Death of the Bohemian: The Great Beauty and Only Lovers Left Alive

I saw two movies this week that dealt with similar kinds of subject matters: Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) and Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive are both movies about the connection between historical art and the modern day. Both feature bohemians that have lost their way somewhere along the way. And they are not so much plot-driven films as mood pieces, dashing out various scenes presenting ideas and pondering them. So, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at both movies from these angles. Since this analyzing means dealing with some plot points, it should be reminded here that this post may contain spoilers.

The Great Beauty opens with a scene showing Japanese tourist so overwhelmed by the ancient city of Rome that he has a heart attack. This is cut to a outrageous megaparty where tattood strippers lure men in glass booths and drunken upper-class art connisseurs dance in line to the music of hot DJ's mixing traditional sounds to modern beats. In the middle of all this hullabaloo, the birthday-celebrating Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo) is introduced smiling with a cigar in his mouth, looking like Silvio Berlusconi. He has done this kind of partying for a long time.

Not until someone close to him dies does he realize that he should perhaps want to spend his life also as a creator, not just a partyer. He starts to consider writing another book, but he has trouble getting the inspiration, which he calls "The Great Beauty". But he has trouble spotting it, due to the banality of the performance pieces he tends to visit, and being so used to classical architecture (his own penthouse apartment has a view over the Colosseum).

Only Lovers Left Alive deals with two immortal vampires, Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) who have been lovers for centuries. At the start of the film they are "living" seperately, however. While Eve binges on old literature and lives somewhat happily in Tangier, Adam is brooding in his Detroit home, composing music but sheltering himself away from fans. In his desperation he has produced himself a possible exit from this bleak world: a bullet made out of hard wood, that would effectively work like a stake when shot through the heart of the vampire. When the pair reunites, there's plenty of discussion on whether the world has gone astray or if the world's problems are just a permanent glitch.

Adam has a bleak outlook on the future. Humans (or zombies, as vampires call them) are on the verge of self-destruction which has manifested itself also in contaminating their blood. Eve, as an elder vampire, has seen the worst history has to offer from floods and plagues. She shrugs off the problems as long as she herself is living comfortably. The brooding Adam, however is waiting for the global climate crisis to reach the point humans start World War III over fresh water. He has lost his faith on humanity, his idolized poets, authors and scientists throughout the ages being mostly long gone, and left only humanity's self-doubt over their abilities and their subsequent refusal to figure out a way to save themselves.

During The Great Beauty, Jep keeps being disappointed when a potential source of beauty turns sour. A grace-fallen love interest he seeks to redeem dies on him, modern art consists of meaningless performances trying to gain the attention of rich buyers and even spirituality is reduced to status-seeking. People don't pray but rather take similar photographies of themselves with a priest that's to be a strong contender to be a pope or an ancient nun that's to be pronounced a saint after her death, Jep's companions try to hint to him to try to search the Great Beauty from within, not just looking from the outside. It isn't until the grotesquely old nun spells out to him how important "roots" are, does he fully get it and remembers entirely the night he lost his virginity.

So, The Great Beauty has an optimistic look that one may find one's muse when looking at moments of beauty at one's roots. Only Lover Left Alive is far more pessimistic. Art-loving vampires have trouble functioning at a celebrity-crazed culture that insists every popular creator is to be fitted into a spotlight. It prevents the sort of art bohemia of yesterday when poets could feed from one another (so to speak). Even though Adam tries to keep his musical creations to himself, they seem to find a way to leak out and to be played in underground clubs around the world, much to his dismay. He is in it purely from a love of the instruments. He also helds a popular hipster opinion that nothing popular can't be too good, since at the end he hears a Morroccan singer, he comments that she's far too good for fame. Adam seems to find that the more attention things get, the easier it is for money-hungry people to push it to the limits and totally ruin it.

During OLLA, the vampires suffer one indignity under another and are increasingly pushed to the edge. As much as they loathe the modern humans, the more they find themselves to resemble them as their back is pushed against the wall. Even Eva's comforting outlook starts to show cracks. They can't plan for the future when their current needs start to weigh too heavily. Blood is a sort of drug in the movie. When the supply of pure, good stuff runs dry, the desperate vampires have to start taking risks in acquiring it on the streets. The safest bet seems to be drinking from young lovers, since what else is pure in this world any more?

