O is For Organized Crime

I haven't really honored an alphabetical order so far with our look into Italian genre cinema anyway, so let's just jump straight into O, shall we? There's a sub-sub genre of poliziottesci movies that focuses more on the underworld and various criminal gangs than the ruthless police chasing them. It was spawned mostly by the success of The Godfather films in the early 1970's, even though Italians were making films such as these before them as well. After all, the criminal clans and the pursuit to bring them to justice were all over the society at that time.

For blogging purposes, it would stand to reason to balance the last post with a look at some of the more notable of these. 

Sicilian Clan (France/Italy, 1969)
Director: Henri Verneuil

It's interesting to watch this Franco/Italian production today, as it was made in a time before the really hard-boiled 1970's crime movies kicked off. That's why, even though the name, it's not really a realistic depiction of organized crime by any means, but rather a tale of some gentleman thieves and their criminal family.

The film's most exciting scene comes right at the beginning, as we are introduced to jewel thief Roger Sartret (Alain Delon), who manages to escape from police custody from a moving vehicle. The Sicilian mafia, lead by Vittorio (Jean Gabin) help him out as he had learned information in jail that could help them pull off a major heist. Things are complicated as Vittorio's son's wife Jeanne (Irina Demick) starts to fall for Roger, as well as the commissioner Le Goff (Lino Ventura) following hot off their tail.

Verneuil is to me an underrated director who managed to create a nice filmography of exciting genre films in the 60's and 70's. The problem often is that even though the movies have all the elements of greatness, something stops them from being stone-cold classics. Here the problem is that Verneuil doesn't manage to keep the film's style compact. As an international heist movie, it entertains, but from a film titled like this, one would expect to see a more intimate depiction of a crime family, and not shy away from the brutalities they commit.

Now it's so casual it's basically a version of The Pink Panther without jokes. The film has a great cast, though and each makes their part a memorable one.

★★★

Gang War in Milan (Milano rovente, Italy 1973)
Dir. Umberto Lenzi

French drug couriers, led by Le Capitaine (Philippe Leroy) starts ruthlessly taking over Italy, first at small towns, then moving on to major cities like Milan. The owner of a local nightclub and pimp Salvatore "Toto" Cangemi (Antonio Sabato) resists both joining or working for the cartel, which leads to the increasingly violent feaceoffs between the French gangsters and Italian small-time crooks. One can see here as well that the Italians are worried thet their delicate balance of dealing with some criminal aspects in their society are about to blow in their faces with the advent of more brutal criminals from abroad.

Lenzi was one of the most prolific Eurocrime directors, and Gang War was his first shot at the genre. It's a seedy and confusing little film which had qualities the filmmaker would improve upon later on. As such, it works well as your average Eurocrime. It has little action scenes, shitty cars and slimy moustaches, but plenty of torture, abuse of women and other nastiness that guarantees its notoriety. Lenzi always had the most despicable central characters, but the film fails to give better reasons of following them.

 ★★ 1/2

From Corleone to Brooklyn (Da Corleone a Brooklyn, Italy 1979)
Dir. Umberto Lenzi

Lenzi is on hand again, as he was one of the most central directors of the genre. This time around the film's depicting a multilayered cat-an-mouse game on the run. Mobster Michele Barresi (Mario Merola) makes a play for more power and has his main rival gunned down, but has to escape with his life to New York. The tough, uncompromizing insperctor Berni (Maurizio Merli) hatches a plan to capture the fugitive, but this makes Barresi's girlfriend and a former mob assassin Salvatore Scalia (Biagio Pelligra), out to testify in court, moving targets.

From the setting of the story to both Sicilian village of Corleone to New York, it is obvious this has been majorly influenced by The Godfather, but also several other 70's New York mob flicks, like Mean Streets. Lenzi has learned to not overindulge in violence and brutality, centering more on the plot and the paranoid athmosphere this time around. It doesn't offer anything too spectacular or best of the genre, but a very solid entry into the genre itself, with some interesting depictions of the Mafia pulling strings across continents as well.

