Hammer's Dracula Franchise

The clever opening title to "Dracula."

England's Hammer studio made its name with horror, principally beginning with The Curse of Frankenstein--an updating of the Mary Shelley novel with more explicit gore that seemed utterly shocking for 1957--and its inevitable follow-up, Dracula (released in the U.S. as "Horror of Dracula" to prevent confusion with the Bela Lugosi film), which contained more action, more blood, and hints of sex. With these two films began the modern horror picture: explicit and scandalous. Both departed dramatically from their Universal Pictures counterparts, and Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (the protagonist and the monster, respectfully, in each film) took their place beside Lugosi and Boris Karloff as timeless horror icons. Hammer had a merciless eye toward low budgets and commercial prospects, and (sometimes distressingly) milked their franchises for all they were worth. No, the monsters did not meet Abbott and Costello, but the films did become more exploitative, more crass, and, ironically, out of date despite all the studios' efforts to keep them modern. Hammer's reputation became sullied in the 1970's with often insipid attempts to update their icons; they even briefly turned to adapting TV sitcoms into big-screen films before the money ran out and the studio closed its doors. But Hammer retains a loyal cult following--particularly for those early films from its golden period, which ran approximately into the mid-60's. Those films, many of them directed by Terence Fisher, were classy, exciting, and elegant, and though the chills were usually rooted in the fantastic, and therefore necessarily artificial, they were almost always worth the price of admission.

As Hammer was always willing to fund a sequel to any moneymaker, there are a few franchises scattered throughout their filmography, some of them brief and curious (such as their dinosaur films), some rather notorious (the Karnstein trilogy, loosely inspired by "Carmilla," which began with "The Vampire Lovers"), and others relentlessly enduring. To that last category belong the Frankenstein and Dracula pictures. Both of Hammer's stars, Cushing & Lee, launched each series, but after that--with few exceptions--each took was assigned his own franchise, with Cushing taking the recurring role of Baron Frankenstein, making a new monster in each film, and Lee playing Dracula multiple times, dying and resurrecting, in succession, again and again. Lee's Dracula films have been the most popular product of the Hammer studios (although Cushing's Frankenstein films might be marginally better, on the whole, with more substantial plotlines), and here's an analysis of how they hold up today, both as entertainment and as representations of Bram Stoker's original, exhaustively pillaged novel.

Vampirism's sex appeal: Lee seduces his victim in "Dracula."

Dracula (U.K., 1958) * * * 1/2
D: Terence Fisher

Prior to this film, the character of Dracula was embodied in the "I vant to suck your blood" parodies of Lugosi; it was impossible to separate the character from Lugosi's rich Hungarian accent. When he did "suck blood," it was with an uplifted cape, discreetly hiding the fang-penetration from the audience. Tod Browning's film was a talky adaptation--actually adapted from the theatrical production, and it showed. Sequel after sequel dumbed-down the presentation of the villain until he became merely a flapping bat on a string dissolving into a caped man with fangs. Terence Fisher's film, by contrast, is best seen as a deliberate attempt to reimagine the character and see the material from a fresh, more earthly point of view, instead of as a faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel--which it definitely isn't. If sex was merely hinted at in the original film, here the subtext is brought to he fore and underlined. Dracula's victims eagerly open their windows for their night visitor, and then the necks of their nightgowns. Before Dracula strikes, he brushes gently against their neck as a lover might, and becomes so aroused that his eyes become engorged with blood (glass contact lenses)--then we see him bite, and blood courses down his chin; the woman sighs in ecstacy. (Tame now, but rated X in England when it was released!) When Lucy, awaiting Dracula, removes the cross from her neck and sticks it in a drawer, it's with the same import as if she had turned a photo of her mother so that it didn't face the bed. This film undoubtedly influenced nearly every vampire film that followed; there is even a reference to vampirism-as-drug-addiction. Peter Cushing, as Van Helsing, is far more dynamic than the elderly Dutch doctor of the original novel. He chases vigorously after his opponent, and when he defeats him in the famous climax, it's with the skill of a gymnast. Lee has less to do, but makes such an impact in the opening scenes in Castle Dracula that his presence is felt even when he's absent for long stretches.

But the film's "classic" status is compromised by an unnecessarily confused script. The twist of the opening scenes--learning that Jonathan Harker is a vampire hunter, not an unwitting victim--is revealed clumsily, and doesn't seem to serve any particular purpose for the narrative. Many of the other alterations to the novel seem to be random and pointless. Dr. Seward is now a hapless, doddering old man whose appearance is pretty much a cameo. Lucy is now Jonathan's fiancee and Arthur Holmwood's sister, although she was Arthur's fiancee in the book. In the novel, Jonathan was engaged to Mina, but now Mina is married to Arthur. Why? No reason. More understandably, Renfield is missing, and Dracula's castle is now just a carriage-ride away from the city where our characters live. Dracula is also robbed of certain powers granted him by Stoker. Van Helsing asserts that it's a myth that Dracula can transform into animals (presumably to tell the audience with a wink that there will be no bats on strings in this movie), so this is a Dracula that has to run on his own two feet to get from one location to another. Almost apologetically, scenes and characters from the original novel omitted from this film make cameo appearances in later entries in the series.

Actually, Lee's portrayal is very close to Stoker's creation, though he retains a dignified British accent. In Stoker's novel, Dracula really is a diabolical beast with blood on his lips and a scowl on his face, running from those who hunt him and taunting them from a distance. Therefore, after the opening scenes in Castle Dracula, Lee has very little dialogue, and almost performs his seduction scenes as though he were Rudolph Valentino in a silent film. The score by James Bernard is also worth mentioning. Bernard composed almost all of the "classic" Hammer scores, and his work was typically lush and memorable. His Dracula theme is memorable, but rather inanely composed, so that the three-note theme seems to shout "DRAC-u-la!" (This is intentional on Bernard's part.) In later films, the Dracula theme will recede into an almost subliminal presence on the score, while more romantic and gothic themes paint the foreground. Still, this film restored class and dignity to Dracula and, by extension, the horror genre, which was otherwise stagnant through the 1950's.

Cushing as a romantic, swashbuckling Van Helsing in "Brides of Dracula."

Brides of Dracula (U.K., 1960) * * * 1/2
D: Terence Fisher

This is the On Her Majesty's Secret Service entry in the Dracula franchise: a perceived flop/miscalculation, filmed without the centerpiece actor (in OHMSS, George Lazenby replaced Sean Connery as James Bond; here, neither Lee nor Dracula is present), that nonetheless has attained cult status and offers a tantalizing possibility for what the series could have been. Lee, fearing typecasting (justifiably, as it turns out), vainly sought more romantic roles and turned down the chance to play Dracula in this sequel. Thankfully, Cushing returned as Van Helsing, the only returning character, and here becoming a vampire hunter of heroic proportions. The film opens with the spooky nighttime carriage ride to a vampire's castle which the first film inexplicably omitted, only this time the potential victim is a beautiful young teacher, Marianne (a French ingenue, Yvonne Monlaur). She's offered shelter for the night by the castle's Baroness, and told the rest of the property is deserted, but nevertheless steals a glimpse of the Baroness' son, Baron Meinster (David Peel), who is locked away in one part of the castle--actually manacled at the ankle. Understandably, she "rescues" him, only to be told what we suspect: that the Baron is actually a vampire, and his mother was doing the right thing by keeping him prisoner. Unmolested by the Baron so far, she takes up her teaching post, and encounters Van Helsing, who's been busy hunting down the remaining vampires in the countryside, a few of which lurk near the school. It's not long before the freed Baron turns up again, proposing to Marianne, gathering a harem of vampire women, and pursued by the dogged Van Helsing.

Oh, what this series could have been! Peter Cushing nails the cold-blooded intensity of Van Helsing's character while translating a humanizing vulnerability, as in one of the last scenes, inside a windmill, when he's bitten by the Baron and must improvise an agonizing treatment before he "turns." The swashbuckling climax is actually the best of the series, and is genuinely thrilling, though it involves a suspension of disbelief (why, for example, do only the windmill's blades cast a shadow?). And there are enough colorful characters and miscellaneous vampire activity to keep the middle stretch interesting. Despite Lee's absence, this is one of the best Hammer horror films. (It's available on DVD in the U.S. only as part of the "Hammer Horror Series: Franchise Collection" set from Universal, which contains 8 mostly-great Hammer horror and suspense films across two 2-sided discs--highly recommended.)

It should be noted that as the series progressed, rules established in previous films were broken or reversed in later ones. In Dracula, Cushing insists that vampires cannot change into bats--but apparently Baron Meinster can. It's unfortunate to see the return of the bat-on-a-string, which always looks ludicrous (no more so than in the late-period Dracula entry, Scars of Dracula), and here suggests that Jimmy Sangster, who wrote the original film, may have had the right idea in excluding that particular element. But there's no turning back now.

"Dracula, Prince of Darkness" has his first and graphically violent resurrection.

Dracula, Prince of Darkness (U.K., 1966) * * 1/2
D: Terence Fisher

It's astounding to believe that rather than pursue a Van Helsing franchise, Hammer waited six more years before releasing this third installment, which restores Lee, but not Cushing. Not only does Lee return to the series, but so does screenwriter Sangster and composer Bernard, neither of whom partook in Brides of Dracula. The film opens sensationally: after a recap of the original film's climax--now eight years old--we see what first appears to be a funeral procession, but is quickly revealed to be a mob of villagers about to drive a stake through the heart of the woman they're transporting. The lynching is broken up by Father Sandor (Andrew Keir), a monk who carries a rifle, and who will now disappear for a large stretch of the film as we're introduced to our dull protagonists, two married couples vacationing in the countryside who make the always-unwise decision of spending a night in Castle Dracula. The castle is attended by one human servant, Klove (Dracula always needs humans to watch over him during the daylight hours). Klove is a genuinely frightening figure: in the middle of the night, he abducts one member of the party, kills him, ties him by the legs and hangs him upside down above a sarcophagus, and then cuts open his throat so that the blood spills upon Dracula's ashes. Now we are treated to the first of numerous resurrection scenes, almost all identical to each other: a series of cuts showing the ashes turning into a human shape, then a skeleton, then a gray, mummified corpse, and finally Christopher Lee--usually smartly dressed, although here it's a more intelligent shot of a naked, grasping arm, the hand bearing the ring which the opening credits revealed to be all that was left of Dracula. This is a full forty-five minutes into the movie--half its running time has passed with little to no incident! In the remaining time, Dracula will glower menacingly from the shadows, ordering Klove around with fierce gestures, but he will not speak a word: Lee excised all of his own dialogue, finding it insipid. Still, it seems unnatural that Dracula would suddenly be a mute, and not bother to actually speak to either his underling or his vampire servants.

