Isn't Music Supposed To Express What People Are Feeling?: Dreamgirls (2006)

While I had a different film scheduled for viewing for the last blog post of the musical marathon, and by extension, the last post of the year, I think it is fitting that I finished off with a rather contemporary work in 2006's Dreamgirls.  While I started the marathon with an early Astaire classic Top Hat, whose structure is decidedly in the classic setting, Dreamgirls made nearly seventy five years later and a century after the medium of film came into its fullest form, represents a return to the classic filmic structure, one with a linear narrative and poised look at a period in music that was heavily competitive and troublesome when one was oppressed by layers of intersectionality.  Dreamgirls is a new consideration of the Busby Berkeley style backstage musical, reconsidered for a modern audience, one that is further extended by it being an adaptation of a Broadway musical, helping to navigate some of the more showy elements at play in the film.  I worked my way through Dreamgirls wondering as to whether or not it was actually an exceptional film, or a reworking of the Oscar-bait Hollywood fare that manages to pique critics interest for subject matter alone.  Dreamgirls would be slightly more impressive were it to have committed to a stylistic cohesion of some sort, relying on musical numbers in a singular style, instead of using them both as a point of narrative advancement, as well as dialogue construction.  Furthermore, while it should be very much embraced for possessing  cast that is almost predominantly composed of African-American actors, it seems hesitant to navigate some of the more challenging and troublesome racial spaces that would have existed in the era to save face and make a universally palatable film.  I would much rather have revisited 2005's Hustle and Flow, a film that challenges 'safe' depictions of race in cinema, while also technically falling within the definition of the musical, although it is in a decidedly modern context.  The sum of all the parts of Dreamgirls are nice, but it suffers from a few too many missteps to make for a worthwhile and praiseworthy filmic experience.  Indeed, if this is one of the premier examples of the musical in the past decade, it truly is at a low point.

Dreamgirls focuses on the musical aspirations of a group of young African-American woman hoping to make it big as singers.  The three women Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles),  Effie White (Jennifer Hudson) and Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose) are young small town girls who hope that by appearing at a local tryout for a musical competition that they could win a recording contract and subsequently make it big in the industry.  While they lose out to a blues guitarist they do catch they eye of manager and eye for musical talent Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx) who hopes to use them as back up singers for the aging star James 'Thunder' Early (Eddie Murphy).  While the group is hesitant, particularly Effie, to serve as backup singers, when they are promised money and a chance to make it big they jump on the opportunity, taking with them Effie's brother and performance choreographer C.C. (Keith Robinson).  While the initial stardom proves ideal for the group things quickly come to a halt when the advances of James and at various points Curtis lead to a fracturing within the group, made all the more complicated when Curtis decides to push the three women as a group act detached from James.  It is the idea of Curtis to have Deena sing lead, although both she and Effie realize that Effie is clearly the better performer.  This choice to market the group called The Dreams leads to confrontation amongst the members of the group and eventually Effie leaves in frustration.  While on sabbatical from singing, Deena makes a name for herself, although her and Curtis' relationship suffers considerably.  When James Early's old manager Marty Madison (Danny Glover) approaches Effie about returning to singing, she is initially quite hesitant, only working in small lounge fair, until the return of C.C. affords her a chance to make it big.  When this realization is discovered, Curtis takes to unethical tactics to stifle her career advancement, but after a legal battle aided by the help of Deena, the returning star finds success and eventually The Dreams make one final goodbye performance, going out on the top, much less the case for James who has by this time passed away and certainly for Curtis whose respect in the industry is all but squandered.

I want to make it rather clear that Dreamgirls is not an unwatchable film.  Indeed, many of the musical numbers are quite evocative and the performances are, for the most part, tempered by the various actors.  Eddie Murphy, much to my surprise, was probably the most well-executed acting in the film.  My concerns, come, instead from how music is used to add emotive elements to scenes that could have just as easily gained equal intensity from normal acting.  This is most glaringly troublesome during the middle section of the film when Effie decides to leave The Dreams.  While it does have a musical number proper, it is bookended by unnecessary sing-talking between the various characters that causes their dialogue to take on a nauseatingly unlistenable quality.  As a pseudo-backstage musical, the film could simply have relied on the musical performances proper as an expression of the problems at play by the characters.  Certainly, this occurs in two of the most famous backstage musicals 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933 wherein the characters' emotions are affirmed by their diagetic musical numbers.  Considering that the narrative is afforded a rather large temporal space and uses the spatial breadth of radio and television to extend its narrative, the choice to use these central singing moments is somewhat baffling.  Indeed, it is in this insistence that the film require some sort of singing dialogue that Dreamgirls traipses as a rather contentious line between well-intended narrative on the black experience in music and something that is exploitative in its veiled use of grandstanding through musical dialogue.  I am not saying that this is an impossibility in the musical genre, in fact, many of the films I have encountered this month involve sung dialogue, but this is also the main means with which narrative is delivered in the film, probably the most realized in Oklahoma, wherein it is rather clear that more of the film is sung than actually spoken and from the onset it is clearly established as a film with a reality where people sing their feelings.  For Dreamgirls it has no context and its execution becomes glaringly in its poor delivery.

Key Scene:  The initial on the road sequence, when the girls join James' show is a perfect joining of cinematic tricks and performance, it is a shame the film does not attain this level of intensity throughout.

Dreamgirls is a film worth watching, but only if renting is an option.  With that being said Hustle and Flow from a year earlier is far more worthwhile.

Barnaby, You Don't Know Anything About Women: Hello, Dolly! (1969)

I have watched a lot of musicals this month and still have a few more to look into, but I am rather certain that Hello, Dolly! will prove to be the example of all of the possible elements of a good musical layered into one brilliant epic number, all helmed by the poised and focused delivery of entertainer extraordinaire Barbra Streisand.  This, however, is only one of the contributing factors to this film as it possesses comedy, drama and enough toe-tapping musical numbers to make even the most anti-musical of viewers want to get out of their seat and dance around, hell I even found myself swaying to the music occasionally.  If any of these elements cannot manage to get the cold hearted cinephile to leap with joy, the inclusion of a singing Walter Matthau is certainly the swelling and inspiring factor of cinematic perfection.  While I might come away from this month with an understanding of Busby Berkeley still being the premier director of movie musicals, followed in a very close second by the eccentric works of Bob Fosse, then I would consider Hello, Dolly!, directed by noted performer Gene Kelly who has made multiple appearances this month on the blog, the actor turned director of the genre.  While wholly different films in theme, tone and appearance, one could suggest that Kelly's transition from actor to director that occurs here in Hello, Dolly! takes on a level of intensity tantamount to that of Charles Laughton going from actor to director of The Night of the Hunter, although the latter does have the notable one and done nature that gives it a mythic sense of scale.  Regardless, Hello, Dolly! is nothing short of a musical at its most ambitious and realized, moving in a sweeping manner through its lengthy runtime, but still leaving a sense of wonderment throughout and a wish that the tim could hold on for just a bit longer, because between the comedic timing of the various actors, a few music interludes that include at least one delightful cameo by Louis Armstrong and what has to be the highlight of Streisand's career, Hello, Dolly! from its opening frames melts into exuberant existence for all to enjoy.

Set in 1890's New York, Hello, Dolly! focuses on a group of upper middle class individuals navigating the spaces of socialite dinners and engagements of marriage and prosperity, most notably with the endeavors of one Horace Vandergelder (Walter Matthau) a tailor and textile aficionado who has long overlooked the necessity of settling down and getting married, admitting the need for a "dainty" woman in his life for composures sake.  While he has his eye on a milliner named Irene Molloy (Marianne McAndrew) it is a woman from his past named Dolly Levi (Barbra Streisand) who seems more interested in accruing his affections after the passing of her late husband.  Using her charm and guile, Dolly convinces Horace to take his time in approaching Irene for her hand, while she simultaneously introduces Irene and her coworker Minnie Fay (E.J. Peaker) to Horace's young apprentices Barnaby Tucker (Danny Lockin) and Cornelius Hackl (Michael Crawford) hoping that their wide-eyed charm will prove just the trick in getting the group to move their affections away from Horace onto their own goals, ones that allow for Dolly to plant the seed of desire in the stoic, but often misguided Horace.  Of course, the narrative plays this entire endeavor out in grand form, involving a variety of parades and dinners with which Dolly must come to odds with her lavish past, one that includes the adoration of Rudolph Reisenweber (David Hurst) and a vast array of other well-to-do individuals, all evidence when she arrives to much spectacle at the man's home and is in an honored guest during dinner.  Furthermore, Barnaby and Cornelius are not exactly forthright in their affections and need prodding and poking to become intimate with Irene and Minnie, eventually needing the women to make the advances, much in the same vein as Dolly is proving to be the instigator in her impending relationship with Horace.  While Horace flails to keep his dignity in tact as it becomes apparent his ways are becoming antiquated, fully evidenced by his nephew Ambrose Kemper (Tommy Tune) outright refusing to listen to his advice and the opening of a new tailor shop by his former employees, he has no choice but to concede to marrying Dolly.  The brilliance being that Dolly never once suggested the reality, instead hinting at it subliminally or allowing for misdirection to work in a layered form.