In the end, The Great Beauty is a movie looking back, trying to get people to make the right choices to feel good about their lives in general. It has the stance that happiness can't come from mere self-indulgence or hedonism, one has to have spiritual experiences as well and remember the parts of life that matter. But if this balancing act is reached, it doesn't see why a rich life can't go on as it used to.  

Only Lovers Left Alive has a much bleaker outlook.It sees that the fractured world can't anymore produce a sphere for artists to meet and discuss and create. The future of the vampires is either self-destructive retroactivity (as with Mia Wasikowska's Ava) or death. The demise of John Hurt's cultural vampire Marlowe (revealed to have ghost-written Hamlet as well as other world-famous writings and poems over his multiple lifetimes) represents the death of the culture. This is a sign of how dog-eat-dog the world is about to get as things get more and more difficult for everyone. There's no room for new ideas in the world if the only idea that's going to matter is the instinct for survival. Jarmusch's film is nothing short of heralding total apocalypse. it's a good thing that the film has a sense of humor about it too, or it might be harder to swallow.

Hey, Cartoonist!

Last week saw the 70th birthday of Underground Comix legend Robert Crumb, master of hilarious, perverted, crazy, borderline insane, subtle, life-like and musical comics - using often many of these stylistic choices in the same strip. That's why I thought it would be kind of cool to pay tribute by taking a look at two comic book movies about underground artists - one a documentary, one fictional, that's still a part documentary. Crumb is of course featured in both of them.

I got to say, I'd like to see more underground comic book movies. Let's hope someday the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers stop motion animation movie Grass Roots will be completed.

Crumb
USA, 1994
Dir. Terry Zwigoff

Terry Zwigoff's extensive R. Crumb doc is held in high esteem, and for a good reason. Not only does it provide insight on the mind of an artist, it also features characters colorful enough that the feel like they would've jumped out of Crumb's own comix. The most interesting ones are Robert's two eccentric brothers, Charles and Maxon, reclusive and tragic figures who resemble some aspects of their brother and his neuroses, but whose life took to entirely different paths. The film is called Crumb and it certainly doesn't just refer to the famous one, but the whole family.

The movie is dedicated to the memory of Charles Crumb, who died prior the release, but is interviewed here. He had immense artistic talent as a young boy, maybe even moreso than his brother. His odd obsessions with Treasure Island are dealt with, as well as his more and more obsessive behavior, which results to his art getting too experimental for its own good. Interviewed here, Charles is a husk of a man, a mama's boy who never managed to become his own man. It's tragic that a promising artist never takes off, and doubly so if it results in bitterness and melancholy for the rest of his life.

The film was not an easy shoot, and took six years to make. Zwigoff had stress about funding, but his friendship with the main character helped to pull him through. It also shows on the screen. R. Crumb himself is also a bit of an introvert, and probably wouldn't have been as open with another director. But here he is frank and honest about his work, process and life in general.

And also that time he posed with women for a porn magazine shoot.

We deal with the most famous R. Crumb comix and characters pretty quickly. The film is driven more by the character, a constantly doodling gawky jazz-fan, who views the modern life and pop culture in general more or less with contempt. Crumb's sex drive is also discussed, and his most controversial works are shown in a new light. Art critics, feminists, peers, fans and journalists discuss their merits, but there's no conclusion. It doesn't feel like a fan film, and I would imagine it to be interesting even to people who don't care that much about comics, underground or not. Go check it out.

★★★★

American Splendor
USA, 2004
Dirs. Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini

Crumb also does collaborations from time to time, and the most famous of these is illustrating the scripts written by his friend, the bitter file clerk Harvey Pekar. His comics always tell about one thing and one thing only: Harvey Pekar. Pekar is a complete contrast to your superheroes or high adventurers of typical comics, as he lives a somewhat mundane life and just does observations and musings on that. He does manage to make good humor out of that, and make his ordeals feel identifiable. The title American Splendor may be ironic, but in some ways, it is also perfectly apt.

Pekar is the furthest from being a sell-out cartoonist this side of Bill Watterson. The film feels like his story, in that it's your regular A-B-C life story. The basics are there, but in addition to that, there are small skits from the pages of the comic, animated sequences, the viewpoint goes over to his nerdy friend Toby for a while, and most confusingly, there are documentary bits with the real-life Harvey Pekar and his wife. These scenes have some retrospective views on the things just shown in the main storyline. Most of the movie Harvey's being played by Paul Giamatti.

