Salvatore Giuliano (1962, Francesco Rosi)

Quest Status: 760 / 1000

TSPDT Rank #377

Usually when a person's name is the title of a film, it means that that person is the film's main character. But in Francesco Rosi's multi-genre, quasi-neorealist magnum opus Salvatore Giuliano, the titular character is often talked about, but seen only as a corpse. Giuliano's dead body opens the film, as a crowd of detectives stares vacantly on, examining and describing the position of the "male corpse" as if it were an object on display at some corpse auction.

Giuliano, as we soon find out (in a complex series of flashbacks), was an influential outlaw leader who ruled a small Sicilian town from a mountain outpost. He was involved in everything from political revolution to communist massacres, from petty theft to big time Mafia rackets. Those without a firm grip on the Sicilian societal structure of the time period will be hard-pressed to keep track of all the various groups and individuals who play a part in the convoluted series of events surrounding the elusive Giuliano. This is not a simple world of cops and robbers. In this world, Giuliano's outlaws might work together with the Mafia, but that doesn't mean that these two organizations are not interchangeable. There are soldiers fighting for independence, soldiers fighting for the Italian authorities, and outlaws fighting for the revolutionary soldiers. Then, once independence is finally achieved, not only are there the police to contend with, but also the local vigilante police who wield the real power.

 

 

Rosi's style has something in common with the neorealist masters like Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini, particularly in his use of non-professional actors from the Sicilian town where the film takes place to tell the film's real-life story. In a title card that precedes the macabre opening scene, he even tells us as that the courtyard where Giuliano's body is found is the actual location! At the same time, while some sequences have a documentary feel, Rosi doesn't confine himself to any one particular style. After the documentary-style flashback detailing Giuliano's involvement in the Sicilian independence movement, the film becomes a mix of neorealist-style crime thriller and courtroom drama - often alternating between the two. Martin Scorsese is a fan of Salvatore Giuliano because of its rich portrayal of his ancestral Sicily, but it's also a vital piece of Italian cinema history, blending various styles to create a whirlwind snapshot of a time and place that is now all but forgotten.

--- 240 films remaining ---

The Naked Island (1960, Kaneto Shindo)

Quest Status: 759 / 1000

TSPDT Rank #876

Kaneto Shindo is primarily known in the West for his classic samurai horror films Onibaba and Kuroneko. But this earlier film shows that he also single-handedly created the Asian slow cinema genre three or four decades before it became a bona fide cinematic movement. The Naked Island is an almost completely dialogue-free portrait of a farming family who are the sole inhabitants of a small island. The lack of inhabitants is likely the reason that the title describes it as a "naked" island, although I'm guessing that more than a few people have gone in expecting something a much different film.

As for myself, I was expecting more dark or suspenseful elements, based on my knowledge of Shindo's other films. But the first 30 minutes, a ravishingly shot but slow-moving sequence of a man and a woman transporting heavy buckets of water from the nearby village by boat to water the steep slopes of their mountain fields, soon establishes that we are not watching a film that plays by the established rules of narrative cinema. These scenes are reminiscent of anthropological documentaries like Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran, but The Naked Island turns out to be brilliantly structured as well, conveying a narrative that's as simple as it is elemental.

 

 

The first section of the film shows us a normal summer day in the life of the mountain family, which mostly consists of grueling field work in the hot sun. The second section speeds things up considerably, giving us a glimpse of the family's activities over the course of an entire year - fall, winter, spring, and finally back to summer. This also gives us a glimpse of the family's camaraderie, which will be tested by a major catastrophe in the final act. But while the structure allows for a story to be told without the use of dialogue, I often found myself wondering why the decision was made in the first place. It feels unnatural for the characters to remain silent when greeting or thanking someone, for example, since this isn't a silent film.  In many ways, it feels like an experiment undertaken just to prove a point. But no matter how you feel about the film's experimental tactics, there's no denying that this was a groundbreaking film, with some of the most breathtaking cinematography in all of Japanese cinema.

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Bad Lieutenant (1992, Abel Ferrara)

Quest Status: 758 / 1000

TSPDT Rank #907

Most movies involving copious drug use tend to try to recreate the experience for the viewer, with trick shots emulating the rush of cocaine or the surging pleasure of heroin. This is meant to put you inside the main character's head and vicariously experience their state of ecstasy without actually having to do drugs yourself. However, Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, a brilliant film about a drug-addled police lieutenant in a downward spiral of vice and spiritual guilt, shows us what it feels like to watch someone do drugs. Rather than a vicarious head trip, it's a voyeuristic nightmare.

