Movies Serious Movie Discussion

[eddymotto]

Saloum (2021)

Synopsis: Set in 2003, a trio of mercenaries extract a drug dealer during a coup in Guinea-Bissau. When their escape flight has mechanical issues, they are forced take refuge in a remote region on the Saloum river in Senegal.

Comments: The film could be described as a "supernatural horror western thriller". It is a mash up of a bunch of genres but stunningly original in its own right. The overall style is captivating and unique. The cinematography is often stunning. The 3rd act sometimes stumbles with grounding the movements of the characters (the distance between the different places is not always clear) and the special effects, while perfectly acceptable, could be better. None of this takes away from the overall brilliance of this film.

I highly recommend it and I can't wait to see what the director does in the future.

 

[Rimbaud82]

Saloum (2021)

Synopsis: Set in 2003, a trio of mercenaries extract a drug dealer during a coup in Guinea-Bissau. When their escape flight has mechanical issues, they are forced take refuge in a remote region on the Saloum river in Senegal.

Comments: The film could be described as a "supernatural horror western thriller". It is a mash up of a bunch of genres but stunningly original in its own right. The overall style is captivating and unique. The cinematography is often stunning. The 3rd act sometimes stumbles with grounding the movements of the characters (the distance between the different places is not always clear) and the special effects, while perfectly acceptable, could be better. None of this takes away from the overall brilliance of this film.

I highly recommend it and I can't wait to see what the director does in the future.

Sounds rather intriguing indeed

 

[eddymotto]

Sounds rather intriguing indeed

If you have the chance to watch it, I am really curious what you think of it.

 

[europe1]

Saloum (2021)

Synopsis: Set in 2003, a trio of mercenaries extract a drug dealer during a coup in Guinea-Bissau. When their escape flight has mechanical issues, they are forced take refuge in a remote region on the Saloum river in Senegal.

Comments: The film could be described as a "supernatural horror western thriller". It is a mash up of a bunch of genres but stunningly original in its own right. The overall style is captivating and unique. The cinematography is often stunning. The 3rd act sometimes stumbles with grounding the movements of the characters (the distance between the different places is not always clear) and the special effects, while perfectly acceptable, could be better. None of this takes away from the overall brilliance of this film.

I highly recommend it and I can't wait to see what the director does in the future.

I thought that Saloum was more of a stylistic success than a movie success. The African-infused genre-blending is cool to look at. But storywise its much to ropy and scatterbrained. It feels like you're pinballing between plots and scenarios so often that little momentum is generated and it becomes hard to distinguish what you're supposed to be caring about. The drug-dealer, child-soldier, voodoo-battling, and character-dynamics, all these story-archs just don't blend together in any way that feels cohesive or satisfying. Whence the third act started all I felt was that we were smackdab in some zerg-rush and what had come before didn't really matter.

Since the movie's strength was its style, it really needed a more focused narrative.

Since the mythological underpinnings are so West African it also becomes sooooo foreign. This was one of those movies where I told myself: "Well I'm sure that if I was from Senegal all these references would be making a lot more sense." Its that old problem. Tell someone they're as strong as Herculeas and they'll get the cultural reference. Tell someone they're as strong as Guan Yu and a lot of heads are going to be tilted.

And yeah I thought the special effects were so porous that it undeserved the movie.

 

[eddymotto]

I thought that Saloum was more of a stylistic success than a movie success. The African-infused genre-blending is cool to look at. But storywise its much to ropy and scatterbrained. It feels like you're pinballing between plots and scenarios so often that little momentum is generated and it becomes hard to distinguish what you're supposed to be caring about. The drug-dealer, child-soldier, voodoo-battling, and character-dynamics, all these story-archs just don't blend together in any way that feels cohesive or satisfying. Whence the third act started all I felt was that we were smackdab in some zerg-rush and what had come before didn't really matter.

Since the movie's strength was its style, it really needed a more focused narrative.

