Thursday, March 28, 2024

[At the end of every month I post a rundown of the movies I saw that month, tallying them according to how much I did or didn’t like them. You can always see my recent watches here and my ongoing list of bests for the whole year here.]

Well, my moviewatching seems to be getting steadily worse as the 2012 progresses (I better pick up the pace the last week of March, that’s all I’m saying). Only seven movies total in February, but on the good side, I did knock off one of my Blind Spots. So that was good, even if it did delay this post a bunch while I got around to writing a long-ass review of The Virgin Spring. Hoping to get to a couple more of those Blind Spots before the end of March. I mostly blame Skyrim for the low movie count in February (as I will blame Mass Effect 3 in March) – not only was I playing it a ton in February, so was Jonathan, and I’m still working on balancing gaming time and movie time when two people are involved. 🙂

What I Loved

The Virgin Spring

I’m a reluctant Bergman fan at best, often finding his austerity a bit hard to relate to, but there was no problem here. The tale of a sunny, somewhat spoiled girl being raped and killed by three woodland wanderers is certainly ugly, and Bergman doesn’t sugarcoat anything – if anything, I was aghast at how explicit the film is for 1960. Yet depravity is balanced by the foibled humanity that Bergman infuses into nearly every frame – and the framing and cinematography is never ugly, even when what it’s capturing is. In fact, I haven’t seen a film as downright beautiful as this for a long time. It’s a juxtaposition that only adds to the film’s great power, ensuring it will stick with me for a very long time. Read my Blind Spots review.

1960 Sweden. Director: Ingmar Bergman. Starring: Max von Sydow, Birgitta Pettersson, Birgitta Valberg, Gunnel Lindblom.
Seen February 23 on iPad via Hulu Plus.
Flickchart ranking: 187 out of 2879

What I Liked

Chronicle

What initially intrigued me about this film, in an era oversaturated with both superhero movies and found footage movies, was the intimation in the trailer that these guys were actually going to act like teens suddenly endowed with superpowers would really act – in other words, they wouldn’t go out and try to save the world (ala Kick-Ass, if Kick-Ass had superpowers), they’d likely spend their time playing practical jokes on people, trying to become popular at school, and maybe flying around in the stratosphere, but essentially, they’d still be self-centered teenage boys. And that’s pretty much exactly what happens, and that’s what Chronicle gets so right. When one of the boys starts to misuse his power, it’s largely believable, and turns the tables neatly on the stereotypes you’ve already formed of the boys. I even enjoyed the use of found footage, which tied in with the power of telekinesis, allows for some more unusual camera angles than the genre usually gets; plus I appreciated that when the story called for it, the filmmakers just brought in whatever cameras would’ve caught the events. Some have suggested that’s a cop-out, but I’d say it’s playing to the strengths of the genre without giving in to its weaknesses. Overall, a refreshing film to find in February, a promising debut for Josh Trank, and a reminder that with a good story and solid writing, you don’t need gazillions of dollars even to do a superhero movie. They make the budget they have count when it needs to.

2012 USA. Director: Josh Trank. Starring: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan.
Seen February 6 at Fargo Century Cinema.
Flickchart ranking: 1054 out of 2879

Three Amigos

I gotta admit, I was not totally convinced at first when Jonathan said he wanted to put this on his list for me to watch. Let’s just say ’80s comedies and I don’t always mix that well. But then he told me it was about a trio of silent film stars who accidentally get caught up in a real conflict because a Mexican villager mistakes them for real cowboys. Does this guy know what I like or what? This is basically A Bug’s Life (I know, I know, this came first, whatever), with our trio of funnymen caught out of their league when a Mexican girl asks them for help against a bandit gang terrorizing her village. They think it’s a publicity thing that pays money, and get in over their heads in a heartbeat, but it somehow all turns out all right. There are a lot of great little bits (like the invisible swordsman, or Martin’s secret bird calls), but I expected a lot more gags throughout. I sort of appreciated that the film was willing to actually BE a western for a while and not feel the need to try to make you laugh every single second.

1986 USA. Director: John Landis. Starring: Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Martin Short.
Seen February 7 on iPad.
Flickchart ranking: 1368 out of 2879

Crocodile Dundee

A fun romp through the wildernesses of the Australian Outback and of New York City. Fairly inconsequential, but cute and enjoyable. I did like some of the ways the film inverted my expectations – setting Dundee up first as a teller of tall tales who actually turns out to be supremely competent, and then leading me to expect him to be a buffoon in NYC, but having him turn out pretty well there, too. Made for less real conflict, but in a film like this, that’s okay.

1986 USA. Director: Peter Faiman. Starring: Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, John Meillon.
Seen February 23 on DVD.
Flickchart ranking: 1811 out of 2879

What I Thought Was Okay

What Happened to Jones?

