8 1/2

It is only appropriate that we honor those works which were so much a part of our formative experience with cinema. Now while this may open up reasons why either Lady and the Tramp or Home Alone should receive consideration here, there are also those foundational films that allowed for film to be viewed through a fuller, more comprehensive lens. For me, no film better exemplifies these qualities than Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ (1963). Few films are as successful in their representation of cinema imitating cinema as this one, and the audacity with which Fellini consistently employs in this work remains visionary.

In it the filmmaker Guido (the great Marcello Mastroianni) is being restricted both financially and artistically, confined to fashioning a science fiction film that now fails to keep his interest. He feels psychologically pressured by an asphyxiating circle of colleagues, denied the ability to pursue his artistic visions, and unable to craft a self-definition all his own. He turns to evasion, but that is ultimately a facile escape, leaving him in a spa and still pestered by the colleagues. Restriction, in sum, is all around him. However, in fantasy he escapes and is free—free to retreat into childhood memories and free to imagine taming a harem of women, from his wife to his mistress, to anyone generally. This desire goes into excess and, indeed, Fellini celebrates the excess, for in it we find life and genuine art.

Within all of this excess there are endless doubling of Guido and Fellini, whether it be the mistresses, the licentiousness, the tawdry offenses, even the seemingly pigheaded visions of what art can become, but through it all Fellini defends his discipline with artistry and craft, something that is more problematic for Guido. Yet Guido too earns a sense of order as he makes his cast and crew conform to his outlandish efforts, culminating in one of the most singular scenes in cinema: the parade of actors that is complete transcendence. Rarely have I been euphoric while watching a film, but this conclusion earns its euphoria every time.

So what, then, might we say this film shows me? It educates me about the context of cinema, pinpointing the struggle for artistry within an industry that tries to dissuade directors from venturing beyond continuity style and renders visible the efforts of a visionary. It also exposes me to a multiplicity of narratives working simultaneously within one mind, chronicling the true-to-life willingness to drift off into space and freedom, composing such oscillations in pure cinematic terms. Finally, though, it is a celebration of art and a argument for the positive, life-affirming qualities that the best of cinema (and all art) can offer, and on those terms I wholeheartedly welcome it every time.

8 1/2: 10/10

The Piano

Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993) is, to my eyes, one of cinema’s great beauties, filled with the rapture of beatific images and music, of spiritual and sexual yearning, and of the embodiment of the titular musical instrument for a voice. As such, Campion’s film chronicles the myriad loves that mute Ada (Holly Hunter) holds dear, entrusting her daughter, the piano, and the prospect of emotional love with her undying devotion. More literally, its high status is often entrenched as a feminist critique of the objectification of women, when women were considered the property of their husbands. Yet such a narrow reading precludes a study of how Baines (Harvey Keitel) exploits Ada for his personal interest, even though she soon reciprocates, and so such a definition must be reconsidered to include the appropriation of objectification that the characters confer upon themselves when their sexual exploits evolve into something deeper and more profound.

Yet this is not a solemn film, even though it concerns itself with muted self-expression, both figuratively and, in the film’s climax, literally. Instead, it is a joyful film, one that celebrates the awakening that may be found in even the greatest torment, and so Campion’s vision arrives at a grace that is its greatest virtue. Ada and her daughter Flora (Anna Paquin) survive through the ravages of their time, transcending any petty betrayals that each might commit upon the other, and refuse to submit to the cultural landscape that demands public and private submissiveness in a marriage.

Ultimately, this film’s claim toward greatness was conferred in my eyes at the ambiguity that lies in the climax and coda of the film, when Ada unwilling and later willingly sacrifices herself to be at one with her voice, her piano. The shots that follow are held in a capsule by my mind, as Campion took a very good film and crossed the threshold to greatness in those moments. The Piano is a magical film, and Campion’s lasting legacy to cinema thus far.

The Piano: 10/10

Ratcatcher

Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher (1999) is perhaps the biggest surprise on this list for me. It was one of the last additions, largely because I kept deliberating on what makes this film so different from other stories about preadolescent males who grow up amidst poverty, secrecy, and self-reflective guilt. Ultimately, it comes down to how Ramsay eschews conventionality to tell a more panoramic case study, allowing the narrative to unfold naturalistically, yet with flair and elegance, so that Ratcatcher becomes a document of an entire city seen through the extremely subjective viewpoint of one boy.