Although it's taken so long to finally get Dracula back into the story, we are pretty quickly taken back to the village where our survivors meet up with Father Sandor and another monk, the very Renfield-like Ludwig. Well, let's face it: Ludwig is Renfield, right down to the fly-gobbling and the rantings about his master's return. Typical of Sangster, Ludwig serves no real coherent function in the film, except to clutter up the narrative just when it should be getting lean and exciting. But everything about the film is anticlimactic and strangely diluted. It's only in the final scene, when Dracula is confronted upon his ice-covered moat, that we get a hint of the vitality of the first two films--this is when director Fisher is suddenly stirred from an atypical lethargy.

The film is noticeably more violent than the earlier two, most especially in the throat-cutting scene, and offers a strong hint of where the series will eventually lead, as it adjusts to the loosening standards of British censors. Yet the film is also as flavorless as a holy wafer.

The fairy tale imagery of "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave."

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (U.K., 1968) * * 1/2
D: Freddie Francis

Paul (Barry Andrews) is in love with Maria (Veronica Carlson), but her father, the Monsignor, scorns his professed atheism. Zena, the bartender who loves him, works out her jealousy by attempting to deliver Maria to a newly-resurrected Dracula. Paul must overcome his atheism to confront the servant of the Devil, and he's assisted by a similarly conflicted priest (Ewan Hooper), who has fallen under Dracula's command.

The fourth entry switches directors to the more workmanlike Freddie Francis, although here Francis attempts some awkward experimentation by using different color filters, extreme angles, and odd lenses, all apparently to invoke the otherworldly presence of Dracula. None of them really work. Much more successful are the fabulous sets and matte paintings which create a dreamlike world of rooftop avenues used by Maria, Paul, Zena, Dracula, and the priest, as they seek out their nighttime desires. These sets provide a much more evocative treatment of sin versus Catholocism than the literal-minded script, which has got to be the most religiose treatment of the vampire theme in horror cinema.

Dracula has recovered his speech in this film, but Lee can be more embarrassed by his humiliating demise, as he squirms upon a cross (which has penetrated his chest) for what seems like an eternity, and reminds the modern viewer of Martin Landau, playing Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's Ed Wood, getting drunk so he can flop around with an octopus puppet in a pond in the middle of the night. Neither does Dracula ever seem that frightening in the film--nor is he given much to do. But there's a good deal of charm in the early scenes, and another overqualified romantic score by Bernard, who is hitting his stride. Note that veteran character actor Michael Ripper makes one of his many prominent appearances in the Dracula series, each time taking on a different role. Another recurring character is the abundant female cleavage, ideally suited for displaying crucifix necklaces.

The daughters, staking their hypocrite fathers, in "Taste the Blood of Dracula."

Taste the Blood of Dracula (U.K., 1969) * * *
D: Peter Sasdy

Picking up directly after the ending of the last film, this has a pretty amusing opening, as Roy Kinnear--recognizable from such films as Help! and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and making a rare appearance in a Hammer film--is introduced unsuccessfully hawking his shoddy merchandise on a coach travelling through the countryside; he's subsequently booted off, staggers, lost and alone, through the woods, and unexpectedly encounters Dracula, in his dying moments, writhing on the cross (recycled footage from DHRFTG). Kinnear, recognizing a brilliant investment opportunity when he sees one, steals the cape of Dracula and places the blood of the count in a vial. Meanwhile, we meet young Alice Hargood (Linda Hayden), her boyfriend, Paul (Anthony Higgins), and Alice's father (Geoffrey Keen, recognizable from the James Bond series), who disapproves of their courtship. The father is supposedly an upstanding member of the community and an icon of moral fortitude, but on Sunday nights he sneaks off to a whorehouse with his two friends (one of whom is Peter Sallis, the voice of Wallace in the Wallace & Gromit films). This company of upstanding hypocrites is intrigued by the possibilities offered by a young Satanist, Lord Courtley (Ralph Bates, being bred as a new Hammer star). Courtley wants to use their money to purchase Dracula's remains, for an ill-defined arcane ritual of some sort. When they are finally offered the chance to, well, taste the blood of Dracula, Mr. Hargood and his friends panic and beat Lord Courtley to death. It's Lord Courtley's blood which resurrects Dracula, who sets about avenging the death of his servant by turning the murderers' children against them.

All of this might sound convoluted, but there's a good reason: it was expected that Lee would not be returning for this film, and so a script was prepared for a Dracula flick without a Dracula. As it is, Dracula is pretty incidental to the plot, and could easily be written out again. Unexpectedly, all of the plot's contortions lead to a fairly interesting mix of satire and horror. The virginal young girl and her more vivacious friend seem to be stand-ins, once again, for Mina and Lucy (DHRFTG used the same dynamic, in "homage"), but the twist is a pivotal one: both taken under Dracula's spell, they kill their parents in vicious ways--one is even staked through the heart. Given this sensational plot, the inevitably chaste resolution, in which Dracula is killed by stumbling into a chapel (!), feels phony by comparison. Still, this is one of the most entertaining Dracula films since the first two, with a solid script, some tastefully handled exploitation elements, and a magnificent score by James Bernard. It was all downhill from here.

Dracula via the Marquis de Sade: "Scars of Dracula."

Scars of Dracula (U.K., 1970) * *
D: Roy Ward Baker

By now, the Dracula films had become an annual event. Director-for-hire Baker can usually be counted on for a watchable, if not exceptional, effort, and that's what this is--but it's unusually exploitative. At least the Dracula films have fairly accurate titles (Brides of Dracula notwithstanding), and this is one film that is obsessed with scars and disfigurations. Much has been made of a scene in which Dracula's servant, Klove (Patrick Troughton, replacing Philip Latham from DPOD), lifts up his shirt and offers his mutilated back for Dracula, who proceeds to scald it with a red-hot sword. The Dracula films have now moved from simple sex to sadomasochism. More nauseating are the close-ups when churchgoers are attacked by Dracula's bats (the bats look fake, but the shots of gore linger in a sickening way). The scar-fixation is curiously misguided, as though Baker wanted to make a hardcore Hammer film for his young audience to compete with the blood-and-sex-filled competition in the genre, but had no idea what made violence or sex appealing. There is a bit more nudity here than in the last film, as Hammer had just begun to dip its toes in those waters, but more memorable is the oddly leering tone which underscores everything. Perhaps Baker just had a disdain for his audience.

Still, there's at least one interesting touch: with more time spent in Castle Dracula than in any of the previous outings, we get to see more of it, including Dracula's secret chamber, whose only gateway is built into the sheer wall of the castle. This allows for some nice suspense as our heroes attempt to descend the wall to reach his abode, and a pretty decent special effects shot of Dracula climbing the castle wall like a ghost--a moment lifted directly from the original novel.

This was the last of the period Dracula films, and the aftertaste is that of missed opportunity.

The subtle mise en scène of "Dracula A.D. 1972."

Dracula A.D. 1972 (U.K., 1972) *
D: Alan Gibson

The Hammer studios in the early 70's split desperately in two directions: buying the cheap rights to TV sitcoms to adapt them into low-budget big-screen comedies, and running their horror franchise dry on a number of lowbrow flicks, most of them sexy vampire movies. Of the latter category was the "Karnstein Trilogy," inspired by the classic horror novel Carmilla: beginning with the borderline softcore chiller The Vampire Lovers, it continued with hasty follow-ups both bad (Lust for a Vampire) and good (Twins of Evil). Vampire Circus and Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter were clever variations on the theme, opening new possibilities for 70's Hammer horror; unfortunately, the Dracula films were continuing on their undying path, slouching and losing a bit more flesh with each outing. To call Dracula A.D. 1972 ill-conceived would be a gross understatement. The premise is right there in the title, and watching all 96 minutes of the actual feature will offer you nothing else. It opens in 1872, as Van Helsing (a returning--and visibly much older--Peter Cushing) battles Dracula (Lee) on a speeding coach. When the coach crashes, both Van Helsing and Dracula are killed (the latter being impaled on one of the wheel's spokes, of course), but the Count's ashes and ring are preserved by an acolyte who buries them outside Van Helsing's graveyard. One hundred years later, the acolyte's descendant, one "Johnny Alucard" (ugh), invites his hip young friends to a Satanic ritual in the church beside that same graveyard, reviving Dracula. Luckily, one of those youths is the great-granddaughter of Van Helsing, and her father (Cushing again) is an anthropologist with an interest in the occult--ready to spring into action and battle Dracula, accompanied by some funky music that seems more appropriate for a Scooby-Doo episode. How insipid is it that even though the century has changed, the plot unravels like another stale Dracula installment, utilizing almost nothing of the modern setting? Dracula never leaves his church, and is intent on corrupting the young Van Helsing girl, sending Alucard out to find her. Consider: Dracula has basically slept for 100 years, and when he's finally awake, he refuses to leave the living room. Can't he change into a bat or...something? Instead, he does next to nothing, and the film's running time is padded with scenes of a police inspector (Michael Coles) consulting with Van Helsing, even though that inspector won't even figure into the climax. I struggled to think of a single redeeming element in this film, but came up dry. I mean, this is a film where Van Helsing has to get out a piece of paper and draw a diagram in order to figure out that "Alucard" is "Dracula" spelled backward.

Death by thorn bush: "The Satanic Rites of Dracula."

