Graduate school and continuing responsibilites to outlets like Collider and Looper mean I'm once again faced with little time to deliver massive in-depth reviews for movie I watch. But I do like to ramble about cinema and I've watched some good stuff from all over the planet recently. Therefore, I thought it was time to once again bring the Micro Reviews format to to offer my own thoughts on six different feature films! Let's begin with a lesser-known but incredibly fascinating motion picture from the 1970s.
Peppermint Soda
“No politics at this school! Especially the girls!” This one line crystallizes the crux of Peppermint Soda, a 1977 movie by director Diane Kurys. Through following the lives of Anne (Eléonore Klarwein) and Frederiquean (Odile Michel) in the year 1963, Durys crafts a deft exploration of how society works overtime to squash individuality and autonomy in women from a young age. It's also a poignant and authentic depiction of how people's distinct personalities can slowly but surely bubble to the surface through the pains of growing up. Told with a warm style of filmmaking that both evokes how memories look in one's head and serves as an appropriately impactful contrast to the harsh events on-screen, Kurys work behind the camera is exceptional and the same be said for the lead performances.
Though the school Anne and Frederiquean attend tries to squelch politics and individualism, Peppermint Soda quietly showcases how those and other factors cannot be extinguished in the lives of youngsters. In so vividly capturing this concept, Peppermint Soda becomes a coming-of-age yarn as bittersweet as it is thoughtful.
Office Space
Mike Judge's 1999 movie Office Space isn't so much a comedy as it is a horror movie. I don't mean that as a critique or a reflection of the movie being berefit of laughs, I mean that Judge has captured the crushing realities of working a 9-to-5 job so accurately that it can't help but send a shiver down one's spine. Still so accurate more than two decades after its release, Office Space also registers as quite funny and has aged surprisingly nicely for a 1990s comedy (only a quick gay slur in the credits and a handful of references to sexual assault in prison really stands out as outdated). Judge's script is a well-paced piece of work that keeps the gags coming and jumping around across various deeply flawed characters (including Ron Livingston's protagonist and Stephen Root's put-upon Milton) makes sure that none of them stay on-screen too long to become insufferable. There's a good reason Office Space has endured in pop culture for so long, it's both extremely funny and eerily on point with how soul-crushing conformist workspaces can be.
Three Colours: White
I'm not sure what I expected from Three Colours: White, but it certainly wasn't this! In comparison to the emotionally harrowing nature of its predecessor and successor, White is a film with recurring flashes of comedy that include its protagonist traveling across countries inside of a suitcase. Krzysztof Kieślowski uses this distinct tone to execute a story that basically boilds down to a man playing a long-game con on an ex-lover after he's been jilted by her. It's not as impactful as the other two movies in the Three Colours trilogy, but Kieślowski remains such a good filmmaker that the lack of substance isn't a fatal problem. The most lasting scenes here concern a man who wishes to die, a request that the protagonist comes startingly close to fulfilling. Kieślowski masterfully executes (no pun intended) a would-be execution scene that crackles with tension. Meanwhile, the director incorporates the color white thoughtfully into the film's backgrounds, including in just the use of snowy backdrops. Even the weakest link in the Three Colours trilogy leaves one with plenty to chew on.
A Story of Floating Weeds
An unexpected trend in my cinematic viewings in the last week was digesting two different motion pictures that serve as early works from acclaimed auteurs. One of these examples is A Story of Floating Weeds, a 1934 feature from Yasujiro Ozu. Told without any audible dialogue, the best word to describe this particular Ozu outing is "heartbreaking". A man returning home to his wife and child while shielding his true identity from his son, it's easy to see how that concept could be used to create something that just crushes your soul. Ozu does just that in crafting a tale that can only end in tragedy, especially when the son is set up with a woman who has ulterior motives for loving him. All the while, a sense of deep empathy is imposed on each character that make particularly intimate scenes (like one where members of an acting troupe discuss what they'll each do now that the group is disbanding) extra devastating. Ozu may not be working in sound yet, but A Story of Floating Weeds shows him totally in command of engaging storytelling nonetheless.
Following
This is where it all began for director Christopher Nolan, the low-budget 1998 movie Following. Though different from his subsequent features in several ways (the monochromatic color scheme for one thing, ditto the emphasis on profane language and frank discussions about sex), it's also clearly a proto-Christopher Nolan joint with its largely-male cast navigating a non-linear genre film narrative. It's not as polished as those future efforts but how could it be? Following cost $6,000 to make! Much like Darren Aronofsky's Pi, Following works best as the cinematic equivalent to baby pictures, a snapshot of an auteur in their infancy.
The most impressive part of the proceedings is how the twisty non-linear storytelling doesn't collapse on itself as well how Following proves once again just how cool anything looks filmed in black-and-white . The characters, particularly the lone woman in the cast, aren't especially distinctive in their individual personalities, but at least the actors portraying them fare fine delivering engaging performances. Nolan would make better movies than Following, but that doesn't mean this directorial debut is devoid of merit.
Three Colours: Red
I cold be talking about Three Colours: Red in greater detail for Collider down the road, so I won't blabber on too much about it. However, I will say that I found it terrific, especially in how it depicts a friendship forming between two very different people. The bond that develops between a woman and an elderly man eavesdropping on his neighbors initially seems like something that would be impossible to actually concoct. Eventually, though, Kieślowski drops enough low-key but vulnerable exchanges between the duo that it becomes impossible not to imagine them rubbing off on one another. Plus, I love the way the ending unexpectedly ties the whole trilogy together. What a great way to cap off a trio of movies that offer so much to chew on when it comes to the human condition.
No comments:
Post a Comment