G. It's rated G. Literally, the photo I have is a guy choking an alien to death to steal his key. So many people die. Sure, you don't really see that death on screen because they're smooshed under buildings left and right. Also, women continue to be treated poorly in this series. Oh, someone is vaporized on screen. Again, G.
DIRECTOR: Ishiro Honda I'm in a foul mood today. Now, writing should do one of two things. It may reset me and give me a sense of productivity, which is what healthy people probably get out of writing. Or, I'll spit out some vitriol here and treat this movie poorly. Since I'm being so critical of myself (which other people may call "objectivity"), I'm going to take the time to say that this movie isn't a good movie, but it is leaps and bounds better than the last entry, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, which is weird considering it is a direct sequel to that movie. Invasion of the Astro-Monster is almost exactly what it sounds like, with a bit of a twist. The real victory comes from the tone that it evokes. While a Godzilla movie through and through, Invasion of the Astro-Monster feels like the height of B-movie Hollywood sci-fi. It has flying saucers on strings and weird aliens in matching outfits that are clearly just...dudes. They're just dudes in funny hats and visors. Again, we're in a point in the franchise where even the concept of a message or some greater theme is lost on both the filmmakers and the audience. If anything, this is a movie that harkens back to the isolationist era of Japan, despite the fact that one of the protagonists of the movie is an American dude who speaks very confident Japanese. (It's a dub, right?) The twist of the movie is that there is no new Astro-Monster. If anything, the real bad guys are the aliens, not the kaiju who tear up Japan like it was nothing. I oddly kind of like that. A turn in the franchise isn't the worst idea. It's really weird that the decision to keep these movies fresh was to make the bad guys just human-sized humanoid aliens. In a franchise where the bad guy is someone who trampled villages, the bad guys are dudes with laser beams and a convenient weakness to loud noises. I really want to talk about my favorite moral dilemma in this movie. It's such a hilarious beat. Now, I'm going to joke about this with the knowledge that all of this is part of the Xiliens' absurd plan. Me making fun of it is almost inappropriate because the absurdity is right there on the surface. It's just...the reactions that some people get. The movie starts with these mysterious Xiliens from the Planet X seemingly benevolent. They have a Ghidorah problem and they want Godzilla and Rodan to deal with their Ghidorah problem. It makes sense. After all, Godzilla and Rodan teamed up to beat Ghidorah in that last movie. They did it once, they can do it again! Okay, all of that is great. I love that this is a favor from the Xiliens perspective. "Aw man, we don't want to deprive the humans of their greatest natural resources, Godzilla and Rodan." As humans, we're filthy with kaiju. They are begging for these destructive forces that have killed scores of people. These are such valuable resources that they trade the cure for cancer for these monsters. Now, we're all thinking the same thing. "Absolutely." Take those monsters. Heck, we'll throw in a Mothra if it sweetens the deal. Yet, these astronauts feel bad for Godzilla and Mothra. Is there some kind of weird bittersweet relationship between Godzilla and people? I know that, starting in the second or third movie in the series, that Godzilla has solved a couple of problems when it comes to kaiju issues. But Godzilla himself hasn't exactly been pro-people yet. He's been, at best, an accidental help. Okay, that's fine. Can we talk about the Council of Housewives who have a seat at the U.N.? I don't think I've ever seen a more coded symbolism for "The Woman Vote" as a separation from what is considered the human vote. Now, part of me is really curious what this is saying about 1965 Japan. What I mean, is Japan being incredibly progressive with this inclusion? After all, the Council of Housewives' stance is incredibly even keeled. Sure, they're wrong about the Xilians' intentions, as is everyone else but the astronauts. But it kind of feels like this was both a big step forward for representation of women in these stories and a huge step back. I'm still processing a lot of this, so be aware that I may step on some landmines. (I love all this effort for a two second sequence in a Godzilla sequel.) Like, it's not that it was just a woman playing that part in the U.N. Nope. It's specifically that it was a union of housewives. No other profession represented. Housewives were almost their own thing. I am not minimizing the stresses of being a housewife. Lord knows I'm not itching to be a house husband anytime soon. It's just that it was clearly, "Look at what the ladies have to say about aliens" that made my eyes go a little wide. But let me tell you why Invasion of the Astro-Monster is better than Ghidorah. It didn't exactly follow my rules. Golly, this movie gets pretty bananas at times. (Although, it didn't NOT follow my rules either.) The human story in this one is very sci-fi. It's two astronauts going to Planet X. That is as B-movie sci-fi as it gets. There is a grounded story. Of course, the astronaut has a sister (which is very Ghidorah) and she loves this guy who can't support her. I'm playing fast and loose with some of the cultural stereotypes, but apparently it is okay for a brother to forbid a relationship between grown consenting adults based on a suitor's profession, especially when it comes to bringing pride or shame to the family. I'd like to point out, we're all team Tetsuo, right? This forward thinking, nerdier and less successful Tony Stark actually has a point with that alarm. He's just not a marketing guy. He ends up saving the world with that thing, by the way. I just wish that Tetsuo and Haruno Fuji were bigger characters because most of the story invovles Astronauts Fuji and Glenn. There's all kind of goofball stuff there. But it mostly works because it does seem to be a focused story. Ghidorah really played up the small world elements, where a bunch of disperate storylines, each more bombastic than the last, all converged into a tenuous and tedious storyline. While Astro-Monster mostly keeps with the one plot, the biggest complaint from me is the complete lack of conclusion to this movie. I'm not talking about an intentional lack of conclusion to a movie, like Empire Strikes Back. I'm talking about the fact that the last three minutes of the movie is Godzilla, Rodan, and Ghidorah all coming out of their stupors and fighting. It's not that I wanted more fighting. But to say that the movie's over because they're all awake and this fight will be over in a second is darned silly because all of the other movies started the plot of their respective movies where this one ended its film. It seems that Ghidorah, Rodan, and Godzilla fighting would still take out a bunch of Japan. For this film, they consider it a pretty solid victory. Ghidorah just bounces and the other two monsters look like they died...but totally didn't as established in dialogue. It's a really dumb movie, guys. Like, incredibly dumb. Is it more fun and more watchable than Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster? Absolutely. But the only reason that I'm giving it such a pass is because the last movie was so bad. It's a little charming and it's not horrible, but that's not exactly a resounding win.
