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

[Jevo]

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) dir. John Cassavetes

Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara) is the owner of a night club, the gentlemans kind. Vitelli has directed and composed all the numbers performed on stage himself, and he's quite proud of his work. His clientele not so much, they are just there for the naked ladies. They couldn't care less what the girls are doing, as long as it involves taking off clothes. In the beginning of the movie, Vitelli makes the last payment on a gambling debt, telling the loan shark he never wants to see him again. Hardly is Vitelli debt free, before a rich client at his club, invites him to a high stakes poker game. Vitelli joins the poker game, bringing along three of the girls from the club as entourage. The girls don't bring much luck. Vitelli loses, a lot. By the end of the night he's down 20 grand, money doesn't have, and worse is, his creditors are mobsters. Vitelli is adamant he can pay back the money with his earnings from the club, but the mobsters sees an opportunity, they want him to work it off. They tell him to go and kill and chinese bookie, who have been giving them trouble. Reluctantly Vitelli agrees to do the hit, seeing it as his only option. What Vitelli doesn't know, is that the whole thing is a setup. He's not shooting a chinese bookie. He's shooting the head of the chinese mafia on the west coast. Against all odds Vitelli completes the hit, including a couple of bodyguards, and escapes the house again, however with a gunshot wound. Vitelli's mob friends however are not happy with Vitelli escaping alive, and start a hunt for him.

Last week we saw a prototypical gangster movie. This week it's a gangster movie again, but this time it's everything but prototypical. It's Cassavetes take on a gangster movie, and like everything he did, it's a unique take on the genre. If Scarface could be accused of glamorising gangster life, this movie surely cannot. Vitelli is a low life owner of a sleazy night club and a gambling problem. He has a weird connection to the 'artistic' performances put on in his club, which he takes great pride in. He cares so much about them, that he calls the night club while on the run from the chinese mafia, to check in on how it's going, and what piece is being performed. And he gets really angry when the person on the phone can't tell him, and the performers on stage doesn't match with the song being played or the background sets on the stage. The real mobsters aren't much better. They are scared little men, who's only known weapon is intimidation. They coerce people like Vitelli to do their dirty work, keeping their own hands clean and out of harms way. However when opposed they quickly cower when their intimidation doesn't work any more, and they are easily disposed of. Hardly someone anyone would look up to. It can probably be argued that The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is not really a gangster movie, even though it involves gangsters a lot, because it doesn't hit a lot of the typical tropes of the genre. Nonetheless I think it's interesting to see what the genre can also be, when you don't follow conventions and approach it from a different angle, and perhaps with different characters in focus than you would normally see in this type of movie. Normally Vitelli would be some sleazebag getting disposed of half way through the movie, here he's the center piece.

Vitelli starts the movie as a fairly harmless guy, doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would want to hurt anyone, and he really doesn't want to hurt anyone. But he has a history as an infantryman in Korea, and he knows what it's like to kill and what it takes. Perhaps a reason for his now harmless behaviour. But he gets pushed by the mafia, and his old instincts pop up again. He knows how to kill, and how to avoid getting killed, and neither situation appears to affect him very much. He's still much more concerned about whether or not the right numbers are being performed at the club. Nightclub owner Vitelli is a really interesting look at the "misunderstood artist". No one gets Vitelli's art, not even the audience. But he is very committed to it, he has spent a lot of time on each and every number being performed, he wants it performed exactly to his specifications. He wants responses on more than just the naked ladies, but he doesn't get it. Some would say he's chosen the wrong line of business if he wants to be appreciated for his artistic vision, and they might be right. He may not even be very good. But that doesn't lessen his struggles. In some way, Cassavetes may be projecting himself into Vitelli through this part of the character, since Cassavetes himself wasn't always a darling among the audience or the critics.

I've watched The Killing of a Chinese Bookie once before, and I think I watched the original 135 minute cut of the movie. This time I watched the re-release 108 minute cut. I liked it a lot more this time around. The movie doesn't need the additional 30 minutes. I remember it feeling very slow and long the first time I watched it. The movie doesn't become fast paced all of a sudden, but it flowed much better in the shorter cut, and it didn't feel like anything essential was missing from the story. All round it's just a much tighter and better movie. Cassavetes movies often feel heavy to get through, but I always feel I'm rewarded for sticking with them. He takes my mind places where it doesn't usually go, and it's always interesting to go there.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Liam Neeson stars in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie 2019, a remake of the classic 70s crime drama by indie legend John Cassavetes. Neeson plays Cosmo Vitelli, an ex-combat hero now down on his luck, struggling to keep his sleazy strip club afloat. He's a flawed character but deep down has a heart of gold. He'd prefer a peaceful life, but when double-crossed by the mob he goes after them with a deadly vengeance. It's a taut action thriller. In other words, the exact opposite of the original.

