City of Men

City of Men (2007) dir. Paulo Morelli
Starring: Douglas Silva, Darlan Cunha, Rodrigo dos Santos, Camila Monteiro, Jonathan Haagensen

***

By Alan Bacchus

Following City of God and the Brazilian TV series of the same name, Paulo Morelli’s City of Men continues the tales of youth and gang culture in Rio de Janeiro. City of Men is the less flashy little brother to Mereilles' seminal film, but also a deserving follow up and, in many ways, a more satisfying experience.

Though similar in look and style, Morelli’s film is not a sequel to City of God – only the theme, location and visual style join the two films together. City of Men takes place in present day and portrays the lives of Ace and Wallace, two 17-year-old youths whose futures are uncertain. Being poor and uneducated, university is out of the question. The threat of gang involvement, which is only one degree of separation away from both boys, looms over them. One of the roots of their uncertainty is their lack of fathers.

Ace and Wallace decide to search for their real fathers. If you’re poor, it’s difficult to leave the slum, so their search is a matter of asking the elder locals for information. They discover that both of them descend from the gangster lifestyle, which seems to breed a circle of crime. Ace discovers his father was killed during a gang hit many years ago, and Wallace tracks down his father, Heraldo, now on probation after a 15-year stint in prison. While Wallace’s relationship with his father grows, his friendship with Ace dissolves. When the local gang battles become more violent, suddenly Ace and Wallace find themselves as bitter enemies.

Morelli smartly contains his film and doesn’t try to out sprawl Mereilles’ epic. City of Men is focused on Ace and Wallace for the entire film. It doesn’t rely on the Scorsese-isms that Mereilles injected into his film. City of Men is a slower and more intimate realist experience.

The young men who play the rambunctious but dangerous street kids bring authenticity and warmth to the film. Even though violence and murderous behaviour is present, ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ aren’t so easily definable as in City of God. Midnight is the leader of one gang – he’s an honourable young man who desires to organize the kids of his “hill”. Fasto, Midnight’s rival, splits from the gang after refusing to kill was one of his men for insubordination. City of God gave us true movie villains, like L’il Ze – monstrous (but entertaining) caricatures of gang leaders. As a result, City of Men feels more authentic.

The first half of the film is the strongest – establishing the relationship between Ace and Wallace and the complexities of the street. But when the sensational gang battles enter the picture, Morelli’s characters take a back seat to the gunplay and the action. It provides a rousing final act, but at the sacrifice of its true heart.

What never wavers is the documentary-like street feel of the film. It’s gorgeous to watch. Morelli and cinematographer Adriano Goldman bathe their frames in sundrenched yellows and golds. A nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

Gilda

Gilda (1946) dir. Charles Vidor
Starring: Glenn Ford, Rita Hayworth, George MacCready

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

The Hollywood "Production Code", the 38-year filter for all things ‘inappropriate’ in Hollywood cinema, was in effect during the making of Gilda – Charles Vidor’s classic sexually-charged nourish melodrama, which serves as a great example of how films of the era both benefited from and were hindered by these restraints.

Vidor and his writers establish a Casablanca-type insular world in Gilda. It’s Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Glenn Ford plays Johnnie Farrell, a professional gambler hired by businessman Ballin Munson (George MacCready, the bombastic General in Paths of Glory) to use his skills to manage his casino. Johnnie makes good with his job commanding the reigns with the same confidence as Rick Blaine in Casablanca.

But when Munson comes back from a business trip with a new wife, it’s a red flag for Johnnie. And when he first catches sight of the seductress mantrap Munson's found, he can only see danger. The luscious Rita Hayworth plays Gilda with mouthwatering allure. Immediately we sense a connection between her and Johnnie. Do they know each other? Perhaps not, but Johnnie knows a dame in this business is never good. As Johnnie tries to curb Gilda’s flirtations, they become inexorably drawn to each other. But a love triangle with big money at stake can only result in disaster.

In this "Production Code" era, a distinct style of metaphorical filmmaking resulted from the inability of filmmakers to show or tell us some of the more immoral aspects of their films overtly. Many films benefited from this restraint – a film like The Big Sleep, in which much of the lewd and subversive elements were put deep into the background and subtext of the story.

Few, if any, films compare to the sexual tension Charles Vidor manages to ring out from Johnnie’s relationship with Gilda. For much of the film they hate each other's guts, often spelling it out clearly with lines like, “I hated her so I couldn't get her out of my mind for a minute,” or “I hate you so much I think I'm going to die from it." Yet Vidor’s framing of Hayworth and Ford and the close-ups he lingers on suggest more. Their back story is only hinted at and never fully explained. I still don’t know for certain whether Johnnie and Gilda had a relationship prior to meeting at the Casino, and if so, where did it start and what caused its demise?

It's part of the big tease Vidor holds on us for two-thirds of the picture until finally the two tempestuous ex-lovers break the barrier and kiss. This scene, which occurs in Gilda’s bedroom on the evening of the Carnival celebration, is dripping with sexual tension. Hayworth closes in on Ford so slowly we can feel the carnal urges of his character trying not to do what his libido is telling him to. Johnnie eventually does succumb to Gilda’s advances, at which point a sweaty sex scene would be in order. Of course, we don’t ever see it. Instead, the film jumps forward to a marriage between the two.