And immediately the film announces its narrative subversions as our expected protagonist drowns in the early minutes of the film, settling upon the guilt that James (William Eadie) finds himself plagued with, internalizing feelings of the waste and wreckage that sit alongside the Glasgow homes during the 1970’s garbage strike that the film is based in. Yet James finds security in his escapes of reverie out into the countryside, where wheat fields and empty houses show him a promise and allure that is entirely beyond impoverished family. Moreover, Ramsay fashions a facsimile of an adult relationship between James and Margaret Anne (Leanne Mullen), as the two are appropriately confused and understanding of the responsibilities that attraction and adulthood are supposed to bring. There is an understated reciprocity in a scene in which the two bathe one another, and if they nonetheless draw away from one another, it’s because neither James nor Margaret Anne have a good same-sex parental figure to emulate.

The film reveals itself to be a marvel during a sequence in which his friend Kenny ties his newly purchased mouse to a balloon and releases her from his upper-level apartment. The extended sequence that follows was a transcendent moment, full of narrative and creative aplomb. Likewise, and in a moment that reminds me of the similarly-minded tranquility that exists, albeit briefly, in Lukas Moodysson’s A Hole in My Heart, James’ trips through the countryside are the respite to his habitual oppression in his familial life. Throughout Ramsay and her composer Rachel Porter find a quiet lyricism to alleviate the bleakness, resulting in a poetic masterpiece of mood and character, with an appropriately ambiguous ending.

Ratcatcher: 10/10

Grave of the Fireflies

Looking at my animated selections in this blog (Toy Story 2 and Whisper of the Heart), it should be readily apparent that I am most attracted to anime and CG films that tell realistic rather than fantastical stories, albeit even as they utilize the strongest aspects of their exaggerated style to construct that sense of realism. It is little surprise, then, that I find myself most affected and emotionally devastated by Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies (1988), as this film showcases all the hope, the pride, the desperation, and the immorality of survival in the firebombed ruins of Kobe, Japan.

As families are torn apart, so are our protagonists, young Seita and his little sister Setsuko, stripped of their immediate family as firebombing ravages their town. As Seita shields his sister they turn to their extended family, seeking shelter with their aunt. Yet Seita is defiant in his refusal to sacrifice much of their freedom to aid his similarly displaced and hungry relatives. Rather than submit to his aunt’s harsh but fundamentally sound criticisms, Seita internalizes his pride and he and Setsuko steal off to fend for themselves.

Much of this film concerns familial responsibility and examines the repercussions when that responsibility falls beneath the indifferent eyes of society and nature, which is also caught up in simple survival. Most of this film concerns Seita’s attempts to feed his sister, to prove his capabilities at adulthood. Without revealing anything more than superficial plot, it’s little wonder that he fails to consider the longevity of such efforts. More vitally, this film is a token to the desperation that haunted any survivor, and Takahata thankfully refuses to placate his audience or his film with artificial intrigue.

Everything follows matter-of-factly, but the film still allows for small poetic moments, and their grandeur is strengthened by their limited appearance. There are few films that express the wonder of being alive as succinctly and intelligently as this one. To my eye, there are few images in all of cinema more powerful than the bookends, which simultaneously express melancholy and the most extreme devotion between siblings. Beautifully orchestrated with lilting images of the fireflires and music, these scenes expose the fragility that is behind all lived experience in wartimes and they possess a sort of raw power that is unbearably affecting.

Grave of the Fireflies: 10/10

The Thin Red Line

There is a melancholy beauty in all of Terrence Malick’s films, and in The Thin Red Line (1998), Malick simultaneously fashions his most intimate and classically universal examination on life, innocence (lost), and the pursuit of paradise. Coupled with John Toll’s breathtaking camerawork and Hans Zimmer’s singular score (Journey to the Line is moving even after wearing it out these past nine years), Malick appropriates James Jones’ novel and filters it through his transcendentalist lens, chronicling the devastation of war and the philosophical/theological desire to do honor in this world.

Situating the film around ellipses, allowing characters to rise and fall with the same ebb and flow as his pacing, Malick is able to examine multitudes of perspective, yet the film is governed through Pvt. Witt’s thoughts and memories and, indeed, the core of the film is situated in his opening voiceover about his mother: “I just hope I can meet it [death] the same way she did, with the same... calm. 'Cause that's where it's hidden - the immortality I hadn't seen.” Within all of Witt’s actions lies the attempt to dutifully face death with the same calm and grace, and the opening and closing of the film reveals the consequences of that faith, situating immortality in the typically Malickian image of nature (an idea that is returned to in the closing of The New World).

