Revolutionary Road (no 98)

by Allan Fish

(USA 2008 119m) DVD1/2

Where we keep the euphemism

p  Bobby Cohen, Larry Hart, Scott Rudin, Sam Mendes  d  Sam Mendes  w  Justine Haythe  novel  Richard Yates  ph  Roger Deakins  ed  Tariq Anwar  m  Thomas Newman  art  Kristi Zea  cos  Albert Wolsky

Leonardo DiCaprio (Frank Wheeler), Kate Winslet (April Wheeler), David Harbour (Shep Campbell), Kathryn Khan (Milly Campbell), Kathy Bates (Helen Givings), Richard Easton (Howard Givings), Michael Shannon (John Givings), Jay O.Sanders (Bart Pollock), Dylan Baker (Jack Ordway), Zoe Kazan (Maureen Grube),

So what does this film have to do with Who’s Afraid With Virginia Woolf?; aside from them both featuring warring marriages?  Nothing.  Yet that toss away line written by Edward Albee could not sum up Mendes’ film more accurately if it tried.  Revolutionary Road refers to the street where the couple at the centre of the film, the Wheelers’, live, and yet as Juliet said, “what’s in a name?”  Revolutionary Road is a euphemism – one used to describe a cul-de-sac or, as is perhaps more a propos in such a film, a roundabout which the couple are stuck on, the roundabout known in more succinct circles as conformity. 

            Take our couple; Frank Wheeler meets April in his twenties, sweeps her off her feet at an otherwise forgettable party, they marry, have two kids and move to suburbia.  So far, so ordinary, but that’s just it.  It’s sooooo ordinary, and both feel suffocation grasping them round the throat like a wrestler in an arm lock.  The problem is that this isn’t the free sixties, but the stifling, repressed fifties, so everyone around them thinks they’re nuts when they decide to leave for Paris to start afresh. 

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A plea for missing films

by Allan Fish

As you know, this will be my final countdown at WitD (suppress the cheers).  It’s true I have been spending less time at the site this last six months or so as I have been trying to obtain copies of various rarities to view to see if worthy of inclusion in my long-in-the writing book (since September 2003 and my opening review of Invasion of the Body Snatchers).  I have used bribery but would have been unable to do as well as I have without the help of some close friends who have supplied me with rarities, not least Tom, who I have just received some goodies in exchange, and Neil, into whose paypal account I will be depositing more cash at the end of the month to pay for a package of rarities.  Tom doesn’t have a site, but cdan be contacted at thomas.hamilton65@btinternet.com , while Neil’s goodies are obtainable via his site www.raredvds4sale.co.uk .  Email him and he’ll send you his catalogue of ultra-rare titles (including many featured on my previous countdowns), very reasonably priced, but note that whenever a title becomes available in a legitimate release for the English speaking world, they are removed from his site.  Without these two guys in particular, I’d be pretty stumped. 

However, even they are unable to track certain rarities down, so I enclose here a list of films I was unable to get hold of to view in English friendly editions and which are destined to be listed only in the Final Apologies section of my book in the vain, anorexic hope a reader out there in the blogosphere who can get hld of them…

The Grey Motor Car (Mexico 1919…Enrique Rosas, Joaquin Coss)

The Smiling Madame Beudet (France 1923…Germaine Dulac) HAVE UNSUBBED COPY

The Chronicles of the Grey House (Germany 1925…Arthur Von Gerlach) HAVE UNSUBBED COPY

Les Misérables (France 1925…Henri Fescourt)

The Last Days of Pompeii (Italy 1926…Amleto Palermi, Carmine Gallone) only have 60m narrated cut

Maria do Mar (Portugal 1930…José Leitáo de Barros)

Raise the Roof (UK 1930…Walter Summers)

Rookery Nook (UK 1930…Tom Walls)

From Saturday to Sunday (Czechoslovakia 1931…Gustav Machaty)

Love and Duty (China 1931…Bu Wancang)

L’Affaire est dans le Sac (France 1932…Pierre Prevert) HAVE UNSUBBED COPY

The Great Consoler (USSR 1933…Lev Kuleshov)

Eclipse (Japan 1934…Hiroshi Shimizu)

Lac aux Dames (France 1934…Marc Allégret) HAVE UNSUBBED COPY

Golgotha (France 1935…Julien Duvivier) HAVE SEEN UNSUBBED COPY

By the Bluest of Seas (USSR 1936…Boris Barnet) SEEN UNSUBBED COPY

Stolen Death (Finland 1938…Nyrki Tapiovaara)