A marriage between these characters, under the "Production Code", perhaps wouldn’t have been allowed. After all, the two heroes of the film kissing and (likely) going to bed together without getting married was a no-no. And so, in the final act, the film plays out a scattered plot divergence of this marriage between Gilda and Johnnie. Unfortunately, it’s a dreadful finale to an otherwise pitch-perfect picture.

I can forgive this unhealthy digression in the film because of the 90 minutes of perfection the film achieves before it. Vidor’s keen cinematic eye and Rudolph Mate’s stylish cinematography embellishes all the texture established by the performances. In the history of cinema, few leading ladies have been lit better than Mate’s work on Rita Hayworth. It’s the finest example of lighting used to express the mood and desires of a character. Hayworth’s opening shot, of course, is famous. As Johnnie is introduced to Gilda, we see her pop up into frame in a soft close-up flopping her hair back with a cool flirtatious attitude. But watch Hayworth's movement throughout her scenes, as a strong backlight always seems to follow her (and only her) wherever she goes. At all times she’s glowing like a beacon or a siren tempting us over to her dark side of carnality.

With today's eyes, perhaps it's a sexist view of women as the object of desire with an ability to turn men into mouthwatering dogs at the mercy of their sexuality. Maybe not much has changed, but no film has done it better than Gilda.

L'Affaire Farewell

L’Affaire Farewell (2010) dir. Christian Carion
Starring: Guillaume Canet, Emir Kusturica, Willem Dafoe, Fred Ward, Alexandra Maria Lara, Niels Arestrup, Dina Korzun

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

If anything, this absorbing too-real-to-be-true spy story underplays the significance of the real life events of 1981 depicted in this film. In the early days of the Reagan Presidential era, a series of complex spy games resulted in the transfer of vital Soviet documents from Moscow, through Paris, to Washington. The documents included Soviet copies of the NASA Space Shuttle blueprints and a top secret list of Communist spies within the CIA, FBI and the White House.

Christian Carion (Joyeux Noel) executes this potent firecracker story with the sensitivity of an intimate character film. The key relationship is the working friendship between Pierre Froment (Canet), a French engineer working for the French embassy in Moscow, and Sergei Gregoriev (Kusturica), a high ranking KGB operative who risks his life and his family for his political values.

Sergei and Pierre meet almost coincidentally when Pierre is instructed by his superiors to exchange a small package with a suspected Soviet informer. This one act turns into a lengthy series of secret exchanges and increasingly dangerous spy games. Through their intimate meetings, we get to know their characters, both of them humble men who work in secret, fearful of the backlash from their families. At the same time, we see the big picture ramifications of their actions. Fred Ward plays Ronald Reagan and Philippe Magnon plays Francois Mitterand, both of whom trade this information like baseball cards, neglectful of the personal risk taken by their courageous operatives.

Cold War spy games like these always make for great cinema. And Carion’s treatment of this subject has all the quiet tension of a John le Carré novel or something with Gene Hackman in it. There are no action scenes, yet we’re not without a sense of impending danger. Carion clearly shows the importance of family. These are the stakes for Sergei and Pierre. Sergei’s inner conflict is the battle between his patriotic desire to see Russia rise from the idealistic ashes of Communism and his desire to be a family man and care for his son and wife. He commits several acts of betrayal along the way, including having an affair with a secretary in order to get information. This is the stuff of great screenwriting – flawed heroes with obstacles the size of mountains to surmount.

As for Pierre, he’s been lying to his wife the whole time, which threatens to cause the breakup of their marriage. But why does he risk his family? His motives are less clear than Sergei’s. Perhaps it’s his desire to make a difference in the world, or a feeling of inadequacy as a French engineer living outside his home, subject to the strict control of his superiors. Guillaume Canet’s introspective everyman performance renders Pierre as the ideal, identifiable point of view into this secret and dangerous world.

Carion executes a marvellous cinematic third act, during which Sergei comes face-to-face with the sacrifices he’s made. His final conversation with his son is a highly emotional moment, and their final embrace is simply heartbreaking.

An interesting side note is the casting of two expert directors in the lead roles. Emir Kusturica is a Bosnian cinema master and two-time Palm D’Or winner appearing in his first ever lead role speaking both Russian and French. Bravo. And Guillaume Canet is a HUGE mega star in France (husband to Marion Cotillard), but also a budding master director (Tell No One, Little White Lies).

Though L’Affaire Farewell didn’t benefit from a theatrical release, by no means should this film be considered ‘straight-to-video’. This is as important, entertaining and mainstream as any ‘foreign language’ film you’ll see.

L’Affaire Farewell is available on Blu-ray and DVD from E1 Home Entertainment in Canada.

Frankenstein

Frankenstein (1931) dir. James Whale
Starring: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles and Boris Karloff

****

By Alan Bacchus

Mary Shelley’s classic tragic horror fantasy has never been filmed with more genre goodness and tragic Hollywood sentimentality than the James Whale Universal classic. Of course, just as much of the novel was discarded as was retained. Instead, Whale and his writers, under the guidance of producer/studio head Carl Laemmle Jr., embellish the salacious and grisly details of Shelley’s concept and condense it into its own patchwork beast of a movie, not unlike the creature itself.

Although, it should be stated that this film version was in fact not directly based on the novel, but rather Peggy Webling’s 1920s stage play. With that said, despite severe bastardization of the original story, the themes of scientific malfeasance and the attempts of man to become God and create man in man’s own image resonate as strongly as in the original book.