The comics in this film are an outlet for the neurotic Giamatti to let off some steam and come to terms with things. A key scene features Harvey and Toby (Judah Friedlander) arguing over the merits of the college comedy Revenge of the Nerds. Do the downtrodden need a story which allows them to be the heroes for one day, even if the movie is by-the-numbers lint? Is the need to identify oneself so strong? (For the record, I like Revenge of the Nerds)

This gives an idea of a chaotic film, but there is weird synchronicity here. The grumpy Pekar just does his thing, bit by bit. That's why he wouldn't want to have a moral on his story, but the film does make one. Even though life may seem boring, chaotic, unobtainable and hard, looking at the long run, all the various patches and places do form some sort of a story. It may not be a grand, adventurous story of making a change or doing something spectacular, but then most of us are everymen. It is interesting to hear about another one once in a while. Particularly if the movie is funny to boot. Which this is.

★★★1/2

Docpoint 2013

Room 237. 

Not too long ago, another of Helsinki's biggest film festivals took place. As always with DocPoint, the focus was on the year's most exciting, thought-provoking documentary films from around the world. There were several interesting movies to be seen, and it's took a while, but here's a brief look into this year's crop.

The Gatekeepers (Israel/France/Germany/Belgium)
Director: Dror Moreh

Will there ever be a chance for peace in the Middle East? Impossible to say, but at least not if one doesn't study both points of view of Israelites and Palestines. While at first glance this documentary about Israeli chiefs of Security seems to be on Israel's side, it provides criticism to the endless cycle of violence as well.

The film succeeds in contrasting the personalities of all the former leaders of Shoh Bet, or Shabak, the Central Israeli Security Agency. They provide insights on how the nation viewed various threats and wars. The endless cycle of violence has made the men develop a hard shell around them, yet there are points of them reminiscing bloodshed that are quite emotional nevertheless.

The stories of these men are filled with exciting details, confidential information, intrigue and contradiction. Their stories help one to understand at least Israel's dire need to keep its face and appear threatening and all-powerful. It's one of the reasons why the two sides can't really come to terms. This is an important reminder of how a life of ordering massacres affects the human psyche, and what comes from a nation that treats each of its foreign problems by reacting with more violence.

★★★★

The Queen of Versailles (USA/UK/Netherlands/Denmark)
Director: Lauren Greenfield

Here's a story of a wealthy family that lost everything. While this story's true, it might as well be a sitcom. The main characters are self-centered, dim, greedy, oblivious to any realities in life, and, sure enough, in a constant state of Arrested Development.

Before 2008, real estate billionaire David Siegel and his trophy wife Jacqueline loved to flash around their cash. They build skyscrapers, pay to have their daughter win beauty pageants and in the most outrageous move, build a multi-billion dollar mansion in the same vein as Louis XVI's Versailles Palace in France. Yet with the economic collapse, the Siegels lose their fortune. For the most part the film features them grasping onto last remaining shreds of their wealth.

Since the Siegel's are rich sleazebags, they refuse to recognize the moral of the story - the gambling, borderline illegal actions and political horsetrade having gotten them into the mess they are in. When the shoe's on the other foot, they blame others for destroying them and attempt to bounce back by doing the same mistakes again and again. It's incredible how dumb, vain and all-around unlikeable the main couple comes off, but it just makes the movie more intriguing. They don't care the least.

This movie is a testament to this age, a story on how people overemphasize surfaces, appearances and superficial values. They delude themselves to think they are happy when they can raise envy and outrage. But underneath all that surface is but a husk of a soul, one that has a child's idea on how society works, refuses to take responsibility and is doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

★★★★

The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (UK/Ireland)
Director: Sophie Fiennes

Leftist philosophy superstar Slavoj Žižek delivers another video essay using film clips from old movies, self-irony and societal critique. And, as always it is highly entertaining. This time around the lovable lisping Slovak talks about how Ideology has shaped the world around us, and can be seen in various cultural product we wouldn't necessarily expect to. Case in point are movies, both old and new, obscure and blockbusters, documentaries and fantasy.

