Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread IV

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Gladiator
Scott (2000)
“There is always someone left to fight.”

Funny enough a week before this was selected, I was at a bar. Gladiator came on one of the TVs. No sound. No subtitles. Just image. I ended up watching about the first 40 minutes or so before I left. What really jumped out to me was how little the dialogue mattered. I had seen it before so familiarity certainly helps. The action largely speaks for itself but the performances fully come through without needing to hear any words. Movements, expressions all convey the story clearly. It helps to have a cast of great faces in peak or near-peak form.

It's the crowd-pleasing, pump-up-the-jock-jammy action that I think keeps this in high regard for many. Certainly helps to have moments and quotes to play on repeat at sports arenas until the end of time. That’s fine. I like well-done action violence too but upon this rewatch I think the best part of Gladiator is Joaquin Phoenix’s villainous Commodus. I was always a little dismissive of the performance (despite my love of the actor) but boy is he good here. His pouty sadness is more tragic than petulant and he morphs that into a wonderfully creepy and sniveling villainousness.

Crowe is a slab of marble. I mean that in a good way, though this Oscar winning role isn't among his best work. Slighting this only because there's not a lot there and he's done a lot more with better, more interesting characters.

There’s some nitpicking — there are multiple big scene-setting CGI shots that are shockingly aged. The close up stuff has held up well, but the 3-4 establishing shots of the Colosseum and some other environments are like spoiled wine. There’s a little too much slo-mo for my tastes. Hans Zimmer’s score cribs too much from his similar (and better) work in Crimson Tide and The Rock.

There was an online discussion I read recently (not here) where the question was: Who are good examples of good journeyman directors working today? Is Ridley Scott too good to hold that title? I think many might say yes and I might be among them. But I’m not totally sure … Pretend he didn’t direct Blade Runner and Alien and NOW think about that question. (I actually answered Martin Campbell FWIW).

This has always been a bit of a weird Oscar winner to me. It’s a good version of what it is, but even in the moment I’ve never been quite as bowled over by it as its staunchest defenders (the majority of whom I feel live on these boards ) Though it always stands as one of my big proof points in my annual Oscar rant that contrary to the commonly held opinion the Academy actually really likes rewarding big populist movies. So I got that going for me.

I continue to enjoy this movie though I’ll never love it as much as most.

 

[kihei]

Gladiator (2000) Directed by Ridley Scott

Gladiator is a good, solid piece of action-oriented entertainment, a movie that I don't really have much to say about. I saw it and enjoyed it when it first came out, but this subsequent viewing added very little to my original impression. Its well-acted, well-directed and the story moves along. I think this was the first movie that I remember seeing Russell Crowe in and I remember thinking at the time how well he held the screen and how I hoped he would get some more challenging parts. I also lhought Connie NIelsen was going to be a big star, but although she has appeared in something like 43 movies and television projects since them, most of them big production nothings, she failed to become a recognizable star. At the time I was probably taken more by her beauty than her acting chops which may explain why her career never took off beyond a certain point. It was my first Joaquin Phoenix movie and, of course, I loathed him in his part. I had no idea he would become a major talent, so I was wrong about him, too.

Gladiator won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2001. I thought Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon deserved it in a landslide, but I understand a case can be made for Gladiator, though certainly not by me. Good, not great movie.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Eyes Without a Face
Franju (1960)
“You’ll have a real face. I promise you.”

This is a devilishly simple and effective mad doctor tale. Christine has been disfigured in an auto accident that was her father’s fault. That father, Dr. Genessier, sets out to correct this with radical surgery to transplant the face of another woman onto Christine and he’ll sacrifice as many other young women as needed to accomplish that goal.

Of the many things I love about this film, its structure is near the top, essentially organized around three separate potential victims. The initial mystery woman being dumped in the woods is a nice initial misdirection while also being the vehicle to provide Christine’s back story. The middle victim gives us the entire process — kidnapping to surgery to failure as both the victim kills herself and the new face doesn’t manage to take (great FX). The third is a plant by the police whom an increasingly unbalanced and guilt-ridden Christine saves, all the while feeding her pops to the dogs.

Unlike that failed face, everything is properly placed. And it holds.

