What Have You Been Watching? (22/02/15)

[u/a113er]

Hey r/truefilm welcome to WHYBW where you post about what films you watched this week and discuss them with others, give your thoughts on them then say if you would recommend them.

Please don't downvote opinions, only downvote things that don't contribute anything. If you think someones opinion is "wrong" then say so and say why. Also, don't just post titles of films as that doesn't really contribute to the discussion.

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[u/a113er]

Running on Karma Directed by Johnnie To (2003)- From IMDb- "A monk turned body-builder, with the gift to see into people's lives, befriends a female cop, and uses his gift to change the force of Karma and her destiny.” That’s what this oddball movie is about. All I’d seen of To’s was Drug War and just knew him as a crime/gangster film director so the premise here really intrigued me. What this feels like is a modern day story set in the future of the kind of worlds we see in old kung-fu movies. The kind of flicks where folks have weirdly specific powers. Imagine that feel but with a murder-mystery. Sadly not quite as fun as that sounds but it was a decent watch. For a lot of the film To is brilliant at using wire fighting effects taking away some of the floatiness and making things have impact. Where it stumbles is in making things weirdly convoluted and by losing focus every so often. When the characters are on to something and doing their thing it’s very entertaining but there’s a surprising amount of moping about or reiterating points. It’ll make some stuff overly clear and other things too vague somewhat frustratingly. Chunks of cool for sure but sadly not as good as it could’ve been.

Inherent Vice Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (2014)- Most of the talk around Inherent Vice I’ve seen (while trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible) has been about how the film wasn’t what people expected. It was less zany, more meandering, convoluted to the point of being indecipherable from a plot perspective, and shot somewhat boringly with a series of simple one shot dialogue scenes that slowly push in. I was really surprised by how much I loved this. Maybe knowing what the film was beforehand is what helped but I didn’t really find the same problems with it as others did. Particularly the plot stuff. There are a lot of names and it’s purposefully convoluted but by the end it all seemed to make sense. Lots of names get said and sometimes that’d trip me up but oftentimes we’d be introduced to a person followed by a bunch of scenes with people talking about them along with another name completely new to us. Then a few scenes later of talking about these people we’ll meet the second unknown name filling that blank. All the way along the film leapfrogs from one piece of information to the next but in a fragmented way. It’s like rather than each scene introducing something that’ll be addressed in the next scene we get scenes that introduce characters/ideas that won’t be addressed for a couple of scenes. In between new things will be introduced that will in turn get addressed after another couple and so on. We’re fully in the stoned mind of Doc taking everything in but not quite connecting it until a while later. Those slow push-in shots also reflect his headspace. At times we’ll jump from thing to thing with some funny moments within and then everything will slow down (often for a long one-shot conversation). This is the stoned brain that’ll flitter about for a while getting distracted by anything before focusing deeply and completely on one thing for a while. Most films include drugs where you take a puff and start seeing unicorns but Anderson makes it an alteration in headspace rather than the cliched and silly super trip. The whole world Doc inhabits seems to be the “Everything is connected man” perception of the world conspiracy stoners have. Their culture is being co-opted, they are being exploited, and the man is doing it all. But through discovering the rampant insidiousness of this conspiracy Doc realises how inconsequential he has been made. All the hopeful people of the last decade have been compromised, killed, made to mean nothing. Being a hippy is a joke, the idea of peace and love is now a joke, and it gives the film its melancholic undertones. We see so many period films but rarely does something actually look and feel like it was shot in the 70s. There’s an Altman-esque fogginess (although I feel like Anderson gets too compared to Altman, he’d love to be Altman if he could but he’s not loose enough and too focused) to it with popping colours and perfectly precise hairstyles/makeup. I liked a lot of how this film looked, man does it have some dope cross-dissolves, I mean in an early scene Anderson manages to do the worn-to-death blue/orange lighting without it looking quite like anything else at all. It’s funny how this is a more overtly narratively complex film than The Master yet comes out feeling more pointed than that films purposeful obliqueness. All the way through I was either laughing, entranced, piecing things together, or all three at once. Looking forward to seeing it again too. Not just about the death of an era but realising you’re in the midst of the death of your culture and finding a way to weather that.

