Sleepless (2001)

From http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/Sleepless_(2001_film).jpeg

Dir. Dario Argento

First of all, after Opera (1987), my viewing of the films of Dario Argento has been spotty with a few gaps. Yet to see Mother of Tears (2007), haven't seen Trauma (1993), The Phantom of the Opera (1998) and Dracula 3D (2012). Aside from this, I've seen all the important films of his. All there is left, beyond those mentioned above, is the obscurer works. If a drop of quality has taken place, it's not the horrible downward spiral that I've heard others describe his career as having become. Instead it's a wider issue, beyond even Italy's genre cinema having declined taking its toll on his aesthetic rigor, but horror cinema in general being underused. This issue is in fact part of cinema in general, regardless of there being a climb or decline within it. If you can make a film fully through how you desired it to be, it'll be a miracle. A director with films under their belt are not safe from outside factors. Less budgets, cheaper camera, popular tastes that'll date films etc. Argento is a working filmmaker, in a profession first, that involves for more production costs than other mediums, and is an auteur secondly through the fans and critics, us, that see his films. And there are also times when the audience may have missed something that wasn't an outside influence or necessarily bad either. Once having found quite a few of his films, on the first viewings, dull, which I openly confess to having thought before rewatching those specific films, I've had a more complicated experience in my admiration for the director's work, able to see his major work at least twice. Argento has always skirted the schlocky and absurd in his prime era of giallos and supernatural horror - hockey plots, out-of-the-blue plot twists, obvious special effects. His films are legitimately great because of his style and that he can take these potential flaws in any other director's work and clearly embrace them in a baroque tone intentionally. And it's clear how deliberate it can be as well.

He would have seen having his protagonists be amateur sleuths in trying to solve murder cases, over the police, as fantastical in nature, but it's clearly done on purpose and I cannot help but think of the suspense of disbelief that exists in genre, especially crime stories. Unfortunately the virtues of suspending disbelief and embracing the clearly unrealistic has been lost on me for some time before now. It's also been lost in a lot of genre cinema. I blame the desire for realism and logic in narratives for having done this, even though both of them are mythical creatures in films purporting to be documents of reality. To embrace suspension of disbelief, which finds its biggest reservoir within the pulpiest of works, knowing flagrant in realism, is to intentionally enjoy films (or books, games etc.) that play within their own made-up realities. Even The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970), Argento's debut and most restrained work, has absurdities within it. Then he eventually went as far as having a monkey welding a razor blade in a film a decade later and likely knew how ridiculous it was. The Bird With The Crystal Plumage and The Cat O' Nine Tails (1971) were films I liked on the first viewing, and the likelihood was that they are the most streamlined and less-tangent filled films by him. After ...the Crystal Plumage, the films became more and more expanded, more tangent filled and clearly breaking to pieces the narratives they had on purpose and probably from the haphazard nature of many Italian genre cinema of the time. The most obvious example of this, was Deep Red (1975) and its extended screwball comedy sequences with David Hemmings and Daria Nicolodi; the fact that most of it was removed from the shorter English language release of the film more than likely altering how viewers would react to his film, not seeing how tongue-in-cheek and peculiar he actually was. Plots in his films were lurid and not logically rigorous, more inclined to the spectacle of pulp, Four Flies From Grey Velvet (1971) getting its title from a scientifically impossible concept to catch the killer straight from sci-fi or Victorian gothic literature. If there was a peak for this expanding and divisive excess it was undoubtedly the eighties. Inferno (1980) is the most abstract film of his, Opera pulls the carpet under its viewers' feet, and Phenomena (1985) is clinically insane. And that's not discussing the use of Iron Maiden and Saxon in the mid and late eighties films.

From http://projectdeadpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Sleepless2.png

A film like Giallo (2009) still carries the hallmarks of this auteur. As does The Card Player (2004), The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) and, returning to the film of this review, Sleepless. I don't see a sudden damnation in mediocrity to the pit of the worst of cinema fans have proclaimed it to be with him. Filmmaking, even from an outsider who hasn't picked up a camera, is such a chaotic, arbitrary bastard of a career to be an artisan in when public taste, money and resources are variable and have such a drastic effect on the final product. Those who've been championed in horror cinema especially have been just as effected by this - see John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, George Romero and so forth. Add European directors like Jess Franco, whose career was a roller coaster. Or go further, and beyond just horror films, like with Takashi Miike, a self proclaimed working director who, at one point making five films in a year, is clearly dependant on making films to live and has to do so by following what he will be able to work on, which is something I am having to accept with my disappointment with his later mainstream films. Auteurs or people with unconventional ideas are a pain in the arse for producers to work with, and as new talent exists, older veterans have ended up being ignored. A director who can keep a rich filmography usually works with whatever their budget is, even if its low, and is the equivalent of the mad lord isolated in a tower by themselves, sustained by those who've cared to listen to them. Yes, Argento and many director are countable for some really bad ideas in their weaker films - Adrian Brody's wonky accent(s) in Giallo for starters - but it's probably hell to get these productions off the ground let alone with little compromise. We forget as viewers it's a job, which can be as arbitrary as any other job we have, paid or unpaid.

