Month: November 2022

  • Antonia [Antonia’s Line] (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) As much as I like the default Hollywood moviemaking style and look warily at most attempts to do differently, there is something delightfully off-kilter about Antonia. Its narrative focuses on a rural Dutch village throughout decades of history from WW2 onward, characters aging through generations. The very delicate tone is mostly comic but occasionally not—two instances of rape are treated in a most unusual fashion, and by the time the film concludes with the deaths and departures of most characters, the light-hearted tone of much of the film can’t hide a more substantial dimension. I’ll admit—I was dubious. The film doesn’t begin all that well (it takes a while for the tone to come into focus) and descriptions of the film as a “feminist fairy tale” had me wondering if it would be accessible at all. Fortunately, it is: the story is good by itself and makes its points without cheap grandstanding. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about writer-director Marleen Gorris’s film is how the world conforms to its matriarchal, humanistic ideology rather than the other way around—we could use far more utopias structured along the same lines. The characters are distinctive even in the middle of a large ensemble cast, and the plotting (as it telescopes years and growth) is often delightfully unpredictable. It’s not exactly the most conventional of film, but it works—I rarely get that positive about Best Foreign Picture Academy Awards, but this 1996 winner is quite deserving. I suspect that Antonia will work much better on anyone looking for something a bit different than the norm.

  • The Maiden Heist (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2022) If you swear that you’ve seen The Maiden Heist before it even concludes, that may be because the “geezer heist thriller” has become a viable subgenre in the past decade (as aging stars struggle to maintain their box-office appeal), and especially since 2017’s Going in Style shares Morgan Freeman with The Maiden Heist. Of course, it’s not quite identical—here, we have elderly security guards at a New York City art museum being distressed at the thought of their favourite masterpieces being transferred to Europe, and engineering a heist to make sure they keep it for themselves. If that doesn’t sound too noble (art should be for everyone!), well… deal with it, because it’s one of the film’s main flaws. Freeman, Christopher Walken and William H. Macy all star as the three guards conspiring to keep their favourites from emigrating, with Marcia Gay Harden playing support. Thanks to director Peter Hewitt, the result is straightforward, even if the script feels slightly undercooked and can’t do much to paper over a not-so-compelling premise. With Going in Style, the heist motivations were transparently mercenary—here, the art thing feels like a contrivance. (Take a picture, we’re tempted to say: it will last longer.)  It’s certainly watchable—but I’m not sure I’ll be able to tell it apart from other similar films in a few months.

  • Goodbye, My Fancy (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) As much as there are many things to like about Goodbye, My Fancy, the film can’t escape vexing issues that accumulate until they stain the overall result. The setup is relatively solid, as Joan Crawford plays a congresswoman who returns to visit her alma mater after considerable professional success. Much of the film’s comedy comes from attempts to make her regress to her college-day friendships and rituals, helped along with a few very comic supporting roles, especially from Eve Arden. But there are also much weightier subplots to contend with, the biggest being an unresolved romance with what was then a teacher (wait, what?) and is now the university’s president. The romantic triangle emerges when the protagonist is antagonistically courted by another ex-flame and she has to decide between one of them. While the comedy aspects of Goodbye, My Fancy are relatively amusing, one can’t quite say the same about the romantic and dramatic subplots, which are either based on dodgy past behaviour, or illustrated by even more dodgy behaviour. One suitor is such a badgering cad that it seems implausible that she’d give him more than the time of the day… but then comes the conclusion meant as a triumph but about as high-flying as a lead dud. There’s a lot in the film, or underneath its surface, about the post-WW2 order—whether political, global or social. That makes for further fascinating viewing—but it further troubles the impact of a film that can’t quite decide whether it’s a college comedy, a wistful romantic drama or a propaganda piece for a strong United States. Goodbye, My Fancy is worth a look if you like conflicted films—but skip it if you’re just jonesing for straightforward 1950s Hollywood fare.

