Category Archives: Film

Saturday Matinee: The Killing

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By Jessica Schneider

Source: automachination

Rare is it that a heist film could yield success through failure. No, I am not talking about the film itself, as The Killing is a near-perfect suspense noir that in many ways transcends its genre, but rather that this perfectly plotted undertaking not only goes awry but still satisfies its viewers. Too often audiences are spoon-fed the suspense, wherein we witness the anti-hero tackle the battle through luck and cleverness, only to get away with it in the end. This, we’ve been trained to believe, is the only way to indulge an audience. Well, Kubrick killed all that with this film (no pun). Indeed, there is no grand sigh at the film’s end.

As his third full-length feature, Stanley Kubrick’s first two films contained varying degrees of quality that, despite their convention, were needed for him to achieve the tautness herein. Finishing at 84 minutes, with the use of perfunctory voiceover, the tone is unemotional, detached. (Rendered by radio announcer Art Gilmore, his voice is 180 from the later 1990s trailers that begin with, ‘In a world…’) Throughout, every move is plotted and carefully crafted. Roger Ebert noted this in his review and correlated the film’s intricacy with that of Kubrick’s chess ability. “The game of chess involves holding in your mind several alternate possibilities. The shifting of one piece can result in a radically different game,” Ebert says.

While the characters do serve as pieces that move the plot—their individuality is not so important given their archetypal nature. George is a gullible, dopey husband who is married to his manipulative, money-hungry wife Sherry who is engaging in an affair with a loser named Val. Johnny (Sterling Hayden) is the plan’s executor who remains steadfast and pugnacious when it suits him, and Nikki, who is paid five grand for rubbing out a horse from the sidelines, is a dope who resorts to racism before he too gets shot while seated within his sports car. We meet the other characters upon being told what their agreements are, and each learns his role as The Killing unfolds—careful deliberation and participation within every motive.

Based on the novel Clean Break by Lionel White, one cannot help but wonder if Kubrick took a mediocre book and made it into a well-executed masterwork. (The Shining, anyone?) Given I have not read the novel, I cannot comment, but The Killing is not only a brilliant title but one that works on both the literal and literary levels. Rather, this is a film about controlled risk and those who wish to engage in it. After all, one can’t be a gambler if one doesn’t love risk, and those who frequent the tracks are most definitely not doing it because of their love of horses.

The character of Johnny, rendered by Sterling Hayden, is effective as Hayden himself who, despite moving cautiously and aggressively, carries his weapon in a large flower box. (Which James Cameron would later utilize in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.) When Johnny finally manages to obtain the money, the bills are treated haphazardly, as many fall to the side of the wide laundry bag. Later, when he stuffs the bills into a large suitcase, the same occurs. It’s as though the prize itself isn’t worth the care and caution of the execution—is it merely about the love of the chase or the love of the dollar bill? How does one operate amid $2 million in cash? Note the final scene at the airport and you will see what I mean.

Criterion is featuring what they call ‘50s Kubrick,’ which consists of four films—his final being his great early achievement, Paths of Glory. Kubrick was only 28 when he directed The Killing and yet this has all the hallmarks of a mature, coherent film. While it does not reach the great emotional depths of the Kirk Douglas classic, The Killing is a masterwork of form and storytelling, and does not, for a moment, hesitate. If you want a film with no fat—this is it. As Ebert eloquently notes, ‘The writing and editing are the keys to how this film never seems to be the deceptive assembly that it is, but appears to be proceeding on schedule, whatever that schedule is.’

Indeed, schedules. The characters punctually do make their time, albeit not always successfully. As example, Nikki proves himself a successful sharpshooter who only gets his demise shortly afterwards. Who are we rooting for, anyway? Should we even care? While I plan to review all four of Kubrick’s ’50s films, I watched The Killing one weekend when I needed something detachable and unemotional. This is not to imply I didn’t care—quite the contrary. Rather, I needed something intricate, and something to study. This, coupled with my love for film noir, deemed it the perfect film for this occasion.