While The Pervert's Guide to Cinema had (albeit a flimsy) thread with which to follow, this time around Žižek seems to ramble on whatever comes to mind. That's not to say the film is sloppy, on the contrary the scenes replicationg various film styles are done carefully and to a good comical effect. A lot of the things discussed are quite familiar to anyone who has ever read an article by him, seen his lecture or the documentary film Žižek! I, of course am guilty of all three, but still I enjoyed immensely to hear these theories again in another, more entertaining format. Whether I agree or not is another thing, but the strength of Žižek is that he doesn't pander but provokes and speaks out his mind. Thus, it's up to the viewer to decide what to make of it.

★★★ 1/2

Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present (USA)
Directors: Matthew Akers, Jeff Dupre

The conceptual performance artist Marina Abramović has had a long career of putting herself into her art since the 1970s. She has done this to such extent that without art at 63 years of age, she feels like a quite lonely, vunerable and uncertain person. The film chronicles her preparation fot the retrospective of her career at New York's MoMA. But it isn't just a case of putting art work on a gallery. Abramović also prepares to sit and stare at the museum guests all day, every day for three whole months.

Abramović's career has much been characterized by the search for boundaries of art. Not only allowing art lovers to look at art, but looking personally back at them is a concept as simple as there is. On a smaller scale, it could be done by anyone. Doing it with thousands of museum-goers day in, day out takes a lot of courage and endurability. But when does meeting another person, not saying one word, become art? Is it only when the other party is a respected artist by profession? The surrounding of a retrospective adds up plenty to the work, it puts on the emphasis that the artist is still present in all of her past work.

The film is ponderous and heartfelt, and like its focus, almost unbearably intimate. Just the sight of Abramović's stare brings some guests to the brink of tears. Documentarists Akers and Dupre explain Abramović's history extensively and understandably. The film is not qute as experimental as its subject matter, but it does feel like a real experiment, and makes ponder both the nature of art and humanity by itself. Not a small feat.

★★★★

Room 237 (USA)
Director: Rodney Ascher

The ominous, creepy atmosphere of the 1980 film The Shining, as well as the well-known perfectionism of director Stanley Kubrick, have made the movie larger than life. Since Kubrick tended to refuse to put all the pieces together, there was much left for individual interpretations. Thus, there are plenty of people obsessing over the film and coming up with several outlandish renditions of its meaning.

The documentary is illustrated almost solely with film clips, mostly from The Shining, but also from Kubrick's other films, as well as unrelated movies which deal with cinema-viewing and audience perception like Lamberto Bava's Demons. The interviewees are only present by sound and they are not recognized with texts or anything. It is a democratic approach, putting all the interpretations to the same line, whether observant or bug-out crazy.

Obsessing over the movie, some people have spotted out odd visual clues that provoke imagination, such as the unnatural geography of the Overlook Hotel. The theories surrounding the film's horrors sexual nature, or the retread of American bloodshed from history, seem kind of plausible. And then again, there are people who insist Kubrick framed the moon landings and uses the film to confess this to his wife. Danny's Apollo 11 sweater on one scene is the key proof of this cuckoo theory. Nevertheless, it is intriguing to hear both these accounts, and all in all the film both puts The Shining into a new light, all the while not taking anything from the mystical aura of the masterpiece. On the contrary, adding up to it!

★★★★

Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir (UK/Italy/Germany)
Director: Laurent Bouzereau

As controversial as directors come, there's no denying Roman Polanski is a character as fascinating as his films. This documentary is an attempt by his long-time friend Laurent Bouzereau to allow the man to speak his mind himself. Polanski spills his life story while on house arrest in Switzerland, waiting whether he will be handed over to US authorities for imprisonment or not.

Predictably, the story hinges on the major three disasters of Polanski's life: Fleeing the Nazi regime as a child, the relationship with his wife Sharon Tate and her consequent brutal murder by the Manson Family, and the director's actions on Jack Nicholson's house with a drugged-up minor, as well as the travesty of a trial that followed. Polanski is a humble man who doesn't attempt to shine his own shield too much and carries his tragedies as well as his successes like his current wife and children. Yet for a film titled Film Memoir, the movie glosses over Polanski's body of work in favor of a character study. His films stem from his private life, so you can't entirely seperate them, but I for one would've been eager to hear more insights on making a large number of brilliant films that disturb and challenge to this day.

