Another Month in Movies!

Welcome to "One Month in Retrospect!" Whew, time flies when you have every intention of blogging but then don't. So here we go for now, a quick catch up on a few of the movies I've seen since last month. As always, there is no rhyme or reason for the sequence of these particular films, no trio of Westerns for instance that give them any cohesion in theme. It's mildly exciting either way to see my hodgepodge of cinematic priorities, I hope you think?


Fanny and Alexander - 1982 - DVD
Friday, September 21, 2007

Until old Fanny and brother Alexander waltzed along, it had been years since their father Ingmar Bergman visited my living room DVD player. In fact, it could have even been as far back as the college years when I watched The Virgin Spring (1960), a methodical piece on black and white stock that slowly panned from scene to scene, before the martyred daughter's death is avenged by her bitter, mourning parents. On that note, it probably explains why I haven't seen any Bergman since the requisition of college film courses. But in these instances my conscience gnaws away at such unbalanced tendencies, until I realize, humbled and riddled with guilt, that I should give the old Swede another chance. Years of fearing a lulling film like The Virgin Spring led to plain dread in consideration of another Bergman screening.

I do build up these kind of anxieties about watching film, but I air them clearly because I don't think I am alone. I also don't think one should nearly succumb to outright fear of boredom--I mean, it is just a movie after all! So there you have one more insight to my madness. But that will be all there is to say about that topic, because dear Fanny and Alexander was a delight, and an utter redemption of Bergman in my otherwise long and sorrowed thoughts of him.

Fanny also came to me on the heels of director Ingmar Bergman's death (July 30, 2007), and the adrenaline debate between Chicago Reader film critic and historian Jonathan Rosenbaum, who says, to paraphrase, "Hey, what's the deal with Bergman?" To which Chicago Sun-Times critic and otherwise national film-reviewing-hero-to-the-masses, Roger Ebert, responded (again to paraphrase), "Hey, Bergman's a big deal!" After reading what they both had to say, as per usual, my opinions fell somewhere in the middle. I was inclined to side with JRo off the bat, what, in light of my aforementioned sentiments of the director; and it was the first time I had come across real criticism of him. Being provocative has its merits. But Ebert wins this round. (Though drawing from my own film school experiences, Rosenbaum wins on his point that Bergman is not as big as Godard in college curriculum. Godard and the French New Wave provide a hell of a lot more grist for the academic mill than Bergman's contributions from a singular national cinema that had a fraction of the former's world-wide influence.) As I write this now I realize in recent years I watched Bergman's Persona (1966) in 2004, a film that provides searing commentary on issues of human identity, and the contrast between our interior and exterior selves; that is, how we think we look compared to how we actually do. When we think of this issue within the frame of a film, a medium that functions upon mass spectatorship and the inevitable blurring of a star's character with the actor's actual identity, the result is profound.

Fanny and Alexander is the brightest, and most decorous in terms of its narrative: the characters feel natural at their home and with one another, lending it to be a more proper picture of something real, and in fact, Fanny is an autobiographical work. I suppose what sets Fanny apart from the more tedious Virgin Spring is just how easy it is to watch, though (judging from memory) it seems to maintain the exact aesthetic of films like Virgin Spring, The Seventh Seal (1957), or Persona; there is a quiet detachment, I think, from all of these movies, because they're so temporally ponderous. But Fanny spent minute after minute in the same scene without the feeling of hours passing by. I flip-flop between valuing form over function; there were mesmerizing moments, for instance, in Hungarian director Bela Tarr's recent The Man From London where a calm came over me in a long take of a shadowed alleyway, or a view of the city through a window frame; and at other times the tedium of its static shots had the potential to lull me to sleep. But Fanny and Alexander strikes a perfect balance between its story and technical form.


The War - 2007 - PBS Broadcast
Sunday, September 23, 2007

And I haven't even mentioned Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's new documentary, The War. Of this 14-part series I've seen roughly 4 or 5 segments, so that said, perhaps I'll wait to discuss it in further detail until I've seen the whole thing. For starters, though, the research that went into this documentary is a feat in itself, and the characters they profile have simply jaw-dropping stories. One criticism: it's coverage of the Dresden bombings was particularly thin and didn't touch a bit on its unethical controversies; for as many horrors as Burns retells, The War rings a touch sentimental.



Monster House - 2006 - DVD
Monday, September 24, 2007

I also saw Monster House, which was alternately funny and terrifying; it's one of the smarter kids' flicks, and a lot of fun.

And no I did not see only three movies since September 21st. I have a handful more to report on, including flicks from the Chicago International Film Festival, and much-awaited new releases like Eastern Promises! (Hint: so good!)