Countries

Aparajito (1956)

André Crous

India
4.5*

Director:
Satyajit Ray
Screenwriter:
Satyajit Ray
Director of Photography:
Subrata Mitra

Running time: 113 minutes

Original title: অপরাজিত
Alternate title: The Unvanquished

This review is part of a series on the Apu Trilogy that also includes:
– Pather Panchali
– The World of Apu

With a tighter focus on Apu, the trilogy’s main character, and his mother Sarbajaya, the second film, Aparajito, substitutes the episodic nature of the first film, Pather Panchali, with a strong narrative that is a journey full of love and loss, presented in an unforgettably cinematic way that takes the best of Eisenstein and uses his approach in a new context without the film ever seeming self-indulgent.

Watching this film in sequence provokes the same kind of emotions I had when I first saw the series of Antoine Doinel films years ago: One feels privileged to watch a character grow in this way, for it is a kind of divine perspective, and it is the medium of film that enables us to appreciate this possibility.

In Aparajito, based on two novels by Bengali writer Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, we meet the young Apu and his parents in Varanasi, where they were headed at the end of the first film. They are still living from hand to mouth, but Apu has made a few friends, including a boy with whom he speaks English. When Apu’s father falls ill and dies, Apu and his mother move back to the countryside, having only each other to lean on.

But let me dwell on the father’s death for a moment. In a fusion of striking images, potent sitar sounds and a very emotional undercurrent, Ray creates the most stirring five seconds of his first two films, and in cinematic terms I would rate it close to the cut from the match being extinguished to the sun rising on the horizon in Lawrence of Arabia. Here, Apu’s father’s face is in close-up, his mouth open, receiving water from the sacred Ganges. When he loses consciousness, a very audible gasp is heard on the soundtrack. There is a cut to birds leaving a rooftop – literally released from their terrestrial bonds; first from up close and then, in another shot, from farther away – and the metaphor of escape should be fairly obvious. But it is the combination of these three shots, and the addition of the sitar, that brings about a very moving moment that does not inhere in the shots considered separately.

The film is about Apu’s journey towards becoming an adult, and besides the death of his father, there are two very general themes I wish to touch on briefly. The first is his relationship with his mother, who has already endured the loss of her daughter and now, of her husband as well. She has little hope of living a prosperous life and wants to hold onto her son as long as possible, but then, in the countryside, there is a major turning point in Apu’s life that would forever change the trajectory of his story: He catches sight of a school and decides that he wants to enrol there.

What follows is a sequence of events that deal with the second theme – Apu’s education – and demonstrate Apu’s aptitude for learning. We quickly become caught up in his progress at school, which includes very clearly defined snippets of schooling; this sequence culminates with a scene at the headmaster’s office, where Apu, now all grown up and about to leave school, is informed that he has received a scholarship to study at university in Calcutta.

One can feel the heartache of the mother, but one can also comprehend Apu’s position, and Ray does not choose sides: Rather, he presents both characters in all their human complexity. In one instance, a shot of Apu’s mother, sitting under a tree, desperately waiting for her son to come visit her, is intercut with a shot of Apu lying leisurely under a tree in Calcutta, studying for his exams. This is life, and people have their reasons and seen from the outside it might seem tragic, but we fully understand how the situation has come to this.

As in the first film, Apu is introduced in a very significant manner, his big black eyes immediately captivating our attention when he peers around a wall in Calcutta, playing hide-and-seek with a friend. As a young man, he seems to be responsible and quite shy, but his intelligence and desire to learn create expectations that the last film, The World of Apu will challenge – and make us realise once more that stories don’t always work out the way we expect. On the contrary, they have a mind of their own.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

André Crous

USA
3.5*

Director:
Billy Wilder
Screenwriters:
Billy Wilder
Harry Kurnitz
Director of Photography:
Russell Harlan

Running time: 116 minutes

It’s all about the ending. Billy Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution, based on the Agatha Christie play with the same title, was a landmark film in the sense that it was one of the first films whose main attraction was a final plot twist. Before The Sixth Sense, before House of Games and even before Psycho, there was Witness for the Prosecution, and, just like Hitchcock, who launched a marketing campaign to ensure people don’t give away the ending (nor the beginning), Wilder’s film ends with a voice-over asking the audience to please keep silent about the film’s last-minute coup de théâtre.

