Masculin Feminin (1966)

Saw Masculin Feminin (1966), a film by Goddard.  It follows a teenaged boy as he gets a job, pursues a girlfriend, and dabbles in politics.  In true Goddardian fashion, the film contains many perverse inconsistencies and incoherencies.  It feels very abrupt and chaotic, both in style and in action.  At one point a man sets himself on fire, only for the camera to stay stubbornly pointed at a brick wall, ignoring the action.  Later, the main character interrupts a movie to lecture the projectionist on aspect ratios.

The film is intentionally ambiguous and vague, containing contradictions and inconsistencies, but I felt it was most concerned with the war of the sexes and how it echoes larger-scale struggles of the day (Vietnam, the cold war.)  The teenage boy main chracter wants peace in Vietnam and the love of his girlfriend.  He's surrounded in the film by the wreckage of other romances: old men reading pornography in public, men cheating on women, men describing being divorced.  Nonetheless, our hero remains idealistic and hopes for a peace and love that looks doomed from the start.

In typical 60s fashion, the women are not treated very well.  I think every single one comes off as shallow, indifferent, cynical, and exploitative.  They are all on contraceptives and birth control and dangle their affection over the heads of men.  The main characters all work in a magazine aimed at teenagers.  They talk at their job about pop-political characters.  Talking about their sales numbers in japan as they read Bob Dylan's lyrics.  The commercialization of The Revolution is already seen here in its infancy.

It reminded me somewhat of Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, which also deals with the commodification of teen rebellion and which is similarly ambiguous and self-contradictory.  This film is a bit older however, a bit more subtitled, and bit drier.  Typical of Goddard, it's a more interesting film to think about and interpret than to watch.

The Walk (2015)

Saw The Walk (2015), a film about a daring high-wire walk between the twin towers shortly before their construction was complete.  This is a story about the incomprehensible beauty and whimsy of spectacular public art like this.  The protagonist, the mastermind behind the walk itself, is demanding and exacting, coming off as a kind of narcissist in his pursuit of this absurd and dangerous event.

The film does not explicitly mention 9/11, but the connection goes without saying.  This is an unwelcomed intrusion of whimsey into a place of business and industry, at the birth of the towers.  The juxtaposition of the terror at the end of them brings an unstated poignance to the act and to the film.  I wonder, as the world moves steady on and on, if that fading poignance will remain in the film.

This film was also shot in 3D.  This choice makes sense for the climactic wire-walk, but on a 2D screen, it seems a little silly.  There's a lot of things poking out at the screen, lots of foreground/background business going on that would have been novel in 2015 (I guess) but which come off as sort of distracting and cheesy now (and in 2D no less!)  The film has a clean and sort of "rendered" look to it, full of saturated colors and sunny skies.  It reminded me of the kind of dark gaudiness of Tim Burton's films.

The film was alright however and plays as a sort of heist film, full of set-backs and sudden lucky breaks.  The actual wire-walk which this heist is in aid of however is more interesting to me in the abstract than in reality which made the film fall a hair flat (for me.)  I felt like the protagonist was very self-involved and somewhat arrogant.  I think I understand the fun of the event, but like the protagonist refers to the wire-walk as a "coup" and berates and harangues other people for not being committed enough.  This kind of dedication to vision and drive are qualities which are very likely necessary to pull off this kind of spectacle, but as a person he seems like someone who's quite a bit too much.

I had previously seen Man on Wire, a 2008 documentary about the same event, and it fell similarly flat for me.  It got great ratings however, so I assume that this is just working on a wavelength I am deaf to.  I guess I am too old to really enjoy whimsey anymore.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Saw Ghostbusters: Afterlife.  I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.  It follows the family of the estranged daughter of Egon from the original Ghostbusters films.  Her family is struggling but gets word that their father, Egon, has died leaving them a creepy old farm in the middle of nowhere.  Soon the precocious teens of the family are discovering ghostbusting equipment and having delightfully retro good times.

