The Exterminating Angel
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
RETROSPECTIVE ON A RETROSPECTIVE
From January through March, the Siskel Center presented a retrospective of the films of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. I meant to start this blog earlier and write about those films soon after I saw then, but sloth got the better of me. So, what I want to do now is make several quick notes about each of the films that I saw and what I remember about them. I'm curious to see how well I remember the films and if I have anything interesting to say about them.
Late Spring (1949) - The first one that I saw. This one had a pretty typical Ozu plot about a widowed father encouraging\tricking his daughter into marrying. Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara played the leads. What was not typical about the film was its intense, claustrophobic tone. The daughter's feelings for her father are so overwhelming that they border upon incestous at times. When they attend a puppet show together, the daughter looks absolutely shocked and horrified when her father pretends to show interest in another woman. A truly disturbing moment. I wonder if Ozu really meant for the film to be this upsetting or if he lost control of the tone a little bit.
I Was Born, But... (1932) - A silent. I really liked this one a lot. It's mostly about two young brothers and the comical trouble they get into in and after school, but the film turns more serious in its final half hour, as the boys discover that their father is not quite the man they think he is. I know it sounds cliched, but this film really made me think there is a universality to human experience. The misadventures of the boys reminded me of the similarly rambunctious beahvior of my childhood, and the moment when they learn that their father is not a hero, but a flawed and conflicted man, artfully dramatizes a painful moment with which most of us identify.
The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952) - Another favorite of mine. This was about a very average businessman whose wife believes that she deserves a better, more sophisticated husband. She treats him with greater and greater contempt, while he patiently waits her out. Only at the end of the film, when he is suddenly sent away on business, does she realize how much she loves him. Miraculously, she is given a second chance to express her feelings for him.
Equinox Flower (1958) - First of all, is that the best they could do with the title? It sounds like a Celestial Seasonings tea. I don't remember this one very well. It had a marry-off-the-daughter plot, but I thought it dragged on too long. Ozu's first color film.
Floating Weeds (1959) - I had already seen this film twice on DVD in the previous year, so why I decided to go see it again, I don't know. I still had a good time though, as it is visually dazzling. It concerns the leader of a troupe of travelling actors, who fathered a child in a seaside town many years ago. He returns to the town to see his grown son for the first time. Complications ensue.
Late Autumn (1960) - I have no memory of this film. Hmmm. Turning to the program guide, it says, "This exquisite balance of lightness and shade centers on the efforts of three middle-aged men to make a match for an attractive widow." Uh, okay. It's coming back a little bit. I didn't like this one that much, I thought Ozu overly indulged the broad humor with the matchmakers.
The Only Son (1936) - I thought this was great film. It concerns a mother who saves every penny from her menial job in a textile factory (?) to send her son to good schools. She visits him years later in Tokyo and finds surprise and disappointment. One of things that I liked about this film was that Ozu actually moves the camera once in a while. I wonder if his aversion to moving the camera contributed to the occasional sense of stiffness in the actors I perceived in his later films. Is it more difficult to deliver your lines right into the camera eye? Is it easier to deliver them to another actor as the camera moves around you? In any case, the actors in The Only Son appeared more relaxed and naturalistic than in some of the other films.
An Autumn Afternoon (1962) - Ozu's final film and the last film in the retrospective. I almost didn't make it, but I'm glad I did. I felt a real sense of completeness being there at the last showing. One of the reasons that I felt this way was that I noticed some developments in An Autmun Afternoon that had only been hinted at in the other films. This is the Ozu film that most completely confronts modern Japan. The women are much more assertive than in earlier films, more Englsih words make their way into the dialogue, and Chishu Ryu reminisces with old war buddies about what it might have been like if Japan had won the war. Very intersting. All this stuff is tied in to another marrying-off-the-daughter plot, but it felt like Ozu had more that he wanted to say with this one than some of the others.
Well, that's the extent of my recollection. I think I did alright. You might notice that I didn't mention seeing Tokyo Story, one of the greatest films ever made. I didn't see it because I have it on DVD and watch it every few months. ¶ 7:58 AM
Late Spring (1949) - The first one that I saw. This one had a pretty typical Ozu plot about a widowed father encouraging\tricking his daughter into marrying. Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara played the leads. What was not typical about the film was its intense, claustrophobic tone. The daughter's feelings for her father are so overwhelming that they border upon incestous at times. When they attend a puppet show together, the daughter looks absolutely shocked and horrified when her father pretends to show interest in another woman. A truly disturbing moment. I wonder if Ozu really meant for the film to be this upsetting or if he lost control of the tone a little bit.
