Impressions of La La Land

Yesterday I saw La La Land and uncharacteristically wanted to go ahead and share some thoughts:

I was a big fan of Whiplash and interested in seeing this, Chazelle's next film.  After Whiplash, I sensed and hoped that Chazelle might be the type of filmmaker I have been waiting for, a sophisticated cinephile with enough mainstream appeal to succeed in imposing and protecting his cinema within Hollywood.  I was excited when I first discovered David Gordon Greeen, Andrew Bujalski, even Bennett Miller.  But, in truth, Gordon Green and Bujalski never seemed to have the sensibility to fully crossover.  They might get their chance to work within the system but it would be in the way the system wanted them to work and not the other way around.  Miller, in a similar way to Kenneth Lonergan, will probably succeed in continuing to make smart cinema in Hollywood, but it will almost certainly be a cinema devoid of style and without any internal dialogue or link back to film's history.  Meanwhile La La Land is truly bold cinema, a young auteur's willingness to go all in, cash in on his sophomore effort fully knowing that it really does not matter how daring he is because if he makes a film that connects he will be given additional chances.  If not, he will be back to making small-scale indy work as he grovels for Hollywood to give him another shot.  Chazelle gambles and emerges, in my eyes, as the most gifted new American filmmaker since the exciting new voices of the nineties, like James Gray and Tarantino.  I made a similar, now obviously irresponsible claim in '99 when O'Russell, Payne and The Wachowski Brothers all had breakout years.  But I have more trust this time around.  After all, one of Chazelle's main subjects of La La Land is how to preserve something that is under great threat of fading away.  

Favorite (four), part thirty-seven

Just like in my other thirty-six posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Miguel Gomes' Tabu

Clearly I am late to the party but there seems to be something very special happening right now in Portuguese cinema.  I already recently got on the bandwagon for Manoel de Oliveira and now I am starting to see what this Gomes guy is all about.  If Tabu is any indication, he might be one of the most gifted and bold filmmakers at work.  Visually it is absolutely rapturous cinema, using modern black-and-white like the killer poetic weapon it can be when in the right hands (think Wenders' work with Muller or Dead Man, again Muller).  And Gomes' style, in addition to his visual approach, is as free-wheeling and exciting as Godard can be in his most effective moments.  Gomes jumps all around chronologically, mixes silent cinema with voiceover and uses music and nature as well as the great Swiss one.  I can't wait to see more of Gomes' work.  He's exactly the type of filmmaker, in its current isolationist cinema culture, Americans are losing out on by not having more readily available.

Hong Sang-soo's Right Now, Wrong Then

Hong's latest outing once again treads familiar territory - a doppelganger narrative, a filmmaker as main character and plenty of scenes of eating and drinking.  This installment especially benefits from Hong's ability to capture so many of those awkward but charged emotions we have all experienced during the early stages of courting.  And the way the second narrative remixes the events that have come before has Hong working at the absolute height of his skill.

Terrence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea

Anyone who has ever been in an unbalanced relationship, where one party is clearly more committed than the other, will recognize themselves in Davies' film.  I don't have enough familiarity yet to know how this work compares with Davies' other films but Davies' treatment feels very real, nuanced and smart.  The acting is extraordinary.  I have never been a fan of Weisz but you feel every moment of her angst and Hiddleston is exuberant and brings tremendous energy whenever he is on screen.  Davies' approach is a bit arch and theatrical but his treatment here is nothing short of courageous and accomplished.

Jeffrey Dupre and Maro Chermayeff''s Soundbreaking

The access that the filmmakers had, most likely because of Sir George Martin's involvement, is extraordinary.  And the fact that they chose to tell the story thematically rather than chronologically gives the film a pulse and an entertainment quotient that Ken Burns' work never seems to achieve. 

Lists

I know, only an older person could say this but I will say it any way.  Because really lists have always been important to me.  Even fifteen, twenty years ago that was the case.  A list that would open up new doors, take something newly discovered and add to it.  We do live in an increasingly busy world, more fragmented than it once was, and so lists probably have as much a place as ever to serve as signposts to help us find what we're looking for when we don't really know where to look to find it.

With that, I wanted to share this list by Elvis Costello.  It's one of the better lists of its kind that I have ever seen.  Costello obviously made a career out of his passion and here he shares 500 of his favorite albums.  Now that we have Spotify (among my very favorite of the newer technological amenities), all we have to do is plug in one of the 500 titles and see how it rolls over us.

