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

[kihei]

A Cop Movie (2021) Directed by Alonzo Ruizpalacios

A Cop Movie is a movie with a hybrid stlye all its own about a pair of cops in Mexico City, Theresa and Montoya. We meet them as characters played by actors in a sort of docudrama, but then the fourth wall is broken and now the actors who play the characters talk about their feelings about the whole process of their performance, and finally we meet the real-life couple who provide information from their perspective. Meanwhile, director Alonzo Ruizpalacios is messing around with not only a hodge-podge of perspectives but he is also throwing in offhandedly a parody of TV cop movies just for the hell of it, complete with a Lalo Schifrin-style soundtrack and cops sliding across the hoods of cars giving chase to bad guys. It's dizzying, rollicking, and a little confusing. The question becomes what do we get for all this razzle-dazzle and could we have gotten something better in a more conventional mode of delivery. I think we actually get quite a lot of bang for the buck.

Certainly, we get a very clear idea of what it is like to be a Mexico City cop. A great many Mexico City cops become cops because they are without options, ill-equipped to do much else, poorly educated, and easily malleable. It is not a system that attracts the best and brightest because there is little organization, scant public funding, zero prestige, and a great deal of public suspicion about cops in general, much of it, sadly, well founded. For instance, just because a cop calls for an ambulance doesn’t mean an ambulance is coming. Corruption is so socially engrained in the system that it doesn’t even seem particularly corrupt anymore, not when everybody at all levels accept bribery the way a waiter might expect tips. The Mexican police employ massive indiscretion when dealing with the public, with the power to harass at random any unfortunate motorist whenever a cop needs money for a donut and coffee. But there is also massive corruption throughout the police hierarchy itself which means young cops have to pay bribes to get decent cars, weapons, or body armour.

All this wears down our two featured cops, Teresa and Montoya are flawed people, but they are doing their best to do their job and stay afloat in a system that is ultimately brutally sexist and casually soul-destroying. We meet them individually; we meet them as a couple, as the “love patrol.” There is so much that grinds them down, so much that they don’t have adequate training for. The comments from the characters, the actors and the actual people themselves all paint an incredibly bleak picture of individuals trapped in a system that shows them no mercy.

I was left wondering how in the world could this system ever be fixed. Does this movie provide a picture of what North American policing will become or has already become? When a society exists for the few who become rich at the expense of the many, a hell is created on earth. The most fortunately affluent citizens might as well live on Mount Olympus while the easily expendable hoi polio fight it out below for meagre scraps. Alonzo Ruizpalacios is one director to really keep an eye on in the future. He is not all style and no substance by any means.


Netflix

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[Jevo]

A cop Movie (2021) dir. Alonso Ruizpalacios


A mixture of fact and fiction in this documentary, as two actors go "undercover" in the police academy of Mexico City, as preparation for playing a couple of police officers in Mexico City.


A Cop Movie has novel structure. For the first half it's a somewhat standard documentary with the subject telling their story, while the pictures on the screen are reconstructions of the events being described. Although slowly over time they go slowly from looking like classic documentary footage, over being obvious reconstructions, to in the end looking more like something from an action movie of sorts. And just as things are getting a bit too silly, and you start to lose immersion and trust in the story. The power "goes" out on the set, and any pretense of things shown having been real is pulled. Instead we start getting the story of the two actors playing the two cops enrolling in the police academy, and them documenting their experiences there in form of video diaries.


A Cop Movie has a lot it wants to say about police work in Mexico. The police are horribly corrupt and cannot be trusted to protect citizens. But it's largely not a problem with the individual cops. Becuase they are largely being set up to fail by the system. First of all there's too few police officers and emergency services, which means they often can't help, even when they want to. The system is also corrupt from the top down, with each layer of the pyramid grabbing something for themselves, most often from those below. So when officers on the ground are forced to slip a little something every day if they want proper equipment and bullets for their guns, on top of the things they just have to buy for themselves like rubber gloves, it becomes understandable when officers get that money covered during their shifts during traffic stops etc. The police also intentionally hires from the poorer parts of the social pyramid, which can further exacerbate the corruption problem, because the officers often can't afford to not be corrupt. The film doesn't excuse corruption, but it understands the problems that the officers face, and why even ones with a good morale compass succombs to corruption. It's because they somewhat unknowingly enter a world that it's entirely rotten, and if you want to survive in that world, both literally and figuratively, you have to become at least a little bit rotten yourself.


A Cop Movie has some intersting ideas in terms of how you can also structure a documentary, but while it's novel, I'm not sure it's always a strength. For example I'm not sure that the part that largely focuses on the actors experiences while being in the police academy works very well. The pace of the film grinds to a halt, and I'm not sure I found their insights based on their experiences particularly insightful. I think the story of Teresa and Montoya could easily have stood on it's own both narratively and thematically.


