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

[kihei]

Gosford Park (2001) Directed by Robert Altman

It seems to me that Gosford Park is trying to be some combination of three things: an Agatha Christie-style mystery; a social critique of Britain's class structure; and a comedy of manners. I think it fails at all three things.

As a Agatha Christie-type mystery, it is simply not clever enough or intricate enough. There are no surprises until the end, but it's not like that there was a carefully constructed group of clues that lead to stunning revelation. In fact, if one is paying attention to the pants people are wearing, one of the culprits is an easy giveaway. The other one is not difficult to figure out as well. In other words, there is nothing mysterious about the mystery at any point in the entire movie.

As a satire on Britain's class structure, what does the movie provide that is fresh or insightful? Upperclass twits remain upperclass twits and the working class, who live literally beneath their betters on a separate floor, are conditioned to accept their lot as though it was God-given. Better movies have made similar points more insightfully.

As a comedy of manners, there simply isn't enough acerbic wit to make anything amusing. For starters, this is not an amusing lot. There are way too many characters, most of whom have little to do with the plot but all of whom require screen time. Outside of one Irish lass, who is more central than she deserves to be, there are really no rooting interests. For a comedy of manners to work, at least some of the characters need to be engaging, and just about none of them are here. They all seem stunted by the class system, which is maybe one of Altman's points, but it doesn't make for entertaining viewing.

Then there is the massive cast of actors that Altman employs, many among the cream of the crop of Britain's movie and theatre elite. Initially this is kind of fun as yet another familiar face pops up in a supporting role. But many of these actors have a lot of ham in them and so many actors in one movie means limited screen time which is at a real premium. Some actors handle this in stride: Clive Owen, Helen Mirren, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Jeremy Northam all acquit themselves well. Others, though, resort to shameless scene stealing. None is worse at this than Alan Bates but he has lots of company: Maggie Smith, Micheal Gambon, Derek Jacobi, and Steven Frye all chew up lots of scenery. And then there is the curious case of Ryan Philippe. What is he doing in this movie? He has an awful Scottish accent and he is also saddled with one of the least likeable characters in the movie. I don't think in the right vehicle that Philippe is a bad actor, but he seems severely out of his depth here.

In the end, Gosford Park felt like an oddball vanity project for Altman, one for which he didn't bother to bring his "A" game.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Gosford Park
Altman (2001)
“I’m the perfect servant.”

Robert Altman is one of those quintessential American directors. Came of professional age in the 1960s. Lefty, socially conscious. Firebrand. Willing to experiment. Desire to be messy.

An upstairs-downstairs country house murder mystery is a quintessential British story. Confined. Controlled. Formulaic. Demure, even.

On paper, it’s perhaps an odd match but in reality it turns out to be a perfect pairing. Each component sharpening what’s strong about the other. Sprawling casts with a camera weaving in and out of various conversations. His signature overlapping dialogue. That’s Altman’s playground and the country house doesn’t hold him back, it sets him free. It’s also a class-conscious story that even fits thematically on Altman’s resume.

Take a backdrop like this and people it with a strong cast and so much of the short-hand is done for you. Let them go and bounce off each other. And bounce they do.

Of course even calling this a “murder mystery” oversells that aspect a tad. It’s accurate and it does drive the action in the back half of the film and, as is the case with the structure, it lays a good amount of whodunit track with characters and methods (wayward gun shot, missing knife, poison cabinet) before the act comes. But is it really even all that important? Only a handful of the characters are emotionally impacted by it. There’s a curiosity about solving it by some but it isn’t overwhelming. The upper class barely considers the lower, which is, of course, mostly what this is about. The specifics of motive(s) are a sad secret eventually revealed, but the greater issue is that power of the haves over the have-nots. Certainly of a piece with Altman’s previous work, regardless of country of origin.

It's not exactly subtle about it, but the big clue for us is the delightfully comic arrival of an inept detective, a fun flip on how these things usually play out and again it underlines the commentary about superiors and inferiors as his lesser-ranked colleague is clearly the brains of the operation. Not that the detective notices.