Unfortunately, this is by far the film’s most interesting aspect, and this is what saves it from mediocrity. Charles Laughton delivers a wonderful performance as the stubborn barrister who is convinced of his client’s innocence, despite the lack of tangible proof and the decision of the defendant’s wife (or, ex-wife) to be the titular witness for the prosecution, and he knows how to undermine proceedings when they do not seem to be progressing in his favour. But the screenplay, co-written by Wilder, does not possess the same verve that one generally associates with his work, and the dialogue in particular is merely functional where it should have delivered more punch.

Set in London in 1952, the film was shot exclusively in a studio and in fact, nearly the entire second half of the film takes place in the courtroom (the Old Bailey). From the title one can already surmise that this will be a courtroom drama, and of course one has the expectation of discovering who the “witness for the prosecution” will be. It is indeed a courtroom drama, but Laughton, starring as Sir Wilfred Robarts, plays it as comedy, shifting his weight around to make an entrance, keeping brandy in a flask that ought to be for his warm cocoa, and trading jabs with his nurse, the high-strung Miss Plimsoll.

Shortly after his release from the hospital, Sir Wilfred is paid a visit by a man named Leonard Vole, who has been accused of murdering the elderly, very wealthy Miss Emily French (whom I considered a bit of an excitable blabbermouth). Sir Wilfred is intrigued by the case, especially when Vole’s German wife, Christine (a wonderful job by Marlene Dietrich), seems not at all convinced about her own husband’s innocence. Sir Wilfred decides not to use her as a witness, but before long she is recruited by the prosecution, who alleges that Mrs Vole was already married when she first met Leonard and therefore is allowed to testify against her own husband.

Sir Wilfred easily discredits Mrs Vole, but he is not entirely happy with the way the case has proceeded, and frankly, neither was I. Compared with today’s courtroom dramas, or even Judgment at Nuremberg, released in 1961, this film is incredibly simplistic, and it would seem that the case is decided within two days. But then there is a deus ex machina that appears in the form of a drunk in a bar at Euston Station, and before we know it, things take a pleasant and wholly surprising turn.

It would seem that the case is open and shut, but Sir Wilfred still waits for the banana peel, and when we get this information, in the film’s final minutes, it turns the whole case upside down, with remarkable adroitness. The film is all about the ending, and it is a pity we have to wait two relatively tepid hours for the finale, but when it does come, it strikes a thunderous blow to our preconceived notions.

Sherlock Jr. (1924)

André Crous

USA
5*

Director:
Buster Keaton
Screenwriters:
Jean Havez
Joseph A. Mitchell
Clyde Bruckman
Directors of Photography: 
Elgin Lessley
Byron Houck

Running time: 44 minutes

Sherlock Jr. is a film that uses every trick in the book to produce electrifying moments of comedy that can still thrill audiences today. It is also a shrewd representation of the place of film in our lives.

The poster shows Buster Keaton as a detective and as a beloved (projectionist). The credits merely list him in his parenthetical capacity, and in fact, this occupation embraces the central part of the film, which takes the audience on a journey full of twists and turns that is very clearly related to the first part of the story.

Keaton, the man with the expressionless face who manages to find himself in extraordinary situations, stars as a guy who wants to be a detective as much as he wants to marry the Girl, but when he is framed by another suitor in the matter of a lost pocket watch, and his detective skills fail him, he dreams up a scenario in which he is the ultimate sleuth. This part of the film is presented in a way that excites by means of its presentation and its content.

This medium-length film is interesting on many levels, and while the action transcends mere slapstick (it is not repetitive and does not have any condescension for the film’s characters), Keaton’s conception of the film’s biggest stunts makes for remarkable commentary on the perspective of the viewer. Consider the following movements:

1) During a film screening in a big theatre, with a large audience watching, Keaton approaches the big screen and walks into the film. He subsequently appears in different scenes as the film cuts from one location to the next, and Keaton has to keep up with objects that appear out of nowhere.

2) In this film-within-a-film, Keaton follows some undesirables to their hide-out. He puts a rounded suitcase with a costume inside on the outside of the window, and when he escapes from the house by jumping through the window, he is instantly covered by this costume, and the criminals don’t recognise him. This particular scene is further enhanced by a cut-away image (produced by means of a kind of double exposure, a gimmick Keaton also uses to great effect in his 1928 film, The Cameraman) when the inside of the house can be seen “through the walls”. Technically, it must have been quite a job, but the final effect is breathtaking.

