Top 20 Films of 2016

I've put off posting my favorite films of 2016 too long. The laziness must end before 2018!

Last year saw Hollywood studios determined to push ever onward down the same well-rutted road despite record-setting financial failures. The curtain of generic superhero uniformity still smothered the multiplexes, but it was pierced here and there by little stabs of originality through which hints of a more complicated moral universe flickered. A serious renewal in terms of substance, style, and structure has yet to emerge, but maybe there's hope.

More exciting is the huge number of debuts and breakthroughs in 2016, with major new voices both inside the US and abroad. I call out a few below. My picks are all over the place, and I struggled to spot a pattern. Maybe the only thing they have in common is an ability to sustain deep and opinionated conversations. In a time where the culture wars of the 1960s and 70s have escalated to all-new heights, perhaps that's the best gift cinema can give us.

So without further ado, my top 20 of 2016 (counting down, of course):'


20) Chevalier

Six Greek men on a yacht obsess over who is best, competing in a bizarre tournament with dubious criteria ranging from how you look when you sleep to building IKEA furniture. A snapshot of contemporary masculinity in self-defeating crisis. Bonus trivia: Chevalier joins K-19: The Widowmaker, The Descent, and The Women (1939) among films featuring exclusively a single gender, but directed by the opposite gender.


19) The Wailing

South Korea's underrated Na Hong-jin serves up a long, dark, and enigmatic horror-mystery about a an ineffective cop investigating a local outbreak: a feverish rash that culminates in violent insanity. He tracks down a Japanese hermit who's either perpetrator or protector. Demons plague the hills. Doubt plagues his heart.


18) Elle

Isabelle Huppert plays Michele Leblanc, a no-nonsense video game designer who has a complicated response to being raped during a traumatic home invasion. Huppert's icy intensity sells a role that should be completely ridiculous; she's the daughter of a serial killer as just one barely-relevant aside. Veteran director Verhoeven learned French in order to direct her.


17) 20th Century Women

Annette Benning, Elle Fanning, and Greta Gerwig are the 20th century (1979, to be specific) women of the title. Collectively they turn in one of the most likable ensemble performances of the year. They shape the life of well-meaning Jamie, based on director Mike Mills as a teenager, who's unfortunately the official "center" of a film that barely needs him. Fortunately the sensitive and funny script rescues this from becoming just another good-guy-coming-of-age nostalgia-fest.


16) Eye in the Sky

The ethics of drone warfare play out via a joint UK-Kenyan anti-terrorist operation. A tense, well-cast, and extremely topical thriller that lives a second life in the debates you'll have afterwards.


15) O.J.: Made in America

A hugely-compelling 467-minute documentary, complete with historical context and in-depth cultural analysis, on orange juice production and distribution in America.


14) Moonlight

A coming-of-age triptych following one man's early life and first love, with sexual identity, race, and poverty not giving him any easy breaks. Moonlight is a cultural milestone, an underdog award-winning masterpiece, and a beautiful heartfelt story. Best of all, every indication is that director Barry Jenkins is just getting started.


13) The Fits

Toni is an 11-year-old boxer who decides to go in for dance. She watches the older girls: their physical confidence, their tough talk, their feminine sexuality. When an epidemic of unexplained fits creeps across her school, she watches that too. Inspirational sports/music movies take place on the surface, where we literally see and hear everything. The Fits is something else. It operates underneath.


12) The Handmaiden

Sarah Water's Dickensian novel about British con artists, lesbian lovers, and rare books is transposed to 1930s South Korea. This is the sexy, twisty, period piece thriller you didn't know you needed!


11) La La Land

You saw it. You have a strong opinion. It made me smile all over the place, and I hate smiling, so save your "overrated" and "they can't sing/dance" stuff for someone else.


10) Midnight Special

Jeff Nichols, the master of rural noir, my favorite micro-genre, mixes in some sci-fi and road movie to deliver Midnight Special. Two men transport a messianic telekinetic child to a mysterious rendezvous point in the Southern swamplands, while pursued by the NSA and a cult. Dusky cinematography and an accent-infested cast also help.


9) Hell or High Water

Speaking of rural noir! Wikipedia also calls this a "neo-Western" which will do equally well. See this for Jeff Bridges doing full-on Jeff Bridges. Or in case you were ever thinking of robbing a bank in West Texas (TLDR: everyone has a gun). Music by Nick Cave.


8) The Salesman

Every film by Asghar Farhadi is gold. His territory is the precise elevation where the moral high-ground shifts beneath you, and the rockslide starts to gain momentum. In The Salesman, a couple move into a new apartment. Off-screen, Rana is surprised by an unexpected intruder. Her husband, Emad, struggles to understand what happened, why, and who to blame. Like Farhadi at his best, there are no clear, easy answers.


7) The Witch

A stubborn Puritan exile homesteads his family in a godforsaken New England meadow circa 1600s. When their newborn disappears, the patriarch suspects a supernatural threat, and consumed by mounting paranoia, turns on his own daughter. Who'd have guessed that the year's most harrowing horror film would be delivered in difficult-to-decipher but utterly rich vernacular dialog?


6) Jackie

Jacqueline Kennedy (portrayed by Natalie Portman) recounts her days in the immediate aftermath of her husband's assassination. Putting Pablo Larrain, a politically-minded Chilean, at the helm of a Kennedy profile is bold (US - Latin America relations being what they were), and partially accounts for the depth and ambiguity rarely seen in patriotic biopics. The formal rigor of the compositions, editing, and sound design are highlights. Discordant music breaks the hermetic seal.


5) Toni Erdmann

So very good, and yet hard to classify or explain. A futile and useless summary: unhappy businesswoman is visited by prankster father. Only slightly better: a character-driven cringe comedy woven from criss-crossing contradictory emotions. Perhaps I had better pitch it based on its unforgettable dinner party scene or as a modernist family drama sustained with wry humor for almost 3 hours primarily on the painfully honest non-chemistry of two non-heroes. Director Maren Ade is another talent to watch.


4) Arrival

Towering black extraterrestrial ellipsoids position themselves around the globe. Governments scramble to understand the technology, the intentions, and, most critically, the language of these cryptic visitors. The US military tasks a linguist (Amy Adams) to make meaningful contact. This is the type of ambitious, cerebral, and yet supremely entertaining genre film I miss. A master class in the possibilities of visual storytelling. Denis Villeneuve may be my favorite director at work today; but can he pull off a Blade Runner sequel?


3) The Lobster

Imagine a European hotel where you can stay for 45 days. You must either fall in love with another guest or be turned into an animal of your choice. You can hunt loners, vagrant forest-dwelling locals, to extend your time. David (Colin Farrell) is shy, lonely, has poor eyesight. If cupid does not intervene, his chosen animal is the lobster. You need a taste for dark, imaginative, deadpan comedy to enjoy this, but if that's your thing, you're in for a very rare treat.


2) Manchester by the Sea

Lee (Casey Affleck) inherits custody of his brother's son, teenager Patrick (much-lauded newcomer Kyle Chandler), much to their mutual chagrin. As they bond, they slowly open up. We see the still-raw nerves of Lee's broken past and Patrick's inarticulate hunger for guidance. An uncompromising depiction of grief and getting by, one day at a time. Writer-director Lonergan (You Can Count On Me, Margaret) is 3 for 3 in my books.