This one was Lenzi's last foray to poliziottesci for a decade, in the 1980's Italian genre cinema basically became a lot more horror-oriented and he started to churn out Cannibal movies. He returned to the genre in the early 90's, but without Merli.

The Milieu Trilogy, 
Dir. Fernando Di Leo:

Caliber 9
(Milano Calibro 9, Italy 1972)

Di Leo specializes in making crime films that are simultaneously operaticly tragic and caricaturized like fumetti comics. He also usually starts out with a bang, and the same thing happens here. A criminal syndicate sends a money package from person to person, gets betrayed, and then Mario Adorf's Rocco Musco acts swift revenge and blows them all up with dynamite.

Mostly the film moves more slowly, with tensions rising as we wait on violence to explode again. The film has a bleak look on the Italian society that has failed to stop the most ruthless and brutal to exact on their will. The main character Ugo Piazza (Gastone Moschin) tries to play straight after being released from prison, but is soon sucked in to criminal works since he is being blamed of embezzling the money. At the same time, the police also wants his help in order to find the stash.

The film has more double-crossings as a season of soap opera. Mostly everyone plays to their own interests, and Di Leo also has a cruel irony regarding the ideas of honor among thieves and respect within the crime family. He doesn't find much good about working within truly rotten apples and getting involved in crime has plenty of tragic consequences play out. The movie also has a banger of a theme song, which has been used by Di Leo several times after this one, too.

★★★★

The Italian Connection 
(La mala ordina, Italy 1972)

On my money, this is Di Leo's finest work, and also one of the all-timers for the greatest action movies ever made. To tell exactly why would be spoiling, but suffice to say, Di Leo doesn't put his most explosive scene in the film first, this time around.

A small-time Milanese pimp (played by incresing desperation by Mario Adorf) finds out there are two American hitmen (Henry Silva and Woody Strode) sent for his head. Even though he works within the mafia, he doesn't understand why they would threaten his life. He tries to find out who has set him up for stealing a shipment of heroin, until the hits get too personal, after which he sets out on a quest for vengeance.

It appears Di Leo got a hold of bigger budgets after the success of (the rather small-scaled) Caliber 9. The film has superb action scenes, from car chases along the streets to a final showdown at a junkyard. Action direction is clear and purposeful, and daring to go as far into the ridiculousness as one can. Though Di Leo finds the life-or-death situations of involvement in the organized crime tragic, he knows he's also an entertainer. That's probably also the reason why a major action scene ends up on an abandoned circus.

★★★★ 1/2

The Boss
(Il Boss, Italy 1973)
 

The capper of his trilogy has some of the biggest scenes the director ever did, and was probably intented to be the first of two parts. The film ends on a "To Be Continued" cliffhanger, so it's a shame we never got to see what Di Leo had in store for the latter part. But what we had is explosive and mesmerizing either way.

It has another explosive opening as Henry Silva's assassin kills a bunch of mob bosses in a movie theatre with a grenade launcher that also sets the screen on fire (Tarantino was probably taking notes for Inglourious Basterds). But the pace evens out a bit, with most of the movie being criminals arguing in small rooms. As the film was released after The Godfather, there are several scenes of murder that imitate the suave montages that one had.

The film may be a bit slighter, subtext-wise, than its two predecessors, but it is still tremendous fun and everything one could want from a film like this, right down to the angry police chief. It's still a bit cynical on the situation of the society and the criminal enterprises it lives in a symbiotic relationship with.

★★★★

Re:Make - Maniac

In this new blogging series, I am contrasting a classic movie and its remake. This is to showcase that a remake is not always a bad thing. Very rarely do movie remakes attempt to do anything fresh with their concept, but usually just blandly redo every major scene. But sometimes this is not the case. A new director might find some new angles on the established IP and possibly given a totally new twist rather than same-old-same-old. Some great cinematic feats would not have been possible if there wasn't a rogue filmmaker ready to give a shot in redoing something beloved.

