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

[kihei]

My mistake

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Big Gundown
Solima (1967)
“You thought I’d shoot first and then think didn’t you?”

Jonathan Corbett, a famous outlaw gearing up for a senate run (don’t ask, just go with it), takes on one last job as a favor to a political and financial benefactor — track down and kill Cuchillo, a Mexican accused of raping a young girl. Is that benefactor up to no good? You bet! Is the Mexican outlaw not as bad as he seems? Hell yeah he is (ain’t?). Corbett and Cuchillo’s paths cross back and forth across a dusty landscape culminating in a predictable, but earned, climax much in the classic style of the genre.

A Spaghetti Western of a similar flavor, but perhaps with a few individual spices and tricks. What is it with these Sergios (Leone, Corbucci, Solima)? Something in the vino? This comes on the heels of Leone’s Dollars trilogy and Corbucci’s Django. Fans of those should easily cotton to this. I did.

Lee Van Cleef gets a lot of that credit. He doesn’t even have to do much. His snake-like head does a lot of the work. (Always thought he looks like Kaa from The Jungle Book.) Oh he’s cool. But he’s not infallible. He’s shot and beaten. Smart. But unlucky. He’s in a long line of “heroes” who are just maybe getting too old for this shit.

It’s the mishaps that really made this stand out to me relative to the work of the other Sergios. It’s kinda comedic, particularly when the pair find themselves in the same jail cell. Frank Capra meet-cute blitzed on mezcal, maybe. But probably not.

This is fun. Predictable in all the right ways. Our opposites are bound to attract though when the climax comes “The Big Gundown” feels like a bit of a misnomer. More like The Big Knifedown.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Blazing Saddles
Brooks (1974)
“Can’t you see that man’s a …”

Evil Harvey Korman wants to destroy a small town so his railroad can run through it. He decides the quickest and most efficient way is to appoint a new sheriff … a Black sheriff. But it turns out ol’ Bart is much smarter and more competent than all the racists that surround him.

Not just a comedy classic, but a bit of a discourse classic for disingenuous people. YOU COULDN’T MAKE THIS MOVIE TODAY!

Rewatching it and my immediate thought is such a point is moot largely because this holds up. You don’t need to make it now because it was made then. You can still watch it. It still works. The racial barbs still cut. Here in the U.S. we’re not far removed from our first Black president. He may as well have been Bart. That there’s somewhat of a peace made of the realization that battle isn’t one of skin color, but social status (rich exploiting poor), still resonates as well. It’s more than most comedies are willing to do.

It’s a smart movie that’s still stuffed with a lot of dumb (often funny) shit.

Cleavon Little’s Bart is having a lark. He’s smarter than everyone else and plays off their biases to hilarious effect. Paired with Gene Wilder’s Waco Kid and you get a cracking comedy duo adept at both the high stuff and the low stuff.

My three favorite bits: Little putting the gun to his own head to fend of townsfolk. Wilder’s “Yeah, but I shoot with this hand.” And the deeply silly scene of Wilder showing how fast he is. And one more: Everything with Madeline Kahn (who was Oscar nominated!)

Sight gags galore. Something about the ice cream shop with one flavor always gets me. The line of criminals and villains. Word play. What’s a bit ironic about Blazing Saddles debates is that it’s the more general comedy actually that might not hold up. I get stuff like Headly Lamarr and “a laurel and hardy handshake” but there’s a lot of dated stuff. Still the bit with Count Basie’s dietgetic orchestra, beans and farts and the third-wall breaking climax probably hold up at any time. Something for everyone.

Ok ok, Mel Brooks probably wouldn't be playing an Native American in 2023, even for a few yuks. I don't think.

Richard Pryor co-wrote this and was going to star but the studio blocked him. It’s tempting to think of Pryor playing Bart, but that’s a disservice to Little. He might lack some of Pryor’s edge but there’s a lightness to him that really sings (sometimes literally). He’s more of a Bugs Bunny that Pryor (there is a direct Looney Tunes bit after all).

I guess it’s sorta weird I’ve come this far and not really talked about Brooks much. I just feel he’s elemental. In the air. That mix of clever and silly.

Patting myself on the back for the coincidental timing of this movie with the release of Hulu’s History of the World Part II, a Brooks aided sequel to his movie.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

My next pick is Shirley MacLaine and a slew of famous male actors in What a Way To Go!

Scheduling note on my end: I'm having trouble getting a copy of both Memoria and Tabu. This combined with some travel I'm doing, I am going to be out the next week or two. I hope to catch up on both sooner rather than later, but don't wait on me in either case. Be back by Wild Strawberries if not sooner.

