Uncut Gems

The Safdie brothers' Uncut Gems is an ambitious feature that I found alternately rewarding and taxing. The brothers attempt to amplify and broaden their canvas after the success of Good Time, but certain elements remain. Both films have a MacGuffin or Maltese Falcon, an emblem of the greed that motivates the shady figures that populate the Safdies' vision of New York. In Good Time, it was a 7Up bottle filled with acid. In Uncut Gems, it is an uncut opal that sends jeweler and compulsive gambler Adam Sandler careening through the pawn shops and gem stores of Manhattan's Diamond District.

As in Good Time, there is a lysergic edge to the proceedings. Both films contain a black light sequence, though the one in Uncut Gems feels somewhat gratuitous. After a prologue which shows the opal being mined in Africa, the camera takes a trip through the colon of Mr. Sandler's character. A journey that is echoed near the end when the camera journeys through his brain. At such times, it seems that the Safdies flirt with the pretentiousness and portentousness that gifted filmmaker fall prey to after a rousing success. Intolerance, John Ford's The Fugitive, Heaven's Gate, 1941 and, more recently, Magnolia, come to mind. Like those films, Uncut Gems is a distinctive and interesting work that suffers from grandiosity.

The central dramatic problem here is that Adam Sandler's character has burned too many bridges with family, friends and colleagues for there to be any doubt as to his eventual fate. I applaud the courage of the Safdies and Mr. Sandler in remaining true to the film's bleak vision, but the outcome is so over determined as to make the exposition laborious.

A good example is the moment Lakeith Stanfield's character finally breaks with Sandler's character. Instead of embedding the moment in what is largely a well drawn narrative, the Safdies' highlight it with a circle dolly. Mr. Stanfield is up to the dramatic challenge, but it still feels like the Safdies are grandstanding.

Idina Menzel, as Sandler's wife, has a similar moment when Sandler is trying to weasel his way back into her favor. The scene is saved by some good one liners, but, once again, the Safdies undermine their creation by ending scenes with an exclamation point instead of a period. This would be more apt in a mythic film, but Uncut Gems aspires to realism, albeit one blurred by narcotics and sensory overload.

Despite my petty complaints, I still admire the Safdies' moxie. I don't think Uncut Gems is as successful as Good Time, but it has more juice than 90% of American films. Perhaps Mr. Sandler was too perfect a fit for his character. His plunge into the self-hatred of a Jewish man-child without a trace of boyish charm is hard for an audience to sit through for 135 minutes. Uncut Gems entertains with interesting performances, a cheesily enjoyable score and superb editing. Julia Fox's performance as Sandler's mistress is reason enough to see the film. However, Uncut Gems is overstuffed and enervating. I suspect the enervating feel is part of the Safdies' intent, but Uncut Gems suffers from it and artistic overreach just the same. 

Best of 1982

1. Veronika Voss                                                                         RW Fassbinder
2. Fanny and Alexander                                                             Ingmar Bergman
3. Fast Times at Ridgemont High                                              Amy Heckerling
4. Moonlighting                                                                           Jerzy Skolimowski    
5. White Dog                                                                                Sam Fuller
6. Honkytonk Man                                                                    Clint Eastwood
7. ET                                                                                             Steven Spielberg
8. Shoot the Moon                                                                       Alan Parker
9. Diner                                                                                        Barry Levinson
10. Das Boot                                                                                  Wolfgang Peterson

        Films I Enjoyed

        Lola, La Nuit de Varennes, Poltergeist, 

        Blade Runner, The Man From Snowy River,

        Barbarosa, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, 

        The Year of Living Dangerously,

        My Favorite Year, Gregory's Girl, 

        Lonely Hearts, Q, 

        Yol, 48 Hours,

        Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Tootsie, 

        The Thing, Cat People, Fitzcarraldo,

        Basket Case, Passion, Hammett,

        The Missionary, The Shadow Riders,

        Cannery Row, First Blood, 

        Victor/Victoria, Conan the Barbarian

        Below the Mendoza Line

        Frances, Still of the Night,

        Human Highway, Waitress!,

        Sophie's Choice, Tenebrae,

        Eating Raoul, The Grey Fox, 

        La Balance, Next of Kin,

        The Return of Martin Guerre, 

        A Midsummer's Night Sex Comedy, Night Shift,

        Querelle, The Verdict, 

        An Officer and a Gentleman, Missing, 

       The Wall, Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker,

        Wrong is Right, The World According to Garp,

        Making Love, Creepshow,

        Gandhi, Author Author, 

        Jinxed, Swamp Thing, 

        Annie, The Toy,

        The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, The Beastmaster,

        Tron

                                  