When Harvey Keitel shoots up in some unknown woman's room, smokes crack in a tenement hallway after handing off a package of cocaine to his dealer, or snorts cocaine after dropping his sons off at school, the camera usually stands static, intently focused on Keitel's staggering self-destruction. And it's not just drugs. He sexually harasses women at a routine traffic stop even as he's supposed to be investigating the rape of a nun. He drinks from the bottle and wildly fires his gun while driving in broad daylight. He dances naked with prostitutes while moaning in primal despair, only to stumble out in the street to happen upon an officer arresting two convenience store thieves and make off with the money himself.

Other directors making normal films would focus on Keitel's gambling problem, which proves to be even more dangerous than the many drugs coursing through his system at all times. However, this is little more than background noise in the context of the big picture. The cop's desperate attempt to come out on top over the course of a heated Mets vs. Dodgers series propels him through the film, but much more prominent is the spiritual torment that he experiences after the nun who has been raped insists on forgiving her assailants. Never has there been a more vital film about Catholic guilt and the question of whether its possible to go past the point of forgiveness. Ferrara goes straight for the gut and hits you with the truth, with dizzying clarity of purpose. There's so much depravity on display that most casual viewers would probably look at this movie and see nothing but smut, but make no mistake: this is a profound work of art. If anything, it deserves to be much higher on the list than it currently is.

 

--- 242 films remaining ---

Floating Weeds (1959, Yasujiro Ozu)

Quest Status: 757 / 1000

TSPDT Rank #966

The films of Yasujiro Ozu are a rare breed. Heavy with emotion, but moving along with a light touch much like the momentum that prods us along with our lives, day in and day out. Still, every time I start to form an idea of what "typical Ozu" is, the next Ozu film I see always confounds me in some new way. This was one of Ozu's first color films, shot by the master cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. Miyagawa's involvement results in some unusually daring visual moments (most notably an argument during a downpour between people on opposite sides of the street), although Ozu's trademark floor cam is still there - watching the characters from the vantage point of a tatami mat as usual.

 

Rather than the Tokyo-based family dramas (and comedies) that were Ozu's standard fare, Floating Weeds is a sultry summer film set in a sleepy seaside town, which becomes host to a broken-down Kabuki troupe hosted by the surly patriarch Ganjiro Nakamura. Those who have seen Ozu's original 1934 silent film A Story of Floating Weeds will know the basic story. That film was more theatrical, whereas this remake focuses more on the details of setting and season which define Ozu's later films.

 

 

There's also a much harsher take on the main character, whose plays are criticized for being hammy and old-fashioned. This is even more true off stage, as he abuses the women in his troupe and hypocritically attempts to exert control over his son, who grew up thinking of him as an uncle. The drama is more heightened than usual, the characters more grating and desperate, but Ozu's tender sense of humanity still shines through - especially in his warm treatment of the younger characters, whose innocence and sincerity provides the perfect foil for their pathetic elders.

--- 243 films remaining ---

 

NOTE

This review is part of my new Tumblr blog Cinema Cycles, which can be found here.

Alexander Nevsky (1938, Sergei Eisenstein)

Quest Status: 756 / 1000

TSPDT Rank #532

"Defense? I don't know how to defend. We shall spite them with all our power!" - Alexander Nevsky

 

Some films can be visually beautiful while being otherwise reprehensible. Alexander Nevsky is one of those films for me. Sergei Eisenstein was never known for his subtlety - as in his most famous film, Battleship Potemkin, one of the bombastic and explosive movies ever made. What bothers me about Alexander Nevsky is that it's a film about war that wholeheartedly promotes war as something virtuous and heroic. And that's something I just can't get behind, even if it is set in the 13th century.

The thing about Alexander Nevsky is that while it's a historical film about a real-life Russian hero (and saint!), it's obviously meant as a work of propaganda. How else can you take a film about fighting the barbaric Germans made just as the Nazis were beginning to set their sights on Europe? And wow, are these Germans barbaric! I mean, giving wailing babies the sign of the cross before dropping them on a giant bonfire, all while an old ghoul grinds a portable organ like the great grand-pappy of Dr. Phibes. Who wouldn't be ready to charge into battle at the drop of a hat (and a few lines about expressing your love for the motherland)?

