Wolfsburg [2003]

 Christian Petzold’s spare and chilling psychological thriller Wolfsberg carried the weight of Germany’s political history, even if that wasn’t explicitly laid out; the titular city’s past is intertwined with the Nazi era as, founded by Hitler in 1938 as the seat for Volkswagen’s massive automotive factory, it became a military-industrial complex during WW2 during which it produced armaments and freely utilized slave labour. Car as a symbol of modernity, class hierarchy and commodity capitalism, unsurprisingly, played a pivotal role, and the film’s themes of grief, guilt and moral crisis hinged around it. Additionally, like The State I Am In which preceded it and Yella couple of films later, it also culminated with a shattering car crash. The film began with an unsettling hit-and-run incident as Philipp (Benno Fürmann), an auto salesman having an argument with his fiancée over the phone while driving his luxury car, accidentally hits a kid on a bicycle. He leads an entitled life, but at the cost of tolerating his domineering boss – the owner of the auto dealership where he works – and his self-obsessed girlfriend who’s his boss’ pampered sister. The kid’s mother Laura (Nina Hoss), meanwhile, is a single mom and exploited supermarket worker. While Philipp is silently racked with contrition upon being unable to confess – more so when the kid dies – Laura is crushed to the point of contemplating suicide as well as seeking vengeance. Guilt, grief, secrecy and wrath make for a messy cocktail; consequently, when these two lost souls get drawn into a tender romantic relationship, it’s bound to lead to damaging repercussions. Hoss and Fürmann were both magnetic in Petzold’s icy portrayal of dread, three-way class conflict and societal alienation.

Director: Christian Petzold

Genre: Crime Thriller/Romantic Drama

Language: German

Country: Germany

Ghosts (Gespenster) [2005]

 Christian Petzold delivered haunting inquiries into the questions of individual and collective identity in reunified Germany, and underlying unresolved political and social fault-lines, in his remarkable ‘Ghosts Trilogy’. The trilogy delved into that through estranged outsiders who were left in the margins during this assimilation exercise. Ghosts, the trilogy’s moving central chapter – and much more loosely-strung vis-à-vis the two films it’s bookended by, viz. The State I Am In and Yella – had a particularly spectral and disenfranchised protagonist in Nina (Julia Hummer), an orphaned, alienated and pathologically shy teenaged girl whose job as a trash collector and stay at a public home are contingent on her ability to fit in. The isolated life of this intensely lost and lonely girl is briefly upended by two dramatic encounters. On one hand she befriends Toni (Sabine Timoteo) – a slightly older brash, impetuous and rebellious girl who snatches what she needs and lives outside the law – upon accidentally witnessing a violent attack on her by a couple of guys; they form a tender relationship as Toni temporarily takes Nina under her wings, while Nina becomes profoundly entranced by Toni. Meanwhile, Françoise (Marianne Basler), a beautiful, upper-class and grief-stricken middle-aged woman – who’s just been released from a mental hospital, as she’s been struggling with the trauma of losing her daughter who’d been stolen as a toddler many years back – starts aimlessly wandering across Berlin while her husband is tied up in business matters, and is convinced that Nina is her long-lost daughter upon bumping into her. Hummer and Timoteo were superb in revealing their emotional vulnerabilities and scars as social misfits in this bleak and melancholic tale co-written by the great Harun Farocki.

