Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Ikiru (1952)

    Ikiru (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Kanopy Streaming, October 2018) As a third-generation public servant, I know all the clichés, heard all the jokes, can predict all the editorials about bureaucrats—and fiction is rarely any kinder. Few creators understand the trade-offs and constraints of a public service job, nor the satisfaction of doing good in the role: In the rare occasions where a bureaucrat shows up in a story, it’s usually to provide one more obstacle for the hero. All of this may explain my instant admiration of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru, a quiet and deceptive film as far removed from his Seven Samurai and Yojimbo as it’s possible to be, but far more relevant to my specific circumstances. All of the film revolves around a mid-career municipal bureaucrat who, at the beginning of the film, seems satisfied living out his career until retirement. But he won’t get there: before long, he’s diagnosed with terminal cancer and given a few months to live. After a short period of debauchery (easily the least satisfying part of the film), our protagonist decides to use his last remaining months to do some good. But as we’re anticipating the payoff … the film skips to his funeral, and transforms itself in a very unusual story: A eulogy suspense, in which the remaining characters spend his wake poking and prodding at the dead man’s life while we, the audience, wait to hear whether they will understand his achievements. It all comes together in a strong finale, in which the value of the dead hero is finally revealed. It’s quite the movie, although I suspect I’m most susceptible than most in reading a lot of meaning in the final result. It’s uncanny how a story set in reconstruction Japan can feel as relevant sixty-five years and a continent away, but as far as I’m concerned Ikiru instantly deserves inclusion in the select list of essential works for any public servant. (Office Space; any version of “The Emperor with No Clothes”; any of the stories in Keith Laumer’s Retief series; Yes [Prime] Minister, In the Thick of It and Out of the Loop)

  • Moonraker (1979)

    Moonraker (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second or third viewing, On Blu-ray, October 2018) It’s said that everyone’s favourite Bond is the one they grew up with, and so I discovered the Bond series during the Roger Moore era, most specifically in between the TV broadcast of Moonraker and the theatre release of For Your Eyes Only. (If memory serves, because the series was regularly broadcast on French-Canadian TV, we had just got a VCR and you can imagine the rest.) I even remember watching the movie and talking to the adults in the room about special effects (how that skydiving sequence was made!) and budgets (they were really impressed by how Bond went around the world in the movie, most notably when he rides in Guatemala). So, yeah, I imprinted on Bond at the silliest time possible, on the one movie in the series that is widely regarded as the most outlandish, perhaps even the silliest in a series of movies not always known for their seriousness. I was a science-fiction fan even back then, so that Bond was only a step removed from Star Wars (which also played on TV a lot in the early 1980s). All of which to say that even if I can reasonably agree that Moonraker is a film with glaring problems, you will never—ever—manage to talk me away from an irrational fondness for that film. Third and perhaps worst outing for Moore as Bond, Moonraker shows the extent of the Star Wars craze of the late seventies as Bond goes through the motions of the usual formula, only to spend the last act of the film in orbit, all the way to a fancy space laser battle between American Marines and evil henchmen. No Bond movies ever went that crazy nor as silly than the infamous Venice sequence in which even a pigeon does a double-take. But that was the nature of the Moore years, and it’s rather unfair to start picking at the film’s numerous logical impossibilities when the point is having Bond escape death every ten minutes and showing off a special effects budget clearly much increased over previous films. It’s a rollercoaster ride across the globe, as the action moves from one continent to another and from one set-piece to the next. It doesn’t always work: “California” looks a lot like France (hilariously acknowledged by the film itself), and the special effects work is very uneven, especially during action scenes where impressive stunt-work is intercut against rear-projection shots of the main actors. The character of Jaws is reduced to an annoying running gag, Bond’s serial conquests are exasperating (especially how it callously leads to a nightmarish death that feels jarringly out-of-place with the silliness surrounding it) and the quips are lame. Still, I really like Michael Lonsdale as the villain, Lois Chiles is not bad as an agent who’s at least supposed to be Bond’s equal (as usual, the film inevitably falters on true equality, although at least it’s better than the abysmal Connery years) and—this is the crucial part—there is a space laser battle around an orbital evil lair. I won’t argue that Moonraker is at the extreme silliness spectrum of the Bond series, nor will I renege on my outright admiration for the more serious entries such as On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Casino Royale or Skyfall. But I still like Moonraker a lot as a middle-aged adult even if I can see the flaws that completely escaped me as a kid.

  • Wonder (2017)

    Wonder (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) Frankly, I expected much worse from Wonder after seeing its rather misleading trailer. To believe the coming attraction, we have to brace ourselves for an entire film’s worth of seeing a facially disfigured boy trying to fit at a new school. But, as we know, trailers lie—or at least misdirect, because even if the film is about a facially disfigured boy’s adventures in fitting at his new school, it’s also quite a bit more than that, and in this case the subplots are what keeps the film interesting beyond its predictable premise. Wonder soon becomes about the boy’s entire family as they, too, experience that first year in school in their own way. There’s nothing truly earth-shattering here, and one of the mildest surprises of the film is how easy it goes on the inevitable scenes of cruelty and abuse by the boy’s schoolmates. The result is one of relief, as the film remains rather gentle and sympathetic in its approach. Jacob Tremblay continues to impress in the lead role, while other notables such as Owen Wilson, Mandy Patinkin and Julia Roberts take supporting roles in a youth-focused film. As a result, Wonder remains an enjoyable film … even for jaded curmudgeonly critics such as myself.

  • Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

    Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2018) One of the pleasures of going deep in cinema history is finally encountering the progenitor of a particular gag. So it is that Steamboat Bill, Jr. is where the original classic “building façade fall on a person who survives unscathed thanks to an open window” joke comes from. It happens late in the film, in the middle of a particularly frantic sequence in which a small town is destroyed by a cyclone. That final act is something spectacular, with Keaton (who also helped write and direct the film) using all the means at his disposal for a still-inventive number of comic gags and spectacular sequences set in the heart of a catastrophe. Much of Steamboat Bill, Jr. until that point is a fairly dull affair with a plot about a disappointing son, a steamboat-crossed romance and small-town competition. Then the cyclone lands and suddenly the film finds its way, producing one gag after another. The film is now freely available from its Wikipedia page in decent quality.

  • Molly’s Game (2017)

    Molly’s Game (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) So… Jessica Chastain as the lead in an Aaron Sorkin film? You definitely have my attention. But Molly’s Game goes many steps further in giving us a real-life story of poker, Hollywood, organized crime, Idris Elba, a brainy leggy heroine and a two-hour stream of patented Sorkin dialogue. A fascinating example of an adaptation that goes further than the source material, this film not only adapts the content of Molly Bloom’s story as published in the original Molly’s Game, but updates it through a framing device taking place after the book’s publication. The fascination here is evenly distributed between Sorkin’s usual brand of rapid-fire witty dialogue, Molly Bloom’s extraordinary personality and Chastain’s uncanny ability to inhabit the role. It’s a great match between actress and subject, as the attractive Chastain gets to play a ferociously smart character who turns to the legally dubious side in order to make a living. Her conceit is simple enough: take care of all the necessary arrangements for wealthy poker players to have their regular games. It’s not entirely legal, certainly not completely safe, and much of the film’s interest is in detailing all the precautions she has to take in order to attract and retain the high-rollers while protecting herself. Michael Cera plays against type as a slimy Hollywood actor (reportedly Tobey Maguire) who ends up becoming one of Molly’s worst opponents, while Elba is his usual charismatic self as a high-powered lawyer. Sorkin also has fun directing his own script, fully getting into his heroine’s mind and history. (Kevin Costner pops up for a few scenes as her father, and gets a great scene in which he fast-forwards through years of therapy with his immensely intelligent daughter.) At 140 minutes, Molly’s Game is not a short movie, but it is seldom less than engrossing thanks to its script, directors and multiple subject matters. It’s thoroughly entertaining, and a strong demonstration of what Sorkin and Chastain can do at their best.

  • Sahara (1943)

    Sahara (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2018) Considering the time it now takes to make movies and bring them to market, it’s sometimes amazing to watch WW2-era films discussing events that happened mere months prior to their release. It’s even more amazing to find out that some of them remain remarkably effective even despite their ridiculously short gestation period. So it is that Sahara is a welcome surprise: a solid war adventure set during the African campaign of WW2. It certainly helps that it features no less than Humphrey Bogart as the commanding officer of a lost tank trying to rejoin their main battalion after a fierce battle. Lost in the desert, they gradually find other survivors and spend the first half of the film searching for an oasis. Alas, their troubles only begin when they do find a source of water—before long, they find themselves guarding a dry well against a much larger force of Nazi soldiers. Action, derring-do, amazing coincidences and character drama all punctuate the second half of the film, raising the stakes and providing a capable war adventure made as it was going on. There is a really interesting moment midway through the film in which the Italian character blames the German character for his nation having duped in joining the alliance—a far more nuanced portrait of the enemy than you would have expected at the time. Bogart is quite good in the lead, with a secondary role by a young Lloyd Bridges—and this is one of those rare films with an all-male cast. Sahara firmly belongs in the “war is an adventure” school of filmmaking: the film is not trying to make a statement about the futility of it, but neither is it unbearable propaganda. A clever, tight script wraps everything together in a topical war drama that has nevertheless withstood the test of time significantly better than most of its contemporaries.

  • The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

    The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) I am of two minds about The Autopsy of Jane Doe, depending on which half of the film we’re going to discuss. The first half is an effective supernatural thriller, as two coroners starts working on the flawless body of a young woman found at a crowded crime scene. The contrast between the unblemished skin of the corpse and what they find while performing their autopsy is surprising and increasingly disturbing: broken bones, blackened lungs, missing tongue and teeth. Then it gets much weirder, as various … things are found inside of her. The mystery created by those discoveries is compelling: until that point, the film does score highly as a different take on familiar elements. But The Autopsy of Jane Doe then takes a sharp turn for the worse, as the thus-far realism of the autopsy quickly cedes ground to far more fantastic events. Sadly, Jane Doe ends up being an excuse for unrelated, incoherent paranormal events that kill a good chunk of the minimal cast. It’s during that second half that, clearly, the screenwriter abandons every rule they may have set for themselves. As a result, The Autopsy of Jane Doe becomes a film in which anything and everything can happen on a whim, giving us little reason to care about a film not playing fair with its audience. It doesn’t help that the film goes on a maximally nihilistic ending. Fortunately, I stopped caring far before everybody died. I do like the mystery, director André Øvredal’s effective use of a constrained setting with few characters, and the inventiveness of the plot’s first half. Emile Hirsch, Brian Cox turn in decent performance, with Olwen Catherine Kelly showing up as the corpse of Jane Doe. Unfortunately, the rest of the film works hard to undo nearly everything that was interesting until then, with a limp ending that does not leave a lasting good impression. Too bad…

  • The Greatest Showman (2017)

    The Greatest Showman (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) Don’t tell anyone else on the internet, but I have a special place in my cinephile’s heart for the kind of big brash musicals that Hollywood almost doesn’t make any more. From the get-go, The Greatest Showman sets high expectations with an eye-popping circus-and-dance number that clearly tells us that we’re not going to watch an attempt at mimetic realism. Hugh Jackman is known for his singing and dancing prowess on-stage, but little of this ever made it on the big screen until now. (let’s forget about Les Misérables…) Fortunately, The Greatest Showman makes the best use of his affable persona in telling a highly romanced version of P. T. Barnum’s life story. Most movies reflect the obsessions and values of their times, and so it shouldn’t be surprising that a 2017 retelling of Barnum’s life would focus on themes of anti-discrimination and empowerment, ennobling those who—in earlier days—would have been presented as freaks. Nobody will be surprised to learn that the real-life Barnum was far more complex than the amiable huckster-who-learns-better from the movie—after all, much like Barnum’s marks, we’re here for the show and what’s a little mutually agreed-upon film-flammery if we’re decently entertained? It helps that the musical numbers are usually as broad and brash as the film requires—I particularly liked “The Other Side” with its synchronized use of diegetic sounds in a context that goes from reality to fantasy in a blink, and, of course, both “The Greatest Show” as meant to be the marquee song and “This is me” as the power empowerment ballad. Jackman is great in the title role, fully able to do the big song-and-dance routines he was pining for. Michelle Williams is adequate in a supporting role, although Zac Efron proves better than expected in a role that, after all, goes back to his teenage-heartthrob musical roots. Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya and Keala Settle all seize their chance to shine in smaller roles. We can certainly quibble about the deviations from the historical record (or should we, given the film’s clear and early refusal to be realistic?) and the way that a proudly diverse cast ends up validating a white businessman’s life, but the film works really well in its chosen musical genre. At barely 105 minutes, The Greatest Showman focuses on the razzle-dazzle more than that rather simplistic plot and it works well enough to sustain the film. Director Michael Gracey does well in his first feature film. During the credit sequence, pay attention to the corners of the title cards for extra jokes.

  • Body Heat (1981)

    Body Heat (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2018) I watched Body Heat based on nothing more than availability (it was playing and it ranked fairly high on the list of 1981 movies I hadn’t yet seen) and was pleasantly surprised to find out it was an updated riff on classic noir movies such as Double Indemnity, albeit sexed up for the eighties. William Hurt is fine as the pitiable lawyer protagonist, but it’s Kathleen Turner who leaves a lasting impression as the woman that upends everything for him. If you understand the film’s true genre early on (as the reference to Double Indemnity suggests), there are few true surprises along the way of the film’s many twists and turns, but the execution of the story is good enough that it doesn’t matter. The atmosphere of an unbearably torrid Florida is excellent, and the film delves early and deep in the “everyone is bad” moral attitude—we quickly understand that nobody here turns out virtuous. The homage to noir movies is excellent. It makes for a conventional but satisfying thriller, the kind of film that we don’t nearly see that often almost thirty-five years later. Even watching Body Heat in dubbed (European) French added a special je-ne-sais quoi to the film, making it feel even more of a pastiche than it would have been in its original language.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, July 2021) It went without saying that TCM’s look at neo-noir would include Body Heat, and it was just as given that I’d give it another look. One of the quintessential examples of how noir themes could be reinterpreted decades later, this Florida-set thriller set an example rarely met, let alone exceeded. An impressive cast, led by Kathleen Turner (as a neo-femme fatale) and William Hurt (as a semi-stupid lawyer), gets this sweaty thriller going, but it’s really writer-director Lawrence Kasdan who gets the credit for updating noir tropes to early 1980 Florida, creating a piece that’s timeless forty years later. It’s ingenious, devious, atmospheric and graphic at once – a terrific script is the canvas on which the rest of the film plays. It’s quite wonderful to rewatch even when you know where it’s going, because the execution is so good.

  • Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie [The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie] (1972)

    Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie [The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie] (1972)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2018) I liked Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie quite a bit more than I expected, which is saying something given my usual reluctance toward surrealism and/or French cinema of the 1970s. Writer/director Luis Buñuel does have a few surprises up his sleeve, though, the best of those being the dry black humour of a film in which anything and everything can happen. Once you accept that Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie is pure surrealism (which doesn’t take all that long, even taking into account that 1970s French bourgeoisie was weird enough), the rest is simple joy as the film zigs and zags between dreams and absurdity. Violence abounds, but the film remains riotously funny even as the black comedy gets even darker. The flipside is that nothing means much, so it’s not really worth watching the film for characters or plotting as much as a series of sketches featuring more or less the same cast. Which isn’t to say that the film is meaningless comedy—while it’s strongest when it’s at its funniest, there’s enough of a graphic (at times unsubtle) illustration of hypocrisy to keep thematic engines running. Even for plot-centred viewers such as myself, meaningless isn’t the same thing as worthless, and Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie gives us enough narrative breadcrumbs to sweeten its own surrealist intent. I liked it more than I thought I would. In fact, I may even enjoy a repeated viewing in a few years.

  • Dinosaur (2000)

    Dinosaur (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2018) At fifty-some movies and counting, the output of Disney Animation Studios has been inconsistent at best—some of them are classics, and others have been nearly forgotten along the way. Even if it was a box office hit back in 2000, Dinosaur now languishes in the Disney bottom shelf, plagued by the absence of a princess, visually dated technological choices and overtaken by later movies (i.e. The Ice Age series) reusing similar concepts to better effect. It’s true that by choosing to focus on a photo-realistic representation of a dinosaur at a time when it was barely achievable to do so, Dinosaur shoots itself in the foot. Overlaying CGI characters over real backgrounds was a plausible choice before 2000—It would take fifteen more years, until The Good Dinosaur, before entirely computer-generated scenery could be mistaken for real-life photography. Still, it does look weird at times: Dinosaur is best watched today in as low a quality as you can tolerate, so pick that DVD over the Blu-ray version if you can. It doesn’t help that the film looks better than it sounds—or, more accurately, that it goes from an intriguing dialogue-free film to a kid’s comedy as soon as the animals start talking like teenagers. That, more than the dated special effects, dooms the film to third-tier status: It’s not even interesting dialogue, and it doesn’t really lead to an interesting plot either. The basic tension between the film’s then cutting-edge visuals (still generally beautiful) and the much-dumber plot and dialogue are enough to be exasperating. While Dinosaur can still be watched today, it does feel like a re-thread of other versions of the same idea done before and since.

  • Alice in Wonderland (1951)

    Alice in Wonderland (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, On Blu-ray, October 2018) I grew up on a lot of Disney paraphernalia, so in a sense I’ve always known about Alice in Wonderland even if my memories of the film were hazy at best. I half-revisited the film two years ago alongside my daughter, but didn’t really write a review because my viewing was repeatedly interrupted—What I could see from the film was episodic, psychedelic and more interesting as an animation piece than a feature-length narrative. I decided to revisit the film in a less distracted state to find out if it made more sense when watched from beginning to end and … it doesn’t. For all of the familiar iconography and the set pieces that everyone remembers and the movie summary that figures in picture books, the full-length version of Alice in Wonderland is a trippy succession of absurd episodes that doesn’t really build to anything coherent. While that’s the point of the original Lewis Carroll book, it’s also a bit of a disappointment for basic movie viewers who expect something more narrative-driven. (A question to be answered by others: how popular was the film with stoner audiences?) To be fair, the animation in the film is really, really good—It looks much better than some of the seventies and eighties Disney movies, for instance, and there’s quite a visual imagination on display from the various set pieces that form the bulk of the film. Narratively, however, it sounds as if the Disney animators got permission to do half a dozen psychedelic episodes of the sort seen in earlier movies (most notably Snow White, Fantasia and Dumbo) and string them together. Having read (and re-re-re-read) the film’s junior novelization more than once as a bedtime tale, I was still disappointed and surprised at the lack of coherence in the film. In the end, this remains a second-tier Disney Animation Studio release—the animation is too good (and Alice too significant a character) to be forgotten, but it’s not on the level of the other iconic productions from the studio. And if you want a second advice, ask my daughter—she wasn’t overly impressed by the film on her first viewing, and never asked to see it again.

  • Kaze no tani no Naushika [Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind] (1984)

    Kaze no tani no Naushika [Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind] (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2018) Criticizing Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is tantamount to blasphemy in animation circles: the film has become a classic throughout the decades, and its impact in the kind of fantasy imagination as displayed in 1984 is only blunted by it being one of many incredibly imaginative feature films from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki. Taking place in a far future where humanity struggles to survive in a post-apocalyptic environment, it offers still-unique visions of repulsive creatures, intense combat, war between tribes, cognitive breakthrough leading to peacemaking. It’s very much in-line with other Miyazaki films such as Howl’s Moving Castle or Castle in the Sky. While we’ve seen similar offering in the decades since its initial production, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind remains unique viewing today. This being said, I can’t say that I enjoyed it all that much—I still have trouble processing the lower frame rates of even top-tier 1980s animation, the creatures are designed to be disgusting and there have been far more interesting twists on the post-apocalyptic genre since then. But that may actually be part of Nausicaä’s heritage: I have a feeling that its success allowed the unbridled go-for-broke fantasy world-building of much of modern anime, ironically making it feel a bit staid compared to its progeny. Still, it’s a classic for a reason … although I’d be wary of showing it to the pre-teen set.

  • Love Story (1970)

    Love Story (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2018) With a title as generic as Love Story, it’s almost unfair to complain that the film is as by-the-numbers as it can be. It doesn’t help that its premise has been absorbed in pop culture and often regurgitated in grotesque ways since then. It doesn’t help either that much of the film now sounds like melodramatic tripe to today’s audiences accustomed to a bit more substance. Of course, we weren’t there in 1970, when the movie out-grossed everything else in theatres, earned no less than an Oscar nomination, spawned a best-selling novel and a sequel. What works for one audience may not work one (or two) generations later. This being said, even despite the dubious charm of Ryan O’Neal (Ali McGraw easily out-acts him), Love Story does manage to work once in a while: The banter between the two leads becomes increasingly effective in its own sarcastic way, and by the time the famous ending strikes after being announced in the film’s first line, we’re kind of sorry for those two kids. (Although I think that most are far too quick to forgive Oliver for not telling Jenny about her illness. Or, heck, her doctor—what’s with the malpractice?) The class-warfare thing is a bit overdone (with Oliver being, frankly, a big jerk about it all) and the film’s much-celebrated “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” didn’t make sense before watching the film and still doesn’t make sense after watching it. Other movies for other times—in Love Story’s case, its success may have been its downfall: So often imitated or derided that it doesn’t look as impressive nowadays.

  • C’era una volta il West [Once Upon a Time in the West] (1968)

    C’era una volta il West [Once Upon a Time in the West] (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2018) Is Once Upon a Time in the West the western to end all westerns? Probably not, but watching it after seeing Sergio Leone’s Eastwood-led man-with-no-name trilogy, I was struck at the sheer scope of his achievement here. Far from the low-budget heroics of A Fistful of Dollars, Leone goes for big-budget maximalism in showing how the railroad makes its way to an isolated western town, and the violence that ensues. It takes a while for everything to come into focus, but when it does we have a four-ring circus between a nameless protagonist (Charles Bronson’s “Harmonica,” and you know the tune he plays), a woman trying to transform herself in the West (Claudia Cardinale, captivating), an evil industrialist henchman (Henry Fonda, playing a villain!) and a bandit there to mess everything up (Jason Robart, not outclassed by anyone else). The four quadrants of the plot having been defined, the film then takes on its narrative speed—although at no fewer than 165 minutes and considering Leone’s typically contemplative style, there isn’t quite enough plot here to sustain the film’s duration. Still, it’s entertaining enough if you’re not in a hurry—This is clearly a film by someone who has seen a lot of westerns, and it regurgitates familiar elements in entertaining permutations. Plus there’s Leone’s visual style—the film’s best shot is a slow pullback from a man about to be hanged from an arch, with Monument Valley as a majestic backdrop. Not being much of a Western fanatic (although I appreciate it more and more as I see the best movies of the genre), I can say that there’s a limit to how much I can like Once Upon a Time in the West, but it was more entertaining than I expected, and almost as good as its lengthy running time would justify.