Everything about the Russians, and the titular warrior's attempt to lead a ragtag group of peasants against the German horde, is just as pure and good as the Germans are corrupt and evil. Battle and the ability to wage war is seen as the foremost human virtue. Courage on the battlefield is the only standard that women use to choose their husbands. Add that to the fact that approximately a third of the film is one long battle sequence on a frozen lake. Of course, when the visuals are as masterful as these, it's hard to complain too much. The scene where the German battalion slowly creeps across the lake from far off in the distance is simply sublime. If only the rest of the film wasn't so hard to swallow.

 

--- 244 films remaining ---

 

NOTE

This review is part of my new Tumblr blog Cinema Cycles, which can be found here.

An Angel At My Table (1990, Jane Campion)

Quest Status: 755 / 1000

TSPDT Rank #622

Even after 120 years of film history, and lots of advancements (as well as setbacks) in women's rights during that time, it still comes as something of a shock to see a film by a female director, with a female main character, more women than men in the cast, written by a woman and based on the autobiography of a female author. It's a good shock, of course, but it serves to illustrate how few films like this there have been - and why directors like Jane Campion are so important in film history.

As for the film itself, it's actually based on not one, but three autobiographies by the New Zealand poet and novelist Janet Frame. It was made as a three-part TV miniseries, with one episode for each book, which actually makes it feel like a pretty brisk watch. The first episode, To the Is-land, focuses on Janet's childhood. It's a lyrical and evocative portrait of growing up in WWII-era New Zealand. The second episode, which shares the title of the main film, is the most harrowing of the three parts. It covers Janet's failed attempt to become a teacher and her subsequent diagnosis with schizophrenia, which landed her in a lunatic asylum for eight years. Here, the necessary compression of time is noticeably, as it doesn't feel like eight years have passed once she's finally released, but the utter destructiveness and cruelty of the "hundreds" of electroshock treatments and inhuman treatment she received are palpable.

The third episode, The Envoy from Mirror City, finds Janet in the midst of a late blooming which occurred well into her adult life, during which she traveled around Europe and wrote some of her most acclaimed works - including a novel about her horrific experiences being treated for schizophrenia. This episode is like the calm after the storm, and is notable for Campion's exquisite rendering of how it feels to be a woman experiencing life's many pleasures and pains for the first time. To add to the list above, it's also highly unusual to see a woman who doesn't fit traditional standards of beauty in full nudity - but we see Janet naked quite a bit in this last section of the film. As with just about everything else in the movie, Campion captures it with incredible lyricism and delicacy, transforming a movie that could have been an average biopic into one that manages to convey something of the essence of its subject.

--- 245 films remaining ---

 

NOTE

This review is part of my new Tumblr blog Cinema Cycles, which can be found here.

Army of Shadows (1969, Jean-Pierre Melville)

Quest Status: 754 / 1000

TSPDT Rank #350

When I think of Jean-Pierre Melville, I think of Alain Devon in Le Samourai, a lone wolf in a world of cool, emotionless gangsters. Army of Shadows is a film about the world French Resistance rather than gangsters, but the two worlds turn out to be surprisingly similar. Both are painted in the same chilly greys and blues. The action here seems to play out in perpetual winter, and much of it at night, as well. The heroes wear the same trenchcoats and are guided not by love, but by a stoic devotion to a mysterious boss whose rule over his men is absolute.

 

In other words, Army of Shadows is about much of the same things that defined his work in the crime thriller genre. He focuses on the minutiae of the Resistance's attempts to evade the Nazi occupation forces, with very little time spent on political or personal matters. When the middle-aged leader of a Resistance group in Marseilles meets a young communist in a camp for political prisoners, the two bond, not over ideology, but over the realization that they both have "comrades." 

 

 

As in Le Samourai, the important thing isn't the code that one adheres to, but that one adheres to that code with unwavering fidelity. Maybe what drew Melville to the world of the Resistance in the first place is that it must have felt like a losing cause, not unlike the world of crime. Anyone who joins must accept that it's only a matter of time before they are caught, tortured, and killed - and not everyone is able to deal with the pressure. For those who are, there's no better reward than the knowledge that they remained true to their comrades. And that when fate comes knocking, the belief that they will have the courage not to run.

--- 246 films remaining ---

 

NOTE

This review is part of my new Tumblr blog Cinema Cycles, which can be found here.