Review - The Swimmer (1968 - Dir. Frank Perry)

(Sorry the birthday celebrations are a tad on the late side but I've been mildly poorly the last couple of weeks. Anyway, let's rejoice three years of obscurendure goodness with Doccortex's review of The Swimmer - evlkeith.)

A cult classic and for years a film I thought was my all time favourite. It’s surprising that it’s taken me twenty years to return to a film that I watched many times in my youth, but what we find agreeable in our late teens seldom holds our attention as we enter middle age. So did The Swimmer fill me with a sense of depression in a similar way to watching Billy Liar recently? Or is this a timeless piece of film-making that comes with a free pair of rose coloured spectacles? Well the answer is a bit of both really.

It’s a journey film centred around aging suburban socialite Ned Merrell negotiating his way home via a ‘river’ made up of his neighbours’ swimming pools. As he visits each of the pools he meets characters, friends and acquaintances from his past life, reliving the events and attitudes that have shaped his current situation. There’s a colourful collection of his former golf buddies, girlfriends, baby sitters and even a couple of naturists. Slowly but surely the real story is revealed through these encounters.

Burt Lancaster is suitably gregarious and simultaneously confused. At times he looks like he’s in some drug induced state of bliss and at other times he looks absolutely gormless and I’m not convinced whether he actually intended to represent himself as either. There’s a slow motion scene where he trots around a horse’s show jumping pen in his swimming trunks with an attractive baby-sitter in tow (let’s face it who hasn’t), and it’s hard to tell whether it’s Ned Merrell or Burt Lancaster undertaking the smug middle aged dressage. It’s a great performance, but I’m not sure how much was acting, how much was meant and how much was showing off.

The crux of my confusion with the film lies in the difference of perception between my twenty-something self and my current self in the here and now. In my youth Ned Merrell looked like a avuncular old player, a wide boy who had fallen on hard times, and I pitied him. Now he looks creepy, an old has-been praying on women to boost his own ego, luring ex-baby sitters into his bizarre swimathon plot and he even throws in some mild racism. This is what becomes of the all American capitalist pin up boy, and at the end I feel no pity, just a feeling that he got what he deserved.

Yes, it’s still a great film, but it’s darker and weirder than I remember. Maybe great films grow and mature with us. Perhaps it’s a measure of personal growth or my personal cynicism. Whatever your age, gender or perspective it’s a seductive watch and a stretch of water we should all dip into from time to time.

9/10
Doccortex

If you like this you could also try:
Elmer Gantry, Story of a Love Affair.

Review - City of the Living Dead (1980 - Dir. Lucio Fulci)

If you've been with us since the very start (April 2011) then you'll know that this was the first film reviewed on this very site. And it was a bit rubbish. (The review, not the film.) So seeing as though we're having a bit of a zombie celebration I thought it would be rude not to have another look at one of the classics of the genre.

It is still a classic but as I was watching it I couldn't get over how terrible it is in parts. For example, the plot. To be generous, it's a big pile of dog presents. I'll buy the fact that a priest committing suicide has opened a gate to hell. But what happens after that is suspect to say the least. Characters behave in some very strange ways. When faced with a rather slimy zombie, Gerry (Carlo De Mejo) decides to comfort a small child in an incredibly calm manner, then has a look at the zombie in question. Does he attack it with a baseball bat encrusted with razor blades, or just leg it? Nope he shuts his eyes. For about five seconds. Any other zombie film and he's a dead man, but here the zombie vanishes. Not a standard tactic but it worked surprising well. Well done Carlo.

That brings me neatly to the next point: the vanishing zombies. They are brought to you by some stunning special effects technology. Slap the camera on a tripod, film the scene with the zombie there. Then remove said zombie and film it again. The editor can then craftily swap between the two shots and, hey presto, the zombie disappears (or appears as the case may be.) Premium quality.

There is also someone to rival Mary's dad in the bad acting stakes and amazingly he's someone's dad: Emily's dad. His acting is really bad, even compared to the acting in the rest of the film - which can be best described as standing around - but Emily's dad reaches new depths. All he has to do is look upset and he does it spectacularly badly. If he'd have just said, "Emily love," the package would have been complete.

This all sounds like I hate City of the Living Dead. But perversely, I love it. I was trying to work out why, and this was the best I could come up with: the brilliant parts make me forgive, even enjoy, the dire bits. And what brilliant parts there are. There are four standout scenes. Some films can't even manage one so it's doing well already. Beware there are spoilers ahead, as we have a look at those scenes in a bit more detail:

1. Catriona MacColl being buried alive and then getting rescued by Christopher George. The only problem here is that he slams a pickaxe through the top of the coffin narrowly missing her head. On numerous occasions. No acting required here because it looks absolutely terrifying. The pick comes perilously close to her face despite it being rigged to miss her. Add to that the claustrophobia factor and it must have been a nightmare to film. Luckily, the end shot of her screaming through the hole made in the coffin is truly iconic.

