39th Five Films, 2007
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Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls) at BAM. A beautifully constructed film about a masochistic, obsessive girl who works hard to get herself knocked up, knowing that she'll be abandoned immediately afterward. She then gets her son sick with typhus by putting him on the train back to boarding school early just so she can attempt to reunite with the cad who doesn't even remember her, after which she herself dies of typhus. I'm sure someone cried somewhere, but I was mostly thinking what a great entry this would be for the Darwin awards.
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Margot at the Wedding (Noah Baumbach) at BAM. I thought Nicole Kidman's character was hilarious, except for the end when it becomes apparent that her kid is not smart enough to escape black hole-esque emotional pull. Also, even for her, it seemed pretty wacko to just leave your purse in a bus parking lot. Jack Black's pretty awesome throughout, particularly when he's trying to remember the name of Motley Crue's original bassist ("Mick Mars!").
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Day Night Day Night (Julia Loktev) at home on DVD. It was impossible to ignore that fact that, in addition to the unnamed main character, there was also a camera operator in front of or beside her at all times while she strolled around Times Square. Mainly she looked like someone who really needed a hug. The moment when she emerges from the Port Authority Bus Terminal onto Eighth Avenue almost perfectly captures the insanity of Manhattan. I don't how I'd feel about the last part of the movie if I'd never lived here or visited but in its way this section of the movie is much like Frownland in its evocation of an awkward, misanthropic character wandering in existential loneliness amidst the seething crowds of the city.
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Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-wai) at MoMA. Both of these prints were pretty well scored and striated with faded colors, but then that's how the DVD of Fallen Angels was when I watched it last year. Kind of funny since 2046 makes fabulous use of rich, deep colors; in fact the greens of the hotel and the reds of the robot romance scenes are what come to mind even before writhing bodies tangled up in bedsheets. I'll be really excited if and when these earlier films get re-released with new prints. Oh, and My Blueberry Nights (starring Norah Jones, Jude Law, Cat Power, et al.) will finally be released on February 18.
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Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai) at MoMA. What odd symbolism, a frozen phallus at the bottom of the country (lighthouse) and a steaming, frothing orifice at the top (Iguazú Falls). I'd already been thinking about this throughout the film, but the scene in Taipei at the end really drives home the fact that Wong Kar-wai's characters are almost exclusively drifters, mostly within an urban landscape, although they escape the city for a scene or two here as well as in Ashes of Time. They all wind up, at one point or another, convincing themselves that they're fully independent, most often between chaotic relationships.
In J. Hoberman's review of Day Night Day Night, he points out the role that food plays in that film, from the noodles at the beginning, to the pizza in the middle and the pretzels and candied apple at the end. This struck me as kind of funny since every Wong film features several scenes centered around eating and drinking, and comparatively Loktev's film doesn't stand out at all. Indeed, food is one of the central concerns for these down-on-their-luck gay Hongkongese exiled in Argentina, as Tony Leung's character takes work in a kitchen at a restaurant and an abattoir. Perhaps the most memorable squabble the men have in their tiny room is when Po wakes up the feverish and extremely annoyed Lai to tell him that he needs to cook some food, since Po is helpless.
I can't yet tell whether food is specially privileged in east Asian cinema (China, Hong Kong, Korea), or if Americans, lacking a traditional cuisine or real connection to their food, just don't bother. Even scenes at meals tend to completely gloss over what's being served and the physical act of consuming food. Meet Me in St. Louis opens with ketchup being bottled in the family's large kitchen, everyone giving their advice, but it's used as an obvious narrative device. Of course, the gourmandizing French are a step or two above us as far as food on film goes, but I still think there's quite a big difference between their films and stuff by Johnnie To, Bong Joon-ho, Park Chan-wook, Zhang Yimou, Wong, etc.
Take, for example, two of my favorite scenes from the past several years, both of which take place at dining tables. In Ernst Lubitsch's You Can't Take It With You, the cattle baron and his wife are seated at separate ends of the table at breakfast, silently hating each other, until finally a catastrophic argument erupts over the Katzenjammer Kids strip in the Sunday paper. We do not remember what they may have been eating. On the other hand, you have the meal scene early in Exiled where much time is spent watching the characters prepare, obsess over, and savor the food, even though the whole thing is really a set-up for a visual joke.
If anyone ever convinces me that I ought to go to film school, I'm pretty sure this would be my delicious thesis topic.
