Category: Film Review

An art history student’s thesis research is presented through the cinematic conventions of a mystery. Recommended for adults. If you like X-Men XV do not watch this movie.
The student notices female figures in Watteau paintings: always these figures have their backs to the viewer. The more she studies them, the more she sees them in many of Watteau’s paintings, and the more it seems to be always the same woman with her back turned. Who is she? Why is she always there, with her back turned?
A little tension is added to the plot with a thesis supervisor who discourages the quest. We discover he pursued the same line once and it came to nothing. Is he simply trying to steer her onto safe ground, or is he, brusk and uncommunicative, hiding something?
Then there is the mime in square outside the print shop where she works; he is young and handsome but begs for a living. They meet and she discovers he is a deaf mute but through him she finds a painting similar to a Watteau by an obscure painter called Opener.
With the single-mindedness and doggedness of an obsessive only child she tracks down this similar painting and acquires it (by selling a treasured watch from her deceased father). She has also tracked down every site in Paris that Watteau painted (miraculously most are still to be recognised these hundreds of years later) and lived, though this latter information is scarce. She also researches the people in his paintings. She triangulated onto the actress Charlotte Desarmes as the mystery woman, a prospect rejected by the supervisor as unsubstantiated.
She persists and persuades a friend to x-ray the Opener painting and voila there is a Watteau beneath it, as her supervisor is the first to acknowledge. It seems there was no Opener, but it was a second name that Watteau used for some of his painting when Charlotte rejected him. He could not bear to destroy his work but he did paint over it.
Her travels through libraries, archives, auctions, Parisienne sites are entertaining to us nerds. The silent boy friend remains a cipher. The landlord never gets the rent. Her mother remains at a distance, a reluctant banker at times. The boss at the print shop is sympathetic but has a business to run. Indeed all of the supporting characters are positive, if sometimes upset, distracted, or angry. I liked that. I find the cynicism of Hollywood cheap and no substitute for plot, story, or character. By ‘positive’ I do not mean singing and dancing but not cunning, malicious, sinister, predatory, sneering or anything like that. Just people going about their business; such people are seldom to be seen in Hollywood anymore because they do not interest fourteen year old boys.
But an obsessive would probably use them as she does with few qualms, especially when the trail is hot.
The supervisor has the best line: express your passion in your life, your work needs detachment and perspective. Of course, it bounces off the knight on the quest but they are words to live by.
I was interested to see the techniques and technology used in the research shown here. I found the image of the lion subdued by love very charming, and it is the key that opens the way to Opener. (Could not resist that.)
I did quite see what either the French or English title meant to the story, respectively, ‘That which my eyes have seen’ and ‘The vanishing point.’ I was also surprised when this penurious student produced a Visa card to pay 400 euros.
Thank you SBS television.

Free from the timetable of classes and meetings, and more meetings, I have given in to the temptation of Dendy’s classics and gone to several movies on Monday morning, while Kate goes off to good works. Today it was “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) With Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim, and Nancy Olson, along with Jack Webb (of Dragnet) before he got his teeth straightened. To see it on television is nothing compared to the wide screen: Marvelous. A very excellent print that gives us the crisp light and dark and many shades between that only black-and-white can do.

Leaving aside all the lore and gossip, the parade of celebrities, the contrivances of staging that swimming pool scene, after all that it is Gloria Swanson who dominates everything, and not just the scenes she is in, but through her presence manifested in the house and its furnishings, in the soul of von Stroheim, and seen or unseen clutching always at Holden. It offers a parallel love story of two women and one man. The man is Holden and the women are the aging relic Swanson and the fresh-faced ingenue Olson. He disappoints both because at his core, well, he has no core, though Olson shows him the way out and after he sacrifices himself to drive her away, he seems resolved to break the cancerous link with Swanson. Or is he…. we will never know.
It is a talkie, of course, and Swanson has some remarkable lines penned by the one and only Billy Wilder, and she by turns spits, drawls, mumbles, hisses, and declares them, all with lift of the chin, the bulge of the eyes, and turn of wrist. An Oscar does not seem a high enough award. With her increasing histrionics von Stroheim is the perfect foil, a rigidly controlled man whose unrequited love drives him to accept every humiliation with the merest flicker of an eyebrow.
Hollywood eats its own, and in 1973 Holden reprised this film in reverse as an older man captivated by a much younger woman who barely notices him in “Breezy,” and it was directed by Clint Eastwood.
No one ever says it better than the dean of movie reviews Roger Ebert:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-sunset-boulevard-1950
Cut-and-paste the link above to see his comments.

