Designo ergo sum

Un condamné à mort s'est échappé; ou, Le vent souffle où il veut (A man escaped; or, The wind blows where it will)

(1957)

Triumph of the resistance will: a French prisoner of the Nazis, condemned for blowing up a bridge, meticulously plots his escape, manufacturing chisels, ropes, and hooks from the sparse furnishings of his cell. Inasmuch as the title spills the outcome, the point is not the escape itself but the painstaking process, as well as the very fact that Fontaine (François Leterrier) never considers not escaping. Written and directed by Robert Bresson, based on André Devigny's memoir.

Imperfect indicative

Entre les murs (The class)

Crit

The filmic version of what Truman Capote had in mind when he talked about a "nonfiction novel." The vast majority of the film takes place in the classroom (and virtually all of it in the school) of a high school teacher named François Marin, played by François Bégaudeau, the high school teacher whose memoir is the basis for the film. We spend a school year w/ Marin and his multiethnic class, and much of what we learn is how badly someone with the best intentions can screw up. A painfully beautiful film.

Trailer

• An American Affair--No, based on yesterday's Times review.
  

You know how to whistle, don't you?

What's Up, Doc?

(1972)

Saw this when it was new, when I was 19 or so and had never seen Bringing Up Baby, and thought it was wonderful. And I didn't even know from Cole Porter then, so most of the soundtrack was lost on me.

Can still see why it could seem wonderful to anyone who had never seen BUB. Streisand's no Hepburn, and O'Neal's no Grant, and plaid satchels are no leopards, but still: it's not bad. And it's probably fair to say that Babs c. 1972 was probably as big a deal as Kate c. 1938--Kate, in fact, was "box office poison" then. And Babs does have a certain charm . . . if you can forget Kate.

In any case, anyone from my generation, whose most recent memory of O'Neal was in Love Story, appreciates the final line.

No place like home

Coraline

Post

Wow--definitely an Ozzer, with elements, too, of El laberinto del fauno, The Stepford Wives, Minority Report, and Naked Lunch.

A very impressive kids' movie, which, for god's sake, don't take the kids to, unless the kids are in their thirties at least.

Trailers

• G-Force--Except for the live-action presence of Bill Nighy, I saw nothing to recommend this superhamster flick.
• Land of the Lost--Ugh.
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs--Also no, but an interesting silent trailer, apparently trying to piggyback on WALL-E's revival of the form.
• 9--Oh, yes, just as my daughter had promised, this futuristic dystopia pic looks way trippy. Not to be confused with Nine.

The broadcasting revolution

Moolaadé

(2004)

A great-looking, great-sounding film, whose heart is is the right place, but polemic even in protest of Senegalese female genital mutilation is still polemic, and it rarely results in good art.

Still, there are a few haunting, surreal scenes: women sitting in nighttime vigil in front of an open-air shower, standing one at a time like the villagers in Seven Samurai to decry their menfolk's confiscation of their dangerously educational radios; the growing pile of those radios in front of the mosque, each having been left on when it was discarded; the pursuit of a fleeing merchant by a lynch mob, their faces painted white. Plus, there are some damned cute animals in the village, especially them baby goats!

In any case, it's hard to dismiss a film that ends with a shot of a TV antenna as a triumph of knowledge over ignorance.

But you can learn how to be you in time

The Singing Revolution

(2006)

Evil Empire overcome by song: sounds like Python or Seuss or Yellow Submarine, and it doubtless contains a certain unknown percentage of propaganda, but if you can resist getting teary at this narrative of the peaceful liberation of long-oppressed Estonia, you're a better man than I. In fact, if you can avoid getting teary in the first 5 minutes, you're a better, or perhaps just soberer, man than I.

Gas cap

Blazing Saddles

(1974)

Well, I liked it better than the last time I started to watch it but gave up about a half-hour in, but with the exception of Madeline Kahn's tribute to Marlene Dietrich's saloon singer in Destry Rides Again, there's nothing here I'm much moved to see again.

