This one goes out to all of my fellow Gen Xers who grew up at the height of the popularity of "Peanuts." The holiday specials remain the most popular and influential of the graphically blandished media they starred in, but there were also several theatrical films, the first four directed by the great Bill Melendez. It's been ages since I've seen the older ones, but I want to get some thoughts on them down before they recede too far back in my memory. So here we go. Ranked from the best to worst below, let's take a look at "Peanuts" on film.
Snoopy, Come Home (1972) - When I was a small child, this was the saddest movie ever. The prospect of Charlie Brown and Snoopy parting ways was devastating, far higher stakes than Charlie Brown's usual depressive spells and schoolyard troubles. This wasn't an installment I saw very often as a kid, but every moment of it is burned into my memory because I was so invested in the story. I still remember little details like Thurl Ravenscroft's stern "No Dogs Allowed" and many lyrics to the songs, written by the Sherman Brothers. To this day, the thought of Snoopy's farewell party instantly makes me want to start bawling like the six-year-old I was when I first saw this.
A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969) - I love so much about the film, from the stylized pop art visuals to the hummable songs to the happy simplicity of the totally untouched character designs. Charlie Brown didn't need to be altered for the big screen, but his world did get a little bigger and more interesting. What I love the most about the film, though, was the letdown ending. It's strange, but I really appreciate that the film tackled the subject of failure head on, and made it so relatable. What pushes the movie into second place, however, is that endless skating sequence with Snoopy at Rockefeller Center. It always stopped the movie dead and would bore me to death.
The Peanuts Movie (2015) - I like the approach that the film took, which is a sort of "Greatest Hits" compilation of a lot of different, familiar bits of "Peanuts" presented in the context of a new story. And it's a lot of fun seeing how the Blue Sky Studios artists managed to preserve so much of the 2D charms of the comics in a 3D universe, using a combination of hand drawn and CGI animation. There are a lot of neat little details and callbacks for fans to spot, and I just love that Snoopy is still voiced by Bill Melendez via archival recordings. My biggest quibble with the film, though, is that the tone, especially the ending, is much too happy for "Peanuts." There's definitely more nostalgia here than real heart and heartache.
Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!!) (1980) - This is a weird, weird feature and I admit that the only reason it's not in last place is because it so heavily features Marcie, who has always been the "Peanuts" character I identify with the most. This was also the one I saw the most often as a kid because we had it on video. There are parts of the story that are uncharacteristically dark and scary for "Peanuts," with Charlie Brown and Linus bunking in a possibly haunted chateau, an intimidating adult villain, and a pretty intense sequence with a fire. However, I will love the movie forever for the scene of Marcie shouting down French drivers from the roof of the rented Citroen.
Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977) - The "Peanuts" movie that felt the least like the "Peanuts" strip, as it concocted a trio of stereotypical bullies to be the antagonists and even had an evil orange cat to bother Snoopy and Woodstock. It also suffers a bit from being awfully similar to the earlier "You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown" TV special, which I thought had a much better ending. Still, the big race helps to tie all the little gags together nicely, and I like that Charlie Brown gets to grow a bit as a person by developing his leadership skills.
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Sunday, July 29, 2018
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Could (and Should) They Bring Back Charlie Chan?
With Hollywood still madly rebooting every franchise in sight, I've been gunning for them to bring some of the older and more obscure ones out of mothballs, especially after the success of the new "Murder on the Orient Express." Maybe Warner Bros. could take another run at "The Thin Man." Surely Doctor Mabuse and Fantômas could be spruced up and return to the big screen.
And this always inevitably brings me back around to the question of Charlie Chan, the Chinese-American detective character who was massively popular in in the 1930s and 1940s. Between 1926 and 1949 he featured in a whopping 47 films, played by three different white actors in yellowface. Six more were made in Shanghai and Hong Kong for Chinese audiences, who generally enjoyed the films and viewed the Chan character positively. Three Spanish language films were also made by three entirely different productions in three different countries. Spinoffs included a short-lived television series in the '50s and a Hanna Barbera cartoon, "Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan," in the '70s.
Finally, there was "Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen," a 1981 comedic reboot of the franchise starring Peter Ustinov as Chan. Its production was protested by members of the Asian American community who decried the use of yellowface and outdated stereotypes. They didn't stop the film from being released, but it was a flop and the last official piece of Charlie Chan media to date. Other reboot attempts, however, have been made since. Miramax planned a new series of films with Russell Wong in the '90s to capitalize on a surge in martial arts movies. Fox tried ten years later with Lucy Liu. Ultimately neither project went forward.
Part of the hesitancy was surely due to worries about offending Asian-Americans. Charlie Chan is often viewed a harmful Orientalist stereotype, perpetuating the image of the Asian as a mysterious Other in American society. With his fortune cookie aphorisms, thick accent, and exaggerated mannerisms, Chan is an unfortunate caricature, even if he's meant to be a positive one. It's worth remembering that not a single portrayal of Charlie Chan in any of the media produced in the West features an actual Asian male in the part - with the embarrassing exception of Key Luke voicing the Hanna Barbera cartoon version. Charlie Chan is thus an unfortunate yellowface image through and through.
The modern reboots all planned to do away with the problematic aspects of the character, but these are ironically the things that people tend to remember the most about Charlie Chan. And it also begs the question, of course, that if you're going to make a film or series about an Asian-American detective, starring a real Asian-American, who in no way resembles the original Charlie Chan, why call it "Charlie Chan"? Why not just make something original that doesn't have all these problematic connotations? Well, for the same reason that Lucy Liu is currently playing Dr. Watson on "Elementary." Sometimes a new spin on an old character can yield good things. Also, it's much easier to sell media that comes with famous names and some notoriety.