Earth (Japan 1939…Tomu Uchida)

Bastard (Norway/Sweden 1940…Helge Lunde)

Doña Bárbara (Mexico 1943…Fernando de Fuentes) UNSUBBED VERSIONS AVAILABLE

Lumière d’Été (France 1943…Jean Grémillon)

World of Plenty (UK 1943…Paul Rotha)

The Tower of the Seven Hunchbacks (Spain 1944…Edgar Neville)

Children of the Earth (India 1946…Khwaja Ahmad Abbas)

Caccia Tragica (Italy 1947…Giuseppe de Santis)

Le Diable au Corps (France 1947…Claude Autant-Lara)

Der Apfel ist Ab (West Germany 1948…Helmut Kautner)

Les Frères Bouquinquant (France 1948…Louis Daquin)

Les Amants de Vérone (France 1949…André Cayatte) HAVE UNSUBBED COPY

Only a Mother (Sweden 1949…Alf Sjöberg)

Rendezvous de Juillet (France 1949…Jacques Becker) UBSUBBED VERSIONS AVAILABLE

Four Chimneys (Japan 1953…Heinosuke Gosho)

La Rage au Corps (France 1954…Ralph Habib)

Distant Clouds (Japan 1955…Keisuke Kinoshita)

Times of Joy and Sorrow (Japan 1957…Keinosuke Kinoshita)

Une Vie (France 1958…Alexandre Astruc)

A Stranger Knocks (Denmark 1959…Johan Jacobson) HAVE UNSUBBED COPY

A Wife Confesses (Japan 1961…Yasuzo Masumura) CAN GET UNSUBBED PRINT

Keeper of Promises (Portugal 1962…Anselmo Duarte)

Twin Sisters of Kyoto (Japan 1963…Noboru Nakamura)

Forest of the Hanged (Romania 1964…Liviu Ciulei) AVAILABLE WITHOUT SUBS

491 (Sweden 1964…Vilgot Sjöman)

Ormen (Sweden 1966…Hans Abramson)

Adalen 31 (Sweden 1969…Bo Widerberg) UNSUBBED VERSIONS AVAILABLE

Anatomia Milosci (Poland 1972…Roman Zaluski) UNSUBBED VERSIONS AVAILABLE

Kaseki (Japan 1975…Masaki Kobayashi)

Manila, in the Claws of Neon (Philippines 1975…Lino Brocka)

The Journey (Sweden/Canada 1987…Peter Watkins)

La Morte Rouge (Spain 2006…Victor Erice)

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Monday Morning Diary (April 12)

Screen cap from taut Australian neo-noir thriller “The Square”

by Sam Juliano

The ‘almost silents’ poll has concluded, and the completed ballots are now being examined by Polling Tabulator Extraordinaire Angelo A. D’Arminio Jr., who has promised to forward the results within a few days. Meanwhile, Allan’s final decade countdown (putting the magnifying glass to the new millenium) will almost certainly bring the most intense interest around the blogosphere of any of the previous pollings, and will likely generate the highest number of completed ballots yet.  This is the decade that is most dominant among the younger bloggers, and it’s the one with the most hands-on familiarity.  Not waiting for the silent results, Allan has begun with another marathon Top 100, which will bring the voting into late July.  Voters have already begun posting on the proper thread over the site header, and others are welcome to follow suit at any time.

Film Noir, on the other hand, is thriving mightily in the Buckeye State, where Dave Hicks is nearing the end of his extraordinarily popular and spectacularly navigated Top 100 Film Noir countdown.  The form’s greatest entries are appearing daily, and even for the few who have resisted so far, the next week will be the time to dive in, hook, line and sinker.  This week, Dave brought about some terrific discussion with his posts on The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and today’s essay on a French masterwork, linked here: http://goodfellamovies.blogspot.com/2010/04/14-touchez-pas-au-grisbi-jacques-becker.html

Jeffrey Goodman is moving ahead too with his well-trafficked annual film countdown, which started in the 1930’s and has now reached the 90’s.  Goodman, a filmmaker proceeding with his new film Peril, has made a number of refreshing and audacious choices for his respective top choices.  Sunday’s #1 pick is a film from independent darling Hal Hartley: http://cahierspositif.blogspot.com/2010/04/1990-trust-hal-hartley.html

