Reviews

Is this a film about "first love"? No -- there's no warm delightful discovery here. Maybe the film about the impossibility of love...which is a bleak statement.

What we do get is very painful depiction of sexual trauma, and gratuitous -- but stylish -- depictions of sexual violence and pedophilia. If the viewer is hoping to see innocent joys, they are in for waaaay more than they bargained for.

I admire the director Hani's courage and inventiveness -- many risks are taken. But the transgressive material feels mostly tacked-on -- for example, it's ambiguous if the "photo-shoot party scene" is "about pornography", or is simply pornography.

In the end, Hani's courage to break moral norms is stronger than his emotional courage. The film fearlessly portrays trauma and perversion, but not the courage of love and ethics. A particular failure of the film is how flat the female lead is. She's cute and she smiles a lot. But she is not given a chance to become completely human. Instead we're left only with tears without meaning or ending.

A strange and thought-provoking film. At first glance, "The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan" is a period drama, retelling the repressive "reforms" of Lord Mizuno in 1841-42: he banned theater, gambling, prostitution, luxurious food. The film follows residents of Edo's Red Light District - geishas, gamblers, desperate losers, dreamers - and their response to life under Mizuno's "reforms".

The story is played out in a highly theatrical manner: there are some heroic actions, but no real heroes in this story. Like Kurosawa's "Dodes'ka-den" (also released in 1970), all the characters are comical flat caricatures, amusing "types" that demonstrate the absurdity and horror of society and the human condition. Some might find this lack of "realism" off-putting, but I enjoyed the stagey-ness, as director Shinoda's well-considered artistic choice. The viewer isn't allowed to get close to any of these cartoonish characters; and yet, the story becomes a kind of timeless allegory, rather than a tale of real people in a particular time and place.

I came across this film while researching the late 60s - early 70s films of the Art Theater Guild, which produced so many radical films embodying the radical student politics and culture of the era. At first I thought, " Ah good, here we are in the 1800s - at least we won't have to deal with hippie angst and extreme destruction of the narrative frame." But in fact..."The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan" has much in common with those radical ATG films ("Funeral Parade of Roses", "Throw Away Your Books", "This Transient Life", etc). Despite appearances, "Buraikan" is not really about the 1800s, it's very much about 1970. Here, revolution lies within claiming pleasure and enacting freedom as a form of life; but as students and hippies discovered, success is far from guaranteed. At some moments near the film's conclusion, the allegory hits repeated bulls-eyes, and profound truths are revealed about the political dilemmas of 1970...and maybe our own era, as well.

"Rules of the Game" is beloved by cineastes of all stripes, for good reason: it's masterfully constructed, with a large ensemble cast that delivers enthusiastic performances, and a director who can deftly handle elaborate, intricate plotting (even while appearing in front of the lens in the crucial role of Octave). On the most superficial level, the film is enjoyable as a farce, with numerous messy romantic entanglements playing out as slapstick set-pieces, in the mode of the Marx Brothers or Chaplin. Or, interpreted as a drama, the film is a statement about the impossibility of love and monogamy; humans are simply too complex, too changeable, or too selfish for idealized romantic monogamy to be anything more than just an ideal.

The standard interpretation is that the film is a satire: the lives of the wealthy are made to seem absurd, hypocritical, and pointless.

I can't argue against that. But, it seems to me that Renoir is not making a simple and unambiguous statement with "Rules of the Game". First, Renoir seems to downplay the dramatic effect of the story. In his 1937 "The Grand Illusion", there are long stretches of prolonged dramatic intensity, whereas in the 1939 "Rules of the Game", the whirlwind of action doesn't let up for a minute: there isn't time for tragedy to take hold. The plot darts between the numerous characters and their entanglements like a fleeing rabbit, and at least a third of the film is taken up by an enormously ornate party scene: a manic, anarchic, near-Surrealist cascade of mayhem and pratfalls.