  • The Boys in the Band (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) I sat down to watch The Boys in the Band more out of duty than anticipation—it being the only entry in TCM’s “Reframed: Films That Shaped Our Culture” spotlight lineup that I hadn’t yet seen. Not being particularly interested in gay issues or gay history, I didn’t expect to get drawn into the film. But something clicked in the opening moments—the snazzy opening montage unusually presenting male-on-male gaze, the ferociously good dialogue adapted from the theatrical play, the ensemble cast of well-presented characters, or simply the atmosphere of circa-1970 New York City, The Boys in the Band quickly becomes, if not relatable, then certainly fascinating. It’s clear that I can’t understand the impact that the film had upon release. Perhaps the most visible artefact of this, as pointed out by far more knowledgeable commentators, is that much of the film’s drama is built on the foundation of self-hating gay men—nobody being quite comfortable about, let alone proud (a clue-by-four hint here for straight viewers like me) of their nature. This is manifested more visibly by the closeted character or the ways some of them manage to compartmentalize their lives all the way to the film’s end, but even the most flamboyant of them still carries guilt for who they are—and that makes the film both a historical marker of sorts and (as I research the topic a bit) a lightning rod for criticism from modern viewers, for whom at least two generations of gay men have fought bitterly to normalize homosexuality far beyond what circa-1970 gay men thought of themselves. In that way, at least, The Boys in the Band is an eloquent period piece showing the progress since then. (Then you look up the actors and realize that five out of the nine died of AIDS in the 1980s-90s, which is another shock to absorb.)  But even if you don’t want to engage with the social significance of the film, what remains is a very funny, increasingly dramatic film that builds to an unsatisfying but appropriate climax. Director William Friedkin, no stranger to explosive premises, does a lot to infuse cinematic qualities to a theatrical adaptation. The boldness through which The Boys in the Band presents both stereotypes and more intricate character studies is quite impressive—for 1970 or since then. It all contributes to the result’s accessibility—really a film that shaped our culture.

  • La dernière incarnation (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) While “low-budget” is usually not a term of praise when discussing movies, it can carry a number of positive qualities. In discussing La dernière incarnation, for instance, it’s impossible to get away from the idea that the entire thing was filmed around Montréal by well-meaning enthusiasts on a five- or six-figure budget that would be dwarfed by the catering bill of Hollywood super-productions. The film flits from a public park to a depressingly ordinary home to a hilariously down-to-earth car chase sequence to a zesty interlude in a nightclub. Technical credentials are not all that good, the actors (unknown even by French-Canadian standards) are a bit bland and the special effects are from circa-2005 personal computers. Writer-director Demian Fuica is clearly working in the tradition of ultra-low-budget filmmakers everywhere by tailoring his script to what he has on hand, and for French-Canadian audiences the entire thing feels like it could have been shot within a thirty-minute car trip from home. The story, as basic as it is, has to do with a mild-mannered accountant stumbling upon a supernatural figure while bird-watching, and then being gradually brought into an eternal conflict between good and evil. The climactic sequence has good and bad characters making faces at each other, while special effects suggest supernatural combat. But here’s what an excessive focus on the film’s limitations misses: It’s actually quite a bit of fun. Not a classic, clearly, but likable enough (in its obvious limits) to create a perceptible intention to champion the film. There’s a sense that people involved in La dernière incarnation must have been motivated by a dose of fun. (Not necessarily in the drudgery required to film the night scenes or bring the product to completion, but at some point.)  Some of it makes its way on-screen through the film’s satirical intention to confront the sublime with the quotidian, to wring comic moments out of a grand premise, or to maximize their means of production into getting one more sight gag. The actors aren’t all that good, but they have something precious: the ability to make us root for them. I’m acutely aware that this effect rapidly wears off the moment you step outside the loose territory of French Canada (I’m not even sure it’s available in English), but I’ll take it—La dernière incarnation is a fun low-budget film that makes the most of what it has, and creates sympathy where thousands of bigger-budgeted movies have failed to do so.