 

[kihei]

Blazing Saddles (1974) Directed by Mel Brooks

I had never watched Blazing Saddles before seeing it a couple of days ago. Certainly I had heard of it, but that only reinforced my decision not to watch it. For starters, I don't think that I have ever laughed at a Mel Brooks joke. He once played this character, the 2000 year old man, with Carl Reiner, another comedian who I never found funny, as his straight man. Saw them a dozen times on late night shows, never laughed once. With the exception of a couple of bits in Young Frankenstein, I can't remember even chuckling in any other Brook directed, written or acted fillm.

However, I did laugh out loud at two moments in Blazing Saddles. The scene where the psycho guy (former Detroit Lion Alex Karras) knocks out the horse and Brooks' Governor Le Petomane's response to the suggestion of killing all the first born in retaliation, "too Jewish." I then recoiled after laughing at that last bit. Is that basically an antisemitic joke? Brooks is Jewish, but does his humour in this instance cross a line anyway? As a significant chunk of Jewish humour not infrequently appears to me to be inexplicably antisemitic, a kind of preemptive gallows humour perhaps, such judgment calls leave me in a state of confusion. (The movie was written by a fairly large committee, including Richard Pryor, so perhaps I am overreacting to one bit). Ultimately, though, it is not the ethnicity of the humour that bothers me here, it is the fact that Brooks as director never appears to edit his material in any thoughtful or even discernible way. There is so much in this movie that is boorish, unfunny, flat, vulgar, or just plain lame. Gene Wilder's character seems to be in the movie to provide our black sheriff with a white friend. What does he really add beyond that? A kind of knowing smugness? What does he say or do that's funny, beyond the fastest gun bit, an example of throw-everything-at-the-wall humour finding the odd gold nugget. Madeline Kahn's bits left me cold; they seemed like filler to me. And while Brooks makes fun of stereotypes he is also not above using them himself in ways that fall terribly flat--his Indian Chief, for example.

The other two comedians whom I noticed in the movie--Harvey Korman and Dom Deluise--are not among my favourites either. So now I have seen the movie, but seeing it only reinforces my original notion that there was never really much of a chance that I was going to like it in the first place.

 

[Jevo]

Blazing Saddles (1974) dir. Mel Brooks

A railway magnate is forced to reroute his railway through a frontier town. He doesn't want to share any possible profits with the current residents, so he comes up with a scheme to drive them out of town. When roughhousing doesn't work, he instead makes sure they are sent a new sheriff, who is black.

I've never really fallen for Mel Brooks' comedies. I often find the outline of his films more funny than the actual films. A racist redneck town getting sent a black sheriff sounds like a really fun idea for a movie, with lots of possibilities for social commentary, and there is plenty of that too. But the execution just doesn't really work for me. There's many really clever gags in the film, which are really well done and well executed. But for some reason I just don't find them very funny. I didn't laugh much at all while watching the film and it's just not a great sign when you are watching a comedy.

Blazing Saddles in many ways depicts an America in the post civil rights movement era. Seemingly black people are equal now in terms of the law. But reality is far different. Racism is still rampant. People in small "frontier" towns are still scared of black people. The politicians don't really care, unless the black people are a means to an end for them. But it's not really enough to make the film interesting, if you are not laughing.

 

[Pink Mist]

Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks, 1974)

Comedies as a genre tend to be very hit or miss based on the taste and sense of humour of the viewer - especially so with satires and parodies. Blazing Saddles, a parody of the wild wild west, was a big miss for me. I'm not sure I laughed a single time during the film (perhaps a chuckle during the line-up of baddies full of bikers and hooded KKK members). That's a problem for a film that is pure comedy.

Although certainly a product of its time in the post-Civil Rights 1970s, and likely impossible to get made now, I don't think it actually utilized its premise of addressing small minded racism that well. After like the first 30mins, I found the jokes kind of repetitive and tired. I don't even want to talk about the last 15mins or so when the film became meta and jumped to the present in Hollywood. I looked down for one second to look at a text I received and looked up to see a food fight in a 1970s cafeteria and I think both the film (and myself) totally lost the plot there.

The first Mel Brooks film I've ever seen and I think I'm comfortable saying he's not a director for me.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

I'm not surprised at the responses, but I am a little surprised at the general lack of exposure to Mel Brooks. His movies were a constant presence in my home growing up so I imagine that factors into my feelings though I don't view his movies as "nostalgic" for me, at least in the same way I'd think of things like Indiana Jones or the Goonies or any number of bad 80s movies.

Curious about the nature vs. nurture angle of this. Is Mel Brooks only funny to folks after youthful exposure or can someone walk in fresh and find his schtick funny? As I think about it the people in my life who really love his movies all pretty much grew up with them. My wife did not and she HATES it.

