Three laughs: Robotrix

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. 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.  

★ or ★★★★★

Three laughs case file #37:  
Robotrix (Nu ji xie ren, Hongkong, 1991)
Director: Jamie Luk

I've heard movie pitches a lot worse than "sexy RoboCop". During Hongkong's mad "CAT III" years, someone had the bright idea, not only to do a combined scifi actioner and softcore film, but to also have it basically be Terminator 2 as well, having two killer robots battle it out. The evil robot, played by Billy Chow, is REALLY EVIL, and during the course of the movie performs rather nasty sexual violence against sex workers. So, there's a Trigger Warning to go with the film, they really don't slow down as it gets started.

The film has a little tongue in cheek, as in the beginning we see a German robot that resembles a little of the ol' T-800, and an American robot that in turn has stereotypical mullet wig and if I needed to make a guess, seems to be a reference to Jean-Claude Van Damme's Cyborg. Mammary-heavy Amy Yip plays the android body into which a dead policewoman's brain is inserted into. There's little nudity, though, even though for the first time in Hongkong cinema, Chow also reveals his member in a quick scene.

A lot of the film plays up the comedy rather than the serial-killing robot hunting. Not all of it is intentional, bad dubbing, bizarre dialogue and hammy acting carries a lot of the fun. Yip's cyborg is put on an undercover mission disguised as a sex worker, and caused by this, starts a really successful police-run brothel business, that also her co-workers in blue seem to enjoy using. Chikako Ayoma plays Yip's rival policewoman that comes to rely on her as a partner before the film's bloody climax.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The film's flimsy plot consists of several elements that don't quite click together. We are introduced to the villain of the film when he uses sleeping gas to knock out everyone in a bath house and to kidnap the daughter of an Arab prince to... ransom her for money? This idea doesn't really play out in the following scenes. But at this point Yip is still playing a flesh-and-blood policewoman. It is proven she is no match for the precision of a cyborg as she is immediately shot in the chest by the villain. She'll get better.

 2. The bad android's sex drive is so huge, he goes to bars picking on small-time gangsters' girlfriends. This enrages the Triad guys and they take the fight... to the toilet? As the android refuses to pay to use her, he is attacked, but the robot just punches the gangster so hard to the stomach, it implodes. The Itchy & Scratchy -level cartoonish violence that reminds of films like Riki-Oh is one of the best reasons to watch these CAT III films. There's also a memorable scene with a drill in this one.

3. Of the police group's characters, the most annoying one is the bearded sex-hungry virgin guy, who also tried to get a free round with sex worker Robotrix by disguising himself. In the lead up to the climax, he is unceremoniously cut in half with a car. The characters in the film are very sad to see him die, the audiences back home may have an entirely different reaction to seeing the sleazebag go.

Night Visions: The New Ab-normal

 
Things are different this year around, which meant for the regular spring edition of Night Visions film festival getting cancelled. But at least here in Finland things got a little better, so there was an opportunity to have a festival in August. Things are changing also in the way I'm writing a festival report after a long while.

Butt Boy (USA, 2019)
Director: Tyler Cormack

 
This is a movie about an obsession, addiction and the willingness to wreck lives to achieve it. It's also a serial-killer movie about a dude, who (SPOILER) sucks people and objects inside his cavernous butthole. As far as crazy premises go, this one takes itself as seriously as it physically can.

As a whole, this film moves quite slowly. It has some perks, like watching the slowly ravelling cat-and-mouse game between Tyler Cornack's perp and Tyler Rice's cop on the edge. When the actual reveal comes, it changes the film's dynamic entirely, making the last quarter or so a real blast of butt-jokes. It is not quite as crazy as I had hope it would be, but I got some good chuckles and the melancholic feel of the movie really got to me.

★★★

Luz: The Flower of Evil (Columbia, 2019)
Dir. Juan Diego Escobar Alzate

This latest word in folk horror sees a reclusive cult live off the land. The cult leader El Señor (Conrado Osorio) keeps multiple wives and declares his youngest child to be the next Messiah. The other children, three daughters, find an object of the outside world and have different reactions, from wanting to escape to undying loyalty and laboring hard for the cult. The film doesn't really manage to give a good athmosphere or raise the stakes as one would wish from a horror film. Visually, it's clearly a fan product of the works of Alejandro Jodorowsky. But the actors are quite good in their roles, and one manages to sit through the film woith relative ease, even if it doesn't ever really deliver as good as one would want.

★★ 1/2

Tezuka's Barbara (Japan, 2019)
Dir. Macoto Tezuka

 
The pinku film seems to follow pretty clearly the godfather of manga Osamu Tezuka's comics. It is a story of a regular guy becoming increasingly obsessed by a homeless girl he meets on the streets of Tokyo. Like most pinkus I've seen, this one is quite slow with very few and not very graphic sex scenes. The ideas and obsessions around sex are more important than the act itself. There are a few scenes of note here that remind of Tezuka's odd sense of humour and richness of his imagination. But as a whole, the film is quite stilted, not utilizing what film can bring to the table as opposed to manga. So, this one felt quite dull in the end.

