Gaspar Noé’s bid to shock us into submission with 3D sex is let down by two-dimensional performances
“I want to film that which cinema has rarely allowed itself, either for commercial or legal reasons,” says Gaspar Noé, writer/director of cause celebre Cannes favourites Seul Contre Tous, Irréversible and Enter the Void. For his fourth feature, Noé sets out “to film the organic dimension of being in love”, free from “the ridiculous division that dictates no normal film can contain overly erotic scenes”. Thus we have a Last Tango in Paris-tinged tale of amour fou in which a disconsolate young American in Paris drifts from the responsibilities of fatherhood back into memories of lost love, Noé taking us on a lurid three-way tour of appendages and orifices, physical and psychological.
This of course is nothing new. Since the post-Deep Throat days of Nagisa Oshima’s Ai No Corrida...
“I want to film that which cinema has rarely allowed itself, either for commercial or legal reasons,” says Gaspar Noé, writer/director of cause celebre Cannes favourites Seul Contre Tous, Irréversible and Enter the Void. For his fourth feature, Noé sets out “to film the organic dimension of being in love”, free from “the ridiculous division that dictates no normal film can contain overly erotic scenes”. Thus we have a Last Tango in Paris-tinged tale of amour fou in which a disconsolate young American in Paris drifts from the responsibilities of fatherhood back into memories of lost love, Noé taking us on a lurid three-way tour of appendages and orifices, physical and psychological.
This of course is nothing new. Since the post-Deep Throat days of Nagisa Oshima’s Ai No Corrida...
- 11/22/2015
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
A fresh crop of directors are rejecting stereotypical roles and predictable plots, creating films that deal with real life and rounded characters
Ira Sach's new film, Keep the Lights On, follows the decade-long relationship between two men who meet on a New York phone-sex line in 1998. It includes explicit sex and copious drug use; it also includes domestic squabbles, quotidian work hassles and meals with friends, straight and gay. No one comes out or dies, and everything is shown with the same fluid, elegant transparency. "I feel very few films convey the communal nature of urban life these days, the lack of boundaries," Sachs says. "'Those are the gays over there' – that's not how we live any more."
Keep the Lights On is at once very good and conspicuously ordinary. Like several other recent features about gay characters by gay directors, it deploys naturalism – often shooting handheld in found locations...
Ira Sach's new film, Keep the Lights On, follows the decade-long relationship between two men who meet on a New York phone-sex line in 1998. It includes explicit sex and copious drug use; it also includes domestic squabbles, quotidian work hassles and meals with friends, straight and gay. No one comes out or dies, and everything is shown with the same fluid, elegant transparency. "I feel very few films convey the communal nature of urban life these days, the lack of boundaries," Sachs says. "'Those are the gays over there' – that's not how we live any more."
Keep the Lights On is at once very good and conspicuously ordinary. Like several other recent features about gay characters by gay directors, it deploys naturalism – often shooting handheld in found locations...
- 10/4/2012
- by Ben Walters
- The Guardian - Film News
Mark Kermode's pick of the DVDs that were overlooked this year
Benda Bilili!
A strong contender for best film of the year, this electrifying account of Congolese street musicians overcoming incredible odds to bring their invigorating music to the world is a real reason to be cheerful. The soundtrack is infectious, the film-making unobtrusive, and the central characters endlessly inspiring. Bravo!
Patagonia
Diverse and unpredictable in his output, Marc Evans (Resurrection Man, My Litte Eye, Snow Cake) remains one of the UK's most consistently interesting and inventive filmmakers. Somewhat overlooked in cinemas, this lyrical cross-cultural escapade teases out longstanding connections between Wales and Argentina, with Evans drawing together the past and present with ease.
We Were Here
The outbreak of Aids, which ravaged San Francisco in the early 80s, is recounted by those who lived through it, offering a celebration of the indomitable human spirit that enabled diverse communities...
Benda Bilili!