Ruizpalacios has made a funny and heartfelt movie about the problems with the police force in Mexico, and does so in a very nuanced and insightful way. And he comes closer to identifying the core issues, and also how ingrained they are in the system and how hard they will be to solve because of it, than many others who attempt to explore the same subject. It has some rough edges, and at times gets a bit too preoccupied with style, but it doesn't stop it from reaching a satisfying conclusion.

 

[kihei]

House of Flying Daggers (2004) Directed by Zhang Yimou

During the Tang Dynasty in China, Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kineshiro), two police officers, are tasked with inverstigating Mei (Zhang Ziyi), a blind dancer, who is rumoured to be an agent of the dread House of Flying Daggers, a secret resistance organization that aims to overthrow the government. Leo, the ranking officer, plots with Jin to assist in Mei's escape from custody after which Jin will follow her to find out where the Flying Daggers are located and who leads them.

House of Flying Daggers is part of the highly popular wuxia genre which deals with the fantasitical adventures of martial artists of various kinds in Ancient China (think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero, for two examples). I chose this movie because of how lovely I remembered the visuals being. Though I had seen House of Flying Daggers three or four times previously, it seems not for the first time in my life I was distracted by a pretty face on each of those other occasions. This movie is very different than I remember it. The funny thing is I always recall this film as a fun adventure flick that very much fits the summary given above. But there is much more to this movie than that brief synopsis implies. Yes, there is a lot of amazing swordplay and exciting escapes and so on as well as more than a few dandy twists of the tale, basically the stuff that I always remember. But in restricting myself to that I seem to ignore about 60% of the movie, the big part that gradually slides from wuxia action to tragic romance. In fact, the end of the film is one of the bleakest that I have seen as a whole menage a trois, all my favourite characters, die in the snow...make that, die in the exceptionally picturesque snow. So what gives?

For starters the movie is so dazzling to look at that my sensual experience of the work tends to be dominated by my vision alone. The movie is so gorgeous it is distracting. From the playful colours of the Peony Pavillion, basically a house of concubines, to the beautiful nature shots along the way (almost the whole movie takes place outdoors, the degree to which surprised me this time around), the subtle (or not so subtle) choices of fabric, to that amazing transformation from fall to winter during one long swordfight, not to mention the battle in the lushly green bamboo trees, the snowflakes the size of kittens, the swirling choreography....I could go on; well, it is almost too much to take in, an assault on the senses that is almost druglike but very pleasurable.

But this time I noticed more things, perhaps getting at last properly aclimatized to the film's enveloping, nearly smothering mise en scene. So Leo sends Jin on this mission, but then Leo, we eventually find out, is a flying dagger himself as is Mei. In fact, they are/were lovers. At one point, with things beginning to go off the rails, Leo gets in a fight with Mei, who has fallen in love with Jin, and Leo says to her "You knew the plan." And this time I go. "Wait a minute...wait a minute, varmints. Stop right there." The plan, the plan. The whole movie is based around this big plan, and it strikes me for the first time that the plan makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. To send Jin on this mission only courts disaster because everybody else besides him already knows what's going on and there is no need to involve Jin in any of these proceedings because there is nothing to gain except plot-driven romantic conflict. Took me god-damned decadees to figure this out...but better late than never. So in the end House of Flying Daggers is really a tragic love story disguised as a wuxia fillm. And despite the fact that the central premise of the movie doesn't make much sense. the hell with it, it is still wonderful.

So is beauty its own reward? Seems so; it usually is. But I would hesitate to say that House of Flying Daggers is the most beautiful movie I have ever seen. I'm not even sure that it is Zhang Yimou's most beautiful film. There are after all several contenderts (Hero; Shadow; Curse of the Golden Flower, and others). House of Flying Daggers beauty can be a little coarse, a little too obvioius, more than a touch inelegant even. I mean, it is way up there as a visual experience, but I wouldn't rate its beauty in the same aesthetic class as Hou Hsaio-Hsien's elegant The Assassin or Michelangelo Antonioni's Red Desert or Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love or Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, all subtler works with more thematic weight by far. But I wouldn't say House of Flying Daggers is mere spectacular eye candy either. Whatever....one way or the other, it is an overwhelming cinematic experiience.

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One more point: Wuxia is sort of like a combination of Hollywood Westerns (which are/were period pieces set in the Old West with lots of gun play and a clearly defined overarching morality) and the dance numbers in Golden Age Hollywood musicals. The quality of the choreography of the fight scenes in some wuxia films almost matches Astaire and Kelly in terms of eye-popping wonder. So people who usually don't like "foreign" movies might like these ones.

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[kihei]

My next pick is Celine Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

 

[Pink Mist]

Looking forward to this one, I havent watched much wuxia so it's a genre i have a bit of a blind spot with.

I may be a little slow writing up a review, I'm starting a new job tomorrow so my life is a little hectic right now

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

House of Flying Daggers
Yimou (2004)
“This is not the time for love.”