At Wonders in the Dark, the gifted writer and science-fiction zealot Bob Clark produced one of the greatest comment threads ever at the site this week with a marathon essay on George Lucas’s Attack of the Clones, which so far has attracted a whopping 119 comments.  Both the review and the quality of the comments rank among the best ever at the site.  Meanwhile, James Clark (no relation to Bob, but similar in that his work is unfailingly superlative) penned another exceedingly popular entry in his David Lynch series, this time examining Blue Velvet and Wild At Heart.  The post attractted buffo attention as well.  Dee Dee’s glorious reporting on the Metropolis restoration (she is in the process of interviewing Gilcrest Anderson) also posted a few days ago here at WitD, and this is perhaps the most celebrated cinematic happening of 2009/10.

On the movie scene, despite intentions to see a few more, I managed three films theatrically this past week – all over the weekend in fact – and frankly I’m relieved, as too much of anything is never a good thing.  I saw:

The Square **** (Saturday Night) Landmark Cinemas

Everyone Else *** (Friday night)  IFC Film Center

Black Waters of Echo’s Pond *  (Friday afternoon) Secaucus multiplex

    THE SQUARE, an Australian film noir, which, in its simplest definition is a ‘take the money and run’ yarn involving the head of a construction business and his mistress, who steals a large sum of money from her husband planning to convince  her boyfriend Ray to run off.  But the film includes some shocking events that lead to a startling conclusion.  It’s an atmospheric, riveting thriller that leads to an explosive climax, but it conforms to the definitions of noir, in that greed and doom are interwoven into the film’s fabric.  The “square” of the title has to do with a secret within the four-sided foundation of a planned structure.  E mailing me from Australia tonight, Film Noir king pin Tony d’Ambra informed me that  THE SQUARE opened Down Under in 2008 to very lukewarm reviews and was limited to a short run.  Said d’Ambra: “We are very hard on our own product.”  And how!

    EVERYONE ELSE is a highly-praised German film that examines a relationship with a stronger magnifying glass that any film in memory, yet it’s insistence on monitoring every blemish in that relationship, makes for an uneasy and often torturous watch.  There are some fascinating revelations for sure, and director Maren Ade has a talent for building some genuine tension, but after a while the style becomes suffocating.  I can’t imagine sitting through this a second time, regardless of its filmmaking artistry and strong acting by the two leads, Birgit Minichmayr and Hans-Jochen Wagner.

     BLACK WATERS OF ECHO’S POND  This is the kind of movie that usually has you questioning your sanity after you leave the theatre.  Why did you waste 90 minutes of your life?  Why did you flush money down the toilet?  Why did you drag others along?  Guilty as charged on all three counts.  This is a horror film executed by rank amateurs, embracing every cliche in the book, and promugating some really nasty gore.  When no screening is held for critics in advance, it almost always spells disaster.  The “story” here is a horrific take on Van Allburg’s “Jumanji.”

And here’s the goings-on in the blogosphere:

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Across the Universe (no 99)

by Allan Fish

(USA 2007 131m) DVD1/2

Strawberry jam

p  Matthew Gross, Jennifer Todd, Suzanne Todd  d  Julie Taymor  w  Dick Clement, Ian le Frenais  ph  Bruno Delbonnel  ed  Françoise Bonnot  m  Elliot Goldenthal  m/ly  John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison  md  Elliot Goldenthal, T-Bone Burnett  art  Peter Rogness  cos  Albert Wolsky  spc/tit Kyle Cooper

Evan Rachel Wood (Lucy), Jim Sturgess (Jude), Joe Anderson (Max Carrigan), Dana Fuchs (Sadie), Martin Luther (Jojo), T.V.Caprio (Prudence), Joe Cocker, Bono, Salma Hayek, Harry Lennix, Eddie Izzard,

It’s a commonly perceived opinion that whether one loves or loathes Julie Taymor’s phantasmagoria of love n’ the Fab Four depends on whether you grew up with the music and knew it with any degree of not just depth but feeling.  The Beatles had broken up several years before I was even born, so that rules that one out.  The approach of having characters burst into famous song was hardly a new one – it was mastered by the likes of Dennis Potter.  Nearer to the mark, however (in that the actors actually sing rather than mime or undercut) is Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, another love story set in the past and splitting audiences right down the proverbial spinal column bonemarrow. 

