Month: February 2021

  • Native Son aka Sangre Negra (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) One of the most vexing questions for film noir fans is why the genre, despite its strong urban roots, featured almost no black characters: even film historians once had to dig an embarrassingly long time to find even the odd exceptions. Native Son is one of those exceptions, and it affirms the rule almost by itself — While the film is an adaptation of a novel by American author Richard Wright (who also co-wrote the screenplay and starred as its protagonist despite being about twice too old), it ended up being produced in Argentina by French director Pierre Chenal. In other words, the filmmakers had to leave the US to portray a very American tale of racism and noir nihilism. While there are constant elements of social drama here, it’s difficult to interpret the main narrative as anything but pure dark undiluted noir: The story gets going when a black young man hired as a chauffeur to a wealthy white woman gets involved with her and—as befit the genre—lets a series of mistakes escalate in the accidental death of his white employer, bringing down the city’s police force on him. That’s already grim, but then it gets much, much worse as more things go wrong. You won’t be surprised at how the film ends, but so it goes when the fatalism of film noir grinds down even its likable protagonists. Age aside, Wright’s performance is raw to the point of being showy — he’s obviously not a trained actor and there are no other strong performers to hold him aloft when he slips. The low-budget production is not spectacular, although Argentine-passing-as-Chicago is not as big of a problem as you’d think. While Native Son’s technical credentials won’t wow anyone, the film itself is still remarkable: it’s an exemplary film noir in concept, and the fact that it features a black protagonist hounded by white police force gives it an impact that sadly remains intact. The story behind the film’s censorship and recent restoration doesn’t reflect all that well on its lasting impact on cultural history, but it does reaffirm that we’re living in an amazing age for cinephiles, when such fascinating films are once again made widely available in their best possible shape.

  • Take a Giant Step (1959)

    Take a Giant Step (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) It’s fascinating to go back in movie history and discover works that anticipate trends of later decades. While stories of black teenagers coming of age are now commonplace, there were virtually unknown in 1959, at least from mainstream movie studios. That makes Take a Giant Step all the more fascinating, even despite some clumsiness and a performance from young lead actor Johnny Nash that could be best qualified as earnest — it’s interesting by later, more naturalistic standards, but it does feel overly modern in a film that is otherwise pure 1950s filmmaking. There’s a lot to like in the way the film intelligently dissects pervasive racism even in so-called progressive environments, as a young black teenager in a northern US city gradually realizes that his coming-of-age also means being far more vulnerable to discrimination and isolation. Various characters all have a take on what this means, and the young protagonist’s quest lies in trying to fit the pieces together. Ruby Dee turns in a very likable performance as a housekeeper, as does Estelle Hemsley as the elderly voice of reason. Still, it’s the film’s willingness to engage in issues that still continues to impress 60 years later, more than the film’s lower-end production values or the varying acting style clashing in the film. While Burt Lancaster does not appear in the film, he was one of its producers who managed to bring Take a Giant Step from stage to film, and apparently had a hand in selecting Nash for the role — further cementing his reputation as an iconoclast in a leading man’s persona.

  • The Affairs of Martha (1942)

    The Affairs of Martha (1942)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) While I’m reasonably happy with The Affairs of Martha, I can’t help but think that this is a film that leaves a lot of material on the table, and I can’t help but wonder how much better it could have been had it been made twenty years later. The premise itself is fun but unfulfilled: What if the elite set of Long Island starting fretting about the announcement of a tell-all book written by an unnamed servant girl of theirs? Much of the film’s comic potential is explored early on, as both the upper-class gets concerned, and the comfortable servant class also finds the development alarming. (“I’ve spent years getting my employer where I want her!” complains one of the veterans of the trade.)  There’s some bite to the opening moments, but it doesn’t really go anywhere — soon enough, the romantic comedy gets underway and nearly forgets about the opening premise. To be fair, the romantic complications that pile up do make for a serviceable film: as an heir to an upper-class family comes back from an expedition with a fiancée in tow, his previous marriage to a servant (the unknown author of the tell-all book!) comes back to make a mess of everyone’s plans. It pretty much ends up like you’d like to, but the class-division aspect takes a much smaller role than announced by the opening minutes. (Especially when the servant doesn’t have anything bad to say about her experience!)  Still, Marsha Hunt is lovely as Martha, Richard Carlson makes for a likable romantic lead, and there’s a lot to like about Virginia Weidler’s performance as a bratty too-smart teenager. (This was a kind of role that Weidler played a lot during her short Hollywood career, and you can look at her turn in The Philadelphia Story as another exemplary instance of that persona.)  The film doesn’t overstay its welcome despite shifting gears early on. The one strangely amusing note here is noticing that the film is an early effort from Jules Dassin, who would become far better known for hard-edged noir thriller in the late 1940s and then (due to the Hollywood Blacklist) be exiled in France, where he’d become famous for legendary crime thrillers. You can find distant echoes of The Affairs of Martha in more modern class-concerned fare such as The Devil Wears Prada or The Nanny Diaries, but I still think that it missed an opportunity to be far more striking.

