Hi, let’s keep this train a-rollin’.

40. Ghost World (2001) d. Terry Zwigoff. One word: Blueshammer. A few more words: I saw this movie on September 13, 2001. As I think we all were, I was a little freaked out. I wanted an evening of welcome distraction, or just some comfort. I would have seen anything to not spend another night in front of the TV in tatters. I ended up seeing an unbelievably perceptive, funny portrait of what its like to be at a transition with no direction in life. I also turned to this movie often the first few months after I graduated college in 2003. Rather shortsightedly, I had no post-graduation plans, nothing set up, no direction. This movie just got better and more meaningful with every viewing. It still does. Another one that mixes depression and comedy superbly. One more note: this is the second film from the year 2001 on this list, and there will be several more. At some point I will expand on why I think that year was the best for movies in this decade, and possibly any other, despite the horrors the world went through that year. And I’m not just talking about the XFL.

39. The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) d. Judd Apatow. The movie that well and truly launched the Apatow empire, and we’re all the better for it, despite the envious hipper-than-thous who like to deride him now. This is just one damn filthy, funny movie with a surprising sweetness at its core. At times it hits painfully close to home, from the lack of romantic confidence to the banality of retail jobs, not to mention the comforting-but-lonely solace found in the clinging-to of boyhood passions. Also, probably the best poster of the decade. In the end it is a joyous, honest celebration of friendship, life, and love as cheesy as that sounds. Let the sun shine in, indeed.

38. Pride and Prejudice (2005) d. Joe Wright. I’m a bit surprised myself I find this movie so high up on the list, or even on it at all. I have plenty of femmy tastes (musicals, Gilmore Girls, Audrey Hepburn) but the world of Jane Austen was never one of them. I’d seen a few adaptations/updates but never been overly enamored with them. They were pleasant enough, just not that into it. Going in this seemed like another ho-hum adaptation I was persuaded to see, and it was engaging enough and had some good cinematic flourishes to keep me entertained for the two hours, but it was quickly forgotten. Then, HBO got their hands on it (back when I still had HBO) and ran it and reran it, and I kept getting sucked in again and again. This was one beautiful movie in all senses. A delicate, heartbreaking score, stunning-but-not postcard cinematography; even the production design looked and felt like the dank, drafty houses that English country estates surely were at this time. Truly, an ever-growing pleasant surprise.

37. Irreversible (2003) d. Gaspar Noe. Yikes, I hadn’t realized that this followed #38 on my list until now. From one of the most beautiful movies of the decade to surely its most disturbing. This is a harrowing, intense drama that is hard to sit through on DVD but utterly, terribly hypnotizing on a big screen. I was fortunate enough to see this at the 2003 Santa Barbara International Film Festival and it was sublime. That word gets tossed around and not always in the correct way. Here, I think it definitely applies. The themes and actions on display really are beyond words. Monsieur Noe was at the screening I was at and answered questions from the stunned audience afterward. He put it best: “The first half of the film is really dirty and awful and hard, but the second half is like taking a long shower. If you left in the middle you will feel upset for weeks, but if you stayed to the end you will feel much better.” Unbelievably he was right, that was precisely my experience. Even on just a technical level this movie is a real headfuck, and should definitely come with a seizure warning.

36. About Adam (2001) d. Gerard Stembridge. Ahh, back into the light. This one mainly gets puzzled “Really? That? A Kate Hudson rom-com?” reactions when I tell people of its greatness. Yes, her Irish accent sucks, but forgive that and you will see one of the more delightful, unexpectedly charming romantic movies I’ve ever seen; and with an ending I genuinely didn’t see coming. The Rashomon structure keeps you on your toes, revealing some surprising results and sage lessons. Although IMDB pegs this as a 2000 production I didn’t see it in theaters until that fantastic blitz of 2001 when seemingly every time I went to the movies I was seeing a new classic. So I chalk it up another brilliant addition to ‘01.

35. Wonderland (2000) d. Michael Winterbottom. Another title that has a fuzzy year affiliation; debuting at UK festivals in late ‘99, it didn’t play in the U.S. until mid 2000, so I am going to look the other way and give it to this decade. Sort of like the Clash’s London Calling record. Does it belong to the ’70s or the ’80s? Both, I guess? Also like that album, the film itself is a touching cross section of London lives, sort of a Love Actually with no budget. (I like that film too, I’m not one of those heart-of-stone haters.)  Winterbottom’s “The world is my soundstage” philosophy would see him zipping everywhere this decade from Manchester to Tehran to Shanghai with the occasional brilliance, but here his setting is the great, crazy city of London. I’ve been lucky enough to visit the UK many times and even live there for a 3 month stretch for a school semester. I maintain that this movie – with its roving-the-streets 16mm camera, potholed pavements, gregarious pubs, smoke-filled flats, nightmare traffic – more than any other captures what it’s really like, for better or worse, to live in London on a day-to-day realistic basis.

34. Catch Me If You Can (2002) d. Steven Spielberg. Pure, cinematic froth. As quick-thinking and clever as it’s real life protagonist, this globe-trotting early-60s set caper is a delight to watch. Its generous 2.5 hours fly by, proving that length has nothing to do whether a movie is good or not. In a great movie, time shouldn’t ever even be noticed. Bad movies that happen to be 90 minute movies can feel double that, while great ones such as this, can feel like 80 minutes and leave you wanting more. More themes of ambition, self-discovery, and running-away-from-pain. Also, nice one for signposting the late-decade renaissance of this era’s appeal with Mad Men and the such. Swingin’ stewardesses, sharp suits, cool shades, intoxicating swagger; gear!

33. Nos jours heureux (2006) d.Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano. The English title is Those Happy Days, and it is apt. A sentimental, funny, golden-hued look at a summer camp in the fields of France, this still unreleased in the U.S. gem is worth finding out where you can. (Amazon.ca) It’s not in the movie, but cue up the Kinks’ “Days” and listen. Fits perfectly. This audience was one of the most roaring-with-laughter-crowds I’ve ever been a a part of. This film concluded one of the just plain happiest days of moviegoing I’ve ever experienced. The Saturday of the 2006 COLCOA (City of Lights, City of Angels) French Film Fetival in Los Angeles. I can’t think of a time when I was just plain happier coming home from the movies. This, and one other title to be discussed later, seen that day was pretty much an apotheosis for me of that festival, which I had been to the year before and would go to again in 2007 and 2008 (flying in from Providence just for the occasion.) It legitimately broke my heart to miss the 2009 edition. A common Jewish blessing is “Next year in Israel”. For me it is “Next year at COLCOA.”

32. Issiz adam (2008) d. Cagan Irmak. A Turkish delight that was another unexpected discovery at a film festival, only a few months ago. (Seek them out, folks, they are usually worth your time.) Perhaps I am ranking it a little high going only on one viewing, but it was a bittersweet love story that got to me and made a deep impression. For reasons I won’t bore you with I very nearly skipped going to this, but I decided to go at the last minute and I am forever glad I did. Perhaps it is hampered with a tricky title – the English title is the vague, unsatisfactory Alone. At first I thought it was going to be something else entirely, but it turned out so much better and more enjoyable than I could have hoped. Special shout-out to a friend who picked this film out of a dense festival lineup; this would have surely gone undiscovered if not for her. Kudos.

31. Stoned (2006) d. Stephen Woolley. Another one where I give it a different year than IMDB, this was one of those right-moment-right time movies. I was just beginning one of many ’60s British rock phases, this particular one heavy on the Rolling Stones. This was a well-told dramaticized account of the drowning death of founding Stone, Brian Jones. Jones himself was an enigma; dedicated to traditional, strict American blues, yet he could also master any instrument in minutes no matter how exotic. A good-times dandy who Mick & Keef eventually nudged out of the band he started because they wanted to rock the world, whereas Brian was happy to lounge around his lovely home in English pastures, lazily playing lawn cricket with the help. A beguiling blend of rock mythos, idyllic quiet, dolly birds, and a mysterious but oddly fitting death. Made me want to buy a cottage in Sussex and idle the days away, listening to records. Just don’t hire creepy builders who get too close emotionally.

30-21 coming soon.

