Japón

Japón (2003 DVD)
Directed by Carlos Reygadas
Mexico, 2002
In Spanish with English subtitles

Unsettling but extremely accomplished debut effort from a young Mexican director who first came to my attention with his controversial Battle in Heaven (Batalla en el cielo) a few years back. As with that film, Japón is an enigmatic, occasionally awkwardly-told tale of great visceral power nonetheless due to the primacy it places on sounds and images as narrative devices. "Tarkovsky Lite" is a tag no sane director should want to be saddled with, but Reygadas practically asks for it with this brooding meditation about a guy who moves to a faraway village to kill himself only to eventually discover that death might not be the only solution to all his problems. Probably too existential and/or violent for the Indiana Jones fans in your immediate family. (http://www.tartanvideousa.com/)

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Day of Wrath

Vredens Dag (2001 DVD)
Dirigida por Carl Theodor Dreyer
Dinamarca, 1943
En danés con subtítulos en inglés

Rodeada en un país ocupado por los nazis en aquel entonces, Vredens Dag se nos presenta como la historia de un amor prohibido entre la joven esposa de un viejo clérigo y su igualmente joven hijastro. Aunque esta trama melodramática tiene lugar en un pueblo dinamarqués durante el siglo XVII, dos cazas de bruja dentro de la película llaman la atención a los paralelos con las persecuciones del presente. Como con La pasión de Juana de Arco (1928), otra obra clásica de Dreyer llena de sombras y víctimas, la bien merecida fama de esta cinta se debe a su valor como una meditación sobre el amor y el rechazo que critica la intolerancia de manera conmovedora.

En cuanto al hilo narrativo, todo comienza cuando una bruja, Herlof's Marte (la impresionante Anna Svierkier, gritando arriba), muere en la hoguera, haciendo un maleficio contra el vicario (un magnífico Thorkild Roose) y su esposa Ana (Lisbeth Movin, abajo). Mientras que la historia avanza a su final predestinado, Dreyer nos atrae con toques magistrales (la música habla del día de Juicio Final al mismo tiempo que las escenas sugieren que la sociedad está usurpando los derechos del individuo en otros juicios cotidianios) y hermosos (la mise en scène es particularmente esquisita en que las caras de los actores y el plató parecen imitar los retratos de los grandes maestros holandeses). Desgraciadamente, el único defecto del film (la transformación muy exagerada de la protagonista cuando se enamora de su hijastro) quebranta el tono de tal manera que me sentí defraudado por el cambio cerca del desenlace. ¡Qué curioso! (http://www.criterion.com/)

[Este DVD pertenece al "box set" Carl Theodor Dreyer que también incluye los largometrajes Ordet y Gertrud y el documental Carl Th. Dreyer--My Métier.]

Clara et Moi

Clara et Moi (2006 DVD)
Directed by Arnaud Viard
France, 2004
In French with English subtitles

Julie Gayet is riveting (acting-wise and ooh la la-wise) as half of Clara et Moi's photogenic but troubled title couple, but I don't even want to think about what this slightly better than average love story would have been like without her star-in-the-making performance. An early silent movie style dialogue-free pick-up scene on the Paris Metro was an unexpectedly nice treat, for example, but other directorial risks like the musical interlude during the couple's first date were more on the not-so-great side if you ask moi. And despite a few good supporting actor turns elsewhere in the work, lead Julien Boisselier's somewhat milquetoasty Antoine didn't do much for me as the other half of the romantic equation in question--too bad my treatment for a film called Clara et R-Lo was rejected sight unseen by both the movie people and my wife. Merde! (http://www.lifesizeentertainment.com/)

Nosferatu, una sinfonía de horror

Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (2002 DVD)
Dirigida por F.W. Murnau
Alemania, 1922
Silente con intertítulos en inglés

Después de haber visto la totalmente olvidable Memorias de una geisha (un fracaso sino por la presencia de la guapísima Gong Li, mi nueva novia china de "talkies" americanos) el viernes pasado, era un gran placer regresar al mundo silente, teutónico e incluso "Ferdinand von Galitzienesco" de Nosferatu el día siguiente. Aunque había sido un rato desde que yo vi esta clásica por primera vez, estoy contento de decirles que la obra mantenga su capacidad de entretener sea mediodía o medianoche.

A pesar de tener un estilo narrativo más "novelístico" que algunas otras obras de la época, el despertador de esqueleto arriba (¡qué toque tan chido!) nos recuerda que Nosferatu es un nitrato dedicado a lo visual más que nada. Los méritos artísticos de los paisajes salvajes, los ataúdes llenos de ratas, y la llegada de la "barca de la muerte" a Bremen, por ejemplo, son reconocidos en todo el mundo; además, llaman la atención al poder simbólico de los sueños por medio de sus trucos tétricos.

