#15: Sugar Hill
This 1974 entry into blaxploitation exemplifies all of the shopworn tropes of that genre but, unfortunately, has neither the pacing nor the sense of anticipation necessary to make a truly great, if low budget, horror film.
In this film, Diana "Sugar" Hill, who is apparently a fashion photographer in her professional life, inherits a Haitian voodoo-themed nightclub when local underground forces kill her fiancee because he refuses to sell out. The local mob is admirably racially diverse but ultimately no match for Sugar once she enlists the assistance of childhood mentor and Voodoo priestess, Mama Celesete, and an army of undead lead by head zombie Baron Samedi. One by one Sugar and her zombie gang take out the circle that protects the mob chieftain until no one is left but the chief himself and his blonde gun moll companion. Each victim is informed that he is about to die for his role in the initial murder, even the guy who did not participate in the original murder but has to die just the same. Sugar does not quit until each has been killed and the gun moll handed off to Baron Samedi; her body to serve as payment for the Baron's assistance in lieu of Sugar's own.
This film is slow, lacks suspense, and even the fight scenes lack the enthusiasm one usually associates with 70's blaxsploitation. The fashion is super fly and the good guys are relentlessly hip in the face of the "honk" white cops and mobsters. Having said that, without the Curtis Mayfield soundtrack, deviant take on 1930's Warner Brothers horror classics, or afro-kung fu moves, it turns out that blaxsploitation is almost intolerably didactic and about as much fun to watch as a home economics film strip on gynocolocical hygiene. Visually these are the hippest zombies I've ever seen but they just aren't very scary.
The redeeming quality of the whole adventure lay in its slightly sideways take on morality. Sugar is obsessed with vengeance (she doesn't even pretend that what she seeks is justice). In her initial evocation of Baron Samedi Mama Celeste warns Sugar that the spirit she seeks is a greedy spirit. After offering her jewelry and engagement ring as payment for the services of his zombie army, she offers him her soul. Samedi rejects her soul, saying that he wants flesh. All of this sets up the story as a kind of bargain where Sugar gets her revenge but, in traditional morality cliche, she should find that the price is high and that she must pay for her single-minded violation of the basic Christian principle of cheek turning.
But no.
In the tradition of Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song the normal standards of morality do not apply. Sugar is not held accountable for her deal with the undead. In fact, she avoids the one price she is expected to pay, that of handing her body over to the Barron to be used for his pleasure, by handing over the N-bomb dropping concubine of the head mobster who disappears, screaming in terror, into the mists of the graveyard. Sugar gets the revenge she desires and escapes without a scratch on either body or soul. The morality here is one of the cleansing virtue of bloody revenge, not of proportionality or even less of forgiveness of trespasses.
With its depiction of upwardly-mobile African Americans in trendy and highly remunerative professions, Sugar Hill offers up the very images cherished in this genre of film. It functions as an unironic take on pimp fashion (you haven't seen fierce until you've seen the scalloped lapels and checkered silver lame unitard with matching suit jacket and fedora on display here), and a slave revenge fantasy (the undead are Yellow Fever victims from the bowls of a slave ship from the 18th century dumped into mass graves on the outskirts of New Orleans). At the same time it suggests a black nationalist resistance to the dominant white culture using voodoo tropes and unmitigated violence. Sugar dresses to the nines and even in her grief finds the gumption to flirt with old boyfriends and use her tough, independent, and overt sexuality to divert the suspicion of the mob capo as she sets up her bloody revenge.
Perhaps the most surprising part of this film was the pristine quality of the archival 35 mm print dug up and screened by Keith Garcia, programming manager for the Denver Film Society, and the good people of the Starz Film Center. I am accustom to seeing these American International films from the 1970's with the faded color projection, jumpy splices, and looking like they've been edited by a caffeinated Freddy Kruger. This print is beautiful. The colors are rich and the editing and reel changes smooth. Seeing this film in this original form calls into question the obtrusively low quality that one normally associates with films of this era an caliber. Once again Quentin Jerome Tarantino seems to have missed the point of the genre he caricatured in Grindhouse.
I could get behind all of this if the zombies were just a little scarier.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Repent Ye Visa and Internal Combustion! The End is Near!
#14: Collapse
Twice a year I have to represent my department at recruiting open houses. Parents inevitably ask what one does with a degree in political science. I now have an answer. BA, political science UCLA 1972 = a chain smoking, wild eyed, Michael Ruppert.
Apparently Ruppert made his name, such that it is, as a cop in L.A. by publicly accusing the CIA of being involved in the street drug trade in the 1980's. From there he went on to expose a large number of government and corporate conspiracies--the kind that seem to transcend the left/right political divide and bring together survivalists, anarchists, old hippie communalists, and likely a Wiccan or two.
