Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer)

Tura Satana as the vicious Varla.

Call it dated, silly and extremely campy, but still, "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" is classic exploitation fun that brings us back in a time where the deadly combination of femme fatales and some high-octane machinery equals to titillation. This, I think, is one of those films that have definitely made men salivate back then. Cars, violence and sexy women, what more can you ask for? Yet despite of its superficial display of violence, sexual innuendos and car chases, there's no doubt that this film, directed by Russ Meyer (who has also produced and co-written it), still has something much to say than meets the eye. 

Is it a film about women empowerment? Well, definitely a big no. In fact, this is the kind of film that will definitely make feminists shake their head in disgust and disappointment. This was never how they envision women to be. It portrays women as unpredictably murderous low-lives and nothing more. To make it even worse, the heroines of the film (if you can call them that) are a bunch of go-go dancers, which is not exactly the most ideal job for the female populace. So, if it's not a film that empowers women, then what is it all about? 

Personally, I think that it's merely a film about power. Director Russ Meyer, with an intention to exploit and entertain, was successful in putting into the screen the things (sexy women, cars and violence) that sway men into complete submission and reduce them into libidinous losers. In a way, it's not the female characters' sexual force that dominates the film but Russ Meyer's power as a director. In a way, he reflects, by way of this film, the ultimate male fetishes of the time while also relishing in it himself. Now, imagine what kind of film would be made of today's male fixations? What kind of 'pussycat' will we see at this point in time? Oh, well, enough of that before it gets all too... sleazy. 

Back to the subject at hand, this is a film that's undeniably sexy and spell-binding. It is a fun little film that has since been one of the genre's cornerstones. Yet at the end of the day, it's also considered as trash. Yes, the kind of trash that has inspired Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez to create "Grindhouse". With that given, why then, despite of the fact that the film was made specifically for its own era (the 1960s) and nothing further, has it become timeless? Well, I think the answer lies in the very execution itself. Buried somewhere in the middle of the curvy presences of Varla (Tura Satana), Rosie (Haji) and Billie (Lori Williams) is a quick-witted script and a fast-paced plot. 

The story is simple enough: three go-go dancers, after a day's work, found themselves in a contagious mood for reckless fun. Enter a young, harmless couple who have obliviously joined the unpredictable triumvirate in a picnic of sorts. A little trouble occurs and the male half of the couple was killed by one of them crazy ladies. This is where the carnage starts. From here, "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" picks up the steam like there's no tomorrow. With the female heroines increasingly becoming more and more dangerous, so do the male characters in the film, particularly the crippled whacko (Stuart Lancaster) and his 'all brawns no brain' son (Dennis Busch). There's also the other son named Kirk (Paul Trinka), who may or may not be your usual decent Southerner. 

In a way, I occasionally found the script, with all those wonderfully-placed puns and whatnot, to be even more fascinating than the narrative itself. I also found the performances to be even more engaging than the characters themselves. Although I can see where the logic of the characters are coming from and what motivates them to do what, I still can't help but be more smitten by how these actors and actresses have gotten themselves in the spirit of camp even though there's this brooding sense of futility in what they are doing. They are, after all, merely acting in a cheap exploitation film. Why should they give their all, right? Well, energy and passion indeed perform mysterious wonders to people. 

What the actors and actresses lack in talent, they make up for intensity. Acting more like cartoon characters than actual people, there's this comedic feeling that, inevitably, there will be an Acme box that will fall from the sky and hit one of them in the head, resulting in an explosion of unearthly proportions and a bump of mountainous heights. It's a laughable thought, really, but this is also the very reason why the film is so much fun. You just can't help but picture the surprise appearance of a carrot-eating, wise-cracking bunny in there somewhere, or perhaps an arrogant, constantly salivating duck suddenly coming out from one of them desert shrubs. 

Ultimately, "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!", unlike the curvaceous wholeness of the three lady characters in the film, proved to be less than the sum of its parts. But still, that does not take anything away from the film's wildly alternative vision of America; a vision where liberated women are given free reins to do whatever they want in the middle of the desert, with men ironically at their mercy and the revving of car engines as their symbol of authority. Ladies and gentlemen, what we've got here is a new wild west.

FINAL RATING

Mad Max (George Miller)

Max is...quite mad.

It has been widely believed that ever since "Mad Max" was released, action films have never been the same again. It has introduced a more frenetically-paced action style and also a purer form of utter machismo and brutality that has since been the staple themes of almost all of the action pictures that have followed after it. In a way, the whole '80s to mid '90s action film scene is highly indebted to "Mad Max" because without it, there wouldn't be a need for such red-blooded films. And also, without this seminal George Miller classic, the world of bullet-spraying, revenge-driven heroes inhabited by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone would be devoid of another equally important action icon: Mel Gibson. 

But then more importantly, this film has significantly done something that can be compared to what "Jaws" has done to the beaches or what "A Nightmare on Elm Street" has done to dreams: "Mad Max" has made us fear the open highways. 

Judging from its narrative, "Mad Max" has nothing remotely surprising going on. It also does not help that the film has some irritating side characters and a lazy dubbing. With that, "Mad Max" is nothing more than a B-grade little film that, despite of its overly rough edges, has managed to unconsciously revolutionize a whole genre. 

