#336: Dazed and Confused

(Richard Linklater, 1993)

Dazed and Confused is one of the unusual pop culture artifacts that is both nostalgic and, with the passage of time, itself a piece of nostalgia. Richard Linklater wrote the film in his mid-thirties as an ode to his high school experience in the 1970s, but upon its release the film was embraced by teenagers who identified with the bell-bottoms, long hair, and pot culture in a time when kids were desperate to reject their 80s upbringing. It subsequently became a defining work of the 1990s - no movie other than perhaps Clueless represents my generation of teenagers more effectively, a feat that seems totally ironic considering its dedication to its setting. (Note, too, that Clueless is based on Jane Austen's "Emma" - and what says more about the post-modern 90s than that?)

This achievement is less surprising when you consider how honest and loyally crafted Dazed and Confused is. Though he clearly has the cynical, destructive 80s in mind (most obviously when Marissa Ribisi theorizes that the 80s will be amazing - a clear knowing wink), Linklater never succumbs to the sort of saccharine nostalgia for innocence that George Lucas's American Graffiti is beholden to with regards to the pre-Vietnam War era. Likewise, his ability to shuttle between social strata and lend them all the same level of attention to detail and dignity is remarkable, even more so when considering how rarely this has actually been achieved. Adam Goldberg's nerd and Sasha Jenson's meathead are crafted with equal care for their intelligence and relative sophistication. It would seem unlikely that anyone who sees Dazed and Confused would be unable to recognize at least part of themselves in one or more of these vivid characters.

I've seen Dazed and Confused more times than I can count, but this most recent viewing was the first in years. I was struck by how impressed I was with the filmmaking, particularly from a storytelling perspective. Despite including multiple storylines, Linklater managed to structure the film seamlessly, giving everyone their moments without bumps in the film's momentum. The characters are well-established both through dialog and direction. Framing and establishing shots are carefully selected to hammer home each world with which Linklater is concerned. But there's also a quirkiness that emphasizes Linklater's personal connection to and love for his characters. Linklater is not often mentioned as an influence on Wes Anderson, another Texas director - though less often linked to the state, but the connection came to mind frequently while watching Dazed and Confused.

Linklater's work can often be dismissed as slight and undeserving of serious reflection, even if his movies are almost without fail intellectually stimulating. I think a big part of this is his unambitious scale; with very few exceptions, Linklater mainly focuses on average, thoroughly human characters doing average, thoroughly human things. His core masterpieces, the two Before films (I have yet to see the third), hardly concern themselves with any characters beyond the two leads, while even conventional story structure falls by the wayside. Though Dazed and Confused is similarly narratively loose, the film's format is recognizable to anyone who has seen compressed-time coming-of-age films, and this can make it seem a lot less revolutionary and a lot more specific to its time and place (both in setting and release). Hopefully, this won't prevent new generations of movie lovers from discovering the film, because it deserves a place as one of the fine films about adolescence, even after its nostalgic appeal has faded.

#339: Yi Yi

(Edward Yang, 1999)

Yi Yi was the second-to-last "feature" film in the first 650 Criterions I have to watch. Unlike the final movie, Salo, I was not putting off Yi Yi because I had little interest in seeing it. Instead, I was waiting for an opportunity to fully digest this three-hour epic on my LED TV in blu-ray without any distractions - a stretch that does not come along every day when you have a one-year-old - because I had a sneaking suspicion I would love it and I didn't want a casual viewing to get in the way of my appreciation.

Well, I found that opportunity last night and I was totally right: Yi Yi is an unquestionable masterpiece. I love making grand statements, but I try to make them only when I really mean them, so I don't take it lightly when I say that I think (think) Yi Yi might be the best movie of the last 25 years. At the very least, it's up in the stratosphere with In the Mood for Love, Fargo, Blue, and the string of 2007 masterpieces that can go toe to toe with the all-time greats.

This statement is kind of an awkward fit for a movie that is as unassuming in its storytelling as Yi Yi, even if the film is three hours. But the basic premise of following a middle-class Taiwanese family over the course of a few months hardly gets at what the film is really about, and it belies the extraordinary ambition of Yang's visual approach. What's most impressive about both the simple but profound storytelling and Yang's camerawork is how effortlessly - and often seamlessly - the two complement each other. Yi Yi is a movie about families, modern living, and love in ways that are both specific to Taiwan and universal, but it's also about these individual characters and their quiet emotional journeys just as much as it is about cinema and its ability (or lack thereof) to emulate reality. Yang's elevation of this unremarkable family calls into question our own experiences both in and out of a movie theater and asks us to evaluate the value of both. Like many of the greatest movies ever made, Yi Yi speaks to the human condition without forgetting the experience of viewing a film, and Yang manages to incorporate all of this into his film's aesthetic and narrative equally.