Because it's well structured takes nothing away from the poetic dark fairy tale vibe the Franju creates with this damsel locked in a castle in a very specific form of distress.

It’s a horror movie so what I’m about to say is a very very duh comment but, mad-eyed Christine wandering off into the mist with her bird like some whackado Disney princess … that’s haunting.

Edith Scob as Christine gives one of the great eye acting performances, conveying all the necessary sadness and madness.

But it’s the mask itself that might be the real start. It’s an incredibly simple and potent effect. It’s spooky. She’s spooky even if her circumstances are sympathetic and not of her own fault. She’s Frankenstein’s Monster. The flashes of gore we get beyond that are well dispersed for maximum impact. The film withholds the images just enough to both increase the power of what’s hidden and what’s revealed. Can you imagine a modern reboot? The patience and elegance here would undoubtedly be the first thing chucked out the window.

Beauty and body and science and vanity. It’s classy proto-Cronenberg with a lasting influence stretching to the likes of Halloween (the mask) to underrated creeper Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In to, of course, the greatest film of this or any time, Face/Off.

 

[Pink Mist]

Eyes Without a Face / Les Yeux sans visage (Georges Franju, 1960)

After his daughter’s face is horribly disfigured in a car accident while he was driving, Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) tries to correct it through experimental skin graft surgeries from the tissue of young woman his assistant kidnaps to his mansion. I have never been a big fan of body horror, surgical trauma on film has always felt more visceral to me for some reason, especially in recent years after personally undergoing a lot of medical and surgical trauma. Just seeing a surgical blade enter skin is enough for me to cover my eyes. Luckily this film has few instances of body horror, however when it does they are pretty disturbing – a lot more disturbing than I had expected for a 1960 film. Despite my aversion to body horror, I did really enjoy the film. There is a great poetry to it you come to expect from French films, with the balance between beauty and the beast, and the cinematography is German expressionist influenced which heightens the haunting atmosphere of the film. Overall a very good film that clearly has a had a lot of influence on horror films that followed, although I keep wanting to call the film in my review The Face of Another based on a lot of the similarities in my mind between them (primarily international films from the same period with similar posters on letterboxd).



(short review since I'm dealing with a bout of covid)

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Eyes Without a Face / Les Yeux sans visage (Georges Franju, 1960)

After his daughter’s face is horribly disfigured in a car accident while he was driving, Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) tries to correct it through experimental skin graft surgeries from the tissue of young woman his assistant kidnaps to his mansion. I have never been a big fan of body horror, surgical trauma on film has always felt more visceral to me for some reason, especially in recent years after personally undergoing a lot of medical and surgical trauma. Just seeing a surgical blade enter skin is enough for me to cover my eyes. Luckily this film has few instances of body horror, however when it does they are pretty disturbing – a lot more disturbing than I had expected for a 1960 film. Despite my aversion to body horror, I did really enjoy the film. There is a great poetry to it you come to expect from French films, with the balance between beauty and the beast, and the cinematography is German expressionist influenced which heightens the haunting atmosphere of the film. Overall a very good film that clearly has a had a lot of influence on horror films that followed, although I keep wanting to call the film in my review The Face of Another based on a lot of the similarities in my mind between them (primarily international films from the same period with similar posters on letterboxd).



(short review since I'm dealing with a bout of covid)

Get well soon

 

[kihei]

Take care, PM

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Next pick: Pumping Iron

 

[kihei]

Eyes without a Face (1959) Directed by Georges Franju

Eyes without a Face is an elegant take on mad scientist movies in which a doctor who should and probably does know better keeps killing young girls in order to provide a new face for his daughter who he is responsible for injuring in a car accident. It is a marvelously creepy film that underscores the banality of evil more than it does scare you. The horror is more psychological than physical; in fact, I would say the film's restraint is one of the most effective things about the movie. Even its most violent scenes are understated as if the idea of the horror being presented is more potent than the actual events. This is horror that focuses on the violation of human life in a way that is not easily dismissed once the film ends. The images and the ideas, their very mundanity, stayed with me a long time. In concert, the perfectly judged atmospheric cinematography certainly helped the movie achieve its aims.