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TV-14, despite the fact that this is the true story of a brutal murder, coupled with a drug dealing side story in the movie. It's pretty dark, yet it's funny to think that this, if only taking the rating as a guide, might be something that my little kids would watch. I'd like to point out, it is not at all appropriate for little kids. But TV-14 is TV-14, I guess.
DIRECTOR: Jenny Popplewell More like, what DIDN'T Jenny do? Am I right? Okay, it's actually pretty straightforward. If you were waiting for some other shoe to drop, don't. Your first instinct was mostly the right one. It's more of a matter of how she killed her parents more than if she killed her parents. I watched this one because one of my students said some good things about this. I actually feel a little bad because I watched the wrong true crime doc before this thinking that it was the recommendation I got in class. Odd coincidence that actually kind of scans? It was made by the same production company, RAW Productions. Is What Jennifer Did amazing? No. Did it fill up an evening. Yeah, kind of. Honestly, it's more one of those stories where the viewer needs to invest the self to really find something to talk about. Lucky for me and this blog, I have some thoughts. Not a lot. Probably not completely profound. But I do have some thoughts. There are two things that Popplewell wants to get across. 1) Empathy is one of those things that can mask logic. 2) Cultural pressure for success is a powerful motivator. It's not that the movie doesn't completely condemn Jennifer. There's enough of that dramatic footage coupled with haunting music to imply that Jennifer was a real psycho. Literally, at one point, it was just a photo of Jennifer in high school sticking her tongue out and that true crime chord boomed over the image, making it upsetting. There's a lot of that. But honestly, the beat-to-beat unpacking of this story isn't necessarily the story of a mastermind. It's just the juxtaposition of this little girl who seemed to have it all together compared to the brutal murder of the girl's mother. The movie starts with the emergency phone call to the police. Jennifer seems like she is very much the victim of this story. Her screams seem real and troubling. But the gosh-darned thing is called What Jennifer Did. Geez, I mean, there's no scenario where this story wasn't going to go to some weird dark place. This is me completely talking with no expertise at all, just intution. I think we're all aware that there are people who study psychology and what makes people tick. But the only thing that really stuck to my ribs about Jennifer was the fact that the crying was almost paradoxical. The movie really sells the notion that there was no regret or emotional attachment to her parents. There's this moment in the movie where someone came forward and said that Jennifer had tried this in the past. It wasn't that she backed down. It was that circumstances didn't allow for her to commit murder. That's what really kind of gets under my skin a little bit. Jennifer, throughout interviews, cries a lot. But knowing that the tears were either part of her mask or were only there in fear of imprisonment, the scary part is that she probably has no real moral code. Okay, I laughed at the cliche that the lead detective brought up in his interview. He described Jennifer Pan's crime as "pure evil" or something like that. While incredibly dramatic, there is something there that can be said about that read of the murders. It's not like she slept on it and then changed her mind. Part of it comes down to acting. That phone call sounded real. Like, I knew she totally did it. Everyone did. But do you know what what we tend to do when we knew that she did it? We listen for the inconsistencies. (Note: the officer's arguement that she couldn't make a phone call if her hands were bound didn't make sense in a post-Siri universe.) But that phone call seemed totally real. The tears in the interview room sounded totally real. That's the upsetting element of the movie. To invest oneself that deeply into a lie, I wonder what the real tears are. That's where my brain goes, by the way. It says that there is no such thing as real tears. There's screaming and there's hate in my brain. But I think that Jennifer doesn't cry like that when things get real. Or, she's just one of those actors who can bring reality to life. Now, it's not like the movie goes into victim blaming...much. It might be a bit of a shorthand to show an Asian family and then say that the reason that Jennifer murdered her family in an absolutely horrific way was that they were pressuring her to succeed. Now, there's both something universal about this, her sense of arrested development coupled with a massive spiral of lies. It just seems like there's something that is being said that is meant to be specifically cultural. I don't know. I kind of wish the motive was something a little less on the nose. Part of what really bothers me, besides perpetuating a stereotype, is the idea that there's a one-to-one connection between familial disappointment and the urge to murder. There were times in my life, especially in my early 20s, where I just felt like an absolute piece of trash. The expectation for success versus the comfort of just being my own person got me into scrapes that I didn't necessarily love. Mind you, I never dated a drug dealer. I also probably am not wired for this. But for all of the times that I just wanted to get away, the intrusive thought wasn't homicide. It was running away with an occasional suicidal coloring to the whole thing. It's odd that the police just jumped to "I lied about college" to "I will hire a hitman to kill my whole family." It's so odd because, like I mentioned, I watched the other Netflix original true crime thing by RAW Productions. That one seemed far more critical of police, who seemed to be using a lot of the same shorthand to get what they wanted. Sure, American Nightmare balanced it out by stressing that there was a good cop who understood what it meant to be a woman and a police officer rather than just opening and closing cases. Maybe watching these things back-to-back was a bit much, but