It’s probably not a great sign that I already don’t really remember what happened to Jones. Time to turn to the IMDb: “On the night before his wedding, a young man plays poker with friends. When the game is raided by the police, he escapes into a Turkish bath on ladies night, ending up disguised in drag and with difficult explanations to make.” OH YES, I remember now. This film definitely falls into the “curiosity” category of Silent Treatment offerings rather than the “really amazing film” category. Which is fine; their mission is to screen rare films that won’t be found anywhere else, and it’s not unusual for them to be mostly of academic interest. This one was fun to watch – the antics as Jones and his poker companion try to make their way out of the ladies’ spa without being caught definitely prefigure stuff like Some Like It Hot, but beyond that scene, it’s fairly unmemorable.

1926 USA. Director: William A. Seiter. Starring: Reginald Denny, Marian Nixon, Melbourne MacDowell.
Seen February 1 at Cinefamily.
Flickchart ranking: 2311 out of 2879

Rewatches – Loved

Once

Is it weird that I wanted to watch this for Valentine’s Day? I mean, (SPOILERS) it’s not exactly a happy-ending romantic movie. Still, the bittersweetness of this film’s romance touches me far more than traditional romances where everything works out. This is realistic, not only in the DIY aesthetic, but in the character interactions and dialogue. It takes a while to get going, and if you don’t like the music, you’ll be out of it from the start, but even for non-musical fans, the songs here are so integrated into the story and into these characters’ very existence that it’s unthinkable without them. I love this film to bits.

2007 Ireland. Director: John Carney. Starring: Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova.
Seen February 17 on DVD.
Flickchart ranking: 67 out of 2879

Rewatches – Liked

Mystery Men

This is a favorite film of Jonathan’s, and one I remembered liking more than most people did, as well. But I couldn’t remember most of it very well, and Jon kept making references and jokes from it, so I finally had him haul out his DVD and watch it with me. This is definitely a cult gem – I don’t like it quite as much as Jon does, but its send-up of the superhero genre is well before its time, with self-made heroes like The Shoveler (“God gave me a gift. I shovel well. I shovel very well.”) and Mr. Furious and Invisible Boy (who’s only metaphorically invisible, but gets to join the crew anyway) taking on Casanova Frankenstein. The actors in here are awesome, and they’re all having a great time. With everybody doing the fake superhero thing now (Kick-Ass, Super, etc.), Mystery Men oughta be ready for a comeback.

1999 USA. Director: Kinka Usher. Starring: Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, William H. Macy, Hank Azaria, Kel Mitchell, Paul Reubens, Wes Studi, Greg Kinnear, Geoffrey Rush.
Seen February 24 on DVD.
Flickchart ranking: 965 out of 2879

[This post is part of a series to identify and catch up with various blind spots in my cinematic knowledge, choosing twelve films to watch in 2012. See the series intro for the rest of my picks]

A couple of years ago, I was watching The Virgin Spring at one of LA’s best repertory cinemas, the New Beverly, and left almost exactly halfway through. Now, don’t get the wrong idea. I almost never walk out of films anyway, and it was INCREDIBLY hard to leave this one, especially since it was almost exactly at the climactic scene. I had come to see the first film of the double feature they were showing (Revanche), but knew I’d have to leave the program early in order to get to Cinefamily (the OTHER great LA repertory cinema) for their Czech New Wave series, showing films rarely screened on 35mm in the US. I stayed as long as I could watching , yet despite how drawn into it I was, I somehow never got around to sitting down with the rest of the film at home. So when I put together my list of films for the Blind Spot series, I knew The Virgin Spring had to be on it, even though there are a plethora of other Bergman films I could’ve picked as well.

I should never have waited so long, and yet, it is entirely worth the wait. The film enjoys a healthy reputation (hence it feeling like a major blind spot), and I was a bit afraid that between that and my own self-hyping of it based on my experience with the first half, I’d be disappointed by the film in the end. Such was vehemently not the case. Bergman films are often something of a tough sell with me – there are a few I love unequivocally (Persona, Smiles of a Summer Night), but the ones that seem more quintessentially “Bergman” to me, rather than the anomalous light comedy or experimental film, are much more of a struggle for me. With its story of rape and revenge, I expected The Virgin Spring to be in the same vein – somber and bleak, with an edge of existential angst. What I got was something far more terrible and sublime than I expected.

