Monthly Archives: November 2018

Buena Vista Social Club
Directed by Wim Wenders
Written by Wim Wenders and Nick Gold
1999
Germany/USA/UK/France/Cuba
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] In the beginning I just wanted to make movies, but with the passage of time the journey itself was no longer the goal, but what you find at the end. Now, I make films to discover something I didn’t know, very much like a detective. – Wim Wenders[/box]

Loved this joyous documentary of good music rediscovered.

American musician Ry Cooder traveled to Cuba to hire musicians for a planned CD.  In his search, he discovered that many musicians who were famous pre-Castro were alive, well, and longing to get back to work.  Some were as old as age 90.  The CD was a cross-over success and Grammy Winner.

Wim Wenders then made this documentary which explores life in present day Havana, war stories of times gone by, and concerts given by the group in Amsterdam and at Carnegie Hall.

I immediately fell in love with these musicians and the music they made.  The wonderful moments and images captured by Wenders are only the icing on the cake. Recommended.

Buena Vista Social Club was nominated for an Oscar as Best Documentary, Feature.

And Everything Is Going Fine
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
USA/2010
Washington Square Films
FilmStruck/First viewing

[box] I was raised as an upper-class WASP in New England, and there was this old tradition there that everyone would simply be guided into the right way after Ivy League college and onward and upward. And it rejected me, I rejected it, and I ended up as a kind of refugee, really. Spalding Gray [/box]

I’ve loved all the filmed monologues of Spalding Gray.  It was a cinch I’d love Soderbergh’s post-mortem look at his career.

Steven Soderbergh directed Gray’s Anatomy (1996), Spalding’s final monologue film.  He returned to the subject to make this documentary six years following the artist’s suicide. The film includes many clips from various performances and interviews.  Gray is as charismatic as ever.

If you already love Gray, this is a must-see.  If you are not acquainted with him, I would recommend starting with Jonathan Demme’s Swimming to Cambodia (1987) in which Grey tells the story of his experiences as as actor in The Killing Fields (1984).

I watched this on FilmStruck. A complete version is also currently available on YouTube.

Trailer

Burden of Dreams
Directed by Les Blank
Written by Michael Goodwin
1982/USA
Flower Films
Repeat viewing/FilmStruck

[box] Werner Herzog: It’s not only my dreams, my belief is that all these dreams are… are yours as well… and the only distinction between me and you is that I can articulate them… and that is what poetry or painting or literature or film-making is all about, it’s as simple as that… and I, I make films because I have not learned anything else and I know I can do it to a certain degree… and it is my duty because this might be the inner chronicle of what we are… and we have to articulate ourselves otherwise we would be cows in the field.[/box]

Perhaps the best “making-of” documentary ever made focuses on the mad dreams of a great filmmaker.

In 1977, German director Werner Herzog travelled to the Amazon to scout out locations for his long-planned project “Fitzcarraldo”.  That film tells the story of an Irish Caruso lover who decides to build an opera house in the middle of the jungle where his idol can sing. No financing being available, Fitzcarraldo decides to raise money by harvesting rubber.  To get his product to port he must move it from one tributary to another.  This he decides to do by dragging a steamboat about a mile over a steep hill to the other river.

Herzog being Herzog there was nothing to do but to actually have hundreds of indigenous people physically drag the boat over the hill, with a little help from a faulty bulldozer.  The filming was plagued by one disaster after another.  Malfunctioning equipment, drought, illness, and discontent among the Indians stretched the process into a five-year ordeal.

Herzog selected documentarian Les Blank to record the shoot.  The result captures both the passion of the director and the beauty of the jungle and its people.

No complaints about this wonderful film.  If you have ever seen or hope to see Fitzcarraldo (1982) or have any interest in dreamers, this is a must-see film.  It really should be on The List.

