(An old post reposted, just because)
Saw this for the umpteenth time and for the umpteenth time was blown away. Poor Alicia (Bergman), with her nymphomanic appetites--which, it's suggested, stem from a deep inner conflict with her father; poor Devlin (Grant), who shies away from women because of painful experiences in the past with women like Alicia; poor Alex (Rains), the, strange to say, most innocent of the three (strange because he's the villain), insecure because she's so beautiful and he's so old. Three unhappy people talking at cross purposes with each other, lying to each other, yearning that the other open up to him or her. It's about as painfully funny a portrait of an unhappy love triangle as any I can think of, and that there's an espionage plot seamlessly grafted on to the affair giving it a breathless urgency makes the film all the more remarkable.
Everyone points to the famous scene early in the picture where Hitchcock circumvents the Production Code about the permissible length of kisses (about three seconds) by having Alicia and Devlin pleasure each other with a series of shorter kisses, all the while locked in a casual yet carnal embrace, giving what is unmistakeably meant to be foreplay (it could as easily be postcoital but Hitchcock possibly to placate the censors pointedly shows them arriving at the apartment beforehand)--a brief buss, a nuzzle, an earlobe caressed, a nibble, the languorous sound of the waves cascading leisurely down the beach. Lovely scene, but really a prelude to the hot sizzle Hitchcock delivers later at Alex's house party, where in the official story Devlin has to think up a quick excuse for him and Alicia to be near the fateful basement (storehouse of the film's official MacGuffin: powdered uranium in wine bottles) and grabs Alicia, giving her a hard kiss. The allure of forbidden fruit (she's married to Alex), the added spice of exhibitionism (she's revealing her infidelity to her husband) flavors the thousand-watt charge of her frustrated feelings for Devlin unexpectedly given chance to vent: she gets into it (the way only Bergman with her astonishing intimacy with the camera can), she abandons herself to the moment, her whispers to Devlin are hoarse with lust and hopeless love.
And while Devlin and Alicia's romance/hatred for each other dominates the audience's attention, you can't help but point out another just-as-crucial couple onscreen, tearing each others hearts out: Alex and his mother Madame Sebastian (Leopoldine), who Alex loves and hates in equal measure and who loves and suffocates him in turn, heartbroken when her son chooses Alicia over her, to the point that she takes to bed (presumably to die). Then the magnificent moment when Alex comes to her bedroom, and admits failure (of his marriage, of his manhood); and Madame Anna--rising from her bed, putting a penis (sorry, cigarette) in her mouth--nonchalantly lighting it (symbolizing, in effect, the rekindling of her virility).
Then the ending, the slow glide down the stairways, the dread and terror one feels for Alicia that so neatly turns about with the simple slamming of a car door and settles unshakeably on Alex's shoulders. Alicia's glowing expression as she looks at the man she truly loves, while the man who truly loves her (and he does; he only turns malignant when he learns of her betrayal, of the danger she has put him in--whereas Devlin's regard for Alicia is never similarly tested) is left behind to face his destiny. Hitchcock has passed judgment and we're stunned, unsure at the justice of the verdict--but that could be part of Hitchcock's point: that in the genre of romantic thrillers (and life itself if you want to go in that direction) conclusions are rarely fair, happy endings not always deserving, beauty is its own (if unwarranted, even unwanted) reward. C'est la mort.
8.29.04
What goes up
(WARNING: film's plot, narrative twists and ending discussed in close and explicit detail)
Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity comes with its own planet-sized hype: about the 17-minute opening shot, about the vertiginous sense of depth (enhanced by the 3D process), about the unprecedented scientific veracity.
The basic premise turns on a frightening demonstration of the Kessler Syndrome: the Russians have blown up a satellite and the resulting debris have pingponged their way across space towards the orbiting space shuttle in a rain of high-velocity scrap (it's a serious real-life problem and collisions between satellites have been recorded). Doctor Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) are the only survivors and must make their way back to Earth using crippled equipment under adverse circumstances.
More interesting than the premise--or the actors, really--is Cuaron's attempt at telling the story in as dramatic and realistic a manner as possible. Much of the action happens in real time, in lengthy tracking shots; danger when it approaches is spotted quickly--what gives danger in space its unique quality is that you often can't do much about it even if you do see it, or know it's coming (the satellite debris that wreaks havoc on the shuttle will take ninety minutes to circle the globe and menace the shuttle again). Collisions are spectacular but--unsettlingly--occur in silence (well, not total silence; to Cuaron's credit he gives us muffled thuds, presumably conducted through umbilical lines, or through thick work gloves with a tenuous grip on an exterior rung).