The Satanic Rites of Dracula (U.K., 1974) * 1/2
D: Alan Gibson

After sitting through Dracula A.D. 1972, it's a little difficult to understand why a sequel was required, but here it is: The Satanic Rites of Dracula reunites Lee, Cushing, Michael Coles (the Inspector), and director Alan Gibson, once again having a romp in modern-day (i.e. 1974) London. Newcomer Joanna Lumley, now best known for Absolutely Fabulous, plays Cushing's granddaughter. I recalled this entry as being the absolute worst of the series, but watching the last two back-to-back has changed my mind: it's more entertaining than the last film, and actually addresses most of my criticisms about that movie. For one thing, it does take advantage of the modern setting--Dracula is now the CEO of a corporation, hiding under the pseudonym D. D. Denham, and secretly plotting to unleash a deadly plague upon the world. The Inspector, so useless in the last film, now gets to run around Dracula's mansion slaying vampire women. And this is anything but dull: the film opens with a Satanic ritual involving a nude woman who writhes in orgasm when a group of old men touch the bleeding wound in her stomach; then there's an undercover cop who gets into a fight with a motorcycle-riding hoodlum working for Dracula; and it gets wilder from there. This actually has the feel of a Fu Manchu movie, and not because of the dragon lady who guards the mansion, pulling levers at her secret console and guarding a dungeon of chained vixens. (Well, actually, yes--exactly for that reason.) But Christopher Lee still doesn't have a lot to do, and, as with the last film, hardly appears at all. The film is also howlingly funny, right down to Dracula's final, pathetic end: slain by a thorn bush in his own garden. Then Van Helsing picks up Dracula's ring, scrutinizing it in the moonlight, as though pondering taking us down this familiar route one more time. Let's hope he melted it down. Actually, there was one more film, though it hardly counts: Hammer collaborated with Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers to produce a hybrid horror and martial-arts film. Entitled The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, its alternate title was The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula. Peter Cushing appeared, but not as Van Helsing, and the villain wasn't really Dracula.

Watching all the installments of the series, in order, within the span of a month and a half has been a bit like running on a hamster wheel. The plot never progresses, it only repeats itself. You'd be hard-pressed to remember that in the Stoker novel, Dracula actually seemed to have a plan--one to spread vampirism, like a disease, throughout the civilized world. In the Hammer sequels, a great deal of time is spent in each film justifying his resurrection--and then, when he finally enters the picture, he spends a short time plotting payback upon one or two characters, before getting killed again. He never lives for anything but a petty revenge. He seems to have the forces of nature at his control, but rather than concentrating on spreading his evil throughout the world, he becomes fixated--usually on a plucky young man and his virginal girlfriend--and it's this tunnel vision which proves his undoing. You would expect a Dracula series to be a bit more like what Roman Polanski's Dance of the Vampires (The Fearless Vampire Killers) hinted at with its plot--which in itself was a parody of Hammer films (Kiss of the Vampire in particular): that our villain would have a grand scheme, and would play the humans like pawns through each installment. But no luck. The Hammer screenwriters instead decided to remake the same plot over and over again, with a few exceptions. Oddly, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, with its poor-man's Fu Manchu antics, is the only sequel which serves up what its young audience probably wanted: a larger-than-life Dracula. Too many of these Hammer films feel imaginatively stunted, undoubtedly a flaw of a studio that placed classy Gothic melodrama--always on a tight budget--above complex or original plots. You'd have to look outside the Dracula series for satisfaction. I recommend The Devil Rides Out, based on the Dennis Wheatley novel, which offers Lee as a hero, and a more worthy and intelligent villain than Dracula in Charles Gray's Mocata.

But at long last Christopher Lee moved on from Dracula--forsaking this British series for the only one more famous: 007's (he played the villain Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun). Cushing had one final triumph ahead of him, playing a key role in Star Wars, but Lee's career submerged further into obscure B-movies until only recently, when it was revived by his appearances in two of the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings films. (Once again, he's an icon to kids.) All of the Hammer Dracula films are now available on DVD, as is Jess Franco's Count Dracula, which also stars Lee and is one of the most faithful adaptations of Stoker's book--it was an assignment Lee took because he felt the Hammer films just hadn't gotten the source material quite right. No kidding! I have a nostalgia for these films, but they are deeply frustrating. With so many of the right elements in place from the beginning (Lee, Cushing, Terence Fisher), how could an ideal Dracula picture never quite materialize? The novel continues to be elusive. Not Hammer's Dracula, not Lugosi's, not Francis Ford Coppola's, and not even Guy Maddin's, manage to capture the strange quality, humor, and tragedy of Stoker's book. But if Stoker had written a comic book with healthy doses of sex and gore, it might have been something like these peculiar entertainments.

The Transforming Landscape of Tideland

Tideland (Canada, 2005) * * * 1/2
D: Terry Gilliam

Tideland is the bravest, most personal, and most harrowing film Terry Gilliam has ever made. But it didn't work out so well for him. First there was the accusation, from former Gilliam child star Sarah Polley ("Sally" in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), that he recklessly endangers his child actors and shouldn't be guiding a young actress through the dark, adult material found in Mitch Cullin's novel. Gilliam, dumbfounded by her complaints, talked to Polley, and they seemed to work it out. But then it was screened in the 2005 Toronto Film Festival--just a month after the box-office failure of Gilliam's studio movie The Brothers Grimm--and received a disastrous reception, even worse than the reception his film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas received at Cannes. Nobody liked Tideland. Everyone complained that it was interminable, too unhinged, too bleak. A year passed and the film was not released. Finally, just last fall, it received an extremely limited release. Gilliam became desperate. In an unusual move, he filmed an introduction to be screened with Tideland in which he says to the audience, "Many of you will hate this film," but says that the film is about innocence, and asks that the audience view the events through the eyes of a child. "Children are resilient," says the ex-Python. "When you drop them, they bounce." When his film opened in New York, he greeted a line of people waiting for Jon Stewart's Daily Show dressed as a bum with a sign begging people to see his movie. He happily introduced himself to his fans. He'd talk to anyone. Just so long as they would give Tideland a chance.

In a way, the ordeal is now over: Tideland is out on DVD, and anyone can watch it, learn what the controversy was about, and draw their own conclusions. It can now become a cult film, which is most certainly what it's destined to be: a film that the majority will not understand (or will actively detest), but that a small, appreciate group will come to love. When Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas--a film that's already followed this path--was released, Gilliam enthusiastically proclaimed that yes, people can hate the film, and that's a good thing: it's good to get a real emotional reaction, when so many films intend complacency. Of course, now Fear and Loathing has become something of a classic. It helps that Terry Gilliam's never made a movie that's at its best on the first viewing; it usually takes a couple to appreciate the film's density--and to see past the grittiness.

And Tideland is all about the grit. Although the film is quite often beautiful to look at--the sweeping shots of the prairie, with a lonely house nestled within and propped up against a blue sky, are just as visually arresting as anything in the canon of this noted visual stylist--it is also a film that deals with hideous subject matter with a wide-open gaze. It's the innocent gaze of a child, and it's what transforms this film from a simple fantasy into something more complex and difficult. The plot concerns Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland), a child who is accustomed to preparing the needles for her drug-addicted parents (Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly). She dislikes her mother, who guards all the candy. She admires and tenderly cares for her father, Noah, who fronts a rock and roll band, encourages her imaginative world through his own rudderless delusions and hallucinations, and is absolutely not worthy of the admiration. But as the film opens, her mother dies of an overdose, and Noah takes Jeliza-Rose out to the prairie to a deserted, dilapidated farmhouse--where he promptly overdoses. Jeliza-Rose is now orphaned, and copes by taking refuge in her imagination. She talks to the severed doll-heads that she carries on her fingers, seeks out a squirrel that's hiding in the roof, and dresses up the corpse of her father, whom she leaves in his rocking chair. Eventually, she discovers a "ghost" in the fields outside her home--actually Dell (Janet McTeer), a taxidermist who lives with Dickens (Brendan Fletcher), a young man with a lobotomy. While the young girl is frightened of Dell, she finds a fitting companion in the childlike Dickens, who has envisioned the prairie as a vast ocean occupied by a "monster shark" which is actually the train which periodically disturbs the landscape's serenity. Together all three form a makeshift and temporary family unit--solidified when Dell takes over the farmhouse and does something rather disturbing, which I won't reveal here, but which prompted one Tideland admirer to mention that it's best to take it in as a comedic version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I wouldn't go that far.

But it does, indeed, borrow many of the qualities of a horror film, particularly in some of the grisly moments toward the film's end. It starts ugly and it gets ugly. It's not an easy film to sit through. But if you turn it off--if you look away--you break the trance which the film is attempting to create. Tideland requires active attention and active thought; Gilliam is true to his hatred of complacency-inspiring films. And consider that if Gilliam wanted to wallow in ugliness, he would not have cut away from the film's one vomit scene (perhaps the only time he's done so in his career!). If you're open to this movie, if you're meeting its gaze, I think you're rewarded.

Take the film's acknowledged framework: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Jeliza-Rose is reading the book--presumably it's her favorite book--and not only does she quote lines from it, but at one point Dell does, as though the taxidermist were a creation of Jeliza-Rose's imagination. So you have a child who falls down a hole, meets some strange characters, and emerges, "waking," at the end. This is its structure, but it is not a movie "about" Alice in Wonderland; there is no point in making a direct connection of this-character to that-character. It's simply the foundation for a recurring motif on which to dress its themes. Tideland is, instead, a film about transforming reality through a child's eyes as an act of survival. It's about coping. It's about how the awful can be transformed into something sacred, even transcendent. It's about the difference between subjectivity and objectivity--and how objective meaning can be irrelevant behind the sheer will of one's subjective point of view. The events that surround Jeliza-Rose do, indeed, belong in a horror movie, or at least a Requiem for a Dream sequel, but in the eye of this hurricane exists, imperviously, Jeliza-Rose. She doesn't change; she doesn't deteriorate. She adapts to continue existing, yet retaining a relatively innocent viewpoint. This is something only a child can do, and it's the miracle of which Tideland is an intensive study. This isn't to say that Jeliza-Rose is traumatized by the deaths of her exaggeratedly horrendous parents and escapes into fantasy because of it; instead, she sees everything as it happens with an open, understanding gaze. She doesn't mourn her parents, for they were awful parents, but on the other hand, Noah was her world. When he's dead, she sleeps in his lap, brags about the song he wrote for her, and retains his vision of the "tidelands," which gels fortuitously with the imaginative world of Dickens. Her behaviour in the film will only seem extraordinary if you're not considering the imagination with which she was born and the parents with whom she's been sequestered all her life. Those are the elements, and when she's orphaned and set loose upon the adventure of Tideland, it's as though a grand experiment is taking place: to see just how far a little girl can go into the darkness while retaining her essential innocence.

