No
matter if his protagonists are deranged or distraught, happy or sad, or
if his stories are light or dark, comedic or tragic, the films of Pedro
Almodóvar are usually at the very least enjoyable. Even at their most
disturbing, there is something inescapably jubilant about his lavish use
of color, his vibrant characters, and his unceasing passion for life
and filmmaking. And when he aims to make something purely amusing, the
results can be astonishing. It is for all of these reasons that Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, surprisingly the first Almodóvar film released by the Criterion Collection, is such a treat.
In this 1989 feature, made just after Almodóvar’s award-winning breakthrough Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,
Victoria Abril stars as junkie porn star turned respectable leading
lady Marina Osorio, the object of affection and obsession for Antonio
Banderas’ Ricki, a newly released mental patient. Prior to Ricki’s
discharge, the institution director tells him he is “not a normal
person,” something that should be obvious, and certainly is to the
audience, but he is nevertheless set free. Meanwhile, Marina is on the
set of a rather unassuming horror movie where she is under the watchful
eye of her sister Lola (Loles León)—wary of her sister’s potentially
returning drug habit—and the voyeuristic eye of the film’s lustful
director, Máximo Espejo (Francisco Rabal), who is partially paralyzed
due to a stroke and is confined to his mobile “electric chair.”
Once Ricki arrives on the set of the fictional film, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
begins to mirror the goofy horror picture in production. After he dons a
ridiculous long hair wig, Ricki wanders in the background with his eye
on Marina, but when he finally gets her attention, she brushes him off.
More drastic measures will be necessary. While these sequences and those
when Ricki first arrives at Marina’s apartment are played like a horror
film, with his stalking around and the suspenseful score by Ennio
Morricone, the tonal fluctuations of the film betray any perceived
terror. It’s hard to take any threat too seriously when Almodóvar is
clearly having so much fun with it.
Apparently
assuming the way to a woman’s heart is through home invasion and
kidnapping, Ricki forces himself through Marina’s door, headbutts her,
and proceeds to tie her up. He does this, he says, so that they will get
to know each other; he’s quite sure she will love him. Though he is
clearly not of sound mind and has an evident capacity for violence, he
is quickly apologetic and remains certain that she will, eventually,
succumb to his charms and they will live happily ever after. He has even
given her a heart-shaped box of candy (“Nice touch, huh?” he proudly
asks), so come on, how bad can he be? At one point, the editor of the
film within the film says of her work, “It’s more a love story than a
horror story,” and ultimately, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! itself ends up being one unconventional love story.
So
much of what defines Almodóvar’s cinema is on display in this film. To
begin with, nearly every character is charged with a sexual current,
their physical needs and mental preoccupations constantly striving
toward carnal gratification. And as is typical with Almodóvar, this is
more often than not played for laughs, particularly as the individuals
struggle to balance appropriate looking and suggestive dialogue with
actual contact. The instant sexual connection between Ricki and Marina
gives their particular situation a precarious tension conveyed by their
fluctuating positions in frame and their evolving active/reactive
behaviors as they progressively grow more at ease with each other.
Almodóvar frequently holds a single shot in order to witness their
budding yet awkwardly promising relationship of comfort and familiarity.
With characteristically little camera movement, save for occasional and
generally innocuous track or dolly, and with relatively limited
editing, Almodóvar’s greatest stylistic touch are his carefully arranged
compositions, unique angles, and his orchestration of characters in
relation to each other and their setting.
It
is stated that Rabal’s filmmaker character is known as an actresses’
director, and the same could easily be applied to Almodóvar. From Carmen
Maura to Penélope Cruz, he has worked with some exceptional women, and
the roles he creates allow them to prosper to their fullest potential;
Abril and León are no exception here. Banderas considers his role in
this film a sort of culmination of his prior work with Almodóvar, and
though he is dangerously kooky and this movie as much as any helped put
him on the international map, it is the ladies who turn in the most
engaging and multifaceted performances.
Those
who work with Almodóvar are quick to acknowledge his influence and his
importance in their careers. Among the special features on the Criterion
disc is an extended documentary on the making of Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! and
on it,Banderas, Abril, León, and Rossy de Palma, among others, all
speak glowingly of Almodóvar and his impact. The features also include a
conversation between Almodóvar and Banderas, delightful footage from
the film’s 1990 premiere party in Madrid, and an interview with Sony
Pictures Classics copresident Michael Barker. The accompanying booklet
features a piece about the film by Almodóvar, a conversation between
Kent Jones and Wes Anderson, and an interview with Almodóvar.
With a pleasant late ’80s flair — in clothes, set design, and character accessories — Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
is an excellent middle period Almodóvar feature, emblematic of so much
of what brought him to international prominence: the dark comedy, the
campy melodrama, the sexuality, the quirkiness. Save for the final shot
though, it hasn’t quite attained the subtle emotional quality that some
of his more recent films achieve (Volver, Broken Embraces).
At this point in his career, Almodóvar had also not yet fully
developed the “new humanism,” as Barker puts it, that marked later films
like Talk to Her and All About My Mother. The film
does maintain, however, the crucial liberal minded lack of judgment that
makes much of Almodóvar’s work so personable.
In any event, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
is a testament to the frequently strange path love takes to bring its
companions together, and though more orthodox methods are suggested, it
is utterly fantastic to watch this couple connect by whatever means
necessary.
REVIEW from SOUND ON SIGHT
A House of Nightmares: Douglas Sirk’s Sleep, My Love
Sleep, My Love
begins with a nightmarish state of panic as Alison Courtland (Claudette
Colbert) wakes to find herself inexplicably on a Boston-bound train.
She doesn’t remember boarding the train. In fact, the last thing she
recalls is going to sleep in her New York City home. But here she is,
and other passengers say they saw her at the station. In her purse, she
finds a gun. As trains barrel down the tracks, blinding lights and
piercing horns accentuate Alison’s sudden, bewildering, and terrifying
situation. Back at her house, Detective Sgt. Strake (Raymond Burr)
follows up on Richard W. Courtland’s call about his missing wife.
Richard (Don Ameche) concurs that the last he saw his wife she was in
her bed. He tells Strake he’s worried this time … This time?
Alison calls to reassure Richard with her whereabouts, just after Strake
notices that Richard is hurt. It’s only a superficial wound, he
explains, an accident while cleaning his gun.