1) The Forbidden Room

What is this? Your grandpa's old instructional bathing tapes? A recovered crooner-era music video about brain surgery and pygophilia? Why is squid theft the greatest crime? How can a saplingjack (an apprentice lumberjack) just "shows up" aboard a submarine deep below the ocean surface? Are those lithesome skeleton women secretly perpetrating insurance fraud? Can perusing even "The Book of Climaxes" tie this mess together?

Canadian experimental pioneer Guy Maddin segues with unpredictable dream logic between dozens of sparkling interlinked stories, depicted in an encyclopedic array of silent and early sound era techniques complete with artful deterioration and distortion. What is it? "Dreams! Visions! Madness!" Not for all tastes.

Some honorable mentions: Victoria, 13th, Don't Breathe, Nocturnal Animals, Zootopia, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Dheepan, Don't Breathe

SLIFF 2014: Stations of the Cross

Title: Stations of the Cross

Country: Germany

Rating: 9.5

                Dietrich Bruggemann’s ambitious, challenging, rigorous Stations of the Cross is 107 minutes and only 14 shots long. You do the math. Actually, I’ll do the math: that’s more than 7 and a half minutes per shot. And if you are versed in Catholic trivia, you can readily guess that each shot will be structured around one of the events that chronicles Christ’s carrying of his own cross towards his crucifixion at Calvary. Knowing this is a slow, German religious-themed film is either going to make you run away screaming or play on your curiosity.

                The story is focused on a devout teenage girl named Maria (Lea van Acken giving one of the year’s best performances), who struggles with her ultra-strict mother and ultra-traditional faith. Preparing for Confirmation, her priest warns about such evils as non-ecclesiastical music, looking in mirrors and eating cookies. At home she takes care of her brother, who is mute and possibly autistic, and frequently clashes with her mother over chores, responsibility and the purity of her motives. Things get worse when she meets a boy at the library who invites her to his choir, at a church that allows ‘the devil’s rhythms,’ and Maria lies to her mother while trying to get permission to attend.

                One of the many things to Bruggemann’s credit is that each shot is different and engaging, even for the conspicuous lengths of time they are held. The compositions are obviously very strong (they better be!), but his blocking and attention to expression and delivery are also exquisite.

                Stations of the Cross is never patronizing, never lazy and never wastes your time. It has a fresh, intense immediacy and a deep respect for its characters, who in a lesser work would be quickly reduced to symbols. Instead, the parallels to the actual Stations of the Cross (which are displayed onscreen before each shot), range from subtle to seemingly incidental and several are largely open to interpretation. For example, ‘Jesus is stripped of his clothes’ is a hospital visit in which Maria has to take off her shirt for the doctor to examine her. Though that isn’t the main point of the scene, it hints at feelings of vulnerability, exposure, shame, defeat, secular practice railroading spiritual qualms, etc.

               I actually misremembered my long-since-lapsed childhood rearing and thought the twelfth shot, the powerful climax, was the last. When the movie continued I had my doubts there was anything left to be said. I was wrong.

Film Atlas (Germany): Metropolis

Country: Germany

Film: Metropolis (1927)

Freder is the idealistic son of Joh Fredersen, tyrannical master of Metropolis, a futuristic city of lofty skyscrapers connected by elevated trains. But it harbors an unpleasant secret:  Metropolis is built and powered by a city beneath the city, where enslaved masses toil away under brutally hazardous conditions in cavernous mechanical dens. One day while Freder is frolicking in his garden paradise, he spies Maria, a woman from the world below, who is treating children to an unauthorized field trip. He is smitten, but after pursuing her down the elevator shafts he witnesses an explosion and experiences a nightmare vision of the working class as human sacrifices. He fails to convince his father to alleviate their burden and so returns, swapping places with a hapless drone, to seek his beloved. He infiltrates an underground church where he hears Maria preaching the parable of the Tower of Babylon and praying for a messiah-like 'heart' who will serve to mediate between the 'head' (the masters) and the 'hand' (the workers) in time to avert an approaching apocalyptic class war.

Joh catches a whiff of these revolutionary rumors and consults former-romantic-rival-turned-mad-scientist Rotwang. The latter has recently completed a robot to replace Hel, Joh's late wife and Rotwang's stolen love. Joh and Rotwang also secretly witness Maria's Babylon sermon and scheme to manipulate events to their own ends. Joh demands Rotwang transform the robot into Maria's likeness so that she can sow confusion, lust and violence as a pretext for reciprocal genocide, but the vengeful Rotwang plans to double-cross Joh and destroy him, his son and the whole city using his unholy creation. Disasters ensue, with Freder and Maria uniting to right the wrongs of the previous generation.

Light-years ahead of its time, Fritz Lang's titanic Metropolis is possibly the defining film of the silent era, a jaw-dropping science-fiction dystopia that both codified the genre and stood as its high-water mark for decades to come. Fusing classical, futurism and art deco production designs with groundbreaking special effects courtesy of the brilliant Eugen Schufftan, Lang and his wife Thea Von Harbou  meticulously yet luxuriantly constructed an entire civilization from scratch. The stunning results of their imagination, innovation and dedication still hold up to this day: everything from the details of costume and carpet to the spectacles of flood and fire. Lang, given an unprecedented budget, experimented to a degree his previous epics had not allowed and developed a bold, futuristic aesthetic designed around exquisitely overlaid multiple exposures, spinning kaleidoscopic lenses and powerful architectural compositions along crisscrossing triumphant angles. If anything is susceptible to accusations of datedness it would be the symbolism-heavy Biblical parallels (I'm unfazed by the film's ethical and economic simplifications) and the overly-expansive jerky performances (interestingly, the talented Brigitte Helm portrays the robot, in its earliest cinematic appearance, as contrastingly sinuous), but it all fits into the remarkably cohesive vision of an imbalanced world in crisis. It was both apropos of the Weimar Republic's recent past and prophetic of its coming war.

Metropolis was extensively cut immediately after its Berlin premier and over the years various attempts were made to find and restore the lost footage. However, it was not until 2008 that a tenacious archivist unearthed decaying reels stored in Buenos Aires that a nearly complete version (148 minutes, 25 longer than previous) could be made available. So even if you've seen Metropolis before then, it's worth checking out again!

My Favorites:

Metropolis (1927)

Aguirre: The Wrath of God

M (1931)

The Lives of Others

Run, Lola, Run

Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler
Stations of the Cross

Wings of Desire

The Boat / Das Boot

Veronica Voss

Spies (1928)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Heart of Glass

Nosferatu (1922)

The Joyless Street

Liebelei (1933)

Marianne and Juliane

The Marriage of Maria Braun

The Love of Jeanne Ney

The American Friend

The Tin Drum

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

The Adventures of Prince Achmed

Madchen in Uniform

The Oyster Princess

The Diary of a Lost Girl

Die Nibelungen

The Wondeful Lies of Nina Petrovna

The Threepenny Opera (1931)

Pandora’s Box

Faust (1926)

Lessons of Darkness

The Marquise of O

Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis

Goodbye, Lenin!

The Last Laugh (1924)

Downfall

The Lost Honor of Katerina Blum

Alice in the Cities

The Doll (1919)

Major Directors:
Werner Rainer Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Fritz Lang, Paul Leni, F. W. Murnau, G. W. Pabst, Wolfgang Petersen, Edgar Reitz, Volker Schlondorff, Tom Tykwer, Wim Wenders

SLIFF 2009 Coverage Part 3

Title: 24 City

Director: Jia Zhangke

Country: China

Score: 7.0

Review:

Zhangke’s “24 City” is a provocative mix of documentary and fiction, concerned with the relocation of a large Chinese industrial factory to make room for a luxury apartment complex. The details of the factory itself, such as what product it actually makes, is not the director’s interest, but rather the role it has played in the surrounding community and in the lives of enormous workforce. The film consists of a series of interviews with these men and women, about half of which are fake. The tone and craftsmanship are so strong even in the acted segments that viewers will be unlikely to distinguish them, and may not even realize that some parts were fictional. And yet Zhangke doesn’t play the postmodern trickster so much as delve into an impartial emotional truth that lurks behind both documentary and performance.

