Caligari at 100

I wrote a piece for the BFI celebrating 100 years of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Read it here. 

Berlin: Symphony of Great City

I'm pleased to announce that I've recorded a commentary track for the new Flicker Alley Bluray of BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A GREAT CITY - the first commentary I've done for a film I didn't direct. This is the first time the film has been released on Bluray (it's a new 2K scan), which is something well worth celebrating. It's currently on sale, with 20% off, here. 

10 great German Expressionist films

Here's another BFI piece, this time looking at 10 great German Expressionist films, that I co-wrote with Pamela Hutchinson from Silent London.

My Top Films of 2014

Putting together the lists below has made me realise how much of my viewing last year was focused on work from previous years. This was, perhaps, partly a result of me missing the entirety of London Film Festival (due to being busy running the LONDON SYMPHONY crowdfunding campaign), and partly due to my increasing preference for films from the past. From the new work I did manage to see, 2014 has been a good, as opposed to great, year for film – nothing this year has reached the dizzying heights of the films that have topped my list over the last few years (i.e. Ida, Demain? and The Turin Horse), although a single viewing of Boyhood does suggest that it deserves masterpiece status (it'll be interesting to see if subsequent viewings confirm or refute this suspicion). Still, despite my slight reticence to lavish praise, there was some very strong work on show, as suggested by the films in my 2014 list below. Not all of these are without problems, but they're certainly all worth a look, and deserve their place on an end-of-year list. 

 

(It's probably worth adding in passing that I'm yet to see three of my most anticipated films from 2014: Horse Money, La Sapienza and Birdman). 

 

If the new films left me slightly unenthused, the older films I saw did quite the opposite, and there were many suitable options clamouring for space within the top ten Films from Previous Years that I Saw for the First Time in 2014, which feels especially strong this year (though I suspect I say that every year…). 

 

As always, directors' names will take you to their IMDb pages.

 

My Top Films of 2014

01) Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater)

02) The Wolf of Wall Street (dir. Martin Scorsese)

03) Club Sandwich (dir. Fernando Eimbcke)

04) Journey to the West (dir. Ming-liang Tsai)

05) Something, Anything (dir. Paul Harrill)

06) Life May Be (dirs. Mania Akbari and Mark Cousins)
07) Stations of the Cross (dir. Dietrich Brüggemann)
08) Amour Fou (dir. Jessica Hausner)

09) Manakamana (dirs. Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez)
10) Uncertain Terms (dir. Nathan Silver)

   

The Best Films from Previous Years that I Saw for the First Time in 2014

01) Ugetsu Monogatari (1953, dir. Kenji Mizoguchi)

02) Willow and Wind (2000, dir. Mohammad-Ali Talebi)

03) A Time to Live and A Time to Die (1985, dir. Hsiao-Hsien Hou)

04) Almanac of Fall (1984, dir. Béla Tarr)

05) A Farewell to Arms (1932, dir. Frank Borzage)

06) The Man Who Laughs (1928, dir. Paul Leni)

07) Vesnoy (In Spring) (1929, dir. Mikhail Kaufman)

08) Blood Wedding (1981, dir. Carlos Saura)

09) Sound of the Mountain (1954, dir. Mikio Naruse)

10) Mare Nostrum (1926, dir. Rex Ingram)

LONDON SYMPHONY Crowdfunding Campaign Now Live

Sorry for the lack of recent posts – as alluded to last time, I've been busy with my new project, LONDON SYMPHONY. Things with the project have been going well, and I've just launched a crowdfunding campaign for the film, here: http://www.londonsymphfilm.com. For those who don't know, LONDON SYMPHONY is a silent film – a City Symphony – about the culture and diversity of London. You can find more info on the link, or in the video above. Please take the time to find out more, and give what you can - any donation, large or small, will go a long way towards helping me get the film made. And if you can't afford to pledge, you can still be a massive help by sharing the link with anyone you think might be interested. Thanks!

 

LONDON SYMPHONY poster, by Andrew Yap - just one of the
rewards on offer as part of the campaign.

 

 

Phantom Rides

While in Italy this year, I decided to make the following series of 'phantom ride' films. They are intended as a bit of fun, and are by no means meant to be taken as a serious artistic endeavour! Enjoy.

(Some of the) Films This Week

(Click here to read my general introduction to the 'Films This Week' series of posts.)

 

Slightly streamlined again this week, as some of what I've seen has been for research.

 

Cría cuervos.

 

29/04/13

Rewatched Cría cuervos. I was really struck by its melancholy this time. Very sad. I think it's creeping further and further toward my top ten films of all time, if one can say such a thing.