The
above has all taken place in the first ten minutes of this 1948 film,
directed by Douglas Sirk. It’s a gripping opening that dramatically sets
the scene for what is a very solid film noir. As the picture
progresses, it’s revealed that the woman who helped Alison in Boston,
Grace Vernay (Queenie Smith), gave a false name. Back in New York, she
joins Daphne (Hazel Brooks), who is introduced in slinky, black
lingerie; the vampish beauty, clearly up to no good, is something else,
and frankly, there’s not enough of her as the film goes on. She and
Grace are also with Charles Vernay (George Coulouris), a photographer
and co-conspirator who soon shows up at the Courtland house telling
Alison he is Dr. Rhinehart, there to help her with whatever it is that
ails her. Sleep walking? Some sort of mental illness? Something,
perhaps, not so natural? We also meet Bruce Elcott (Robert Cummings).
Far more than the others, he seems decent, maybe even one of the good
guys.
One of Sleep, My Love’s
strongest attributes is its initial ambiguity. So much has been brought
up and left out in the open, unexplained and primed for imminent
ramifications, that the possibility of everyone having an angle seems
perfectly plausible. All we know for sure is that a scheming group of
deceitful, fallacious individuals is manipulating poor Alison. The
motive is unclear, until, that is, we discover that this group also
includes Richard, who is romantically linked with Daphne. When Bruce
takes Alison out for an evening, the film pulls back. The night of
revelry gives her just what she needs. And we needed it to. A frivolous
trip to a wedding provides Alison and the audience a brief respite, a
chance to catch our breath and put everything together before jumping
back into the plot.
It would be ideal if Sleep, My Love
could sustain this level of breathless energy and suspense, but perhaps
inevitably, as more is exposed the less creatively mysterious it all
becomes. And once it’s clear that Bruce begins to suspect something and
starts his own investigation, we realize Alison will be safe and some of
the suspense diminishes, or at least it transfers to his inquiry rather
than her wellbeing. To the credit of the screenwriters — St. Clair
McKelway and Leo Rosten, working off his own novel — the film hits the
ground running and even when it loses steam it’s still never anything
less than interesting. Even when it establishes the relatively
commonplace device of a husband slowly poisoning his wife, the film is
original enough to throw hypnosis into the mix, resulting in an
additional level of potential danger for the female protagonist. The
drugging is bad enough, but with the psychological torment, Sleep, My Love
surprisingly strays from a standard thriller and enters into a
territory that borders on horror. This is particularly the case when
Charles, in the guise of Dr. Rhinehart, repeatedly shows up to toy with
Alison, appearing as a frightening vision to this unstable, fragile
woman.
Most
famously, and understandably, known for his extraordinary melodramas,
these films nevertheless make up only a portion of Douglas Sirk’s
output. But if one draws parallels between these films and a film like Sleep, My Love,
there are some interesting connections. First and foremost is the use
of a residence as the domestic arena against which the drama unfolds.
The home here serves part of the same function as in these melodramas,
insofar as it’s a realm of externally perceived stability but, behind
those doors, as so many Sirk films have shown, lays a far more troubling
reality. Working within the conventions of noir, Sirk simultaneously
makes the interior of the house itself a vibrantly duplicitous setting,
one that fluctuates as darkness falls. By day, all is typically bright
and right; for the most part, it’s welcoming, well lit, and secure. By
night, however, these same locations, crucially never fully lit once in
the dark, bring out the hidden cruelty. (Even in the daytime, note how
the atmosphere changes when Charles/Dr. Rhinehart closes the blinds,
turning light into darkness in more ways than one.) During the
wonderfully staged conclusion, illumination, or the lack thereof, plays a
crucial role as lights are first out, then turned on, shot out, turned
on, etc. As the tension mounts, the characters try to light the home as a
way of ascertaining protection, but in this genre, that in itself is a
key obstacle. And by the very end, one of the key characters declares,
“In a little while, we’ll be out of this house forever,” as if the house
itself were the catalyst for what had ensued. Sirk’s homes frequently
play an integral role in his narratives and formal designs, but rarely
do houses as dynamic structures take on the qualities this one does.
Again,
Sirk’s stunning use of color in his later melodramas is probably what
he is most lauded for, and, again, rightly so. But here with this black
and white feature, his images need no such embellishment. A comparison
with Hitchcock is to be expected with a film like this, so let it be
said, as Hitchcock did so well, Sirk too utilizes an array of camera
maneuvers and angles to provide a visual association with the frenzied,
anxious tone of the film. (Having Joseph A. Valentine as his
cinematographer certainly helped.) This works especially well in the
interior sequences, not only because that’s where the tension mounts,
but it breaks up the enclosed spaces and freshly presents the recurring
ones, avoiding the potential outcome of bound, tedious familiarity.
Claudette
Colbert, obviously a more than capable actress (with an Oscar and two
nominations by this point), does not, unfortunately, get much to work
with here. She essentially starts the picture in a state of fretful
hysteria and pretty much remains that way, save for perhaps the night
out with Cummings, where she’s then in a state of drunken
hysteria. On the other hand, Ameche is delightfully sinister. He plays
Richard as a competent, slick manipulator, sharply covering all his
bases. He’s no von Stroheim, but he is fun to hate.
Sleep, My Love
was distributed on Blu-ray by Olive Films in April. This Chicago-based
company may not have the name recognition of, say, the Criterion
Collection, but with recent releases such as Men in War, Caught, Stranger on the Prowl, and The Pawnbroker,
to say nothing of its total output in the past year, it has established
itself as a fine source for lesser-know but still exceptional works by
major filmmakers. Sleep, My Love is one such film.
This REVIEW was originally published by FILM INTERNATIONAL
You
really can’t go wrong with any of the 16 titles included in Herzog: The
Collection, the recently released limited edition Blu-ray set. This
stunning compendium features several of the incomparable Werner Herzog’s
finest fiction and documentary films (including many that fall
somewhere between those categories), most available for the first time
on Blu-ray. Though the strongest cases could be made for Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo,
it would be difficult to necessarily pick the “best” film included
here, but one movie that has always stood out as being among Herzog’s
most unusual is Stroszek, from 1977. Well received upon its release, and now recognized as one of the German filmmaker’s finest films, Stroszek is something of an enigma in Herzog’s career full of enigmatic works.
The
picture follows three Berliners as they flee their homeland for the
safe haven that is Wisconsin. There is the prostitute Eva, played by Eva
Mattes, primarily known for her collaborations with Herzog’s fellow
German New Waver, Rainer Werner Fassbinder (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Effi Briest, and Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven,
among others). Then there is Bruno Stroszek, played by the inscrutable
Bruno S., primarily known for, well, being the abused, trouble-making,
mentally unstable son of a prostitute. Dubbed by Herzog the “unknown
soldier of German cinema,” Bruno had worked with the director on The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
three years prior, also in the title role. Lastly, there is Scheitz,
played by Clemens Scheitz, another amateur and rather odd fellow with a
total of six credits to his name, four of them with Herzog.