Another takeaway from the movie--another two plus two that I never put together before--is that in my head this is a mid to late 1940s French film. It came as a shock to realize that Eyes without a Face, which seemed to me an ode to immediate post-war Frech filmmaking, was made in the same year that Francois Truffaut's 400 Blows was released and a year before Jean Luc Godard's Breathless. Eyes without a Face seems to come from a different era. Its existence is testimony that French film wasn't exactly the empty wasteland that the French New Wave rose out of the ashes to correct.

I also didn't realize until this time around that the doctor in this film was played by Pierre Brasseur who portrayed Frederick Lamaitre in my favourite film Children of Paradise. 14 years later, he is virtually unrecognizable in a role that requires none of his gift for humour. His presence is perhaps another instance of how Eyes without a Face appears to make a jumble out of time itself. That it wears its age so well suggests that this is one of those films that never quite loses its potency.

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[Jevo]

Eyes without a Face (1960) dir. Georges Franju

Christiane had her face damaged in a car accident. Her father, a surgeon, has made it his life mission to transplant her a new face. He has tried several times, but all unsuccesful. He is assisted in this by his assistent Louise, who aside from being a help in the house and assisting with surgeries, also kidnaps young women who are suitable transplant victims, and disposes of them after the fact. Christiane slowly begins to see what is really happening, and starts resisting her fathers plan.

Eyes Without a Face is still brutal. It's impact might be different now than when it came out. But even if the gore seems mild compared to modern horror, it doesn't lessen the effect of the movie, which doesn't rely on easy scares to make the audience squirm. Instead the film slowly builds up then tension, and when a young girl ends up on the operating table, or when Christiane snoops around the house, you are on the edge of your seat. Even if Franju had never made a horror film before, he clearly has a great understanding of what makes a horror film like this effective. There's no time wasted in the film, and it flows really well. The editing is one of the highlights of the film.

Edith Scob has the thankless task of acting with an expressionless mask on almost the entire film. Leaving only her eyes free. Despite that, she manages to give a lot of emotion through her eyes in her performance. This is of course also Franju's great direction, which allows her the chance to do it, because the whole direction of the film sets her up to do it. The main reason the film works so well, is because of Franju's direction. He makes the film better than the sum of its parts, which are still good. He gives the movie a poetic fairy tale quality to it. The old kind of fairy tale where people die and get eaten, and doesn't actually seem very kids friendly when you think about it.

 

[kihei]

L'avventura (1960) Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

On the surface, L'avventura is a movie about a young woman named Anna who goes missing on a barren island. Her friends look for her frantically, but gradually the urgency gives way to a more perfunctory, even listless investigation. Almost immediately during the search, Anna's partner Sandro makes a pass at her best friend Claudia (Monica Vitti), a pass which is rejected, reciprocated, rejected, reciprocated and so on. However, the movie isn't really about the lost woman so much as it is about people's feelings, feelings that are often out of step with the accepted morals of the time. Antoinioni doesn't condemn these characters, but rather he observes the intensity of their malaise. Although these well-off characters seem to have everything, they are miserable inside, trapped in their own skin.

L'avventura was booed at its initial screening at Cannes in 1960. Yet, after a subsequent screening, the movie went on to win the Palme d'Or that year. Something to keep in mind: although Antonioni's themes and approaches to character exploration now seem commonplace, in 1960 they marked a radical departure from anything people were expecting from Italian cinema at the time, which was still dominated by Neo-Realism, perhaps the most influential movement in film history, a movement which purported to bring what was actually going on in the streets into the movie theatre. Antonioni, like Fellini, owed a great deal to the movement of which many of their early films were a part. But with L'avventura Antonioni made a modification that was in itself revolutionary. He shifted the focus from the external reality of working class lives to the internal reality of the middle and upper-middle class. Their lives were every bit as barren as their working class counterparts only in a different way, This in turn broadened film's potential canvas dramatically, making the creation of more deeply personal films possible in a way that hadn't existed previously.