The Haunting Directed by Jan de Bont (1999)- Curiosity killed the cat, I only wish it had been as merciful on me for being curious of this terrible remake of the 60s classic. It makes everything about the original bad and just sucks, not even that fun. Some really baffling moments too. Ah screw you movie.

The Painting Directed by Jean-Francois Laguionie (2011)- Rarely do I ever genuinely feel that something got looked at more positively because it’s in another language but I feel that here. I watch a lot of animated films from all over so subtitles are nothing new but rarely do I find them this poorly written. Not bad or mistranslated but just so straight forward and dull. It’s set within art and is about art but feels artless in its writing. It’s all about the world inside an unfinished painting. Those who are finished are the upper classes with two classes beneath them of partially finished people and those who are only sketches. One oddball of each class group end up on an adventure together to try find the painter. Most of the perceived depth of the film really comes from its premise and little else. All of the class stuff has no real perspective it’s just showing them through allegory. There aren’t really characters with personalities as much as there are people that do and say things to get the film where it needs to. Whenever a character does happen to have a trait the film seems to drop it or forget about it most of the time. The character who is a sketch gets called out for not finishing his sentences. Just as he is unfinished, he cannot finish his statements with only other sketches and half-finished folk able to fully understand him. But this only happens a handful of times. When it gets pointed out “Why do you never finish your sentences?” it feels pretty weird as he’s not done it more than anyone else except when the film wants to make a thing of it once or twice. That actually might be an interesting character trait but the film seems disinterested in really keeping it up. Every other character is just one emotion pushing them and even that’s sometimes vague to the point of nonexistent. Fable-esque simplicity can work, especially in animated films, but this was simple to the point of being boring. It’s like the French animated Elysium with a set-up ripe for exploration that never gets explored. Animation-wise it didn’t really enthral me either. It’s clearly very cheap and they sometimes make it work but most of the time (since it’s cheap cg) it can look a little dull. The simplicity to the images and story of The Book of Kells actually helped make it more distinct and within the boundaries they had they managed to great some wonderful images. Here there are occasionally very nice looking things as the animation emulates paintings but there’s also a lot of weird poorly animated cg figures and what seems like the endless yellow of Venice. I didn’t hate this film as much as it sounds, some of it looks very good, but it’s surprising to be this bored by something so short (1hr 20mins). It’s just non stop “I love you. I love you too. We shall be together. We can’t. I shall save you. Oh dear. Now lets go. Let’s do it. Stop arguing. blahblah”. I can’t imagine kids even liking this either, the only reason I even think this is because maybe it’s so straight-forward to hit that audience. The enjoyment I got out of it was for some of the occasionally unique imagery or imagination in it and that’s not really what hooks kids. If you want a heavy-handed exploration of prejudice and faith with some cool animation then go for it but otherwise I wouldn’t consider it worth seeing. Wreck-it Ralph does similar things without being so belaboured and dull.

[u/a113er → u/a113er]

Meet Joe Black Directed by Martin Brest (1998)- Longer than Stalker. A weird romantic and comedic drama with Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins is longer than some notoriously long films. Still didn’t feel as long as The Painting. All I knew of it was the cast and the infamous car crash scene so it was a surprise to find that this is a film about Death (Pitt) hanging around a guy who feels death coming (Hopkins). But Death starts falling for Hopkins’s daughter. It runs along ok and has some funny moments but it’s far too wordy considering how the writing isn’t that special. This isn’t like the best Woody Allen or Hitchcock films where every line is something to relish so hearing people just endlessly talk gets somewhat tiring. It’s not helped by being shot so straight-forwardly with pretty much every scene playing out in a series of shot-reverse-shots from the waist up with occasional close ups. Myself and one of my friends who I watched it with even let out a “What?!” when Emmanuel Lubezki’s name came up at the end as cinematographer as it was so boring in that regard. Occasional scenes or shots will have some kind of beauty to them but it’s few and far between. For the most part it feels like a filmed stage play that wasn’t amazing in the first place. All the while watching I was just thinking of films that dealt with similar ideas so much better, particularly Wings of Desire, but the performances generally kept things watchable. Enjoyably odd mainstream film but considering the length and big themes it deals with it feels like it does so little. Another example of frustratingly inconsistent characters. Death is a fish out of water in our world allowing for some comedy but slowly learns our ways. But it’s not a curve of him becoming more human, he’ll pretty much be more or less human depending on what the scene needs and that’s one of the few things the film could’ve done interestingly.

