173. Punishment Park

Song - Blowin' in the Wind (Bob Dylan)

Movie: Punishment Park (Peter Watkins, 1971)

Last year, in the midst of Covid lockdown I stumbled upon the 1990 'documentary' "My Dinner with Abbie" about the countercultural anarchist Abbie Hoffman. It's basically an hourlong interview with Hoffman, talking about his motivations, ideals and life choices, and a great argument against the existence of The Trial of the Chicago 7. I like Aaron Sorkin and many of the actors in it, but it seems absurd for them, celebrated Hollywood artists running around in the same social circles as some of the most powerful American politicians, to make a film that is ostensibly sympathetic to the Chicago Seven, people who have been knowingly, deliberately and repeatedly harassed and destroyed by the American state. And as the film is designed to win shiny prizes and put money and cultural cachet in the pockets of billion dollar corporations like Netflix, it is basically using Hoffman to prop up the ideas/institutions he was fighting against. 

Punishment Park comes much closer to how a film about these activists should look and feel like. It is made in a pseudo-documentary style that rejects the established conventions of the Hollywood of its time. This rugged aesthetic also doesn't sanitise the world around the characters it depicts, while its revolutionaries are portrayed by amateur actors who share many of the ideals of their characters. Furthermore, the film does not shy away away from depicting the violence inflicted on them. It follows a number of Americans (some white, some black) who have been accused of traitorous activities and are found guilty in front of a show trial. They are allowed to choose between going to federal prison for many years or going to Punishment Park, where they will earn their freedom if they reach an American flag in three days, while being pursued by police forces in training. The film cuts between the show trial and the events in Punishment Park, and is presented as an English documentary about the changing character of law and order in America.  

While much of its approach is commendable, the film unfortunately fails to really flesh out the various assortment of hippies, pacifists and anti-war protesters it depicts. They never become much more than symbols of the American anti-establishment and of the heated debates of the 1960's. They are strawmen rather than real human beings. The film has the same problem when depicting their conservative opponents and often ends up resembling a filmed version of an exhausting social media discussion. Nothing is stopping you these days from hearing the Ben Shapiro's of the world spout their bullshit whenever you want and nothing the conservative establishment says in this film is much more shocking than what you'd see in the average right-wing corner of the internet. Nonetheless, the directness with which the film addresses the notion that America is a polarised society that doesn't extend its definition of freedom to all its citizens is quite striking. 

172. Alice in Wonderland

Song - White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)

Movie: Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, 2010)

That was fun! I had seen Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Dark Shadows before. Those aren't films that will encourage you to explore a director's further work. Alice in Wonderland is far from great, but it contains enough to convince you that Burton may well deserve his 90's reputation. The film has a genuinely wacky spirit that feels sincere rather than carefully calculated. It is full of throwaway dialogues, jokes and images that make no sense at all within the context of the plot, and merely follow their own dream logic. It's impossible to dislike a film where an evil queen with a disproportionately large head is playing croquet, using a flamingo as a stick and a hedgehog as a ball.

I wrote about my distaste for whimsical fantasy just a couple of entries earlier when discussing The Wizard of Oz, and never realised that 'Alice' doesn't even belong to the same genre. So I was quite taken aback to find that in White Rabbit, Grace Slick barely uses any imagery from her own drugs experiences. Almost all of the lyrics are directly taken from Lewis Carroll, including the hookah smoking caterpillar and the pills that make you larger and smaller. The sheer quantity of absurd imagery and characters I completely did not expect to see, explains to a large extent my affection for the film, but Burton also deserves credit for doing interesting things with them. The scene in which Alice (Mia Wasikowska) meets the Hatter (Johnny Depp) is a wonderful example. The revelation of the height difference between Alice and the Hatter is surprising and funny; on her journey, Alice was accompanied by a dog whose size seemed to be in normal proportion to an ordinary teenage girl.

The film has much of the same CGI problems as many other contemporary blockbusters, something that's especially noticeable after just seeing The Wizard of Oz. The 'analogue' backgrounds, costumes and locations there all have a much more distinct and specific look than the digital ones in Alice in Wonderland. We visit many different locations, but they all look kinda same-ish. Alice in Wonderland was made just after the success of The Dark Knight made everyone want to 'darken' familiar stories. Burton here gives the impression to do the same thing through the grey tones of the CGI and the somewhat foreboding musical score, but this is constantly undercut by the goofy and proudly ridiculous tone of the rest of the film. Even the final fight between Alice and the Jabberwocky feels more like lighthearted fun than the fulfilling of an epic prophecy. It helps that Mia Wasikowska is very sympathetic and that Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway all act as if they've come straight from the set of The Looney Tunes. 

171. Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Song - More Than A Feeling (Boston)

Movie: Portrait of a Lady on Fire - Portrait de la jeune fille an feu (Céline Sciamma, 2019)

I grew up on films like Speed and Daylight, in which a man with special skills ends up in a fraught situation together with a group of terrified people and one especially resourceful woman, who takes the lead in getting the job done together with our hero. By the middle of the film it's already clear that our two heroes are falling in love, but they can't act on it. No matter how much they pine for each other, first they need to finish the job. The people need to be saved from the tunnel, the bus needs to be stopped. But once the task at hand is completed, the sparks fly and we swoon, more even than in an ordinary romantic comedy. It's not just that Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock get each other after finishing a daunting work, it's that they fall in love through working together, without love necessarily being their intent. They just see each other at their best and nature does the rest. Speed is still the best action movie ever made as far as I am concerned. But its place as the best workplace romance is taken by Portrait of A Lady on Fire. The painting needs to get painted, but afterwards....

I am not trying to be glib here and pretend that I can only enjoy a lesbian romance by comparing it to a kick-ass action movie. Both movies genuinely do have many of the same pleasures, and in fact that is one of the great strengths of Portrait of A Lady on Fire. The job, for a long while, takes precedent over the romance. And even after Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and Heloise (Adele Haenel) start their love affair, Sciamma keeps showing them performing domestic/professional (the distinction between the two is often blurred) tasks in great detail without adding an explicitly romantic/erotic component to them. In doing so she briefly lets them (and us) experience the domesticity of a married life they'll never have. In the process the film also normalizes love as something that simply flows out of regular daily activities. Love, no matter how passionate, is here not presented as something that encapsulates and defines the entirety of our lives. Rather, it's something that exists next to work and the ordinary responsibilities of daily life, something you have to make time for. That makes it more special, not less.

This approach works so well, in part because Noémie Merlant gives one of the great performances of the past few years. She comes to the coast to paint and presents herself as an exacting, pragmatic painter for whom that is a job. She is not a genius artist, but she cares and is serious about her craft and her professional obligation to get the job done. She knows that as a woman in her profession she is disadvantaged, but she views that as a fact of life, and herself as a worldly woman who is able to navigate around those bumps and who has made herself a decent life. She doesn't feel the need to complain much and seems reasonably satisfied with everything. This approach to the character is what makes the film. It's easy to imagine how tempting it must have been to make Marianne/Heloise explicitly feminist, or to frame their love affair as an explicit revolt against the patriarchy, but Sciamma never forgets that her characters live in the 18th century and respects the audience to get the political connotations without underlining them. There is no need to make grand statements, Marianne and Heloise don't even see each other as lesbians, the word is not mentioned, the taboo is not mentioned. Their love for each other is special, that it happened is not. 

I have seen this film twice now and liked it both times very much, especially because it is so surprisingly different from Sciamma's previous film Girlhood. That was set in the French banlieus and after a promising first half descended into boring social realism so desperate to make some sort of grand statement that it ended up perpetuating cliche stereotypes (in both form and content) about the people it depicted. Here she completely abandons her realism for classicism and the lush, grand and colorful compositions nicely contrast with the understated performance of Merlant, while also inviting you to look at the world (and Heloise) the way Marianne does. 

170. Joe

Song - Hey Joe (Jimi Hendrix)

Movie: Joe (John G. Avildsen, 1970)

After seeing The Panic in Needle Park you should understand why Al Pacino was destined to become Al Pacino. And if you still don't, Joe should do the trick. Here, the actor Patrick McDermott, portrays Frank Russo, a drug dealing lowlife wandering the streets of New York, shacking up with his girlfriend Melissa (Susan Sarandon) in rundown apartments. Joe was made just one year before The Panic in Needle Park, and you can easily imagine Frank being embarrassed and outhussled by Pacino's Bobby in some shady street corner. Which would admittedly be an improvement to getting killed by Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick), Melissa's dad, a rich ad executive who in a fit of rage lands one punch too many after his daughter almost OD's. His second mistake is to accidentally confess this to Joe (Peter Boyle) a raging racist hating every sign of change: "The young used to have ideals, now they protest for peace." That line alone is enough to earn the film its Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. As for McDermott, he only appeared in three films. 