Second, if Renoir was simply a satirist, his characters would be clearly identifiable as heroes or villains; you'd know who represents good qualities, and who represents bad. Renoir clearly wishes to make all his characters human, that is, imperfect and full of both good and bad. Pathetic characters are seen acting with great compassion and insight; heroic ones are seen acting like buffoons.

These two qualities, for me, serve to make Renior's point ambiguous - however successful and enjoyable the film is. Maybe what Renoir was up to was not as simple as "satire". I am not sure. Maybe it's the mania that is the message: the anarchic center of the film, a juggernaut of chaos, creates an odd mood of delight plus existential dread. It was the eve of WWII, after all. Maybe Renoir, like others, knew that a world was about to end. This blast of joy and absurdity was perhaps Renoir's way of saying "adieu" (not "au revoir") to that world.

Not surprising that the film was initially planned to be directed by Joseph Losey; like Losey's "Accident" or "Secret Ceremony", "10:30PM in the Summer" is full of desperate people struggling with the impossibility of love and the depths of existential pain. There's a love triangle, illicit desires, irrational self-destructive actions, excessive drinking, dark soliloquies. What Losey didn't have, though, is the extraordinary performance of Melina Mercouri...my god she's fantastic. She owns the movie completely. Her character is strong, confident, and filled with unendurable pain. Typically, "women in trouble" are portrayed as weak, helpless, victims. Mercouri is no one's fool; she sees and feels everything, and has no illusions about anyone. It's a very special performance. Where are all the strong and self-determined middle-aged women in cinema? Well, there's Geena Rowlands in Cassavettes' films ....but Melina Mercouri here might be the one to beat.

Secret Ceremony is both extraordinary and nearly unendurable. Director Joseph Losey ratchets up the dramatic tension as high as it will go, yet refuses to hurry anything along, leaving the viewer trapped, endlessly adrift in a spooky, desperate, mad world. Mia Farrow's performance as the disturbed waif Cenci might be her career-best; certainly, she is at her most extreme and uninhibited. Truly, Farrow brings the extra-strength psycho-Goth-pixie magic. Liz Taylor, looking large, lugubrious, and lovely, is also fantastic here as desperate Leonora. Together, their two characters interlock their traumas in a folie a deux, "madness for two"...and find something like love. The film is a cornucopia of sexual trauma, loss, grief, mental illness, incest, suicide. Like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff?", the emotional tenor of the film is pitched so high that the effect on the viewer is downright punishing. With two lesser actresses, the film's melodramatic excesses might have become John Waters-level camp. But with the twin goddesses Farrow and Taylor chewing up the scenery so masterfully, there's no laughs, just one dark, wild ride (albeit, a reeeeally slow one) that keeps getting darker and wilder. In the end, it's hard not to be relieved that the film is over. Secret Ceremony is an incredible film, if you can withstand it.

The USA went through a bad time in the early 70s. Some great films of that era capture the grim, pessimistic national mood: Easy Rider, Two-Lane Blacktop, Vanishing Point, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show. Electra Glide in Blue belongs on this list....but unfortunately, at the bottom.

Director Guercio lets four actors have their own long solo scene, in which each has a messy breakdown: they rant and rave, chew up the scenery, and become sweaty panting psychotics. It's waaaay over the top, and it's pretty wild.

The problem is, lead actor Robert Blake doesn't get one of those scenes. So his good-natured little conflicts don't seem very interesting, in comparison. He's pretty good at some moments, but overall the performance isn't very deep or memorable.

"Just Before Nightfall" is a slow, grim, gritty, no-nonsense film. It seems as if director Claude Chabrol is saying to the viewer, "Look, don't expect to be charmed or pleased by this film -- that would be pointless for everyone. I'm interested in one thing, and one thing only: the theme of the story. Anything else would be a pointless distraction." If the viewer is willing to go along with Chabrol for the ride, Just Before Nightfall is a rich and moving film.