As I noted in my review regarding Kubrick’s first two films, he had to undergo patchwork mediocrity to reach his later ability. Ironically, on the same day of my re-watching The Killing, I also re-watched the 1988 film Die Hard, which is a decently executed thriller with all the ostentatious special effects and annoying character quips. There is no real depth, only a handful of good exchanges, and the contrast between the two films exists within the intelligence—The Killing most certainly has dumb characters, but the mind behind them never deviates from skill. And because The Killing relies heavily on the unfolding of events over the internal doubts of any one character, this is what ranks this film as great, albeit within the noir genre.

The final scene is one to not go overlooked, as Johnny appears at the airport with his wife Fay, and upon not being allowed to carry his suitcase on the plane, he is forced to check it. It is as though we have been waiting for this moment—when the suitcase accidentally opens, and the bills fly about like lost black and white birds. Johnny can’t escape, as the police are onto him. When Fay tells him to run, he responds with, ‘What’s the difference?’ For once, he is without a plan and so he turns around, helpless. The men exit the building and the film ends before they approach him. Johnny, while no longer in control, still maintains his cool. Like losing a game of chess, he will inevitably be rethinking his moves while in jail (presumably) and wondering what he could have done better. Perhaps not booking a flight from California to Boston with the evidence in hand might be a good start.

Saturday Matinee: Everything You Know Is Wrong

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Source: Wikipedia

Everything You Know Is Wrong is the eighth comedy album by the Firesign Theatre. Released in October 1974 on Columbia Records, it satirizes UFO conspiracy theories and New Age paranormal beliefs such as Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods and claimed psychic Uri Geller, which achieved wide public attention by that time.

After the album was recorded, a movie version was made, with the group lip-syncing to the album. The Don Brouhaha scene from side one, Cox’s side two teaser, and Nino Savant’s lecture on “Holes” from side two, are not included in the video. The cinematographer was Allen Daviau, who later filmed E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. (UPC barcode 735885 100131.) The group showed the film at Stanford University and took questions and answers.The film was released on a VHS format videotape in 1993 by The Firesign Theatre. (UPC barcode 735885 100131.) It was released on DVD in 2016. (UPC barcode 824818 000386.)

Saturday Matinee: Night of the Hunter

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By Roger Ebert

Source: RogerEbert.com

Charles Laughton’s “The Night of the Hunter” (1955) is one of the greatest of all American films, but has never received the attention it deserves because of its lack of the proper trappings. Many “great movies” are by great directors, but Laughton directed only this one film, which was a critical and commercial failure long overshadowed by his acting career. Many great movies use actors who come draped in respectability and prestige, but Robert Mitchum has always been a raffish outsider. And many great movies are realistic, but “Night of the Hunter” is an expressionistic oddity, telling its chilling story through visual fantasy. People don’t know how to categorize it, so they leave it off their lists.

Yet what a compelling, frightening and beautiful film it is! And how well it has survived its period. Many films from the mid-1950s, even the good ones, seem somewhat dated now, but by setting his story in an invented movie world outside conventional realism, Laughton gave it a timelessness. Yes, the movie takes place in a small town on the banks of a river. But the town looks as artificial as a Christmas card scene, the family’s house with its strange angles inside and out looks too small to live in, and the river becomes a set so obviously artificial it could have been built for a completely stylized studio film like “Kwaidan” (1964).

Everybody knows the Mitchum character, the sinister “Reverend” Harry Powell. Even those who haven’t seen the movie have heard about the knuckles of his two hands, and how one has the letters H-A-T-E tattooed on them, and the other the letters L-O-V-E. Bruce Springsteen drew on those images in his song “Cautious Man”:

“On his right hand Billy’d tattooed the word “love” and on his left hand was the word “fear” And in which hand he held his fate was never clear”

Many movie lovers know by heart the Reverend’s famous explanation to the wide-eyed boy (“Ah, little lad, you’re staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand?”) And the scene where the Reverend stands at the top of the stairs and calls down to the boy and his sister has become the model for hundred other horror scenes.