Tang Dynasty, 859: The people are revolting against a corrupt government. The most troublesome gang is the House of Flying Daggers. Two police officers — Leo and Jin — are charged with hunting down and assassinating the gang’s leader. Mei is a blind dancer believed to be involved with the group. Leo has her arrested and, undercover, breaks her out to win her favor. Mei and Jin fall in love on their journey to safety. But all is not what it seems. Leo is himself a member of the gang. Mei is not blind. And Leo and Mei are engaged. But the feelings between Mei and Jin are very much real and threaten all connected.

Green. White. Purple. That’s my takeaway from this movie. Colors. Rich, vibrant, beautiful colors.

I’m not actually comparing this to the Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, but I watched both in fairly close succession and had a similar reaction to how much big, old fashioned, heart-on-the-sleeve filmmaking is happening in both. Perhaps my enthusiasm is amplified a bit because so much of my movie consumption has shifted to my living room couch in recent years. Granted that is where I watched both of these movies, but it’s all proportional, right? Movies like these, meant for a big canvas, still pop at home much better than the TV movie quality of a lot fresh films rushed out to streamers.

I DIGRESS.

Like many in the U.S. (I suspect) my first experience with a wuxia was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. There’s a purity to them that I take great joy and comfort in. If samurai films are westerns, these are fantasy — romance and dragons and damsels in distress even when there isn’t a dragon and the damsels aren’t the ones in distress, as is often the case. I feel like there’s a better parallel to make, but it just isn’t coming to me this morning. But the strong (if at times confounding) romance at the heart of this drives the emotional story. It’s not a fairy tale, but it has some of that aura.

The action is wonderful and multipurpose. Dance masks as fight. Fights mask as sex. Sometimes fights also are, of course, fights (I believe it was Freud who said that) and there’s a doozy of one in the bamboo forest.

Even despite its two decade age the CGI surprisingly holds up fairly well. There are a few rough bits, but it mostly works to accentuate the gravity defying rather than define it completely.

I haven't seen as many wuxia movies as I would have liked but I almost always do enjoy them when I do.

 

[Pink Mist]

House of Flying Daggers / 十面埋伏 (Zhang Yimou, 2004)

In 9th century Tang Dynasty, two government agents, Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kineshiro), investigate a blind dancer, Mei (Zhang Ziyi), who they suspect to be the daughter of the leader of the rebel group House of Flying Daggers. The plan is for Leo to arrest her and for Jin to go undercover and rescue her and win her favour and hopefully lead them to the organization’s leaders. However, feelings get involved and things don’t quite go as planned.

The plot is a little ridiculous and nonsensical – for example, Leo is actually an undercover House of Flying Dagger agent and Mei knows it, yet they have a solo fight against each other early in the film for some reason – and is secondary to the mesmerizing visuals, fight scenes, and big emotions. Simply put, this film is absolutely gorgeous. There aren’t many films that look better than this, particularly in the lush greens of the bamboo forests where much of the film takes place. Truly a visual treat to watch.

The choreography of the fight scenes is also gorgeous. Zhang shoots fight scenes like they’re ballet – there’s a violent but artful dance to them, and well, sometimes they also actually are a dance like in the echo game scene. There’s a playful rhythm and musicality to the choreography not dissimilar to dance numbers in a musical or the ballet.

Like @KallioWeHardlyKnewYe , my first experience with a wuxia was also with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It’s been many years since I’ve seen it, but I remember that film leaving me a bit cold (maybe it is worth me revisiting). I’ve seen a few wuxias since then, but not nearly enough to be qualified to have a give a bold statement but I’m going to anyway: I think House of Flying Daggers is a much more accessible, fun, and enjoyable wuxia film and I’m not sure I quite understand the status of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as the entry point to wuxia, as I think House of Flying Daggers is a better but overlooked place to start in the genre.

 

[kihei]

House of Flying Daggers / 十面埋伏 (Zhang Yimou, 2004)

Like @KallioWeHardlyKnewYe , my first experience with a wuxia was also with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It’s been many years since I’ve seen it, but I remember that film leaving me a bit cold (maybe it is worth me revisiting). I’ve seen a few wuxias since then, but not nearly enough to be qualified to have a give a bold statement but I’m going to anyway: I think House of Flying Daggers is a much more accessible, fun, and enjoyable wuxia film and I’m not sure I quite understand the status of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as the entry point to wuxia, as I think House of Flying Daggers is a better but overlooked place to start in the genre.

Leaving questions of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's status aside for the moment, the movie is a problematic entry point for most viewers as it is way more of a culmination than an introduction. I think of CTHD as an homage by Ang Lee, basically a jack-of-all-trades art house director, to the long-established genre, an homage that courts an aesthetic sophistication that earlier wuxia movies weren't really concerned with. It is worth noting that Lee had never ventured before CTHD into the wuxia genre and hasn't since., For a more authentic approach, check out the earlier works in the genre by specialists like King Hu, Chang Cheh and Chor Yuen to get a better idea of what Lee was building upon.