Despite the title, this film has more in common with George Noory than Jared Diamond's book by the same name.
In this documentary Ruppert is given free reign to "connect the dots" between peak oil, the fractional reserve banking system, organic heirloom seed hoarding, and the inevitability of T-Bill defaults to make his argument that the world is rapidly approaching the collision between an ideology of infinite growth and the reality of finite resources. In fact, this is a mash up of old fashioned Malthusian theory and an Errol Morris documentary. Well, an Errol Morris documentary without Errol Morris but with a Phillip Glassish electronica soundtrack, a single talking subject, and an ample sampling of archival footage. After illustrating the correlation between human population growth and the advent of the fossil fuel economy, Ruppert asks us to imagine what will happen when that economy collapses assuming that no alternative energy source or sources emerge. The future is one where governments collapse, civil society ceases to function, and, in his most colorful analogy, the slower "campers" get eaten by the bear while those of us who are better prepared get away to re-create some new, post-collapse, human-sized social order.
Rupert had his moment of clarity in re: the inevitable (and incipient) collapse of the global human system after a discussion of the science of peak oil. At that time he began to understand, he says, the interconnectedness of all of the discrete issues that he had "investigated" previously which lead him to predict, in 2005, the collapse of the financial system in the US and a subsequent world-wide depression.
Go ahead and insert your own "1000 monkeys typing for 1000 years" joke here.
It is not that Ruppert is necessarily wrong about any one of these issues; peak oil strikes me as logical even if it is difficult to predict before the fact, fractional reserve banking likely has its limits. But the way it is all put together here takes on the feel of paranoid delusion early and often. I can envision Ruppert as Russell Crowe in his carriage house linking random bits of information together into an intricate conspiracy while eluding an imaginary Dick Cheney played by Ed Harris. But that was a better movie than this one.
Twice a year I have to represent my department at recruiting open houses. Parents inevitably ask what one does with a degree in political science. I now have an answer. BA, political science UCLA 1972 = a chain smoking, wild eyed, Michael Ruppert.
Apparently Ruppert made his name, such that it is, as a cop in L.A. by publicly accusing the CIA of being involved in the street drug trade in the 1980's. From there he went on to expose a large number of government and corporate conspiracies--the kind that seem to transcend the left/right political divide and bring together survivalists, anarchists, old hippie communalists, and likely a Wiccan or two.
Despite the title, this film has more in common with George Noory than Jared Diamond's book by the same name.
In this documentary Ruppert is given free reign to "connect the dots" between peak oil, the fractional reserve banking system, organic heirloom seed hoarding, and the inevitability of T-Bill defaults to make his argument that the world is rapidly approaching the collision between an ideology of infinite growth and the reality of finite resources. In fact, this is a mash up of old fashioned Malthusian theory and an Errol Morris documentary. Well, an Errol Morris documentary without Errol Morris but with a Phillip Glassish electronica soundtrack, a single talking subject, and an ample sampling of archival footage. After illustrating the correlation between human population growth and the advent of the fossil fuel economy, Ruppert asks us to imagine what will happen when that economy collapses assuming that no alternative energy source or sources emerge. The future is one where governments collapse, civil society ceases to function, and, in his most colorful analogy, the slower "campers" get eaten by the bear while those of us who are better prepared get away to re-create some new, post-collapse, human-sized social order.
Rupert had his moment of clarity in re: the inevitable (and incipient) collapse of the global human system after a discussion of the science of peak oil. At that time he began to understand, he says, the interconnectedness of all of the discrete issues that he had "investigated" previously which lead him to predict, in 2005, the collapse of the financial system in the US and a subsequent world-wide depression.
Go ahead and insert your own "1000 monkeys typing for 1000 years" joke here.
It is not that Ruppert is necessarily wrong about any one of these issues; peak oil strikes me as logical even if it is difficult to predict before the fact, fractional reserve banking likely has its limits. But the way it is all put together here takes on the feel of paranoid delusion early and often. I can envision Ruppert as Russell Crowe in his carriage house linking random bits of information together into an intricate conspiracy while eluding an imaginary Dick Cheney played by Ed Harris. But that was a better movie than this one.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Critical Theory and French Action Films, Partie Deux
#13: D'13: Ultimatum
This sequel to the delightful District B13 returns to the squalid Parisian suburb only to find that conditions have not markedly improved. The tribal gangs, having taken the upper hand after the defeat of the drug lord in the last film, seem better organized and more explicitly stereotypically representative of Parisian boogie men. There are the Islamisists, the Neo-Nazis, Haitian/Caribbean gang bangers, and Southeast Asians (headed predictably by a woman straight out of a Hong Kong action flick). These gangs are locked into a balance of power battle for territory and the District seems hopelessly divided, content to direct its anger internally rather than against the authorities that have walled it into its Hobbesian state of nature. In the midst of all of it is still Leito, the home grown avenger for justice, and Damien, the go-to undercover cop, too honest for the Parisian authorities to allow to snoop around when trouble is afoot.