This movie is grand in scope and no musical number is short or half realized.  Indeed the film has a rather lengthy ten minute opening song and dance bit before viewers are even given a title card.  This is in line with the genre, but even in this context the breadth and length of such performances are exceptionally long.  While it is arguably the case for every musical, I would suggest that the length of time devoted to performance within Hello, Dolly! is intended to extend the metaphor of performing social responsibilities, here referring to ones involving dating and advancing an agenda of marriage.  Take for example, the initial performance of "I Need A Dainty Woman" by Walter Matthau's Horace. The stoic man whose refusal to speak at any length in the non-singing portions of the narrative, is juxtaposed with his marching and tonal shifting--albeit comedically--while singing this song.  Pairing this with a rather extensive use of the tropes of musical genre, allow for the entire song to speak length to what Horace knows he must do socially to accrue such a woman, yet his reluctance to do so is reflected by his musical numbers existing in the space of marching with other, affirming his own retreating back into masculine singularity as an ideal.  It is not until the closing moments when the song is reappropriated to refer to his newly formed relationship with Dolly that it is moved into a space of a large outdoor dancehall.  The performance is newly situated.  Even other songs like the title song, take on this performative layered level as Dolly must navigate a social space where she is both adored and must learn to navigate her adoration with care and poise.  However, it is wholly the fifteen plus minute dinner service seen that uses narrative performance through the musical to its most extensive and realized.  Cleverly juxtaposed with the ideals of social etiquette, Horace's own suspicions about Dolly's motivations and the attempts by Barnaby and Cornelius to escape the judgement of lower class status, the spectacle of flipping and leaping waiters and demanding patrons is evidence of a director whose own work in front of the camera is of decided note to his ability to impose grand visions onto film.

Key Scene:  Did I mention flipping waiters and flying chicken dinners yet?

This movie is worth your time and is certainly easily accessible via Netflix and other sources.

Friends Are Much Harder To Find Than Lovers: Cabaret (1972)

The perfect film is a thing I discuss ever so occasionally her on my blog, affording it a status to so few films.  Were I to be approached as little as six months ago and told that I would definitively label Cabaret as such a work, I would have scoffed off such as suggestion thinking that the elements of Bob Fosse and Liza Minnelli would be too off-putting to enjoy.  Sure I appreciate the choreography of Fosse and cannot deny the brilliance of Minnelli in the masterful ensemble that is Arrested Development, I just assumed it would be a film with a very honed in and specific audience, one that I could only tangentially appreciation.  Cabaret, however, is a stroke of cinematic perfection that manages to do so while also pushing and prodding cinematic language in a very real way.  Indeed, it uses the musical genre in a very clever manner, wherein the emotional escape of music blocks out the reality in a fantastical manner.  Cabaret begins in such a carnivalesque manner, only to have the reality become the thing in which music is appropriated while the very characters attempt to exist in states of wild delusion.  Delusional and feverish is the universe within which Cabaret orbits, finding its centrifuge within the dynamic and absolutely revelatory performance by Liza Minnelli.  Seriously, it is by far one of the best performances I have ever seen committed to screen.  I know she won the best actress nod for her turn in the film, but were they to do a centennial look back on the best film performances of the past century, it would be quite feasible to count this is the best of and perhaps even give it the award.  Between delivering lines with absolute humor only to follow with lines of devastation, Minnelli is also doing amazing work as a dancer and a singer.  The wild thing is that all of these are points of formalist consideration and I have yet to even scrape the surface on how absolutely profound the film is as a consideration of border/boundary crossing, not to mention the ways in which it works as a text on transgendered identity.  Cabaret is an absolutely perfect film in its willingness to navigate the perverse and problematic in a pointed--albeit surreal--manner.

Situated in Berlin circa 1931, the film focuses on one such cabaret that prides itself in having beautiful everything right down to its orchestra, which is comprised of buxom women, much to the elation of the aristocrats and diplomats that occupy the space.  Of course, not all is as appears on the surface, as some of the cabaret dancers, including the Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey) appear to be a bit less normative in their gender performances.  These transgendered identities aside the major point of pride within the particular cabaret is the singing and dancing of Sallly Bowles (Liza Minnelli) whose desire to make it as a film actress factors second only to her ability to belt out comedic and woeful songs at the drop of a hat.  Indeed, her performing abilities cause her to become a point of curious affection for traveling academic and Cambridge student Brian Roberts (Michael York) whose own sexual uncertainty becomes affirmed when he and Sally become lovers whilst sharing two flats in a local hotel.  Yet, their love is challenged by a variety of factors, whether it be Brian's constant desires to please his pupils of English, most notably Natalia Landauer a wealthy tailor company heiress  (Marisa Berenson) and Fritz Wendel (Fritz Wepper) a young Jewish man whose own identity becomes a point of conflict within Berlin as an increasing occupation of Nazi figures emerge adding yet another layer of woe to the relationship between Brian and Sally.  When Sally sees the possibility for advancement by engaging in a relationship with Baron Maximillian von Heune (Helmut Griem) things become considerably more complex as it is rather apparent that he favors the move away from socialism and towards fascism within the country, ignorant, if not outright flippant, of the racial and class issues at play in the particular ideology.  Furthermore, it is somewhat unclear as to whether or not Maximillian also possesses desire for Brian, whom he lingers on when hugging or forcing him to dance in a trio with himself and Sally.  Eventually, Sally becomes pregnant and the father of the child is rather uncertain.  Although, Brian agrees to be the father, Sally dreads the idea of living life as a wife in England and decides to procure and abortion.  The action leads to a parting between the two that is both deeply loving, but stifled by formality. Brian leaves for Cambridge and Sally returns to her cabaret performances, although as the closing moments of the film affirm, the crowd for such transgressive shows is dissipating quite quickly.

The amount of transgression going on in this film would make one think that it works in line with something like a Kenneth Anger film.  While it is not quite as abrasive and heavily ironic as a work by the experimental filmmaker, it does take on the layers of narrative winding and viewer to subject relationships of looking and desiring.  Wherein, something like Scorpio Rising makes a viewer reconsider the nature of the male body on display, particularly one that is perfected and chiseled, Cabaret asks viewers to completely reconsider their understanding of gender performance.  I would almost think that this film would serve as the perfect example of performing gender in the sense that Judith Butler discusses in Gender Trouble.  Even the femininity on display is to a point of absurdity, Sally's eye make up cause here eyes to pop out in a near comedic way, her claiming it to be part of her desire to be a screen starlet, which is in its own way a hyper problematic performance of femininity to begin with.  However, it is also masculinity that is consider as a thing to be performed here, perhaps most blatantly through the Master of Ceremonies, although the figure of Brian helps to consider the moral implications of not performing the social functions of masculinity, particularly the notion that sexual prowess be a reality and only so with women.  This is only one element of performance within the film though, as it also looks and considers how one performs something like Jewishness, particularly Fritz who actively passes as not-Jewish for his own safety, whereas Natalia is able to side step such concerns by possessing a high degree of wealth and a desire to be English in presence.  Indeed, the Nazism throughout this film is also called upon for its performative qualities, the camera often lingering on the swastika armbands worn by the various members of the party, asking viewers to navigate how much of the intimidation and hesitance comes from the signifier alone, a consideration that works in a post-World War II setting.  The singing of the Nazi Youth song adds a layer of trouble to this as it notes the troubled navigation between ideology and performance, showing that in some cases the two can clash in incredibly troubling ways.

Key Scene:  The money song, is the turning point in this film.  In all its humor, it still manages to be the moment where the music traipses between escapism and pointed social critique, something that had likely not occurred since "We're in the Money" from The Golddiggers of 1933.

This film is more than worth your time.  It actually demands your time.