30 Essential Wuxia Films

With the highly-anticipated release of two King Hu masterpieces on home video by the Masters of Cinema organization, as well as the critical success of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin last yea…

theendofcinema.net

I'm a big fan of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon mostly because I see it as a graceful, artful take on the genre. But just as John Ford should be seen before Sergio Leone, some of the movies below ideally should be seen before CTHD.

 

[Pink Mist]

Leaving questions of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's status aside for the moment, the movie is a problematic entry point for most viewers as it is way more of a culmination than an introduction. I think of CTHD as an homage by Ang Lee, basically a jack-of-all-trades art house director, to the long-established genre, an homage that courts an aesthetic sophistication that earlier wuxia movies weren't really concerned with. It is worth noting that Lee had never ventured before CTHD into the wuxia genre and hasn't since., For a more authentic approach, check out the earlier works in the genre by specialists like King Hu, Chang Cheh and Chor Yuen to get a better idea of what Lee was building upon.

30 Essential Wuxia Films

With the highly-anticipated release of two King Hu masterpieces on home video by the Masters of Cinema organization, as well as the critical success of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin last yea…

theendofcinema.net

I'm a big fan of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon mostly because I see it as a graceful, artful take on the genre. But just as John Ford should be seen before Sergio Leone, some of the movies below ideally should be seen before CTHD.

Thanks for the resource!

For those reasons, as I said, CTHD is probably worth me rewatching since I'm a little bit more familiar with the genre. I was surprised to see A Touch of Sin on that list; I wouldn't have thought of it as a wuxia but I can see the thematic argument for it being categorized as one (kind of comparable to neo-westerns)

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Looking forward to this one, I havent watched much wuxia so it's a genre i have a bit of a blind spot with.

I may be a little slow writing up a review, I'm starting a new job tomorrow so my life is a little hectic right now

Congratulations. I hope it works out well!

 

[Pink Mist]

Congratulations. I hope it works out well!

Thank you, so far so good! It's a really exciting opportunity

 

[Jevo]

House of Flying Daggers (2004) Dir. Zhang Yimou

In the decline of the Tang Dynasty, several rebel groups have emerged, the biggest of these are the House of Flying Daggers, who steal from the rich and give to the poor. Two police officers, Leo and Jin, gets tasked with finding and arresting the leader of the group. They start by arresting a blind erotic dancer, who they suspect is the daughter of the old leader of the group. Instead of torturing her to get information from her. They decide to have jin break her out of prison pretending to be on her side, hoping that she will then lead them to the headquarters of the Flying Daggers. The charming and beautiful Jin uses his qualities to make Mei fall in love with him, so she won't question his intentions. Unfortunately Jin also falls in love with Mei.

The story in House of Flying Daggers is like a folktale, with young people of two opposing factions falling in love, although this time has more than enough of twists and turns in the story and allegiances. The story isn't really that important, and leaves you with more questions if you start actually thinking about it in depth, so better not do that.

What really makes House of Flying Daggers stand out though is the technical aspects, costume design, cinematography, set design, and perhaps most importantly choreography. All of it is top notch quality. Thankfully Zhang almost immediately decides to abandon all logic, reasoning or even attempt at staying inside the physical world, and that goes for pretty much all aspects of the movie. Now flying and floating characters are something of a Wuxia staple, but rarely is this also applied to the visual side of the film in the way that Zhang does it here. For him the depth of the movie is not in the story and the characters, but rather in the visuals, particularly the colours, and how these underpin the story and characters. Most scenes feature one dominating colour, as do many characters or factions.

Zhang has made many movies with better and more and interesting stories and characters. But I don't think he has made a movie where the technical aspects of the film are as well made and detailed as they are here, nor with the same depth to them. And that makes House of Flying Daggers something special, it's a feast for the eyes the entire way through, and it's hard not to appreciate that.

 

[Jevo]

Leviathan (2014) dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev

Kolya lives with his wife Lilya and teenage kid Roma in a house in a remote village on the coast of the arctic sea. The local council lead by the mafioso mayor are trying to expropriate his house for much less than the house and land is worth. He leads a court case together with a former army buddy Dima, who is now a lawyer in Moscow. Dima doesn't believe they can actually win the court case, but has collected a lot of dirt on the mayor that he wants to use for blackmail when they lose.