In this film, shady government contractors, headed by a corporation called Harriburton and apparently having read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, decide that D13 is not so much a suppurating urban sore as an untapped business opportunity. The plan? A literal moment of Schumperterian creative destruction: persuade the new government into nuking (yes, with advanced neutron nuclear weapons) D'13 and then swoop in to acquire the contracts for reconstruction. The trick? Dividing the population so thoroughly that it is unable to wage resistance against its forced relocation and ultimate, gentrified, redevelopment. Suddenly the depth of the tribal rivalries comes into focus: this is not a product of human nature but a strategic plan by Harriburton to divide the population into political apathy while mobilizing the fear of the middle class to accept their cultural liquidation.
In the end, Damien and Leito must unite the rival gangs to take on the evil thugs at Harriburton and save the district. But first they must reunite.
Taken together, these two films are quite interesting. They depict a Parisian underclass, robbed of its dignity and trapped in a world without justice. In both, the government has left these people to the predations of the worst human instincts, all of which are framed through unrestrained market logics (the logic of the black market drug trade and, more dangerously, the logic of the outsourcing of basic government functions without sufficient social management). Each of these markets exist outside of effective governmental control. Tellingly, the bad guys from Harriburton and their government lackeys early in the film bemoan the fact that their urban redevelopment plan would take "eight years" under normal regulatory conditions in France whereas in Dubai they could be completed in "eight months." On its face this has the appearance of a critique of an overly-regulated market that makes beneficial redevelopment too onerous. But over the course of the film it becomes clear that the intended beneficiaries of the development are the middle class and Harriburton itself. The poor are to be, once again, marginalized; their class status translates into their inhumanity from the perspective of a state that functions almost exclusively as a handmaiden to the ruling class.
Yes, D'13 is a Marxist film.
The residents of D'13 reclaim their humanity by overcoming the artificially-imposed differences rooted in nationality and uniting around their shared class status. The heavy-handed conclusion is that tribalism, nationalism, and jihadism are ideological tools that facilitate the interests of the nationless corporate entities that really rule the world. Only through the united action of the underclass can the state's sense of humanity be re-awakened, at which point the underclass can use the tools of the state to promote its own interests in the class struggle.
Curiously, the tools available to the state seem strangely limited. Once Leito and Damien, in coalition with the leadership of the rival gangs, break through the protective walls, defended by the class interests of Harriburton, to speak to the president they make an eloquent case for the nobility of the working class and the duty the government has to human uplift in the face of capitalist greed. Convinced, the president asks Leito and Damien what is to be done. All agree to go forward with the planned destruction of the district. Its rebuilding is to be in the hands of the workers themselves in the person of Damien, now representative of the desire of the underclass to forge a new society free from the failed warehousing plans of the original suburbs but also, presumably, under the wing of a state apparatus now in the hands of a sympathetic bureaucrat.
This sequel to the delightful District B13 returns to the squalid Parisian suburb only to find that conditions have not markedly improved. The tribal gangs, having taken the upper hand after the defeat of the drug lord in the last film, seem better organized and more explicitly stereotypically representative of Parisian boogie men. There are the Islamisists, the Neo-Nazis, Haitian/Caribbean gang bangers, and Southeast Asians (headed predictably by a woman straight out of a Hong Kong action flick). These gangs are locked into a balance of power battle for territory and the District seems hopelessly divided, content to direct its anger internally rather than against the authorities that have walled it into its Hobbesian state of nature. In the midst of all of it is still Leito, the home grown avenger for justice, and Damien, the go-to undercover cop, too honest for the Parisian authorities to allow to snoop around when trouble is afoot.
In this film, shady government contractors, headed by a corporation called Harriburton and apparently having read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, decide that D13 is not so much a suppurating urban sore as an untapped business opportunity. The plan? A literal moment of Schumperterian creative destruction: persuade the new government into nuking (yes, with advanced neutron nuclear weapons) D'13 and then swoop in to acquire the contracts for reconstruction. The trick? Dividing the population so thoroughly that it is unable to wage resistance against its forced relocation and ultimate, gentrified, redevelopment. Suddenly the depth of the tribal rivalries comes into focus: this is not a product of human nature but a strategic plan by Harriburton to divide the population into political apathy while mobilizing the fear of the middle class to accept their cultural liquidation.
In the end, Damien and Leito must unite the rival gangs to take on the evil thugs at Harriburton and save the district. But first they must reunite.