The FilmStruck film came with a really good audio commentary with Les Blank, editor Maureen Gosling, and Werner Herzog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOn28VA62ss

Trailer

Herzog’s rant

Across the Universe
Directed by Julie Taymor
Written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais and Julie Taymor
2007/USA
Revolution Studios/Gross Entertainment/Team Todd/Sound Film
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] JoJo: Music’s the only thing that makes sense anymore, man.[/box]

The sixties were never this psychedelic nor crammed with CGI.

The period covered is 1963-1968.  Jude (Jim Sturgess) ships out of Liverpool as a merchant seaman.  Upon his arrival in the U.S., he jumps ship becoming an illegal alien in the process.  He soon meets a wealthy beauty named Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) and they fall in love.  Lucy is a radical and her friends become Jude’s.  Many of these people are musicians.

Jude is an artist not a fighter, something that does not sit well with Lucy.  So they break up and a bunch more stuff happens before they are reunited.  With Joe Anderson as Maxwell, Lucy’s brother; Dana Fuchs as Sexy Sadie, Bono as Dr. Robert; Joe Cocker as a street singer; and Eddie Izzard as Mr. Kite.

This movie tries to encompass the turbulent sixties through the music of the Beatles. Thirty songs are performed by the actors themselves.  These are some of the best covers of Beatles music ever and the film is an auditory treat.  It also looks great.  But the  real sixties was not beset with massive helpings of largely self-indulgent CGI and I would have liked this better without it.

Across the Universe was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Costume Design.

A Short Film About Love (Krotki film o milosci)
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski
Written by Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz
1988/Poland
Zespol Filmowy “Tor”
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] Different people in different parts of the world can be thinking the same thoughts at the same time. It’s an obsession of mine, that different people, in different places, are thinking the same thing, but for different reasons. I try to make films which connect people. – Krysztof Kieslowski[/box]

What is love?  It takes a Bergman or a Kieslowski to really explore its depths.

A teenage boy spends most of his time in his bedroom spying on the beautiful older woman in the opposing apartment through a telescope.  He sees her most intimate moments including regular visits by at least a couple of different men.  He figures out various stratagems to meet her and finally works up the courage to telephone.

His victim is not amused to say the least.  When the boy declares his love she seeks revenge by trying to prove there is no such thing.  She is wrong.

I’m a big fan of Kieslowski but had not seen this film which is expanded from Episode 6 of the director’s “Dekalog” television series.  I thought this was a real masterpiece.  The filmmaking from cinematography to acting to music is exquisite.  I love the way the film sort of shape-shifts from a coming-of-age story in which the boy learns about love to something much deeper in which the woman learns a lesson of her own.  Highly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15fyIDqP4SQ

Clip – Ending (no subtitles)

A Mighty Wind
Directed by Christopher Guest
Written by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy
2003/USA
Castle Rock Entertainment
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] Laurie Bohner: I learned to play the ukulele in one of my last films, “Not-So-Tiny Tim”.[/box]

Christopher Guest’s mocumentaries crack me up!

A music promoter who sparked the folk revival in the 60’s has died and his son decides to stage a tribute in memoriam.  So the groups are gathered from whatever supermarket openings they are now playing at.  The tribute concert prompts the performers to resurrect all the fights still unresolved from 40 years ago.

Well if you’ve seen any of these things you will know you are in for every outrageous situation it is possible to cram into the story.  In the meantime, the dialogue is priceless especially coming from Fred Willard (below).

The humor in these is right on my wavelength.  I can watch again and again and pick up a new gag hiding in the wings.  Give it a try. I can also recommend Guest’s Best in Show (2000)

War and Peace (Voyna i mir)
Directed by Sergei Bandarchuk
Written by Sergei Bandarchuk and Vasiliy Solovyov
1966/USA
Mosflim
Repeat viewing/FilmStruck

[box] “Everything I know, I know because of love.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace[/box]

This eight-hour, four-film epic is perhaps the most comprehensive version of Tolstoy’s great sprawling novel.  What it lacks in sophistication it makes up for in grandeur.