I was a bit apprehensible about picking a Russian movie at the moment. But I figured it was okay considering I don't believe Zvyagintsev is a particular fan of Putin or the state of russian society in general, and that comes to the forefront in Leviathan as well. There are few parts of russian society which doesn't get a fair bit of criticism in this film. Though Zvyagintsev is never patronising or looking down on particular people, he's merely observing. The mafioso style mayor almost reads like charicature with his big 4w4s and big bodyguards on the front seats. His Putin portrait in his office, although it looks about 15 years out of date. But he's probably very real, and functions also as a stand-in for the russian ruling class in general. He has the police and public prosecutors in his pocket. He 'abuses' the Orthodox Church to better his own image, although the Orthodox Church themselves also partake in his way of doing things, so it's perhaps more of a symbiotic relationship. Kolya is far more sympathetic, but far from a saint himself. He's a hot head and prone to violence, and also he drinks a lot. But most people in this film seems to treat vodka and water alike. Dima is the smart, educated metropolitan man from Moscow. But he certainly has his flaws as well. He sleeps with Lilya, an affair that seemingly have been going on for a while by the time the movie starts. Dima is an atheist, he's a lawyer, he believes in facts as he says. A contrast to the seemingly devout mayor. And while the mayors religion is far from a virtue in this film, so is Dima's atheism. He's not ready for a world where facts don't matter, and where belief in something is enough to make things happen. Even though he's used to Moscow corruption, he's not ready for countryside corruption. There's much to unpack in Leviathan, and while it is slow paced and that gives you ample time to take it in while you are watching it. I feel like watching it again soon, because I feel there's many small little details in it that can give you something extra when you find them.

Leviathan is not just a fantastically written story. The cinematography is great and beautiful to look at. The acting is great from pretty much all of the principal cast. And Zvyagintsev's direction is superb. Leviathan was one of my favourite films of the year when it came out, and it still really holds up, and the themes in it are still very relevant in Russia. Perhaps now more than ever.

 

[kihei]

Leviathan (2014) Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev

Leviathan is a retelling of the story of Job as seen through a very specific contemporary Russian lens. Kolya, a heavy-drinking mechanic, tries to protect his picturesquely-located home from the machinations of the town mayor who plans to take it over whether Kolya agrees to it or not. Kolya calls in Dima, an old friend from Moscow, who collected incriminating information on the mayor. Kolya's second wife Lilya is there to lend support but her husband's drinking and temper make her life a misery sometimes. Furthermore, Kolya's son hates his stepmother. If you think all that sounds bleak, wait until you see what happens to this lot.

I've seen all but one of Zbyagintsev's films and they all have similar subtexts. I'm not quite sure sometimes whether he thinks that Russians are by and large miserable human beings who have created a miserable social systerm or that a miserable social system has created miserably corrupt human beings. Probably the latter, but it is a near thing sometimes. Either way you cut it, Leviathan is relentlessly bleak. Nothing works out for anybody except for the mayor, who gets the land that he covets and, also, the smug satisfaction that Kolya has been shown his place. We are not even allowed to feel much sympathy for Kolya who is an abusive drunk part of the time (one of the steady beats in this movie is the excessive consumption of vodka). When the authorities determine that Lilya has been murdered, they pin the crime on Kolya. The sense that this is an injustice is mitigated by the fact that, well, such an act would not be completely out of character. Maybe, he did do it.

One has to wonder how Zvyagintsev survives in Russia, how he has avoided one of the many poisoned chalices that seems to be Putin's pet way of knocking off dissidents. Certainly Zvyagintsev makes abundantly clear what he thinks of the Russian state apparatus, including petty politicians and the Russian Orthodox hierarchy that has no problem supporting state barbarities as long as they themselves are not threatened. Impeccable cinematography of norther Russia matches a natural bleakness that is almost beautiful to the moral bleakness that we see engulf the characters in the movie. In contrast to the beauty and impartiality of nature, human nature stands exposed as ugly and especially malicious.

Leviathan is a very good movie, but Zvyagintsev's follow-up Loveless was a much better film, if only because although the central characters in Loveless are not that much less screwed up, they are more complex, perhaps less victims than perpetrators, too self-centred to notice their own moral apathy. In Leviathan, except for a couple of minor characters, it is difficut to feel much empathy for any of the characters because they seem so compromised to begin with. Tragic figures are not effective when they don't have far to fall. Still, Leviathan is a portrait of Russia that Putin is doing everything in his power to reinforce at the moment. Military might is the only way possible for Putin to do so because what country would choose to emulate a social order that is so morally and ethically barren as the one he presides over..

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[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Leviathan
Zvyagintsev (2014)
“Can you pull in the leviathan with a fish hook?”

Koyla is a hot head. Not that he doesn’t have his reasons. A corrupt local government official wants to seize his home and land to turn it into a private playground for themselves. He doesn’t want to give it up period, but the insult to this injury is that government won’t even compensate him fairly. An old friend who is a lawyer is helping in. But this friend also is shtupping Koyla’s wife. The mayor is corrupt and the lawyer’s evidence of that seems to hint at a good resolution for Koyla. Alas that falls apart. So too does the romantic triangle when Koyla learns of the affair. Lilya returns home but after Koyla essentially rapes her she’s had enough. She disappears and turns up dead. Suicide? Natural causes? Murder? Local officials think Koyla did it and he’s convinced to accept a plea deal. Roma, his son, winds up living with friends. A home demolished. A family destroyed. And for what? God? What God? Even the religious council Koyla receives is suspect. Turns out it isn’t a nice getaway being built on Koyla’s old property, but rather a new church.