Though I absolutely understand and respect all the problems that people have with Charlie Chan, and all the bad history he evokes, part of me really wants to see him resurrected and rehabilitated. I want to see him done right for once. Chan, unlike his contemporaries Fu Manchu and Mr. Moto, wasn't invented out of whole cloth. He was based on a real person - badass Honolulu detective Chang Apana. And though Charlie Chan was always a white actor in makeup, the series did cast actual Asian actors in other parts, the most notable of them being Key Luke as Lee Chan, Charlie Chan's goofy Number One Son. Back in the '60s, Bruce Lee screen tested for a television show where he would have starred as a cooler version of Lee becoming Chan's successor.
There still isn't much media featuring Asian actors in lead roles in the US, and a revamped Charlie Chan could be a great opportunity for more representation. There are some positive aspects to the character I feel are worth saving. After all, we were never supposed to laugh at Charlie Chan, but root for him and marvel at his cleverness and wisdom. He's a very imperfect and inauthentic Asian-American hero, but he is an Asian-American hero, and those are still in terribly short supply.
---
And this always inevitably brings me back around to the question of Charlie Chan, the Chinese-American detective character who was massively popular in in the 1930s and 1940s. Between 1926 and 1949 he featured in a whopping 47 films, played by three different white actors in yellowface. Six more were made in Shanghai and Hong Kong for Chinese audiences, who generally enjoyed the films and viewed the Chan character positively. Three Spanish language films were also made by three entirely different productions in three different countries. Spinoffs included a short-lived television series in the '50s and a Hanna Barbera cartoon, "Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan," in the '70s.
Finally, there was "Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen," a 1981 comedic reboot of the franchise starring Peter Ustinov as Chan. Its production was protested by members of the Asian American community who decried the use of yellowface and outdated stereotypes. They didn't stop the film from being released, but it was a flop and the last official piece of Charlie Chan media to date. Other reboot attempts, however, have been made since. Miramax planned a new series of films with Russell Wong in the '90s to capitalize on a surge in martial arts movies. Fox tried ten years later with Lucy Liu. Ultimately neither project went forward.
Part of the hesitancy was surely due to worries about offending Asian-Americans. Charlie Chan is often viewed a harmful Orientalist stereotype, perpetuating the image of the Asian as a mysterious Other in American society. With his fortune cookie aphorisms, thick accent, and exaggerated mannerisms, Chan is an unfortunate caricature, even if he's meant to be a positive one. It's worth remembering that not a single portrayal of Charlie Chan in any of the media produced in the West features an actual Asian male in the part - with the embarrassing exception of Key Luke voicing the Hanna Barbera cartoon version. Charlie Chan is thus an unfortunate yellowface image through and through.
The modern reboots all planned to do away with the problematic aspects of the character, but these are ironically the things that people tend to remember the most about Charlie Chan. And it also begs the question, of course, that if you're going to make a film or series about an Asian-American detective, starring a real Asian-American, who in no way resembles the original Charlie Chan, why call it "Charlie Chan"? Why not just make something original that doesn't have all these problematic connotations? Well, for the same reason that Lucy Liu is currently playing Dr. Watson on "Elementary." Sometimes a new spin on an old character can yield good things. Also, it's much easier to sell media that comes with famous names and some notoriety.
Though I absolutely understand and respect all the problems that people have with Charlie Chan, and all the bad history he evokes, part of me really wants to see him resurrected and rehabilitated. I want to see him done right for once. Chan, unlike his contemporaries Fu Manchu and Mr. Moto, wasn't invented out of whole cloth. He was based on a real person - badass Honolulu detective Chang Apana. And though Charlie Chan was always a white actor in makeup, the series did cast actual Asian actors in other parts, the most notable of them being Key Luke as Lee Chan, Charlie Chan's goofy Number One Son. Back in the '60s, Bruce Lee screen tested for a television show where he would have starred as a cooler version of Lee becoming Chan's successor.
There still isn't much media featuring Asian actors in lead roles in the US, and a revamped Charlie Chan could be a great opportunity for more representation. There are some positive aspects to the character I feel are worth saving. After all, we were never supposed to laugh at Charlie Chan, but root for him and marvel at his cleverness and wisdom. He's a very imperfect and inauthentic Asian-American hero, but he is an Asian-American hero, and those are still in terribly short supply.
---
Monday, July 23, 2018
"You Were Never Really Here" is Here
There have been many films about men of violence, who do terrible things while trying to tame inner demons and heal past traumas. However, few of these men have been played as powerfully as Joaquin Phoenix plays Joe, who we find working as a gun for hire in New York, tracking down girls who have been trafficked into prostitution. And certainly very, very few films about men like Joe have been told in such a artful, precise, and haunting way as we see here.
In the hands of director Lynne Ramsay, Joe's story comes in a stream of consciousness, interspersed with nightmarish memories, hallucinations, and fantasies. His latest job is to track down Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), the runaway teenage daughter of a local state senator, Votto (Alex Manette), and bring her home. This present day story plays out in fairly typical fashion, with Joe carrying out his mission and dealing with its aftermath in very straightforward terms. It's the intrusion of Joe's other thoughts, however, that makes his actions so affecting. There's no exposition or explanation for the images that we see from Joe's past, but there's enough that we can piece things together: a desert landscape where he is a soldier, a law enforcement raid with tragic consequences, and nailbiting flashes to his unpleasant childhood.