            Set in the sixties, the film tells the tale of Scouse dockworker Jude who sets off to America to find the GI father who left his mother pregnant during the war.  While over there he befriends Princeton student Max, about to drop out, whose sister Lucy has just waved her beloved Daniel off to the Vietnam War.  When Daniel is killed in combat, Lucy sets off to join Max and Jude and their Bohemian lifestyle in New York, from whence nothing will ever be the same.

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Oui, mais… (no 100)

by Allan Fish

(France 2001 104m) DVD1/2 (France only)

Aka. Yes, but…

Falling into the manure pit

p  François Kraus, Denis Pineau  d/w  Yves Lavandier  ph  Pascal Caubère  ed  Dominique Petrot  m  Philippe Rombi  art  Yann Mercier  cos  Edith Bréhat

Émilie Dequenne (Eglantine Laville), Gérard Jugnot (Dr Moenner), Alix de Konopka (Denise Laville), Cyrille Thouvenin (Sébastien Douglas), Vanessa Jarry (Françoise), Patrick Bonnel (André Laville), Stéphane Szestak (Kevin), Ahmed Guedayia (Youssef), Cédric Michel (Christian),

Here’s a film that never got a proper release in British cinemas, nor indeed in America prior to a belated 2008 DVD.  Prior to this, the only way to see it was to import the original French DVD release (a later cheaper version didn’t have English subtitles), and what a surprise it was; the sort of film to warm the cockles of the hardest pericardium.  If I was being brutally honest with myself, I would admit it isn’t what one would call an outright masterpiece, in the fact it is such a small scale film, but the fact remains that I could see no way it could be better done and quite perfect.  It’s also, to anyone who has been through either first or second hand what our heroine goes through, a film to which one could generate a great deal of empathy.

            Eglantine is a charming, clever seventeen year old girl who attracts the attention of the popular and attractive Sébastien.  However, her life is complicated by the fact that her mother is a manipulative, emotionally blackmailing manic depressive who refuses to let her have any freedom and lives only to make those around her feel sorry for her.  Her husband, Eglantine’s father, has started having an affair, too, which only makes her put upon Eglantine even more.  Finally, she thinks that her mother needs help and asks the help of a psychotherapist, only for him to say that Eglantine needs the help more.  They tentatively agree to a ‘brief therapy’ of ten sessions or so.

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Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ Coming to a Big Screen Near You…

Editor Note: In Honour of Wonders in the Dark Allan Fish, exhaustive countdown and look at “Almost Silent Films” (To The Year 1929) which just came to an end and now the beginning of that Tabulator Extraordinaire Angelo A. D’ Arminio Jr’s…Task Which Is About To Begin…Here Goes Some Great News…
         

        Hi! Sam Juliano, Allan, and Wonders in the Dark readers, This News Was Just Posted by The writer of my blog…

…Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ Coming to a Big Screen Near You
By Eric M. Armstrong — Published on Apr 8th, 2010 and filed under Features, News.

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The Nearlies (250-101)

And, finally, with suitable pause, we begin the final decade countdown, after which I can take a serious rest.  Here’s the 150 that came closest to the full century countdown.  No 100 begins the countdown proper tomorrow.