Cassavetes' The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie is a genre picture that follows its own rules. The story begins with what could be the end of a previous chapter, and it ends unresolved. There's a few good song and dance numbers (IMO anyway ). Even the climactic shoot-em-up in the abandoned warehouse between Cosmo and the mob, which should be a heart-thumping, edge-of-your-seat nail-biter, is instead disturbingly quiet and nightmarish. It's a cinema-verite slice of lowlife, the camera often seeking out a subject and focusing while action is already in progress, sometimes remaining a little blurry because in this world things aren't easily defined. Not a Hollywood fantasy, this is the morally complex real world, where the hero can be either sinner or saint.

Why do we root for Cosmo? Let's not forget he's a man who agrees to murder a complete stranger to save his club. Plus there's the whole exploitation of women thing: "I'm a club owner. I deal in girls." I don't know why but we do, perhaps because Ben Gazzara is more like your next door neighbour than a Hollywood action hero, he doesn't have a heart of gold but he does have a heart. It may be all he, or anyone in his life, may have going for them. That, and imagination. There's nothing cute about Mr. Sophistication's rendition of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love", it sounds weary and exhausted and fits the tone of the movie perfectly.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I think I saw the longer version once before too...the shorter cut seems almost like a completely different movie. Makes a greater impression.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

^^^^^^^
Love the review with one tiny caveat: Though the movie has a typical Cassavetes east coast feel, it is set in LA.

Haha. I just assumed. Good catch. The writer regrets the error.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

My next pick ...
The Nun's Story
Zinemann (1959)

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

I think I saw the longer version once before too...the shorter cut seems almost like a completely different movie. Makes a greater impression.

Curious to watch the longer version at some point. From what I read about both it sounds like your impression is right.

 

[Jevo]

Haha. I just assumed. Good catch. The writer regrets the error.

To be fair, LA has never looked more like New York than it did in this movie.

 

[Jevo]

Gregory's Girl (1980) dir. Bill Forsyth

Gregory is a regular Scottish teenager, he's the striker for his schools abysmal football team, and he's not very interested in getting better. Much to the dismay of his coach, who fancies himself as something much grander than he actually is. To improve the team, the coach holds an open try-out. A girl named Dorothy shows up, the coach tries to discourage her, but unfortunately she's the best, by far, and he has to give her a spot. Gregory who's been moved to goalkeeper is not unhappy in the slightest, as he's become very interested in Dorothy. Unfortunately being an awkward teenager he doesn't know how to do anything about that.

"Thank God I'm no longer a teenager" might be a more appropriate title for this movie. At least all those who are lucky enough to have survived the teenager years. Bill Forsyth captures the awkwardness of teenagers trying to figure out how to interact with the opposite sex really well. There's this completely alien species walking around you all the time, who's minds seem to work in mysterious ways entirely different from your own. You haven't paid them much notice before, they were just sorta there. Suddenly these aliens start getting lumps on their chests, and there's something about their behinds that makes it hard to look away. It's all very weird, but you have a sudden urge to want to interact with these things. But how do you talk to them? Everyone knows you can't just talk to them like regular human beings, she'll think you are mental or something if you tried that. Your instincts tell you that maybe your best bet is to avoid contact entirely, it'll save you an awful lot of embarrassment. But it works against the part of you that wants to get closer to these things, so you have to put yourself out there, even though it's scary, and you don't know what you are doing, your friends don't know what they are doing, but it seems the girls know exactly what you are doing and are five steps ahead of you all the time. All that Forsyth captures really well. There's so much truth in this movie about how it is to navigate this part of your life where there's so many new things going on all the time, and you have a hard time keeping up with it all. In many ways it's a horrible time of your life, but it's also a great time of your life at the same time. Perhaps there's too much truth in this movie for actual teenagers to appreciate it. Maybe only once you've moved past that stage of your life, you can appreciate the movie for the laugh that it is, without having to go out and live that life yourself again tomorrow.

Based on his performace as Gregory, John Gordon Sinclair should have been a star. He has charms, good looks and an amazing comedic timing. He plays the weird awkward Gregory amazingly well. Dee Hepburn as Dorothy is also really good. It might be harsh to call her a femme fatale. But she could twirl Gregory around her little finger if she wanted to, and she does use that power over him, however you might say she used her powers for good, by setting him up with Susan.

