Saw Romper Stomper, a film that follows a gang of Australian neonazis. At the top of the film they are living the high life, intimidating bar owners and partying in their squat. Soon however they are beset by troubles which force them to retreat and retreat and retreat, their numbers dwindling as the remaining members become more desperate and dangerous. In this way, the film offsets the glamorization of the gang in the first half with their feral desperation in the second half. I noticed that all of their problems were both self-inflicted and entirely avoidable. The film follows them into a self-destruction that is literally filmed and spectated by fat, idle Asian tourists. It doesn't have to be read this way however.
This film doesn't really condemn the neonazi idiology. They get revenge on a pedophile. They shake their heads as they talk about what vibrant neighborhood this once was. Because we shadow them we inevitably have to sympathize with them. When they beat people their shouts are replaced by animal roars on the soundtrack. They project an aura of confidence and power. I imagine that to a teenage outcast who has not yet distinguished fear from respect this is an attractive group of people who would maybe be neat to hang out with. Even the ending can be read not as the self-destruction of the neonazis but as the self-destruction of "white culture". The bored tourists come off not as the ironic consequence of their self-destruction but as partly culpable, voyeuristic.
This is an entertaining film and not a careless one, however the message of a film is sometimes in the eye of the beholder and I don't think this film takes many pains to avoid being misread. At any rate it is beloved by some neonazis. One of those neonazis also compared himself to the protagonist of Clockwork Orange, a film that this film owes a debt to for its visual style. The film is luridly colorful, full of trashy plastic colors, garishly made-up women and graffiti. There's even a few Kubrick stares midway through.
This was definitely an entertaining film. It's heart is in the right place but I couldn't shake the feeling that its message was too artful, too subtly ironic. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid.
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 22, 2018
Cold Prey
Saw Cold Prey, a Norwegian horror movie about five 30-something-year-old teenagers who are stranded in an abandoned ski lodge and who are being hunted down by someone (or someTHING!!) It's not a bad film. They build up some backstory for the characters and give us some emotional ties to them. Since this is a horror film, of course these teens are mostly there to smooch and scream and although there's a fair amount of that, I found myself caring somewhat about their emotions (such is my weakness.)
The reveal of the Big Bad at the end of the film is telegraphed far off. I feel like on some level it doesn't really matter what's killing them and frankly that no explanation would be way creepier, but that's not satisfying to our sense of tidiness so the killer has to be identified. This identification happens so early on however that I don't know why they treat the reveal like a reveal. Okay, whatever.
This wasn't a bad film. It was tense and scary at times but fairly low stakes. It felt like a very by-the-numbers survival horror film. For genre fans only I think.
The reveal of the Big Bad at the end of the film is telegraphed far off. I feel like on some level it doesn't really matter what's killing them and frankly that no explanation would be way creepier, but that's not satisfying to our sense of tidiness so the killer has to be identified. This identification happens so early on however that I don't know why they treat the reveal like a reveal. Okay, whatever.
This wasn't a bad film. It was tense and scary at times but fairly low stakes. It felt like a very by-the-numbers survival horror film. For genre fans only I think.
Jul 15, 2018
Samurai Wolf
Saw Samurai Wolf, the most "Western"-ish samurai film I've seen in a while. Westerns often steal from Japan but this one involved sheriffs, bandits, and hookers (with hearts of gold.) There's very little translation required in this case. So, it follows the titular samurai wolf as he wanders into a town which is (naturally) bedeviled by bandits. The samurai is a fairly easygoing dude who carries no money and cheerfully exchanges a few hour's wood-chopping for some food. He's constantly trimming his beard with some little sheers which I think is meant to hint at a tamed and civilized wolf. There's something of the beautiful beast about our hero. He is very physical and has that magical ability to stab flies mid-flight and instinctively parry an unexpected thrust.