Faithful Terry Gilliam fans--and we're a cult of our own--will immediately notice how few are the moments of outright fantasy in this film. It's particularly unusual given that it's the film's subject. In Brazil, when Sam Lowry retreated from his dreary office life into the make-believe world of his daydreams, it was an exhilarating experience, launched with the spreading of his silver wings. In Tideland, we only have one toe in the water of dreams. Everything seems mostly-true, like the world seen through the hazy veil of a hypnagogic state, caught between sleep and waking. There are only a few brief moments of outright fantasy, the most prolonged a vision of the prairie transforming into the "tidelands" as Jeliza-Rose swims against the current. That's maybe a minute-and-a-half. Only once do you see one of the doll heads become animate in the features, although a few float around the air. The squirrel talks, but not much. When Jeliza-Rose spies upon Dell having sex, it seems like a conspiratorial, sinister encounter suited to a dark fairy tale--and it's funny, but only modestly unreal. No, we are seeing events more or less as they happen. Children, after all, are not delusional. But events, to a child, are just a little bit magnified, and the meaning can be completely distorted. This is the eye of Tideland, and in that respect I believe it's completely accurate.

It gets even more interesting. Every character in Tideland is in the act of transforming the world into a reality with which they can cope; it's only that Noah does it less imaginatively by shooting up. Dramatically, Dell, by applying the art of taxidermy, hopes to reconstruct the world into her own ideals, even constructing her own semi-imaginary family. Perhaps this is why the setting is so flat, so empty, this corner of the prairie: it's a relatively blank slate upon which these identities can stamp their dreams. All of this comes together in the final scene, the "waking" of sorts, which promises escape from the landscape--and rescue--just as we've witnessed the most absurd, and blackly comic, transformation of all.

It is a really, really tough film to watch--or appreciate--for two principal reasons. (1) Because the film is essentially narrated by Jeliza-Rose, you may overdose on precociousness really fast. It's nothing if not honest in its depiction of a young girl's feverishly romanticized vision of her life. (2) Her relationship with Dickens threatens to become intimate late in the film. Perhaps speaking to this, Gilliam has said that the film plays better on a second viewing because one knows that nothing bad will happen to the girl. Nevertheless, Gilliam is well aware that he's playing with fire, and you can hold that against him, or appreciate how fearlessly he's scrutinizing the properties of a child's innocence. It's supposed to be harrowing--but when he grants these scenes a romantic tone (he's that committed to the girl's point of view), you might find it too much to stomach. I'll tell you this: it's the edgiest material Gilliam's ever attempted. Rest assured he pulls back at the precipice.

Gilliam had always been so easy to categorize, primarily because he did it himself, identifying for critics that three of his films fit into a "Dreamer Trilogy,"* and that the next three fit into an "America Trilogy."** But where does Tideland fit? Is it the middle part of a third trilogy which began with Brothers Grimm? Not at all--Tideland is nothing like anything Gilliam's done before. I always likened the filmmaker to Pasolini, who also had an earthy sense of the fantastic, and exuberantly sought the contrast between scatalogy and transcendence. This one is actually much closer to Pasolini's earlier, more intellectually-charged films. It's a true art house movie, in that it's a piece of art, not entertainment. You see, whether or not this movie "works" for you is kind of beside the point. It is a brave and indispensable piece of cinematic art.

And I dock it half a star for the fart jokes.

* These are Time Bandits (the dreamer as a child), Brazil (the dreamer as an adult), and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (the dreamer in old age). Tideland works upon a similar theme--actually, Gilliam's pet theme--of the thin line between fantasy and reality, but with a completely different technique, as noted above.
** These are The Fisher King (his first film made in the United States), 12 Monkeys (his bona fide Hollywood studio film), and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (the film in which he turned on the U.S., scathingly delivering Hunter S. Thompson's satirical venom as his characters go in search of the real America). The Brothers Grimm was an international production. Tideland was produced in Canada.

Duelle

Duelle (France, 1976) * * * *
D: Jacques Rivette

The touring Jacques Rivette retrospective (or "revival," more appropriately, given how underappreciated and underseen his films are in the States) continued last Saturday night with a rare screening of his 1976 fantasy Duelle. The fictional title word, I learn from the program notes, is a neologism intended to feminize the world "duel." And yes, this is a duel between two women, with a third caught in the middle.

It seems to operate in the same whimsical universe as his best-known work, Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974): like that film, it is an unapologetic fantasy with a twisting narrative, and told in a deliberately counterintuitive manner. But it is also an episode in an unfinished series of films to be called "Scenes de la vie parallele" ("Scenes from a Parallel Life"). Originally envisioned as a four-part series embracing myth in the storylines and a mannered mise en scene based upon the movement of the actors through the screen, he only completed two of these films in the Seventies before being forced to abandon the project. (Recently, he completed a third, The Story of Marie and Julien [2003]).

My understanding is that a lot of critics have rejected Rivette--at least, one can assume as much, given that his reputation needs to be "revived," despite the fact that he's still making films. With Duelle, I can see why, although it's a film that I can embrace. A glimpse at the plot might help you understand: Lucie (Hermine Karagheuz), who works at a hotel, is asked by a mysterious woman, Leni, to help track down her lover. Only gradually does Lucie learn that Leni is actually trying to track down Lucie's brother, Pierrot (Jean Babilee, slightly resembling Eddie Constantine in Alphaville--a comparison that will get you far in interpreting this film). Pierrot is also being sought after by Leni's friend Viva. Both of the women--Leni and Viva--are actually goddesses of the Moon and Sun, respectively, granted 40 days to take human form at the end of winter, and seeking a magical diamond called the "Fairy Godmother." The gem is cursed, but should one of them possess it, they will no longer be subjected to the rules governing the seasons. Pierrot does not have the gem, but one of his many lovers does: Jeanne, a miserable dancer who keeps it in her drawer, and covers with a scarf the tainting black mark that it's left upon her neck.

While the plot is fairy-tale fantasy, it is structured like a film noir. The Fairy Godmother is really just a surrogate for the Maltese Falcon, or, more accurately, the glowing package in Kiss Me Deadly. Leni approaches Lucie just as a pretty woman might approach Sam Spade in his office--and the fact that she's presenting a red herring, and harbors ulterior motives, is to be expected in this genre. Early on, Lucie is summoned to a nighttime meeting in an aquarium, and discovers her contact dead on the floor. She subsequently tails a suspect through the streets of Paris. All of this detective work eventually reveals the truth--that Leni and Viva are immortals, and they're after a magical diamond--which leads to a series of climactic setpieces straight out of a Philip Marlowe book, if they weren't so fantastic.

But if it doesn't play quite as exciting or suspenseful as it sounds, that's by design. Rivette underlines the artificiality through a number of curious, if not outright mischievous, devices. Most obviously, although the film has the basic story structure of a detective story, in the first hour it skips to disparate characters and events rapidly without stopping to introduce them. We actually learn much--that Leni and Viva know each other well, that Viva is beginning to work her wiles on Pierrot, that Jeanne possesses the diamond--but because we have so little context, we're frustrated and struggle to pull the meaning together. (To this end, as the film unfolds and reveals its design, the structure reveals not incompetence but bravura storytelling. How appropriate that this Cinematheque series is entitled "Parisian Labyrinths," for this is what the film resembles.) In another playful device, the score is entirely improvised--on set, with the pianist (Jean Wiener) in full view, playing his scores to fit the action just as a silent movie organist might. This is in line with Rivette's preoccupation with revealing the artificiality of cinema in order to draw attention to the relationship between the viewer and the film. Because of that damned pianist, it's impossible to completely lose oneself in the film; Rivette wants you to engage with it instead. But engage with what? Well, you could observe the way the actors seem to drift or swim or even dance across the screen--no one seems to just walk. (It can't be an accident that the centerpiece of the film is a ball in which all the major players are exchanging partners on the floor.) This technique is undoubtedly part of the new filmmaking technique which this series was meant to introduce. The only difference it makes, that I noticed, is a heightening of the film's dreamlike quality, for everyone moves as though in a dream. I would have to view the film a second time to see how it affects the "mise en scene," as Rivette implies.

But I can imagine that many critics, upon seeing this film in its original release, could find it all empty and meaningless (i.e., "commercial"). It does, after all, bother to tell you an actual story with a beginning, middle, and end. There's also all that nonsense about goddesses and magic. How could a film critic be bothered? Jonathan Rosenbaum is quoted in the program notes as excusing the film's complex storyline thusly: "Narrative habits [as a viewer] die hard, and the burning desire to know what is going on in the story terms might well divert one from the fascination of not knowing what will happen next in formal terms, in the constantly fluctuating relationship between chance and control...The irony of the situation is that the plot is important chiefly as a vehicle, and one mainly has to 'know' it in order to be able to dispense with it." Rosenbaum is here bending over backwards to excuse his enjoyment of a film with so much plot in it. Good lord. Get bent, Mr. Rosenbaum. I honestly don't believe Rivette--and his co-writers Eduardo de Gregorio and Marilu Parolini--poured so much work into this enormously dense screenplay just so that the viewer could dispense with it. There's a general tendency in film criticism to praise the director's techniques over the screenplay, and this is the extreme endpoint. In fact, this screenplay masterfully merges Raymond Chandler with Borges, filtered through a feminist lens. Still, he has a certain point, though he overstates it. Rivette is toying with the viewer's capacity to handle a plot which seems too tangled to infiltrate--but didn't Chandler do that first with The Big Sleep (and in particular, didn't Faulkner do it with his more-confusing screenplay)? In fact, a closer re-examination of Duelle's plotting, once the film is over, and you see that it wasn't so confusing after all. All the events make sense in retrospect, as in any fine mystery. It's just that Rivette's art house mannerisms tease one into believing that it's just Bunuelian (or Lynchian) surrealism, excavating the Unconscious, and no rhyme or reason will come of it...until it does.

But you may find yourself in one of these two camps--which, I impress upon you, are not the only options: the one who wants Duelle to have less story and more abstraction, and the one who followed the story dutifully and wants it to have more resonance of meaning. Fair enough. I would like to pose a third runway on which to land from this dizzying trip: you engaged in a game with Rivette--a fairy tale puzzle for adults--and there needn't be a winner. There is the sun. There is the moon. And there is, in the middle, the mortal--the Lucie, spilling a drop of her blood on the diamond to trump them both with her own mortality and her own limitations. Learn, as Lucie did, that the riddle of Duelle will not be solved by acting as an absolute. Embrace your limitations. Rivette is the wiser. It's as much as we can do to follow, like lost detectives, along the path he's led us along, and enjoy all the shadows, sights, and inspirations along the way.

[Note: although the still--one of the few I could find--is in black and white, the film is actually in color. The print screened at the Cinematheque was unfortunately battered and skewed toward the pink.]

