Special Treatment

Isabelle Huppert is an aging prostitute who specializes in fantasy fulfillment for an upscale Parisian clientele.  Bouli Lanners is an aging psychoanalyst who specializes in sitting out of his upscale Parisian patients’ sight lines and saying nearly nothing at all.  Their ennui is palpable, and Special Treatment underlines it with a score that seems to have been written entirely in a minor key and played by a cellist whose dog just died.

Great.  An hour and a half of ennui among the Parisian professional class.  If I wanted 90 minutes of ennui, I’d have lunch with coworkers from my former (office) job.  At least they told jokes.

Yes, the characters’ lives intersect in unexpected ways.  Yes, they grow and develop.  And, yes, Special Treatment does everything it wants to do.  What I wanted it to do, however, was entertain me.  That was not included in the special.

The Earrings of Madame de...

The Earrings of Madame de… is a relationship movie for people who don’t like relationship movies, a fashion movie for people who don’t like fashion movies.  Why?  Because it’s so good that it doesn’t matter what kind of movies you like: The Earrings of Madame de… will captivate you.

The premise is a twist on ­Daniel Deronda.  A young woman pawns some jewelry after losing big at the roulette wheel.  Complications ensue.  Where Daniel Deronda goes on to use the jewelry as a catalyst for growth and redemption, The Earrings of Madame de… uses it to drive a tragedy.  And oh, what a tragedy.

Master director Max Ophüls (born, coincidentally enough, in my ancestral home of Saarbrücken) sets his tragedy in the Geneva of the late 1800s.  His characters, mostly aristocrats, adhere to the social mores of then-contemporary France, in which one married for business and one loved whom one chose, so long as the love remained discreet.  This may seem off-putting.  After all, who wants to spend two hours ogling the lifestyles of the aristocrats of yesteryear?  It works, however, because it allows Ophüls to do two things: create a world of lavish sets, beautiful costumes, and extraordinary jewelry, and show how the rules of that world can bind and constrict and kill. 

It also works because we care about the members of the film’s love triangle.  Danielle Darrieux (now 96 years old and credited in the remarkable Persepolis), Charles Boyer, and Vittorio De Sica (director of the hilarious Divorce, Italian Style), bring humanity to their roles as Madame de…, General de…, and the Great Love of Madame de…’s life, respectively.  We see through their wealth and their pretensions to the real, needy people beneath their exteriors, and we feel for them.  Director Ophüls and cinematographer Christian Matras brings them to life through a high-gloss, high-beauty black and white photography that would count as realism if the world were just a bit more poetic. 

The Earrings of Madame de… is beautiful to look at and heartbreaking to watch, and entirely successful in every way.  I loved it.

The Girl Cut in Two

The Girl Cut in Two asks us to empathize with Ludivine Sagnier, an attractive and capable young woman torn between the adulterous lecher who whores her out to his buddies and the murdering child molester who wants her for his very own.

How very French.

Thing is, I’m not French.  The lecher creeped me out.  The murderer scared me.  The woman, well, I didn’t understand her.  These two men aren’t the only two men in the world.  I couldn’t understand why she didn’t tell both of them to hoof it and go find herself a nice young man who was neither an emotional nor physical threat to herself or others.

So there I sat, watching characters I didn’t care about behave in ways I didn’t understand.  Oh, and looking at my watch.  The Girl Cut in Two gave me no “in,” no one to root for, and nothing to care about.  It looked professional, Ludivine Sagnier is a great beauty, and I enjoyed see The Transporter’s François Berléand play the lecher.  In the end, however, these people behaved in ways that made no sense to me and that I couldn’t imagine.

Then again, I’m not French.

The Passion of Joan of Arc

Carl Theodore Dreyer's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928) is a compelling, thought-provoking, and aesthetically rewarding film.

THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC is a passion play that draws clear parallels between Joan and Jesus. Like Jesus, Joan is hauled before a politically loaded court, asked questions designed to trip her, and ultimately meets her fate. In this telling, drawn from court documents, Joan may be insane, she may be enlightened (to use a term from another religious tradition), or she may simply be a scared kid who's in way over her head. Maybe she's all three. Maria Falconetti, in her only film role, plays Joan almost as a blank slate, allowing us to project our interpretations of her predicament and her reactions to it onto her sometimes impassive, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes terrified face.