But does this familiarity give “The Night of the Hunter” the recognition it deserves? I don’t think so because those famous trademarks distract from its real accomplishment. It is one of the most frightening of movies, with one of the most unforgettable of villains, and on both of those scores it holds up as well after four decades as I expect “The Silence of the Lambs” to do many years from now.

The story, somewhat rearranged: In a prison cell, Harry Powell discovers the secret of a condemned man (Peter Graves), who has hidden $10,000 somewhere around his house. After being released from prison, Powell seeks out the man’s widow, Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), and two children, John (Billy Chapin) and the owl-faced Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce). They know where the money is, but don’t trust the “preacher.” But their mother buys his con game and marries him, leading to a tortured wedding night inside a high-gabled bedroom that looks a cross between a chapel and a crypt.

Soon Willa Harper is dead, seen in an incredible shot at the wheel of a car at the bottom of the river, her hair drifting with the seaweed. And soon the children are fleeing down the dream-river in a small boat, while the Preacher follows them implacably on the shore; this beautifully stylized sequence uses the logic of nightmares, in which no matter how fast one runs, the slow step of the pursuer keeps the pace. The children are finally taken in by a Bible-fearing old lady (Lillian Gish), who would seem to be helpless to defend them against the single-minded murderer, but is as unyielding as her faith.

The shot of Winters at the bottom of the river is one of several remarkable images in the movie, which was photographed in black and white by Stanley Cortez, who shot Welles’ “The Magnificent Ambersons,” and once observed he was “always chosen to shoot weird things.” He shot few weirder than here, where one frightening composition shows a street lamp casting Mitchum’s terrifying shadow on the walls of the children’s bedroom. The basement sequence combines terror and humor, as when the Preacher tries to chase the children up the stairs, only to trip, fall, recover, lunge and catch his fingers in the door. And the masterful nighttime river sequence uses giant foregrounds of natural details, like frogs and spider webs, to underline a kind of biblical progression as the children drift to eventual safety.

The screenplay, based on a novel by Davis Grubb, is credited to James Agee, one of the icons of American film writing and criticism, then in the final throes of alcoholism. Laughton’s widow, Elsa Lanchester, is adamant in her autobiography: “Charles finally had very little respect for Agee. And he hated the script, but he was inspired by his hatred.” She quotes the film’s producer, Paul Gregory: “. . . the script that was produced on the screen is no more James Agee’s . . . than I’m Marlene Dietrich.”

Who wrote the final draft? Perhaps Laughton had a hand. Lanchester and Laughton both remembered that Mitchum was invaluable as a help in working with the two children, whom Laughton could not stand. But the final film is all Laughton’s, especially the dreamy, Bible-evoking final sequence, with Lillian Gish presiding over events like an avenging elderly angel.

Robert Mitchum is one of the great icons of the second half-century of cinema. Despite his sometimes scandalous off-screen reputation, despite his genial willingness to sign on to half-baked projects, he made a group of films that led David Thomson, in his Biographical Dictionary of Film, to ask, “How can I offer this hunk as one of the best actors in the movies?” And answer: “Since the war, no American actor has made more first-class films, in so many different moods.” “The Night of the Hunter,” he observes, represents “the only time in his career that Mitchum acted outside himself,” by which he means there is little of the Mitchum persona in the Preacher.

Mitchum is uncannily right for the role, with his long face, his gravel voice, and the silky tones of a snake-oil salesman. And Shelly Winters, all jitters and repressed sexual hysteria, is somehow convincing as she falls so prematurely into, and out of, his arms. The supporting actors are like a chattering gallery of Norman Rockwell archetypes, their lives centered on bake sales, soda fountains and gossip. The children, especially the little girl, look more odd than lovable, which helps the film move away from realism and into stylized nightmare. And Lillian Gish and Stanley Cortez quite deliberately, I think, composed that great shot of her which looks like nothing so much as Whistler’s mother holding a shotgun.

