Farewell (2009)

☆ ☆ ☆

Farewell (2009) – C. Carion

I’m a sucker for Cold War spy dramas, although I recognise that really good specimens are rare (and I am not sure I have seen any other French ones). Farewell, the code name for this adventure, takes place in the early ‘80s just before perestroika and Gorbachev’s ensuing glasnost policies.  Indeed, the Soviet official (played expertly by Emir Kusturica, a director in his own right) turning over information to the French secret service claims to be doing so because he loves his country and wants to see reforms.  The film is not a complicated political thriller nor a cat-and-mouse chase between the authorities and the mole; instead it is partly a buddy film (the Soviet source and the French engineer who is his contact, played by Guillaume Canet) and partly a study of the impact of this high stakes leak on their relationships with their wives and children. Once the Americans get involved (Reagan is played somewhat jarringly by Fred Ward, with David Soul and Willem Dafoe by his side), the pressure on the protagonists becomes too much.  Yet, despite its promise and the solid acting throughout, the result is rather middling. I’m not sure what I was expecting but perhaps it takes too long to get there.

  

Mania (The Flesh and the Fiends) (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Mania (The Flesh and the Fiends) (1960) – J. Gilling

Not produced by Hammer Studios but featuring their star, Peter Cushing, as the rather diabolical (or at least unethical) Dr Knox, who pays “resurrectionists” for corpses to use in anatomy and surgery classes in Edinburgh in 1828.  He pays more for fresher corpses and soon an enterprising pair of louts, Burke (George Rose) and Hare (Donald Pleasance), go into business, the murder business, to keep Dr Knox and his students fully stocked.  Of course, this is a true story (which also inspired a short story by Robert Louis Stephenson and the corresponding Boris Karloff film, The Body Snatcher, 1945).  Cushing plays Knox with one eye shut, signifying the blind eye he turns to the source of his cadavers.  Pleasance is especially good in this early role.  The DVD I watched seemed to be made from an umpteenth generation copy but I could still enjoy the creepy mise-en-scene and eccentric supporting characters that inhabit it (although my US version of the film excludes all the naughty bits that made this film a scandal in its day). Worth a look if you can find a decent copy.   

Marnie (1964)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Marnie (1964) – A. Hitchcock

Now that I have reread the chapter on Marnie from Robin Wood’s famous book on Hitchcock, I am almost convinced that this film is one of the director’s most important works (as a statement of his major themes).  But the problem for me is that it isn’t really an enjoyable watch (notwithstanding Bernard Herrmann’s score, the weird non-naturalistic elements, and Hitch’s moving, peering, camera).  Tippi Hedren plays the title character, a woman who is so psychologically damaged (resulting in constant lying and thieving) that she is hostile to everyone around her, particularly men (but not including her mother from whom she desperately wants love).  Sean Connery plays her employer who becomes determined to free Marnie from her demons, even if it means controlling and dominating her. It gets pretty raw and unpleasant as the duo engage in numerous interactions where he pushes her out of her comfort zone and she reacts harshly (toward him and toward herself).  The mystery that Hitchcock invites us to contemplate/solve is the original source of Marnie’s problems, but we know from clues that he lays out (in her dreams and with some psychotronic red flashes) that it has something to do with the colour red, thunder & lightning, tapping at the window, and of course, her mother.  The fact that Connery plays a former zoologist interested in “instinctual behaviour” is another key to the film, which doesn’t shy away from considering sexual motives, pathology, and transference.  There is a lot to unpack.  Wood believes that Hitch is mostly concerned with the thin line between order and disorder, the way that our identities may be artifices constructed to hide the disarray and pain within. Of course, how we experience guilt (rightly or wrongly) is another of the director’s major concerns. The psychology here may not actually hold up, but with Marnie, Hitch also suggests that there may be a therapeutic solution to such problems through love and acceptance by others – and fortunately there really is evidence to support that contention.     