 

30/04/13

Watched Visages d'enfants. It's very good, though perhaps a little long and a little languid. I suppose, in a way, that's a result of the film's realism…not much happens in life either (but everything happens when nothing is happening, of course). The pace picks up for the final quarter. At times some of the editing made the space feel a little fractured (it didn't all quite hang together), but it was beautifully shot (by Léonce-Henri Burel, no less). It's a shame I watched such a low quality version. I'd love to see it projected. The avalanche sequence is brilliant (as is most of the last thirty minutes, even if it's a bit silly that Jean's step-mum knows exactly where to find him in those final moments). The only other thing that let it down slightly were a couple of moments of over-ripe symbolism. But, generally, it's a very fine piece of work. It also brought me back to my recent thoughts on whether silent cinema (or, more precisely, certain silent films) had a faster conduit to the inner lives of its characters. There are several times when a title card tells us explicitly what Jean is thinking (he was only hoping she'd get a scolding, etc.) – a short cut if ever there was one. I suppose you could argue that in filmmaking terms this is a little crass and simplistic (novelistic, even). And yet, if it's done right (as it is here) it seems incredibly effective. Of course, though, this is very different from the way A Page of Madness draws you in, once more proving that one can't make rash judgements about silent films as a whole. In the evening I rewatched The Leopard Man, which I really enjoyed. The baton-passing structure is brilliantly handled, and there's some very fine character work in the lead up to the kills – all of which are, in themselves, still very effective too (especially the first).

 

03/05/13

Went to the Antiquity in Silent Cinema screening at Bloomsbury Theatre. It was an interesting event, and busy, which was nice to see. Of the two films on show, The Odyssey didn't really do that much for me. There were some effective moments, but it never really came to life – perhaps in the same way as L'Inferno (though The Odyssey doesn't have that film's visual splendour). Julius Caesar was much better – a tragic melodrama, at once historical and epic, but familial and intimate at heart. There was a certain geometry to the compositions and designs which brought Die Nibelungen to mind, but the comparison is far too generous (Julius Caesar was very good, but nowhere near the quality of Lang's masterpiece).

 

04/05/13

Went to the British Independent Film Festival to see Sanctuary. It seems like the festival is doing good things for independent filmmakers. The film had some gentle human intrigue, but its real strength was its beautifully controlled compositions. Really striking.

 

Sanctuary.

 

Some Incomplete Thoughts on Incompleteness

From Dusk Till Dawn

In my last post, I touched briefly on the topic of the incompleteness of certain silent films, and the incompleteness of certain silent film viewing experiences. But a different kind of 'incompleteness' has been on my mind a lot recently too. More specifically, I've been thinking about it since I read Nick James' report from Berlin in the April 2013 issue of Sight & Sound. In his run-down of the festival, James lists Andrew Bujalski's Computer Chess as his ninth best film of the festival, before openly admitting to having only seen the first 45-minutes of the film. 

 

For some reason, this bothered me. Perhaps it falls down to the more common walk-out, which usually occurs when someone doesn't like a film – something else which bothers me. I have never walked out of a film, and never will. You don't judge a joke without hearing the punch line. And so it is with films. For instance, I can think of two experiences recently in which I've found the first hour rather a slog, only to be totally won-over and enthralled in the last third or so of the film (with the result that I now think highly of those films as a whole). I can even think of one film I hate which, when watching, almost won me over – and became all the more interesting for it. Films are, even at their most crass, artistic statements. Somehow, therefore, judging them without knowledge of the whole seems…wrong. 

 

I know this won't be a popular statement, but surely if you're going to have an opinion on something you need to be properly informed. I'm a big fan of Bujalski's work (and James', for that matter), so it's great to see the film being spotlighted in a magazine like Sight & Sound. But the film is listed as 92 minutes on IMDb – which means that James saw only half the film. And surely a lot can happen in half a film? It could derail into a total mess, or turn into a totally different film (imagine the impression you'd have of From Dusk Till Dawn if you walked out halfway through). 

 

In a sense, I've always (rather harshly) thought that if you don't see the whole of a film, you lose the right to have an opinion on it. I'm aware that by saying that I've probably just alienated every film critic reading this, but hopefully people will respect my right to have an opinion, even if they don't agree with it. I'm also aware that this becomes problematic when you come back to the idea of judging incomplete films. For instance, I never much cared for Metropolis until I saw the restored version, which went on to become the best film I saw that year. Perhaps this is a separate issue, perhaps not. 

 

Let's try and take another example. Would it be fair to judge the architecture of a 10 storey house based only on the first and second floor? Probably not. So why is it fair to judge a film from the first 10 or 20 minutes? In some ways, giving time to let the audience grow accustomed to the pace, themes and characters of a story is as important as having good foundations on which to build your house.  