Even just recounting this it sounds oppressively bleak. But I think what’s really special about Zvyaginstsev is his ability to pile more and more on without ever tipping over into pain and misery porn (cough Alejandro Gonzalez Inaritu movies cough cough). He twists and breaks his characters, but does so more as a dispassionate and pragmatic god not a vengeful one (cough cough Inaritu movies cough cough cough).

A character in the movie literally spells out the Job parallels here. I don’t think Zvyaginstev loves his characters, but I also believe he doesn’t love torturing them. It just is. He managed something similar with Loveless, another personal drama where the weight builds almost imperceptibly. You don’t fully realize he’s crushed you until you’re flat.

It’s a fascinating watch not just for the emotional stakes but also the political commentary, which is pointed and plentiful. The mayor, as the chief authority figure, is a glutenous buffoon. Recreational target practice at a relaxing picnic is centered on portraits of communist leaders. This wasn’t that many years ago but in this current moment in the world, would this movie even be released today let alone be the country’s Academy Awards selection? Could it be made in that country and with government support any time in the near future?

 

[Pink Mist]

Leviathan / Левиафан (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014)

Andrey Zvyagintsev is one of those contemporary directors who make critical works about the state in repressive regimes who I am shocked are able to make and release their films. Other directors like him who come to mind are Jia Zhangke (China), Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi and Asghar Farhadi (all Iranian, though Panahi in particular has faced censorship and house arrest). Leviathan is Zvyagintsev’s portrait of contemporary state corruption in Putin’s Russia. The film follows Kolya who is a drunk and hot-headed handyman who lives on a beautiful piece of property which is being eyed by the local mafioso mayor who wants to build a Russian Orthodox church there as part of the run up to the election in a year. We meet Kolya as he loses his legal battle for the property even with the help of his army buddy who is a big city lawyer from Moscow who has some dirt on the mayor. Oh and his lawyer buddy is having an affair with his wife and Kolya has a teenage son who is constantly fighting with his wife too. Nothing is going right for Kolya, especially as his wife ends up mysteriously dead after Kolya puts the squeeze on the mayor a little too tightly.

Leviathan is an extremely bleak film. It’s a bleak situation and all the characters are flawed people who are tough to love – our protagonist is an alcoholic who doesn’t think twice about domestic abuse towards his wife and son – yet Zvyagintsev approaches his characters with empathy which makes it very watchable and not a miserable slog. The film is cold, in part due to the Northern Russia landscape which is beautifully captured in the cinematography, but also due to the bitterness of the characters’ situation in the town. Seriously this film is so beautiful and bleak. Parallels between the film and the story of Job are explicitly spelled out in the film through dialogue, which I normally consider lazy but for someone like me who didn’t attend Sunday school it was helpful or else the reference would have gone right over me. I consider Leviathan one of the best film made in the 2010s, and I am still amazed it was able to be made, especially in reflection to current events in Russia.

 

[Jevo]

My next pick is All About My Mother.

 

[Pink Mist]

Cléo from 5 to 7 / Cléo de 5 à 7 (Agnès Varda, 1962)

Cléo (brilliantly played by Corinne Marchand) is a young singer who is waiting to hear the results from her doctor regarding a recent biopsy. Meant to hear back the results from him at 7pm whether or not she has cancer, she spends two hours waiting in despair which the film documents in more or less real time (we actually only watch Cléo from 5 to 6h30, I guess the title Cléo from 5 to 6h30 doesn’t have the same ring to it). Although the film only follows Cléo’s life for two hours, Varda packs a lot into it. Cléo spends her hours at a tarot card reader, with friends driving across Paris, composing music with two songwriters, and falling in love with a brief Before Sunrisesque meet-cute. Oh, and she spends a ton of time getting harassed and catcalled by French men.

Although a prominent filmmaker, Agnès Varda is not usually regarded in the same way as the leaders of the French New Wave in the 1960s such as Truffaut and Godard (Godard actually makes a cameo in this film). I wouldn’t say she or Cléo from 5 to 7 are overlooked, but I don’t think this film is talked about the same way people talk about say Breathless or Jules et Jim, despite being an equally as good film in my opinion. It deserves as much praise as her French New Wave counterparts. Maybe that’s because Varda is technically part of the Left Bank crew while they were Cahiers du Cinema. Whatever her categorization as a director in the scene, this film is firmly a French New Wave film and captures much of the creativity and spirit of the movement – with playful camera and editing, a bohemian life, and a very healthy dose of existentialism. I also love how much it flirts with genre, with glimpses of a musical and a silent film comedy interlude. Cléo from 5 to 7 feels very much like a product of the French New Wave (particularly the verité influence shooting on Parisian streets with surprised onlookers caught on camera) but also way ahead of its time, particularly in terms of its depiction of gender as a critique of what we now know as the male gaze well before this was a thing talked about to the degree it is today.