2. Daniela Doria throwing up her guts. Literally. This has to be one of the most gip inducing scenes in cinema. The first shots of the actual actress, (who Fulci lovely to put through hell) with intestines pouring out of her mouth are bad enough. And you'd think that when it swaps to a blatantly fake special effects head for the final push the vomit would recede. But no, it gets worse as a huge lump passes out from her lips. Disgusting stuff, but great.

3. Giovanni Lombardo Radice, as the seedy loner Bob, getting his head drilled. Another iconic moment here as the horror is drawn out to really get the most out of the effect. The tension is ramped up as his head gets closer and closer. And it intercuts between shots of the drill bit getting closer and closer. In most other films, he'd get rescued at the last moment, it would show the death in shadow, or cut at the moment of insertion. Not here. The camera loving gazes on as the drill enters his head, pierces his cheek on the other side, and then continues to spin for a while longer. It's a great effect, even now, and must be up there as one of the greatest screen deaths (now there's an idea for a Letterboxd list).

4. The final sequence with Carlo, Catriona and Christopher in the tomb of the dead priest. Not as excessive as anything that has preceded, though still brilliant nonetheless. The set design and lighting are gorgeous with skeletons and cobwebs hanging from the roof, lit with spooky blue lights in true gothic style. Then the music kicks in and the dead rise. In a similar way to The Beyond, the music signals the beginning of the end, and it's stunning mix of visuals and sound. 

There are other moments too, for example, the Sherrif's comment about Bob burning in hell, but it's the above scenes that garner the film so much goodwill from the viewer that its faults can be overlooked or, which happens more often, laughed at and enjoyed. Even the shockingly bad ending is part of the fun. For me, the things that stop it from being a 10 are the zombie make-ups, that are more oozy than the crusty examples in Zombie Flesh Eaters, and those disappearing zombies that I can never fully forgive. 

Right, now that I've got this review done and dusted, I'm off to Celluloid Screams 2013. Full coverage coming very soon...
9/10
evlkeith



If you like this you could also try:
Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery.

Review - When the Wind Blows (1986 - Dir. Jimmy T. Murakami)

I mentioned recently in my review of Dr Strangelove that the threat of nuclear war was all too real for me in my teenage years. I'm not surprised when I was watching stuff like When the Wind Blows.

James and Hilda Bloggs are your average elderly couple. They lived through World War II and all of the hardships that that entailed. He's gone out to work all is life, while she's stayed at home looking after the house and children (I'm inferring this from the dialogue, their age and her love of clean cushions). Finally he reaches retirement age and what happens? A nuclear war is on the cards between Russia and America. Typical. In preparation, he nips out and procures some government pamphlets on surviving the nuclear holocaust. Everyone loves a good pamphlet.

This surely must be up there as one of the most upsetting and depressing animations. The book was by Raymond Briggs but this isn't The Snowman. Watching a couple of pensioners try to cope with a nuclear bomb and the aftermath is not pleasant viewing despite often being really funny. The humour is often bittersweet. Laughter would occur followed by a realisation of the implications, resulting in yet more depression.

The main source of humour comes from Hilda and her relentless drive towards wanting to have a neat tidy house and keep up appearances. Couple this with Jim's relentless drive towards following governmental instructions, such as, building a shelter out of the house's doors or whitewashing the windows, and you can see where the two may clash. (As a side note, I can't see anyone following governmental instructions now. They'd have to use reverse psychology on us.) 

You may have twigged that the characters are pretty one dimensional, and yes, they are. In the latter half, it almost becomes a little tiresome to hear Hilda make a completely naive comment about what the neighbours will think if they pop round, or hear Jim talk, naively again, about popping out to the shops to get supplies. I say almost, because it is their complete belief in normality resuming that makes the film so upsetting. When a chink appears in their armour at the very end of the film it is even more powerful. A mention has to go to Peggy Ashcroft and John Mills for their perfect voice work.

The film is made using a mixture of styles: the backgrounds are all models and shot using stop-motion animation and the two characters are traditional cel-drawn animation. The model backgrounds allow the camera greater freedom of movement, giving it a different and more depressing feel than usual. Watching Jim sweep up real rubbish makes it all so much more realistic. The whole film looks very atmospheric and bleak (I was bound to love this, wasn't I?).

As a teenager, I always hoped that if they did start dropping bombs, that they landed right on top of my house. I worked out that they'd probably bomb Sheffield so I'd be on the edge of the blast. I didn't really want to suffer the after effects of the bomb. Watching this again now makes it all too obvious to me why I had these thoughts.
9/10
evlkeith



If you like this you could also try:
Threads, Barefoot Gen.