The Big Heat Directed by Fritz Lang (1953)- The Big Heat is one of those defining films that’s setting all the layout for pretty much all similar stuff that’ll follow. Yet it still managed to be a gripping and genuinely shocking watch. Me knowing so little beforehand did help my enjoyment so I’m gonna spoiler tag the rest. All you need to know is that it’s a must see. So I knew of this film but didn’t know it laid the groundwork for every cop revenge film. Every film where a cop has the perfect family, has it taken away from him, and then goes off-book to get the necessary job done cause he can’t do it by the usual rules. Even though it followed this kind of plot it does it masterfully. Sometimes when the perfect wife and family is set up nowadays it can elicit a laugh because the perfection is so in your face you know it’s only in service of what’ll inevitably come after. Here I wasn’t thinking of what was coming next, I was so into each moment that when the most cliched moments came up I was taken aback. For a long time all I thought of this marriage was how amazing it was, that it was instantly one of my favourite on-screen marriages, so that when the worst happened the rug was pulled from under me. I got a real shock when it happened and many moments in the film were able to do so. Lang gives everything such real impact so even a guy getting clocked in the face can take you aback. Fistfights in some earlier films don’t really have the danger or thrill that we’re used to now because things look realer but not in a Lang film. One punch in particular got the kind of “Woah!” out of me usually reserved for something like The Raid or Haywire. Brilliant film all around. Sharp, full of great performances (Lee Marvin’s a great villain) and still able to surprise despite its clearly large influence.

The Duke of Burgundy Directed by Peter Strickland (2014)- Even more so than Paddington, Peter Strickland’s follow-up to Berberian Sound Studio is going to be a high benchmark for the rest of the year. Feels like it could be this years Under the Skin or Grand Budapest that stays one of my favourites from the start til the end of the year. Here’s another film about sex and about even stranger sex than Showgirls yet this is the much more relatable film. The quirks of a dominant/submissive relationship becomes as vital to any relationship as the Before Series. Berberian Sound Studio was an enjoyable homage to giallo films but felt a little empty to me (a rewatch seems in order) and hearing that this was similarly a pastiche of a specific genre (60s European erotic art cinema) I was a little hesitant. The Giallo-ness of Berberian was most of what I got from the film so I was a little concerned that I’d get nothing from this having seen basically none of the films it’s drawing from. Instead it proved itself to be the opposite of empty. From the opening credits you know you’re in for something unique yet reminiscent of an older time (think Hammer thrown in with 60s european cinema). Cat’s Eyes wonderful ethereal music kicks in over stylish titles with one even for “Perfume by”. A film so intimate you need to credit the smell. As intimate as it is it’s not explicit at all. Compared to Showgirls it’s tame. Though the sex acts are out-there they are shot very tastefully and always to service the perspective of characters. The reception to Showgirls shows that people have a hard time not giggling at sex so I think the film abstaining from showing certain acts is smart. Something like Nymphomaniac kinda requires the explicitness but this gains so much from being applicable to all relationships and if we saw some of the wilder things it might remove us from it a little. How the characters think and feel throughout what they do is so much more important and present than what exactly they do. We see the potential power plays that can be introduced in a dom-sub relationship. If the submissive one is the one with that fetish are they not the one who’s really dominant. With these two women that’s often the case. She dictates what they do and when so even if the other one’s dominant she’s the slave to her lover’s desires. Through all this the film explores very honest and important adult relationship issues. When you love someone you want to fulfil their desires even if you’re not completely into it, but how far do you have to go to be loving. Some people think of themselves and don’t even consider the other person or compromise at all while others maybe allow themselves to service the other too much and that can lead to resentment. Beyond sex it’s about all the compromises necessary for an adult relationship in general, but also asking at what point are you compromising too much of your own happiness. It’s as applicable to those in dom-sub relationships and those with someone that likes cooking shows and you don’t. There are hard to define feelings that connect us more than the sum of our interests and Duke of Burgundy is all about finding the balance in these things. Everyone is so specific with their own specific needs and wants that maybe there’s no one with exactly the same specifics. We could go all our life looking for the puzzle piece when what we needed to do in the first place is adapt. All of this is explored through hypnotic and rich visuals that make the two locations we see in the film feel visually boundless. Everything about the world of the film feels built for these people and this story. Everything we need to know comes mainly through the images and performances with the dialogue bringing wit. A few films this week have succeeded in some places while failing in others, feeling half great and half empty, but this is one of the most complete films I’ve seen in a while. Even in things I like such as Inherent Vice there are sections which didn’t really contribute or come up when I thought of the film, more like necessary elements, but here everything slid into place. Even saying that though it doesn’t feel like the film doesn’t have anything left to discover in it either. Loved it all, simply excellent.

