Cinema Talk

By starting with Kings of the Road, I think I’ve downplayed Wenders’ slightly heavy sensibility. Perhaps it is the divisions in dialouge of that film, but both this and Wrong Move seem more outrightly ponderous. Still, this doesn’t do much to damage the film. There’s plenty of moments where the characters would do a lot of good to shut the hell up but Wenders still has a much more fleshed vision of the people in his films than a director like say, Peter Greenaway. It is pretty impressive to realize that Wenders was this skilled with his actors from the beginning. He made a few relatively underseen films before, but considering how early on he made this, his vision is almost fully formed.

Phillip Winter, a German journalist reporting on the “American scene” has a severe case of writer’s block, which he combats by frequently taking photographs. On his last dime with an angry boss looking over his shoulder, he decides to return back home. While booking his flight he meets Lisa, who has recently separated herself from her husband, and her daughter, Alice. The three rent a hotel room together as their flight is scheduled for the next day. That morning, Lisa ditches Phillip and Alice, and leaves a note telling them to go ahead. She wants to work out some personal issues and promises to be on the next flight. However, she isn’t, and Alice becomes Phillip’s responsibility.

There’s plenty of potential for some overly cutesy material, but Wenders avoids almost all of it, opting once again for a very Antonioni inspired approach. Actually, this shares a specific resemblance with Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, which (perhaps) would could also mean The Brown Bunny but it unfortunately, never becomes that personal. Instead, it begins to drift towards the side of philosophical blabberings, which is actually quite hilarious considering one of the principle characters is meant to be a nine year old girl. Like Kings of the Road, Wenders seems quick and able to ditch such a sensibility and trade it in for awkward silences. That’s nice, but it ultimately gives off a very inconsistent and frustrating structure. Really, Wenders just should have stripped all the overly-talkative scenes all together as they rarely stumble upon the profound readings for which they are intended.

And yet, I can still safely say this is a pretty fantastic movie, if only for how good Wenders is during his best moments. It really speaks volumes about Muller’s black and white cinematography that it looks so great here, despite the fairly poor film stock. In fact, it looks a lot better than Wrong Move, which would sort of indicate that neither he nor Wenders were completely confident in using color. Obviously, this doesn’t look quite as good as Kings of Road if only for the limited production values, but still comes off looking fairly good. There does seem to be a lot more close-up sensory-driven here than in his subsequent films, which does give it a distinction. For as great as the film it is (and it really is great), I can’t help but see it as something of a warm-up for Kings of the Road even if the two are polar opposites in terms of narrative.

After watching what was essentially “the Berliner Schule sell-out” in Christian Petzold’s Yella, it was reassuring to watch this and be reminded why this young group of filmmakers are the best out there. It’s been a fairly long time since I’ve seen a film incapable of being pinned down, or confined to any category. It starts out like a really great Dardennes inspired family drama, then turns into a more surreal modern day version of Fires on the Plain before indulging in some “fucked up” relationship content. All in all, one of the most exciting cinematic experiences one can possibly have, assuming they are genuinely interested in the progression of film as an art form.

Nina is a (relatively) newly-married women with a young daughter. She and her husband begin renovating their house. Combined with her husband’s sensitivity, the possibility of another child, and the “next step” in life, she becomes anxious and runs away to her brother and his girlfriend living out near a forest. Her impulsive continues and she moves on to a hotel. She manages to live off of scraps left over in the hotel’s kitchen. Some sort of event involving a tennis legend is taking place, hence her inability to be noticed. In the mean time, her husband becomes increasingly worried and begins an affair with an old friend.

On paper this is indeed another “problematic marriage” movie and the world really doesn’t need anymore of those. But again, that is only if one observes the “important” events of the film and not the wonderfully odd occurrences. The whole section in which Nina merely walks around the hotel and stumbles upon very strange scenes is so wonderful in that it details the depth of her alienation but is also completely captivating. Perhaps describing the sequence in and of itself makes it out to be a laborious experience, but that is hardly the case. In fact, I would go as far as to that this one of most watchable films ever in the sense that sequences are loaded with enough technical brilliance to work in and out of context.

