speak freely about their beliefs (current and past) and past actions when those revelations aren’t going to play to well to much of the audience. The former Nazi and the Wehrmacht officer, to name two. They were so casual. That officer complaining with a straight face about how the Resistance wasn’t conducting a “partisan” war, but rather a campaign of assassination was a real gem. Interviews ranged from major political leaders to farmers, shopkeepers and average people from the small town. All perspectives were essential.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Talk about looney tunes anything-goes craziness. Nothing in Hausu is played straight, virtually every scene has some trick up its sleeve. Doesn't always work, some of its effects are just corny…Mr. Togo's fast-motion schtick with the pail stuck to his butt called for some Benny Hill music ("Yakety Sax" I believe it's called)...but some are inspired: Gorgeous tossing father's fiance's scarf in the air, everything freezes but the scarf which continues to flutter in the wind.

Hausu messes with us just for the fun of it, teasing us in a playful way. To pass time on the bus to Auntie's village Gorgeous tells her friends her aunt's life story, which is presented as a silent movie. It's a clever and endearing way to work the family history into the story. But then the girls begin to comment on the images and actions that we're seeing, as if they really were watching home movies and no longer on that bus. The bus lets the girls off at a stop in the country, the background scenery behind them is a clear blue sky with big white clouds which is obviously fake. We then cut to a wide shot which reveals that the girls have actually been dropped off in front of a large billboard, hence the fake scenery. And behind the billboard is a clear blue sky with big white clouds which is obviously fake. No way is realism going to enter this picture and spoil the fun.

Most horror movies are best experienced late at night with lights down low. Hausu is a horror movie for a Saturday morning and a sugar-laden bowl of Cap'n Crunch.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

To salute James Woods on his alleged retirement, next pick will be Oliver Stone's Salvador.

 

[Jevo]

The Sorrow and The Pity (1969) dir. Marcel Ophuls

Centering around Clermont-Ferrand, a large town situated not very far from Vichy, Marcel Ophuls examines Vichy France during WWII. The film consists almost entirely of interviews, ranging from high figures in the British goverment, the Free French government and Vichy France members, over highly decorated Wehrmacht soldiers down to Clermont-Ferrand locals and their experiences during the war. Somewhere collaborators, others were resistance fighters and some where unlucky enough to be shipped of to Buchenwald. We even get a surprise an interview with local cycling legend Raphaël Géminiani, who we meet in a local bar, and who talks more about how hard it was to get girls as a young man in those days due to German soldiers scoring too many of them, than he does cycling. That leads into a brief examination of the post-war treatment of the women who had been lying with German soldiers, with beatings, and public shaving and shaming.

While I think there's little doubt about where Ophuls allegiance lies in this conflict, he's not at all interested in condemning a particular side in this documentary. He seems mostly interested in exploring the actual happenings in France at the time, what was going and how did people feel about it, and how do they feel about it now more than 20 years later. Ophuls also doesn't put himself into the documentary or talk about his own experience in the war as a jew, where as a teenager he actually did flee France for the US to avoid prosecution from the Nazis, at most we heard him asking questions off camera. He appears a very skilled interviewer, and he seems to be very good at getting people to talk, even people on the "bad side". I think this comes back to the fact that there's not much condemnation in his tone, and he appears to coming into these interviews very curious about what they'll say, instead of with an agenda to get them to say a specific sound bite he can put into this film. I think Hôtel Terminus, his later documentary about Klaus Barbie, is done very much in the same way, and the end result of also fantastic there. It's quite a contrast to Michael Moore, who when he interviews people he is opposed to, almost always seeks confrontation and tries to catch his interviewee out in some way. Not that either is necessarily better, but either type is suited for vastly different types of movies, and Ophuls has the right style for this movie. While the interviews with the resistance fighters, regular people and Free France members is interesting in its own right, what elevates the movie is having those statements contrasted with interviews with Germans, Vichy France supporters and members. Today I think it is actually somewhat hard to understand how Ophuls is able to find these people and get them to talk to eagerly. My whole life has been so far removed in time from WWII that you kinda get this idea that in 1945 nazism was defeated and everyone got smarter, or at least shut up about it. Obviously that didn't happen. There were still plenty of proud Wehrmacht soldiers left in Germany who just went back to living a regular life, probably without changing their belief system a whole lot in the process. Many probably started to shut up about it, but obviously some didn't.