I could spend quite a bit of time talking about things I loved about this movie, but one point I really want to make is how thoughtfully varied yet unified Yang's compositions are. As noted by the beautifully mysterious and accurate Criterion cover, Yang uses the flat, straight-on shot with both people and objects (and even incorporates it into the story of the young boy and his camera) but contrasts this with side angles of urban spaces - both interior and exterior. His rooms are small but connected to a series of others, forming a maze-like perception of Taiwan's buildings that are cluttered with walls and doors keeping people apart even as they live in tight quarters. Conversely, his exteriors are often balanced with human reflections on the pristine glass of the towers that make up city living. We are constantly reminded of the intimate moments and emotions contained within what other directors have dismissed as cold and inhuman. Yang does not do this to draw contrast between the characters' lives and their surroundings, he does it to achieve unity and highlight the indivisibility of our modern lives. His camerawork is emphasized by the score, which subtly invokes classical music to balance between the modern and the timeless. The film is not flashy, but this impeccable craftsmanship is a reminder that the typical style of American directors in particular - who so often pick one specific style for a film and insist on seeing it through to the end - can often render a movie lifeless. Its effect is often the opposite of what was intended: the film's thematic thrust gets in the way of the storytelling that is key to its success at generating any real meaning. The movie is rendered an experiment in style instead of an exploration of reality.

Of course the balance of Yang's technical prowess is his storytelling, and the film is just as successful in this regard. Yes, this is a three-hour film and, yes, a lot of people are going to be put off by the rhythm and pacing of the storytelling. Although Yi Yi begins at a wedding and ends at a funeral, the moments are somewhat arbitrary cutting off points. And while the film encompasses at least two stories in full (the core couple's marital waverings and the daughter's first experiment with love) and is framed by another (the grandmother's coma), there are threads that never receive full attention and a handful of unresolved relationships. Of course, that is exactly what life is - but doesn't that sound cheesy when it's written down! Yi Yi defies description in this regard. It's a rare movie that can't be described in prose without losing most of its message. Certainly there are truly moving scenes and storylines here that would work in any medium or context - for me, the most intense were certainly the scenes between the father and his video-game-designer prospective business partner and the scenes with his lost love, especially their last encounter which is so unbearably heartbreaking that it's hard to think about. And the final twist in the daughter's story is probably the only moment in the film when the story feels manufactured, even if it's believable enough and compatible with the rest of the movie. But really there aren't any stories here that are less appealing (unlike other similarly sprawling films) and the way Yang overlays their developments - most clearly with the father's reflections on early love being spoken over his daughter's first date - strengthens each in kind (and further deepens his visual layering). I would say the movie rewards the effort required to maintain attention throughout its running time to pull in viewers who might be turned off by the pacing, but I have to be honest and say I was totally enraptured from the start. Within five minutes I could see that I was in remarkable hands.

So yeah, I really liked Yi Yi. I could probably go on and lead myself down the path towards an understanding of the film's real message about life and family and the individual, but I won't because I think the effectiveness of the movie lies not in the specifics of what Yang is saying but in how it speaks to you personally. There's something gracefully beautiful about Yi Yi's ineffability that can only be dissolved by translation. I think that's often what makes art in any medium great, but Yi Yi shows just how powerful film specifically can be.

#342: Six Moral Tales

(Eric Rohmer, 1963-72)

Six Moral Tales is not meant to be a wide-ranging anthology encompassing all moral guidelines, as its title might imply. Instead, they are variations on a theme, best described as stories about a man who has given himself to one woman (either explicitly or mentally) who is tempted by another. All of these men (occasionally through arguably not their own choice) eventually reject these temptations and return to their original object of affection. The similarities between the films do not end there - Rohmer's protagonists certainly share a typical masculine narcissism, though they manifest it in different ways, while his women often attempt to demand their own identities, even as they are being objectified by men who are using them to define themselves. But the movies each present a unique take on these themes, and the feel and intellectual thrust of each is notably and refreshingly original.

Of the six films, I think My Night at Maud's is unquestionably the most impressive. But I think Claire's Knee is also a major work, and La Collectionneuse is very underrated. This is one of Criterion's great boxsets, and hopefully they will be able to produce similar collections of Rohmer's other series in the future - I would at least like to see any of his other films represented! For now, though, this set is a great introduction to his work and one of the great results of France's New Wave.

Links to individual reviews:

The Bakery Girl of Monceau
Suzanne's Career
My Night at Maud's
La collectionnuese
Claire's Knee
Love in the Afternoon

#348: Love in the Afternoon

(Eric Rohmer, 1972)

Love in the Afternoon feels a lot like a film from a different New Wave series, Truffaut's Bed and Board. The two films take a similarly light approach to the question of marriage gone routine and the temptations that come with it, though Rohmer's character, of course, ultimately chooses not to indulge his desires. There is a lot of comedy here, but it often comes in small, subtle doses - Rohmer was never one to match Truffaut's or Godard's winking, playful tones. There is one more overt moment, however, when Frederic fantasizes about approaching women on the street. The scene itself is whimsical and funny, but it is given an added touch of knowing humor by the inclusion of many of the women from the earlier films in the series as objects of his desire (in fact, the sequence itself harkens back to The Bakery Girl of Monceau and My Night at Maud's where the protagonists actually do run up to a woman on the street). Although the moment isn't as moving as, say, the final scene of the Three Colors trilogy or as clever as the Breathless joke in A Woman is a Woman, it's always satisfying to see a filmmaker acknowledging and rewarding the commitment of a multi-film arc by tossing in elements like that.