He did produce David Lynch's The Elephant Man though so he put his success to some good use!

 

[kihei]

Memoria (2022) Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Jessica (Tilda Swinton), a Scottish expat living in Columbia, is sleeping when she is awakened by a loud noise. She tries to find the source of this noise, but comes up empty. The whole movie is basically her quest to try to identify and to explain the loud noise that she heard. Memoria is a mystery movie in the exactly the same way that Blow Up was a mystery movie—you are never quite sure that what you are investigating is reality or not, but that doesn’t diminish its importance of the search. In one of Memoria’s best scenes, Jessica and Heman, a sound engineer, try to capture exactly what the sound was that Jessica heard. It is a masterful piece of direction allowing the audience to get as emersed in finding out what is going on as Jessica is. Jessica and Hernan get along very well, but when she goes back to visit him at work there is no record of him ever existing.

When Jessica visits her ailing sister Karen in the hospital, Karen tells her a strange tale about a dog she feels she betrayed. Later a dog seems to follow Jessica all around the streets of Medellin. When Jessica joins convalescing Karen and her husband for dinner, she is informed that a dentist who Jessica was absolutely certain had died is still very much alive. While dining, Jessica hears the sound again, this time realizing that she is the only one who hears it. She ventures to the countryside and meets another Heman, a sort of kindred spirit, and it is here she begins to realize her reality may not be what she thought it to be.

I’m going to start with a digression, but hopefully a permissible one. I’ve always disliked the term “foreign film.” In fact, I was quite pleased when the Motion Picture Academy changed the name of its “best foreign film” award to “best international film”, which I like quite a lot better. It’s not pedantry on my part. “International” has a neutral tone to it but “foreign” has a more negative connotation, an “us versus them” connotation, a whiff of the “other,” a sense of someone or something being suspiciously different. Here’s the thing, though, how many “foreign” films have you actually seen? I would argue, in one sense, that not nearly as many as you might think. For instance, movies by Hansen-Love, Truffaut, Tarkovsky, Bergman, Antonioni, Fassbinder, and on and on—how foreign are they, really? Their place of origin and the language used differs from our own, but those directors’ subject matter is universal. We can readily identify with the situations and the experiences of the characters in these films. We share a great deal of common ground, a familiarity, with such international films.

Yet, though they are rare birds, there are films that do seem to me genuinely foreign. I would put Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and virtually the entire oeuvre of Apichatpong Weerasethakul in this category. These works appear foreign because they present to us a world we could not otherwise imagine, a world that is presented from the inside looking out, not the outside looking in. These movies may be beyond our experience but they can transform the way we view reality. In these films, we are allowed insight into different ways of perceiving and different ways of feeling.

Nobody works this kind of magic more frequently and more wondrously than Weerasethakul. Every one of his movies seems filtered through a wholly unique sensibility than the one we experience in the West. The rhythms are different; the reality is different; the worlds created seem distinctly “other.” His films are infused with Thai animism, with a rich world of spirits, with dead ancestors who continue in a different form of existence, and with a host of mysterious ways of being. All of this stuff is presented as matter-of-fact and down-to-earth—nothing exotic about it. Weerasethakul simply presents the way his characters experience their world, their everyday existence. His genius is to allow us to see this world on its own terms.

The first time I saw Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives my initial exposure to this utterly foreign world view had an overwhelming impact. I walked out of the theatre into broad daylight and for at least half a minute, I was totally disoriented. All my familiar surroundings seemed momentarily hardly recognizable to me and somehow paltry in comparison to what I had just experienced. Of course, the bedazzlement didn’t last—I didn’t become Buddhist or anything like that—but it was a heady experience. Definitely not something I normally expect from a movie.

Memoria marks the first time Weerasethakul has made a movie outside Thailand, and such movies are always a little complicated for any director. What works in one’s native country with its familiar references and rhythms and cultural touchstones may be thrown totally out of sync in another country. For every successful Blow Up, there are about a dozen Zabriskie Points. So, a director removes himself from his own milieu at high risk to his art. In Weerasethakul’s case a big question for me is could he create his magic outside of Thailand? And the short answer is yes, he does, and brilliantly so.

In Memoria, Weerasethakul takes on the role that usually belongs to his audience, that “of a curious outsider, humbly engaging with the riddles of a culture that isn’t his own" (Justin Chang, LA Times). Jessica, his central character, and often a surpr"sing isolated central character, is Scottish, and, thus, she herself is a visitor in another culture that is not her own. She is indeed displaced, but it is not just a matter of place, but time, too. The movie is constructed with carefully ordered scenes (one could argue, carefully ordered to seem sometimes almost randomly selected) with images and sequences that can feel unrelated to one another or, at least, highly tangential. Yet each scene adds shades and angles to the significance of that sound that Jessica hears that goes boom in the night and to where her investigation eventually leads her.