The film is also just a pleasure to watch. Although the protagonist is dreading what’s to come at 7 it is an enjoyable time spent with her roaming the streets of the Parisian left bank in beautiful black and white cinematography. It’s a wonderful film – a perfect representation of French New Wave and what I love about that movement and it is among my favourite films.

 

[Pink Mist]

My next pick is The Incredible Shrinking Man directed by Jack Arnold

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Cleo from 5 to 7
Varda (1962)
“Everyone spoils me. No one loves me.”

The action is all in the tile. Cleo, a young singer, sits for a tarot reading. The results are ominous. From there we follow her over a (real-ish) time 90-120-minute timespan, doing a few mundane things, she eats lunch, tries on clothes, meets friends, meets strangers, etc., gradually moving from distraught to happy, as she waits to hear from a doctor about whether or not she has cancer.

The first 30 minutes or so of this, frankly, was boring. I was fighting it. Then, suddenly, it wasn’t. And I wasn't. It’s a bit of a magic trick of a movie where so many little things add up to something more meaningful and a looming sense of dread ultimately gives way to something brighter. Jeanne Dielman had a similar effect on me. Certainly that’s a more repetitive film, but the small actions that feel like nothing build and build and build until suddenly they’re everything.

A lot of this hinges on a really lovely lead performance here by Corinne Marchand who manages to veer from annoying flake to charming — sometimes within the same scene. You feel every bit a part of her journey from fear to something resembling peace.

Varda has a really good touch, blending something near realism at moments with elements that are a bit more fantastical (or at least movie-fied). The filming of the song Cleo sings in her apartment where the camera work shifts to something more akin to the movement in a musical. The short silent film within this film is a clever and hilarious bit of homage to that form and Godard’s cameo as the start of that mini-movie almost makes me regret all the times I’ve accused him of being humorless. Michel Legrand’s cameo as the piano player is a delightful little inclusion as well (he was, of course, writing music for Varda’s husband Jacques Demy’s films at this same time as well).

To cap it all off this has some of the best shot footage of Paris I’ve seen. Beautiful both spiritually and physically.

 

[kihei]

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) Directed by Agnes Varda

If I had to pick the New Wave-iest of New Wave films, I'd likely go with Breathless, Shoot the Piano Player or Cleo from 5 to 7. It's ironic in a way because it took a long time for director Agnes Varda to be mentioned in the same breath as other French New Wave directors, an omission that we can chalk up to the sexism of the time. In terms of talent, she always belonged. And in fact in creating her later hybrid documentaries, she continued to explore the medium in a manner consistent with New Wave ideals. Cleo from 5 to 7 is a movie about a central contrast, that being the fear of death in the midst of the joy of life. Cleo (Corinne Marchand), a pop singer who comes across much of the time as a frivolous airhead, is spending from 5 o'clock to 7 o'clock, traditionally the time of illicit love in Paris, waitiing for something much less inviting, news concerning some medical tests that she is certain will reveal that she has a serious cancer. The whole movie is set up around this juxtapositiion, this contrast between life going on all around her and her worries that she will receive very bad news.

In breezy New Wave fashion, the film covers a lot of ground, literally. Paris, itself, is as much a character in the movie as anyone else. Cleo spends her time shopping, meeting briefly with her dispassionate lover, talking to friends, rehearsing pop songs, hanging out, basically just killing time before she gets news of her condition. All of these scenes have a light touch as Varga constructs a series of fleeting moments that ordinarily one might not even think about. However. when death, even at a distance, enters the equation, these fleeting moments take on an importance that they don't usually have. They are examples of life passing by, something we don't usually think about but that doesn't make it any the less true.

Varda was a photographer before she was a film director, and like her Italian colleague Michelangelo Antonioni, who also shared this occupation, her skill in composition really shows. It is one of the things that makes her movies so distinctive. Sometimes she allows passersby to be aware of the camera and we get brief glimpses of these strangers staring into the camera or ogling Cleo. At other times, she gets lucky with some playful kittens. All these little details add a freshness and evervescence to the movie that gives it that New Wave feel. Cleo from 5 to 7 culminates in a chance meeting between Cleo and a soldier on leave from Algiers, both potential doomed figures, both aware that time may be in short supply. With the soldier, Cleo's pretentions melt away; she stops seeming a frivolous, spoiled child-woman and begins to seem more like a real person. She gets the bad news in an ofthand way, but the presence of the soldier and his comforting conversation gives her a balance and an acceptance that she has lacked previously. Does the movie have a takeaway? I was left with the feeling that we only have the present, but that is not a bad thing because there is a lot going on in it. Sounds like a moral to the story with a distinctly New Wave vibe to me.

subtitles

 

[Jevo]

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) dir. Agnes Varda

Cleo is a singer. She's waiting on results for a biopsy showing whether she has cancer or not. The movie starts with her at a tarot card reading, resulting in her being shown the death card. The already paranoid Cleo becomes even more sure she's going to die very soon. After the reading she meets up with her maid Angele, who seemingly believes in every superstition known to man, and who doesn't do much to calm down Cleo, who struggles mightily with the concept of her own mortality.