A series of murders from 1983 have seemed to begin again many years later. The killer was said to have been a man with dwarfism, yet the fact that he apparently committed suicide, and the newest killings follow the originals' traits exactly, suggests that this was likely wrong. The son of one of the original victims Giacomo Gallo (Stefano Dionisi) is brought back to Turin, reacquainting himself with a crush of his past and intending to find out who actually killed his mother. Also brought back in is the original detective of the case Ulisse Moretti, played by the legendary Max Von Sydow, long retired but bringing himself into the case again as memories and his desire to close it too returns to him. The film's a throwback to Argento's first giallo films, less about who the killer turns out to be, but the labyrinth of the plotting. Giallo are more inclined to the notion of spectacle - the effect of the plotting, throwing its protagonists in the deep end, the gory deaths. It's a nasty film when it wants to be, a strange balance of cruelty and the absurd. Absurd is the right word. Argento has a clear bombastic ridiculousness to his work, sincere but winking. The same here. The spectacle of the first act, where a prostitute inadvertently gets involved with the killer and an incriminating blue file, shows the director's virtue of the elaborate. A prolonged set piece on a train. Two women involved. An inherent creativity to Argento that, dare say it, was found up to Giallo for all its failings. This is of course the film where Goblin, the Italian progressive rock band that created haunting scores for Argento's most well known films, came back together in some form to create another. The title theme sends shivers up the spine with the guitar lick that carries it, but again it proves great metaphor for an intentional, mischievous pomposity in Dario Argento's work. Music to shake the ground with but embracing excess like a starving man to food.

From http://www.mondo-digital.com/sleepless2big.jpg

The problem with Sleepless, if any, is not to do with the film's story or structure. His best work, including Suspiria (1977) and Inferno, is full of lengthy dialogue scenes and expedition. Odd tangents with no connection to the main plot. My original boredom with a lot of his films was because he got more excessive with this sort of thing, which I didn't go in expecting when I wanted lean, taught thrillers. The implausible nature, the lashings of said exposition, all the tangents, and it's clear, especially here, that Argento is in adoration of this as much as making the most stylish or tense work possible. I cannot but suspect, as we have scenes of Sydow by himself and his pet tropical bird figuring out old information on the murder case, explaining it to himself and us the viewers implausibly, that the director adores and fetishes the junky, over explained tones of a pulp paperback as much as their heightened tones and the mystery. Once you jettison the conventions of "good" narrative writing, it's obvious Argento loves the clearly implausible, the pointless, the all-the-sudden, the inane, and far from a detraction, it actually here is shown to be one of his best auteurist traits once you embrace it.

The real problem with this film is seeing how it occasionally looks daub visually. Thankfully this film has the style of the older films. But I have to get through the obvious flaw that, from around this point, and The Stendhal Syndrome, something was clearly an obsacle he put up as a director or outside groups forced upon him where his films lost their lustre from the past films. Not surprisingly it mirrors how  horror cinema became more and more obviously treated like the fast food of the medium, which effected many of the old auteurs' films. Yes, films were churned out in the days before I was born, but its feels even more obvious within the last few decades when directors known for distinct personalities in their work are minimal. Moments in this film, there are the troubling signs of how cheaper his films were becoming at least in look if not budget, clearly a compromise from the films of decades before. When you're a director known for style and elaborate camera movements, a restriction in making the films is not a good thing. The good news is that, while it would unfortunately begin to really undermine his films from The Card Player*, the style of the earlier films is still here, such as a lengthy tracking shot following along a carpet to an event that is magnificent. What has to bared in mind is that, when he started, Argento was working with Vittorio Storaro as his cinematographer, who the same year as The Bird With The Crystal Plumage did the same task with Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist. This is the same in other areas of the film's production, with Ennio Morricone as the composer. The older eras of horror cinema had a fluidity between actors to technicians switching between art and pulp cinema, particularly with Italy and Japan, without bias against either. Unfortunately Argento has to work with what he has now. With this film though he was still able to make material that shines. Considering the cinematographer for this film, Ronnie Taylor, shot his film Opera, it makes sense for the style to be there still. And of course, speaking of acting, there's Von Sydow. Sydow can leave any film with his stoic dignity shining through, as a great actor able to be good in even an awful film, as can be proved in seeing him in Judge Dread (1995) with Sylvester Stallone. The transition from Ingmar Bergman to his later films is surprising, but to bring his gravitas to this film was inspired, and in seeing him add conviction to the sillier aspects, proves why he's such a good actor. In fact no one is bad in the film in a jarring way to be honest. The cheesy English dubbing is far from the worst I've seen and still adds a lot; I'm endured much, much worse.

From http://hotdogcinema.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/sleepless-backstage.jpg

The modus operandi of the story is how a pretty nasty nursery rhyme penned for the film by Asia Argento, the director's daughter and actor/director in her own right, and from the very Grimm end of children's literature, infects someone enough to carry out a series of murders inspired by it against women. It's bizarre, but Argento has revealed in the bizarre plot ideas for four decades or so now. Taken seriously, as a director criticised for his violence, the notion of a work corrupting someone both returns back to the plot of Tenebrae (1982), and the result here becoming a playful nod to the more exaggerated of stories that does nonetheless reflects on this issue even for a lurid plot thread. Argento did consider the notion of the dangers of a piece of creative art at least with his work. The dwarf character blamed for the original murders becomes more of a tragic figure, ostracised for what he looked like when, frankly, the killers with the exception of Phenomena have been normal people hiding corrupted minds. And, without spoiling Phenomena, even that film is a lot more complicated, for an intentionally silly film, on that matter too. It says a lot of where the director/co-writer's heart lies in his preferred stories when this character is said to have been a pulp thriller writer who read aloud his latest creations gladly to the neighbouring children, the mix of the sick and the fun apparent especially here in Sleepless. Length and structure wise, the film does feel stretched, but it escalates quickly and, surprisingly, closes out its epilogue with end credits playing over the footage. Abrupt defiantly, but at the same time, it befits the material as much that it ends with the macabre jolt and soon after finishes so that it stays in mind.