A strong contender for best film of the year, this electrifying account of Congolese street musicians overcoming incredible odds to bring their invigorating music to the world is a real reason to be cheerful. The soundtrack is infectious, the film-making unobtrusive, and the central characters endlessly inspiring. Bravo!
Patagonia
Diverse and unpredictable in his output, Marc Evans (Resurrection Man, My Litte Eye, Snow Cake) remains one of the UK's most consistently interesting and inventive filmmakers. Somewhat overlooked in cinemas, this lyrical cross-cultural escapade teases out longstanding connections between Wales and Argentina, with Evans drawing together the past and present with ease.
We Were Here
The outbreak of Aids, which ravaged San Francisco in the early 80s, is recounted by those who lived through it, offering a celebration of the indomitable human spirit that enabled diverse communities...
- 12/18/2011
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
Thirty years ago, when Taxi zum Klo was shown in several cinemas under club conditions without a BBFC certificate, I was lined up to give evidence for the defence were it to be prosecuted for obscenity. My services were not required and the film now stands as a milestone in the history of both free speech and the representation of gays in the cinema.
What helps it retain its vitality is that writer-director Frank Ripploh (who died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 52) treats his life as "a normal, tired, neurotic polymorphous-perverse teacher" in Berlin with the same witty, generous, self-denigratory honesty as Clive James and Simon Gray brought to their heterosexual exercises in confessional autobiographies.
Taxi zum Klo is a truthful film, revolutionary in its time, about love, the pleasures of promiscuity and the fears of the fading of desire. Shot just before the great Aids scare of the early 1980s,...
What helps it retain its vitality is that writer-director Frank Ripploh (who died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 52) treats his life as "a normal, tired, neurotic polymorphous-perverse teacher" in Berlin with the same witty, generous, self-denigratory honesty as Clive James and Simon Gray brought to their heterosexual exercises in confessional autobiographies.
Taxi zum Klo is a truthful film, revolutionary in its time, about love, the pleasures of promiscuity and the fears of the fading of desire. Shot just before the great Aids scare of the early 1980s,...
- 4/23/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
"The indie Texan filmmaker David Lowery receives a double bill at the reRun Gastropub Theater in Dumbo, Brooklyn, and while Pioneer, a 16-minute short, and St Nick, an 86-minute feature, don't provide hard answers to their mysteries, both are deeply intriguing," writes Andy Webster in the New York Times. Regarding St Nick, a "potentially stifling ambience is deflected by quiet suspense and the awe-inspiring compositions of the cinematographer, Clay Liford. Decaying rustic interiors evoke Andrew Wyeth still lifes; pastoral long shots suggest a Southwestern walkabout. And Mr Lowery seems ready for a bigger canvas."
"Obliquely charting the terror, loneliness, and liberation of navigating a cold, callous grown-up world, St Nick follows nameless brother and sister runaways (played by real-life siblings Tucker and Savanna Sears) who take up impermanent residence in an empty Texas house," writes Nick Schager in Slant. "David Lowery's debut feature is long on silence and laden...
"Obliquely charting the terror, loneliness, and liberation of navigating a cold, callous grown-up world, St Nick follows nameless brother and sister runaways (played by real-life siblings Tucker and Savanna Sears) who take up impermanent residence in an empty Texas house," writes Nick Schager in Slant. "David Lowery's debut feature is long on silence and laden...
- 4/23/2011
- MUBI
Arthur (12A)
(Jason Winer, 2011, Us) Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Greta Gerwig, Jennifer Garner, Luis Guzmán. 110 mins
You can see what they were thinking: "it worked for one difficult-to-market English comic, so let's try it again". But somewhere between the moon and New York City this romcom seems to have lost some of its spirit and spontaneity. There are some snappy lines and funny moments, but Brand's overprivileged wastrel is nowhere near as cuddly as Dudley Moore's was – or as convincingly drunk. Sometimes, hair of the dog isn't the answer.
How I Ended This Summer (12A)
(Aleksei Popogrebsky, 2010, Rus) Grigory Dobrygin, Sergei Puskepalis. 130 mins
Spare and distinctive two-hander set in remote Arctic Russia, where the endless daylight, monotonous work, some terrible news and a touch of radiation exacerbate generational differences to deadly levels.