Review - The House by the Cemetery (1981 - Dir. Lucio Fulci)

This is a nice Friday the 13th treat for you. It's the final film in the loose trilogy containing City of the Living Dead and The Beyond. It is a trilogy in the sense that they share similarly disjointed narratives, although The House by the Cemetery has the most conventional storyline of the three. Fulci actually spends a fair part of the film building tension after an initial gruesome death (Daniela Doria bites the dust yet again). Don't worry though. There are still a fair few of the usual protracted death scenes.

Lucy Boyle (the excellent Catriona MacColl who appears in all three films in the trilogy) and her husband Dr Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco - The New York Ripper) move into the titular house (idiots) so that Norm can look into some of one of his ex-colleagues disturbing findings. The fact that his ex-colleague committed suicide makes you wonder about the motives of Normie. Also, his shifty glances at the babysitter, (Ania Pieroni - Inferno) shown in trademark Fulci close-up, makes you ponder on his fidelity. Throw into the mix the way he constantly tries to give Lucy tablets and you have some major chin-strokery. Is he a crafty skullduggerer or the perfect husband and father? Oh, yeah, and Dr Freudstein lives in their cellar too.

Dr Freudstein!?! Who he? The name suggest someone who wants to bring their mother back to life by grave-robbing body parts, sewing them to his Mammy's body, patching her into the mains and then having a cheeky wriggle with her. Probably not that far from the truth either. Freudy (a silent Giovanni De Nava - The Beyond) is one of the scariest on-screen creations in any film. He is a zombie. He has a slightly insectoid face. And when you cut him, what can only be described as maggot enriched excrement oozes out of the wound. Put it this way: you wouldn't want him marrying your only daughter. 

The gore is great, but what stops this film from getting a higher rating is that it feels as though the film is cut, even when I know it is definitely an uncut version. The drawn out death of the estate agent Laura Gittleson is enjoyably excessive but Fulci actually cut out some effects work that he wasn't happy with. Her face in one part of the scene is fairly normal looking, albeit covered in blood. In the very next shot we see that something nasty has happened to one side of her face. But we don't get to see what. Gutted. The other scene that feels cut is a death where someone has their face dragged down a set of stairs - I've never been convinced that this would kill, it looks more like it would cause a minor graze, soon sorted with Savlon - then at the bottom of the stairs you see a pool of blood forming around the recently deceased's head.  I don't know whether anything was removed but it certainly feels like it. Gutted.

Quite a few people don't like a particular scene where Lucy walks in on the babysitter cleaning a load of blood off the floor... and doesn't comment on it. Business as usual in the Boyle house. I actually quite like it. Fair enough it makes no sense and I can't really justify its inclusion, but it feels right in the overall atmosphere of the film. A little quirk that the film would be poorer without.

Crikey, I've already written loads and I haven't even touched upon one important aspect of the film: Bob. And his voice. An infant voiced by an American adult. Terrible. 

I am being picky. This is a great film. A classic, even. It is fairly tense and scary, and it has a fairly upsetting ending when you consider the implications. Highly recommended. (Also, the trailer is one of the top trailers ever. Just listen to the voiceover guy. I'll never be able to say 'The House by the Cemetery' in a normal way again.)
9/10
evlkeith



If you like this you could also try:
Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Beyond, City of the Living Dead, Tenebrae, Suspiria.

Review - Deep Red (1975 - Dir. Dario Argento)

Well, I waited and waited. And at no point during the whole running time did a pig flying a plane appear. I was severely disappointed and aggrieved. How I laughed when I realised that I'd been watching Profondo Rosso and not Porco Rosso. (Another similar, but true, story is that I thought Billy Elliott was a football film. I don't know where I got that from but I spent the whole film waiting for him to hang up his ballet shoes and put on some boots and shin pads. Stupid useless film.)

Enough of this larking around, let's get on to the film proper. I saw Deep Red about eighteen years ago in a freezing cold, grimy little house in Hull. It didn't really compare to my other Argento favourites at the time. So I haven't watched it since. Until now, for this special Dario Argento season. I must say that it's way better than I'd originally thought. 

Marcus Daly (David Hemmings - looking suspiciously like Rik Mayall) is a pianist who witnesses a murder. He teams up with ace reporter Gianna Brezzi (Daria Nicolodi) to discover the identity of the mysterious killer who funnily enough has a liking for black leather murdering gloves and keeping his/her face hidden.

Yep, we're in giallo territory and all of the usual giallo trappings are present and correct: logic that makes less sense than the answers on 3-2-1, the aforementioned murdering gloves, a preposterous central conceit that leads to the final reveal of the killer, great music (by Goblin - their first collaboration with Dario), heightened sound effects and, of course, stylishly shot murders.

It's not the goriest of offerings but it contains the Dario staple of slamming a lady's head through a plate glass window, a woman getting her head par-boiled in a bath and an incident where a mantlepiece meets a poor fellow's teeth at great velocity. The effects are all quite pleasant but the blisters on the face of the scald victim are particularly realistic.