It's unfortunate Dario Argento's work has dropped in quality over the years, but it's somewhat of a parody that, the further a director's career is, the more divisive and in danger of compromise it is. Its less that directors loss their creativity, too variable in individual cases for me, and I'd argue that with Argento, though he may be guilty in his compromise, that clearly the effect of less resources have plagued these films too. The circumstances to get these films made were likely to have had a drastic effect on what we would see. It's clear here as well that the intentionally silly and fun side of the man, even for the sadistic violence, was made more pronounced in a film like this. Maybe Giallo, with Adrian Brody sucking a whipped cream can nozzle at one point within it, was actually meant to be a comedy, and Argento wasn't covering his tracks? I'll see Dracula 3D when it's possible to acquire it, and be baffled by why a giant CGI mantis was included, but unless he has completely gone mad, I can't help but think he must have found that mantis people were able to see in a leaked production trailer to be funny as well as what he wanted for the scene. It comes apparent that, as well as the potential problems in making these films that is inherent in the industry, the knowing absurd of the man's work that has always been there has made itself more obvious as the films continue. As fans we've probably taken Argento's work too seriously in tone when they may have been ultraviolent romps in plot twists and abrupt surprises as Sleepless is. It makes complete sense of great moments from his first films that were nonetheless strange. He started with an extended dialogue scene whose punch line was that someone was sustaining themselves by raising cats to eat, and that should remind us of this side of the director that we've ignored, and realise its been in all the films he made afterwards.

Note: * Which makes no sense since Benoît Debie, of Spring Breakers (2013) and Enter the Void (2009), was the cinematographer. I'm baffled by this despite actually liking the film.

From http://www.dvdactive.com/images/reviews/screenshot/2009/7/sl2.jpg

What? (1972)

From http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/What-Poster.jpg

Dir. Roman Polanski

I admit that rather than dig into an auteur's canon through the best work, as according to canon, I sometimes end up drifting to the lesser knowns of their careers or the oddities. Failures and miscreants. As much as F For Fake (1973) is a masterpiece from Orson Welles, usually its Touch of Evil (1958) after Citizen Kane (1941) in people's minds while I'm more inclined to dive for the former. My habit connected to how DVDs are released, snapping on the first time releases of an obscurity like a dog on fire. Or when rare screenings are shown on TV that are not easily available. But this habit, because of my peculiar "grab-the-film-in-proximity" mentality, has meant I've had a new side to the question of what auteurism means. Rewatching What?, how am I going to view this as a Roman Polanski film, as I've only seen a couple, and by itself? What exactly is What? By itself, and why has it got that title let alone is how it is? Along with Louis Malle's Black Moon (1975) and Claude Chabrol's Alice Or The Last Escapade (1977), this is another European auteur who decides to do something different by riffing on Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland.

Nancy (Sydne Rome) escapes from a group of men in a taxi, a wide eyed naive American on vacation in Italy, only to end up at a holiday villa cut off in its own eccentric world. Legendary Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni is Alex, a former pimp turned masculine lizard with an eye on Nancy and many peculiar fetishes. There are a pair of British lads, the third friend Polanski himself as Mosquito, with his "Little Stinger", a harpoon in a dumb sex reference. The owner of the villa (Hugh Griffith) is near death and has the eye for Nancy, as does everyone else, such a shambolic man who can play Mozart despite arthritis in his hands. Add a priest, an older American couple, and two women, one usually completely naked, to the mix and a wacky sex comedy is the result. The villa itself is as much of a character. Full of art - Francis Bacon above the bed, Roy Lichtenstein printed on the carpet - and is placed next to an idyllic coast line. Nancy has to both deal with the people in the villa and the villa itself - déjà vu, objects breaking when she just touches them, and more and more of her clothes being stolen and torn. Honestly What? is a weird film. I've overused this word, something I've had to kerb, but it applies for this film. [My Collins Gem dictionary defines weird as "strange or bizarre; unearthly or eerie"] Films that I have praised have been defined as weird because they've broken away from convention; unfortunately I've over the years clouded the term with a vagueness, as someone whose only actually looked at its meaning in the dictionary. What? is weird, but unfortunately it's also slight.

It looks beautiful at least. Two cinematographers - Marcello Gatti and Giuseppe Ruzzolini - and the setting for the erotic farce is perfect for the cinema screen. Expansive ocean. Old Italian architecture.  A tower. Vast corridors. Passage ways and balconies. To reach a room just above you, where a ping pong ball has fallen from which Alex has an irresistible urge to crush to hear the crunching sound, you have to pass through a lengthy journey inside to reach it. Hidden away in obscurity until a few years back, the premise of What? would have worked beautifully, and it does stand out as an absurdist work. Alice In Wonderland but as conceived as more directly sexual and about cross cultural relations, the American in not only Europe but the cinema of Europe, a Polish director, Rome an Italian actress of American birth, Mastroianni and a cross pollination of actors including from Britain. The problems, on a second viewing, is the execution that is full of flabbiness and vagueness. Its tone is immediately off, with discomfort, as a comedy when it starts with Nancy escaping a gang rape in a taxi, which is immediately setting up the film as prickly in its content. The real life events of Polanski causes a problem when viewing this film because, as an erotic absurdist piece, the crime he committed in real life, whether you can separate this from his films or find him completely reprehensible, have a bitter taste to some of the content in What?. It's not that Nancy is continually naked or in a state of undress for most of the film. Nor the kinky and lurid tone. The problems are both how asinine, and merely crass, the sex jokes are and how insipid Nancy is as a main character. It's a problem that the opening involves a near-gang rape done in a jokey way, her backside is continually pinched and she's lusted over by all the men because she is such a blank individual who doesn't take consideration of what's fully going on, the only register that of a deer caught in the headlights. Her submissiveness to Alex is bad not because she's submissive to him but there's no sense of reasonable depth to it even for a sex farce. The tone that would try a gang rape as a joke makes this worse . (Such a tricky, discomforting concept like rape has only been justifiable as a joke, and a good one, from what I've seen in Pedro Almodóvar's Kika (1993) because the joke is on the patheticness of the rapist.)