        

        

        

                  

Shoplifters

Hirokazu Koreeda's Shoplifters is one of the warmest features of recent cinema. Koreeda's portrait of a band of miscreants who adopt a discarded and abused child, Yuri, resonates with family ritual and sensuality, but the long arm of the law is never far. Like Fagin's adoption of Oliver Twist into his gang, the embrace of an innocent dooms the brigands. Their warren denotes their status as the bottom dwellers of Japan. Yet, Koreeda imbues their lair with familial cheer and delight in both sex and, especially, food. Koreeda's astonishing players often reveal their true selves by how they slurp their noodles. The moral is the old saw that our true family is the one we pick. Koreeda is able to render his downtrodden protagonist with more dimensionality than Cuaron does in the similarly themed Roma.

The film's pace is pokey, but that delays recognition of the true perfidy of the band and increases our interest in the fate of young Yuri. The final shot of Yuri entrapped and alone is heartrending.

The Ruthless

Renato De Maria's The Ruthless is a diverting, if derivative, Italian crime drama. Riccardo Scamarcio stars as Santo, a lifelong criminal whose rise and fall occurs against the backdrop of the mean streets of Milan. He juggles a devout wife (Sara Serraiocco) and a free spirited mistress (Marie Ange Casta) as he uses the profits from kidnappings to fund his narcotics operation.

The antic, black comic glee with which De Maria films the proceedings owes much to Martin Scorsese; particularly Goodfellas. One can make a long checklist of the stylistic borrowings or homages. There are long tracking shots with offscreen narration expounding upon the characters. There are quick dollies into closeups of characters' reactions to dramatic moments. There is a soundtrack utilizing pop songs. There is even a character tied up in a car trunk who makes a little more noise than his captors would like. Etc.

Like Scorsese, De Maria links the sociopathy of his characters with the spirit of unbridles capitalism. Santo, like Henry Hill, views law abiding citizens as suckers and dupes condemned to a life of drudgery. The gangster in these films has a raging id that cannot be contained by the superego of society's structures. Scamarcio even assays the manic giggle of Ray Liotta. He also has the onscreen energy of a Cagney which gives the film a propulsive drive.

De Maria doesn't have the cinematic chops or the judgement of a master like Scorsese, yet. The motivations of several characters, particularly the women, seem sketchy at times. A scene where Santo disrupts a performance art piece hosted by his mistress seems overly glib. A sense of deja vu haunts the movie, especially the coda which pictures Santo in exile much like Henry Hill in Goodfellas.

However, there is enough energy and and dynamism on display to let me give the film a guarded recommendation. De Maria handles his players well and creates a convincing evocation of 80's Milan. The view from Santo's downtown villa is of the Duomo di Milano, a magnificent sight which give the film elements of grandiosity and hubris. The dark comedy is biting and inventive, especially the scenes involving the "drug sommelier". The Ruthless is no groundbreaking work, but it is a solid genre piece.

Best of 1983

1. L'Argent                                                                              Robert Bresson
2. Videodrome                                                                        David Cronenberg
3. Pauline at the Beach                                                          Eric Rohmer
4. The Ballad of Narayama                                                    Shohei Imamura
5. A Nos Amour                                                                      Maurice Pialat
6. Nostalghia                                                                           Andrei Tarkovsky 
7. The Dead Zone                                                                   David Cronenberg
8. Local Hero                                                                          Bill Forsyth
9. The King of Comedy                                                         Martin Scorsese   
10. Risky Business                                                                  Paul Brickman       

        Honorable Mention

        The Man With Two Brains -- Carl Reiner, Zelig -- Allen,

        Sans Soleil -- Marker

        Films I Enjoyed

        Man of Flowers, Eureka,

        Sudden Impact, The Draughtsman's Contract,

        Rumblefish, The Fourth Man, 

        Prenom Carmen, Tender Mercies, 

        The Big Chill, The State of Things,

        In The White City, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,

        Danton, Under Fire, 

        Terms of Endearment, Delirious,

        Twilight Zone (Dante and Miller), Heat and Dust, 

        Angst, Scarface, 

        Valley Girl, Death Ride to Osaka,

 