★★

Klovn The Final (Denmark, 2020)
Dir. Mikkel Norgaard

 
After the bit disappointing Klovn Forever, it's fun to see the third part in a trilogy somewhat return to its roots. At this point, Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen's rowdy comedies know what audiences are expecting, and both tease them with it but in the end, also deliver. It's not quite as graphic as the two previous ones, but altogether it might be ruder. It's crazy funny, at least.

The movie opened in Denmark just before the Corona crisis, so it's weird to see it tackle self-isolation for a length of its time. However, since an embarrassing mishap has cost them their trip in Iceland, Frank and Casper have to hide out in a vacant house next door to Frank's family. One small lie leads to bigger and bigger ones, and the strain to Frank's marriage in particular is stretched to a breaking point. Casper works as a ruthless id, caring little about anything else besides getting laid and getting the two into bigger and bigger troubles.

Not all of the film's gags quite land, and they are eager to set up some scenes that they oddly drop off at the blink of an eye. But when a good joke is laid out, waiting and then suddenly given an unexpected punchline, one can't help but to fall over laughing. I laughed, I cried, I hurled.

★★★★

Rabid (Canada, 2019)
Dir. The Soska Sisters

 
Even if 1977's Rabid isn't the most popular film in David Cronenberg's filmography, it is still risky to even attempt to redo one of the corner stones of the body horror movement. The Soska Sisters realize this, and while the end result is definitely going to split viewers, I do think they managed to update the ideas to a modern setting quite well. Maybe this should be a Re:Make blog post later on?

The new version downplays sexuality and the inner shame caused by it, as seen in regular horror movie tropes. The idea this time around is more like a feminist satire showing a woman being punished by outside forces for showing initiative in general. Timid fashion designer Rose (Laura Vanderwoort) isn't getting the recognition she deserves until she has an accident and an experimental skin operation to fix it. Too bad it also makes her a Patient Zero in a vampiric disease that starts to wreack havock.

 

It's kind of a wonder how ahead the curve the Soskas were last year. The vampire disease and the reactions of it, ranging from trying to shrug it off and continuing as if nothing is happening to outright maliciousness of trying to benefit from people dying, seems like satire from the reactions to COVID-19. There's even a barb at the police violence against poor people that have the disease. The Soskas make plenty of changes to the original, with a lot of emphasis on a sisterly relationship, and a thoroughly bonkers final reveal to match. All the bitterness surrounding the depiction fashion industry don't quite work, but the film bursts with ideas enough that one can give or take a few clunkers as something entirely else is just around the corner.

★★★★

The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil (Akinjeon, South Korea, 2019)
Dir. Lee Won-tae

 
Supposedly this south korean crime actioner is based on actual events of a mob boss testifying in court against a serial killer. It does deliver some grisly violence, surprising twists and well-rounded characters. The actors are wonderful, especially Ma Dong-seok as the burly kingpin who has to revalue his pendant for violence and need for revenge as an even more ruthless murderer (Kim Sung-kyu) tries to kill him. There are only shades of grey here, as the cop (Kim Mu-yeol) himself is a corrupt gambler and a drunk, happily spending his spare time in mob-owned casinos. The film is well-done entertainment, but has a bit of an abrupt ending, like you would expect from a TV series, and it doesn't really feel to have a central idea strong enough to really elevate it into a classic. 

★★★

Dolls (USA/Italy 1987)
Dir. Stuart Gordon

 

Night Visions also paid tribute to the late horror master Stuart Gordon with a screening of his classic horror-comedy. Dolls may not be quite among the very best of Gordon's filmography, but as is usual for the director's oveure, it is better than you would think. And it's generally thought to be the best of producer Charles Band's various killer toy movies that also include the Demonic Toys and Puppet Master franchises.

For the hardcore horror buff, the film might be a bit childish, though. It's central character is a little girl (Carrie Lorraine) and all the adult characters are overplayed caricatures, like you would find in a Roald Dahl book. They also meet similar grisly ends in a magic mansion filled with creepy dolls, or getting turned into dolls themselves. There are a couple of rowdy punk girls, evil yuppie stepparents, a weird elderly couple, and a plump but well-meaning dweeb (Stephen Lee). 

While the plot isn't anything terribly extraordinary, nor scary, the film is kept reasonably short and gives a few good one-liners to chuckle now and again. The puppet effects are kind of crude, but kept in a way that makes them mysterious enough. That was some of the magic of Gordon's filmmaking, he always knew how to stretch his budgets to suit the storytelling he aimed for.

★★★

DePalma x Hitchcock

 
Director Brian DePalma just turned 80 years old (yesterday, but I'm having trouble keeping schedules), so it's a good opportunity to take a look at three of his movies. Throughout his career, DePalma has been criticized for outright stealing scenes, set ups and camera angles from well-known directors, mainly Alfred Hitchcock. As a sort of postmodernist, both winking at people familiar with films and developing them into something new altogether, DePalma is a clear forerunner for filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino or Ben Wheatley. So in this post, I have three thriller films of DePalma's that really go all in in swiping stuff from Ol' Hitch, and see whether the steal made for a better movie or whether it's just a lukewarm version of stuff better made before.