Après le gym I often pass through Civic Video on the way home. It is a short cut of sorts with some added benefits. The other day I saw ‘The Sound of My Voice’ on the shelf. It caught my eye because (1) there was only one specimen there and (2) the cover art was arresting. One of my criteria for considering a video is that it is not there in dozens of copies. Figure that out. For the cover art, have a look.

Once in hand I realized it was the same crew that made ‘Another Earth’ (2011) , and I was hooked. I have commented on ‘Another Earth’ in another post.
I watched ‘The Sound of My Voice’ the other night, and have no idea what to make of it. It is studied in its ambiguity and enigmatic in its approach, and I like that. Subtle, open-textured, mysterious, and in no hurry. That kept me interested. It seemed to me it was a variant, on a micro-budget, of ‘Contact’ (1997). In ‘Contact’ the aliens approach humanity in a surprising way. In ‘The Sound of My Voice’ the surprising contact is from the future….or is it? That is the ambiguity.
There are many discussions in the ether, e.g. IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Facebook and more.
Cut and paste this link to find it on The Internet Movie Data Base:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1748207/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
More importantly, there is a measured review from Roget Ebert, the greatest, at http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-sound-of-my-voice-2012
Better yet see it for yourself. It will leave you thinking and it is a vote against Hollywood. Two good things there.

Good Trekkies that we have been since 1966, off we went to the Dendy Newtown last night to watch Start Trek: Into Darkness in 3D. Trekkies will have to see it. But many of them will be disappointed. Everything those who promote it say is true: it is high energy, it is fast and furious, it is action-packed, it has some etched characters…

It is also true to say that it seems to have been created by writers with arrested development and targetted at twelve year old boys. No doubt that is a winning formula.
It is also true to say that it quite indistinguishable from three other movies currently showing in the Dendy chain: Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, and Escape from Planet Earth. It is loud, it is trivial, it is superficial, it is one-dimensional, thoughtless, inconsistent, with a leaky plot and inexplicable action and eighty (80) minutes of gratuitous violence… It lacks the gravitas of even a Marvel Comic.
What is worse, the local reviewers seem to think that it is an authentic representation of Star Trek and thus the reason there are Trekkies like us. WRONG!
Star Trek the Original Series featured more than one meeting where the assembled staff tried to think of ways to do things, debated over a table the limits of their orders, and then went away to think about it, because thinking takes time. In many episodes not a shot was fired or a punch thrown by the crew of the Enterprise.
Thinking time in Into the Darkness is 5-6 seconds. That is perhaps indicative of how decisions were also made about the film. Or is it the reality of Bush Junior White House?
Moreover, many episodes of Star Trek: Original Series posed questions about life and humanity from start to finish. I will cite only one example: The Devil in the Dark (Season 1, Episode 25 in March 1967). There are plenty of others from Original Series, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, too. Of course, to cater to the television audience there is action, as well.
Into the Dark has many allusions to the Star Trek lore. The villain of the piece is Khan, played by Ricardo Montalban in ‘Space Seed.’ broadcast in February 16, 1967, and he reprised the role in the 1982 film. In 1967 the issue was returned soldiers. He was a great villain, as is Benedict Cumberbatch in this outing. That issue of returned soldiers remains relevant — Iraq and Afghanistan — but not when it is only an excuse for more fisticuffs.
This Captain Kirk is everything his mentor says he is, except for the potential for greatness. He is as arrogant, opinionated, and uninformed as a radio shock jock. Admittedly, he is far more handsome than any shock jock I have seen in the jungle.
There were certainly things for a Trekkie to like. The opening sequence is dazzling, albeit pointless. The Mr Spocks dialogue was delicious. And the actors were excellent at creating those familiars: Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, McCoy, Scottie, Spock, and Kirk, as well as Khan. They could do it, now if they had just had something interesting to do.

