A Zed and Two Noughts

Peter Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts (1985) is a meticulous study on the effects of loss and trauma filtered through scientific examination. In our twin protagonists’ obsessive effort to maintain control over the uncontrollable effects of life and the natural world, they compartmentalize the trauma they suffer when they lose their respective wives in a freak car accident with a white swan. Inasmuch as they find solace in their work, turning to an obsessive examination on the study of decay in animals, they likewise find a counterpart in the woman who was driving the car which killed their spouses.

Among the many intriguing aspects of Greenaway’s film is the intellectualism inherent to this study, since this is a decidedly cerebral film. The cold and analytical nature of the twins is echoed by Greenaway’s composition process. That’s not to say, however, that there is a lack of humor in the project. The abundant humor comes from the distancing that the twins project onto life and their tragedy, disassociating themselves from their wives’ deaths to such an extent that the lack they feel foregrounds their existence. Even their attempts to adopt the driver’s young daughter are met with cold ambivalence, emphasizing the extreme paradox of the film: the twins seek out life almost mechanically in an effort to distill death of its horror.

Yet Greenaway also holds a mirror to the quiet acceptance that we all have toward death, inquiring whether the scientific repudiation that they’re attempting is not, on some level, a more humane approach to the concept of death. That is, the absurdity of passive acceptance is magnified by the twin’s acute fanaticism to disarm the passivity we hold toward death. The studies on decay and decomposition become a Nietzschean principle of repudiating this acceptance as a way for the weak to submit to the great and awesome power of that which they don’t understand. The brothers, however, seek to comprehend death intimately and so to deny the passiveness held toward it.

This all culminates in the obsessive compulsion of the film’s finale, which Greenaway builds toward with immaculate precision. The force of this effect is undeniable, and grounds the film in a final expression of tragedy. This is an incredible vision of obsession and the obsessive way in which we come to terms with the world.

A Zed and Two Noughts: 10/10

In a Lonely Place

Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place (1950) is a film that realizes the intersection between emotional passivity and narcissistic aggression is indeed a thin line. While the film initially feels like a noir piece, it truly is not, for Ray has no real interest in exploring hard-boiled and empty characterizations as such; rather, Ray seeks to understand how that emptiness may be misunderstood by a society dependent on the expression of sympathy and pity toward the dead.

Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is a hard-drinking and down-on-his-luck screenwriter who becomes incriminated by the police when a young woman who helps him understand his next adaptation is murdered on her way home. His next door neighbor, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), provides him with an alibi and the two begin to bond emotionally as they realize that their checkered pasts can be mediated by the love that each nurtures for the other. However, Laurel starts to see glimpses of Dixon’s violent past, and the film examines how a glimpse of violence can lead to potentially more damaging instances of aggression, so that Laurel’s sureness of Dixon’s innocence in the murder now becomes fraught with doubt and insecurity.

This is a film that has been observed as possessing one of cinema’s most upfront portrayals of existentialism, in that our protagonist played by Bogart shows a complete lack of empathy and understanding toward a death that society demands must be publicly mourned. As such, the internal conflicts of personality governed by a past in WW2 and occasional bar fights are now judged by the outward arbitrating eye of the society as law. Yet Ray wishes to question how society can judge the proper affect that is shown toward victims of tragedy, working to elucidate how even those who display an outward disregard are still nonetheless human and not deserving of a public outcry.

When Laurel and Dixon become engaged, Dixon’s past aggressions seem to be repressed for good. Yet even that repression does not altogether eliminate any trace of what has been “forgotten,” in that the dominant aspects of Dixon’s personality surface in emotionally troubled instances. It is here that the film’s mantra, uttered by Dixon in reference to working the line into the screenplay, becomes the primal epitaph of the film: “I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”

This is a film that richly deserves to be seen more, and it rewards the interest that the audience places in it. Always engaging, always revealing. A masterpiece.

In a Lonely Place: 10/10

Holy Smoke

Jane Campion’s Holy Smoke (1999) is a film that is flawed, but it also rewards patience and possesses wonders that exist because of the very flawed nature of the film. Too comic to be a full-blown drama and too dramatic to be a comedy, this is a film that dances precariously on the edges of multiple genres, gaining both its greatest strengths and faults from its interplay of genre conventions. Yet the chemistry between the performers and their commitment to the material bring the drama to the fore and keep the comedic flaws from damaging the film.