Among the many wonders of the film are the characters, and few possess the honor and grace of Captain Staros (Elias Koteas), a character who grows more profound in his care of his men with every viewing. And, of course, Lt. Col. Tall (Nick Nolte) is the doppelganger to Staros, abusing the hierarchical military structure of the war for professional recognition, yet he too expresses fear and regret, allowing Malick to posit the various shades that chronicle duty. When I refer in the opening paragraph to the classical-ness of the film, I do so noting the deliberately idealized role of women in the film. Yet within that idealization exists the “Dear John” letter which divests the film of this idealized quality, rupturing the exterior transcendence that the men bestowed upon women (though Malick never judges the men for these actions) and revealing women to be just as confused and lost at home, and Bell’s Wife thus epitomizes the women’s struggle through the indignant horror of war.

All in all, it’s the first film that revealed to me the wonder that cinema can offer, and it’s a film I regularly return to, only to be as astonished as I was during the first viewing.

The Thin Red Line: 10/10

Breaking the Waves

It is one of cinema’s great dilemmas—if a director falls into a habit of repetitious themes and characterizations yet still broaches those topics with ingenuity and insight, should he then be regarded as a one-trick pony? Since his 1996 breakthrough, Lars von Trier has seemed almost calculated in his chronicling of female subjugation and martyrdom for a man/Man, but even so, with his first foray into these topics in Breaking the Waves (1996), von Trier constructed one of the most exacting studies of unwavering faith amidst social prejudices and hierarchies.

Utilizing a narrative that questions the fundamental idea of religious truth, of the Word of God being channeled through the devout yet dim Bess McNeill (Emily Watson), von Trier explores the murky area between extraordinary devotion and absurdity of faith. Certainly here he remains critical of the institutionalization of faith by church elders, who prioritize tradition far more than they prioritize true love for their neighbors. Yet sexual love, voracious though it may be, is combined with something akin to a native spirituality when Bess finds a husband (Stellan Skarsgard). However, when Bess’ husband suffers a paralyzing injury and asks her to commit sexual acts with others and then report those stories back to him, as these words will aid his recovery, or so he believes, there is the foreboding sense that Bess is falling into a trajectory of degradation without principle or purpose.

Still, von Trier is humble in his treatment of faith, even if he isn’t humble in the face of the institutionalization of it. It’s a fine line between mockery and humiliation, but von Trier positions Bess as less an idiot than an idiot savant, devoted to granting her husband the same faith that she grants to God as she regularly visits the church. Here, in an auspicious debut, Emily Watson shines as a film actor, and Skarsgard and Katrin Cartlidge provide quality supporting work, yet von Trier does the best work, balancing secular and religious devotion for a final image that is humbly poignant and heartrendingly transcendent.

Breaking the Waves: 10/10

The Red Shoes

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s collaboration with The Red Shoes (1948) is easily one of the most captivating experiences in cinema to me, serving as an exemplary account of formal mastery and ingenuity, yet the film is tied to a philosophical core that intrigues given what it advocates. Especially coming on the heels of World War II, this tale that affirms, though tragically, the beauty of sacrificing oneself for one’s art is challenging, since Powell would later note: “For ten years we had all been told to go out and die for freedom and democracy; but now the war was over, The Red Shoes told us to go out and die for art.” Yet this notion is itself problematized over the course of the film.

Simultaneously a more romantic and radical idea than dying for either freedom or democracy, this film considers the investment that goes hand in hand with a conscious desire to climb to the highest ranks of art. Yet this desire threatens to become hyperconscious, that is to say, understood as a desire that will consume life itself, and so it must be tempered lest one become a shell of a man. Thus, against these ideals lies the polarity of love, which could afflict and remove the single-mindedness of one’s art, yet could also ground one with a stabilizing force. The question, which Powell and Pressburger wisely leave open, is whether or not one is better suited to sacrificing all for the sake of their art, given that Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) has artistic success but no real personal life beyond his dedication to ballet, while Julian Craster (Marius Goring) has a love in Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) yet denies her the license to practice her ballet, adhering to a (unwitting) model of patriarchal oppression.