In any case, after their meeting I expected Bill and Joe to go on a murder spree. Instead, they become friends, and the film becomes something of a Richard Linklater joint about the burgeoning friendship between a rich white well-adjusted family man and a working-class bigot yelling about how America is going down the drain because of the blacks, hippies and lefties. For a long while the film basically consists of seeing Joe and Bill meet in various social establishments where they have long conversations about life and listen rapturously to each other, with Avildsen showing a lot of close-ups of their highly engaged faces. Joe can't believe that someone from the upper class finally listens and maybe even gets him, while Bill is overjoyed to have some good old-fashioned 'boys talk' with someone who is not an ad executive. Things are more complicated when their wives get into play, leading to a wonderfully awkward dinner scene between the two families, but without them the two men seem have find a second youth. Especially once they end up at an orgy and discover the bong. The film paints quite a stark picture of how easy it is to break the barriers existing between fascism and polite society. Though it occasionally engages in easy stereotypes about each of the groups it depicts (the rich white establishment, the far-right households and the hippies), it takes all the characters, their ideals and life choices seriously. It wants you to know that people like Joe really exist and that they have a not inconsiderable influence over politics and society. 

The one false note of the film comes when Joe and Bill do eventually go on a murder spree. And not just because it ends on a hilariously melodramatic note. Seeing a bunch of hippie haters kill a bunch of hippies is fascist fantasy wish fulfillment that doesn't even fulfill Joe's greatest wish. That is not to kill a bunch of hippies; it is to be seen and understood by Bill as someone who is wronged by society for not being able to kill a bunch of hippies without repercussions. Whether he entirely succeeds remains ambiguous, but Avildsen leaves no doubt that Bill is at least entertaining that notion. That's much more provocative than anything the film has to offer in its sensationalist ending. 

169. The Wizard of Oz

Song - Heart of Gold (Neil Young)

Movie: The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)

There are many classic films I haven't seen, simply because I never got to them. The Wizard of Oz is one I've actively avoided. Whimsical wholesome (children's) fantasy is a genre I am quite allergic to, especially if it also involves fantastic creatures and simple moral lessons packaged in needlessly elaborate metaphors. Few things in popular cinema have alienated me more than the enduring success and popularity of the Lord of the Rings films. So it may seem like faint praise that I enjoyed The Wizard of Oz more than The Lord of The Rings, but I genuinely liked the film, if only because it's cool to see how much of modern popular culture is influenced by it. I knew about Over the Rainbow, did not know that 'The Yellow Brick Road', 'Ding, dong, the witch is dead!' and 'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' also come from it. And I just can't remember where I've heard/seen 'Surrender Dorothy' before, but I definitely have. 

Additionally, while I may not be a fan of this particular brand of fantasy, I do like movies that accentuate their own fakeness. It is a loss for modern movies that nobody anymore makes use of matte paintings to present a background or a space. The Wizard of Oz uses them in an even more interesting way than most classic movies; they make its world seem more constructed and artificial. Same goes for its use of colors. Things look more green, yellow and red than is realistically possible and you should not expect realistic looking leaves, grass and water either. In fact, the 'plasticness' of all these elements is made explicitly obvious. It makes the film look odd and weird, and even though 3/4 different directors contributed to it, it gives you the feeling that you are watching a personal, idiosyncratic vision, filled with imagination and some stunning shots. The tornado sequence transporting Dorothy to Kansas, while out of her window she watches all the important people in her life pass by is spectacular. So is the scene in which The Witch (in color) watches Dorothy's aunt (in black and white) through her crystal ball. This is followed by The Witch's flying monkeys starting their flight, reminding of attacking war planes in formation, an image that (I think) only became commonplace in movies after the Second World War. 

I did not care for much of the songs (with the exception being the song the Munchkins sing for Dorothy after she kills the The Wicked Witch of the East) and found the performance of Judy Garland a bit too saccharine/childishly ingratiating for my taste. But her interactions with the Tin Man, the cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow are funny, the Lion gives a wonderfully over the top 'diva' performance, and the action sequences are exciting, hold up much better for contemporary audiences than you'd perhaps expect and would be more at place in an Indiana Jones film than in Narnia. Yet unsurprisingly, my favorite moment of the film is the joke involving the Wizard's doorbell. 

Finally, it's interesting that the film's ultimate 'moral' contradicts its most famous song. The fakeness of Oz is not just a nice artistic construct, especially not in comparison to how Dorothy's farm in Kansas is depicted. It communicates visually that there indeed is "no place like home" and that you don't need to leave Kansas to find 'real' education, love and glory. Can't think of many recent films that have been either willing to express/explore that sentiment, or that have expressed it with as much nuance (Dorothy and her friends only learn the value of 'home' after crossing 'over the rainbow') and elegance without condescending to either the 'coastal elite' or the American heartland.    