Ruth (Kate Winslet) is an Australian girl who makes a pilgrimage out of her stay in India, becoming a convert to one of the Indian sects. When her friends begin to fear that Ruth is not gaining religious enlightenment but is instead being converted into a cult, they return to Australia to inform her parents. Ruth’s family intervenes, calling upon the services of a cult exiter, PJ Waters (Harvey Keitel), who works to break down Ruth emotionally and physically. Yet their attraction to one another begins to overrule the spectatorship that is predicated on breaking Ruth, so that once the cultish aspects of her past have been exposed, the deeper trauma of where the two go from here remains.

What’s fascinating about Holy Smoke is that the dangers of the cult are largely held by an emotionally distant family, which is indicative of culture that fears what it cannot understand. They constantly fear that anything Ruth says is a maneuver to brainwash them, rather than a simple desire to spread the word about the kindness and tranquility that Ruth has discovered. While the truth lies somewhere in the middle, these issues begin to find subtle reworkings of a classic collectivistic vs. individualistic fear.

Also successful is the fact that Campion avoids relying on a solipsistic and preachy characterization of PJ. In fact, he is played with such humanity that his initial success stories almost feel fabricated. The fact remains, though, that Campion fine-tunes a classic character construct to give enough flaws and faults to PJ to make him a distinct individual rather than a mechanism for the plot. Ultimately, the brutality through which PJ breaks Ruth leaves her with such an empty void inside that she relies on his attraction to her to give her something emotionally to invest in. While this opens its own complications, the manner in which PJ and Ruth reverse their roles as patient and physician become intricately wound together, allowing nuance and detail to take center stage. Indeed, few acts are as brutal as the gender debasement that Ruth puts PJ through, yet he is fully accepting of it, striving to gain a deeper and more intrinsic understanding of Ruth.

At the end of the day, this is a film where the most genre-comedic moments fail, such as the Fabio-like brother blindly running into a street sign. However, other moments that are more tied to the psychology of the characters, such as Ruth’s sister-in-law Yvonne’s attraction to PJ, give weight to the comedy, like when her absent-minded gaze at PJ leads to tragic consequences as her children attempt to jump from their truck into her expectant arms.

Given my card-carrying membership to the Kate Winslet is the most beautiful woman alive fan club, my loyalty to this film is probably expected. Nonetheless, I hope I’ve been forthcoming enough to allow that it’s still a flawed piece, but I also understand that the material and engagement one receives from watching it are very worthwhile and fascinating. I would have preferred a more open-ended ending with the film ending as the truck drives away, which would have foregone the “One Year Later” bit, but beyond that and Ruth’s abnormal family feeling a tad too tacked on, the central narrative and exploration of PJ and Ruth is incredibly evocative and beguiling.

Holy Smoke: 8.5/10

Shock Corridor

Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor (1963) is a film that is inextricably tied to melodrama and excess, but rather than submit to these impulses or let them be a hindrance Fuller utilizes them to their full potential, allowing the vitality of the performances and the scenes to elucidate his themes of narcissism, sanity, and internalized guilt. The film acts as a parable warning one against letting dreams of success mire you in conditions of psychological horror.

The film concerns reporter Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck), who goes undercover into a mental institution in order to discover who killed an inmate. By exposing himself to the horrors of the mental institution, he desires to use the story as a springboard for his own personal success to win a Pulitzer, rather than understanding the murder he's investigating as a tragedy unto itself. His own lack of true concern for his brothers surrounding him leads to his inevitable collapse, so that by the time he reveals the killer, the ward within the institution merely believes him to be another person in the asylum. Fuller thus implicates his protagonist in a vision of pride and pathology that slowly consumes him.

Likewise, Cathy (Constance Towers), Johnny's girlfriend, is implicated for disregarding his health in favor of holding onto a relationship that is already tearing apart because of the burdens of Johnny's dream that he places on her. Though we quickly discern her intelligence, she herself doesn't realize how right she is, and so she ignores her integrity so that she may stay close to Johnny, never realizing until it's too late how this act contributes to his madness.