Gregory's Girl is an innocent, charming and funny little movie. It tells a story that happens every single day around the world many times. Everyone can relate to it in some way or another. The movie doesn't take the story too seriously, it's not life and death after all, it's only a fleeting crush after all. But the movie also takes the story seriously enough for characters in it. For Gregory the second between asking Dorothy out and her unexpected response, might as well have been purgatory for him, and the movie also reflects that part of the story.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Awesome reviews for The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Gregory’s Girl
Forsythe (1980)
“I’m in love.”
“Since when?”
“A half hour ago.”

Gregory is an amiable goof. He’s tall and gangly, a new development in his own life. His flailings around the soccer pitch earns him a demotion on the school’s struggling 0-9 squad (though his height and length do get him shifted to keeper where he really isn’t any more graceful or effective). It doesn’t seem to bother him much. Not much does, especially that ancient electric toothbrush. The one thing that stirs this otherwise carefree teen is the arrival of Dorothy as the squad’s new striker. He’s stricken both by her abilities and her looks. Having never been in love before he runs through his circles for advice from friends and even his little sister. None of them seem to know much better, though little sis does push him to ask her out. Dorothy accepts though the date doesn’t quite go as planned. Turns out it is a ruse and Gregory is passed between Dorothy’s friends until he lands with Susan, who it turns out happens to like him. Their sweet, awkward date is the stuff that only teens can execute. The night ends with kisses and promises of a better tomorrow. Well, except for Gregory’s buddies who are fruitlessly trying to hitchhike to Caracas where the ratio of women-to-men is significantly tilted in their favor.

Somewhere around the same time America was producing horned-up teen comedies like Porky’s, Revenge of the Nerds and Meatballs, Bill Forsythe made Gregory’s Girl over in a suburban Scotland town. Some of the touch points are the same — awkward teens thirsting for sex, the turning of a crush into perceived true love, the gawking at females, the bumbling attempts to connect. But the story of Gregory is a much more gentle affair. Sure there’s a little bit of typical teenage crassness, but mostly this movie shoots from the heart more than the loins. There’s a knowing there. And its never overly earnest. It’s a universal boy-meets-girl tale (feel free to rearrange and sub other pronouns in there) that captures us at a point we’re really only truly at once — old enough to feel it, but young enough to not really know or understand a damn thing about it. The first heartbreak changes that. We don’t see that inevitability in Gregory’s Girl. Forsythe leaves us with the fumbling victory. It’s a nice choice.

Man, the accents in this were THICK. I had to turn on subtitles after about 15 minutes.

 

[kihei]

Gregory's Girl (1981) Directed by Bill Forsyth

Bill Forsyth made two of the most charming movies I've ever seen, Local Hero and Gregory's Girl, movies full of good-natured humanity and in the case of the latter film, an unsullied innocence that is almost unimaginable nearly forty years later. I don't actually have a lot to say about the movie. I enjoyed the movie immensely when it was first released, and I was a bit surprised how much of its charm it has retained all these years later. A lot of credit goes to Forsyth's young actors, especially John Gordon Sinclair as the awkward but very likeable Gregory. I think the movie likely benefited from a perfect storm of circumstances: the right script (by the director); the right director; the right cast; and the right moment in time (a gentler Scotland than we will find in, say, Trainspotting a decade and a half later). I don't believe a remake of this film would have a chance in hell of working--it feels like a moment that has well and truly passed in this digital age of ours. But fortuitous circumstances aside, why not just enjoy Gregory's Girl for what it is? A lovely movie that still had me smiling as the credits rolled. I actually think Local Hero is a better movie; maybe I will pick that one as a "movie of the week" in the future. I've certainly thought about doing so.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

The high school football team is on an eight-game losing streak, the coach wants to make changes and he's looking at replacing Gregory, the team striker and hero of our story. Gregory claims his problems on the field are due to his growth spurts and reasons that goalkeeper Andy will be the next big underachiever, Andy being the smallest guy on the team. So Gregory earns a one-week reprieve as the new goalie. Will he turn it around? Well, he doesn't know it at the time, but he's about to see the girl of his dreams, and football will drop off his radar. His world is turned upside down, which may explain why his teachers act like teenagers and the pre-adolescents show more maturity than their elders: "a lot of fuss over a bit of tit, eh?" Gregory is hopelessly in love, for him it's a step up from being hopeless.

