I'll just throw out what I've seen over the last few months. I hate just sticking a paragraph or two with these when they deserve much more, but for whatever reason, I just haven't felt like writing lately. I've started longer reviews on some of these and then just end up deleting them.
L'Argent - A-
Bresson's final film about how a man's life irrevocably changes when he receives some forged currency. Powerful emotional journey for the main character in which Bresson's "model" style of inexpressive acting is used to perhaps the best effect I've yet seen. The film also makes powerful social statements and critiques about greed and how people are often willing to compromise their morals and ethics to avoid the consequences of their actions. Film fans should pay special attention to Bresson's impeccable use of sound and how it is incorporated into the smallest details of otherwise mundane activities.
Xala - C+
An importer and corrupt government official brings about his own downfall as his decision to take a 3rd wife stretches his finances to the breaking point and exposes his shady business practices in this comedy from Senegal. While it is certainly admirable to include an African film on this list, what with African films still having extremely limited exposure even in current years, Xala would seem to be yet another film more notable for its "National Geographic" qualities than the story it tells. It is only occasionally humorous and its best scenes are the brief asides that show government corruption rather than those that follow the main character and his story. And while I'm sure director Ousmane Sembene was working with a microscopic budget, it certainly shows as the production values are very poor and the acting mediocre at best.
The Exterminating Angel - A
Bunuel's seering comedy about a group of upper class party goers who become trapped in a room and gradually lose the trappings of their class, is one of his best films. Using his unique imagination and touch with images, Bunuel creates a situation that is at turns absurd and harrowing. The implication being that all of society and our comfortable illusions of importance are easily shattered and we certainly would not like to see what is left behind once that occurs.
Viridiana - B+
A woman training to be a nun is sexually assaulted by her uncle. Leaving the convent she decides to help the poor on her own, but they soon chafe at the conditions she sets upon her aid. Another of Bunuel's powerful exoriations of the hypocracy of the Church and the self-serving qualities of human nature. This is again thematically powerful, complete with Bunuel's controversial and iconoclastic parody of Da Vinci's "The Last Supper", but the story worked less well for me. The characters are more stereotypes than full-fledged beings and in several ways it seemed to be a re-telling of his previous and more satisfying film Nazarin.
Au Hazard Balthazar - C
A noble donkey quietly observes the often cruel and mysterious ways of humanity in Robert Bresson's perhaps most revered work. There is a compelling statement to be made in the world the donkey experiences, but it is the human characters that make the film problematic for me. All are weak, cruel, or compromised in some fashion. The young woman who is central to the film, in particular, complicit in her own life of increasing degradation, makes the film so bleak that it made me want to turn away from the film rather than embrace it. It is a desolate world that leaves the feeling that there is no hope for redemption.
Bigger Than Life - B+
James Mason stars in Nicolas Ray's portrait of a man who's life falls apart when he becomes addicted to cortisone. Like the films of Douglas Sirk, this is both family melodrama and social critique. The consumerist nature of middle class America leads the father to work two jobs. A culture of consumption leads him to feel that providing wealth and material goods is more important to his family than his own presence or health. It also observes that our scientific achievements are not without consequence if one is not careful to use them precisely for their intended purpose.
Ray uses the camera to create mood. The cinematography is quite plain in the early portions of the film, but becomes increasingly lurid and expressionistic - colors deepen, shadows lengthen, the palette expands to reflect the frenzy and mania that drug addiction has on Mason's character. The family unit is turned on its head as Mason displays a brutal, dismissive attitude to both his son and wife. It is a powerful acting performance, though I thought the film stretched a bit too far here when the mania takes on biblical proportions and the father begins to contemplate murdering the son.
Napoleon - A-
Abel Gance's grand epic tells the story of Napoleon's life from childhood to the successful Italian campaign. The camerawork often astonishes, from the famous tri-camera widescreen shots, to the fluid moving camera, and the depth of field present in the action scenes, Gance was certainly one of films great innovators. The story also is powerfully compelling thanks to the exceptional performance of Albert Dieudonne in the title role. Using just his eyes he conveys a true sense of the quiet power and brilliance of the man who would become Emperor of Europe. The film superbly recreates episodes from the Revolution such as the triumverate leadership led by the quiet and calculating Robespierre, the introduction of the Marseillaise, the Reign of Terror, and the death of Marat.
Small reservations come in the area of the Carmine Coppola score which is often too obvious and Gance's penchant for repeating shots 5, 6, and even more times during action sequences. I'm sure this was to make the scenes seem even more epic and add a degree of suspense, but in a film of such length it seems a bit more restraint could have been excersized in this area. Still a very fine film and I'd be interested in seeing the more recent and longer BFI version and especially hear the alternate score.
A Moment of Innocence - A-
As an idealistic young man, director Mohsen Makhmalbaf stabbed a guard who served in the Shah's government. 25 years later he examines this event and how it affected himself and the guard by allowing the guard to be involved in re-enacting the event and filming it. This film-within-a-film structure fascinates as the modern concerns of the actors conflict with the cycle of past events and what the director is trying to capture. But are they? Makhmalbaf, while present in the film and allowing us to see behind the camera for the filming of the re-enactments, never tips his hand as to whether what we are observing from the actors is reality or entirely scripted. Whether real, scripted or somewhere in between, the film culiminates with some powerful emotional revelations regarding what we have seen.
While I have certainly not explained it adequately in this short paragraph, A Moment of Innocence is perhaps the best, and certainly the most complex, Iranian film that I have seen.
Close-Up - B
One of Abbas Kiarostami's many entries on the S&S list, Close-Up concerns a reporter who observes the capture and subsequent trial of a man charged with fraud for impersonating director Mohsen Mahkmalbaf. A family mistakes the man for the director and he continues the ruse, borrowing money and saying he will have family members particpate in his next film. What we see are observances of human behavior and the knowledge that the desire for celebrity and fame is not confined to the Western world. As the man often states, when he was pretending to be a film director, he felt important and respected - a complete departure from his humdrum life. A compelling film that perhaps requires multiple viewings. I'm sure I didn't observe all the layers present.
I'm now at 285 seen.
Not sure what I'll be seeing next. I think there are a couple of releases still due out this year, such as Pickpocket. Since I discovered I screwed up taping Greed and forgot to tape A Matter of Life and Death, the only thing I have left in my possession would be Godfather III which I know I won't get to by the end of the year. I believe Ashes and Diamonds is the only one Netflix carries I haven't seen. I probably won't watch it by the end of the year either. At one point I thought I would get to my goal of 300 seen by the end of the year, but now I don't think I will even get to 290.
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