There are many other instances of such trickery, and in spite of (occasionally) less than perfect editing to disguise the manner in which they were done, the products are unexpected and work very well. Two other moments specifically target the perspective of the viewer:

1) When Keaton has already “entered” the screen, the camera dollies closer and closer, until the screen fills the frame, so that any subsequent scenes or cuts would appear like any other film and we forget that we are watching a film that is also being watched by the film’s audience. In this way, the second-level film becomes just as real or just as fake as the first-level film.

2) When Keaton wakes up from his dream and looks through the window of his projectionist’s booth towards the screen, his face is framed by a very clear border, similar to the image he himself is looking at: the framed image of the film in the theatre.

While Keaton doesn’t approach his subject with the same complexity as Woody Allen in The Purple Rose of Cairo, it remains a very entertaining film that touches on some important aspects of film reception. Unlike Chaplin, Keaton does not behave at all like a child, but rather like a very lucky average Joe, and since his technical skills enable a very entertaining telling of his story, he is by far the more serious director. In Sherlock Jr. he manages to craft a film that, while clearly not meant to be a feature-length idea, has enormous potential to entertain.

Pather Panchali (1955)

André Crous

India
4*

Director:
Satyajit Ray
Screenwriter: 
Satyajit Ray
Director of Photography:
Subrata Mitra

Running time: 115 minutes

Original title: পথের পাঁচালী

This review is part of a series on the Apu Trilogy that also includes:
– Aparajito
– The World of Apu

This has to be one of the best debut films ever shot. Based on a Bengali novel by writer Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay (try saying that three times in a row), it was adapted for the screen and directed by Satyajit Ray, a man in his early thirties who had had no formal training in film making, but who had a passion for cinema and had founded the Calcutta Film Club in 1947. The other crew members were equally inexperienced, and Ray’s director of photography, Subrata Mitra, had barely turned 21. Many of the actors, including the young boy, Apu, hadn’t acted before either.

This was the start of the Indian New Wave, also known under the moniker “Parallel Cinema”, because the films were being produced in India as an alternative to their better known musicals. Similar in kind to the social realist Italian New Wave of the time, it also came about in part thanks to Ray’s involvement in Jean Renoir’s The River, released in 1951, for which Ray had met with Renoir and assisted during the shoot.

But Pather Panchali is much more gritty than the superproduction that was Renoir’s film, and it has certainly dated much better, primarily because the acting is more sincere and it does not contain any heavy-handed narration. The film is the first instalment in a series that would later be known as the “Apu Trilogy”, after the main character, whose life as a boy is portrayed in the first film; in the second film, Aparajito, we see him as a young man; and in the third film, The World of Apu, he has grown up and has to take responsibility for his choices earlier in life.

Pather Panchali seems like a very rough-and-tumble film, with little going for it as far as the plot is concerned, but the film’s memorable characters are all introduced very early in the film in such a way that we are immediately attached to them. The setting is equally difficult to pinpoint: We see crumbling houses in a big forest and an open field with tall grass that leads to the railway tracks, but that is the extent of the locations. And yet, it is enough: Ray finds beauty in everyday objects and has a very acute sensibility for composition that ensures our interest in the visuals as well as the narrative.

In one of the film’s most strikingly beautiful shots, we see Apu and his sister Durga following the sweet-seller. The camera shoots their reflections in the shallow pond next to them, as their movements are accompanied, as is so often the case, by the sitar music of Ravi Shankar. His music is used repeatedly throughout the film and the only time that it seems strained is during the scene when a parent finds out that his daughter has died.

While the film is clearly the beginning of a journey for young Apu, whose big, black curious eyes are impossible to overlook, almost all of the characters have something unique by which we can identify them and that serves the narrative in a very powerful way. The train is also a symbol that is hard to miss and it is interesting to note the scenes in which a train can be heard in the distance: at night, when Apu’s father mentions his desire to write and sell plays, and when his wife discusses her wish to move out of his ancestral home and let them settle in Benares (Varanasi). For the moment, these desires are unfulfilled, but as the seasons change, people’s eyes open to the possibilities that are available to them, and Apu’s eternally optimist father has to make up his mind about the way forward.

Speaking of eyes – another shot that will make an impression on the viewer is the introduction of Apu. Unlike the other characters, who simply appear in a shot, Apu is clearly introduced: His sister pulls open his eyelid through a hole in the cloth covering his face and when his eye is suddenly visible, this image, framed by the cloth around his eye, receives backing on the soundtrack with loud sitar music.

The entire family of characters, including the slightly senile grandmother, is a wonderful mix of people who cope as best they can with their abject poverty, and the small scenes that Ray has strung together form a very colourful impression that will stay with the viewer for a long time after the credits roll.