It's not just which memories we see, but what triggers them. The camera lingers on the face of a woman he sees on the street, and then we cut to the face of a corpse, an unconscious but inescapable association. Spotting a gobetween's young son brings back unwanted thoughts of the kids he gave candy bars to as a soldier. The film's very first images are of Joe with a plastic bag over his head, and it's not clear if he's fantasizing about suicide or actually attempting it. So while Joe is outwardly the kind of stoic, impassive figure that we expect to see in crime thrillers, his internal world is a precarious emotional maelstrom. Joaquin Phoenix's performance conveys so much unspoken pain and anguish, even in the quiet moments when he's spending time with his ailing mother (Judith Roberts) or examining green jelly beans in the office of McLeary (John Dorman), who arranges his jobs. In a story of so much darkness and degradation, it's the little moments of Joe's humanity that are the most memorable.
The movie is very violent, but it handles violence in a very careful, thoughtful manner. Mostly we see Joe preparing for or recovering from the vicious assaults and murders that he inflicts on others. However. the sequence where we see him storm a building and attack multiple men is one of the few parts of the film that we don't see from his subjective viewpoint. Instead, we watch the events play out over security camera footage, giving the audience a degree of detachment from Joe's actions, and removing any opportunity to enjoy them on a visceral level. It's a strong subversion of the usual crime thriller formula, where violence is often treated as positive and climactic. Here, it's just an ugly and necessary means to an end, often with heartbreaking consequences.
Our hero's uneasy state of mind is largely conveyed through the editing. We often see quick flashes of a memory before it plays out more fully later on, showing how Joe resists thinking about painful parts of his past but is unable to escape them. These moments compound during his most stressful experiences, making them more intense and upsetting. The stunning centerpiece of "You Were Never Really Here" is a dreamlike underwater sequence, another suicide attempt that doubles as a plunge into Joe's subconscious. And it's the most mesmerizing, oddly tranquil brush with death I've ever seen in a movie like this, full of beautiful images set to Jonny Greenwood's moody, lulling score. The whole film is full of these unexpected, striking moments that go against expectations.
It's a relief to find Lynne Ramsay making such an uncompromising, fearless film after her last major project fell apart. This is only her fourth feature, and it's a brief one, but it's clear that it was made on her terms and without compromise. And that certainly makes the long wait worth it.
---
In the hands of director Lynne Ramsay, Joe's story comes in a stream of consciousness, interspersed with nightmarish memories, hallucinations, and fantasies. His latest job is to track down Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), the runaway teenage daughter of a local state senator, Votto (Alex Manette), and bring her home. This present day story plays out in fairly typical fashion, with Joe carrying out his mission and dealing with its aftermath in very straightforward terms. It's the intrusion of Joe's other thoughts, however, that makes his actions so affecting. There's no exposition or explanation for the images that we see from Joe's past, but there's enough that we can piece things together: a desert landscape where he is a soldier, a law enforcement raid with tragic consequences, and nailbiting flashes to his unpleasant childhood.
It's not just which memories we see, but what triggers them. The camera lingers on the face of a woman he sees on the street, and then we cut to the face of a corpse, an unconscious but inescapable association. Spotting a gobetween's young son brings back unwanted thoughts of the kids he gave candy bars to as a soldier. The film's very first images are of Joe with a plastic bag over his head, and it's not clear if he's fantasizing about suicide or actually attempting it. So while Joe is outwardly the kind of stoic, impassive figure that we expect to see in crime thrillers, his internal world is a precarious emotional maelstrom. Joaquin Phoenix's performance conveys so much unspoken pain and anguish, even in the quiet moments when he's spending time with his ailing mother (Judith Roberts) or examining green jelly beans in the office of McLeary (John Dorman), who arranges his jobs. In a story of so much darkness and degradation, it's the little moments of Joe's humanity that are the most memorable.
The movie is very violent, but it handles violence in a very careful, thoughtful manner. Mostly we see Joe preparing for or recovering from the vicious assaults and murders that he inflicts on others. However. the sequence where we see him storm a building and attack multiple men is one of the few parts of the film that we don't see from his subjective viewpoint. Instead, we watch the events play out over security camera footage, giving the audience a degree of detachment from Joe's actions, and removing any opportunity to enjoy them on a visceral level. It's a strong subversion of the usual crime thriller formula, where violence is often treated as positive and climactic. Here, it's just an ugly and necessary means to an end, often with heartbreaking consequences.
Our hero's uneasy state of mind is largely conveyed through the editing. We often see quick flashes of a memory before it plays out more fully later on, showing how Joe resists thinking about painful parts of his past but is unable to escape them. These moments compound during his most stressful experiences, making them more intense and upsetting. The stunning centerpiece of "You Were Never Really Here" is a dreamlike underwater sequence, another suicide attempt that doubles as a plunge into Joe's subconscious. And it's the most mesmerizing, oddly tranquil brush with death I've ever seen in a movie like this, full of beautiful images set to Jonny Greenwood's moody, lulling score. The whole film is full of these unexpected, striking moments that go against expectations.
It's a relief to find Lynne Ramsay making such an uncompromising, fearless film after her last major project fell apart. This is only her fourth feature, and it's a brief one, but it's clear that it was made on her terms and without compromise. And that certainly makes the long wait worth it.