★★★

Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap (UK/USA)
Directors: Ice-T, Andy Baybutt

The rapper that brought you Cop Killer is convinced that hip hop saved his life from life on the streets. Since Ice-T owes the music a debt, he attempts to serve it by going around his peers, rap legends and super stars, asking what makes the music matter. The array of artists is quite impressive, from MC Melle Mel through Ice Cube and Chuck D all the way to superstars of the modern era like Kanye West and Eminem.

This is another one in the series of music documentaries that attempt to serve as a gateway to a world of certain genre. It attempts to serve the field as evenly as possible (yet focuses on the most commercial side), leaves out niche groups and offers little information to true aficionados of rap's history. It's always nice to see music legends talk about their work and how they create their verses, so it's an entertaining piece but far from true art mastery.

★★★

Men At Lunch (Ireland, 2012)
Director: Seán Ó Cualáin

The famous photograph about the building of New York, hanging on the walls of bars around the world, has inspired this historical documentary. The movie attempts to find out who were the men sitting on a girder on top of the Big Apple eating their lunch without any fear of falling. Thus, it is a story about labor in the time of the Great Depression, and by extent, immigration.

Unfortunately, since the film is Irish, it is very biased. It attempts to prove a confession heard in one pub to be conclusive, while newspapers and competitions have come to different solutions that are dismissed entirely. Likewise, the story is quite thin since there is little evidence on who's who in the picture. The lazy, archival storytelling style is one for sunday afternoon TV documentaries, but doesn't really work on a big canvas. This could've been an interesting detective story, now it's as bland and unjournalistic as they come.

★ 1/2

Three Houses of Horror

You would think that with a generic name like "House", one could make essentially any kind of movie one can imagine. But then you'd think wrong, because the title "House" has only ever been used to make horror films. Because they are about very specific houses... of evil! Oh, and I guess you could make a doctor show or something with that title, but you'd have to throw in "Dr." or "M.D." to not confuse viewers. But let's take a tour of cinematic houses and see if they are really horrific at all or just misunderstood pieces of real estate. 

House (Hausu, Japan 1977)
Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi

Easily the best film called House, this Japanese classic is a rare arthouse / avant garde horror film. More than from the thrills, most people who have seen it remember it for the WTF -scenes and very odd visuals. When considering this one's country of origin, it's actually not that odd. Like vampires and werewolves in the western countries, this just utilizes monsters and terrors from the depths of old Japanese mythology. But it has to be said that it does so in a wholly unique way.

See?

Seven Japanese schoolgirls visit the countryside house of the aunt of the one called Gorgeous. Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) herself has ventured on the summer vacation trip since she couldn't stomach her father having another woman after her mother's death. Her friends all have some signature feature after which they are named. Fanta (Kumiko Ohba) is a daydreamer and likes to take pictures, Kung Fuu (Miki Jinbo) is athletic and has cat-like reflexes, Prof (Ai Matsubara) is smart but geeky, Melody (Eriko Tanaka) is musical and eager to play, Sweet (Masayo Miyako) is very friendly and eager to please, and Mac (Mieko Sato) is always hungry and loves to eat.

Too many characters!

The gang soon learns that the house is actually haunted and that Gorgeous's aunt is actually an undead witch. Like in any Scooby-Doo episode, they get separated and spooked out, each according to their own personal gimmicks. Mac is the first to get killed due to her greed, and her severed head flies around haunting the others and causing mischief and bite marks. The girls must solve the mystery of the Aunt's house before each of them gets killed and turned into the witch's servants.

And the villain of course says her evil plans aloud to one of her minions.

This is the sort of film with a very functional set, as many objects and features are ones that come to service the story later on. In addition there are some weird and wonderful things such as a living skeleton, a piano that eats people and a cat that can grow into a grotesque giant. The theme of the film is the clash between the adult world and the world of pre-pubescent girls. This is also why the film has a sort of mundane, almost theatrical setting at first, but as the film progresses, it leaves any sort of convention behind. One can easily believe anything can happen at any time. Various animated techniques are used among the film to create truly strange transformational effects.

On the verge of womanhood, much like in, for instance, Suspiria.