Whale’s direction is simply masterful, employing the prevailing visual trends of the day, German expressionism and art deco to create a deliciously gothic and brooding look to his film. Just look at the fantastic opening sequence during which Dr. Henry Frankenstein (not Victor here) and his hunchback servant Fritz grave-rob the cemetery looking for his individual body parts. Whale’s gothic compositions, such as placing his characters in dark, nearly silhouetted black and white against the ominous studio-constructed cloudscape backdrop is rich with atmosphere.

The Frankenstein castle and his experimental lair are meticulously constructed to reflect the futurism of the art deco style. We can’t help but see Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in both theme and the production design of the sets.

Frankenstein makes an interesting comparison with 1933's King Kong. The monsters in both films are born from man’s insatiable desire to conquer science at all costs. Both Dr. Frankenstein and King Kong’s Carl Denham recklessly attempt to tame science and nature with such careless abandon that they tragically destroy an innocent life. Like Kong, Boris Karloff is an unabashedly sympathetic monster. We compassionately identify with him after he’s birthed into being then frightened with fire torches by Henry and Fritz. Watching the monster cower in fear of Henry’s torches is a heartbreaking scene. And the subsequent heinous torture and imprisonment of the monster is directed with sincere humanism and compassion.

And so when the monster inadvertently murders the young girl in the lake, it’s a sad and tragically ironic moment for the audience because we know the monster doesn’t know any better. He is like an infant, a product of his father or master, and the result of man’s general irresponsibility with the tools of science.

Like King Kong, the hunt for and eventual destruction of the monster by the angry villagers is a tragic and sad moment for the audience. Whale’s magnificent staging of the scene, including the awesome final imagery of the burning windmill behind the bloodthirsty mob, is almost as powerful as Kong’s final fight atop the Empire State Building. They’re two of the greatest humanistic moments ever created in the genre of horror-fantasy.

Batman

Batman (1989) dir. Tim Burton
Starring: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Jack Palance, Michael Gough

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

It was a monumental summer of 1989, the summer of Batman. As an impressionable 15-year-old, I got sucked into the tremendous and then innovative marketing push for this film. Warner Bros. somehow made this film feel like the most important thing in the world – a monumental shift in how we see comic books and superheroes on film. Before anyone even saw it, we were compelled to it. Looking back, the film is not that great. Only in the context of the history of comic book adaptations, Tim Burton’s career and the Hollywood marketing techniques does the film resonate soundly as a milestone in cinema.

In 1989, to the masses, Batman was synonymous with the kitschy satirical Adam West TV series from the 1960s. The only other legitimate comic book adaptation as a feature film was the Superman series, which in 1979 started out with a strong sense of literary credibility, but over the course of its sequels devolved into juvenile parody. Remember, 1989 was long before the Internet, so information was sparse. However, it was made clear by Warner Bros. that this wasn't Adam West’s Batman, but a leaner darker, brooding caped crusader. The teaser campaigns said it all. First, we saw only the ultra cool black and gold logo and then the teaser trailer, which featured starkly under-lit noirish-style visuals of a superhero we hardly see, instead covered in shadow and highlights.



The buzz manufactured on this picture was palpable, and to this 15-year-old it didn’t disappoint. Before I could understand the elements of cinema, I knew Danny Elfman’s score was different than anything we’d heard before, and Tim Burton’s vision was dark but wholly playful, ironic and fun. Nicholson was over-the-top crazy, and Michael Keaton was surprisingly thoughtful, charming and strong as a superhero.

Now, in 2011, we’ve been through a four-film string of sequels since this first Batman film, plus Warner Bros. is just about to begin production on the third chapter of the reboot. The success of Batman helped birth other DC and Marvel stories onto film, including another two Superman reboots, four X-Men films and almost every other recognizable superhero property.

Now, unfortunately, Tim Burton’s Batman seems like a relic, like the aging old champion of former glory. Some parts of the film still feel inspired and fresh. The opening credits, for instance, are driven by Elfman’s aggressive opening cue (which sounds so close to The Simpsons theme), and all of Elfman's music for that matter. The same goes for the Bob Ringwood-designed Batman costume, which has never been improved upon, even 5 or 6 pictures later. Michael Keaton is still better under the cowl than Kilmer, Clooney or Christian Bale.

But it’s also an awkward and stagey film. The action set pieces feel as heavy and inelegant as the gigantic pimpmobile Batman drives. And the attempts at injecting the mythic pathos of the Batman origin story into the Joker’s transition never gets under the surface of the camp. Burton’s retro-campy playfulness still feels original and distinct to Burton, but it certainly doesn’t generate any laughs. If we got the feeling of any kind of real tension in the Joker’s antics, his jokes might have effectively been disarming to the danger, but it’s just too goofy to take seriously.

And so my opinion of the film seems to be coloured by a) my perception of it as a teenager and b) the subsequent films and visions of other filmmakers on similar subject matter. Though it was a career leap into the superstrata for Burton, I suspect it’s as difficult to watch for him as it was disappointing for me.

