Hey folks, Harry here with The Fat Man and his look at Venice Film Festival 2006 with INLAND EMPIRE, THE FOUNTAIN, BLACK BOOK, BLACK DAHLIA, CHILDREN OF MEN and much more. Ah, to see those films and Venice all at once... The Fat Man has my envy...
Ahoy! A few years ago I submitted some reviews from Cannes, and have done this year's Venice Film Festival as well. If you use this, call me the Fat Guy. Herein you will find words about: INLAND EMPIRE (note the caps, they're Mr. Lynch's orders), Verhoeven's Zwartbork, Black Dahlia, the Fountain, Resnais' Private Fears in Public Places, and perhaps a handful of others. Please forgive that these reviews are (mostly) all positive, I only feel about writing about the films that I liked. Avast!
INLAND EMPIRE Having now seen the new Lynch film twice I have to say that - at the risk of hyperbolizing - it is probably his least accessable (at least upon first viewing) since Eraserhead. The film is 172 minutes, and this length seems to only serve the purpose of having more stuff in the film. It's like in Mulholland Drive where the last 30 or so minutes seem to come out of nowwhere and don't make sense at all until you've seen it 4 or so times? Well, INLAND EMPIRE has that but it is over an hour. Initially, I thought it lacked that certain sense of beauty that all of Lynch's films have, however when watching it for a second time I realized just how wrong this was of me. In fact, the end of the film reaches moments of such pure amazing beauty that I was probably just too baffled to think about it the first time. As a movie, I think it is a nice companion piece to Mulholland Drive. It also concerns an actress (Laura Dern) and the events surrounding her life following a visit from a neighbor (this scene was especially great the second time, because only then do you realize what the neighbor is actually saying). However the film goes deeper into certain ideas than Mulholland Drive, while alternately leaving them (or so it seems) less explored. Large segments of the film also take place in Poland, while others concern a girl in a hotel room watching certain things on tv (including episodes of Lynch's web-series Rabbits), as well as a classical trick of scenes that are revealed at the end to have been part of the film which is being made. Lynch avoids taking the easy way out and having these scenes look different from the rest of the film in any way, which leads me to believe that further viewings will reveal more scenes which potentially are part of the "movie within" as well. Knowing what we do about Lynch's position with meditation and his beliefs regarding the untapped potential of the human brain helps while watching the film, especially considering the way that certain scenes and sequences play out as a result of one character or another's mindset. Initially, I wasn't quite sure how to rank it with other Lynch films, or if I had even liked it. It certainly doesn't seem as long as it is. However after two days of thinking about it and another viewing, I am starting to warm up to it. What it lack's in Eraserhead's charming austerity or the immediate beauty of Blue Velvet, INLAND EMPIRE makes up for in substance and mystery. Because of this, I tend to think that it will eventually take its place alongside the best of Lynch films, but right now seems too impenetrable to fully appreciate or consider. Word is it gets released in America this November.
Zwartboek. Paul Verhoeven's new film Zwartboek was one of the three best films I saw at the festival. Classical film making in every sense of the word while still recalling enough of Verhoeven's previous work (keep an eye out for gratuitious crotch shots and close ups of bullet removal) the film basically worked for me on every level. Concerning a Jewish girl for whom nothing goes right during WWII, Carice van Houten (who was absolutely the best actress in any film of the festival) goes from one hardship to another, eventually ending up as a head SS man's dame. Why the film worked for me is the same reason I love all of Fassbinder's films: at it's core, it is about the persistance of unwavering beauty in all reaches of life (it also helped that van Houten looks and acts like a young Hanna Schygulla). Not only a great film, but a great war film as well. Verhoeven's directing is so confident and assured that his time off from film making seems to have done him a great deal of good. As more time passes since I saw it, I am starting to forget a handful of scenes although there are more than enough that were so amazing(ly beautiful, especially one in which van Houten is forced to perform at a birthday celebration in Hitler's honor, all red dress and glamour) that I cannot stop thinking about them. I am surprised the film didn't find more supporters and awards.
The Fountain. I haven't a ton to say about this film except the following: it was for some reason the most maligned film of the festival, I didn't like the first 60 minutes much at all, and the last 30 made me absolutely fall in love with it. Not since 2001 has such banality and sparce-ness paid off so brilliantly in a collage of religion, sight, sound and film. The film is very easy to dislike (it strikes me as odd, but some people do not like 2001) but I think the only way to dislike it is if you expect, as the trailers promise, a film about two people over the course of 1000 years told in three different time periods. In fact, the film is much simpler than that. Weisz is dying of cancer and Hugh Jackman is trying to cure this. She writes a book that takes place in 1500 from which we see excerpts with the two of them as the main characters and he escapes into a fantasy world when the stress of trying to cure cancer becomes too much for him. The fantasy world bears a slight visual resemblance to "the future," but who knows? All three storylines are thematically, if not narratively, linked and I think this is why people disliked the film. The Fountain is not for people who are expecting not to think during the movie or after it, but anyone willing to devote a pleasant dicussion with their friends to the film will find it rewarding. But damn, the final sequence is so amazing and beautiful I wish I could see it again right now!
Children of Men. Now here is a film I liked MUCH more than I had expected. The trailer had me excited and the advertising campaign had me thinking 12 Monkeys (one of the greatest films ever made) but I did not expect to like it as much as I did. Cuaron's direction is surprisingly strong, in that kind of Greengrass-Soderbergh docu/realism sort of way that only works sometimes. However Cuaron goes the extra mile, with many of the shots lasting suprisingly long (several last over a minute and cover hundreds of feet of ground, up building stairs, etc.) with one incredible instance wherein a person gets shot and the blood stays on the camera for all of the remainder of the shot, which is about two minutes (if I'm not mistaken). The film also raises some interesting concerns about the state of the child-less world in which it takes place. Clive Owen is good as well. Several days on I actually find myself recalling more than I had expected, but the film is alternately exciting and interesting. Not outstanding, but certainly a better than average, solid film.
The Black Dahlia. Black Dahlia is a masterpiece. De Palma's film owes as much to his own body of work (specifically the Untouchables) as it does to classical Hollywood noir. All of his distinguishing touches are here (an amazing 360 shot, one Touch of Evil homage where the camera goes down a sidewalk, up and over a building, then down and back around to the street, several Hitchcock staples including a good blonde/bad brunette dichotomy, two men who are alike in many ways but find a thin line that separates them, sexually free woman being tamed, and so on). De Palma shows an understanding and respect for the time period, while not being afriad to infuse it with some touches of his own rather than being tied down to simply mimicking the style (see also Brick), and because of this is able to make a film that is clearly his own while displaying an amazing love of and respect for cinema. In fact, cinema plays a large role in the film, as there are several points where Josh Hartnet's character Bucky watches black and white screen tests of the murdered actress, in scenes that very specifically recall DePalma's Body Double. In fact, Hartnet is a classic De Palma obsessed-male (see Body Double, Blow Out, Untouchables, Snake Eyes). Another film that took me by surprise.
Private Fears in Public Places. A quick note about this excellent film: if you like Alain Resnais (Hiroshima, Mon Amour and Last Year at Marienbad in particular) you'll probably spend the first 80 minutes of this film wondering what he is doing and the last 40 realizing that it simply took that long to set up all the characters well enough to make you care about what happens to them in the final 40. A very well done film for somebody that has seeminly lost his magic touch, and it even carries with it a number of classical Resnais touches such as review of memory, characters driven by their own pasts and whatnot. If this gets released in America (which it might, since he won best director) I recommend it. It starts off as a typical modern French bourgeois relationship drama, but the actors and the script help make it more than that.
A Few Days in September. Juliet Binoche stars in this movie in which she takes two children of a former colleague of hers (Nick Nolte, who sucks here as he speaks in his now-standard "I...am...so....sorry" remorseful growl) to meet him and collect money that he is about to make becuase he knows that in 5 days September 11th is going to make some people some money. It's alright, but kind of boring and probably not work seeing unless you really love Binoche (who is quite good) or actors who seems like they are reading off cue cards in that "I am acting in a movie" sort of way, as Nolte's son does.
Paprika. If you like anime, you might like this. If not, you definitely won't. Many anime fans didn't. I hope this is useful, and remember, this is the Fat Guy.