I've suggested in previous reviews that the attitude towards authority was interesting in samurai films. Those concerns are kind of orthogonal to this film's attitude. This small town is instantly cowed by the samurai and he becomes the de facto lawmaker. The film was interesting - almost solid action. There are a few scenes where people lay out the plot but they are few and brief. The film knows what its audience wants.
I've suggested in previous reviews that the attitude towards authority was interesting in samurai films. Those concerns are kind of orthogonal to this film's attitude. This small town is instantly cowed by the samurai and he becomes the de facto lawmaker. The film was interesting - almost solid action. There are a few scenes where people lay out the plot but they are few and brief. The film knows what its audience wants.
Jul 6, 2018
Tristana
Saw Tristana, a Luis Buñuel film about a pretty girl, Tristana, who must go to live with a corrupt and decadent gentleman who takes her in after her own parents die. He is a proud, rich socialist. He rails against religion and insists that the poor must be looked after. He's far enough along with the sexual revolution to proposition his ward and insists that they must never marry, so great is his embrace of modernity. Of course his stance is fairly self-serving. He doesn't suffer from not marrying her. This is once again Buñuel using sex to skewer the smug, respectable progressives of his time.
As the film wears on, we see the effects of his treatment to her, both the effect on her and on him. The film is a kind of self-aware farse. The rich man complains that he doesn't want to "play the part" of a rich old fool. One of the servants is mute and communicates by wild gesticulation. The characters roughly fit the archetypes of the Commedia Dell'arte. This film has all the cruelty of a comedy but the cruelty is not funny as it would be in a comedy, but sinister and biting as in a melodrama. The protagonist herself calcifies into a sinister, wheelchair-bound spinster near the end.
The film was interesting but I think it got the better of me. I'm usually able to "solve" Buñuel's work simply by being aware of his hatred of the self-satisfied middle-class and his use of sexual perversion as a means to explode that self-satisfaction. Here however, the film is more realistic, feeling more like a melodrama or something. I can't quite fit everything together.
As the film wears on, we see the effects of his treatment to her, both the effect on her and on him. The film is a kind of self-aware farse. The rich man complains that he doesn't want to "play the part" of a rich old fool. One of the servants is mute and communicates by wild gesticulation. The characters roughly fit the archetypes of the Commedia Dell'arte. This film has all the cruelty of a comedy but the cruelty is not funny as it would be in a comedy, but sinister and biting as in a melodrama. The protagonist herself calcifies into a sinister, wheelchair-bound spinster near the end.
The film was interesting but I think it got the better of me. I'm usually able to "solve" Buñuel's work simply by being aware of his hatred of the self-satisfied middle-class and his use of sexual perversion as a means to explode that self-satisfaction. Here however, the film is more realistic, feeling more like a melodrama or something. I can't quite fit everything together.
The Interview (1998)
Saw The Interview. Not the much-ballyhooed comedy about North Korea, but an Australian police procedural about a cat-and-mouse battle of wits between a cop and a man accused of being a serial killer. The film is a tightrope walk between confirmation bias and plausible deniability. The cop feels that this is his man and is not above using intimidation to get what he wants. On the other side is the police apparatus designed to prevent inadmissible evidence from being collected. We are intended to sympathize with the cop and to hate the foul poindexters who whine about "ethics" and "fairness".
Then again, we aren't allowed to know until quite late in the film if the accused is actually guilty. It may well be that this cringing mess of a man is telling the truth, that what the cop perceives to be his mask falling is just an ordinary desperate moment for a man in a stressful situation. IT's left pleasantly ambiguous for quite a while. People who like tidy resolutions be warned!
I enjoyed the film. The central conflict of letting a guilty man go vs an innocent man being locked up is not that interesting to me (I always imagine myself as the innocent man. What do I care if a random criminal is not in jail? MAny are not in jail.) but the film is nervy and interesting, always keeping you guessing.
Then again, we aren't allowed to know until quite late in the film if the accused is actually guilty. It may well be that this cringing mess of a man is telling the truth, that what the cop perceives to be his mask falling is just an ordinary desperate moment for a man in a stressful situation. IT's left pleasantly ambiguous for quite a while. People who like tidy resolutions be warned!