---
Friday, July 20, 2018
Bobbing Along With "Song to Song"
Anyone familiar with Terrence Malick's recent output already knows what to expect from his latest, "Song to Song." The story is told through a rambling, stream-of-consciousness narrative with lots and lots of character monologues shedding light on private thoughts and interior lives. The characters wander through the frame, often doing nothing in particular, except to provide a focal point for the gorgeous cinematography. There's not much of a plot, but "Song to Song" uses a love triangle as a starting point, before each of the three leads eventually wanders off on their own spiritual and emotional journeys, occasionally returning to reflect and reconnect.
Frankly, after "To the Wonder" and "Knight of Cups," I was ready to write off "Song to Song" sight unseen. It felt like Malick's movies were getting entirely too self-indulgent and unfocused. However, "Song to Song" stars the trio of Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, and Michael Fassbender, who are three of the most charismatic actors currently working, with Natalie Portman and Cate Blanchett in minor roles, no less. My curiosity got the better of me, and I'm glad it did. While I still don't much care for Malick's introspective reveries, there were enough moments of sensual cinematic bliss to keep my attention. Also, it's far more interesting to watch this group of young actors running around Austin, Texas, amusing themselves, than it is to watch broody Ben Affleck or Christian Bale meandering through their boring voyages of self-discovery.
Rooney Mara plays Faye, a guitarist who gets involved with another musician, BV (Gosling), and his record producer Cook (Fassbender). BV is a positive influence, and Cook is a negative, destructive one. For a time, Faye is able to keep the two relationships separate, but eventually they all fall out with each other. Cook eventually marries Rhonda (Portman), while BV takes up with Amanda (Blanchett). The POV switches from character to character, and the story becomes more and more impressionistic with time. In keeping with Malick's treatment of film in more poetic than narrative terms, the subjective emotional and spiritual state of each character is more important than what's actually going on onscreen. Unfortunately, this means parts of the film feel repetitive, seem aimless, or lack coherency. And it's also very easy to lose track of the breakups and reconciliations, one night stands and affairs.
Early sections of the film could be mistaken for home videos of the actors' trips to Austin and Mexico, though there's a sense of forced busyness to some of the action. A good deal of the footage came from the 2012 SXSW music festival and nearby events, which allows for cameos from figures like Iggy Pop and Patti Smith, but the film doesn't stay in that world for very long. Soon the rock music gives way to classical, and we find ourselves back in nature. Emmanuel Lubezki does manage to put a few really stunning images on the screen, and there's a lovely intimacy to watching scenes of Gosling and Mara simply enjoying each others' company. There's also a brief, touching encounter with a prostitute, played by Jaylen Jones, who is easily the most interesting character in the film.
The actors are so strong, it's difficult not to become invested in their characters, but the material is pretty weak all around. At times, it feels like Malick simply took unrelated footage and put some monologues over it to try and stitch together a story. Several artistic choices also don't come across as particularly well considered. All the actors seem to be playing very thinly sketched variations on other roles. Keeping in mind the film was shot around 2012, it's far too easy to see the echoes of Fassbender's sex addict character from "Shame" and Gosling's romantic lead from "Blue Valentine." At the same time, these pieces do occasionally come together beautifully.
So as much as I find "Song to Song" unfocused and derivative, and definitely not one of Terrence Malick's stronger films, I still think it's worth a watch. I like the lyricism, the moments of peacefulness, and the way it takes its time. I like how it finds these interesting views of urban spaces and the occasional glimpses into other people's lives. I like that it's terribly old fashioned and absolutely committed to its own, flowing, introspective, deeply private method of storytelling. And I find myself very glad that Terrence Malick got to make this film, even if it's such a flawed one.
---
Frankly, after "To the Wonder" and "Knight of Cups," I was ready to write off "Song to Song" sight unseen. It felt like Malick's movies were getting entirely too self-indulgent and unfocused. However, "Song to Song" stars the trio of Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, and Michael Fassbender, who are three of the most charismatic actors currently working, with Natalie Portman and Cate Blanchett in minor roles, no less. My curiosity got the better of me, and I'm glad it did. While I still don't much care for Malick's introspective reveries, there were enough moments of sensual cinematic bliss to keep my attention. Also, it's far more interesting to watch this group of young actors running around Austin, Texas, amusing themselves, than it is to watch broody Ben Affleck or Christian Bale meandering through their boring voyages of self-discovery.
Rooney Mara plays Faye, a guitarist who gets involved with another musician, BV (Gosling), and his record producer Cook (Fassbender). BV is a positive influence, and Cook is a negative, destructive one. For a time, Faye is able to keep the two relationships separate, but eventually they all fall out with each other. Cook eventually marries Rhonda (Portman), while BV takes up with Amanda (Blanchett). The POV switches from character to character, and the story becomes more and more impressionistic with time. In keeping with Malick's treatment of film in more poetic than narrative terms, the subjective emotional and spiritual state of each character is more important than what's actually going on onscreen. Unfortunately, this means parts of the film feel repetitive, seem aimless, or lack coherency. And it's also very easy to lose track of the breakups and reconciliations, one night stands and affairs.
Early sections of the film could be mistaken for home videos of the actors' trips to Austin and Mexico, though there's a sense of forced busyness to some of the action. A good deal of the footage came from the 2012 SXSW music festival and nearby events, which allows for cameos from figures like Iggy Pop and Patti Smith, but the film doesn't stay in that world for very long. Soon the rock music gives way to classical, and we find ourselves back in nature. Emmanuel Lubezki does manage to put a few really stunning images on the screen, and there's a lovely intimacy to watching scenes of Gosling and Mara simply enjoying each others' company. There's also a brief, touching encounter with a prostitute, played by Jaylen Jones, who is easily the most interesting character in the film.