Capsule Reviews

Children of Men (U.K., 2006) * * * 1/2
D: Alfonso Cuaron

One of the best dystopian thrillers I've seen (that's not saying that much--there are a lot of terrible ones), Cuaron's director's baravado is the real star of this film, with his extremely long handheld takes that bring a riveting immediacy to almost every scene. It's been decades since the last child was born, and as terrorism and riots have descended upon the rest of the world, the U.K. has been transformed into a police state, rounding up illegal immigrants and locking them in cages. Clive Owen plays a jaded beaurocrat who, after running into an old girlfriend (Julianne Moore) who's now working for a terrorist group, unexpectedly finds himself the protector of a miraculously pregnant woman (Claire-Hope Ashitey)--attempting to hide her pregnancy long enough to get her into the hands of a possibly-mythical human rights organization outside of England. The action is intense enough to put you in a thick, cold sweat, but Cuaron also has a knack for finding moments of incredible beauty, as in the memorable final shot.

Curse of the Golden Flower (China, 2006) * * * *
D: Zhang Yimou

The third in what might be a trilogy for the great Chinese director Zhang Yimou (after Hero and House of Flying Daggers), it's received less critical acclaim in the States and disappeared quickly from theaters. Undoubtedly it's because of the unusual style and structure of the film. The first half, in which Yimou finally reunites with his once-favored star, Gong Li, plays like one of their older films--a little bit Ju Dou, a little bit Raise the Red Lantern. With typically gorgeous cinematography and vivid, almost blinding colors, they guide us through the winding passages of the Forbidden City. Li plays Empress Phoenix, who is in love with her step-son, and is slowly being poisoned by her husband, Emperor Ping (Chow Yun-Fat). There are other complications and conspiracies involving her other two sons, too complex to recount in a capsule review, but suffice it to say that King Lear seems to be a chief inspiration. The second half is an action spectacular that builds upon the technology and epic battle scenes of The Lord of the Rings to put them to a slightly different use: as giant armies clash, moving as of one mind, it's like we're seeing a Romance of the Three Kingdoms legend re-enacted in the vivid imagination of a young child.

The Departed (U.S., 2006) * * * 1/2
D: Martin Scorsese

Scorsese's remake of Infernal Affairs--a superb Hong Kong thriller which has already spawned a sequel and a prequel--follows the original closely, while adding a completely different flavor. A Boston crime boss, Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), watches as his prodigy, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), rises through the ranks of the Massachusetts state police while working as Costello's informant. Meanwhile, Billy Costigan (Leonardo diCaprio) another rising through the ranks, is forced into going deep undercover, first thrown in prison, then gradually involving himself with Costello's affairs. Only the captain (Martin Sheen) and his right-hand man (Mark Wahlberg) know that Costigan is an undercover cop, and Costigan, who spends each day living a life he'd wanted desperately to avoid, grows suicidal. The pace picks up when Costello learns there's a mole in his ranks, and the police learn there's one in theirs, too; soon Sullivan and Costigan are on each other's trail, in a chess game that grows more and more bloody. Nicholson's performance is way over the top, and distracts, but for the most part this is the same kind of hyper-intelligent thriller that Spike Lee made with Inside Man and David Mamet made with Spartan, and kind of makes you wish more of our great directors would try to reinvent the thriller genre.

Flags of Our Fathers (U.S., 2006) * * *
D: Clint Eastwood

The first in Eastwood's two-volume rumination on the battle of Iwo Jima, this one's told from the American point of view, in particular those who raised the flag in the famous photograph. They quickly become heroes on the homefront, but they feel randomly plucked for fame, and undeserving; haunted by the horrific memories of the battle on the Japanese island, their lives begin to fracture. Particularly devastated is Ira (Adam Beach), a Native American soldier who detests the public relations duties, and rapidly descends into alcoholism. The strongest scenes in Eastwood's film come at the very beginning, as we see the battleships filling the horizon as they gather for the assault on Iwo Jima, and the grunts turn to card games, jazz music (hosted by DJ Tokyo Rose), and mild hazing to cool their nerves. All of that seems authentic, as do the hellish scenes of battle, but whenever the film tells its central story--that of the three soldiers relentlessly exploited by the government and the media when they return home--the film is deflated and lethargic. You get the point early on, and you wait while Eastwood hammers it home again and again. Still, the strengths are greater than the weaknesses, and it's a film worth seeing, particularly on a double bill with the follow-up, Letters from Iwo Jima.

Ghost Rider (U.S., 2007) * *
D: Mark Steven Johnson

Nicholas Cage fulfills his longtime dream of bringing his favorite comic book (anti-)hero to the screen, but unfortunately Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil) is in the director's chair. Johnson isn't as bad a director as Uwe Boll, but he seems almost as clueless. At least this film is a couple notches above his last effort, and it's kind of a thrill to see the big flaming skull zip up his leather jacket, convert his stunt motorcycle into a tripped-out skull-and-flames affair, and whip his chain over his head. A fairly faithful adaptation of the comic, with CGI that's hot (as with the Ghost Rider) and cold (as with the demons he fights), it tells the story of Johnny Blaze, a stunt rider of colossal fame (Cage plays him as an eccentric Elvis type), unwittingly selling his soul to the devil (Peter Fonda!) and becoming his cycle-riding "bounty hunter." Eva Mendes is quite terrible as his romantic interest, as is Wes Bentley as the demonic villain, but Sam Elliott is a lot of fun as his gravedigger mentor. Campy entertainment that occasionally has the sense to serve up intentional laughs, as with Blaze's inexplicable Carpenters fixation.

Idiocracy (U.S., 2006) * * *
D: Mike Judge

A military experiment in cryogenics sends two subjects--an everyman (Luke Wilson) and a prostitute (Maya Rudolph)--spiralling into the future, where society has degenerated into such a state of ineptitude that a Gatorade-like energy drink has replaced drinking water (because it has electrolytes) and the President of the United States is part hip hop artist, part wrestling champion. If you use big words, you're a "fag," and the current Hollywood blockbuster is "Ass," which is one long shot of a man's nude, flatulent ass. Wilson's character is deemed the smartest man on Earth and quickly becomes an advisor to the president. Satire is pretty tricky to pull off, but Mike Judge succeeds by combining his sharp wit with a genuine, passionate anger against the dumbing-down of society. It's almost reminiscent of Monty Python's Life of Brian in how it streamlines its satire into a coherent narrative, but most of all it's refreshing to see a comedy that knows how to deliver a smart joke--my favorite being the slide projector gag at the beginning. Although Judge's last film, Office Space, has been a lucrative cult hit, his follow-up was dumped in theaters with no advertising (reportedly, it played in a couple cities as "Untitled Mike Judge Film") by a studio (Fox) that didn't know how to cut a trailer for it. They instead settled on the idea that it would gain a cult following on DVD--overlooking the fact that no one will rent a comedy they've never heard of. Essentially, the studio was as moronic as the culture Judge is parodying. It's not a classic by any means, but it is consistently funny, which is rare enough.

Lady Vengeance (South Korea, 2005) * *
D: Park Chan-wook

The third in Park Chan-wook's "vengeance trilogy" after Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and Oldboy (2003), this ultra-stylish noir follows a beautiful woman falsely accused of kidnapping and murder, who, upon release from prison, sets out to kill the man who framed her. Her elaborate plan is only gradually revealed--as we meet a pack of characters too thick to sort through--leading to a very ugly, messy reckoning. Oldboy received buckets of acclaim, and though I had some reservations about that film, it's superior to this follow-up, which has less to say on the same subject. Often the film is reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino, with its fractured narrative devices and visual techniques that draw attention to the editing and camera-work. But there is less here than meets the eye, and little actually happens in the film that sustains one's interest. It's a thriller without thrills, and a mystery without a mystery. There's much to admire in its technique and visual invention, but it's a self-satisfied film that offers nothing substantive for the audience.

Letters from Iwo Jima (U.S., 2006) * * * 1/2
D: Clint Eastwood

The immediate follow-up to Flags of Our Fathers is more compelling and powerful. Unlike Flags, almost all of Letters is set on Iwo Jima, as we see the Japanese commanders and soldiers turn the desolate, rocky island into a stronghold, even while learning that, no matter what they do, they are ultimately doomed to defeat and death. Based on the book Picture Letters from Commander-in-Chief, it's a tightly focused recounting of the battle from the point of view of several participants; they write letters to their families at home, form friendships and jealousies, and occasionally recount moments from their past. Actually, much of this plays pretty flatly, with little psychological depth, but moments of stark emotional resonance break through. The most remarkable aspect of this war film is how long, desperate, and despairing the battle is. The Japanese are pushed further and further back, some committing suicide by grenade (in one devastating sequence), others plotting desertion. Because we know the ending to this story, and spend so long contemplating that outcome with its participants, it's one of the darkest war films ever made.

Pan's Labyrinth (Laberinto del Fauno) (Mexico, 2006) * * * 1/2
D: Guillermo del Toro

It looks like it will finally be the year of Guillermo del Toro, the astoundingly imaginative Mexican director of The Devil's Backbone and Hellboy. His taste has always been somewhere between H.P. Lovecraft and Lewis Carroll, and Pan's Labyrinth finally makes that clear, reconciling the two worlds into a vision that's both breathtakingly wondrous and utterly grotesque. As with The Devil's Backbone, to which this seems to be a companion piece, the story is set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War--or, in this case, in the immediate aftermath, as Franco's regime holds Spain in an oppressive grip. Young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is taken to a fort held by the brutal Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez), who has just married Ofelia's mother, and who's hunting down guerrilla forces in the neighboring woods. It's within these woods that Ofelia discovers the ruins of a labyrinth, in the center of which is a faun who tells her that she's destined to be restored to the throne of a mystical kingdom, if only she can perform certain tasks. As Ofelia sets about on her quest, guided by fairies and pursued by monsters, a real-life horror is enacted around her, as the captain coldly executes any opposed to Franco's regime. The most fascinating aspect of del Toro's widely acclaimed film is how the escapist fantasy proves to be anything but escapist: the faun, growing ever youthful as Ofelia completes her tasks, also becomes more sinister--and the tasks themselves are as bloody, visceral, and disturbing as Grimm's original fairy tales. An uncompromising, adult fantasy.