"Just Before Nightfall" is not a whodunnit, or even a why-dunnit. "It" -- a murder -- kind of just happened, possibly accidentally, and the question facing the characters is: what shall we do about it, now? The lead character knows he is guilty, and his desire to conceal his guilt slowly changes to a desire to confess his guilt. In this, he is like the character of Raskolnikov in Dostoevski's "Crime and Punishment". More astonishing is how his friends and family respond to his confession: they are eager to forgive and forget, to deny and bury the past. And this, in turn, creates an even worse situation for the anti-hero.

1971 was dark moment, politically and culturally. Many films of that year feel like they are suffering from a hangover from the 60s: the time of exuberant exploration and new possibilities has passed, and in its place is a cosmic-scale exhaustion and hopelessness. You see this kind of industrial-strength bleakness in US films like "Five Easy Pieces", "Carnal Knowledge", "Two-Lane Blacktop". If you enjoy 70s bleakness, or, you are interested in guilt and forgiveness, or, you want to watch a director go after his message with an intensely single-minded focus -- then "Just Before Nightfall" is well worth your time.

Absolutely brilliant film, on every level. Genius screenwriter Harold Pinter and genius director Joseph Losey previously collaborated on two other masterpieces, "The Servant" (1963) and "Accident" (1967). All three films are set in different milieus, but there's a common thread: in each, an alienated protagonist tries to find an authentic expression of their love, and in doing so, brings about disaster. Losey, a former leftist blacklisted from Hollywood by Eugene McCarthy, and Pinter, a critic of Britain's rigid class system, know all-too-well how the constraints of society make it nearly impossible for any person to live and love in a fully human way.

The viewer might assume "The Go-Between" is a fluffy Merchant-Ivory costume drama, built for easy escapism amid the romantic escapades of the upper class; a kind of lifestyle porn. That would be wrong: it has an intelligence and depth that elevates it to the realm of Truly Great Cinema. "The Go-Between" is no love-letter to the upper class mansion-dwellers of 1900 that it portrays. Instead, through its deep and deeply-conflicted characters, skillfully plotted intrigues, and tragic climax, it firmly takes aim at the privileged world it depicts.

Pinter is a master at using few words to reveal his character's inner lives, and of boldly allowing sheer perversity to emerge out of seemingly ordinary situations. The viewer is always aware of director Losey's thoughtful, contemplative gaze, which makes everything seem weighty, significant, but never pretentious.

The film is carried by Dominic Guard's brilliant portrayal of 12-year-old Leo, a fiercely intelligent and sensitive young person. Guard, aged 14 at the time of filming, turns in a performance that might be the greatest-ever for an actor of that age. Julie Christie and Alan Bates are absolutely perfect as the lovers (who we see together only briefly); they seize all the chances that Pinter's script offers them.

Pinter and Losey demonstrate their genius by presenting something as mundane as a cricket match - that most boring of all sports - and transforming it into a choreographed labyrinth of class conflict and multi-layered erotic intrigue.

Harold Pinter was born Jewish. While Judaism is never mentioned (even in passing) in any of his three collaborations with Losey, it seems clear that the Jewish experience informs all of them. The protagonists of each are outsiders, who find some kind of position within an odd, unfamiliar world; but that position is always tenuous and uncomfortable. Desire and love, however deeply felt, can find no appropriate expression in our world, so guilt and dissatisfaction are permanent conditions. As in the work of the greatest of Jewish artists, Franz Kafka, society - and the universe - are arbitrary, mysterious, capricious, and inhospitable to human fulfillment. Redemption, while real, remains forever only a distant possibility.

My god, is this film ever Czech Czech Czech. It's charming, warm-hearted, humble, sensual, and occasionally brutal. Like so many other Czech films, here we see humans being human, and their ridiculousness is viewed with affection and delight.

As Fellini's "Amacord" captured the Italy of the director's childhood, Menzel's "Postriziny" reminisces about life at a rural Czech brewery in the 1920s. But Menzel's film drifts through daily life with only the most minor of events, and the plot, such as it is, is guided by nothing of consequence at all. This film floats by so lightly that, in comparison, it makes "Amacord" seem as epic as a Hollywood superhero blockbuster.

