January Films

[faustus]

1) Cursed (Wes Craven, US, 2005)
As the last film of 2006 watched with N was Ginger Snaps, it seemed appropriate to continue on the horror theme with another werewolf flick, from the Craven-Williamson team that brought us Scream and Scream II. Again this is pomo horror, with the same ‘I’m not a werewolf but I am gay’ sequence that that episode of Buffy riffed off TeenWolf. There are also references to The Wolfman (1941), and of course it stars ‘Weren’t they in Dawson’s Creek/America Pie?’. A werewolf is on the loose killing people of LA, and Christina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg have to track it down and kill before they too are completely transformed.

It’s hokum, but fun hokum, and for once I was halfway convinced by the werewolves (both in Ginger Snaps and Doctor Who I lost my suspension of disbelief when they start running on two legs.) Worth a look on a long dark evening.

2) Van Helsing (Stephen Sommers, US, 2004)

I liked the two Mummy films, even with their equal opportunity racism, but this was just a mess. I gather that the original plan was to revive the Universal Horro franchise after The Mummy but this just pointlessly went to the fag end of the sequence of Character Meets Character, leaving us with Van Helsing, Dracula, Frankenstein, Mr Hyde and others all crammed into the same movie. I think I fell asleep. I don’t care if I did.

3) The Gay Falcon (Irving Reis, US, 1941)
I taped a load of this series when they were on a couple of Christmases ago, and haven’t watched them, so I tried again. George Sanders is Gay Laurence, the ultra-smooth private investigator with comic relief sidekick and Chinese housekeeper, who oscillates between refusing to investigate crimes and being implicated in them, all the while seducing any woman who crosses his path. Fun whilst it lasts.

4) The Big Lebowski (Joel Coen, US, 1998)
I didn’t enjoy this first time round – but then that may have been coloured retrospectively by the cinema shutting the curtains at the start of the credits. Bastards. And of course I’ve seen The Big Sleep (1946) since then, so I’ve a clearer idea of what’s going on.

The Dude (Jeff Bridges) is mistaken for another Lebowski by some criminals who piss on his rug. The Dude seeks out his namesake in order to get restitution, and is persuaded to act as a go between for Lebowski whose young wife has been kidnapped. The ransom drop is bodged, and the Dude realises that he is mixed up in more then he bargained for. Better than I remembered, and deeply convoluted, with more twists than a twisty turny thing.

5) Barton Fink (Joel Coen, US, 1991)
Barton Fink, New York playwright of the people, gets a job writing a wrestling movie, and annoys the neighbour from hell in the creepy hotel he rooms in.

Another rewatch which held up better than the original viewing – although I’ve watched it once on video since it came out – and on rewatch the left turn that it takes midstream is less of a bolt from the blue. Goodman and Turturro, also in Lebowski, are excellent as always, but Buscemi, another Coen regular, is underused. It’s amazing how many of the actors here do recur elsewhere – no Frances McDormand, but Jon Polito, John Mahoney, Tony Shalhoub all spring to mind. I love the camerawork here, and I love Burwell’s soundtrack.

6) The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, US, 2006)
Wolverine vs Batman, at least in casting. As I’ve edited a book on Christopher Priest, I should have a much better memory of the novel than I do, but I think I have a part of memory that I reserve for the current project, and that is currently filled with Pratchett. As I recall there was a present day framing narrative, which has been wisely dispensed with, especially as we are left with two intertwining flashbacks, of ambiguous status.

The story of two warring stage magicians felt as if it was going to turn into Tin Men or War of the Roses, but it was interesting to see how the stakes could be raised in the film. Of course Nolan, like a good magician, isn’t playing fair with us, and the solutions to the magic at the climax risk disappointing us. I confess to a degree of ‘I see dead people, I see dead people all the time’ about half way through, but that didn’t spoil my enjoyment. (Of course, there’s a residual memory of the book, with the central section of unreliable narrators.) The key line is the disbelief that the Chinese magician would do so much for a single trick – these magicians would go as far.

I did wonder where Angier gets his great wealth from – is his first version of the great trick that lucrative? – or indeed his title. I don’t remember if Priest explains.

But it is an impressive adaptation, and doesn’t betray its source material. I’d like to see it again.

7) El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillarmo del Toro, Mexico/Spain 2006)
A companion piece to The Devil’s Backbone, which I will now need to see, this is a fantasy thriller set in the 1940s in Spain. Ofelia’s pregnant widowed mother has decided to marry Captain Vidal to provide for herself, her new child and her daughter, and they travel through Spain to be with him. Ofelia is told by a faun that she is the long lost daughter of the king of the underworld, and must pass three tasks to prove this. Meanwhile, the fascist Vidal, only interested in what he is certain will be a son, is trying to destroy the communist rebels and root out enemies within who are trying to betray him.

The temptation is to read the tasks – which are straight out of Grimm and Perrault fairy-tales – as pathology, as an escape mechanism for a girl on the edge of puberty from a truly dreadful situation. The ending, which may be a dying fantasy, has the air of self-consolation – it is no more a real escape than say the ending of Brazil, and probably even less. But if we look for the marvellous rather than the uncanny explanation, I’m not convinced that things are much better. She escapes, thank you very much, I’m alright Jill. Whilst we are presented with a narrative which encourages us to side with the communists rather than the fascists, and we see the former get the upper hand, don’t forget that Franco won. He ruled Spain from 1939 through to 1975, with repressive force. It is perhaps little comfort that a filmmaker like Almodovar is like he is partly because so much could not be said or discussed or represented in Franco’s Spain, but in leaving us with triumphant rebels we see a triumphal exceptionalism worthy of Spielberg.

It is a violent film – although sometimes the violence is more implied than shown – but sometimes it is structured more by the needs of the plot than due to psychological realism. One character has the opportunity to kill Vidal, but merely wounds him – and there was much nervous laughter at the scene of him sewing his mouth back together – because he is still necessary to the plot, and has to be given his shot at redemption, which he fluffs. I think the person would have killed him in the circumstances, and I don’t buy the fact that it was a small knife made that impossible – we’ve already been shown a tray of sharp instruments to hand.

I’d certainly recommend a viewing of it, and even a reviewing. But it left me with a sense that the director wasn’t playing fair – and that holds true of the fairy-tale sequences too, where consequences of actions seem easily avoided. (Oh, and Orfelia gets to be Eve. Chiz.) And don’t forget that if the fantasy sequences are real, we get to cheer for a monarchy.