The actors are so strong, it's difficult not to become invested in their characters, but the material is pretty weak all around. At times, it feels like Malick simply took unrelated footage and put some monologues over it to try and stitch together a story. Several artistic choices also don't come across as particularly well considered. All the actors seem to be playing very thinly sketched variations on other roles. Keeping in mind the film was shot around 2012, it's far too easy to see the echoes of Fassbender's sex addict character from "Shame" and Gosling's romantic lead from "Blue Valentine." At the same time, these pieces do occasionally come together beautifully.
So as much as I find "Song to Song" unfocused and derivative, and definitely not one of Terrence Malick's stronger films, I still think it's worth a watch. I like the lyricism, the moments of peacefulness, and the way it takes its time. I like how it finds these interesting views of urban spaces and the occasional glimpses into other people's lives. I like that it's terribly old fashioned and absolutely committed to its own, flowing, introspective, deeply private method of storytelling. And I find myself very glad that Terrence Malick got to make this film, even if it's such a flawed one.
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Wednesday, July 18, 2018
My Favorite Louis Malle Film
As you might expect, my prep for many of my "Great Directors" posts involve hurried marathons of the chosen director's films that I haven't watched yet. Sometimes this is to help make them eligible for a post, and sometimes it's to check off a last few famous titles to scratch my completionist itch. However, I've usually picked out a title to write about for the directors I want to feature well in advance of these marathons. I've never actually found a new favorite during the last mad rush. Until now.
See, I was fully expecting to write this post about Louis Malle's "Lacombe, Lucien," the very engrossing and very timely story of a brutish young man who joins the Nazi party and comes to regret it. Then I watched Malle's 1960 film "Zazie dans le Métro," about a ten year old brat who visits family in Paris and takes the opportunity to run amok. And I was totally, utterly won over immediately. "Zazie" is a clear forerunner of my favorite French fantasy, Surrealist, and magical realist films, like Jean Pierre-Jeunet's "Amelie" and Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." It's been cited as a formative influence by A.O. Scott and Richard Ayoade, who saw it when they were kids. Truffaut and Kurosawa were reportedly fans too.
And why wouldn't they be? I can't think of many cinematic children as enchantingly infuriating as little Zazie, played by Catherine Demongeot. With her giant grin, boyish haircut, and bouncy, playful demeanor, she's a perfect little rascal. She's fearlessly demanding, unreasonable, precocious, and smart. Even though the Métro is on strike, she spends the whole movie fixated on riding it. She thinks nothing of throwing around dirty words or joking about being the victim of sex crimes. She runs rings around her poor Uncle Gabriel, Trouscaillon the cop, and any other adult who would try to assert authority over her. And she's perfectly at home in the film's Surrealist version of Paris, a colorful place brimming over with cinematic wonders.
In Zazie's world, shoes tie themselves just offscreen. Balloons have a mind of their own. Grownups are often very silly, and speak in mangled malapropisms. Two of the film's major setpieces are manic chase sequences, and carried out using the cartoon logic of old silent comedies. In the first, Zazie and Trouscaillon traipse all over the city in fast motion, and then play one slapstick gag after another in quick succession with silly props, wild sound effects, and carnival music. In the second, a chaotic car chase through Paris traffic involves several physically impossible stunts and highly unlikely vehicles. Adult characters are wildly exaggerated, both in appearance and behavior, and have a tendency to let their amorous urges get the better of them.
There's so much going on in the film, and the pace is so hyperactive, it can be overwhelming. Zazie herself is exhausted by the final act and sleeps through the concluding brawl in a restaurant. It's a mistake to write the film off as a minor effort, though, just because it's content is so joyfully juvenile. There's a wealth of beautiful shots and inventively composed visuals, brief as some of them may be. The sight of Zazie caught between two mirrors, creating an infinity of doubles, is a highlight. So is the whole weird, wacky Eiffel Tower sequence. I love the little details like a mugging happening in the background of a shot, or a cat wandering into the middle of a chase briefly. It's impossible to take in everything with only a single viewing.
Louis Malle is an interesting figure in French cinema, who was active during the New Wave, and is sometimes treated as part of it, but didn't really have ties to that crowd. He was one of the most versatile French directors, with an impressively variety of films on his resume, but there's really nothing else I've from him that looks like "Zazie." There's his penchant for sexual provocation, and several thoughtful films about the pains of childhood and growing up, but none of this freewheeling, madcap energy. At times the film feels positively experimental, with its pre-"Breathless" jump-cuts and sped-up action that he rarely used anywhere else.
And that just adds to the delightfulness of discovering "Zazie." It's such a surprise on every level, still a little bit shocking and a little bit risque after nearly sixty years. Critics of the era didn't seem quite sure of what to do with it. Audiences were likewise hesitant, though some went ahead and fell in love with it. As for me, I've never seen Paris rendered in such fantastic, frenetic fashion. It's a kid's eye view of the city at the beginning of the New Wave. It's too much of a good thing. And it's wonderful.
What I've seen - Louis Malle
Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
The Lovers (1958)
Zazie Dans Le Métro (1960)
The Fire Within (1963)
Murmur of the Heart (1971)
Lacombe, Lucien (1974)
Black Moon (1975)
Pretty Baby (1978)
Atlantic City (1980)
My Dinner with Andre (1981)
Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)
---
See, I was fully expecting to write this post about Louis Malle's "Lacombe, Lucien," the very engrossing and very timely story of a brutish young man who joins the Nazi party and comes to regret it. Then I watched Malle's 1960 film "Zazie dans le Métro," about a ten year old brat who visits family in Paris and takes the opportunity to run amok. And I was totally, utterly won over immediately. "Zazie" is a clear forerunner of my favorite French fantasy, Surrealist, and magical realist films, like Jean Pierre-Jeunet's "Amelie" and Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." It's been cited as a formative influence by A.O. Scott and Richard Ayoade, who saw it when they were kids. Truffaut and Kurosawa were reportedly fans too.