The Sorrow and The Pity is among the best WWII documentaries I have seen. It gives an impression of life in Vichy France that you don't get in many other places. The length is a bit overwhelming, but Ophuls has enough content to justify the four hour runtime.

 

[Jevo]

The Man Without A Past (2002) dir. Aki Kaurismäki

A man arrives in Helsinki, we don't know where he's going or what he's going to do, and seemingly he doesn't either. He goes to a park and sleeps on a bench. Three thugs come upon him in the park and beat him up for fun. He's within inches of dying, so close that the hospital thinks he's dead. But he wakes up again and walks out of the hospital like it was nothing. Only problem now is that he has complete insomnia, he knows nothing about who he is, where he came from or what he was going to do. He finds accomodation in a container by the harbor with a poor family who shows great compassion to him. At the Salvation Army he gets clothes and food, and a love interest, Irma. They are both as awkward in romance as any character in Kaurismäki's films, but it makes for good laughs, and the main character comes up with one of the best pick up lines in film history. When he proposes so Irma that he follow her home, she refuses saying she doesn't need protection, thinking quick on his feet he says he was hoping she could protect him. And damn it if it didn't work. But just because you get friends and find a girlfriend it doesn't mean life gets easy if you don't have a name. You can't get on the dole because the government wants to know who you are. You can't get a paying job if you don't have a bank account, and you can't get a bank account if you don't have a name. You can't get a legitimate apartment either, so you'll have to rent on the grey market from a scary dude with a killer dog.

Kaurismäki's style is perhaps the most Finnish thing ever. The lines are recited deadpan, with the actors often standing like they were statues. Life isn't terrible, but it could be better so need to make a big fuss of things. Actually most of his main characters do seem to live a pretty terrible life, but even the characters that don't aren't going around make a big fuss of things. I'm not sure anyone sits at home laughing out loud through large parts of Kaurismäki's films, but they are often humourus due to his style. The deadpan, stoic and very manner of factly way the lines are written end up being funny a lot of the time, but never seem so to the characters. For them it's just how it is when you are trapped in a bank vault with no aircondition because the bank was bought by North Korea and is now not spending any money on anything. In general Kaurismäki shows a quite bleak view of Finland and Helsinki here I think. This is not exactly Before Sunrise where you fall as much in love with Vienna as you do the characters. Helsinki looks depressing and industrial most of the time. It's somewhat mirrored in the way that Kaurismäki portrays the bureaucratic system that constantly bars the main character and makes things problematic for him. But as bleak as Kaurismäki seems Helsinki and Finland and the way things are now, there's a lot of light in the characters. The people are different, they are kind and caring, as much as a finn can be. They stand together against evil and help each other, without expecting anything in return.

I don't there's anyone else who makes films quite like Kaurismäki, and I wouldn't want to watch one every day either. But everyone once in a long while it's an interesting evening together with one of the weirdest filmmakers out there, and I almost always end up having a good time doing it.

 

[Jevo]

My next pick is Daisies by Vera Chytilova.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

To quote William Hurt in The Big Chill: "sometimes you have to let art flow over you." So having been forewarned that Battles Without Honor or Humanity could be difficult or confusing to follow, I decided not to even try to keep mental notes regarding who's who and just sat back to enjoy the ride. And it's a pretty fun ride, stylish and action packed Wasn't sure where it was going or what the point was but great scenery and acceleration. I especially liked the framing in the scenes where all the gang members meet, squeezing them all into a tight shot like snakes in a pit.

And, contrary to the title, I found some honor and humanity in this after all. I guess I was expecting some bloodthirsty gorefest but, apart from buddy getting his arms chopped off, the violence wasn't unnecessarily cruel or sadistic and no innocent people were butchered. I think it was enough for the violence just to be realistic; instead of "bang bang...you're dead!" it's "bang bang...you're dying a slow, searingly painful death while your internal organs shut down and you bleed to death. Have a nice day." Indicative of the 70s audience's higher threshold for explicit violence (compared to previous generations, that is), maybe that's all it took to shake their faith in honor and humanity. Wouldn't cut it today!