The Chinese Sixth Generation has been one of my weak spots in exploring Asian film, and so I eagerly embraced a chance to see my first film by the well-regarded Jia Zhangke. He’s a director I clearly need to get in better touch with, as his film evinces such a penetrating curiosity about what makes his country and his countrymen tick. “24 City” is at ease in a sea of rocky history, ugly architecture and disparate national priorities, watching with a misleading detachment the changes in generations, philosophies, personalities, economies and so on. His film can be almost unbearably glacial, but it has wisdom and even wit, notably demonstrated in an interview where a beautiful factory girl (played by Joan Chen of “Little Flower” and “Twin Peaks”) recalls being nicknamed “Little Flower” by her admirers because she looked like Joan Chen. This film has only grown on me upon reflection.

Title: Yella

Director: Christian Petzold

Country: Germany

Score: 7.0

Review:

Nina Hoss turns in an award-winning performance as a capable accountant trying to climb her way out of financial straits and an abusive relationship. She accidentally runs into and takes up with an unethical loan assessor and finds herself really enjoying her role as sharp-eyed sidekick. Yet as she extorts money from both shady and relatively honest entrepreneurs alike she’s plagued by something more than a guilty conscious and her violent stalker boyfriend: strange auditory hallucinations with ominous implications.

“Yella” is actually a really well-crafted film if you can ignore the obvious and intrusive ending twist. Why Petzold telegraphs it so openly, or even why he bothers to include it, is a more ponderous mystery than the mystery itself. But that aside, “Yella” manages to be a rare corporate thriller where the characters are worth caring about, especially the rather reserved lead, who manages to blend courage and cynicism into a decidedly complicated and not necessarily sympathetic role. Her conflicted desires to adopt a cold hard exterior while needing an emotional anchor neatly inverses the crisscrossed atmospheres of cold interiors and sun-dappled exteriors.

Title: We Live in Public

Director: Ondi Timoner

Country: USA

Score: 9.0

Review:

Timoner ("Dig!") continues her triumphant documentary career with this biopic about Josh Harris, a virtual personification of the information age and our internet culture. In 1993, Harris founded Pseudo.com, the first internet television station, whose channel hosts he recruited by staging massive decadent parties reminiscent of interactive art installations. After alienating his own company by adopting a disturbing baby-talking clown persona called ‘Luvvy,' Harris was forced out of his own company. He proceeded to take his millions and build “We Live in Public,” an underground kingdom beneath New York City where he housed more than a hundred experimental subjects with free food, music and living quarters, but under the condition that everyone was subject to humiliating interrogations and constant surveillance (made accessible to all via TVs in each sleeping pod). After the police, thinking they were busting a Y2K doomsday cult, broke in on what had degenerated into a fatigued orgy, Harris abandoned the idea to embark on his next work. This time he wires cameras to cover every inch of his flat and lives with his girlfriend in a 24-7 live internet show with a chatroom for people to comment on his life. The results were unsurprisingly detrimental to everyone involved.

Harris is an undeniably fascinating character to study, a prescient mad-genius type that embodies not just our society’s obsession with technology and exhibitionism, but our increasing immaturity and cult of youth and novelty. Timoner is not quite trusting enough to let her audience ingest the self-evident warnings about our culture that her footage contains and is a little too ready to interpret it for us, but she’s deftly aware of the potential in her subject and handles the stages of his blazing ups and downs with the skill of a consummate storyteller. While “We Live in Public” is by no means scholarly enough to make us feel we are getting the whole story, it captures the zeitgeist of the online boom where the internet was treated like a wild lawless frontier and poorly-adjusted nerds became multi-millionaire celebrities overnight.

SLIFF 2009 Coverage Part 2

Title: My Time Will Come

Director: Víctor Arregui

Country: Ecuador

Score: 5.0

Review:

“My Time Will Come” is a sprawling and somewhat meditative study of Quito, Ecuador where family and friendship tries to hold together amidst both domestic and gang violence. Dr. Arturo, a philosophical mortician, struggles to understand his brother, his separated parents, a budding romantic interest, his troubled city and even the dead. It is the latter which he relates to with the greatest ease, finding satisfaction with his evident forensic skill (practiced in a comically cavalier manner that involves heavy drinking) and the silent rest of corpses.

I found myself hoping, and perhaps even assuming, that Arturo would unravel the network of interlocking deaths that come streaming into his morgue. However, the type of clever cathartic conclusion that ties up the loose ends in many similarly structured films about disparate characters connected through a web of subtle links, doesn’t actually seem to be the point. Dr. Arturo’s bemused, deadpan resignation is the best that Arregui offers his audience, and while I can’t help being a bit disappointed, there is certainly an honesty and depth to his screenplay. The photography is pretty, if not quite beautiful. The editing is inefficient, but gives a fair-handed attention to even its peripheral characters.

Title: Animated Shorts

Director: various

Country: various

Score: various

Review:

It’s both unfair and irrational to try and review a compilation of shorts together, but it’s a little tedious to try and discuss each one individually, so I’ll try and just single out highlights. Overall, I thought this shorts program was better than any of the last few years, presumably because Cinema St. Louis is now able to be even choosier due to the huge number of submissions. Of the 13 shorts in this batch, about half were essentially music videos, which tended to make them quite watchable, but not very deep.

My favorite was “Checkoo,” by Erik Rosenlund of Sweden, about an office drone who doesn’t quite fit with the fast-pace tempo of modern life and resorts to a speed-enhancing drug to keep up. Smooth, sly and charming, Checkoo is a confident exercise in simplicity and style awash in orange colors and pop geometry. It has a lot to say, but knows how to do so in very few words. Other standouts include the ambitious dictatorship comedy “Only Love” by Lev Polyakov, the rough and jazzy “You’re Outa Here” by George Griffin and “Santa: The Fascist Years” by the always reliable Bill Plympton. The only short that really grated on me was “Articles of War,” a blunt, preachy and visually unremarkable treatise against the horror of wars presented as a letter from a WWII pilot to his WWI vet father.

Title: North Face

Director: Philipp Stoltz

Country: Germany

Score: 7.0

Review:

Based on a true story, “North Face” follows the ascent of two German mountain climbers scaling Mt. Eiger’s north face in 1936. Promoted by the Nazi’s as a race to “solve the last problem of the Alps,” the climb was regarded by many as impossible and even suicidal given the slope’s reputation as a “Murder Wall” prone to freak snow storms and avalanches. The pair of unpretentious country-bred climbers matches wits against an Austrian team, but quickly come to see the mountain as the only real foe when bad weather, frostbite and major injuries pin all four men against the unforgiving north face.

A gripping and evocative adventure, “North Face” easily carves a place for itself in the mountain movie genre. The acting is rather period-piece standard (which is to say, generically good), but the focus is really on Eigar and the gorgeious photography that puts us right in the midst of stone and snow. The viewer can feel the biting cold, the jagged crags and the constant vertigo. The film’s only serious flaw is in trying to tell the story from the perspective of one climber’s ex-girlfriend, a neophyte reporter with a callous Nazi boss. Her character just isn’t particularly interesting, nor do the Nazi subplots go anywhere, and the indirection distracts from the main action, especially when we are subjected to constant updates on her unchanged status waiting around at the base camp hotel.