We watched this documentary about the redoubtable Diana Vreeland last night. Recomended for adults.

I knew nothing about Vreeland but thought the distaff side might be interested, so I borrowed it from the local Civic Video on spec. What I found was a force of nature who had no taste whatever but had drive, pride, intelligence, wit, and a capacity to learn. Her attitude seemed to be: be what you are. And strut it. She joined all of that to an enormous appetite for the world, realized through the no-expense-spared camera shoots she did for her magazines. All of this, in some measure, she passed on to those who looked at the editions of her magazines.
She was the long time editor of Harper’s Bazaar and then Vogue. She was one of the models for the demanding editor in ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’
In the boundless energy, enthusiasm, and bullying she reminded me of Lyndon Johnson. She was likewise as profligate.
Perhaps the most amusing part of the story is her last assignment at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where her shows, and shows they were, brought in masses of paying customers. Those successes condemned her in the eyes of the other curators, numbering her days there. It was easy to imagine meetings where curators argued that having people crowding into the Met was undesirable! I expect they did, though veiled and subtle in public.
http://www.dianavreeland-film.com

On a fine Sunday afternoon with blue sky and green grass aplenty we sat in a dark room and watched “Kon Tiki (2012). Recommended for adults.
Thor Heyedal’s greatest contribution is that he believed those primitive people had the wit and willingness for such a colossal undertaking. I said ‘primitive people’ to mimic that great scourge of reason, Erich von Däniken who always says in response to his own rhetorical question: “How could these primitive people do it?” by saying the aliens did it. Heyedal is a wonderful antidote to that drivel. Moreover, they did not just go with the flow but also charted their travels with the stars.
The film has something for everyone. Some intellectual weight, a cast of handsome Aryans, some light relief, and plenty of adventure and action. Though some viewers may conclude that it all came down to Heyerdal’s will power and conviction and not to the evidence he had before he started and that would be a shame. He did have evidence, and faith does not move ocean currents.
No doubt the moronic fault-finders will find that which they seek and miss the point.

Films are often based on books, but as a rule films simplify books. A novel of 400 pages is reduced to a screenplay of 60-80 pages or less. Minor characters are deleted, background events glossed over, and the context is muted, if not altogether blanked out, to focus on two or three protagonists. As a reader I have generally found the novel much better than the film that claims to be based on it. There are exceptions and I saw one recently. ‘The Secret in their eyes’ (2009) is from Argentina. To read all about it go to the Internet Movie Data Base. (The tools to insert hyperlinks, bolding, and so on remain off-line.)