 

As the title of this post suggests, I'm not trying to wrap up this thorny issue in one short blog post. I know that not everyone shares my vehement belief in viewing the complete work before forming an opinion – and I'm also still not sure how to reconcile this with wanting to form judgments of incomplete films. I just know that this is something which is important to me, which I've been thinking about a lot recently, and which I thought was worth commenting on here.

The Sound of Silence

A Page of Madness

As regular readers of this blog may remember, last month I wrote about my experience of seeing A Page of Madness for the first time. In my post, I stated that I had 'been wondering if silent cinema somehow had a faster conduit to the inner lives of its characters' and that there is 'something about the purity of the medium when it was still silent, its use of a purely visual grammar, which somehow opens up the soul of its characters in a way few modern films seem to achieve'. In the comments of that post, unreceivedopinioin pointed out that it was 'important to remember [that A Page of Madness] would have been originally presented with a live benshi commentary' and that 'silent film was rarely intended as a purely visual experience'. I've been meaning to try and note down some thoughts on this topic ever since then and, having attended a screening of Ozu's 1930 film Walk Cheerfully with live benshi narration earlier this week, now seems like a good time.

 

I suppose a good place to start would be to formulate the two pertinent questions that seem to spring from the paragraph above:

 

1) Should the knowledge that silent films were rarely silent affect the way we read/watch them?

2) Does the idea of benshi narration (and other film announcers) take the emphasis off the visuals?

 

The first question, perhaps, needs to be qualified and dismantled. To say that silent films were rarely silent is perhaps as much of a simplification as calling them silent in the first place. My understanding, such as it is, is that trends differed from country to country, and even from cinema to cinema. Benshi narration, for instance, was a (primarily) Japanese custom and rarely practised in the West where, typically, larger theatres in bigger cities held orchestras, and smaller venues had single pianists. This latter trend, it seems to me, is not so different from the way silent films are still shown theatrically in the west today (in the last year alone I've seen films presented with both a full orchestra and a single pianist, and a number of permutations in between). And, let's not forget, some films, such as Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, were designed to be seen truly silent, with no accompaniment whatsoever. So, in this sense, it then becomes a case of reformulating the question as: should the knowledge that certain silent films were not originally presented silent affect the way we read/watch those particular films?

 

To this, I think the answer should perhaps be yes. I've only been privileged enough to see two films with live benshi narration. The first experience left something to be desired, as the narration was delivered in Japanese, and the lack of a rake in the venue's seating proved problematic. The English delivery of the Walk Cheerfully narration, however, proved to be quite a different experience. Perhaps the most telling reaction was from Pamela Hutchinson, who runs Silent London, and who wrote the sleeve notes for the BFI's recent DVD of the film. For Pamela, who knew the film well before the screening, a new world of humour opened up within it thanks to the benshi performance. Unfortunately, I hadn't previously seen the film so can't comment with such certainty, but it did seem to me that much of the screening's humour came from the performance, and not from the film per se – and with this in mind, we can see relatively clearly that the benshi narration changed the way the film played to an audience, and even to one that was already familiar with the film. So, how then to reconcile this with my reference to silent cinema as making 'use of a purely visual grammar'?

 

It seems fitting to rethink the screening of A Page of Madness, and my reaction to it. With hindsight, I suspect that the narration would have cleared up some of my confusion as to the film's narrative (which, it's worth remembering, I praised, stating that 'the film, as a portrait of madness, seems all the better – all the more effective – for the confusion'). Of course, A Page of Madness is something of an extreme example, given that the film contains no intertitles. I also don't know what the narration says, so it's possible that it would have only added to my confusion, and/or to the sensory overload already present from the visuals alone. Furthermore, without seeing A Page of Madness again with the narration, it's impossible to say to what extent that narration would detract from, or enhance, the film's visual prowess.

 

And yet, whatever the case, it does seem that the knowledge of the narration changes things – that by watching the film without it, we may only be seeing half the story… Though perhaps not. As much as the narration of Walk Cheerfully altered the viewing experience, I didn't get much sense that it altered the film itself – the intertitles told us everything we needed to know that the other visuals did not.