Some of the most effective scenes, such as those with Brent, as African-American who adopts the persona of a self-righteous KKK member, retain their power and potency, in that the racism and belligerence around them have become so deeply entrenched that these individuals have thus internalized it. Meanwhile the riot scenes, though 180 degrees different, have the same odd poeticism of Bela Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies, creating a fascinating glimpse into the nuclear, racist, and communistic fears that were rampant in the 1960s.

This is a film that intelligently and audaciously criticizes those issues that were contemporary to its day, and it's a film that remains vital today. Powerful stuff, and well worth the campiness that exudes from every shot.

Shock Corridor: 10/10

Showgirls

After fashioning a string of quality Danish films that were vital and always transcending genre limitations (including Turkish Delight and Soldier of Orange), Paul Verhoeven came to America and directed several action films, such as Robocop and Total Recall. However, while neither of these is necessarily a bad film, nor are they as filled with ideas as Verhoeven's Danish work. As a result, when the epic disaster Showgirls (1995) came out with his name attached, people lined up to critique the film before even watching it. This is a mistake, since the film harbors a critique of success, show biz, and dreams even as it also harbors a performance so awesomely bad by Elizabeth Berkley that it becomes the stuff of legends.

The film chronicles Nomi (Berkley) and her attempt to climb the ladder of the Vegas showgirl industry, charting her struggle from sleazy strip clubs into socially accepted artistic success. The oddity, though, is that Nomi lacks sophistication and cannot fashion a self-identity that is not grounded in performance, since she is very much a woman of below average intelligence background, and Berkley (though unintentionally) never allows any actual intelligence to register in her performance. As Nomi works to create her in in the Vegas industry, she insults Cristal Connors (Gina Gershon), the town star and showgirl Idol. What follows is Cristal slowly creating complication and subterfuge for Nomi, and Nomi lashing out to fashion her success by foreclosing any moral fiber from her being.

Berkley's horrendous performance is largely what makes this such marvelous and trashy fun. While Berkley is pretty much godawful in every acting way imaginable, registering only broad emotions of anger and jubilation, so that her performance vacillates between these two extreme emotions and never allows for any interior motivation, the rest of the film is campy but quality. That is, Gershon and the others create real characters from these broad strokes, layering a film that thereby becomes a critique at the mechanizations of entertainment industry. Since Nomi makes it big, Showgirls encapsulate a solid critique at Hollywood, the starmaking process, and how the bitter but talented stars (Gershon) will eventually be overrun by the bitter and shallow stars (Berkley).

Viewers may have a hard time reconciling character motivations for this film, which is simultaneously what allows it to exist as camp masterpiece and mainstream failure. Why, for instance, does Molly, Nomi's roommate, act so caustic toward Nomi after she suspects Nomi of plotting to get rid of Cristal yet then immediately turn back around and show up to Nomi's breakthrough party to bed the singer Andrew Carver. There was a lapse in reason that weakened the connection Verhoeven obviously wanted to create with his crosscuts, but beyond these types of plot and dialogue incongruity the film strangely works.

While not the most sophisticated fare, Verhoeven's film offers a study of successful metaphor through unintentional failures, so that one finally wonders if Berkley's horrific performance is necessary to give the film its importance. Slant certainly seems to think so. Not a classic, but certainly engaging viewing.

Showgirls: 7.5/10

Husbands and Wives

Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives (1992) is Allen’s masterpiece from the 1990s, critiquing marriage as an institution that works best when couples embrace their passivity as a necessity for the marriage to work. Beneath that passivity, though, many undercurrents of guilt and repressed anger lie ready to be unleashed at the uninitiated. All of these emotions find release within the story of two couples, Gabe Roth (Woody Allen) and his wife Judy (Mia Farrow), and Jack (Sydney Pollack) and Sally (Judy Davis), with the latter couple initially embracing time apart and the former threatened by the possibility of separation.

This film seems most in tune with Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous ending to his play, No Exit, wherein one of the characters trapped in a locked room, which is itself a metaphor for the stasis of hell, suddenly realizes that “Hell is—other people.” In that play, characters once in love turn on one another, spurning each other in sudden flurries of contempt. Like the Sartre play, Allen’s characters are ensnared in a slow burn, where petty deceits suddenly become something much more traumatic and real, and are unleashed in incandescent fits of rage.