I am excited about what’s going on in recent Philippine cinema. I have not been this excited about our cinema for the longest time. Let’s see… since Lino Brocka’s Kapit Sa Patalim (1983), Ishmael Bernal’s Himala (1982), Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Karnal (1983), Mike de Leon’s Sister Stella L. (1984), Peque Gallaga’s Unfaithful Wife (1986), and Chito Roño’s Itanong Mo Sa Buwan (1988). After the People’s Power Revolution of 1986, and with the passing of Lino Brocka in 1991, Philippine cinema went into a deep coma that lasted two decades. Movie-making did not slacken–next to Bollywood and Hong Kong, the Philippines has perhaps the most vibrant movie industry in Asia–but directors stopped being auteurs, and produced stylistically generic, unengaging work, from cheap horror/fantasy flicks to belabored melodramas, abandoning the visceral and transgressive qualities of their breakthrough films.

Filmmakers still routinely blame stringent censorship, but, like it or not, the Marcos dictatorship was good to Philippine cinema–whether due to the urgency of the times, or the patronage of its delusional First Lady. Lino Brocka’s most intense social-realist films (Insiang, Jaguar, Bona) were made during the height of Martial Law, while Mike de Leon’s Batch ‘81, an allegorical indictment of fascism, was released just after its lifting. De Leon, the last auteur of that generation left standing has also been unproductive (perhaps because he remains uncompromising), turning out his last feature, a black-comedy on Jose Rizal, in 2000. Bayaning Third World, however, remains the most sophisticated take on the national hero’s biography that came out of the nationalistic craze of the Philippine Centennial. (It is also pee-in-your-pants funny!)

Raymond Red made interesting historical films in the ’90s (Bayani, Sakay), but these stiff period pieces sink with their studied gravitas compared to Peque Gallaga’s earlier, more violent and voluptuous take on Philippine history (Oro, Plata, Mata, Virgin Forest). Red did give us, for the record, our first win at Cannes for his short Anino (2002). Among the last Filipino arthouse films I saw were Lav Diaz’s 5-hour bladder-challenge Batang Westside (2001) during its Cinemanila premier, and Ramona Diaz’s Imelda (2003) after its eponymous subject’s court injunctions were lifted. In the US, I essentially remained out of the loop, and nursed my nostalgia for the ’80s golden age by renting Cinefilipino DVDs at Netflix.

Then came Brillante Mendoza’s contentious win at Cannes as best director for Kinatay. Roger Ebert called it an “unbearable experience” that forces him “to apologize to Vincent Gallo for calling The Brown Bunny the worst film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival”. I myself was skeptical, knowing most movies we send off to these film fests are about Manila’s seedy sex trade, corrupt cops, and abject poverty in the slums. The film is indeed about a junkie prostitute, tortured and butchered (kinatay) by cops on the take, and the tabloid title does promise sensational gore. Yes, these are Philippine realities, but these are not all of Philippine reality. When would we produce such masters as Iran’s Majid Majidi (Children of Heaven, Color of Paradise, Baran, The Willow Tree) who depicts the condition of his people so lovingly in stories told with such delicacy?

Other critics were not as ruthless, but nonetheless reserved in their praises:

This rich vision of so much gloom, dim suspension, no action, no spectacle, no drama is a beautiful thing, something out of an avant-garde film dedicated to textures, subtle shifts in color, and spatial uncertainty of a sunless world… [The] rest of the movie is given as a handheld dedication to space—there, a porno theater, here, a sinister, anonymous police van traveling great distances at night for the purpose of terrible things, and later a torture house. But it is a space of obscurity, of uncertainty in a morally certain situation, and so the space, covered and run over again and again by the roving camera, takes on an abstraction nearly outside the story itself.

(from Daniel Kasman, The Auteurs)

Kinatay… is infinitely darker [than Serbis] but an equally strong depiction of modern-day life in the former American colony that some are comparing to Gasper [sic] Noe’s Irreversible… Mendoza is no gore-hound. He’s more serious than Noe. This is a fiercely moral and horribly unforgettable denunciation of societal corruption.

(from Sukhdev Sandhu, Telegraph.co.uk)

The split opinion makes me want to see the film even more. Comparison with Noe’s Irreversible is not such a scarlet letter. I get that movie. Yes, there was shocking violence as the whirling camera probed into depths of human baseness, and, yes, it’s hard to sit through the rape scene, but as the film progressed/regressed, as the photography settled, became more fluid, the earlier repugnance was redeemed by a most tender revelation at the end/beginning. I don’t think I have the stomach to watch this film again, but I will not dismiss its solid ideas, and the directorial decisions (if not taste) in its execution.

I digress. Mendoza’s win, and the critical attention Kinatay elicited, turned out to be just the tip of an iceberg that has been building up since 2006. All at once, a bewildering constellation of new Filipino filmmakers, with a growing body of work–none of which I have seen–came to my attention: Aureus Solito (Pisay, Ang pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros), Adolfo Alix (Manila, Adela, Batanes, Donsol), Pepe Diokno (Engkwentro), G.B. Sampedro (Astig–Mga Batang Kalye), Ralston Jover (Bakal Boys), Sherad Anthony Sanchez (Imburnal), John Torres (Todo todo teros), Jim Libiran (Tribu), Khavn de la Cruz (Maynila sa mga pangil ng dilim), and Raya Martin (Manila, Independencia, Now Showing, Autohystoria, Maicling pelicula nañg ysañg Indio Nacional). And it does not stop there: the international film festival circuit has also been enamored with this “new wave” in Filipino cinema, with special focus on these new crop of mostly young filmmakers, and retrospectives of past master Lino Brocka. Even Joey Gosiengfiao was honored with a retrospective in Paris–as the Filipino John Waters–with the showing of his camp classic Temptation Island.

Today, the 49-year-old Mr. Mendoza is the brightest star in what French film director and scriptwriter Rebecca Zlotowski calls the “constellation” of Philippines art-house film. Following Mr. Mendoza is a diverse band of mostly younger directors, ranging in age from early 20s to early 50s, who often collaborate and have helped confirm their country’s status as a darling of the international festival circuit over the past few years… “Despite the youth of most of these directors, they are making very mature cerebral radical films,” says Ms. Zlotowski… “The common denominator of all these films is their attention to social problems such as homosexuality, adoption, delinquency and poverty and their documentary style.” The Filipino filmmakers, she adds, “are actually contributing to the ongoing breaking down of the distinction between documentary and fiction” that is occuring in movies globally.

(from Emma-Kate Symons, Wall Street Journal)

Filipinos are known not to shy away from reality. And the Filipino reality is relaxed, accommodating, laidback… The Filipino filmmakers are not afraid of breaking rules, they are not restricted by the fear of not finding funding or a showplace for their work; they are in the fortunate position of being given the opportunity to give free rein to their imagination. That perhaps is what makes their films so original…

(from Aruna Vasudev, The Asian Angle)

This renaissance of sort in Philippine cinema has been attributed to the new digital technology which at least solved the technical hurdles of filmmaking. “[Digital] technology means anyone can shoot a film,” says Raymond Red, who downplays the “revolution in Philippine cinema” as just a “revolution about technology” (from France 24 News). I disagree. In science, enabling technologies usher in scientific revolutions as much as groundbreaking theories, e.g., the invention of scanning probe microscopes in the 1980s paved the way for the current boom in nanotechnology, which was actually first described by Feynman as far back as the 1960s. As the prolific output within the last few years shows–and confirmed at least by the positive response from the international festival crowds–there is talent, craft, and vision latent in Philippine cinema that has been somewhat loosened by the genie of digital technology.

I was particularly impressed after watching a video interview of Raya Martin at the IX Festival Internacional de Cine de Las Palmas. Martin, who is being compared to Canada’s Guy Maddin (e.g., The Heart of the World), was very articulate about his filming process and theory, and had a profound grasp of Philippine film history. How refreshing to witness a very cerebral Filipino filmmaker (since Mike de Leon), which is almost a contradiction in terms, given the hysterical melodramas repeatedly shoved at us as fodder.

Cinema Scope: Why make a silent film, now?

Raya Martin: I just told someone how I become really excited whenever I see actualities and silent films. I think a silent film is how I really see cinema. It’s an exact transportation of time and space, and that there’s something about the purity of images, to see just the images themselves, moving, and understanding that what you’re seeing was a real space in a real time. In this essence it could be an issue of novelty, I’m thinking. We’re in an age where everyone’s in retrospection, including my generation, maybe because there’s no “looking forward” anymore. The old is the new new. I did this film as a “kid” with a mix of natural and illogical motivations: a craving for magic that I get from silent films, curiosity for information, interest in learning…

(from Mark Peranson, Cinema Scope)

In his website, Khavn de la Cruz describes himself cockily as “a very outspoken, experimental film maker with an unstoppable desire to explore and cross boundaries. Considered as the father of Philippine digital filmmaking, he is the most productive film maker in the Philippines and probably also far beyond.” There may be truth to those words. His film Maynila sa mga pangil ng dilim quotes and deconstructs two Brocka masterpieces Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag and Orapronobis. In an ironic turn, the film stars Bembol Roco who also played the central characters in the referenced Brocka films: as Julio Madiaga, a helpless victim of social injustice, and as Major Kontra, a vicious vigilante killer.