Since the mythological underpinnings are so West African it also becomes sooooo foreign. This was one of those movies where I told myself: "Well I'm sure that if I was from Senegal all these references would be making a lot more sense." Its that old problem. Tell someone they're as strong as Herculeas and they'll get the cultural reference. Tell someone they're as strong as Guan Yu and a lot of heads are going to be tilted.

And yeah I thought the special effects were so porous that it undeserved the movie.

I obviously liked it more than you did but I can understand all of your points. Thanks for the balanced comments.

I look forward to the Director's next work when he has more experience and hopefully a bigger budget.

 

[Rimbaud82]

The Flowers of St. Francis (1950)

Italian neo-realism in service of the Divine. Rossellini was, in his own words, “a complete atheist” and yet he treats the subject of St Francis with a profound sincerity and earnestness.

With no connecting narrative, the film opts for illustrative vignettes of St Francis and his followers in lieu of any serious character development. These short episodes are the so-called “flowers” of the title, connecting it to the florilegia of Medieval writings on which it is based. But what The Flowers of St. Francis lacks in psychological depth - and historical accuracy it must be said - it makes up for with excellent visuals and a disarmingly simple message.

The Italian title better conveys the tone of the film - Francesco, giullare di Dio…"Francis, God's Jester". It isn’t poking fun by any stretch, but there is an irreverent tone at times as the film grapples with the inherent sillines of this kind of spiritual vocation as seen from the modern perspective. Some of the episodes depicting the profound humility of the Franciscans come close to comedy skits. Francis and his followers were actually played by real-life monks from the Nocera Inferiore Monastery and for their part they seemed happy to play along.

Yet, for all the absurdity Rossellini is clearly still convinced of the significance of an innocent, childlike figure such as St Francis. Even as an atheist he sees the value in simplicity. I won’t say I loved the film as much as certain other films dealing with faith such as The Diary of a Country Priest (1951) and Andrei Rublev (1968). Speaking of which, the early rainstorm in Rublev was surely a homage to this film. Well, anyway, an excellent film but maybe one which didn’t fully connect with me as others have. Maybe I am just miserable!

Thoughts, opinions, feelings....if you have seen it?
@europe1 @Bullitt68 @moreorless87

 

[Rimbaud82]

The Wonder (2022)

Interesting themes do not make an interesting film; something which becomes abundantly clear when watching The Wonder. I thought this sounded really intriguing. A drama set in 1862, in an Irish midlands still recovering from the horrors and aftershocks of the Great Hunger, which deals with the phenomenon of Anorexia Mirabilis, “fasting girls” who in an apparent religious miracle - claimed to live without food for months or even years.

In the film we have a young English nurse, a veteran of the Crimean war, arriving in darkest Ireland to undertake a well paid but unusual commission. She is to watch for a fortnight over 11-year-old Anna O’Donnell, a fasting girl who has apparently not eaten for four months. In the process she is to determine whether Anna is a miracle or a fraud.

With all of this there are so many themes to draw out: science against religion, the past vs. the present, English attitudes towards Ireland (or indeed the reverse), and of course the inescapable legacy of the Irish famine, not to mention more modern issues around body dysmorphia, anorexia and so on.

The Wonder had all these themes, but the way it handled them all was so profoundly bland and uninteresting. It bites off much more than it can chew in its running time. Presumably the book on which it is based actually has the capacity to do them justice…With the narrative here, everything feels diluted and half-baked. Dramatic rural backdrops and a faint veneer of philosophy aren’t nearly sufficient to keep things going. All building to an ending which is so profoundly shallow and facile that it is actually insulting.

 

[Yotsuya]

Raw Deal by Anthony Mann has entered my personal pantheon of film noir. It has a very unique perspective with it's gangster moll voice-over narration and impulsive and violent homme fatale -drive. Raymond Burr is one of the most menacing crime bosses ever and the climax of the movie is as brutal as they come in the 40's.

