LET THE ADVENTURES BEGIN, HERE COMES THE "HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER"

I have the utmost respect for Clint Eastwood. I didn’t actually like him much in the past though. I don’t know why, possibly because I had fed off too much of the clichés and not seen enough of the real thing to pass proper judgment. Now, personality-wise I wouldn’t know… But as an artist, well… RESPECT (Ali G. style). I honestly started watching this film as a fortunate discovery of a Western in my almost endless archive. I have mentioned before I believe that westerns are sorely neglected by yours truly, not out of any malice but well… So many films so little time. It is a western, but not a typical western. That much you can be sure of. But the plot twist at the end is of such a grandeur that I won’t give you any clues as to what it is, but bear with it to the end… I have a sneaking suspicion you’ll be surprised…
Lago is a small, sleepy town, much like any other in the Wild West. It’s a mining town and the main hub of business is the Lago Mining Company. Until, one day, a stranger comes to town. He doesn’t say much but he’s one hell of a shot. He proves this by killing three men within half an hour of arriving in town and raping a woman too. The trouble is the three men just happen to be the three paid gunmen the town hired to protect them. And the stranger has killed them when they were needed the most: Three known bandits and scoundrels are due out of prison any day, and the inhabitants of Lago know full well they have a bone to pick with them. Having lost one means of protection but being faced with the toughest and best shot they have seen in their lives, they approach the stranger, offering him absolutely anything, as long as he keeps them safe from the three bandits heading their way… The stranger accepts. But the price he demands is both high and unusual. But then again, Lago isn’t really your usual little mining town…
First of all, credit where credit is due… Clint Eastwood (who not only directed the film but also plays the stranger of course) is one heck of a good looking guy. All through the film, he is exactly what we expect a western hero played by Clint Eastwood to be. Lean, mean, tough , quiet, rugged and good looking. What is really fascinating is the town. What’s different about this film is that sure, there are “baddies”. You know, the bandits fresh out of prison, ruthless men, with no morals. But the real bad guys in this story are not just “bad”. They are not “black” to Clint Eastwood’s white. They are simply very human. Very, very human indeed. Not that one approves of this sort of thing but one knows it happens. Notice how I’m bending over backwards not to give the plot away? =) Well, you may even guess what it is, it’s not exactly earth-shattering but it definitely gives the film a kick. I strongly advise you watch it if you’re into the genre. It’s worth about 50 spaghetti-westerns and definitely a classic for a reason.

FAMILIAR FILM, ORIGINAL SETTING: SANJURO

Some might point out at this point that, if we are talking about Akira Kurosawa, Sanjuro isn’t exactly his most famous work, even as far as samurai films are concerned. I will answer, I know. I was lucky enough to acquire a goodly number of the master’s works and I will be scattering them in my reviews of the coming weeks (so as not to inundated you in samurais. Mom and I seem to be OK with doing that, you may not be though… =)) I think we need to review this film here, at this point because it actually went on to influence a lot of spaghetti westerns in its day. And western lovers will find the theme eerily familiar. It is definately a slightly more “light hearted” side to Akira Kurosawa’s work. We will be reviewing “Throne Of Blood” (Kurosawa’s adaptation of Macbeth) and “Ikuru” that has become a modern classic among other things in the weeks to come. For now though, let us concentrate on the further adventures of Sanjuro.
After his first adventure, Sanjuro (again the quite brilliant Toshiro Mifune) goes on travelling. And on his travels he comes across 10 young samurais. Now, these young men are greatly distressed. There is much corruption in the area they live in, especially in the police department, and they want the governor – the uncle of one of the young samurai – to put a stop to it. The governor however, seems to be sitting on his hands, telling them to be patient. But then, partly as a result of their meddling, the governor is kidnapped by the corrupt officials. Sanjuro, who gets embroiled in the proceedings greatly by mistake doesn’t have the heart to leave the 10, well intentioned but very inexperienced young men to their own devices. He will take on the role of older brother and leader to the band. The “band” will not always be content of this, but Sanjuro being the only natural leader among them they can’t really refuse either. So, will they be able to find the governor and save him? Or will the corrupt police chief be able to frame the poor man for his own dastardly crimes?
This film is a completely different kind of film from Yojimbo, despite the many common themes in them. First of all, there are the samurai. The 10 young men mirror the two rival gangs in the previous film in many ways. They do not know how to act, they make often foolish mistakes. This, like the previous film, elicits a lot of laughs (it did from us anyway). But this is attributed largely to the youth of the samurai, not their stupidity or lack of capability like the gangs in Yojimbo. Then of course, there is the fighting. And you can hardly have a samurai film without fighting. But the circumstances are greatly different here. Tactics have to be in the foreground, they are 10 people against the entire police force. Sanjuro must use his wits to the end to help them free the governor. So, even more so than Yojimbo, suspense as to whether the tactic will work enters the play. And I must say some bits of it are nail-biting. And then of course, there is another psychological factor. We know that Sanjuro is a very, VERY good guy beneath his rather rough and ready exterior, but our “gang” don’t know him from Adam, so to speak. Thus the issue of trust and the lack thereof also comes into play.
But of course, there are spectacular fighting scenes, as usual. And as usual it is laced with that sophisticated humor – almost character comedy – I tend to associate with Asian films. Great fun to watch. So much so that I am going to research whether Sanjuro has any more adventures. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything…