For those interested Cuaron doesn't achieve complete realism: Stone would have done better to have the robot arm or Shuttle Remote Maneuvering System (SRMS) lower her (or she could have simply climbed down the arm's length) than to wait for Kowalski to rescue her with the infinitely slower Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU); the International Space Station and Hubble Telescope (and for that matter most communication satellites) are on widely differing orbits, the distances (not to mention velocities involved) impossible to cross using just the MMU; Stone initiates re-entry with a minimum of attitude adjustment (as in none), even if re-entry is actually a trickier and more dangerous process than what you see onscreen. Cuaron himself admits he sacrificed some accuracy for story purposes.
That isn't all Cuaron sacrifices: I'm guessing in its earlier incarnation the film was devoid of music, and Cuaron after a few less-than-positive test screenings was pressured to add a score--more an orchestrated hum, actually--to enhance drama and tension. Big mistake, I'd say; Stanley Kubrick in 2001 (still my idea of most accurate onscreen depiction of space) suggested the depths of space not just through miniatures posed against yards of black felt but through Kubrick's freakishly disciplined mis-en-scene and totalitarian control of details (including a leisurely editing rhythm and overall pace that evokes the sense of vast reaches being crossed): when Frank Poole is lost in space it takes David Bowman long minutes to rescue him--no music to shatter the expectant mood, no cheap hysterics to suggest desperation (at most Bowman's speech grows more clipped and annoyed). Cuaron cheats; there may not be any ambient sound in his version of space but the rather loud and mechanical score guarantees that there also won't be a lot of boredom experienced, especially by the ADHD crowd (a probably significant demographic).
Richard Brody in the New Yorker points out a more serious flaw: the film has no inner life, not much apparent art mediating what the characters see and what the camera sees (actually between what has been digitally composed for the characters to see and what has been digitally composed for the camera to see); what point of view there is is revealed to be blandly heroic and competent. Good point (even if Brody erroneously (least I assume it's erroneous; he's always welcome to explain himself) suggests that Jupiter's massive gravity and not Kubrick's mysterious monolith triggered the mind-bending space trip in 2001), though you wonder at his attempt to connect the film to documentaries.
Yes, the film is a shallow concept; it isn't meant to be anything more than shallow, and is hardly the first film to be so. Films about survival are a somewhat varied genre (recent examples off the top of my head: Danny Boyle's hyperbolic--and not in a good way--127 Hours; Kris Kentis' efficient Open Water; Robert Zemeckis' idiosyncratically humorous Cast Away) but Cuaron's picture has less in common with them (for one thing the protagonist--and why haven't more people thought of this?--is female) or with documentaries than with the kind of gimmicky projects filmmakers concocted to challenge themselves: Hitchcock's Lifeboat (movie set entirely in a lifeboat), Rope (movie apparently composed of a single unbroken shot), and (most effectively) Rear Window (movie set entirely in an apartment); Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot remake of Psycho (I suppose I'm stretching now), which someone once described to me as "the ultimate film-school exercise."
I'd also call this film cousin (at least in spirit) to Howard Hawks' The Thing, where efficiency and smarts are the rule, the monster is merely a problem to be solved, and the only hint of inner life on display is the sexual challenge presented to bland Captain Hendrey by the surprisingly sexy (this is Antarctica after all, where after months in that frozen landscape even a husky would look appealing) Nikki Nicholson. Hendrey and his men hunt the creature with the methodical cool of professionals, the way Clooney's Kowalski proposes solutions to problems like a professional chess player--in space the biggest issue aren't events that inspire fear and anxiety, but clearing one's head of fear and anxiety: "focus," you could hear Kowalski lecturing Stone in so many words, "is all." Stone's one act of imagination is important solely for the coolly logical solution handed to her, a gift from beyond the grave; otherwise Cuaron could have snipped it from the picture.
But then, Hawks might have cut the scene too. When Hendrey opens a door and finds The Thing standing there snarling he doesn't suddenly pause to debate the random nature of the universe, the poignant fragility of life and one's uncertain role in the flow of things; he shuts the door. Intellectual asides, Hendry must have thought, are literally beside the point here.
(Talking about asides--Gravity's finale, involving the fiery re-entry of thousands of shards of metal into Earth's atmosphere, features some of the most unpersuasive digitally-composed flames I've seen recently (not a high bar, there). To see a re-entry done properly try watching Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff--where, like Kubrick, Kaufman relies on old-fashioned on-camera tricks and pyrotechnics to achieve his effects)
Hitchcock (and Hawks to a lesser extent) did have kinky stuff going on: in Lifeboat the smartest, sneakiest, most-likely-to-survive member on board is the innocent-looking Nazi; Rope's killers are motivated by Nietzschean concepts; Rear Window questions the morality of peeping, even if it does involve uncovering a possible murder. It's possible to argue that these elements are Hitchcock's true motives for making the films, that he had something weighty and worthwhile to tell the world; it's also possible to argue these are what he'd call MacGuffins, unimportant devices designed solely to get the plot going (remember that Hitchcock regretted the killing of a crucial character in Sabotage--but only because (or so he says) it repelled the audience with its wanton cruelty). Part of Hitchcock's appeal, I suspect--part of why he's such a fascinating conundrum that resists unraveling--comes from never really clarifying his own attitude on the subject.