I fail to see the appeal of the yakuza life however. Where's the bling, the babes? The big cars? These guys seemed no better off than average joes, with average joe jobs. Worse off actually, if you figure in getting gunned down in the street.

 

[kihei]

The Man Without A Past (2002) Directed by Aki Kaurismäki

I saw this movie when it was released, my first Kaurismaki movie, and I have to admit that it sailed right over my head. Until the yard foreman or whatever he is tells his clueless, friendly dog to attack, I didn't realize that the movie was funny. It still took me awhile to get into Kaurismaki's strange but ultimately praiseworthy approach to movie making. I am used to deadpan humour in movies, but I realized after watching a few of this director's films, that I have come to associate deadpan humour with darkness, despair and depression. This probably means that I have watched too many Romanian films, but I do associate such humour with heavy irony, with the notion of things going wrong. Kaurismaki turns the tables on such humour completely. He uses deadpan humour gently in his movies, often to reveal character. He almost always makes movies about people on the margins of society, people who should be depressed, but his characters have a remarkable buoyancy, a resiliency that allows them to not just to survive but to find some form of human comfort in what appears to be a crass, heartless society. Without being a Pollyanna about it, Kaurismaki is definitely a "glass is half full" guy. Ultimately he seems to believe that most people have some good in them and that the kindness of strangers is a tangible truth in the world. He believes that people can still surprise you in a good way, an unexpected way. I now love watching his movies, and I was glad I got a chance to see this one again and appreciate what he was doing from the start this time. He is the kind of director who is easy to ignore--he doesn't have the reputation of a Haneke or a Tarr, two of the many gloomycakes--but the world is definitely a little better place for him being in it and still making his lovely, humane movies.

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[Ralph Spoilsport]

I've seen The Sorrow And The Pity, Alvy Singer's go-to date movie, twice now and it was a much more enriching experience the second time around. First time I assumed, because it is a documentary, that it was all about the information and while there are four hours worth of that, it is sprawling, unfocussed, overwhelming. I expected a strong point of view and a solidly structured argument and conclusion. Instead it is impressionistic and episodic, more lateral than linear, and its point of view more understated and implied. Let it, um, flow over you.

As with most documentaries your satisfaction with the film will largely correspond to your interest in the subject matter: if you're a WWII history buff then this film is pure gold: first-hand accounts from people on the scene (major players as well as bystanders), a look at the war away from the front or the war room ( a side we don't often see), delving into the social history as well as the political and military, combining interviews with footage from the era which paints a picture of everyday life under occupation: the shift in tone in the French propaganda films after the Nazi takeover is chilling. If your interest is human nature there is treasure to be found as well, such as the confidence with which the German ex-commander Helmuth speaks, as though nobody told him they lost the war, the humility of the Grave brothers, farmers who fought for the resistance but were willing to let bygones be bygones with the neighbours who denounced them, or British politico Anthony Eden speaking very frankly about military and political strategies and alliances but dodging the tricky question of judging the French who collaborated under occupation, too gracious to let the words cheese-eating surrender monkeys pass through his lips. (And speaking French with an English accent, too: that was strange to hear.)

I was really struck by the use of locations: four hours of talking heads shot in-studio might have been a real test of patience. Taking the cameras and mics into the interviewee's turf...for example subjects are interviewed during a wedding reception, around kitchen tables with family chiming in and houseguests coming and going, in home offices with portraits of family ancestors looking on, behind desks adorned with their personal knick knacks and momentos... really added not just colour and atmosphere but emotional weight and sincerity to their testimony.

But can somebody explain the German stand-up comic's ice hockey joke?

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Man Without a Past
Kaurismaki (2002)
“I’ve had misfortunes. But I’ll over come them in a couple of days.”

We meet a man (Markku Peltola). He is on a train. He sits in a park. He is beaten senseless and robbed by a group of thugs. He goes to the hospital, is pronounced dead, wakes up, walks out, passes out next to a dock and is taken in a by a kind family. He remembers nothing. Not even his name. He also doesn’t seem to be particularly troubled by any of this. The mystery man sets about to establish a new life. He finds work. He moves into a shipping container of his own. He meets Irma (Kati Outinen), a Salvation Army worker. The two have an understated rapport that blossoms into a relationship. Eventually, the realities of his past life begin to become known and the man (credited only as M), faces of choice between who he was and who he has become.