Pina (U)
(Wim Wenders, 2011, Ger/Fra/UK) 104 mins
A 3D tribute to the work, rather than the life,...
(Jason Winer, 2011, Us) Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Greta Gerwig, Jennifer Garner, Luis Guzmán. 110 mins
You can see what they were thinking: "it worked for one difficult-to-market English comic, so let's try it again". But somewhere between the moon and New York City this romcom seems to have lost some of its spirit and spontaneity. There are some snappy lines and funny moments, but Brand's overprivileged wastrel is nowhere near as cuddly as Dudley Moore's was – or as convincingly drunk. Sometimes, hair of the dog isn't the answer.
How I Ended This Summer (12A)
(Aleksei Popogrebsky, 2010, Rus) Grigory Dobrygin, Sergei Puskepalis. 130 mins
Spare and distinctive two-hander set in remote Arctic Russia, where the endless daylight, monotonous work, some terrible news and a touch of radiation exacerbate generational differences to deadly levels.
Pina (U)
(Wim Wenders, 2011, Ger/Fra/UK) 104 mins
A 3D tribute to the work, rather than the life,...
- 4/22/2011
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Reissued scabrous, satirical, confrontational German gay sex comedy. By Peter Bradshaw
Frank Ripploh's chaotic, low-budget, hardcore gay sex movie from 1980 still looks heavy-duty more than 30 years on. At the time, supportive liberal straights earnestly praised it for being humane and life-affirming. Perhaps now is the time to emphasise its less high-minded qualities: it is scabrous, satirical, confrontational. The movie is set in West Germany at the end of the pre-Aids era, although the idea of promiscuity and sickness is candidly addressed. Director-star Ripploh plays a version of himself: an earnest and dull schoolteacher by day – by night a dedicated cottager, and frequenter of public lavatories and bath houses. Three decades ago, this was seen as a challenging "issue" movie. Now it looks more like a daring, acid black comedy filmed on the hoof. Taxi Zum Klo was a one-man, one-film gay new wave.
Rating: 4/5
ComedyWorld cinemaPeter Bradshaw
guardian.co.
Frank Ripploh's chaotic, low-budget, hardcore gay sex movie from 1980 still looks heavy-duty more than 30 years on. At the time, supportive liberal straights earnestly praised it for being humane and life-affirming. Perhaps now is the time to emphasise its less high-minded qualities: it is scabrous, satirical, confrontational. The movie is set in West Germany at the end of the pre-Aids era, although the idea of promiscuity and sickness is candidly addressed. Director-star Ripploh plays a version of himself: an earnest and dull schoolteacher by day – by night a dedicated cottager, and frequenter of public lavatories and bath houses. Three decades ago, this was seen as a challenging "issue" movie. Now it looks more like a daring, acid black comedy filmed on the hoof. Taxi Zum Klo was a one-man, one-film gay new wave.
Rating: 4/5
ComedyWorld cinemaPeter Bradshaw
guardian.co.
- 4/21/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Bowie, Christiane F and Taxi zum Klo: these are the things that made Berlin so alluring to the British pop culture of the late 70s and early 80s. Jon Savage remembers a bewitching era
Frank Ripploh is fed up. Stuck in hospital for six weeks with some unnamed contagious sexual disease – most probably hepatitis – he receives a visit from his live-in lover. Instead of listening sympathetically to Frank's moans about the other patients, Bernd gives him a right telling-off about his promiscuity: "I hope lying here teaches you something." After Bernd leaves, a furious Frank pulls his clothes on and hails a taxi. There then follows a mad dash around various public toilets. With the meter running, he desperately searches for a quick pick-up and eventually ends up in Berlin's Tiergarten – a large public park near the centre of the city that was a notorious cruising ground at that time.
