28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[Winston*]

Do silent films count as foreign language films?

[PURPLE]

That's not a very impressive list. It's not awful, but it's a mix of predictable and unpredictably populist which is not interesting to look at and most easily forgotten.

[baby doll]

BBC's top 100 foreign language films

98. In the Heat of the Sun (Jiang Wen, 1994)
59. Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985)
54. Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee, 1994)
38. A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991)
26. Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)

These are the only films on the list I haven't seen, although I've heard of all of them and own copies of both the Jiang and Klimov films. I've also been meaning to see the Yang for ages, but have little to no desire to see the Lee or the Tornatore. At least some the individual ballots are interesting, notably Shigehiko Hasumi putting Naruse's little-known Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro third on his top ten. (North American critics tend to have less interesting lists simply because it's less likely they'll include something I'm unfamiliar with.)

[Idioteque Stalker]

These are the only films on the list I haven't seen, although I've heard of all of them and own copies of both the Jiang and Klimov films.

Come and See is amazing.

[Spinal]

100. Landscape in the Mist (Theo Angelopoulos, 1988)
99. Ashes and Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda, 1958)
98. In the Heat of the Sun (Jiang Wen, 1994)
95. Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse, 1955)
94. Where Is the Friend's Home? (Abbas Kiarostami, 1987)
88. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1939)
74. Pierrot Le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
70. L’Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)
69. Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)
65. Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955)
63. Spring in a Small Town (Fei Mu, 1948)
62. Touki Bouki (Djibril Diop Mambéty, 1973)
61. Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
54. Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee, 1994)
53. Late Spring (Yasujirô Ozu, 1949)
47. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007)
39. Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
38. A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991)
35. The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)
32. All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999)
27. The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)
21. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
18. A City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989)
14. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
12. Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige, 1993)

Quite a few I haven't seen (25). I've been meaning to see Ordet and L'Eclisse for about a decade now. Amour is somehow the only Haneke feature I haven't seen (excluding the TV stuff). Every time I see The Spirit of the Beehive or A Separation, I think, oh, I want to see that, but never do. Kiarstomi and Hou hold little appeal to me. If I were to sit down and watch one right now, it would be A Brighter Summer Day.

[Idioteque Stalker]

Ordet is an all-timer for me. L'Eclisse is good but not close to its level.

[transmogrifier]

That's not a very impressive list. It's not awful, but it's a mix of predictable and unpredictably populist which is not interesting to look at and most easily forgotten.

It's a list I would expect a data mining algorithm to come up with.

[Peng]

Thanks to Thai Netflix I cleared up a couple of 80s classics:

Police Story (1985)

Worried early on with the rather standard shootout (although it contains a nice humanizing beat from one very panicked cop), but that feeling is all but eclipsed with the sight of cars careening down and destroying the shack town in spectacular fashion, both in wide shot and close-up, and by the time Jackie Chan is swinging around that bus I've come fully onboard. Humor is much more hit and miss, but energetic and crafted with enough emphasis on choreography to be at least diverting, such as Chan juggling multiple phone calls or Maggie Cheung trying to ride away on motorcycle. Overall police story, though only serviceable, is lively and engaging on a scene-by-scene basis (the court scene, with the exception of Chan's tape, plays out much more seriously than I expect). There's an intriguing throughline of police class anger too, which manifests most clearly in Chan's rant at the superintendent, but is also peppered throughout and informs some plot points: one aside about inspector pay rate, the main motivation for rampant police corruption, etc. 7.5/10

The Blues Brothers (1980)

By all means, this shouldn't have worked -- sloppy storytelling, shapeless comedy, excessive blockbuster mode -- but the whole thing is enveloped in such a strong aura of otherworldly cool that it overpowers those and delivers a grand good time. Even the weakest aspect, chase scenes running a tad too long, is infused with the charm of a light, devil-may-care attitude among those spectacular stunts. In fact, this feels like a most unique, weirdly self-contradictory blockbuster: both glib and sincere, deadpan and over-the-top (the brothers shrugging off wreckage is comedy gold every time), improvisational in spirit yet expensively, meticulously crafted. Not sure if this infectious alchemy has ever been duplicated again; it might just have been all the right people with all those drugs on set. 8/10

[Dead & Messed Up]

Theory: Zemeckis' Forrest Gump is 12th on the IMDB Top 250, but Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is not only substantially better; it's also a more fascinating look at U.S. history, specifically issues of ghettoization and gentrification/capitalism, probably because those subjects feel background given the absurdist context (even though the entire story pivots on emergent freeway development).

[MadMan]

Oh yeah Roger Rabbit is better. Not even really close, and I love Forrest Gump.

[MadMan]

The Wraith (1986) is cheesy as hell, rips off numerous better movies and like many 1980s films is really dated. Still I rather enjoyed a movie featuring an indestructible badass car driven by the alien ghost of a girl's dead boyfriend. There is a strange quality here that elevates the material, and I liked the cast. Also the film makes part of Arizona look and feel as if its survived the apocalypse as is, although perhaps that is the way the state looks.

[Skitch]

Love The Wraith. Supposedly Sheen got cast in Platoon and had to skip most of the filming of The Wraith, which is why it was a different actor to start and he wears a helmet most of the time. The Wraith is deliciously bonkers and has one of the best explosions/explosion reactions ever (the barn blowing up/Clint Howard).

[Dead & Messed Up]

Full Metal Jacket - Um... fine? I'm sure it's not a popular take that the first third of the film is better than the last two-thirds, but there's a forcefulness and focus in the training sequences that's missing in the back portions, where it sprawls out into slice-of-life cul-de-sacs of the Vietnam conflict. I'm thinking a lot about just how thudding it was when Joker talked about the "duality of man," and whether or not the film believes that, and if there's meaning in the film splitting off into two distinct films. The only thing I can think is that the first part shows us how men can be crushed down into animalistic robots (their descending from the bunkers to attack Pyle with soap bludgeons looks like the apes sneaking toward their enemies in 2001), and the second half shows us the conclusion of that mentality: a self-created apocalyptic wasteland. Where all there is to do is wait around, buy the occasional sex (because there's no room for women in this exclusively male universe, only "pussy"), and murder each other. The film also draws a connection between Pyle and the VC sniper at the end; Hartman points out that a sniper in a tower was a former Marine, and we're meant to draw a link between that sniper in a tower and this sniper in a tower, no doubt similarly indoctrinated and abused by a monolithic system like Pyle was. That takes this film back to a general "loss of innocence" ambivalence that we get in Vietnam flicks like Apocalypse Now and Platoon, done better in Apocalypse Now, for sure. Rob Ager has some interesting commentary on the use of sex in the film, but I suspect the larger metaphor is men literally becoming guns, since that's the clue in the title ("jacket" suggesting an anthropomorphization of bullets).

One of the odder elements here is that we watch Joker go on the same journey twice. In the first segment, he's resistant to the system and tries to operate with consideration, but he's eventually pummeled (through authority and peer pressure) into becoming part of the system. And in the second half, uh... it happens again.

[MadMan]

Love The Wraith. Supposedly Sheen got cast in Platoon and had to skip most of the filming of The Wraith, which is why it was a different actor to start and he wears a helmet most of the time. The Wraith is deliciously bonkers and has one of the best explosions/explosion reactions ever (the barn blowing up/Clint Howard).

Oh yeah he did do Platoon at the same time. Sheen was a busy guy in the 1980s. The barn explosion was badass. Poor Clint Howard just wanted to work on cars.

I love Full Metal Jacket. I think both parts of the film work just fine.

[Grouchy]

I'm sure it's not a popular take that the first third of the film is better than the last two-thirds, but there's a forcefulness and focus in the training sequences that's missing in the back portions, where it sprawls out into slice-of-life cul-de-sacs of the Vietnam conflict.

Actually, this is the predominant take on Full Metal Jacket. Most casual fans love the training sequences and consider the rest of the film as repetitive and slow.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Actually, this is the predominant take on Full Metal Jacket. Most casual fans love the training sequences and consider the rest of the film as repetitive and slow.

Oh, derp, I worded that wrong, I agree with your point, that the first third would be obviously considered superior to the back two-thirds.

[Skitch]

DaMU was this your first watch? You review reads that like it is.

If so, revisit it sometime. I don't disagree with anything you said, really. I felt that way first few watches, then over the years the second half has taken on more weight. That ending singing Mickey Mouse haunts me. It definitely took a few watches for me to appreciate the second half. Apocalypse Now is still the best Vietnam movie, imo, really makes you feel the horror and confusion and insanity of that war.

[Irish]

Not sure I fully grokked Damu's analysis. I disagreed here and there with what I understood. Good read, as always, though.

My main beef with "Full Metal Jacket" is Kubrick's lazy adaptation of the source material ("The Short Timers" by Gustav Hasford).

- The opening is better because it's a complete story with a discernible beginning, middle, and end, and has a clear point to make. The second half, about the Battle of Hue, isn't as clear. This is because Kubrick and Michael Herr ignored the last third of Hasford's novel. As a result, they made a movie with no ending and a lot of thematic loose ends.

- I liked the Mickey Mouse song the first time around, but nowadays it just strikes me as gross. It's a cheap attempt at an upbeat ending ("I am alive and I am not afraid," the voiceover says) and it contradicts the mood and the message of the rest of the movie.

- To me, the most striking part of the "duality of man" bit isn't about anything Joker says or his potential meaning. It's that some old, pogue-bait colonel gives Joker an absurd pep talk, one that sounds ripped off from a high school football coach, while they are both standing in front of a mass grave. "FMJ" is rife with black humor, like when Joker's CO outlines the Tet Offensive and Joker immediately makes a quip about Anne Margaret.

- To steal from S&E, consider the value system of someone who would praise Lee Harvey Oswald for his markmanship just 5 years after Kennedy's death. That seems to be the biggest point of that scene.

- I don't think there's a real connection to be made between the killings at the end of the first part and the end of the second. It's just Kubrick reusing a device because he's out of ideas. Both sections use gorey, unjust death as a metaphor for the larger war. Kubrick contrasts strange silence and sudden violence to shock the the audience and make them feel it.

- Like every other American movie about the war, "FMJ" ignores any real Vietnamese point of view. So I think it's a leap to assume the VC sniper at the end was "indoctrinated and abused by a monolithic system" like Pyle was.

- Willard from "Apocalypse Now" was presented as a burnout from that movie's first scene, never as an innocent. Because of that movie's source material, it also implicitly says something about imperial power and colonialism, which is absent from both "The Short Timers" and "Full Metal Jacket." (This is a little more evident in Coppola's bloated-but-fascinating "director's cut.")

- Joker doesn't go on the same journey twice. I don't think he really changes from Parris Island to Hue; he's still the same gangly smart ass throughout the movie, right up until the ending.

- This is where the source material shines and the movie doesn't. The character uses wry humor and his position as combat correspondent---more observer than soldier---to shield himself from the war. In the book, he doesn't take responsibility for anything that happens around him and he responds to each fresh horror in a ghoulish, mercenary way. The problem is that the book has a payoff to this central problem---how can you witness this world of shit, and participate in it, and retain your humanity? The movie doesn't have any such payoff. It just sorta hangs there and ends.

- From memory, the women in "FMJ" are street level prostitutes or, at the end, a single sniper. The book has no women in it at all.

- I don't think there's much to be read in the title. It seems like quick riff on Pyle's line in the bathroom, when he's describing his ammunition. The film's larger point isn't a colorful metaphor but that institutions will reduce your humanity if you let them.

[Skitch]

- I liked the Mickey Mouse song the first time around, but nowadays it just strikes me as gross. It's a cheap attempt at an upbeat ending ("I am alive and I am not afraid," the voiceover says) and it contradicts the mood and the message of the rest of the movie..

Ooof, I didn't read it that way at all. I thought it was very gross and depressing because they're all just part of the American imperialist/colonist machine. I felt like his "I'm alive and unafraid" line was as though his eyes are open to just how big a problem it is.

I'm sure it can be ready any way we want it.

[transmogrifier]

Never been a fan of FMJ. It’s not nearly as deep as Kubrick fans want to pretend it is, and some of the leering shots of Pyle going crazy are comically bad. Trying to make England look like Vietnam doesn’t work either.

[Dead & Messed Up]

DaMU was this your first watch? You review reads that like it is.

If so, revisit it sometime. I don't disagree with anything you said, really. I felt that way first few watches, then over the years the second half has taken on more weight. That ending singing Mickey Mouse haunts me. It definitely took a few watches for me to appreciate the second half. Apocalypse Now is still the best Vietnam movie, imo, really makes you feel the horror and confusion and insanity of that war.

Yes, first view. Kubrick runs hot and cold to me, so I was always a bit leery of watching this one, but it's definitely worth checking out (obviously).

[Dead & Messed Up]

- The opening is better because it's a complete story with a discernible beginning, middle, and end, and has a clear point to make. The second half, about the Battle of Hue, isn't as clear. This is because Kubrick and Michael Herr ignored the last third of Hasford's novel. As a result, they made a movie with no ending and a lot of thematic loose ends.

Interesting, I didn't realize much of the source material had been cut.

I liked the Mickey Mouse song the first time around, but nowadays it just strikes me as gross. It's a cheap attempt at an upbeat ending ("I am alive and I am not afraid," the voiceover says) and it contradicts the mood and the message of the rest of the movie.

Like Skitch, I took this ironically. They've all been bullied into becoming part of this club (the war machine), whether by the drill sergeant or by each other.

To me, the most striking part of the "duality of man" bit isn't about anything Joker says or his potential meaning. It's that some old, pogue-bait colonel gives Joker an absurd pep talk, one that sounds ripped off from a high school football coach, while they are both standing in front of a mass grave. "FMJ" is rife with black humor, like when Joker's CO outlines the Tet Offensive and Joker immediately makes a quip about Anne Margaret.

Yeah, that felt a lot like a Strangelove moment, where everyone's thinking too narrowly to see the surrounding absurdity.

