Furious on Film 09.27.07: Issue 107
Posted by Arnold Furious on 09.27.2007
Several World Wars; one from the French perspective another from the Japanese. Plus chocolate and porno. Not together mind you.
Furious on Film 09.27.07: Issue 107
Several World Wars; one from the French perspective another from the Japanese. Plus chocolate and porno. Not together mind you.
Before we start this week I'd like to remind everyone why it's taken so long to get back to reviewing films. Here below lies a list of links to the Furious on Film top 100 directors column. The one that took a huge chunk out of my life but earned me more positive feedback than a bundle of WCW reviews. Be warned though, this is a long read.
Thanks for reading, thanks for taking the time to email me and thanks for your continued support over the past hundred odd columns. I'll keep writing them if you keep reading them.
This week I have the following cinematic delights for your reading pleasure;
La Grande Illusion, Chocolat, Letters from Iwo Jima, Baise-Moi
More recommendations came piling in this week. My rental list presently stands at 123 items, not including stuff that's due to be released, so it might take a while to get to if you had something in mind. As per usual any recommendations are appreciated. My current high priority rentals are; Flags of Our Fathers, Paprika, Reign Over Me and Sunshine. Everything else is just on general medium priority.
La Grande Illusion (1937)
EXPECTATIONS This is my second dip into the world of Jean Renoir. My first was the critically acclaimed Rules of the Game, which followed this release and showed how France was completely unprepared for the advent of World War II. Its people concerned with trivial internal matters and the elite of society were a complete shambles. More obsessed with shooting game than political and International affairs. While the Rules of the Game is up there with the best movies of the 1930's it's not his most famous work. That would be this film. Obviously that's the most logical second step in catching up on Renoir.
TRAILER Just a scene, the best YouTube has to offer, and without subtitles. Poor fare chaps. Why if I wasn't so lazy I'd put something on there myself.
PLOT - Capt. de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and Lt. Maréchal (Jean Gabin) are captured by the Germans during the first World War. Due to their status they're sent to a camp for officers where they plan to escape. Boeldieu is upper class while Marechal comes from the lower classes. Therefore on their arrival at the castle, that becomes their final camp in war time, Boeldieu gains the trust of the camp's leader Capt. von Rauffenstein (Erich Von Stroheim) another upper class officer.
OPINION With the style involved in shooting this film it's easy to forget it was made in 1937. If it weren't for the acting, which is abysmal, it could easily pass as a much more modern film made in the 60's in stylish black & white. The camera moves are extremely advanced and almost everything about the production looks impressive. It's clear from this that Renoir was at the top of his game going into World War II. He was forced out of his native France by the German invasion of 1941. This film was a target for the Germans when they invaded. Something about it didn't quite connect with the Nazi's. Perhaps it's because the Germans are so easily fooled and frequently belittled by the French. Whether it's singing La Marseillaise, hiding dirt from a tunnel or hiding contraband material within a camp. The Germans do seem quite dim and somehow can't track down unarmed POW's on foot despite knowing they've escaped. Hardly the image of an Aryan Race, is it? Goebbels was said to hate Renoir and branded him "cinematic public enemy #1". That's certainly a tag that Renoir can be proud of. As I was saying La Grande Illusion looks great but suffers from some shaky acting performances. Especially Pierre Fresnay. His performance is unusual. He stays in character as the upper crust snob throughout but there's something very wrong about his delivery that I can't put my finger on. Jean Gabin isn't much better but is at least capable of demonstrating a range of emotions. My guess being that Renoir was gunning for showing the working class as more human. Especially when Marechal meets the German woman Elsa (Dita Parlo) and romances her despite there being no common language. Fresnay's de Boeldieu remains subdued by duty as does von Rauffenstein. Although Erich von Stroheim does allow a little more personality to sneak into his performance and he's playing an evil German. That said the usual line of portraying Germans as over the top isn't quite so prevalent here. Some of the camp staff seem a little that way inclined with the "strictly forbidden" speech on the arrival of the new prisoners. Most of the time the Germans are given normal characters although they do generally appear more snooty, which leads you to think about what Renoir might be making a film about. Is it the first world war or is it class struggles? Is it about divine right and how times are changing? It certainly feels that way and there are discussions between de Boeldieu and von Rauffenstein about the very subject where the latter believes de Boeldieu, being upper class, is a better human being than those officers from the lower classes like Marechal. It's an interesting look into a different time although not on a par with the Rules of the Game.
BEST BIT The bizarre show the French POW's put on for the Germans. The cross dressing kick line sings "It's a long way to Tipperary", in perhaps the least heterosexual thing ever put on film, only to be interrupted by Marechal who announces a French victory in a nearby battle. Everyone goes totally deadpan and starts singing La Marseillaise forcing the Germans to leave a building in their own camp. It was better executed in Casablanca but this came first and it's almost as touching.
