slaytonbourdon Reviews

Breathing (2011)

Gorgeous film with brilliant debut performance by Thomas Schubert

[7/10 · 29 May 2012]

The actor Karl Markovics has made a beautifully low-key directorial debut with this rumination on freedom, mortality and coming-of-age and the parallels between these things. He has a gift for imbuing a 'slice of life' story with a narrative engine that supplies tension and interest despite "not much happening" on screen, and his visual style is very well developed for a debut.

His greatest gift is directing actors - the ensemble here is magnificent. But he shouldn't take all the credit for the performing here - Thomas Schubert in the lead gives one of the best debut performances I've ever seen, completely lucid, emotionally immediate and "there", creating a tangible character that, over the course of the film, we get to know as closely as a good friend. He's a total natural, but that's not to say that he lends his characterisation a calculation and rigorous emotionality on par with the best professionals. Here's hoping for a long career ahead of him.

Viajo Porque Preciso, Volto Porque te Amo (2009)

Intriguing concept let down by staid execution

[4/10 · 11 April 2012]

This unique Brazilian film tells a story in the first-person, through still photos, POV shots, flashbacks, cutaways that follow a subjective train of thought and an omnipresent voice-over. The plot details a geologist studying a remote region of Northern Brazil after a traumatic breakup with is girlfriend. At first we (and he) focus on the procedural element of his job but the desolate landscape begins to stir something inside of him and ultimately the structure of the film takes on a subjective fantasy-memory-reality dynamic.

The film is put together like a collage of memories and observations, and Irandhir Santos provides a tremendously evocative voice-over that exudes heartbreak and pain even if you don't speak Portuguese. But the 'road movie through the soul' structure never really finds anything to counterbalance its inherent repetitiveness and by 2/3 through this quite short film it becomes pretty exasperating to watch - plus the ending seems like a copout, a 'live-life-to-the-fullest' message that is far too pat for a story so deeply concerned with heartache.

Édes Anna (1958)

Stark Sociopolitical Mood Piece, Brilliant Acting

[7/10 · 18 January 2012]

After seeing Fábri's excellent "Körhinta" (1956) the other day I felt compelled to review this film which I saw several years ago. I remember it being a spare but effective exploration of class dynamics, framing and lighting illuminating Fábri's subtle political insights. Perhaps a more persuasive argument for neophytes to seek out an old, obscure Hungarian film is to give exposure to the brilliant performance by Törőcsik Mari, as compelling a victim-aggressor as Catherine Deneuve would be some time later in Polański's "Repulsion", if not more so. She has a face and voice born for the pictures - both soft, innocent, a little naïve, but capable of expressing massive shifts in emotion or psychology with slight fluctuations.

Bonuses - Mezei Mária's striking bitchiness as the titular Anna's high-class mistress and a truly inspired nightmare sequence (how did they do that?!).

Older Brother, Younger Sister (1953)

Excellent

[8/10 · 9 January 2012]

This is a very impressive Naruse effort, its reputation somehow lost in the mix between the better-known Repast and Sound of the Mountain. As did Flowing this one completely immerses you in its subjects' lives, capturing you with the gentle but increasingly subtly erratic and ominous rhythms of drama and editing. By the end we've reached a devastating climax fulfilled by a denouement of similarly grim yet beautiful ambiguity. My favourite moment may be the broken countershot near the end, which sets up to imply a flashback only to create a forward ellipse. It caps the film wonderfully.

Machiko Kyo is superb, but Reisaburo Yamamoto and Masayuki Mori overplay without the necessary depth to offset their excess. Yoshiko Kuga has always struck me as an actress who simply reads her lines, and she's bland here as usual but it works for the character. None of this hurts the film, though.

Endless Desire (1958)

Nifty

[7/10 · 14 August 2011]

Crackerjack black comedy showcasing early development of Imamura's style. A group of would-be criminals team up with an ambitious woman to tunnel under a business and rob it. Their descent into the (literal) underworld is played out with a noirish style that pokes fun at the genre while using it in incredibly effective ways, and the editing rhythms that develop are uncommon for the late 50s and have more in common with early-60s Suzuki. Misako Watanabe (who isn't on the IMDb cast list) is the standout in a really dynamic performance as the vicious femme fatale. Still, this is minor Imamura, will be of great interest to his fans but is still very effective as a comedy-thriller and will appeal to casual viewers also.