This all sounds a bit heavy. The day-to-day existence would be the base for much grittier treatment in so many other hands, but with Kaurismaki, the characters barely seem to notice their lot in life and certainly do not dwell much up on it. Kaurismaki is a taste I’ve just never fully taken to. As how I feel about Roy Andersson, I sorta see the humor, but never fully feel it. It’s so deadpan as to almost be pulse-less at times. I do chuckle at the drollness. The security guard/landlord here seemed to be a particularly extreme/obvious example of this tone. Almost everything he says is a threat or challenge to our hero but his message is always conveyed in the same, flat, unaffected tone. Hannibal the dog (a girl dog, not a boy) looks more likely to lick you to death the go for your throat. Come to think of it, I’m not sure any voice in the film moves out of that dry, matter-of-fact range. The bank teller barely flinches when faced with a shotgun wielding robber. Overall it reminds me in many ways of Jim Jarmusch, who is a personal favorite of mine. But, unlike Jarmusch, I’ve still never fully warmed to any of Kaurismaki’s work. I like it fine, The edges of my mouth often curl ever so slightly into the barest hints of a smile, yet it never goes beyond that. Is there a sensibility that is lost in translation on me with Kaurismaki/Andersson vs an American like Jarmusch? Is there some sort of Nordic humor sensibility wavelength that I just can’t full catch?

The Man Without a Past does contain a sweet and affecting vein though in the relationship between M and Irma. I felt a very real sadness for Irma when M left. Maybe it’s because she has such a naturally hang-dog face and expression. Actually most of the cast sports that look. I was curious about M’s past though I did suspect he would return and I was happy to see it so. I also picked up on the financial issues lurking throughout. I’m not familiar with the state of Finland at that time, so I assume this was political commentary of a sorts. I got it in a general sense, but don’t know the real world genesis of it so don’t feel like I can fully comment on its effectiveness.

 

[kihei]

K: you make a good point I forgot to make. It wasn't a big deal for me, but given the uber-drollness of the script, I thought the deadpan line deliveries were a little much, kind of gilded the lily. Dialogue this dry doesn't need anything to overemphasize it.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Dead Ringers
Cronenberg (1988)
“You haven’t done anything until I’ve done it too.”

It’s clear from a young age that twins Elliot and Beverly Mantle (Jeremy Irons and Jeremy Irons) are a bit different. If the creepy kids didn’t unsettle you with their sex talk, the foreshadowing sight of them operating on a human body toy might (tied down with rubber bands, it should be noted). They grow up to be brilliant gynecologists and inventors of new, advanced tools for their trade. They are two physically, but act almost as one. Aggressive Elliot is their face and voice. He’s never good with the serious ones. Gentle Beverly is the brains and soul. He’s never good with the frivolous ones. Oh, and by “ones,” we’re not just talking about patients. These two share everything, including their women with Elliot reeling them in with his charms before passing them along to meek Beverly. Into their life arrives Claire (Genevieve Bujold), an actress in Toronto for a shoot. She wants a child. Her tri-compartmented uterus, however, makes that impossible. It does pique the curiosity of the twin doctors though. They begin to date. First she believes them to be one man. When she learns of the twin deception, she still finds feelings for Beverly, who also starts developing feelings for prescription drugs. As Bev’s relationship to reality becomes more and more tenuous — he believes we’re all deformed/mutants on the inside (how’s that for a metaphor!) — his relationship with Elliot begins to unravel. Their professional and personal lives falling apart, the brothers turn to a radical plan to get back “in sync” that results in a gruesome, though not unexpected, denouement.

David Cronenberg is a master of unsettling cinema and this is among his best work and there is nary a gout of blood in sight. It’s got so many of the classic Cronenberg touchstones — body horror, psychological trauma, sex, technology/instrumentation — yet it’s a far more serious and refined execution from a lot of his earlier efforts. This isn’t a skin-crawling midnight movie. There’s really only one scene of true, classic Cronenbergian grossness (I hope Bujold was paid well for this movie). So much of the drama is internal (no pun intended) and that’s a testament to Irons who is equally at ease as the suave Elliot and the crumbling Beverly. It’s widely thought that Iron’s 1989 Academy Award for Reversal of Fortune was as much for Dead Ringers since Academy voters wouldn’t deign to vote for something as icky and upsetting as a David Cronenberg film back in those days.

