4 years after the historic Cuban Revolution –
which saw Fidel Castro and his band of bearded rebels deposing the puppet
dictator Batista and installing a Socialist state – Agnès Varda, in keeping
with her Left Bank affiliations and like a string of intellectuals who were fascinated
by this watershed event, made a trip to the island-nation to capture the
post-revolution zeitgeist. She took around 4000 pictures there and used 1500 of
those to make the heady, freewheeling and intoxicating photomontage essay-film Salut les Cubains, as the follow-up to Cléo from 5 to 7. In this enthralling
endeavour, she was deeply influenced by Chris Marker – he’d made a trip to Cuba
a couple of years back and had made the documentary Cuba Si!; and more importantly, his seminal short film La Jetée, which too was composed using still pictures. This court métrage, playfully narrated by
Varda and Michel Piccoli, provided for an engrossing portrayal of the varying
facets of the new socio-political order. Topics such as agrarian reforms and mass-education
program for peasants were interesting but also tad pedagogical. But Varda, being
too intelligent a filmmaker to make a straightforward agitprop, delved heavily on
the country’s distinctive Afro-Spanish cultural influences; its vibrant
artistic and literary scene comprising of Alea (Memories of Underdevelopment, Death of a Bureaucrat), Carpentier (Reasonsof State), etc.; the throbbing rhythm of the rumba; the beloved Cuban
singer-songwriter Benny Moré; pop-cultural references (Havana cigar, Greene’s
comic gem Our Man in Havana, Hemingway,
irreverent Castro graffiti). Irrespective of which side of the political spectrum
one aligns with, this absorbing work is bound to spellbind with its infectious energy,
tongue-in-cheek humour, affection for the common folks, and the ravishingly
beautiful B/W photographs.
Director: Agnes Varda
Genre: Documentary/Political Film/Essay Film/Short Film
Language: French
Country: France
A Bucket of Blood might
not be the most well-known work of schlock trailblazer Roger “The Pope of Pop
Cinema” Corman, but it most remains one of his most brilliant. Using his deprecatory
ability to traverse across genres, he created – in this low budget B-movie shot
in just 5 days – something preposterous, provocative, darkly funny, bitingly
satirical, grisly, quirky, ironic and deliciously reflexive in its
meta-narrative. Walter Paisley (Dick Miller in his 1st of 7
renditions of characters with this name) is a geeky, fidgety, neurotic busboy
in a Village café populated by Beatniks and bohemians. He’s in thrall of the resident
Beat poet (Julian Burton) and his freeform poetry; he’s infatuated with Carla (Barboura
Morris) but is always receiving scorns and jibes from his boss (Antony
Carbone); he lives alone in a run-down apartment; and he dreams of himself as a
great artist despite his singular lack of talent. His fortunes change
dramatically, however, when he accidentally kills a cat, and then, in a bizarre
display of artistic expression, encases the corpse in clay. His “avant-garde” sculpture
attracts immediate attention and admiration, and, with his ambition now stoked,
he’s propelled into a ghastly journey of churning out one work of hideous ultra-realism
after another, in a hilarious reimagining of the slasher film House of Wax. The fabulous turn by
Miller, the striking B/W photography, deadpan humour and the mock-serious bring-down
of highbrow pretentiousness, combined with Corman’s love for the macabre, made
this a fascinating ‘black-comedy horror’ flick – a genre which he flaunted to
have pioneered. Corman and writer Charles B. Griffith would reunite the
following year, and would even reuse the same set, with The Little Shop of Horrors.
Director: Roger Corman
Genre: Horror/Black Comedy/Social Satire
Language: English
Country: US
Agnès Varda’s remarkably assured and exquisitely
shot directorial debut La Pointe Courte
straddled across two iconoclastic film movements, without consciously aiming
for that, though its two loosely connected narratives. The affecting 1st
narrative portrayed, with humour, warmth, exuberance and lyricism, the life of
a tightly-knit, impoverished fishing community in the eponymous French coastal village;
the authorities are trying to clamp down as they believe the shellfish are contaminated
by industrial effluents, which propels the fishermen to find new ways of
dodging the city guys who they clearly disdain, while also enjoying their lives
despite the meagre means at their disposal. The other narrative covered an
unnamed Parisian couple (Philippe Noiret and Silvia Monfort) who’ve come there to
spend a few days together; they roam around the fields, river banks and discarded
boats discussing about their crumbling marriage, and hoping if there’s a way to
save it yet. The only instance where the two narratives coincided was during the
end when the couple is finally seen enjoying while attending an annual revelry that
the village hosts. The infectious former narrative had all the distinctive elements
of Italian Neorealism, including a non-professional cast, on-location shooting
and delightful naturalism. The latter narrative, on the other hand, was
discursive, self-reflexive and stylized – the arresting close-up shots of the
profile of one cutting in half the face of the other, would reappear more
famously in Bergman’s Persona. Though
I found the latter stilted and artsy, it did bear early signs of the Nouvelle
Vague movement, even if it would still be around half a decade before Truffaut would debut
with The 400 Blows, Resnais (who
edited this film) with Hiroshima Mon Amour, and Godard with Breathless.
