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Reviews
Belle de jour (1967)
Deneuve splattered with goo
"Belle de Jour" caught a lot of attention 40 years ago because Luis Buñel (1900-1983) directed it, and at the time he was considered "innovative." The passage of time, however, has not been kind to this movie. It now appears to be nothing more than a conventional sex melodrama, the kind French intellectuals were railing against in the French theatre as early as 1890. True, there are some unconventional turns, particularly the pedestrian "dream sequences" Buñel inserted to amplify the fantasies bedeviling the would-be whore Severine (played by Catherine Deneuve). But the sequences are unimaginatively shot and sometimes the editing is clumsy; a good example is the well known mud slinging scene, as Severine imagines her husband and his friend splattering her with a kind of black goo. It's utterly unconvincing.
The strength of the movie, if it has one, is Catherine Deneuve. She was (at age 24) approaching the pinnacle of her beauty in the film. The director was wise to choose an actress with her stunning looks, but he unfortunately could not convince her to degrade herself on camera. The degradation process is crucial for what is happening to the character of Severine. She remains prim and proper, as all manner of fetishists have their way with her; one can only speculate what an actress like Fanny Ardant or Isabelle Adjani could have done with this material. Both actresses were much too young in when the film was shot in 1967 to be considered for the part (Ardant was 18, and Adjani was a child), but subsequent performances by both actresses have revealed abilities that make the prospect intriguing.
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)
the transcendent Indira Varma
True, this movie does not match Mira Nair's earlier movies such as Mississippi Masala and Salaam Bombay! It is also true that much of the movie's pace is sodden and the plot is fairly predictable. And yes, unfortunate feminist tendencies creep in from time to time. But the presence alone of the incomparable Indira Varma is worth the price of admissionor the price of renting the DVD.
What makes this movie valuable is its sumptuousness, as many critics noted when it premiered. The sexuality is intense; the locations in northern India are stunning; the costumes are well wrought and the music is convincing. Westerners are used in some ways to seeing movies about India, especially India of the British Raj. But this movie is set in the 16th century, well before Western influences had set in. But what makes the movie so fascinating is the "Westernized" vision that emanates from the four lead actors, all of whom were either born in or grew up in England. Indira Varma was born, I think, in Kent; Ramon Tikaram, whose voice is as resonant as any movie actor's heard in the last thirty years, grew up in Germany and later moved with his family to England. Naveen Andrews was born in London, as was Sarita Choudury. These four actors share nearly all the movie's focus, and they are thoroughly westernized. They, and directoress Nair, all got away with filming this movie under the noses of the Indian authorities. As a result, there is a delightful seditious quality to the work. But the most delightful of all is the aforementioned Indira Varma, whose stunning beauty and sexual intensity almost leap off the screen. At times she is playful, at others deeply distressed, at other times she seeks vengeance. Repeatedly she embraces her destiny with what seems to be her entire being: rarely has an actress in recent films been able so to concentrate on and immerse herself in the dangers, the hope, the expectations, and the benevolence that surround her. What a woman! And what an artist. Like all great artists, she transcends the limits of culture, critical distinctions, and artificial categorization.
Topsy-Turvy (1999)
a superb portrait of the Victorian era
At first glance this movie may seem like a biographical treatment of Gilbert and Sullivan; it is actually a representation of a bygone age, employing the figures of William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan to counterpoise the contradictions within the later Victorian period. Sullivan (in Allan Corduner's performance) is the sensation-seeker, Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) the cerebral eccentric. Both are virtuosos as composer and librettist/director respectively, creating comic masterpieces unparalleled since Aristophanes. Broadbent's performance in particular marks this actor as one of Britain's very best; but the design work got the Oscar awards and nominations, and rightly so. Mike Leigh's script and direction are taut and convincing. The scenes set within the Savoy Theatre in London are as authentic anyone will ever see in a movie.
Wonderland (2003)
John Holmes--again
Wonderland resembles some of the many "Los Angeles" movies before it: The Blue Dahlia, Sunset Boulevard, The Day of the Locust, Double Indemnity, Chinatown, L.A. Confidential, Boogie Nights, and many lesser-known others. What this movie shares with Boogie Nights, of course, is its central character, the washed-up porn star John "Johnny Wadd" Holmes. But Wonderland presents not only Holmes but other real-life characters involved in "the Wonderland murders" in the mid-1980s. One of those characters is a Palestinian immigrant who went by the name of Eddie Nash (played by playwright Eric Bogosian); Nash and other drug dealers, thieves, pimps, and murderers form one side of the cast. Holmes must negotiate several fine lines between his addiction, the above gang of criminals, his wife Sharon (played by Lisa Kudrow), and his teen-age girlfriend Dawn Schiller (played by Kate Bosworth).