Charles Laughton showed here that he had an original eye, and a taste for material that stretched the conventions of the movies. It is risky to combine horror and humor, and foolhardy to approach them through expressionism. For his first film, Laughton made a film like no other before or since, and with such confidence it seemed to draw on a lifetime of work. Critics were baffled by it, the public rejected it, and the studio had a much more expensive Mitchum picture (“Not as a Stranger”) it wanted to promote instead. But nobody who has seen “The Night of the Hunter” has forgotten it, or Mitchum’s voice coiling down those basement stairs: “Chillll . . . dren?”

Saturday Matinee: Fantastic Planet

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Surrealism and political critique in the animated medium: Fantastic Planet (1973)

By Dan Stalcup

Source: The Goods Firm Reviews

Coming from the “Panic Movement” surrealist art collective is one of the most bizarre animated films of all time: Fantastic Planet, a French-Czech production by director/co-writer René Laloux and co-writer/production designer Roland Topor.

With its title, Fantastic Planet sounds like it should be a cheesy sci-fi flick, and in some ways, it is. (The French title, La Planète sauvage, is much more pleasing.) But this is something much more insular and experimental than most genre films of the era. Thanks to its distinctive pencil-sketched, cutout animation technique (also seen in Monty Python interludes), the film has the look of a history or biology book come to life. The grotesqueries depicted have a diagrammatic, almost clinical look to them, making every alien and bit of worldbuilding feel all the more strange.

Fantastic Planet chronicles a far future when humans have been transplanted to the distant planet Ygam by giant blue aliens with red bug eyes called Draags (or, in some translations, Traags). There, humans serve the role of something resembling a rodent or small dog: occasionally domesticated by Draags, occasionally living in wild colonies as feral creatures. The humans on Ygam are called “Oms” by the Draags. They’re mostly viewed as harmless by the aliens, but often casually exploited and exterminated when convenient.

The story follows Terr, an orphaned human/Om, who is adopted by a Draag, but escapes before organizing an resistance to the giant aliens. Terr’s life has a vaguely mythological arc to it, further enhancing the sense the we’re witnessing some passed-down story. The entire telling is detached and emotionless — when Terr’s mother or compatriots die, there is no mourning or reaction, just a progression to the next item of the story. It’s disquieting.

What really makes Fantastic Planet so bizarre and unforgettable is the depiction of the alien life and planet: flora and fauna that look like something out of a fever dream or acid trip. The ground shifts into squirming intestines; a hookah bar causes the inhabitants to meld into a blur; twirling headless statues perform a mating ritual. It’s baroque and occasionally whimsical; half Dr. Seuss, half Salvador Dali.

Despite the strangeness of the imagery, the film avoids slipping into an all-out dissociated psychedelic trip thanks to its linear and straightforward narrative. This, paradoxically, makes everything feel even more alien: The story takes logical, coherent leaps, but the images and details within are so nonchalantly unearthly. It’s a dizzying juxtaposition.

The story is clearly allegorical: Animal rights is an obvious interpretation given the way that humans are chattelized. It’s not hard to squint and see anti-racism or anti-imperialism in its parable, either — any scenario where the majority or oppressors are negligent, systemic participators rather than active aggressors would fit.

There’s also a lot of coming of age imagery in the film, blown out into absurdism. The semi-comprehending way the humans perceive the Draag world is not too detached from the way kids see the adult world: full of obtuse rituals and norms. Plenty of the designs are charged with phallic and sexual imagery (not to mention casual nudity), but it’s secondary to the overall sweep of the visual invention of the film.

In the half century since its release, Fantastic Planet has become a cult legend, even inducted into the Criterion Collection — one of only a few animated films with the honor. According to Letterboxd, it’s among the most popular films of 1973. I can’t say I blame cinephiles out there. Even at 72 minutes, Fantastic Planet is a bit exhausting, but it’s such a unique and evocative experience that it is essential viewing. At least for weirdos like me.