Taken together, these two films are quite interesting. They depict a Parisian underclass, robbed of its dignity and trapped in a world without justice. In both, the government has left these people to the predations of the worst human instincts, all of which are framed through unrestrained market logics (the logic of the black market drug trade and, more dangerously, the logic of the outsourcing of basic government functions without sufficient social management). Each of these markets exist outside of effective governmental control. Tellingly, the bad guys from Harriburton and their government lackeys early in the film bemoan the fact that their urban redevelopment plan would take "eight years" under normal regulatory conditions in France whereas in Dubai they could be completed in "eight months." On its face this has the appearance of a critique of an overly-regulated market that makes beneficial redevelopment too onerous. But over the course of the film it becomes clear that the intended beneficiaries of the development are the middle class and Harriburton itself. The poor are to be, once again, marginalized; their class status translates into their inhumanity from the perspective of a state that functions almost exclusively as a handmaiden to the ruling class.
Yes, D'13 is a Marxist film.
The residents of D'13 reclaim their humanity by overcoming the artificially-imposed differences rooted in nationality and uniting around their shared class status. The heavy-handed conclusion is that tribalism, nationalism, and jihadism are ideological tools that facilitate the interests of the nationless corporate entities that really rule the world. Only through the united action of the underclass can the state's sense of humanity be re-awakened, at which point the underclass can use the tools of the state to promote its own interests in the class struggle.
Curiously, the tools available to the state seem strangely limited. Once Leito and Damien, in coalition with the leadership of the rival gangs, break through the protective walls, defended by the class interests of Harriburton, to speak to the president they make an eloquent case for the nobility of the working class and the duty the government has to human uplift in the face of capitalist greed. Convinced, the president asks Leito and Damien what is to be done. All agree to go forward with the planned destruction of the district. Its rebuilding is to be in the hands of the workers themselves in the person of Damien, now representative of the desire of the underclass to forge a new society free from the failed warehousing plans of the original suburbs but also, presumably, under the wing of a state apparatus now in the hands of a sympathetic bureaucrat.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Vampires from Outer Space! (but not in a good way)
#15: Lifeforce
Space vampires.
Another Watching Hour movie at Starz. In this one NASA and a UK space agency launch a joint interplanetary space shuttle mission to investigate Halley's Comet. However, when the shuttle gets there the astronauts discover an abandoned alien ship, looking a lot like a space fallopian tube, wedged into the head of the comet. Inside they find a collection of dessicated man-sized bat skeletons and, beyond that, three glass caskets with three perfect, and perfectly naked, people inside. The astronauts do what any red-blooded humans would; they decide to bring the caskets on board!
When the shuttle, the Churchill (seriously), arrives back at Earth it is an abandoned, burned out shell filled with dessicated man-sized human corpses. The only survivor is the American captain who ejected himself from the dying ship in the single-occupancy escape pod. However, the rescue team also finds three glass caskets containing three perfect, still perfectly naked, people. What to do other than bring them to Earth?
Space Vampires.
But instead of blood these lycanthropes sustain themselves on human "lifeforce" which seems to be a bluish electrical soul that can be spewed out of the mouth. Instead of terrorizing an English manor these folks focus their mayhem on downtown London. The space fallopian tube is a kind of collector that concentrates the souls for intergalactic travel. And the vampires have been here before; the vampire myths are all distortions of their prior visit. Oh, and the female space vampire is stunningly beautiful and spends most of the movie wandering around naked looking for souls to acquire and has a (gasp!) "special bond" with the surviving shuttle captain who is tearing around London with his HRH's Special Air Services sidekick whose fundamental purpose is to convince us that the Brits can be as badass and droll at the same time.
This movie is filled to the brim with unlikely plot twists, cheesy special effects (hold your judgment until you see the clearly animatronic head of Patrick Stewart --yes, that Patrick Stewart-- spew blood out of its eye holes. Better yet, hold it until you've seen the exact same effect footage spliced into the film four times), gratuitous nudity and violence that has no plot purpose, and a naked space vampire lap dance/lifeforce abduction climax.
Written by Dan O'Bannon (Alien) and directed by horror autodidact Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), this film has legitimate genre DNA but some combination of inattention to detail (shouldn't the BBC presenters have British accents?) and not even enough pride to try write in an explanation for the space vampire's nudity (are we to infer a plot point from her gravity-defying tits?) turns this film into a sloppy mess. The budget at play here could not have been small. Overcoming the odds, Hooper did not let the size of his budget get in the way of making a crappy, intelligence insulting, low-budget flick.
Really. Space vampires?
Space vampires.
