This month I was dictated to by one Dr. Kimble. He sent me a fine list of five films, none of which I has seen. I was greedy, and chose the following two:
Dog Days (Hundstage) - Ulrich Seidl, 2001
Dog Days is a curious proposition. I think the easiest place to understand it from may be the final line - “People are cruel.” It’s a bizarre way to end the film, and perhaps a let down for the audience. We’ve worked that out some time ago. If that’s all Seidl was going for, it’s a little disappointing.
That said, it is a relatively interesting path we take to get to that opinion. Seidl presents us with two days in the height of Austrian summer. The people are sweltering in 34 degree heat (34 degrees celsius, that is). We’re introduced to a woman at a sex club that seems to exist in the shadows of a shopping center. On her way home, she stops by a roadside shrine. A man is there as well. She waits until he is finished to place her flowers, and then goes home. The man soon arrives. They are divorced after the death of their child, but still live together. We never really learn much more about her. He is possibly the most obnoxious, annoying person in existence.
There’s a young woman who has fallen in with an abusive boyfriend. He doesn’t realise how abusive he is, she is trapped.
An elderly man is stocking up on supplies whilst employing his cleaner to stand in for his dead wife.
A security salesman goes door to door trying to sell alarm systems, and tries to catch a car vandal.
A young woman asks for rides from people. Once she is in the car, she talks incessantly, reeling off lists of supermarkets, sex positions, songs, singing, asking to play her tape, goes through their bags and usually being thrown out.
Finally, in the most disturbing, and probably longest story, a woman waits for her man friend. When he does, he brings an unexpected friend. What follows that night is some pretty heinous abuse, and the next day is perhaps worse. It’s visceral stuff.
As you’d expect, these threads do cross on occasion, although not often, and usually in pretty disturbing ways. It’s a film that attempts, not to show people at their worst, I don’t think, but just to say, these are people. These are the awful things they do. This is how they are. It’s like an incredibly misanthropic Me and You and Everyone We Know.
Is it a good film? No. Not really. It’s not bad, but it’s just nothing that special. Maybe if I had seen this before Shortbus or Battle in Heaven I would find the sex and nudity shocking, but compared to those, it’s not really shocking at all. Not that the sex in Shortbus is shocking, but it definitely says more and achieves more than the sex here.
The content is visceral at times, but I don’t know that it’s enough, because there doesn’t seem to be enough meaning behind it. At the end of the day, it’s two hours that amount to a single statement - “Life is cruel” - and I didn’t need that much convincing.
C-
Time of the Wolf - Michael Haneke, 2003
I don’t know that I’m a massive fan of Haneke. I wasn’t a fan of Funny Games. I need to see Cache again. The White Ribbon is good, very good, but I doubt it’ll be on my end of year top 10. He’s an interesting filmmaker, and I admire what he’s trying to achieve. But I don’t think he always does it.
I think he does achieve something really interesting here. Right from the get go you know it’s Haneke. There’s something in the first five minutes that straight away sets the tone for what’s to follow. The story is told in typical Haneke fashion, with very little backstory and even less of a third act. (Has Haneke even heard of Act III?)
The themes are there if you’re prepared to look hard enough for them. And I think it is really rewarding, with the characters, and what there is of the plot. It’s gorgeously shot (although I struggled to see it at times due to the light outside and the terribly dark screen) and the occasionally visceral imagery has far more of an impact than the equivalent in Dog Days.
Beyond that, I don’t know why I liked it as much as I did. Maybe it’s because it’s more subtle than a lot of what Haneke does. Or maybe it’s just because it works. Whatever the case, I would recommend this far more than I would ever recommend Dog Days.
B
(For a brief note of comparison, I’d put Funny Games somewhere around a D+ maybe, whilst The White Ribbon would be up around a B+. Cache is probably a B+, but may be an A-. I need to watch is again.)
In any case, I’d like to thank Dr Kimble for dictating these. I’m glad I’ve seen them, and Dog Days is one especially that I wouldn’t have seen without the push, and I probably wouldn’t have seen Time of the Wolf for some time. So again, thanks. And sorry for the lateness. I been having some issues with getting internet access lately.