it was odd how the look of something stayed the same, but the message almost seemed to be completely different. I even noticed that some of the language of the film was the same. For the interview scenes, both productions used the exterior of the interview room with the little light to stress that things were happening back there. It's just that the messaging went in two wildly different places. True crime is weird to write about, especially when you've watched a fair amount of it. Part of it is a commentary on the storytelling, but there's almost a language to the true crime documentary that almost minimizes anything outside of the norm. I keep teasing that I mean to rewatch F for Fake by Orson Welles because I love the nontraditional storytelling that happens in it. But it is hard to analyze movies like What Jennifer Did because real world horror tends to be told the same way over and over. It's either pro-police, where we are trying to unpack why someone goes off the wall and kills someone. Or the other end is that it is anti-police, where we look at how shortcuts lead to bad policing. It's a bit of lather, rinse, repeat, honestly. It's not that it isn't interesting. It is just that we have a narrative coloring the events that almost minimize things that could be done with these things. Until we get something revolutionary, these blogs will be the same. I can comment on how crazy Jennifer Pan comes across, but I don't have much beyond that. Also, I could have sworn that "Homie" or "Homeboy" was just bad improv until they got a warrant for the phone. Sure enough, labelled in there as "Homeboy." I just loved the Canadian police continually say "Homeboy." Not rated, mainly because it actually probably shouldn't be watched. It's more chaos than anything inappropriate. For the sake of being really technical, there are assassination plots throughout the movie. You know, nothing offensive. Just an attempt to murder this woman, who gets shot in a completely nonfatal way. Not rated.
DIRECTOR: Ishiro Honda Whut? Like, seriously. What happened? Most of us are aware of the idea that there is a steep decline in quality when it comes to the OG Godzilla franchise. The '90s teased these movies mercilessly. But I seriously thought that I was still in the Golden Age of Godzilla. Like, this is Ghidorah! This is one of the big bads. This is a movie that even me, a novice, knows about. This is supposed to be one of the good ones and it is an incoherent mess. Honestly, I'm a little flummoxed how I'm going to make it through the rest of this box set if this is the movie that already breaks me. The frustration is that a Godzilla movie should be incredibly easy to make. Honest to Pete, there is a low-bar to what would make an incredible Godzilla movie. Again, I'm writing this from a place of comfort. I have a cup of tea. I have a blog. I'm sitting with the windows open. The sun is shining. My stress level is low. Of course I can give you the formula of what makes an interesting Godzilla movie. If you actually asked me to make the movie, then I would turn in a turd and blame it on society, Jerry-Seinfeld-style. You want to know what makes a functional Godzilla movie. You tell a grounded story about people. To them, their real-world problems seem like the end of the world. Godzilla and crew show up, wrecking the place. It doesn't matter if Godzilla is a good guy or a bad guy. His fighting is going to throw everything into chaos. The real world, grounded-folk, because of this shared trauma and displacement, realize that their problems, while valid, are ultimately moot given the sense of community that has been built around surviving a kaiju attack. The end. What did Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster give us? Besides telling us that he's the most rad monster of all time, nothing that was salvagable. I'm going to try my best and piece this apart. There's very little that can be analyzed besides some broad strokes at environmentalism, so please be patient at my criminal amount of summary. There's a million plots all attempting to gain footholds, so I'm not sure what to start with. The protagonists are a brother-sister team. He's a cop who has just gotten word that there's going to be an attempt on a princess's life. I don't know why he's ground zero for this news, but he is. She is studying the supernatural beat for a news agency. She's also got a so-so crush in a college professor who is interested in UFOs, even though all of his collegues treat her as subhuman. That's not a plot point. They just do. Anyway, cut to the princess. Sure enough, there's an attempt on her life, but right before she's killed by explosion, a Venusian kidnaps her and takes over her body. She tries warning civilization of the coming of Ghidorah. That should be enough to get the film going, right? Nope. The assassins, seeing that she's alive, keep trying to murder the Venusian. In the meantime, brother and sister fight over whether she's from Venus or a royal dignitary. Also, the Infant Island Mothra girls somehow interject themselves into the story to warn of the coming of Ghidorah. That's the movie. It's weird that when four giant kaiju are all duking it out, that's the most sane thing that happens in the movie. You realize, there have been so many movies in the Godzilla spinoff series that people are just finding monsters wrecking Japan commonplace? It's a weird take. Also, as I've written with previous Godzilla movies, the franchise has already lost its thesis statement about nuclear war. Honestly, Gojira was a story deeply critical about man's folly when it came to the use of nuclear weapons. It was a punishment for what we had unleashed on this planet. But Ghidorah tries passing the buck to the monsters. For absolutely no reason, Godzilla and Rodan fight. It's not like Godzilla is protecting Japan from the Rodan attack. Also, I didn't know who Rodan was. (I mean, I know from cultural knowledge. But in-universe, Rodan had yet to show up. Apparently, he had his own movie somewhere else that I would have to watch to be completely caught up on the franchise.) But at one point, King Ghidorah shows up and Mothra the slug (who gets wrecked in this movie, which is extra funny because we're