But strangely I don't enjoy it for the killings - although they do help - I like it for two other reasons. The first is the creepy tension filled atmosphere when Marcus enters an old house at night and starts chipping away at a wall to reveal a painting. This scene lasts ages but the score and the slow reveal of the image keep it thoroughly engaging. My other reason is the relationship between the two leads, who are both supremely watchable throughout. At many times Deep Red plays more like a romantic comedy than a thriller. For evidence, look at any of the scenes that contain the tiny Lupin style car. This light-hearted feel adds a different flavour to a film that is very dark on occasions.

Deep Red falls a little foul of Argento's technical giddyness. Just as Opera was marred by steadicam overuse, Deep Red suffers from macro abuse. A few shots are okay but he does tend to overdo it a tad. But this film also shows Dario taking in wider influences (possibly introduced to him by Daria Nicolodi). One scene includes a virtual recreation of Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks', even down to the way that the characters all sit perfectly still.

One last reason to watch this film: if you've seen Don't Look Now, one scene will be permanently engraved on your brain due to its ability to make the viewer squirm and back away from the screen. Deep Red has a similar moment with a deeply disturbing clockwork child-sized doll.

Deep Red has definitely gone up in the Dario rankings. It will be interesting to see how Suspiria and Tenebrae fare against it. (Inferno was one of my previous favourites but in a bizarre twist of events the uncut version has spoilt it for me. I really don't want to see a cat eating a live mouse. I prefer the cut version for once.)
9/10
evlkeith



If you like this you could also try:
Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Four Flies on Grey Velvet.

Review - Dark City (1998 - Dir. Alex Proyas)

I was trying to decide on a suitably great film to celebrate our second birthday and I remembered a reference to Dark City on Karl Kaefer's blog Xsmarkthespot. I also thought back to the first time I saw the film, at the Showcase Cinema in Peterborough, and how I was really impressed by it and in particular one moment of subwoofer pleasantness (I'll come back to that later). There were some imperfections, such as an introductory narration that told you that "the butler did it", but that's all been sorted out in the Director's Cut, which I'll review here.

Now the film plays as it was intended, as a mystery. A mister (Rufus Sewell) wakes up in a bath, and due to being in the water for a good long while, he suffers from severe prune feet. In top quality noir thriller style he has no memory. As he starts to piece together the clues he begins to suspect that me may have previously partaken in a spot of murdering. But who are these shady figures that seem to be lurking around... The clues all fall into place over the course of the film and everything is revealed (well almost).

Dark City is visually stunning, even now. The lighting used would have suited a black and white film with deep dark shadows and harsh highlights. In fact, I dodged about with the colour setting on my telly and watched it in monochromatic-o-vision. For the most part, it still looked great, and better than the colour version at points. So good that I found it a little disconcerting when I switched back to colour. (Similarly The Mist is brilliant in black and white but that was purposely shot that way.)

The gorgeous Jennifer Connelly - soon to be seen in an upcoming season - plays the man's wife and she participates in my favourite moment of the film. Yep, it's the subwoofer moment. She sings a version of 'Sway' accompanied by some  gravel voiced blues guys. The double bass sounds so deep and powerful. I've never quite got it to sound the same as the first time I heard it in that Peterborough cinema but it's still pretty impressive. Play it loud.

Music plays a large part in the proceedings with a large proportion of the film scored. It propels the viewer through the film towards the final climax, paralleling the main character's plight as he tries to unravel the mystery despite being constantly pursued.

Patrick Tatopoulos is one of my favourite designers having worked on Silent Hill, I, Robot and The Cave (okay, maybe The Cave is not the best example). But I think that he was at the top of his game for Dark City. The titular city is indeed dark, and gloomy, and murky, and possibly a bit stinky. The buildings are taken from a number of different time periods and places making it hard to pin down exactly where the city originates from. The city's underworld - in a nifty reversal of Metropolis - is possibly his best work. See for yourself in this explanatory screen shot.

One of the themes the film deals with is where the human soul resides. Is it in memories? If I were to be given the memories of a dancer would my viewpoint on dancers change instantly. Or would I still hate them. The thought of me suddenly appearing as a professional over-acter on 'Stricly Come Dancing' almost gives me an aneurysm so hopefully if someone does changes my memories I'll still be me.

I've tried hard to not give away any of the plot because if you haven't seen this it is well worth your while. The Director's Cut takes away the film-beginner stabilisers and lets you discover the film for yourself without being treated like an idiot. It has a  satisfying ending and the only downside for me is the inclusion of William Hurt who despite being okay in this, never totally convinces me. A worthy film for a birthday celebration.
9/10
evlkeith



If you like this you could also try:
Blade Runner, Metropolis, Somewhere in the Night.