From http://images10.knack.be/images/resized/119/469/558/521/0/
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Rome is merely pulled along as Nancy, without any real interest for herself onscreen for us to care about her. The Alice In Wonderland scenario, depending on the version, is usually of an onlooker to the scenarios played out, but they can still interact with what happens with some spirit to them. Mentioning Black Moon, actress Cathryn Harrison's protagonist still interacts constantly to the events that take place, as does Sylvia Kristel's in ...the Last Escapade. Nancy could have worked as a character, a stereotype of the youth, the American, who believes in expanding her mind - bell bottom jeans,  yoga, travelling the world - yet has no idea what the old continent of Europe actually is, befitting a subject for the Polish Polanski if he was actually at his best. Her asking of someone's Zodiac abruptly to deaf ears or talking about a philosophy book she's read, she's a caricature of the middle class youth who believes in improving the world but is pretty useless in contributing anything of use, which unfortunately is not used enough. Most of the film is of Nancy in increasingly less interesting sexual scenarios. The character never progresses enough from her views being bashed by the lustings of mad perverts. Rome is just a pretty face, her voice is too thin when you need to depict an extremely naive woman who slowly realises the place she's in is alien to her.

It's a film made on a lark, which would have worked if it was actually daring and chaotic to befit a Wonderland scenario. It has its virtues indeed, but only really in style and Mastroianni. To see him, who dominated La Dolce Vita (1960)  and 8 1/2 (1963), in a tiger suit being whipped is on for the bucket list of viewing experiences, but even if it wasn't his voice heard in the English dub, he still brings a damn fine performance physically to the work. Moments where a better film exists are there. The curtain rail of Nancy's rail falling off and literally every object is almost against her.  A random moment where her left thigh is painted blue. All of this would as madness where nothing for her is going to assist her in the villa, as time repeats over and over again. But the film eventually peters out. After trying to admire it as a flawed gem, I eventually gave up from when Hugh Griffith is introduced. Eventually the most the other characters say to Nancy are directions around the villa or how they admire her breasts, something I found a mere flaw, without any real glee in the sexual humour like a good bawdy work, but just becomes irritating and questionable. It adds a creepiness in its lifelessness without even mentioning Polanski's real life events. The tone, after I stopped deluding myself, is just off, not working at all. The jokes are obvious or non-existent, the lost potential for this scenario felt, worse when its director knew how to do the abstract in his darker material. It's a film that's pleased with itself but fails miserably barring a few virtues.

It does beg the question of what an auteur means when this exists in the director's filmography. It's a fascinating and memorable work, but surely this upsets what Polanski's career means with its existence? And what does it mean if there are people like Jonathan Rosenbaum who put it amongst his essential films of cinema's existence? Am I blind? I fully endorse auteurism as a theory, worship at the shrine of it honestly, but my belief is counter balanced with the realisation that cinema is both the work of many people and that, no matter much I try, there'll always be the odd ones out that prevent the theory from being complete truth. What? eventually drags on, never progressing in tone like the other films referenced in this review. By the end it merely finishes. Leaving the film the viewer finally finds out what the title means, which is, an intended baffling of the audience. "It's the title of the movie!" Nancy shouts to Alex, leaving in the back of a truck, completely naked, full of pigs, suddenly breaking the forth wall. It lacks the subversive and abrupt undermining of it Jean-Luc Godard did very well in two of his late sixties films, Pierrot le Fou (1965) and Week End (1967). Instead it comes off as laboured and missing the point of what it should be doing with its ideas. What? sits at odds in a really tumultuous time in Polanski's life, and even without this in the back of my mind, the film comes off as a bad surreal film. I thought I could appreciate all 'weird' films, but this one is laboured by its end, proving there is a difference when one actually has the spontaneity and creativity that make them great. What? as a title perfectly sums it up, ill-advisedly, in that its title suggests befuddlement in the film because nothing of interest is explained. 

From http://366weirdmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/what.jpg

In The Future There'll Be Plastic Domes On All The Cars: The New Barbarians (1982)

I had to use this instead of a film poster...
From http://www.post-apocalypse.co.uk/aus/NewBarbarians.jpg

Dir. Enzo G. Castellari

With The New Barbarians I realise why Italian genre cinema would sadly fritter away by the late eighties, because as the Hollywood blockbusters travelled around the world, you can see the difference between Star Wars and a film shot entirely in a rock quarry with buggies. Obviously, why would anyone only just like Star Wars when you can enjoy both equally I don't know, but unfortunately back when films like The New Barbarians were being made, the Italian public probably wanted to watch the American imports rather than the cheap rip-offs made by theirs. Yes, these films were being shown in theatres in the English speaking world, which would have been awesome to live through, but this wouldn't last. Unable to keep up with Hollywood, and their virtues ignored by the end, regardless if they were rip-offs in the first place, these entertaining and interesting films would dwindle out by the late eighties, which having seen a few from this period showed how bad it got. The less said about Cruel Jaws (1995) the better.  

