Bo Arne Vibenius, Sweden, 1974, 104 min.

When a film’s only redeeming quality is getting to see Christina Lindberg looking cool in a trench coat and eye patch, then there are problems.

This Swedish film received cult status the day Quentin Tarantino said that he loved it. Of course, he referred to it under it’s much better alternate title: They Call Her One-Eye.

On paper, Thriller: A Cruel Picture looks like it could be good, and if not good, at least entertaining. The film tells the story of a young girl who is kidnapped, forcibly addicted to heroine, blinded in one eye, and forced into prostitution. Don’t worry though! Her captor gives her one day off a week! Unfortunately for him, she uses that day to train in martial arts, firearms, and stunt driving (Yes, stunt driving!). With these new found skills, she tries to get bloody revenge on her captor and his clients.

Sounds like grindhouse at its best. But, unfortunately, it is incredibly slow, horribly directed, and very very stupid. Not that grindhouse films have to be intelligent, but the best ones are and the good ones are at least engaging and entertaining.

One of the most annoying things about this film is that the director used a high-speed camera. Not just once, or twice, or thrice. At least a dozen times the action goes into super-super slow-mo. The fight scenes, the gunshots. It was agonizing how long it takes for Christina’s fist to hit someone’s face.

Besides the poor direction,  another big problem was how muddled and strange the script actually was. I mean, she is forced to prostitute out of her captors apartment, but she gets a day off? Also, towards the end, after killing two people she waits by the bodies for no real reason. Two cops come, and then she kills them and takes their police car. She had a car… am I missing something? Then! Then she goes on this joy riding spree, riding other cars off the road and watching them burst into flame for no apparent reason.

Sure, the film makes a good poster and has a good plot summary, but who cares? It’s not particularly violent or graphic. There is some nudity and some blood, but the movie-going public needs something smarter. Christina Lindberg, no matter how cool she looks, should not be the only good thing in a movie.

John Carney, Ireland, 2006, 85 min.

Even after watching films for your whole life, you still manage to get blown away by something new and different and perfect every few years. For me, Once is that film.

Writer and director John Carney manages to keep the film thoroughly engaging without resorting to action or sex or conflict.  It’s the story of a young Irish guitar player, and his relationship with a Czech immigrant who he meets while playing music on the street. Simple enough, right?

What you may not know is that most of the film is spent just watching these two play music together. Not just any sort of music, either. Good music. Heartfelt folk-rock written and performed by the two actors: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.

They meet bychance in the street and soon after realize that they both have one thing in common: The love of music. They start to play together, and we can watch their relationship and their emotions unfold through the songs that they play. This is by no means a “romance”, however. For the whole movie, they never kiss. The connection between them is palpable, but they both have other commitments. She has a child, and a husband still in the Czech Republic. He has a lost love in London that he still has feelings for, and more importantly the chance to make something of himself.

The only thing the two unnamed main characters have for their relationship is the music they create. It starts off private, just the two of them, but soon the music takes over the whole film. As the characters become closer and closer, the viewer comes closer and closer to them through their songs.

What is really remarkable about this film is that the premise is so simple and so powerful, but I have never seen anything like it before. Its a musical, but instead of the giant Hollywood show-stoppers, we get small intimate recording sessions. Instead of visual flair, we get emotional depth. Instead of wildly unrealistic setpeices, we get incredibly moving true-to-life scenarios.

The director keeps things simple. Simple camera placement, natural lighting, hand held shots, long takes. He lets the music and the characters speak for the film, directing subtly and with a simple grace missing from so many things in life.

What really holds it together is the music. The instense heart-felt vocals and sweet melodies of the lead actors. If the music was bad, then this film would have been bad as well, but with two such talented people as Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova in the leads, this film is anything but. It is a must see by any standard.

Chantal Akerman, Belgium, 1975, 201 min.

Due to the release of this film on Criterion DVD, I am publishing a review I wrote many years ago. It’s poorly written, but my viewpoints still stand.