To steal from S&E, consider the value system of someone who would praise Lee Harvey Oswald for his markmanship just 5 years after Kennedy's death. That seems to be the biggest point of that scene.

For sure, that's huge too. It's a repulsive moment.

I don't think there's a real connection to be made between the killings at the end of the first part and the end of the second. It's just Kubrick reusing a device because he's out of ideas. Both sections use gorey, unjust death as a metaphor for the larger war. Kubrick contrasts strange silence and sudden violence to shock the the audience and make them feel it.

Maybe not, but I do think it's probably not a coincidence that Ermey's character is smitten with the accuracy of elevated snipers, and the film's second climax revolves around an elevated sniper. I don't know if it's making a larger point, but the recurrence seems suggestive enough that I don't like dismissing it.

Like every other American movie about the war, "FMJ" ignores any real Vietnamese point of view. So I think it's a leap to assume the VC sniper at the end was "indoctrinated and abused by a monolithic system" like Pyle was.

Entirely possible. I'm just trying to be charitable to the film and see if there are recurring elements that might point to a more consistent read. I think it's worth asking how we're supposed to read a sniper's character when the film spends 40+ minutes showing us the American method of producing an accurate marksman (which is a harrowing training). Is it fair to at least partly extrapolate from there? Put it this way - am I convinced of the parallel? No. But like I said, I'm trying to be charitable. To use what The Wire calls "soft eyes" and see if there are clues to lead me to a fuller and better reading. I'm trying to do that more with movies in general. It makes me happier than dismissing them.

Joker doesn't go on the same journey twice. I don't think he really changes from Parris Island to Hue; he's still the same gangly smart ass throughout the movie, right up until the ending.

I don't know. It seemed like the first third had him resisting Hartman's cruelty (his training of Pyle is much more understated and encouraging, which leads to some minor successes), but once it becomes clear that Pyle's errors are having an effect on the entire squad, he chooses to be complicit in the beating of Pyle. This feels to me like a small but tangible arc from compassion/individuality to cruelty/groupthink. The second portion of the film rejiggers him back to that sort of individualism (he's back to being sarcastic and distanced), which is then tested and broken when he gives in to murdering the sniper (again, with his squadmates surrounding him and encouraging him). I don't think either arc is terribly deep or even all that expertly rendered (Kubrick doesn't give us a real sense of Joker's shift from compassion to cruelty in the first half - he's impatient, and then he's suddenly beating Pyle). But I do think they're present, and they aren't there by accident, and, again, it's worth asking the questions.

The film's larger point isn't a colorful metaphor but that institutions will reduce your humanity if you let them.

I mean, it could be? It's entirely possible they chose the title for the reasons you say, but it could also be true that the writers saw added meaning in the title, since they went out of their way to change the title from the source material. I'm honestly surprised you can feel so certain about these things. To me, Kubrick has always been a sticky sort of director, where even his less successful films carry intriguing holistic details that suggest alternative reads and sorta stick in the craw. Sometimes those lead to viewers (like me) missing the forest for the trees, but, again, I see no harm in it. Anyway, I didn't love the flick, just thought there were interesting things happening.

[Irish]

Ooof, I didn't read it that way at all. I thought it was very gross and depressing because they're all just part of the American imperialist/colonist machine. I felt like his "I'm alive and unafraid" line was as though his eyes are open to just how big a problem it is.

Like Skitch, I took this ironically. They've all been bullied into becoming part of this club (the war machine), whether by the drill sergeant or by each other.

I agree there's an ironic element at play. I just don't think it works---mostly because that melody can't be defeated by cynicism. Seriously, stand up right now and sing out M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E and try not to smile. It's impossible to make that tune downbeat, to make it sound like a dirge.

Lemme put it another way: When the credits rolled, was there any doubt in your mind that Joker would survive the war unscathed? That's what I mean about the ending.

Anyway, Damu's last post inspired me to rewatch the film. (I re-read the book earlier this year.) More thoughts later (maybe).

[Dead & Messed Up]

I agree there's an ironic element at play. I just don't think it works---mostly because that melody can't be defeated by cynicism. Seriously, stand up right now and sing out M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E and try not to smile. It's impossible to make that tune downbeat, to make it sound like a dirge.

Lemme put it another way: When the credits rolled, was there any doubt in your mind that Joker would survive the war unscathed? That's what I mean about the ending.

Physically? I suspected he would. In a positive psychological space? I don't know. I think the violence at the end would've meant more had I not already had the earlier arc where he compromised himself. That's one place where I think the movie stumbles. It feels like it makes its point, then makes its point again in a more obtuse, less convincing manner.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Hopefully I'm not coming off like one of those Room 237 people.