Most interesting thing about the experience was watching an AMC feed for the first time in ages. Of course, Brooks himself plays with squeamishness over the n-word, to sometimes comic effect, but AMC's strategy, rather than have the word interrupted by recognition of inappropriate audience or a pealing church bell is simply to erase the soundtrack for the necessary length of time. Ditto with other vulgarities over a threshold that must be clearer to them than to me: that someone can say "ass----" or "bull----" makes it clear that they're not interested in concealing what word is meant, only in protecting us from actually hearing it. And it's only words that matter, not meanings: the AMCensor has no problem with "You use your tongue prettier than a $20 whore" or "Are we just jerking off?" Those lines are unmolested. Nor are we spared the auditory consequences of the cowboy's leguminous diet. But heaven forfend that we should be subjected to the alliterative poetry of Hedley Lamarr calling Lili Von Schtupp a "Teutonic ----." (Though I guess the fact that her name can be both heard and read indicates that only English obscenities are dangerous.)

Gasp

Respiratory double feature

À bout de souffle (Breathless)

(1960)

Breathless

(1983)

Hadn't seen the original when the remake came out. Was living in West Virginia when the remake came out. In a small town, 20+ miles of mountain road from the nearest movie theater. Standards, perhaps, compromised. Loved the remake. Loved Kaprisky. Loved the shower scene.

Saw the original a few years later. Thought it was OK. Had it on a VHS tape for years. Never watched it again. Thought it was overrated.

Golly.

I still think the shower scene of the remake is pretty damned good, and I think the remake is not bad as a remake--particularly when they stay very close to the original.

Nor am I ready to canonize Godard. But here he pretty much defines seductive doom. Empty, but damned good looking. I would argue that Seberg's uneven French is a legitimate part of Patricia's characterization, but even if not, who cares? And Belmondo? Who would want to be Bogart when he's already Belmondo?

Underground

Wristcutters: A Love Story

(2006)

Have we ever discussed my movie classification system? Well, there are two kinds of movies: Wizard of Oz movies and not-Wizard of Oz Movies. If you'd like me to elaborate, too bad: I'm not going to.

This is one of the best, one of the most explicit, and one of the most exuberant WoO movies since, oh, say, After Hours (1985). It was my favorite offbeat film of 2007 (year of NYC theatrical release), and I'm pleased to discover that not only was I right in that judgment, but it is simply a terrific film even without any adjectives to limit the field. Look, if you're one of the half-dozen or so people who read this, then you're also one of the half-dozen or so people who trust my judgment: if you haven't seen this film, rent it immediately (or hell, if you really trust me, go ahead and buy it), and then after you watch it and confirm my judgment, tell all your friends with similarly quirky tastes about it. 'Cause it deserves to be known a lot more widely than it is.

Bizarre marketing note: the distributor seems to think that because this is a comedy about the afterlife for suicide victims, all the trailers on the disc should be for horror films.

Don't drive angry

Groundhog Day

(1993)

Funny: with the Verona project and the Super Bowl making it impossible to watch this right before the Day, I actually considered giving it a miss this year. And funny: even though I'd been singing "You Don't Know Me" in anticipation, as soon as the first bars broke, so did I, into the same emotional jelly as every year.

OK, but something that's not just about my psychic flimsiness: if you're planning to write something that leans on the paranormal, remember: introduce one implausibility--your protagonist waking up a huge cockroach, say, or living the same day repeatedly--but then, having made us buy into that implausibility, make everything happen as it would under those circumstances. Play by those rules, and we're with you.

Oh, and yes, Dr. Debs: the title of the post is for you.

Things over easy, with toast

Lost in America

(1985)

Don't get me wrong: I love this film (though oddly, I didn't when it came out; the place my intermarital head was?). But I always get a sense of picaresque interruptus when they decide so early that they should head to New York as fast as they can and David should eat shit; I'd like to see at least one more adventure.

91cm

Cool: seen the shorts ahead of Oscar night three years running, on two coasts and in three cities.

Oscar®-nominated animated shorts

Crit

All of the nominees are really short--between 3 and 12 minutes--so the program is padded with some ringers; the first five are the nominees.