These examples signal a significant break with the past when cinema served as a mirror of social realities (under the Marcos regime) with the aim of inspiring people into political activism. There was no coy theorizing, reflexivity, technical playfulness, pastiche; the message was clear, and it was dead serious. Modern versus postmodern. Perhaps these are the signs of the times. Raymond Red hit the nail on the head by asking: now that anybody can make films, the next question to ask is “why [these young filmmakers] are making movies… [and] for whom are they making them”? These indie films still have a limited audience back home–partly due to draconian censorship, deficiency of commercial distribution, and, more importantly, lack of popular appeal. The last is the most crucial aspect; without an audience, there is no show. Once, while chatting up a video store clerk in Gainesville, we lamented the fact that Satyajit Ray–a staple of arthouse video stores–is said to be more well known internationally than in his native India, where people prefer the formulaic Bollywood genres. There’s nothing remotely opaque nor intimidating about Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali–it’s a poetic, emotionally affecting film–but there’s still no song and dance.

Lino Brocka was a great film director because he understood his audience. Even his canonical “auteur” films are accessible because of their directness and realism, and their emotional intensity. Art is not foregrounded, it is hidden in plain sight. Despite his acclaim with film festival audiences, he did not shrink at making popular melodramas at home. He always risked sentimentality. His love for the Filipinos–especially the poor and the victims of social injustice–always shines through his films. He once famously said: “I’m not interested in making the Great Filipino Cinema; I am interested in making the Great Filipino Audience.” If, as recent developments seem to show, Great Filipino Cinema has arrived, I hope the Great Filipino Audience is not far behind.

Sources and Related Links:

Filipinos at Film Festivals
• Cannes
• Los Angeles
• Paris
• Pusan
• Tokyo
• Venice
• Vienna

Cinemalaya
• The Asian Angle
• Hollywood Reporter
• Bankok Post

Did the airport scene in Modern Warfare offend me? Not at all. I’m not showing off. This kind of violence is hyper-real (am I using this term correctly?), but it’s also a mature video game, and an M-rated game is at best a PG-13 movie. Rape, child molestation – these are extremes that make me uncomfortable in any medium…

Take the movie Irreversible. SPOILERS AHEAD SO SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU NEED TO. Not only is Monica Bellucci’s character raped, her boyfriend and friend bash the skull of the person they believe is the rapist when actually the person they should be demolishing watches from the background. This is the most depressing and unbearable movie I’ve ever seen. It kills me every time I think about it – and it’s nothing but pretend.

What hit me the hardest in the No Russian mission was the part where, while the majority of the civilians are either running away or falling dead, there are a few that stand still, hands up, believing they will be spared.

Forgetting the controversy for a moment, the scene is simply well-executed; they way it starts off only with the sound of people suiting and gearing up in an elevator; the chorus line of police officers in riot gear. Even the game slowing you down to a crawl so you can absorb the chaos – or to make the situation more stylishly violent. yet this slowdown is also a good design decision because it prevents you from running through the level, running into the crowd and possibly interrupting scripts. Infinity Ward wants you to decide for yourself if you want to squeeze the trigger, and for them to tell you their story, they need to limit your playground. They simply don’t want you to play like an idiot for this particular mission.

Besides, the other highly structured solution would be to make the mission on rails. At that point you might as well turn it into a cutscene. And at that point you might as well cut the scene, at which point, we might as well continue with the mentality that all video games are kids toys.

Do I want to have an Irreversible video game experience? I wouldn’t want to play a game that took me through the movie’s plot but I wouldn’t outright damn a game that depresses me like Irreversible does. It’s like with books; I like to read books for fun, but I’m not adverse to a book that challenges me intellectually or emotionally. And I think video games can do the same; we each just have different thresholds.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the mental process of sex-offenders, particularly rapists. It gets tiresome, to hear about someone who knows somebody who was raped (we rarely have acquaintances that would be the actual offenders, it seems their friends keep to themselves)… I say so with both frustration and resignation (Guatemala is a country in which salleged ex offenders either get a slap on the wrist, or are stoned or burned alive). When thinking of the proper image or video to accompany this post, I couldn’t help but think of Irreversible, that disturbing Gaspar Noé film. A random google image search resulted in this very powerful and explicit poster:

I also thought of, but couldn’t embed, that also powerful scene from Pulp Fiction. Males standing up from other pain-inflicting males… it’s what (in part) I want to write about. Like the title to this entry states, it’s not welcoming territory to tread, but a necessary for me.

So, I did watch Hannibal tonight. I am very fond of the film, but it certainly isn’t as well made as Silence of the Lambs. The story is subtler, slower, more classy and while the acting and set design, etc. are all fantastic, the problem was that they included all of these flashy filmic techniques: badly done, unnecessary slow mo, etc. The film doesn’t need it, you don’t need to keep us interested with these little tricks; the acting, story and script are all enough to keep us thoroughly enthralled. Less is more in this case. Not always, but for this movie it certainly is, there is so much quiet menace that Silence of the Lambs tapped into. This one still had that, but it shouldn’t have nearly as much action style filming.

Still, amazing film in most ways. Tomorrow night is apparently going to be a movie night with friends, so unless I watch Red Dragon then, it will actually have to wait until almost sunday since I have, shock horror, a social life for the rest of the week. As for the movie night, I hope we actually watch something good; we quite often choose something entertaining over something good, which is fair enough, I suppose. We’ll see.

So, on to the quote of the day: “The man who has no imagination has no wings.”

Now, on the subject of quotes, should I start saying who said each of them? I’ve been tending to leave them without context as I believe the best quotes don’t need context. Some great quotes do, but anyway. So, again I’m speaking as if people read this, but give me some feedback on this and reasons why, etc. Part of me wants to respect the person who said the words, part of me wants people to look at the words, not the mouth.

On the subject of imagination, vaguely, I had a brief discussion with a friend of mine, whose blog can be found here: http://cerasi.wordpress.com/

We were talking about war. She stated in her blog that we should celebrate the soldiers, not the war, which I mostly agree with, but I replied, “depends on the soldier, depends on the war” then she asked for an example of a war to celebrate, which isn’t something that I could do, either because of my weak knowledge of history or because it is impossible. Regardless, it moved me onto the idea of fiction vs reality, something I’m quite fond of as an escapist, a faker and a hider. I maintain that war is a beautiful thing when viewing it as a story, as art. All the brutality and horror in the world can be beautiful in this context. If it makes me weep, shake and retch then it is valuable to me. To feel is the best thing I can do.

I am a strong believer in catharsis through art, through the viewing of some kind of trauma, though not necessarily at all. Example: a film you might know about, Irreversible. Now, I don’t suggest you watch this film, unless you 1) know that you can handle some fairly strong stuff, 2) can appreciate what a film is trying to do when it makes you hurt and 3) are willing to submit yourself to something horrible and really wallow in the emotion, you should be prepared to feel horrible for the rest of the day, to just sit and think that you can never feel good again. A lot of people won’t like that, for obvious reasons, but I really appreciate it, possibly because I’m emotionally masochistic and enjoy being unhappy, but mostly because if someone can choose an emotion, try to get the audience to feel it and succeed, then that is amazing. Making an audience happy is easy, making an audience amused is easy. Making an audience upset is harder, but still not the hardest thing in the world. Making an audience frightened, fairly easy. Making an audience angry is hard, and there’s only one movie I can think of that isn’t a documentary that has done it: The Assassination of Richard Nixon. Very good movie, I recommend it. Anyway…

What Irreversible does is it aims to make the audience physically uncomfortable, the film is designed perfectly to induce nausea, to upset, to frighten, to anger, to disturb. Now, it doesn’t do these things cheaply, it doesn’t just throw in a surprise horror scene to frighten, the panic and distress builds up over time, from the very first scene.

I’m rambling and probably ruining the movie, so I’ll stop, but the point that I’m trying to make is that it is important to know that you can feel, it is important to put yourself out there, to be vulnerable for a film or any kind of art. If something distresses you, then go with it, let the emotion grow and billow because that is what is supposed to happen, you are supposed to react, to feel. So, war as fiction can be celebrated; it may be horrible, it may be wrong, but I am drawn to it, the possibilities darkness and violence open up to me. War as reality, I don’t think can be celebrated. I’ll have to think more on the idea.