This film focuses on three days in the life of its title character, Jeanne Dielman. She’s a Belgium housewife/single mother who takes gentleman callers into her flat to get her income. The film at over three hours, is told in a flat repetitive style that lends itself to the daily life of this particular housewife. The camera holds on the actress, Delphine Seyrig, as she performs menial tasks like cooking, cleaning, folding, sewing, etc. Most things are shown in their entirety, and after only a few minutes, one gets a real sense of how this woman lives.

The film opens midway through the first day, and we see Jeanne’s rituals slowly play out, very deliberately. She has a specific way and method she does things. It seems like she has been doing everything this way for years. She starts off cooking, and cleaning, turning the lights on and off as she leaves each room. Its all very systematic. Soon the doorbell rings and she lets in an older man. They proceed to the bedroom. The camera holds outside for a moment. At this point we know what’s happening inside, so we don’t need to see it. When they come out, he pays her and leaves. Other than the prostitution thing, she seems to be a normal, boring housewife (no offense intended).

The day goes on and we meet her teenaged son. He comes home, and dinner is served. They eat in silence, exchanging few words. In fact, the dinner scene is very effective. Jeanne eats her soup like a machine. Slowly sipping spoon after spoon until her bowl is empty. The only thing she says to her son is to stop reading at the table. He does and the meal continues.

The rest of her day consists of dishes, sewing, and saying goodnight to her son. She gets into bed, the lights go out, and a moment later the lights go on. She has slept the night and has risen early to prepare breakfast and do the other mundane things that need doing.

The next day is almost exactly the same. Its basically another hour of us watching her in her daily rituals. This repetition serves to solidify her systematic life in the viewers mind. Almost exactly the same things happen as did the previous day. This time, we get to see her morning errands when she goes out to the stores to buy food and sewing materials, stops for coffee, and arrives home in time for another gentleman caller. The dinner scene is repeated again, and Jeanne tells her son to stop reading at the table once more.

This time, however, she has trouble with the dinner. Something happened with the potatoes and it took her longer to cook them. Since we are so used to her systemic life, this little change comes as some sort of strange blow. It makes one feel uneasy. There is no real reaction from the two characters, but the awkwardness seems all that more apparent because of it.

There is some back story revealed about her husband during a creepy conversation she has with her son when she says goodnight to him, and this is something to note about because it may tie into the ending depending on how you look at it. He talks about how when he first learned about sex from a friend, he thought of how his father did it to his mother, and how he would have nightmares and scream for his father to stop. His friend had described the penis as a sword, and the son equated this with pain. He didn’t want to see his mother hurt by his father. After this strange conversation, she goes to bed and so ends day two.

Day three is where things start to change. Again, the acts she does are repetitive ad nauseam, but little things start to go wrong. She gets shoe polish on her sleeve, she forgets to button a button on her robe, the coffee she makes doesn’t come out right. Nothing major, but again all these little things seem very major in the life of Jeanne Dielman, so major that the audience probably feels it as well.

While she is out doing her errands, things deteriorate even more. She can’t find the button she needs to fix her sons jacket, her usual at seat the coffee shop is taken, and the waitress she always gets has gone home for the day. She feels so out of sorts that she even tries to reach out to a shopkeeper by telling her a bit about her life, which we know she would never normally do. When she gets home and has to baby sit her neighbors baby for a while, it won’t stop crying every time she tries to pick it up.

This is a good time to start talking about the sound design of this film. It has no music, but even on the horrible bootleg I was watching, the sound was loud, and accurate. The clicking of the silverware, the hissing of the stove… all these everyday noises are very very prominent. The above-mentioned baby sounds almost demonic. Its very unsettling and it shows how increasingly unsettled Jeanne herself is getting.

The climax of the film is given as much weight as some of the little things that go wrong in her day. It is such a huge moment, yet it is told in the way all those small moments are told. If you blink, you may miss it. But that is life. Most times the big events in ones life happen very quickly, and are surrounded by the dull boredom of our dally existence.

SPOILER

Suddenly we are in the midst of her having sex with one of her clients. Until this time, we could picture her quietly and unemotionally doing her job until its finished, just like most of her housework. This time, however, she appears to be getting pleasure out of the act, but not wanting to at the same time. She tries to push the man off of her, but he continues and it appears that they both orgasm. After this, she gets dressed while he dozes on the bed. Then, without warning, she takes a pair of her sewing scissors and stabs him in the neck, killing him. The final shot of the film consists of her sitting at the table. Not showing any emotion or doing anything. For once, at peace.

END SPOILER

Over all, this film is probably more fun to read and write about than it is to watch. But its not supposed to be fun. Its supposed to make an impact. There are things you can only get from the film by watching it in its entirety. Is it feminist? A lot of people call it that. It is a commentary on the life of the quintessential housewife. The ending definitely has feminist overtones. One can look at it as the only way for a housewife to get out of this vicious cycle of repetitiveness. It is harsh… but its also true.

http://www.youtube.com/user/dvinitystudios

I enjoy criticizing other people’s films, but here is my chance to give back. This link contains all of my short films which are of varying quality. Some even have LCD in them!

Please watch and enjoy.

Peter & Bobby Farrelly, USA, 1994, 107 min.

CinemaSodomy is our recurring feature where we force each other to watch films that we never would have otherwise.

If films were measured by a Wheel of Intelligence, Dumb and Dumber is so stupid it would fly straight past Idiotland (ruled by the narrowminded Dictatorial Tyrant TC) and straight into Geniusville  (population: LCD).  Trust me, that’s a good thing.  I think everyone has at one time met someone so inept that they’re not quite sure how the other has managed to survive (coughcoughTCcough).  This is a film about two such beings, call them soulmates if you will, who have managed to find each other and eek out an existence together, however pathetic it may be.  This film is their story.

Listen, the first thing you need to know is that this is a Farrelly Brothers movie.  The directing, camera work, special effects, etc etc etc aren’t going to catch your attention.  This isn’t one of those sissy foreign language films TC loves so much.  The thing that will catch your eye is the vulgarity and the humor of the film.  Quite simply, this is a big, blundering oaf of a comedy.  It’s not witty.  There is nothing subtle about it.  What it is in actuality  is laugh out loud awesomeness.  I even caught TC chortling a few times before he remembered he’s supposed to hate this bourgeouis crap.        - LCD

The history of film is rife with dynamic duos. Groucho and Harpo, Riggs and Murtaugh, Jay and Silent Bob, and now… Lloyd and Harry of Dumb & Dumber. These titular mongoloids undertake a cross-country journey to Aspen where Lloyd (Jim Carrey) will meet up with the woman he loves (Lauren Holly) and attempt to settle down and live the rest of their lives in happiness. Harry (Jeff Daniels) comes along for the ride because each is so inept that they couldn’t possibly survive on their own.

Like Odysseus before them, they encounter assorted roadblocks on their way and slowly but surely approach their goal. But the draw of the film is not in the story. In fact, the story is thrown in as an afterthought. It feels like the filmmakers thought of these characters, made a list of scenerios to put them in, and then figured out the story later as a way to connect them together. The main characters, and their eccentricities, are the driving force in the film.

It’s a gag film, and the gags are dumb and fast. For a while it works. The performances of our abnormal heroes are unique and sort-of charming. The style is clean and colorful. For the first reel, I was becoming pleasantly surprised. Had LCD forced me to watch a film that I would actually like?

No, of course not. After thirty minutes the charm of the film wears off and I was left watching stupid people do stupid things for another hour. What I liked about it at the beginning was not enough to extend it into a feature. The charm of the characters, the speed of the jokes, the solid production values were nice, but without a story, rounded characters, or insight, the film goes nowhere fast.

The first part is dumb but fun, but I should have taken the title to heart. What starts off dumb, just gets dumber. By the time the midway point rolled around I was done with the characters and didn’t care about the story. The film turns into an ugly mess. If I had to rewrite it, I would have Lloyd and Harry drive their shaggy dog truck over a cliff about twenty minutes in. Now that would have been a good film.