Wonderful touches abound. I particularly like the scenes of the staff enjoying the music behind the sanctity of closed doors. Dignity and divide all in a few shots. You get exactly what you want and expect from the slew of British titans here. Maggie Smith can play her role in her sleep and I’d still want to give her an Oscar for it. Gruff Michael Gambon. Wounded Emily Watson. Posh Kristen Scott Thomas. Devilish Clive Owen (man, I miss this dude – great presence). Innocent and inquisitive Kelly MacDonald. Sniveling Tom Hollander. Richard E. Grant as Richard E. Grant. Ryan Phillipe’s innate polished untrustworthy punchableness has never been better exploited. Oh and then there’s Helen Mirren lying in wait, making you wonder why she’s even in this and then the answer comes…

Hardly new or revolutionary. But a good example of both what Altman does and what this type of story is.

 

[Pink Mist]

Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001)

Robert Altman's Gosford Park begins like all of his other ensemble films, as we're introduced to a whirlwind of characters that I struggle to differentiate between before we settle into a plot. Or rather try to settle into a plot. Gosford Park has a star studded cast of the who's who of British stage and cinema, unfortunately not many of them have much to work with as the compete for attention resulting in a lot of hammy performances (worst being Stephen Fry who enters in the final third in an eyerolling performance). There's far too many characters in the film and I really struggled to hang onto or care about them, and the actors equally struggled to find their footing in the film.

Then the plot. What a mess. It's like Altman wanted to remake Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game but couldn't clear the rights so he haphazardly threw in a rejected Agatha Christie murder plot in the last hour. I don't think Altman added anything new that Rules of the Game (or other films) already said sixty years prior about the divide between the aristocratic class and their servants. Likewise as a murder mystery, it's not much of a mystery if you are paying attention to the pants of the characters when the murder occurs - not really a spoiler because its the only piece of information you have to work off of - I knew who did it before the body was even discovered. Likewise with the surprise twist at the end, it was fairly obvious that it was going to be the big reveal if had been paying attention or wondering why the hell Helen Mirren is even in the film with little to work with.

Everyone involved in Gosford Park could do, and has done, a lot better.

 

[Pink Mist]

Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1973)

On paper (heh), Paper Moon is a film I should dislike. For one, it stars Ryan O’Neal, who is a bit of a wooden and bland actor, in a role that requires a lot of charm and charisma. Secondly, and most importantly, the plot revolves around a precocious child - a cutesy genre of film I normally loath. But a lot of people love it and I had recently watched and loved one of Bogdanovich's films from that era (The Last Picture Show) so I was curious to see if Bogdanovich would be able to overcome those marks against the film.

And he does. Paper Moon is a rare film where the precocious child plot isn't overly cutesy (although it definitely flirts with crossing that line at times), and instead has depth and a melancholy that hangs over the story. I think what helps the film is that the two leads Ryan and Tatum O'Neal are real life father and daughter so there is a natural chemistry between the two actors as well as pre-built depth to their relationship (which if you read into their real-life relationship was pretty troubled, to put it lightly). And Ryan O'Neal is actually really charming for once in this role, and plays the con man character perfectly. So props to Bogdanovich on both counts.

Bogdanovich at this period in the 1970s was somehow channeling all the insights from the great directors he interviewed as a critic into his own films. Both here and in The Last Picture Show he essentially makes a Ford, Capra, or Howard Hawks film, but something still of his own style and of Bogdanovich's own era. Golden Age Hollywood but not. He's not mimicking them, but its a great homage updating the style to the 1970s. But it's also hard to classify necessarily Bogdanovich as New Hollywood alongside his contemporaries like Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, or Altman as we reviewed last week who primarily draw their influence at the time from Italian Neo-realism and French New Wave. Neo-Golden Age Hollywood, perhaps?

 

[Pink Mist]

Next pick is Wake in Fright directed by Ted Kotcheff

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Paper Moon
Bogdanovich (1973)
“Must be a lot of good towns around here.”

At the risk of sounding like an ass, I hate precocious kids. Be they preternaturally intelligent and mature or shock-comedy foul mouthed or chubby-cheeked cute bomb or some combination of the above, etc., etc., etc. I’ve cringed in recent years when the likes of Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild or Brooklynn Prince in The Florida Project get nominated for awards against full-grown actors who are out there grinding. The kids aren’t bad and they’re certainly memorable but it never feels like acting to me. It feels like … go be cute, go be a kid and we’ll just let the camera roll. I know, I know, pity the poor actors, but I kinda do! I’d hate to bust my ass and then lose an award to a kid who is just kinda being a kid. What’s the saying … never act against kids and dogs?

Notorious piece-of-shit Ryan O’Neal would seem to agree. He famously and horribly hit his daughter Tatum when she was nominated for an Oscar (which she would go on to win) and he was not for Paper Moon.