Another Watching Hour movie at Starz. In this one NASA and a UK space agency launch a joint interplanetary space shuttle mission to investigate Halley's Comet. However, when the shuttle gets there the astronauts discover an abandoned alien ship, looking a lot like a space fallopian tube, wedged into the head of the comet. Inside they find a collection of dessicated man-sized bat skeletons and, beyond that, three glass caskets with three perfect, and perfectly naked, people inside. The astronauts do what any red-blooded humans would; they decide to bring the caskets on board!
When the shuttle, the Churchill (seriously), arrives back at Earth it is an abandoned, burned out shell filled with dessicated man-sized human corpses. The only survivor is the American captain who ejected himself from the dying ship in the single-occupancy escape pod. However, the rescue team also finds three glass caskets containing three perfect, still perfectly naked, people. What to do other than bring them to Earth?
Space Vampires.
But instead of blood these lycanthropes sustain themselves on human "lifeforce" which seems to be a bluish electrical soul that can be spewed out of the mouth. Instead of terrorizing an English manor these folks focus their mayhem on downtown London. The space fallopian tube is a kind of collector that concentrates the souls for intergalactic travel. And the vampires have been here before; the vampire myths are all distortions of their prior visit. Oh, and the female space vampire is stunningly beautiful and spends most of the movie wandering around naked looking for souls to acquire and has a (gasp!) "special bond" with the surviving shuttle captain who is tearing around London with his HRH's Special Air Services sidekick whose fundamental purpose is to convince us that the Brits can be as badass and droll at the same time.
This movie is filled to the brim with unlikely plot twists, cheesy special effects (hold your judgment until you see the clearly animatronic head of Patrick Stewart --yes, that Patrick Stewart-- spew blood out of its eye holes. Better yet, hold it until you've seen the exact same effect footage spliced into the film four times), gratuitous nudity and violence that has no plot purpose, and a naked space vampire lap dance/lifeforce abduction climax.
Written by Dan O'Bannon (Alien) and directed by horror autodidact Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), this film has legitimate genre DNA but some combination of inattention to detail (shouldn't the BBC presenters have British accents?) and not even enough pride to try write in an explanation for the space vampire's nudity (are we to infer a plot point from her gravity-defying tits?) turns this film into a sloppy mess. The budget at play here could not have been small. Overcoming the odds, Hooper did not let the size of his budget get in the way of making a crappy, intelligence insulting, low-budget flick.
Really. Space vampires?
Monday, February 15, 2010
It was Disney killed the beast
#14: Jean Cocteau's La belle et la bête (Beauty and the Beast)
Before there was a Disney animation department devoted wholly to the (re)construction of folkloric heroines as Barbie-esque princesses, there was the dark world of European folk traditions. In this didactic world, step sisters jealously enforce a Darwinian wall of genetic defense against beautiful interlopers, evil spinsters are blinded and dragged to their deaths behind wild horses before cheering townsfolk, children exact terrible revenge against their torturers and, when the wolf gets his teeth into grandma, there is nothing to be rescued by the time the woodsman slices him open. In this world, lessons are not subtle, heroes are not unambiguously virtuous, and the line between civilization and the state of nature is razor thin.
La belle et la bête exists in this second world. This is a fantastic re-telling of the classic French folk tale that has about as much in common with Disney's vision of the world as a Miley Cyrus' Vanity Fair photo shoot. The plot counterpoises the mundane life of Beauty, the faithful daughter of an aging and failing merchant, against the enchanted world of the Beast, looking all the world like a hypertrichosis acrobat. Beauty ends up as a captive of the Beast when she willingly trades her freedom for her father's after he is caught stealing a rose from the Beast's garden; a rose intended as a gift for his loyal daughter.
Yes, in this universe it somehow makes sense that the daughter, who personifies fealty to her father, can be held hostage in his place.
Of course, the lesson of both the story and the film is that Beauty's capacity to love the Beast despite his hideous appearance is rewarded in the end as her love breaks his evil enchantment and transforms him into the Prince. But the way to this tidy, moralistic, conclusion is at least interesting and not sprinkled with comforting sugar. Beauty does not offer unalloyed acceptance. In fact, she's kind of a bitch to the Beast and even after he extend his absolute trust to her, placing his life in her hands, she can't quite bring herself to uphold her promises to him. We are not in Disney's world here.
The imagery of this film is literally fabulous. The Beast's world is magical, misty, and dark. Beauty's world, on the other hand is bitter; filled with scheming sisters, a prodigal brother, and an avaricious suitor for Beauty's hand whom, despite his general oiliness, she appears to love. In a Merchant of Venice subplot, there is even a stereotypical Shylock moneylender who claims the family's wealth in repayment for his son's debts when the father's ships are lost. As an aside, one has to wonder about that particular characterization choice in 1946 France.