 

Walk Cheerfully

 

Perhaps unhelpfully for my interests here, Walk Cheerfully wasn't the most visually exciting film – especially when compared to A Page of Madness – which makes it harder to comment on whether the presence of the narration de-emphasises the visual aspects of the film. This got me wondering if I would have a different opinion of the film's visuals if I had watched it without the narration, so I decided to ask Pamela for a brief comment. And, while I was at it, I decided to also ask her the two questions I formulated at the start of this post. Here's what she said:

 

As I said on the night, watching the film with an audience is always going to make the jokes funnier, and the Benshi emphasised that, adding in her comments and dialogue. She was very witty and expressive. As a fan of silent films, there were times when I wished she didn't fill in all the gaps though. I'm used to seeing a story told via meaningful looks and pithy dialogue – and it didn't add anything to hear [the character] Kenji counting every penny into his friend's hand, for example. In that way, the narration made me take the film far less seriously. There are some gorgeous moments in that film and I think you miss them if you're hearing "later that day" or "where is Kenji I wonder?" over an Ozu pillow shot.

As regards your first question: you do have to remember when you're watching a silent that there is the film itself, the silent moving photographs and separate to that, the possibilities of exhibition. A modern soundtrack can make you look at a film differently. If, however, you were watching the film in a fleapit in 1905, with a film lecturer and a pianist following a cue sheet of contemporary music, you would have had a different experience, but not necessarily a more authentic one.

As far as the Benshi taking the emphasis away from the visuals, there are two ways that can happen. Literally, a lecturer's presence encourages your eyes to wander from the screen. More importantly, narration risks being reductive: it's a shame in a well-made film to shrink any one image to one meaning. An image of a teapot or a train in an Ozu film means a lot more than "it's time for tea" or "the trains are running".

So, it would seem, we do have to acknowledge that hearing narration over a silent film does change the way we read the film (for better or for worse). With this in mind, then, it seems that unreceivedopinioin was right to suggest my reading of A Page of Madness was somewhat incomplete: it may have been the correct subjective response to the version of the film that I saw, but – to an extent – the version that I saw was also incomplete.

 

The problem of 'incompleteness', of course, is rife among silent films. Many of the great works of the silent era remain only in incomplete versions, with new restorations continually seeking to reinstate them to their former glory. In this age of seeking out (striving for) such completeness, it seems interesting that narration on silent films – in the west at least – is such a rare beast. Would it really be that hard to record a film commentator and offer their narration as an alternate audio track on a DVD? (Of all the DVDs in my collection, I can only think of one which has someone talking over it in such a way). But perhaps a recording would miss the point. To return more specifically to the example of the Benshi – these people were the rock stars of their day, and the live element seems crucial to their art. So perhaps this is yet another element we need to throw into what is seemingly an increasingly complex question (and perhaps one with no clear answer).

 

At the risk of ending on a note totally tangential to the main thrust of this post, it does seem like another issue has been raised in my ramblings here – and, seeing as it's something else I've been thinking about since my discussions with unreceivedopinioin, I hope you'll indulge me…

 

It seems that, in the modern day, there's a real tendency to look at silent films as a single unit – call it a genre, if you will. Why and when this has happened is perhaps difficult to say, but it does seem (to me at least) that 'silents' are lumped together in way that 'talkies' are not (though perhaps that's only true of English-language talkies – you'd never say that you were 'off to see a talkie film', but I suspect some might say 'I'm off to see a foreign-language film', thereby lumping together everything that isn't English-language in one fell swoop). Here, it seems, I should confess that I think my comments on A Page of Madness are as guilty of this as they are of overlooking the absence of a Benshi. But the point I'm trying to make is that silent films are as diverse as their talkie equivalents. There's always going to be a need to group films together for the sake of scholarship, but I fear that silent cinema is drawing the short straw here. As this post shows, silent films, and their reception, are a dense, complicated landscape consisting of many different elements worthy of detailed, individual study.

The Artist (LFF 2011)

Anyone who's ever spent even a tiny bit of time reading this blog will know that I'm more than a little partial to cinema from the silent era. So it's only natural that I'd get a little bit excited when buzz started emanating from Cannes earlier this year about a silent film. Even more tantalising, though, was the fact that this buzz was not focused around a film from before the invention of the talkies, but the world premiere of a brand-new film: The Artist, directed by Michel Hazanavicius. To some, the idea of a modern-day silent might seem like madness, but as someone who still believes that many of the most interesting, imaginative and exciting films predate the 1930s, I started to wonder if this could be the rebirth of a glorious, and unfortunately all-but-lost, form of filmmaking. The fact that it's not the only silent film made in the last year supports this hope.