Maniac (1980)
Director: William Lustig

vs.

Maniac (2012)

Dir. Franck Khalfoun

The original Maniac was born out of the cheap grindhouse thrills of the late 70's, early 80's. It is a New York movie through and through, and so seedy you feel like you need a shower afterwards. This aesthetic is very particular, but it gives Maniac some edge its flawed realization might otherwise miss.

We are taken to a journey to a mind of an overweight, bug-eyed, bad-skinned and greasy haired loner who also happens to be a mentally ill serial killer (Joe Spinell). The character is clearly suffering from his conditions, having hallucinations and manic bursts, as well as the uncontrollable urge to date women with his knife. It would be easy to hate this pathetic creature, but there is some unwilling sympathy to found in him. As evil as he seems, at worst he is just lost in his delusions, as helpless to pull himself together as the audience is to stop his gruesome murders.

That's not to say there are misogynistic roots in this rotten apple. He is a total predator, unreleting and unforgiving when he gets his killer instincts on. The stalking scenes, culminating in gory effects by Tom Savini himself, are some very effective use of horror filmmaking. The film is sad and nihilistic, seeing the murders as unstoppable and the killer not even particularly wanted or searched. Just another sad story in a city full of them.

Though by the end the film breaks the main character's insanity twirling out of control into the storytelling as well, the grounded viewpoint was a clear pathfinder. In the film we are stuck to the killer's mind, whether we like it, or rather, not. More grounded serial killer fare followed this, like Angst and Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer, which overemphasized the mundaness and banality of people like this.

After the Giuliani cleansing of New York, it stands to reason another Maniac could not have been updated to the same setting. Instead, screenwriter Alexandre Aja and director Franck Khalfoun decided to set the new version to Los Angeles, a city who gives even less of a fuck of the mentally ill and the unsuccessful sad souls. The viewpoint was then stuck even more inside the killer's head, to the point of shooting the entire thing in POV. These decisions work to show how the entire world in each of the citizens of LA revolves only around themselves.

Elijah Wood's Frank seems at points to be even too nice a soul to belong in the city where everything is sheer surface and real thoughts are kept tightly inside, to the point of bursting. The city of fake people can't help a soul just trying to find a connection. His work as a mannequin creator is an important metaphor to this as well.

But Frank is just as much a madman as his predecessor. When he can't relate to women, he resorts to stalking, killing and scalping them. Though his extreme misophobic deeds are horrifying and disgusting, this lost soul might be even more symphatetic this time around. The film wisely keeps Wood's face and doe eyes out of screen for the most part, telling the story more by just his voice. He doesn't do what he does out of evil, but because he has lost his sanity and is as terrified, unable to help himself and as lost as the audience.

In the end, the seedy and gory Grindhouse shocker was updated into a more clean but genuinely unnerving POV film. It allows perhaps a bit more insight into the mind of a titular maniac. Rather than going through motions, this one dares to surprise and take the story into unexpected territories.

Maniac (1980) ★★★ 1/2

Maniac (2012) ★★★★

Three laughs: ETV - Extraterrestrial Visitors

 It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most "quality" films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.


Three laughs Case #11:
ETV - Extraterrestrial Visitors (Los nuevos extraterrestres, 1983)
Director: Juan Piquer Simón

One of my favorite trashy directors is the incredible Spanish hack Juan Piquer Simón. He started out by making an actually pretty good and creepy Exorcist rip-off Escalofrío, which opened doors for him to copy out whatever films were popular at the time and put his own twist to them. I've talked about the Dick Randall -produced slasher classic Pieces before. Coming hot off its heels is the ET-copying Extraterrestrial Visitors.