 

[Yotsuya]

Il Buco (2021)

Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il Buco details an expedition by a group of speleologists into a newly discovered cave in the southern Italian region of Calabria in 1961. The title translates as “the hole” and it was thought at the time that this hole - the Bifurto Abyss - was the third deepest on earth. It is a period piece in the literal sense of the term, set as it is in the early 1960s. However, it’s no historical drama. Rather it is a profoundly quiet, almost mystical, dialogue-free exploration of…well, it’s not immediately clear. Frammartino is after what he calls the “cinema of experience” and it definitely doesn’t give up its themes lightly. Of course for me that’s not a bad thing…

In Italy this was a time of transformation - il boom economico. I’d hardly think a translation is needed for that one. Yet as the film tries to explore, not all regions would share in this economic miracle. As the film opens we emerge from the darkness of the abyss into the sun-drenched Calabrian landscape, soon we are in a nearby village where locals huddle round a tiny black-and-white screen.They watch a news program detailing the brand-new Pirellone skyscraper in Milan. From the depths of the abyss to the very height of modern sophistication. Well, it doesn’t take a genius.

But it is these kinds of dichotomies which underpins the film. Urban modernity against agrarian pastoralism, the old ways versus the new, the mundane and the sublime, human time and geological time…The film presents the dangerous descent of the young speleologists with a Herzog-ian authenticity, but contrasts this youthful daring against the ancient wisdom of an old Calabrian shepherd. In an act of cartographic violence these young scientists have come to map and unearth the deep secrets of this ancient landscape.There is much to consider as the film quietly unfolds, but to its credit it wears these themes very lightly as noted. It’s dense, and thought-provoking, without being didactic or overly trite. The viewer is trusted to draw their own conclusions.

Given its aesthetic approach Il Buco would not be much use at all if it was not for the cinematography. On this front the film does not disappoint at all. It is absolutely stunning in its poetic depiction of the Calabrian landscape, there are many frames that wouldn’t look out of place in a gallery. In a different way the incredibly impressive camerawork of the interior cave scenes is also jaw-dropping at several points. A very impressive, meditative film.

I had heard of the directors previous work Le Quattro Volte (2010), but had never got around to it. That will definitely be changed soon on the back of this one.

This was quite enjoyable. I liked the lack on intensity and did not find it overbearingly dense or Herzogian. I thought the cinematography was very functional for "documenting" this event.

Spoiler

Juxtaposition of reaching the plain bottom of the cave and death of the shepherd was a curious climax. No big discoveries or drama. Very materialistic and plain ending.

I've been meaning to watch Le Quattro Volte for a decade now, so I ordered the bluray.

 

[Yotsuya]

Le quattro volte turned out to be one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. Pretty much perfect. I really love this kind of naturalism. The ease how the movie uses animals as characters was a great source on delight.

Btw I revisited Louis Malle’s Black Moon. It has wonderful use of animals too. One of the most aesthetically perfect movies ever.

 

[Rimbaud82]

Enys Men (2022)

With this excellent follow-up to Bait (2019), Mark Jenkin gives us a richly captivating and profoundly eerie film in the vein of the '70s folk horrors of ‘old, weird Britain’. Less Wicker Man (1973) and much more Penda’s Fen (1974). This cinematic inheritance is a very self-conscious one, which Enys Men leans into. As with Bait, Jenkin uses a vintage Bolex camera and shoots on 16mm which, combined with other unusual techniques, gives the film a deliberately old-fashioned feel. It wouldn’t feel out of place as a Ghost Story for Christmas episode either (Stigma from 1977 seems like a particular touchstone), but there are a whole host of influences from this decade.