THE NICEST "BAD" GUYS IN THE WEST : BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID

Well, all this “of beat” stuff is very well and good but I have to plug a classic western in there somewhere don’t I? Otherwise it’s, well… Sort of disrespectful, almost. Now, this is a classic but it still has a certain something about it. It’s back from the days when Hollywood was churning out more classics and less of the “just get bums on seats” stuff. And you are strongly encouraged to watch the film even if you aren’t usually a fan of the genre. There is a lot more going on than just baddies fighting goodies in this one.
First and foremost, our story is actually based on actual events. The title at the beginning of the film informs us that “what we are about to see is mostly true”. One can’t help but smile at the statement’s sincerity and I find it actually quite clever in that it sets the general tone of the film to perfection. The tone of course, is largely determined by its two stars; Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford). Butch is a charming and intelligent rogue who always has a plan; Sundance is the quickest and most accurate rifle in the West and between them they make an unbeatable team. You know the sort of thing; bank robberies, train robberies, the usual. They have a small gang to help them along and besides they are such truly nice guys that the population doesn’t mind helping them out now and again. But one day… One day they meet their match. Although the general population sees them as lovable scamps who commit a robbery or two here and there, bank managers don’t exactly share the same opinion. And one man’s anger and indignation will be the beginning of a desperate escape for our two heroes… One that will take them further than their wildest nightmares…
I haven’t watched enough films in the genre to be able to judge, but this MUST be one of the first films that formed the genre where you tend to sympathize with the bad guys instead of the good guys. I don’t mean they’re anti-heroes or anything; what I mean is that in actual life we’d be on the side of justice and the police, not the train robbers. I mean, same principal as, I dunno, Ocean’s 11. They’re all criminal’s for Heaven’s sake, why then do we root for George Clooney and Brad Pitt to get away (apart from the fact that they are both gorgeous that is). Well, looks do come into it up to a point here too. I mean, you’d have to have serious eye problems to consider Robert Redford (his youth at any rate) nothing to write home about and the same goes for Paul Newman (oh yes, the casting in these things is rarely random!). But in this case the twosome is more than just a pair of pretty faces. The characters are so real, so sincere, so funny… They may take money that doesn’t belong to them, but they have principals. I mean, they rob those big faceless corporations (or their equivalent in the past) not the common people. They treat the common people with respect (ok they’re no Robin Hood they won’t be SHARING the loot with you any time soon) but they are such well-meaning rascals your instinct is to laugh, shake your head and turn the other way while they make their escape. And with the relentless pursuit begins the nail biting ordeal that will pretty much go on to the end of the film.
I am tempted to comment on said end of film, but the main body of the film is just SO exciting I will refrain. I don’t want to spoil the excitement. However this I will say, if a film wins the Oscars® for Best Story AND Best Screenplay, well there’s usually a pretty good reason for it.

THE WORLD THROUGH THE EYES OF THE MASTERS

I have very little time possums, but I couldn`t possibly just log off without dropping you a line.

This week, we have the privilage of seeing the world through the eyes of master directors. Go over to Hong Kong for love, cross to Europa for war and while you`re there linger a while in France and go back to your childhood... Was it really as happy as you think?

The films this week mean a lot to me even though I haven`t the time to explain why... I sincerely hope they grow on you too...

Essie

FROM THE EYES OF A MASTER : WAR "EUROPA"