As in Weerasethakul’s Thai films, the audience and Jessica are slowly led to begin to see that everyday existence may be much more ambiguous than we believe it to be. Characters unstuck in time, realities beyond our own, feelings that defy language to explain them, even the presence of a space ship, all play a role in revealing a different notion of being, (That space ship reminds me an awful lot of the one glimpsed just as briefly in one of my favourite movies Still Life by Jia Zhangke—I wonder if it is a coincidence. I rather doubt it). The final third of the movie seems almost a meditation on the nature of being between two very old souls who have gotten tangled up in time, whatever that is.

subtitles

 

[kihei]

My next pick will be Wim Wenders The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, available on Criterion Channel.

 

[Jevo]

Memoria (2021) dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Jessica, a scottish woman in Colombia, suddenly hears a strange deep thumping noise. She appears to be the only one who hears it. It only comes occasionally, but she sets out trying to figure out what it is. With the help of Hernan, a young sound engineer, she recreates the approximate sound she heard. The two become friendly, and plan a trip together. But when Jessica goes to see him at the sound studio just before the trip, he isn't there, and no one there has heard of him. Eventually she ventures into the countryside on her own. By a small stream she encounters an old man, also named Hernan, who tells her about his connection to the earth, how isn't a human, but can see the memories of everything that he touches.

Despite this being Apichatpong's first film made outside of Thailand, he has lost nothing of what makes his films unique. This is still through and through an Apichatpong film, with all that comes with it. It's clear that he makes films only for himself. He doesn't bother with lengthy explanations of the concepts he explores in his films, and his films are better for it. For a western audience his exploration of buddist themes combined with animistic ideas about connections with nature and the universe, seem very foreign and exotic. For a Thai they might seem more straight forward. In Apichatpong's films, it is treated with the utmost normality, that there are people and beings with greater connections to the past, and nature, who can feel and experience things that normal people can't. It is as normal as breakfast. I think that is a big reason why I connect so well with his films. Normally spiritual ideas are quite silly to me. But Apichatpong doesn't pretend he has to convince me of anything, he just presents it as is, and that makes me buy into it straight away. There's something very genuine about it, that I really like. But transporting all this to a setting that is very different from his usual in Thailand is not an easy task. But I think he approaches much the same way he usually does. Jessica isn't buddist or has much experience with that world. But he doesn't pretend he has to convince her of some greater connection. While she is initially confused about what it was she heard, she quickly becomes convinced that it was something real, and not just something in her head. She's not really afraid to seem stupid, she just open mindedly explores it as best she can.

At first the scenes that are selected seem almost random. Their individual connection is limited, but often help paint a small part of a much larger painting, although it is not often clear where the small parts go in relation to each other. But as the film goes on, more and more connections becomes clear, and in the end all the pieces end up fitting together. Probably by design it's quite frustrating in the beginning how little there is to go on for the audience. Like Apichatpong deliberately wants us to slow down mentally, so that we are ready for the final part of the film. The early part of the film is also often filmed quite far away from the actors, so on top of limited action in the scenes themselves, it's almost impossible to read the faces of the actors. Don't get me wrong, I think this is the good kind of frustration. But I can also hear Apichatpong laughing a little bit, when I squirm in my seat after 20 minutes trying to make out what Tilda Swinton is doing with her face, but I can't see it because she's filmed from 50 meters away.

Before I watched this film, I wouldn't have expected a 10 minute scene involving two people trying to recreate a sound only one of them has only heard once, would be one of the most riveting scenes I have seen in a long time. But everything just really came togther in that scene in a special way.

Memoria is a worthy part of Apichatpong's oeuvre. It is every bit as good as everything else he has made, and the things that usually makes his films great, are all present here.

 

[Pink Mist]

Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2021)

When Memoria first came on my radar it was when it was announced that the latest film from Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul would only be able to be seen in theatres playing city to city on a world tour - like an art exhibition or throwback to early Hollywood where film reels would go on a circuit through cities (see previous film of the week pick Dawson City: Frozen Time). So when it passed through Toronto, I was kicking myself that I missed my chance to see it. Well, that world tour idea didn't last long because I was able to watch it digitally, but I am still kicking myself because this would have been a fantastic film to watch in theatres.