Beyond the humor, Rohmer's final film in the series is a touching and memorable conclusion, and perhaps the least obtuse "moral tale" of the lot. The challenge for Frederic is clear from the beginning: should he stray from his marriage or not? What nearly took me off the rails in this film, however, was just how pathetically unlikable Frederic was. Although all of the protagonists in the Six Moral Tales have some degree of disagreeability in their personalities, Frederic was harder to handle for me simply because he was so desperate and seemingly devoid of backbone. The film's redemption comes when he finally makes the decision to stay loyal to his wife, but by then it's been a somewhat difficult journey.

Two more notes on this final Moral Tale: I found the depiction of Chloe in the film to be an especially interesting portrayal of a woman for the series, both in the way her character acts and responds to the world and in the way she was viewed entirely through Frederic's eyes. Molly Haskell wrote an interesting essay for Claire's Knee about the way women are depicted in Six Moral Tales - a fundamentally male-centric work of art - but I would imagine there is a fascinating book either waiting to be written or having already been written on the subject. Finally, I wouldn't mind seeing the other Love in the Afternoon in the Criterion Collection - it might be middle-of-the-pack from Wilder, but it's a fine mid-50s Hollywood romance with two great stars.

#347: Claire's Knee

(Eric Rohmer, 1970)

Speaking strictly of plot, Claire's Knee is the most complex of the six moral tales. It has the most moving parts. Rather than the typical disembodied narration, Rohmer gives Jerome a confidant in the form of Aurora to bounce his moralistic ideas off of - he even argues that her own literary curiosity is his only drive to begin a flirtation with two semi-sisters, Laura and Claire, though this seems unlikely. There is certainly a connection beyond platonic friendship between the two, but she is not the woman from whom Jerome is being tempted to stray - that is his fiancée, who for the first and only time in the series is completely offscreen. The fact that Jerome is tempted by two women rather than just one similarly breaks the mold. But Jerome's attention (and that of the viewer) quickly turns to Claire as the solitary challenge for the protagonist, and the film begins to turn on a much simpler premise.

Essentially, Jerome is a creepy older guy, justifying his flirtation with underage girls by labeling it an experiment. The climactic moment comes when Claire begins to cry and his game is now real. Claire's knee is representative of the stormy waters between friendship and romance and the occasionally blurred lines between mentor and lover. Jerome certainly condescends to Claire in this scene, but it's implied that he is doing it out of jealousy, that he can't bear to see a younger, more appropriate boy get the better of him. What's more unclear is whether or not he consciously makes the decision to stop at her knee, turning his conquest into comfort, or if he uses morality for justification of his failure (and whether that failure came from within or from a perception of rejection). Either way, it makes for a fascinating quandary.

One more thing to note about the film: the costumes, as in La Collectionnuese, are impeccable (if clearly of their time). I didn't make a note of who it was in the film and I can't find a credit online, but I'm very impressed and I wonder if the person continued to work with Rohmer and/or had a bigger career.

#346: La collectionneuse

(Eric Rohmer, 1967)

Although La Collectionneuse is the fourth film in Rohmer's Six Moral Tales series, it was shot and released third and is consequently the first feature film the director made in the series. It's also the first film he made with the great Nestor Almendros. (Almendros also made his feature debut as a cinematographer here; he'd eventually amass a body of work nearly unparalleled in modern cinema, including Days of Heaven, probably one of the most beautiful movies ever made.) Because of this, Rohmer was trying a number of things out in the film, which has a looser and more experimental feel than the three features which followed it.

In fact, the film serves as a more appropriate bridge between the shorts and features in the series than My Night at Maud's. It is perhaps the most literate of all the entries, complete with prologues - little short stories introducing the three main characters - and a heavy dose of first-person narration looking back on the action as it unfolds in real time. But it's also not as rigidly structured as the other three features. Like the shorts, it feels like a work in progress, a further refining of the techniques and themes that would fully blossom in the coming features.

On the other hand, La Collectionneuse is a wholly satisfying work. Adrien is perhaps the most repulsive protagonist in the series, a mostly empty, sexist narcissist who rarely exhibits flashes of appealing characteristics. The elaborate plan he constructs for Haydee in his meandering voice-overs is so deluded and convoluted that he can almost convince the viewer that there is some grand conspiracy at play for him to give in to this "lesser" creature. For her own part, Haydee manages to oscillate between appealingly sexually liberated and almost tragically beholden to her social worth. When these characters come together, Rohmer and his actors construct such rich dialogues and sexual chemistry that the results are fascinating and gripping on a level such small stories rarely reach. I ended up enjoying the movie almost as much as its much higher-profile companion My Night at Maud's, certainly a high compliment.