Another thing that Antonioni did that was dramatically cinematic is that he used his visuals as a form of internal architecture that often reflected or commented upon the mental landscape of his characters. Sometimes he took this to extremes, famously painting a section of woodlands gray because that's the way another Monica Vitti character saw it in Red Desert. In L'avventura the effect is subtler. The barren island where they all search for Anna is a case in point. During their exertions, the island takes on an almost existential dimension, a reality where all wander in search of something that they can never find, trapped in their own pointless Sisyphean world. Antonioni always brought a photographer's eye to the cinematography of his films, creating some of the most beautifully shot films in the history of cinema. But it is well to note that such beauty also served a higher purpose by reinforcing the internal perceptions of his characters.

It strikes me now that in their own way, Antonioni's L'avventura and Fellini's La Dolce Vita, which explored alienation among Rome's intellectual and social elite, were as significant in reshaping the grammar of cinema as were Breathless and 400 Blows in the New Wave Movement in France. Each of these films opened up a world of potentiality that not only their creators but other like-minded directors could begin to explore. Today each of those four films remains a monumental work--in retrospect, a pillar of modern cinema.

Sidenote: Dwight Macdonald, not a fan of the trend of directors who starred their mistresses in their movies--Godard/Karina; Antonioni/Vitti--claimed in his review that the wrong actress got lost on the island, a backhand complement to Lea Massari who played Anna in L'avventura. I think he was way too hard on Vitti (and Karina, too, for that matter).

Sidenote II: A Luis Bunuel/Michelangelo Antonioni comparison, though it initially sounds like an odd coupling, might be revealing with Bunuel providing a more comic, less sympathetic version of similar characters (The Discreet Charms of the Bourgeoisie; That Obscure Object of Desire; Phantom of Liberty; even The Exterminating Angel).

Sidenote III: Nobody but nobody calls this movie The Adventure.

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[kihei]

Next up is Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves, which seems to have adopted a plural since my first acquaintance.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Adventure
Antonioni (1960)
“Anna!”

A group of friends and lovers venture out to a remote island for a weekend. One disappears. Efforts to find her yield some cursory suspects but not much else. Life moves on. Newly revealed (or maybe realized) attractions form in the rubble of what’s been lost. Only Claudia (Monica Vitti) seems to really care about what happened to Anna, though even that diminishes over time. No one seems to have much direction in life when it comes to anything and certainly no desire to commit, be it to finding their missing friend or being in a relationship.

L'Avventura is one of those first ballot Hall of Fame capital C film Classics. It’s also yet another example of a film that felt like homework to me in my film learning youth, but thankfully is still waiting there for me when I’m older and wiser and most definitely more patient.

Sparse, empty landscapes for sparse, empty people.

The island setting for the first quarter/third of the movie is perhaps among the most memorable settings in film history. Heavy with metaphor. Prominent enough it’s often featured in the movie’s posters and marketing. I feel like the film is at its best in this stretch, both visually and that it’s at its most engaging. This is perhaps a “basic” opinion to single out the most plot heavy portion of a pretty plot-less movie, but so be it. The ensuing chapters are interesting but fall into a No! Yes! No! Yes! rhythm that kinda grinds me down over the runtime.

Overall L’Avventura is a clinical experience (at least for me) more than an emotional one. Look at these aimless souls. Watch them ghost through their own lives. Wonder at what it all means.

I’m still not moved much by their plight (nor do I necessarily feel I’m intended to), but there is an aspect to L’Avventura that resonated more with me this time around and that is the cold hard fact that people who in one moment feel very essential to your life will one day disappear be it death or time or distance. This isn’t presented in an emotional way, but rather matter of fact. People will disappear. Not literally of course, in most cases (I hope), but they do disappear. And we may not fully understand why.

All this said, DAMN this is still a long, protracted viewing experience.

Random thought: There is probably a funny movie to be made about an American attempt to adapt this into a movie and the many ways that would be screwed up.

 

[kihei]

The Adventure
Antonioni (1960)
“Anna!”

Lol

 

[Pink Mist]

L’avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)

L’avventura begins with a classic Hitchcockian setup: while vacationing at a barren island off the coast of Italy, a young woman mysteriously vanishes. Did she drown, did she hitch a ride on a boat with some fishermen? That is unclear even to the viewers (though Antonioni leaves some subtle clues), but none of the characters aside from Anna’s friend are too concerned about Anna’s disappearance, and even she quickly gets bored of it. The exact mystery of Anna’s disappearance is secondary to its use as a vehicle to explore the empty and barren inner lives of the upper class (the island setting is an excellent setting used to reflect this feeling of alienation and emptiness).