First love and teen romance isn't the most original subject matter, but Gregory's Girl keeps it fresh by (appropriately enough) following the KISS rule: keep it simple, stupid. Often these stories are complicated by tacked-on social commentary, with young lovers having to overcome the prejudice of their peer groups in order to be together. But there are no social divisions in this teen community, no "nerds vs cool kids", mods vs rockers, or Sharks vs Jets, peer pressure is not an obstacle. No parental objections either, which usually stem from differences in social status. (In fact Gregory's parents are such a non-factor that the one time he crosses paths with his father they make an appointment to catch up with each other later in the week.) So where does the drama and conflict come from? There is an inner struggle in Gregory, nothing more (or less) than overcoming his own awkwardness, shyness and innocence. If you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done. It's a well-known fact. But the poor dude doesn't have a clue, relating to the opposite sex is a mystery to him, he honestly thinks there must be a secret code word that will make women respond. Will he find the courage and the nerve to ask his dream girl for a date? There's your conflict, and what more do we need? And the best part: this drama is resolved by the half-way point. Everything that follows is just a pleasant surprise.

 

[kihei]

The Night Porter (1974) Directed by Liliana Cavani

Unlike Death in Venice, which took some years to gain its notoriety, The Night Porter was controversial from the word “go.” It is easy to see why. Set in Vienna twelve years after the end of World War II, this twisted tale focuses on Max and Lucia who renew acquaintances after a long separation. They met when she was a young prisoner in a concentration camp, and he was a Nazi doctor who, when he wasn’t experimenting on people, developed what one might politely call an unhealthy fondness for sexual and psychological domination. He forced Lucia to participate in a sex slave fantasy of his own devising, and in one of the more hotly debated plot turns in the history of film, it turns out that they both enjoyed the degradation and enslavement. When the meet again in Vienna Max is a night porter in a hotel, and Lucia and her husband, a famous symphony conductor, are by chance staying at the same hotel. As the plot unfolds, her husband leaves her on her own, and she becomes in mortal danger of being killed by a small coterie of ex-Nazis, partly because they want to protect Max whose activities during the war have yet to come to light. For their own reasons, both Max and Lucia still have a shared taste for sadomasochism. As a result, Max does not wish any harm to come to her. In fact, he tries to protect her. We watch as their relationship continues, complete with the occasional slap or punch, as they try together to escape both their past and their pursuers.

Here’s Roger Ebert’s take at the time:

"The Night Porter is as nasty as it is lubricious, a despicable attempt to titillate us by exploiting memories of persecution and suffering. It is (I know how obscene this sounds) Nazi chic. It's been taken seriously in some circles, mostly by critics agile enough to stand on their heads while describing 180-degree turns, in order to interpret trash as "really" meaningful.”

Sam Jordison, writing in Film4, represents the type of critic that Ebert had in mind: “The Night Porter is a compelling and disturbing testament to the enduring power of evil and the complexity of human nature.”

So what to make of this film? No question, it is an almost unfathomable choice of topic, and one wonders why director Liliana Cavani wanted to go anywhere near it. Accompanying the Criterion DVD, an interview with the director sheds almost no light on the question at all; the director doesn’t appear to know herself why she made the film or what it is about. She says she is disappointed that the audience assumed Lucia was Jewish. Cavani explains that she had slipped a single throwaway line into a brief dinner scene that hinted that Lucia’s father was a socialist; I suppose she expected the audience to conclude that's why she was persecuted. Of course, it being such a tiny, unstressed moment, everybody missed her point completely. But if the audience had “got” it, if the focus had shifted from Jews to Socialists, what difference would it have made? I once assumed that Cavani wanted her movie to deliberately shock the bourgeoisie, but she doesn’t seem to possess that motivation either. Though she makes no claim one way or the other, I’m sort of forced to assume that she just made a highly kinky and, for many, tasteless erotic thriller without really thinking it though that much.

Some things can be said on the film’s behalf. The movie is stylishly photographed using a dark palette and natural light to provide a suitably gloomy and threatening atmosphere. As well, The Night Porter has moments of real suspense though they are not always plausible (for example, Lucia listens into a conversation among the former Nazis as she hides behind a door they forgot to fully close. I mean, really…). Interestingly, the movie has either the courage or the insensitivity to erotically charge much of its material quite effectively...lubricious indeed, Roger. Thanks to Bogarde and Rampling’s committed performances the characters are humanized in a way that is a bit…uncomfortable. Both actors find a path into the material, though in the end their skill perhaps raises more questions than it answers. Discomforting though the experience sometimes was, The Night Porter certainly held my attention from start to finish.

Other than the notion that art must be open to anything, not closed off from any subject just because that subject might be tasteless and/or offensive, I really see no rational defense for the film. Yet if I had a magic wand and could make the movie disappear from cinema history, I would not do so. The Night Porter is a dark fantasy, and a possibly unhealthy and certainly misguided one. But confronting the film made me think about a lot of issues concerning art, taboos, notions of eroticism, and people’s feelings as well as how difficult it is sometimes to find a rational position that addresses such an intricate cornucopia of concerns. Distressing as The Night Porter is, I don’t believe the movie is devoid of value.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Night Porter
Cavani (1974)
“Why did you come? WHY DID YOU COME?”