250	The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai (Japan 2003…Mitsuru Meike)
249	Unmade Beds (UK 2009…Alexia dos Santos)
248	Watchmen: the director’s cut (US 2009…Zach Snyder)
247	The Best of Youth (Italy 2003…Marco Tullio Giordano)
246	Moulin Rouge (Australia/US 2001…Baz Luhrmann)
245	Little Miss Sunshine (US 2006…Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris)
244	Antares (Austria 2004…Götz Spielmann)
243	Lost and Delirious (Canada 2001…Léa Pool)
242	Battle in Heaven (Mexico 2005…Carlos Reygadas)
241	Taxi to the Dark Side (US 2007…Alex Gibney)
240	Lantana (Australia 2001…Ray Lawrence)
239	Shrek (US 2001…Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson)
238	Almost Famous: bootleg edition (US 2000/2001…Cameron Crowe)
237	Sympathy for Mr Vengeance (South Korea 2002…Park Chan-wook)
236	Gangs of New York (US 2002…Martin Scorsese)
235	Histoire de Marie et Julien (France 2003…Jacques Rivette)
234	Bus 174 (Brazil 2002…Jose Padilha)
233	Once (Ireland 2006…John Carney)
232	Fantastic Mr Fox (US 2009…Wes Anderson)
231	The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (US 2008…David Fincher)
230	Eastern Promises (UK/Canada 2007…David Cronenberg)
229	Three Times (Taiwan/France 2005…Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
228	The Aviator (US 2004…Martin Scorsese)
227	Abouna (Chad 2002…Mahamat-Saleh Haroun)
226	Brothers (Denmark 2004…Susanne Bier)
225	Amélie (France 2001…Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
224	Tropical Malady (Thailand 2004…Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
223	Ken Park (US 2002…Larry Clark, Ed Lachman)
222	Summer Hours (France 2008…Olivier Assayas)
221	Hukkle (Hungary 2002…Gyorgy Palfi)
220	Bright Star (UK/Australia 2009…Jane Campion)
219	The Royal Tenenbaums (US 2001…Wes Anderson)
218	Let’s Talk About the Rain (France 2008…Agnès Jaoui)
217	Lost in Beijing (China 2007…Li Yu)
216	Kisses (Ireland 2008…Lance Daly)
215	Belleville Rendez-vous (France 2003…Sylvain Chomet)
214	Oldboy (South Korea 2003…Park Chan-wook)
213	A History of Violence (US/Canada 2005…David Cronenberg)
212	The Page Turner (France 2006…Denis Dercourt)
211	The Devil’s Whore (UK 2008…Marc Munden) TV
210	Finding Neverland (UK 2004…Marc Forster)
209	Sunshine State (US 2002…John Sayles)
208	The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Sweden 2008…Nils Arden Oplev)
207	Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (US 2003…Peter Weir)
206	Syndromes and a Century (Thailand 2006…Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
205	The Headless Woman (Argentina 2008…Lucrecia Martel)
204	Silent Light (Mexico 2007…Carlos Reygadas)
203	In the Bedroom (US 2001…Todd Field)
202	Intimate Strangers (France 2004…Patrice Leconte)
201	Gormenghast (UK 2000…Andy Wilson) TV
200	Touching the Void (UK 2003…Kevin MacDonald)
199	No Man’s Land (Bosnia 2001…Danis Tanovic)
198	Persepolis (France 2007…Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Strapi)
197	Morvern Callar (UK 2002…Lynne Ramsay)
196	Revanche (Austria 2008…Götz Spielmann)
195	Che: Parts I & II (US 2008…Steven Soderbergh)
194	The Queen (UK 2006…Stephen Frears)
193	The Illusionist (US 2006…Neil Burger)
192	Bowling for Columbine (US 2002…Michael Moore)
191	Don’t Touch the Axe (France 2007…Jacques Rivette)
190	The Last Mistress (France 2007…Catherine Breillat)
189	I for India (UK 2005…Sandhya Suri)
188	Le Gout des Autres (France 2000…Agnès Jaoui)
187	Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (US 2007…Sidney Lumet)
186	Coraline (US 2009…Henry Selick)
185	Aftermath (Denmark 2004…Paprika Steen)
184	Red Road (UK 2006…Andrea Arnold)
183	Ghost World (US 2001…Terry Zwigoff)
182	North & South (UK 2004…Brian Percival) TV
181	In the Loop (UK 2009…Armando Iannucci)
180	Perfect Strangers (UK 2001…Stephen Poliakoff) TV
179	O Brother Where Art Thou? (US 2000…Joel Coen)
178	Black Book (Netherlands 2006…Paul Verhoeven)
177	This is England (UK 2006…Shane Meadows)
176	Malèna: director’s cut (Italy 2000…Giuseppe Tornatore)
