My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant)

Hustlers.

Aside from it being an almost Dickensian look into the world of hustlers (or male prostitutes, if we get a bit more direct), the film is also a tear-jerking look at how great of a loss River Phoenix really is to the movie industry and also to the furthering of the Marlon Brando-esque leading man mystique in films. From the minute River, with all his James Dean-like mannerisms and uncanny good looks, enters the frame, one can't help but be sad about the wasted potential of what he could have been and what wonders he could have done working with other talented filmmakers. In a way, this was his great coming-out party as a truly serious dramatic actor, and he didn't disappoint. And if Keanu Reeves' character Scott, a rich heir who, for reasons unclear, has chosen to be a hustler instead, is the one highly pivotal in terms of the film's connection with Shakespeare's "Henry IV", River Phoenix's role is its throbbing heart and aching soul, and he makes us feel every single ounce of his character's silent cries through his narcoleptic ways as a hassled hustler.

Though set in the polluted streets and dingy sidewalks of modern-day America, the film is surprisingly flowery in its wordings (to of course keep up with its Shakesperean roots) and perhaps often a bit stagy on how the washed-up characters describe off-screen events and explain themselves to their fellow low-lives. Sometimes, though, the film then suddenly switches from overlong, quasi-poetic utterances to brief, street-smart talks, which makes it quite incomprehensible and, subsequently, infuriating to watch at times.

Gus Van Sant, an openly gay filmmaker, is equal parts brave, bold, and even elegant in directing this film that even the more explicit sex scenes were shot in a series of beautiful, tableaux-like images that seem to be a very tasteful aesthetic choice on his behalf. There's no denying the fact that the themes explored in "My Own Private Idaho", from homosexuality to downright prostitution, is hard to portray in a cinematic manner that would not tread the territories of exploitation and smut. Yet Van Sant, who has directed his fair share of modern film classics ranging from the Oscar-winning "Good Will Hunting" to the shocking indie gem "Elephant", has never let that happen, for he knows that although the highly sensitive issue of homosexuality is the area where the film extracts its primary emotional force from, the film is still simply about this gay man (River Phoenix's character) who just wants to find his mom and also to love somebody on the side, and isn't that, regardless of gender, the default story of our lives?

As expected, with this being the story of male prostitutes, it is a given that odd fetishes will be handed enough share of the spotlight, just like the ones in "Belle de Jour" and especially in "Midnight Cowboy", a film that, I believe, is kins in spirit with "My Own Private Idaho". There's the singing Udo Kier, for one, and also the fat client who seems to get off when he hears the sound of cleaning brushes making contact with dirty floors. And in the middle of the oddity of it all and these night people who seem to be more of themselves when the sun is out, stands River Phoenix's Mike and his struggle to literally keep himself from constantly falling asleep and also to keep whatever's left of his memory of her mother, who seems to continuously pester his mind with recurring childhood scenes of Oedipal-like affection. 

Physically speaking, the character is already challenging for River Phoenix to play because there's the difficult obligation of accurately portraying narcolepsy on-screen. And then, there's the trickier part of mustering all the fragile nuances of playing someone as emotionally scarred as Mike and then keeping them all at bay so that he can project a false sense of street grit. Jon Voight, who played Joe Buck in "Midnight Cowboy", has finely captured that, but Phoenix, I think, has even perfected it. I don't know, perhaps I'm a bit biased about his greatness in the role simply because he's already no more, but there's a kind of elegy in his eyes and in his actions that makes the experience of watching him play someone as tragic as Mike even more heart-rending, and dwarfs Keanu Reeves' unexpectedly effective performance all the more. 

"My Own Private Idaho", though included in many 'essential films' list, is by no means a masterpiece, but it's the kind of movie, no matter how happy and contented you are with your life by the time you've decided to pop it into your DVD player, that will certainly make you seek your own private whatever, in terrible longing for loneliness. It's an odd feeling, but it sure is something.

FINAL RATING 

Drowning by Numbers (Peter Greenaway)

Swimming.

If Kubrick's attention to visual composition as a photographer shows in his masterful films, then I can say just the same for Peter Greenaway, whose artistic sensibilities as a painter bleed through the constructions of his films' imagery. Take for example the scene here in "Drowning by Numbers" where a man, after drowning, lies peacefully in the pavement, with the camera looking at him from his feet. The scene, a moment of surprising serenity in a film that's filled with sexual and psychological oddities, religiously echoes its source inspiration, which is Andrea Mantegna's "The Lamentation over the Dead Christ". 

     

Such moments, for me, are what make Peter Greenaway's films more endearing to the audience, despite the fact they are often times filled with macabre violence and are adamant in its departure from conventional storytelling. But as what Greenaway has once said, he is drawn towards a form of cinema that is truly non-narrative, and here in "Drowning by Numbers", a truly challenging film that plays a macabre numbers game on sex and death, it is very much evident. 

     

Suggestive of the film's title, it is indeed, on surface level, about numbers and about drowning. But with Peter Greenaway, a filmmaker who, a year later, was able to create a cannibalistic parable in the form of "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" and subtly analogize it with the evils of Thatcherism, the thematic assumptions that's represented by the film's "Drowning by Numbers" title is just too deceptively simple and misleading. 

     

But of course, the film sure has a semblance of a plot: A harmless-looking mother (Joan Plowright) and her two daughters (Juliet Stevenson and Joely Richardson), all of which are named Cissie, have this strange, almost fetishistic inclination of drowning their respective husbands and lovers. Along then comes Madgett (Bernard Hill), the local coroner who, because of his belief that the women will repay him with rich sexual favors, decides to help them in covering up their murderous deeds via falsely declared causes of deaths (heart attack and death by misadventure seem to be his favorites). 

     

Again, the story seems so deceptively light and, in true noir tradition, formulaic. But let's again be reminded that Peter Greenaway is on the helm, so expect him to play cinema, a form that he has long believed to have died many years ago, into his utmost advantage and in complete conformity to his one-of-a-kind vision. With numbers 1 to 100 appearing randomly (but chronologically) all throughout the film, be it in the shirts of quirky joggers or tattooed into the skins of forlorn cows, Greenaway is, in a way, making his audience aware of the uncomfortable fact that death is always around the corner and that it is not a scythe-holding, black-hooded man that may bring it to us but mere numerals. This, from where I look at it, stays true to Greenaway's fear that "The pretence that numbers are not the humble creation of man, but are the exacting language of the Universe and therefore possess the secret of all things, is comforting, terrifying and mesmeric.”

      

With his visual and thematic approach for this film, his apprehensive look at numbers surely and clearly shows, all while some calmly fatal horseplay of sex and murder proceeds in the foreground, not to mention some consistent feminist undertones that are reminiscent of femme fatale films of years past. 