Hope you find a few new gems.  I know I have.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2000/11/elvis-costello-500-favorite-albums

Favorite (four), part thirty-six

Just like in my other thirty-five posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Raul Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon

Ruiz's film is a display of filmmaking class with every shot meticulously framed and every movement of the camera elegant and graceful.  The prior film or two of Ruiz's that I had seen left me completely unprepared for the force and effect of this extraordinary achievement.  It leaves no doubt that a sort of classicism in filmmaking (beautiful acting, immaculate set design, repetitive, symphonic score) when done in the highest manner can reach the soul every bit (if not more) than any of the more contemporary techniques.

Celine Sciamma's Tomboy

A very strong addition to the kid in peril genre that includes 400 Blows, Kes and Germany, Year Zero.  This one is effective and incredibly unsettling, particularly for the way it takes the audience's experience with past movies and uses those memories of what could possibly happen to create relentless and nearly unbearable tension.  The end credits mention Ferran and Lvovsky, which come of no surprise as influences and reaffirm the cinematic world in which Sciamma is operating.

Jacques Rivette's Out 1

With my biggest commitment yet to Rivette's cinema (it is over 720 minutes long), I am beginning if not to like him more, at least to better understand his interests and style.  First his interests.  Rivette is fascinated by the process of being an artist and the steps by which one finds and makes its work.  He loves Paris, its architecture and infinitely picturesque locations.  He adores his actresses who seem to intrigue him more than his actors.  He likes communities.  In fact until now it hadn't occurred to me but the "13 plot line" could certainly be read as code for Cahiers and Rivette's yearning for a reformation of the gang.  As for style.  Rivette favors the long take, a handheld camera, and frames that allow the actors to roam both physically, and I suspect, emotionally.  Of course, much has already been written about Rivette's use of time and nowhere is it more evident than throughout the more than twelve hours of Out 1.  Rivette seems to possess if not a disdain then certainly an indifference to what is typically considered an acceptable duration for a film.  The same for his relationship to the conventional rules of narrative storytelling.  He rejects story arcs, traditional expectations of plot, and the entire notion of a beginning, middle, and end.  Watching Out 1, I realize finally that it is not Godard but actually Rivette who is the most unconventional of all the Cahiers filmmakers:  Godard's cinema plays within more known and accepted parameters of time and plot.  Rivette's cinema is challenging and frustrating because it defies convention and forces us into a space with very few recognizable cinematic landmarks from which to derive comfort and to which to cling.  On the other hand, his cinema's importance if one is willing to go with it is that it opens up new directions for the medium, shining light on areas previously considered prerequisites for the filmmaker (such as having a beginning, middle and end and coming in at 150 mns max) and proving there is still new cinematic language to discover and write and uncharted cinematic territory to explore.

Richard Price and Steven Zaillian's The Night Of

The closest television has come for me in terms of approach and execution and challenging the better cinema since 2014's True Detective.  The acting, particularly Ahmed's, was endlessly impressive and the way the two creators handled the final episode confirmed the subtlety, grace and amount of care I had felt since the beginning.  

Another interesting list from Les Inrockuptibles

This time it's their 100 favorite films so far of the 21st century (in four parts):

http://abonnes.lesinrocks.com/2016/09/27/cinema/100-meilleurs-films-xxie-siecle-selon-inrocks-14-11865747/

http://abonnes.lesinrocks.com/2016/10/06/cinema/100-meilleurs-films-xxie-siecle-24-11869052/

http://abonnes.lesinrocks.com/2016/10/13/cinema/100-meilleurs-films-xxie-siecle-de-50-a-26eme-place-11871944/

http://abonnes.lesinrocks.com/2016/10/23/cinema/suite-fin-de-top-100-25-meilleurs-films-xxie-siecle-11873114/

Favorite (four), part thirty-five

Just like in my other thirty-four posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Cemetery of Splendour

Of all the filmmakers currently hailed as top shelf artists, I have probably struggled the most with Weerasethakul.  His cinema is slow and visually modest and to date I have never quite found my way in.  But I think I am finally starting to get it.  At a time when mainstream cinema (and life) seem infinitely far from introspective art, the true artists probably feel they need to be even more extreme in their approach.  In Weerasethakul's case, this means no non-diegetic music, very long takes, almost no camera movements and almost no close-ups.  Weerasethakul forces us to stop in hopes that we will actually spend some time contemplating within the long quiet spaces he sets up and creates.  If the critical responsibility of art is to make us look at ourselves and our world, Weerasethakul is fully answering the call.  Joining the ranks of Ozu, Dreyer, Bresson, Kiarostami and Hou Hsiao-hsien, Weerasethakul is boldly continuing the legacy of transcendental filmmaking with each challenging film, each rigorous scene, and each extraordinarily disciplined frame he painstakingly offers to us.

Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin

Hints at Shogun Stories and suggests that Saulnier might be one of our cinema's great new genre moodmakers.  What impresses most is how much Saulnier accomplishes visually, rather than through verbal exposition, and his command of atmosphere and tone.  

David Simon and William F. Zorzi's Show Me a Hero

My most memorable viewing experience last year was seeing the entirety of The Wire for the first time.  I was astounded by Simon's ability to simultaneously juggle so many rich characters and the way he so gracefully glided around the different corners of the carefully detailed and observed world he had created.  Simon moves the focus from Baltimore to Yonkers but the result is similar, another microscopic study of a section of our community and a work that lodges itself deeply into our personal and moral fabric, and shifts us.  

Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Days

I came in with massive expectations having followed Les Inrockuptibles' coverage of the film's debut at Cannes last year.  As with most of Desplechin's work, this one is ambitious, sprawling, novelistic and very modern in its construction and execution.  If Desplechin had only chosen a different actress, a different type of face for Esther, this one might rank at the very top of his films but as it stands it is entertaining, at times extraordinary, but only partially affecting.

  

Favorite (four), part thirty-four

Just like in my other thirty-three posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Richard Linklater's Before Midnight

I have never been a huge fan of Linklater's Before films nor really of Linklater's work in general.  But this time I was impressed by his formal rigor, the emotionality of the performances and Linklater's ability to tread on Rossellini's turf without seeming painfully out of place.

Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret

Genre.  Novelistic.  Ambition.  Massive.  Pressure.  Huge, after the breakout success of You Can Count On Me.  I have long been a fan of Paquin and here Lonergan gives her the space to show off deep layers of her talent.  The sprawling film is difficult and flawed but also infinitely more rewarding than most of the work currently coming out of the States.  It feels most akin to a French art film, something Desplechin or Assayas would attempt, is full of extraordinary moments and bubbling with feelings and ideas.    

Eric Rohmer's A Tale of Winter

Rohmer again proves himself a master of his specific approach and style.  Like Bresson or Ozu, Rohmer is a director of transcendence.  Since his primary tools are reduction and refinement, when he decides in those rare moments to unleash it hits the viewer with a real force.  Like someone who whispers 95% of the time, when words are spoken at regular or louder volumes, the ear perks up and becomes unusually attentive.  Perhaps not Rohmer's finest but certainly another testament of his mastery and greatness.

David Lynch's Twin Peaks (TV show)

As a long time fan of Lynch I figured it was about time I sit down and watch the entirety of the two seasons of Twin Peaks.  I also wanted to make sure I was caught up when the new batch premieres in 2017.  Although not every moment is fully captivating, the show rises above any other I have seen in its casting, its fearlessness and the primal power of its greatest scenes.  Nothing topped the final episode for me but other unforgettable moments include Leland Palmer and Madeleine's final scene, Coop's Tibetan Method, and any scene that bears the threat of Leo coming home.

Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)

4/23/16 I watched Ken Burns' Jackie Robinson.  The first Burns' doc I have seen in its entirety proves to be an informative, moving portrait of the great man.  Burns' style is more commercial and mainstream than Wiseman's work but his command of the medium proves to be impressive.  

8/29/16 I watched Jeff Nichols' Midnight Special.  I have long had a hunch that Nichols might have a bigger reputation than he deserves, and really, aside from his debut, I have not been much of a fan.  The latest outing, more than any of his works yet, confirm that he may just be another Hollywood craftsman, without a strong approach or deep feel for craft.  

9/28/16 I watched David Mackenzie's Hell or High Water.  It is the type of well-crafted small scale crime film I tend to like and by and large I appreciated Mackenzie's approach to the landscape and his cast, as well as his overall restraint.  The ending takes us to a slightly unexpected place and the film is all the better for it.  At times it just felt a little too familiar and perhaps not as fresh as it could have been.   

