#544: Head

(Bob Rafelson, 1968)

Head is either the least funny, most disastrous comedy ever made or the weirdest, biggest "fuck you" to the mainstream ever released. I like to think it's the latter, but ultimately it doesn't make a difference because the film is such non-stop fun. It belongs next to House and Zazie dans le metro in the "what the fuck did I just watch?" Criterion hall of fame, even if it doesn't reach the clear-eyed genius of those two films.

Certainly what's most shocking about Head isn't that it was made  by a Hollywood studio, but that it was made about the Monkees. Imagine this movie being made today by the cast of Glee and you get a pretty good idea how crazy this is. In the 60s, this was simply much easier to do because the gulf between the powerful men with the checkbooks had to rely on producers and directors to tell them what was going to work with the youth market they desperately wanted to reach but had no idea how to understand. Today, the people running development and marketing are far more likely to have a foot in both worlds - The Conquest of Cool model in action.

Head isn't as accomplished or perfect as its direct inspiration A Hard Day's Night, but it's still a hugely entertaining movie that is chockfull of ideas and jokes. I'd probably put it up against any other movie in the collection for pure crowd-pleasing cinematic fun, and my suspicion is that its rewatch value ain't too shabby either.

#389: WR: Mysteries of the Organism

(Dusan Makavejev, 1971)

After watching Sweet Movie, Makavejev's follow-up to this more highly regarded film, I pretty much knew what to expect here: a bunch of freeform scenes tied together simply by association that confront the dual threats of capitalism and communism that clash with the sexual freedom demanded of the late 60s and early 70s. Spoiler alert: that's exactly what the movie is.

Maybe it's because I watched it after Sweet Movie so the novelty was lost, but I liked the later movie much more. Though both films have plenty of characters shouting their sexually tinged political statements into the air at no one and everyone in particular, WR: Mysteries of the Organism seems a little bit more weighed down with these moments, unable to merge form and content as seamlessly as Sweet Movie. And unlike a similarly unconventional biopic, Mishima (which looks like a by-the-numbers Hollywood blockbuster compared to this movie), I don't get a sense of the subject's beliefs or life through the specific choices in the film.

I get why these movies are in the collection, but I wonder how much relevance they have in the modern world, and I especially wonder how much audiences will connect with them once people who were born after the fall of the Berlin Wall begin to examine cinema more closely. This doesn't make the films any less worthy as historical artifacts, but it lessens their impact as timeless artistic statements.

#506: Dillinger Is Dead

(Marco Ferreri, 1969)

Dillinger Is Dead doesn't actually have any moments that - when taken out of context - would imply the film is surreal or even unusual. The closest would probably be the moment when the lead character (only named in the script) paints his new-found gun red with polka dots. Instead, the film's plot is about as straightforward as it comes, and could probably be told in a film one tenth the length of the movie.

The two biggest questions surrounding Dillinger Is Dead then become 1. What is happening in the negative space around the plot? and 2. How do these elements combine to form a film which is distinctly out of the ordinary - even separated from reality?

The film I was first reminded of while watching Dillinger Is Dead was Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. However, while both films revel in the monotony of the moments between conventional cuts and (spoiler alert) ultimately climax with an unexpected and cold-blooded murder, their messages stem from different realms of modern living - one the domestic space, the other the commercial/industrial one (even though ironically both films take place primarily in a home). This of course highlights the contrast between the depiction of women in Akerman's film - often cited as one of the towering masterpieces in feminist cinema - and in Ferreri's Dillinger Is Dead - at best a provocation meant to expose the inner misogynistic tendencies of the primitive man a la Fight Club, at worst a rejection of the supposed "feminization" of mod society. Ferreri's protagonist uses one woman for honey sex (a new phrase!), harasses and then murders another, and manages to metaphorically replace his need for a woman by making himself a damn good dinner to enjoy over a nice television show about how even teenage girls have bought into The Man's plans for us all.

