Kissing on the Mouth (2005)

Kissing on the Mouth is a most appropriate title for a movie in which all four—four—of its characters are whiny children playacting as adults. The most profound words out of their mouths are, “Just, like...,” “Seriously!” and the popular, “What?” They have no insights into themselves, don’t understand what it’s like to be an adult let alone alive in 2003 (the movie’s release year), and they look around like zombies at each other, smirking because they don’t understand what their friends are saying and they are uncomfortable. I hate to say this because it is not a worthless picture, but it was a depressing experience to sit through this movie.

Ellen is recently out of college, still dependent on her parents for a job on the weekends, and spends her free time having sex with her ex-boyfriend, Chris. Ellen’s roommate, Patrick, is working on an audio project, recording interviews with people as they tell of their breakup stories, their dreams from when they were young, their parents, and every other illusion that is shattered once you become an adult. Patrick and Ellen do not have a sexual relationship, but I think Patrick has a crush on her. In one scene I think he imagines making out with her in the shower. I say I think because I wasn’t sure if the woman was Ellen or her best friend, Laura. Looking on IMDb, the actress playing Laura seems to be related to writer / director / actor (producer / editor/ photographer, etc) Joe Swanberg, who plays Patrick, so they’re probably brother and sister so he wasn’t making out with her. It’s sad when a movie is sloppy you can’t tell the characters apart. When Patrick learns that his roommate is still seeing her ex, he gets passive-aggressive.

The movie is filled with improvised dialogue and conversations; the characters stutter, spout out one word phrases and stop to think, hum and ho while trying to think of what’s next. Swanberg is one of the more prolific Mumblecore directors and this is a trademark of the movement, but a talent like Aaron Katz knows the right tempo for his characters’ mumblings, and knows enough to create powerful visuals without, for example, showing an untold number of close-ups of hands or bare feet. At first, the shots of the characters’ feet go along with the title and the images it congers, ideas of childhood wonder and naiveté, but after the tenth such image I began to realize that if Swanberg couldn’t rely on these images he just might have to find the truth and honesty in his scenarios. Such as it is, he dodges every honest moment for convention, with dialogue that is not funny, profound, or insightful. The best piece of dialogue made me laugh out loud, though: Ellen and Chris have just had sex, he wants to talk. He thinks he’s going nowhere. Ellen says, “No one is. Have you heard Patrick’s project?” It’s a funny line, one that was probably written down in some sort of script. The underlying story, a woman in need of sex with a familiar partner though unwilling to emotionally commit, is interesting, but inexperienced filmmakers need to know that looking at a character’s face, or hands or feet, or random out of focus shots, does not a profundity make.

In general the film looks amateurish. We can’t really fault the filmmakers, though. Mumblecore is an underground movement, one that offers true originality among an increasingly homogenized American independent market, but this is poorly lit digital filmmaking, the sort made with an untrained eye. Swanberg does not know how to mount the camera to a tripod. This is probably intentional, but a shaky camera is a superficial way to add drama or tension in a scene. That should have occurred in the writing stage.

One plus for the film is its explicitness, and beyond that the bodies the movie uncovers. Swanberg, actress Kate Winterich (Ellen) and actor Kevin Pittman are all naked in Kissing on the Mouth. None of them are conventional beauties, though Winterich has moments of elegance. There’s an awkwardly framed shot on Pittman putting on a condom, and Chris and Ellen’s lovemaking scenes are as honest a sexual coupling I’ve ever seen on the screen: folds in their skin, blemishes, realistic sexual positions, the quite. It made me recall the sounds of lovemaking as I’ve experienced them, and it’s always soft breathing and something like pressure or tension filling the background. Patrick masturbates in the shower, and Swanberg, in what must be a ballsy move for a director, actually shows himself ejaculating. He shows off his round, pale belly, and this explicitness was exciting and refreshing.

But this is not a very good movie. At only 78 minutes it was an endurance test. Nothing much happened, and I generally love when movies don’t tell a story. At least we’re compensated with atmosphere and character. Kissing on the Mouth is the work of a young filmmaker who may or may not have something interesting to say. Joe Swanberg should try to think about what it’s like living as a 20-something, trying to make it for yourself, and hoping to enjoy as much of it as you can. He probably has great insights just as a human being, but he can’t render them onscreen quite yet. Years have passed since this one, so maybe he has.

Kissing on the Mouth (2005)

Director: Joe Swanberg

Writers: Joe Swanberg and cast

Stars: Kate Winterich, Joe Swanberg, and Kevin Pittman

USA

In English

Runtime: 78 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446725/

Times of Harvey Milk, The (1984)

I had never heard of Harvey Milk before seeing the documentary made by Robert Epstein. Milk took up a cause similar to other socio-political leaders who dared to challenge so-called moral convention by introducing to a wide audience a different way of life. People like Martin Luther King. Both Milk and King have had effects on the course of American history and indeed have inspired millions of people around the world. Why then did I not hear of the name Harvey Milk until I was 22?

Milk was America’s first openly gay elected official. San Francisco mayor George Moscone had divided up the city into districts allowing for neighbors at large to vote for more personal representatives, people the people could feel would do more for them. Milk was elected as City Councilman for District 5, the Castro area where an ever growing gay population was finally winning recognition and civil rights. But with the election of a gay man to public office taking the issue of homosexuality out of hushed whispers and screaming it loud inside newspapers, conservatives began proposing legislation to deny and in some cases strip Americans of their rights. While there was reason to celebrate Milk’s victory and the victory of gay people across the nation, communities in America were passing laws against gay people. The Briggs Initiative was proposed as Prop 6, a law that would fire all gay teachers from public schools in California. The reasoning behind this was that gays who want to live openly could more easily prey upon children.

The Times of Harvey Milk, created out of masterfully used archival footage and straight-forward, honest talking heads, shows a segment of a debate between Milk and Senator Briggs, cultivator of the initiative. Milk correctly points out that most pedophiles are straight males, and Briggs, apparently unfamiliar with this info gathered by several sources including the FBI, offers his reasoning for removing gays, in his estimation 5% of the population: if gay teachers were fired, than there is a 5% less chance that children would be sexually assaulted. This reasoning gets a laugh out of Harvey. Why not go ahead and remove the 95% of heterosexual teachers to totally protect the children? The thinking is ludicrous, and Prop 6 lost by a wide margin.

I think the documentary genre is suffering now more than ever. Most would disagree, and statistics would show me up: documentaries show in major art-house theaters, and in rare but evident cases they play in multiplexes across the nation. They make money, and the genre is quite popular with young film buffs... to an extent. I think it’s still a specialized genre or form of filmmaking, but when I say that documentaries are suffering I’m talking about the art of the medium. This is why The Times of Harvey Milk works so well. Most modern documentaries feel, look and sound like reality shows. They have a central character, often the filmmaker, taking up a task and accomplishing it with a camera in tow. They usually provide narration explaining what’s happening on screen. Often the interview segments are cut together so that the subjects form complete but superficial thoughts through the splicing together of many sound bites, and wall-to-wall music is laid in to I guess keep the audience awake, and this music is poorly chosen and repetitive.