Enys Men is set on a fictional Cornish island in the weeks before May Day, 1973. It follows an unnamed wildlife volunteer (played by the excellent Mary Woodvine) as she goes about her daily tasks. Every morning she trods the same journey to a nearby cliff edge, where she makes measurements on some rare local flowers. On the way home she superstitiously drops a stone down an old mineshaft. In the afternoons she scribbles her observations in a notebook and makes tea. In the evening she reads ‘A Blueprint For Survival’. The only other task she has is to tend to the generator outside. Utterly alone on the island, the days slip past with a monotony which takes on a ritualistic quality. “No change”, as she records in the notebook.

Yet it soon becomes apparent that there is something else lurking underneath this veneer of tranquility. The reassuring repetition of the Volunteers' routine is punctured by at-first small aberrations. Seemingly ordinary events like running out of teabags take on an unnerving significance. As the film moves forward the Volunteer begins to have strange visions (or are they visions?), some of which are seemingly connected to her own memories. It is unclear if she is simply haunted by her past, driven insane by the profound isolation, or if there is something more unsettling emanating from within the landscape itself. Enys Men means “stone island” in Cornish and an ancient standing stone can be seen from the Volunteers window...

With an almost Roeg-ian editing style the film collapses the distinctions between past, present and future and brings us into a world of the uncanny - the intersection of folklore, landscape and memory. While it is a kind of folk horror, it is not outright 'scary'. However, there is a pervasive sense of dread which suits the film very well. I absolutely think some people will find it irritatingly abstract. There are some clear themes of course, don't get me wrong, but the fractured style deliberately resists a superficial analysis. On the whole I thought it was excellent and one I have found that has stayed with me days after I left the cinema. I get the sense that it is one that will reward some rewatches.

 

[Bullitt68]

One of the places where I teach is starting a film screening series (open to the public but mainly for students) and I'm going to introduce and lead discussions after two films this term. The two professors who picked the films (this was a last-minute thing that they got funding for last year and threw together quickly, but next term I'll get to be on the planning committee, so we'll see about getting some martial arts shit on the lineup ) broke the screenings up into three groups, one of which is "The Heist." The first film, which I'm introducing and talking about tomorrow, is Melville's The Red Circle, then next week I'm introducing and talking about the original The Taking of Pelham 123. In anticipation of Melville night tomorrow, I rewatched a bunch of his films. Initially, I remember being pretty down on Bob le Flambeur and pretty high on Le Doulos. They haven't flip-flopped, but I'm much higher on the former and nowhere near as high on the latter. The latter has a fantastic opening sequence, and I love Belmondo in his role, but the movie itself loses steam as it goes and I'm not wild about the ending. The former, meanwhile, has a certain charm that I responded to a lot more this time around. But once he gets to Second Wind, his crime stuff kicks into another gear. Second Wind is fantastic, but I was even higher this run through of Melville's work on his final film, A Cop. It's a shame his health was so poor and that he died so young, because by the 1970s it really seemed like he was entering his filmmaking prime. I didn't bother rewatching The Red Circle since I'm going to have to sit through a screening of it tomorrow anyway, but I'm looking forward to that rewatch, especially after loving A Cop so much this time around.

@europe1, you still high on Army of Shadows? I've always wanted to love that movie but I just don't. It's too long, it's too dull, and it ends on too lame a note. I much prefer Le Silence de la mer and Léon Morin, Priest when it comes to his Resistance films.

Raw Deal by Anthony Mann has entered my personal pantheon of film noir. It has a very unique perspective with it's gangster moll voice-over narration and impulsive and violent homme fatale -drive. Raymond Burr is one of the most menacing crime bosses ever and the climax of the movie is as brutal as they come in the 40's.

Anthony Mann has always struck me as one of the more overrated noir filmmakers, but that's definitely a bad ass movie. And yes, Burr was one of the best noir heavies of the era. If you haven't seen them, he did a bunch of other sort of under-the-radar noir films - Desperate (an early Anthony Mann film), Pitfall (one of the great noir hidden gems and one of Burr's best outings), Red Light (never been the biggest George Raft fan, but if you're a hardcore noir fan, it's enjoyable), Abandoned (a noir in the guise of a social problem film, but the melodramatic baby plot aside it's a fun enough noir outing with Dennis O'Keefe), and HIs Kind of Woman (Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, and Vincent Price in one of my favorite roles of his from this pre-horror period in his career).