The wife is lovely. The husband is loving and dutiful. The brother is an annoying clown, but everyone enjoys him. Nothing terribly bad happens.

The film is kind of a marvel of understatement, or disengagement. One can only wonder why everything feels so inconsequential. Was it fear of the censors? Or Menzel's desire to be always charming, at any cost? Or, is Menzel radically humble, bordering on being humble-to-a-fault? Or, is the average movie viewer simply unprepared to take on a film in which the stakes are so low?

NYC went through a rough time in the 70s and 80s. It was a dangerous, lawless, decadent place. That's NYC we know from so many gritty movie portrayals: the brutal world of Taxi Driver, The French Connection, Serpico, Across 110th St, or the wild decadent world of Midnight Cowboy, Joe, Ciao Manhattan, Warhol's Chelsea Girls. Director Milos Forman's "Taking Off" captures that same NYC, but seen through an affectionate, playful lens. The result is an unconventional, deadpan, charming time-capsule that sometimes strikes comedy gold. There's an endless parade of quirky folks making fools of themselves, but Forman presents them sweetly: we laugh at them, but not in a mean-spirited way: because they're just adorable idiots trying to be free...just like the rest of us. Buck Henry is wonderful as the uptight, long-suffering dad, his deadpan performance a master class in blank comedy. And the film is a character actor's paradise, with memorable appearances by Vincent Schiavelli, Paul Benedict, and numerous open mic hopefuls. Milos Forman's previous film, the Czech 1967 The Fireman's Ball overlaps heavily with Taking Off's good-natured irreverence, with extra satirical bite delivered to any character who claims moral authority. Forman's seems to say "Ah humans, they're so absurd and adorable!" Maybe it took a newly-arrived Czech emigre to reveal 1971 NYC's hidden sweetness to itself.

Director William Klein was clearly having a lot of fun here. Who Are You Polly Maggoo? Is one crazy ride, like a clown-car blown sideways through the Parisian fashion district. The plot is a flimsy thing onto which wacky, manic set pieces are hung...Polly is modeling, Polly is being interviewed, Polly is being courted, people say nonsensical things with great aplomb. But like Godard's films of the era, the real action is the unpredictable flow of ideas, words, unrealistic scenarios, striking images. Unlike Godard, Polly Maggoo is genuinely funny. It's a delightful example of the pre-May '68 anarchic pop-art exuberance: everything is weird and wild, and nothing matters very much. Maybe Klein's satirical surrealism most closely resembles Robert Downey Sr's "Putney Swope", another goofy, confounding comedic confection that folks find either nonsensical or hysterical. Meanwhile on the pop charts, Gainsbourg and Bardot advocated for "Shebam! Pow! Blop! Whizzz!" -- and Klein was right back at them with a hearty "beep-beep!" Taken on its own terms, a loveable little film.

The protagonist of Je T'Aime, Je T'Aime, Claude Ridder, spends the majority of the film adrift in time, randomly surfacing at various moments from a tragic love relationship. The viewer enjoys being flung forwards and backwards in time, to piece together the story...or, not.

The plot owes a huge debt to Chris Marker's far superior La Jetee, in which time-travel, love, and self-knowledge form a closed loop. Je T'Aime, despite its fractured chronology, is in fact more akin to a conventional tragic love story.

Director Renais was born in 1922, making him 46 in 1968 at the time this film was made. I think this is visible: Renais was perhaps too old to really feel and understand the 60s and its anarchic energy. While the film's time machine looks borrowed from "Barbarella", and the time-fracturing sometimes has a psychedelic quality, Renais' world-view is that of a man of the 1950s. (The hero is a WW2 veteran, firmly locating him in an earlier era.) The film is about existential dread, the weight of history, damaged and intractable male subjectivity. Meanwhile in Paris, in May '68, young people were rising up and discovering new forms of life.

The major flaws of the film are Claude Rich's unsympathetic performance as the protagonist, and a script that somehow leaves the love relationship feeling flat.

