Cinema Talk

I was somewhat impressed with André De Toth’s The Indian Fighter but this right here is something really special. Lately, I’ve watched a lot of movies with Robert Ryan playing rather “cold” villains, almost polar opposites of his character in The Naked Spur. His performance here is similarly passive and quiet, but generally, is just a lot better. I guess being the “hero” helps to some degree, but the biggest element might be the equally cold and harsh landscapes that physically consumes him and the rest of the cast. It might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but it is difficult to look at the visuals and not see some similarities of the brutally cold atmosphere in Bela Tarr’s films.

It probably speaks to how seriously I consider westerns that I could make such a connection, but it probably helps that Toth’s visual eye fits in perfectly with the reserved and downbeat tone of the film. Robert Ryan is definitely one of the most passive protagonists in any western, which is no small feat. The result of his character’s relationship with Helen Crane is textbook western, and probably a bit too predictable, but the sequences that the two share early on are really fantastic. There’s this fifteen minute stretch that is built around just them, but it eventually takes a backseat to the plot that quite literally barges in.

The pace isn’t completely halted by this point, but it is thrown off a little. I still definitely admire De Toth’s attempt at playing around with narrative structure. Truth be told, the conventional forward plot does lead to some of the film’s best sequences: specifically, the unbearably tension-saturated dance sequence in which the “out of towners” essentially make a mockery of the local women. There’s a oddly poignant little subplot involving a romance between one of the invaders and a local girl that comes out of nowhere, yet may actually be the single best thing about the film. And again, this all set up against some of the most beautiful visuals from any western. It’s pretty difficult for me to not love something so expertly crafted.

While I am a bit hesitant to call this Mizoguchi’s best film, it is definitely the single best example of his stylistic and thematic strengths, as well as weaknesses. In a way, it is the single most “Mizoguchian” film of the director’s entire career, which is fitting, I suppose, since it was also his last film. Not only does he depict a struggling woman, but instead, multiple struggling women, all of whom lives are based in their careers as prostitutes. Like Naruse’s Flowing, which came out the same year, Mizoguchi branches out into the specific trials and troubles of his protagonist. Of course, he does this all in that way that only he can. Plenty of subtle melodramatic touches, a overbearing sense of tragedy that is well supported by some beautiful visual compositions.

I’ll start there, with the visuals, as it is the most prominent strength of the film. To me, there is something almost inherently beautiful about any 1950s black and white Japanese film, but in this specific case, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have Kazuo Miyagawa photographing everything. Every sequence starts is introduced with a very Ozu-esque pillow shot, but instead of a series of poetic images, we get one lingering static shot that evokes everyone from Tati to Tsai. Naruse did this a bit in Flowing, too, but not with as much success as Mizoguchi did here. This is not to underscore Naruse’s film at all, as I think his is the better of the two, but Mizoguchi’s visuals have a much more poetic, or expressionistic feel to them.

As usual, this poetic cinematography plays into the heightened drama of Mizoguchi’s narrative. He actually handles the melodrama quite well here, perhaps because this is one of the few films of his that I can honestly say has a sense of humor. It’s not overwhelming funny, like some of Ozu and Naruse’s films are, but it does take its tragic events in stride with a tone that is nowhere near as relentlessly bleak as say, The Life of Oharu. Actually, the scene where Machiko Kyô tries to seduce her father is simultaneously heartbreaking and absurdly hilarious in a way that no other sequence Mizoguchi has crafted is. Naruse and Ozu has a sad/funny complex that is similar, but here, Mizoguchi seems to be playing up to his own type of humor (that he unfortunately was light on) and his own type of sadness. I don’t think any other director could pull off such a sequence within the same context and not come off as willfully sleazy.

In general, Machiko Kyô’s character seems to lend the light touch that would have been so helpful for some of Mizoguchi’s most downbeat work. They did work together in Ugetsu but her character was limited to an extremely vapid folk tale figure. Their only other collaboration is in Yôkihi, which I haven’t seen, but plan to do so shortly. While her character here is almost a bit too charismatic, and borders on being one dimensional, she definitely brings something to the table lacking in other Mizoguchi films. Had he used her instead of Kinuyo Tanaka in The Life of Oharu, the result probably would have been terrible, but as a supporting character, she’s fantastic. Her performance isn’t even my favorite of the group here, but she is a key component to balancing the mood and relocating the film back to reality after it goes off in Mizoguchi’s fantasy world of tragic sacrificing women.