        Below the Mendoza Line

        Breathless, The Outsiders, Trading Places, 

        Bad Boys, A Christmas Story,

        The Hunger, The Dresser, 

        Sleepaway Camp, Christine, 

        High Road to China, Mausoleum,

        Psycho 2, Brainstorm,
        Yentl, Mr. Mom, Country, 

        The Right Stuff , Gorky Park, Flashdance,
        The Keep, Blue Thunder, War Games,

        Cujo, Christine, Vacation,
        Return of the Jedi, Never Say Never Again, Octopussy, 
        Monty Python's Meaning of Life, 

        Strange Brew, Star 80, Stroker Ace,
        Krull, Spacehunter   

                                                                    

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me?, adapted from the Lee Israel memoir by Jeff Whitty and Nicole Holofcener, is an engaging look at a struggling New York writer who resorts to forging literary memorabilia in order to stay afloat financially during the early 90s. Impersonated by Melissa McCarthy at her most frugly, Israel is a cat loving lesbian misanthrope with alcoholic tendencies. Freed from the cycle of idiotic comedies that the success of Bridesmaids made inevitable, McCarthy gives her most assured big screen performance; though her acting chops are no surprise to this Gilmore Girls fan. She is well matched with the always entertaining Richard E. Grant, who plays a flamboyant, though somewhat dim, gay male who bonds over drinks with Israel and then becomes her partner in crime.

Besides the amusing rapport between the two leads, the charm of the film lies in its portrait of the book stores, watering holes and restaurants of the déclassé Upper East side. Heller gives the film a true grounding in its setting, something that was not as effective in her previous feature, The Diary of a Teenage Girl. As in that film, the acting is a plus: Jane Curtin, Dolly Wells, Christian Navarro, Stephen Spinella, Ben Falcone and, especially, Anna Deavere Smith, all provide memorable moments. While sometimes suffering from a case of the cutes, Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a step up for Heller after her debut. (3/6/19)

White Nights (1957)

Luchino Visconti's White Nights captures the contrasting realism and fairy tale musings of Dostoyevsky's novella. The film is a technical marvel with the studio sets of Cinecitta representing a dream-like Livorno slum instead of St. Petersburg. Giuseppe Rotunno's cinematography allows Visconti a wide canvas with three fields of vision and a striking depth to the images. His innovative work in this film, he used tulle for a fog-like effect, led him to a majestic career both in Italy and Hollywood. Rotunno's resume includes The Leopard, Carnal Knowledge and All That Jazz. He is still with us today, as I write, at the age of ninety seven.

White Nights is fairly true to its source, adding some comedy and a rock and roll dance sequence to the brooding Russian's work. Visconti seizes upon the story's portrait of the destitute and dispossessed and this balances his tendency to wallow in glitz. The story is a slight love triangle which, in truth, is helped by the padding. The protagonist, Mario, woos a girl, Natalia in the film, who truly loves a former lodger in her building. The lodger mysteriously disappears for a year, but not before pledging his love to Natalia and asking her to wait for him.

The cast is an almost perfect fit. Marcello Mastroianni would seem too charismatic and graceful for the part of Mario, one of Dostoyevsky's ridiculous men. His attributes proved fatal to his later collaboration with Visconti on L'Etranger where he was miscast as the wan and introverted Mersault. Here the screenwriters give the protagonist more feminine attention which suits the effortlessly sexy Mastroianni. The biggest plus is his chemistry with Maria Schell who gives her most affecting performance. Schell nails the duality of her character, both the unabashed sensuality and angelic innocence.

Visconti gives Schell a wonderful close-up of surprised rapture when she first gazes upon her returning lover, embodied memorably by Jean Marais. Marais might seem a bit long in the tooth for this role, but he is an ideal object of desire for both Natalia and Visconti. Marais is always a magnificent screen presence and for the little time he is on screen in White Nights, he simply has to be. The introduction of his character in flashback provides a visual counterpoint to the dark canal sequences as Visconti suffuses the interior of Natalia's apartment with light. Also providing contrast, are the comic vignettes of Natalia's grandmother and Mario's maid. Without them, the mood would be overwhelmingly solemn.

This would be consecutive masterpieces for Visconti, following the majestic Senso. White Nights shares with that film a splendid sequence at the opera, but Visconti had much better luck with casting here. I used to have a bit of distaste for Visconti's work because I grew up seeing the limpid and overstuffed films of his last decade. However, most of what I've seen of his pre-Leopard work is pretty damned great; White Nights included.

