Thurs 4

Alexandra's Project (Rolf de Heer) 68
Unbearably intense; I have a feeling I'm either overrating or underrating it, because while I was watching it I was actively afraid of biting my tongue off, and yet afterwards all the cruelty felt a little sour -- it all reminded me of Bigger Than Life in a way, with the successful male forced to deal instead of his irrational masculinity with the hollow sexual proclivity his relationship with his wife has become. Creepy as shit, and I don't scare easily, but de Heer doesn't evoke fear so much from the threat of loss as the threat of empty space, an out-of-touch feeling that was already there, the way he films the house in early scenes both obsessively organizational and deeply chaotic. What I'm really wondering is, is this ultimately a feminist film. I won't say any more.

Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (Sam Weisman) 60
Wasn't gonna talk about this, as it's not part of the fest, but it's pretty shockingly good. Theme of course is the irretrievability of childhood, but there's more to it than that; we aren't sure (until a certain point) whether to mourn for it or celebrate it, whether to sexualize or demythify it; the pivotal scene (and one of the most invigorating of the year) being the dance audition, where regression and maturation are literally pitted against each other. Unfortunately, the movie gives in too much to the necessity of the experiment towards the end (and dropped 10 points or so as a result), but I wouldn't mind giving it another try.

Memories of Murder (Joon-ho Bong) 41
Has its moments, but abides by too many cop-movie cliches to care; sympathy is pretty much focused most of the way through wholly on Finishing the Investigation, some subtext would be pretty nice, etc. Tonal shifts galore, but I felt everything from the "laughs" (derived from how perverted the outside world is) to the "poignant moments" (derived from a screenwriting class entitled Loss and Meaning 101) was pretty oversold.

In the City (Cesc Gay) 47
Um, whatever. Nothing really happens in this movie. Ingratiating and perceptive atmosphere of Nico & Dani remains; tight focus on theme/character doesn't, so we have a whole lot of understated interrelated subplots going practically nowhere. Some interesting camera/dialogue choices keep it watchable, however.

Cypher (Vincenzo Natali) 31
LAME ASS one note sci-fi satire that hopefully won't set the tone for the rest of these fucking midnighters. Yes, we know the government is bad, Will Control Us, We Should Fight For Our Humanity (when in truth the character relationships here are more wooden than many robots I can think of), Etc.

Matchstick Men (Ridley Scott) 67
Scott's claustrophobic compositions and abrupt transitions are actually used in a way here that can be called psychologically expressive here (gasp)! And the three leads are wonderful, the father-daughter bonding is a bit of a bore but the movie really addresses that problem anyway. Protracted ending sucks; fun, nonetheless...

The Tulse Luper Suitcases: Antwerp (Peter Greenaway) 58
Whole lotta shit going in here; feels like Greenaway is getting a lot of mileage off comparing the power of the director to various political states, and in doing so addresses the fascistic state of modern cinema, etc. It's very funny sometimes, in a wacky representationally abstract sort of way, but I'm not sure I ever got the hang of what was going on...

Zatoichi (Takeshi Kitano) 49
Pretty blah Kitano; he is the Man of course, but his aphorisms and godlike demeanor get too self-righteous here for my taste. This is how you stay honorable, mothafucka. Good to know. Rating is as high as it is because there are still liberating aspects of his personality, a tendency to kind of piss off when other characters simply want to be like him. He's the Man, you know... an Individual...

Les Mains Vides (Marc Recha) 87
Uh um FUCKING WOW. A movie so unexpectedly rich and multi-faceted and... exhausting... one of the most complete cinematic visions of humanity I've ever seen. It's about modernity in its way, but unlike something like Tulse Luper or Demonlover, it doesn't really attack modernity (or arbitrate specific correlations between the way we perceive culture); it just calls attention to the self-referentiality and self-awareness of modern times, in a really sublime way. Don't want to give any examples because that would involve spoilers and this is a film that does not deserve them, but I'll be able to write a full-length thing on it soon I hope... The "dog scene," though, is what transcendent cinema IS. Jesus.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Kim Ki-duk) 57
Never seen any of this guy's movie before, but for me it was really a duke-out between the triteness and self-hatred inherent here and the devotion to and tightness of the structure, and ultimately the latter won out. Kim doesn't really form a philosophy of life, but he makes life a very whole series of actions and consequences, which is impressive I guess. Still a little lifeless and too-polished... a little...

Zhou Yu's Train (Sun Zhou) 16
Cutesy, soppy pap with lines like "You completely fill me. You completely fill me," etc. Boring as ass, but it is awfully romantic...

Bright Young Things (Stephen Fry) 52
In retrospect, this seems a high rating for a film that hardly dents the memory at all. Snappy dialogue, and the depiction of up-and-coming early 20th century misfits is never oversentimentalized; still, Fry could've had a stronger visual sense (just kidding, he couldn't have, but still)...

Les Triplettes de Belleville (Sylvain Chomet) 62
Opening is spectacularly bouncy, and a lot of the rest of it sustains a subdued, naturalistic feel that's obviously rare for animated features. Ends way too conventionally though.

Alila (Amos Gitai) 65
Fine, balanced portrayal of modern Israel that only suffers from perhaps being too balanced. Plenty of clunky dialogue, and the ending too patly embraces individualism, but Gitai's camerawork is consistently bravura, and you get the sense this is a world that could keep on changing.

