Reviews
Hostel (2005)
Nightmare? No -- Brilliant Social Criticism!
Most commentators and reviewers writing about this extraordinary film cannot see the genuine message of the movie. They concentrate on all the shocking and grotesque violence and gore. But look elsewhere! Look deeper. This film is about at least three things. First, it's about the smugness, shallowness and adolescent arrogance of the contemporary Western youth culture. Second, it's about an absolute moral and cultural devastation of the post-Cold-War Eastern Europe. Third, it's about the collision between the two.
A bunch of Western students are advised to travel to a town in provincial Slovakia, where they are promised to be serviced by the most beautiful local girls. Their interest is piqued by the fact that these "local girls" allegedly dream of nothing more honorable than taking care of the sexual needs of horny Westerners. Tarantino and Roth brilliantly show the vanity, smugness and complete contempt thinly papered by shameless bravado with which the trio of Western young men anticipate their sojourn in Slovakia. They have a sense of entitlement. They expect to be treated like "white gods" in the land of "post-communist savages." Their little pathetic egos are stroked by the fact that they think they do not have to make any effort to even try to appeal to these girls. These girls should submit to them by the virtue of one fact -- the guys represent the superior, victories and rich West. The initial turn of events confirms all these attitudes of smug superiority. But very quickly we learn that the local "worship the gods of the West" is nothing but illusory. The defeated and ravaged societies of the post-Communist Eastern Europe have a few horrible tricks up their sleeves...
The creators of the movie do an absolutely fantastic job at portraying the social rot and cultural-moral devastation of post-communism. The picture contradicts the New York Times presentation of post-communism as the age of social and moral revival. But the "local girls" (the human symbols of Eastern Europe) are not at all what they are thought to be by the Western horn-dogs. They crave nothing more than to punishment those who deprive them of their human honor and dignity even before they actually see them. They fight the attitude of colonizers and cultural missionaries with which so many Westerners have in all kinds ways treated Eastern Europe. Their revenge is horrible and excruciatingly cruel. But it comes from a deep-seated sense of despair, of struggling to preserve the modicum of dignity in the world where all values had collapsed, where everything is for sale, where whole countries and regions exist only for providing entertainment for the fancy of the foreign wealthy....
This movie is brilliant and politically sharp achievement. Bravo Tarantino and Roth!
Le locataire (1976)
Anatomy of Insanity
This is a wonderfully tense and intensely claustrophobic film with a slowly escalating and relentless psychologically terror. Roman Polanski stays true to his style from Rosemary's Baby and Repulsion. But this movie is more than a simple examination of the onset of insanity from within the person who is experiencing it. The theme of loneliness and the sense of purposeless petty existence are the real backdrop of this excellent work, the fact which makes it similar to Kubrick's Shining. Still, The Tenant has deeper literary roots. In my opinion, the inspiration for this movie came right from the great works of European literature -- the influence of Edgar A. Poe, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Nikolai Gogol is simply obvious. Poe's tales of madness out of loneliness, Hoffmann's stories of tragic delirium (most prominently, The Sandman, Majorat, and The Mines of Falun), and, of course, Gogol's eerie The Overcoat provided Polanski with the inspiration for this modern examination of the same topics.
Trelkovsky, a French citizen of Polish origin, is a nondescript and unassuming loner who moves into an apartment the previous occupant of which, a young woman, has thrown herself out of the window. The building is owned by the stern and ice-cold old man, who is hell bent on making sure his tenants do not make any noise and do not cause any trouble. He (and his underlings in the building) consider any sign of life to be "trouble." The old man spends much of his time enforcing a near-police-state-like order within the building. Undeniably, all kind of extremely weird things are going on in the building and I will not dwell on them. But it is the strange intrusiveness of the police-state which injects real terror into Trelkovsky's life. Faced with absurdity after absurdity, he makes some meek attempts to complain and ask for explanations: instead, noone is even ready to listen to him -- he is being treated like a piece of dirt practically by everyone.