This was my first time watching this classic film and I had to rewatch it the next night in order to fully appreciate it. The first time I watched it I was left feeling cold as I was interested in his island mystery and was disappointed when it shifted to this exploration of alienation. However, with my second viewing and knowing what I was getting myself into I began to appreciate the finer details of how Antonioni constructs his story and how the relate and can clearly see why it is a masterpiece. Funny enough this seems to be a common reaction to his film. L’avventura was famously booed the first screen when shown at Cannes before going on to the festivals top prize, the Palme D’Or.

It really is a revolutionary film. Prior to L’avventura, Italian cinema from the 1940s until the 60s was regarded for Italian Neo-realism, a movement that Antonioni also participated in, that was concerned with realistically portraying the material reality of Italian society with a eye towards the lower-classes. L’avventura moved Italian Neo-realism forward by exploring the inner lives of Italians rather than just their material existence. I’ve seen this shift described by a critic as the shift from Neo-realism to Inner Realism and I think that is a good descriptor. In 2022 it is difficult to appreciate how momentous and influential this paradigm shift was without an understanding of the films that came prior and after L’avventura. Along with the early French New Wave films, it radically changed the course of filmmaking.

With the Sight and Sound poll recently being released last week there has been some of the controversy over the recent inclusions, primarily the case of Portrait of a Lady on Fire despite being released only 3 years ago ending up at #30 in the Greatest of All Time List causing some critics to whine about regency bias and the legitimacy of the list. I wonder if there was the same degree of controversy when L’avventura ended up #2 on the 1962 Sight and Sound List despite only having been released two years prior! Good thing Twitter didn’t exist in 1962.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Lol

In retrospect I kinda wish I would've done a whole review treating it as a rousing mystery/adventure.

 

[Jevo]

l'Avventura (1960) dir. Michelangelo Antonioni

Anna and Claudia go with Anna's boyfriend Sandro and some other friends on a boating trip off the coast of Italy. Close to Sicily they go ashore on a small island. Anna and Sandro have a disagreement while on the island, and when they get ready to leave again, there's no sign of Anna. Claudia and Sandro stay on the island to search for Anna, while others sail off to alert the coast guard. But Anna is nowhere to be found.

The characters in l'Avventura often seem to almost completely lack emotions. Instead they seem to react how they imagine that it is expected that they react in a situation, rather than live out their own reaction. We see it when Anna disappears. There's no great sadness or fear, but they do search dilligently, perhaps because they think that's what's expected. When she doesn't turn up. Claudia and Sandro continue the search on the mainland, seemingly because they don't know what else to do in the moment. But they are more preoccupied with getting involved than finding Anna. Claudia is closest to showing independent emotions when she regrets having sex with Sandro and hides when she thinks they might meet Anna. Anna has disappeared literally and spiritually, but Claudia still clings to what little humanity she has left, and she realises she doesn't want to end up like Anna. Now Antonioni certainly has a slight smirk with the way he has made the characterisations. But mostly I think he feels sad for them. Sad that they are simply going through the motions, that their upper class lifestyle has left without any stimulation in their lives.

l'Avventura breaks almost every rule in how cinema usually tells stories. What seems like the climax happens after half an hour. The pacing is very slow, and its hard to pinpoint an exact climax in the story. Little is said over the course of the film, but what is said is often not very important. What is more important is what is not said most of the time. Monica Vitti says more with her face in this film, than most actors can with their mouths. She is the perfect actress to play Claudia.

Visuals in Antonioni's films are always striking. Especially in l'Avventura. The visual compositions often tell more about the story and the characters, and the characters relations, than the script and the actors. Antonioni had an incredible eye for using the camera to tell the story, and very few are able to do it as well as he was. It's simply a joy to watch the way he uses the camera in this film.

 

[Jevo]

Black Girl (1966) dir. Ousmane Sembene

Diouanna works to a French couple in Dakar as the nanny of their children. She gets asked to come with them to France and work for them there. But when she gets to France, reality is not what she expected. In Dakar the couple had a cook, a maid, and Diouanna to take care of the children. But in France Diouanna has to do it all by herself. She's angry at the couple for lying to her, and for practically being locked in the apartment all day except when getting groceries. She isn't interacting with the couple, they just yell at her and giver her instructions. She is also the victim of racism from the couple of their friends.