The physical abuse is very clearly beyond the pale, but the sentiment is also wrong. She’s fantastic. Tatum O’Neal’s performance here is the exception that proves the rule. It’s definitely precocious in many ways that could teeter into irritating, but it doesn’t. I think the best bit in the movie is how quickly and completely O’Neal’s grifter realizes and acquiesces to the fact that Addie is probably smarter than he is. She’s giving a real performance. Not just funny and charming, but sad and complex in ways most kid performances are not. She is still a lonely kid at the end of the day. And you truly want the ending you get.

Ryan O’Neal’s long been a bit of an object of fascination for me. I’ve said this elsewhere around these parts, but is there a more middling actor who has benefited from good directors knowing exactly how to deploy his empty handsomeness? This, What’s Up Doc, Barry Lyndon, The Driver … I’d never call him a good actor and yet, he’s perfect in all of these very good to great movies.

Old Hollywood fetishist Peter Bogdanovic gives us a classy, classic middle American picaresque. It’s a sweet, well-executed bit of entertainment. Another curiosity … a man who had a long career but never really came close to highs of his earliest achievements (this, The Last Picture Show, What’s Up Doc, Targets). Many point to his divorce and eventual professional split (after this movie) from Polly Platt as that turning point with some pretty compelling arguments that she was the power behind the throne. The podcast You Must Remember This did a fantastic series on her career that I can’t recommend enough.

 

[Pink Mist]

Timely to watch Paper Moon

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Timely to watch Paper Moon

I don't take back what I said.

 

[Jevo]

Paper Moon (1973) dir. Peter Bogdanovich

Moses Pray is a grifter who stops of the funeral of a woman he had relations with 9 years earlier. At the funeral he gets saddled with the womans 9 year old daughter Addie, who's also his daughter, but he doesn't want to admit that. He promises to deliver her to the kids aunt. At first he plans to just throw her on a train, but not before he uses her presence to blackmail the family of the man who drove the car that killed Addie's mother. Addie over hears this, and uses this to blackmail Moses to bring her along. Addie ends up showing a big talent for grifting, and their journey suddenly doesn't take them towards Addie's aunt any longer.

If there's one word to describe Paper Moon, it's probably "charming". The movie certainly wants to be charming, and it often has the appearence of being charming. Tatum O'Neal also is very charming and by far the best thing about the film. The big problem for me is that I don't find Ryan O'Neal charming in the slightest. In fact I haven't seen any film with him where I find him charming at all. Funnily enough that works in his favour in Barry Lyndon where his lack of charm makes him perfect for the role. But it really works against him here. Now Moses isn't a good guy. But we are to believe that Addie really wants to stay with him in the end, and that he really cares about Addie. From Moses' actions that is a bit hard to see, he's really only out to look after himself, and Ryan O'Neal doesn't make it particularly believeable for me either. With a better suited actor playing Moses I think I could really like this movie. Tatum is acting circles around him more or less every time they are on screen together. Peter Bogdanovich also does a great job of as a director, he really creates a great 1970s version of the 1930s, and that is a lot of fun to see. Unfortunately for him, he's working with a script that I don't think really has a lot to say at the end of the day. I really miss some of the anger that I think he brings to something like The Last Picture Show. But it's hard to do that with this script.

 

[kihei]

Paper Moon (1973) Directed by Peter Bogdonovich

I was not charmed. I was wildly not charmed. But more about that later.

What's with this notion that children should not be nominated for acting awards? Hell, if they can bring it, why not? Ana Torrent, like maybe ten-years-old at the time, gave one of the greatest performances the I have ever seen in Spirit of the Beehive. What has age got to do with it? Tatum O'Neill is the only reason to watch Paper Moon, the only reason I didn't fall asleep half way through it.

A year later a movie with a very similar premise (stranger gets stuck with kid) came out, Wim Wenders' Alice in the Cities. That is one of my dozen favourite movies of all time, and it has none of the shortcomings that encumber Paper Moon. Definitely not cutesy; definitely has something to say about the importance of place and connection. Definitely seems plausible. Definitely not aiming to please. Definitely infinitely superior to this flick.

I really don't like Ryan O'Neill. I really, really don't like him. He always seemed to me to be an actor that was looking to slap somebody, a lot of anger in a package that wasn't very interesting to begin with. So, no, I don't see the guy as having any sort of charm potential. Redford or Newman or Nicholson would have been great in this role, infinitely superior, but O'Neill, he just looks like a potential angry Irish drunk.

