Saturday 27 June 2015

Peppermint Frappé [1967]


Peppermint Frappe, Saura’s first of 9 films with his muse Geraldine Chaplin and the brilliant first chapter in his Bourgeois Trilogy (which also comprised of Stress is Three and Honeycomb), was highly reminiscent of the Bunuel and Hitchcock masterpieces El and Vertigo, respectively. The film, through delightful concoction of dark, brooding character study, and an alternately playful and pungent tone, provided a striking critique on Franco-era bourgeois morality and shallowness, and a lacerating examination on obsession and repression. The seemingly discordant opening sequence, showing a pair of male hands meticulously cutting images of models from fashion magazines purportedly for his personal scrap-book, exquisitely set the thematic context for what followed. The hands, as it turned out, belong to Julián (José Luis López Vázquez), a middle-aged physician who runs a clinic with the aid of his shy, introverted assistant Ana (Chaplin). When a long-time friend (Alfredo Mayo) introduces his much younger, newly-wed wife Elena (also played by Chaplin) to him, he immediately becomes enraptured by the carefree, liberated and outgoing lady as she reawakens a memory and also titillates his suppressed desires; he starts pursuing her with increasing vigour, albeit in futility, with his brazen obsession further fuelled by her casual flirtations and deliberate teasing, and he even starts moulding Ana, through a mix of cajoling and coercion, in Elena’s image. Understandably, these increasingly sordid and desperate attempts lead the tale to a disturbing climax. Loaded with socio-politico-religious imagery and commentaries, this gleefully perverse, subversive and captivating film boasted of an arresting central performance by Vázquez and an equally fascinating dual-turn in diametrically opposite roles (a reverse of what Bunuel did in That Obscure Object of Desire) by Chaplin.








Director: Carlos Saura
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Romantic Drama
Language: Spanish
Country: Spain

Thursday 25 June 2015

Tales from the Crypt [1972]


During its short lived history Amicus Productions became the only serious rival to Hammer Films in the domain of British horror B-films, and Tales from the Crypt, based on stories from the cult EC Comics, remains the most well-known among the seven portmanteau horror films that it produced, thanks in no small measures to the popular 7-season HBO TV series. Connected by a framing story about a group of 5 tourists stuck in an underground catacomb and made to face their futures by a robed man (Ralph Richardson), it comprised of 5 shorts that were deliciously misanthropic in their portrayal of the grotesque side of human nature and in their espousal of the tenet that human society is basically rotten to the core. In the gleefully bloody …And Through the House, a scheming lady (Joan Collins), after murdering her doting husband, finds herself running from a homicidal lunatic on the loose; in Reflections on Death, a businessman (Ian Hendry) coolly abandons his wife, only to be left disfigured by an accident while eloping with his mistress; in the deeply melancholic Poetic Justice, a wealthy snob (Robin Phillips) decides to get rid of his neighbor, an aged garbage man (Peter Cushing), but faces a horrible comeuppance in return; in Wish You Were Here, a rendition of the renowned W.W. Jacobs short story The Monkey’s Paw, a business man (Richard Greene) close to bankruptcy faces a horrendous future thanks to an ancient statuette; and in Blind Alleys, the residents of a home for the blinds exact a clinical revenge on their callous director (Nigel Patrick). Despite the weak framing device and a forgettable climax, the demented episodes made this a rather enjoyable ride.








Director: Freddie Francis
Genre: Horror/Thriller/Omnibus Film
Language: English
Country: UK

Sunday 21 June 2015

The Banishment [2007]