reminded that Mothra isn't the Mothra we know; this one's a baby) tries to get the other two monsters to put away their vague emnity for the sake of the planet. Now, the humans comment that the monsters are just as fickle and pig-headed as humanity is. The bigger takeaway is that the kaiju are 100% sentient characters capable of complex morality and language. That seems like a huge step backwards for what the series is trying to say. Again, the theme for Godzilla is that if we keep destroying nature, nature is going to defend itself violently. But then when we have to start talking to these characters with a mediator kaiju and translator tiny women, I think we missed the point. That whole scenario and outline for a good Godzilla movie above? It's supposed to somehow emotionally tie into the destruction happening all around them. Man alive, there was no characterization in this movie. There wasn't a human, non-plot element to be found in this movie. The protagonists didn't have to move into some uncomfortable zone where they learned to see the humanity in each other balances against the backdrop of nature. Nope. Instead, we had goofy assassins trying silly ways to kill this princess who had been possessed by a lady from Venus. It's a lot of that. By the grace of God(zilla), she keeps ducking these hairbrained schemes, like electrocution or sniper attack. Do you understand? I have nothing to write about this movie. The movie is so vapid and devoid of soul that anything I write from here is something I fundamentally don't believe. Here. Here's something I don't actually believe about the film, but it gives me something to write about. I suppose that I could write about how the entire film is an allegory for the complexity of faith. Again, I don't believe this. I think this is just a dumb movies about monsters punching each other. But it's kind of amazing, in this world at least, how quick this Venusian is instantly raised up as some kind of prophet or Christ figure. Listen, sometimes, this is the best I can do. Sure, the Christ figure is killed by a bullet from her own people. Sure, there's almost a stigmata element to her wound. But that's a read that I'm really forcing. Round hole; square peg. Anyway, this is...a fundamentally dumb film. I mean, if you enjoy it, continue doing so. I just was amazed by how seemingly little effort went into making a coherent plot. Not rated, but this movie has some content that needs to be addressed. The movie, especially for 1947, is incredibly colored by sexuality. Most of that sexuality is incredibly unhealthy, including an attempted rape sequence that is woefully ignored and swept under the rug. There's also an attempted murder and an attempted suicide. Every horrible thing that can be attempted, they attempt.
DIRECTOR: Ingmar Bergman Okay, two movies that have relationships that the kid tries to steal the parent's relationships is a coincidence. Three involves me really questioning what's going on with Ingmar Bergman. I know that all 39 movies in the box set can't be about can't be about falling in love with your parent's boyfriend or girlfriend. They just can't. I refuse to believe it. I'm actually running out of things to talk about with this very specific trope that seems to be pervading Ingmar Bergman movies. This is barely a trope in anything else and this is in three Bergman movies out of my marathon of three-so-far? Nope. Nothing doing. But we hit a sweet spot with Bergman for me. This is exactly what I want out of Ingmar Bergman. (Okay, not exactly. I'll touch on that later.) I knew from watching the Early Bergman Eclipse series that I liked a lot of Bergman's early work. I wrote about this in my Crisis blog. But I also knew that Crisis, while not a dumb movie by any means, was a little bit dumb compared to Bergman's other work. I kind of expected that, when I revisited this era of Bergman, that many of his movies would be slightly dumber than his lofty classics. It's not like A Ship to India is his most brilliant work. I have to admit that there are things that could be elevated. But A Ship to India is leaps and bounds more intellectually stimulating than Crisis was. Only made a year apart, Bergman seems to be developing into the director that has placed him in the annals of cinematic history. There's complexity and a richness to his shots. The story is deep and challenging. But what I really like about A Ship to India is the idea that it both emotionally rich while being kind of a heady film. I know that I'm fighting the clock. I fell down a YouTube hole, so there's a good chance that I'm not going to finish this blog in time for my next class. It's not really my fault that Seth Meyers interviewed Ncuti Gatwa on his show and that there was a clip on my front page. That needed to get watched. Anyway, I do want to talk about one thing that really bothers me about this movie before I talk about the complexity of the film. At one point, Johannes, the deformed protagonist, after being dressed down by his father for no healthy reason, decides to attempt to rape Sally, the love interest of the movie. Not that this really changes anything, but Sally and Johannes have no real prior relationship. Sally is Johannes's father's mistress. But he actively tries to rape her. She screams and claws and tries to get out of there. Johannes is only stopped by his mother, who points out that Johannes is drunk and that he would regret his actions. Now, the purpose of this scene is not to generate sympathy for Sally, who was almost raped. The purpose of this scene is to generate empathy for Johannes, who is so deformed that he's reached the end of his rope. The gross part of me wants to say "It was 1947. It's not like he's a bad guy." That scene colors the rest of the movie for me. This is a movie I like that has layers of complexity. I wish I could say that this moment was part of that complexity, but the movie really just gives Johannes a free pass after this moment because he didn't actually succeed in the rape. They have a straight up conversation where Johannes asks Sally not to hold his previous night's behavior against him. She smiles, thinking he's just a sad charming little lad. It's a weird take. It does defintely put a dent in this movie, which I'm already rating pretty high on Letterboxd. If it was part of the story and something that defined Johannes and Sally's relationship for the rest of the film, I'd be way less taken aback by this scene. Nope. Let's ignore it. It was just a beat of characterization that was meant to elicit empathy for this hunchbacked kid who has a hard life. Also, for a movie that really stresses how ugly Johannes is, he's the most handsome ugly dude you've ever seen. He's got a hunch, but it's pretty mild. That's about it. Anyway, back to the story. What makes me excited to unpack this movie is Sally. Johnannes reads exactly what you'd expect him to be. He's the most archetypal protagonist, shy of the sexual assault. He's downtrodden and (again, that scene removed) morally upright for most of the film. He hates his own appearance and we instantly have a Beauty and the Beast dynamic between Johannes and Sally. But what I really like about the movie is that Sally isn't hard to pin down. She initially leaves her own life behind as a cabaret dancer to join Blom, Johannes's father. (I know Blom is their last name, but he's referred to as "Blom" a lot in the movie.) She clearly doesn't love him. He's an old man losing his vision. That's sad, but Blom is also a terrible human being. When Johannes starts directing attention to Sally, she reprioritizes her life. She only left the cabaret with Blom because he was going to take her away from her terrible life. She was, in all essence, prostituting herself for the sake of a life somewhere else. But Johannes seemed like more of a mark than Blom, who was too volitile to predict (again, Johannes did try to rape her, which is a weird call on her part, but it's the logic of the film). She confesses to Alice that she does not love Johannes. This is a woman who has a husband cheating on her and having his mistress live with them. She has defended the value of a child born with a physical deformity who hates himself. She thought that she might have had this win and Sally just straight up says that she doesn't love Johannes. I mean, that's fair. But there's the "I don't love him yet" of reality and the "I don't love him" of "I'm just using him to escape." She took his virginity so he would stay devoted to her. It should make her unredeemable, but it absolutely doesn't in a weird way. Part of that comes from the structure of the piece. The movie is bookended in the present day and the middle of the film is a flashback to the meat of the relationship stuff. We know that Sally goes off the deep end in the present. Something is truly off with her and that's why we have so much flashback. This scene does the best kind of muddying that I've ever seen in what could be considered a romance story. Sally is upfront with her intentions. She's been dealt a bad hand and she'll do anything to escape it. But Sally and Johannes, for the rest of the film in the flashback, hit it off. Lots of stuff happens. Heck, Blom tries to kill his kid and then he tries to commit suicide as the cops catch up to him. That's a lot to take in. Sally and Johannes continue to foster their relationship. When Johannes leaves to secure his fortune, she seems to hate him for it, even though he promises to return as soon as he can to take care of her. Now where this movie gets gloriously messy is her rationale. I think it more say more about the viewer than it does about the movie to break this section down. (Note: I 1000% didn't finish during my time to write. This is where I picked up.) A romantic has to believe that when Sally claims that she didn't love Johannes, she was lying to herself. For them, the course of the story is the discovery that Johannes was always her true love. Just because he can offer her freedom from this life of misery doesn't mean that the feelings that she harbors (pun intended) can't be love. Myself? I'm romantic, but not when it comes to movies. This is a story about people using people. When I see Sally curled up on the floor screaming at Johannes, it's because he left her behind to deal with poverty in her own way. When she refuses to go with him, despite the overly cheerful ending where she turns her frown upside-down, it's because there's spite to her. It's not that she's had her heart broken. It's because she lost out on all she invested with him to get out of there. It's bleak to me. If anything, the happy ending is just there to put a bow on a complex situation. But I believe her when she says that she doesn't love Johannes. It makes the story so much more interesting. There is also a beat that almost shocks me about the message of the film. In the last few minutes of the movie, in the present timeline, Johannes tells Sally that she needs to get out of this place before she becomes so angry and spiteful like Johannes's father. Now, Blom is pretty unlikable. He's so unlikable that you take no pity for his future blindness. But I always saw Blom's real cruelty in the fact that he openly states that his family is not enough for him. Yet, the message is that wanderlust needs to be satiated. That's a weird take from the movie. Sure, if I'm trying to meet Bergman where he's at, I can see that Blom became so bitter and spiteful because he felt trapped in his life. But to have a message to Sally that she should go before she becomes like Blom almost takes the onus off of Blom to begin with. Part of the odd logic is that Blom's family caused Blom to be the monster that he became. That's screwed up, right? But see, this is all analysis stuff. I love that I had a narrative that I could get behind and still question choices that go into those moments. A Ship to India might not be the most complex thing in the world, but it also offers something different than a standard melodramatic narrative. It gives me stories while still begging me to be engaged. I love that. Not rated, mainly because it was 1946 and NOT AMERICA. While being tonally very mild, the actual content is actually quite upsetting. A father figure manipulates the protagonist into a sexual situation (left vague...but not that vague). There is also a suicide in this sequence. Like many of Bergman's movies, one of the motifs is humanity's cruelty to one another. Still, not rated.