As we said, this week I will attempt to share my impressions of a few old masters I have had the good fortune of watching recently. Now, these are directors of truly world-class talent and depth, and I do not claim to be an expert on anything but I do seem to have acquired a fair bit now, which gives me the confidence to rattle on a bit about them. Take Lars Von Trier for example. Now, the first film I watched by him was actually the Dogville series. Marvelous, hard-hitting and truly original film. I then got into him and started researching, trying to dig up more of his stuff. Now, Trier is among other things, a master at editing. Now, editing, if you’re not actually looking for it so to speak, can rather feel like nothing too tough (and the basics are indeed not). What, you just lump the scenes together and that’s it, right? Well, although it can be done like that, there is also the fact that it isn’t so much what you say but the way you say it. And in cinema, the way you say a thing can actually change the entire “thing” – now that kind of editing, is tough indeed. Trier is a master of using technical tricks and novel ways of telling a story to convey feelings and messages – subliminal or overt. Europa is the third film in his Europe trilogy. True to style I have the first at home (I have actually watched it, don’t worry) but have never seen the second. I felt it was OK to go ahead with it; the aim of the trilogy is a description and critique of post-WW2 Europe. Now, admittedly I now feel I will have to watch the first one (Element of crime) with fresh eyes but Europa by no means suffers from not having watched the first two. It is a vivid description of post- WW2 Germany, not so much the physical description though, but the emotions… The picture painted is, I must say, a lot starker than the physical…
Leo Kessler is an American of German descent. He decides, after the Second World War, that the time has come to show some compassion to Germany, so he arrives in the country and under the patronage of his rather gruff uncle and begins to work as a sleeping car conductor on the trains. Leo’s aim is to do as much good as he can and learn about his country of origin but as he goes deeper and deeper into the country, learning about it and even learning to love it, he will begin to see that things are not all they seem. And that Germany is, in fact, a lot more complicated than he first thought it was…
Now this film of Lars Von Trier’s is celebrated as one of his deepest and most original, especially due to his examination of the subconscious. Firstly, one must know that Lars Von Trier is part of a group of directors who want to give a message with their films. He founded the Scandinavian Realism movement back in the day (a group that had very strict rules about how they filmed, basically from using only natural light to, in the same style as the Italian Neorealists, using the services of amateur actors). Now, much in the way of French New Wave, the aim of this group is to actually get the audience to “participate”. That is to say, you are not swept along in the story in a semi-hypnotic state (and Von Trier gives a very powerful poke to that state of spectatorship all through the film although I will not tell you how so as not to spoil the effect) but you are invited to remember it is a film and actively think about the message. Now, the problem with that genre is, that it tends to bore the general public to tears and beyond. (Tell me honestly how many of us have actually succeeded in watching a Truffaut or a Goddard from beginning to end? I haven’t tried yet but will in the weeks to come, check back to see if I do!) Lars Von Trier, very intelligently sits just on the cusp between this genre and an average exciting adventure film. And this is the toughest pose of all to pull off. I mean, the guy has very serious messages about the human mind and the soul to put across which he does, and he does it in a way that gets the audience “out of themselves” and begin to think, but at the same time there is a story to get caught up in, our hero’s life is in danger and he faces tough choices and you grip the arms of your seat and tremble as you wish the film would both go on forever and end your agony at the same time.
I’ll give you one example of the “message” bit though, to give you an idea. Now, the film is shot in black and white. But you will notice that parts of it are actually in color. “Why?” One can’t help but ask oneself. Well, if you watch them closely you will find these are moments of heightened emotion for the characters. It’s like in life, your day to day blends into the back-ground in a (black and white?) mass, while some moments, some important moments (important for you anyway) stand out in Technicolor (so to speak). Isn’t that a brilliant way of highlighting moments, adding to the emotion? You might remember this gimmick from somewhere else; it was later picked up on in another Hollywood film, Pleasantville (starring Toby Maguire and Reese Witherspoon). The two were modern day teenagers who get sucked up into a ‘60s TV show (long story) and the world is very reserved and black and white, but after the children arrive, the possibility of true emotion appears, and every time a character experiences true emotion(anything from sex to true sorrow) they become “colored”. Gimmicks like that… Politically speaking of course, I don’t think I need to go into the significance of the young naïve American going into war-torn and traumatized Europe brimming with “good intentions” and not much else… I’ll let everyone draw their own conclusions there…
I can go on and on but I won’t, just watch the dang thing. Then watch it again.

FROM THE EYES OF A MASTER : LIFE AND LOVE "CHUNGKING EXPRESS"