Fascinatingly, Lermontov would also clearly like to possess Page in some manner, but until the end this desire is unfulfilled. Yet his perspective embodies the third act, even if he’s relatively absent from the narrative itself. What is stake if one surrenders their single-mindedness to the arts but a surrendering of the transcendent heights into the pits of respectability if not absolute mediocrity. This fear haunts our heroine Victoria Page, and the film is attuned to her rise to fame, so that her ascendance into her imagination takes place solely on the stage, allowing Powell and Pressburger the opportunity to deliver a sequence that is full of haunting virtuosity and expressive metaphors. So we must arrive at the fundamental question—is Miss Page’s life, if denied her artistic expression, worth the same amount as it was formerly worth?

Beyond existing as an immaculately crafted melodrama, The Red Shoes also serves as a case study of the patriarchal oppression which comes at her doubly and from both sides, allowing us to sympathize with whole generations of (female) performers who have acquiesced to their dreams for the sake of a man. Yet what awaits those who do not conform but celebrate their art, in an ode to Hans Christian Anderson’s own tale, is not much better. Yet there is a sense of the sublime in the final dance sequence, where one’s absence underscores how important the presence truly is, and it is that sequence that allows this film to reach the rhapsodic heights as it concludes.

The Red Shoes: 10/10

The Goonies

Ah, childhood. Being a product of 1982, I came of age at the tail end of Hollywood’s 80’s appeal to suburbia and our inner Pan. Still, I somehow escaped my childhood without seeing The Goonies (1985), as my cinematic ventures instead aligned with hundreds of viewings of The Lady and the Tramp, Home Alone, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. What does this mean? Well, beyond the obvious bliss that all three films yielded to me, this fact means that there’s an absence of nostalgia behind my viewing of Richard Donner’s film today. Whether this damages my take, you’ll just have to read on…

Given that it’s a product of 1980s Hollywood, one shouldn’t be surprised that The Goonies contains such odd tonal shifts, yet the tonality here suggest a direction that is still searching for continuity. That is to say, there’s a crudity in how it contrasts the sensibilities of suburbia and the adventure/caper aspects. Yet this isn’t designed to be kitsch, so there’s obviously a layer of unintentionality as Donner works the plot mechanisms to get to the discovery of a treasure map for Mikey Walsh (Sean Astin) and his friends, who seek the treasure to salvage their homes from certain takeover by a property magnate (boo on capitalism, yo).

Yet, beyond Mikey these friends never express any innocence of youth, either, as the tone frequently highlights the maliciousness that is prevalent in the town, but especially in our main characters. We are entrusted to laugh when Mouth, who knows Spanish, preys upon the new (obligatory Spanish-speaking) maid that the Walsh family has brought in. We are entrusted to laugh when Chunk is ridiculed by his friends for his continual need to eat (as well as his absurd penchant for pratfalls to introduce the very plot mechanism of the map). Elsewhere, we are entrusted to accept it when Mikey’s elder brother is thrown off a cliff on a bicycle by a cocksure jock, rather than the girls in the car reporting him for attempted assault if not murder. Nay, you say, this is a children’s film and concern ye not with logic. But between the insistence on objectifying all the women and especially the minorities, see Walter Chaw’s review for a vitriolic attack, and the film never managing a consistent tone, there’s little to enjoy from a pragmatic sense.

Now, this can be saved if the main performances are quality, but only Astin and James Brolin as the brother redeem themselves, though Martha Plimpton (?) also delivers a nice performance as the awkward girl tagging along with the boys. Otherwise, though, we’re doomed to performances that are firmly modulated in the range of shrill, suggesting that these actors lack internal expression and express all emotion through bombastic shouting.

Granted, such limitations can yield to a fantastic drinking game, I’m sure, where one takes a shot every time a kid shouts his line, but I fear for the hospitals that would be plagued with terminally ill patients as a result of such a practice. However, the sequence once they find the treasure is exciting. And Plimpton has some good handling of her material, such as her nice delivery here: “Brand, God put that rock there for a reason... and... and I don't think we should move it.” As a director, Donner also gets a nice moment when he references his earlier film Superman. Yet every moment like that is counteracted by Mouth in a performance that epitomizes one’s asking, “Where’s the gun? Someone fire the gun.” Ultimately, it’s an excellent case for a guilty pleasure as it works better as moments than as the sum of its parts, though I still hesitant to feel The Goonies succeeds beyond any nominal level.

The Goonies: 3/10