I Was Born, But... (1932) - A silent. I really liked this one a lot. It's mostly about two young brothers and the comical trouble they get into in and after school, but the film turns more serious in its final half hour, as the boys discover that their father is not quite the man they think he is. I know it sounds cliched, but this film really made me think there is a universality to human experience. The misadventures of the boys reminded me of the similarly rambunctious beahvior of my childhood, and the moment when they learn that their father is not a hero, but a flawed and conflicted man, artfully dramatizes a painful moment with which most of us identify.
The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952) - Another favorite of mine. This was about a very average businessman whose wife believes that she deserves a better, more sophisticated husband. She treats him with greater and greater contempt, while he patiently waits her out. Only at the end of the film, when he is suddenly sent away on business, does she realize how much she loves him. Miraculously, she is given a second chance to express her feelings for him.
Equinox Flower (1958) - First of all, is that the best they could do with the title? It sounds like a Celestial Seasonings tea. I don't remember this one very well. It had a marry-off-the-daughter plot, but I thought it dragged on too long. Ozu's first color film.
Floating Weeds (1959) - I had already seen this film twice on DVD in the previous year, so why I decided to go see it again, I don't know. I still had a good time though, as it is visually dazzling. It concerns the leader of a troupe of travelling actors, who fathered a child in a seaside town many years ago. He returns to the town to see his grown son for the first time. Complications ensue.
Late Autumn (1960) - I have no memory of this film. Hmmm. Turning to the program guide, it says, "This exquisite balance of lightness and shade centers on the efforts of three middle-aged men to make a match for an attractive widow." Uh, okay. It's coming back a little bit. I didn't like this one that much, I thought Ozu overly indulged the broad humor with the matchmakers.
The Only Son (1936) - I thought this was great film. It concerns a mother who saves every penny from her menial job in a textile factory (?) to send her son to good schools. She visits him years later in Tokyo and finds surprise and disappointment. One of things that I liked about this film was that Ozu actually moves the camera once in a while. I wonder if his aversion to moving the camera contributed to the occasional sense of stiffness in the actors I perceived in his later films. Is it more difficult to deliver your lines right into the camera eye? Is it easier to deliver them to another actor as the camera moves around you? In any case, the actors in The Only Son appeared more relaxed and naturalistic than in some of the other films.
An Autumn Afternoon (1962) - Ozu's final film and the last film in the retrospective. I almost didn't make it, but I'm glad I did. I felt a real sense of completeness being there at the last showing. One of the reasons that I felt this way was that I noticed some developments in An Autmun Afternoon that had only been hinted at in the other films. This is the Ozu film that most completely confronts modern Japan. The women are much more assertive than in earlier films, more Englsih words make their way into the dialogue, and Chishu Ryu reminisces with old war buddies about what it might have been like if Japan had won the war. Very intersting. All this stuff is tied in to another marrying-off-the-daughter plot, but it felt like Ozu had more that he wanted to say with this one than some of the others.
Well, that's the extent of my recollection. I think I did alright. You might notice that I didn't mention seeing Tokyo Story, one of the greatest films ever made. I didn't see it because I have it on DVD and watch it every few months. ¶ 7:58 AM
Thursday, March 24, 2005
LIPS LIKE SUGAR
Saw Alain Resnais's Not On The Lips (Pas Sur La Bouche) at the Siskel last night. Have you ever liked a film but not had much to say about it? Well, that's my reaction to this one. So I might as well write about some things I have strong feelings about, namely, watching a film at the Siskel.
First of all, I get to the theater with plenty of time to spare, but there's already a line. Bad sign. Apparently, there is a huge Alain Resnais following here in Chicago. Who knew? I guess the crowd had something to do with the fact that Not On The Lips won't be distributed here in the U.S., but the amount of people was still surprising. It was one of those lines that was sprawled all over the place, giving people the idea that they could sneak ahead of you in line. Well, I put a stop to that, let me tell you.