Cronenberg has made me uncomfortable and squeamish so many times, yet I’m not sure he’s had a scene quite as nerve wracking as the strung-out Beverly — clad in those distressing blood red designer operating smocks — rolling out his monstrous new set of designer gynecological tools for an operation on a patient. Thank heavens the rest of the surgical team stops him (that time). The ending always feels a bit rushed to me. That said I’m not sure how much longer I would want to spend in this world.

Dead Ringers is a tragedy that is equal parts affecting and disturbing. I never know whether to shed a tear or take a shower.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Next pick: Night and the City
Dassin (195o)

 

[kihei]

Dead Ringers (1988) Directed by David Cronenberg

Dead Ringers, a movie about twin brothers too close to one another for their own good (and other people's, too) and their eventual flight into dissolution and madness, might be director David Cronenberg's single greatest achievement. It is one of the most refined, elegant horror films that I have ever seen, and no less creepy for its understatement. But what raises the movie above most other serious horror films that I have seen is the quality of the performance by Jeremy Irons who, with sublime sensitivity, humanizes both brothers, transforming the film into a tragedy in the process. The most amazing thing about the performance is that Irons creates two characters where the whole point of the movie is that there is only really one. But the movie doesn't get around to making that point for a very long time. Meanwhile Irons creates two slightly different brothers, virtually indistinguishable from one another, yet the audience always knows, until near the very end, which one is which. Further, he brings to each character such empathy that they never quite appear to be monsters that they are--rather, they are more like victims of an incredible happenstance over which they have little or no control. Safe to say, if the performance doesn't work there is no viable movie. It is a just simply superb piece of work by Irons.

I suspect that the horror evident in this film, which in one manner of speaking is subtle (there is only one death in the entire movie), plays differently depending on which gender is watching it. I remember taking my partner to see this movie when it was first released in Toronto. She hated it with a passion. Other women with whom I talked shared her opinion. Where mutant genealogical operating instruments seemed like a refined kind of horror to me, none of the women I talked to felt the same way. They took the film more personally, an example of Cronenberg hitting below the belt figuratively and literally. Thinking about such tools in use did not lead to an enjoyable fright; rather, it called forth some very deep atavistic fears. conjuring into existence a kind of nightmarish abuse that for many women was literally unconscionable. Throughout his career, Cronenberg delights in being disturbing on some level, one of the characteristics that makes him unique. As much as I am impressed by Dead Ringers, I still haven't figured out whether he may have gone too far for half the audience. It's a very tricky question, that one.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I remember Jeremy Irons thanking Cronenberg in his Oscar acceptance speech, saying to the audience "some of you will know why", his way of acknowledging, I guess, that some academy members had Dead Ringers in mind when they voted for him.

And speaking of being in synch, I'm almost caught up in this thread. But first have to deal with The Man Without A Past.

The day after seeing The Man Without A Past I just happened to watch Pasolini's Salo, so I've been kind of bummed out ever since. Only just turning my attention back to Kaurismaki. I should have watched the films in the reverse order; The Man without A Past would be a good antidote to the most depressing movie ever made. The title character is the living embodiment of human resilience and optimism: he gets knocked down, but he gets up again. You are never going to keep him down.

The movie makes poverty look cheerful and bright, and some might take offense with that. But it's not meant to be a protest movie--at least not explicitly, although it's a good reminder that in a modern industrial society there is still an underworld of people who have fallen through the cracks--and it's not trying to break your heart either. It's a comedy, and a good one too. I laughed a lot, and I found it uplifting. Despite the desperation of their situation the characters find silver linings everywhere. The main dish may be burnt to a crisp...but at least the peas were good.