Best of 1984

1. After the Rehearsal                                                                Ingmar Bergman
2. What Have I Done to Deserve This?                                     Pedro Almodovar
3. The Element of Crime                                                            Lars von Trier
4. Places in the Heart                                                                  Robert Benton
5. Broadway Danny Rose                                                           Woody Allen
6. Once Upon A Time in America                                              Sergio Leone
7. Stop Making Sense                                                                Jonathan Demme
8. The Terminator                                                                      James Cameron
9. The Geisha                                                                              Hideo Gosha
10. Top Secret                                                David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker

          

          Honorable Mention

          The Bounty -- Donaldson, Boy Meets Girl -- Carax

   

          Films I Enjoyed

         The Hit, Tightrope, 

         Antonio Gaudi, The Runner,

         Romancing the Stone, Gremlins,

         Red Dawn, Dreamscape,

         The Company of Wolves, Choose Me,

         Swing Shift, Streets of Fire, The Funeral,
         Against All Odds, Stranger Than Paradise, 

         Dune, Blood Simple, 

         Mrs. Soffel, Entre Nous,
         Amadeus, Crimes of Passion, Grandview USA,

         Paris, Texas, Body Double,
         This is Spinal Tap, Under the Volcano, 

         A Nightmare on Elm Street, Buckaroo Banzai,  

         A Private Function, Splash,
         Repo Man, Purple Rain, 

         Beverly Hills Cop, The Toxic Avenger

         Below the Mendoza Line
       

         The Brother From Another Planet, 
         Starman, Crackers,

         Ghostbusters, 1984, 

         Sixteen Candles, Footloose, The Karate Kid,
         Nausicaa, A Passage to India, 

         The Cotton Club, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 

         Greystoke, Into the Night,

         The Hotel New Hampshire,
         Conan the Destroyer, Firestarter, 

         The Natural, Birdy,

         The Woman in Red, Falling in Love,
         Children of the Corn, The Killing Fields, 

         The NeverEnding Story, Slapstick of Another Kind

Oliver Twist

Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist raised barely a blip on the cinematic radar screen when it was released in 2005. However, I think it is probably the best version of the novel and though it is a middling Polanski film, it is very much a personal film that fits firmly within his distinguished body of work. The claustrophobic interiors of Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant are in evidence here, as are tracking shots through a ghetto, as in the Pianist. The doom and violence that haunt Chinatown and Macbeth are present, as are the period detail and critique of the patriarchy featured in Tess. I could go on and on. Polanski is a major cinematic artist whose work, even when he is not at his best, is rife with undercurrents and themes that repeat consciously and unconsciously.

Oliver Twist's status as a children's book would make it seem an odd choice for Polanski, but it is dark and unsettling book no matter the reader's age. Certainly, Dickens' gallery of grotesques and monsters is right in Polanski's wheelhouse. I can remember being shocked at the perfidy of Bill Sykes' murder of Nancy when I saw Carol Reed's toothless Oliver! at the age of eight or so. The expressionistic version of 1948 by David Lean made an even deeper impression on youthful me. Ronald Harwood's screenplay streamlines the plot a little less than those versions. He smartly retains the scene of Oliver visiting Fagin in prison. Even though Harwood's script lacks the narrative motivations for this visit, the scene beautifully expresses Oliver's empathy. Fleeting moments of grace are welcome in an oeuvre in which a paranoid and deeply troubled (and troubling) artist confronts a monstrous world.

The Vast of Night

Andrew Patterson's The Vast of Night is a pretty good feature debut, though perhaps not the eye popping masterpiece some have hailed. A Close Encounters... type Sci-Fi film set in a New Mexico town, The Vast of Night functions best as a portrait of small town insularity in the 1950s. Issues still pertinent today such as racism, sexism and the creep of technology burble under the surface of this film. Patterson juxtaposes lengthy tracking shots of his main characters scurrying to and fro  investigating mysterious sights and sounds with still moments in which his characters are able to breathe and indulge in long, explicatory monologues.

