A 2004 article Towards a Perverse Neo-Baroque Cinematic Aesthetic on Raúl Ruiz's book Poetics of Cinema quotes a paper by Laleen Jayamanne. She emphasises that cinema, for Ruiz, is an allegorical system inhabited by ghosts, zombies and the dead, which operates by a "perverse logic" or a "baroque [...] multiplication of points of view, of an object, of a space, [of] a body". The Senses of Cinema article goes on to say, "According to Ruiz it is all the "boring" moments, that is, those moments that contribute nothing to a central conflict and which are nevertheless the most interesting: "central conflict forces us to abandon all those events which require only indifference or detached curiosity, like a landscape, a distant storm, or dinner with friends"
Ruiz's 155min film Time Regained (Le temps retrouvé, d'après l'oeuvre de Marcel Proust) (1999) based on the 7 volumes of Marcel Proust'snovel Remembrance of Things Past (À la recherche du temps perdu) (written 1909-1922) is out on Second Sight DVD (alas no extras). Volker Schlöndorff attempted a very different adaptation with Swann in Love (Un Amour de Swann) (1984). Ruiz conjures some other temporal space - the niggles that became our dreams, the space of boredom we forever attempt to keep filling up with distractions. This is a film that will either fascinate or lull one to sleep. Very little of Ruiz is available on DVD with English subtitles i.e. Généalogies d'un crime (1997), Three Lives and Only One Death (1995) with Marcello Mastroanni. The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (L'Hypothese du tableau volé) (1978) (with subtitles) is on Blaq Out DVD.
On filming the unfilmable
Alain Robbe-Grillet's (Last Year at Marienbad soon on Optimum Blu-ray) La belle Captive (1983), like most of his other work, is rarely seen and looks magnificent in this re-mastered DVD release. Robbe-Grillet " goes beyond the two opposites into another continued series of oppositions...he rejects the idea of synthesis creating new meaning by juxtapositioning and re-editing...90% of the time after I've seen [a new film] trailer I don't want to see the movie. The larger public want to be reassured," say the engaging film academics on the audio commentary (one of whom taught with the director at an American university). There's a close-up of Manet's (1867-1869) The Execution of Maximilian Emperor of Mexico, "today we find the painting moving [at the time rebuked by critics] and Robbe-Grillet is suggesting that his own iconoclastic art, itself often criticised as flat and mannerist will bring about an evolution in taste just as the art of Edouard Manet did." The leading actor Daniel Mesguich went onto shock Paris audiences with his highly stylised outré theatre and opera productions.
Have videogames and reality TV given us 'narrative exhaustion', asks legendary screenwriter Paul Schrader
Jacques Rivette's very long La belle noiseuse (1991) is out on Artificial Eye DVD and Eureka have Muriel, ou le Temps d’un retour (1963) - The Auteurs article. Kino DVD has Alain Resnais: a Decade in Film films from the 1980s: Life is a Bed of Roses, Love Unto Death, Mélo, I Want to Go Home.
On Optimum is the fascinating Stavisky as part of their Jean-Paul Belmondo Collection (with a rare film score by musicals genius Stephen Sondheim)
Resnais returned to this year to the Cannes Film Fest after 19 years with Wild Grass (Les Herbes Folles) - a month before his 87th birthday and received a lifetime achievement award: an interview with Luc Moullet at The Auteurs
Entries close Sept 28 for the Jeanne Dielman-Criterion Collection Cooking Video Contest with director Chantal Akerman as special judge. Make a video of yourself (or someone else) cooking (1) meat loaf, (2) cutlets, or (3) potatoes and upload it as a video response on YouTube.
Private Century(Facets DVD) is a 2006 Czech TV series (8 hours) where director Jan Sikl has edited people's home ('private' in Czech) movies into historical testimony.
Facets also have the unmissable Hans Jürgen Syberberg's Karl May and Ludwig: Requiem for a Virgin King (Director's Edition)
Cine Fest Brasil (17 - 20 Sept) at the Riverside Studios in West London.
cinema of brazil: urban tales at the Barbican
BirdWatchers (La terra degli uomini rossi) (Cambridge Film Fest)is a fictional film (not outstaying its initial welcome) based on the very true facts that Brazil's Guarani natives suffer at the hands of violent ranchers.
Frech website
Almodóvar's Broken Embraces isn't his most artistically successful to date. But there's something very personal here as the director seems to be grappling with his own memories of the cinematic process. And for that (aside from his usual stunning production design) one's attention is held.