11/18/16 I watched Jeremy Saulnier's Green Room.  The French are right yet again, Saulnier is quite the interesting young American filmmaker.  Here he seems almost giving us a new installation in the Corman school of exploitation film.  Saulnier is adept at mood and at keeping things lean, mean and entertaining.  

11/27/16 I watched Jeffrey Dupre and Maro Chermayeff's Soundbreaking.  The access that the filmmakers had, most likely because of Sir George Martin's involvement, is extraordinary.  And the fact that they chose the tell the story thematically rather than chronologically gives the film a pulse and an entertainment quotient that Ken Burns' work never seems to have.

12/6/16 I watched Dexter Fletcher's Eddie the Eagle.  A feel good sports movie in the tradition of Rudy and Rocky.  The subject matter was perfect for this type of story and it is all done very efficiently and very effectively.

12/7/16 I watched Barry Jenkins' Moonlight.  Jenkins channels George Washington and Malick, achieving his greatest feat by putting us into somewhat familiar territory, the tough and rough inner-city, with a character who is almost completely unpredictable.  As a result, the audience is never comfortable and keeps interest, if nothing else, because it never quite knows what it is about to experience.  Unfortunately Jenkins' often ugly aesthetic (extra shaky cam, coarse lighting, turbulent jump cuts) asphyxiates rather than lifts when we desperately need something to offset all of the other ugliness.  Also as original as some of Jenkins' combinations are, there is still much that feels a bit too familiar and never rises above that familiarity, such as the final encounter between Black and his mom.   

12/13/16 I watched Denis Villeneuve's Arrival.  Probably the most interesting aspect is the way that Villeneuve works with time, shuffling it around and skillfully gliding around past, present, future.  Adams is wonderful as are some of the visuals and a few of the scenes.  But it seems like the filmmakers got lazy in the third act and the way that it resolves itself in the last thirty minutes felt muddy and a bit trite.    

12/17/16 I watched Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!!.  Confirms that Linklater is one of the very best at loose and breezy filmmaking.  The cast, mostly unknowns to me, were uniformly excellent and Linklater pulls out some fun, stylistic devices such as his inventive use of the split screen during the initial phone call between Jake and Beverly.  It has such a light touch that it risks being nothing more than a trifle, and it does register less deeply than some of the more serious filmmaking, but it deserves to be commended on its own terms.  

12/25/16 I watched Damien Chazelle's La La Land.  I was a big fan of Whiplash and interested in seeing this, Chazelle's next film.  After Whiplash, I sensed and hoped that Chazelle might be the type of filmmaker I have been waiting for, a sophisticated cinephile with enough mainstream appeal to succeed in imposing and protecting his cinema within Hollywood.  I was excited when I first discovered David Gordon Greeen, Andrew Bujalski, even Bennett Miller.  But, in truth, Gordon Green and Bujalski never seemed to have the sensibility to fully crossover.  They might get their chance to work within the system but it would be in the way the system wanted them to work and not the other way around.  Miller, in a similar way to Kenneth Lonergan, will probably succeed in continuing to make smart cinema in Hollywood, but it will almost certainly be a cinema devoid of style and without any internal dialogue or link back to film's history.  Meanwhile La La Land is truly bold cinema, a young auteur's willingness to go all in, cash in on his sophomore effort fully knowing that it really does not matter how daring he is because if he makes a film that connects he will be given additional chances.  If not, he will be back to making small-scale indy work as he grovels for Hollywood to give him another shot.  Chazelle gambles and emerges, in my eyes, as the most gifted new American filmmaker since the exciting new voices of the nineties, like James Gray and Tarantino,  I made a similar, now obviously irresponsible claim in '99 when O'Russell, Payne and The Wachowski Brothers all had breakout years.  But I have more trust this time around.  After all, one of Chazelle's main subjects of La La Land is how to preserve something that is under great threat of fading away.    

12/29/16 I watched Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea.  I was lukewarm at best on Lonergan after his debut but very high on him after Margaret, one of my very favorite viewings of last year.  He is deep and smart and unafraid to do character work that is almost completely free of style or irony.  For that, he is almost alone in today's Hollywood and has my respect.  For a while during Manchester, I thought that Lonergan was pulling off an American version of a Bresson film but then realized that he lacks the stylistic rigor of Bresson to pull off that coup.  But even without the rigor, this was a film that would have benefited greatly from another gear, from a push towards transcendence.  Lonergan never gives it another gear though and left me, as I am sure he did others, wondering why we had trudged through all of that for so little in return.      