Stroszek
begins as Bruno is released from prison (the real Bruno was also in
frequent trouble with the law). Toting some luggage, his accordion, and a
bugle, the music-loving Bruno proclaims he is “entering freedom,” but
his delight at this is sadly ironic, for no sooner is he out than he
begins to see just how harsh, demanding, and restricting the outside
world can be. The disheveled and wild-eyed Bruno is warned to stay away
from alcohol (apparently a key factor in his incarceration), so of
course the first thing he does is grab a beer at the bar. There he meets
up with Eva, a low-class prostitute under the thumb of an abusive pimp.
With pimps, a prostitute, and a pub, this film, in the beginning
anyway, looks more like a Fassbinder feature than one by Herzog, but it
doesn’t take long for that to change.
Simple
minded though he may be, Bruno is a stark contrast to this criminal
thug. He is compassionate, gentle, and seems to truly care for Eva. The
exact extent of his feelings is difficult to discern, however, for Bruno
— the actor and the character — is frequently shown to be utterly
bewildered by his surroundings, physically and mentally strained to
comprehend others and express himself. It might seem at first perhaps
cruel for Herzog to have such a clearly uneasy individual in front of
the camera, but quite quickly, the touching humanity conveyed by this
nonprofessional is extraordinary.
Bruno
joins Scheitz back at his apartment. The old man has been looking over
Bruno’s belongings while he was away, and he tells Bruno he will soon be
leaving for America where he will join his nephew. He’ll be traveling
by boat, he says, because planes are “built the wrong way.” Eva
repeatedly tries to escape the clutches of her pimp, but he is
relentless and belligerent. Finally, after he trashes their apartment,
brutally assaults Eva, and humiliates Bruno, the trio decides to leave
once and for all (after Eva “works” to get enough money).
Following
a brief sightseeing stopover in New York City, the group purchases a
car for $495 and they’re on their way to America’s Dairyland. Already
Bruno struggles to come to terms with this strange new land: “What kind
of a country would confiscate Bruno’s mynah bird?” he wonders aloud.
Once in Railroad Flats, Wisconsin (actually Plainfield), Scheitz’s
nephew greets the group with a “welcome” sign, colorful streamers, his
Indian coworker waves an American flag, and, for some reason, they give
the visitors Hawaiian leis. On a tour around town, the nephew also
informs them that there have been not four, but possibly five murders in
the area; he regularly checks for evidence with his metal detector.
Bruno gets a job working with the nephew in a garage while Eva begins
waitressing at a truck stop. Bruno dons a cowboy hat, they get a mobile
home, and Scheitz studies animal magnetism. Joy and hope surface for the
first time in the film, and after the hardships of Berlin, the three
can begin anew. “Now we’ve made it,” declares Scheitz.
But
such optimism doesn’t last. Before long, the barren wintery landscape
reflects the breakdown of Bruno’s American dream. “Everyone can make
money in America,” argues Eva, but Bruno soon becomes disenchanted and
tension grows between him and Eva. The bills add up, the language
barrier makes potential solutions next to impossible, and the bank
eventually repossesses their home. Eva tries to earn more money (guess
how), but it’s not enough. She leaves with some hillbilly truckers while
Scheitz and Bruno embark on a drastically ill-conceived retaliatory
endeavor that gets the former arrested and sends the latter on his way
alone to the film’s stunning conclusion.
From the uncomfortable early scene with a premature baby to the film’s dancing chicken denouement, Stroszek
is marked by one strange moment after another. Never quite disturbing,
but frequently unsettling, certain sequences have a naturally occurring
oddness. Perhaps because Werner Herzog was a stranger to this part of
America (or perhaps simply because he is Werner Herzog), he manages to
hone in on some distinctly regional characteristics that, on the surface
and seen in their everyday banality, are relatively innocuous. However,
when he trains his objective, observational camera on these features,
and places them in the context of this unorthodox movie, they resonate
with a remarkable weirdness. With corpses of broken down vehicles
scattered in fields, dead deer strapped to the back of cars, tags left
on furniture and plastic on mattresses, and an impromptu and
surprisingly well-attended auction (the sound of an auctioneer’s
rapid-paced calling being one of the strangest damned things I’ve ever
seen or heard in real life or in the movies), this is the world of Stroszek.
There are neither exotic locales nor individuals of incredible disposition in this film, so in the Werner Herzog canon Stroszek
is something of an anomaly. Due to this normality and the lack of
fantastic characters or environmental attributes, it basically stands
alone in Herzog’s oeuvre. But this is Werner Herzog, and under this
facade of ordinariness he reveals the everyday mysteries and
peculiarities that make a rather mundane Wisconsin town in the late
1970s as alien as the Peruvian jungle and as contemporarily incongruous
as 18th century Bavaria. And our heroes, this motley trio of pleasant
outcasts, emerge to be as fascinating and as emotionally engaging as any
of the mesmerizing individuals Herzog has filmed.
It
seems redundant to say that Werner Herzog’s movies are unlike anyone
else’s, and more often than not, each of his own films are markedly
unique from what he did prior or following. But for all of the above
reasons and more, Stroszek is truly an exceptional work, with
one of cinema’s most bizarre, hilarious, and rather unnerving endings,
as is suggested by the film’s final lines of dialogue: “We have a 10-80
out here, a truck on fire, we have a man on the lift. We are unable to
find the switch to turn the lift off and we can’t stop the dancing
chicken. Send an electrician. We’re standing by…”
Love Streams,
John Cassavetes’ final film as an actor and penultimate film as
director, is also one of his most unusual features. While his
distinctive work can oftentimes be divisive, it’s easy to see how this
film more than most others could be rather off-putting to those not
appreciative of, or even accustomed to, his filmmaking technique.
Cassavetes
adapted the film with Ted Allan, based on the latter’s play, and the
film’s structure is one of the more vexing of its attributes. Dropped
into two parallel lives, with little to no backstory, only gradually are
we able to piece together certain details. First, there is Robert
Harmon (a worn and weary Cassavetes, his failing health evident). Harmon
is a writer, a drunk, and a womanizer, and he is supposedly working on a
book about nightlife, though that seems to be a mere pretense for him
to frequent clubs and pick up girls. And this he most certainly does.
His house is abuzz with a bevy of young women coming and going at
random, with no established relationship to Robert. It’s mentioned that
his writing focuses on loneliness, and though he is perpetually
surrounded by others, it quickly becomes clear that emotionally and
spiritually he is indeed a solitary figure.
The
other story in the film follows the bitter divorce and ensuing custody
battle between Sarah (Gena Rowlands) and Jack Lawson (Seymour Cassel).
She is mentally unbalanced, previously institutionalized, and apparently
makes a living entertaining sick people, an occupation their young
daughter, Debbie, cares little for. Sarah says she and Debbie are well
liked because they are cheerful; Debbie says the sick people smell bad.
Generally, Jack is the more fit parent, and he has a touching affection
for the young girl, but it is Sarah who emerges the more tragic figure.
She is a wreck, but she remains optimistic, arguing that love is a
stream, it’s continuous, it doesn’t stop, and this keeps her going. When
she travels to Europe with an inordinate amount of luggage, the
symbolism of the baggage she carries with her is obvious.
It’s
not apparent from the start, but Robert and Sarah are brother and
sister, and their eventual reunion comes as they are both confronting
individual lives in shambles. It’s no surprise that they are related,
and when the association is made, the separate chaos begins to make
sense. Their eccentricities, though differing, nevertheless mirror each
other in terms of slow but steady paths toward self-destruction and
self-imposed alienation. He is an irresponsible drunk who acts with
heedless abandon, and with her, it’s never certain when and how she will
act out; she assures Jack, “I’m almost not crazy now,” but she still
fantasizes about killing he and Debbie. They lead unconventional lives,
there’s no doubt about it, but the film seems primarily concerned with
how well they’re doing it, are they, in fact, doing the best they can.
“Actually,” Sarah says to Robert, fully prepared to accept it, “we’re
both pretty screwed up.” This is where Cassavetes works better than
almost anyone, honing narrowly in on people and their problems.
Save for some extraordinary lighting in the past (Minnie and Moskowitz),
Cassavetes usually places little emphasis on technique, and though it
contains a brief slow-motion car crash and a rather striking overhead
traveling shot — both stylistic touches atypical for the director — Love Streams
is a largely unadorned work, with even an occasional camera bump and
mismatched cut here and there. It also seems in many ways to be
exceptionally overblown, even in terms of Cassavetes’ usual penchant for
unrestrained acting. There’s plenty of sincerity to the performances,
as one would expect, particularly when he holds a shot and simply lets
individuals talk and interact, without too much action to addle them.
And there’s plenty of arguing and yelling, adding to that candid
Cassavetes trademark. But with fits of hysterical laughter and
characters falling over themselves, coupled with the film’s piecemeal
narrative explication and the characters’ frequent recklessness, the
generally admirable emotional rawness doesn’t always produce the
requisite emotional resonance.
The new Criterion Collection release of Love Streams
contains the expected bounty of special features (Criterion was, after
all, responsible for the invaluable box set of Cassavetes’ greatest
films). Along with the new digital restoration and commentary track by
writer Michael Ventura, there is a video essay about Rowlands and
interviews with executive producer and director of photography Al Ruban,
actor Diahnne Abbott, and Cassel, as well as “I’m Almost Not Crazy . . .”—John Cassavetes: The Man and His Work (1984), a sixty-minute documentary on the making of Love Streams.
The release also includes a booklet featuring an essay by critic Dennis
Lim and a 1984 New York Times piece on the film by Cassavetes.
In Lim’s essay, he contends that, “More than a culmination of Cassavetes’s obsessions, Love Streams
… is a palimpsest through which many of his other movies are visible,”
and he goes on to cite astute similarities with such movies as Minnie and Moskowitz, Shadows, Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, Opening Night, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Husbands,
in other words, just about every film Cassavetes ever directed. While
the comparisons are accurate, and it’s not an unusual tendency to search
for allusions to past films in a great director’s final work (we’ll
forget Big Trouble for a moment, just like Cassavetes tried to), this reminiscence is partly why Love Streams
isn’t always as effective as it perhaps should be or as these other
films are. To a large degree, we’ve seen these troubled individuals
before, with their personality quirks and erratic behaviors (Robert
spontaneously hauling his neglected eight-year-old son off to Vegas,
Sarah bringing home a cab full of animals, including miniature horses),
but there can be a time when too much is just too much and the whole
thing doesn’t really ring true.
Cassavetes
always excelled at creating deeply emotional connections to his
everyday characters. They are people just like us, with our problems and
our concerns, leading lives that are commonly ordinary yet nonetheless
fascinating. His narratives, like Love Streams, which Lim
states is, “less in a flow than as a series of small jolts, guided by
the unruly impulses of characters who lurch and fumble their way from
one emotional extreme to another,” are often delightfully madcap.
Personal crises, familial drama, relationship trouble: this is
Cassavetes’ bread and butter, and his intimate, improvisational form of
filmmaking perfectly fits his rambunctious stories. So yes, Love Streams
is like these other films in this regard, as Lim demonstrates, but
Cassavetes set his own bar quite high, and similar to does not
necessarily equal as good as.
To say that Abbas Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us
is an unhurried film would be quite the understatement. This
deliberately crafted and contemplative work, one of the great Iranian
director’s finest films, moves at the pace of life. Not life as in the
hustle and bustle or stolid banality of one’s everyday experiences, but
life as in the gradual evolution of humankind’s basic existence.
Reflecting the lives of those who inhabit the rural Kurdish village that
serves as the film’s setting, The Wind Will Carry Us unfolds slowly and episodically, with its drama, or lack thereof, coming and going at a capricious moment’s notice.
Kiarostami
begins the film as we follow a car driven by disembodied voices that
bicker about directions and banter about the countryside. They drive and
drive, along winding roads, up and down the mountains, through farmland
peppered with single trees that serve as location markers. We don’t see
in the car, but it becomes clear through the dialogue that the further
the men go, the further they voyage from urban modernity to a remote,
rural, almost alien land. They finally arrive at their destination, an
isolated village that seems to be literally carved from one of the
mountains; it erupts from the earth like an organically developed
outgrowth of the terrain itself. Of these men, only one will emerge as a
character. This man, played by Behzad Dorani, appears to be the leader
of the group, and he’s the first to make contact with the inhabitants of
this village — “You’ve hidden it well,” he says.
This
man, referred to as the “engineer” (His profession? An honorific title?
A nickname?) is met by a young boy named Farzad. This child will act as
the engineer’s guide and his key local associate. It’s good that he has
a guide too, for we soon see that this labyrinthine village mirrors the
landscape, with passageways and platforms developing into layer upon
layer of residence. As if in a structure from a Jacques Tati film or as
in the best sequence from Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring,
characters appear, disappear, and reappear as they make their way
through their surroundings. Rooftops lead to front doors and steps rest
at raised gathering places. The engineer asks the boy where his school
is. “This way and that,” he says. It’s likely this is where any part of
this village could be.
It’s
not made clear at the start — to the villagers or the audience — but
these men have actually arrived to document a death ritual to be
performed once an elderly woman passes away. This lady, Mrs. Malek, the
centenarian grandmother of Farzad, is an invalid who has been very sick
for some time. It should be any day now that she departs. But it doesn’t
happen that fast. In fact, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen at
all. Perhaps she’s even getting better. In any case, Dorani and his
crew must remain on the scene, just in case anything should happen.
Subsequently,
there is downtime, a lot of downtime. The crew remains largely unseen
and inactive, not that there would be anything for them to do anyway,
but Dorani is more lively and curious and refuses to remain idle. During
the days that pass, he busies himself by wandering around, by foot or
in his car, visiting and chatting with the locals. Archaic though it may
be, he is absorbed in, and seemingly enchanted by, this traditional
culture. It’s easy to see how. The villagers are welcoming,
accommodating, and respectful to the stranger. There is, amongst
themselves and with him, a constant exchanging of pleasantries, warm
greetings of “How are you?” and salutations of “Good luck.” And wherever
he goes, he is offered food and drink. It’s a leisurely, simple life
here, a life he admires and desires, even if he seems to feel above it.
It’s a place where people sit and gather at undefined communal grounds
and where they don’t have bosses or disturbances – this, as opposed to
his constantly ringing cell phone and assertive demands.
There’s
a lot of subtle humor in the film, and the reoccurring cell phone calls
contribute to some of the most amusing sequences. The village gets
little reception, so with every call, Dorani is forced to rapidly seek
higher ground, which usually involves him rushing to his car and driving
up the nearest mountain. This repeated quest is comical and is clearly
meant to comment on the incongruity of such technology in the region
(the car breaking down at the beginning of the film perhaps served the
same purpose).
Aside
from being charmed by the residents, especially the studious Farzad,
whom he helps cheat on his exams, the engineer appears utterly perplexed
by this way of life. As Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa has written, “Behzad is the
embodiment of the universal, modern, alienated, anxious, and preoccupied
man.” He is shown to be constantly inquisitive, literally so in his
bombardment of questions and visually so in his frequently bemused
expression of observance. He’s intrigued by their traditions (if Malek
eats one of the many bowls of soup provided to her, the respective cook
will get their wish granted) and fascinated by their familial
development (he’s surprised by a neighbor who is pregnant with her tenth
child).
While
the rest of his crew grows impatient, getting sick of waiting for the
old woman to die, Dorani seems perfectly content to remain. The crew is
restless to return to Tehran, some 450 miles away, and they try to push
for some action. “I can’t strangle her!” he argues. Similarly, his
producer, the source of so many of the phone calls, is upset that
nothing is happening. This old woman was supposed to have one foot in
the grave. Her continuing to live is not part of their plan. It’s
certainly callous, and at one point, the engineer asks if he’s a bad
person, but that’s their business — they want results. That’s not how
life unfolds though, certainly not this kind of life. There is no plan.
All
of this does give the film a measured pace, and at 118 minutes,
Kiarostami takes his time. Fortunately, aside from being a director of
sublime thematic and emotional resonance, Kiarostami is also a visually
inventive filmmaker. He will vary his unorthodox compositions in terms
of distance and angle, but in The Wind Will Carry Us, he
frequently incorporates a stylistic strategy whereby Dorani is talking
with people we don’t see, at least not right away. Their position is
either obscured by their surroundings, such as the man digging a ditch,
whom we never see since he is below ground and Kiarostami’s camera never
is, or where the other characters are speaking off-screen, the dialogue
playing out without instantly establishing who is it speaking nor their
spatial relationship to Dorani. Forget textbook shot-reverse-shot
technique or the employment of clearly defined over-the-shoulder camera
positioning; if and when Kiarostami does film an exchange between two
characters where he cuts between both parties (and he literally cuts –
he edited the film), they are shot singularly, frontally, and squarely
in the frame. There are times as well when Kiarostami has some fun with
the camera, such as the above mentioned disappearing/reappearing acts as
characters stroll through the village’s architectural web, or when he
shows Behzad shaving directly into the camera, the lens as his mirror.
The Wind Will Carry Us
comes from a poem by Forough Farrokhzad, which Dorani recites, and
though it wasn’t the first title chosen for the film, it perfectly suits
the depiction of the life and lives of this village. This existence is
one of natural motivation, with little to no synthetic influence. The
images of a turtle slowly walking along, of the crops swaying in the
breeze, and the meandering river all suggest a graceful, unassuming path
of life and death, not one that can be adjusted to comply with the
superficial needs of a television crew.
REVIEW from SOUND ON SIGHT
Jacques Demy’s The Young Girls of Rochefort is the Oscar-nominated follow-up to his immensely popular and successful The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
(1964), which with all of its dialogue sung was something of a
reinvention of the movie musical, an almost experiential musical. Young Girls, on the other hand, is simply a great musical. To be sure, Umbrellas is an excellent film as well (see my take on it here),
but while it surely resonates with its tale of love unhappily ever
after, and it radiates in attractive Eastmancolor, it’s in some ways
hampered by its own novelty. There is of course more to it than merely
the fact that everyone sings everything, but to many it’s probably best
known as the movie where everyone sings everything. Young Girls
is more traditional in that it has dialogue interspersed with the
singing and dancing sequences, and the narrative (complex if not
terribly original) proceeds in a more straightforwardly absorbing
fashion, without necessarily having the music overshadow any customary
storytelling. Gloriously composed — visually and aurally — The Young Girls of Rochefort
is a lyrically light holiday to this provincial town, with its
assortment of pleasant people having their fair share of romantic
troubles. Moreover, it’s one of the best musicals the form has ever
seen.
As a great musical, it excels in its generic requisites. Michel Legrand’s catchy music is actually better than that in Umbrellas,
as are Demy’s songs (understandably so, since in the earlier film the
lyrics are basically conversation). Many of these songs act as
reoccurring character themes, motifs that summarize and cue associations
with their respective dreams, doubts, and feelings. Like Umbrellas,
there are times when banal chitchat is rendered musical, and moments
when spoken dialogue rhymes, but generally the songs here are clearly
distinct segments. The choreography and staging of the dance numbers,
both first-rate, are whimsically random yet with obvious structure. They
spring from nowhere, and sometimes not everyone shown seems to be on
the same page (some townspeople join in while others just mill about as
the main players enthusiastically dance around them). There’s an
arranged, improvisational quality to the routines; the movements have a
vibrancy that nevertheless appears carefully directed. Keeping
everything color-coded and connected, cinematographer Ghislain Cloquet
works brilliantly with Demy’s pastel designs, with most of the costumes
and sets in the hues of an Easter egg.
The
whirlwind weekend of the film begins on a Friday morning, with a mosaic
roster of interconnected figures, most unknowingly so, all with romance
on the mind. There are two freewheeling young men who arrive as part of
the fair: Étienne (George Chakiris) and Bill (Grover Dale), sweeping
into the modest town like they own the place and mixing and mingling as
if they’ve known the residents forever. The other duo is Delphine and
Solange Garnier (real-life siblings Catherine Deneuve and Françoise
Dorléac). They are a “pair of twin born in the sign of Gemini,” the
former a piano teacher and composer, the latter a dance teacher, the
both of them longing for love, a better career, and a more hip existence
in Paris.
Their
mother, Yvonne Garnier (Danielle Darrieux), runs a glass-enclosed café
centrally located in the middle of town, which is frequented by, among
other regulars, Maxence (Jacques Perrin), a budding artist who has his
ambitions sidetracked by his naval duty. The wistful Maxence has painted
his “feminine ideal,” which is hung up in the gallery owned by
Guillaume Lancien (Jacques Riberolles) and which looks strikingly like
Delphine, whom he has never met. Guillaume, however, does know Delphine
and harbors unrequited feelings for her.
There’s
also Simon Dame (Michel Piccoli), who just opened a music store and
encourages the career of Solange. Finally, there’s Boubou (Patrick
Jeantet), Yvonne’s youngest child, from a different father than the
girls. As it turns out, Simon is Boubou’s dad. He was engaged to Yvonne
but their marriage was thwarted because, among other reasons (though
primarily), she dreaded the thought of being referred to as “Madame
Dame” (it is comical, and some of the other characters can’t help but
laugh when she tells her story). She and Simon have no idea that the
other is in such close proximity, but both separately wish to reunite.
Finally, there’s Andy Miller, a friend of Simon’s. When Solange picks up
Boubou from school, the boy throws a tantrum and tosses his school bag
on the ground, its contents falling out. As she kneels down to pick
everything up, there’s another set of knees there to help. Those knees
belong to Andy, who is played by Gene Kelly.
The
casting of Kelly here is interesting. The film goes to another level
when he appears, his iconic role in the musical genre bringing with it
all sorts of connotations and allusions to prior masterworks. The music
knows this and dramatically swells. Sure, that’s partly because it’s
love at first sight for Andy and Solange, but it’s also because it’s
Gene Kelly. His mere presence gives the film an amusing, self-conscious
sensibility. It’s 45 minutes in before he appears, and another 30
minutes or so after that before he’s seen again, but his imprint on the
film is unforgettable, for reasons not the least of which have to do
with his casting as a fine example of the French idolatry for classic
Hollywood personalities. (He doesn’t have the name or face recognition
of Kelly, but including Chakiris, who starred in West Side Story earlier in the decade, was similarly a casting coup for Demy, the musical fan that he was.) Hollywood aside, in the best Nouvelle Vague tradition there are other, more local cinematic references throughout, from the mention of Truffaut’s Jules and Jim to characters referring to Legrand himself.
Everyone
is in place by this point, and unbeknownst to them all, the love they
desire is just around the corner. Rochefort is a small town — how long
can they continue to miss these corners? A song declares, “Chance often
does things right, but it got its wires crossed,” and that’s what moves
much of the drama in The Young Girls of Rochefort: barely
missed connections, past associations, lost and unfound loves. There’s a
lot going on, yet Demy insisted that the plot meant little to him. More
important was “a general feeling, a moment in life, just moments of
existence.” While some of these moments are temporarily tragic, in that
they revolve around individuals deeply pining for love and living with
regret, more often than not, they are simply delightful. The characters
are smiling, dancing, and carefree. How carefree? When it’s revealed
that a recent dinner guest is actually an ax murderer, Yvonne thinks
back to his uncooperative behavior at that dinner and humorously
decries, “And that fuss about cutting the cake!”
Life
and death, love and solitude: it’s all part of the game, and Demy and
his characters take it in stride. The always insightful Jonathan
Rosenbaum compares the film’s “poetic vision and its artisanal
techniques” to Jacques Tati’s Playtime, with a similar
“polyphonic plot of crisscrossing missed connections, ironically built
in relation to a closely intertwined community.” It’s a spot-on
association, and the Tati connection carries even further in the way his
films and this Demy picture in particular treat life’s follies and
foibles with a subjective bemusement. There’s also a resigned
recognition of the tragically uncontrollable. So it’s fitting then, too,
that Rosenbaum also quotes Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story,
specifically when Kyoko ponders, “Life is disappointing, isn’t it?”
Rosenbaum does not, however, include Noriko’s response, where she
answers smiling, “Yes, it is.” In other words, C’est la vie.
The new Criterion Collection release of The Young Girls of Rochefort
is but one part of their fabulous ‘The Essential Jacques Demy’ set.
Boasting new restorations of six of Demy’s best films and a wealth of
bonus features, this is one exceptional compilation. The disc for Young Girls
is representative of what’s included with each title. There’s a
discussion between Demy biographer Jean-Pierre Berthomé and costume
designer Jacqueline Moreau, and a short segment from a 1966 series about
the film. But the real highlights are a 1966 interview featuring Demy
and Legrand, and Agnès Varda’s 1993 documentary The Young Girls Turn 25.
The
Demy/Legrand inclusion gives a fascinating and charismatic glimpse at
the duo’s creative process, where we see just how interconnected they
are, how indispensable their respective contributions are to the picture
as a whole. It’s amusing to see the two of them collaborate and banter
with the interviewer. But Varda, Demy’s widow and an excellent filmmaker
in her own right, is responsible for what is the most emotionally
affecting of the bonus features. It’s genuinely touching to see the
footage she shot of Demy during the film’s production, and to hear her
loving comments about her gifted husband. Mostly though, her documentary
revolves around a visit to Rochefort as the town and seemingly all of
its residents prepare to celebrate The Young Girls of Rochefort’s
25th anniversary. “We were all sort of slumbering,” says one gentleman.
“The film people came and we awakened … and we all began to sing.”
Everyone in the documentary, from Deneuve to some of the extras who had
only the smallest of roles, speak with warm fondness for the film
(basically the town’s primary claim to fame) and Demy as a man and
filmmaker. As part of the celebration, public performances feature
costumes and songs from the film, the town is festooned in the film’s
distinctive colors, there are municipal dedications in the names of
those associated with the film, and schoolchildren draw pictures of the
“Young Girls”. One youth interviewed even shows that wherever she goes,
she carries with her a copy of The Young Girls of Rochefort on videocassette.
Sure
it’s the setting, but is there really any call for a whole town to
elaborately commemorate a film like this? Is it a film that is so good
it needs to be with someone at all times? Is it that enjoyable, that
charming, that memorable? To again quote Noriko, “Yes, it is.”