For their part, Jack and Sally are in a marriage of emotional paralysis. Jack finds that he cannot be sexual with his emotionally frigid wife, nor can he be free to enjoy the simple life since Sally is constantly critiquing something or other. When the two split, Jack resurfaces with the much younger Sam, an aerobics instructor who is not intellectually stimulating but nonetheless a woman who offers Jack the simple life. For her part, Sally maintains the façade of comfort in her new conditions as a single woman, but is emotionally crippled by Jack’s abandonment. Though each embraces time apart from the other, they eventually find that they are most comfortable around one another, even if much of that time is hounding each other. Moreover, it is only once Jack and Sally are no longer together that they can finally be honest with one another. As a result, on some level the separation leads to better communication, though a deeper reality lies in the realization that they are simply repressing any negative aspects of their marriage from here on out.

Meanwhile, Gabe and Judy soon find the seams of their relationship fraying from insecurity and charges of dishonesty. Each begins to be attracted to another, Gabe with one of his college students Rain (Juliette Lewis) and Judy with her colleague Michael (Liam Neeson). Though neither actively engages in infidelity, Allen suggests that each spouse is still using the interest that the third party shows in them to string them along until they are more sure of their emotions. As such, Gabe lends Rain his novel in progress and Judy lends Michael poems that she’s written, and Allen is quick to imply that Gabe and Judy both profit from their creative art by using it as a conduit to jumpstart their affairs.

Eventually, Gabe and Judy separate even as Jack and Sally reconcile, implying that some marriages can be rectified by repression, whereas others will simply wither and fade as spouses entertain the fantasies of being with another. Throughout this all, we come to understand Gabe’s declaration that he seems preternaturally interested in “kamikaze women,” women who lead Gabe into self-destruction with them. It is in the film’s conclusion that this idea is subverted, since Judy ends up with Michael (even though he settles for her even as he’s most excited by a brief relationship he once had with Sally), while Gabe ends up alone, unable to carry through with an affair with Rain. There is some small epiphany there for Gabe, as he renounces the inevitable flame of Rain, refusing to carry out a relationship that will fail just as his last one did. And while Allen is a pessimist, the idea of marriage is given a redemptive realization vis-à-vis Rain’s parents, who exhibit positive affection for each other. Within those couples unable to generate honest and open communication, though, the concept of marriage is tied to slow and mutual disintegration.

Since this is all framed within the parameters of a documentary, with a camera whipping around trying to capture those moments most paramount to their lives, it initially comes as a mild surprise that the documentary makers do not grasp that they are not just filming these moments of abandonment but are also contributing to it through their invasive techniques. While this may be read simply as a critique on the media’s interest in tearing down those it intends to profit from, there is another level at which the metaphor works, since it also commentates upon the nature of all cinema and how such an invasion upon simple “characters” inevitably brings to the surface their inadequacies and shortcomings.

Husbands and Wives: 10/10

George Washington

David Gordon Green's George Washington (2000) turned out to be one of the biggest surprises on the indie/film festival circuit that year. Unlike many of its kind, this film was not interested in engaging in pop culture references, witty repartee, or ironic distance; rather, Green’s film is comprised of short impressionistic scenes and voiceover to achieve a powerful but quiet observation of characters living in rural slums.

Superficially, this is a film governed around the love triangle of 12 and 13-year-old Buddy (Curtis Cotton III), George (Donald Holden), and Nasia (Candace Evanofski). However, the film is not simply a distillation of this event, since Green seeks to understand the whole languid Southern community that comprises the film. As such, the film examines teens who desire to be treated with the emotional maturity of adults and adults who desire to return to the carefree responsibilities of youth. It's to Green's credit that these dichotomies are not didactic or sophomoric, but instead are truly integrated into the larger commentary on love, desire, and maturity.