DIRECTOR: Ingmar Bergman Why is melodrama so comfortable to watch? I mean, I know the answer. Like with Crisis, straight-up melodrama deals with archetypes and tropes. I really don't have to think too much to understand a character. In those scenarios, like with Crisis, we can hit emotion far better. There's something absolutely blasphemous about my artsy-fartsiness. I hate that I say this, but I actually tend to like early Bergman more than later Bergman. (I also kind of like pre-cubism Picasso quite a bit too, but that's almost me being a contrarian). I've actually seen Crisis before. I own a lot of the early Criterion Eclipse box sets. I shotgunned that entire box set remarkably quickly back in the day. I'll tell you what. If Crisis is a reminder of what I liked back then, I bet you that I still like Bergman's early stuff better. Now, before I go too deep, I have to wonder what the logic of connecting Smiles of a Summer Night to Crisis. The most obvious answer is that they wanted to start off the Bergman set with a hit that wasn't it's #1 movie, but also was enough to get you excited to watch the box set and then transition into the older stuff. But what accidentally happened is that these movies became an odd double feature about how Bergman is mildly obsessed with parental figures having sexual attractions to their non-biologically related children. To paraphrase Dr. Doofenshmirtz, "it's just odd that it happened twice." What is that? It's a very specific taboo that not a lot of people talk about. I mean, I'm sure they do. I just tend to stick my head in the sand. But both of these stories normalize having crushes on your age appropriate stepparent. I don't like it. I'll tell you that. Part of what makes Bergman tick, even in these early days, is a sense of discomfort. It's not like Bergman is a guy who lives off of shock value. Honestly, as bleak as these movies get and even as controversial as these movies get, there's nothing all that graphic in the movie. If Bergman is a thinking-man's director, he makes you invest in what ultimately should be a taboo. But while Smiles of a Summer Night encouraged that taboo relationship, Nelly's relationship with Jack (who is dealing with the taboo of parental relationships twice) is meant to be abhorrent. But it's through the use of archetypes that we can shortcut our way into an understanding of the greater message of the film. Even though I've expressed my love for archetypes, they don't offer the intellectual challenge of Bergman's other works. (Again, my brain gets tired.) Jack hits all of the beats of the sleezy guy. He wears a pinstripe suit. He smokes excessively. There are moments that require him to act human that he absolutely refuses to answer that call. He's scum. Now, here's where the problems of melodrama come in. As much as I like this stuff, because characters are archetypes, they don't really reflect the real world. We can recognize Jack coming a mile away. Jack's going to do anything he can to get ahead. He even states (and then that quote is replayed in a nightmare) that Jack only loves himself. There's no doubt that when Jack swears that he loves Nelly, it's all for show. It's nice as an audience member to point fingers and say, "Boy, isn't that guy just awful!" But it also is incredibly jarring for what happens to Jack. Because Jack is almost entirely characterized by what we expect him to be, Jack's suicide almost doesn't feel appropriate for the film. (Again, this is a movie that I like.) The other characters even establish this idea. They straight up say that Jack loves himself too much to commit suicide. In terms of servng the melodrama that the movie is milking pretty hard in Crisis, it does give the movie a bombastic emotional ending that kind of works with the tone of the film. But it also doesn't make sense. Bergman almost has characters lie to us throughout so we don't see that ending coming. In terms of a message, it might almost accidentally deliver a message about the multifaceted elements of characters and people. I have no doubt that Bergman is one of the greatest cinematic geniuses of all time. He's a smarter dude than I am. I could keep writing about this, but I can't harp on that concept enough. I get that there's a very real chance that Bergman did this intentionally. But Jack stepping out of his caricature is almost a fascinating concept in itself. It both supports the whole expectations of a subgenre coupled with the chaos that real life offers. The canonical world of Nelly in Crisis would have us believe that Jack, for all of his bluster and bravado, was actually truly moved by what might have been a real love for Nelly. His shameful tricks to seduce Nelly, telling the story of being a criminal so that he could come across as the bad boy, is an embarassment to him. Compound all of that with the accusations that Jenny hurls at him, maybe it is possible that Jack would commit suicide. Sure, she claims that the gun that he owns is a cap gun, but that's immediately undone by a successful (the worst word I can pick!) suicide. But I also love the idea that people are masks. Maybe there's a narrative where Bergman is saying that we all put on masks. Jack, when he is talking to Nelly's Mutti, claims that he's going to put that old pinstripe suit away. He's aware that the suit is almost part of his character. That entire conversation with Mutti reads more like a chance to sew discord. That's Jack's entire motivation for most of the movie, by the way. He's this little evil imp who just loves to bring a bit more chaos to the people he meets. But if we read that scene differently (which I am actually hesitant to do), it could be that Jack is honestly coming to grips with his own place in this world. It's oddly romantic thinking that Jack finds value in himself because he sees Nelly as someone who is objectively good. (I'm still not loving this