You've Read Too Much Trash. You're A Dreamer: Vagabond (1985)

If the old biblical adage holds any truth, the meek shall indeed inherit the earth.  However, what happens when the earth has nothing left on it within which to give those without?  In the stunning, moving and, ultimately, disconcerting Agnes Varda film Vagabond it would seem that she is suggesting that the meek in such a setup can only become that which refuels the earth.  As such, it is not the meek that inherit the earth, but the exact opposite.  This surprisingly religious reading on my part is not completely ungrounded, because as a filmmaker Varda constantly reminds me that not only is she worth taking seriously on every account, but that she is also worth considering alongside, if not above, the likes of her New Wave compatriots, often making similar films with a far greater success.  Vagabond, while not her masterpiece, I reserve that appropriation for the stirring and visually evocative Cleo from 5 to 7, nonetheless, reflects what can be possible within the language of filmmaking while also constantly reconsidering how to use said language to constantly revive a lulling medium.  The narrative of the film is not wholly non-linear, however, it is also not nauseatingly straightforward.  One can read into the variety of factors affecting how a person deals with making a film and what personal experiences one pulls from and incorporates into their films, but I know I have said this previously when I discussed another moving film by Varda, One Sings The Other Doesn't, there is a lot to be said about how beneficial Varda's obvious and open feminist politics come into how she composes her film, whether it be the obvious elements of using a female in the protagonist role, or focusing the narrative on divergent voices, a few that are usually mocked or made to be silenced, even working on these very acknowledgements within the process.  The diagetic merges with the non, the other merges with the self, in fact, Varda is obsessed with confronting dichotomies and it is perhaps most blatant here in Vagabond a work that considers the most most problematic of all divides, at least philosophically speaking, humanity versus the natural world.

Vagabond begins where it ends depicting a woman laying dead in a ditch, at this point unnamed, although she is later revealed to be known simply as Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire).  Considering her clear, as the title suggest, vagabond status, an unseen narrator explains that it is her desire to recreate the moments that led up to Mona's death which begins the narratives winding recreation of Mona's experiences both through the documentary style narration of those Mona encountered, as well as the presumedly real experiences of Mona.  Along the way Mona meets a variety of people, whether they be brief, chain necklace wearing lovers, or well-meaning prostitutes, always seeming sure of her constant movement whilst avoiding settling down, particularly for engagements  that involve a romantic element.  Occasionally individuals, such as a goat herding family attempt to over exert their assumptions about her place in the world by forcing a home and job upon Mona, only to have the rebellious young woman reject the labels in favor of a pursuit, to use her words, of "music and grass."  Yet, Mona is not incapable of finding friendship, this occurs most clearly in two occasions, the first with Madame Lanier (Macha Méril) whose academic pursuits and desire to save trees somehow intersect into a bizarre attempt to shelter Mona, who takes up her lengthy car ride as a pseudo-bonding experience that also affords her the luxuries of high end food associated with the various conferences and events academic affords Lanier, however, the reality of Lanier's world cannot intersect with Mona's carefree style and the two must part ways.  Other instances wherein Mona meets people, as is the case with Tunisian migrant work Assoun (Yahiou Assouna) the customs of culture cause a divide, wherein Mona does want to stay but prescribed gender assumptions make it impossible.  Perhaps the most fascinating of engagements in the film come in the way of Mona's point of admiration through the eyes of Yolande (Yolande Moreau) who sees Mona's vagabond life as a form of romanticism and unbridled freedom.  Yet even this is destroyed when Mona's carefree attitude directly conflicts Yolande's financial safety.  In the end, Mona is left to fend for herself and in a moment when all things are against her, even in a disturbingly bizarre sense, and it is in this ultimate form of lack that her body can no longer survive.

I began this review with a biblical reference which was more of a passing thought in its initial inception, however, as I begin to consider the ways in which the film works it reminds me of two more travelogue  films with far more religious implications.  The first is Robert Bresson's heart wrenching Au Hasard Balthazar, wherein a donkey comes to represent what is easily the greatest Christ reference in the history of cinema.  The second is the hyper-provacative and wildly irreverent reconsideration of Catholic dogma that is Luis Buñuel's The Milky Way.  The latter existing in a state of complete temporal and spatial non-linear composition, while the former is about as linear a film as one could ever encounter.  In between these two is Varda's Vagabond and deservedly so because it is about where it could stand in terms of its spiritual considerations.  Far more philosophical in its endeavors, Vagabond asks very earnest questions about what role freedom and groundedness play in a persons mobility.  I have a tough time thinking of a more morally free character in the history of cinema than Mona, excluding the anti-rule abiding individuals of existential film noir films, however, these are always in opposition to a corrupt world of crime.  Here, the corruption of the world comes through their attempts to enforce societal understanding upon Mona, often at the expense of gendering her and her presumed domesticity, so much so that Mona herself longs to work in a space as a caretaker, even excelling beautifully when given the opportunity.  The act of care, however, is contingent upon social assumptions that to do so means to follow very strict rules.  Indeed when she gets an aging aunt drunk on brandy, it is deemed morally corruptible, despite it being clear that the Aunt is the happiest she has been in ages.  To be free is to have no burden, but it is also a point wherein a person can offer anything because in doing so they have nothing to lose.  Indeed, this takes on a degree of spiritual consideration as one looks at notions of homelessness, charity and expectations.  There are individuals throughout the film who attempt to help Mona, but often their actions are contingent on their own expected reward.  It is no accident that one of Mona's most earnest encounters comes through a passing engagement with a prostitute, making her far more a Christ figure than anybody might want to openly admit.

Key Scene:  The scene in which Mona drinks brandy with the aging aunt is sweet and pure cinema in its most realized sense.

Criterion box set.  Buy this, it is one of their best offering, despite not having the adoration some of the other collections seem to possess.

He Doesn't Like You Watching Us: Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

For someone who might have either actually read this blog since its inception, or happens to have trolled through all the posts I have made, will know that I am a huge supporter of the original Paranormal Activity film, citing it both as one of the major works in the horror genre, while also defending it as one of the best films of the year of its release.  Now, since then, I have managed to keep up with the franchise, not counting its foreign spin-offs, although I plan to hunt them down eventually and while I did not blog about them due to time restraints, or more likely a lack of an internet source during their respective viewings, I have decided to return to this film, for what I thought would be the final installment in the series, but as I have come to realize there is purportedly a fifth film in the works, one that seems to be focused n a family of color, which is both revolutionary in terms of sub-genre horror filmmaking, but also ripe with the possibilities of poorly executed narrative.  Either way, Paranormal 4 is a moderately successful addition to the franchise, paling in comparison to the original and falling short of the VHS based restrictions of the third film, but certainly trumping the second film which is outright the least realized of the series.  Here, in what begins to be an obvious set up for the next film, viewers are rushed through a narrative that is at times genuinely scary, but still wraps together far too quickly and manages to build upon nothing established in the first films, aside from the continual connections of one character.  The tricks are minimal and aside from a rather visually stunning use of the Xbox Kinect sensors playing heavily into the plot this was a surprisingly simple and predictable entry into the series.  This is particularly a shame since the extra heavy reliance on digital here in this film could have provided for a new level of paranormal invasion, perhaps even a complete destruction on the panoptic, surveillance like look at the movement of evil through a fractured household.  Paranormal Activity is certainly not a bad film, I was thoroughly scared throughout, but in the same sense I was always aware of how uninspired this film proved to be.

Paranormal Activity 4 begins by showing the through line of all the films Katie (Katie Featherson) playing with her infant nephew, whose name in the earlier film is Hunter, also showing her stealing the child before a card explains that the two remain missing to the point where this narrative jumps off.  The film now beginning on October 31st of 2011 looks at the life of a family, most specifically the daughter Alex (Kathryn Newton) who is attempting to deal with the fracturing relationship of her parents Doug (Stephen Dunham) and Holly (Alexondra Lee) while also proving a decent big sister to her younger brother Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp).  Furthermore, Alex is also interested in a neighborhood boy named Ben (Matt Shively) despite his rather obvious one-track mind and the condemnation of his presence by her parents.  When new neighbors move in however, things get a bit unusual when the young boy Robbie (Brady Allen) begins showing up inexplicably at their house at all times of night, first scaring Alex when he appears in the corner of their tree house late at night.  What follows is far more disturbing, when after an accident Robbie stays with the family for an extended period of time.  It is during this time that unusual events occur, things such as weird spectral presences emerging, or Wyatt and Robbie staring blankly for hours before talking to what appears to be nothing.  It is not until chandeliers begin nearly killing Alex, or knives that had gone missing begin falling from the ceiling that the remainder of the family takes notice.  However, at this point, Wyatt has become fully involved with the entity that has invaded their house, a small child that is indeed captured on the laser projection.  When attempting to uncover truth about the events, at the neighbors home, Alex runs into Katie who begins inquiring about Wyatt and his well-being.  This moment leads to Wyatt explaining that he is actually named Hunter, an issue that when brought up by Alex to her parents leads to them chastising her inquiries as being in bad taste, and when she has a final traumatic encounter with the paranormal while her parents are at dinner, things become irreversible as her mother and Ben are attack while she is at dinner with her father, upon returning and discovering the problem, she quickly runs to the neighbors home, only to find things far more disturbing than she could have imagined.