Peter Bogdanovich was one of the leading auteur critics before he was a director. It really shows. Paper Moon looks like an homage to John Ford's Grapes of Wrath with cinematographer James Wong Howe mimicking Greg Toland. It's a beautiful movie to watch on that level. But the actual story is sort of predictable and designed to please. When you come to think about it, even The Last Picture Show is derivative. Bogdanovich never had an original idea in his life, Tatum and the visuals keep Paper Moon watchable, but there is really not much there.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Matewan
Sayles (1987)
“You ain’t men to that coal company. You’re equipment.”

For the last five or so years, I’ve felt like my current year movie watching has dwindled and my year-end top 10 or so just haven’t been that interesting. I feel like I don’t see enough and the end result is often chalk choices without much spice. I’m being true to myself, but again, I don’t feel like what I have to say is very interesting. So I’ve started doing a list of the best “new to me” movies — older movies that I hadn’t seen before.

With a few weeks in the year to go, Matewan is a very strong contender for the number one spot on my list this year.

John Sayles’ true-life tale of attempts to unionize the West Virginia coal mining town of Matewan has the angry political soul of a documentary but with the structure of a western. Good guy rides into town to empower the people to fight back against the big bad guys. It’s a human-driven drama with the tension and beats of a top-notch thriller.

The company and especially their on-ground representatives are evil. That’s unambiguous. But there is nuance in the overall situation. Several of our “heroes” are openly racist and the union doesn’t come out unscathed. They’re political, bureaucratic and short-resourced. It’s a better solution, but it’s not a savior. One might wonder if members have been left out to dry. Sacrificed for a movement’s greater good.

I feel like I’ve been leaning on this crutch a lot lately, but damn if this isn’t just a really professionally done film. Well written and acted. It executes the human moments — like disparate groups finding common ground over music or realizing that one community’s polenta is another’s cornmeal — and gives you genuine moments of thrills. There’s the tension of Joe’s near assassination. The young preacher’s firey coded sermon. The brutal murder of a young miner who won’t betray his side. Chris Cooper is walking decency. David Stratharin isn’t an actor I think of when I think of the term “bad ass” but his icy cool Sherriff qualifies.

Another sign of quality … this cast goes about 12 deep with solid, recognizable faces who'd all go on to long careers in TV and movies. My guess is James Earl Jones and maybe Stratharin would have been the only known actors at this time, most of the rest were unknowns.

Sayles is an interesting dude. Another successful graduate of the Roger Corman school. Beyond his writing-directing career (with additional chronicles of bits of Americana like Eight Men Out or Lone Star) he wrote wonderfully fun horror flicks The Howling and Piranha (among other interesting credits.

Actually watched this about a month ago and it still pops into my mind every few days.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Though it's not going to line up exactly with the season my next pick is a "Christmas movie." Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar.

 

[kihei]

Matewan (1987) Directed by John Sayles

Matewan is a movie that addresses a tragic historical event, and tackles an issue that hasn't got any less relevant over the years. There was a lot that I liked about it. For starters, the ensemble acting is uniformly terrific. I remembered while I was watching it that that is pretty much a standard in John Sayle's movies. The mise-en-scene was suitably dark, bleak and gritty, sort of a cinematic equivalent of coal dust (shot by the great Haskell Wexler). And I love Sayles' use of reaction shots, something he has always been really good at doing. They really communicate an emotion and a sense of expectation--not always, but often, signally what is to follow. But the bad guys seemed way over the top even for bad guys. The blond haired kid annoyed me. And I seem to be watching a lot of men talking around a camp fire or in somebody's parlour. I'm someone who often likes bleak endings but the final shot in this one seemed just too much. I concede Sayles may have been wanting to make a point that could not be misinterpreted, but I thought that was a questionable way to do it. This stuff wouldn't have much mattered if the movie had gripped me, but it never really did. I never got in its rhythm.

 

[Pink Mist]

Matewan (John Sayles, 1987)

Matewan is a film that is basically designed in a lab to be an all-timer for me. A historical film about the labour movement, unions, great ensemble acting, gritty cinematography, essentially a western film. It hits all the beats for me. I went into it just knowing the plot synopsis thinking I was predisposed to liking it, and it went above and beyond.