So, naturally, when the film received its UK premiere at the London Film Festival earlier this week I jumped at the chance to see it. I'd been worried that the film's subject and setting – it's the story of a silent film actor chewed up and spat out by the invention of the talkies – might prevent the film from ever rising above the level of parody, and it's true there's a definite element of this. The film also never lets you forget that it's a silent work in a sound age, with repeated intertitle jokes about 'not talking' ultimately proving a little too knowing for the film's own good. But these minor grumbles aside, the thing that struck me about the film is just how well it will play to a number of different audiences...Serious film fans will love it by default (or, at the least, the idea of it) while more general film fans will revel in its gorgeous visuals, its light-hearted humour, its warming romance and its superb performances. For all its supposed-boldness, it's an incredibly accessible film destined to no-doubt win over any viewer willing to give it a chance. Yes, it's far from perfect and at time strays a little close to cliché and sentimentality, but it's also a damn good ride by any standards, and the fact that it's silent only serves to make it all the more loveable.

Whether it will have the desired effect of opening the floodgates for more modern-day silents remains to be seen. The fact that it plays so well will encourage good word of mouth and (hopefully) a good box-office will follow. However, its subject matter and continued flirtation with knowing parody means that it's impossible to take it too seriously as a precedent for how further modern-day silents would fare. It's also true that, as perfectly crafted as it is, the filmmaking never enters truly exciting territory (compare, for instance, the cinema-going scenes here with the one found in Anthony Asquith's A Cottage on Dartmoor).

Still, whatever its ultimate impact on the world of film, The Artist remains one of 2011s most enjoyable and interesting films so far. Let's hope it finds the success it deserves.

Metropolis

Last night I attended the UK premiere of the new print of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The last time I saw the film must have been something like ten years ago, and I have to confess that it didn't do much for me at the time. But last night all of my doubts were blown away. Sure, the ending is still sentimentally simplistic, but it's impossible not to be swept away by the sheer scale and ambition of it all. Even by today's standards it's impressive, but considering it comes from 1927 it's nothing short of monumental. But it's not only the baroque excess that impresses. It's everything. The scene where Rotwang chases Maria around the catacombs by flashlight struck me as especially effective, a masterpiece of tension. Seeing the film with the new footage, one wonders how the film ever worked without it. Perhaps it didn't (it would explain my lukewarm the first time I saw it). But whatever the case, it certainly works now. So whether you've seen Metropolis before or not, if you haven't yet seen the new restoration, well, you haven't yet seen Metropolis. And boy, are you missing out!

A Phantom of Phantom

For some reason, ever since I saw F.W. Murnau's Phantom back in January, I haven't been able to stop thinking about this image and the scene which it comes from. I guess that's the power of good filmmaking for you.

Essential Experiments

On April 15th the BFI inaugurated a new monthly strand 'dedicated to the history of experimental cinema'. Curated in partnership with Kingston University, the strand, entitled 'Essential Experiments', aims to 'trace the development of avant-garde cinema' through a carefully selected programme of screenings featuring introductions from a variety of guest speakers. The first film screened under the 'Essential Experiments' banner was Robert Wiene's 1919 classic, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. As Elisabetta Fabrizi (BFI Head of Exhibitions) explains on the BFI website, the film was chosen for being one of the first masterpieces 'to go beyond cinema's straightforward realism' by 'taking inspiration from the visual arts'. Fabrizi is, of course, absolutely right in her praise of Caligari, which stands up as one of cinema's first great masterpieces. Its painted sets are perhaps still unsurpassed as the ultimate use of expressionist techniques in cinema (few other films have attempted such extreme outright stylisation, and fewer still have succeeded as well). However, as great a film as Caligari is, it's also a film which has – at least up to a point – been widely seen, meaning that it's the second film screened in the strand which really makes things exciting: namely, Germaine Dulac's The Seashell and the Clergyman.


Premiered a full year before the release of Buñuel and Dalí's Un chien andalou, The Seashell and the Clergyman is considered to be the first surrealist film (a somewhat ironic fact, given that a group of surrealists, led by André Breton himself, heckled the film at its 1928 premiere, bringing the projection to a swift halt). While the film might not, in my opinion, have quite the same visceral impact of its more famous cousin, it's an intoxicating watch all the same, and one which incorporates many of the traits which would become standard tenets of surrealist cinema (a juxtaposition of seemingly random images which attack rational understanding, a focus on sexual desire, events strung together with a dream-like, subconscious logic).

The film was written and storyboarded by the writer, poet, actor, theorist and theatre director Antonin Artaud. Artaud's theories of cinema called for a displacement and disruption of reality in favour of raw images torn away from traditional representation, thereby forcing the viewer's senses into a violent reaction: the idea was to reproduce in the viewer the impact of a dream. Perhaps confusingly, Artaud would later accuse Dulac of having stifled his vision by imposing a dream-like logic onto the film. Artaud's intention, therefore, was not to recreate a dream-like experience, but to create an experience which would reproduce the physical, neurological impact of a dream on its spectators.