Frank Ripploh is fed up. Stuck in hospital for six weeks with some unnamed contagious sexual disease – most probably hepatitis – he receives a visit from his live-in lover. Instead of listening sympathetically to Frank's moans about the other patients, Bernd gives him a right telling-off about his promiscuity: "I hope lying here teaches you something." After Bernd leaves, a furious Frank pulls his clothes on and hails a taxi. There then follows a mad dash around various public toilets. With the meter running, he desperately searches for a quick pick-up and eventually ends up in Berlin's Tiergarten – a large public park near the centre of the city that was a notorious cruising ground at that time.
- 4/21/2011
- by Jon Savage
- The Guardian - Film News
During one scene from Frank Ripploh's semi-autobiographical tale of a sex-obsessed, German school teacher Taxi Zum Klo (1980) we witness a man lying on a bed being sprayed in the face with urine. For ten, maybe fifteen seconds, all we are shown is the increasingly soaked and excited gent and a stream of the aforementioned urine being directed by an unknown party.
Although a large percentage of the film-going public would claim to be appalled by the allusion of one man relieving himself on another, I thought it was a brave and interesting scene. Certainly my first experience of seeing a 'golden shower' on the big screen and being a liberal fellow in an art house cinema I had no problem with the suggestion. Hell, it was only a stream of water or something; it's not as if Ripploh had furnished us with a wide shot of him with his...
Although a large percentage of the film-going public would claim to be appalled by the allusion of one man relieving himself on another, I thought it was a brave and interesting scene. Certainly my first experience of seeing a 'golden shower' on the big screen and being a liberal fellow in an art house cinema I had no problem with the suggestion. Hell, it was only a stream of water or something; it's not as if Ripploh had furnished us with a wide shot of him with his...
- 3/28/2011
- by Matt Groizard
- CineVue
A look at what's new on DVD today:
"Gasland" (2010)
Directed by Josh Fox
Released by New Video Group
"Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work"
Directed by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg
Released by Mpi Home Video
"Exit Through the Gift Shop" (2010)
Directed by Banksy
Released by Oscilloscope Laboratories
If you haven't caught up on the year's best documentaries in time to fill out your top 10 list, three of them will be hitting DVD shelves this week, beginning with Josh Fox's Sundance award-winning "Gasland," an exploration of the "hydraulic fracturing" going on in own backyard, a type of drilling that has spread to 34 states in the U.S. and has left a host of reservoirs of toxic waste and frequent gas explosions along the way. For something less serious, but equally compelling, there is also Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg's "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work," which follows the...
"Gasland" (2010)
Directed by Josh Fox
Released by New Video Group
"Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work"
Directed by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg
Released by Mpi Home Video
"Exit Through the Gift Shop" (2010)
Directed by Banksy
Released by Oscilloscope Laboratories
If you haven't caught up on the year's best documentaries in time to fill out your top 10 list, three of them will be hitting DVD shelves this week, beginning with Josh Fox's Sundance award-winning "Gasland," an exploration of the "hydraulic fracturing" going on in own backyard, a type of drilling that has spread to 34 states in the U.S. and has left a host of reservoirs of toxic waste and frequent gas explosions along the way. For something less serious, but equally compelling, there is also Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg's "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work," which follows the...
- 12/12/2010
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
Robert Pattinson as Salvador Dali, Javier Beltrán as Federico Garcia Lorca in Paul Morrison’s Little Ashes (top); Eytan Fox’s Mary Lou (middle); Frank Ripploh’s raunchy gay classic Taxi Zum Klo (bottom) Torino Lgbt Film Festival 2010: Leo’S Room, Boy In A Bathtub, Rosa von Praunheim Other Torino screenings on Wednesday, April 21, include Paul Morrison’s Little Ashes, starring Twilight idol Robert Pattinson as Salvador Dali (!) and Javier Beltrán as Federico Garcia Lorca. Set in 1920s Spain, Dali is portrayed as a closet case in love with Lorca, who ended up killed by Franco sympathizers during the Spanish Civil War. Future filmmaker Luis Buñuel (Matthew McNulty) is depicted as an anti-gay grouch. Producer Carlo Dusi will be present at [...]...
- 4/21/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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