The fact that the film takes place in modern times, rather than Japan’s feudal period, also helps too. There is still injustice in Street of Shame but it is far more subtle and far more realistic than the injustice present in Sansho. In that film, the theme of injustice seems to be the element that pushes the film along while here, it is just another aspect that controls the daily grind of these women’s lives. The painful struggles are still here and they’re as tragic as ever, but the grimness feels grounded in a more mature emotional base. This is a tragic film just like most of Mizoguchi’s work is, but the sadness is within these characters rather than on surface plot developments. In other words, one of Mizoguchi’s very best films.

Only two films in and Aki Kaurismäki is already on track to becoming one of my very favorite directors. It is a bit funny to be watching his films alongside stuff like True Heart Susie and A Canterbury Tale, two attempts at “branching out” when his films are so close to fitting my cinematic ideal it’s ridiculous. In fact, the only real problem I can see between this and Shadows of Paradise is that they are indeed a bit too perfect. There’s something slightly frustrating when a filmmaker fits in with one’s taste as Kaurismäki has done with me and that is the fact that something transgressive is absent to separate it from similarly-minded films. Still, for a compliant, this is pretty inconsequential, both this and Shadows in Paradise are absolute masterpieces in my mind.

One of the most enjoyable elements in Kaurismäki’s cinematic world is that subtle sense of tragedy that is apparent, but never intrusive to the film. In a way, it is a bit like Herzog’s Stroszek, but somehow even less noticeable. On paper this sounds like the saddest story ever: a man watches (or more accurately, hears) his father commit suicide. He responds by taking all of the money from a bank account, but he is then robbed. He ends up in a homeless shelter, but then meets and falls in love with a single mom who works as a butcher. He catches a glimpse of the man who robbed him, and goes to confront him. The scuffle puts him in jail for a year.

The difference between this film and something like say, The Life of Oharu, is not only in the formally straight-forward presentation but also in how the character reacts to the constant negative events that plague his life. The protagonist here, Taisto, rolls with all the punches. The one time he (literally) fights back against his situation, he is sent to jail, which seemingly puts him back into the passive mindset that he started the film with. Through all of these tragedies, Taisto manages to form a relationship with Irmeil, a hardworking single mom. Like the central relationship in Shadows in Paradise, Taisto and Irmeil fall into the “lost souls finding eachother” category that I tend to name-drop on occasion. But a simple imitation this is not, Kaurismäki brings his own type of absurd, deadpan comedy into the mix, resulting in something very unique.

I would never go the length of saying that Ariel will make you laugh and make you cry as such a statement is so cringe-worthy but also because the comedy is not separate from the tragedy like that statement would imply. There’s a sequence early on in the film in which Taisto visits his snow-landen farm to take his automobile. In one long shot, we see him pull the car out of a wooden garage, and the garage collapse. Jia Zhang-Ke tried to do something similar in Still Life with the building turning into a aircraft gag, but that was a bit more surreal where the comedy here is very much grounded in the ignored but still absurd moments of daily life.

It could be argued that Ariel is a tad bit too short, which I might agree with, and that it ends on a slightly too upbeat conclusion. I disagree with latter even if I would admit that the conclusion is anything like the rest of the film, but I find the quick burst of happiness at the end to be incredibly touching. Taisto, Irmeil and her son “escape” from Finland in a boat in the evening while a Finnish version of “Over the Rainbow” echoes through the quiet waters. A tad bit hokey, I suppose, but it somehow hits a perfect mix of the poignant and the bizarre, which could easily be applied to the rest of the film as well.