Saturday Matinee: The History of the World Backwards

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Source: Wikipedia

The History of the World Backwards is a comedy sketch show written and starring Rob Newman. It is a mock history programme set in an alternative world where time flows forwards whilst history told backwards. In other words, if you were born in 2007, you would be 60 years old in 1947. All the major historical events happen backwards, so for example, Nelson Mandela enters jail a Spice Girls fan, and comes out as a terrorist intent in overthrowing the state. There are several recurring themes, such as the “Technology collapse”, where scientific discoveries are lost, forgotten or made unworkable.

It was shown on BBC Four, starting on 30 October 2007, and later shown on BBC Two. It was Newman’s first television project in 14 years.

Saturday Matinee: Homecoming

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By Michael Gingold

Source: Fangoria

Part of the appeal of Masters of Horror has been the chance to see things on this Showtime series that you won’t see anywhere else on television. So far, that has mostly meant explicit gore, nudity and sexuality, which is all fine and well. But Joe Dante’s Homecoming, premiering December 2, treats us to sights that are not only unique in the TV horror genre, but have been off-limits anywhere else on the tube as well. Like, f’rinstance, rows of flag-draped coffins bearing the bodies of dead soldiers killed in a Mideast war.

Yes, Dante is back in horror-satire mode, and this time he and screenwriter Sam Hamm (adapting the short story “Death and Suffrage” by Dale Bailey) are directly taking on a target that the rest of TV-drama-land and mainstream Hollywood has heretofore largely danced around. The result is as pointed, clever and blackly amusing as anything the genre has seen in ages, a perfect example of horror’s ability to address subjects too touchy to deal with in other genres. It also takes the political subtext of George A. Romero’s Dead series and puts it right up in the forefront, without becoming preachy with its message. Dante and Hamm manage the tricky balancing act of shining a harsh light on current events without losing sight of the fact that they’re telling a horror story first and foremost.

Hamm’s script takes place in the near future, specifically 2008, when a certain Republican president is running for re-election and a war he duped the nation into fighting still rages on. The central characters are campaign consultant David Murch (Jon Tenney) and right-wing author Jane Cleaver (Thea Gill), who has written a popular book attacking the “radical left”—any resemblance to Ann Coulter is, uh, purely coincidental. After meeting on a dead-on parody of an issues-oriented talk show (Terry David Mulligan is perfect as the host), the two find themselves politically and romantically attracted—but their world is shaken up when the dead begin returning to life. Not all the deceased, mind you, just those who were killed in that particular overseas combat, and they’ve got a particular—pardon the pun—ax to grind. It’s an extrapolation of the Vietnam-era ghoul film Deathdream to the nth degree—the image of the first revived corpse pushing its way out from under the Stars and Stripes that cover its casket is the most pointed and arresting image the genre has recently offered.

No more should be said about the plot particulars of Homecoming, which is packed with wonderful details and images; given a document to read, a zombie missing an eye puts on a pair of glasses with a shot-out lens. The way in which Dante and Hamm keep the story twists coming, never losing steam or running in place thematically or dramatically, is kind of breathtaking; every scene has a revelation or line of dialogue that adds new dimension to either the story or the satire. The actors (also including Dante regular Robert Picardo as a political advisor with a secret of his own) adopt just the right tone of straight-faced earnestness, selling every line and never winking at the camera. The behind-the-scenes craftspeople do a good job of substituting Vancouver locations for the D.C. area (this is also the most expansive-looking Masters yet), and Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger contribute undead makeups that get the points across (like that eyeless ghoul) without being showy.