I think Simón started out by trying to do a horror version of Alien and Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind. Too bad an even bigger Spielberg film came out in the middle of the shoot and the producers demanded that Simón switch out his plans and make a family movie that cashes in on the lovable little alien, ET, and his friendship with a suburban little boy.

That's why this film is such a mishmash of two different flavours. It's pretty hilarious that the aliens are at the same time judo-chopping ALFs and magic-powered slumberland friends for every boy of a certain age. The film has two sub-plots, and the other features a group of teenagers in the woods getting killed one by one. The budget has got to be minimal, they didn't even have the dough to pay for blue lenses for night-time scenes, or sound effects to point out it's supposed to be stormy outside. Mostly there's just smog. Lots and lots of smoke.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. As an apparent meteor falls into a forest, we have three dumb-as-rocks hunters examining the wreckage. One of them finds a batch of glowing pink eggs in a cave. He proceeds to smash them with a big stick for no reason. But then he hears the soft growl of an off-sceen creature that apparently kills him. Rather than being a blood-curdling roar, the sound is more akin the Nurse Bear from BoJack Horseman waking from a nap. The weak sounds these aliens make never ceases to be hilarious to me during the movie.

2. Once we see the creatures about 40 minutes into the slow-as-glacier movie, they are basically midgets in fur suits with ridiculous dickfaced and pinheaded masks. One of them wanders to a campfire with the burly poachers, who try to capture the creature first by luring it closer with a charred rabbit's leg and then throwing a net over it and shooting it with a crossbow. It turns out that such mortal instruments have no effect on these Extraterrestrial Visitors. The hunters are done for.

3. But of course only the adult aliens are vicious. One hatches from a child's egg and turns out to be a deadeyed wannabe-ALF, and is named Trumpy by the ridiculously naive kid. To project its friendship, the alien proceeds to show off its magic powers by solving a puzzle in stop motion, making shoes dance in an astonishingly inane display and enhancing the kid's spyglass to show archive footage of African lions.

Best of 2012

Hoo-hah! What a year, amirite? I hope it's been as good for you as it's been for me. In retrospect, I can see that 2011 in particular was a great movie year, since so much of its best flooded our Finnish cinemas this past year. I've yet to see so many films that were produced this year that I don't really know about 2012, but I got a very good hunch about it. A surprisingly good amount of fine films made my shortlist to make one of these top lists for your pleasure.

Keep in mind that I only include films that got their premieres during 2012 in Finland. That's why the list may include films produced in 2011, or even 2010. Festival and straight-to-dvd -lists will follow later on.

To be seen top 5: Deep Blue Sea, Faust, Magic Mike, Pirates!, The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Runners-up

This year, it was so hard to choose which films to raise to the top 12, that I included no fewer than ten runners up. Rather than to have a few words of explanation, for the most part I'm going to allow the reviews of these films speak for themselves. The runners up are:

The Artist
Brave
The Cabin in the Woods
Canned Dreams (Säilöttyjä unelmia)
Call Girl
Cosmopolis - The smartest film of the year by far, but perhaps a tad too analytical to be enjoyable. I wrote a review in Finnish for Elitisti.
Hugo
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Moonrise Kingdom
We Need to Talk About Kevin

The top 12 films released in 2012

12. Skyfall (USA/UK)
Director: Sam Mendes



Sam Mendes balanced the nigh-impossible odds of bringing the fun back to Bond without sacrificing too much of the feet-on-the-ground approach people have enjoyed in Craig's previous outings (well, in Casino Royale at least). Sure, there are several gaping plot-holes and odd character decisions, but keep in mind that this is a film series about a secret agent that tells everyone his real name, and saves the world from domination by being really, really good at poker. Now, while there are komodo dragon-jumping and bazar motocross scenes a-plenty, the threat of violence and death makes the film exciting.

Much of the thanks belongs to DoP Roger Deakins, whose stunning work has created one of the most visually striking blockbusters in a long while.