The Saddest Music in the World (Guy Maddin) 59
Definite artistic struggle going on here, wherein desired catharsis becomes unattainable -- but it's hard to get worked up over a Maddin film as drama for me, and the struggle is multi-faceted in a not-so-great way. At best, wild fun; at worst, slick, thick irony at its least affecting.

Haute Tension (Alexandre Aja) 50
Very stupid; also pretty exciting. Even the dumbass final twist is irrelevant if you're only watching the film (as I was) in terms of its refreshingly relentless brutality.

Come and Go (João César Monteiro) 47
Monteiro seems a sure fellow, confident of how to work his way through every situation except death. At least he's unafraid of coming across as a dirty old rascal; some of my favorite moments include the gradual chase of the bike girl, and the ritualistic dildo dance. But a lot of the time I was just confused by the plethora of cultural references; it's the kind of movie comprised of many similarly-paced scenes that come off as alternately fascinating and incomprehensible. Ultimately gives in too often to "celebration of living," too, though at least it's not Autumn Spring.

Intermission (John Crowley) 23
Low point is montage of various "ooh, interrelated" characters' dysfunctional sex lives streaming along with some peppy alt-rock number, "What Passes for Love These Days," or something like that. With these ensemble-packed mega-odyssies, I want to feel like I need to reach out, I suppose, i.e. Magnolia, and join in the desperation, ala Wise Up, rather than condescend to it. It's just one shitty moment, but it sets up the attitude of the film pretty completely.

Code 46 (Michael Winterbottom) 34

A Talking Picture (Manoel de Oliveira) 53

At Five in the Afternoon (Samira Makhmalbaf) 21 [note: I dozed off a whole lot. But, you know, with these things...]

Pupendo (Jan Hrebejk) 63
Maybe I shouldn't have gone too high; clearly isn't doing anything especially big or new, but it's just so darn pleasant. Hrebejk is the Czech Cameron Crowe I guess.

Le Silence de la forêt (Bassek Ba Kobhio & Didier Ouenangare) W/O
Line I walked out on was something along the lines of "I need to leave and teach the pygmies to fight against their oppressors!" But then again I did find out later on the pygmies didn't want to fight and that was the conflict and whatnot, so, you know, regrets...

The Five Obstructions (Jorgen Leth & Lars Von Trier) 46
Was really sad this didn't much work at all for me, given the obvious inherent this-premise-is-amusingness of it. It's amusing, but it refuses to go anywhere, because Lars makes it oh-so-clear that his primary goal here is, well, torture, moreso than driving at deriving anything new out of the short. *sigh*...

Gozu (Takashi Miike) 66
In sharp contrast, this thing is all over the map, and really too awesome to be true. Like all Miike films it's brimming with violent weirdness but packs a lot of explosive and (somewhat importantly, because if there's one problem with Audition it's that it feels too much like a straight celebration of feminist vigilantism and male fear) enticingly vague sexual subtext to go along.

Des Plumes dans la tete (Thomas de Thier) 43

Nathalie... (Anne Fontaine) 48

L'Histoire de Marie et Julien (Jacques Rivette) 71

The Agronomist (Jonathan Demme) 40
ZZZ to this political commentator dude and his ideals in my opinion.

Le Temps du Loup (Michael Haneke) 52

Dallas 362 (Scott Caan) 42
Apparently this "subverts cliches" or something; I wouldn't notice, since it all leads up to the Drugstore Cowboy cum Boogie Nights cum etc. realization that criminal life is unhealthy or dumb or something like that (Who would've thought? What a profound, compelling, relatable idea! Etc.!) w/ embarrassingly weak philosophical observations, Smashing Pumpkins, etc.

Loving Glances (Srdjan Karanovic) 45
Silly movie about a serious subject /= offensive to me. Pretty inane, pretty pleasant.

The Gospel of John (Philip Saville) W/O
Most unbelievably bad movie I've seen even part of since The Gift (AIDS doc, not the Raimi pic); you'd think modern religious sagas would at least strive for a little tiny bit of ambiguity/artfulness, but no (read: NO).

The Return (Andrei Zvyagintsev) 75
More Alexandra's Project -- all about the process of measuring the necessity of cruelty; and more Spring and Some Other Seasons, viewing multi-generational learning as futile and cyclical. Thing is, those films pale next to this one, which feels arhythmic, disconcerting and structurally daunting; life repeats itself in some ways, but there are bumps in the road, etc. Hardly felt pushed to feel one way or the other about it, the patriarch is easily the most wrenchingly ambiguous of his kind since Arnie Friedman; and bonus points for those beautiful Mizoguchiesque tracking shots.

The Brown Bunny (Vincent Gallo) 77
Hearing Vincent Gallo being called a whiny narcissistic constructor of vapid whores is about as useful for me as hearing Jim Fall is just into becoming a pop star and getting laid -- Gallo is so obviously deconstructing and exploring his own personality here at a really intense, beautiful level. Bud's encounters with women are so fascinating because they're never portrayed as inferiors when he rejects them; he just has to come to terms with the internal lives of others.

Undead (Michael & Peter Spierig) 18
Excruciating, inept zombiefest that makes Cabin Fever seem like the pantheon of subtextually relevant horror film. The ugliest film in the festival; Matchstick Men used filters to, but not to approximate vomit. Yuck.