And why wouldn't they be? I can't think of many cinematic children as enchantingly infuriating as little Zazie, played by Catherine Demongeot. With her giant grin, boyish haircut, and bouncy, playful demeanor, she's a perfect little rascal. She's fearlessly demanding, unreasonable, precocious, and smart. Even though the Métro is on strike, she spends the whole movie fixated on riding it. She thinks nothing of throwing around dirty words or joking about being the victim of sex crimes. She runs rings around her poor Uncle Gabriel, Trouscaillon the cop, and any other adult who would try to assert authority over her. And she's perfectly at home in the film's Surrealist version of Paris, a colorful place brimming over with cinematic wonders.
In Zazie's world, shoes tie themselves just offscreen. Balloons have a mind of their own. Grownups are often very silly, and speak in mangled malapropisms. Two of the film's major setpieces are manic chase sequences, and carried out using the cartoon logic of old silent comedies. In the first, Zazie and Trouscaillon traipse all over the city in fast motion, and then play one slapstick gag after another in quick succession with silly props, wild sound effects, and carnival music. In the second, a chaotic car chase through Paris traffic involves several physically impossible stunts and highly unlikely vehicles. Adult characters are wildly exaggerated, both in appearance and behavior, and have a tendency to let their amorous urges get the better of them.
There's so much going on in the film, and the pace is so hyperactive, it can be overwhelming. Zazie herself is exhausted by the final act and sleeps through the concluding brawl in a restaurant. It's a mistake to write the film off as a minor effort, though, just because it's content is so joyfully juvenile. There's a wealth of beautiful shots and inventively composed visuals, brief as some of them may be. The sight of Zazie caught between two mirrors, creating an infinity of doubles, is a highlight. So is the whole weird, wacky Eiffel Tower sequence. I love the little details like a mugging happening in the background of a shot, or a cat wandering into the middle of a chase briefly. It's impossible to take in everything with only a single viewing.
Louis Malle is an interesting figure in French cinema, who was active during the New Wave, and is sometimes treated as part of it, but didn't really have ties to that crowd. He was one of the most versatile French directors, with an impressively variety of films on his resume, but there's really nothing else I've from him that looks like "Zazie." There's his penchant for sexual provocation, and several thoughtful films about the pains of childhood and growing up, but none of this freewheeling, madcap energy. At times the film feels positively experimental, with its pre-"Breathless" jump-cuts and sped-up action that he rarely used anywhere else.
And that just adds to the delightfulness of discovering "Zazie." It's such a surprise on every level, still a little bit shocking and a little bit risque after nearly sixty years. Critics of the era didn't seem quite sure of what to do with it. Audiences were likewise hesitant, though some went ahead and fell in love with it. As for me, I've never seen Paris rendered in such fantastic, frenetic fashion. It's a kid's eye view of the city at the beginning of the New Wave. It's too much of a good thing. And it's wonderful.
What I've seen - Louis Malle
Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
The Lovers (1958)
Zazie Dans Le Métro (1960)
The Fire Within (1963)
Murmur of the Heart (1971)
Lacombe, Lucien (1974)
Black Moon (1975)
Pretty Baby (1978)
Atlantic City (1980)
My Dinner with Andre (1981)
Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)
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Monday, July 16, 2018
And What Didn't Make My 2017 Top Ten List
As a companion piece to my Top Ten list, every year I write a post to discuss some of the other major films that got a lot of attention, in order to give some context to my own choices. I find that writing this type of analysis piece helpful when working out how I feel about my list and the year in film as a whole. It's also usually a lot of fun. Please note that I will not be writing about films listed among my honorable mentions like "I, Tonya" and "Mudbound."
So let's start with the Oscar favorites. I've already mentioned in other posts that I was surprised that this year's frontrunners were the films I considered to be the weaker nominees in the Best Picture race. While I was overall positive on "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" and "The Shape of Water," I thought both had significant weaknesses and were nowhere near the best work of their directors. "Three Billboards" was admirably ambitious, but also clunky in its execution and full of unforced filmmaking errors. "The Shape of Water" got a lot of things right, but its attention wandered in the second half, and I felt like important scenes were cut or missing. Also, some of that dialogue was very unfortunate.
Now, "Call Me By Your Name" was much higher in the ranks, but I found it awfully slow going, and only the last half hour or so proved very compelling. There are things that it does very well, but frankly this just isn't my kind of movie. "The Post" was full of wonderful things, and managed to utterly fail to live up to any of them. It's a shame, because there are a lot of little moments that I really loved in that film, but overall it's so unfocused and oddly derivative of better films. I have no complaints about "Darkest Hour," not even the subway scenes, which fit perfectly well into the kind of patriotic, larger-than-life Churchill lionizing that Joe Wright was aiming for. I just wasn't a fan of what he was aiming for, beautifully executed as it was.