  • Hélas pour moi (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) I had a surprisingly good time watching Hélas pour moi, but that came from an early decision to declare narrative bankruptcy on the film. Anything billed as a “poetic drama” in its log-line is usually a lost cause anyway — the only reason why I had a look at the result was because it was a late effort by writer/director Jean-Luc Godard. It only takes a few minutes into the film to realize that it’s not going to be understandable in any kind of conventional sense: it’s a film that plays on emotions, impressions, visual flourishes and allusions to philosophy and classical literature. Title cards separating the film in chapters or offering odd bits of narration only make the entire film feel even more hermetic if you’re not the director. Over time, I’ve come to make peace with the idea of film as an artistic expression of individual filmmakers (although the inherent elitism of film production costs leading to a class of film gatekeepers still rankles me), even if that does not mean that I’ll like the result. As the languid, pretentious, consciously self-absorbed nature of Hélas pour moi became obvious, I stopped trying to make sense of the film and let it wash over me. To be fair, there’s plenty to look at even if you’re not attempting to make sense of it — a young and trim Gérard Depardieu is the film’s headliner, but Laurence Masliah looks absolutely terrific here at times (the sequence in which she is introduced, off-focus to better feature her wild red mane is just… wow) and Aude Amiot looks nice as well. Are watching French girls a substitute for a strong narrative? Yes, if that’s all the film has. Still, Hélas pour moi does have a few good moments: thanks to Godard’s veteran eye, parts of the film can be appreciated even if you refuse to try to make sense of it. (I was tempted at times to see the film as a parody of a pretentious arthouse film, but it wasn’t worth the effort.)  I’m far, far from recommending the result, but it’s possible to find something to appreciate in nearly anything if you’re creative enough.

  • The Devil All the Time (2020)

    The Devil All the Time (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, February 2021) There are films that land with a thud no matter the quality of the casting, the amount of sex and violence, or the high production values that you can throw at it, and such is the case for The Devil All the Time. Much of the problem is that writer-director Antonio Campos takes you forcefully to an ugly place and, at 139 minutes, keeps you there far longer than anyone would be willing to tolerate. Set in 1950s rural America, it’s a film that delights in the kinds of backwoods horrors best forgotten, and their accumulation looks more like a frenzied attempt to up the exploitation content than deliver a satisfying story. Apparently, rural Ohio is awash in insane preachers, rapists, ritual sacrifices, suicides and serial killers. But wait, there’s more, such as excruciatingly gritty cinematography that, for better but mostly for worse, lets you feel as if you’re stuck there for the duration. A rather good cast (including Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Sebastian Stan, Jason Clarke and Mia Wasikowska — with Pattinson being the most remarkable) can’t make the film any more likable. I’m not sure if the film really aims to be a backwoods Americana crime epic, but the result is just excruciating when it’s not simply too dull for words. The Devil All the Time proves to be an unusually descriptive title, especially if you focus on how long the entire thing feels.