There are a few reasons why this would have been good to see on the big screen. The first is the sound design in the film. The film follows a Scottish woman in Colombia who is sleepless due to hearing loud bangs that no one else can seem to hear. These heavy thuds are unnerving and due to the sound design haunt not only Tilda Swindon's character but also the viewer. The highlight of the film is also structured around sound design through an over 10 minute long sequence where the woman and a musician/sound engineer try to recreate from memory the sound that is haunting her. It doesn't sound very thrilling but I was enthralled by the scene. I am a bit of a sucker for good sound editing and sound design so this was very much my type of film, and I don't think my speakers at home did it justice like a theatres speakers would.

The other reason I wish I was able to see it on the big screen is that being in a silent theatre without distractions would have helped further settle into the films meditative pace. I'm well experienced with slow cinema - I would even say I often enjoy it - but with their leisurely paces I do still struggle with resisting the temptation to check my phone or quickly get up to grab a drink or snack. Seeing Memoria in theatres would have helped hinder those temptations and its really a film I wish I could have given my undivided attention because of it meditative qualities as Weerasethakul tries to drift the viewer into experiencing his worldview and spirituality - especially involving the restlessness of the protagonist haunted by ghosts. I think a theme of the film is slow down and accept beauty and disorder of life. It's no wonder that one sequence involves the protagonist (and the viewer) intensely watching a man sleep for (what feels like) 5+ mins. But I think it is a film very open to interpretation.

I really enjoyed the experience of watching Memoria. I don't think I totally understood everything, but I appreciate its meditations and I consider it Weerasethakul's most accessible work that I have seen. I'll probably rewatch it again soon at some point, but I won't hesitate to catch it in theatres if given the opportunity again.

(That space ship reminds me an awful lot of the one glimpsed just as briefly in one of my favourite movies Still Life by Jia Zhangke—I wonder if it is a coincidence. I rather doubt it).

Excellent review - I thought of that too and considering Jia Zhangke was a producer on Memoria, I doubt it was a coincidence either

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

@Pink Mist where were you able to find Memoria streaming? I haven't been able to track it down. Planned to just buy a physical copy but everything I've turned up legitimately hasn't been a US region disc. Being in the US seems to be a hindrance for me on this.

I was able to find Tabu finally so I should be back in line this round.

 

[Pink Mist]

@Pink Mist where were you able to find Memoria streaming? I haven't been able to track it down. Planned to just buy a physical copy but everything I've turned up legitimately hasn't been a US region disc. Being in the US seems to be a hindrance for me on this.

I was able to find Tabu finally so I should be back in line this round.

I have Mubi, and although not playing in Canada, it was on a few of their sites globally. So I used a VPN and watched it off Mubi's Germany site (in original audio with English subtitles)

Not sure if we're allowed to talk about torrents, but there's copies of the film floating out there too

 

[Jevo]

Tabu (2012) dir. Miguel Gomes

Aurora, is an elderly lady lives in a apartment in Lisbon with her Cape Verdian maid Santa. Her neighbour Pilar is devout Catholic and involves herself extensively in the Church's social work, and often involves herself and helps Aurora. Aurora is eccentric, superstitious, and in seemingly constant despair because of how her daughter has emmigrated to Canada and mostly abandoned her. Aurora gets very ill, and on her death bed asks Pilar and Santa to locate a man named Gian-Luca Ventura. After the funeral, Ventura starts telling the story about his and Aurora's relationship in Mozambique during the colonial era.

Tabu is a wonderful tragic love story, about two people in love, who because of their circumstances can never be together. Aurora is married to a man who doesn't care much for her, except for her ability to foster children. Ventura is a womanizer and adventurer who has ended up in Africa. They unexpected find comfort in each other, despite knowing their relation can never last. At the same time, the colonial life is collapsing around them, although they don't notice this much. In some ways their relationship seems to mirror Portugal's own relationship with its colonial possesions. For the two lovers it is a carefree and exotic experience filled with thrills. But they seem blind to the exploitative nature of what's happening around them, and they don't notice the rising dissent. When the uprising slowly starts, it's not something that really makes much impact on the little tea plantation. Rather the men joining the militia is an excuse to have a party and drinks. Tabu is generally quite subtle about its condemnation of colonial exploitation. It mostly comes in the form of a more deadpan comedic commentary. Like with the shooting party, or the prologue. Also with how it presents Santa. Santa is much more clever and well adjusted than Aurora. But because of circumstances of birth, Santa is employed rather than employee. In fact Santa is a caretaker more than she is maid. She can't control Aurora, but she can control when Aurora has access to her own money.

Tabu makes a lot of interesting stylistic choices. I really like the black-white cinematography. It looks great, and aesthetically the movie shines, and it's clear that Gomes puts extra focus on that part of the film. It's also interesting that the last half of the film is presented entirely with voiceover as Ventura tells the story about his love affair with Aurora. Voiceover is always contentious, as it almost by definition goes against the "show don't tell" rule of storytelling. But Gomes utilises it very nicely. Ventura's commentary is almost like intertitles in a silent film. All the details and nuances are shown on screen, and not in his commentary. Gomes has kept generally restrained acting performances by his cast in this part of the film, instead of going for more overacting, now that his actors can't use their voices. I think it works best this way, as it allows all the subtleties of the visual side to shine and aid the storytelling much more.