It is long at 129 minutes and has a surprisingly high score on IMDB of 8.2. It is well deserved. I read the novel some time ago and my notes (yes, I keep notes about the novels I read) speak of a lack of tension, the icy detachment of the central character, underdevelopment of the judge … concluding that I will not bother to read any more by this writer. Oops! I must have missed quite a lot, because this film follows the book’s plot closely and it is a revelation.
On the surface it is a police procedural with a exotic setting: Argentina during the Dirty War of the 1970s. That is why I read it. Though my notes also say that the Dirty War is never mentioned and there is only one character who seems to have anything to do with it. While that is literally true, the film unmistakably communicates the repression of the society, when even tying a shoe is suspicious, when it is far better not to know than to know … that secret.
Since most of the film is about files, judicial processes, and the writing of a novel an archaic Olivetti typewriter is where much of the action occurs. The lead is Benjamin Esposito. See the film poster above. While there are two murders, each brutal, the tone is, apart from those punctuations, contemplative and inward. The greatest tension in the film is the elevator ride in the devil’s lair. Nothing is said. But when the doors open the judge is gasping for breath and Benjamin is as pale as a ghost. See it!
For action fans there is one incredible scene at a soccer match that leaves one wondering how it was filmed, but filmed it was, not computer magic. The production and direction are supremely confident and fluid in this scene as throughout.
Espositio’s associate Pablo Sandoval also deserves a word. He is played by Guillermo Francella to a T. Sandoval is slovenly, disorganized, reckless, persistent, noble, and — at times — creative. It is his constant study of the files that produces the insight which both resolves the plot and states the meaning of the exercise. No one can change who he is. (Yes, no doubt the Word Police will pounce on that rendering as sexist though it is an accurate description of the point in the story, and it does not mix singular and plural.) Gomez is a fan of Racing soccer club and remains that even when he is on the run. Esposito is hopelessly and wordlessly in love with the judge and has been since the first moment he saw her. Sandoval is a nerd.
What I did not get from the book by Eduardo Sacheri, ‘La Pregunta de sus ojos’ (2005), which by the way I take to mean ‘The question of her eyes,’ is the parallels between the two, intersecting cases of love at a distance.

But thanks to the players and the pacing that gives priority to looks, pauses, and hesitations, it becomes clear first to the viewer and then to the protagonist Benjamin. His unspoken love for the judge is very like the love Isidore Gomez had for his victim, and like Isidore he is incapable of expressing it in a positive way. Or is he? On several occasions the damn he has built around his emotions seems about to burst, but it holds, until a delightful, if incredible, last scene when the judge says, with characteristic understatement, ‘It will be complicated.’
Pedants note. The novel, in editions after the film, has been retitled to match the film.
Conclusion? I will re-read the book, and I suggest that others might do both, read the book and see the film. What is that secret? I think I know. We each have to find it for ourselves.
SBS late night movies has once again given us a gem.
The dean of film reviewers, Roger Ebert, gave it a glowing review. By the way, he is absolutely right about the judge. (As noted above, the hyperlink tool remains unavailable.)

We enjoyed watching Samsara at the Dendy Newtown. Breath-taking visuals from around the world combined with uplifting music. No Brad Pitt, no screen play written by a case of arrested development, no shouting, no message shoved down one’s eyes. A meditation, most of which works, some of which does not. All trip and no arrival, much like life. So many arresting images, so many of them completely foreign and yet familiar for all that.

http://barakasamsara.com/
Once again, well still, really, the tools for underlining and linking are unavailable. Cut and paste the link above to see more.

Melvyn Bragg is a higher being. He is erudite, cogent, neutral, and direct. He is an expositor with few equals. I am addicted to ‘In Our Time,’ his weekly podcast from BBC4. It is a feast for the mind each week. He handles the panel discussion with three specialists with a deceptive ease, striving always to get them to drop the academic caution, the polyglot speak, qualifications that swamp the main point, and communicate to the educated listener who would like to be informed.
Some of these qualities can be seen in the ABC-Television interview he did recently in Sydney in the link below.
Compare him to the aggressive, simple-minded journalist who interviews him. Her goal is to trip him up into yet another slang-off at the Murdoch press, as if the ABC was ever short of them. When that fails she loses interest until another slang off at religion from the ever full arsenal of clichés that pass for journalism. Spirituality is evidently unknown there.
Along the way, by implication, he gives her a lesson in interviewing, help the subject say what he has to say. Point not taken, I should imagine.
As a result only about half the interview concerns the subject that brought Bragg to the interview. Thus do ABC journalist grind their own axes on the public dole.
www.abc.net.au
Lord Melvyn Bragg of Wigton is a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction. We first encountered him with his masterly “The Adventure of English.” There is a book, but it is boring compared to the film, so find the DVD. We loved the recitations.

Dress sense was not his strong point in this film.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adventure-English-Remarkable-Language-REGION/dp/B004X2PEKW/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1332465289&sr=1-1

Euripides pared to the essentials. Not one word, not one gesture is wasted. Nor is there ever an iota more than necessary.

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