  • Rage in Heaven (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) You can argue that Rage in Heaven is a film noir, but I see just as much kinship here with the domestic thriller subgenre of the 1940s, especially as a woman gets frightened by an increasingly unstable husband. But there’s more — a framing device that takes us to a French mental hospital, a subplot involving a family steel mill and a third act that’s all about a psychopath framing his romantic rival even in death. It’s a lot of stuff to fit in 85 minutes, and what holds the film together is more the casting than the plot. It’s tough to resist any 1940s film with Ingrid Bergman, and Rage in Heaven does pair her with a rather rare good-guy turn from George Saunders, while Robert Montgomery is a bit of an odd fit as an insanely jealous psychopath. The plot is lurid enough to be entertaining — but it’s not credible and that does harm the result. While Rage in Heaven is interesting enough, it’s a scattered film and one that probably should have been tightened up in production, or reworked entirely.

  • Night Terrors (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2021) The downfall of writer-director Tobe Hooper remains one of the sad stories of horror filmmaking (“drugs” are often mentioned as a contributing factor), and you can take a look at featureless films such as Night Terrors to show how quickly he fell off the map after his early successes. Nominally a horror film in which a woman is swept up into a cult led by a descendant of the Marquis de Sade, the result can never quite find its footing despite decent production values and concepts that could have led to more. Setting the film in the Middle East doesn’t add as much as you’d think, and the parallel historical timelines don’t lead anywhere. Robert Englund in the lead role(s) doesn’t have much to do (Sade ends up feeling like a pretentious emo guy rather than a force for erotic horror), and the lighthearted touch shown by Hooper in earlier projects is nowhere to be found. The result is an intensely generic and forgettable 1990s horror film that barely deserves any discussion except as one of many illustrations of how far Hooper had fallen.

  • The Pawnbroker (1964)

    The Pawnbroker (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) Part of the way Hollywood movies changed during the 1960s was a turn from the grandiose to the mundane, focusing on small personal stories rather than grand sweeping spectacles. The other part of the change was being able to portray America closer to what it was rather than the bowdlerized version imposed by the Production code. You can see both of those tendencies at work in The Pawnbroker, a rather intimate take on post-WW2 trauma, as seen through the eyes and actions of a Harlem pawnbroker revealed to be a concentration camp survivor. His detachment from everyone around him is what gets hashed out over the course of the film in a series of small sequences and confrontations. What does make director Sydney Lumet’s film feel slightly more modern is a relatively true-to-life portrayal of the neighbourhood in which the story takes place: As pointed out by various film historians, The Pawnbroker features things we now take as commonplace — a diversity of ethnic characters with different agendas (fittingly for its upper Manhattan setting); a confirmed homosexual character; artistically-justified nudity (apparently a first); and a portrayal of the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. Rod Steiger got nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of a man with strong internal conflicts, but much of the interest of The Pawnbroker goes to the supporting cast of characters, each with short but striking roles giving a good amount of credibility to the film’s setting. It’s not a spectacular film — most of the conflict is internal until a climax that lets the tension erupt outwardly. While not a fun watch, it does act as a turning point of sorts for those who want to track the ways in which late-1960s Hollywood was an entirely different place than early-1960s Hollywood.

  • The Scalphunters (1968)

    The Scalphunters (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2021) The civil rights movement finally makes its way to the western genre in The Scalphunters, a film based on the relationship between a badly-educated white trapper and an escaped black slave as they confront Native Americans and scalp-hunters. Burt Lancaster once again stars in a film that pokes at his own image as a leading man — his character isn’t particularly smart, and he obviously starts out as a complete racist before learning better. Ossie Davis has a more likable role as a well-read runaway slave heading to Mexico but being treated as property by everyone he encounters, white or native. Telly Savalas (the only bald man in 1960s Hollywood!) rounds up the headliners as an antagonist to them both. The Scalphunters isn’t as preachy as many of its contemporaries, with enough humour and action to keep the lulls low. The sunny landscape is more serviceable than spectacular, but those were the 1960s — audiences knew what the west looked like, and focused more on what else the genre could do than show widescreen vistas. The Scalphunters, typically for a film directed by Sydney Pollack, was very much a film of its moments, using the western tropes to work out current events of the time.