Iceberg Arena: The Cat Countdown Part II

This is the second part of a three part series counting down the best animated cat movies I’ve seen. The final part will feature canine and rodent cinema.


5. Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985)

“Night on the Galactic Railroad” adapts freely from the novel by the pre-war Buddhist writer Kenji Miyazawa about the poor son of sick mother, Giovanni, and his mysterious train voyage across the stars with his best friend Campanella. The galactic railroad takes them through themed constellation stations full of surreal landmarks and eccentric passengers, including a man who harvests herons for candy and the ghostly souls of the sunken Titanic. Giovanni begins to suspect that the train is taking Campanella to afterlife (the Southern Cross), a fear that is confirmed when he wakes up on Earth alone and learns that Campanella drowned during the night’s moon festival while saving the school bully.

Director Sugii’s lugubrious religious allegory unsettled fans of the original work who weren’t expecting the characters to be cats (an artistic choice never explained) and confused those unfamiliar with the novella (amongst them, me) even more. It doesn’t help that the chapter titles are given in Esperanto and the thick symbolism is at once heavy-handed (prepare yourself for a bevy of crosses) and inscrutable (what the hell is with the bird candy guy?). Yet what emerges from the gentle dreamlike flow of the adventure is a mature and emotionally resonant tale about a brave child’s imagination, curiosity, friendship and loss. The low-on-action pacing and atmospheric spiritualism hasn’t been welcomed by fans of conventional American or Japanese anime, but I find it, along with “Angel Egg,” to be a worthwhile experiment.

4. The Cat Returns (2002)

Ghibli’s semi-sequel to “Whisper of the Hearts” (of which “The Cat Returns” is something of a story-within-a-story) is a light-hearted fantasy about a schoolgirl named Haru who can understand cats. One day she instinctively saves the life of a cat in danger and learns that he’s the prince of Cat Kingdom. Amongst the many rewards she’d prefer to reject are dead mice and a marriage proposal that leaves both parties unhappy. A mysterious voice advises Haru to seek out the Baron, a cat statue come to life, and Muta, an obese feline rogue, to save her from transforming into a cat and losing her stake in the human world.

Like with other Ghibli films, especially the kid-friendly “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” this film is warm-hearted, sincere and appropriate for pretty much all ages. The plot can be a little too cute for its own good, but the characters are well-realized enough to add a necessary grounding in realism. It also helps that the visuals are so strong, with Ghibli’s trademark eye for detail, color and light bringing to life Japanese suburbs, Victorian alleys and magical kingdoms.

3. Cats Don’t Dance (1997)

Danny, a song-and-dance tomcat hoping to make it big in Golden Era Hollywood, steps on the shoes of Darla Dimple, “Hollywood’s Sweetheart,” when he improvise on his single line (“Meow”) while an extra in her star vehicle. He’s immediately blacklisted, framed in a studio disaster and rejected even by the other would-be sensations whose dreams have also been crushed by humanity’s lack of interest in animal stars. Though initially depressed, Danny contrives to stage a massive musical comeback that wallows gleefully in garish “final number” excess.

Warner Brother’s underappreciated gem was strangled in the cradle by executives who doubted its potential (much like in the plot), cutting off marketing funds and limiting the release. They managed to lock in a box office failure for themselves, which is sad given the film’s success as a self-aware throwback to classical feel-good backstage musicals and its polished “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” type wit. It walks the line drawn by Pixar, whereby the film appeals to kids with its bright colors, catchy tunes and non-stop action while amusing adults with razor-sharp studio-era references (Darla Dimple, a sadistically villainous Shirley Temple, is especially memorable). At least director Mark Dindal was able to go on and make Disney’s equally delightful anomaly “The Emperor’s New Groove.”

2. The Cat Who Walked By Herself (1988)

This obscure Russian film caught me by surprise. It’s an adaptation of a Rudyard Kipling pourquoi story (short origin tales that take the format “how the leopard got his spots” or the like). It’s narrated in silky whisper by a house cat to a toddler who’s pulled her tail. Apparently the child forgot that thousands of years ago, humans and cats came to an agreement not to do so. Mixing stop motion, cutouts and paintings, a primal fable about cavepeople’s evolution and dependence on animals unfolds, with the cat providing wry commentary.

Intricate constructions and an eclectic art design make this one of the most visually arresting cat films ever made, though few have even heard of it. It also manages to capture the personality of cats and the sense that they see themselves not as pets, but as masters of their domain (unlike dogs or horse, food and scratches behind the ears only buy temporary loyalty). Like in many of Kipling’s other writings, the atmosphere of unfathomable magic and exotic creatures foregrounds nature as an exciting power to be reckoned with and humanity as gruff interlopers in over their heads. The occasionally drab character designs and use of ritual repetition are notable flaws, but the craft, originality and wisdom behind the production won my admiration.

1. Felidae (1994)

Soon after arriving in a new apartment building with his owner, Francis begins to investigate a series of brutal sex murders in the neighborhood. His amateur sleuthing turns up a viscous gang, a deadly cult, a blind beauty, a brilliant technophile, a secret catacomb, feral femme fatales and evidence of an unethical research program carried out years ago that may hold the key behind it all. The closer he gets to the truth, the more bodies pile up around him, but the crafty killer is clearly playing a larger high-stakes game destined to force Francis into choosing between his mind and his morals. Felidae, by the way, is the scientific name for the family of cats.

The sinuous noir plot is the best on the list by far, with metaphoric implications that stretch from Nazi war crimes to modern scientific debates. Its dark tone, unsparing imagery and mature subject matter was a major risk for an animated film (Germany’s most expensive), but Akif Pirinçci source novel ensured an artistic pedigree high enough to pay off in its niche market. The animation is also stellar, aiming for realism (nailing cat mannerisms and their social hierarchy) to create real tension and intrigue. I’m not too sure about the title track by Boy George, but overall this is THE cat film to see.

Next week, top ten countdowns for animated dog and mice movies.

Review of Berlin Alexanderplatz

In November of 2007, Criterion released “Berlin Alexanderplatz” (1980) on DVD. It took me until recently to finish it. This is largely because the film is 15 ½ hours long, easily the longest movie I’ve ever seen. Does it still count as a film at such a length? Well it did get a theatrical distribution, though it is better known as a mini-series and mostly consists of hour-long “chapters” (like television episodes) that have their own titles and credit sequences. Struggling through to the bitter end got me thinking about movie runtimes and how length affects the viewing experience.

“Berlin Alexanderplatz” is based on the work of the same name by Alfred Doblin, a Joyce-style modernist novel once declared unfilmable. It was directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, icon of the New German Cinema movement, who considered it his crowning masterpiece. It was well received by critics in the early 1980’s and the Criterion release generated much excitement and praise. As a huge fan of Fassbinder’s BRD trilogy (which was also granted a stunning Criterion transfer) and a moderate follower of some of his other works, I decided that a viewing would be worth the commitment.