1/19/17 I watched Anna Rose Holmer's The Fits.  The actress is quite impressive and it is all clearly in tightly controlled hands.  But I am not sure exactly what it was about and emotionally it did not really involve me all that much.

1/23/17 I watched Kleber Mendonca Filho's Aquarius.  I know nothing of Filho's work, not even if the filmmaker is male or female (although the unusually sensitive treatment of the central female character leads me to think it is the latter).  Filho is a graceful filmmaker, reminding me of Moretti in the artful, light way he glides through scenes.  Most remarkable aside from the fully felt Clara is the way the filmmaker so effortlessly moves through time and the way quick cuts are used to show sexual actions and waves of Clara's thoughts and memories. 

2/8/17 I watched Paul Verhoeven's Elle.  Made me feel similar to how Cronenberg's Crash made me feel, distanced and ultimately numb by its deep nihilism.  I respect Verhoeven for staying his path and for putting something together that I never quite knew where it was going to go.  But I just wish it had some more real-life emotion in it.

2/17/17 I watched Andrea Arnold's American Honey.  It is the first time I have seen one of Arnold's films.  I was definitely impressed by her ability to deliver strong performances and to capture some of the softness and poetry of the best of Gordon Green and Malick.  But she seems at times to go for more Hollywood emotion, like the scene where the two leads are sitting on top of the moving van as the music swirls and the rest of the sounds drops out.  It's times like this, and there are a number of them, where I am thrown out of her cinema to a point of almost no return.  

3/4/17 I watched Jim Jarmusch's Paterson.  Another strong entry from one of my favorite filmmakers currently at work, after what felt like a slight drop in quality between Ghost Dog and Only Lovers Left Alive.  Like his great previous film, Jarmusch seems to be in an internal dialogue with the past and with art.  Whereas the excellent Lovers was with one of his favorite passions, music.  This time around Jarmusch seems to be most concerned with another of his primary artistic passions, poetry.  In fact, there is so much in common, formally and narratively, between the two films that they seem to form a couple relationship within his body of work.  The greatest strength of Jarmusch has always been his ability to distill and condense.  Like the best poems, his work conveys so much with so little. 

3/28/17 I watched Kirsten Johnson's Cameraperson.  There is much to admire in Johnson's uncompromising, challenging material and approach.  It's all perhaps slightly too heavy and could use a little more levity here and there but I'm glad I took the time to see.

4/2/17 I watched Jim Jarmusch's Gimme Danger.  Jarmusch saves his rawest aesthetic to date for the rough and tough Stooges, and even though it is a major stylistic departure for Jarmusch he seems comfortable in this different skin.  Jarmusch provides new insight into the highly influential band and the deep emotional wounds that have propelled Iggy for the last 50 years.  

5/13/17 I watched Mia Hansen-Love's Things to Come.  Reminiscent of the early 90's French character studies like A Single Girl or Oublie-moi.  Love films with what appears to be 16mm and stays close to Huppert in a very gentle, soft approach.  It is admirable in its honesty, if lacking some of the intensity or rigor of the very best of this type of film.  

5/14/17 I watched Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann.  It says some interesting things about where our world has gone, how we have gotten to a place where we are prioritizing work over family, and need to strip away all of the artifice to get back to what is important.  But Ade never fully grabbed me and rather than being emotionally taken through a cinematic adventure, I felt more like I was living through her proof of an idea or theorem.  

1/10/18 I watched Jon Nguyen, Olivia Neergaard-Holm and Rick Barnes' David Lynch: The Art Life.  A doc that gives a glimpse at the fascinating filmmaker from an entirely different perspective, his early years and the experiences that formed and shaped his artistic sensibility.  Absolutely essential for any aspiring artist or fan of Lynch.

2/10/18 I watched Justine Triet's In Bed with Victoria.  It has a nice, likable tone like a person that doesn't try to be too pleasing but is.  And Virginie Efira is very effective as a sexy, confused middle-aged professional.  It just never fully ends up being any more than where it started. 

5/12/18 I watched Bi Gan's Kaili Blues.  Gan's ability to move a camera is startling.  Almost every shot is magical in the way it uses both space and time.  The locations are consistently among the most interesting and cinematic I have seen in a very long time.  Meanwhile, Gan's choreography of the long take immediately announces him as one of the next great filmmakers in the tradition of Hou Hsiao-hsien or the Romanians.  To read that Gan was in his twenties when he made this film is beyond comprehension.  