While the film retains its poeticism and much of its power, the internal conflict with George and his reasons why he decides to become a "hero" aren't as fleshed out as the first viewing initially revealed. I'm not looking for an origin story, but the internal conflict that Sonya and Vernon face, secondary characters who hang out with George and Buddy, are actually more established than George himself, though Nasia thus gets her chance to vocalize the "reasons" through her voiceover. Yet the film thus denies a true ontological reading, as all the information is filtered through Nasia's idealistic viewpoint. While that might be Green's intent, it rebukes the emotional investment that George could have offered the audience.

The psychological reason is, of course, the responsibility George felt after pushing Buddy, causing his death. His anguish over this action, which he never vocalizes after the incident is over, leads him to start trying to actively help others, such as the kid drowning in the pool. He is continually haunted by his inability to help Buddy when it mattered, so he forms his identity around every successive act where he can help people. With that, Rico Rice (Paul Schneider) comes to see a way to grow and mature as well.

Though this in fact gives the psychology for George's actions, Green never really brings any of this to the fore, which is the great fault of this film. It needs some reasoning to be a bit more explicit so that it's not all conjecture. The film remains powerful, but lacks any deep-rooted and explicit reasoning. George's eyes tell us some of the answer, but never enough.

Greg's review touches upon some of the same things I noticed in this second viewing. While it's still a quality film even after this viewing, All the Real Girls is actually my favorite of Green's work, though that one's scope is more limited than this one.

George Washington: 8/10

Friday Night

Claire Denis' Friday Night (2001) is more immediately rewarding than Denis’ recent and cryptic The Intruder, though the latter film ultimately possesses more lasting insights and individual moments. Whereas that film settles into its ambiguity and dreamy, hazelike atmosphere, though, Friday Night remains firm in its reliance on its narrative, existing as a powerful examination of a one night stand and the events leading up to it.

Laure, a French thirtysomething woman, is stuck in traffic visiting friends and slowly realizing that her excursions around town are merely unsettling her, since everyone she visits has a spouse and children, while she is simply going to be moving into another solitary apartment the next day. This drawling realization is given metaphor as Denis emphasizes the utter standstill of traffic and experience on this evening, where everyone is seemingly resigned to their ennui and the weary night. As such, when a stranger knocks on Laure's car door and asks if she can give him a lift, she is first bewildered at the sight of a man, Jean, willing to shatter the ennui, but then welcomes the diversion. Of course, the film wants to question what happens when diversion becomes something more than a simple brief encounter, while also questioning whether this brief encounter needs to be something more than that.

While the first fifteen minutes or so were purposely aimless but nonetheless less than enthralling, since the boredom is given its own character ad nauseam, everything thereafter had a marvelous mood and atmosphere. The romance is surprisingly erotic, and Laure (Valérie Lemercier) and Jean's (Vincent Lindon) affections toward one another have enough questions that the understated verbal dialogue brings everything into a tighter magnetism. While the traffic bits are carried out a bit long, the scenes examining psychology and personality were highly anchored in beautiful poeticism and human nature. This is a film that understands longing and desire, and Denis communicates it visually rather than through dialogue or verbal expression.

What makes this film, then, are the moments of simple yet subjective clarity. Jean asks for change from a waitress to make a phone call, but then, on a brief stop to the ladies room, Laure notices that the phones take cards, not change. The condom rack beside it, however, does take change. The way in which Denis allows Laure to register this awareness allows for a deeper sense of Laure's own complicity and willingness to engage in this affair. Additionally, the last five minutes of this film with Laure running down the French streets in the early morning are bound together in a beautifully transcendent structure of freedom, vivacity, and hope. And that final smile is the stuff of legends.

Friday Night is a very good viewing experience, and it rewards the energy that the viewer invests in it. Additionally, this is a film that would probably be even better after a second viewing...

Friday Night: 8.5/10

The Grand Illusion

Jean Renoir's The Grand Illusion (1937) is a classic that gains its energy and integrity from the manner in which its ideas and ideals about war are relevant—and, moreover, are prescient—about World War II. Renoir suggests that the brotherhood of class, though ever-present throughout earlier wars, is now fading and that commoners will begin to rise. This is, it seems, inevitable, but just as inevitable is the humanity of widowers on both fronts. This glimpse of humanity, ultimately, is what makes survivors struggle through the harshest instances of fascist war.