     

Interesting enough, what makes "Drowning by Numbers" such a resonant art film is not its utter thematic seriousness but its morbid playfulness that can be aptly mistaken as a form of harsh humor. Specifically, I'm talking about the film's unique integration of bizarre games (invented specifically for the film), all of which are explained in aching detail (by Madgett's son Smut, played by Jason Edwards), into the story. Granted, it may or may not be truly integral to the whole film, but then again, that's one of those artistic liberties that separate a true visionary like Greenaway from all the others. Adamant of not taking the easy way out, he was able to punctuate the film's claim that 'death' can be liken to a game in a very exciting and fresh manner (partnered with Michael Nyman's classical scoring). 

     

Also, "Drowning by Numbers'" use of enforced repetition, which, for some, is quite discomforting in the context of storytelling, is fitting for the film's wholly playful nature. Some even argue that the film's story could have been easily told in 1 hour, but keep in mind that Peter Greenaway, essentially, is not a narrative filmmaker so the joke's on whoever said that. After all, Greenaway clings on to the belief that every medium has to undergo a kind of redevelopment and evolution. "Drowning by Numbers", by deconstructing the traditional means of telling a story, is a textbook example of such.

     

As a parting quote, Peter Greenaway has once stated that "We do have some ability to manipulate sex nowadays. We have no ability, and never will have, to manipulate death." Surely, that may be the case for our final hurrahs, but such is not the same case for film as an art form because it is independently powerful in its own right, and some form of manipulation, so as to attain a higher form of message transmission, emotional evocation and expression, wouldn't really hurt. Greenaway is quite aware of that fact.

FINAL RATING

Viridiana (Luis Buñuel)

Obsession and repression.

My dear readers, I am back (Well, let's just pretend that I do have some deeply-devoted few) and kicking again after some months of art film deprivation. Nevertheless, with my personal cinematic drive seemingly back in its groove (hopefully), I am then here to review and share my thoughts about "Viridiana", a film that marks my return, after the slightly numbing Academy Awards season and the draining toll inflicted by the academe, to the ever-loving cradle of what I really care about the most: world cinema. And to add a certain side idea, it's in fact the Lenten season, so my viewing of "Viridiana" is not at all random but is, in fact, of certain religious relevance, albeit a slightly irreverent one (I'm planning to rewatch "Life of Brian" within this week, by the way). 

     

Like majority of Luis Buñuel's creations, "Viridiana" is a comedic attack on Christianity and the bourgeoisie, but unlike his later, entirely elitist-lampooning satires like "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" and "The Phantom of Liberty", "Viridiana" was also able to have enough time to examine the utterly savage tendencies of the unfortunate ones (in simple yet sad terms, 'paupers') when given enough wings to flap away from their plights. And although they were shown in the film as a genuinely sympathetic lot, Buñuel has also characterized them with a sort of fragile loyalty towards the proverbial hands that feed them, which makes the whole 'pity' thing towards them more weirdly elevated yet at the same time increasingly discomforting. 

     

Honestly speaking, although Buñuel, for me, is certainly one of the boldest filmmakers there ever was, I always thought that the satirical nature of his films are always steeped in utter partiality (sans "Los Olvidados, of course); that is to say that he always solely attacks the populace of high society, and we love him for it. But surprisingly, "Viridiana" is a deeply refreshing exception. 

     

Although the film itself is a dominantly psychosexual meditation on emotional repression that's centered mainly on the characters of Don Jaime (Fernando Rey), the melancholic widower, and Viridiana (the luminous Silvia Pinal), the soon-to-be consecrated nun, it was still able to successfully pass as a deliciously unnerving social satire that's centered upon the utterly self-destructive nature of altruism. In this regard, I am of course talking about Viridiana's unconditional assistance of the beggars (she has brought them to his Uncle Jaime's house after an unexpected tragedy), which has, sadly, backfired for the worse. Buñuel, in this film, is not much a surrealist but more of a highly-fevered and imagery-conscious social commentator who knows who to poke with his patented 'dig' (tickling but painful) in the ribs. The perennially humorless Catholic Church, which has officially denounced the film, has proven to be such an easy target. But ultimately, what is "Viridiana" really all about? 

     

In a way, like Buñuel's later, more fetishistic "Belle de Jour", it is about the pains of sexual repression. But what makes "Viridiana" different is how it has tackled such an issue in a way that subtly pinpoints religious hypocrisy as the culprit as to why it pervades existence. Yet in the end, the film still has enough discoursing power left to highlight the fact that an attempt at carnality still isn't the answer. And in an ending that is both dark and innuendo-laden, it is slightly suggested that sex, in such a context, is nothing but a savage trap; a superficial card game; a painful punch line. Such is the sad, sad comedy of existence, as seen through the camera lens of the very bold Luis Buñuel.

FINAL RATING

Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni)

Free love.

At the height of the American counterculture scene, a certain auteur named Michelangelo Antonioni, because of contractual obligations with producer Carlo Ponti and MGM, has set out to create "Zabriskie Point", an anti-consumerist film about the tattered fabrics of late '60s Americana. As we all know, the film, after being a critical and commercial disaster upon its initial release, has since amassed, among viewers, a silent cult following.

     

For a film about counterculture (or, to a certain extent, even entirely counter-American), such 360-degree turn in terms of audience perception is just rebelliously perfect. In a way, it's as if the film, after being initially misunderstood, has emerged victorious against an improbable adversary. Antonioni, an artistic outsider merely dipping his fingers in a culture he does not fully understand, is an image of elegant audacity. But because of his perennially indifferent approach to emotions and a tad too reserved an execution, "Zabriskie Point" does not quite reach the utmost potential it most certainly has.

     

Nevertheless, the film, for what it is worth both in the context of American culture and in the context of Antonioni's pulse as a filmmaker, is still quite a unique triumph. In a tumultuous time when demonstrations and cries of protests were brash and recklessly loud, "Zabriskie Point" is a film of quiet anger. And in the pages of Antonioni's cinematic play book, this is a most definitive approach.

     

Depending highly on symbolic visual manifestations (the imagined mass orgy representing sexual liberation; the film's destruction of consumerist products captured in slow-motion) rather than on obvious imagery and contrived scenarios, the film feels fresh and, typical to Antonioni, alien.

     

For the record, "Zabriskie Point" is never the definitive, all-American counterculture film. Instead, what the film actually represents, on Antonioni's part, is something personal and culturally detached. This is, after all, Antonioni's sarcastic love poem to America. By often framing his characters in front of commercial billboards displaying sandwich spread products and corporation names, Michaelangelo Antonioni was able to enforce his critique of the American 'way' without looking forced and too satirical. So "Zabriskie Point", in a way, is less a film than it is a state of mind.

     

Typical to Antonioni's thematic style, the film wallows less on the nuances of humanity but more on why people are slowly losing it. In this film's case, 'capitalism' and 'mass consumerism' are the main culprits. But before everything goes too far, I do not think that the film is entirely political or even completely radical. If anything else, "Zabriskie Point" purely wallows on the futility of activism. That after all, making an anti-establishment film is just like writing an anti-glacier book (kudos to Kurt Vonnegut). Alas, Antonioni's indifferent brand of cinema, which has earned him both fans and detractors alike throughout the years, has worked yet again, and quite fascinating at that. Through the use of on-screen movements rather than words and dialogues, he was able to convincingly capture the essence of 'free love' during the time.