Anyway, moving on from all that serious stuff.

I approve of seeing photos of my friends as kids. 21st invitations are amusing, I highly recommend putting pictures of yourself as a kid on yours when you have one, if you haven’t already.

I had something to say but now I’ve forgotten. Maybe a good sign to say goodnight to the blog.

Goodnight,

Your winged cannibal,

TDE

This isn’t going to be one of my infamous one-line film reviews because this is a film I want to talk  to you guys about a bit.

A lot of you may not of heard of Irreversible.

I love films. I love small indie films as much as I am a sucker for a big, popcorn blockbuster. I’d heard quite a few things about Irreversible a few years ago when it was released and it was then I first saw it and it was last night that I watched it for a second time.

The film is quite simply the most astonishing, shocking and brutal piece of film I’ve ever seen. It takes its name from the fact the film is played in reverse (you start with the last scene, finish with the first) and is about 3 friends – Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel - and how quickly an idyllic life can be destroyed by violence.  It’s the brilliance of how director, Gaspar Noe shoots and edits the film that makes it hit home. The first 25 minutes are a brutal assault on your senses – the scene in a gay fetish club and it’s use of high-frequency sound in the overall mix as well as the spinning camera is the most convincing representation of drug and alcohol high that I think cinema has ever created and the act of violence itself is horrific and totally realistic. I’ve seen enough films in my time to not shock easily, in fact it’s a very rare occurence. The fire-extinguisher beat down shocked me to the core of my being as I had no idea it was coming (I’m purposely not discussing the films biggest controversy so that anyone who does decide to watch on account of this post will not know that’s coming either).

The genius of the film is the reverse chronological order it’s shot. 13 scenes in total force us to witness the violence first and then the course of events that lead toward it. You see an act of violence, but you don’t know why it’s happening. Only later do you discover why things have unfolded in this manner and only then do you understand it’s an act of vengeance.  It’s the most affecting piece of film I’ve watched and I can’t get it out of my head. I suggest anyone reading this find it (It’s fairly easy to find on most free-view movie sites or Amazon) and watch it because, as brutal as it may be, it’s a brilliant depiction of just how easy it is for things to be destroyed. The motif at the end of the film (or the start depending on how you see it) is “Time destroys everything” . It caused people to vomit, pass-out and leave movie theaters when it was shown at the Festival de Cannes in 2002 and even sparked riots. It’s not for the faint-hearted but it’s worth getting through (which isn’t easy) because it’s rare you’ll see something as frighteningly honest about the extents human beings can go and the despicable things that even the most placid are capable of. For me this film isn’t shock for shock’s sake, it doesn’t glorify violence. It shows it in the most brutal and horrifying manner and acts as a deterrent in some respects. If you’ve ever had a movie-fantasy about beating someone up, this will have the opposite effect. It’s essential cinema  – raw, visceral and intense. Irreversible is a brilliant piece of film-making and should be seen because of its sheer power.

Below is the clip of the film’s murder. (Do NOT watch this if you are easily offended by violence and disturbing images)

NFL Cheerleader Disabled by Irreversible Dystonia after Flu Shot

Other Links
Why I Never Get Flu Shots … Newsguru

Another side effect: Guillain-Barre Syndrome?

Another Possible Side Effect: Miller Fisher Syndrome (MFS)?

The debate over how safe the flu shot is appears in the news several times a week. In general, there are more risks in getting the flu itself than there are in the vaccine. However, the news that NFL cheerleader, Desiree Jennings, now suffers from a neurological condition brought on by the flu shot is causing fear in many people.

The fact that Desiree Jennings had a terrible reaction to the seasonal flu shot she received in August does not mean that everyone will have the same reaction. In reality, it may be a one in a million shot that the flu shot would cause a rare neurological disorder called dystonia. This is what Doctors at Fairfax Inova and Johns Hopkins diagnosed the NFL cheerleader with and they think it was caused by a severe reaction to the flu shot.

Dystonia is a neurological movement disorder in which sustained muscle contractions cause twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures. The disorder may be inherited or caused by other factors such as birth-related or other physical trauma, infection, poisoning or reaction to drugs.

Desiree Jennings, 26 was the picture of health prior to the flu shot she received on August 23. She is a Washington Redskins cheerleader and an avid runner. Ten days after receiving the flu shot, she came down with the flu. After that, her health got worse and she was hospitalized twice for seizures. Finally, she was diagnosed with dystonia and the doctors speculated that it was the flu shot that caused it.

Dystonia has been completely disabling for Desiree. She can’t walk forward, only backward. She can whisper but has difficulty speaking. Noises can cause convulsions. Her resting heart rate is 90. When she runs her blood pressure dips to 58. She gets exhausted walking a few steps but she could run for hours. Jennings now has difficulty speaking, walking, and even eating. She also experiences frequent seizures.

Desiree reported her health problems to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in case there was an issue with the vaccine. The FDA reported no problems with the vaccine she received and they have no other reports of adverse reactions from the lot.

NFL cheerleader Desiree Jennings, who had flu shots in 2007/2008 with no reaction, is aware that Dystonia is a rare reaction to the flu vaccine. Dystonia is an irreversible condition.

Although Desiree Jennings life is now completely changed, this reaction to the flu shot is very rare. Not getting a flu shot could have adverse affects as well, especially for those with chronic health problems.

What do you think? Are flu shots safe?

Adineauri am văzut Irreversible, filmul lui Gaspar Noel, cu Monica Bellucci şi Vincent Cassel. Vincent Cassel, în caz că nu ştiaţi, este soţul Monicăi irl. And I get why. Mmm.

În orice caz, mă aşteptam ca filmul să fie violent, dar nu atât de violent. Pot să zic că am tresărit/ţipat puţin pe alocuri. Adică am văzut multe filme violente la viaţa mea, dar ăsta e mult prea realist, which makes the violence much much worse. Înţeleg de ce au plecat mulţi de la film. Şi felul în care e filmat e foarte obositor, şi muzica, şi ritmul. E obositor cu totul. Şi arată multe. Atât din violenţă cât şi din sex. Mult prea mult.

Şi până la final te întristezi groaznic. Dar cei doi au chemistry, asta e clar. Lots of it. Şi reuşesc să fie nice. Despite everything.

E un film cu mult feeling. Poate o să sune ciudat, dar e multă emoţie acolo şi până la final îmi transmite multă emoţie. Şi e toată povestea aia cu scenariu în mare improvizat. Maybe that had a lot to do with it. Poate de-asta pare atât de natural. Că na, până la urmă povestea nu e deosebită, chestiile luate separat nu sunt extraordinare, dar per total filmul merită văzut.

Vi-l recomand. Dar eu n-aş putea să-l mai văd o dată

Top 5 Horror Movies of All Time

This is the month of October and at the risk of potentially wading into some very corny waters I cant help but follow in the footsteps of my 8th grade English Literature teacher, Mr. Pinchment, and steer a good bit of the posts I am getting up to in the direction of a “Happy Halloween” sort of groove. I do this every year since I entered in on my self imposed exile from the motherland (Orange County) and have been far and away. October is Halloween and Devils night. November Thanksgiving, and December is Christmas. They all get their due respect. I give them all props.
Lets get to it….Top five Horror Movies of ALL TIME. If you disagree or agree feel more than free to leave your pat on the back well done remark or your whining sniveling diatribe down below.

1. Halloween1978.
This is the freshest thrasher flick I have ever seen and its 31 years old. To this day nobody has reproduced this equation with as much energy or scary crap your pants moments. Jamie Lee Curtis: hot. John Carpenter wrote and directed this with help on the screen play producing an all time Halloween super hit that pre-teens are still watching today at sleep overs and then regretting watching while going to the toilet alone at 3AM. Then Carpenter went about making 30 years of useless crap. Cant win em all.

2. The Shining 1980.
Stan Kubrick threw this one
together from one of

Stephen Kings Books.

Jack Nicholson comes aboard and scares the hell out of everyone, every time we watch it. A fair amount of credit must go to the Hotel itself. A spooky damn place if ever there was one. The music and acting, it is all top top drawer.

Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya. You didn’t let me finish my sentence. I said, I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just going to bash your brains in.
Gonna bash ‘em right the fuck in!