read, mainly because I don't think that Nelly gets enough screentime to really support that interpretation.) But in terms of the end of the movie, it could be read as that this is the door that opens a bit for Jack to become the character that ends the movie. It's unfortunate because we don't get much of a sliding gradual shift. Instead, we have a lot going on really quickly and we're left to pick up some pieces. I can't help but equate Crisis to what America was doing with the women's pictures in the '40s and '50s. Part of what defines Nelly is not what she does. Nelly, for being the anchor of the film (and I'm now sorry that I don't have more to say about Mutti), is incredibly reactionary. Often, she's defined by what is expected of by society. It's odd that the man that is rooted for by the town (but not necessarily by the audience) is Ulf. Ulf is significantly older than Nelly, but has harbored a crush for a really long time. I mean, let's unpack that for a second. If he's been crushing on her for that long, we have to look at inappropriate ages. Sometimes it's cool to take cultural factors into account. Sometimes, you can be really judgy and look down on the implication made. Right here? I'm looking down on the implication made. But there's the bigger red flag. Nelly is kind of treated poorly because she's not madly in love with Ulf, who seems fine at best. There's almost an expectation put on her to marry this dude who is not at all attractive to her. Similarly, hasn't Nelly really done enough by just being friendly to him? There's that whole misunderstanding that starts and ends with "If a woman is nice to a man, there is must be romantic feelings." But Ulf...sucks? Like, he's boring and gross. Great, he's nice to her. That doesn't mean that he owns her. I know. I'm White Knighting again pretty hard. It's just that I'm glad that the end isn't expressly pointing out that the two of them get together. There's no happy wedding and I like that a lot. (I did have some stuff on my mind while watching this. I actively watched it, but my mind drifted a bit. If they got married, I have a drastically different vibe about the end of the movie.) But I like melodrama! I like this Bergman because I can write about it with a degree of confidence. Sure, it's the bumper bowling of Bergman, but sometimes I do like to watch movies and kind of get them. Not rated, but this is pretty R-rated, especially for 1962. There's some mild language, but the big thing is that there's just nudity. It's for a second and it's just a sexual image, but it's also a picture from a book. Still, Welles isn't exactly hiding from questionable content in this. Josef K is often seduced by women he's never met. There's implication of an incestuous relationship. But again, 1962. By today's standards, the movie's pretty tame.
DIRECTOR: Orson Welles I was listening to a podcast today where the guest was comedian Larry Charles. Charles used to hang out with Bob Dylan, so he's telling all these Bob Dylan stories. And at one point he goes, "Bob, you gotta change this. No one is going to understand it." And Dylan replies, "What's so bad about not understanding?" I need to start employing that attitude when watching avant-garde stuff. Unlike some of the more intense avant-garde film, The Trial actually presents some logical stuff that isn't insanely challenging. Looking at the film, the time period, Welles himself, and the back of the box (what! It's using what resources you have!), you can piece together a lot of the allegory going on here. That doesn't mean that I'm not inserting some of my own argumentation here. The Trial really runs that fine line between stuff I really really love and stuff I absolutely can't stand. I like certain brands of weird. Can I tell you the thing that made this movie so much better for me? It's a gutsy move and there are times in my life when I would have hated this, but I love that Welles just establishes early on that the events of the story follow the logic of a dream. Now, part of me wants to write off the events of a movie as "just a dream." I'm confident that Welles doesn't mean that. But dream logic is its own special thing and a lot of The Trial, being written by Franz Kafka, it excuses logic for the sake of emotion and imagery. I forget how much of a cinematography and mise en scene guy that Orson Welles is. People always reference Citizen Kane --as they absolutely should! --for its visuals. But the thing about Kane is that it is partially grounded in reality. To a certain extent, I like that about Citizen Kane. True artists really shine when they have restrictions on themselves, when they aren't allowed to go too far. But The Trial is an interesting experiment in terms of what Welles probably wanted to do. It's kid-in-a-candy-store stuff. Sometimes, that's exactly what an auteur deserves. Welles isn't exactly one who shies away from experimentation and The Trial is kind of him getting free reign. It's so weird that this is a collaboration between Welles and Alexander Salkind, a guy who I associate with being the almost stereotypical film producer. He's the guy who drove almost every Superman property into the ground. But hey, he gave Welles carte blanche and it shows in this movie. Part of that doesn't surprise me. Salkind was a guy who saw stars around famous names. There's a reason that Marlon Brando plays Jor-El and gets larger billing over Christopher Reeve. But for what really has the vibe of an avant-garde indie film, there's some money being thrown at this movie. Part of what makes The Trial so effective isn't necessarily the message or the performances (which are in no way under criticism), but rather the imagery of tight choreography and visuals. When we are at Josef K's office, there's that imagery of an ant farm. The noise is deafening and then the day ends. Everyone gets up and leaves in almost absolute silence and it is