Judged from this angle, Artaud was right to view the film as a failure. However, Artaud's theories are lofty and his dismissal too quick. Dulac's own theories of a 'pure' visual cinema free from the influence of other art forms and, more importantly, her belief that cinema should present and explore the inner lives of its characters, render the film an effective and arresting piece of interior cinema, bending and jumping its way along the contours of the human subconscious in proto-surrealist fashion.

Upon its release, the film was banned by the BBFC with the bizarre statement that 'The film is so cryptic as to be almost meaningless. If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable'. What's even more bizarre, though, is that upon seeing the film it's hard not to agree with them! Ostensibly a tale of the Clergyman's love and sexual desire for 'the woman', the film deliberately resists narrative cohesion and a simple decoding of its symbolism (the fact that the film's reels were projected in the wrong order upon its American release without anyone noticing speaks volumes). And yet, it's impossible not to read the film as some kind anti-clerical gesture, a comment upon the underlying desires masked behind the veil of common Catholicism. The Clergyman is sinister, violent and lustful in his dogmatic pursuit of the Woman, and Artaud's other work (such as the radio play To Have Done with the Judgement of God) makes his anti-religious stance clear. However, it would be reductionist to place any one meaning on a film of this kind: other themes come crashing out – like those of identity and the anxiety of usurpation (for it is the Officer who hears the Woman's confession, not the Clergyman) – while its hallucinatory play with the grammar of filmmaking prioritises the act of subjective viewer experience.


Indeed, on a formal stylistic level the film can be seen as a prelude to Dulac's final abstract films, which avoid narrative in favour of stressing the art of movement, or, as she put it, 'visual music'. One of these films, Étude cinégraphique sur une arabesque, was screened along with The Seashell and proved itself to be a hypnotic, rhythmic exploration of movement, texture and pattern.

The print of The Seashell shown was from the 2004 restoration of the film, and it was screened without any musical accompaniment, as per Dulac's wishes. The screening was given an extended introduction by the filmmaker and historian Prosper Hillairet, in which he discussed the life and work of Dulac and Artaud, their troubled relationship, the context in which the film was made, and of course the film itself. He also screened the short documentary Uproar in the Ursulines, about the commotion caused by the surrealists at the film's premiere.

The Essential Experiments strand is set to continue with such films as Man with a Movie Camera and L'inhumaine, and promises to be an ongoing strand of two slots per month. Based on the strength of its opening films, it looks like the use of the word 'essential' in its title isn't an exaggeration.

Freud on Film

As someone who doesn't have a lot of time for Freudian psychology, I was unlikely to ever love a film described as 'The first openly 'Freudian' movie', but as someone who does have a lot of time for silent cinema I thought I'd see GW Pabst's Secrets of a Soul on the big screen while I had the chance (it was screening at the BFI Southbank as part of their 'Psycho in Context' season). Although, as expected, the film didn't overly excite me on a narrative level, it felt like a pretty impressive piece of cinema all the same.

Based on a real case history, the film, co-written by Pabst and two of Freud's assistants, tells the story of a chemistry professor – Martin Fellman – who develops a fear of sharp objects, before a chance encounter with a psychoanalyst leads him onto the couch.

The opening scenes unfold at an impressively measured pace, slowly unfolding the events which lead up to the film's centrepiece moment: the elaborate expressionist dream sequence. Utilising all manner of effects and tricks, the sequence serves as a strong example of the power of German expression to render character psychology on screen solely through visual means (stylised sets, double exposures, miniatures, distorted images, etc.).

Given the impressive imagery of the dream sequence, it's all the more disappointing when the film then plods along into a pretty pat psychoanalytical breakdown of its meaning. Piece-by-piece, Fellman and his analyst discuss the dream and soon enough Fellman is cured and feeling fine just in time for a trite, sentimental ending.

While Pabst's sturdy directorial hand ensures that the film is never without interest, unfortunately as a whole the piece never lives up to the promise of its exciting dream sequence: perhaps a hint that sometimes the unconscious is best left unexplained.

London Film Festival, Part II

What follows are a few thoughts on the films and events that I was able to catch during the second half of the London Film Festival. You can find my thoughts on what I saw during the first half in my previous post, here.

As stated in the intro to the first part, these posts are by no means meant to be a thorough report on the festival as a whole, but more like a few notes on each of the films I saw and the events I attended. Items are listed by the order in which I saw them.