An interesting thought experiment: if the lead actor had been someone more appealing -- say, Alain Delon, instead of the somewhat weedy and overwrought Claude Rich -- would Je T'Aime be now regarded as a masterpiece? Quite possibly, yes.

For fans of Renais, worth seeking out. Otherwise, treat viewing Je T'aime as an experiment...from which you may or may not return.

The title "Crazed Fruit" probably has different connotations in Japanese...but in English, the title seems to suggest the viewer is in for a trashy entertainment. In fact, "Crazed Fruit" is a brilliant, thoughtful, and powerful film.

The film succeeds through its strong writing and strong performances. The director seems to have a clear vision for the film -- unusual, considering it was his debut feature.

What gives "Crazed Fruit" its depth and richness is the subtlety of the plot and performances. The film ends in tragedy, but this outcome has its origins in ordinary, minor human flaws that anyone could identify with. The three main characters' weaknesses combine in a particularly unfortunate way, to produce a spectacularly bad result. The younger brother is blameless and pure in his desire to know true love; the older brother is understandably overcome by the strength of his feelings of love and passion; the girl is blameness in her desire to experience an innocent and powerful form of love. Yet together, the three work to bring about disaster.

Highly recommended.

There were some prodigiously talented people involved in this film: director Joseph Losey (responsible for the brilliant Mr. Klein, The Servant, etc), Monica Vitti (of Antonioni's best films), Dirk Bogarde (one of the best actors of the era), Terrence Stamp.

So why does the film fall so flat? Somehow the tone is consistently off. The highlights are Dirk Bogarde's campy Bond villain, Monica Vitti's effortless glamour, the outrageous pop-art set design and costumes. Yet, the comedic bits aren't very funny, the story progresses awkwardly, and nothing engages or pleases the viewer very much.

My admiration for Losey, Bogarde, and Vitti kept me going to the end. Without that angle, I think a viewer would have a tough time with this film.

Camp is hard to do properly. It needs to be excessive, audacious, driven by real feeling. In the end, "Modesty Blaise" is only modestly camp...which is to say, a failure at being camp.

"Out of the Unknown" has similarities to "The Twilight Zone", but with one-hour episodes, and more of a futuristic sci-fi focus. What these low-budget BBC productions lack in budget and special effects is more than made up for by the exceptional writing, fine acting, and uninhibited imagination.

JG Ballard, Britain's greatest sci-fi writer, created this odd (and oddly compelling) tale of a closed society on a multi-generational mission to another planet. The plot takes an unexpected twist midway through, and in the end, it is a meditation on very weighty subjects indeed: the power of belief, deception on a cosmic scale, duty to one's peers, the use and abuse of knowledge.

I came expecting a bit of amusing low-fi spaceship drama...and left with resounding theological questions that are worth pondering for some time! Thank you, JG Ballard and the beautiful freaks that put together "Out of the Unknown".

"Tess" is undeniably a beautiful film: director Polanski and his cinematographers created a luxurious concoction for the viewer to lose themselves in. As historical fiction films go, it's masterpiece. Polanski knew how to make the gorgeous French landscape help tell the story, and knew how to get Natassia Kinski to deliver her career-best performance. Polanski is in complete control of the pacing and mood of this film, and the effect is of timelessness: we're so firmly placed into the 1890s that the viewer simply forgets that the production date is 1979.

"Tess" follows the strategy of so many of Lars von Trier's films: the director introduces us to an adorable protagonist and makes us love them - then forces us to endure watching them undergo the most horrible mistreatment and sufferings. The novel, and the film, could be considered as a feminist statement: the character Tess is a victim of a system that has no appropriate or fair place for her. But, Polanski's "Tess" seems less interested in statements of principle, and more in these particular characters and the particulars of their world.

