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“What can one do here? You can see for yourself that this city isn’t real.”
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1963 – Turkey
Director
Alain Robbe-Grillet
Starring
Françoise Brion, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze
IMDb
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Very much in the style of Marienbad, this meanders through the streets of Istanbul, filled with music and the sound of dogs barking (both taking on increasingly sinister significance), as an unnamed Man follows a woman calling herself Lale, first at her side, then chasing after her elusive shadow, having apparently disappeared. The same geometric exactness and philosophical coldness is here, advancing a kind of mystery to similar effect as in Marienbad; memories replay and reform as the viewer more or less assembles the clues with our Man, thrown off as he is by distorted angles and constantly reconfiguring groups. Perplexing, haunting, and exciting.
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“Where is that country? Have you ever been there?”
-Ellen Olenska
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1934 – US
Director
Philip Moeller
Starring
Irene Dunne, John Boles, Laura Hope Crews
IMDb
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One of my favorite actors as one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite novels — this will have to be enough, for though dear Dunnie remains one of the few classic stars who clearly put much effort into characterization all that surrounds her is lifeless, dreary. An uninspired and heavily truncated adaptation of one of the most passionate and scathing novels ever written. Way to go Hollywood.
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“I’m not a person; I’m a fucking construction. Was. Yours.”
-Sonia
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1977 – France/Switzerland
Director
Alain Resnais
Starring
Dirk Bogarde, Ellen Burstyn, John Gielgud, David Warner, Elaine Stritch
IMDb
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I won’t be able to begin to do this film justice. It is one of Resnais’ two or three best.
It is the manifestation of a novelist’s last work, who has been accused of being all style and no feeling, rendered visually by a filmmaker who has been accused of the same. A last work informed by dementia and physical pain and impending death, overwhelming guilt, and the distortion of a life’s memories, loves, and unresolved filaments. The theatricality and demented, doom-filled atmosphere are of a piece with the mind creating them, straining out a fictionalized version of his family’s lives while hovering over toilet seats, crashing to the floor in agony, and colliding with images of mortality. In his mind, the images of his two sons, his wife, and his daughter-in-law shift and reform malevolently. Every bodily need and emotional impulse is confused one for the other. And in the end — oh, the resolution — this film is impossibly perfect.
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“Years from now when you talk about this, and you will… be kind.”
-Laura
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1956 – US
Director
Vincente Minnelli
Starring
Deborah Kerr, John Kerr, Leif Erickson
IMDb
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This is sort of cheap and lurid. So I liked it. Deborah Kerr is a lonely and sensitive housemaster’s wife at a boy’s prep school. John Kerr (the film is depraved enough on its own merits — they are not related) is one such boy on the cusp of manhood, tormented for being ‘different,’ called ‘Sister Boy’ &c. Essentially this is two hours wrangling a half-believable way for the two to have inappropriate sex. Kerr1 fulfills some psychologically problematic desire to play mother and lover to an awkward young man like her first husband while Kerr2 proves he is a real man — somehow — I guess. This is not a thorough or insightful examination of gender roles. But it is delightfully overwrought melodrama masquerading as such, and it sure doesn’t cop out on its creepy agenda, so everyone gets the release they signed up for. Yes. It’s awesome.
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“What an overdose!”
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[Laberinto de pasiones]
1982 – Spain
Director
Pedro Almodovar
Starring
Cecilia Roth, Imanol Arias, Cristina Sánchez Pascual, Antonio Banderas
IMDb
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In an anticlimactic, months-later coda, I have now finished Almodovar’s filmography. This is one only a die-hard fan could love, perhaps, widening the circle just large enough to include fans of high camp and drag queen fodder. It’s as crazy and randomly composed as his other early films, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Dark Habits, and if I like those much more it may either be attributed to being absorbed in his work at the time or the casting of my favorite Almodovar girls, although I do remember finding them uproariously funny. His sense of humor is in this one, and certainly it’s funny, but not as consistently as the others. What it is absolutely good for is a look at post-Franco Madrid and all the new freedom and wildness in life and in the arts permitted not only underground but crawling the streets and careening through airports. And Pedro’s own pop “music” with Fabio MacNamara is not to be missed!
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“A great impression of simplicity can only be achieved by great agony of body and spirit.”
-Boris Lermontov
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1948 – UK
Director
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Starring
Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann, Léonide Massine, Ludmilla Tchérina
IMDb
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The above quotation goes for the film as well as the ballet contained within it Lermontov speaks of. It gives the impression of being a simple and straightforward melodrama, but unfolds in complex and sophisticated metanarratives. It seems to revolve around a simple and stock love triangle of obsessed artist types, but is actually quite psychologically dense. And it is something exquisite, ethereal, exhilarating to behold — achieved through agony, and ending in agony.