 

[Jevo]

My next pick is Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Tabu
Gomes (2012)
“I bid farewell with eternal sadness.”

After a poetic opening vignette about a heartbroken man who feeds himself to a crocodile (and set to a charmingly anachronistic piano that sounds like it’s from a Woody Allen movie), we meet a trio of women — Pilar, her older neighbor Aurora and her housekeeper/aid Santa. Pilar is a worrier, going about her rather dull life. Aurora makes a dying request, asking Pilar to find an old love from youth in Africa. She finds this man who then spins a tale of their affair in colonialist Africa on the verge of revolution.

A great experience for me because it’s one of those rare occasions where I went in totally blind. No clue what I was getting into. A romance, but a bit of a weird one in that half the time is spent almost as an aside. A lot of set up to that point. Nice juxtaposition though between lonely Pilar and the life her neighbor once lived. What comes next for Pilar? We’ll never know.

As for the Africa portion, I thought it was lovingly shot. Beautiful black-and-white. Constantly playful, be it the shapes in the clouds, the use of music or dry humorous little asides like the uncle who plays Russian roulette who “later died as a consequence of this.” I was drawn into the experience though not fully into the people. Their tragedy didn’t transfer to me, but I enjoyed the time there.

I actually found this so engaging that it took a while to dawn on me that the entire second half is narrated. I don’t think we hear any dialogue between the actual characters. Just story telling and music. Simple. Counterintuitive, even. Effective.

 

[kihei]

Tabu (2012) Directed by Miquel Gomes

A woman tries to track down the former lover of a dying friend. When he is found, he has a tale to tell. Tabu is on paper a conventional romance with hints of Out of Africa and The English Patient humming away quietly but persistently in the background. However, the film's manner of delivery in communicating its story is anything but ordinary. Starting off with a prelude scene that almost screams Guy Maddin, Tabu takes the long way around to tell its tale. The first forty minutes or so. I wasn't at all sure I wasn't watching some Bunuel-esque comedy. But all the false starts are kind of interesting, Gomes shifting the focus around like a good junk ball pitcher before getting to the heart of the matter: an illicit romance whose embers continued to burn for a life time.

The black and white cinematography, often with a dated, silent-movie look recalling Robert Flaherty's largely-fictional documentaries (Nanook of the North, Moana) is part of the misdirection which director Miquel Gomes employs, probably because he is not interested in telling a straightforward story but in playing around with the medium to communicate an old tale in a new way. He also relies extremely heavily on voice-overs, so much so that the pictures that we are watching during the voice-overs sometimes seem tangentially related to the romance at the centre of the movie. The is a director not afraid to mix the ordinary and the exotic. Tabu is a fascinating movie that film festival fans will love and people who hate subtitles will point to as an example of why art films drive them crazy. Personally Tabu is one of those movies that I greatly admire but it has never sent my pulse racing. The execution is brilliant, but I can't help but feel for this story it is pretty much an academic exercise.

subtitles

 

[Pink Mist]

Tabu (Miguel Gomes, 2012)

I watched Tabu for the first time at home in my apartment year or two after it came out. I remember putting it on and watching the first twenty minutes or so, getting bored with the storyline in Portugal, turning it off and coming back the next day and getting blown away by the story once the story jumps to Africa. Nearly a decade later, this exact same sequence of events happened when I revisited the film. I had to watch this film in two parts, as after twenty minutes the contemporary story struggled to hold my attention and I abandoned it for the Blue Jays game. Returning the next day to finish the film I was once again mesmerized.

I think revisiting the film and knowing what happens did not help me warm up to the first act of the film. I kept waiting for the good parts to come when the film flashes back, and it made the length of the first act feel unnecessary. After that rough first act, things only improved upon revisiting. It feels even more poetic and comedic, and like a less absurd Guy Maddin film with the contemporary take on a "silent film". I love sound design, and the sound design here is really cool and artful. In the flashback to Africa all sounds are present - the rustling of the leaves, the motorcycles and cars, the band - except for the voices of the characters speaking. As well, I watched it on an early summer like day in April, and the African safari like costumes has me inspired for summer 2023 outfits. Solids fits.

In my opinion, Tabu would be a masterpiece, if it weren't for that lengthy unnecessary opening act. Chop 5-10mins off that first act and its one of the best films of the 2010s in my book.