  • Final Draft (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2021) I’m normally a very forgiving viewer when it comes to movies about writers. I’d like to think that I share some kinship with that avocation, and fiction-about-fiction often delves into the fascinating frontier between reality and fantasy, often with characters popping to life to make life difficult for the writers. That is certainly the case in Final Draft, a horror film about a screenwriter (James Van Der Beek, not bad) who voluntarily locks himself in an apartment in a desperate effort to force himself to complete the draft of the film he’s supposed to be writing. It does not go well — his imagination gets the better of him, and soon enough his characters are making him crazy. There’s some promise here, but it’s almost entirely extinguished by limp, unsympathetic, overly glum execution. The long prologue leading to the protagonist locking himself up in his apartment does very little to make him likable or even apparently competent: he comes across as a schmuck who lucked out on getting a script produced (admittedly a cool thing that I envy) but otherwise a terrible young man with few redeeming qualities. You won’t exactly root for him to overcome both his writer’s block and his demons in order to produce a quality script, and indeed it’s not all that disappointing when he ultimately fails to do so. As for the madness inside the apartment and his head, it’s all handled with a great deal less energy than it should — the delusions aren’t particularly witty nor funny nor sexy nor anything interesting. There’s a killer clown that takes up a lot of space and time without much of a payoff — almost as if the screenwriter (of Final Draft) didn’t have enough confidence in his own material not to bring in another cliché to round things up — even if acknowledging it as such! There is a tremendous amount of wasted opportunity here: director Jonathan Dueck’s execution is limp and never even starts taking advantage of the elements it has to play with. By the time the film reaches its downbeat conclusion, well, who cares — Final Draft makes a powerful case that one less mediocre horror screenwriter isn’t such a terrible thing.

  • Cathy’s Curse (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2021) I saw Cathy’s Curse for one single reason: The TV guide log-line said it took place in Montréal. As this horror film limped to the finishing line, I concluded that it remained the only reason to watch it. A Canadian/French co-production, it features a French citizen heading to Montréal to follow her father’s new job, and both of them are living in a house where very strange things are happening. Don’t bother hoping for too much originality: it’s the standard dolls-making-people evil kind of stuff. Demonic possession, evil dead relatives, friendly neighbourhood psychic, trash-talking young girl, and telekinetic powers used for evil, you know — the usual. Extremely derivative even by the standards of cheap horror films, Cathy’s Curse isn’t as much a sustained narrative as a series of allusions to better movies. Writer-director      Eddy Matalon’s film is not interesting to watch, although it apparently has a modest following in that so-bad-it’s-good tradition. (Although I’ll argue that it remains on the side of so-bad-it’s-bad.)  Even the Montréal aspect is lacking — there’s not a whole lot here to make anyone look fondly upon the city as of the mid-1970s. But Cathy’s Curse’s log-line did not lie: it’s a horror film set in Montréal. It never promised anything good.

  • Morocco (1930)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2021) I can read about Morocco’s historical meaning as an early blockbuster as well as anyone else, but it doesn’t mean that I appreciate the result. I’ve always had mixed feelings about Marlene Dietrich and director Joseph von Sternberg — there’s something about their acclaimed collaborations that doesn’t work for me. Perhaps it’s because I arrive to their idea of gender-bending with, oh, a perspective that is decades removed. Perhaps there’s something in Sternberg’s approach that doesn’t quite work. Perhaps I just don’t like Dietrich. Perhaps I find lead actor Gary Cooper to be the blandest of the bland stars of early sound cinema. Perhaps I’m not quite as taken by the Moroccan setting as I should be. No matter the reason, I’m not overly impressed by Morocco. Oh, there are still a few good things here: Dietrich is captivating, and the cross-dressing sequence is not bad at all. The Moroccan scenery is a historical document, and it’s not as if you can dislike Cooper. But the overall impact is flat — there’s a lot of fluff to get to what’s interesting about Morocco, and I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.