As the film goes on and we learn more about the characters (particularly Murch), Homecoming’s antiwar message gains new levels of resonance, and it comes to a stirring and completely apt conclusion that perfectly ties up the assorted story threads. And even though horror fans are the species of television viewer least likely to be conservative, you don’t get a sense of preaching to the converted here; the writing and filmmaking are so sharp, even some red-staters might respond to the material. For the second year in a row, a satirical zombie project stacks up as the year’s best horror production; here’s hoping someone in Hollywood notices, and gives Dante a shot at a feature that will show off the skills that, on this evidence, are only becoming sharper with time.

Saturday Matinee: La Haine

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La Haine: So Far, So Good

By Ana Saplala

Source: Medium

With Les Miserables signalling Ladj Ly’s rise to recognition in contemporary French cinema, one simply cannot watch the director’s debut film without bringing to mind its predecessor — a film that not only broadened its examination of racial tensions in France, but would come (and continue to) define the country’s prevalence with race relations to this day.

La Haine is the film in question, as Mathieu Kassovitz’s 1995 debut became a nationwide success. The dialectics of Ladj Ly’s Cesar win for Best Film reflect this, given that Kassovitz achieved the same feat 25 years prior. The result would not only cement his debut in film history, but further accentuate the undoubted declaration of La Haine as one of the most prolific French films of all time.

While clearly drawing inspiration from the likes of Ernest Dickerson and Spike Lee, La Haine remains difficult to categorize, but also inseparable from its influences. This is due to Kassovitz’s work being deeply ingrained with its own share of sociopolitical messages, whose prevalence with current events keeps it closely linked to any discourse related to the film.

Unlike films of a similar nature, specifically Do The Right Thing, La Haine does not attempt to intertwine the stories of humans who function as several moving parts of Parisian banlieue (suburbs) as a whole. Rather, it focuses on Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Said (Said Taghmaoui), and Hubert (Hubert Kounde), three adolescent boys and residents of said setting who go about their day. Because of its near abandonment of plot, the film initially presents itself as a reflective lamenting of grievance. The actuality of Abdel’s death opens and looms over the majority of the film, quickly becoming the driving force of its characters’ intentions.

The lines between cause and effect constantly blur from one vignette to the next, as the film’s plot slowly races to its unexpected finishing crescendo, or should I say derescendo, given that the film’s actual standstill does not even come in the form of its mostly mundane happenings. Despite this, these happenings still manage to show us more than several glimpses of life in the banlieues. In fact, the only difference between the film’s depiction of police reinforcement to the present day is a jarring increase in police hostility (first shown in Wesh Wesh, Qu’est-ce qui c’est passe?, then rehashed in Les Mis).

As a result, the film’s plot moves towards its ending with no checkpoints in between. Its brilliant performances are briefly forgotten once the banlieues’ cultural equilibrium (despite the actual absence of unity due to class circumstance and police presence) is shattered. With this in mind, the best way to describe the chronicling of these events is as follows: the build-up doesn’t matter as much as the result itself.

Another element that this film brilliantly uses in executing a correlation between plot and character development is tension. Its simplistic premise is cemented in both the value of time and the counterproductive reality of choosing violence. Time punctures all minor wounds caused by each subsequent event, putting each character at a risk of surviving a long and winding evening — but especially Vinz.

Time’s transformative effect on La Haine’s scenes instills the stagnance of progression, as well as giving urgency to Vinz’s constantly violent tendencies in the midst of composing events. It can be likened to Tupac’s Bishop from Ernest Dickerson’s Juice, given that their intentions appear to be inherently violent and remain impassioned within violence as an objective solution. This projects their idea of violence as an act of reclaiming power and restoring justice. However, as a result of time being an all-encompassing element of the film, it poses the potential for these tendencies to seep into reality at any given moment.

The film manages a passage of time with the simple use of timestamps and the sound of a ticking clock, indicating that time is like a ticking bomb that only continues to pass with each inconsequential event. Oftentimes, we believe that time has run out whenever characters face consequences in this film, but it only adds to the fact that time can do no more than elapse. Time seems to stop when Said is arrested, but it continues even when he is released. Time seems to stop when Vinz begins seeing visions of a cow, but it continues even when Said pulls him away. They further accentuate the meaninglessness of scenes, dismissing the possibility of characters working against the worst imaginable circumstance, and ultimately coming to the somber realization that all these three boys have been doing was waste time.