The Times of Harvey Milk is relatively quiet, eloquently photographed, and it features subjects with insights and personalities, and the filmmaker brings them out fully formed characters. And director / editor Epstein lets these people speak. Some of them break down when talking of Harvey’s death and San Francisco’s reaction. Epstein isn’t a cheat; he doesn’t go for extreme close-ups of their eyes or their hands fiddling with a handkerchief, or even worse out of focus shots of completely uninvolving objects around the room. He lets us watch their faces, see the rage and pain of Harvey’s death, the joys that accompanied his many accomplishments, and their fondness for the man. And again they all speak so brilliantly. A labor union leader who admits to before having known Harvey having somewhat anti-gay tendencies goes through a complete story arc. He reveals that because of his association with Harvey through their like-minded political views he is in favor of gay rights.

I hate to be personal beyond my opinion, but with documentaries like The Times of Harvey Milk it seems impossible to disassociate myself from the story I have seen. I came out around the time I first saw the documentary in a college class... maybe a year earlier. It’s been so long I can’t remember now. When I was watching the film I couldn’t believe that this man, Harvey Milk, who accomplished a lot in a short career, has, since his death, been ignored by the mainstream media. He is certainly not forgotten; not in San Francisco where he was assassinated by a colleague: a statue has been erected of him. And indeed Milk’s name is not buried under the rubble of history. The problem is people have to search for him, unlike other leaders or influential persons who’ve charged their constituencies and extended themselves beyond them—history and the American population have exalted these men as exemplary, have named days after them, and their life’s work is taught in history books. But not Harvey Milk’s. Why?

The documentary is asking this question but in a larger context: if Milk were straight, would his murderer have served only 5 ½ years in prison? Would or should he have not instead been serving life?

Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were killed by Dan White, elected to office at the same time as Milk, and he is made the antagonist of the film. White is an interesting character: an idealist whose spirit is crushed by an ever-changing and degrading society, at least this was the defense’s position. White sunk into the City Hall with a loaded gun and extra bullets after resigning his position and then later wanting to recant his resignation. It is against the law for White to regain his job, and when Moscone supposedly told White he would not be reinstated White shot him, and then shot him again. He did the same to Harvey Milk: shot him to the ground, shot him three more times in the head, and then delivering one final execution shot at point blank range. It is clear who the murderer was, but the jury, supposedly a jury of straight white conservatives, a true group of Dan White’s peers, found him guilty of manslaughter, a crime that sentenced him to 8 years in prison. He was paroled after 5 ½.

The aftermath of Harvey’s death is quite spectacular: thousands took to the streets for a candlelight vigil beginning on Castro Street, where Harvey Milk lived, and it spread several blocks to City Hall. The aftermath of the jury verdict was quite different. A mob stormed City Hall, fought with police and set cars. One image I found striking was a protestor holding a sign, “Avenge Harvey Milk”. I was angry that Milk’s death meant nothing to those jurors and the millions they represent then and now in the United States, but despite it all I was depressed that this was the reaction. This violence was not what Harvey Milk campaigned for. A close friend of his says this in the documentary. And it depressed me because ultimately, at least in the short term, Harvey Milk had lost. His death inspired violence, and I was further discouraged to learn that Dan White committed suicide in 1985, a year after the documentary was released. When I first saw this film in class, many of the students felt that justice was finally served. Not I; the final chapter in this story was simply another death. What a waste.

I began this essay by referring to Harvey Milk in a more formal way by calling him “Milk”. When revising it, I noticed that half-way through I began calling him Harvey. I promise that this was unintentional. The film, I think, breaks down barriers between you or me and its subject. We get to know who Harvey Milk was, his kindnesses and tenacity, both terrific qualities in friends and public officials. We grow to love this guy through archival footage, and more importantly by how he had shaped the lives of everyone the filmmakers chose to speak with.

Why then is Harvey Milk still a relatively unknown figure? Why don’t we have a national Harvey Milk Day? Are there no politicians, gay or straight, with the balls to support such an honor? Would committing political suicide not be worth honoring the life of one man who died for making the world better for others?

Times of Harvey Milk, The (1984)

Director: Rob Epstein

Writers: Judith Coburn, Rob Epstein & Carter Wilson

Stars: Harvey Fierstein (Narrator)

USA

In English

Runtime: 90 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088275/

Inspector Bellamy (2009, Bellamy)

There’s a lot going on in Inspector Bellamy. What could have been a simple mystery instead layers multiple story threads, each working separately the way real life does, and in unison, creating a psychological portrait not just of its lead character but of the world he inhabits.

Inspector Bellamy is curious; about the machinations of life, the reasons why. He is on vacation with his beautiful, youthful wife Françoise, but cannot get away from what we assume is his passion: crime. A mysterious man shows up with a confession—he has killed someone. We know from the opening credits that a car has crashed off a cliff, killing—deforming—the driver. Television reports tell us the deceased man was not who everyone thought it would be. Instead of the insurance salesman who owned the car, the victim is an unknown, and the insurance salesman has attempted to defraud his company and is now in hiding. The man who visits Bellamy is in fact the missing man, at first under the thin alias of Noël Gentil but really Emile Leullet. Who is the dead man then, and why does Inspector Bellamy indulge Leullet in his late night confessions? Does he want to single-handedly solve a popular mystery for fame? For justice? His own curiosity? The answer comes after the climax which is less anti-climatic when viewing the film as a straight-forward mystery, but the reason for Bellamy’s indulgence allows us to understand his entire career as an inspector.

The story threads of Inspector Bellamy are slow in revealing themselves, but the film is more rewarding for it. In comes Bellamy’s brother, Jacques, handsome, young, a loser and a drunk. Bellamy and Jacques have a tense relationship, and Françoise is the mediator between them. But the more The Inspector discovers about the Leullet case the more he is convinced his life mirrors it, that his wife is having an affair.

I admit at first I was lost. That is to say so many small things were happening in short bursts that I did not know what the true story was. For example, characters are introduced who seemingly have no narrative purpose (they will not advance the mystery—this includes the brother character); there are too many convenient personal connections between unlikely characters, etc. It is lucky the film was directed by the seasoned professional Claude Chabrol and stars Gérard Depardieu. Depardieu especially leads an extraordinary cast through a series of twisting scenes with (at first) no purpose and succeeds in making them interesting, so even when I was lost I was not frustrated. Tensions are hinted at, maybe only suggested, by Chabrol, and little by little these present themselves as more menacing and complicated to the extreme.