The acting in particular is remarkable. Just a solid ensemble cast, led by Chris Cooper in his first film role (which is hard to believe), full of character actors that frequently pop up in film and television. There's nuance to the good union guys here, some are explicitly racist, but they're workers being exploited which is what matters here. There's less nuance to the bad guys, but that's fine for me because they seem like believable strikebreakers.

Something that also stands out to me in Matewan is the editing, especially during the near assassination. The story at the point is weaving three or four different perspectives with an editing style of images and reactions that gradually builds up and releases tension in a way that reminded me of Soviet montage. I'm not familiar of Sonya Polonsky or anything else she's worked on, but her editing stood out here.

 

[Pink Mist]

For the last five or so years, I’ve felt like my current year movie watching has dwindled and my year-end top 10 or so just haven’t been that interesting. I feel like I don’t see enough and the end result is often chalk choices without much spice. I’m being true to myself, but again, I don’t feel like what I have to say is very interesting. So I’ve started doing a list of the best “new to me” movies — older movies that I hadn’t seen before.
.

I'm the same way the past few years. I usually only see like 10-20 new releases or so in a year, so its hard to put together a year end list.

Its also nice to see how classic films you watch in a year rank against eachother

 

[Jevo]

Matewan (1987) dir. John Sayles

Labour union organiser Joe Kenehan comes to Matewan West Virginia to assist the workers of the local coal mine who are striking. The mine company is bringing in scabs, but Joe manages to convince the scabs to join the strike instead. The mining company in response brings in private detectives to harass the strikers in any way possible, including with violence under the right circumstances. The situation is a pressure cooker just waiting to blow.

It's a timeless theme that's just as relevant now as it was when the movie was made, and almost as relevant as when the real story unfolded 100 years ago. The mining company practically owns the entire town, and practically all wages can only be used to buy stuff at the company store. The mine workers are practically slaves with no chance of ever being able to move away. The scabs coming in knows this, but are willing to take the chance this just might be slightly less awful than what they came from. Sayles leaves no doubt about this. And while the bad guys are certainly bad, they are presented as almost cartoonishly evil. The movie doesn't revel in their death, but it seems it certainly wants the audience to do so. There's a lot I like about the movie. The ensemble cast is great with great performances all around. The cinematography is great, and fitting bleak the place and subject. But too often I felt I was losing interest in the movie. There's a lot of people talking in this film, and not always about new things in the movie. And it slows the film down, but not in a good way. If it been tighter I reckon I would have really liked Matewan. It's still a good movie, and I'm surprised I hadn't heard about it before now.

An interesting thing about the movie is that the view of the American State towards the unionist and the coal miners during the Coal Wars, is very much still present in how America at large views unions and labor organisations.

 

[NyQuil]

I know that I’m jumping in late on Gosford Park but what I remember was the jarring and ultimately unsuccessful intermingling of styles.

Clive Owen played his role with a dark intensity and then you’ve got Stephen Fry hamming it up and slapsticking around.

Sometimes juxtaposition works (e.g. M*A*S*H) and sometimes it just doesn’t, like in this film, which can’t really decide what it wants to be.

Knives Out was a modern version of this film, exploring some of the same themes, but manages that balance better IMO.

 

[kihei]

Irreversible (2002) Directed by Gaspar Noe

Irreversible is not an easy movie to watch. Told backward in time ala Memento, Irreversible recounts a particularly brutal rape of a woman and the reactions of the two principle men in her life to that violation. The movie starts with a feverish camera swooping around as though trying to find purchase on something, anything. Finally it locates two men, discussing an act of incest that one of them has perpetrated. Neither are bothered by the act. We never see this pair again but they are our introduction to the particular circle of hell that Noe is choosing to explore. What immediately follows includes scenes on an ambulance arriving at a gay sex club (like something out of Dante's Inferno, only with a strong anti-gay bias) where two distraught men have tried to find someone called The Tape Worm. Eventually a very graphic, stomach-churning murder occurs in the name of vengeance. And the movie keeps working back in time from there until it gets to the actual rape, an 11 minute low-angled ordeal that is among the longest, most brutal and violent acts of male savagery in screen history. The movie continues its backward journey but after the first hour, the rest of the movie takes on a much less frenzied and intense approach as we learn more about the immaturity of the two male characters, the disturbingly volatile Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and the somewhat lovelorn Pierre (Albert Dupontel). Perversely, the movie ends on a sunny day with no foreshadowing of what is to come. Now, that's life in a nutshell, innit?