Director: Agnes Varda
Genre: Drama/Rural Drama/Marital Drama
Language: French
Country: France
Jean-Pierre Melville, the French Poet of Lowlife, created a quintessential hardboiled crime thriller with Le Doulos, filled with such archetypal noir elements as laconic
men, duplicitous women, honour among thieves, double crosses, unfortunate
coincidences and comeuppance. That Melville would go increasingly existential
with his subsequent masterworks made this, on hindsight, especially
interesting. The film kicks off with a fabulous opening sequence wherein
recently discharged career-criminal Maurice (Serge Reggiani), in trench coat
and fedora, dripping with weariness, and engulfed by deep shadows, walks to a
house in the Parisian outskirts, bumps off a former accomplice as punishment
for betrayal, and leaves with a stash of cash. As it turns out he’s planning
one final heist before calling it quits, and takes the help of the shadowy Silien
(Jean-Paul Belmondo) – the film’s key protagonist / antagonist – a steadfast
loner, cynic and tough guy with dubitable moral standing, and, as many suspect,
perhaps even a police stooge. The suspicion gets enhanced exponentially when the
heist goes awry, and Maurice somehow escapes with a bullet, albeit leaving his
dead comrade behind, vowing revenge against Silien. But things aren’t of course
that straightforward in the brooding and wonderfully paced narrative filled
with twists, surprising revelations and a whole lot of compelling ambiguities.
The psychological duel between the two disparate anti-heroes, wonderfully played
by Reggiani and Belmondo, took the film – filled with moody B/W photography and
low-key jazz score – to a finale that, expectedly, ends badly for all; the
adage, “In this business you either wind up a bum… or full of lead”, mused by
Silian over his double whiskey, therefore neatly summed up the central motif
for not just Melville, but film noir itself.
p.s. This is a revisit. My earlier review of the film can be found here.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Genre: Thriller/Crime Thriller/Gangster Film/Film Noir
Language: French
Country: France
If the euphoric filmmaking in Holy Motors – with which he made a
triumphant return after a hiatus of 13 years – was anything to go by, Leos
Carax is truly an unclassifiable filmmaker. His penchant for stylized mise-en-scéne and self-conscious cinematic
deconstructions – no wonder he’s heavily influenced by Godard – is evident even
as early as his acclaimed second feature Mauvais
Sang. The film may be, technically, neo-noir, gangster film, sci-fi pulp
and romantic drama, and yet it’s really neither of the above while still being
all of them – and that’s what makes it difficult to develop a pat liking for,
but, for a cinéaste, easy to be in thrall of. Ageing criminal Marc (Michel
Piccoli) has a debt to pay to a powerful woman (Carroll Brooks), and hence he’s
planned an elaborate heist to get hold of a drug that potentially is the cure for
a mysterious AIDS-like virus – which spreads upon making love without being in
love –sweeping across the country. So, when the man who was supposed to help
him suddenly dies, he enlists the latter’s son Alex (Carax’s regular
collaborator and alter-ego Denis Levant), a young loner with dexterous hands.
Meanwhile Alex, who’s left his loving girlfriend (Julie Delpy) to start afresh,
becomes obsessed with Marc’s lover Anna (Juliette Binoche). Sparse yet
flamboyant, muted yet vibrant, and filled with discursive dialogues and
deliberately theatrical set-pieces that go everywhere and nowhere, the film’s language
is unique. And yes, the exuberant sequence, shot in a glorious single take,
where the feral Levant runs, hops, and cartwheels in frenzy to David Bowie’s ‘Modern
Love’, has become part of cinematic folklore, as the unforgettable accordion
break in Holy Motors.
Director: Leos Carax
Genre: Avant-Garde/Neo Noir/Gangster Film/Romantic Drama
Language: French
Country: France