Chabrol is known mostly as the French Master of Suspense, a moniker that does as much a disservice to him as it did to Hitchcock. Both filmmakers used a popular genre to convey personal interests and demons. Here Chabrol is concerned with being old and overweight, married to a beauty and feeling insecure. There is more, some of which I’m sure exist in my own reading of the film, but anything beyond a superficial telling of the plot is harmful. Things are more fun to discover on your own. But understand the thriller plot is merely the starting point for a personal film filled with character and insight and commentary. The final scene in court where Leullet’s lawyer defends him with a song is a kind of mocking sting at the absurdity of the judicial system which often feels as if it’s working for those who know how to circumvent it rather than for justice.

The film gives me renewed interest in Chabrol’s past films. I’ll admit to not being a fan. I’ve enjoyed his recent work and think Inspector Bellamy is his best effort since 2000, but his past masterpieces, laid during the infancy of the French New Wave, have always bored me. He seemed to me a pale imitator of Hitchcock’s, someone whose work felt more like cheap but brisk 70s American television. I noticed with Inspector Bellamy how this film, more than his other recent works, mirrors his earlier output, particularly Les biches. The machinations of the plot seem to service the dysfunction underneath, and with this renewed interest I may pick up again on Chabrol’s early career.

There isn’t much more for me to say. The film is entertaining and surprisingly subtle. I don’t want to talk about how the various subplots merge into the ultimate story being told, and beyond that the film can stand on its own. Being Chabrol’s final film and first collaboration with Depardieu, this is a film that doesn’t need my recommendation to endorse it.

Inspector Bellamy (2009)

(a.k.a. Bellamy)

Director: Claude Chabrol

Writers: Claude Chabrol and Odile Barski

Stars: Gerard Depardieu, Clovis Cornillac and Jacques Gamblin

France

In French

Runtime: 110 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188983/

Revanche (2008)

Revanche is a film about biding time. The English translation is “revenge”, a rather abrasive title, but here is a film with a bank robbery, a murder and spying, where no one takes revenge. It is a story of intelligent people, not movie characters, and certainly not characters we’ve seen in typical genre pieces.

The inciting incident, that moment in storytelling that sets the plot in motion, takes place maybe 30 minutes into the film. This is the bank robbery and accidental death of the robber’s girlfriend. Before this, we’re introduced to five characters whose simple and jarring lives are fascinating as character studies, and who involve us immediately once the tragedy occurs. Alex is an ex-con working at a strip club. His Ukrainian girlfriend, Tamara, is a stripper and street hooker, and her boss has ambitions of using her to service high-class cliental in an exclusive apartment complex. This happens in Vienna, Austria, and outside in the country a quite police officer, Robert, and his loving wife mean no one any harm. Susanne and Robert suffered a miscarriage, and she frequently visits the house of Hausner, an elderly man looking after his farm. The film is guided by chance, and it is that Hausner is Alex’s grandfather. In an ordinary movie this would be contrived, but in Revanche, where time passes slowly and is filled with detail and the beauty of detail, this character that joins together two families that would otherwise never meet, is part of the meditation on the passing of time.

To save his love from a hellish life, Alex decides he will rob a bank. Tamara insists on staying in the car, even though she cannot drive and will have no part in the robbery. Also, Alex’s gun isn’t loaded. That’s important because Alex isn’t a bad guy. He was in prison for stealing, a crime no doubt but one that violates property and not human life. It is another robbery that leads to Tamara’s death: Alex’s easy getaway is interrupted by Robert, who is held at gunpoint until the cat gets away, and takes two shots at the tires. Tamara is accidentally killed.

The film is well made. That is an understatement. Director Götz Spielmann understands that his daring narrative depends on fleshing out the lives, the personalities, and the habits of his characters. When Alex takes refuge at his Grandfather’s farm, unaware that his too friendly neighbor is married to the man who killed his girlfriend, he chops wood for the old man. We all know either through experience or stories how wood is chopped. But through the course of Alex’s time in the country, hiding out and later planning on killing the cop once he discovers the connection, we examine through the action of the story how firewood is cut. First logs of wood are wheel-barrowed into the large farm with the giant saw. The saw is electrically powered; the logs are placed on a large cot connected to the side of the saw, and all Alex has to do is guide the cot up, and the saw slices the log. Two or three cuts get an entire log.

Then comes the manual labor. Alex chops the small logs into fours, into the firewood that will heat his Grandfather’s house in the winter.

Of course in a movie wood chopping isn’t in itself interesting. The act serves many functions: through Alex’s determination and exertion we know that he’s constantly thinking about Tamara. He watches every time Susanne comes to the farm looking for Grandfather Hausner. When Susanne happens upon Alex, their cold talk suggests a lot about their personalities. That director Spielmann uses the action of wood chopping not exactly as “business” but to express emotion, impotence, and as a visual representation of Alex’s methodical waiting is the mark of a fastidious filmmaker and an acute human observer.

Of course the characters surprise us in ways that are so rewarding. I don’t want to go into detail because the little revelations and nuances build to a rewarding experience and, as a viewer, not knowing how movie characters will react to their circumstances, being unable to predict things even after seeing hundreds of by-the-numbers thrillers, is very rare and so special. I’ll instead focus on the actors. There are great, natural performances from all five leads. Johannes Krisch as Alex and Ursula Strauss as Susanne are especially fascinating, or at least their characters’ relationship was very moving, unexpected, and kind of shitty, but in an understandable way. Krisch isn’t Brad Pitt or George Clooney, possible leads for an American version of this story; Krisch is handsome but ordinary. He has love handles and is losing his hair, and Strauss is attractive but not a debutant. These are real people who could pass unnoticed on the streets. As movie stars there’s nothing remarkable about them, but that is why they’re so effective. Johannes Thanheiser as the Grandfather is also brilliant, stubborn and old and unwilling to leave his farm for his own health. He plays his accordion, serenades a shrine to his dead wife, and goes to church every Sunday. This character is so moving in his tradition, and the film uses him as an anchor for its ideas and atmosphere. He waits, he observes, and so does the film.

The cop character, Robert, is also fascinating. He faces what might be considered a Kieslowskian dilemma: by chance, his being there after the robbery, aiming for a tire and shooting a woman, his remorse and psychological breakdown as a result of his actions, speak volumes about the mentality, fears, and humility of police officers. How do they feel when they shoot someone? Even if it’s a criminal, as human beings it must be ugly to kill a person. Most movie killers don’t care. Guns are fired and it’s as normal as stepping on chewing gum. I don’t want to constantly compare Revanche to other, lesser movies because it’s great on its own, but intelligent movies are so hard to come by these days.

The opening shot, indicative of disturbance—calm water shattered by something being thrown in—is mysterious and almost forgettable as a standard elliptical opening scene until it is answered late in the picture. What is thrown in is a gun, and the reason why is beautiful, so expressive of human understanding, relations, and forgiveness, and in a movie with no music, no shouting, no hysteria, it creates the perfect atmosphere for a film that leaves us with so much to think about.