Well, we started off in Denmark, now we jump half way around the world to Korean master-director Wong Kar Wai. Now, if you had this general impression of Asian cinema as being slow paced, philosophical or heavily action based (Kung-fu films) please think again. Chungking Express is an intelligent, fast paced- sometimes to the point of bewildering – and sensitive consideration of modern life. Life and love in general in fact. No big surprise that the name of the film comes from Chungking House, a massive labyrinth like shopping mall in Hong Kong (I have to say, I never checked to see if it’s actually real or not…). Much in the vein of Vive l’amour, confined spaces in modern life bring extraordinary characters together and adventures – real live adventures – take place…
Police officer 223 is not having a good time these past couple of days. He has been dumped by his long-term girlfriend and is having trouble getting over it. On the evening of his 25th birthday, he decides he must force himself to get over it so he goes to a bar and vows he will fall in love with the first woman who walks in. And the first woman who walks in just happens to be a drug smuggler who has recently lost a group of Pakistanis with whom she had made an agreement to smuggle drugs out of the country. She is now in deep trouble. True to form, officer 223 falls in love with her immediately, but this for him will be the starting point of many extraordinary adventures… Some of them life-changing…
What I love about some movies is the way that two completely unrelated stories and genres can be just mushed up together and actually make a meaningful whole. This happens many times in this film, and the number of times Wong Kar Wai has pulled this off is a true tribute to his talent. The entire film is set on parallel stories, only the stories change – keeping officer 223 as a constant as far as I can tell – to make first one extraordinary pattern, then another. In the first half we explore the underworld, then the young officer and his sadness and his (rather bizarre) ways of coping. Then it’s a love story – only not the kind of love story you’re thinking of, it’s complicated – and then it’s goodbye… But maybe there’s a hello just round the corner… Scattered throughout the film, thanks to a series of truly extraordinary but touching characters, are a series of weird thoughts and considerations on life, love and relationships. I watched it in the cinema, but after I’ve finished working on my blog I think I’m going to just check the internet to see if there are any sights were quotes are compiled, they are so good and so touching, I’m sure someone thought of writing them down…
Another small thing, I was amused to find out that this also seems – in a way – the granddaddy of the French hit film Amelie. I won’t go into detail but you have to be blind not to see the parallelism. You will get it though if I say, for example, that Wong Kar Wai will pick up the same theme in a future film, Empty House… I’m not quite sure what it is in Asian culture that makes the theme of two people living in the same house without one or both parties being aware of it come back over and over again… I guess, like I said before, it’s the very confined spaces flats and apartments are set on in that part of the world. People virtually live on top of each other without knowing a thing about each other, it is rather spooky when you think about it…
And yes, I do rather seem to have given a chunk of the second half away but firstly you don’t know how we get there from the first half, and secondly, there is no way you can unite these two halves and get to the ending, I’m sorry guys you’re just going to have to watch and see…

FROM THE EYES OF A MASTER : CHILDHOOD "LES 400 COUPS"

Ok, I’m chugging on with our “old masters” tour and I cannot help but stop at this film. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You saw the name, maybe googled it or remembered it thought “François Truffaut? French New Wave? You have GOT to be joking!” The general prejudice about this genre of films is that in a word, they are unwatchable. I do not deny that some of them probably are, I haven’t gone “deep enough” into the genre to know. In later years especially, the New Wave cinema aimed, with the techniques it used, to make the audience think – as opposed to getting immersed in the film in a semi-hypnotic state, the way you would watch a film on a Friday night for instance… The spectators who missed the “immersion” labeled the genre as “terrible, arty-farty and depressing”. Well, each is entitled to his opinion. My immediate opinion however, is that if you set aside the classics of Hollywood style movies we are used to and get to thinking about the smaller things, the details of a film, we will find true gems here. Take this film, 400 blows. First in the series made by Truffaut chronicling the life of Antoine Doinel (imaginary hero needless to say) is one of the best, most touching and most sensitively composed films I have had the pleasure of watching…
Based largely on Truffaut’s own troubled years growing up, Antoine Doinel, aged around 10 I would say, has a tough life. At school, his teachers are harsh – and seem to not like him very much. At home his parents work too much, fight the rest of the time and pay very little attention to him, except that is, to tell him to do chores and scold him. His only ally in the whole affair is his best friend and classmate René, whose parents pay little or no attention to him leaving him to pretty much do as he pleases in their large house… After a series of misunderstandings on all fronts, Antoine decides he is through with school and that he must go out into the wide world and make his own way… For him and René, this decision of his will have unexpected results – to say the least…
On the back of my copy of this film, there is a quotation by Truffaut himself: “Except for adults with bad memories, being a teenager seldom has good memories.” I couldn’t help but smile, oh yes, childhood and youth as an “age of innocence” when all was rosy… Nostalgia is a brilliant way to escape from day to day problems; however, the “happy” memories are seldom as happy as we would have them be…
In the case of Antoine for example, his teacher is a typical petty high-school teacher who sees himself as the monarch/tyrant of a little kingdom (the classroom) and thus must have an “arch enemy” (in this case Antoine. His parents are far too wrapped up in their own lives to take notice of him; the unfortunate series of circumstances leading to this state are also revealed throughout the film. Antoine isn’t particularly bad or troubled by nature; it is in fact the 400 blows he receives from left and right that make him so. Throughout the film we see many attempts on Antoine’s part to escape. Not necessarily do anything else bad but to escape, from school where he is miserable, from his parents, his condition… Being 10 however, his options are limited and his motives largely misunderstood.
You will, I am pretty sure, find yourself thinking back on your own childhood as you watch this film. There are many intelligent and touching little details on school-life that will come flooding back to you and that are lovingly dwelt upon throughout the film whether they actually have a part in the central plot or not… No wonder Truffaut, aged 27 and just having directed his first motion picture, wiped the floor with the opposition at the Cannes film festival with this one back in the day. It is the film that established him as a master and you would have to be blind to not see why, whether you like his later work or not…