Max is the night porter at a hotel in Vienna, circa 1957. He likes the night, he’ll later admit, because he’s not sure he can stand the daylight. This is a man with a past and more than a little darkness. He’s a former SS officer and one of a small cabal of Nazis stuffed away just in the shadows of post-war Vienna, though all but Max are driven by an urge to emerge. Max doesn’t quite come across as regretful about his past life running a concentration camp, but neither is he eager to tout his past. As if the constant reminder of that is his cohorts isn’t enough, into his hotel and his life walks Lucia, the well-heeled wife of a conductor, but also a former prisoner of Max’s, one with whom he had a very intense relationship with. Nothing says love like the decapitated head of a man who abused you! The recognition for both is instantaneous though the connection isn’t made until Lucia’s husband departs for work. Their backstory fills in with flashbacks as the duo embark on a new, intense S&M affair of beating, cutting and deprivation. She’s a threat to the lives and freedom of Max’s circle so the lovers whisk themselves away to an apartment where he chains her to a radiator (again, ain’t love grand?) and the duo begins to live in more and more squalor. It’s a prison of their own creation. It’s when they decide to return to the world when the inevitable hand of death finally reaches for them. It’s almost sweet if it wasn’t also profoundly f***ed up.

To say The Night Porter is an uncomfortable film is a bit of an understatement. Lucia is attracted to and in love with a man who repeatedly raped and abused her in her youth and while Max himself isn’t quite goose stepping down the hotel hallways, he isn’t exactly seeking forgiveness either. In the older version of their affair, there is a bit of a dynamic shift. Lucia’s presence is a clear mental torture for Max, while broken glass and cuts to his hands are a physical symbol. But it never fully flips, which would have created a more interesting dynamic than what’s really there. Both of these people are deeply damaged by their past and the only solace they seem to find is, in a sense, play acting those days. I guess there’s an uncomfortable truth there about trauma. I’m not sure if adorning that potential observation with Nazi trappings enhances or undermines that point. There’s a taboo touting tawdriness here that’s hard for me to shake for the benefit of deeper thought. I’m far from clutching my pearls in shock, but I don’t feel like I can defend it from detractors either. This is the second time I’ve sat through it and I wish I had something more profound to contribute to the conversation.

Dirk Bogarde, a few years beyond Death in Venice when we saw him last, again gives a stellar performance here. He’s required to be much more verbose here than there. Rampling is a game scene partner. That you’re engaged with these characters at any level is a testament to their performances. Cavani makes some interesting choices. The level of white pancake makeup on the faces of the Nazis in the flashbacks gives them all, Max included, a ghastly sheen. They’re almost clown-like at times, which I suppose passes for commentary here. The famed scene of Rampling — clad in a gender-bending get up of pants, suspenders and Nazi cap — serenading the officers is indeed a showstopper.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

First things first: I still owe a pick, and it is Jean-Luc Godard's Band of Outsiders.

Now to the Movie Of the Week: what a turnaround from last week's choice! From a sweet romance to a very sour one.

In Kiss of The Spider Woman a transgender convict in a Brazilian jail entertains his/her cellmate by recounting a favourite movie, a German wartime romantic thriller in which an elegant French woman falls for a handsome Nazi officer. The cellmate, the anti-government rebel Valentin, scoffs at the blatant propaganda and is appalled that anyone could find Nazism romantic. But the storyteller Molina is a sucker for the imagery. How you respond to The Night Porter similarly depends on the ability to separate fact from fiction. It's not about history or politics--except maybe on a deeper level, what isn't?--it's a love story.

It's an odd love story, a second chance at romance for two lovers who found sadomasochistic love in a hopeless place, then with a chance encounter many years later reignited the flame that both had thought had been extinguished by history. It's like a kinky Casablanca. Accusations of exploitation are pretty weak when the sex and violence take a back seat to plot and character development. Add a stellar performance by Dirk Bogarde (again) and you've got something definitely worth your time.

I'm an "anything goes" type of person. The Night Porter may be crass and insensitive, but so are fat jokes and senseless violence, and that's never stopped anyone before. There have been comedies set in concentration camps. To each his own. People gotta right to their sick fantasies. Lucia's cabaret scene, where she sings for the German officers of the camp, is unfortunately not subtitled and I don't understand the German lyrics. I just imagine a German version of "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do".

 

[kihei]

First things first: I still owe a pick, and it is Jean-Luc Godard's Band of Outsiders.

Now to the Movie Of the Week: what a turnaround from last week's choice! From a sweet romance to a very sour one.