And now for the bad news: the long version is quite an ordeal to sit through. If the viewer is in love with the story (or in love with underage Natassia Kinski, as Polanski may have been), then you'd be delighted to spend only (!) 3 hours in the world of "Tess". But if you're like me, and found this extremely conventional film a bit uncomplicated and escapist...then the delights of "Tess" may feel like eating the entire box of fancy chocolates in one sitting.

Here's what's great about "Rubber": it's an entirely unique film, an odd hybrid of B-movie shlock-horror tropes, with Charlie Kaufman-esque meta-narrative "breaking the frame" tactics, so loved by high art weirdos at least since Bertolt Brecht in the 1920s.

The bad news is that the two styles are merely layered-together, instead of fully mixed. "Rubber" really is a B or C-grade horror movie, with all the predictable plotting, senseless gore, and high body count.

Yet, "Rubber" is also very much the work of a filmmaker with big ideas. The "audience" that forms part of the narrative pushes the film into its own meta-metaphor for cinema. For me the high point of the film occurs near the middle, when a cop "breaks the fourth wall" and urges his team to go home, because it's all just a movie anyway -- everything is fake. Another artistic pinnacle is the audience member that refuses to "eat the food provided" -- a wonderful metaphor for the critical distance of the viewer that wants to analyze art, rather than simply get lost in it.

Sadly, these two excellences do not synergize. Ultimately, "Rubber" is neither fish nor fowl. Cheapo horror flicks sometimes transcend their dumbness to become profound (as in the original "Night of the Living Dead"), but "Rubber"'s cinephile knowingness prevents that possibility. And art-house experimental fragmentation of the narrative can work wonders ("The Saragossa Manuscript", Charlie Kaufman films), but in Rubber, these are side-dishes, not the main course.

In Rubber, I wish director Quentin Dupieux had had the courage to serve only one master, instead of trying to serve two.

I believe in free speech and free expression....but this film marks the spot just one half-inch before the very end of the line, where I get off.

There's a lot to say about various parts of this film, but to me the core is the director Makavejev's decision to include images of an adult woman engaging in sexual acts with underage boys, and the unspeakable filthy body-fluid antics of members of the commune led by Viennese Aktionist Otto Muehl (who was later convicted of pedophilia, in real life).

The film could be viewed as the sick apotheosis of 70s ideals of free love. Or, as a director's cynical choice to shock the bourgeoisie with all that he's got.

But I don't think that's what's going on in "Sweet Movie". Makavejev is not a dummy. I believe he consciously decided to push it too far, as an act of creative freedom. In this perspective, the film is a triumph: an affirmation of the power of the free imagination, and an embrace of the totality of life, in all of its beautiful and horrific dimensions.

I just wish that "freedom" didn't require me to sit through the bit with the vomit, though. That sheet was nasty.

"Mandara" (1971) is the second part of director Jissoji's "Buddhist Trilogy" (The first part, "This Transient Life" (1970) is extraordinary, and is HIGHY RECOMMENDED to any serious fan of cinema.)

This "Buddhist Trilogy" is not about some kind of upbeat New-Age Buddhism. Rather, it considers human morality in relation to the Void, and presents a vision of life unconstrained by standard social norms. In "Mandara", it seems Jissoji takes a wholly amoral stance - the perspective "beyond good and evil" familiar from de Sade or Nietzsche. The plot involves extreme sexual violence and a bizarre coercive cult (one part Charles Manson and two parts Shinto animism).

The protagonists of "Mandara" are leftist student radicals; it's implied their 1968 idealism has degenerated into 1971 nihilism. From our era, it's very difficult to understand the attitudes of this milieu. The biggest flaw of the film is that all the characters are too strange and mysterious to identify with or empathize with. They appear as lawless libertine weirdos, whose motivations are opaque.

In Jissoji's previous film, one character's non-moral actions are set up against everyone else's traditional ethical values. However, in "Mandara", social norms don't even enter the frame: it's a world in which everyone is desperate and on edge, and explosive violence is welcomed. The ethical questions get pushed well past the point of reckoning -- how much sexual violence should the viewer have to endure witnessing? Can the viewer even begin to debate the film's positions, if the director makes an entry point so difficult?