 

[europe1]

Gasp! Bullit68 has pinged me about Melville films? And he's changed his mind on numerous of them? This can only mean that he--!

@europe1, you still high on Army of Shadows? I've always wanted to love that movie but I just don't. It's too long, it's too dull, and it ends on too lame a note

I don't even know what to say. I find Army incredibly taut and intense. That scene where they have to rescue a comrade from prison by infiltrating it but it goes wrong and he ends up taking a cyanide pill? Extraordinary gripping.

and it ends on too lame a note

ffs being forced to murder a person you immensely respect because the Resistance might have been compromised is not lame its--baaaaaaaahh!!!

At least even you must have liked the Gone with the Wind shoutout!

, I remember being pretty down on Bob le Flambeur and pretty high on Le Doulos. They haven't flip-flopped, but I'm much higher on the former and nowhere near as high on the latter. The latter has a fantastic opening sequence, and I love Belmondo in his role, but the movie itself loses steam as it goes and I'm not wild about the ending.

Le Doulos I remember being one of my most baffling movie experiences. Such a confusing eye-twirler of a plot! But I also remember really liking in in the end almost solely due to that opening and Belmondo's titanic charisma in the lead. The aforementioned Léon Morin is another movie where Belmondo is just killing it in and also one of his most excellent works.

Bob le Flambeur I just didn't jive with its sense of cool but I admit a rewatch might change my opinion.

but I was even higher this run through of Melville's work on his final film, A Cop.

YOU REEVALUATE THIS FILM BUT NOT ARMY OF SHADOWS!!!!!?

I only really remember liking the initial stormy bank-robbery. Everything else felt slapdash by Melville standards like that helicopter/train robbery. The ending when he's sitting in that car being all emotion-eyed I remember thinking: "Oh come on movie you haven't earned this moment at all!"

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

The setting of 1923 was obviously not chosen at random. This was the final year of the Irish Civil War. These violent events are remarked upon with ironic distance by the inhabitants of Inisherin, who can see and hear the explosions and gunfire over on the mainland. It might be tempting to draw some sort of allegory between the broken friendship of the film, and the bloody friend-on-friend conflict of the civil war. Again, McDonagh didn’t choose this setting for no reason. However, I think this juxtaposition is designed to elicit a more thoughtful response than a simple allegory of friend vs. friend. Rather it is more in the reason the friendship broke down in the first place; ie. the things people devote themselves to to give their own life meaning, and the consequences this has.

As I say, time will tell where this ranks in McDonagh’s wider filmography. To me it’s a lot more interesting than stuff like Three Billboards, which I was not particularly a fan of. A great return to Ireland anyway. Definitely recommended. Now where’s my pint……

Almost everyone I've seen talk about Inisherin treat it as some sort of buddy-film while outright ignoring everything it has to say about History, Artistry, or the Irish Civil War. Which makes perfect sense since its quite good on the interpersonal level but a flop whenever it attempts high-minded pursuits. All of those allusions to the 1923 setting fell so flat that I wasn't even bothered by how ineffective it was I just ignored it.

 

[Bullitt68]

Gasp! Bullit68 has pinged me about Melville films? And he's changed his mind on numerous of them? This can only mean that he--!

I don't even know what to say. I find Army incredibly taut and intense. That scene where they have to rescue a comrade from prison by infiltrating it but it goes wrong and he ends up taking a cyanide pill? Extraordinary gripping.