If I didn't think Ferreri was aware of the nature of these plot points and the ways in which they would be received it would be much easier to dismiss the film. But it is clear that they were intentional. It's just that while the satire of the film is thick and evident, it's not so cut and dry at whom the gun is pointed. Ferreri teases the viewer early on for attempting to interpret his film in full by essentially laying out the gas mask metaphor with a purposefully brutish clumsiness - it couldn't have been more obvious if Ferreri himself came on the screen and explained the symbolism of his protagonist's job. He achieves this so thoroughly that the obliqueness of the rest of the film seems that much more intentional (Ferreri once said he was 50% misogynist and 50% feminist, which is kind of like saying "fuck you").

Really, then, everything is happening between the plot points - everything that matters, anyway - and this is precisely what makes the film so hard to pin down. It's enough to make you resent Ferreri for the same reason Lars Von Trier seems like such a colossal asshole, playing an eternal joke on his viewer. Only Ferreri seems vastly more interested in connecting with his audience - he just isn't sure what his audience is or, like his protagonist at the end of the film, what he's going to do when he figures it out.

#571: Black Moon

(Louis Malle, 1975)

One of the difficult things about consuming so many movies in such a short span - particularly films that are often singular or at least unconventionally noteworthy - is that a movie like Black Moon doesn't seem quite as strange as it might in the context of normal, everyday moviegoing. One need not look further than Malle's own catalog to find a stranger movie, but if you were so inclined, there are plenty of Sweet Movies and Antichrists to go around.

The irony of this whole argument is that Black Moon isn't especially weird when you consider the large debt it pays to Alice in Wonderland. That story, so ingrained in our collective subconscious, seems perfectly normal for some reason. Yet something about this grown-up version that lacks red queens and talking rabbits (though what's wrong with a giant rat and talking unicorn?) makes it feel stranger. Certainly there are odd elements - the near absence of dialog (badly dubbed when it happens anyway), the lack of any real plot, and an abrupt freeze frame finale that had me checking my TV connection like the Sopranos finale. It just seems like those elements are so woven into the fabric of the film's technique that things stop feeling strange fairly quickly.

That's not to say Black Moon is a boring movie or a bad one - and it's certainly not a safe or conventional movie in any respect. I actually rather loved the film once I adjusted to its rhythms and almost playful insistence on defying expectation. And while those other films are equally strange (or more so), they are not actually similar to this film, and in this sense it is a unique entry in the collection, and sticks out as a fresh approach to cinema even among hundreds of other films.

One thing that was interesting about the creation of Black Moon was that it was apparently inspired by an actress suggesting to Malle that he make a movie entirely without dialog. This is an extremely hard thing to do - after all, even most silent films have dialog! So I don't mean to discount Malle's accomplishment when I say that even apart from the fact that people do speak in the film he kind of cheated by making a fantasy/stream-of-consciousness film rather than a movie set in the real world. Has this challenge ever been accomplished? Could it be? If so, how? If not, why?

#570: Zazie dans le métro

(Louis Malle, 1960)

If all you've seen from Louis Malle is Au Revoir Les Enfants and My Dinner With Andre - fuck, what am I saying?

If all you've seen are other movies, Zazis dans le métro is going to blow your mind. Vaguely focused on a girl's misadventures in Paris during a madcap afternoon, Malle takes this opportunity to throw the kitchen sink at the viewer - bending, jumping, and speeding up time while tossing every possible in-camera effect you can think of at every scenario. The film's anarchic spirit is reminiscent of much better films (Last Year at Marienbad, made a year later) and almost infinitely worse ones (Crank 2: High Voltage) in that it takes its genre to its respective endgame extreme. I spent the running times of all three of these films with my mouth opened, unsure of what exactly I was witnessing.

Perhaps the most technically shocking (and iconic before it was iconic) is Zazie's sped up chase. I couldn't find 100% confirmation of this on the internet, but I don't think I need it to say with near certainty that Richard Lester was paying close attention to this scene when making A Hard Day's Night - it's one of those invigorating referential finds that pop up every now and then in the collection. But even without this influence, the sequence is just so... INSANE that it is difficult to reach a solid conclusion as to what you are watching. And then: this is the same man who made Elevator to the Gallows and The Lovers, the latter of which was just two years before. It's an early career move reminiscent of Paul Thomas Anderson's more recent foray into comedy, but even Punch-Drunk Love has strong thematic and technical connections to his previous work. Perhaps the better comparison here would be to Godard's A Woman Is a Woman (also made the following year), another comedy that flirts with cinematic destruction due to its creator's early-career whims. Both filmmakers were relatively young and coming off international sensations in The Lovers and a little movie called Breathless, and both were still flailing around for direction towards their mid-career peaks. Indicative of their respective voices, however, Godard's work is more focused on the act of creating cinema - the nuts and bolts that go into the finished product - while Malle has created a film that is meant to be seamless. It wouldn't surprise me to find out Zazie dans le métro was created so Malle could go to a theater and watch his audience's reaction - something tells me it would have been endlessly entertaining for him.