RATING - ****. While I enjoyed the experience this isn't a patch on the storytelling in Rules of the Game. Of course that's no bad thing and this is still a good film about humanity crossing over language borders and class divides. Renoir made everyone, regardless of their background, the same in the end. Even the Germans had moments of compassion.
Chocolat (2000)
EXPECTATIONS I got the feeling coming in that I was in for a chick flick. I don't know why I do this to myself. Sometimes I just let people recommend films to me and just add them to the rental list without even thinking about it. The director though is Lasse Hallstrom. You may know him from the Cider House Rules or What's Eating Gilbert Grape? His quirky offbeat style transplants small town Swedish bizarreness into alternative settings. Obviously he was helped along on Cider House Rules by a killer piece of source material from John Irving. Gilbert Grape was decent and features Leonardo DiCaprio doing some honest to bejesus acting in it before he met Martin Scorsese. Chocolat is also the follow up American film for French actress Juliette Binoche. She was coming off the English Patient, which I can't stand personally, and had become a name star. She's not really followed up on Chocolat, which is unusual considering two quick successes Stateside and it's not like she quit acting. It's not even down to poor box office results or bad reviews because Chocolat had good fortune with both. Roger Ebert called it "whimsical" for crying out loud. And he meant it as a complement. Chocolat also sports a superb supporting cast including Johnny Depp, Alfred Molina, Peter Stormare, Lena Olin, Judi Dench and Carrie Ann Moss.
TRAILER This trailer is absolutely terrible by the way and if I'd seen this wouldn't be up for review. Although I'm sure some people enjoyed it or it wouldn't have been used.
PLOT Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) moves into a small town in France with her young daughter setting up a chocolate shop at the start of Lent. The major Paul de Reynaud (Alfred Molina) scoffs at the idea of people shopping there during a fast but it soon becomes popular with some of the locals forcing him to take the matter into the hands of God. Meanwhile Vianne spends some time getting to know the outcasts of the town; her aging diabetic landlady Armande (Judi Dench), the bullied, insane kleptomaniac Josephine (Lena Olin) and Roux (Johnny Depp) a river rat.
OPINION It's very obvious from the start of Chocolat that there are plenty of reasons why I'd not seen it. It's really not my type of film. It centres on the changing of the wind and various philosophical nonsense that appears in lieu of a plot. Thankfully there are a few saving graces. Judi Dench is terrific as the grouchy old lady refusing to go quietly into the night as her daughter (Carrie Ann Moss) would like. There's the quirky Lena Olin who's far more likeable as a hero than Binoche's Vianne as well as being more consistent with her attitude and having a journey to make with obstacles to overcome that goes beyond selling chocolate. Peter Stormare is also very good as her husband. Unfortunately his character becomes somewhat of a pantomime villain but luckily for him he's totally overshadowed by the unbelievably hammy performance of Alfred Molina. I really like Alfred Molina and although he's entertaining in this I can't believe that Hallstrom sat back and felt that was an acceptable level for him to be performing at. Perhaps he wanted that big performance. I certainly could have lived with it being a little less everything. The main struggle I had with Chocolat was an inability to connect with the plight of anyone involved. I guess I felt most attached to Lena Olin's character but she's a bit part in all of this. Binoche looks decidedly uninterested for the majority of the film. Even when she's making eyes at Johnny Depp. Speaking of Depp, his unusual sort of Irish accent was pretty unwelcome in this. In fact the accents in this film were all quite unusual. As if they were all aiming for French but with varying degrees of success. Depp didn't even bother, resorting to one of the accents he felt happier with, which doesn't explain why his name is Roux. So, Chocolat is one of those bizarre viewing experiences where you're acutely aware of the direction you're being forced into and how organised religion is bad and old people should be respected and all this shit that I actually believe in but don't like to be force fed. Chocolat is a brutally over simplified film made only worse by some terrible writing near the films climax. Characters start making decisions that have no basis in what we know about them. People want to leave despite vowing to stay. People suddenly have a change of heart for no apparent reason. People forgive horrific sins because it's nicer that way. Nice. Chocolat is nice. I hate nice.
BEST BIT "Let me put this in perspective for you. The first Comte de Reynaud expelled all the radical Huguenots in this village. You and your truffles present a far lesser challenge." Paul de Reynaud. Alfred Molina then tweaked the end of his bad guy moustache cackled deliciously and drowned a bag of cats. Well, not really but he should have done.
RATING - **1/4. Really hit and miss. It looks nice but the sentiment is fake, the new-age script is heavy handed and a lot of the characters are horribly one dimensional. It's almost a deliberate attempt to repeat something like another French small town film Manon des Sources. The difference being the characters in Manon are specifically going from A to B and even when they are evil and misguided they still have a story to tell. And it's still interesting. The characters in Chocolat are light and fluffy and good things happen to them because they don't believe in God. At least that's the message it seemed to be sending. Don't get me wrong; I'm an atheist myself but that doesn't mean I want someone else preaching at me about different values. I'd rather just skip the preaching altogether.