3.Irreversible2002.
“But Eric…this isnt a horror movie!”
Isn’t it? You think Gaspar Noe was sitting around thinking “I am making one hell of a Romantic Comedy here.” Have you seen this? Irreversible is one of the most terrifying, disgusting and shocking movies ever put on the silver screen. Vincent Cassel and Monica Belluci are just amazing. Monica…oh dear Monica how you are amazing let me count the ways. Albert Dupontel effectively plays the wimp until you process it all and see in hind site his tremendous 180* turn at the end…err…beginning. Jo Prestia…if I see this guy in a dark alley I will go the other way. His character “Le Tenia” was like Hitler on Crack and Steroids, not the guy you want to Trick or Treat with. This is the Horror movie you DON’T take a date to…she will never forgive you for exposing her to the material and it also wont be cool when she realizes
that your actually aroused. (Learned both of these the hard way.)

4. The Silence of The Lambs1991
I have written about this Masterpiece of film making already on this Blog but I felt that it deserved to be on this list. It is that good. Some might call this a “Psychological Thriller” rather than a Horror movie but come on….he is chewing peoples faces off.

5. A Nightmare on Elm Street
Is it corny? yes. Is it over the top? Certainly. Did it scare us? Without a doubt. Freddy Kruger managed to keep me scared for about 10 years straight. well done. Wes Craven kicked off a franchise that has continued to remain near the top of the Horror genre for literally decades. It is a scary concept: You dream and within that dream there is someone hunting you and you can actually die. Something about the abstract nature of the movies idea is what made it so nasty. Being over the top was fine because it was all in the dreams.
Still scary today and worth a Halloween viewing.

Irreverente

así es mi mente

cuando intentes

convencerme

ten esto presente

centro de menores

representé

a los 13 entré

tiros desvirgaron

mi niñez

todas las mañanas

maquiné lo que iba

hacer

eso es delincuencia

y no insolencia

todo lo que sé

en la calle enseñé

piloteando motos

robando a otros

delincuentes

informo

no tengo rollo

como Prometeo

el fuego robo

a los pobres otorgo

caballo negro

en mis venas meto

galope sangriento

con palabras suaves

no me mareo

sobre tus estamentos

sabes bien que meo

quiero ser bueno

pero la vida me ha hecho

MALO así me veo

el daño es irreversible

Lion Chinaski

El director argentino Gaspar Noé, partidario de que la controversia forme parte del placer, explora sin pudor la mente de dos hermanos que caen en la trampa de la droga y el sexo por dinero en el filme “Enter the Void”, presentado hoy en el Festival de Cine de la localidad española de Sitges.

Afincado en París, Noé ha tomado Tokio como escenario de su película, de factura francesa, alemana e italiana, para desarrollar una historia muy psicodélica en la que conduce al espectador a un viaje alucinante por la droga y el pasado.

Con la premisa de que “un filme sin controversia no tiene interés”, el realizador argentino se puso para el rodaje detrás de la cámara en un filme subjetivo, construido desde el punto de vista del protagonista, Óscar, que aparece de espaldas en casi toda la película.

Noé insiste en planos demasiado largos que quieren llevar al espectador a lo recóndito de la mente y mueve a veces vertiginosamente la cámara.

Tomando como punto de partida el “Libro Tibetano de los Muertos”, Noé relata en círculos que vuelven una y otra vez la relación de dos hermanos, que a veces raya en lo incestuoso, obsesionados por la muerte en accidente de los padres.

Recrea con imágenes la eterna pregunta de qué pasa cuando uno se muere y para ello utiliza como recurso, ya desde el principio, el libro tibetano que ha empezado a leer el protagonista.

“Cuando tenía veinte años tenía miedo de morir sin haber hecho nada de bueno en mi vida y leí muchos libros sobre la vida, la muerte y qué pasa después de ella”, explicó hoy el director en rueda de prensa.

En opinión de Noé, “es impresionante cómo las personas necesitan creer en el más allá, yo soy ateo, pero lo quería ilustrar”.

Cuando tenía seis años, Noé vio “2001 Odisea en el espacio”, filme que le produjo “un gran impacto, fue mi primera droga y me dije: algún día quiero hacer una película que drogue a los demás, como 2001 lo ha hecho conmigo”.

Noé ha querido ilustrar en su película “lo que la gente ve del más allá, que se parece mucho a los ‘tripis’ de las drogas“, señaló.

Con esa intención, el cineasta ha realizado “Enter the Void”, un filme psicodélico escenificado en la capital nipona, “de luces cegadoras, brillantes, trepidantes, que no tienen ni París ni Nueva York”, y un equipo técnico nipón como el que utilizó después Isabel Coixet en “Mapa de los sonidos de Tokio”.

La única actriz profesional del elenco de “Enter the Void” es Paz de la Huerta, de padre español, y el personaje protagonista de Óscar está representado por una persona que quiere ser en el futuro director de cine, pero “al no ser actor no existe la necesidad de que se le vea la cara”.

En su empeño de mostrar en el filme una percepción subjetiva, Noé apenas enseña la cara de su protagonista ya que “cuando sueñas no ves bien las caras”.

La película tiene mucho trabajo digital y “por suerte la compañía que lo ha desarrollado se ha convertido en coproductora del filme porque en caso contrario no nos lo hubiéramos podido permitir”.

Vicent Maraval, uno de los productores del filme, explicó que ambos discuten en estos momentos un nuevo proyecto cinematográfico que versará sobre el erotismo.

Maraval consideró que “lo divertido para un productor es empujar los limites y la censura”.

También de dirección argentina, y en este caso producido por argentinos, ha llegado a la sección oficial Fantàstic el cortometraje “50 años en la luna”, un filme de Mariano Santilli en el guión, dirección y montaje.

El cortometraje recuerda el estilo de los filmes pioneros y presenta la conquista de la Luna en clave políticamente incorrecta, con un científico ruso que quiere llegar a ella con un cohete de fabricación casera lanzado desde un edificio de techo roto. EFE

Picture from www.screendaily.com of a scene in Enter the Void

Lars Von Trier. Park Chan-wook. Michael Haneke. These three auteurs are masters whose works are defined by their distinctive approach to divisive subject matter. France’s Gaspar Noe hinted at soon joining the rank with his first feature, Irreversible. Told in a real-time backwards narrative, the film is infamous for an unflinching nine-minute rape sequence featured in the film’s first half.

Yet as the film unraveled itself, it presented a dilemma. Juxtaposed against the abhorrent sequence were intimate and deeply humane scenes at the end of the film that left a solemn and thoughtful tone on the horror that had transpired. The film was akin to a slap in the face, but there was no denying the boldness of the work and Noe’s grim yet exhilarating vision.

In Noe’s latest venture, Enter the Void, he audaciously tells a three-hour story of life after death with all the visual panache he employed in Irreversible. But while he’s still out to enrage and provoke, there appears to be no sincerity behind the whole endeavor. He’s forsaken any resemblance to narrative for fancy shock tactics.

Noe begins his tale from the eyes of Oscar, a young, wayward American drug dealer working in neon-drenched Tokyo. Oscar takes one last trip (in hallucinatory CGI) before ultimately meeting his death in a bar. From there on, Noe flexes his visionary muscle by having the camera act as a voyeur, peering in on Tokyo from above, sweeping across streets and people in Oscar’s life. The camera is Oscar, on a final hallucinatory trip after death.

Essentially there is no plot to the film. Noe seems intent rather to simulate an experiential state of the afterlife. To do so, his camera ruthlessly cranes in and out of light fixtures, peepholes and in one sequence sure to divide audiences, an aborted fetus. The climax in a celestial brothel that features an orgy of un-simulated sex fulfills the requisite shock value of a Noe feature, but unlike in Irreversible, it seems included merely to titillate than to serve any overarching purpose.

Which leads to the inherent problem with Enter the Void. Whatever point Noe is trying to make about life, death and the afterlife is lost within the plethora of repugnant images and special effects. Noe’s tricks cannot mask what is essentially an offensive, interminable, masochistic, self-conscious slog of a movie.

-Nigel Smith

ello folks, there’s new 16 Bit Boy column up on the Resolution website here

and a little piece, amongst others at The Daily Scoundrel, about 10 movies to avoid on a first date

enjoy!
xx

In 1975 the Nigerian author and critic Chinua Achebe gave a lecture that sent shock-waves through the literary community.  In this lecture, he suggested that the depiction of Africans in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) was more than sufficient to label not only the text but also its author as racist.  While Achebe would later soften his position by suggesting that his interpretation was only one of many and that his reading in no way invalidated all of the laudatory readings cooked up by admirers of the work, the damage was done.  Over thirty years later the spectre of racism still hangs over Heart of Darkness, provoking the feeling that however glorious the novella might be, it may well be a reflection of a by-gone age with values not quite the same as ours but which we are willing to put up with for the sake of what is good in the work.  In fact, introductions to contemporary editions of the work bend over backwards to stress Conrad’s anti-colonialist credentials.