The story follows Franz Biberkopf (Gunter Lamprecht) beginning with his release from jail for manslaughter. Biberkopf vows not to return to the life of crime that first doomed him, but finds life in the economically depressed Weimar Republic to be harsh and depressing. He tries to stifle his loneliness with a procession of women, an abundance of alcohol, an ill-considered flirtation with Nazi politics and the dubious company of the criminals that haunt his favorite bar. None of this heals his damaged psyche and crippled emotions or fixes the underlying factors driving his downward spiral: poverty and unemployment. Occasional odd jobs and fleeting loves prove only temporary tourniquets for his misery.

After a few breakdowns and betrayals, Biberkopf finds himself aiding a heist and loses an arm in the ensuing chase. Though the lost limb is no help to his circumstances, the worse consequence is his striking up a friendship with Reinhold Hoffmann, one of the robbers, who secretly hates him bitterly and draws him into pimping. He is temporarily saved by the introduction of Mietze, a prostitute whose adoration for Franz knows no reason. However, his increased dependency on Mietze for unconditional understanding and love only positions him for a final fall. When she is murdered in a gorgeous forest, Biberkopf plunges headlong into madness.

Gunter Lamprecht’s performance holds the whole film together, occupying the screen in almost every shot of this titanic personal epic. He performs amazingly given the difficultly of the part, which includes hiding an arm for more than half the film, bursting with anger and frustration at intervals and spouting cryptic monologues while staring into space; all tasks that might be unrewarding and obnoxious in the hands of a less talented actor. The supporting cast isn’t too many notches behind, though they slip into the same narrative holding patterns so often that, even with the abundant screen time, they feel underdeveloped and incomplete.

Unfortunately, my praise for the film stops with Lamprecht. Fassbinder’s direction, while daring, turns the biography into a sluggish self-conscious death march. He turns to the Brechtian techniques that often make his work so intriguing and indelible, but exhausts them until they seem trite, pointless and painful. Occasionally throwing text onto the screen (usually quotes from the book) is one of the most obvious, and actually one of the most palatable examples (leading me to believe the book is pretty decent). The worst decision, rendering the film nearly unwatchable for someone like me, is an unremitting reliance on repetition.

Repetition is a killer. It was a lesson I wasn’t always willing to accept when my film professors drove it in, but I’ve since converted. I frequently find it at the root of problems with pacing, script, narrative progression, visual dynamism, interest, excitement, shock, etc. Fassbinder, for either thematic or budgetary reasons, absolutely exalts in it. Flashbacks, camera positions, locations, lines of dialogue, sounds, music, characters and situations all repeat with maddening insistence. Sometimes there is a façade of change, as with the rotation of female characters leading up to the entrance of Mietze, except that they all look the same, act the same and fulfill the same interchangeable purpose in the story. Even the themes get hammered home far too often, like an amateur essayist who thinks restating his thesis is the same as supporting it.

I generally welcome the related Brechtian themes of lack of progress and the inability of protagonists to overcome their obstacles. These concepts are often gutsy, powerful and admirably realistic in an industry that overvalues shallow victories and happy endings. But while I find such avant-garde ideas fascinating at 100 minutes, they are monotonous lessons at 931.

The unquestionable inevitability of Biberkopf’s decline makes all the minor ups and downs in the narrative blur together. The primary reliance on a half dozen relatively sparse sets prevents the viewer from escaping into visual appreciation, though Fassbinder’s camera movement and framing occasionally (not nearly often enough) revive the limited lifespan of the art direction.

Perhaps it’s just me. I know length impacts my taste. I don’t like very many television shows, for instance. One of my main complaints is the amount of filler. Most television shows have to cater to an audience that may be tuning in, possibly for the first time, at any moment. This means that personality traits, character allegiances, back-stories, major plot points, long-term goals, unusual constraints, over-arching themes and important locations have to be constantly reasserted to keep everyone up to speed. In general, the longer a show runs the more baggage it has to carry around and re-explain. Meanwhile, the original ideas and exciting freshness move in the opposite direction, ultimately reducing the viewing experience to character attachment, nostalgia and momentum.

I don’t mind a long film, but I like it to be lean. I even enjoy slow films (efficiency doesn’t necessarily mean rapid pace or dense story), if I’m given a healthy diet of food for thought, eye candy or artistic treats of other varieties. Efficiency is a virtue that can be exercised on any terrain, even in the company of minimalism, grandiosity, realism, poetics, character development or narrative progress.

What I don’t like is inefficiency, waste and repetition. The romantic subplot that exists for no other reason than that marketers think every film needs one. The phone conversation where the listener parrots every word for the benefit of the audience. The oft-repeated line trying to become a memorable catchphrase. The joke that occurs three times with a “surprising” twist on the third iteration. The dialogue that fills in backstory better left implied or gradually revealed. The cuts that serve no purpose except to stimulate the optical nerve. The shots that have no beauty, depth or style, but ensure that we are always looking at THE ONE MAIN THING important to the story. The music that forces an emotion that should be earned and self-evident.

Add length to that equation and it only gets worse. But then “add” isn’t the right word. Length, for me, is a multiplier. If a bad film takes up 90 minutes, that’s a missed opportunity to run some errands, or maybe go out for a nice dinner. It’s a minor offense; an artistic misdemeanor. If a bad film wears on for three hours, that’s a crime. It’s the murder of a whole evening.

“Berlin Alexanderplatz” isn’t terrible, but at 15+ hours mediocrity becomes pretty insufferable. If I was just tallying the highlights, I’d have to give the film a reasonably high score. I think many reviewers operate on that principle: that the sum of the best parts yields the value of the whole. In my mind, you have to divide the merits by the runtime and distribute it over the resources they had available. That might seem harsh for filmmakers. It asks them to maintain a high level of quality on every inch of film stock. It asks them to do more than throw money at the audience. I think it’s a fair demand.

Of course, you can take things too far in the opposite direction. There is no shortage of films that have been butchered on the editing table to meet that wholly artificial 2 hour cap. Hence the frequency of director’s cuts on DVDs that [usually] make films smoother, richer or more deeply felt. It’s a tough balance. It takes real talent to hone a film to its ideal state.

I think “Berlin Alexanderplatz” could have made a great film if Fassbinder had been constrained to a fraction of the time. The final 112 minute epilogue, for instance, makes a very decent standalone film. It's set mostly inside of Biberkopf’s crazed mind, with a compact barrage of surreal imagery and enough flashbacks and back-references to allow the audience to figure out the key events that tore apart his sanity.

Still, I think Fassbinder knew what he was doing. He made the film he wanted to make. The decisions about what to ship and what to snip belong, rightfully, to him and his editor (I’d make an awful producer!). Watching the whole thing just didn’t pay off for me and I can’t recommend it for others.