6/17/18 I watched Kasper Collins' I Called Him Morgan.  An unusually absorbing doc that not only gives us Morgan's greatness but also gives us other dimensions like a deeper understanding of jazz as black classical music or of the human capacity to forgive even in the midst of great anger.  Collins' most impressive achievement might be his ability to take a paucity of Morgan footage and supplement it with shots of skylines and nature without making it all feel like hollow re-enactments.   

7/25/18 I watched Guetty Felin's Ayiti Mon Amour.  This film, although certainly flawed with times of mediocre acting or scenes that do not quite push past their influences, is impressive.  It has scenes of great beauty and inventiveness, such as when Joakim and Anisia share a dance listening to non-existent music.  It gives us Haiti, its sores and its riches while making us think, dream, sad and elated.  

4/5/20 I watched Hong Sang-soo's Yourself and Yours.  One of my favorite Hong films, alongside Right Now, Wrong Then, In Another Country and Woman Is the Future of Man.  Has there ever been anyone in the medium as successful at being so minimal?  Hong shrinks the world (few actors, one piece of music, only a handful of locations) but burrows in so well that his shrunken world still feels universal and relevant.  

2/5/21 I watched Adam Pinney's The Arbalest.  Stylistically interesting to look at but a lot to trudge through otherwise.

4/18/21 I watched Raoul Peck's I Am Not Your Negro.  From an esthetic point of view, I wouldn't call this neither the most rigorous nor exciting documentary work.  But Baldwin is an exceptionally interesting figure that I am just starting to discover.  For fans of his writing or just of Baldwin himself, a highly recommended watch.

6/2/21 I watched Nanfu Wang's Hooligan Sparrow.  Of greatest interest are the lines Wang blurs between documentary and narrative.  She hints at some directions yet pursued and others pursued yet executed to greater effect by other filmmakers.  

9/15/23 I watched Claire Simon's Le Concours.  A very Wisemanesque look at the premier film school in France.  I found it greatly effective, particularly in how subjective and almost arbitrary it shows the whole selection process to be.   

4/10/24 I watched Mark Shuman's Morphine: Journey of Dreams.  A good overview of the band for anyone with a little interest.

Favorite (four), part thirty-three

Just like in my other thirty-two posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Arnaud Desplechin's How I Got Into an Argument...
Desplechin's second feature comes with a certain looseness that could belie a unique cinematic intelligence and a nearly unprecedented capturing of uninhibited femaleness.  It feels more akin to a novel in its shape and its courage to let time unfold within its own disheveled set of rules.  "Tenderness is the fear of adulthood", Desplechin quotes Kundera, and this film might be as spot-on as any in the medium's history for capturing that very strange road from freedom to responsibility.  

Jean-Luc Godard's Sauve qui peut (la vie)

Godard returns after a twelve or so year departure from "traditional" narrative cinema with this absolute scorcher of a film.  I was surprised (although I do not know why since Godard remains perhaps my favorite of all) by its beauty, its playfulness, its ability yet again to tap into the zeitgeist of its time.  It is Godard as post-punk and it is up there with his extraordinary work from the sixties.  If anyone thinks Godard's importance ended with Week End, have a look.  

Todd Haynes' Carol

Haynes' latest is very mature and sophisticated, more European in its textures and shape than American indy or mainstream.  It felt even more mysterious than its closest Haynes' counterpart Far from Heaven and it is poetic and delicate in ways I have never experienced his other work.  A great surprise and another extraordinary chapter in the already brilliant careers of Blanchett and (Carter) Burwell.     

Ryan Coogler' Creed

I was in the minority when it came to Fruitvale Station, Coogler's calling card film.  But after seeing his entry into the Rocky franchise, I admit, "they were probably right, at least in seeing something.  And I was probably wrong, at least in seeing very little."  Although an informal sequel of sorts, Creed derives its greatest force from digging into the past, going behind and underneath the previous Rocky storylines that have embedded themselves so deeply into many of our lives.  I noticed this unique power of the prequel when I recently watched Mendes do it with Bond in Skyfall and I felt it again a number of times in Creed, most distinctly when Creed's trunks are passed on.