The movie owes much of its editing structure to films like Pulp Fiction (heyisn't that yet another Los Angeles movie?); it is successful in maintaining an arresting level of tension among the characters. But the real strong point is the acting. Val Kilmer as Holmes is riveting, and the final scene he has with Kudrow captures the poor guy's complete disintegration into psychotic self-pity. Kudrow gives as good as she gets from Kilmer, and probably better; few former TV actresses seem to have her ability to find substance in characters so deluded. The real Sharon Holmes was on the set during some of the shooting. I wonder what she thought of Kudrow. An associate producer of the movie is listed as Dawn Schillerthat's right, the teen-aged half-German who ran off with Holmes to Florida after the murders and then turned him in to the police. What a story. What a cast. What an absolute sink hole of degradation Los Angeles must be.
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Smaller than the sum of its parts, but . . .
"Five Easy Pieces" is one of those "flawed" movies that has several excellent scenes, some outstanding performances, and very often features ingenious direction. But the sum never equals the many great parts. Why? For one thing, character motivations are often opaque. Even the character of Bobby, whom Jack Nicholson plays brilliantly, remains a mosaic rather than an intelligible entity. The closest the movie comes to figuring out Bobby is when Catherine van Oost (played, again brilliantly, by Susan Anspach) dices and slices him into many more than five tiny little pieces. "Why should I go with you?" she asks him. "If a person has no love for himself, no respect for himself, no love of his friends, family, work, something--how can he ask for love in return? I mean, why should he ask for it?" Bobby is left muttering something like "Well, ah . . . I could make you happy." But he realizes she's right. The audience, unfortunately, realized the same thing about an hour earlier.
The editing by Christopher Holmes and Gerald Shepard is first-classbut the best part of the movie is Bob Rafelson's directing. I mean, what a vision this man had! It stretches from what look like Gulf Coast oil fields to Los Angeles to Vancouver Island (or places remarkably similar). The extremely difficult traffic sequences--even the ones on the ferry boats--flow seamlessly. And the "road movie" section from L.A. to Vancouver with Helena Kallianiotis as the utterly bizarre, hygiene-obsessed lesbian is a masterpiece. In every location, Rafelson has everything under control, yet he allowed actors a wide berth to expand the rather abstract characters assigned them. The movie is worth watching for both its flaws and its inconsistencies. Not a great movie, but worth watching, thinking about, and rediscovering.
Y tu mamá también (2001)
Mexico: magical, musical, or neither?
This movie is less about sex among teen-age boys than it is about Mexico. As Maribel Verdu, in the role of Luisa Cortes, tells the boys near the end of the movie, "You should be glad you're Mexicans! You should be glad to live in Mexico!" To which the boys whimsically agree with a bizarre, tequila-soaked toast to "Mexico, magical, musical!" The boys themselves enjoy that rare thing in Mexico: a middle-class lifestyle, even though they are actually the "aristocrats" of that country, attending fancy weddings and spending substantial sums of pesos on marijuana, beer, and road trips.
The road trip which comprises most of the movie's action is a two-day sojourn through the countryside, beginning in Mexico City and ending somewhere on the Pacific coast. Film makers Alfonso and Carlos Cuaron (Alfonso directed it) want very much to show Mexico as a quaint but non-threatening place, interspersed with convenient motels, friendly restaurants, and the odd roadblock set up by the Mexican military. But the road is always clear for adventure, for "imporant" life experiences, and most importantly for sequences that resemble so many American-made "coming-of-age" movies, of which "Y Tu Mama Tambien" is often a replica. "See?" the Cuaron Brothers seem to say, "we Mexicans are no different from you norteamericanos!" They are completely wrong, of course. But that's what makes this movie interesting. Nobody in this movie suffers from that particular North American trait borne of Northern European Protestantism: guilt that derives from failure to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Nobody in this movie has a sense of anyone or anything outside themselves; they live with passion for the moment, they fly into rages when it suits them, and sex is no different from any other kind of activity, though it does have the potential to get males and females worked up about each other. Such treatments make this movie so Mexican: it's still very much the Third World down there, even if there are cars, fancy houses, and even paved highways.