Walrus Rating: 4.5

Hall of Strangeness Part XXX

Versus – (Ryuhei Kitamura) A reincarnated samurai turned yakuza thug, escapes from jail to meet up with his aggressive gang in the aptly named “Forest of Resurrection”. When a dispute occurs over a kidnapped girl, one of the flunkies gets killed and quickly returns as a zombie. That’s when it occurs to the rest of the gang that they’ve been burying hits in the woods for years. The plot is mostly an excuse for an endless series of battles involving samurai, gangsters, zombies, vampires, government agents and demon lords to name a few. Exhausting.
Artistry: ** Fun: **** Strangeness: ***

Videodrome – (David Cronenberg) Arguably Cronenberg’s best film, Videodrome features a sleazy television producer looking for the edgiest show he can find. After viewing a torture scene on pirate satellite, he sets out on a trail that eventually leads him to media tycoon Brian O’Blivion, who only appears to the public via television. Our hero gets more than he bargained for when he begins to experience disturbing hallucinations and spontaneous mutations. James Wood and Deborah Harry (Blondie) star.
Artistry: **** Fun: **** Strangeness: ****

Walker – (Alex Cox) The historical story of William Walker (played with crazed intensity by Ed Harris), an American manifest destiny warlord who brought despotic “democracy” to Nicaragua when he conquered the country in the 1850’s, is given shocking, satiric and exuberant treatment in Cox’s (Repo Man) visionary dip into studio funding. Cox’s searing political agenda (the parallels to Reagan era politics are spelled out in the credits) and rule-breaking violations of historical fact (including intrusions by cars, computers and a helicopter) ensured that critics and audiences were baffled and outraged, while the studio system turned their back on him forever. For the open-minded, however, Walker’s blood-drenched surrealism, inspired musical score and Harris’s majestic depiction of madness are unforgettable treats.
Artistry: **** Fun: *** Strangeness: ****

Warning Shadows – (Arthur Robinson) A jealous husband, his flirtatious wife, four smirking male admirers and an unkempt shadow-puppet wizard all gather for a life-altering dinner in this rarely watched work of German Expressionism. After observing the sexual tension in the room, the puppeteer puts on a show, enchanting his hosts and awakening their shadows to act out the tragedy they are about to undergo. German Expressionism’s love affair with shadows reaches its peak in this film, benefitting from Robinson’s decision to work purely with visuals (silent, with no intertitles).
Artistry: *** Fun: ** Strangeness: ***

Waxworks – (Paul Leni) A poet is assigned the task of writing stories for the macabre denizens of a wax museum, and so he immerses himself in three imaginative tales featuring the Caliph of Baghdad, Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper. This silent anthology features an all-star German Expressionism cast that includes Emil Janning (The Blue Angel, The Last Laugh), Conrad Veidt (The Hands of Orlac, The Man Who Laughs ), Werner Krauss (Dr. Caligari himself) and William Dieterle (director of The Devil and Daniel Webster and Sex in Chains).
Artistry: *** Fun: ** Strangeness: ***

Top 12 Hobo Films

I’m not going to pretend that “hobo films” are a genre. I’ll readily admit that it is simply an issue of subject matter. In making this list I have factored in the quality of the film with its hobosity, that is, the extent to which it depicts hobos and focuses on their lives and deeds. Thus, a great film like “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (2007) may include a hobo with an important role to play, but the movie could hardly be called a hobo film since the focus, overwhelmingly, is elsewhere.

Then, too, there is the question of definition. I’ve played it fast and loose in some cases, but I am keeping to a semblance of order. Technically, hobos travel and do odd jobs when available. For the purpose of this list I’m allowing tramps, who travel without working, and bums, who simply loiter. Vagabonds, vagrants, freeloaders, beggars and drifters are also considered. The two key factors I am using to judge hobo validity are homelessness and lack of steady employment. Dirtiness, drunkenness, destitution and use of hobo slang help, but are not required criterion. Simply being poor (but having a house, family and meager source of income), like Eliza at the beginning of “My Fair Lady,” is not quite enough.

As a side note, I’m celebrating the Film Walrus’s first birthday. One year old, yesterday! I want to thank all my readers (both of them).

First Runner Up: Trading Places

12. The Fisher King (1991)
Director: Terry Gilliam
Country: USA
Description:
Gilliam’s loose adaptation of the Fisher King legend, stars Jeff Bridges as Jack, a disillusioned hate-mongering radio host who mishandles an on-air caller about to go on a killing spree. Jack loses his job and sinks into a deep depression. One night after a particularly despairing drinking session, Jack is attacked and beaten by a gang, only to be rescued by a crazed hobo (Robin Williams as Parry). An unlikely friendship develops between the two down-and-outers, despite Parry’s firm delusion that he is on a quest for the Holy Grail. Parry is intelligent and literary, a man who once had a normal middle-class life before tragedy sent him out of his mind. Ultimately, Jack learns that Parry’s decline (and potential redemption) may be inextricably tied to his own.

You can always count on Gilliam to mix expressive doses of fantasy into otherwise conventional dramas. His directorial influence makes this film particularly interesting, wringing a worthwhile Don Quixote performance from Williams. The films owes perhaps too much to Gilliam’s earlier and superior “Brazil,” but “The Fisher King” is still one of his better films and unquestionably higher in hobosity.

11. M (1931)
Director: Fritz Lang
Country: Germany
Description:
A wave of child murders is sweeping Berlin and it’s up to Karl Lohmann (backed by the entire Berlin police force) to end the epidemic of fear and death. When the police crack down on the economically-tolerated criminal underworld, even they join in the manhunt for the murderous creep. Finally Berlin’s real power player, the enormous Beggar’s Union, rally to the cry. The hobos mobilizes their numbers to put a pair of inconspicuous eyes on every street corner. Yet it’s a pair of ears that finally finds the first lead, a whistler of “Hall of the Mountain King.” Now marked by the damning “M” (murderer!) chalked onto his back, it is only a matter of time before Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre in his most famous role) is caught by the beggars, conmen and crooks. His shrill, tormented confession at an subterranean mob trial brought a new level of psychological depth in cinema.

“M” may not center upon any singular hobo or pseudo-hobo character, but it makes up in quantity what it lacks in specificity. The seedy side of Weimer Republic Berlin is rife with criminal lowlifes and homeless hustlers all of whom seem terrifyingly thrilled to find someone (a child murderer) socially beneath them. Lang’s hobo brigade is a resourceful lot and ultimately a force to be reckoned with, a fact which somewhat ameliorates his blood-thirsty, one-sided depiction of the unwashed masses.

10. 3 Iron (2004)
Director: Kim Ki-duk
Country: South Korea
Description:
Tae-suk is a humble, unassuming mute who rides about on his motorbike and leaves take-out menus on people’s doors. The audience soon discovers that this is not a real job, nor does Tae-suk have a real home: he returns after several days and breaks into the houses that have not removed the menus (since the owners are likely to be on vacation). The young man squats for a few days, remaining respectful of his environment and accepting the possible dangers. Clearly a man with natural talent, Tae-suk repairs any broken electronics and does laundry and cleaning for his unwitting hosts. Eventually he meets a girl who joins his unconventional lifestyle and the two silently transcend the growing animosity of the world around them.

“3 Iron” may be the most questionable of the films on this list, because Tae-suk differs quite dramatically from traditional hobo iconography. Though he is a homeless, jobless drifter who survives by his wits alone, he is also young, well-dressed, hard-working, clean and utterly silent. Part of the reason, though, that I include him in my list, is because he updates the depression-era stereotype into a mildly-alienated protagonist fit for a globalized modernity. Some critics bashed “3 Iron” when it was first release for being faux-intellectual, but it has held up admirably as a turning point for director Ki-duk, best known for his brutally savage odysseys.

9. Viridiana (1961)
Director: Luis Bunuel
Country: Spain
Description:
Viridiana (Bunuel favorite, Silvia Pinal) is a nun-in-training who is assaulted by the unwanted amorous affections of her uncle (Fernando Rey) during a visit to his vast estate. After rejecting him several times, he kills himself, leaving his modest fortune in her hands. Putting her cloistered Catholic training to use, she sets up a food kitchen and homeless shelter on her new property. Her well-meaning idealism is shattered when the beggars take over the castle, devouring the food, destroying the furniture and even descending into rape and murder.