It should be stated that this doesn’t make the film’s sensibility to be dry or even intellectual. On the contrary, this is about as visceral as cinema can get. Personally, I have an inherent love for anything that uses that sort of shakycam tracking style. When it is so brilliantly and frequently as it is in this film, it is quite difficult for me to not get completely excited. Maybe Kohler is pandering to the needs of arthouse nerds, but even then, making a technically brilliant film is no easy task. It’s not as though as capturing such the mood as he does in this film is something that very few filmmakers can do. That alone gives him my utmost respect, but the fact that the film’s emotional side is just as striking makes it a masterpiece.

Pretty much a failure on all fronts, even more so because this is Christian Petzold’s follow-up to the great Gespenster. All the minor annoyances in that film become the basis for this, and the result is nothing more than a technically well-executed film not far from a conventional Hollywood thriller. It does maintain a passable sensibility for about an hour but the fact that Petzold would choose to make a film so shrill and well, silly just negates any other positive aspects of the film.

Yella is desperately trying to get her violent ex-husband, Ben, off her back but it simply is impossible. He follows her everyone in spite of a restraining order and when Yella goes for a job interview, he offers her a ride. She reluctantly agrees and unsurprisingly, Ben quickly gets angry which results in the car falling off the side of the bridge. Yella escapes unscathed while Ben is presumably dead. Her first day at work is an odd one as the man who has hired her seems to be in the process of being fired. He transfers her to another branch where she begins a partnership with Philipp. Their extended time together helps their relationship to grow, but Ben continues to linger in Yella’s head.

Spoiling the ending would probably be helpful as it would save many people a lot of time. The film’s few positive moments, though, are (as expected) the ones that have nothing to do with the completely predictable Hollywood thriller narrative. Essentially, the awkward interactions and the beautiful photography are the only signs of this being a Petzold film. Everything else is pretty embarrassing, especially considering that Petzold could still very well be one of our greatest hopes in cinema. On the other hand, it does seem like he pieced this together rather half-heartedly which would indicate that he wasn’t too concerned with this particular project. Hopefully, his next effort will provide a better showcase for his talents.

Not Yoji Yamada’s greatest film, but a solid effort none the less. It ends up becoming a bit too manipulative towards the end, and is then wrapped up by a completely “Hollywood tearjerker” conclusion. Still, Yamada’s personality is quite in tact with plenty of “silly” humor and carefully framed compositions. The first-half is actually akin to a slightly more conventional Japanese version of Two-Lane Blacktop but with a greater emotional potential. This eventually turns into something pretty sappy by the film’s end but it still manages to be captivating throughout its entire running time. Even though its handled in an ultimately far too romanticized way, it is a pretty fantastic film. This is the type of melodrama that Hollywood is suppose to be so great at making, but really isn’t.

The story starts with Kinya, who has recently upgraded his car. He’s a young adult and he’s single so naturally he uses his ride to ahem, look for companions. He offers a ride to a shy girl by the name of Akemi and she reluctantly accepts. From the get go, sexual tension is apparent, but things get a bit easier as the two become acquainted. They pick up Yusaku, a 30-something coal miner with a reserved personality. The story slowly begins to shift from the comedic hijinks of Kinya and Akemi to Yusaku’s mental drama. He’s hiding something about his past, which he either wants to forget or is trying to remember.

The aforementioned “shift” in focus from the lighter relationship woes between Kinya and Akemi to Yusaku’s past is a careful one, but perfectly shows just how great Yamada is at mixing comedy and drama. Never does the film sugarcoat the character’s emotions, nor does it every come off as misanthropic. Yamada, like Mikio Naruse before and Nobuhiro Yamashita after him, simply has an unteachable quality of just how to balance the silly with the serious. In this case, he may go overboard a couple of times, but even the goofiest of bits unfold in a subtle manner.

Ken Takakura is wonderful here, playing a role that seems like the cousin to his performance in Distant Cry from Spring. The film’s greatest scenes are easily the quick elliptical flashes that he shares with Chieko Baisho. These sequences are few and far between within the first hour, but Yamada eventually indulges in a prolonged montage towards the end filled with some wonderfully bittersweet moments. Eventually, the poignancy of the ellipses are traded in for mindless pull at your heartstrings tactics. If anything, such elements could shorten the gap between conventional commercial films and more personal, art films. But here, they just ruin what could have very well been Yamada’s shining cinematic moment. A lost opportunity, I suppose, but still a wonderful film.