Princess Raccoon (Japan, 2005) * *
D: Seijun Suzuki

Suzuki's acid trip of a musical adapts an old Japanese legend involving a raccoon princess (Ziyi Zhang, of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers) falling in love with a prince (Jo Odagiri), while battling an evil sorceress. Enacted almost entirely on studio sets (which are supposed to look like studio sets), and filled with moments of utter insanity and confusion, the film is Suzuki's attempt to make a new kind of musical, a pure, and senseless, entertainment. Suzuki is a legendary Japanese film director, and he's in his eighties, which you wouldn't know by glancing at this film, which is exuberantly youthful--childish, even. It dwells at the point where a sugar high breaks through into spiralling nausea. Scatalogical humor, as well as many cultural jokes that don't translate at all (but which seem pretty adolescent, anyway), dominate the proceedings. Helpfully, the closing number spells out who were the racoons and who weren't. I could have used that at the beginning, but never mind.

The Queen (U.K., 2006) * * 1/2
D: Stephen Frears

Helen Mirren accepts the mantle of our new Judi Dench, although there's no coronation ceremony in this movie. Frankly, I think one Judi Dench was enough, but Mirren is still quite good as the Queen of England who, when she learns of Princess Diana's death, faces a public relations nightmare when she refuses to serve her respects publicly. But the real delight of the film is Michael Sheen, a dead ringer for Tony Blair who also captures the man's spirit. He serves as the surrogate for the audience, as we're introduced to the interior world of the royal family. It's fascinating to see the everyday life of the extremely priveleged and severely cloistered--to a point--but Frears handles the subject with little subtlety, and there's a great big dumb metaphor walking around in the film in the form of a prize stag, as though writer Peter Morgan just took Creative Writing 101. Prince Philip (James Cromwell) wants to take the boys out to hunt it, but when the Queen finds its decapitated body on a neighboring estate, she finally is able to grieve. Uh-huh. An inelegant film with modest pleasures, that is unsurprisingly reaping the benefits of awards season--at the expense of more worthy films (see above and below!).

Volver (Spain, 2006) * * * *
D: Pedro Almodovar

"Volver" is Spanish for "to return," and the one who returns is the supposedly dead mother (Carmen Maura) of two sisters, Sole (Lola Duenas) and Raimunda (Penelope Cruz). Sole keeps the mother's presence secret from Raimunda, although she also puts her to work in her salon (you can't just have a ghost hanging around the apartment all day). Raimunda, meanwhile, has her hands full: her adolescent daughter, Paula (Yohana Cobo), has just killed her father in self-defense during an attempted sexual assault. Raimunda hides the body in a freezer in the restaurant next door, and appoints herself the restaurant's new owner when the real one asks her to sell it. Over the past ten years Almodovar has become one of the greatest living directors, while consistently releasing the very best films for and about women. Volver is one of his best, combining his usual harrowing subject matter (in this case, there's a very dark secret revealed late in the film, which casts all the events in a new light) while applying a touch of Fellini.

Mutual Appreciation

Mutual Appreciation (U.S., 2006) * * * 1/2
D: Andrew Bujalski

A plot description wouldn't do it justice. So here it is.

Alan Peoples (Justin Rice) has just watched his indie-pop band, the Bumblebees, fall apart. He journeys to New York, ostensibly to put together a new band, but also to visit his longtime friend Lawrence (Andrew Bujalski). At first, he thinks, he only needs a drummer. He finds one, the brother of a local DJ (Seung-Min Lee) he's hesitantly dating. But he finds it easier to get along with Lawrence's girlfriend, Ellie (Rachel Clift), who's also attracted to him--but neither can do a thing about their "mutual apprecation," of which they're pretty uncertain in the first place.

Bujalski is the writer, director, and editor of this zero-budget film, which has one a few festival awards and was recently acclaimed by Film Comment, which led me to seeking it out. It's a sublime film. "Hesitantly" would be the key adjective in the above paragraph--there's a tentative attitude held by Alan, Lawrence, and Ellie, not just toward each other but toward everyone. Anxiety floods every moment, but they do their best to hide it. There are no giant emotional displays, nor are there any nebbish, cutesy comedy moments. Not a single frame of this film comes off as false. A couple of times you will suck in your breath and say, "Holy shit is that accurate." But although it's a film that thrives on making you uncomfortable--there are a zillion awkward pauses--I found that I had a grin frozen on my face for almost the entire time, because Bujalski affords the actors so many occasions to let the truth of what they're feeling accidentally slip out through their carefully guarded masks. Alan complains that he's been sending "signals" to his DJ girlfriend that he doesn't want a relationship and she's pressing on anyway, and we witness the moment first and read those signals loud and clear, but for the rest of the film we're left to find everyone's signals on our own. One of the most interesting is when Alan, quite drunk and looking to meet up with Ellie and Lawrence, wanders into a party at which they never arrived. He's left to introduce himself to three girls he's never met, all of whom are wearing wigs, and before long he's putting on a wig and being persuaded to wear eye shadow and a dress. He's trying to adapt socially to the bizarre situation (which is like something out of Martin Scorsese's "After Hours," although it still has the aura of authenticity)--but he knows he probably shouldn't let them apply makeup, and he certainly shouldn't put on the dress; it's a slow, horrifying humiliation that's also truly funny. Where that scene ends--the moment when Bujalski cuts--is just about perfect cinema.

You could complain that there's no plot, not really, and that the conflict is a bit tired, but that's not the point. Mutual Appreciation is about showing reactions and conversations and moments that you haven't seen before on film, and as much credit is due to the performers. I'm not sure how much improvising was involved in the picture, if any, but it all comes off like a documentary captured on Super-8. It has to be noted that the struggling-indie-rocker has never been depicted with such accuracy, as when Alan goes to play at Northsix in Brooklyn (a real club), and hardly anyone shows up except for a few of his friends. Watching the moments just before he begins performing, and how the crowd slowly gathers to the stage, but keeping a certain distance, as he begins, adheres so closely to the truth of the small-club scene that I was transfixed. I've never seen that in a movie before. Not to mention the awkward "trying to find a place to hang out and drink" that follows the concert, and the strange, spacey moments of hanging out with people you've never met before, trying to invent a brilliant conversation while getting drunk out of sheer nervousness. There's the bit where the drummer finds a way to score weed. Or when Lawrence is asked by a performance artist if he'd like to contribute to her show. Or when Ellie tells Lawrence the truth about what has passed between her and Alan.

The film is a little too long. There's an awkward phone conversation with Alan's father in which Bujalski seems to be desperately editing out the weaker moments of the father's performance, which leaves the scene feeling a little spotty. Perhaps too much it wears its Cassavetes influence on its sleeve (I've often heard directors list Cassavetes as an influence, but here is clearly a director who idolizes him). But most of all this is a film that radiates warmth and humanity, and it's a real joy. Netflix this now.

The Nun

The Nun (France, 1966) * * * 1/2
D: Jacques Rivette

For the winter/spring semester, the UW's Cinematheque is hosting the touring retrospective on overlooked French master Jacques Rivette, most famous for Celine and Julie Go Boating--a through-the-looking-glass metaphysical comedy that I wrote about here. That film opened the retrospective, and the series continues each Saturday...but, alas, without Out 1, his 729-minute opus (I guess since they played the 450-minute Satantango last semester, they thought we needed a longer break from the marathon cinema sessions). The first in their Rivette series which I've been able to catch is The Nun, his ultra-controversial adaptation of the 18th century Denis Diderot novel about Catholic corruption.

There's a whole genre of late 18th to early 19th century novels about depraved Catholic clergy, in which Diderot's novel fits snugly, and at times, in watching this film, I was reminded of one of my favorite books that's right out of that genre, Matthew Lewis' The Monk, which is about the extreme lengths to which a monk is driven to satisfy his unrequited sexual desires for a young woman. Here is another potboiler, just as lurid. It is divided cleanly into three acts, the third being abbreviated. In the first, a teenager, Suzanne (Anna Karina, star of many Godard films), is being forced into a convent against her will, and she refuses to take her vows; this causes a scandal, but she is nevertheless compelled to join the convent or risk living on the streets, as her callous mother will cut her off from the family's savings. Her allegiance to a sympathetic mother superior is cut short when the woman dies, and the new mother superior quickly suspects her of trying to resentfully divide the nuns against her. In fact, Sister Suzanne is only trying to contact a lawyer to win her freedom from the convent, as she was coerced into taking her vows. When the mother superior learns the truth, life becomes a waking nightmare for Suzanne: she is deprived of linens and food, even a prayer book and her rosary, and locked in a cell. She begins to grow delirious, which leads the nuns to suspect her of being possessed by the devil. Her abuse in this convent is as much psychological as it is physical, and it's arresting to watch these seemingly innocent nuns coldly conspire against each other, finally turning Suzanne into the scapegoat for all their sins. ("She thinks she's Jesus," one of the nuns sneers at one point.)

In the second act, events become more interesting, and the film heads into Bunuel territory. Suzanne has failed to win her freedom, but at least, through the efforts of her lawyer, gained transfer to another convent. At first it seems she's acquired a paradise, by comparison to her old life. The mother superior appears to be delightfully frivolous, and lets Suzanne play her harpsichord and lead the nuns in a singalong love song. But something else is going on that only gradually reveals itself to Suzanne: at first it seems that the mother superior is using her favoritism toward Suzanne as a method of psychological warfare against one of the other sisters. But then the mother superior begins to flirt with Suzanne, and invites herself into her bed chamber in the middle of the night...

In the third act, Suzanne finally gains her freedom, only to discover, inevitably, that "society" offers as many prisons, in various guises. This plays out very quickly, as the pace of this rather long film suddenly picks up and skips ahead through time, underlining the black satire of the premise while rushing ahead toward a tragic conclusion, which isn't hard to predict. For all its obviousness, Rivette's film is magnificently subversive. Towards the end of the picture, the convents have been transformed from the expected stereotype of prayers, confessions, choir, and seclusion in silent rooms, into a dark labyrinth of sinister traps made of pride, vanity, jealousy, and lust. Typical of this 18th-century genre, the plot's sole purpose is to point out that those whom society has deemed the most pious prove invariably to be the most deeply corrupt. I get a kick out of this stuff. There's just something about the luridness of the story, the desperation of the characters, and the giddy breaking of taboos by the author. In this case, it was too much for the Minister of Information in France, who banned the film. It seems inevitable, since the lesbian lust of the second act isn't hinted at, but spelled out, underlined, and highlighted in bright yellow marker.