Obsession (1976)

Pilfers from: Vertigo (1958)

While Sisters (1972) was DePalma's calling card for the world of the thrillers, this was a certain turning point in his career. For one, he managed to snatch Hitchcock's frequent collaborator, composer Bernard Herrmann to do the music. For the other, he got ire from Hitch himself, who considered the film to be a remake of his own Vertigo. Both movies are stories of an obsessed man (played by Cliff Robertson here) losing his beloved, but later finding a doppelganger who he remakes in her image. But in both cases, the "new" woman has a secret and some knowledge of the past that comes to cost the protagonist.

The original script was done by Paul Schrader, who is an expert in having troubled characters with an inner life in total turmoil. It was extensively rewritten by DePalma to better touch upon what he wanted from the film. Schrader had different ideas for the entire ending, which probably would have been considerably different from Vertigo. It would have been interesting to see another time-hop, since the 16-year skip in the beginning takes us quite by surprise.

Robertson is perhaps not the most charismatic leading man, he does sell the inner anguish, but is like a cold fish in romantic scenes. DePalma has later said he didn't really buy his performance here, also perhaps due to the actor being difficult to work with. John Lithgow as his best friend and business partner steals a lot of the intrigue, and if you're familiar with some of DePalma's later efforts, you'll know what kind of a role he's playing here as well.

The film goes into a lot more taboo subjects Hitch couldn't, including incest. They both don't really care on whether the central criminal plot makes little sense, but Hitchcock as a more mature filmmaker can better drive the focus of the film to be solely of the central character's, well obsession. Both movies are interested in trauma being played out, surfacing as PTSD in sudden bouts of madness. But the film is also perhaps too slow for its own good. Vertigo packs a huge story in a very compact running time, but here one keeps hoping the film would roll along, having mainly an interesting ending. It also seems like the ideas of the pain of lost love being mirrored in art or restauration thereof, was approached with more sophistication by Hitchcock.

DePalma also takes cues from Dial M for Murder, Rope and Marnie.

★★★

Dressed to Kill (1980)

Lifts from: Psycho (1960)

This one starts and ends with a threatening shower scene. Also one of the key scenes of this film is a heavy reference of the seduction scene from Vertigo; both of the take place in an art museum, and use very little dialogue. DePalma can and will use a lot more explicit sex scenes. Classic Hollywood star Angie Dickinson is surprisingly game, even though in nude scenes she used a body double.

The most notable steal from Hitchcock's sole horror movie comes from the structire. Both films kill off the main female character midway through, and from thereon follow her sister trying to solve her murder, played here by Karen Allen. The film also uses other similar stock characters, such as a young man hung up on his mother, a sleazy private detective and a psychiatrist trying to find the reason on theories of sexual repression (played by Michael Caine). But DePalma also enjoys a bit of misdirection, having some familiar seeming roles be entirely red herrings. 

DePalma can easily be criticized for misogynist attitudes in films, and in here too, an adulterer woman gets her comeuppance very bloodily. It's a bit of a SPOILER, but the trans community has also heavily criticized the film's portrayal of transsexual tendencies and, having the early 60's Psycho-like idea of having them act as serial killers. There really isn't anything positive the film will say about any sexuality out of your basic monogamous cis-sexuality, but at least Allen's character is a sex worker who also works as an active protagonist.

The film also has a point in pointing how Hitchcock's voyeristic tendencies are obsessive, damaging and toxic, taking their ideas to their logical counterpoint. But it also revels in these very same tendencies. DePalma also plays on his own experiences, since the infidelity that starts out the film was something that was happening in his own family as well. The film has great camerawork and a beautiful soundtrack that makes murder of women highly aestethicized and thus making the audience complicit of the filmmaker's perversions. Also the film's ending is frustratingly bad, having odd conclusions and a dumb jump scare straight out of Carrie.

★★ 1/2

Body Double (1984)

Purloins from: Rear Window (1954)

The idea of duality of an identity or dual personas is very central in DePalma's filmography which probably explains why he's so obsessed with Vertigo in particular. This one dives also deep into ideas of voyerism, prevalent also in Hitch's Rear Window and Dial M for Murder. It makes Hitch's distrust of authorities also an aspect of shame and self-hatred following from obsessive and sexual thoughts.

The film has a cold open on a B-grade horror movie which reminds of Blow Out. The main character (played by Craig Wasson) here is an actor struggling with mental illnesses such as claustrophobia. He wanders off the set and notices a woman who does erotic dances in her apartement every night. Looking at her through telescope, he becomes somewhat obsessed, but also starts to suspect her life may be in danger, giving him an excuse to stalk her in the streets. But even as he witnesses more and more evidence of brutal crimes being committed, he is not believed by the authorities because they see him just a pervert.