It is also important that Trelkovsky's plunge into madness occurs suddenly and very abruptly. It seems almost like a psychological breakdown and a rebellion at the same time. He has lived the life of conformity, compliance, and quite resentment, never able to stand his ground or even establish his individual sovereignty. Trelkovksy's meekness is simply striking. His sudden and violent obsession with not letting "them" make him into the previous occupant of the flat is a pathological and concentrated reaction to the years of pent up passive aggression and anger. The infernal scream at the end of the film is the wild shout of anguish. In a certain sense, the completely unexpected finale of the film presents a huge puzzle which is not really intended to be resolved. But Polanski seems to be investing it with important symbolic meaning. This world is full of multiple Trelkovskys, little, unnoticeable people terrorized by their own sense of total insignificance. This is a vicious cycle of dependence between people's unconscious yet compulsive cruelty to each other and the tortured compliance with this cruelty by others.
This is an excellent, dark and captivating film in the best traditions of European psychological Gothic literature. I strongly recommend to watch this movie and take a look at Poe's, Hoffmann's and Gogol's stories.
La pianiste (2001)
The Metaphysics of Self-Denial
The Metaphysics of Self-Denial. This comment is bound to provoke some controversy by disagreeing with those who have easily classified this film as an indictment of sexual repression and self-denial. Michael Haneke (as a film-maker) and brilliant Isabelle Huppert (as the music professor Erika Kohut) place sexual relationships within a larger frame of reference -- that of the boundaries of one's own SELF.
Erika is a highly intelligent, perfectionistic, ambitious and driven woman, who has single-mindedly and relentlessly identified her whole self with her work and achievement. In a sense, she is madly competitive and is painfully sensitive to any kind of attempt to "sideline" her or, even more importantly, to take her and her opinions for granted. She is no puppet in anyone's theatre. She is unpredictable and that's one of her major instruments of self-assertion. She is overly harsh on everybody surrounding her -- you need a pair of plyers to pull the most modest words of praise from her tight mouth. Observe Erika's body language in the film: accentuated pride, not an insignificant dose of aplomb and even snobbishness, cold sternness, and extremely caustic sense of humor.
But look more carefully: Erika is most harsh towards herself. Unimaginably and cruelly harsh on herself! Erika's fear of sex is not just a function of her mother's repression and other hackneyed reasons examined in thousands of other movies. Erika is first and foremost obsessed with what entering into any kind of a relationship, be it casual sexual intercourse or an enduring love affair, means to her sense of personal independence. She is prepared to forego relationships and suffer as a consequence, rather than to "succumb" and be forever unsure of whether she had given in or emerged on top. She experiences all human relationships, and sexual ones above all else, as a field of power play, of asymmetrical exchange of influences. And there is one thing she apparently cannot withstand at all -- and that's a thought, yes -- just a thought!, of yielding. Her world is truly stark and Gothic, it's a world of maximalist and dramatic choices -- yes or no, on top or on the bottom, bright or dark. She craves the most violent contrasts and cannot stand living in the zones of shades of grey. She understands only super- or subordination in the purest of forms.
Many would probably be correct to argue that Erika's obsession with remaining beyond anybody's influences is in many ways an outcome of her total mental slavery to her mother. And this is obviously a valid point. But the film's posing of the problem of sex in explicit power-related terms, in terms of a power game with fluid rules and irredeemably uncertain outcomes should be the primary focus of analysis. The Piano Teacher's finale is resounding in its relentless dramatism and even stoicism. Erika's conscious pursuit of emotional self-denial for the sake of what she deems her true (and avaricious) God -- self-sufficiency and professional greatness reveals that there is her war with her own humanity and her attempt to become godlike (as one poet said, 'eternal, cold and true'). Her God is completely indifferent to her sufferings and human flaws and needs -- He demands constant sacrifices, demonstrations of loyalty (not unlike Abraham's readiness to slay his own son Isaac at the Almighty's behest). In that sense, her character is not totally unlike the character of the obsessive and self-destructive chess player Alexander Luzhin from The Luzhin Defence or the driven John Nash from The Beautiful Mind (the parallels should not be extended). These movies both show the curative powers of love. There angelical women serve to relieve masculine anguish and self-destructiveness.
Here a man discharges this function.
Erika's sexuality is a function of all these considerations and complications. As a highly intelligent and sensitive woman, she is aware that any action in a relationship may be interpreted in radically divergent ways. Consequently, she alternates haltingly and hysterically between the sadistic and masochistic modes, obsessing over she is in "charge" of a relationship. This shows even in the horrendous scene when Erika asks her potential lover Walter to beat her up.
Equally interesting and intriguing are the two other main characters in the movie, Walter and Erika's pesky and nosy mother. Walter's deep attraction to Erika reveals his inner demons -- his fantasy to serve as a redeemer, a liberator of sorts for a self-destructive woman. He desires to redeem the male part of humanity by welcoming Erika into the world of "normal" human sexuality, by curing her of her pains and doubts. The more he takes upon himself the mantle of a heroic redeemer, the more intense her battle of wills with him becomes, the more symbolic her conflicts with him grow. In a sense, Walter loses in the end! He deprives Erika of her virginity but she pretends to be dead and ice-cold during the act: the ultimate rejection and delegitimation!
Erika's mother is probably the true monster of the movie. Avaricious vampire of a human being. She buzzes with her annoying commentaries and bileful complaints over the viewer's ear like a mosquitto that she is. A spiteful, repulsive character.
This is a highly disturbing and extremely thought-provoking movie with absolutely no clear answers. Bravo, Michael Haneke and Isabelle Huppert for a brilliant movie and an equally brilliant and tense performance!
Barton Fink (1991)
Circles of Mental Hell
***Some Spoilers Follow***
Barton Fink is the kind of film which defies simple categorizations. Those who expect to be spoonfed and given some clear-cut answers to many twists and turns in the picture should be advised to stay away from watching Barton Fink. This film is not about good and evil but about the mutual entanglement of both. At its core, Barton Fink is about the internal demons of any creative work.
Many commentators have hastened to pass overly harsh judgments on the character of the young Jewish New York playwrite Barton Fink (brilliantly executed by John Turturro) as a conceited, arrogant, haughty, self-centered and pretentious son-of-a-bitch. But it is probably beyond any doubt that Fink is a person of significant talent and promise, and that he is NOT motivated by attaining cheap and fleeting glory and fame "here and now." Fink's main problem is that he craves, he yearns for greatness and for influence but not of the ordinary kind. He wants to produce something which would be "great" not due to the recognition by the Hollywood "big shots" and defined not in terms of commercial success. He wants to destroy the very terms by which success and fame are measured and allotted. Fink indicates to us that he feels that he is "onto something big." He is plagued by the complete absence of any boundary between his own sense of self and his work.
He IS his work. Yet Fink's problems are even more deep -- he seems to be motivated by deploying his own "masterpieces" (and he expects ONLY masterpieces from himself) as a weapon for "clearing up the field," for revolutionizing the art world, and more ominously, for immortalizing his own name.
In one of his confessions to Charlie (the infernal character fantastically played John Goodman), Fink confesses -- "it might be that I am just a one-play writer." The implication of this statement is that Fink is torn between two internal impulses. The realization comes to him that, while he possesses formidable powers of imagination, he sorely lacks broader life experience. Fink feels that to produce something else, he needs generate another message, which, however, cannot ripen within him without having to immerse oneself in the world around. Fink painfully comes to the understanding that he needs to learn, to listen to others. But his narcissistic pride and convictions that he already knows everything about life that he needs to produce his masterpieces obstruct his capacity to grow emotionally and intellectually. He resolves this dilemma through a convenient compromise: he selects to "listen" to the stories of the ordinary and folksy traveling insurance salesman Charlie, his hotel neighbor. But in reality he is unwilling to listen (at the end of the movie, "Charlie" levels this heavy accusation against Fink above everything else!). Fink wants the "ordinary folks" to just confirm and validate his already preformed notions; he just wants to glean facts, as it were, from his interlocutors and then just plug them in into his conceptions and ideas. "If facts do not correspond to theory, too bad for the facts!"
But even these considerations do not exhaust the problems which congested Fink's mind and soul. I think that Fink is actually both dying to produce his masterpieces and at the same time is existentially mortified by the prospect of converting the message of his "inner self" into public knowledge, public property. He is frightened (perhaps sem-consciously) by losing the only reason for going on living which he seems to have -- producing his masterpiece. What if he is really a one-play writer and his writing is his only source of personal identity? What if after that masterpiece, there is only one logical step which remains -- to die? Fink is afraid of existential exposure and depletion. The unopened box symbolizes this torment between wanting to produce and wanting to conceal. The box which Fink carries in his hands is his talisman, his eternal secret, his mystery which allows him to be inspired without being afraid of "solving all the world's secrets" and having to live (or not?) in the world totally denuded of any enchantment and puzzlement.
Fink's relationship with Audrey is very much a projection of his own fears and needs, his immaturities and childishness, as is Charlie aka Karl Mundt, the madman serial killer aka Lucifer. Charlie is a monster created by Fink's mind, by his irresolvable tensions between a genuine good will and commitment to creativity "not for sale" and his approach to his work as a path to personal salvation, to gaining existential uniqueness, to eternalizing his own self in history. All in all, Barton Fink is about the pains of learning and growing, while at the same time preserving the faith in one's own unique and original mission.
The overall atmosphere of the film is disturbing and haunting. Brilliant conversations and allegories are top-notch and re-affirm the Fink-centric nature of everything occurring in the movie. Not a single episode of this film is superfluous, so watch it very closely and with a lot of attention to details and seemingly insignificant asides. One of the great and controversial masterpieces of the Coen brothers.
The Reflecting Skin (1990)
Frightening Spiritual Wasteland
Reflecting Skin is in many ways a unique creation. It operates at many levels, each of which should be taken on its own terms and understood within its own logic. Devastating social critique is entangled together with brilliantly shot natural landscapes (especially the combination of azure skies and sweeping fields of golden wheat). Dark and semi-psychotic scenes of Seth's father's self-immolation are entwined with the gentle lyricism of Cameron's "falling in love" with the "vampire woman," Dolphin Blue. Taken together, all these elements produce a dark, unsettling, relentlessly haunting atmosphere of the most profound spiritual crisis. Reflecting Skin is about the rock-bottom of socio-cultural devastation, it is about the wasteland lying inside each of us.
Philip Ridley shows us the isolated world totally devoid of all GENUINE sense of moral direction. The actor who plays a 9-year old Seth is absolutely excellent in portraying a frightened, well-meaning rural boy who has already absorbed all the unspeakable cruelty of his family and wider local milieu. The greatest nighmare of the film, it seems to me, is the destructively stubborn denial within which all characters are deeply and inextricably mired. There is nothing they are afraid more of than looking at themselves, at the profound evil which had already turned their souls into the most frightening desert. They are prepared to look around for vampires, witches and other incarnations of evil rather than to confront the layers of hypocrisy, sanctimony, and callousness within which they are hopelessly bogged down. They are blind to their own faults but are filled with immeasurable hate towards the "evil forces" out there. One is simply astonished at how successfully Ridley portrays the reservoirs of hatred and existential frustration hovering over the settlement. The movie traces how this hatred, this stubborn blindness progressively corrodes and ruins an impoverished rural community in the mid1950s. This movie is in many ways an examination of the local and deeply psychological sources of fascism (not in its more historical and specific meaning but as a cultural phenomenon of the modern world). Seth's desperate shriek for "salvation" amid the rays of the slowly setting sun and clouds of dust is perhaps the most powerful and unsettling scene in the film. Yet, watch closely: Seth's face is not covered with tears and genuine grief! His soul has been turned into stone -- he has grown to accept the ubiquity of death and cruelty. He will grow up to be a truly scary human being, able to kill and plunder with no remorse or doubt.
Great cinematographic gem. Should be appreciated by everybody interested in challenging, controversial, and ambiguous art. Profound social and even religious message about the evils of sanctimonious fundamentalism of any type of faith.
La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano (1998)
At War with Time
*** Some Slight Spoilers***
The Legend of 1900 is a neglected pearl of a movie. Behind the sentimental exterior is concealed a profound statement, which is the trademark of Giuseppe Tornatore's style. Much like in Cinema Paradiso, the director's attention concentrates on the torments, tortures and dilemmas of change. In our culture the notions of "growing up" and "maturing" are treated not only as inevitable but also self-evidently positive. The story of 1900 is only marginally about the fear of entering and dealing with the uncertainties of the big scary world "out there" (Danny the sailor warns the little 1900 that the "sharks on land" are far more cruel and voracious than the ones swimming in the ocean). In my opinion, Tornatore dwells here with one of the deepest and painful problems of human life: how do you establish your own significance in the world filled with cold indifference? how do you know who and what you are? Everybody in the film tries to convince 1900 (masterfully and ironically played by Tim Roth) to take that fateful step and get off the ship in order to "BECOME SOMETHING." They all assume and believe that to be something, to gain significance, one must leave his "ship" and prove himself in the eyes of the "real world" -- the collection of powerful groups whose opinions and decisions are somehow more important that those of the small milieu of the one's parochial world. One's recognition, one's validation comes from some powerful forces "out there," on land. Frequent digressions about the fact that as far the "world was concerned," 1900 did not even exist. In his final monologue, 1900 himself admits with a touch of regret that the world had bypassed him. But, damn it, why do we all constantly have to care about what the "world" thinks of us, makes of us?? Why, in order to live "fulfilled" lives, do we seek "recognition"? Who are the judges? 1900 perhaps unconsciously fights against having to define himself in terms of what the "world" or "real life" make of him. He chooses anonymous death aboard the Virginia cruise ship. His death is as unknown as was his birth. The world did not know about his existence, his art, his personal agony. But 1900 never defined his worth, or the meaning of his life in terms of "public opinion" and vain glory. He left not a trace of his existence to this seemingly all-important world. All he left to us was his legend. And that's all that really mattered.
Overall, a wonderful film. Fantastic music. Excellent song at the end! Highly recommended for thinking and open-minded viewership.
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1988)
The Haunting Voice of the Past in All of Us
Cinema Paradiso is a magnificent film. In spite of its at times somewhat sugarily charming indulgences, the movie contains a powerful element of tragedy. As a director, Giuseppe Tornatore deals with his favorite subject, which our popular and public culture simply prefers to ignore and glance over -- the price of progress, the price of change. Cinema Paradiso focuses on the torments of change, on the moral and emotional dilemmas which it raises. Though, the overall spirit of the movie is life-affirming, the deeper message is masterfully broadcast to the viewer: superficial happiness of the present conceals under its thin veneer the tragedy of those we "leave behind" to slowly fade away into the mists of the ever more distant past. Salvatore's mother sums it up brilliantly when she refers to the people from Salvatore's past as ghosts. The destruction of the cinema theatre at the end is yet another confirmation of the same message. As the popular cliche would have it, "life goes on." But we inevitably (whether justifiably or not -- could be endlessly debated) are forced to betray our past, to turn it to ruins (literally and figuratively) so that we could later on sweetly reminisce about it. The lessons of this movie are multiple but one of the most important and frequently neglected is that of loyalty, of respecting, remembering and understanding those who lived, loved, suffered, thought, and fought before us. Cinema Paradiso is about how much we owe to those who preceded us, who shaped us with their wisdom, who sacrificed for us (maybe naively), who allowed us to be what we are. Let us REMEMBER!
