Most Meaningful First Viewings and Re-Evaluations of 2013 Part 2: The "B"s

Baccano! (Takahiro Omori, 2007)

If the world of Baccano! didn't feel as distinct and rich as it was, this would have failed. The sadistic violence questionable, the out-of-order plot structure a mess, and character names laughable. But it works. It's too playful and clever to be pointlessly lurid. In the world of immoral people, you get the story's setting rules, one where Death is baffled what he should do with the events that take place, the brutality is commonplace and psychopaths can have a romantic subplot, and Jacuzzi is a first name that doesn't lead to someone else snickering at you. The only innocents are so dumb they're in a heavenly state. And the structure, clearly planned out in a rare moment of careful preparation in the anime industry, is inventive, packs a punch, and leaves with a clever take on the idea of storytelling. The first episode is about how to even start a story, but by the end, even though there are more books in the original source series, and more stories to tell, you feel everything wrapped up perfectly.

Belladonna of Sadness (Eiichi Yamamoto, 1973)
And some anime doesn't look like what is perceived to be anime at all even in visuals. Feminist yet sexually perverse. Little in terms of actual moving animation, but a masterpiece in technique. Sensual, yet the prog rock will throw you into an audible high. High art yet utterly manic at times. It was the creation of an animation studio that was already about to be closed for the failure of the previous feature film they made, the result a work of desperation with no intention for mainstream popularity and all about pushing the form as far as possible. Emotional and sensory, giving fantasy and storytelling the weight and detail it deserves. Because of this there's no version available in the West. But I've been waiting to see this film for many years and it was worth it.

Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)
Befitting my realisation of how I adore Italian genre cinema, it's fitting to have liked this. Is it conservative in its message of how these films are corrupt? Likely, but I can push this fact to the side. And it's as much of a film about a protagonist with so much pressure on him he could snap in any other way. A world he hasn't been to, a language barrier in his way, in dark sound rooms cut off from the outside, where he has to hear artificially made screams and deaths over and over again. A place where he sees the misogynistic egos of pretentious directors and the despair of mistreated actresses. A damnation of this sort of cinema it might be, but it becomes one in the sense of deadening mood choking the air. Of how just sound as a object, as with Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974), can effect a human being and how you perceive your surroundings.

Beyond The Door II aka. Shock (Mario Bava, 1977)
I was expecting this to be minor Bava...but minor Bava proves to be better than most horror films. Toys lined up a staircase, stair by stair, is such a simplistic but effective way to creep a viewer out.

Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)
Not only of historical importance. It's one of the greatest films ever made with one of the most powerful endings ever seen. Nothing that could generate the emotional sadness I felt is a mere dry, museum piece of films studies, and this needs to be remember so it isn't neglected.

The Big O Series 1 (Kazuyoshi Katayama, 1999)
Originally I had mixed feelings for this series, and it does end on a completely cliff-hanger. Gambling for a second season, which rarely succeeds, but actually did with this. Possibly just to enrage to viewer for kicks. Its episodic nature isn't really my sort of thing. But its stayed with me. For the characters. The obvious influence of the 90s Batman animation, which members of this series' production actually worked on, melded with Japanese anime is jubilant and bombastic, encapsulated by a main opening theme where the word "QUEEN" is shouted in capital letters when you hear it. I need to locate the second series - its controversial for screenwriter Chiaki Konaka driving the fragments of a story on memory and false reality into more abstract territory, but as someone who has become found of his unconventional style, I may be the odd man out who could prefer said second series.

Black Magic Rites (Renato Polselli, 1973)
Probably what Berberian Sound Studio had in mind for its film-within-a-film, but this real one is probably sillier and haphazard than the fake one might have been. I've fallen in love with Italian genre cinema from the seventies for both its quality, and for films like this that are completely ramshackle, and at times utterly dumb, and yet still have virtues like mood and a good soundtrack. I wonder what exactly fed into the creators of such films, not only so I could dig deep into why films don't feel like this anymore, but to be able to say why I will even defend this one.