In Kiss of The Spider Woman a transgender convict in a Brazilian jail entertains his/her cellmate by recounting a favourite movie, a German wartime romantic thriller in which an elegant French woman falls for a handsome Nazi officer. The cellmate, the anti-government rebel Valentin, scoffs at the blatant propaganda and is appalled that anyone could find Nazism romantic. But the storyteller Molina is a sucker for the imagery. How you respond to The Night Porter similarly depends on the ability to separate fact from fiction. It's not about history or politics--except maybe on a deeper level, what isn't?--it's a love story.

It's an odd love story, a second chance at romance for two lovers who found sadomasochistic love in a hopeless place, then with a chance encounter many years later reignited the flame that both had thought had been extinguished by history. It's like a kinky Casablanca. Accusations of exploitation are pretty weak when the sex and violence take a back seat to plot and character development. Add a stellar performance by Dirk Bogarde (again) and you've got something definitely worth your time.

I'm an "anything goes" type of person. The Night Porter may be crass and insensitive, but so are fat jokes and senseless violence, and that's never stopped anyone before. There have been comedies set in concentration camps. To each his own. People gotta right to their sick fantasies. Lucia's cabaret scene, where she sings for the German officers of the camp, is unfortunately not subtitled and I don't understand the German lyrics. I just imagine a German version of "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do".

"a kinky Casablanca"--I love that phrase.

 

[Jevo]

The Night Porter (1974) dir. Liliana Cavani

During WWII Max (Dirk Bogarde) was a cruel SS officer, who relished in torturing prisoners in the holocaust. Now a good decade later, he's a lowly night porter in a Vienna hotel, trying to keep a low profile and avoid getting caught. He's a part of a group of former nazis who work together to destroy evidence against each other, and who holds mock trials against each other, based on known available evidence, so that they can escape punishment for their crimes. Crimes they by no means regret. This part of the plot however is largely inconsequential. Because by chance a young beautiful woman, Lucia (Charlotte Rampling), checks into the hotel together with her partner, an orchestra conductor in Vienna for a series of concerts. Lucia used to be a prisoner of Max, and they engaged in a sadomasochistic relationship during her imprisonment. Where in exchange for her "services", Max spared her from the worst, including death. The two immediately realise who each other are, and it doesn't take long before their sexual relationship is back on again.

The frame story in this film isn't gonna win any writing awards, and it's not the reason why anyone is attracted to this movie. The attraction in this movie is the relationship between Max and Lucia and the eroticism in that. Which either you're gonna really like, or you're really not gonna like it. The whole nazi thing is definitely gonna put someone off. If you can't disconnect the movie from reality, that whole part is probably gonna be a turn off for most people. It serves both as a shock factor, and to maximize the power Max has over Lucia in their relationship. He literally holds her life in his hands, it doesn't get much more extreme than that, and that has a big implication in their sexual relationship.

The whole sadomasochistic relationship doesn't really do anything for me on an erotic level. Although I'd be lying if Charlotte Rampling dancing in suspenders doesn't do anything for me. And I think a film like this really suffers if you don't connect with the erotic part of the movie, firstly because it's such a big part of the movie. But also because I at least, kinda get disconnected from the rest of their relationship as well and their characters. So the movie doesn't stimulate me on an intellectual level either. Especially since everything in the movie that isn't the Max/Lucia relationship feels very cartoony. One of Max' nazi buddies show up to his front desk wearing a monocle, and generally just looks like a cartoon version of someone evil. It's just very hard to take seriously for me, and it's probably not meant to either.

 

[Jevo]

Hero (2002) dir. Zhang Yimou

Set in the Warring States period in China, where several kingdoms fought for supremacy over the Chinese lands. The Qin king is expanding his realm and is on the way to conquering all of China. He is however threatened by three extremely skilled assassins sent by the Zhao king. The three are Broken Sword (Tony Leung), Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung) and Sky (Donnie Yen). One day a lowly prefect going by Nameless (Jet Li) arrives at the Qin palace asking for an audience with the king, because he has killed the three assassins. Nameless is able to present the signature weapons of the three assassins to the king, as proof of his deed. Nameless tells the story of how he bested the three assassins by using wit and incredible fighting prowess.

As I watched Hero this time, it struck how the story structure reminded me of Rashomon. Where first we get Nameless fictional version of the events, then what the king imagines must have happened, and then in the end what Nameless claims is the true version of events. Of course the two movies use this story telling device to achieve very different things, and there are also differences in the way it is implemented. But this way of telling a story requires that each version is different enough, that it is still interesting to watch the same thing the 2nd time and the 3rd time. Otherwise you are gonna lose the audience. I think Hero succeeds here. At the very least it's an excuse to show us yet another beautiful fight scene.