The African Queen (1951)

André Crous

USA
4.5*

Director:
John Huston
Screenwriters:
James Agee
John Huston
Director of Photography:
Jack Cardiff

Running time: 104 minutes

Today, John Huston’s African Queen might seem tame and innocent, but I can imagine that it was quite a different story when it was released in 1951. It tells the story of a very tightly wound church organist in German East Africa (present-day Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda), a woman named Rose Sayer, who in 1914, on the eve of the First World War, flees her small village in the jungle when the Germans are rounding up the villagers with a scorched-earth policy to turn them into soldiers and thus protect the area from outside forces.

The only way out is with Charlie Allnut, a Canadian mailman who is used to travelling from one village to the next on his little fishing boat, the “African Queen”. He is played by Humphrey Bogart, and Katharine Hepburn stars as Rose Sayer. In the very first scene of the film, during a service at the church of Rose’s brother, it is made clear that Allnut and Rose are quite different. While she plays the organ, dressed like something out of a Victorian novel, and sings with her brother, who tries to conduct the congregation from the pulpit, the villagers merely mumble along. The service is crudely interrupted by the loud steam whistle of Allnut’s boat, and we see him interacting with the locals in their native tongue.

So, when these two board the same boat, it seems unlikely that it would be the start of a beautiful friendship. And yet, soon enough, we discover that they both have strong, assertive characters that are nonetheless willing to compromise. Most importantly, they are both very likeable. Rose refuses to stay hidden in the forest until the war is over and insists that they make their way downriver to a large lake, where they would blow up the “Louisa”, the German ship patrolling the body of water, and thus make their escape.

Much of the film was shot on location, a remarkable feat for the time – as it would still be today. The cinematography is gorgeous, as is to be expected from Jack Cardiff; the rivers are either sapphire-blue or pitch-black, and the greens of the lush forest foliage are spectacular. For some of the more animated scenes on the river, such as those in which Charlie and Rose have to make their way across the rapids, rear projection was used, making for a less than credible combination of real and staged materials, but luckily these scenes are kept to a minimum. Rather, our attention is directed at Rose, who surprises (and is surprised herself at this revelation) with genuine excitement at the dangers they face together: “I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!”

How she deals with the river and the quirks of her companion, especially his fondness for Gordon’s Gin, is entertaining because we like to see what conflict results from their inescapably intimate living conditions on the boat. While I didn’t much care for the brief scene in which they are apparently “drunk on love”, including Charlie’s imitation of the animals in and out of the water, their romantic camaraderie is rather affecting.

It was a pleasant surprise to find Peter Bull, who starred as the Russian Ambassador in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, as the German captain of the “Louisa”. His deadpan delivery of very contrasting ideas are hilarious and fit in superbly with the kind of humour that Hepburn and Bogart do so well, and it is a testament to the acting ability of Hepburn and Bogart that they leisurely carry almost the entire film on their own.

With the exception of the rear projection, which is below par, as well as a scene in which the main characters are attacked by buzzing insects, both scenes visibly more defective because of the film’s use of colour, The African Queen receives full marks in every aspect of the film’s production and entertainment potential. Hepburn’s tongue is not as sharp as in some of her other films (such as Bringing Up Baby, and The Philadelphia Story in particular), but while she certainly stands her ground against the dry wit of Humphrey Bogart, she does not overpower him, which makes the romantic union all the more convincing.

Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)

André Crous

Hungary
3.5*

Directors: 
Béla Tarr
Ágnes Hranitzky
Screenwriter: 
László Krasznahorkai
Director of Photography:
Patrick de Ranter

Running time: 143 minutes

Original title: Werckmeister harmóniák

Béla Tarr is probably best known for his epic 1994 film, Sátántangó, which, like four of his other films, including Werckmeister Harmonies, is based on a text by writer László Krasznahorkai. He loves to shoot in black and white, mostly uses long takes, and typically his films are longer than two hours. In the case of Sátántangó, he produced one of the longest films on record and, to date, it is the longest feature film I have ever watched, clocking in at 450 minutes (seven and a half hours). The version I saw, released on DVD by Artificial Eye, was spread out over three discs.

In Werckmeister Harmonies the very long takes certainly contribute to an impression of solemnity, and so do the empty streets and other monochrome images. Anyone with some knowledge of film might like to yell “Bazin!”, but I am not at all convinced that Tarr’s use of long takes puts him in the camp with filmmakers who want to make films that are more authentic or that portray a world very close to ours.