There is a lot to admire in this film though, and I'm glad I didn't give up at the first scene of sexual assault. "Mandara" is a serious arthouse film, not a brainless "pink film". It contains real philosophical (and even theological) content. It's best to understand "Mandara" through lens of the political moment of 1971: in the aftermath of 1968s global student uprisings, radicals and progressives became pessimistic and bitter, and were willing to entertain the idea of burning down the system, since it seemed impossible to change it. The violent destruction of an insane world is a common theme of cinema of the era, as in Godard's "Weekend", "Themroc", "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". I'm no lover of amorality, but Jissoji deserves admiration for his dedication to his extreme vision.

"Mandara" is not an easy film to understand or enjoy...and yet, any true lover of cinema should see it, because visually it's quite amazing. Nearly every shot overwhelms with the beauty of its composition. There's a weird psychedelic quality to all the proceedings. Interiors are shot to exaggerate a scene's mood, as in Antonioni's films, and exteriors look like no other film. It's a pity "Mandara" would alienate most viewers, with its unappealing characters and extreme "beyond good and evil" ethics...because it's incredible to look at.

So...here's a film for deep cinephiles, leftist radicals, fans of sexual violence, decadent Shinto acolytes, or just extreme weirdos (like me). Everyone else should probably proceed with caution.

Of course, it's a mistake to watch movies of the 1940s hoping for realism. As expected, "A Stolen Life" is a stage-y endeavor, awkwardly plotted and un-methodically acted. Bette Davis sure knows how to "light up the screen"...but as she smiles charmingly and inappropriately through scenes that might have had tragic quality, it's hard not wonder what an actor with more conviction or vulnerability might have done.

The film becomes much more interesting when a character assumes another's identity. The resulting moments, exploring the anxiety of imposter syndrome or identity dissociation, attain an almost Hitchcock-like quality of psychological insight. But in the end, sadly, the film is not much more than a typical Hollywood romance.

Fassbinder took on a heavy task in choosing to make a film of Nabokov's "Despair". In the novel, the reader slowly comes to realize that the narrator is unreliable, and the truth of what's going on creeps up little by little by little. That isn't possible in a cinematic adaptation of this story: the viewer sees the truth at once; there can't be a slow reveal. Filming an unfilmable novel certainly put Fassbinder at a disadvantage.

Given this, Fassbinder instead focused on his strengths: getting wonderful Douglas Sirk-like melodramatic performances from his actors, and going for the emotional jugular. Parts of "Despair" are surprisingly light and even comical, but these serve to set up the subsequent tragic tone and histrionic intensity.

Like his later "Berlin Alexanderplatz", Fassbinder exaggerates several aspects of his source novels. He queer-ifies the story, making clearer the ambiguously gay dimensions of the narrative -- "Despair" becomes a tale of homosexual paranoia. Fassbinder also places the narrative firmly in its historical moment: it's emphasized that the protagonist is half-Jewish, and this becomes an occasion to explore not only racial paranoia, but the specific events and cultural attitudes that existed in Germany as the Nazis rose to power.

But most of all, "Despair" and "Alexanderplatz" are studies of characters who psychologically disintegrate and descend into madness. Fassbinder is cinema's great poet of the manic episode and the psychotic break. Dirk Bogarde is masterful as Hermann Hermann, a man consumed by discontent and partly-justified paranoia, whose obsessions drive him into progressively stranger behavior. Like many of Fassbinder's mentally ill protagonists, Hermann is both likeable and capable of awful things; the viewer sympathizes as he loses touch with reality and his world crumbles.

Strong recommendation for Dirk Bogarde's stellar performance as Hermann Hermann, and for Fassbinder's fearless dialogue with madness and tragedy.

There's a lot to enjoy in Claire's Knee: the relaxed easy pace, the charming characters, the warm and insightful conversations, the stunning scenery of the French Alps.