The film is rather drably shot--appropriately, given the milieu--and not at all stylish, like the films of Karina's then-husband, Godard. There are only brief flashes of an experimental, cacophanous score, and the odd jump-cut, to add a bit of interest here and there. But Rivette is keenly interested in the storytelling, which is never less than compelling, and Karina transfixes the audience, perfectly portraying the only character in the film who presents a resolute moral pillar. Given to suicidal inclinations, and sometimes hanging to sanity by a thread, she is nonetheless determined to keep her faith in God and do right by him--which, perversely, requires escaping the one place which is supposed to be closest to him. It's a potboiler, yes, but a brilliant one.

The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. I

The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. I * * * 1/2
Containing:
Fireworks (1947)
Puce Moment (1949)
Rabbit's Moon (1950)
Eaux d'Artifice (1953)
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)

After years of delay, and reputedly some disputes with the filmmaker, Fantoma Films has finally released its long-awaited DVD compilation of the films of legendary underground filmmaker (and Hollywood Babylon scribe) Kenneth Anger, the first in a projected two-volume series. While most of his major works are absent--Scorpio Rising (1964) and Lucifer Rising (1972) will have to wait for the next DVD, which hopefully won't take as long--this DVD contains some stunningly sophisticated short films, totalling about 90 minutes when played as a program. I've wanted to watch Anger's films since beginning my personal "Primer" project of film essays a couple years back, and knew that the best video store in town, Four Star Video Heaven, had a VHS tape compilation that may or may not be legitimate; unfortunately, a flood in the building had promptly erased about a quarter of the store's inventory, and presumably the Anger tape was among them, because it was gone when I went looking again. So it was with great joy when I learned, early last month, that Fantoma had suddenly added the Anger DVD back to their schedule, and it was to be released within a matter of weeks. I am only an Anger initiate, and not an expert, so the short summaries I write here are only first impressions garnered from the very dream-like experience of watching the whole program.

According to the IMDB, Anger had been making films since he was 14 years old, but "Fireworks," made when he was 20, must be considered his first major work. The style and imagery of this, the only black and white film in the collection, calls to mind "Un Chien Andalou" and the early avant-garde films of Man Ray and Jean Epstein, put to use for a gay-themed parable. The story is quite obviously one of self-actualization, as a young man begins to experience homosexual longing, is tormented and brutally beaten for his desires, and finally is resurrected with a firework stuck in his pants. It's obvious, but quite well done given Anger's youth and lack of time and budget. It would certainly play well on a bill with one of Guy Maddin's films.

But it's the only film that seems to be of its time--even if it's an underground film. All the others, probably because many of them were reworked and redubbed over the years, have a more timeless feel. "Puce Moment" is a lovely fetish film that has a delirious opening sequence, as one brightly colored dress quickly replaces another, and the colors seem as dazzling as those of The Wizard of Oz. We obsessively follow a movie star as she leads a pack of dogs like a Siberian princess out of her estate. I'd like to know who's singing the psychedelic rock songs on the soundtrack. It sounds similar to the Velvet Underground, though at least I know it isn't them. Considering that this is a film from 1949, the effect is disorienting and weirdly euphoric. Most of all it feels like the sort of film a gay teenager would make in his bedroom when the parents are asleep--later to grow into a Jonathan Caouette, a John Cameron Mitchell...or a Kenneth Anger. Slight but technically astonishing, like all of the films here.

"Rabbit's Moon" is the first flat-out great film here. Restored to its original length of seventeen minutes (it was later cut down considerably), it's another parable, but reenacted by its players with a deliberately repetitive and ritualistic manner. A mime is stranded in a clearing in a dark woods, and falls in deep love with the moon. While he tries to reach it--an impossible task that continually leaves him isolated and broken--he is visited by a jester and a ballerina, who manipulate his desires. All of this is set to a doo-wop soundtrack--linked by chanting and tribal drums--which lends the atmosphere an electricity. The film is color tinted blue, in the manner of silent films depicting nighttime.

"Eaux d'Artifice" is an astounding and dreamy walk through a palace garden decorated with so many fountains that the water even cascades down the steps of the path. In fact, it brought to my mind Ralph Steiner's 1929 film "H20," in the way it approaches the moving water closer and closer until you're watching a purely abstract film.

Finally I was treated to a film which I gather most closely resembles his later classics. "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome" is a lengthy (38 minutes), intensely ritualistic film which summons imagery both pagan and Satanic (Anger was a professed disciple of Anton LaVey, author of the Satanic Bible). It begins with an initiate decorating himself with opulent jewelry, then consuming it. He is led into a dark chamber and joins a group of masked magicians/deities/whatever; the IMDB tells me that Shiva, Osiris, Kali, Aphrodite, Isis, Lilith, Pan, Hecate, and more are here--a density in myth that is echoed by the visual density of the film, which grows increasingly hallucinogenic and fevered as the film progresses. We even see, but dimly, an orgy of bodies piled atop each other in a pyramid, celebrating in a thick red mist, an image of intense pleasure that also, conversely, seems to invoke the traditional Catholic image of Hell. Clearly, Anger seeks to transform the Satanic into the liberating. In the bottomless pit of this secret chamber, you can don your mask, lose your identity, or discover your true one, free from the hypocrisies of the world above. It's an hypnotic bacchanalia, to which he would return--and hopefully Fantoma will too, as I eagerly await Volume II.

Oedipus Rex

Oedipus Rex (Italy, 1967) * * * *
D: Pier Paolo Pasolini

I was in Seattle, a grad student and feeling very alone (all of my friends were in Wisconsin or elsewhere), and beginning to watch a lot of movies--it helped that I lived down the street from Scarecrow Video, one of the finest video stores in the world, with a copy of nearly every film ever released on video. I saw a DVD of Arabian Nights, the back of the box had some striking imagery, and it was from the early 70's and rated NC-17, so I thought: why not? It was my introduction to two vast worlds that would be stamped upon my consciousness for at least the next seven years (so long it's been): the world of the Arabian Nights, which eventually led to taking a grad course in Orientalism that changed my life, and the world of Italian neorealist master Pier Paolo Pasolini. In a way, I suppose, I'd been prepared for Pasolini much earlier, being one of those many kids who'd discovered Monty Python and the Holy Grail and treated it with avid devotion; that film, directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, looks like a Pasolini film and plays like a Pasolini parody (Bresson, too, if you've seen Lancelot du Lac). The key word here is "grubby." Pasolini's films are intellectually rich but as dirty as a deep puddle of mud, which you can practically see smeared on the lens. I chalk this up to his devout Marxism, and firm alignment with the working class--somewhat hypocritical, as he was pretty much a member of the bourgeoise. I don't know that that's what attracted me to Pasolini; his political writings give me a headache. No, it was his "Trilogy of Life"--The Decameron (1971), The Canterbury Tales (1972), and Arabian Nights (1974)--visually arresting, shot like documentaries, and containing iconography culled from either classical art--Brueghel, Bosch--or more ancient and alien images. Most of all, they emphasized the power of storytelling, and played as simple, vulgar folk tales, the kind one person might tell another on a hot day by a dusty street in a small provincial marketplace. While he worked to de-romanticize the classics he was adapting (there are no magic lamps in his Arabian Nights), emphasizing the earthiness of the stories, the fundamental nature of his project was romantic. He envisioned himself a hero of the poor, and elevating their stories to the level of art. Often, as with his masterpiece The Decameron, he succeeded, although at other times (as with The Canterbury Tales), he fumbled in his brash experimentation. My love for Pasolini continued with The Gospel According to Saint Matthew--still the greatest film ever made from the Bible (did it help that Pasolini was an atheist?)--and even with Salo: or 120 Days of Sodom, one of the most harrowing films ever made about fascism, and a repudiation of his Trilogy of Life, but at the same time a further exploration of how elevated, intellectual thought can be realized on a visceral level (in this case of blood, sadomasochism, and feces). When I recently revisited Pasolini (viewing Mamma Roma and the short "La Ricotta") after indulging in my own private film course--Primer 500--I was still struck by the mixture of invention, humor, and emotion present in his work. Pasolini was not a natural filmmaker. He was a poet who believed that cinema could be an important tool in poetry, and he picked up the camera with an occasionally awkward hand. He cast non-professionals to fill out his cast, and while the result was sometimes worthwhile, at other times the anachronistic dubbing (usually by a more professional, theatrical actor) could be boggling. But Pasolini loved mismatched juxtapositions. The Gospel According to St. Matthew, while set in Jerusalem, featured traditional Afro-American gospel music on the soundtrack. It had no reason to work, but it was transporting.

Oedipus Rex I steered clear of for a long time, because, well, it's a famous incest story, and in Pasolini's hands I thought it could be dangerous. This is the man who'd made Salo, after all. Now that I've finally watched it, I regret waiting so long. Like the Trilogy of Life, it is shot in desolate landscapes with ancient, crumbling architecture that is convincing and awe-inspiring. It's Morocco we're seeing, and the music seems to have African tribal beats and agonized, wordless vocals, but the anachronism pays off here as it did in his other films. While the film maintains his neorealist's impulse for documentary-style realism (the camera, as ever, is handheld, and seldom looks for formal compositions), the Moroccan desert and the choice of music creates a purely psychological realm, more Jung than Freud, where the archetypes of the collective unconscious can act out their eternal tragedy. The costumes may be authentic (I assume so), but look as alien as those in Satyricon, which this film at time resembles--except that Pasolini never digresses and keeps a tight, miserly focus on the narrative. The cinematography is striking and colorful. There are only slight touches of surrealism, such as a sequence in the beginning of the second act, where we see diseased bodies lying prone in the desert and in the city, perfectly aligned with each other, but even this seems to evoke the exaggerated theater of Greek Tragedy, and these dead, semi-nude bodies might as well be our masked Chorus. Despite this, and a brief but memorable prologue and epilogue set, jarringly, in the twentieth century, the film is focused on the reality, not the fantasy, of the story--such that you can almost feel the sting of the desert rocks against the soles of your bare feet--even as the emotions are over-the-top tormented in the Greek tradition.

