Sayat Nova (The Colour of Pomegranates) (1968)
Made in the Soviet Union, censored, re-cut, banned, and now available for free on the Internet Archive. I'd say it's the biography of Ukranian poet Sayat Nova, but that would be lying. Even the open title card says it's not. It's more the biography of Sayat Nova's mind and poetry. As a result, what we get is over an hour of bizarre, abstract film-making. Like some poetry, it is at times strangely compelling and beautiful. Also like poetry, it is at times inaccessible and dull.
It's an interesting exploration of film and cinematic conventions, but also an incredibly frustrating film to get into. Parts of it are intriguing. Parts of it are just too far out there. Watch it and make up your own mind.
Batman (1989)
The Dark Knight saga reboot has spoiled our expectations of what we want from a Batman film these days. Christopher Nolan has given us a Gotham that is dark, gritty, and rooted in realism. He also teamed up with Heath Ledger to give us what is now considered one of the greatest depictions of the Joker ever, next to Mark Hamill's creepy-as-hell voice acting. But that being said, Tim Burton's depiction isn't all that bad.
Yes, it has its over-the-top moments, but it's nowhere near as stupid as the later films, nor as camp as the original TV series. It's actually quite dark and even a little cynical. Yes, they've gone and given the Joker a backstory, which goes against the roots of the original character, but the Joker's descent into madness goes way beyond what you would expect from someone who ends up deformed like that. At times he ends up being every bit as creepy as the Heath Ledger and Mark Hamill depictions. He has a deranged sense of humour, and even finds that his own sense of humour is deranged a funny thing.
There is a massive failing of this film, though, and it is that the character of Bruce Wayne/Batman isn't fleshed out. At all. For almost all the movie he's just a rich guy who dresses up like a bat to beat up criminals. We don't clearly see the duel lives that Wayne lives out. At the start of the film, it is implied that Batman is just starting out on his quest to clean up the city, but later in the film it's implied he's been at this for a while. (Why else would he already have the Batmobile and the Batwing ready to go?) The character is completely inaccessible, and that's a shame because in a Batman film its Batman we have to understand.
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)
No, it's not a French film. It's an American adaptation of a French play. Our man Cyrano is a soldier (quite possibly the best swordsman of his time) and a poet, who is also unfortunately endowed with a huge nose. He's also in love with his cousin, Roxane. (It's okay, I think they're actually "distant" cousins.) Another young soldier in his regiment is also in love with Roxane, and so he helps this man win her over by telling him what to say to her. All the time.
The characters are full of life and the acting is top notch, but something has been lost in translation and it drags on well past when it should have ended. There's a whole extra 40 minutes or so where they all go to war, and the only reason is to apparently knock over a few plot points. The swashbuckling is good, though, and there's plenty of it.
Departures (2008)
No, this isn't a film set in an airport. It's a Japanese film about an out of work cellist who moves back to his home town with his wife and becomes a "nokanshi", which is someone who prepares a body for burial or cremation and the afterlife. This is done in a sort of ceremony just before the body is placed in the coffin. However, since these people touch the dead on a daily basis, the job is considered to be one of the most shameful to have in Japan. That being said, it is an incredibly important one, and here lies the contradiction: It's one of those jobs that is incredibly important but that nobody wants to have.
Obviously, this film centres around the themes of life and death, but it approaches them and the subject matter incredibly well. There's the odd piece of well timed humour, but the "laying out" ceremonies are treated with the same level of dignity and respect that one would expect from an actual funeral.
The film uses all these aspects to create an odd source of conflict in the film, but it's one that works. Should the cellist quit and find another job? He still obviously loves playing the cello, but the owner of the bath house isn't getting any younger so he could make a start there. Will his wife and his friends accept him in this new role? Will he win them over or will he come to his senses and quit? The film doesn't paint the job in one extreme or the other. Sometimes we feel as though he should leave to avoid the shame, other times we feel he should stay because of the way he conducts himself during the ceremonies and the way he makes the families and friends of the deceased feel when he does so.
The film never really gives us a direct answer to any of these questions, choosing to end on an emotional closure rather than a purely plot-driven one and leaving some of these questions up in the air. But it works, and the end results is a truly beautiful film to watch.
Detour (1945)
An odd film in that I both liked and disliked it. A man in a diner recalls how he tried to hitchhike from New York to L.A. only to have his driver die on him, which causes a series of events to spiral well out of his control. This is classic film noire, and some argue there is also an element of pulp fiction in it. It has everything from flashbacks, voice overs, and a femme fatale. It also, unfortunately, has a contrived (at times ludicrous) plot and footage filmed with a budget of almost nothing.
The first 20 minutes had me hooked, but it slowly started to lose me as the characters became more and more frustrating to watch. The film had pace when the man was hitchhiking, but the film loses momentum as his travels do when the characters stop in Hollywood. It's an intriguing yet frustrating, and potentially disappointing, film.
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
The Oscar winner that everyone has come to love to hate, perhaps a tad unfairly. A young man is being interrogated in a police station on suspicion of cheating on the Indian edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. No one believes that someone so young, who grew up and lives in the slums of India, could possibly know as many answers as he did - he reached the final question before he was arrested. In a series of flashbacks, we are told how his life experiences provided him with the answers. But this isn't a Bollywood film. Far from it. It has very mature, and at times violent, themes and plot points. The only obvious hint of Bollywood is the dance sequence during the end credits.
Is this a bad film, like everyone says? No. For one thing it is completely deserving of the "Best Cinematography" Oscar it won (just check out how the subtitles are handled and you'll see why). Did it deserve to win the "Best Film" award? Probably not, but the other films that were also nominated that year weren't any better. The problem a lot of people have is that the entire premise of the film hinges on a huge contrivance, in that every single question he gets (bar one) are related to his life experiences. This is a huge coincidence that does let the film down in places, but it doesn't cause the film to completely unravel. There is also the incredibly cliched ending, elements of which you can see coming a mile away, and this too lets the film down.
How then to approach this film? The best way is to ignore the contrivances and cliches in the "gameshow" and "police station" timeframes, and approach focus on the "flashback" timeframes and structure. This is where the strengths of the film lie. The circumstances that lead to this man meeting the love of his life as a boy, and his never-ending search for her every time they are separated is what draws you in. The non-linear storytelling is the perfect way to lay out this young man's difficult journey during his childhood, adolescence, and the start of adulthood.
Downhill (1927)
One of Hitchcock's earliest works, this silent film follows a boy expelled from school after taking the blame for a friend's theft. From that moment on, his life gets progressively worse and worse (hence the title of the film, I suppose). The version of this film on the Internet Archive (yes, you too can view a Hitchcock film for free) doesn't contain an official soundtrack, so I made my own. Unlike Berlin - Symphony of a CIty it doesn't work quite as well and you can end up with some odd juxtapositions, such as a modern dance number being played during a 1920's dance hall scene that features a band with violins and a banjo.
The sparsity of title cards for the purposes of dialogue can get annoying at times, but Hitchcock makes up for it with what he is now famous for - using the camera to capture the subtleties of human emotions and thoughts. By paying attention to what everyone is doing, how they look, and how they react to others, we can put together what's going on without the need for large amounts of dialogue.
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