Revanche (2008)

Director: Gotz Spielmann

Writer: Gotz Spielmann

Stars: Johannes Krisch, Ursula Strauss and Johannes Thanheiser

Austria

In German and Russian

Runtime: 121 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1173745/

23rd Psalm Branch: Parts I & II (1967 & 1978)

Experimental cinema is a niche not many of us venture into. Some more or less narrative films have been experimental in their handling of story sequence or the audacity of their imagery. We have numerous examples of this type of experimental film, but the genre as it has been parodied by and large finds its roots in filmmakers like Maya Deren and of course Stan Brakhage. His 23^rd Psalm Branch is, as cinema, anti-cinematic, and as experimental work, a perfect example. Perhaps my difficulty in trying to understand 23^rd Psalm Branch comes from my tradition with narrative films. I was looking for a story, and in fact was trying to create one in the images I saw, but this film works against convention, and this is refreshing and paradoxically makes the film difficult.

The film is in two parts, made at different times (1967 and 1978), and is completely silent. The director’s approach to his craft, wildly original and chemically and physically complicated, was partly created by distorting the actual film stock he used, in this case 8mm, by scratching, burning, or painting on it, creating visuals without photographic light. This is a style that, for many, will have its limits, and indeed I find it to be self-indulgent and defiantly confusing, but in the case of 23^rd Psalm Branch, Brakhage takes old war footage and fuses it with his technique. The first part is an artistic rendering of WWII, and psychological terrain that leads to the horrors of the Holocaust and the atomic bomb. In some cases it seemed I was looking in on the membrane of society; some shots look like microscopic footage of blood flowing through veins, some looked like the surface of the brain, and the ever flickering, ever changing kaleidoscopic vision was a perfect manifestation of a world using destruction to solve its problems. The second part tires in Brakhage’s mind to recreate Vienna, Austria, the birth country of Adolf Hitler, but I found this shorted part of the film more erratic and less representative of any motivation. It seemed to me, in both parts, Brakhage might have been comparing the horror and violence of war outside the United States to the relative tranquility that, up until September 2001, defined American civilian living. Both parts have moments of peace, of quiet, and seem to represent the American dream, but we are given allusions to the Nazis, their great architecture, the philosopher Nietzsche, who Hitler admired. The films, apparently part of a 31 piece project spanning several years, were made during and after the Vietnam War, and I think Brakhage is arguing for humility and common sense over the nature of war, and warning his audience, those who are manipulated and indifferent to it, that we support war by being silent.

The film’s title is taken from Psalm 23 of the King James Bible, and is quoted here:

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”

In this passage, quoted exactly but not in the poem-structure it is generally seen in, God is said to be our shepherd, leading us down a path of goodness and mercy where we will dwell in heaven along with our enemies, who will be seated beside us. Is the film a search by its director to find God or at least meaning in war? Or is it a warning against using religion as an excuse to execute war?

It is obvious Brakhage borrows the title from the Bible, but the film’s full title, 23^rd Psalm Branch, recalls in equal measure a typical war movie from Hollywood’s silver age. 23^rd Psalm Branch could have been a B-grade Ronald Regan picture or a Sam Fuller effort, and indeed the film shows us images of war; some startling, some familiar, including the familiar and often revisited visage of Adolf Hitler. But Brakhage crafts less a history of WWII but lays down visually the mentality of war on human beings. In quoting this Bible passage, is Brakhage forgiving his enemies, putting his faith in God that the life we lead is merely His will, or is he being less direct with his spiritual curiosity and asking why in war we go so far? Or is he saying nothing, offering us a jolt to our senses in an effort to get us asking these questions ourselves? I’m not familiar with Brakhage having only seen a handful of his work, but if I would to danger a guess, I’d say the latter. Truth be told, I found very little meaning in the film. It worked as an experiment but it did not engage me. But I think I am being too traditional and cannot fault the film for what it is.

In my self-conscious attempt to view the movie, one that went off relatively well (I was wide awake for the whole picture despite silent one hour running time), I was trying hard to link images together with ideas, trying always to stay ahead of the picture. I stayed with it, and often was impressed by the beauty of Brakhage’s colors and rhythms, but I am a very literal person. I find my patience for extremely non-narrative films to be low, but again this is my fault and not the film’s. I need to better acquaint myself with the director’s work, and thanks to Criterion’s 56-film primer, I can get but a taste of the director’s vast 350 picture career. I will say I am eager to see more, and have, but a vast project like 23^rd Psalm Branch is a more difficult challenge than a 2 minute piece on Chinese characters, the director’s last work, made in 2003. I guess in a way my problem with these kinds of films is that they require less effort from the viewer; we only need to sit back and look, let the images pass over our retinas, and then afterwards, when the lights come up, should we think about what we’ve seen. This is why I think the film is anti-cinematic. The images come so fast and contorted that they’re more like sensations, and their impressions, if felt at all, are realized when every single image has been received. But maybe in saying anti-cinematic I really mean defiantly non-linear, devoid of plot or character, basically going against everything I’ve ever thought a film could be.

In a sense Brakhage continually tried to redefine what cinema is. His enthusiasm is overwhelming but I can’t say he succeeded in making excellent movies. He made experiments, fascinating, original experiments, but average viewers will not care. I consider myself well cultured in film but I cannot rank any of Brakhage’s work among the great works of documentary and fiction film. That is not to say he wasn’t a great artist, or that my opinion will not change over time, but to be completely honest a great deal of his work feels like an endurance test. To pass the test doesn’t make you a greater cineophile, but someone who enjoys experimental films.

Two recommendations about Brakhage’s movies: most are silent, and I know most people when watching silent movies often add their own soundtracks via iPods or MP3s. I am begging people to view his work without any sounds. All I had playing was the hum of my Blu-ray player and that was enough. Music tends to dictate the pace of the images, and while I can’t promise myself this, I hope to view every silent movie from now on without a score, unless the score was devised or approved by the director. My second, and maybe more important recommendation, is to view his films on the biggest screen you can find. IMAX might be perfect. Because they are so visual and impressionable nothing else should invade our eyes, including the vast black of the dark theater, or the black bars on widescreen televisions.

Brakhage does not need to be recommended or warned against. Chances are if you’ve heard the name, buried somewhere under film history, you know what you’re looking for.

23rd Psalm Branch: Parts I & II (1967 & 1978)

Director: Stan Brakhage

USA

Silent

Part I runtime: 48 minutes (18 fps)

Part II runtime: 30 minutes (18 fps)

The total running time for both parts, on Criterion's Blu-ray and DVD, is 63 minutes.

IMDB links:

Part I:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278885/

Part II:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278886/

Tree of Life, The (2011)

I looked and saw the creation of the universe and of the planet Earth. I looked and saw an American family. The entirety of it was life itself as it has evolved through millions of years of impressions and booms. Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is about these equally enormous forces. It is as ambitious a film as I have ever seen, certainly one of the most visionary works of cinema in recent decades.