REVIEW from SOUND ON SIGHT
Even if we weren’t told at the start that Picnic at Hanging Rock
was about a group of girls who disappeared Saturday, Feb. 14, 1900 and
were never seen again, it would become apparent almost immediately that
this 1975 film was not going to end happily, or progress normally.
Director Peter Weir, working off a script by Cliff Green (adapted from
Joan Lindsay’s novel), presents Appleyard College in Victoria State,
Australia, and the nearby wildness, as otherworldly locales with an air
of haunting splendor. The first lines of the film, from Miranda (Anne
Lambert), not quite the lead, but an individual of focus more than the
others, hint at what’s to unfold: “What we see and what we seem are but a
dream, a dream within a dream.” And henceforth this surreal, stunningly
photographed picture proceeds as if indeed in a perpetual dream-state
plagued by melancholic doom.
By
way of a whimsical and deliberately hallucinatory technique, the
opening sequences at the college introduce the primary characters – the
girls as well as, most importantly, Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) and
Miss McCraw (Vivean Gray). Weir and cinematographer Russell Boyd utilize
not only diffused illumination to create an impression of enigmatic
sensuality and mystery, but also slow motion and dissolves, resulting in
a spellbinding visual peculiarity. “Poetic” would also describe Picnic at Hanging Rock,
particularly early on and later during the more fantastic moments. But
it’s perhaps music that has the most in common with the film, notably in
terms of its atmosphere, the way it absorbs one into its creation.
Aided by the oftentimes blank and trancelike intensity of the girls, and
the evocative score by composer Bruce Smeaton and pan flute musician
Gheorghe Zamfir, this is a movie that truly gets under one’s skin.
Lest
it is shrouded by the ambiance, there is a story here. The girls travel
to the “geological miracle” that is Hanging Rock, a massive volcanic
formation that looms large over the neighboring woods. Of the students,
only Sara (Margaret Nelson), a troubled girl who bears a perhaps more
than friendly affection for Miranda, is left behind. Initially, the trip
is pure bliss, with the girls delighting in being able to remove their
gloves — once they’re appropriately distanced from town that is.
Clothing proves to be a recurring, if puzzling, feature of Picnic at Hanging Rock.
The incongruity of the girls’ formal wear in the wild is striking, out
of place and seemingly out of time, even despite the period setting; and
later, bits of clothing, either missing or remaining from the girls who
vanish, cause perplexed distress.
Also
picnicking in the forest is the Fitzhubert family. Son Michael (Dominic
Guard) and valet Albert (John Jarratt) see Miranda, Irma (Karen
Robson), Edith (Christine Schuler), and Marion (Jane Vallis) wander away
from the group and explore the rocks. The girls appear as majestic
visions to the two boys, and around this time, the film takes on a more
pronounced supernatural tenor as all wristwatches are discovered to have
suddenly stopped at exactly noon. It’s “something magnetic,” contends
Miss McCraw, but as the four girls go deeper into the labyrinthine
rocks, something further inexplicable transpires. Edith is ill and
repeatedly decries the area being “nasty.” She stays back, but the other
three venture further into a narrow crevasse, into, perhaps, another
dimension. They vanish and Edith screams and runs away. And so it
begins.
The
boys are questioned, as is Edith, who when fleeing down the hill saw a
red cloud overhead as she passed Miss McCraw running up the hill. Edith
reveals that Miss McCraw, who has also now disappeared, was no longer
wearing her dress. Michael is guilt-ridden for not having somehow
watched over the girls, and after days of searching bear no results, he
and Albert begin their own investigation. Michael tries to enter into
the fracture where the girls disappeared, but something prevents him
from moving forward. He succumbs to the pressure and the exertion and is
found by Albert, who discovers that the disturbed Michael is clutching a
piece of one of the girls’ dresses. As Albert goes back amongst the
rocks, he amazingly finds Irma, traumatized but still alive. She has
scratches to her hands and fingers, as if she clawed at something, and a
bruise on her head, as if she was struck, but the rest of her body is
unmarked. She has no shoes, socks, or corset, but rape is ruled out. She
has no memory of what happened.
Nothing about this adds up, nothing ever will, and that’s the point. Picnic at Hanging Rock
exists simply and effectively as a work meant to confound, to
challenge, to perhaps even frustrate in its ambiguities and unsolved
mysteries. When Michael is stricken by whatever it is that befalls him,
over his anguished body Weir superimposes earlier scenes accompanied by
snippets of dialogue. This sequence coalesces times when what characters
said and did seem to clearly imply the mystery to come. We’ve seen
these instances since the beginning of the film. Before leaving the
school, Miranda knowingly says she won’t be around much longer. There’s
talk of the rock waiting a million years, just for the girls. “We shall
only be gone a little while,” cryptically says one student as she
leaves. “A surprising number of human beings are without purpose, though
it is probable that they are performing some function unknown to
themselves,” says another. Each time one of these phrases is uttered
(“Everything begins and ends at the exactly right time and place” is
another provocative line) the sense of impending doom is called to the
fore. The same goes for the expressions of somber reverie, the
tantalizing wave from Miranda as she and the other three walk off, the
exchanging of glances that suggest something between suspicion and
acknowledgement. From the start, these signifiers of ambiguity are
relentless. And when Weir includes the montage of these moments, with so
many seen all at once, overlapping, we expect them to present or at
least hint at a solution of sorts. This is the moment in a mystery where
the details of previous incidents are seen together and give rise to
apparent significance, meanings that weren’t necessarily clear when they
first occurred. This is how the viewer puts together the pieces and
solves the puzzle. But nothing of the sort happens with Picnic at Hanging Rock. We’re given the baffling ingredients, but a recipe for a simple explanation doesn’t exist.
There
are also times when symbolic imagery is explicit and seems to indicate
an overt connotation. From high above, Edith looks down at the other
picnickers and comments, “Except for those people down there, we might
be the only living creatures in the whole world.” Cut to a high angle
shot of the group of girls strewn against the rocks, laying every which
direction. Cut to ants likewise mingling randomly amongst grass and
discarded food. The associative montage suggests a related aimless
existence, but where that goes and just how it plays into the totality
of the film remains inconclusive.
As Vincent Canby notes in his review
of the film, the open ending is bound to aggravate a certain portion of
the audience (if the preceding events hadn’t already). “I can’t tell
you how the story is resolved,” he states, “though some people will feel
cheated.” So where does that leave a film like Picnic at Hanging Rock?