Made in 1979, the film has aged quite badly both in editing, sounds and script. Even the performances are quite cheesy and cartoonish. The plot, for the lack of a better word, is almost non-existent. The car chases are quite new at the time but are nowhere near of being unique and truly fresh. 

But then, after all of these overbearing cons, there's "Mad Max's" universe. Making it appear as if the empty expanse of the speedways are the final frontiers of an apocalyptic Australia, the film's imaginative vision of a world gone way, way awry is a thing of peculiar beauty and originality. 

Oh, and there's an attempt of being prophetic too. Labeling "Mad Max's" time frame as 'few years from now', the film is also quite successful in creating an illusion of plausibility that I can surmise is quite alarming and frightening at the time of its release.

With an intention to create an insane, 'anything goes' world devoid of swift justice, George Miller and company have created a surrealistic neo-western world with an atmosphere reminiscent of "High Noon". Only this time, Frank Miller and company are now mentally unstable bikers and Gary Cooper's Will Kane is now in the guise of a gutsy highway patrol officer named Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson).

"Mad Max", amid the immensity of its negative aspects, is a finely realized hybrid of a film that's armed with whatever's left of the cinematic sensibilities of the western genre yet heightened by a newer, more energetic style of action. 

Watching "Mad Max", after all these years of seeing action films with the same revenge-driven story, is like watching something new set in a more than familiar narrative landscape. Rooted in the film's use of clichéd storytelling, an aspect that has been one of the main reasons why action movie-goers has since been transformed into jaded ones, the film seem to render the plot secondary and the visuals as the main priority. And with that, I believe the film has succeeded not as a truly compelling action film but as a highly kinetic action fare fueled mainly by the spectacle and not the story. 

What resulted is an action-packed tale of revenge and justice that has given birth to a new breed of action films, and also to edgier protagonists bent not just on setting things right but also on pure, red-blooded retribution. 

Watching "Mad Max" today, I can confidently say that I've seen better action films. "Mad Max" is the Wright Brothers' prototype plane to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis' Boeing 747. The films by the latter action stars may be bigger in terms of scope, budget and larger than life characters, but nothing beats classic novelty. An interesting look back to where it all started.

FINAL RATING

Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)

The driver with no name.

Humanity and brutality. Director Nicolas Winding Refn, who deservedly won the Best Director Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, has beautifully tackled both in a stark existential light, that which echoes the likes of "Taxi Driver", and ultimately weighed both in a blurring contrast which highlights the compromises of poor choices. "Drive", with its violent nature and perverse tone, could have easily been a disposable Grindhouse-like feature. Its exaggerated depiction of nerve-wracking gore, an aspect that is a most common reason for audience polarization, complements the whole film but still suggests a heightened feel of sensationalism for the sake of shock.

Yes, these violent scenes are truly unnerving, but looking at the main character, a skilled driver who works in the movies and also for night heists, played with great control but also with unflinching rage by Ryan Gosling, his mysterious transformation from a passive loner to an involved, blood-drenched avenger is the one that's much more disturbing. Forget the violence first, it is this protagonist's motives and questionable decisions that is the film's center. With him lacking enough character background, it makes his actions all the more intriguing, but his surprising notion towards love and connection without much words to back it up, on the other hand, makes him all the more affecting.

Director Nicolas Winding Refn and screenwriter Hossein Amini (basing his screenplay on the novel of the same name by James Sallis), exposes two primal human impulses, to kill and to love, and brilliantly incorporated it into the film's stylized, almost poetic take on noir. What resulted is a perfect amalgamation of both substance and form, with a fair amount of adrenaline rush to sweeten it all up.

In its very immediate surface that echoes some action film formulas, It is expected for "Drive" to contain one-dimensional characters, particularly the villains, played by Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman. But these displays of intended shallowness is overwhelmed by the film's pitch-perfect rendition of tender love. Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan sure has never worked before. Ryan Gosling sure is already initiated with love stories. But Carey Mulligan has been memorable via her turn as a naive young woman in "An Education", so jumping from innocence to maturity, performance-wise, is really quite challenging on her part.

It's almost a thing of miracle, but their chemistry here in "Drive" flowed smoothly despite of some initial constraints. Carey Mulligan, although very young, has portrayed Irene, the main reason for the driver's daring decisions, with this sense of desensitization towards life. It's as if she has gone through so much that she simply wants someone to hold. And him, the driver, on the other hand, being lonely and a complete nobody all his life (albeit him being a stunt driver for the movies), only wants someone's life to touch. With the use of great lighting, cinematography and music (with the elevator scene being the best example), "Drive" has successfully established these two characters' link with an almost melodious feel but also is effective in breaking it.

Narrative-wise, the film is tight in its execution, holds on firmly with what it is all about, and never went on for something else. This particular focus for what's immediate rather than to experimentally delve more on something that is marked with pretense only highlights the film's material strength in its consistent ability to tell a story and also to seamlessly state why it has been told in the first place. It roots out, of course, as what I've said earlier, from the characters' flawed choices.

Nicolas Winding Refn has stated that "Drive" is a tribute to surrealistic director Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose cinematic deviance is a thing both of beauty and disgust. That is particularly limiting because "Drive" is, above all, a general tribute to what great, uninhibited filmmaking is all about.

FINAL RATING