If, as I suggested, the first film is about the fall out of a relationship between two people played out as a metaphor of paranormal haunting, then this the fourth film is the first to truly look at how such a extended issue might affect a child.  Alex is a person suffering from finding an identity and certainty in the face of her parents failing marriage, always hyper aware of how things might affect the sensitive Wyatt, but also using this protection to mask her own insecurities, which are played out rather brilliantly in her relationship to Ben, one that is awkwardly sexualized, but never one of forced consummation.  It is clear that she is initially hesitant to embrace Ben, because he does not support her fears regarding the paranormal invasion of her house, or by extension understand her suffering at the sight of her parents fighting.  With this in mind, it is interesting to see how things shift when Ben is made aware of the reality of the paranormal, or by extension comes to understand the tense relationship between Doug and Holly and is particular witness to the incredibly unhealthy relationship between Wyatt and Robbie.  In fact, the invasion of Robbie into the space of the film, also takes on a shade of the metaphoric as many relationships attempt to fix their domestic issues by adding a child to the equation, here, as is usually the result, the act fails miserably.  The metaphor goes to the somewhat implausible by making it result in incredibly violent events, but this does serve as a nice parallel to the traumas faced by children born into such divisive households, ones where argument and anger prevail out over mild temperament and well-reasoned dialogue.  One could read Alex as the figure capable of doing precisely this, however, her inability to speak against the emotive is double through her being incapable of proving the presence of the paranormal to her skeptical and detached parents, each having their own mocking indifference to her concerns, perhaps because they refuse to validate the existence of the paranormal, or, more likely, because they are far too preoccupied with their own marital sufferings to create a space of dialogue for Alex and Wyatt.  As such, Alex finds herself forced to be a maternal figure to her younger brother a burden that weighs heavily upon her and is evidence very intensely in the last few seconds of the film.

Key Scene:  The real surprise her is how well Brady Allen, the child actor playing Robbie, delivers his performance.  Usually creepy kids rely on looks alone, but when Robbie stares into the camera in this film, it is all the more intense by Allen's great delivery.

This is on Netflix in both an R and unrated version, I am uncertain as to the difference in the two, perhaps a few less boob-based pieces of dialogue.  Either way, watch this and the other films in the franchise, which I believe are all currently available for streaming.

Don't Touch It, It's Just Some Accounting: Office Killer (1997)

It is quite near impossible to find works directed by women in media, let alone a film that is decided entrenched within genre.  Having just read the highly informative and critical essays "Woman With a Camera" and "Woman With a Camera: Redux" I decided to slightly shift my plans for the month and remove an anthology horror film in favor of Office Killer, a horror/slasher directed by a woman.  What makes Office Killer particularly worth consideration is that it is not only a work within the horror genre that is indeed female directed, but the director is none other than Cindy Sherman the prolific and quite fascinating feminist photographer whose series Film Stills, already play upon the conventions of filmmaking at what it means to be a woman both in front of and behind the camera.  Indeed, the set up of the film is very much something that exists in narrative comparison to her earlier photography, using the camera to record events in a very personal way, while also being hyper-aware of the manner in which the camera also serves as a tool of voyeuristic looking, even when in the hands of a female director.  One could look at the IMDB rating for this film and think that it is a film far short of enjoyable or rather bad, but I would mount much of the rejection of this film to its losing out financially by being directed by a woman, something that is inexplicably still off-putting to cinema goers who seem intent on still wholly supporting the male-oriented framework of directorship.  While Kathryn Bigelow is far from the ideal signifier of feminist filmmaking, actually quite far from it, she still serves as an example of the issue, in that despite winning an Oscar and being afforded her own degree of auteur status, she is still less sought out by moviegoers, even considering how profound and well-executed Zero Dark Thirty is a piece of cinema.  There is also another issue at play with Office Killer in that it does not subtly subvert the horror genre, but outright rejects it allowing its protagonist to also be the point of threat in the film, suggesting a wild degree of radical feminism within the context of the film, never once branching into a point of pity and curiosity instead representing the individuals in questions break from sanity to be an understandable action, merely a rebellion against a barrage of socially oppressive forces.

Office Killer is rather straightforward in its title and quite indicative in regards to what occurs, however, the story does have a few layers allowing for it to flow comfortably and succinctly.  The film centers on an office that produces a monthly magazine, facing yet another downsizing, this time leading to employees not being fired, but considerably cut down on hours.  The workers, excluding the big wigs like accountant Norah Reed (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and head editor Kim Poole (Molly Ringwald) seem comforted even in the dire times, Norah engaging in small scale embezzlement with company money, while Kim engages in romantic acts with a higher up member of the company expecting it to assure her safety.  In contrast is Dorine Douglas (Carol Kane) a slightly above middle age woman who has spent sixteen years of her life at the company without an ounce of respect or advancement.  During a night of late work, expected to finish an editorial, despite being cut back on days allowed to work, Dorine and and coworker Gary (David Thorton) attempt to complete the task, despite some awkward sexual advances on Gary's part, yet when an issue arises with some of the computers and Gary gets fatally electrocuted, Dorine hesitates in calling in medical help, instead choosing to drag Gary's corpse back to her home, where she hides him in the basement from her cats and invalid mother.  The narrative then reveals that this is far from Dorine's first experience with a violent death, suggesting that she witnessed, an directly led to what resulted in, her father drive his car into a power line.  This act of passive murder was in revolt, viewers are led to believe, to her father's sexual advances on his daughter.  Regardless, this reawakening of death leads to Dorine systematically planning a means to take out her competition in the office, primarily Kim who constantly berates Dorine, as well as Norah when she eventually realizes that it is her thieving of the company that has led to her underemployment.  Also, mastering the use of email, Dorine is able to pass as various members of the office, tricking higher ups into believing that she is solely responsible for the success of the recent issue.  Accruing a considerable amount of corpses in her basement, Dorine creates an idyllic space in her basement, clearly intended to return to a simpler time in her youth, complete with her mother now dead eating cookies and friends watching TV late into the night.  Given the non-threatening nature of Dorine, the narrative closes with her looking for a new job and a narration warning that she might be emerging at an office near any one of the people viewing the film.

It is this confrontation with the viewer without directly subverting the gaze that makes Cindy Sherman's involvement with Office Killer particularly intriguing.  Indeed, the opening of the film notes that the gaze is a thing well-established, blocking the cameras ability to completely objectify bodies by placing props in the line of view, or by using such wild angles, which constantly, change as to never provide viewers with time to situate their gaze. However, this is only a minimal element to the film, instead, Sherman whose visual ability is undeniable also excels here at drawing out the narrative forms of oppression and Dorine's breaking away from this internalized identity as lesser.  This emerges first in her moving from a woman who constantly keeps her head down, literally focused on her work, ignoring the negative views directed at her by coworkers, yet when she is made aware of the lesser status she is viewed under when receiving the cutback letter she becomes cognizant of the bodies in her office responsible for her exploitation, whether it be the unwarranted sexual advances of Gary or the matriarchal bargaining with patriarchy to achieve a degree of exploitative power, occurring on the part of Virginia Wingate (Barbara Sukowa).  It is a literal destruction of the hegemonic power structures, one could argue that Dorine realizes that her assumption that by playing into patriarchal gender roles and established norms she would eventually make it to be illogical.  At this point the film becomes violent in the sense that it undermines patriarchy in a very visceral manner, at times by accident, while at other very purposeful, but is also worth noting that not all of the rejection occurs within the space of violent engagements, indeed, Dorine is able to appropriate technology, a thing traditionally deemed masculine, and use it to undermine her oppressors.  She accrues the bodies, not incapable of objectifying her and making them part of her new post-patriarchal world, although there is something to be said about having the group watch white snow on the screen.  In this reading the only thing that could be deemed remotely problematic would be the murder of the Girl Scouts, which while troublesome play into ideas of infanticide, not out of spite but out of fear for the girls' future in a world of oppression, not justifiable, but certainly understandable coming from Dorine's framework of the world.

Key Scene:  There are a couple of segments where Sherman just lets Carol Kane perform for the camera in strokes of genius, two being her sharpening of pencils, as well as the hand tapping scene, which is only understood when seen.

This is a hidden gem on Netflix right now and it could use some love and a bit more word of mouth, for it is a rather brilliant piece of feminist filmmaking.