This is my biggest problem with the film: It's only good in pieces. But the pieces don't hang together compellingly. As a film, it's just too big, bloated, and boring, plus like I said I didn't like the ending. I'm with you, though, on that piece being great. Second Wind and The Red Circle are also long and a bit sprawling story-wise/character-wise, but they hang together better and never lose me from beginning to end.

Le Doulos I remember being one of my most baffling movie experiences. Such a confusing eye-twirler of a plot! But I also remember really liking in in the end almost solely due to that opening and Belmondo's titanic charisma in the lead. The aforementioned Léon Morin is another movie where Belmondo is just killing it in and also one of his most excellent works.

Bob le Flambeur I just didn't jive with its sense of cool but I admit a rewatch might change my opinion.

That was my initial take. I was also blown away by Le Doulos and nonplussed about Bob le Flambeur. But for whatever reason, the latter hit me differently this time, with the older gentlemen gambler/crook moving through the world with his principals (he struck me so much like De Niro in Heat, especially when he tells Ashley Judd to give Val Kilmer one last shot, that's like Bob helping the girl and turning away the pimp), while Le Doulos' cool didn't hold up as much the second time, even though Belmondo is still far and away the best part.

YOU REEVALUATE THIS FILM BUT NOT ARMY OF SHADOWS!!!!!?

I only really remember liking the initial stormy bank-robbery. Everything else felt slapdash by Melville standards like that helicopter/train robbery. The ending when he's sitting in that car being all emotion-eyed I remember thinking: "Oh come on movie you haven't earned this moment at all!"

Again, that moment made me think of De Niro in Heat when he's deciding whether or not to stop off and kill Waingro. I agree with you that Melville left more on the character plate than I would've liked, but I still dug it a lot.

 

[Rimbaud82]

Happy Together (1997)

An intense fever dream of a film…Happy Together follows a gay couple from Hong Kong as they travel through Argentina. Their relationship is an incredibly volatile one, marred by constant fights and break ups followed by attempts to “start over again”. Trapped in a mutually destructive cycle of infatuation, the pair soon find themselves out of money and unable to return home. Stranded in Buenos Aires one of them (Lai Yiu-Fai) takes up a job as a doorman at a tango bar, while the other (Ho Po-Wing slides into a more licentious life of casual sex and petty crime. When Po-Wing gets badly beaten, Fai allows him to stay in his apartment and helps care for him. Their intense desire for one another at times seem to bring them closer again, while their jealousy and bitterness constantly threaten to boil to the surface.

Plot-wise it’s all fairly loose and meandering but the film has such a wild, mercurial style that it simply sweeps you along for the ride. And what a ride it is. It is so emotionally raw that it practically transcends melodrama, particularly with the striking cinematography. Visually and technically it is extremely impressive, as is the way it handles its themes of love, longing (and belonging), identity and exile. It is a romance, but there is a political subtext too.

Of course a film about two gay fellas in the 90s says something in and of itself, but I love how Wong Kar Wai handles this so matter of factly. They are two lovers who simply happen to be gay, we have several films dealing with similarly turbulent relationships from the other perspective.

 

[Bullitt68]

Happy Together (1997)

An intense fever dream of a film…Happy Together follows a gay couple from Hong Kong as they travel through Argentina. Their relationship is an incredibly volatile one, marred by constant fights and break ups followed by attempts to “start over again”. Trapped in a mutually destructive cycle of infatuation, the pair soon find themselves out of money and unable to return home. Stranded in Buenos Aires one of them (Lai Yiu-Fai) takes up a job as a doorman at a tango bar, while the other (Ho Po-Wing slides into a more licentious life of casual sex and petty crime. When Po-Wing gets badly beaten, Fai allows him to stay in his apartment and helps care for him. Their intense desire for one another at times seem to bring them closer again, while their jealousy and bitterness constantly threaten to boil to the surface.