Bunuel’s trademark irreverence is on display and enough so that the film was banned by church and state in Spain. Viewers were not just upset by the frequent sacrilege, but by the depiction of unashamed cruelty in the wicked poor. Bunuel remained an equal-opportunity insulter, however, and would satirize the wealthy bourgeoisie throughout his career as often as the lower-class. Though this film is short on surrealism and is almost hoboless for the first half, its orgiastic climax remains an unforgettable hobonova.

8. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
Director: Preston Sturges
Country: USA
Description:
John Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is a Hollywood director in 1941 with a string of blockbuster comedies to his name and a deep dissatisfaction in his heart. He dreams of making a “serious” artistic film about the plight of mankind to called “Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?” (later used as the real-life title of a Coen Brothers film), but he knows he doesn’t have the proper perspective. To experience suffering first-hand, he darns a hobo garb and tries to travel the country on his wits alone. After a couple of false starts he teams up with a down-on-her-luck actress (Veronica Lake) and learns a little about life and love. His controlled experiment soon collapses around him when he is robbed and beaten. The killer dies under Sullivan’s identity while John, suffering from amnesia, takes up the homeless life for real. Sullivan ends up in a labor camp where he and his fellow inmates get through their daily misery by relying on laughter (including occasional screenings of comedies). By the time Sullivan regains his memory and his former life, he realizes that he shouldn’t dismiss the value of well-made lightweight movies.

Despite the self-congratulatory plot (it’s a comedy about the importance of comedies), “Sullivan’s Travels” charmingly puts forth a decent argument on the need for escapism when times are bad. McCrea and Lake make a sweet couple and have plenty of destitute fun in their spotless, tastefully-torn rags. The film features some great train hopping scenes and more hobos than you can shake a bindle at, though it doesn’t take a very realistic approach to life on the road. Like “It Happened One Night,” the film manages to break through the static mansions, hotels and yachts that backdrop most screwball comedies to tell a brisk, country-crossing yarn.

7. Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
Director: Satoshi Kon
Country: Japan
Description:
A middle-aged hobo (Gin), a drag queen (Hana) and a teen runaway (Miyuki) experience an unlikely Christmas Eve adventure in this anime from idiosyncratic director Satoshi Kon. The three discover a baby lying in a pile of garbage and vow to track down the parents using the scant clues found with the child. Fate conspires to complicate things while providing ample room to investigate the diverse backgrounds that have led each character to life on the street. They encounter a mob boss, hitmen, a suicide and much more as they grow nearer to returning the baby, but the real story is their personal deliverance.

Kon crossed national, cultural and genre precedent to create this unusual adaptation, approximately the ninth retelling of an American screenplay that usually took the form of a western (twice with John Wayne). Set within the city limits of a snow-laden contemporary Tokyo, the animation and story will seem unconventionally down-to-earth for viewers expecting the usual sci-fi trappings of popular anime. Kon pares down his style to focus on the personalities of the marginalized homeless community, frequently shrouding his humor and underlying optimism in a cloak of misery and despair. Nevertheless, the virtuoso opening credits, plenty of action set pieces keeps and a frankly ridiculous number of twists keep the film very entertaining.

Special thanks to John Mora for reminding me of this entry!

6. Vagabond (1985)
Director: Agnes Varda
Country: France
Description:
French feminist new-waver Agnes Varda scored one of her most famous international successes with this pseudo-documentary account of a vagabond’s last days. The film opens on Mona’s frozen corpse, a meaningless death unknown to the public and unmourned by friends and family. Varda (or some other unseen narrator), knows nothing of her background, but tries to build a loose story by tracing through her final few encounters. Through an episodic patchwork of Mona’s travels and interviews with the people she met, an unapologetic portrait takes shape. She comes across as a freedom-loving, responsibility-hating young woman who prefers loneliness and constant drifting to anything society can offer. She leaves a mark in the minds of those she meets, but rarely a good impression.

Of the films on this list, “Vagabond” is probably the most true to life, though it can also be the most frustrating. Varda refuses to compromise her character’s flaws and Mona can often times be rude, glib, irresponsible, selfish and borderline criminal. She refuses to bathe, let alone work, and keeps to herself despite endless opportunities to open up. Varda never asks us to understand, only to observe, and half-glimpsed insights into her behavior allow the audience to reserve judgment. The people who hover on the fringe of Mona’s adventures, meanwhile, provide context for how people like Mona come about. Not for all tastes, but extremely high in hobosity.

5. The Gold Rush (1925)
Director: Charlie Chaplin
Country: USA
Description:
Charlie Chaplin plays a luckless tramp trying to gold prospect in Alaska, in this silent-era comedy. Blizzards, starvation and several run-ins with villainous mountain-man Big Jim McKay make life humorously miserable for the hapless hobo. He falls in love with a saloon girl, but finds no respite from his ill fortune. Things go downhill (literally) until Chaplin finds himself in a cabin teetering precariously over an icy ravine.

“The Gold Rush” was a smash hit when it was first released and remains a critical darling, in part due to the film’s amazing 7-act structural symmetry. The film is still funny today and is probably the best showcase of Chaplin’s reoccurring character known as The Tramp. Many of the film’s scenes have entered into the collective cultural conscience, including Chaplin desperately eating his shoe stave off hunger (in his delusional mind it transforms into delicacies) and performing a dance with a pair of forks and rolls (you just have to see it to understand).

4. Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932)
Director: Jean Renoir
Country: France
Description:
Edouard Lestingois, a kindly upper-middle class gent rescues Boudu, a freewheeling irrepressible bum, from drowning in the Seine. Edouard’s friends and neighbors roundly praise him for his heroism, but Boudu is rather peeved, only reluctantly submitting to his induction into polite society. He proceeds to wear through his welcome as quickly as possible, eating and drinking excessively, creating monumental messes and seducing every woman in sight. Finally exhausting the novelty of wealth, Boudu finds himself back where he started. He falls into the river during a picnic and is presumed drowned. In truth, Boudu washes ashore, where he exchanges the life of upper-crust society for the life of bread-crust poverty, memorably signified by swapping his coattails with the rags of a scarecrow.

I’ve never been a huge fan of poetic realism or the works of Jean Renoir, but “Boudu” has an honesty and naturalism that can’t be denied. Renoir keeps a wise ambivalence about his characters and his observations about class distinctions don’t preach any elitist or dogmatic messages. Boudu is at once admirably carefree and obnoxiously annoying, chauvinistic and ungrateful. Edouard is well-meaning, but naïve and close-minded. Their clash lacks the explosive insanity one would expect from a Hollywood script (like the US remake, “Down and Out in Beverly Hills”), but instead, speaks volumes about personal choice and unsentimental humanity within an 81 minute slice of life. Michel Simon, effortlessly submerging himself into the role of the tactless, shaggy vagrant, remains one of the most vivid hobo depictions in history.

3. Lovers on the Bridge (1991)
Director: Leos Carax
Country: France
Description:
See the full review here.

2. Emperor of the North Pole (1973)
Director: Robert Aldrich
Country: USA
Description:
The Number 19 Special is a freight train every god-fearing hobo knows not to hop. Stack (Ernest Borgnine) patrols the boxcars, dealing out vicious punishments to freeloaders using an arsenal of hammers, chains and metal rods. Yet when messianic hobo A-No.1 (Lee Marvin) is challenged by self-absorbed upstart Cigaret (Keith Carradine) for the facetious tramp title of “Emperor of the North Pole,” Stack must lock horns with two men more resourceful and determined than he’s ever done in. The speeding arena offers few places to hide from Stack’s piercing gaze and sadistic reprisal, keeping the tension coupled to the rising stakes: from a free ride to a hard-won reputation to the lives of the men involved.