haunting. Like Welles stated with the logic of a dream, it does add to the chaotic world where the legal system doesn't matter. And that's what it's all about. The legal system, for all of its caveats and nobility about justice being blind, is the painting at the end. It is justice and victory. She is flying with wings on her feet, showing the facade of fairness when really being off-balance with the scales. We're about to get into my bread and butter here, guys. With a history minor, I have the thing that I can't stop thinking about. Most men apparently are thinking about the Roman Empire. I can't help thinking about Blacklisting, the Hollywood Ten, and Joseph McCarthy. The back of the disc gave me the heads up about Blacklisting and the timeline fits. As much as Josef K's story was written by Kafka in 1924, this film is a comment on the moment. As chaotic and unbalanced as this dream world movie is, one of the consistent elements of the film is that Josef never really knows what he's accused of. He should be more indignant about the whole thing, but again, we follow the logic of a dream. Josef's constant frustration is that the legal system wants to see him fail. It gives him perks and ways to bury himself, but the movie never really lets us forget that Josef K is actually innocent of any crime because no crime has been attached to him. But we see that the way that people treat him is a story of escalation. He starts the movie almost immediately on the defense. The cops enter his room from a place that they should not have access to, the neighbor's loft. Initially, if this was a story about treating him with an air of innocence, that is immediately removed when we find Josef's employers searching through personal belongings. Already, Josef's life is upended. While he's given the benefit of the doubt from his landlady, she doesn't take his advice once he demonstrates his frustration with her close-minded attitude. He's defensive of other people who have not committed crimes, but have been judged by a de facto class system that looks down on lesser professions. Honestly, Josef K's crime is liberalism. He doesn't look down on his neighbor for having a career that has a tangential relationship to sex work. She's not a prostitute, but she's treated as such. It's when he comes to the defense of this woman that those around him start turning on him. The rest of the film is almost looking at the different facets of the legal system, stressing the bias against the defendant regardless of actual crime. Josef goes to court. Everyone in the room isn't a peer; they are a judge. They all laugh and he picks up that there's coaching going on as he stands up there fighting for his life. Then there's the acknowledgment that money buys freedom. Orson Welles's advocate character is housed in a grandiose mix between luxury and Victor Frankenstein's gothic home. Welles as advocate cares little for Josef K.'s predicament so much as he is itching to show how much weight he can push around. He's both put out by the scrawny Josef K and eager to impress. At no point does it become about the trial. It's instead a bunch of swagger. He feeds his girlfriend to Josef K because he enjoys that she is disposable and that his life is so rich that he doesn't need this whelp of a man. The same holds true for the artist. The artist sees Josef K as a means to show his insight into a world stacked against him. These are almost elements of theater. Everything is a production and Josef K is the form of entertainment to the masses. Let's talk about Anthony Perkins, a man whom I cannot separate from Psycho. Perkins is perfect casting here, but as much as I adore Anthony Perkins, the man has shades of Norman Bates all over him. I've now seen him in a few things. Not everything, mind you. But Anthony Perkins plays the put upon nice guy. Often, like with Norman Bates, there is a real darkness to him. To analyze Josef K. isn't a question of whether he did something or not, but more about the fact that the legal system doesn't respond to reasonable requests. (There's something very Alice in Wonderland about the whole thing too.) Knowing that Perkins was gay and that his character is also trying to adapt to constantly shifting expectations of him is also almost a character beat. Attractive women in this movie don't necessarily throw themselves at him, but find his entire situation sexual. It's actually pointed out by the advocate. Perkins had that same energy with Psycho. This nice guy gets a little bit more attractive because there might be something insidious about him. I'm not saying that Marion Crane found him attractive. It's just that Norman found himself more attractive because of his relationship to Mother. I can see Perkins loving this. But I also feel bad that it's almost too in his wheelhouse. He's got that stuttering nice guy with a secret thing down. I could play two-second clips of this and Psycho and unless you had memorized both films, you could probably mistake one scene for another. That's good casting, but I also want to see Perkins do something else. It's my same feeling with Anthony Hopkins. Both actors have absolutely nailed what they do in their craft, but often tend to do variations of the same thing, regardless for what the role is. The movie is good. It's interesting. I just don't know how watchable the movie is. I didn't lie. I would come home and know that I still had a chunk of The Trial left. That's probably not the best sign. I enjoy this kind of stuff. But I already have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. (I'm ending this one the worst take.) |
Film is great. It can challenge us. It can entertain us. It can puzzle us. It can awaken us.
AuthorMr. H has watched an upsetting amount of movies. They bring him a level of joy that few things have achieved. Archives
May 2024
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