Harold and Maude (1971)
Harold's Journey to Salvation
Harold and Maude is a profoundly spiritual film. It is a story of a death-obsessed 22-year-old neurotic Harold and an eccentric, touchingly childish 80-year-old "sorceress" Maude. The whole movie is seen through the prism of Harold's internal struggles. He is hungry for life, yet is mortified by what he perceives its utter lack of meaning. He wants sympathy, affection and attention, and tries to attain all of them by means of committing fake suicides -- but all for naught: Harold's ice-cold and haughty mother ignores him, ignores him as a sovereign human being, while treating him as a domesticated pet. At a certain juncture, Harold meets a highly non-conformist and easy-going old lady, Maude. She is "sent" to poor Harold by the dint of fate in order to rescue his soul from the utter morbidity within which it had sunk. The relationship which develops between them is beautifully portrayed in the film. Maude is conjured up into existence by Harold's "guardian angel." She heals him. She cures him. She shares with him her internal sources of vitality. She teaches him the science of happiness, the most difficult science to master. She gives her life to Harold. The film leaves you with a lingering bitter-sweet feeling. Harold and Maude is a philosophical elegy, a film of lasting value, a movie the importance of which is only bound to increase. Wonderful work of art.
The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995)
Brilliant Nightmare
ATTENTION, POTENTIAL VIEWERS! Some possible SPOILERS follow:
Philip Ridley has produced a genuinely poetic yet nightmarish piece in Passion of Darkly Noon. The setting of the film forms perhaps its central part. An almost never-never land in the middle of the lush impenetrable forest. A light cabin with a beautiful and sensual Callie (Ashley Judd) living there day and night and communicating with the primal forces of nature (rain, storm, caves, thickets, springs, etc.) The viewer cannot help but feel inundated by the intensity with which the forces of nature are brought together into a single bundle of some primordial virginity. Darkly (Brendan Frasier) is brought into the "eye of the storm" to be cared for and nurtured back into health. Striking a pose of seductive nymph, Callie unsuspectingly (or maybe not) stirs Darkly's (who is extremely inhibited and repressed) sexual passions. They proceed to escalate uncontrollably. Initially, Darkly is torn by conflicting internal thoughts about how to react to Callie and how to understand his own emotions and urges. Progressively, his "demonic" side takes the upper hand: his "misgivings" about Callie are validated by the nearly insane Roxy (Callie's mother-in-law) who lives as a forest hermit nearby. The end is as frightening as it is purifying and tension-relieving. The film is full of mysterious symbolism and is uncharacteristically replete with ambiguities which remain unsolved throughout. My personal opinion is that this movie should be understood as a fable, a tale of sorts. In a sense, all this happens inside the Darkly's mind and soul. All other images in the film are just the external projections of Darkly's intense internal struggles, his PASSIONS. In terms of its atmosphere, Passion of Darkly Noon has a great deal in common with Maurice Maeterlinck's play Pelleas and Mellisanda (see the beautiful and otherworldly music by Claude Debussy). This movie is truly enchanted and enchanting. Could be watched many, many times for this quality alone. One of the best in its genre. See another Philip Ridley's movie Reflecting Skin -- equally bizarre, stunning atmospherics, wonderfully disturbing yet beautiful imagery.
Malèna (2000)
Cinematographic Symphony
Malena is a beautiful and deeply touching film. It is a masterful combination of sites, sounds and colors. The two leading actors (Monica Bellucci and Giuseppe Sulfaro) are simply excellent at what they are supposed to convey in this movie. Apart from her truly majestic elegance, Monica Bellucci invests her character (Malena) with an aura of tragedy, of some profound and unrelenting emotional trauma and pain which remains unspoken throughout the film and reaches its climax at the very end. Malena's stunningly beautiful eyes remain constantly downcast, and her face -- tense and pierced through by psychic pain (she rarely raises her face, let alone speaks words). Renato (the teenage boy) wins his audience by his incredibly pure and valiant love for Malena (this affection he carries in his heart for several years). She becomes his muse, his courage, his sense of honor, his whole rationale for confronting difficult and disruptive life of the war-torn Italy. I agree completely with another commentator who said that the ending of the movie is perhaps one of the most genuinely melancholic moments in modern cinematography. Simply brilliant. Superb music! This movie should be watched several times to be fully appreciated.