Plot-wise it’s all fairly loose and meandering but the film has such a wild, mercurial style that it simply sweeps you along for the ride. And what a ride it is. It is so emotionally raw that it practically transcends melodrama, particularly with the striking cinematography. Visually and technically it is extremely impressive, as is the way it handles its themes of love, longing (and belonging), identity and exile. It is a romance, but there is a political subtext too.

Of course a film about two gay fellas in the 90s says something in and of itself, but I love how Wong Kar Wai handles this so matter of factly. They are two lovers who simply happen to be gay, we have several films dealing with similarly turbulent relationships from the other perspective.

A little while back, I was thinking about having a Wong Kar-wai-athon, but I rewatched Chungking Express and I couldn't even finish it. I loved it the first time I watched it like 10-ish years ago, but I was so not into it the second time I didn't even finish it. This was one that I was looking forward to watching, as I've never seen it, but after the bad rewatch of Chungking Express, I moved on to other things. From your description, it sounds similar with its structural looseness and aesthetic wildness, but I'm wondering if it's going to turn out that I can't (re)watch any of his films unless there are martial arts involved

 

[Bullitt68]

Also, I didn't post this in here, but the film journal Senses of Cinema does this "World Poll" thing every year where they ask critics and scholars to submit lists to wrap up a year of film viewing. I took a novel approach and talked about my top 5 and bottom 5 viewing experiences of 2022.

https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2023/world-poll/world-poll-2022-part-1/#8

Spoilers: My favorite viewing experience was Avatar 2 and my least favorite was Scream 5.

 

[moreorless87]

Happy Together (1997)

An intense fever dream of a film…Happy Together follows a gay couple from Hong Kong as they travel through Argentina. Their relationship is an incredibly volatile one, marred by constant fights and break ups followed by attempts to “start over again”. Trapped in a mutually destructive cycle of infatuation, the pair soon find themselves out of money and unable to return home. Stranded in Buenos Aires one of them (Lai Yiu-Fai) takes up a job as a doorman at a tango bar, while the other (Ho Po-Wing slides into a more licentious life of casual sex and petty crime. When Po-Wing gets badly beaten, Fai allows him to stay in his apartment and helps care for him. Their intense desire for one another at times seem to bring them closer again, while their jealousy and bitterness constantly threaten to boil to the surface.

Plot-wise it’s all fairly loose and meandering but the film has such a wild, mercurial style that it simply sweeps you along for the ride. And what a ride it is. It is so emotionally raw that it practically transcends melodrama, particularly with the striking cinematography. Visually and technically it is extremely impressive, as is the way it handles its themes of love, longing (and belonging), identity and exile. It is a romance, but there is a political subtext too.

Of course a film about two gay fellas in the 90s says something in and of itself, but I love how Wong Kar Wai handles this so matter of factly. They are two lovers who simply happen to be gay, we have several films dealing with similarly turbulent relationships from the other perspective.

Been working my way though the WKW Criterion box, first time I'v watched some of them like this is probably 15 years. Maybe stands out a bit less as a gay romance than it did at the time although in some ways you could argue I spose such stories maybe more inclined to be politicised these days.

I do think it ends up an interesting film in his career, a bit of a transitory one perhaps? I feel like he'd been building up a certain style from the start of his career and Chungking/Fallen Angels was maybe the natural end point of it? both the look/sound of the films and the focus on the idea of "romance" moreso than character studies. Happy Together seems to be like he shifted his location from HK to Buenos Aires perhaps hoping for a new direction? the two cities are I think quite similar in terms of cluttered urban character but BA ends up feeling rather colder, I spose in part because the lead characters are foreigners in it.

Ultimately though I think it ended up as a bit of a dead end in WKW's career and with Mood For Love he went back to HK but shifted both his time period and his style instead, much slower and subtler with more repressed characters rather than the quirky romance of the earlier stuff.