While the film wraps us in fascination, it prods us to thought. How different were Joan's ecclesiastical courts from Christ's? Why the fascination with styles of dress and the religious implications of gender-normed clothing? To what extent did Joan's ecclesiastical judges belive in what they were doing, and to what extent were they either saving their own necks or expanding their power with the dominant political forces of the day?

These considerations alone would make for a commendable film, but Dreyer compounds and magnifies them with his choices in the creation of the film's look and feel. The architecture of the fortress in which the action proceeds is unsettling and off kilter in a way that alludes to German expressionism without becoming overwhelmed by it. His harsh, unforgiven lighting and camera work lends the production a documentary feel that adds to its immediacy. And his direction of the actors themselves feels spot on. These felt like real people undergoing real tests, not early film actors hamming it up.

Criterion, as usual, does commendable work with this film. I love that a company can build a business model around the public good, and Criterion consistently does that by restoring and presenting the very finest of cinema. THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC is as crisp as we could want, and it's a pleasure to view.

I loved this movie.

Alphaville

I fired up ALPHAVILLE feeling neutral. I'm not a Godard fetishist, but neither do I repudiate the man. I was ready to take what this movie had to give and give it, in return, a fair shot. ALPHAVILLE began by puzzling me. Who was this supposed reporter from "LeMonde / Pravda"? Who were these people he was interested in? Why did some guy burst into his hotel room and try to kill him, and why did our supposed hero proceed to unwind by playing a little William Tell with his handgun and a hotel prostitute?

After a while, ALPHAVILLE went from puzzler to fascinator, as it rolled into a water ballet from Busby Berkeley's most depraved fantasies. In the process, it evoked the constant, all-pervasive fear that comes of living under a totalitarian regime and drew me into its world and its hero, one Ivan Johnson (or, as we would later come to call him, Lemmy Caution). As Lemmy came to understand Alphaville, its government, and its people, so I came to understand what was going on, who was targeting whom, and what the heck Anna Karina had to do with anything. As Lemmy took action, the scenario grew simpler still, 'til I was cheering him on and hoping he'd find both what he'd been sent for and what he needed.

I may have come into ALPHAVILLE feeling neutral, but I came out of it feeling energized and excited. Here's a movie that's willing to take risks with the conventions of filmed narrative, and here' s a movie that wraps its thoughtfulness in pulp and never takes its eye off the ball of any sound film's first priority: entertaining its audience.

ALPHAVILLE is a winner.

Army of Shadows

Jean-Pierre Melville's ARMY OF SHADOWS is a brilliant, brilliant movie.

Released to failure in 1969, when it films about the French Resistance were decidedly not à la mode, ARMY OF SHADOWS now enjoys the full Criterion treatment, with a magnificently restored picture and crystal-clear sound. It's a tense, exciting, moving picture, and it captured my imagination from the first frame to the last.

The film begins at the Arc de Triomphe. It's just after dawn, and the street is quiet. Soon, we hear the sound of marching, then the music of a band. What kind of Frenchman gets up before sunrise to march in a band? No kind - only the Hun would do something as crazy as that. And then we realize that this is a Nazi band, the occupation is on, and things can't be good. From there, we meet Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura) a nondescript engineer who's being checked into a Vichy prison camp. He's just another middle-class guy, nothing special, but he becomes one of the hearts of this film, a character whose matter-of-fact, world-weary heroism packs more punch than that of a thousand action heroes.

It's important that we buy into this guy, because he's going to take us to some dark, dark places. ARMY OF SHADOWS is not a movie about romantically heroic Frenchmen clearing the way to victory, but fatalistic operators who kill with implacable horror and struggle to die with something approaching dignity. Moreso, it's about people living with the hovering spectre of betrayal, torture, and death, and ARMY OF SHADOWS winds us tightly in the tension of that existence and never lets us go. This is a film whose big action set-piece is basically three stonefaced people sitting in or standing around a truck, and it's a setpiece that had me on edge from beginning to end.

While this movie works strictly as a spy thriller, it's also a brilliant exploration of both leadership and human perception. Leadership, because its leaders aren't made of ribbons and external authority - they're made of quickness of wit, intensity of purpose, and ability to execute. It's fascinating to see how their power relationships develop, and how much their followers rely on them for their very lives. Perception, because it carefully explores how the human mind frames and parses reality, particularly in a scene I'll refer to as "The firing range," in which we see a character's recollection of the action as filtered through his perceptions at the moment of remembrance.

The more I think about this movie, the more I like it. ARMY OF SHADOWS is a must-see.