We don’t know where the film is set. Production notes mention the Great Hungarian Plain. We don’t know in which historical period the film is set either, except that it is at some point during the 20th century. As I’ve noted already, the streets are all but deserted, although the town itself, based on the size of the market square in the town centre, ought to be quite big. Something sinister is afoot, and it is sinister precisely because we don’t really feel comfortable: We lack the knowledge of the where, the when, the why, of many things that are happening.

Our ambivalence is made even stronger by the black-and-white images, which are really more grey than black or white. As viewers, our inability to accurately identify certain things (for example, one often cannot determine whether it is fog or ash drifting past buildings and across squares) compels us to be even more attentive.

Visually, Tarr and co-director Ágnes Hranitzky use a very evident theme of “light and darkness” that pops us everywhere. In the opening moments, the main character, a 30-something man named János, demonstrates how a solar eclipse takes place by using the drunkards in his local pub. At one point, when there is a moment of silence that has us on the edge of our seats, the camera peds up ever so slightly to reveal the light source on the ceiling, before pedding down and continuing with the action. There are many other examples of the prominent use of light in the shots, and cinematographer Patrick de Ranter (although an experienced Steadicam operator, this is his only credit as director of photography) does an excellent job behind the camera.

The staging of the action and the fluidity of the camera are commendable, but I found the story very opaque: Critical moments were deliberately not shown, but more importantly, the “infinite sonorous silence” that János mentions in his opening monologue is rather simplistically applied to the mob of people, first in the town square, and then in the streets. I grant that the image of the mob advancing towards the camera in complete silence is interesting, but there is no suspense, because the shot lasts too long, and there is no realistic (or literal) reason why they would fail to speak. These characters lack a human dimension. The same goes for the film’s climax, which takes place in complete silence, in contrast (or perhaps as a counterpoint?) to the events of total destruction unfolding before our eyes.

What is the film actually about?

A stuffed whale billed as “the great sensation of the century”; a Slovak prince who spouts a convoluted mess of words but whom we never see except for his shadow; and young János who somehow manages not to get swept up in the fray to see the enigmatic prince.

Werckmeister Harmonies is composed of a very limited chain of shots (the reviews all say 39; I counted 36) and everything ends in hushed anarchy while the camera elegantly glides between scenes of turbulence. The whale, by sheer virtue of its physical magnitude, makes a big impression and the moment when János visits the beast, underscored by the beautiful music of composer Mihály Vig, rates as one of the film’s absolute highlights.

But while there are moments of exquisite beauty, the film teeters on the brink of pretension throughout because of its stubborn inclusion of ludicrous shots such as a close-up of two characters walking down the street in complete silence, for two minutes; the silent crowds in the streets, walking for four minutes, mentioned above; or a technical monologue that relates to musical theorist Andreas Werckmeister but is wholly irrelevant to the plot. Perhaps there is some relevance to the film itself, but I could not discern this philosophical thread from my single viewing. There are other questions whose answers would certainly have provided the threadbare plotline with a measure of texture. We never learn why János is seen as an outsider whenever he appears in the square, nor can we understand why nobody else visits the whale (and no, given the chronology of the plot, these two events are not related).

Tarr and Hranitzky have produced a film that is thin yet elegant and surprisingly easy to watch. On the downside, its plot leaves more holes than necessary to produce the same kind of ambiguity that the directors are clearly aiming for. Main actor Lars Rudolph (voiced by Tamás Bolba) does a wonderful job as the out-of-place János, and even though the actor doesn’t speak Hungarian, he copes very well in both his monologue and dialogue scenes.

Tokyo Story (1953)

André Crous

Japan
4.5*

Director:
Yasujiro Ozu
Screenwriters: 
Kōgo Noda, Yasujiro Ozu
Director of Photography:
Atsuta Yuharu

Running time: 130 minutes

Original Title: 東京物語
Transliterated title: Tōkyō Monogatari

In the films of Yasujiro Ozu, people go about their business in an orderly fashion, and when the main characters are a geriatric couple from the countryside who go to Tokyo to see how their children are getting on, they really do take their time.  Most of the time, they sit around the house, chatting or doing needlework, but if you looked closely, you’d see that they would rather be doing something else. And it is this subtle point that ultimately makes the film pack a powerful punch.

