Kill, Baby…Kill! (1966)

☆ ☆ ☆

Kill, Baby…Kill! (1966) – M. Bava

The title makes this film by Mario Bava sound more gruesome and violent than it really is (although Bava was capable of plenty of gore later on).  Instead, this is a creepy ghost story set at the turn of the 20^th century in a secluded European village.  We follow a doctor who arrives at the request of the local police commissioner (also a newcomer to the village) as he discovers body after body, presumably murders but looking a lot like suicide.  Bava uses his roving, tracking, camera to take us through the village and its locales, the old inn, the cemetery, the villa Graps – all are strangely lighted (especially in green) and filled with horror movie paraphernalia (local witches, evil-looking dolls, grisly sharp objects).  The doctor tries to intervene to stop the villagers from giving into superstition and fear but even he eventually sees the source of the evil – the ghost of a young girl who died at age 7 and who is now wreaking her revenge.  Very spooky (and the actual plot is even more complicated than you need to know – a clear influence on Argento).  The Japanese view horror movies in the summer because the chills are supposed to cool you down – it didn’t work for me, but this movie had the right feel (if not an enormous number of “shocks”).

  

The Lodger (1944)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Lodger (1944) – J. Brahm

Filling in the missing films noir that I haven’t seen means seeing some that are pretty ordinary.  John Brahm’s films fit that bill (although I think I enjoyed Hangover Square, 1945, and The Locket, 1946, a bit more than this one).  Taking its name and its general idea from the earlier Hitchcock film (and/or the source novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes), The Lodger is set in London during the time of Jack the Ripper.  Heavy-set character actor Laird Cregar (whose career was cut short by heart failure at age 30) plays the man who moves into the attic rooms and attracts suspicion when he stays out all night and leaves other clues that he might be the Ripper.  Merle Oberon plays the music hall dancer who would seem to be a prime target for the villain and who does attract the interest of Cregar too.  George Sanders is on hand as the detective on the case.  Although the film never really builds suspense (and this may be the fault of the somewhat incongruous music by Hugo Friedhofer), the mise-en-scene is well developed and there is a foggy/misty atmosphere throughout the Whitehall section of London that makes all the events seem dreamlike (when perhaps they should have been nightmarish).  

Paprika (2006)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Paprika (2006) – S. Kon

To be honest, I haven’t really watched much anime, apart from the most famous of Studio Ghibli films.  So, I thought I would give it a try with this bizarre offering from director Satoshi Kon (who also directed Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers).  The plot involves a high-tech device that allows therapists (or anyone) to enter a person’s dreams, presumably to better understand them.  But the opportunity for mischief is there…and when the device is stolen, all hell breaks loose.  And in fact, what starts out as a mystery (find the thief) with a made-to-order comic book cop (with flat-top), starts to come apart at the seams as reality and dreams begin to blur.  One of the key scientist-developers, Dr Chiba, also has an alter-ego, Paprika, a young girl who is at home in people’s dreams and is able to solve problems there (often in magical ways).  Soon the bad guys are clearly revealed and the psychedelic battle begins and my brain started to hurt.  Instead of the plot resolving itself all nicely-nicely, things got more and more chaotic and less straightforward.  When the ending did come (tying up some loose ends), I couldn’t really care too much anymore.  That said, the animation itself is a marvel to look at, in that typical Japanese style, and takes full advantage of a story that likely couldn’t be filmed in any traditional way. Perhaps too there is a warning here about technology dominating our reality (that hasn’t been heeded 12 years later).

The Look of Silence (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Look of Silence (2014) – J. Oppenheimer

This is a documentary in which an Indonesian man of my generation confronts the now-elderly members of the previous generation who were responsible for the Communist purges of 1965 where one million died (the focus of Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously, 1982).  It is telling that Errol Morris and Werner Herzog were listed as executive producers – alongside a large number of crew members who chose to be “anonymous” in the credits (another telling fact about politics in Indonesia).  Morris and Herzog are famous for their revealing documentaries and Joshua Oppenheimer has taken a leaf from their books to show us the unflinching and brave confrontations that Adi undertook– and the defensive responses he received.  The title refers to Adi’s intense reaction to the killers’ answers to his questions about what they did and whether they feel regret, guilt, or moral responsibility – he just stares silently, which allows the men time to reflect…and squirm.  It seems incredible that the leaders of the death squad allowed these interactions to be filmed – but many had previously appeared in Oppenheimer’s companion film, The Act of Killing (2012), in which they were encouraged to act out the atrocities that they committed for the camera in Hollywood genre styles – I haven’t seen it but presumably the footage that Adi watches in the current film comes from the earlier film or its outtakes.  What we do see here is heartbreaking enough; none of the men show any remorse.  Oppenheimer surrounds the interviews with footage of Adi and his aged parents and young daughter, all of whom must now fear for their safety due to possible reprisals from those who are still in power (or the relatives of those still in power) in Indonesia today.  Although the film focuses on Aceh province in North Sumatra, the genocide and its impact occurred across the country; when I lived in East Java briefly in 1991-1992, the gentle people I knew were cautious to never say anything negative about their government (and were surprised that I could voice my views about George H. W. Bush so publicly).  As a documentary, The Look of Silence is incredibly important for what it reveals and its contribution to the Indonesian healing process (apparently it is shown and discussed over there) but the cumulative effect of the many interviews on the viewer is brutal.  The only (mortifying) conclusion one can draw is that human nature makes the underlying events a perennial possibility.

Under the Skin (2013)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Under the Skin (2013) – J. Glazer

Unsettling, and even disturbing, this feature from director Jonathan Glazer (known primarily for music videos) uses experimental techniques in the service of sci-fi plot starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien.  For the first hour or so, Johansson drives around in a van stopping blokes in Scotland to ask directions to various places; it turns out that many of these social interactions were filmed with unsuspecting real people with a hidden camera (Johansson wears a black wig).  A few of these blokes, presumably actors, get in the van and are taken to an isolated house where they are submerged in some black liquid fully nude (the source novel apparently tells us that they will later be eaten on the home planet but this is, thankfully, left out of the movie).  In both the scripted and unscripted moments, men seem to be reacting to Johansson with a certain amount of added interest and even lust.  In the beginning, she seems to encourage this – obviously to lure men to their doom.  But later, as she starts to identify more with the human form that her alien has adopted in order to go undercover on Earth, she shrinks away from this sexual interest, seeking solitude in the lonely Scottish Highlands (perhaps – as we don’t really know her motives since she ceases to speak).  Even there, she is subjected to sexual violence (a warning to viewers).  I’m not sure what things were like on her home planet, but down here on Earth, this alien sadly discovered what male attitudes and behaviour toward women can be like – horrible – and I’m sure Scarlett Johansson knows this only too well (so is it ironic that this is the film where she agreed to have a full frontal nude scene?). As a cinematic experience, Under the Skin holds up, particularly in its willingness to go into bizarre David Lynch territory with its odd visual experiments. But the plot itself is thin and slowly disappears as the move progresses – ordinary viewers might lose interest.