175	Tokyo Sonata (Japan 2008…Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
174	Still Life (Hong Kong/China 2008…Zhang-Ke Jia)
173	Letters from Iwo Jima (US 2006…Clint Eastwood)
172	Songs from the Second Floor (Sweden 2000…Roy Andersson)
171	Nobody Knows (Japan 2004…Hirokazu Kore-Eda)
170	Blackboards (Iran 2000…Samira Makhmalbaf)
169	Trilogy: On the Run, An Amazing Couple, After Life (France/Belgium 2002…Lucas Belvaux)
168	Volver (Spain 2006…Pedro Almodóvar)
167	Three Rooms of Melancholia (Finland/Russia 2004…Pirko Honkasalo)
166	In This World (UK 2002…Michael Winterbottom)
165	The Unloved (UK 2009…Samantha Morton) TV
164	My Architect (US 2003…Nathaniel Kahn)
163	Sex Traffic (UK 2004…David Yates) TV
162	Crimson Gold (Iran 2003…Jafar Penahi)
161	The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (US 2007…Julian Schnabel)
160	Babel (US/Mexico 2006…Alejandro González Iñárritu)
159	The Constant Gardener (UK 2005…Fernando Meirelles)
158	L’Enfant (Belgium/France 2005…Jean-Luc Dardenne, Pierre Dardenne)
157	Children of Men (US/UK 2006…Alfonso Cuarón)
156	Adaptation (US 2002…Spike Jonze)
155	My Summer of Love (UK 2004…Pawel Pawlikowski)
154	Everlasting Moments (Sweden 2008…Jan Troell)
153	Innocence (France 2004…Lucile Hadzihalilovic)
152	Synecdoche, New York (US 2008…Charlie Kaufman)
151	The Secret Life of Words (Canada 2005…Isabel Coixet)
150	Changeling (US 2008…Clint Eastwood)
149	Flame and Citron (Denmark 2008…Ole Christian Madsen)
148	Kill Bill Vol 1 (US 2003…Quentin Tarantino)
147	Gladiator: Extended Version (US 2000/2005…Ridley Scott)
146	King Kong (US 2005…Peter Jackson)
145	Slumdog Millionaire (UK/India 2008…Danny Boyle)
144	Vera Drake (UK 2004…Mike Leigh)
143	Nowhere in Africa (Germany 2001…Caroline Link)
142	Insomnia (US 2002…Christopher Nolan)
141	United 93 (US 2006…Paul Greengrass)
140	Longford (UK 2006…Tom Hooper) TV
139	Wasp (UK 2003…Andrea Arnold)
138	Ghosts (UK 2006…Nick Broomfield)
137	Le Fils (France 2002…Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)
136	I’m Not There (US 2007…Todd Haynes)
135	Sideways (US 2004…Alexander Payne)
134	The Sun (Japan/Russia 2005…Aleksandr Sokurov)
133	Grizzly Man (Germany 2005…Werner Herzog)
132	Batman Begins (US 2005…Christopher Nolan)
131	The Hours (US/UK 2002…Stephen Daldry)
130	I Served the King of England (Czech Republic 2006…Jiri Menzel)
129	Man on Wire (US 2008…James Marsh)
128	A Serious Man (US 2009…Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)
127	Lilya 4-Ever (Sweden/Russia 2002…Lukas Moodysson)
126	Capote (US 2005…Bennett Miller)
125	Good Night and Good Luck (US 2005…George Clooney)
124	Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…and Spring (South Korea 2003…Kim Ki-Duk)
123	Donnie Darko (US 2001…Richard Kelly)
122	Jane Eyre (UK 2006…Susanna White) TV
121	The Hurt Locker (US 2008…Kathryn Bigelow)
120	Paradise Now (Israel/Netherlands 2005…Hany Abu-Assad)
119	Wendy and Lucy (US 2008…Kelly Reichardt)
118	Pan’s Labyrinth (Mexico 2006…Guillermo del Toro)
117	The Ister (Australia 2004…David Barison, Daniel Ross)
116	A Time for Drunken Horses (Iran 2000…Bahman Ghobadi)
115	Up (US 2009…Pete Docter, Bob Peterson)
114	La Commune (Paris 1871) (France 2000…Peter Watkins)
113	The Motorcycle Diaries (Brazil 2004…Walter Salles)
112	Open Hearts (Denmark 2002…Susanne Bier)
111	Head-On (Germany 2004…Fatih Akin)
110	Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno (France 2009…Ruxandra Medrea, Serge Bromberg)
109	35 Shots of Rum (France 2008…Claire Denis)
108	City of God (Brazil 2002…Fernando Meirelles)
107	Requiem for a Dream (US 2000…Darren Aronofsky)
106	Nightwatching (UK/Netherlands 2007…Peter Greenaway)
105	Spider (UK/Canada 2002…David Cronenberg)
104	Up the Yangtse (China/US 2007…Yung Chang)
103	The Lady and the Duke (France 2001…Eric Rohmer)
102	Little Dorrit (UK 2008…Adam Smith, Dearbhla Walsh, Diarmuid Lawrence) TV
101	Ratatouille (US 2007…Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava)