I'd Love For The Alarm To Ring Right Now: [REC] (2007)

For the few people who have been reading my blog since its inception over two years ago will be more than aware of my constant quest to find the perfect found footage films, delving far back to the somewhat unbearable, yet historically relevant Cannibal Holocaust and engaging with more contemporary works like The Bay and Chronicle in hopes of finding more hope for the genre's continued success.  [REC] was one film within this cannon that I had been meaning to undertake and had let percolate on my DVD shelf for nearly as long as I have had this blog up and running.  Suffice it to say, the wait was more than worth it, proving to be one of the most narratively, cinematically an jarringly engaging works within the found footage horror sub-genre I have ever witnessed.  While it will still pale in comparison to the revelation that was The Poughkeepsie Tapes, [REC] begins in the most innocuous of manner, only to end in one of the more dark and disturbing of spaces ever committed to in found footage.  [REC] beyond being a stellar work within the sub-genre, also stands on its own as a work of horror filmmaking at its height, using a variety of traditional tricks for the genre to create an ambiance and general sense of dread from the very opening of the film, always aware that in regards to this particular style of filmmaking, much of the fear and anxiety comes from not only what the camera accidentally captures, but from what it will always fail to catch, particularly when the device used to capture the events begins to fall apart on itself.  Indeed, if, as I and others have suggested, the found footage sub-genre exists as a sort of commentary on the post-modern nature of horror filmmaking  then [REC] is this notion at its most realized, resulting in a slew of sequels as well as the ever present American remake.  The joint direction of Jaume Balageuro and Paco Plaza manages to become both a look at what can scares viewers within the purportedly honest filmmaking style of found footage horror, while also extending the unique lens of this sub-genre to consider very deep issues of social divides, both rooted in physical and philosophical differences, never at one allowing those engaging with the film a moment to catch their breath and regroup themselves emotionally.  If cinema, as Tom Gunning suggests, is a thing of attractions, [REC] considers how this attraction can occur without being a necessarily pleasurable experience.

[REC] begins as many found footage films do, in media res, focusing on journalist Angela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) as she and her unseen cameraman Pablo (Pablo Rosso) capture footage for their informative expose show While You Are Asleep.  It is during this particular night on the job that they are tasked with filming the work of a firefighting crew, Angela hoping that since the job is particularly rife with physical challenge and danger that she will be able to cut together a particularly engaging episode of the show.  Despite meeting interesting people at the job, including the strong-willed and likable Manu (Ferran Terraza) it appears as though the evening will be rather underwhelming, until the station receives a call to aid in the opening of a locked apartment, where the neighbors and owners confessed to hearing screams coming from the room.  Upon arrival, the Angela, Pablo and the firefighters find almost the entire apartment complex awaiting their arrival with looks of concern and confusion upon their faces, begging that the crew immediately resolve the issue.  Upon entering the locked room they discover an older woman disheveled and half dressed jumping about her room and making disturbing shrieks and gargling noises.  Assuming her to be on some sort of drug trip or suffering from high degrees of hysteria they attempt to approach her in help, only to have one firefighter be bitten by the maniacal woman, immediately going into shock after the events.  When another firefighter plummets to his death and other individuals start taking severely and violently ill, the apartment residents and the crew attempt to exit the building only to be stopped by a SWAT team informing them that they are now in a quarantined space, incapable of leaving until a health inspector has entered and can provide the necessary tests and vaccinations.  Yet when this occurs and more outbreaks take the other residents and at one point the health inspector himself, Angela and Pablo begin planning their own escape, only to realize that what was initially believed to be a disease that spreads through saliva might well be the result of a much more sinister force, leading them in a face to face encounter with a truly disturbing entity.

[REC] avoids the pitfall of many a found footage films where a director, who usually doubles as a writer on the film, finds it necessary to make every character involved hyper-aware of the situation, dropping dialogue and narrative hints that suggest a complete understanding of every obstacle and a even more keen understanding of the presence of a camera in the situation.  Balaguero and Plaza do no such thing, realizing that the camera in the space of this film can be both a point of benefit for catching moments of human degradation and occasionally triumph, but often fails to do so with any degree of cinematic pleasure.  At first, I found myself frustrated with the particularly blurry and shaky quality of this found footage film only to realize that in its stylistic endeavors this breaking down of the visual aid is perhaps more accurate than most, never fully painting an accessible picture of the events, only half revealing the narrative elements, because as is the case with films like this the work is supposedly a rediscovery of an item that was never afforded a means to edit itself into cohesion.  Of course, films like The Bay and The Poughkeepsie Tapes change this by making the narrative work within the frame of a documentary style.  Nonetheless, [REC] is wholly an incomplete document and, as such, carries with it a certain degree of eeriness as a result.  I do not mean to say that this lack of full cohesion makes it an incomplete experience, but instead a decidedly more accurate one, causing the narratives of distrust, paranoia and perversion to become believable, so in that by the time viewers are shown the reveal in the closing moments of the film it is both baffling, but not so inconceivable as to drive away those watching from continuing on the thrilling ride.  At times [REC] does become aesthetically profound, whether it be something as simple as a girl, moments away from turning via the disease confronting the camera, or a defeated lingering on a man in a hazmat suit entering the building, [REC] kowtows to the possibilities of the cinematic form to be gripping even in its least technical performances, and almost as a way to play with the audience, the film calls attention to its very narrative in the closing line of the film, only to immediately follow this with a title card and notably non-diegetic music playing over the credits.

Key Scene:  The hazmat suits preparing to enter the building is a moment of tragic serenity in an otherwise non-stop thrill ride of film.

[REC] is readily available to all those interested in viewing the film, which, in my mind, should be everyone.

You Know It On Touch, Not On Sight: The Eye (2002)

I had originally slated another Pang Brothers film in the slot for this day in the marathon, but when doing some last minute perusing on my "to be watched" shelf which is in a constant state of caving in upon itself, I realized I already had one of their films waiting, one that was far more inclined to be read as a horror film than the one I had planned on viewing.  The film, The Eye, is perhaps most associated with its Jessica Alba remake some six years later, for which I have not seen, nor do I really care to.  However, my deep adoration for the last decade and some change of Asian horror films drew me to this without a moments hesitation, more so considering that this one navigates between a few different spaces of Asia, never making a clear distinction between the changes aside from dialects that most Western audiences, myself included, would be hard pressed to distinguish.  As such, there is a certain degree of privilege to the national viewer in a film like The Eye, which is not to say that it is distancing or alienating in its output.  The Eye is about as well made a thriller as one can ask for without completely detaching itself from the horror elements with which it borrows from liberally.  The Pang Brothers understand that what they have created is first and foremost a focus on one woman and her struggle to find meaning and purpose when her worldview is literally expanded in previously inconceivable ways, however, that does mean that there are not some genuinely creepy moments sprinkled throughout the film.  In fact, I would posit that this, a rather overlooked Chinese/Singapore horror thriller contains what may well be the scariest ghost appearance in any film I have ever encountered.  It is not a particularly ghoulish apparition, nor is it grotesque in any sort of body horror way.  It is unsettling because the directors make it non-apparent, indeed existing in the corner of the screen, as though it is almost scary to discover it than to not be aware at all.  In a world of post-modern horror genre films embracing the excess, The Eye in all its cinematic intensity and moments of truly spine chilling horror, manages to remind viewers that the scariest things are those only a few are privilege, nay, cursed to encounter.

The Eye focuses on Wong Kar Mun (Angelica Lee) a woman who has spent nearly all of her life blind after an accident in her youth left her so.  Yet, upon the information that a donor matching her type has recently been made available, her family, particularly her grandmother, rushes to get her an operation.  Although the other people in the space of her hospital room seem to fair far less in their sickness or troubles, Mun's operation is successful and with some basic rehabilitation and a pair of sunglasses she is capable of moving into the world with newly rediscovered sight.  However, her new vision-abled site is not quite as welcoming as she suspected, because where people were previously willing to help her navigate the spaces of her town, she now finds that people assume her completely capable of perfect vision, despite still struggling to completely see objects at time.  More so, her one passion as a violinist is trampled when she is kicked out of her former all blind orchestra, precisely because she is no longer blind.  If these issues were not enough, Mun begins to pick up floating entities and bodies emerging in her peripheral vision that simply should not exist, whether it be a man standing stoically in the middle of free way or a ghoulish mother and child floating into the space of a restaurant.  When her physical therapist and new found romantic interest becomes aware that perhaps her claims to be seeing entities beyond the dimensional space of normal perception, might be valid, he helps her to undertake a quest to find the donor.  This task of course proves quite troublesome since donor information is made decidedly confidential, however, the drive of both Mun and her doctor, lead them to Bangkok where it is discovered that the woman who previously held Mun's eyes was a social pariah because of her fatally accurate visions of death.  These uncontrollable visions led to the woman's suicide, thus affording Mun the eyes.  Helping to end the cycle of the unfortunate loss through a near perfect recreation of the suicide, Mun helps to put the woman's soul at ease.  Unfortunately, this does not necessarily end the visions for Mun who is confronted with one last series of death encounters, before she comes to lose the second sight, in a return to her original state of vision and, subsequently, her happiness.