I enjoyed the film. The central conflict of letting a guilty man go vs an innocent man being locked up is not that interesting to me (I always imagine myself as the innocent man. What do I care if a random criminal is not in jail? MAny are not in jail.) but the film is nervy and interesting, always keeping you guessing.
Jul 5, 2018
Don't Torture A Duckling
Saw Don't Torture A Duckling, a so-called Italian Giallo film. Originally the film was titled Non si Sevizia un Paperino - Paperino being the Italian alias of Donald Duck who is greatly popular in Italy and features in this film as a plot point. Anyway, the film is a true-to-form Giallo, involving elements of horror, mystery, police procedural, and psychodrama.
The plot is that boys in this small village are being killed. Who's the murderer? The rich, idle woman? The crazy lady everyone calls a witch? The creepy groundskeeper? One of the sinister kids? The weirdly attractive priest? Who knows!? The film sets up the characters and then becomes a procedural. A mustachioed journalist pries and asks questions and eventually solves the mystery (uh... spoiler alert I guess.)
There's a theme of evil women. In addition to the witch lady, the bored rich woman jokingly propositions one of the boys. This film was made in the 70s, so it's just meant to be provocative and sexy, but simultaneously the boy is obviously intimidated and scared. In modern times of course this reads as frank harassment (if not abuse) but even in the context of the film it's portrayed as a kind of cruel thing to do. Women are often the subject of the film. Remote, untouchable, taunting, teasing. This ties into the killer's motives, but this sort of bothered me.
This film is very lurid. There's tits within the first 10 minutes or so and at one point a pretty lady is murdered by an angry mob. Her murder is filmed in a series of soft-focus close-ups, her head thrashing from side to side as blood splashes down her face. The violence is extreme but also obviously fake, halloween-tier stuff. The wounds are obviously painted on, but not a drop of red paint was spared. At one point someone falls down a mountain. We see what is obviously a dummy falling and then get a close-up of what is very very obviously a dummy. Later the dummy's head explodes. If it were realistic it would be disturbing but it's obviously wax, so the whole thing feels kind of formal, like seeing an actor take a sword to the armpit.
The film was a little clumsy. The payoff is good and there are themes at all which is always nice. I have a few Giallo films to see now. I wonder if they'll all be as silly and lurid. One can only hope!
The plot is that boys in this small village are being killed. Who's the murderer? The rich, idle woman? The crazy lady everyone calls a witch? The creepy groundskeeper? One of the sinister kids? The weirdly attractive priest? Who knows!? The film sets up the characters and then becomes a procedural. A mustachioed journalist pries and asks questions and eventually solves the mystery (uh... spoiler alert I guess.)
There's a theme of evil women. In addition to the witch lady, the bored rich woman jokingly propositions one of the boys. This film was made in the 70s, so it's just meant to be provocative and sexy, but simultaneously the boy is obviously intimidated and scared. In modern times of course this reads as frank harassment (if not abuse) but even in the context of the film it's portrayed as a kind of cruel thing to do. Women are often the subject of the film. Remote, untouchable, taunting, teasing. This ties into the killer's motives, but this sort of bothered me.
This film is very lurid. There's tits within the first 10 minutes or so and at one point a pretty lady is murdered by an angry mob. Her murder is filmed in a series of soft-focus close-ups, her head thrashing from side to side as blood splashes down her face. The violence is extreme but also obviously fake, halloween-tier stuff. The wounds are obviously painted on, but not a drop of red paint was spared. At one point someone falls down a mountain. We see what is obviously a dummy falling and then get a close-up of what is very very obviously a dummy. Later the dummy's head explodes. If it were realistic it would be disturbing but it's obviously wax, so the whole thing feels kind of formal, like seeing an actor take a sword to the armpit.