Influences of Tarkovsky (stylistically) and Bergman (thematically) are immediately discernible in Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev’s brooding psychological drama The Banishment. While in his next film Leviathan he focused on a man’s losing battle against the societal corruption surrounding him, here he dealt with the protagonist’s struggle within, with familial fissures and ruptures, along with an alienating landscape, forming the key linkage. The gripping sequence that the film begins with – a seemingly wounded man driving through a desolate urban-industrial landscape shot in blue-gray shades – set the tone for what was to follow. The man, Mark (Aleksandr Baluyev), has connections with the underworld and is having a gunshot wound, as is revealed, is racing to the house of his brother Alex (Konstantin Lavronenko), the film’s protagonist, in order to have the slug removed. Soon after, Alex relocates with his family, comprising of his wife Vera (Maria Bonnevie) and two young kids, to a cottage he grew up in the countryside, possibly in order to escape from his past and rebuild his life. However, when his wife informs him that she’s pregnant and that he’s not the father, it inevitably leads them all towards disarray and doom. The delicate heteronormative threads that hold a family together, along with the protagonist’s tussles with his masculinity and his barely suppressed existential crisis, thus, formed the dominant threads around which this ominous and leisurely paced movie was woven. The dazzling photography magnificently captured the empty spaces – both physical and emotional, and along with the minimalist score and sparse narrative, brilliantly captured the characters’ inner voids, while the performances, particularly Lavronenko’s restrained turn as the troubled protagonist, added fuel to its simmering tragedy.








Director: Andrey Zvygintsev
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Marriage Drama
Language: Russian
Country: Russia

Thursday 11 June 2015

The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty [1972]


Wenders’ second film and an adaptation by notorious Austrian writer Peter Handke from his own novel of the same name, the mischievously titled The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty provided an early insight into the director’s penchant for exploring urban disillusionment, the ironies of existence and America’s post-WWII cultural influence on Germany. Thematically, the story is bound to hark memories of Camus’ The Outsider in the way it raised pointers on existential crisis and society’s preference for assigning meaning to seemingly random human actions. The film began and ended with shots of a football match, albeit in contrasting fashion. It started off with a golie (Arthur Blauss) displaying ludicrously high disenchantment while the match is in progress; when he inadvertently allows a goal into the net, he argues with the referee and gets sent off. While aimless wandering through the streets of Vienna, he picks up the pretty cashier at a local movie theatre, and then, at a run-down hotel, he inexplicably murders her. Possibly in order to escape the legal consequences of his crime, he retreats to a village where he’s reacquainted with his former fiancée, even though, overtly, he seems rather unconcerned about being caught. The film ended on a memorably ironic note with the loner man, while watching a local football game, explaining to his fellow spectator the psychological tussle that takes place during a penalty kick between the goalkeeper and the one taking the shot – this seemingly non sequitur conversation wonderfully reinforced the film’s central thematic concern. The languorous pacing, dreary tone, distancing technique and a rather lack of plot progression, too, were in congruence with what the film, essentially, was all about.








Director: Wim Wenders
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: German
Country: Germany

Monday 1 June 2015

Autumn Tale [1998]


Rohmer concluded his allegorically titled quartet Tales of the Four Seasons, which was the last of three film series that he made in his fecund career and comprised of A Tale of Springtime, A Tale of Winter and A Summer’s Tale, with Autumn Tale, a delectable and quintessentially Rohmeresque exploration of matters concerning the heart. With its understated wit and humour, elegant structuring, serene atmosphere, unhurried pacing, cheeky plot contrivances and meandering dialogues, the film aptly referenced its title, viz. attempts at love by people at the autumn of their lives with regards to forging relationships. Magali (Béatrice Romand), a quirky, well-read, introverted and widowed 40-something winemaker, is suffering from loneliness on account of lack of companionship. Hence, her alluring long-time friend Isabelle (Marie Rivière) takes the help of newspaper ad and meets a suitable prospect in the form of an affable divorced businessman (Alain Libolt); meanwhile, her son’s ravishing fiancée (Alexia Portal), intends to have her hitched with her former teacher and ex-boyfriend (Didier Sandre). These planned match-making culminates during the wedding reception of Isabelle’s daughter, leading to both gently comedic and subtly evocative moments. Rohmer, as was his wont, made use of complex romantic entanglements, albeit in a manner that was playful, flirtatious and even irreverent, in chronicling this nicely realized tale where a diverse set of people try with varying degrees of success in cementing bonds with their anticipated soul-mates. The mellow tone, vibrant location shooting in the picturesque Rhone Valley, and fine performances, made this a fine summation of the career of the master of comedy of manners and romantic complications, and possibly the most classical of the venerated Nouvelle Vague troupe.








Director: Eric Rohmer
Genre: Comedy/Romantic Comedy/Ensemble Film
Language: French
Country: France