The Firm (about football hooligans) was originally BBC broadcast back in 1989. Brave of director Nick Love to remake (set earlier in 1984) a film of his (and most of the Brit cinema world's) hero Alan Clarke. Love's incredible achievement is to raise the film to another heightened almost operatic level without losing any of the original's realistic bite. The HD (High Definition) digital cinematography makes everything bright, foregrounded, energised (in sort of Baz Luhrman fashion but without his crazy spin). It's an art-house film designed look while being absolutely authentic to the period feeling more present, more music video. Nick Love is never mentioned in the same breath as Brit social commentator directors Shane Meadows, Ken Loach, Andrea Arnold yet his goals are very similar: "I'm striving for authentic British working class filmmaking". It's "not just a game of football" says one of the lads in The Firm. For these young men it's the only dream they ever feel able to believe in.
The Agent, based on Martin Wagner's stage play, was shot in 10 days for £26,000. Like the reviews for the play you'll either find this a "riveting portrait of ruthless barrow boys of the soul" (The Sunday Times) or "witless" (The Independent). The film's 'video' look often seems almost wilfully perverse (making little attempt to shed its theatre origins) as if the playwright and his director Lesley Manning have held its cinema audience hostage demanding them, as in the plot, to identify with the writer's desperation in getting published. Strange film this aspiring to tread amongst the psychological verbal riptides of David Mamet.
Tristan Loraine's 31 North 62 East (Too Close to the Truth) had an all-in budget of $3.1 million, a cast of 64 (with no deferred payments) and locations in the UK and Jordan. Now that's entering the boxing ring fearlessly under-weight and emerging a victor (50 screen release). Shot on the digital Viper and HD cam the film lost its DP 2 weeks prior to shooting and Sue Gibson (President of the British Society of Cinematographers(those familiar title credit initials BSC) stepped in creating stunning atmospheres. The film's Brit government conspiracy theory plot is familiar but quiet intensity never allows the script implausibility. Collateral damage is still all too commonplace in war "government with something to hide. As if.". Nor does the central role of John Rhys-Davies' Prime Minister ever seem clichéd or characatured - inklings of a well-known Dep PM but that only adds to the plausibility. On the strength of this film its director looks set to lens his next one Shadows From the Sky (based on his own factual book and documentary Welcome Aboard Toxic Airlines) which many are calling an 'Erin Brockovich of the skies'.
[Addition:] Brit gangster flic Jack Said (out for a limited theatrical next weekend and DVD Oct 5) certainly twists and turns more cleverly than Loraine's film (roasted this week by Brit critics) but too often disappears down into its own gun barrel to be much fun let alone anything else. 31 North 62 East wins that round.
And a writer who was an inspiration for all his colleagues and of course those with conspiracy theories Troy Kennedy Martin has died-aural obit on Nightwaves (first item though not listed on site).
Dorian Gray, whilst a more than adequate adaptation (Dir-Oliver Parker) of the Oscar Wilde novel (1890), retreats somewhat into his attic after comparison with the last film. Great elements (as you'd expect from anything Ealing Studios puts its name to): Roger Pratt's (his great credits won't squeeze into brackets) cinematography, Ruth Myers costumes, Rebecca Hall (as always), Colin Firth (of course) etc etc. But while Dorian's descent into hell is graphically conjured we don't ever really feel it. Yet Wilde's original story is still so powerful (and for many still so close to contemporary living tissue and bone) that a new audience can't help the induced shivers down the spine.
As part of London Design Festival 2009, CHELSEA space presents an exhibition of Scandinavian glass design INTO THE WOODS: An Exploration of iittala curated by the renowned Finnish designer Harri Koskinen and including the work of Alvar Aalto, Aino Aalto, Kaj Franck, Tapio Wirkkala. This small oblong glass display case seems to breath as one entity though each designer's glass ware is layed out chronologically. What do they all get up to at night in the darkness one wonders?
Open House 2009 is this weekend - loads of London architecture that's not usually accessible to the public (but also much that is so choose wisely) - many book up well in advance.
Adventureland, (500) Days Of Summer, Blind Dating, and Away We Go all have happy endings, all have familiar character types, yet are all quite moving in particular ways. And funny for a change!
The band Yo La Tengo feature on the Adventureland soundtrack and have a new album out Popular Songs. Alexi Murdoch's songs are on Away We Go.
[Addition:] Writer/director Stephen Belber's debut romcom Management arrives next week (Metrodome) missing, but only just, being on par with the highly accomplished Adventureland. Though with many laughs, actually it's a quiet little film given Jennifer Aniston's star presence and the broad comedy with Steve Zahn and Woody Harrelson's ex-punk rocker turned yogurt brand king. And while the craft and comic reality of Adventureland is very enviable, there's something silly and insouciant about Management belying its much deeper heart.
Also from Metrodome is the doco of a Swedish mind, body, spirit fest Three Miles North Of Molkom turns a cynical Ozzie ex-Rugby player into if not a different man then certainly one he hadn't met with for a many a long time. Very, very funny and somewhat frightening.
Fame is but a fruit tree
So very unsound
It can never flourish
‘til it’s stock is in the ground
So men of fame
Can never find a way
‘til time has flown
Far from their dying day - Nick Drake
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