The big mainstream hits turned up some interesting titles. However, as much as I appreciate the success of "Wonder Woman," I thought it was a perfectly average film. "Spider-man: Homecoming" was my favorite superhero flick this year, with "Logan" a respectable second. "The Last Jedi" is my favorite "Star Wars" film in a long time, but it's so uneven that there was no way I could justify putting it anywhere on the final list. Meanwhile, the new adaptation of Stephen King's "It" came out better than I expected, but I wouldn't call it a great film by any measure. I also found that it was largely overshadowed by a very satisfying second season of "Stranger Things."
I'm still in the process of watching the notable foreign films of last year, and there have been some interesting finds. Sadly, it was difficult for me to find much empathy for the central characters of "BPM" and "Nocturama." "Raw" was an interesting take on genre themes, but I found the ending kind of a mess. I liked parts of "The Square," though I'm not sure that I was ever on the same page with it. Finally, I was totally unable to wrap my head around what Bong Joon-ho was trying to do with "Okja," which was weird to the point of off-putting.
It wasn't a very good year for animation. "Coco" was groundbreaking in many important respects, but Miguel gets more and more exasperating on rewatches. Meanwhile the two highly touted independent animated features in the awards race, "Loving Vincent" and "The Breadwinner," both failed to impress. I'm very surprised that "Mary and the Witch's Flower" didn't get more attention, even if I wasn't all that enamoured with it.
And very quickly, "Wind River" miscast a major role and chose the wrong POV character, "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" felt like Lanthimos repeating himself and was too absurd to take at face value, "The Disaster Artist" was way too self-congratulatory, "The Beguiled" suffered in comparison to the original film, "Baby Driver" ran out of gas too early, and the Safdie brothers' "Good Time" went over my head.
Movies that almost made the honorable mentions list include "The Big Sick" and "Norman." Also, big kudos to the crew of "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" for delivering the best surprise of the year.
But oddly, the film most representative of the year may be "The Greatest Showman," an old fashioned original musical about P.T. Barnum's circus. It premiered seven months after Barnum's real circus closed for good, and a week after it was announced that the producing studio, Twentieth Century Fox, would be acquired by Disney. Times are changing, and changing fast.
And that's my 2017 in film.
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So let's start with the Oscar favorites. I've already mentioned in other posts that I was surprised that this year's frontrunners were the films I considered to be the weaker nominees in the Best Picture race. While I was overall positive on "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" and "The Shape of Water," I thought both had significant weaknesses and were nowhere near the best work of their directors. "Three Billboards" was admirably ambitious, but also clunky in its execution and full of unforced filmmaking errors. "The Shape of Water" got a lot of things right, but its attention wandered in the second half, and I felt like important scenes were cut or missing. Also, some of that dialogue was very unfortunate.
Now, "Call Me By Your Name" was much higher in the ranks, but I found it awfully slow going, and only the last half hour or so proved very compelling. There are things that it does very well, but frankly this just isn't my kind of movie. "The Post" was full of wonderful things, and managed to utterly fail to live up to any of them. It's a shame, because there are a lot of little moments that I really loved in that film, but overall it's so unfocused and oddly derivative of better films. I have no complaints about "Darkest Hour," not even the subway scenes, which fit perfectly well into the kind of patriotic, larger-than-life Churchill lionizing that Joe Wright was aiming for. I just wasn't a fan of what he was aiming for, beautifully executed as it was.
The big mainstream hits turned up some interesting titles. However, as much as I appreciate the success of "Wonder Woman," I thought it was a perfectly average film. "Spider-man: Homecoming" was my favorite superhero flick this year, with "Logan" a respectable second. "The Last Jedi" is my favorite "Star Wars" film in a long time, but it's so uneven that there was no way I could justify putting it anywhere on the final list. Meanwhile, the new adaptation of Stephen King's "It" came out better than I expected, but I wouldn't call it a great film by any measure. I also found that it was largely overshadowed by a very satisfying second season of "Stranger Things."
I'm still in the process of watching the notable foreign films of last year, and there have been some interesting finds. Sadly, it was difficult for me to find much empathy for the central characters of "BPM" and "Nocturama." "Raw" was an interesting take on genre themes, but I found the ending kind of a mess. I liked parts of "The Square," though I'm not sure that I was ever on the same page with it. Finally, I was totally unable to wrap my head around what Bong Joon-ho was trying to do with "Okja," which was weird to the point of off-putting.
It wasn't a very good year for animation. "Coco" was groundbreaking in many important respects, but Miguel gets more and more exasperating on rewatches. Meanwhile the two highly touted independent animated features in the awards race, "Loving Vincent" and "The Breadwinner," both failed to impress. I'm very surprised that "Mary and the Witch's Flower" didn't get more attention, even if I wasn't all that enamoured with it.
And very quickly, "Wind River" miscast a major role and chose the wrong POV character, "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" felt like Lanthimos repeating himself and was too absurd to take at face value, "The Disaster Artist" was way too self-congratulatory, "The Beguiled" suffered in comparison to the original film, "Baby Driver" ran out of gas too early, and the Safdie brothers' "Good Time" went over my head.
Movies that almost made the honorable mentions list include "The Big Sick" and "Norman." Also, big kudos to the crew of "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" for delivering the best surprise of the year.
But oddly, the film most representative of the year may be "The Greatest Showman," an old fashioned original musical about P.T. Barnum's circus. It premiered seven months after Barnum's real circus closed for good, and a week after it was announced that the producing studio, Twentieth Century Fox, would be acquired by Disney. Times are changing, and changing fast.
And that's my 2017 in film.