Director: Christian Petzold

Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama

Language: German

Country: Germany

The State I Am In [2000]

 Christian Petzold, having earlier made three TV features, made a striking theatrical debut with The State I Am In. With this first chapter in his “Ghosts Trilogy” – it was followed by Ghosts and Yella, two similarly glacial and elliptical inquiries into Germany’s complex and asymmetric reunification process – he boldly combined political cinema, formal exactitude and genre exercise wherein each informed the others. It began on a languid note as teenager Jeanne (Julia Hummer) selects Tim Hardin’s plaintive song “How Can We Hang On to a Dream” on the jukebox at a seaside café and sits down for a smoke; young surfer Heinrich (Bilge Bingül) approaches her for a cigarette, joins for a chat, and the two lonely souls strike a mutual chord. What seems like a coming-of-age love story gets a genre spin when we meet her edgy and secretive parents – Hans (Richy Müller) and Clara (Barbara Auer) – who embody archetypal lovers-on-the-lam. However, as we gather – even though the script was shrouded in ambiguity – the couple are former Red Army Faction members, the disbanded left-wing group which’d dreamt of violently reshaping Germany during the 1960s and 70s; they’ve been hiding under false identities for years now, hoping to escape to Brazil. When their covers are blown at a small Portuguese town, they decide to return to Germany with hopes of cajoling and coercing help from old comrades. Jeanne, however, craves for a different escape – hanging out with Heinrich and listening to pop music – increasingly oblivious of the fatal risks that pose for her parents. Co-written with influential political film essayist Harun Farocki, it delivered a wry jab at fading political memory through Resnais’ powerful Holocaust documentary Night and Fog.

Director: Christian Petzold

Genre: Drama/Political Thriller/Road Movie

Language: German

Country: Germany

Todo Modo [1976]

 Elio Petri’s agitational and subversive cinema – and in turn Italian political cinema from its “years of lead” period, of which he was a leading force – reached a fever pitch with Todo Modo. This was a blistering and ferocious assault on the then political establishment – especially the Christian Democratic Party –, the Vatican’s ability to ensure their religious stranglehold through crafty manoeuvrings, and wealthy oligopolistic industrialists. In Petri’s hands – who could blend bravura experimental style with fearless left-wing lens – it was also a chilling examination of power, opportunism, hypocrisy, corruption and fascist tendencies, and the parasitic and chameleonic natures of the aforementioned troika. Adapted from Leonardo Sciascia’s novel of the same name, the feral satire is nearly completely set inside a stunningly conceived and designed Brutalist bunker – the cold, modernist and claustrophobic set design by Dante Ferretti gave the film an expressionistic and even sci-fi look, while enhancing its macabre tone – where the country’s most influential men have assembled for a few days, while a mysterious epidemic rages outside. They’re ostensibly there for a monastic retreat and spiritual cleansing; however, soon enough it’s clear that cunning machinations to further entrench their positions are what’s uppermost in their minds. Two men take centre-stage in this arrestingly orchestrated chaos – “il Presidente” (Gian Maria Volonté), a clear stand-in for Aldo Moro, whose religious fervour and sexual repressions are matched by his hunger for further consolidating his political position; and a creepy, hell-raising priest (Marcello Mastroianni) with skeletons in his closet – and this hilariously grotesque and anarchic setup attained surreal proportions as the men start facing violent deaths. Ennio Morricone composed the film’s score while the exceptional cast featured Michel Piccoli in a cameo.

Director: Elio Petri

Genre: Black Comedy/Political Satire/Ensemble Film

Language: Italy

Country: Italy

Property Is No Longer a Theft [1973]

 The title for Elio Petri’s blistering comedy Property Is No Longer A Theft can be taken both at face value and with a heavy dose of irony; that, and the droll ingenuity of its phrasing, readily recall the two preceding films in his ‘Trilogy of Neurosis’, viz. the blazing masterpiece Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion and the abrasive agitprop The Working Class Goes to Heaven. Though considerably underrated, it remains an unequivocally brilliant work thanks to the interplay of aesthetic ferocity and intellectual dare that the iconoclastic filmmaker brought in while blending radical politics and ferocious polemics with deliciously gonzo, sleazy, provocative B-movie aesthetics and even Brechtian splashes. The narrative is built around a farcical war of attrition between Total (Flavio Bucci), a young bank cashier who’s literally allergic to money and calls himself “Mandrakian Marxist”, and a wealthy, corrupt and glibly offensive businessman called “The Butcher” (Ugo Tognazzi). Upon witnessing the bank manager’s sycophancy towards the latter, Total quits his job, begins stalking Butcher – the very embodiment of the evils of capitalism for him – and starts stealing his belongings – inane things at first, before progressing to expensive objects and even his mistress (Daria Nicolodi). The Butcher, meanwhile, avoids reporting Total to the maniacal investigating cop (Orazio Orlando), as he’s massively over-reported his loss to the insurance. This anarchic film’s script was as unhinged as its characters, which also comprised of a vaudeville master thief (Mario Scaccia) and Total’s bemused father (Salvo Randone), and is bookended by three riotous sequences – a chaotic bank robbery where the clerks unleash vicious dogs upon the robbers; a salesman’s hilarious demo of anti-theft devices; and an amusing paean to thieves and robbers.