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
EXPECTATIONS I've not yet seen Flags of Our Fathers but I'm hoping that will arrive soon from the good people at Lovefilm.com. I considered picking up both in a DVD double set but I don't particularly like to buy anything sight unseen these days. I guess that's part of the joy of having an online rental service. Limited expenditure on such frivolities. Or rather it frees up my cash to be spent on other frivolities. Certainly this came close to being a purchase though thanks to a relatively low price for the double film pack and with a director like Clint Eastwood behind it you can't go wrong. He's got a great track record but hasn't done much in terms of war movies. His only directorial credit on a war movie came with 1986's Heartbreak Ridge, which although it has a tremendous script with fantastic one liners isn't a great war movie. But then it's been 20 years since he made that and Eastwood has come on leaps and bounds as a director during the 1990's culminating in 2004's Million Dollar Baby probably his most complete film to date. His ambition is impressive coming into Letters and Flags aiming to make two films about the same battle from opposing sides. It's nice he's attempted something so even handed. There aren't many American directors who'd even want to shoot a movie in another language let alone involving troops fighting against American soldiers. It's brave as much as it is ambitious.
TRAILER
PLOT With the American war machine fixing on using the island of Iwo Jima as a base to attack the Japanese mainland during World War II the film looks at the Japanese soldiers defending the island beyond all expectations. Lead by General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), a gentleman and former student of American soldiery techniques. Among the ranks are Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) who just wants to get home to see his unborn child and after his best friend dies of dysentery becomes increasingly unhappy with the war. Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara) is a celebrity as he won a medal at the Olympics in America. He, like Kuribayashi, has a different view of the Americans. Shimizu (Ryo Kase) is a former military policeman who the other soldiers believe is a spy. Finally Lieutenant Ito (Shido Nakamura from Jet Li's Fearless) dislikes Kuribayashi's leadership and provokes divisions within the ranks.
OPINION Well I think we can safely add war movie' to the list of things Clint Eastwood can do as a director. Letters has a remarkable mixture of characters, action and sentiment. The only real complaint is it's nowhere near long enough. The 2 hours and 20 minute run time just isn't enough to cover the events of the 36 days and the film glosses over much of the fighting in favour of trying to tell the entire story as quickly as possible. The structure probably doesn't help as it goes from one letter written by Saigo to a letter penned by Kuribayashi and back again. It doesn't really allow for the passage of time. They go days without food but that appears onscreen as 15 minutes. They run down their entire supply of ammunition but that takes maybe 40 minutes. It doesn't feel like long enough. Especially after watching films like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down that handled many of their issues in real time as to create an increased sense of tension. Letters stretches itself a little too thin, which is sad because a lot of the characters deserved better than they got. Ito's screen time is painfully short. He's a great character played as the heel in the situation by Shido Nakamura who clearly has a big future ahead of him. Obviously Ken Watanabe is superb. He has screen presence that I don't think is paralleled by any Japanese actor since Toshiro Mifune. As he struts around criticising his officers for living in the past it's reminiscent of Mifune in Hidden Fortress or Red Beard. Full of confidence in his abilities as an actor. Owning the screen. Being absolutely focal to whatever the camera is doing when he appears. Watanabe is supremely confident in Letters and knows he's become a movie star since making the Last Samurai. Letters cements that. He could easily become a crossover star. His final step to doing so could be the Shinjuku (been there!) Incident with Jackie Chan. That should give him recognition with a nice array of film fans. For me Tsuyoshi Ihara was also really good. His confident and charismatic horse riding womaniser was routinely the best of the supporting characters. Perhaps even superior to Nakamura as it was less showy and yet had moments of real depth. The backdrop of Letters was interesting as well with Ihara reading out a letter to a dead US soldier. It was interesting to see the reactions of the Japanese soldiers. They'd been taught Americans were totally different from them but the letter was similar to that of their own mothers. While that is a touch sentimental it comes at the right point in the film. But Letters isn't all about doing the right thing and both sides learning an important lesson. The American soldiers shoot two prisoners in one scene that really rubbed me up the wrong way. It just felt so wrong and out of place. Totally contrary to the spirit of the film. Perhaps Clint was saying that Americans didn't learn from the conflict like the Japanese did and that's why the Japanese economy went through such a boom period afterwards. Who'd have thought such a thoughtful tribute to the Japanese troops would come from such an all-American figure as Clint Eastwood? Looks like he continues to mellow in his old age. Not in terms of action though, that's still here in buckets complete with gore to make Sylvester Stallone think it's excessive.
Sidenote The Japanese clearly enjoyed the tribute. The film took $41M in Japan alone a sizeable chunk of the movies profits.