However, Achebe’s “An Image of Africa : Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’” actually addresses this issue by discussing Conrad’s layered approach to narration.  Conrad gives the story not one but two narrators; Marlow who recounts his curious experiences in the Congo and a shadowy figure who is telling us about Marlow telling the story.  By insulating himself so carefully, Conrad seems to be insulating himself against the language and the opinions of the story.  It is not Conrad who speaks of ‘buck niggers’ but Marlowe and his chronicler.  However, Achebe’s critique stretches much deeper than merely cataloguing all the uses of racist language and stereotypical depictions of Black people.  In fact, his piece is at its most powerful when it is talking in the abstract about the technique that Conrad uses to project fears onto an entire population.  This is a technique that is still in use today and it is just as problematic as can be seen in films such as William Friedkin’s Cruising (1980) and Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible (2002).

Book Cover

Conrad’s crime, according to Achebe is that he panders to :

“the desire — one might indeed say the need — in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest.”

Achebe continues :

“Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as “the other world,” the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilisation, a place where man’s vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant beastiality.”

And yet, for all the Otherness of the Africans’ behaviour and the base savagery of their existence, there is something recognisable about them.  We know this because Conrad shows us partly civilised Africans and the story concludes with the image of Kurtz, that most civilised of white men, who has ‘gone native’ and seen the raw truth that lies behind all of the civilisation, morality and comfortable myth that White men claim to be spreading across the globe.

“The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there — there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly and the men were …. No they were not inhuman. Well, you know that was the worst of it — this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped and spun and made horrid faces, but what thrilled you, was just the thought of their humanity — like yours — the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough, but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you — you so remote from the night of first ages — could comprehend.  Herein lies the meaning of Heart of Darkness and the fascination it holds over the Western mind: “What thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity — like yours …. Ugly.””

I agree with Achebe that it is telling that Conrad decided to set the story of the spiritual defrocking of a Victoria gentleman in Africa.  Could Kurtz not have been pulled from a cotton mill whispering “the horror, the horror”?  The whole point about Victorian myths of civilisation is that they were obviously myths.  In Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy (1999), a nervous W. S. Gilbert steps out of the theatre, unable to be in the building during the premiere of the Mikado.  All he needs to do is round the corner from the Strand and suddenly he finds himself in a sinister and dangerous world very much at odds with the illusions of Victorian propriety and civilisation.  As Achebe points out, Conrad is pushing at an open door… he is drawing upon commonly held stereotypes and prejudices about Africa to fuel his depiction of a savage and lawless world.

Film Poster

However, where Achebe is wrong is in his apparent belief that Africa is somehow being singled out.  When Heart of Darkness was reinvented as Apocalypse Now (1979), Francis Ford Coppola transported the action to South-East Asia and drew upon a popular feeling that the Vietnam war had seen the unravelling of the American conscience.  That Vietnam was a place of madness and death.  John Moore’s Behind Enemy Lines (2001) used the same technique to present former Yugoslavia as a theatre of unrivalled savagery and inhumanity.  Europe’s Dark Heart.  He even plays for laughs the idea that a Yugoslavian teenager might drink Coke rather than water.  A double-edged joke that both speaks to the provincialism of Americans and the supposed surrealism of as mundane an object as a bottle of Coke cropping up in Yugoslavia.

Film Poster

Friedkin’s Cruising and Noe’s Irreversible saw these techniques applied to homosexuality and both films draw upon popular perceptions of the gay fetish underworld to fuel their depictions of the unravelling of a straight man’s mind.

Film Poster

Friedkin’s Cruising deals with a straight cop named Steve Burns (Al Pacino) being sent to work undercover as part of a hunt for a homosexual serial killer.  The cop moves out of the apartment he shares with his girlfriend and takes a flat in the meat-packing district of the West Village, a place which, prior to the AIDS epidemic and the gentrification of inner cities, was packed with gay clubs that catered to New York’s gay BDSM community.  As Friedkin follows Pacino through places with names such as “The Cock Pit” and “The Ramrod”, you can almost hear the Conradian jungle drums beating.  Friedkin shows us a world of mass group sex, bacchanalian excess, of male sexuality unfettered and unconstrained by the presence of either a woman or the authorities.

Still from Film

Still from Film

In this setting, we are shown a series of grizzly murders.  We never see the murderer’s face, we only hear his voice and the voice of the murderer at each new killing is provided by the murder victim from the previous one.  It is almost as though there is no individual killer, but rather the murderer is a manifestation of some violent and deeply buried psychosis embedded in the fabric of the culture itself.  Every leather-boy is as much a potential murderer as a potential victim.  In a scene deleted from the final cut, Friedkin showed a wall daubed with the gay rights slogan “We Are Everywhere” just before the first body part is uncovered.  As the cop spends more and more time in this environment, pushing his engagement with the scene further and further away from the sexual norms of a long-term heterosexual pairing, he starts to change.  He meets up with his girlfriend and expresses his desire to stay with her (“I don’t want to lose you”).  He then fucks her roughly, almost brutally.  When his girlfriend asks him what is going on, the cop merely replies that “What I’m doing, is affecting me”.

Still from Film

Still from Film

Film Still

What the cop means by this becomes evident in the film’s final scenes as Burns’ gay neighbour turns up dead.  The neighbour had a stormy relationship with his boyfriend and throughout the film we can see the cop getting more and more agitated by this and his apparent attraction to the neighbour.  Given that the cop had apparently tracked down the murderer, who killed the neighbour?  The suggestion is that it might well have been Burns.  The film’s final scene sees his girlfriend trying on his leather cap while he shaves.  Clearly, despite attempting to scrub himself clean of what he saw and what he experienced, the cop cannot escape what he has become.  It has followed him home.

Film Poster

The similarities between Heart of Darkness and Irreversible are even more obvious thanks to the film’s remarkable structure.  It opens with a monologue by the character of the Butcher from Noe’s previous films I Stand Alone (1998) and Carne (1991).  The scene is packed with homo-eroticism as the Butcher sits naked on a bed chatting with another man who has a coat draped over his groin.  The degree of intimacy between the two men is difficult to watch.  We feel as though we are intruding on lovers.  The film then moves to scenes of the films’ protagonists being dragged by the police out of a gay S&M night club called The Rectum.  The characters do not speak but we can hear the off-camera taunts of two local thugs who claimed to be able to track down a rapist. “His asshole must have bled a lot.  Fucker.  Fag”  and “All philosophers are fags.  I hope they get you hard.  In prison there are no condoms.  You’ll get AIDS straight away fag”.  These thuggish homophobes are almost like a classical chorus, anointing the characters with their new status as gay men.

Film Still

Film Still

Irreversible is structured back to front so that the film begins with the characters being called gay before showing us the path that lead them to that hellish moment.  A path stretching back through a gay night club (in which they were nearly raped), being called gay by a cab driver, being abused by drunks in a pub because they were looking for a gay club and searching for a transsexual prostitute.  A path stretching all the way back to the infamously brutal scene in which Monica Bellucci’s androgynously named Alex is raped by a man calling himself the Tapeworm.  A man who, whilst sodomising her, coos in her ear “You have such a tight ass.  A nice fag ass”.  The rape scene is almost like the trading post in Heart of Darkness.  It is the furthermost outpost of heteronormative civilisation.  A man raping a woman but making it clear that his frame of reference (as well as his behaviour) is that of another world.  One hidden beneath and outside the world of the characters with their flirtatious parties and their cute heterosexual intimacy.  Irreversible takes us from the gay hell of the Rectum to moments of pure beauty, couples together laughing and playing, a pregnant woman sitting in a park as children play beside her.  As in Cruising, Irreversible changes its colour schemes.  Cruising moves from cold metallic blue to warmth and sunshine.  Irreversible moves from red darkness to a similar sunny hetero- promised land of sunshine and warmth.