Black Girl is significant because it one of the very first films from sub-saharan Africa, and it is, and was, a rare view into coloniasm from the perspective of Africa. Even today African films and their perspectives are rarely seen in the west. Now African films are largely made for an African audience, but that doesn't mean their voices aren't valuable in the west. Diouanna and the couple she works for is allegorical for colonialism in the 20th century. Slavery might be officially banned in the west, but that doesn't mean servitude and dehumanisation has ceased. Diouanna is not seen as a human, she seen more like a thing or a robot, someone without agency and will of her own. Madame sees her only as someone who will do her bidding, and if she sees something wrong with that, she will berate Diouanna. They will also talk loudly about their grievances about Diouanna while she's within earshot. Colonisers in Africa rarely had much focus on trying to educate the public. It was probably better for the colonisers the less educated the African public was. That also means that France and other colonising countries, have been able to write much of the history of Africa without much counter arguments. Like when the couple writes a letter for Diouanna to her mother, painting a very different picture of Diouanna's life than what she experiences.

Sembene is a rookie filmmaker with this film, and it shows at times. But the rough edges don't bother me much, because I think Black Girl has a very strong message that it tells incredibly well. It's not subtle about it at all, and it's not trying to be. It wants to be in your face about it. Because even in independence colonialism still affects countries like Senegal, and even today continues to do so. And Black Girl and it's message is still relevant today, it's not just a piece of history.

 

[Jevo]

My next pick is A White, White Day by Hlynur Palmason

 

[Pink Mist]

My next pick is A White, White Day by Hlynur Palmason

Good pick. I watched his two other feature films Godland and Winter Brothers this year and loved them. Based on those two films I think he's one of the more interesting young directors out there right now. Curious to check out his only remaining feature that I haven't seen

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Black Girl
Sembene (1966)
“Why am I here?”

Diouana arrives in France from Senegal. She’s taken a job as a maid with a French family. The movie switches from flashbacks to her life in Africa when she first began working with the family to the current life in France. What first seemed like an opportunity is just another form or oppression. She thought she’d have the freedom to see the country, but she’s trapped inside cooking and cleaning. She pushes back (wearing a dress and high heels to clean), but Madame is having none of that. Proud Diouana digs in. She stops eating, starts refusing her pay and, in what I admit was a shock to me, ultimately kills herself in the family bathtub. Overwhelmed with guilt, Monsieur goes to Senegal to return her things and pay her family, but he’s refused. A young boy wearing the mask Monsieur returns haunts him all the way back to the port.

What a timely selection with Black Girl having just made the latest Sight & Sound list in a tie for #95. It’s perhaps recency bias on my part but I have zero complaints about its inclusion. Rarely have I seen a film that is this powerfully efficient, packing so much into about an hour that so many other films would need double the time only likely to achieve half the effect.

The early parts are almost sociological. There’s a juxtaposition of Diouana’s life both in Senegal and France to that of Madame and her social circle. There seems to be equal objects of fascination on each side. It almost approaches a comedy of manners pitch, at least briefly (very briefly). But the reality of Diouana’s situation is apparent and the hopes she had for a better life are clearly not going to come to pass.

Her surprise death is tragic, but it also read to me as a victory. She never submitted to Madame. The final moments, with the child stalking Monsieur back to the port is a helluva closing sentiment about the inability to run from ones sins.

It has some of the roughness of a first film and a low budget but it’s hard not to feel like that’s a positive, not a negative — an added degree of verisimilitude.

 

[kihei]

Black Girl (1966) Directed by Ousmane Sembene

At a certain point, I just wanted it to stop. I didn't want to watch anymore. Partly of course it is the relentless
racism on display. It's poisonous for both victims and perpetrators, but there is no question who suffers most here. Black Girl is raw and short and angry--the anger seethes from the frames, and it is an in-your-face anger, too. The target is the white audience and the underlying indictment is how can you treat other humans this way? What allows you to be so stupid and cruel? The movie's very rawness adds to the impact. A director who had acquired more sophisticated skills at this point in his career might have inadvertently softened the film by smoother technique. Not a chance that happens here.