  • Sardar Udham (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, November 2022) One of the things that happens when former out-groups seize the means of artistic production is that old stories are re-examined from new perspectives. Repressed rage comes out; staid viewpoints are questioned; opposite excesses are encouraged; and eventually things return to a better equilibrium. But we’re not there yet—Western cinema is still killing off male characters with a gleeful spirit of retribution that would be unbearably misogynistic if it was gender-flipped (the point being that it’s not), while former colonies are turning the tables on their oppressors. It’s in that spirit that Indian-Hindi film Sardar Udham goes out of its way to praise and explain the life and death of Udham Singh, who assassinated former Lieutenant Governor of Punjab Michael O’Dwyer in 1940 to avenge a 1919 massacre. Everything is a matter of perspective, and the film is carefully built to build outrage—first portraying the assassination, then through a complex series of flashbacks, work its way to the brutal 1919 blood bath (ordered by O’Dwyer) to justify his assassination—and then show the assassination again for good measure and retribution. Further driving the colonial revenge fantasy is the description of the treatment received by the assassin in the following months of his trial, detention and execution. Let’s be honest: there is something fascinating in seeing a slick, well-produced film that is all about taking down a British villain. At the same time, though, the idea of a film glorifying (and that’s not too hyperbolic a word) an assassin doesn’t quite sit well with me. There’s something intensely sadistic as well in the way the film goes full-carnage mode to depict the 1919 massacre, blowing off limbs and exploding heads of women and children as if it had to work overtime to justify a further cycle of violence. While the film keeps a certain tonal control over its running time, the 162 minutes are far too long for the story being told—Sardar Udham loses itself in tangents that obscure its message and dilute its impact. Still, as far as Indian films go, it’s a slick package—great cinematography and a powerful central performance by Vicky Kaushal do much to make the film a socially conscious drama that illustrates history. Still (and this is going to be increasingly normal in a multipolar world of conflicting ideologies), I can admire the intention without being all that fond of the gory vengeful results.

  • Titane (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, November 2022) Few things are funnier (or more pathetic) than a provocative film that meets the impassivity of a jaded reviewer. From the get-go (in which an exasperating kid causes a car crash that gets her a titanium plate in her head), Titane is custom-streamlined to shock the mundanes. Our protagonist is a loathsome young woman who kills for thrills, has sex with a car, falls pregnant (from the car, naturally), passes herself off for a long-lost kidnapping victim (unconvincingly cross-dressing as a young man while pregnant) and eventually seduces her new steroid-addled daddy. In the film’s climactic scene, she dies while giving birth to a human-car hybrid, because, obviously, this is where it was all going. (This is not a spoiler considering that the film does not run on plotting.)  No, it’s not meant to be a comedy… although the laughter of disbelief may bubble up now and then. Clearly, this is not meant to be taken at face value—you can feel writer-director Julia Ducournau poking at hot-button issues and cranking up the film’s shock factor in a quest to seek attention. It sort-of-works in that the film got a lot of coverage and more awards than you’d suspect existed. On the other hand, it’s depressingly mechanical in the way it goes about its business. Start with pregnancy body horror, and add as many shockers as you can—serial murders, abortion, bodily abuse, sexual fetichism—and wait until the audience cries uncle. Meanwhile, never mind if the plot falls apart at the slightest touch: having established that none of this is meant to be realistic, let commentators run wild at creating interpretations for the result. To be fair, the most interesting thing about Titane are the multiple long-winded essays explaining the film as being (pick as many as you’d like) parenthood; body dysphoria; trauma; loneliness; lust; and/or love. Or you can just roll your eyes at the games the film is playing and move on.

  • The Mackintosh Man (1973)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) The topline names involved in the Cold War spy thriller The Mackintosh Man are fit to pique any cinephile’s interest: Directed by John Huston, co-written by Walter Hill, starring Paul Newman, with a supporting role for James Mason? Sounds pretty good to me! But that’s not quite counting what happens when everyone involved seems determined to deliver a lower-common denominator product. Both Newman and Mason turn in the kind of performance they could have slept-walked through. Mason as a refined slimy villain? Just another day of the week. But even Newman seems to be going through the motions of other thriller roles he had in the previous decade—namely The Prize and Torn Curtain. Much of the plot itself feels like bog-standard material as well, playing upon familiar tropes in the United Kingdom. Huston’s direction occasionally elevates the material—I’m specifically thinking of the car chase through the countryside—but otherwise feels remarkably mechanical, as it fiddles with genre elements with no real enthusiasm for the task. The fuzziness of the script doesn’t help, and neither does a very early-1970s muddy cinematography. The dour atmosphere hasn’t aged well and further contributes to the idea that everyone involved in The Mackintosh Man was going for a paycheque without paying attention if what they were making was any interesting to watch.