The novel is set during the Napoleon Wars, approx. 1805 to 1812.  The Rostovs are a very loving aristocratic family who live in Moscow.  Lively daughter Natalia/Natasha falls in love with Prince Andrei Bolkonsky after the death of his wife in childbirth.  She is very young and so the couple agree to wait a year before announcing their engagement.  Natasha is too immature for this arrangement and impulsively runs off with a cad.  She is rescued from disgrace but the marriage is off.

Pierre Bezukhov (Bandarchuk) is the illegitimate son of a wealthy Count.  Before he dies, the count recognizes his paternity, leaving Pierre one of the wealthiest men in Russia. Pierre is socially awkward and is easily exploited by a fickle beauty who wants him for his money.

Natasha serves a period of penance before the horrors of war coincidentally reunite her with Bolkonsky. She nurses him as he dies of a wound suffered during the battle of Borodino.  The fortunes of all decline as the French invade Moscow which has been strategically surrendered.

The Soviets surely understood Tolstoy and the tone and acting are impeccable.  The film reaches deep into the novel.  For example, Tolstoy does a sequence where he gets into the mind of a wolf being hunted.  This is captured in the film but is filmed in what I found to be an off-putting arty way.  The battle scenes are excellent but also sometimes subject to that self-consciously arty style that didn’t work for me.  Nonetheless recommended for lovers of the novel.

War and Peace won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.  It was nominated in the category of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration.

Clip

The Other Side of Hope (Toivon tuolla puolen)
Directed by Äki Kaurismäki
Written by Äki Kaurismäki
2017/Finland/Germany
Sputnik/Oy Bufo Ab/Zweites Deutsches Fernhesen
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] Khaled: Listen. I fell in love with Finland.[/box]

Äki Kaurismäki’s “final film” is a fitting swan song combining pathos, humor and masterful use of the color blue.

Khaled’s home was destroyed by unknown forces in the Syrian city of Aleppo.  Since then he has been looking for a home in Europe.  After many setbacks, he arrives in Helsinki, Finland and finally officially applies for asylum.  But this is isn’t the only thing on his mind. He became separated from his sister en route and is anxiously searching for her.

Waldemar Wickstrom is a traveling salesman who wins big in a poker game and decides to buy a restaurant.  The restaurant comes with its disgruntled employees.  Waldemar finds Khaled homeless near a dumpster and gives him a job as a bus boy.

These oddballs eventually form a very eccentric but loving family as Khaled tries to stay one step ahead of the law.

This has been advertised as Kaurismäki’s final film.  I’m hoping that’s a bad joke.  He’s only 61 and keeps getting better!  Sometime I’m going to figure out how his actors manage to keep absolutely deadpan expressions while at the same time you know exactly what they are thinking.  This is another very beautiful, funny, and humane story.  If life were only like that for refugees.

Shadows in Paradise (Varjoja paratiisissa)
Directed by Äki Kaurismäki
Written by Äki Kaurismäki
1986/Finland
Villealfa Filmproduction Oy
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] Co-worker: I’ve got a slogan already: “Reliable garbage disposal since 1986.”

Nikander: But that’s now.

Co-worker: That’s why it catches the eye.[/box]

I love the films of Äki Kaurismäki,  Here’s a pretty good early one.

Nikander (Kaurismäki regular Matti Pellonen) is a garbage collector.  Early on in the movie, his partner dies.  Nikander meets a down-and-outer and soon gets him a job as a replacement.  Ilona Rajamäki (the great Kati Outinen) is a rather despondent grocery clerk. Nikander begins a lackadaisical courtship which doesn’t get off to a great start when he takes her on a first date to a dingy bingo parlor.

After losing one job too many, Ilona decides on drastic action and Nikander helps her make a get away.

Kaurismäki specializes in working men and women, and especially the down-and-out.  His beautiful, skillful use of color, composition and music raise the often ridiculous situations to something rich and strange.  Think of Ozu crossed with Jim Jarmusch.  Helsinki, a city with which I have a long acquaintance and special affection, is captured from a quirky angle that makes it seem extra special.  This was the director’s third film.  I urge all movie lovers to try at least one of them.

Clips with extraneous music