 

[Pink Mist]

Wild Strawberries / Smultronstället (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

Wild Strawberries is considered to be among auteur Ingmar Bergman's best films. It's a film about an elderly man receiving an honourary degree and reminiscing about his life and regrets as he picks up hitchhikers on his drive to the ceremony. Considering its place in the canon - both within the canon of Bergman's films and the film canon as a whole - it feels contrarian to call this film a stinker, but that's how it feels to me. Maybe its because I've seen a lot of his later films, but this film feels like a parody or cheap knockoff of his other works I've seen. An old man looking back at his life, his troubled past, and his failed relationships, where have we seen that before by Bergman? Ah Freudian dream sequences too? Sounds a bit like if Bergman did A Christmas Carol.

But the hook that A Christmas Carol has that Wild Strawberries doesn't, is that there's a central conflict of why Scrooge feels regret and is troubled. Maybe I missed something or I'm not wise to it, but I watch Wild Strawberries and I struggle to see where the conflict is in this film. He's successful in his profession and lives comfortable, he has a daughter-in-law that dislikes him but not for anything that's really his fault, his son is unhappy with him but still loves and cares for him, the love of his young adult years married his brother and he had an unhappy marriage with a wife unfaithful to him. None of these things really feel at fault to me, it just sounds like life, and not a particularly unique or interesting one - I'm left feeling "so what?". I've read that the Borg (the protagonist) is grouchy and egotistical, I didn't really feel that in his performance. I can't tell if I'm missing something, but this doesn't seem like a particularly interesting or profound story - although credit to Victor Sjöström, he is very good as the lead as are most of the cast of Bergman actors.

Among the bottom of the pile of the Bergman films I've seen.

 

[Pink Mist]

My next pick will be Loves of a Blonde directed by Miloš Forman

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Wild Strawberries
Bergman (1957)
“Recently I’ve had the weirdest dreams.”

An aging Prof. Isak Borg, a surly and self-described “old pedant” is to receive a career honor. The occasion spurs him to reflect back on his life, both intentionally and unintentionally as he’s dogged by a series of odd dreams and nightmares.

He sets out on the road. He picks up a few traveling companions along the way including his daughter-in-law, a trio of young people and a bickering couple. Each brings out memories in Isak – lost love, a bitter marriage. Mistakes. Losses. Symbolism and lessons abound. He ends the day at peace. No more nightmares. Just the dream of a family picnic.

This is another in our run of the last year or so where I was first exposed to it in college and once again, my young mind and life wasn’t really interested in picking up what this was throwing down. Again being older and wiser, I feel a little differently now.

There’s something about this that feels basic. I don’t mean that in an insulting way (totally). I’m not sure what came before, if Bergman was building upon someone or something else, but a lot has come after. Our previous movie, Tabu, was organized different, but was a reflective, memory-driven reckoning in it’s own way. Literally just watched a movie last night (Beau is Afraid) that also happens to be about a man plagued by nightmares, coping with his past and his relationships while on a journey of sorts. I don’t think Bergman would have liked it.

Wild Strawberries feels like a foundational text in many ways, both thematically and structurally, such as the simple and effective way Bergman moves in and out of the dreams and flashbacks. But it does play a little simple. It’s Bergman 101 as much as it is film 101.

Still, I’m glad to have revisited.

 

[Jevo]

Wild Strawberries (1957) dir. Ingmar Bergman

Retired professor Isak Borg is to receive a commemoration for it being 50 years since his doctorate. He is old, grumpy and has very few people in his life. His wife is dead. His only son has moved far away and has little contact. He has a love-hate relationship with his long time maid that is mostly hate, but she is his most common human contact. Leading up the his trip to Lund for his commemoration he has been having nightmares. He has one on the night before his trip, which makes him decide to drive there instead of taking the plane. Much to his maid's dismay. His daughter in law Marianne has been staying with him for a few days. It's later revealed this is due to her having separated from her husband, because he doesn't want the child she is carrying. Marianne doesn't like Isak very much, but asks to come on the trip. Along the way they stop at summer house where Isak spent his summers in his youth. They also pick up three young hitchhikers. Sara, named like Isak's teenage sweetheart who ended up marrying his brother. And two young men, one a budding priest and the other a cold scientist. Along the way Isak relieves parts of his life, and dreams about other parts. He starts to realise why he has grown old and bitter, and how much pain it has caused him and those around him over the years.