Canby suggests it’s a type of horror film. It’s eerie enough, its
haunting effect is indeed a lingering one, and with young girls
tormented and screaming, it at the very least contains those hallmarks
of the horror genre. However, to place this film into such a generic
category would be an injustice to a movie that so obviously seeks to be
something else all together, which it surely is. One of the great things
about this film is Weir’s audacious — and successful — choice to
intentionally present a mystery and make no attempt to solve it, to make
a movie that resists classification, with a narrative and a style that
defies convention and simplistic understanding or description. Its
riddles may frustrate, but they’re presented as if an answer were just
within reach, a solution so close that one wants to keep coming back to
the film to make sure something wasn’t missed, a key wasn’t overlooked.
And yet, even if no such solution is to be had, Picnic at Hanging Rock is such an extraordinary achievement that the ultimate uncertainty is worth the road it took to get there.
REVIEW from FILM INTERNATIONAL
Robert
Bresson’s is one of the great singular visions of the cinema. Like
Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky, Bresson’s output was relatively
minimal — 13 features over the course of 40 years — but it is likewise
instantly recognizable. Though it’s something of an auteurist cliché to
say that one can identify a given director’s work by just a single scene
or even a single frame, in this case, the declaration holds true.
Bresson’s work is so distinct, so deceptively simple, so regimented in
its formal construction, that to see one of his films is to witness an
exceptional directorial style, one consistently employed throughout an
artist’s body of work. With this consistency comes the subsequent
creation of one extraordinary film after another, each similar to the
previous, with reoccurring imagery, themes, and performances, but each,
at the same time, notably unique. Bresson directed several films that
could be considered his greatest, and while Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) puts up the strongest fight, a good case could be made for Pickpocket, from 1959, as the inimitable filmmaker’s finest achievement.
Though
there are others in the film, Michel (Martin LaSalle) is the titular
thief of concern. Michel is, in James Quandt’s words, a “walking
semiotic system of alienation.” LaSalle’s blank slate of a face allows
the audience to project any number of emotions and thoughts onto this
young man, but such associative engagement is sheer speculation, for
rarely are we afforded any overt suggestion of true feeling. His
self-imposed isolationism keeps him at a distance from society, for
which he seems to care little, and from family and friends. Jeanne
(Marika Green), his teenage neighbor who cares for his ailing mother
(Michel would rather give his mother a wad of cash than visit with her),
and Jacques (Pierre Leymarie), his sole friend, offer a way out from
the solitary existence, a path of intimacy and amity, but Michel greets
this closeness with trepidation. Though the three do socialize on
occasion, Michel’s public presence is awkward to say the least.
Adding
to his social discomfort is his disconcerting worldview, his take of
what is right or wrong and his questioning of morality and appropriate
justice. With Jacques and the police officer who is suspiciously on his
trail at all times, Michel daringly lays out his philosophical stance
when it comes to the justification of certain crimes if committed by
gifted men, men better than others, men above the law, “supermen”
operating autonomously from societal structures. Such a duel (dis)regard
for certain people and not others is manifest in Michel’s visually
evident and even stated appreciation for his chosen craft and those
craftsmen who so expertly execute the crime. (Real-life pickpocket
Kassagi appears in the film and acted as a technical advisor for the
production, lending the criminal methodology shown considerable
authenticity.) The ambiguous awe with which Michel sometimes examines
the other pickpockets gives credence to some of the psychosexual
readings that have been assigned to the film; they’re perhaps not what
first comes to mind watching the movie, but once the suggestion has been
made, as Quandt does make, it’s hard to shake the theory.
Michel
meticulously practices his thieving routine, and once successfully put
into action, the anxiety gives way to euphoria; watching Michel enact
his felonies is truly a sensual experience. The same goes for when we
see Michel and his fellow pickpockets stage elaborately designed joint
thefts. The bravura sequence at the train station is a wonderfully shot
and arranged display of intricate collaboration. Such careful commitment
to a crime is, it must be admitted, rather admirable and impressive.
But of course, that doesn’t make it right, and on the flip side of this
is the omnipresent potential for apprehension. The police are also
competent figures in Pickpocket. There are officers doing their
own work, and frequently succeeding. What emerges is a sort of
professional tête-à-tête of contrasting and competing occupational
proficiency.
Known
for his austere and stripped down treatment of imagery, Bresson here
reveals a notable stylishness, with a smoothly flowing camera and
outstanding montage sequences — Pickpocket is also perhaps less
rigorous due to its rapid pace and its condensed runtime (about 75
minutes). While it is a brisk film, Bresson nevertheless allows for
certain formal features more synonymous with his cinema: extreme,
perfectly composed close-ups of small details and abstract body parts;
lingering shots of halls and doorways, transitional places maintained in
the frame before or after a character has moved through them; and the
integration of a complex soundtrack as a way to establish and enlarge
off-screen space. Paul Schrader, in his introduction to the film that
accompanies the recently released Criterion Collection Blu-ray,
discusses these and other unique Bresson approaches to filmic
guidelines. His decisions when it comes to editing tempo, genre
convention, shot size, and pacing are most unusual, and yet are highly
effective in terms of narrative progression and the general impression
of the film. This impression, as Quandt mentions in his commentary, is
one marked by the “everyday transfigured by Bresson’s strange
attentiveness.”
Schrader, who calls Pickpocket the most influential film on his own career (with allusions most clearly in Taxi Driver and American Gigolo),
considers Michel as a soul floating around. Much of this detached sense
is a result of Bresson’s use of actors (or, as he would sometime refer
to them, “interpreters” or “models”). Like automatons that have not yet
developed an emotive aptitude, the performers here and in other Bresson
films are in a perpetual state of lethargic restraint and sobriety, only
occasionally countered by outbursts of passion. Bresson cast
“non-actors who non-act,” as Schrader puts it, but interestingly, given
the director’s penchant when it comes to performances, their impact
operating in this unorthodox style is always a lasting one.
It
is stated at the film’s opening that this will not be a thriller, and
with regards to that designation’s standard definition, this is
obviously true. But Pickpocket is thrilling. Though we are
oftentimes left to infer as much as we are actually shown, this omission
of various elements is more captivating than it is distancing. And
despite the intentionally stilted performances, we are genuinely
concerned about these people and wonder how they will ultimately turn
out. When it’s revealed that the morally superior Jacques is not all he
seemed to be, the suggestion that perhaps Michel can also change gives
the film a previously lacking optimism. His respite from crime may be
short-lived, but there is still by film’s end a glimmer of hope. It was a
“strange path” Michel traveled, but the destination appears to have
been worth the trip. “Appears to” being the key here, for rarely in the
film are motivations and outcomes made unequivocal, which was always
part of Bresson’s intent. As he puts it, “I’d rather people feel a film
before understanding it.”
REVIEW from SOUND ON SIGHT
