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Reviews
Anatomie de l'enfer (2004)
tedious ideological constructions versus misogyny- duel to the death!
first i have to say that i have never been taken in by this talk of innate or inherent characteristics of men and women etc. i find that way of thinking to be a trap for fools. this film was very heavy on these sort of ideological constructions. almost from the first few scenes where she tells the guy in the gay club that he went downstairs just to get sucked because that's what men do etc... like all men. from there it gets worse... once the female character gets the guy to watch her she starts laying on these very thick knee jerk pseudo psychological feminist interpretations of why men feel they have to oppress vaginae etc. enough so that it was difficult to tell if it was a critique of men or just misogynist gay men. was that the point? are all men misogynist homosexuals in essence?
of course the worst element was that both characters where overwhelmed by what i call bourgeois angst. meaning that these characters sensibilities where dictated by the fact that they were well to do and had such leisure time to engage in frivolous idiotic behavior.....like ideologically constructing pseudo psychological feminist interpretations about why misogynistic gay dudes want to oppress vaginae. the fun part of the film was thinking the bourgeois gay dude totally deserved it.... like 'aha jerk'!! therein though lies the trap of this film.... i felt that the misogynistic gay dude was only that way because the film constructed it so...like a self fulfilling prophecy, which was a key element of the film.
so yes this film was aptly titled but maybe not in the way the filmmaker intended. though if this was exactly what the filmmaker was going for (i doubt it)... i would have to give some credit here maybe for a good trick to play on the audience that the filmmaker must loathe. a similar phenomena can be seen in P. Voerhovens 'the Fourth Man'..... equally nasty!!
La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques? (1973)
watch out for bad translations
"Please forgive her for being a Marxist, she just doesn't know better." was not the line in the film. the overdubbed story was that the little boy rejected the little girl for retaining her illusions about Castro. the guy then goes to the (now crying) little girl and tells her she shouldn't keep her illusions about Castro.
see it with a good translation....if you liked Woody Allens' 'What's Up Tiger Lilly', Dialectics is much funnier. though the jokes mostly are in line with leftists disillusionment with state socialism, if one isn't familiar with that line of thinking the jokes will seem very obscure....there definitely should be more 'detourned' films of this manner.
Party 7 (2000)
mystery
wow...i was looking for a Japanese film that was the perfect cross between 'Mystery Men' and 'Mystery Train'. the cinematography is exceptional, very isolated and claustrophobic.....you really get no sense of an outside world until near the end. Mystery Train' had to be a huge influence on this movie. the animation was maybe the only distraction for me...the ending, not to give it away, was perfect.
Cremaster 3 (2002)
pet peeves etc.
i would suggest to anyone that is fond of dismissing things as "pretentious" that it would perhaps be helpful to look that word up. (b. expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature). no where in the film did i get a sense stated or implied that the film was even important at all or of any significance. there was alot of obscure humor in cremaster 3 and if someone didn't get the jokes etc. then they should just say so. there's nothing wrong with not understanding some things...there's alot of things i don't understand. stuff flies right past me all the time. like that Harry Potter stuff....i just don't get it. it is beyond my capacity. does that make it pretentious?..... no. does that mean it's intending to be better than me...no. if you want something pretentious go read the bible.....really the "word" of the creator of the universe...how pretentious is that?
Also dismissing things as 'arty' is another pet peeve. 'art' is just anything that communicates something in a subjectively aesthetic manner. so all films are 'arty'.
it's just like because doesn't know what the word "pretentious" means doesn't make the dictionary pretentious.
as far as cremaster 3 goes...the first hour and a half dragged a bit. but over all it was a very funny film. the giant...the gnome/elf thing...that crazy little girl song......Murphy's Law vs Agnostic Front....Masonic references? i was rolling on the floor. the Masons are a very secret organisation....the masonic references in cremaster were secret. the film was practically a documentary....
De vierde man (1983)
worst film ever............
Even if this film was allegedly a joke in response to critics it's still an awful film. If one is going to commit to that sort of thing at least make it a good joke.....first off, Jeroen Krabbé is i guess the poor man's Gerard Depardieu.....naturally i hate Gerard Depardieu even though he was very funny in the 'Iron Mask' three musketeer one. Otherwise to me he is box office poison and Jeroen Krabbé is worse than that. The poor man's box office poison....really that is not being fair to the economically disenfranchised. If the '4th Man' is supposed to be some sort of critique of the Bourgeoisie....what am i saying? it isn't. Let's just say hypothetically, if it was supposed to be, it wasn't sharp enough. Satire is a tricky thing....if it isn't sharp enough the viewer becomes the butt of the joke instead......i think that is what happened. The story just ends up as a bunch of miserable disgusting characters doing nothing that anyone would care about and not in an interesting way either.....(for a more interesting and worthwhile application see any Luis Bunuel film....very sharp satire)
[potential spoiler alert]
Really, the blow job in the cemetery that Jeroen Krabbé's character works so so hard to attain.... do you even care? is it funny? since Mr. Voerhoven is supposed to be a good film maker i will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it was some misanthropic joke that got out of control.....though i'm guessing he didn't cast Jeroen Krabbé because he's the worst actor and every character he's played has been a pretentious bourgeois ass.... except he's incompetent at it. So it becomes like a weird caricature. Do you think Mr. Voerhoven did that on purpose? and Jeroen Krabbé is the butt of the joke as well? I just don't see it...... So you understand the dilemma i'm faced with here right? It is the worst film ever because he's supposed to be a good director. So there is some kind of dupery involved. I knew 'Patch Adams' was horrible without even seeing it. Do not be duped by 'The 4th Man"s deceptively alluring packaging or mr. Voerhoven's reputation as a good director etc. etc.
Zouhou qiang (2002)
Near genius disregard of conventional narrative
I saw this film and was somewhat blown away. For comparisons sake, I would place it somewhere between Wong Kar Wai's 'Fallen Angels', Takeshi Miike and 60's/70's french new wave (Godard, Bresson etc).. If you are looking for conventional narrative with a simple 'message' where all the conclusions are made for you then look elsewhere. The plot is a series of events or episodes loosely strung together around a gun. The gun even provides a little first person narrative Wong Kar Wai style. In fact it appears this film owes quite a bit to 'Fallen Angels'. The cinematography and music go together really well...the music is excellent. has a very kinetic Hong Kong street feel. The confusing thing perhaps for some is that the film itself offers no judgement on the questionable acts or lifestyle of the characters. The film also owes a little to Takeshi Miike in it's matter of fact, lack of predictable remorse in the characters, type depiction of violent acts etc. so for Wong Kar Wai and Takeshi Miike fans this is a must see.....
Solyaris (1972)
art as dialogue
to simply evaluate art or film as a base articulation of ideas that may or may not be successful is an ideological abstraction. for in that respect it is impossible to judge whether it is 'successful'....how can one know what anothers ideas are without them being articulated? one would have to be a mind reader to subvert the mediumistic dialogic nature of film or art. So how could one know? barring supernatural powers one can't. one has to invent an abstract perception of what the filmaker/artist ideas might be..... why judge things on perceptual abstractions when one is going to be mistaken on every account and fail to notice how it functions? Does 'Solaris' funtion as engaging dialogue? i thought it did...be very wary of anyone judging, authoritatively the effectiveness of communicated intent or any so called authority on what 'intellectual naivety' is or isn't.
in my opinion great films allow much room for the viewers own reactions and interpretations of meaning.why watch anything to have the conclusions drawn for you? that's what makes Solaris a great film. there is a puzzle presented that the film doesn't solve.