30 ans

My favorite cultural mag, Les Inrockuptibles, is celebrating its 30 year anniversary this week (I actually have copies of the first 500 issues which are among my very favorite of any of my possessions).  They have put together all kinds of articles and lists to celebrate, including polling each of their key staff writers to choose their 10 favorite movies of the last 30 years, their 10 favorite albums of the last 30 years, and their 10 favorite books of the last 30 years.  Here are the lists:

http://abonnes.lesinrocks.com/2016/02/13/cinema/30-ans-des-inrocks-nos-meilleurs-films-sortis-depuis-1986-11805297/

http://abonnes.lesinrocks.com/2016/02/10/musique/nos-meilleurs-albums-depuis-1986-11804135/

http://abonnes.lesinrocks.com/2016/02/14/livres/30-ans-des-inrocks-nos-meilleurs-livres-sortis-depuis-1986-11805610/

And if I were participating:

Films
Le Rayon vert d'Eric Rohmer (1986)
Where Is the Friend's House d'Abbas Kiarostami (1987)
King of New York d'Abel Ferrara (1990)
Carlito's Way de Brian De Palma (1993)
Heat de Michael Mann (1996)
Dead Man de Jim Jarmusch (1996)
Mulholland Dr. de David Lynch (2001)
Les amants reguliers de Philippe Garrel (2005)
The Secret and the Grain d'Abdellatif Kechiche (2007)
At Berkeley de Frederick Wiseman (2013)

Albums
The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead (1986)
The Go-Betweens - 16 Lovers Lane (1988)
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique (1989)
Talk Talk - Laughing Stock (1991)
PJ Harvey - Dry (1992)
Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)
Jeff Buckley - Grace (1994)
Tricky - Maxinquaye (1995)
Massive Attack - Mezzanine (1998)
Rufus Wainwright - Rufus Wainwright (1998)

Books (too many gaps still for the moment to have any input of import)

Favorite (four), part thirty-two

Just like in my other thirty-one posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing.  Most of the films I have been glad to see but only very few have stayed with me.  This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.

Satyajit Ray's The World of Apu
Ray takes a few years away from his trilogy before coming back and completing it with this film, and the style feels a little different than the first two movies.  This film has a slightly more elliptical quality and seems intent on drifting closer to poetry.  The ending of the film is one of the very strongest moments of the entire trilogy with Ray attaining that transcendent experience achieved by only the greatest of neorealist works (Umberto D, Germany Year Zero, Voyage to Italy).  

Samuel Fuller's Underworld U.S.A.

Fuller's strengths - his constantly roving, expressive camera and his hard-hitting sensibility -are at the fore while his weaknesses - such as a heavy hand creating believable romance and intimacy - are hardly, if at all, noticeable.  Clearly an influence on later great works such as Carlito's Way and an argument as good as any that the noir cycle did not end with Touch of Evil in 1958 but was still going strong well into the sixties with important and powerful entries such as this.    

Monte Hellman's China 9, Liberty 37

It's a wonder Tarantino hasn't remade this one.  This might be the only western I have seen that boasts a krautrock score (terrific work by the way from Pino Donaggio).  Further proof of Hellman's cult status as an auteur and even if the third act drags a little, this little known pic sits comfortably with Hellman's Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting and needs to be seen as a clear precursor to Dead Man and all of Tarantino's work.

Steven Riley's Listen To Me Marlon

The wall-to-wall music is off putting but the remarkable audio footage of Marlon overcomes any formal shortcomings the film might have, making this one of the most immersive documentaries I have ever seen. In other words, it puts one deeply into the skin of its subject.

Tokyo Chorus (1931)

I am back to working my way through all of Ozu's work chronologically.  This next entry, Tokyo Chorus, seems to be the first-blown emergence of the style most people think of when they think of the filmmaker.  Nearly the entire film is shot tatami-style and with a static camera.

Thematically Ozu also seems to be hitting his stride.  There are moments that hint at his skepticism towards technology, the son's plea for a bicycle, and other moments that indicate Ozu's buddhist nature, the main character's line, "A bear getting out isn't going to change our lives."  Ozu's humanism is also more evident than it has been up to this point, the evolution of our main character's feelings towards his professor and the wife's compassion and ultimate offer to help her husband with his new responsibilities.

Lastly, of interest, is the fact that for the first time gone are the abundance of allusions and visual references to American culture.  In fact, the only blatant reference I noticed was a casual mention of (Herbert) Hoover at one point.