#390: Sweet Movie

 (Dusan Makavejev, 1974)

Is it weird that the filmmaker I was reminded of most while watching Sweet Movie was Tati? I guess nothing seems that weird after you've seen Sweet Movie, one of the most controversial movies in the collection.

Makavejev is best known for another Criterion entry - one I have yet to watch - WR: Mysteries of the Organism, but Sweet Movie is much more polarizing. Certainly I could see many people making a case that it is the worst movie in the collection, or at least the least deserving. I wouldn't be one of those people, not because I enjoyed seeing someone piss in someone else's mouth or always wanted to know what a penis dipped in gold looked like, but because I think all this madness has a purpose.

That purpose - so tied to the politics of the time, which were very real for Makavejev, who was forced from his own country after WR - may have less of an impact in the post-Cold War environment. But fascism and capitalism certainly still manage to reign supreme, so Sweet Movie rages on, even if its targets have moved to a different field. And despite this undeniably angry political message, that sense of Tati lingers on. It's not just in the sketch-style structure of the film, which features brief vignettes tied together with a handful of characters, but in the light touch of its humor. Despite being almost entirely sexual in nature, the jokes here tend towards visual cues and offbeat choreography with a heavy reliance on music and the modern world - two of Tati's favorite themes.

On top of the intense and worthwhile message wrapped in a weirdly light and meandering package there are some great moments in the film. The sex scene with the germaphobic American billionaire spraying down his virginal-beauty-pageant-winning bride is pretty hilarious. And if you haven't seen two people doing it in a pile of sugar before the woman stabs the man - causing him to laugh to death - you, um, haven't really lived? If you've read this far and you still want to see this movie, you will enjoy it. If not, well, maybe you should watch something a little less strangely explicit, like Antichrist. Isn't this all we ask of a movie, to be all that it can be? Sweet Movie delivers.

And by delivers, I mean has a scene where people shit on stage.

#539: House

(Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)

House is undoubtedly one of the strangest movies you will ever see. It's also not coincidentally one of the most invigorating from a filmmaking perspective - there are moments here that are so filled with energy and ideas that it reminded me of when I was a kid and I would watch NBA playoff games and get so invested in the sport that I would have to go outside and play myself. House made me want to go into my backyard and make a movie - whatever movie I could, pulled together with camcorders and borrowed friends - and pour my whole being into it.

The plot of the movie would hardly qualify for an episode of The Twilight Zone. A group of teen girls has their vacation canceled, so one of them arranges for the group to visit her dead mother's older sister, whom she hasn't seen in years. As in most movies with a smiling ghost cat on the cover, things don't go as planned. The simple structure, however, is essential when a movie is this insane - there would just be no other way of following along with what's happening once pianos start eating people.

Even in the relatively calm beginning the film establishes its anarchic tone and then rarely lets up. Oddly, parts of the movie reminded me of Godard's A Woman is a Women, particularly moments that seemed more concerned with topical cool than rewarding plot development. But the movie that most came to mind was the comparatively tame Run, Lola, Run, which rode a similar crest of energy and style to international success a decade ago. Both movies have a certain music video aesthetic (though, of course, House was released before music videos became ubiquitous and developed the language we currently identify with the genre) and both films take simple stories and build something extraordinary out of them.  The most notable differences then can be attributed to the general sensibilities of their respective cultures, which in the case of House takes shape as a giant explosion of pop grotesqueries.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about House is that it was a commercial success in Japan. I don't know what that says about Japan, but the idea of a film this strange being successful in the US with anything other than the cult audience that has received it with open arms is almost entirely implausible. Still, the film is so strange, so idiosyncratic, so, well, itself that it refuses to be ignored. House is one step away from a giant disaster in every direction, and yet it is so infused with an unrestrained love of filmmaking that it walks the tightrope beautifully.