There are so many different ways to approach this movie that it is hard to know where to begin. I think the danger is to react to the film immediately upon seeing it. That's going to happen regardless to any audience member, but don't try to write about it right away. Gaspar Noe is a director who seems to take pride in being a provocateur. His goal seems to be to give the audience a series of visceral jolts that amp up our shock and disgust. He is not so much telling a story as providing the audience with a sensory experience that is so extreme it almost transcends the notion of movie going. In this context, to generate terrible feelings and horrific images is a goal in itself--zap, how much can you take? By these standards the more repulsed the response, the more successful Noe has been as a director. It's a very different aesthetic approach, but there is an audience for it, a surprisingly large one.

Is such an approach justified, though? To pose that very question unmasks me as a timid bourgeoisie relying on technicalities to make the movie go away. In art, if it works, it is justified. In fact, Irreversible checks a lot of critical boxes for me. Does it tell me something about the human condition? Yes. Are the themes universal? Very close to it, probably. Is some form of truth expressed? I think so. Does the work reward additional viewings? It is certainly not fun, but it does reward additional viewings. Is there an effective melding of form and content? For sure. But should movies be an ordeal? Depends, depends, depends.

Whatever Noe's ultimately unknowable intentions were in making this movie, whether he was just trying to be controversial and outrageous because that is how he gets his jollies or not, seems ultimately irrelevant to me. What he has created is the most glaring example of the destructive nature of toxic masculinity in film history. For that he deserves praise. The rape is an act of pure hatred, an attempt not only to violate the woman but to humiliate and destroy her to satisfy a man's sick sense of superiority. The increasingly frenzied reaction of her present and former lovers to her rape provides another indicator of where justice gives way to male fury and vengeance--how dare some stranger violates "my" woman? In general men come across in Irreversible as at best sex-obsessed, homophobic and immature and at worst as balls of pent-up rage waiting to explode often at the expense of women or gays.

And, yet, as a male member of the audience, I also felt implicated. What would my reaction be in a similar situation? To let the police handle it? Or to take matters into my own hands the way that Marcus and Pierre do? Reason should prevail, but vengeance certainly seems like the more satisfying option. Noe, intentionally or not, gives us an awful lot of food for thought.

subtitles

 

[Pink Mist]

Irreversible (Gaspar Noé, 2002)

When Gaspar Noé's Irreversible was selected as a movie of the week I felt a lot of dread come over me as I had recently watched the film for the first time over the summer and was not prepared to rewatch its brutality. In my viewing over the summer, I thought the film a powerful piece of art depicting a horrifying experience, but about a month ago I watched Noé's Enter the Void which was a pretentious piece of shit of a film and a total slog, so I doubly wasn't ready to revisit Noé anytime soon. But I'm a dutiful member of the film club and I was curious how Irreversible would hold up knowing the conceit of the film and having seen techniques shared between it and Enter the Void totally backfire in the latter.

Irreversible is effectively structured in two halves, post-rape and pre-rape. Dropped into the film following the rape, the film starts off at a frantic pace, with quick hectic camera movements that obscure and heighten tension as the two male leads chaotically search for the rape's perpetrator. The first half is violent, it's loud, it's headache inducing. The scenes in the gay hardcore BDSM nightclub in particular has a brilliant mixture that blends fluid and intoxicating cinematography, lighting, and sound design to create an exceptionally tense and brutal scene. The pace is frantic leading up to the rape itself, where the film's stylistic language changes. The fluid camera movements become static and unflinching shot from a low angle as Noé forces the viewer to watch the rape unblinking for over ten minutes. It's a brutal scene, not only because of the horrifying and degrading violation of the rape, but because Noé forces the viewer to bear witness to it in full and doesn't provide relief in camera movements, cuts, or edits to alter our gaze.

Following the rape, the pace of the film begins to slow as it drifts in reverse from the cocaine fueled party to peaceful bliss. The camera is much more static compared to the first half and it would almost be a relaxing portrayal of a loving couple if not for everything that would happen in the first half of the film. You almost feel relief watching this half, knowing the worst of the film is over, but its not really relief but a feeling of sorrow knowing how the day is going to end. It's a really effective structure.