At the time, DePalma was seen having gone too far with his use of sex and violence in his films. It's easy to see DePalma just following on with what the Italians were doing a little prior (even if he himself strongly denies it), yet his success opened doors for plenty of Hollywood Erotic thrillers in the late 80's and 90's (most of which were a lot more moralizing). Also DePalma was very much on top of the neo noir movement, making sleek, beautiful pictures to go with gritty stories he was telling. The film even incorporates a Frankie Goes to Hollywood music video in the middle of itself. It's all highly entertaining.

One can see how DePalma is working to solve some mysteries of film entertainment and its use in the world himself. With this and Blow Out a craftsman working in the film industry finds a "true life" plot which affects his way of working. Which is of course just as outlandish and over the top as anything else in Tinseltown. Is real world violence catching up, and does it have a symbiotic relationship with thriller films as well? Do they feed each other? In this case, the lines between movie and reality really fall apart in the 4th wall-breaking finale. Was all the suspense and thrills for nothing? Is the film completed?

When he worked these ideas into his Hitchcock thriller, I think his constant steals also started to actually work for the film's own benefit.

★★★ 1/2

Three Laughs: Showgirls

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. 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 file #36
Showgirls (USA, 1995)
Dir. Paul Verhoeven 

Now, Showgirls is a cult film in the proper use of the term. It has a devoted league of fans that know the movie by heart and recite its lines. But even they can't really come to an understanding on whether the film is actually any good or if it's funny just because it's bad. There's even a new documentary called You Don't Nomi (2019, dir. Jeffrey McHale) that makes arguments for either case.

I am more than willing to give director Paul Verhoeven the benefit of a doubt. After all, the crazy Dutchman has always provoked and in the meantime made some of my favorite movies of all time. But one has to also know that he's a bit of a perv, and even if he's doing a scathing movie of the treatment of young women in the entertainment industry, one can be sure he makes it gaudy, ridiculous and more than a bit male-gazey. Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas gets even less of a benefit of a doubt.

But the thing that makes Showgirls an entertaining movie is that it refuses to belong to any one box. It is more than happy to keep switching its tone, taking different aspects and running with them, and refusing to give easy answers. It's dumb, it's weird, and the acting in particular is all over the place. It is not an entirely successful movie, that much has to be said. I think one gets quite weary of it during the lengthy run time. But there's certainly the required laughs to be had in following Nomi's (Elizabeth Berkley) career from a stripper to showgirl to a genuine star.

★ or ★★★★★

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. Some people in McHale's document claim to realize the film is very bad from the first scene onward. I feel like it's a bit heightened, but a true reveal on how the film is going to be is after Nomi arrives to Las Vegas and loses all of her belongings to a thief pretending to be a Samaritan. A kind soul (Gina Ravera) offers to help her, but also makes the mistake of asking her where she comes from. Nomi, just trying to eat a basket of fries, doesn't have any of it, throws the fries away and gives a wonderful delivery of the line "DIFFERENT PLACES!"

2. I think the film's funnest scenes include the super-bitch star Cristal Connors (Gina Gershon), and the All About Eve -style one-upping between her and Nomi. The film's funniest scene comes from the bonding at a restaurant they seem to have between eating dog food, and loving a perticular brand, Doggy Chow. To add up to the scene's oddness, they also toast chips when finding common ground.

3. I just have to include the bizarre sex scene between Nomi and the sleazy rich boy Zack Carey played by Kyle McLachlan. They head out to a neon-lit pool for a bit of the old in-n-out, which Nomi performs similarly as her striptease, mainly throwing her legs around Carey and flopping on her back like a fish on heat in dry land. It's wet, it's wild, but it ain't erotic, I tell you that much.

Three laughs: Hard Ticket to Hawaii

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. 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 #20:
Hard Ticket to Hawaii (USA, 1987)
Director: Andy Sidaris

There are plenty of 80's video store -stuffing cheapo films that exist by using the allure of female bodies and cartoonish violence to draw in the crowds. But few have refined the formula to work in their favour as well as Malibu Films auteur Andy Sidaris. If Godard only needed a boy, a girl and a gun to make a movie, then Sidaris needed a couple of D-cups and some beautiful hawaiian landscapes to create a better one!

Plenty of Sidaris' films use similar premises and girls with big guns, most also feature Dona Speir's agent character, Donna Hamilton. But Hard Ticket to Hawaii is notorious, because of a few scenes (that I will detail below) and the lead role played by Ronn Moss, a soap opera hunk beloved for his long-lasting role in The Bold and the Beautiful and for his musical career as a sort of blues rock balladier. It should goes to show as well that the film is funnier than Sidaris' usual forte, though not always because of the corny jokes meant to be laughed at. The film has a sort of good-natured and easygoing feeling. It's like everyone involved had a lot of fun, so it's a bit hard to get angry at the movie objecting women or having misogynistic underlying thoughts as the makers seem to be in on the joke. The women do have their own agendas, even if it mostly means them getting naked in a hot tub or seducing men for some piece of information.