     

The great example for this is the scene when our two protagonists, one a beautiful anthropology student (riding a car) and the other a rebellious young man (riding a small plane), show their subtle endearment to each other by way of "North by Northwest-esque" aerial communication. As touching as it is strange, Antonioni has made use of two very American manufactured products (the car and the plane) and turned them into objects that bridge human connection. And then of course, there's that famous orgy scene, performed with dream-like abandon by the Open Theatre and beautified by Pink Floyd's transcendental music. Moreover, the film, by highlighting both the barren landscapes of the empty, titular part of Death Valley and the hustle and bustle life within the product-emblazoned corners of mainstream America, is also a textbook exercise in great visual contrast.

     

Generally speaking, "Zabriskie Point's" reputation was indeed highly damaged by the notoriety of its initial reception. For the film's producer and distributor, such failure spiels apocalyptic repercussions. But for a director like Antonioni, a man who is never new to countless boos and walk-outs (the Cannes screening of "L'avventura" comes to mind), such reaction is not a blemish to his ego nor his career but a mere solidification of his utterly divisive and infuriating power as a filmmaker.

     

For some directors, a picture of "Zabriskie Point's" quality can already be considered as a pinnacle. But for Antonioni, it's a mere frolic within the western movie system that he despises the most, and the joke's on them.

FINAL RATING

L'Age d'Or (Luis Buñuel)

Infamy.

A year after their aesthetically shocking "An Andalusian Dog", Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, two of the most subversive minds in all of modern art, return to form with something that's infinitely more scandalous, blasphemous and, to the eyes of many during the time, even close to pornographic. In a way, "An Andalusian Dog", a boldly offensive film in its own right, is their comparatively tamer (and saner, even) dress rehearsal for this little bad boy, an epic (yes, I think so) 60-minute dissection of societal putrescence.

     

Although the film is comprised of surrealistic images that may or may not ultimately add up to one coherent message, the individual intrigue that the images were able to evoke are truly unnerving. In my personal view, the film's visuals, in all its take-no-prisoners lunacy, is one of the most spot-on recapturing of the social, psychological and romantic insanities of our times.  So yes, despite of the film's highly blasphemous thematic texture, "L'Age d'Or" can be ironically considered as a 'miraculous' achievement in modern cinema, especially considering the fact that both Buñuel and Dali, at the time, were not that acquainted to the rigors of filmmaking.

     

In simple description, the film, at least on surface level, is the story of how two lovers, because of numerous hindrances and disruptions, can't seem to consummate their sexual and romantic longings just like how the bourgeoisie people in "The Exterminating Angel" can't seem to get out of the room they're in or how they can't even seem to eat their meals in "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie". Ultimately, it is in the middle of this kind of futility (specifically this film's two main characters and their misfiring attempts to be with one another) that both Buñuel and Dali were able to paint the landscapes of their film's masterful social probe. By penetrating the rotting core of what founds the pillars of religion, modern society and love itself, these two surrealistic bad boys were able to unearth, with unapologetic humor and shocking images, the intense perversity of human nature and its devastating consequences.

     

Often merely described as a surrealistic satire, I think that "L'Age d'Or" should be more aptly labeled as an anti-religious social nightmare that will make even the most apathetic member of the social populace cringe. Hell, more than 80 years have passed and I still think that this film is not for the faint of heart. After all, what do you expect if you merge the minds of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, an elegant costume drama? This film, just like the scorpions in its opening scene, may be too small in stature and short in length, but it sure profoundly stings.

FINAL RATING

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (Peter Greenaway)

A gourmet parable.

Even before I became a full-fledged cinephile, I was already more than aware of the "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover's" notoriety as a taboo-breaking motion picture that navigates around the question of whether or not films with such abhorring themes can really pass as adequate art. For films like this, audience polarization is all but given. But with the history of cinema itself to finely attest and creations like "Pink Flamingos" and "Last Tango in Paris" as lasting proofs, only time can really tell if whether or not thematically questionable films may dwindle into obscurity or shine ever brighter. In "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover's" case and the two other aforementioned films, it's definitely the latter. Personally, only a few films have simultaneously left me in both revolting disgust and stunning awe; count this great, great film as one of the handfuls.

     

Directed by the subversive British filmmaker Peter Greenaway, "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" is a poetic shock tale about infidelity, ruthlessness and revenge with a gourmet twist. Anchored by Michael Gambon's intensely frightening (yet also comedic) performance as the gangster cum restaurant owner Albert Spica and Helen Mirren's understated turn as his wife Georgina, the film often takes on a very stagy quality fitting of its highly surrealistic tone. Together, they have both showcased what I think are the best performances that I've seen in quite a while.

     

Right now, fresh from seeing Michael Gambon's wicked portrayal as Mr. Spica, it's really just quite hard to imagine that the very same actor has also more than convincingly played the post-Richard Harris Dumbledore in the Harry Potter film series. The same goes for Helen Mirren, who has just disappeared into the role of the very sensual Georgina that it's quite a tricky mind exercise to muster the fact that she still has enough acting skills (and insane at that) left to pull off the Queen of England herself in an Oscar-winning turn many years later.

     

But aside from the performances, that which also includes Alan Howard's realistic portrayal of Georgina's mild-mannered lover and Richard Bohringer's symbolic embodiment of the defiant chef, much is to be lovingly observed and deliciously absorbed in this film. One of them, although some may see it as a mere production foot note, is the exquisitely transitional costume design (done by Jean Paul Gaultier, whom, weird enough, I have first heard about in "American Psycho"), whose color-coded elegance contrasts with the film's visual and thematic depiction of decay. Oh and there's also the set design, which greatly detaches the film from the organic nature of reality, and the cinematography, an aspect that exceptionally characterizes the film with an ironic degree of formalism albeit its relentless display of grotesqueries.

     

In a nutshell, I think "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" can be simply sufficed as an operatic comedy of bizarre proportions. Yet on one hand, I think it can also be labeled as a humorously dramatic disembowelment of the superficiality of modern manners. But then, there's also, as what many has claimed, the film's supposedly metaphorical attack on Margaret Thatcher's politics. Though I am sadly quite ignorant of Thatcherism (but I do know of its strict adherence towards privatization among others), it is really not that hard to look beyond the surface of the film and unearth its underlying sociopolitical layer, what with its disturbingly symbolic depiction of the 'ruler' (Albert) and the 'ruled' (Georgina, the chef and all the other characters).

     

"The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover", despite of its satirical attack on Britain's political milieu at the time of its release, is still a timeless achievement in niche filmmaking, especially in how it has made the bizarre look tasteful and vice versa. Also, this is the first time that I have seen a film where infidelity was depicted as if justified, and its perpetrators not as advantageous offenders but as romantic heroes. Now, if only I can see this on the big screen…

FINAL RATING

 

Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais)

Remember.