Bob le Flambeur

I found BOB LE FLAMBEUR thoroughly captivating. It's held together by the titular Bob (Roger Duchesne), a guy who reminded me Burt Lancaster right up to the moment when he dons a tuxedo, at which point he reminded me of George Clooney. Bob's a high-roller, which is another way of saying he's a gambling addict, and you know what always happens to gambling addicts: they lose. Once, long ago, he'd been part of a heist (presumably to cover his debts) gone wrong, but saved the life of a police officer during the arrest. Now he's done his time and he's generally a good guy, but he loves chance so much that he has a slot machine in his closet. And, of course, you know what always happens to gambling addicts.

BOB is a film that deals in shades of morality and people who choose just which shade they'll be. It deals with nobility and weariness, and it offers one of the best heist setups I've ever seen. Jean-Pierre Melville shoots it with just the right combination of glitz and grime, and I believed everyone and everything I saw on the screen before me. What a treat.

Rififi

Tony le Stephanois (Jean Servais) has problems. He's old, he's tired, his girl left him while he was in prison, and he sucks at poker. When his protege suggests a smash-n-grab at a local jewelry store as an easy way to make a few bucks, things seem as bad as they can be. He's a serious jewel thief, for pete's sake! Is he going to allow himself to be reduced to smalltime crook? Oubliez lui! le Stephanois has a better idea. Rather than waste his time on a smash-n-grab, he plans a serious heist of the most secure jeweler in town. Thus, we're all set up for one of the best heist pictures ever.

RIFIFI is the grandfather of the heist genre, a wonderful high noir look at the criminal world and its denizens. There's been plenty written on it, and there are folks right here on this list who are well qualified to discuss its historic significance. I'll leave that aside and say that RIFIFI is a just plain terrific movie. Servais has a face that looks like it's been lived in, and he does a fine job of keeping us engaged in a character that is, almost any way we look at it, a very bad man. The supporting cast is equally wonderful, taking now-stock characters like "top safecracker" and imbuing them with life and individuality. The heist itself, a sequence around thirty minutes long, takes place without a word of dialogue or a note of scoring support and reminds us just how effective silence can be. This is edge-of-your-seat stuff, very well executed, and a flat-out great time at the movies. I'm glad I rented it.

Brotherhood of the Wolf

Although I was all set to love BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF, the picture had me checking my watch well before the end of its excruciatingly long 144-minute running time.

BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF is a monster/martial arts/drawing room movie in which a chevalier from the court of Louis XV (Complete with Mohawk sidekick! In stores soon!) comes to the provinces to hunt a mysterious creature that's killing off the peasants. It starts off well enough, with a fun Jaws tribute that's quickly followed by a good martial arts set piece with the solid, if somewhat vacant, Mark Dacascos.

Things go south, however, once the chevalier meets the noble gentry and gets down to the business of solving the mystery. Unfortunately, this happens pretty early in the first act. The primary love interest can't hold a candle to the secondary love interest, leaving the viewer seriously doubting the chevalier's judgment. The Big Villain is telegraphed so early that there's no surprise later on. The Creature, which works fine as long as it stays in the shadows, is so clearly a CGI creation that it yanked me right out of the movie; and The Evil Posse is completely ridiculous -- I pitied these people for being born 210 years too early for Thunderdome. They get a couple of big battles against the heroes and, though they give it their all, I couldn't help but think, "They're no Crazy 88s."

This movie needed a more ruthless editor. Slo-mo-ing a victim in mid-turn as she faces the Beast? Cut it. Some guy picking up a pitcher, pouring a beverage, quick-closeup on the beverage, then back to the guy? Cut it. Just tell me what he has to say. Long scene of the chevalier practicing his quick-draw, only to have him never call upon that skill later in the picture? Cut it. Long scenes designed to show off the mystic nature of the Indian dude? Cut it: let's get this picture moving!

As I said, I wanted to like BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF. Too bad - it could've been so much better.

Children of Paradise

You know how some things give people allergic reactions? Some things give me aesthetic reactions - a tightening in the back of my throat and sense of euphoria. I know I’m experiencing world-class art when I have an aesthetic reaction.

I had an aesthetic reaction to CHILDREN OF PARADISE. From the opening scene showing a fantasy Carnaval on the streets of old Paris to the pantomimes that made my breath catch in my throat to the heartbreaking conclusion, CHILDREN OF PARADISE sings “masterpiece” from every frame. It’s a story of love and hope, of inhibition and the lack thereof, of, well, of everything. It’s three hours long, and I confess that I sometimes fast-forward through particularly long subtitled films. I couldn’t fast forward through any of CHILDREN OF PARADISE, because so much happens with its actors’ faces that I couldn’t bear to miss a single delightful beat.