According to a video greeting by Moss, the film is also a favorite of Quentin Tarantino (though he heard this compliment from his unnamed friend) and he has viewed the film numerous times. I can't argue with the sentiment, I like to watch the movie all the time, too.

"One man's dream is another man's lunch!"

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The film's plot, as it is, is twofold. First, Hamilton and Moss's agent Rowdy Abiline are looking to bust a criminal league that's smuggling diamonds to a peaceful Hawaiian island in small remote-controlled helicopters. But the situation is also worsened by having a giant, chemically enhanced snake get loose and murder people. The snake is infused with cells from cancer-induced rats! Nevertheless, the model is totally cute and every time the rascal appears on screen, it gets a hearty chuckle from me. And of course the explosive finale of the snake saga has to be seen to be believed.

2. The film's action scenes are far between, as mostly the movie is more concerned with sex and soap opera -like scenes of the girls' daily lives. But when it delivers, it delivers hard! The favorite of YouTube is the entitrely bizarre scene that has a skater with a blow-up doll try to kill Abiline by skating by his car and pulling out an uzi. But Good ol' Rowdy just backs his buggy into the assailant, who flies in the air. Then Abiline pulls out his rocket launcher, and kills the creep, and then his blow-up doll. Take that for trying to be the next Tony Hawk!

3. Abiline is surprisingly violent towards goons for a guy that's most of the movie totally mellow and along for the ride with Donna's sexual hunger. Another brilliant scene sees him dispose of a guard on a beach. He sees he likes to throw a frisbee around with a bikini-clad lady every day, so flawlessly he steps in as her replacement. The thug has no big quarrels with this, and he carries on playing frisbee-throwing. But Abiline switches the frisbee to have razor blades on its side, which then is thrown straight to the goon's throat. You can't see shit like this in your Krulls.

Make Mine Mondo

I was thinking I should do a good old-fashioned movie post every month or so. Mostly just to spread word of movies, usually obscure or anything I have a few words I like to share. I try to keep it casual, though, so as not to taint my writing with too many expectations, as I usually do.

This weekend I saw some special films courtesy of the National Film Archive. The most precious of these was a very rare film never before seen on Finnish cinemas, and probably only screened in Italy before this. The films were of the notorious "mondo" genre, an Italian offshoot of documentaries which feature sensationalist subjects and usually short vignettes. Many scenes have been staged and the truth value of these mondos is notoriously low.

Dove non é peccato ("The land without sin", 1969)
Director: Antonio Colantuoni

These were the reasons why it's been such an incredible thing to actually find a mondo film depicting Finland from 50 years ago. Us Finns are superbly curious on what anyone else thinks of us, and since Sweden got its own propaganda piece (about more of which later) it's been popular among Finnish movie fans to think about what this sort of thing could actually be like.

As it turns out, as a mondo it's not particularly nasty, sensational or moralizing. Plenty of what is depicted has since become obsolete so it's a lot like watching historical documents home. The exception, of course is the Italian voiceover, in both male and female voices which tells us what to think about stuff we are seeing. It also has a patronizing, even racist outlook on Finnish people and cultures. For example, when talking about the Winter War with Russia, the camera lingers on a coat of arms depicting a caveman with a mallet. The narrator suspects Finns can't handle weather changes in one place, and in one depicts -25 degrees celsius to be an abnormally warm spring weather. And when some customs seeming strange to Italians are pondered on the voiceover to "perhaps be the legacy of habits from the far eastern plains of Mongolia". In other parts Finnish customs are mocked for having such a short history (probably compared to Italy, which has better historical records).

The film is particularly interested in Finnish drinking customs, having a long scene of students celebrating May Day with a strong punch, and women's place in the society. One expects plenty of nudity in these sensation movies, and thus it's a bit of a surprise that this part is quite minimized to a single (obvious) group sauna scene. The most ridiculous scene is four young women chasing a man through the countryside with the attempt of gang-raping him, before he dives into a lake to get away. This seems like a carbon-copy of the depiction of Polynesians and their mating habits in Mondo Cane, which probably is as staged and far from truth in there as well.

Since all the interviews are dubbed, one must assume that the words being put in the Finns' mouths are totally invented as well. For film fans, it is fun to see the film expert Peter von Bagh as a young man doing work in his Civil Service. Animal cruelty depicted is reserved to some seals getting shot, and some reindeer getting castrated.

★★ 1/2

Mondo Cane (1961)
Directors: Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara, Franco Prosperi

The film that started the entire genre is the documentary by the trio of notorious filmmakers, that would wreack cinematic havock through much of the 1960's. For mondos were very sensationalistic, and contained a lot of racist and misogynistic messages right from the start. On the other hand, they belonged to the time when the world was still a large and wonderful place where everyone didn't have any idea on how people actually lived and what customs they had around the world. It has a sort of humanistic curiosity towards these, though it comes from a place of ignorance and projected superiority.