Black Swan

Black Swan (2010) dir. Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey

****

By Alan Bacchus

The success of this film is kind of astounding; $100 million + box office take from a meagre $15 million budget, but which looks invisible to any production limitations. Its Oscar nominations are perhaps the most surprising. Whether you think movie awards are popularity contests, superfluous self-stroking or dependent on shameless campaigning, the validation of Darren Aronofsky in the company of the superlative list of nominees has immense value. Well, he should have gotten a nomination for The Wrestler, but no need for sour grapes anymore.

Unlike the films of the other nominees for Best Director (Fincher, Hooper, the Coens, Russell), Black Swan exists solely to titillate our nerves, creep us out and scare us to bits. The fact is, there isn’t too far to go before hitting the bottom of these characters, particularly Natalie Portman, who plays Nina Sayers, an ambitious dancer who essentially sells her soul in order to become the best dancer she can be. Sure, in the extreme, the film comments on the psychology of artists and the inner madman/psychopath that often plagues great artists, but that’s about the extent of what we can read into this film.

Unlike The King’s Speech, The Social Network, et al, Black Swan is devoid of historical perspective, cultural significance or any romanticism of any kind. It’s Aronofsky exercising his muscles in cinematic manipulation. The joy of Black Swan is its technical purity, the type of cinema Hitchcock or Polanski used to make, largely emotionally vacant exercises in scare tactics. Despite the dark material, Black Swan is a fun movie. Fun? Really? Yes, this picture is meant to be fun. Take the fetish-like close-ups of Nina's fingernails deteriorating. Aronofsky must have known most of his audience would turn away long before we see the gory hangnail rip off half her finger. The doppelganger teasing, lesbian sex, masturbation – this is the stuff Polanski tempted us with in Repulsion and what Brian De Palma or David Lynch would do.

Like these masters, Aronofsky uses the tools of cinema – the visual and the aural – to move us to darker places and stimulate our senses.

Aronofsky’s command of his instruments is inspiring. His edgy camera work is jarring from the outset. His handheld camera, which captures the beautiful and elegant ballet dance routines, is rigorous and immediately puts us into the point of view of his troubled dancer. His control of the colour palette is just as sharp and controlled. Key designers Matthew Libatique, Thérèse DePrez and David Stein fill this world with shades of grey, black and white, complementing the black swan/white swan dualities. Sure, it’s not a subtle metaphor, but it results in a distinct, consistent look, which aids in Aronofsky’s scare tactics. And then there’s the use of mirrors, which might seem like a hackneyed horror film trick, but proves to be a venerable, reliable old device.

Though I haven’t read the script on its own, it would appear to serve the sensibilities of a director like Darren Aronofsky; a well structured, air-tight 100 pages or so, but light enough to be blown up with a robust cinematic style. And the marriage of these technical tools with equally adroit performances hits the high mark of what Hitchcock and Polanski achieved in their heydays.

Black Swan is available on Blu-ray and DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. It's a fabulous disc featuring a well-produced and informative making of documentary. No EPK bullshit.

Source Code

Source Code (2011) dir. Duncan Jones
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Good on Duncan Jones, who authored the wonderful sci-fi low budgeter Moon a couple of years ago. With Source Code, another high-concept, low budget science fiction film, he’s just a director, taking the paycheque and delivering a decent adaptation of this sci-fi recycling machine.

There’s nothing particularly fresh about this film though. It’s the type of brainy concept film usually born during drunken conversations in bars between unemployed filmmakers looking to make the next Memento - trust me I know from experience. But if Moon was Duncan Jones’ Memento, then Source Code is his Insomnia, Christopher Nolan’s second film. Both Source Code and Insomnia were made quickly after their first films as directors-for-hire shooting someone else’s script. Thus, for Jones, Source Code is less a showcase for his own creative vision than an insurance policy to his potential future financiers that he’s not a sophomore jinx.

The story is contrived from the concepts of 12 Monkeys, Nick of Time, 24, Snake Eyes, Deja Vu and Groundhog Day of course. Helicopter pilot Colter Stevens, who was previously stationed in Afghanistan, wakes up on a train in someone else’s body. After the train blows up from an apparent terrorist attack, he’s transported into the cockpit of his busted up copter talking to a mysterious government agent. This agent (Vera Farmiga) eventually reveals to us Colter’s new mission – exploiting the brain’s capacity to remain active for eight minutes after death in order to transmit his own brain into that of one of the passengers and investigate the perpetrator of the bombing.

Over and over, Stevens does this by assuming the identity of a 9 to 5 commuter travelling to Chicago. In between flirting with his attractive single-serving travelling partner, Christina (Michelle Monaghan), he systematically sources out the terrorist.

Despite the loopy concept, the film plays out as expected with relatively few sudden turns. Red herrings like the racially-profiled Arab-looking passenger that turns out to be a false lead fail to move us. Everyone at the military command centre has shifty eyes and talks in cryptic language leading us to assume they are hiding something immoral or unethical from Stevens, and the audience. The passengers, one of whom is Russell Peters, whose presence actually takes us ‘out’ of the movie, aren’t very entertaining and fail to add any significant flavour or colour to the action.

Jones renders the human story as real and sympathetic as possible. The romantic story between Stevens and Christina is predictable, but the more resonant, emotional reconciliation is between Stevens and his father, as well as the indictment of the US military’s exploitation of its soldiers around the world.

The film is mostly kept inside the train in the past and in Steven’s destroyed cockpit in the present, so we can assume the budget was significantly low for this one. This is evident in the action scenes, which are few and unfortunately never really ‘thrill’ us in the way thrillers are supposed to.

