This is the first of a regular feature where I will have short reviews of what I have been watching during the weeks. I will be doing longer posts looking at individual films, including ones already reviewed in these, but I will have to plan which film will be the best one to begin with before writing an analysis. Until then, here is what I have been watching.
Project A (Jackie Chan, 1983)
A Selection of Short Films By Paul Robertson
The Devil aka. Diabel (Andrzej Zulawski, 1972)
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Not to be confused with the Ken Russell film The Devils (1971), this is my first Zulawski film. Set during 1793 during Poland being invaded by Prussia, a Polish nobleman is taken out of imprisonment by a stranger, only to move further and further into insanity as he sees what has happened to the people he once knew. It starts promisingly with its prowling camera and a soundtrack that may divide people significantly (think 1970s progressive rock with added flute playing), but as it progresses it feels more and more hollow and just a gallery of pale people (including every female character in the film) on the verge of, or in, convulsions and acting deranged. This does concern me as I have been anticipating the DVD re-release of Zulawski’s Possession (1981) this October in the UK, and if this is any indicator of what to expect, I am just going to end up watching a film where the actors and the mood stays in a hyper-insane style for the whole film with no real mood or depth until it gets tiring. I hope for the best, after knowing about it since later adolescence, but I am slightly hesitant now after seeing The Devil.
Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz, 2009)
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Beginning with the prequel Happiness (1998) bleeding into the sequel, this film, for its moments of bleak humour, becomes less a black comedy than a drama where the ghosts of the past, of all kinds, return. It is an incredible surprise from a director who has already made great films, one which has a fantastically good cast of actors playing new characters or replacing those from the original (an act, with their weary aged faces, which makes complete sense). It is a sublime film, Solondz’s best and one of the highlights for me of 2010.
Project A (Jackie Chan, 1983)
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| [From http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/ab3219/project_a_1.jpg] |
While a turning point in Jackie Chan’s career, this Hong Kong set period martial arts film where he is faced against pirates was not as engrossing as I thought it would be. A lot of the problem is that, while some of the stunts are impressive and the fight choreographers are at their best, they don’t have the full energy and distinctiveness that superior films have, which also means that the thinly stung plotline is even more weakened as a result.
A Selection of Short Films By Paul Robertson
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| Kings of Power 4 Billion % [From http://gadgets.boingboing.net/gimages/4billion.jpg] |
· Kings of Power 4 Billion %
· The Magic Touch
· Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fighter
· Devil’s Eye
· Do The Whirlwind [By Architecture In Helsinki]
Freely available on YouTube and the internet, these works of an Australian animator Paul Robertson are as delirious as you could get, combining videogames, film references, gore and crazy deaths, anime and scantily clad female characters in works that are both tributes to these things but also willing to push taboos at the same time (cannibal, zombie babies that burst out from the stomachs of pregnant, zombie women anyone?). These are the sort of films that will put people off immediately, yet they are visually arresting nonetheless. With numerous images and actions taking place on-screen in his most frantic work – pushed to an extreme in Kings of Power 4 Billion % - Robertson possesses a great sense of twisted imagination as well as a love for popular culture that makes the selected shorts difficult to dismiss and fascinating to view.
Just to give you an example of Robertson’s work, here are the three most accessible ones I have seen. From there on, if you find them of interest, explore his longer works Kings of Power 4 Billion % and Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fighter.
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You should be concerned about Possession, since I find it to be middling Zulawski (and especially if you are not fond of the style of acting in Diabel, since it is his trademark), but I think you're selling Diabel very short. I'm sure a seasoned film fan such as yourself is familiar with distancing mechanisms, and Zulawski somehow manages to twist exaggerated emotional states into a distancing mechanism (as opposed to most people who use excessive restraint and repression instead of indulgence), but I think the acting styles also work to serve as a sort of prism for the emotional states they exaggerate - imagine light passing through a prism, the light being broken down into its parts across a broader spectrum to more readily investigate the pieces which are rendered invisible when conflated in a beam of pure sunlight. There are other ways of looking at it, but what I think is certain is that it is a consistent result of the style employed in the film. Whether that style jives with your taste is something perhaps beyond any influence I can bring to the table, but I think it is anything but empty. Kieslowski's first feature film dealt with labor disputes and Zulawski here takes on the topic of a contemporary student revolt by transporting it into the distant past and rendering that past impossible to relegate in the mind to 'ancient history'. By being so falsely historical it becomes more immediate - just as the acting style being so falsely emotional makes it become... something else. What that is may vary from viewing to viewing. All of his films tend to exist within this heightened sense, essentially turning them into nightmarish streams of consciousness (similar to Has' Hourglass Sanatorium, another great, surreal, nightmarish stream of consciousness). His style is not typical, and a typical reading of his style may render his films illegible, but if you develop a proper mindset I think they can be among the most nuanced and distinctive in all of cinema. For a more subdued approach you should check out L'important c'est d'aimer, the one immediately following Diabel in his ouvre, as well as his first film, The Third Part of the Night. Possession plays as you would expect a filmmaker of this sensibility to express his feelings after a divorce - they are intense, but they are also at times unfocused, from my perspective. On the Silver Globe is one you shouldn't miss no matter your feelings on him, simply because it is a one of a kind experience. He has other great films, as well, so if you eventually catch hold of an appreciative perspective then you will have a lot of unique, inspired, and beautiful (thanks in no small part to his choosing of some amazing cinematographers, the great Sacha Vierny included) films.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment Leaves. This will be a case of agreeing to disagree, but I am glad for an alternative perspective on this film, especially if will provide me with a good way of viewing future films by Zulawski. Exaggerated acting and distancing techniques vary for me depending on individual film. What also needs to be factored in is that I am very picky when it comes to a film's pace and mood. It is partly for technical reasons and of personal taste, but if these aspects do not 'click' for me, it does not completely work. I do not plan to give up on Zulawski yet though, as I am too interested in his work to, and I am not a person who will dismiss a director even if I didn't like one or more of their films. I have partly a completist, almost masochistic, mindset of watching as many films of a director, even ones I dislike, in hope that I will begin to understand them or at least find films that I will praiseworthy, something that has paid off partly with one director (Jean-Luc Godard). Sadly Zulawski is much underserved on DVD in the UK, with Possession's re-release being the second film of his after The Third Part of the Night available, which exceptionally annoying. I have heard of On The Silver Globe, and from its premise and background story it does sound fascinating.
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