The film's central thesis is related to dogs. Much like the poor pupper in the opening scene, we are being dragged around by Jacopetti & co. and thrown to the mercy of a lot of threatening situations. The filmmakers say that the habits toward dogs are a good window whith which to see the differences in our cultures. In America, rich fools pay good money to bury their pets to their own cemetary. Meanwhile, in China, dog meat is a delicacy entire restaurants revolve around.

The messages, such as there are, are heavy-handed and play the viewer's emotions like a cheap fiddle. To document what nuclear waste has done to the ecosystems in Bikini Atoll, the film shows a lengthy scene of sea turtles losing their sense of direction and heading toward dy land after laying eggs, instead of the ocean. It's difficult to watch the dying struggles, but it drives the message across, whether its actually true or not. Plenty of filmmakers such as Werner Herzog and David Attenborough have since then resorted to this kind of "nature's alarm call" footage.

In the name of antropology, the filmmakers also go around the world showing plenty of tits & ass. I mentioned before on how the Polynesians are depicted. Likewise, the camera lingers on female bodies in places such as Papua, Reeperbahn and gives silly sound effects to the bouncing flesh of larger-sized women in American weight loss institute's various machines. The Chinese are depicted particularly viciously racist, and the most tasteless scene is probably smuggling a camera to a house in Singapore where the terminally ill and elderly are prepared to die.

Even though its hard not to find the film in generally poor taste and borderline pornographic in its racist hunt for ethnographic violence, it is not without its cinematic merits. The editing, cinematography and musical score (by the great Riz Ortolani) in collaboration frequently also give out scenes of eerie beauty and serenity. It does create a picture of a large, wonderful world, even though the means of which it does so were highly controversial even in its own heyday.

★★★

Mondo Cane 2 (1963)
Dir. Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi

As the mondo format went on, it gave out the way to ever more staged scenes. The more "fake" these documentaries are, the less a modern viewer has to take account on how vicious the racist motifs behind the camera might be. Thus, I prefer the second Mondo Cane, which is also a sort of answer to the controversial parts of the first one.

It even begins with a similar dog pound, only this time the dogs have been silenced (Jacopetti & co. seem to be very much like the modern populists that resort to shouting they are being silenced whenever they are being criticised). For animal lovers, they give out a disgusting scene of a vetinary operation with all the gore and guts audiences hungered to see.

The sequel is more interested in the festivities and other performances of togetherness around the world. Not all of them are very probable or truely depicted, with the Italian Festival of Hard Heads is particularly bizarre. It does touch upon some truly shocking areas such as African slave trade, which was the subject Jacopetti & Prosperi later took and made some of their most notorious films about.

As said, I enjoy the inventiveness of the obviously staged scenes a lot more. The final scene of the movie features a concert which is done by slapping men of various heights to the face. The dramatic milking of the close-ups whenever the hand hits faces marks another one of case in point that these movies were not done by clueless filmmakers, but highly skilled professionals. With a quite sick sense of humour to boot.

★★★ 1/2

Women of the World (Donna del mundo, 1963)

Dir. Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara, Franco Prosperi

On the same year as the Mondo Cane sequel, the directors also had another film come out that focused on the women of the world. The reason why they were able to go around the world so quickly was that they also reused some footage shot for television stations. This film was supposed to have been made in collaboration with a journalistic series by Oriana Fallaci, but they couldn't come into terms with the filmmakers. It shows how it could have benefited the film a lot to have a female point of view instead of a bunch of peeping toms from a macho culture.

The film takes all it can out of the "madonna and whore" -themed bipolarity, and exoticizes anything non-white. Though it has a theme of breaking traditional gender roles, it tries to give out proof that this dichtonomy is still valid. Thus, female israeli soldiers are shown to be camera-hungry and vain, and a female priest from Sweden to be the only one of her kind.

The most disgusting parts include secretly shooting footage from prostitutes or a mother freed from her child's murder charges going about her day. The most exciting parts come near the end with a lady collecting shells in a war-torn shooting range. One would not go as far as to think these are in any way truthful, but in certain parts, they are somewhat interesting peeoping holes into how at the start of the sexual revolution, certain things seemed.

★★

Sweden: Heaven and Hell (Svezia, inferno e paradiso, 1969)
Dir. Luigi Scattini

Lastly, we'll get to the sensational mondo our western neighbour Sweden got, and we can once again be jealous. Not that the film gives out a vibe that Sweden is better, but since director Scattini's style of string moralizing and borderline mad misanthropia is so hilarious when applied to as harmless a country as Sweden. It's a totally hilarious movie, if one can find the funny side of it.

In the swinging sixties', Sweden was world-renowned for its liberal attitudes toward sexual liberation. The aim of this film is to show how all this progress is bad and good-hearted catholics can shun it all together. Of course, the moral heart isn't so pure as to avoid ogling young women's bodies in a sauna scene, for instance. The film tries hard to find stuff worth moralizing, but basically people just go about their day like usual, and the narrator has got to spit out the venom. A lot of footage and explanation thereof is bizarrely out of sync, and for someone from the Northern Europe who can easily see how much the film is putting you on.