The fun of Source Code is wrapping our heads around the temporal confusion and discussing the existential meaning of the thought-provoking final scene. So with its purpose served – Duncan Jones can direct – it’s time for him to move on to more important ventures.

Black Widow

Black Widow (1954) dir, Nunnally Johnson
Starring: Van Heflin, Ginger Rogers, Gene Tierney, George Raft

***

By Alan Bacchus

Nancy Orway is an ambitious social climber who ingratiates herself into the New York upper class elite through a friendship with big shot Broadway producer Peter Denver (Van Heflin). But with Denver’s wife Iris (Gene Tierney) out of town the friendship brings silent accusations of infidelity. It’s all very innocent until Nancy shows up dead in Peter’s apartment. Suddenly Peter’s seemingly innocent actions take on a whole new meaning. With the police quickly leaning towards a murder charge, Peter takes it upon himself to find the real killer. This fun whodunit setup makes Black Widow an effective mystery and will keep you guessing all the way to the end.

Beneath the surface, the fundamental question that drives the film is whether a married man can develop a true platonic friendship with a single woman. Peter apparently does this out of kindness to help a young writer get a foot in the business. But writer/director Nunnally Johnson never makes Peter out to be a saint. Though he appears to be honest in his philanthropy, there’s a dark side to Peter that keeps the audience on edge. In fact, everyone’s intentions are kept hidden from the audience. For the first half of the film, we’re not sure if Nancy is a crazed psychopath, if Denver is truly attracted to her or whether he’s trying to exact revenge for his wife’s affair a year ago. Johnson plants all the right seeds, which will pay off in the third act.

The film is presented in colour cinemascope, a format not traditionally associated with noir, but it works. The use of widescreen is fabulous. Johnson and his DOP Charles Clarke, along with the legendary photographic effects man Ray Kellogg, bathe New York in eye-popping colour and bold visual beauty. It’s rare to film a noir in colour, but remember that most of Hitchcock’s great colour films were essentially film noirs.

Van Heflin, whose prominent brow frequently got him cast as the bad guy in westerns, is completely believable as a reserved but confident Broadway producer. Ginger Rogers, though over the top, has fun with Lottie, a snobby elitist actress who bullies around everyone including the cops. Peter’s wife, Iris (Gene Tierney), is the most underdeveloped of the characters. Once the accusations of infidelity start, Iris never once questions Peter’s story. It isn’t until a confessionary letter in the mail from Nancy that Iris is sent over the edge; however, even with this information she is still inactive as a character. But then I watched the special features of the DVD and learned the great noir actress Tierney was suffering from severe depression and was heavily medicated during the time of the filming.

Two thirds into the film, I thought I had predicted the ending, but I was wrong. Johnson’s cinematic approach turns what could have been Murder She Wrote material into a tight, unpredictable whodunit with strong characters that stands out against most other films of its kind. Enjoy.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3-D

Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3-D (2010) dir. Werner Herzog
A documentary featuring Werner Herzog

**

By Blair Stewart

The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in the south of France was an early turning point in human expression, intuition and endurance when you factor in the climate during the Upper Paleolithic period (32,000 years ago, or when most of Europe was a continental ice cube). In 1994, a team of speleologists followed an air draft down into the untouched cavern that preserved the oldest cave paintings in recorded civilization, which provided incredibly vivid detail.

Beyond piles of outwitted predators' bones from prehistoric rituals, the paintings were found etched with a three-dimensional perspective. A horse with an outline of eight legs flowing across limestone that was radiated by dancing firelight would have the illusion of movement, no doubt a source of joy, long before Muybridge's mark was due. Because of the fragile existence of the unearthed treasures, the French government has kept public viewing of the cave under tight restrictions.

Enter Werner Herzog, one of the leading figures of the New German Cinema movement encompassing both fiction and documentary. World traveller, opera director and a deadpan old-kook to boot, Herzog was granted limited access to Chauvet for an excursion into 3-D filmmaking. The turquoise beauty of the Ardèche river region certainly pops in that format, but the billowing details of the actual paintings themselves sadly can't translate well in the muted glow of the handheld camera lights and necessary cinema glasses. The imagery captured despite the limitations of 3-D are still striking. A preserved child's footprint seems freshly laid if not for the elapsed time, the red handprints of one caveman share space with the clawed graffiti of extinct cave bears, and everywhere stalactites hang rudely in the frame like a dog's drool.

The cave is a film's dream setting, and yet I found myself drifting into slumber despite my eagerness for Herzog's documentaries due to his many triumphs, from 1974's The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner to the 2007 Oscar-nominated Encounters at the End of the World. The mixture of a heavy cello score, Herzog's unhelpful monotone voice-over and the dim image was too much for my wits. The director's patented curveball-logic questions during his geological/archaeological interviews about the dreams of the long-dead artists detracted from the subject, as did the blatantly obvious written moments for his scientists (Herzog's best fictional work has the quality of fact, while many of his documentaries have meddling fingerprints somewhere among the pre-planned set pieces) and an ill-suited coda involving crocodiles.

The lingering questions that remain from the paintings will mostly be left unanswered, and while it's important to ask about their intentions and praise their achievements, it's mostly futile to put words in a dead caveman's mouth.