And about the fight scenes. No doubt they are the main attraction in Hero, not that the story is boring at all, because it isn't. It's actually a quite interesting story, and there's many little things to it as well that you can dwell at. But what makes Hero stand out is the cinematography and the choreography. It's more like a ballet than traditional martial arts, but it is mesmerizing to watch unfold. If you just a get a group of great dancers/fighters and a great director and cinematographer, you could make a movie with basically just fight scenes and no real story worth speaking of. In fact Zhang Yimou has made such a movie, House of Flying Daggers, where I dare say the cinematography and fight scenes are at an even higher level than in Hero. But the fact that Hero has a good story as well, means I enjoy the complete package more in Hero than I do in House of Flying Daggers. I don't have the technical knowledge to express why it works so well, apart from the fact that is incredibly well executed on all fronts. I just know that I sit in awe when I watch these scenes from start to end. One thing which I do think makes them stand out compared to many other films. Is how well the editing and the cinematography of the fight scenes portray the feelings of characters during the fight, we are not relying on just the story and the actors to show us that, the whole movie tells us.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the ending message in the movie. There's a lot of truth to the fact that if you want to see the world get better, you have to stop thinking about just yourself. Broken Sword has realised that the warring states period has only brought suffering to the people, and to end the suffering you have to change the current state of affairs, and the only way to do that, is to get a unified China. Broken Sword has also realised that the only kingdom with the power to unify China in a foreseeable future is Qin. So for all the wrong that the Qin king has done, perhaps the biggest wrong is to oppose him and extend the suffering of the people. I think there's something very beautiful in foregoing your own satisfaction in order to better the lives of everyone as a whole. And it's a message that can quite easily be applied to contemporary conflicts as well. But where I start to feel weird about it is when I think about how the Qin king is a ruthless tyrant. And suddenly the movie is telling me to willingly subjugate myself to a tyrant because it's the easy way out, and you have to stop fighting evil because it's hard and evil will fight back. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but when I read it like this, it's not that beautiful a message anymore.

Zhang Yimou has made some of my favourite movies. It's just a long time since he's made any of them. He needs to start making movies with less Christian Bale and less Matt Damon. At least it would be a start. Every time I hear of a new movie from him, I hope it's a return to form. But right now I get disappointed as often as when I hear what comes after the words "Jim Benning has made a trade".

 

[Jevo]

My next pick will be Las Hurdes by Luis Bunuel.

 

[kihei]

Hero (2002) Directed by Zhang Yimou

Hero, about a clever assassin who plots to kill the Qin Emperor as a means of taking revenge and ending his cruel reign, has just about everything you could possibly want in a classy action movie: a great story; a twisting plot that is not always predictable; attractive performances from all the principle actors; stunning cinematography (Hero makes the short list as one of the most beautiful movies ever made); wonderfully imaginative swordplay sequences that owe more of a debt to Astaire and Rogers than they do to traditional action mechanics; captivating editing; and a gorgeous mise en scene. I would go so far as to say that Hero is one of the half dozen best wuxia movies ever made.

It is a pleasure to sit through until one starts to think about the sting in its tail. In the end our nameless assassin defers to one of the swordsman who he has "defeated" and does not kill the Emperor. His reasons are noble, but the end result is to ignore his own judgement for what he deems to be the greater good of the kingdom. He comes to believe that the Emperor is the only one capable of uniting the Chinese kingdom. To assassinate him is to ultimately insure that more will die and that the kingdom will never be united, that greater suffering will almost certainly be the only result of even a just revenge. So the tyrant is allowed to live. This is essentially an ultra-conservative position that underpins the fascistic dream of a strong, powerful, fatherly leader whose will cannot be questioned and who should possess carte blanche to do whatever he thinks is in the best interest of his kingdom, even though his actions may be murderous and self-serving. I couldn't help but hear echoes of Trump's line "I'm the only one who can fix it." Definitely not how one wants to end what was to that point a great movie.

As if the ending of the story were not obvious enough, the film ends with a written coda, a long excerpt from Machiavelli about how the enlightened ruler should feel fully justified to resort to even cruelty and deceit if he believes strongly that it is in the best interests of the state to do so. It is a long quote not a brief paraphrase, which made me think that this was a point that Zhang wanted to underscore about his movie. Try as I might, I could not find even the tiniest speck of irony accompanying it.

subtitles

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I've seen Hero twice now and still couldn't name a favourite scene or one particularly memorable moment. Disentangling the competing narratives just didn't seem worth the effort for me, the characters didn't show much chemistry together to make me care, the plot just a way to pass time until the next sword fight. Maybe it's the just the formal mannerisms displayed by members of court society at the time that kept me from connecting with those characters. Or maybe my brain just went a little soft by the barrage of stunning images.