Filmed on high-contrast black and white stock and with a musical score reminiscent of that of The Bicycle Thief this film is beautiful. I was born without the whimsy gene and generally abhor magical stories. But I do like this movie. Perhaps what I like is the rough justice meted out by the film. This is not a story with an unmitigated happy ending. The Beast is transformed and Beauty is promised a life of royal pleasures but the selfish sisters are promised nothing more than the opportunity to carry Beauty's train. Beauty's original suitor is transformed into the Beast, captive inside the body of an animal. Forgive maybe but never forget seems to be the underlying theory of mercy.l
At the end of the original version of Snow White the evil Queen goes to Snow White's wedding only to be captured by the wedding party, slapped into iron shoes heated to glowing, and forced to dance herself to death. Justice? Maybe not. But at least there aren't any cute talking animals and no Celine Dion Oscar™
Before there was a Disney animation department devoted wholly to the (re)construction of folkloric heroines as Barbie-esque princesses, there was the dark world of European folk traditions. In this didactic world, step sisters jealously enforce a Darwinian wall of genetic defense against beautiful interlopers, evil spinsters are blinded and dragged to their deaths behind wild horses before cheering townsfolk, children exact terrible revenge against their torturers and, when the wolf gets his teeth into grandma, there is nothing to be rescued by the time the woodsman slices him open. In this world, lessons are not subtle, heroes are not unambiguously virtuous, and the line between civilization and the state of nature is razor thin.
La belle et la bête exists in this second world. This is a fantastic re-telling of the classic French folk tale that has about as much in common with Disney's vision of the world as a Miley Cyrus' Vanity Fair photo shoot. The plot counterpoises the mundane life of Beauty, the faithful daughter of an aging and failing merchant, against the enchanted world of the Beast, looking all the world like a hypertrichosis acrobat. Beauty ends up as a captive of the Beast when she willingly trades her freedom for her father's after he is caught stealing a rose from the Beast's garden; a rose intended as a gift for his loyal daughter.
Yes, in this universe it somehow makes sense that the daughter, who personifies fealty to her father, can be held hostage in his place.
Of course, the lesson of both the story and the film is that Beauty's capacity to love the Beast despite his hideous appearance is rewarded in the end as her love breaks his evil enchantment and transforms him into the Prince. But the way to this tidy, moralistic, conclusion is at least interesting and not sprinkled with comforting sugar. Beauty does not offer unalloyed acceptance. In fact, she's kind of a bitch to the Beast and even after he extend his absolute trust to her, placing his life in her hands, she can't quite bring herself to uphold her promises to him. We are not in Disney's world here.
The imagery of this film is literally fabulous. The Beast's world is magical, misty, and dark. Beauty's world, on the other hand is bitter; filled with scheming sisters, a prodigal brother, and an avaricious suitor for Beauty's hand whom, despite his general oiliness, she appears to love. In a Merchant of Venice subplot, there is even a stereotypical Shylock moneylender who claims the family's wealth in repayment for his son's debts when the father's ships are lost. As an aside, one has to wonder about that particular characterization choice in 1946 France.
Filmed on high-contrast black and white stock and with a musical score reminiscent of that of The Bicycle Thief this film is beautiful. I was born without the whimsy gene and generally abhor magical stories. But I do like this movie. Perhaps what I like is the rough justice meted out by the film. This is not a story with an unmitigated happy ending. The Beast is transformed and Beauty is promised a life of royal pleasures but the selfish sisters are promised nothing more than the opportunity to carry Beauty's train. Beauty's original suitor is transformed into the Beast, captive inside the body of an animal. Forgive maybe but never forget seems to be the underlying theory of mercy.l
At the end of the original version of Snow White the evil Queen goes to Snow White's wedding only to be captured by the wedding party, slapped into iron shoes heated to glowing, and forced to dance herself to death. Justice? Maybe not. But at least there aren't any cute talking animals and no Celine Dion Oscar™
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Films must be finished; even if you do it blindly
#13: Broken Embraces
This is the latest film from director Pedro Almodóvar, his most recent with Penelope Cruz, and I don't really feel up to the task of reviewing it. I've not seen all of Almodóvar's films and the ones I have seen I've found enjoyable enough although I have never understood the cult-like status of him as auteur. He is capable of sketching interesting characters with compelling if not wholly credible emotional lives and can keep the slapstick moving when the scene calls for it. He is adept with quirky material. I love and respect the tastes of people who love Almodóvar's work but, well, I just don't get his buzz. I don't think I can do justice to this film because I'm afraid it is my movie destiny to find the charm of his films elusive.