(few minor spoilers ahead)

A lot of people have problems with the final act of the film, which I can't understand. It's good for the Bond franchise to try something new once in a while. Plus, it has a lot of my favorite parts: Bond's reaction shot when the main villain explodes his car,  the montage of Bond booby-trapping chandeliers and floor-boards with cluster bombs, "Welcome to Scotland", that helicopter explosion...

11. Wuthering Heights (UK)
Director: Andrea Arnold

As you might guess, costume dramas really aren't my cup of tea. but when one is done in such a unique way as Andrea Arnold has here, I'm bound to take notice. A silent, meditative look at inner turmoils, Arnold bases much of the emphasis on nature, how it withers and dies away each year yet comes back the next spring.

The story of Heathcliff (James Howson / Solomon Glave), his thirst for vengeance for those that mocked and punished him as a child, the whole class system, and his doomed love with Catharine Earnshaw (Kaya Scodelario / Shannon Beer) has all the weight and melodrama you'd expect from such a story. The reason this film is ranked so low is the overflow of this super-intense relationship drama into ridiculousness in the final act. But the slow, meditative opening is still mesmerizing.

10. The Descendants (USA)
Director: Alexander Payne



Not the best film in Payne's resumé, but even the least-good Payne is better than the best Wes Anderson film (Moonrise Kingdom). The Descendants is still a funny, tragic and heart-warming film, and earnest in a way very few such high-profile American films can manage to be. Clooney's fake tear nonwithstanding. Back in February, I wrote:

The Descendants is more melancholy-filled than funny. Altough it does offer a few hilarious scenes as well. By first glance the film's characters are clichéd, but Payne has written the film intelligently enough to give each of them some surprising depth, and making them integral to the story he's unfolding. It also allows him to have various different viewpoints into one tragedy, and ways of coping with it. 

9. Argo (USA)
Director: Ben Affleck

A surprise final-minute addition to the list, but Argo managed to be one of the year's most exciting films. The super-intense thriller about rescuing American ambassadors from the Ayatollah's Iran in 1980 reaches almost Hitchcock-levels in building up tensions and letting the viewer worry about the outcome. Ben Affleck has grown better and better with each of his directing duties. This nails-to-the seats thriller pines for the days America solved international conflicts creatively, instead of resorting to violence, arrogance and civilian casualities. It's also a tribute to the hands-on approach to filmmaking, craftsmanship and B-movies of old. Really, how could you dislike a movie, where Michael Parks cameos as comics master Jack Kirby?

The film does depict iranians as straight-up villains (although it lays the groundwork on why they are so upset of America's policies, what with all the hated Shah's protection and spying). As such, it probably won't do any favors for the already icy relationship between USA and Iran. But Affleck does offer as apolitical approach to the historical subject as is possible in such a real-life situation. The final scenes have little to do with reality, but as a climax to the tension, as well as a tribute to the little-cheesy American blockbusting filmmaking the movie celebrates, it works.

8. Rust & Bone (De Rouille et d'Os; France/Belgium)
Director: Jacques Audiard



Again, not the director's best work, but dang if this very physical love story couldn't touch the viewer like few other films could. Just in November, I wrote:

(The film is) shot at times as naturally as to be almost like a nature documentary about the hard knock lives of these people. Audiard is as masterful in compressing everything that needs to be said in just a few sentences as Aki Kaurismäki. One also has to give due to the magnificent actors. Cotillard and Schoenaerts are at career-best form here, taking their abilities for emotional performances and imposing physicality (respectively) to whole new heights.

For those awaiting a clear love story, the film might be too distant, even cold. For those awaiting for the brutally violent boxing matches, they are quite sidelined and only featured in two bigger scenes. But for anyone looking for a good drama that makes one ponder about the human vunerability, and how it affects our own humanity, this is a bullseye.