#345: My Night at Maud's

(Eric Rohmer, 1969)

Eric Rohmer's third moral tale (and third feature film) is actually the fourth film in the series, since La Collectioneuse was filmed first while Rohmer waited for his star for this film to have an opening in his schedule. It's also arguably the best, having benefited from the experience of shooting and editing its predecessor (successor). Certainly, My Night at Maud's is the most widely well-regarded film in the series - and in Rohmer's career - having been the film that catapulted him to international stardom and placed him alongside his fellow Cahiers vets Truffaut and Godard as a major voice in the New Wave. Criterion calls it "one of the most influential and talked-about films of the decade" - though unlike The 400 Blows, its importance apparently does not so outweigh the other installments in its series that it would necessitate a stand-alone release.

The biggest shift Rohmer made between shorts and features in the series (practiced in La Collectioneuse but perfected here) was a move from long stretches of narration that depicts the inner thoughts of the protagonist to huge dialogs, often between a man and a woman who are balanced precariously on the threshold of a sexual encounter, but occasionally between friends. The bulk of My Night at Maud's is taken up by these huge conversations, first between protagonist Jean-Louie and his old friend Vidal, then by Jean-Louis and Maud, and finally Jean-Louis and the object of his true affection, Françoise. The abundance of these conversations pushes the narration into the background; it disappears for so long in the middle of the film that, when it finally comes rushing back in the final moments, its reemerging thought has that much more notable of an impact. Similarly, the conversations themselves are absorbing and thought-provoking; there is a great deal to ponder in My Night at Maud's.

Jean-Louis is also notable because he is the first protagonist in the series (both chronologically and numerically) who is generally likable. Sure, he's self-absorbed, a bit overly simplistic in his worldview, and perhaps a bit selfish. But he's a big step up from people like Barbet Shroeder in The Bakery Girl of Monceau, who similarly chased after a woman in the street he had only seen from afar but was confident he would marry. Jean-Louis never misleads Maud - though one could argue he only avoids doing so because Maud is so aware of the situation that she prevents him from misleading her. Françoise seems unlikely to succumb to his nearly forced destiny, but his persistence pays off in the end - Jean-Louis might be the best case for The Secret in cinema.

Perhaps most interestingly, My Night At Maud's final morality lesson comes at the very end of the film and for the first time directly related to the constant woman in Jean-Louis's life (as opposed to the fleeting temptress, the counterpoint to each of the series' protagonist's true love). Jean-Louis makes the decision to lie for his wife, letting her off the hook so they can continue on with their happy lives. It's probably the case that Jean-Louis is proud of himself in this moment, and there's certainly the case to be made that this final moral quandary was a core reason why the film hit it big in the heart of the sexual liberation. But I think Rohmer's fundamental conservatism was actually the real appeal of the film for an audience that had taken the dive and knew what treacherous waters they would have to navigate. For them, the dance Jean-Louis performs with Maud must have felt very real, and the questions raised throughout the film - not just in the final moments - cut as deep then as they do today.

#344: Suzanne's Career

(Eric Rohmer, 1963)

Made a year later, Suzanne's Career is like a reverse Jules and Jim, where two men compete over who gets to reject a woman the fastest. It's a painful and depressing undertaking that is ultimately only redeemed by Rohmer's sure hand and a passably satisfying conclusion.

Although Suzanne's Career is twice as long as its predecessor, The Bakery Girl of Monceau, it's still under an hour. Along with its non-feature status, it shares a number of more relevant attributes with the earlier film: both are narration heavy and center around extremely self-absorbed and unlikable protagonists who entertain the attention of a woman they have no interest in. But the little narrative touches in the earlier film - the ritual of the cookies, the documentary-style depiction of Paris that interacts with the plot, shaping the men and women of the film in such a way that it becomes a character itself - have been expanded into deeper plot points. This is most notable in the case of the missing money, which becomes a sort of third-act MacGuffin that is mostly there to indicate how shallow and useless the relationships that our protagonist has established are. This makes Suzanne's Career a slightly more committed look at where Rohmer's later installments in his series would end up, but the details have yet to become fully formed.

Fortunately for both the series and the viewer, once Rohmer made the jump into features the characters become a lot more interesting and - even if they aren't exactly the Dude - a lot more likable. The length of Suzanne's Career allows for a bit more leeway in this regard, and it prevents the film from descending too deeply into the dark corners of the mating game.

