Week in Film #7: 2/8/16-2/14/16

Week in Film #7: 2/8/16-2/14/16

Film of the Week: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
   Year: 1989
   Director: Peter Greenaway

       Peter Greenaway crafts disguises, often barely hanging on, and then strips it off to show the rotten flesh beneath. The stench of decay masked by odorous perfume. What happens when the make up comes off? Nothing nice and nothing pretty. That is, from the little I've seen, my impression how most of his movies play out. This explores these themes too, but it doesn't bother to dress itself up much in the first place. Sure it may involve fancy outfits and fine dining, but in its opening moments its clear that there isn't going to be many delusions about the moral rot in these peoples cores. It's bite is clear as soon as it begins.

       This is an experience that outdoes A Clockwork Orange in it's depiction of violence and depravity, and does it while outdoing Tarantino in it's incredible style and catharsis of it's revenge sequences (not to say the styles are much comparable). It is, in it's essence, a pretty sick film. We have everything here from mutilation to cannibalism, all of which is presented rather graphically, but never gratuitously. It is hard to watch at times, but you keep watching because of its beauty; beauty which is often most apparent in it's images of violence. But the most beautiful seems come from the moments of tenderness and passion in between. The mercy contrasts starkly with the unrelenting brutality, making instances of humanity all the more impactful. And the brutality is beyond humanity itself, but also, in a way, encompassing and expressive of it. It is human in its primal anger and rabid jealousy, its fits of uncontainable rage and excessive aggression. It isn't the pretty side, but it is as human as the lovers embrace that is often interrupted by the said darkness.

       The most obvious of the major achievements in the film is its production. The colors and sets are absolutely gorgeous, taking on the image of the best stage sets ever crafted. The whole movie it seems is a play, much like others I've seen from Greenaway, specifically Nightwatching. The camera drifts from stage to stage watching the performers play out a dramatic tale of pain and love. The sets pop with reds that engulf the world of gangsters and their prey: blood, wallpaper, meat, and curtains. Red pervades throughout the movie and seems to envelop all in its meanings of violence and passion. Places like the white decor of the restroom and threatened by the red light of the restaurant when the door is opened. Danger is always right behind the door, and that may be why the connection between the wife and her lover is filled with so much passion. They are of the same color.

   Rating: A

The Rest: 

Ordinary People

   Year: 1980

   Director: Robert Redford

       I went in wondering how anything could possibly beat Raging Bull as best picture of 1980, and I left still thinking the same way. However, this is certainly less insulting than say Kramer vs. Kramer beating Apocalypse Now, not to say that Kramer vs. Kramer is a bad movie, it just isn't the masterpiece the other is. Ordinary People is different than the undeserving winner of that year in that it is more than a good movie, it is a very good one, possibly even great. And it isn't fair to compare it to something so masterful as Scorsese's losing picture of that year, even though they were in the same category. It could be argued that it is unfair to compare any movie to any other, but it is almost involuntary, it is just the way the mind works, to rank and order. At least my mind anyhow, and the minds of countless other list makers and categorizers. Part of me feels it's unfair though. Why should I have a lesser opinion of a film as strong as this just because it beat something even stronger to the Oscar, an award that is essentially meaningless when it comes to appreciating the art of a film. This is a movie that deserves praise, and it is one made with enough art and emotion to warrant a best picture. That is if it weren't competing against possibly the best film of the 80's full stop.

   Rating: B+

The Draughtsman's Contract
   Year: 1982
   Director: Peter Greenaway

       Not as strong as The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, but still pretty good in its own right. It has similar themes, specifically the dressed up depravity of the upper classes, and it plays it out well, and with style and point precision. Wonderful shots and extravagant wigs galore, it is, like a Greenaway film, with an air of a play about it. The compositions and staging make it feel as though your watching theatre performed on the biggest stage ever constructed, one that is visible from all angles and as expansive as an estate. Beautiful greenery and plotting involving murder and intrigue.

   Rating: B

Pumpkin
   Year: 2002
   Director: Anthony Abrams and Adam Larson Broder

       One of the great, appallingly misunderstood comedies of the modern age. This may be because it is satire so raw, so pure that it likely went over the heads of many critics at the time. It may also be because the movie takes no prisoners, and isn't afraid to pole vault over the line between political correctness and the taboo realm of our society. The most remarkable thing this movie does is, at least until the very end, refuses to wink at the audience. It gives no easy way out, and any gesture that the film is only kidding. It is absolutely serious, or pretends to be, and it is as unnerving as it is hilarious. There is not a trace of bullshit in this film. No punches are pulled, and that makes it more comically powerful. In the guise of a world of plastic schmaltzy fakery, it is able to say the most brutally honest things about the state of the culture we live in.

   Rating: B+

Shadows
   Year: 1959
   Director: John Cassavetes

       It crackles with amateurism (not necessarily in a bad way) and realism that ends up being a little too unpolished to have too much of an effect on me personally. I can see its importance and the affect it must have had back in its time, but independent cinema would be much better made later, often by Cassavetes himself. This isn't to say it feels aged, it actually very much seems ahead of it's time, and remarkably fresh. An important film in it's vision, but a scratchy and unfinished piece of work, feeling like its lacking some part of it, not quite whole.

   Rating: C

A Hard Day's Night
   Year: 1964
   Director: Richard Lester

       The best way to describe A Hard Day's Night is fun. It doesn't aim to be anything more and it achieves nothing less. It doesn't even strive for any kind of story, really being just the Beatles strung together by various gags and songs. This isn't a complaint so much as an observation, because the movie doesn't try to be more than it is, which is a filmic vessel for the Beatles to present their craft and garner more fuel for the skyrocketing popularity of Beatlemania. It doe its job well and presents the fab four as fun loving, care free youngsters with a whole lot of charm and great music. Good fun is what it is, and it should be judged by the standards brought with that description.

   Rating: B-

Help!
   Year: 1965
   Director: Richard Lester

       Playing like a wackier version of A Hard Day's Night, the effect that is made by this is a step below that of the former. It has the same sense of humor, essentially, but lacks the pure energy that made the better Beatles film work. Also the pacing is all over the place and it just gets too silly to be much. The coolest thing for me was the probably unintentional foreshadowing of eastern religions and music that would very soon come into the world of the Beatles, and would be a major factor in changing the face of popular music forever.

   Rating: C-

Creed
   Year: 2015
   Director: Ryan Coogler

       The most satisfying thing Creed does is what Michael B. Jordan's titular character attempts to achieve for himself: building it's own legacy. And it does it, like Adonis does, by borrowing from its past. This is most evident in the use of the classic Rocky score, which is used perfectly and hardly at all, only in one or two moments where it feels appropriate. This films biggest victory is beginning its own legacy. It just remains to be seen if it follows through on that, which is something that it doesn't need to do, but something that could be done with a strong basis such as this.

   Rating: B-

It Happened One Night
   Year: 1934
   Director: Frank Capra

       It Happened One Night is about a woman who escapes her fathers controlling, overbearing ownership, only to fall into the arms of a man who wishes to control what she does in much the same way. It may pretend to be about liberating a woman from her fathers control, but it is still about men dominating women in the end. That out of the way, it is also a very enjoyable, surprisingly funny romantic comedy road trip movie that is very well made and hasn't lost any spark from when it first premiered over eighty years ago. It really is miraculous how well it holds up over such a long period of time. A very nice example of the charms of old hollywood, apart from the blatant sexism that is.

   Rating: B