Unfortunately I can't find any way to identify or empathize with a world that is so comfortable, so boring, so unambiguous, and ultimately, so superficial. None of the characters seem to work; no-one ever seems anxious or troubled; nothing particularly bad or good happens, or seems likely to ever happen. It's a film of low-level emotions, and low stakes -- for the characters, and for the viewers.

In this bland world, the only question of importance becomes: will the main character, a man of 35 or older, seduce one of the two teenage beauties? No particularly momentous moral calculus is involved, and ultimately the stakes were so low that I could not bring myself to care. The character is good man, or he's a lecher, or he's neither...but I feel Rohmer did not give me any reason why any of this might matter.

Claire's Knee is a hymn of praise to French charm, bourgeois comforts, and inconsequential easy pleasures. If that's your thing, enjoy yourself with this film. Me, I'll be over there in the corner, watching films by directors that ask harder questions.

Really excellent film. There's a very rare subgenre of historical films: ones that aim to bring to life ancient times...but not by an "authentic" recreation of the past -- instead, the director uses experimental/modernist cinematic techniques to bring traditional folklore and beliefs firmly into relation with the present. Examples include "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" (1965, Paradjanov), "Marketa Lazerova" (1967, Vlacil), "The Night of Counting the Years" (1969, Chadi Abdel Salam). Like these, "Himoko" powerfully reanimates dormant cultural world-views, and is particularly successful at connecting them to our era.

"Himoko" retells an ancient Japanese legend of a shaman-queen. The story is timeless and "universal", yet the world of "Himoko" is a particular Shinto animist world, in which gods of the sun and the land directly control people's lives. The viewer is pulled into the past, by the beautiful unspoiled forest and mountain landscapes, the peoples' costumes and rituals, and most powerfully by the intensity of the performances -- especially Shima Iwashita as Himoko, whose extraordinary performance conveys the fervid complete conviction of shamanistic beliefs. (My new favorite Japanese actress!)

But the viewer is also pushed into the present. The director Shinoda does not try to fool the viewer with an "authentic" past: the indoor scenes are staged in a space resembling a theatrical set or art gallery, with clearly unnatural (but beautifully dramatic) lighting. A troupe of five Butoh dancers perform stunning, horrifying, evocative dance-rituals throughout, acting sometimes as a Greek chorus outside the story-space, at other times directly involved in the action. And the film's coda breaks the fourth wall, making it plain that Shinoda is less interested in the distant past, than the way that ancient things still live within the present.

A boy experiences traumas during WWII (which we don't see), and the subsequent 25 years of his life are a continuation of those traumas. Oshima skillfully depicts Japan's post-war evolution, and the ways the dark secrets of the past live on within the present. Gishiki is by no means an enjoyable film: the main character experiences nothing but losses, misfortunes, and humiliations. But this is a dark truth of life: anyone who lives long enough accumulates losses and failures, and for some, perhaps everything else is overtaken. In the end, the main character is left alone with nothing except his lost dreams and his endlessly repeating traumas. A very sad film, but one I'm glad to have seen.

There's a certain type of late 60s film that tries to communicate some kind of heavy psychedelic truth (El Topo, The Trip, 2001, World on a Wire).

And then there's the kind of late 60s film that's about irreverent psychedelic whimsy, nonsensically waving its freak flag high (Skidoo!, Head, Putney Swope, Brewster McCloud).

"Zachariah" aims to be both, and unfortunately fails at both. The whimsical parts seem to be based on the idea that combining rock music and the Old West is a hysterically funny idea. It isn't. The heavy parts reach for hippie cosmic-consciousness wisdom but come off very cliche.

A compelling narrative might make up for these two failures, but the acting and plot doesn't engage, either. (There is an implied homoerotic romance, but that's not developed enough to become interesting.) So the viewer is left holding the bag -- a horse feed-bag of dumb jokes, fake tripiness, and bad writing.

Oh I forgot -- the single redeeming element is Elvin Jones. Elvin freakin Jones, the greatest jazz drummer ever! And he's great! He should have been in more movies.