A Screaming Man

A Screaming Man (2010) dir. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Starring: Youssouf Djaoro, Dioucounda Koma, Emile Abossolo M'bo, Hadje Fatime N'Goua, Marius Yelolo

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Culturally and politically, I have to admire the importance of this film for the Republic of Chad, a country like many in Africa that has suffered from the ravages of war. And for indigenous films in general, it's a strong artistic step forward for a society and people marginalized by imperialism. Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun seems to be taking back cinema in an African neo-realism sort of way. This film is a deceptively simple yet powerful story about the tragic frailties of man, redemption, and the inexplicable bond of father and son. It was undoubtedly influenced by Vittorio De Sica’s benchmark neo-realist classic The Bicycle Thieves.

The film is also a frustrating slow burner with a sort of painful art house pacing and a single staid tone, which builds up to its admittedly emotional and powerful ending.

There’s a very highly dramatic character arc for Adam (Djaoro), an obsolete man whose only relevance in life is his status as a former champion swimmer and his job as a pool boy. When Adam is fired from his job and given to his son Abdel, he commits a dramatic act of family betrayal, as he commits Abdel to military service. Although he's practically forced to do this, Adam's guilt runs through him like fingers on a chalkboard. The regret of this decision fuels his dramatic journey to find Abdel and bring him home. His redemption completes an overarching narrative of pure melodrama under the guise of art house.

With regard to his hero, Haroun unfortunately takes his influence from De Sica too literally, shamelessly trying to wring out every ounce of sympathy from his main character. What De Sica and his actor Lamberto Maggiorani did so organically in The Bicycle Thieves feels so laboured and exaggerated here.

Adam is portrayed as a reticent everyman. He barely speaks. We see him moping around the picture endlessly, and when he’s not hanging his head, he’s looking off into the distance deep in contemplative thought. I could tolerate Adam’s emotionless silence if there were dynamic, interesting characters to support him. Unfortunately there are none, as everyone else speaks in the same voice and looks just as glum.

In between the few anchors of actual narrative plotting, and in between Adam’s stoic thinking, we see him walking from place to place, again lacking emotion. By the middle and late second act, the constant repetition of these scenes becomes almost laughable.

That said, Haroun doesn’t rob us of a truly powerful and satisfying resolution – however tragic. Adam’s actions and reconciliation reveal A Screaming Man as a disguised melodrama masquerading as art house – which is what De Sica did best.

I imagine this film has even caused controversy within its own community for its cynical view of God and religion, which provides even further dramatic context for what really is archetypal or neo-classical storytelling. So caveat emptor, enter at your own risk.

PS If you hadn’t guessed, the title is ironic – painfully ironic.

A Screaming Man is available on DVD from Film Movement

Great Expectations

Great Expectations (1946) dir. David Lean
Starring: John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Alec Guinness, Marita Hunt, Finlay Currie, Bernard Miles

****

By Alan Bacchus

According to the IMDb, some 14 versions of Great Expectations have been made either as feature films, TV movies or mini-series. Though I haven’t seen them all, few could dispute David Lean’s 1946 film as arguably the greatest. It certainly truncates Dickens’ expansive novel, condensing much of the narrative. But none of the other versions were filmed by a master as great as David Lean. His version of the classic novel is visualized with as much creative inspiration as Dickens’ own writing, a parallel work of art with equal authorship between both storytellers.

The story of Pip, the young orphan whose secret benefactor brings him into upper-class society where he discovers how to be a gentleman, at the same time alienates them and then eventually learns to appreciate the humility of the lower-class adopted family, is adapted with rich gothic intrigue and noir-ish texture and detail.

For David Lean, this was the middle stage of his career, some 10 years after his time as an editor and 10 years before his late career series of epic pictures for which he’d become synonymous. In the 20 years or so before The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lean established himself as a British auteur of sorts, breaking new ground in storytelling, cinematography and editing.

Watching his movies in order, we can clearly see a progression of his cinematic voice and eye. Great Expectations looks to be his biggest stylistic leap, as he authors Dickens’ novel with a distinct film noir tone. Actually, his stunning visual designs and mise-en-scène look strikingly comparable to that of Orson Welles, perhaps influenced by the landmark Citizen Kane. Lean’s stark black and white contrasts, deep focus wide-angle photography and superlative camera moves are still stunning to watch. In particular, watch the introduction of Pip to Miss Havisham in the opening act. Lean’s camera enters Havisham’s mansion following Pip and Estella through the door, the foyer, the hall and up the stairs – all in one shot. Same with the celebrated opening sequence in the graveyard where Pip meets Magwitch, a scene orchestrated with dense brooding atmosphere, thick fog and ominous leave-less trees.

Look for Lean’s clever use of editing and narration to compress time, which splendidly condenses Dickens’ novel into the film’s 2-hour time frame, an achievement comparable to Welles’s compression of time in Kane.

Lean’s genius goes beyond the technique, as he has the rare ability to make his style enhance his substance. Great Expectations is no exception. Lean engineers marvellous performances out of Tony Wager as young Pip and John Mills as older Pip. Alec Guinness’s turn as the affable Herbert Pocket shows the funny bone that Welles never really had. But the most memorable performance directed by Lean is Bernard Miles’ sympathetic yet honourable Joe Gargery, who represents the heart and soul of Pip.