An undoubtedly significant theme of this film is centered on cultural identity, given that three of France’s most marginalized backgrounds (Black, Jewish, and Arab) are represented through its trio of individual characters. Because France’s white predominance does not vindicate those groups as authentic representations of national identity, this manages to cause the most friction amongst two separate parts of French society. This also includes visible minorities in positions of authority serving to practically betray the safety of their own culture.

Much like housing projects in major American cities like New York, the culture of les banlieues is also in alignment with what isn’t considered as pure French. As a part of showcasing insignificant events, there remains the background significance of the banlieues’ cultural mosaic; a true passport to surroundings that are more otherworldly and intersectional than the iconoclastic capital housing the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. This leaves a profound impact on the characters’ conversations and language, both of which only continue to return to a means of getting by. An emerging French identity is formed in front of us, and this fusion of cultures can be largely attested to its use of hip-hop music and its incorporation of hip-hop culture.

Hip-hop’s significance is especially given its due and proof on an international scale, and La Haine is this American genre’s earliest example. This is also proof of the benefit of arguing that a musical genre and culture made by and for minority communities is the most universal of its kind. To add onto this, the globalization of hip-hop would truly come to fruition by the late 90s, and France’s scene would eventually receive recognition through the likes of Assassin and Supreme NTM. No genre remains more fitting for Kassovitz’s debut, as these groups also share inherently sociopolitical themes within their music.

It comes as no surprise either that La Haine’s influence is inherently American despite still being ingrained in French culture. The likes of Brian de Palma, Gordon Parks, and Martin Scorsese also come to mind, given that New Hollywood cinema seems to stay more true to the middle-to-lower-class French experience than the works of Robert Bresson, Claude Sautet, and Francois Truffaut.

Perhaps the only exceptions to the rule would be the forerunners of the 80s cinema du look, whose stylistic influences also extended to American cinema. Then again, only a select few in les banlieues could truly relate to a Subway, or a Diva, or a Mauvais Sang. These filmic fantasies still remain largely out of reach to the experiences of those living on the fringes of the era’s sprawling city settings.

La Haine comfortably splits its plot in two, shifting from suburban homeliness to the uncanny city. This is also why the film’s second half reflects the indiscernible identity of Parisian life, which only seems to take on many faces (and phases) on screen. Here, Kassovitz shows Paris as bare and devoid of the ethnic intersectionalism of its suburban outskirts. There’s an increasing sense of discomfort once these characters step out of a melting pot and into a homogenous place of lifelessness. Paris’s identity is as conflicted as its hesitance to embrace its characters. One scene shows the trio loitering at an exhibit, only for its highbrow bourgeoisie to oust them from a gallery. Its reality only contradicts the seemingly welcoming feeling that defines Paris as a cityscape and hegemonic extension of movie magic.

Overall, La Haine does not merely grieve over the disturbing normalcy of police brutality, but stands as a grievance of French society’s oppression towards its increasingly minority population. Its end result is an eruption to the most gradual anticipation that dominates the film, and it proves that the most profound influence on our identities lies within our surroundings. Its loss of control does not happen through an individually caused circumstance, but the reaction of an external force towards its inhabitants that becomes the film’s penultimate decision, its ultimatum literally shrouded in the ambiguity that continues to paint a sombering portrait of an unchanged reality.

Its structure continues to pose the same questions to all of French society: Who controls our own lives if we do not? And even then, is this world truly ours to begin with?

I could ask the same question of every racially counterproductive society at the moment, but especially France’s, whose innovations in film do not necessarily account for the lack thereof in every other facet of society. Where their movies are more than four miles ahead, their definition of personal and political authority remains centuries back.

