Cinema Talk

Another solid effort from Rivette, but a step-down from Histoire de Marie et Julien, which remains my favorite. For what it’s worth, this is probably one of his more comedic outings and it is brilliantly disguised as a “prestigious” period piece sort of film. If anything, it’s probably a parody of that sub-genre as it reflects none of the usual tones of such films. Instead, this is very funny, “light” type of film that showcases Rivette’s talent as a filmmaker. In addition, it seems that he is beginning to shy away from the surrealistic touches of his earlier features. On the other hand, this is rather an inconsequential film. It never really explores any deep emotions like the best of Rivette’s films do. In other words, a holding pattern, but a very enjoyable one.

Armand de Montriveau arrives at a secluded Spanish colony, beaten and heartbroken. He attends a small Church service but can’t prevent himself from breaking down. Things begin to become clearer: he is searching for his lost love, Antoinette de Langeais. He finds her but things are different now. For example, she is now a nun. The two cannot partake in a conversation without the supervision of one of Antoinette’s Spanish-speaking superiors. Armand makes his intentions clear but Antoinette resists. The story backtracks five years to their initial meeting, which details the complications that seem to have always existed between the couple.

At a sparse (at least by Rivette’s standards) running time of 131 minutes, Don’t Touch the Axe is not only one of Rivette’s shortest feature length films but probably his most accessible as well. Of course, the diminished amount of time needed to invest helps a bit, but the very light comedic touches play perhaps the biggest role. For what its worth, this is also one of Rivette’s best looking films, though almost all of his films tend to look nice anyway. Combine some good-looking visuals with a few laughs and another great performance from the always wonderful Jeanne Balibar and you’ve got a very good movie.

Another triumph from the great Yoji Yamada. In other words, nothing really new from him. Here we have a fleshed-out, sprawling, multi-character drama that will inevitably evoke of past Ozu films. It’s an impossible comparison to avoid for Yamada, not to mention for any other remotely “slow” modern director from East Asia. In this case, though, we have a particularly Ozuian setup carried out by a well-sized family. Towards the end, it becomes more obvious what characters are essentially the focus (the father and his younger son) but the supporting roles are just as competently realized. Those who expect something a bit more arty (i.e technically accomplished) may be a bit disappointed, but no doubt, this is a fantastic piece of filmmaking.

Tetsuo is invited back to his childhood home, by his father, for the one year anniversary of his mother’s death. He is reluctant to go because he’s never really earned his father’s approval. His college-educated brother, who is now a father of two, has always garnered the attention of the family. He goes anyway and is invited by a onslaught of concerns from family members. Tetsuo is asked to stay past the departure of the rest of his family, so he can look after his father for a couple of days. Instead, their feelings boil to the surface to the point that father essentially disowns him. Poised to become independent, Tetsuo takes up a job in a steel factory. Awkward at first, he quickly adapts to the blue-collar lifestyle and in the process, falls for a deaf-mute deskgirl.

When I refer to this as being less “arty” than one may anticipate, it is a criticism of Yamada’s cinematic world. His aesthetic isn’t necessarily austere or even contemplative, but it is very organized and precise with very few technical gimmicks. The technical is hardly his focus, though, or at least so it seems. Like his predecessors, his films are strictly character driven but unlike Naruse and Ozu, he downplays aesthetics to the point that his style is hardly even present. Again, this sounds like criticism but its not. Perhaps Yamada has always attempted to be stylish, but its never really noticeable and this is meant in the best possible way. Visual bland, but in a way that seems to, if anything, enhance the believability of all the characters. This is not the same as Ozu or Hou, who both represent a minimalistic type of cinema, but a less breathtaking but equally interesting way.

For about the tenth time, I want to mention that this is not at all a fault of the film, or Yamada’s skills in general. It is hard to articulate just how the visuals in his films “work” (in a sense) when they are rather unexciting. It’s a bit like intermediate formalism, I suppose, that seems to unintentionally stumble upon moments of unequaled poetry. If that makes sense (and it probably doesn’t) then its noteworthy because of the parallels with Yamada’s narratives. All of his films have a very specific type of poignancy and this is no exception. This, of course, comes from the ability to relate to the situations presented but also the undramatic fashion in which Yamada presents it. Easily one of the best Japanese films of the 1990s.

