Film Roundup #3

Match Point **
Woody Allen, 2005

Some great scenes of suspense with kind of a herky-jerky end. I thought the timeworn opera records on the soundtrack did a great job of, besides providing beautiful music, enhancing the viewer's sense that this story was occurring out of time and out of space. Yes, it takes place in London, but not in any necessary way, except perhaps the slight class conflict between Chris (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and the Hewett family. In that sense it's a little theatrical: although it's never overtly "stagy," in retrospect the action largely takes place on private property, if not always indoors. Then again, movies and television almost always do this. Caruso helps cast the cinematic spell on us, so that when the apparitions appear toward the end, it doesn't seem out of place. Simon Reynolds, among others, has been commenting recently on "hauntology" (here's a very detailed lineage), the way certain music (and television) seems to cast a spell around the listener, enveloping one inside the work for its duration. Kind of like "engrossing," but then again not really. Anyway, it seems to me that here Woody Allen is very much trying to haunt the viewer, although ultimately it's difficult to say why. Probably because Match Point is a fable of sorts, a meditation on luck and the possibility of justice in what seems to be a morally arbitrary universe. The viewer is asked very straightforwardly to consider this throughout the film from the opening shot which made me think it was going to be a lot more about tennis (see Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train) than it really was.

Eyes Wide Shut *
Stanley Kubrick, 1999

I liked Jonathan Rosenbaum's comment on the visual power of the orgy scene, which I did find quite striking, likening it to something out of silent film. Overall I'm not sure what I thought, but it's true for me as for others that a number of Kubrick's have required multiple viewings for the full effect, so I'll probably see this a couple more times.

If you're interested, Rosenbaum and J. Hoberman offer conflicting but equally convincing arguments in their respective reviews.

Stella Dallas *
King Vidor, 1937

Not so much a fan of Barbara Stanwyck as the whiny single mother, but her relationship with her daughter provides some really great scenes, including one of the most enduring moments in Hollywood history, that of Stanwyck outside in the rain, smiling through her tears as she's shooed away from her daughter's wedding.

Mad Max
George Miller, 1979

Unable to really hear the dialogue, partly due to volume and partly due to sometimes thick Australian accents. It seemed as if the film ended early--Mel Gibson hadn't exacted vengeance on all of his foes. I might watch this again just because I felt like I might be missing something due to the large gap between my enjoyment of it and the general approval it seems to receive elsewhere.

The New World **
Terence Malick, 2005

Dreamlike, serene, beautiful. The floating narrative rarely touches down at any one point for long before jumping ahead again a few days or a few years. Why is Pocahontas never named as such, called nothing in the first half of the film, and christened "Rebecca" by her English caretaker in the second half? Rarely have I seen a film that expects such familiarity with the story on the part of the viewer. This might have seemed difficult for someone completely ignorant of history.