Author Topic: Retro Filmspots Review Thread: 1999 Edition  (Read 101336 times)

MartinTeller

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Re: Retro Filmspots Review Thread: 1999 Edition
« Reply #40 on: May 30, 2013, 10:24:47 PM »

Goya in Bordeaux - The painter Francisco Goya (Francisco Rabal as the older, José Coronado as the younger) fled the oppressive regime in Spain to spend his final years in Bordeaux.  As his health fails, his mind drifts into reverie.  He tells his daughter Rosario (Dafne Fernandez) of his past, especially his love for his muse, the Duchess of Alba (Maribel Verdú).

Saura is clearly not interested in your standard artist biopic.  There's little in the way of biographical information.  Instead he weaves through present and past, fantasy and reality in a manner that recalls Raoul Ruiz.  Scenes are often arranged in tableaux vivants that recreate Goya's work.  As he did in Blood Wedding, Saura uses obviously false soundstages to give the drama a more theatrical vibe.  As Goya passes through the corridors of his Bordeaux home into his past, the walls become translucent to show his movements.  It's an absolutely gorgeous film with Saura's frequent collaborator, the master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro.  Deep primary colors brings Goya's art and fantasies to vibrant life, intriguing effects transform a cow's carcass into Rabal's tormented face.

One does wish for more specificity, however.  Goya's torment is too vague, and in some ways the film could almost be about any artist.  It seems to be a film designed for viewers already familiar with Goya's life and work.  Without enough context, it really doesn't say anything new or enlightening about the artistic drive in general or Goya's artistry in particular.  The individual fragments are often wonderful, but don't add up to enough of substance.  The style, unusual structure, stunning imagery and wandering mood make it worthwhile enough, but it's not one of Saura's more successful films.  Rating: Good (71)

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Re: Retro Filmspots Review Thread: 1999 Edition
« Reply #41 on: May 30, 2013, 10:30:21 PM »
Scenes are often arranged in tableaux vivants that recreate Goya's work.  As he did in Blood Wedding, Saura uses obviously false soundstages to give the drama a more theatrical vibe.  As Goya passes through the corridors of his Bordeaux home into his past, the walls become translucent to show his movements. 

This sounds like a similar technique to what Peter Greenaway does in The Baby of Macon. I wonder if Sacha Vierny and Storaro ever took notes from each other.

Verite

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Re: Retro Filmspots Review Thread: 1999 Edition
« Reply #42 on: May 30, 2013, 10:40:03 PM »
I've tried and failed to watch Wisconsin Death Trip so many times. Maybe it'll finally happen for the Retrospots. Something about the opening moments really turns me off, though.

Was the whispered voiceover by the doctor one of the main deterrents?  That's a creative decision I didn't like.  Pretty irritating. 
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Re: Retro Filmspots Review Thread: 1999 Edition
« Reply #43 on: May 30, 2013, 10:55:59 PM »


Ravenous

I bought the DVD to Ravenous because I figured in time it wouldn't be an easy movie to find. It stays pretty far off the radar due to bad reviews and poor box office. Every time I talk about it, I'm very hesitant to heap too much praise. Yet, every time I watch it I enjoy it all over again. It was #63 on my list of 159 films from 1999. This rewatch bumped it up to #51, which is still not at the level of greatness but certainly higher than its reputation might suggest.

Ravenous is intelligent, it's classy and it's unapologetically bloody. Highly entertaining in a deliciously nasty way. Sometimes the film is a bit confused about its tone. Unsure whether to play things for scares or laughs, but there are many tense sequences of slowly-building suspense leading to tense confrontations. The film also looks and sounds great. All the colors are super saturated, those colors primarily being red (blood), white (snow) and brown (wilderness). I don't recommend this one for mealtime viewing, but Ravenous is a buried treasure if you enjoy an evil good time.
RATING: * * *

Possible Retro Filmspot Nominations:

Art Direction
Cinematography
Ensemble
Score

Junior

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Re: Retro Filmspots Review Thread: 1999 Edition
« Reply #44 on: May 30, 2013, 11:03:06 PM »
Word. I, too, noticed the color palate being basically trichromatic. I think the opening third is the best part but it's all, as you say, a deliciously evil time.
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Re: Retro Filmspots Review Thread: 1999 Edition
« Reply #45 on: May 31, 2013, 01:46:52 AM »


Wisconsin Death Trip

I don't get it. The film is at best a mood piece. A beautiful montage of death served up one after the other. Mostly it's the strange tales of cuckold husbands and desperate housewives who simply can't take it anymore and snap. Sometimes it points to a deeper psychosis, such as compulsive window smasher Mary Sweeney. (Boy did I get my fill of her and repeated shots of her smashing glass.)