Sierra McCormick plays Fay, a high school student with a single mom and a night gig as a switchboard operator. Her companion exploring the mysterious trail of extraterrestrials is Everett, a young DJ who yearns for the big time. Patterson emphasizes how both feel hemmed in by their small town existence. Fay wants to go to college, but knows she cannot afford it. A budding romance between the two is hinted at, but Patterson wisely keeps their relationship chaste as they join in their mutual quest.

One of the film's monologue's is quite terrific: Gail Cronauer as Mabel Blanche, a woman describing her young son being abducted by an alien force. She regards the aliens as malevolent powers pulling the strings behind the scenes and egging on man's baser and more violent instincts. However, Patterson never follows through on this intriguing portrait of Cold War paranoia. The film peters out into a rehash of Close Encounters... anemic ending.

A clue to Patterson's ambitions and his inability to bring the film to a satisfactory conclusion is the film's debt to Orson Welles. Everett's last name is Sloan, a shout out to Everett Sloane, the great actor who played Mr. Bernstein in Citizen Kane and was a member of Welles' Mercury Players. The film is also replete with references to Welles' Touch of Evil: the border town setting, the long tracking shots and the prominent role of a tape recorder in the proceedings. Patterson's film only ends up looking small compared to Welles' meditation on malevolence. As Andrew Sarris noted, in his piece on Paul Wendkos in The American Cinema:

  Perhaps Welles is a dangerous influence on any young director. Welles can get away with a 
  lot more than can his most devote disciples because the power of Welles' personality
  holds the varied forms in some meaningful context.           

Patterson bit off more than he could chew and it is no disgrace to say that The Vast of Night does not reach the level of Citizen Kane or Touch of Evil. The Vast of Night suffers from technical defects that plague most directorial debuts filmed on a small budget: the sound recording is often fuzzy and there is poor lighting in some of the exterior shots. The callowness of his leads is not always due to their characters' youth and naiveté. However, Patterson has an eye, a sense of place and more ideas than he knows what to do with. The Vast of Night is not a completely satisfying movie, but it is a very promising one.

Best of 1985

1. Vagabond                                                                                    Agnes Varda
2. Tampopo                                                                                      Juzo Itami
3. To Live and Die in L.A.                                                               William Friedkin
4. Angry Harvest                                                                             Agnieszka Holland
5. Lost in America                                                                          Albert Brooks  
6. Prizzi's Honor                                                                             John Huston  
7. Ran                                                                                              Akira Kurosawa
8. Poulet au vinaigre                                                                      Claude Chabrol
9. A Room With a View                                                                  James Ivory
10. Jagged Edge                                                                               Richard Marquand

          Honorable Mention

 

          Return to Oz -- Murch

         Films I Enjoyed

  

         After Hours, The Legend of Suram Fortress,

         Runaway Train, Pale Rider,

         The Purple Rose of Cairo, My Life as a Dog, 

         Re-Animator, Colonel Redl,   

         Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, 

         The Mean Season, Explorers, 

         The Falcon and the Snowman, Mishima, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure,

         King David, Back to the Future,

         Trouble in Mind, Mask, Flesh and Blood,

         Come and See, Police, Heaven Help Us, 

         My Beautiful Launderette, Brazil, The Emerald Forest, 

         Day of the Dead, Real Genius,

         Silverado, O.C. and Stiggs, 
         Smooth Talk, Fright Night,

         The Stuff, Subway,

        Fletch, Witness

         Below the Mendoza Line

         Lifeforce, Hail Mary, Crimewave, 

         The Breakfast Club, Kiss of the Spider Woman,

         Desperately Seeking Susan, The Official Story, 

         Enemy Mine, Agnes of God, 

         Desert Hearts, 
         Jewel of the Nile, Cocoon,

         The Goonies, Out of Africa,
         Weird Science, Young Sherlock Holmes,

         St. Elmo's Fire, Ladyhawke,
         Teen Wolf, The Black Cauldron, 

         The Color Purple, A View to a Kill,
         Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Silver Bullet 

         The Holcroft Covenant,

         Clue, Spies Like Us

                                                   

                                                                                                                                                 

Les Garcons Sauvage

Bertrand Mandico's Les Garcon Sauvages is a mind blowing feature debut. If Mandico's transgressive sexual fantasy is ultimately onanistic, that may be his intent. Whatever meaning there is to be gleaned from this singular film, Mandico displays an impressive amount of visual imagination. The film concerns a group of unbridled adolescents who, as punishment for torturing their teacher, are sent on a long sea voyage with a sadistic captain who intends to reform his charges. He takes them to a mysterious island where they are able to enjoy erotic hedonism in an exotic setting. However, the island causes peculiar changes to these wild boys.