You would think that Wild Strawberries would be just a bit too much on the nose. Bergman has Isak pick up a young woman who is just like Isak's teenage sweetheart, accompanied by two young men who embody the two different sides of Isak. The scientist and the christian upbringin, two sides that no doubt fought each other during his youth. But this is Bergman. He is the man who had his main character literally play chess with Death and made it work. And he makes it work here too. There's a lot going on in Wild Strawberries beneath the surface. So much that whatever you get out of it, is going to be very different depending on what you bring into it. Is it happy, sad, morose or nostalgic, or whatever else adjective might come to mind for the viewer. That's probably also a big reason for it's universal acclaim. Almost everyone can see what fits themselves in the film. I watched Wild Strawberries perhaps 15 years ago as a teenager. Back then it didn't do much for me. Watching an old man accepting that his life is movingh towards the end didn't resonate with me as a teenager. Now older I see much more value in the movie, so I'm very glad I got to watch it again. My memory of it as boring, had kept me from revisting it on my own. This time I found anything but boring. It's Bergman at some of his best.

 

[kihei]

Wild Strawberries (1957) Directed by Ingmar Bergman

I was looking forward to seeing how I would react to this film. I took an introductory film course in my first year of university and Wild Strawberries was among its offerings. I had seen few international films at this point--I could count them on my fingers: The Bridge; 8 1/2; Blow Up; Knife in the Water; Accident; The 400 Blows. Of course, I had heard a lot about Ingmar Bergman, whose stature was already collosal, but Wild Strawberries was my first Bergman film. To say the least, I was not impressed. I thought it was silly, pretentious twaddle about an old man who I could in no way identify with. I haven't seen the film since then so I was wondering what I would make of it after all these years now that, ironically, I am exactly the same age as the central character Isak Borg. Oddly enough, my reaction isn't that different. Having been exposed extensively to Bergman's work since then, I still find Wild Strawberries little more than family melodrama (expertly shot by cinematographer Gunnar Fischer, the even more brilliant Sven Nykvist's immediate predecessor) with an intellectual veneer overburdened with dream sequences and flashbacks and way too much Freudian symbolism. Now that we are the same age, I can't identify with Isak Borg anymore now than I could when I was 19. The movies seems filled with either bitter people, vaguely unhappy people or annoyingly overdrawn comic idiots. In short, I still find the best descriptor of the movie to be "twaddle."

I will say that Viktor Sjostrom is excellent as Borg. Bergman brought him out to retirement to do this role. Sjostrom was a former silent movie star in Sweden and a director of significant renown himself with at least one outright masterpiece to his credit, The Phantom Carriage. As for the rest of the movie, after watching all this interfamilial angst, I couldn't help remembering a scene from The Lion in Winter, when after a terrible fight with Henry II (Peter O'Toole), Katerine Hepburn as Elinor or Aquitaine is sprawled on the floor as Henry walks out the door and she mutters after him, anachronistically but aptly: "What family doesn't have its ups and downs."

Below is a short parody of middle Bergman films that I saw, probably in the same film class. I was delighted to find it still existant after all this time. Give it a watch:

 

[kihei]

Wild Strawberries / Smultronstället (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

Wild Strawberries is considered to be among auteur Ingmar Bergman's best films. It's a film about an elderly man receiving an honourary degree and reminiscing about his life and regrets as he picks up hitchhikers on his drive to the ceremony. Considering its place in the canon - both within the canon of Bergman's films and the film canon as a whole - it feels contrarian to call this film a stinker, but that's how it feels to me. Maybe its because I've seen a lot of his later films, but this film feels like a parody or cheap knockoff of his other works I've seen. An old man looking back at his life, his troubled past, and his failed relationships, where have we seen that before by Bergman? Ah Freudian dream sequences too? Sounds a bit like if Bergman did A Christmas Carol.

But the hook that A Christmas Carol has that Wild Strawberries doesn't, is that there's a central conflict of why Scrooge feels regret and is troubled. Maybe I missed something or I'm not wise to it, but I watch Wild Strawberries and I struggle to see where the conflict is in this film. He's successful in his profession and lives comfortable, he has a daughter-in-law that dislikes him but not for anything that's really his fault, his son is unhappy with him but still loves and cares for him, the love of his young adult years married his brother and he had an unhappy marriage with a wife unfaithful to him. None of these things really feel at fault to me, it just sounds like life, and not a particularly unique or interesting one - I'm left feeling "so what?". I've read that the Borg (the protagonist) is grouchy and egotistical, I didn't really feel that in his performance. I can't tell if I'm missing something, but this doesn't seem like a particularly interesting or profound story - although credit to Victor Sjöström, he is very good as the lead as are most of the cast of Bergman actors.

Among the bottom of the pile of the Bergman films I've seen.

The A Christmas Carol movie version I thought of was the one with Michael Caine and Muppets (which is brillliant, actually). So maybe a remake of Wild Strawberries with muppets. Oh, I can just see Miss Piggie now as a Bergman heroine. Love the idea.