Furthermore, I must admit that I have never liked Penelope Cruz as an actor. My dislike of her runs so deep that I have actually avoided her recent work. She sucked so bad in Vanilla Sky that I'm not sure she can, or should, ever be redeemed. I have seen neither Volver nor Vicky Christina. My favorite Penelope Cruz production is her characterization in this episode of Family Guy. But I do have a soft spot for Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
The conceit of this current film is that in 1992 a Spanish director found himself directing a Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown kind of farce with a leading lady with whom he is obsessed and who is the mistress of a real estate mogul who has maneuvered himself into the role of producer of the film. Justifiably suspicious about the relationship between his mistress and her director, the producer gets his son to videotape the production and hires a lip reader to decipher what the two are saying to each other on set. Broken Embraces is set in 2008 and the story of the old film is told in long, unbroken flashbacks from the perspective of the director, now blind and living under a new name as a screenwriter. Between the flashbacks and bits of contemporary action and drama, the film pieces together the emotionally complex and convoluted story of how the director abandoned his art for love only to lose everything, his love, his sight, in a completely random moment.
I liked this film more than I expected I would. I was most surprised by Cruz's performance. Did I mention that she is not among my favorite actors? But here she is impressive, shifting her character between authentic emotions and her two acting jobs--one on the movie set and one in the bedroom with her sugar daddy--managing to make them all seem charming and real. Her character is so persuasive it is difficult to tell where her opportunism and/or duty ends (it is difficult to figure out how she sees her own situation) and her real life begins until well into the flashbacks. I can't pin down what it is about this movie that is so seductive. But the texture of daily life, the color palate of the production, even the pacing of the scenes makes me want to embrace this movie. Its last five minutes draw an explicit contrast between this film and WOTENB and the comparison enhances both films.
I'm sure this film is littered with worthy allegory: the blind director, Cruz's seamless transformation from actress--prostitute--secretary--mistress--actress--lover suggesting they all deploy the same basic skill set, etc., etc. But, as I said, I don't think I'm up to the task and part of me fears that trying too hard to figure out what it all means might just diminish its effects.
This is the latest film from director Pedro Almodóvar, his most recent with Penelope Cruz, and I don't really feel up to the task of reviewing it. I've not seen all of Almodóvar's films and the ones I have seen I've found enjoyable enough although I have never understood the cult-like status of him as auteur. He is capable of sketching interesting characters with compelling if not wholly credible emotional lives and can keep the slapstick moving when the scene calls for it. He is adept with quirky material. I love and respect the tastes of people who love Almodóvar's work but, well, I just don't get his buzz. I don't think I can do justice to this film because I'm afraid it is my movie destiny to find the charm of his films elusive.
Furthermore, I must admit that I have never liked Penelope Cruz as an actor. My dislike of her runs so deep that I have actually avoided her recent work. She sucked so bad in Vanilla Sky that I'm not sure she can, or should, ever be redeemed. I have seen neither Volver nor Vicky Christina. My favorite Penelope Cruz production is her characterization in this episode of Family Guy. But I do have a soft spot for Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
The conceit of this current film is that in 1992 a Spanish director found himself directing a Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown kind of farce with a leading lady with whom he is obsessed and who is the mistress of a real estate mogul who has maneuvered himself into the role of producer of the film. Justifiably suspicious about the relationship between his mistress and her director, the producer gets his son to videotape the production and hires a lip reader to decipher what the two are saying to each other on set. Broken Embraces is set in 2008 and the story of the old film is told in long, unbroken flashbacks from the perspective of the director, now blind and living under a new name as a screenwriter. Between the flashbacks and bits of contemporary action and drama, the film pieces together the emotionally complex and convoluted story of how the director abandoned his art for love only to lose everything, his love, his sight, in a completely random moment.
I liked this film more than I expected I would. I was most surprised by Cruz's performance. Did I mention that she is not among my favorite actors? But here she is impressive, shifting her character between authentic emotions and her two acting jobs--one on the movie set and one in the bedroom with her sugar daddy--managing to make them all seem charming and real. Her character is so persuasive it is difficult to tell where her opportunism and/or duty ends (it is difficult to figure out how she sees her own situation) and her real life begins until well into the flashbacks. I can't pin down what it is about this movie that is so seductive. But the texture of daily life, the color palate of the production, even the pacing of the scenes makes me want to embrace this movie. Its last five minutes draw an explicit contrast between this film and WOTENB and the comparison enhances both films.
I'm sure this film is littered with worthy allegory: the blind director, Cruz's seamless transformation from actress--prostitute--secretary--mistress--actress--lover suggesting they all deploy the same basic skill set, etc., etc. But, as I said, I don't think I'm up to the task and part of me fears that trying too hard to figure out what it all means might just diminish its effects.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Hardcore and Parkour
#12: Banlieue 13 (District B13)
This French action film depicts a dystopian future (2010!) where the Parisian suburbs have become so ungovernable that the French authorities elect to wall off the districts and eliminate all public services including the police and schools. Left without any civil authority, these districts devolve into semi-autonomous regions governed by drug lords and their hired thugs. The hero of the film, Lieto, is a resident of the district who seems at once to be one of the leaders of the community, which in this context means that he seems to have some armed staff, and a kind of a civic avenger, trying to impose some order on an otherwise wholly disorderly world.