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Saturday, July 14, 2018
My Top Ten Films of 2017
I didn't watch as many recent films for 2017 as I did in previous years, partially due to lack of time and partially due to suffering some burnout. However, I found plenty to appreciate. 2017 was a dramatic and tumultuous year for the movies in every conceivable way, from the plunging box office numbers to the #Metoo and #Timesup movements, to the ongoing cultural wars raging around prominent titles like "Wonder Woman" and "Get Out." For my part, I did my best to give movies featuring women and created by women more benefit of the doubt. There were some inescapable disappointments, but also plenty of surprises too.
My criteria for eligibility require that a film must have been released in its own home country during 2017, so film festivals and other special screenings don't count. Picks are unranked and listed in no particular order, and previously posted reviews are linked where available. The "Plus One" spot is reserved for the best film of the previous year that I didn't manage to see in time for the last list, because I've quit trying to wait for those last few foreign titles to finally hit home media. These lists are published late enough as it is.
And here we go.
Thelma - A Nordic supernatural thriller that takes a young woman's sexual awakening to some dark and uncomfortable places. This is director Joachim Trier's first foray into genre material, and it's a chilling one, full of potent nightmare imagery and haunting spiritual gulfs. I appreciate that the parents, typically the antagonists in this kind of story, are portrayed with unusual sympathy, leaving the audience to determine whether any party can be treated as truly innocent or monstrous.
Lady Bird - The magic of "Lady Bird" is that it gives us a view into the life of an average teenage girl, bored to death with her suburban surroundings, lets us sympathize with her, and then shows us how fleeting and precious her world really is. Greta Gerwig's directorial debut lovingly captures her hometown of Sacramento, the complexities of parent/child relationships, and the twilight time of late adolescence. It's all so painfully familiar, but presented with unusual insight and empathy.
Get Out - Accidentally the most topical movie of 2017, "Get Out" is a horror film about race relations and social anxieties that isn't afraid to confront its audience. It's so well observed and so efficient in its humor and commentary, deftly lampooning all the little hypocrisies and biases of well-meaning white folks. You'll never look at tea cups or Froot Loops the same way again. This is also one of the most entertaining films of the year, with a fist pumping, expectation-defying ending that lands perfectly.
Faces Places - A lark of a documentary, devoted simply to the act of making art and seeing its effects on regular, everyday people. The photographer and muralist JR and the beloved auteur Agnes Varda form an appealing odd couple, and eventually the film's rambling meta-narrative about their friendship and the bitterness of getting older turns up some great surprises. No other film this year was so full of uplifting, joyous creativity, inspiring and provoking the audience to look at the world through a new lens.
Phantom Thread - A sumptuous, elegantly executed film about terribly posh people that is hiding some downright scandalous material under its skirts. Of course Paul Thomas Anderson wouldn't make a romantic melodrama that didn't have some subversive elements in the mix, but the amount of nail-biting tension that results in the latter parts of "Phantom Thread" was delightfully unexpected. Both a nostalgic throwback and a very modern kind of love story, the movie is in a class by itself.
The Florida Project - Sean Baker's latest film is another painfully genuine examination of people struggling to survive on the fringes of American society. This time he looks in on several families living in Florida motels only a few miles away from the famous theme parks. However, what's remarkable is how little these circumstances matters to the kids at the center of the story, who are able to find adventure and excitement at every opportunity, and happily run amok in a world full of vibrant color.
Lady Macbeth - Director William Oldroyd and actress Florence Pugh are both new to me, and two of my favorite discoveries of the year. There's such a keen sense of subtlety and patience to their work here, as the twists and turns of this brutal period piece play out. Female antiheroes remain far too rare in cinema, and Pugh's Katherine is a fantastic one. Her transformation from victim to villain is frequently startling and always compelling, matched by Oldroyd's splendidly severe visuals and direction.
Blade Runner 2049 - Not just a worthy sequel to the Ridley Scott classic, but a considerable achievement in science-fiction filmmaking in its own right. Not everything works as intended, but there's such a wealth of interesting ideas in play, many of them executed with such care and craft. I'm glad Roger Deakins finally got his Oscar for this film. The worldbuilding is something that only a high budget studio production could achieve, and thus I suspect it may be a long time before we see anything like it again.
Maudie - A small, totally actor-driven feature that has some of the best work that Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke have ever done. Charting the life and career of Nova Scotian folk artist Maud Lewis, who suffered lifelong physical ailments, "Maudie" avoids most of the pitfalls associated with films about artists and films about the disabled. Instead, it comes across as a very rough hewn, but heartfelt romance between a pair of outsiders. The pretty pictures just feel like a bonus.
Dunkirk - The technical achievements and epic scope may have helped sell tickets, but what I found so impressive about Christopher Nolan's take on the Dunkirk evacuations was the way he managed to incorporate his usual time dilation tricks into the story - and it was to the film's benefit. Both broad and narrow in focus, cynical and idealistic, old-fashioned and daring, it's hard to do anything but sit back and be impressed. "Dunkirk" may have the earmarks of a prestige pic, but it doesn't behave like one.
Plus One
Bacalaureate - Cristian Mungiu continues his exploration of life in contemporary Romania through this domestic drama about a doctor and his family. What initially starts as a small crisis about exam jitters turns into a much more involved dilemma about morality, parenthood, the generational divide, and multiple systemic failures related to education, crime, and medical care. Full of uncomfortable questions and ghosts of the past, it's a riveting watch from start to finish.
Honorable Mentions
A Quiet Passion
mother!
Columbus
The Meyerowitz Stories
I, Tonya
A Ghost Story
Dawson City: Frozen Time
Mudbound
Happy End
A Fantastic Woman
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