  • Lord Jim (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) A lot of effort and care were expended to make Lord Jim… with decidedly mixed results. Starting from a solid framework of the Joseph Conrad novel, the film goes all-out for maximalist execution: shot on location in Cambodia, it pays for colour cinematography and an expansive re-creation of a classic adventure tale about a plucky lad atoning for a moment of weakness. The result, unfortunately, would test anyone’s patience even if it had been much less than its two-hour-and-a-half running time: Peter O’Toole is incredibly boring here as the titular protagonist, and the film simply dies around him. Not even James Mason and Eli Wallach can save it in flashy supporting roles: Lord Jim simply drags on with a charisma void in its middle, wasting everything else. You can still look at it with some interest as a failed attempt to present an epic adventure, but that’s not much of a comfort when the result fails at even delivering the basics of a thrilling yarn.

  • The Violent Kind (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2022) Look, I get it alright: As a writer myself, it’s fun to cross genre boundaries, to mix very different elements, and to blend things that have never been blended before. But that self-indulgence often comes with a price when it’s done badly, and you can point to The Violent Kind as an example of what happens when you can’t temper subgenre hopping with craft of execution or even basic likability. As a horror film, The Violent Kind initially seems to be a biker movie, albeit one where a weekend jaunt to an isolated cabin results in a few characters being possessed by hedonism and murder. So far so good—well, for some values of “good”—in that we’re in familiar territory. The film and its characters aren’t likable in the slightest, but there is at least some tonal unity at work. But forget that, because the second half of the film goes into much weirder territory as time-travelling 1950s greasers capture and torture the surviving characters (calling them protagonists would be a stretch) as the film slides into an apocalyptic conclusion. By the end of it, what have we just watched? Maybe four subgenres jumbled together. Maybe nonsense. It’s hard to tell. Although not being able to tell suggests that “nonsense” is on the right track. But as philosophers say—you may not remember the details but you will remember how they made you feel, and The Violent Kind does not leave a positive impression. It’s not just a mess but an obnoxious, pointless mess. Writers/directors “The Butcher Brothers” (ooh, edgy) were able to churn out a few movies between 2006 and 2014 and good for them—but working with viewers didn’t seem to be high on their list of priorities.

  • Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) At slightly more than three hours of Russian historical melodrama, Nicholas and Alexandra is a lot to take in, and it’s a fair question as to whether the trouble is worth it. Chronicling the last years of Russian Tsar Nicholas II’s life and leading into the bloody Russian Revolution of 1917, the film was clearly designed to ape the long-form prestige epics of the 1950s and 1960s: sweeping historical scope, real-life figures, lavish production values, a cast of dozens and a pacing that clearly doesn’t know the value of restraint. But unlike many other long-form epics, Nicholas and Alexandra doesn’t quite spark until it’s too late. The recreation of the last Russian court lacks a point for too long, and it’s telling that the film only becomes more urgent (to use the term loosely) once the tsar has been deposed, and the family fears for their lives. Any casual student of Russian history knows that this isn’t headed for a happy finale, and indeed the film eventually gets there… after the sumptuous sets are replaced by smaller and dingier environments. But director Franklin J. Schaffner doesn’t do much with what he’s given—even Tom Baker’s deeply weird performance as Rasputin is muted. No one in their right minds will call Nicholas and Alexandra a bad movie—if nothing else, the film will forever boast of its six Academy Awards nominations (including Best Picture) and its two wins in technical categories. But you can rightly suspect that the Academy was honouring the film’s ambitions more than its results, because as a whole it’s a limp and dull film, seldom involving despite the tragic nature of the dramatic events it covers. Alas, it takes three hours to get to that conclusion.

  • Soulmates (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2022) The “star-crossed lovers beyond time” trope gets a limp execution in Soulmates, a surprisingly uninvolving low-budget horror film that can’t get any traction from its promising elements. Here we have a novelist who’s really a near-immortal warlock who uses his fame to lure women… but wait, there’s a twist: he kills them so that he can use their bodies to reincarnate his long-lost love across time. Okay, so not much of a twist. Now, things get more complicated when he slips up after a few hundred years and his newest would-be victim escapes his plans… but the problem here isn’t with the premise (which is workable) than with director Thunder Levin’s limp and fuzzy execution. Even at 80 minutes, Soulmates drags on and can’t quite extract what it needs from its starting ideas. There’s more nudity than expected and a few quirky cameos (such as Julie Strain and Paul Bartel) but none of it can quite manage to overcome the underwhelming execution of the material.   There’s a reason why Soulmates is nearly obscure by now.

  • The Harvest (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2022) While The Harvest is generally disappointing, it does have a few things running in its favour. No, it’s not necessarily seeing George Clooney in an early-early short appearance as a lip-synching transvestite—or even seeing the very distinctive Miguel Ferrer with a rare leading role. It’s more about the nightmarish atmosphere of seeing the protagonist being in a foreign country, then being attacked, mutilated, stuck far from home and not quite sure of what’s happening or why. Writer-director David Marconi gets far too cute with the oneiric tone toward the end (it’s one of those films that ends with mutually incompatible interpretation of whether it was a dream or not) and fails to ground The Harvest into any stakes-making reality… but he does score a few good images and sequences along the way. The protagonist-as-a-screenwriter angle is underdeveloped, but it gets the protagonist out of the country and into a sweaty erotic thriller. The film was a family affair in a few ways—Ferrer’s wife-at-the-time Leilani Sarelle plays the female lead(s), and what do you know: Clooney was Ferrer’s cousin. The single worst criticism you can levy against The Harvest is that it disintegrates: its untethered atmosphere may work at first, but it gradually becomes more frustrating, and makes the ending of the film a joke without a point. But the atmosphere? Quite a bit better than expected for a low-budget film of that calibre.

  • Il vangelo secondo Matteo [The Gospel According to St. Matthew] (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) If, for any reason, you need time to stand still as you reflect on existence, delay the inevitable or need a snooze button on life, then put on The Gospel According to St. Matthew and feel the world stop for a staggering 137 minutes. Not just 137 minutes, mind you: 137 minutes of biblical homage executed in Italian neo-realistic style: raw naturalistic settings, unpolished non-professional actors, black-and-white cinematography, with an almost-documentary approach to image construction. That may appeal to you, and if you, you’d be in good company—the film was (and remains) highly praised, collected a few Academy Awards nominations in its time and continues to be relatively popular among cinephiles. If nothing else, there’s something provocative in writer-director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s approach to biblical material, as he refuses to take the highly reverential, super-glossy approach that Hollywood historical epics (or Cinecitta-shot passion plays) usually defaulted to in showing similar material. The approach is refreshingly different. On the other hand, well, you have to like Italian neorealism, and that’s a tall order for many—including myself. Once I became familiar with the approach, I felt that The Gospel According to St. Matthew didn’t have much to go on, but it did go on for another two hours. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for. Otherwise, skip ahead. Although… there is something to be said for watching this one to the end, and following it up immediately with Pasolini’s complementary Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom.

  • Popiól i diament [Ashes and Diamonds] (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) I’m not always bullish about cold war east-of-the-iron-curtain cinema, but Ashes and Diamonds had just enough to keep me interested. Here, writer-director Andrzej Wajda whips up a sombre tale of assassination and doubt in the wake of WW2’s closing days and follows his characters through a quasi-noir atmosphere of doom. There are some effective character moments, plot beats that aren’t mean to ape conventional genre works, ruminations on the complexity of political alignment (complicated by the oversight of the time’s communist regime—re-complicated by a contemporary look at communist filmmaking), stylistic and symbolic flourishes as well as ending moments not meant to comfort. The tone is grim and the pacing is slow (especially in the middle), but the film holds up better because it does have a good mixture of plotting to style. It would be an exaggeration to say that I’m a big fan, but graded on a curve of similar films, Ashes and Diamonds exceeds expectations.