Lord, Hero is gorgeous, jaw-droppingly beautiful to look at. And how can you complain when your jaw is on the ground? All the visual elements go to ten, the cinematography, production design, just breathtaking sensory overload. That's probably why I didn't care so much for its story. But as wallpaper, Hero is brilliant. Not sure if that's a compliment or not.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Hero
Zhang (2002)
“How can people connect when they can’t understand each other?”

China is at war with itself. The King of Qin seeks to unite the various factions but his method is violence and blood. Nameless is an assassin, welcomed into the court of the king after killing three of the most revered warriors in the land — the artfully named Sky, Broken Sword and Flying Snow. They had tried to kill the King in the past but failed. The King, paranoid, is armor-clad and holed up in his temple. Nameless’ victories have allowed him to get as close to the King as any reasonable person could hope. Nameless begins to tell his story — his defeat of Sky, which was witnessed by his own soldiers. Next up were Sword and Snow. Using his wits and their jealously, Nameless turned the couple against each other. OR DID HE??? In a twist, the King sniffs out this lie. We see another version of what could have happened. The rivals all are alive, merely wounded. Nameless confesses to the ruse. He’s been working in concert with the other assassins and is there to kill the King himself. EXCEPT, things aren’t that simple. We now get the truth from Nameless. Sword didn’t want an assassination attempt to go forward believing that killing the King would only lead to more bloodshed. This puts him at odds with Snow and Nameless who forge ahead anyway. The King gives Nameless his sword, giving him the power to decided what’s right ... which is to allow the King to live. It’s a decision that costs Nameless his life and Sword too, for that matter. But the kingdom lives, united. Their sacrifices have brought peace.

I’d seen Hero years ago in its U.S. theatrical run and enjoyed it quite a bit. It arrived at a time when such styled flicks were getting big exposure here thanks to the success of Couching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and, honestly, probably a bit of The Matrix too. It’s been about that long since I’ve seen another one. As such, I was surprised at how it took me a few scenes to get back into that signature slow-mo, wire-guided fight/flight choreography. The unnaturalness of the movement, the way a character flies through the air when struck, was a bit disorienting. The action was, at times, slower than I remember too. So the initial fight with Sky served as a bit of a reeducation for me. Like I said, in my mind, I KNOW what this stuff looks like, but seeing it again after so long threw me for a bit of a loop. Thankfully not for too long. Crackerjack entertainment.

The first time I saw it, I remember being taken with the fights and the colors and the cinematography (obviously, duh). And that all holds up. This time, I had a greater appreciation for the story and its execution itself. It’s just two dudes in a room, telling stories, constantly assessing each other — a duel of its own, for sure. There was something mildly funny about the deadpan exchanges between these two serious men. "You probably have a lethal move? Do you have a lethal move?" "Yes, I have a lethal move." The upper hand shifts.

In the end, there is sacrifice for the greater good. That’s a message characters preach throughout. Broadly, that’s a nice ideal. But like the rest of you, I struggled a little in this exact context. The King is a tyrant by his actions and his own admission. I supposed we’re to infer that Nameless’ actions lead to a change of heart for the man. I think that’s there. He certainly seems reluctant to order Nameless’ death ... buuuuttt then again if he’s experiencing a new benevolence, so to speak, wouldn’t pardoning Nameless in the name of furthering peace be a pretty reasonable act? I know this is fable, not fact, but needing to execute Nameless for the sake of setting an example seems like the exact sort of thing that would be done by, I don’t know, say, a power mad tyrant?

Just when I’m tying myself up with that seeming lack of logic, I remind myself that they put Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung in rooms together again and that makes my heart happy, even if their story is sad.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

@Jevo - do you happen to have the excel sheet on the movie selections you made a few years ago? I was interested in updating it, though the Vol 1 thread where it once existed seems to have been lost to time ...

Just curious.

 

[Jevo]

Sadly I don't, it's long gone by now.

EDIT: If you want to get started on something, I can help you along. I keep an updated list on a site where I keep track of what movies I have watched, and I can export and excel list there. It doesn't information like director and country, so you'll have to add that yourself. But if you want to make an excel sheet like that, it's a decent start.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Sadly I don't, it's long gone by now.

EDIT: If you want to get started on something, I can help you along. I keep an updated list on a site where I keep track of what movies I have watched, and I can export and excel list there. It doesn't information like director and country, so you'll have to add that yourself. But if you want to make an excel sheet like that, it's a decent start.

With your blessing, I might play around with it. Thanks for the head start.