High Treason (1928)
Made in 1928, High Treason was shot in two versions; one a talkie and one a silent. It is now believed that the sound on the talkie version has disintegrated to the point of being unscreenable, and so it was the silent version that was shown. The film screened as part of the 'London Loves' strand of the festival, which shows British silent films at free outdoor screenings in Trafalgar Square. Although it's a great idea, it does, of course, have one inherent flaw: being outside, in London, in October. About a minute into the screening it started raining, and I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed the experience of watching the film outside in the pouring rain. However, I did enjoy the film. It tells the story of the World League of Peace attempting to prevent a war between the Federated States of Europe and the Atlantic States after a 'border incident' occurs. Set in the highly futurist world of (ahem) 1950, the film was supposedly attempting to be a British answer to Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Well, Metropolis it ain't, but that doesn't mean that there isn't plenty to enjoy here. Sure, there are aspects of this future world that don’t quite make sense, some of the character motivations aren't clear, and it has a sense of morality so strong that it feels like a propaganda piece, but it's solidly made and good looking. Furthermore, there are some interesting ideas raised about war and peace which, although perhaps rather simplistic, still seem pertinent today, and at times the film seemed strangely prophetic in some of the details of its imagined future. In my opinion, it's a film which definitely deserves to be seen by silent cinema aficionados.

At the screening, High Treason was preceded by a great little comedy short from 1924, called The Fugitive Futurist. It's available on YouTube through the BFI (here), and I certainly recommend a quick look.


The Ethical Problem of Violence on Film
A free panel discussion on the topic of the title, between the filmmakers Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, Pat Holden, Richard Jobson and BBFC examiner Hammad Khan, hosted by film professor and writer Linda Ruth Williams. Although the discussion was always interesting, I didn't find it particularly insightful (in that I don’t feel like I walked away necessarily knowing anything more than what I knew when I went in, a few specific example asides). However, an interesting point was made by Hammad Khan about what he perceives as the distinction between the Hollywood treatment of violence and the way that it is treated by independent filmmakers. Hollywood, he suggested, presents the violence in a way that will be passively accepted by the audience, while independent filmmakers often attempt to get viewers to engage with what they are seeing, and to think about both the violence on the screen and their own reactions to it (and thus we get the mainstream wave of so-called 'torture porn' as opposed to, say, Michael Haneke's damning critiques of violent cinema).


Benicio Del Toro Screen Talk
Benicio Del Toro was in London to promote the UK premiere of his new film Che, and, as a result, a lot of this talk understandably centred around the film (for more on which, see below). Throughout the interview, Del Toro came across as affable and amiable, with a tendency for rich, self-deprecating humour ("I'm one of those fucking 'hair' actors!".) However, although clearly intelligent and articulate, he frequently broke off his answers with "brah brah brah brah", stating that he felt he was talking too much! It often seemed as if he didn't want to say too much, or, perhaps, that he wasn't able to comment on something which is, to him, an internal process (for example, when asked about his use of facial expressions, he replied "I don't think about it. It just happens".) In this way, he reminded me of Woody Allen. All in all, the talk was a good accompaniment to the screening of Che, but perhaps a little disappointing within itself.


Che (Part I and Part II, 2008)
[For clarity, I refer below to the film as Che, and the man as Guevara].

Despite its perhaps unconventional approach to the genre, Steven Soderbergh's two-part epic must, essentially, be understood as a biopic. As a result of this, much of what has been written and said about Che has focused (perhaps rightly, perhaps unfairly), on its portrayal of Ernesto "Che" Guevara (played here brilliantly by Benicio Del Toro). Some, it seems, are outraged that the film was made at all, feeling it to be another example of 'Hollywood leftism' going too far in glorifying a murderer, while others, it seems, are criticising the film for not glorifying him enough. Whatever one thinks of Guevara as a man (and personally I feel ambivalent and under qualified to make a staunch judgment), one cannot deny that he has become a cultural icon. Furthermore, it must be admitted, on both sides of the argument, that his image is far more widely seen (and sold) than it is understood. And it is this reason – as opposed to an unbridled glorification – that both Soderbergh and Del Toro have given for embarking on the project: to help people understand the man behind the icon.

Soderbergh has stated, moreover, that the intention behind the project was simply to give a sense of what it was like to 'hang out' with Guevara. From my viewpoint, I felt that the film achieved this perfectly. Predominately framing in long and medium shots, Soderbergh's camera acts almost as a casual observer to Guevara's actions. The effect of this on the film is what feels like an objective, nonjudgmental stance: we, as viewers, are left to interpret Guevara's work and actions as we see fit (and the film's meditative pace gives the viewer plenty of time in which to do this). At the Screen Talk the night before the screening, Del Toro firmly stated, much to the derision of some in the audience, that there were many things that he respects in Guevara, but also things in him with which he disagrees (like his support of the death penalty). This ambivalent sentiment, which admittedly does reflect my own stance on Guevara, seemed to be embedded within the film. Although I believe that the objectivity towards Guevara continues throughout both parts of Che, Part II does perhaps lean our sympathy more pointedly towards Guevara and his cause, by painting the Bolivian government as blacker than black. However, despite pointing our sympathy towards Guevara, I don't believe that the film ever glorifies his actions.