• Ubornaya istoriya--lyubovnaya istoriya (Lavatory lovestory)--Good looking b/w with the story told in just a few touches of color, but a fairly tired story.
• Oktapodi--Oh, you gotta root for the octopus story, particularly when it seems to be set on Santorini. And it is fun and sweet and heroic--but "best"? No.
• La Maison en petits cubes (Pieces of love, vol. 1)--Interesting: a Japanese film with a French title and setting (well, sort of) following a French film with a Greek title and setting. This is without question the best of the nominees, taking a familiar metaphor--life as an ever expanding house, not designed, not a product of architecture, but simply what accretes through experience and chance--then puts a surreal underwater spin on it. It is also flat-out gorgeous, its colors both rich and muted, the animation consciously old-fashioned. Should win, won't.
• This Way Up--As I Lay Dying meets the part of Monkeybone where we hear Squirrel Nut Zippers' "Hell." Cute.
• Presto--Speaking of cute, here's your winner, and also by a factor of a zillion the one most viewers on the 22nd will be rooting for 'cause it'll be the only one they've seen, ahead of WALL•E. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good cartoon, but come on--don't Disney and Pixar have enough in the trophy cases?
• Varmints--Speaking of WALL•E, this is a cousin in ecopalyptic vision: the protagonist even has a beloved plant from before the time that paradise was paved and high-rise parking garages constructed. This is more surreal, though, and the narrative more challenging. Plus there are enormous flying jellyfish. A very good film, but probably too smart and confusing for a nomination. These five, by the way, were "highly commended."
• John and Karen--A nice joke of polar bear-penguin love.
• Skhizein--Brilliant allegory of emotional and social displacement: Henri is struck by a meteor, the result of which is . . . he's 91 centimeters to the right of where he appears to be. He adapts.
• Gopher Broke--Stupid little cute-animals-stealing-food-from-humans thing that we've seen a zillion times.
• Hot Dog--Much better animal story, if only because, in a world that looks normal, if minimalist, the dog looks as if Ralph Steadman is somewhere in his ancestry.

Oscar®-nominated live-action shorts

Crit

• Auf der Strecke (On the line)--Decency tested by romantic disappointment and found wanting. Very smart, probably the best of a solid but undistinguished lot, and interesting because while it's set in Switzerland, some of the filmmakers are German, as is the love interest and the language, and the problem of standing by and seeing evil done has some resonance there.
• New Boy--My prescreening favorite, because based on a Roddy Doyle story, but while it's engaging, mostly because of the faces and the lilt of the language, it doesn't cover any new ground.
• Spielzeugland (Toyland)--The most emotionally manipulative and the almost certain winner because . . . yes, Donna, it's the Holocaust film of the batch.
• Grisen (The pig)--A trivialization of cultural sensitivity that telegraphs its punch line, but nonetheless fun.
• Manon sur le bitume (Manon on the asphalt)--Everyone's fantasy of "what they'll do when I'm dead." One hint to Manon, just in case she pulls through: girl, get to movies more often; your last one was more than a month before the accident! Oh, but points for featuring Peyroux singing Dylan on the soundtrack.

La via giusta

Roma, città aperta (Open city)

(1945)

Roberto Rossellini's magnificent portrait of life in the Italian Resistance, cowritten by twenty-five-year-old Federico Fellini and released just months after Mussolini's death. Rossellini has been getting some serious DVD attention lately, but I don't believe this has been remastered, and judging by the edition Nf is sending out, it desperately needs it. Still, even scratchy video and occasional sound dropouts can't ruin this heroic piece. I guess some would complain too about the hit-and-miss subtitles, but I thought it was kinda fun to have to rely on my aspirational italiano for every other line--and it's not as if you'd miss the gist even if you didn't know una parola.

Speak, memory

Vals Im Bashir (Waltz with Bashir)

Crit

I'm still not a fan of photographic motion-capture toon noir, but it's hard to imagine the technique being used any more effectively than here, from the rampaging dog pack at the start--everything perfectly naturalistic except for the animals' zombie eyes--to the surrender of the animation to heart-ripping live action at the close.

A dream-intensive study of the mind's efforts to obliterate the unassimilable. This is the first of the current batch of foreign-language Oscar®-nominated films that I've seen (though I saw the trailer for another today), and unlike some in recent years, it is worthy.

Trailer

• O' Horten--A train engineer at his retirement: from Bent Hamer (Factotum, Kitchen Stories).