Blood Simple (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1984)
It the beginning, long before we were waiting for Inside Llewyn Davis (2012) in Britain, the Coens funded a film from the money of dentists and lawyers, and made this film. Already from the beginning they knew what good dialogue should sound like, how to create memorable characters, and choose great actors to play them, how to make a visually arresting film, and were starting their cherry picking through American cinema from the past by making a murky crime movie noir would be proud of. There was much rejoicing, and exactly thirty years later, these two men would go to make all sorts of films that made American cinema a little more interesting

Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
David Hemmings standing in an open piece of park completely unable to believe what is real and not. What British cinema should be, be it by an acclaimed European auteur or a British director, as long as it retains what Britain of any era means, of pause, imagination, conflict between glamour and doubt, of internal thoughts and realities, subjectivity and creativity, and nothing patronising or celebrating mediocrity. But beyond this, I may be finally ready to see Antonioni's skill, as architect as much as a filmmaker, as the next year rolls in.

Boccaccio ’70 (Federico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti
and Mario Monicelli, 1962)
Just a great anthology film. Fellini brings entertaining fantasy, while the others, able to see the original version with all four segments, show three sides to love and human relationships. All of them are full of memorable performances and visually memorable content. It entices me to find the other European anthology films of the sixties which put great directors together. And made me wish they were more common now and more publically known.

Born on the Fourth of July/Savages (Oliver Stone, 1989/2012)
Two versions of Oliver Stone, younger and older, but they're the same man. Disillusion when your ideals are corrected, madness when your ideals actually go up against a real threat who will send you a recording of a person who crossed them being beheaded as a warning. One film is of a man, wheelchair bound, finding his way to do something. The other is two groups in two different countries side-by-side with each other calling the other savages and ruining each other. Violence in either case is just ugly. One was acclaimed, the other dismissed. Both by the same smart and talented man.

Borom sarret (Ousmane Sembene, 1966)
Short films are dismissed next to features films mainly because they are only a quarter of a length of said features, and have been badly neglected in distribution to a wide range of people. But they can be just as important, if not a key work, in a director's filmography. They can be far more concise and thoughtful than a full length film. A simple story of a man who is punished for just wanting to do his job, a universal story but one clearly full of indignation for the environment the late author-filmmaker was living within. Borom sarret is becoming just as good for me as director's own Xala (1975) was, and with both I desire to see his other work now.

Brain Damage (Frank Henenlotter, 1988)
Barring the Basket Case sequels, which for all their moments of inventiveness, felt like the films requested from him to make to get the likes of Frankenhooker (1990) made, Henenlotter is completely in love with his work from watching a movie like this. That such an intentionally ridiculous film, a deliciously grimy one, can both have real drama, a realer sense of environment than higher budgeted films, a moment in a subway train of actual tragedy, but is also hilarious, bizarre, has a brain parasite more charismatic than most actors, with a great singing voice, and at its end feels like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is about to burst out of a cerebral cortex is an impressive feat.

Brian De Palma
 (The Fury (1978), Dressed to Kill (1980), Body Double (1984),
Snake Eyes (1998), Passion (2012))
The image is up to question within a De Palma film. Sincere emotions do shine, but in his films, all is usually not what it seems. Minds connecting in one mental space, dreams, distorted realities, multiple realities, and a love scene as envisioned as a Frankie Goes To Hollywood video. Paying tribute to classic and esthetical cinema, from Hitchcock to Argento, De Palma nonetheless is his own unique director despite his detractors because of how far he pushes his cinema. Moments of emotion are potent, but the camera tricks are as complex as you could ever see in a film. Only Akio Jissoji seems to throw the gauntlet down at him here.

The Brute/That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Buñuel, 1953/1977)
I loved both films, but The Brute, from Buñuel's neglected Mexican period, is the standout, a simplistic plot that feels just as rich and suitable trangressive as his acclaimed, final surrealist period. With both films, one I've never seen, the later rewatched, I got something of worth.