After French aristocrat Capt. de Boieldieu (Pierre Fresnay) is shot down by German pilots, the German prisoner camp commandant Capt. Von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim) invites him to eat and drink with him, granting that a bond between class should not be swayed by the tide of war. However, commoner French soldiers Lt. Maréchal (Jean Gabin) and Lt. Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio) join the captives’ plan to escape from this prisoner camp. Though plans are scrapped as camps are moved, the commoners eventually escape, though at the price of the mortally wounded de Boieldieu.

Capt. von Rauffenstein is one of the great figures of classic cinema, encouraged that one’s word binds one to another, regardless of sworn duties or changing times. Thus, when the French aristocrat de Boieldieu swears that are no plans are en route to escape, the German commandant accepts these words blindly. It is an aristocratic hope, and a yearning in the German Captain’s mind to return to those times when one’s word as a friend and gentleman was gold.

Renoir’s entire film exists as testimony to a point in time where the old upper-class society meant that camaraderie existed between enemies of war, having cups of tea and reminiscing about family histories. Codes of honor thus existed for these individuals, and their lives were mourned by the other, who recognizes, albeit stoically, the collapse of the old way as another of the old guard passes, as von Rauffenstein’s line notes, “May the earth lie lightly upon our valiant enemy.” However, it is just as much about the love that will unite individuals once the war is formally ended, regardless of nations, as seen in Elsa’s desperate need to know of love after her husband and brothers were sacrificed in the war. This humanity on every facet is rendered just real enough to know of each emotional injury, be it physical or mental.

The film strangely does not crescendo with Lt. Maréchal and Elsa, though, because Renoir aspires to something more truthful. While Lt. Maréchal may return for Elsa, the war’s longevity may just as well take its toll on him. Either way, it is the final line of the film that offers this film its transcendent moment: as Lt. Maréchal and Lt. Rosenthal reach the German/Swiss border, the German soldiers chasing them bless them for crossing into safety.

The Grand Illusion: 10/10

Seance

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Seance (2000) is a magnificent little picture, encapsulating the best suspense and shocker moments that Japanese horror typically offers with Kurosawa’s customary blend of philosophy and social commentary. This film, much like his contemporary masterpiece Pulse, combines genre elements with literate references to doppelgangers and Freudian analysis, allowing the “godfather of J-horror” to work his magic once more.

Sato (Kôji Yakusho), a sound-effects engineer, and his wife Junko (Jun Fubuki), a psychic, experience a sudden trauma and external shock when they discover that a kidnapped girl and hid away and suffocated inside one of Sato’s equipment cases while he was in the woods recording sounds (the girl was trying to escape from a pedophile). Since the police have sought out Junko for help on this case, Sato’s wife conspires to hide the body away so that her talents might later “find” her. Obviously, given its genre elements, the girl’s ghost starts to plague them, haunting them for consciously refusing to take ownership of their part in the crime.

Throughout all of this, Kurosawa grounds the film in a denunciation of fate, alternately letting his characters believe they can escape fate and other times surrendering to it. Indeed, though the intellectualism offered in the first few minutes initially feels added on, the last act returns to a more introspective and questioning consideration of fate, denial, and acceptance, thus letting the initial intellectualism feel more fluent and integrated than it first did.

Likewise, there are a handful of absolutely incredible images in this film, with one of the strongest being Sato’s hallucination of his doppelganger and his attempt to set it aflame as a repudiation of all that this Other of omnipresent guilt represents. The communication between husband and wife is soon shattered as the secret eats at them, and their misguided belief that they can externalize their agony by switching from their house to a hotel room to avoid their predicament offers Kurosawa’s knowing rebuke that these matters are at all times truly internal. The antagonism that the husband and wife channel at each other midway through, then, breaks through the initial repose they feel at their “escape.”

Everything in this film is fully fleshed out while maintaining the ambiguity of intention that is Kurosawa’s trademark. Ergo, the film is complete even as its ending stops just before answers are externalized. Why?--because like all good psychological drama, the answer has been made explicit internally. This is better than his highly regarded Cure, better than environmentalist and minimalist drama Charisma, and just inches ahead of Bright Future. An excellent film from a contemporary wunderkind.

Seance: 9/10