Director: Elio Petri

Genre: Crime Comedy/Black Comedy/Social Satire/Political Satire

Language: Italian

Country: Italy

We Still Kill the Old Way [1967]

 Elio Petri’s filmography can be roughly divided into two categories – relatively restrained films (albeit, not completely bereft of stylistic flourishes) during the first half of his career, and formally exuberant and politically outspoken works subsequently – with We Still Kill the Old Way squarely belonging to the former camp. This muted and moody political conspiracy thriller reminded me of the tone, build-up and oblique storytelling of Francesco Rosi’s superb film Illustrious Corpses. No surprises, perhaps, that both were adapted from Leonardo Sciascia’s novels, this one being from To Each His Own. It began with an audacious long-take – with a “flying” camera providing panoramic views of the Sicilian town in which it’s set – before dramatically diving into the narrative as an oddball Tati-esque postman, while on the way to delivering a letter, discusses about it with the town’s laidback but curious residents. The said letter is an anonymous threat to a womanizing pharmacist, which soon materializes into his murder by unknown assailants during a hunting trip with his friend Antonio. While this is treated as an open-and-shut case of honour killing, a mild-mannered but dogged leftist Professor (Gian Maria Volonté in a fine atypical casting) starts suspecting that Antonio was the real target instead, rather than an unlucky collateral. Sparked by his identification of the newspaper – read by political and religious conservatives – that’s used for composing the threat mails, he starts obsessively digging into the death that’s bound to be detrimental to his physical wellbeing. Along the way he finds himself falling for his dead friend’s widowed wife (a delectably inscrutable Irena Papas), as the plot increasingly thickens. Vivid cinematography and Luis Bacalov’s idiosyncratic score added to the film’s captivating atmosphere.

Director: Elio Petri

Genre: Crime Thriller/Political Thriller

Language: Italian

Country: Italy

The Assassin (L'Assassino) [1961]

 L'Assassino, Elio Petri’s solid if underrated debut, combined three aspects of his filmmaking that’d manifest more markedly in his later, better-known films. It introduced his love for genre cinema, B-movies and gonzo aesthetics; it underscored his disdain for unchecked consumerism and moral rot in contemporary Italian society (a theme in multiple landmark Italian films of the 1960s); and it provided teasing glimpses into how his left-wing politics was inseparable from his craft (he formerly wrote Marxist film criticisms for L'Unità). Then matinee idol Marcello Mastroianni, who Petri scored for the lead role (they’d collaborate thrice more), retained a soft corner for this film, even though he starred in some of the most seminal Italian films of that period. He was excellent as Alfredo, an antiques dealer of dubious standing, a lothario, a bon vivant and a scoundrel, who’s arrested from his posh apartment in Rome on suspicions of murdering his older ex-mistress Adalgisa (Micheline Presle), a wealthy socialite who was also his business sponsor and partner until recently. He owed her money, was one of the last persons to see her alive and had just switched to a younger girlfriend who’s a moneyed heiress, and therefore the suspicion. Additionally, the Commissario (Salvo Randone) – who’s heading the case and hopes to wear him down with interminable waiting and interrogations – hates his “type”. Scripted by the great Tonino Guerra, the film alternated the “present” – which occurs over 1 ½ days – with frequent flashbacks into Alfredo’s chequered past, thus making this as much an investigation into the protagonist as one into the case at hand. The sparkling B/W cinematography and smooth jazz score added to the fatalist atmosphere of this “anti-realist thriller”.