Hatred begets more hatred, as Hubert says in this film, and it is one’s hatred that begets the film’s destruction of temporary unity. The beginning reemerges, and all progress is forgotten. That how you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you land. This is what makes La Haine a cinematic masterpiece.

Watch La Haine on Kanopy here: https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/214683

Saturday Matinee: Kin-dza-dza!

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In praise of Kin-dza-dza! – the best sci-fi film you’ve never heard of


Mad Max meets Monty Python is the best way of describing this strange Soviet gem.

By Joel Blackledge

Source: Little White Lies

Originally released in 1986, Georgiy Daneliya’s Kin-dza-dza! is possibly the most underrated science fiction film of the past 50 years. A Soviet space odyssey across an alien landscape, it is packed with comic nuance and absurdist charm, yet it is rarely screened or even seen outside Russia. With 2016 marking its 30th anniversary, this deadpan oddity deserves a reappraisal for its wit, imagination and stunning design.

The story begins with Vladimir, a Moscow construction worker, popping out for some macaroni. He is stopped in the street by Gedevan, a young student who needs help with a seemingly insane man claiming to be on the wrong planet. The man needs Earth’s coordinates so he can use his teleportation device to go home. Impatiently humouring him, Vladimir presses a button on the device. Instantly, he and Gedevan are transported to the desert planet Pluke in the galaxy of Kin-dza-dza.

Before long, they meet Bi and Wef, two wandering performers whose speech is largely limited to the word ‘koo’ or its vulgar equivalent ‘kyu’. The Earthlings haggle over the terms of their rescue, though the performers are loath to give something for nothing. Just as the performers are about to leave, they notice that Vladimir has a box of matches – one of the most valuable commodities on Pluke. The four establish a shaky alliance and set in off in a ramshackle aircraft to find a way back to Earth. Vladimir and Gedevan discover that the entire planet operates on a ruthless economy of scavenger barter, and nothing is off limits to the market. The deserts were once seas, but the water was greedily converted into engine fuel. Of course, now the only way to collect drinking water is to extract it back from that fuel.

Kin-dza-dza!’s salvage punk aesthetic – which might best be described as Mad Max meets Monty Python by way of Tarkovsky – hints at this rich, tragic and very stupid history. A collapsed Ferris wheel provides a home for destitute desert dwellers. Graves are marked by balloons containing the deceased’s final breath. The colour of your trousers signifies social status, so they are powerful barter items.

The planet’s inhabitants are primitive in their hardheartedness, yet they also fiercely insist upon maintaining arbitrary social conventions. People are separated into two castes: “Chatlian” and “Patsak”. The subordinate Patsaks must wear bells on their noses and squat before Chatlians. The only way to determine if an individual is a Patsak or a Chatlian is to see if a purpose-built machine emits a green or orange light when pointed at them. The Earthling visitors decry this as racism of the most inane kind, but Plukanians fail to see the problem. When Bi asks with genuine puzzlement how people on Earth determine who is subservient to whom, Vladimir dryly responds, ‘Oh, just by eye.’ Hearing this, Wef dismisses Earthlings as savages. Advanced technology does not a civilised culture make.

What elevates Kin-dza-dza! beyond a simple procession of snipes is the careful attention paid to countless details within its alien world. Even Giya Kancheli’s comic score sounds like it’s from another world – an ungainly, melancholic dirge that conjures up the hopeless bafflement of absurdism. All of this rich world building puts the film into a literary branch of satirical sci-fi occupied by the likes of Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and even Franz Kafka. There is no convoluted plot, but instead a convoluted universe, and its incredulous victims ready to point out the farcicality therein. They find a planet that demands a mix of callous entrepreneurial savvy and fearful deference to the status quo familiar to any Earthling living in the 21st century.

Kin-dza-dza!’s sideways look at the barbarities of everyday oppression remains pertinent 30 years on. It’s a must-see for anyone interested in the cosmic potentials of science fiction.

Watch Kin-dza-dza! on Kanopy here: https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/14715372