Diva (1981)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Diva (1981) – J.-J. Beineix

The debut feature from Jean-Jacques Beineix (who went on to make Betty Blue, 1986, which I still haven’t seen) is rather hard to pin down.  At first, it seems to be about a teenager, Jules (Frédéric Andréi), with a passion for opera, who secretly records a concert by a famous diva who refuses to be recorded, Cynthia Hawkins (real opera singer Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez), and also steals her dress from backstage after the show. Later this becomes important to the plot, the recording at least.  But parallel to this is a whole other story about an international prostitution ring that the cops are working to expose and a cassette tape that contains damning evidence against a prominent figure.  The two narrative threads intertwine when the cassette ends up in the basket of Jules’ moped. I have to admit that I was not particularly engaged by the film at first, but as it progressed I found myself more and more drawn into the story, which contains a number of intriguing side characters (Alba played by Thuy An Luu and Gorodish played by Richard Bohringer – who may actually be the main focus of the source novel and other books by Delacorta).  The thriller frame probably helps to support the various digressions by giving the viewer something to hold on to.  Moreover, the proceedings here are stylishly staged and photographed -- and enjoyably unpredictable.    

Fantastic Voyage (1966)

☆ ☆ ☆

Fantastic Voyage (1966) – R. Fleischer

High concept science fiction that sees intrepid travellers suit up and head not for outer space but instead for “inner space”: after a scientist is nearly assassinated, a team is miniaturised (yes!) and sent into his bloodstream in a special submarine to destroy a blood clot in his brain.   Donald Pleasance is the doctor on board in charge of the mission (run by military command personnel, Edmond O’Brien and Arthur O’Connell back in the lab) which also includes neurosurgeon Arthur Kennedy and assistant Raquel Welch, submarine captain William Redfield, and the hero, communications officer Stephen Boyd (who is also charged with determining whether there is an enemy agent hidden on the team).  Of course, the main attractions here are the special effects – can it really be true that this film was shown to medical students because of its accurate depiction of the body (specifically the circulatory system)?  It seems a rather quaint set of analogue camera tricks and set design now (in line with the “futuristic” computers and technology).  It probably comes as no surprise that all of the various dangers in the body due make an appearance:  a trip through the pulsing heart and the windy lungs, attack by antibodies and later the dreaded white corpuscles, the booming inner ear.  I found the film a bit slow (it is in real time – the team will only remain miniaturised for 60 minutes and the clock is ticking) but Amon (aged 7) had a lot of questions and seemed absorbed by the onscreen action.     

Leave No Trace (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Leave No Trace (2018) – D. Granik

Director Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone, 2010) offers a rather sombre look at the way that one veteran (Ben Foster) copes with PTSD – he goes off the grid.  The complicating factor is that he is raising a 13-year-old daughter alone (his wife presumably deceased).  Off the grid in this case is way way way off the grid – the father and daughter (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie) are camping in a state park near Portland, Oregon.  They head in to the city to pick up supplies, paid for by selling the benzedrine that the father receives (but does not take) as a treatment for his symptoms.  In some ways, we might be ready to cheer this escape from the negative influences of screens and commercialism, but it soon becomes apparent that the daughter is longing for social connections with peers and perhaps mother surrogates.  Both actors do a nice job of subtly conveying their psychological profiles, although the reticence of the dad does make it harder to understand him.  Along the way, Granik shows us a host of other people who are coping with or in modern America (shown warts and all), at the lower end of the SES spectrum, possibly by choice.  It’s a thoughtful film but its resolution leaves a lot of questions hanging in the air. 

Fallen Angels (1995)

☆ ☆ ☆

Fallen Angels (1995) – K.-W. Wong

It has been decades since I watched Wong Kar-Wai’s breakthrough release Chungking Express (1994), so it comes as no surprise that I wasn’t fully prepared Fallen Angels, rumoured to have been the third segment for that previous film (but ultimately saved and expanded for this film).  As before, Wong’s work primarily emphasises style and cinematographer Christopher Doyle (who has also worked for Kaige Chen, Jim Jarmusch, Gus van Sant, and Philip Noyce among others) is more than up to the challenge.  However, this doesn’t mean the film is necessarily “beautiful” to look at – in fact, in many ways it is rather “ugly” to look at!  But there is no denying the panache accorded the proceedings.  Briefly, we are treated to several anecdotes involving Hong Kong denizens who experience a sense of loss, generally romantic loss but also loss of a parent, loss due to “retirement”.  Wong is pursuing a mood, in other words.  But, to be frank, I found it difficult to get on board with this film – the characters were difficult to identify with, the style a bit too much noise and flash (not my style), the episodes rather empty.  No doubt, Wong has much to offer (e.g., In the Mood for Love, 2000) but I wouldn’t start here.