Director: Elio Petri

Genre: Crime Thriller/Mystery

Language: Italian

Country: Italy

The War Is Over (La Guerre est Finie) [1966]

 The War Is Over – the (translated) phrase with which Franco had declared the end of the Spanish Civil War – was as much its ‘Left Bank’ auteur Alain Resnais’ as it was screenwriter Jorge Semprún’s and actor Yves Montand’s. This landmark film, which comprised of a remarkable interplay of political discourse and actions with existential and moral enquiries, alternated between arresting 1960s zeitgeist and introspective memories. Resnais portrayed these contrapuntal elements by juxtaposing a classically structured narrative thrillingly laced with the here-and-now of the present, reflective voiceovers and dazzling montage sequences – including a nod to Godard’s magnificent A Married Woman – that fragmented the past while suffusing it with impressions, premonitions and déjà vu. Semprún, who wrote the nuanced screenplay, composed the film’s protagonist Diego Mora – an ageing Spanish Communist, anti-Franco resistance, career revolutionary and exile – based on himself. Montand, in one of his most celebrated performances, imbued the character – a person of many identities, no permanent home, and bouncing between his ideals and dilemmas – with such profound weariness that it exuded from the screen. Set over the course of a few days in Paris – he’s just about escaped getting caught while leaving Spain, but is determined to go back prior to a massive general strike being planned – he finds himself vacillating between his girlfriend Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), who he always returns to, and Nadine (Geneviève Bujold), a young leftist woman who’s part of an extremist group with political views radically different from his own; meanwhile, he also senses growing differences with his own party comrades. Shot in sensuous B/W by Sacha Vierny, this moody, poetic, understated and formally exhilarating work was therefore as politically engaging as it was profoundly personal.

Director: Alain Resnais

Genre: Drama/Political Drama

Language: French

Country: France

The Eyes, the Mouth [1982]

 Expressions of grief and guilt evoked a feverish pitch and guttural howl in Marco Bellocchio’s emotionally turbulent and nakedly personal film The Eyes, the Mouth. His twin brother Camillo had committed suicide in 1969, which left a lasting impact on him. Made 13 years after that tragedy, it served as a means to reconcile with that traumatic memory. Giovanni (Lou Castel, serving as Bellocchio’s stand-in) is a washed-out actor – his unhinged turn in the director’s ferocious debut feature Fists in the Pocket is referenced as a past glory – who’s reluctantly returned to his hometown upon the suicide of his twin brother Pippo. Once actively involved in radical politics, he’s now disillusioned, self-hating and deeply troubled, forced to reconnect with his patronizing uncle (Michel Piccoli) and his devout mother (Emmanuella Riva) who’s been made to believe that Pippo died accidentally. Meanwhile he starts developing complicated feelings for Vanda (Ángela Molina) – the promiscuous and seemingly carefree daughter of an exasperated South American immigrant (Antonio Piovanelli) – as she refuses to display any grief for Pippo’s death, despite having been his fiancée. He gets drawn into a sordid and scabrous affair with her, and spinning a web of deceit for his tormented mother, as he must confront the anger and pain that he feels for his dead brother who, ironically, was considered the saner and the more grounded of the two. Castel and Molina were both astonishing and fearless in the way they physically and emotionally bared themselves in this tumultuous and melancholic work that was powerfully co-written by Catherine Breillat, sumptuously photographed in washed-out colours, and hauntingly scored. Bellocchio returned to his memories of Camillo 40 years later in Marx Can Wait.

Director: Marco Bellocchio

Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama

Language: Italian

Country: Italy