"Last Year at Marienbad", certainly one of the most enigmatic motion pictures in all of cinema history, is an exhilarating piece of art whose main intent is not to tell a coherent story but to evoke a multitude of moods, feelings and states of mind. Its director, Alain Resnais, is not much concerned with narratives of any kind but on the utmost potential of film as an art form when there's little to none. His earlier film, "Hiroshima Mon Amour", has a slight semblance of a story but instead capitalizes on the emotional landscapes of the characters. This one on the other hand, a pure masterpiece of modern cinema, is a journey of shifting moods and of the ever-changing nature of memory wrapped in the poetic repetitiveness of a love story that may or may not have been.

     

Set within the confines of a lavish chateau populated by high society people luxuriating in certain stagnant joys (card games and endless drinks), "Last Year at Marienbad" is about two people, a man ('X') and a woman ('A'), and their struggle to remember a romantic affair that they, according to the man, might have had 'last year at Marienbad'. Oh, and there's also another character ('M'), the man that may or may not be the woman's husband/lover. Mysteriously code-named like parts of a mathematical equation, these three characters are involved in an emotionally treacherous attempt to make sense of events that are eye-deep in abstraction. Can they even arrive at something akin to certainty?

     

Through the use of exquisite editing, "Last Year at Marienbad" was able to channel a hauntingly cerebral texture, which makes the film even more mysterious than it already is. And by merging flashbacks (or are they?) with the inferred reality of the film (or is it?), the film was able to take on a very dream-like feel which ultimately speaks of the utter unreliability of memory and the consequences of not having remembered much.

     

As with all avant-garde films, "Last Year at Marienbad" is a highly divisive picture that may either be branded as a stunning masterpiece or merely as a highly-ornamented piece of pretentious gunk. For one, it is clearly understandable for some viewers to categorize the film in the latter, with the film's lack of narrative being one of the primary culprits why it can easily be labeled as nothing but a pseudo-profound waste of time. But still, no one can deny the film's powerful simulation of what goes on inside a person's mind when love (especially a forbidden one) is painfully involved.

     

But then again, "Last Year at Marienbad" may really not be about love just like how "Hiroshima Mon Amour" is not simply about a happenstance romance. At least for me, the film's lasting effect is not really about how memories twist reality but about how love twists life itself. And in this elliptical masterpiece that is "Last Year at Marienbad", the ultimate victim is the mind.

     

Alain Resnais, one of the seminal movers of the French New Wave (although indirectly at that), has created his ultimate masterpiece in the form of this film, a hauntingly nightmarish depiction of the fragility of memory, of a love affair that really wasn't, and of a reality that betrays. "Last Year at Marienbad" is, at least for me, a profoundly anomalous take on how the phrase 'last year' could have easily been 'last month', 'last week' or even 'last hour or so'; it plays a bitter puzzle game on its three main characters and, ultimately, on us, the viewers. How did we come to participate on it? I have the slightest bit of clue. Perhaps the game just ceased to be.

FINAL RATING

Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman)

Lost.

Christopher Moore, a contemporary author of fantasy fiction, has once said that "children see magic because they look for it". This, for me, is the foundation and the root of all questions raised in "Fanny and Alexander", a complexly-themed masterpiece that is, sadly, also Ingmar Bergman's very last feature film. In hindsight, it may look as if "Fanny and Alexander" is merely about children's innocence and the power of imagination; two themes that are otherwise quite alien to Bergman himself. But seeing the film unfold in its three glorious hours, "Fanny and Alexander" came out to be so much more than that. In many ways, the film is also a complex extension of Bergman's provocative meditation on the non-intervening nature of God (see "Silence of God" trilogy) and his passive role in human existence. Personally, watching "Fanny and Alexander" is like finally putting the last pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in place. 

     

But Ingmar Bergman, ever the abstract filmmaker, is indeed not the kind that will bail you out with some clear-cut answers. For the record, "Fanny and Alexander" is littered with magic and the supernatural; two aspects of the film that can be taken either as truly literal or completely symbolic. Nonetheless, the film, on surface level a period family drama, wonderfully takes on a new texture and thematic dimension by utilizing some elements that defy physics or explanation. In addition, the film even flirts with the idea that magic may perhaps be the one and only substitute for the complete absence of God; an absurdist approach on Bergman's part but is also very compelling in how it slightly satirizes the extent of our adherence to the unexplainable. 

     

With no real story or narrative, "Fanny and Alexander's" first half is all about the everyday trivialities in the life of the Ekdahls, a well-to-do family of stage actors which, after a relatively happy Christmas eve, was struck by an unexpected tragedy, which suddenly finds Fanny (Pernilla Allwin) and her older brother Alexander (Bertil Guve) emotionally astray and fatherless. 

     

By way of Sven Nykvist's dreamy cinematography which has won him a well-deserved Oscar, the film was able to subtly depict both the difficulty of losing a father in the formative years of one's life and the silently mercurial nature of familial existence at the time (early 20th century Sweden) through its use of empty spaces, distant shots and anguished faces. 

     

After the burial of the titular characters' father, a bishop named Edvard Vergerus (Jan Malmsjö) then enters the scene. Extremely authoritative and ruthless, the bishop is Fanny and Alexander's, both of which were raised in a tender and carefree environment, worst nightmare realized. But just when they thought that things won't get any worse after the death of their father, Fanny and Alexander then find themselves under the wing of the bishop himself, who has decided to marry their newly-widowed mother (Ewa Fröling). 

     

From this point on, after much foreboding early on (with those moving statues and the apparitions of Alexander's father), the film slowly but surely abandons the first half's relatively realistic and lively portrayal of the Ekdahls in favor of a more metaphysical, abstract and gloomy second part. From the approach to the characterizations, it's quite easy to see the definite influence of "Fanny and Alexander" in all those stepmother/stepfather films that it has since predated, specifically Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth", what with its stepfather subplot and whole 'magical realm' aspect. 

     

But then, "Fanny and Alexander" is never a film that can easily be defined by classifications. It is, in fact, a challenge to our own grasp of cinematic reality. If an emotionally-focused drama like "Fanny and Alexander" suddenly goes all supernatural (which it did), what then can be our potential response as viewers? Well, it's much preferred to just keep mum and simply relish it; after all, this may just be magical realism's finest moment in cinema.  

     

But aside from being a stunning amalgamation of both fantasy and reality, "Fanny and Alexander" is also a conscious allegory about the importance of cinema in relation to our lives ("Outside is the big world, and sometimes the little world succeeds in reflecting the big one so that we understand it better") and is also a film that challenges our perception of the unknown, of the things we can't define and of certain life phenomena that we can't explain and articulate about. But more importantly, "Fanny and Alexander" beautifully pushes the limits of cinema unlike anything I've ever seen before.

     

As what the Ekdahls' matriarch (played by Gunn Wållgren) has said at the end of the film, "Everything can happen. Everything is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. On a flimsy framework of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns." From where I look at it, this is the subtle justification of the film's surprisingly magical nature; a justification that is quite directed to us, the viewers, who are neither children nor naïve and who never expected or anticipated magic but stumbles upon it anyway because of this film. How sad that Ingmar Bergman's great swan song has come too early. But nonetheless, we should still be thankful that a film like "Fanny and Alexander" has come at all. Now I'm more than eager to watch the five-hour version.

FINAL RATING

 

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam)

The Python troupe.

4 years after "Life of Brian", the Monty Python troupe, composed of John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, is back and as insightful and profound as ever in "The Meaning of Life", a surrealistic comic masterpiece that is quite possibly their most ambitious film ever. Hell, I wouldn't even bother to label it as their best. 

     

Unlike the previous two Python features, namely "Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian", both of which have modicums of a narrative, "The Meaning of Life" is infinitely more lose, non-cohesive and random. It is, for me, their most 'stream of consciousness' creation of the three. Opening with an awe-inspiring short involving geriatric employees and their very pirate-like attempt to take over the world's whole economic landscape, it is quite easy to see how bigger in scope "The Meaning of Life" is compared to the comic troupe's previous creations. And as the film progresses, it's also quite wondrous to sense and feel that Monty Python has since fully grown not just as an assemblage of comic geniuses but also as a thought-provoking lot. 

     

Ranging from sex to the very idea of heaven, hell and death, "The Meaning of Life" tackles almost everything under the sun (alas, even the very creation of sun itself and its brotherly stars), over the war-time trenches and inside the uterus. Split into various chapters, "The Meaning of Life" is comprised of sketches that are overwhelmingly funny yet also poignant with the truths that each of them speaks. And although the film's main intent is to leave you in stitches, it will also make you laughingly question yourself as to how relevant your minuscule place in this universe really is. But do not worry; Eric Idle will treat you with an affirming song of how miraculous your birth really is. And no, there's not a hint of sarcasm both in the tune and the lyrics. Despite of the film's bizarrely mocking tone, the film is embedded with an indelible humanity that actually means what it wants to say. Suddenly, here is Monty Python, the most humanly offensive and irreverent comic group that has ever graced the screens both small and big, traversing their most vulnerably human side. 

     

For me, what eagerly exemplifies this side is the scene when Eric Idle's French waiter character leads the camera (presumably representing us, the viewers) in a relatively long walk towards his humble home. He then explains, in a very non-philosophical, layman's manner, the meaning, for him, of life. "You see that house? That is where I was born. My mother said to me, "Garcon. The world is a beautiful place, and you must spread joy and contentment everywhere you go."" That was what Idle's waiter character has stated. Although it's a random, seemingly out of left field scene that's truly in contrast with the rest of the film's tone, it nonetheless strikes me as very life-affirming and, to a certain extent, even worthy of tears. 

     

Yes, "Life of Brian" is arguably their greatest work, but I will always reserve a special place both in my heart and mind for "The Meaning of Life". Not only is it a proof of how Monty Python is and will always be the best in terms of avant-garde comedy, it has also solidified the fact that the Python troupe indeed never lacks the silent sensitivity needed to tackle the very nuance of human existence itself. They have just made God quite irate, is all. 

     

Personally, I find "The Meaning of Life" to be more than just a comedy. Fittingly, I have watched it at around three o'clock in the morning. Waking up, I felt as if I haven't had a dream. Well, maybe the Sandman have had quite a hard time replicating or even surpassing the things I have just seen. The Pythons may have given the Dreamer a run for his money.

FINAL RATING 

 

Los Olvidados (Luis Buñuel)

El Jaibo.

Years before his satirical digs towards the bourgeoisie crowd with masterful films like "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" and "The Phantom of Liberty", Luis Buñuel was already out there stressing a significant point or two. And in "Los Olvidados'" case, it is the tragedy of children forced into the life of crime not because they want to but because there really is no other option; that and maybe some lack of guidance and parental warmth. Can you really blame a petty crime solely on the small hands that have done it? 

With a visual preference that is geared more towards neorealism, this film specifically highlights Luis Buñuel's humbler days as a filmmaker both in imagery and themes. But being the audacious auteur that he always was, he has successfully combined the grittiness of social realism with the visual profundity of surrealism. What resulted was a brave, candid and ultimately gut-churning film that emphasizes the sheer decay of youth life in post-war Mexico that's as potent to this day as it was when it was released more than 60 years ago. 

Youth angst, as we all know, is a favorite topic amongst filmmakers. Be it in the context of formal education, societal disconnection or simple case of immature alienation, directors have wallowed in them, sometimes to pretentious extent. But only a few films have really embraced the topic of adolescence with an intention to expose something alarmingly rancid and truthful. One of them is "Los Olvidados". 

Years before "City of God" has rocked the film world with its fearless portrait of youth criminality in the titular Rio de Janeiro neighborhood, "Los Olvidados" has already left a mark in the world of cinema with its intense depiction of spontaneous criminality committed by the most fragile of bodies and the youngest of minds. In every country's underbelly, there are criminals who will steal and kill for money. Luis Buñuel has highlighted the sad fact that among those low-lives are young ones who doesn't even know what's left from right, right from wrong. The truth hurts indeed. 

Generally about the reality of youth criminality, "Los Olvidados" is focused on three facets, represented by three unforgettable characters: El Jaibo (Roberto Cobo) the full-fledged criminal, young Pedro (Alfonso Mejia) the conflicted one, and Ojitos (Mario Ramirez), the kindred boy who got dragged in the middle of it all. With these characters, Buñuel was able to explore the extent of their reality by mixing both hope and despair. Hope that one of them may ultimately choose to escape and lead a better life, and despair that maybe all of them are, after all, futilely treading a path towards a moral cul-de-sac. And between those, there were Buñuel's chickens. 

All throughout the film and even in one of the characters' dream, chickens were ever-present. How do these feathery animals really figure in on the film's whole thematic plateau? "Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity," the great Werner Herzog has stated. Though that is too derogatory a remark, I think that it speaks well for what Buñuel's chickens may ultimately signify in this film. With that blunt statement about chickens, maybe what Herzog mistakes as idiocy, Buñuel sees as naivety. Perhaps it's not stupidity that they represent but innocence. And in every chickens smashed into smithereens (as in the film), it is innocence lost. Maybe that also applies quite well with the notorious chicken sex scene in "Pink Flamingos". 

Back in 1950 when the Mexican government was eager for its citizens to see, feel and sense progress even when it means suppressing truth itself, "Los Olvidados" is incredibly audacious, what with its decrepit portrayal of urban squalor and looming sense of hopelessness. But this, I think, is also an urgent film of terrible necessity because it shows something painfully real. "Los Olvidados", with its timeless statement about impoverished youth life, is one of those truly powerful cinematic creations that constantly remind us that not all children are for the good old sing and dance.

FINAL RATING

Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky)

Crown.