#343: The Bakery Girl of Monceau

(Eric Rohmer, 1963)

At just under 23 minutes, The Bakery Girl of Monceau might be the shortest film in the Criterion Collection with a spine number all to itself. This is a bit misleading, though, since the only reason it has its spine number is that it is the first of six films in the boxset collecting Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales. Rohmer, who died a few years ago after one of the more personal and idiosyncratic careers in the French New Wave, was most famous for the three series he made (along with Six Moral Tales, he made one based on proverbs and a final series based on the seasons, which he finished in 1999). This collection represents his only entries in the Collection, which is both a pleasure since it is unquestionably his most-praised work and a disappointment since he made far more films worthy of inclusion.

But this is all beside the point here, which is what to make of this short film. Rohmer's protagonist is played by Barbet Schroeder who would go on to direct a handful of Criterion films of his own. Here, he's almost unbearable as the self-absorbed and scheming center of the movie, passing the time flirting with a young woman at a bakery while planning his rendezvous with the true object of his affection. The film is narration heavy and often shot like a documentary on the streets of Paris, but the story itself is vintage New Wave, a shift away from the conventional heroes and structures of the old guard, merging a realistic and dynamic visual style with a personal and honest storytelling perspective.

Rohmer's six moral tales do not refer to specific and established concepts of morality, but are instead centered around the characters' unique choices and how they choose to rationalize them. Here, Schroeder's character makes clear that what might typically be viewed as a selfish and cruel decision is not just acceptable but his only moral option - choosing to stand up his momentary dalliance in order to reconnect with his mystery woman. It's not a cut and dry decision, but it's one we tend to judge as the audience not because we disagree with him but because we have been exposed to his inner-shithead for the last 20 minutes. This raises another moral question: should motives be taken into account when moral choices are made - is selflessness a prerequisite for morality or a mere potential byproduct?

I've seen a few of Rohmer's tales already (Claire's Knee was an early favorite New Wave film of mine), but I plan on watching them all again because it has been so long and it's nice to see them in context. The Bakery Girl of Monceau is a good primer for the journey, even if on its own it wouldn't amount to much more than a curiosity with some great potential behind it.

#333: Fists in the Pocket

(Marco Bellocchio, 1965)

Fists in the Pocket is a "fuck you" movie, the kind that could only be made by a young director. Bellocchio was just 26 when he made this debut, and like so many famous examples has been unable to match its heights in the nearly fifty years since. There are a lot of dysfunctional families in the Collection, but this one ranks right up there, with a mentally challenged brother, a blind mother, and a brother who just might be homicidal and appears to be having an affair - or at least an unconsummated one - with his sister. Attempting to hold them all together in his worst Jason Bateman impression is a brother who would much prefer to get in his girlfriend's pants than deal with his ball and chain of a family.

The performance at the center of the film is a brilliant one (though I did frequently think throughout "that guy really doesn't look Italian" - and in fact he's Swedish). Lou Castel's ability to hold rage and insanity just under the boiling point makes the film seem always on the edge of descending into parody in the best way. Because you never doubt for a second that he is capable of what he threatens, the suspense builds from the beginning. But it manages to take nothing away from the shock and chills of seeing the deeds actually done. The scene in which he races another car on a cliffside after telling his brother he is going to kill the entire family is one of the great suspenseful sequences I've seen.

Fists in the Pocket is a dark, angry movie about family, morality, and the crushing responsibility of social obligation. It's also unlike any other Italian movie I've seen, certainly up to that point in history. Buñuel called the movie over-the-top, which is kind of like Spielberg calling a movie too sentimental. But I think what his comments about the film reveal is that the old guard didn't really have a place for this kind of open lashing out. It borders on nihilism, certainly, but doesn't get there because it's so totally unconcerned with the end goal. Fists in the Pocket is a brash act of violence within its frames, but really against the establishment both filmic and societal, something that is greatly needed in every generation. It's also riveting cinema.

#350: Seduced and Abandoned

(Pietro Germi, 1964)

Seduced and Abandoned is Germi's follow-up to his big hit Divorce, Italian Style. That film's sly satire has been quadrupled here, and is now boiling over into a rage - it's hard to think of many comedies that have this much contempt for their characters and the universe they inhabit. Maybe that's why I enjoyed the movie so much.

The film revolves around a sexual encounter between a man and the underage sister of his fiancee, whom he impregnates. When the father finds out what happened, rather than turn the man in to the police for statutory rape, he expends all of his energy struggling to get them married and keep his family's honor intact. Despite being only 16, the sister is seen as a "slut" or "whore" - at one point, someone explains that "It is a man's right to ask, a woman's duty to refuse." In fact, even the man who seduced her refuses to marry her because she is not a virgin.

The story would be tragic if the film didn't take this archaic and barbaric mindset to its logical extreme, turning the situation into high farce that takes a dark path through statutory rape, suicide, kidnapping, and attempted murder. I've always felt satire is more effective at exposing hypocrisy than drama - which can get preachy very, very fast - and this film is a perfect example of why. The final shot of the gravestone in a drama would have been deemed too far over the top, but here it's a cherry on top of an arsenic sundae.