Considering that I am currently working on a paper (which appears to be close to publication!) on the nature of disability in a certain big-budget super hero franchise, I am particularly keen as to when films productively deal with, or more so fail to deal with issues of confronting disability.  In a rare moment, The Eye manages to do the former and show a rather earnest look into what it means to be blind and, more importantly, how even when altered or corrected that previous blindness can still prove detrimental to one's world view, almost as if it were a very personalized consideration of the affect theory.  Mun finds considerable challenge in the act of expressing herself because how she sees the world is so distinctly different from the vision abled people she interacts with, whether it be her frustrated grandmother who no longer wants her child to be a burden, or her doctor who seems so attached to the medical elements of her blindness as to assume her every feeling and frustration without asking her opinion or interpersonal struggles.  Similarly, the film also considers what happens to a disabled person should they find themselves fortunate enough to become able bodied.  Indeed, Mun is removed from her friendship with blind persons through her new found privilege, but it is a reminder that even when she is afforded sight she still has the memory of a time when darkness was all she could sense.  Indeed, the film takes on yet another layer of disability narrative in how "one sees the world," particularly once Mun can see and even when she is capable of seeing, it is through her other senses as the doctor notes.  Finally, what makes the film an absolutely intriguing study of disability is in how the work navigates the post-operation sight of Mun, who invariably pulls from her former blind self in her description of the world and even her instantly matured sight is seen as something that is still burgeoning.  As such, her extrasensory vision, is deemed the exact opposite at first, precisely because she is still othered as a result of a now extinct disability.  The cinematic conventions of this film provide the final element of pro-disability narrative by reaffirming the possible visions a person learning to see might encounter, whether it be flickering lights, or blurry background imagery.

Key Scene:  Subway train ride.  If you watch this keep your eyes peeled (I realize the brilliance in this moment of the film now as I write this).  If you do, prepared to be scared beyond belief.

This DVD is super cheap on Amazon.  Buy a copy, it is well worth the cost.

I Cook A Local Stew, Stewing In My Own Juices: One Sings, The Other Doesn't (1977)

I recently obtained myself a MUBI account, not because I really need another venue to stream movies from, but mostly because I caught wind of an ultra rare Agnes Varda film being offered from the seventies.  Knowing that I adore her work, I decided at 2.91 a month MUBI was more than well worth my time.  However, this post is not intended to hype MUBI, I do enough of that for Criterion as it stands.  I do not mind in the slightest hyping Agnes Varda, whose work has always challenged, enlivened and generally enriched my understanding of cinema, this her "musical" focusing on two women's experiences during the tumultuous rise and fall of women's liberation as it relates both uniquely to France, as well as how it extends to spaces one does not immediately think of when discussing women's issues in the 1970's.  Indeed, the very nature and subject manner of this film are well within my interests and, again, having Agnes Varda helm the filmmaking only verified that I would be taken a back in wonder by all it had to offer.  Then the magical moment involving the "Papa Engels" song happened and I came to realize I was consuming what might well be the greatest offering in French cinema for all of the 70's.  Indeed, this film exists in the middle of two cinematic bookends by great French male filmmakers in Godard's Weekend from 1967 and Truffaut's absurdly underrated The Last Metro from 1980.  Here with one master stroke, Varda is able to create a work that cements her place in the highest of rungs for French filmmaking and deservedly so, because this list is often invaded by the greats of The French New Wave, which deserve praise, but would also be nothing without Varda's preliminary steps in the movement, as well as her continued presence in the world of filmmaking.  Rocking the same excellent haircut for the entirety of her career, Varda is the definition of an auteur and a reminder of the very real presence a woman and can should be afforded in the world of filmmaking, just in the same way that there would be no French New Wave without Varda, the cinematic perfection that is a work like Zero Dark Thirty would not evoke the commentary and feminist undertones it does today, without Varda's willingness to go all out in her own political, social and personal beliefs.  Sure the singing is a bit silly, but the subject matter is far too serious to be easily dismissed.

One Sings, the Other Doesn't focuses on the relationship of two women during the world of seventies counterculture.  The first girl, Pauline (Valerie Mairesse) the young wide-eyed idealism of France with her endearing nickname Apple, her wild red hair and general curiosity about all things against the norm, she exists purely with the hopes of making it as a singer.  Stumbling into an artist's shop, Pauline notices a photograph of one of her former neighbors from her youth.  The woman, Suzanne (Therese Liotard) is a mother stuck in a less than thrilling marriage, captured in photographs by her lover Jerome (Robert Dadies).  Pauline asks Jerome if it would be possible to meet Suzanne, to which he sees no problem.  The two immediatley form a deep bond between one another, sharing in the unique troubles that faced women of the time, Pauline dealing with the oppressive expectations of her parents who want her to succeed in things that are decidedly of the feminine realm, while Suzanne stumbles through the threats of yet another child on her freedom.  When Pauline offers to accrue the necessary funds to afford Suzanne and abortion, Suzanne comes to realize that the bond between the two is of the deepest level of friendship, so much so that when Pauline is kicked out of her home for her choices, she immediately moves in with Suzanne and Jerome.  This choice, apparently leads to Jerome going into a severe bout of depression and eventual suicide and act that leads to the first splitting apart of Pauline and Suzanne, not out of anger, but economic necessity.  During this time, Suzanne creates a space for herself in the family planning world of social work, dealing with both rewarding and frustrating cases of introducing women to the liberating benefits of the pill.  Meanwhile, Pauline, fully appropriating her Apple identity, takes up a life as a folk singer, traveling about France, Amsterdam and even Iran singing songs on issues of abortion, domesticity and the wonders of communism, meeting a man named Darius (Ali Rafie) along the way, whose faux-feminist politics trap her into a marriage and role of motherhood she immediately regrets.  Suzanne finds her own relationship which is one of comfort and complacency, only seeking solace in her communication with Pauline.  The two continue to exchange letters and occasionally meeting up speaking to the woes of feminine oppression, while expanding their own friendship to a level of almost romantic intimacy.  The two women's lives intersect and move apart in unique ways, always, however, sharing in the bond of womanhood that transcends all the absurdity of the world they face.

So it is rather clear that this film has open feminist politics in its frank discussions of abortion, family planning, domestic oppression and issues of property.  These things alone could make Varda's One Sings, the Other Doesn't a work in feminist filmmaking on level with Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which is by all accounts the most feminist of films to date.  Varda, however, is not simply concerned with verbally affirming a narrative of feminist politics, she accepts that individuals like Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan have already done so by the time her film emerges.  Instead, Varda wants to specifically consider how such rhetoric and ideals can invade and influence the space of filmmaking.  The very title One Sings, the Other Doesn't considers how silencing affects certain female bodies, Varda affirming that Suzanne through her forced life in domesticity is incapable (either by choice or limitations) of singing out, therefore, while Pauline has not necessarily experienced the same types of domestic oppression, nonetheless, shares in the larger oppression of womanhood, thus singing about the woes of domestic depression, in her previously mentioned song Papa Engels.  In this way, Pauline becomes a voice for the feminist movement, one that is often wily, but always astute.  Suzanne, however, is not completely at a loss in activism, wherein Pauline speaks, Suzanne acts.  Involved heavily in what could be seen as the French equivalent of Planned Parenthood, Suzanne is giving escape to woman who have found themselves trapped into unplanned pregnancies or simply want to avoid the danger of pregnancy in their youth.  What Varda does brilliantly in the film, is provide both verbal and physical activism the same degree of validity, by suggesting that Pauline and Suzanne are one in the same, both moving throughout their lives with a constant reminder that each decision speaks to their larger endeavors of feminist activism.  By the time the two are shown in the closing moments of the film, it is suggested through a brilliant panning circle that the two are at the very least sharing the same space, if not outright the same person within the filmic world of One Sings, the Other Doesn't.  I would also posit given Varda's concern for the types of activism that an appropriate alternative title for this film could have ben One Sings, the Other Performs.

Key Scene:  While I am a fan of the Papa Engels song, I also found the abortus song on the boat to be clever and politically profound.

This is currently only available to view on MUBI.  Get the seven day free trail or just get an account, either way it is worth it for this rarified cinematic gem.