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Bob strikes back at “Attack of the Clones” naysayers*

Star Wars—Episode II: Attack of the Clones

***1/2

 

By Bob Clark

 

 

Prologue: Guilty Pleasures

In Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the respected surgeon Tomas finds himself unable to find work after returning to Soviet-occupied Prague, thanks to his refusal to recant an article he’d written prior to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. The matter of his article makes for one of the most persuasive readings of Greek mythology—a political interpretation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. According to Tomas, the Communists of his country who claimed to be unaware of the Soviet Union’s atrocities were just as guilty as Oedipus, the Theban king who brought plagues upon his kingdom by unwittingly marrying his mother. “As a result of your ‘not knowing,’ this country has lost its freedom…” writes Kundera. “And you shout that you feel no guilt? How can you stand the sight of what you’ve done? How is it you aren’t horrified? Have you no eyes to see?”

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“….wild at heart and weird on top”: David Lynch’s ‘Blue Velvet’ and ‘Wild at Heart’

Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini in 'Blue Velvet'

 Copyright © 2010 by James Clark

      While her lover, “Sailor,” is absent, headed into an ill-fated robbery/assassination, “Lula” trembles and cries out, “This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top,” the phrase resulting in the film’s name. In fact, its extended form, with the bit about “weird,” constitutes the heart of Lynch’s presentation of both of the films in view here. Though you might at first imagine she’s referring to corruption not having claimed her, she occupies a room in the Iguana Motel of Big Tuna, Texas, whose floor is compromised by a mesa of her vomit which for twenty-four hours she has somehow neglected to clean up. Sailor, too, had noticed the smell of “puke,” and doing something about it had never crossed his mind. During the 1980s, such tenacious infection dragging down “wildness” came in for close-up investigation by Lynch, and here we should look at two closely related instances.

    David Lynch’s films exude a strange traction by way of a number of means, visual and aural, as heightened by mastery in compositional and narrative judgment. The story of his art’s maturation consists of a lavish outlay for the sake of freeing that most elusive of overtures. The groundbreaking Eraserhead clings to a little beast’s death throes to maintain the possibility of delight. Two films following that debut, Blue Velvet (1986) and Wild at Heart (1990), audaciously concentrate upon the viscous lockdown oppressing his (and our) task of coordinating such an unruly play of power. In accordance with the windfall of America’s peculiarly fertile boisterousness, he sets these adventures in the most unselfconsciously overripe of its zones, the South. Moreover, the work situates the rebellious implications of that upswing amidst the poetry and attitudes of rockabilly music. Lynch is a connoisseur of rock and roll in its maximal incendiary payload. This most sensual, tactile of the arts has always thrived upon piratical menace toward a rational status quo. Blue Velvet snaps into view largely by virtue of a company of small-town North Carolina drug dealers whose leader has been transfixed by the following song.

 

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Verdi’s ‘Attila’ at Met Resurrects Grossly Undervalued Opera

Ildar Abdrazakov playing lead in Giuseppe Verdi’s ‘Attila’

 by Sam Juliano

     Verdi’s Attila was written in 1846, but this ninth opera from one of opera’s greatest geniuses has, until this year escaped the attention of planning executives at the Metropolitan Opera, who have shunned the work, largely due to uneasiness with the demand on the singers.  But as part of the company’s commitment to bold resurrections of harmonic works with strong prospective appeal to the core traditionalists, Attila received some impassioned contributions from the director, set designer, singers, and especially veteran conductor extraordinaire Ricardo Muti, who proved to the world that this opera is a rhythmically charged work, with an abandance of solos, and rich musical lines.  With full choruses at the disposal of a polished orchestra who faithfully transcribed Verdi’s lyricism in supple chords and rifts, Muti demonstrated that as a stand alone, Atilla’s music is far from the lowest bracket of the composer’s work.  And when the singing is considered, it’s nearly a towering achievement.  I’d go as far as to contend that it belongs in a short group after La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Aida and Otello, with the likes of Nabucco, La Frorza Del Destino, Un Ballo in Maschera, Simon Bocanegra, and Falstaff.  On the best of days it may possibly lead that group, and such was certainly the case on the Monday night I was in attendance.  This was a visionary performance in stark, imaginary staging, forceful singing and rich orchestration, which compellingly blends the youthful, patriotic vigor of its then young composer with the nuance and human insight that would become the hallmark of his long  career that included 28 operas. 

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