10/29/11: THE GLASS CEILING (Eloy De La Iglesia, 1971) ***
Another excellent offering from De La Iglesia, this is even more of a slow-burning thriller than THE CANNIBAL MAN (1972) but the scenario it conveys of place, characters and situations holds one’s attention, even if there is a definite slackening during the last act (picking things up again with a stunning climax that not only marries the REAR WINDOW {1954}-inspired proceedings up to that point to a STRANGERS ON A TRAIN {1951}-type twist but also takes care to produce one additional ace for the finale!) and which now seems to be something of a directorial trait.
The GLASS CEILING, in fact, is confidently Hitchcockian but also presenting concerns that obviously interested the film-maker, such as what sort of mischief may be going on within the walls of a house (which, in this case, is amplified by making the central setting a condominium). However, the script merely uses fanciful conjecture as a means to an end, which is another character study of a lonely figure (here leading lady Carmen Sevilla, and for which performance she won the Cinema Writers Circle award) whose grip on reality is quickly fading (depicted via a notable dream sequence) and how the people she comes into contact with react to this (there is even a disturbing subtext, which one hopes is not quite true, of landowning studs and horny errand-boys preying on such abandoned wives!). Still, unlike THE CANNIBAL MAN, the protagonist is now a victim who soon finds that she cannot really trust anyone, not even family, preferring to keep company with her amiable white cat (which, unfortunately, comes to a sticky end).
Once again, the cast includes lovely Emma Cohen: at first, I thought she would have an even lesser role than in CANNIBAL, since her name is much further down the cast list this time around, but also because she plays the unflattering part of a farmer’s daughter delivering milk to the various tenants – however, enamored of the landlord, she also frequently pays him visits at the condominium’s back-yard, where he conducts his extracurricular activity of sculpting. Though he certainly does not discourage her attentions (even accepting to be fed – and playfully sprayed in – milk by her directly from a cow’s teat!), the man really favors Sevilla (to the point of taking the latter horse-riding in order to alleviate her ennui), so that Cohen is cross when a sculpture he has made of her luscious body (voyeuristically caught by camera while the girl is sleeping in the nude, one more of the landlord’s hobbies, which he also directs at Sevilla and another pivotal female character, thus linking the film to the remarkable “Cannibal” flick I watched at the very start of this “Halloween Challenge”, WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH {1974}) actually sports SevIlla’s head!
However, Cohen’s character still vanishes from the proceedings well before the end – which serves to put at center-stage an attractive neighbor of Sevilla’s, whom the latter suspects all through the picture of having committed foul play upon her invalid husband (whose body the heroine frantically suspects of being stashed either in the back-yard or the couple’s own fridge!), even contriving to periodically check with the bus depot whether he was seen leaving town as his spouse claims.
10/30/11: MURDER IN A BLUE WORLD (Eloy De La Iglesia, 1973) ***
The third De La Iglesia film I am watching in a row – and the best (though the "Cult Films" website bafflingly rates this a measly *1/2) – that, while it touches on the same theme of a serial-killer on the loose, is the most ambitious (numbering no fewer than 5 scriptwriters!) because it is set in a dystopian future and employs international actors. Since I have made it a point to discard Sci-Fi titles for this year’s “Halloween Challenge”, I was a little wary of adding this but, thankfully, it proved a continuation of De La Iglesia’s preoccupations.
The film wears its obvious inspiration from Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) proudly on its sleeve because, not only is there a Droog-like band of violent criminals marauding at night (wielding whips at leisure), but they also assault an upper-class household that is very much decorated in the ultra-modern fashion seen in CLOCKWORK and, as if this was not enough, a screening of that very Kubrickian adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novel is about to start on TV when their doorbell rings! Likewise, a subplot revolves around an experimental program which is supposed to render hardened criminals into acceptable society members (but, predictably, the last scene demonstrates that the scheme has failed horribly), while peppering the soundtrack with classical music pieces (albeit being otherwise scored as if it were a Spaghetti Western!). Interestingly, whether deliberately or not, Kubrick returned the favor by utilizing music by the composer of this one (Georges Garvarentz) for his own swan-song EYES WIDE SHUT (1999)! Indeed, while the original Spanish title translates to the poetic A DROP OF BLOOD TO DIE LOVING and that the film was released on R2 DVD as MURDER IN A BLUE WORLD (for the record, the widescreen copy I acquired, albeit VHS quality, was fairly good and did not noticeably detract from my enjoyment of the striking visual look of the décor and costumes), the film was apparently known in the U.S. under the rather condescending moniker of CLOCKWORK TERROR.