Mandico foregrounds sexual fluidity by casting young women as the horny and violent boys. The players, with the aid of computerized vocal pitch control, are up to the challenge, rendering the macho antics of the boys as very much a swaggering act. There is a mysterious bejeweled deity named Trevor who transmits messages to the boys as they sleep. These sequences are in vivid color, while most of the film is in bleached out black and white. The net effect is that of a queer(er) Guy Maddin, especially his more bizarre narrative films such as The Saddest Music in the World and Twilight of the Ice Nymphs. Like Maddin, Mandico puts a modern, avant-garde spin on silent and early sound film imagery. Also like Maddin, Mandico's work verges on camp. Les Garcon Sauvages seems like Captains Courageous as remade by Bunuel and Genet.

If there is a moral to this whacked out film, it is that young men must get in touch with their feminine side in order to become more integrated and mature individuals. Fittingly for the post-modernist he is, Mandico has woven bits and pieces of older films within the flotsam and jetsam of his story: L'Age D'Or, Zardoz, A Clockwork Orange, The Night of the Hunter, Robinson Crusoe, Lord of the Flies, Valhalla Rising, Planet of the Vampires and numerous B horror and sci-fi flicks from the 50s and 60s. Though a striking work, Les Garcon Sauvages is more geared towards film aficionados and midnight movie fans than the general film audience.  (3/11/19)

Burning

A dance to the setting sun in Burning

Chang-dong Lee's Burning has all the hallmarks of a classic thriller, but suffers from a dry, academic tone. Ah-in Yoo portrays Jong, a young man who lives alone at a dilapidated ranch near the DMZ in South Korea. His father, we gradually learn during the course of the film, is a violent offender who is being held while awaiting trial for assault and other misdeeds. We meet Jong in transit as he is waylaid by a Trade Fair honey who scams a tacky watch with Jong's oblivious assistance. The female, named Hae-Mi, seems overly enamored with the almost catatonic Jong and forthwith they hit the sack. She says she is going on a trip to Africa and would like Jong to attend to her cat in the meantime. He fulfills his duties and eagerly goes to pick up Hae-Mi at the airport. Unexpectedly, a dashing stranger, Ben, is there with Hae-Mi.

Ben is a wealthy playboy, as aimless as Jong, but with a sophisticated patina. He lives in a Seoul luxury condo much like the ones that have arisen in Portland's Pearl and San Francisco's Mission District. It is the opposite of Jong's ramshackle, if bucolic dwelling. Jong is an obvious dupe and cannot help but get himself enmeshed in Ben's upscale coterie.  Eventually, Ben and Hae-Mi arrive at Jong's property and proceed to treat him to wine and food. They share a joint as the sun falls. Ben confesses that he is driven to burn greenhouses and warns Jong that he will soon burn one nearby. A whiff of Faulkner, specifically "Barn Burning", is in the air. Hae-Mi, prone to chemical abuse, strips off her top and dances in ecstasy with the setting sun. Jong, channeling his father's rage, berates her and calls her a whore. This is the last we see of Hae-Mi.

The film loses its dash of spontaneity with the loss of Hae-Mi, superbly played by Jeon Jong-seo in her film debut. Equally memorable are Mr. Yoo and Steven Yeun as Ben, but their characters are often little more than schematic doubles playing cat and mouse. Jong spends the second half of the film running from greenhouse to greenhouse before investigating Hae-Mi's disappearance. This leads him to an inevitable confrontation with Ben. However, due to the film's somewhat laborious construction, the climax lacks impact. Mr. Lee has shot a striking film with a marvelous cast, but the end product seems overdetermined.