Film Still

Film Still

Film Still

Irreversible fits into the Conradian schema not only because of its clear ‘descent to hell’ narrative but also because Noe’s films are littered with a deeply ambiguous attitude towards all forms of sexuality.  In Carne (1991), his daughter’s first period makes the Butcher believe that she has been raped.  Confusing the natural process of becoming a woman with a more tawdry and violent loss of innocence, he sets off and exacts revenge upon an innocent Arab labourer.  In I Stand Alone, the Butcher is trapped between the S&M fantasies of his lover and his deranged incestuous yearning for his own daughter.  It is easy to see the hierarchy present in Noe’s world-view : Women first, then women who have sex, then women who have kinky sex, then transsexuals and finally gay men : Madonna, Whore, Shemale, Queer.

Madonna/Whore Complex by Hansjurgen Bauer

While I agree that there is something profoundly distasteful about this kind of personalised demonisation of entire cultures, sexualities and races, I actually think that it reflects more profoundly upon the people doing the demonising than it does the demonised.  When Conrad wrote of the savagery of Africa, he was giving a voice to his own fears and prejudices as well as those of the society that surrounded him.  Heart of Darkness speaks of the Victorian image of Africa in the same way as Apocalypse Now speaks of the American vision of Vietnam, Behind Enemy Lines speaks of American fears of ‘Old Europe’ and both Friedkin and Noe’s films speak of a deep-seated fear for their own sexuality.

As Achebe says, much of the emotional force from Heart of Darkness comes from the idea of recognition.  White Europeans are supposed to see the Africans not as inscrutable Others but rather as reflections of their own potential for savagery.  Both Friedkin and Noe’s characters begin the films as straight men before encountering the homosexual demi-monde and being sucked into it, a process that changes them forever.

The key question to ask when trying to work out how one feels about this process of Othering is what purpose is served by these kinds of depictions of Black or Gay people.  Achebe sees the European’s demonisation of the African as being motivated by self-aggrandisement.  If you write about how savage the lives of the Africans are then you are also making the civilised life of the European seem that much more attractive, noble and moral.  Think of Conrad’s depiction of the Thames as a grand old river, beautiful because it is civilised and well-travelled.  The wild has been beaten out of it.  It has been tamed.  Compared to this, the Congo seems a terrible place lined with danger and death.  Both are vast rivers, but one has been tamed and made fit for human travel.  The other needs civilising.

Conversely, we can take the demonisation not as a means of elevation but of deflation.  By showing us the savagery of African lives and making it clear to us how recognisably human they are, Conrad is reminding us that civilisation is a myth, a shell game, a vast act of voluntary self-delusion.  The capacity for savagery is within us all and it is only by ignoring the realities of life that we can convince ourselves otherwise.  Consider for example, Conrad’s depiction of the offices of the great trading company at the beginning of the novella : A dried out, fly-blown tomb where manners and fussy decoration are used not to demonstrate civilisation but as a buttress against the forces of entropy.  It is, in its own way, no less horrific than the trading posts of the Congo.

The ambivalence expressed in Heart of Darkness about civilisation is one reason why Achebe’s critique has not lead to the work being marginalised  and seen as merely a product of its time.  Its style is unfashionable.  Its imagery and language unsettling.  And yet the book remains a vital part of the Western canon.  This same ambiguity envelops the works of Friedkin and Noe : We are repulsed by their use of Gay stereotypes and their equation of homosexuality with brutality and death and yet we hesitate before calling either work bigoted.  We return to them because of their ambiguity.  Perhaps Achebe was right and our refusal to reject these works marks a deep-seated and well-hidden vein of prejudice.  A secret belief that all gay men are piss-drinking deviants or leather-clad rapists.  That Africans are brutally uncivilised and incapable of governing themselves.  Perhaps we enjoy these works for the same reason that white teenagers enjoy gangsta rap : it speaks to their prejudices.  This is possible.  It is a question that all of these works pose of us because of their similarity and because of their power.  That too is a reason for returning to them.

Inside or À l'intérieur (2008)

A scene from Inside

Inside or À l’intérieur is a 2007 French horror film released in the United States over a year ago. It is directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, who at one point were mentioned as possible directors for the Hellraiser remake. That would’ve been nice to see as Inside is definitely one of the scariest and most sick and twisted movies I’ve ever seen. I’m a full grown adult male and this movie actually gave me nightmares, but I don’t want to overrate the film, as your typical bloodthirsty horror-movie goer may be distracted by the actors who mumble enough that you may actually have to read what they are saying (the film is in French of course). Also, the pace is unnerving and might require some patience from those who appreciate inferior gorefests. This is a very violent film and intentionally so, but it is so much more frightening to watch because it sets you up nicely with great context, writing, and acting. In other words, if a film was this quality and not a horror film I would still be praising it for these reasons, and fellow cinephiles anticipating good horror know exactly what I’m talking about. Well, this is the best horror film since Neil Marshall’s 2005 film The Descent and perhaps maybe even Takashi Miike’s 1999 film Audition. In other words, you really have to look all over the world for a good horror movie and the French deliver big on this one like they did with Aja’s High Tension and the amazing Gaspar Noe film Irreversible.

Dalle and Alysson Paradis

It is set on Christmas Eve during what appears to be the 2005 riots in France. I’m not sure those riots continued much into December but it appears to be the backdrop of the film. We follow pregnant Sarah (Alysson Paradis) after her boyfriend was killed in a car accident they both experienced months earlier. She is stalked by a mysterious woman played by Beatrice Dalle. Dalle is most famous for her performance in 37°2 le matin (Betty Blue to American audiences) over twenty years ago. She really is a great actress and brings out that fierce psychotic rage again for her role here. She is dressed in a long black Victorian gown that hides her well in the shadows and gives her a ghostly presence. This reminded me of some of those great horror films from the silent era and was very effectively used. It also reminded me of the Hellraiser villain Pinhead, which seemed to connect well with the directors’ once rumored involvement in that remake. Anyway, Dalle is frightening in this role and absolutely among the most vicious villains to appear onscreen in quite some time.

Beatrice Dalle's villain is horrifying, intense, and memorable.

Other than pushing the envelope in terms of gore, the influences here run deep. The suspense is effective and we are only gradually given hints about the villain’s motives until the end. How far she will go to get what she wants is another thing we might question, and believe me you cannot even imagine how far she will go. There are moments at the end of this film that scared me to the point where I felt like looking away. Moments that rank up there with scenes from great horror films like Alien, Audition, Dawn of the Dead, Suspiria, or even the The Exorcist, among others. It is hard to write about a horror film I enjoy because I feel compelled to say so much more, but I don’t want to give anything else away. Suffice to say, if you’re not troubled by this film then you are missing out on the fun of watching great horror. Very highly recommended, but not for the squeamish.

My rating is 5 out of 5 stars.

Them or Ils (2006)

Olivia Bonnamy as Clementine

Them or Ils is a French horror film released in 2006. A quasi-remake came out last year called The Strangers, a film I have not seen but I probably will if only to make the comparison. Them claims to be based on a true story, and whether true or not, any speculation from the audience works to the film’s advantage. It follows a woman named Clementine and her husband named Lucas. Clementine is a teacher who recently moved from France to a rural part of Romania. The film opens with a scene that will tell you right off the bat what the film’s intentions are but this only serves to heighten the degree to which the film’s suspense is a massive success. Clementine and Lucas are disturbed at their quiet and isolated home late in the evening and the disturbances escalate gradually and intensely. Them seems like a 45 minute movie and I mean that as a huge compliment. There hasn’t been a more effective thriller in a few years and it’s all done with very little violence, at least when compared to some of the other films that make up this recent wave of solid French horror films (i.e. À l’intérieur, Haute Tension, and Frontière(s)).

Michael Cohen as Lucas

The French have always made great films and we’ve seen transgressive French films surface more and more frequently over the last ten or twenty years (I think of Irreversible and some of Catherine Breillat’s work). To see French cinema excel in this particular genre is no surprise and although Them’s themes of paranoia and isolation are certainly in tune with this, it notably lacks the shock-factor that the more obviously violent associated films have. It makes up for all of that by serving up top-notch suspense. In fact I’d rather see horror go this route than the gore and splatter-fests that clean-up at American box offices this time a year on an annual basis.

Bonnamy and Cohen in a scene from Them

This film makes no direct commentary but there are small voices denouncing Them as an indirect commentary and example of French fears regarding European Union expansion. An interesting angle and critique of a film that may or may not actually even know better. No worries; here in the states and perhaps everywhere else, the film will for the most part serve its purpose of sitting you down and taking you for a ride. The film’s ending also hits very hard and it surprised me in a unique way. I’d recommend this over a lot of junk that will no doubt be heavily advertised to the mainstream in the coming weeks.