  • It’s a Gift (1934)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) It’s really not a good sign when you finish watching a movie only to wonder if that’s it — if there’s not something missing. To be fair, It’s a Gift is not a movie made for the narrative experience. Barely clocking in at 68 minutes, it’s a collection of vaudeville sketches arranged around a very thin plot. Trying to watch the film for its story is a losing proposition, so clumsily does the film make its way from problem to conclusion before you even expect it. Somewhat more successful are the comic set-pieces — the film features WC Fields acting the way he best knew, reprising some of his theatrical routines for the cinema and mugging throughout. A strong irritant is the misogynistic portrayal of marriage, with the male character being hounded almost non-stop by a shrewish wife and ungrateful children as he chases his dream of a Californian orange grove. He gets it almost accidentally, with a windfall raining down on him as part of a happy conclusion. I have a higher-than-average appreciation for mid-1930s comedies, but I’m at a loss regarding It’s a Gift — is that it? Have I missed anything?

  • Black Christmas (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2021) I’m clearly a sucker for punishment, considering that I sat down to watch a third version of Black Christmas despite disliking the two others I’ve seen. But having seen the 1974 and the 2019 version, I couldn’t pass the challenge to complete the set and see the 2006 version for myself. I steered myself for a terrible 2000s teen horror slasher and to the film’s credit that’s exactly what I got. Once again, the cute members of a sorority are stuck in their house over Christmas, with a killer making the rounds and taking them out one by one. There are a few known names in the cast: Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lacey Chabert and even Andrea Martin in a callback to the original. Surprisingly, despite my obvious loathing for all three slasher films, this is probably my least loathed one. Unlike the 1974 version, it sports slicker cinematography and a definitive (if lame) explanation of why the killer kills. Unlike the 2019 remake, it goes light on the screeching holier-than-thou messaging that makes a mess out of the film’s moral stance. Instead, it’s a straightforward gory slasher film, exactly what it says on the tin. Writer-director Glen Morgan has a disgusting fascination for dismembered eyeballs (so… many… eyeballs…) and clearly apes better movies in the amount of gore and nihilistic kills, but his film is fundamentally stylish and honest about itself, which almost makes it refreshing compared to the deficiencies and excesses of its brethren. Don’t be fooled: this Black Christmas is still a terrible use of your free time, and won’t change anyone’s opinion if they think that slashers are a blight upon the world that should be erased as thoroughly as possible. But, you know, there’s a difference between a two out of ten and a three out of ten, and it’s only by such a tiny measure that this 2006 version wins by a nose.

  • Ji qi zhi xue [Bleeding Steel] (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2021) Despite loudly announcing his retirement, it’s obvious that a workhorse like Jackie Chan can’t be held back indefinitely, and it’s been interesting (if not always fun) to see him pop up in other films — clearly not the swift comic daredevil of his youth, but still an elder statesman of the action movie genre able to hold his own given a bit of CGI, stunt doubles and careful shot composition. In the messy science-fantasy film Bleeding Steel, he plays an aging policeman trying to protect his daughter from a mad scientist who literally wants to tear her heart out. (The heart is a cybernetic marvel and he needs it because of reasons not really worth thinking about.)  The plot is an incoherent mixture of Science Fiction, Fantasy, action-movie clichés and plain incomprehensible narrative choices — from a relatively techno-edged opening sequence, the film jumps into cross-dressing comedy, blood-themed fantasy, romance, betrayal, touches of body horror, silent-guardian sentimentalism and nearly everything in between. If you’re used to the slapdash narrative drive of Chinese films, you’ll feel right at home — otherwise, be prepared for a bit of a wild ride. Fortunately, you don’t have to like, or even pay attention to the plot, as it multiplies useless complications in a bid to extend its running time and annoy viewers. You can watch Bleeding Steel for its handful of action sequences and it would be a far better use of your attention than trying to piece together the meandering wrinkles of the plot. A good police takedown opens the film, and this is followed by the expected car chases, stunts, shootouts and climactic sequence set aboard the villain’s flying fortress. As much as Chan is obviously working with a safety net, it’s still a thrill to see him high atop the Sydney Opera House for a great photo opportunity and a fight sequence whose close-ups are handled with digital studio trickery. There’s clearly a place for Bleeding Steel among Chan’s post-retirement filmography—nowhere as good as the movies that made him famous in the 1980s–1990s, but still worth a look if there’s nothing else to do. I sure wish the various science-fictional elements of the script would have been tightened up and made more tonally even, but that’s the price to pay for such a film. Like the weird narrative tangents and the dodgy special effects, it’s the kind of film that Chan makes nowadays.