Widely considered to be one of the best films ever made, Tokyo Story is much more accessible than one would expect, despite the prevailing opinion that his films are slow and that his technique – his so-called “tatami” shots are taken from the position of someone seated on a small straw mat, and the camera is almost always static – might be alien to a Western viewer.

Tokyo Story impresses itself upon the viewer because the story, presented in a very straightforward manner (one could argue the camera’s distance and immobility give a sense of objectivity), seems to be very simple, when in fact the multitude of emotions is only gauged upon close examination of the film. Very little seems to happen, but our response to the events onscreen, and in particular the rather odious behaviour of the children (and grandchildren), would no doubt elicit strong reactions from most viewers.

The film is about an elderly couple, Shukichi and Tomi Hirayama, from the rural town of Onomichi, who goes to visit two of their children and their families in Tokyo. This is before the days of the bullet train, and the 600 km (370 miles) journey takes them almost a full day. But they are excited to see their children (and their grandchildren), whom they haven’t seen in a very long time, and explore the big city.

Even before their arrival, we can see tension at the home of their eldest son, Koichi, whose wife, Fumiko, is having trouble disciplining Minoru, her rebellious young boy, who has a temper tantrum whenever he doesn’t get his way. His reaction to his mother prepares the viewer to some extent for the relationship between his grandparents, for whom he shows the same kind of disdain, and their children.

Shukichi and Tomi have four children: Besides Koichi, they also have a daughter in Tokyo, called Shiage (a hairdresser who cares only about herself), a son in Osaka and a daughter who is about to leave home. Koichi and Shiage are both married to spouses who seem much more willing to care for and help out their in-laws than the couple’s own children. It also transpires that they had another son, Shoji, but he was killed during the war. However, Shoji’s widow, Noriko (played by Setsuko Hara), treats them like real family.

Noriko makes an indelible impression on the viewer. She is kindhearted, makes time to show the elderly couple around, always has a smile on her face and joins them at the drop of a hat. Of course, this happy-go-lucky exterior masks some deep-rooted heartache, and by the time the film addresses these emotions, she has already crept into our hearts.

By contrast, the four remaining children, with the exception of Kyoko, the youngest daughter, all behave rather despicably, and I can imagine that the film would be a challenge for most parents, who would prefer to think that their children would make time for them if they had to and not spend the bare minimum on them when they come for a visit.  Shukichi and Tomi grin and bear their children’s alienating behaviour, and while Shukichi, in a very touching moment, admits his surprise at how much his children have changed (and not in a good way), he also tries to be pragmatic about the changes and says that parents should learn that their children don’t always live up to the expectations they had for them.

The film is incredibly moving, despite its very simple visuals and a camera that moves only twice in the entire film: once at the train station, when Shukichi and Tomi are moving along the platform and about to board the train, and once a few moments earlier, when they make the decision to spend their last evening in Tokyo separately. Although we don’t learn much about the two main characters, beyond the smiles on their faces we do realise that they are much sharper than they seem at first. Certain moments, like Tomi’s recognition that her son and his family live far from the station, meaning they don’t live in a very good district, conveys a certain veiled concern on her part that reveals her care for her children.

And ultimately that is why her children’s ignorance of their parents’ love for them is so discomfiting and makes this quiet film so perceptive and powerful.

New York, I Love You (2009)

André Crous

USA
3.5*

Directors: 
Various (see review)
Screenwriters:
Various
Directors of Photography:
Various

Running time: 102 minutes

How does one review an anthology film? For me, the most important question, given the fact that the film is released as a single feature rather than as separate short films, is whether the world presented by the different films make up a single identifiable world. In other words, do the different stories somehow draw on the same reality? Is there consistency between the different storylines? The answer to this question is a very definite yes.

A thematic follow-up to the 2006 film, Paris, je t’aime, which consisted of 18 short films, the New York version is more streamlined (only 10 shorts), which facilitates better interaction between the different parts. Also, whereas the Parisian stories were all very clearly demarcated by titles, New York, I Love You sometimes cuts between stories and characters. This approach allows the film to feel much more like a single world, as opposed to the many different realities in producer Emmanuel Benbihy’s previous film in this “Cities of Love” series, which will include upcoming anthologies on, among others, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai and Jerusalem.

The film is structured similarly to Paris, je t’aime in the sense that every episode is directed by a different director with his or her own screenplay, actors and crew, and the episodes are separated by transitions during which we get to see a few images of the city in the title. Having 10 shorts, as opposed to the 18 of the previous film, certainly gives the producer and the editor tighter control over the flow of the film, and while none of the episodes equals the best ones in the Paris film (the divorced elderly couple in the restaurant; an American woman in Paris), none of them is as bad as the worst ones in the previous film either. (Do you remember the vampire story? Or the Chinese hair salon? Some of the shorts in Paris, je t’aime were downright amateurish.)

