Some truly transgressive, fun and ground-breaking films this week including discovering Ossi Oswalda's comedic timing, Lois Weber's skilled composition and pacing, and that the Eameses who designed the lounge chair from last week are the same Eameses who directed such educational short films as 'Powers of Ten' in the 1960s.
John Wick (2014)Keanu Reeves opts to dress in black again. A film that venerates honour among thieves and condemns those who break the rules of safe harbour. Very much in the gun-kata and close-quarters combat school of martial choreography. Proficiency is king whether it be fighting, driving or decision-making, and there is little more enjoyable that seeing a craftsman at work. More style than substance otherwise in a straight-forward revenge plot that enjoys its fantastical underworld social system a little too much..
L’inferno (1911) - note this is the 68 minutes long Inferno, not the 15 minute version from the same year.
Virgil and Dante descend the ring roads of Hell. A five-reel marathon of horror and a who’s who of sin. Images, while slightly risible to a modern viewer, that are surreal and macabre enough for you to remember them for days afterwards. It’s classical torture porn from the early days of cinema. It’s difficult to know who the Italian makers of this film thought the audience might be. An acknowledgement that a large group of people only went to church to relish the descriptions of hell?
Suspense (1913)Lois Weber is home alone and menaced by an ill-intentioned ne’er-do-well. This is remarkable. A full-on action-suspense film from 1913 that threatens to turn into a slasher. Unnaturally stable car-mounted camera shots. Close-ups of action reflected in a wing mirror, over the driver’s shoulder, in a moving car. Triangular split-screen showing simultaneous action. The whole is very well-paced, the sense of threat genuine, the purpose clear and with only a single inter-title. Lois Weber, cinemas first great action director.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)A shocking insight into the US High School Gulag system. An element of this plot hinges on some 90s kids with extensive musical and theatrical taste, failing to recognise David Bowie’s “Heroes” for an entire year. OK, this is before Google, Spotify and Wikipedia, but come on! It deals with homophobia, sexual abuse and mental health issues well, however the framing story is almost too affected and painfully self-aware, while at the same time being deeply conventional and afraid to leave those boundaries.
Loops (1940)Norman McLaren doodles directly onto film accompanied by hand-sculpted squelches and pfffts. One of McLaren’s strengths is his ability to translate sound directly into neatly choreographed lines and shapes that represent that sound visually and precisely. He’s done this with music before but now he’s doing it to muffled explosions of sound directly carved onto the film by hand. There’s nothing electronic here apart from the bulb in the projector. This is a strip of film used as an instrument..
Ich möchte kein Mann sein (1918) aka I Don’t Want to Be a ManOssi Oswalda indulges in some gender-play much to the consternation of her new guardian. Made as the German lines on the Western front of World War I collapsed and the political establishment in Germany did likewise, you’d never know anything catastrophic was happening elsewhere in Europe. Ernst Lubitsch directs a frothy comedy of social deviance as a young woman cross-dresses her way through an evening of high society and eventual romance. Ossi Oswalda glows with conspiratorial levels of delight in the chaos of her own making.
Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)Michael Curtiz goes all expressionistic and screwball-y at the same time. Wise-cracking woman in a man’s world, reporter Glenda Farrell uses her instincts to delve into the shadowy, angular basements of New York. Deco at ground-level, twisted gothic nightmare below. Magnificent sets and Fay Wray screams up a storm under an overly complex waxy imperilment device. The ending is unforgivably rushed given the marvellous mask-cracking build-up. The two-strip Technicolor doesn’t add much.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) - Rewatch
The Archers and Roger Livesey show us all the humanity behind the eyes of red-faced, ageing career soldier with outmoded ideas. What Kore-eda does for childhood and families, The Archers do for those in military and religious service. They know how to show us the person behind the assumptions we place upon them. To humanise not only the lead character but a German military serviceman as well during some of the darkest hours of WWII is remarkable. A film for these times when there are many with whom we disagree.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)Rami Malek gets his overbite on. An overly earnest medley of Queen’s greatest hits sound-tracking the life of an extraordinary man. Films rarely capture the moments of inspiration or creation well and this film is far from an exception to that. It’s plodding, cliched and in some cases badly acted. However, it’s impossible not to like Freddie and the songs he sang. He was a performer without compare, well done the Rami Malek for capturing that. In the words of another man with false teeth, “Oooh, you are awful. But I like you.”