For the record, this is the first time that I have watched an Andrei Tarkovsky film and I must say that it was quite a spellbinding first encounter. Both confusing and enthralling at the same time, "Stalker" is a timeless meditation on beliefs that contradict what's empirically perceived and is also a deep exploration of intellectual apprehension. Part-fantasy, part-science fiction and, in some ways, a quasi-religious discourse, this film is unique not just because of the otherworldly concepts that has established the film's visual texture but also because of the density of what it speaks of. 

     

Although painfully slow in its pacing, "Stalker" is never boring because of the quite stunning ideas that it presents. The film, about two tormented intellectuals and how they are guided by the titular character towards the 'Zone' (a place that is said to have the ability to grant wishes), is an adventure of immense consequences. It is a soul-searching trek towards a proverbial 'end of a rainbow' yet it is also a melancholic journey made infinitely more compelling by the characters' constant polemics. 

     

At times, I even found the conversations and arguments between the three characters to be even more fascinating than what their mission awaits them. This, I think, is the thing that makes auteurs like Tarkovsky very, very exceptional. Aside from their command of the visuals, they are also in control of which language their films would speak. And in "Stalker's" case, Tarkovsky mainly chose the language of metaphysics to further the film's profound abstraction. 

     

With the film mainly concerned about the unanswerable inquiries about the meaning of life and the anxiety of both knowing and feeling too much (represented by the two intellectuals, one a writer and the other a physicist), it was quite obvious at certain times that the characters' utterances are personal musings coming from Tarkovsky himself. At one point, the film has even discoursed about the unselfishness of art and the shallowness of technology (the writer character claimed that technology is nothing but an 'artificial limb' which makes people work less and eat more); with Tarkovsky the auteur at the helm, that particular statement is obviously all too personal that it seem out of place in a film that deals with monolithic ideas about life in the context of despair. But nonetheless, it's also all too refreshing. This is why true auteurs and no one else can best capture intimate artistry both at its most divine and at its most turbulent; they just know it all too well. 

     

Now if there's a term that would best describe the feat of creating this film, then I think it would be 'miraculous'. A convergence of imagery and content, "Stalker" is masterful not just because of the technical craftsmanship that comes with it or the weight of its ideas but because of the equal distribution of both and the patience of how they were balanced.  And then there are also the locations that have made the film even more special. With the 'Zone' seemingly taking on a life and character of its own as the film progresses, the way the place was visually presented is quite impressive because of how three-dimensional it was. With a naturally pervading sense of unpredictability, acute danger and, ultimately, of spiritual transcendence, the 'Zone' has been the strong backbone of the film. 

     

Shooting in ruins, dank tunnels and dark sewers, Tarkovsky and company has molded the reality (or unreality) of the 'Zone' in a way that's mystical yet also consistently dystopian. Also, there were some great performances in it too, particularly that of Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy as the 'stalker' himself. 

     

In some ways, the film's final minutes, at least for me, seems to be a subtle commentary regarding the irrationality of religion (with that enduring image of one of the characters wearing a crown of thorns on his head as if emulating Christ) and the outlandish belief towards both the unknown and the unseen. But despite of the film's flowing cynicism, "Stalker" still echoes hope even at its subtlest. Amid the film's overwhelming sense of intellectualism, it has at least succeeded to be emotionally eloquent. Though the film has left many questions in its wake, it offers closure on an emotional level. That, for me, is what's more important.

FINAL RATING

 

The Double Life of Véronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Irene Jacob as Weronika and Véronique.

Fresh from a blockbuster overload after watching “The Dark Knight Rises” a couple of times (and “The Amazing Spider-Man” before that), it’s a bit off for me to immediately jump back to my more esoteric inclinations. Now, here’s Krzysztof Kieslowski’s enigmatic “The Double Life of Veronique”, a film that, like the movements of the marionettes shown in the film, unveils its story with a certain hypnotic vibe. Honestly, I’m not quite sure if what I have seen is really something deeply meditative or merely a pretentious piece, but it is nonetheless an artful ride. 

     

Just like a typical Kieslowski film, “The Double Life of Veronique” appears as if little to nothing is going to happen and as if the main characters’ feelings are operating within the confines of an emotional plane alien to ordinary viewers like us. But with the Kieslowki’s usual sleight-of-hand at play here, and with that I mean his penchant for integrating deeply affecting concepts about love and identity within the visual limitations of a subtle drama film, “The Double Life of Veronique” is quite successful in a handful of levels. 

     

First, it is a well-crafted cinematic amalgamation of music and imagery (thanks to Kieslowski’s frequent collaborators Zbigniew Preisner and Slawomir Idziak). Second, it is a film particularly memorable because of Irene Jacob’s natural, iridescent charm and quietly devastating performance. And third, well, this is where the more ambiguous things come in. As an abstract film both in emotions and meaning, it is meritorious in just letting its own visual and auditory mood take over the reins of telling the film’s story (or the reins of justifying the lack thereof). But unlike your usually plotless art film, “The Double Life of Veronique” has an involving narrative working to its own advantage. 

     

Well, the story is quite simplistic. It concerns two women who look very much alike: Weronika, who lives in Poland, and Veronique, who lives in Paris. Both characters are played by Irene Jacob. From the hair to their dressing preference, they are the spitting images of one another. Hell, they’re not even related. 

     

Not aware of each other’s existence, the film’s metaphysical powers are slowly creating a bridge; slowly, we are seeing the connection between them. But Kieslowski, arguably at his subtlest, won’t let his film be tarnished by some clichéd chance encounters or life-affirming vis a vis between the two. Instead, Kieslowski has spatially set both characters apart from each other to first let their independent stories be told. Weronika, a considerably free-spirited young woman, is just inches away from attaining success in the world of opera singing. Veronique, on the other hand, is a music teacher in search of a meaningful love. From these simple stories of existence, the film is quite surprising in how it slowly widens its conceptual plane as it progresses. From simply being a drama film about two look-alikes, “The Double Life of Veronique” slowly turns into a meditation about distant duality and the spiritual and emotional connection between two people created in the same physical mould.

     

So, maybe this is where God enters this little humanist circus. Does Kieslowski perceive God as a playful master creator? An omniscient being that brings dead ringers into existence, intentionally integrates them into the stream of life and then watch the sparks fly? Is there some sort of energy that these two share that when one of them dies, the other gets weaker and emptier inside? Kieslowski’s vision for this picture is just too far-reaching and, at the same time, so wonderfully ambiguous that its idea just won’t end where this film already has. Take “Another Earth” as an ideal example. I believe that the said film is “The Double Life of Veronique” all over again. 

     

Adding a sci-fi element by incorporating a ‘mirror’ earth that is said to be inhabited by parallel versions of ourselves, “Another Earth” just took this film’s whole concept and made it a notch more complicated but a notch less fascinating. But do not get me wrong, I think that “Another Earth”, as a film, has its own merits. But at the end of the day, I very much prefer Kieslowski’s masterly stroke of using nothing as his ultimate explanation to everything. Though this might be considered as a pretentious cop-out on his part, leaving everything unanswered has made the film even more compelling and reflective than it should have been. Although we all have different takes on it, we do not hold the key to what it’s really all about. Perhaps life itself does, and we just aren’t looking closely.