The film is divided into sections representing the seasons. There's little other connection other than the sense of time passing, a year in the death of the town. Each ends in a present day sequence of Americana that suggest the same oppressive conditions still exist. (James Marsh mixes things up in the ironic finale.)

Somewhere around the middle I began aching for a larger theme. Some kind of thread or a new slant on the montage of murder. A sameness sets in and even for a 75 minute movie, this thing becomes a drag. Marsh decides to keep most stories to a minimum, like you would find in an obituary column or the summary page of a police report. So the film just keeps hitting the same beautiful wall over and over.

Some of the imagery is striking and imaginative. I love a shot of a boy murderer. He's captured by a posse on horseback and the camera holds on his blank expression while the horses circle around him, crossing the camera. There are shots like these, and then there are the shots that look like a perfume ad or jeans commercial. The couple frolicking in the water should have had "Wicked Ways" playing underneath. Sorry Verite, but I found Wisconsin Death Trip to be an unengaging scrapbook of murder that cried out for some insight.
RATING: * *

Verite

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Re: Retro Filmspots Review Thread: 1999 Edition
« Reply #46 on: May 31, 2013, 04:48:24 AM »
The film is divided into sections representing the seasons.

It's also grouped by life stages.  Winter: babies/children;  spring: older children; summer: teens/young adults; fall: middle age; winter: old age.  The groupings are not strictly adhered to, though.

Quote
Marsh decides to keep most stories to a minimum, like you would find in an obituary column or the summary page of a police report. So the film just keeps hitting the same beautiful wall over and over.

I haven't read the source book by Michael Lesy, but it seems like it's photographs and excerpts/reproductions from newspaper reports, police & asylum records.  About that, Marsh said, "I wanted to convey in the film the real pathos contained in a four line newspaper report that simultaneously records and dismisses the end of someone’s life."

That approach wasn't problematic for me.  At times, I did find the film tiresome.  Maybe during the next time I watch it, I'll try to look out for other things Marsh had in mind for his editing/sequencing-- Marsh: "The main challenge in writing the script was to respect the chaos and randomness of the newspaper stories whilst creating themes and underlying filmic rhythms that could hold it all together."
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Re: Retro Filmspots Review Thread: 1999 Edition
« Reply #47 on: May 31, 2013, 12:45:27 PM »
I read that quote by Marsh. I think he's too respectful to capture the dismissal. I wondered if he was going for it with the brief description or the sometimes tongue-in-cheek tone. I don't know, I just don't think he achieved what he was aiming for. At least not with me. There were definitely rhythms to some of the montages. I especially liked the woman who set the houses on fire and intercutting that with Mary Sweeney on the train. However, I didn't get a thematic connection between the two beyond, crazy females committing inexplicable destruction.

I'm confident now whoever watches this next will praise that Marsh doesn't pound in a theme. I think he missed the nail completely.

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Re: Retro Filmspots Review Thread: 1999 Edition
« Reply #48 on: May 31, 2013, 06:52:13 PM »
Election Night
* *

Academy Award Winner for Best Live Action Short was written and directed by Anders Thomas Jensen, who wrote many scripts for Susanne Bier. This is a comedy and a reflection on racism, how everyone has their own tolerance level. Unfortunately this comedy isn't the least bit funny. The writing is like an 11 minutes SNL premise and the photography and performances are all wrong. And yes, I considered that maybe this isn't a comedy, but that leaves me even more confused about what Jensen is going for.


Their Standing Points
* * *

Charming black and white animated short by Makoto Shinkai, who would go on to make 5 Centimeters Per Second. This shows a similar sense of beauty, and Malick-style musings, telling of a house cat/human relationship from the cat's view. It doesn't do much in its too brief 5 minutes, but I was charmed by it.

Bondo

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Re: Retro Filmspots Review Thread: 1999 Edition
« Reply #49 on: May 31, 2013, 10:23:40 PM »
I was about to be excited that there was somehow a Shinkai film I hadn't seen (he does seem to have a new feature that was just completed) but I've seen that under the name She and Her Cat.

 

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