Viewing today, the contempt shot at relatively innocents things such as a night club with women dancing with each other or sex education for children is so dated it seems like a wonder this used to be a problem for people at all. The film works as a viewpoint on how far the general attitudes have gotten in 50 years. Even the worst Conservatives nowadays don't seem to be as crazy as Scattini. In wagging its finger at footage of consuming pornography, the film is at its most hypocritical double standards, since itself is a piece of softcore for raincoatted men in the first place.

The film is also famous of its soundtrack. Piero Umiliani's song "Mah Nà Mah Nà" became a children's show favorite after it was used in a classic skit in The Muppet Show. The music has a sort of playful side which is more or less the exact opposite on what the actual movies is trying to say. It's been a long time that European countries could be exoticized by other European countries. It seems preposterous that even back in the day, people could be fooled by such obviously staged scenes such as blind orphans diving for stolen property in the bay.

★ or ★★★★★

The Road Movie (Doroga, 2016)
Director (editor): Dmitrii Kalashnikov

Are there any modern mondos? One could say that viral video footage from certain parts of the world can create a similar exoticized view. Case in point is Russia. Some of the footage shot through the cameras attached to the windshield of every car in the country are so wild, they were put together for a documentary film.

The film doesn't give context, or moralize. It has a lot of real traffic accidents, sometimes with such destruction it looks like it's from a video game. One can't know if someone actually got hurt. Likewise, it shows Russian prostitution, criminal gangs and mentally issued citizens in less than flattering light. If you think about the morality of all this, it soon becomes clear that this is not really any better than the mondo movies.

But what it is is constantly surprising, weird and funny as all hell. I don't know if it deepens prejudices toward Russia, or gives them a little more understanding. It is a huge country with endless roads, some horrible weather conditions and a certain mindet attached to these. That's why it gives out footage like this. And some truly terrible, terrible drivers.

★★★★

Cruising Revisited

The Crime movie genre has some bona-fide classics that are easy to be recognized by anyone. These include your Film Noirs, Heats and Godfathers. But some of the more interesting films of the genre are treasured by some, and leave others completely cold. None more so, than French Connection director William Friedkin's 1980 joint Cruising. I'm even not that sure myself what to make of the film that seems more content in describing the New York gay leather clubs and subculture than it is of having a familiar plot or character arc. The film is certainly one of the most experimental in Friedkin's career, and thus warrants a closer look, however one wants to do it.

So... Revisited or Chew? Even this soon after creating the categories I'm at a bit of a loss on how to treat this movie. Chewisited! There may be spoilers.


The Face Value

Gerald Walker's novel Cruising was a hot property at Hollywood in the late 70's. The novel was based on a true story of a serial killer lurking homosexuals in the underground gay leather-culture circles. Oliver Stone was very eager to direct the book. The French Connection producer Philip D'Antoni was adamant that Friedkin should direct it. After the financial flop of Friedkin's film Sorcerer he agreed to look into it, and when there were a number of brutal unsolved murders in New York, he decided to do it. In a bit of a rare move for the director, he also took over the scripting duties. Thus he made sure Walker's story would not be twisted into a cutesy Hollywood story of good vs. evil and a happy ending to tie the bow.

For Friedkin's demand of reality, many of the film's gay club scenes were shot in actual leather bars, with the patrons being brought out as extras. As a weird coincidence, an actor in a minor role of The Exorcist was also imprisoned for actually murdering the gay film critic Addison Verrill. Naturally, Friedkin went to him for research of the mind of a gay serial killer. Later on, the actor also confessed to the murders Walker was describing in his novel, although the truth in these confessions is questionable. Never let it be said, however, that William Friedkin doesn't work for the authenticity of the milieu of his films.

The Plot

We follow everynight ordeals at gay bars for a while. After a steamy night out, man takes a new friend to his apartment. During sex, the stranger brutally kills him. Elsewhere, in a gay porn theatre, the stranger also stabs a random movie-goer. Body parts show up in the Hudson river and the police are clueless on the identity of the killer. Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) figures the best way to get information to capture the killer is to send a man undercover. The young, eager officer Steve Burns (Al Pacino) accepts to complete this mission, and settles to live in Greenwich Village under a new identity. At nights he goes to leather bars to observe the situation and ask about customers.

At first Burns thinks the job will be easy like a walk in the park. While he can't share work details with his girlfriend Nancy (Karen Allen), he remains close. But as he starts to go deeper and deeper undercover, the job also starts to strain the relationship. Burns becomes obsessed, but even his superiors are uncertain whether its for the capture of the serial killer, or if Burns has just been sucked in the gay subculture.