Mango says I am not a P&P girl. I would say, perhaps, I am not instinctively a P&P girl. Certainly there is much here worth cultivating a taste for. What stands between us is perhaps that layer of artifice, that sense heightened reality raised to a level of staggering and unrelenting beauty, that I admire and gawk at but cannot connect to. I must connect if I am to love. There is much in studio trickery and glorious Technicolor that impresses me and little that personally moves me. That’s certain. The other barrier is the characters, and I would say this of both those in Black Narcissus and here in Red Shoes (although now I’m starting to get the hang of it): yes, they appear simple, but much is simmering under the surface. These are people who make it difficult to relate to, inhabit, and identify with as I do in my usual viewing mode.
But I feel I am acquiring that taste and Red Shoes is a good one to advance my appreciation — it begins to solve my “problems” with P&P. For one thing, I have a soft spot for dance movies. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe how stunning the 20-minute ballet sequence is, but suffice it to say my heart was racing and my mind boggling to keep pace with this feast for the eyes. Now that heightened reality is easily met on the terms of an actual artistic production, and there’s no disputing the mastery in the conception and staging as the piece transforms from something for the stage to something that is pure cinema, and at that something deeply rooted in Vicky’s psychological state. It is staggering.
And then, this triumverate of Vicky the aspiring and innocent dancer, Lermontov the single-minded and autocratic impresario, and Julian the young and egotistical composer — all are locked in this compelling power dynamic, fueled by similar ambitions and each holding their particular art and outlook higher than the others’. Anton Walbrook was a revelation to me as Boris Lermontov, alternately chilling and charming in a pitch-perfect performance as a man who has devoted his life to the ballet and expects nothing less of those he deigns to guide toward greatness. His relationship with Vicky is fascinating; surely he wants to possess her, is jealous of anything that distracts her from their mutual purpose, but his lover is ballet — if there is real desire for her, it is entirely sublimated under his precept that a great dancer can never “rely upon the doubtful comforts of human love.” His obsession drives the film to its necessary tragic close. But for all his possessiveness, he had something to give to and share with Vicky; Julian, her tender lover, would sooner lock her dancing shoes in a drawer and get on with the real art of music.
So I would not say I am categorically not a P&P girl. It is only that my cinematic history has led me down other paths, and it would require some immersion to grow to tolerate or love everything that seems counter to my sensibilities — after all many things I love now took some work acquiring the taste. I had demurred to Mango that, that said, it still didn’t feel like the right path on my ‘cinematic journey’ to go through that immersion now, although I’m so struck by (and perhaps smitten with) this Anton Walbrook that he may guide me through a few more P&Ps before I do let go of this thread. In any case, this is an exceptional film, ravishing, top 100 material, and sure to grow in my estimation. Oh how I long to see it on the big screen!
Quotations
Lermontov Not even the best magician in the world can produce a rabbit out of a hat if there is not already a rabbit in the hat.
Lermontov Don’t forget, a great impression of simplicity can only be achieved by great agony of body and spirit.
Ljubov You can’t alter human nature.
Lermontov No? I think you can do even better then that. You can ignore it.
Lermontov A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love can never be a great dancer. Never.
Reign Over Me 2007, MIKE BINDER So superficial, convenient, lazily manipulative.
However, rewatching A Guy Named Joe last night, I realize I don’t mind being manipulated in the least. Movies are, in part, meant to manipulate, to persuade, to convince. And I love the emotional ride. The difference is in a film’s ability to pull the manipulation off without tipping its hand, without showing the gears turning, without breaking the spell for a moment. The difference is also in my willingness. “If you feel something, it’s true,” so says my darling and best manipulator, John Cassavetes. Something like Reign Over Me is so transparent, so mechanical. But I’ll follow something like A Guy Named Joe anywhere it wants to take me — realizing certainly there are many who will roll their eyes with one look at the set design and one instance of snappy dialogue and for them the spell will be broken and permanently.
Also re: A Guy Named Joe. It can only be attributed to her unimpeachable moral conduct in “real life” that Irene Dunne ever gained a reputation for being wholesome and ladylike. Onscreen, she infuses every vaguely flirtatious line with a stark and playful sexuality, and plainly she revels in it. There’s this exchange — this, after she tries gigglingly to nibble at Spence’s ear! :
Dorinda You’re jealous!
Pete No, I just don’t want you to give the guy the wrong impression.
