Reviews

Rio Bravo has an emotional connection with me which makes reviewing it objectively virtually impossible. It is just about the most perfect example in a film, that I have ever witnessed, of action blended with a philosophy of living. Howard Hawks would, no doubt, scoff at such a description--but that is my feeling about it.

I first saw the picture when I was about 10 years old in a Saturday matinée at my local theater. The theater was packed with other kids around the same age as myself.

The scene that will always live with me from that theater experience, is when, near the end of the picture, two bad guys have managed to dodge John Wayne's bullets and are coming up behind him. We see the two bad men blown away by two shotgun blasts and then we hear the familiar cackle of Stumpy, played by Walter Brennan. When that cackle was heard in the theater that afternoon, the kids in that theater erupted spontaneously into cheers. In some visceral, indefinable way, we kids identified with Stumpy, and his "supposed uselessness'. And when Stumpy was vindicated in that moment, we felt vindicated.

Rio Bravo has many moments like that, especially with its dialog.

When Feathers asks Chance what he thinks she should do to avoid being unfairly harassed by lawmen wherever she goes, Chance suggests that she stop dressing the way she does. Feathers looks straight at Chance and says, "That's the kind of thing I'd do, if I was the kind of girl you think I am, sheriff."

Rio Bravo is a deliberately slow movie. And in its deliberateness, Rio Bravo examines a number of different themes. Some of them are:

Rio Bravo is an exploration of what loyalty means. Besides the obvious loyalty of Chance and Dude and Stumpy, there is the example of Chance's friend Wheeler, who ends up dying for his loyalty. And Carlos the hotel owner, who by the end has come up to help Chance--with a shotgun that is as big as he is. But again, there is the dialog, such as when Chance hands Dude his own set of guns, that Dude had pawned long ago for a drink. Dude looks up at Chance as they are walking, "You've been holding these all this time?" Chance replies, "Been waiting till they fit you again".

Rio Bravo is also an exploration of what bravery is. Again, there are the obvious scenes of bravery involving Chance, Dude and Colorado. But there is also the scene, for instance, of Feathers, sitting in a chair asleep in the morning--outside of Chance's bedroom at the hotel. She has obviously been "standing guard" all night. Chance exasperatedly chides her for this, but her bravery is undeniable and touching

But most of all, I think that Rio Bravo is an exploration of friendship, and what it can mean for us to have a friend by our side, through it all, no matter what.

As a young boy, watching this movie years ago on the big screen, it had a profound effect on me. Like Mia Farrow in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, I felt like I was transported into the screen. Whenever I watch Rio Bravo, it still has the same impact for me.

I can't say that about too many other movies.

The way that I look at Goddard's movies, is that they are meant to stimulate you like a Rorschach test--so that what you get out of it, is more a function of who you are, at that particular time, than anything Goddard creates.

The politics of Masculine Feminine are certainly dated, at least as far as the United States is concerned. But still, it is interesting that this "revolutionary talk" among the young precedes the May 1968 student/worker riots in France by over two years.

The most lasting part of the movie, I think, is the "sexual politics" that is on display throughout the film. Jean Pierre Leaud is good, as he so often was, at playing the unsure yet cocky young male. And Chantal Goya, as Madeline, is certainly a poster child for the self-centered hip youth of the 60s.

But the filming of "sexual politics" has been done so much now in movies --particularly in Independent film--that watching Masculine Feminine now, for the first time, can make it seem fairly clichéd. Everything from Sex, Lies, and Videotape, to many of the films of Whit Stillman (such as Metropolitan and Barcelona) cover the same territory is a much more accessible way, in my opinion.

But it is an early display of how the Coca Cola generation was relating to each other--and it was filmed at the moment that it was happening--it has the feel of a documentary.

My own favorite scene is when Madeline's friend, Catherine, is standing in her kitchen, eating an apple, while "verbally fencing" with Paul's friend, Robert. There are other moments in Masculine Feminine which have the same recognition of reality, (of testing and tension between the sexes) but this is the longest such scene, and it was a delight to watch.

The television show Veronica Mars is a meld of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twin Peaks. The Buffy comparison has been mentioned endlessly, but people too often miss the similarities to Twin Peaks.

Twin Peaks had the overlaying mystery of who killed Laura Palmer, just as Veronica Mars has the mystery of who killed Veronica's best friend, Lilly Kane.