 

[Jevo]

Dead Ringers (1988) dir. David Cronenberg

Beverly and Elliot Mantle (Jeremy Irons) are a pair of wonder twins, who become two of the leading gynaecologists in the world. The two look exactly alike, and hardly anyone is able to tell the difference between them. They do however have to distinct personalities. Elliot is open and outgoing, while Beverly is shy and closed in. Elliot often seduces women who come to the clinic, and when he tires of them, he has Beverly go in his place. Actress Claire Nuveau (Geneviève Bujold) is no exception. Elliot seduces her in the name of Beverly, and the two brothers switches being with her. Beverly however develops an emotional attachment to her, which brings the brothers relationship in jeopardy. Claire is unaware that there's two Mantle brothers, and doesn't realise what is happening, although she does notice "Beverly's" personality being different from time to time almost schizophrenic, until one day while having lunch with a friend, she is told that there's two brothers.

In many ways Dead Ringers is quite typical for the kind of movies that Cronenberg made back then. Body horrors where the physical and mental manifestations intertwine and sort of becomes one. Here Elliot and Beverly are like siamese twins, not physically attached to each other, but attached on a higher level. They are inseparable if one goes down, so does the other. Elliot also compares them to the "original" siamese twins, and how ones death caused the other to die as well. In the movie Beverly has a nightmare where him and Elliot and connected by a sort of parasitic connection. In the latter part of the movie Elliot also tries to get Beverly out of his drug abuse and away from his suicidal tendencies, to save himself. Elliot goes as far as starting to take the same drugs himself, to "synchronise" with Beverly, which just causes Elliot to fall into the same despair as Beverly.

At the time Cronenberg was really good at casting character actors or less heralded actors in his films, and getting extremely good lead performances out of them. Such as Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken or James Woods. The best of these performances is probably Jeremy Irons here. He carries the entire movie on his back, many many scenes are him talking to himself, and it's extremely convincing. He also manages to make the two brothers distinct from each other in somewhat subtle ways, so that you become aware of who is who, but not in a way where he overacts one part of them to separate them. He finds a very good balance between being ambiguity and distinction.

Some of Cronenbergs horror films end being a bit too out there for me to really get into them, even if I do enjoy them for the most part. In Dead Ringers I was hooked for pretty much the entire movie. It's not quite up there with my favourite Cronenbergs, A History of Violence and Eastern Promises, but it's close to those two, and I really adore those two.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I don't know about Dead Ringers. It's an enjoyable movie but there's something half-baked about this story that just seems implausible. I like the premise. Identical twins are naturally creepy (apologies to any readers who may be twins. But it's true. Except for sexy twins like Mimsy and Coral) and there's potential in exploring the idea that while they may live in equilibrium sharing one identity disaster may befall them when a new element is introduced to upset that equilibrium, that new element being romance--love will tear them apart. Jeremy Irons gives a must-see performance leading up to a major drug binge, an occupational hazard in the medical profession.

So what's the problem? Many movies call for some suspension of disbelief and in the horror genre the ask is bigger than usual…radioactive fallout in the atmosphere causing zombies to rise from the dead? Sure, why not, to take a random example. But Dead Ringers is not aiming for drive-in B movie thrills like Night Of The Living Dead. The psychological themes ask us to think a little bit, but think too much and it begins to unravel. We only see the Mantle brothers "in sync" in the brief series of flashbacks that start the film. As soon as we get to the present the synergy becomes a variation of the good cop/bad cop routine. We're expected to believe these brothers have been trading places, partially for the purpose of sharing women, and getting away with it all their adult lives, yet the first woman to come into the picture figures them out right away. Why her? Why now? Maybe the women they've been seducing--mostly patients of theirs who would be well aware that they are twins--never particularly cared which one was which and were using them as much as they were being used. These guys are supposed to be renowned experts in their field of medicine, men of science and reason...they don't really believe they share the same bloodstream do they? They are really supposed to be spooked by the story of the original siamese twins? Perhaps dumbing down is part of the process of splitting into two distinct personalities. Elliot's favourite TV show is "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" so you never know. The ending seemed more vague than ambiguous.

Dead Ringers is not a "check your brain at the door" kind of movie…you need your brain for this one. But mine just couldn't get all the loose ends to connect in any insightful way. Might have been more convincing if we saw more of Bev and Elly practicing the darker side of their brother act before coming apart.