By taking a distant and cerebral stylistic approach to the material, Soderbergh shows us the inherent tedium of guerilla warfare, while also showing us its sheer brutality. At no times revelling in its violence, the film shows us the cold, remorselessness of war (thus giving lie to the silly idea that all war films inherently end up glorifying war, as recently discussed on Shooting People). At no time did I feel like the film was embracing Guevara as a hero, because, quite frankly, its style constantly keeps us at one remove. For some this is the film's greatest problem, and people have seen it as a sign of the film's failure (and indeed I could sense a growing restlessness around me in the cinema). It is, however, precisely this seemingly apathetic treatment which stops the film from descending into hero-worshiping propaganda.

As always with Soderbergh's films, Che looks amazing. I honestly believe that Soderbergh, besides being a great director, is also one of the most accomplished and underrated cinematographers working in mainstream cinema, and this film clearly supports that belief. Much has been made elsewhere about the difference in style between the two parts (later to be released as separate films), but in my opinion the difference is more in tone than in style: Part II has a narrower, more claustrophobic aspect ratio, a different, more emotive type of score, and a simpler, more focused, linear structure (Part I flashes back and forth between Guevara's campaign in Cuba and his trip to New York years later). Along with the increased sense of sympathy for Guevara as mentioned above, the tonal differences in the second part lead to an increasing sense of jeopardy in, and engagement with, the work. That said, I think that, perhaps because of the non-linear structure, Part I is potentially the more impressive and interesting of the two. However, that aside, I do believe that the films should be taken as a single work, and I'm certainly glad I had the opportunity to see them in this way. At the Screen Talk, Del Toro stated that Soderbergh explains the two part structure as Guevara making five moves which work on one girl, and then trying the same five moves on another girl, only for them not to work. Thus the first part supports the second, and vice versa.

As one whole, single piece, the film has the epic feel and scope of the auteur cinema of the 1970s. Indeed, Terrence Malick was on board the project for a while, and, whether remnants of his contribution or pure coincidence, there are times when his work is invoked (most notably in a beautiful shot of the revolutionists crossing the river in Part II which recalls the striking opening shot of Malick's The New World).

Although I don't think that Che stands as Soderbergh's greatest film, I do believe that it is a landmark achievement in modern cinema, providing a fascinating and unbiased examination of an important and controversial cultural icon. I hope that, in time, it will overcome the mixed reaction it received at Cannes, and come to be genuinely regarded as the masterpiece of cinema it so clearly is.


The Living Corpse (1929)
The Living Corpse, is not, as its title might suggest, a Caligari-style horror piece, but is, instead, a rare, silent melodrama about the limiting of personal freedom under a state-controlled society (and indeed it takes this to a propagandist extreme, showing just how unhappy state laws which limit freedom can make people be). The story revolves around Fyodor Protasov's (excellently played by none other than Vsevolod Pudovkin) attempts to get divorced from his wife, who he believes is in love with another man, so that she can be free to live happily with this man (it has to be said, though, that the film muddles this a little bit, implying at one point that Protasov and his wife's sister might have feelings for one another, implying at another that it's Protasov who's responsible for the disintegration of the marriage and not his wife, and inconsistently suggesting several times that his wife loves only him and not the other man – it's also unclear if it's the characters or the filmmakers who are confused). Directed by Fyodor Otsep, the film was the first international coproduction between Germany and Russia, and the style of the film seems to draw from both of these traditions, mixing muted expressionism with moments of flashy and effective montage (with many striking uses of cross fades and double exposures, and some great practical implementations of Eisenstein's intellectual montage theory). The film has a beauty and a physical texture to it that one can only find in silent cinema, and it's certainly a well made and enjoyable film. However, in addition to the confusion I’ve already noted, there is also a major flaw in its central plot point, which is hard to discuss without giving too much away. Suffice it to say, then, that the central plot development on which the whole film hinges is, unfortunately, unbelievable and unconvincing (and also not fully explained). In all, I think it has enough good and interesting things in it to make it worth recommending (and it may also be of interest to cineastes as Martin Koerber's first restoration), but ultimately it remains an unsatisfying experience.


Despite not ending on the high with which it began, my experience at this year's festival has been a great one, and the only shame is that I didn't get to see more. Other people I've spoken to have agreed that it's been a strong year for the festival, and recurring highlights from others include Hunger and Lake Tahoe.

Roll on LFF 2009!