The film was a little clumsy. The payoff is good and there are themes at all which is always nice. I have a few Giallo films to see now. I wonder if they'll all be as silly and lurid. One can only hope!
Jul 1, 2018
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
Saw Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance, a samurai-sploitation film that feels like an origin story. The plot only exists to set up the main character, an ex-official executioner who has been betrayed and framed by a rival clan. All of this serves to get us to the image of a samurai accompanied by a baby boy. This man and his son walk the path, we are told in an opening narration, between the raging river of vengeance and the fires of honor (or something I wasn't really listening.)
This fire and river talk is not terribly important however since this is so much window-dressing for some kick-ass fight sequences with gushing fountains of bright red blood and quite a few pairs of tits. Indeed, one sign of the protagonist's samurai prowess is his ability to sexually preform under pressure. Samurai-sploitation.
The film is fairly fun but feels like it's trying to set up a series. There's no real resolution and the action is episodic. The scenes are neatly divided into back-story and present day. The back story reveals his motivations and the present day scenes are just him righteously kicking ass. His motivations are almost irrelevant. Kick-ass samurai with a little boy. That's really all you need to know.
I've decided in previous samurai films that the attitude of the film towards authority is the most interesting thing to examine. This one has a government official (the protagonist executioner) betrayed by other officials (the rival clan, which acts as a kind of spy network.) I get the feeling that the natural order of things as determined by the government is usurped and thus peace is thrown into chaos. This suggests a reverence for authority which is reinforced by their frequent use of crests and seals to show power. At one point our hero faces down a crowd of attackers simply by wearing the proper insignia on his robe.
The authority itself however is almost totally absent from the film. The government only appears as a series of official proclamations - one of which is sliced in two by the protagonist. There's an almost objectivist attitude, that a single man is allowed to buck the bureaucracy if he's powerful and clever enough. Of course he becomes a sort of tragic outcast as a result however.
Most of the samurai films I've seen have had almost a disdain for authority. Officials are meant to be assassinated most of the time. In this film however, the assassination attempt is frustrated. I feel this is the schlocky sort of film which implicitly believes that might makes right. There's some notion of virtue that the rival clan lacks but largely justice comes in the form of a beheading. I don't quite agree with this point of view, but it makes for a fairly fun film. So it's got that going for it.
This fire and river talk is not terribly important however since this is so much window-dressing for some kick-ass fight sequences with gushing fountains of bright red blood and quite a few pairs of tits. Indeed, one sign of the protagonist's samurai prowess is his ability to sexually preform under pressure. Samurai-sploitation.
The film is fairly fun but feels like it's trying to set up a series. There's no real resolution and the action is episodic. The scenes are neatly divided into back-story and present day. The back story reveals his motivations and the present day scenes are just him righteously kicking ass. His motivations are almost irrelevant. Kick-ass samurai with a little boy. That's really all you need to know.
I've decided in previous samurai films that the attitude of the film towards authority is the most interesting thing to examine. This one has a government official (the protagonist executioner) betrayed by other officials (the rival clan, which acts as a kind of spy network.) I get the feeling that the natural order of things as determined by the government is usurped and thus peace is thrown into chaos. This suggests a reverence for authority which is reinforced by their frequent use of crests and seals to show power. At one point our hero faces down a crowd of attackers simply by wearing the proper insignia on his robe.
The authority itself however is almost totally absent from the film. The government only appears as a series of official proclamations - one of which is sliced in two by the protagonist. There's an almost objectivist attitude, that a single man is allowed to buck the bureaucracy if he's powerful and clever enough. Of course he becomes a sort of tragic outcast as a result however.
Most of the samurai films I've seen have had almost a disdain for authority. Officials are meant to be assassinated most of the time. In this film however, the assassination attempt is frustrated. I feel this is the schlocky sort of film which implicitly believes that might makes right. There's some notion of virtue that the rival clan lacks but largely justice comes in the form of a beheading. I don't quite agree with this point of view, but it makes for a fairly fun film. So it's got that going for it.
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