Despite the many different faces behind the camera, ranging from Fatih Akin, Mira Nair and Brett Ratner to people I’d never heard of before, such as Joshua Marston and Shunji Iwai, the film is consistently funny, and the twists and turns of the different episodes are constantly cute and fuzzy without being syrupy sentimental. But make no mistake, Marston’s film, which comes last, has the same mixture of laugh-out-loud comedy and bittersweet love that made the final episode in Paris, je t’aime – the American woman in Paris, by Alexander Payne – such a treat. Of course, big “New York” directors like Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese were not involved, although Allen might have made a very appropriate contribution. These two directors had already participated in a New York anthology project in the 1980s called New York Stories, with Francis Ford Coppola as the third contributor. The reputation of these three directors notwithstanding, I think New York, I Love You far surpasses the bar set by New York Stories.

Apart from Joshua Marston’s story (which he wrote himself), in which an elderly couple played by the always-ready-with-an-answer Eli Wallach and the lovely Cloris Leachman shuffle towards the pier, lovingly complaining about this and that on what proves to be a very special day, I also enjoyed an episode (directed by Wen Jiang) with Hayden Christensen, who picks the pocket of Andy Garcia, before getting the tables turned on him, and two episodes in which one person tries to pick someone else up on the street – the first stars Ethan Hawke and Maggie Q, and the other Robin Wright Penn and Chris Cooper. These two episodes were both directed by Yvan Attal and strike a wonderfully naughty yet beautiful note.

In a film such as this one, a short will be out of place if it lacks the properties common to the others. The only film that truly feels out of place, and whose 10 minutes go by much more slowly than is the case with any of the others, is the short by Shekhar Kapur, starring Shia LaBeouf and Julie Christie. It is a dry daydream and doesn’t have the wit nor the energy of the other films.

The shorts have the same idea behind all of them: The theme of love is evident in a story that starts off in a certain direction before some twist is revealed, often to the great pleasure of the viewer, who has been duped by the director. The films all fit together very well (except for Kapur’s film) and are a valuable addition to the Cities of Love series.

I look forward to the next instalment.

Directors (in chronological order):
Randall Balsmeyer (transitions)
Wen Jiang
Mira Nair
Shunji Iwai
Yvan Attal
Brett Ratner
Allen Hughes
Shekhar Kapur
Natalie Portman
Fatih Akin
Joshua Marston

The Day of the Jackal (1973)

André Crous

UK
4.5*

Director:
Fred Zinnemann
Screenwriter:
Kenneth Ross
Director of Photography:
Jean Tournier

Running time: 145 minutes

Wiretaps, torture, terrorism… it seems like the OAS (“l’Organisation de l’armée secrète” or the Organisation of the Secret Army) was the 1960s version of al-Qaeda – at least, in the kind of behaviour they provoked in government and law enforcement officials. The OAS was a French nationalist group that resisted Algerian independence and was furious when General de Gaulle finally relented and granted the country its freedom in July 1962.

The Day of the Jackal, based on the book of the same name by Frederick Forsyth, stars Edward Fox as a killer for hire, codenamed “The Jackal”, who has been recruited by the OAS to assassinate de Gaulle. This part is fiction, but the story’s context is true to life, including the setup in August 1962 where de Gaulle’s motorcade comes under fire in an ambush staged by Jean Bastien-Thiry of the OAS. Bastien-Thiry is executed, in real life and on film; soon after, according to the fiction, the OAS started to hatch plans again to kill the general.

This is a quintessential thriller: It is all build-up to the climax. But the film gives us, the viewers, ample time to form our own questions about the events and to generate expectations: Will the Jackal be found out? Are we on his side or on the side of de Gaulle? Will the Jackal be successful (he himself says that de Gaulle has the best security service in the world), and will the film essentially rewrite history? Who is the Jackal really?

His main opponent is Claude Lebel, the very methodical deputy commissioner who is not used to the limelight and is often rather awkward in public, despite his formidable skills as a detective. Lebel is played to perfection by Michel Lonsdale.

