Following our discussion of African film, I ordered Xala up from the local library and was scanning around Netflix when I saw Gio had put this film on her queue, and when I saw that it was the director of Bamako (a film I’d read a lot about in the last year), I bumped it up the queue and watched last night: outstanding film.

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a few words on time out, which i just saw. it covers some of the same ground as caché, in that it addresses the pervasive discomfort of the first world’s ruling class. just like in caché, the protagonist is a middle aged man haunted by secrets, which he works strenuously at keeping from his family and in particular from his wife. also like in caché, the wife is “innocent,” not part of the husband’s secret life, outside the circle of his tormenting ghosts. unlike the binoche character, she doesn’t express this outsider status with relentless and frustrated questioning, but, rather, with long silences and wrenching looks. the silences between these people who clearly have so much they should be talking about saturate the movie and are perhaps its most disturbing feature. at the end, when vincent runs from home, the wife’s voice on the cellphone feels for a moment like a relief: finally they’ll talk! but no. vincent is out of auditory range and, in any case, muriel is once again making soothing noises without addressing any of the issues that are torturing vincent and their marriage.
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I hate to shift gears, particularly since the thread on Xala is terrific, but I watched Sam Fuller’s The Big Red One last night and I was mightily impressed. I had seen this film long ago, on network television I think. Maybe it was USA or something, because I don’t recall much being deleted. But I couldn’t resist revisiting the film since it’s been “reconstructed”–that is to say, some 45 minutes have been restored. My recollection of the theatrical version is too dim to make any comments about the differences between it and the “reconstructed” version (for anyone who is interested in that, watch the bonus DVD, which has “before and after” scene comparisons). So let me instead just sing praises. (more…)

Holy crap. So this was commissioned for Showtime’s Masters of Horror, about which I’ve had some complaints, and then it was too much for them–and it was never aired. Set sometime in late-19th-century Japan, on an island brothel, it structurally resembles a classic ghost story of the period: embedded narratives, as a man on a quest is told ever-worse versions of a story by a deformed prostitute. And many of the elements of the story seem classical, as well: long-lost loves, embattled young child, secret twins. But beyond this familiar structure and resonant plot details, the short film contains truly unsettling, discomforting, uncanny images–bodies, babies, brutality, a very grim fairy tale that seemed unlike most anything I’d ever seen before. The story would emerge in one way that bothered me, then it’d be retold and I’d be surprised and a bit horrified by its revision, and again, and again, until I was startled, often nauseated, utterly engrossed (in every sense of that word).

Great stuff. No one but me may actually enjoy this kind of stuff, but I do recommend it. Shot with Miike’s trademark combination of stomach-churning gore and sound to accompany, intermingled with some absolutely beautiful images (e.g., a poled boat laden with customers just off shore, the red lanterns on land dimly visible in a line just over the men’s heads). Miike is the Fellini of horror–this is a very bad dream, and very good horror.

A quick recommendation for an HBO film that some may have already seen: the titular character (played by the amazing Jim Broadbent) is a somewhat fuddled real-life Lord who took up lost causes, and gets involved with the case for forgiveness and perhaps parole for the female half of a notorious child-murdering duo. Myra Hindley (the equally amazing Samantha Morton) may be truly seeking redemption, may be manipulating the old man — and the film grabs us with that tension. But what resonates even more extensively is the grip of the moral question behind the ‘truth’ of her redemption: does everyone deserve redemption, regardless of their motives? (more…)