It is difficult to narrow in on what the film is about. It is not a traditional narrative. In fact the film in form and style is entirely experimental, and the scope of the story is vast. We begin with light, the basic building block of the universe, and we see a woman, Mrs. O’Brien, receiving a letter. She obviously belongs to the 1950s. It is a death notice; her son has died at war. We follow her eldest child, Jack, as an adult in present day New York. He is trying, as his mother did, to make sense of his brother’s death, and in these early scenes time does not exist. Terrence Malick cuts back and forth, to the mother as a child, Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien, Jack’s parents, as newlyweds and after their son’s funeral, where Mrs. O’Brien asks God what has led to her son being killed. Malick then shows the most startling and insane sequence: the creation of life. Light, explosions, lava, earth, water, the elements; single-celled organisms and then land creatures, dinosaurs, and always, always, trees. Though the film opens with a quote from The Book of Job, Malick does not show us the bible’s creation of man. There is no Adam and Eve, only the building blocks that were laid to waste for our arrival. Among other things the film is about spirituality, about metaphysics, more than religion.

But can anyone answer truthfully why God would take this woman’s son? Mrs. O’Brien offers to her children two ways through life: the way of Nature and the way of Grace. Are these opposing forces? Do they represent the different philosophies of mother and father, their own ways of raising their children? Mr. O’Brien believes in toughening them up, preparing them for a viscous, dog-eat-dog adulthood, whereas Mrs. O’Brien wants them to love every flower, every leaf, uniquely. Whether Nature and Grace stand for the feuding parents is really irrelevant when considering if Nature and Grace can co-exist. This is one of the many questions Malick seems to be asking. Are we our own creation, led to this point by a history of its own making, or has God shaped us to be like Him? But then wouldn’t God, Nature, and Grace be the same entity? Is the film arguing that religion is a convention of morality, that a “civilized” society cannot function without an institution to hold its shame in place, and that what some call God does not exist? I’m sure many would disagree but in this film, like in any great work of art, we are not given answers. Any interpretation is valid.

The special effects work as they seldom do in modern movies: they are a part of a philosophical search for meaning. By juxtaposing an American family with the creation of the universe, Malick is suggesting some big questions. The reel-long sequence is stunning, and Malick pulls it off. The first time I saw the picture, not expecting anything like what I was about to see, I was stunned. My jaw dropped and it felt as if I did not breathe for the entire sequence. When I saw the film again I surprisingly was not as awed. The visual effects are still great, beyond brilliant, utterly convincing (except for the dinosaurs—they lack realistic texture). I hate to admit it but the sequence comes off more as pretentious and lacking in the same drama that will follow. The sequence is still powerful but the existence of a family, the true meat of the film, is far more fascinating.

Terrence Malick has created an impression of family life like I’ve experienced only once in my life: while living my youth. I am only 25 years old. I did not grow up in the 1950s but my father did. And he raised me in a similar fashion as Mr. O’Brien did his kids. And my mom was always more lenient and affectionate and playful. As I looked at the screen I felt I was watching fractions of my own childhood. There’s a sequence mid-way through the film where Mr. O’Brien goes away on a business trip, and Jack and his brothers are excited and playful. This was my mood when my dad was at work or away for long periods of time. There was a weight lifted off of the house, but looking back now I realize that a great deal of the hostility was imagined, and that my insecurities around my father manifested themselves as anger and repression.  But I was stunned to see this in a movie. To hear Jack whisper the things he’d like to say to his father while he is being disciplined is something I can easily relate to. At one moment he asks God to kill his father, and sadly this too is something I can relate to. There are also depicted in the film moments of beauty, such as the scene when Jack kisses his younger brother’s arm twice. It brought tears to my eyes because I could remember similar moments of peace with my own brother. Maybe my experiences do not parallel the film so much as Malick has touched upon what it is like to be in a family, the joys and pains and every emotion in between, but however artfully I can describe Malick’s work, the simple fact is that it touched me deeply.

Jack seems to be having a crisis of faith. He notices in his young age a lack of action on God’s part, and this silence is so frightening to him that he acts out. He says to himself and to God after witnessing a kid his age drown in a pool, ‘There’s no reason to be good. You just do what you want to.’ I don’t know the denomination of the O’Brien’s church but I was raised Catholic, and many of the same practices and hostilities existed in my church and in my younger relationship to God. I have since lost any notion of divinity, but that’s not important. To Jack, God seems linked to his father. They have the same will, the same authority. Both seem to preach, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ This causes Jack more pain, and at one point he thinks something about his father that I truly fell: “You wrestle inside me.” This is an issue that a repressed, 1950s Christian society probably felt a lot, and through the simple action of shushing, like when Jack’s mom stops him from asking embarrassing questions in public, people were raised to keep these thoughts or emotions inside. That’s what men do, civilized people. And it is maddening.

The way Malick directs the moments in this family’s life is astounding. The camera never once functions as we think it should. It moves like an eye: free-wielding, focusing on something and then quickly turning to something else, always curious about what’s next. The film is more a memory. Malick creates impressions of what it’s like to be a kid at any age, but he does a particularly great job in recreating a realistic 1940s / 50s. Jessica Chastain’s hair is never perfectly quaffed like in traditional period pieces, the lawns are not even, green fields of grass; they have weeds and dead spots. The streets are laid with browning petals and potholes, and the clothes are of their time, not a recreation. Malick’s camera moves through the space of the 1950s in a most anachronistic fashion. In my mind at least, when films are set in 1950s America their cameras usually recreate the cinematic style of the era: careful, expressionally-lit compositions mounted on tripods. Camera angles lining up to the characters’ points of view, absolutely no hand-held work. The Tree of Life uses rather liberally the Steadicam, and the effect is dreamlike and haunting, and it recreates the mood of life back then, at least as I’ve imagined it.

I hope come Oscar time the Academy remembers this film. I know—who cares about the Oscars? But it looks like the best picture of the year is an American effort, and if the Academy Awards truly reward the best in American cinema then The Tree of Life should be nominated in several categories. Best picture, director, screenplay, editing, special effects, costumes, make-up, and acting. The acting category is going to be tricky. This is Terrence Malick’s film. His performers merely dramatize his vision, but there are several stand-out performances in a film filled with perfection: Brad Pitt and Hunter McCracken. Pitt plays Mr. O’Brien, and he deserves to be rewarded for this performance. He is not a cruel man; he is someone of his time, raising his children as he was probably raised himself. Pitt gives off every facet of this character and a best supporting actor nomination should come his way. McCracken plays the young Jack, and this character is the true lead of the film, though the film is intentionally plot-less. I did not like Jack. His father’s bullying is already manifesting itself in his violent thoughts, his repression, his lashing out at his brother in one scene and at the environment in many others. He defies his loving, lenient mother in a heartbreaking display of rebellion, but that McCracken is so hypnotic that he can carry an unlikeable, subdued role is impressive. In all likelihood the Motion Picture Academy will not nominate him at all and give Brad Pitt the nomination for lead actor. Such is the history of the Oscars.