All These Beautiful Things That Were Destroyed...I Could Restore: The Mystery Of The Wax Museum (1933)

For the final post to the enjoyable and brilliantly put together TCM Summer Under the Stars Blogathon, I decided to go in the direction of a film I had never seen, as opposed to revisiting works for which I knew I already had a deep affinity.  This is always a gamble, considering that I could turn out not to enjoy the movie at all and would be left writing a blog for a blogathon that is anything but celebratory about the work in question.  Fortunately, The Mystery of the Wax Museum is an incredibly watchable film that manages to be one of the creepier and haunting film I have ever encounter, despite being made in 1933.  Images of melting wax faces and the chiaroscuro expressionism that generally influence the narrative of this film are some of the best of the era, existing in a wonderful middle ground between the nightmarish work of Fritz Lang and the dreary desolation of the film noir works of the forties.  Indeed, The Mystery of the Wax Museum could have gotten away on looks alone, the added enjoyment of some great acting and a relatively engaging plot make for an all around great cinematic experience.  Since this is a blogathon concerning the "Featured Star" of the day, I must give brief mention to Glenda  Farrell who is wonderful in this film and is indeed the reason this film was take upon by me, even if blindly.  Knowing very little about her (and highlighting her in the synopsis), I thought it worth mentioning  Fay Wry whose presence reminded me that she was the famous girl from King Kong, as well as in the criminally under-viewed 1932 adaptation of The Most Dangerous Game.  Along with her presence in The Mystery of the Wax Museum and a ton of other horror films, I am considering that argument that Fay Wry might be the original scream queen, or at the very least the grandmother of genre films.  Her presence in this film is decidedly within her more traditional roles, but given the manner with which bodies double and layer upon one another through wax duplications, her presence also takes on an ethereal quality, adding to the already eerie nature of the film.  The Mystery of the Wax Museum is not a grand stroke of horror through barrage, but instead; is a subtle repetition of creepy moments that come together to really leave an unsettling feeling in the viewer long after finishing, much like Dead of Night or The Blair Witch Project.  This is the ideal horror cinema.

The Mystery of the Wax Museum begins with Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill) completing yet another work in his prized London wax museum, centering around his incredibly lifelike statue of Marie Antoinette.  His moment of happiness is quickly stifled when he is visited by his parter Joe Worth (Edwin Maxwell), who explains that the museum is proving to be a huge loss financially and that the only way to recoup the losses is to burn the entire place down for the insurance money.  Ivan attempts to stop Joe from his act but fails to do so.  The film then fast forwards twelve years to New York, where the city is receiving its own wax museum, overseen by Ivan, who must use apprentices to do his work, considering that he no longer has hands to sculpt with after they were severely damaged in the fire.  Ivan is particularly frustrated with the new work, blaming much of the trouble on hiring a recovering drug addict named Professor Darcy (Arthur Edmund Carewe) and a deaf-mute named Hugo (Matthew Betz).  Regardless, the museum is slated to open soon so Ivan pushes through with his work at full speed, even receiving a new statue in the mail whose life like qualities are quite uncanny.  Centering this female statue as the center of his exhibit as a Joan of Arc recreation, Ivan slips into a maniacal push for perfection.  Meanwhile, up and coming journalist Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell), while investigating a murder, comes to realize the similarities between a recently deceased woman and the new statue, as well as a similarity between a few other missing bodies and some of the other additions to Ivan's collection.  Hoping to warn others, particularly her roommate Charlotte Duncan (Fay Wray), Florence takes it upon herself to make the connection between the dead bodies and the new statues, coming into contact with a deeply entrenched bootlegging scheme in the process that is run by none other than Joe Worth.  This, however, does get the attention of the police, who agree to meet Florence at the museum a decision that proves quite fortuitous because they arrive only moments before Charlotte is to be "embalmed" by the maniacal Ivan, who believes that she will provide the final piece de resistance for his collection.  In the end, Florence saves the day with her persistence and because the film was set in the early thirties, her reward is nothing more than marriage to a man she only remotely likes.

For a film that is an early work in horror/thriller filmmaking, I did not expect to be able to pull a lot from work critically.  However, from the moment Ivan lingers on the female statues in his London museum, which cinematically are clearly played by actresses (one's who will later play characters in the narrative) it becomes clear that the film takes on a second layer of objectification of the desired body.  Objectification and looking at bodies in cinema are nothing new to theory and criticism, indeed tying most prominently to Laura Mulvey and her idea that the gaze in cinema is that of a male viewer that objectifies the woman on screen as an other.  While this theory has been reconsidered, altered and contested over the years, it, nonetheless, stands as the language used to describe the female body on display in film.  However, while these bodies are desired in the film, it is precisely the double layer of the "fake" body and the real that causes viewers to reconsider how they constitute the objectified body passively and what happens when the active body is forced into passivity, or in reverse what happens when a body, like the film's opening image of Marie Antoinette later becomes the character of Florence.  This is a wild notion of movement through a space by a body, one that is, as Mulvey would suggest, in a constant state of cinematic desire, whether to be objectified by the male gaze or longed for as a thing of cinematic beauty by the women who look at the ethereal presence of the wax versions of Wray and others.  Ivan represents a maddened version of the gaze in the diagetic world of the film, enacting his artistic objectification of bodies, both male and female, taking dead corpses, who are no longer active and proceeding to make them even less human, by making them posthumous objects of artistic desire.  The fact that Ivan himself is a crippled figure adds another layer of disability in relation to the ideal body as a point of desire and thus objectification.  In that he is no longer human, indeed relying on wax to pass as visually normal, he could be read as a vengeful disabled body that seeks "justice" upon the able-bodied individuals he encounters, housing them in a shell of wax, to deny their ability, while making his wax visage no longer the disabled figure, but that of normalcy.  This is all happening in a film from 1933, it is quite amazing that it has not gained the same level of notoriety as its counterpart from the same year King Kong.

Key Scene:  The opening fight in the London Wax Museum is really creepy, in a I might have nightmares from melting wax faces kind of way.

The DVD I have is not the greatest of version, particularly since it appears to be stuck between full colorization and black and white scenes.  Nonetheless, it is a magnificent work and well worth tracking down in an alternative format.

Finally, I would once again like to thank Jill (Sittin' On a Backyard Fence) and Michael (ScribeHard on Film) for letting me be part of this wonderful blogathon.  This last film was a great discovery and my previous revisits of Spellbound and The Blob were equally enjoyable.

You're Just Bitter Because You Got Shot: Ninja Cheerleaders (2008)

I always think I will get to a point in my viewing of films where I will no longer be expressly disturbed by a terrible film, one whose very existence defies all logic or explanation, even if it were to be independently produced.  Indeed, there are bad movies that have a noticeable degree of earnestness abut them that afford them a cult status, works like The Room, Birdemic and even Plan 9 from Outer Space are wonderful because their filmmakers did not detach themselves ironically from the work, but genuinely thought they were producing something of high art.  Nothing is worse in my book than a bad filmmaker who has a detached sense of irony about the work they are producing.  Ninja Cheerleaders is one such work, wherein, the filmmaker, David Presley, wants to show how god damn well he "gets" his material, in the process, sacrificing any sense of enjoyability and on a very basic level watchability.  I mean a film about community college girls who hope to strip their way to an Ivy League school that also happen to moonlight as ninjas is the stuff of exploitation cult cinema that could work in almost any directors hands, were they to even remotely consider it a narrative that could be told without constantly drawing their "cleverness" out within the narrative.  The further shame of the film is that there are components that do genuinely work, particularly whoever was hired as the film's set designer, because they clearly have a feel for mise-en-scene, tragically, it is lost in the focus on the three girls being sexy and smart to the point of being seemingly unstoppable.  Presley clearly wanted his film to be cool, right down to his predictable music choices and already dated stylistic choices, mind you the film came out only five years ago and it manages to feel like an early 2000's episode of Real World, a look that is not countered in the slightest by the very real casting of a former Real World member in the cast.  Of course, the biggest injustice of the film is incorporating George Takei into your film and not providing him a space to deliver his campy acting in all its glory.  Indeed, if the rest of the movie reflected anything close to Takei's zealous over-the-top line delivery it might have become a contemporary exploitation classic.  It appears as though Presley though he was directing a low-fi version of Kill Bill, but the result is something more indicative of a freshman film students flailing attempt to recreate his favorite scenes from Tarantino films.

Ninja Cheerleaders focus on a clique of "attractive" white girls whose life at a rundown Los Angeles community college are only made bearable by the idea that they will eventually be able to leave for Brown.  The three girls include the voracious and brooding April (Ginny Weirick), the clearly too old for community college, but wants to live the dream of being young again Courtney (Trishelle Cannattella) and the ditzy to the point of nausea Monica (Maitland McConnell).  Of course, Brown is an expensive and decidedly inclusive school, although the three are exemplary students at the community college, all holding the difficult to attain 4.0, which is enough academically to earn the three acceptance.  The money is still an issue though, considering that they all come from working class families, although their style and maintenance would suggest otherwise, therefore, they find a means of success working as go-go dancers for a local strip club, where they are the favorite of customers.  Furthermore, they have also entered a stripping contest which, if they win first place will provided them with another fifty thousand dollars towards their tuition.  The strip club they work at is run by the aging Hiroshi (George Takei) who also happens to serve as a sensei to the three girls that are training in the dark martial arts of ninja.  Things finally seem to have fallen into place when the girls get the last bit of necessary money, only to have a group of mobsters step into the picture and raid Hiroshi's club, shooting him, ransacking the place and more tragically stealing the girls' hard earned money from the club vault.  This act leads the girls on a wild vendetta where they hunt down the various mobsters and systematically move their way to the top man in the operation, who is apparently only attempting to challenge the club because he wants to reinvigorate the name of his family in the city.  Realizing the power of the three girls, he hires a ninja from the black clan in Japan named Kinji (Natasha Chang), who proves a formidable opponent for the girls, but not or Hiroshi when he steps in to deliver the fatal blow to the mob's hired hand.  In the end the three girls obtain their money and are able to move forward with their dreams of living it up as strippers turned assassins turned Ivy Leaguers.