Al hablar de las imágenes, tengo que confesar que nunca me canso de mirar el actorazo Max Schreck (él de la sombra famosísima) como el vampiro Nosferatu. Ustedes sabrán que no estoy diciendo nada nuevo aquí, pero la "fusión" de Schreck y Nosferatu es más escalofriante y creíble que nunca. Si esta toma dice casi todo acerca de la calidad alucinante de la película, una sorpresa final queda igualmente interesante: si miran atentamente a la escena, verán un ejemplo antiguo de una heroína feminista dando todo por amor. (http://www.kino.com/)

My Brother Is An Only Child

Mio fratello è figlio unico
Directed by Daniele Luchetti
Italy, 2007
In Italian with English subtitles

I saw this excellent movie at the Kendall Square Theater last Friday, and I'm happy to report that it's the best modern Italian film I've seen in ages (the final moments, in particular, just wowed me with all the raw emotion on display). The one plot summary I'd read about it going in didn't sound entirely promising--two brothers, one a communist and the other a fascist, fall in love with the same girl as part of their coming of age/sibling rivalry story set in a '60s and '70s Italy still traumatized by World War II--but the storylines were handled with such energy, unpredictability and humor that I can barely wait till it's available on DVD. It helps that all three leads (Elio Germano as Accio, Riccardo Scamarcio as Manrico, and Diane Fleri as the way-cute love interest Francesca) are charismatic and convincing in playing flesh and blood characters who actually evolve as the story progresses, but the script is equally adept at evoking both a period anti-Americanism ("What can Americans do besides skyscrapers? Nothing!" one disgruntled guy asks) and a domestic cynicism ("A fascist in the family is always handy...like a plumber," Accio notes before roughing somebody up) without resorting to the usual stereotypes. Messy, exuberant and soulful.

The Cat and the Canary

The Cat and the Canary (1998 DVD)
Directed by Paul Leni
USA, 1927
Silent with English intertitles

Lightweight but entertaining haunted house comedy (weird combination, I know) from German expressionist expat Paul Leni. I haven't seen either the 2005 Image or the 2007 Kino restorations of the film, but the picture quality here is fine with all sorts of sepia shadows providing the requisite atmosphere. The action revolves around new heiress Annabelle West's attempts to fend off a host of challenges to her millions in inheritance money, the catch being that she must first maintain her sanity as giant claws clutch jewelry off her neck during her sleep and dead people fall out of hidden panels and such. Creighton Hale's bespectacled dork, Paul Jones, is a little too goofy for me as the main comic relief figure, but the other characters are mostly OK and the "grotesque" mansion itself is an eyeful with or without the howling wind in the background. Includes a great version of the original 1927 score and a Harold Lloyd short (Haunted Spooks) that I haven't seen yet since I've been too busy gallivanting about town with ladies in fur coats. (http://www.image-entertainment.com/)

Rififi

Du rififi chez les hommes (2001 DVD)
Directed by Jules Dassin
France, 1955
In French with English subtitles

Based on an Auguste le Breton novel so laced with criminal slang that blacklisted American director Jules Dassin had to call in his French business agent to translate the work for him before deciding whether or not he wanted to adapt it for the screen, this 1955 Parisian noir is one of the canonical works in the failed heist and/or robbery-gone-horribly-wrong subgenres. The famous 33-minute safecracking scene, devoid of all dialogue or any musical accompaniment whatsoever, is a testament to Dassin's directorial audacity and cinematic craftsmanship; other aspects of the production, from the excellent ensemble acting to the criminals vs. criminals subplot to all those handsome City of Light location shots filmed almost entirely at night or on overcast days, are similarly virtuosic without being showy in the least. How much Rififi's closing moments surpass or succumb to genre expectations depends on whether you regard the ending as a redemption story or a morality tale, but there's no denying the aesthetic punch packed into all the frames that precede it. A knockout. (http://www.criterion.com/)

Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler

Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (2006 DVD)
Directed by Fritz Lang
Germany, 1922
Silent with English intertitles

• "How does a woman like you get into such company? Black marketeers, gamblers and prostitutes?"
• "We are bored and tired, Mr. von Wenk! We need sensations of a very special kind to keep us alive!"

Fine, fine crime thriller frequently hailed as Germany's response to the Fantômas books and Feuillade serials. While a hefty four and a half hours of running time may necessitate that you devote a weekend to most leisurely submit to its decadent pleasures (the film, based on a pulp novel by Norbert Jacques, was initially released in two aptly-titled installments, Dr. Mabuse, the Great Gambler and Inferno: A Play of People of Our Time), the documentary-like portrayal of various cocaine-and-cards clubs and the usual expressionistic obsessions with things like mad doctors, mind control, and spiritualism make this totally worth it. Siegfried Kracauer's 1947 From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film isn't alone in positing Mabuse as the type of tyrannical, Hitlerian übermensch that would foreshadow the true Evil to come, but Lang's vision of manipulated stock market crashes and world-weary aristocrats looking for shallow kicks ("Everything you see from a car or a theater box is ugly...or dull") does a superior job of capturing a Berlin hovering over the edge of the abyss even without that retrospective analytical baggage included. Featuring Rudolf Klein-Rogge as the power-mad archcriminal, Bernhard Goetzke as the dogged Prosecutor von Wenk, and Gertrude Welcker as aimless socialite Gräfin Dusy Told (my new silent movie girlfriend, at least for the day). (http://www.kino.com/)