Edmund

Backlog

I totally forgot all about the category The Masters of Cinema Series. I’ve been doing a lot of things lately that I actually didn’t pay attention to the Series’ latest releases. So here it goes . . .

#84. Phantom. Directed by F.W. Murnau. Germany, 1922. 1:37:1. Black and White. 93 minutes. Silent. — The visuals are stunningly haunting and the story is rather farfetched. Bottom line: except for Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Murnau’s films give me the creeps.

#85. Die Finanzen des Großherzogs (The Grand Duke’s Finances). Directed by F.W. Murnau. Germany, 1924. 1:33:1. Black and White. 80 minutes. Silent. — This is a comedy but it still freaks me out—Max Schreck is here without the Count Orlok make-up!

#86. There’s Always Tomorrow. Directed by Douglas Sirk. USA, 1956. 1:85:1. Black and White. 84 minutes. English. — I love Douglas Sirk! This will take you back to that particular time period—the hair, the clothes, the dialogue . . .

#87. Soul Power. Directed by Jeffrey Levy-Hinte. USA, 2008. 1:78:1. Color. 93 minutes. English, French. — A documentary on the Zaire ’74 music festival. I’m looking forward to see Celia Cruz (!) and the young Muhammad Ali in it.

#88. For All Mankind. Directed by Al Reinert. USA, 1989. 1:37:1. Color. 80 minutes. English. — This has already been released as a Criterion Collection Blu-ray Special Edition last year. All I can say is this has got to be the most boring documentary ever. It almost convinced me that the moon landing was fake.

#89 – 91. The Complete Fritz Lang Mabuse Boxset. — This collection contains the classic and spine-chilling Dr. Mabuse trilogy (made in 1922, ’33 and ’60 respectively). The trilogy, for me, stresses the fact that evil dehumanizes not only its victims but also the perpetrators of evil themselves.

#92. M. Directed by Fritz Lang. Germany, 1957. 1:20:1. Black and White. 117 minutes. German. — This will be released as a Criterion Collection Blu-ray Special Edition in May. I hate it when Criterion and Masters of Cinema releases overlap.

#93. House (Hausu). Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi. Japan, 1977. 1:55:1. Color. 93 minutes. Japanese. — I haven’t seen this teen horror cult classic yet. And neither have I opened the case yet.

#94 – 99. Lubitsch in Berlin: Fairy-Tales, Melodramas, and Sex Comedies – Six Films by Ernst Lubitsch, 1918-1921. — I’m not a huge fan of silent films. And of Ernst Lubitsch.

Nuts

#83. La Tête contre les murs (Head Against the Wall). Directed by Georges Franju. France, 1959. 1:37:1. Black and White. 93 minutes. French.

In the film, a delinquent young man is confined by his father in a psychiatric institution. I was really looking forward to seeing this one for the very first time, because it’s by Georges Franju, the director of the unforgettable Judex. But Judex it is not. Though the cinematography is beautiful and though the soundtrack is by Maurice Jarre, the film is very slow and talky and quite self-indulgent. And, believe you me, I can handle slow and talky films.

I’m singing the body electric! In a totally unrelated development . . . the unnecessary and ugly remake of Fame flopped massively at the box office. Good. Moral: Never tamper with the classics.

School daze

#75. Passe ton Bac d’abord (Graduate First). Directed by Maurice Pialat. France, 1979. 1:66:1. Color. 81 minutes. French.

Films about school days—especially its closing days—ought to be fun, but this one is just simply . . . The characters are too many, and much of the plot really doesn’t hold together. This was supposed to be a sequel of sorts to the director’s brilliant coming-of-age drama L’enfance nue (Naked Childhood) (#72 in The Masters of Cinema Series), but I can’t just see the artistic connection.

But you might like . . . Bagets (Teeners). Directed by Maryo J. De Los Reyes. Philippines, 1984.

This iconic Filipino teen flick has everything a movie about youngsters should have: a simple, yet solid, plot(s), a great soundtrack (featuring original music and Top 40 hits from the era), and great performances from the cast, both the newcomers and veterans. Did I mention that the leads are better-looking than the cast of Passe ton Bac d’abord?

The end of the affair

#73. Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble (We Won’t Grow Old Together). Directed by Maurice Pialat. France, 1972. 1:66:1. Color. 102 minutes. French.