Jessica Chastain needs to be mentioned as well. Her performance is magical—I am again surprised that a film dominated by its director can contain within some of the great performances of the 21^st Century. Some critics have said her character of the mother exists outside of the bitterness and stern qualities of the world and of her husband, but Mrs. O’Brien is another archetype of old-fashioned American parenting. We see she does not like her husband’s approach, and as it would in real life (and undoubtedly has nationwide at every point in time) this sours their marriage. But either through love, commitment or society they do not divorce. Malick’s handling of the marriage and Pitt’s and Chastain’s is so powerful, and Chastain is beautiful and mesmerizing and I wanted to signal her out as well.

The final scene, which I will not detail, is, I think, about forgiveness, about reconciling everything and everyone you’ve ever known to the fact that something has happened; that a brother has died; that parents are not perfect, age, and will always be a moving force in one’s life. But what is to be forgiven: Nature or Grace? What was it that took away this child; that began an exploration through the creation of the universe? Was it the will of God or the chance of fate? Did the way the planets formed influence the decision? Had a petal fallen too fast or withered on the plant for too long? Or had God decided it was time to take back what is his? Malick does not provide answers.  He creates a scenario that is open, and the scene on the beach with strangers and characters we’ve gotten to know on this odyssey is a metaphysical experience rendered on film, one of the most moving and inexplicable experiences I have ever seen. I am not embarrassed to admit that the film brought tears to my eyes. In quick moments I had experienced what in actual time has taken a short lifetime.

With all this I haven’t scratched the surface of this movie. It is an event, something like we haven’t seen in the art world for some time. It might be premature, but The Tree of Life will stand against the works of Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky as one of the most thoughtful and ambitious projects ever filmed. I had my doubts when I read others saying this, but I’ve seen it twice, with about a month’s break in between, and I was moved to tears more the second time. Go see this picture; if you see nothing else in a theater this year you will likely have seen as great a movie as can be made.

Tree of Life, The (2011)
Director: Terrence Malick
Writer: Terrence Malick
Stars: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken and Sean Penn
USA
In English
Runtime: 139 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478304/

Stolen Kisses (1968, Baisers volés)

It is said that the average person will change professions several times in his life. There may be many reasons for change, but it is sad when one’s own character prevents him from charting a course and sticking to it. Antoine Doinel, the hero of The 400 Blows, has not quite grown up. Let me rephrase that: Antoine and his environment are changing at different speeds. When once Antoine’s insolence was charming, as an adult it is clear he may never find his way. But is that as sad as I think? In between his gigs as a soldier, a concierge, a detective, a stock boy in a shoe store and a television repair man (I think I’ve got them all) there is always love, sweet, impulsive love. In this regard Antoine will never age.

François Truffaut’s major preoccupation was romantic longing. We see it in every one of his pictures: Two English Girls and A Woman Next Door are both about obsession; in The Bride Wore Black love manifests itself as revenge for a lost love; Fahrenheit 451 details the love of books, and The 400 Blows was the love of childhood, of cinema, of friendship and liberty, all also themes in Truffaut’s work. In Stolen Kisses his themes clash in ways the director might never had hoped for. In the summer of ‘68, France experienced a revolution begun by students fed up with poor conditions in state-run universities. Riots and demonstrations (often one and the same) shut down industries; unions joined in the students’ struggles, and when the government appointed a new director for The Cinematheque Francais, ousting founder Henri Langlois, filmmakers joined in.

Langlois was one of the two most important people in Truffaut’s upbringing, along with Andre Bazin, film theorist and co-founder of Cashiers du cinema, the underground film magazine that Truffaut wrote for as a critic. Langlois, apart from single handedly preserving films that otherwise would no longer exist, gave Truffaut the opportunity to see films that no longer circulated in popular movie houses, and through Langlois, Truffaut and the entire Cashiers crowd gained their excessive love and knowledge of the history of their craft. Truffaut was so upset over Henri Langlois’ firing that he formed the Cinema Defense Foundation, an organization determined to give control of the Cinematheque back to its founder. The director supposedly made phone calls for donations in between takes on the set of Stolen Kisses.

For all of it though the film is mostly apolitical. If one does not research the topic it wouldn’t make a lick of difference when watching the film. Sure Truffaut opens the film with a shot unrelated to the story, the sad image of the French Cinematheque closed to the public (and he also dedicates the film to Langlois), but he does not address any riots, in fact completely ignores the plight of the students, a cause he championed in his private life. The reason for this is simple: he was not a political filmmaker, though it makes the words of Jean-Luc Godard at the 1968 Cannes Festival both ironic and searing, accusing himself and all filmmakers presenting that year that they were behind the times since no film detailed contemporary France, the struggle between the students and the extreme right-wing government. Is this a fault of Truffaut’s or merely something that proves him as a true auteur? I’m inclined towards the latter since I myself detest politics in films. Truffaut was more interested in the arts and humanity, in love and romance and friendship. Life should not stop because of political upheaval, instead this upheaval is a part of our lives, and we should live and rally against the opposition.

In this regard, Stolen Kisses as a movie is not one of Truffaut’s best pictures. There’s nothing wrong with it per se, but it is too improvisational; that is there exists a free-wielding structure that can be great in another movie but here it left me... not bored but ambivalent towards the screen. I hope that makes sense. Watching it in action the film moves as briskly as anything Truffaut made and it’s filled with beautiful, touching moments, but it lacked the earnestness of The 400 Blows, the film that gave us Antoine Doinel. Maybe I shouldn’t be comparing the two films. They are quite different.

Here Antoine is becoming a man. He (like Truffaut did) receives a dishonorable discharge after volunteering for the service. The man dismissing him wonders why he volunteered; speculates it was to impress a woman, but we soon learn the truth: Antoine read a book about the service and his experiences in the army merely did not match it. This is the problem with Antoine as he gets older. I may be biased since personally I’m not prone to risky, hasty decisions, but the older he gets the less “cute” his misadventures seem. He doesn’t seem to understand that the years will go by whether or not his romantic fantasies are indulged, and in trying to live as he thinks he should he is forgetting to live. But that is not right—this is my own attitude talking. Antoine lives an exciting, experience-laden life. His many professions allow him to sample a whole universe set up by tradition and necessity. He is constantly working, obviously, making enough money to keep an apartment (and certainly doing better than an old school friend he meets on the streets who rummages through trash—perhaps a dig at the government for failing its youth).

Jean-Pierre Léaud reprises the famous role. This man was a conduit of the New Wave. I get the feeling that we, the audience, have never known the true Léaud. Truffaut used him to express his own flighty moods and Godard used him as an anarchic symbol, another extension of someone else, and through it all Léaud let himself be shaped. He is a true chameleon, a divisive actor whose improvisation style never seems to be wrong. He always fits his films, even when he stands out. I can admit though to finding him pretentious sometimes, though seldom with Truffaut. Throughout the Doinel films he doesn’t shape an arch for the character. He simply performs the role as Truffaut wrote it, experiencing life as Antoine has in Truffaut’s script. This relaxed attitude towards his craft (and least that’s how it appears to me) is fascinating, and proves that movie acting is about having spirit and knowing lines, and very little complexity.