Cleo from 5 to 7 is both an existentialist and a feminist film. Varda is very aware of the role women have in society in 1960s France, and how women are viewed by the male dominated society. Cleo is pretty and has a good singing voice, but she has no input into her own career. Her music and her lyrics are all written by men for her. She also intentionally doesn't mention anything about her possible illness to her lover, to avoid bothering him with her problems. She realises this is wrong, but doesn't speak up about it, except about her music, possibly because she feels mortality crushing her. She merely accepts her role in society, like most women do. Her friend Dorothée on the other hand is more free spirited, and models nude for some artists making sculptures. Dorothée is not proud of her body, it makes her happy. Dorothée might be a bit ahead of her time, but she's protraying a body image that would become very prevalent a few years later, where as Cleo is more traditional. Cleo only seems to fall deeper and deeper into despair as the clock approaches 7, and she can contact her doctor about the results of the biopsy. That is until she meets Antoine, a soldier on leave from the war in Algeria, who is also battling existential dread, although he seems to have find a way to cope, even though he feels everything he's doing in Algeria is for nothing, and the people there die for nothing. Meeting Antoine and hearing his story helps ease Cleo, and allows her to put her own situation into perspective, and finds the courage to face her test results. with renewed vigor.

Cleo from 5 to 7 is thematically rich, and has a somewhat unusual protagonist. Cleo is not particularly likeable to most of the film. She's selfcentered and passive. But Varda makes her aimless wandering around Paris interesting, and allows for her acceptance at the end to have real weight. Varda is a great director with a great eye for images. But here I believe her script is the true star of the film.

 

[kihei]

Wrong thread

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Harder They Come
Henzell (1972)
“I’m right down here and I want mine now, tonight.”

Ivan (singer Jimmy Cliff) ventures out of the country to find his mom and report on the death of a relative. But rather than return to those hardscrabble roots, he decides to stay in the city and try to make something of himself. He fancies himself a musician, but to make ends meet he falls in with a local gang dealing drugs. Music, drugs, police — doesn’t matter, none of the systems are built for a man like Ivan to succeed. He’s just a low paid, anonymous piece in games played by those with more power. He snaps and, fearing he’ll have to go back to jail, he shoots and kills a police officer. The notoriety puts him on the hit list — both for cops and gangsters who want him dead but also the general public who flood local radio with requests for his suddenly in demand song. Ivan gets the notoriety he always wanted. It also costs him his life. But you can’t help but feel maybe he's good with that trade.

Just like every culture has its own version of a dumpling or a doughnut, so too I feel every culture, every generation has their inspirational/aspiration outlaw/rebel movie. The system pushes a man (most often) to crime or violence and his story becomes a rallying cry for the fellow oppressed.

I think Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury or Tom Laughlin in Billy Jack (films contemporary to this) or Christian Slater in Pump Up the Volume (maybe an odd citation but I saw this recently and it fit) or James Dean or Brando. I thought of Elvis in Jailhouse Rock as a criminal made famous by music. Or take any Billy the Kid story. The Harder They Come makes that quite literal in a photo shoot where Ivan mimics the old west outlaw. The fan, who’s basically being held hostage in that moment, wants an autograph.

That’s a lot of iconographic dorm room poster type personas. Cliff fits it. The culty status of the movie is understandable.

This has the expected roughness lower budget first films often had, but here it feels more like added authenticity than any sort of detriment. It never blurs any line into documentary or anything like that, but it’s clear Cliff, director and co-writer Perry Henzell and others involved know these characters and this place and stories like this.

Forgive my corniness, but one of the coolest things about movies to me has always been that time machine element. Movies can put you in a time and place you’re otherwise never going to access. So with something like The Harder They Come there’s an element of anthropology to me. I can read books and listen to the music, but this movie lets me see it. You can almost feel the humidity and smell the burning herb.

The real bummer is that there’s enough promise here that it would have been interesting to see what else Henzell would have done. I don’t know and did not research why his filmmaking career never took off, despite the popularity of this first film. He’s credited with one other movie that was filmed not long after this, but only released posthumously in 2019.

Almost goes without saying that the music is great. Title track has been on a fairly regular circuit through my brain for a few weeks now.

 

[nameless1]

I love that you guys reviewed Cleo from 5 to 7. I prefer fictional narrative films, so this is probably my favourite Varda film. I really like that it is in real time, as it allows me to connect and sympathize with the character on what seems to be a deeply personal level, even when I know and realize she is a completely fictional character. I was pleasantly surprised and amazed by that, and I always remember that weirdly vivid experience.

I highly recommend the Criterion version of the film. One of the short videos on the DVD featured a clip of a guy who did the same route that Cleo took in the mid to late 2000s, and I thought it was interesting how it is actually impossible to recreate now, because some parts of it is blocked off, while some buildings are also demolished and no longer exist.