Best of 1986

1. Le Rayon Vert                                                                    Eric Rohmer
2. The Singing Detective                                                       Jon Amiel & Dennis Potter
3. The Fly                                                                                David Cronenberg
4. The Horse Thief                                                                 Tian Zhuangzhuang
5. Blue Velvet                                                                         David Lynch
6. Manhunter                                                                          Michael Mann
7. Therese                                                                               Alain Cavalier
8. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2                                     Tobe Hooper
9. The Sacrifice                                                                      Andrei Tarkovsky
10. Something Wild                                                                 Jonathan Demme

         Honorable Mention

        Aliens -- Cameron, Peggy Sue Got Married -- Coppola, 

        Hannah and Her Sisters -- Allen, A Better Tomorrow -- Woo

        Films I Enjoyed

        Mona Lisa, The Decline of the American Empire,

        GA-GA: Glory to the Heroes,

        Platoon, F/X, 

        Sherman's March, Devil in the Flesh, 

        She's Gotta Have It, Heartbreak Ridge,

        The Color of Money, Menage, 

        Caravaggio, Ferris Bueller's Day Off,

        Down and Out in Beverly Hills, 8 Million Ways to Die,

        Poison for the Fairies, Sid and Nancy, 
        The Name of the Rose, The Hitcher,

        At Close Range,  River's Edge

        Below the Mendoza Line

        Down by Law, Mosquito Coast, 

        Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Mala Noche,
        Routine Pleasures, About Last Night, 

        Dead End Drive-In, Stand By Me, 

        Absolute Beginners, Gung Ho,

        House,  Ruthless People,
        Three Amigos, Raw Deal,

        Desert Bloom, 

        Night of the Creeps, Top Gun,

        Children of a Lesser God, Jean de Florette,
        Little Shop of Horrors, Hoosiers,

        The Murders in the Rue Morgue, 

        Howard the Duck, The Morning After,
        Back to School, Big Trouble in Little China, 

        Pretty in Pink, The Money Pit,
        Labyrinth, Chopping Mall,

        Reform School Girls, 

        Crocodile Dundee, 91/2 Weeks,
        The Mission,

        Shanghai Surprise,  Maximum Overdrive

                                             

The Ballad of Narayama (1958)

Storybook sets and expressionistic colors in The Ballad of Narayama

Keisuke Kinoshita's The Ballad of Narayama tells the tale of an old woman who, following village tradition, must be taken by her son to the titular mountain to die. This dark tale, derived from the novelization of an old folk tale, is performed on a soundstage lending the film a storybook feel. Kinoshita imbues his film with expressionistic colors, often signaling the changing of seasons and time's passage. He also uses techniques from Kabuki theater, particularly an off-screen narrator who sings his lines. Kinoshita often ends scenes by shutting off the lighting on his characters in the foreground while changing the background sets before our eyes. These effects enliven what is a very lugubrious tale.

Part of the downbeat nature of the story is the scathing portrait of the inhabitants of the poor, rural village. Orin, the old woman doomed to take her fatal trip to Narayama, is portrayed as virtuous and caring as are her son and daughter-in-law, but most of the villagers are portrayed as avaricious and self-centered. When a mistreated old codger resorts to thievery to stay alive, the villagers take advantage of his misdeed by looting his family's supplies. It does not take much imagination to see that Kinoshita is addressing the collective guilt of Japan during the post-war period.

Kinuyo Tanaka is peerless as Orin, matching her superb performances for Mizoguchi. I won't soon forget the scene where she contemplates bashing out her teeth on a stone implement so she can be a toothless old lady ready to hasten her ultimate demise. ...Narayama often resembles a silent melodrama and Tanaka's performance gives the film a still center from which the pathos is wrung. I slightly prefer Imamura's 1983 remake, mostly because his realism makes the ending more shattering and his film has a better balance of humor and tragedy. However, this version is a memorable and moving film.

Triple Frontier

J.C. Chandor's Triple Frontier is a fumbled attempt at an action adventure flick. Five psychologically damaged special forces veterans try to kill and rob a drug lord deep in the Amazonian jungle. The vets are economically scuffling and need this one last score. I didn't really mind the formulaic nature of the film or its borrowings from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Wages of Fear, etc., but I was especially irked by the feeble attempts to flesh out the characters. Oscar Isaac has not shown he has the charisma to be a leading man and Chandor does not help his cause here. Ben Affleck is miscast as a depressed veteran. He may be past his glory days, like his character, but his narrow wheelhouse is cocky vacuity; as in Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy. Charlie Hunnam is a sieve, as always. Producers must mistake his skeeziness for authenticity. Pedro Pascal and Garrett Hedlund fare better.

The one femme, Adria Arjona, is set up in a ludicrous informant/cop relationship with Isaac. She is fine, but if you want to see it done right, check out William Petersen and Darlanne Fluegel in To Live and Die in LA. The Colombian locations are watchable, but Triple Frontier is a washout. Chandor's reputation continues to escape me. (3/16/19)