But looking back, even if The New Barbarians wouldn't qualify as a great film in Enzo G. Castellari's filmography, its definitely not impoverished as its limited production design suggests. Set in 2019, after a nuclear apocalypse has passed, it means we've missed the worse, thus setting this in a fictitious reality, or that I really need to get a driver's license, learn how to use a laser gun, and arm a car with spikes and rockets for the impending doom befalling us soon. Within this scorched earth, an evil group known as the Templers exist led by One, played by Italian genre mainstay George Eastman; exceptionally tall physically, a giant decked in smart, menacing white uniform, bearded and with an evil smile on his face, the psychopathic leader of a group who desire, after the apocalypse, to eliminate all of mankind in a suicidal drive. The sight of an all-male group with perms, Mohawks and luscious locks, driving armed buggies, and dressed between white clad soldiers and Evel Knievel, would be frightening even before your head came off from the spinning blade extended out from one of their killing vehicles. They're definitely evil because One hates books, particularly ripping the New Jerusalem Bible in half. In their way is Scorpion (Giancarlo Prete), a Mad Max stand-in who seemed to borrow Robert Powell 's hair. Since Mad Max had a souped-up car, Scorpion has a similar looking one too but with a giant chrome skull on the bonnet. It does lose aesthetic points however for whoever in production design thought a giant bubble roof on the top which flows lime green in the dark was a good idea. Fred Williamson is Nadir , the former American football player and star/director of many exploitation films looking a considerable bad ass even if dressed up in sci-fi garb, the circlet not stopping the fact that his body armour was probably designed to be able to fit his machismo. It's strange though to see him soft spoken and without his trademark cigar. With him also to help Scorpion is child actor Giovanni Frezza as a child genius of car mechanics who is deadly with a slingshot; most will recognise him, blond haired and looking like a mischievous cherub, from Lucio Fulci's The House By The Cemetary (1981) as Bob, infamously given a less than desired English dubbing.

From http://monsterhuntermoviereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/NewBarbarians2.jpg

I've fallen in love with the Italian genre movies of the seventies and early to mid-eighties. Before the seventies is a large wealth of potential gems, while for the criticisms I've made, my love for this area of cinema means I'll still be hopeful for late eighties and nineties work even despite the lessening quality from a lot I've seen. There is truly great craftsmanship and art in the best. But those which are more pulpy or less than perfect are irresistible to me still. Talented individuals of Italian art cinema worked on these films too, and their creation developed a unique tone and presentation to them that even makes a ridiculous film like this stand out. Strong colours. Post dubbed soundtracks. American stars. Lurid content. Memorable scores, with Claudio Simonetti of Goblin going mad with a synthesizer here. The New Barbarians is low budget schlock but I delight in the idea of these actors playing dress up in quarries. There would be a child-like innocence to this were it not for the gore and adult content. That with its few resources its had to try and weave a limited story from what's there, as Scorpion is pursued by the Templers, is more interesting and entertaining, with its grasps of high budget cinema, barely reaching the budget ceiling, and accidental absurdisms that add great layers to it. It helps to that the film cinematographically is still exceptional despite the nuclear apocalypse being camper vans and buggies decked out like Robot Wars/Battlebots contestants. The quarries, when space is shown, are brightly textured and expansive, and there is never a flabby camera shot or edit despite the narrative side being flimsy. Castellari stands out in Italian genre cinema, impressive considering the great directors within it from the era. He shows great love for all the films of his I've seen, regardless of them being b-movies, caring for the immensely invigorating action scenes but also capable of making films that go beyond this. Thus Street Law (1974) is a vigilante film that becomes a lyrical ode to the complications of taking justice into your own hands, while Keoma (1976) is a sombre, oneiric send off for the spaghetti western. The New Barbarians is slight as a story - cars driving around in circles at each other, conventional on-foot action - but its saved as much by the gifts of his and the crew he worked with as it is the infectious behind it. The quarries are allowed to feel expansive at times despite the limited locations and the touch of the film in editing and look are far removed from lacksidasical but solid. And that its ended up as it is anyway is much of a joy. From the Templers' costumes to a sex scene in a tent made of bubble plastic, the absurd decoration of lower budget films stand out positively for me because, contrary to what would be perceived as taking away the magic of cinema, knowing it can be made from stuff from your home but has become an object of a fantasy world is even more magical, as befitting a medium that started with trick films. For example, realising a communication van is covered in tinfoil isn't a failing, but instead that it is both this and a new thing in a future world, a strangeness that's rich. It's only when mere laziness exists where problems arise. The plot eventually becomes mere construct for this notion to play out, which doesn't dampen the textual pleasure from it. To grin. Admire the action, which is still there in spades. To look on in surprise, at the least expected way a villain 'tortures' a hero, both male, in a regular genre narrative, one that, were not for a single line of dialogue to have added an un-PC side to it, would have uprooted archetypes of masculinity and turned it upside down completely.

If you like your silly, post apocalypse cinema with a plot hanging on a thread bare, this one is worth seeing. Scorpion is a stock characters, but Williamson is simply cool and Eastman looks like he's lording it up as the bad guy, the only regret in the characters being that the women are just there to look pretty, when really this cinema should always make an excuse for a tough female as equal to the hero even if she's stereotypical. You'll find amusement in the laser sounds and the amount of exploding dummies is something, especially as Castellari likes using slow motion quite a bit. Seeing stunt men do their best front flips from explosions and cars flipping over is inherently fun when its shot as considered as here. I cannot dismiss its cheap look in terms of what is onscreen because how it's shot is still good, if you notice, and I cannot help but simple enjoy cars driving around each other in mock combat with bubble roofs on them. In seriousness again, even schlock can have the gift of enthusiastic craft to them, instantly as much cinema as a great film because, cobbled together, the obvious faults nonetheless add to the fantasy played onscreen.  If you admit the farce of this being a nuclear wasteland set in a rock quarry with a few cars lying baout, like the creators probably did before going on professionally regardless and doing your best, you don't worry about this and find virtue in this less-is-more style. The regret that films like this became of disinterest back when they were being made is that, yes, you should be able to enjoy your Star Wars films and these equally, one from the best money can buy in Hollywood, but the other being an enjoyment from what they were able to do with limited resources.