For a post-war Japanese film, it also deals with several of the ideas of loss and bitterness so often displayed in post-WWII Japanese movies. The openness of young girls, to whom world has no limits and the laws of physics can be bent are attacked by a soul that's lonely and grieving and has no way of connecting with the world any more. Thus, the film can also be included in the canon of tragic monster movies. The film is a bit uneven and a tad too long, but as stated, they very rarely come up with something so inventive and original within the genre.

★★★★

House (1986)
Director: Steve Miner

Back in the 80's, Stephen King was so popular in horror fiction that even the few horror films not based on his books tended to copy his signature style. While therein could be a good mine for a merciless parody, mocking the conventional formula King based most of his books to, the 80's House had the unfortune of being the kind of horror-comedy that works in neither of the genres.

Horror writer Roger Cobb (William Katt) is suffering from a nervous breakdown due to the vanishing of his young son. He settles for his late aunt's house in a suburban neighborhood to get some writing done. But he is fed up with made-up horrors and plans to write about his traumatic experiences at Vietnam, which still haunt his dreams. His cheerful but nosy new neighbor (George Wendt) tries to keep his sunny side up, but Cobb's past isn't the only thing haunting in his house.

Cobb is a man looking for closure, but the uncharismatic Katt in the lead role torpedoes any sense of likability. It's not much of a spoiler to tell that the ghosts have captured his son and attempt to get him by using him as bait. However, the child actor is such an annoying and fugly case, audience figures Cobb would be better off just letting them have him and moving to some place where there isn't so much paranormal activity. There isn't much frightfully funny or twistedly horrifying in the film, save for a few neato rubber monsters towards the end.

The poster is better than the movie, and rest assured there are actually no severed hands going around crank calling people's doorbells. That would be the kind of novel idea the film's writer (Sean S. Cunningham of Friday the 13th fame) couldn't do. Somehow, this was still popular enough to warrant no fewer than 3 sequels. I'm actually a little curious of them, because this would have some ingredients for an interesting film, even if it uses them too sloppily to develop anything of much interest from them.

★ 1/2

House (2008)
Director: Robby Hensen

For a lesson in how generic and bland one can make a horror film, one should not look any further. Figures that a film with such unimaginative title would be as bad. This shamelessly plunders from films miles better than this is, such as The Shining, Don't Look Now, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and... Rocky Horror Picture Show? Albeit with no sense of irony or any fun at all.

A quarreling couple (Reynando Rosales and Heidi Dippold) is off to see a marriage counselor in rural Alabama. They get pulled over by a cop (Michael Madsen) that acts strangely and a bit threatening. After the couple takes off, they soon have trouble with the car, which may have been caused by the police. They take shelter from the rain at a nearby mansion and find another couple, and a strange man and his mother who claim to own the house. But it soon dawns on them that the owners are hostile and in cahoots with "The Tin Man", a demon which had previously taken the form of the weird cop. The two couples have to kill one among themselves to survive the night and at the same time come into terms of their past failures and horrors.

There isn't much to note here, the film's as generic as they come, right down to a little girl haunting the premises, a promise of occult religious services being done in the house (as in Satanism), war flashbacks (I'm not sure whether it's meant to be Vietnam) and an awkward dinner scene. The characters are so boring it's hard to remember anything about them a day after watching the film, and that even includes the bad guys. Madsen growls his way into another paycheck and uses his demonic powers to point a shotgun at a lot of people. The color scheme is greenish brown all the time, and not even trippy flashback scenes manage to arise any interest in this whatsoever. I'd tell you to avoid this, but you've probably already forgotten as much about this as I have. Which is probably for the best.

★

HIFF 2012: Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Not that it matters much, but I'll try to pick up on Love & Anarchy reporting for this year. After all, I'm not even halfway through all the films I saw in there. But no matter, plenty of them were good enough to digest for a while and to report through a longer stretch of a time allows for a deeper look into them. This post focuses on the films that lingered on somewhere between reality ond pure fantasy, whatever that may mean.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (USA)
Director: Benh Zeitlin

This year's Love & Anarchy opening film gathered a lot of buzz at Cannes this year, and was praised from Earth to Heaven. With such an overkill on praise, it's easy to be disappointed in the end result. It's a very good film and more than suitable for the choice of opening film of the festival. But while it was praised for being a wholly original piece of filmmaking, it's more or less the same story as Terry Gilliam's Tideland had a few years back, albeit with with more grace and with subtler mentally handicapped people.

In a fictional Deep Southern village of Washtub, lives the six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) in a run-down shack. Her mother has long since left so she attempts to bond with her father Wink (Dwight Henry). Unfortunately, Wink has severe mental and heath problems, and isn't too happy about them and is prone to bursts of anger. Hushpuppy has learned to more or less take care of herself, with the help of the other villagers. Hushpuppy has an active imagination and gets lost inside it from time to time. When a tornado threatens the village, Wink and Hushpuppy rekindle their relationship, but the desperate situation also calls for desperate acts. Hushpuppy also ventures on an adventure to find her mother.

The film is visually very inventive, with some amazing sets that look like they've been lying around for years having actually been created from scratch. The overwhelming flood of striking imagery makes the viewer feel like a six-year-old him- or herself, being amazed of the vastness of the world and all the things in it. That's probably why the film had such a strong response.

But this in turn also brings with it a sense of helplessness. We can't do anything to hold Hushpuppy's family together, or even to make her act sensibly to grow up to be a proper adult in time. Basically the characters are archetypes, but have enough flaws within them to make them somewhat well-rounded and interesting. The main problem however, seems to be that it throws so many things in the air and quickly ties up the knots at the end. For instance, there isn't enough on he community and it's coping by the end, although it seemed like a major element in the beginning.

But nevertheless, for a first-time director, Benh Zeitlin has created an amazingly confident piece of work. It has been helping that the director and the crew form a strong creative collective that have supported each other with their decisions and visions. I'm looking forward on what this group creates next.

★★★ 1/2

Love or Anarchy: Mostly Love, but with a big dose of Anarchy thrown in for good measure

Chicken with Plums (Poulet aux prunes, France/Germany/Belgium)
Directors: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud

This film was first screened at Espoo Ciné, and after Love & Anarchy it was chosen as Film theater Orion's Movie of the month, so there have been plenty of times to see Marjane Satrapi's adaptation of her own comic book. I'm a bit ashamed I haven't read the comic this is based on, although even the film version is unmistakably of the comic artist's signature style.

The film tells the story of the final days of the famed violinist Nasser Ali Khan (Mathieu Amalric).  He decides to die when he can't find pleasure in life any more. Initially, it appears that his reasons are purely due to him hating his family and his displeasure of getting a new violin after his old one is destroyed. But cut scenes to the future, to the past and to Iran's mysterious legends reveal new sides to Ali's character and his story.

The film opens a bit slowly, but once it gets going it grows on the viewer more and more. It's easy to symphatize with Nasser Ali, since he hates his own obnoxious kids. This is basically a romantic film masqueraded as a fairy tale. For all the imaginary characters, basically this is a story about a broken heart and an unrequited love, much in the same way as, say The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Since I'm a totally cynical bastard, this is the sort of romance I like.  The little comic touches and segments are just the plums to sweeten the already tasty dish of chicken.The film sells itself well as unpredictable and a little anarchistic in that most anything can happen at any given time.

There are several cool animated sequences thrown in for good measure.

The hilarious parody of American sitcoms is of course the easiest possible target, alike to shooting fish in the barrel, but it still made me laugh to my tears. The mythological side is also well-realized, with a suitably mixed style of comic book art and reality. The most memorable of these scenes is wonderful Angel of Death, Azraël, played with curiosity and mellowness by Edouard Baer. But make no mistake, this is Amalric's time to shine. At times, it feels like he's in every French film made these days, but watching his subtle performance here, one can't help but to admire the sheer skill and nuance he brings to his best performances.

★★★ 1/2

Love or Anarchy: 50-50 on this.

Holy Motors (France/Germany)
Director: Leos Carax

Cranky old French auteur Carax has crawled back from the sewer he has dwelled for at least four years (it's been 13 years since his last feature film). And his new film has created a lot of buzz, for it is something not often seen. A purely art house film consisting of mostly sketches and sequences with only a very loose thread tying them together. It does seem the director would be more comfortable with short films and segments in anthology films today.