Though The Virgin Spring is not a part of Bergman’s unofficial “faith” trilogy (kicked off the following year with Through a Glass Darkly), it is still very concerned with faith – a concern laid out from the very beginning as the film sets up a contrast between wild-eyed, unkempt servant girl Ingeri who is praying to Odin and the lord of the manor who, along with his wife, kneel before a crucifix. Ingeri is pregnant and unwed, and she is quickly contrasted with the lord’s daughter Karin, a sunny and virginal blonde who’s preparing to trek through the woods taking candles to the church. I don’t really get the whole purpose of this, being unfamiliar with Swedish medieval tradition, but it doesn’t really matter – it’s basically a Macguffin. When Ingeri temporarily leaves her along on the way, Karin falls in with some seemingly nice shepherds who, well, turn out to have ulterior motives.

It’s not much of a spoiler at this point to reveal that they rape Karin – that’s basically the logline of the film, and it happens only about half-way through. Still, even when you know it’s coming, it’s kind of a shock to the system, simply because Bergman is so forthright and frank about it. He doesn’t shy away from the rape, instead holding his camera unwaveringly, not letting us look away. It’s still 1960, so it’s not what I’d call physically explicit, but there’s absolutely no question about what’s happening, and the beauty and, dare I say it, tastefulness of the shot almost makes the content of the shot even more of a punch to the gut. This is actually the point where I had to leave the New Beverly screening of the film. I did rewatch the whole thing before writing this, though, and the scene was just as horrific and just as gut-wrenching as before.

There’s a lot more in store, though, and the next little section almost plays like a suspense thriller as the three shepherds (the youngest is just a boy and didn’t participate in the rape) wind up at Karin’s manor, apparently not realizing where they are. Despite being worried about Karin’s long absence, the lord and his lady offer the three food and shelter, like any magnanimous landowner should – but we know who they are and what they’ve done, so the intensity doesn’t let up for us. There’s a simply chilling scene when one of the men offers Karin’s cloak to her mother as a gift. But what the film comes down to is whether vengeance is worth it, or if forgiveness is possible – either of rapists or those who take revenge on them. Perhaps the reason The Virgin Spring isn’t part of the Faith Trilogy (aside from its more poetic, less chamber-drama style) is that it shows hope at the end, hope of forgiveness and community, while the Faith Trilogy is about crises of faith in the face of divine silence.

There is way too much in this film in terms of symbolism, character comparisons and contrasts, and religious themes to unpack in one blog post, or even after one viewing of the film. This is definitely one I’ll be coming back to again and again. There are obvious contrasts, like the ones I mentioned between Odin and Christ, or between Ingeri and Karin, or between crime and revenge, etc. But they’re not black and white, despite the dark/light distinction suggested by Ingeri and Karin’s respective hair colors. Karin is the innocent here, but she’s far from perfect – she’s kind of a spoiled brat, whining to her mother to let her sleep later and wear fancy clothes. She’s a flirt, leading on the same man (probably) who got Ingeri pregnant. She manipulates her father into letting her do whatever she wants, basically, and blames everyone else for her own faults rather than take responsibility. But through it all, her very innocence and sheltered existence in her perhaps overly-loving family is what gets her in trouble. Meanwhile, Ingeri is world-wise and wary, but superstitious – she prays to the Norse gods and stops off at a witchdoctor type guy, which also contributes to Karin’s predicament due to Ingeri’s absence.

The question of blame comes up again and again. Though it’s easy to blame the two men who actually commit the rape, and certainly they’re not exempt from the father’s wrath, seemingly everybody blames themselves for what happened. The mother blames herself for sheltering Karin too much, the father blames God for letting it happen but then takes responsibility for his own retaliatory actions, Ingeri blames herself for praying to Odin for Karin’s downfall. In fact, it’s quite the contrast to Karin’s own blithe attempts to blame everyone ELSE for everything. But Bergman ends with a cleansing spring, a mark of forgiveness and new birth coming out of this horror.

Ugly things happen in Bergman films, and this is one of the ugliest, but he is never an ugly filmmaker. As I hinted above, even the rape scene is shot with tremendously beautiful framing and cinematography, and that’s true throughout the film. Every shot is composed carefully, with every element in the frame there for a specific visual or symbolic purpose. A friend writing about this film pointed out that Max von Sydow “looks absolutely monumental, like he was hollowed out and carved from wood, a living breathing relic of medieval art,” and that’s such a perfect description that I had to steal it. Bergman is known for the sometimes slow pacing of his films, and here his willingness to simply let Sydow and others BE in the frame, their power coming simply from their imaged existence, is wonderous and utterly moving. Often I find Bergman austere, and there’s definitely that here, but this may be the first time that I understand Bergman’s essential humanity. He may be unflinching in what he shows, and he may use music and other manipulative techniques sparingly, but he cares deeply, achingly for these people. And he made me feel the same way, despite their flaws…or perhaps because of them.

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