Two years later, Lean would complete one of the great one-two punches in cinematic history with his adaptation of Oliver Twist, a film of equal stature in cinema circles, and the perfect companion piece to Great Expectations – Dickens’ two most famous works paired together by arguably Britain’s greatest director.

Waste Land

Waste Land (2010) dir. Lucy Walker
Documentary

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

The title of this film refers to the hopeless environment in which its subjects ply their trade as ‘garbage’ pickers in the world’s largest landfill in Rio de Janeiro. For avant garde artist/photographer Vik Muniz, this serves as the source for his next international artistic creation.

Best known for his ‘Pictures of Chocolate’ series from the late 90s, the Brazilian native drew pop art style portraits out of chocolate syrup while working in New York. Now in 2006, Muniz, along with his documentary crew helmed by Lucy Walker, attempts to create great art from the most useless of substances – garbage.

This goal comes after declaring to the camera that after achieving his wealth and success, he had become dissatisfied with fine arts. And this latest project serves as a homecoming for Muniz, an effort to give back to his homeland where he grew up with little opportunity to succeed other than his own talent and desire for success.

Muniz is clear with his plan and enters the landfill with his still camera and his assistant looking for subjects that will serve as the chief artistic associates for his venture. With Walker’s camera behind Muniz we get to meet a unique subculture of labour, colloquially called ‘garbage pickers’, but more appropriately ‘pickers of recyclable materials’ or catadores in Portuguese. These individuals have one of the most unenviable jobs in modern society – sifting through waste to pick out plastic bottles, cans and other materials to sell to recycling companies for very little money. Like vultures, we watch in astonishment at the kind of muck and filth these people will search through in order to find their objects of value.

But within this despair, Walker and Muniz find an insatiable verve for life. All the catadores get paid and make a living, and they all have an interesting story about how they ended up in such squalor. The most emotional story is from Isis, a beautiful young girl whose life spiralled downward when her three-year-old son died of pneumonia – a story recounted by Isis in a devastatingly emotional confession. Tiao’s story is the most inspiring, as he has been a catadore since age 7, but his perseverance and pride in his job helped him develop a union for the pickers, protecting them from being exploited for their labour.

Muniz doesn’t so much give his subjects a free helping hand as encourage them to express their own latent artist talents and transform the ugliness of their world into something profoundly beautiful. The works of art that result are astonishing. They include large-scale reproductions of other famous works, such as the Death of Marat, made entirely out of garbage and photographed into entirely new works of art.

By the end we come to love Muniz’s subjects like members of our own family, completely invested in their journey. And with the proceeds fully split among the catadores, when we watch the auction price of Tiao’s Marat piece go up and up and up, it’s a wholly satisfying realization of their collective dream.

Waste Land is available on DVD from EOne Home Entertainment in Canada.

Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver (1976) dir. Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Albert Brooks, Cybil Shepherd, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel

****

By Alan Bacchus

Last year a fresh new 35mm print of Taxi Driver was shown around Toronto and the country enabling fans to see the film in its originally intended medium again, or for many of us, on the big screen for the first time. Now the Sony Blu-ray release comes along, just as pristine and beautiful on the small screen, even though it's thunder had been stolen somewhat. The BD has the same featurettes as in the previous 2-Disc DVD from 4 years ago, but the most intriguing addition is the Scorsese/Schrader audio commentary from the 1986 Criterion Collection laserdisc edition. This is significant because a) it was likely one of the first audio commentaries ever recorded and b) it’s from 25 years ago, when the filmmakers had a different perspective on the film than today. And remember, it had been only 10 years since the film was originally released. Yes, we hear some of the same anecdotes and descriptions of the film’s influences, but knowing that it’s recorded before Scorsese even had a chance to make Goodfellas or Casino or The Last Temptation of Christ is fascinating.

In terms of the film itself, what’s there to say that hasn’t been said already? Not much. So pretend you’ve never heard of the film before. Taxi Driver is one of a half-dozen pure masterpieces in Scorsese’s collection. It’s unlike any other film – it doesn’t fit into a genre, it’s difficult to summarize and it moves with an awkward pace. It’s part social commentary, part character study, part violent thriller, part comedy, partly personal filmmaking, part noir and on and on and on.

The film opens with shots of New York from various points of view from a taxi cab. It’s a hallucinogenic sequence intercut with a close-up of a pair of wandering eyes. The taxi is a character, the street is a character, and so is its driver – Travis Bickle, one of the most unique and analyzed characters in film. As Bickle describes to his employer during his job interview, he can’t sleep at night. He’s a glutton for punishment though and will work “anytime, anywhere.” He’s also a Vietnam vet – but more on that later. Bickle gets the job and drives the streets of New York encountering all sorts of people – high class, low class, politicians, prostitutes, pimps, maniacs, etc.

He’s a lonely person with no direction, just looking to fit in with society. Finding a girlfriend or some sort of companion seems like the right thing to do. His attempt to ask out the concession stand girl in a porno theatre fails. Then he tries to court one of the most beautiful people on the planet – Betsy (Cybil Shepherd), a political campaign representative for a Presidential candidate. Needless to say, she’s way out of his league, but he actually has enough charm to get a date with her. He dresses the part, says all the right words, but makes one ghastly mistake. He takes her to a porno theatre. Oh Travis, no! As the audience, we’re rooting for Bickle to succeed, but the moment the camera reveals the X-rated marquee, our hearts collectively sink. It’s only the second act, but it’s downhill all the way from here.