Stating the plot of Holy Motors is to do an interpretation of sorts, so here's how I see it. Monsieur Oscar (Denis Levant) is a prolific, rich man going to work on a limo one day. His job requires him to wear masks and make up and to do odd tasks around Paris. His first job requires him to dress up as a beggar, and his second as a degenerate sewer-dweller, eating flowers at a graveyard, and to disrupt a fashion photo shoot. He kidnaps the model (Eva Mendés) and takes her to his lair in the sewers.

She'll sing a lullaby to him.

But he still hasn't lost it and is soon back to business. We begin to get the hang of what's going on as he does movements in a motion capture suit, and proceeds to have sex with a woman walking in in a similar suit. Riding inside the limo, it is revealed that invisible cameras are following him around the day. His jobs get more and more intensive, and he is, for instance, required to brutally murder a few people. Truth and fiction are at all times hard to separate, even when M. Oscar goes to pick up his daughter at a friend's party. Finally, he settles home with a bunch of chimpanzees. But what does his limo think about all of this?

Carax is commenting on the state of cinema today, looking for a realistic digital shooting style, while aiming for more and more extreme situations and preposterous stories. Every time the audience is able to grasp an even small strand of plot, Carax destroys it by reminding we are watching a movie. This bitter love letter is at times hysterically funny, but it gets repetitive and pretentious towards the end. There's no good reason half an hour couldn't be trimmed from this.

It's basically a development of some of the ideas Carax has already done. For instance, the monsieur Merde sequence is a clear development of the director's segment in Tokyo! That doesn't make it any less funny, although this is a comedy clearly aimed at high-brow cinema buffs that can reflect their own disgust with modern films through this anarchic piece. Carax doesn't solve any of the problems he posits, and certainly doesn't save cinema with this work, although some of the more eager critics have suggested such.

★★★

Love or Anarchy: Pure Anarchy

Himizu (Japan)
Director: Sion Sono

Sion Sono's new film has become an annual event as much as Takashi Miike's at Love & Anarchy. The prolific director is always able to comment on Japan's recent events, national psyche and culture in surprising, shocking and innovative ways. After two darker psychological thrillers, Sono returns (in a way) to the twisted teenage romance of Love Exposure with his latest film. It brings a welcome emphasis on his wicked black humor, but overlays the melodrama by the end.

At another village ravaged by natural disasters, this time in shantytown in the seaside Tokyo suburbs, lives the only child of a family disintegrating. The teenaged Yuichi (Shota Sometani) finds he has to support himself since his mother is whoring around, and his father has disappeared since becoming seriously indebted to yakuza. He begins a string of shady businesses and lending out his beach house, but he's having trouble collecting money fast enough for the yakuza still feels he owes them for his father's loans. Back at school, quirky girl Keiko (Fumi Nikado) has grown an obsession on Yuichi, and notices his absence from school. She will stop at no ends in following him around and attempting to help him cope in his ever-growing desperation.

Whereas most American post-apocalyptic (that is to say, post-9/11) films had an uplifting theme of uniting people to cope with their losses, Sono has a lot more cynical outlook on human nature here. He argues that our so-called civilization hangs by a threat and a strong enough catastrophy may bring out desperation that allows violent impulses to take over people. The desperation tears us even further apart from our already disconnected lives. Yuichi becomes tangled in a web of violence, murder and vigilantism.

But Sono does believe in certain goodness in people nevertheless. He is a firm believer on love for redemption of people. In the end, Yuichi can't manage his situation by himself, he realizes he needs Keiko and his foster-father figure Shozo (Tetsu Watanabe). Shozo is the film's most interesting character, a self-claimed former millionaire eccentric, who has lost everything. But his love for his friend Yuichi makes him go behind his back and risk his very life to save him from yakuza. It's really a shame the end half of the film focuses so much on Keiko's and Yuichi's relationship, with Shozo being sidelined.

As I mentioned, the teary-eyed melodrama and weltschmertz of the final scenes of this film fall a bit flat and leave a bad aftertaste in the mouth. Otherwise the film features many of Sono's great strengths - great characters, shocking brutality, surprising story developments, the satirizing of Japanese culture and a pitch black sense of humor. I'm particularly enamored by the scene of literal gallows humor - Keiko's parents building gallows in her room for her to kill herself and spare them from the high cost of her living.

★★★ 1/2

Love or Anarchy: Even though at the surface it may seem like an Anarchy-heavy piece, the heavy melodrama puts it firmly in the Love corner.