In a way it is a shame that the wife had to appear as the central bad guy. Colonialism is a patriarchal system, but the husband in this film is portrayed as somewhat more sympathetic than the wife. Of course, she is already oppressed so maybe it's a case of the already oppressed taking out their repressed anger on another even more oppressed minority. I think the movie is a tremendous condemnation of Colonialism. How many millions of times has a variation of this racist bullying played out over the centuries to utterly brutal effect? How many times have countless lives been stunted or violated or destroyed? This is what you get when one group of people think they are superior to another group of people so that those lives don't count and their culture can be plundered, stolen, eradicated....while the colonialists feel good about themselves as they do it, even believing that they are sanctioned by their God.

I've forgotten the band but I remember an album title: "Can the World Be As Sad As It Seems?" It is hard to escape the feeling that all too often the answer to that question is "yes."

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[Pink Mist]

Black Girl / La Noire de... (Ousmane Sembène, 1966)

I first watched Black Girl early in 2022 and it has stayed as one of the most powerful and memorable films that I have watched this year. Within 60 minutes Ousmane Sembène packs a mighty punch against (post-)colonialism through his depiction of a young Senegalese woman who moves to France to be a maid for a wealthy couple. Although promised the opportunity to be a nanny for the children, she quickly finds out she has been mislead or lied to by the couple as she is instead confined to their apartment to cook and clean for the couple all day. Soon she begins to rebel against the couple, primarily the wife. through small (and soon large) acts of defiance before ultimately committing suicide in their apartment.

Released six years after Senegal's independence from France, Black Girl is a rich critique of the continued subjugation of Senegal and the other former French colonies by France in which migrants from the former colonies are still exploited as cheap labour and colonial humiliation. It is also a portrayal of the strength of the colonized, particularly the women, in their resistance to exploitation. Mbissine Thérèse Diop is fantastic as the lead and is quiet and subservient in the beginning but slowly as the abuse comes from the white mother in the family she boils into a desperate rage against her slave like treatment.

An excellent film, and I'm very happy it is getting more recognition such as making Sight & Sound's top 100 this year.

 

[Jevo]

Good pick. I watched his two other feature films Godland and Winter Brothers this year and loved them. Based on those two films I think he's one of the more interesting young directors out there right now. Curious to check out his only remaining feature that I haven't seen

I agree he's really among the most interesting young directors right now. I'm hoping to watch Godland soon, and wanted a revisit to one of his earlier films. While he puts his own touch on things, I was surprised with how different Winter Brothers and A White, White Day were when I watched them the first time.

 

[Pink Mist]

Black God, White Devil / Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (Glauber Rocha, 1964)

Glauber Rocha is a key figure in Brazil’s Cinema Novo movement, which was a film movement that mixed Brazilian folklore and magical realism with influences from neorealism and French New Wave to highlight class struggle and inequality in Brazil. Black God, White Devil is a landmark film in the movement and was made by Glauber Rocha at age 25. The follows a poor farmer who after being cheated by his boss, murders him and becomes an outlaw in the sertão linking up first with a self-proclaimed saint who preaches against wealthy landowners, then with a bandit seeking vengeance against the wealthy – all the while being hunted by a bounty hunter.

At times the film is frustratingly difficult, with its mix of 1960s Brazilian politics, religious imagery, and a very healthy dose of mysticism and magical realism, but once you dig into it, the film is a great angry film that takes aim at most aspects of Brazilian society of the 60s. No one gets untouched in Rocha’s film, even leftist revolutionaries who Rocha is politically aligned with as he shows the dangers of fanatism. The film is very rough around the edges, but the rawness of the film has its charm and I think adds to the aesthetics of it being a necessary film with a story that had an immediacy to be told. There’s definitely a barrier to entry with this film, but viewers are rewarded for pushing through, even if many of the themes directed and specific to Brazilian society of the 1950s and 60s go over one’s head.

 

[Pink Mist]

I'm in the mood for another western, so my next pick will be Sergio Sollima's The Big Gundown starring Lee Van Cleef.

Available on Youtube