As mentioned, Irreversible stylistically shares a lot with Enter the Void in the techniques utilized by Noé, especially in the fluidity of camera movements. But why Irreversible works where Enter the Void fails is that the camera movements are purposeful. The camera isn't just moving for the sake of moving or to show off technical prowess at the elaborate shots and setups used, but rather the movements work in the service of the story. Purposeful rather than meandering and aimless. I'm not really excited to revisit Noé anytime soon, but if/when I do, I hope it's closer to the type of work he does in Irreversible rather than Enter the Void. Maybe a bit less traumatic though.

 

[Jevo]

Irreversible (2002) dir. Gaspar Noé

Told in reverse order, Irreversible tells the story of Marcus and Pierre who seek a man named La Tenia in a gay BDSM club, where they find a man and kill him. It's revealed they were searching for this man because he raped and beat Marcus' girlfriend Alex, who was also Pierre's ex-girlfriend. The movie moves from the aftermath at the club, to Alex receiving a positive pregnancy test before she left home earlier that day.

I didn't go into this film very enthusiastically . I've seen Irreversible before, and I thought it was a good film, but also a film I didn't want to watch again. The rape scene is one of the most hauting scenes I've seen. Noé takes no prisoners. He doesn't cut away. He doesn't cut it short. Just as you think it has passed, you are gasping for air together with Alex, and then the savage beating of Alex begins. It's a terrible scene to watch, which in this case is a huge compliment to how effective it is. Even before that the film is already hard to watch. There's violence and murder. The action and the camerawork is frantic and nausea inducing, mirroring the state of Marcus and Pierre. It's really effective filmmaking, because it puts you in a state similar to the characters, and telling the story in reverse gives you a similar state of confusion as they have.

After the rape the movie is solemn. It's just normal people doing normal people stuff at a party and in preparation of the party. Watching the film now I think it's actually quite boring during this part. I know what's happening, I don't find Marcus and Pierre discussing Pierre's lack of sexual prowess very exciting, and I'm ready for the gut punch of finding out Alex is pregnant. But I don't think this part works very well on a re-watch of the film. The first part still works because of it's energy and rawness, and just complete misanthropy. When I watched this film the first time. The ending was instrumental in driving home the terribleness of what happens in the first half. How happy people end up raped, beaten half to death, end up as murderes, and end up with this lives irreversibly changed for the worse. And just by a very small action. Had Alex not gone in the underpass, or had she stayed 10 minutes more at the party, none of this would have happened. This whole part of the film was a big gut punch the first time I watched the film, and it really serves its purpose.

I hope I don't have to watch this again. It's a great film, but I'm not sure I'm happy that I've watched it. Sadly I don't think it holds up very well on a 2nd viewing either. The more you know, the less effective the film is. But it really is extremely effective the first time.

 

[AWSAA]

Surprised Kihei didn't recognize the Butcher character from Noe's "I Stand Alone".

 

[kihei]

Surprised Kihei didn't recognize the Butcher character from Noe's "I Stand Alone".

Never saw it.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Irreversible
Noe (2002)

Sorry for the delay. Hectic couple of weeks of work, travel, etc. So, confession I did not rewatch Irreversible. No objections to doing so.. Just a victim of scheduling and accessibility. Have seen it multiple times, which is perhaps, an odd thing to admit given its notoriousness and subject matter. But I know it well and feel comfortable chatting about it.

It’s not a movie I love but that’s only because love isn’t the right word. Again, the heart-rending bleakness doesn’t match with that word. Admire undersells. Maybe I should just say I’ve never forgotten it. Never expect to. The magic (once again a wildly unfitting term) is that for its EXTREME and maybe even SALACIOUS reputation the actual movie never falls prey to such tawdriness. It’s a deadly serious affair and though it provokes, it does so not to titillate you, but to upset you. A tragedy in reverse … it starts a horrifying climax and ends in the most gutting way possible, in happiness. We don’t get catharsis. We get crushed.

I’ve mentioned this many times, but I used to attend an annual 24-hour horror movie marathon. One year the guest was Stuart Gordon. As is the tradition, the guest is invited to pick one movie of their own (From Beyond in this case) and a “horror” movie of their choice that they’d also like to talk about. I say “horror” as you’ve probably figured out because Gordon picked Irreversible to plop right in the middle of a lineup that also included The Masque of the Red Death, The Thing and Q: The Winged Serpent.

Now this crowd historically could veer toward the Mystery Science Theater vibe, i.e. it can get chatty. Sometimes it worked and was warranted, but sometimes it wasn’t (some goobers just really think they’re funny and can’t stop themselves from tossing out lines). Having seen Irreversible previously, I was DREADING this showing because I feared that the crowd was going to snark at it with gross comments, etc. I can’t imagine anything more uncomfortable.