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Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls) at BAM. A beautifully constructed film about a masochistic, obsessive girl who works hard to get herself knocked up, knowing that she'll be abandoned immediately afterward. She then gets her son sick with typhus by putting him on the train back to boarding school early just so she can attempt to reunite with the cad who doesn't even remember her, after which she herself dies of typhus. I'm sure someone cried somewhere, but I was mostly thinking what a great entry this would be for the Darwin awards.
+ +
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Margot at the Wedding (Noah Baumbach) at BAM. I thought Nicole Kidman's character was hilarious, except for the end when it becomes apparent that her kid is not smart enough to escape black hole-esque emotional pull. Also, even for her, it seemed pretty wacko to just leave your purse in a bus parking lot. Jack Black's pretty awesome throughout, particularly when he's trying to remember the name of Motley Crue's original bassist ("Mick Mars!").
+ +
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Day Night Day Night (Julia Loktev) at home on DVD. It was impossible to ignore that fact that, in addition to the unnamed main character, there was also a camera operator in front of or beside her at all times while she strolled around Times Square. Mainly she looked like someone who really needed a hug. The moment when she emerges from the Port Authority Bus Terminal onto Eighth Avenue almost perfectly captures the insanity of Manhattan. I don't how I'd feel about the last part of the movie if I'd never lived here or visited but in its way this section of the movie is much like Frownland in its evocation of an awkward, misanthropic character wandering in existential loneliness amidst the seething crowds of the city.
+ + +
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Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-wai) at MoMA. Both of these prints were pretty well scored and striated with faded colors, but then that's how the DVD of Fallen Angels was when I watched it last year. Kind of funny since 2046 makes fabulous use of rich, deep colors; in fact the greens of the hotel and the reds of the robot romance scenes are what come to mind even before writhing bodies tangled up in bedsheets. I'll be really excited if and when these earlier films get re-released with new prints. Oh, and My Blueberry Nights (starring Norah Jones, Jude Law, Cat Power, et al.) will finally be released on February 18.
+ + +
+ + +
Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai) at MoMA. What odd symbolism, a frozen phallus at the bottom of the country (lighthouse) and a steaming, frothing orifice at the top (Iguazú Falls). I'd already been thinking about this throughout the film, but the scene in Taipei at the end really drives home the fact that Wong Kar-wai's characters are almost exclusively drifters, mostly within an urban landscape, although they escape the city for a scene or two here as well as in Ashes of Time. They all wind up, at one point or another, convincing themselves that they're fully independent, most often between chaotic relationships.
In J. Hoberman's review of Day Night Day Night, he points out the role that food plays in that film, from the noodles at the beginning, to the pizza in the middle and the pretzels and candied apple at the end. This struck me as kind of funny since every Wong film features several scenes centered around eating and drinking, and comparatively Loktev's film doesn't stand out at all. Indeed, food is one of the central concerns for these down-on-their-luck gay Hongkongese exiled in Argentina, as Tony Leung's character takes work in a kitchen at a restaurant and an abattoir. Perhaps the most memorable squabble the men have in their tiny room is when Po wakes up the feverish and extremely annoyed Lai to tell him that he needs to cook some food, since Po is helpless.
I can't yet tell whether food is specially privileged in east Asian cinema (China, Hong Kong, Korea), or if Americans, lacking a traditional cuisine or real connection to their food, just don't bother. Even scenes at meals tend to completely gloss over what's being served and the physical act of consuming food. Meet Me in St. Louis opens with ketchup being bottled in the family's large kitchen, everyone giving their advice, but it's used as an obvious narrative device. Of course, the gourmandizing French are a step or two above us as far as food on film goes, but I still think there's quite a big difference between their films and stuff by Johnnie To, Bong Joon-ho, Park Chan-wook, Zhang Yimou, Wong, etc.
Take, for example, two of my favorite scenes from the past several years, both of which take place at dining tables. In Ernst Lubitsch's You Can't Take It With You, the cattle baron and his wife are seated at separate ends of the table at breakfast, silently hating each other, until finally a catastrophic argument erupts over the Katzenjammer Kids strip in the Sunday paper. We do not remember what they may have been eating. On the other hand, you have the meal scene early in Exiled where much time is spent watching the characters prepare, obsess over, and savor the food, even though the whole thing is really a set-up for a visual joke.
If anyone ever convinces me that I ought to go to film school, I'm pretty sure this would be my delicious thesis topic.
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Posted on Monday, December 03, 2007
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