No, Cuaron's film doesn't offer much beyond what's there on the (admittedly well-made and exciting) surface (a subplot involving Dr. Stone and her daughter practically reeks of MacGuffinism), but I submit that sometimes surface is enough--that the visual challenge Cuaron set for himself is interesting enough. And if that affirmation doesn't satisfy you, ask Cuaron or (before him) Hitchcock, only don't expect a straight answer.
10.7.13
And the yearlong celebration of Gerardo de Leon's centennial continues with an Oct. 12 at 4 pm screening of this film, at the CCP Dream Theater
Resurrection of a Lost Philippine Classic
Gerry De Leon's Sanda Wong,
made in 1955, has been lost for years; only through the
efforts of film historian-archivist-distributor Teddy Co, has a print
been located in Hongkong, brought home to this country, and with the
help of Mowelfund and SOFIA (Society of Film Archivists), restored.
Sanda Wong
was a coproduction between Philippine and Hongkong filmmaking
outfits (and where are the international co-productions to be found today?)--a strictly commercial venture, out to make a profit. It was
conceived as shallow entertainment, and on its own purely mercenary
terms, it's a success. This isn't a literary production like Manuel
Silos' great Biyaya Ng Lupa (Blessings of the Land, 1959); it isn't even considered to
be among Gerry De Leon's best works.
What Sanda
Wong is, though--what's so surprising about it--is one of the most sheerly enjoyable Filipino films ever made. I
mean--bandits and magic rings! Secret dens, hidden treasures, pythons
that pop out of nowhere. This is in the great tradition of Gunga
Din, The Thief Of Baghdad, The Adventures Of
Robin Hood: gloriously irrelevant
confections, filled with contrivances just a step sideways from real
life, slightly larger than real life, and as entertaining as hell. I
actually enjoyed Sanda Wong more than Thief
Of Baghdad--heresy to the ears of a traditional film critic,
until you realize that the director, Michael Powell, was hamstrung by
a huge, problem-ridden production (input from other directors brought
in to fix the problems probably didn't help). Powell's filmmaking in Thief was square in a big-budgeted, Important Picture
way; De Leon was working with a larger than usual budget here, but by
Hollywood standards it's miniscule--he still had to improvise, and his
filmmaking is lean and hungry and evocatively imaginative.
But you don't
have to be some kind of film expert to appreciate Sanda Wong;
you don't have to exclaim "John Ford!" every time you see a figure framed dramatically against a brilliant white sky, or
"De Sade!" every time Wong (Jose Padilla,
Jr.) raised a whip against his beautiful Amazon beauty (Lilia Dizon,
mother of modern-day leading man Christopher De Leon). Sanda
Wong is gripping drama in its own right, a Jacobean struggle
between rich landowner Liu Chen (Danilo Montes) and the eponymous bandit king--two men who meet as mistrustful antagonists and part as
brothers in blood.
Wong believes
he's done Liu Chen a favor by rescuing him from the clutches of a
greedy general (Gil De Leon, husband of Ms. Dizon and father of Christopher) out to learn the location of Chen's treasure, but the man is more goading than grateful--the general had raped and driven to suicide Chen's freshly wedded wife (Lola Young), and he
wants Wong's help in exacting revenge. Like a troublesome conscience Chen reminds Wong of promises unfulfilled, of deeds
left undone, and suggests (without saying so directly) that Wong can be a better man than he thinks he is, that as is he's a
heavy-breathing braggart and something of a coward (not that Chen is
a paragon of virtue--played by Montes, he's a self-righteous prig
and hothead).
De Leon sketches
the blackly comic relationship between his two protagonists, two men
who couldn't be more different (and couldn't be more conscious of
that fact), yet are inextricably entwined; a pulpy romp like Raiders of the Lost
Ark, by way of comparison, is a mere cartoon, a fairly well-directed one;
you thrill to Jones' exploits, but never feel that Jones
has struggled with anything deeper than an archeological
dig, or suffered the loss of anything more significant than his floppy
hat.
There are
flaws--an outrageous one being the scene where Wong, in an
extravagant fit of cruelty, strips the Amazon down to her leopardskin
(Leopardskin! In China!) and forces her to dance a vaguely African
dance choreography. This is a cheesecake scene, of course, designed to show
off Ms. Dizon's superb figure (Dizon, incidentally, is sexier and
far more sensuous in leopardskin than most Filipina softcore porn stars are in their birthday suits nowadays--one hundred percent natural equipment mind you, no
plastic surgery involved).
But to point out
historical and cultural errors is to miss the point of B movies (so
called because they were (supposedly) a notch below the class-A
pictures); it's denying the wild and anything-goes spirit in which
these movies were made--and in fact, there is a psychological
rationale behind this scene: some shameful act is eating Wong
up inside, and he has to lash out at the nearest available scapegoat, in this case his favorite woman. Sadomasochism in a '50s Filipino-Hong Kong co-production? Absolutely.
I love the python, under the control of a magic ring; the python's scenes are
entirely believable (this plus the crocodile attack in Noli Me
Tangere suggests De Leon had a way with untamed creatures), with every appearance timed to cause the maximum number of
gasps. Compare this to the snake scene in the recent magic-realist Sa Pusod Ng Dagat (In the Navel of the Sea): that sorry
little reptile simply popped out of the woman's vagina--no attempt was
made to prepare you for this unlikely miracle, no attempt
made to do anything more with it. In effect the snake in Pusod was a
huge bore, the snake in Sanda
a small delight.
Sanda Wong
is a mix of skillful storytelling, superbly staged action, and
sumptuous production design--everything effortlessly balanced against
each other, lightly held in the palm of De Leon's
masterful hand. Not a great film, but definitely great entertainment.
First published in Businessworld, 3.6.98.
Article reprinted in Critic After Dark: A Review of Philippine Cinema, available online
To be released by the Criterion Collection on June 12, 2018, Lino Brocka's best-known film.
Some thoughts (pre-restoration) on the film:
Maynila at the edge of
greatness
(Warning: plot discussed in close detail)
Lino Brocka is the best Filipino
filmmaker ever; his masterpiece, Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975) the greatest
Filipino film ever made.
That was the consensus arrived at
sometime after Maynila first came out, and the idea has
persisted ever since. Has, in fact, been given greater legitimacy
with a top spot in the Urian's list of the ten best Filipino films in
the past thrty years, and by inclusion in the book Film: the Critic's Choices--a list of what some critics consider the 150
greatest films ever made.
That's what they say. What about
us--you, me, the mere mortals? What do we think?
Belated news: Lav Diaz's Norte was screened at the New York Film Festival last September 29.
Would have been nice to know about it beforehand--but nice to know it was screened there, nevertheless.
My Film Comment article on in my book the best film of the year
Excerpt:
In
Norte: Hangganan
ng Kasaysayan
(Norte: the End
of History)
Fabian (Sid Lucero) is our brilliant yet alienated Raskolnikov; Magda
(wonderful Mae Paner) the massively avaricious pawnbroker Mrs.
Ivanovna. Archie Alemania plays Joaquin, and we're not sure who is
his equivalent in the novel, only that he's another of Magda's
client, as desperate if not more so than Fabian (he and his wife were
about to open a small diner when an accident cripples him and sucks
up his startup capital).
The
first half feels like a direct transposition to a Philippine setting:
Fabian is a topnotch law student who has dropped out for vague
reasons, which hasn't stopped him from eloquently, endlessly debating
with friends and former law professors. Like Raskolnikov Fabian
believes in a sentiment-hating, results-oriented, vaguely Nietzschean
philosophy; like Raskolnikov Fabian longs to put his philosophy into
practice in the most radical way possible: by killing an utterly
irredeemable (in his mind anyway) human being, the fat and heartless
Magda, and stealing her money. The deed
done the film takes a quietly radical turn: instead of a relentless
manhunt, a false accusation; instead of Raskolnikov's desperate
evasion of the authorities Fabian embarks on an existential and at
one point self-destructive quest.
Why the departure? One can't
be sure--I suspect even Diaz is uncertain--but one can hazard a few
guesses.
9.6.13
The Passion of Nat Turner
Charles Burnett's documentary Nat Turner: a Troublesome Property deals with the slave who rose up and, with fellow slaves, murdered his way across the nearby Virginian countryside (the documentary opens with a re-enactment of the first few killings--of Turner sneaking into a bedroom and hacking child, husband, and wife to death with an ax). It's about knowing so little of the actual historical figure and, as a result, of the wildly different interpretations people have had of his legend, across different ages--to Abolitionists he was a freedom fighter, to Pro-Slavery whites a terrifying bogeyman, to '60s civil rights protesters an early prototype of Malcolm X (by any means necessary).
Once upon a time in China
Watching this one wants to ask: why would Wong Kar Wai want to do a film on Yip Kai-man (also known as Ip Man)--the famed martial-arts master who taught Wing Chun to Bruce Lee--in the first place?