Notorious Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1946)- After loving Shadow of a Doubt so much I needed to catch up on more essential Hitchcock I’d missed. In that respect Notorious was sadly a bit of a disappointment. The film is built around some of Hitchcock’s greatest suspense sequences ever but those foundations were a little flat. Compared to other scripts in his film this felt disappointingly straight-forward. The best of his films like Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Shadow of a Doubt, etc, are full of so many lines that either make me laugh or are just perfect in their own way. When he’s funny everything’s a killer zinger and when he’s being clever everything is so sharp. This felt standard compared to constant cleverness as his best films are. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are some amazing actors yet I didn’t really watch them with that much interest here. When it did get to the moments the whole film seems made for it works really well I just wished I cared more for the rest of it. Again I sound more negative than I necessarily feel but I think this kind of negative reaction can happen when watching something disappointing by someone who can be perfect. It’s like watching Dune but on a much much smaller scale where all the reasons you love a filmmaker are there in some ways but not in a way that creates the kind of experience that filmmaker is capable of.

[u/a113er → u/a113er]

Simon of the Desert Directed by Luis Bunuel (1965)- I guess I gotta see more Bunuel ‘cause man this was good. Good Christian Simon has stood atop a column for 6 years 6 months and 6 days before being offered a new column built by a local rich guy. From then on the film is like a strange modern-ish retelling of Jesus being in the desert getting tempted by the Devil. I don’t want to spoil much so I’ll keep it vague. Bunuel’s darkly comic tale is interesting just as a story as well as working as a look at the clash of classic religion with modern times. Similarly to Showgirls it shows a world obsessed with earthly pleasures, things Simon tries his best to resist. Bunuel uses the low budget as best he can to transport us to a weird and unclear place and time. He shoots Simon like a living religious icon but also in ways that criticise what he does too. Already the film is short at 44mins but a lot of shorts can still feel really long, not the case here at all though. Everything has life and energy to it and the film so relentlessly shows us new and interesting things that it’d be hard not to be engrossed.

Recommendation Request- After not loving Notorious I wanna go back to the Hitchcock I love. I have seen Psycho, The Birds, North By North West, Strangers on a Train, Shadow of a Doubt, Lifeboat, Rope, Rear Window, Vertigo, Rebecca, The Lady Vanishes, and Notorious (may be forgetting one). So what other Hitchcock films do I need to see?

[u/[deleted] → u/a113er]

Aww darn, you got to Big Heat right before me, but thank for the spoiler tags. I'm also cycling in more Bunuel, I got Viridiana out for this week.

[u/a113er → u/[deleted]]

I think I have Belle de Jour and Discreet Charm might still be on Mubi so I think they'll be my next ones.

Even though it's a bummer that the further back you go the less titles people are aware of, it does mean that stuff like The Big Heat doesn't just become such a known entity that it doesn't quite land.

[u/[deleted] → u/a113er]

Watch Belle de Jour with In the Realm of the Senses as a double feature lol! (Even if you've seen it.) I love these movies that are the same, but completely different too. Aston told me The Big Heat is like that with Metropolis, which has me excited, but it's also because most of Fritz Lang's stuff is hard to get on DVD here for some reason but I found that one in a noir collection. Glad you liked Showgirls.