Anyone
doubting Jules Dassin’s place in noir ‘hall of fame’ look no further than the
rampaging march of 5 gems he made one after the other starting with Brute Force. This bleak, nihilistic and
muscular prison drama combined elements of classic noir and social commentary into
a dark and gripping ride, and provided an archetype for prison films that would
be reused, recycled and rehashed innumerable times in the future. Set in a dank
and foreboding penitentiary, its principal protagonist is Joe Collins (Burt
Lancastar), who, as the film starts, is released from solitary confinement and
makes his way to his cramped cell R17. The angry, cynical, imposing and curt
lifer is desperate to escape from the fortress-like penitentiary in order to
get back to his ailing fiancée, and hence hatches a dangerously reckless plan
to that effect. Unfortunately for him, the prison is monitored with an iron
fist by the coldly sadistic Capt. Munsey (Hume Cronyn) with his bunch of
informers, which makes Joe’s plan nearly akin to a suicide attempt; yet he
decides to go ahead despite strong requests by the cynical and alcoholic prison
doctor (Art Smith). Dassin frequently alternated the gritty proceedings with romanticized,
if distracting, flashbacks from some of the inmates’ lives. The moody B/W
photography, with heavy usage of chiaroscuro, and the score perfectly upped the
film’s nightmarish atmosphere. Lancastar, with his volatile screen presence,
and fresh from his turn in Siodmak’s masterful The Killers, led the all-male cast that highlighted their camaraderie,
desperation and hopelessness. The violent and explosive climax, which tossed
subtlety right out of the window, perfectly captured what happens when all hell
breaks loose.
Director: Jules Dassin
Genre: Film Noir/Drama/Prison Film
Language: English
Country: US
Clocking
at nearly 10 hours, Masaki
Kobayashi’s ‘Human Condition trilogy’,
was a massive and ambitious venture based during the concluding stages of WWII.
No Greater Love, the 3 ½ hour long
first installment, set the socialist-humanist-realist tone and theme for the
epic magnum opus. Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai), an idealistic and headstrong
pacifist, who loathes wars and exploitation of the weak by the ruling class and
establishment, and was possibly an alter-ego for the director himself, reluctantly
accepts the challenging task of being a labour in-charge at a large mine in
Japan-occupied Manchuria, in order to avoid conscription to the army. To his
horror and dismay, he notices, upon his relocation with his naïve sweetheart
(Michiyo Aratama), incredible oppression faced by the impoverished Chinese
folks and POWs who are regularly beaten and made to toil like slaves in harsh
conditions on half-empty stomachs by the supervisors in order to meet the
company’s insane production demands. As he tries incorporating humanism and
doing away with brutalities, he faces opposition from all those around him;
and, to complicate matters further for him, the forced labourers keep making
escape attempts. The delicacy of his position finally crumbles when he opposes
the sham execution of POWs, leading to his physical torture and being drafted
to military service. The brilliant B/W photography and rousing score provided
perfect accompaniments to Nakadai’s impassioned turn – his burdening conscience
and increasing spiritual desolation. Though the film at times veered towards
melodrama and over-the-top moments, it provided a compelling examination of
hardline nationalism, war-time tragedies and class struggle. A trainload of
half-dead POWs dropping dead like flies formed its most haunting image.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Genre: Drama/War Drama/Political Drama
Language: Japanese/Mandarin
Country: Japan
The
brilliant late-Chabrol, La Ceremonie,
a slow-burning psychological thriller with a continually rising tempo and an
explosive finale, was a powerful portrayal of class struggle, reinforcing the
seemingly irrevocable wedge between diametrically opposite social classes. Adapted
from Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone,
the influences of Capote’s In Cold Blood
was unmistakable. When the wealthy and aristocratic Lelièvre family –
patriarchal music-loving Georges (Jean-Pierre Cassel), his stunningly beautiful
second-wife (Jacqueline Bisset), and their kids from previous marriages – residing
in an isolated mansion, hires the taciturn housemaid Sophie (Sandrine
Bonnaire), a ticking time-bomb is set in motion. Though good in her job,
her behavior is icy, aloof and mysterious from the outset, and to further complicate
matters, she is secretive of her inability to read and write. Her subliminal pathological
tendencies are stroked when she befriends Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), an
eccentric, impulsive and spiteful post-office employee, who is resentful of the upper class and loves spewing false venom about the Lelièvre family members. Chabrol brilliantly paced the narrative,
punctuating it with excellent plot and character developments, which made the
violent showdown nerve-racking despite not being wholly unexpected, and comprised
of marvelous turns by Bonnaire and Huppert, particularly in portrayal of their
increasing emotional connect, and fine supporting turns. Though
class-difference formed its principal motif, this tense, intriguing, deliciously
misanthropic and quietly tragic film also clinically examined issues of isolation,
alienation and the random nature of crime and violence, where the distinction
between good and evil is merely incidental and circumstantial.
p.s. This is an earlier review. My recent review from a revisit can be found here.
Director: Claude Chabrol
Genre: Thriller/Crime Thriller/Psychological Thriller/Black Comedy
Language: French
Country: France
Falling Down was a strong diatribe against facets that have
come to represent the flip side of the American Dream – nationalistic jingoism,
latent racial prejudice, patronizing attitude towards foreigners, chasm between
haves and have-nots, cold and heartless corporatization, broken families, and
so forth. Replace night in Scorsese’s After Hours with day, and black comedy with a more serious tone, and you have a
fair idea about this film. Set in LA, the day starts on a bad note with William
Foster (Michael Douglas), a seemingly average American man in white shirt and
tie, getting stuck in a monstrous traffic jam, and the nightmarish day – easily
the worst in his life – progressively goes from bad to worse. He wants to meet
his kid daughter on her birthday, but his paranoid ex-wife is against it. And,
to make matters worse, he is harangued by an uncooperative Korean shopkeeper,
Mexican hoodlums, a hungry mendicant, the pompous employees of a fast-food
restaurant, and his former wife trying to shoo him away, with the sight of a man
who is declared “not economically viable” by a bank striking a deep chord with
him. And the combination of these causes psychological meltdown of this angry,
frustrated and emotionally unstable man, leading to bad consequences for all.
Meanwhile, a cop (Robert Duvall), on the last day of his job, inadvertently
becomes the investigator. Douglas gave a top-drawer performance, managing to
underline his character with a strong layer of tragedy and poignancy. The film,
by the way, wasn’t without its pitfalls and broad-strokes, and the aspect of
celebrity-hood too could have been touched upon to add a further layer of dark irony.
Director: Joel Schumacher
Genre: Thriller/Psychological Thriller
Language: English
Country: US
Cassandra’s Dream, one of Woody’s most relentlessly dark and
nihilistic films and his third work in the UK on the trot, formed an apt
companion piece to the brilliant Match Point for their disturbing examination of guilt and moral quagmire in a
godless universe using the framework of a crime thriller – a theme he first
tried with the masterful Crimes & Misdemeanors, and largely bereft of his customary dose of humour. Though
this wasn’t Woody at his most quintessential, it reinforced his ability at
tightly bound narratives, and was reminiscent of Lumet’s final film made in the
same year, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Siblings and sons of the owner of a modest eatery, Ian (Ewan
McGregor), cold, ambitious, intelligent and socially respectable, and Terry
(Colin Farrell), nervy, impulsive, weak, addicted to gambling and alcohol, and
in a stable relationship, despite their divergent natures, are close to each
other. When Terry’s winning streak comes to a screeching halt, he ends up owing
huge money to ruthless loan-sharks; meanwhile, Ian’s desire to jump up the
social ladder is further intensified when he falls head over heels with Angela
(Hayley Atwell), a beautiful, alluring and promiscuous model and wannabe actress.
And so they approach their wealthy uncle (Tom Wilkinson) for money; however, as
they soon realize, nothing comes for free in this world, and the price they end
up paying tears their lives apart both psychologically and physically. Both
McGregor and Farrell gave fine performances, as did the supporting cast. Despite
the strong reliance on a dialogue-heavy script, it managed to be engaging and
unsettling right till the expectedly tragic finale.
Director: Woody Allen
Genre: Thriller/Crime Thriller
Language: English
Country: UK