7. Take This Waltz (Canada/Spain/Japan)
Director: Sarah Polley

Another devastating "romance" film, although much in a different way. It is also a comedy of sorts, with a lot of jokes opening up only in symbolism and perhaps opens even better at subsequent viewings. The film isn't afraid to position some very difficult questions like how far do we have the right to pursue our own love and happiness. Blinded by her emotions as she is by the light in the very first scene, Michelle Williams's Margot ends up peeing in the pool of all of her closest friends and new family. And at first tormented, she ends up enjoying doing it for a while. But the rudest awakening is in store for her.

The script is expertly crafted, with call-backs and payoffs to short scenes we almost forgot about in this rollercoaster ride of emotions. The lighting, the music choices, the acting... it all works. The film's symbolism is quite telegraphed, and easy to follow (as with the runners-up list's We Need To Talk About Kevin), but in these cases it's not an entirely bad thing. The year's feel-bad relationship movie.

6. The Raid: Redemption (Serbuan maut, Indonesia/USA)
Director: Gareth Evans

Aw, c'mon. You really didn't think I was going soft on you, did you? For all the well-crafted romance movies I liked, I enjoy a good ass-kicking action movie even more. And for a long time we haven't had as thoroughly enjoyable, kick-punchingly brutal, explosion- and body-count heavy and crucially, totally non-ironic, earnest action film as The Raid. It figures it couldn't have been made straight-out in Hollywood, but rather in Indonesia. Going to South-East Asia to shoot the wildest action scenes imaginable has been an industry haystay from Corman's glory days onwards.

Dredd delivered another tough building-raid movie this year, but this one has a clear advantage on that. The geography and floor plan of the movie are more carefully thought-out, making the rise to the top advance more steadily and logically. At the same time different floors don't feel just like different stages of a video game, but people get thrown from windows and switch floors by quick thinking. The whole thing is crowned with some truly brutal fighting choreography that utilizes the environment in an inventive way. And with the thin, bearded fellow Mad Dog, one of the year's best movie villains as well.

5. Killer Joe (USA)
Director: William Friedkin



Director William Friedkin didn't really make a comeback with this film since he hasn't really been anywhere. Viewing 2006's Bug recently, also based on Tracy Letts's play, made me realize how good his films have still been but no one has taken notice. Well, Friedkin now forced people to take notice, by having Matthew McCounaghey deliver the iciest, evilest, but at the same time oddly logical and twisted morale-following character. Who would've thought that guy could deliver one of the performances of the year! Friedkin's film is wickedly mean, totally brutal, and very unforgiving for the stupidity of its central characters. It's truly devastating, and as a black comedy, not even too funny. It's a lot more complex than that. It could reasonably be called a satire on the American vanishing morales and takeover of greed. And it's a lot more sharp in this aspect than the disappointing Killing them Softly.

Back in August, I wrote:

The film has a down-to-earth aspect, yet some bizarrely delirious ideas, such as a pizza cook being the most notorious gangster boss of the town, or Juno Temple doing nude kung fu moves in the middle of the night for the hell of it. (...) Friedkin stages most of the conflict inside an extended trailer. The movie is at parts laugh-out-loud hilarious, at parts gut-wrenchingly vile and unrelenting. Friedkin hasn't eased his standards one bit while all these years have passed from his magnum opuses.

4. The Punk Syndrome (Kovasikajuttu, Finland)
Directors: Jukka Kärkkäinen, Jani-Petteri Passi



The year's Finnish film, bar none, is this optimistic documentary that follows Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, The Name Day, one of the top punk rock acts of our country. It just so happens that all the band members suffer from developmental disabilities. But they won't let their Syndromes slow them down. The band members quarrel, rebel and go on their daily lives openly in front of the camera. Never apologising, feeling inferior or pandered, the film teaches new ways on how to view the disabled. And it rocks, too!