#440: Brand Upon the Brain!

(Guy Maddin, 2006)

Let's try this again. Brand Upon the Brain was the first movie I've seen during this project that I had the opportunity to watch on the big screen. I'm thankful for that, because I might not have made it through this challenging and unique film on DVD. On the big screen, the film is absorbing and unique, a true assault on the sense that might be more easily compared to commercials or a Michael Bay film than a film by David Lynch or other filmmakers that play on the edge of narrative film.

I enjoyed a number of things about the film, especially the tone, which melds dark suspense and off-kilter humor with a mad scientist's glee. But the thing I like most about Brand Upon the Brain is the fact that Guy Maddin is totally invested in his material. The movie could so easily come off as pretentious and campy, a kind of weird joke on the audience. But instead, it feels passionate and personal. It seems like its the only movie Maddin could have made at that point in his life.

To be sure, this is a weird, weird movie. It's unlike anything you've ever seen before. Most people are going to hate it (which is not to say that most people don't like new things, but rather that most people will think this new thing is better left undiscovered). But for some people, especially people who love cinema and have a rich sense of its history, this movie will be a unique experience that is certainly worth viewing.

#542: Antichrist

(Lars Von Trier, 2009)

Lars Von Trier is a terrible person, as I mentioned in my brief rundown of Europa. Unlike some people, I have never found it that difficult to separate my feelings towards a filmmaker from my feelings towards the film. But in the case of Antichrist, I don't have to even bother, because this movie is a piece of shit.

OK, I'm being provocative. It's not that bad. But I learned from the best, and no one provokes like Trier. (Do I have to use his fake "von" when addressing him by his last name? I hope not.) At his most technical, Trier is an excellent filmmaker. He has a great eye, his use of color in even a purposefully drab film such as this is spectacular, and he knows how to get the best out of his actors, who seem to trust him with their very lives. Both Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg give performances that completely lack vanity or self-consciousness. I often roll my eyes when I hear someone say a performance is "brave" - acting can be depicted as much more than it is - but these are truly brave performances in the sense that they give themselves over completely to the material and are not afraid to look ridiculous or damage their own psyches in the process.

Still, the actual movie to which they have given themselves over is largely worthless. The shock moments are the ones everyone focuses on, and they are here in spades: if ejaculating blood, crushing birds to death, and homemade female castration are your thing, well, there's finally a movie for you. But the most damning thing about Antichrist is how boring the whole routine is. The relationship between Dafoe and Gainsbourg is so hateful and completely separated from backstory or defining characteristics that any interaction between the two grows intolerably dull almost immediately.

Of course, Trier does this on purpose, because the couple isn't meant to be specific. In fact, they don't even have names; Dafoe is "He" and Gainsbourg is "She." Apart from piling on more pretentious elements to the already stuffed film (the prologue of the film is so over-the-top ridiculous that I was actually laughing) these vague names are the most obvious tip-off that the film is meant to be an academic depiction of more general psychological archetypes. Trier is most likely going as general as possible, and many people have argued that the movie is essentially damning all women. I actually felt like the movie was saying the exact opposite, that Dafoe was projecting his own sorrow into violent anger about Gainsbourg creating his child - and therefore allowing him to be destroyed - to the point where he could only destroy her in return. But honestly, I don't really care, because the movie doesn't particularly make me care.

Sadly, the movie I would most compare Antichrist to is  Last Year at Marienbad, which also used nameless characters to deal with complex male/female dynamics. But it's a real tragedy to do so, because Antichrist is the giant cartoon hammer to Last Year at Marienbad's velvet glove. Trier is certainly an ambitious director, but I can never shake the feeling that his films are less an attempt to delve into his own psyche or explore the common societal dynamics and more a crass grab for the audience's attention in the form of a cruel and useless joke.