I was worried, going in, that the film would have learned the lessons of 2016's Ghostbusters reboot too well: it wouldn't dare to change anything and would be a slavish parade of half-remembered kitsch.  There is an inevitable element of that.  We do see the ghostbusters car and their proton packs and their outfits and many many other call-backs, but they keep all of that from feeling forced or from taking over the film too much (the damned tiny stay-puffed marshmallow men completely derail the film however and I hated them.)  The plot device of the kids uncovering the life of their grandfather keeps the whole thing feeling like less of a re-tread than a re-discovery.

The film follows two main tracks.  One for each of the kids: the son of the family is a youngish teenager played by that guy from stranger things who is hungry for love and whose storyline I did not give a damn about.  The other story line revolves around the daughter who is neuro-atypical and is friends with a boy named podcast who is always putting gadgets on his head.  I found her story much more compelling and interesting since she was actually figuring everything out and saving the day.

The film moves us out of the city and into rural America, mirroring a real-life refocus on what the exurbs are up to.  We spend a lot of time uncovering the life of a man regarded by many to be a crazy conspiracy theorist.  Despite the surprisingly multi-racial townsfolk, the film feels somewhat regressive and (non-politically) conservative.  I suppose being a remake, it can't help this too much though.

The Celebration (1998)

Saw The Celebration (1998), one of the first films of the dogme 95 movement.  Since is it a dogme film, it's intentionally under-lit, under-mick-ed, and generally feels like a very well-made indie film.  The plot follows a family reunion happening at a hotel owned by the family patriarch.  Alas, some unfortunate truth bombs are dropped about the recent suicide of the patriarch's daughter (it's exactly what you're thinking.  Spoiler alert: rape and incest)

The plot is entirely involved with the family.  It feels like a modern-day court drama, with a fabulous mansion and servants and cooks and an aging king at the top of it all, a scandal souring his twilight years.  Similarly there are sons and daughters jockeying for succession and the servants take sides, adding an above-stairs-below-stairs element.  It's very clever and economical: producing a lot with very little.

The film is difficult however.  There are comical elements which have lead some reviewers to believe this to be a black comedy, but these jokes are comic relief and the central scandal, although very over-the-top, is taken very seriously.  The family and social dynamics are uncomfortable to say the least and we dwell on them a long time.  There is a moment, near the end, when the main characters are dancing and laughing and a fade-out seems immanent, but the drama lingers on, spoiling even this well-deserved respite.

The film is not as grueling as some of Lars Von Trier's work, say, or Michael Haneke, but Von Trier was the founder of the Dogma 95 movement and his influence can certainly be felt.  The film has an un-flinching quality about it that feels punishing.  That said, it has a relatively happy ending, and is generally nice and dramatic.  I wouldn't recommend it whole-heartedly, but it's not bad if you're interested.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines

Saw The Mitchells vs. the Machines, an animated family comedy about a dysfunctional, quirky-ass family trying to survive a robot apocalypse triggered by a tech company that seems to be an amalgam of Apple and Google.  The film is pretty nice.

The robot revolution plot conflict is fairly secondary to the family's internal tensions however.  The main-est character is the daughter of the family who wants to be a film maker who is very internet-culture-y.  She introduces her dad by comparing him to "that video of a monkey screaming".  And it is the conflict with her dad that drives most of the plot.  While she is a creature of the internet, he is a Ron Swanson-like nature lover.  This nicely echoes the struggle against tech that fuels the main plot of the film.

The film is fairly light-hearted however.  In these modern times when Facebook is being asked to account for global radicalization, this film feels like it could have been (should have been?) more about the harms of technology and the disruption caused by the different ways folks now connect: remotely, oftentimes more shallowly.  Instead however, there are wacky malfunctioning robots who help them out, hilariously ugly pug dogs, and short films that strongly evoke the mad-cap feel of Michel Gondry's movies, or Great the Show or something.

I was actually a little disappointed the film didn't tackle these tech morality issues, but I was also a bit relieved that it was just a goof-fest.  The film seems very anti-tech from its premise, but the style and execution have a very modern, fast, youtube-clip-like feel to them.  It's a bit of a muddle, but I think entertainment is the first priority of this film, so it's all good.  A fun little film!