Stolen Kisses is Léaud and Truffaut’s lighthearted take on the growing adventures of Antoine Doinel. He is no longer the lost kid we first knew. He is a young man, making his way in the world and constantly lost in it through a free-wielding spirit in search of love. I along with millions of people since 1959 have adopted Antoine as a friend, a son, a spiritual partner, and care about him deeply. I guess ultimately I found Stolen Kisses somewhat melancholic; that Antoine cannot keep a job and moves with the wind does not speak well for his future endeavors.

Stolen Kisses (1968)

(a.k.a. Baisers volés)

Director: Francois Truffaut

Writers: Francois Truffaut, Claude de Givray

Stars: Jean-Pierre Leaud, Claude Jade and Delphine Seyring

France

In French

Runtime: 90 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062695/

Paranoid Park (2007)

Stream of consciousness filmmaking is closely linked to the written counterpart, but because words are intellectual this form of writing is literate, whereas in cinema it feels more like memory. Moving images have an instant validity, and when a story is not linear, when it depends on the mind of a teenage kid with a lot of time on his hands, the work is experimental and involves us despite the disjointed, often fractured and confusing storytelling. Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park is a great and rare example.

Other examples in contemporary American cinema are some of Van Sant’s other recent works. He is proving himself a remarkable talent, one that even his early successes could not have hinted at. Paranoid Park is about an incident and characters that live it, but there is no storyline. Alex is a skateboarding kid. He hangs around with his best friend Jared who convinces him to go to a place that Alex admits he is not ready for: Paranoid Park, a grungy skate park in Portland. One night when Jared goes away, Alex goes to the park, meets some older guys, runs away with one of them via spontaneous freight train, and an incident occurs. This is linear progression, but Paranoid Park exists in Alex’s writing. He’s constantly writing in what I at first thought was an extended journal. Only at the end of the film did I understand that Alex is writing over the course of one night, and the majority of the film’s final scenes actually take place—chronologically—somewhere in the middle of the film’s short 84 minute running time.

We often see the same scenes repeated. The shots of Alex in either his uncle or his mother’s house show him entering his bedroom from a room where we had seen him previously write. I believe every time we see this same setup we are seeing the exact same moment in this character’s life. Why would Van Sant construct his film like this? He does a similar thing in Elephant, but there because of the structure of the film we were seeing several different stories taking place congruently. Here we have one perspective, Alex’s, and the conceit doesn’t seem like it could fit but it works remarkably well.

Well, why does it, and why do we see these repetitive moments? This is not a question to be asked but merely a fact we must accept. I personally found the challenge of deciphering this movie a welcomed change of pace from most films that predictably proceed in a linear fashion. I often wonder why films need to tell a story. It takes a skilled hand to render 90 minutes or so of screen time without a clearly defined story, characters and conflict, but often times the results of these experiments is quite fascinating. They are not slice of life films, a term I despise because of the connotations the phrase conjures. Rather they are experiences, impressions of life, and Van Sant’s treatment here creates an impression of a character. I often say that this is the ultimate reach of the cinema, to create impressions. A movie is a work of art, not life, and often times, films of this kind contain a hyper-reality that gives us, the audience sitting in our seats looking at a 2-dimensional flat screen, a sense of how the director uses reality to create his vision.

The film, however, though essentially about a death, is not a mystery nor is it suspenseful. Van Sant doesn’t show us the character most duplicitous in the crime or event as receiving punishment. He suggests it is coming and indeed creates a great deal of fear and paranoia and the utter indifference one so young, of a sort or type typical in youth culture for the past decades, but the film is never “about” the crime. It is about a kid dealing with the fact that he, directly or indirectly, is responsible and now has to deal with it. The film, however, is more definitive than I am suggesting, but because the narrative material is comparatively slight I will remain vague so as to not spoil for you the mood and anticipation I certainly got watching it.

One thing I greatly appreciated was Van Sant’s use of aspect ratio. Most films are in a wide-screen format, some 1.85:1 or even worse they’re in scope, something narrower like 2.35:1. This basically means the screen is rectangular. I don’t like looking at movies this way. In a sense the aspect ratio renders everything as a landscape, at least in terms of framing a painting; there’s either portrait or landscape. The landscape composition is meant to show beauty, and in cinema I find a square ratio, 1.37:1, is more fitting in capturing reality. It cuts off our peripheral vision and focuses in on what the director wants.

I love Gus Van Sant’s modern, experimental work. I love that it’s done by an American filmmaker. It shows us that American cinema isn’t dead yet. Paranoid Park is intelligent, thought-provoking movie making, about characters of a certain age, and still refreshingly original.

Paranoid Park (2007)
Director: Gus Van Sant

Writer: Gus Van Sant

Stars: Gabe Nevins, Daniel Liu and Taylor Momsen

USA / France

In English

Runtime: 84 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0842929/

Antoine and Colette (1962, Antoine et Colette)

There is a perverse pleasure in falling love, in watching someone you’re attracted to from afar, forever inching yourself closer, anxious and scared of if or when you’ll say something. And when you finally do, you’re intimidated and excited. There is also a love for the cinema, a love possibly more infectious, without limits, for young love is seldom ever permanent, and almost always sours.

Antoine Doinel returns in a short film François Truffaut made as part of the omnibus picture, Love at 20. Doinel’s segment, Antoine and Colette, shows what might be the hero of The 400 Blows’ first romance, one that begins as we might expect from the once troubled teen. He and his friend René are at a youth concert, and Antoine sees a beautiful modern girl sitting with a girlfriend. He watches her, is as absorbed in her looks as the listeners are to their classical music. He follows her out but does not engage. He sees her again three times that week, and finally on their fifth encounter, he speaks to her.

Truffaut is the most infectious and loveable director I’ve yet discovered. He crafts intimate tales of amour, stories that range from innocent, to obsessive, perverse, and comical. In Antoine and Colette he mixes all his elements into one of his most pleasurable experiences. While a short and therefore better equipped to be tidy and fluid, there is a sharp earnestness to the director’s storytelling, sometimes relying on an off-screen narrator to simplify narrative montages (telling us Colette sees Antoine as a friend) and swift, unexpected but incredibly honest changes in his characters’ character and actions. For example, Antoine soon takes an apartment across the street from Colette’s. For a moment, if that, it seems cute and innocent, but it really is a creepy thing for anyone to do; to pack up and live next to the person you’re courting. It is obsessive, insecure behavior, in line with the upbringing we’ve seen of Antoine in The 400 Blows. The perverse nature is Colette’s rejection of Antoine, leading him on, maybe unintentionally, and confirming what he seems to understand during a after dinner soirée at Colette’s parents’ request. Colette brings her new love in, embarrassing her mother and crushing Antoine. This love does not end well, but throughout it all we feel the energy of Truffaut, that untouchable magic he infuses his movies with.