#484: Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

(Chantal Akerman, 1975)

Yesterday I woke up, came into my living room, and checked my email. I then read all the posts on my Google reader, took and quick shower, brushed my teeth, grabbed my iPod and Blackberry, and headed to work. I listened to the new Miles Kurosky record on the way, and I didn't hit too much traffic so I got there pretty quick. Once I got to work, I parked down on the lower level of the parking lot because there weren't any spaces up top. I locked my car and went into my office. When I got into my office, I checked my email again, grabbed a granola bar (almond) and made myself some white mango tea. Then I began to work. I wrote a report on a kids movie coming out next year, only stopping to eat a quick lunch of chicken and basil that my co-worker picked up for me (I had to finish my report early since my supervisor was leaving for a weekend vacation). Once I finished the report, I sent it to my supervisor and made a phone call related to moving (which I'm doing next weekend). Then I had a call with a client about the same kids movie, which only lasted about 15 minutes. When I was finished, I packed up my stuff and went out to my car. I drove to Russo's, a great local produce store in my neighborhood, and bought some vegetables, eggs, and milk. I also stopped at the UPS store to pick up a package, which was an herb holder my wife had bought. I came home and opened a bottle of wine and watched  Pardon the Interruption on ESPN. I finished watching Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and then my wife came home. I made dinner, some torn bread, mushrooms, fiddleheads, chorizo, and grapes topped with a fried egg. We then ate the dinner and watched Parks and Recreation, The Office, and 30 Rock. I did some writing on my computer and then went to bed, where I read a script until I fell asleep.

If you found this interesting, you might like Jeanne Dielman, a nearly three and a half hour chore that is certainly one of the least interesting Criterion films I've watched so far. The film is ostensibly about the negative space around cinema, the moments of banality and repetition that surround the big moments in our lives, the ones that get turned into movies. For me, what it was really about was the ultimate question of art theory: is something art simply because we classify it as art and/or we present it as such? Or does the piece of work have to have some intrinsic quality that makes it art? FOr that matter, must the quality be conveyed to everyone, or simply to some? If something moves you, is that art, and if something moves someone else, is that crap?

I've peeled plenty of potatoes in my time, but I have yet to hear anyone call it one of the greatest movies ever made (as Jeanne Dielman has been designated by some). Is that just because I wasn't filming it? Or is context everything? I don't feel like I am in a proper position to decry this film, and I could see how the educated viewer fed up with the designated structure of films could find this film freeing, and even wildly subversive. But I am a true believer in the idea that movies are structured the way they are because it works. Stories were told in the way films are structured since humans began to speak, and they will continue to be told in that way.

I think what failed to excite me about Jeanne Dielman was not so much its lack of narrative thrust (in fact, even that is a charade, as within the first ten minutes there is already a hook of the john arriving at her apartment) but instead its misguided confidence, its insular ambition that ignores the context of narrative cinema and attempts instead to shove experimental constructs into its structure. For me, the whole thing seemed more like an exercise than an insight into a woman's life. I don't know. Maybe I'm just not the audience for a film like this.

#259: Fat Girl

(Catherine Briellat, 2001)

I said when I saw A Nos Amours that I wondered what it would have been like if a woman had directed it. Well, Fat Girl might not be the exact result of this experiment, but it's pretty damn close.

Of course, calling Catherine Briellat a woman is like calling Gaspar Noe a man. She has a very specific point of view, and she uses it to provoke almost incessantly. Like Noe, she's an expert filmmaker, but unlike her contemporary, she has a respect for her characters which makes her films transcend their use as an intellectual exercise in abusive cinema.

Fat Girl was both less disturbing and better than I thought it would be. Considering how significant the movement to which it belongs has been in French filmmaking in the past few decades, it should certainly be represented in the Collection, and I think Fat Girl is the best of the genre I have seen, not only because Breillat pulls off the shocking ending with such technical mastery (the scenes on the highway before the women park are almost more terrifying than their subsequent end), but because she infuses her main character with such empathy that it leaves a film like Irreversible in the dust. But I wouldn't call Fat Girl a great movie, or even a film that is necessarily worth watching. It is merely relevant filmmaking, and for that I am glad I saw it, but don't plan on ever seeing it again.