The plot of the film is wholly predictable. The avenging hero ends up involuntarily paired with the lone-wolf undercover detective attempting to clean up the city, rescue Lieto's sister from the Scarface-channeling drug kingpin, and stop the bad guys from deploying a hijacked nuclear weapon against the still-civilized parts of Paris. But, in good dystopian form, it turns out that the real bad guys are employed by the government itself, which has decided to wipe out the population of B13 because it has "run out of ideas" about how to bring it back under control.
Don't go to this film for the plot. The remarkable parts of this movie are the action sequences. The stunts are ostensibly performed live, by the actors themselves, with no CGI interventions. And they are amazing. This film is said to exemplify the French discipline parkour, a kind of urban running that focuses on the synergistic potential of human movement and the physical environment. So walls exist to be bounced off of, scaled or walked up; speeding cars to be climbed, deflected, and jumped; and tables to be scaled, stood on, and used as leverage. It looks really cool. If you are particularly sensitive to the jerks, jumps, and color inconsistencies of even high quality CGI and green screen action then this movie will be a breath of fresh air. More than anything, the action sequences remind me of old Jackie Chan action movies from his pre-Hollywood Hong Kong days. When these guys jump a car, they actually jump the freakin' car. Cool. Plus the soundtrack has an understated techno vibe that lends the action a kind of balletic grace. It doesn't amp up the action so much as it abstracts away from the action to the acts themselves.
The film was originally released in 2004. Its sequel is being screened at Starz this month.
My favorite moment in the film: While the protagonists are figuring out that the bomb was actually placed in B13 by the French authorities to wipe out the impoverished (and notably darkish) people imprisoned behind the nearly impenetrable walls of their suburban ghetto , Lieto calculates that even the timing of the appearance of the bomb is suspicious. It turns up in B13 on September 7, just in time to catch everyone back in the city from their summer holiday. Apparently even after the meltdown of civil society Parisians will still get their statutory minimum of 30 days holiday. And all of them will take it in August.
This French action film depicts a dystopian future (2010!) where the Parisian suburbs have become so ungovernable that the French authorities elect to wall off the districts and eliminate all public services including the police and schools. Left without any civil authority, these districts devolve into semi-autonomous regions governed by drug lords and their hired thugs. The hero of the film, Lieto, is a resident of the district who seems at once to be one of the leaders of the community, which in this context means that he seems to have some armed staff, and a kind of a civic avenger, trying to impose some order on an otherwise wholly disorderly world.
The plot of the film is wholly predictable. The avenging hero ends up involuntarily paired with the lone-wolf undercover detective attempting to clean up the city, rescue Lieto's sister from the Scarface-channeling drug kingpin, and stop the bad guys from deploying a hijacked nuclear weapon against the still-civilized parts of Paris. But, in good dystopian form, it turns out that the real bad guys are employed by the government itself, which has decided to wipe out the population of B13 because it has "run out of ideas" about how to bring it back under control.
Don't go to this film for the plot. The remarkable parts of this movie are the action sequences. The stunts are ostensibly performed live, by the actors themselves, with no CGI interventions. And they are amazing. This film is said to exemplify the French discipline parkour, a kind of urban running that focuses on the synergistic potential of human movement and the physical environment. So walls exist to be bounced off of, scaled or walked up; speeding cars to be climbed, deflected, and jumped; and tables to be scaled, stood on, and used as leverage. It looks really cool. If you are particularly sensitive to the jerks, jumps, and color inconsistencies of even high quality CGI and green screen action then this movie will be a breath of fresh air. More than anything, the action sequences remind me of old Jackie Chan action movies from his pre-Hollywood Hong Kong days. When these guys jump a car, they actually jump the freakin' car. Cool. Plus the soundtrack has an understated techno vibe that lends the action a kind of balletic grace. It doesn't amp up the action so much as it abstracts away from the action to the acts themselves.
The film was originally released in 2004. Its sequel is being screened at Starz this month.
My favorite moment in the film: While the protagonists are figuring out that the bomb was actually placed in B13 by the French authorities to wipe out the impoverished (and notably darkish) people imprisoned behind the nearly impenetrable walls of their suburban ghetto , Lieto calculates that even the timing of the appearance of the bomb is suspicious. It turns up in B13 on September 7, just in time to catch everyone back in the city from their summer holiday. Apparently even after the meltdown of civil society Parisians will still get their statutory minimum of 30 days holiday. And all of them will take it in August.
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