FINAL RATING

The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

Father and son.

By immediate definition, "The Tree of Life" cannot really be considered as a film based on its lack of narrative, plenty of randomly befuddling visual spectacles and little to no dialogue. I think it's much apt to categorize the film strictly as a motion picture poetry piece whose reason for existence is not to be merely watched but to be experienced. "The Tree of Life" is pure esoteric cinema; a film that does not require narrative comprehension but emotional and psychological involvement. It explores life both in its simplicity down to its complex conception. It visually articulates both the world's creation and the very landscapes of the soul.

Given that "The Tree of Life" is a difficult watch much in the same way Gaspar Noe's "Enter the Void" is, it is a film conscious of its own awe-inspiring beauty and is also a strong meditative piece with enough sorrow and despair as it has hope and deliverance.

One of the things that I liked most about this film is how it has purely prioritized its metaphysical nature while at the same time gearing away from the A-list presence of both Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. For some, it's a perfect time to capitalize on these two actors' fame, but director Terrence Malick never did. Numerous times, there are even scenes where Pitt and Penn were shot from the neck down or over the shoulder. For Malick, at least from what I see, his vision is the film's real star, and considering the magnitude of what he's ambitiously trying to depict here in "The Tree of Life", everyone and everything must take the backseat.

But then, although the film will certainly be remembered as a deep-treading and almost psychedelic visionary work, it is finely balanced by a simple family drama in its middle part, with child actor Hunter McCracken delivering a beautifully realized performance as the Young Jack (Sean Penn's character), Jessica Chastain as the joyful, loving but vulnerable mother Mrs. O'Brien, and of course Brad Pitt in a surprisingly subtle turn as the father, Mr. O'Brien.

For some suckers for psychedelic visuals, a trait that was brilliantly displayed by the film in the beginning (with its "Discovery Channel-esque" visual representation of dinosaurs and some hammerhead sharks), they may think that the slightly plodding little drama inserted in the middle was there just to form a sense of dramatic coherence. I, for one, loved the middle part, but fleshing out such a segment then jumping back into the surrealistic, mind-numbing journey of metaphysical proportions later on may have cost the film some tonal consistency.

As the film returns to its phantasmagorical netherworld with whispering voices echoing some questions of existence, "The Tree of Life", instead of purely having the free-flowing feel of poetic filmmaking, has embraced a more patterned approach (Surreal visuals in the beginning, drama in the middle, surreal visuals yet again in the end), which resulted with the film having to separate its imagery into two fragmentary parts.

There really is no doubt regarding Terrence Malick's elegant audacity as a filmmaker, but "The Tree of Life", although a powerful film that holds within its hands an unhindered vision, is slightly inhibited in its otherwise successful attempt at cinematic bravery.

FINAL RATING

Kakabakaba Ka Ba? (Mike De Leon)

The fumbles of the Yakuza. The desperate awkwardness of Chinese determination. The insidious depiction of Catholic nuns and priests. I think it's a great decision for Mike De Leon, one of the Philippines' greatest filmmakers, to put a film prioritizing such themes in a not-so-serious environment where anyone at anytime (although especially in the climax) can break into production numbers. In spirit, "Kakabakaba Ka Ba?" is, like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", an unexpectedly bizarre adventure into the illegal and the unknown for two uninitiated couples, or at least, love birds. But in its entirety as a film, it is a sharp satire about how these underworld dwellers seem to have all the fun in the world, forming sinister plans, dancing their way into drug production and superficially praising God's daily bread.

And with a sense of bumbling lack of control, the film has expressed these mindless chases for grotesque pleasures and taboo in a happy, energetic and strangely harmonious light that we question its unusual tone. But I believe De Leon and screenwriters Doy Del Mundo and Racquel Villavicencio knew more. That 'question' makes the film. It evaluates our response to its display of romanticized moral disregard. With quirkiness, music and a slip-in psychedelia on the side.

The film's MacGuffin is unique enough: a cassette tape cum opium container. It was unwittingly put into one of our protagonists' (played by Christopher De Leon) jacket by the Yakuza errand man Omota, one-dimensionally played by APO's Boboy Garovillo (although may be the exact intent). Through that performance, it transforms foreign smuggling into a Wile Coyote-like affair, with occasional busts and foils treated as nothing but episodic humor and successes immediately countered by funny miscalculations. In an early scene, the film even pokes fun to the fatal culture of the said Japanese crime syndicate when failure hits the fan through cutting of fingers, shown in a flat screen television sticking out from a Shoji screen. The film's tongue was really that immersed on the cheek.

The lovebirds mentioned earlier were played by Christopher De Leon, Jay Ilagan, Charo Santos and Sandy Andolong. Their performances were quite enjoyable, but that's where the script shows its contrivance. At certain points, they ride into dialogues not by means of natural flow but through conversational timings that were obviously rehearsed and coordinated. At least they could have applied some of Bunuel's passively comic treatments to satiric characters that were always proven to be very effective. But still, I have to praise Mike De Leon and company for creating such a different film in our local industry that seems to live and die on melodrama.

By the standards of our movies, "Kakabakaba Ka Ba?" is utterly subversive, with radical attacks ranging from gangsterism to the Catholic church's hypocrisy, while it also brought forth a notion that musical can quite fit as a narrative crescendo to such a wide-tackling satire. But maybe it's also an easy way to visually portray what they really wanted to: The crazy, megalomania-inspired higher ones' intent to control people through the, symbolically, 'opiate of the masses' that is mainstream religion, as coined by Karl Marx (furthered by how Pinoy Master (Johnny Delgado) wants to produce mass wafers mixed with opium to be given to church-goers). So, after all, there's some ounces of critical inputs in the film, too.

I must admit, I did not like "Kakabakaba Ka Ba?" that much compared to Mike De Leon's masterpiece "Kisapmata", arguably the best Filipino film ever made, and "Batch '81". But I love the way the film has ended. Dancing nuns. A singing drug kingpin. A samurai duel. With a unique approach to the final wedding scene, the film embraced some sort of a Jodorowskian afterthought.

After a two hour run of exhilarating imagery and peculiar performances, a crew, holding a clapper, suddenly shouts "Cut!" and the camera zooms out from above, exposing the band playing the musical score to only be a few feet away from the actual scene. It fully echoes Alejandro Jodorowsky's "Holy Mountain" and its most memorable character, the Alchemist's immortal line: "Real life awaits us". Well, let's break the illusion then, shall we?

FINAL RATING

Enter the Void (Gaspar Noe)

Existence in Tokyo in full, living (literally) color.

Gaspar Noe, an underground master auteur, continues his visceral exploration of raw human drama with "Enter the Void", an epic surrealist film with touches of the supernatural interspersed with unsettling colors and images going askew into a territory where despair is a way of life. Going as ambiguous as possible with the theme of 'incest' prevalent throughout the film, Noe combines the 'in-your-face' emotional gut wrench of "Irreversible" and the aforementioned theme in the psychologically disturbing "I Stand Alone".