Back in March, I wrote:

The film raises some questions about how the society treats the handicapped, but it isn't preachy and doesn't rub the viewer's face with them. One also gets a few good laughs at the silly stuff the punk rockers are up to, such as the race Kari loses when he drops his pants, or when the group gets a little too excited with the strip club windows in Hamburg's Reeperbahn. (...) The spotlight is kept promptly on the band, and rightfully so. They are people to easily identify with, to laugh and cry with. The biggest strength of the film is the same as with the band: it feels very real, as opposed to staged. It's a real slice of life with its ups and downs, highs and lows.

3. Carnage (France/Germany/Poland/Spain)
Director: Roman Polanski

For my money, the funniest film of the year. It's another play-based film, and another that takes place solely in a closed environment. Just like the bourgeois in Luis Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel, the rich couple of Cowans (Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet) seem unable to leave the apartment of The Longstreets (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly). They have to come to terms with a schoolyard incident of their children, when one child has hit another with a stick. Turns out, the adults are a lot more savage than to just settle in using sticks as weapons. Closed inside, even the similar-minded people come at each other's throats. At the same time their carefully-constructed images begin to fall apart, so they form unions against each others in an attempt to win moral superiority against each other. The nasty, assholish personalities on display here are perfectly acted.

It's not too far-fetched to see the film as Polanski's own comment on his recent house arrest in Switzerland, waiting for trial. As tensions build and no one is willing to take responsibility, the worst in people comes out. The film's cynical look at human nature married to the fact that it has the most hilarious vomiting scene I've seen in a long while had me howling with laughter. A true gem, and the best Polanski in a long while.

2. The Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within (Tropa de Elite 2: O InimigoAgora É Outro, Brazil)
Director: José Padilha



The best sequel of the year bar none, the follow-up to the toughest brazilian action film is the Godfather II for violent, political thrillers. It's cynical view sees Rio caught in a maelstrom of violence, with armed police strikes at the homes of the poor drug dealers solving little. The corruption that begins from the top has twisted the system so far, that it takes huge feats to be fixed ever again. During which a lot of innocent people are in the firing line. It's a huge, sprawling epic on the many forms corruption can take in a truly rotten society. Back in January, I wrote:

As it is, the film follows a large number of characters, each representing a layer of the society and/or a level of corruption. Although all of their approaches to corruption are cynically viewed as unfunctional, the characters aren't all clearly set to be only right or wrong. Some of their ideas don't work in practice but some do. Most of the film's characters are three-dimensional, with also ulterior motives regardless of their political alignment.  The main focus is in Nascimento, who while still maintaining some of his moral complexity, also comes into his own terms as a character here. Nascimento starts to feel old and weary by the end of the film, and loses some of his will to fight wrongs. Surprisingly, he has a strong end speech about the human values, and he also sees some error on his own ways. He sees that weeding out upper-level corruption would have helped his cause a lot more than shooting poor people in slums, but by now it is already too late. 

1. Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy (UK/France/Germany)
Director: Thomas Alfredson



Another epic that depicts the tentacles of corruption tighten up their grip on the pillars of society. It took me two viewings to truly get into the film's carefully-constructed web of lies and the number of elements in its vast storytelling. After that I read the novel, which was even more complicated. But each viewing or reading rewarded me handsomely with some new layers in this story. It is, by far the most rewarding film of the year.

The spies, depicted here as clerks, pencil-pushers and grey officials, are so far up their own game that they can't function without playing the cat-and-mouse game at all times. The mixture of family life and high-espionage blinds George Smiley (Gary Oldman) so much he is having trouble doing his daily work. Even the tiniest shred of trust has to be built and built for years on end. When even that comes shatteringly down, it feels devastating. Back in February, I wrote:

The film's aesthetic is such that it's easy to find oneself lost on its world. Even the smallest details are made important, and the film's rainy cinematography and 70's design aesthetics are well-realized enough to get the viewer easily lost among them. The real treat here are the performances. As good as Gary Oldman is (and he's really, really good.), the whole film is an ensemble piece, starring a cast of the best British talent to die for. With Oldman and Hurt, there's also great performances Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Kathy Burke, Toby Jones and Ciarán Hinds. One feels that these actors actually inhabit the jobs of their characters and have actually been spying on us with their other film roles. One does get a paranoid feeling from out of all this, but I would've still wanted to see the film again as soon as I walked out of the theatre.