This movie is so unwatchable, that I found myself strongly considering banging my head against the wall in protest.  I kid you not, I placed my forehead against the wall and thought that it would at least help me to forget about its grueling existence.  I guess though instead of elaborating on my thoughts of self-destruction brought on by this film, it is perhaps better to point out some of its flaws.  First off, the acting in this film is next to impossible not to hate.  Excluding, George Takei who is essentially playing himself and the minor scene involving Erice Stonestreet everybody else is clearly failing from a lack of acting direction, or even basic understanding of how to deliver a line for film.  Indeed there are moments when I could pick up Trishelle Cannatella actually staring vapidly at the screen, as though she were completely unaware that she needs to act when part of a scene.  It was not an acting choice in the slightest, but a clear misunderstanding of the presence of a camera, particularly inexcusable since she was a cast member on a show that help set a standard for how evasive the filmic image could be in one's personal life.  The second factor that became infuriating at a certain point was the editing between scenes, which involved combinations of events which had occurred in scenes prior, layering images of guns and strippers as if to remind viewers where the film had previously gone, a repetitive act that the editor attempts to make less so by the use of the most obvious of after effects possible, even incorporating a rotating cube, which, if I am not mistaken, might be the default option in Final Cut when you decide to incorporate such effects.  If the narrative were more well-formulated or not so short these unnecessary cut scenes would not have been a problem, but I am almost certain that if you cut out the amount of time spent on these moments, the film would clock in at below feature length, because it happens that much.  Finally, this is more of a frustration on the part of naming, because I included Ninja Cheerleaders in the list solely to fill a slot on the kung fu marathon, with what I though would be a wild bit of post-genre nonsense, but that was not the case.  Neither the act of cheerleader or ninjas really factor into the film.  Instead it is about how terrible community college is and a backwards attempt to consider the life of young women who choose to engage in exotic dancing.  Just in case you think that it works on any of these levels, let me assure you that it fail miserably on all accounts.

Key Scene:  The fleeting moment with Eric Stonestreet is worth watching, but he is also a great actor so that says little for the remainder of the film.

Do not watch this movie.  I will, undoubtedly, suffer for days from this experience and do not wish the same upon you.

I Trained While Watching Bruce Lee Movies: Punch Lady (2007)

I have included a couple of South Korean films in my consideration of kung fu/martial arts movies thus far in my endeavor to become more aware of the genre, although the two films in question, The Man from Nowhere and my most recent viewing of Punch Lady are indicative of a revisionist approach to the genre, one that applies social issues while only tangentially being related to whatever stylistic tropes and themes are emergent within the genre.  Of course, while I found myself initially surprised by this choice, I also remember that it is very much an element of South Korean and to a larger extent much of the East Asian cinema output, to take genre and use it as a means to cleverly consider poignant social woes, whether it be the use of a wrestling calamari to look at masculinity and performance in the eponymous Calamari Wrestler, or a scathing critique of othering non-heterosexual bodies as occurs in Memento Mori.  Punch Lady, in the guise of a fighting/boxing movie manages to take on the very controversial topic of spousal abuse, while also considering a larger issue of violence as spectacle and the consumption of such brutality as a means of escapism.  While on the whole Punch Lady does not always succeed in its message or methodology, it does manage to do one thing that is worth high note, by employing a female lead into a world of cinema that while visceral, incredibly watchable and currently the most essential in the world, still proves to be heavily dominated by patriarchal privilege and masculine issues.  The parts of this film that do work, do so on a highly engaging level and manage to add fresh looks and styles to the boxing film, which has arguably been perfected in the way of Scorsese's Raging Bull or more recently in the post-modern look at the sport in David O. Russell's The Fighter.  As noted though, Punch Lady is only a boxing movie to a degree, instead, existing as a social commentary first and genre film second, resulting in a film whose narrative is certainly winding and twisting, but in relative consideration to the countries other works it is considerably straight forward and accessible on, at the very least, a cinematic and visual level.

Punch Lady focuses on a woman named Ha-eun (Ji-Won To) who has always had a viscerally disconcerting experience with violence since she witnessed her father beating a thief when she was a child.  This unusual relationship with violence has led her to become involved in a violent relationship with her professional fighter husband Joo-Chang (Park Sang-wook) who beats and attacks Ha-eun for reasons that are completely inexcusable.  Ha-eun, however, seems content to just bear the attacks, until one day the couple's daughter Choon-sim (Sulli) confronts Joo-Chang, leading to his throwing a bowl at the young girl causing her to bleed.  The resulting rage felt by Ha-eun leads her to attack Joo-Chang with a frying pan, thus knocking him unconscious.  Despite his constant physical attacks, Joo-Chang is audacious enough to sue Ha-eun for spousal abuse, leading to a brief stint in jail.  When she gets out of jail, Ha-eun moves in with an old friend and briefly considers rekindling a relationship with an old high school fling, however, when she discovers that this former lover is himself a professional kick boxer, she is hesitant, particularly considering that he is to fiht Joo-Chang and claims that he will act as a vessel of revenge for Ha-eun.  When the fight does occur, Joo-Chang does not hesitate to fight dirty and through cheating kills the man, leading to a new level of rage in Ha-eun who during her blind fury demands that the two fight one another, much to the confusion of Joo-Chang and his promoters.  Yet when it becomes clear that the fight will result in huge viewership and sponsorship possibilities a planned bout for three months later emerges.  Ha-eun knowing that her martial arts skills are limited, if not non-existent, goes about finding a trainer in Su-Hyeon (Son Hyun-Joo) a math teacher whose recent acquisition of a old dojo is only to turn it into a nursery.  However, upon the begging and prodding of Ha-eun, along with her promise to share a considerable amount of the prize money, Su-Hyeon agrees and begins a considerably unorthodox training program.  There are various attempts on the part of Joo-Chang and others to stifle the fight prior to its occurrence, but as Hae-eun evolves in her self-worth things grow and her desire to prove so to Joo-Chang and all others who have been abused, results in the fight occurring, and the results being a surprise to all involved, including, most importantly, Hae-eun.

I mention that this film does not entirely deal with the spousal abuse elements in a positive and non-problematic manner and most of this criticism comes directly from the unfortunate choice of the director to situation the middle section of the film as fully comedic.  Doing so, at times, negates the very serious book ends of the film that graphically deal with the bruises and physical suffering experienced by a person who is a victim of domestic violence.  Now I understand that the producers probably hoped to avoid a completely dejecting experience for viewers, especially since the people involved, aside from the director, seem previously engaged in the decidedly upbeat world of Korean drama.  Nonetheless, shying away from the jarring and abject seems unusual for a South Korean film when one considers the films made by Chan-wook Park or Kim-ki Duk, both of who use violence extensively and comedy sparingly.  It is really off-putting to see moments of Ha-eun's training played up as humorously exhaustive, when only moments earlier her body was on display as a thing of inhumanity to be beaten into submission in a non-comedic form of exhaustion.  This is where the film goes completely in the wrong direction, but it does manage to do things correctly, particularly in its acknowledgement that the act of abuse often extends beyond the physical.  Indeed, Joo-Chang is an absolutely evil and terrible person, exploiting all of those around him merely to assert his own disgusting hyper-masculinity, killing  a person for suspecting that he might be involved with his wife of which he violently beats.  However, Joo-Chang also looks at Ha-eun as an object of verbal ridicule referring to her as stupid and less than human, thus becoming a form of psychological abuse, not to mention his own role as an economic provider, threatening both Ha-eun and her daughter with making their lives worse by having no money, one of the more scathing criticisms in the film as South Korean society still manages to be highly impossible to navigate for a single woman, particularly one who is in her thirties or older.  Finally, the film deals with the absurdity of spectacle and deconstructs a society, particularly one that has capitalist and democratic ideals for allowing the reality of domestic violence serve as a spectator sport, when indeed it should be a thing that is dealt with in the most serious of manners through the legal system.  Sure the film plays up the possibility of a spousal boxing match, but think about any domestic violence case that makes national headlines, even in America, the rhetoric is uncannily similar.

Key Scene:  The "eye-opening" scene for Ha-eun is a perfectly simultaneous execution of acting, cinematography and editing that manages to make the last act flow with a considerable degree of intensity.

This film is somewhat hard to come by and the current DVD is a bit dodgy, often freezing due to being a bad transfer.  As such, I would actually suggest seeking out another of the directors  works My Wife Is A Gangster, for a rewarding viewing experience.