After I get my ticket, I get in another big line for a cup of coffee. I remember reading somewhere that other people's conversations always sound stupid. Truer words were never spoken. The people in front of me and the people behind were just jabbering away like they hadn't seen each other in decades, or at least since last week at the Steppenwolf. Another thing that bugs me about the patrons of the Siskel, they seem to have no idea that you might actually have to pay for the concessions you order. Everyone waits to last second to go digging in their purses to pay for their skim-milk lattes.
So, I get my coffee (I had my money ready to go, thank you very much) and head into the theater. It was worse than I thought, as I discovered a sea of elderly faces inside. Honestly, what is the deal with the AARP crowd at the Siskel? Are they all retired? Do they all live downtown? Do they really have nothing better to do? Why do the men all have to be bald and wear those chunky sweaters? What bothers me the most about this crowd is that I'm not sure they really care about the films they see. I wonder if they're there just to get out of the house, which is fine, or to feel good about themselves for watching arty movies, which is not fine. Don't get me wrong, I don't think of myself as the guardian of the sacred beauty of the cinema, but I detect a more than a whiff of self-congratulation from this kind of crowd. They're the kind of people that laugh a little too hard at anything that's even slightly amusing in a foreign movie. I think this kind of laughter has two components: 1) Look at me! I got the joke in a foreign film! I'm ever so smart!; and 2) I'm so bored! What a relief that something funny just happened! Now I can show everyone what a good time I'm having!
Anyway, I spotted an open seat and made my way to it. To do so, I had to step past a guy with salad dressing body order. Very nice! A few minutes after I sat down, a woman sat down next to me. She seemed okay, but proceeded to laugh like the lead actress in a fetish, tickle-porn movie for the next two hours. Actually, she was okay. Anybody that can get that much enjoyment out of a film can't be all bad. Rounding out my dream team of viewing companions was a woman of a certain age, with her big helmet of hair, (why do rich old white women do that?), tweed jacket with linebacker shoulder pads, and a fur coat that might have been a bearskin rug. To make matters worse, the film had sold out, delaying its start so that a bunch of tardy idiots could be personally escorted to their seats. I was seriously hating life right before the film started. To top it all off, I realized that if I wanted to go to the bathroom, I would have to climb over salad dresing B.O. guy. Bad times.
Well, the film started, and I'll be damned if my mood didn't almost immediately improve. The film's basic plot is this: In mid 1920s Paris, Madame Giberte Valandray (Sabine Azema) is happily married to a wealthy industrialist, Georges (Pierre Arditi), who is a bit obsessed with the idea that he was his wife's first lover. Little does he know that Gilberte was previously married to an American businessman, Eric Thomson (Lambert Wilson.) In a ridiculous coincidence, Georges has invited Thomson to his home to negotiate a business deal. Needless to say, Gilberte is a very alarmed that her husband will learn of her past with Thomson.
Sound like an episode of Frasier? Well, it certainly resembles one, but it's also a charming musical with tremendous visual style. The songs casually breeze by without a big, showstopping number, which was just fine with me. Too many American musicals try to beat you over the head with their sheer size. The film also looks great, it has spectacular sets that are like something out of an Art Deco dream of Paris. The camerawork flows beautifully, tracking around the actors as they move from song to song and from set to set.
My biggest problem while viewing Not On The Lips was with the subtitles, which seemed flat out wrong at times. That however, is not a fault of the film. My only real problem with the film itself was that it was almost too lightweight. There's a crucial moment near the end of Not On The Lips where the film has a chance to deepen its emotional impact. The film does not do this, but simply continues with its breakneck resolution of the plot. A flaw, but not a major one for a film that so quickly made me forget about the crowd in the theater. ¶ 8:19 AM
First of all, I get to the theater with plenty of time to spare, but there's already a line. Bad sign. Apparently, there is a huge Alain Resnais following here in Chicago. Who knew? I guess the crowd had something to do with the fact that Not On The Lips won't be distributed here in the U.S., but the amount of people was still surprising. It was one of those lines that was sprawled all over the place, giving people the idea that they could sneak ahead of you in line. Well, I put a stop to that, let me tell you.
After I get my ticket, I get in another big line for a cup of coffee. I remember reading somewhere that other people's conversations always sound stupid. Truer words were never spoken. The people in front of me and the people behind were just jabbering away like they hadn't seen each other in decades, or at least since last week at the Steppenwolf. Another thing that bugs me about the patrons of the Siskel, they seem to have no idea that you might actually have to pay for the concessions you order. Everyone waits to last second to go digging in their purses to pay for their skim-milk lattes.