Like Mafioso, another early 60s film that lampooned Sicilian living as out of step with modern society, Seduced and Abandoned plays unspoken codes of conduct for laughs. Yet Mafioso had an enormous amount of sympathy for its main character - the film could easily be regarded as one of the core humanist comedies of Italian cinema - while Seduced and Abandoned depicts its protagonists (or maybe antagonists) as willing participants in their society's unjust, misogynistic system. Ironically, despite the somewhat upbeat hope for humanity to triumph in Mafioso and the dark cycle of Seduced and Abandoned, it's the latter film that comes off lighter, though both are equally entertaining.

I've done a lot of thinking about comedy, and one really difficult thing about making a compelling and relevant comedy in modern America is that most of the taboos that can be depicted in a light-hearted fashion have been torn down. Movies like The Miracle of Morgan Creek or even The Graduate don't have the same bite they once did (though both are still great movies), and today all we're left with are decidedly unfunny taboos like rape and incest and overplayed semi-taboos like homosexuality and blasphemy and holdovers from our childhoods like saying bad words and farting. It makes broad comedies of this nature much more difficult to pull off, and it's one reason why satire is somewhat marginalized in our culture. Germi's work here is a prime example of the pleasure that can be drawn from the style.

#338: Equinox

(Jack Woods, 1970)

Is there anything worse than computer generated effects? There was a time when special effects were all about cleverness and extreme creativity. With computers, artistry has become craft and no one asks "How did they do that?" anymore because everyone knows the answer. The biggest victim of this technological shift is spectacle (did anyone care about the mass of ships that were clearly easily duplicated in Troy?) but creature design  - with a few exceptions - has taken a real hit, since everything is drawn instead of crafted these days.

Of the old masters pre-CGI, Dennis Muren was one of the greats, most famous for his work on Star Wars. This early entry in his catalog, however, is extremely entertaining. It's an homage to the creature features of the 1950s about a group of kids that get caught up in a mystical battle for control of secret evil powers. The production value is very low, the acting only moderately passable, and the story alternates between overused tropes and campy cheese. But it's all saved by the straight-faced delivery and Muren's gloriously inventive effects, especially the monster designs. This is one of the more unusual entries in the Collection, but it's a welcomed one.

#327: 3 Films by Louis Malle

(Louis Malle, 1972, 1974, 1987)

Though Criterion (wisely) chose not to title this collection, their intentions are clear: Murmur of the Heart, Lacombe, Lucien, and Au Revoir les Enfants are all Malle films primarily focused on coming of age. The films are not married in style or artistic phase in the way Bergman's Trilogy was, and their stories do not connect in even the roundabout way Kieslowski's Blue, White, and Red do so wonderfully. Instead, they share a filmmaker and his increasing desire to look within himself for his art, specifically himself as a young boy.

There are other superficial connections here. Au Revoir les Enfants and Lacombe, Lucien both feature World War II as a backdrop, while the protagonists of Murmur of the Heart and Au Revoir les Enfants both have unhealthy relationships with their mothers (the former obviously to a larger degree than the latter). But it is the fundamental question of childhood and the transition into adulthood (manhood in these cases - and, let's face it, most cases in cinema) that is most engaging in all three films. Murmur of the Heart is largely a sexual awakening, while Lacombe, Lucien focuses on the banal simplicity of masculinity in all its ugliness. Au Revoir les Enfants is by far my favorite of the three because it feels most engaged with the nature of youth not as a present tense but as a past. The film is an exploration of the inevitable guilt of knowing more - better - than you used to and being unable to change the results. It's also a deeply personal confession that doesn't dwell on its protagonist's potential to become a savior, but instead revels in the brief moments of naïve bliss. All three films in this boxset are worth seeing, but Au Revoir Les Enfants is one for the ages.

Links to individual reviews:

Murmur of the Heart
Lacombe, Lucien
Au Revoir les Enfants

#329: Lacombe, Lucien

(Louis Malle, 1974)

Lacombe, Lucien is a daring portrait of a boy on the cusp of manhood, caught up in history. Lucien lives in occupied France in 1944, just before the Americans beat back German forces. A callous, selfish person (in the first scene we see him passionlessly kill a bird with his slingshot simply because he can), he attempts to join the resistance to get out of his unglamorous job at a local hospital. When they refuse him because of his age, Lucien turns to the Gestapo instead.

Malle's exploration of the French psyche under occupation - and, on a larger scale, man's ability to become complicit in evil through basic, common desires - is a specific kind of subversive movie, a kind which the American public rarely gets to see. Lucien is a supremely unlikable character - nowhere in the film do we sympathize with him, relate to him, or come anywhere close to liking him. Even in his single moment of heroism (spoilers), when he shoots the German officer who has come to take his lover and her grandmother away, he does so not for their sake, but for his own. Lucien does not change in the film, and nothing about the way other people relate to him makes us feel any better about his actions or beliefs (or rather, the lack thereof).