I’ve been laboring over this for quite some time actually, but I finally mustered the strength to provide my ever evolving thoughts on what could be my favorite Rivette film. If it is not his very best, than it is at least the closet he’s been to making a film remotely close to my own ideal, i.e one revolving around relationships. All the films I’ve seen by him up to this point flirt with such a notion, but none of them seem to truly embody it quite like this one does. Of course, there’s still plenty of unnecessary surrealistic fantasy elements but at least such stuff is done in a manner closer to the cinema of Tsai Ming-Liang, as opposed to David Lynch.

A lonely clock engineer, Julien, dreams of a past acquaintance, Marie. Almost immediately after he wakes up, he sees Marie on the street and they plan a date for the following day. She stands him up, but eventually invites him over for dinner later. She speaks little of her past with the exception of mentioning the death of her ex-boyfriend. This doesn’t ruin the mood one bit: Marie and Julien fall in love almost immediately and they move in together. In the mean time, Julien is in the process of blackmailing a woman by the name of Madame X. Marie eventually becomes his accomplice in this whole scheme, but she seems to have a prior history with Madame X, who now seems concerned for Julien’s future. In addition to this, Marie begins to act more and more passive around Julien and now devotes most of her time to furnishing an abandoned room in Julien’s house.

One reason why this particularly troubled me for so long is because of the fact that, so far, it is probably the most difficult of Rivette’s films to actually sit through. Even La Belle Noiseuse, in spite of its ridiculous four hour running time, seems to pass by at a more rapid rate. This is not a weakness of Marie et Julien, though, but rather one of its strengths. Perhaps, his other films are a bit more fun, in a sense. They certainly aren’t easy films by any stretch of the imagination but I suppose more physical actions are made. This film is different, though, as it seems to provide more purpose to the “dull” moments of a relationship. In a way, this could be seen as the French equivalent to The Wayward Cloud but with tracking shots replacing Tsai’s lingering static shots. These films share a similar premise: despite some subversions, one could say that they both fall under the “lost souls find each other” genre. Once again, though, Rivette begins to fall back into his fantasy and/or surreal trapping, which creates the film’s limited and minor problems.

Needless to say, I am getting a bit tired of this whole French ghost stories shtick. The people most dependent on this whole sub-movement are Rivette and Jean-Paul Civeyrac. Both of whom are far above this type of irritating bullshit. Why people who can beautifully capture all the ups and downs of human interaction would try such boring David Lynch type of stuff is beyond me. I guess this film could be seen as some sort of an update on Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire, which would probably be the greatest argument for Rivette’s surrealistic lapses. In all honesty, though, the surrealism in this film is only a minor intrusion. While it does provide some of the more over-the-top sequences, it also reinforces the overall “mystery” tone, which works in the context of the principle relationship.

Some people have described Histoire de Marie et Julien as a cerebral piece of filmmaking, but it is anything but. Perhaps there is some symbolism and metaphorical pieces within the film, but that doesn’t take away from its very storytelling strengths. With this film, Rivette perfectly captures the wonders and disappointments of human relationships, and does so in a painterly fashion. Each frame is, as one should expect from Rivette, saturated with an overwhelming amount of beauty. While the complications of real life is the subject being depicted, it becomes even more complicated with the film’s own problems. In other words, it is flawed but in a way that is just like the people within it. One of Rivette’s most befuddling films, but also his deepest and most emotionally complex.

I’m getting a bit “behind” so to speak with my viewings and its most likely a result of an inability to articulate my thoughts well about the three films below. So, instead, I decided to write three smaller articles on these films.

Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray, 1956)

In all honesty, this is probably a terrible movie. I’m sure that was the intention as it comes off so tongue-in-cheek. Still, more often than not, I never go for “campy” films. I suppose I’ll have to make an exception for this film. It’s definitely in the same vein as Ray’s earlier and much more famous Johnny Guitar, which is also quite funny. I think this one is even more over-the-top, though and features some of the most quotable dialogue ever. For what it is worth, James Mason’s character decline into insanity begins rather subtly until he starts go completely crazy. It is a bit disappointing that Ray has never seemed to follow through on the promise of the great “serious” films he made, like Rebel Without a Cause and The Savage Innocents. Still, this is a really fun way to spend an hour and a half.

Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977)

A couple months back, I championed Burnett’s My Brother’s Wedding – one of the most truthful and perceptive American films of all time. One could assume that I’d enjoy this earlier, and more celebrated film on an even greater level. Well, not quite true. It starts out quite promising: the bad acting is present just like in Burnett’s later film but it feels just as believable and spontaneous. Plus, there’s even a more conscious attempt at cinematic poetry. At a certain point, though, the film falls flat on its grainy and stilted face and precedes to drag to its conclusion. Even at 81 minutes, this feels bloated where as My Brother’s Wedding was pulsing with intriguing human behavior for almost two hours.

The Gladiators (Peter Watkins, 1969)

My first Watkins and a mixed experience, overall. There’s plenty of nice sequences here and the idea itself is pretty cool (think Stalker minus philosophy, plus politics) but overall, it seems a bit too clever for its own good. In other words, Watkins had a pretty funny and clever idea that probably shouldn’t have been used for a full length feature. The rather muddy visual style here seems to predict the 70s work of cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. I can’t say I particularly like such an aesthetic, but it didn’t really taint the experience, which I was mostly just indifferent towards. I really liked the freeze-frames in the final sequence, though.

Another aesthetic step forward for Bruno Dumont but emotionally, he seems to be standing still. When a film is so well-crafted as this is, that is no problem, but this is indeed “more of the same” from Dumont. Fortunately for him, I am pretty content with his current cinematic position and if nothing more, Flandres is a perfect example as to why he is easily one of the best younger director working today. All this acclamation sounds a little tame, but rest assured, the film is a masterpiece and another Dumont experience likely to cause late nights of pondering.

Demester is a simple, hardworking farmhand living in rural France. From time to time, he goes for a (literal) roll in the hay with Barbe, who is, for lack of a better term, the local slut. Demester loves her, but is unable to express this. Things get even more complicated when Barbe begins to spend more time with Blondel. This problem is eventually “solved” in a sense, when Blondel and Demester are called up to fight in an unknown war. Stripped from both of her lovers, Barbe begins to lose touch with real world.

It is a shame that Dumont, once again, uses non-professionals. The problem is not that the performance are bad, it’s actually the opposite. Watching this film just provided another opportunity for me to look up the IMDB profiles of these wonderful performers and see that they have absolutely no projects in the pipe. In other words, everyone here is quite excellence. Even the sequences of Barbe going insane are handled wonderfully by both the actress, Adélaïde Leroux and Dumont’s camera. Considering just how violent and grotesque some of the narrative’s events are, it is to Dumont’s enormous credit that every sequence comes off so naturally.

On the other hand, it is the exact same sequences of violent that lead to the very minute problems I have with Flandres. To be frank, when is Dumont going to move out of this one-note cinema of “shocking, cynical European minimalism.” While it is very much a big deal to be considered alongside directors like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, or Michael Haneke, it is also very limiting. Both of those directors have gone on to do films beyond that mold and more often that not, those films turned out to be some of their best efforts. In contrast, I believe that Tsai Ming-Liang’s films occupy the perfect middle ground between the two minimalist groups: the tamer one being the films of Ozu (and his peers) and Hou and the more “out-there” group being people like Haneke and Dumont. Obviously, I tend to prefer the former approach as it is inherently more down-to-earth. Essentially, my only problem with Dumont’s cinematic universe is the fact that it is too one-note, bleak, and cynical to the point that it begins to muddle his brilliance. Of course, this is looking far ahead. Flandres, itself, is one of Dumont’s greatest cinematic achievements.