So, I get my coffee (I had my money ready to go, thank you very much) and head into the theater. It was worse than I thought, as I discovered a sea of elderly faces inside. Honestly, what is the deal with the AARP crowd at the Siskel? Are they all retired? Do they all live downtown? Do they really have nothing better to do? Why do the men all have to be bald and wear those chunky sweaters? What bothers me the most about this crowd is that I'm not sure they really care about the films they see. I wonder if they're there just to get out of the house, which is fine, or to feel good about themselves for watching arty movies, which is not fine. Don't get me wrong, I don't think of myself as the guardian of the sacred beauty of the cinema, but I detect a more than a whiff of self-congratulation from this kind of crowd. They're the kind of people that laugh a little too hard at anything that's even slightly amusing in a foreign movie. I think this kind of laughter has two components: 1) Look at me! I got the joke in a foreign film! I'm ever so smart!; and 2) I'm so bored! What a relief that something funny just happened! Now I can show everyone what a good time I'm having!
Anyway, I spotted an open seat and made my way to it. To do so, I had to step past a guy with salad dressing body order. Very nice! A few minutes after I sat down, a woman sat down next to me. She seemed okay, but proceeded to laugh like the lead actress in a fetish, tickle-porn movie for the next two hours. Actually, she was okay. Anybody that can get that much enjoyment out of a film can't be all bad. Rounding out my dream team of viewing companions was a woman of a certain age, with her big helmet of hair, (why do rich old white women do that?), tweed jacket with linebacker shoulder pads, and a fur coat that might have been a bearskin rug. To make matters worse, the film had sold out, delaying its start so that a bunch of tardy idiots could be personally escorted to their seats. I was seriously hating life right before the film started. To top it all off, I realized that if I wanted to go to the bathroom, I would have to climb over salad dresing B.O. guy. Bad times.
Well, the film started, and I'll be damned if my mood didn't almost immediately improve. The film's basic plot is this: In mid 1920s Paris, Madame Giberte Valandray (Sabine Azema) is happily married to a wealthy industrialist, Georges (Pierre Arditi), who is a bit obsessed with the idea that he was his wife's first lover. Little does he know that Gilberte was previously married to an American businessman, Eric Thomson (Lambert Wilson.) In a ridiculous coincidence, Georges has invited Thomson to his home to negotiate a business deal. Needless to say, Gilberte is a very alarmed that her husband will learn of her past with Thomson.
Sound like an episode of Frasier? Well, it certainly resembles one, but it's also a charming musical with tremendous visual style. The songs casually breeze by without a big, showstopping number, which was just fine with me. Too many American musicals try to beat you over the head with their sheer size. The film also looks great, it has spectacular sets that are like something out of an Art Deco dream of Paris. The camerawork flows beautifully, tracking around the actors as they move from song to song and from set to set.
My biggest problem while viewing Not On The Lips was with the subtitles, which seemed flat out wrong at times. That however, is not a fault of the film. My only real problem with the film itself was that it was almost too lightweight. There's a crucial moment near the end of Not On The Lips where the film has a chance to deepen its emotional impact. The film does not do this, but simply continues with its breakneck resolution of the plot. A flaw, but not a major one for a film that so quickly made me forget about the crowd in the theater. ¶ 8:19 AM
Monday, March 21, 2005
BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS
Met with an old college friend last Wednesday at the Siskel Film Center to see 5x2,the new Francois Ozon film. It was playing as part of the Siskel's European Union Film Festival. The only other film I've seen by Ozon is Swimming Pool, which I liked, but more for Ludivine Sagnier and her fabulous breasts than for anything the film had to say about life or art. However, I was intrigued by the structure of 5x2: Five moments in the lives of a couple, Gilles and Marion, are told in reverse chronological order. The film begins as a lawyer recites the particulars of their divorce settlement and ends with their first intimate encounter at a seaside resort.