Dorinda Pete, did I ever give you the wrong impression?
Pete Why?
Dorinda Well, don’t watch me blush, but… I tried to once or twice.
after which she flashes him this devilish smile and emits a positively racy growl. Here is your so-called First Lady of Hollywood. Well, it’s so funny that Irene and Spence didn’t get along at all on set, supposedly because he couldn’t abide the straightlaced goody two-shoes. Boy, to watch them in one another’s arms, they crackle and spark to the point of obscenity. Their friend Al must be their permanent chaperone just to keep this on the Hays Office’s good side; otherwise there’d just be an instant fade to black if they ever found themselves properly alone in a room together. Is there ever chemistry between those two, nevermind if it sprung from a deep and mutual disdain. In effect, it doesn’t get any sexier than that.
More:
“Pete, you realize something? We’ve never been up in a plane alone together.” The mind reels.
“Dorinda, Dorinda — you’re dancing too close, you know that?”  Too close for what!?
 All right. I’ve made my case. It’s on TCM tomorrow so bet me bucko this isn’t the sexiest film you ever saw! (I really don’t mind being out alone on this limb, though. It’s nice over here.  )
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1934 – US
Director
John Cromwell
Starring
Irene Dunne, Ralph Bellamy
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This lightweight comedy retains most of its stage roots, hampered by a slight script and story. Dunne, Bellamy and supporting cast really make the most of the material, though. It’s a strange thing about Dunne’s early career, up to about 1936, say, where things really took off for her and she blossomed into a superlative actor with undeniable presence. I have always found her work pre-Show Boat to be a bit cool, somewhat reticent; many of her signature traits are there, but muddled, incipient. What’s interesting about Madame Blanche last night and This Man is Mine now — and I’d include Back Street, too — is that there seem to be specific early films in which she absolutely glowed, radiated her delightful Dunniness, and it sort of throws me for a loop. I wonder what a difference a good director made for her then, before she had come into her own. Anyway, in these two most recent viewings she was enormously expressive and affecting — imagine being affected by a third-rate soaper like Madame Blanche, but she makes it work — and enormously sexy. Talk about shocking: she has a cabaret number in Madame Blanche that makes that Show Boat shuffle look tame. Anyway, yeah, TMIM is nothing particularly special, and thematically I take a lot of umbrage (as a wife, she takes far too much from her straying husband, and then after a short — but delicious — vengeful streak takes him back like nothing… of course, these things happen), but yeah, a nice frothy watch.
1941 – US
Director
Alexander Hall
Starring
Robert Montgomery, Claude Rains, Edward Everett Horton
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Intended as a mere palate cleanser for the afflicted Montgomery fan, and found more than that: a great, great movie. Off-the-wall supernatural premise is realized with so much humor and originality. Robert’s best performance by far. A breeze and a blast to watch; the ending’s no cop-out, coming around to sort of the right conclusion buuut… it left me in chills. Metaphysically fascinating; I wish we’d watched this in philosophy 101 instead of The Matrix.
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1947 – US
Director
Robert Montgomery
Starring
Robert Montgomery
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Probably a complete failure, but an interesting one. Montgomery’s debut as a director is an ambitious Philip Marlowe noir filmed entirely in first person. In a lot of ways the gimmick is incredibly impressive, what they accomplished with bulky mid-forties equipment. It looks kinda slick, considering. But as a film it does not work at all. None of the actors interact effectively with a camera as a scene partner (kissing a camera even!). It’s just lame every time Marlowe steps in front of a mirror so we can see him — also, Montgomery’s not suited to playing the character, giving us a bad Bogie impersonation. So yeah, as a film it’s a noble failure, but an utter failure. Definitely unusual, interesting.
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 Lauren, 27, librarian, & like you, obsessed with film. My tendency is to immerse myself in long & obsessive projects to the exclusion of all else, but you'll typically find a lot of classic Hollywood, 60s/70s world cinema, & contemporary awards bait on these pages.
Review archive — Favorite films — Viewing log
» The Godfather 1972, Francis Ford Coppola
» Avatar 2009, James Cameron
» Days of Heaven 1978, Terrence Malick
» The Young Victoria 2009, Jean-Marc Vallée
» Broken Embraces 2009, Pedro Almodóvar
» Nine 2009, Rob Marshall
» There’s Always Tomorrow 1956, Douglas Sirk
» Thunderbolt 1929, Josef Von Sternberg
» The Love of Sumako the Actress 1947, Kenji Mizoguchi
» Alibi 1929, Roland West
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» Sin in Soft Focus
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