CoP draws its structure from a love pentagon centered on Garance, a beautiful woman who makes her way in the world using all the tools available to her. Many men give her their hearts, but she loves only one. How those loves unfold, and how the lives of those who love develop (or not) over time, provides the grist for enough drama to last far longer than the film’s brisk three-hour running time. The drama doesn’t carry this movie, howver. The performances do. From the sensitive idealist to the self-proclaimed scoundrel to the ambitious actor to the self-important dandy to the protective spouse to Garance herself, these people aren’t characters on a screen but real, living souls who evoke our tenderness, revulsion, and (most importantly) identification.

Cinematographers Roger Hubert and Marc Fossard give CHILDREN OF PARADISE a fantastical, better-than-life look, creating several images so excellent that they inspired me to hit the pause button so I could enjoy them at leisure. This entire movie looks great (and sounds great, too!), a testament to the mens’ excellent craftsmanship as well as the meticulousness of the good folks at Criterion, who released the DVD.

CHILDREN OF PARADISE looks great. It sounds great. Hey, it is Great. I have the aesthetic reaction to prove it.

The Rules of the Game

Plot, character, and so on are enough. I enjoyed the heck out of RULES OF THE GAME.

I don't know why, but I find it much easier to identify with pre-War French aristocrats than English aristocrats of nearly any era. Perhaps it's because the English were on top for so long, while one senses that after Waterloo, the French had to settle for self-delusion. These people don't put me off because I know that their entire world is about to come crashing down around them.

THE RULES OF THE GAME features a character who feels passionately about collecting musical instruments and devices. In a major scene, he opens the curtains on his prized possession, a complex musical machine featuring an array of players whose music goes from harmony to discord and back again. At the machine's apex, we see the figure of a nude woman, painted reclining against a hazy backdrop. Just as this depiction of feminine sexuality serves as the machine's focal point, so feminine sexuality (and masculine reaction to and interaction with it) serves as the focal point of a film in which a multitude of chracters bang and blow on their respective instruments in a sometimes melodic, sometimes cacophanous display.

This picture has so many interweaving plots, subplots, and concerns that it'd take 5,000 words just to describe them all. This could lead to a bewildering tangle of narratives, but THE RULES OF THE GAME creates such interesting and diverse characters that we have no problem keeping them and their stories straight. It helps when the film has no wasted frames.as I mentioned before, there are no wasted frames. Since there's always something happening, our minds don't have time to wander. Instead, we're forced to focus, to keep up, and the effort proves to be worth the reward. Be it keeping an eye on the background characters while the foreground players attract the most attention or simply enjoying the precision with which doors open and close and actors make their entrances and exits, THE RULES OF THE GAME keeps us entertained while conducting us ever deeper into the minds and hearts of its people. It climaxes with a bang, it closes with a wallop, and it entertains from beginning to end.

Even the most hypofrancophiliac among us couldn't help but enjoy it.

Under the Roofs of Paris

René Clair's UNDER THE ROOFS OF PARIS (1930) is a lovely picture with one element so disturbing that I wonder if it was anachronistic even at the time of its release.

ROOFS, an early foray into the world of talkies, looks and feels like a silent movie for much of its running time. In fact, recording with the new technology was so cumbersome that Clair chose to use dialogue only when absolutely necessary, creating a hybrid of the two styles. It works, and it brings us the best of both worlds: the physical lyricism of a silent picture combined with the naturalism of a talkie.

But how's the movie? It's delightful. It paints a loving portrait of lower-class Paris, filling it with denizens kind and criminal, and its lead character, Albert, is a pleasant and agreeable guy. Here's the setup: Albert's a sheet-music salesman who conducts street-corner singalongs, selling copies of the music to anyone who might want to join in. He falls in love with Pola, a Romanian immigrant who's involved with a local thug. Complications ensue.

The disturbing element is the character of Pola. She's a cypher, a trophy, nothing more. She falls right in with whichever man claims her at the moment, seeming to let herself be carried along by fate. Was this the feminine ideal of the time?

That reservation aside, 'Under the Rooftops of Paris' is a good time, both for its place in cinema history and its light, loving touch. I enjoyed the heck out of it.