Is it possible to make a great movie about a central character that is entirely reprehensible? Every scene in Lacombe, Lucien made my skin crawl, which was precisely what it was intended to do. Yet I'm not sure what I gained from it. Often in Hollywood, a lack of character evolution and an inability to make the audience connect with the protagonist is equated with bad movies. This is one of the main tenets of the core philosophy of mainstream American cinema, which holds that certain elements are required to make a good movie, and if those elements are not present, it is impossible to be successful.

This is, of course, a silly, stupid notion, one that has prevented many movies from reaching their potential as great movies. But watching Lacombe, Lucien certainly places the issue of a sympathetic - or at least relatable - protagonist front and center. It's difficult for me to think of a movie that successfully balanced upon the shoulders of an unlikable protagonist (I'd love to hear suggestions in the comments), and for me Lacombe, Lucien was no different. I think what Malle did here in terms of intellectual investigation is worthy, admirable even. But it makes for a difficult viewing experience, and not one I can say I enjoyed or even necessarily believe was worth it in the end.

#332: Viridiana

(Luis Buñuel, 1961)

There aren't many accomplished directors with lengthy oeuvres who are best known for shorts, and Buñuel is probably the most obvious (others would be Jean Vigo, Maya Deren, and um Chuck Jones of course). Catapulted to fame as a young man with his two collaborations with Salvador Dalí, Un Chien Andalou and the near-feature L'Age d'Or, Buñuel was forced to leave Spain during the civil war pre-World War II and didn't really rise to international prominence again until Viridiana in 1961. Over the next few decades, Buñuel would make a number of well-regarded features - including Belle de Jour and future Criterion viewings The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and That Obscure Object of Desire - but it's hard to eclipse the reputation of Un Chien Andalou, arguably the most famous short film in cinema history, and the work every film student sees before they even know what a tracking shot is.

But beginning with Viridiana, Buñuel had a run of films that are highly regarded, nearly all of which I have not seen. So here we go. Viridiana is a satire without comedy, a dark and angry film that retains a lightness by relying on Buñuel's unique absurdity. The film is centered on a young woman about to take her vows as a nun when her uncle she hardly knows compels her to come visit him. There, he goes about trying to convince and then trick the woman into giving up her vows and staying with him.

The movie was banned in Spain until the end of Franco's reign, and really it's no surprise. There are two attempted rapes, one burned crown of thorns, a nun corrupted, and a beggar's banquet turned into the last supper (and then subjected to a woman's flashing). The whole movie is basically about how you can try to do good all you want, but people will shit on you anyway, but Buñuel doesn't particularly seem to care that much. It's like if at the end of Schindler's List, instead of that shitty bookend with the grave site, Spielberg had just showed himself, turned to the camera, and said "Meh, whatevs." (Note: this is an extreme example. Note 2: That would have been amazing.)

Viridiana does end up being entertaining because of this attitude, but I can't say I really connected with any of the characters, and I felt like the plotting was a bit disjointed. I don't think this century will displace the last century in terms of filmmaking - there just isn't as far to go anymore - but I think the one area in which the 20th century canon will start to feel stale is the constant specter of class over movies from the middle of the century. It's not to say that class doesn't still matter, but I think the way in which it was dealt does not feel modern or speak to the intellectual zeitgeist of this generation. Viridiana (and I'm afraid other Buñuel films to come) is one of those movies that just doesn't seem in touch with current artistic or progressive thought. This doesn't make it a bad movie, but it makes it more of an artifact in context than a living breathing work of art.

#341: A Canterbury Tale

(Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1944)

There was one thing I got out of A Canterbury Tale. The film begins in the time of Chaucer, with pilgrims making their way through the English countryside. As they pass by a bend in the road, a falconer lets his hawk off, and it goes soaring through the air. Before you know it, the hawk has become a fighter plane, soaring through the air, and the falconer is now a WWII soldier with a helmet strapped on.

In case you haven't figured it out, Stanley Kubrick probably saw this movie. The shot is so similar to his jump cut in 2001, probably the most famous jump cut of all time, that it is impossible not to think of the moment when watching A Canterbury Tale. It's a sharp reminder that most things in film (and art in general) are not original, that man has been around long enough that by now we show our true ability to reach someone by successfully reappropriating what has come before and applying it to our current problems.

Beyond this "holy crap" moment, A Canterbury Tale was a rather dull movie, too much of its time to have relevance today. This might seem ironic since one of the main points of the movie is that people never change, that history means something because you can learn from it, and that holding on to that history is all we have in difficult times. These are all things with which I strongly agree, but the way in which they are presented here leaves a great deal to be desired. I didn't care at all about the glue man, and while I realize that was hardly the point of the film, they could have spent a little less time on the mystery. I also had a problem with the American character, who felt more like Ralph Bellamy in a screwball comedy than an actual person, and made it a lot more difficult to feel an emotional response to the final moments of the film.