But while Twin Peaks is mostly remembered now for its quirky, even surreal, visual style; people tend to forget that Twin Peaks also had a dark, somber mood that haunted the viewer, and weaved its way through the entire series, particularly the first season. It was a mood based on hyper-realistic scenes--such as the one where Laura Palmer's mother finds out about her daughter's murder.

Veronica Mars (the show) has a similar mood hanging over it, which adds a layer to everything we watch--from Veronica's snappy dialog (and terrific singing in one episode!) to the teen mystery-of-the-week that needs to be solved (such as who is printing and processing fake IDs).

It is this double layer of plot which makes Veronica Mars such a standout. Many shows have such layering, Buffy typically had an overlying story arc each season. Alias has its Rambaldi mystery. But no show had ever done a better job of blending and interweaving the two layers.

Veronica Mars creator, and primary writer, Rob Thomas, deserves to be compared to Buffy the Vampire Slayer's creator Joss Whedon--if for no other reason than for the creation of Veronica herself, with her wit, her anger, and her charm (the enjoyable triple threat that carries the show). But Thomas also deserves considered comparison to David Lynch for creating this series that works on so many levels.

Veronica Mars, whatever its fate in its second season (given the fickleness of audiences and networks alike), it should be remembered for its writing of characters, dialog, and emotional situations.

And Veronica Mars should also be remembered for creating one of the most captivating and complex heroines ever to grace TV or film, --played beautifully, in both in spirit and actuality, by Kristen Bell.

I think Patrice Leconte is one of the more reliably interesting directors working today. His films have intelligent characters who can usually be counted on to examine their lives and talk about what they are doing and feeling.

Intimate Strangers is, unfortunately, one of his weaker films, which means that it is still worth seeing, but it may not leave much of an impression with you, like some of his other films, such as Ridicule.

The problem is that, for most of the film, only one of the characters, Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire) is doing much examining. The other main character, William (Fabrice Luchini), is all wound up in a ball of repression. He doesn't seem able to get in touch with his feelings, much less be able to express them. After about two thirds of the way through the movie, this character flaw starts to wear the viewer down.

***Possible Spoilers***

Anna is a prospective psychiatric patient, who inadvertently goes into the wrong office and ends up unknowingly confessing to a tax accountant. The tax accountant, William, who blinks and stares in amazement at Anna as she tells him her troubles, remains, for the most part, silent--especially about who he really is, and what his profession is.

This sounds amusing, and in part it is, but the problem is that, as William is written, he is too much of "one note". He's repressed, and unable to express himself, even when it becomes obvious to him and us that he has grown fond of Anna.

In theme, the movie reminds me of another French film of a few years ago, Un coeur en hiver, by Claude Sautet. That was a much better film, I think, because it explored the conflict (inner and outer) of a repressed man who is being pursued by an attractive woman (Emmanuelle Beart, in his case). It was a much sadder and more disturbing film than Intimate Strangers, but I think that is what makes it a better film. Unlike Sautet, Leconte can't seem to make up his mind whether to make his film an exploration of loneliness or a whimsical farce on repression. And in the end it becomes neither.

But it would be unfair to leave the impression that the film is not worth seeing. First, there is the acting. Fabrice Luchini does a wonderful job of portraying William's ever changing states of sorrow, sweetness, and concern--and often portraying the different states only with his eyes. And Sandrine Bonnaire is, as she has always been in anything I have ever seen her in, fascinating to watch. She portrays intelligence, mixed with an air of danger, better than just about any other actress I can think of. There is a real joy watching these two actors play off one another, and to try to figure out what is going on underneath the artiface of behavior.

And second, the supporting characters are very well drawn. Some are funny, like the "real" psychiatrist down the hall from William's office, who appears to be as much a mercenary as he does a healer. And William's secretary, who is just as good at showing what she is feeling by her facial expression, as William is good at hiding what he is feeling. And other characters,like William's ex-lover,are intriguing. She obviously knows William, and we suspect that part of what irritates us about him, after watching him for about an hour, is what has driven her away after what appears to have been years of association. Late in the movie, she ends up expressing the exasperation that many of us in the audience are feeling, when she says, "Either dump her, or hump her". Shockingly well put, I thought.

If you like "French" films, go see it.