Bickle tries to compensate by taking in a twelve-and-a-half-year-old street prostitute, Iris (Jodie Foster). They develop a unique friendship, but Bickle is still hurting from Betsy’s rejection of him. He abandons all hope of traditional social interaction and plots a violent course of action that will make him a martyr for society.

As mentioned, Taxi Driver is many things. It shows the chaotic world through Bickle’s eyes. Like Mark Lewis in Peeping Tom or any number of Hitchcock protags, Bickle is a voyeur, and Scorsese is careful to show Bickle’s reactions to the most mundane and irrelevant people, places and things. Watch the scene in the coffee shop when he asks the Wizard (Peter Boyle) for advice. Bickle fixates on the foaming tablet in his water, Charlie T as he exits the store and the limping street hustler walking past him on the street. We can practically see the gears in his brain turning, taking in information, calculating an answer and reconciling the world.

Bickle is a stunted human being and likely mentally ill. We don’t know if it was Vietnam that caused his malfunction, but the fact that it’s hinted at only at the beginning of the film and never referenced again is an interesting decision for writer Paul Schrader. Since it was made in 1975 (and released in ‘76), Vietnam films had yet to be made, and the war had finished only a year before. I suspect Schrader and Scorsese didn’t want to provide a clear answer to Bickle’s actions because it would become an entirely different film.

By staying ambiguous and vague, the film remains personal for both filmmakers. Schrader put his heart and soul and some of his own experiences as a lonely writer into the screenplay, and Scorsese shows the ‘warts and all’ of his beloved city like only he can. It's also a time capsule of the state of the city at that time. Taxi Driver could never be made today because New York is a completely different city.

My favourite moment in Taxi Driver is a quintessential Scorsese scene. After Bickle shoots the corner store thief, the owner says he’ll take care of it. He grabs Bickle’s gun and proceeds to beat the man with an iron bar even though he’s 100% dead. Then the film cuts to a brilliantly ironic song, Late for the Sky by Jackson Browne. Bickle is sitting with a gun in hand watching American Bandstand. It’s another voyeur moment – Bickle watching on TV the life he so desperately wants to have, one that he will soon abandon and reject.

Taxi Driver is available on Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) dir. Steven Spielberg
Starring: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, William Hurt, Frances O’Connor, Sam Robards

**

By Alan Bacchus

After the untimely death of Stanley Kubrick in 1999, Spielberg was given this project as a gift to adapt into his own film as his expression of his 20-year friendship with the master. Unfortunately, the film just doesn’t work. Sure, as the stories recounted by Spielberg and Jan Harlan on the DVD featurettes say, it fit the sensibilities of Steven Spielberg better than Kubrick, but an intriguing concept is bungled by Spielberg’s aging tin ear for subtext.

I admire the all ‘round good intentions, the idea of two completely opposite but equally great cinema masters collaborating on one film. All roads are paved with good intentions, but this road wanders around aimlessly en route to its destination.

There’s a terrific idea at the core. And it’s probably Brian Aldiss’s, the author of the sci-fi story upon which this film is based. The moral question asks what the human responsibility is to a robot that is made to be just like humans. If a robot can love like a human and thus feel the pain of love as a human, are we obliged to treat him or her like one?

Unfortunately, Spielberg articulates this moral question with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the head in the opening scene. It comes in the form of William Hurt’s speech declaring his intention to create a robot boy who can love, and in the counter-argument from his articulate female associate (April Grace), the ethical conundrum of such a venture. It’s a particularly awful and shameless speech written by Spielberg, depriving us of the ability to infer the theme based on what’s said between the lines. This is called subtext, a fundamental necessity for good cinema. And how Mr. Spielberg forgot this is astonishing.

This is not thinking man’s science fiction. This is children’s storybook entertainment. Even less so, because even when we do tell our kids the moral of our bedtime stories, it’s always done AFTER the story is over, not before.

It’s a shame because discarding this opening scene would make the experience of A.I. completely different. Of course, we would also have to get rid of the blockhead Pinocchio metaphors that continually hammer us with the subtext front and centre. So maybe this film with Spielberg at the helm was doomed from the start.

Along the way, we can appreciate the craft of many of the set pieces. Janusz Kaminski’s superlative lighting, for instance, creates an interesting sci-fi look combining the neon-drenched slop of 80s cyberpunk with the blinding backlit look usually seen in Spielberg’s pictures. And whether or not you find the Flesh Fare scene grossly juvenile, the explosion of light and colour is spellbinding.

Same with most of the performances, particularly Jude Law as the dervish lover robot who talks like he’s Fred Astaire singing and dancing his dialogue in an MGM musical. And Haley Osment's gradual arc from monotone robotic articulations to full fledged human emotions is deft and effectively subtle.The second act road trip and male bonding of boy and gigolo is enjoyable and adequately distracts from how far off the rails this film goes.

Even with the opening scene and the Pinocchio nonsense included, the film could have been salvageable if the third act wasn’t an hour long. This film just keeps going and going, one climax after another and doesn’t want to stop. Ultimately, I think the failure of this film is a product of Spielberg's age. The attempt to bring back that 'Spielberg magic' of his youth fails, as it has disappeared. As such, A.I. feels like a sad knockoff of his earlier work.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence is available on Blu-ray from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment.