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Reviews
Brewster McCloud (1970)
The best surrealist film about Houston Texas ever made
The key to understanding this film is to realize it is unmistakably surrealist in the formal sense - directly comparable to the works of European Surrealists like for example Luis Buñuel. His film "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" came out in '72, that is after Brewster McCloud, and if you've seen both films, it is not a stretch at all to surmise that it may well have been Buñuel who was influenced by Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud (which after all came out two years before Buñuel's film.) And as in Buñuel's film, the surrealism in Brewster McCloud certainly has a humorous aspect, but is at its heart a vehicle for subversive but oblique social commentary: oblique because this movie in its ultra-hip cool sensibility would feel obliged to start mocking itself if it actually started preaching to anyone. But of course this film does actually mock itself, along with everything else in the known universe. That is what surrealism is: When you start literally mocking *everything* it ceases to be funny, and rather something much more fundamentally disturbing. And yet this film is easily one of the most accessible of the truly surrealist masterpieces. It is good-natured about everyone and everything it mocks.
One of the pleasant surprises I had upon discovering this film was how realistically it portrays Texans and Houstonians. There is no hackneyed accents or cowboy hats - it really does depict Texans (and specifically Houstonians) as they are - at least as they were in 1970. I'll give one example: The undercover cop is at the zoo with his wife and kid, and his wife says, "Johnny wants to go see the monkeys", and the dad responds, "Well, let him go to N*gger Town then." Now, as a matter of fact, I have scores of relatives from Houston, and I remember as a child how people from Houston talked around 1970, and I know that that was a common but offensive colloquialism for the black part of town in Houston back then. So the period detail is just spot on. And there's no judgment when the character says this. It could be he dies mysteriously later in the film with bird poop on him, but so do a dozen other characters - not all of them bad. And also, they must have had real Houston cops playing some of the cops in the film, or they might as well have. But beyond the negative attributes of the period, this film is in many ways a heartfelt homage to the city of Houston - there are plenty of just plain normal folks who must have been local extras plunked down into this phantasmagoria of a film.
When I say "surrealist" one big aspect of that is the disjointed, disengaged banal "conversations" between various characters, where they seem to be saying stuff at random, and not even paying attention to each other. And yet its still simply fascinating for some odd reason to listen to them - you are literally hanging on every meaningless word. Sally Kellerman is some sort of angel, but for no apparent reason decides to shop-lift a huge amount of film while at the camera store. When the employee who was previously lusting after her chases her down to confront her about the theft, she start pulling bottles of shampoo out of her purse and giving some convoluted explanation why she has so much shampoo, which has nothing to do with any action that has transpired previously in the film. But even banal bits of conversation that are superficially "normal" come off as highly ironic. Shelly Duvall throws up over the railing at the Astrodome, her boyfriend walks up right then and they passionately kiss right after she throws up. Then they notice his dad who is cop is dead nearby, And Shelly says, "What should we do". And her boyfriend says, "Call the cops." And he reaches down and starts pulling something out of the dead guy's shirt pocket, and Shelly Duvall says, "What are you doing?" And he responds, "Getting the phone number." Oh well, its interesting in the film for some reason.
And then there are an unending series of clever and surprising visual gags throughout the film that seem to have occurred by accident somehow. At other times there is visual lyricism and poetry. But this film never ever stops surprising you - by the end it is wowing us with technological wizardry because the depiction of the main character's flying machine is truly amazing. And as I indicated it is somehow, above all of this, a film about an actual real place -Houston Texas - and it has plenty of elements that would undeniably appeal to a lot of real good old boys from Texas - things like great sounding cars like Camaro Z28's and Roadrunners and car chases.
It is without question in the top five of Robert Altman's films and I never heard about it till last night. BIll Hader from Saturday Night Live was a guest on Turner Classic Movies and Brewster McCloud was one of four films he had selected as personal favorites of his that were shown. (The others were Rashomon, This is Spinal Tap, and something else. I had never seen all of Rashomon before either - its overrated.) But that old guy who is the standard host on TCM seemed mystified or something by Hader's choice of Brewster McCloud, but regardless, its a really, really memorable film.
In Bruges (2008)
Gangster Pilgrim's Progress
Many critics' reviews of In Bruges have given somewhat faint praise to the film for freshening up a bit the dying genre of the glib gangster flick. But this does an incredible disservice to such an insightful and thought-provoking and big film as In Bruges. And it is a very big film, the biggest I've seen in years - a film of big ideas, and by contrast a film just as adept at meditations on the innumerable small details of real life. Its a film as big as life, and not bound by any easy comparison to any single identifiable film genre. Its even bigger than real life, delving effortlessly past the smug external demeanor of a young hoodlum and into the dreams and nightmares of his tortured soul. This is simply Colin Farrell's greatest role that I am personally aware of. Previously I thought he was just some sort of brooding poser, not to mention poofter (is that the Brit term?) - some sort of marketing-generated icon for the gays and gals, complete with scruffy fashion and face growth and cute accent. But after this role his sins are forgiven and he is redeemed, like his character is in Bruges. He immediately gets Sean Connery stature in my book. (Brendan Gleason is terrific as well.)
But as to a reexamination of the gangster ethos in general, here is something quite remarkable. The film makes us to truly understand how that world is inherently a world of authority, no different than any other government. And the men that occupy that world kill other men only because they deserve to be killed, at least in the estimation of the authorities of that world who are to be obeyed. However, things like killing children and suicide are morally unconscionable to them just like they are to most people. And the men of that world are in fact real people, that need to be redeemed and are in fact redeemable - not in some simplistic revival meeting kind of way, but via a path as complex as circuitous as the world they have voluntarily chosen to inhabit, but a path that is ultimately compelling and believable. (In the process though, some of them with the strictest moral codes do not find salvation.) This is in such marked contrast to previous films like the Godfather, in which the Catholic Church for example is just an elaborate prop and backdrop exploited by proud and callous men to bolster a false appearance of stability and respectability. (Consider Michael Corleone staring stone-faced through his infant son's christening while having all his enemies whacked.) In Bruges truly humanizes gangsters in a way that has simply never been accomplished before in any other film. Is this Romanticism or Realism. It feels like the latter.
But what is remarkable is how that emotional realism is achieved in the context of a vivid psychological and cinematic dreamscape of Bruges, a place that is nevertheless quite real, a cloistered world existing in a modern one - oh well I could pile on some more metaphors, but its late. Great flick though. Really great. A lot greater than many brain-dead critics in the external reviews above give it credit for. So many great scenes - Farrell gazing out from the train as he leaves Bruges, at a dismal marsh-strewn landscape with overcast skies, a landscape reflecting the state of his own soul; the young boy accidentally killed while waiting for the priest, still clutching his hand-printed list of sins to confess: "1) Being moody; 2)Being bad at maths; 3)Being too sad;" And yet throughout the film the unforced humor that emerges time after time in spite of all this. Its a film of vast range and ambition, its such an inexplicable disservice to compare it to a self-conscious genre flick like Pulp Fiction. (Not to say Pulp Fiction is bad.) Maybe this film is better watched alone than in a drunken crowd at Sundance, I don't know. Four out of four stars.
En passion (1969)
Best of Bergman's Island Trilogy
This is probably my favorite Bergman film in color I can think of at the moment. Fanny and Alexander is the only other color film of his I've seen and I didn't see all of that one. In black and white cinematography, the goal is to emphasize motion, as well as the expressive emotional use of light and dark. Thus for example in Hour of the Wolf a couple of years prior to this film, you have a striking long shot of Sydow and Ullmann, two diminutive figures on the horizon, silhouetted and walking dejectedly across the rocky landscape of their desolate island.
The passion may be one of Bergman's first color films. I know the previous two films in his Island Trilogy (Persona and Hour of the Wolf are in B&W.) But anyway, its interesting to see what he tries to accomplish with color. The cinematography here is gorgeous and makes the somber proceedings interesting visually. This is definitely the best and furthermore the least pretentious of the Island Trilogy, save the conceit of having the actual actors break in to comment on the film at points.
The film very much celebrates the simple pleasures of life, juxtaposed as they are against depression, boredom, etc. Its very appealing to me for some reason, that Sydow, on this desolate island, finds an urbane and wealthy couple who befriend him and invite him over to their comfortable home for dinner. (The gorgeous Bibi Andersson especially "befriends" him, and her husband doesn't seem too concerned.)
Spoiler Alert: Although these really are not spoilers and the film never blatantly asserts the following to be true, clearly you are supposed to suspect strongly that they could be true. But for whatever reason they have seemed to elude all the other reviewers here. OK here they are: Liv Ullmann is the one killing all the animals. Clearly. Or maybe not. Also - Sydow seems to have killed his previous wife. But anyway once you see the film implying these things (primarily in the closing act in the heated argument between Sydow and Ullman and what follows) the film demands repeated viewing to sift out the clues earlier in the film. And I have watched this film repeatedly and will do so again.
Il conformista (1970)
The best film I've ever seen.
I rented this movie from the local library, and ended up keeping it for nearly a month, watching it over and over again, running scenes over and over again in my mind when I wasn't watching it.
As has been commented on by many, an astonishingly beautiful film. This movies is all about the Storaro's cinematography. Forget the politics of it, this movie could be about anything. In the director's commentary, Bertolucci says it was his first film he did in which he felt like an adult. However, the politics of it seem like those of a very young man, and just aren't all that relevant.
Also the musical score is not remarked upon enough - utter melancholy grandeur. The highlight of it is how it is used right at the onset to the flashback to the main character's childhood.
Everyone remarks about Dominque Sanda in this film, and of course you see her in subsequent Bertolucci films as well, but to me this movie is all about Stefania Sandrelli.
Stefania Sandrelli dances the "bossa nova" (or whatever it is) by herself in her apartment near the beginning of the film. I don't know what it is about it but I could not stop watching it.
Other noteworthy scenes:
-The ground-level shot of windblown leaves (remarked upon by many).
-The static shot of the Eiffel Tower in the early morning fog as the main character is driving off to kill his professor (actually a flash forward near the beginning of the film). It only lasts like three seconds. It reminds me of an early scene in Braveheart, the first scene we see of the adult William Wallace, and he is galloping his horse in front of a mountainous background in the Scottish Highlands. That scene as well lasts like three seconds but it was when I first realized that Braveheart was a very special film (OK don't throw out the rest of this because of that comment - Braveheart Rules.)
-Stefania Sandrelli and Dominique Sanda window shopping in Paris. Also I love that dog "Robi", a giant Shnauzer I believe.
I should also note that this is the best film dubbing I've seen in any film, and the dubbed version is to me superior to the subtitled version. I think the lead actor was actually speaking French and was dubbed anyway (not sure about that though) but dubbing is something the Italians have a lot of experience with. The dubbed version is very expressive, and also gives the film a slightly goofy attribute that I think is an asset for some reason. The film just seems much more serious in the natural languages.
In all honesty, it seems as if Bertolucci kept trying to recapture the magic of this film for the rest of his career. Here is one of many examples: In the final third of the film The main character goes to a dance hall with his old professor (whom he is thinking about killing) and their respective wives. The light emanating from the dance hall glows like a beacon in the dark blue Paris night as the two woman run ahead towards it. They enter and Dominque Sanda says, "Its time to dance", and she and Stefania Sandrelli start dancing the Tango together. The whole sequence is incredibly beautiful and directly mirrors the final third of Bertolucci's very next film, Last Tango in Paris. So anyway, I think Bertolucci knew very well what he had in this film (as well as what he had in cinematographer Storraro). In my opinion Last Tango is so pornographic as to be unwatchable (for me anyway) but Conformist does not have that type of sensationalism we see in Bertolucci's subsequent works.
Its amazing to me how in many cases a director's strongest film by far is very early in his career, and he never truly matches that accomplishment again. Another example of this is Taxi Driver which to me is by far Scorsese's strongest film, also the film of a very young man, and a film which he never really equaled again (although Goodfellas is pretty good.)