BEST BIT Kuribayashi stops the beheading of Saigo before being told that Mount Suribachi has fallen. He rushes to the nearest view point of the mountain and there on top is Old Glory. It's not clear but its clear enough. It's the first step in Japan's eventual defeat.
RATING - ****1/4. I think with another 20 minutes this could have been an outright classic. It had potential to that end. As it stands it's still an exceptional film and another fine entry in Clint Eastwood's increasing library of excellence. It's moving without being overly forceful and sentimental without using that sentiment to sway the viewer into opinionated anger. It's a subtle and slightly withdrawn tribute to the Japanese soldiers at Iwo Jima. It shows the humanity behind war and the horror that results from a lack of support from a government destined to lose not just one battle but a lot more besides. I really want to see Flags of Our Fathers now to see how that holds up by comparison.
Baise-Moi (2000)
EXPECTATIONS I heard it described as "Thelma & Louise with hardcore porn". Sold!
TRAILER Of sorts, the scene that leads into the rape.
PLOT Manu (Raffaela Anderson) goes somewhat insane after being raped, shoots her brother and goes on the run with local hooker Nadine (Karen Bach). They cut a swathe of carnage across France murdering and screwing their way from one town to the next.
OPINION Oh man, where to start. It's terrible. The only thing it has going for it is that it ticks almost every man-film box imaginable. There's excessive nudity, actual full on hardcore porn and gratuitous violence. All it needs is a car chase and we're away. Unfortunately it suffers from this weak point; no script. Oh, and no actors either. The driving force behind the film is the sadistic duo's campaign for revenge. Presumably against Manu's rapists. But they flee the city immediately and never even consider looking for them. So the entire driving force of revenge is out of the window. Then they start killing people. Why? So they can get cash to go on an insane bender around France. Um. Revenge? What happened to revenge? They kill people for reasons unknown and continue to do so. Not even punishing the guilty or even the weak just shooting people at random for their own amusement. Intellectually it's about a dozen steps down from Natural Born Killers. At least that looked great and was shot with the intention of keeping the audience entertained. Baise-Moi looks like it was edited by a 10 year old child with ADD. There are too many cuts. It's like watching a 77 minute long music video. With no music. The acting is abysmal. I know the two lead actors are porn stars but that doesn't excuse everyone else in the film. I've seen better acting in porno films. Good ones. Like Flashpoint or Shock. Yeah, I'm referencing porno films. Baise-Moi is effectively a porn film. I have no idea how it managed to get released. It has almost zero artistic value and merit. It's cold, callous, clumsy and fails in its goal of getting all up in your grill. Example of the lovely scenes in store for anyone renting this; Manu and Nadine pick up a guy in an arcade. He's goofy and bald and you almost feel sorry for him because you know what's coming. He fails to get an erection so Manu vomits in his groin and they kick him to death. Just when you think the film can't get any worse Manu's death happens off camera and Nadine gets arrested. Where's the Butch and Sundance ending this film was blatantly crying out for? Or even the Thelma and Louise ending they blatantly would have done if Thelma and Louise hadn't done it already. There's no redeeming Baise-Moi because none of the characters go on a journey. Nobody learns anything. At least in Thelma and Louise, which itself is over rated, they learned about the importance of friendship. In Baise-Moi the sub total of learning is that they need snappier dialogue if they're going to be killing people all the time. No snappy dialogue follows. I don't dislike Baise-Moi because it empowers women (although their first kill is an innocent woman) nor because of the heavy and exploitative use of sex or violence. No, I dislike Baise-Moi because its shit. It's just a really badly made film. Nothing more, nothing less.
BEST BIT Karen Bach's opening scene where she's trying to watch the TV while her John is giving it to her. It showed how she'd lost interest in her way of life. If only the rest of the film had that kind of subtlety to it.
RATING ½*. Why is it that every film that attempts to push the boundaries of what is sexually acceptable in film just fails dismally at telling a story at the same time? I'll give it half a snowflake for having the guts to shoot some of the scenes they did but it fails to get anything more because they didn't bother shooting a decent story around it. In fact I'd be happy with the story they have as long as it made more sense. It's totally unreasonable to believe they'd be able to go on the run for as long as they do. Especially after holding up the gun store. It's also unreasonable to make us believe there's two people this mentally messy as to consider this rampage. I can believe the sex and drugs and rock n' roll but most of the killing serves no purpose. It's just cruel for the sake of it. The hotel scene with the bald man is so far from Mallory Knox stomping hicks to L7's Shit List as possible despite it being effectively the same. The protagonists are in the wrong here. And that's what makes for uncomfortable viewing.
NEXT
Two classic films; Brief Encounter and Grand Hotel match up against two more modern films Jet Li's Once Upon a Time in China and Jean Pierre Jeunet's City of Lost Children.