Pasolini is keenly interested in Oedipus Rex as a parable of the dangers of knowledge. It's not so much that Oedipus is fated to commit these accidental crimes. It's that he must be compelled to ask Tiresias what it is he will do, and, later, what it is he's done. I was reminded of the Oedipal moment in Zhang Yimou's excellent epic The Curse of the Golden Flower: long after the incest has been committed, the true relationship between the two lovers is revealed, and while the sister runs off screaming, the brother asks his stepmother: "Why did you tell me?" Here, Tiresias insists that everything would be fine if he weren't compelled to tell Oedipus the truth. There's even a moment when Oedipus' mother--who, of course, is now his wife--mentions that it can't be as bad as all that, for isn't it every son's secret wish to sleep with his mother? (It's the one moment of direct Freudianism in the film, and would seem to be a little too much if it didn't make her character so much more interesting. You get the idea that she regrets her actions not because of what they are, but because of how they affect her son, whom she dearly loves--possibly without conflict.) When Oedipus blinds himself, he is deliberately robbing himself of knowledge, becoming nothing but a dumb flute-player in the street; I almost wonder if Pasolini sees this as a repudiation of atheism for religion--a false comfort afforded against the empty, meaningless cosmos. But it's also the ultimate tragedy of the unconscious, the defeat of reason and rational thought, sabotaged by the body or the Id. Oedipus had been king, gained Corinth, and touched the heights of his potential, but in order to do so--however unwittingly--he had to perform the basest actions.

All of this is well known and famous; it's the most over-analyzed piece of storytelling in the history of civilization, with the possible exception of the Bible. It's Pasolini's prime accomplishment, then, that he makes Oedipus Rex fresh and essential. He gives it a reason to be filmed. I didn't think I needed to see this film, until I was watching it, and realized I'd never seen anything like it. Never mind that I knew the story backwards and forwards. To watch Pasolini's adaptation is to see a brilliantly primal production, as though the players emerged straight from those strange fire-pits below the desert sun, where we see the villagers dumping their dead. He understands the most essential element of retelling a Greek tragedy: these emotions and the crimes behind them will recur again and again, just as we see, at the beginning of the film, the modern father staring into the crib, envious and spiteful of the admiration stolen from his lover.

The Far Too Late Top Films List for 2006

My top 15--to be revised as I see more movies in the next couple weeks (the "Oscar films" are just coming out in Madison).

1. The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky)
2. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu)
3. Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell)
4. Volver (Pedro Almodovar)
5. The Curse of the Golden Flower (Zhang Yimou)
6. Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro)
7. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron)
8. The Departed (Martin Scorsese)
9. Mutual Appreciation (Andrew Bujalski)
10. Inside Man (Spike Lee)
11. Letters from Iwo Jima (Clint Eastwood)
12. A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman)
13. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (Albert Brooks)
14. A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater)
15. Borat (Larry Charles)

Here is my wife Anne's list.

1. Pan’s Labyrinth (wonderful bloody fantasy)
2. The Fountain (beautiful story about love and life and death)
3. The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (very strange and surreal)
4. Volver (the importance of mothers)
5. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (it’s better to die at home)
6. Shortbus (the joy of sex)
7. An Inconvenient Truth (what is wrong with the world)
8. Letters from Iwo Jima / Flags of Our Fathers (we are all the same and should stop shooting at each other)
9. Sick Girl (the best feminist horror film ever made)
10. Curse of the Golden Flower (absolutely beautiful Chinese soap opera with ninjas)
11. A Scanner Darkly (drugs are bad, even for the narcs)
12. A Prairie Home Companion (death and the importance of moving on)
13. Children of Men (the importance of children and what is worth dying for)
14. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (Albert Brooks movie about how comedy is not always universal)
15. For Your Consideration (Christopher Guest movie about how silly the Oscars are)

Anne's Others List (or movies Anne saw for the first time this year but are older, in no particular order):

1. A Woman is a Woman (Godard almost-musical)
2. Cowards Bend the Knee (Guy Maddin movie where a man named Guy Maddin falls in love with the nurse performing an abortion on his girlfriend and it gets stranger from there)
3. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodovar’s film about a woman trying to decide what to do about her boyfriend who is leaving her)
4. Werckmeister Harmonies (Bela Tarr movie about the fear of the unknown)
5. The Eagle (Rudolph Valentino movie)
6. Bad Education (My first Pedro Almodovar movie, this is a film noirish movie about assumed identies)
7. Devil’s Backbone (a great horror movie about how you really should worry more about the living than the ghosts)

What I've Been Up To Lately

For the past two years I've been putting my MFA in Creative Writing to use by working on a novel which is called (tentatively) "Iasmina and the Thief." This blog has become a little neglected because between working on this novel and that blog that people actually read (Optical Atlas) has left me with very little spare time (or eyesight) to watch a lot of movies or subsequently write about them. This may change in the coming month, however, as the UW-Cinematheque starts up its spring semester with a series of Jacques Rivette films, beginning with Celine and Julie Go Boating (which I've already written about), and I'm pretty excited about that; I also want to do a post about the Christopher Lee Dracula films, which is my junk food of the moment. I recently cancelled cable TV, an act which has generously given me a large allotment of time, and I've been responding by voraciously reading and writing. This is where the loss of eyesight comes in. I also have difficulty sleeping when I write a great deal, because I tend to write in the evenings, leaving my brain so active that it can't easily shut off when I go to bed. As a result, I get no sleep, work for eight hours while staring at a computer, go home, read, write at another computer, get no more sleep. I feel completely drained right now. My wife Anne has been begging me for more chapters, as she's been reading this book as I've been writing it, and it's been fun to play with her expectations of what's going to happen next (it's as much a serialized novel as I've ever written), but it also gives me a push to keep going and, more importantly, get a move-on with this book that I've for too long set aside to concentrate on Optical Atlas and movie-going.

Writing "Iasmina and the Thief" is, in a way, an act of liberation from grad school and all those years of creative writing classes. Shortly after I graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle, I went ahead and finished up what had been my thesis, an unfinished satirical novel called "Redshifted Bodies," but I also started reading a lot of the things I read as a middle-school kid: Conan comics, Philip K. Dick novels. I wanted to rediscover stories. A grad class on "Orientalism" brought about the closest I've ever come to a complete religious conversion, only my religion into which I was reborn was the Arabian Nights, and I fell to my knees before Scheherazade. Since then I've obsessed over the Nights, and collected different translations, pastiches, and related films, and even recently jumped at the chance to see a UW MFA-Drama production (which was great). The thing about creative writing classes is that all they teach you is style. You pick apart sentences, but you don't really look at storytelling. To read the Arabian Nights was to immerse myself in endless storytelling that stretched in all directions, and I became addicted to that landscape. While I struggled to sell "Redshifted Bodies" to an agent (no one was interested in reading it), I tried to get a few concepts for a new novel off the ground, but couldn't get past the first or second chapters. I wanted to try my hand at a fantasy novel, but I also wanted it to be completely original and avoid the usual tropes and cliches--something I'd pick up if I were in a bookstore, and owing nothing to Tolkien (whom I love) or Dungeons & Dragons (which I don't). Nothing worked. But one morning I had a very strange erotic dream about a bedsheet that made love to a woman every night, and then attacked her husband when he discovered the affair. If I thought of this idea in the middle of the day, I probably wouldn't bother writing it down, but in the mornings one tends to get a little more intensely interested in underdeveloped thoughts. Within a few hours I finished a short story which I called, at first, "The Don Juan of Escalaba," and then, "Momish Berries." It was a comic/erotic ghost story about a young Don Juan in an imaginary island kingdom who sleeps with every woman in the city, until he finally seduces a lady of the highest court. When he's killed by imperial assassins, he becomes the ghost who haunts the bedsheet. There's more, which also reveals a dirty joke in the "Momish Berries" title, but never mind; when I finished writing it, and then had Anne read it and gauged her reaction, it seemed to me that it read like the first chapter of a novel. And then I decided that I might finally have an entry-point to that Arabian Nights pastiche that I'd been toying with writing. In fact, "Iasmina and the Thief" incorporates a number of different kinds of stories, from horror to romance to the comic and the epic--there's even a pirate adventure. Actually a closer model than Arabian Nights is "The Manuscript Found in Saragossa" by Jan Potocki, which is one of my favorite novels; it, too, links together a multitude of stories with a framing-narrative in which the storytellers are involved, and at many points there are stories told within other stories, as with parts of the Nights. My goal with IATT is to write a modern version, with a greater variety of genres, drawing from a wider range of folklore, and to push the "stories within stories" idea as far as it can go while still, ideally, holding the reader's interest in the framing story. IATT is a book about storytelling and reinforces the notion that we build our own histories in the storytelling form--essentially we are telling a story about ourselves, hoping to shape it--just as we tell stories on a regular basis as a method of describing to other people, say, some funny thing that happened to you the other day, or something you heard on the news. In the world of IATT, stories become so important to the characters that, at times, they forget who they are, and become lost within the stories they've been told. One of the pivotal characters is in fact trapped within a book.

So this has taken a lot of time away, and I don't know why I'm wasting my time writing this now, except that today is my much-needed "break" from the book, after pushing myself just a little too far in the past couple of days. My goal since Christmas has been to finish my African-styled epic, which has rapidly absorbed 120 pages or so of the book--and it was meant to be a very short story, begun when I didn't know what it would ultimately be about. That story is about twins, living in the mountains of a continent similar to Africa; one of them kills their mother, and the other vows revenge, but he's told by a seer that if he doesn't catch his brother before he leaves the mountains, he'll never find satisfaction, all the days of his life. He doesn't catch his brother in time, but spends years pursuing him, in the process acquiring a jade gem which allows him to communicate with animals and command them--meanwhile, his brother journeys into a hidden kingdom similar to Egypt, and has an adventure there that takes over many more pages than I thought it would, and when the two brothers finally meet--finally!--there is a big "war of the animals" and some tragedy and lots of creation myths, and monsters, and on and on, until at last you get to the end, and it sort of explains a great deal about where you were when you started, except that you can barely remember where you started. And that's sort of how I've felt lately. So I apologize, you non-existent reader of this blog, for not writing so much here lately.

But if you do want a film recommendation, I urge you to see the latest Zhang Yimou action epic, "Curse of the Golden Flower." It's the third in his trilogy that began with "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers," and I enjoyed it the most. The first half is basically the ultimate Zhang Yimou/Gong Li costume drama (this is his long-awaited reunion with the actress with whom he's most closely associated), and the second half is like a Peter Jackson action sequence, but directed with broad, fairy-tale strokes. It's very underappreciated at the moment, so go in with an open mind and you'll get a great big-screen experience. "Children of Men," by Alfonso Cuaron, is also wonderful. Both films have one thing in common: they're "downers" that manage to be exhilarating because of the level of cinematic craftsmanship, and the brilliant clarity of the storytelling.

Talk to you soon about Dracula...