With both approaches from these two previous films utilized, we have, in our hands, an assault to the senses that is also a dire though sweet cinematic discourse about sibling love paired with a bit of mental conflict.

The film was labeled as a 'Psychedelic Melodrama', which is of course an absolutely perfect description. But "Enter the Void" is also a perfect example of an experimental film made by a filmmaker with an imagination going through constant permutations. Its story concerns that of a deceased drug dealer named Oscar (played by new-comer Nathaniel Brown) and his transcendent observation of his sister's (played by Paz de la Huerta) life through transitions of fires and lights in the calmly transgressive night life in Tokyo.

Gaspar Noe already used reverse chronology, 'shock' filmmaking and continuous shots in his previous works. This time, he initially used first person point of view, then suddenly transforming into shots behind the protagonist's back. Not only does it provide a closer look into the film's degrading drama of sex and drugs, nor is it just a senselessly voyeuristic perception of the more sexually-charged sequences. It's also an emotional narrative device of how those people around the protagonist look to be too close to touch yet too far away to feel.

It's Oscar's sentiment; a feeling that could have been bastardized by over-exposition. But the film has captured it in a fairly simplistic manner by this unorthodox cinematic style that is also a product of an affluent dedication to the craft. Amidst the complex imagery and hovering eagle's viewpoint that explores the moody qualms of Tokyo, Japan, "Enter the Void" is also about an individual's alienation about those around him resulted by a stigmatic past and the endlessly agonizing consequences of unguided existence.

Films like these, although it may find a more positive general response from time to time, will always fall into two categorizations: Either be perceived as a pornographic exploitation wrapped in vibrant pretense or be particularly viewed as an essential piece of cinema. Either way, "Enter the Void" inspires divisiveness, which is what 'true' cinema is all about.

Modifying Truffaut, a film must either be about the joy or agony of making it. This film dealt with love and pain and strife and life. It grabs the middle ground and never lets go.

FINAL RATING

I Heart Huckabees (David O. Russell)

Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin: Existential Detectives

Absurdist film filled with deep existential concepts relentlessly displayed through comic articulacy. I've read many dissenting reviews regarding the film even before I have seen it so I'm quite weary that this will be one of those pseudo-intellectual, nonsensical pretense disguised as a comedy film. But even though the alienating opening sequence (I have no idea what Jason Schwartzman's character is blabbering about) is a cautious foreboding that this won't be a usual film, I do believe that with enough patience, "I Heart Huckabees" can easily be appreciated and absorbed even by the most unenthusiastic of viewers.

It stars distinguished actors such as Dustin Hoffman, Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, and Naomi Watts (with 'The Birds'' Tippi Hedren in a minor role), and the plot concerns depression, divisive philosophies about the universe and identity and it never stops there. This film is fueled with enough intellectual discourse to inspire debates and disgust. Even the idea of producing a brief philosophy book out of it would not be an overstatement.

Director David O. Russell, known for his eccentric temperament, seems to have found his ideal film: a film where characters populate sequences armed with enough angst, questions and disoriented energy that fully complement the nature of the situations.

Concerning machismo, 'Three Kings' may be Russell's definitive creation, but considering the sheer downpour of endless thoughts that may have bugged his psyche firsthand, this is possibly 'it'. The visual accompaniment for his supposedly erratic behavior on-sets. The exalted characters. The endlessly restless cerebral and 'physical' activities. Yes, this can be 'him'.

Amidst its tireless interior that contains stupendous amount of grounds deep inquiries that can easily be answered with practicality ('isn't coincidence just, well, a coincidence all on itself?'), "I Heart Huckabees" unfolded its true, simplistic nature via a question repeatedly uttered throughout and even included at the very end of the credits: "How am I not myself?"

Same existential question can be raised in 'Values Education' classes and within that context, it might be the film's ultimate intent: To align our inner thoughts to who we really are. I'm quite sure that I've already mentioned that line in my "Three Kings" review. Redundancy perhaps, but It can be a sign of a thematic trend.

"I Heart Huckabees" wasn't an energy-sucking 'infernal' machine as what Roger Ebert stated in his review of this film. It truly is a well-made commentary (as if it resembles one) about every person's hidden acumen that can solve inner dilemmas not through the exploration of an abyss infested with far-fetched ideas but through the fondness to expose the true, cathartic nature of ourselves.

We have already seen many films dealing with human comedy and the folly of decisions. "I Heart Huckabees", on the other hand, is the comedy of philosophy and the folly of its perceived precision.

FINAL RATING

Across the Universe (Julie Taymor)

'A spot on a random haze.'

With all its moody visuals and a combination of acid psychedelia and some satiric doses regarding the Vietnam War (especially the "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" sequence), "Across the Universe" is also filled with great sequences that at times are even better than it's sum. It's also a refreshing reverberation of the musical genre, a film that did not compose any songs to substitute as verbal lines for its characters, but narrates a romantic tale set during late 60's America through bona fide Beatles classics that have individual stories, sensibilities and messages of their own that the film has successfully merged to create an emotionally coherent whole that brilliantly explores the counter cultural scene amidst the paranoia and protests, set during the waning days of the great American pretense towards conservatism.

Yes, I know 'The Beatles'. I know their names. I'm aware that John Lennon was killed by Mark David Chapman. But all of those are nothing but pure information, so having the idea that not all people know (or even 'like') the Beatles and their music that much (except the likes of "Hey Jude"), "Across the Universe" has given their songs vibrant visual accompaniments to appeal to both the immediate aesthetics and the deeper emotions about the idea of a transcendental love; and there's even politics on the side.

For some, watching the film without enough knowledge of the said songs, may be an alienating experience. But with the creators' (especially director Julie Taymor who has weaved it all together) awareness about the probability of a thematic and contextual misunderstanding that may put down the film's connection with its potential audience, the film ended up having a hint of familiarity within us all. No, not just as a piece of musical to make us celebrate the Beatles' established legend (though that can be a bonus), but as a film ranging from sweet to nightmarish conceived to touch, affect, emotionally stimulate, and even violate us viewers with its overall display and content.

The performances, although generally good, isn't what's important in the film. Yes, it's the characters' story to share, but they are just a spot on a random haze. A slight blur on a sharp crowd. Yes, it's their feelings, but it's all heading and converging towards a common sentiment. A steady bond in the middle of an era of uncertainty and fear that may just as well go by overlooked and neglected. But with the help of songs looking for love, change, and connection, "Across the Universe" has given these 'nobodies' an uncommon voice, with some colorful alterations to back it up and great music to make sure it will certainly be heard.

I went to watch it knowing that the story will be progressively put into motion by Beatles songs; as the film ends, its prolonged grasp on my emotions tightens its hold like a tender hug. Yes, the narrative was surely and convincingly moved by the songs, but so was I.

FINAL RATING