Beyond the Clouds

Peter Weller and Chiara Caselli

Michelangelo Antonioni's Beyond the Clouds, released in late 1995, is a film about interlocking sexual entanglements set in four different European locales. The picture was based on a book of short stories Antonioni published in 1983 entitled That Bowling Alley on the Tiber. In 1985, Antonioni suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed till the end of his days. He was only able to make Beyond the Clouds with the assistance of Wim Wenders, though their relationship was somewhat contentious. Wenders added binding episodes and narration featuring John Malkovich as a traveling director musing on love and life. Antonioni was able to jettison some of the scenes featuring Malkovich, but not all of them. Similarly, sequences featuring Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau were shot by Wenders, but only a single scene remains. The scene offers a self-reflexive take on artistry invoking Cézanne. The question raised is whether an artist repeats himself. Wenders, the auteur, admits that it is inevitable.

The other element that smacks more of Wenders than Antonioni is the soundtrack, the presence of U2 being the tell. It didn't work for me, especially the instrumental Van Morrison numbers used as love motifs. They are too sentimental for an Antonioni picture, even an autumnal one, and I count myself a Van Morrison fan. Wenders was able to prevail upon Antonioni to trim some of the sex scenes, particularly one of Peter Weller going down on Chiara Caselli. Even so, some observers, like Michael Atkinson of the Village Voice, found the amount of young female flesh on display to be gratuitous. It does seem like every female actress under forty gets totally nekkid in this flick. I am a little more tolerant of this than Mr. Atkinson. Seniors should be indulged their erotic reveries since some of them can only dream rather than do.

Vincent Perez and Irène Jacob

What is best about Beyond the Clouds and most distinctively Antonionian is its mise-en-scène. The film is otherworldly gorgeous. Lovers tease each other as they walk down ancient streets and foggy corridors pitched on the edge of oblivion. The eternal recurrence of romance, its ebb and flow, is evoked through water imagery. Parting and its sweet ache are memorably evoked. What is most uneven about the film is the acting. It is as if the players hit their marks and then could do what they want. Malkovich is fine and Irène Jacob is sublime. Jean Reno is wasted as are Mastroianni and Moreau. Peter Weller and Chiara Caselli show great charm. Kim Rossi Stuart and Inés Sastre are as charmless and at sea as Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin in Zabriskie Point. Sophie Marceau looks great, but her performance is deplorable. I broke out laughing when her character claimed to have stabbed her father twelve times. I was not convinced. Similarly, Fanny Ardant muffs her drunk scene. Lovers of Mr. Antonioni's work should see Beyond the Clouds, others may be baffled.

Resurrection

         

Bi Gan's Resurrection demonstrates that the mechanism of cinema still has a pulse. I find that my previous remarks on Bi Gan still hold, but that Resurrection represents a wholehearted dive into the unconscious realms of surrealism. Some have accused the film of oneiric onanism, but I find the film contains pointed insights into both film and Chinese history. Titles trumpet the film's theme at the onset. The world is split into two, Yin and Yang, those who eschew dreams to live eternally and those rebels who live to dream; monikered here "the Deliriants". The film's one constant is the Deliriant figure embodied by Chinese boy bander Jackson Yee in a remarkable performance. The Deliriant's travails are shown in five discrete episodes. Each episode represents both a period in the history of cinema and modern China. The cinematic style used in each episode mimics that of the period. Thus, the opening section, set in the 1920s, is silent and filmed like the magic lantern visions of Méliès. The following episode, set during China's conflict with Japan, is shot using the conventions of expressionistic noir. And so on.

In each episode, the Deliriant lives on the fringes of society, a criminal, mongrel or monster. Throughout, there is a consistent aura of paranoia. The Deliriant is always ensnared or trapped by some aspect of society. In this respect, Resurrection stands as a veiled rebuke to Chinese authoritarianism. Bi Gan eschews the lengthy tracking shots of Long Day's Journey into Night enhancing the sense of the Deliriant's entrapment. That is until the last segment set on the eve of Y2K. In this section, the Deliriant is a young gang banger whose girl is under the control of a mobster. The camera follows the young lovers as they seek escape through the labyrinthian streets of the city. Only when they commandeer a barge and head out to sea, a recurring symbol of freedom in the film, do they seem at liberty.

Resurrection is chock full of film allusions. Now this can be a boon or a curse. The Bride has a host of references, not only Mary Shelley, but Bonnie and Clyde and Bartleby the Scrivener. Unfortunately, these allusion add little to the film. They merely serve to prop up a flimsy dramatic framework. Squeal, with its allusions to Barry Lyndon, is an example of a picture in which the film references add to its complexity and resonance. I feel much the same about Resurrection. The shout outs to Day of Wrath, The Lady From Shanghai, and Kiss Me Deadly add to the mood of mistrust and treachery. The China portrayed in Resurrection is the hall of mirrors of the modern totalitarian surveillance state.

Those seeking an overarching narrative in Resurrection are grasping at straws. The film is a set of variations on a theme. It is a movie designed to excite the mind's eye, as the continued use of the motif of the iris attests to. The episodes, as Tom Verlaine once put it, alternately dissolve and reveal. Actually Verlaine called it Dissolve/Reveal, a more cinematic version of the psychedelic pivot where the fire of everyday existence melts into the pool of the collective unconscious. The circularity of Resurrection's form, beginning and ending in a movie theater reflects the film's presentation of eternal recurrence. Same as it ever was through modern Chinese history. Deliriants of all stripes will find much to assay and treasure in this film.

Ghost Nursing

Shirley Yim consults a seer in Ghost Nursing

Wilson Tong's Ghost Nursing is the best exploitation film I've seen in some time. The folks at Vinegar Syndrome have issued a splendid looking Blu-ray of this 1982 supernatural horror flick. Shirley Yim stars as Jackie, a working gal who we witness fleeing Hong Kong and some large gambling debts for Thailand in the first reel. There she shares a crash pad with a cousin who cajoles her into selling her wares at a local dive. After being brutalized by a wealthy client, Jackie visits a local seer to gain insight into how she can change her run of bad luck. The seer gifts her a misshapen "child" to nourish who will, in turn, protect Jackie. Things start out promisingly for Jackie, she wins the attention of a hunky and kind suitor, but she does not completely fulfill her part of the bargain and harsh consequences result. 

Ghost Nursing resembles a graphic novel or comic book, as we used to call them, in the best possible way. Visually lurid with bold primary colors, the Vinegar Syndrome disc does justice to the palette of the film. The camera set-ups are outstanding, especially for a film made for such a low budget. The exploitive bits of the film are somewhat undercut by the seamy treatment Jackie experiences. The film editing jumps rapidly through scenes, particularly during the film's gonzo final third. This disguises the brilliantly schlocky practical effects and causes the viewer to get swept up in Ghost Nursing's WTF rush.