A Canterbury Tale is actually one of the most popular films Powell and Pressburger ever made, or at least the one with the strongest following. I suspect part of this affection stems from the fundamentally (lower c) conservative values the film espouses, that vague sense of nostalgia that actually has a genuinely admirable reason for existing yet can too often be carried along (especially in a country like England, and more and more in a declining empire such as our own) by people who feel that the world has passed them by. But I also think that there are few films that are so unabashedly awash in these concepts, and reward the viewer with such an almost sublime conclusion to its characters' journey. It's these final moments, most likely, that grab hold of the imagination and refuse to let go, and while I don't see that myself, I can respect it nonetheless.

By the way, I don't care much for this cover. It's not that I think it's ugly, but the painting says little about the movie and it's not especially intriguing or memorable.

#331: Late Spring

(Yasujiro Ozu, 1949)


As I've said before, Ozu films don't really move me the way they are supposed to. Late Spring is a step closer to succeeding by the time its beautiful final scene unfolds, which oddly enough reminded me of the final scene in Big Night. But the rest of the film can be frustratingly slow and subtle, perhaps only saved for me by another great, mesmerizing performance by Setsuko Hara, who really is a true star, one I would compare to American contemporaries Bette Davis and Barabara Stanwyck in terms of command of the screen (though by no means in terms of persona). Without her, I may not have gotten through the film, which like every Ozu film seems almost daringly sparse.

The one thing any film fan knows about Ozu - even if they haven't seen his films - is that he is considered the "most Japanese" of all great Japanese directors. I often considered this a direct (and unfair) dig at Japan's most famous and most successful in the West director Akira Kurosawa, and a kind of pretentious attack on those who might consider his films too dull or contemplative. But I genuinely wonder what today's Japan thinks of Ozu. Certainly the pop culture of the country might be regarded as more Western than the West by that first person to label Ozu the quintessential Japanese director. So what would the country that created WarioWare: Smooth Moves really think of Late Spring? I can't help but think it wouldn't be that different than what I think of it: a beautifully made meditation on the shifting of generations that is only a moderate distraction from finishing Super Mario Galaxy 2.

#328: Murmur of the Heart

(Louis Malle, 1972)

With the exception of Chinatown, Murmur of the Heart is probably the most famous movie about incest (am I missing some other movie?). Like that classic, this Louis Malle film isn't really about incest, but instead about the rumblings of youth and the messy journey that brings boys into their place among men. This is played out as class satire and a sort of reverse embrace of French culture, represented by the French upper-middle-class family that has an Italian matriarch and son/protagonist obsessed with American jazz.

Lea Massari, who memorably played the missing girl of Antonioni's masterpiece, L'avventura, plays the mother here, and she is spectacular. Her character is so inappropriate with her sons well before any hint of actual impropriety that it becomes difficult to sympathize with her, but she is obviously oblivious to her line-crossing that eventually all you can see is her feeling of helpless sexuality. Massari is so beautiful that her casting is half the battle here, but her reserved emotional conflict with regards to her family goes the rest of the way. When her son, so desperate to lose his virginity, to conquer a woman, to feel like he has gained some semblance of power in the world, finally sees the damage that can be inflicted upon the victims of such conquests, it is a mutually beneficial encounter that feels tenderly sad, more melancholy than tragedy. And, of course, instead of retracting from the power of this realization, the young protagonist is instead invigorated by it, immediately moving on to more conventional encounters.

The second half of the film is undoubtedly uncomfortable, but still certainly compelling, and while Malle has made better films, this is well worth seeing, if not for the compelling story and artful direction, then for the excellent performances from Massari and Benoit Ferreux. As I watch more and more films from Malle, it becomes clear that his catalog is stacked well beyond his masterpieces.

#330: Au Revoir Les Enfants

(Louis Malle, 1987)

This is most likely the best film I've watched so far during this project. Au Revoir Les Enfants is a deeply moving depiction of a friendship, moments of regret and helplessness, and the tipping point when the real world comes crashing down into a childhood and turns boys into men before they are ready.

This movie also made me eager to watch other Malle films (I love Elevator to the Gallows and - that's right - My Dinner with Andre), including his documentaries released under the Eclipse banner.

I would probably have more to say about this one at a different time, maybe I'll come back to it. But right now, I just want to let it wash over me. The fact that it was loosely based on Malle's own childhood obviously makes it more intense, but it also makes the details and the tone of the film very real, and very moving. This isn't a movie that has been totally digested at the end of its running time. All in all, one of the best movies of the 80s, and maybe the best movie I have ever seen that is (loosely) related to the Holocaust.

#337: À nos amours

(Maurice Pialat, 1983)

This is a very well made film, and it is very disturbing without being shocking or gross. The emotional and physical ordeal the lead character goes through is not pleasant to watch, and her performance pulls you in from the very beginning.

However, something about the film felt off to me. I think it is the sense that the filmmaker was somehow enjoying the path of discovery for Suzanne, rather than simply depicting it. It made me wonder what the film would have been like if it had been directed by a woman.