This bittersweet tale gets its lighter moments in Truffaut’s storytelling. For example, Antoine works at a record manufacturer. Why? No reason; it is an interesting and appropriate profession for a young man of Paris in the 1960s. There is a fabulous short scene showing Antoine pressing his first record, a gift he later makes to Colette. This is so charming, so carefree, and a gimmick unique to the cinema. I believe in most other mediums such a progression of narrative would seem cheeky, but it works here. Or, for another whimsical twist, try Antoine and Colette’s parents’ relationship. Love is not always sexual. Affection can exist for someone whom you feel in sympathy with, someone whose look moves you in profound ways. The narrator says that the parents “adopt” Antoine as Colette becomes scarce to them all. To change the focus of the story from the young couple to the young man and the parents is a sweet twist, one I loved to see considering how uninterested we know Antoine’s parents were. The final shot is quite rewarding, the odd family sitting down to watch television.

So Antoine has found love, a love more fundamental. He has gained parents, and with that the dignity of having two people to rely on. This is the second chapter in a series of films starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel, and like the whole of Truffaut’s work, these films are pure pleasure—whimsical and spontaneous living creatures. They remind me of why the cinema is my true love.

Antoine and Colette (1962)
(a.k.a. Antoine et Colette)
Director: Francois Truffaut
Writer: Francois Truffaut
Stars: Jean-Pierre Leaud, Marie-France Pisier, Rosy Varte and Patrick Auffay
France
In French
Runtime: 31 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1180329/

Criterion has released Antoine and Colette only as part of their terrific collection, "The Adventures of Antoine Doinel." It shares the same disc as The 400 Blows, but remember while Criterion has issued several different editions of The 400 Blows, including a Blu-ray, the edition available in the box set is the only one containing the short film. Antoine and Colette was released with another Truffaut short, Les mistons, by Fox Lorber a decade ago, probably with sub par image quality, but the disc is easily affordable via the Amazon links below:

Flight of the Red Balloon (2007, Voyage du ballon rouge, Le)

It’s almost impossible to describe how joyous it is to watch a film like The Flight of the Red Balloon.  It’s a masterpiece, the best film I’ve seen in the last 10 and more, and its power comes from the simplicity and beauty of its story, its images, and from the lives portrayed.  I used to think that for a film to be powerful and profound it must be dark or ugly, downright depressing so it can easily move its audience, but that is an immature thought.  The Flight of the Red Balloon is about the peaceful and hectic qualities of life that make existence such a magical thing.

I can’t give a plot summary.  It would sound boring, banal even, and may discourage potential viewers. Things happen in the film but they are elliptical, and a linear description would not serve the film well.  It is told from the view point of a red balloon, and we are dropped into the story looking in on three very special figures.  Fang Song, the Chinese film student studying in Paris; her new employer, Suzanne, a free-spirited mom; and Simon, her son, the child Song is now nanny to.  I could describe the events overseen by the balloon but the film would seem insignificant.  This is a film that has to be seen.  It needs to act on our senses.  Only then we can appreciate the experience.

Suzanne is a performer.  Her grandfather was a puppeteer and she now does the narration and voice work for puppet shows.  She is a mess, a ball of energy with weird fashion and a wonderful personality.  She is always losing things or forgetting appointments—she has so much to do, and yet the people around her she never forgets.  She has an instant rapport with Fang Song.  Immediately she trusts her son with the girl, has her make a key to their apartment.  The film might exist in a hyper reality where things are far from perfect but they are still slightly untouchable.  This might be what I loved about the film more than anything.  It is liberating to sit back and have such a soothing, happy experience without guns, violence, cussing, and all the ugly things that most movies rely on for entertainment.  The Flight of the Red Balloon is as aimless as a free-wielding balloon.  Conventional screenwriting techniques would proclaim this structure a failure, and indeed if the screenplay read verbatim like the final cut of the film it would probably not be a good read.  But this is a movie.  It exists in sounds and images that create a great impression of life as I certainly would like to live it.  Director Hsiao-hsien Hou has the eye and temperament of a master.  He does not rely on typical, beautiful compositions or clean kept streets for beauty.  Life in Paris is beautiful, or can be, just as it can be anywhere, and any pretense of creating artificial beauty is not needed.  Life is beautiful as it is.

This is not a film about nothing, or a slice of life.  I think we have certain impressions of such phrases.  I would say The Flight of the Red Balloon is a film about living.  Think of how many people we pass each day, how many names we’ll never know.  We will hear snippets of conversation or create scenarios based on what we can see, but for all of it we are no better off than a shiny red balloon.

The great surprise in this film is the character of Simon.  It’s very tricky to create honest child characters.  I think so many of us are disillusioned with life that we cannot recall what existing as a child was like.  In American movies, young kids, ages 4-8, are blank-eyed, silent and morose things that are more creepy than enduring.  Simon Iteanu is everything I would hope a little boy could be in real life: bright, inquisitive, interested in creativity, in cinema, painting, puppets; he sleeps with a stuffed bear and exists enough in the modern world to use a digital camera and play Playstation video games.  He has answers to questions, insights and observations, like when Suzanne is arguing with a man on the phone who may or may not have been her lover or his father—we’re not privy to such information.  Suzanne screams, “I need a man beside me and there is no one beside me.”  Simon in the back seat says, “I am a man.”  The delivery is much more charming than the words, and the little Simon Iteanu is superb.  Juliette Binoche we expect a perfect performance from, Iteanu is a revelation.

One of the greatest scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie is Suzanne’s final scene.  She has just argued heatedly with a neighbor, slammed the door in his face and now sits teary-eyed before her son, Fang Song, and a piano tuner.  The camera stays on Binoche’s face.  She calls her son over to her, asks what he did in school.  They hug and she smiles.  Simon goes off to play his Playstation.  Suzanne smiles serenely, still fighting back tears, shaken with anger as she asks the piano tuner if he’ll retune the piano okay.  Binoche does something magical.  Her expression, her attitude, her talent—I don’t know the right word, but this is a true moment of tranquility and it always makes the hairs on my arm stand.

I can only describe moments in the film.  There is not a thing wrong with it.  I could detail every scene but a masterpiece like this is better off discovered fresh.  I had such a profound reaction to this picture that I hope I am not overselling it.  Subtle movies affect everyone differently and it simply moved me like few films have.  I like to think the red balloon is watching all of Paris.  Only occasionally does it appear at the window.  Often it is floating in the sky.  Think of the stories that exist in the film that we do not see.  What does the red balloon know, and what other magic has it seen?

Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)

(a.k.a. Voyage du ballon rouge, Le)

Director: Hsiao-hsien Hou

Writers: Hsiao-hsien Hou and Francois Margolin

Stars: Juliette Binoche, Simon Iteanu and Fang Song

France

In French

Runtime: 115 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0826711/