From http://monsterhuntermoviereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/NewBarbarians1.jpg

Videotape Swapshop Review: Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot! (1967)

From http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/18672/django-kill-if-you-live-shoot-1967-director-giulio-questi/

Dir. Giulio Questi

Mentioned briefly in the current series of all the films I liked watching from last year, which I promise is going to get finished at some point, I've became a lot more fonder of this film than (the still positive) review that you can read here stated. The tone of the film is not comparable to a lot else in the spaghetti western sub-genre I've seen, the mixing of the politics and the bizarre not common at all. The only thing it really compares to is the director's giallo film Death Laid An Egg (1968) that, for you the reader, you can read a review of here too. The fact that Questi didn't make a lot of feature films, and that barring Django Kill..., the others are not available to see is disappointing. That he's making short films completely by his own for the last few years or less though is something to be happy about however.

From http://www.screenslate.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/060312-DjangoKill-Post2.jpg

Another Italian Entry, Babbling Incoherently: Black Magic Rites (1973)

Original Title
From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkHrB8V66rOzLuwN7nyT6pa0FIvhcqE3QYbnr_5x0Qck_DUolMaytiSRWbVsOSQ4T39AYLcZRNzgMYaTW4b-EWGKEtzpW2wHhRbj_UObL4Vq00mmhTXjbB9_s0OAsh89Kz907X_vKMkFUN/s1600/Black+Magic+Rites_005.jpg

Dir. Renato Polselli

For anyone who has seen Peter Strickland's Berberian Sound Studio (2012), this exactly the kind of Italian horror film he was channelling when he created the film-within-a-film, The Equestrian Vortex, that is heard but not seen. Made like a profound art house film but all about the gore, baring of female flesh, and various kinds of titillation. It's also completely off-the-rails in terms of tone and plotting, probably one of the oddest entries in seventies Italian genre cinema for me to see in a while. I thought I was in the groove for this area of cinema by now, but then this comes up and wobbles me off said groove. Even how I came about it and how it came to be on my To-Watch list is a mystery. Like the occult and Satanist shenanigans in the film, Black Magic Rites itself just materialised into existence. Attempting a cohesive take on the plot itself could be difficult. Not because it's very complicated and abstract, but like quite a few of these European horror films, the very simplistic plots are used more for mood and you can have the rules flipped by the creator wanting to introduce a new plot twist into it even near the end. Call it Jess Franco Logic, where nothing is to be expected from even well worn material, and if you're lucky the results are rewarding intentionally and/or unintentionally. An engagement celebration takes place in an ancient castle, only for the dark secrets to make a beeline for the women, especially virgins, in the spare rooms. A witch was burnt centuries before, and not only do Satanists want to resurrect her with female donors, but reincarnation and vampires are involved too. Don't attempt to guess the point. Right from the bat, with its swirling colour wheel opening credits, and a woman being sacrificed on a ritual table, this is a complete masala of influences, of various different ideas crammed together. What you gain out of it is up to you.

From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhvunEDo_50RgU9Dg647P2tk7aQEIojxe79QrgiTRndwrEgrr8dvE-v99ygD799530cbVZDxWyWwMk9zFa3P-L40pv-qLlip8dZVuqAk0KCFHgQYYFb_DhpXeb-0g_y1cvB6wObjXEWChn/s1600/Black+Magic+Rites_006.jpg

Its every obsession within European horror, from the psychedelic to the erotic, and unlike a Jean Rollin film or other Italian made films of the time with a measured pace, this is a tonal mess that's compelling for this reason. It writhes with titillation and fake paint red blood, but acts like a prog rock filled art house film, and unlike a Jean Rollin film, it's not a measured atmospheric pace being presented to cohere it together. Its diffusion of time and reality, right to the end, is a mass of chaotic moments that suddenly happen. People being in two places at the same time. Random village folks attack two women suddenly for being witches. Random comedy moments take place. Said comedy moments involve Steffy (Stefania Fassio), who fully evokes the bizarre nature of the film; a thin brunette who is over exaggerated in her behaviour, always falling over, and completely impervious (and blissfully ignorant) of the gothic horror events around her in favour of romping around in a bed with a blonde female friend and her boyfriend with an excessive facial tick. The film around is as oblivious to its content as these characters, a series of non-sequiturs, as exaggerated and ridiculous as her. Almost every actress onscreen is seen topless. No idea, such as a trap involving a crushing door mechanism with knives on it, is rejected for not making sense for that moment. It ends as one expect the story to, but how it gets there is a tangent in on itself, flighty and very camp to the point of being ridiculous.

From http://admin.highdefdigest.com/picture/original/33010

It works as it belongs to that rare breed of films that cannot be called "so-bad-they're-good" because there is a silver of real virtue to them to put them above being incompetent. Black Magic Rites has a few at least. With its music, and its willingness to go completely dreamlike to the bafflement of this viewer, it will stay on the mind for at least a while where other better made films wouldn't. A highlight is when a character is buried alive, but what's great about it is that I haven't spoilt the weirdly compelling convolutions that set it up or how the scene plays out. It would have been great if there was some control or focus to the material, but it has virtues in its mess. As for its unintended effects, it redeems a slow start quickly. A pointlessly long flashback moment nearly killed my interest in the film, but its cheesy peculiarities eventually intermingle with its erratic tone and gets interesting quickly. Is it a good film? To be honest no, but it's not bad either. It has goodness in how it is so removed from dull, plodding horror films made from the same period that sadly outbalance the good ones. There is so much to gain from just watching a film so unruly, so unpredictable, that you can't guess obvious plot points or how they have gotten there in the story. And unlike films that are random for no point, chasing after this crazed film's tone is rewarding because everything does have an effect. Randomness if done badly, or trying too hard, becomes predictable and dull, why intentional attempts at something like this fail miserably. This sort of film itself is speaking a new language and someone like me gets a high from its atonal mutterings that feel fresh as well as ridiculously silly.