“Emperor of the North Pole” is sure to please any viewer looking for a film overflowing with hobosity. The central premise of a sadistic rail guard trying to kill the dueling drifters who dare to score a free ride makes for a surprisingly gripping feature-length potboiler and an innovative twist on cat-and-mouse dynamics. Much credit is due to Aldrich’s highly-honed action-drama direction, though the film is slightly marred by Carradine’s acting and a few flaws in the script, notably the comedy segments and the closing address. Lee Marvin’s turn as veteran rail-rider A-No.1 and Borgnine’s inexplicably bloodthirsty villain are highlights of this must-see hobo triumph.

Special thanks to Neil Fulwood for tipping me off to this great film!

1. My Man Godfrey (1936)
Director: Gregory LaCava
Country: USA
Description:
Rival socialite sisters Irene (Carole Lombard) and Cornelia are competing in a scavenger hunt to find a “forgotten man.” They both stumble upon Godfrey (William Powell), a wry hobo sifting through trash at a riverside dump. Impressed by his dry humor, intellectual air and dignified bearing, Irene hires him on as a family butler. Godfrey meets the cynical maid, who informs him that his new job is a curse, an endless series of chaotic indignities at the hands of wealthy eccentrics. Despite the odds, Godfrey comes to enjoy and take pride in his buttling. Meanwhile the family grows dependent on him (except the scheming Cornelia) and Irene falls hopelessly in love. However, Godfrey’s knack for upper-class civilities is no natural talent, and his mysterious past soon catches up with everyone.

One of the best of Universal’s screwball comedies, “My Man Godfrey” is depression-era escapism at its most optimistic and amusing. Carole Lombard is perfect as the flighty ingénue who talks at a million miles-per-hour and charms her way past any serious subject. The drunken matriarch and her bizarrely sensitive male protégé take the eccentricities up a notch, but it is William Powell as Godfrey that steals the show with his brilliant straight-man performance. Fast-paced wit, outrageous situations and a precisely constructed story arc make this a mesmerizing make this film a sort of screwball hobo fairy tale for the ages.

Got a great movie that you think ranks high in hobosity? Leave me your recommendations in the comments!

SLIFF 2007 Coverage Part 5

St. Louis International Film Festival 2007 reviews for Nov. 16:


Title: Beauty in Trouble
Director: Jan Hrebejk
Country: Czech Republic
Score: 7.0
Review:
“Beauty in Trouble” takes place in the post-flood Czech Republic where a displaced working-class family tries to survive, not so much the consequences of natural disaster, as the stress-fatigued nuances of family interaction. Marcela (Anna Geislerová) is the titular beauty in trouble, a woman contending with two children (one asthmatic), a husband who has turned to crime, a crumbling make-shift home and a sinister, petty step-father.

After Marcela’s husband is jailed for grand theft auto, she meets Josef, the rich victim of the crime. Their rapidly budding relationship is complicated, not the least by the outside impression of gold-digging: Josef is wealthy and older, Marcela is beautiful and younger. Both have unrelated obstacles to fray their nerves, Marcela with her parents and Josef with a real-estate hustler. There isn’t a lot of fanfare or thrills, but the film does communicate the need for patience, endurance and an underlying zeal for life in an even and understated manner.

Like other meandering, interpersonal dramas where camerawork is strictly utilitarian for 95% of the film, this movie lives and dies on the strength of the performances and script. I’ll say foremost that both are quite good, though not memorable. To its credit, the film doesn’t plead or fuss for awards with extreme histrionics, ironic twists of tragedy or shocking personal revelations.

Marcela is a sympathetic character whose appeal comes from her inner confidence and practical survival skills. She’s also got sex appeal on her side, the type that benefits from looks, but really soars because of her brash individualism and uninhibited sensuality. Think “Erin Brockovich” without all the sensationalism and ideological pandering. You won’t feel like the writers and producers are screaming “THIS IS EMPOWERMENT” in your ear; you’ll just feel that she is real and strong-willed.

The rest of the cast is just as talented, especially considering that they have to develop equally in-depth characters in far less screen-time. Generally they succeed. Jirí Schmitzer, in particular, is masterly as Marcela’s “Uncle” Richie, a selfish, petulant codger who manages to be cruel and perverted and yet so totally, instantly recognizable as true to life, that he outdoes every Bond villain at incurring audience ire. He’s mean in the way that drives you crazy in a thousand little ways without ever physically harming anyone (though he comes close at least once).

Unfortunately, nothing about “Beauty in Trouble” can really help distinguish it from the pack and even I’m having trouble pitching it convincingly. The back of the DVD will probably play up the passionate sex scenes, the exotic locale with rustic local flavor, the brave determination of the lead and so on, but all that really cheats the film of its true success: creating convincing drama that rings true to life.


Title: Emma’s Bliss
Director: Sven Taddicken
Country: Germany
Score: 8.0
Review:
How do you make a romantic comedy that still feels fresh? For starters, you can stop treating Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant as characters types that somehow represent all of Western civilization. The number of romantic comedies that can be described as Roberts-Grant love stories (whether or not they actually feature those actors) could fill a Blockbuster. (They already do. Next time you’re on the way to the mailbox for your Netflix DVDs, pop into a Blockbuster and you’ll see the concrete proof.)

So it’s refreshing to see a movie like “Emma’s Bliss” where the central love story takes place between a renegade car salesman dying of stomach cancer and a reclusive, anti-establishment pig-rancher. Surprisingly, it’s not any more contrived than a Hollywood rom-com, but far more entertaining and sincere.

Jürgen Vogel plays Max, an unhappy auto hawker who has slipped into oblivious malaise and unethical behavior under the weight of modern life, but is pushed by the certainty of his own painful demise to seize the day… and his boss’s ill-gotten cash stash. Fleeing from the scene of the crime, he crashes off the road and lands on Emma’s modest property. She drags him inside to nurse back to consciousness, but keeps the money she finds and burns the car. Max stows away in her barn, gradually graduating to her tool-shed and bedroom as the two unlikely friends fall in love.

Emma (Jördis Triebel) completely steals the show, going far beyond the sugary feistiness of traditional rom com “independent spirits” by digging into livestock guts with her bare hands and lovingly slitting pig-throats “the old fashion way.” She wrinkles her nose at vegetarian dishes and even more so at Max’s misguided attempt to alphabetize her canned goods (his cleaning is a deep violation of her stubborn sensibilities).

Don’t let the intrinsic wackiness or food theme fool you, though. This film is about challenging our sterilized notions of experiencing life only through layers of glass and plastic. “Emma’s Bliss” focuses on genuine love and pain (both parts of her hand-crafted “bliss”) and not merely making our mouths water with savory meats or media-sculpted celebrities. It’s closer to “Harold and Maude” than a typical contender for this list.

I should note that, yes, there is comedy. Expect it to be closer to the everyday smiles discovered throughout real relationships and not the ones synthesized by the outrageous situations that TV characters and Meg Ryan constantly get themselves into. This, despite the somewhat over-the-top personalities and elaborate meet-cute. Taddicken sells it by relying on sensitivity for his characters, in keeping with the author’s (Claudia Schreiber) love and respect for her work. The camerawork also pays tribute to them by refusing to shy away from the dirt, blood and blemishes that make theses people come alive and gradually awakening the audience to a beauty that commercials for personal hygiene products have trained us not to see.