The film is put together extremely well and has tantalising omissions all over the place, a result of fine editing, clever screenwriting and insightful direction. At a very early stage, we are made aware of certain papers that the Jackal has asked his specialist counterfeiter to produce, but it will only be at the end of the film that we realise precisely how well this professional killer has planned the assassination. That moment, when everything comes together, is not drawn out for the sake of the audience, because director Fred Zinnemann has made as many preparations as the Jackal himself, and we can easily keep up.

While the characters are English, French and Italian, they all speak perfect English, which was perhaps the most commercial option at that time (and would still be today), but the film never seems contrived, because the narrative itself keeps us interested and makes the events cohere into a very strong storyline.

The film uses very little music, and it is surprising, and very refreshing, to have many important moments played out in almost complete silence, which creates anticipation for sound and yet allows us to focus more intently on the visuals, which will be the only source of meaning.

The climax intercuts documentary and staged material very well and demonstrates Zinnemann’s skill as a director for the big screen, especially when he puts on scenes of de Gaulle during the city-wide celebrations of Liberation Day on August 25.

The Day of the Jackal may have a slightly stilted performance by Edward Fox as the Jackal, and it contains a rather ludicrous video recording of OAS member Viktor Wolenski in which the “hidden camera” is sometimes right in his face, but the film exudes a thrill that is difficult to equal by any other film that contains so little real action.

Death and the Maiden (1994)

André Crous

UK/France/USA
4*

Director:
Roman Polanski
Screenwriters:
Rafael Yglesias
Ariel Dorfman
Director of Photography:
Tonino Delli Colli

Running time: 102 minutes

Roman Polanski’s career as a filmmaker will always be best remembered for Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby, but his underrated Death and the Maiden is a stunning film, in large part thanks to the work of Ariel Dorfman, on whose play it is based.

The film is set in an unnamed country in South America “after the fall of the dictatorship”. This could be any number of countries, and since Dorfman has Chilean origins one would expect the country to be Chile and the dictator to be Pinochet, but even if this were true, it has no real bearing on our interpretation of the film. Paulina Escobar (Sigourney Weaver) and her husband Gerardo (Stuart Wilson) are living in near isolation, and she becomes tense every time a strange car pulls up to their house. On the radio, Paulina hears that Gerardo has been appointed the new head of the government’s tribunal that will look into human rights abuses during under the former military junta. However, she remains unconvinced that the guilty individuals will be made to pay sufficiently for what they did.

It is a stormy night, and the power goes out. So, too, do the phone lines. Gerardo is brought back home by a friendly stranger after his car had got a flat tyre. Later in the evening, the friendly stranger appears again: Gerardo had forgotten to take his spare tyre. The friendly stranger makes some very flattering comments about Gerardo and his role in the upcoming investigations, and Gerardo asks the man in to have a drink with him. Hearing the two of them, Paulina flees from the house. In the man’s car, she finds a cassette of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” String Quartet and decides to push the car down a cliff into the rough seas.

All of this might sound rather odd, but the thrust of Paulina’s mental processes is soon revealed when she goes back to her and Gerardo’s house, ties up the stranger, who is called Dr Roberto Miranda (Ben Kingsley), and accuses him of having raped her several times, while the Schubert Quartet was playing in the background, during her time as a political prisoner. She was always blindfolded, but she claims to recognise Miranda’s voice, his smell, the expressions he uses, his quotations from Nietzsche and, most importantly, his love of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden”.

These three characters – Paulina, Gerardo and Dr Miranda – are the only people we ever see in the film, except for a prologue and an epilogue in a concert hall, where the title piece is performed. The actors’ performances are all very strong and make the film a wholly dramatic experience.

Viewers will vacillate between trust and distrust in Paulina’s assessment of Miranda’s guilt. Is Paulina, who has clearly been emotionally and mentally affected by her ordeal more than a decade ago, someone whom we can trust? Or is she just out for revenge? Even in the film’s climactic scene (an amazing piece of acting: nearly three minutes in close-up), things are not as clear-cut as they seem to be, making this journey towards the truth so much darker, because we have to decide for ourselves whether we have not been deceived one last time.

The strength of Death and the Maiden lies in the screenwriters’ ability to keep us guessing throughout, while still maintaining absolute control over the credibility of the admittedly theatrical world we see before us. Almost the entire film is set in the Escobars’ house (clearly in a studio), but the camera work by Tonino Delli Colli and the editing by Hervé de Luze create the necessary tension in concert with the actors’ performances. One minor weakness is the house’s lighting: Although the power is supposed to be out, every inch of the house’s interior is lit, and when characters throw five shadows, you know things are a bit fake.