168. Only You

Song - I Want You (Elvis Costello)

Movie: Only You (Harry Wootliff, 2018)

Elvis Costello's I Want You can be heard at two crucial moments in Only You and would be a fitting song for any Laia Costa film. Few contemporary actors understand as well how much you can communicate through "the way your shoulders shake and what they are shaking for." She uses her entire body, face and limbs to evoke her state of mind and is in almost constant movement throughout the film. And she is matched beat for beat here by Josh O'Connor, who conveys so much of his emotional state here through the way he moves his hands. They are very much helped by Harry Wootliff, who tries to put the actors' full bodies in the frame and to have the two actors together in the shot. Much of the film is about seeing Jake and Elena be loving, gentle, and caring to each other and see the other person respond to that behavior in kind. It's a wonderful approach that authentically and lovingly conveys the great physical and emotional attraction between the two lovers. 

I was glad to discover that Harry Wootliff's next film will premiere at the Venice Film Festival. She is clearly a good and sensitive director who knows very well what to do with her actors. All she needs is a better marketing department. Only You was presented and written about as a romantic drama about a couple who has trouble conceiving children and the challenges such an ordeal brings. It is certainly (also) about that, but it would have made all the money in the world if it had been marketed to millenials as the unabashedly romantic portrayal of a young financially independent, emotionally mature couple with a somewhat decent house (that they own!) and somewhat decent jobs. You could even see it as an anti-Brexit film that never bothers to explain why the Spanish Elena is living in Glasgow, and never sees her as an outsider/exception in society.  

Wootliff at times does let herself get bogged down by plot mechanisms and cannot avoid a too conventional third act where the heroes break up and then triumphantly get back together again. No film anymore needs a scene in which a parent explains that love isn't perfect, but is worth fighting for (or any variation of it), especially not one in which that idea is so perfectly conveyed by the relationship between its actors. 

167. Kiss Me Deadly

Song - Twilight Zone (Golden Earring)

Movie: Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)

"You have only one real lasting love. You. You're one of those self-indulgent males who thinks about nothing, but his clothes, his car, himself. Bet you do push-ups every morning just to keep your belly hard."  

Christina Bailey (Clorlis Leachmann) correctly pegs Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) merely a couple minutes after he has picked her up from the side of a dark empty road. Mike is a private detective who together with his exasperated assistant/lover Velda (Maxine Cooper, somehow her only major role)  specialises in divorce cases/adultery. They are essentially double agents, seducing the partners of their clients and sending the recording as proof they've solved the case. The money is good, so is the sex. The film takes great pleasure in showing the sexual, erotic attraction between Velda and Mike and her provocatively seductive behavior. It takes even greater pleasure in showing contempt to the mores of its times. 

Velda and Mike are of course hated by the 'serious' police detectives and polite society. But the film always remains on their side. It agrees with Christina's assessment of Mike, but ultimately sees it as more of a compliment than an insult. It works, thanks to Meeker's brilliant performance, (it reminded me of Jack Nicholson's early and greatest roles) portraying his arrogance, confidence and manly self-indulgence as an expression of his anti-establishment attitude. It's that attitude which makes makes him a man of the people, who will not turn over the distressed Christina, an escapee from a psychiatric institution, over to the authorities, nearly leading to his death. And it's that attitude that makes him stick his teeth into the mysterious case that has led to the death of Christina and the disappearance of many others, despite the fact it's never clear what he'll gain from solving the case. He just can't stand the powerful getting away with it, even if he doesn't exactly know what 'it' is.

It's an attitude the film sees as necessary and moral but ultimately pointless. The establishment is corrupt and out to crush you, and it eventually will. All you can do is follow your own rules and make bonds with the other lowlifes of society. Those include a Greek car mechanic, an Italian home-mover, a failed opera singer forced to perform for an audience of one in run-down apartments, and a black boxing trainer terrified for his life. Mike's cocky attitude softens in the presence of these people. He becomes friendlier, treating them with affection and concern, even occasionally allowing himself to show fear when they are in danger. The film has a genuine love for these forgotten members of a multicultural working class and their need to bond together in solidarity against the special interests of the police, high society and the government. Those special interests are in the end a bit too much of a McGuffin for my taste. I perhaps would have wished for a little bit more background in the motivations of the film's villains, but am not sure that this would have led to a better film. It definitely wouldn't have made the final scenes as eerie and haunting as they are.