There wasn’t a peep. Not for the entire movie. Stunned silence from a crowd that wasn’t shy about acting like assholes if they thought it could get a laugh.

Gordon followed it with an incredibly thoughtful Q&A as to why he felt it was horror, albeit not one in of a traditional sort. I wish I could remember some of his specifics. Alas, only the gist. RIP Stuart.

The dual leads — the then married duo of Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel (which gives it an added air of verisimilitude) — give unforgettable, all-in performances.

Gaspar Noe’s a one-of-one. No one like him. True to his own style and preferences. His movies are always his movies and only his movies. There are other provocateurs, but Noe has always felt like the real deal, while some others (Nicolas Winding-Refn comes to mind) feel like posers. This is his masterpiece.

 

[Jevo]

Victoria (2015) dir. Sebastian Schipper

A young Spanish woman who recently moved to Berlin without any friends leaves a club at 4AM, so she can get a bit of sleep before starting work at 7. But outisde the club she meets Sonne and his three friends. She ends up hanging out with the guys instead of going home. Victoria had a sheltered childhood training as a pianist. So when the guys do petty theft and skirt the edge of the rules, it's exciting to her. One of the guys, Boxer, has been in prison, and owes money to a guy as payback for protection in prison. That night the guy wants Boxer and three guys to do an armed bank robbery as payback. Since one of the guys is too drunk to participate, Victoria gets talked into acting as their getaway driver, without realising the true nature of what she has gotten herself into.

Victoria is perhaps most well known for being a one take. There's not even any hidden cuts. It's an interesting concept, and I think it really works in Victoria, it's not just a gimmick. It helps show how quickly Victoria's life goes from careless young woman to wanted criminal. The movie starts a bit slow. But it's needed in order to get to know Victoria and the guys. It's quickly apparent there's probably something sketchy about the guys, but that's also probably why Victoria is intruiged by them. It also shows that the guys are not evil. They are generally normal guys caught in a bad situation they don't have the means to get out of, which makes the end all that more tragic. It's easy to think of Victoria as innocent victim. And to some extent she is. But she's a willing participant. She probably wouldn't have gone along if she had known the extent. But she also has several off ramps available to her, and she doesn't take any of them. She even goes so far as to kidnap a baby to allow escape from the police. In the end she's much more calm and level headed in continuining their escape than Sonne.

It's been getting more common to have complete one take films in the couple of decades. Victoria was the first film of such a kind I saw where I thought it worked well as a conventional film. Russian Ark is also very famous, but you can hardly call it conventional, and it's more of kind of show off, and it works really we as that too. There's also movies who are made to look like a one take, but which are stitched together, like Birdman and 1917. I like 1917, not so much Birdman. But what those movies lack I think, is the authenticity you get from filming it as a one take, which I think gets lost when you edit it together instead. Those two films probably couldn't have been made as one take, but I still think they land in a weird middle ground. Victoria is by no means a perfect film, but I think it gets everything out of its constraint, and it's really fun to watch, and you sit in disbelief, perhaps both for good and bad, as it keep spiraling downwards in the end.

 

[kihei]

Victoria (2015) Directed by Sebastian Schipper

This won't take long. I just love this movie. I saw it on its first screening at TIFF in front of a packed house. I don't remember when I've had so much fun in a movie theatre. From the moment Victoria began with a blurry image of someone dancing to throbbing music in a disco, it seemed to cast a spell. The entire audience was swept along with its energy and tension which seemed to slowly build throughout the movie, never letting up. Victoria seems to go by in a flash. When we all left the theatre, people were shaking their head in happy amazement at the ride that we had just been on. We had seem something fresh but also something that recalled early film going experiences when we were in unquestioned awe, totally rapt, by the light and shadows on the screen. The fact that the film occurs in one take is mind blowing but almost incidental when evaluating just how much this movie moves, how captivating its rhythm is. Yes, it is astonishing to think that every thing could have been ruined by one extra in the 83rd minute flubbing his or her line, but that didn't happen and this marvellous viewing experience was created. The only caveat I have about Victoria is that it seems sad to have to watch it alone or even with a few friends on a small screen at home. Victoria creates genuine movie magic, and like Gravity in 2013, it should ideally be watched with as big an audience as possible in as big a movie palace as possible. It's movies like Gravity and Victoria that remind me that film still works best when it is a communal experience.