#42: Fishing with John

(John Lurie, 1992)

This is one of the more bizarre entries in the Criterion Collection, and not because it isn't a movie at all, but a television series that lasted six episodes. Lurie is a musician and artist who decided to film his fishing trips with some of his favorite guest stars. The real appeal, though, is in the narration, which consists of lies and meaningless observations that become more and more surreal as the series progresses.

The interesting thing about the series is that it lulls you into a false sense of calm with fishing sequences and then shocks you back into the realization that you are not in fact watching an actual fishing show. Like when the Willem Dafoe episode ends with the narrator explaining that Lurie and Dafoe have died while ice fishing (the next episode begins with the camera finding Lurie, which prompts the narrator to exclaim with surprise: "I was wrong! John is alive!").

I highly doubt Fishing with John would be selected for the collection today, but in the early years of DVD adoption, this was the kind of thing that would seem lost to history had Criterion not selected it for release. For some, this will be the funniest thing they've ever seen, but for most, it won't surpass its status as a unique curiosity.

#423: Walker

(Alex Cox, 1987)

Ostensibly a biography of a man who ruled Nicaragua for a few years in the 19th Century, Walker is in reality an anachronistic highly political message film. I think I loved it.

Ed Harris plays the title character as a droll, fun-hating puritan, a man as confident in his beliefs as he is willing to abandon them when it suits him. Here, he is a stand-in for America. The film was shot in Nicaragua during the contra war with the blessing of the Sandinista government, and the obvious parallels between the two moments in time become literal when [click through for spoilers]

#466: In the Realm of the Senses

(Nagisa Oshima, 1976)

A sexual train wreck. Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses is similar to Cronenberg's excellent Crash (which deserves Criterion treatment) in that watching it can be difficult and certainly uncomfortable. Both films are meant to expose you to the ultimate personal secrets, those of sexuality and its deviants. But beyond that, the comparison falters. This film is highly political, both in the statement it is making about Japan during the film's time period (right before WWII) and in the way it treats and depicts sexuality (the film is still banned in Japan, and has never been shown in full there). This is probably the most graphic sexual film I have ever seen that would not be classified as pornography (though I'm sure many, many people would argue with that choice). It's also one of the most haunting, moving, and brutally honest films, to the point where I would have a difficult time saying whether or not I believe it is a good movie.

The acting is excellent, the sets and cinematography are beautiful, and the direction is extremely thoughtful and challenging. So in a technical sense it is a well-made film. Yet I am sensitive to the criticisms of the film, which often rest on the assumption that an equally powerful film could have been made without what some feel is gratuitous sex and violence. The film is certainly entirely about sex - there are maybe one or two scenes that do not have sex as at least a backdrop to the actions or conversations taking place. And in no way is the film an enjoyable viewing. The question, I suppose, becomes whether or not the message of the film is worth the effort it takes to watch the film.

In the Realm of the Senses is based on the true story of a woman who accidentally murdered her lover and then cut off his penis. The event happened in the mid-30s in Japan, just as the country was marching to war, and the woman became a famous - and popular - figure in the country. Many people viewed her popularity as a rejection of the nationalist forces and as a call for individuality. This explains the title, which implies that in regards to sexuality between consenting adults, who is to judge and legislate on people? The two lovers become so obsessed with each other's bodies throughout the film that they stop eating and sleeping, only leaving their room long enough to make enough money to continue living there. Eventually this destroys them, and the death and resulting castration (which is shown in graphic detail, by the way) is juxtaposed with the destiny Japan finds itself headed towards, a different form of obsession leading towards self-destruction.

It's impossible to compare this film to the larger portion of film because there are so few films that treat sexuality in an open way that do not primarily exist to titilate. There is plenty more I can say about the film - and I recommend anyone who thinks they can take a viewing to do so and then read the excellent essays on the Criterion site - but I will instead just say that I think it ultimately succeeds because it believes in itself. If there had been a feeling during the film that the cast and crew were unsure of the movie they were producing, it could have easily shifted into a grim version of pornography that existed to attract the jaded or the disturbed. As it stands, though, In the Realm of the Senses is a movie about themes that aren't raised very often in film, if at all, and done in a forceful way that isn't afraid of its subject matter. It's an impressive feat, even if it's not an enjoyable one.