From http://cdn-3.cinemaparadiso.co.uk/clp/105073-4749-clp-720.jpg

Representing Italy: Four Flies On Grey Velvet (1971)

From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh07nq7S_PGLOGEH-MOIe91H10OTdusSPkZBVUoWyx54k63269K1rEz57mXVjfPKajHTHBlmjlgSvC-iGiAVNbh2p8KWSKKKuyGU4w_M4TOzREiqM8eXby3JXSIgOTzB663-Jiqc3tyEEoN/s1600/four+flies+poster.jpg

Dir: Dario Argento

To watch a giallo, which Dario Argento impacted with his debut with the power of an electric bolt, is to expect the unrealistic. Its fantasy. A tricky knotting string of narrative. It only works as it does in form by being as absurd as it is as well as logical to some extent. The giallo, as I come accustomed to it, is a subgenre that could only make sense in cinema, willing to jump to unexpected places as abruptly as possible as well as have real logic to them. Befitting Argento the former film critic, giallo even when its middling is all about the lack of a clear vision, lost in the web of narrative for the protagonist and the viewer. Red herrings are there, one of them or someone else entirely behind the murders. A "gimmick", a McGuffin, or a nagging aspect for the person trying to solve the crime is always there, and the resolve is far from the original placement of one's expectations. In most other subgenres, it's possible that going to A to B hasn't even gotten past A by the end credits. Giallo on the other hand, unless it's so bad you don't care, feels like a journey.

From http://hotdogcinema.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/four-flies-mask.jpg

This was the missing piece in the puzzle of Argento. There are other films that were obscure, but Four Flies On Grey Velvet was the noticeable absence. Notable because it's in the beginning of his golden period of giallo and supernatural horror films. Notable because it was the final film in the unofficial Animal Trilogy, including his famous debut The Bird With The Crystal Plummage (1970) and The Cat O'Nine Tails (1971). Now available officially, the only truly obscure film in his filmography is The Five Days (1973), his sole excursion outside of horror and mystery thrillers, a historical comedy of all things. Four Flies On Grey Velvet certainly crams a drastic amount of shifts and pulls of subjective reality as it goes along. The drummer for a band Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon) finds himself accidentally killing a stranger in a theatre, a mysterious figure above them capturing the incident on camera and using it as blackmail. However the figure doesn't want money. As he resists, Roberto tries to figure out what is going on, realising that blackmail isn't enough to explain what is going on, and so much more is taking place behind his back, not at least bodies that are slowly piling up. It plays with its form, but it's not the bombastic camera tracks and stylistic lighting of the later Argento films. Its sly, playful; after the great, but simple and economic first film The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, he suddenly raids every technical idea he could come up with to test himself. The heavy prog rock by Ennio Morricone, in contrast to his previous scores for the first two Animal Trilogy films, is very much a mirror for the film as a whole. This is a Mr. Bungle song sat at the end of two considered jams in this unofficial trilogy. The plot is even more ludicrous than the other two, its title from a gimmick later in the narrative that borrows from the history of mystery fiction, but feels even more ridiculous for being so suddenly introduced near the end of the film. The playfulness of the film is signaled immediately in the opening credit prog jam when there's a first person shot from inside a guitar that's there for the sake of it. Even next to the fantastic and bravado shots or images from the likes of Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980) and Opera (1987), this film is the closest to a quirky film in his filmography, with how it presents itself, while still being a full blown giallo.

From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVjLxTQWtu-QYt87FgCv3p1rbzHCbziM_RJIR9J0E2zeI-2N0WwSmR5DSHRuRr3DJP8uolSau_aGMiVkSsV8HL-O2rg4yRk8BEV6ng6Ngp_fcCLZSc7gt_bs4h3VZiVC9fI8-U-eQ6uy-4/s1600/2.jpg

The whole film feels so different from a lot of his early and later films. Another character instead of Roberto does the investigation of the leads. There's romance between Roberto, already married, and his wife's sister that isn't actually frowned on or highlighted as a grand plot push. The characters around Roberto are broad and intentionally exaggerated, from a downtrodden postman who keeps delivering porn to the wrong house, to a friend (Bud Spencer) who is nicknamed "God", introduced with a chorus singing "Halleluiah!" that drastically differs from anything in Argento's work barring the bawdy orchestration that follows Daria Nicolodi out a door as she teases David Hemmings in Deep Red (1975). Argento's films can be very fun, and there's comedy in others, but most of them are played deathly serious. The entirety of Four Flies On Grey Velvet feels more knowing of itself, more openly silly. Clearly in trying to reach a new level of experimentation he could implement for his films afterwards, Argento made a film here that took some risks that he wouldn't attempt again. It's not part of his supernatural films, which even Deep Red is partially of, but how does that explain where the reoccurring images of a beheading leads to in its meaning? It sets up tropes that would be ran with in later works, but there are things that are never continued in the ones I've seen. Our protagonist never looks into the case for himself, completely lost barring clues others find for him. Its everything around him that shifts without much of his influence, and results of it completely take him down.

From http://24.media.tumblr.com/9b6e17e68fa653bd9718c6c121abe4e5/
tumblr_ms2642DTd11r344y9o1_1280.png

As Argento films go, it's good because of this and because it's still very much a rock solid giallo. Its full of clever, eye popping uses of the camera and the Morricone score is great. The last moment of the film may be one of the director's best for just knocking the viewer out. And the story is good as what a giallo usually is - it's not the mystery that's of interest, it's how it done and how things such as coincidences are welcomed rather than rejected for only logical explanations. Its full of pulp uses of psychological babble as other giallos, the same obsessions with clues and sociopaths, and in this film the added playfulness takes them to a different tone and makes the film stand out separately from the others. To Argento's credit, all of his films, from what I've seen, have been different from each other, never wanting to repeat himself in tone and presentation even if continuing with similar ideas. Finally accessing Four Flies On Grey Velvet not  only completes a key part of his career for me but also adds a new layer to how distinct he can be.

From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAvs-Y0R3N0yNqtSLODRagUTe_WrJDjDbk9RyKOX7k7UiFMtZkvc978ZXo79uU3lcAeJ1QMv6bsEqXpep01_1q32U4FfY5LXMS4BsdyiRwD5LI27cY4agtW3SGrbR7GfvrRWrqF8AMl5Q/
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Q Is For… Quattro Volte, Le (2010)

From http://www.newwavefilms.co.uk/assets/directory/49/Le_quattro_volte_quad_vs5.jpg

Dir: Michelangelo Frammartino

I have fond memories of viewing this the first time. I was lucky enough to see this at the cinema at the Showroom in Sheffield. Unfortunately my geographical location means that I have to watch most of my non-mainstream cinema at home on DVD. The availability of this sort of non-studio cinema outside of metropolitan areas or large, middle class cultural centers is disappointing. It has probably forced a lot of film viewers living out of these areas to have to find these areas through DVD, streaming, import or even illegally, thus denting the potential cinema box office for these films. And it could seem snobbish to say this, but in most cases the best films are even not the blockbusters, or even the indie American films released by the studios but the films like Le Quattro Volte, which means that unfortunately people couldn't say that their best films for that year where seen on a big screen. 

Thankfully, despite the prices and time that have to be dealt with for me to go to the Showroom for one day, I've managed to see some great films there. In fact nearly every film has been great, the rarity of going there meaning I go when I desperately want to see something, or has been a memorable moment. I saw Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers (2009) there. This has even more importance to it since, viewing it with an older brother who doesn't watch art cinema let alone knew what he was expecting, we had a lengthy debate all the way back to his apartment that, even if he was offended by the film, was constructive and led to us bonding over the idea of someone, somewhere, humping a bin in the city at the same time. I saw Uncle Boonmie Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), the film this post is about, Holy Motors (2012), and at the beginning of this year, Bullhead (2011). Its also where I've had my only experience of a film festival, seeing two films at last year's Sheffield Documentary Festival, one of which was where I saw Planet of Snail (2011). Not only a great documentary from South Korea, but the experience taught me an important lesson, when shaking the director Yi Seung-jun's hand but baffling him with my thoughts on what I saw, that the viewer can over interpret a film or a creation when the creator's view on it was so much more upfront in it already. This causes one to ask whether film critics have the same problem, and the realization, alongside given me a hilarious anecdote I can look back on fondly, really helps with viewing cinema even as a hobby without having to write an amateur review about it. Even if all the other films I saw were terrible, this moment would make those rare trips to the Showroom completely worth it.

And with that, it adds a great deal of fondness to viewing this film over and over again. But Le Quattro Volte certainly holds up incredibly well even if these memories were separated from it.

Review Link - http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/15966/q-is-for-quattro-volte-le-2010-director-michelangelo-frammartino/

From http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6dkR9rBSSdw/TaOEyB943bI/
AAAAAAAAIFI/RS4dXYmN1Sg/s400/lequattrovolte2.jpg

P Is For...The Phantom of Liberty (1974)

From http://magnoliaforever.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/the-phantom-of-liberty.jpg

Dir. Luis Buñuel

It took many years for me to finally appreciate Buñuel as a film director, but I wouldn't have been surprised if I liked this film back when I thought he was overrated. It may have helped me love his films a lot more earlier. This and his autobiography My Last Breath would have helped me admire his craft immensely. In terms of my favorite of the director's, The Milky Way (1969) is his best for me so far, but this is just behind it. It does reach back the furthest to his origins in the Surrealistic art movement; research his past especially a project involving a giraffe and it makes a lot of the moments in this, including his obsession with strange bird life, even more significant. Its absurdity and sketch-like nature does make it an interesting film in his filmography in that it can both be seen as a very accessible movie and yet still difficult because Buñuel's sense of sketch comedy is completely dry and acidic. 

Review Link - http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/15354/p-is-for-the-phantom-of-liberty-1974-director-luis-bunuel/

From http://imageshack.us/a/img571/3017/thephantomoflibertyavi0.jpg

L Is For... Last Year At Marienbad (1961)

From http://th04.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2011/240/e/a/last_year_at_marienbad_by_mamamatrix-d486es2.png

Dir. Alain Resnais

Last Year At Marienbad has been an interesting film to rewatch. I wasn't fond of it on the first viewing, but was compelled by how fantastic it looked and how it was made as well as it was. Viewing it again for this series, I'm still trying to grasp it, but its elusive nature mixed with the gorgeous production value grows in virtue. It is certainly a film that is more about the sensation of viewing it than a clear narrative, and far from a feeble defense of it, this proves to be its greatest virtue. To make every scene startle you while still adding a deeper connection to the fact that no one onscreen may be able to leave the situation and have to continue it continually...

Review Link - http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/15183/l-is-for-last-year-at-marienbad-1961-director-alain-resnais/

From http://lisathatcher.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/last_year_at_marienbad.jpg

I Is For... The Idiots

From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRcyEsUfzSblHSgximtQa30RKApLJD-K7YqKT5pbRNm6oE3_50fB5VwbR-6-Njz2XJIEiniR6KDvcITFfwTHSCGXHzDeMRmsJrs48R4C49nChqjmujI2dcb0hw128sQoI9xqjFnmfd54ea/s640/idioterne-original.jpg

Dir. Lars von Trier

This is probably one of the most personal pieces I've written, but considering the subject matter, it felt appropriate to bring in some of my own personal life into it. The only other thing I can say is that there were too many flags to be able to put them all up. A co-production between six countries, it'll be insane to stick that many into such a small piece. I'll just stick with the Danish one and have the others in the labels.

Review Link - http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/16026/i-is-for-the-idiots-1998-director-lars-von-trier/

From http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n627/worldscinema/2nakapz.jpg