I'm looking forward in seeing the upcoming follow-up, based on another John Le Carré novel. That's the first recap of the year, next up is a look at the films of 2013.

Review: Rust & Bone

Happy father's day! What better way to celebrate than to take a look at a recent film featuring, among other things, a man learning how to be a father? Jacques Audiard's latest film was screened as the Closing film of this year's Love & Anarchy - Helsinki International Film Festival. It is also on the programme of Pimedate ööde filmfestivaal - PÖFF, or the Tallinn International Film Festival, opening tomorrow.

So, as in many of the director's previous movies, Audiard's new protagonist is a man of few words, that is more used to violence than being a normal member of the society. Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a man arriving to Paris to try to make a living supporting his 5-year-old son and staying at his sister's house. The man is struggling to get by, since he isn't too good working at normal jobs, but since he is imposingly large, he gets hired to be a bouncer at a night club.

One night at work he meets Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard), a whale trainer at the local dolphinarium, who also has a tempered violent side. When she gets kicked out of the club, Ali sees her safe back home to his boyfriend. Both sides have a small romantic crush on each other. Stéphanie's boyfriend, however, has had enough of her hard-drinking ways and leaves.

Trying not to spoil too much, but Ali and Stéphanie will eventually become even closer due to a horrific accident that cripples her for life. A major problem, however is that Ali isn't a very emotional individual, and sees no problem screwing around with every woman he encounters. All the while taking care of Stéphanie. The man will eventually learn to take part in brutal underground boxing matches to earn some better money.

For quite a long time, it seems that Audiard is attempting to build a portrait of a true sociopath who is incapable for any feelings whatsoever. Ali doesn't seem to care much for his son, and beats him up for misbehaving. While he connects with Stéphanie on a surface level, can't figure out her deeper feelings for him. But Audiard is a director capable of surprising the audience and by the end it becomes clear Ali does have his sensitive side.

The film's title refers to its themes of disfigurement, while Ali and Stéphanie both have serious personality defects that eventually cause harm to their bodies. He has the willpower and the physical strength, while she has the emotional, even spiritual side. Together they resemble more of a complete person, as evidenced by the scene where Ali takes her swimming by carrying her on his back. But the title may also refer to the emotional side, on how the film's themes may go way beyond of the surface level all the way to the core.

The film also contrasts the human tendency to tame nature and how it problematizes our way to behave. While Stéphanie's attempts to tame a killer whale are futile, she also grows to believe that taming a wild, uncontrollable muscle machine such as Ali is as impossible. But she won't give him, because of the hot, hot sex they're having. Thus she begins to communicate with him only through a very short acronym text message or through body language.

It is a very physical film, shot at times as naturally as to be almost like a nature documentary about the hard knock lives of these people. Audiard is as masterful in compressing everything that needs to be said in just a few sentences as Aki Kaurismäki. One also has to give due to the magnificent actors. Cotillard and Schoenaerts are at career-best form here, taking their abilities for emotional performances and imposing physicality (respectively) to whole new heights.

For those awaiting a clear love story, the film might be too distant, even cold. For those awaiting for the brutally violent boxing matches, they are quite sidelined and only featured in two bigger scenes. But for anyone looking for a good drama that makes one ponder about the human vunerability, and how it affects our own humanity, this is a bullseye.

★★★★

DE ROUILLE ET D'OS
France/Belgium, 2012

Language: French
Director: Jacques Audiard
Screenplay: Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Craig Davidson
Cinamatography: Stéphane Fontaine
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Armand Verdure, Céline Sallette, Corinne Masiero

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.