I'm wary of films that have gimmicky setups like this, (I'm thinking of Memento and Adaptation), but due to its subject matter, I thought 5X2 might be a little more thoughtful than those other films and a little less interested in proclaiming its own cleverness. And it was: 5x2 was a sober meditation on how a relationship changes through time. We first see Gilles and Marion as their marriage is ending and notice that their interactions with each other veer from awkward formality, to relaxed intimacy, to explosions of bitter rage. In the next sections of the film, their behavior changes from the cautious familiarity of a couple that has been together a long time, to the warm intimacy of a couple on their wedding day, and ultimately to the chraming tentativeness of two people first figuring out their attraction to each other. 5x2 may very well cause you to reflect on how your own relationships have changed over time; you may wonder whether those changes were caused by you or were inevitable due to the passing of time.
5x2 shares a great strength and a significant weakness of French cinema. On the one hand, it has the wondeful habit of French films of taking an interest in people for their own sakes, not just to advance a specious plot or to set them up for a fiery death in a CGI explosion. For example, in the final section of the film, we are surprised to find that Gilles is with another woman, Valerie, and that they have been together for four years. We immediately sense tension in her relationship with Gilles and come to dislike her for nasty, passive-agressive demeanor. But the film never dismisses Valerie out of hand, it shows some compassion for her, even though it shows us why her relationship with Gilles is doomed. I imagine in an American version of this film, her character would be a completely over-the-top shrew that we wouldn't believe anyone could stand for a second.
The significant flaw of the film is its evasive ambiguity. I thought 5x2 was interesting, but telling us that relationships change over time isn't necessarily profound, in fact, it's common sense. Although I liked the film, I might have liked it more if it had something to say in connection with its theme, such as, change is good/bad, people feel compelled to destroy their relationships, time will defeat any relationship in the end. Instead we are given a few red herrings regarding Gilles's sexuality and another one concerning Marion that seems forced into the film only to make Gilles not look like such a bad guy. I'm not saying that Ozon should have included an interview at the end of 5x2 explaining its meaning, I just thought that the film didn't have much of a point. Not having a point is fine, but sometimes not having a point walks hand in hand with not having anything to say.
Okay, I know it sounds like I didn't like 5X2 all that much, but I did. Just don't see it expecting your socks to be knocked off. Maybe just one sock.
¶ 12:10 PM 0 comments I'm wary of films that have gimmicky setups like this, (I'm thinking of Memento and Adaptation), but due to its subject matter, I thought 5X2 might be a little more thoughtful than those other films and a little less interested in proclaiming its own cleverness. And it was: 5x2 was a sober meditation on how a relationship changes through time. We first see Gilles and Marion as their marriage is ending and notice that their interactions with each other veer from awkward formality, to relaxed intimacy, to explosions of bitter rage. In the next sections of the film, their behavior changes from the cautious familiarity of a couple that has been together a long time, to the warm intimacy of a couple on their wedding day, and ultimately to the chraming tentativeness of two people first figuring out their attraction to each other. 5x2 may very well cause you to reflect on how your own relationships have changed over time; you may wonder whether those changes were caused by you or were inevitable due to the passing of time.
5x2 shares a great strength and a significant weakness of French cinema. On the one hand, it has the wondeful habit of French films of taking an interest in people for their own sakes, not just to advance a specious plot or to set them up for a fiery death in a CGI explosion. For example, in the final section of the film, we are surprised to find that Gilles is with another woman, Valerie, and that they have been together for four years. We immediately sense tension in her relationship with Gilles and come to dislike her for nasty, passive-agressive demeanor. But the film never dismisses Valerie out of hand, it shows some compassion for her, even though it shows us why her relationship with Gilles is doomed. I imagine in an American version of this film, her character would be a completely over-the-top shrew that we wouldn't believe anyone could stand for a second.
The significant flaw of the film is its evasive ambiguity. I thought 5x2 was interesting, but telling us that relationships change over time isn't necessarily profound, in fact, it's common sense. Although I liked the film, I might have liked it more if it had something to say in connection with its theme, such as, change is good/bad, people feel compelled to destroy their relationships, time will defeat any relationship in the end. Instead we are given a few red herrings regarding Gilles's sexuality and another one concerning Marion that seems forced into the film only to make Gilles not look like such a bad guy. I'm not saying that Ozon should have included an interview at the end of 5x2 explaining its meaning, I just thought that the film didn't have much of a point. Not having a point is fine, but sometimes not having a point walks hand in hand with not having anything to say.
Okay, I know it sounds like I didn't like 5X2 all that much, but I did. Just don't see it expecting your socks to be knocked off. Maybe just one sock.