Moreover, Sue Lyon – as it happens, the young star of Kubrick’s LOLITA (1962) – has the leading role here and, at one point, is even seen leafing through Vladimir Nabokov’s eponymous novel while lounging in a gay bar! The rest of the cast is made up of Christopher Mitchum (who would later appear in another foul-play-in-a-hospital movie, FACELESS {1987}) and Jean Sorel (who had already played a doctor in his most famous film, Luis Bunuel’s BELLE DE JOUR {1967}: incidentally, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE itself was Bunuel’s own favorite movie!). For being the younger son of Hollywood legend Robert Mitchum, Chris worked with some far-out directors: in fact, apart from De La Iglesia, he also made films for Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jess Franco! Lyon, while ostensibly renowned psychiatrist Sorel’s girl, moonlights as a serial-killer of males between the ages of 17 and 25 (though her reasons for running amok are attributed to the traumatic death of the girl’s parents in childhood, it is never quite clear why she targets that particular age group, one of whom she ensnares by outbidding him at an auction for the very first edition of the “Flash Gordon” comic-strip!) and, therefore, according to news reports, the murderer must be a homosexual! Conversely, Mitchum is one of the four members of the afore-mentioned “Droog”-like anarchists who falls foul of his team-mates and, to earn some cash on the side, takes to blackmailing Lyon (whom he had unwittingly spied while disposing of a body: she often affects disguises herself – as a mature woman or a man! – to lure her victims, who include a macho publicity guy modeling underwear on TV, linking the film, as do the entire lady-killing scenario and the overriding influence of TV, to the recently-viewed THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA {1976}). Eventually, Mitchum’s former friends beat him up and he is hospitalized and, ironically enough, put in Lyon’s care…but, in eliminating him there, she also gives herself away – to Sorel’s obvious horror.
Given my rewarding experience so far with the filmography of Eloy De La Iglesia (on a side-note, that of Alex, who is not a relation, is no less intriguing but somewhat less consistent), I opted to acquire yet one more effort i.e. his adaptation of Henry James’ classic – and much-filmed – ghost story THE TURN OF THE SCREW (1985), but which I was unable to include in the “Halloween Challenge” that has just come to an end.
10/31/11: TRAP (Jacques Baratier, 1970) **
As often happens, I contrived to close a marathon on a whimper rather than a bang and it was certainly the case with this “Halloween Challenge”: not only is the film a total rarity (I only recently became aware of it) and very marginally related to the genre I was celebrating (in fact, I only included it because the site from where I acquired it labeled the movie as such) but it also proved to be quite a chore to sit through (despite lasting for a mere 55 minutes)!
I have often said that Surrealism works better when treated as entertainment: Luis Bunuel was its undisputed master in cinema (which is why he is my absolute favorite auteur) but, apart from the occasional attempt to shock an audience (notably his first two films), he learned to transmit his subversive messages (while always denying he had any!) in a subtle, indeed sophisticated, manner in order to reach a wider audience! Not so other noted directors whose work, however, leaves me cold to a considerable extent, namely Federico Fellini, Marco Ferreri, David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Fernando Arrabal.
Tellingly, the latter turns up here as an actor – but he is actually the best thing about the film, as an intellectual seller of traps (hence the title), and it is amusing to watch him demonstrate the practicality of a variety of traps from his ever more unwieldy stock to a prospective buyer! The latter subsequently invites a couple of women to his house (“Nouvelle Vague” stalwarts Bernadette Lafont, a Claude Chabrol regular, and Bulle Ogier, who actually co-starred in Bunuel’s greatest film i.e. THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE {1972}) – who, for no very good reason (since nothing comes of it thereafter) are made out to be nuns in the throes of devil worship! When they arrive, even though properly invited, they do not enter through the main door but opt to go in as burglars! Once inside, they try to cut through the safe with a blowtorch while giving vent to their anarchy by smashing everything that comes in their way. They cause a veritable mess – Lafont stomach-churningly plays around with assorted eggs, whereas the more child-like Ogier grimaces and moans incessantly! They paint their faces, disrobe down to their underwear, engage in a S&M routine, but only ever get to meet their host at the very end (even if he had actually been spying on the girls throughout their rampage!)…when the whole place blows up!
The point of it all is obscure and, frankly not worth unraveling; if anything, the film may owe a bit to Vera Chytilova’s DAISIES (1966; which I own but have yet to watch), while looking forward to Jacques Rivette’s 3-hour plus CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING (1974; which I am familiar with and reasonably enjoyed). For the record, TRAP (an oft-used title, by the way, numbering among these a few interesting and versatile works) is the only film I have watched from this director and am only vaguely familiar with a trio of others from his not-so-vast filmography (comprising 6 shorts, 5 documentaries and 13 features made in the space of 55 years!). I generally admire the two actresses on hand, but this film certainly gives experimental cinema (with respect to both form and expression) a bad name – in retrospect, it is worth noting that, while the film was made in 1968, it was only first shown after having sat on the shelf for some 2 years….