The Contents

As mentioned the film mostly deals with describing the New York gay leather clubs and subculture in the sleazy, pre-Giuliani times. Characters and events are less important and the film hasn't got a satisfying conclusion that would explain the mystery. The movie goes deliberately in circles, and the viewer is either caught up with it or not.

Pacino's Burns is an odd character, since we get so little information about him, and even those nuggets often seem to be contradictory. He doesn't seem to have problems being used as a bait. Many of the serial killer's victims look very similar to him, they are dark-haired young men with large eyes. Burns doesn't seem to mind this or have even the slightest hint of fear or care for himself. The film does hint he's willing to go deeper undercover than would ever be required for his job. And make no mistake, this is no euphemism. I mean gay sex here. Many times he's only shown to be interrupted by a chance.

For the most part of the film Burns seems to be playing a role or hiding under a facade. When he first enters the film, he's laughing (perhaps a bit nervously) at Captain Edelson's enquiries of his sexuality and seems to be most at ease here. After a few nights at gay night clubs Burns channels his frustrations to his sexual performance with Nancy. Later on, their sexual relationship seems to go dry. The end hints that he doesn't see her as sexually desirable any more, yet they both choose to play along with the parts they're supposed to.

That final scene arises more questions than it answers. Are those pieces of clothing Nancy is inspecting the same ones the killer used? Was Burns the serail killer all along? Or did he kill his friend and neighbor Ted's (Don Scardiano) violent lover Gregory (James Remar)? Perhaps Ted too?

I wouldn't try to fit the film's motif into such a tight little package. Those items Nancy examines are to be seen more symbolic. Throughout the film, we have seen that Burns has a bit of a violent streak. In the beginning he expresses it through sex. In the middle, he's disgusted on how violently his fellow officers treat captured rent boys. But towards the end, he shoots one suspect dead when he's attacking him with a knife. He has also made a lot of other moral compromises throughout the film, such as breaking into the suspect's house. This shooting is the final deed that pushes him entirely into the dark side. In the beginning he was comparable to the serial killer's victims. Naive, looking for a thrill, trying to keep his urges at bay until he needs them. But giving in to the violence, S&M sex and a grey moral code, he has made himself more like the killer himself. Nancy has a couple of nasty surprises in store for her.

The other side

The film takes itself and its subject quite seriously. The actual murder scenes are brutal, slow, painful shots of violence, not for the weak of stomach. The dangerousness of sex is emphasized. Friedkin does walk a fine line between damning the S&M culture entirely, although to me he doesn't cross it. Plenty of homosexual critics have analyzed otherwise so I'm not sure. Maybe the film IS offensive. The film has two clear comedic parts that have emphasis on how the film views the underground world.

The first is when Burns makes an attempt to learn the code used by rent boys in gay bars. He asks the salesman (a cameo by Powers Boothe) about them, and learns just the multitude of sex acts people are looking to do in those kinds of bars. If he had paid any attention to the salesman's speech, he would've gotten that yellow scarf in a back pocket means you're into water sports. But he goes to a bar wearing such a napkin, and understandably gets into a fight with a golden shower enthusiast.

This is Pacino as Burns still attempting to make the underground scene work for him, more than other ways. He figures any scarf will get him close enough to speak with bar prowlers and doesn't realize that the hanky itself is more or less a promise in these parts. There's no courting period. Or maybe he would secretly like to pee on gay people, or to just watch such an act happening and just can't manage to come to terms with this sudden urge. I wouldn't rule out that possibility, either.

The method actor Pacino always plays the best loose cops, since in interrogation scenes he often relies in surprising and confusing his opponent. Rather oddly, here his tactic seems to have a bulky black police come by dressed only in a thong and a cowboy hat to slap both him and the suspects around. This part takes the suspect, as well as the viewer of the movie, completely off-guard. Friedkin does have Burns's trait of not being afraid at any point of anything, not even making himself completely ridiculous. Yet at the same time, although it shouldn't this over-the-top comedy scene totally works.
"WHO THE HELL IS THAT GUY!?"

The Legacy

During the time of its release, gay rights activists publicly panned the film and protested its release. This forced the studio to put a disclaimer in front of the film that announces that the leather bars are only a small portion of the gay culture and not all homosexuals are into S&M and rent boys. Still, the film's reputation to this day is of a homophobic relic, even if it's not entirely the case.

Critics panned the film widely and it was even nominated in the first annual Razzie awards for worst pictures. Friedkin was also nominated as the Worst Director, but so were Brian De Palma for Dressed to Kill and even Stanley Kubrick for The Shining. More than 30 years of hindsight really reveal what a sham those awards also are, even if luckily none of the prestigious nominees won.

Thanks in part for the controversy leg-up, the film was a modest success at the box office. However, it was by no means as big a hit as the studio expected from director of The Exorcist and The French Connection. One should also remember Friedkin came from the expensive flop of Sorcerer and was quickly fading into obscurity. For most of the 80's and 90's he would struggle for work. But when he did manage to fim a movie, it was always at least interesting. After all, also his biggest masterpiece, To Live And Die In L.A. was yet to come.

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.