 

[Bullitt68]

Hey, @Rimbaud82: I'm going to start teaching a new film history class next week, and in preparation while deciding which countries/time periods to cover and which films to set as screenings, I ran through a bunch of UK films. My plan was to screen In the Name of the Father (connecting England and Ireland) and Trainspotting (connecting England and Scotland). Ultimately, I decided instead that I'd do a week on French films (culminating in a students-turning-on-me-for-making-them-watch-triggering-shit focus on New French Extremism ) and that left me no room on the syllabus for a week on UK films. But still, I not only rewatched both In the Name of the Father and The Boxer - I still think that the latter is a bit flat, both DDL's performance and the story, but the former was even better this viewing, really compelling film and I love the father and son being in prison together - I also had a Bob Hoskins double-header.

I'd seen The Long Good Friday once before a million years ago, but watching it again, that's a hell of a film. In addition to seeing a young Helen Mirren and an even younger Pierce Brosnan (in his film debut), Hoskins is so good in that role. For me, it was shades of Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar, the scrappy guy who dreams of the big time but whose biggest enemy has always been his ego and his insecurity. But there was a sweetness to him that Robinson didn't have. And I loved his and Mirren's relationship, they were really there for each other, and the best part was the way that, at different points in the film, one of the pair was losing their shit and the other one smacked them to get them back down to Earth. They're battle-hardened survivors and they're ride-or-die. It's the closest thing that I've seen to Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw in The Getaway. And that, of course, makes the justly famous ending that much better.

Then, I watched Mona Lisa for the first time. It's always great seeing Michael Caine in anything, but Hoskins knocked this one out of the park as well. Absolutely none of the hard edges or cunning of his crime kingpin from The Long Good Friday, but a lot more sweetness and vulnerability. Not an easy character to play, but Hoskins crushed it, and he definitely deserved his Oscar nomination. Being a Neil Jordan film, it's not that surprising that (a) sex is on the menu and (b) there is a twist at the end that guts the protagonist, but I enjoyed the way that he crafted such a multi-faceted female character in Simone, who made it so easy to understand Hoskins' character falling for her. My favorite part, though, was the montage with Hoskins looking for Simone's friend in various London sex clubs to the tune of Genesis' "In Too Deep"

But it's you, @europe1, whose day I'm about to make. Remember when I got your hopes up about reappraising Melville, only to dash them by telling you that I'm still not that high on Army of Shadows? Well, I'm about to make up for that. This might even make up for the Mad Max heresy. You'll no doubt still think that I'm a martian, but I'm gearing up to write a review of Tarantino's film book about '70s movies, so I've (re)watched a bunch, and guess what? It took me five or six viewings over 15-ish years, but I can finally say, with no qualifications or equivocations: Chinatown is a damn good movie.

If you asked me what was different about this viewing, I couldn't tell you. I don't know why, but everything clicked. Nicholson is no Bogart, but he was great as Nicholson. He was a smart ass but he wasn't as smart as he thought he was, if he didn't like you he'd say so even if it meant taking a punch to the face (or a knife to the nostril), and if you tried to pull something, he'd get to the bottom of your shit even if it meant having to stay at the bottom with all the other turds. I also appreciated Towne's script this time, though I still think that Polanski deserves more credit than he gets considering the best and most important part of the film, the thing that makes Chinatown the film that it is - namely, the unhappy, quintessentially '70s ending - was not only his choice, but a choice that he made over Towne's vehement objections, so vehement that he walked off the project and told Polanksi that if he wanted to end the film on that dour note then he'd have to do it himself...and he fucking did.

Maybe it's because I'm older and wiser now and I don't hold it against the film for not being The Maltese Falcon, maybe it's because I was watching other '70s crime films and was able to see how superior Chinatown was to its peers. I'm not going to pretend to understand the alchemy. But you can now count me as a fan of Chinatown.

 

[Yotsuya]

Shaolin Invincibles is out on nice widescreen print, so finally we can see Carter Wong's battle against the long tongued wizards in all of its glory. Does that tickle your fancy, @europe1?