Edited by Mario Gauci - 11/2/11 at 1:54pm
Another excellent offering from De La Iglesia, this is even more of a slow-burning thriller than THE CANNIBAL MAN (1972) but the scenario it conveys of place, characters and situations holds one’s attention, even if there is a definite slackening during the last act (picking things up again with a stunning climax that not only marries the REAR WINDOW {1954}-inspired proceedings up to that point to a STRANGERS ON A TRAIN {1951}-type twist but also takes care to produce one additional ace for the finale!) and which now seems to be something of a directorial trait.
The GLASS CEILING, in fact, is confidently Hitchcockian but also presenting concerns that obviously interested the film-maker, such as what sort of mischief may be going on within the walls of a house (which, in this case, is amplified by making the central setting a condominium). However, the script merely uses fanciful conjecture as a means to an end, which is another character study of a lonely figure (here leading lady Carmen Sevilla, and for which performance she won the Cinema Writers Circle award) whose grip on reality is quickly fading (depicted via a notable dream sequence) and how the people she comes into contact with react to this (there is even a disturbing subtext, which one hopes is not quite true, of landowning studs and horny errand-boys preying on such abandoned wives!). Still, unlike THE CANNIBAL MAN, the protagonist is now a victim who soon finds that she cannot really trust anyone, not even family, preferring to keep company with her amiable white cat (which, unfortunately, comes to a sticky end).
Once again, the cast includes lovely Emma Cohen: at first, I thought she would have an even lesser role than in CANNIBAL, since her name is much further down the cast list this time around, but also because she plays the unflattering part of a farmer’s daughter delivering milk to the various tenants – however, enamored of the landlord, she also frequently pays him visits at the condominium’s back-yard, where he conducts his extracurricular activity of sculpting. Though he certainly does not discourage her attentions (even accepting to be fed – and playfully sprayed in – milk by her directly from a cow’s teat!), the man really favors Sevilla (to the point of taking the latter horse-riding in order to alleviate her ennui), so that Cohen is cross when a sculpture he has made of her luscious body (voyeuristically caught by camera while the girl is sleeping in the nude, one more of the landlord’s hobbies, which he also directs at Sevilla and another pivotal female character, thus linking the film to the remarkable “Cannibal” flick I watched at the very start of this “Halloween Challenge”, WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH {1974}) actually sports SevIlla’s head!
However, Cohen’s character still vanishes from the proceedings well before the end – which serves to put at center-stage an attractive neighbor of Sevilla’s, whom the latter suspects all through the picture of having committed foul play upon her invalid husband (whose body the heroine frantically suspects of being stashed either in the back-yard or the couple’s own fridge!), even contriving to periodically check with the bus depot whether he was seen leaving town as his spouse claims.
10/30/11: MURDER IN A BLUE WORLD (Eloy De La Iglesia, 1973) ***
The third De La Iglesia film I am watching in a row – and the best (though the "Cult Films" website bafflingly rates this a measly *1/2) – that, while it touches on the same theme of a serial-killer on the loose, is the most ambitious (numbering no fewer than 5 scriptwriters!) because it is set in a dystopian future and employs international actors. Since I have made it a point to discard Sci-Fi titles for this year’s “Halloween Challenge”, I was a little wary of adding this but, thankfully, it proved a continuation of De La Iglesia’s preoccupations.
The film wears its obvious inspiration from Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) proudly on its sleeve because, not only is there a Droog-like band of violent criminals marauding at night (wielding whips at leisure), but they also assault an upper-class household that is very much decorated in the ultra-modern fashion seen in CLOCKWORK and, as if this was not enough, a screening of that very Kubrickian adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novel is about to start on TV when their doorbell rings! Likewise, a subplot revolves around an experimental program which is supposed to render hardened criminals into acceptable society members (but, predictably, the last scene demonstrates that the scheme has failed horribly), while peppering the soundtrack with classical music pieces (albeit being otherwise scored as if it were a Spaghetti Western!). Interestingly, whether deliberately or not, Kubrick returned the favor by utilizing music by the composer of this one (Georges Garvarentz) for his own swan-song EYES WIDE SHUT (1999)! Indeed, while the original Spanish title translates to the poetic A DROP OF BLOOD TO DIE LOVING and that the film was released on R2 DVD as MURDER IN A BLUE WORLD (for the record, the widescreen copy I acquired, albeit VHS quality, was fairly good and did not noticeably detract from my enjoyment of the striking visual look of the décor and costumes), the film was apparently known in the U.S. under the rather condescending moniker of CLOCKWORK TERROR.
Moreover, Sue Lyon – as it happens, the young star of Kubrick’s LOLITA (1962) – has the leading role here and, at one point, is even seen leafing through Vladimir Nabokov’s eponymous novel while lounging in a gay bar! The rest of the cast is made up of Christopher Mitchum (who would later appear in another foul-play-in-a-hospital movie, FACELESS {1987}) and Jean Sorel (who had already played a doctor in his most famous film, Luis Bunuel’s BELLE DE JOUR {1967}: incidentally, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE itself was Bunuel’s own favorite movie!). For being the younger son of Hollywood legend Robert Mitchum, Chris worked with some far-out directors: in fact, apart from De La Iglesia, he also made films for Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jess Franco! Lyon, while ostensibly renowned psychiatrist Sorel’s girl, moonlights as a serial-killer of males between the ages of 17 and 25 (though her reasons for running amok are attributed to the traumatic death of the girl’s parents in childhood, it is never quite clear why she targets that particular age group, one of whom she ensnares by outbidding him at an auction for the very first edition of the “Flash Gordon” comic-strip!) and, therefore, according to news reports, the murderer must be a homosexual! Conversely, Mitchum is one of the four members of the afore-mentioned “Droog”-like anarchists who falls foul of his team-mates and, to earn some cash on the side, takes to blackmailing Lyon (whom he had unwittingly spied while disposing of a body: she often affects disguises herself – as a mature woman or a man! – to lure her victims, who include a macho publicity guy modeling underwear on TV, linking the film, as do the entire lady-killing scenario and the overriding influence of TV, to the recently-viewed THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA {1976}). Eventually, Mitchum’s former friends beat him up and he is hospitalized and, ironically enough, put in Lyon’s care…but, in eliminating him there, she also gives herself away – to Sorel’s obvious horror.
Given my rewarding experience so far with the filmography of Eloy De La Iglesia (on a side-note, that of Alex, who is not a relation, is no less intriguing but somewhat less consistent), I opted to acquire yet one more effort i.e. his adaptation of Henry James’ classic – and much-filmed – ghost story THE TURN OF THE SCREW (1985), but which I was unable to include in the “Halloween Challenge” that has just come to an end.
10/31/11: TRAP (Jacques Baratier, 1970) **
As often happens, I contrived to close a marathon on a whimper rather than a bang and it was certainly the case with this “Halloween Challenge”: not only is the film a total rarity (I only recently became aware of it) and very marginally related to the genre I was celebrating (in fact, I only included it because the site from where I acquired it labeled the movie as such) but it also proved to be quite a chore to sit through (despite lasting for a mere 55 minutes)!
I have often said that Surrealism works better when treated as entertainment: Luis Bunuel was its undisputed master in cinema (which is why he is my absolute favorite auteur) but, apart from the occasional attempt to shock an audience (notably his first two films), he learned to transmit his subversive messages (while always denying he had any!) in a subtle, indeed sophisticated, manner in order to reach a wider audience! Not so other noted directors whose work, however, leaves me cold to a considerable extent, namely Federico Fellini, Marco Ferreri, David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Fernando Arrabal.
Tellingly, the latter turns up here as an actor – but he is actually the best thing about the film, as an intellectual seller of traps (hence the title), and it is amusing to watch him demonstrate the practicality of a variety of traps from his ever more unwieldy stock to a prospective buyer! The latter subsequently invites a couple of women to his house (“Nouvelle Vague” stalwarts Bernadette Lafont, a Claude Chabrol regular, and Bulle Ogier, who actually co-starred in Bunuel’s greatest film i.e. THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE {1972}) – who, for no very good reason (since nothing comes of it thereafter) are made out to be nuns in the throes of devil worship! When they arrive, even though properly invited, they do not enter through the main door but opt to go in as burglars! Once inside, they try to cut through the safe with a blowtorch while giving vent to their anarchy by smashing everything that comes in their way. They cause a veritable mess – Lafont stomach-churningly plays around with assorted eggs, whereas the more child-like Ogier grimaces and moans incessantly! They paint their faces, disrobe down to their underwear, engage in a S&M routine, but only ever get to meet their host at the very end (even if he had actually been spying on the girls throughout their rampage!)…when the whole place blows up!
The point of it all is obscure and, frankly not worth unraveling; if anything, the film may owe a bit to Vera Chytilova’s DAISIES (1966; which I own but have yet to watch), while looking forward to Jacques Rivette’s 3-hour plus CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING (1974; which I am familiar with and reasonably enjoyed). For the record, TRAP (an oft-used title, by the way, numbering among these a few interesting and versatile works) is the only film I have watched from this director and am only vaguely familiar with a trio of others from his not-so-vast filmography (comprising 6 shorts, 5 documentaries and 13 features made in the space of 55 years!). I generally admire the two actresses on hand, but this film certainly gives experimental cinema (with respect to both form and expression) a bad name – in retrospect, it is worth noting that, while the film was made in 1968, it was only first shown after having sat on the shelf for some 2 years….
Edited by Mario Gauci - 11/2/11 at 1:54pm