The Masters of Cinema’s Maurice Pialat binge continues . . .

I really find the cat-and-mouse, on and off relationship of the lovers in this film quite hilarious, but there’s really nothing funny about their tumultuous affair—or their story. Based on Pialat’s own novel, the film chronicles the excruciating story of an extramarital affair on the verge of breakdown. The controlling Jean emotionally and verbally abuses his mistress Catherine (played superbly by Marlène Jobert), making her doubt her self-worth. Jean’s wife Françoise tolerates the affair but disapproves of her husband’s treatment of Catherine.

I find Catherine and Françoise to be very interesting women. Though Françoise is almost just a background character, she invites the viewer to ask many questions. For instance, could we consider her as abused too? Keep in mind that, while her husband is having an affair right in front of her very eyes, she is doing the very same thing to him. If we are observant enough, we will notice that we sympathize with her in the end more than we sympathize with Catherine. The film suggests that Catherine has attained some form of liberation from the shackles of Jean’s oppressive “love,” but we are left to wonder what will happen to Françoise. She and her husband give us the answer to the riddle why most couples just couldn’t grow old together: it is because they haven’t grown as mature individuals.

Zzzz . . .

#81. Tôkyô sonata. Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Japan, 2008. 1:85:1. Color. 119 minutes. Japanese.

Though the film has received lots of accolades from the awards circuit, and its director (who is not related to the late great Akira—thank heavens!) is making waves in both Asia and the US, I don’t really understand why Tôkyô sonata was included in The Masters of Cinema Series. The Masters of Cinema Series has been releasing non-essential DVDs lately. (The same can also be said about The Criterion Collection.) What could the matter be? Also, I’m getting quite sick of Japanese films being released so very often in the series. Don’t get me wrong—I’m a huge fan of Japanese cinema. But about half—or more than half—of the almost 90 DVDs in series are Japanese films! A little variety would be nice.

Tôkyô sonata’s story revolves around the extraordinary adventures of an ordinary Japanese family. I have been been watching a lot of Filipino films recently, and I noticed that the plot and rhythm of these films are becoming more and more convoluted, over-the-top and quite surreal. This must be the present trend in Asian cinema. Tôkyô sonata is very much like those Tagalog movies. In fact, I was actually waiting for Ai Ai de las Alas to pop up in one of the scenes.

I cannot give any final verdict on Tôkyô sonata, as I wasn’t able to see it in its entirety. But this much I can say: I did not like the little that I saw.

Travels with Father

#82. Il grido. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Italy, 1957. 1:37:1. Black and White. 111 minutes. Italian.

Michelangelo Antonioni is my least favorite among the great Italian auteurs. I still could not understand L’avventura. (Who does, by the way?) La notte confounds me even more. I honestly do not know what to think of Zabriskie Point, and I still haven’t seen Blowup to this day. But Il grido is one of my all-time favorites. I’m a sucker for movies with tragic endings. I was in the first year of college when I first saw Il grido. I intentionally skipped classes—again—that afternoon, because (for some very strange reason) the local channel was showing great cinema (e.g., Jean Cocteau’s La belle et la bête, François Truffaut’s Les quatre cents coups) for its matinee that week.

Il grido (The Outcry) tells the story of Aldo (played by American actor Steve Cochran), a sugar refinery worker, who, disillusioned by his relationship with his long-time mistress Irma, started to wander aimlessly all over the Po Valley with his little daughter Rosina. It is a road movie—father and daughter either hitchhiked or walked.During this journey to nowhere, poor Aldo’s frustrations—both old and new—all piled up and led to the film’s unforgettable denouement.

Much has been said about Aldo’s unsuccessful relationships—for, on the road, he tried to compensate his loss of Irma by having affairs with various women. Much also has been said about the film’s socio-political subtext—the climax took place during an anti-US protest. But not a lot has been said about Aldo’s role as a father to Rosina. His rather unaffectionate relationship with his daughter is usually critiqued in the context of his other failed human relationships—his romantic ones. It was this father-daughter relationship that struck me the most. The scenes involving Aldo and Rosina are the saddest, the most touching and the most poignant. These scenes—not Aldo’s hubris nor the hazy backdrop of the Po Valley—are the ones that actually give the film its pervading sense of melancholia. Try watching this film—say, this coming Father’s Day. Then you’ll get what I mean.