Another very good melodramatic tragedy courtesy of DW Griffith and Lillian Gish. As much as I liked this (and I did like quite a bit), I still feel like I should be liking it more. It’s an embarrassing thing to say, but I simply can’t make it through pre-1930s, or 1920s for that matter, films without feeling, well, bored, to make things simple. I really want to like Griffith’s pioneering aesthetic and to an extent, I do, but not quite enough to want to watch it for more than an hour. On a similar note, I also love Lillian Gish’s tragic facial expressions, but I guess neither thing is enough to carry the film for its whole running time. It’s not a film that I even remotely regret watching, but I also can’t see myself wanting to watch it again in the future.

There are, however, some moments, most of which involve Gish, that really have an achingly poetic tone to them. There’s a lot of these moments, but they are dragged down by the many plot progressing scenes in which the developments can be seen from a mile away. Sure, the predictable nature of the story was probably inherited due to its age, but it doesn’t make walking through its muddy puddles any easier.

I’ll admit that I sound a little too defensive here, but it doesn’t actually come from a fear of making the purists angry. I genuinely see something special going here, and it is something that I genuinely want to enjoy more than I do. I guess a problem could be that the film’s initial charm wears off just as soon as the most dull sections of the story takes place. When Susie’s lover, William, returns from college, there is a whole half-hour or so devoted to how uninterested he is in here. Sequence after sequence, titlecard after titlecard, we are told just how “plain and simple” Susie is when compared to the other women in William’s life.

This is all a bit painful to watch, especially since Gish herself is far prettier than any other actress in the film, almost at an overwhelming level. It was probably Griffith’s intention to see a sacrificing, quiet woman be cast aside from her would-be lover only because of society’s standards. However, “society’s standards” is a frequently present title card that states that Susie is plain and unable to be William’s true love. This is nailed into the audience’s head, bordering on being subliminal. I understand why there’s a lack of nuance in early motion pictures, but I can’t overlook it when it makes me feel as though I’m wasting my time. Again, this is a good movie, but there’s so many painfully long stretches and they threaten to dilute some of the most beautiful moments I’ve seen in any movie.

No question, this is Maurice Pialat’s most ambitious film: a two and a half-hour account of Vincent Van Gogh’s last days alive. It doesn’t even sound like the most “Pialat-ian” of set-ups, but somehow, it comes out being a film that cannot be mistaken for someone else’s work. There’s the father-daughter complex, the abrupt emotional meltdowns, and that all too important sense of intimacy that only Pialat can create. If there’s anything specifically wrong about this film, it’s that it does go on a bit too long. The epic scope itself is admirable, but there’s a bit too much stereotypical French cinema small-talk which could have clearly been cut out completely.

The first hour is definitely the most gentle and reserved half of the film. There’s seemingly a lot less dialogue as well, which certainly bodes well for Pialat’s type of cinema. More or less, he seems to be going through some of the Bressonian motions that he used so well in L’Enfance Nue. I guess it is predictable then, that by the film’s halfway point it begins to “pick things up.” The transition itself is a bit jarring as the initial laid back, almost Rivette-esque tone clashes a bit awkwardly with Pialat’s perchance for violent outburst, which kind of lapse into self-parody here.

There are some positives to this, though, as Pialat indulges in some completely amazing moments of kinetic spontaneity towards the very end. The most obvious example being the party in the whorehouse where almost all of the film’s best moments are contained within. Pretty much anything that follows this section is a bit of a disappointment. Sure, it does have every right to be melancholy since it is building up to the death of the main character, but technically, Pialat also tones things down. At the same time, he seems to be trying to make up for lost time, which is quite odd since the film is 150-some minutes long. In the last twenty minutes or so, the film is elliptically fragmented. Some scenes go on for 15 seconds before Pialat jumps to something entirely different. I’ve always admired Pialat’s editing style, but it doesn’t really go well with the very straight-forward pacing present in the rest of the film.

I should take a step back and say that this truly is a wonderful film. Most of my compliants come from expecting only the very best from Pialat. This would unquestionably be the defining piece in the career of almost any other director, but for Pialat, it’s just an odd (but of course, well made) venture into the world of period pieces. It seems that Pialat’s interest was not so much in Vincent van Gogh’s life as it was in the visual potential of impressonistic landscapes. That’s perfectly fine, as the film is clearly beautiful to look out, but in terms of “depth” and whatnot, it falls a bit short of Pialat’s best work.