My rating is 4 out of 5 stars.

The BBC Newcastle published this picture as it was remembering when the first Tyne Tunnel was
built back in 61. I love the pictures of the lesser known pedestrian tunnel because it looks like
something from some antiquated subterranean space base for international crooks or mad scientists.

This tunnel is crying out loud for some weirdness. It has a touch of Irreversible
about it, which is about as uncomfortable and fascinating as a film can get.
This place is on my list of places to visit, tripod and camera in tow, weirdness in mind.

Christ, it's 'Antichrist'!

When did you last walk out of the cinema? That’s a question often asked of film directors, critics and other cineastes. Well, personally, I can say that I’ve never walked out before the end of a film. I’ve sat through cranium-numbing Godard cine-essays, I’ve braved the worst of Jim Carrey, Steve Martin and Adam Sandler, I’ve stood manfully on the deck of the sinking Gucci-designed steamer that was Sex and the City: The Movie, all the while saluting and determined to stay until the bitter end.

You see, if you leave early you might miss something important. You might miss the best bit of the film! You might miss the one beautiful and profound moment of truth that the film-maker has to communicate to the world. And so, even if I have my doubts, I always stay put until the final credits roll.

Except… well, maybe once I did walk out. It was at The Showroom Cinema in Sheffield, in 2002, I think. The film was Audition by Takeshi Miike. In mitigation, I have to say that my sudden exit had nothing to do with the quality of the film. No, it had more to do with the rush of blood to my head and the queasy feeling in my stomach.

Audition, if you haven’t already seen it, starts off as rather a sweet romantic comedy about a middle-aged Japanese salaryman who is looking for a wife. Too shy to look for love through the small ads or in a singles bar, he enlists the help of a film producer friend and holds fake ‘auditions’ to find the girl of his dreams. ‘All fine and good so far,’ you might think. Except, halfway through the film, the plot suddenly and brutally lurches off into the realms of extreme cinema. The girl who the salaryman picks turns out to be a bit of a wrong ‘un, to put it mildly. By the start of Act Three, he’s been bound and sedated by his new ladyfriend and is being brutally tortured by her.

The scene that provoked my near swoon was one in which needles are pushed into the stomach of the salaryman. It wasn’t so much the torture itself that got to me, more the little ‘here kitty-kitty’ noises that the girl makes as she’s doing it.

A bit of a wrong 'un. 'Audition'

Since then, I’ve become somewhat cowardly when it comes to torture in films. For example, I know that Gaspar Noë’s Irreversible is a film that I should see. I know that because I’ve been listening to people telling me so for the last few years. It’s intense! It’s visceral! It’s full-on! Its reverse-time revenge plot will blow my mind! And yet, something’s always stopped me from seeing it. When it was out in the cinema, I found myself thinking: ‘Next week. Next week I’ll go and see a man having his head beaten in with a fire extinguisher. Next week I’ll go and watch a ten-minute rape scene. But maybe today I’ll go to that special screening of Airplane! instead.’

These days I think about renting Irreversible at least once a month, but somehow there’s always another DVD that comes higher up the list. “Maybe I’ll concentrate on Thai cinema this week,” I’ll think. “Maybe that new Sandra Bullock film isn’t as bad as you’d imagine.”

Recently, I’ve been feeling the same way about Lars von Trier’s Antichrist too. In theory, I’d love to see what all the fuss is about. In theory, I’d love to see if the provocateur who gave us The Idiots and Dogville has managed to plumb any real psychological depths with his latest. But then I read this from Sean O’ Hagan in The Guardian: ‘In one scene, having pounded her husband’s genitals with a brick, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character … drills a hole through his legs, inserts an iron bar through it, and attaches the bar to a heavy iron wheel.’ Gulp!

Of course the depiction of torture in film is almost as old as cinema itself and can serve a variety of purposes. In The Battle of Algiers (1966), the torture of captured Algerian guerrillas is shown quite dispassionately, documentary-style. This serves to show us what actually happened in the Franco-Algerian War and to make us feel righteously angry on behalf of the colonised people. In 2008’s The Dark Knight, the threat of torture against a ‘bad’ guy is used allegorically to explore the moral climate of Bush and Cheney’s U.S., and the kind of thinking that led to ‘water-boarding’ and ‘extraordinary rendition’.

Then there’s the other side of the coin: torture as entertainment, as another thrill to be added to the car chase and the shoot-out. Torture is inherently dramatic, after all – the odds are always stacked against the torturee; he (or she) is always desperate to escape. I can well remember how my teenage heart pounded the first time I saw Reservoir Dogs, as Mr. Blonde took a long sadistic walk to his car to pick up some petrol after having sliced off the ear of the unfortunate captive cop. When Mr. Pink shoots him before he can do any more harm, the audience punches the air with delight and relief. Since then we’ve had Hostel and Saw – films widely described as ‘torture porn’ – and, of course, Tarantino himself continues to lace his work with a strong dose of sadism.

Recently, in a rare move, the British Board of Film Classification refused to grant an 18 certificate to the Japanese horror film Grotesque (Gurotesuku), in which a young couple on their first date are kidnapped and tortured unrelentingly for the best part of an hour of screen time.

Much as I’m against banning films, it’s this last kind of cine-torture that seems to me to be the most difficult to defend. For a start, it’s often a sign of lazy film-making. Throw a torture scene into any film and you instantly have some cut-price tension. Also, it risks trivialising torture. At any given time, let’s not forget, there are quite a few real people around the world really being tortured by real unpleasant regimes. Obviously there’s not much that film-makers and film-goers can do about this, apart from joining Amnesty International. But still, while this is going on, is it really right to sit there with your popcorn watching Saw IV as entertainment?

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that torture, like rape or the Holocaust, should not appear in a film incidentally. It should be there because it absolutely has to be, because it’s something horrible and necessary to the narrative.  Otherwise, as viewers, we risk becoming deadened to everything, with no compassion for anyone, and cinema may as well pack up its bags and go home.

This is purely a test run to show that I can review 8 films in 7 nights as my bearded friend Mike doubts me for some strange reason. I’ll be posting a new review each night starting from tomorrow which will be the 24th of August. It probably won’t be posted till the evening unless my usual schedule is at all changed.

The movies that have been picked for me completely at random by Mike are as follows:

1. The Omega Man. The 1971 film staring Charlton Heston.

2. Elephant. Gus Van Sant’s 2003 film about the Columbine School shootings.

3. Eagle Vs Shark. The 2007 film staring Jermaine Clement, one half of Flight Of The Conchords.

4. Rounders.  1998 film staring Matt Damon and Edward Norton.

5. Irreversible. The highly controversial 2002 film staring Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel.

6. Casablanca. The 1942 classic war torn romance movie.

7. Ocean’s Eleven and Ocean’s Twelve.

There you go. My list of 8 movies for 7 nights.  To make it very clear I haven’t seen any of these films before, apart from Ocean’s Eleven and that was a few years ago. I’m not exactly ecstatic about the choice he’s made, but at least he didn’t choose Once Upon A Time In America for me to be subjected to.

As this is a test run I’d like some feedback from people who read this. If my reviews go down spiffingly then I’ll continue, but with a slight difference, I’ll take requests. Anything that you want me to watch I’ll do it, purely because I feel I haven’t been punished enough in my life. So let’s see how Week One goes and I’ll decide what to do after that.

Right then, look out for my review of  The Omega Man tomorrow.

Spankyventura.

Inspections used to be left until the later stages of the process – often just before the finished products were delivered to customers. As there was more chance of a product being faulty by the end of the process, all defects could be found in one big, final inspection. But the longer a unit is in a process, the more time and money is spent on it – so it makes sense to find faults as early as possible before any more money is wasted by working on a defective unit. It is better for a baker to find bad eggs when they arrive at the bakery, rather than use the eggs and then scrap the finished cakes.

Your first quality control inspections should come at the beginning of the process, testing materials as they arrive from suppliers – and there is a strong case for inspections within suppliers’ own operations. Then you should have inspections all the way through the process to the completion of the final product and its delivery to customers. Some particularly important places for insperctions are:

• On raw materials when they arrive;
• At regular intervals during the process;
• Before high-cost operations;
• Before irreversible operations, like firing pottery;
• Before operations that might hide defects, like painting;
• When production is complete;
• Before shipping to customers.

This may seem like a lot of inspections, but remember that most of them are done by people working on the process. Quality at source means that the products are not taken away for testing in some remote laboratory, but are checked at each step before being passed on the next step.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight